Biden needs to disrupt the Russia-North Korea alliance — before it’s too late

Nearly a quarter-century ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin invited North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il, for a private lunch at his Moscow flat in an effort to build cooperative political relations. Tuesday’s summit meeting between Putin and Kim, however, is likely to produce a public, renewed bilateral security partnership and untold military deals behind closed doors. This unholy union presents one of the greatest threats to U.S. national security, and the Biden administration isn’t doing enough to prevent it.

The Russia-Ukraine war has produced a role reversal in Russia-North Korea relations. The latter’s entreaties to Moscow for security assistance, subsidized oil and debt relief during the Cold War have been replaced by Putin’s reliance on Pyongyang for 155 mm and 122 mm munitions. This started out as a small arms sale by North Korea to the Wagner Group in November 2022, but has recently been acknowledged by U.S. Secretary Antony Blinken as a “matter of deep concern” over North Korea’s provision of over 5 million rounds of ammunition and scores of ballistic missiles. A private deal between the two leaders almost surely to be consummated is Kim’s commitment to fuel Russian war stocks indefinitely. 

Of most pressing concern, however, is what Putin is giving in return; it is highly unlikely that Kim would have feted Putin so lavishly only for the promise of food and fuel. That may have been the exchange when Kim visited Russia in September 2023, direly needed at the time as his country was just emerging from a more than three-year Covid lockdown. But Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines laid down a significant marker in March when she said Moscow may be dropping long-held nonproliferation norms in its dealings with North Korea. Since then, Biden officials have liberally opined about the dangers of sensitive military technology exchanging hands.

Kim has a long wishlist from Moscow which he unveiled in a recent speech: advanced telemetry, nuclear submarine technology, military satellite wares, and advanced intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) technology. Putin needs Kim’s weapons to make up for a monthly munitions shortfall of 50,000 rounds (even if Russia is producing ammunition at full capacity) in his ongoing offensive in Ukraine. 

There have been other clues about Russia-North Korea collaboration. Prior to this month’s military satellite launch, a gaggle of Russian scientists were reportedly in North Korea. Kim has also been expressing satisfaction with his nuclear submarine plans, which is a very bad sign. This aspect of the relationship not only destabilizes security on the peninsula and in Asia, it heightens the direct threat posed by North Korea to the U.S. homeland. ICBMs with advanced countermeasure technology, overhead reconnaissance capabilities, and nuclear submarines would allow Kim to target the entirety of the United States with a nuclear force that Washington would have difficulty taking out in a pre-emptive first strike.

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In fairness, the Biden administration has called out the problem. It has declassified satellite imagery and other intelligence providing glimpses of these ties. President Joe Biden has improved extended deterrence cooperation with South Korea and advanced an unprecedented battery of new defense exercises with Japan and South Korea that make the three allies stronger. Nonetheless, Kim is projected to conduct more military provocations this election year than ever before — conceivably surpassing 2022’s record of 48 provocations.   

But the biggest fault is on the diplomatic front. Biden is on autopilot when it comes to North Korea, recycling talking points on denuclearization circa the Obama administration. Most experts think North Korea has at least 50 nuclear bombs now. Pyongyang has spurned more than 20 private attempts by the administration to restart talks. It has even thrown letters back in the face of engagement-oriented U.S. diplomats.   

To truly disrupt the arms trade between Russia and DPRK, the administration needs to shelve denuclearization and come up with an actionable game plan. 

This is not an easy task. First, the routes used to transport North Korean arms to Russia run deep in Russia’s territory, making military interceptions of munitions cargo, whether by boat or rail, dangerously escalatory; Biden does not need a third war on his watch. Second, Russia’s veto in March 2024 to reauthorize a U.N. watchdog body on North Korean proliferation is aimed at dismantling the entire U.N. sanctions regime on Pyongyang. 

But the U.S. still has some options. The United States should mobilize Europeans at G7 and NATO this summer to apply economic and diplomatic pressure on Pyongyang. While the United States does not have diplomatic relations with Pyongyang, most European governments do and North Korea has traditionally seen Europe as its gateway to the West. European diplomats and politicians are livid that fellow European civilians are being killed by North Korean military wares. As a first step, actions like those taken at the G7 this week against Russian and DPRK financial assets should be expanded in the name of disrupting the weapons trade.  

Biden also needs to capitalize on Beijing’s unhappiness with the closer ties between its traditional junior partner and Putin. If Putin is modernizing Kim’s nuclear arsenal, that will only create for China more U.S. military presence in its neighborhood, and potentially even a nuclear domino effect in the region starting with South Korea. China is still the economic lifeline for the North and it can join in sanctions against any companies supporting the weapons trade.

Finally, the United States should launch a major human rights and information penetration campaign. It should enlist Europe in this effort, drawing on the death and human suffering of Ukrainians caused by lethal North Korean support of Russia. Recent events — including North Korea’s deploying of trash balloons to the South in the past weeks in retaliation for South Korean loudspeakers blasting K-pop music at the border and NGOs dropping bibles into the North — shows how sensitive the regime is to its people being exposed to the outside world. The Kim regime is more afraid of BTS than U.S.-ROK military exercises. U.S. policy desperately needs to try something new, and leveraging this fact is the best place to start.

Putin and Kim may feel they have a match made in heaven. The former is getting what he needs for the war while complicating Biden’s security policies in Asia. The latter, with Russian sustenance, is able to wait out Biden’s time in office while advancing and modernizing his nuclear force. Biden needs to take the offensive. While these half-measures will not solve the problem alone, they’re a start — and far better than sitting on our hands while doling out stale talking points.