NO ROLE IN ASYMMETRIC WARFARE STRATEGY Pyongyang began to shift attention to modernising conventional naval forces in the second half of 2023, when Kim warned of the “unstable waters” off the Korean peninsula and demanded a major improvement in “the modernity and fighting capacity of the Navy”. When Kim visited Vladivostok, he toured a frigate of the Russian Pacific Fleet. North Korea subsequently built a new naval base and expanded existing shipyards to accommodate larger and more sophisticated naval vessels. It launched both the first and the second Choe Hyon Class destroyer in the newly expanded shipyards. However, North Korea’s naval modernisation programme doesn’t make military sense. The country has long adopted an asymmetric warfare strategy…