SEOUL, September 24 — Three South Korean soldiers were injured during an operation in the heavily mined Demilitarized Zone south of the border, the South Korean military said on September 21, according to state and international reports. The account indicates the incident occurred inside one of the most heavily armed borders in the world, where many of South Korea’s troops and North Korea’s 1.2 million troops are stationed.
The DMZ has divided the peninsula since the Korean War of the early 1950s, when the United States supported southern forces against communist northern forces aided militarily by China and the Soviet Union.
A Drone and Missile Drill
Three days earlier, on September 14, North Korea announced it had conducted a live-fire drill on the Saturday during which it simultaneously tested several different weapons systems, including attack drones, tactical ballistic and cruise missiles, and large-calibre multiple rocket launchers, according to Reuters. The drill followed the completion of the annual trilateral military exercise, Freedom Edge, between the United States, Japan, and South Korea, AP reported. Pyongyang has long framed such exercises as rehearsals for invasion; Washington and its allies describe them as defensive.
On September 7, North Korea and Russia opened their first road bridge, spanning the Tumen river, able to support up to three hundred vehicles per day and to be used to transport cargo and, by the end of the year, passenger traffic, according to Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, as reported by Reuters. North Korean media claimed the bridge is solely for tourism and trade.
Ukrainian analysts warned it was designed as a military logistics corridor to support Russia’s war in Ukraine, the BBC reported. The competing accounts point to the wider question of how far Moscow and Pyongyang have drawn together under Kim Jong Un, who has provided artillery and troops for the war in Ukraine.
Exercises Cut, Threat Unchanged
On August 16, President Donald Trump announced in a social media post the reduction of annual joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea, citing his close relationship with Kim Jong Un as well as South Korea’s refusal to support the U.S. war with Iran, according to Truth Social. The confrontation with North Korea is tracked by CFR’s Wachenheim Center for Peace and Security Global Conflict Tracker as an interstate war with critical impact on the United States and developing status, updated September 10.
Under Kim, North Korea has pursued nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to guarantee regime survival, posing an acute threat to South Korea and Japan, both key U.S. allies. At home, he has silenced opposition by detaining between 80,000 and 120,000 political prisoners, purging high-ranking officials, and likely ordering the assassination of his half-brother.
In violation of UN Security Council resolutions, North Korea continues overt nuclear enrichment and long-range missile development. U.S. intelligence agencies estimate it has enough plutonium to produce at least six nuclear weapons, and possibly up to sixty. Decades of negotiations have failed to curb the program.
In September 2017 North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear weapons test, its most powerful to date, and claimed to have developed a hydrogen bomb. That same year it conducted its first successful intercontinental ballistic missile test, and U.S. intelligence determined it could miniaturize nuclear weapons to fit inside a missile, though it has not demonstrated warhead reentry through Earth’s atmosphere.
In response to missile tests, the United States deployed the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system in South Korea’s Seongju region, one hundred and fifty-five miles from the northern border. Japan, South Korea, and the United States maintain unilateral sanctions on North Korea, and the UN Security Council has passed harsh multilateral measures. The United States is committed to defending South Korea under a mutual defense treaty.
What to watch next is whether the injured-soldier operation in the DMZ is followed by further mine-clearing or recovery activity along the border, and whether Pyongyang answers the Freedom Edge exercise with additional weapons demonstrations.
