North Korea’s Military Machine Might Be Falling Apart

Key Points – A new North Korean frigate recently capsized during its launch, a public embarrassment that starkly reveals the regime’s focus on “theater” over genuine conventional military capability.

-This incident, while seemingly comic, highlights the deeper strategic rot: North Korea’s conventional forces are in decay, while resources are funneled into its real threats—nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles.

-Kim Jong Un’s modernization drive appears geared towards projecting an image of strength, even if the underlying systems are flawed. This self-deception, aimed at bluffing the world and its own elites, is dangerous, potentially leading to miscalculation and instability.

North Korea’s Military Has a Problem

It didn’t take a missile, torpedo, or depth charge. Just physics. During what was meant to be a triumphant unveiling of a new warship, Kim Jong Un’s latest foray into naval modernization quite literally collapsed under its own weight – his new frigate capsizing during launch in full view of assembled party apparatchiks and military brass. One moment of embarrassing reality managed to puncture years of breathless propaganda about North Korea’s maritime prowess. The symbolism is almost too perfect.

But we shouldn’t let the comic optics obscure the deeper strategic rot. The capsizing of this so-called warship isn’t just another authoritarian belly-flop. It’s a window into the real condition of North Korea’s military – and the nature of Kim’s modernization drive. What was meant to intimidate ended up revealing a more basic truth: this regime is building for theater, not for war. And like most political theater, it can only hold the stage until reality kicks the props out from underneath.

Let’s be clear: Kim has been busy. Over the last decade, he’s poured resources into the weapons that actually matter – nuclear warheads, ballistic missiles, and now tactical nukes. There’s nothing funny about that arsenal. It’s real, and it’s growing. But the conventional military – the army, the air force, the navy – is in a state of terminal decay. The regime knows it. So does everyone with a pair of eyes and access to satellite imagery.

That’s why Pyongyang keeps trotting out these shiny new weapons systems: to distract from the underlying weakness. This ship was supposed to signal a leap forward in naval capability. What it signaled instead is that North Korea can’t even build a floating platform without disaster. In a country where engineers design to appease the supreme leader, not seaworthiness, this was inevitable.

North Korea’s naval posture has always been a rickety joke. Its submarines are noisy relics. Its surface fleet is made up of Soviet leftovers and patched-together coastal craft that wouldn’t survive five minutes in a contested maritime environment. But this wasn’t meant to be a real warfighting vessel. It was a symbol – like those over-the-top parades and missile transporter-erector-launchers with wooden wheels. It was meant to show the world that North Korea, isolated and sanctioned, could still build something that floats and fights.

And it didn’t even float.

There’s a dangerous kind of absurdity here. Kim doesn’t care if the ship works. He cares if it looks like it might. That’s the entire logic behind his modernization strategy: present the image of a rising military power, whether or not the underlying systems function as advertised. It’s strategic deception turned inward. Bluffing the world, bluffing the elites, bluffing himself. When your legitimacy depends on perpetual demonstrations of strength, you keep staging them – even if they’re hollow.

But this isn’t harmless propaganda. It’s dangerous. Because the line between performance and belief is razor-thin in regimes like this. The danger comes when bluff becomes doctrine, when military planners start believing in the capabilities they’ve been told to pretend exist. That’s when you get miscalculation. That’s how deterrence fails. Not when one side is too strong, but when both sides believe too much in their own fiction.

The Western response should not be smug laughter. It should be sober analysis. The ship capsized – good. It shows us something. Not that North Korea is weak, but that it is brittle. This is not a rising power. It’s a regime trying desperately to look like one, to conceal how far behind it has fallen in every metric that matters. It still commands a formidable nuclear and missile arsenal. But conventional modernization? It’s a collapsing stage set.

And yet, predictably, Pyongyang will double down. Expect a new launch, a new hull, another tightly choreographed unveiling – one that works this time, or at least doesn’t flop in front of cameras. That’s how the regime operates: reinforce the illusion, never admit error, and above all else, keep feeding the narrative of unstoppable national advancement. Especially now, as Kim feels increasingly boxed in by tightening trilateral coordination between the U.S., Japan, and South Korea.

This theater plays well in a region increasingly defined by perception wars. But we should not allow those perceptions to shape our defense posture. North Korea’s naval threat remains negligible. Its surface fleet is no more capable now than it was a week ago, or ten years ago. The real danger lies elsewhere – in hardened missile silos, mobile launchers, and tunnels packed with tactical nukes. That’s where the money, science, and strategy are going. Not into shipyards.

So let the headlines chuckle at the capsized frigate. But remember what it reveals: this is a regime that lies to itself. And that kind of regime is dangerous. Kim’s modernization drive isn’t making North Korea stronger. It’s making it more volatile. He’s building just enough real power to do damage – but wrapping it in enough delusion to risk miscalculation.

The warship was supposed to project dominance. What it projected, instead, was desperation. That desperation is what we need to watch. A confident regime doesn’t need to stage shows. It builds quietly, credibly, and competently. North Korea does the opposite: it blares, bluffs, and, sometimes – like this week – sinks.

Kim’s theater of power has always been built on spectacle. But spectacle can’t float. And sooner or later, even the best performance runs out of stage.

About the Author: Dr. Andrew Latham

Andrew Latham is a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities and a professor of international relations and political theory at Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN. You can follow him on X: @aakatham.

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