How powerful is North Korea's Military compared to USA and China ?

North Korea’s arsenal of weapons may not compare to those of the US, China, or Russia, or even Japan, but they are still powerful and very dangerous, and no one should be dismissive of that fact. “Hungry and barefoot armies are always dangerous.” wrote Lynn Montross in “War through the Ages” . Welcome to The Atlantis Report. North Korea's conventional forces are weak, but they have nuclear weapons and other Weapons of Mass Destruction(chemical and biological weapons) and still some excellent asymmetric warfare capabilities. Longer version: During the 1980s, North Korea had excellent conventional forces. Their equipment was top of the line, but it was their soldiers that were also excellent. North Koreans were conscripted and served for 7-10 years, during which they had much time to practice and train - almost as long as professional soldiers in the first world. Their officers were also excellent - most served as enlisted men for a while, and the best were chosen to get trained at their military academies. Their Special Forces were manned by the children of elites - like the Spartans; the North Korean rulers took it upon themselves to learn to fight to defend their power. For example, Kim Hyun-Hui, the North Korean agent that blew up a South Korean airliner in the middle east in 1987, was the daughter of a high-ranking diplomat. North Korean soldiers also gained much experience fighting in Africa. A handful of their pilots flew Mig-21s in Vietnam against the Americans and against the Israelis for the Egyptians and Syrians during the 1970s. Of course, when the best and brightest are competing to learn how to blow things up rather than doing business and creating wealth, and so much of society is focused on military matters, the economy suffers. During the 1990s, North Korea suffered a devastating famine when its economy completely collapsed. Since then, they have not been able to afford expensive conventional forces. In particular, they have also been chronically short of fuel oil (in the past, the Soviets and Chinese competitively supplied cheap fuel). This means they can not afford to train their mechanized forces and pilots. South Korea, on the other hand, became a wealthy nation. From the 1990s, they began upgrading our forces tremendously. When it became clear that South Korea's conventional forces would soon outclass theirs, the North Korean leadership began focusing on nuclear weapons and missiles and other asymmetric capabilities. They knew South Korea could not afford to fight a war because they have too much to lose and structured their military around asymmetrical warfare to keep them out and also focus upon preventing uprisings within North Korea. Their nuclear weapons deter South Korean and the US from any serious first-strike. It is not clear if they can make their nuclear warheads small enough to fit into missiles, but we are not in any hurry to find out. They also have chemical and biological weapons Their Supreme Guards Command still has competent soldiers and includes children of the elites like their Special Forces prior to the famine. They are like the Praetorian Guards - defending the elite leadership in Pyongyang. They have full combined arms formations and are a military within the military with their own mechanized units and artillery. Their numbers are around 100,000-200,000. North Korea also keeps some special forces units, and its submariners are still pretty good at asymmetric warfare (the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan is an example). They also train hackers for cyber warfare. North Korea has been producing its own ammunition since the 1960s and has ample supplies, so the Supreme Guards Command units and special forces probably get much live-fire training. They probably also get all the fuel North Koreans can muster to reasonably train with their tanks, armored personnel carriers, and artillery. Interestingly, one of the few new aircraft the North Korean air force (whose pilots are members of the elite classes) purchased after the 1980s was the Su-25 Frogfoot - a specialized ground-attack aircraft similar to the American A-10. South Korea's F-16s and F-15s, which are excellent in air-to-air combat, would sweep the slow and heavy Frogfoots easily from the skies. But the Frogfoots would be extremely useful putting down a coup by other North Korean forces. This could be an indication of where North Korean military priorities are. The vast majority of regular Korean People's Army soldiers (other than the Supreme Guards Command) spend more time as conscript construction labor and get far more practice with shovels than Kalashnikov assault rifles. They are also usually Wavering caste individuals. For North Korea's caste system, those who are not party members and the leadership considers them expendable. In the past, North Korea excluded Hostile cast members (such as the children of South Korean POWs who North Korea kept as slave labor after the end of the war) from serving in the military just as the Spartans did not allow helots to learn to fight. But such rules have become lax as their regular military has become just conscripted labor rather than a real fighting force. Their equipment is mostly the same equipment they had in the 1980s - it was good then but now completely outclassed by South Korean equipment. Even if they somehow managed to maintain the tanks and artillery in working order and periodically run them, the North Koreans get very little practice with the logistics that such mechanized forces need due to the fuel shortages. So their regular military (other than the Supreme Guards Command) are probably hollow. North Korea’s nuclear test in early 2016 was met around the world with surprise and condemnation. The incredibly isolated Hermit Kingdom has spent the last half-century growing increasingly antagonistic, and today is one of the most disliked countries on earth. But despite their negative global standing, North Korea is not necessarily all alone. So, who is North Korea’s allies? Well, given the political history of North Korea’s formation, it is not all that surprising that one of their few allies is Russia. Following World War Two, the Korean peninsula was split down the middle. The United States occupied the South, and the Soviet Union occupied the North. The two sides failed to reach any unified plan, and by 1948, the Soviets had helped North Korea establish their Communist-leaning dictatorship. During the Cold War, Russia contributed to North Korea’s development and even sent thousands of its own troops in the Korean War. They also provided significant amounts of humanitarian and military aid, as well as nuclear reactors. It is generally believed that although the Soviet Union did not intend for North Korea to acquire nuclear weapons, they did so due to early nuclear investment by the Russian government. When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, so did their support for North Korea. But since Vladimir Putin’s controversial rise to power in the early 2000s, friendly relations between the two countries have reemerged. In 2014, Russia forgave roughly 10 billion dollars of North Korea’s debt in the hopes of establishing an oil pipeline in the region. But of North Korea’s two allies, Russia is considerably less involved than the People’s The Republic of China. North Korea and China share a roughly 900-mile border, and since the division of Korea, China has provided considerable support to the fledgling nation. Besides contributing troops to the Korean War, the two also signed a Mutual Aid and Cooperation Friendship Treaty in 1961. This treaty, which has been renewed several times, primarily protects North Korea against foreign aggression. Today, although relations with China have hit an all-time low, China’s investments in North Korean stability have hinged on preventing a mass migration of refugees. China is, by far, North Korea’s largest trading partner and source of aid. As of 2011, roughly 83% North Korea’s imports and exports were in China. However, according to a 2010 Wikileaks document, Chinese officials have referred to the Hermit Kingdom as a “spoiled child.” More recently, the PRC has publicly rebuked Kim Jong-Un’s illegal nuclear program, straining tensions even further. But while North Korea’s nuclear aims have isolated the country, they have also created unexpected alliances. As a significant weapons dealer, North Korea has long been suspected of selling weapons to Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. In 2012, the two countries signed a scientific cooperation pact, which many believe is intended to further both of their nuclear weapons programs. A decade earlier, a similar pact between North Korea and Syria reportedly led to plutonium reactors being constructed in Eastern Syria. North Korea’s predominantly military and weapons based alliances have made them a dangerous world power. But in 2015, the country sent out diplomats to Cuba and Equatorial Guinea, both former Soviet supporting nations. Some believe that this move shows North Korea seeking renewed relationships in light of their shaky ties to allies like Russia and China. In the end, North Korea diplomacy may not be a good sign for the rest of the world. North Korea’s military is very powerful - they have nuclear military capabilities, and missiles to deploy that nuclear threat thousands of miles, quite possibly as far as Hawaii and the western seaboard of North America. North Korea has an artillery piece that can reach Seoul. North Korea has the 4th largest standing Army and is ranked 23rd (out of 133) by Global Fire. The U.S. military can destroy North Korea’s army, and there is absolutely no doubt about this. However, what is most important is the resolve of North Korea to attack the U.S. and/or its regional allies (South Korea, Japan); and additionally, how involved would China or Russia be if Kim were to have such resolve? China does not want the U.S. to use war with North Korea to militarily control that region of Asia, causing a massive military buildup and countries possibly having to quickly take sides (15 nations of ASEAN locally - Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, etc.) and Russia does not want the U.S. to occupy or control their 17 Km border between North Korea ; for which North Korea depends on Russian freighters filled with oil and North Korea workers sending money home from Russia. Kim believes that the only way for his regime to survive, it must have strong nuclear capabilities . Additional following data is from the Council on Foreign Relations: Estimates of the country’s nuclear stockpile vary: some experts believe Pyongyang has between fifteen and twenty nuclear weapons, while U.S. intelligence believes the number to be between thirty and sixty bombs. The regime conducted two tests of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of carrying a large nuclear warhead in July 2017. The Pentagon confirmedNorth Korea’s ICBM tests and analysts estimate that the new missile has a potential range of 10,400 kilometers (6,500 miles) and, if fired on a flatter trajectory, could be capable of reaching mainland U.S. territory. U.S. analysts and experts from other countries are still debating the nuclear payload that the ICBM could carry, and it is still unclear whether the ICBMs have the capability to survive reentry. A confidential U.S. intelligence assessment from July 2017 reportedly concluded that North Korea had developed the technology to miniaturize a nuclear warhead to fit its ballistic missiles. North Korea has conducted six nuclear tests, first in October 2006 and then in May 2009 under Kim Jong-il. Under Kim Jong-un’s leadership, the country detonated weapons in February 2013, January and September 2016, and September 2017. Future nuclear tests are anticipated. North Korea possesses the know-how to produce bombs with weapons-grade uranium or plutonium, the primary elements required for making fissile material—the core component of nuclear weapons. With each test, North Korea’s nuclear explosions have grown in power. The first explosion in 2006 was a plutonium-fueled atomic bomb with a yield equivalent to two kilotons of TNT, an energy unit used to measure the force of an explosive blast. The 2009 test had a yield of eight kilotons; the 2013 and January 2016 tests both had yields of approximately seventeen kilotons; and the September 2016 test had a yield of thirty-five kilotons, according to data from the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a Washington, DC-based nonpartisan think tank. (For comparison, the U.S. bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, the first atom bomb, had an estimated yield of sixteen kilotons.) The test carried out on September 3, 2017, was significantly larger, experts say, and could indicate that the country has developed much more powerful bomb-making technology. Initial estimates from seismic activity led observers to conclude that the explosion may have exceeded one hundred kilotons. An explosion of such a size gives credence to the North’s claims of having developed a hydrogen bomb. As the power of these explosions has intensified, so too has the pace of both the country’s nuclear and missile tests. Under Kim Jong-un, who assumed leadership of North Korea in late 2011, the nuclear program has markedly accelerated. In addition to four tests under his regime, the country has carried out more than seventy-five missile tests, far exceeding the trials of his father and grandfather before him. There remain significant unknowns surrounding the accuracy of North Korea’s ballistic missiles. Expert observers have said that these missiles are usually inaccurate because of their reliance on early guidance systems acquired from the Soviet Union. However, some defectors and experts say North Korea has begun using GPS guidance, similar to that of China’s navigation system, raising questions about the provenance of the system and whether North Korea’s arsenal of missiles is more accurate and reliable than previously believed. If China and/or Russia were to involve themselves militarily with North Korea, then this would dramatically change the U.S. military ability to fight and defend itself and allies, and could quickly escalate to a World War III type scenario, which would be horrifying and quite possibly cataclysmic.












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