Kim-Putin agreement: Real military alliance or paper partnership?

SEOUL, South Korea — The flag-waving optics of this week’s historic meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un have given way to a key question: Is the “comprehensive strategic partnership” signed by the two men the start of a true bilateral military partnership?

The full text of the agreement was made public Thursday by the North Korean Central News Agency and summarized by Russian media, including the state-run TASS news agency. The most important passage is a deal for one country to aid the other in the case of a military attack.

Speculation in some foreign policy circles suggests the pact may be little more than a paper treaty.

Experts say one key element of any alliance, the exchange of military equipment, is already in play, but the two countries’ armed forces do not yet have the capability to operate jointly.

Experience suggests North Korea may be wary of tight military-to-military ties with Russia after foreign-influenced challenges to the power of Mr. Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, and grandfather Kim Il-sung. 

Whether North Korea and Russia plan to adopt actual joint military capabilities should become clear in the coming weeks and months, experts say.

Inside the summit

The Washington Times learned this week that Mr. Putin’s deliberate late arrival in Pyongyang threw off some of Mr. Kim’s greeting plans while asserting Mr. Putin’s perceived precedence in the relationship.

Sources said Mr. Kim appeared uncomfortable during the joint press conference with the KGB-trained, poker-faced Mr. Putin.

The sources said Mr. Kim was glancing at his sister and close aide, Kim Yo Jong, as if uneasy with the agreement.

Reports noted the difference in language used by Mr. Putin and Mr. Kim. Mr. Kim hailed the agreement as an “alliance,” but Mr. Putin did not use that term.

The statement contains 23 clauses. It commits the two parties to upgrade economic interaction and cooperate in areas such as illegal immigration and mass media. Both signatories agree to cooperate in artificial intelligence, nuclear energy and space exploration — all with military and peaceful applications.

The standout clause includes the wording: “If one of the parties finds itself at war due to an armed attack by one or more [countries], the other party will immediately provide it with military assistance by all means at its disposal.”

The addition of the phrase “by all means at its disposal” could be an out.

“The idea is that this is a defense treaty, but many big powers don’t want to make an unconditional commitment,” said Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Kookmin University. “This is a conditional commitment.”

Other analysts were equally hesitant.

“I don’t know if this is a game changer,” said Chun In-bum, a retired South Korean general. “But the potential and possibility of all this, military cooperation, technical cooperation, is all bad news.”

What is clear is that since late last year, North Korea has been providing significant military assistance to Russia, now in its third year of a war against Ukraine.

South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik told Bloomberg last week that North Korea has sent at least 10,000 shipping containers to Russia, enough to hold 4.8 million shells. In return, Russia has given North Korea military technologies, the minister said.

Can Russia and North Korea operate as actual allies?

Beyond procurement, a key issue for any alliance is joint operational ability. The current state of affairs suggests that Russia would not be able to call on North Korean troops should the Ukraine war turn against it.

“If you look at the reports from Ukraine about the Chechen mercenaries, they had fought with the Russian military before, but dragging North Korean regiments to fight on the far side of the planet? No way,” said Lance Gatling, a retired U.S. military officer.

In modern warfare, interoperability means creating joint command structures and cross-linguistic communications over radio and online nets. It also entails the complex task of synchronizing the electronics suites of multiple modern arms, including ground radars, air-launched missiles and warship defense systems.

If the Russian and North Korean militaries deepen their cooperation, the signs will show.

“Part of dealing with an ally is finding out the true capabilities they have. Not what they show on parade but what they can actually field,” said Mr. Gatling, who spent much of his career building bridges between the U.S. and Japanese militaries. “An initial intermediary step is to exchange liaison officers.”

From that flows information and intelligence exchanges, leading to troop exchanges.

“In any burgeoning military relationship are all sorts of low-level cross-border exchanges: rifle shooting, sending cadets to each other’s schools, training with the airborne and getting wings. This happens at multiple levels,” Mr. Gatling said. “What you want to be known is cheap and visible: nice young men with straight teeth who can do a lot of pushups.”

After troop exchanges come joint exercises.

“Military drills won’t happen overnight,” said Mr. Chun. “These take at least a year to plan, though it depends on scale. They can do tabletops and things like that, but it would take some time to do a sizable exercise.”

The U.S. has multiple treaty partners, and most of its postwar conflicts, including Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, have been conducted alongside multinational forces, granting the Pentagon extensive alliance management experience.

Neither party to the Pyongyang agreement can say the same.

The Kremlin’s post-Soviet conflicts in Chechnya, Georgia and Ukraine have been Russian-only affairs. Its intervention in the Syrian civil war is the lone exception.

Pyongyang’s military is even more isolated. The regime shows dangerous suspicions toward troops infected by overseas military contacts.

In 1991 and 1992, North Korean officers recalled from their study at Russia’s elite Frunze Military Academy are thought to have fermented a coup against second-generation North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. The plot was crushed with extreme brutality.

In 1958, Chinese troops who had defended North Korea during the Korean War left. Their departures followed a 1956 purge by state founder Kim Il-sung of senior officers aligned with China. Most fled into exile.

Today, China and North Korea maintain a formal mutual defense treaty, but their two militaries have no known contacts.

“Everyone is jumping on the North Korea-Russia treaty, but China has the same,” said Mr. Lankov. “Do you see Chinese officers hanging around Pyongyang?”