Putin’s Play in NK: The Truth of the Matter Crossover Episode
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North Korea is the impossible state. It's a place that stumped leaders and policymakers for more than three decades. It has a complex history, and it has become the United States' top national security priority. Each week on this show, we'll talk with the people who know the most about North Korea.

This episode of The Impossible State is a crossover with my other podcast, The Truth of the Matter. And Victor is a frequent guest, of course, on Truth of the Matter. And it's great to be back on Impossible State to talk about Vladimir Putin's visit to North Korea.

To get to the truth of the matter about Vladimir Putin's trip to North Korea and his visit with Kim Jong-un, we have with us our Senior Vice President, Victor Cha, who is our Korea Chair and head of all of our Asia programs. Victor, no one knows more about this than you, and you have called this growing relationship between Russia and North Korea the greatest threat to U.S. national security since the Korean War. What do you mean by that?

So it has multiple dimensions, Andrew. And I just want to say that we started tracking this at CSIS quite early on, really a couple of years ago, starting a couple of years ago when North Korea was one of the first countries to recognize Putin's early gains in eastern Ukraine and also opposed the UN General Assembly resolutions against Russia.

Since then, we've been tracking all of the arms shipments that have been going from North Korea to Russia. So there are multiple dimensions to this. First and most obviously, North Korea is basically the arms warehouse for Putin's war in Ukraine. Putin wants to fire 10,000 rounds of artillery a day on Ukraine to pound it into the ground.

They cannot do that without North Korean 155s and 122s. So that's sort of a big factor. It's affecting the security of Europe. In addition to that, we don't know what the Russians are willing to give the North Koreans.

And that can affect security on the peninsula and U.S. homeland security. Because what North Korea is trying to achieve is weapons and delivery systems that can actually hit the United States, right? That's right. That's the issue. And then what's different here now is that North Korea actually, as you mentioned, has a bargaining chip because it's this prodigious arms producer that

And all these rounds of ammunition are flowing directly to Russia in its war in Ukraine. Yeah. And for the first time ever in the history of this relationship, North Korea has the upper hand on Russia. In the past, it was always the Soviet Union that was being asked by North Korea for fuel

oil, debt relief, hard currency, security guarantees. And now we're in a situation where Putin is the one who's coming to the North Koreans saying, I need ammunition. What can I give you for this ammunition that I need to basically ensure that I survive this war? If Putin loses this war, he's done. So he is literally dependent on North Korean ammunition for his political survival.

That's quite a situation since when does Vladimir Putin go to anyone hat in hand and that's what he's doing here. That's right. This was never anything that Stalin, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, none of them had to worry about this. And earlier Putin, 24 years ago when he last met with the North Koreans in a summit in Pyongyang, he wasn't in that position either.

But it's extraordinary because the war in Ukraine has put Putin in this position where he basically needs to beg North Korea for this ammunition. So let's talk about what actually happened at their summit. They signed something called a mutual defense treaty. They're saying that they will assist each other in the event of aggression. What does that actually mean? We didn't have the language until late yesterday, early this morning. And when I looked at it,

It confirmed my worst suspicions, which is that this is basically a renewal of the Cold War security alliance between the Soviet Union and North Korea, now between Russia and North Korea. The language in it is very specific. If either side is in a war,

The other will help that side with military and other assistance without delay in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter. Article 51 of the UN Charter is about the right to collective defense. It's not a one-way security guarantee, which was effectively what the Cold War Alliance is about. This is a mutual security guarantee where they're going to help each other

And this is not short-term tactical. You don't go and sign a document like this unless it's long-term and strategic. And again, many people earlier in this were saying, oh, this is just a tactical relationship. It'll end once the war in Ukraine ends and Putin doesn't need the ammunition. I've never felt that that was the case. I think both of them see big strategic gains by doing this.

All right. I have so many questions, but I think the first question when hearing all of this has to go to what recommendations do you have for U.S. diplomacy under the context of these developments? So it's not easy. I mean, the first thing I would say is that I think this summit meeting and the mutual security pact is really a wake-up call. The administration has been attentive to this, but it's largely been in terms of collecting intelligence and in terms of

calling out the North Koreans and the Russians with talking points. But my hope is that this will actually trigger active policy planning, creating a cell focused on how to disrupt this arms trade. There are a couple of things that come to mind. One almost certainly is the NATO summit next month where Japan, Korea, and Australia will be present as guests of the NATO summit.

And the United States really should lead a formalization of a collective defense pact among the US, Japan, Korea, Australia, and then maybe even invite the Philippines to counter this North Korea-Russia thing. That would be sort of the first high-level policy thing that I would focus on. And then there are a number of things that could be done in terms of sanctions, financial sanctions, that would involve Europe as well because...

Fellow Europeans today are being killed by North Korean weapons used by Russians, and that's an unprecedented threat for Europe. So whether you're talking about the G7 countries or other European countries that do have ties to North Korea, that do have diplomatic relations, the sanctions should be all out on every front.

Because this is not just about U.S. security interests in Asia. It's about Europeans being killed in Europe. Yeah, this is really broader than any one situation between North Korea and Russia. I mean, can you describe really what the nuclear picture is for North Korea? They have something like 50 to 60 nuclear weapons. That's right. Yeah.

And so tell me what that really means. And do you expect that under this agreement, that arsenal will grow, get more sophisticated? What happens next? So they have 50 to 60 nuclear weapons, and that's a lot and that's troubling. But what's more troubling is where North Korea wants to be five to 10 years from now. In five to 10 years from now, they want to have a nuclear force the size of Britain or France. Hmm.

They want to have quiet nuclear submarines. They want to have overhead satellite intelligence capabilities where they can look at everything that the United States, Japan, South Korea and others are doing on the ground.

And they want to have an intercontinental ballistic missile threat that can evade U.S. missile defenses. That's what they're after. And the best way for them to leapfrog and get to those goals within five years or so is through this relationship with Russia. Okay. So in the past, Victor, and you've been a part of this, part of the Six-Party Talks,

The United States engaged China and Russia to try to help moderate, to counter North Korea, to get North Korea to give up this program. It didn't work. Now you've got Russia and North Korea with this agreement. Where does this leave China and what's their view? That's a really great point. And I thought David Sanger's article in the New York Times really sort of called this out, this sort of historical shift. That's right. When we were doing six-party talks, when David was covering six-party talks...

The Chinese and the Russians were actively working with us. They signed on to 11, right? 11 UN Security Council resolutions to slow down North Korea's nuclear program. And now we have a situation where Russia is not only vetoing new resolutions on North Korea, they are actively trying to dismantle the UN Security Council sanctions regime on North Korea. For China,

I think it is a difficult position for them, frankly, because on the one hand, they certainly don't like this arms trade between North Korea and Russia. They don't like North Korea being involved in the war in Ukraine. But they're not going to call the North Koreans out on it publicly or privately because they don't want to push Kim further into the arms of Putin.

At the same time, they're not going to fully join on with the North Koreans and the Russians because there's a lot of negative public diplomacy, a lot of negative things in violation of standing UN Security Council resolutions that they don't want to be a part of. So they're kind of caught in the middle. The other alternative is to work with the United States, right, on sanctions, right, on diplomatic pressure. Right.

And I don't think the Chinese have the will to do that, right, because of the difficult relationship the two have today. So they're caught somewhere between indecision and incompetence in my view. Indecision in the sense that like all three corners of this pyramid don't look good, so they sit right in the center.

or incompetence in the sense that they have to make a decision and they can't make one. Like either work with the United States, either call out the North Koreans or join with them. And they can't make one of those decisions because of incompetence. You know, I know you've called this the greatest national security threat since the Korean War, but that really provides a lot of context that this is

This is a big deal. How dangerous is this for the United States and its allies? I would say it's extremely dangerous and I would look at it from the perspective of Vladimir Putin.

I think Putin sees this move he's taken with North Korea as very strategic because he is affecting the Biden administration's security interests in Europe very clearly, right, through the supply of all this ammunition. He's affecting the situation on the Korean Peninsula now because Russia's basically given a security guarantee to North Korea. He's also affecting U.S. homeland security

By the threat of providing missile defense, evading ICBMs, quiet nuclear submarines to North Korea. Maybe not immediately, but if Kim drives a hard bargain with Putin, you know, and says, I know you need this ammunition and I don't just want food from you, I want something else.

you know, that could very well be what the North Koreans in the end get. So this is also affecting homeland security. And people forget that, you know, Putin didn't just go to North Korea. Now he's in Southeast Asia and he's in Vietnam, right? A relationship the United States has worked very hard to cultivate. Right, one of our great trading partners. One of our great trading partners as a way to balance against China, right? A border state to China has worked very hard for a number of administrations. And now, you know, Putin is in Vietnam today.

trying to disrupt that relationship. It's a part of our Southeast Asia policy. It's not everything in our Southeast Asia policy. But from Putin's perspective, he is complicating the U.S. strategic picture in Europe, in East Asia, in Southeast Asia, and U.S. homeland defense.

Now, the one thing that Putin may not have really thought all the way through, or maybe he did and doesn't care, is that this is certainly bringing the United States, South Korea, Japan, Australia, really closer together.

And I'm not sure what that means exactly for Vladimir Putin, but it means a strengthening of our Pacific architecture for sure. I think that's absolutely right. In government, whenever things like this happen, you try to make lemonade out of the lemon. Right. In this case, Putin may already assume that that relationship is growing tighter regardless of what he does. So maybe he doesn't see it as that costly to him.

But from an inside the beltway DC perspective, you take this and this is an opportunity to build even stronger the relationship with each of the allies, but really to try to build the multilateral framework. And it's historic because Korea and Japan are now working with the United States in a way they haven't in a trilateral way. That's right. Ever since Camp David last August, the three leaders meeting at Camp David, there have been like 60 trilateral meetings between the three sides.

In many ways, this was aimed at institutionalizing the trilateral relationship, as you said, Andrew, because of the difficult historical issues between Japan and Korea so that it would outlast the Biden administration. Right. But now they have a clear external reason, whether we're talking about Biden or Trump in January of 2025, they provide a clear reason

to try to build this collective defense architecture in Asia based on the U.S. alliance system. And this is precisely why Putin is in Vietnam today, because he doesn't want Vietnam to become part of this architecture. I think that's absolutely right. Russia is a big arms trading partner with Vietnam. I think Putin likes also complicating China's picture in the sense that, you know, he's cozying up to a border state to China that China has always had difficulty with.

Some of the media have called this desperation by Putin to the fact that the only leader he can visit is North Korea. But again, I think from his perspective, he's taking a lemon and turning it into a lemonade also by making it a bigger strategic play and making Russia a player in East Asia and in Southeast Asia. So what are some of the discussions that need to happen in the United States along these lines, considering how grave

and how really dangerous this threat is? - So the first thing of course, is to try to build this collective defense architecture. And I would like to see at the NATO summit, a major statement about how the security of all of us are connected. An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. The Biden administration tried to do this a few years ago. The South Koreans got cold feet

at the last minute, but this is a real opportunity to do that. The other thing is to continue to work on China. The fact that all the Chinese say in response to the events this week is it's a bilateral issue between DPRK and Russia really gives you a sense that they haven't formulated a policy yet.

And so trying to work with the Chinese to see what they are willing to do to disrupt the North Korea-Russia axis, I think, is important. It won't be easy, though. Do you think they feel an urgency, though, on this? I certainly assume that there's some in China who like the fact that this is complicating things for the United States. But smart Chinese who are looking at the bigger strategic picture know that this is only going to lead to a tightening of the US alliance architecture around China.

could potentially lead to nuclear dominoes falling in Asia, starting with South Korea, and would certainly lead to an augmentation of North Korea's WMD program. All three of these are bad news for China in the long term. Very bad news. Victor, this is a lot to think about, and I know we're going to be watching this really closely and studying it through your work and your program at CSIS. So thanks very much for coming on today and giving us an update. My pleasure, Andrew.

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