Target Markets

North Korea's Military Customers

Andrea Berger

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138452367
• eBook ISBN: 9781351712996
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Storia militare e marittima

A UN arms embargo has been in place against North Korea for nearly a decade, as part of a broader sanctions regime designed to deny it the goods and funds needed to fuel its nuclear weapons and ballistic-missile programmes. Yet despite these sanctions, a host of state and non-state actors continue to buy arms, material and services from Pyongyang – and inject funds into the same coffers that drive North Korea's nuclear and missile development. While some of North Korea's military customers in the sanctions era since 2006 are well known – such as Iran, Syria and Burma – Pyongyang's wider client base receives little international attention. North Korea has continued to enjoy access to other defence markets across Africa and the Middle East.

The drivers of these clients' decisions to buy weapons and related goods from North Korea are rarely discussed. This gap in analysis is essential to fill. If tailored and effective approaches are to be developed to convince North Korea's customers to buy elsewhere, they must be based on a sound understanding of the considerations that motivated the client to turn to Pyongyang in the first place.

Target Markets comprehensively analyses the available information on these procurement decisions. It concludes, contrary to conventional wisdom, that the reasons that customers buy weapons and related goods and services from North Korea vary, often greatly. This study also concludes that one of the greatest achievements of the UN sanctions regime to date has been to deny North Korea access to modern conventional weapons technology that it can learn to manufacture at home and sell on to its clients around the world. Without more contemporary wares to tempt foreign buyers, North Korea will likely continue to see its client list for weapons and related goods and services shrinking.

III. RESILIENT CUSTOMERS

Not all North Korean clients are alike in their reasons for choosing the country as a supplier. Their considerations in doing so range from: longstanding bilateral political and military relations, often with attendant appreciation of Pyongyang’s dependability as a supplier; the North Korean leadership’s personal relationships with particular leaders or ruling families, such as the House of Assad in Syria; North Korea’s willingness to assist with the establishment of new indigenous capabilities; reliance upon North Korean spare parts, or production or repair equipment; a lack of alternative suppliers; and, of course, cost. Decisions are sometimes taken in ignorance of the boundaries of the sanctions regime against North Korea and sometimes in defiance of them.

These differences in motivation are essential to bear in mind when examining Pyongyang’s arms-trade activity. It is crucial to appreciate not only who buys from North Korea and what is on their shopping lists, but also why they choose this particular supplier. Efforts to improve implementation of the sanctions regime and peel customers away from North Korea must be tailored to reflect the drivers behind the demand.

This chapter focuses on the category of recent customers that are most difficult to convince to discontinue their custom: those whose ties to North Korea have weathered decades, including the nearly ten years in which sanctions have been in place. As mentioned in Chapter I, the number of state and non-state actors purchasing arms and related services has continually dwindled since the end of the Cold War. However, Syria, Iran, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Burma and Cuba have been steadfast, continuing to contract out to Pyongyang for arms and related materiel and services in spite of taboos and legal restrictions against doing so. Some non-state groups appear to have been ‘resilient customers’ during the sanctions era as well, including Palestinian militant groups, Hizbullah and the now-degraded Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). A number of other likely customers may also be in this category, but are not included here because of a dearth in publicly available evidence through which to characterise their respective relationships with North Korea.

Unlike some of North Korea’s other clients, this ‘resilient’ group is fully aware of the illicit nature of continuing to buy arms and related materiel and services from the country. Because their business probably accounts for most of North Korea’s recent revenue through arms sales, and because they appear to operate in disregard of international regimes, they represent the most significant problem for those working to improve sanctions implementation.

This chapter outlines each of the main resilient customers during the period since 2006 and analyses their common traits. As with the rest of this study, it relies entirely on open-source information and expert interviews in order to reach an assessment of the probable ‘resilient’ nature of the client in question. That information is more abundant for some customers than others. Should additional information on their ties to North Korea come to light in the future, it may become evident that they in fact belong in another camp. Similarly, though all of the state and non-state groups in this chapter have been categorised as ‘resilient’ because they demonstrate certain characteristics, there is still variation in the degree of their closeness to North Korea.

Syria

Of all of North Korea’s defence-export markets, Syria is one of the oldest, most stable and most lucrative. Visible signs of the military relationship date back to the Arab–Israeli War of 1967, when Pyongyang sent dozens of pilots to fly Syrian jets.¹ From 1970, North Korean pilots, tank operators, missile technicians and instructors were regularly stationed in-country. They assisted Syrian forces in their campaigns against Israel in 1973 and participated in significant air battles. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, North Korean officers trained Syrian forces both in Syria and in the DPRK. ²

The relationship grounded in military services and training was consummated with weapons sales. From the late 1970s, North Korea sold Syria a myriad of systems. This included small arms and ammunition, armoured vehicles and anti-tank missiles. In addition, 122-mm multiple rocket launchers, which the DPRK sold to a number of other clients in the Middle East and elsewhere, also appeared in the Syrian arsenal during the 1982 Lebanon War. Israel is said to have captured one of these rocket launchers, killing the Korean People’s Army (KPA) personnel operating it.³ North Korea proved itself to be a friend loyal enough to put itself on the front lines of Syria’s defence and to shed Korean blood in the process if necessary.

Syria eventually put North Korea at the centre of its most important defence procurement and development programmes. Foremost amongst these is the country’s ballistic-missile programme. By the late 1980s, Damascus possessed approximately 300 Soviet-made Scud missiles with a range of 300 km. ⁴ Seeking ballistic missiles of a longer range, it requested to buy the SS-23 missile from the Soviet Union. With its request rebuffed, ⁵ as Mikhail Gorbachev sought to rein in Soviet military assistance worldwide, Damascus instead turned to Pyongyang for Scud-C missiles and launchers, and deliveries from North Korea began in 1991 and continued throughout the decade. ⁶ Production technology for ballistic missiles was provided at this time as well, as Syria, like numerous others that have sought Pyongyang’s help with their military programmes, wished to develop a level of indigenous manufacturing capability. This specific form of assistance would become a major feature of North Korea’s relationship with Syria. In addition to providing North Korean-made missiles, components and technology, Pyongyang also put its proliferation network on offer. Its traders helped the Syrian government to procure goods from around the world for North Korean-assisted missile manufacturing projects at two new factories near Aleppo and Hama. ⁷ Equipment destined for those factories was believed to be on board the Dae Hung Ho when it evaded a US naval task force and docked in Syria in March 1992. ⁸

Syria’s eagerness to procure unconventional deterrent capabilities did not end with ballistic missiles, and the fruitful military relations between Damascus and Pyongyang spread into other areas. Syria also sought WMD-related capabilities from North Korea in the form of a nuclear reactor and possibly chemical-weapons-relevant technology. According to the US Central Intelligence Agency, ‘as early as 1997’, Syria and North Korea began a project to construct a gas-cooled, graphite-moderated nuclear reactor along the lines of North Korea’s plutonium-production reactor at Yongbyon.⁹ The installation, located in the desert at Al-Kibar, was destroyed by Israeli air strikes as it was nearing operational status in September 2007.

It is also widely suspected but unconfirmed that Syria received assistance in producing chemical warheads for its newly acquired North Korean ballistic missiles. According to the former director of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Michael Maples, ‘North Korea’s chemical warfare capabilities probably includes [sic] the ability to produce bulk quantities of nerve, blister, choking and blood agents.’¹⁰ The country is believed by many to have at minimum shared its expertise in producing and weaponising such agents with Syria, though this has not been confirmed.¹¹ Multiple chemical-related shipments from North Korea have been detected in the sanctions era, adding credence to the idea that Pyongyang may have been involved in Syria’s chemical-weapons programme in some way. South Korea detained four containers of OZK chemical protection suits, bound for the Environmental Study Centre in Syria via Saudi Arabia.¹² UN experts determined that the suits had a primarily military application in the protection against certain chemical agents.¹³ Another shipment of 13,000 OZK suits identical to those seized by South Korea, as well as gas-indicator ampoules for chemical detection, was impounded by Greece in November 2009.¹⁴ These two shipments were likely part of the same contract.¹⁵

Following the confirmation of the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons against its civilians in August 2013, and the subsequent threat of a military response by Western forces, President Bashar Al-Assad pledged to dismantle the country’s chemical arsenal with international assistance and verification. Though not problem-free, that unexpected dismantlement campaign likely dried up the demand for North Korean chemical-weapons-related assistance, barring any decision by Damascus to reconstitute this capability. The lack of interdictions of chemical-related goods from North Korea to Syria after August 2013 does not prove the absence of any such interactions. Yet equally, despite intense international scrutiny, there is also no evidence that sanctions-busting co-operation between the two continues to take place in this field.

Missile and conventional-weapons co-operation has also been detected in the sanctions period and, in contrast to possible chemical-weapons collaboration, can be reasonably assumed to be ongoing. Multiple instances of missile-related proliferation incidents involving the two countries have been recorded between 2006 and the time of writing. In 2007, acting on a tip-off from French intelligence, Greek authorities detained the MV Anemone, which was transiting the Mediterranean en route to Syria. On board, they discovered ‘missile parts originating in North Korea’.¹⁶ Another consignment seized in 2007 included double-base propellant for Scud missiles.¹⁷ The following year was a particularly active one for North Korean entities procuring foreign goods on behalf of the Syrian missile programme. Efforts were made to acquire missile-related steel, electrical relays ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• About the Author
• Acknowledgements
• Acronyms and Abbreviations
• Note on Sources
• Introduction
• I. North Korea in the Global Arms Market
• II. North Korea’s Contemporary Defence-Export Industry
• III. Resilient Customers
• IV. Reluctant Customers
• V. Ad Hoc Customers
• VI. Know Your Customer
• Conclusion: Remaining Seized of the Matter
• Appendix A: North Korean Brochure for AT-4 Anti-Tank Missile
• Appendix B: Brochure for Gafat Armament Industry