North Korea has a much stronger military
than in the past. It has a military budget of $5.2 billion. It has
1,080,000 active troops and 4.7 million reserve troops. The United
States has 1.4 million active troops. To put that into perspective,
the size of North Korea is slightly smaller than Mississippi. More
than one million of these are ground troops. The Navy is headquartered
at P’yongyang and had 40,000 to 60,000 people in 1992. The primary
offensive mission of the Navy is supporting army actions against South
Korea, mainly by placing small scale amphibious operations (SOF units)
along the coast. North Korea maintains a strong air defense based
on both the Soviet doctrine and the North Korean experience of heavy
bombings during the Korean War. “Military industries, aircraft
hangars, repair facilities, ammunition, fuel stores, and even air
defense missile systems are placed underground or in hardened shelters.
North Korea has an extensive interlocking, redundant nationwide air
defense system that includes interceptor aircraft, early warning and
groundcontrolled intercept radars, SAMs, a large number of air defense
artillery weapons, and barrage balloons.”
Presently, North Korea has the fourth-largest
army in the world. They spend 20-25% of their GNP on military. About
20% of men ages 17-54 serve in the regular armed forces. They have
a special operations force of 55,000, which could be the world’s
second largest. It is designed for wartime insertion behind the lines.
Except for a few advance fighters, their air force is obsolete. Over
the last several years, North Korea has moved more of its rear-echelon
troops to hardened bunkers closer to the demilitarized zone (DMZ).
Because Seoul is so near to the DMZ (about 25 miles), South Korean
and United States forces are likely to have little warning of an attack.
North Korea spends $3.7 billion to $4.9 billion annually on military
expenditures.
The military balance however is far
more in favor of the South than it was at the outset of the Korean
War in 1950. “…even without the presence of the 37,000
US troops deployed in the South, South Korea might now have a good
chance of winning a war with the North.” (BBC June 2000) In
a March of 2000 statement to the US Senate Armed Services Committee,
commander of the US forces in South Korea, General Thomas A Schwartz,
described North Korea as the country most likely to involve the United
States in a large-scale war. He said that although the North is continuing
to endure economic hardships, the country’s military continues
to grow as does its missiles and weapons of mass destruction. The
military continues to be North Korea’s top priority. One of
the largest concerns to the US is an untested North Korean missile,
the Taepodong 2, which some believe could reach the western fringes
of the US. In 1998, North Korea displayed its ability to strike Japan
with the Taepodong 1.
By: Massimo Noonan
Email: massimo25n@yahoo.com
Last updated: Novemebr 28, 2003
Sources:
http://www.memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?cstdy:12:./temp/~frd_fPNR:
http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Military-of-North-Korea
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/787837.stm
