A Look At North Korea’s Military Capabilities

[Time]

(SEOUL, South Korea)  — North Korea's military, founded 81 years ago Thursday, is older than the country itself. It began as an anti-Japanese militia and is now the heart of the nation's "military first" policy. Late leader Kim Jong Il elevated the military's role during his 17-year rule; South Korea estimates he boosted troop levels to 1.2 million soldiers. The military's new supreme commander, Kim Jong Un, gave the Korean People's Army a sharpened focus this year by instructing troops to build a "nuclear arms force." Yet the army is believed to be running on outdated equipment and short supplies. (More: U.S. and China Pledge to Work Toward a Nonnuclear North Korea. Does That Matter?) The secretive army divulges few details about its operations, but here is an assessment from foreign experts of its strengths and weaknesses: ARTILLERY North Korea provided a chilling reminder of what its artillery is capable of when it showered a front-line South Korean island with shells, killing four people in November 2010 and underscoring the threat that its artillery troops pose at the disputed sea border. South Korea says North Korea has more than 13,000 artillery guns, and its long-range batteries are capable of hitting the capital Seoul, a city of more than 10 million people just 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the border. "North Korea's greatest advantage is that its artillery could initially deliver a heavy bombardment on the South Korean capital," Mark Fitzpatrick, a former U.S. State Department official now with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said in an email. South Korea's defense minister estimates that 70 percent of North Korean artillery batteries along the border could be "neutralized" in five days if war broke out. But Sohn Yong-woo, a professor at the Graduate School of National Defense Strategy of Hannam University in South Korea, said that would be too late to prevent millions of civilian casualties and avert a disastrous blow to Asia's fourth-largest economy. SPECIAL FORCES Experts believe guerrilla warfare would be the North's most viable strategy in the event of

Via: TIME GlobalSpin

[Shola Sholaz]

It's always good to have capable military men in every country. North Korea has displayed that right now