North Korea’s Kim should pay for his Ukraine misadventure

OPINION:

Having long supplied Russia with artillery and ballistic missiles to support the Kremlin’s barbaric war in Ukraine, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has reportedly sent 10,000 troops to fight alongside the Russian army in the Kursk region.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which the Kremlin expected to topple the Kyiv government in days, has been a geopolitical catastrophe for President Vladimir Putin: hundreds of thousands of Russian casualties, NATO membership for long-neutral Finland and Sweden, a Europe awakened from its post-Cold War slumber with a commitment to bigger defense budgets.

Mr. Putin has been forced to rely on its strategic rivals Iran and China, as well as North Korea, to keep his costly war going.

Not one to deliver lethal support to Mr. Putin’s war machine free of charge, the ruthless Mr. Kim will undoubtedly demand a quid pro quo from Russia, a trade-off that could have serious consequences for U.S. national security.

First, exploiting its seat on the U.N. Security Council, Russia is providing a diplomatic lifeline to Mr. Kim’s repressive “hermit kingdom.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has met with his North Korean counterpart, Choe Son Hui, six times this year, and Mr. Putin himself met with Ms. Choe this month in Moscow.

Second, emboldened by the new comprehensive strategic partnership security and defense pact, which he signed with Mr. Putin in June, Mr. Kim has new freedom to carry out an increasingly aggressive and destabilizing foreign policy on the Korean Peninsula and across the region.

Last month, North Korea test-fired its longest-ever intercontinental ballistic missile test, with enough range to reach the U.S. homeland. While meeting with Mr. Lavrov, Ms. Choe accused the U.S. and South Korea of planning a nuclear attack on North Korea. Having put North Korea’s first spy satellite into orbit, which would enable more effective targeting of enemy forces in wartime, Mr. Kim said he considers inter-Korean relations a “relationship between two hostile countries and two belligerents at war.”

Third, North Korea will want food and financial assistance, as well as valuable battlefield experience for those North Korean soldiers deployed against the Ukrainians. As was clearly evident from his meeting last year with Mr. Putin at Russia’s Vostochny space launch center, Mr. Kim is intent on improving North Korea’s satellite technology and missile delivery systems — including nuclear-armed submarines — and obtaining the technology to miniaturize nuclear warheads for placement on his missiles.

Fourth, Mr. Kim will no doubt expect Russia to share intelligence on the U.S. and other adversaries and the cyber hacking tools North Korea needs to penetrate U.S. networks more effectively.

The presence of North Korean troops in the most destructive ground war in Europe since World War II is unprecedented. The incoming Trump administration would do well to make North Korea and Russia pay a price for their collaboration while seeking to drive a wedge between them.

First, the U.S. should encourage South Korea to supply arms directly to Ukraine. Thus far, South Korea says its national policies block it from providing defensive aid to replenish U.S. and Western munitions. A direct supply line from Seoul to Kyiv would be a force multiplier for Ukraine’s desperate defense of its homeland.

Second, the American intelligence community needs to step up its full-court press to recruit Russian sources, particularly those with access to sensitive information about Mr. Putin’s North Korea strategy, and work with Ukraine to build a defector program designed to entice disgruntled North Korean soldiers and officers.

Third, the Biden administration’s nonsensical “as long as it takes” strategy failed to account for the fact that the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine is, ironically, the oxygen for Russia’s unholy alliance with China, Iran and North Korea.

Mr. Putin’s only success has been to use nuclear threats to induce “escalation paralysis” in Washington, a paralysis that only delayed the delivery of badly needed U.S. tanks, air defense systems and artillery. Rather than appease Mr. Putin, the U.S. should permit Ukraine to strike military targets in Russia with NATO munitions.

The Trump administration will need to define what Ukrainian victory looks like, ensure that Kyiv enters any cease-fire talks from a position of strength and remember former Secretary of State George Shultz’s admonition that “negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table.”

Russians have a saying: “Free cheese can only be found in a mousetrap.” The Trump administration can demonstrate to North Korea (and China and Iran in the bargain) that an alliance with Russia is like getting caught in a mousetrap, even if the figurative cheese might have looked too good for Mr. Kim to resist.

• 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.