North Korea said Friday that its first submarine capable of launching nuclear missiles was now operational in a development that would give the country a new, harder-to-detect means of launching a nuclear strike.
The new “tactical nuclear attack submarine,” a remodelled Soviet-era vessel equipped with multiple launching tubes, was unveiled in a ceremony on Wednesday, state media reported. In a speech, Kim Jong-un, the North’s leader, vowed to similarly convert more of its existing submarine fleet, calling it “an urgent task of the times” to “arm the navy with nuclear weapons”.
But South Korea’s military expressed scepticism about the submarine Friday, saying that it “doesn’t look capable of normal operation” and that there were signs of “deception and exaggeration” in the North’s report.
The United States and its allies have been closely watching the North’s attempts to develop a sub that could launch nuclear and other ballistic missiles. The capabilities of the one introduced this week, originally a Romeo-class Soviet submarine, are unknown; there is no evidence that North Korea has test-launched a missile from the vessel.
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Photos released Friday with the state media report show that the submarine has 10 vertical missile launch tubes of two different sizes, said Yang Uk, a weapons expert at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul. It has an “abnormally large” missile launch deck for its size, as if the North wanted to show off its nuclear force, Mr Yang said.
That structure “will limit the submarine’s underwater stealthiness and maneuverability,” he added. “Still, the design reflects Kim Jong-un’s policy of increasing his nuclear force ‘exponentially.’”
The submarine is powered by a diesel engine. That means that, unlike a nuclear-powered submarine, it would have to resurface frequently during a long-distance trip, like crossing the Pacific. For a distant adversary like the United States, that makes it more detectable, and less of a threat, than a nuclear-powered sub.
Nevertheless, it could potentially pose a new threat to the North’s regional adversaries, South Korea and Japan.
The new submarine – named Hero Kim Kun Ok, after a naval officer who fought in the Korean War – was unveiled days ahead of the 75th anniversary of the North’s founding, on Saturday. North Korea often celebrates its big holidays by staging a military parade or unveiling or testing new weapons.
Last month, the country tried to failed for a second time to put its first military reconnaissance satellite into orbit, a launch that analysts speculated was timed to generate propaganda for the Saturday holiday.
North Korea has dozens of small, diesel-powered submarines equipped with torpedoes, but before this week none had been capable of launching a ballistic missile. Since 2015, the North has been testing ballistic missiles designed for submarines, launching them from a submerged barge or a Soviet-era sub remodelled as an underwater test platform, with a single launch tube.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.