With more than 1.3 million recruits and 7.6 million reservists, the North Korean army is one of the largest in the world in relation to its population (around 26 million inhabitants), but it remains inexperienced. His presence on the Ukrainian front – which Emmanuel Macron described, on Tuesday, November 12, as“serious escalation” of the conflict, during a press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte – is his first experience of a modern war, seventy-one years after the end of the Korean War (1950-1953). What is the value, on the ground, of these soldiers who, during major events, parade for hours in Pyongyang’s Kim Il-sung Square, some of whom go at a goose pace, with their heads turned towards the platform where the “supreme leader” is located? Are you surrounded by a crowd of officers with their chests covered in decorations?
Fighting alongside the Russians is, for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), a kind of homecoming. Its army was created in 1948 by the Soviets, who occupied the northern part of the peninsula after the partition of the Korean Peninsula in 38.my parallel by the Americans, winners of the Pacific War in 1945. The latter occupied the southern part.
The support was decided in secret.
The deployment of North Korean soldiers on the Ukrainian front is the first gap opened by Kim Jong-un in his isolationist policy reinforced during the three years of the pandemic, which allowed him to take control of the population and suffocate an embryonic economy. North Korean support for Russia would have been decided in secret, during the signing, in June in Pyongyang, by Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un of a strategic partnership, suggests the Wall Street Journalquoting a former Russian intelligence agent.
In the DPRK, the army is closely linked to the cult of personality. Since the 1970s, soldiers have served the country less than the “loved and respected leader”. A quarter of the national GDP would be dedicated to the army, which owns, within its scope, companies, commercial houses, fisheries and mines. Compulsory military service, eight to ten years for men and five years for women, is the longest in the world. Only the privileged who access university escape this long interlude under the flag. The time spent in the army depends on the social status of the recruit’s family, which is a function of their loyalty to the regime. For most, spending ten years in the military is the best way to become a member of the Workers’ Party of Korea and gain some benefits.
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