Tag Archive for: North Korea

How Russia will reassess its ties with North Korea after Ukraine

An agreement to end the war in Ukraine could transform Russia’s relations with North Korea. Moscow is unlikely to reduce its cooperation with Pyongyang to pre-2022 levels, but it may become more selective about areas of cooperation.

Regardless of how favourable a settlement it can achieve in Ukraine, Russia will want to challenge the US-led security architecture in Asia. Cooperation with North Korea can be a tool for this.

Russia has already made clear that it wants to be more involved in Asia: during meetings with Chinese, North Korean and Vietnamese leaders last year, it called for new security mechanisms in the region.

Military cooperation is a core of the deepened partnership between Russia and North Korea, with Moscow helping Pyongyang to modernise its military capabilities. Reportedly, Russia has sent air-defence systems, provided technologies for intercontinental ballistic missiles and agreed to supply North Korea with fighter aircraft.

Still, Moscow may be wary of sharing too much, as North Korea could become a competitor on the arms market by making cheaper copies of Russian weapons. So the pace of transfers from Russia to North Korea may decline.

Arms trade between Moscow and Pyongyang has weakened the nonproliferation regime and undermined international sanctions. This collective resistance highlights a lack of effective enforcement mechanisms: Russia simply ignores the threat of punishment, as the US ability to coerce North Korea and Russia to adhere to sanctions is limited. North Korea is notorious for its sophisticated schemes to evade sanctions and can easily work around new restrictions. Furthermore, North Korea can cooperate with Russian entities to diversify its own illegal supply chains.

North Korea has exported military equipment to Russia during the war, but Russia’s demand for it will diminish when the fighting stops. A step-up in supplies of civilian goods from North Korea is unlikely to replace this trade, because of the limitations of its economy.

North Korea can offer few goods that would be competitive in the Russian market. Its primary exports—natural resources—are abundant in Russia. Moreover, North Korea is not a useful conduit for Russia to import Western goods, because it has limited trade with Europe, unlike China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. As sanctions are partially lifted, Moscow will prioritise restoring economic ties with the West to boost its economy.

Russia will also want South Korea to lift sanctions and normalise economic relations with it. South Korea is one of Russia’s major trading partners, and the two economies have complementary structures. To approach Seoul, Moscow will need to scale down its military and technology cooperation with Pyongyang.

Still, Russia will want to keep a friendly North Korea as a backup option in case the West and its friends decide to reinstate sanctions.

When the fighting ends, the future of North Korean troops in Russia will become a controversial issue. While a peace deal would reduce the need for them militarily, they will probably be used as labourers in Russian-occupied territories.

Since the start of the war, Russia’s labour market has shrunk due to high enlistment numbers and a decline in foreign workers. In 2022, Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin proposed to invite around 50,000 North Korean workers to supplement the Russian workforce. In 2024, the number of North Korean workers sent to Russia skyrocketed.  If Russia continues to struggle with labour shortages, it may persist with this policy.

Moscow and Pyongyang can also continue cooperation in non-sanctioned areas, such as tourism. Their diplomats have discussed ways to simplify travel regulations to encourage Russian tourists to visit North Korean resorts. Still, North Korea remains a niche destination for Russians. In 2024, only 1500 of them visited North Korea, compared with 200,000 who travelled to South Korea, despite a lack of direct flights.

Academic collaboration is another avenue for cooperation. North Korean agreements with Russian universities include access to advanced technologies and training for specialists. North Korean delegations have visited Russia’s Moscow State University, Novosibirsk State University, Far Eastern Federal University and others, where they focused on joint projects in chemistry, medicine and information technology. As well as sending more students to Russia, North Korea will have opportunities to send illegal workers posing as students.

North Korea is the big beneficiary in its military partnership with Russia

North Korea is getting more out of its engagement in Russia’s war than Russia is getting from North Korea.

The forces that Pyongyang has sent to fight Ukraine are poorly equipped and are not performing well. Yet, the military-technological help that Russia is sending to North Korea in return is highly valuable.

Moscow’s assistance to Pyongyang is somewhat destabilising for East Asia, since any increase in North Korean military strength heightens the risk of war on the Korean Peninsula. South Korea should respond by helping Ukraine.

The growing military cooperation between North Korea and Russia is substantial. Among other reasons for this military-cum-strategic partnership, North Korea eyes several strategic and tactical goals. These include the modernisation of its military capabilities, access to Russian military technologies, combat experience, help in launching spy satellites into space, bolstering its air-defence networks and possible diplomatic cover at the United Nations from international sanctions.

The troops provided by North Korea lack battlefield expertise despite some reportedly being part of North Korea’s special forces. They’re also unfamiliar with the terrain of Russia and Ukraine. Two South Korean lawmakers, Lee Sung-kwon and Park Sun-won have said that North Korean troops deployed in Russia suffer from a ‘poor understanding of modern warfare tactics’. Recently, Ukrainian defence forces wiped out an entire battalion of North Korean troops in Makhnovka, a village in Kursk.

The artillery ammunition, rockets and missiles imported from North Korea have proliferated across Russian defences in large volumes, outdoing EU production lines. Their poor quality translates to low accuracy. While such low-tech weaponry might frustrate Russian soldiers, without it the Russian war machine would slacken.

Consider, however, what North Korea is getting in return. First, Russia sends oil from Vostochny, a port east of Vladivostok, to the North Korean city of Chongjin. But its aid to Pyongyang beyond oil is more important because North Korea is technologically starved.

Russia has already responded to North Korea’s help by sending it air defence systems. According to South Korean intelligence reports, North Korea’s air defences have been outdated and need great improvement to combat South Korean and US air power.

Although North Korean soldiers in the Russia-Ukraine war have not been highly effective, they are learning. Moreover, the war has introduced them to drone warfare. Pyongyang can look forward to this experience improving the combat power of its forces in its own theatre of potential conflict, the peninsula.

The big concern is that Russia may help improve North Korea’s nuclear forces, which in some respects remain somewhat limited. For example, Pyongyang would probably want help in improving its ballistic missile technology, particularly for intercontinental strikes. It must also want nuclear weapons—or better nuclear weapons—for submarines.

Jenny Town of the Stimson Centre, argues that if Russia’s dependence on North Korea expands, the deeper cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang is likely to intensify, and may facilitate the development of nuclear technologies in North Korea.

Earlier this year, the deputy US representative to the UN, Dorothy Camille Shea, warned the Security Council that North Korea might be gaining an upper hand in its military relationship with Moscow, which could strengthen it and make it more capable of destabilising its neighbours.

Scholar Robert Carlin argues that North Korea previously built and tested advanced weapons systems as leverage in negotiations with South Korea and the United States. However, North Korea may now be less interested such negotiations.

Although South Korea’s correct response should be to help Ukraine more, it is still debating whether to send lethal weapons. They could include the Cheonmu multiple rocket launcher, K9 self-propelled howitzer and 155 mm shells.

The South Korean public does not support arms transfers to Ukraine. Indeed, all non-lethal aid from Seoul is routed through the US, since direct supply could create unnecessary friction with Moscow.

In response to the growing relationship between Moscow and Pyongyang, Seoul is at least increasing cooperation with democratic partners.  For example, upon NATO’s request, the South Korean government sent a delegation to Brussels to discuss possibilities for intelligence sharing. And in 2022, South Korea opened its diplomatic mission to NATO.

From the bookshelf: ‘Passcode to the third floor’

To call Thae Yong-Ho’s career trajectory remarkable is an understatement. Following a stellar career as a North Korean diplomat, culminating in his appointment as deputy ambassador in London, at age 54 Thae and his family defected to South Korea. However, once in Seoul he quickly tired of his sinecure at a think tank, entered politics and within four years of defecting was elected to South Korea’s national assembly. And in his free time, he wrote a book.

Thae is one of the highest-ranking officials ever to defect from North Korea and his book, Passcode to the third floor: An insider’s account of life among North Korea’s political elite, is the most detailed insider account so far written about the country’s political system. Thae not only describes the dramatic personal events leading up to his defection; he also provides a tell-all account of how North Korea’s government works, including its top leadership, foreign ministry and security apparatus.

Thae entered government service in 1988 and his book spans nearly three decades of foreign and security policy, from the country’s nuclearisation to the power transition from Kim Jong-Il to Kim Jong-Un. Like most North Korean diplomats, he studied at Beijing’s Foreign Languages University and the Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies. Classes in negotiation skills were particularly rigorous and taught trainees how to prepare physically and mentally, as well as a range of tactics from occupying the high ground to breaking negotiations.

Thae sees Kim Jong-Il’s gradual rise to power in the 1970s as the turning point that made North Korea’s authoritarianism absolute. Kim shifted decision making from the cabinet to the Workers’ Party of Korea and, ultimately, to himself. He introduced a highly centralised system of administrative control, with written proposals sent up to his secretariat on the third floor of the party’s central office, and orders handed down. Even trivial matters were decided at the top, while ministries were kept isolated from each other. Kim Jong-Un has kept the system unchanged.

North Korea’s top bureaucrats lead a well-rewarded but precarious existence, at constant risk of being called to the third floor. Praise is rare, while minor slip-ups may require a self-criticism session. Major errors can lead to banishment from Pyongyang or a spell in one of North Korea’s notorious prisons. Thae describes one harrowing instance when Kim Jong-Un was displeased with an official and ordered his immediate execution.

He also recounts how intimidation and the siloed structure of North Korea’s bureaucracy affect the management of its diplomatic relations.

In 2014, North Korea’s national defence commission learned that Britain’s Channel 4 was producing a fictional TV series about a British scientist being detained and forced to help North Korea to develop nuclear weapons. Without consulting the foreign ministry, the defence commission wrote directly to the British foreign office demanding that Channel 4 halt production and threatening an ‘unimaginable act of retribution’. The British government was shocked, and the embassy in London was left to convince its counterparts that North Korea had no plans for a terrorist strike.

When a nearby London hairdressing salon put up a picture of Kim Jong-un with a caption referring to his ‘bad hair day’, the diplomats’ careers were on the line. Thae and a colleague quickly visited the salon and demanded that the owner take the picture down. ‘When we speak nicely, it’s best to listen’, they threatened. The British tabloids had a field day with the incident.

North Korea watchers fall in two broad groups: pessimists who see little prospect for change and optimists who, despite the recent hardening of North Korea’s policies, see scope for an eventual opening and even some form of denuclearisation. Thae falls firmly in the former category.

Thae’s pessimism derives from what he sees as Kim Jong-Un’s deep-seated insecurities. Kim’s mother was never formally recognised as Kim Jong-Il’s wife, and there are no photographs of him with his grandfather Kim Il-Sung. As a result, Kim is insecure about his all-important bloodline and feels he has to use strong-arm tactics to bolster his position, not least by continuing to develop North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. Thae doesn’t think this will change.

Given the abundance of personalities in Thae’s account and the similarity of many Korean names, the book would have benefitted from a list of key players, a family tree of the Kim dynasty and an index. But compared with the treasure trove of information that Thae offers, these are minor shortcomings.

Passcode to the third floor is a fascinating read for both specialists and generalists.

After a rocky year in Northeast Asia, prepare for another

2024 proved to be an unexpectedly dynamic year for Northeast Asia, and we must be ready for an equally unsteady 2025. Changes in political leadership, evolving ententes and uncertain policy trajectories may all contribute to confrontation, or they could open policy windows to de-escalation and cooperation. Both risk and opportunity await in the new year, and it will be up to policymakers to recognise them and take deliberate steps towards desired outcomes.

To prepare for the new year, it is essential to set the scene for the current political-military situation among the major Northeast Asian players: Russia, China, North Korea, South Korea and Japan. This builds a foundation for tackling the regional issues that await.

Immediate attention will fall to Russia, whose war of aggression against Ukraine has gained from participation by North Korean soldiers. Although both Pyongyang and the Kremlin disavow formal North Korean involvement, its personnel and materiel support reflects deepening ties, that were formalised in what they called the ‘Treaty of Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’ signed during Vladimir Putin’s visit to the North Korean capital in June. An outstanding question heading into the new year is what North Korean soldiers will be bringing back from the Ukrainian front lines, be it tactics, techniques, and procedures; Russian equipment and technology; or all of the above.

Another lingering question is how deepening Russo-North Korean ties will affect each country’s relationship with China. North Korea has demonstrated its capacity for deftly playing the Kremlin and Beijing off one another, and while China still maintains substantial economic leverage over the North Koreans, financial and resource support from Russia shifts the power dynamics.

China has also expanded outreach and contact with other governments since the last meeting of the National People’s Congress in March, including resumption of the Military Maritime Consultation Agreement mechanism meetings with the United States, a trilateral summit with South Korea and Japan in Busan, and a stated ‘turnaround’ in relations with Australia in 2024. While Russia seems unfazed by this outreach, its impact on Sino-North Korean relations bears observation.

Meanwhile, North Korea began the year with its most important policy declaration since its announcement in 1993 that it was withdrawing from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The government said in January that it was abandoning its decades-old unification policy with South Korea and, for the first time in its history, would recognise two sovereign states on the Korean peninsula. Steps to implement this policy soon followed, including dismantlement of inter-Korean related organisations and infrastructure. It also made substantial efforts to harden the boundary between the two Koreas with fences, walls and landmines.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula were low throughout 2024. While Pyongyang employed tactics such as propaganda broadcasting and delivering trash into South Korea with balloons, it took measures to mitigate risk of runaway escalation. This was evident in early October when North Korea notified the US-led United Nations Command before dismantling roads and railways in the northern half of the demilitarised zone, as well as by its muted response to South Korea’s unexpected political turmoil in December. The forthcoming end-of-year Workers’ Party of Korea meeting will offer insight into its policy priorities for 2025, including possible signals to foreign governments—particularly the incoming US administration. Given its policy trajectory since abandoning unification with the South, North Korea may seek to normalise its status as a separate sovereign state in the coming year.

Elsewhere on the Korean peninsula, South Korea will enter 2025 in political disarray. Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived declaration of martial law led to his swift impeachment. While this demonstrated the strength of South Korea’s democratic institutions, the saga is not yet over. There is still a constitutional process to determine Yoon’s fate, which could take up to six months, including for deliberations in the country’s constitutional court. If it confirms Yoon’s removal, final resolution of the crisis with a general election may take a further two months.

While the exact date is unknown, observers should expect a new presidential administration in South Korea in 2025. Assuming the transition happens, a shift in power from the country’s conservatives to its progressives will be all but certain. As it stands, the current conservative platform, which champions South Korea’s role as a ‘global pivotal state’ and embraces multilateral security ties, will likely give way to a platform that returns the government’s focus to rekindling engagement with North Korea. While those two lines of effort are not mutually exclusive, past progressive administrations in South Korea have treated them as such, leading many observers to wonder what may come of the country’s outreach to NATO, its increased joint training with foreign partners such as Australia, and its improving relations with Japan.

In Japan, meanwhile, the Liberal Democratic Party will enter the new year as a minority government for the first time in decades. Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru won his spot atop the government by a narrow margin in a surprise victory over intraparty opponents, further complicating the political landscape. Ishiba’s administration must navigate fraught political waters when attempting to pass legislation in the parliament, and the prime minister must do the same to build consensus within his own party.

Political discord and uncertainty tend to reinforce Japan’s foreign and security policy trajectory. In other words, formulation and implementation of those policies falls back to the historically strong bureaucracy that continues to move forward under the standing legislation and guidance. While this offers some stability, it presents challenges for championing new initiatives or adjusting to rapidly evolving situations. This may make it difficult for the Japanese government to respond to the changes that come with new US and South Korean presidential administrations or to any sudden shifts in Russian, Chinese or North Korean behaviour.

These conditions demand an agile approach to security decision-making in 2025. A new trilateral alliance forming between Russia, China and North Korea is not a foregone conclusion. Once-in-a-generation political conditions in South Korea and Japan should be given particular consideration by states looking to engage and respond to security issues. Those hoping for success must be ready to anticipate, assess and adjust to tackle the challenges that await in the new year.

South Korean leader’s rash move spells upheaval at home and risk abroad

President Yoon Suk Yeol’s decision to rescind his declaration of martial law, in the face of embattled opposition from South Korea’s parliament, has at least spared the country a disastrous return to military rule. Yoon’s ignominious move is likely to seal his political fate, but also underlines the fragility of democracy in South Korea and will leave behind a disruptive political legacy.

Within the space of a few dramatic and chaotic hours last night, Yoon declared martial law in South Korea, citing anti-state and pro-North Korean forces, and ordered the military to take over the National Assembly, South Korea’s parliament.

The most encouraging aspect from this bizarre episode was the National Assembly’s unanimous 190-0 vote to strike down martial law, with 18 members from Yoon’s ruling party joining the opposition.

If South Korea has been spared the nightmare and embarrassment of a reversion to military rule, this owes much to the bravery of its elected representatives, who were under physical threat. Images of parliamentary staff barricading themselves inside and resisting armed soldiers with fire extinguishers poignantly captured the moment that South Korea’s democracy was literally under siege, at gunpoint. It is extremely fortunate that no loss of life occurred, though this is unlikely to spare the shame of the military personnel who took part in the assault on the National Assembly.

While few could have predicted Yoon’s impetuous move, in South Korea or outside, his anti-democratic methods have been on display for some time, resorting to legal pressure tactics against his political opponents and their family members. The President’s prosecutorial background has manifested in a tendency to rule by law. This has largely gone unnoticed internationally, because Yoon’s major foreign policy initiatives—revitalising the alliance with the United States and pursuing rapprochement with Japan—were widely and rightly welcomed by Washington and its allies.

Given the scale of this debacle, it’s hard to see how Yoon can remain in office for long. Mass protests are certain to follow. The great irony of Yoon now facing potential impeachment is that he rose to politics on the back of his central role in the impeachment of former president Park Geun-hye.

Counterintuitively, Yoon’s move to institute martial law actually adds to the case for South Korean presidents being allowed to run for a second term. There is no excuse for Yoon’s irresponsibility, but his politically desperate act was shaped in part by his ‘dead duck’ status, halfway into his single five-year term. The constitutional limitation on presidential terms was introduced as a safeguard against reversion to military dictatorship. Yet it is has perversely added to the polarisation of Korean politics and the zero-sum mentality of its politicians.

South Korea became democratic only in 1987. This episode is a reminder how fragile that democracy remains—though it would be mistaken to conclude that Western democracies are immune to democratic backsliding, as the events of 6 January 2021 graphically illustrated in the US.

The fact that South Korea is surrounded by China, Russia and North Korea gives its status particular importance, one of very few democracies on the Asian continent east of India. By wilfully extinguishing South Koreans’ hard-fought democracy and resubjecting it to military rule, if only for a few hours, Yoon has unwittingly given a free gift to his autocratic neighbours. For this, his political legacy seems certain to end in shame.

While North Korea appears to have nothing directly to do with Yoon’s decision to introduce martial law—despite his claims to the contrary—Pyongyang will be watching events closely and looking for opportunities to capitalise. With Seoul domestically distracted and the US in political transition, Kim Jong Un may see a favourable window within which to conduct a long-threatened nuclear test.

Moreover, South Korea’s armed forces are likely to be thrown into political convulsions with the apparent complicity of Yoon’s Defence Minister, Kim Yong Hyun in the declaration of martial law and the subsequent Army-led assault on the National Assembly. While this will leave a lasting legacy for South Korea’s delicate civil-military relations, the immediate security risk concerns external defence, especially given likely uncertainties around military command and control in the aftermath of martial law. This will be of obvious concern to the US, South Korea’s treaty ally, and American forces in Korea.

While it seems unlikely that South Korea will deviate from its current foreign policy settings in the short term, there will be no political bandwidth available. Beyond the immediate crisis, the likelihood of impeachment proceedings followed by elections and a change of government to progressive forces is likely to complicate relations with Japan and the US. Of course, the identity of Korea’s president is not the only factor in play, given Donald Trump’s well-publicised efforts to draw down US forces on the Korean Peninsula and determination to maximise South Korea’s financial support for US troops.

From the bookshelf: ‘Engaging North Korea’

North Korea is again in the global spotlight. By providing first munitions and now troops to support Russia, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has expanded the scope of the Ukraine conflict while driving its relations with the West to a new low. And, by aligning with Russia, sidelining long-time patron China and abandoning its goal of unification with South Korea, North Korea has escalated tensions in Northeast Asia.

The last time the hermit kingdom was this visible was in June 2018, when its leader, Kim Jong Un, met US president Donald Trump at a summit held in Singapore amid cautious optimism that North Korea might gradually open up to the West. But in a follow-up summit in Hanoi in 2019, the gaping differences between the two parties became clear and negotiations collapsed.

The Biden administration adopted a wait-and-see policy, paying little attention to North Korea. Most foreign missions in Pyongyang closed during the Covid-19 pandemic and have not reopened.

In 2022, however, Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine dealt the North Korea a fresh hand. With rapidly depleting military resources, Moscow turned to Pyongyang, which in 2023 began exporting artillery shells and weapons to Russia, in return receiving much-needed food, raw materials and weapons parts.

In January this year, Pyongyang relinquished its constitutional commitment to Korean unification and said it would consider the South to be its principal enemy. To underline the shift, in October North Korea blew up parts of two roads connecting it to the South. Munitions exports to Russia have accelerated, and now Pyongyang has sent troops to fight for Russia in Ukraine.

In Engaging North Korea, 12 international experts put their heads together to review experience in relations with North Korea and provide pointers on how to deal with it in the future. The contributors include leading Korea experts from Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the US and Vietnam, a director of humanitarian aid and a Swedish diplomatic envoy. The two last-mentioned have hands-on experience working inside North Korea.

The authors start from the widely divergent interests behind the six-party talks, which sought to address North Korea’s nuclear program and broke down in 2009. The United States, Japan and South Korea want denuclearization, North Korea wants to keep its nuclear capabilities and have economic sanctions lifted, while China and North Korea have a special relationship based on inter-party cooperation. Japan must also deal with the domestically sensitive issue of citizens abducted by North Korean agents. The sixth party in the talks was Russia.

Singaporean and Vietnamese viewpoints are also discussed in the book, as either country may be called on to facilitate future negotiations. Should the North Korea ever consider opening its economy, Vietnam might serve as a model. With the world focusing on geopolitics, the authors remind us of North Korea’s deep humanitarian crisis. Given the range of interlinked issues, the book highlights the need to deal with North Kora comprehensively rather than piecemeal.

A fascinating chapter reviews the special role played by Sweden in keeping the door to North Korea ajar, though sometimes only minimally. It was the first Western country to recognise North Korea, in 1973. In 1975 it set up an embassy that it has kept open, although since the Covid-19 outbreak staffed entirely with North Korean nationals.

In the early 1990s, after a change of government, Stockholm was about to shut its embassy when the US asked it to represent it as a diplomatic protecting power—a representative. Washington lacked official relations with Pyongyang and wanted Sweden to serve as a neutral go-between. Sweden kept the embassy open and now serves as the protecting power for Australia, Canada, Germany and the US. It also  represents several other countries in consular matters.

Engaging with North Korea is a daunting task but one that is essential for world peace. The authors liken it to the Sisyphean challenge of repeatedly pushing a boulder up a hill only to have it roll down again, but they consider the chances of success greater if countries work ‘collectively, patiently and purposefully’. They propose doing this through informal working groups rather than showy summits. However, North Korea’s recent policy shifts make even this unlikely, at least in the short term.

Its playbook consists of bluster, threats and unpredictability, which its leaders have used ruthlessly to gain strategic advantage. However, behind the enigmatic facade there is a method, usually opportunistic, to North Korea’s unpredictability.

Frustrated at being ignored by the Biden administration, North Korea predictably undertook missile launches in September and October in the run-up to the US presidential elections. We should remember that its warming relations with Russia are transactional and do not change the reality that China is North Korea’s closest neighbour and only major trading partner.

With North Korea sending soldiers to support Russia and with tensions on the Korean Peninsula at a new high, the search is on for fresh ways to deal with the hermit kingdom. Engaging North Korea is essential reading for diplomats and security specialists, especially those handling Northeast Asia and Russia’s war on Ukraine.

A new US, Russia, China nuclear arms race spells danger

Unlike in the Cold War, the United States faces the prospect in the next decade of two peer nuclear adversaries, which will together have twice as many strategic nuclear weapons as it does. According to a senior American official visiting Australia last month, by 2034 China will have as many strategic nuclear weapons as the US does today. So, a decade from now America may be outnumbered by Russia and China combined having over 3,000 strategic nuclear warheads to America’s 1500.

Under the terms of the 2018 New START Treaty, Russia and America are each allowed 1550 strategic nuclear warheads and 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and heavy nuclear bombers. This treaty expires on 5 February 2026. But Russia last year ‘suspended’ its treaty commitments—though it claims it will abide by the numerical limit of 1550 deployed nuclear warheads.

The United States and Russia have successfully negotiated strategic nuclear arms reduction talks from the early 1970s until now. At the height of the Cold War, the US nuclear arsenal numbered more than 32,000 weapons and the Soviet arsenal more than 45,000. The two have also withdrawn about 14,000 tactical nuclear weapons from forward deployments in places such as Europe. But the question now arises whether that era of careful, considered—and verifiable—cuts to strategic nuclear capabilities is over.

The Russians and the Americans are no longer talking at the political level about these vital issues, although expert talks do continue. And several previous bilateral arms control treaties have been cancelled, including the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, the Theatre Nuclear Forces in Europe Treaty, the Open Skies Agreement, the Conventional Forces in Europe Agreement and others.

On 7 June, according to Pranay Vaddi—the special assistant to the president for arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation at the National Security Council—Russia, China and North Korea ‘are all expanding and diversifying their nuclear arsenals at a breakneck speed and showing no interest in arms control.’  Vaddi observed that the last decade has revealed serious cracks in the international pillars of reducing nuclear dangers, the salience of nuclear weapons, and limiting strategic arsenals of the largest nuclear powers.

When I was last in Moscow, in 2016, a senior military officer at the colonel general level stressed that tense bilateral relations were all leading to a nuclear miscalculation. Regular meetings and negotiations over intricate technical details were a thing of the past. Since then, bilateral relations between Russia and America have deteriorated further. President Vladimir Putin at least wants us to think he is seriously toying with the idea of using nuclear weapons. Who knows what goes on in his obsessive mind? But Putin needs to remember that at the height of the Cold War, the Pentagon’s calculations were that, in the event of a full-scale nuclear strike on Russia, America would kill about one quarter of Russia’s population, or 70 million people, in the first 48 hours.

China has absolutely refused to be involved with the Americans about nuclear arms control and verification. It claims that its strategic nuclear forces are so modest compared with those of the US that there is no point in any talk about negotiations. It is true that until recently China’s strategic nuclear stockpile has not been much more than that of either Britain or France (200 to 300 nuclear weapons each). However, according to the Pentagon, China now has about 500 nuclear weapons and will reach 1000 by 2030. In this context, I have been advised that the US is already adding to its nuclear military targets in China.

There can be no doubt that the type of limits that the US might be able to agree with Russia would be affected by the size and scale of China’s nuclear buildup and the United States’ deterrence needs in relation to Beijing.

My impression is, however, that as yet there is no plan in the US to equal the combined numbers of nuclear weapons of Russia and China. This would be a hugely expensive step and would likely take a couple of decades. Although warheads could be taken out of reserve stockpiles, finding extra delivery vehicles is quite a different proposition.

The national security adviser to the president has made it clear that America ‘does not need to increase its nuclear forces to match or outnumber the combined total of our competitors to successfully deter them.’

Even so, it would seem obvious that 1500 nuclear weapons will be insufficient if the US is to have the capacity to wage major nuclear war simultaneously on both China and Russia. Vaddi made it quite clear that the US ‘will need to continue to adjust our posture and capabilities to ensure our ability to deter and meet other objectives going forward.’ The special assistant also said the president had ‘recently issued updated nuclear weapons employment guidance, which takes into account the realities of a new nuclear era.’ This updated nuclear guidance emphasises ‘the need to account for the growth and diversity of the PRC’s nuclear arsenal—and the need to deter Russia, the PRC, and North Korea simultaneously.’  Moreover, absent a change in the growth trajectory of adversary arsenals—for which, read those of Russia and China—the US may reach a point in the coming years ‘where an increase from current deployed numbers is required.’

In brief, Russia and China are forcing the US and US allies to prepare for a world where nuclear competition occurs without guarantees of numerical constraints.

There are several ways in which America might remodel its nuclear posture. At present, the US is developing a new ICBM type, the LGM-35 Sentinel, to replace the 450 old Minuteman ICBMs and serve from 2029 to 2075, although the program is running more than two years late. The initial costs of this project have rapidly risen from an initial budget of US$95.3 billion to more than US$125 billion in January 2024 and a revised defence contract estimate of US$141billion in July 2024. According to the secretary of the air force, the Sentinel program has now encountered ‘unknown unknowns’.

I understand that the nuclear weapons load of the Ohio class SSBN can be quickly made significantly bigger if the New START Treaty is not extended in February 2026. In addition, more of the hard-to-detect Northrop Grumman B-21 bombers can be built. However, Russia itself is also going through significant nuclear modernisation, including developing the Sarmat ICBM that will replace the Cold War SS-18 Satan, which carried a single 20-megaton warhead or 10 one-megaton independently targetable warheads. Russia is also developing a new ballistic-missile nuclear submarine (SSBN) as well as a very large nuclear-armed torpedo.

However, it is important here to understand that both China’s and Russia’s so-called survivable second-strike nuclear capability in their SSBNs are highly vulnerable to pre-emptive destruction by the United States’ decisive superiority in underwater warfare. China appears to know that its SSBNs are very vulnerable and is investing heavily in missiles on trucks to complicate US targeting.

Another route to expansion that the US may be contemplating is to use some of its huge holdings of reserve nuclear warheads, which total 4200. According to the 2009 report of the Commission on America’s Strategic Posture, the US retains a large stockpile of reserve weapons ‘as a hedge against surprise, whether of a geopolitical or a technical kind.’

The geopolitical surprise could mean, for example, a sudden change in leadership intent in Russia or China that could pose a threat to the United States, which might drive the US to reload reserve nuclear weapons on available delivery systems. To hedge against technical surprise—such as, perhaps, an opponent’s deployment of ballistic missile defence—the US currently retains two warhead types for each major delivery system. This approach to hedging requires holding a significant number of non-deployed nuclear warheads.

All this suggests that—if America’s strategic circumstances should dramatically worsen or if a highly challenging technological breakthrough had been achieved by one of its nuclear adversaries—Washington could quickly access around 4000 reserve strategic nuclear warheads. The commission noted that the US maintains ‘an unneeded degree of secrecy’ about the number of nuclear weapons in its arsenal, including not just deployed weapons but also weapons in the inactive stockpile and those awaiting dismantlement.

This is also where extended nuclear deterrence comes in. Washington will need to take careful notice of how countries such as Japan will react if it loses its capacity to reassure Tokyo that extended nuclear deterrence will still work. Japan faces potential nuclear threat not only from China and Russia but also from North Korea (whose relatively crude nuclear capability should not be underestimated). Extended deterrence is not, however, a foregone conclusion—not least for America’s allies.

This concept was relatively straightforward in the Cold War because it involved deterring only one nuclear superpower, the Soviet Union. Needless to say, it was never tested in practice as far as Australia was concerned even though we were an important Soviet target with regard to the joint US–Australian facilities at Pine Gap, Nurrungar and North-West Cape. The concept of extended nuclear deterrence remains a theory: it depends on the perceptions by the adversary of America’s nuclear intent to dissuade it from using nuclear force against the US or a US ally. Allies face ever-increasing nuclear and conventional threats from Russia, China and North Korea and may become increasingly worried about the credibility of US guarantees.

In the Cold War, the deterrence calculus was relatively simple. The president authorised guidance to hold a broad array of targets at risk and also authorised the nuclear operational plans for doing so. The deterrent effect was understood to derive from the nuclear damage that an adversary might calculate and its uncertainty as to whether it could bear the cost—or even predict it reliably. The US went to great lengths in the Cold War to ensure that its deterrent was perceived as credible and effective, including through strong declaratory policies that in the event would have made it very difficult for it to back away from its nuclear deterrent commitments.

It is important to understand that deterrence is in the eye of the beholder. Whether potential adversaries are deterred (and US allies are assured) is a function of their understanding of US capabilities and intentions. This implies that the US needs a spectrum of employment options for nuclear and precise conventional forces, along with the requirement for forces that are sufficiently lethal and certain of their result to put at risk an appropriate array of the adversary’s nuclear capabilities credibly.

Whereas during the Cold War the USSR understood all too well that the consequences of nuclear war with the US would have been devastating for Russia, it is not as clear as it needs to be that contemporary China has drawn the same conclusion—despite the fact that the sheer size and density of China’s population makes it especially vulnerable to all-out nuclear war.

This underscores the potential challenges of effective deterrence, as it brings with it more openings for ignorance, motivations, distorted communications and a lack of understanding. Essential to the future effective function of nuclear deterrence is that the US and its allies gain insights into the strategic thinking of the nations being deterred and, so, how best to communicate with them in a crisis.

While extended nuclear assurance and persuasion have been important factors in the US for a long time, there does not appear to be any widely accepted methodology for reaching a decision on how many weapons are needed for these purposes.

As an important first step, the US should consult more closely with its allies regarding their views of what is required for their assurance. This is an issue where Australia should have a much more extensive dialogue with its other key strategic partners in the Asia-Pacific region, especially Japan.

Australia must now pay urgent attention to this important new threat of the US deterring two peer nuclear powers, perhaps simultaneously. Canberra should reverse the decline of resources of the intelligence community devoted to foreign nuclear weapons capabilities, programs and intentions. This subject has not attracted high-level attention since the end of the Cold War more than 30 years ago.

The Australian defence organisation has no collective memory of how we dealt with this issue from the early 1970s until the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Our hosting of Pine Gap and Nurrungar during that time gave us highly privileged access to US thinking about nuclear war and nuclear deterrence. The Australian defence organisation needs to revisit this critical policy issue now.

Blame Donald Trump for North Korea’s sabre-rattling

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Pyongyang in June and North Korea’s announcement this month of tests of new missiles have raised alarms in Washington, rattled America’s allies and threaten to destabilise the Indo-Pacific region. While this certainly is not the first time that tensions have escalated, the current turmoil can be traced back to the actions of one man: former US President Donald Trump.

During his presidency, Trump’s attempts at diplomacy were often viewed as ill-informed and dangerous, especially when he and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un exchanged nuclear threats in 2017. Yet, Trump and Kim, who met for two summits in 2018 and 2019, actually made significant progress towards resolving the decades-long conflict between their two countries—until Trump’s impulsiveness derailed these efforts and set the stage for escalation.

Seeing a chance to shine on the international stage and win a Nobel Peace Prize like his predecessor, Barack Obama, Trump pushed for a summit with Kim. This also reflected a stark reality. In their first and only meeting after Trump’s election, Obama warned that North Korea was on the verge of acquiring missiles and bombs capable of killing millions of Americans. Obama also told Trump that the US might have to launch a preemptive strike to prevent this scenario.

Trump’s offer to meet Kim was a dream come true for North Korea, signifying its acceptance on the world stage. Kim, like his father and grandfather, sought to modernise the country’s underdeveloped economy. An end to the cold war with the US, and resulting opportunity for North Korea to transfer resources from defense to the civilian economy, was crucial to this process. To achieve it, Kim was even willing to put his nuclear-weapons program on the chopping block.

Even as they were issuing public threats, Trump and Kim were secretly angling for a summit. Immediately after Trump took office, the North Koreans reached out to the State Department, signaling Kim’s desire to meet the new US president. During secret talks in Singapore, North Korean spies reportedly asked their CIA counterparts whether Trump was serious about meeting Kim.

Although the Trump administration’s official policy was to force the North Koreans to come to the negotiating table, the president liked the idea of a leader-to-leader summit. In December 2017, he even provided a United Nations envoy with a message for Kim, proposing a meeting.

Whether Trump knew it or not, engaging directly with Kim was the only way to stop North Korea from amassing more weapons of mass destruction. While observers were dismissive of these efforts, Kim’s unilateral decision to halt missile and nuclear-weapons tests and start dismantling test sites showed he was serious. Notably, Kim also announced a major economic-modernisation program, indicating his expectation that the US-North Korea conflict would soon end.

But ending decades of hostility cannot be achieved in a few hours, and the first Trump-Kim summit in June 2018 in Singapore fell far short of such unrealistic expectations. Trump himself seemed to realise this, telling his aides that it was a ‘process’ that might require several summits.

He was right. While Trump was criticised for being unprepared for his second meeting with Kim in Hanoi in February 2019, the summit was preceded by intense negotiations between Trump’s special envoy, Stephen Biegun, and his North Korean counterparts. According to former US officials, the talks produced a lengthy document that addressed nearly every issue the two countries had struggled with, leaving two major questions for Trump and Kim to resolve: how much of North Korea’s nuclear program would be dismantled immediately and how many sanctions the US would lift in return.

Trump and Kim came close to resolving these issues, but Kim’s demands exceeded what Trump was willing to offer. The two haggled until Trump, who is known for his impatience, abruptly decided to cut the summit short.

Regrettably, Trump’s impulsive decision came just as the negotiations were gaining momentum. After the formal talks had ended, a top Kim adviser approached Biegun with a new, promising proposal. The two seemed to be making progress as Trump walked by, shook Kim’s hand, and left, despite Kim’s request that he stay a few more hours. The American delegation had no choice but to follow Trump, and the stunned Kim returned to Pyongyang empty-handed.

At the time, many experts believed that the summit failed because Kim was not willing to give up his stockpile of nuclear weapons. Some thought that John Bolton, Trump’s hawkish national security adviser, had sabotaged the talks, while others noted that Trump was likely distracted by the congressional testimony of his former lawyer, Michael Cohen. But the blame lies squarely with Trump himself. As Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, put it, Trump’s attention span is ‘a minus number’.

Trump himself may have had second thoughts about walking out of the Hanoi summit. As he left Vietnam, he reportedly called then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in and sought his advice. But Trump and Kim never reconnected.

This raises the question: What if Trump had reached a historic deal with Kim in Hanoi? It is probably safe to say that the US and North Korea would have made significant, albeit slow, progress towards better relations. If they had, it is also likely that Kim would not have jeopardised his new relationship with the US by embracing Putin, nor would he be building an enormous weapons arsenal that threatens to annihilate American cities. Alas, because of Trump’s rash decisions, we will never know what could have been.

China’s latest unsafe interception at sea was no accident

A Chinese J-10 fighter intercepted an Australian MH-60R Seahawk helicopter from the destroyer HMAS Hobart over the Yellow Sea on 4 May, dropping flares in its path and endangering the helicopter and its crew, Australia’s Department of Defence says. With uncharacteristic haste, the department issued a condemnatory statement two days later, describing China’s latest harassment of an Australian military asset as unsafe and unprofessional.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese later called it ‘completely unacceptable’.

First and foremost, such behaviour during the conduct of routine and lawful operations around China’s maritime periphery needs to be called out. Official silence would risk complicity in repeated bad behaviour. If the government has absorbed that lesson, after suffering criticism for its hesitant response to China’s dangerous use of sonar pulses against Australian divers from the frigate HMAS Toowoomba in November, then bravo.

But this leaves a basic question unanswered: why do the Chinese armed forces persist with such risky and provocative behaviour? And why do they do it despite improvement in diplomatic relations with Australia and efforts by the US and its partners to engage with them on protocols for safe military encounters?

China habitually denies engaging in irresponsible conduct in its encounters with foreign warships and aircraft. In this case it said ‘an Australian military aircraft deliberately flew within close range of China’s airspace in a provocative move which endangered China’s maritime air security’. Yet the catalogue of unsafe incidents is extensive enough to prove deliberate and organised harassment.

Chinese forces’ behaviour had recently seemed more disciplined. The frequency with which their units have acted unsafely near US forces in the Pacific has declined. Immediately before the latest incident, China’s navy chief, Admiral Hu Zhongming, hosted regional counterparts for a naval symposium in Qingdao ‘for countries to deepen friendship, promote exchanges and enhance mutual trust’. Australian naval chief Vice-Admiral Mark Hammond participated.

But two Australian warships have now been involved in serious incidents within a few months. And a Royal Australian Air Force P-8A Poseidon maritime patroller was unsafely intercepted over the South China Sea in May 2022, just as the current Labor government came to power. It is simply not credible to assert that these incidents are spontaneous or occur independently of the Chinese military chain of command.

A combination of coercive behaviour, including military manoeuvres, with diplomatic charm offensives is familiar in China’s statecraft. India and Vietnam have experienced similar tactics over many years. So Canberra should not be surprised by the combination of stroke-and-poke in the current phase of supposed stabilisation with Beijing.

The tactic has kept China’s interlocutors off-balance and worried about crossing Beijing’s often ambiguous red lines. As with any form of bullying, maintaining silence in the face of it only empowers the bully. So Australia’s quick, clear and measured response to the latest incident is encouraging.

China is also likely to have had specific motivation for the unsafe interception.

The first pointer is timing. It came just days after the ABC revealed that Hammond had urged his Chinese counterpart in Qingdao to prioritise safety. Hammond raised the sonar incident during their encounter.

The second pointer is the operational context. During their deployments to Northeast Asia, the Australian warships were involved in Operation Argos, multinational maritime enforcement of UN-mandated sanctions against North Korea. The activity is focused on the Yellow Sea and East China Sea. In October, the Chinese air force unsafely intercepted a Canadian surveillance aircraft engaged in the same operation.

China’s specific objective here is to dissuade US allies from continuing to physically enforce sanctions against North Korea. Many of the embargoed materials that find their way to North Korean ports, including through ship-to-ship transfers, come from China. And China’s connection with North Korea, as with Russia, is tightening.

Beijing has Australia-specific motivations, too. Canberra should interpret such aggression as a dominance display by the Chinese armed forces, demonstrating that they can make life difficult for the Australian Defence Force wherever they deem its presence unwelcome—and that they can do it dangerously if they please.

China knows how highly Australia regards the wellbeing and safety of its service personnel. These incidents cumulatively test Canberra’s resolve to continue operating in China’s maritime periphery in peacetime.

The latest could even be interpreted as a personal rebuke to Australia’s navy chief for directly questioning Chinese military professionalism and safety. The government should therefore be careful to back Hammond. It should also pre-empt any Chinese perception that Canberra can be coerced into reining in defence operations, not only in Northeast Asia but also in conducting more joint patrols with the US, Japan and the Philippines in the South China Sea.

Actions always speak louder than words to Beijing.

Is nuclear peace with North Korea possible?

North Korea’s recent public displays of new intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles have raised fresh concerns about the risks the regime in Pyongyang poses to the US mainland. As President Joe Biden’s administration reviews US policy towards the DPRK over the past four years and draws what lessons it can from Donald Trump’s nuclear summitry with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, it should consider a new arms-control approach.

The failure of Trump’s efforts should surprise no one. After all, prior US administrations’ initiatives to stop North Korea’s nuclear-arms program—including Bill Clinton’s ‘Agreed Framework’, the six-party talks during George W. Bush’s administration, and Barack Obama’s ‘Leap Day’ agreement—came to naught. Quite the contrary: North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003, and has failed to abide by a 1992 accord with South Korea pledging to keep the Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons.

All this diplomatic activity leading nowhere raises a fundamental question: Does nuclear-arms control have a future on the peninsula?

It does, but not as currently practiced. It should be clear by now that Kim will not abolish his nuclear arsenal, or permit a verifiable nuclear freeze, as some have called for. The reason is simple: as with all nuclear-armed countries today, nuclear weapons remain the regime’s ultimate security blanket. The bomb also provides Kim with leverage over South Korea. The challenge, then, is to ensure that North Korea never uses its nuclear arsenal.

Realising this aim will require a combination of classic deterrence and new diplomatic thinking—specifically, a normalisation of US–North Korea ties. America currently provides deterrence on the peninsula through its offshore air- and sea-based nuclear umbrella over South Korea, while nearly 30,000 US troops in the country supplement more than three million active and reserve South Korean troops.

But relying on deterrence alone against North Korea cannot assuredly prevent or manage missteps, because the country’s isolation from the rest of the world breeds unique perils. Seclusion promotes pathological insecurities that could fuel misunderstanding and miscalculation. To complicate matters further, Kim is prone to grandiosity, military posturing and bullying.

Normal diplomatic ties buttressed by deterrence have provided a path to nuclear peace in other bilateral relationships, including between China and the United States. As menacing as North Korea is today, Cold War-era China under Mao Zedong’s leadership posed a far greater threat to American interests. Mao intervened in the Korean War against the US, fomented the Taiwan Strait crises later in the 1950s, and encouraged wars of national liberation against Western powers. When President John F. Kennedy’s administration entered office in 1961, it regarded China as a rising nuclear bête noire and considered military action against it.

But America did not bomb away, and Richard Nixon’s subsequent opening to China and the normalisation of relations during Jimmy Carter’s presidency neutralised US concerns. Despite the absence of a bilateral nuclear-arms limitation treaty, China’s arsenal remains largely a low-level issue amid current Sino-American tensions.

Similarly, US diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union dating back to the 1930s proved their worth in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. As the US ramped up its military readiness to compel the Soviet Union to withdraw its nuclear missiles, the interaction between Washington-based Soviet diplomats and US officials proved pivotal in ending the standoff. Likewise, US diplomatic influence over Pakistan, and its ties with India, helped slow the momentum towards nuclear war during the 1999 Kargil conflict and in the aftermath of the 2001 Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist attack on the Indian parliament.

To be sure, the centrality of North Korea’s nuclear enterprise to the survival of Kim’s regime would complicate any effort to normalise diplomatic relations. Then there are questions about how to build a diplomatic relationship. Can or should the process begin with the opening of embassies, in the hope that this will engender confidence and enable the two countries to address substantive issues? Or can negotiators get down to details immediately?

Either way, two priorities stand out. North Korea needs relief from international economic sanctions, and the US needs to eliminate North Korea’s capability to strike it with intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Sanctions, domestic mismanagement, natural disasters and Covid-19 have left North Korea’s economy—by Kim’s own admission—in desperate need of repair. For America, which currently lacks effective ballistic-missile defences, the prospect of being in North Korea’s nuclear crosshairs is unacceptable. Could this point to a possible trade-off, namely the lifting of sanctions in exchange for the elimination of missiles?

Such a deal would leave North Korea’s theatre nuclear force untouched and help mend the country’s economy while reducing the risk of a pre-emptive American strike. It would also immunise the US against a possible North Korean ICBM attack, leaving it better placed to meet South Korean and Japanese security needs. And with diplomatic representation in each other’s countries, both sides would have reliable channels to address disputes and manage relations generally.

To determine whether Kim’s regime would be open to serious negotiation, the Biden administration could initially endorse so-called Track II diplomacy—former US government and non-government interlocutors meeting informally with North Korean officials in third-party countries. If the outreach sparked interest in Pyongyang, the door to formal talks would open. America’s default option is to return to tried-and-failed efforts to persuade North Korea to disarm. The challenge will be to convince leaders on both sides that diplomatic normalisation leading to an ICBM–sanctions trade-off is the best path forward.

Tag Archive for: North Korea

Stop the World: Russia, North Korea and nuclear threats with Bee Yun Jo and Peter Tesch

This week on Stop the World, we bring you the second episode in our special series recorded from the sidelines of the ASPI Defence Conference ‘JoiningFORCES’.

In this episode, the conversation is all about North Korea, Russia, China and nuclear threats. Alex Bristow speaks to former Australian diplomat and defence official, Peter Tesch, and Dr Bee Yun Jo, Associate Research Fellow at the Center for Security and Strategy at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses. They consider the increased alignment and cooperation between Russia and China, and between Russia and North Korea as seen through Vladimir Putin’s recent visit to Pyongyang. They also discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine, the risks of further escalation by Moscow, and how the West should respond.

Note: This episode was recorded on the sidelines of the conference, so please forgive the less than perfect audio quality.

Guests:

⁠Alex Bristow⁠

⁠Peter Tesch⁠

⁠Bee Yun Jo