North Korea’s New SLBM: The Pukguksong-3

Jeffrey Lewis 0:05

You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk Podcast, a podcast on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. I'm Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog, and a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Anne and Aaron are not with us today, but that's fine because we have a special guest, Joseph Dempsey.

Hey, Joe. Hey, Jeffrey. Good to be here again. Joseph Dempsey is a research associate for defense and military analysis at IISS, and longtime listeners will know he is responsible for our multi-barred pod on North Korea's submarine and submarine-launched missile efforts. Ready for some more? Yes. And we're also in some small danger of a BBC dad moment as you have a sleeping child owing to the time differences.

Joseph Dempsey 0:59

I do, yes. I'm recording from home, so it's a bit risky.

Jeffrey 1:04

I consider it no risk at all. I want you to vault us into viral fame with a cute child who interrupts us.

Joseph 1:12

Well, she's already learned some basic submarine identification, so I'm working on her. What does she know? We play Pictionary, and she always knows that Daddy will eventually draw a submarine, and she'll recognize it quite quickly.

Jeffrey 1:27

Outstanding. So North Korea has conducted a test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, which they call the Pukguksong-3. So I thought you and I could have a little chat about it. What we think happened, what we think is going on with that missile, and then more broadly, North Korea's ambitions to send its nuclear weapons to sea. What do you think about that plan?

Joseph 1:50

Sounds like a good plan.

Jeffrey 1:51

Got a lot to cover. You're being so restrained.

Joseph 1:53

Is that you're worried we're going to go into the 45 minutes? Yeah, we started with one big podcast, which we split into two, and then North Korea did some more stuff, so we came back for a third one. So a little bit hesitant about how long this is going to be.

Jeffrey 2:09

So I think we should start with the test. What do you... Well, first of all, where were you when you heard there had been a test and how long before you started to wonder like, oh, hey, maybe this isn't one of the missiles we've seen earlier this year. Maybe this is something new. And in particular, maybe this is the long awaited Pukguksong-3, which we've frankly been waiting for since we saw it on a chart.

Joseph 2:37

We've been waiting for it since our last podcast. Which was over two years ago.

Jeffrey 2:41

Yeah, which is like, what, two years, right?

Joseph 2:43

August 2017. So as with all North Korean tests, I was just about getting ready for bed, and then I see a Yonyap Twitter feed come up on my computer or iPhone, and then I stay up late and see what more we can find out about it. I think it was strange because clearly it was different because it was fired into, quite quickly realised it was fired into Japan's EEZ and it's been quite a few years since we've seen that firing a missile out to sea.

Obviously it took a little bit longer for us to get the trajectory and find out it was a lofted trajectory. Again, that's something they've not done since 2017. So I think it went around 450 kilometres And up 950 kilometers, so quite a lofted trajectory. So already, you know, it's beyond the short-range ballistic missiles they've been testing since May, when they resumed testing, and it's, you know, now it's a medium-range ballistic missile.

Jeffrey 3:39

Yeah, I was a little confused at first, because the Japanese press conference was the first thing I read, and the Japanese reported it was two missiles instead of one, and they gave the launch times as 7.10 in the morning and then 7.17, And then they said that the object fell in there easy at 7.27. And so I actually thought that the flight time had been 10 minutes.

And so they said it was out of Wonsan and it was 10 minutes. And so I was like, well, that's a little long for an SRBM. But on the other hand, Wonsan has traditionally been where they, you know, have tested the short range ballistic missiles. And so then, you know, when it was like, oh, no, no, it was one projectile.

It flew 17 minutes and it went 900 kilometers into space. It was like, oh, that's different.

Joseph 4:33

Yeah, I think this one had a lot of confusion about what was fired. Was it two? Was it one missile? And also, even with the latest Japanese report, it was talking about how it split, which possibly led to some of the confusion.

Jeffrey 4:48

Yeah, I mean, my guess now is, in translation, what got lost is it's a single launch at 7-10 or 7-11, which is what we know from the U.S. intelligence community and the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff. It's probably the case that the split means the first stage fell and then, you know, so there's two stages. Yeah. Which would make, again, a lot of sense because the missile that I am physically looking at in the pictures that the North Koreans have now released is, you know, it has two cable raceways, so it's two stages.

And, you know, I mean, I don't know. It's hard to know how big it is, but to me, you know, it looks a lot like the Pukuk Sung-2. Which we saw in, what, February and then a few months later in 2017? Yes, yeah.

Joseph 5:43

I mean, it's very hard to gauge how big it is. It looks a big missile. It's a big, blunty thing when compared to the one and the two. So it probably looks bigger than it is. You almost think that, you know, I always had kind of a Jaws moment there, Jaws reference moment, like, you're going to need a big boat.

Because it does look bigger, but I don't think it probably is. I think it's very misleading. The question is obviously, you know, Key things, if it is bigger, they'd have to make modifications to the barge, the submerged barge, which we assume it was launched from. And also questions about, you know, could it be launched from the Goree-class submarine, their test bed, or would there be modifications to that as well?

So you'd think logically, if you can do it in the same diameter, you'd probably keep it that way. But it's hard to say at this stage.

Jeffrey 6:33

Yeah, and I think we should... Just for readers who are catching up early on there was some reporting that this had been a test from a barge and then there was some reporting that it was a test from the land the North Koreans have released images that show it was launched from underwater so my working hypothesis at the moment is it was a test from a barge which would be a normal thing to do for a first test of a new missile I will note that those pictures, we ran them through Tungsten, the software we use to look for digital alterations.

They are definitely a lot more altered than images from other tests we've seen.

Joseph 7:16

I mean, that is quite interesting. I guess, as you said, it depends what was, was it kind of, did they hide things? Did they add things? Or was it just sanitizing? What were the changes, I guess, is the interesting thing about this?

Jeffrey 7:28

Yeah, and it's a little hard to tell at this phase because we're still looking. I mean, one thing is it's a really hazy day, and so they may have sharpened things up just to make them a lot prettier.

Joseph 7:41

As you said, it was a hazy day. I mean, I've been spending some time trying to geolocate it and failed, but I understand you guys have had better luck over there.

Jeffrey 7:49

Yes, we are pretty sure we were able to match the terrain visible in the haze and put it in Wonsan Bay. Not far, actually, from the naval base in Wonsan Bay.

Joseph 8:03

And you can kind of understand that given it was in Wonsan Bay, rather than out to sea, why initial reports probably were saying it was a land-based system air launch.

Jeffrey 8:12

I think that's right. I think... The launch was so because it's in the bay and it has to it would really have to fly over the Hodo Peninsula where they do have land where the North Koreans do conduct land based testing. I can absolutely see how if you're a little bit off, you might just infer. Yeah, it's a weird place to do a test right in the middle of the bay.

Joseph 8:34

It is. I mean, Wonsan, as you said, is probably the most, when you look at all the tests, it's probably the most popular place to have a ballistic missile test in the last few years for North Korea. But for this particular program... Can you imagine being on a fishing boat in the bay when that thing took off?

Well, you can actually see some boats in the background in some pictures, i.e. Further in the background than the spectators. So some people got a shock, I'm sure. But it's interesting they moved the SLB test down here because historically the SLB program is around Simpo, which is about 80 kilometers up the coast. And in all the launches they've conducted since 2015, they've only moved the site once, which was to a nearby naval base, some 40 kilometers the other direction.

When they launch it from the actual Goree submarine. So it's quite a task to move the barge 80 kilometers south into Wonsan Bay, and it's quite interesting that they've done all the effort, and Kim apparently was not there, which is his, as far as I'm aware, the first known time he's missed a ballistic missile launch since he's come into power.

Jeffrey 9:41

Yeah, it's very, very curious, you know The news release that the North Koreans did has Kim sending his congratulations. So they say he's not present. But it's done out of Wonsan, and so it would be very easy for him from the Kim compound in Wonsan to see the launch. And North Korea... NK News noticed that they... In one of the images released online, we can see that, you know, in the structure where the test was observed, there's a map laid out with the kind of heavy things that hold down the edge.

And there are cigarettes, a drink, and a cell phone, which... Typically are things we see when Kim is present. Yeah. But we haven't seen Kim do anything since the last, since the artillery rocket test on September 11th. Yeah. So now there is the speculation, did he, did he show up and they just edited him out for some reason?

Did he, I mean, it seems weird to me that they would have set up that whole structure for the people who were there and that like somebody else would be like, Yeah, I mean... It's a strange... I don't know. It's a strange thing. I don't know if he was there or not. And I don't know why they would...

I guess the one reason they wouldn't say, if he was there and they chose not to picture him, the one reason they might dissemble is if there was some health reason that has kept him out of the media.

Joseph 11:26

Possibly. And obviously this is all very speculative. I just think that the setup, both on the observation stand, but also the fact you are dragging a submarine... A submerged test barge, 80 kilometers, more than 80 kilometers, because you'd be hugging the coast, because you're not going to take that out far, possibly with a ballistic missile preloaded in it.

That's quite a lot of effort. I think it was set up for Kim to be there. How far he got into being there is the question mark.

Jeffrey 12:00

Yeah, I agree. There's no reason that you can't make everybody else just schlep up to Sinpo. Hmm. As they have time and time again. Yeah, I agree. Bringing it down to Wonsan, it's very strange. The other interesting thing is, who was there? And he's mentioned in the release, but... We only get a picture of the back of his head and a little glimpse of his shoulder.

Hong Sung-mu, who is the senior party official responsible for North Korea's nuclear weapons, not the missile program.

Joseph 12:47

Yeah, and that is interesting, obviously. I mean, this has always been, the Pucasson program has always been considered nuclear capable. I don't think they use the same language this time around. But when they've talked about Pucasson 1, when they've talked about Pucasson 2, they've always classified it as a Shidic weapon. And given the fact they want to put it at sea, you wouldn't put a conventional weapon at sea like this.

Jeffrey 13:10

Yeah, well, the thing that's interesting to me is I have never seen him at any missile test before. I mean, he may have, and I just missed them. But typically he's not there. And so it's a really interesting indication of the nuclear character of the missile, which I thought was pretty interesting. Hmm. You know, you would know Hong Sung-moo from Greatest Hits, like, here, look at my thermonuclear weapon.

There's that, right, that picture of Kim standing next to the thermonuclear weapon that we've nicknamed the peanut. You know, that's Hong Sung-moo who's showing him the peanuts. But I don't know that I've got other pictures of Hong Song Mu at missile tests. This was, it caught my attention.

Joseph 14:02

I think we'd have to go back and look at them all. I think, I guess, Kim steals the show when he's there, so when we're seeing something, maybe drag the extra in a bit closer to the camera? Who knows?

Jeffrey 14:11

Yeah, well, I mean, I think it really ends up getting down to this question of, like, I mean, so just for listeners, I mean, one of the things we're puzzling over is I don't fully understand the relationship between the Pukuksong-1, which is the submarine-launched solid-fueled missile that they tested first in 2015.

Joseph 14:29

And there's even, sorry, there was even a predecessor to that, which is the Pukuksong-1, which was, as far as we know, liquid-fueled, and then they switched to solid.

Jeffrey 14:38

Although it, you know, that may have been, those pictures, the pictures from that first test are definitely fake. And so, yeah, so, yeah, that's right. So there is a Pukuksong-1 Ancestor that may or may not have ever flown. We really don't know. Right. That, as you say, right, was liquid fueled or was believed to be liquid fueled.

At some point, they shifted to a solid fueled missile, which really becomes the Pukuk Song 1, which we usually think of as being about a meter and a half in diameter. Yeah. The Pukuk Song 2, which we've always thought as a land-based version of the Pukuk Song 1, because it performed about the same, right?

Joseph 15:21

Yeah, I think some of the tests, some of the lofted tests were virtually identical.

Jeffrey 15:25

Right. There's some reason to think it might be actually a little bit bigger. And so we're sort of investigating that possibility. So we're not, I am still not clear on the relationship of those two missiles. And then there's this missile. Right.

Joseph 15:40

Yeah. I mean, the interesting thing is, I mean, there must be the naming convention, at the very least, is interesting. You know, it's not a Hauer song. It's a Puka song. It's like, unless Puka song is named for the large-ish sort of missiles. I assumed it had been a direct... Equivalent. It's also cold-launched, similar in size. Obviously, there were still some differences.

I mean, the actual missile isn't literally the same as they put us on one. They've changed the, you know, the nose cone, which possibly may relate to bigger payload. We're not sure.

Jeffrey 16:12

Yeah, I mean, the whole thing to me is just, I don't know, it's really interesting because this is a nuclear-capable medium-range ballistic missile, and I don't know nearly as much about it as I would like to, which is like, I mean, 10 years ago, this would have been a giant deal, and yet somehow it's lost amidst all the other stuff that they're doing, which is a little bit strange.

Joseph 16:36

There wasn't as many nuclear-capable missiles they were testing 10 years ago. Fair enough. What's one more nuclear-capable missile from North Korea compared to, let's say, almost half a dozen plus now? Oh, it's incredible, right?

Jeffrey 16:55

12, 14, 15. I mean, there are, well, there are now so many solid propellant missiles. I don't know how many of them are going to carry nuclear weapons, but you've got the KN-23, what I guess we're calling the KN-24 and then three Pukuk songs. And, oh, I forgot about the KNO2, which is old and no one cares about it.

So it's just absurd. Well, so that's the missile, right? Which is, I don't know, we're figuring, assuming it demonstrated its full capability, which it may or may not have, we're thinking is sort of, you know, what, around a 1,900 kilometers, 2,000 kilometer range.

Joseph 17:31

Yeah, around those estimates I've seen out there, which, based upon the lofted test.

Jeffrey 17:35

Yeah. So I think David Wright and George Herbert both just simply took the performance we saw and put it on a minimum energy trajectory and then and then projected it out. But then there's the other question of like, what submarine is this thing going to go on?

Joseph 17:49

Yeah, and that's an interesting thing. So in 2014, when this program basically came to light, when they started doing ground-based tests and then the following year, test barge, we also saw what we call the, well, we now call it the Simpoe B, or the Goree-class submarine. And this is an indigenous design, bigger than anything else that North Korea has actually domestically produced themselves.

And it's been quickly quite established that this is an SSB, so a ballistic missile sub, conventionally powered. And they've used it for at least some of the launches. But I think around 2016, 2017, it was quite clear that this is actually just a test boat. It just had one tube, which wasn't necessarily the kind of most efficient use of it, I guess.

And we also got reports there was a successor design in the works. And I think probably Ankit Panda was probably one of the first people who wrote about it in 2017 and called it the Simpoe C, which again was a much bigger boat. They talked about a beam of 10 metres, so beam being the width of the submarine.

I think the Galway was around seven-ish. But either way, 10 metres is considerably bigger than anything that North Korea has ever produced before. So in my mind, when I saw that, there was question marks around, actually, North Korea has the world's largest submarine fleet, and most of it is domestically produced, I should point out. But their industry is very much geared towards producing small midget subs or coastal submarine subs.

Not that capable, not that advanced by modern standards in any sense, but for what they need them for, which is, you know, coastal defence in those shallow waters that they operate in. They're very good, as we unfortunately saw with the sinking of the South Korean corvette by one submarine. They have larger subs, but they're actually built largely from kits from China, which is the Type 33 or the Romeo class.

But producing a large submarine, which what we were told Simpo C would be, in my mind seems very much a stretch. Because it's one thing just creating a big submarine that can go up and down. It's another thing kind of putting the associated capabilities that you would expect from a submarine of that size in performing that role.

So, you know, advanced sonar, propulsion, quieting systems, self-defense weapons, such as torpedoes. So it was always a big stretch. And we don't know quite what happened with Sinpo Sea as we envisioned it.

Jeffrey 20:42

Well, and the reason you're saying that is because in July, Kim Jong-un did go to the shipyard at Sinpo and he walked next to a submarine, which they made a big deal out of. And it looks all to the world like a Romeo, right? And you're the one who identified that.

Joseph 21:00

Yeah. Yeah. It was, you know, I mean, a submarine always looks big when you look at it from below, next to a person. So perspective is all that, but perspective is what kind of made it look much bigger than it probably was. But when you looked at the details of it, and they were very keen, very sensitive at what they showed.

They only showed the lower proportion. They actually, one of the first times North Korea's censored image and pixelated something, which we saw a couple of times after that, but that seems to have stopped. So when we looked at the actual, the whole, we saw some key features which showed it's a very old type of submarine and specifically a Romeo class.

So we looked at the stern, it had two propellers and it's all kind of crucible control plane thing, which you don't see post 1950s, 60s. You looked at the bow, you could see the bulbous sonar sticking underneath again. A very old design distinct to the Romeo, as well as protruding, protruding, protruding, protruding. Thank you. Torpedo tubes, again, distinct from the Romeo.

And what we could see is that they've heavily modified the sail section. It's much wider. It goes further back. And this is where they would have put the, or will put, the SLBM tubes, essentially.

Jeffrey 22:23

So one question I have for you is, you know, When we looked at, and we agree, right? We measured the draft of the submarine because that's really all we could see. And it looked like it had about a five meter draft, which would again be consistent with a Romeo class submarine. But that raises kind of an interesting question about like, if this missile is, Bigger than the Pukuk Song 1, and I actually, you know, I have a suspicion the Pukuk Song 2 is actually bigger than the Pukuk Song 1, but that's for another podcast.

Is this thing going to fit on that? Or are we actually looking at, you know, two different submarines? You know, is there still going to be a Sinpo Sea and there's, you know, A modified Romeo, or do we think the Sinpo-C is going to turn out to be vaporware? I mean, I wouldn't... Of course, we don't know.

We don't know. This is North Korea. How do we think about that problem is, I guess, the real question.

Joseph 23:39

I think for me, as I said, simple C, what we were told, a 10-meter beam submarine, which would be basically entirely indigenously designed and produced, was always a big stretch. And having the resources to do it... Tricky to do it robustly. Romeo makes sense. They have 20 operational Romeos, give or take. And this is an old design.

It was designed in the 1950s by the Soviet Union. China then licensed produced it. And then I think China gave North Korea a few subs in the early 70s. And then they gave them kits. And they were juiced from kits, so all parts supplied, some assembly needed by North Korea. And that was done from the mid-70s to mid-90s.

So they've got a lot of experience in that type of the submarine. And they can maintain them, they can overhaul them themselves, largely, from what we've seen from satellite imagery. The oldest hull, sorry, the youngest hull is 25 years old. So by North Korean standards, it's still got some life in it yet. So it makes sense to use these.

And even though these are, you know, their largest submarines, they are conventional attack submarines and the most capable submarines in a conventional sense. They're probably not really well suited to what North Korea uses submarines for, which is their shallow waters, coastal defence, like they have done in the past. So if anything, these are the subs they actually show.

They tend not to show the smaller subs. They tend to show the big Romeos because they're more impressive. They're the ones you see Kim ride around. They're the ones that turn up to the big drills. But they could possibly, for North Korea, be a bit of a white elephant. They're heavy to maintain. They're probably not as effective in that kind of scenario they would use them for.

So using these and converting these into a new role kind of makes sense. Because if you don't, you do a simple C route, chances are you're probably still going to use the engine from some salvage from Romeo's, you can use a sonar salvage from Romeo's, you can lose a lot of the parts, I imagine. So it kind of makes sense to do this, and it's more achievable.

So it's less ambitious than what we were told it was going to happen, but I think it's actually more realistic and more achievable, and therefore slightly scarier.

Jeffrey 26:06

And so... What do you make of the... One of the other arguments for the fact that there is a... So the two hypotheses are... One hypothesis, we were expecting to build a synpoce, which was like 10 or 11 meters. I want to say diameter, but I guess they're not really circles. So you say beam.

Joseph 26:27

Beam, yeah, which is the widest point.

Jeffrey 26:29

You navel... So one view is that... They've shifted from the larger 11-meter Sinpo Sea to the smaller modified Romeo. And then I guess the other view is that maybe they're building two submarines. So one of the debates involves the circular segments for the Submarine itself that we've seen, which in the yard have been measured at about 10 meters. so one, one argument is if the rings are bigger, then that means there's, there has to be a second submarine that's bigger. but you have a thought about how that might actually be related to a room? Yeah, so as you said, you know, we first saw reports about I think from Ankit's piece, the first time I read about it, which is a 10

Joseph 27:17

10 meter beam, and then a lot of articles on 38 North were coming out about what they were seeing in the shipyard. you know, the rings next to the construction yards or construction halls, and I think the caveat around that, and I think 38 North talked about this was these rings may not actually be the, the rings themselves that would fit into the submarine, but they could be almost like Assembly jigs to fabricate slightly smaller diameters.

So that was that possibility. So yeah, there's two kind of things that, two possible ways you can look at it. One, they started construction of Simpoe C. Where that program is, whether that will see the light of day or whether it's now redundant, I don't know. The main construction hall at Simpoe, we saw inside and there was nothing big on the other side of that hall.

It was empty. I was looking in the background to see if there was any sign of a second submarine, and there was none. Doesn't mean we didn't see it. Doesn't mean it couldn't be hidden to a degree.

Jeffrey 28:20

Yeah, so I have the same question, which is I'm so frustrated. Like, I... It's a 35-meter-wide hall, and... They only show us one half of it, but you do have these like long shots.

Joseph 28:36

Yeah.

Jeffrey 28:37

Where I, I, I, I don't think there's another submarine there, but I can't, I can't be sure.

Joseph 28:43

Yeah. I mean, I. So frustrating. Yeah. I kind of think they may have started it. Or fabricated some parts in the other assembly hall, but I don't think there is a big Simpo C, 10 meter beamed, almost constructed, sitting at Simpo. I'm skeptical about that. How far that program got? I don't know. How far that will get?

I don't know. But what we did see is the Romeo. And one of the possibilities about what we saw, the jigs, Or the rings, was we don't know the extent of the modifications with the Romeo. So we know they've heavily modified the sail. It's much wider. We know the sail goes further back. Which is they've blurred out.

They did blur it out, yeah. And I think looking at it, probably enough space for three SLBM tubes. And I think the South Korean naval official also kind of suggested that as well, that three is the magic number on this. One question that does remain, and this kind of goes into a previous point about the size of the missile, is we don't know how much additional modification they've done.

So, have they gone down into the existing parts of the submarine beyond the sail, which is generally the crew quarters, and taken out a lot of the crew area, including areas where you would store food and stuff, which kind of... Reduces some capacity and endurance. maybe even as far down as the batteries, which again reduces endurance, or you'd have to relocate those somewhere else, or have they fabricated a section to kind of a plug? and if they fabricated a plug, that makes, could possibly saying some of the kind of the jigs and rigs and, and things we've seen outside previously We won't really know until we see the length of the submarine.

So when they launch it, we'll get satellite imagery, and we'll find out if it's... I think the Romeo is 71 meters. So if it's any bigger than that, they've done a bit more work than we thought.

Jeffrey 30:54

Well, and I guess the last thing I should say is, you know, the actual North Korean announcement, they blurred out the sail where we think the missiles would go. And so that's caused us to... Assume that indeed missiles will go there, because they've blurred out a part where missiles might go. But, you know, if we are holding in our mind, you know, we have the two hypotheses, right?

There's the Sinpo Sea has given way to the Romeo, and then there are two parallel programs, and we just don't know the status of the Sinpo Sea. The other possibility, which, you know, we talked about off-pod, but I think we are both baffled by, They have these coastal defense cruise missiles based on the KH-35. Why have they not put these on a submarine?

Or have they and they just haven't told us?

Joseph 31:53

Well, there's lots of possibilities. Sub-launched anti-ship weapons is something I would have expected North Korea to have done or looked into. Particularly when you look at, you know, Iran has looked into it and it has an active program in this with some advances. The Kh-35 is not a sub-launched system. There's no version of it that's a sub-launched mission.

So you wouldn't fire from normal torpedo tubes, you'd have to have special launch tubes. I've never seen evidence that North Korea has gone that route. Why I don't think the Romeo mod is that it's just the specific modifications they made to the sail because they've actually widened it quite considerably to the extent you'd expect them to fit a large caliber tubing consistent with an SLBM.

The fact that they've also widened the walkways around it really just gives you an idea of how wide that sail now is. And the fact you're using the sail is the only way you're probably going to do it unless you're doing a large nuclear submarine. So like the SSBNs that we see in China, UK, Russia, the US, of course.

You're not going to get the depth so that the only place is to go into sail we saw that with you know the gore class submarine and the early soviet the only person who actually really the only other country who's done conventional powered ballistic missile submarines is russia and you can see it in the gulf class as well if you go back to 1960s so it makes perfect sense that this is you know widen the sail they've gone down into the pressure hole How far down?

I don't know. How wide? I don't know, which obviously is a question mark about what they could house in it, and which particular missiles.

Jeffrey 33:49

Okay, so my last question for you is the kind of million dollar question, which is, why put the deterrent to sea? You know, we have seen, you know, obviously the United States and Britain and France, you know, especially Britain and France, which rely almost, I mean, Britain does rely exclusively on a sea-based deterrent. France relies very heavily on one.

That's clearly a decision that those Western countries have made. The Soviets followed by Russians... They did it, but, you know, I think in those countries, a sea-based capability is really a secondary consideration. You know, China has been very late to the game. They're just now putting their deterrent to sea. This is like a... This is a technologically difficult and expensive thing to do.

And if you're really only interested in building the most number of nuclear weapons for the least number of dollars, this ain't it.

Joseph 34:48

And before someone complains, India has also done it as well.

Jeffrey 34:52

Oh, God, yes.

Joseph 34:53

I'm sorry. Yes.

Jeffrey 34:54

Although, I mean, it's one boat and...

Joseph 34:57

Well, technically two boats now. We think, oh yeah, they launched a second. They've launched, I, I, we, I believe they've launched a second one. It's probably, it's not operational. The first submarine is, they've claimed operational. How regular? I wouldn't say it's necessarily a full operational capacity yet. A bit of a question mark around that, but, but they're getting there. So that's the point. But the point is that this is, a, this is a technologically difficult endeavor that costs a lot of money. It is

Jeffrey 35:22

And if your goal is just to nuke the crap out of South Korea and Japan, there are easier ways to do it.

Joseph 35:28

Yeah, I agree. There's a few different factors at play here, and I don't necessarily know the extent of each one. So the most logical one is to say, well, putting your nuclear capability at sea gives it increased survivability. That's why everyone else has done it. And there's logic behind that, of course. You know, submarines, certainly when we look at the SSBNs that other countries operate, they are quiet, they are nuclear, and they can stay on the water for three months without So you're very hard to find because they could be anywhere in the Atlantic or whatever ocean they operate in.

And they're very refined. So they are very survivable. But we're not going to get that with North Korea. We're not going to get the equivalent. And we should kind of really not judge it in the same manner. So these, if we look at the Romeo or whatever the Simpoe C is or whatever capacity they go, these are conventional submarines.

Their technology is not very advanced in this area. Yes, they can build small, very small submarines that are perfect for coastal defence and littoral waters. Bigger stuff and associated capabilities, no. They have no experience in this and little capacity to do so. What I think, let's just say they can choose Romeo mod, it's not going to do long deterrence patrols.

It's not going to be that survivable. However, what they need, logically, is to put the nuclear capacity at sea. It will not go far from territorial waters. It will stay in very challenging littoral waters. And I say challenging because it's very hard for anti-submarine warfare to track things in littoral waters, particularly ones around North Korea. I actually imagine they're just going to stay in territorial waters, to be honest.

And there's other issues around that, which is probably for another part about command and control and whether they would have to send their nuclear weapons to sea or international waters for risk of capture, accident, or even mutiny. That's another story, I'm sure. But these submarines, you know, yes, when they were designed, they could go 7,000 kilometers and stay out for a couple of months.

North Korea doesn't even use them like that. Their typical patrol, historically, for their Romeos, their largest submarines, have been a matter of a couple of days and staying under 100 kilometers from the land. It was in 2017, we actually got a report from US sources that a Romeo had traveled 100 kilometers and stayed out for a week.

And that was rare. That was the one time. It was actually, you know, any other country, that's normal. For North Korea, it's not. So, you know, I think we have to be realistic about how they would use these submarines. They're not going to be sailing over to Hawaii and launching missiles. I would imagine, whatever an immersion capacity is, they're going to be staying very close to territorial waters.

They'll probably go out for a week at a time, maybe. They might push that up, of course. But they're not going to be invulnerable by any sense of the imagination. And they are noisy, although they will stay in challenging, you know, waters that are challenging for other submarines to operate in and find them. But, you know, they're still going to need to surface every few days.

And when they do so, they'll be running on their diesel engines to recharge their batteries. So, you know, it's not a perfect system. You'd also need quite a few to operate them continuously. I think, you know, CASD, Continuous Access to Nuclear Deterrent, the UK has. We have four boats, and that ensures that one is at sea at any one time.

And we've managed to maintain that for, I think... I think 60 years, that sounds a bit high, maybe 50, 60 years. Whatever the system is, it works. But that relies on a boat being able to do a deterrence patrol of two to three months at a time. You're not going to get that if not Korea. So I think it's more of a case that they will deploy...

I don't know what the tempo of deployments will be, but it could be a question that they deploy these at high... At times of high tension. And it would also potentially be a visible sign that they're raising the stakes or escalating them.

Jeffrey 39:59

So, Joe, I'm proud of us.

Joseph 40:00

We have kept it just under 45 minutes. Well, the other thing I should point out is there is an element potentially of prestige around this. North Korea likes to be ambitious. So the fact that, you know, the U.S. has them, particularly the U.S. has them, it may be a matter of national pride. It may be potentially an overambitious program.

It's interesting. Obviously, it's called Pukesong. Well, the whole series is called Pucasson, and this kind of loosely translates to North Star, Polaris, and Polaris was the first US SLBM program. So, you know, parallels in name and ambition, it may kind of play off around that a little bit as well.

Jeffrey 40:41

Well, maybe that's the image to leave us with, which is Kim Jong-un... On a Romeo-class submarine with a couple of missiles in the back, sailing, and next to him is Donald Trump, his red tie flapping in the wind, the ocean spray messing up that crazy hair. The two of them together riding off in the sunset to do a missile test.

Joseph 41:08

It's a haunting image you paint. Ha ha ha! And one thing I would, one other little point I would say is that this program, it came to light in 2014. So the ambitions obviously a lot before then, but the program came to light in 2014 in its initial term. That predates a lot of advances that we have seen in their ground-based nuclear forces.

And all their ground-based nuclear forces are road mobile. So they've already put a degree of survivability into their ground-based forces. And even when you look at, say, Pucasson 2, the land-based version of Pucasson 1, that's actually track-based, meaning it can go off-road. So, you know, it's questionable about... The advances they've made since then and the survivability of those systems and how they might deploy those versus this potentially, theoretically more survivable system.

And I don't know if it actually is worth the investment they seem to be putting in.

Jeffrey 42:04

But it's fun for us that they are.

Joseph 42:06

Well, I mean, I like submarines. So, you know, I'm happy with this. It gives me something to look at.

Jeffrey 42:11

It's one more submarine for your daughter to learn to identify.

Joseph 42:13

It is. And it gets me back on the podcast. So, you know, I can't complain.

Jeffrey 42:17

I think we could all agree with that. Well, it's been an absolute joy to have you with us. Thanks for joining us.

Joseph 42:22

Good to be back on, Jeffrey. Thank you.

Jeffrey 42:24

And if you like the podcast, remember you can support us by becoming a patron. Go to www.patreon.com slash ACW podcast for $5 a month, $3 if you're a student. You get access to our Slack channel and our mini pod called Brilliant Pebbles. So again, Joe, thanks for joining me. Thank you. And thank you for listening.