Kim Jong-un's First Decade in Power - North Korea's Coming Out Party

Part IV - North Korea's Coming Out Party

Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump walking together during the 2018 Singapore Summit. Image Credit: Shealah Craighead, June 12, 2018, official White House photograph.

 

Introduction

Hosting the Olympics for the first time is usually regarded as a country’s “coming out party”, letting the world see that they are capable of massive and complex infrastructure projects as well as having developed the diplomatic skills necessary to coordinate an event with tens of thousands of participants and countless visitors from around the world.

This was the case for South Korea in 1988 and China in 2008.

For North Korea, many view their coming out event as the year 2018 itself. In 2018, North Korea attempted to woo their southern cousins during the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics at the beginning of the year and followed it up with a summit in Singapore with the United States on June 12. For the first time in history, a sitting North Korean leader and a sitting American president sat across from each other at the same table. However, when Kim Jong-un first ascended to power, few thought such a meeting would ever be possible.

Kim Jong-un had very little diplomatic experience during his short grooming period and the North Korean diplomatic corps was, naturally, dominated by those who had served exclusively under Kim Jong-il. Making matters more difficult is the very limited range of independence North Korean diplomats have to adapt to what the moment requires. Rather, they’re often limited to repeating talking points and must seek authorization for even minor changes.

This has handicapped the vast majority of exchanges with North Korea and has often led to the collapse of talks. Regardless, an election in the U.S. and the openness of South Korean president Moon Jae-in created the opportunity for Kim Jong-un to engage with the world much more than his father, the insular-looking Kim Jong-Il.

And so, the world witnessed something of a miracle in 2018, but that year has become bookended by assassinations and nuclear tests before and aggressive stances and missile tests since. How the miracle year came about and where things seem to be going in the aftermath is what I hope to share in this article.

 

Early Moves, Fire & Fury

Early diplomatic outreaches by Kim Jong-un’s new regime followed long-established cycles of provocation followed by promises to talk in exchange for aid or sanctions relief, only to be followed by a period of provocation again. This was the case with the ‘Leap Day’ deal reached on Feb. 29, 2012 that would have allowed inspectors into the Yongbyon nuclear research site. However, the agreement was discarded a few weeks later as North Korea announced they would launch a satellite into space which the United States viewed as a violation of the agreement.

This cycle continued through to the election of Donald Trump in Nov. 2016. Although, while still firing missiles and testing nuclear weapons, the election seemed to provide Kim Jong-un with an opening to reach out to the U.S. as Trump relied more on his personal relationships with people than he relied on previous policy decisions or protocol. President Trump had also made it clear that he was willing to talk to anyone, including Putin and Xi Jinping, regardless of human rights abuses, if it meant improved bilateral relations and avoiding greater conflicts.

However, this opening appeared to slam shut for Kim Jong-un following the assassination of his half-brother Kim Jong-nam. The 45-year-old Jong-nam had been living in self-imposed exile for years and spent most of his time visiting casinos in Macau, going to concerts, and living in luxury apartments. As Kim Jong-un took power, Kim Jong-nam began to openly criticize the hereditary succession and called on North Korea to reform its practices. This placed Jong-nam in the very dangerous position of being a possible locus of dissent for unhappy elites in Pyongyang who may also want the country to reform.

After Kim Jong-un had solidified his power within the country, he made the decision to take out this threat. On February 13, 2017, Kim Jong-nam was passing through the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia where he was assaulted by two women, with one splashing him with a liquid and the other covering his face with a cloth.

The women were from Vietnam and Malaysia and had been told they were taking part in a TV prank show, but it was no prank. They had unknowingly exposed Jong-nam to the deadly and banned chemical weapon VX. He died soon after despite medical treatment.

The resulting backlash led to multiple countries (including Malaysia) recalling their ambassadors and closing embassies, leaving North Korea more isolated than ever.

But while the world looked on in horror at the assassination, it was North Korea’s weapons testing that really got under President Trump’s skin.

Kim Jong-un tested four nuclear devices between 2013 and 2017, with each device being more powerful than the next. The United States’ intelligence community eventually assessed that Pyongyang indeed had the capability to produce a miniaturized nuclear warhead that could be mounted on a missile.

Following up on two nuclear tests in 2016, North Korea conducted a series of missile tests in 2017 that culminated in the successful testing of the Hwasong-14 on July 4 and a second test on July 28. The Hwasong-14 became North Korea’s first missile capable of hitting nearly all of the continental United States.

Celebrating the July 4 test, Kim Jong-un called the launch a “gift [to the] American bastards…” for the U.S. Independence Day holiday and told officials to “frequently send big and small ‘gift packages’ to the Yankees”.

These tests brought the North Korea crisis to a boiling point and serious discussions were held about attacking the country or conducting a ‘decapitation strike’ against Kim Jong-un. President Trump summed up his feelings on August 8, 2017 declaring, “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States…they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” And, partially in response to the killing of Kim Jong-nam with a chemical weapon in a third-party country, the U.S. also relisted North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism that November.

It was under this shadow that South Korea prepared to host the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in the city of Pyeongchang. It was also at this point that back-channel discussions were ongoing to set up a new round of talks or even a summit to defuse the situation and avert war. After some uncertainty in 2017, North Korea had reached an agreement to participate in the 2018 Olympics on Jan. 9, 2018, but Pyongyang’s other aggressions were continuing and such a breakthrough event as a summit had yet to be formally agreed to by the time of the Games.

  

Onward to Pyeongchang

Kim Jong-un’s sister, Kim Yo-Jong, sits next to South Korea president Moon Jae-in during a performance of the North Korean Samjiyon Orchestra in Seoul. Image source: Korean Culture and Information Service, CC 2.0

Although Kim Jong-un said in his 2018 New Years’ Address that “North Korea's participation in the Winter Games will be a good opportunity to showcase the national pride and we wish the Games will be a success”, their participation was still up in the air after North Korea had failed to meet a deadline, but then a final agreement was reached on Jan. 9.

North Korea’s agreement to take part in the games and have both country’s athletes walk in the opening ceremony together under the Unification Flag was a great step toward rebuilding trust and cooperation between each side of the DMZ.

At the same time, as during the 1988 Summer Olympic Games that were held in Seoul, it was also feared North Korea might seek to either co-opt the events or cause major disruptions. In the case of the 1988 Games, this took the shape of bombing Korean Air Flight 858 in the runup to the Olympics that killed 115 people. For 2018, Japan’s Foreign Minister Taro Kono warned Seoul to be warry of any “charm offensive” coming from Pyongyang and there was even some backlash among South Koreans, as the Moon administration signaled that it was willing to give into North Korean demands including things that could be seen to intrude on South Korea’s own rights as a sovereign nation and on civil liberties.

Thankfully, the worst that happened was North Korea condemning the continued U.S. military presence on the peninsula and the military cooperation between Washington and Seoul. However, a kind of co-opting did happen in the form of Kim Jong-un’s sister – Kim Yo-jong.

The announcement that Kim Jong-un’s younger sister would serve as his envoy during the games helped to turn opposition into curiosity as a central member of the Kim family would be visiting South Korea in one of the biggest diplomatic moves since the Korean War.

Kim Yo-jong’s ‘cool personality' and appearance played well with the South Korean public and was evocative of the ‘Kim Jong-il mania’ that swept the country in 2000 following the first inter-Korean Summit as a result of South Korea’s Sunshine Policy that saw a dramatic, though temporary, rise in pro-North sentiment among the general public.

In this sense, Yo-jong helped open the door for future discussions and meetings between the two countries that would pave the way for the inter-Korean summit between Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in on April 27, 2018. This move also built up her own public name recognition globally and improved her growing standing within the North Korea elite as one of the few people Kim Jong-un trusts the most.

As part of the 22-member government delegation sent to South Korea, Yo-jong was also joined by Kim Yong-nam, the President of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly (SPA). A number of civilians were also sent including the Samjyong Orchestra, which was formed to perform in South Korea as part of the overall celebrations.

During the period of the Olympics, Yo-jong attended the opening ceremony, watched a hockey match, and met with several South Korean dignitaries including President Moon Jae-in himself, during which she delivered Kim Jong-un’s invitation for him to travel to Pyongyang. And while Yo-jong did not attend the closing ceremony, SPA Presidium member General Kim Yong-chol did, continuing the highest levels of North Korean representation throughout the events.

In contrast to Yo-jong’s engaging behavior, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence was noted as looking “stony face” during the opening ceremony, perhaps reflecting the Trump administration policy of ‘maximum pressure’ toward North Korea. However, relations would soon begin to thaw.

 

After a flurry of lower-level meetings in March and early April, on April 27 the first inter-Korean summit in eleven years took place. It was the first meeting between Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in and the summit gave rise to the Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Reunification of the Korean Peninsula.

The Panmunjom Declaration was largely a reiteration of the goals found in previous agreements, with some previsions recalling the 2000 June 15^th North–South Joint Declaration and the 2007 North–South Summit Declaration, namely to seek reunification on joint Korean terms, end hostilities, engage in economic cooperation, and develop a step-by-step process toward further cooperation and peace.

The Panmunjom Declaration did make some progress, however, in that it directly called for an official end to the Korean War (which is technically still ongoing) and gave a more detailed outline for how to accomplish the broader goals of the agreement. This included the creation of a North-South liaison office in Kaesong and connecting the countries through the Donghae and Gyeongui railways.

Additionally, both sides agreed to remove loudspeakers along the DMZ that have blasted propaganda into each country off and on for decades, and they agreed to put an end to sending balloons across the DMZ which is something North Korea, in particular, has long complained about.

The move against balloons, which are often sent across by South Korean civilian groups, would expose the South Korean government to considerable criticism by civil rights activists as the government signaled its willingness to prosecute citizens for sending anything over the DMZ, including money and USBs of popular television shows.

But while the domestic political issues took on a life of its own, both Koreas continued their engagement and two more inter-Korean summits were held in 2018.

At the same time, efforts were underway to bring an end to the rising antagonism between North Korea and the United States.

 

Working Toward a Summit

North Korea’s participation in the Olympics and the Panmunjom Declaration created an opportunity for North Korea and the United States to begin a period of détente. After the bellicose heights of “fire and fury” the year before, a South Korean delegation met with Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang on March 5, 2018 to negotiate future moves toward peace.

Mere days after the Pyongyang meeting, South Korean officials were at the White House where President Trump met with South Korea national security adviser Chung Eui-yong and National Information Director Suh Hoon to discuss their meeting with Kim Jong-un. They then presented Trump with an invitation by Kim Jong-un to eventually meet, with the likely timeframe being in May.

However, as Ankit Panda laid out for the BBC, “There was something profoundly odd about the optics of this announcement. Three South Koreans… stood shoulder-to-shoulder speaking to eagerly-gathered reporters outside the West Wing. Without any American officials present, it very much placed this entire diplomatic initiative in South Korea's hands. One could easily walk away sensing that the United States wasn't entirely enthusiastic about this endeavor.”

This framing of the U.S. mood was indeed correct. Although President Trump accepted Kim Jong-un’s invitation “on the spot”, as the details of the meeting began to be planned, the United States reiterated its policy that North Korea must take “concrete and verifiable steps” toward denuclearization prior to any summit and that sanctions against the country would remain in place until an agreement is made between the two countries.

Kim Jong-un appeared to have foreseen these demands and preemptively placed a self-imposed moratorium on further nuclear tests and agreed it would dismantle certain missile and nuclear sites including at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station, a test stand at the Iha-ri military base, and close the Punggye-ri nuclear test site. The moratorium had already been agreed to back on March 5, but Kim Jong-un didn’t make a formal announcement until April 20 saying, the country is doing this to “prove the vow to suspend nuclear [testing]”.

While this gave Pyongyang an air of sincerity as a good-faith actor, eager to follow through with the summit just a few weeks away, some analysts felt that the move had more to do with the fact that North Korea simply didn’t need to conduct any more nuclear tests as it had already accomplished what it needed.

 

During this time, South Korea was also meeting with China and Japan to continue laying groundwork and working out the ultimate details of the summit.

As opportunities grew through the Olympics and into March, Kim Jong-un held a clandestine meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on March 25-28, marking his first visit with the Chinese leader. During the two-day meeting, the leaders discussed matters of denuclearization and improving ties between the longstanding allies. This meeting was followed by others, all publicly announced, which ended up bringing China into helping to orchestrate the future Trump-Kim summit.

This was an important development as the Trump administration had insisted since the 2016 presidential campaign that China take a more direct role in resolving the nuclear issue and in upholding United Nations’ sanctions against North Korea.

Despite the trepidation on behalf of some in the administration, the U.S. began to take a more active role in setting up a summit. On April 1, 2018, then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo went on a secret meeting in Pyongyang to talk about the nuclear issue and to help clear the way for the Trump-Kim summit expected in May or June as South Korea announced back in March. Of particular interest for the summit was trying to agree on a location. The Trump administration had offered four politically neutral sites, Ulaanbaatar, Stockholm, Geneva, or Singapore. It was also floated that Seoul, Pyongyang, or Panmunjom on the DMZ could host the summit.

 

Things seemed to be moving in a generally positive and forward motion until on April 29, 2018, U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton referenced Libya as a model for how to deal with North Korea, as Gaddafi had given up Libya’s nuclear program for sanctions relief in 2002-03. Bolton had long been hawkish on foreign policy regarding North Korea and other “rogue nations”, and generally preferred military action to continued diplomacy.

Bolton’s hawkishness meant that his statement toward North Korea carried with it overtones of a threat, as despite the denuclearization agreement by Libya, less than a decade later, Gaddafi was under air attack by NATO forces as the Libyan Revolution raged on in 2011. He was eventually shot and sodomized in a drain culvert by opposing forces while trying to escape after the Battle of Sirte.

Pyongyang has often referred to Libya as an example of why one should never relinquish nuclear weapons and why North Korea can’t trust the United States, as the U.S. and the West eventually facilitated Gaddafi’s disposition and death (along with Saddam Hussein’s) despite their nuclear and WMD capitulation.

Indeed, Dr. Guo Yu, principal Asia analyst at the global risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft said that Kim Jong-un has learned this lesson well, “We see in Libya and Iraq countries who gave up their WMD programs, and foreign power campaigns that led to a regime change,…To safeguard against that, North Korea [is] firmly in the belief that they need to have credible nuclear deterrent…”

So, whether or not Bolton’s comments were an unforced error or a less-than-subtle attempt to derail the summit process is up for debate. Regardless, with pressure from China and after some substantial “explanations” by the Trump administration, saying that Bolton was only referring to the positive outcomes of 2002-03 and not ultimately to regime change, the summit process was back on track.

This was especially true as tensions eased further after North Korea released three American prisoners it had been holding for as long as 31 months. Kim Dong-chul, Kim Sang-duk, and Kim Hak-song were released to the newly confirmed Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State and landed at Joint Andrews Airforce Base in Washington, DC on May 10.

Despite the summit preparations having resumed, the risk of cancelation was always near the surface. In yet another ‘unforced error’, on May 17 President Trump threatened North Korea with “Libya’s fate” if a deal wasn’t made. Unlike Bolton’s comments earlier in the month, Trump’s comments weren’t a subtle or oblique threat to regime change. It was directly threatening war.

Trump’s words could easily be seen as hyperbole and another example of him not thinking before he spoke, but a few days later U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, who was seen as a more thoughtful and reasoned person also echoed the threat, “this will only end like the Libyan model ended if Kim Jong-un doesn't make a deal”.

This incensed the North Koreans and vice foreign minister Choe Son-hui said that the comments were threatening a nuclear showdown. Then on May 24, Trump called off the summit citing North Korea’s “open hostility” in a letter to Kim Jong-un. However, he also left the door open for continuing talks of a summit if Kim were to “change [his] mind”.

Ironically, May 24 was also the day that North Korea demolished the tunnel entrances to the Punggye-ri nuclear test site.

By any historic standard of dealing with North Korea, this would have ended the entire thing. But North Korea almost reached out immediately, with Kim Jong-un saying, “We would like to make known to the US side once again that we have the intent to sit with the US side to solve problem(s) regardless of ways at any time”.

In another high-level meeting, vice chair of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, Kim Yong-chol, met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in New York City on May 30 to further negotiate the summit issue. He was the highest-level official to travel to the United States since 2000.

Then on June 1, President Trump announced that the summit would happen after all, following the "very nice statement" by North Korea sent to President Trump and other overtures. The location and date would be the same as announced (back on May 10) prior to the cancellation: Singapore on June 12.

How much of a problem the week-long cancellation caused to setting up the summit isn’t known, but both sides began final preparations without skipping a beat the moment the announcement to resume was made.

 

Singapore and Hanoi

Trump and Kim shaking hands on June 12 just before the start of their one-on-one meeting. Image source: Dan Scavino.

 Having the idea for a summit is one thing but planning it and figuring out how Kim Jong-un could physically get to the chosen location was quite another. Aside from the fact that Kim is a named individual targeted by sanctions and has been blamed for massive human rights abuses by the United Nations (which could prevent any ordinary person from traveling internationally), the DPRK national airline, Air Koryo, isn’t allowed to operate in the majority of international airspace due to safety concerns and international aviation regulations.

Although Kim has the use of a Soviet-era Ilyushin-62M passenger jet as a kind of “Pyongyang One”, the plane has been retired by all other national operators except for use in carrying cargo. Its age and the extreme distance of 4,700 km meant that Kim needed a different way to get to the summit.

After some negotiations and China playing on Kim’s fear of long-distance flights, it was decided that Kim would borrow a much more modern and safe Boeing 747 owned by Beijing, with the Ilyushin-62M traveling along as a transport for Kim Yo-jong and other officials. An Ilyushin-76 also traveled from Pyongyang carrying food and other items.

Venue scouting, security, deciding where the media events would be held, and other logistics were all finalized in June and included substantial assistance from the government of Singapore including the government’s agreement to pay for the hotel bills of the North Korean delegation. In the end, it is estimated that Singapore paid a total of $11.9 million to host the summit.

 

Kim Jong-un was the first to arrive, landing in Singapore in the afternoon of June 10. He was followed by President Trump who arrived in Singapore at 8:20 pm after having left the G7 meeting earlier than planned that was happening in Canada. Trump was excited for the summit and tweeted out, “It will certainly be an exciting day and I know that Kim Jong Un will work very hard to do something that rarely been done before. Create peace and great prosperity for his land.”

Before both men retired to their respective hotels, Kim at the St. Regis and Trump at the Shangri-La Hotel, Kim met with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Trump met with him that Monday for a working lunch.

Monday saw a series of meetings between U.S. and Singapore officials and between North Korea and Singapore, as well as several press briefings. Kim Jong-un also took this opportunity to tour the city with his sister. Kim has been known to take part in the leisure and touristy facilities available in North Korea, like enjoying rides during the opening of the Rungna Peoples’ Pleasure Grounds in 2012 and visiting the country’s ski resorts. So it was little surprise that he would want to take one the rare times he left his homeland to play tourist for the day, as the following day would be all about business.

That Tuesday began with the sun shining and both men traveling to the summit venue at the Capella Resort amid heavy security. The official start to the proceedings was at 9:05 am and they met and shook hands for the first time. Afterward, a one-on-one meeting between the leaders was held followed by an expanded meeting involving various officials from both countries.

After the expanded bilateral meeting, the two men joined each other for a working lunch and then took a walk around the grounds of the resort where President Trump briefly showed off ‘the Beast’ to Kim who seemed very interested in the presidential limousine as US Secret Service agents tried to limit access to photographers from seeing too much of the notoriously classified interior.

Soon after, Trump and Kim sat down to sign a joint statement. Part of the statement reads, “President Trump committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK, and Chairman Kim Jong Un reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

It also included four provisions:

1. The United States and the DPRK commit to establish new U.S.–DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity.
2. The United States and the DPRK will join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.
3. Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
4. The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.

Although the statement didn’t bring about any brand new agreements and wasn’t legally binding, it was nonetheless an “epochal event of great significance in overcoming decades of tensions and hostilities between the two countries and for the opening up of a new future”.

The summit closed with a U.S. press conference where President Trump called the meetings a success and unilaterally announced the end of joint military exercises with the South Korean military without first consulting South Korea. He also expressed a desire for the eventual removal of all U.S. military personnel on the peninsula. These two things have long been sought after by North Korea but the U.S. had always resisted the moves until after a denuclearized North Korea. Trump, it seems, was about to give away the store.

However, despite the overall positive nature of the summit and the excitement for the future it generated, once Trump was back in Washington, the pragmatic realities of the situation sank back in.

Although claiming victory and tweeting that North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat to the United States, his official actions told a different story. He extended Executive Order 13466 because “the current existence and risk of the proliferation of weapons-usable fissile material on the Korean Peninsula constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.”

Continuing with the undertakings, Mike Pompeo met with WPK vice chairman General Kim Yong-chol in Pyongyang in July, but according to the North Korean’s, U.S. demands displayed a “gangster-like attitude”. Negative assessments of future negotiations that were held with Pompeo and other officials would continue to be made by North Korea, revealing deep differences between how each side viewed the proceedings and how they thought denuclearization should take place.

Concurrently, the regime still publicly claimed to hold out hope for a peace brokered directly between the two leaders.

Despite knowing that coming to peace with North Korea wasn’t actually going to be as simple as a summit and a few tweets, both men did heavily rely on their developing personal relationships with each other to try to keep the process moving forward. Trump and Kim exchanged a series of letters with Trump even exclaiming that they “fell in love” during one political rally. Analysts often say that Kim Jong-un was playing on President Trump’s ego through effusive praise and using honorifics such as “your excellency”, nonetheless, the letters did seem to extend the life of the peace negotiations.

Still, more was needed. To try and avoid having the process stall out, plans for a second summit were confirmed by the White House on Sept. 11, 2018 to be held in the “not too distant future”.

Kim Jong-un had been pushing for sanctions relief and disagreements with the U.S. over how much relief and when repeatedly became a key issue. The U.S. was also becoming frustrated by North Korea’s concessions to dismantle one nuclear or missile facility while continuing work at multiple others, all despite also saying that they no longer wished to test nuclear weapons.

These contradictions caused lower-level meetings to be canceled only to later be rescheduled. Even so, Kim said during 2019 New Years’ speech that he was willing to again meet with Trump anytime. Soon after, vice chair Kim Yong Chol traveled to D.C. to meet with Secretary of State Pompeo and President Trump.

Two months later, Trump told the world during his 2019 State of the Union address that a second summit would be held, this time in Vietnam on February 27-28.

Like his father, Kim Jong-un prefers to travel in one of his six armored trains. After the embarrassment of needing to borrow a Chinese jet to get to Singapore, Kim opted to use this slower (but far more luxurious method) of travel to Hanoi. He arrived at the Đồng Đăng railway station on Feb. 26.

The summit was held at the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi on Feb. 27-28, with a one-on-one meeting held first followed by a dinner. While it seemed to have some initial success on the first day, it was abruptly ended on the second day with no further agreements reached.

Concessions, like shuttering the nuclear facility at Yongbyon, was sought by Trump and offered by Kim but the U.S. would not offer to do anything upfront, only after North Korea carried out its part of the agreement, leaving Kim with even less leverage should the administration choose not to end sanctions.

Contradictions in Trump’s demands and other statements had further added Kim Jong-un’s growing loss of patience, especially after Trump had also acknowledged North Korea’s ‘good behavior’ back in 2018, “The hostages are back. There have been no tests. There have been no rockets going up for a period of nine months, and I think the relationships are very good, so we'll see how that goes.” That good behavior had largely continued throughout 2019, so North Korea would naturally see itself as abiding by previous agreements.

The administration’s demands, however, were not viewed by Kim to be followed up with ‘corresponding measures’ such as permanently ending joint military drills with South Korea or easing specific sanctions. And it must be said that North Korea, whether earnestly seeking peace through denuclearization or not, did actively concede far more than the U.S. ever did.

Hanoi also underscored the fact that North Korea’s definition of “denuclearization” is somewhat different than America’s, with North Korea including the removal of nuclear-capable bombers from the peninsula, a nuclear no-first-use guarantee by the United States, and the quick removal of U.S. personnel from South Korea – all prior to North Korea giving up its last remaining nuclear bomb. And it underscored that the administration didn’t seem to realize North Korea viewed the world in different terms.

It can’t be said that the summit failed just due to the Trump administration, as North Korea’s public words and covert actions rarely lined up together, but the possibility of a summit without any new agreements could, in the words of Ankit Panda, be seen a mile away exactly because of these misunderstandings and lop-sided actions.

The view that total disarmament before sanctions relief was doomed to failure (and that an incremental arms control policy would bear more fruit) was echoed by Doug Brandow, a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, who said that “[Trump] apparently pushed for the full monty, an all nukes for all sanctions deal, which was never realistic.” And then he compared the US-DPRK summits to that of the US and the USSR at Reykjavik in 1986 saying, “A failure to agree does not doom the relationship. Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev did not join in Reykjavik to eliminate nuclear weapons. But they ultimately agreed to other arms limitations and ended the Cold War.”

Making matters worse, it was later revealed by John Bolton that Trump had given Kim a note during the second day telling him to surrender all of his nuclear weapons and nuclear fuel to the United States before any sanctions relief. It was at that point that Kim Jong-un canceled the rest of the summit.

The Party Ends, Back to Isolation

In one last attempt at getting things back on track, Kim Jong-un sent Trump another letter. North Korea’s Foreign Ministry also released a statement calling President Trump the “supreme leader of the United States”; once again playing to his ego. Through these overtures, Kim asked for another meeting with Trump.

The final Trump-Kim summit was held on June 30, 2019. This trilateral meeting involved President Trump, Kim Jong-un, and South Korean president Moon Jae-in, but it was little more than a photo opportunity as President Trump stepped over the military demarcation line (the de facto border) at Panmunjom into North Korea. No further deals were made and the meeting only lasted a few hours.

Symbolically, this gave Kim Jong-un an enormous domestic boost as this was the first time a sitting American president had been on North Korean soil, but nothing of substance was achieved.

With Kim walking away with greater domestic legitimacy (having been the first North Korean leader to bring the Yankees to heel) and with denuclearization becoming an intractable issue yet again, the gulf between the two countries became even more clear.

Momentum toward a substantial, enforceable agreement began to stall even though lower-level talks continued, and as domestic forces in South Korea and the U.S. started to draw attention away onto other matters.

Even after President Trump eventually fired John Bolton, citing his Libya comments, tensions still rose. North Korea conducted missiles tests in August 2019 for the first time since November 29, 2017 and joint US-ROK military drills also began again.

But despite relations cooling between Pyongyang and the rest of the international community, the situation didn’t immediately devolve into disaster. Some of the agreed upon measures between North and South Korea were still carried out including the establishment of the Inter-Korean Liaison Office in Kaesong and on Nov. 24, 2018, the United Nations greenlit the inter-Korean joint field study on connecting the two countries via rail. The project’s groundbreaking followed on December 26 (although, there has been little additional progress).

And in one of the more visually dramatic moves of the 2018-2019 peace process, both countries carried out the demolition of several guard posts along the DMZ in late 2018 as a gesture showing their commitment to eventually dismantle the Demilitarized Zone.

 

Although bilateral relations between North and South Korea have improved in the last few years, particularly as Moon Jae-in has sought to maintain a personal relationship with Kim, things have not been without substantial controversy that could usher in more opposition politicians as elections are held in South Korea.

Creating particular consternation within South Korea has been Moon’s willingness to step on freedom of speech and other civil liberties in an attempt to appease Kim Jong-un. This includes banning sending balloons and leaflets across the border and cracking down on human rights activists. This has created a lot of internal pressure to change tactics regarding North Korea and made it more difficult for Moon to carry out his preferred policies toward the DPRK.

 

Evidence of continued hostile feelings and cracks in the process were obvious even throughout the summit process. Even though Kim Jong-un held three summits with President Trump and three with President Moon, the threats coming from North Korea didn’t stop. And sometimes, they were quite severe.

Following the summits, this boiled to the surface. As part of Kim Jong-un’s pressure campaign on President Moon, he had Kim Yo-jong write on June 13, 2020 what can only be described as an op-ed in her own name (an extremely rare occurrence in North Korea) threatening to pull out of the 2018 Panmunjom Declaration if activists weren’t stopped from sending balloons over the DMZ. This was followed up a day later by a statement from the Workers’ Party of Korea in support of the threats.

Another one of the threats was to shutter the Inter-Korean Liaison Office located in the Kaesong Industrial Region that had been established in 2018.

Establishing the office, which had been placed inside of an existing building, cost South Korea $8.6 million in renovation expenses and was meant to serve as a de facto embassy as neither country has formal diplomatic relations with the other.

The threats were soon seen through when on June 16, 2020, an explosion rocked Kaesong. The Inter-Korea Liaison Office had been blown up. The demolition occurred on what was the 20^th anniversary of the first inter-Korean summit.

While South Korea said it would “respond strongly” if North Korea continued to raise tensions, nothing of note actually happened in retaliation.

And in protest to joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises that began on August 16, 2020, Kim had the Seoul-Pyongyang Hotline cut in September. The phone line connects the two countries and is also supposed to allow for direct communication between both leaders in the event of an emergency. It wasn’t until October 4 that the hotline was confirmed to have been restored.

 

Rising tensions on the peninsula are only one facet of North Korea’s slide back toward belligerence and isolation.

North Korea has tested missiles 39 times since the start of 2019, returning to the pre-2017 era when Kim Jong-un had tested more missiles than Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il combined. Reports on their nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, Kangson, and Pyongsan all prove that North Korea’s nuclear program is still very much active. And the United Nations has released multiple Panel of Expert reports detailing North Korea’s illicit trade activities ranging from smuggling in oil to selling coal and counterfeit goods.

North Korea also took an active role in isolating itself further in response to COVID-19. Scores of diplomatic staff and their families have been forced to leave the country, even via hand-powered, open-topped rail trollies in freezing weather.

It has been theorized that the real reason behind this expulsion of foreigners is to further limit the flow of information into the country which strengthens the regime. Additionally, Pyongyang has engaged in crackdowns on “non-socialist behavior” as several new restrictions, particularly aimed at North Korean youth, have been implemented since the start of COVID.

COVID also provided a raison d'etre to further attack market activities and strive for greater centralization, with Kim reversing his more open attitude toward economic activity in his early days.

Even the World Food Program left the country, leaving North Korea with no UN or NGO workers in the country and almost no foreign nationals of any kind.

While 2021 has provided minor hope that the ‘blockade’ of trade and travel won’t last forever, as preparations are being made to resume limited trade with China, there are no signs that North Korea will soon return to a pre-COVID state.

 

Conclusions

Stories of national salvation have helped propel and preserve the Kim family’s power. Kim Il-sung saved the country from the Japanese and later from the Americans. Kim Jong-il saved the country from being overrun during its weakest point since the Korean War as a result of famine and the collapse of international communism. Kim Jong-un, it would seem, has been attempting to save the country for its own future. He has focused on ‘moving the revolution forward’ to create a North Korea capable of standing alone on the world stage with both military credibility and diplomatic credibility.

He has thus far accomplished this through parallel tracks of weapon development and diplomatic maneuvering; however, the lasting effects of Pyongyang’s engagements are in question. Although Kim did manage to buy time and to bully South Korea into passing some very undemocratic laws, he seems to have squandered much of the goodwill and international willingness to cooperate through his actions since the summits.

While the country is preparing to resume trade with China as the threats posed by COVID-19 wane, the broader international community appears to be even less willing to engage as Pyongyang’s illicit activities have been described in ever greater detail and as North Korea gets back to missile testing.

Despite the initial promise of the summits with South Korea and the United States, North Korea seems to be just as isolated as a decade ago.

Complicating matters has been that the new Biden administration has been slow to develop its own North Korea policies and didn’t appoint a special representative for North Korea until May 21, 2021. This limits Washington’s ability to engage with the country and made high-level talks far less likely for the near future. This leaves Kim up to his own devices to drive events, as he continues to search for ways to bring the U.S. back to the table in the hopes of ending sanctions and gaining other concessions.

~ ~ ~ ~ 

I have scheduled this project to run through to the end of the year, with a new article coming out roughly every 10 days or so. If you would like to support the project and help me with research costs, please consider supporting AccessDPRK on Patreon. Those supporters donating $15 or more each month will be entitled to a final PDF version of all the articles together that will also have additional information included once the series is finished. They will also receive a Google Earth map related to the events in the series, and can get access to the underlying data behind the supplemental reports.

Supporters at other levels will be sent each new article a day before it’s published and will also receive a mention as seen below.

I would like to thank my current Patreon supporters: Amanda O., GreatPoppo, Joel Parish, John Pike, Kbechs87, Rinmanah, Russ Johnson.

--Jacob Bogle, 11/30/2021
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Kim Jong-un's First Decade - A Decade of Military Growth

This is the third of the supplemental articles for the Kim Jong-un's First Decade in Power series. It details the various infrastructure changes and weapon developments of North Korea's conventional forces over the last decade.

Screenshot of video showing a massive artillery exercise on April 25, 2017.

As I recently laid out in Sharpening the Treasured Sword, there’s plenty to talk about when it comes to the nuclear issue and there’s no shortage of analysts and think tanks who provide valuable information on the topic. What often gets overlooked, however, is how North Korea’s conventional military has changed over the years, particularly regarding training, and how the parallel national economy operated by the military has altered the literal landscape of defense infrastructure.

The US Defense Intelligence Agency’s 2021 North Korea Military Power report noted,

Kim Jong Un has also focused his attention on the KPA’s conventional capabilities.  From 2011-2017 Kim kept up a steady pace of public engagements with military units to emphasize the KPA’s centrality to the North Korean regime, and has directed improvements in the realism and complexity of military training.  To that end, Kim presided over high-profile artillery firepower exercises, Air Force pilot competitions, and special forces raid training on mock-ups of the South Korean presidential residence.

Using the locations mapped in the AccessDPRK 2021 Pro Map, I want to examine the evidence of on-the-ground changes and what adaptations have occurred under Kim Jong-un to the country’s conventional forces, and how these changes have positioned the North Korean armed forces to take greater advantage of their limited technology and supplies so they still pose a credible threat in spite of such limitations.

Within the AccessDPRK map are over 13,000 military-related sites. However, a single missile or navy base could include a dozen other sites as individual locations of interest within those bases are identified. Thus, the focus of this supplemental report will be on the primary aspects of North Korea’s military infrastructure: individual bases as a whole, major artillery sites, the KPA Navy, and KPA Air Force. So, this brought the scope of research down to around 5,000 relevant locations.

As they’re associated with the nuclear issue, the country’s missile bases are excluded from this report as are the numerous static fortifications throughout the country. While static fortifications may have a role to play in delaying an invasion, and though some sites have been constructed by Kim Jong-un, they are not part of North Korea’s offensive capabilities nor would they play any sort of active role during a conflict in the same way a radar site or airbase would.

I’m also not going to include airfields that were constructed or modernized for VIP use. Sites like the Sanghung-dong VIP Helibase or palace runways tell a story in their own right, but I don’t feel they belong in the scope of this report.

 

KPA Bases

A map of bases that have either been constructed or undergone major renovations since Kim Jong-un came to power.

In the process of mapping the country, which I began in late 2012, two main trends became obvious. One, that there was some sort of overall restructuring taking place. And, secondly, that there was a huge emphasis being placed on military training.

Although these changes began years prior, it was at the Seventh Central Military Commission meeting in 2019 that the KNCA reported on major reforms within the military. Particularly, the government wanted to address “irrational structure and defects in machinery and some shortcomings in other military [activities]” and the meeting discussed the “decisive improvement of the overall national defence and core matters for the sustained and accelerated development of military capability for self-defence.”

The reference to “machinery” wasn’t talking about industrial machines but was referring to the military bureaucracy and how the military carries out its goals, from training and readiness to utilizing personnel.

The Seventh Central Military Commission thereby served to openly codify what had already been happening on the ground for some time.

Based on the AccessDPRK 2021 Pro Map, there have been at least 127 bases that were either newly constructed or underwent a major renovation since 2012 (with heightened activity from 2014-2017). And, reflecting North Korea’s military strategy, most of the new construction has been at sites within 100 km of the DMZ, which is where roughly half of all KPA personnel is stationed.

Among these facilities are over 50 training bases of various types. Ranging from small collections of obstacle courses and firing ranges to large tank training fields and urban warfare centers, it is clear that the organizational system for training has been reformed and as part of that, that the bases themselves underwent a period of renovation to better provide the types of training the regime deems necessary.

A few examples can be found at the following sites.

• In 2014, the large training complex near Yongbyon (39.850105° 125.675129°) was modernized and an urban warfare center (or MOUT = military operations on urban terrain) was added that includes a mockup of the headquarters building of the ROK combined forces complex in Gyeryongdae. 
• Soe-gol, the largest single training base in Pyongyang, had a vast driving course added in 2019 that has 11 km of paths and multiple obstacle sites (berms, water obstacles, etc). Other portions of the base have also been renovated or expanded over the decade. 
• An example of a more traditional training complex can be found at 38.422863° 128.102209°. It was established in 2016 and contains an obstacle course with hurdles, ditches, a trench, and a 100-meter-long pool.
• Lastly, a 1.5 sq. km. complex near the Ryokpo Leadership Residence (38.895717° 125.940640°) was completely reconstructed from 2014-15 and includes multiple distinct training areas. While the exact identification of the complex is unknown to me, its layout and building designs suggest that it includes ideological training beyond what is normally provided and is used by elite military units.

As the US Defense Intelligence Agency's military power report also noted, “North Korea has emphasized SOF unit training with particular focus on improving their capability to raid key government installations in the South.”

As part of that, North Korea constructed scale-models of South Korea’s Blue House, the DMZ Joint Security Area (Panmunjom), and the aforementioned Gyeryongdae model.

The Blue House is of particular interest because in 1968 thirty-one North Korean agents infiltrated the grounds of the Blue House in an attempt to assassinate South Korean president Park Chung-hee. The model was constructed in 2016 and “raids” have been carried out at least twice, with paratroopers and other special forces attacking the building.

No large-scale attack exercises are known to have taken place at either the mock Panmunjom or Gyeryongdae sites but both structures are located at large training bases and provide the KPA with opportunities to familiarize themselves with the locations and how to attack them. However, Panmunjom offers more than just war training.

The timing of its construction in late 2017, while not built for the summit no one knew would happen, could have given Kim Jong-un and particularly his security guards the ability to do dry runs, walking through the complex and knowing how and where to move. It may even now serve to train the border guards in the region on how to stop any future defections after the bold escape of Oh Chong-song on Nov. 13, 2017.

While these mockups could be categorized as part of MOUT training, the largest MOUT base in the country is at Unsal (40.013806° 125.885916°), with the ‘urban’ section of the base covering 16 hectares. The actual MOUT structures have largely remained the same, but the other facilities at the base were expanded in two phases between 2014 and 2020, with the administrative center receiving the most change. As I’ll discuss in some more detail later, a paratrooper jump tower was also erected at the base in 2014.

The large Changdo training complex (38.642975° 127.742591°) includes a MOUT sector that was constructed in 2018-19 as well as a large firing range and areas for tank maneuvers. In 2011 and 2018 a series of 31 new barracks were constructed, allowing at least 1,500 soldiers to train at the base at any given time.

Of the seven largest MOUT facilities, five have experienced some level of renovation or expansion and a sixth may currently be having relevant construction done.

Lastly, dozens of ‘drive-thru’ bunkers have also been constructed in recent years. These bunkers are able to accommodate trucks, armored vehicles, and towed artillery but not TELs. The bunkers vary in size but tend to be 5-6 meters wide and 20-40 meters long. They can be used to protect vehicles during fueling or adding armaments and also provide hardened cover to allow them to fire at a target and then hide to evade detection and counterfire, the so-called shoot-and-scoot tactic.

Artillery

A map showing the locations of each of the new HARTS and their maximum firing range.

One of the earliest changes that Kim Jong-un saw through was the construction of 126 hardened artillery sites (HARTS). Nearly all of them were built within 10 km of the DMZ. 

Construction work on this massive project began soon before Kim Jong-il’s death, but Kim Jong-un continued the work which extended into 2017. These new HARTS comprise 20.7% of all HARTS in the region and hold between four and six individual guns (the Koksan 170 mm self-propelled gun, and 122 mm, 130 mm, and 152 mm systems are all capable of being used at these sites). The new HARTS can fire artillery 60 km, placing all of Seoul and Inchon in range of tens of thousands of artillery shells an hour.

A number of individual hardened bunkers for multiple rocket launchers were constructed as part of this broader project along the coast of South Hwanghae Province, placing islands near the Northern Limit Line at risk. Most of these MRL bunkers were constructed in 2012 after the 2010 shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, with several more built in 2014. It has been reported that Kim Jong-un visited one of the bases from where the shelling originated the day before the attack.

 

Despite their near obsolescence in the face of modern fighter jets, North Korea has also continued to update its air defenses and to reassess which anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) batteries are still necessary and which ones can be decommissioned.

In the last decade, 19 AAA batteries have been constructed. Additionally, there are two likely surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites currently under construction which, once completed, would bring the total number of active sites to 61. The new SAMs would be capable of supporting North Korea’s newest SAM system, the KN-06 and variants.

While North Korea’s AAA batteries field predominately low-altitude, Soviet-based artillery that can’t threaten most modern fighter craft or bombers, the country has nonetheless constructed 19 new batteries.

The construction of these new sites often coincided with the decommissioning of a number of others, particularly in eastern Pyongyang in 2016-17. And over the last 35 years or so, there have been around 300 total closures of AAA sites across the country. The reasons for removing an AAA site in 1986 or in 2016 could easily be the same given the state of the country’s artillery. Most of the guns are from the 1950s and 60s, there is a lack of ammunition and a lack of replacement parts for the older radar systems.

So, closing redundant sites, especially in the face of modern warfare, makes sense to preserve their limited supply of parts for more important sites. However, the fact at least 19 have been built in just the last decade raises some questions about this commonly held wisdom.

However, what’s more important than adding a few or demolishing a few AAAs has been the development of new radars, new surface-to-air missiles, and other air defenses.

But before I move on to these newer systems, a number of older AAAs have been converted to hardened sites, with the guns hidden within bunkers instead of out in the open or covered by tarps. Additionally, several other sites have had their radars replaced and other features added that may make them capable of being launching sites for rockets and short-range missiles.

As for North Korea’s surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems, while most of the soon-to-be 61 active sites still rely on  S-75, S-125, and S-200 systems from decades ago, the country does have the ability to maintain and replace them and they’ve been kept at a higher state of readiness than the shorter range AAAs.

But beginning in 2017, the country started to field its own KN-06 SAM system (largely based on the Russian S-300). Its use of mobile radar instead of the usual fixed emplacements also means that the systems could be deployed at any number of hardened sites and not just at the existing 61 known SAM sites. According to The Drive, the KN-06 radar system “appears to be an indigenous version of the mobile 5N63 "Flap Lid" phased array radar, and likely has capabilities somewhat akin to later versions of the S-300P SAM system…[these] later versions could track 12 and engage six.”

Continuing with air defense, North Korea recently tested a new anti-aircraft missile, with the test “aimed at confirming the practical functionality of the missile's launcher, radar, comprehensive battle command vehicle and combat performance.” More information is still needed but if the test was indeed successful and the missile goes into mass production, it adds another layer of complexity to any future air war over the peninsula.

Lastly, North Korea has tested several new types of multiple rocket launchers including a ‘super-large' MRL (known as the KN-25) in 2019 that has a range of 321 km. Blurring the line between rockets and short-range ballistic missiles, if deployed in sufficient numbers along the DMZ, they could target roughly 90% of South Korean territory and could easily threaten every American base in the country except for the U.S Navy base at Jinhae.

 

KPA Navy

There were a number of early signs that the KPA Navy was attempting a modernization program (encompassing new weapons and new infrastructure), with Kim Jong-un continuing a number of programs initiated by his father and beginning some of his own.

Outside of the development of submarine-launched ballistic missiles and the Sinpo-C submarine variant (which was discussed in Sharpening the Treasured Sword), North Korea began to show off its latest Nongo class surface effect ships (SES). In development since at least 2002, the first official images of these SES with all of their armaments in place occurred in 2015.

They have been described by ArsTechnica as “a high-speed "stealth" ship-killer using a surface effect hull—a combination of catamaran and hovercraft.” The “stealth” comes from a faceted hull shape that lowers its radar reflectivity. While not a true stealth ship, it is an improvement over older vessel designs.

These SES carry four KN-09 anti-ship missiles batteries. According to ArsTechnica, they also carry two AK-630 30mm close-in weapons systems, four machine gun turrets, and a short-range anti-aircraft missile system. Nongo’s have been spotting in Wonsan, Munchon, and Nampo and at least five of them have been identified as of 2021.

The Navy also developed two new frigates capable of carrying helicopters, first launched in 2011-12. According to Joseph Bermudez, these anti-submarine warfare helicopter frigates (FFH) are the largest KPN surface ships developed since 1990 and “may also represent an evolutionary step in the development of naval strategy to include helicopter anti-submarine operations.”

Beginning around 2013, one of the two Najin-class frigates (North Korea’s flagship class) started to undergo a modernization process of its own. The vessel, hull number 631, had several systems replaced throughout 2014 and new ones added including two 30mm automated turrets (based on the Soviet AK-630 CIWS) and eight Kh-35 anti-ship missiles. Other short-range missile systems and newer radars were installed later. This makes the ship the most dangerous traditional warship in the fleet.

 

The ingenuity of North Korea’s Navy can be summed up in this quote by H. I. Sutton of Covert Shores, “It is a myth that North Korean naval vessels are by definition clones of older Russia or Chinese designs. In fact North Korean naval architects have produced a long string of original designs, often with novel features. They have Semi-Submersibles, catamarans, Surface Effect Ships (SES) and now they have Very Slender Vessels (VSVs).”

VSVs are high-speed, wave-piercing craft. Their wave-piercing nature enables the craft to punch through the waves (instead of riding over them, being buffeted with each one), increasing speed and lowering the physical stresses on the crew in heavier seas. Their design also gives the hull a smaller radar cross-section, although poor weapon layouts and other equipment can negate this benefit.

According to Sutton, North Korea has multiple VSV types ranging from 10 m in length to 32 m and there are at least seven individual craft in their inventory. The first VSV was spotted on Google Earth in 2012 and they are currently stationed at Chongjin, Nampo, and Wonsan.

How the regime plans to utilize this new platform isn’t known, but they are likely to be used as interceptors, patrolling the country’s important fisheries (as implied by their location in Chongjin) and also used to conduct raids into South Korean waters.

Some existing older ships have also begun to be outfitted with more modern radar systems, anti-ship missiles, close-in weapons, and torpedoes.

 

To facilitate the construction, berthing, and continued maintenance of these new (or improved) ships, a number of naval facilities have also undergone their own modernization program.

One of the construction halls at Nampo was elongated in 2018 and a smaller manufacturing site nearby (38.730751° 125.423457°) underwent considerable renovations and new construction in 2013-14, 2016, and in 2021.

The area north of Munchon is home to the 13^th Naval Command which is a collection of at least nineteen units (dispersed in and around Kumya Bay and the Songjon Peninsula) including KPA Navy units 155, 597, and 291. It is home to squadrons of patrol boats, torpedo boats, and hovercraft (at five distinct sites).

The first instances of change here occurred in 2013 when several small barrack buildings were constructed. Work began to speed up in 2015 with numerous older facilities demolished and a large artificial port yard was constructed for Unit 291 through land reclamation, adding over 127,000 sq. m. of land and resurfacing a further 27 hectares around the village of Tapchon-ri.

Additional work was carried out at Unit 597 (39.317336° 127.401134°), a major maintenance and repair yard. Nearly the entire complex was reconstructed between 2015 and 2016 and new buildings were also added.

A one-kilometer road and rail bridge was also constructed from 2015 and 2018, connecting units 291 and 597, better integrating a naval complex that extends for several kilometers across bays and islands.

However, after the initial foundation work and land reclamation at Unit 291 (39.333230° 127.431410°), progress slowed tremendously. Currently, a few foundations have been prepared and 15 piers are under various stages of construction but there has been little substantial work since around 2018.

It was suspected that the work at Unit 291 was to create an east coast HQ for the Navy’s amphibious assault command and its numerous hovercrafts.

This stalled activity is not the only example to be found at a hovercraft facility.

There are several hovercraft bases on both coasts and the country’s fleet is around 130 Kongbang-class hovercraft. These hovercraft are stationed across ten locations with the largest concentration being in six sites in Wonsan Bay (five as part of the Muchon base and one other, north across the bay at Je-do Island).

Despite these existing facilities, Kim Jong-un began constructing three new hovercraft bases, one at San-gol-li in Kangwon and two in South Hwanghae Province at Manghae-dong and Yonbong-ni. Together, these bases would be able to station at least 90 craft and would cut transit time into South Korean waters by half, and could transport over 3,600 troops every few hours. Construction at the largest of these bases, Yongbong-ni began in 2015, followed by San-gol-li in 2016, and Manghae-dong around 2017.

Curiously, after some initial construction work, San-gol-li was abandoned. And then, after continual progress for multiple years, work at Yongbong-ni was likewise halted. Work at the nearby Monghae-dong also came to an end. Currently, all three sites seem to have been abandoned.

The reason(s) for the decision to stop construction work at these three new sites as well as the stalled work at Munchon seems inexplicable, particularly as the primary reasons for constructing them in the first place still remain pertinent. The existing bases are still well maintained and landing exercises are conducted every year, often under the watchful eye of Kim Jong-un, but it seems that the military’s focus has been drawn elsewhere for the time being.

 

Another major addition to naval infrastructure was the construction of a new submarine training center at Sinpo. The demolition of older structures began in 2009 but the new facility’s construction has taken all of Kim Jong-un’s rule to-date to complete, with the construction of the new buildings primarily happening after 2015. A decade in the making, this facility is suspected to replace a smaller training site at Mayang Island.

The center has two training pools with an escape tower, an academy building, and several apartment buildings for students and staff. The Sinpo facility will be the second of two primary submariner training sites, the other being at Pipa-got naval base on the west coast.

As Dave Schmerler wrote, “With this new site nearing completion, and the release of images showing what is likely to be North Korea’s first deployable ballistic missile submarine, their intentions on expanding their submarine fleet’s capability on their east coast has become much more transparent.”

 

The development of the Nongo-class SES, the anti-submarine warfare helicopter frigates, and the Najin modernization program have led to a reconsideration of North Korea’s maritime capabilities. While it is still not a blue-water navy, the threat it poses to South Korean ships and its ability to attack both enemy submarines and surface vessels within their territorial waters has improved dramatically compared to the KPA Navy of Kim Jong-Il’s era.

 

KPA Air Force

Despite North Korea’s “newest” aircraft being variations of Soviet and Chinese models from the 1970s, Kim Jong-un has nonetheless placed greater importance on the air force than Kim Jong-il, particularly when it comes to training the country’s special airborne forces, developing aerial weapon systems that can be indigenously produced (if not new fighter jets), and he also has taken steps to help improve the survivability of aircraft in the event of a crash or other emergency.

Map of highway airstrips.

The AccessDPRK database has 30 identified highway strips. These are straight, level stretches of road (sometimes paved, sometimes not) that can be used as an emergency runway for any number of reasons. Some are geared toward use by small An-2 biplanes and others can accommodate fighter jets.

These highway strips are nothing new to North Korea, but Kim Jong-un decided to make them more useful by adding parking revetments to 29 of them. These revetments are protected by earthen berms and are typically located a hundred or so meters away from the highway to allow the road to still be used as a runway while the other aircraft are being parked.

I have identified a total of 71 individual revetments. Depending on the type of aircraft, these can accommodate anywhere from 142 to 213 aircraft combined. The main period of revetment construction occurred in 2016-17.

Two grass landing strips also had revetments added and a new landing strip was constructed near Chongjin in 2016 (41.802706° 129.854602°).

As part of the attempt to improve the survivability of aircraft during an overshoot or crash (poor maintenance and a lack of spare parts in the air force is a notorious problem), 19 major airbases had “arrester beds” constructed between 2015 and 2016.

In other countries, these beds are made up of “engineered materials”, often special concrete pads that are lightweight and can crush easily, absorbing energy and slowing down the aircraft. But in North Korea, they appear to be made up of sand beds. Though more effective than nothing, their installation highlights the struggle of trying to provide better safety while lacking the capacity to do so in substantive technical ways.

As with infantry training, the training of paratroopers and airborne special operations forces has been substantially increased. North Korea currently has ten parachute jump towers (which are used to train recruits how to use a parachute from various heights as part of their basic training before jumping from an aircraft), of those, four were constructed under Kim Jong-un with a further two being renovated.

Two of the new towers, in Pyongsan and Unsal, were constructed within large urban warfare training centers which underscores North Korea’s primary offensive strategy, that is to rely on special operations activities to disrupt South Korean military movements and slow any US counterattack by sending waves of soldiers behind enemy lines.

A third tower was constructed at the Changdo training complex in 2014. As noted in the KPA Army section, this base is capable of training at least 1,500 soldiers at any given time and provides a wide range of training exercises. The tower was built several months after the base itself underwent a major renovation.

The fourth tower built under Kim is at a remote site near Sonchon (39.823569° 124.918211°). The steel lattice tower was erected sometime between 2014 and 2017 and is a small, stand-alone training site that isn’t part of any larger complex. 

 

A number of additions and renovations have also been noted at the Panghyon Aircraft Plant which is North Korea’s most important aircraft manufacturing center.

And, wrapping up the infrastructure changes, even the KPA Air Force’s headquarters in Chunghwa (38.868645° 125.804992°) has seen some substantial additions over the years. From the ‘Air Defense and Combat Command’, over 110,000 personnel, 1,700 aircraft, and 37 key bases (along with many smaller ones) are overseen.

The first noted change under Kim Jong-un was the construction of a new gym from 2012-13 as well as a possible ‘revolutionary history’ museum. Then in 2016 the northern end of the base saw substantial construction activity with three multi-floor dorms, an assembly hall, and another large building all being added. Another unidentified building was constructed at the same time in the center of the base.

 

Kim has repeatedly called for the “scientific and strategic enhancement” of the air force. In the absence of new fighter jets, bombers, modern avionics, or the ability to acquire those things, this has been taken to mean that the air force needs to develop ways to deliver nuclear weapons and to come up with other weapon systems that can be produced within the country. 

To ensure a greater warfighting capacity, Kim has begun to outfit his fleet of 300 An-2 biplanes (which would be used to fly low, evading radar, and deploy paratroopers and supplies behind the front lines) with satellite navigation aids and even air-to-surface munitions.

As conflict specialist Sebastien Roblin wrote, “Surging dozens or hundreds of difficult-to-detect An-2s could easily overwhelm the air defenses on the DMZ”. To further assist in making them difficult to detect, the color scheme of the An-2s was changed in 2014 to lighter colors and countershaded, making them visually blend into the sky or ground, depending on the adversary’s perspective.

Although North Korea can domestically produce much of what the Army and Special Rocket Forces now require, their ability to develop and produce new aircraft has been a major shortfall in their capabilities. In the absence of new generations of aircraft, North Korea will have to rely on upgrading its fleet with improved sensors and electronic warfare systems as well as building up a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles to do everything from reconnaissance to conducting kamikaze attacks.

There is only limited information about North Korea’s development of new electronics, but there is plenty of evidence they are taking drone warfare seriously.

The potential value of drones as force multipliers and providing targeting data has been demonstrated in Syria, the recent Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and by terror groups such as ISIS and the Houthis in Yemen. The asymmetric nature of drone warfare and their low cost also fits well within North Korea’s military doctrine. 

In support of their UAV goals, there is a facility at 39.128763° 125.471549° (on the Tokjwa Reservoir) that appears to be a UAV testing base. It was first noted by Nathan J. Hunt last year. The site was constructed in 2019 and includes a short runway, less than 100 meters long, a hangar, and either a previously unseen UAV model or a scale model of another type of aircraft. Further base construction also began this year. If this is a UAV base, it would be the only stand-alone drone development facility known in the public domain, that is, that wasn’t part of a factory or airbase.

Several North Korean reconnaissance drones have been spotted in South Korean territory, particularly since 2014, and the government has discussed the need to mass produce UAVs on more than one occasion. Current estimates for North Korea’s UAV inventory vary considerably but fall between 300 and 1,000 drones.

Growing Your Own

One other area that I would like to talk about is the military’s requirement to grow as much food for itself as possible.

This requirement was ordered by Kim Jong-il as a result of the famine, but ongoing food shortages has meant that the state still cannot provide enough rations to feed its own soldiers. Stories of soldiers going out and stealing from civilians still pop up, so it’s little wonder that the very look of many bases and even industrial sites has changed.

Much of this change can be charted through the last decade. Despite genuine improvements in the country’s food security under Kim Jong-un, the military still needs to grow its own food and is also required to grow specialty crops that can be sold to external markets to earn foreign currency for the regime.

KPA owned farms can be massive, like KPA Farm No. 1116 which has 368 hectares under cultivation. The farm also grows mushrooms that are sold abroad, earning money for the state. Underscoring the importance of this military farm, Kim Jong-un has visited it nearly every year since 2013.

But it's not just military-controlled, agricultural-specific sites that are involved in the farming business.

The nuclear test site at Punggye-ri extends for 17 km down the Namdae River valley. In multiple places, small farms can be seen comprising dozens of hectares under cultivation to support the needs of Punggye-ri’s personnel. This activity has continued despite the complex being “closed”.

The former high explosives test site at Yongbyon was converted into a garden in 2003 and a series of greenhouses were added nearby in 2013. Additional greenhouses and cultivated fields can be spotted throughout the walled compounds within Yongbyon, including greenhouses built in 2014 within the Radiochemistry Laboratory where spent fuel rods are reprocessed.

As for North Korea’s current high explosives test site at Yongdeok (40.002399° 125.339812°), a well-defined garden was added in 2019 and occupies 18,300 sq. m. Facilities at Yongdeok’s fish farm have also been improved in recent years.

These gardens and fields can be found at most KPA bases and even at air defense sites like surface-to-air missile batteries. Some examples of this can be seen at the Majon-ri base (39.122529° 127.128347°) in Kangwon Province where the housing units each have small garden plots while other parts of the base contain collective farms. And at this (38.406613° 127.359467°) unnamed base near the DMZ, a greenhouse was built in 2019/20 next to the munitions depot.

It’s not only things like rice or mushrooms that are being grown. Military-owned livestock facilities, fisheries and fish farms have proliferated. One of the largest is the Singchang Fish Farm which breeds sturgeon. It is operated by KPA Unit 810, the same unit that operates KPA Farm No. 1116 in Pyongyang. Kim Jong-un has visited the site multiple times and in 2019 several of the ponds were extensively modified.

Inland fish farming is but one part of a large KPA fishing industry that also involves the military owning fleets of small fishing vessels. As discussed in the 2020 report Fish, Fishing and Community in North Korea and Neighbours, “In recent years, the fishing infrastructures and desires of North Korea’s central government have picked up again, and fishing has been reorganised into the institutional frameworks of the Korean People’s Army.”

Sadly, some of these vessels end up as “ghost ships” wandering into Japanese waters with a dead or missing crew.

Under Kim Jong-un, fields have become more organized, greenhouses have been added to improve yields and diversify the types of plants that can be grown, and attempts to earn illicit currency through military-controlled trade networks have continued.

 

Conclusions

In short, Kim has been trying to make the most of a bad situation.

The obstacles are enormous, from problems with the fitness of its manpower pool to a lack of modern technology and an inability to manufacture certain equipment and parts domestically, Kim has therefore been forced to redirect resources toward enhancing special operations forces training, building a better capacity to infiltrate targets and to engage in non-kinetic warfare through cyber (something not covered in this report), as well as attempt to improve the survivability of KPA forces via safety measures at airfields and constructing hardened facilities.

Although nuclear weapons guarantee regime survival, their use would also guarantee its end. To that end, North Korea needs a credible conventional deterrent as well to show that the price of even minor military action against Pyongyang could still result in overwhelming casualties, even if a nuclear bomb is never dropped.

 

Naturally, questions surround the ability of DPRK armed forces to adequately train its forces, particularly in the use of newer weapons that have been developed (such as semi-automatic grenade launchers, tank destroyers, and various multiple rocket launchers). As Liang Tuang Nah pointed out in The Diplomat, the bulk of training that gets shown to the world through official media consists of troops and equipment engaged in mass-firing exercises and air shows that look more like a performance than integrated training among the various branches or in ways applicable to real-world combat in the 21^st century.

However, the country isn’t spending 25-30% of its GDP just on nuclear weapons and shooting off ancient ammunition. The massive build-up of training facilities includes opportunities for individual units to learn tank warfare, fire any number of artillery and rocket systems, and improve each individual soldier’s skill.

The hills of North Korea are pockmarked with chalk targets for aerial bombardment and ground-based artillery. Even whole islands have been designated for artillery practice. Although it is not possible to monitor all of the activities that occur by using commercial satellite imagery and while changes to doctrine, strategy, and interservice cooperation can only be glimpsed at through Pyongyang’s publications, the physical evidence is still there to inform us. And it’s telling us that Kim Jong-un has not created a paper tiger.

New weapons, improved training, and creative ways to finance North Korea’s conventional forces have created a qualitatively better armed service than in years past. Clearly, military parity with South Korea is a pipe dream on the technological front, but an army doesn’t have to be equal on paper to pose a real threat on the field. And even North Korea’s alleged inability to wage a long-term (6 months+) full-scale conflict due to a lack of fuel, food, and parts, drug lords in Mexico to terrorists in Afghanistan have shown that a prolonged conflict can be still carried out in the face of overwhelming odds.

Indeed, the Syrian Civil War and the recent 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict have demonstrated that through the use of non-traditional strategies, electronic warfare, and through the targeted use of UAVs, that strategically significant actions can be effected.

By focusing on special operations, asymmetric capabilities, and cyber operations, Kim Jong-un is working to level the playing field. Again, the goal is not the KPA facing down South Korea in 20^th century-style set-piece battles. The best-case goal is to deter and if that doesn’t work, to inflict as much damage as possible while prolonging the conflict until a set of key goals are accomplished (namely the capture of Seoul and delaying a US counterattack) so that a new “peace” can be settled on terms favorable to Pyongyang.

Kim is still a long, long way off, but the military (particularly the Army) is nonetheless better positioned now than it has been in a decade, both in terms of real power and in its ability to leverage threats to gain economic and political benefits.

~ ~ ~ ~

I have scheduled this project to run through to the end of the year, with a new article coming out roughly every 10 days or so. If you would like to support the project and help me with research costs, please consider supporting AccessDPRK on Patreon. Those supporters donating $15 or more each month will be entitled to a final PDF version of all the articles together that will also have additional information included once the series is finished. They will also receive a Google Earth map related to the events in the series, and can get access to the underlying data behind the supplemental reports.

Supporters at other levels will be sent each new article a day before it’s published and will also receive a mention as seen below.

 

I would like to thank my current Patreon supporters: Amanda O., GreatPoppo, Joel Parish, John Pike, Kbechs87, Rinmanah, Russ Johnson, and ZS.

--Jacob Bogle, 10/31/2021
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