ABSTRACT
This chapter has noted that primary concerns associated with regime survival have affected North Korea's foreign policy and its policy toward South Korea. In presenting this perspective on North Korea's policy and politics, we examine the question of what has sustained the DPRK regime despite adversity at home and abroad. This chapter has proceeded from the premise that the DPRK under Kim Jong Il is more likely to 'muddle through' than either to collapse or to undertake drastic economic reforms along the Chinese model. the DPRK has been able to make corrective adjustments to its political system, these adjustments are primarily at the edge, and the chances of saving the system through drastic reform do not appear likely at the time of this writing. Neither 'hastening Korean reunification' via collapse, nor system transformation via wholesale internal reform, seems to be in the offing.
