Category: North Korea

Considering how capitalist Vietnam is sometimes people forget they are still ruled by a Communist regime:

Vietnam’s top leader, To Lam, will visit North Korea to mark the 80th founding anniversary of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, state media reported Monday.

The Vietnamese leader will pay a state visit to the North at the invitation of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on the occasion of the party anniversary set for Friday, the Korean Central News Agency reported in a short dispatch.

Vietnam’s foreign ministry also announced that Lam will visit North Korea for three days starting Thursday.

It would mark the first trip to North Korea by a Vietnamese leader in 18 years.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The article doesn’t say, but I wonder how many countries Pyongyang got to show up to their defense expo?:

This image published by the Korean Central News Agency on Oct. 5, 2025, shows North Korea’s Defence Development-2025, which kicked off in Pyongyang on Oct. 4. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)

North Korea has launched its annual defense exhibition for the third consecutive year, with leader Kim Jong-un describing it as “the results” of the country’s projects to modernize and advance its military capabilities, state media reported Sunday.

The Defence Development-2025 kicked off in Pyongyang the previous day, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

n a speech at the event, Kim touted it as the “recent results of the important projects … to put the structure of the DPRK’s military capabilities, with its nuclear deterrent as the backbone, on an increasingly modern, advanced footing.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Chung actually seems giddy to be declaring that North Korea can strike the U.S. mainland with their ICBMs:

Unification Minister Chung Dong-young has said North Korea is capable of hitting the U.S. mainland, apparently referring to the North’s recent development of its intercontinental ballistic missiles, in rare public remarks about Pyongyang’s weapons capability. 

Chung made the remarks at a press conference in Berlin on Monday (local time) during his ongoing visit to Germany as South Korea’s representative to attend a ceremony marking German unification.

“North Korea has become one of the three countries capable of attacking the U.S. mainland,” Chung told reporters. “What needs to be acknowledged should be acknowledged rationally.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but North Korea’s ICBMs are not fully tested yet with many questions about their reentry systems. Additionally even if they do work they would have to overcome U.S. missile defenses as well.

I have been saying this for years that North Korea has no intention of denuclearizing and now the so called smart people are not getting on board with this concept:

North Korea has no intention of surrendering its nuclear weapons, which leaves the United States to either neutralize a nuclear threat or develop something like a normal relationship with Pyongyang, an expert in international affairs said Friday. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has declared his communist regime a nuclear state “whether the world likes it or not,” Jenny Town, senior fellow at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington, D.C., told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo.

North Korea in 2022 also declared a right to use a pre-emptive nuclear strike to protect itself. Rather than court the U.S. and its allies to alleviate sanctions designed to force North Korea to denuclearize, Kim is pursuing economic and strategic partnerships with China and Russia, Town said. “There’s no more of this constant need to try and justify why they need nuclear weapons,” she told reporters. “Instead, really, the rhetoric has changed to simply accept the idea that they have nuclear weapons; they are a nuclear-armed state.”

Town, the director of Stimson’s Korea program and 38 North, a website focused on peace and security on the Korean Peninsula, said the U.S. is left with only two options. “I think the bottom line here is that what North Korea is doing is essentially forcing the U.S. and its allies to decide whether they want a relationship with North Korea or whether they just want to neutralize the nuclear threat that North Korea poses,” she said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but the only option the US and the ROK has is to pursue a freeze deal that in return for sanctions relief North Korea stops ICBM development and accepts a cap on their nuclear weapons. The US needs to admit that the Kim regime has won with their nuclear brinkmanship and settle for a deal that at least puts a cap on their weapons to avoid proliferation.

Maybe policy makers should start believing what the Kim regime has been telling them for years that they will never give up their nuclear weapons:

A senior North Korean diplomat reiterated Monday that Pyongyang will never renounce its nuclear program “under any circumstances,” stressing that it has stipulated its nuclear arsenal as a “sacred” and “absolute” asset that can “never be tampered with.”

Speaking at a general debate of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Son-gyong also expressed the North’s openness to engaging with countries that “respect” and take a “friendly” approach toward his country.

It marked the first speech at the Assembly podium by a high-level North Korean official since 2018 when then Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho attended the gathering.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

President Lee is just speaking reality here:

Speaking to global investors at the New York Stock Exchange, Lee sought to reassure them, vowing to reduce security risks on the Korean Peninsula and reinforce investor confidence, as he noted that South Korea’s stock market has been “undervalued” despite its elevated economic and military stature.

“North Korea seems to have secured sufficient nuclear weapons needed to maintain its regime, with only atmospheric reentry technology remaining (for Pyongyang to complete) the development of nuclear-tipped ICBMs capable of reaching the continental U.S.,” Lee said at the event, called the “Korea Investment Summit.”

Yonhap

Here is where he becomes delusional:

If unchecked, Pyongyang would add 15-20 nuclear bombs to its nuclear arsenal each year, he warned.

“What’s worrisome is that there is a high possibility that North Korea would export (weapons) to other countries. Wouldn’t there be considerable security benefits if we could just halt the production of nuclear warheads or the development and export of ICBMs?,” he said.

“That is why I have proposed stopping them in the short term, reducing them in the midterm and pursuing (the North’s) denuclearization in the long term,” he added, referring to the three-stage plan to foster lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.

I can support a deal to stop production of nukes and ICBMs to prevent proliferation, but North Korea will never reduce or give up their nuclear weapons. Lee could offer to surrender the ROK to Keep m in exchange for his nukes and I don’t think he would take that deal. Nukes mean regime survival, without them Kim is vulnerable.

Kim Yo-jong is upset because the US-ROK militaries plan to conduct what is essentially a video game military exercise together:

The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Sunday blasted a planned joint military exercise between South Korea and the United States, warning the “reckless muscle-flexing” would bring unfavorable consequences.

Kim Yo-jong, vice department director of the North Korean ruling party’s Central Committee, issued the warning in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The allies are set to stage the Iron Mace tabletop military exercise from Monday to Friday at the U.S. Forces Korea headquarters at Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, focusing on integrating Washington’s nuclear assets and Seoul’s conventional capabilities to deter North Korean threats.

Kim reiterated her criticism of the allies’ nuclear deterrence plan, saying North Korea would regard the exercise as a “display” and continuation of a confrontational stance by the “current rulers” if it is staged with their full understanding of the dangers.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but she will be brought out to condemn every US-ROK exercise because the Kim regime thinks with the Lee administration in power they can get him to advocate for cancelling them for little or nothing in return.

The real story here is not this botched mission into North Korea, but why is it being leaked now after six years?:

A group of Navy SEALs emerged from the ink-black ocean on a winter night in early 2019 and crept to a rocky shore in North Korea. They were on a top secret mission so complex and consequential that everything had to go exactly right.

The objective was to plant an electronic device that would let the United States intercept the communications of North Korea’s reclusive leader, Kim Jong-un, amid high-level nuclear talks with President Trump.

The mission had the potential to provide the United States with a stream of valuable intelligence. But it meant putting American commandos on North Korean soil — a move that, if detected, not only could sink negotiations but also could lead to a hostage crisis or an escalating conflict with a nuclear-armed foe.

It was so risky that it required the president’s direct approval. 

For the operation, the military chose SEAL Team 6’s Red Squadron — the same unit that killed Osama bin Laden. The SEALs rehearsed for months, aware that every move needed to be perfect. But when they reached what they thought was a deserted shore that night, wearing black wet suits and night-vision goggles, the mission swiftly unraveled.

A North Korean boat appeared out of the dark. Flashlights from the bow swept over the water. Fearing that they had been spotted, the SEALs opened fire. Within seconds, everyone on the North Korean boat was dead.

The SEALs retreated into the sea without planting the listening device.

The 2019 operation has never been publicly acknowledged, or even hinted at, by the United States or North Korea. The details remain classified and are being reported here for the first time.

NY Times

You can read more at the link, but there is a reason someone is leaking this story now. My guess is that someone is trying to make it impossible for Trump to conduct any negotiations with North Korea. Kim Jong-un may ratchet up tensions in response to finding out his own citizens were killed by U.S. Navy Seals.

The Pentagon needs to investigate and find the leaker. Whoever did this should receive a long jail sentence as a future deterrent because this is likely being done for political reasons.

In year North Korea has had almost as many Soldiers killed as the U.S. did in 20 years of fighting in Afghanistan:

The spy agency estimated around 2,000 North Korean troops dispatched to Russia for combat in Ukraine were killed, lawmakers said Tuesday.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) shared the assessment during a closed-door briefing to the parliamentary intelligence committee, Reps. Park Sun-won and Lee Seong-kweun told reporters.

The NIS said Pyongyang is planning to additionally send some 6,000 soldiers to Russia in its third batch of troop deployment to aid Moscow’s war with Ukraine, while around 1,000 combat engineers have already arrived in Russia.

The existing troops are stationed in the “rear front as reserve forces,” the agency said, pointing to the possibility of a leadership change among the dispatched troops.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Kim Jong-un has arrived in Beijing to celebrate the CCP’s fan fiction version of how they defeated the Imperial Japanese during World War II:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un arrived in Beijing on Tuesday, the North’s state media said, as photos showed him accompanied by his daughter on a key trip marked by his planned attendance at a Chinese military parade.

Kim, who departed Pyongyang the previous day in a special armored train, arrived at Beijing Railway Station at 4 p.m., local time, and was greeted by senior Chinese officials, including Cai Qi, member of the Chinese Communist Party’s central committee, Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Beijing Mayor Yin Yong, the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, citing its foreign ministry.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.