Russia will consider dispatch of F16s to Ukraine as aggression that activates its mutual defense agreement with North Korea
There are many elements in the agreements signed today by the Russian and North Korean leaders following their 5 hours of one-on-one talks and 90 minutes of talks with the participation of their government delegations. Needless to say, these consequential agreements on an ‘All-encompassing Strategic Partnership’ were not the product of this one day, but of the intense work of both sides at various administrative and executive levels since the visit of Kim Jong Un to the Russian Far East nine months ago.
Allow me to cut to the quick, and set out here the most surprising development which emerged in Vladimir Putin’s speech following the signing ceremonies as stated in the title above that I give to this essay.
Vladimir Putin remarked that the Partnership has a military component which affirms that each side will come to the aid of the other if it is under attack. Then, gratuitously, one might say, he mentioned the impending dispatch of F-16s by NATO countries that are to use Ukrainian territory to strike deep into the Russian Federation heartland. The juxtaposition of these two points in his speech leaves little doubt to those of us trained as Sovietologists that Putin considers what NATO is about to do at its Western borders as the very act of aggression that will trigger Russia’s Strategic Partnership with North Korea and present the United States with a live threat to its military bases in Korea, in Japan and in the broader region.
Whether we choose to consider this scenario as ‘symmetric’ or ‘asymmetric’ response is beside the point. The net result will surely be as effective in waking up the dullards in Washington, D.C., in Brussels, London and Berlin to the fact that Russia means business, is not bluffing, and can wreak massive destruction on U.S. and Western military assets at any moment of its choosing if there is further escalation in the Ukraine war.
At the recently held St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin went up against the political scientist Sergei Karaganov who for more than a year has called for Russia to stage a tactical nuclear strike in Europe to shake the hubristic West from its foolish belief in its invulnerability and exceptionalism. It would appear that with the stroke of a pen today, Vladimir Vladimirovich has accomplished the same with no loss of life and without opening the Pandora’s box of nuclear arms.
Mr. Putin’s travels in East Asia do not end today. On the contrary, he is headed next for Vietnam, where we may expect additional agreements that amount to check-mate to the Aukus and So.Korea-Japan gambit of Messrs. Biden, Sullivan and Blinken. They thought they had done so well to ‘contain’ China and Russia during their first term in office. It would appear now that these vast efforts at cajoling, black-mailing and otherwise dominating America’s ‘allies’ in the Pacific created just an updated version of the Maginot Line that did not survive a German end-run.
And so, ladies and gentlemen, let us all thank our lucky stars that in this day and age of pygmies and cowards at the helm of states in Europe and North America, there is at least one rational and courageous leader to save the day.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024