By Hyun-seung LeeDirector of Policy & External Affairs, The Korea Signal
While Kim Jong Un builds the most capable war machine in North Korean history, South Korea's government is dismantling the very measures designed to deter him — and calling it peace. Meanwhile, its own conservative opposition, retired generals, and even sections of its own military bureaucracy say the erosion runs deeper than diplomacy: down to unloaded machine guns at the DMZ, a documented rupture in intelligence-sharing with Washington, and a budget that funds North Korean soccer fans before it funds border radar.
Pyongyang's War Dividend
Since 2023, North Korea has supplied Russia an estimated over 6 million artillery shells, and Ukrainian military intelligence assesses Pyongyang now covers 25 to 40 percent of Moscow's total artillery ammunition needs. Some 200 to 300 munitions factories are reportedly running at full capacity with roughly 500,000 workers. In return, Russia has provided data feedback that measurably improved the guidance accuracy of North Korea's KN-23/24 ballistic missiles, transferred air-defense and jamming equipment, and helped establish domestic Shahed/Geran-type attack-drone production inside North Korea. South Korean officials believe Russia also supplied key radar and missile technology for Pyongyang's new nuclear-capable Choe Hyon-class destroyer, the first of a two-ship-a-year construction program through 2030. An estimated 11,000 to 14,000 North Korean troops have already fought in Russia's Kursk region, and Ukraine President Zelensky claimed in July that Moscow is preparing to receive 30,000 more — a claim South Korean officials have not confirmed through troop-movement indicators," and then continue into "the partnership has earned Pyongyang an estimated $7.7–14.4 billion since 2023. None of this experience stays in Ukraine. It will come home to the DMZ.
The Alliance's Information Architecture Is Cracking
The most consequential evidence of strain in Seoul's own posture is not symbolic. It is operational, and it goes to the heart of what an alliance is for. A joint advisory from four South Korean security agencies disclosed in July that a state-sponsored group tracked as Lazarus had compromised at least 72 South Korean organizations in 2026 alone, including government agencies; separately, hackers sat inside the Foreign Ministry's diplomatic-academy platform for nine months undetected, and the National Intelligence Service has told lawmakers North Korean actors account for roughly 80 percent of all cyberattacks on the government sector. But the more serious rupture runs the other direction. In March 2026, Unification Minister Chung Dong-young told the National Assembly that North Korea was operating a suspected third uranium-enrichment site at Kusong — a location neither government had publicly confirmed, and one U.S. officials treated as an unauthorized disclosure of classified satellite intelligence. Washington responded by restricting the intelligence it shares with Seoul on North Korea, and USFK Commander Gen. Xavier Brunson personally lodged a complaint with Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back. Two months later the restriction was still in force and demonstrably degrading South Korea's own picture of the threat: the Defense Intelligence Agency reportedly told lawmakers it lacked sufficient data even to evaluate North Korea's troop deployments to Russia. That same friction surfaced again in February 2026, when U.S. fighter jets exercised over the Yellow Sea. U.S. Forces Korea maintained it had notified South Korean counterparts of the drill at the working level in advance; Seoul's defense minister and the JCS chairman nonetheless lodged a formal protest with the commanding U.S. general, and it later emerged the notice had simply failed to travel up South Korea's own chain of command.
