"Pyongyang has a long history of conducting irregular warfare and asymmetric operations: Look no further than the 1968 Blue House raid or the 1996 submarine incursion as the most pressing examples. More often than not, North Korea failed to achieve the intended objectives of its missions and lost its commandos. Despite failures, the regime pressed on, and now, over thirty years after the sub incursion, it has the combat experience of its special operations forces in Kursk to leverage. For policymakers and analysts, the more urgent question is that of transferability and operationalization of the Kursk lessons to the Korean Peninsula, and their overall applicability to North Korea's future irregular warfare operations.
On the surface, it appears to be a dead end for the regime: The demilitarized zone and the Korean Peninsula are not Kursk. The forces that Pyongyang's infiltrators will face in the south are different from those they faced in Russia. Seoul maintains trained counter-infiltration reserves, invests extensively in border monitoring systems and breach detection equipment, and regularly conducts exercises designed to prevent and counter North Korean amphibious and tunnel infiltration attempts. Both the entry into South Korea and operations within remain as challenging as ever.
Buried deeper, however, lie some of the lesser-discussed aspects of the Kursk and post-Kursk experiences of North Korean forces that expose Pyongyang's dangerous calculus. Combined, these developments indicate that Pyongyang has been actively focusing on preparing its special operations forces for a new era of clandestine operations, tailored specifically to operating in a technologically dense environment — a domain in which its opponent excels. Given the emphasis on the drone component and its integration into infiltration operations, reconnaissance, and sabotage activities, there is an evident shift in North Korea's irregular warfare doctrine, particularly in the terminal phase of operations. The regime is betting on increasing the complexity, lethality, and reach of its actions once its troops are in place. Simultaneously, while Pyongyang still remains bound by the constraints of successful operative insertion and weapons delivery, certain elements from the Kursk campaign — such as advanced camouflaging and drone-enabled infiltration corridor reconnaissance — indicate that Pyongyang is tailoring the lessons learned to that stage as well.
This trend is alarming. The cooperation between Russia and North Korea is not new and has already resulted in transfers of ballistic missile technologies, electronic warfare systems, and drones. Combined with the growing technological toolkit and experiences from Kursk, however, it is the irregular warfare component that — given further adaptation to the environment of the peninsula — makes the new era of North Korea's asymmetric operations particularly threatening…"
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Armand
tackles two subjects from his favorite sculptor.
