Naval blues

In these polarised times, there’s one thing we can all agree: seeing someone fail spectacularly is objectively funny. That’s why FailArmy, a YouTube channel of people crashing into walls, trees, the floor, and any other hard surface, has 17+ million subscribers.

It's also why the news that North Korea’s new warship capsized during what was supposed to be its triumphant launch really caught our attention.  

You see, on Wednesday, Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un and assorted bigwigs from the ruling North Korean Workers' Party gathered in Chongjin, a port city in the country’s north-east, to attend the launch of North Korea’s second new destroyer. 

Kim launched the first 5,000-tonne Choe Hyon-class destroyer less than a month earlier to great fanfare. It’s hard to be sure, but it could represent a legit leap in North Korea’s naval prowess, so a second successful launch would’ve sealed the deal. 

But instead, under the watchful gaze of the big dog himself, the warship lost balance as the bow failed to detach from the slipway, crushing part of the hull. According to South Korean intelligence, the ship is now lying on its side in the harbour’s shallows.

We strive for impartiality here at Intrigue, but indulge us this one chance to say lmao.

What went wrong? 

Hard to know for sure, but the likely factors include… 

• The Chongjin shipyard lacks a more advanced incline or dry dock, meaning the engineers had to attempt a trickier sideways launch for the first time

• The ship’s design and weaponry meant its weight was unevenly distributed, making that first side launch attempt even more of a Hail Mary, and

• There’s also a general sense this whole thing was a rushed job in response to top-down pressure to advance at any cost. 

How did Kim handle this? 

Umm… not well. He called it a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness”, that “brought the dignity and self-respect of our state to a collapse”.

But while Kim’s meltdown might elicit a chuckle, it starts to make more sense when you realise this week’s fail goes to the very core of his family’s justification for eternal rule: to protect North Koreans from a hostile world. If he can’t do that, why’s he there?

Intrigue’s Take

With dictators so dependent on complete narrative control, we couldn’t help wonder why Kim allowed this broadcast at all rather than, you know, blame foreign spies, or pretend it never happened, or claim it’s actually meant to be a submarine haha.

And as we thought through that question, the answers are kinda intriguing:

• Domestically, he was at Chongjin with his daughter, hundreds of local elites, and thousands of obedient onlookers. So that epic fail was gonna get out into the North’s rumour mill whether his state media covered it or not. And…

• Internationally, open-source satellite players like Planet Labs and Maxar were already tracking this launch beforehand and would've released pics of the submerged destroyer afterwards, so likewise, we would’ve found out either way.

So the question for Kim then became not whether to allow the story, but how to shape it. And his answer is clear: deflect blame to subordinates to both a) instil fear and authority, while b) protecting his own Juchist myth of infallibility, without c) triggering another international crisis he can’t afford by blaming his mess-up on South Korea next-door.

Anyway, it’s not just a reminder of the value of open-source satellite imagery, but also an opportunity for foreign intelligence agencies to recruit more of Kim’s terrified engineers.

Sound even smarter:

• Want to know more about how modern autocrats work together? Join us for a candid chat with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Applebaum on 2 June.

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Meanwhile, elsewhere…

Extra Intrigue

Need a fun fact for your Saturday dinner & drinks?

• Work: HSBC is now linking those sweet sweet bonuses with office attendance.

• Tech: Anthropic has found that its own AI reportedly blackmails (in extreme circumstances) developers when they threaten to switch to a rival like ChatGPT.

• Arts: Infamous performance artist Marina Abramović is planning to open her new exhibit (Balkan Erotic Epic) in the UK’s Manchester this October.

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Embassy statement of the day

The above classic text builds on a long-running US-UK embassy feud about how to brew the perfect tea — the US embassy in London, for example, weighed in last year after a US professor famously argued that the ultimate ‘cuppa’ requires a dash of, umm… salt?

Okay sure, salt in tea is a flagrant violation of human rights law, but these jovial exchanges are a low-lift way to remind citizens that, behind the flags and uniforms, there is real fraternity underpinning today’s alliances.

Friday quiz

Yesterday was International Day for Biological Diversity!