North Korea's Sea-Based WMD Capability

Utilising the first-ever linguistic analysis of North Korean nuclear doctrine, this definitive study of North Korea's nuclear ballistic submarine and missile programmes 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.

North Korea's Sea-Based WMD Capability offers the most definitive study of North Korea's ballistic missile submarine (SSB), submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), and submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM) programmes. It fills in important information and intelligence gaps regarding these capabilities, their origins, and sources of technology, as well as the current stage of these programmes.

This study investigates the strategic doctrine surrounding these programmes by employing the first-ever data-scraping linguistic text analysis experiment of 26 years of North Korean statements and documents about their nuclear programmes.