• egeres@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Does north korea have actually good military power? I’ve seen their parades here and there, but does anyone know if they have updated equipment, trained military personnel, good intelligence, etc?

    • Caveman@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      They have massive amount of soldiers and are good and making artillery and missiles. It is a big black box however since they haven’t been engaged in a conflict recently so all their troops lack experience.

      Their economy is practically built for conflict so it shouldn’t be taken lightly.

      • egeres@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Yeah, I don’t think numbers is everything, lacking experience or leadership can tip the balance against you in a blink

        • Caveman@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Yeah, I have a feeling that they will have very low morale because of lack of motivating factors. Desertion might also become a massive problem since this is one of the few ways to get out of the DPRK.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        It is a big black box however since they haven’t been engaged in a conflict recently so all their troops lack experience.

        They’ve been deployed to Syria since at least 2019 and assisted Hezbollah in its tunnel networks going back decades.

    • Aux@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Military is the only thing they have. It might not be the most modern, but they have more artilery shells than any other country. Other stockpiles are huge AF as well. Almost 4% of their population are in active military service and 2% more are reservists. In terms of head count, they have almost as many active personel as Russia while having a fraction of population. Plenty of disposable meat!

        • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          You may be right. We just saw how Russia performed in the war in Ukraine despite the prior years of flexing lol. It’s not impossible to believe that the North Korean military is the same.

      • Shard@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Agreed that they have a pretty big military in terms of raw numbers. I’m not going to discuss quality because the biggest question mark here is force projection.

        How are they planning on sending over any significant manpower and supplies across 2800km?

        They don’t even have a navy capable of circumnavigating the korean peninsula, much less make the trip to Ukraine or the wrong side of Russia.

        They have 2 transport aircraft, the bigger of the 2 has a max passenger capacity of 44 pax. Neither of those have the range to get near Ukraine when flying fully fueled, nevermind if it were fully loaded.