North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently inspected a massive new submarine, the country’s state-run news agency said Tuesday, yet another uptick in tensions as President Donald Trump attempts to rein in the country’s ongoing nuclear ambitions. The North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released photos of Kim visiting a shipyard Tuesday with the large structure behind him. Only part of the submarine can be seen, and no technical aspects were released, as is common with North Korea’s secretive military efforts. “[Kim] expressed great satisfaction over the fact that the submarine was designed and built to be capable of fully implementing the military strategic intention of the Party under various circumstances,” KCNA’s statement said. It’s unclear what kind of weapon capabilities the new submarine could have. But several North Korea policy experts said they believed it could be able to carry a nuclear or ballistic missile of some kind, also known as a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), and could be a successor to Pyongyang’s earlier ballistic missile-capable subs.

KCNA / Reuters North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits a submarine factory in an undisclosed location in this undated picture released by North Korea's state-run Central News Agency (KCNA) on Tuesday.

KCNA / Reuters

KCNA said the submarine was built under the “special attention” of Kim himself and would go into service soon off the east coast of North Korea. Several experts on North Korean policy say the release is an obvious statement to foreign leaders that Kim is growing impatient with Trump’s efforts at diplomacy. “That’s a pretty monster prototype, with a saddle with missile tubes that can carry lord only knows,” Vipin Narang, a professor of international relations at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told HuffPost in an email. “For now these are just pics. But the fact that the KCNA release is littered with the word ‘strategic’ suggests Kim wants us to believe that is a possible SLBM.” Narang also noted that Kim’s desire for nuclear weaponry that can be fired from submarines “makes sense from a nuclear strategy perspective.” Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) “are for responsiveness and range, SLBMs are for survivability. Like a normal nuclear state,” Narang said. “Which is exactly what Kim wants us all to accept and recognize that North Korea is.”

To me, this is nothing more than domestic and international signaling with photos. There is no sign that the sub is ready or even capable of launching anything. If it was, they would test it. — Melissa Hanham (@mhanham) July 23, 2019