A/HRC/25/CRP.1 Command—competed to show their efficiency in identifying ideological opponents to gain favour with Kim Jong-il. In relation to incidents or issues seen as major political threats, the Supreme Leader or central-level decision-making organs required security agencies to coordinate their investigations. There are reports that semi-permanent structures were set up by secret order of Kim Jong-il and maintained under Kim Jong-un.84 136. Following a three-year mourning period, Kim Jong-il was formally elected leader by the Supreme People’s Assembly in 1998. The constitution was again revised in 1998, and Kim Il-sung was designated Eternal President. The revised constitution elevated the National Defence Commission to be the highest organ of the state, and thus its chairman, Kim Jong-il, to the highest position in the government.85 Lacking the war hero credentials of his father, Kim Jong-il shifted the fundamental orientation of the state in his effort to win the support of the military by bestowing on it policy influence and prestige, as well as a large share of the national budget, through the Songun, or Military First, doctrine. This doctrine has survived the death of Kim Jong-il and the ascendancy of his son Kim Jong-un as his successor. On 25 August 2013, Kim Jong-un elaborated at length on the Songun doctrine during the Day of Songun celebration: Songun was the General’s [Kim Jong-il] revolutionary idea, his practice in the revolution, his political ideal and his political mode…. Regarding the strengthening of the KPA [Korean People’s Army] as the most important of affairs in the Songun revolution, he raised the KPA as the buttress, the main force, of our revolution and achieved the historic victory in the grim anti-imperialist, anti-US showdown in defence of the country’s security and socialism by training the KPA to be the army of the leader boundlessly faithful to the cause of the WPK (Workers’ Party of Korea), to be an invincible revolutionary army. He defined the spirit of defending the leader unto death, the spirit of implementing his instructions at any cost and the self-sacrificing spirit displayed by the service personnel as a revolutionary spirit symbolic and representative of the Songun era, as the revolutionary soldier spirit, and led all the service personnel and people to live and struggle in that spirit, thus ensuring that a great turn and changes were brought about in all sectors of the revolution and construction. In order to consolidate the successes of his Songunbased leadership and administer Songun politics in a comprehensive way, he saw to it that the First Session of the Tenth Supreme People’s Assembly of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea adopted the Socialist Constitution that embodies the idea and principles of the Songun revolution and established a new state administration structure, whose backbone is the National Defence Commission, and led all state affairs to be conducted on the principle of giving precedence to military affairs.86 137. In keeping with the Songun orientation, the DPRK embarked on a quest to develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.87 The DPRK presently has the world’s fourth largest 84 85 86 87 See section IV. Article 100 of the DPRK Constitution states: The Chairman of the National Defense Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the supreme leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Kim Jong-un, “Let Us Forever Glorify Comrade Kim Jong Il’s Great Idea and Achievements of the Military-First Revolution”, Rodong Sinmun and Chosun People’s Army, 25 April 2013. Accessed through Sino-NK, “Kim Jong-un and the Songun Retrenchment: A Quintessential Equation”, 30 November 2013. In 1959, the DPRK signed its first agreement on cooperation in nuclear research with the Soviet Union. A similar agreement with China quickly followed. By 1965, the DPRK had a Soviet-designed research reactor, the IRT-2000, which it modernized through the 1970s. By the late 1970s, the DPRK’s interest in the development of its nuclear capacity had shifted from energy production to 37