A nuclear-powered submarine carries a small reactor that generates its own electricity, oxygen, and heat, meaning the submarine can stay deep underwater for as long as the food lasts to feed the crew. This submarine can travel faster and farther than a diesel submarine. So, for military planners in the US, ROK, Taiwan, or Japan, this particular submarine poses a grave threat.

Theoretically this underwater vessel (estimated to weight 8,700 tons) can sail across the Pacific Ocean and sit off the coast of California, Taiwan, Japan, anywhere, ready to fire missiles, without anyone knowing it is there. If North Korea has a submarine hidden deep in the ocean, this vessel guarantees that any country attacking North Korea would suffer damage in return.

In September 2023, North Korea launched a submarine named 'Hero Kim Kun Ok'. While that vessel could carry nuclear missiles, it was still powered by diesel engines. ROK anti-submarine systems are designed to locate and track noisy diesel submarines, not quiet nuclear ones like this one pictured below.

North Korean supremo Kim Jong-un continues filling his fat face with food and building expensive WMDs with help from Vladimir Putin while his people starve and his soldiers get uselessly killed fighting in Ukraine.

*** North Korea Tests Long Range Cruise Missiles ***

"North Korea fired long-range strategic cruise missiles into the sea to test the country's nuclear deterrence, days after Kim Jong-un showed off the apparent progress in the construction of his first nuclear-powered submarine.

Sunday's launches were the latest weapons display by North Korea ahead of its planned ruling Workers' Party congress early next year."

Hi Hamburglar

Thanks for posting. That surgeon is a genuine Samaritan. As luck would have it, I was just gifted a National Geographic subscription for Xmas.

The Pyongyang regime is silly to show film of Westerners to their people. The Norks see how healthy and well-dressed the Westerners are compared to them, as well as their South Korean cousins.

More information on the development of this Russian-designed submarine:

"South Korean intelligence has been cautious in its assessments, saying that there is no concrete evidence that a Russian nuclear module has been handed over to Pyongyang.

What North Korea reveals and what it actually deploys operationally are two different things," said Park Won-gon, a professor of North Korean studies at Ewha Womans University.

"Even if Pyongyang received small reactor technology from Russia, it would still take considerable time to realize the technology, and the likelihood that it would function properly remains low."

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