The visit of Vladimir Putin to North Korea this week was choreographed as an old-timey Communist summit, with armies of flag-waving children, portraits waving from every lamp pole and building, lavish gifts and high-blown expressions of an old and eternal friendship.
“Comrade Kim Jong-un warmly embraced him,” went the official North Korean account of the airport greeting. “The top leaders shared their innermost thoughts during an intimate conversation while driving to where they were staying.”
Heady stuff, but as phony now as it was back in the day. In fact, despite professions of friendship for North Korea in the Soviet era, no Soviet leader ever visited Pyongyang. The only Kremlin leader ever to do so, in fact, was Putin himself back in 2000.
That was a far different visit, at which Putin was trying to position himself as an indispensable interlocutor between a dangerous pariah and the world. At the conclusion, the Russian leader said he had become confident that North Korea would use rocket technology only for the peaceful exploration of the cosmos. (Fast-forward to June 2018: Then-President Donald Trump, returning from his visit with Kim, tweeted: “Just landed — a long trip but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office. There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.”)
This Putin-Kim visit was pariah to pariah, as was their last get-together in eastern Russia in September. Putin is arguably now the greater pariah, looking for munitions and weapons to sustain his murderous war on Ukraine, and for a comrade in his hatred for the West. Kim, who was probably seeking technical support for his missile or nuclear programs, at least has not yet waged war against anyone but his own people. In any case, the text of the pact signed by Putin and Kim was not made public, and the line for public consumption was of mutual assistance in the event of foreign aggression.
When pariahs meet and talk about mutual military assistance, there is reason to worry. Russia itself used to be openly concerned about North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, and even joined in United Nations efforts to stop it. But Putin has now focused his country’s foreign policy solely on garnering what support he can for the brutal land grab that he has elevated into a war of survival against the West.
From Pyongyang, Putin flew in his old Soviet plane to Hanoi, another ally from Communist days, where he was again greeted with official hugs and children waving flags. But here his anti-Western rhetoric was almost absent. His goal was simpler: to show that he can still be received in some places with honors, as President Biden and China’s Xi Jinping were on their visits to Vietnam last year.
Vietnam historically has been heavily dependent on Russia for its armaments, but it has been steadily building bridges with the United States and the West. Putin’s message here was: Hey, I’m still around.
