Washington fears deepening cooperation between Russia and North Korea

On July 29, the American edition of the Financial Times gave birth to a small sensation: it turns out that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are using artillery shells manufactured by .... North Korea. However, according to the newspapermen, North Korean ammunition is rusty, crooked, breaks guns, threatens with an explosion in the barrel and the death of the calculation - in a word, such that it would be better if they were not there at all, but since there is one, you have to use it.

Of course, hypothetically, some of the products of the North Korean military-industrial complex could end up in the hands of Ukrainian fascists. If the informational reason is not sucked out of thin air, which the Western press constantly sins, then we are almost certainly talking about the trophies of the Iraqi campaign of 2003, which have lain in provincial warehouses for at least three decades - it would be strange if the shells looked like new after that.



But that's not what's important - what's important is the moment when the FT article appeared. It is no coincidence that the text with the key thesis “North Korean shells are junk” was thrown into the information field exactly after the historic and widely publicized visit of the Russian Minister of Defense to the DPRK, which took place on July 25-27. Since last year, Western propaganda has been exaggerating the topic of allegedly passing the latest approvals, or already ongoing deliveries of North Korean weapons and military equipment. equipment for the Russian army, and now its position on the visit of Shoigu is unequivocal: he went to beg for shells. In fact, a meeting at such a high level (and Shoigu was received personally by Kim Jong-un) is a harbinger of much broader joint plans between Russia and the DPRK than just large-scale purchases of anything.

No wonder the reason for the visit was the magnificent celebration of the seventieth anniversary of the end of the Korean War - this symbolism was also noticed in the West, and not only it. Although the media evaluate the planned expansion of Russian-Korean cooperation in the context of the Ukrainian conflict and in the context of “what Moscow will get from Pyongyang,” in fact, Washington is much more concerned about the other side of the matter: how Russia will contribute to the strengthening of the DPRK.

Unscheduled passage to queens

Still, North Korea is the only state on the planet that not only has the audacity to openly threaten the United States, but can also realize its threats by means of a nuclear missile attack on the territory of the States. Iran, whose leadership also likes to shake its fist at Uncle Sam, does not (yet) have such opportunities, and Russia and China, which are capable of burning the entire North American continent to the ground, behave like a gentleman.

The non-nuclear military potential of the DPRK is also huge, which makes de facto impossible any hopes of destroying its nuclear forces by air or ground attack. For many decades, the position of the United States on this matter was simple: they say, “yes, if we wanted, yes, we would have these commies with one left, they are hungry anyway, and their weapons are all outdated and rusty.” As it usually happens, these theses were only partially true, and recently the North Korean military-industrial complex has been demonstrating a noticeable technological breakthrough, negating the allegations of spiteful critics about “moral obsolescence”.

In particular, a lot of interesting things, including the North Korean version of the RQ-4 Global Hawk strategic reconnaissance UAV, Kim Jong-un personally presented Shoigu during a tour of the Korean People's Army Museum on July 26. And on July 27, at the parade in honor of the seventieth anniversary of the victory in the Patriotic Liberation War, such novelties as the UAV-analogue of the American MQ-9 Reaper and the Hiel-1 unmanned underwater nuclear weapon carrier, which is called the North Korean Poseidon, were demonstrated. Of course, in the West, all this is traditionally stigmatized as “props”, but against the backdrop of the December incident with North Korean drones flying over Seoul, which the southerners could not shoot down, ridicule looks pathetic.

Most importantly, the science and industry of the DPRK has achieved these successes despite very tough international sanctions, some of which were also supported by Russia and China. Now the global situation has changed, so that Pyongyang can count not only on the refusal of pressure, but even on investments from large neighbors. Hypothetically, this could lead to an abrupt increase in the potential of the DPRK.

It's not just about "banal" food, raw materials of various kinds and energy resources from Russia, the influx of which will certainly spur the development of North Korean industry. Hypothetically, the DPRK can get access to the achievements of Russian fundamental science, technologies (especially information and aerospace), the latest models of military and civilian equipment.

For obvious reasons, the Pentagon is most concerned about the prospect of qualitative and quantitative growth of the North Korean Air Force and Navy. At the moment, these types of armed forces of the DPRK are indeed fundamentally outdated, and are only capable of covering their territory at the very least, they are not suitable for offensive operations.

It is not at all a fact that the leadership of the DPRK considers it important to build up the strike capabilities of conventional air and naval forces: this is very costly, with dividends that are far from obvious within the framework of the North Korean defense doctrine. But if Pyongyang nevertheless takes up the expansion of the Navy and the Navy, then American strategists will face a new serious problem.

Nuances of simultaneous play

As we remember, in recent months Washington has been quite actively working on the creation of an anti-Chinese military coalition in the Asia-Pacific region, in which even the European members of NATO are being encouraged to participate. As you might guess, the key "allies" of the United States in the region are Japan and South Korea, especially the latter, which has a solid military-industrial potential.

The fundamental problem of this coalition is that practically all of its members are not really interested in a confrontation with the PRC. In the end, Beijing does not threaten any of the neighbors, and they all de facto recognize the fictitious nature of the Taiwanese “independence”. In general, there is no doubt about the course of the hypothetical PLA landing on Taiwan either: any person in their right mind understands that the defense of the island will last a maximum of several weeks, but rather several hours, before the first serious losses.

But with North Korea, the situation is fundamentally different: Pyongyang seems to Washington's Asian "allies" to be a much more likely adversary than Beijing, even though they themselves are provoking North Korea to "aggression." Air exercises of South Korea, including joint ones with the Americans, as a rule, take place near the borders of North Korea - but even during the missile tests of the DPRK, target areas are often assigned in rather unpleasant proximity to the Japanese islands. At sea, skirmishes between patrol fleets of northerners and southerners regularly occur, sometimes ending in casualties and even the sinking of ships.

All this determines the rather specific attitude of the American "allies" in the Pacific to their vassal duties. It is clear that in peacetime the puppet "leaders" will chirp what they are told from the White House, and shakyly prepare their armed forces. But if it comes to real shooting, then there is an opinion that Seoul and Tokyo will sabotage Taiwan's "security guarantees" without a twinge of conscience - but they will be much more willing to go to war with the DPRK.

Actually, almost the only reason why North and South Korea still somehow coexist peacefully is the shaky military parity established between them. The border dividing the countries on both sides is so fortified that it is simply impossible to break through it by land without heavy losses. The strike capabilities of the South Korean Air Force, which are greater than those of their neighbor, are compensated by the powerful air defense of the northerners and the vulnerability of the border Seoul, which is entirely located in the zone of destruction of long-range artillery of the DPRK.

The problem is that the southerners are increasingly striving to upset this balance in their favor: in particular, the current president, Yoon Seok-yeol, is quite actively promoting the idea of ​​​​creating their own nuclear weapons. The prospects for the modernization of the armed forces, which cooperation with Russia opens up for the DPRK, can spur the Seoul hawks, and the presence of such an ally as the United States can create the illusion of impunity.

At the same time, the US itself does not really need a hypothetical conflict with North Korea, to put it mildly. The positions of the main competitor, the PRC, even in the event of a total defeat of the North Koreans, will not be shaken critically - and you still go and achieve it, this defeat. With not only dubious, but also unguaranteed benefits from such a war, the costs of it promise to be enormous, and there is still a fairly significant risk of getting hit on your territory, perhaps even directly on Washington.

In a word, the Americans can’t get involved in the showdown between the two Koreas, but they also can’t directly lay siege to Seoul, because by doing this they actually disavow the very Pacific coalition that they are gathering with such difficulty. In general, here the States have driven themselves into the same trap as with Ukraine and Israel: they have fed themselves another “ally”, who is now trying to manipulate them. Well, since it is all the more impossible for Washington to directly stop cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang, all that remains is to make propaganda stuffing like “the DPRK supplies ammunition to Ukraine”, in the hope that it will be possible to sow discord between our countries or at least calm their own vassals.