OPINION:
The mutual defense pact that Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed on June 19 was a victory for Mr. Putin and a major component of his strategy for Eurasia.
As Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine continues with significant Russian casualties, Mr. Putin has taken the war to a new level with the threat of using nuclear weapons. He moved tactical nuclear weapons into neighboring Belarus — into the Kaliningrad Peninsula — several hundred miles closer to NATO territory. To ensure the clarity of his intent, Mr. Putin also provided Belarus with nuclear-capable Iskander missiles. Last year, Mr. Putin announced the suspension of Russia’s participation in the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the only nuclear arms control treaty with Russia.
A heavily sanctioned Russia, bogged down in its war in Ukraine, viewed North Korea as a potential ally and supplier of weapons. In May 2022, Russia, with the support of China, vetoed a U.S.-drafted resolution in the U.N. Security Council, proposing to strengthen sanctions on North Korea for the dozens of ballistic missiles launched that year, all in violation of Security Council resolutions.
This was the first time in 15 years that Russia vetoed a Security Council resolution sanctioning North Korea. In March, Russia vetoed a resolution renewing the mandate of the U.N. panel of experts that monitors U.N. member states’ enforcement of U.N, sanctions on North Korea. China abstained.
In June, after several high-level exchanges, Mr. Putin visited North Korea to memorialize a “comprehensive strategic partnership” with a mutual defense treaty that pledges mutual immediate “military and other assistance by all means at its disposal” in case of armed aggression on either of the parties. Mr. Kim described this new partnership as an “alliance.” The language in this new treaty is similar to the language in the 1961 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between the then-Soviet Union and North Korea. That treaty was downgraded in the 1990s after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
North Korea’s new strategic partnership with Russia is a game-changer for the Korean Peninsula, Northeast Asia and the U.S. An emboldened North Korea will get Russia’s sophisticated technical assistance for its nuclear, ballistic missile and satellite programs.
North Korea reportedly has 40 to 60 nuclear warheads. It is capable of mating them to an impressive array of ballistic missiles, including the Hwasong-18, a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile capable of targeting the whole of the U.S. Indeed, since Mr. Kim took over in 2011 when his father, Kim Jong Il, died, North Korea conducted four nuclear tests, the latest in 2017, of an assessed thermonuclear device.
Mr. Kim has launched hundreds of short-, medium- and long-range ballistic missiles, in addition to cruise, hypersonic and submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Although North Korea has a formidable nuclear and missile arsenal, technical help from Russia could upgrade its weapons programs, including its conventional weapons and satellite program.
Indeed, this new alliance with Russia must concern South Korea, especially given the tension between Seoul and Pyongyang. North Korea’s new doctrine of the preemptive use of nuclear weapons and its expressed hostility toward South Korea — and the U.S. — is troubling, given that an emboldened North Korea could act recklessly, as it did in 2010 with the sinking of the Cheonan frigate, killing 46 South Korean seamen. This time, however, developments could escalate quickly, with North Korea that has threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons.
Russia knows this. Mr. Putin obviously calculated that it was in Russia’s interest to foment greater tension on the Korean Peninsula, knowing that the South Korean government of President Yoon Suk Yeol would be upset with this Russia-North Korea alliance and would reconsider upgrading its military support to Ukraine to include providing conventional weapons.
Russia also knows that North Korea has sold ballistic missiles to Iran, Syria and Libya and was building a nuclear reactor in al-Kibar, Syria, that Israel bombed in 2007. So some of the technical military assistance North Korea expects to get from Russia may eventually find its way to other rogue states. This obviously is not of concern to Mr. Putin.
For these obvious reasons, this is the time for South Korea and Japan to work even more closely with the U.S., enhancing joint military exercises and the U.S. recommitting to the Washington Declaration and U.S. extended deterrence assurances to South Korea and Japan. They should also strengthen the Proliferation Security Initiative, a global effort to ensure that North Korea does not traffic in weapons of mass destruction, their delivery systems and related materials.
Russia established this new alliance with North Korea after participating in the Six-Party Talks and encouraging North Korea to denuclearize, not only because Russia will receive the artillery shells and ballistic missiles it needs for its war of aggression in Ukraine but because Mr. Putin wants to incite conflict in East Asia as part of his Eurasia strategy — wars in Europe and Asia.
Diplomatic engagement should be a major component of U.S. policy toward North Korea, in addition to containment and upgraded deterrence. We should continue to be resolute in our diplomatic and military support to our allies and partners, but don’t give up on North Korea and cede the playing field to Mr. Putin. North Korea wanted/wants normal relations with the U.S.
China should be concerned that an emboldened nuclear North Korea is now aligned with a revanchist Russian Federation, bent on fomenting instability on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia. This is not in China’s interest. North Korea should be aware Russia is using it as a pawn, and Russia eventually will abandon North Korea again, as it did in the 1990s when it downgraded the 1961 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance with North Korea and ceased calling North Korea an ally.
In 1950, Soviet leader Josef Stalin persuaded China’s Mao Zedong to provide troops to North Korea for its invasion of South Korea. On July 27, 1953, the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed, ending three bloody years of war. Let’s ensure we don’t repeat the past.
• Joseph R. DeTrani served as special envoy for the Six-Party Talks with North Korea from 2003 to 2006 and as director of the National Counterproliferation Center. The views expressed here are the author’s and not those of any government agency or department.
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