Informal Institute for National Security Thinkers and Practitioners

Quotes of the Day:

"If you feel pain you are alive. If you feel other people's pain, you are a human being."

– Leo Tolstoy

"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useful, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

– Samuel Johnson

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest."

– Elie Wiesel

1. Special contribution by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris

2. Harris hails alliance with S. Korea; stresses 'ironclad' U.S. commitment, Seoul's 'sizable' USFK contributions

3.Ukraine doubles down on psychological campaign against North Korean troops

4. Ukraine conducts information and psychological campaign against DPRK soldiers - media

5. S. Korea, U.S., Japan stage joint air drills with B-1B bomber after N.K. ICBM launch

6..EU's Borrell vows to advance security, defense ties with S. Korea

7. Russia’s Elite Spetsnaz Special Forces 'Devastated' in Ukraine War

8. Putin Isn't Bluffing: North Korean Troops are in Occupied Ukraine

9. Over 7,000 N. Korean troops deployed near border with Ukraine, armed with rifles, mortars

10. Ukraine Is Getting Another 200 Stryker Vehicles Just In Time To Meet A North Korean Onslaught

11. Does a ‘Warning from Kursk’ Show Reality of North Korea’s Russian Misadventure?

12. Underestimating North Korean troops is a mistake, experienced military officials warn

13. North Korea is hoping bigger is better with its new intercontinental ballistic missile. Experts are skeptical.

14. North Korean Balloons and Kim Jong Un’s New Psychological Warfare

15. Kim Jong Un is China's ally - but has become the 'comrade from hell'

16. China Faces a Dilemma With North Korean Troops Pouring Into Russia

17. Getting to Grips with All Things Korean as Pyongyang Enters Ukraine’s War

1. Special contribution by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris

In 2020 then-candidate Biden published a similar OpEd in October 2020 (HERE) about the importance of the ROK/US alliance (and mentioned unification as well). It was the only OpEd he published in a foreign media outlet and I think this is the only OpEd (or special contribution) that VP Harris has published in a foreign media outlet. This seems to illustrate the importance of Korean-American voters in the U.S to at least the Democrats.

President Biden on unification in 2020: "I'll engage in principled diplomacy and keep pressing toward a denuclearized North Korea and a unified Korean Peninsula, while working to reunite Korean Americans separated from loved ones in North Korea for decades."

Vice President Harris on unification: "Crickets"

Disappointedly, she missed the opportunity to reinforce the ROK 8.15 Unification Doctrine. Her advisors on Korea policy should be taken to task.

Special contribution by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by Song Sang-ho · November 3, 2024

WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 (Yonhap) -- The following is the full text of a special contribution by U.S. Democratic presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris. She made the exclusive contribution to Yonhap News Agency -- the first of its kind to a South Korean media outlet in this election cycle -- three days ahead of the presidential vote.

Let's Go Forward, Together: Creating a Prosperous Future for Korean Americans

By Vice President Kamala Harris

My mother, like so many Korean mothers, sacrificed to give our family the best life possible. At just 19, she left India for California alone to realize her dream of curing breast cancer. She earned her doctorate at UC Berkeley and became a leading cancer researcher while raising me and my sister, Maya.

That is why I deeply respect the Korean American story of courage and resilience. Countless Korean immigrants have worked long hours—many in their family-owned grocery stores, dry cleaners and restaurants—to build a brighter future for their children. Today, over two million Koreans enrich every corner of America. President Biden and I were proud to host the first-ever Chuseok celebration at the White House and commemorate Korean American Day every year we have been in office, recognizing the community's contributions to the American story since the first Korean immigrants arrived in 1903.

One of the lessons my mother taught me was to never complain about injustice, but do something about it. So at a young age, I decided I wanted to do the work of fighting for people, and that has been the story of my entire career. As a courtroom prosecutor, I stood up for women and children against predators. As Attorney General of California, I took on the big banks and delivered $20 billion for families who faced foreclosure. As Vice President, I have stood up for workers and seniors. Now, I am running for president—because I believe Americans want and deserve a leader who will fight for all the American people.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris attends a campaign rally in Madison, Wisconsin on Oct. 30, 2024 in this photo released by Reuters. (Yonhap)

This election is about two very different visions for our nation: one focused on the future, the other on the past. I represent a new, optimistic generation of leadership and will chart a New Way Forward—one that protects the aspirations of the Korean American community and ensures you can not just get by, but get ahead.

I grew up in a middle class household, and I remember my mother's sacrifices and the long hours she spent to make things work for our family, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and a pile of bills. As president, I will create an Opportunity Economy where everyone has the chance to own a home, raise a family, and build wealth. I will cut taxes for 100 million Americans, expand the Child Tax Credit to $6,000 per child, and lower the costs for necessities like food, housing, and childcare. For Korean American entrepreneurs, I will boost access to credit and capital for small businesses and make federal funding more accessible. For Korean Americans in the sandwich generation, who are providing intergenerational care to both children and parents, my Medicare at Home plan will cover the cost of home care for the elderly and include vision and hearing coverage for seniors. I will also strengthen the Affordable Care Act, which has reduced the Korean American uninsured rate from 27 to 8 percent.

These policies will move America forward. But Donald Trump threatens to send us backward. He will rip away critical health care protections and slash Medicare. The "Trump Tax" will raise costs for families by $4,000 a year. Economists agree: Trump's plan would lead to a recession by mid-2025 and drive inflation.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at the Wisconsin State Fair Expo in West Allis, Wisconsin on Nov. 1, 2024 in this photo released by the Associated Press. (Yonhap)

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump's failure of leadership cost lives and fueled a wave of anti-Asian violence. I worked with President Biden to enact legislation to combat anti-Asian hate crimes. We welcomed BTS to the White House, where they spoke up for inclusion amid attacks on Asian Americans. We also confronted the gun violence epidemic, which has stolen precious lives in too many communities like Atlanta. While Trump says we should "get over" gun violence while pushing for more guns on our streets, I helped to implement the first major gun safety law in nearly 30 years.

Our safety is also dependent on comprehensive immigration reform. While Trump did nothing to fix our broken immigration system, I will secure our border and champion an earned pathway to citizenship.

Donald Trump is an unserious man, but the consequences of him ever getting back into the White House are brutally serious. Trump has vowed to be a dictator on "day one," and speaks openly about using the military against Americans. His own national security officials warn he is unhinged and unstable, and out for unchecked power. Consider what he intends to do if we give him power again, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled he would be immune from criminal prosecution. He would wield the powers of the presidency not to improve your life, not to strengthen our nation, but to serve himself.

We cannot let this happen. And I promise to preserve our freedoms and global leadership.

In 2022, I stood at the DMZ and reaffirmed the United States' ironclad commitment to the defense of South Korea. I know our alliance has been a linchpin of security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific and around the world. Trump, by contrast, is demanding that South Korea pay $10 billion a year to host our troops despite its already sizable contributions—disparaging our alliance and disregarding America's standing in the Indo-Pacific.

More than 36,000 Americans and over 137,000 Korean soldiers gave their lives during the Korean War, fighting side by side to defend freedom and liberty. During last year's state visit with President Yoon Suk Yeol, I promised to honor this bond as we commemorated the 70th anniversary of the U.S.-ROK alliance. Under my vice presidency, we have advanced our people-to-people ties and deepened our economic partnership by catalyzing huge South Korean private sector investments in America, which are creating good-paying jobs for Americans in industries like semiconductors and electric vehicles.

I humbly ask for your vote, because if I have the privilege of serving as your president, I know that together we can turn the page on this divisive era of our politics and start working towards a better future for all Americans.

Korean Americans represent the very best of what is possible in this country. I promise to carry on the legacy of our parents and their sacrifices, so that our children can achieve the promise of America. Let us continue to "Go Together." Gam-sa-hap-ni-da.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris reacts at a campaign rally in Madison, Wisconsin on Oct. 30, 2024 in this photo released by Reuters. (Yonhap)

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en.yna.co.kr · by Song Sang-ho · November 3, 2024

2. Harris hails alliance with S. Korea; stresses 'ironclad' U.S. commitment, Seoul's 'sizable' USFK contributions

Yonhap's assessment of VP Harris' "special contribution."

Harris hails alliance with S. Korea; stresses 'ironclad' U.S. commitment, Seoul's 'sizable' USFK contributions | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by Song Sang-ho · November 3, 2024

By Song Sang-ho, Cho Joon-hyung and Kim Dong-hyun

WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 (Yonhap) -- Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on Saturday touted the South Korea-U.S. alliance as a "linchpin" of security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific and around the world, while underlining Seoul's "sizable" contributions to the upkeep of the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea (USFK).

Vice President Harris made the remarks in a special contribution to Yonhap News Agency, reiterating America's "ironclad" security commitment to South Korea, vowing to preserve its global leadership and accentuating the importance of the bilateral alliance forged in blood during the 1950-53 Korean War.

Titled "Let's Go Forward, Together: Creating a Prosperous Future for Korean Americans," her exclusive contribution is the first of its kind to a South Korean media outlet in this year's election cycle. It came just days ahead of the U.S. presidential election.

"In 2022, I stood at the DMZ and reaffirmed the United States' ironclad commitment to the defense of South Korea. I know our alliance has been a linchpin of security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific and around the world," she wrote, recalling her trip to the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas.

"Trump, by contrast, is demanding that South Korea pay $10 billion a year to host our troops despite its already sizable contributions -- disparaging our alliance and disregarding America's standing in the Indo-Pacific," she added as she is set to face off against her Republican rival in Tuesday's showdown.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally in Madison, Wisconsin, on Oct. 30, 2024, in this photo released by Reuters. (Yonhap)

In an interview with Bloomberg News last month, former President Donald Trump said if he were in the Oval Office, Seoul would be paying US$10 billion per year for the stationing of the USFK personnel. He called South Korea a "money machine."

Early last month, Seoul and Washington struck a defense cost-sharing deal, called the Special Measures Agreement. Under the deal for the 2026-2030 period, Seoul is to pay 1.52 trillion won (US$1.10 billion) in 2026, up from 1.4 trillion won in 2025.

In the special contribution, the vice president highlighted the ultimate sacrifices of South Korean and American service personnel during the Korean War, which have underpinned the deepening bond and alliance between the two nations.

"More than 36,000 Americans and over 137,000 Korean soldiers gave their lives during the Korean War, fighting side by side to defend freedom and liberty," she said. "During last year's state visit with President Yoon Suk Yeol, I promised to honor this bond as we commemorated the 70th anniversary of the U.S.-ROK alliance."

ROK stands for South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris (R) visits Observation Post Ouellette, the United Nations Command's military facility located close to the Military Demarcation Line that runs through the center of the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas, on Sept. 29, 2022. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)

Harris took stock of headway in the increasingly multi-faceted relationship between South Korea and the U.S. in recent years.

"Under my vice presidency, we have advanced our people-to-people ties and deepened our economic partnership by catalyzing huge South Korean private sector investments in America, which are creating good-paying jobs for Americans in industries like semiconductors and electric vehicles," she said.

Touching on sacrifices that her late Indian-born immigrant mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, made for her family, the Democratic standard-bearer expressed her deep respect for the Korean American story of "courage" and "resilience."

"Countless Korean immigrants have worked long hours -- many in their family-owned grocery stores, dry cleaners and restaurants -- to build a brighter future for their children," she said. "Today, over two million Koreans enrich every corner of America."

She added that Biden and she were proud to host the first-ever White House celebration of Chuseok, the Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving Day, and commemorate Korean American Day -- events that she said recognized the community's "contributions to the American story" since the first Korean immigrants arrived in the U.S. in 1903.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris gestures as she speaks during a Get Out the Vote rally at Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex & Expo Center in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 30, 2024 in this photo released by AFP. (Yonhap)

Reciting her core election slogan of a "New Way Forward," Harris drove home a message of hope and support for Korean Americans -- a key segment of Asian Americans seen as a rapidly growing voting bloc for the upcoming election.

"This election is about two very different visions for our nation: one focused on the future, the other on the past," she said. "I represent a new, optimistic generation of leadership and will chart a New Way Forward -- one that protects the aspirations of the Korean American community and ensures you can not just get by, but get ahead."

She underscored that Korean Americans represent "the very best of what is possible in this country."

"I promise to carry on the legacy of our parents and their sacrifices, so that our children can achieve the promise of America," she said.

Renewing her pledge to create an "opportunity economy" aimed at boosting the middle class and small businesses, Harris vowed to increase access to credit and capital for small businesses and make federal funding more accessible in a message for Korean American entrepreneurs.

For those in the "sandwich generation" who are providing care to both children and parents, she pointed out that her "Medicare At Home" plan will cover the cost of home care for the elderly and include vision and hearing coverage for seniors.

The vice president lambasted Trump, calling him an "unserious" man and warning that the consequences of him ever getting back into the White House are "brutally serious."

Harris also argued that Trump's "failure of leadership" fueled a "wave of anti-Asian violence" during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I worked with President Biden to enact legislation to combat anti-Asian hate crimes," she said. "We welcomed BTS to the White House, where they spoke up for inclusion amid attacks on Asian Americans," she added, referring to the K-pop superband.

She ended her contribution by saying, "Let us continue to 'Go Together.' Gam-sa-hap-ni-da (Thank you in Korean)."

If elected, Harris will become the nation's first female and first Asian-American commander-in-chief. Previously, she served as a senator of California, the attorney general of the Golden State and district attorney of San Francisco.

Supporters of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris attend a campaign rally in Madison, Wisconsin, on Oct. 30, 2024 in this photo released by Reuters. (Yonhap)

sshluck@yna.co.kr

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en.yna.co.kr · by Song Sang-ho · November 3, 2024

3. Ukraine doubles down on psychological campaign against North Korean troops

Some varied views in this VOA report by Young Gyo Kim.

Excerpts:

Last week, the Ukrainian military intelligence service-run project "I Want to Live" released a Korean-language video message on YouTube and X. The project also posted a Korean-language text message on Telegram.

The messages urged North Korean soldiers to surrender, arguing that they do not have to "meaninglessly die on the land of another country." It also offered to provide food, shelters and medical services.

Andrii Kovalenko, the head of the Center for Combating Disinformation under Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told VOA Ukrainian on Wednesday that "in the future, additional videos featuring North Koreans will be published."

...

Cho Han-bum, a senior research fellow at the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification, said psychological warfare could be a real threat to the North Korean army.

"In the case of North Korean soldiers, they now have been mobilized for a war without any justification," he told VOA Korean by phone on Tuesday. "It is hardly likely that they have a strong will or high morale."

..

Mykola Polishchuk, a Ukrainian author who wrote the book Northern Korea in Simple Words, said Ukraine’s counterpropaganda will not work with North Korean soldiers.

"As for North Koreans, they are not particularly politicized," Polishchuk told VOA Ukrainian. "These individuals have little interest in politics."

Here is the introduction to a paper I have written that should be published soon.

Influencing Minds and Will: A Psychological Operations Strategy for the Korean Peninsula from Lessons Learned in Ukraine

By David Maxwell

In the shadow of Putin's war in Ukraine, a new paradigm for psychological operations (PSYOP) is emerging - one that could reshape the security landscape on the Korean peninsula. As North Korea's provocations escalate and its nuclear ambitions grow unchecked, it's time for the ROK-U.S. alliance’s military forces to adopt a proactive PSYOP strategy specifically targeting the North Korean People's Army (NKPA). This is military to military competition for ideas.

The ongoing conflict in Ukraine can serve as a real-world laboratory, demonstrating the power of well-executed psychological warfare. Ukrainian forces have successfully eroded Russian morale, encouraged defections, and sowed doubt among enemy ranks. These tactics offer valuable lessons for dealing with the NKPA.

...

This is a specific proposal focused solely on targeting the NKPA by South Korea and U.S. PSYOP forces by exploiting the opportunities being presented in Ukraine. Comprehensive and complementary public diplomacy and information and influence campaign targeting the regime and the Korean people are necessary but beyond the scope of this proposal.

Ukraine doubles down on psychological campaign against North Korean troops

November 01, 2024 0:07 AM

By Young Gyo Kim
Andriy Borys

voanews.com · November 1, 2024

Washington —

As North Korean troops prepare to join Russian forces in the war on Ukraine, Kyiv is stepping up a psychological warfare campaign to target the North Korean soldiers, a high-ranking Ukraine official said.

The effort is liable to get a boost from a team of South Korean military observers that Seoul’s defense minister, Kim Yong-hyun, said this week will be going to Ukraine to watch and analyze the North Korean troops on the battlefield.

Last week, the Ukrainian military intelligence service-run project "I Want to Live" released a Korean-language video message on YouTube and X. The project also posted a Korean-language text message on Telegram.

The messages urged North Korean soldiers to surrender, arguing that they do not have to "meaninglessly die on the land of another country." It also offered to provide food, shelters and medical services.

Andrii Kovalenko, the head of the Center for Combating Disinformation under Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told VOA Ukrainian on Wednesday that "in the future, additional videos featuring North Koreans will be published."

"The North Koreans will undergo training in modern warfare and then be used in actual combat," Kovalenko said. "We (the Center for Combating Disinformation) are actively involved in identifying the individuals who have arrived and the units they are joining, as well as gathering evidence of their presence in Russia, their likely participation in combat against the Ukrainian army, and their presence in temporarily occupied areas of Ukraine."

Influence campaign

Ukraine has been running similar psychological operations toward the Russian soldiers since the beginning of the Russian invasion, U.S. experts said.

"Ukraine has been doing that with the Russians early on in the war," Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation, told VOA Korean on the phone Thursday. "They got a lot of Russians to defect, and I suspect they will try to do the same things with the North Koreans."

Bennett added that drones can also be used for sending messages in leaflets and in audio form to North Korean soldiers in the war zone.

David Maxwell, a former U.S. Special Forces colonel who served on the Combined Forces Command of the U.S and South Korea, said this could be "a great opportunity" to learn how to employ psychological tactics on North Korean forces in the time of war.

"Bombing and gunfire doesn’t happen 24/7," he told VOA Korean by phone on Wednesday. "Military operations are also characterized by large amounts of boredom and inactivity, where soldiers are waiting for something to happen, and this is the time when loudspeakers and leaflets can really have an effect, because those messages give them something to think about."

Earlier this week, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy agreed in a phone call "to intensify the intelligence and expertise exchange" and "to develop an action strategy and a list of countermeasures," according to a statement released by the Ukrainian presidential office.

Some experts in South Korea said the team of South Korean military observers headed to Ukraine will likely include psychological warfare strategists who can offer advice to the Ukrainian officials.

Cho Han-bum, a senior research fellow at the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification, said psychological warfare could be a real threat to the North Korean army.

"In the case of North Korean soldiers, they now have been mobilized for a war without any justification," he told VOA Korean by phone on Tuesday. "It is hardly likely that they have a strong will or high morale."

South Korea’s role

Cho said the South Korean government can help Ukraine develop psychological tactics against North Korean soldiers, since the country "has the know-how of a long-term psychological war with North Korea."

Ban Kil-joo is a senior research professor at Korea University’s Ilmin International Relations Institute. He told VOA Korean in a phone interview Tuesday that psychological warfare could help weaken the military cohesiveness between Russia and North Korea.

"The Ukrainians don't know much about North Korea, don’t understand the North Korean culture, as we do," Ban said. "We can provide indirect support in a more social sense, rather than military or operational support."

Ban added that it is important for the South Korean team to be "well-integrated with the Ukrainian forces through its supporting role," to achieve the desired political and operational effect of a psychological campaign.

Other experts, however, are not convinced that psychological warfare will be effective to persuade North Korean soldiers to surrender.

Mykola Polishchuk, a Ukrainian author who wrote the book Northern Korea in Simple Words, said Ukraine’s counterpropaganda will not work with North Korean soldiers.

"As for North Koreans, they are not particularly politicized," Polishchuk told VOA Ukrainian. "These individuals have little interest in politics."

Robert Rapson, a former charge d'affaires and deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul from 2018 to 2021, told VOA Korean that South Korea should carefully make a decision about whether to be engaged in Ukraine’s psychological warfare.

"If the ROK [Republic of Korea] does decide to deploy technical personnel to Ukraine to solely monitor and help advise the Ukraine military on matters related to North Korean troops deployed to the region, they would need to ensure they do not acquire, inadvertently or otherwise, status as combatants," he said. "There are, of course, clear risks to ROK personnel whether they’re combatants or not."

Since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has deepened military ties with North Korea. North Korea has exported dozens of ballistic missiles and more than 18,000 containers of munitions and munitions-related material to Russia since the invasion, according to the U.S. State Department.

In June, the two countries signed a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement mandating immediate military assistance if either of them is attacked by a third country.

VOA Korean’s Kim Hyungjin contributed to this report.

voanews.com · November 1, 2024

4. Ukraine conducts information and psychological campaign against DPRK soldiers - media

This borrows from some of the recent VOA reporting.

Ukraine conducts information and psychological campaign against DPRK soldiers - media | УНН

unn.ua · by https://www.facebook.com/UNNews

Information agency «Ukrainian National News»

Ukraine conducts information and psychological campaign against DPRK soldiers - media

Kyiv • UNN

07:38 AM • 34342 views

Kyiv has launched an information and psychological campaign against North Korean soldiers preparing to join the war. South Korea sends military observers to Ukraine to monitor the DPRK's actions, and its observers can join these efforts.

While North Korean troops are preparing to join the Russian occupiers in the war against Ukraine, Kyiv is stepping up its information and psychological campaign against North Korean soldiers. This was stated by a high-ranking Ukrainian official, Voice of America reports, UNN writes.

Details

It is noted that these efforts may be supported by a group of South Korean military observers, who, according to South Korean Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, will go to Ukraine this week to observe and analyze the actions of North Korean troops on the battlefield.

South Korea may send a group to Ukraine to monitor DPRK troopsOctober 30 2024, 07:59 AM • 17686 views

Last week, the Ukrainian military intelligence project "I Want to Live" released a video message in Korean on YouTube and published a message in Korean on Telegram.

The messages urge North Korean soldiers to surrender, saying they should not "die senselessly in a foreign land." They offered to provide them with food, shelter, and medical services.

The head of the Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council, Andriy Kovalenko, told the Ukrainian service of the Voice of America that "additional videos with the participation of North Koreans will be published in the future.

The goal of the Russian army is to "de-occupy", as they call it, Suji, and the North Koreans will be used in real battles. They will first train them in modern warfare and then use them in combat in parallel. That's why there will also be evidence of their participation in the war from Kursk region

- Kovalenko said.

"We (the National Security and Defense Council's Center for Countering Disinformation) are involved in identifying the people who have arrived and which units they are joining," Kovalenko added.

Military from DPRK to join war against Ukraine in November - Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the UNOctober 31 2024, 07:45 AM • 18634 views

Influence campaign

It is noted that Ukraine has been conducting similar psychological operations against Russian soldiers since the beginning of the Russian invasion, according to American experts.

"Ukraine did this with the Russians at the beginning of the war. They got a lot of Russians to flee, and I suspect they will try to do the same with the North Koreans," Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at RAND Corporation, told VOA.

Bennett added that the drones could also be used to send messages in postcards and audio form to North Korean soldiers in the war zone.

U.S. Special Forces Lt. Col. David Maxwell, who served in the U.S.-South Korean Joint Forces Command, said it could be a "great opportunity" to learn how to use psychological tactics against North Korean forces in a time of war.

Earlier this week, South Korean President Yun Suk-yeol and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy agreed in a phone call to "intensify the exchange of intelligence and experience" and "develop a strategy of action and a list of countermeasures.

Representative of Ukraine to visit South Korea soon: will talk about weaponsOctober 31 2024, 05:10 PM • 29079 views

Some experts in South Korea have said that the group of South Korean military observers heading to Ukraine is likely to include experts in information and psychological warfare who can advise Ukrainian officials.

Cho Han-bum, a senior researcher at the state-run Korean Institute for National Unification, said that psychological warfare could be a real threat to the North Korean army.

"In the case of the North Korean soldiers, they have now been mobilized for war without any reason. They hardly have a strong will or high morale," he said.

US and NATO should consider striking DPRK troops in Ukraine - CongressmanNovember 1 2024, 08:08 AM • 58031 view

Cho said that the South Korean government could help Ukraine develop psychological warfare tactics against North Korean soldiers, as the country "has the know-how of a long-term psychological war with North Korea.

5. S. Korea, U.S., Japan stage joint air drills with B-1B bomber after N.K. ICBM launch

We can execute air operations with decisive effects at the time and place of our choosing, either deliberately, preemptively, or in response to any north Korean action.

S. Korea, U.S., Japan stage joint air drills with B-1B bomber after N.K. ICBM launch | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by Chae Yun-hwan · November 3, 2024

By Chae Yun-hwan

SEOUL, Nov. 3 (Yonhap) -- South Korea, the United States and Japan held combined air drills, involving at least one B-1B bomber, south of the Korean Peninsula on Sunday, the South's military said, in a show of force after North Korea's new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch last week.

The trilateral drills took place over waters east of South Korea's southern island of Jeju amid heightened tensions after the North fired the new Hwasong-19 ICBM into the East Sea on Thursday in its first launch of a long-range ballistic missile this year.

During the drills, South Korean, U.S. and Japanese fighter jets escorted the U.S. heavy bomber over waters where the air defense identification zones of South Korea and Japan overlap, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

The drills also involved the heavy bomber striking a simulated target in a show of its "overwhelming" capabilities, according to the JCS. It did not specify the number of B-1Bs involved.

"This exercise took place in response to North Korea's launch of an ICBM on Oct. 31," the JCS said in a release. "Amid gradually increasing security cooperation between the three countries, (we) will strengthen coordination to deter and jointly respond to North Korea's threats."

It marked the second air exercise between the three sides this year, the JCS said, amid joint efforts to strengthen trilateral security cooperation against evolving North Korean nuclear and missile threats.

This file photo, provided by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Dec. 20, 2023, shows U.S. B-1B bombers holding joint air drills with South Korean, U.S. and Japanese fighter jets over waters south of the southern island of Jeju. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

yunhwanchae@yna.co.kr

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en.yna.co.kr · by Chae Yun-hwan · November 3, 2024

6. EU's Borrell vows to advance security, defense ties with S. Korea

The geographic security boundaries are breaking down. Connectivity between Asia and Europe is growing and Korea is one of the Asia-Pacific countries leading the way.

(LEAD) EU's Borrell vows to advance security, defense ties with S. Korea | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by Lee Haye-ah · November 3, 2024

(ATTN: UPDATES with visit to DMZ; ADDS photo)

SEOUL, Nov. 3 (Yonhap) -- European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Sunday he will discuss ways to advance the EU's security and defense cooperation with South Korea during his visit to Seoul.

Borrell, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, wrote on social media platform X that he arrived in Seoul to co-chair the first Strategic Dialogue with Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul.

This photo taken from the X account of Josep Borrell, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, shows Borrell (L) visiting the Demilitarized Zone separating the Koreas on Nov. 3, 2024. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

"Over the past years, we have become even closer partners making significant progress with the Digital, Green & Health Partnerships," Borrell wrote, noting his visit is aimed at taking the security and defense cooperation "to the next level."

Discussions are likely to address shared concerns over North Korea's dispatch of troops to Russia in support of its war in Ukraine and their joint responses.

Later in the day, he wrote a separate message on X that he had paid a visit to the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas.

"My visit today of the Demilitarised Zone -- DMZ -- between the Republic of Korea and the DPRK is yet another reminder of the need to invest more in peace," Borrell wrote, referring to South and North Korea, respectively, by their formal names.

Last week, Borrell strongly condemned North Korea's deployment of troops to Russia, calling his upcoming visit to Seoul a "timely and important opportunity to discuss these worrying developments."

During his visit, Borrell will also hold talks with Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, according to the European External Action Service.

South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul (R) shakes hands with Josep Borrell, high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy, in Brussels, Belgium, on April 4, 2024, in this file photo provided by the ministry the following day. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

ejkim@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by Lee Haye-ah · November 3, 2024

7. Russia’s Elite Spetsnaz Special Forces 'Devastated' in Ukraine War

If Russian special operations forces have not fared well in Putin's War, what makes anyone think north Korea SOF will do any better?

Russia’s Elite Spetsnaz Special Forces 'Devastated' in Ukraine War

Russia's Spetsnaz special operations forces, among the most elite military units in Russia, have been severely impacted in Ukraine. Initially tasked with high-stakes missions, including decapitation strikes on Ukrainian leadership, Spetsnaz units have faced devastating losses, especially during Ukraine’s 2022 counteroffensives.

The National Interest · by Stavros Atlamazoglou · October 31, 2024

What You Need to Know: Russia's Spetsnaz special operations forces, among the most elite military units in Russia, have been severely impacted in Ukraine. Initially tasked with high-stakes missions, including decapitation strikes on Ukrainian leadership, Spetsnaz units have faced devastating losses, especially during Ukraine’s 2022 counteroffensives.

-According to Pentagon leaks and BBC reports, several Spetsnaz brigades have been reduced to fractions of their initial strength.

-As elite forces are irreplaceable on short timelines, Moscow may need up to a decade to rebuild Spetsnaz to pre-war capacity, marking a critical setback for Russia’s strategic special operations capabilities against near-peer adversaries.

War in Ukraine: The Heavy Toll on Russia’s Spetsnaz Commandos

Since the opening hours of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s elite Spetsnaz special operations units have been on the front of the fighting. Much like the rest of the Russian military, their performance has varied. They have also suffered extremely heavy losses that undermine their strategic utility for years to come. Nonetheless, Spetsnaz units remain Moscow’s go-to force for difficult missions.

Russia’s Elite Soldiers

Spetsnaz, an abbreviation of “special purposes forces” in Russian, is a term that describes the specialized units of the Russian military, law enforcement, and intelligence services.

The term dates before World War One but it wasn’t until after World War Two that Stalin created the first official Spetsnaz units.

The original Spetsnaz units were part of the Russian Chief Intelligence Office (GRU) and Federal Security Service (FSB). Today, several Spetsnaz units provide the Russian military and law enforcement with specialized troops.

When it comes to mission sets, Spetsnaz units specialize in direct action, strategic reconnaissance, and unconventional warfare. They usually have the best weapons and equipment in the entire Russian armed forces.

In terms of training, all Spetsnaz units are airborne qualified in static-line parachuting, but only the most elite are free-fall qualified and can conduct jumps from very high altitudes.

The GRU and FSB Spetsnaz units are by far the most elite and professional. These are the tier 1 special operations units and are comparable, at least on paper, to the U.S. Army’s Delta Force and Navy’s SEAL Team 6. They specialize in direct action, human intelligence, cyber espionage, sabotage, and assassinations.

Spetsnaz in Ukraine

The war in Ukraine is the largest conflict Russia has found itself in since World War Two. As such, the Kremlin has thrown everything it has into the fight, including its elite Spetsnaz forces.

At the onset of the conflict, the Russian High Command had planned to use its Spetsnaz units to bag an easy victory for the Kremlin. While Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) paratroopers were storming the Hostomel airport next to Kyiv, Spetsnaz commandos were going after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other high-ranking Ukrainian officials.

The Kremlin wanted to decapitate the Ukrainian command and control structure at the most important point of the conflict and create chaos in its adversary. Much like of Moscow’s plans, the attempt to take out Zelensky and the Ukrainian leadership failed.

But, the Russian military was not dissuaded and continued to use its elite Spetsnaz forces in the conflict. Although conventional Russian troops spearheaded the three different invasion prongs: north toward Kyiv; south toward Kherson and Odessa; and west toward Kharkiv, the Kremlin deployed Spetsnaz commandos every time the conventional Russian forces faced significant resistance. Spetsnaz commandos have appeared in all of the important battles, including Mariupol, Kherson, Lyman, Kharkiv, Kyiv, and the Donbas.

However, the heavy attrition suffered by the Russian forces also reached the elite Spetsnaz. In April 2023, a U.S. Air National Guard airman leaked several classified documents. Some of the documents concerned the war in Ukraine and Pentagon’s assessments of the combatants and the course of the conflict. And there were documents about the Spetsnaz units and their casualties in the war.

According to the Pentagon, all but one of five Spetsnaz brigades that went to war on February 24, 2022, had suffered significant losses by late summer 2022. According to the Defense Intelligence Agency’s estimate, one of the separate Spetsnaz brigades in question had only, “125 personnel active out of 900 deployed.”

In military terms, a unit that has lost almost ninety percent of its combat capability is deemed no longer effective and is moved from the line.

Those numbers would only have increased as the Ukrainians launched an extremely successful counteroffensive just a few weeks later, in September 2022, liberating hundreds of square miles of territory in just a few days. During that Ukrainian counteroffensive, the GRU’s Third Guards Spetsnaz Brigade, one of Russia’s most elite units, was caught in the retreat and had to fight a defensive action in the town of Lyman.

It didn’t go well.

A subsequent report by the BBC assessed that the Spetsnaz unit lost up to seventy-five percent of its men.

The Russian military is even using Spetsnaz units to attack Ukrainian trenches, a task usually reserved for regular infantry.

Although we don’t have more up-to-date figures concerning Spetsnaz losses after the summer of 2022, the extremely heavy losses suffered by the entire Russian forces suggest that Spetsnaz special operations units have continued to take significant losses. Overall, the Russian forces have lost almost 700,000 men in the fighting thus far and casualties continue to pill up every day at an alarming speed, over the weekend, Moscow lost an average of 1,600 men each day. And although the Russian military can replenish losses in conventional units easily, that is not the case with Spetsnaz special operations units.

The Strategic Effect

One of the main differences between special operations and conventional units is the training and qualifications of their troops. For example, a U.S. Air Force Pararescueman requires around two years of advanced training before they join an operational unit. Other units have similar lengthy selection and assessment pipelines.

The level of casualties suffered by the Russian special operations units will leave a strategic capability gap. Moscow won’t be able to recreate the capability anytime soon. Indeed, in the leaked classified documents, the Pentagon estimated that it would take Russia up to ten years to reconstitute its special operations capability. And that assessment referred to casualty figures more than two years ago.

There are two pertinent adages from the U.S. special operations community that say, “Special Operations Forces cannot be mass produced” and “Competent Special Operations Forces cannot be created after emergencies occur.”

Russia might try to recreate its Spetsnaz units, but it will take a lot more than just numbers to recreate a strategic special operations capability that can used against near-peer adversaries.

About the Author

Stavros Atlamazoglou is a seasoned defense journalist specializing in special operations and a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ). He holds a BA from Johns Hopkins University and an MA from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). His work has been featured in Business Insider, Sandboxx, and SOFREP.

Image Credit: Creative Commons and/or Shutterstock.

8. Putin Isn't Bluffing: North Korean Troops are in Occupied Ukraine

Putin Isn't Bluffing: North Korean Troops are in Occupied Ukraine

North Korean troops are in occupied Ukraine, according to Western intelligence services. Reports until this point suggested that the Kremlin would only deploy North Korean troops in the Kursk Oblast, Russia, to fend off the Ukrainian forces there.

The National Interest · by Stavros Atlamazoglou · November 2, 2024

North Korean troops are in occupied Ukraine, according to Western intelligence services.

Reports until this point suggested that the Kremlin would only deploy North Korean troops in the Kursk Oblast, Russia, to fend off the Ukrainian forces there.

The fact that some of the approximately 10,000 North Koreans are operating within occupied Ukrainian territory threatens the conflict with further escalation.

North Koreans in Russian Service

Earlier in October, South Korean and Western intelligence services declassified intelligence, showing that the Kremlin had recruited several thousand North Korean troops to fight on its behalf in the conflict in Ukraine.

Moscow shares a close relationship with Pyongyang, which only became stronger with the war in Ukraine. During the approximately 1,000 days of the conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin has had to repeatedly ask his North Korean counterpart for military assistance. Pyongyang has sent artillery shells, armored personnel carriers, multiple launch rocket systems, and other military hardware to Moscow.

But now Russia needs more.

But how did Moscow come to this? Why does it risk further escalation of the conflict just for some thousands of North Korean troops? The simple answer is because of the extremely heavy attrition. The Russian forces are taking heavy casualties. Currently, the Russian military averages approximately 1,300 casualties every day. And that rate of casualties has been going on for almost six months now, resulting in over 120,000 losses during that timeframe.

Overall, the Russian forces have lost around 700,000 men killed or wounded since the large-scale invasion began on February 24, 2022. That is an average of about 715 men, or an infantry battalion, killed or wounded every day.

So, North Korean troops will provide a much-needed manpower boost to a pressured Russian military. And once the door is open, more troops can come.

North Koreans in Ukraine

According to the Western intelligence officials, who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity, North Korean troops are inside occupied Ukraine. Although the Western intelligence officials didn’t specify the location and roles of the North Korean troops, this is the first Western confirmation that North Korean troops are actively engaged in the fighting.

The Ukrainian and South Korean intelligence services provided more information on the location and role of the North Korean troops. The two intelligence services reported that there are North Korean troops in Donetsk City, occupied by the Russian forces, and are providing logistical support to the Russian military. Although it is still not certain that North Korean troops are actively engaged in the fighting inside Ukraine, their presence on the battlefield alone is enough to further escalate the conflict.

South Korea is now likely to send more military aid to Ukraine. Moreover, Kyiv will now have more arguments to make in its favor concerning permission to use Western long-range munitions, such as the MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) and the Storm Shadow cruise missile, against high-value military targets inside Russia.

About the Author

Image Credit: Creative Commons and/or Shutterstock.

The National Interest · by Stavros Atlamazoglou · November 2, 2024

9. Over 7,000 N. Korean troops deployed near border with Ukraine, armed with rifles, mortars

Reports seem to be all over the map.

Over 7,000 N. Korean troops deployed near border with Ukraine, armed with rifles, mortars | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Eun-jung · November 3, 2024

By Kim Eun-jung

SEOUL, Nov. 3 (Yonhap) -- Kyiv's defense intelligence agency has said Russia appears to have deployed more than 7,000 North Korean soldiers, armed with AK-12 rifles, mortar rounds and other assault weapons, to areas near the border with Ukraine.

South Korea and the West have warned that North Korean troops in Russia may soon enter into combat against Ukraine that would pose a major security threat to both Europe and the Indo-Pacific region.

The Defense Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU) said on Saturday (local time) that Russia moved more than 7,000 North Korean soldiers from Russia's coastal region to areas near Ukraine last week.

"The North Korean troops were moved to the frontline with the help of at least 28 military transport aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces," the DIU said on its website.

Moscow armed the North Korean soldiers with Russian firearms, including 60-millimeter mortars, AK-12 rifles, machine guns, sniper rifles, anti-tank guided missiles and anti-tank grenade launchers, and night vision equipment, the DIU said.

North Korean soldiers are now undergoing training at five different sites in Russia's Far East for potential support of Russia's war in Ukraine, it noted.

This image captured from the Center for Strategic Communication and Information Security of Ukraine shows soldiers appearing to be North Koreans at a military base in Russia. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

ejkim@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Eun-jung · November 3, 2024

10. Ukraine Is Getting Another 200 Stryker Vehicles Just In Time To Meet A North Korean Onslaught

What if Korea provided 200 tanks, 200 infantry fighting vehicles, and 200 howitzers along with a sustained flow of ammunition for each? I would bet this would have more of an effect on the war than 10,000 or 50,000 NKPA forces.

Ukraine Is Getting Another 200 Stryker Vehicles Just In Time To Meet A North Korean Onslaught

The extra U.S.-made Strykers should be enough to equip the 95th Air Assault Brigade.

Forbes · by David Axe · November 2, 2024

David Axe

Forbes Staff

David Axe writes about ships, planes, tanks, drones and missiles.

Nov 2, 2024,01:55pm EDT

A Ukrainian Stryker.

82nd Air Assault Brigade photo

Thousands of North Korean troops are massing in Kursk Oblast in western Russia. The U.S. Defense Department expects that, any day now, these troops will march to the front line in Kursk to help Russian troops trying to roll back Ukraine’s surprise invasion of the oblast.

“Initial indications are that these troops will be employed in some type of infantry role,” said U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon’s top spokesperson.

Ukrainian forces in their 270-square-mile salient in Kursk are getting a boost, too—potentially in the form of hundreds of American-made Stryker armored vehicles. A $425-million aid package the Pentagon announced on Friday includes bombs, missiles, artillery shells—and at least 212 of the speedy, eight-wheel Strykers.

Most of the Ukrainian military’s Strykers are already in Kursk. There’s no reason to believe the additional vehicles won’t also roll into the salient to meet the counterattacking Russians and their new North Korean allies.

It’s not apparent how quickly the new Strykers will arrive in Ukraine. It is apparent what the Ukrainians will do with the vehicles.

After subtracting the approximately two dozen Strykers the Ukrainians have lost to Russian fire, the additional vehicles will grow the Ukrainian Stryker inventory to nearly 400. Kyiv assigns the 18-ton, 11-person vehicles to air assault brigades—usually equipping three 31-vehicle battalions in each brigade.

Earlier batches of Strykers were sufficient to equip the 80th and 82nd Air Assault Brigades, both of which contributed battalions to the invasion of Kursk starting in early August. A third air assault brigade, the 95th, is also in Kursk—and it doesn’t yet have any Strykers.

It would make sense for the general staff in Kyiv to prioritize the 95th Air Assault Brigade for the newly consigned Stykers, in order to align the brigade with its sister units in Kursk.

The nimble Stryker with its 60-mile-per-hour top speed is suited to the mix of chaotic urban combat and swift road assaults that’s typical of the fighting in the Russian oblast—and was also a hallmark of last spring’s battle for Vovchansk in northeastern Ukraine.

In Vovchansk, the 82nd Air Assault Brigade discovered what the U.S. Army already knew about the Stryker: in addition to being fast and maneuverable, the nine-foot-tall vehicle is a good observation and firing platform for top-mounted sensors and weapons.

Ukrainian troops bracing for the coming North Korean onslaught in Kursk would surely be grateful for a couple hundred extra Strykers. They’d probably be even more grateful for a few brigades of fresh troops to match the Russians’ North Korean reinforcements soldier-for-soldier.

But as much as the Ukrainian armed forces have struggled to generate enough modern armored vehicles, they’ve struggled more to generate additional manpower. Unless and until the defense ministry in Kyiv can resolve its recruiting crisis, those new Strykers might be the only help coming to Kursk.

Follow me on Twitter. Check out my website or some of my other work here. Send me a secure tip.

Sources

1. U.S. Defense Department (and here)

2. Oryx

3. Ukraine Control Map

David Axe

Forbes · by David Axe · November 2, 2024

11. Does a ‘Warning from Kursk’ Show Reality of North Korea’s Russian Misadventure?

Ukrainian psychological operations/warfare?

We have to take this with a grain of salt but if these kinds of battle outcomes are confirmed and continue this could be a boon for psychological operations/warfare both in Ukraine and on the Korean peninsula.

Does a ‘Warning from Kursk’ Show Reality of North Korea’s Russian Misadventure?

kyivpost.com · by Kyiv Post · November 2, 2024

A video said to be of a badly wounded North Korean soldier, the sole survivor of a 40-man unit that was obliterated in Kursk has appeared in social and mainstream media.

by Kyiv Post | November 2, 2024, 12:13 pm

Screenshot from the video that purports to show the only survivor of a North Korean unit that was massacred in Kursk

On Thursday, the pro-Ukrainian Telegram channel 'ExileNova' released a two-minute video titled “Warning from Kursk.” The video shows what is said to be an unnamed, badly wounded North Korean soldier who says he was the only survivor of a 40-man unit that was decimated by a Ukrainian artillery and drone attack in the Kursk region of Russia.

The footage shows the man, lying in a hospital bed his head and face wrapped in bandages that appear to be soaked soaked with blood and pus and a nasal catheter held in place with another dressing.

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Needless to say, the video was rapidly picked up by other social media who were split between those pro-Ukrainian sites who said it was genuine and those pro-Kremlin bloggers who said it was faked propaganda.

While Kyiv Post is unable to confirm the veracity of the video it is interesting that the South Korean media outlets News Naver and JongAng say that although it was difficult to make out everything the man said, both agreed that he was speaking with a definite North Korean accent.

In the video he claims that he and his comrades had been lied to by the commander of the Russian unit they were attached to, vented his frustrations with President Putin, and urged his compatriots to stay home.”

He said that they had been assigned to guard a defensive position somewhere in Kursk where they were told they would be “safe from attack as long as we were in the defensive position… that we would not be needed to participate on the front line.”

An Open Letter to the Ukrainian American Community

As the election heads into its final days, the stakes for the future of Ukraine and European security couldn’t be higher.

He said that once their position came under attack by Ukrainian forces, “the Russian military forced us to participate in the [counter] offensive,” which he called the Battle of Kursk. He said that there was no plan claiming, “The Russians did not conduct any reconnaissance before the attack and left us without weapons to defend ourselves.”

The man also said, “When Ukraine started attacking all 40 of our unit were launched into the attack, they were all killed including my friends Hyuk-cheol and Gyeong-hwan – who had their heads blown off by shrapnel.”

He went on, “I was only able to survive by hiding under their corpses. My grandfather told me stories about the Fatherland Liberation War [Korean War 1950-53], but I didn’t know it would be like this. In reality my comrades were simply sacrificed, used as mere fodder… historical material.”

The soldier continued, “The Ukrainian soldiers were well-armed with the latest weapons and are highly motivated… but the Russian army has lost too many weapons and equipment, so it just sends waves of soldiers like us recklessly into the offensive.”

He adds, “I saw mountains of Russian soldiers’ bodies with my own eyes, as well as destroyed defensive positions,” before concluding, “This is truly the evil of this world -

Putin will lose this war.”

Jonas Ohman, head of the Lithuanian non-profit organization (NGO) Blue-Yellow which is providing support to Ukrainian forces in the area said they had seen North Korean military in Kursk as far back as Oct. 25. He is also quoted by the JonAng news site as saying the North Korean soldier was carrying documents that identified him as being from the Buryat region, which lends weight to previously suggestions Russia was disguising the identity of Pyongyang’s troops.

In an interview on Thursday Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, “So far, North Korean troops have not participated in the battle. They are preparing to engage [in Kursk],” but said there had been no confirmation of any exchange of fire between Ukrainian and North Korean troops or reports of any North Korean casualties. However, he said that the fighting would soon become a reality “in a matter of days, not weeks or months.”

kyivpost.com · by Kyiv Post · November 2, 2024

12. Underestimating North Korean troops is a mistake, experienced military officials warn

We will see. But my question remains, even if the nKPA forces (SOF or otherwise) can achieve success on the battlefield, will the Russsians be able to exploit such success? The nKPA forces cannot be a game changer if the Russian cannot exploit their game changing effects.

Underestimating North Korean troops is a mistake, experienced military officials warn

Pyongyang's forces seen as motivated, disciplined, well-compensated as Ukraine mission looms

washingtontimes.com · by Andrew Salmon

By - The Washington Times - Thursday, October 31, 2024

SEOUL, South Korea — The quality of the thousands of North Korean troops preparing to join Russia’s war against Ukraine is coming under intense and generally unfavorable scrutiny.

North Korean soldiers are “mostly poorly equipped, unmotivated and undernourished,” a British academic said. They “appear relatively short and slightly built, reflecting widespread malnourishment,” a leading U.S. newspaper reported. They boast “no experience whatsoever” in “any form of combat,” a noted military historian said.

Some say Ukraine and the West denigrate the quality of the North Korean soldiers at their peril.

“It is absurd how they underestimate the North Koreans,” said Chun In-bum, a retired South Korean general who led the Special Forces Command. “I think they will be a shock to the Western world.”

Grant Newsham, a retired U.S. Marine officer with decades of experience in the Indo-Pacific theater, said: “Asian troops can fight. You’d think people would have learned this by now. Korean War veterans understood this, as did American and British forces in World War II. Vietnam? Same thing.

“This doesn’t mean they can’t be defeated — and badly — but it does mean they should not be underestimated,” Mr. Newsham said.

Japan, South Korea, China and Taiwan have emerged as economic powerhouses in East Asia in the decades after World War II. Asian military forces have also proved formidable despite sharing many of the perceived “weaknesses” of North Korean troops.

Defying Western skepticism over motivation, cohesion, fieldcraft, stamina and the willingness to take casualties, Asian troops have historically outperformed expectations, even when outgunned and undersupplied. The social glue binding ethnically homogenous nations offers one advantage, said Drew Thompson, a China expert and senior fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

“That points to the leveraging of monocultures for security purposes,” he said. “Social cohesion creates a sense of unity and an ability to mobilize economies and societies effectively for war.”

Gastone Breccia, a military historian at the University of Pavia, cited five factors in the effectiveness of East Asian military forces: discipline, resilience, expendability, numbers and resourcefulness.

From the Japanese victory in the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War to the North Vietnamese victory over U.S. forces in Vietnam, the 20th century offers numerous reasons to believe the North Korean forces in Ukraine could provide a major boost to Russia and major headaches for Ukraine and the United States.

Track record

A fortress state long isolated and economically backward, North Korea nevertheless fields a formidable fighting force. The regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un devotes an estimated 27% of gross domestic product to defense, financing a military force of 1.2 million active personnel and hundreds of thousands of reserve troops. In a country of just over 26 million people, it is the world’s fourth-largest military.

Analysts also doubt claims that the troops lack motivation.

“From 5 years old, North Koreans are indoctrinated, and when they turn 17, they go into the military,” said Mr. Chun. “What else do these young men know?”

North Korean commandos who infiltrated South Korea from the 1960s through the 1990s fought to the death when cornered or managed to evade massive cordons to get back across the border. Operatives who bombed a Seoul delegation in Burma, now Myanmar, attempted suicide when facing capture in 1982.

Pyongyang wields harsh coercive power. Mr. Thompson said, “There is family back home being held hostage.”

Military service has rewards in North Korea.

“Look what North Korea has done to their national heroes, all those old guys with those absurd medals on their chests,” said Mr. Chun. “Young kids see them and think, ‘If I die, my family will be taken care of.’”

Reported Russian payments worth $2,000 to $3,000 per soldier are huge sums for North Koreans, he said.

“Even if their government takes most and they only get $200 or $300, that is hundreds of times what a North Korean soldier makes at home,” said the former general.

North Korean commanders and troops have shown a historic willingness to accept high casualty rates in battle.

“One reason why South Koreans respect North Koreans … is because of their fanaticism and purported willingness to suffer enormous casualties to achieve goals,” said Douglas Nash, a retired U.S. Army colonel.

The U.S. and South Korea estimate that 10,000 to 13,000 North Korean troops have been deployed in Russia for training and possible imminent assignment to the front lines, enough to form three infantry brigades and one special forces brigade. That’s minor for Mr. Kim’s overall army, but in places such as Kursk, where some 30,000 Ukrainian troops are struggling to hold a Russian enclave seized in a surprise sortie last month, 10,000 fresh troops represent a significant mass.

“Expendable, well-disciplined, thoroughly indoctrinated infantrymen are worth three times their number on the battlefield,” Mr. Breccia said.

Experience

Doubts that the North Korean soldiers lack overseas combat experience should also be taken with a grain of salt. North Korean pilots deployed to the Vietnam and Arab-Israeli wars in the 1960s and 1970s, military advisers operated in Africa in the 1980s, and North Korean commandos are thought to have fought in Syria as “militias” in the 2000s. The North can draw on a huge pool of recruits with at least some military experience.” Some North Korean units are used for labor and agriculture, but all men serve 10 years in uniform.

“North Korean soldiers are not likely to be as professional as Western soldiers,” said Mr. Chun. “But for a conscripted military, they are motivated and indoctrinated.”

Even the widespread stories of physical limitations of North Korean soldiers raised among property and privation may not be accurate. In 2017, a malnourished North Korean soldier infested with intestinal parasites defected across the DMZ. Neither condition prevented him from charging through a hail of fire; he survived five close-range gunshot wounds.

Mr. Chun said the North Korean troops sent to Ukraine will unlikely experience ration shortfalls in grain-rich Russia.

“The North Koreans have planned this,” said Mr. Chun. “There was plenty of time to prepare and weed out the weak.”

Mr. Thompson suggested that, unlike the wars of the past century, North Korean troops will face a real challenge fighting far from home on unfamiliar terrain.

He noted that they train in North Korea’s harsh seasons. They are cold-weather capable, and winter favors the offensive in Russian military strategy. Frosted ground enables off-road armored maneuvering, while defenders have difficulty digging positions. North Korean troops also use the same Warsaw Pact standard arms deployed by both sides in Ukraine, including rifles and artillery.

Still, even those who say the North Koreans could prove formidable fighters acknowledge the mission’s challenges. North Koreans have no experience with joint operations and face language and procedural barriers that could be exposed on Ukraine’s high-tech, networked battlefield.

“Interoperability is going to be a challenge, but they can overcome that with liaison and good planning,” said Mr. Chun. “They will not be accustomed to drones, but if they are able to overcome the initial battle shock, Ukraine is in trouble.”

• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.

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washingtontimes.com · by Andrew Salmon

13.North Korea is hoping bigger is better with its new intercontinental ballistic missile. Experts are skeptical.

Today the Hwasong-19 tomorrow the Hawsong -25 then the Hwasong -50 and before you know it we will have the Hwasong -100.

North Korea is hoping bigger is better with its new intercontinental ballistic missile. Experts are skeptical.

Business Insider · by Rebecca Rommen

Military & Defense

Rebecca Rommen

2024-11-02T09:11:01Z

An image of the the "Hwasongpho-19" ICBM released by North Korean state media. KCNA

This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? .

North Korea said it tested a new long-range intercontinental ballistic missile this week.
State media called the "Hwasongpho-19" the "world's most powerful strategic missile."
Experts say its size would likely affect its mobility in a conflict.

North Korea said it tested the "world's most powerful strategic missile" earlier this week, but experts say its size may limit its effectiveness in a conflict.

The intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launched on Thursday and flew more than 1,000 km (around 620 miles) in around 86 minutes before landing in the Sea of Japan, the country's KCNA state news agency reported on Friday. It said it achieved a maximum altitude of close to 7,700 km (around 4,780 miles). Japan's defense ministry has supported these figures.

KCNA said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the launch of the missile, which it identified as the "Hwasongpho-19."

Video footage from North Korean state media reshared by NK News on X appears to show the missile's launch.

VIDEO: North Korean state media published footage of the launch of a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) model called the “Hwasong-19” on Thursday. Read more here: https://t.co/kA8m36NARX pic.twitter.com/CXXlBJX7O5

— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) November 1, 2024

Perhaps the most striking feature of the new missile is its size. It has been estimated to be at least 92 feet long — more than 30 feet longer than the US's LGM-30G Minuteman III ICBM.

Photos released by KCNA show the missile being carried by a huge transporter erector launcher (TEL).

Kim Jong Un next to the Hwasongpho-19 TEL. KCNA

Virginie Grzelczyk, a specialist on North Korea and the Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at Aston University, told Business Insider that solid-fuel missiles like the Hwasongpho-19 offer a "potentially greater payload capacity, including the possibility of carrying nuclear warheads."

"However, the Hwasong-19, being notably large, may face operational challenges regarding mobility in a conflict," Grzelczyk said.

Edward Howell, a Korea Foundation fellow at Chatham House's Asia-Pacific Program, told BI that "as missiles get bigger and bigger, questions of effectiveness will always be raised."

"The Hwasong-19 missile may be able to support a heavy warhead, but as the size of a missile increases, its mobility decreases," he said.

Instead, the balloons are strictly aimed at South Korea, intended to instill fear and create internal division while discouraging information flow into North Korea. This sensitivity to external information is also evident in North Korea’s strong reactions to South Korea’s loudspeaker broadcasts, which they view as a significant threat to regime stability.

Some North Korean citizens have expressed skepticism about these tactics. “Sending trash balloons in this modern age only degrades our dignity. The new generation should find better ways to express our voices,” one resident in their 20s from North Pyongan Province told Daily NK recently, “Instead of promoting conflict, we should seek ways to coexist peacefully, even if we can’t cooperate. While I’m not fully aware of the current situation, sending trash balloons is just embarrassing for our country.”

The North Korean authorities remain sensitive to changing public perceptions and adjust their policies accordingly. Recent moves to distance the regime from concepts of Korean unification, including referring to South Korea as “puppet Korea” and removing South Korea from peninsula maps, have prompted questions from citizens. The authorities have responded by attempting to suppress such discussions and ordering strict reporting of any “reactionary phenomena.”

The regime might resort to organizing large-scale anti-South demonstrations if major incidents occur, using them as opportunities for propaganda and ideological mobilization. The success of this confrontation may ultimately depend on reaching North Korean citizens with the truth and winning their hearts and minds.

North Korean Balloons and Kim Jong Un’s New Psychological Warfare

thediplomat.com

North Korea’s “trash balloons” are billed internally as “enemy attack drills” – and the latest round targeted the Presidential Office in Seoul.

By Lee Sang-yong

November 01, 2024

Credit: Office of the President, ROK

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A shocking incident occurred in South Korea on October 24 when suspected propaganda materials from North Korean “trash balloons” landed at the Presidential Office in Yongsan, Seoul, during preparations for the official welcoming ceremony of Polish President Andrzej Duda’s state visit. Although only about 20 items were scattered, the fact that several balloons reached the vicinity of the presidential office has raised concerns about North Korea’s increasingly sophisticated and dangerous balloon operations.

While the South Korean military hasn’t ruled out coincidence, the discovery of GPS transmitters in some balloons suggests these launches might be intentionally targeted. What exactly is North Korea trying to achieve?

According to a Daily NK source inside North Korea, the Kim Jong Un regime has been conducting these balloon launches since mid-September 2024 under the guise of “enemy attack drills.” This training encompasses psychological warfare, covert operations, and propaganda aimed at creating confusion and lowering morale in South Korea. Specifically, frontline units under the Second Corps (in Pyongsan County, North Hwanghae Province) are calculating coordinates, wind speeds, and adjusting launch points to target specific areas in South Korea.

Notably, these balloon operations are authorized directly by Kim Jong Un based on proposals from lower-level military units. This suggests the psychological warfare campaign will likely continue as part of the supreme leader’s strategic approach toward South Korea.

Why has North Korea suddenly shifted to this form of enemy operations training? The previous justification of responding to South Korean leaflets no longer holds, and Kim Yo Jong’s argument about “South Korean citizens’ right to know” has collapsed. According to a Daily NK investigation, this strategy was discussed and decided by the Central Military Commission and the State Affairs Commission leadership, indicating a new, more aggressive phase in psychological operations against South Korea.

The North Korean authorities appear to be testing South Korea’s and its military’s responses while gathering data on balloon operations. Rather than focusing on quantity, North Korea is now prioritizing accuracy in hitting specific targets within an acceptable margin of error, while carefully documenting South Korea’s reactions.

The recent presidential office incident demonstrated Pyongyang’s focus on targets with military and political significance, including Yongsan and military facilities. The concentration of balloon landings in Seoul and the capital region is deliberate, targeting South Korea’s political and economic center where population density is highest for maximum psychological impact.

While many balloons are equipped with time bombs, sources indicate the current goal isn’t actual detonation but rather creating psychological pressure and fear. However, the possibility of actual detonation hasn’t been ruled out, and biological or chemical weapons remain potential options in their “enemy operations” arsenal.

The launch of balloons destined for sensitive areas in Seoul could be seen as retaliation for North Korea’s claim of repeated incursions by South Korean drones over Pyongyang, including near the headquarters of the Workers’ Party of Korea. Importantly, however, North Korean authorities are not informing their own citizens about these balloon operations. This suggests the campaign is not meant to demonstrate a strong response to the alleged drone incident.

Instead, the balloons are strictly aimed at South Korea, intended to instill fear and create internal division while discouraging information flow into North Korea. This sensitivity to external information is also evident in North Korea’s strong reactions to South Korea’s loudspeaker broadcasts, which they view as a significant threat to regime stability.

Some North Korean citizens have expressed skepticism about these tactics. “Sending trash balloons in this modern age only degrades our dignity. The new generation should find better ways to express our voices,” one resident in their 20s from North Pyongan Province told Daily NK recently, “Instead of promoting conflict, we should seek ways to coexist peacefully, even if we can’t cooperate. While I’m not fully aware of the current situation, sending trash balloons is just embarrassing for our country.”

The North Korean authorities remain sensitive to changing public perceptions and adjust their policies accordingly. Recent moves to distance the regime from concepts of Korean unification, including referring to South Korea as “puppet Korea” and removing South Korea from peninsula maps, have prompted questions from citizens. The authorities have responded by attempting to suppress such discussions and ordering strict reporting of any “reactionary phenomena.”

The regime might resort to organizing large-scale anti-South demonstrations if major incidents occur, using them as opportunities for propaganda and ideological mobilization. The success of this confrontation may ultimately depend on reaching North Korean citizens with the truth and winning their hearts and minds.

Authors

Guest Author

Lee Sang-yong

Lee Sang-yong is the director of Daily NK’s AND Center.

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thediplomat.com

15. Kim Jong Un is China's ally - but has become the 'comrade from hell'

Those of us who experienced Robin Sage (culmination exercise of special forces qualification course) might call Kim Jong Un the "G-Chief from hell" (Guerrilla Chief) from a Chinese perspective.

Kim Jong Un is China's ally - but has become the 'comrade from hell'

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c207gzprr33o?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=user/BBCNews

Laura Bicker

BBC News

Reporting fromFangchuan, China-Russia-North Korea border

BBC

A tall building on the edge of Fangchuan has become a tourist attraction for the view it offers of North Korea

Chinese tourists huddle together against the brisk autumn breeze on a 12-storey building, vying for the best spot to photograph the point where their country meets Russia and North Korea.

The three national flags overlap on a map on the wall, which explains that Fangchuan in China’s north-east corner is a unique place for that reason.

“I feel very proud to be standing here… with Russia on my left and North Korea on my right,” declares one woman on a trip with her co-workers. “There are no borders among the people.”

That might be overly optimistic. Like the sliver of sandwiched Chinese territory she has travelled to see, Beijing too is caught between its sanctioned neighbours.

Fears over the budding alliance between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un have peaked in recent weeks, with reports of North Korea deploying thousands of troops to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

And that was before Pyongyang fired a banned intercontinental missile on Thursday, on the longest flight recorded yet – after turning up the rhetoric against Seoul for weeks.

“China seeks a relationship with a reasonable, high level of control over North Korea,” says Christopher Green, an analyst from the International Crisis Group. “And North Korea’s relationship with Russia threatens to undermine that.”

If Chinese leader Xi Jinping is unable shape the Putin-Kim alliance to suit his interests, China may well remain stuck in the middle as western anger and anxiety grows.

Moscow and Pyongyang deny that North Korean soldiers are headed for Ukraine, widely seen as a significant escalation. But the United States says it has seen evidence of this, following allegations by South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence.

The first reports emerged just before Xi met his Russian counterpart at the Brics summit earlier in October, overshadowing a gathering that was meant to send the West a defiant message.

It increasingly appears as though China’s allies are spiralling out of its control. Beijing, the senior partner in the triad, seeks to be the stable leader of a new world order, one that is not led by the US. But that’s difficult to do when one ally has started a war in Europe, and another is accused of aiding the invasion.

“China is unhappy with the way things are going,” Mr Green says, “but they are trying to keep their discontent relatively quiet.”

It’s certainly a sensitive topic for Beijing, judging by the response to our presence in the border town, where it seems tourists are welcome - but journalists are not.

We were in public areas at all times, and yet the team was stopped, repeatedly questioned, followed and our footage deleted.

The hotel demanded to keep my passport for “my safety and the safety of others”. Police visited our hotel rooms, and they also blocked the road to the port at Hunchun, which would have given us a closer view of the current trade between Russia and China.

'Lips and teeth'

On the viewing platform in Fangchuan, it’s clear that most tourists have come to see North Korea.

“I saw a person cycling,” says one girl peering through a telescope. Her friend rushes over to see: “Ooooh! It’s such a mysterious country.”

Close by is the Tumen river that gently cuts through all three countries. It is China’s gateway into the Sea of Japan, where it has territorial disputes with Tokyo.

The 1,400km-long (870 mile) Chinese border has some of the only platforms with a clear view into North Korea. South Korea’s frontier with the North is an almost impenetrable barrier, the heavily mined and fortified Demilitarized Zone.

Someone offers me a pair of binoculars. Some people are cycling through the village on ageing bicycles, but there are few other signs of life. One of the largest buildings is a school with a sign calling for children to “learn well for Chosun”, another name for North Korea.

“North Korea has always been our neighbour. It’s no stranger to us,” says a middle-aged man. “To be able to see how they live makes me realise China is prosperous and strong.”

China offers some of the only glimpses into isolated North Korea

Chinese tourists are eager to know more about their reclusive neighbour

Kim Jong Un’s regime would certainly struggle to survive without its biggest benefactor, China, which accounts for more than 90% of foreign trade, including food and fuel.

That was not always the case. In the early 1960s it was the Chinese who fled famine across the Tumen river. Some even went to school in North Korea because they believed its education system at the time was better.

The North Korean economy crashed after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 – which had been its main source of aid and cheap oil - sparking severe food shortages and, eventually, famine.

Soon, North Korean refugees began wading through an often freezing river at the risk of being shot dead to escape hunger, poverty and repression. There are now more than 30,000 of them in South Korea and an unknown number still live in China.

“Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, North Korea hasn’t really had any choice but to maintain good relations with China, which has been its sole benefactor,” Mr Green says.

But now, he adds, Russia “is offering an alternative and the North Koreans are seeking to exploit that”.

Mao Zedong, the first leader of the People’s Republic of China, had likened the relationship between Beijing and Pyongyang to the closeness between “lips and teeth”: “If the lips are gone, the teeth will be cold.”

The three-way alliance has long worried the West - and the recent closeness between Moscow and Pyongyang has only aggravated fears

‘The comrade from hell’

Now, Beijing finds itself smarting from a lack of gratitude as Kim’s lips are “kissing elsewhere”, according to sociologist Aidan Foster-Carter, who has studied North Korea for several decades.

“North Korea has consistently been the comrade from hell to both Russia and China. They take as much money as they can and [then] do what they like.”

Analysts have noted that Kim has consistently flattered Putin over Xi in the last year. While Kim hasn’t met Xi since 2019, he has met Putin twice in the past year or so. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has drawn the two sanctioned leaders closer than ever. Putin seeks more support for his war and Kim wants to bolster his regime with alliances and attention.

From the Chinese border, it’s easy to see the burgeoning relationship between the two sides.

The whistle of a train interrupts the tourist chatter, and a steam engine pulling a long line of freight carriages slowly chugs across the railway bridge from Russia to North Korea. It stops in front of a Korean sign facing China which reads: “Towards a new victory!”

The so-called friendship bridge connecting Russia and North Korea has become a crucial trade route

The US estimates that Kim has sold more than a million artillery shells and Grad rockets to Moscow for use in Ukraine, which North Korea denies.

But there is no doubt that the pair have stepped up cooperation after signing a security pact in June to help each other in the event of "aggression" against either country.

“You have very stiff and formal language to Xi Jinping on the occasion of what is actually an historically important event – the 75th anniversary of relations of the People’s Republic of China,” Mr Foster-Carter says.

“And yet on Putin’s birthday, Kim calls him ‘my closest comrade’. If you are Xi Jinping, what are you thinking?”

'Through gritted teeth'

It’s hard to know, because China has shown no signs of interfering with the Russia-North Korea alliance.

The US has noticed Beijing’s disquiet and for once the two rivals may have similar goals.

In the last week, State Department officials have raised the issue of North Korean troops in Russia with Chinese diplomats.

Beijing does have options - in the past, they have cut supplies of oil and coal to North Korea, and complied with US-led sanctions to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear programme.

Already, China is battling US accusations that it is selling components to Russia that aid its invasion of Ukraine. Beijing’s trade with Moscow is also flourishing, even as it tries to cope with Western tariffs.

Xi has kept Russia close because he needs Putin’s help to challenge the US-led world order. But he has not stopped trying to repair ties with Europe, the UK and even the US. China has also been holding talks with Japan and South Korea to ease historic tensions.

But Kim’s increasingly aggressive rhetoric against Seoul has the South once again debating whether it should have its own nuclear arsenal. North Korean troops on a Ukrainian battlefield would only further unravel Beijing’s plans.

The possibility has already seen South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol discuss "concrete counter-measures" and talk of strengthening security cooperation with Ukraine and Nato.

Getty Images

What China doesn't want: More instability in East Asia because of a Putin-Kim alliance

A nuclear-armed South Korea or an “East Asian Nato” are not ideal in a region where China wants greater sway. An emboldened Kim could also draw a stronger show of support from the US – in the form of warships or even weapons - towards its allies, Seoul and Tokyo.

“For a very long time, China has had a policy of three nos in Northeast Asia – one of those nos was a no nuclear North Korea. Obviously that has been a failure,” Mr Green says.

Now Beijing fears that the alliance with Russia could destabilise North Korea, he adds: “That could even benefit Vladimir Putin in a way it really would not benefit Xi Jinping.”

Experts say Beijing is just as worried as the West about what military technology Putin might sell to Kim in exchange for troops.

“Satellites, for sure,” Mr Foster-Carter says. “But Putin is bad – not mad. Russia knows just as China knows that North Korea is a loose cannon. Giving [Kim] more technology for nukes is not a good thing for anybody.”

Experts believe Xi is unlikely to do anything drastic because China needs a stable North Korea – if he cuts off aid, he would likely have a refugee crisis at the border.

AFP

Another meeting on the cards? Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un haven't met since 2019

But Kim too might have a decision to make.

Although Russia is paying for shells and troops, Mr Foster-Carter says, it is China that "has actually kept North Korea going all this time, often through gritted teeth. I just wonder at what point Beijing will turn on Pyongyang?”.

Kim's deadly gamble could also have a profound impact closer to home - the 25 million North Koreans who are cut off from the outside world and completely dependent on the regime for their survival.

Across the Tumen river in Fangchuan, a North Korean soldier watches us, while we watch him.

Steam rises from snack stands selling noodles and sizzled octopus on sticks on the Chinese side. And he can probably hear the giggling tourists taking pictures with the latest cameras and phones, which he is forbidden from owning.

The shallow river is a gulf neither the tourists nor the soldier can cross.

16. China Faces a Dilemma With North Korean Troops Pouring Into Russia

I think China may be conflicted. On the one hand it wants the "Three No's" on the Korean peninsula: no war, nor instability or regime collapse, and no nukes. On the other it sees two beneficial effects: north Korea creates dilemmas for the US and ROK and north Korea provides a "cut out" for lethal aid to Russia so that China does not get its hands dirty (assuming China wants Putin to be successful or at least no fail in his war in Ukraine). And this may be perceived as helping to prevent internal instability and regime collapse on the peninsula due to the hard currency and other aid Russia is likely providing to Kim Jong Un (though it is probably not pleased about Russia possibly (or likely) providing advanced missile and/or nuclear technology).

China Faces a Dilemma With North Korean Troops Pouring Into Russia

Beijing, with waning influence and limited options to rein in unpredictable allies, may stick with status quo

By Timothy W. MartinFollow

in Seoul and Austin RamzyFollow

in Hong Kong

Updated Nov. 3, 2024 12:02 am ET

https://www.wsj.com/world/china-faces-a-dilemma-with-north-korean-troops-pouring-into-russia-34f0532f?mod=world_lead_story

The swift militarization of ties between North Korea and Russia makes one country particularly uncomfortable: China.

Beijing often aligns with Moscow and Pyongyang on global politics, including a mutual disdain for the U.S.-led world order. But North Korea’s deployment of thousands of troops to the Russian front lines with Ukraine poses fresh risks for China and tests the limits of its ability to influence its nuclear-armed neighbors.

It could be just a matter of days before as many as 8,000 North Korean troops deployed to Russia’s western Kursk region enter into combat, U.S. officials say.

A chief concern for Beijing is how a combat role for the North Koreans could invite even greater military partnerships between the U.S., Western Europe and its Asia-Pacific allies. China has long been critical of what it sees as mission creep by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which has expanded ties in recent years with Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. Beijing sees those moves as harming its interests and regional stability.

Images of North Korean soldiers during a South Korean TV news segment airing in Seoul Station last month. Photo: Ahn Young-joon/Associated Press

China has long viewed such defense groupings as a Western tool to constrain its rise as a global power. Such partnerships could help the U.S. muster allies in any potential conflict with China over Taiwan. And Beijing points to the 1999 bombing of its embassy in Belgrade by NATO forces as an example of the dangers posed by such military alliances.

The North Korean troop deployment to Russia—estimated at roughly 10,000 overall by U.S. officials—is unacceptable for China because it wants to see fighting stop, said Zhu Feng, director of the Institute of International Studies at Nanjing University.

“It not only brings a new strategic entanglement to the Ukraine war, it also signals an expansion of the war,” Zhu said. Beijing may fear the conflict “will now become an intercontinental engagement,” he added.

China may see direct Russian support of North Korea’s strategic weapons as a red line—though even so, options to clamp down on either country would be limited and might look less appealing than maintaining the status quo, said Eric Ballbach, the Korea Foundation fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

“China is clearly confronted with the reality that it is losing influence over Pyongyang, while Russia is gaining influence,” Ballbach said.

‘Bespoke Swiss Army knife’

North Korea relies on China to be its main economic benefactor. Beijing has also helped prop up Moscow’s finances by becoming a bulk purchaser of Russian energy.

But Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, can offer things to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un—and vice versa—that Beijing cannot: Russia needs manpower and munitions to win the war with Ukraine; Pyongyang needs weaponry know-how.

“For Russia and North Korea, it’s like each has become the other’s bespoke Swiss Army knife,” said John Park, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, who focuses on Indo-Pacific security and economic statecraft.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un at a June signing ceremony in Pyongyang to mark their partnership. Photo: Kristina Kormilitsyna/Associated Press

China has avoided criticism of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, calling it a “crisis” instead of a war. Beijing’s only publicly-aired concerns have followed Moscow’s suggestion of nuclear threats, although they have been phrased so as to not direct criticism specifically at Putin.

Beijing has said little about the North Korean troops. When asked Friday about the reported deployment, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said the bilateral relations of North Korea and Russia were “a matter for themselves.” He reiterated China’s call for all parties to de-escalate the situation and strive for a political solution.

The U.S. has spoken recently with China about the North Korean soldiers in Russia, asking Beijing to use its clout to curb such activities, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday. “We’ll see if they take action,” Blinken said after a meeting with his South Korean counterpart in Washington.

In recent days, Seoul’s intelligence has become more integrated with Kyiv and key allies. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke by phone on Tuesday with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, leading to Kyiv appointing a special envoy to Seoul who is expected to arrive later this month.

The Russian shift

Kim has made a dramatic shift by showering more attention on Russia than China over the past year or so.

North Korea and Russia have sent more than 40 diplomatic, economic or military delegations to each other’s country in 2024—more than four times the number of Pyongyang’s interactions with Beijing, according to a database operated by NK Pro, a website that focuses on North Korea.

On a visit to Moscow on Friday, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui agreed with her Russian counterpart that the “root cause” for tensions regionally and globally sat with the “provocations of the U.S. and its vassal countries,” Pyongyang’s state media reported.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his North Korean counterpart, Choe Son Hui, at a ceremony in Pyongyang last year, in a North Korean state news agency photo. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Kim has sent Putin more than 10 leader-to-leader letters this year, triple the volume of his correspondence with Xi. Russians can vacation in North Korea; Chinese, so far, cannot.

China is bound to frustrate Russia and North Korea on some levels, since Beijing is unwilling to give public declarations of alliance to its two neighbors, said Miles M. Yu, a former Trump administration policy adviser on China. Unlike Moscow and Pyongyang, Beijing won’t misbehave too openly since it wants to create a facade to remain interconnected with the free-trade system and maintain its global standing, he added.

“But in the meantime, China would never abandon clandestine—or at least oblique—assistance to Russia and North Korea,” said Yu, who is now director of the China Center at the Hudson Institute. “As a result, China has to be double-faced.”

Soobin Kim contributed to this article.

Write to Timothy W. Martin at Timothy.Martin@wsj.com and Austin Ramzy at austin.ramzy@wsj.com

17. Getting to Grips with All Things Korean as Pyongyang Enters Ukraine’s War

:-)

Thanks and credit to George Oogle.

Getting to Grips with All Things Korean as Pyongyang Enters Ukraine’s War

As North Korean support to Russia increases, I increasingly must write and edit pieces about that “closed off” nation but I knew next to nothing about it – now is the time to remedy that situation.

by Steve Brown | November 2, 2024, 5:00 pm

kyivpost.com · by Steve Brown · November 2, 2024

As a writer and editor for the Kyiv Post I sometimes suffer from “imposter syndrome” when being asked to deal with subjects I know little or nothing about. The recent appearance of North Korea on the media landscape, because of its growing participation in Russia’s war, made me aware of the gap in my knowledge of Korea; both north and south.

As I normally do when I am asked to write on subjects where my knowledge is sketchy, I consulted my good friend George Oogle to fill in the gaps. Sadly, most available information is Western biased and heavily focused on the politics of the country and the malign influence of the ruling Kim dynasty. I have done my best to sort through the weeds – some of what I found out was mind blowing – so, I’ve decided to share some of it with you.

Where is it?

Korea is a 1,200-kilometer (750-mile) long peninsula on the easternmost part of the Asian continent which is divided in two: South and North Korea. North Korea borders China to the north and Russia in the extreme northeast. To the east of the peninsula is the Sea of Japan and to the west is the Yellow Sea.

The countries are separated by the 250-kilometer (155-mile) long, 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) wide strip of land known as the Demilitarized Zone (or the DMZ) located on the 39th parallel north circle of latitude.

The selection of the point for the division of the two nations was arbitrarily negotiated by Russia and the US at the end of the Korean War which ran from June 25, 1950 – July 27, 1953. A possibly apocryphal story is that the DMZ was negotiated for the 39th parallel based on a map, published by the National Geographic magazine, which had a line on the 38th parallel as a concession to Stalin.

Korean Names

Korean names usually have three parts: the family or surname placed first, and a name identifying the generation, alternating each generation to second or third place with the given personal name.

A 2010 survey (in South Korea) found there was only 280 different family names – the most common being: Kim, Park, Lee, Choi and Oh which are shared with more than half of the population.

Korean women keep their original surnames after marriage, but children will normally receive their father's surname, unless it is agreed at the time of marriage for them to adopt their mother’s name. Despite the similarity in family names each individual traditionally knows their origins including which clan of “Kims” they belong to and the village from where it originated.

Koreans rarely address each other directly by their name and normally use a person’s. title, position, trade, profession, scholastic rank or some honorific form such as “professor or teacher.” This is particularly the case when dealing with adults or one’s elders. Among younger generations it is increasingly becoming acceptable to call someone by their given name if they are the same age as the speaker.

The Korean language – Kugo

Kugo is Korean for Korean! More than 80 million people in Asia speak the language: 25 million in North Korea, 42 million in the south, along with around 2 million in the Chinese border regions, half a million each speakers in the US, Japan and Russia, with other smaller communities in Singapore, Thailand, Guam, and Paraguay.

The origin of Korean / Kugo is unclear and it is classified as “a language isolate,” meaning a language that has no demonstrable genetic (or memetic) relationship with any other language. Some linguists say it grew out of the “Altaic languages” of central Asia, that includes Turkish, Mongolian, and the Tungusic dialects of Siberia. Others say there are similarities with the “Uralic languages” of Hungarian, Finnish and Japanese with an overlay of the “Dravidian languages” of southern India and Chinese because of modern contact with those countries.

Officially, there are two standard varieties of Korean: the Seoul dialect of South Korea and the Pyongyang dialect in North Korea, which are both regulated by two separate national language policies.

Of course, as in every country, there are regional dialects that roughly correspond to provincial boundaries. The North Korean regional dialects are Hamkyong, Pyongan, Hwanghae – dialects that are not easily intelligible to those from other provinces.

Written Korean was heavily influenced by Chinese, from as far back as the first century using the Chinese rendering of Korean words known as Hanja. It was largely immaterial as most Koreans were illiterate. In the 16th century Korea adopted its own alphabet Hangul, which was considered better to portray the language than Chinese, which was seen as a poorly constructed phonetic derivation. Hangul remains the basis of Korean writing today.

People and Culture

Since the end of World War II, very few foreigners have been allowed to settle in (or even enter) the northern country. As a result of over 80 years of resisting outside influences, North Korea is one of the few countries in the world whose population is almost entirely made up of one undiluted ethnic group – 99.8 percent of the population is Korean.

Nearly 70 percent of the country’s people live in urban areas with almost three million of the 25 million population residing in its largest city, the capital Pyongyang and around one million in the country’s second-largest city, Hamhung. The country’s most-populated rural areas are the eastern and western coastal lowlands and river valley plains.

North Korean culture has been shaped by several religious traditions over the centuries. Historically, the teachings of Confucius, a Chinese teacher and philosopher were to the forefront although there were strong influences from Buddhism, Shamanism, and Christianity. However, under the current regime it is forbidden to practice religion and anyone caught or suspected of holding religious belief face harsh punishment.

As in the USSR, the government of North Korea makes strenuous efforts to maintain and advance art as an expression of nationalism that shows how Korean culture is better than others, as well as celebrating the ruling family – statues of Kim Il-sung and public art commemorating the revolution are everywhere.

It is only natural there are so many statues of Kim Il-sung since he is still the nation’s Eternal President despite his death in 1994. His son, Kim Jong-il took over the country as its Supreme Leader, but not President (his father kept that job), until his death in 2011 when he was elevated and beatified to be the Eternal General Secretary of the Workers’ Party. The current Supreme Leader of the “hermit kingdom,” Kim Jong-un, is also officially outranked by his Eternal President grandfather, thirty years after his death.

North Korean society is mostly closed to the outside world, and the government has a huge influence on how people behave. Writers and artists must be affiliated with government institutions and their work must be based on communist ideology and should enhance class consciousness and propagate the superiority and independence of Korean culture.

The government controls what people can see on TV, read in newspapers, and view on the internet (in the few instances it is available). It even controls how people look: its citizens must only have government-approved haircuts.

However, some things are slowly changing thanks to the phenomenon of Jangmadang.

Jangmadang

In the 1990s, North Korea’s socialist economy all but collapsed, resulting in a famine that killed almost a million. The regime could no longer provide enough food and other everyday products, so millions of ordinary North Koreans were left to fend for themselves, so they took the economy into their own hands.

In the past, every North Korean was assigned to a mandatory work unit through which they received rations from the government, but many turned their backs on these state work units, and began to grow and forage for food, and began trading through new illegal markets called “Jangmadang.” These quickly became the main source of food for ordinary North Koreans and gradually grew to include more goods and services and with them a new capitalism-lite mindset.

Today new technology and smuggled foreign goods available in the Jangmadang gave North Koreans greater, if still officially limited access to the outside world. Some believe that access to illegal foreign media will eventually lead to the undermining of loyalty to the regime.

Currently this is largely limited to the “harmless” pastimes of binge-watching South Korean and Hollywood films but the potential for “revolution” is there. Many feel that the momentum for the fall of the Berlin Wall was a result of the appearance of the “window on the west’ that satellite television gave to the GDR in the late 1980s.

The NGO “Liberty in North Korea” says as many as three quarters of North Koreans use or derive their income from Jangmadang:

What of the future for North Korea?

Your guess is as good as mine but there is an interesting, thought-provoking article written by the Institute for the Analysis of International Relations (IARI) in September this year which you can read here, if you’ve a mind to.

kyivpost.com · by Steve Brown · November 2, 2024

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com

If you do not read anything else in the 2017 National Security Strategy read this on page 14:

"A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."

Access NSS HERE

Company Name | Website

Special contribution by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris | Yonhap News Agency

Harris hails alliance with S. Korea; stresses 'ironclad' U.S. commitment, Seoul's 'sizable' USFK contributions | Yonhap News Agency

Ukraine doubles down on psychological campaign against North Korean troops

Ukraine conducts information and psychological campaign against DPRK soldiers - media | УНН

Ukraine conducts information and psychological campaign against DPRK soldiers - media

S. Korea, U.S., Japan stage joint air drills with B-1B bomber after N.K. ICBM launch | Yonhap News Agency

(LEAD) EU's Borrell vows to advance security, defense ties with S. Korea | Yonhap News Agency

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Putin Isn't Bluffing: North Korean Troops are in Occupied Ukraine

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Over 7,000 N. Korean troops deployed near border with Ukraine, armed with rifles, mortars | Yonhap News Agency

Ukraine Is Getting Another 200 Stryker Vehicles Just In Time To Meet A North Korean Onslaught

Does a ‘Warning from Kursk’ Show Reality of North Korea’s Russian Misadventure?

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