Legacy of Chairman Kim Jong Il
Witnessing the end of the Cold War from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, the world people believed that there would be no more war on the earth. However, it proved to be wrong not long afterwards, for the US and Western forces never gave up their aggression against other countries. The US went successively to war with Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan and went on to place the DPRK on the list of “targets of preemptive nuclear strike” and make it a policy to use nuclear weapons and deal a preemptive strike to the country, while intensifying military threats to it with huge armed forces.
But no war broke out in the Korean peninsula because Chairman Kim Jong Il (1942-2011) frustrated the US’ attempts at aggression by strengthening the country’s defence capabilities in every way.
He put forward the Korean People’s Army as the main force of the revolution and construction and ensured that its politico-ideological and military strength were greatly enhanced. He paid particular attention to making all soldiers strong in ideological readiness with which to defend their country, people and socialism unto death. Besides, he directed primary efforts to bolstering up defence capabilities so that the KPA was equipped with modern military hardware and poised to foil any provocation of the enemies. Reportedly, he inspected as many as 2 490 military units from 1995, a year after the demise of President Kim Il Sung, the founder of the DPRK, to December 2011 when he passed away.
Under his leadership, the DPRK finally came to possess even the powerful nuclear war deterrent and the KPA emerged into invincible armed forces prepared for both offensive and defence.
At that time, foreign military experts unanimously predicted that if a war broke out in the Korean peninsula located in a geopolitically important vantage point, the powers would inevitably embroil themselves in it and it would turn into a thermonuclear war and a Third World War. Not a few referred to the huge human and material losses to be caused on a global scale by the war.
The US couldn’t dare to start a war for fear of the might of the DPRK.
A German general who once served as deputy commander-in-chief of the NATO forces wrote in his contribution to a European newspaper: The US cannot win the war against the DPRK. Why? First, General Kim Jong Il commands the entire armed forces in the DPRK. Second, the country has a powerful army well-trained and equipped with latest military hardware. Third, it has a tradition of guerrilla warfare; modern warfare has never overpowered guerrilla warfare. Fourth, the Korean people have an unusual worship for their leadership.