Last September, Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to the Vostochny space launch rocket drome in Russia’s far east and pledged to aid North Korean satellite development. Since then, South Korea has reported that North Korea is supplying mortars, rocket launchers, shells, short-range ballistic missiles, anti-tank missiles and portable anti-air missiles to Russia for its assault on Ukraine.
Those developments are a warning sign of changing “transactional relationships” among Russia, China, and North Korea–the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” (DPRK), U.S. Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton, the head of U.S. Strategic Command, said last week.
Cotton told the Nuclear Deterrence Summit in Washington, D.C., that, in contrast to a “Cold War 2.0” world environment posited by some current observers, “I think it’s much more complex today.”
“I think we’re starting to see a little difference in what transactional relationships are amongst our adversaries than what we’ve seen in the past, and that’s a little concerning,” he said. “The DPRK is a perfect example–the fact that we have Russia going to DPRK and asking for conventional munitions.”
“One of the things we need to pay attention to is, where we thought the timelines were–we have our team and other teams looking at this–on technological advancements of the DPRK, we probably need to make sure we really pay attention to what that is so we don’t get surprised on the fact that there is a potential miniaturization of space satellite booster technologies/submarine quieting–you name it–that those things [timelines] haven’t been cut a little bit because of whatever deal was made between Russia and DPRK,” Cotton said.
While the Pentagon has often spoken of the U.S. having “two near peers,” namely China and Russia, the impact of “third party influencers,” such as North Korea, “is something we constantly think about here at STRATCOM,” he said.
Six weeks ago, the United States, Japan and South Korea announced the activation of a North Korea missile warning data sharing mechanism and a multi-year plan for trilateral exercises to start early this year (Defense Daily, Dec. 19, 2023).
The activation followed North Korean ballistic missile launches on Dec. 17 and 18.
“The three countries established this mechanism to improve their ability to ensure the safety of their peoples by trilaterally detecting and assessing missiles launched by the DPRK in real-time,” DoD said.
In November, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Japan Minister of Defense Kihara Minoru and South Korea Minister of National Defense Shin Wonsik agreed to finalize the initiatives by the end of 2023.