Putin, having miscalculated, is increasingly desperate

OPINION:

There’s a popular expression in Finland that best characterizes Russian President Vladimir Putin’s national security strategy: “Hata ei lue lakia” — “In desperate times, law does not matter.”

Mr. Putin, of course, has never had any real respect for the rule of law, which he has brazenly violated to remain in power for over two decades.

But the onetime KGB agent now faces arguably the most desperate time of his presidency because of his unprovoked war on Ukraine. The war, now in its third year, has resulted in hundreds of thousands of Russian casualties; a brain drain of reportedly over 1 million Russians who have fled the country; a dangerously unbalanced, inflationary economy; NATO membership for Sweden and Finland; and a Europe awakened from its post-Cold War slumber more dedicated than ever to its collective defense.

Deceased Wagner Group mercenary commander Yevgeny Prigozhin exposed Mr. Putin’s lies about the ill-fated decision to invade Ukraine. After launching a failed mutiny, he paid for his candor with his life. That’s not the best look for an autocrat like Mr. Putin, who seeks to portray himself as a strongman, showing off his judo skills, playing ice hockey and riding bare-chested on horseback.

That’s the impetus behind Mr. Putin’s transformation of Russia into a rogue pariah state, the capstone of which was his visit last month to Pyongyang. Against the backdrop of a propaganda campaign designed to show that Russia is not diplomatically isolated, Mr. Putin sought to ensure fellow rogue pariah state North Korea would continue to supply the artillery he needs to rain down hell on Ukrainian civilians and strike a deal for North Korean engineering troops to help rebuild Russian-occupied cities in eastern Ukraine.

Mr. Putin traveled hat in hand to North Korea because he finds himself dependent these days on the goodwill of regime leader Kim Jong Un, just as he relies on Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for buying discounted Russian oil and natural gas, and on Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for supplying drones to his army.

But most important, Mr. Putin hopes to pressure South Korea not to send arms to Ukraine by using North Korea as a proxy to dial up the cost of interfering in Russia’s military plans for Kyiv.

Legendary U.S. diplomat Max Kampelman, a renowned arms control negotiator who served with great distinction in Democratic and Republican administrations, regularly called out his Soviet counterparts for placing “boulders in the road” in arms talks and then charging the U.S. and its allies to pay for their removal. Mr. Putin has taken that extortion tactic to a new level, but the Kremlin’s current “boulders” amount not to well-calculated gambits but to risky acts of desperation.

Mr. Putin knows that the stakes for the U.S. and our allies on the Korean Peninsula could not be higher. Buoyed by significantly increased trade with Russia, which has helped alleviate the pressure from painful international economic sanctions, Mr. Kim scrapped a long-standing policy of seeking peaceful reunification with South Korea while ramping up his nuclear ballistic missile program.

The relationship has already paid dividends: In March, Moscow vetoed a U.N. resolution to renew monitoring of North Korea’s violations of Security Council sanctions. Russia’s newly signed mutual assistance treaty with North Korea will only encourage Mr. Kim to engage in even more provocative military action against South Korea and the U.S., increasing the risk of a perilous miscalculation on the divided, heavily armed peninsula.

A Russian intelligence officer once told me that for Mr. Putin, all that mattered was to survive today, even if that meant creating a bigger problem for tomorrow. Mr. Putin’s service in the KGB during the Cold War and later as director of Russia’s ruthless Federal Security Service taught him how to ruthlessly execute cloak-and-dagger espionage operations against his enemies, foreign and domestic.

Given all that, the U.S. should respond by implementing a more comprehensive policy to deter and defend against Mr. Putin’s aggressive foreign policy. That means strengthening our relationships with Japan and South Korea as a counter to North Korea; carrying on to the fullest extent possible support to Ukraine in its existential war against Russia; and seeking to drive a wedge between Mr. Putin and his allies, particularly China, which likely does not appreciate Mr. Putin’s aggressive courting of Vietnam and his destabilizing provocations on the Korean Peninsula.

Winston Churchill memorably remarked that “an appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” Never forget: Mr. Putin will extort us and our allies only for as long as we allow him to do so.

• Daniel N. Hoffman is a retired clandestine services officer and former chief of station with the Central Intelligence Agency. His combined 30 years of government service included high-level overseas and domestic positions at the CIA. He has been a Fox News contributor since May 2018.