09-151.pdf

four military lines that were implemented from 1963 onwards refer to
a) armament of the whole population both ideologically and militarily,
b) fortification of the whole territory by installing military facilities,
c) elevation of the quality of the entire military forces through ideological
and technical training and d) modernization of the armed
forces by introducing brand-new weapons and modern technology.
Subsequently, North Korea’s military expenditures in the officially
announced national budget were raised from 12.5 percent in 1966 to
30.4 percent in 1967. As in the late 1950s, in winter 1961-62 the main
target of the North Koreans was apparently, according to the Head of
the Swedish NNSC Delegation, Major General Åke Wikland, a withdrawal
of the American forces from South Korea. The opinion was that
an American troop withdrawal would solve all problems.
In South Korea, Brigadier General Park Chung Hee seized power
through a coup d’état on May 16, 1961. North Korea interpreted the
coup as an act encouraged and engineered by the US and therefore
perceived the new military government as a potential threat to its
security; it signed Treaties of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual
Assistance with the Soviet Union on July 6 and China on July 11 the
same year. South Korea recognized the strengthening of the northern
alliance through the signing of these treaties as well as the reinforcement
of the North’s national defence power after the Cuba crisis as a
direct threat. Therefore, South Korea aimed to simultaneously pursue
economic development and national security by normalizing relations
with Japan and dispatching troops to Vietnam. 103
103_ Ch’oe, “P’anmunjôm-ûl t’onghan Nambukhan kyoryu,” pp. 88-9; Kihl, Politics and
Policies in Divided Korea: Regimes in Contest (Boulder: Westview Press, Inc., 1984),
pp. 48, 50; Kim, ibid., 2003, pp. 191-2; Ko, “Pukhankun-ûi ‘hwaryôk unban
Rising Tensions on the Korean Peninsula during the 1960s
123