Kim Jong-un and Putin: two tyrants engaged in game

By Donald Kirk

Kim Jong-un’s magical mystery tour through the Russian Far East may have added a frightening dimension to the standoff between alliances in Northeast Asia. Russia appears poised to shower North Korea with fighter planes, warships and the technology to put satellites into orbit while North Korean factories, hidden around the country, pump out millions of artillery shells for Russia's beleaguered forces in Ukraine.

Neither the Russians nor the North Koreans, however, will find it all that easy to live up to whatever bargain they may have made. The fact that Russia’s President Putin has had to rely on a private army is one sign of weakness. What strong government hires a rather large security force competing, and at times conflicting with, its own regular army?

It’s just as telling that Russian industry cannot produce all the arms and ammunition needed to fight what is still an isolated war in a confined area. Just think of the strength of the old Soviet army when it defeated the Germans in 1943-45 after they had surrounded Leningrad, driven to the edge of Moscow and taken over Stalingrad in the darkest days of World War II.

The Russians suffered by far the worst casualties of any of the warring armies. After the war, however, they were strong enough to maintain their grip on satellite nations from Eastern Europe to Central Asia for another 40 or so years.

It was to recapture those glory days that Putin foolishly decided to conquer Ukraine after having seized Crimea and much of the southeastern Donbas region and bitten off bits of Georgia and Moldova. He wanted it all, as did Joseph Stalin when he tyrannized Ukraine into submission in the 1930s, starving the wheat-rich country by claiming harvests for Mother Russia.

Now, the question is whether the Russians can afford to build planes and much else for North Korea when they have to pump out ever more tanks and cannons and much else to replace their losses in a futile war. Sure, they can move supplies by train or truck to North Korea across their 20-kilometer-long Tumen River border and by sea without leaving territorial waters, but how much can they give while suffering shortages at home?

To meet the requirements as the war grinds on, Russian forces need about 10 million shells a year. Russian factories can make maybe 2 million shells. Can North Korea churn out that many? Not likely. Putin’s newfound love for North Korea has little to do with the North's welfare. He is going to lose patience when the North Koreans stop shipping all the shells he wants and aren’t able to provide other basic weapons either.

Yet another issue to consider is the historic rivalry between Russia and China. We keep hearing they are allies, two huge neighbors under dictatorial presidents, in common cause against U.S.-led alliances in Europe and Asia.

China’s President Xi Jinping cannot be totally thrilled, however, by the notion of Russia taking over as North Korea’s best friend. Remember the Sino-Soviet split of the Cold War when it turned out Mao Zedong and Stalin were not on such good terms after all?

And remember also that a Chinese, not a Russian, general joined in signing the armistice in Panmunjeom that ended the Korean War in 1953. The Russians were nowhere in sight at the signing despite having nurtured Kim Il-sung as a Soviet army officer and installed him as the North’s top leader after the division of the Korean Peninsula in 1945.

Once Mao had led his Red Army to victory over all China in 1949, his “volunteers” saved the North from annihilation in the Korean War. The Soviet Union provided heavy equipment and air support in the war and exported supplies to North Korea until the fall of communist rule 32 years ago, after which they refused to accept worthless North Korean won in payment. Ever since, China has exerted by far the dominant influence.

Putin and Kim have seen and discussed what each can offer the other. It won’t take long, however, for North Korea to tire of the Russians intruding into a country in which Russia, right now, has little real interest. For Putin, all that counts is North Korea's potential as a source of weapons for a war in which Kim has no stake aside from whatever he can extort from Russia.

Donald Kirk (www.donaldkirk.com) writes about war and peace in Asia from Seoul and Washington.