Mick Hartley

We've heard how North Korea has recently abandoned all talk of reunification – once a key feature of Great leader Kim Il-Sung's philosophy – and now identifies South Korea as the "principal enemy". The destruction of Pyongyang's famous Arch of Reunification in April was a symbolic confirmation of this new thinking.

The latest development:

North Korea has built what appear to be anti-tank barriers along the inter-Korean border, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), in a move that experts identified as part of Pyongyang’s efforts to broadcast its readiness for war amid escalating military tensions.

A JCS official confirmed the discovery in a defense ministry briefing on Monday, after it was first revealed by Seoul’s National Security Director Chang Ho-jin in an interview with Yonhap News TV.

“What has been identified so far is closer to barriers similar to anti-tank obstacles,” Chang said during the interview, while discussing reports of the North Korean military’s recent construction activities along the demilitarized zone (DMZ).

The JCS official added that the military has also identified ongoing DPRK activity related to the “reinforcement of tactical roads, the laying of mines and the clearing of wasteland.”…

Experts assessed that North Korea’s motivation for installing such structures reflects North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s frequent calls for the military to prepare for war with the South and the U.S.

“The detection of anti-tank barriers indicates preparations not just for localized skirmishes but for a full-scale war, seeking to send the message that North Korea is speeding up preparations for a potential second Korean War,” Ban Kil-joo, a professor at the Ilmin International Relations Institute from Korea University, told NK News.

Seeking to send a message is not the same as actually planning for a full-scale war, of course, but the rumour of a Putin visit to the North doesn't exactly help to reassure.

An editorial today at South Korea's Chosun Ilbo is less alarmist, offering the old Berlin Wall comparison:

It has been reported that North Korea is constructing a barrier along the armistice line.South Korean military surveillance has detected construction activities in the North that appear to be for a barrier, approximately 1 km north of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) in the western, eastern, and central fronts.

Recently, an incident occurred where about 10 North Korean soldiers crossed 50 meters into our territory on the central front, likely related to the barrier construction. North Korea is also laying military roads to connect the barrier to frontline units and planting additional mines north of the MDL. If barriers and mines are added to the barbed wire along the armistice line, the North and South will be completely separated….

In late 2020, Kim Jong-un enacted the ‘anti-reactionary thought law’ to block the Korean Wave (Hallyu). The law states that those who watch or distribute S. Korean dramas will be executed, even specifying to ‘break their spines to death.’

He fears that admiration for South Korea could destabilize the Kim family’s hereditary rule. Defectors who attempted to go to S. Korea or had contact with S. Koreans or churches were sent to political prison camps or summarily executed. To prevent North Korean residents from escaping, Kim Jong-un sealed the entire 1,400 km North Korea-China border with barbed wire.

The North Korean MZ generation, known as the ‘Jangmadang (market generation),’ is different from previous generations. Having experienced that it is the market, not the Workers’ Party, that feeds them, therefore they do not unconditionally obey Kim Jong-un’s authority.

Currently, 500,000 to 600,000 MZ generation North Koreans are serving at the armistice line. If loudspeaker broadcasts to North Korea resume, frontline North Korean soldiers will inevitably be exposed to the Korean Wave and external information. Considering the structure of the North Korean regime, information from the free world is far more threatening than American missiles. The barrier at the armistice line is primarily to prevent the defection of ‘MZ’ North Korean soldiers.

East Germany built the Berlin Wall in 1961 but could not stop the influx of information from the free world. When internal dissatisfaction and contradictions exploded, the wall collapsed in an instant. The same could happen in North Korea.