South Korea’s loudspeakers, used to wage psychological warfare against North Korea, are now facing audits and legal challenges alleging they are too quiet, raising doubts about the extent of their reach into the isolated North. These broadcasts, which include K-pop music and political messages, were resumed on June 9 after being suspended by an inter-Korean agreement in 2018.
The decision to restart the loudspeaker broadcasts came in response to North Korea’s recent campaign of sending balloons filled with trash into South Korea. Despite the high-powered nature of these speakers, capable of reaching more than 12 miles into North Korea, questions persist about their effectiveness in delivering propaganda messages deep into the North.
The current loudspeakers are part of 40 systems purchased in 2016 following a 2015 artillery exchange between the two Koreas over the broadcasts. Designed to project pop music and political messages up to 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) into North Korea, these speakers were intended to reach the city of Kaesong and its nearly 200,000 residents.
However, audits and legal challenges in recent years have claimed that the speakers are too quiet and fail to meet the military’s standards for projecting sound deep into North Korean territory. Audits conducted at the time of purchase revealed that the new speakers did not perform as expected, falling short of the required power levels.
According to former Navy officer Kim Young-su, the speakers passed two out of three initial tests in 2016, but these trials were conducted during early morning or late night hours when sound travels the furthest. Kim, who investigated the issue and reported it to government corruption watchdogs and the police, noted that South Korea rarely operates the speakers during those optimal times to minimize disturbance to nearby South Korean residents.
The issues with the loudspeakers led the Ministry of National Defence to sue the manufacturer, but a court dismissed the case, citing that environmental factors significantly affect performance. Tests conducted in 2017 indicated that the broadcasts were intelligible only up to 7 kilometers, and often only up to 5 kilometers, insufficient to reach Kaesong, according to audits and former navy officer Kim Young-su.
The Ministry of National Defence acknowledged that performance could vary due to factors like temperature, humidity, and terrain but maintained that the loudspeakers were not significantly restricted. Kim Sung-min, a North Korean defector who runs a Seoul-based radio station broadcasting into the North, pointed out that the mountainous border terrain and North Korea’s own loudspeakers further limit the reach of South Korea’s broadcasts.
Despite these limitations, Kim Sung-min emphasized the significant psychological impact of the South Korean broadcasts on North Koreans. He noted that the broadcasts, which include K-pop music and political messages, help instill a yearning for the outside world and challenge the North Korean regime’s propaganda. North Korea’s broadcasts, on the other hand, aim more to suppress and muddle the South’s messages rather than to influence South Korean residents.
Steve Tharp, a retired US Army officer with extensive experience along the border, remarked on the effectiveness of the broadcasts, noting, “We know that the North Koreans find them partly effective because they have spent a lot of time getting them turned off.” Tharp highlighted that the broadcasts provoked a strong reaction from North Korea, indicating that they struck a nerve within the authoritarian regime.
