Joseph Bermudez, military analyst for Jane’s Intelligence Review and author of The Armed Forces of North Korea, has published the eighth issue of his very fascinating KPA Journal.
Click here to download the full issue (PDF).
Topics include: KPA Engineer River Crossing Forces, Inside a DPRK “Mother Ship”, Correction: BTR-60.
You can find all of the previous issues of KPA Journal here.
According to the Choson Ilbo:
Click image for larger version
North Korean soldiers stationed at the border truce village of Panmunjom have changed their headgear again.
On Thursday, a day ahead of planned military talks about the sinking of the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan between the UN Command and the North, they were seen wearing camouflage helmets (right).
They have worn them for 10 days, a South Korean military spokesman said. In late May the guards switched from their usual army caps (left) to steel helmets (center).
Read the full story here:
N.Korean Soldiers’ Changing Millinery Fashions
Choson Ilbo
7/15/2010
According to News.Scotsman.com:
Experts claim North Korea’s submarine fleet is technologically backward, prone to sinking or running aground and all but useless outside its own coastal waters.
And yet many are asking: Could it have been responsible for the explosion that sank a South Korean warship in March? And, if so, how could a submarine have slipped through the defences of South Korea, which maintains a fleet far more sophisticated than its northern neighbours?
Evidence collected thus far indicates a torpedo hit the Cheonan, killing 46 sailors, and suspicion is growing that it was launched from a small North Korean submarine. That would make it the most serious attack on the South Korean military since the peninsula’s war ended in a truce in 1953.
“While the North Korean submarine force reflects dated technology by Western standards, North Korean submarines during wartime would present significant challenges, particularly in coastal areas,” according to the Arlington, Virginia-based Global Security think-tank.
“North Korea has placed high priority on submarine construction programmes, which are ongoing despite its economic hardships.”
Without witnesses or communications traffic to use as evidence, proving North Korea was behind the attack is difficult. Still, teams conducting an intensive salvage and analysis mission are beginning to put the pieces together.
Officials say they know the 1,200-ton warship – a small, lightly armed frigate that split in half while on patrol in waters near the Koreas’ tense western maritime border – sank after a powerful external blast created a shock wave of the sort normally associated with a torpedo or mine.
South Korean media has reported that traces of the high explosive RDX have been found in the wreckage, which would also be consistent with a torpedo attack.
“It is plausible that the ship was hit by a torpedo,” Joseph Bermudez, a North Korea military expert and senior analyst for the London-based Jane’s Information Group, said.
North Korean submarines are not state-of-the-art. Instead, they underscore impoverished North Korea’s focus on “asymmetric” warfare – the use of stealthy, relatively low-cost weapons that many a ragtag fighting force has proved can open up big holes in conventional defences.
The “vast majority” operated by the North Korean navy and intelligence agencies are capable of carrying torpedoes and sea mines, as are some of the intelligence agencies’ semi-submersible infiltration landing craft, Mr Bermudez said.
“If the sinking was caused by a torpedo, then I would say this was a deliberate act of aggression,” he added.
Investigation results are expected within weeks, reports say, and Seoul has been extremely cautious in its comments on the sinking. It initially said there was no indication the North was to blame, and publicly fingering the North appears to hold little upside for Seoul, at any rate. Pyongyang has denied any role in the disaster.
But the idea that a North Korean submersible may have slid so close to the Cheonan undetected has been a wake-up call for the South, which has vowed to strengthen its defences against low-tech, asymmetric warfare. This weekend, Seoul set up a task force to review and revamp its defences.
Many South Korean experts had previously thought that such subs were unable to launch effective attacks, and were of more use for simply crossing the border.
“It shows that both the South Korean and US surveillance and reconnaissance missions either failed or were not in operation in the area where the incident took place,” Tong Kim, a visiting professor at Korea University in Seoul, said. “Apparently there was no signal or geospatial intelligence on the movement of a North Korea submarine, if it was involved in the incident. The Cheonan’s submarine detector must have failed.”
It would not be the first time North Korean submarines have been used to harass or spy on the South.
In 1996, a North Korean submarine ran aground on underwater rocks north-east of Seoul. The 26 commandos aboard tried to flee overland back to the North, but after several skirmishes all but one were killed, along with 17 South Koreans.
Two years later, another submarine was entangled in South Korean fishing nets.
Joseph Bermudez, military analyst for Jane’s Intelligence Review and author of The Armed Forces of North Korea, has published the fourth issue of his very fascinating KPA Journal.
Click here to download the full issue (PDF).
Topics include: Noto-Hanto infiltration, Pokpoong main battle tank, DPRK intelligence agencies.
Previous issues of KPA Journal can be downloaded here.
UPDATE: The Reconnaissance Bureau was recently reorganized. Joeseph Bermudez has all the information on the reorganization. Check it out here.
ORIGINAL POST: Kim Jong-il recently visited the Reconnaissance General Bureau (formerly Reconnaissance Bureau) which is assigned the military cover designation of 586 and is frequently known as 586th Army Unit. The bueau was recently accused of ordering the assassination of Hwang Jang-yop (A claim the DPRK denies). NK Leadership Watch has full video of the visit, but here are some photos:
Today a reader contacted me claiming to have located this facility on Google Earth. I believe this person is correct. Here is the satellite image:
Click on the image for a larger version. The coordinates are: 39° 6’28.45″N, 125°43’53.86″E. You can see it in Wikimapia here.
My congratulations to the reader for finding this one.
Joseph Bermudez, military analyst for Jane’s Intelligence Review and author of The Armed Forces of North Korea, has published the third issue of his very fascinating KPA Journal.
Click here to download the full issue (PDF)
Chapters include: KPA Engineer River Crossing Units During the Fatherland Liberation War (Part 3), The Scud B SRBM in KPA Service, A ‘Type’ KPAF Fortified SAM Base.
Bermudez Comments in the Journal:
With this issue I’ve concluded coverage of the KPA’s engineer river crossing units during the Fatherland Liberation War. I would like to thank all the readers for their positive comments concerning this series of articles. As I mentioned in issue No. 2 I will follow up this series with some coverage of KPA underwater bridges and bridging equipment. Which issue they will appear in is presently uncertain.
A number of readers have asked if I will be writing anything special for the 60th Anniversary of the Korean War this June. I haven’t yet decided upon a topic for the June issue, but would like to hear from what you the readers might be interested to see. Readers might be interested to know that I had written a history of the KPA’s 17th Tank Division during the war and submitted it to Armor for publication with the hope that it would appear in the May-June issue. Unfortunatley their publication schedule is already full. They have, however, accepted it for publication in a future issue. When that occurrs, I will inform the readers of KPA Journal.
In response to a number of reader’s requests I will be preparing several articles, or photo essays, on KPA tanks and armored fighting vehicles. I hope to have the first in time for the next issue.
I am making slow progress on the KPA Journal website and I hope to have it up in a month or so. I will let the readers know when it goes live.
Finally, all readers are encouraged to share ideas of what you would like to see in future issues of KPA Journal. As always I would like to thank you all for your encouragement and support.
You can download previous issues of KPA Journal here.
Blane Harden wrote an excellent article for the Washington Post on the KPA takeover of state-owned trading companies and how these companies are increasing natural resource exports to China. (As an aside, China has just recently ceased publishing North Korean trade data). This is interesting because just a year-and-a-half ago we were discussing Jang Song-thaek’s anti-corruption campaign which was supposed to be closing down KPA companies and making them reapply for export licenses with the Ministry of Foreign Trade (meaning the WPK could start dipping into the revenue pools).
Quoting from Mr. Harden’s article:
The potential profits are eye-popping: China is one of the world’s most voracious consumers of raw materials, and North Korea’s mineral reserves are worth $5.94 trillion, according to an estimate by South Korea’s Ministry of Unification. China has been critical of North Korea’s nuclear program and missile tests, but it also has vastly increased its economic ties with Kim’s government.
Kim is increasingly creaming off a significant slice of Chinese mineral revenue to fund his nuclear program and to buy the loyalty of elites, according to “North Korea, Inc.,” a recent report by the United States Institute of Peace, a Washington-based group funded by the U.S. Congress.
The report echoes the views of North Korean analysts in South Korea, Japan and the United States, who say the military has elbowed out other ministries and the Korean Workers’ Party to take control of exports that earn hard currency. The military is also sending trucks to state farms to haul away as much as a quarter of the annual harvest for its soldiers, analysts say.
“The military is by far the largest, most capable and most efficient organization in North Korea, and Kim Jong Il is making maximum use of it,” said Lim Eul-chul of the Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul.
North Korea is perhaps the world’s most secretive and repressive state, but it makes no attempt to hide the ubiquitous role the military plays in the daily lives of the country’s 23.5 million people. Soldiers dig clams and launch missiles, pick apples and build irrigation canals, market mushrooms and supervise the export of knockoff Nintendo games. They also guard the country’s 3,000 cooperative farms, and help themselves to scarce food in a hungry country.
…
Missile sales were for many years major earners of foreign currency, according to a report for the Strategic Studies Institute by Daniel A. Pinkston, who is now a Seoul-based analyst with the International Crisis Group. But the cost of the arms trade has gone up and sales have declined as a result of U.N. sanctions imposed after the North’s nuclear tests in 2006 and this year, South Korean analysts say.
The military has thus turned to its new Chinese cash cow. As the army has taken over management of mines in North Korea, mineral exports to China have soared, rising from $15 million in 2003 to $213 million last year. Led by those sales, the North’s total trade volume rose last year to its highest level since 1990, when a far more prosperous and less isolated North Korea was subsidized by the Soviet Union.
A unique advantage the Korean People’s Army brings to foreign trade is a well-disciplined workforce that has to be paid — nothing. Soldiers receive food, clothes and lodging, but virtually no cash. This competitive edge makes military-run trading companies especially attractive to the North’s leadership, according to the Institute of Peace report.
Based on confidential interviews with recent North Korean defectors, four of whom said they worked for trading companies run by the military, the paper concludes that a “designated percentage of all revenues generated from commercial activities . . . goes directly into Kim Jong Il’s personal accounts.” The rest of the revenue flows into the operating budget of the military.
The full article is worth reading here.
Additionally, the report by the Institute of Peace cited above, “North Korea, Inc.”, can be downloaded here. The paper is on my reading list this weekend, but here is the introduction and conclusion:
Introduction: Assessing regime stability in North Korea continues to be a major challenge for analysts. By examining how North Korea, Inc. — the web of state trading companies affiliated to the Korean Workers’ Party (KWP), the Korean People’s Army (KPA), and the Cabinet — operates, we can develop a new framework for gauging regime stability in North Korea. Insights into the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)1 regime can be gained by examining six core questions related to the DPRK state trading company system. First, what are DPRK state trading companies and how did they emerge? Second, how do DPRK state trading companies operate? Third, what roles do they play? Fourth, why are DPRK state trading companies important? Fifth, what major transformations are taking place in the DPRK state trading company system? Sixth, what are the implications of the manner in which this system is currently functioning?
Conclusion: Despite lingering problems with the fragmented Public Distribution System, the challenges of chronic food shortages, and a deteriorating economic infrastructure system, the DPRK regime has proven to be remarkably resilient. By operating North Korea, Inc. — a network of state trading companies affiliated to the KWP, the KPA, and the Cabinet — the regime is able to derive funds to maintain the loyalty of the North Korean elites and to provide a mechanism through which different branches of the North Korean state can generate funds for operating budgets. During periods when the DPRK’s international isolation deepens as a result of its brinkmanship activities, North Korea, Inc. constitutes an effective coping mechanism for the Kim Jong Il regime.
While North Korea remains an opaque country, we now have greater access to unique defectors with the following characteristics — prior experience working in DPRK state trading companies and current business dealings with former colleagues in North Korea through channels in China. By closely examining DPRK commercial activities and capabilities, a new field of North Korea analysis can be structured to produce insights into the internal dynamics of the DPRK regime. This new line of inquiry would help to broaden our understanding of an evolving North Korea.
UPDATE 5: Dr. Petrov has some great commentary on the new constitution:
A rough English translation as offered by Northeast Asia Matters in their report here but it mistranslates Article 8 of the Constitution, calling “근로인민의 리익” or “the interests of the workers” as “human rights”, which is not the same.
As for dropping the word 공산주의 or “communism”, indeed is happened in Articles 29 and 40 (Economy and Culture respectively). The mystery is in why Naenara keeps the old English version, where the sensational new Section 2 of Chapter VI “Chairman of the National Defence Commission” is missing?
UPDATE 3: Northeast Asia Matters has posted a copy of the DPRK constitution in English. Click here to read.
UPDATE 2: A reader has posted the new constitution (in Korean) in the comments section below. Click here to read.
UPDATE 1: From the Wall Street Journal:
The average North Korean doesn’t know the country’s national constitution well, but at least he has a solid excuse: Kim Jong Il keeps the working masses ignorant of the rights that are formally granted them, which include freedom of speech and demonstration. But just because Pyongyang’s constitution is hardly worth the paper it is written on does not mean that alterations to it are beneath notice. For the ruling elite, its preamble and first few articles serve as a broad indication of the regime’s ideological direction.
ORIGINAL POST: According to Reuters:
North Korea has revised its constitution to give even more power to leader Kim Jong-il, ditch communism and elevate his “military first” [Songun] ideology, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said on Monday.
Though there is little doubt over the 67-year-old Kim’s power, secured by his role as chairman of the National Defence Commission, the new constitution removes any risk of ambiguity.
“The chairman is the highest general of the entire military and commands the entire country,” according to a text of the constitution enacted by the reclusive North in April and only now released by the South Korean government.
The chairman is now the country’s “supreme leader”. Though the position had become the seat of power under Kim, the previous constitution in 1998 simply said the chairman oversees matters of state.
But the Unification Ministry said the new charter removes all reference to communism, the guiding ideology when Kim’s father Kim Il-sung founded North Korea — of which since his death in 1994 he has been eternal president.
Often in its place is “songun”, the policy of placing the military first and which has been Kim junior’s ruling principle.
South Korean media quoted an official from the North as saying that it made the change because it felt the ideals of communism are “hard to fulfil”.
The new constitution adds assurances for protecting human rights, even though North Korea has one of the world’s worst records.
Experts on the North’s state propaganda said the military first ideology has helped Kim dodge responsibility for the country’s sharp economic decline by arguing that heavy defence spending was needed to overcome threats posed by the United States.
It has also meant that the bulk of the North’s limited resources have gone into beefing up a million-strong military at the expense of the rest of the population who make up one of Asia’s poorest societies.
According to the Associated Press:
Yang Moo-jin, a professor at Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies, says it is the first time the North’s constitution has mentioned human rights.
“I think they created this clause, mindful of international criticism of their human rights record,” Yang said. “It lacks details, such as how they will respect and protect human rights. I think it’s just a formality.”
The new constitution also defined Kim Jong Il as the country’s highest leader in a clearer term, saying that the chairman of the all-powerful National Defense Commission — Kim’s title — is the nation’s “supreme leader.”
The previous version only said the commission is the country’s highest organization.
The new constitution also dropped references to communism and only mentions socialism.
But Yang said the change does not mean much because the charter of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, which is considered higher than the constitution, still says its goal is to build a communist nation.
…Analysts saw the changes as signs that one of the last holdouts from the former Communist bloc was trying to improve its international image in an effort to engage the United States and that the ailing Mr. Kim was trying to burnish his legacy.
North Korea revised its Constitution in April when its rubber-stamp Parliament re-elected Mr. Kim as chairman of the National Defense Commission amid uncertainty over his health. But the outside world was kept in the dark about the details of the amendment until Monday, when South Korea released what it called the text of the North Korean Constitution.
The new Constitution defined one of several titles Mr. Kim holds, chairman of the National Defense Commission, as “supreme leader” of the country. Though Mr. Kim has ruled the country as an undisputed leader, the Constitution revision is the first time he has acquired such an official designation since the death of his father, Kim Il-sung, in 1994.
The chairman “oversees the entire national business,” appointing important military figures, ratifying or abrogating treaties with foreign nations, appointing special envoys and declaring states of emergency or war, the new Constitution said.
The government of South Korea declined to comment, saying it was still scrutinizing the changes. But analysts said Mr. Kim was reasserting his rule by stamping his imprint on the Constitution at a time when doubt persisted at home and abroad about his health and his grip on power.
“After he overcame his health crisis, Kim Jong-il revised the Constitution to show that he was in control and was the person the United States must deal with,” said Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea analyst at Dongguk University in Seoul. “By mentioning human rights and giving up communism, which sounded hollow to his people after the collapse of the Eastern bloc, he is also trying to show that he is a flexible leader sensitive to the changing world order.”
The constitutional revision does little to add to his already absolute grip on power, said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior analyst at Sejong Institute in South Korea. Mr. Kim is already head of the ruling Workers’ Party and the People’s Army. The new Constitution stuck to a socialist system, though it abandoned communism.
But by bringing more portfolios under his National Defense Commission, “Kim Jong-il showed an intention to focus more on the military and foreign affairs” while leaving party matters to Kim Jong-un, the youngest of his three sons, who is reportedly being groomed as his successor, Mr. Cheong said.
North Korea is now ruled by a “Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un coalition,” he added.
In 1998, four years after the death of Kim Jong-il’s father, North Korea revised its Constitution to leave the senior Kim’s title, president, “eternally vacant,” dispersing the roles of the presidency to different agencies. That left outside analysts wondering who officially represented the country, though few disputed Mr. Kim’s authority. With the April revision, Mr. Kim has now left no doubt where the power resides both in reality and in document, analysts said.
Read the full stories below:
North Korea drops communism, boosts “Dear Leader”
Reuters
Jon Herskovitz and Christine Kim
9/28/2009
North Korea’s new constitution calls for respecting human rights for first time
Associated Press
9/28/2009
New Constitution Bolsters Kim’s Power
New York Times
Choe Sang-hun
9/28/2009
According to Blaine Harden in the Washington Post (excerpts):
North Korea has massively increased its special operations forces, schooled them in the use of Iraqi-style roadside bombs and equipped them to sneak past the heavily fortified border that divides the two Koreas.
In a conflict, tens of thousands of special forces members would try to infiltrate South Korea: by air in radar-evading biplanes, by ground through secret tunnels beneath the demilitarized zone (DMZ), and by sea aboard midget submarines and hovercraft, according to South Korean and U.S. military analysts.
Their primary mission, in the event of war, is to leapfrog the DMZ and create chaos among the 20.5 million residents of greater Seoul, while harassing South Korean and U.S. forces in rear areas, military and intelligence experts said.
South Korea and the United States agree that the number of North Korean special forces is rising, but they disagree on how much.
The number is now 180,000, according to the South Korean Defense Ministry. That’s a 50 percent increase since the South’s last official count three years ago. But Sharp, the U.S. commander here, puts the number at 80,000 (although that still dwarfs the special forces of any country, including the United States, which has about 51,000.)
Much of the difference appears to be a dispute over the definition of special forces. North Korea has retrained and reconfigured about 60,000 infantry troops as special forces in the past three years, South Korea says. The United States agrees that this reconfiguring has occurred, but it “does not count [retrained infantry] as special forces,” according to Maj. Todd Fleming, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Korea.
Whatever the number, there is widespread agreement that the North’s special forces are increasingly formidable. Sharp describes them as “tough, well-trained and profoundly loyal,” while being capable of illicit activities, strategic reconnaissance and attacks against civilian infrastructure and military targets across Northeast Asia.
But the capacity of North Korea to protect and maintain that frontline armor has declined since the 1990s. Flight hours for the North’s military aircraft have plummeted for lack of fuel, as has training of mechanized ground forces.
North Korea has also begun to question the utility of the tanks and armor it can afford at the front, after seeing the ease with which U.S. precision weapons shredded Saddam Hussein’s armored forces in Iraq, according to a South Korean Defense Ministry report.
“They were really shocked watching how the Americans destroyed Iraq’s tanks,” said Kim, the military affairs editor.
What North Korea still has in extraordinary abundance are boots on the ground, thanks to universal conscription and a mandatory 10 years of military service for men, seven years for women.
“The North Koreans made a decision based on the resources they have,” said Kwon Young-hae, a former director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service. “The best way for them to counterbalance the South’s technological advantage is with special forces. When Kim Jong Il gives pep talks to these troops, he says, ‘You are individually, one by one, like nuclear weapons.’ “
The full article is worth reading here.
I cant help but see the Iranian government involved in this, but that is entirely speculative.
And a personal aside—I recommend that everyone (including Americans) visit Iran. Despite the reputation of the Iranian government in the west, the country is one of the friendliest and most beautiful places I have been fortunate enough to visit. My only regret with regards to my trip there is that I could not spend more time enjoying the company of her beautiful people.
According to Yonhap:
North Korea has carried out a reshuffle of government organizations, shifting the jurisdiction over its overseas espionage and cash cow operations from the Workers’ Party to the military, sources said Sunday.
The North has separated its two major spying and cash-generating overseas trade units — Room 35 and Operation Unit — from the Workers’ Party and transferred them to the People’s Armed Forces, the sources said on condition of anonymity.
The Operation Unit is known to train and send agents to South Korea, the United States and Japan, but its recent operations are believed to have shifted toward trades of arms, drugs and fake bills.
Room 35 is North Korea’s intelligence unit in charge of collecting information from South Korea, Japan, China, Southeast Asia and Europe.
Kim Hyon-hui, one of the two North Korean agents who blew up a Korean Air flight over Myanmar in 1987, was believed to have belonged to the Room 35 and to have been trained in the Operation Unit.
“North Korea’s Operation Unit handles a large amount of cash through illegal activities such as counterfeiting currency, manufacturing drugs and exporting arms,” a source said. “With the Operation Unit now under its wing, the North Korean military will have a major source of independent financing.”
The latest shakeup appears to be intended to address overlapped functions among government organizations and raise their overall efficiency, according to North Korea watchers.
The sources said North Korea may be trying to shed a terrorism-related image from its ruling Workers’ Party, which has tagged along since the 1987 flight bombing.
The full article can be found here:
N. Korea puts spy agencies under military control in major shakeup
Yonhap
5/10/2009