위대한 북한을 다시 한번 만들기위한 김정은의 신년계획은 얼마나 현실성이 있을까?신년에는 더위협적일것.

북한의 독재자 김정은의 정월초하루 대국민 연설은, 미국은 대통령들이 상하양원들 앞에서 신년도 연설을 하는것과 매우 흡사했다.

정확히 얘기하면 "위대한 북한을 다시 한번 만들기"를 주창한게 아니고, 하나도 이와 비슷한 내용은 없었다. 그의 정책의 내용을 살펴보면, 김정은의 신년도 목표는 "병진"으로 알려졌는데, 그내용은 경제에 투자하는것과 핵프로그람을 동시에 진행시켜 두배의 효과를 노리는 전략으로 알려지고 있다.  이상은 2018년도의 신년에 있었던 김정은의 계획이었으나,신년도에는 좀더 과감한 힘의 과시를 펼치면서 미국과 흥정하는데 다시 초점을 맞출것으로 예상된다. 미국의 북한에 대한 무력사용도, 함부로 할수없는 진퇴양난이다.
무력충돌을 하면, 김정은 Regime을 바꿀수 있겠지만,  바로 그아래에 있는 Seoul이 많은 피해를 입을것이 100%확실하기에.... 미국의 딜레마다.  이점을 김정은이는 너무도 잘 알기에 하룻강아지 범무서운줄 모르고 날뛰는것을 보면서, 군비 증강을 한들...

그렇타고 김정은인들 마음이 항상 편할수만은 없다.  상당수의 북한 주민들, 특히  평양 거주민들은 상당수가 외부의 소식을 접할수있는 Cellphone이 일상생활에 깊이 스며들어 있음을 무시할수 없기 때문이다.
그것은 곧 주민들에게 계속해서 거짖말로 참아 달랠수만은 없을 것이기 때문이다.  그증거가 남한의 현정부가 거짖말로 국민들에게 '경제가잘돌아간다', 고용이 증가돼가고있다. 북한과 맺은 평화협정이 잘진행되고있다 등등의 내용을 국민들이 훤히 알고 있기에 문재인 정부에 대한 비난과 거리투쟁이 더 치열해지는것처럼, 김정은 Regime에게도 무거운 짐이 될수있기때문이다. 

남북평화 협정을 맺은것은 대한민국 국민은 다 잘알고 있다. 알맹이는 하나도 없는 빛좋은 개살구다.평화협정으로 휴전선의 방어장비는 더없앴는데, 북쪽의 서해안 섬들은 지금 군부대와 중무장으로 남한을 조준하고있다.  분명히 협화협정위반인데, 문재인 정부는 한마디 항의도 못하고 그쪽의 눈치만 보고있다. 국방장관은 이미 다알고있는 사항으로 예의 주시하고 있다고만 앵무새처럼 되뇌일 뿐이다.

미북정상회담을 3번씩이나 했는데도, 문재인은 한번도 초청된것은 고사하고, 완전 왕따 당하고 있다. 심지어 미국에서도 왕따 당하고 있다. 그런데도 문재인 대통령은 김정은에 75억원어치의 원조를 퍼주겠다고 안달복달 하는데, 김정은이가 도와달라고 했다면 그렇타고 인정할수 있겠으나, 필요치 않다고 위협적인 협박을 하면서 안받겠다고 하는데도.... 탈북민 모자가 굶주림에 허덕이다 목숨을 잃었는데...문재인 정부는 어느쪽에 신경을 쓰고 있는지? 한심하기만 하다. 

(CNN)Kim Jong Un's annual New Year's Day address is akin to the State of the 

Union for US Presidents.

It's when the North Korean leader sets out his aims for the coming year, and this year it reaped almost instant results with the start of the first face-to-face talks with Seoul in almost two years.

But there was more to this year's speech than the olive branch extended to South Korea.

The North Korean leader talked about factory jobs and coal. He talked about textiles and scientific research. He talked about domestic production of consumer goods. He even talked about green initiatives.

"We have created a mighty sword for defending peace, as desired by all our people who had to tighten their belts for long years," said Kim.

"This great victory eloquently proves the validity and vitality of the Party's line of simultaneously conducting economic construction and building up our nuclear forces and its idea of prioritizing science, and it is a great historic achievement that has opened up bright prospects for the building of a prosperous country and inspired our service personnel and people with confidence in sure victory." 

It's not exactly "Make North Korea Great Again," but it's not wholly dissimilar either. In policy circles, Kim's agenda is known as "byungjin," a twofold strategy of investing in the economy and the nuclear program.

Nuclear economics

Kim has aggressively pursued byungjin since taking the reins from his father in 2011. 

The reason the nuclear program investments are so important, experts say, is because in the long run it's a cheaper way to deter the United States than maintaining a massive military.

North Korea's armed forces employees millions of people. The country currently has the fourth-largest standing army in the world. 

Having the ability to threaten the US with a nuclear strike would remove the need to keep such a large army employed, fed and happy. 

Pyongyang spends nearly 25% of its gross domestic product on the military, which it justifies as necessary to force the US to think twice before invading and finally finishing the Korean War, which ended in 1953without a formal peace treaty. The North Korean government tells its people the US started the Korean War, but most historians agree the hostilities began after Kim Il Sung invaded the south in a failed attempt to reunify the Korean Peninsula.

"The amazing thing that's been hiding in the open is the North Korean game plan of byungjin," said John Park, director of the Korea Working Group at the Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. 

According to Park, the North Korean regime under Kim has been very consistent in saying that its primary policy goal is the parallel pursuit of a nuclear deterrent for self-defense and the building of the economy. 

To that end, Kim used the speech to call upon his rocket and nuclear industries to mass-produce the weapons that have already been successfully tested, while also pursuing economic advances, such as diversified energy sources.

Experts CNN spoke to believe Kim's proclamations aren't the wish-list of a delusional dictator, but rather a key set of priorities tallied by a calculating, pragmatic leader who plans to address the immediate challenges his country faces.

"Every year these speeches are primarily about the economic situation," said John Delury, a professor at Yonsei University's Graduate School of International Relations in Seoul. Delury has listened to each of Kim's speeches since the young leader took power in 2011.

"(But) Kim Jong Un is not pretending everything is groovy," said Delury. "He's consistently acknowledged hardship and that the economic situation should be better. And he's publicly committed himself to improving the economy."

Key clues

Some of the proposals offered specific insight into the government's evolving strategy, explained Rodger Baker, a vice president at the geopolitical analysis firm Stratfor.

Baker said in previous years, Kim had called for the construction of a national power grid in the electricity-starved country. This year, however, Kim said different provinces should develop localized power sources, which Baker believes is due to the dangers of having a single national grid in the event of war.

Analysts said Kim appeared to acknowledge the difficulty his country faces in the coming year due to the punitive sanctions passed by the United Nations in response to the countries nuclear and missile tests, especially those that target Pyongyang's energy supply. 

Midway through the speech, he offered his "noble respects" to the "heroic Korean people" who, despite the "difficult living conditions caused by life-threatening sanctions and blockade," have "firmly trusted, absolutely supported and dynamically implemented our Party's line of simultaneously promoting the two fronts."

The latest round of sanctions passed by the United Nations Security Council in December were said to be the toughest yet, imposing tighter limits on the supply of all refined petroleum products to North Korea.

In addition, Kim's talk of not wasting power and exploring hydroelectric and geothermal energy sources is likely borne more out of necessity than environmental concerns, Baker believes. 

This view was shared by Duyeon Kim, a senior fellow at the Korean Peninsula Future Forum in Seoul. "His speech also seemed to be an implicit admission that sanctions appear to be working or he's expecting them to bite," said Kim.

But the North Korean leader's speech also hinted at how he plans to ensure his country survives the crippling sanctions targeting Pyongyang's oil imports.

"The electric-power industry should maintain and reinforce the self-supporting power generation bases, and direct a great deal of efforts to developing new power sources," said Kim. 

Coal has helped drive the North Korean economy for decades. The country's reserves could last for decades -- and could possibly be converted into gas to meet the country's energy needs as its ability to import oil is slashed, according to Baker.

North Korea is believed to have already begun construction on coal gasification plants, but Kim's lengthy set of detailed instructions in this year's speech urging the country's chemists to accelerate their research into synthetic gas chemistry will likely give the efforts renewed focus, in the hope they can overcome the challenges faced in perfecting the technology.

Stratfor's Baker said this could be interpreted as the regime's response to the sanctions, and particularly to China's imposition of sanctions. "It's a bit of thumbing its nose at the rest of the world to emphasize how silly sanctions are," Baker said. 

Reforming expectations

Despite hopes the youngest member of the Kim dynasty would be something of a economic reformer when he took power in 2011, Kim, who was educated in Switzerland, soon made it clear he was no friend of the West. 

Any remaining hope of a nascent opening up, or the adoption of a more China-style economic model appeared to be firmly quashed in 2013, when in a New Year's speech, Kim announced his specific intention to build up the country's military might, further distancing himself -- and his country -- from the broader international community.

This was followed last year by Kim's declaration that his country was close to testing a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). 

Some scoffed at the prediction, or dismissed it entirely. But the end of 2017, Pyongyang had successfully test-fired three ICBMs. That success has some analysts concerned about Kim's order to mass-produce nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles in the 2018 speech.

But the byungjin model calls for achievements in areas beyond the military, too, and Kim has shown a clear intention to begin that process. The question now is how much can he achieve, given such massive international constraints?

Speaking to CNN in December, Curtis Melvin, a senior fellow with the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said privately run pizza parlors, coffee shops, bars and gas stations have quietly mushroomed in Pyongyang under Kim's watch. 

According to Melvin, Kim's government has allowed more entrepreneurial activity and encouraged limited competition between small private firms.

But so far, most of this appears to be concentrated in Pyongyang, beyond the confines of the capital economic growth has been dependent on large state-backed projects. 

As ever, sanctions will continue to be the biggest roadblock when it comes to this type of reform. 

But, conversely, sanctions also provide Kim with a useful excuse should things not go according to plan.

Sanctions offer a very effective rationale for why there are setbacks, said Park of Harvard's Kennedy school. "They (sanctions) are a multipurpose variable or factor that the regime uses."

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/19/asia/kim-jong-un-speech-intl/index.html