SUBSCRIBER+REPORTING — North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made a rare trip out of the hermit country last month, to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and pledge his full support. The topic of discussion? Increased military collaboration between the two outlier nations and what Pyongyang can do to bolster Moscow’s depleted weapons arsenal, as its war in Ukraine grinds on.
The highly anticipated expedition marked Kim’s first summit since North Korea shuttered its borders at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, and marked the second time the two chieftains have met face-to-face.
Putin and Kim held their debut meeting in April 2019, just weeks after nuclear diplomacy discussions in Hanoi between the North Korean dictator and then U.S-President Trump fell apart. Adding intensity to the burgeoning relationship, Kim sent a message to Putin in June, vowing to “hold hands” with the Russian President and pledging his “full support and solidarity” to their “struggle.”
“The growing military alignment between Moscow and Pyongyang will complicate U.S. efforts both in Ukraine and on the Korean peninsula,” Dr. Ellen Kim, Deputy Director and Senior Fellow for the Office of the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told The Cipher Brief. “What’s more, there are limited policy options for the U.S. to address new challenges arising from this tightening relationship between Russia and North Korea.”
So, what do Kim and Putin want from one another?
“Russia will try to obtain munitions and weaponry from North Korea to support its war efforts in Ukraine. North Korea will likely demand Russia for food and energy assistance and advanced military technology, such as satellites and ballistic missiles,” Dr. Kim continued. “Such military cooperation will accelerate the advancement of North Korea’s WMD programs, which could further increase its nuclear threats to the U.S. homeland.”
Reports indicate that Putin is specifically seeking artillery shells and antitank missiles despite such a purchase violating U.N. Security Council resolutions, which prohibit all arms trade with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). North Korea – a compeer communist country – is likely to use a similar Soviet-era weapons system, making a Russian sale a relatively smooth and savvy process. On the other side of the equation, Kim wants Moscow to hand over progressive technology for nuclear-powered submarines and satellites, in addition to food supplies for his hunger-strapped 26-million-person population. The exchange of goods would also likely serve as a critical domestic propaganda victory for the isolated commander, who could tout the broadening diplomacy as evidence of North Korea’s ascension in the world order.
And it wouldn’t be a first. According to National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby, Pyongyang last year, issued missiles and infantry rockets for use in Ukraine to Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group, then helmed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in a plane crash in August. However, U.S. officials claimed that the public disclosures of the transaction discouraged Pyongyang and that few North Korean weapons ended up on the battlefield.
A year later, it is suspected that officials have also recently mulled the idea of joint military drills between the countries, which would signify North Korea’s first such exercise with a foreign force since the twilight of the Korean War in the early 1950s.
“This exposes the predictable consequences of our foreign policies of the past two decades. We reflexively demonize and sanction them routinely with no prospect for removing sanctions and try to turn (the countries) into pariahs,” asserted Daniel Davis, senior fellow and military expert at Defense Priorities. “If all we do is try to isolate them, we increase the chances they will take the only viable path available – work together. We provide no incentive for either regime to work with us or even to consider taking policies we may prefer.”
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The tightening of mutually beneficial bonds is undoubtedly another headache for Washington. The supply of Russian technology could develop North Korea’s satellite and nuclear-powered submarine ambitions.
As Dr. Kim emphasized, it is unclear whether Russia will transfer some of the sensitive military technology coveted by North Korea. It is also not clear whether DPRK’s provision of munitions will/can be a game changer in Ukraine.
“It seems too early to tell whether their tactical move can sustain overtime at this point,” she explained. “(But) Russia’s turn to North Korea for help is quite astounding and shows its desperation.”
U.S. officials have subsequently cautioned that the DPRK will “pay a price” if it goes ahead with a Russian weapons agreement for use in Ukraine.
“We have continued to squeeze Russia’s defense industrial base,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told a press briefing last month, adding that the Kremlin is now “looking to whatever source they can find.” “We will continue to call on North Korea to abide by its public commitments not to supply weapons to Russia that will end up killing Ukrainians.”
While Washington’s immediate vision might be to stop further weaponry from entering the Ukrainian theater of war, long-term anxieties hover over what Kim and his rogue regime stand to gain from such an alliance.
“This expanding relationship gives each a chance to bypass and weaken U.S. sanctions and therefore weakens our diplomatic ability to achieve outcomes beneficial to our interests. In the short term, this helps both Pyongyang and Moscow with their immediate military needs. Long term, it makes them more inoculated from any future U.S. pressure and lessens the chances we’ll be able to influence affairs with either,” said Davis. “It seems clear Putin is making this move to accelerate the acquisition of badly needed ammunition and other military needs to bolster what is likely to be a fall or winter offensive. But we must all admit none of us knows what the actual production of Russia’s military-industrial complex really is.”
And Pyongyang isn’t the only miscreant government Moscow is turning to in the heat of its stalemate war.
Russia and Iran, two countries that were once allies primarily based on Syrian interests and collective adversity to the United States, have also intensified relations across military and economic realms since Moscow’s Ukraine invasion.
“Before the Russia/Ukraine war, Moscow was cool to Iran because they relied on engagement with the West for their imports and exports to fuel their economy. Now that we’ve emplaced maximum sanctions on Russia, however, their motivation to keep Iran at arm’s length has been removed,” Davis conjectured. “Especially because they need their help in producing their own drone fleets, Russia has no motivation to cease cooperation with Iran, and they will likely continue doing so as long as Moscow feels it can benefit.”
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According to an assessment by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), “Tehran’s military contribution to Russia’s war effort has made an enormous difference to Russia’s ability to persevere in a difficult conflict.” And late last year, CIA Director William Burns conveyed concern over what he interprets as “at least the beginnings of a full-fledged defense partnership” between the two.
Iran – for more than a year, has supplied combat drones to Moscow for use in targeting Ukrainian infrastructure, including radar stations and power grids. Russia is also using the Iranian Shahed-136 attack drone, which it calls the Geran-2 and can travel over 1000 miles. While each such drone costs an estimated $20,000 to produce, Ukraine’s bill for shooting them down ranges between $140,000 to $500,000. Tehran is also alleged to have deployed IRGC personnel to assist Russia in the training of its UAVs.
In exchange, Iran’s Air Force is said to have received Russian Yak-130 combat trainer aircraft to help bolster its advanced fighter jet flying capabilities. U.S. officials have also expressed concern that Tehran could receive Russian transfers of Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets, along with a potential boost from Russian cyber technology. On the financial relationship front, Russian majority state-owned multinational energy corporation Gazprom promised to invest $40 billion in the Iranian energy sector, including building gas pipelines and enhancing oil and gas fields in conjunction with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).
To top off the ties between the world’s most heavily sanctioned, anti-American countries, is the relationship between Tehran and Pyongyang.
While the two nations share a notable history of strategic and military partnering, beginning with weapons transactions in the aftermath of Iran’s 1979 Revolution, experts indicate that such relations are among the strongest they have been – and only likely to blossom as the two regimes reportedly ramp up concerted efforts to manufacture nuclear warheads and missiles.
With Russia’s trade and financial restrictions increasing even under Western sanctions, Moscow, Pyongyang, and Tehran will all seemingly benefit from closer military, political, and economic cooperation. Iran and North Korea have managed to survive – and even militarily advance – for decades under robust global sanctions, providing a solid blueprint for the Kremlin. Moreover, all three secluded countries have acquired weapons, advanced technologies, and other capabilities. As a united force, the implications of the triple threat are noteworthy.
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From Davis’s purview, the immediate result for the West is that its global influence over malign actors “continues to deteriorate” and its “tools will be less effective in curbing their actions.”
“So long as Russia had the motivation to keep North Korea and Iran at arm’s length, they could be counted on to avoid close cooperation. But now that we’ve removed that possibility, we also removed the roadblocks from Moscow working with Pyongyang and Tehran. Where this goes from here is unclear, but the longer we keep trying to isolate all these states, the lower our chances,” he pointed out. “But the real wildcard? China. If we add Beijing into the triumvirate of nations we want to oppose and the three become four, we’ll find ourselves on the outside and subject to the same kinds of economic coercion we’ve become quite comfortable imposing on others.”
Other experts see the potential for a much more comprehensive and dire outcome.
“It should be lost on no one that in the last six months, Russia has not just held high-level talks with China, Iran and North Korea, but also Myanmar, South Africa, and Syria – a veritable hornets’ nest. At its most recent arms trade festival in Russia, there were military delegations from 76 counties,” added John Wood, a longtime defense analyst and author of Russia: The Asymmetric Threat to the United States. “In January 2024, Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Argentina and Ethiopia will join BRICS, which translates to eighty percent of oil production in the hands of countries intent on toppling the U.S. Dollar as the world’s reserve currency. So, buckle up; we are in for a bumpy ride.”
Reporting by Hollie McKay
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