Customer Reviews

North Korean Special Forces (Special Warfare)

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One is hard-pressed to find a well-researched material on North Korea's military forces, though there are some excellent research books written by military officers in "lessons learned" formats. The North Korean special operations force, according to South Korea's Defense White Paper, poses one of the most significant military threat in the region along with P'yongyang's chemical weapons and ballistic missiles. This book traces this formidable force from its inception through the present, revealing a significant facet of North Korea's overall military strategy. Despite the timeliness of this work and the depth of its research from one of the most well-known North Korea specialist, it suffers from somewhat poor readability.

This is an outstanding book for anyone interested in Special Operations. Talk about tough...the NKSF personnel are by far the TOUGHEST Special operations force in the world. This book details their organization, missions, training, doctrine, and mindset. It talks about the "second front" they will persue if war on the Korean peninsula ever happens. From snipers to infiltrators, tunnels to high speed submersibles, this book has it all...A MUST READ!

I had the privilege of interviewing Mr. Bermudez as well as reading this book while researching North Korean Special Forces. The book is highly informative and the author exceptionally knowledgeable. It would be interesting to see the latest information he has gathered considering the present economic/food situations.

At time of printing, NKSF were the best special forces in the world for their set of missions. Other special forces are better suited for different missions and have different resources available to them.

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for reliable background information on the specific topic, as well as anyone interested in the highly ideological and self sacrificial mentality instilled in these people.

I really enjoyed this book. It is really the only book that authoritatively covers this topic. The book's sections on the different SF organizations in the DPRK are based on solid evidence. Some of the information seemed to me to be quite old (from the 60's), but nevertheless is convincing and still relevant considering that the DPRK seems to still operate in many of the same ways.

It is not surprising that some of the rhetoric in the book is right-of-center. For instance, Bermudez (like most other American authors on the DPRK) likes to point out atrocities committed by 'communist' guerillas while ignoring the fact that most atrocities committed during the period of 1945-1953 were committed by the Korean National Police, Army of the Republic of Korea, and right-wing youth groups. He mentions atrocities committed by communists during the Yosu-Sunchon Rebellion, but fails to mention the utter holocaust visited upon the residents of Cheju Island by the Korean Constabulary (Army), KNP, and violent right-wing youth groups; by the way, these forces were transported to the island with US assets and advised by US military advisors in the field. Bermudez doesn't seem to be interested in really addressing what motivated the guerillas of the South, but considering the scope of this book, this is just a minor detail.

Also rather annoying were the frequent and obvious spelling and grammar issues. I don't think there was much of an editing process! Check out page 22 where Bermudez says that communist partisans were to "ferment unrest". I didn't know you COULD "ferment" unrest(!) I believe the word he was looking for was "foment". These issues with his English are frequent enough to be somewhat of an annoyance, but don't really make the book any less interesting.

Talk about tough... The NKSF are probably the best in the world. Although straight on comparison is impossible, they seem to be the best. The encounters with other special forces in 1953 doesn't qualify an objective comparison considering that in 1953 North Korea was very unorganized socially and militarily. Also they were in horrible economical shape with most of it's people starving. Things are kind of different now. Their military traing and organization is upgraded and soldiers are better fed. That would make a tremendous difference. Anyways, the book's great.

This is a very good overview of the North Korean special forces, and is an essential building block for anyone interested in the subject. Drawn mostly from Foreign Broadcast Infornation Service translated documents, it does suffer from a minor, but disturbing, error. My 1998 edition refers to Kim Il-sung's guerrilla clique as the "Kaspen Group", after their area of operations along the North Korean/Manchurian border. The actual place name is "Gapsan" or "Kapsan", depending upon the romanization system, so the clique is the Gapsan or Kapsan group. This error is repeated throughout the book. I would have also liked an explanation as to why North Koreans adopted the term "sniper" for their SF specific units. While everyone agrees that it is an honorific dating back to Kim Il-sung's Soviet 88th Sniper Brigade, the actual Soviet designation for that unit was 88th "Strelnaya" Bde, which had likewise been translated as the 88th Independent Infantry Brigade. I am told that the Soviet term "Strelnaya" (shooter) was used for all Soviet Infantry formations. My notes give the NK term as "Jeo Gyeok", which refers to a team of rifle toting snipers.