The North Korean Army; History, Structure, Daily Life

Everything about North Korea is murky, but certain areas are murkier than others. One especially gloomy corner has been the Korean People’s Army (KPA). Some English-language light was thrown on the KPA on a macro level almost a quarter of a century ago by Joseph Bermudez Jr. with his North Korean Special Forces (1998) and The Armed Forces of North Korea (2001). Since then, we’ve been left in the dark. Tertitskiy addresses that to a degree. Parts two and three of his trilogy bring some new things to the table. In the history section of part one, there is a lot of academic shadow-boxing with unknown rivals, to little avail. Few readers will give a damn whether Kim Il Sung was prescient enough to name his guerrilla band the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army (KPRA) on the 25 April 1932 or whether the KPA waited to be born with its first parade on 8 February 1948. Pyongyang celebrates both with primacy waxing and waning with political fashion.