Category: North Korea

It looks like Kim Jong-un is increasing his threatening rhetoric likely in an effort to improve negotating position if talks of dropping sanctions ever starts again:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspects the launch of a Hwasong-18 solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Dec. 18, 2023, in this photo released by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency the following day. (Yonhap)

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has said his country will launch a nuclear attack without hesitation in event of nuclear provocations from the enemy, state media said Thursday.

Kim made the remarks in an event held Wednesday to praise a missile unit for the successful launch of a solid-fuel Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) earlier this week.

Kim said the launch “clearly” showed enemies the North’s “offensive countermeasure” to “launch a nuclear attack without hesitation” in the event of any enemy’s nuclear provocations, according to the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Kim stressed that a country’s sovereign rights can only be guaranteed through powerful strength, saying true defensive capabilities come from the actual capacity to strike any enemy in a pre-emptive manner, KCNA said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Kim Jong-il was the OG rocketman, so it is only fitting that his son would have a missile fired on his anniversary:

North Korea fired one short-range ballistic missile toward the East Sea on Sunday, the 12th anniversary of the death of late leader Kim Jong-il, according to South Korea’s military.

The launch briefly raised speculation that it could be an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) because South Korea’s First Deputy National Security Adviser Kim Tae-hyo said a few days earlier the North could fire an ICBM within this month.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, however, that the North fired a short-range missile from in or around Pyongyang at about 10:38 p.m. and it flew about 570 kilometers before splashing in the East Sea.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is a lesson from dictatorship 101, you have to control the flow of information to the people to maintain regime control; the balloon flights challenge this control:

Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector-turned-activist and founder of the advocacy group Fighters for a Free North Korea, holds up propaganda material condemning North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for developing nuclear weapons and missiles without feeding the country’s hungry residents in this April 2021 photo. Courtesy of Fighters for a Free North Korea

Pyongyang has belatedly reacted furiously to South Korean Constitutional Court’s decision in September to strike down the ban on sending propaganda leaflets over the border into North Korea.

In a statement released in November, North Korea’s Central News Agency (KCNA) said the court’s decision signals a de facto war against the North as information warfare is part of an operation preceding a ground war.

Calling North Korean defectors who flew the leaflets across the border “garbage,” the KCNA said that North Korea’s firing of anti-aircraft rounds across the border in 2014 and its destroying of the inter-Korean liason office used for talks between the two countries in 2020 are two chilling reminders of what South Korea could face. 

In 2014, North Korea used anti-aircraft guns to shoot down balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets flown by South Korean activists near the border town of Yeoncheon. 

North Korea’s furious reaction to the court’s lifting of the ban on sending propaganda leaflets into the North reflects the regime fears its people being exposed to outside information.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

That is what some Korea analysts now believe after she received a new title as “Morning Star General”:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, seated right, and his daughter Ju-ae, seated left, visit North Korea’s Air Force Command on Nov. 30. Yonhap

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un referred to his daughter as “Morning Star General,” just days after the North’s reconnaissance satellite, Malligyong-1, successfully entered orbit on Nov. 21.

The young girl, known as Ju-ae, was previously referred to by North Korea’s state-controlled media as “dear child” or “respected child.”

The dramatic change in the way she is addressed has fueled speculation on whether the new title could be interpreted as a confirmation of her status as the North’s heir apparent.

Cheong Seong-chang, a research fellow at Sejong Institute, took the title change seriously, arguing that it is an important move related to leadership succession.

“I think it’s definitely associated with the fourth-generation leadership succession,” he told The Korea Times. “Kim made it clear that his daughter will succeed him by referring to her as ‘Morning Star General.'”

In North Korea, the term “morning star” has been used figuratively to refer to a leader in waiting.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This would be a provocative action by the U.S. Space Force if they did try and disable North Korea’s supposed spy satellite because it would set a precedent for other countries to take action on U.S. satellites as well:

North Korea lashed out at the United States on Saturday after a U.S. space official hinted at possible disabling of the North’s military spy satellite launched last week, saying that it will take it as “a declaration of war” against the regime.

A spokesperson of the North’s defense ministry issued the statement after Sheryll Klinkel, a strategic communicator at the U.S. Space Command, told a media program in reference to the North’s spy satellite that “a variety of reversible and irreversible means” can be employed to “deny” an adversary’s space and counterspace capabilities. 

Appearing on the Radio Free Asia earlier this week, Klinkel also said that joint force space operations can reduce the effectiveness and lethality of adversary forces across all domains. 

“The U.S. Space Force’s deplorable hostility toward the DPRK’s reconnaissance satellite can never be overlooked as it is just a challenge to the sovereignty of the DPRK, and more exactly, a declaration war against it,” read the English-language statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is what I have been saying, that North Korea’s claims of having all this amazing imagery of U.S. military installations is likely just propaganda unless the Russians went and built them their own satellite:

But South Korean military officials are voicing doubts about the satellite’s reconnaissance capabilities.

“Compared to previous attempts, it seems that the new satellite achieved its own technological progress to some extent,” a military official said.

“The North claims that it photographed U.S. aircraft carriers and naval bases in Hawaii just 10 hours after the launch. That is not impossible, but a proper operation of a military satellite requires months of testing, verification and correction. Given this, (the recent KCNA news reports) appear to be propaganda.”

The official said that the military had analyzed the debris of a satellite that the North failed to put in orbit in May, and it had limited operational capabilities and provided very poor resolution images. “It is highly questionable whether North Korea addressed these limitations in a short period,” the official added.

Shin Jong-woo, a senior researcher at the Korea Defense and Security Forum, a think tank, assumed that the satellite would be an entry-level optical one, based on KCNA’s description.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

The North Koreans are gloating about their supposed spy satellite, but the fact they haven’t shown any photos leads me to believe it either doesn’t work or the technology is very old:

North Korea claimed Saturday its leader Kim Jong-un observed photos taken by the country’s recently launched military spy satellite of “major target regions” in South Korea, where U.S. Army bases are located, and parts of Hawaii.

Kim visited the Pyongyang General Control Center of the National Aerospace Technology Administration (NATA) on Friday to “learn about the operational preparation of the reconnaissance satellite” and looked at the aerospace photos, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.