BERLIN — When North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un visited what state media called an “automated missile factory” in late August, he pranced past endless rows of ballistic missiles, each capable of accurately delivering a nuclear warhead to Seoul with minutes’ notice.

The remarkable success of the hermit regime’s missile program is a direct consequence of Pyongyang’s concerted effort to make up for decades of shortcomings in defense manufacturing processes, according to experts and open-source information.

According to the Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s tightly controlled foreign news outlet, the automated equipment in the factory dealt with “precision processing, measuring and assembling different parts,” included quality control stations, and resulted in “increasing the productivity and ensuring the qualitative character of the products.”

The focus on automated machining that North Korean leadership has preached for the past decade, experts say, has played a key role in allowing the country to develop a missile-based nuclear deterrent much faster than the Soviet Union and the U.S. did during the Cold War, despite Pyongyang being under strict international sanctions.

What’s more, there are indications that the drive for automation is paying dividends for North Korea’s defense industry at large.

“These accelerated and diversified modernization efforts, especially in conjunction with technology transfers from Russia, have the potential to significantly enhance not only North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities but also its conventional military forces,” they assessed.

The sharing of knowledge and technology that could be used for military purposes with North Korea remains illegal under UN rules passed with Moscow’s support.

From lathes to computers

For most of its existence, North Korea’s weapons industry – the “second economy,” as it is often called in domestic parlance – was built on cheap mass labor and support from the Soviet Union. And while at least the former still exists today, it presented a natural upper limit for both the quality and quantity of military production that the country could output.

This started to change in the 2000s under Kim Jong Il, the father of the current leader and also the man who oversaw the development of North Korea’s own nuclear weapons.

Jong Il emphasized the development of computerized machine tools, both for the domestic economy and, crucially, as a money maker in the form of exports. The country, officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, has been chronically cash-strapped for decades, and the situation has been worsened by UN-imposed sanctions in response to its weapons of mass destruction programs.

Unfortunately for the father Kim, the domestic CNC machining industry reached maturity just as the world plunged into the depths of the years-long Great Recession and the financial crisis that began in 2007. He died in 2011.

After Kim Jong Un’s accession to power in 2012, the focus for North Korea’s newfound domestic CNC abilities appears to have shifted from being an export endeavor to being used as a boost for the domestic industry. This shift coincided with a rethinking of the country’s defense doctrine: Instead of relying on 20th-century weapons, Kim Jong Un placed a much heavier emphasis on missiles, strategic deterrence and cutting-edge technology than previous leaders.

Missiles, however, are tough to get right even for the most technologically advanced countries, said John Ford, a research associate at the California-based James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies who studies North Korea and has kept abreast of its propaganda output for years.

Manual production processes were simply too imprecise – and too slow – to build up an effective missile force.

“For something as complex and as explosive as a missile, minor differences in components can lead to rapid unscheduled disassembly … your missile can just blow up because a bolt that’s supposed to be this size is actually slightly too small because your lathe operator has a different idea of what a bolt looks like,” said Ford.

Enter: the CNC machine

CNC tools provide uniform components and better reliability across production cycles. Previously, North Korea had to clandestinely import foreign CNC machines for the most critical components.

By the mid-2010s, North Korea had developed a reliable domestic supply of machine tools, allowing it to systematically upgrade its industry. In 2015, Pyongyang’s Automation Institute at Kim Chaek University of Technology received a fancy new glass and steel building, and the organization began sending consultants around the country to re-skill factories from lathes to CNC machines, according to Ford.

While likely not the sole factor, missile testing success rates have improved in parallel with the automation efforts, and North Korea made big strides toward the ultimate goal of a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile – a target that Kim Jong Un’s team reached in 2023 with the successful test of the Hwasong-18 missile.

“They can make a nuke go up, they can make it go a very long distance, and they can make it come down, and so that’s kind of all you need,” Ford said.

Now, it’s about expanding the arsenal and doing so at scale. The reference to “serial production” in North Korean media coverage of Kim Jong Un’s recent missile factory visit likely plays to this.

An eye on exports

And it likely also is a message to a key foreign audience member: Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has emerged as a major client for North Korean weapons, including missiles, for use in his invasion of Ukraine.

The DPRK’s rockets, including the type Hwasong-11 that Kim Jong Un inspected at the factory on Aug. 31, have rained down on Ukrainian cities and soldiers with devastating results, fired by Russian troops and an increasing number of North Korean soldiers that have been dispatched to assist the Kremlin in its war of aggression.

Most trade with North Korea and all support for its military programs remains internationally prohibited by UN Security Council resolutions that were passed with Russia’s and China’s agreement to curtail Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

However, with the multilateral system in crisis, Russia has begun openly cooperating with North Korea, including in prohibited fields, and China has long been suspected of only selectively enforcing the sanctions against its Korean neighbor.

With the country’s decade-long automation program bearing fruit, and buoyed by a more favorable international environment, there is a new risk that Pyongyang may be successful in sending destabilizing military equipment to indiscriminate buyers abroad.