(News Focus) N.K. troop dispatch for Russia may have broad implications for global security, order: experts

North Korea’s troop dispatch to support Russia in its war against Ukraine could have profound implications for global security and order, experts said Friday, as the two nuclear muscle-flexing countries are elevating their military alignment to a new height despite growing pushback from like-minded democracies.

Noting their give-and-take partnership, analysts anticipated that beyond financial compensation for its deployment, the North could get military technology aid from Russia to advance its nuclear and missile programs, with its troops given chances to test their arms and acquiring hands-on combat experience — all ominous for security on the Korean Peninsula.

On Friday (Seoul time), South Korea’s National Intelligence Service confirmed that the North has decided to send around 12,000 troops to support Russia in the war, with roughly 1,500 soldiers already sent to the Russian Far Eastern city of Vladivostok aboard Russian naval vessels.

“The dispatch of North Korean troops to Russia en masse is a reall
y troubling development for not only the war in Ukraine, but for global security as well,” Andrew Yeo, the SK-Korea Foundation chair at the Brookings Institution’s Center for East Asia Policy Studies, told Yonhap News Agency via email.

“It means two nuclear-armed, heavily sanctioned states will go at any lengths to support each other, and it may signal to other authoritarian regimes unhappy with the current rules-based order that they can flout every international norm,” he added.

The troop deployment came after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership” treaty in June. The treaty calls for one party to provide military aid to the other “without delay” in the event of an armed invasion — a pledge that many said amounted to a revival of the two countries’ Cold War-era military alliance.

The deployment underscored their partnership’s implications for European security. It also stoked fears that if a war flares up on the Korean Peninsul
a, Moscow would also come to the aid of Pyongyang with the potential to bring that conflict into a wider regional confrontation.

“As North Korea amplifies its threat in Europe, Russia magnifies its disruption in Asia. Defense ministers from Asia joined the NATO ministerial for the first time this week, and they are acutely aware of the interconnected of today’s most threatening actors,” Patrick Cronin, Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute, told Yonhap News Agency via email.

“The axis of revisionist powers may not be a cohesive alliance, but Russia, North Korea, China, and Iran have the ability to heighten defense threats by working in pairs or trilaterally against the interests of like-minded democracies,” he added.

Regarding a flurry of media reports on the troop dispatch, U.S. officials have said that such a move would also indicate a “new level of desperation” for Russia as it continues to suffer significant casualties on the battlefield in its war against Ukraine.

Russia is known to hav
e been averaging more than 1,200 casualties per day in recent months as it seeks to gain territory in eastern Ukraine and to retake Kursk.

“Vladimir Putin needs foreign fighters because he is afraid to conscript more Russian boys who will wind up being shipped down in body bags. Kim Jong-un thinks Putin will win this war, but before it ends he wants to solidify Putin’s personal commitment to defend Pyongyang while also providing critical defense technology,” Cronin said.

“Buying North Korean munitions has been good for North Korea’s stunted economy, and Kim senses there is far more to gain from elevating his alliance with Putin to a whole other level.”

Bruce Bennet, a senior defense analyst at RAND Corp., expected North Korean troops — possibly more experienced and trained than young Russian conscripts — to be used as “cannon fodder.”

“The Russians are going to tend to use them as cannon fodder,” he said. “They’re going to put them at the front. They’re going to try and achieve breakthroughs with them.”

The North’s force deployment could rekindle questions over whether European countries would consider deploying their own forces to support Ukraine, Bennett noted, a move that would create greater uncertainties in the regional security landscape.

“Several of the European countries have talked about committing some of their forces and sending them to Ukraine. That subject is going to come up big time in the near future,” he said. “And the question is whether or not that happens, because the Russians have threatened to use nuclear weapons in that kind of case.”

For North Korean leader Kim, the troop deployment could also pose a dilemma. It could earn his regime financial and other benefits, but potential troop fatalities, especially those from elite families, could trigger blowback against his dynastic regime, Bennett noted.

“How are they going to feel when their kids are killed in Ukraine? They’re going to be very angry at Kim Jong-un,” he said.

“While he needs the money that he’s getting from the Russians
to buy food and consumer goods, to take care of the needs of the North Koreans, because his economy is all messed up. So that helps him, but he’s also likely going to have major pushback from his elites.”

What Pyongyang would get in return for the deployment remains a hotly debated topic.

Speculation has persisted that Pyongyang might want to get technological assistance for its nuclear weapons designs or intercontinental ballistic missile development. Pyongyang is also known to be seeking defense aid, including fighter aircraft, surface-to-air missiles, armored vehicles and ballistic missile production equipment.

The troop dispatch also renewed a question about whether South Korea should consider sending lethal arms to Ukraine in a shift from its policy against the provision of such weapons.

“(Ukrainian) President Zelenskyy may be hoping South Korea will send lethal arms directly to Ukraine in light of this news, but South Korea may want to know if additional countries would also provide lethal weapons t
o Ukraine so as not to be singled out,” Yeo said.

As for a response to the North’s military deployment, analysts said that the U.S. and its allies and partners, including South Korea and Japan, should further strengthen sanctions enforcement against Pyongyang and Moscow, and stay aligned to present unity.

Bennett proposed psychological operations focusing on North Korean elites to put pressure on the North Korean leader.

“We need to be focusing on his elites. We need to tell them, ‘Look, your sons are dying in Ukraine’,” he said. “If we really want to rein this in, we’ve got to put pressure on (Kim), and the pressure isn’t from us. It’s from his own elites.”

Source: Yonhap News Agency