What to Know About North Korea’s Military Capabilities

For decades, Pyongyang’s growing nuclear arsenal has generated headlines. Now, as thousands of North Korean soldiers pour into Russia to help it fight the war in Ukraine, a much older threat has become relevant again: North Korea’s massive conventional forces, one of the largest in the world.

North Korea is arguably the world’s most militarized country. Its state propaganda calls for “arming the whole population” and defending its leader, Kim Jong-un, as “human rifles and bombs.”

But decades of international sanctions have ravaged the economy in North Korea, which also suffered a famine in the 1990s. As a result, its conventional weapons remain decrepit leftovers from a bygone era when the Soviets helped Pyongyang build up its stocks of artillery shells and rockets. Its pilots seldom fly for a lack of jet fuel. Its army has trouble finding food, gasoline and spare parts.

At the same time, North Korean soldiers are required to serve for eight to 10 years, making them some of the longest-serving and most experienced conscripts in the world.

Like the country itself, North Korea’s military and its fighting capabilities remain a mystery. It has not fought a major conflict since the Korean War seven decades ago. As its troops moved abroad for what could be their first major engagement in an armed conflict abroad, North Korea’s state media carried no news on their departure or any going-away ceremonies.