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No, it's just a third world country, with limited means. The military budget of North Korea is estimated to be around $10 billion USD. It has a million active

by personZ 12y ago

No, it's just a third world country, with limited means. The military budget of North Korea is estimated to be around $10 billion USD. It has a million active troops, 6,600 tanks, 700 MLRS, 460 fighters, and so on. The country is perilously poor. Many people starve. But the means are there for an operation like this, especially if sponsoring foreign groups, if the motivations allow. And to counter the growing narrative that the NK thing came out of nowhere as a convenient excuse -- the country was very offended by this movie six months+ ago, long before the hack, to the point of threatening military retaliation if it was released. Engaging in or hiring hacking groups to put the pain to Sony seems entirely within the realm of the possible, though threatening actual terrorism is a bridge too far, and overplayed their hands if they were involved with that. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-28014069 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-28014069

coldtea 12y ago
The budget figure is probably BS. Their whole GDP is about 12 billion USD in toto -- and they give around 10-15% of state expenditure to the military budget (the peak was 30%, according to wikipedia, back in the seventies). But even that figure ($10b) is comparable to places like The Netherlands, Quatar or Poland (hardly forces to be reckoned with), and 1/3 of what South Korea spends: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/spending.htm http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/spending.htm
- personZ 12y ago
  The budget figure is probably BS. All military figures are BS. North Korea has 1,000,000 active member troops. Canada has 68,000 active member troops. North Korea has more of everything than Canada, including aircraft, boats, and even nuclear weapons. Canada spends $23 billion per year. And as to forces hardly to be reckoned with, if you're talking in a convention war with the US or something, sure. To put that into contrast with hacking Sony, though, is utterly ludicrous. The latter could likely be achieved paying a group less than it costs to operate a single fighter aircraft for a year.
yongjik 12y ago
While North Korea does have enough capacity for trouble, your figure of "6,600 tanks" etc. should be taken with a big grain of salt. Those tanks are ancient. Remember how US tanks handled Iraqi ones?

by personZ 12y ago

coldtea 12y ago

The budget figure is probably BS. Their whole GDP is about 12 billion USD in toto -- and they give around 10-15% of state expenditure to the military budget (the peak was 30%, according to wikipedia, back in the seventies). But even that figure ($10b) is comparable to places like The Netherlands, Quatar or Poland (hardly forces to be reckoned with), and 1/3 of what South Korea spends: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/spending.htm http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/spending.htm

personZ 12y ago
The budget figure is probably BS. All military figures are BS. North Korea has 1,000,000 active member troops. Canada has 68,000 active member troops. North Korea has more of everything than Canada, including aircraft, boats, and even nuclear weapons. Canada spends $23 billion per year. And as to forces hardly to be reckoned with, if you're talking in a convention war with the US or something, sure. To put that into contrast with hacking Sony, though, is utterly ludicrous. The latter could likely be achieved paying a group less than it costs to operate a single fighter aircraft for a year.

yongjik 12y ago

While North Korea does have enough capacity for trouble, your figure of "6,600 tanks" etc. should be taken with a big grain of salt. Those tanks are ancient. Remember how US tanks handled Iraqi ones?