The True Military Power of North Korea. Donald Trump
II and during the Soviet Union’s occupation of the portion of Korea north of the 38th Parallel, the Soviet 25th Army Headquarters in Pyongyang issued a statement ordering all (North Korean) armed resistance groups in the northern part of the peninsula to disband on October 12, 1945.
Two thousand Koreans were allowed to briefly enter into Korea but were returned to Manchuria. There were several possible reasons as to why these Koreans were not allowed to stay in Korea. The Soviets may have been concerned with sending a trained armed force into a country it would occupy, possibly giving the Soviets trouble regarding insurgency. Many of these Korean soldiers actually had lived in Manchuria and were just returning to their homes. Finally, most of these soldiers actually were raw recruits and, rather than repatriating them, perhaps they were encouraged to return to the Chinese Eighth Route Army so that, after a period of seasoning, they might return to Korea to become a core element in the nation’s future armed forces.
Two thousand Koreans with previous experience in the Soviet army were sent to various locations around the country to organize constabulary forces with permission from Soviet military headquarters, and the force was created on October 21, 1945. The Headquarters activated a separate unit for railway security on August 15, 1945, to supervise existing security forces and to create the national armed forces. After the North Korean military was organized with facilities to educate its new recruits, the Constabulary Discipline Corps was reorganized into the North Korean People’s Army Corps Headquarters.
The State Security Department, a forerunner to MPAF, was established as part of the Interim People’s Committee on February 4, 1948, with the formal creation of the KPA being announced on February 8, seven months before the government of the DPRK was proclaimed on September 9, 1948. In accordance with Kim Il Sung’s stated aspirations to “build a powerful modern military,” the task continued in earnest, as the army’s first tank unit — the 105th Armored Battalion — was established. With the growth of the military to some 60,000 troops, the KPA Headquarters created two additional ground divisions.
In 1949, after the Chinese Communist Forces (CCF) took control of China, the CCF released tens of thousands of combat-hardened ethnic Koreans from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) for duty with the KPA.
In 1950, KPA was a well-trained and modern force, carefully constructed along Soviet lines. For over 2 years, hundreds of Soviet advisers had molded the army. The Russians also had generously supplied it with arms. Each KPA division, for example, was equipped with 12 122mm howitzers, 24 76mm guns, and 12 45mm antitank guns. All were recent World War II vintage. The Soviets also provided the KPA with tanks. Each infantry division had organic tanks, and there was also a separate tank division. The 105th Armored Division boasted 120 modern T-34 main battle tanks.
The Korean War provided the KPA with some lessons learned that they have attempted to correct to this day. First, they fully understand the value of the intervention by the United States. History shows that had the United States not intervened, success for the KPA would have been virtually assured.
Critical defects concerning the KPA were identified: (1) the KPA’s infantry-centric organization was unsuited to the Soviet’s armored/mechanized infantry doctrine (attributed by the KPA as the primary cause of its failures); (2) its strategic plan was inadequately developed to destroy its opponent; (3) its cadre was poorly trained in military doctrine and tactics; (4) its reserve forces were sparsely fielded; and (5) its logistical system was insufficient to supply the army’s needs. Further weaknesses included leaders who were inadequately versed in strategy and tactics and operational/tactical inefficacy.
By 1960, ground forces may have totaled fewer than 400,000 persons and probably did not rise much above that figure before 1972.
KPA Modernization and Reorganization. Beginning in the late 1970s, North Korea began a major reorganization and modernization of its ground forces. This was probably a reflection of the lessons learned (sudden attack, quick victory, and role of a guerrilla struggle to supplant conventional capabilities) from observing the Vietnam War and other regional conflicts such as the Arab-Israeli wars.
During the 1980s, doctrine and organization were revamped to increase the lethality, speed, and combat power of the attack. The shifting of the majority of the North Korean ground forces closer to the DMZ offered the potential for a more rapid advance and minimizing the time of detection of intent. The reorganization of Pyongyang’s exploitation forces in the 1980s suggested that initial attacking forces will be reinforced by heavier and more mobile units to exploit any breakthroughs.
The KPA was not uniformly successful in its 1980s efforts to modernize its forces in support of a high-speed offensive strategy; more needs to be done to update the army’s mobility, artillery, and air defense elements. North Korea increased its tank fleet, but incomplete information suggested that it remained based largely on dated Soviet technology with retrofitted indigenous improvements.
KPA artillery systems appeared to have made the most of the limited technological base. The KPA increased the artillery force while maintaining relative quantitative and range superiorities over its potential southern adversary and improving force mobility. The technological level of Pyongyang’s industrial base appeared to ensure that, with the possible exception of narrow areas of special interest, built-in obsolescence will be unavoidable, regardless of how undesirable. Pyongyang appeared to be quantitatively increasing the amount of systems with larger caliber weapons but qualitatively, these weapons did not include modern evolutionary advances such as computerized targeting, radar guided munitions, etc.
Between 1984 and 1992, the army added about 1,000 tanks, over 2,500 APC/infantry fighting vehicles, and about 6,000 artillery tubes or rocket launchers. In 1992 North Korea had about twice the advantage in numbers of tanks and artillery, and a 1.5-to-1 advantage in personnel over its potential adversaries, the U.S.Republic of Korea defenses to the south.
By 1996, KPA major combat units consisted of 153 divisions and brigades, including 60 infantry divisions/brigades, 25 mechanized infantry brigades, 13 tank brigades, 25 Special Operations Force (SOF) brigades, and 30 artillery brigades. North Korea deployed 10 corps, including 60 divisions and brigades in the forward area south of the Pyongyang-Wonsan line. The KPA ground forces were composed of 20 corps commands, including four mechanized and two artillery corps, as well as a Tank Instruction Guidance Bureau and an Artillery Command, Reconnaissance Bureau, and one Light Infantry Training and Guidance Bureau (formerly the VIII Special Corps controlling the SOF).
Figure 4 reflects the disposition of the KPA Corps along the DMZ and other military units throughout the country. Although it is difficult to know North Korea’s precise intentions or aspirations, by 2004 its forces were deployed along the DMZ in such a manner that they could support an invasion of South Korea. In particular, the percentage of North Korean forces deployed within 100km of the DMZ has increased significantly during the past 2 decades, with approximately 70 percent of its military units, and up to 80 percent of its estimated aggregate firepower, within 100km of the DMZ. With these forward deployments, North Korea theoretically could invade the South without recourse to further deployments and with relatively little warning time. The KPA continued to modernize its military as North Korea announced an annual defense budget of 15.5 percent of the government budget, or about 30 percent of its gross national product (GNP). Reportedly because of fiscal constraints, North Korea seeks to increase its development and procurement of asymmetric weapons systems including missiles, chemical, and biological munitions — and continue its development of nuclear weapons.
By 2006, North Korea’s asymmetric or unconventional warfare programs (SOF, WMD, etc.) measurably contributed to the country’s security from external threats and complemented its conventional military capabilities. The continued conventional force improvement and asymmetric capability acquisition provided a measured balance to offset capability deficiencies and poor readiness while attempting to satisfy North Korean military strategy requirements.
NK National Security Strategy. North Korea appears to have two primary strategic goals or objectives: (1) the perpetuation of the regime, and (2) reunification of the Fatherland (Korean peninsula) under North Korea’s control. The first is really noncontroversial, although analysts quibble about the precise terminology. The second is more controversial, and specialists disagree. However,