Washington and Moscow flooded the Korean Peninsula with arms and aid as they fueled the war between South and North seven decades ago. Now, in a fateful moment of history turning back on itself, Russia and the United States are reaching out to those same allies to supply badly needed munitions as the powers face each other down again, this time on the other side of the globe, in Ukraine.
When President Vladimir V. Putin met North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, in Russia’s far east on Wednesday, they struck what North Korea called “a satisfactory agreement” on “the immediate cooperation matters” between the two states, which have found common interests in opposing the United States and its allies. If any specific arms deal was struck, neither Moscow nor Pyongyang was expected to announce it. Buying weapons from North Korea or providing help for its weapons programs are violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions that Russia itself voted for.
Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the State Department in Washington, characterized the meeting as Mr. Putin “begging Kim Jong-un for help.” But it is not just Russia turning to the Korean Peninsula for aid: Under deals worked out quietly with Washington, South Korea has been shipping large amounts of artillery shells to the United States for months. It insists that it is not supplying any lethal weapons directly to Ukraine. But its shipments to the U.S. military help free up American stocks for Ukraine to use in fighting Russia.
The Korean War never officially ended after the guns fell silent in a cease-fire in 1953. Still technically at war, both Koreas have since engaged in an arms race, building two of the world’s largest standing armies, with large stockpiles of weapons.
North Korea, though isolated and impoverished, has prioritized a military buildup, with its propaganda machines urging constant vigilance against American invasion. It developed its missiles by reverse-engineering Soviet systems. It is believed to have built its first intercontinental ballistic missiles with black-market rockets from Ukraine. The country has also earned cash by selling weapons to countries like Syria and Iran.
South Korea has built its defense industry by copying weapons provided in military aid from the United States. It also grabbed technology where it could, developing its first space rocket with Russian technology. It, too, leveraged its arms industry for exports, winning multibillion-dollar contracts to sell tanks, howitzers, warplanes, missiles and armored vehicles to help feed the demand driven, in part, by the war in Ukraine.
“In the post-Cold War era, South and North Korea have been virtually the only countries that have remained on a constant war footing, with large artillery and other weapons stockpiles ready to use,” said Yang Uk, a military expert at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul. “The fact that South and North Korea remain stuck in a…
2023-09-14 00:54:25
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