Kim Jong-un approves modernization plans for munitions plants

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ratified plans to modernize the country’s major munitions factories, which will be submitted at the forthcoming key Party Congress — a step deemed essential to bolstering its “war deterrence,” state media reported Friday.

The announcement came during recent visits by Kim to unspecified “major munitions industry enterprises,” where he was briefed on fourth-quarter missile and artillery shell production, the Rodong Sinmun, an organ of the Workers’ Party, reported in its Korean-language dispatch.

Kim called for reinforcing the technical foundations for increased missile and artillery production, setting out technical and economic tasks during the site inspections.

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“Comrade Kim Jong-un said that it is necessary to establish, as planned, new munitions-industry enterprises that will be decided at the Party’s Ninth Congress in order to meet the prospective needs of our army’s missile and artillery forces,” according to the Rodong Sinmun.

Kim added that, at the same time, “the level of modernization of the munitions industry must be continuously raised by incessantly renewing the production structures of existing factories in a more efficient and practical manner.”

Kim underlined that “the missile and artillery shell production sector occupies the most important position in particular, in enhancing war deterrence,” the Rodong Sinmun report read.

The North Korean leader called for the Missile Administration and the relevant general bureau of the Second Economy Commission to make thorough preparations for carrying out the plans to be set forth at the Ninth Party Congress.

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“Comrade Kim Jong-un on that day ratified the draft documents of the modernization plans for key munitions industry enterprises to be submitted to the Party’s Ninth Congress,” the newspaper reported, without specifying the date.

Hong Min, a senior research fellow at the government-funded Korea Institute for National Unification, said Kim visited two key arms factories: one production facility for the Hwasong-11A, or KN-23, missile series, and another producing 240-millimeter multiple rocket launcher shells.

The latest dispatch came a day after North Korean state media carried two reports on Kim’s military activities on Christmas Day. The outlets said Kim observed a test-firing of a new-type anti-air missile on Tuesday and gave on-site undated guidance at the construction site of an “8,700-ton nuclear-powered strategic guided-missile submarine.”

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Concurrently, North Korean state media carried a statement by an unidentified Defense Ministry spokesperson condemning the entry of the USS Greeneville — a Los Angeles-class US nuclear-powered attack submarine — into a naval base in the South Korean port city of Busan on Tuesday.

“Domestically, it serves to showcase achievements in the defense sector and bolster the rationale for advancing nuclear capabilities and strengthening military capabilities,” Chang Yoon-jeong, deputy spokesperson of South Korea’s Unification Ministry, told Friday’s briefing. “Externally, it appears to send a pointed message about the deployment of US strategic assets and South Korea’s push to build a nuclear-powered submarine.”

Kim’s approval of modernization plans for key munitions factories — coming after the public unveiling of an 8,700-ton nuclear-powered submarine construction site — “appears to be a meticulously choreographed sequence of moves,” said Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul.

“If the nuclear submarine symbolizes strategic nuclear deterrence capable of targeting the US mainland, missiles and artillery shells represent tactical strike capabilities intended for use on the Korean Peninsula and in actual combat scenarios,” Lim said.

“Taken together, the moves suggest that North Korea has entered a phase in which both its nuclear strategy and its tactical weapons systems are shifting decisively toward mass production and modernization.”

At the same time, Lim said, Pyongyang is signaling that the new five-year plan to be approved at the Ninth Party Congress, expected in 2026, will set significantly higher weapons-production targets.

“Through the Ninth Party Congress, North Korea is expected to formally declare an acceleration and further elaboration of its parallel development strategy for nuclear forces and conventional military capabilities,” Lim said. “The move is likely aimed at gaining the upper hand in shaping developments on the Korean Peninsula and intensifying its pressure against both the United States and South Korea.” /dl