Origins of the North Korean garrison state : the people's army and the Korean war / Youngjun Kim.

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Part I Origins of the Korean People's Army ; 1. Introduction: the Korean People's Army's invasion of the South ; 2. Three core groups of the Korean People's Army ; 3. The Korean factor: Kim Il Sung's vision for the KPA ; 4. The Soviet Union factor 1: the Soviet Union in North Korean society ; 5. The Soviet Union factor 2: the formation of the KPA and initiator Kim Il Sung ; 6. The Chinese factor ; Part II The Korean People's Army at war and the legacy of the Korean War ; 7. The leadership of the Korean People's Army: the party-military relations and generalship of the Korean People's Army ; 8. The Korean People's Army's performance and the legacy of the war: the rise and fall of the Korean People's Army and the making of the garrison state.

This book investigates the origins of the North Korean garrison state by examining the development of the Korean People's Army and the legacies of the Korean War. Despite its significance, there are very few books on the Korean People's Army with North Korean primary sources being difficult to access. This book, however, draws on North Korean documents and North Korean veterans' testimonies, and demonstrates how the Korean People's Army and the Korean War shaped North Korea into a closed, militarized and xenophobic garrison state and made North Korea seek Juche (Self Reliance) ideology and weapons of mass destruction. This book maintains that the youth and lower classes in North Korea considered the Korean People's Army as a positive opportunity for upward social mobility. As a result, the North Korean regime secured its legitimacy by establishing a new class of social elites wherein they offered career advancements for persons who had little standing and few opportunities under the preceding Japanese dominated regime. Editorial.