The North Korean Military Conundrum

The North Korean Military Conundrum

By E. Stanley Ukeni  

North Korea, on the 10^th of October, 2015, staged a spectacularly impressive military parade—along with other mass civilian performances, in commemoration of the 70^th anniversary of the reclusive nation’s ruling Workers’ Party. The lavish event was marked by pomp and circumstance, as thousands of precision goose-stepping soldiers paraded through the streets of the nation’s capital, Pyongyang, in a carefully choreographed show of military prowls and national pride.

Admittedly, the lavish military celebration delivered on the North Korean leadership’s long touted promise to stage the most elaborate military and civilian parade the country has organized since its leader, Kim Jong-Un, took power. The parade was indeed impressive in its immensity and organization.

At the commencement of the commemoration, the North Korean leader walked down a red carpet. He paused to salute his honor guard, before proceeding up to a podium to deliver a speech laced with fiery rhetoric. Although bellicose in nature, the substance of the rhetoric was largely geared towards the country’s domestic audience.  

“our party can confidently state that our revolutionary armament today can deal with any kind of war the U.S. imperialists asks for, and we are fully ready to persistently defend the country’s blue sky and the well-being of the people,” he retorted, before a cheering crowd.

He further assured his cheering citizenry that, “through the line of ‘Songun’ (military-first) politics, our Korean People’s Army has become the strongest revolutionary force and our country has become an impenetrable fortress and a global military power”.

After the commencement of the parade and pageantry, the country’s reclusive young leader was on hand to salute the nation’s armed forces from a viewing balcony overlooking the square named after his grandfather, as they marched past him—in impressive precision military formation.

As the throng of international dignitaries, international journalists and local spectators watched, wave upon wave of goose-stepping soldiers marched through Kim Il-Sung square, followed by thousands of flowers and flags waving civilian marchers—many dressed in colorful traditional Korean ‘hanbok’ outfits.

The march was then followed by columns of battle tanks, armored vehicles, rocket launchers and an array of ballistic missiles mounted on trucks and mobile missile launchers. While the columns of advanced weapon systems and platforms rolled by, military aircrafts flew in spectacular formation overhead.



I am certain that military and intelligence analysts would be busy for weeks trying to piece together the current political and military leadership structures of North Korea based on the people pictured nearest to Kim Jong-Un. I suspect that they would equally be trying to decipher any messages that the North Koreans may be sending through the structure of its military regiments at the parade. 



My bet is that weapons experts would also spend months trying to analyze the technical capacities of all the missiles the North Koreans rolled out during the parade. This, I suspect, would be of particular interest because for several months now, there has been all sorts of speculations hints at the North Koreans possessing a particularly menacing new weapon that employs an exotic process to exponentially enhance explosive yield.       



North Korea is a nation of approximately twenty-five million people—with a remarkable armed force for a country its size and economy. The North and South Korea remains technically at war because the 1950-1953 war ended in an armistice, and as such no peace treaty signed between them. As a consequence, the North Korean Workers’ Party had maintained a “military first” political doctrine.

The North Korean state boasts of an impressive standing army of more than 1.2 million active soldiers, and a further 7.7 million reserve fighting force. This makes the country’s arm forces one of the largest standing man army in the world. This remarkable troop numbers are further bolstered by an additional two hundred thousand highly-trained Special Forces units.



Over the years, the reclusive regime of North Korea’s DPRK has amassed a staggering stockpile of a vast array of military firepower—including artilleries, ballistic missiles, aircrafts and naval warcraft technologies and platforms. The North Korean leadership has long claimed to possess nuclear strike capability, although the size of its arsenal and their technological sophistication remains shrouded in secrecy.

Just this month, Senior U.S. officials, including Admiral Bill Gortney, the commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, stated to the press a believe that the North Koreans may indeed possess the ability to miniaturize a nuclear weapon to fit on a long range missile. Media reports indicated that he made the revelation while addressing a gathering hosted by the Washington-based Atlantic Council.

This may inform why the U.S. warned the North Korean regime of strong action from the international community it the country goes ahead with a speculated satellite launch as part of the 70^th anniversary of the reclusive nation’s ruling Workers’ Party commemoration.

It would be recalled that in September, the director of North Korea’s National Aerospace Development Administration declared that their country’s Aerospace agency was in the final stages of the development of a weather and earth observation satellite, and hinted at the prospect of launching the satellite atop a long-range ballistic missile around the  10^th of October’s Workers’ Party celebration.



“The world will clearly see a series of satellites... soaring into the sky at the times and locations determined by the WPK central committee,” the director of the North Korea’s National Aerospace Development Administration said in September.

Although the North Koreans insist that its rocket launch is intended to deploy a peaceful satellite into orbit, the United States and its allies view the planned rocket launch as guise for an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) test—which would violate UN resolutions banning North Korea from using ballistic missile technology.

It would seem the North Koreans heed the not so veiled warning from the United States’ government, as the regime shelved its intended satellite launch during the just commemorated 70^th anniversary of the Workers’ Party.  Of course, the Chinese variable may have equally weighed heavily on the North Korean leadership’s decision not to fire-off its rocket as they intended.

It’s a good bet to assume that U.S. and international monitors will continue to closely monitoring land-based missile launch sites and known nuclear test facilities for signs of activity.

This article is authored and published by E. Stanley Ukeni. Copyright © 2015. All Rights Reserved. This material and other articles or stories posted on this blog site may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed, in whole or in part, without prior expressed written permission from the author, E. Stanley Ukeni.