The North's fleet of advanced mini-subs, an SSC Sang-o Class submersible, can carry two torpedoes. The older NKorean subs have been determined by the SKorean navy to be based on a former Yugoslavian design that the NKorean military adopted. Those 1990 versions were retrofitted to carry the two-man submersible and are capable of sea launch. Other NKorean surface vessels disguised as freighters can also carry the mini-subs.
The newest generation of the NKorean mini-sub has stealth abilities, a longer range, and can stay submerged much longer than its previous versions.
Several years ago, US Navy reports indicate that one or more of the NKorean mini-subs were detected off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii, attempting to spy on the operations at Pearl Harbor. US warships chased them off. And recently, rumors surfaced that NKorea may have had some involvement with the Deepwater Horizon disaster. That speculation was fueled by NKorea's statement on March 27 of "unpredictable strikes" against the US and SKorea.
North Korea countered by declaring it was cutting all ties with the South.
The nuclear dilemma
What makes military experts uneasy is the fact that successive U.S. Administrations have allowed NKorea to develop and detonate nuclear weapons. The renegade country is now busy working on ways to deploy their growing arsenal. The current estimates of NKorea's nuclear arsenal range from as low as three to as many as seven nuclear devices.
While most military strategists are confident that an all-out war would end with America being victorious in 10 days or less, that estimate does not incorporate the nuclear genie nor the possible involvement of China as a NKorean ally into the equation. Either one of those scenarios -- nukes or a belligerent China -- change the entire game and ups the stakes dramatically.
The bottom line is that military aggression of this magnitude by a country with which we are technically still in a state of war, could easily ignite a resumption of a total shooting war. With America already involved in two wars and the possibility constantly hovering on the horizon of a military conflict with Iran, confirmation could lead to a re-engagement with the NKoreans and precipitate a continuation of the Korean War 57 years after the Armistice.
And such a resumption of war on the Korean Peninsula at this point in history could start the dreaded third world war.
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