How strong is North Korea?

North Korea has the world’s fourth largest army.   It has nearly 1.2 million troops under arms, slightly less than the USA and behind India and China.

South Korea has about 655,000 active duty troops, more than Britain, France and Germany combined.  A war between North and South Korea would be catastrophic, even if the USA, China and Russia were not involved.

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Some observers claim that South Korea is the stronger of the two, because, they say, North Korean troops are malnourished and South Korean troops are better trained and have better equipment.   I wouldn’t know.

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LINKS

Nasty, brutish and short—what the next Korea War will look like by Steve Mollman for Quartz.

Wikipedia list of countries by number of military and paramilitary personnel.

Tags: Comparison of North and South Korea, Korean War Threat, North Korea