Why North Korea Is Building Drones

North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, watched attack drones crash into cars and tanks this week, creating balls of flame. Then, according to state media reports on Friday, he ordered mass production of drones like them, which are becoming an increasingly important addition to the North’s growing arsenal.

Mr. Kim has been focused on compensating for the largely decrepit state of his military’s conventional weapons. He has added a​n array of new weapons​, including nuclear-capable ballistic missiles​, hypersonic missiles and underwater attack drones.​ One of Mr. Kim​’s main takeaways from the war between Russia and Ukraine, in which North Korean troops are now fighting on Russia’s side, ​has been the importance of drones in modern warfare, ​military analysts said.

To North Korea, which has suffer​ed from chronic shortages of fuel and spare parts for its armed forces, low-cost weapons like drones​ are especially attractive, the analysts said.

During military parades in Pyongyang​, the North Korean capital, in recent years, Mr. Kim has shown off various reconnaissance and attack drones ​that military experts said resembled Chinese and American drone models ​in appearance, if not technology.

“The military authorities in the world will probably recognize that the drones are achieving clear successes in big and small conflicts,” Mr. Kim ​said on Thursday while visiting the North’s Unmanned Aerial Technology Complex, where he watched the drone exercises, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

Drones have become “an essential requirement” ​because of “their ever-expanding range of use in military activities, low production cost and simple production lines,” Mr. Kim was quoted as saying.