Why North Korea Holds Expensive Military Parades: An ‘Advertisement War’ for Arms Exports Abroad

An intercontinental ballistic missile is unveiled at a military parade marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Army held at Kim Il-sung Square in Pyongyang on February 8 last year. / News

A study found that the reason why North Korea holds expensive military parades more often despite economic problems is in the nature of a ‘advertisement war’ for exports abroad. Jang Yang-gyu, a doctoral student in the Department of Political Science at Kyung Hee University, said this in a paper titled ‘Change and the Kim Jong-un regime’s intention to expand military parades’ published in the 143rd issue of Policy Research Protection published. by the Korea Institute for Defense Analyzes on the 15th.

North Korea held military parades three times last year, on February 8, July 27, and September 8. Since one military parade costs about 400 billion won, more than a tenth of North Korea’s budget, it is unusual to hold three military parades in a year.

The paper analyzed that the number of military parades held, which was only 0.4 times a year on average during Kim Il-sung’s regime, increased to an average of 0.7 times a year under Kim Jong-il’s regime, and it became more common under Kim Jong-il’s rule. Kim Jong-un’s regime. From 2012 to 2019, the early days of Kim Jong-un’s rule, seven military parades were held over eight years, with an average of 0.9 per year. However, from 2020 to last year, it was held 7 times in 4 years, roughly doubling to an annual average of 1.75 times.

Starting with the military parade held on 10 October 2020 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Labor Party, more money is being invested in night military parades, spectacular air displays using fighter jets, and several fireworks displays. This can be seen as the opposite of the situation in which Kim Jong-un puts pressure on the ‘economy’ to overcome sanctions against North Korea.

In this regard, Mr. In particular, he said, planning three military parades last year, when the arms trade with Russia, which attacked Ukraine, was renewed, “it can be seen as a strategic intention to cooperate with the Russia to make possible. “

As a basis for this, he suggested that North Korea laid the foundation for large-scale production of weapons by ordering the “renewal of the weapons production process” at the 5th plenary meeting of the Party Central Committee last year. took place in June 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine. In addition, North Korea’s appearance of the tricolor of Russia and Soviet arms at the military parade marking the 75th anniversary of Armed Forces Day last February, and an outpouring of hostile messages against the States United, seen as messages being sent to Russia.

In fact, North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un personally introduced new weapons while watching the ‘Armed Equipment Exhibition-2023’ with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who visited Korea North with the Russian military delegation a day before the Victory Day military parade on July 27 last year. In August last year, the term ‘defense economic project’ was used while they were inspecting a weapons factory.

After the Russian delegation attended the military parade, about 5,000 ships were transferred from Rajin Port in North Korea to Russia, and assumed to be loaded with artillery shells, 1.5 to 2.5 million shells are expected to be loaded. It is estimated that if this amount of artillery shells were sent out, North Korea would have earned about $300 million to $600 million per million shells.