North Korea has shown apparent progress in building a nuclear-powered submarine that the official North Korean news agency said could be tested at sea within months.
The submarine constitutes Kim Jong-Un’s next major military objective. He sees it as an essential element for what he calls “growing military threats” led by the United States. Other key weapons for Kim Jong-Un are solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons, spy satellites and missiles with multiple warheads.
North Korea carried out a series of tests to develop some of these systems and recently unveiled a new naval destroyer, which Kim Jong-Un hailed as an important step in expanding the operational reach and pre-emptive strike capability of the country’s nuclear forces.
If North Korea gets a submarine capable of operating stealthily for extended periods and launching missiles from waterwould be a worrying development for its neighbors, as such launches would be difficult to detect in advance.
Some experts claim that North Korea’s recent alignment with Russia, which includes sending thousands of troops and military equipment to support President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, could have helped him receive crucial technologies in return.
Criticism of the South Korean fleet
During a visit to his submarine, Kim Jong-Un described the neighbor’s project as a “threat” to his country’s security. South Korea build, with the agreement of the United States, a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.
During an inspection to see the progress of the construction of one’s own 8,700-ton nuclear submersible, Kim Jong-Un assured that this plan “will worsen instability in the Korean Peninsula region”, in statements published by the North Korean state agency KCNA.
Pyongyang mulls Seoul’s plans “an offensive act that seriously harms your safety and maritime sovereignty”, as well as “a threat to its security which must be combatted”, according to the agency.
The president thus mentioned the decision of the American authorities to partially lift its restrictions on uranium enrichment in South Korea in order to build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines that will allow it to face the superiority of North Korea in this area.
South Korea has long aspired to develop its own nuclear reactor-powered submersibles, but its main obstacle is legal and technological restrictions stemming primarily from its atomic energy pact with the United States, known as the “123 Agreement,” which prohibits the Asian country from enriching uranium or reprocessing spent nuclear fuel for for purposes other than peaceful and civil.
Since nuclear-powered submarines require highly enriched uranium or nuclear fuel specialized regulated by this agreement, South Korea cannot proceed without explicit approval from Washington or a substantial amendment to the treaty.
Currently only six countries in the world own and operate nuclear-powered submarinesan asset with which Seoul hopes to overturn the current superiority of Pyongyang, which currently has a fleet of around 70 diesel-electric submersibles, almost triple that of its southern neighbor.
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