When I went to South Korea for research in August 2023, I just got off the plane and habitually looked at the map, and found that the suburbs of Seoul are only 40 kilometers away from the 38th parallel, and the city center is only 60 kilometers from the 38th parallel, and Seoul brings together 25% of South Korea's population, 21% of GDP, and 90% of large enterprises.
At that time, I couldn't help but wonder, what is the current level of North Korea's military strength? Can you bulldoze Seoul in one wave? Why has it been standing still for so many years?
According to the 2024 Global Authoritative GFP Rankings, North Korea is now ranked 36th out of 145 countries reviewed by the annual GFP.
At present, the whole of Korea has a total population of 26 million, with a military population of 9.38 million and a suitable military population of 5.26 million, which is 4170,000 people have reached enlistment age.
The DPRK Army now has more than 900,000 troops, 60,000 Navy, 110,000 Air Force, 560,000 reserve troops, and 100,000 paramilitary troops.
The ROK Army now has about 560,000 men and a Navy of 670,000, 50,000 in the Air Force, and 4.5 million in the reserve.
The North Korean Army now has 5,845 tanks in stock, 3,215 tanks in combat readiness, including data in stock, and the main battle tanks have about 800 Cheonma 125 mm main guns (Cheonma-216 is the T-62 enhanced version), about 1,000 Cheonma 115 mm guns, about 1,000 T Type 59, 550 PT and more PT-85, etc. (The data is not very accurate).
The DPRK Army also has tens of millions of armored combat vehicles, self-propelled artillery, towed artillery, and MLRS multiple rocket launchers.
The DPRK Air Force looks like it has a lot of people, but in fact it has a total of more than 100 J-5 and MiG-5 J-6 and MiG-7 and MiG-MiG-29. (The data is not very accurate).
The MiG-29, which first flew in 1977, is older than me, and it is already the most advanced aircraft in North Korea, but the MiG-29 is okay, and it can't beat the F16 but it can barely be used, so the North Korean Air Force can be considered to make up.
China's current J-8 has basically been re-equipped with J-10C and J-16, and only a small number of units use the J-8F as a reconnaissance aircraft (of course, there are fewer and fewer of them today, when UAVs are popular), and North Korea is still using J-5, J-6, J-7 as the main force, which shows how tight their air force life is.
The strength of the DPRK Navy is weaker than that of the Air Force, and it is normal to be weak, the Navy is too expensive, and few countries in the world can afford to burn the Navy, and the current financial situation of the DPRK cannot afford it, and the main ships of the DPRK are two 1,500-ton Najin-class frigates, and you must know that China even has a coast guard ship of 10,000 tons, so I don't even bother to list the list of ships of the DPRK Navy, there is really nothing to say.
Someone couldn't help but object, saying that in September 2023, North Korea launched the "Kim Junyu Hero" nuclear submarine, and the level should be good.
Brother, the North Korean officials themselves are embarrassed, calling the "Kim Junyu Hero" a nuclear submarine, but named it a "tactical nuclear attack submarine", nuclear submarines are only divided into tactical and strategic, this "tactical nuclear attack" is North Korea's own name, North Korea has a nuclear submarine is China's own ** oolong.
Jin Junyu Hero "has a displacement of only 3,000 tons (nuclear submarines usually start at 6-7 thousand tons), it is difficult to install a nuclear reactor, and even if it is installed, it can't be put down, at most it is a conventional submarine that can carry nuclear **, and it is still very far from a nuclear-powered submarine.
After going through the Korean Navy and Army roughly, let's take a look at what level of their feud with South Korea is at the moment.
The ROK Army now has 2,600 tanks, including more than 1,700 K1 and K2, as well as M48, T-72, T-80, and another 3,700 armored vehicles and personnel carriers, 5,800 artillery pieces, and more than 600***
North Korea and South Korea have larger armies than the United States, Russia, Britain and France, and these two countries are inconspicuous in East Asia, and they are both regional tyrants in Europe or the Middle East.
South Korea's batch of tanks were developed later than North Korea, mass production of K1 in 1995, mass production of K2 in 2007, with a late-mover advantage, and South Korea's industrial capacity is much stronger, and there is NATO technical backing, so K1 and K2 are stronger than North Korea's Tianma, K2 is a German tank in its bones, engine, smoothbore gun, machine gun are all developed and produced by Germany, so South Korea claims that K2 is the first tank in Asia.
Edit the search image. 
Don't get excited, it's just a claim, Koreans can claim whatever they like, and people just want to entertain themselves.
However, because they relied too much on German technology, the Germans rattled patent fees, the cost of a K2 is 8.5 million US dollars, and the purely German-made Leopard-2A7 is 6 million US dollars.
Thanks to the low cost of China's industrialization, the current Chinese Type 99A tank costs only $2 million.
Funnily enough, South Korea has a Soviet-made ** that is more advanced than North Korea.
From 1991 to 1993, South Korea took out 14 loans to the USSR (Russia).$700 million. Since Russia had no money to repay its debts, it had to pay its debts in kind.
In 1995, South Korea's Kim Yong-sam signed a brown bear project with Russia's Boris Yeltsin. In the Brown Bear project, Russia gave South Korea several types of T-80U tanks, BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles, "Hybrid" M anti-tank missiles, and "Needle" surface-to-air missiles, thus offsetting 2$100 million in debt.
In 2003, South Korea's Roh Moo-hyun and Russia's Putin signed the second phase of the Brown Bear project, this time Russia sent South Korea the T-80Uk command tank, BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicle, "Hybrid" M anti-tank missile, "Moray Eel" class hovercraft, Il-103 trainer aircraft, Ka-32 search and rescue *** and other six kinds of equipment. This time Russia offset another 5$3.4 billion in debt.
In general, South Korea's tank forces are stronger than North Korea's.
However, it may not make much sense to discuss the quantity and quality of tanks now, the bloody and real war of the Russian-Ukrainian war, drones have turned tanks into a sieve, and drones are replacing many expensive first-generation systems.
It just so happens that the whole world knows that China is the strongest.
I haven't seen drones from other countries with my own eyes, but I've been to several drone factories when I've been around the country, and I feel really strong.
By the way, I'm talking about North Korea, come back, come back.
South Korea's navy has been strong since the 1990s, and it is now significantly stronger than North Korea.
The total strength of the South Korean Navy now ranks eighth in the world, with a total tonnage of 320,000 tons, second only to the United States, China, Russia, Japan, Britain, India and France, and the overall strength is far better than that of the North Korean Navy, which ranks 14th in the world.
The ROK Navy has more than 170 ships and more than 70 aircraft, including 6 5,500-ton Yi Sun-sin-class, 3 3,900-ton Gwanggae-do Daewang-class, 3 10,000-ton Sejong-Daewang-class, and 2 190,000-ton Dokdo-class amphibious assault ship.
South Korea also has backward ships, 19 frigates, 7 Pohang-class and 4 Ulsan-class are outdated, and several Incheon-class and Daegu-class are OK.
South Korean submarines are also not very good, 20 Type 209 and 214 class submarines, all of which are old German technology and cannot keep up with the fist products of military powers.
The South Korean Air Force is also good, currently has about 850 aircraft, including 64 F4s, 69 F15s, 60 FA-50s, 169 F16s, 30 F-35s (25 more undelivered), another 130 transport planes, and so on.
The level of training of South Korean pilots is also higher than that of the DPRK, and every time the plane takes off, it costs money, and the DPRK has no money or fuel, and it cannot afford to train regularly.
The South Korean Air Force is obviously two levels higher than the North Korean Air Force, the MiG-29 can't beat the F16, there are still dozens of F-35s, and the training is not as good as others, and South Korea is still developing its own KFX fighters, and the gap is getting bigger and bigger.
Generally speaking, North Korea's first is mainly inherited from the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union has not made much progress with North Korea, while South Korea mainly follows the United States, and a lot of technical support is supported by NATO, constantly changing and progressing, and North Korea is inferior to South Korea in all aspects of conventional forces.
GFP will rank South Korea 5th in the world in 2024, only behind the United States, Russia, China and India, and stronger than Britain, Japan, Turkey, Italy and France, which makes some sense.
Because of the network environment on China's side, everyone usually thinks that North Korea fights South Korea effortlessly, but in fact, the reality is the opposite, the actual situation is that the 36th place in the world is clamoring to beat the 5th place in the world every day, and they are not unaware of the gap, how much is a little emotional.
North Korea still has a dead end, their population is too small, 26 million people to kill South Korea's 51 million people, in terms of production scope, production efficiency can not keep up with others, can not meet the normal military needs.
As mentioned earlier, most of North Korea's ** is still made in the old Soviet Union, like T54 55, PT-76, and T-62 were installed in the Soviet Union in 1947, 1952, and 1961, and Type 59 was installed in China in 1959, and PT-85 was installed in North Korea in 1985.
Not to mention North Korea, it's now Russia itself, what has it done in terms of tradition over the years? Isn't it just a couple of handmade Su-57s plus a couple of T-14 tanks?
Russia 1With a population of 4.4 billion and a land area of 17.09 million square kilometers, the international environment was much better than that of North Korea before the seizure of Crimea, and at that time it was still possible to import equipment from European and American countries.
Russia can't figure it out, so why can North Korea get it?
North Korea has a population of only 26 million, and such a population cannot meet the needs of the military industry.
Industry is becoming more and more complex, and more than thirty years ago the Soviet Union had 28.7 billion people, the industrial system supported by it is incomplete, the Soviet Union's heavy military industry is lightly industrialized, and the living industrial products are all stupid and coarse, and they are pressed to the ground by the Japanese and South Korean living industrial products.
Now a country does not have a population of 500 million, and it can't digest such a complex industrial system at all, so why is it said that among the big countries, China is the most promising now, and India is the most promising in the future, there is no other secret, that is, there are many people, and if the education level is raised, such a complex industrial system can be decomposed.
The entire middle and top labor system needs manpower, tens of millions, you must know that the military industry does not generate income in the early stage, some military industry is a lifetime of no income, just spend money, but also do a good job of maintenance, to feed so many people, how many billions of foreign trade, e-commerce, transportation, factories, build houses, build bridges and pave roads, work hard to pay taxes? How many educators are needed to develop talent on a continuous basis? Can you afford such a huge military industry?
Let's take China's top 10 military industrial groups as an example.
There are 150,000 people in China's aerospace science and technology, 160,000 in China's aerospace science and industry, 450,000 in China's aviation industry, 100,000 in China's aero engine, 350,000 in China's shipbuilding, 180,000 in China's nuclear industry, 250,000 in China's weapons industry, 140,000 in China's weapons and equipment, 230,000 in China's electronic science and technology, and 110,000 in China's electronic information.
These 10 major military-industrial groups alone have a total of 2.12 million people, plus China's 2.05 million active army, how huge the education, medical care, logistics, and financial support can afford so many people.
Even if you just make a drone, from sand and ore to processors, sensors, engines, oil, rubber, composite materials, it will take millions of people to do all this.
The industry in Taiwan Province of China is also engaged in manpower, which is completely insufficient, and it has to go to the mainland to cooperate with the human resources and land resources here to carry it out, which is why there are Foxconn, Asus, Dafeng, Inventec, Compal, etc.
Of the 26 million people in North Korea, 52% live in rural areas, and almost half are farmers, even if 13 million people are engaged in industry in the city, deducting all the best soldiers, institutions, and medical care, how many people can be left in North Korea to engage in military industry?
There is no shortcut to industry, electronic equipment, LCD screens, sensors, chips, etc., etc., are all to let the civilian industry start first, can make money, form a virtuous circle, and then the military industry will keep up with the application to the first equipment.
That is to say, if North Korea can't make a Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta industrial concentration like China, why should they build advanced **?
It is nothing more than taking out the old gadgets of the Soviet Union in the 50s and repairing them, and the electronic equipment is not used, and no matter how the products are changed, they are several grades behind the times.
North Korea said that they made the "Nova Star-4" and "Nova Star-9" this kind of large Cha Da integrated UAV, benchmarking the American Reaper drone, I personally express deep doubts, there is no industrial chain behind it, and there are no parts to buy, how can it be done? It's nothing more than taking the MQ-9C drone that Iran once shot down and making a sample according to the mold, you say that you want energy production, it's almost impossible.
North Korea is extremely poor, with an annual military expenditure of about $4 billion (South Korea says it may reach $10 billion), and its total expenditure accounts for about 24% of GDP. Either rely on India, a big country in the East, to hand out a little surplus of products or technology, or bet on nuclear weapons and missiles, hoping to balance South Korea at the strategic level and influence the United States.
By the way, South Korea's military spending in 2023 is $42.5 billion, ten times that of North Korea.
The more the DPRK screams about nuclear weapons and missiles, the more it shows that its conventional weapons are backward and cannot keep up with the development of the times.
But North Korea's nuclear and missile capabilities have been exaggerated.
North Korea's nuclear weapons and missiles mainly serve as a deterrent, but in fact, the Air Force is too vegetable, and the military industry development route has been forced out, and the aircraft can be reused, and its cost performance is much higher than that of missiles that are thrown out and gone.
And the lethality of missiles is not so exaggerated, the Russian-Ukrainian war has been fought so far, Russia has thrown 8,000 missiles, and it has not played a devastating role.
North Korea likes to show off missiles at every military parade, not because North Korea is too strong, but because North Korea is too weak.
When I say this about North Korea, everyone thinks I'm disgusted with North Korea, right?
However, it is not, North Korea can get to the point where it is today, in fact, there is a very difficult side for them, you change the rest of the world, in such a difficult situation, can still get a nuclear weapon and Hwasong-17 in one breath? In this regard, the military personnel of the DPRK are actually quite tenacious and very competitive.
We should not deny anything in vain, admit the advantages and face the shortcomings.
North Korea still has two questions, one is how far has the development of nuclear miniaturization? Can it be thrown out? This is not very accurate information. The second is that they are going to launch intercontinental missiles, 1To reach the designated target from 50,000 kilometers away, you have to have navigation, and North Korea does not have a navigation system at present, unless India is willing to give them navigation.
In the current situation, nuclear weapons and missiles are mainly disgusting to South Korea and Japan, and it is far from being able to threaten the United States.
So the real military strength of the DPRK can be summed up as:
Conventional weapons cannot defeat South Korea, and nuclear weapons and missiles mainly play a deterrent role.
There is often an argument on the Chinese Internet that South Korea is completely protected by the US military, and if it were not for the presence of US troops, North Korea would have bulldozed South Korea in an early wave.
In fact, the role of the US military is not to confront North Korea, but to fear that North Korea will find a big brother, and the US military is to fight against the big brother behind it.
During the Korean War, North Korea's strength was indeed much stronger than South Korea's, but now the situation is different, and now South Korea's conventional strength is far stronger than North Korea's, so North Korea is in a hurry and focuses its skills on nuclear weapons and missiles.
Going back to the beginning of this article, North Korea currently has 1100 long-range artillery pieces deployed near the 38th parallel, of which 340 are dedicated to fire strikes on Seoul, which can be poured into Seoul in an hour if the artillery is fired in a salvo.160,000 rockets and artillery shells, will it wipe out Seoul?
South Korea has speculated that among the 340 artillery pieces, there are 200 240-mm rockets and 140 170-mm large-caliber guns, and within a few minutes, Seoul will be attacked by 1,000 240mm rockets, which will cause 150,000 deaths, 350,000 people were injured and hundreds of buildings were destroyed.
Of course, the South Korean side will not let the North fire all the time, and the South Korean K9 and air forces will quickly launch a counterattack.
It is difficult to say whether Seoul can be leveled for the time being, but even if Seoul is really leveled, North Korea and South Korea will start a long-term battle, and South Korea will still have a better chance of winning on the whole.
But then again, the fact that these two countries are what they are today is not the result of a game between their two countries.
The situation on the Korean Peninsula has never been decided by the Koreans themselves, but is a special result of the convergence of the forces of the world's major powers here.
In the world's geopolitical pattern, the chessboard is a chessboard, the chess pieces are chess pieces, and the people who play chess will not be able to take the turn of either side of the DPRK and the ROK for the time being.