The question and answer continues on the Korean peninsula. And it gets more and more dangerous. Between amphibious assault ships, underwater drones and missile systems. This morning, Kim Jong-un’s regime media reported that North Korea has tested a new type of underwater drone for the first time. Similar to the Russian system known as Poseidon, this drone is capable of generating radioactive tsunamis. Launched off the northeastern coast of the country, it sailed at a depth of about 80-150 meters in an oval course in the Sea of Japan for 59 hours and 12 minutes. Eventually it reached a predefined point set up as an enemy dummy port and exploded. The news agency KCNA He explained that the drone’s capabilities are to “stealthily penetrate operational waters and cause a large-scale radioactive tsunami to destroy enemy naval strike groups.”
North Korean media have also published some photos of the launch of the drone, whose operational deployment received the go-ahead from last December’s Workers’ Party Plenum. The launch surprised analysts and observers, given that Russia deployed its Poseidons just a few months ago. Pyongyang was not expected to be able to test such advanced weapons already, so much so that some experts question the veracity of the test.
North Korea had promised an “unprecedented response” to the vast joint exercises still underway between the United States and South Korea. It is no coincidence that the announcement of the launch of the underwater drone comes a day after Washington and Seoul carried out the largest test landing in years, involving an American amphibious assault ship. The USS Makin Island, which arrived in the port of Busan in recent days, will be involved in the exercises until 3 April. About 12 thousand sailors and marines, 30 warships, 70 aircraft and 50 amphibious assault vehicles take part in the maneuvers. An impressive deployment of forces, which Pyongyang has defined as an “invasion test” and which it had anticipated with the launch of four cruise missiles off its eastern coast. Last week, however, an intercontinental ballistic missile was fired in conjunction with the air exercises conducted by the US and South Korea.
The two allies have also responded to Kim’s move this time. In fact, this morning, the US military declared that it had conducted the first training for the deployment of a “remote” launcher of the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile defense system in South Korea. The purchase of this system , concluded in 2017 by the administration of former President Moon Jae-in, had among other things caused a serious diplomatic crisis with China. It is precisely the tension between Beijing and Washington that makes détente on the Korean peninsula very difficult.
Also on Friday 24 March, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol gave a very tough speech against Pyongyang. “North Korea will pay for its reckless provocations,” he said at a memorial service for the 55 sailors killed in the Yellow Sea in 2002 during the Second Battle of Yeongpyeong and in 2010 by a rocket fired from a North Korean submarine. “Our government and military will drastically strengthen South Korea’s three-axis system” (missile defenses, pre-emptive strike systems, and decapitation strike programs against the Pyongyang regime) and “strengthen security cooperation with the United States and Japan”. The times of Kim and Moon holding hands at the DMZ are farther away than ever.