Kinda crazy what you gotta do when you’re a tiny nation that has been blacklisted by the world superpower and at war for several generations.
Mandatory 10 year conscription for men? Christ
Also women are conscripted too, and for three years? Wow. What other countries have military conscription for women, I haven’t heard of many, I only know about Mozambique. Maybe some nordic countries as well?
It is a huge number of people for a huge amount of time, but it’s also worth bearing in mind that something like a third of North Korean men end up exempted from service, usually for educational reasons but also medical ones as well. You can also transfer out to go to college if you qualify.
Also, a huge part of “military” service is just doing work. Soldiers are used as extra bodies on farms and construction sites pretty regularly, and in the event of an emergency they’re pretty much the first ones to respond and the last ones to leave. If the DPRK ever feels like it’s safe to demilitarize, they will almost certainly keep some form of this aspect of service alive since it’s an incredibly useful thing for a society to have.
in finland it’s volunteer based for women and mandatory 6months - 1 year for men, or you can do a “civilian service” which is doing a job for shit pay for 1 year, or you can go to prison for 1 year or as a final resort you can get a medical excemption. consent is being manufactured for making it mandatory for women too
As others have already mentioned, time in the military isn’t exclusively used doing military tasks, it’s effort put in large part to doing public services. This time is also used to give every member of the DPRK a higher education, and a political education. Ensuring that everyone has a Marxist education in political economy is, to me, of incredible value to the society overall.
uncritical support for the DPRK in its heroic struggle to liberate occupied Korea from the genocidal American empire
According to the Labor Party, Washington is also trying to prevent North Korea from importing cereals. Last month, a vast food production program was put in place in an effort to forestall another famine like the one in the 1960s, which was intentionally exacerbated by Western powers.
Time to starve North Korea again and then complain about how the dictatorship is evil
