North Korea News Podcast by NK News

This week, Dr. Vipin Narang joins the NK News podcast to unpack how the U.S. and South Korea are seeking to strengthen extended deterrence against North Korean threats under the joint Nuclear Consultative Group, a platform that he helped develop and lead as a key nuclear policy official under the Biden administration. Narang highlights how North Korea’s rapid nuclear expansion drove the creation of the NCG, which gives Seoul a structured role in deterrence planning, and he warns that the DPRK’s cooperation with Russia could accelerate its efforts to build a more diverse nuclear arsenal featuring both lower-yield short-range systems and land-based ICBMs. The former co-chair of the NCG also weighs in on the dangers of South Korea pursuing indigenous nuclear weapons, stressing that Washington is adapting alliance management to maintain credible deterrence even amid global crises and growing North Korea-China-Russia alignment. Dr. Vipin Narang is an American political scientist who served as the acting assistant secretary of defense for space policy until Aug. 2024, a portfolio that included policy on space and missile defense policy, nuclear deterrence and countering weapons of mass destruction. He also served as co-chair of the NCG. He has since returned to MIT, where he is the Frank Stranton Professor of Nuclear Security and the inaugural director of the Center for Nuclear Security policy.  About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists. NK News subscribers can listen to this and other exclusive episodes from their preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide at nknews.org/private-feed.

This episode of the NK News podcast unpacks the unusual loyalty relays taking place across North Korea, where both children and adults carry letters pledging fealty to Kim Jong Un. NK News Lead Correspondent Shreyas Reddy also discusses new murals of the leader, some of which appear to have replaced longstanding depictions of his father and grandfather, and what this means for his evolving cult of personality The episode then turns to Kim Jong Un’s recent address at the Supreme People’s Assembly, where he reiterated North Korea’s refusal to give up its nuclear weapons while leaving the door open to talks with the U.S. About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insights from our very own journalists.

This week, Stephen Mercado returns to the NK News Podcast to discuss his new book, “Japanese Spy Gear and Special Weapons,” and how Japan’s secretive Noborito Research Institute supported covert operations targeting the DPRK during the Korean War.  Mercado is a former CIA analyst and open source officer who worked for most of his career in the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, later named the Open Source Center and now known as the Open Source Enterprise. He retired in 2017 and first appeared on episode 324 of this podcast. About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists. NK News subscribers can listen to this and other exclusive episodes from their preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide at nknews.org/private-feed.

This week, NK News Correspondent Joon Ha Park joins the podcast to discuss newly revealed DPRK state media footage that appears to blame Russia for North Korean casualties during fighting against Ukraine. He also talks about what President Lee Jae-myung said about the DPRK at a press conference to mark his first 100 days, as well as Pyongyang’s criticism of U.S. military drills with South Korea and Japan that kicked off on Monday. About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insights from our very own journalists.

This week, the NK News podcast explores the New York Times’ recent revelations about a 2019 U.S. Navy SEAL mission on North Korea’s coast. The operation reportedly aimed at installing surveillance equipment but went awry, resulting in the death of unarmed North Koreans and raising escalation risks. Mark Sauter, a former U.S. Army soldier with decades of experience investigating POW/MIA issues and covert operations, joins the podcast to explain what allegedly happened, why it may have gone sideways and how these events echo earlier covert U.S. and South Korean infiltrations stretching back to the Korean War. Sauter is the founder and president of the POW Investigative Project and author of “American Trophies.” He has been investigating American POWs for almost 30 years and previously served as a soldier in the U.S. Army, including as a guard post commander at the Demilitarized Zone. About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists. NK News subscribers can listen to this and other exclusive episodes from their preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide at nknews.org/private-feed.

This week, NK News Senior Analytic Correspondent Colin Zwirko joins the podcast to discuss North Korea’s “static firing test of a high-thrust solid-fuel motor” used in long-range nuclear missiles, a week after Kim Jong Un inspected a new ballistic missile design. The conversation then turns to Kim’s high-profile trip to Beijing, his first in six years, where bilateral meetings with China and Russia underscored tacit support for North Korea’s nuclear program. Zwirko also discusses the upcoming Pyongyang International Trade Fair and the DPRK’s decision to bar Western businesses from participating. About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insights from our very own journalists.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made his appearance at a large-scale multilateral event on Wednesday, standing shoulder to shoulder with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin at China’s Victory Day parade in Beijing. But was this just optics, or did it mark a deeper realignment of global power blocs? NK News Lead Correspondent Shreyas Reddy joins this week’s episode to explore what Kim’s presence revealed about North Korea’s shifting position globally, compare the 2025 parade to previous landmark events and discuss the risks for Kim in playing second fiddle to Xi and Putin. He also discusses why Kim’s daughter — but not his wife — may have joined him for the trip to Beijing.  About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insights from our very own journalists.

In this episode, Go Myong-hyun of Seoul’s Institute for National Security Strategy returns to the podcast to assess the recent summit between South Korean President Lee Jae-myung and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump. He also looks ahead to Kim Jong Un’s expected appearance in Beijing on Sept. 3 for a Victory Day parade marking the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II, where he said he expects optics to dominate over substance. Dr. Go Myong-hyun is the director at the Department of Security Strategy Studies at the Institute for National Security Strategy (INSS). Previously, he worked at the Institute for Security and Development Policy, focusing on hybrid threats in Northeast Asia and international coordination to counter them, and previously served as a senior fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy. About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists. NK News subscribers can listen to this and other exclusive episodes from their preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide at nknews.org/private-feed.

On this episode, scholar Joseph Torigian joins the podcast to discuss his new biography of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s father and Xi senior’s delicate diplomacy with North Korea in the 1980s. Torigian explores Xi Zhongxun’s role in rebuilding ties, navigating the DPRK’s succession politics and nudging Pyongyang toward reform. He also talks about how China and North Korea influenced each other’s policies during this pivotal period, and how those interactions still shape Beijing-Pyongyang relations today.  Joseph Torigian is a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover History Lab, an associate professor at the School of International Service at American University, and a center associate of the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan. He is the author of  “The Party’s Interests Come First” from Stanford University Press. About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists. NK News subscribers can listen to this and other exclusive episodes from their preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide at nknews.org/private-feed.

In this week’s episode, NK News Deputy Managing Editor Alannah Hill breaks down President Lee Jae-myung’s first summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, where Lee appealed for Trump to take on a “peacemaker” role with Pyongyang.  She also discusses the flood of newly released state media footage showing North Korean troops in combat in Russia’s Kursk region, which have provided a rare look at battlefield tactics, drone warfare and how official propaganda is framing the war. About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insights from our very own journalists.

In this episode, Tycho van der Hoog joins the podcast to explore how North Korea forged and sustained ties with African liberation movements and governments during and after the Cold War — connections that continue to shape the country’s activities on the continent today. He shares how his interest in the topic began with a trip to Namibia, where he encountered North Korean-built monuments. He also talks about his years of archival research and fieldwork across Southern Africa and the role of cultural and ideological exchange, including how North Korea used Juche ideology and its own unique aesthetics to build loyalty. Dr. Tycho van der Hoog is assistant professor of international security studies at the Netherlands Defense Academy, and the author of “Comrades Beyond the Cold War,” a new book that traces North Korea’s unexpected ties with postcolonial states in Southern Africa. About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists. NK News subscribers can listen to this and other exclusive episodes from their preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide at nknews.org/private-feed.

NK News Correspondent Jooheon Kim joins the podcast this week to discuss Ahn Hak-sop, a 95-year-old former North Korean soldier and so-called unconverted prisoner of war who is seeking repatriation to the DPRK after decades in the South. He also talks about the controversy surrounding ROK police investigations into defector remittances to relatives in the North, which have focused attention on legal challenges around the transfers and spurred a legislator to address the issue. About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insights from our very own journalists.

On today’s episode, Kornel Chang discusses his new book “A Fractured Liberation: Korea Under U.S. Occupation,” which sheds light on the period from 1945 to 1950 when the country was divided into the North and South. Chang describes how the immediate post-liberation “opening” was more fluid than commonly portrayed, with ordinary Koreans pursuing varied aspirations that did not map neatly onto left-right labels. He also discusses land redistribution in the North in 1946 and the resulting migrations, including elites moving south and left-leaning writers heading north. Kornel Chang is associate professor of History and American Studies and chair of the History Department at Rutgers University-Newark.  About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists. NK News subscribers can listen to this and other exclusive episodes from their preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide at nknews.org/private-feed.

NK News Executive Director Jeongmin Kim joins the podcast to discuss the story of a North Korean defector in her 70s who is under investigation for allegedly leaking the locations of fellow escapees to Pyongyang’s secret police, as well as the daring maritime defection of a North Korean who swam across the Han River estuary. She also talks about the recent decision by South Korea and the U.S. to postpone half of their summertime Ulchi Freedom Shield drills and the latest on the dismantling of propaganda loudspeaker arrays along the inter-Korean border. About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insights from our very own journalists.

On this week’s episode, Maeng Hyo-shim, a young woman who fled North Korea in 2018, joins the podcast to share her experiences of state discrimination, systemic neglect and a violent attack against her disabled mother which led her family to escape the DPRK. Born in Hyesan in 2001, Maeng shares her memories of life growing up under the Kim regime, where people with disabilities were routinely excluded from society and punished for being unable to work in state-run enterprises. She reflects on the hardships her family faced due to her mother’s condition, how her parents met and raised her despite overwhelming odds. Maeng Hyo-shim was born in Hyesan, a city on North Korea’s northern border with China, in the years after the devastating famine of the 1990s. In 2018, she fled North Korea with her parents after a violent incident against her mother who has a disability and the regime’s refusal to deliver justice. She now lives in South Korea and works to raise awareness about human rights issues in North Korea, testifying publicly under her real name — including at the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights in Seoul in June this year. About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists. NK News subscribers can listen to this and other exclusive episodes from their preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide at nknews.org/private-feed.

On this week’s episode, NK News Data Analyst Anton Sokolin unpacks major construction updates on the Russia–DPRK car bridge project near the Tumen River.  He also breaks down the ambitious trilateral initiative to launch historical boat tours connecting China, Russia and North Korea along the same river as well as new direct flights between Moscow and Pyongyang and a Russian military aircraft’s mysterious trip to the DPRK. About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists.

The flurry of summitry in 2018-19 between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in inspired hopes for a breakthrough on resolving a decades-old conflict, only for talks to collapse without any progress on the DPRK nuclear issue. This week, historian John Delury returns to the podcast to revisit that heady time on the Korean Peninsula and explore what Seoul’s new President Lee Jae-myung might do to revive Trump-Kim diplomacy. He explains why Russia-DPRK ties ensure that another round of engagement won’t look like the last and examines how China’s ties with the South impact its approach to the North. He also talks about Kim Jong Un’s desire to be a “developmental dictator,” the potential impact of the U.S. bombing of Iran on efforts to entice Pyongyang to negotiations and why there is no military solution to the North Korea problem. John Delury is a historian of modern China and an expert on U.S.-China relations and Korean Peninsula affairs. The author of “Agents of Subversion,” he previously served as a professor of Chinese studies at Yonsei University in Seoul and most recently taught at the American Academy in Rome, Luiss University and John Cabot University. About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists. NK News subscribers can listen to this and other exclusive episodes from their preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide at nknews.org/private-feed.

North Korea broke its relative silence about the new South Korean administration of Lee Jae-myung on Monday, with the DPRK leader’s sister Kim Yo Jong dismissing the president’s peace overtures and attacking Seoul’s alliance with the U.S. NK News Lead Correspondent Shreyas Reddy joins the podcast to discuss why North Korea’s proverbial “bad cop” suddenly weighed in on inter-Korean ties and what Pyongyang actually wants from Seoul. He also talks about new U.S. sanctions against a DPRK company and three North Koreans for their role in remote IT worker schemes, as well as a surprise visit to Pyongyang by a global baseball chief. About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists.

North Korea’s ruling Kim family has orchestrated not one but two leadership successions during its over seven decades in power, and may well be preparing for a third. But the success of such transitions in authoritarian states is far from certain and depends in large part on how rulers manage the elites that compose their power base, a new book argues. This week, researchers Edward Goldring and Peter Ward join the podcast to discuss their new volume about the tools that the Kim family dictatorship has used to facilitate leadership transitions. They explore how successors must rely on their predecessor’s power base to govern while building their own inner circle of elites, and they explain why autocrats don’t necessarily want to use forceful means like purges to exert control. Ward also talks about a forthcoming paper that digs into the ways in which South Korean society discriminates against North Korean defectors despite a pervasive belief in a Korean ethnic identity, as well as about a second upcoming paper on the factors that make North Koreans more likely to consume ROK media in violation of state censorship laws. Edward Goldring is a lecturer in comparative politics in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne, and Peter Ward is a research fellow at the Sejong Institute in Seoul. They are the co-authors of the new book “Authoritarian Survival and Leadership Succession in North Korea and Beyond” from Cambridge University Press. About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists. NK News subscribers can listen to this and other exclusive episodes from their preferred podcast player by accessing the private podcast feed. For more detailed instructions, please see the step-by-step guide at nknews.org/private-feed.

South Korea’s National Assembly questioned the Lee administration’s nominees for key positions last week, including the ministers of unification, defense, foreign affairs and labor, and North Korea issues ended up playing a prominent role at all of the hearings. NK News Correspondent Joon Ha Park joins the podcast this week to discuss the main takeaways from the hearing, and to explain why the question of whether Pyongyang is the South’s main enemy repeatedly came up. He also talks about unification minister nominee’s claims about North Korea's semiconductor plants and AI ambitions, the labor minister nominee’s grilling over a request to attend Kim Jong Il’s funeral and the defense minister’s plan to carry out OPCON transfer from the U.S. to South Korea. About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists.