Meanwhile, one reader provided an alternative link that works perfectly without any warnings;
And another reader has provided a full transcript, as set out below.
I have only one correction to note: Indeed Russian-North Korean trade has expanded by 10 times last year, but in billions, not millions. It is now reckoned to be annualized $34 billion.
PressTV: 0:00
We are now joined by Gilbert Doctorow, independent international affairs
analyst, who joins us from Brussels, Belgium. And we wanted to welcome
him, first of all, to the program to discuss the developments in the
deepening ties between the DPRK and Moscow. Mr. Doctorow, welcome to the
program.
Gilbert Doctorow, Ph.D.:
Thanks for the invitation.
PressTV: 0:31
Mr. Doctorow, can you hear me?
Doctorow:
I hear you perfectly, yes.
PressTV:
OK, great. So yeah, the first question that I was going to ask you is:
the defense pact that is signed between the DPRK and Moscow has drawn
anger from South Korea first, and also its ally the U.S. Now considering
that this is a defense pact what is there to be worried about, what is
there to be angry about on the side of South Korea and the U.S.?
Doctorow: 0:58
Well there's everything to be worried about, and there are even a few
things that one might be angry about, although you can't pin it down,
you can't say exactly how this defense pact, or mutual assistance pact,
would be implemented, under what circumstances. It is a mutual pact,
which means not only is Russia standing ready to assist in unspecified
ways in case North Korea is attacked, but North Korea is ready to assist
in unspecified ways if Russia is attacked.
We ask, what does Russia being attacked mean? And that is also a very,
very fine issue. Does it mean that the United States and its allies send
F-16s nominally under Ukrainian flag with nominally Ukrainian pilots
and they attack the heartland of Russia? Is that, does that mean that
this, that North Korea is obliged to take Seoul off the face of the
earth? Well, who knows? One thing I can say is that "Financial Times",
which had an article saying very much what you have just said today,
yesterday was saying, "Ah, it was just pomp and ceremony that Mr. Putin
was treated to in his visit to Pyongyang, that yes, they sang Russian
songs and everybody had a good time." But they didn't say anything about
the content or the nature of the documents that were signed.
2:37
Here in Belgium, the leading French-speaking newspaper yesterday, "Le
Soir", was saying, "Ah, we can breathe easy, they haven't yet reached
agreement on a military alliance." Well, that is rubbish. Mr. Sergei
Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said on the sidelines yesterday,
or the day before yesterday, in Pyongyang, that they had indeed reached
what is a military alliance. They are allies. "We are allies, he said,
regardless of what this piece of paper is called."
In the West, the first reactions were to say this is transactional, that
Putin is going to get more 155-millimeter artillery shells, which are
needed very badly for the ongoing fight in Ukraine, and the North
Koreans will get unspecified military technical assistance. What that
means, nobody has been able to say; one can guess. But I think many of
the guesses are far wrong.
PressTV: 3:46
Doctor, is there any significance on the timing of this particular pact?
I mean, we've known that the partnership between South Korea and the
U.S., it has meant that over the past few months there has been an
escalation in their military drills. Does that have anything to do with
the timing of this particular pact?
Doctorow: 4:10
Well, there are a number of considerations. The Russians are always
looking for anniversaries of one kind or another, the first time that
they establish diplomatic relations with a given country, or similar
type of events, to time their visits to one or another country. This was
certainly true in Vietnam also, where there was an event being
celebrated. But you make mention of the exercises. Of course, this is a
response to them, it's a response to the rumors that the United States
would be giving a nuclear submarine to South Korea or parking one in
South Korea.
The United States has been very provocative. And that is now under the
Biden administration. It was still more provocative with respect to
North Korea in Mr. Trump's administration, when he sent a nuclear-armed
aircraft carrier task force to virtually the shores of North Korea, to
make the point that "We can destroy you in a moment." I think that with
the signing of this agreement between North Korea and Russia, that type
of provocation is over. With a little bit of technical assistance, shall
we say, from the Russians, the North Koreans will be able to sink that
aircraft carrier and the whole task force in 30 minutes. So this type of
19th-century ship diplomacy will no longer work in the Far East.
PressTV: 5:49
Now in the wake of this pact and also quite a while before it, we've
heard the term "new world order" being thrown around a lot, particularly
by Mr. Putin and Kim Jong-un themselves. How likely... First of all,
what do you think that means? In this supposed new world order, what are
the countries that are going to become more prominent, play a more
prominent role in this supposed new world order? And how does the US and
its ally, South Korea, going to be responding to these ... claims of a
new world order?
Doctorow: 6:30
Well ... responding-- I think that the Russians' new world order is the
response to the existing so-called ... rules-based order which is, as Mr
Putin has said in recent speeches, just another way of ... covering up
or putting lipstick on the pig of American imperialism and global
hegemony. The new world order will mean that there are more equal
participants in the governing board of the world, whether it is the G20
or it is an expanded BRICS, which might even one day include the United
States, whatever the institutional framework is for these great powers
coming together.
And we can easily determine who they are. This is economic and military
strength taken together. They will not be suffering the diktat from one
country, namely the United States. There'll be much more trading of
interests to reach consensus, and there'll probably be more
regionalization. The new world order-- it was assisted by the
deconstruction of American hegemony in the Far East. Russia has
reasserted its interest and its ability to be a full player in the Far
East by this visit to both North Korea and Vietnam. So the days of the
unipolar world are over.
8:09
Let's go back-- a bit in history. It's not so long ago when Mr. Obama
was the president, and he said, "Ah, yes, Russia is just a regional
player." Mr. Putin's response to that was, "Which region?" Which was not
a joke. Russia is the world's largest landmass, 13% of the earth is
Russia, and it has borders with many countries and interests in many
directions, east, west, north, and south. And the eastern direction,
which was allowed to lapse after Russia imploded in the 1990s, has now
been restored and raised to an ever higher level of importance. So that
Russia is a major player, if not a decisive player, in the creation of
this world order is obvious.
PressTV: 9:03
Now, very briefly, Mr. Doctorow, what can you tell me about the
responses to this pact, which has mainly focused on the military aspect
of the pact, the military consequences that the pact may bring. But we
may be missing certain key factors in the pact about, like, economical
cooperations and the economical ramifications of such a pact. What are
we missing here in the, you know, mainstream analyses?
Doctorow: 9:33
You're very correct in directing attention to the non-military side. The
economic possibilities of cooperation between these two countries,
which have a common border, are very great, starting from a very low
level, to be sure. When one speaks about Russian-Korean trade increasing
by a factor of 10, you have to keep in mind we're speaking about
millions and not billions of dollars. So there's a long way to go, but
North Korea has for twenty years been suffering severe problems with
food production, and it is unable to feed itself, at the same time that
Russia is the world's largest exporter of foodstuffs. First it was
grains, and now it's even poultry and meat and so forth.
10:23
So, Russia is in an excellent position to assist the North Korean
economy to feed its own people. That is a good start. The logistical
discussions are very important. The two countries have a common border,
but almost no roads to get from one side to the other. There is a
railway bridge. They have to be building highways, automobile bridges.
And in this process of reconstruction and establishing new
infrastructure, one of the elements will be to remove an antiquated
bridge now across the river separating them, which is very low to the
water, too low for ships from a third country that also has access to
this waterway, China, to use it. And when they rebuild this, China will
be a big beneficiary, and China will have naval access to the Sea of
Japan, which is an economic issue, and I'd say also a [military] issue
for the Japanese.
PressTV: 11:31
Okay, thank you very much, Mr. Gilbert Doctorow. He's an independent
international affairs analyst. Thank you for joining the program and
giving us your insights.