The seemingly complex national security policy-making process was tempered by three factors: interlocking memberships in party and government apparatus, the relative unimportance of the state apparatus in decision making, and the state's relegation to implementing policies decided by the party structure. In general, the party, typically the General Political Bureau and the Military Affairs Committee, has broad policy-making responsibility for military affairs. Within the government, however, the Ministry of the People's Armed Forces controls the military. The General Staff Department and the General Rear Services Bureau of the Ministry of the People's Armed Forces prepare military budgets under the guidance of the Political Bureau and Military Affairs Committee. Proposed budgets are approved by the KWP Military Affairs Committee and passed into law by the essentially rubber stamp legislature, the Supreme People's Assembly (see Organization of the Government , ch. 4).

Data as of June 1993