Cables From The Diplomatic Frontlines - Impact of North Korean deployment on China & opportunities for leverage: Part I.

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North Korea’s Troop Deployment to Russia: beyond the battlefield impact and China’s interests in play.

• Western media and senior political analysts are justifiably fixated on the immediate implications of North Korea’s decision to send “storm troops” special forces to Russia.

• The consequences for Ukraine are colossal.

• As we’ve outlined in previous cables, it is highly improbable that Pyongyang will restrict its involvement to a mere 12,000 troops.

• The Rubicon has been crossed, and North Korea now has every reason to deepen its engagement, aiming to ensure a Russian victory - it has every incentive to push even harder for its own bet to work out as planned.

• As such, having crossed the Rubicon, the one foot in one foot out approach does not make any sense: whatever the costs of crossing this line, they will pay it anyways - better make sure it is for something worthwhile.

• So North Korea has every incentive to double-down and push for maximum upside.

• Consequently, we should expect their numbers in western Russia to increase steadily.

• Without significant intervention and cost imposition from the West, NK may end up deploying a substantial portion of its forces.

• It’s crucial to remember that North Korea commands one of the world’s largest armies.

• Yes, it’s true that its million-strong force is mostly underfed, undertrained, and untested in real combat.

• Yet, even if half of its storm troops were deployed (100k soldiers) that could be a game changer, enabling Russia to open a second front from Belarus or achieve a critical breakthrough in Donbas.

• (side note: a fresh new northern Ukraine front is less likely to occur in the short-term. Russia would also need to scale up its own allocation and deploy additional 150-200k troops of its own. This is not happening anytime soon. The Kremlin is already strained and has to increasingly offer ever higher rewards for recruitment (total bonus packages now exceed $55k a year - depending on the region of recruitment), and as of late September Russia’s killed and wounded in action numbers are around 1k a day.)

• While it’s vital to focus on this North Korean escalation, it’s also important to examine the overlooked angles.

• One of these is the potential for a deeper alliance between North Korea and Iran.

• Tehran is facing a genuine existential crisis: as its conventional military capabilities are degraded and its regional proxies decimated, Iran may decide that sprinting toward a nuclear weapon is its only option for survival.

• And if that was to happen, then who would be better positioned to assist than North Korea?

• This is a country that has violated every international norm, defied all sanctions, and crossed every red line imaginable.

• It has little to lose by supporting a new challenge to global stability.

• On the contrary - North Korea stands to benefit significantly from this very challenge—both strategically and financially—by aiding Iran’s ambitions, further weakening Western/US influence in Europe and the Middle East and reshaping the global order to its advantage.

• Another under-appreciated dimension is Beijing’s perspective.