Friday News Roundup — June 21, 2024
By James Kitfield
This week offered ample evidence that war in Europe and the Middle East, and growing tensions in the Indo-Pacific, are continuing to dangerously destabilize the international order and geopolitics.
During a week of extraordinary diplomacy, for instance, strongman Vladimir Putin made a major effort to break out of Russia’s isolation resulting from his war in Ukraine, which is well past its second year mark. His overseas trips to North Korea and Vietnam served to highlight how his aggression is accelerating the geostrategic realignment between anti-Western autocracies and U.S.-led democracies, with unmistakable echoes of the Cold War.
In his first state visit to the “Hermit Kingdom” in nearly a quarter century, Putin arrived in Pyongyang to a red-carpet welcome and great pomp and circumstance. He and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un signed a new agreement pledging aid if either country faces “aggression.” The strategic pact covers security and trade, and represents a major upgrade in their relations, with clear parallels to close relations during the Cold War standoff between the West and the Soviet Union.
For many months North Korea has supplied Moscow with critical weaponry and munitions for its war in Ukraine, reportedly to include dozens of ballistic missiles and over 11,000 shipping containers of badly needed ammunition such as 155 mm artillery shells. With his visit and public remarks, Putin indicated that in exchange Moscow is willing to supply not only economic assistance, likely to include oil exports at favorable prices, but also possible technology transfers and expertise that could greatly advance Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and missile programs. That possibility is a major concern for Washington, D.C.
With thinly veiled threats, Putin couched the closer defense cooperation as a response to U.S. arms to Ukraine. “Those who supply these weapons [to Ukraine] believe they are not at war with us,” Putin told reporters on the trip. “Well, as I said… then we reserve the right to supply weapons to other regions of the world.”
In another blast from the Cold War past, Putin also stopped in Vietnam this week on his shuttle diplomacy, a not-so-subtle reminder of their historical, anti-American alliance during the Vietnam War era. Given Hanoi’s determination to stay non-aligned in the current showdown increasingly pitting Russia and China against the West, and Vietnam’s upgrading of ties with the United States just last year, Putin’s rhetoric was less bellicose in Hanoi. The signal the visit sends that Russia still has friends in the world despite Western attempts to isolate it, however, was not lost on the Biden administration.
“No country should give Putin a platform to promote his war of aggression and otherwise allow him to normalize his atrocities,” a State Department spokesperson told reporters this week. “If he is able to travel freely, it could normalize Russia’s blatant violations of international law and inadvertently send the message that atrocities can be committed in Ukraine and elsewhere with impunity.”
After many months of fighting Hamas in Gaza following the terrorist organization’s horrific October 7, 2023 attack, the Israeli government showed signs of fracturing this week, further isolating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Days after former military chief Benny Gantz quit the War Cabinet over Netanyahu’s handling of the conflict, and lack of a “Day After” strategy for governing Gaza, the cabinet was dissolved. In a rare criticism of the commander-in-chief, the Israeli military also publicly questioned Netanyahu’s promise of “Total Victory” over Hamas in Gaza.
“Whoever thinks we can eliminate Hamas is wrong,” IDF chief spokesman Daniel Hagari said Thursday on Israeli TV, adding that such promises amounted to “simply throwing sand in the eyes of the public.”
With his War Cabinet and the Israeli military in open revolt, Netanyahu decided this week to lash out at the Biden administration for its earlier decision to withhold some highly destructive 2,000 pound bombs from its supply of munitions to Israel. “It’s inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunition to Israel,” Netanyahu said in a video released this week.
After the outburst by the Israeli leader, the White House canceled high-level talks scheduled between U.S. and Israeli security officials in Washington. According to media reports, the cancellation was intended to send a message to Netanyahu that such public criticism was unacceptable, especially during a presidential year in which the Biden administration has already taken intense domestic criticism for its support of Israel. “This decision makes it clear that there are consequences for pulling such stunts,” a U.S. official was quoted as saying by Axios.
The increasingly public divisions come amid mounting concern that a second front in the war could open up in the north against Lebanese Hezbollah, with serious implications not only for Israeli Defense Forces, but also for U.S. military forces in the region.
James Kitfield is a Senior Fellow at CSPC.
This week in the Diplomatic Courier, Senior Fellow Ethan Brown examined the limitations of the liberal international order in times of crisis, focusing on the changing tides in the War in Ukraine and China’s hegemonic ambitions. CSPC intern Daphne Nwobike explores the growing U.S. demand for critical minerals sourced in countries such as China, and how to address that strategic vulnerability. CSPC Senior Fellow Hidetoshi Azuma looks at the return of Russia, and History, to the Korean Peninsula.
Overreacting to Russia-DPRK security deal
By Ethan Brown
This week’s security cooperation agreement signed between Russian leader Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Un is not quite Orwellian or doomsday material. First, Moscow and North Korea would actually be bitter enemies (subject, of course, to the INGSOC party messaging of the day) and second, we must necessarily examine what the agreement consists of: a lot of words with little deliberate or constructive clarity (very much newspeak… last Orwell reference).
It is concerning, and serves as a useful stage prop for both dictators who are now squarely in the headlines and magnifying glasses across the developed world, but the ‘treaty’ fails to break new treatise ground or establish a fundamental change in the relationship between the two states. Notably, the agreement does call for one state to aid the other in the event of aggression against either country–a suitably vague and broad summative statement–and North Korea’s leader went so far as to claim that the agreement had forged a formal alliance between Moscow and Pyongyang.
Some considerations on the conditions of the treaty and what exists in reality:
North Korea is already responsible for providing military support to Russia in the form of artillery munitions used in the illegal invasion of Ukraine–to the tune of over 10,000 shipping containers worth, an alleged five million total rounds by some legitimate estimates–so the idea that new ground has been broken in terms of the bilateral security cooperation (not to be confused with security assistance) would be patently inaccurate.
The commonality in their military capabilities is shared in legacy more than not, as the DPRK’s security forces are built almost entirely on archaic Soviet-era systems, technology, and based around the theory of volume (quantity, and for the DPRK, an admittedly impressive quantity), with the preponderance of its forces pointed South towards Seoul. The West would be remiss if it assumed that Pyongyang would risk its strategic priorities in reunification of the peninsula on account of… flocking to a Russian banner in the event of conflict escalation with NATO thousands of miles to its East. North Korea is all but certain to be the last nation on Earth to commit its immense military to the cause of another, “ally” or no. And in the event of North Korea being invaded and thus invoking the “immediate military aid” clause, it should be remembered that the Russian Federation might not have much in terms of an Army to support North Korea with… they just crossed the 14,000-piece threshold for artillery pieces destroyed and have suffered over 520,000 casualties, 8,000 tanks, 19,000+ technical vehicles, 350+ aircraft…
The glaring concern is what is not stated in the two leader’s public disclosures on the matter: if this very broad and unclear agreement includes the exchange of military or technological support as it pertains to nuclear weapons, launch vehicles, or other weapons of mass discussion. As the New York Times reporting by Sang-Hun and Sonne noted this week, Moscow has long served as the interlocutor for the West with curbing Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions, and in years past was ardently opposed to a nuclear-equipped Kim regime; such a possibility (Kim having the ability to accurately, reliably deliver nuclear weapons beyond his immediate geography) is a strategic wild card which even Putin isn’t enough of a madman actor to allow such a possibility. Further, Sang-Hun and Sonne cited a U.N. security council spokesperson that “this should concern any country that cares about maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, abiding by U.N. resolutions, and supporting the people of Ukraine.” What was once a interlocutor to stymie the efforts of a manic North Korean regime has recently made efforts to thwart Western and liberal institutions from making nuclear weapons development more difficult; as such, there isn’t any need for Moscow to in fact provide nuclear support to Pyongyang, the open-endedness and chumminess between Putin and Kim is masterfully creating a panic across Western institutions. The terms of the agreement, which Pyongyang released Thursday after Putin jetted off to Vietnam, do include very obscure–typically prosaic (Orwellian, daresay)–language about “peaceful use of nuclear energy,” which any rational analyst may deduce means the DPRK hopes to glean something of use to its nuclear weapons program.
Historically, one would rightly presume that this is a classic case of Sovietism involving a senior (Russia) and junior (DPRK) partner. But what isn’t being addressed in the doomsdayisms of headline coverage is that Russia is chasing unprecedented agreements and alliances (that is, this being the first agreement of its kind with an Asian partner since the Soviet Union) beyond its own sphere of influence because it desperately needs to shift the balance of power and momentum. Notwithstanding that the Russian defense industrial base is making some recovery in recent months, it is beyond dispute that the Russian military has been absolutely gutted in the war with Ukraine; as such, Moscow absolutely, desperately, needs help and is willing even to engage the banner chaos actor in world affairs–North Korea–to get that help.
This agreement has little teeth in terms of tactical or operational value, for all intents and purposes mirroring a 1961 agreement between the DPRK and CCCP which simply eroded with time. But it is brilliant statecraft. So much so that, while costing Putin very little in terms of security guarantees, it gives the liberal order yet another wrinkle to navigate amid global strife.
Ethan Brown is a Senior Fellow at CSPC
The Growing U.S. Demand for Critical Minerals
By Daphne Nwobike
The United States depends heavily on advanced technologies made possible through our access to critical minerals. From cell phones to computers to electric vehicles, critical minerals are an essential ingredient that directly impacts the American way of life. Our overreliance on importing these minerals from foreign sources through at-risk supply chains thus represents a glaring strategic vulnerability.
The Energy Department defines critical minerals as “any non-fuel mineral, element, substance, or material that the Secretary of Energy determines has a high risk of a supply chain disruption; and that serves an essential function in one or more energy technologies, including technologies that produce, transmit, store, and conserve energy” (30 U.S.C. 1606). Out of 50 designated critical minerals, the United States imports 43, and there is no domestic production for 14 of these minerals, leaving us vulnerable to potential disruptions.
Congress has taken note of the U.S. overdependence on “off-shoring” foreign sources for these critical minerals. On June 13, the House Subcommittee on Environment, Manufacturing, and Critical Materials of the Committee on Energy and Commerce thus held a hearing titled “Securing America’s Critical Materials Supply Chains and Economic Leadership.” The bipartisan hearing examined the risks of over-reliance on China for critical minerals and explored ways to strengthen the associated U.S. supply chain.
As the hearing made clear, China now supplies about 80 percent of the United States’ demand for critical minerals, a glaring vulnerability given rising tensions between the two nations. Relying on China also means perpetuating labor, environmental, and human rights practices that are often at odds with American values. Possible solutions to this overreliance explored in the hearing ranged from “on-shoring” more production through increased mining in the United States, focusing more on renewable energy in the form of battery recycling, and friend-shoring trade in critical minerals with U.S. allies and partners.
Though straightforward on paper, expert witnesses noted that each of these possible solutions has drawbacks and potential complications. For instance, due to environmental regulations and the current mine permitting process, opening a new mine in the United States can take between seven and ten years. Battery recycling is also time-consuming and alone will not satisfy the growing demand for critical minerals. Even friend-shoring poses the risk of depending on other countries and uncertain supply chains for a strategic asset. While the subcommittee hearing represented a bipartisan search for viable solutions, there was also a divide between Republican lawmakers who tended to favor more domestic mining of critical minerals and Democratic lawmakers who leaned more towards battery recycling and other clean energy ideas.
In a related discussion, the Peterson Institute for International Economics hosted a panel discussion on June 18 that included Peter Goodman, author of How the World Ran Out of Everything; Mary Lovely, a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute; and Falan Yinug, Director of Economic Strategy at Qualcomm Incorporated. They provided insights into the complex nature of the problem by referencing the COVID-19 pandemic, noting how it served to highlight disconnects in U.S. supply chains that led to scarcity of badly needed medicines and materials. The conversation evaluated the balance between “off-shoring” and “re-shoring” in strengthening the U.S. supply chain; emphasized the need to build resiliency and foster supply-chain redundancy; and highlighted ways to better navigate trade and global relations while creating avenues for more domestic production.
As the topic of the United States’ growing dependence on critical minerals for its economic and military security gains traction, Congress will need to work with the administration and fashion legislation that brings the country closer to its goal of securing a more dependable supply.
Daphne Nwobike is a CSPC intern.
Russia and the Return of History on the Korean Peninsula
By Hidetoshi Azuma
President of Russia Vladimir Putin and Leader of North Korea Kim Jong-un standing for national anthems during the official welcoming ceremony as part of Putin’s state visit to North Korea. (Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
The Russian President Vladimir Putin visited North Korea on June 18 and 19, marking his first ever visit to the country since 2000. While most Western observers pointed out Russia’s perceived desperation for North Korea’s military support for its war efforts in Ukraine, such a narrow interpretation masks the real significance of Putin’s latest summit with the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The event in Pyongyang highlighted Moscow’s growing geopolitical clout over the future of Asia’s last Stalinist dictatorship. Indeed, the signing of the Russia-North Korea mutual defense pact has elevated the bilateral relationship to a de facto military alliance. While Pyongyang has deepened its ties with Beijing since the end of the Cold War, Putin’s budding relationship with Kim will likely transform North Korea into Russia’s, not China’s, key regional satellite state as part of its global authoritarian agenda. In other words, the emerging geopolitical reality above the 38 parallel signals the return of history on the Korean Peninsula, presenting a fresh new dagger pointed at the heart of Washington’s regional strategy, particularly Japan.
North Korea is a geopolitical mutation fueled by Korean ethnonationalism cloaked in a communist facade. It emerged from the three major influences on modern Korean history: the Great Joseon’s yangban; Imperial Japan’s militarism; and the Soviet Union’s Stalinism. The Kim dynasty is nothing more than a continuation of the Joseron-era royalty surrounded by the technocratic yangban elite class. Imperial Japan’s colonial rule over Korea between 1910 and 1945, especially during the period of militarism in the 1930s and 40s, mainly focused on the economic development of what is today known as North Korea, allowing the Pyongyang regime to inherit the modern infrastructure managed by a militarist state permanently mobilized for war with the US. In other words, North Korea is essentially a Japanese holdout state which continues to refuse to surrender ever since 1945. Indeed, many of the Pyongyang elites hailed from the Imperial Japanese Army’s officer corps during early days of the country’s history. In this sense, Stalinism is merely a foreign import conveniently suited to the preservation of North Korea’s yangban system and the running of its war machine through the use of terror.
Despite its historical influences, North Korea’s peculiarity is to be found in its perennial affinity for Russia. In fact, this has more to do with geostrategy than Stalinism, reflecting the Korean Peninsula’s centuries-old struggle for independence in East Asia’s untenable geopolitical environment. During the late Joseon era in the second half of the 19th century, the Korean elite split into two major factions: the pro-Russian faction and the pro-Japanese faction. At the time, Imperial Russia was the defender of the Joseon ancien régime while Imperial Japan promoted modernization. Symbolically, Imperial Japan’s support for the 1895 palace coup led the fleeing Korean king to find refuge at the local Russian consulate for protection. Interestingly, the pro-China faction never amassed enough influence to compete with the two predominant ones, underscoring Korea’s deep, yet complicated relationship with China. After Imperial Japan annexed Korea in 1910, Imperial Russia, and later the Soviet Union, continued to retain regional influence by supporting anti-Japanese Korean nationalists, most famously the founding leader of North Korea, Kim Il-Sung. Moscow’s geopolitical rollback in East Asia culminated in the founding of North Korea in 1948. In other words, North Korea is ironically the direct descendant of the 19th-century pro-Russian faction which dominated the Joseon imperial court.
Such a pro-Russian lineage is evident in North Korea’s Kim dynasty. In fact, the pro-Russian orientation is the veritable family creed passed from one generation to another. Indeed, Kim Il-Sung preserved Stalinism even after the deaths of Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong, leading North Korea to become the world’s last defender of the totalitarian system. While Pyongyang’s relationship with Moscow soured due to disagreements over Stalin’s legacy, it never fully pivoted to China, let alone introduce Deng Xiaoping’s economic modernization program to North Korea. This was due to the Kim family’s long-standing suspicion toward China as Korea’s historical neighbor in a Sinocentric regional order. In this sense, North Korea is quintessentially a modern state rejecting Sinocentrism in pursuit of Juche, Pyongyang’s official state ideology of self-reliance founded upon a bizarre combination of Korean ethnonationalism with Marxist-Leninism. In this spirit, North Korea under Kim Jong-Il refused to jump on the economic bandwagon during China’s high growth in the 1990s and 2000s while deepening ties with Moscow under Putin. In 2000, Moscow and Pyongyang signed the Treaty of Friendship, Good-Neighborliness, and Cooperation, and Putin visited North Korea for the first time as the Russian leader in the history of the bilateral relationship. Known as the hermit dictator, Kim Jong-Il’s last overseas trip was to the Russian Far East, and he famously left a will to his son, Kim Jong Un, warning about the danger of trusting China before his passing in December 2011.
Kim Jong Un therefore emerged against the backdrop of his father’s slow, yet steady reorientation of post-Cold War North Korea in the pro-Russian direction. His first several years were marked by a mass purge mostly targeting pro-Chinese elements in Pyongyang, most notably Jang Song-thaek, who was reportedly killed by air-to-surface missiles in a bizarre demonstration of state terror. The young North Korean leader went as far as to have his own half brother, Kim Jong Nam assassinated in Malaysia. Kim Jong Nam was the symbol of Pyongyang’s pro-China faction but was simultaneously a de facto hostage of Beijing, leading him to live in exile in Macau. The purge of Jang Song-thaek and Kim Jong Nam essentially removed threats from the pro-China faction. Meanwhile, Russia devolved into a pariah status following its annexation of Crimea in 2014, leading the country to become strange bedfellows with North Korea. Putin wasted no time in improving Russia’s relationship with North Korea, forgiving Pyongyang’s debt owed since the Cold War days. While Putin invited Kim to the 2015 Victory Day parade in Moscow to no avail, the two leaders finally met each other for the first time in Vladivostok in 2019. Symbolically, Vladivostok was where Kim’s grandfather led the anti-Japanese guerrilla and brought up his son.
In this sense, Putin’s latest summit with Kim in Pyongyang was the culmination of North Korea’s deepening pro-Russian reorientation. To be sure, the much-debated mutual defense pact may have been merely a confirmation of their budding bilateral relationship and carried no substance in terms of actual threats to Washington’s regional military preponderance. Yet, it signified Pyongyang’s growing willingness to be part of Russia’s agenda for a multipolar world. Significantly, Kim expressed his interest in joining BRICS before the summit earlier this week. While this largely escaped Western attention, it was significant as North Korea’s potential BRICS membership could lead the country to become sanction-proof over time, especially after the introduction of a highly-touted BRICS digital currency. In other words, it could potentially allow Pyongyang to achieve economic modernization without exposing itself to Western pressure and thereby minimize the risk of regime collapse.
Such an emerging possibility could mean a nuclear-armed North Korea being able to achieve economic growth without risking regime collapse. Ironically, such a possibility is now in sight because of the return of history on the Korean Peninsula with Russia increasingly pivoting to the region. Historically, Korea became a geopolitical flashpoint every time Russia expanded its regional influence. After the General Sherman incident in the 1870s, the US was largely absent in Korea and only found itself permanently involved in the region after 1945 by replacing Imperial Japan. By contrast, Japan fought two major wars over the control of Korea, namely the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904, leading the country to ultimately annex the entire peninsula to check the Russian influence. While the latest Russia-North Korea mutual defense pact could hardly pose a military threat to the budding US-Japan-South Korea alliance, it could still become a major geopolitical nuisance for Washington’s regional strategy. This would be especially true for Japan, which historically regarded Korea as fundamental to its national security. If there is ever another resurgence of the proverbial dagger pointed at the heart of Japan, it is the emerging Russia-North Korea alliance forged earlier this week, throwing another geopolitical spanner in Tokyo’s defense planning already preoccupied with the gathering storm over Taiwan.
Hidetoshi Azuma is a Senior Fellow at CSPC.