The Korean People's Army is the military of North Korea, consisting of the ground force, Korean People's Navy, Korean People's Air Force, and the North Korean Special Operation Force. In 2012 it had a strength of 1,190,000 troops with 600,000 reserves and 5,889,000 paramilitaries, the largest paramilitary strength in the world and the fifth-largest army.
History[]
Several KPA soldiers
The Korean People's Army was founded on 25 April 1932 by Kim Il-sung, who led a struggle against occupation by the Empire of Japan. It was assisted by Chinese communists and the Soviet Union during World War II, and it was formed in its modern form on 8 February 1948 after North Korea became independent from Soviet Korea. Kim Il-sung was the first Premier of North Korea and later President, and he had absolute control over the country's military. In 1950, the Korean People's Army launched a surprise attack on South Korea with arms from the People's Republic of China and the USSR, and they overwhelmed much of the country, even the capital city of Seoul. The United Nations declared war on North Korea and sent a large American-led army to liberate South Korea from communist rule, and from 1950 to 1953 the Korean War saw several bloody battles during an intense stalemate. By the end of 1950, the KPA had been sidelined by China sending its People's Liberation Army to fight the Coalition, and the KPA suffered heavy losses.
Marching female KPA troops
In 1953, the Panmunjom Armistice declared a ceasefire that kept the two sides apart, and the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) was set up to divide the two countries. North Korea maintained a large army that was deployed to the border with South Korea, and the army was made up of both men and women from ages 15 to 29, with the conscription age being 17. 20.8% of North Korea's gross domestic product was put into its military, making it a main focus of their country; they depended on the Soviet Union to help them out financially and agriculturally. They imported several Soviet-made weapons such as AK-47s, AK-74us, RPDs, RPGs, and TT-3 pistols, while they owned Soviet T-55 tanks and MiG-24 fighter jets. The KPA was a strong army, and it showed off its strength in occasional fights with the Republic of Korea Army (ROKA) of South Korea and the US Army in the DMZ; they took over USS Pueblo in 1968.
In 2009, the Korean People's Army finally went through a test of its strength when it engaged in a war with the Allied Nations, South Korea, and China after Choi Song seized power from his father Choi Kim and installed a sinister military regime in the country. The invaders fought against the KPA and drove them out of their major cities and the capital of Pyongyang, but the North Korean commanders went into hiding in remote areas and their soldiers moved quickly through tunnel networks that allowed for them to ambush the Allies with tanks, Sungri Scouts, and troops. Again, China took over the war as it headed to northern North Korea at the Yalu River border, with the Chinese fighting the South Koreans over which nation would take over Korea. The KPA's leaders were hunted down by mercenary Chris Jacobs and brought to justice (either killed or captured), but their forces still engaged in minor skirmishes with the occupiers afterwards.
In 2013, North Korea was reunified with South Korea after Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un made peace efforts with them, and Korea became a strong supernation that combined the north's military might and the south's economic power to become a rising empire. In 2018 it conquered Japan and proceeded to seize all of Southeast Asia and many islands in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean such as the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, and Indonesia, with some joining voluntarily due to the economic stability of the "Greater Korean Republic". However, it earned itself a challenge when it invaded the United States in 2025; they used a GPS satellite to attack the US with an EMP and occupied the western half of the country, but they were pushed back at the Battle of San Francisco on the west coast. The KPA counterattacked and took over Philadelphia on the East Coast and some other areas, but the Philadelphia Uprising succeeded in evicting the Koreans from the region.
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