In 1950 the Korean War, the fiercest war since the Second World War, broke out. At that time no one ever thought that the DPR Korea, founded two years before, could defeat the United States, which had been boasting of being the “strongest” in the world having won 110 wars since its founding. Across the world the media called the war a confrontation between the rifle and the atom bomb.
But the result of the war turned out to be the opposite. The DPRK, a small country in the East, created a miracle by defeating the multinational forces, which pounced on the country in the name of the United Nations, for the first time in the world.
After switching over to an immediate counter-offensive, the Korean People’s Army drove the enemy to the end of south Korea within a little over a month.
On the other hand, the United States hurled into the Korean front forces armed with the latest weapons – one-third of its ground force, one-fifth of its air force, most of its Pacific Fleet–as well as the troops of fifteen of its vassal states, as well as the south Korean puppet army and some remnants of the former Japanese army. The military budget during the war totalled $164 billion. This notwithstanding, the Americans sustained a loss nearly 2.3 times greater than that they had suffered in the four-year war in the Pacific and signed an armistice agreement.
By defeating the enemy, who were superior in terms of number of troops and technical equipment, by dint of their ideological and spiritual, strategic and tactical superiority, the Korean people defended the freedom and independence of their country and
defending global peace and security they frustrated the US attempt to dominate the world with the Korean peninsula as a springboard.
General Mark Clark, commander of the US Far East Command who had signed the armistice agreement, said that the north Korean army was victorious thanks to the outstanding command of General Kim Il Sung, who had achieved great exploits in the resistance of many years against the Japanese army until the defeat of Japan in the Second World War.
Seventy years have elapsed since the ceasefire was achieved on the Korean peninsula. But the peninsula still remains as one of the hottest spots in the world.
After the armistice agreement was reached, the United States implemented none of the items of the agreement and tenaciously pursued a hostile policy against the DPRK, driving the situation on the peninsula to the brink of war. It deployed nukes in south Korea, imposing undisguised and direct nuclear threat on the DPRK.
Entering the 21st century, it has put the DPRK on the list of targets of its pre-emptive nuclear strike and stages nuclear war games every year in the areas near the country by mobilising large forces including its strategic nuclear assets.
A country without an effective self-defence capability will inevitably be at the mercy of external military threats and, worse still, be unable to safeguard the existence of its own and of its people. This is an immutable law shown by human history.
Over the past 70 years after the war, the DPRK had to overcome manifold difficulties in developing its economy and improving the living standards of its people because of the long-drawn-out military threat, sanctions and blockade.
The best option for the DPRK for both durable peace and further acceleration of building itself into a powerful socialist country was the line of simultaneously promoting economic construction and building up its nuclear forces.
The line of simultaneously promoting the two fronts was put forward at the March 2013 Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea.
True to the new strategic line, the defence scientists displayed their indomitable will in developing strategic weapon systems of their own style.
Within a few years the DPRK manufactured innovative versions of inter-continental ballistic missiles, thus making its military strength irreversible.
In April last a DPRK ballistic missile of the Hwasongpho-18 type made its appearance, demonstrating the level of development of the country’s strategic forces.
Display of military equipment at military parades held every year in the country is proof of its military strength which the others could not belittle.
With this, the DPRK could frustrate the machinations of the hostile forces, who
were trying to drag it into their arms race by aggravating the situation on the Korean peninsula.
This can be testified by the demonstration of the potential of the DPRK’s self-supporting economy, like setting up structures that reflect its people’s dreams and ideals and opening a new era of rural rejuvenation amidst severe difficulties like harsh sanctions, a global healthcare crisis and successive natural disasters.
In the present world, where confrontation of strength is the order of the day, the country’s sovereignty and dignity and genuine peace can be assured only by an overwhelming defence capability–this is the creed of Kim Jong Un, the President of the State Affairs of the DPRK.
In April last year in the speech at the military parade held in celebration of the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Army, Kim Jong Un said “we should continuously grow stronger; there is no satisfaction or accomplishment in cultivating strength for defending ourselves, and, whoever we confront, our military supremacy should be more secure”.
The 70-year-long post-war history of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, in which it defended its sovereignty and dignity and the safety and happiness of its people, further highlights the meaning of the 70th anniversary of victory in the war in the 1950s.
