This year has witnessed a steady, brilliant progress in the mightiness and combat capabilities of the DPRK’s armed forces.

This year, too, the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un provided a sure guarantee for defending the present and future of the country and people in the most righteous and reliable way.

He ushered in a new era of bolstering up the defence capabilities, regarding self-reliance in national defence as the mainstay of safeguarding and developing the revolution. He clarified the orientation of the military and political activities of the Korean People’s Army and all other armed forces of the DPRK, oversaw military drills and weapons test-fires on the spot and provided guidance to updating armaments.

While giving field guidance at Kim Jong Il Military and Political Academy, Kim Il Sung Military University and O Jin U Artillery Academy, he said that they should train all their students into intelligent, brave and versatile commanders possessed of absolute loyalty to the Party and the revolution and high military qualifications, and indicated the way to be followed by the military education sector.

Attaching great importance to the position and role of the battalions in strengthening the army, he organized the Fourth Conference of Battalion Commanders and Political Instructors of the Korean People’s Army and reiterated the Workers’ Party of Korea’s policy on prioritizing battalions—that completion of their war preparations immediately means the completion of the whole army’s war preparations and their capabilities to fight a real war represent the war potentials of the revolutionary armed forces. Then he clarified the ways to turn the battalions into fighting groups that have established strict ethos and assumed the appearance appropriate to a regular army.

And when he paid congratulatory visits to the Academy of Defence Sciences of the DPRK and Kim Jong Un University of National Defence on the occasion of their 60th founding anniversaries, he indicated the militant tasks and ways facing the Academy of Defence Sciences in a new era, and elucidated the path to a new revolution in education in defence sciences, stressing the need to train more revolutionary talents representing the future of the munitions industry and defence sciences which are directly related to the destiny of the country and revolution, and thus fulfil the important mission they have assumed before the times.

This year an array of military exercises of weighty significance in combat preparations of the Korean People’s Army took place under his guidance.

The war capabilities of the KPA were further increased through the first combined tactical drill simulating nuclear counterattack by 600mm super-large multiple rocket sub-units, artillery firing drill of large combined units of the KPA, training competition of large combined tank units of the KPA, training of the air-borne units of the KPA and firing drill of the artillery units in the western area, which are in charge of an important firing assignment.

There was a remarkable progress in the country’s defence capabilities thanks to the dynamic advance of the self-reliant defence industry which firmly supports the unexcelled supremacy of the DPRK’s armed forces.

And the commissioning of weapon systems and absolute weapons, whose reliability, superiority and power were proved, demonstrated the country’s overpowering war deterrence and war capabilities.

The ceremony for delivering new-type tactical ballistic missile systems and the successful test-fire of the ICBM Hwasongpho-19 as a new ultra-powerful offensive means and an ultimate version of the same category boosted the Korean people’s faith in the validity and invincibility of their cause and confidence in the future of their country which will be more powerful and prosperous.

What is noteworthy is Defence Development-2024, a military hardware exhibition held in the capital city of Pyongyang.

It brought together the latest military equipment developed by the country’s defence scientific and technological group, centring on the strategic and tactical weapons which were further updated and developed in the light of modern and advanced characters, as well as the precision and power of strike, and drew the world’s attention through continuous appearance of new types. The exhibition showcased the national defence capabilities that made a leap forward in a matter of one year.

Thanks to the leadership of Kim Jong Un , who is leading the cause of building a powerful army to victory with his gifted ideological and theoretical wisdom and extraordinary scientific insight, the defence capabilities of the DPRK are rapidly growing on a steady upward track without a moment’s interruption and an inch of deviation.

Yang Ryon Hui