North Korea and South Korea unveiled major military initiatives within hours of each other on Friday, laying bare the accelerating arms race on the divided peninsula. Pyongyang’s state media reported that leader Kim Jong Un had overseen tests of an upgraded 240 mm multiple rocket launcher, a tactical ballistic missile warhead and extended-range 155 mm shells, while Seoul’s defence ministry announced a plan to train all 500,000 service personnel as “drone warriors” and to acquire more than 20,000 low-cost loitering munitions by 2030. The North’s tests, conducted on the anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War, were described by KCNA as demonstrating progress in automation, range and precision, with the rocket system’s reach extended to 90 km — sufficient to strike parts of the Seoul metropolitan area from positions near the inter-Korean border.

According to the official Korean Central News Agency, Kim stated that the country’s defence policy aims not only to strengthen defensive capabilities but to build a “deadly and destructive offensive posture” that leaves enemies in “constant uneasiness and fear.” The special-mission warhead tested is designed, KCNA said, to inflict fatal damage on airfields, ports and power facilities. Analysts in Seoul note that the language and the choice of targets signal a continued focus on holding South Korean and US military infrastructure at risk. The tests form part of a five-year modernisation plan that has seen Pyongyang unveil new solid-fuelled intercontinental ballistic missiles and, earlier this week, commission its first 5,000-ton destroyer, the Choe Hyon.

South Korea’s drone initiative, outlined by Defence Minister Ahn Gyu-back, frames unmanned systems as a “second personal weapon” for every soldier. The ministry said it would procure 11,000 commercial drones for training by the end of the year, scale up to 60,000 by 2029, and fast-track a domestically produced long-range loitering munition, the K-Lucas, derived from the US Lucas system that itself draws on Iran’s Shahed-136 design. Ahn cited the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East as evidence that massed, low-cost drones are “fundamentally changing the nature of warfare.” Seoul also plans to expand counter-drone systems, including laser and high-power microwave weapons, and to restructure drone operations away from a centralised command after a court this month sentenced former president Yoon Suk Yeol to 30 years for ordering a drone incursion into the North in 2024.

Viewed from Washington, the twin announcements arrive as the Trump administration has signalled renewed attention to the peninsula, with President Trump telling South Korean President Lee Jae Myung at a G7 summit that it was time to “pay attention to the North Korea issue.” Pyongyang has rebuffed US overtures, insisting that denuclearisation cannot be a precondition for talks. Meanwhile, North Korea’s deepening military cooperation with Russia — including the deployment of thousands of troops to Ukraine — has, according to Western intelligence assessments, given its forces direct exposure to large-scale drone warfare and access to battlefield data that would otherwise have taken years to develop. The two Koreas remain technically at war, with no peace treaty signed since the 1953 armistice, and the Demilitarised Zone remains one of the world’s most heavily fortified borders. Further weapons tests and drone deployments are expected as both sides implement their respective five-year defence plans.