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February 18, 2010

North Korea Has a Meth Problem, Part 3

North Korea’s meth problem continues to worsen as meth gains cultural acceptance. According to interviews with residents of Heoryong and Musan, in North Hamkyung Province on February 5, North Koreans near the border area and Shin-ui-ju, Hamheung, and Pyongyang consume Crystal Meth like food. Especially near the border area, Meth is used by people of all ages, and even students aged 14-15 consume it. In these regions, Meth is served for guests, and the host invite guests to consume Meth...
Categories Drugs & N Korea/NK Military
February 2, 2010

DNI Releases Annual Threat Assessment

And it’s more bad news for the usual suspects — David Albright, Selig Harrison, and Mike Chinoy: After denying a highly enriched uranium program since 2003, North Korea announced in April 2009 that it was developing uranium enrichment capability to produce fuel for a planned light water reactor (such reactors use low enriched uranium); in September it claimed its enrichment research had “entered into the completion phase”. The exact intent of these announcements is unclear, and they do not speak...
Categories NK Military/Proliferation/Washington Views
January 27, 2010

Bang Bang, Splash Splash

When I first heard that North Korea had declared a no-sail zone off its West Coast, I really wanted to believe that it was because they read this, but I suspected that they’d actually launch some anti-ship missiles from Cho-Do. Instead, we have this: North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire near their disputed sea border on Wednesday, highlighting instability along a heavily armed frontier for the second time in three months. North Korea warned the South that more rounds...
Categories NK Military/North-South/ROK Military
January 22, 2010

North Korean General Loses Star, Keeps Life

Personally, I’m always intrigued by the disgruntlement of armed men who often come into close contact with Kim Jong Il: Recent photos of a North Korean general close to leader Kim Jong-Il showed that he has been demoted for reasons, which were unclear, a South Korean newspaper reported Friday. The JoongAng Daily published photos of General Kim Myong-Guk released last June and this week. The earlier picture showed Kim with the four stars of a full general, while this week’s...
Categories Kremlinology/NK Military
January 7, 2010

Tanks for Your Money, Suckers

The North Korean Army is holding winter exercises, and the Joongang Ilbo has the tank porn. This cream puff is a Soviet PT-76, or ChiCom clone of one. The PT-76 is no match for a main battle tank — it sacrifices armor protection in exchange for an amphibious capability, and its gun can’t penetrate the armor of any main battle tank. Frankly, I can’t really see why the North Korean army is so fond of these lightly-armored amphibious tanks in...
Categories NK Military/North-South/Sunshine
December 21, 2009

South Korea Clears Mines from the DMZ (and Why I Think That’s a Shrewd Decision)

You say you want reunification? Fine, then. Dig up the mines along the DMZ and open the border. No, I’m not kidding: The South Korean military said Monday it has removed some 1,300 land mines this year from the country’s rural areas bordering North Korea, a reminder of the tense 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce. In the operations that lasted from April to November, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) mobilized 3,300 personnel to remove mines from...
Categories NK Military/North-South/Refugees/ROK Military/Subversion
December 18, 2009

New Images Reveal North Korean Bomber Base

Previously, I had located only one North Korean airfield with strategic bombers, in the far northwest, near Sinuiju. Today, new Google Earth imagery reveals that another airfield in North Korea’s remote central highlands is also home to a bomber squadron. (I suspect that there are more bombers at a third airfield in the southwest, but I haven’t seen the bombers there yet.) The airfield was visible in high resolution in previous images, but no aircraft were visible. Presumably, they were...
Categories NK Military
December 10, 2009

Picture of the Day: ROK Defense Minister Decorates Sailors After Battle with North Korean Ship

The crew of the Chamsuri 325, who fought off a North Korean incursion across the Northern Limit Line, are decorated by the Defense Minister for courage under fire. Here is the vessel’s skipper, Lieutenant Kim Sang-Hun: “I could literally see the shells flying at us. Some skidded off the water and slammed into the side of our boat,” he said, speaking aboard the Chamsuri 325, the very boat that engaged with the North Korean Navy a decade ago. No South...
Categories NK Military/North-South/ROK Military
December 3, 2009

3 December 2009 (Updated)

THE GREAT CONFISCATION CONTINUES. The Wall Street Journal reports that in Pyongyang, the exchange has been “calm and orderly,” at least to the extent foreign observers have been able to tell. Meanwhile, the Daily NK explains who will be hurt most badly by this. If markets are damaged as badly as I suspect they might be, there could be a new flood of food refugees into China this winter. Another effect will be the final collapse of confidence by the...
Categories Anju Links/NK Economics/NK Military/North-South
November 26, 2009

Defector Describes Decline in N. Korean Military Morale

As if to affirm on cue what I’d written here, former North Korean battalion commander Kim Joo-Il explains why North Korea’s official military strength figures aren’t a very good indicator of its actual military strength: “Officially the North Korea armed forces number 1.2 million – these are the official numbers,” Mr Kim said. “But they do not include the secret military service, so I do not know the exact figure of military personnel. “About 100,000 people are conscripted annually and...
Categories NK Military
November 25, 2009

Defector: Growing Corruption in North Korean Military

Corruption is now so entrenched in North Korea that military officers will even give away information on nuclear test sites, according to an elite defector. This, according to high-level defector Kim Su Jong (an alias), who is in Washington this week, speaking to congressional staff and reporters. Rampant corruption, collapse of the state-controlled ration distribution system, the opening of local markets, the breaking of laws to obtain food, and the under-funding of the military and local government units has led...
Categories NK Military
November 18, 2009

Defector Describes Construction of DMZ Weapons Bunkers

The defector, who goes by the alias Kim Ju Song, is visiting Washington and attending closed-door sessions with congressional members and staffers, but he found time to tell Radio Free Asia about the construction of hundreds of weapons-storage bunkers along the DMZ at the height of the Sunshine Policy: Pyongyang built at least 800 bunkers, including an unknown number of decoys, to prepare for a possible invasion of South Korea while the late South Korean president Roh Moo Hyun was...
Categories NK Military/North Korea
November 13, 2009

North Korea Accuses South of Provoking Naval Clash

As predicted, North Korea’s account of this week’s Yellow Sea battle is jarringly at odds with what the South reports: When the [North Korean] patrol boat was sailing back after confirming the object at about 11: 20 a group of warships of the south Korean forces chased it and perpetrated such a grave provocation as firing at it. The patrol boat of the north side, which has been always combat-ready, lost no time to deal a prompt retaliatory blow at...
Categories NK Military/North-South/ROK Military
November 10, 2009

North Korean Ship “Wrapped in Flames” After Battle; No South Korean Sailors Hurt

The North Korean navy appears to have gotten the worst of it after an apparently calculated provocation along the Northern Limit Line, the Koreas’ maritime boundary in the Yellow Sea: According to Joint Chiefs of Staff officials in Seoul, a North Korean patrol boat crossed the NLL at 11:27 a.m. and attacked a South Korean one after ignoring several warning shots. The South Korean side suffered no casualties in the clash that erupted shortly after the crossing and lasted about...
Categories NK Military/North-South/ROK Military
October 30, 2009

Daily NK: Rising Divorce Rates in North Korea

Iif there is any element of Korean society that I’d have thought indestructible even to Kim Jong Il, it’s the strength of Korean families. Korean society strongly encourages marriage, children, and family loyalty. Divorce and out-of-wedlock births are strongly discouraged. The single exception is its traditional tolerance for male promiscuity, whether by single or married men (who are nonetheless expected to keep their dalliances casual and remain with their wives and children). With that being said, South Korean society is...
Categories Korean Society/NK Military
October 9, 2009

N. Korea Expands Special Forces

For two of the four years I spent in Korea, I lived, not in a tent or a Quonset hut, but in apartments in Seoul, directly adjacent to the Han River, with breathtaking views of the city lights reflecting on the river at night. It was, ironically, the most comfortable and luxurious existence of my life. Yes, there was the occasional annoyance of rising early to come to a PT formation and the other petty despotisms of Army life —...
Categories NK Military/U.S. Military