When Trump returns to the White House next year, he’d be wise not to ignore one of the obsessions of his first term: North Korea. For while the Kim regime has been prodded from the news agenda over recent years, it still has the potential to cause trouble. That’s clear enough in Ukraine, where the DPRK has offered both men (about 10,000 troops) and materiel (over 15,000 containers) to Putin’s war effort.
And if the ultimate value of this support remains dubious — what North Korea is providing Russia pales in comparison to the over $175 billion worth of supplies Ukraine has received from Washington — it nonetheless speaks to the fact that the DPRK is one of the most militarised societies on earth. From an immense army, to an intensive if rickety arms industry, this is a country that can make its presence felt thousands of miles from its borders, especially once you factor in Kim Jong Un’s remarkable ability to circumvent sanctions and supply weapons to terrorists. Dovetail too the country’s long-running nuclear programme, and Trump must clearly take North Korea seriously, especially compared to the laxness of his predecessor.
In North Korean studies, one often hears of the country’s “military-first” policy or songun. This is the country’s stated policy of allocating as many state resources as possible to military development. In the event, songun is somewhat controversial, not actually appearing in writing until after nation-founder Kim Il Sung died in 1994. Yet it’s clear that the younger Kim believes his country needs to keep expanding its arsenal, both of conventional weapons and nuclear bombs. And if that explains why multiple rounds of diplomacy with the US and South Korea have failed — Kim never had any intention to denuclearise — the songun philosophy also speaks to recent domestic developments.
Right through Covid, for instance, Kim Jong Un only continued to double down on military development. Despite the rest of the world masking up and staying indoors, the country still held a lavish military parade in 2020 to mark the 75th anniversary of its Workers’ Party. The Korean People’s Army (KPA) is estimated to have over 1.3 million active personnel. Like its southern neighbour, military service is mandatory for all men, but women are also included via selective service. In theory, men must serve up to 10 years, and women eight, though the country’s richest elites are always finding ways to reduce their time through loopholes and bribes. This still makes North Korea one of the most militarised countries on earth and its people are instilled in warmaking from a very young age.
Channelling his father and grandfather, meanwhile, Kim has mobilised millions of young people to join the country’s army, even as North Korean children have “volunteered” to work in coal mines, farms, and factories. According to one defector, factory workers enjoy just one day off a week. Agricultural labourers have it even worse, getting only one day off in 10. Like most socialist countries, meanwhile, one’s own labour is framed by government propaganda as essential in furthering revolutionary state goals. While North Koreans are typically required to work eight hours a day at minimum, this can be stretched much further if issued quotas are not met. Children are also mobilised to participate in the workforce so they are instilled with a sense of loyalty toward the regime as early as possible.
Certainly, this mass conscription helps explain why the DPRK has managed to send Russia so much military equipment, even as far richer nations are struggling to meet the demand. Not that the West should look to North Korea for inspiration anytime soon. That’s clear enough ethically: UN reports have consistently shown that forced labour and abysmal working conditions are rampant across the DPRK. More than that, though, the products of these sweatshops aren’t proving very useful. Experts assert that the DPRK’s munitions being found on the battlefields of Russia are highly unreliable, unsurprising given they come from old stocks.
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SubscribeUkraine is entering its fourth year in February, not its third year
Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons, and look at it now.
There is not a single thing Trump could say or offer that would induce me, if I was Kim, to give up my nukes, and I imagine Kim Jong Un is considerably more hardline than I am.
Good point. But Donald Trump knows that Kim Jong Un will never give up his nuclear weapons, at least in the near term. The objective with the Singapore and Hanoi summits during Donald Trump’s first term was to get Kim Jong Un to make meaningful moves towards peace in exchange for a series of staged sanctions relief. Things like sign a peace treaty to replace the current armistice. Or freezing or dismantling specific nuclear facilities, halting missile tests, or allowing international inspections. These steps, while falling short of full denuclearization, could have led to some easing of economic sanctions. They still might.
North Korea is still a worry, but not as much as it was in 2016. Then we didn’t know much about Kim Jong Un. Seoul is only 30 miles from the border with North Korea, and apart from the use of nuclear weapons there was concern that North Korea might use chemical, biological and even conventional artillery weapons too. Worry about an offensive attack seems to have died down. Kim Jong Un knows he would gain nothing from that, and would have everything to lose.
North Korea seems to have a strained relationship with China who it depends on for much of its trade and aid. I don’t quite understand how North Korea appears to operate so independently. Surely China must be a big player here.
The very last thing China wants is a United Korea allied to the US, so they have to allow the North Koreans some independence, they basically just try to ignore the crazy stuff
> if rickety arms industry, this is a country that can make its presence felt thousands of miles from its borders,
In military theory this term is called force projection, and there is broadly the category of local, regional and global. China, Russia, Iran, Israel these are countries with regional force projection capabilities they can get men and material anywhere within their region. The US is the only currently country that can globally project force, but NK is local at best.
Sure there are 10,000 troops in Ukraine now but putting 10,000 people on a train on a country bordering yours for a several hour train ride is one thing. Being able to coordinate the movement and logistics of even 100,000 troops is a monumental effort that requires an insane level of organization and communication and technology that is neigh impossible to achieve even with the best of capabilities. The idea that NK could do anything with their 1 million men army besides march them into the machine gun fire on the other side of the DMZ is laughable.
NK is the equivalent of a cactus, sure if you smack it you’ll get poked but you can just walk around it.
It is a far cry from being able to produce large numbers of rifles to producing all of the equipment needed to wage modern warfare from tanks and planes to drones and long range artillery these things require large groups of talent to produce, and I just don’t see the country that struggles to have electricity regularly building a booming automotive industry that is required to have mechanized units.
And forgive me if I don’t fear their ICBMs. Much of the anti-nuke capabilities developed were to protect against an enemy that had 1/3 of the worlds people and land under their sway along with some of the most talented scientific minds in history who had the ability to launch payloads numbering in the triple digits. I’ll put my faith that systems designed to handle that can probably handle half a dozen rockets from a country that struggles with basic food security and where independent thought is punishable by death.
Let’s hope the North Koreans (or Iran) don’t develop a growing military relationship with a country that knows how to build reliable ICBMs
But would any US President be wise to risk some US people and assets on it? I rather doubt it.
All of your points are spot on. Certainly, direct action by Kim against South Korea, or some sort of long range nuclear attack, would mean the end of Kim, most definitively.
Nevertheless, I’ve always been concerned that Kim may decide it furthers his strategy of disrupting the world to offer a nuclear weapon to one of the many insane Middle East terrorist organizations. Placed in a truck, and driven across a border into another nation before detonation would be the epitome of any terrorist’s dreams of immortality.
As long as Kim has nuclear weapons it’s essential we recognize they do not have to remain inside his borders, or under his control, to create chaos.
And, yes, I know there are ways to try to determine where nuclear material used in a detonated bomb originates. I would not put it past Kim to use the same sleight of hand NKPR uses on other trade goods to confuse that issue up front.
In other words, just like with pretty much all of Misguided Joe’s foreign policy, Trump would be wise to resume his efforts.