North Korea has begun to adopt tactics used on the battlefields in Ukraine and the Middle East, practicing "swarm attacks" that combine unmanned systems and traditional weapons, which may pose a challenge to the air defense systems of the United States and its allies.
The Wall Street Journal reported on the 26th that North Korea conducted a drill for the first time this month that combined attack drones, nuclear-capable missiles, rockets and long-range artillery. State media claimed that the exercise was intended to hone cross-weapon system integration capabilities and "organize and structurally annihilate enemy armed forces" through "concentrated firepower."
Then on September 20, the Pyongyang authorities claimed to have launched two hypersonic missiles. This type of missile is designed to fly at least five times the speed of sound, and can break through air defense systems by virtue of its speed and ability to change direction mid-flight. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who personally inspected the test launches, claimed that the missiles represented "ultramodern" technology.
On the 24th, North Korean state media reported that the Korean People’s Army test-fired an improved 240 mm multiple launch rocket system shell equipped with an unmanned “pinpoint” guidance system.
This type of multidimensional attack, which relies heavily on drones and missiles, has become a norm in the Ukraine war and is becoming increasingly frequent in the Iran conflict. Such joint attacks expose the weaknesses of Western air defense systems, which rely heavily on expensive interceptor missiles to shoot down incoming projectiles.
Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that swarm tactics (also known as salvos, saturation or precision mass attacks) can suppress opponents with sophisticated defense systems, "which significantly changes the calculus of air defense operations."
Such projectile-based attacks present logistical challenges, requiring integrated systems to coordinate weapons traveling at widely varying speeds. This is particularly difficult for North Korea, which is cash-strapped and its military lacks top-notch hardware. But Kim Jong Un has recently made the modernization of North Korea's traditional Soviet-style forces a higher priority, while also advancing its nuclear weapons program.
Growing military cooperation with Russia has helped accelerate those efforts, including using North Korean-supplied missiles against Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un signed a mutual defense treaty in June 2024, paving the way for North Korea to deploy troops later that year.
Since the start of the war with Iran, Tehran has been trying to overwhelm high-end air defense systems with swarms of drones and missiles that are much cheaper to manufacture. Iran has launched wave after wave of Shahed drone attacks, combined with ballistic missiles and other missiles, forcing the United States and its regional allies to run out of expensive interceptor missiles.
While the war has also consumed Iran's missiles, Tehran has adapted its tactics to use munitions that break into multiple fragments, forcing defenders to expend more interceptor missiles, including cluster munitions with warheads that break apart upon re-entry, and even combining various types of weapons in an attempt to overwhelm its opponents.
A recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington think tank, pointed out that compared with wars in Europe and the Middle East, conflicts involving China or North Korea would put greater pressure on the air defense inventories of the United States and its allies. The outcome of armed conflicts will increasingly depend on whether one side can produce missiles faster than the other side can replenish its air defense systems; "Large-scale salvoes of missiles and drones define modern warfare."
Lami Kim, chairman of Korea Affairs at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a think tank in London, pointed out that if war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula, adding drones to North Korea's missile firepower may exhaust South Korea's air defense system and increase the success rate of subsequent attacks with more powerful weapons such as tactical nuclear weapons. "North Korea's growing drone capabilities, once combined with its nuclear and missile capabilities, may change the military balance on the Korean Peninsula."
