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Quotes of the Day:
“With the object of establishing an armistice which will insure a complete cessation of hostilities and of all acts of armed force in Korea until a final peaceful settlement is achieved...”
– Preamble to the Korean Armistice Agreement, July 27, 1953
“We will never be bound by this armistice. “There is no substitute for unification. Korea must be unified — whatever the cost.”
– President Syngman Rhee, July 1953
"By mid-June 1954, Clark’s hopeful political solution died with the failure of the delegation talks in Switzerland, as both Korean governments stubbornly affirmed that unification and elections were impossible without one side’s complete abdication, leaving only the cease-fire armistice. The Korean War cost the UN Command over 500,200 soldiers, with 94,000 killed. The United States lost 33,629 soldiers [other estimates of to 36,576] while 103,284 were wounded and 5,178 were missing in action or prisoners of war at the time of the cease-fire. The ROK lost 58,217 soldiers with 175,743 wounded. North Korean and Chinese forces losses remained unclear, with estimations as high as 1.5 million. Estimations placed civilian losses in both North and South Korea at over a million each."
– Capt. Michael Anderson, U.S. Army, 2019
1. VFW Commemorates the Korean Armistice Agreement
2. THE KOREAN WAR ARMISTICE: A BATTLEFIELD NEGOTIATION
3. US experts: 50-year suspension of broadcasts to North Korea: "Kim Jong-un's victory... turning a blind eye to the difficulties faced by North Korean people"
4. At the Peabody Essex Museum, Korean Diplomacy and Design
5. As North Korea silences old airwave enmities, could dialogue follow?
6. South Korea abandons ‘friend-or-foe’ mentality, pivots to pragmatic diplomacy
7. North Korea’s Insta-Fail: Cringe-Worthy Propaganda
8. As North Koreans Shun State Propaganda, Kim Tries a Flashier TV Show
9. US and its allies unprepared to repel saturation missile attacks
10. Trump’s Tariffs Aren’t the Only US Policy Hurting South Korea’s Economy
11. N. Korea's Kim vows not to forget Chinese war dead on armistice anniversary
12. Russia to launch first Moscow-Pyongyang direct flights in decades: report
13. South Korea needs 500,000 active troops to counter potential NK attacks: study
14. Final week of US-Korea trade talks sees shipbuilding as key
1. VFW Commemorates the Korean Armistice Agreement
VFW Commemorates the Korean Armistice Agreement
This anniversary is a poignant reminder of Korean War veterans’ enduring courage and unwavering resilience
https://www.vfw.org/media-and-events/latest-releases/archives/2025/7/vfw-commemorates-the-korean-armistice-agreement
July 25, 2025
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – On July 27, the 72nd anniversary of the Korean Armistice Agreement, the Veterans of the Foreign Wars (VFW) pauses to solemnly commemorate this pivotal moment, paying tribute to the immense sacrifices made by the brave men and women who fought and died in what is often tragically referred to as the "Forgotten War."
On July 27, 1953, U.S., North Korean and Chinese military commanders, signed the Korean Armistice Agreement, bringing the Korean War to a close. The ceasefire came after two years of negotiations, the longest negotiated armistice in history, but did not end the hostilities completely. A total of 36,576 Americans lost their lives and more than 92,000 were wounded in action during the course of the bloody three-year war.
The Korean War, though overshadowed by other conflicts, was a brutal and costly struggle. However, for the servicemen and women that lived through it, for the Gold Star families that lost their loved ones there and for those that keep the candle lit for the more than 7,400 POW/MIAs still unaccounted for, the Korean War is still fresh in their minds. Today less than 800,000 Korean War veterans are still living. This anniversary is a poignant reminder to recognize and honor their enduring courage, resilience and unwavering commitment to defending freedom.
To the millions of U.S. military personnel who served in the Korean War theater of operations, and the millions that have served there since, the more than 1.4 million members of the VFW and its Auxiliary join a grateful nation in remembering your service and honoring your sacrifice in defense of generations of people living on freedom’s frontier.
2. THE KOREAN WAR ARMISTICE: A BATTLEFIELD NEGOTIATION
A useful short history of the Armistice Agreement from two years ago. (Today, July 27, 2025 marks the 72d anniversary of the signing of the Armistice Agreement).
Excerpt:
U.S. senior military officers rarely find themselves negotiating with their enemy counterparts regarding an armistice. Nonetheless, such negotiations can be a critically important step toward conflict resolution. As historian Jeremi Suri has observed, “Wars are indeed won and lost at the negotiating table.” Even 70 years later, the Korean truce talks serve as a significant model for today’s senior leaders who may find themselves involved in military battlefield negotiations, a distinct and understudied subject.
THE KOREAN WAR ARMISTICE: A BATTLEFIELD NEGOTIATION
U.S. senior military officers rarely find themselves negotiating with their enemy counterparts regarding an armistice.
warroom.armywarcollege.edu · by Frank Jones · July 27, 2023
Today marks the 70th anniversary of the signing of the Korean War armistice agreement. A legal agreement that ended combat on the battlefield, it was hoped to be a path to a peace treaty. Peace has never truly materialized, but the armistice has endured due in no small part to lengthy, complicated and difficult negotiations with the North Koreans. Frank Jones is back to elucidate some of the incredible lessons of that intensive two-year negotiation process. What skills are necessary to communicate and bargain with an entity that you are still actively seeking to destroy via violent methods? How does one ignore their own emotions while seeking to manage and understand those of their opponent? How are military goals influenced by political realities? These are all questions that must be answered to successfully achieve a better peace.
U.S. senior military officers rarely find themselves negotiating with their enemy counterparts regarding an armistice.
A strong wind buffeted Panmunjom, Korea, the morning of July 27, 1953, carrying the sound of artillery firing from miles away, a reminder of ongoing hostilities. The Korean War that had raged for three years was not yet over. At 10:00, the two senior delegates representing the belligerents, U.S. Army Lieutenant General William K. Harrison, United Nations Command (UNC), and General Nam Il on behalf of the Korea’s People’s Army and the Chinese People’s Volunteers coalition, walked into a specially constructed building. They did not acknowledge each other but immediately started signing the armistice agreement. Minutes later, they rose from their seats and wordlessly left the building. That afternoon, the Commander in Chief, UNC, U.S. Army General Mark Clark, countersigned the documents at Munsan in the Republic of Korea. His communist coalition counterparts would do the same in North Korean territory. The ceasefire would go into effect at 10:00 p.m. and with it the guns fell silent after nearly 200 negotiating sessions and 400 hours of discussions over the span of two years and 17 days. The armistice still holds 70 years after its military signatories agreed to it.
U.S. senior military officers rarely find themselves negotiating with their enemy counterparts regarding an armistice. Nonetheless, such negotiations can be a critically important step toward conflict resolution. As historian Jeremi Suri has observed, “Wars are indeed won and lost at the negotiating table.” Even 70 years later, the Korean truce talks serve as a significant model for today’s senior leaders who may find themselves involved in military battlefield negotiations, a distinct and understudied subject.
It was evident to the U.S.-led United Nations Command and the Chinese-North Korean coalition by the summer of 1951 that neither side could attain a military victory. Although the UNC established a battle line north of the 38th parallel, the prewar boundary between the two Koreas, the United States concluded that the solution to the conflict could not be accomplished through military efforts alone. Chinese and North Korean leaders deduced the same. Consequently, the two sides agreed to truce talks to achieve an armistice.
The United States took full responsibility for the negotiations and had three objectives: limit the armistice to military matters in Korea only; achieve complete cessation of hostilities and acts of armed force in Korea until a final peaceful settlement in Korea until a final peaceful settlement; and establish a commission to supervise implementation of the armistice agreement and to settle through negotiations any violations. The Chinese government established policy for the Korean People’s Army and Chinese People’s Volunteers’ delegation. Its objectives were to restore the status quo ante, attain a truce at the 38th parallel, and settle the Korean question at a postwar international conference.
The two delegations, headed by five senior military delegates (general/flag officers for the UNC), none of whom were professional negotiators, and their staffs, met for the first time on July 10, 1951. The two sides agreed to an agenda in seventeen days and on four substantive issues for further negotiation: the location and demarcation of a truce line and demilitarized zone; arrangements of a ceasefire and armistice, including a Military Armistice Commission to implement the cease-fire and a supervisory organization to carry out the terms of the truce and armistice; release and repatriation of prisoners of war; and recommendations to the concerned governments regarding translating the truce into a peace settlement. The United States policymakers believed the negotiations would bring a swift end to the conflict, but the talks proved more contentious than they had presumed, often leading to a venomous environment filled with acrimonious arguments, ridicule, arrogance and accusations of bad faith based on “ideological differences, cultural misperceptions,” and the astringent character of war. Moreover, U.S. General Matthew Ridgway, Commander-in Chief, UNC, who was not present at the truce talks, held firm to ethnocentric beliefs that the communist negotiators were practiced in the “ancient oriental custom of doggedness in negotiations.” It was up to the UNC delegates to remain firm and patient. As the journalist Clay Blair was to write in The Forgotten War, “Washington would find it necessary to negotiate with not merely one stubborn adversary, but two,” the Communists and Ridgway. “The emergence of Ridgway as a strong ‘third party’ greatly complicated and prolonged the negotiations and on some occasions, very nearly led to their collapse.”
Nonetheless, the two sides made progress, agreeing to a provisional demarcation line in November 1951, to terms on the political conference in February 1952, and by April 1952, the supervisory commission issue was largely resolved. In October 1952, the UNC negotiators broke off negotiations over a lack of progress regarding the repatriation of prisoners, which the United States insisted, as a matter of principle, be voluntary. It took until April 1, 1953, for the Chinese-Korean coalition to agree to voluntary repatriation of POWs. From that point, events moved quickly but intensely, with final disposition of that issue in June, and on July 27, 1953, the two sides signed the armistice agreement. It was the longest negotiated armistice in history.
In international law, an armistice is a military agreement suspending active hostilities between the belligerents. It does not terminate the state of war existing between the belligerents, either de jure or de facto.
The Korean War truce talks illustrate five points about military battlefield negotiation that commanders and their staffs should keep in mind. First, it is decidedly different from those occurring in business and legal venues. In those settings, negotiation theory offers two predominant frameworks. The first, distributive bargaining, views negotiation situations as a win-lose: an adversarial situation where one side’s gain is the other side’s loss. The second is integrative bargaining, designed to advance a win-win approach wherein both parties benefit. These binary outcomes are overly simplistic in battlefield negotiations. In this instance, negotiations are a dialectical relationship, seesawing between what anthropologists call “competitive antagonism” and “cooperative coordination.” To reach an agreement, cooperative coordination is needed. If competitive antagonism is persistent, the result will likely be deadlock and failure. However, if a party emphasizes cooperative coordination, it may neglect its own national interests or policy objectives.
Second, because battlefield negotiations are driven by the military mission, they occur within an unstable and hostile setting that sometimes even includes “duress, physical threat, and armed intervention.” Thus, it is tied directly to the dynamic military operational environment, which can expand or limit the options available to the negotiators. The truce talks paused occasionally so the sides could use the time to perform a military strategy review, consider offensive operations, or strengthen defensive positions. Additionally, the two sides conducted combat operations to gain negotiation leverage, which retired U.S. Army Colonel Donald Boose calls “fighting while talking.” However, by the beginning of 1953, the situation was one of an enduring military stalemate, with little change to the battlefront, mirroring the impasse in the truce talks that had resulted in the UN delegation to walkout in October 1952.
Third, delays in the negotiating process can lead to lasting costs: a considerable loss of life, ecological devastation and reinforcement of hostile attitudes for generations. UNC bombing raids devastated North Korea. Every major city was destroyed along with severe damage to major infrastructure; Pyongyang was deemed militarily worthless as a result of air attacks, and as many as two million North Korean civilians died in the war. South Korean losses were substantial, some 1.3 million casualties. U.S. casualties during the war numbered approximately 136,000 killed, wounded and missing in action. Further, because the loss of human life is a potential outcome of failed negotiations, neither side wants to be accused of negotiating in bad faith, or worse, walking away from the negotiating table. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were particularly sensitive to this issue during the Korean truce talks. They warned the U.S. negotiators that if the talks failed the “enemy must be clearly responsible.” It would not be sufficient to blame the communists because of mere disagreement. Instead, it had to be “abundantly clear that we have used persistence and patience to obtain agreement on terms which will appeal to world opinion as reasonable and just.”
Fourth, battlefield negotiation seeks to transform conflict, that is, a temporary change in the situation on the ground in an ongoing war, not war termination. In international law, an armistice is a military agreement suspending active hostilities between the belligerents. It does not terminate the state of war existing between the belligerents, either de jure or de facto. The Korean Armistice Agreement states that it shall remain in effect until superseded by “an appropriate agreement for a peaceful settlement at a political level between both sides.” Nonetheless, an armistice is a war convention or agreement that has political significance.
Therefore, battlefield negotiation of an armistice is not solely a military matter despite what U.S. policymakers hoped to gain during the Korean War. Equally, it is more than an event recording the cessation of hostilities. It is also a product of the complex social phenomenon of warfare that documents and explains the politics of war (foreign policy of the warring parties in a limited war and their cultures and ideologies), a legal agreement between warring parties (international law and ethical responsibilities), and an artifact of military, cultural, international and intellectual activities. As political scientists James Foster and Garry Brewer note, the cessation of armed hostilities is a political choice.
Lastly, because of these weighty elements, battlefield negotiation entails a unique skill set of cognitive complexity, emotional intelligence, creative thinking, and cultural understanding as well as technical expertise. As one scholar points out, battlefield negotiation requires the actors to “consider and manage emotions, history and hatred.” It necessitates what Hill and Douds call strategic imagination: in war, conditions are complex and outcomes are not simply binary. It is, in sum, a skill set required of senior military leaders and their staffs acting as soldier-diplomats in today’s increasingly complicated operational environment.
The five points underscore that battlefield negotiation requires unique knowledge, skills, and analytical abilities practiced in a hostile environment with the potential for fostering conflict resolution, but possibly resulting in dire consequences if the negotiation collapses. The Korean War truce talks emphasize as well that these essential leader competencies are not ones that commanders alone need to acquire. U.S. Army, Air Force and Marine Corps colonels led staff negotiations for the UNC and settled disputes with their enemy counterparts regarding such crucial issues as the line of demarcation, the repatriation of prisoners and the functions of the Military Armistice Commission. As one expert noted, ultimately, military leaders “assume responsibility for defining military negotiation in a battlefield setting” as their mission and through their efforts achieve either success or failure.
Frank Jones is a Distinguished Fellow of the U.S. Army War College where he taught in the Department of National Security and Strategy. Previously, he had retired from the Office of the Secretary of Defense as a senior executive. He is the author or editor of three books and numerous articles on U.S. national security.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Army, or the Department of Defense.
Photo Description: General Mark W. Clark, Far East commander at the signing of the Korean War Armistice, 27 July 1953.
Photo Credit: From the Larry L. Dylina Collection (COLL/675), Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections, Official USMC Photograph
warroom.armywarcollege.edu · by Frank Jones · July 27, 2023
3. US experts: 50-year suspension of broadcasts to North Korea: "Kim Jong-un's victory... turning a blind eye to the difficulties faced by North Korean people"
A Korean language article (translated below) in the Chosun Ilbo.
US experts: 50-year suspension of broadcasts to North Korea: "Kim Jong-un's victory... turning a blind eye to the difficulties faced by North Korean people"
https://www.chosun.com/international/us/2025/07/25/2U4IM5SXVNAU3LBGFUVYU5QP6Y/
Seven experts on the Korean Peninsula and human rights in the US and Korea make a series of assessments
on the prospects for resuming inter-Korean dialogue: "North Korea will not respond",
"Expecting Kim Jong-un to respond? The South Korean government is extremely naive",
and points out that they are giving up their leverage before even talking to North Korea
Washington = Correspondent Eun-joong Kim
Posted 2025.07.25. 03:59
Here is the AI translation:
Title: U.S. Experts, on 50-Year Halt to Broadcasting to North Korea: “Kim Jong-un’s Victory… Abandoning North Koreans at Their Most Difficult Time”
After South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) halted radio and TV broadcasts toward North Korea—a practice maintained for 50 years—experts on the Korean Peninsula and human rights in Washington, DC, told this newspaper on the 25th that “with human rights oppression worsening in North Korea under Kim Jong-un since the COVID-19 pandemic, the South Korean government has closed off one of the last windows for 25 million North Koreans to connect with the outside world.” The South Korean Ministry of Unification had already suspended the sending of leaflets to North Korea, and with the Trump administration discontinuing Korean-language services by outlets such as Voice of America, there are now very few routes for North Koreans to access outside information.
This recent decision was reportedly led by President Lee Jae-myung’s foreign and security policy team, known for advocating dialogue with North Korea and refraining from saying things Pyongyang might dislike at the "starting point" of negotiations. These experts argue, however, that “suspending these broadcasts will not draw North Korea to the table for talks, and it will instead be seen as South Korea giving up negotiating leverage on its own.”
Victor Cha, Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said, “Access to outside information is one of the most effective ways to improve the lives of North Koreans. Depriving them of this is regrettable, and even so, there is no guarantee that restoring North-South dialogue will bring benefits.”
Bruce Klingner, Senior Fellow at the Mansfield Foundation, said, “Abandoning the long-term effort to provide truthful information to the people of North Korea means giving up a key tool of diplomacy; it hands the advantage to Pyongyang. Seoul must not repeat the mistake of weakening allied deterrence before negotiations.”
Olivia Enos, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, described the NIS’s decision as “another devastating blow against North Koreans’ access to information,” noting that after the Trump administration shut down Radio Free Asia, North Korean access to outside information has been more restricted than ever, calling it “very concerning.” She further stated that “most North Koreans rely on external information when deciding whether to escape,” and that “even as Kim Jong-un’s human rights abuses have worsened post-pandemic, the South Korean government is abandoning North Koreans at their most difficult time.”
Sydney Seiler, Senior Adviser at CSIS, acknowledged that “from Pyongyang’s perspective, South Korean broadcasting and leaflet-sending are costly and ineffective measures, so North Korea may partially welcome the suspension—but this will not bring about long-term behavioral changes in the regime.”
David Maxwell, Vice President of the Asia-Pacific Strategy Center, said, “Nothing demonstrates Lee Jae-myung’s North Korea policy more than this—a victory for Kim Jong-un’s political warfare and a move that will protect and strengthen his regime. Does anyone really think such appeasement will lead to a positive response from Kim?” Addressing progressive claims in South Korea that such broadcasts unnecessarily provoke Pyongyang, Maxwell said, “You don’t need anti-North Korean propaganda or insults against Kim Jong-un—just fact-based broadcasts would suffice. This is a strategically ignorant and harmful decision that shows Seoul is abandoning 25 million North Koreans suffering under atrocious conditions. Believing that cutting off information will make Kim Jong-un respond positively is extremely naive and irresponsible.”
Lee Hyun-seung, a North Korean defector and researcher at the Global Peace Foundation, who graduated from Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies, commented that “in a closed society like North Korea, outside information is key to fostering independent thought and awareness of human rights. If South Korea voluntarily blocks this, it will only strengthen the oppressive structure.” He added, “Abandon the idea that stopping broadcasts will bring Kim Jong-un to talks with Lee Jae-myung’s government; North Korea will see Seoul’s move as foolishly giving up leverage, and South Korea will face increased financial, economic, and military demands in negotiations.”
4. At the Peabody Essex Museum, Korean Diplomacy and Design
Excerpts:
In the late 19th century, a time when most U.S. museums favored flashier Chinese and Japanese acquisitions, the PEM began America’s first collection of Korean art, which now numbers over 1,800 works. Everything from Three Kingdoms period (57 B.C.-A.D. 668) jade beads to a 2002 video and ceramic installation by Nam June Paik are on view in the new gallery’s current rotation, although it strongly leans on the late Joseon dynasty and early 20th-century works that help the PEM to tell its history of early investment in Korean culture.
...
Famously isolationist until the latter half of the 19th century, to the point that Westerners referred to it as the “hermit kingdom,” Korea first signed treaties to open its ports to international trade in the 1870s and early 1880s, after U.S. and Japanese military pressure. The Salem merchants who built PEM’s collection were among the initial foreigners to take advantage of America’s new relations with Korea, and this gives the collection a particular strength in late Joseon dynasty art. As curator Jiyeon Kim said during my walk-through with her, “we are looking at a small window of time, and that’s what distinguishes the PEM’s collection from other U.S. collections of Korean art.”
Documentary photographs accompany labels throughout the show to establish original late 19th-century settings for many of the objects. An elm drop-front chest with bold grain patterning and robust brass fixtures of auspicious butterflies, bats and double-happiness characters, once part of a bride’s dowry, can be seen in a 1900 photograph of the American legation in Korea, where the political envoy Edwin Morgan collected it. Photo documentation also accompanies the set of court instruments sent to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair by King Gojong.
At the Peabody Essex Museum, Korean Diplomacy and Design
Its Yu Kil-Chun Gallery of Korean Art and Culture is a reinstallation that uses the institution’s own pioneering collection devoted to the peninsula to commemorate a key period of cultural exchange.
https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/fine-art/at-the-peabody-essex-museum-korean-diplomacy-and-design-337aa106?st=cM8jAx&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
By Michael J. Hatch
July 26, 2025 8:56 pm ET
Installation view of the gallery. Photo: Peabody Essex Museum./Kathy Tarantola
Salem, Mass.
The reinstalled Korean gallery of the Peabody Essex Museum opened this spring after a 13-year closure. Its name, the Yu Kil-Chun Gallery of Korean Art and Culture, commemorates a young diplomat from the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910) whose time in Salem from 1883 to 1884 resulted in its earliest Korean acquisitions, and this emphasis on the importance of interpersonal relationships to the collection’s formation unites the current display of about 100 objects.
Portrait of Yu Kil-Chun (1883-84). Photo: Peabody Essex Museum
In the late 19th century, a time when most U.S. museums favored flashier Chinese and Japanese acquisitions, the PEM began America’s first collection of Korean art, which now numbers over 1,800 works. Everything from Three Kingdoms period (57 B.C.-A.D. 668) jade beads to a 2002 video and ceramic installation by Nam June Paik are on view in the new gallery’s current rotation, although it strongly leans on the late Joseon dynasty and early 20th-century works that help the PEM to tell its history of early investment in Korean culture.
The installation starts with elements from Yu Kil-Chun’s formal wardrobe given in 1883 to Edward Sylvester Morse, the zoologist and proponent of Asian art collecting in America who headed PEM’s precursor, the Peabody Academy of Science. Yu’s fine open-weave horsehair scholar’s hat and looped rattan undervest, designed to lift robes away from the body in summer’s heat, stand over his pair of soft wool-and-leather shoes to create an intimate sense of his presence in the gallery that bears his name.
Nearby, an arrangement of personal accoutrements highlights the small acts of cultural exchange that brought Korean objects to the PEM. A fan with calligraphy by Yi Sujeong, presented to Morse by the diplomat and military official Yun Ungryeol in 1882, unfolds next to an inscribed hexagonal silver inkwell given to the missionary and translator Mabel Valentine Hall Pauling in the 1890s by the Korean Ministry of Internal Affairs. A horsehair-and-bamboo hat made in Seoul in 1883 by a traditional Korean milliner approximates the form of a wool bowler borrowed by the Korean neighbor of an American diplomat, Percival Lowell.
Installation view Photo: Peabody Essex Museum./Kathy Tarantola
Famously isolationist until the latter half of the 19th century, to the point that Westerners referred to it as the “hermit kingdom,” Korea first signed treaties to open its ports to international trade in the 1870s and early 1880s, after U.S. and Japanese military pressure. The Salem merchants who built PEM’s collection were among the initial foreigners to take advantage of America’s new relations with Korea, and this gives the collection a particular strength in late Joseon dynasty art. As curator Jiyeon Kim said during my walk-through with her, “we are looking at a small window of time, and that’s what distinguishes the PEM’s collection from other U.S. collections of Korean art.”
Documentary photographs accompany labels throughout the show to establish original late 19th-century settings for many of the objects. An elm drop-front chest with bold grain patterning and robust brass fixtures of auspicious butterflies, bats and double-happiness characters, once part of a bride’s dowry, can be seen in a 1900 photograph of the American legation in Korea, where the political envoy Edwin Morgan collected it. Photo documentation also accompanies the set of court instruments sent to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair by King Gojong.
Several of the PEM’s artworks were important enough to warrant attention from the National Museum of Korea, which co-sponsored the new gallery. An 18th-century red silk bridal robe with densely embroidered panels of cranes, lotuses, pomegranates, bats and butterflies as well as an eight-panel folding screen from the early 1800s were invited for conservation in Korea before the reinstallation. The screen depicts a series of grand social spectacles welcoming the governor of Pyeongan province and spans the genres of landscape, cityscape and interior scene. From right to left across the panels, extravagant parades and pleasure-barge flotillas lead to expansive formal banquet pavilions in full revelry, a giant outdoor puppet show, and an evening capped off by torch-lit promenades. If the many material goods and personal objects in the gallery sometimes feel separated from their original contexts, here is a chance to see them in action.
‘Welcoming Banquet of the Governor of Pyeongan’ (early 1800s). Photo: Peabody Essex Museum
The last few artworks bring us into the mid- and late 20th century. Work by Paik projects the looped image of a celadon vase through closed-circuit television. Nearby, the pairing of a moss-green 1960s hanbok, the traditional formal attire for a woman, with a 1959 oil painting, “Young Girl—Youngjoo,” by Kim Hyung Koo, creates a poignant vision of postwar reconsiderations of the past. Lastly, to complement this reinstallation, the PEM’s first-floor galleries currently exhibit “Jung Yeondoo: Building Dreams” (through Jan. 25, 2026), including two series by that contemporary Korean photographer. Co-curated by Stephanie Tung and Ms. Kim, the show carries themes from the new Korean gallery forward to the present.
Objects from the PEM’s permanent collection will periodically rotate in the new gallery, which tends to blend art and artifact in keeping with the institution’s general profile, situated as it is somewhere between an art collection and a cultural-history museum about America’s early maritime trade. Like most American museums, it cannot offer a comprehensive account of Korean art, but by leveraging the particulars of its own history, the PEM instead presents a compelling story in which well-crafted objects helped to build U.S.-Korean relations from the late 19th century on.
Yu Kil-Chun Gallery of Korean Art and Culture
Peabody Essex Museum
Mr. Hatch teaches art history at Trinity College.
5. As North Korea silences old airwave enmities, could dialogue follow?
We must not be duped by this. This is the Kim family regime giving up nothing for something. What does the regime lose when it stops jamming GPS signals? This was merely for harassment to coerce the South and it provided an excellent "bargaining chip" (without having to bargain) to give up in response to South korean appeasement to make it look could and to continue to dupe the true believers in engagement (appeasement).. It has gotten so much more from the ROK/US alliance with the halting of all government information flow into north Korea.
This must not be interpreted as a positive change in regime behavior. It must be interpreted as Kim Jong Un successfully executing his political warfare strategy. He truly got something for nothing (AGAIN!)
As North Korea silences old airwave enmities, could dialogue follow?
Pyongyang’s unexpected halt to radio jamming follows Seoul’s own suspension of propaganda broadcasts, kindling cautious optimism
Park Chan-kyong
Published: 10:00am, 25 Jul 2025Updated: 11:42am, 25 Jul 2025
North Korea has stopped jamming radio signals from the South, in what analysts see as a rare reciprocal gesture amid tentative steps towards lowering tensions on the divided Korean peninsula.
The move came days after Seoul halted government-run propaganda broadcasts aimed at the North, with a senior South Korean official describing Pyongyang’s response as unexpected but telling.
“We hadn’t anticipated that North Korea would stop its jamming signals, but it appears to be a reciprocal move in response to our suspension of broadcasts towards the North,” the official told reporters on Thursday.
“This shows that the North is closely and sensitively monitoring our actions,” the official added, noting that the step came despite Pyongyang’s formal designation of Seoul as a “hostile foreign state”.
An elderly woman sits and rests in front of her house in a village in Dangsan-ri, near the North Korean border, on July 6 after the loudspeaker broadcasts had ceased. Photo: Reuters
Since the division of the Korean peninsula at the end of World War II in 1945, the communist North and the capitalist South have traditionally viewed each other as targets for reunification on their own terms.
But after cutting all official ties with Seoul early last year, Pyongyang also stopped its propaganda radio broadcasts on 14 different frequencies directed at the South.
Following the inauguration of South Korea’s new President Lee Jae-myung in June, who succeeded impeached conservative leader Yoon Suk-yeol, Seoul responded by shutting down its own government-financed propaganda broadcasts towards the North.
“If the North resumes its broadcasts towards the South, we will respond accordingly, but we will not be the first to provoke,” the official added.
Despite Pyongyang’s harsh rhetoric directed at both Seoul and Washington, South Korea continued to keep diplomatic channels open, he said.
“However, North Korea won’t come to the table easily, and certainly not immediately. We won’t rush to initiate dialogue either.”
Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies, noted that Pyongyang had dissolved major government agencies responsible for inter-Korean affairs and propaganda broadcasts in line with its redefined policy towards the South.
While a new entity – Department No 10 – has been tentatively created within the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea to handle issues vaguely related to the “enemy”, referring to South Korea, no concrete mission has been assigned to it yet, according to Yang.
South Korea suspends propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts along border to North Korea
“The propaganda radio broadcasts of both sides are obsolete legacies from the Cold War period,” Yang told This Week in Asia. “Both sides feel the need to stop the anachronistic psychological warfare, including leaflet launches and propaganda broadcasts.”
He also pointed out that the United States had scaled back funding for its international broadcasters such as Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, both of which aimed to provide news and information to audiences in countries with restricted press freedom.
The reciprocal halt of propaganda broadcasts and jamming signals came shortly after South Korea repatriated six North Korean fishermen whose boats had drifted into southern waters.
Since taking office last month, Lee has ordered an end to military loudspeaker broadcasts targeting the North and urged civic groups to stop sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.
“The North has been responding in positive ways to the South’s goodwill gestures over the past several weeks, paving the way for further reconciliatory steps,” Yang said.
“Both sides should build up on this momentum to open dialogue.”
But Cho Han-bum, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, took a more cautious view, saying the North’s latest actions were “reflexive” responses rather than a genuine policy shift.
“North Korea still sticks to its view that South Korea is a hostile state that has no ties with the North,” Cho said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (centre) oversees an artillery exercise at an undisclosed location on Wednesday. Photo: KCNA/EPA
While overseeing an artillery drill on Wednesday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un emphasised perceived threats from what he called “the arch enemy”, referring to the South.
Kim reportedly stressed that “clearly bearing in mind who is the arch enemy is the most powerful war deterrent”.
Still, Pyongyang is under increasing pressure to ease tensions with the US as its domestic economy continues to deteriorate despite deepening military cooperation with Russia amid the ongoing war in Ukraine, according to Cho.
“Rice prices have doubled, and North Korea’s won has lost half of its value against the [US dollar] over the past year,” Cho said. “Under these circumstances, North Korea feels no need to raise tensions with the South and hike expenses.”
Cho added that a window for dialogue could open once the war in Ukraine eased and Moscow’s military aid to the North diminished.
South Korea is set to host the Apec summit in the southeastern city of Gyeongju from October 31 to November 1, where it hopes to bring together US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if some effort would be made by the Trump administration to see if Kim might meet,” Andrew Yeo, the SK-Korea Foundation chair at the Brookings Institution’s Centre for Asia Policy Studies, told Yonhap News Agency.
“But it will be Kim, not Trump, who will decide whether a meeting is possible,” he added.
Rob Rapson, former acting US ambassador to South Korea, said that given “Trump’s flair for the dramatic”, an interaction with Kim around the time of the Apec summit could not be completely ruled out.
Park Chan-kyong
Park Chan-kyong is a journalist covering South Korean affairs for the South China Morning Post. He previously worked at the Agence France-Presse's Seoul bureau for 35 years. He studied
6. South Korea abandons ‘friend-or-foe’ mentality, pivots to pragmatic diplomacy
I am all for pragmatic diplomacy. It sounds good and it sounds like something that should be good for the Republic of Korea. We all have to deal with the world as it really is and not as we would wish it to be. Therefore we need to have a realistic understanding of the nature, objectives, and strategy of the Kim family regime and base pragmatic diplomacy on such informed understanding.
I only have two caveats: it cannot include appeasement of north Korea and/or China (or any member of the CRInK) and it must be focused on solving the "Korea question" in accordance with paragraph 60 of the Armistice. (i.e., an end to the unnatural division of the Korean peninsula).
I would offer Preisnt Lee my 12 words:
"Unification first, then denuclearization; the path to unification is through human rights."
South Korea abandons ‘friend-or-foe’ mentality, pivots to pragmatic diplomacy
Gone are the days of Yoon Suk-yeol’s ‘black-or-white world view’, as Seoul’s new administration seeks strategic flexibility
Park Chan-kyong
Published: 8:00am, 23 Jul 2025Updated: 9:23am, 23 Jul 2025
With a rare public apology and a pledge to move beyond “ideological divides”, South Korea’s newly appointed foreign minister has pushed aside past dogma – signalling Seoul’s shift towards pragmatic engagement under recently elected President Lee Jae-myung.
The clearest sign of this new direction came on Monday, when Foreign Minister Cho Hyun delivered the apology at his inauguration, acknowledging that the foreign ministry had “failed to meet public expectations” under impeached former president Yoon Suk-yeol, who is currently behind bars awaiting trial over his failed martial law decree.
“Diplomatic issues were exploited for domestic political purposes,” said Cho, a veteran diplomat with decades of experience. “We need to move beyond ideological divides and pursue a pragmatic diplomacy rooted in rationality and efficiency, with national interests at the centre.”
South Korea’s new Foreign Minister Cho Hyun burns incense to pay tribute to war dead at the National Cemetery in Seoul on Monday. Cho has said securing peace on the peninsula is a “top priority”. Photo: Yonhap/EPA
Analysts say Cho’s remarks echo President Lee’s determination to steer the nation away from the “friend-or-foe” world view that defined the previous conservative administration, which critics contend placed political alignment above practical diplomacy.
Cho singled out South Korea’s failed bid to host the World Expo in 2030 – an effort championed by Yoon despite formidable competition from Saudi Arabia – as emblematic of misplaced priorities.
He also alluded to “inappropriate comments” by former officials that strained key relationships, likely a nod to Yoon’s unsubstantiated allegations of Chinese interference in South Korean elections and claims about anti-state forces linked to North Korea and China.
Observers see Cho’s candid statements as a clear declaration that Seoul intends to break with the Yoon government’s value-based diplomacy in favour of a broader, more strategic approach: one that balances traditional alliances while expanding diplomatic outreach.
“Amid growing geopolitical tensions, securing peace on the Korean peninsula must be our top priority,” Cho said.
He pledged to pursue dialogue with North Korea through a “phased and pragmatic” process, working closely with the United States while keeping lines open to China and others.
South Korea can no longer afford the zero-sum logic of the past
Chang Yong-seok, Korean unification researcher
Despite these aspirations, prospects for inter-Korean dialogue remain bleak.
Pyongyang has formally nullified inter-Korean relations, calling the South a hostile foreign state and deepening its military ties with Russia as the war in Ukraine grinds on.
North Korea’s nuclear weapons development further complicates any path to reconciliation.
Last month, both Koreas halted their cross-border loudspeaker broadcasts, ending a year of tit-for-tat psychological warfare. While the move has de-escalated tensions at the border, analysts caution that it does not signal a substantive policy shift from Pyongyang.
‘Black or white’
Cho’s remarks reflect a fundamental policy shift under Lee, Koh Yu-hwan, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University, told This Week in Asia.
“The Lee administration sees the former government’s black-or-white world view as detrimental to national interests,” he said.
“This is in line with broader global trends, such as US President [Donald] Trump’s rejection of value-based diplomacy in favour of transactional, interest-based foreign policy.”
At his confirmation hearing last Thursday, Cho reiterated that South Korea would not act as a pawn in the US-China rivalry. He confirmed that Seoul was working to conclude tariff negotiations with Washington before a looming August 1 deadline, when the US is expected to impose a 25 per cent tariff on Korean exports.
Trump imposes 25% unilateral tariffs on Japan, South Korea amid slow negotiation progress
Rejecting the binary logic of “the US for security, China for the economy”, Cho emphasised South Korea’s commitment to a balanced and independent foreign policy.
Asked whether President Lee would attend China’s Victory Day celebration in Beijing on September 3, Cho declined to confirm, citing sensitive negotiations with the US over trade and security.
Diplomatic sources suggest Lee’s participation is unlikely, particularly with his first summit with President Trump still unscheduled.
Appearing alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, the latter of whom remains under international sanctions for the war in Ukraine, would risk diplomatic fallout for Seoul, they warn.
South Korean soldiers take part in an anti-terrorism drill last year as part of the 10-day Ulchi Freedom Shield joint annual exercise with the US. Analysts say Seoul could scale back this year’s drills. Photo: EPA-EFE
“It would be an awkward scene, politically and diplomatically,” said Chang Yong-seok, a senior researcher at Seoul National University’s Institute for Peace and Unification Studies.
“Instead, Seoul will likely prioritise resolving the trade issue with Washington while cautiously improving ties with Beijing.”
Chang added that, ahead of the Apec summit South Korea is set to host in August – which Trump and Xi might attend – Seoul could scale back its annual Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military exercise with the US to avoid inflaming regional tensions.
“To maintain peace and stability on the Korean peninsula, South Korea can no longer afford the zero-sum logic of the past,” Chang said. “Pragmatism and balance are the only viable path forward.”
Park Chan-kyong
Park Chan-kyong is a journalist covering South Korean affairs for the South China Morning Post. He previously worked at the Agence France-Presse's Seoul bureau for 35 years. He studied political science at Korea University and economics at the Yonsei University Graduate School.
7. North Korea’s Insta-Fail: Cringe-Worthy Propaganda
This is "government" (party) propaganda from the Propaganda and Agitation Department.
Videos and images at the link.
North Korea’s Insta-Fail: Cringe-Worthy Propaganda
https://dallasexpress.com/national/north-koreas-insta-fail-cringe-worthy-propaganda/
Dallas Express
National
Jul 26, 2025
Reportedly Kim Tong Chol | Video screenshot images from Instagram video posted by movetonorthkorea
A flood of propaganda videos targeting American users has hit Instagram and X over the past year, many featuring stiff dialogue, clumsy editing, and bizarre rhetorical questions that attempt — and often fail — to portray North Korea as a thriving, free society.
One of the more prominent accounts in this wave is @MoveToNorthKorea, a mysterious Instagram page that posts upbeat propaganda targeting English-speaking audiences. It is unclear whether the account is state-run, operated by a private contractor, or simply run by a sympathizer. The effect, however, is the same: a stream of overly rosy portrayals of life inside one of the world’s most repressive regimes.
The propaganda clips tend to follow a pattern.
Many are scored to Hundred Miles by Yall featuring Gabriela Richardson and begin with a rhetorical question starting with “Who said…” The videos are often narrated in broken English by an AI voice that occasionally refers to North Koreans not by nationality but as “esteemed citizens of the DPRK.” The editing is rudimentary, and the messaging leans on crude reversals of common criticisms — often to surreal effect.
Here are four recent examples that highlight just how far some of these efforts miss the mark:
“Action!”: The Dinner Scene That Spoils Itself
In one widely shared clip, a girl named Zin-Mai sits down for dinner with a man implied to be her father. The premise is simple — a wholesome family meal — but the guise is subverted in the first second when someone audibly shouts a word translated as “Action!” revealing the scene to be staged.
The father’s dialogue is stilted and repetitive, as he aggressively insists they have plenty of food and repeatedly urges his daughter to eat more soup and kimchi. The pacing and conversation do not suggest that dialogue is spontaneous.
However, North Korea is not alone in staging dining scenes.
It’s not just North Korean propagandists who stage mealtime settings to shape public perception. During the 2024 campaign, then-Vice President Kamala Harris was criticized for allegedly clearing out diners from a Pittsburgh restaurant so that campaign staff and supporters could pose as patrons during a campaign stop, as reported by the Daily Mail.
Google? Maybe — If You Don’t Touch the Keyboard
“Who says Google doesn’t work in North Korea?” asks another clip, as a man sits at a desktop computer with Google’s homepage open. Yet at no point does he type anything, click a link, or interact with the browser. He merely stares at the screen.
No attempt is made to demonstrate actual use of Google or internet access. Instead, the scene appears constructed solely to suggest a normalcy that contradicts what human rights experts have long confirmed: the vast majority of North Koreans lack access to the global internet.
North Korea’s intranet system, called Kwangmyong, offers only limited, state-approved content, and real internet use is typically restricted to a tiny ruling elite and tightly controlled government entities.
A “Fair Trial” in the Hostage Confession Room
“Who said North Korea doesn’t have a fair judicial system?” another video asks, before cutting to footage of a crying man in what appears to be a press conference, flanked by guards. A reverse image search identifies this man as Kim Tong Chol — a South Korean-American preacher reportedly imprisoned in North Korea on espionage charges — speaking inside a wood-paneled room infamous for its use in forced public confessions. Chol’s name is sometimes spelled as Kim Dong Chul, depending on the news outlet.
This appears to be the same setting where Otto Warmbier, another detained American, was paraded before cameras in 2016. Warmbier died soon after being returned to the United States in a vegetative state.
Chul was released in 2018. He has kept a low profile since returning to the United States.
“I Have… Always Exciting!”
“Who said North Koreans don’t speak English?” This clip opens with a young man struggling to form a sentence. After a long pause, he declares, “I have… I am … always exciting!” A young woman follows, more fluent, and says she studies at Kim Il Sung University — but when asked about her major, she appears confused and unable to answer.
The clip then ends before the woman names a major.
Behind these awkward social media posts lies a country where information is tightly controlled and dissent is met with brutality.
According to Human Rights Watch, North Korea continues to imprison its own citizens in labor camps, restrict movement, ban free expression, and enforce loyalty to the ruling Kim dynasty through surveillance and repression. A 2021 United Nations report found that more than 40% of the population suffers from food insecurity.
The Korean Peninsula was split after World War II, with the U.S. supporting the South and the Soviet Union backing the North. After a bloody civil war in the 1950s, the North remained under communist rule. Over decades, the Kim regime has relied on isolation, propaganda, and militarism to hold power, while neighboring South Korea has embraced a more Western-style government and economic growth.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, North Korea’s state media strategy has undergone significant evolution in recent years. YouTube vloggers like “YuMi” and “Song A” have tried to humanize the country by posting cheerful, English-language videos that depict life in Pyongyang as modern and upbeat, often in stark contrast to reports from defectors and human rights organizations.
“They are exploiting the social media environment where it is increasingly difficult to ascertain what is real and what is not,” Irina Tsukerman, a national security lawyer, told The Dallas Express.
Whether these influencers are state agents or merely sympathetic amplifiers, the outcome is the same: a disjointed, heavily curated vision of a regime that remains one of the most closed and repressive on Earth.
8. As North Koreans Shun State Propaganda, Kim Tries a Flashier TV Show
But I am sure the "blame" for all those warts is on the South, the US, and the international community.
I wonder if this is in reaction to the "K-television" that has long been smuggled in with reality shows and the like. Is the regime trying to outcompete the South (but still televisions with Juche characteristics)?
And we must discount the regime propaganda (either internal or external) because it provides us with some understanding of the regime.
I think the regime is a learning organization but I do not think it seeks real substantive change, especially from an economic, political, and social (and human rights) perspective. I do not think we should over interpret this. The change may be that the regime is willing to change its propaganda efforts to ensure more control of the people.
Excerpts:
Unlike his father or grandfather, Kim is using “provocative” content to attract people to domestic content and promise changes to improve living conditions, said Jeon Young-sun, who researches North Korean culture at Konkuk University in Seoul.
“This new type of content reflects Kim’s desperation for change,” Jeon said.
The new show doesn’t abandon typical propaganda altogether and portrays North Korea as a modern nation. Food is abundant and new houses are being built. People use smartphones to call each other and do research on computers. Farmers work as a massive red banner hangs behind them that reads: “Let us become farmers who serve the nation!”
...
Kim Il-hyuk, who defected to South Korea in 2023, said he frequently watched South Korean TV shows and listened to K-pop. He only turned on state television when he suspected authorities might be patrolling the neighborhood in search of people watching foreign content. Since 2020, the police have visited houses about twice a month for surveillance, he said. Those who were caught watching foreign content were publicly executed.
“Everything on state television is propaganda, so normally there’s nothing people want to watch,” Kim said.
As North Koreans Shun State Propaganda, Kim Tries a Flashier TV Show
The regime is giving people a new TV program depicting some of the realities of North Korean life, warts and all
https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/as-north-koreans-shun-state-propaganda-kim-tries-a-flashier-tv-show-ed1dcb9a
By Dasl Yoon
Follow
Updated July 27, 2025 12:01 am ET
A scene from ‘A New Spring in Paehaek Plain’ shows young North Koreans using smartphones. Photo: North Korea’s Bureau of National Motion Pictures
Key Points
What's This?
- Kim Jong Un is using TV dramas to expose the regime’s weaknesses, managing expectations, and rallying people.
- “A New Spring in Paehaek Plain” depicts corruption and social disparities, a hit with domestic audiences.
- The show reflects Kim’s efforts to concede weakness to maintain legitimacy after a difficult period for North Koreans.
SEOUL—North Korea’s totalitarian leaders have long fed the population bland propaganda that paints the country as a utopian paradise. Movies show hardworking North Koreans who are well-fed and express deep loyalty to the leadership.
Now, as North Koreans—particularly urbanites and younger people—gain furtive access to foreign news and entertainment, the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, is trying a different tactic: television dramas that expose the regime’s weakness. The goal, analysts say, is to manage people’s expectations and rally them to overcome the country’s many hardships.
The result is a new television series that honestly depicts the everyday corruption that is rife in North Korea. Local officials embezzle grain, farmers fail to meet quotas and people bribe their superiors. It also portrays family conflict in contrast to official support for family harmony.
The series has proven a hit with domestic audiences, according to state-run media. “The show captivated its audience because, above all else, it was true to life,” according to an article in a North Korean monthly magazine.
“We have never seen Party failings and personal failings depicted so starkly,” said Chris Monday, an associate professor at South Korea’s Dongseo University who studies Russia and North Korea.
The 22-episode “A New Spring in Paehaek Plain” was the first new TV show to air in the Kim regime since 2023. The North Korean mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment.
‘A New Spring in Paekhak Plain’ depicts a party secretary who moves to a rural area to help produce more crops. Photo: North Korea’s Bureau of National Motion Pictures
Analysts say the show is designed to inspire North Koreans to overcome the country’s many hardships. Photo: North Korea’s Bureau of National Motion Pictures
The story centers on a Workers’ Party official fighting against corruption and bureaucracy at Paekhak farm in the western county of Sinchon, to help the village produce more crops. His wife is disappointed to learn the family is moving to a rural area, where infrastructure isn’t well developed and fewer students have the opportunity to attend university. People offer bribes for favors and one woman pressures her son’s girlfriend, who is from a different social background, to leave him.
Such plotlines hit on the social disparities between people in the city and rural areas, as well as widespread distrust of corrupt party officials. Meanwhile, the romantic subplot involves flirtations and heartbreak, unusual themes in North Korean TV. Typically, characters in North Korean dramas show emotion mostly when expressing loyalty or commitment to party ideals.
The show’s protagonists use smartphones and students fly drones at school, gadgets that are out of reach for much of the population.
The show frames the country’s hardships, from food insecurity to social disparities, as being actively addressed by a relatable, albeit fallible, government. Analysts say such content reflects Kim’s broader efforts to concede weakness to maintain legitimacy with his people.
As North Korea struggled to recover from flood damage last year, Kim called on officials to “eradicate abuse of power, bureaucratism and acts of illegally accumulating wealth,” according to an October state media report. He has apologized for food shortages and chastised officials for domestic woes.
‘A New Spring in Paehaek Plain’ comes as North Korea struggles to recover from last year’s floods. Photo: kcna/Reuters
Unlike his father or grandfather, Kim is using “provocative” content to attract people to domestic content and promise changes to improve living conditions, said Jeon Young-sun, who researches North Korean culture at Konkuk University in Seoul.
“This new type of content reflects Kim’s desperation for change,” Jeon said.
The new show doesn’t abandon typical propaganda altogether and portrays North Korea as a modern nation. Food is abundant and new houses are being built. People use smartphones to call each other and do research on computers. Farmers work as a massive red banner hangs behind them that reads: “Let us become farmers who serve the nation!”
A young female student spends time drawing the blueprint for an agricultural drone at school. “I’m going to become successful and make sure that pesticides and fertilizers are applied using this drone,” she tells her mother.
The new content comes after an especially difficult period for North Koreans.
Villagers are shown using computers in ‘A New Spring in Paehaek Plain.’ Photo: North Korea’s Bureau of National Motion Pictures
Following the Covid outbreak in 2020, the country strengthened border control and ordered those attempting to cross the border to be shot on sight. Pyongyang also launched a battle against foreign information by making watching or distributing foreign content punishable by death. Already under strict international sanctions over its weapons program, North Korea faced further economic pressure during the pandemic; at one point, Kim publicly shed tears for failing to resolve economic hardships and admitted to severe food shortages.
The utopian portrayal of North Korea in state propaganda has long been shunned by domestic viewers for being too unrealistic and unrelatable, according to defectors.
Most of the population in larger cities have TVs, but less than half of residents in rural areas can afford one, defectors say. Younger North Koreans prefer smuggled South Korean dramas or movies to turgid state news or official shows that tend to repeatedly praise the regime and condemn its enemies, like the U.S. and South Korea, they say.
Kim Il-hyuk, who defected to South Korea in 2023, said he frequently watched South Korean TV shows and listened to K-pop. He only turned on state television when he suspected authorities might be patrolling the neighborhood in search of people watching foreign content. Since 2020, the police have visited houses about twice a month for surveillance, he said. Those who were caught watching foreign content were publicly executed.
“Everything on state television is propaganda, so normally there’s nothing people want to watch,” Kim said.
Write to Dasl Yoon at dasl.yoon@wsj.com
9. US and its allies unprepared to repel saturation missile attacks
This is quite depressing information. Our allies (and us) must own their defense burden. We must shift from burden sharing to burden owning which in the long run will result in improved mutual defense.
Excerpts;
The United States’ Asian allies Japan and South Korea also have limited air defenses, mainly relying on their own Patriot systems or on Patriot plus AEGIS in the case of Japan. Taiwan has Patriot PAC-3, but not enough systems or missiles. The US, at present, would find it extremely difficult to backstop NATO against a massive attack by Russia, or to support Japan and South Korea, let alone Taiwan, with de minimis stockpiles and too few systems.
There is THAAD in Korea, but not in Japan or Taiwan. Japan even rejected AEGIS Ashore to protect its territory, although it does have four AEGIS-equipped ships. Taiwan publicly rejected THAAD, an incredibly foolish move.
To make a long story short, the US and its allies are not well prepared against saturation missile attacks and don’t have enough coverage to protect military installations, command and control centers, airfields, naval ports or even logistic centers and factories (putting aside attacks focused on critical infrastructure, as we see on a daily basis in Ukraine).
It should be obvious that the US industrial base is not ready for the challenge, that there are not enough factories and that efficiency (understood in terms of output) is low. The Pentagon is still relying on ordering missile production from existing factories rather than really trying to reform the manufacturing infrastructure so we can match the output of Russia, China or even Iran.
US and its allies unprepared to repel saturation missile attacks - Asia Times
Results from a new study of missile defenses show limited supply, slow manufacturing
asiatimes.com · by Stephen Bryen · July 25, 2025
Between June 13 and 24 Iran launched 574 missiles attacking Israel. Some of them got through, despite Israeli and US efforts to stop them. Until now we have lacked convincing data allowing some cogent analysis of the results of missile defenses. That information is partly supplied by a new study by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, a Washington-based think tank that is pro-US defense and pro-Israel.
There are some surprises. The biggest one is the role of THAAD operated by US personnel in Israel and in the Gulf.
THAAD is the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system. It is designed to intercept short-, medium- and long-range ballistic missiles. THAAD interceptors cost $12.7 million each, making them expensive, but not nearly as costly as the AEGIS SM-3 Block 2A interceptor that is priced at just under $28 million per shot.
THAAD is a hit-to-kill, or kinetic kill, interceptor that does not use explosives. It has an operational ceiling of around 92 miles, so it is not capable of exoatmospheric intercepts (310 to 620 miles). Israel’s high altitude interceptor, Arrow 3, is said to be capable of intercepts in the exoatmosphere.
According to the JINSA report, in the June conflict THAAD intercepted 47.7 percent of all the missiles fired at Israel, an unexpectedly high proportion. In doing so, the US expended at least 14% of its total THAAD interceptor stockpile. JINSA says it will take Lockheed, which manufactures the THAAD interceptors, around eight years to replenish the US stockpile, assuming the rate of production is not significantly increased.
Take Note: We only know the number of Iranian missiles shot down by THAAD (92). We do not know how many THAAD interceptors were launched to shoot down the Iranian missiles. The 14% figure represents the claimed kills, not the actual number fired. Thus the remaining inventory of THAAD interceptors may be smaller than stated in the report.
There are a couple of important caveats. The first is that the US is supplying other countries with THAAD systems. Saudi Arabia has a THAAD system delivered from the United States and 50 interceptors. However, it has ordered 360 interceptors, which will take years to manufacture.
Saudi THAAD personnel. Photo: Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense
The UAE reportedly has 192 THAAD interceptors, although it is not clear all have been delivered.
The US also has THAAD systems in South Korea (where there are now reports North Korea is boosting its missile production) and in Hawaii, Guam and Wake Island. Given the Chinese missile threat and regional volatility, the US may have to beef up supplies for the Pacific. The alternative is to reply on AEGIS, a very expensive system that operates at sea and therefore is not capable of fully protecting US and allied bases in the region.
The second problem is intercepting hypersonic missiles. Iran reportedly used some of these attacking Israel. China and Russia already have them (e.g., DF-17 with DF-2F hypersonic glide vehicles and Russia’s Avangard and Oreshnik ballistic missiles, plus Kinzhal and Zircon). THAAD probably needs to have longer range and speed to counter hypersonic missiles, something that has been proposed (THAAD-ER) but not yet approved.
Israel has Arrow 2 and Arrow 3, the latter able to operate in the exoatmosphere. In the recent conflict, Israel says it intercepted more than 200 Iranian missiles, Another 258 missiles were not intercepted because Israel determined they were not going to hit populated areas or critical infrastructure. THAAD intercepted 92 Iranian missiles.
According to Israeli reports, that left 57 Iranian missiles that got through and did damage.
What the information tells us is that more than half of Iran’s missiles were inaccurate (for one reason or another). It tells us that Israel does not have an adequate missile intercept inventory or launcher capability. Apparently Israel recognizes this shortcoming, but it depends on US manufacturing to help fill the gaps.
It also tells us that Israel cannot defend its territory without the United States. The great importance of THAAD for defending Israel is critical.
The JINSA report does not take into account Iranian and other drones fired at Israel. However, that threat will also multiply in future. (Israel has Iron Dome and Iron Beam, and can also use its air force to shoot down drones,)
Patriot also played a role in the conflict, mainly to defend al Udeid air base in Qatar. The Iranians fired 14 short and medium range missiles at the air base on the last day of the conflict, and the US was warned about the attack ahead of time by Iran. In response the US launched 30 Patriots and intercepted 13 out of 14 Iran’s missiles. One missile got through and damaged a communications dome on the base.
Before and after photos of damage at Al Udeid Air Base last month. Photo: Planet Labs
In practice this means it takes at least two Patriot interceptors for every enemy missile fired. As is well known, the US is in short supply of Patriot, which the US, its allies and friends rely on for air defense. This has caused significant controversy in connection with supplies of Patriots for Ukraine. The Pentagon has made clear that stockpiles are at a critical level and it does not want to deplete them further in support of Ukraine.
Instead, at President Donald Trump’s initiative, Germany has agreed to supply Patriot interceptors (model unclear, as there are different Patriot interceptors, the most important PAC-3), but Germany does not have enough. The German Defense Minister, Boris Pistorius, is negotiating with his European counterparts, to “find” the missiles Ukraine needs. Allegedly, Germany will pick up the bill for replacing them later., but the Germans now want US guarantees.
The JINSA paper also points out that Israel destroyed some 250 Iranian missile launchers (only after they fired their missiles). This is a luxury that Ukraine, for example, does not have and it is a challenge for the US and its Pacific allies, because finding and destroying adversary launchers (e.g., potentially China’s or Russia’s) is a far bigger challenge than Iran.
The future
The US and Israeli ability to manufacture air defense missiles is inadequate against Russian, Chinese, Iranian and maybe North Korean factories’ ability to produce ballistic missiles. What is true for the defense of Israel, supplementation of Israel’s local air defenses with US assets, also is true for Europe and Asia. NATO has very limited air defenses, well below what Israel has but a need to protect a massively bigger territory.
The United States’ Asian allies Japan and South Korea also have limited air defenses, mainly relying on their own Patriot systems or on Patriot plus AEGIS in the case of Japan. Taiwan has Patriot PAC-3, but not enough systems or missiles. The US, at present, would find it extremely difficult to backstop NATO against a massive attack by Russia, or to support Japan and South Korea, let alone Taiwan, with de minimis stockpiles and too few systems.
There is THAAD in Korea, but not in Japan or Taiwan. Japan even rejected AEGIS Ashore to protect its territory, although it does have four AEGIS-equipped ships. Taiwan publicly rejected THAAD, an incredibly foolish move.
To make a long story short, the US and its allies are not well prepared against saturation missile attacks and don’t have enough coverage to protect military installations, command and control centers, airfields, naval ports or even logistic centers and factories (putting aside attacks focused on critical infrastructure, as we see on a daily basis in Ukraine).
It should be obvious that the US industrial base is not ready for the challenge, that there are not enough factories and that efficiency (understood in terms of output) is low. The Pentagon is still relying on ordering missile production from existing factories rather than really trying to reform the manufacturing infrastructure so we can match the output of Russia, China or even Iran.
Stephen Bryen, a special correspondent to Asia Times and a former US deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, also previously served as executive director of the JINSA think tank. This article, which originally appeared in his Substack newsletter Weapons and Strategy, is republished with permission.
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asiatimes.com · by Stephen Bryen · July 25, 2025
10. Trump’s Tariffs Aren’t the Only US Policy Hurting South Korea’s Economy
Excerpts:
The regulatory shifts under the Trump administration will only add to the increasing cost pressures manufacturers face from the various Section 232 and anti-dumping investigations on commodities, which will drive up the cost of producing goods in the United States. The proposed 50 percent tariff on copper will increase costs for producers of semiconductors, EVs, and consumer electronics. A new 93.5 percent anti-dumping tariff on graphite, a key material for making EV batteries, will also increase the costs of EV batteries. With reductions in subsidies and increasing regulatory barriers for these industries, production costs will increase will demand for their products will decline.
Trump promised a low regulatory environment to boost manufacturing in the United States and to help compensate companies for the new tariffs. That low regulatory environment to date only applies to industries favored by the Trump administration; in other sectors, new policies actually undermine existing manufacturing investments in the United States. Any new trade deal between the United States and South Korea needs to address the negative impact of policy changes on Korean firms to protect US manufacturing and encourage further Korean investment in the United States.
Trump’s Tariffs Aren’t the Only US Policy Hurting South Korea’s Economy
Any trade deal will also need to address regulatory changes that are degrading South Korean investments in the U.S.
https://thediplomat.com/2025/07/trumps-tariffs-arent-the-only-us-policy-hurting-south-koreas-economy/
By Troy Stangarone
July 24, 2025
Credit: Depositphotos
With the August 1 deadline for South Korea to strike a new trade deal with the United States rapidly approaching, Seoul’s focus has been on minimizing the potential for significant tariff increases on Korean exports to the United States. However, shifts in regulatory and subsidy policy under the Trump administration are also negatively impacting Korean investments in the United States and should be a part of any negotiations.
Over the last three years, Korean firms have invested $114 billion in the United States. Centered in strategic areas such as semiconductors and clean energy, these are significant investments in U.S. manufacturing capacity. However, the Trump administration’s turn against clean energy and related products has decreased the long-term potential of much of this investment.
Ironically, these regulatory shifts come at a time when Washington is reportedly pushing South Korea to create an outward investment fund to support manufacturing in the United States that could run into the hundreds of billions of dollars. In essence, Trump administration policy is devaluing current Korean investment, while demanding additional investment in the United States to avoid tariffs of 25 percent or more on Korean exports to the United States.
In some cases, these policies seemingly undermine Trump administration objectives. Restoring manufacturing to the United States has long been a priority for Donald Trump and has been touted by his administration. The administration has launched a wide range of Section 232 national security investigations focused on the impact of imports on domestic manufacturing and national security, presumably with the intention of addressing the decline in manufacturing in the United States through higher tariffs to incentivize domestic production.
The Trump administration has also made restoring U.S.energy dominance as a key goal for the administration but has sent conflicting signals. It initiated a Section 232 investigation into polysilicon, which is used in semiconductors and solar panels. A separate Section 232 investigation into semiconductors already covers some of the uses of polysilicon in semiconductor manufacturing, suggesting that the separate polysilicon investigation relates primarily to its usage in solar panels.
Expanding solar power as part of an energy security agenda would also support the administration’s objective of maintaining the United States’ dominance in AI. This will require significant new amounts of electricity production, with the International Energy Agency expecting AI data centers to account for half of the growth in electricity demand in the United States by 2030.
Nominally, the Trump administration’s Section 232 investigation into polysilicon imports should be beneficial to Hanwha Q Cells, a Korean firm that manufactures solar panels in the United States. According to the International Energy Agency, China accounts for 93 percent of global manufacturing of polysilicon, making U.S. manufacturers dependent on Chinese sources of polysilicon for the production of solar panels.
Hanwha Q Cells is investing $2.5 billion to develop the sole U.S.-sourced supply chain for the production of solar panels in the United States, but has struggled to ease its dependence on China for polysilicon. OCI, another Korean solar manufacturer, is also working to develop a non-China solar power supply chain in the United States utilizing polysilicon from its facilities in Malaysia.
While the Section 232 investigation should help Hanwha Q Cells by incentivizing polysilicon production in the United States, there are more significant countervailing forces in U.S. policy that will negatively impact those investments. The Trump administration has introduced a new policy requiring a political review of new solar projects in the United States. Rather than being reviewed by lower-level staff, 68 different actions by the Department of Interior for the deployment of solar panels will now need to be personally approved by Secretary Doug Burgum. Because even projects not on federal land consult with the Interior Department to determine if their projects require permits or are in compliance with federal laws, this new policy has the potential to significantly slow the deployment of solar power in the United States.
The One Big Beautiful Bill also moved forward the phase out of solar power subsidies to require construction to begin by July 4 of next year or power to be produced by the end of 2027. The subsidies were originally scheduled to be in place until 2028.
Hanwha Q Cells and OCI are not the only Korean firms facing increasing pressure due to policy changes from the Trump administration. Over the last three years, about half of Korean investment into the United States has been in the EV battery sector. Those investments created over 20,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs. Yet these EV battery firms were already under financial pressure even before the removal of the Inflation Reduction Act’s $7,500 tax credit under the One Big Beautiful Bill.
The financial pressure on Korean EV battery makers will increase with the slowing growth in demand for EVs following the removal of the consumer tax credit. This decline will also impact Hyundai, which just invested $12.6 billion to build its new Metaplant in Georgia to produce 500,000 EVs and hybrid vehicles per year across all of its brands.
The regulatory shifts under the Trump administration will only add to the increasing cost pressures manufacturers face from the various Section 232 and anti-dumping investigations on commodities, which will drive up the cost of producing goods in the United States. The proposed 50 percent tariff on copper will increase costs for producers of semiconductors, EVs, and consumer electronics. A new 93.5 percent anti-dumping tariff on graphite, a key material for making EV batteries, will also increase the costs of EV batteries. With reductions in subsidies and increasing regulatory barriers for these industries, production costs will increase will demand for their products will decline.
Trump promised a low regulatory environment to boost manufacturing in the United States and to help compensate companies for the new tariffs. That low regulatory environment to date only applies to industries favored by the Trump administration; in other sectors, new policies actually undermine existing manufacturing investments in the United States. Any new trade deal between the United States and South Korea needs to address the negative impact of policy changes on Korean firms to protect US manufacturing and encourage further Korean investment in the United States.
Authors
Contributing Author
Troy Stangarone
Troy Stangarone is the former director of the Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy at the Wilson Center.
11. N. Korea's Kim vows not to forget Chinese war dead on armistice anniversary
That is nice of him since China saved the regime from certain defeat and destruction. north Korea and the Kim family regime would not exist if it were not for Chinese intervention. But I will bet the Korean people in the north will never learn that history.
(LEAD) N. Korea's Kim vows not to forget Chinese war dead on armistice anniversary | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Seung-yeon · July 27, 2025
(ATTN: ADDS details throughout, photo)
SEOUL, July 27 (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has visited the Friendship Tower in Pyongyang on the anniversary of the signing of an armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War, pledging not to forget the contributions of fallen Chinese soldiers, state media reported Sunday.
Kim also appeared to refrain from criticizing South Korea or the United States, as state media made no mention of him making such remarks during the ceremony.
Kim laid a wreath before the tower the previous day, saying that North Korea "would never forget the militant feats and merits of the fallen fighters of the Chinese People's Volunteers," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
The armistice was signed on July 27, 1953, bringing the Korean War to a halt. Since 1996, North Korea has marked the date as Victory Day, claiming it won the Liberation War against U.S.-led aggression.
Erected in 1959 in Pyongyang, the Friendship Tower commemorates the contributions of Chinese soldiers who fought in the war and has since served as a symbol of North Korea-China friendship.
Kim has frequently paid tribute at the tower on past armistice anniversaries, using the occasion to highlight North Korea's relations with China. This year's report, however, made no mention of bilateral ties, a possible sign that relations have yet to fully recover.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attends a ceremony marking the 72nd anniversary of the signing of an armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War at Friendship Tower in Pyongyang, in this photo released by the North's Korean Central News Agency on July 27, 2025. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
North Korea's relations with China, its traditional ally and key economic benefactor, have appeared to have been strained, especially as Pyongyang aligned closer with Russia since they signed a mutual defense pact in June last year.
"By keeping mentions of its friendly relationship with China to a minimum, North Korea is sending a message that it can maintain its system and sovereignty on its own, and wants to show its diplomatic and military autonomy without provoking China," said Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University's Institute for Far Eastern Studies.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un appears at the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang as part of celebrations marking the 72nd anniversary of the signing of an armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War, in this photo released by the North's Korean Central News Agency on July 27, 2025. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
On Saturday, Kim also visited the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang, the KCNA said.
During the visit to the museum, Kim placed a flower basket before a statue of North Korean founder Kim Il-sung, claiming victory in the war and praising it as the "victory of the outstanding military ideology, Juche-oriented war methods and superb strategy and tactics" of the founder.
"Our state and its people would surely achieve the great cause of building a rich country with a strong army and become honorable victors in the anti-imperialist, anti-U.S. showdown," the KCNA quoted Kim as saying.
Kim, however, made no hostile remarks directed at the United States or South Korea.
The North Korean leader also separately met with servicemen of a battery under the Korean People's Army's 4th Corps and held a photo session, describing the unit "an example in implementing the Party's training-first policy."
Various celebratory events were held in Pyongyang to mark the anniversary, including an evening dance party by young students at Kim Il Sung Square on Saturday, the KCNA said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un lays a flower wreath in front of the Friendship Tower in Pyongyang on the occasion of the 72nd anniversary of the signing of the armistice ending the Korean War, in this photo published on July 27, 2025 by the Korean Central News Agency. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
pbr@yna.co.kr
elly@yna.co.kr
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en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Seung-yeon · July 27, 2025
12. Russia to launch first Moscow-Pyongyang direct flights in decades: report
Excerpts:
The eight-hour flight will be operated by a Boeing 777-200ER with a seating capacity of 440 passengers, Reuters said, adding that tickets started at US$563 and the first flight quickly sold out.
Russia's civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, has granted Nordwind Airlines permission to operate flights of the route twice a week, though the schedule will begin with one flight per month for now "to help build stable demand," the report said.
Russia to launch first Moscow-Pyongyang direct flights in decades: report | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Oh Seok-min · July 27, 2025
SEOUL, July 27 (Yonhap) -- Russia was set to start operating direct passenger flights between Moscow and North Korea's Pyongyang for the first time in about three decades, Reuters reported Sunday.
The inaugural flight, operated by Nordwind Airlines, is scheduled to depart from Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow at 7 p.m. (local time), marking the first regular air connection between the two capitals since the mid-1990s, Reuters said, citing Russia's RIA state news agency.
The eight-hour flight will be operated by a Boeing 777-200ER with a seating capacity of 440 passengers, Reuters said, adding that tickets started at US$563 and the first flight quickly sold out.
Russia's civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, has granted Nordwind Airlines permission to operate flights of the route twice a week, though the schedule will begin with one flight per month for now "to help build stable demand," the report said.
Until now, the only direct air route between the two nations was Air Koryo's service from Pyongyang to Vladivostok in Russia's Far East three times a week.
The move came as the two countries have sought to strengthen bilateral ties following Russia's war with Ukraine in 2022.
In June, the two nations also resumed passenger rail service between Moscow and Pyongyang.
This EPA photo shows passengers of Russian Nordwind Airlines lining up in front of check-in desks at Sheremetyevo International Airport outside Moscow, Russia, on July 17, 2025. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
graceoh@yna.co.kr
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en.yna.co.kr · by Oh Seok-min · July 27, 2025
13. South Korea needs 500,000 active troops to counter potential NK attacks: study
I think the 3:1 ratio is more appropriate for a tactical attack on an objective and not for a strategic correlation for forces. And I certainly hope South Korea and the ROK/US alliance are not only going to conduct defensive operations. Surely the report authors understand the necessity for countrattacks and the ultimate defeat of the aggressors which will require offensive operations. But everyone likes to focus on simple, easily understandable numbers.
Excerpts:
Published in the summer edition of Defense Policy Studies, the study determined the minimum troop requirement by applying the U.S. Army’s minimum planning ratio doctrine to the Korean Peninsula. Under this doctrine, a defending force should be able to hold their position against an attacker with a troop ratio of 1 to 3, whereas an attacker generally requires a ratio of 3 to 1.
The study, led by Kim Jeong-hyuck of the Korea Army Research Center for Future and Jee Hyo-keun of Konyang University, reported that as of 2022, North Korea had approximately 1.28 million troops, compared to South Korea’s 500,000 — representing a roughly 2.6 to 1 ratio. In the Army alone, the margin widened to almost 3 to 1, leaving Seoul’s forces “at the bare minimum for defense,” according to the authors.
South Korea needs 500,000 active troops to counter potential NK attacks: study
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/southkorea/defense/20250727/south-korea-needs-500000-active-troops-to-counter-potential-nk-attacks-study
By Bahk Eun-ji
- Published Jul 27, 2025 2:20 pm KST
- Updated Jul 27, 2025 2:47 pm KST
South Korea must maintain at least 500,000 active-duty troops to defend against potential surprise attacks from North Korea, according to a new military study released Sunday. The report highlights growing concerns over the nation's shrinking pool of conscripts due to its declining birthrate.
Published in the summer edition of Defense Policy Studies, the study determined the minimum troop requirement by applying the U.S. Army’s minimum planning ratio doctrine to the Korean Peninsula. Under this doctrine, a defending force should be able to hold their position against an attacker with a troop ratio of 1 to 3, whereas an attacker generally requires a ratio of 3 to 1.
The study, led by Kim Jeong-hyuck of the Korea Army Research Center for Future and Jee Hyo-keun of Konyang University, reported that as of 2022, North Korea had approximately 1.28 million troops, compared to South Korea’s 500,000 — representing a roughly 2.6 to 1 ratio. In the Army alone, the margin widened to almost 3 to 1, leaving Seoul’s forces “at the bare minimum for defense,” according to the authors.
South Korea’s wartime plans assume the quick mobilization of hundreds of thousands of reservists and timely U.S. support, but there is no certainty that these assumptions would hold in an actual crisis,” the authors wrote. They added that, given the current numbers, the chances of success in the opening stages of a North Korean assault are limited.
The researchers also warned that technological superiority alone would not eliminate the disparity.
“Maintaining a standing force of 500,000 troops is of critical importance to South Korea, as it relies on a defend-then-counterattack strategy,” the paper noted.
Lessons from the Russia-Ukraine conflict were also cited. Although Russia entered the war with an overall manpower advantage of 4 to 1, the ground troops deployed initially were closer to a ratio of 1 to 1.3, leaving Moscow struggling in the first phase of fighting, the study pointed out.
The report highlights South Korea’s deepening conscription crisis. If the current birthrate trend continues, the number of 20-year-old men could fall to around 140,000 by 2040, making it difficult to keep even 300,000 soldiers in uniform. The study therefore calls for “national-level decisions,” such as revising the length of military service, combining the draft with voluntary enlistment and hiring more civilians for noncombat roles.
However, the Ministry of National Defense has vowed to maintain the troop level at 500,000 under its 2025-29 medium-term defense plan. This involves converting some enlisted troops into noncommissioned officers, expanding the civilian workforce in logistics, administration and training and allocating personnel to new areas such as artificial intelligence, space and electromagnetic warfare.
“The findings emphasize the growing pressure on South Korea to maintain a sufficient number of troops to deter North Korea while coping with a shrinking and aging population — a dilemma that could influence defense planning for years to come,” Kim said in the report.
14. Final week of US-Korea trade talks sees shipbuilding as key
Final week of US-Korea trade talks sees shipbuilding as key
koreaherald.com · by Jo He-rim · July 27, 2025
Korea's Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol (Yonhap)
Seoul is racing to finalize a tariff deal with Washington before the Aug. 1 deadline, as Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol prepares to meet US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday in a bid to avert a 25 percent tariff on Korean exports, including autos.
According to the industry and government sources on Sunday, the meeting between Koo and Bessent has been rescheduled for Thursday, likely at the US Treasury Department. Their meeting was initially planned for Friday with Korea's Trade Minister Yeo Han-koo and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, but was postponed by the US side.
Korea's industry and trade chiefs, who are currently visiting the US, will remain there to continue last-minute high-level negotiations. To their US counterparts, they have outlined plans for cooperation in key strategic manufacturing sectors such as semiconductors, shipbuilding and batteries, while strongly urging tariff reductions on items such as automobiles.
The Korean government has presented a revised proposal that includes sensitive agricultural and livestock products, going further than its initial offer to address US concerns. Washington, however, is reportedly pressuring Seoul for greater concessions.
The tight schedule remains a major hurdle. The US is to hold trade talks with the European Union on Sunday, and is set to conduct high-level trade meetings with China on Monday and Tuesday, leaving only Wednesday and Thursday available for negotiations with Korea.
Last week, Japan secured a reduction in tariffs on its auto exports to the US, with rates falling from 27.5 percent to 15 percent, after offering a $550 billion investment package. The deal has increased pressure on Korea, whose auto industry still faces the full 25 percent tariff.
As Japan, Korea’s key rival in the sector, gains an upper hand, Seoul is reportedly preparing a $100 billion package, along with additional commitments, to remain competitive
Given that the US' ultimate goal is to revive its manufacturing sector, Seoul is focusing on leveraging industrial cooperation, particularly in the shipbuilding sector, where Korea holds a competitive edge.
“We confirmed the US has a strong interest in shipbuilding and agreed to work on mutually acceptable solutions, including bilateral cooperation in the sector," Korea's presidential office said Saturday.
Trump has repeatedly stressed the importance of strengthening the US' shipbuilding industry and issued an executive order in April aimed at revitalizing the sector and curbing China's maritime dominance.
Experts warn that the US tariffs, if maintained at the threatening 25 percent level, are expected to hit Korea's manufacturing sector the hardest. It accounts for 27.6 percent of Korea's economy — well above the OECD average — and exports make up 44 percent of the nation's gross domestic product.
The US auto tariffs have already impacted Korea’s leading automakers. Hyundai Motor and Kia both reported weaker earnings in the April-June period: Kia’s operating profit plunged 24.1 percent, while Hyundai’s figure dropped 15.8 percent.
The Korea Institute for International Economic Policy has warned that Korea's real GDP could shrink by up to 0.4 percent if the US tariffs are implemented as initially planned.
“If the US’ 'reciprocal' tariffs of 25 percent take place, Korea’s real GDP can decrease by 0.3-0.4 percent even after the economy stabilizes," the institute said in a public hearing in June.
With Japan recently securing a tariff reduction to 15 percent, Korea's growth prospects are expected to worsen under a higher rate, given that the two countries have similar export portfolios to the US.
Korea's already stagnant growth outlook — currently projected at below 1 percent — would also likely face a further downgrade if the 25 percent reciprocal tariff is imposed.
According to the Bank of Korea on July 24, the country's growth rate is likely to remain around the May forecast of 0.8 percent, in the case that the tariff rate is lowered to 15 percent, similar to Japan's. The rate could fall to zero if the tariff is set at 25 percent.
US President Donald Trump said that his administration will have most of its trade deals with countries finished by Aug. 1.
The president also said his administration might send letters to close to 200 countries informing them of their tariff rate, which he said means, "They have a deal. It's done."
herim@heraldcorp.com
koreaherald.com · by Jo He-rim · July 27, 2025
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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