North Korea has a new submarine that, according to Joseph Bermudez, “will have greater range, patrol time and weapons capability than the existing KPN fleet of coastal submarines.” Please don’t try to tell me they built this thing from scratch. Someone broke U.N. sanctions to sell it to them.

Gen. Hahn Sung-Chu never believed North Korea could dig a tunnel that reached Seoul — until now. Standing inside a basement of an apartment block in the heart of the capital, the former two-star general in the South Korean military says, “This is a kind of invasion, North Korean soldiers working underneath us.” Hahn says residents had complained of underground vibrations, but the subway does not run beneath them. [CNN] I’d be much more surprised if the North Koreans didn’t have tunnels...

in the Yellow Sea, but it’s not clear from Yonhap’s report when the military thinks it crashed. This is the first report of North Korean UAV found in the South since April, when others were found in Paju and (again) Baekryeong.

North Korea’s nuclear weapons development is blazing ahead, but series of reports from North Korea suggest that its conventional forces are decaying, ill-disciplined, and even underfunded. First, a Hainan Class submarine chaser and a patrol boat sank in separate incidents off the coast of Wonsan (or, maybe the two ships collided; hey, it’s North Korea — who knows?). North Korea admits the loss of the 60s-vintage sub chaser. The North hasn’t given a casualty count, but showed Kim Jong un...

The Panama weapons seizure happened last month, before I ended my hiatus, but let me offer these brief observations. First, good for Panama.  Second, North Korea still doesn’t care what the U.N. Security Council prohibits (surprise!).  Third, neither does Cuba.  Fourth, we’ll gauge whether the administration is serious about sanctions enforcement by whether it sanctions any North Korea, Cuban, or other entities under Executive Order 13,551, which would allow the blocking of the assets of any entities knowingly involved in...

Reuters reports: A North Korean soldier killed two of his officers before crossing the heavily mined border into South Korea on Saturday, South Korea’s defence ministry and media reports said.  [….] Local media quoted a statement from the Joint Chiefs of Staff as saying the North Korean soldier crossed the western section of the border at around noon. The North Korean claimed that he shot dead his platoon and squad chiefs while on guard duty shortly before his border crossing, according to the reports. The unnamed defector was being questioned by...