A Sukhoi SU-25 fighter, part of North Korea's aged fleet (Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images)

Pyongyang’s nuclear bomber bluff

A nuclear-armed air force would bring Kim Jong-un prestige, but signalling may matter more than actually striking his enemies.

Khang Vu

4 August 20264 min read

Kim Jong-un is getting serious about his air force after decades of neglect. In the past few years, Kim has upgraded (Opens in new window) and constructed new airports (Opens in new window). These include small runways (Opens in new window) in Kim’s private compounds, two dual-use airports (Opens in new window) near the border with China, and one international airport (Opens in new window) in Wonsan. In 2025, North Korea unveiled (Opens in new window) a new early warning and control aircraft converted from a Soviet-era Ilyushin IL-76 and conducted its first live-fire air-to-air drill with its fighter jets. In November, Kim pledged (Opens in new window) to entrust the air force with “a new important duty” in North Korea’s nuclear deterrent.

Considering its existing arsenal of land-based nuclear-capable ballistic missile and its plan to develop nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarines, North Korea is looking (Opens in new window) to turn the air force into the third leg of its nuclear deterrent triad.

But North Korea lacks spare parts. The country’s most capable fixed-wing aircraft (Opens in new window) are (Opens in new window) the MiG-23s, MiG-29s, and Su-25s delivered in the late 1980s. It still counts MiG-21s (Opens in new window), Antonov An-2s (Opens in new window), and Ilyushin IL-28 (Opens in new window) medium-range bombers in its fleet.

North Korea has invested the money it gains from supporting Russia in its war against Ukraine by reviving domestic arms factories, but these factories mostly produce (Opens in new window) missiles, missile launcher vehicles and artillery shells (Opens in new window). Kim has shown an interest in acquiring (Opens in new window) MiG-29s and Su-27s from Russia since 2024, but he has not received (Opens in new window) these fighters.

North Korea having its own nuclear bombers – even Cold War-era ones – would offset the image of the US flying nuclear-capable bombers over South Korea.

The United Nations prohibits (Opens in new window) the sale of aviation fuel (Opens in new window) to North Korea. Fuel shortages plus poor maintenance impose limits (Opens in new window) on North Korean pilots’ training hours to less than 30 hours of flight time per year, well below the minimum of 200 hours (Opens in new window) generally regarded as needed to maintain proficiency. The air force is so outdated that Kim had to travel to Singapore in 2018 for his summit with US President Donald Trump on an Air China Boeing 747. North Korea has not deployed its pilots to support Russia, even though Russia is running out (Opens in new window) of experienced pilots.

Satellite imagery provides a close view of the Sunan International Airport maintenance and support area, with aircraft visible on the apron (Satellite image 2025 Vantor via Getty Images)

North Korea’s air force has a current focus (Opens in new window) on ground-based homeland defence. Pyongyang is expected to use its An-2s to transport (Opens in new window) commandos behind South Korea’s lines because these planes can fly low enough to evade radar – while early warning and control aircraft are intended to detect incoming attacks and give updates on enemy locations. Jet fighters are to defend (Opens in new window) North Korean ground-based assets from airborne attacks while medium-range bombers preemptively attack (Opens in new window) the enemy’s logistic hubs and military bases.

Kim has demanded (Opens in new window) that the air force must extend its operation beyond North Korea’s airspace, territory, and waters and be ready for “grand transformative battle zones”. This signals a shift in air force doctrine, from homeland defence to power projection, as Kim had previously identified (Opens in new window) South Korea, Japan, and Guam as targets (Opens in new window) under his nuclear strategy. As one leg of the triad, North Korean air force is expected to attack these targets with nuclear bombs or cruise missiles.

However, the operational ranges of North Korea’s most capable aircraft – Ilyushin IL-28 bombers (Opens in new window), MiG-29s (Opens in new window), and Su-25s (Opens in new window) – are 2,180, 1,430, and 1,000 kilometres respectively. IL-28 bombers can reach US bases in Okinawa, located 1,400 kilometres away, but they would be without fighter escorts. North Korean aircraft cannot attack US bases in Guam, which are 3,400 kilometres away. For targets (Opens in new window) closer to home such as Daegu, Tokyo, or Sasebo, these Cold War-era bombers and fighters lack modern stealth technologies (Opens in new window) to evade the US-South Korea-Japan joint radar system (Opens in new window).

To elevate the air force to a nuclear deterrent, North Korea must extend the range of fighters and bombers by acquiring aerial refuelling tankers or aircraft carriers, which North Korea lacks and are (Opens in new window) expensive (Opens in new window) to procure and maintain. North Korea would also have to invest in stealth technology (Opens in new window) for its bombers and fighters to penetrate, survive, and retreat from enemy airspace and the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. Its fighters will have to be brought closer to fifth-generation capabilities (Opens in new window) to the likes of Su-57s to escort bombers.

Keeping aircraft safe while not flying is another problem. North Korea has built more runways to ensure survivability by redundancy, but a runway is still an easier target than a missile launcher. Even in the unlikely scenario that North Korea can upgrade its air force and procure enough fighters and bombers, directing its air force away from homeland defence means North Korea is leaving its ground-based assets vulnerable (Opens in new window) to airborne attacks.

Given the operational vulnerabilities of the air force as a nuclear deterrent, Kim may instead want to use nuclear-capable aircraft as a signalling tool. Unlike ballistic missiles concealed in silos or submarines lurking underwater, bombers flying over North Korea’s territory can signal a willingness to escalate to the nuclear threshold to deter (Opens in new window) its enemies from striking first. Primitive bombers carrying nuclear bombs or fighters armed with nuclear-capable air-launched cruise missiles are enough for this purpose. North Korea having its own nuclear bombers would offset the image of the US flying (Opens in new window) nuclear-capable bombers over South Korea. Pyongyang doesn’t need them to survive because the backbone (Opens in new window) of the nuclear deterrent is still the ground-based ballistic missiles. If the United States and its allies shoot these aircraft down over North Korea’s sky, they will bear the onus of starting the war.

There is also prestige in acquiring a nuclear triad. Only the United States, Russia, China, and India have achieved this milestone. Kim’s nuclear-capable air force would supersede his grandfather and father’s legacy just as he has done (Opens in new window) with his Choe Hyon-class destroyers.

About the author

Khang Vu

Khang Vu is a visiting scholar in the Political Science Department at Boston College.

Topics

North Korea Nuclear Defence & security Russia