How does a country like Nort Korea seem to have endless money for its army and develop nuclear weapons despite being one of the most sanctionned country in the world?
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In addition to what I’ve already seen mentioned, NK also steals a lot of crypto and is responsible for a lot of ransomware.
Well, they used to be a big-time international meth and counterfeit US currency dealer. I’m sure they’ve got a few bucks flowing in and out of some other black market dealings.
They don’t have endless money for its army, they simply put all of their money into their army and little else. Keep in mind that they are around 70 years behind on the nuclear weapons development train, so it’s not exactly gone all that well for them.
The very best that North Korea is able to do is also incredibly shambolic in every sense. They are a failed state in everything but name, and the people suffer for it.
1. Aid from China 2. Most of population are desperately poor. Disproportionately funding defence weapons. 3. Hacking and stealing millions in elaborate cyber thefts.
They also get foreign currency by exporting workers. Basically slavery. They ship people to work mainly on construction sites in russia and china. These workers get paid in dollars that are than taken by the Kim family to fund military expenses. The why made a documentary about it.
just make a list of what they dont have .. then you know where they save tons of money.
also add to that the fact that nk surely doesnt pay their weapons engineers, tech workers and rocket scientists even remotely comparable wages like we do.
Listen to the Lazarus Heist podcast. They’ll take you through some great stories about some North Korean hacks where a lot of money comes from!
They have state run hacking groups doing many different exploits which brings in lots of money. Every other day there will be a new zero day exploit linked to NK groups. Think ransomware with untraceable money transfers.
There’s a great BBC podcast called The Lazarus Heist which looks into north Korean hackers & how they get money into the country. It’s fascinating!
One has also to ponder the mutual logic of propaganda. North Korea is no doubt not as strong as it seems but most important players have an interest in inflating the image of a militarily strong NK.
NK itself has invested a lot of its ideology and social organization in prioritizing the military and describes iself as constantly under an existential threat that is only avoided because of their strenght.
The politics and social organization of South Korea has the threat of NK as a corner stone. An obviously military weak NK would threaten the authority of a lot of powerful people in SK.
The US uses the threat of NK in order to defend its military precence in SK and NE Asia in general, without openly and directly antagonizing China. It has also been a great bogeyman in defending the perpetual expansion of the military-industrial complex for the US electorate, especially in the years before 2001.
China use NK as a buffer. That buffer needs to be seen as a having strenght enough to defend itself. China wants to project itself as the adult in the room that can handle NK, but are also visibly irritated by many of their shenanigans.
It all can be compared to how Syria and the Syrian Arab Army was often described before the civil war. What was often described as a strong threat against Israel, internally and externally, quickly fell apart under the weight of incompetence, disrepair, corruption, mutinies and general incompetence.
It took years and a lot of support by Russia, Hezbollah and Iran until the Assad regime could put together a somewhat competent fighting force on the ground. Hezbollah, a non-state militia, actually seems to have needed to educate a lot of Syrian commanders in things like “don’t let your men attack a well fortified enemy position by running straight at it over an open field”.
Strenght can very much be a question of optics.
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