When we think of North Korea’s nuclear weapons, most people probably picture ballistic missiles launched from land. But North Korea’s nuclear capabilities may no longer be confined to land.
On Sept. 6, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attended the commissioning ceremony of the country’s new 5,000-ton destroyer, the Kang Kon, in Wonsan. North Korea did not present the ship as simply another naval vessel. Kim said the destroyer would form part of the country’s national nuclear response system and emphasized its ability to deliver devastating retaliatory strikes against an enemy.
This represents more than the modernization of the North Korean navy. It signals that North Korea is expanding the arena in which it intends to exercise nuclear deterrence: the sea.
The Kang Kon is the second new destroyer commissioned by North Korea this year. In June, the country commissioned the Choe Hyon, a vessel of the same class. The Kang Kon is being assigned to the Eastern Fleet, facing the waters where North Korea encounters the naval forces of the United States, South Korea, and Japan.
The location may not be incidental.
By deploying a destroyer that Kim has described as part of the nuclear response system, Pyongyang may be signaling its intention to extend nuclear deterrence into the waters surrounding the Korean Peninsula.
One point, however, must be made clear.
There is no confirmed evidence that North Korea has actually placed a nuclear warhead aboard the Kang Kon. Pyongyang has not publicly specified what nuclear weapons, if any, would be deployed on the vessel. But that may not be the most important issue.
What matters is that Kim has explicitly described the ship as part of North Korea’s nuclear response system.
Whether the ship currently carries a nuclear weapon is one question. North Korea’s declared intention to make naval forces part of its nuclear strategy is another.
That distinction matters.
Land-based missiles have launch sites and movement patterns that can be monitored to some degree. Naval forces, by contrast, operate across a much larger area. If combined with submarines, maritime nuclear capabilities could further increase the survivability and possible surprise of a nuclear force.
This may help explain why Kim has placed increasing emphasis on naval modernization.
Kim has already called for the development of a nuclear-armed navy and has pursued naval modernization that includes the development of a nuclear-powered submarine. He has also indicated that Pyongyang will unveil further plans for strengthening its naval forces in the future.
So, what comes next?
It would be difficult to assume that North Korea’s naval expansion will stop with a few new destroyers.
If Pyongyang succeeds in extending its nuclear response system from surface vessels to submarines, the nuclear deterrence environment on the Korean Peninsula could become even more complicated.
More importantly, North Korea’s approach to nuclear weapons itself appears to be changing.
Nuclear weapons are no longer being presented simply as a last resort in the event of war. Pyongyang is increasingly seeking to integrate nuclear capabilities with different military platforms, using them to deter the U.S., South Korea, and Japan from taking military action.
From land-based missiles to naval forces.
And eventually, perhaps, to underwater platforms.
If that happens, monitoring and responding to North Korea’s nuclear capabilities will become considerably more difficult.
South Korea and the U.S. may no longer be able to focus primarily on signs of missile launches. Naval vessels, submarines, naval bases, and movements at sea will increasingly need to be considered as part of the nuclear deterrence equation.
For years, North Korea has emphasized one basic fact: It is a nuclear-armed state.
What we are seeing now may be the next stage.
The question is no longer simply how many nuclear weapons North Korea possesses, but where it can deploy them.
If North Korea’s nuclear forces remain primarily land-based, the nuclear threat on the Korean Peninsula has a relatively identifiable shape. But once nuclear capabilities move toward the sea, that picture changes.
What Kim displayed at the commissioning ceremony of the Kang Kon may, therefore, have been more than a single warship. It may have been a glimpse of the next direction of North Korea’s nuclear strategy.
STOP OBSESSING OVER KIM JONG UN’S DAUGHTER — HE DOESN’T NEED AN HEIR
North Korea’s nuclear weapons are going to sea.
And the next question is what Pyongyang will show us there.
Park Joonhye is a research fellow at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies, Kyungnam University. She received her master’s and Ph.D. in politics and unification studies from the University of North Korean Studies.