Linus Höller
BERLIN — When North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un visited what state media called an “automated missile factory” in late August, he pranced past endless rows of ballistic missiles, each capable of accurately delivering a nuclear warhead to Seoul with minutes’ notice.
The remarkable success of the hermit regime’s missile program is a direct consequence of Pyongyang’s concerted effort to make up for decades of shortcomings in defense manufacturing processes, according to experts and open-source information.
Visiting the unnamed missile facility days before heading to China to watch a big military parade in Beijing, North Korean state media said Kim Jong Un “was greatly satisfied to hear the report that the automated assembly-line production system was established.”
According to the Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s tightly controlled foreign news outlet, the automated equipment in the factory dealt with “precision processing, measuring and assembling different parts,” included quality control stations, and resulted in “increasing the productivity and ensuring the qualitative character of the products.”
The focus on automated machining that North Korean leadership has preached for the past decade, experts say, has played a key role in allowing the country to develop a missile-based nuclear deterrent much faster than the Soviet Union and the U.S. did during the Cold War, despite Pyongyang being under strict international sanctions.
What’s more, there are indications that the drive for automation is paying dividends for North Korea’s defense industry at large.
“While previous policies focused heavily on nuclear and missile development, the current approach has expanded to include the modernization of conventional weapon systems, innovation in production processes, and the incorporation of advanced technologies such as unmanned systems and artificial intelligence,” wrote Sang-jung Byun and Seungwoo Kim, researchers with South Korea’s Institute for National Security Strategy.
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