North Korea’s new missile, fighting in Kursk and the end of the Juche calendar
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Hello, listeners, and welcome to the NK News Podcast. I'm your host, Jack O's Wetsuit, and this episode was recorded on Tuesday, the 5th of November, 2024. I'm sitting here with Brian Betts, the Managing Director of NK News. Welcome, Brian. Thank you.

Today, well, we're in Tuesday, Korea time. It's still Monday, America time. But when America wakes up to Tuesday, it'll be election day. So happy election day. And perhaps by the next short episode next Tuesday, we may actually know who won the presidential race and how that will affect things on the Korean Peninsula. Yeah, probably by the end of this week, most likely. But, you know, it depends on how the election goes and how close some of these calls are on the states and everything.

And whether there are challenges and whatnot. What's clear is a lot could potentially change depending on who wins. Right. So let's just have to wait and see how that goes. Okay. So this morning we woke up to news of an ICBM launch or a missile launch from North Korea. We don't know too much about that yet, right? Yeah. So there's a missile launch this morning. I think it was about 7.30 AM.

Short-range missiles, multiple from Sao Yuan, south of Pyongyang. Beyond that, I don't think we know anything else right now. So that's into the sea between North Korea's west coast and China, right? Right, into the...

East Sea of Japan. Oh, they went up. So they flew over the peninsula and landed in the East Sea of Japan. I believe so. Okay, because anyone's close to the West Coast then. Yeah, I believe so. Okay. Check nknews.org for more details later on. I have not reviewed all of our coverage from this morning yet. Right, but the bigger story is the, or at least so far, it was the bigger ICM that was tested a few days ago. Right. So last week on Wednesday, Yeah.

Seoul's Defense Intelligence Agency said North Korea is preparing to conduct nuke tests or ICBM tests.

around the US election. And they said this before the launch? They said this before the launch. And we were a little bit skeptical of some of this, especially the nuke test claim. Right. We've gone through this dance many times in the last year. Yeah, it's been two and a half years now since they said they had finished preparations. Right. They said that there's tunneling going on in Punggiri, etc., etc. They're finished preparations. Okay, go on. So we were a little bit skeptical, but sure enough, the next morning, Thursday morning, bright and early, we got news of a launch.

and it quickly became apparent as the minutes ticked by and we didn't get any notice of it landing that this was a big one. This was a big one. And in fact, it took some 86 minutes for it to land, which...

Which was a record. Now, was this... Well, first of all, what kind of missile was this? So, you know, of course, initially we only knew it was some sort of long-range missile. The next day, state media identified it as a new solid-fuel ICBM, that's Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, that they have dubbed the Hwasong-19. Okay, so this is the first time we've seen a 19? Yes, this is a brand new... Yeah, because we've talked about the 15 and...

Maybe the 17? Anyway, the 19, that's new. Yeah, so you got the Hwasong 17, which is their biggest liquid fuel. The Hwasong 18, which was their first solid fuel ICBM. And now we have the Hwasong 19, which is also solid fuel and even bigger.

And solid fuel, of course, for our listeners who may not know or may have forgotten, it's good because it takes time to fill a rocket with liquid fuel. So a solid fuel means you can take it out of storage and launch it much faster. Correct. And move it around while it's loaded. You don't want to load a, or rather, roll around the countryside on rocky roads with a liquid-fueled missile. Exactly. So it gives North Korea much

Greater agility in terms of its missile forces allows them to launch before the U.S. or South Korea could attempt to preempt. That's the idea anyway. Right. Now, when you're using an intercontinental ballistic missile in war, you send it on a...

a regular trajectory, so it's not a very steep arc, but it comes like an airplane almost. And then if you're doing it for a test, you put it in a lofted trajectory, so it's like an upside-down U shape. Yeah, like that parabolic shape. Gravity's rainbow, as Thomas Pynchon would tell us. Ah, okay. Now, what... This...

This Hwasong-19, what kind of trajectory did it follow? Well, it was a lofted trajectory. Okay, so it was a parabolic. Well, it would always be parabolic, but instead of a flattened out trajectory that would maximize its range, they're launching it a specified distance. In this case, it was around 600 miles, 1,000 kilometers into the East Sea of Japan.

and they're doing it on a lofted trajectory. So basically just shooting it straight up into space. It's going many times above the International Space Station in terms of its actual height. - Oh wow. - And coming straight down. - Okay. - So this is why you're getting this long flight time. - Yeah. - 86 minutes. - 86, yeah. - Yeah, and a max altitude of some almost 4,800 miles above the Earth.

And North Korea is basically the only country that does this kind of a lofted launch. So it was a record not only for North Korea, but probably in world history in terms of ballistic missiles. Wow. That's...

That's a feat for North Korea. Now, I remember in 2017 when I happened to be in Tokyo for a conference and another, I think it was an ICBM, flew over Japan, and that caused a lot of consternation there. This particular missile, it went a long way. Did it go over Japan or did it land near Japan or north of Japan? It did not fly over flight Japan. It landed in waters to the, I guess, west of Hokkaido. Okay. All right. So kind of between...

roughly right in the middle between Japanese and Japan and Russia. Aha. Wow. Yeah. Okay. And is there any indication that North Korea did that as a November surprise? Yes, very helpfully. Wait, sorry, late October because it was Wednesday last week. Right, right, yeah. This was October 31st. If it was Wednesday, it was the 30th. The test happened on Thursday. Oh, sorry. The South Korean announcement was on Wednesday. Got it, right. Okay. So it was a Halloween launch. Aha.

Okay. Immediately inspiring a lot of last-minute costumes. Right. And so they launch it in the morning, and usually North Korea waits until the next day, until they give us the full report. Right.

They did that again this time, but they also released a statement just hours after, around noon on Thursday. Super fast. That's not like their usual modus operandi. Yeah, and it quoted Kim Jong-un directly and basically said that,

The purpose of the launch was to communicate our resolve to our adversaries about the way the U.S. and R.K. are reinforcing their nuclear alliance and trying to send a message to them, blaming them for provocations and threatening the nation's security and sovereignty.

The usual defenses for the North Korean nuclear program, except that it was coming straight from Kim Jong-un and it was delivered the same day as the test. Right. And so instead of saying, you know, we did this because we got some new tech and we wanted to test it. I mean, it's very clear. We're sending a message to you, United States, just a week before your election. It doesn't mention the election, but I mean, that's... Yeah, and they didn't even mention the U.S.,

directly in the statement, but I mean, the subtext is clear. Our adversaries are building up this alliance. Right. Okay. This is a message to them. Yeah. Gosh. Hmm. Okay. Reactions from the US and South Korea? Well, before I get to that, I want to mention a little bit about the missile itself, which is that it is, on the one hand, it's very similar to the Hwasong-18 missile,

which is the other solid fuel missile. And so in terms of the strategic importance and everything we mentioned about being able to fire it faster, that's all pretty much the same. The Hwasong-18, the thing is, it was already able to reach basically anywhere in the continental U.S. So making a bigger missile doesn't increase the number of

cities you can strike. So which raises the question of why do you need the bigger missile? What's the value added? And what the experts have been assessing is that, not confirmed, but quite possible that this new ICBM is part of North Korea's efforts to develop what's known as a MIRV capability. Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicle. Yes, exactly. So basically a bunch of warheads sitting on top of the missile that can go to different cities all at once. Right.

So firing multiple warheads at the same time, one missile, multiple warheads, it increases exponentially the difficulty of intercepting those missiles. North Korea has already been demonstrating that it has the capacity to sort of overwhelm U.S. missile defenses or attempting to demonstrate that capacity. If they can develop a MIRV capability, that would be another step in that direction. Of course, a MIRV,

That means multiple warheads. That means a heavier weapon that they have to deliver. Right. So a bigger missile can deliver a bigger warhead payload to a similar distance as the Hwasong-18 would have been. Okay. Yes. So what has been the response? Yeah. So anyway, all that to say, that's clearly a message to the US. Yeah. It's clearly saying something like, we're not going to denuclearize. Right. And

And I guess not only would you be swapping San Francisco for Seoul, you might be swapping San Francisco, Seattle, and Salem for Seoul. Right. And a few other cities that I can't think of right now. Springfield. Yeah. So I think it's saying whoever is going to be the next year's president, we don't know yet, but you might want to rethink your North Korea policy. Right. That's the message from North Korea. Yeah. Now, this was the first ICBM test since December 2023. And

And, of course, these are the tests that get the strongest reaction. Immediately we saw U.S. and South Korea issuing statements of condemnation. Seoul, the same day as the test, released some new export controls, announced some new export controls that were attempting to limit North Korea's ability to acquire the parts that it needs for solid fuel weapons. Next day, it introduced some more sanctions on North Korean entities that are accused of, you know, funneling,

doing various economic activities to funnel money to the regime. Yesterday in New York, we had a UN Security Council meeting in which, you know, there's the usual stuff in terms of, you know, statements of condemnation by both sides, Russia and North Korea on the other side, defending their

North Korea's right to do these kinds of tests and doesn't lead into any kind of sanctions or anything because, well, Russia's not going to support them. Over the weekend, we had a trilateral air drill, USRK in Japan, using a B-15 strategic bomber. And then we saw lots of North Korean statements responding to the condemnation. So it's been a lot of back and forth. Where did they fly that bomber? They flew it...

It's between the airspace of Japan and South Korea. Okay. I guess it was maybe south of Jeju Island, something like that. Oh, okay. So not in an area visible to North Korea by the naked eye. Right, yeah. They're not flying it over the DMZ or something. Okay.

Well, all right. That is some big news. But now we have to, we've already, gosh, run out of time, almost. We've got to run off quickly to the Ukraine-Russia front lines. We have been seeing on social media a lot of little clips, little photographs and supposed evidence of North Korean soldiers already on the front lines being injured, being captured. What's going on? What do we know? What's going on?

What can we verify? Right. So there have been lots of videos floating around, as you said. In most cases, we have not been able to verify those. In some cases, we have been able to get pretty good evidence that they're not true. What would be the motivation for putting out non-true? Well, we don't know who's doing it. Okay. It's hard to say. Zelensky, though, had already denied some of these reports last week, denied reports that...

North Koreans had already been killed on the battlefield, that there had been some like basically a huge victory over North Korean forces. These were some of the claims that were floating around online. He dismissed them. He said there hadn't been any fighting yet. That was last week. Yesterday, a Ukraine official said in a very short statement on his personal telegram channel that the first DPRK troops have already come under fire in Kursk, which

Which is that part of Russia that Ukraine has a... The incursion. An incursion into, yeah. So that was, there's no other details. We don't know how many troops were involved. Right. You know exactly where it was. But anyway, we have the first, Ukraine's first confirmation of a clash with North Korean soldiers. Okay. On Russian soil. On Russian soil. Right. Okay. And there's been some other details according to the U.S. as of...

Today, they say there are up to 12,000 North Korean soldiers in Russia and some 10,000 in Kursk now.

and that they could join combat in the coming days, according to... And 10,000 is a lot, and 12,000 is even more. So it's more than you might expect if they were just doing, I don't know, engineering or support logistical tasks, right? I mean, it seems like the kind of numbers, certainly given the numbers of casualties that Russia's been facing lately, that this is the kind of number you'd be putting in to maybe replace some of those casualties. Right, and yeah, from what I understand, Russia has...

been having trouble with recruitment, but is also hesitant to do a full-scale sort of mobilization, another draft due to fields of the domestic opposition. North Korea is a great way, bring them in to fight in Kursk. It avoids some of the trouble that might be involved if North Korean troops would actually go into Ukraine proper. Not to say that that might not still happen, but at least right now it appears that they're in Kursk.

And that gives Russia the freedom to deploy the troops they do have elsewhere. Yeah. Now, so we are obviously at NK News keeping an eye on the different videos and pieces of evidence that are coming in and looking to verify something that, you know, when it comes to hand. But as is often the case in the first days, the first things that come out are difficult to verify. So we've got to be patient and thorough and rigorous in trying to verify all this, right? Yeah, there's been...

Some conflicting claims. There's been a lot of, you know, sort of like you mentioned, videos floating around online. So we've been...

Pretty circumspect in terms of how we approach our coverage. Right. We are not the sensationalist mainstream media here, folks. We're doing it the rigorous and proper way at NK News and NK Pro. But there's a lot to monitor. And for a lot of this, we're going to be reliant not only on the governments of the countries involved, but also some of these open source sleuths who've been working on Ukraine issues for a while. Great. And trying to work with them to...

identify things and confirm things once we start hopefully seeing more concrete evidence of North Korean troops on the battlefields. Yeah, and if South Korea does send over some of those intelligence officials to debrief and interrogate captured North Korean troops, then that also will be quite a story when that happens, if and when that happens.

Yeah, that's, yeah. Yeah. A lot going on still with that. If's doing a lot of work in that sense. Okay, so last story. We've got about a minute to just kind of mention this flag for our listeners. North Korea has, for the last few decades, been using its own year count, the Juche year, based on the year that Kim Il-sung was born in 1912, right? I believe that's right, 1912. I always get my 1911, 1912. I know it's the same day as the Titanic sunk, so it's either 1911 or 1912. Forgive me, listeners. Anyway...

They, in North Korea lately, have been removing the Juche year count from things like plaques and statues, apparently. That's quite a big step to happen. Yeah, so this Juche year system, I believe, was introduced around 97 by Kim Jong-il as a way of, you know... Right, after the death of Kim Il-sung and around the time of the, or perhaps even during or at the tail end of the big famine, the Aijuist March. Right, and so this has often appeared in...

state media, on plaques like you mentioned. And every book published and every newspaper, you've got the Juche year and then in brackets or the other way around. From what I understand, sometimes the usage was a little bit inconsistent. Sometimes it would appear with the Gregorian year, sometimes without. Sometimes I think they would only use the Gregorian year.

In any case, what we've been seeing now is a lot of places where it was being used. For example, at the top of some of the state newspapers. Yeah. Identifying the date of issue. That has been removed starting from maybe the middle of last month. Wow. And now we've been seeing subsequent signs that, yeah, plaques honoring, oh,

Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il, whoever visited such and such site on this date, those are slowly being changed as well. Which is one of those things that if they're doing it consistently nationwide, that is a lot of work. It's a lot of investment of time and resources and money to do that. Yeah, I mean, think of how many places the leaders have been. These are hundreds and thousands of plaques and signs and whatnot to replace. So there's some time consuming, comes at significant cost.

So what then is the point? Right. What could it mean, Brian? I mean, it seems to be part of a trend of Kim Jong-un sort of slowly kind of downplaying the cult of personality of his predecessors, his grandfather and father, and sort of upgrading his own personality cult. Right. We've seen this with him, for example, debuting...

these mosaic murals at certain locations that they used to only depict his grandfather and father, and now they show him. It's included the portraits of his predecessors that hang in the walls of every house. Recently, we saw him hang his own portrait next to those at one of the party cadre schools.

So this has been, you know, they've changed the language in various, in the constitution and other documents to de-emphasize, you know, ideologies of Kim Il-sungism, Kim Jong-ilism, and, you know, promote Kim Jong-un himself more. So it's not an all-at-once thing. It's sort of a gradual process as he, you know, probably...

feels some blowback, needs to build some sort of support for it within the party. But this is a long-running trend and this new Juche year abandonment appears to be part of it. Interesting. Okay, well, something to keep an eye on there. Thank you very much, Brian Betts, for coming on the NK News Podcast this week. Yeah, pleasure. See you again soon.

A reminder that starting from November 20th, our full-length episodes with special guests will be exclusively available to NK News subscribers. This shift will allow us to invest more in bringing you top-quality interviews, cutting-edge analysis, and a more comprehensive NK News experience across our website and podcast platforms.

So don't miss out. Subscribe now to stay fully informed and support our mission to raise the bar in North Korea reporting. Until the end of November, podcast listeners can sign up for just a dollar for their first month with the following 12 months at 50% off. Head to nknews.org slash join for more.

You'll get full access to the NK News website, news, analysis and opinion every day, our daily update and week ahead newsletters, plus get exclusive invites to online webinars and occasional in-person events where you might even meet me. Join our community today and help support the podcast grow.

Ladies and gentlemen, that brings us to the end of our podcast episode for today. Our thanks go to Brian Betts and Alana Hill for facilitating this episode and to our post-recording producer genius, Gabby Magnuson, who cuts out all the extraneous noises, awkward silences, bodily functions, and fixes the audio levels. Thank you and listen again next time.