North Korea and Russia: A Match Made in Hell
The odds of a successful partnership are slim.
SOMETIME DURING THE PREPARATIONS for the invasion of Normandy, Winston Churchill allegedly provided his thoughts on the complexity of alliances: “There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies . . . and that is fighting without them!”
It appears Vladimir Putin recently reached the same conclusion, as North Korea is reported to have sent as many as 10,000 North Korean soldiers to support Putin’s “special military operations” in Ukraine.
During a long military career, I’ve seen the value of alliances. The bonds formed between individuals, services, governments, and societies in strategic alliances provide significant dividends during combat.
But make no mistake, allies bring a lot of challenges, too.
Every government—and especially every military commander—must conduct in-depth analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of those they entrust with their security and who they anticipate fighting alongside before they declare an alliance. From a military perspective, this analysis must center on two key questions: What does this nation bring to the fight, and how can they successfully incorporate their military into my battlefield plans?
I spent most of my four-decade-long career in Europe training with and learning about various NATO partners, as well as preparing to counter the Soviet/Warsaw Pact (and later Russian) army as an alliance. I knew what our partners brought to the fight, and we all knew how to incorporate their forces and our coordinated plans into the defense of Europe. I also learned that time, trust, and understanding are the most important elements when building and strengthening any alliance.
But during my career, I also had time to assess the alliances in the Pacific region. A two-year stint as commander of an armored brigade during the late 1990s—with the mission of reinforcing the South Koreans in case of a North Korean attack—reinforced the lessons I learned in Europe. The old saw that nothing worth having comes easy, and the same goes for alliances—but it seems the Russians and North Koreans might not know that just yet, and their new alliance might not be as formidable as they or others might believe.
THE MISSION ASSIGNED TO THE BRIGADE I commanded was to reinforce our permanently stationed U.S. Army Division in South Korea in the event of an invasion by the North Koreans. Coming from the ports and airfields on the West Coast, our unit would deploy across the Pacific via roll-on/roll-off ships, land at a strategic location, and then fall in on the fight—hopefully during the early days of the conflict. During multiple deployment exercises and follow-up training events on the peninsula, our soldiers learned about our terrific South Korean counterparts: Their training, leadership, operational doctrine, equipment, and their soldier quality were all first rate, and we were proud to train—and, if necessary, to fight—with the soldiers of the Korean Army as well as the KATUSA (Korean Augmentation to the U. S. Army) who became a part of our units. We built trust, understanding, and mutual support.
At the same time, through intelligence briefings, observations gained in and around the demilitarized zone and in our anticipated battle positions, and discussions with South Korean commanders and our KATUSAs, we also gathered information about our potential enemy to the north.
The North Koreans are tough. Both men and women are drafted into mandatory military service starting at age 17, they serve anywhere between five and thirteen years (usually depending on the government’s force requirements at any given time). Refusal to serve is not an option. Some of them have participated in military programs and indoctrination in youth organizations like the Korean Children’s Union and the Socialist Patriotic (formerly Kimilsungist-Kimjongilist) Youth League. The league prioritizes extensive ideological education on absolute loyalty to the Kim family and the state, and hatred for all things South Korean.
North Korean soldiers are subjected to draconian basic military training, unforgiving physical training, and repetitive small-unit battle drills. All are conducted under extremely harsh conditions. Training is physically exhausting and focuses on survival skills and readiness for hardship on the most challenging of battlefields. Due to food shortages, soldiers are usually provided limited rations and malnutrition is a common issue among the troops. Any violations of standards are met with harsh physical punishment meted out by their merciless instructors and commanders.
THE FIRST THINGS ANY COMMANDER WANTS to know about an ally are the preparedness of the force, the discipline of its soldiers, and the quality of leadership. Answering these questions tells you what kind of ally you’re getting. In this case, at least some of the North Korean soldiers in Russia are reportedly part of the members of the special forces, meaning they received more extensive training and likely better equipment than the average North Korean unit.
But determining if a putative ally is a good match—if two forces are likely to “get along on the battlefield,” for lack of a better term—requires answering more complicated questions: How do they train, and how do they fight? What kind of technology do they have and how do they use it? How do they keep themselves supplied? What are their chain of command, communications, language, and cultural norms like?
Ticking through these questions, there are reasons to suspect that the Russians and North Koreans might not get along very well. Every nation has its own “way of war,” captured in their operational doctrine and the way they fight. That doctrine is embedded in the force through training standards and exercises. If a country approaches the battlefield in a unique manner, it makes a difference to a commander who is attempting to coordinate the actions of the various members of the alliance. One force may prioritize speed, while another might prioritize mass. One might focus on collecting intelligence before planning an operation, while another might be more improvisational. In the Russian-North Korean alliance, neither force adequately has trained for the fight in Ukraine, but Russia has at least had almost three years to adapt to the battlefield environment. While North Korean troops are disciplined and tough, they have not had an opportunity to adapt to the complexities and weapon systems both sides have demonstrated in Ukraine. I wonder how many North Korean soldiers have ever seen a drone up close before.
The different levels of technology are more significant than the differences between iPhone and Android. They create and reflect changes in how units fight. These differences complicate coordination, levels of trust, effective combined actions, and any semblance of mission success. North Korean equipment is obsolete by at least a generation—usually second-hand from the Chinese, or in some cases, acquired long ago from the Soviets. While some of the hand-me-downs have been replaced by domestic technology, its quality is untested, and even the North Koreans might not know how it will perform in actual combat. While Russian equipment has also not measured up to pre-war hype, it is still advanced compared to what the North Koreans will bring to this fight.
And, of course, technology is a finite resource. Armies need resupply. Hence Napoleon’s quip, “An army marches on its stomach,” and the adage that in war, amateurs talk about strategy while professionals talk about logistics. The Russians have had significant logistics challenges, and they also surely know they will have to resupply their new partners, as the North Koreans won’t be able to resupply their troops from 4,000 miles away. In alliances, the lack of equipment interoperability, differences in weapons and ammunition (from the smallest to largest caliber of systems), and complexity in supply chains will all create dysfunction and chaos on the battlefield. NATO troops continuously exercise logistics support for other nations (and there are still challenges!); Russia and North Korea do not have that same history of coordination, interoperability, and support.
Complications involving techniques, technology, and supply are inevitable in any alliance, which is why trust and mutual understanding are so important—they allow allies to solve problems as they arise. There are few alliances who share a common language. There are fewer still who share cultural norms; individual initiative; command hierarchy; understanding of and execution of orders, decision making, and staff planning; and the other elements of military culture. Russia and North Korea do not have the cooperative experiences or past training encounters that would help eliminate what will certainly be confusion and bedlam. And as they try, they’re both chasing a moving target. The Russian military is significantly different now from what it was in 2022: Its demographic makeup, morale, overall strength, and method of fighting have all changed in response to three years of high-intensity war against a good Ukraine army. North Korea, for its part, hasn’t fought a war in more than 70 years.
GIVEN THE EXTREME DIFFICULTIES, why are Russia and North Korea forming this alliance? What are they getting from each other?
The North Korean deployment to Russia is just another indication that Putin bit off more than he could chew in February 2022. He has turned to China, Iran, and now North Korea for assistance with arms, ammunition, and especially political support. But now, for all the talk of Russia’s immense manpower advantage over Ukraine, Putin is most interested in bodies. The results of the first supplemental mobilization were catastrophic—hundreds of thousands of some of Russia’s most productive people fled the country. Then, Putin turned to Russia’s prisons and impoverished ethnic minorities, promising freedom and a payday. Now those men appear to be running out too, so North Korean soldiers who will provide the new “cannon meat” (their adaptation of the western term of “cannon fodder”) of Putin’s war. Former Ukrainian Minister of Defense Andriy Zahorodniuk suggested he believes up to 90 percent of the North Korean detachment will die in the upcoming months, if they are committed as part of future Russian operations.
There will be other benefits to Russia, as well. North Korea will supply additional small-caliber artillery ammunition, rockets, small arms, and related ammunition, and even some anti-tank weapons and mines.
North Korea, in exchange, will receive things that Russia can easily give, like modernization support for their outdated military and technological assistance in ballistic missile development, modern aircraft and naval vessels, and advances in cyber and space capabilities. Above all else, North Korea will—once again—have a partner at the UN, where Russia can veto actions that threaten the Kim regime.
There’s a corollary to Churchill’s rule about fighting with allies: The worst way of fighting with allies is fighting with last-minute allies in a last-ditch effort to avoid defeat. North Korea’s infusion of troops, which seem likely to be deployed against the Ukrainian-occupied zone of Russia near Kursk, will only result in more deaths on the Russian side of the front line due to a lack of battlefield cooperation, strategic coordination, force preparation, commander trust, and mutual unit support. In the short term, the tactical and operational objectives of the alliance for Russia don’t look very promising.
In the long term, the strategic benefits of the alliance for both sides are also risky. Neither Kim Jung Un nor Vladimir Putin are the trusting types, and either leader is likely to abandon the other as soon as a better offer comes around. These aren’t the kind of alliances that contribute to success.
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