MOST MODERN MILITARIES MAKE A DISTINCTION BETWEEN MILITARY EQUIPMENT AND CIVILIAN EQUIPMENT. NOT NORTH KOREA THOUGH.

THIS IS VIDEO OF A RECENT PARADE HELD FOR NORTH KOREAN LEADER KIM JUNG UN. INSTEAD OF TANKS OR ARMORED PERSONNEL CARRIERS…THE PARADE FEATURED TRACTORS PULLING ROCKET LAUNCHERS, AND LAUNCHERS HIDDEN INSIDE VEHICLES DESIGNED TO LOOK LIKE CIVILIAN GRAIN OR DUMP TRUCKS.

Shoemaker: It is part and parcel for how North Korea operates. You know, they are an incredibly poor country that focuses most of the vast majority of their economy on its military abilities.

MATT SHOEMAKER IS A RETIRED INTELLIGENCE OFFICER WITH THE US MILITARY. HE SAYS BECAUSE OF SANCTIONS, NORTH KOREA HAS LIMITED ACCESS TO ACTUALLY CREATE THE MILITARY HARDWARE THEY WANT. SO, THEY OFTEN RELY ON DUAL-USE TECHNOLOGY.

Shoemaker: So it’s meant to scare the West and show us that they can be quite creative. And they can use deception in order to attack us and to hurt us.

SO SHOULD THE WEST BE SCARED? PERHAPS…BUT NOT NECESSARILY BECAUSE OF THESE WEAPONS. SHOEMAKER IS QUICK TO POINT OUT NORTH KOREA HAS A HISTORY OF HYPING UP ITS WEAPONS TECH…ONLY FOR THE WEST TO DISCOVER LATER NORTH KOREA HAD BEEN LYING.

Shoemaker: These things were absolutely unloaded. They were not loaded with the missiles or anything like that. So, if they don’t have enough horsepower, once they’re fully loaded, then once again, this is just another example of the North Koreans pretending like they have better capabilities than they actually do.

EVEN IF NORTH KOREA’S NEW DUMP TRUCK MISSILE LAUNCHERS DO WORK–SHOEMAKER SAYS THE US AND ITS ALLIES HAVE PLENTY OF EXPERIENCE DEALING WITH SIMILAR TARGETS.

Shoemaker: It certainly gives a lot of work to the military analysts who are looking at what they call ‘military capabilities,’ the essentially ‘bean-counting’ of how many different figures these things are, and trying to locate where most of them are going to be stored for example. So, once you know if you’re using what’s called ISR, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, you know, you’re trying to look at and see, okay, these are mostly stored here. Anytime you see activity in that particular area, it’s going to draw your attention to something that might be going on.

SO FOR WHOM MIGHT NORTH KOREA BE BUILDING THESE WEAPONS FOR? CERTAINLY, SOME WILL BE KEPT HOME FOR A POTENTIAL FIGHT WITH SOUTH KOREA OR ITS ALLIES. BUT PLENTY OF NORTH KOREAN WEAPONRY IS ALSO HEADED FOR RUSSIA.

SATELLITE IMAGERY SHOWS A RUSSIAN SHIP LOADED WITH WHAT ARE BELIEVED TO BE NORTH KOREAN WEAPONS WAS RECENTLY DOCKED AT A CHINESE PORT, AND UNITED NATIONS SANCTIONS MONITORS ARE NOW SAYING BACK IN JANUARY, NORTH KOREAN MISSILES WERE FIRED AT KHARKIV FROM RUSSIA.

Shoemaker: The fact that Russia even finds itself needing to call on the North Koreans for their own military equipment is, in the very least, an embarrassment for Vladimir Putin.

AND WHAT MAY BE AN EMBARASSMENT FOR PUTIN–IS PROVING TO BE A FINANCIAL WINDFALL FOR NORTH KOREA–INTERNATIONAL SANCTIONS AND ALL.

Shoemaker: We in the West, we are very legalistic in the sense of we like to a certain extent, to follow the rules, or at least know what the rules are, in order to gauge, you know, our left and right swim lane. A lot of the world, unfortunately, is not like that. Russian culture is certainly not like that. And absolutely North Korean culture is not like that. So to get them to adhere to these sorts of things requires an outside strong man, if you will, and no one seems either capable or willing to do that based off of, you know, what the implications of that would mean.