Economy

North Korea: Country and Military by the Numbers

Paul Ausick

Published: June 11, 2018 8:00 am

Last Updated: January 11, 2020 10:32 pm

The summit meeting between the U.S. president and the president of North Korea is set to take place Tuesday, June 12, in Singapore. Both leaders have already arrived in the city-state and the first meeting between the two will occur early Tuesday morning when they meet with only translators present. A negotiation session with staff present is expected to follow.

What happens next is anyone’s guess. North Korean president Kim Jong-un is reportedly scheduled to leave early Tuesday afternoon, which does not leave a lot of time to unravel a confrontation that has lasted more than 60 years. If that is what happens, expect to see a short, vague statement that pushes further detailed discussions between the two sides to some future time.

The central issue for the meeting, from the U.S. point of view, is the denuclearization of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), which U.S. President Donald Trump has maintained must begin now and end with the destruction of any nuclear capability in the North.

The DPRK is not likely to accede to Trump’s demands. The country has been working for more than half a century at enormous expense to develop a nuclear force and the hope that it will just toss all that away is highly unlikely to be realized.

In an interview with NBC, Victor Cha of the Center for Strategic and International Studies summarized the DPRK’s goal this way:

They want a peace treaty because it validates them as a nuclear weapon state. It ensures that Trump won’t attack because [North Koreans] were worried about an attack last year.

And most importantly, it means money. Not because the United States is going to give money to North Korea, but we are the primary obstacle in places like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, the IMF, where the North Koreans want money.

A U.S. official cited by The Wall Street Journal said that a formal end to the Korean war is “way down the road.” The conflict ended in 1953 with an armistice that remains in place.

Former DPRK deputy ambassador to Britain Thae Yong Ho, who defected in 2016, concurs. In the end, he claims, North Korea will remain “a nuclear power packaged as a non-nuclear state.” Such a conclusion would add the DPRK to a group of countries like India and Pakistan that have developed nuclear weapons capabilities. Israel is believed also to have nuclear weapons but that has never been confirmed or denied by the Israelis or confirmed by any outside source.

While the focus on nuclear weapons gets most of the attention (deservedly), it is worth noting that North Korea’s military is massive in many dimensions. While the country’s conventional forces pose no particular threat to the United States, they are a top concern of the South Koreans and, to lesser degree, the Japanese.

According to a recent report from the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, the DPRK had the fourth-largest military in the world with more than 1.1 million personnel in the country’s armed forces. Others have noted that 6.3 million North Koreans serve in reserve forces. Every North Korean male serves 10 years of military service beginning at the age of 17. Women are conscripted selectively.

According to a 2015 U.S. Department of Defense report and a 2016 South Korean Ministry of National Defense report, the North Korean military has more than 1,300 aircraft, nearly 300 helicopters, 430 combat vessels, 250 amphibious vessels, 70 submarines, 4,300 tanks, 2,500 other armored vehicles, and 5,500 multiple-rocket launchers. Experts also estimate that North Korea has upwards of one thousand missiles of varying ranges.

The DPRK’s cyber warfare capabilities also pose a significant threat. Before and after last month’s historic meeting between Kim Jong-un and South Korean president Moon Jae-in, the South’s financial system came under heavy attack from hackers that some experts believe originated in the North.

North Korea has also been identified as the source of last year’s WannaCry ransomware attack and a 2014 hack at Sony Pictures.

According to a recent report in The Wall Street Journal, “North Korea’s cyberwarriors have evolved into one of the world’s most sophisticated and dangerous hacking units, boosted by improving coding skills and swift mobilization … .”

The Council on Foreign Relations cites “mounting evidence” that North Korea was involved in the February 2016 theft of $81 million from the Bangladeshi central bank account at the New York Federal Reserve bank.

A report in early May from Public Radio International’s Patrick Winn claims that the DPRK’s Reconnaissance General Bureau–the country’s equivalent of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency–has hacked more than 100 banks and cryptocurrency exchanges and stolen more than $650 million and likely more.

Sanctions imposed by the United States, China, and others have isolated the DPRK and made it nearly impossible for the country to do business anywhere in the world. Robbing banks is about all that’s left.

Economically, North Korea is one of the poorest countries in the world. Its population of about 25 million lives in extreme poverty, with annual estimated 2015 per capita income of $1,700 according to the CIA World Factbook.

The DPRK’s economy is highly dependent on trade with China. About 86% of the country’s roughly $3 billion in 2016 exports went to China and 90% of its $3.75 billion in imports came from China.

According to the CIA Factbook, North Korea is a source country for men, women, and children who are subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking. Workers are not free to change jobs and “tens of thousands” of North Koreans, including children, are held in prison camps and subjected to forced, heavy labor.

In addition, the country sends tens of thousands of its citizens to both Russia and China where they work under near-slavery conditions and have most of their earnings confiscated by the DPRK, according to a report in The New York Times.

Nearly two-thirds (63%) of the DPRK’s total labor force of 14 million work in the industry and services sectors. The remaining 37% work in agriculture. The CIA Factbook notes that unemployment ran to 25.6% in 2013, about equal to the unemployment rate in Greece.

The country’s capital city is Pyongyang and the executive branch of the DPRK’s government is headed by Kim Jong-un, the grandson of Kim Il Sung and the son of Kim Jong-il, who together had ruled the country since its founding in 1948. Kim Il Sung has been designated the Eternal President and Kim Jong-il the Eternal General Secretary. The current Premier is Pak Pong Ju and there are eight vice premiers.

The unicameral legislature, the Supreme People’s Assembly, is elected by citizens 17 years of age and older and members serve five-year terms. The Korean Worker’s Party selects all candidates.

The DPRK’s judicial system  consists of a Supreme Court comprised of a chief justice and two “people’s assessors.” The judges are elected to five-year terms by the Supreme People’s Assembly. The system includes provincial, municipal, military, special courts, and people’s courts.

The country’s literacy rate is 100% and both males and females attend school for 12 years.

The life expectancy in the country is estimated at 70.7 years, with an average of 66.9 years for men and 74.8 years for women. Nearly half (44.3%) of the population falls in the 25 to 54 year old age category and less than 10% of the population is over 65 years old.