It is well known that the DPRK has built up its defence capabilities to be powerful enough to deter any threat of aggressive forces. It is inseparable from what Chairman Kim Jong Il had done while leading the country in the hardest time for it. 
In the mid-1990s, the DPRK faced considerable challenges: Taking advantage of the collapse of the socialist system in the world, the US-led Western forces were overtly attempting at military aggression on Korean socialism while tightening political and economic sanctions to stifle it; its economy was going into recession due to successive natural disasters; and the US and other Western forces, dangling the prospect of massive financial assistance, tried to sweet-talk it into obeying their demands.
However, Chairman Kim Jong Il chose to defy them by bolstering up the country’s self-defensive capabilities.
Back in the 1960s, before he officially started his political activities, he inspected a tank division of the Korean People’s Army as part of his guidance over military affairs. Since then, he had directed every possible effort to strengthening the country’s defence capabilities so as to protect the national sovereignty and the people’s wellbeing.
There is a rugged pass called Chol in the southeastern part of the DPRK. He reportedly crossed the pass as many as 18 times to encourage the service personnel and guide their military and political training at frontline posts just a stone’s throw from the enemy. When he inspected army units, he always set great store by preparing the soldiers politically and ideologically, ensuring all of them were fully determined to fight for their motherland. Meanwhile, he made great efforts to boost the defence industry drastically so that the KPA could be fully equipped with latest military hardware.
At the time, the US went to war with Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and elsewhere, and violated the sovereignty of many countries, killing innocent people and triggering refugee crises. Yet, it did not dare to start a war against the DPRK.
The Korean people neither begged for peace from powers although they suffered temporally from economic difficulties, nor did they have to shed tears of sorrow for the loss of beloved folks by the aggressors like the people in some countries. Instead, they braved all difficulties with the pride in their country and firm will to build a prosperous socialist power without fail.
In April 2016, a US political commentator wrote in his online comment: Witnessing the collapse of the USSR and the crises in Iraq and Libya, the DPRK came to realize that it must not compromise or retreat under the nuclear threats of the US but respond to them resolutely with nukes. Today nuclear war is kept at bay on the Korean peninsula, which seems to owe much to the DPRK’s steady efforts to beef up its war deterrent.