“Going from balloons over the DMZ to bullets over the Donbas”
“Is North and South Korea going to be in a proxy war in Ukraine”
The headlines depicting South Korea shouting insults and playing K-Pop over loudspeakers across the DMZ to their North Korean archrivals, and North Korea responding by sending manure-filled balloons across the DMZ, were amusing to read, evoking nostalgic memories of the Cold War. While we, as observers from a distance, found amusement in these trivial and petty responses, they obscured the deteriorating security situation on the Korean Peninsula. The launching of spy satellites first by North Korea and then South Korea a month later led to the suspension by South Korea and the scrapping by North Korea of a 2018 military pact between the two countries to reduce tensions on the peninsula. Since then, tensions between both sides have escalated, with North Korea's rhetoric and threats becoming more extreme. It now appears that both countries will be extending their conflict to Ukraine.
Expectedly, South Korea aligned with the Western coalition supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia. South Korea has refrained from sending military or lethal aid to Ukraine but has sent financial and humanitarian aid to the country. South Korea has also been a beneficiary of the NATO post-Ukraine invasion defense spending increases. In response to the renewed fear of the Russian threat, South Korea has signed contracts to sell and manufacture main battle tanks and rocket artillery systems to NATO countries. Russia has received support from North Korea in the Ukraine war. North Korea signed an agreement with Russia in late 2023 to sell one million artillery shells to the Russians to support their war effort along with ballistic missiles. This ammunition was key to the Russian winter and summer offensives of 2024.
North Korea and Russia signed a renewed version of the Soviet-North Korean mutual defense pact in June 2024 that expired when the Soviet Union dissolved on the last day of 1991. Since then, North Korea has increased its involvement in supplying the Russians with artillery shells and missiles and has committed to dispatching up to four army engineer brigades to Russian-occupied Donbas, ostensibly for reconstruction efforts but also for the construction of ammunition storage facilities. South Korea also reported that North Korean laborers were working in Russian factories to support the war effort. After a missile strike in Ukraine claimed the lives of at least six North Korean officers, the South Korean government unleashed the most shocking revelation: North Korea was preparing to send combat troops to support Russia. South Korea reported that 1,500 North Korean special forces troops were in the far east of Russia, training with Russia for the deployment to Ukraine, and that North Korea was about to deploy four brigades and 12,000 combat troops to Ukraine, a claim that North Korea denied.
South Korea responded that they would provide observers to Ukraine to monitor North Korean tactics and to interrogate North Korean prisoners captured by the Ukrainians. South Korea also announced they would prepare scenarios that they would provide escalating levels of defensive weapons to Ukraine, and if North Korea escalated to greater levels in Ukraine, it would provide offensive weapons to Ukraine. This would represent a significant change in South Korea's policy of refraining from arming warring countries. South Korea is not considering sending its own troops, apart from observers and intelligence officials, to Ukraine, thereby preventing a potential conflict between the two countries in a proxy war in Europe. However, the decision to involve Korean assets and rivalries in both sides of the proxy war could potentially cause instability in Asia, particularly if South Korean weapons kill North Korean troops in Ukraine. Russia's decision to include China's neighbor, North Korea, in the war could unintentionally cause instability on the Korean Peninsula, thereby worsening China's security conditions.
This is like watching a horrifying plot unfolding, one country at a time. Your substack is very informative, Thomas. There's no much going on, so fast, it's hard to keep up with it.