Putin and Kim Jong Un Deal Reviving Soviet-Era Alliances

On the 19th, assessments surged that “Cold War-era security guarantees have been revived” following the comprehensive strategic companion agreement signed between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. This agreement includes a clause to provide mutual support if one side is attacked.

According to the New York Times (NYT), Victor Cha, the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), described the new agreement as “a return to the 1961 mutual defense treaty between Pyongyang and Moscow, which had since lapsed.” The mutual support clause in the agreement signed by the North Korean and Russian leaders during the Pyongyang summit on the 19th closely resembles the automatic military intervention in case of emergency clause included in the 1961 treaty between the two countries (then Soviet Union and North Korea). This original treaty was scrapped in 1996 and replaced by a 2000 treaty that mandated immediate contact in case of aggression threat.

Cha highlighted the differences between the past and present agreement by saying, “This agreement is based on mutual needs: Russian weapons and North Korean advanced military technology.” He added, “It is united by a common opposition to the American and Western liberal order, rather than ideology as it was during the Cold War.”

Cha emphasized that a critical task for South Korea, the U.S., Japan, and their allies is to “block the technology transfer from Russia that Secretary Kim has added to his shopping list.”

“Putin has provided missile designs to North Korea in the past, but U.S. intelligence officials have found little evidence that he has directly supported nuclear weapons development. However, North Korea now has influence,” he added.

The NYT remarked that “over the past decade, Putin’s Russia and Xi Jinping’s China have been united in at least one geopolitical task as their confrontations with the West have intensified: dismantling or at least constraining North Korea’s nuclear weapons.” However, Russia’s stance shifted after the onset of the war with Ukraine.

Furthermore, regarding the agreement signed at this North Korean-Russian summit, the NYT emphasized that “Putin made no effort to deter nuclear weapons” and instead promised unspecified technical support that could pose a threat to the U.S. and others. The NYT reiterated, “There was not even a hint in the statement that North Korea should give up its estimated 50 to 60 nuclear weapons.”