Analysis, Military, Nuclear Weapons

North Korea’s Sea-Based WMD Capability: The Second Leg of the Nuclear Triad

June 20, 2025, by , and
Bloomsbury Publishing (2025)

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.

Read more about the book and order your copy from the publisher here.

This book was made possible by generous support of the Smith Richardson Foundation.


Joseph S. Bermudez Jr. is a Senior Fellow for Imagery Analysis with the iDeas Lab and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Ellen Kim is a former Senior Fellow with the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Victor Cha is the president of the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. He is also the distinguished university professor and professor of government at Georgetown University.