North Korea Submarine Missing and Presumed Sunk at Sea According to various media sources, a North Korean submarine is missing and presumed sunk. This comes at a time when the United States and South Korea are involved in the largest joint military exercises ever conducted between the two countries, with tensions on the Peninsula that are already strained.
Several days before its disappearance, the submarine, a 70-ton Yugo class vessel, had been cruised off the coast of North Korea. The Yugo class submarine is outdated and reportedly in use by North Korea for spy missions, onboard which there would be a crew of about eight. Added to this, the submarines are easy to break down mechanically because they are aged and are under the hobbling economic constraints of North Korea, a South Korean military insider said to the Yonhap news agency in an interview.
The U.S. Navy also conducted surveillance on the submarine as it disappeared, the U.S. Naval Institute reports. U.S. military assets also observed the North Korean navy operating in a search pattern, CNN has learned. The search area includes large-scale US and South Korean combined exercises now taking place in and around the Korean Peninsula.
The incident follows closely on the heels of preparations in North Korea for a large-scale military parade in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the ruling Workers Party. Commentators feel that North Korea could well make the “new strategic weapon” flagged by leader Kim Jong Un happen. Satellite photos captured troops rehearsing for the parade and construction of a VIP viewing area in Damascus Square.
Sue Mi Terry—a senior fellow at CSIS—stressed, “There is a very complicated and fragile domestic situation in North Korea,” as a result of economic sanctions, border lockdowns with China due to COVID-19, and recent natural disasters. “And that is why it’s doubly more important for it to show strength and defiance, domestically and internationally,” she said.
No wonder, then, there is very much speculation over what the new strategic weapon could be. For some, like the CSIS, it might be a new advanced submarine-launched Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM), given there has been increased activity at the Sinpo South Shipyard, where North Korea builds its submarines. South Korea’s Joint Chief of Staff Chairman Won In-choul noted that North Korea has been repairing typhoon damage there and might be conducting an SLBM test soon.
Other analysts, however, say it’s unlikely an SLBM was the new strategic weapon Kim Jong Un alluded to earlier this year. Two former U.S. intelligence officers—noted arms control consultant Markus Garlauskas and Bruce Perry—posited that a more consequential development would be a large road-mobile ballistic missile that can carry multiple re-entry vehicles, complicating U.S. missile defenses.
Into this Tock-scape bolted an American soldier, Private 2nd Class Travis King, across the heavily armed border into North Korea. King had recently served close to two months in a South Korean prison on charges of assault and was being sent back to the United States for further disciplinary action. Instead of boarding his flight home, King joined a tour of Panmunjom, the Korean border village frequented by tourists, and then, dramatically, bolted across the border.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that King, in all likelihood, is in North Korean custody and that the authorities are following the situation very closely. The incident marks an extraordinary heightening of tensions in the already simmering region strained by North Korea’s recent missile tests and the presence of a nuclear-armed U.S. submarine in South Korean waters for the first time in four decades.
The world would remain watching and speculating on the developing situation, awaiting North Korea’s next move.