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| Image of North Korea's first SLBM test |
By 38 North / John Schilling
The footage of North Korea’s latest SLBM test shows the country still has a long way to go to develop this system.
This article was first published at 38 North, a blog of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins SAIS. It is republished with kind permission.
While a reported third test of North Korea’s submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) system in December 2015 now appears to have failed, an examination of the video of the initial stages of this launch, along with commercial satellite imagery of the submarine and support vessels in port two days later, suggests that this test was probably conducted from a submerged barge rather than an actual submarine. The failed launch combined with testing from a barge shows that North Korea still has a long way to go to develop this system. Contrary to some speculation in the media, an initial operational capability of a North Korean ballistic-missile submarine is not expected before 2020.
In May 2015, North Korea announced that they had launched a missile from a submarine, and it appears to have been from a submersible test barge rather than a sub. We later heard rumors that North Korea tried to launch another missile from a submarine, and damaged the submarine instead. The North Koreans, unsurprisingly, said nothing. Late last month, intelligence reports say there was another submarine-launched ballistic missile test. South Korea says it also failed, but the North Koreans claimed success. Clearly, there’s some disinformation somewhere in the mix. The smart money is to look more closely at what we can see — and if it’s the North Koreans showing us pretty pictures, take a close and skeptical look.
North Korea did release a video of the launch, although closer examination of the video itself has revealed inconsistencies that suggest it has been spliced together to show success. But we also have commercial satellite imagery of the Sinpo South Shipyard, and those North Korea can’t fake. So if we take the pictures we can trust, the video that has been edited by people we don’t trust, and the various rumors and leaked intelligence reports, what does it all add up to?
Read the full story at The Diplomat