North Korea’s ruling party, government, and military newspapers, in a joint editorial, “pledged a ‘do or die’ campaign this year to guard its socialist system against possible attack by the United States and its allies,” this wire story notes.

“In a New Year message Tuesday, the Stalinist country also demanded a joint inter-Korean struggle against what it called ‘warhawks’ aggression and acts of military provocation’ by outsiders’:

[…] The editorial described 2002 as ‘a year of a new leap forward towards the building of a powerful nation,’ saying a new struggle would be launched to meet ‘the undisguised challenges of the imperialists and firmly defend the socialist bulwark.’

Pressed to describe this “socialist bulwark” North Korea is fighting to defend, one minister explained, “y’know — unemployment, poverty, lack of individual rights — that sort of thing…”

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