Korean People's Army

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Korean People's Army
DPRK Official Goals
Reunification of the Korean Peninsula under DPRK Leadership Protection of DPRK state Protection of Kim Jong-Il
Military manpower
Military age (males)	17 years of age (2004)
Availability (males)	17-49: 5,851,801 (2005 est.)
Fit for military service (males)	17-49: 4,810,831 (2005 est.)
Reaching military age annually (males)	194,605 (2005 est.)
Active troops	1,102,600 (Ranked 4th)
Total troops	5,995,000 (Ranked 4th)
Military expenditures
Dollar figure	$5.2174 billion (FY02)
Percent of GDP	22.9% (2003 est.)

Korean name

Chosŏn'gŭl	조선인민군
Hancha	朝鮮人民軍
McCune-Reischauer	Chosŏn inmin'gun
Revised Romanization	Joseon inmin-gun

The Korean People's Army is the military of North Korea. Kim Jong-il is the Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army and Chairman of the National Defense Commission. The army has four branches: Ground Force, Naval Force, Air Force and the Civil Securities Force. In 1978, Kim Il Sung directed that “Military Foundation Day” be changed from 8 February to 25 April — the nominal day of establishment of his anti-Japanese guerrilla army in 1932 — to glorify the supposed indigenous Korean origins of the KPA and obscure its Soviet origin. According to the US State Department, North Korea has the fourth-largest military in the world, at an estimated 1.21 million armed personnel, with about 20% of men ages 17-54 in the regular armed forces.^[1] It also has a reserve force comprising 4,700,000 troops.

1 History
2 Command and control
3 Organization
- 3.1 Military branches
4 Equipment
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

The Korean People's Army history began with the Korean Volunteer Army (KVA), which was formed in Yenan, China in 1939. The two individuals responsible for the army were Kim Tu-bong and Mu Chong. At the same time, a school was established near Yenan for training military and political leaders for a future independent Korea. By 1945, the KVA had grown to approximately 1,000 men, mostly korean deserters from the Imperial Japanese Army. During this period, the KVA fought alongside the Chinese communist forces from which it drew it's arms and ammunition. After the defeat of the Japanese, the KVA accompained the Chinese communist forces into Manchuria, intending to gain recruits from the Korean population of Manchuria and then enter Korea. By September 1945 the KVA had a 2,500 strong force at its disposal.

Just after World War II and during the Soviet Union's occupation of the portion of Korea north of the 38th Parallel, the Soviet 25th Army headquarters in Pyongyang issued a statement ordering all armed resistance groups in the northern part of the peninsula to disband on Oct. 12, 1945. Two thousand Koreans with previous experience in the Soviet army were sent to various locations around the country to organize constabulary forces with permission from Soviet military headquarters, and the force was created on Oct. 21st.

The headquarters felt a need for a separate unit for security around railways, and the formation of the unit was announced on Jan. 11, 1946. That unit was activated on Aug. 15 of the same year to supervise existing security forces and creation of the national armed forces.

The first political-military school in North Korea, the Pyongyang Military Academy (became No. 2 KPA Officers School in Jan. 1949), headed by Kim Chaek, an ally of Kim Il Sung, was founded in October 1945 under Soviet guidance to train people's guards, or public security units. In 1946 graduates of the school entered regular police and public security/constabulary units. These lightly armed security forces included followers of Kim Il Sung and returned veterans from China. and the Central Constabulary Academy (became KPA Military Academy in Dec. 1948) soon followed for education of political and military officers for the new armed forces.

After military was organized and facilities to educate its new recruits were constructed, the Constabulary Discipline Corps was reorganized into the North Korean People's Army Corps Headquarters. The previously semi-official units became military regulars with distribution of Soviet uniforms, badges, and weapons that followed the inception of the headquarters.

The State Security Department, a forerunner to the Ministry of Defense, was created as part of the Interim People's Committee on Feb. 4th, 1948. The formal creation of the Korean People's Army was announced four days later on Feb. 8th, seven months before the government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was proclaimed on Sept. 09, 1948. In addition, the Ministry of People's Armed Forces was established, which controlled a central guard battalion, two divisions, and an independent mixed brigade.

Before the outbreak of the Korean War, Joseph Stalin equipped the KPA with modern heavy tanks, trucks, artillery, and small arms (at the time, the South Korean Army had nothing remotely comparable either in numbers of troops or equipment). The KPA was the primary instigator of the Korean War (called the "Fatherland Liberation War" in the North).

During the opening phases of the Korean War in 1950, the KPA quickly drove South Korean forces south and captured Seoul, only to lose 70,000 of their 100,000-strong army in the autumn after U.S. amphibious landings at the Battle of Inchon and a subsequent drive to the Yalu River. The KPA subsequently played a secondary role to Chinese forces in the remainder of the conflict. By the time of the Armistice in 1953, the KPA had 290,000 casualties and 90,000 POWs. There were also a large number of civilian deaths in the northern part of Korea, but no accurate figures are available.

In 1953, the Military Armistice Commission (MAC) was created to oversee and enforce the terms of the armistice. The Neutral Nation Supervisory Committee (NNSC), originally made up of delegations from Poland and Czechoslovakia on the North Korean-Chinese People's Volunteers side, and Sweden and Switzerland on the United Nations side, monitored the activities of the MAC.

In the early 1970s, following the lead of Soviet military leaders and theorists who were rediscovering and beginning to apply the 1920s-1930s thinking of Soviet military theorists Svechin, Tukhachevski, Triandafillov, and others on operational art and “deep operations,” the Soviet-trained officers of the KPA were developing their version, termed “Two Front War.” As they envisioned it, a very large conventional force, greatly reinforced with artillery, armor, and mechanized forces, employing surprise, speed, and shock, would break through the DMZ, envelop and destroy South Korean forward forces, and rapidly overrun the entire peninsula. During the 1970s, senior KPA officers writing in official journals echoed Soviet military thinking as they characterized the nature of modern warfare as three dimensional, with no distinction between front and rear, highly mobile, and increasingly dependent upon mechanization, task organization, and improved engineer capabilities. These articles presaged dramatic increases in mechanized and truck-mobile infantry and self-propelled artillery battalions and ultimately a major expansion, reorganization, and redeployment forward of KPA ground forces.

The primary path for command and control of the KPA extends through the National Defense Commission which is lead by its chairman Kim Jong-il, to the Ministry of People's Armed Forces and its General Staff Department. From there on, command and control flows to the various bureaus and operational units. A secondary path, to ensure political control, extends through the Korean Workers' Party's Central Military Committee. Since 1990 numerous and dramatic transformations within North Korea have led to the current command and control structure. The details of the majority of these changes are simply unknown to the world. What little is known indicates that many changes were the natural result of the deaths of the ageing leadership including Kim Il-sung (July 1994), Minister of People's Armed Forces O Chin-u (February 1995) and Minister of People's Armed Forces Choe Kwang (February 1997).

The vast majority of changes were undertaken to secure the power and position of Kim Jong-il. At the Eightennth session of the sixth Central People's Committee, held on May 23, 1990, the National Defense Commission became established as its own independent commission, rising to the same status as the Central People's Committee and not subordinated to it, as before. Concurrent with this, Kim Jong-il was appointed first vice-chairman of the National Defense Commission. The Following year, on 24 December 1991, Kim Jong-il was appointed Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army. Four months later, on 20 April 1992, Kim jong-il was awarded the rank of Marshal and one year later he became the Chairman of the National Defense Commission. Within the KPA, between December 1991 and December 1995, nearly 800 high officers (out of approximately 1200) received promotions and preferential assignments. Three days after Kim jong-il became Marshal, eight generals appointed to the rank of Vice-Marshal. In April 1997, on the 85th anniversary of Kim il-sung's birthday, Kim Jong-il promoted 127 general grade officers. The following April he ordered the promotions of another 22 generals. Along with these changes many KPA officers were appointed to the influential positions within the Korean Workers' Party. I like pie.

Until 1986 most sources claimed the army had two armored divisions. These divisions disappeared from the order of battle and were replaced by the armored corps and a doubling of the armored brigade count. In the mid-1980s, the heavy caliber self propelled artillery was consolidated into the first multibrigade artillery corps. At the same time, the restructured mobile exploitation forces were redeployed forward, closer to the DMZ. The forward corps areas of operation were compressed although their internal organization appeared to remain basically the same. The deployment of the newly formed mechanized, armored, and artillery corps directly behind the first echelon conventional forces provides a potent exploitation force that did not exist prior to 1980.

As of 1992, the army was composed of sixteen corps commands, two separate special operations forces commands, and nine military district commands (or regions) under the control of the Ministry of the People's Armed Forces). Most sources agreed that North Korea's ground forces consisted of approximately 145 divisions and brigades, of which approximately 120 are active. There is less agreement, however, on the breakdown of the forces.

As of 1996, major combat units consisted of 153 divisions and brigades, including 60 infantry divisions/brigades, 25 mechanized infantry brigades, 13 tank brigades, 25 Special Operation Force (SOF) brigades and 30 artillery brigades. North Korea deployed ten corps including sixty divisions and brigades in the forward area south of the Pyongyang-Wonsan line.

Korean People's Army

Beginning in the late 1970s, North Korea began a major reorganization and modernization of its ground forces. North Korea began to produce a modified version of the 115 mm gunned T-62 tank, which was the Soviet army's main battle tank in the 1960s. Based on general trends and photography of armed forces parades, it is clear that North Korea has made considerable modifications to the basic Soviet and Chinese designs in its own production.

In the 1980s, in order to make the army more mobile and mechanized, there was a steady influx of new tanks, self propelled artillery, armored personnel carriers (APCs), and trucks. The ground forces seldom retire old models of weapons and tend to maintain a large equipment stock, keeping old models along with upgraded ones in the active force or in reserve. The army remains largely an infantry force, although a decade-long modernization program has significantly improved the mobility and firepower of its active forces.

Between 1980 and 1992, North Korea reorganized, reequipped, and forward deployed the majority of its ground forces. The army places great emphasis on special operations and has one of the largest special operations forces in the world--tailored to meet the distinct requirements of Korean terrain. Between 1984 and 1992, the army added about 1,000 tanks, over 2,500 APC/infantry fighting vehicles (IFV), and about 6,000 artillery tubes or rocket launchers. In 1992 North Korea had about twice the advantage in numbers of tanks and artillery, and a 1.5-to-1 advantage in personnel over its potential adversaries, the United States-Republic of Korea defenses to the south. Over 60 percent of the army was located within 100 kilometers of the DMZ in mid 1993.

A list of some of the equipment used: