While political change in South Korea and the United States could pave the way for new attempts to solve the conflict on the Korean Peninsula, Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, where North Korea has effectively become a combatant, is putting any settlement out of reach.
Russia and North Korea
Russia has been a key player on the Korean Peninsula since Soviet times, but over the course of the last two years Russia and North Korea have moved their economic and military relationship to a new level.
As North Korea is supporting Russia’s war economy with munitions, weapons, and troops, Russia’s supply of oil has given North Korea respite from the 2017 U.N. sanctions regime. There is concern that Russia is going to share nuclear and missile technology with North Korea: the two sides signed an agreement on cooperation in science and technology that includes space and “peaceful atomic energy.” The prospective sale of Russian fighter aircraft could upgrade North Korea’s conventional weapons capabilities.
Similar to NATO’s Article V, the Russia-North Korea “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Pact” commits both countries to provide military assistance if the other is subjected to armed aggression. The agreement is in line with Russia’s policy of setting up partnerships with friendly regimes in an attempt to roll back Western influence and establish a “multipolar international order.” Yet with its ongoing war in Ukraine, Russia has struggled to meet its commitments – most recently in Syria – putting the credibility of Russian security guarantees into doubt.
The “China Card”
China and North Korea have had a fractious relationship. For Beijing, North Korea is crucial as a buffer between U.S. troops stationed in South Korea and China’s own border. North Korea is also the only country with which China has a defense treaty, going back to 1961. For North Korea, trade with China has provided a lifeline even when China formally supported U.N. sanctions against North Korea. Yet the level of trust between the countries is low and their relationship has been strained by North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons.
North Korea has shown some skill in playing the “China card.” While China has tried to defuse North Korean provocations in the form of nuclear and missile tests by pursuing summit diplomacy, North Korea leveraged outside options such as the opening of negotiations with the United States to its advantage. China responded to the rapprochement between the U.S. and North Korea by arranging five summits with the North Korean leadership in 2018 and 2019. The March 2018 meeting in particular marked the first China-North Korea summit since Kim Jong Un had assumed power in 2011.
There are signs that North Korea will similarly be able to leverage its alliance with Russia to its own advantage.
Predicting the Impact of the Trump Administration
While there are few certainties about the second Trump presidency, it is likely that in dealing with Northeast Asia there will be a continuation of the bilateral approach that characterized his first presidency. At the time, China repeatedly found itself wrong-footed as the United States initially applied a “maximum pressure” strategy against North Korea, then shifted to amicable summit diplomacy.
Given the emphasis during the presidential campaign, it is likely that dealing with Russia over Ukraine and confronting China over trade will receive priority treatment. However, both issues are interlinked with the Korean conflict.
A freezing of hostilities in Ukraine is likely to downgrade the current level of North Korea-Russia trade relations as Moscow will need to redirect financial resources to cushion the adverse effects of shifting away from a war economy. As has been suggested in defector interviews, in this situation North Korea might “turn” to the United States. A replay of the script that was followed during Trump’s first presidency is conceivable. This might come with strategic intent on the side of Washington, as any rapprochement between the U.S. and North Korea would force China to react. On the other hand, if the U.S. manages to make a deal with China, then Washington might not only reject North Korea’s overtures but also persuade China to put pressure on North Korea.
It is similarly unclear what would happen if there were no let-up in Russia’s war in Ukraine. The action plan of the Trump administration’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, foresees arming Ukraine contingent on its willingness to participate in negotiations. This implies that in the case of Russian intransigence the U.S. would put Ukraine in a position to exert pressure on Russia. The U.S. could intensify such pressure by directly pushing China, given its economic challenges, to exercise its influence over Russia and North Korea.
On the other hand, the Kellogg plan is predicated on the assumption that, ultimately, a stalemate in Ukraine can be avoided. It is unclear what the strategy will be in the case where a stalemate is the outcome.
Is There a Silver Lining?
At least some pieces are falling into place that could ultimately support a settlement leading to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Despite the increased tensions that the North Korea-Russia alliance creates, denuclearization is one of the few issues on which five of the Six Parties (that is China, the U.S., Japan, South Korea, and Russia) agree – although Russia’s language has recently become more ambiguous, calling denuclearization a “closed issue” under current conditions.
A changed political situation in South Korea and the U.S. could represent an opportunity for an opening gambit. In his recollections of the failed summit diplomacy between the U.S. and North Korea in 2018-19, former South-Korean President Moon Jae-In said Kim Jong Un was sincere about denuclearization and had asked rhetorically why his family would want “to continue to live in difficulty, under sanctions, with nuclear weapons if [their] security can be guaranteed?”
One does not need to take Kim’s words at face value to recognize that any denuclearization deal would ultimately depend on guaranteeing the survivability and security of the North Korean regime.
North Korea’s nuclear dilemma stems from the fact that it has developed nuclear first-strike capability to make up for the inferiority of its conventional arsenal, but employing this capability against a superior enemy would leave the country exposed. Yet as the prestige of its leadership and military rests on its status as a nuclear power, giving up on this status is not an easy option.
Security guarantees by allies are likely to be an indispensable part of any denuclearization deal, but because of North Korea’s fraught relationship with China, Chinese security guarantees alone are not sufficient. Russia’s record of ensuring the survival of dictatorships around Africa and the Middle East would have seemed to be the obvious answer to Kim Jong Un’s dilemma. At least for now this proposition looks weaker than it was before the fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and is unlikely to be restored before the end of the Ukraine war.
For Pyongyang, the events in Syria must have hit home the message that regime survivability depends on more than external guarantees and that any regime needs to maintain the support of its own military. Moreover, North Korea’s low conventional weapons capabilities will only prolong dependence on its nuclear arsenal.
Ultimately, any progress toward an agreement is contingent on the outcome of the Ukraine war. It is difficult to imagine any successful initiative to ensure peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula while North Korean troops continue fighting in a war that the U.S. wants to end and which absorbs the military capabilities of Russia, while simultaneously providing an economic lifeline to the North Korean regime.