What do you say about a nuclear power that cannot build a ship that floats? And, not only that, launches it while its tinpot Dear Leader watches on?
All I have to say is, I feel sorry for the people behind the 5,000-ton destroyer — no name given — that was launched Wednesday from the shipyard at Chongjin, North Korea, according to the South China Morning Post.
It’s bad enough that Korea Central News Agency — the happy-clappy propaganda mill of the North Korean government, which usually hides bad news from the public and screams how wonderful Pyongyang is doing with everything, and death to America, by the way — was forced to acknowledge an investigation into the incident on Friday.
According to Reuters, the incident happened as Kim Jong-un was watching; the ship apparently lost balance during the launch and seems to have hit the bottom, given that sections of the bottom of the ship were crushed.
While KCNA described the damage as “not serious,” it also called what happened “an unpardonable criminal act.”
South Korean media, meanwhile, said that the ship was lying on its side in the water in Chongjin as of Thursday, and images tend to confirm this — although North Korean officials seem to believe they could cover this up with blue tarps.
Not so much, however:
North Korea’s latest naval destroyer has been significantly damaged prior to its launch. In a rare acknowledgment, North Korea’s state news agency KCNA reported yesterday an incident occurred with a new destroyer in Chongjin, which was close to being launched. pic.twitter.com/0PfuqehYnF
— Open Source Centre (@osc_london) May 22, 2025
Will North Korea be able to float this warship again?
As Reuters pointed out, the failed launch “likely occurred in front of a large crowd, increasing the public humiliation for Kim” — which is why KCNA was reporting on it.
As someone who has followed KCNA dispatches on-and-off for years now, let me say that they’re almost uniformly Borat-like in their comical, archetypal banana-republic state media attempts to cover up the general misery of the place. They’ll gush about how the country now has three shades of lipstick from its resplendent state-of-the-art cosmetics factory right alongside threats to annihilate the United States and the West, where the residents live in rat-infested suffering.
So, to see these kinds of admissions from KCNA in its own copy is to underscore just how Brobdingnagian of a boo-boo this was:
Detailed underwater and internal inspection of the warship confirmed that, unlike the initial announcement, no holes were made at the warship’s bottom, the hull starboard was scratched and a certain amount of seawater flowed into the stern section through the rescue channel.
Experts estimated that it will take two or three days to restore the balance of the warship by pumping out the seawater from the flooded chamber and making the bow leave the slipway and 10-odd days to restore the warship’s side…
No matter how good the state of the warship is, the fact that the accident is an unpardonable criminal act remains true, and those responsible for it can never evade their responsibility for the crime.
Regarding this accident as a serious issue is not because of the damage to the warship or of economic loss. The aim of doing so is to deal a telling blow to incautiousness, irresponsibility and unscientific empiricist attitude prevailing in any field and to sound an alarm bell.
Leaving aside the fact that they seem to have a touch of Inigo Montoya Syndrome regarding what the word “empiricist” really means outside of partyspeak, this is basically North Korea admitting they are incautious, irresponsible, and unscientific enough not to figure out that their new 5,000-ton destroyer would sink upon launch.
They are also an incautious, irresponsible, and unscientific state that has roughly 50 nuclear warheads — along with enough fissile material to potentially make 70 to 90 of them — along with the ballistic missiles to deliver them, according to a June 2024 Arms Control Association brief.
Of course, the point of nuclear weapons as a component of a country’s defense arsenal in the post-World War II era is the precept of mutually assured destruction; that is to say, if you want to destroy us as a nation, you yourself will be destroyed as a nation.
Perhaps this is left to better strategic heads than our own in the field of military analysis, but do you feel better or worse that a bellicose nation that can’t tell whether a destroyer — a relatively uncomplicated class of vessel, one that has been in reliable war service in one form or another since the early 20th century — will sink or float has both 1) the warheads that could theoretically make its enemies’ cities glow for eons and 2) the ballistic missiles that should be theoretically able to deliver them there?
All I can say is this: I’d hate to be a shipbuilder in Chongjin at any time in recent history, but I’d especially loathe that fate right now.
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