Unraveling the North Korea Enigma - part two

Speaker 1: Welcome to The World of Intelligence, a podcast for you to discover the latest analysis of global military and security trends within the open source defense intelligence community. Now, onto the episode with your host, Harry Kemsley.

Harry Kemsley: Hello, and welcome back. For those of you who listened to part one of this podcast, you'll know that we're about to pick up the second part now. Thank you for listening. Well, maybe we could, in the interests of time, step into that then a little bit further. Let's look at this reality that hasn't been acknowledged, that the North Koreans and Russians have not acknowledged formally the presence of North Korean troops. And, yet, we are apparently seeing POWs now appearing on the screens, et cetera. But can we just reflect for a moment on the deployment of the troops themselves? I'd be interested to get a view from the expertise in the room about why North Korea did it. That might be self- evident to those that think they know, but I'd be very interested to see your views about why they did it. It is blood and treasure that's at stake there. And, secondly, a view about, maybe I'll come to you on this, Sean, about what we believe we're learning about the competence of those troops, just in terms of their behaviors and performance, if we have any insights on that. So can I come to you first, Rachel, again on that? Why do we think North Korea agreed to do that? Was it purely economically driven, or was there something more to it?

Rachel: I think the economic aspect of it is just an extra bonus for them. I don't think that economic benefits were the main driving factor for the troops. And we're talking about a country that makes millions of dollars per year through cyber theft. So, for me, I've heard assessments of about $2, 000 per head. For me, it's not that big of a deal for Kim Jong Un. I'm sure he appreciates the extra cash, but that's just what it is. I think, for me, probably the biggest driving factor was the real battlefield experience that North Korea did not have since the Korean War, and also a chance to modernize the North Korean military. Kim Jong Un certainly has been emphasizing that a lot, modernizing the military, the equipment, weapons. So, for me, that would be the main driving factor.

Harry Kemsley: Right, right, yeah.

Jenny: Can I just add to that? If you look at the sequencing of how it happened, of course, North Korea has been providing Russia with material support in the war, munitions, missiles, tanks, a variety of things of whatever Russia needs that North Korea can provide, they have. But the troops didn't come until the nature of the war changed. And what you saw was, once Ukraine started actually attacking Russian territory, and then requested the use of US ATACMS to attack Russian territory, that's when you saw Shoigu to Pyongyang and Tehran. And that's when you started to see the rumors about North Korean troops going to Russia. That's when it happened. And if you look at the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty that the Russians and North Koreans signed in June, there is a clause to consult if either country is attacked. And there is a clause for mutual defense in case either country is attacked. And so I think if you look at that situation, the why North Korea did it, it does fit within the narrative of how they've defined their cooperation to begin with, of once Russia was attacked. And you have North Korean troops in Russian territory, not in Ukraine, that's when they needed to increase their cooperation.

Harry Kemsley: Right, right. So, Sean, I'll come to you now about the military assessment. But I'd be very interested, beyond that, Christina and Martin, if there's been anything, or what has been said, in North Korea about their troops. Is there anything being said to the population about what's going on with the troops that have been deployed? But before we come to that, Sean, what are we seeing and hearing about the performance of the North Korean troops in the conflict? And I'm going to ask you an obvious question, I suppose, but I'm going to ask it anyway. From your background, there must be, going on inside all the headquarters you know so well, a huge amount of intelligence gathering about the capabilities. They must be spending a lot of time looking at the performance of the troops to understand them better. Because they've not really had a chance to look at them in the real battle environment before, have they?

Sean: Yeah, so I think, in the first instance, it's quite important to say is that the reflections we're getting off the battlefield are fairly low confidence, actually, in terms of, we've seen quite a lot of reflections, but a lot of it is coming from the Ukrainians. And, of course, it suits them ideally to put the rhetoric out that North Koreans are involved and they're losing lots of numbers because, politically, that suits them. So a lot of the quite high profile pressures coming out, I think we've got to, not necessarily treat with a pinch of salt, but certainly we need to validate it first. So I think that's the first issue to say. And I think, secondly, the reflections we are seeing is that it seems like the North Koreans are being used, quite literally, as cannon fodder. And that could be for lots of reasons. Firstly, it's because that's how the Russians fight, and they just use hiding lots and lots of troops, and they have very low concerns about them dying, effectively. But I think, also, the problems with integrating, and that includes the language, and that includes how they act, the doctrine, and all the rest of it, means probably that's the only way they can use them anyway. And, of course, if you go back from North Korean perspective, those troops are expendable. They're expected to die in the battlefield, or come home victorious, and there's no two options. So that's one of the reasons I think we're not seeing as many battlefield casualties and prisoners of war that we might otherwise expect. So in terms of the second part of your question then, there will be huge interest, not just from a how do they operate now perspective, but if they were able to get any battlefield casualties, prisoners of war, then I'm sure there'd be great interest, and so, " Okay, tell us what's happening in your country." That, also, will be very limited though, because they probably don't know very much, and they won't be expected to say anything anyway. So, yes, they'll be interested. Yes, we are seeing some reflections, but I think it's going to take time before we really work out what that means. But then, taking it up to the next level two, there's two so what's for me on that, is that, if they do perform doctrinally really poorly, which we would expect anyway, what does that mean for the modernization of the Korean armed forces? Do they think, " Oh wow, what we thought was good isn't." Or do they know that anyway? And, therefore, what does that mean both for modernization, but also, as we already know, that they're not going to depend particularly on conventional forces if it ever comes to a wider conflict with the south. So is it the WMD? So these are quite big strategic issues from a very tactical piece.

Harry Kemsley: Okay. So if I can come to Martin next, and then yourself, Christina. Is there anything that we've seen or heard about the way North Koreans are talking to themselves about the deployment? Is that even likely to be known by the wider population that this has happened?

Martin: Well, there are several ways that the North Koreans might hear about this. The first is the official media that we can monitor overseas. And in the official media, there has been nothing said. The official media includes the main party daily newspaper, the main TV station in the country, the largest media in the country. The North Korean government does have a way to speak to its population that we can't monitor, in weekly meetings, over closed radio services, and things like that. So we don't know what's going on there. But I think the assumption is that they probably haven't told people about this yet. But there is a third way that North Koreans get information, and there is a handful of radio and TV stations that broadcast from outside, into the country, to take the news of the world to North Koreans. And those radio and TV stations are definitely talking about this. It's difficult, obviously, to tell how many people are listening to them, and how far that news is spreading, but the information is going in, just not from the official sources. And I think one of the things that the North Korean government is going to start wrestling with, as more and more North Korean troops die, is that those families are informed that their sons are dead. That information starts spreading as well. And people are going to start wondering why they don't know anything about this war that's going on. So this is something I think they're going to have to tackle sooner rather than later. But, officially, nothing we can tell from the government.

Harry Kemsley: And, Christina, I guess you've not seen anything either then if there's nothing to be seen, there's nothing to be read or understood.

Christina: No, the only thing I would add is that there are some reports by organizations and news agencies that, based on reporting on links that they have within the country, reportedly, it's very difficult to verify some of these reports, that talk about things like families of the soldiers that have been deployed to Russia having been rounded up and put in secure facilities, to try and stop the spread of information. We have virtually no way of verifying that. But if we put it in the context of other information, such as the troops that are in Russia, also not knowing themselves they've gone to fight on the front line. They believe they're there for training. We have to take all of these reports collectively, and not take them at face value. And to steal Sean's phrase, take them with a bit of a pinch of salt. Because, at the moment, it's incredibly difficult to get a good read on what people within the country know and what they don't know. And like Martin said, how far that's spread.

Harry Kemsley: Rachel?

Rachel: Yeah, I would just add one thing. So nothing has been said in official media, and not by those outlets targeting the domestic audience. There was one, I believe it was a foreign ministry pronouncement about reports in the West about North Korean troop deployment, which was some say, was an indirect acknowledgement of troop deployment. But other than that, that was not broadcast to the domestic public, it was for international audiences. However, reading North Korean media's readout of Kim Jong Un's meeting with the visiting Russian defense minister in November, and how detailed Kim Jong Un's comments were covered by North Korean media, indicates that Kim Jong Un is 200% into the war, right?

Harry Kemsley: Right.

Rachel: Invested in the war in Ukraine. Also, his New Year's greetings to Putin that he sent at the end of December, that seemed to emphasize the bond between the armed forces of the two countries in a way that he had never done before, could suggest that North Korea is paving the way for reporting on troop deployment. If they need to start telling the people that, A, they had deployed troops to Russia, and, B, that there were casualties. And with the way that North Korean media have talked about imperialism, how Russia's war against Ukraine is the sacred war against the imperialists, really paves the way too for giving, I don't know, just designating these dead soldiers as martyrs. They come home dead, okay, but they get placement in the martyr's cemetery, and get the treatment of the heroes, the martyrs. And the North Korean public too, we should remember, has been told about the treaty and what's in the treaty. They know that there's this close bond between the Russians and the North Koreans, that military cooperation is one of them. So if push comes to shove, it wouldn't come as a complete shock that they had sent troops.

Harry Kemsley: And presumably they would be quicker to announce and discuss it internally if there had been some victory on the battlefield, something that they could really point to the outcome of their troops' work.

Jenny: I think that we're probably unlikely to see North Korea talk about troop involvement until there's a settlement to the war. Because they can say they contributed to Russia's victory, and Russia's just cause, rather than just saying that, " Hey, we sent soldiers to Russia, and there's been casualties," right?

Harry Kemsley: Yeah, a positive outcome.

Jenny: There has to be a resolution first before they put it in the official narrative.

Rachel: So I think that would be the ideal for them. And I think, in an ideal world for the North Korean leadership, they would not even have to acknowledge that they ever sent troops. However, we have seen cases in the past, where North Korea did end up having to acknowledge unfortunate incidents, such as the COVID outbreak in Pyongyang in May 2022. I would not have imagined North Korea ever reporting on that, but they did, because they were forced to, is the assumption, is that they had to. So if it comes to a point where North Korea feels they can't hold out any longer, and has to report on the casualties, I think they've done the groundwork for doing that.

Christina: But I think my question would be then, what's that threshold? I think, for me, at the moment, troop numbers are still low enough that we've not hit that threshold. What that threshold actually is in practice, I think is probably another podcast and another discussion.

Rachel: Right. Because I think the assumption is that many of these soldiers are not children of privileged class in Pyongyang, which was not the case when they reported on the COVID outbreak. It happened in Pyongyang, which is why they had to acknowledge it.

Harry Kemsley: So if I were to summarize the conversation we've had, we've got a probably unprecedented situation in South Korea that the North Koreans are, interestingly, not reacting to as much as they might've done in the past. That we've got the incoming president of the US, who has previous with North Korea, and remains to be seen how the position of North Korea has changed in terms of that relationship. Notwithstanding the fact that, as we said earlier, it's very likely that President Trump will be focused more on the Russia situation than he will with South Korea, certainly for as long as South Korea doesn't have a president in place. But then North Korea have a place in that conversation, perhaps not at the table, but they are contributing to it with troops, which we've just discussed, both in terms of purpose and discourse, both inside and outside of North Korea. So, now, I'm going to put the expertise on the spot. Because expertise is good for many things, insights to what's happening now, hindsight that we've learned in the past and, of course, foresight. Where does this all go? I suspect, as Christina just said, there's bound to be a lot of things we need to talk about this year, both around Ukraine, North Korea, the US, Trump, et cetera. But let's focus it in for 2025. So I'm going to come to you first of all, Jenny. I'm just going to ask you to give the audience what do you think is 2025 most likely to hold for North Korea? And if you had to circle down onto one thing that you wanted the audience to take away from this podcast, this discussion about North Korea, what would it be? What does 2025 look like, and what's that one takeaway?

Jenny: That's hard. I think for North Korea, again, it's all about Russia. And how negotiations between US, Russia, Ukraine go is going to have an impact on the relationship between Russia and North Korea, the US and North Korea, the US and Russia. And it's hard to really decipher yet what that's going to be until you really see how that conflict is resolved. But it does seem like it's going to take longer than Trump had originally expected it to do. And the question is, how frustrated does he get in the meantime? And what do the repercussions of that frustration look like with especially fewer adults in the room, as we like to say, within his cabinet?

Harry Kemsley: Okay, thank you very much. I'm going to flip it across the table to you, Rachel, before going to Martin. So, Rachel, what are your thoughts, 2025, and one takeaway?

Rachel: I think there's a lot of emphasis on the economy right now for North Korea, so I think we're going to see continued emphasis on that for now. But I think, eventually, we are going to see more weapons testing, more demonstration of military capabilities. Because 2025 is the last year of the five- year defense development plan. So whatever they have not achieved, whatever they have not tested, this is the year for it. They have until December 2025. I think we are going to see that more going forward. So, on that note, I don't think that North Korea is going to be too keen on returning to talks, nuclear negotiations, with the US. Because I think, this year, they will remain focused on achieving their five- year defense development plan because it is the last year for doing that. And, also, because North Korea knows that the US is not really going to have... Well, first of all, as Jenny mentioned, there is interest on Trump's part in North Korea, but North Korea knows also that it's not a priority for Trump. And, also, that it'll take a few months, at least, for the Trump administration to come up with a solid or workable policy on North Korea. And, really, the US, from my point of view, doesn't really have a lot to offer to Kim Jong Un at the moment. And this goes back to the prospects for DPRK- US diplomatic engagement with Trump to 0. 0. Are there improved prospects? And I think for there to be any meaningful progress, there has to be something significantly different in what Washington has to offer. And it would probably have to be something like a significant change in US extended deterrence. But anything short of that, I don't see what would be in it for Kim Jong Un, especially in this geostrategic environment where, due to the great power competition and the benefits that North Korea is reaping from it, there's really, why change it, when things look good for you anyway going forward? So I agree with Jenny that Russia will remain the first priority for North Korea. Relations with China will remain strained, I think, for the foreseeable future. I don't see any signs of the relationship picking up anytime soon. Whether that's a temporary tactical change on North Korea's part, whether this is just a temporary cooling off, or whether this is more of a strategic shift as we have seen in other parts of North Korea's foreign policy, remains to be seen. Yeah, so I think that, for me, is the outlook for 2025, yeah.

Harry Kemsley: Thank you, Rachel. Martin, over to you.

Martin: Yeah, thanks. The advantage of going after Rachel and Jenny means that I'm not sticking my neck out maybe as much as I would be otherwise. But I wrote down, before they said what they said, I did write down continued economic and military development. We didn't talk about the economy because that's domestic and not very interesting. But that has been a big theme over the last few years, and it is very important for the North Korean population. Kim Jong Un has been building lots of houses and apartments, and he's now building factories all over the country. I think that will continue, and that is key in his mission to try to keep the North Korean populace happy, or relatively happy. Military development, there's a lot of focus on the missile side of things, but we are seeing continued upgrades in air bases. There's a new large military port planned. There are new ships coming along. So I think it's general continuation in that. The other thing I wrote down, which we didn't mention, which could be big or could be nothing, and I think it somewhat depends on possibly the relationship that Trump and Putin have, is the possibility of joint Russian- DPRK drills. Kim Jong Un hates the drills that go on in South Korea. He's now got a chance to put on his own drills. They could be very provocative. They could be nuclear war drills or something, or they could be relatively low on the scale. Putin does like to be provocative, I think, and wind up the West. So there's a great chance for him to do that. But then if he's got a good relationship with Trump, maybe he doesn't see that. But the drills themselves though could, beyond how they're publicly seen, that could be the start of what we were talking about earlier, the slow improvement of the North Korean military as well, to give them some more modern capabilities, and more modern practice in war fighting and things. So I think that's what I predict for 2025. And if I'm wrong, I won't be coming back.

Harry Kemsley: Thanks for that. Yeah, interesting, economics and military. Christina?

Christina: Yeah, I think, for me, just two very short key takeaways. To always keep in mind the possibility of black swan events. I think we had this discussion a little bit in the last podcast we did, that had we sat in a room together, even two years ago, and talked about the possibility of North Korean troops in Russia, we might have all sat here and gone, " Maybe, but probably not."

Jenny: Or emotional lie in South Korea.

Christina: Exactly, exactly. And that's another great example that these events come probably when we're least expecting them to. And I think, considering those political contexts across all the countries we've talked about, will be really important for what happens in 2025. Thinking back to the first Trump administration, the South Korean government at the time had such a big role in pushing Trump towards engagement in the first place with weird press conferences on the front lawn of the White House, delivered by South Korean officials. Those type of events, I can't see happening this time round to stimulate diplomatic engagement, but I'm relatively confident there will be some unforeseen events throughout the year. So I think keeping in mind those possibilities. And then the second thing I wanted to add in was that North Korea has agency. I think we sometimes, as analysts, talk about the opportunity for nuclear negotiations or diplomacy with North Korea as though it is just something that the US can decide to do, and it will happen. And I think we've all touched on this throughout this conversation, but there's very little incentive right now for North Korea to go along with that approach. Whether that's the strength of relationship with Russia, its own domestic political needs in terms of its five- year plan and wanting to continue to pursue its military developments. The nuclear law that they've passed, they've changed their constitution since last time they spoke with Trump. And the fact that, actually, Trump's approach had novelty the first time round, and him being the first sitting US president to meet with the leader of North Korea, that's also gone. So I think just reminding ourselves that North Korea has agency in that process is also something to definitely take away and keep in mind for 2025.

Harry Kemsley: And, Christina, I fully agree, and I'll come back to that point in a second. Sean?

Sean: So, as ever, most of my sandwiches have been eaten, but that's not surprising because of the experts we've got in the room. But what I would come back to is that, if you look at it from a very strategic perspective, the end of isolation, if you like, of the Kim Jong Un regime, everything we're going to see going forward, I think we need to look at through the perspective of him trying to cement his place on the world stage now. So he sees himself as a global leader in the house. So everything he does will be towards that end, I think. And that weaves into the... That can be both strategic and transactional because politics is nothing if not multifaceted. So we tend to, when we're doing analysis, because that's how we're structured, to write a little bit binary. Say, what's the view with this? What's the view with that? But he's going to be, probably, with his deep thinkers going, " There is such a complex environment up there. What are the implications of me doing that over here to that over there?" So weaving it all in, but I go back to that context of it's all going to be about cementing his place on the world stage.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah, I fully agree. Well, thank you all for those sum up points and your takeaways. I guess mine, actually, is to underscore something that you said, Christina, and that is the black swan, the unpredictability of the world we live in, the only constant being change, et cetera. All those principles that underpin for me the importance of looking at the big picture. And that's what open sources do for us. And we speak frequently about the power of open source on this podcast. For me, the ability to read in open source, we hope to find the signals within the noise that might be indicators, harbingers of crises. That's what we're looking for, and that's what I think makes the work we do so interesting and so important. So thank you very much, all of you, for taking the time to contribute in such an interesting way. It's such an important topic. Jenny, Rachel, Martin, a special thanks to you to coming in from 38 North. Christina, thank you for joining us for the third time. Sean, thanks for helping us put that together. Let me finish where I started. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed, Jenny, Rachel, and Martin for joining us. And thank you to the audience for listening to this podcast.

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