--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Welcome to Today Explained. I'm Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: On Wednesday, an autocrat with a legendary haircut deboarded a bulletproof train in Russia to meet with an autocrat with next to no hair. As the slow-moving train crossed the Russian border, Kim is finally feeling needed, courted by President Vladimir Putin. It was a long train ride, far longer than a flight. We don't know why Kim Jong-un won't fly. Maybe he's scared of getting shot down. Maybe he likes to get faxes while traveling. Passengers can be serenaded by beautiful female conductors while seated in their unique pink leather sofas. We don't know much about the meeting, what exactly was said, but we know what was on the menu. Duck and fig salad, crab dumplings, sturgeon and beef with a choice of Russian wines and missus. Why one of the most elusive men in the world took a long train ride to Russia when he could have just sent some bombs.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Coming up on Today Explained. Support for this show comes from ServiceNow. AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into, don't you know? That's why it's no surprise that more than 85% of the Fortune 500 use the ServiceNow AI platform. Didn't know that. While other platforms duct tape tools together, ServiceNow seamlessly unifies people, data, workflows, and AI, connecting every corner of your business. And with AI agents working together autonomously, anyone in any department can focus on the work that matters most. I've never met an AI agent. Learn how ServiceNow puts AI to work for people at servicenow.com.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The Stimson Center is a D.C.-based think tank focused on global peace. They got a whole department dedicated to North Korea called 38 North, and Jenny Town is its director. We asked her to help us understand the significance of one unruly autocrat taking a train to see another.
--:-- Jenny Town: I think, you know, this is really the culmination of a growing relationship, something that we've been watching over the past couple of years, especially since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It's really brought these two closer together. Kim Jong-un is one of the few leaders who has openly and consistently pledged political support and material support to the Russians in their war against Ukraine.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Russia is now in the sacred fight against hegemonic forces to protect its sovereignty and security interests. We have constantly expressed our full and unconditional support for all the decisions taken by the president and Russian leadership. And I want to assure you that we will always be together with Russia in the fight against imperialism. And for that, there's rewards for him from the Russian side as their global standing starts to diminish. So, you know, this is a historic relationship of friendship, but really taken to a new level now.
--:-- Jenny Town: I had an in-depth discussion with comrade Putin about the political and military situation on the Korean peninsula and in Europe. We found satisfying consensus on further strengthening strategic cooperation and solidarity in the struggle to defend sovereign rights and security and to ensure lasting peace in the region and the world.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So give us sort of the lead up to this particular meeting. It's not like the former president meeting with Kim Jong-un because that hadn't happened in a very long time. But what was the sort of precedent to this meeting between Putin and Kim Jong-un? It kind of depends on how far back you want to go. There's certainly been growing relations over the years. There's been several rumors of growing partnership, especially of North Korea being willing to sell arms to Russia. And some rumors that have come out about those deals.
--:-- Jenny Town: Russia has approached North Korea to request ammunition. Certainly, we assess that things are not going well on that front for Russia. So the fact that they're reaching out to North Korea is a sign that they're having some challenges on the sustainment front. But in the meantime, you know, none of this happens in a political vacuum. So there's been the 70th anniversary of the armistice agreement on the Korean peninsula that ended the Korean War.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The South and the North marked the stay quite differently. Here in Seoul, the day is a somber occasion. President Yoon Sung-yeol invited dozens of foreign war veterans to honor those who died during the war. The North Korean side celebrated it in its own way, inviting also the Chinese and Russians to be part of those celebrations. It is a massive spectacle. Precision marching bands, fireworks, balloons and planes forming a 70 in the sky.
--:-- Jenny Town: As North Korea now emerges from COVID and starts to open those borders, there's been a lot of traffic between the Russians and Chinese and the North Koreans that are really starting to grow that relationship in a much more solidified way, especially as U.S.-South Korea-Japan relations also deepen on the other side of the equation.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today, we've made history with the first ever standalone summit between the leaders of our three countries, as well as our commitment to meet together on the leader level annually and to have all our relative cabinet member people meet on a regular basis for from this point on. And so this is, I think in some ways, the idea that it culminated in a summit.
--:-- Jenny Town: Yes, there's things that both sides want from each other, but there's also a sense of if the US and South Korea and Japan are going to demonstrate their friendship and their growing security partnership in this way that the other side is going to also Okay so that kind of sets the table for this meeting
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What was the actual reason this particular summit was called? Well, it seems that there's an arms deal. I think it was a surprise that the summit happened actually at one of Russia's space launch stations, where it's very clear that the Russians have made a choice to say that they're willing to openly work with the North Koreans on technology, especially on satellites and rockets.
--:-- Jenny Town: The two met at the Vostokshnyi Cosmodrome, Russia's most modern space launch facility. The venue, possibly a hint Russia may help North Korea develop military satellites after Pyongyang's two failed attempts at launching a spy satellite earlier this year.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's been lots of talk of also, in the meantime, cooperation on food and humanitarian assistance, oil, things that North Korea needs, including the technology. But then also the question is, is, yeah, what is Russia getting on the other side? And there's very little information about what happened in that respect. But a lot of speculation, of course, that the Russians are trying to buy North Korean artillery and munitions and small arms.
--:-- Jenny Town: It was previously that North Korea was dependent upon Russia or China for support. Now it looks to me as if Putin's gone to North Korea with tin cup in hand asking for weapons, munitions and support, which is an inverse of their previous relationship, which is pretty fascinating.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I mean, and both of these countries are friends with China. China has a lot of the things presumably you're talking about. Why do they need to buy these things or give these things to and from each other?
--:-- Jenny Town: I think it, one, demonstrates how few options the Russians actually have right now, given their status and how much the international community has condemned Russia's illegal war in Ukraine. I think even the Chinese are very hesitant to provide direct aid or be open about providing direct military assistance to the Russians because they still care about their international standing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: North Korea is one of the countries that doesn't have much of an international standing and so can afford to make these kinds of moves because it will benefit them. But they don't really lose as much in the process as what China would, for instance. And the other reason why North Korea makes sense for the Russians is because it's compatible with Russian systems already. So, you know, they can use it. It's the same gauges and stuff. So it makes it very easy to kind of plug and play.
--:-- Jenny Town: And North Korea has stockpiles of it. You know, like they haven't actually been at war since 1953. In the past, we've heard about rumors of the deal, but we haven't been able to verify anything in open sources. So obviously, Ukraine loses here if Russia further cozies up to North Korea. Who else loses?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Well, I think, you know, this obviously throws a lot of complications into the mix. One would be, you know, obviously this will further agitate relations with the U.S. and with NATO. And, you know, will prolong Russia's ability to continue fighting. I don't think it's a game changer by any means, given the kinds of, you know, arms and artillery that Russia is likely getting or likely will get from the North Koreans.
--:-- Jenny Town: I think they'll get some munitions, but I don't know that they're going to get so much that it'll make a substantive difference. But it does prolong their ability to keep fighting. It might also, though, create really complicated recalculations in South Korea as well, though, because the U.S. has wanted South Korea to get more involved and provide more hardware and more arms into Ukraine directly.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And South Korea has been reluctant to do so. Two major reasons for this. One is an economic relationship. It has billions of dollars in trade with Russia. But perhaps more importantly is the issue of North Korea. It is afraid that perhaps if it does anything to rub Russia the wrong way, i.e. by arming Ukraine, Russia is going to go ahead and start either arming or helping in other ways North Korea.
--:-- Jenny Town: There are South Korean laws that prohibit the provision of lethal aid into conflict zones. And so, you know, they've been selling arms instead to like Poland in order for Poland to direct into Ukraine. And when there was talk, for instance, that South Korea might reconsider that, the former Russian president had warned at that time if South Korea did that, that Russia would then openly start to help North Korea with their missile programs.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But I think they're already playing that card, right, of like Russia saying, hey, we are now willing to openly cooperate, especially on space cooperation, satellite cooperation. And if that's open, likely there's other aspects of their weapons programs that the Russians are also willing to support. So that really opens the door then for, you know, South Korea to recalculate to say, hey, if Russia's already doing this, then why wouldn't we help Ukraine directly?
--:-- Jenny Town: I also think, you know, the Russians have probably been hesitant to be this visible and this open about its cooperation with the North Koreans because it does have costs for the Russians in terms of their political standing. If we're talking about for instance space cooperation with the north koreans this is sanctioned activities so you know for russia to do this they're basically you know taking a stand to say that regardless of sanctions this is our friend and we have common interests and we are going to move forward in this because it benefits us regardless what the international community thinks and i think that's a position that the russians have not been willing to take until now
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And again, I think it shows just sort of where Russia sees itself in the international community right now as having not enough to lose by doing this, whereas in the past they had still something to lose by doing so.
--:-- Jenny Town: Jenny's going to tell us more about what North Korea is getting out of this deal when we're back on Today Explained.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So, Jenny, it sounds like Russia is pretty desperate, so they're knocking on North Korea's door. But what about North Korea? Are they just down to answer the door? Or are they in a desperate situation themselves?
--:-- Jenny Town: I don't think it's either or. I think it's both. Huh. They're definitely utilitarian. They're very pragmatic. They understand opportunity when it arises, and they're ready to act on opportunity when it arises. And this is a definite opportunity for the North Koreans where, again, it's very low political risk for them. Results are almost guaranteed with very little negotiation. And they will benefit from it in some way, depending on, again, Russia's calculation of what they're willing to do and willing to provide.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But, you know, North Korea is also now emerging from self-isolation from the pandemic. North Korea has announced that it will now allow its citizens abroad to come back home as its border officially reopens after over three years of pandemic closure.
--:-- Jenny Town: And so they've been since January 2020, very, very limited trade, no tourism, no foreigners coming in. And so the situation inside North Korea, while we don't have a good gauge of on-the-ground reality, we know it's been a lot of hardship, especially on food security, rising to the level of Kim Jong-un actually talking about a food crisis inside the country.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Attention is being paid at the very top. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un held a Workers' Party meeting this week calling for a fundamental change in farming and state economic plans. But many say it is his regime, its chronic mismanagement and isolation that has caused this crisis.
--:-- Jenny Town: Even as the border starts to open up, a lot of those first shipments coming in have been, you know, food and medicines and things that they've needed for a long time that now they can start to get in in a more regular basis. And where is it coming from? Is it coming from Russia? China? It's coming from wherever they can get it. Definitely, there has been stories about Russian wheat coming in. There's definitely been food aid coming from China.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: There's been some stories of rice coming from Southeast Asia and that the North Koreans were actually complaining about the rice coming from Southeast Asia because it's the long grain rice instead of short grain rice, and they don't think it tastes as good. Real Asian problems.
--:-- Jenny Town: Why does Kim Jong-un just perennially struggle to feed his people? Is he a terrible farmer?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Well, you know, there's very limited agricultural lands in North Korea. When the peninsula was first split, the northern half used to be the industrial center, and the southern half was the agricultural areas. And so when the country was split arbitrarily in the middle, the South was very much behind the North when it came to industrial production, because all of those institutions and operations were historically in the North.
--:-- Jenny Town: And so, you know, South Korea as an agrarian culture to begin with had a long way to go to get to where they are now. Whereas the North has limited agricultural areas that never actually quite fully meet the needs of the people in a self-sustained way. They're always a little bit short. But, you know, in the past several decades, that's been supplemented with foodstuffs, imports that come in.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so, you know, they can make up a lot of that when trade is healthy, when trade is coming in and when people can engage in market activity and start to do for themselves as well. So the country is, by virtue of its geography, in a precarious position when it comes to growing food.
--:-- Jenny Town: And during the pandemic, Kim Jong-un decides to make matters worse by shutting down trade. Shutting down trade and shutting down all kinds of, you know, access to the country in order to prevent an outbreak from happening inside the country. Because their health system is just so weak that they never would have been able to deal with the kind of mass epidemic and health care needs that other countries went through For two years as the global pandemic surged isolated North Korea boasted of zero COVID That recently changed as trade with China increased.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Do we have any idea what that meant for food supply in the country? Do we know how bad things got?
--:-- Jenny Town: So this is now dealing with a couple of years where the food supply was not supplemented by imports. And so we know that based on North Korean reporting, it was so bad that they started to distribute military stockpiles out to the people. The specter of another famine has not stopped Kim Jong-un from funneling his limited finances into building nuclear weapons.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The money he spent on missile tests last year would have been enough, according to some estimates, to ensure his entire population was properly fed. But now the country's borders are back open and presumably they even have some vaccines out there in North Korea?
--:-- Jenny Town: Presumably there's some vaccines, yes. And there was talk in 2022 when North Korea did finally admit to having some cases of COVID-19. North Korea has acknowledged its very first cases of COVID-19, leading the nation's ruler, Kim Jong-un, to declare a national lockdown. They did apparently start a vaccination campaign at that point.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We don't know where they got vaccines from. We don't know how many vaccines they got or who was vaccinated. But it seems that they did see the need to vaccinate, to have a vaccination campaign at some point. So now, finally, for the first time since 2019, Kim Jong-un is feeling safe enough to leave his country, to go to Russia, to make an arms deal.
--:-- Jenny Town: How much of that deal has to do with his own position and his own people back home in North Korea?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It does play a big role, right? Again, a lot of the cooperation expected is also on the economic side of the equation of, you know, food, oil, gas, things that North Korea desperately needs in order to revive their own economy.
--:-- Jenny Town: Even in the arms deal, again, if it rises to the level of actually, you know, manufacturing new arms and munitions for the Russians, that would have, you know, a huge economic impact in the short term. There may have also been discussions about returning North Korean workers to Russia, where under sanctions before they were expelled from the country and sent back.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But now if Russia is saying they don't care about sanctions anymore, this opens the door for greater cooperation to happen at that level as well. So there's definite economic opportunities in reestablishing and deepening the relations with Russia.
--:-- Jenny Town: Kim Jong-un's father was famously a lonely guy. Do Kim Jong-un and North Korea have any other friends?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I know Russia's one of them. China's in the mix. Who else is out there for them?
--:-- Jenny Town: If you look at the statements that Kim Jong-un has made or that the North Koreans have made in, say, the UN General Assembly, they also will list off a number of countries that they have good relations with, including countries like Cuba, Venezuela, Vietnam, Cambodia, Palestine.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The list goes on. The DPRK delegation avails itself of this opportunity to extend its full support and encouragement to the Cuban government and people. I also express our constant support to solidarity with independent countries, including Syria, Palestine, and their peoples.
--:-- Jenny Town: And a lot of them are other countries that are also under sanctions or that they have historical friendships with. And, you know, North Korea is not a hermit kingdom by any means. They have embassies outside of North Korea that are active. And I think we're much more closed off to them than they are to anyone else.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so just because they're not talking to the U.S. doesn't mean they're not talking to anyone. They definitely are out there. They're active and they're cultivating relations with more sympathetic states.
--:-- Jenny Town: And Dennis Rodman. And Dennis Rodman. What do you actually talk about with, and I don't mean this insultingly, a madman murderous dictator?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Actually, we talk about basketball.
--:-- Jenny Town: Okay. Did the world change after this meeting in a meaningful way, Jenny? Or is it just sort of more of the same or a band-aid on some existing issues that we have?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I wouldn't say the world changed because, again, a lot of these things were already in motion. This is just sort of putting a fine point on it. Certainly, it's much clearer now what Russia is willing to do and how they're willing to grow that relationship. It will be interesting to see how the Chinese respond to this because there's deepening China-Russia cooperation going on at the same time and deepening China-North Korea cooperation going on at the same time.
--:-- Jenny Town: Whether this rises to the level of an actual trilateral access where, you know, we start to see joint military exercises or things like that. I think that's where we could be headed. I don't think we're there yet.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then that's where the real block against block competition starts to come in and really agitate and exacerbate the security situation in the region.
--:-- Jenny Town: Well, I really hope we don't have to call you back to talk about the day that happens.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Me too. Thanks to Jenny Town from the Stimson Center. She runs their 38 North program focused on North Korea.
--:-- Jenny Town: Thanks to John Park at the Harvard Kennedy School for his help with this episode.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We were produced by Avishai Artsy with help from Hadi Mawajdeh, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, mixed by David Herman, and fact-checked by Laura Bullard.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Sean Rameswaram for him, and this is Today Explained. Thank you.
