For the fourth time in five years, North Korea has opened a major defense expo showcasing the country’s latest weapons innovations, offering a cornucopia of details about the accelerating rate of military developments.

The “Military Hardware Exhibition Defence Development-2025” follows similar events in 2021, 2023 and 2024, and their frequency is largely in lockstep with the much older tradition of military parades, with another parade expected to mark the 80th anniversary of the Workers' Party of Korea later this week.

The sheer volume of weapons systems on display this year is striking, even when limiting analysis to