Manpower available for military service:
males age 17-49: 5,851,801 (2005 est.)
Manpower fit for military service:
males age 17-49: 4,810,831 (2005 est.)
Manpower reaching military service age annually:
males: 194,605 (2005 est.)
Military expenditures - dollar figure:
$5,217.4 million (FY02)
Military expenditures - percent of GDP:
NA
Transnational Issues Korea, North
Disputes - international:
China seeks to stem illegal migration of tens of thousands of North
Koreans escaping famine, economic privation, and political
oppression; North Korea and China dispute the sovereignty of certain
islands in Yalu and Tumen rivers and a section of boundary around
Paektu-san (mountain) is indefinite; Military Demarcation Line
within the 4-km wide Demilitarized Zone has separated North from
South Korea since 1953; periodic maritime disputes with South over
the Northern Limit Line; North Korea supports South Korea in
rejecting Japan's claim to Liancourt Rocks (Tok-do/Take-shima)
Refugees and internally displaced persons:
IDPs: 50,000-250,000 (government repression and famine) (2004)
Illicit drugs:
for years, from the 1970's into the 2000's, citizens of the
Democratic People's Republic of (North) Korea (DPRK), many of them
diplomatic employees of the government, were apprehended abroad
while trafficking in narcotics, including two in Turkey in December
2004; in recent years, police investigations in Taiwan and Japan
have linked North Korea to large illicit shipments of heroin and
methamphetamine, including an attempt by the North Korean merchant
ship Pong Su to deliver 150 kg of heroin to Australia in April 2003;
all indications point to North Korea emerging as an important
regional source of illicit drugs targeting markets in Japan, Taiwan,
the Russian Far East, and China
This page was last updated on 20 October, 2005