MID-le Managers
The Workers’ Party of Korea [WPK] Munitions Industry Department [MID] currently has two senior deputy directors (a/k/a 1st Vice Directors), Kim Jong Sik (Kim Cho’ng-sik) and Hong Sung Mu (Hong Su’ng-mu). Kim was promoted some time between April and May 2024. DPRK state media identified him as a MID deputy director when Kim guided an MLRS test on or around 25 April. When the state funeral committee for Kim Ki Nam was publicized on 8 May Kim was listed after Hong in the call-out order, along with other senior deputy directors.
MID manages the country’s defense industry. It directs and coordinates the activities of the consortia of production units, research institutes, trade corporations and management bodies which comprise North Korea’s defense industry. In coordination and under the oversight of the WPK Central Military Commission [CMC] it formulates and maps out defense acquisitions and systems’ R & D policies. It formulates schedules of missile and engine tests. It assumes authority and guidance over any test, simulation or deployment of all weapons systems in the DPRK. Things like the production-focused Second Economy Commission [SEC], the Nuclear Weapons Institute and National Academy of Defense Sciences are technically subordinate, and report, to MID.
Kim Jong Un inspects a uranium enrichment facility in September 2024. MID Senior Deputy Director Hong Sung Mu is on the right (Photo: KCNA-Yonhap).
Traditionally, WPK Central Committee Departments have a director, one (1) senior deputy director and deputy directors. The only consistent exception to this practice is the Organization Guidance which has between three (3) and four (4) senior deputy directors; it is notable and unusual, then, that in 2024, MID has two.
MID Senior Deputy/1st Vice Directors since 19881988-2001: Pak Song Bong2001-2010: Ju Kyu Chang2010-2014: Jo Chun Ryong2014-2019: Ri Pyong Chol2019-present: Hong Sung Mu2024-present: Kim Jong Sik (concurrent to Hong Sung Mu)
Given the pace of field testing, production and deployment, not to mention probable munitions exports to Russia, we might be tempted to label this as “personnel is policy” and be done with it. However, it might be useful to explore some of the underlying reasons and dynamic of the regime having two MID senior deputy directors.
Hong Sung Mu and Kim Jong Sik are from the technocratic/SME cohort of the North Korean defense industry, Hong is a nuclear engineer and Kim is an aeronautics engineer. They have a combined eight decades of career experience, which consists of extensive institutional memory and vast technical knowledge about North Korea’s weapons. There are certainly inter-generational dynamics with both holding the senior deputy director position. Hong is 82 years old (his career in the DPRK’s nuclear infrastructure precedes the establishment of the Second Economy Commission). According to passport records, Kim Jong Sik was born during the late 1960s putting him in his mid-to-late 50s. Having two senior deputy directors could be tied to a leadership transition at MID–when Hong retires, either at a WPK Central Committee plenum or during the 9th Party Congress in 2024, Kim replaces him and MID reverts back to having one senior deputy director.
Kim Jong Sik (2nd right) participates in a four-way handshake with other senior MID officials in September 2017 (Photo: KCNA).
Kim Jong Sik’s elevation to the senior deputy director position might be ascribed to his August 2024 visit to Russia to attend its defense industry exhibition ARMY-2024. For the purposes of protocol, Kim may have needed the elevated position so he could interact with counterpart officials during the trip. And yet, DPRK political culture has a batch of titles like “Councilor” and “Adviser” that can be bestowed on elites in order for them to attain protocol parity when visiting foreign countries.
The dual senior deputies at MID might be best looked at through organizational analysis and through the perspective of decisionmaking both within MID and among the wider North Korean leadership. Organizational analysis of DPRK institutions examines what the organization does (mission, function, role) and how the organization does it (processes, bureaucratic interfacing, reporting and control lines).
From an organizational perspective, on the domestic side, MID is a hornet’s nest of activity. Since 2022, the DPRK has conducted over 100 missile and WMD-related events including missile tests, engine tests and training exercises. MID has also turned its attention to North Korea’ s conventional military assets. If we accept reporting and analyses that the DPRK is actively shipping munitions and component parts to Russia, this is something the North had not planned for. Whether they are shipping off old supplies or making new products, this is something MID and Central Committee planning never accounted for.
On the foreign/external side, North Korea’s renewal of close relations with Russia has most likely compelled MID to revise its short- and medium-term development and production planning. It guarantees defense industry planners a more reliable and consistent channel to import materials, component parts and/or dual use technologies. This will probably involve migrating some imports from PRC to Russia–the DPRK can structure these transactions to more above board means (defense industry to defense industry) rather than rely on clandestine logistics networks. A more reliable supply of materials and component parts most likely increases the options of what systems MID planners and cadres can test or manufacture and deploy.
View of the patch and personnel of the Missile General Bureau during a February 2023 parade (Photos: KCTV-Yonhap).
MID has also been effected by several changes to organizational processes and relationships. In 2022, the CMC restructured North Korea’s armed forces and its operations planning. This altered the munitions and supply needs of MID’s customers in the KPA. Later in 2022, the DPRK publicized the existence of the Missile Administration (Missile General Bureau). In 2023 and 2024, the personnel and resource footprint of the National Aerospace Technology Administration [NATA] expanded as the DPRK attempted to launch its first reconnaissance satellite. Given the intensity of the defense industry’s activity, DPRK-Russia rapprochement, and policy changes affecting MID’s stakeholders, promoting Kim Jong Sik to work concurrently with Hong Sung Mu means that the top leadership in MID might have required an extra set of hands.
Senior WPK officials deliver floral bouquets to the Kim statues on Mansu Hill on July 8, 2018 including: former Second Economic Committee Chairman Jo Chun Ryong (2nd row, 2nd left), WPK Munitions Industry Department Deputy Director Hong Sung Mu (front row, left), WPK Vice Chairman and Munitions Industry Department Director Thae Jong Su (front row, 2nd left), WPK Munitions Industry Department Deputy Director Yu Jin (2nd row, 2nd left), WPK Munitions Industry Senior Deputy Director Ri Pyong Chol (front row, 2nd right), WPK Munitions Industry Department Deputy Director Kim Jong Sik (2nd row, right) and WPK Munitions Industry Department Deputy Director Hong Yong Chil (front row, right) (Photo: NK Leadership Watch file photo/KCTV).
The final and most likely factor for two MID senior deputy directors is decisionmaking. While one dare not question the single-hearted unity of MID’s leadership or its cadres, the North Korean defense industry (like the KPA it supplies and services) is not a monolith. There are divisions based on regional or professional affiliations, bureaucratic turfwars and differences in opinion on policy. The Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground sits idle in part because the site no longer has any advocates in MID or the North Korean leadership.
Hong Sung Mu and Kim Jong Sik currently serve under MID Director Jo Chun Ryong (Cho Chun-ryong). Jo is a former SEC Chairman and manager. He has a more active directorate than his last three predecessors and holds a bifurcated position as a member of the WPK Secretariat. Jo’s primary function is as KJU’s most senior adviser on defense industry policy and as a director assumes general operational management over MID. In the mechanics of KJU’s decisionmaking style, Jo, Hong and Kim are expected to attain a consensus on policy options before submitting them to the Suryo’ng.
The 9th Party Congress is slated for 2026 which is less than 18 months away, likely drives decisionmaking at MID. A party congress’ agenda is mainly old business (here is where we have been and here is where we are going). Prior to the ninth congress, it would behoove MID and the North Korean defense industry to have some additional “swords of So’ngun” to refer to in the party congress report. MID officials like Jo Chun Ryong, Hong Sung Mu and Kim Jong Sik have to collectively formulate reports and action items on proposed systems tests to submit to KJU for his final decision as to what will be tested.
One of those decisions is whether or not to do the seventh nuclear test. Currently and probably for the next year and a half, in the run-up to the next party congress KJU has his WMD dream team of advisors in Hong, Jo and Kim. If a seventh test happens and Hong Sung Mu retires at the ninth party congress, he will be going out with a bang.
