Geopolitical Hotspot
Sending troops to fight in Ukraine is yet another step in dividing the world into two bitterly opposed camps, warns Tim Marshall
North Korean troops facing off against the Ukrainian Army didn’t seem a likely scenario in the weeks following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – but it has come to pass. This tells us several things: Russia is clearly in desperate need of manpower for the front lines. North Korea is paying down an early installment on its newly signed defence treaty with Russia and may expect help if it goes to war with the South.
The slow march towards a new form of a bipolar world just took a step forward.
More geopolitical reads by Tim Marshall…
Several thousand North Korean troops are in Russia. If they fight in the Kursk region or inside Ukraine itself, both constitute a violation of international law. Russia’s invasion is illegal, and Ukraine’s right of self-defence doesn’t stop at its border.
Things become legally complicated if the North Koreans are given Russian uniforms and ID cards and are under only Russian command, as a nation-state has the right to determine who is a member of its armed forces.
Such nuances make little difference in battle, nor to the emerging Chinese-led bloc, which includes Russia, Belarus, Iran and North Korea. A newly emboldened Pyongyang is on the offensive at a time when South Korea’s leadership is unusually aggressive and applying maximum economic, political and military pressure on its neighbour.
North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, has abandoned the idea of reunification and said South Korea should be regarded as his country’s ‘principal enemy’. In May, North Korea sent thousands of balloons holding garbage and human waste across the border – some landed in the streets of Seoul.
In response, South Korea reintroduced the practice (halted six years ago) of using huge loudspeakers to broadcast anti-regime messages across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).
Following several minor incidents, the North Korean military blew up the roads and railway connecting the two countries and broadcast the footage on television. At the end of October, North Korea test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile that flew 1,000 kilometres and was in the air for 86 minutes, the longest such flight yet recorded.
South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, has vowed that Seoul will not ‘sit idle’ in response to the deployment in Russia and the other incidents. It already supplies the USA with 155-millimetre artillery shells so that the Americans can keep sending similar munitions to Ukraine.
Now, it’s considering dispatching military advisors to Ukraine to advise on how to deal with North Korean forces. However, directly sending munitions may be a step too far, even for the hawkish president.
The two Koreas are bumping up against each other more frequently as tensions increase and rhetoric becomes ever more bellicose. President Yoon has strengthened South Korea’s ‘Three Axis’ defence system. Under this, as a non-nuclear power, if South Korea believes there is clear evidence that the North is about to strike with ballistic and nuclear weapons, it will activate what it calls the ‘Kill Chain’ – pre-emptive strikes on the missile silos.
Simultaneously, its missile defence system will be activated, followed by ‘KAMD’ – Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation – which includes trying to kill Kim Jong Un. Defence minister Shin Won-sik has coined a new acronym – ‘PISU’ – punish immediately, strongly, and until the end.
The idea is that the simplicity and automatic nature of the doctrine means that leaders in the North are clear about consequences and are, therefore, deterred. The problem is that in the current climate, incidents could spiral out of control. In 2010, North Korea fired dozens of shells at a South Korea island, killing four people. South Korea came close to carrying out air strikes in retaliation.
A similar incident, or the shooting down of a drone, or patrols confronting each other near the DMZ could quickly lead to the escalatory ladder being rapidly climbed. North Korea is now in bed with Russia, with China as their senior partner.
Hopefully, the latter may be a restraining factor on the North’s actions. South Korea is seeking closer defence relations with both Japan and its senior partner – the USA. It’s still a multi-polar world, but the contours of a dangerous bipolar world are taking shape.
