A U.S. analyst on North Korean defense and intelligence affairs said Thursday that new evidence indicates that a North Korean submarine is housing up to two possible vertical missile launch tubes.
 
Joseph Bermudez, chief analytics officer of AllSource Analysis, Inc., made the assessment in an article contributed to the Web site 38 North, a program of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University.
 
He said satellite imagery from December 18 revealed a rectangular opening, approximately four-point-25 meters long and two-point-25 meters wide, in the center of the conning tower of the submarine at the Sinpo Shipyard in South Hamgyong Province. He added that such images suggest the submarine is housing one or two possible vertical launch tubes for either ballistic or cruise missiles.
 
Bermudez also noted that imagery over the past six months has shown that North Korea has been upgrading facilities at the Sinpo Shipyard in preparation for a “significant construction program,” which could be related to submarine development.
 
He then highlighted that the threat of North Korea’s submarine-launched missile capability would eventually expand to South Korea, Japan and US bases in East Asia.
 
He added, however, that such a threat does not exist today as efforts for the North to develop an operational missile-carrying submarine are not only expensive and time consuming, but also hold no guarantee of success.