November 10, 2024: North Korea hasn’t got much in the way of military capability. They do have problems with priorities. For example, North Koreans figured out that each missile North Korea launches as part of an endless testing program costs over a million dollars. People are going hungry in North Korea but their government ignores that and keeps spending money on missiles, not food for its hungry and often starving citizens. Meanwhile North Korea complains of the many superior South Korean weapons, some of them produced in South Korea. North Korea considers all those weapons as a threat to the north. South Korea maintains all those weapons to defend itself against the long promised North Korean offensive to unite Korea under North Korean rule.

Leader Kim Jong Un doesn’t care what anyone else says about the frequent missile launches. Openly criticizing the government in front of others was dangerous is another matter. In 1972 Kim Jong Un’s grandfather Kim Jong Il established four large labor camps where those who openly criticized the government would be sent. Life was hard in the camps and little food was provided. During the twenty five years the camps existed, several hundred thousand North Koreans spent some time in those camps and thousands died while there.

This might seem unbelievable, but enough North Koreans, including some labor camp guards, have escaped to South Korea and told their stories. All these escapees got out individually and were interviewed separately. This means their stories were true and deaths in the horrid conditions of prison camps and the resulting death rate were not a myth. Currently about 16,000 Koreans are in the camps.

The threat of being sent to the camps keeps North Koreans quiet about the scarce food supplies and the high cost of all those missiles launched into the sea for testing purposes. Currently the government is making a lot of money selling missiles, munitions and North Korean soldiers to the Russians. About 12,000 North Korean soldiers are now in Russia, wearing Russian uniforms and with identity cards describing them as Russians from Central Asian areas that are a part of the Russian Federation. The West knows that the North Korean soldiers are fighting for Russia, but the Russians would prefer to pretend otherwise.

North Korea has also increased problems with South Korea, some of them self-inflicted. In May of this year North Korea began sending balloons south. By June about 3,000 of these balloons had landed in South Korea. The balloons carried clear plastic bags full of trash. The bags contained harmless material like small plastic items, cigarette butts, scraps of cloth, and waste paper. North Korea justified this as retaliation for South Korea civilians, many of them North Koreans who had managed to reach South Korea, using balloons containing bags with pro-unification leaflets, food, medicine, dollar bills and USB sticks loaded with K-pop music videos and TV shows. In North Korea it is illegal to possess South Korean made items. Despite the possibility of getting caught and spending years in a labor camp, North Koreans are not discouraged from collecting and enjoying and/or selling items sent across the DMZ by South Koreans using balloons.

Since 1953 the 250 kilometer DMZ (four kilometers wide demilitarized zone), has been the border between North and South Korea. The DMZ is guarded on both sides and initially landmines were planted. Most of the mines are now inoperable while others were set off by large animals, like Asian tigers, that live in the DMZ. Between 1953 and 1999 more than 500 South Korean soldiers, 250 North Korean soldiers and fifty Americans soldiers were killed in or near the DMZ. Over half a century of isolation from humans has turned the DMZ into a wildlife refuge.

North Korea tried to keep news of defectors and South Korean news from its people but that proved impossible, especially for North Koreans living within twenty kilometers of the DMZ. Most of the North Korea army is stationed along the DMZ and they, along with North Korea civilians listen for the news that is now broadcast to them from South Korea via loudspeakers. In August 2015 South Korea resumed news broadcasts from large speakers on their side of the DMZ. North Korea tried to shut this down and failed. It all began with a 2004 agreement in which sides agreed to halt the use of loudspeakers on the DMZ as well as attacks on each other. These attacks are almost all North Korean operations but the north was willing to make this deal in return for some desperately needed economic aid.

According to the south the north officially broke this deal in 2010 with two very public military attacks on the south. As a result eleven new loudspeaker systems were installed on the DMZ but were not turned on until 2015. A week later the north resumed using loudspeakers on their side of the border. These were mainly to try and cancel out the uncensored news and pop music coming from the south. The northern broadcasts featured praise for North Korean leaders and the superior lifestyle of the north. The South Korean speakers are more powerful and have longer range because of superior South Korean technology. Soon it was revealed that loudspeaker activity was having quite an impact on North Korean soldiers. This led to more attempts by North Korean soldiers to reach South Korea via the DMZ. South Koreans soldiers along the DMZ noted that any visible North Koreans tend to perk up when the South Korea loudspeaker newscasts begin.

DMZ loudspeakers and other modern technology allowed accurate news to reach North Korea and nothing seemed capable of stopping the signal. Peace negotiations in 2018 between the two Koreas resulted in an agreement that included South Korea removing loudspeakers installed on the DMZ. These loudspeakers were installed in 2011 and became operational in 2015 as North Korea continued to be hostile to South Korea but without trying to kill South Korea soldiers guarding the DMZ.