North Korea said it will preemptively mobilize its forces and “thoroughly punish” countries for provocations, state media stated on Monday, the DPRK’s military foundation day.

“Our People’s Army is an invincible and strong military with powerful war capabilities that can respond to any and all kinds of war,” the Rodong Sinmun newspaper stated in an editorial (sasol) on its front page. It added that North Korea’s army will “preemptively mobilize the most powerful offensive force to thoroughly punish [them] outside the territory of our republic if hostile forces provoke us even just a little bit.”

The editorial hailed North Korea’s recent Oct. 2020 and Jan. 2021 military parades for showing the world that the country’s “combative power soared to the heights of the world’s strongest.”

North Korea revealed a number of new weapons systems during those parades, including the world’s largest road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) as well as twonew submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs).

MILITARY FOR ECONOMY

The Rodong Sinmun also stressed the importance of the military’s role in implementing North Korea’s new five-year economic plan, outlined during its Eighth Party Congress in January.

The military should work with civilians in nationwide construction projects such as rebuilding the mining town of Komdok, which was hit hard by typhoons and flooding this summer, the editorial stated. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un promised to build 25,000 houses there during the Party Congress.

The editorial emphasized that the military should follow the line of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK).

“Revolutionary rules and order to absolutely obey the Party central’s orders should be more strictly established across the entire army,” the editorial stated.