North Korean military capabilities

donal_cam

North Korea is a very interesting country, albeit one we know little about. It's been in the spotlight alot recently for various reasons (succession of Kim's son, Yeongpyeong artillery battle, sinking of the Cheonan corvette), and the standard media analysis is of a rogue state which is armed to the teeth and is a significant military power. However, I've been doing a bit of research and I don't think this stands up to serious examination. There are several reasons for this.

Firstly, the North Koreans equipment stockpile. Although they have a superiority over their ROK/US adversaries in terms of tanks, aircraft, artillery and ships, most of this equipment is obsolete. The North Korean tank fleet is based around the Chonma-Ho, an indigenously produced upgrade/refitting of the T-62 tank, of Soviet vintage. This tanks dated technology leaves it at a severe disadvantage vis-a-vis the ROK tank forces, which are primarily equipped with the K1, a third generation MBT which entered service in the late 1990s. The KPA (Korean Peoples Army- North Korean Armed Forces) tried to make up for the technology gap by developing a new tank known as the Pokpong-ho, which they apparently modeled on the Russian T-90, and which is claimed to have similar capabilities to it. However, images of this tank reveal it to be little more than another update to the T-62, albeit heavily modified. In terms of aviation, the KPAF remains at a disadvantage as its inventory is largely obsolete, and it can be judged to have only 70-80 modern jet fighters, 35-40 Mig-29s and roughly the same number of Mig-27s. The Navy is in an even worse situation, as its capabilities are largely brown-water, and in recent clashes with the ROK navy, it has had its ass kicked. All in all, the weaponry of the KPA does not mark it out as an adversary who would be a match for a modern military. An idea of the standard of equipment may be gauged by the fact that the Iranians, who were in the middle of a war against a better armed opponent, refused shipments of North Korean arms due to their poor quality during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.

Secondly, personnel. There are reports of a new food crisis in North Korea, and according to underground reports from within the country, morale is dropping and soldiers are starting to go hungry too. On top of that, soldiers spend much of their time working as labourers on construction projects, harvesting crops or anything else they are set to by the leadership- combat readiness and equipment maintenance has been declining for a long time, according to defectors, and the approach to the DMZ with the South is littered with abandoned vehicles and rusting guns, according to the accounts of some tourists. Compounding this, the physical health fo the soldiers has declined as this generation of conscripts are those who grew up during the Great Famine of the 1990s, and whose growth was stunted by malnutrition, making them less suited to military activity.

The DPRK leadership is not unaware of this and has taken some steps to offset the severe decline in conventional capabilities by adopting an asymettrical approach based on WMDs and SOF. The North maintains the worlds larges Special Ops forces, whose purpose is to offset the weakness of the Navy by attacking the perimeters of the ROK and disrupting internal preparations etc in times of crisis. The WMD stockpile is assumed to include chemical, biological, ballistic and nuclear weapons. However, these capabilites should be judged to be less important than the importance attached to them by politicians and journalists. The Norths ballistic missiles are very erratic, inaccurate, prone to shutting down in mid-flight and have a mixed launch record with many not making it far off the testing rack. Of course, the North's leadership wouldn' hesitate to use these weapons for a second, but they may not have the capabilities to put them to the best use possible and their chief use is as a bargaining chip and a Sword of Damocles hanging over Seoul.

Any thoughts people?

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub771.pdf

http://www.kpajournal.com/storage/KPAJ-1-04.pdf

Manic Moran

Be careful not to over-emphasise the technological disparity. Yes, the tanks are seriously outclassed, but Korea's primarily infantry country. As the Libyan thing is showing, the air war is only an ancillary to what happens on the ground.

Fundamentally, it comes down to a hell of a lot of infantry, covered by a hell of a lot of artillery. Not unbeatable, but extremely messy.

NTM

donal_cam

Manic Moran wrote: »

Be careful not to over-emphasise the technological disparity. Yes, the tanks are seriously outclassed, but Korea's primarily infantry country. As the Libyan thing is showing, the air war is only an ancillary to what happens on the ground.

Fundamentally, it comes down to a hell of a lot of infantry, covered by a hell of a lot of artillery. Not unbeatable, but extremely messy.

NTM

I'm aware of that. That's why I included a section on infantry and as I pointed out accounts from inside the DPRK stress that discipline and esprit de corps seems to be weakening.

Locust

came across this -
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?128528-Bluffer-s-guide-Fortress-North-Korea

Didn't realise, just how well defended they are... A massive psychological campaign may work well on DPRK troops

um7y1h83ge06nx

Don't forget the shark units

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSXNJMP8ir4

goldie fish

Its inevitible....

Overheal

Isn't it easier to let them self-implode? Their military strength doesn't sound sustainable indefinitely.

Morpheus

how many innocent and oppressed North Koreans will die whilst they slowly implode?

OS119

Morphéus wrote: »

how many innocent and oppressed Nort Koreans will die whilst they slowly implode?

lots, but probably less than if anyone were to attempt to force the issue.

its certainly tempying to view NK as yet another brittle dicatorship that will shatter at the first serious crack on the chops - and it does happen - but it may not be, and it would be horribly prolonged, and horribly messy.

if one could be reasonably sure that the regime would impload if you put 500 cruise missles through the bedroom windows of senior party and military figures then it might be worth it, but, while i personally think that that would be the case, i've not enough evidence to suggest that its worth the risk of that not happening.

war - and indeed international politics - is very rarely a choice between light and dark, but rather a choice btween several equally ****ty options that differ only in the immediacy of discovering that you picked the wrong one.

cynical, moi?

donal_cam

Morphéus wrote: »

how many innocent and oppressed Nort Koreans will die whilst they slowly implode?

It's unknowable I'm afraid. There are indications that the regime is starting to sink under the weight of its own corruption- the traditional festivity rations weren't handed out this year (upon the birthdays of the Kim family, the regime distributes special rations like meat, extra grain, alcohol and sweets for the children, to the entire population- even during the famine, this tradition continued), the currency redenomination in 2009 sparked extensive protests and executions as the regime has tried to crackdown on dissent. In short, it seems like the regime is going to have trouble surviving Jong-Ils death and the succession as the economic and food situation worsens, corruption further weakens the state apparatus and the army goes hungry.

virmilitaris

The North Korean regime was supposed to fall when Kim Il-Sung died. Half the planet was on military alert when he died, it never happened. Then it was supposed to crumble during the famines in the 90's, again it didn't happen.

I've read every book and watched every documentary I could get my hands on about North Korea and none of them come close to conveying the true nature of the regime. I work with North Korean defectors in Seoul and it's truly an eye opening experience to meet them for the first time. The utter control that they were subjected to is something Stalin and Hitler wouldn't even be able to dream of.

Almost everything that isn't absolutely compulsory is absolutely forbidden.

Read Orwell's 1984 and add in religious reverence for Big Brother Kim and his son and you come close.

There are too many people under the regime that are brainwashed to support it to allow it to simply collapse. It won't happen.

lcrcboy

I agree with some of the above posts that it would probably be best to let them self implode, however the world has been saying that for years and they some how manage to survive and the regime seems to survive without meeting any internal counter movement (that we are aware of anyways). Its a tricky situation but I hope the country will crumble and something good will come from the ashes of it, but Im not sure it will happen anytime soon.

donal_cam

lcrcboy wrote: »

I agree with some of the above posts that it would probably be best to let them self implode, however the world has been saying that for years and they some how manage to survive and the regime seems to survive without meeting any internal counter movement (that we are aware of anyways). Its a tricky situation but I hope the country will crumble and something good will come from the ashes of it, but Im not sure it will happen anytime soon.

The difference between now and then was that when Kim Il-Sung died the coutnry was still largely shut to outside influence. Now, it's become possible to smuggle video and articles out of the country, and there are even rumours of an active resistance group in the country- there was an unexplained incident a few years ago when a border post was attacked from the interior and soldiers killed in a firefight, which was hushed up by the regime. There's also the fact that the system itself has been entirely discredited in the interim- when Il-sung bit the dust, the regime could point to genuine achievements in the fields of sanitation, nutrition, healthcare, accommodation and industrial development. Until the early 1980s, when one talked about the Korean Economic Miracle, it was the North being referenced, not the South. So there was no indication that it was the system itself that was at fault for the stagnating economy. The Arduous March destroyed that, and Jong-il maintains support only off the back of respect and nostalgia for the days of his father in the military elite and among the Pyongyang citizenry.

Overheal

virmilitaris wrote: »

The North Korean regime was supposed to fall when Kim Il-Sung died. Half the planet was on military alert when he died, it never happened. Then it was supposed to crumble during the famines in the 90's, again it didn't happen.

I've read every book and watched every documentary I could get my hands on about North Korea and none of them come close to conveying the true nature of the regime. I work with North Korean defectors in Seoul and it's truly an eye opening experience to meet them for the first time. The utter control that they were subjected to is something Stalin and Hitler wouldn't even be able to dream of.

Almost everything that isn't absolutely compulsory is absolutely forbidden.

Read Orwell's 1984 and add in religious reverence for Big Brother Kim and his son and you come close.

There are too many people under the regime that are brainwashed to support it to allow it to simply collapse. It won't happen.

thats the other thing too: even if the UN went in and overthrew the regime, what would be left over? Forget "greeted as liberators" or some fantasy that we will be able to magically lift some kind of curse: Millions of people have become so irreverent of him that I'm fairly concernedwhat would happen to them if he were suddenly removed. Would they even be able to handle it mentally or would they just turn completely vicious against any intervention force?