North Korea's Sea-Based WMD Capability

Utilizing the first-ever linguistic analysis of North Korean nuclear doctrine, this definitive study of North Korea’s nuclear ballistic submarine and missile programs fills in important information and intelligence gaps regarding the nation's nuclear capabilities.North Korea’s ongoing development of submarine forces and sea-based ballistic missile capabilities indicates that the country is striving to achieve the second leg of the nuclear triad. If successful, this will present a new national security challenge to the United States by enabling North Korea to boast a survivable nuclear weapons force. This book offers the most definitive study of North Korea’s ballistic missile submarine (SSB), submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), and submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM) programs, filling in important information and intelligence gaps regarding these capabilities, their origins, and sources of technology, as well as the current stage of these programs. This study investigates the strategic doctrine surrounding these programs by employing the first-ever data-scraping linguistic text analysis experiment of 26 years of North Korean statements and documents about their nuclear programs.

Joseph S. Bermudez, Jr. is an internationally recognized analyst, an award-winning author, and a lecturer on North Korean defense and intelligence affairs and ballistic missile development in developing countries.Ellen Kim is deputy director of the Korea Chair at CSIS, where she is also a senior fellow. She focuses on U.S.-Korea relations, North Korea, and countries' responses to U.S.-China strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific.Victor D. Cha is president of the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department and holds the Korea Chair at CSIS. He is also professor of government at Georgetown University.