“While this agreement is called a ‘Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’, the clause providing for mutual military assistance between Russia and the DPRK in essence makes it a treaty of military-political alliance,” Artyom Lukin, professor of international politics at Russia’s Far Eastern Federal University, told Sputnik, commenting on the pact, the text of which was published this summer after President Putin's state visit to Pyongyang.
What's in the Treaty?
Among the 23 articles in the pact is a clause stipulating that in case of a threat of attack by a third power, the signatories “will agree on cooperative measures in accordance with requests of either party and ensure cooperation in eliminating the threat.” Another section reads that “if one of the parties finds itself at war due to an armed attack by one or more country, the other party will immediately provide it with military assistance by all means at its disposal.”
The treaty affirms the two countries' "desire to protect international justice from hegemonic aspirations and attempts to impose a unipolar world order," and "to establish a multipolar international system based on good faith cooperation of states, mutual respect for interests, the collective resolution of international problems, cultural and civilizational diversity, the supremacy of international law in international relations, and joint efforts to counteract any challenges that threaten the existence of humanity."
On the economic front, the partnership pact calls for the "expansion and development of cooperation in trade, economic, investment, scientific and technical fields," ranging from efforts to ramp up trade and technology cooperation, and encouragement of "joint research in the field of science and technology, including such areas as space, biology, peaceful nuclear energy, artificial intelligence, information technology and others."
'Unique' Pact to Address Unprecedented Security Challenges
The Russia-North Korea strategic partnership pact is “unique,” Lukin said, pointing out that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the first and only country outside the former Soviet space with which Russia has forged such an agreement (till now, only Russia's Union State ally Belarus and members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization enjoyed similar security guarantees).
"Now, Russia will have the obligation to defend its new ally North Korea if aggression is committed against it. And, conversely, North Korea will be obliged to provide us with all manner of support, including military support, if aggression is committed against Russia," the observer noted.
The pact will benefit both countries, and serve to reduce risks of a war in the Korean Peninsula, where increasingly provocative rhetoric and actions by Seoul, combined with efforts to strengthen South Korea’s defense ties with the US and Japan, threaten to unleash a new conflict, Lukin says.
"Russia was, is and will long remain one of the foremost military powers in the world, and is a nuclear superpower. This means that, if Russia was suddenly called on to fulfill its obligations under this treaty and come to the aid of North Korea against South Korea (because the most likely scenario is an armed conflict between north and south), Seoul and its ally Washington will have to deal not only with the DPRK, but the DPRK and Russia," the observer stressed.
In the present circumstances, where war between Pyongyang and Seoul has been made more likely thanks to a long series of US and South Korean provocations, the Russia-North Korea strategic partnership therefore constitutes "a step toward the stabilization of Northeast Asia, a step toward peace in Northeast Asia," since it serves to correct a growing "imbalance of military forces" on the Korean Peninsula between the DPRK on one hand and the ROK and its allies on the other, Lukin noted.
"The Republic of Korea is becoming a powerful military power before our eyes, producing the entire spectrum of modern weaponry, from small arms to submarines and fighters, launching its own reconnaissance satellites, etc. The only thing South Korea does not have is nuclear weapons, although acquiring such arms is literally just a matter of a political decision and a couple of years," Lukin emphasized.
On its own, North Korea's economic and technological potential do not allow it to compete with its neighbor, "armed to the teeth" and allied to the US - one of the most powerful nations on Earth, along with Japan, the observer added.
"As the Anglo-Saxons say, 'weakness provokes'," and a North Korea standing alone against these threats risks falling victim to aggression. "South Korea's Constitution says that the entire Korean Peninsula should be under Seoul's control, and the North Koreans are concerned first and foremost not with the US, but with the Republic of Korea, as their main enemy, as Kim Jong Un recently said. In this light, the existence of the treaty with Russia will be a sobering factor for Seoul, first and foremost, but also for its allies," Lukin said.
“Of course, the members of this trio can say that they will unite their ranks even more closely against this new ‘Russian-North Korean threat’. But this is hypocrisy, since they would have strengthened their military capabilities and integrated in military-political terms even without this treaty,” Lukin summed up.