N Korea's nuclear sub engulfed in a sea of doubt
North Korea's unveiling of its first nuclear-powered submarine marks a bold leap in its military ambitions, but skepticism but its actual capabilities is already floating to the surface.
This month, multiple media sources reported that North Korea has unveiled its first nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN), signaling a significant advancement in its military capabilities amid speculation of Russian assistance.
State media released images of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un inspecting the vessel, which experts estimate to be between 6,000 and 8,000 tons and capable of carrying up to 10 nuclear-loaded missiles.
If operational, the nuclear ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) would enhance North Korea's second-strike capability, allowing it to launch missiles from undetectable underwater positions.
While North Korea has tested submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) since 2016, these were previously launched from a single-tube, 2,000-ton test submarine. The new vessel could alter the strategic balance, particularly if North Korea perfects nuclear propulsion technology.
However, full operational capability may take years, with a possible test launch within two years. The disclosure follows North Korea's intensified rhetoric against US-South Korea military drills and aligns with Kim's long-standing goal to modernize North Korea's naval forces.
The US remains committed to North Korea's denuclearization, while South Korea monitors potential Russian technological transfers that could accelerate North Korea's nuclear submarine ambitions.
As with many of North Korea's military advancements, these claims should be taken with a grain of salt, given the paucity of information about its military and Pyongyang's tendency to exaggerate its capabilities for propaganda purposes.
In a September 2023 article for the Korean Institute for National Reunification (KINU), Hong Min says North Korea may pursue a dual track in building its sea-based nuclear deterrent. According to the writer, North Korea's first line of effort is the construction of nuclear-armed submarines, while its second is building nuclear-powered submarines.
In line with its first line of effort, North Korea unveiled the Hero Kim Kun Ok 'tactical nuclear submarine' in September 2023. According to Beyond Parallel, it is a refurbished Soviet Romeo-class conventional ballistic missile submarine (SSB).
Beyond Parallel says the submarine's unveiling aligns with North Korea's SLBM program, with its newer Pukguksong-3, Pukguksong-4, Pukguksong-5 and an unnamed SLBM unveiled in April 2022 too big to fit its current Gorae-class SSB.
According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), as of August 2024, North Korea had one Gorae-class SSB. NTI notes that the submarine is limited by its reliance on diesel engines and lack of air-independent propulsion (AIP) systems. Its range is capped at 2,778 kilometers—sufficient to hold targets in South Korea and Japan at risk but insufficient to threaten the US mainland.
However, Min says that remodeling Soviet-era submarines, as in the Hero Kim Kun Ok and Gorae-class SSBs' case, could introduce structural and engineering problems, which could take significant time and resources to correct, rendering these efforts impractical for North Korea.
Further, in a 2017 article in the Strategy journal, Oh Soon-Kun mentions that North Korea's Gorae SSBs will face significant command and control challenges and combat service support as they operate further from their home bases. Oh also says that the Gorae SSB, a variant of the Soviet Golf-class SSB, has high noise levels, making it vulnerable to anti-submarine warfare (ASW) operations.
Given those limitations, Oh says North Korea could limit its SSBs to operations close to its shore bases, following a Soviet-style bastion strategy. However, he mentions that the approach limits their deterrent value by precluding forward operations.
Alternatively, he states that North Korea could attempt to infiltrate its SSBs into the Sea of Japan, risking detection and destruction by South Korea, the US, and Japan's ASW capabilities.
As for North Korea's second line of effort, Thomas Newdick mentions in an October 2024 article for The War Zone (TWZ) that nuclear propulsion would give North Korea a credible second-strike capability, ensuring unlimited underwater endurance and possibly reduced acoustic signature.
However, Newdick points out that North Korea's ability to build a nuclear-powered submarine is questionable. He notes that building submarine reactors is challenging to master, given their demanding integration and power generation requirements.
Despite those challenges, in an October 2024 Heritage Foundation report, Robert Peters mentions that North Korea has been seeking nuclear submarine propulsion technology for over a decade, with US officials speculating that Russia may have provided North Korea with such in exchange for supporting its Ukraine war effort with soldiers and materiel.
While Alex Luck notes in TWZ that a North Korean nuclear-powered submarine is not an unexpected development, the technical challenges of building such a submarine are daunting.
Luck says North Korea hasn't developed a suitable reactor design, but it may focus on building 'hybrid' submarines, combining nuclear and conventional propulsion, as seen in the sole 1980s Project 651E Juliett-class cruise missile submarine (SSG).
Including a small auxiliary nuclear reactor in its Romeo and Golf-class retrofits could help North Korea simultaneously achieve its two lines of effort in building an underwater nuclear deterrent. A small auxiliary nuclear reactor could offset the range limitations of North Korea's Hero Kim Kun Ok and Gorae-class SSBs and increase their submerged endurance.
However, taking Project 651E as a precedent, this approach was less than successful, achieving only a sustained speed of six knots underwater for 11,200 kilometers. This poor performance made chemical-based AIP technology, such as fuel cells and lithium-ion batteries, more practical. The Project 651E reactor was disposed of in 2005.
Sukjoon Yoon mentions in an October 2023 article for the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore that North Korea's submarine force will likely depend on quantity over quality to match US and South Korean forces.
According to the US Defense Intelligence Agency's (DIA) 2021 North Korea Military Power report, North Korea has about 70 conventional submarines, but they are of older design and limited endurance.
Yoon argues that since North Korea's nuclear submarine projects seem half-baked, the best response for South Korea is to put diplomatic pressure on the former and Russia. However, he says that South Korea's popular media prefers a military response, noting that the country has already built the sophisticated KSS-III SSB, which could have nuclear propulsion.
Yoon mentions that South Korea's KSS-III submarines could perform an 'anti-exit' strategy against North Korea's SSBs, preventing them from leaving their bases and going out to sea. However, he says that South Korea constructing a nuclear-powered submarine is still a big request for the US.
Cautioning about North Korea's submarine developments, Yoon says that while the country's efforts may be odd and flawed, the Kim regime's determination to acquire weapons that can threaten South Korea, Japan and the US should not be underestimated and should be addressed urgently.
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These attacks, at least those on the battlefield, forced the Russians to change tactics and revert to smaller unit operations that were more survivable, and it certainly slowed down the pace of operations for Russia's army. Conversely, the Russian strategy is to grind down Ukraine's army and, wherever possible, trap them in cauldrons, cutting off their resupply and rotation lines of support. The Russian strategy appears to be unaffected, at least so far, by Ukrainian strikes inside Russia, or by wasteful operations in places such as Kursk, which actually support Russia's military objective. As matters now stand, on the backside of the now-failed Kursk operation, Russia has expanded its operations in Sumy, a Ukrainian province adjacent to Kursk. Sumy offers long-range potential for a land assault on Kyiv, should Russia be able to consolidate its operations in Kursk and further weaken Ukraine's army defenses. In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Press Service, bodies of the killed residents lie on the ground following a Russian missile attack that killed at least civilia civilians in Sumy, Ukraine, Sunday, April 13, 2025. Some Russian mil-bloggers are expressing the view that even if Russia and Ukraine sign some form of 'peace agreement,' guerrilla attacks on Russian territory and on their forces in Ukraine likely will continue for the foreseeable future. One can see in these ruminations the belief that NATO will continue to cause Russia trouble for many years to come, assuming Russia does not take more radical steps to quash them. Examples of how Ukraine is executing its strategy are clear. The attack on Russian air bases is just a part of the process: railroads have been hit, railroad bridges destroyed, and the Kerch Strait bridge was hit by a large explosion on June 3. The Ukrainians also destroyed power stations supporting Kherson and Zaphorize, showing that Russian control is not all that effective. Latest Kerch Bridge Attack Ukraine is also carrying out a record number of assassinations. including Zaur Gurtsiev, 34, a decorated former major, who was blown up in Stavropol in southern Russia. The Ukrainians are exploiting a major Russian weakness, a lack of adequate preparation to protect important assets, including key people, and poor intelligence. Ukraine's advantage is that it is supported by US and European intelligence and technical capabilities, which act as a facilitator and force multiplier for Ukrainian non-conventional operations. In addition, Ukraine has its own drone manufacturing and electronics and software development experts. Before the Russian invasion, Ukrainian software engineers were working for leading companies outside the country. Israeli companies contracted or hired Ukrainian software developers to augment Israel's own formidable capability in this sector. There also are limitations to the Ukrainian strategy. First, while the strategy, especially the use of drones coupled to some battlefield tactics, has given fits to the Russian army, the best that can be said is that it has slowed them down but not stopped them. Meanwhile, the Russians are able to keep heavy pressure on the Ukrainians, making use of long-range missiles, drones, and increasingly FAB bombs (conventional bombs with guidance kits, called UMPK kits, extending their range). Ukraine also has gotten some glide bombs from the US (such as the GBU-39), but the payload is much smaller than those used by the Russians, and the Ukrainians are running out of aircraft that can launch them. GBU-39 is a glide bomb in the 250-pound category, while Russia's glide bomb can carry between 555 pounds. and 3 tons of explosives over 37 miles. FAB-1500 with UMPK glide kit Certainly, the Ukrainians are aware of the vulnerability of their armed forces, especially as they are stretched out over a long line of contact, now expanded with Russian operations in Sumy. Reports say the Russian cauldron battlefield strategy is squeezing off logistical support for Ukrainian units, and their ability to rotate soldiers, meaning that morale is suffering and even well-organized defenses can't be held for very long. An additional problem for Ukraine is securing adequate supplies from Europe and the United States, as well as trained operators for the imported weapons. Europe has slowed down the transfer of weapons, as European planners worry that they have little left for national self-defense. It is unclear whether the US will keep up the pace, since there is growing concern in Washington that the US will not remain competitive in the Pacific – facing China's rising military capabilities – if it continues to strip its stockpiles of critical weapons and munitions. Should the US reduce deliveries of weapons, a distinct possibility for operational reasons, Ukraine's army cannot remain in the field for very long. Ukraine's main problem is internal and political. The current leadership can't acknowledge the surrender of any territory to Russia. It could agree to a ceasefire in place, but the Russians are not ready to grant that. It would leave the Russians with control of some of the territories they have annexed, but not all that they claim, and the possibility that the war might resume again in future. More to the point, the Ukrainians don't want to give up on a relationship with NATO and Europe. Thus, even though uninvited, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he will attend an upcoming major NATO meeting in the Hague. While the US says that Ukrainian membership in NATO is off the table, Kiev is not accepting the US position. Zelensky is currently in Vilnius where he will be attending the Bucharest Nine and Nordic summit, aimed at unifying regional support for Ukraine. (The Bucharest Nine, established in 2015, includes Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.) Volodymyr Zelensky in Vilnius | D. Umbraso / LRT nuotr. We know less about Russia's internal situation. The Russians, so far, have failed to come to grips with Ukraine's unconventional war strategy, nor have they reacted so far either in improving their own security measures or in answering the Ukrainian attacks. How this impacts the current leadership, the Kremlin first of all, Russia's security services, and the Russian army, is simply unknown. Having said that, it is unlikely the Russians will dramatically change their approach to the conduct of the war, or at least so far, there is no evidence of any change. It looks like Ukraine's new strategy will not have more than a marginal effect on the war itself. Stephen Bryen is a special correspondent to Asia Times and former US deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. This article, which originally appeared on his Substack newsletter Weapons and Strategy, is republished with permission.
