When a warship capsized as it was being launched at a North Korean shipyard in May – the debacle watched by Chairman Kim Jong-un – it was easy to miss the main message. North Korea is pursuing its most ambitious naval modernisation project in years.
The capsized ship, righted a few weeks later, was the second Choe Hyon-class destroyer, the country’s biggest ever warship. North Korea aims to build a third destroyer by October 2026, with Kim pledging to deploy two additional Choe Hyon-class destroyers every year.
North Korea has long desired to modernise its navy. However, its past efforts centred on developing nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines. Its conventional naval forces had been largely neglected due to the regime directing resources toward nuclear and missile development as well as the land forces.
The navy still relies on approximately 60 diesel-powered coastal and mini submarines, the majority of which date back to the 1960s and 1970s, while its surface forces comprise only small patrol vessels and corvettes for operations along the coastline, not to project power far from the shore. These vessels have long been considered no match for the South Korean Navy.
Pyongyang has long adopted an asymmetric warfare strategy to compensate for its lack of quality.
Pyongyang began to shift attention to modernising conventional naval forces in the second half of 2023, when Kim warned of the “unstable waters” off the Korean peninsula and demanded a major improvement in, “the modernity and fighting capacity of the navy.”
When Kim visited Vladivostok, he toured a frigate of the Russian Pacific Fleet. North Korea subsequently built a new naval base and expanded existing shipyards to accommodate larger and more sophisticated naval vessels. It launched both the first and the second Choe Hyon-class destroyers in the newly expanded shipyards.
However, North Korea’s naval modernisation program doesn’t make military sense. The country has long adopted an asymmetric warfare strategy to compensate for its lack of quality.
Nuclear-tipped missiles, nuclear-powered submarines, and long-range artillery allow Pyongyang to credibly threaten Seoul’s political survival. The redundancy, hardening, and concealment of those deterrents prevent South Korea from launching a counterforce strike. A sound naval modernisation program should supplement those deterrents.
The Choe Hyon-class destroyers are equipped with a vertical launch system, which can carry tactical ballistic missiles or land attack cruise missiles. But they do not have a role within an asymmetric warfare strategy.
Kim is using the launch of the destroyers – successful or not – to demonstrate his regime’s ability to innovate and to correct its mistakes.
North Korea cannot mass produce and maintain a great number of destroyers (to put things into perspective, South Korea has 13 destroyers). Unlike weapons on land, ships cannot be hidden in mountainous terrain to ensure their survival, or concealed underwater like nuclear-powered submarines. Warships make an easy target, so there is little sense in them carrying nuclear-tipped missiles when North Korea can put them on more survivable platforms.
Then there is the resource drain. North Korea cannot win a naval arms race against its enemies, as the technology-heavy nature of naval warfare benefits the side with more resources at their disposal.
Kim is also calling for a massive upgrade of the country’s main battle tanks. He wants drones and better artillery. North Korea simultaneously modernising the army and the navy will only exacerbate the resource drain because land and sea weapons are not interchangeable.
The new destroyers, however, do make great political sense. Big and modern warships confer national leaders with a great sense of achievement. The North Korean chairman will soon enter his 15th year in the top job, and leaving a legacy that can rival those of his father and grandfather is highly important.
Turning the navy from a coastal to a blue-water force was a task neither his father nor grandfather could accomplish. He is using the launch of the destroyers – successful or not – to demonstrate his regime’s ability to innovate and to correct its mistakes.
The naval modernisation also serves Kim’s ambition to tie defence work to economic development by safeguarding North Korea’s fishing industry and maritime sovereignty. Having the military play a bigger role in economic development is the goal of the Korean Workers’ Party Eighth Party Congress in 2021.
Even so, North Korea will have a long way to go before matching its naval ambitions with its enemies’ capabilities.
This story originally appeared on The Interpreter, published by the Lowy Institute for International Policy.