The higher the stage of socialist construction for achieving the independence of the masses reaches, the greater the challenge and resistance by the imperialists become.

As long as imperialism, whose inherent nature and means of existence is aggression and plunder, exists, the source of war cannot be rooted out, and antagonism and struggle between socialism, which aspires after independence and peace, and imperialism is unavoidable in the development of history.

Therefore, it is a crucial and vital requirement in achieving a steady development and prosperity of socialism that conditions and an environment that allow no aggressive threat be created; to this end, we should possess an absolute strength with which we can definitely overwhelm the enemy.

Our Republic, as a citadel of the anti-imperialist struggle and a fortress of socialism, resolutely promoted the construction of a self-reliant national defence capability according to its own timetable in the face of intervention and pressures by the hostile forces of all hues. By doing so, it put an end to the era when the US imperialists unilaterally imposed nuclear threat.