North korean submarine bases

 Could North Korea's Submarine Bases at Mayang Do and Sinpo be Ideal Targets for a US Preventative Strike?

As North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile

programs have advanced the United States' military and civilian leaders have repeatedly reiterated that they will not allow North Korea to maintain a nuclear deterrent, much less one capable of striking the US mainland, and that the option of a preventive strike against the country's nuclear and missile facilities remains an option. There are several reasons why the United States military has so far been unable to act which - aside from the fear of retaliation against US military facilities in South Korea, Japan, Guam and even the Pacific Command in Hawaii - include the difficulty of successfully targeting and destroying the Korean nuclear and missile programs using limited force. North Korea is the most tunneled country in the world and not only are its ballistic missile and nuclear sites extremely well fortified, often being built into the faces of the country's mountains, but locating these highly secretive sites is also extremely difficult. Such weapons sites are primarily located away from the country's coasts and surrounded by advanced and highly fortified SAM, radar and anti aircraft artillery sites - making these facilities near impossible to target using limited air and missile attacks alone.

While a limited strike against the heart of North Korea's nuclear and missile programs is near impossible for any military power to undertake, far more vulnerable and perhaps equally meaningful targets do present themselves nearer the country's coasts. If the prospect of North Korea with an effective primary nuclear deterrent is considered unacceptable for the United States' interests in the Asia Pacific, this applies even moreso to the development of a secondary nuclear deterrent - the capability to launch ballistic missiles from submarines. Such a development would lead to a balance of power between North Korea and the United States more equal than it has been in over 70 years of conflict between the two countries. This would ensure that North Korea could retaliate against the US mainland with a nuclear strike even if its land based ballistic missile arsenal were somehow all destroyed in an American nuclear first strike. This would give a similar security guarantee to Britain's submarine based Trident nuclear missiles, the nuclear missiles deployed on Israel's Dolphin class submarines or Russia and China's own submarine based nuclear forces.

North Korea's submarine based ballistic missile testing facilities are primarily stationed at Mayang Do military bases at the port city of Sinpo, where much of the country's fleet is located. The facilities' location on the coast makes them far more vulnerable to enemy airstrikes, as attacking aircraft would not need to fly over several miles of Korean territory dotted with SAM missiles, anti aircraft artillery and radar installations - and so strikes at Sinpo could be carried out with much less warning. While SAM missile sites, bunkers and artillery emplacements at the Mayang Do facilities are heavily fortified, the majority of critical sites including the submarine docks and testing facilities remain highly vulnerable to air and missile attacks. These represent perhaps the only target of North Korea's deterrence seeking weapons programs which is both meaningful and remotely 'soft'. A preventive strike aimed at destroying these capabilities remains a vastly greater military possibility than strikes against far better defended, fortified and concealed facilities deep in the North Korean mainland. 

Though the Sinpo facilities are vulnerable by North Korean standards, they are still the most heavily defended sites the US Air Force would ever have had to mount an offensive against in decades with the possible exception of the bombing of Baghdad in 1991. With their fortified missile and radar installations, knocking out Korean defenses may well prove costly and expose attacking aircraft to great risks. This threat would be exacerbated further should the North Korean air defense forces station the KN-06 air defense system within range of Sinpo, an indigenous SAM system in service since 2016 with capabilities far beyond anything Iraq possessed during the Gulf War. Considering both the vulnerability and the critical importance of the Mayang Do facilities, it is highly possible that some of North Korea's most potent air defenses would be stationed to cover them. The benefits of successfully destroying the facility may well outweigh the risks in the eyes of the US leadership however - and as the North Korean Navy is almost exclusively compromised of submarines, destroying the estimated 16-35% of their fleet stationed there as well as the single newly designed Gorae class submarine in service capable of launching Pukkuksong-1 missiles would deal a great blow to North Korean naval capabilities. The destruction of the testing facilities could meanwhile set the submarine launched missile program back many years and cost North Korea's already harshly sanctioned economy significant expense. 

An attack may well prove a risk the United States is willing to take if they are to both show force and meaningfully set back North Korea's technological progress towards acquiring a deterrent while minimizing the risk to their own air force. For this reason North Korea would benefit from stationing its most advanced fighters and interceptors at nearby airbases and, most critically, from stationing advanced and fortified anti aircraft artillery, SAM and radar systems near Sinpo. Maintaining the threat of retaliation against US military facilities is also critical to deterring a preventative strike by the United States. The Mayang Do facilities ultimately remain an ideal target for combining an extremely high value target with a relatively high vulnerability - and both parties would benefit considerably from awareness of this critical vulnerability.

Note: This article does not in any way advocate for a preventative strike - something which risks escalation to an all out war not to mention being highly illegal. The article only underlines a strategic opportunity available should a state seek to carry out a limited attack to hinder North Korea's acquisition of a deterrent against the United States - as well the means North Korea can take to minimize its vulnerabilities.

Shown below: North Korean Pukkuksong-1 Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile; North Korean Navy Submarines Carry Out Military Exercises; Map of the Mayang Do South Naval Base in Sinpo; Gorae Class Submarine.