Category: North Korea

The only strategic asset I can think of is something nuclear related. However, it would make no sense for them to develop a strategic bomber when their current ballistic missile inventory is enough for deterrence:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has attended a ceremony marking the 80th founding anniversary of the country’s air force, saying it will be given new strategic military assets and a “new important duty,” state media reported Sunday.

Kim made the remarks during the celebration event held Friday at Kalma Airport of the 59th Kil Yong Jo Hero Flying Group of the Second Air Wing, to mark the founding anniversary of the Air Force of the Korean People’s Army, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

Delivering a speech at the anniversary celebration, Kim said, “The Air Force will be given new strategic military assets and entrusted with a new important duty,” although he did not specify what those strategic assets would be.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

North Korea was trying to send a message to the U.S. Secretary of War before his JSA visit:

North Korea fired around 10 artillery shells from its multiple rocket launcher system earlier this week, coinciding with a joint visit by the defense chiefs of South Korea and the United States to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas, the South’s military said Tuesday.

The North launched the rockets toward waters off the northern Yellow Sea at around 4 p.m. Monday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, adding an analysis of the weapons test is under way.

The launch came less than an hour before U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrived at Camp Bonifas, just south of the Joint Security Area (JSA) within the DMZ, for a joint visit to the tense border with Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like post-Freedom Shield is when there may be some movement on dialogue between the U.S. and North Korea if you belive the NIS:

The state intelligence agency has detected signs that North Korea had been preparing for a possible summit with the United States around the time of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gathering in South Korea, although the meeting did not take place, officials said Tuesday.

The agency also said there is high possibility of a summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un some time after a regular South Korea-U.S. military drill in March.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like Kim Jong-un is making sure that if the Russians need more meat for their conflict against Ukraine his troops are ready:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has inspected the combat readiness of a military special operations unit and gave instructions for its development, the North’s state media reported Sunday.

Kim visited the headquarters of the 11th Corps of the Korean People’s Army the previous day and watched a training session, expressing “great satisfaction” with its perfect war posture, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

The 11th Corps is the North Korean military’s most elite special forces unit, which deployed troops to Russia late last year to support its war with Ukraine and gained experience in modern warfare.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I doubt this will happen, but it doesn’t hurt to speak respectfully of Kim to not give any reason for a provocation during the summit:

 U.S. President Donald Trump has said he is open to meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during his upcoming visit to South Korea next week if Kim would like to meet, in a renewed show of his willingness to resume diplomacy with the reclusive leader.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

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.