A look at North Korea’s massive military

TOKYO — With tensions high and the United States and South Korea ready to hold their massive annual war games next week, which North Korea sees as a dress rehearsal for invasion, Pyongyang is warning it will respond to any violations of its territory with “merciless” retaliation, including strikes on Seoul and the U.S. mainland.

“Military First” is the national motto of North Korea, which is ever wary of threats to its ruling regime and still technically at war with Washington and Seoul.

Nuclear-armed and boasting the world’s fourth-largest military, it is persistently seen as the biggest challenge to the security status quo in East Asia, an image it loves to promote and showcased in an elaborate military parade in October.

950,000 troops, 4,200 tanks, 2,200 armored vehicles, 8,600 pieces of field artillery, 5,500 multiple rocket launchers.

NAVY: 60,000 sailors, 430 patrol ships, 260 amphibious landing craft, 20 mine warfare vessels, 70 submarines, 40 support ships.

AIR FORCE:110,000 troops, more than 800 combat aircraft, 300 helicopters, more than 300 transport planes.

The North is not a signatory of the Chemical Weapons Convention, and its troops train to fight in a contaminated environment.