North Korean Policy Elites - Defense Technical Information Center

PREFACE
This paper will examine in broad terms the means by which information is accessed by
and flows among the military and power-holding elite in the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of
Korea (DPRK, more commonly called North Korea).
An examination of the available “open sources” dating from 1990 quickly reveals that
very little has been written on the subject of information usage among the military and powerholding
elite within the DPRK. When the subject is mentioned, it is done so tangentially and
with modest detail. The observations and information in this paper have been pieced together
from open source information collected by the author during his twenty-five years of research on
the Korean People’s Army and the DPRK’s intelligence services.
For the author, this difficult topic presents disadvantages and advantages. On the negative
side, accuracy in any work dealing with the DPRK is a matter of relatives. Inevitably some of
the observations in this paper will be incorrect. Other material may be misinformation,
disseminated by parties interested in serving their own purposes rather than serving the truth.
This is especially true when dealing with DPRK defectors—a major source of information on the
DPRK. The catchwords probably, estimated, are believed to, and apparently must appear
frequently in any work of this type. On the positive side, this topic presents the author with a
blank slate and allows room for expression of thoughts and ideas that do not easily fit in
elsewhere. It is conceivable that a more complete understanding of the subject matter could be
achieved by conducting extensive in-depth interviews with DPRK defectors who have held the
rank of colonel or above in the Korean People’s Army or with officials above the deputy director
level in the Korean Workers’ Party.
The projected audience for this paper are those Department of Defense (DoD) personnel
who are tasked with understanding the DPRK or who would be called upon to conduct activities
involving the DPRK during a future crisis. Considering this audience, the author will try to
emphasize readability and easy access to information rather than adhere to a formal academic
style of writing. The ultimate hope is that this paper will serve to stimulate discussion and
provide a framework upon which DoD personnel can layer additional information—both open
source and classified—thereby achieving a better understanding of the DPRK.
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