North Korea inaugurates a new “tactical nuclear submarine”. South Korea sharply condemns this and experts doubt the effectiveness of the fleet.
North Korea says it has inaugurated a new “tactical nuclear submarine”. Ruler Kim Jong-un oversaw the unveiling of the new submarine on Wednesday, describing it as part of a “push towards future nuclear-armed naval forces,” the KCNA news agency reported on Friday. The launch of submarine No. 841 heralds a new chapter in strengthening the country’s naval forces, KCNA further reported.
During the submarine’s inauguration ceremony, which also featured balloons and confetti, Kim announced a plan to “continuously improve the modernity of the submarine and surface forces and advance the Navy’s nuclear armament (…)”, according to KCNA. . On Thursday, the submarine was prepared for a test drive.
Experts point to the age of the submarine fleet
According to the US-based Nuclear Threat Initiative think tank, North Korea has between 64 and 86 submarines, making it one of the largest submarine fleets in the world. Given the age of the boats, however, experts doubt that they are all operational.
According to Joseph Dempsey, a researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, submarine No. 841 is not a new ship. “This is the same – albeit heavily modified – submarine that North Korea showed us in July 2019,” Dempsey wrote on the online service X, formerly Twitter. Despite a new missile chamber and a more modern exterior design, the ship is “at its core an outdated Romeo-class diesel-electric boat, originally designed in the 1950s,” he said.
“Pointless Weapon Development”
South Korea condemned the launch. North Korea is wasting its “scarce resources on pointless weapons development” instead of looking after its own people, a spokesman for the unification ministry in Seoul said. Pyongyang must recognize that its weapons programs and threats “merely endanger its own security” given the ever-increasing cooperation between South Korea, the United States and Japan.
North Korea’s ruler Kim has repeatedly threatened a military escalation in the region and has announced that he will expand his own nuclear arsenal “exponentially”. Washington and Seoul have therefore been warning for months that North Korea could carry out a nuclear weapons test in the near future. It would be the first such test since 2017.
