On the day of the Baekdusan’s launch, the pierside static display of light aircraft that would operate from her decks also commanded attention, with the ranks of their future pilots assembled alongside in full Nomex suits and oddly shaped augmented reality flight helmets. The two delta wing fighters, a supposedly navalized variant of the country’s indigenously developed “next generation pursuit assault plane,” had been observed through overhead commercial imagery for years. It was still unclear if the North Korean aircraft industry had produced more than a dozen airframes – nearly half of which had already been lost to mishaps during development.

One of these mishaps had claimed the third aircraft previously intended for display, where the platform was lost during the long road movement from the airstrip at Iwon down to the port in the weeks before the ceremony. Handheld imagery of the mishap had circulated among the country’s elites-only StarMesh social media network, where in virtue signaling posts they condemned the heavy transport truck driver for careless driving. It had just as quickly been censored – but not before being picked up and reported to the world by a sharp-eyed Chinese defense blogger.

The obvious gap in the display arrangement had been hastily filled with a Kimchaek unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV). While manned flight operations were still considered the prestige assignment, it was the dark composite of the cranked kite design that brought the Baekdusan its truly operational airwing. A nearly direct two-thirds scale copy of the CASIC CaiHong-7, the stealth platform had been a revolutionary development for DPRK strike capabilities despite its quintessentially 2020s vintage design.¹⁶ When fitted with beyond visual range air-to-air missiles, the UCAV could also serve in the combat air patrol (CAP) role, as a pair of Republic of Korea (ROK) KF-X fighters found to their surprise when ambushed near the Northern Limit Line a few years ago. Named for the former Korean People’s Army Air and Anti-Air Force Academy, the Kimchaek UCAV’s resemblance to the Northrup Grumman X-47B demonstrator was a constant reminder of the path not taken by the U.S. Navy. The Kimchaek fighters were also fitted for delivery of autonomous standoff naval mines, using a bolt-on kit of Chinese origin for glide, underwater propulsion, fusing and guidance that could be fitted to low-cost conventional gravity bombs that themselves were well within North Korean production capacities. This too incorporated stolen designs that could be originally traced to cyber espionage against the defense industrial base conducted by Chinese Ministry of State Security operations known as APT40, Periscope, KRYPTONITE PANDA, or GADOLINIUM.¹⁷

Implications and Outlook

Baekdusan is in many ways a counter-intuitive platform to Western eyes. The KPN still does not appear to have a genuine strategic requirement for the kind of force projection options that are the traditional role of a carrier or expeditionary strike group. However, to a dictator the investment could be justified solely on its basis as a prestige capability – to say nothing of the propaganda value in continued demonstration to domestic audiences of the Jucheideology of self-reliance. It mirrored the accomplishments of their larger neighbor in acquiring and fielding a modified CV, much as the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy managed to convert their purchase of the Varyag heavy aviation cruiser (TAKR) into the fleet’s first carrier, Liaoning.¹⁸ But this is likely not the whole story, suggesting both wider ambitions and a new strategic depth to the regime’s ultimate priority: the survival and continued rule of the Kim dynasty.

The Gorae SSB and its successors remain a key linchpin of this priority. These submarines continue to represent a significant wildcard in any potential strategic exchange – despite the relative obsolescence of their design, terrible acoustic profile, and frequent maintenance casualties.¹⁹ Even as advances in Western intelligence capabilities, prompt conventional strike options, and other left-of-launch methods increasingly threaten the DPRK mobile missile force, the ability of the Korean People’s Navy to sustain a sea-based second strike delivery platform presents an unknowable challenge to deterrence. This challenge becomes especially salient in the case of an ROK attempt at leadership decapitation, whether due to Pyongyang’s feared bolt out of the blue or Seoul’s anticipated crisis escalation scenarios.

The Baekdusan fast carrier (CVL), or drone carrier (CVLQ) as some would prefer to argue, may instead represent a substantial further investment to protect the Gorae SSB as a second strike retaliation capability, drawing upon older Soviet naval doctrine developed when facing similar correlations of forces and qualitative disadvantages. The bastion model of patrol within confined seas, where access may be controlled via strategic chokepoints or sea denial, may have unexpectedly re-emerged in part as a function of the new time and distance equations that bound the contemporary weapons engagement zone. In this, the DPRK may also be mimicking emerging thinking observed over recurring deployments of the PLAN SSBN force.²⁰ A North Korean carrier provides the option, at least as a matter of doctrine, to delay regional or international naval intervention in order to buy necessary operating space for the survival of the Gorae and her sister boats.

It still remains to be seen if this costly and audacious program will be nothing more than a white elephant. Certainly, the debate is far from finished regarding the limited survivability of a large surface platform like a carrier in the face of contemporary precision guided munitions fires, especially given ever-increasing ranges, loiter times, sensor integration, and autonomy. The remarkable accomplishment of the Baekdusan may be merely reduced to the first flaming datum in a future peninsular conflict.

Still, one cannot help but reflect on what might have been different. The combination of factors that had to line up “just-so” for this carrier to be built was the result of remarkable North Korean tenacity, and no small degree of luck. So many opportunities existed where intervention could have halted Pyongyang’s progress, starting from the earliest cyber espionage campaigns against defense industrial base contractors. But very much like the reaction to early Chinese forays toward a blue water navy in the 1990s, serious people would not take the idea seriously. After all, everyone knew the immense hurdles of building a naval aviation warfare community to operate from a narrow deck at sea. This simply could not be achieved using a rusting hulk headed to the shipbreakers, by the kinds of people more at home in a casino than in a banker’s office or a uniform. Likewise, conventional wisdom demands that serious naval strategists focus on power projection in the open ocean, unencumbered by the distractions of littoral operations in close and confined seas.

But what if they were wrong?

JD Work serves as the Bren Chair for Cyber Conflict and Security at Marine Corps University, and as a non-resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative. He holds additional affiliations with the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, the Elliot School of International Affairs at George Washington University, and as a senior adviser to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission. He can be found on Twitter @HostileSpectrum. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any agency of the U.S. government or other organization.

This article by JD Work first appeared at the Center for International Maritime Security on May 20.

Image: Modified aircraft carrier, Jack Cong.

Image: Modified aircraft carrier. Jack Cong.