North Korean troops in Kursk: pretext for American escalation or cause?

In the past couple of weeks, there have been numerous articles in The New York Times and other mainstream disseminators of the CIA and White House propaganda lines regarding an alleged presence of North Korean troops in Russia to fight in Kursk against the Ukrainian forces there. US intelligence was said to have spotted via satellite images some 12,000 North Korean infantrymen in Russia of whom 10,000 were said to have been incorporated into a Russian force numbering 50,000 that would, any day now, make an all-out attack on the remaining Ukrainians occupying this Russian Federation territory.

Those same articles told us that the United States government considered the introduction of North Korean troops into the battle to represent a big escalation in the war by the Kremlin. So it was just a matter of time before Washington would respond with its own counter-escalation. Yesterday's announcement by Biden's office told us he has just decided to give Kiev freedom to use American supplied ATACMs missiles with a 300 km radius of operation to strike inside the Russian Federation as it wishes.

As I observed yesterday, this decision overturns Biden's decision of 14 September never to allow its medium or long range missiles to be used inside the RF. This was a decision forced on him by Pentagon officials who would have made reference Putin's clearly stated intention days earlier to make this a casus belli against the suppliers of the missiles (in the case of ATACMS) or of the technology needed to operate such missiles (in the case of Storm Shadow).

Lest we hyperventilate about the risks to which Biden was now exposing the Continental USA,unofficial US news sources tell us this morning that Washington has insisted that Kiev strike with ATACMS only targets within the Kursk oblast, supporting the notion that the objective is strictly a proportional tit-for-tat over the North Korean presence there. Indeed, if the Russians' version of how such weapons are used, namely that all preparation and targeting is done by U.S. soldiers or U.S. military contractors, whatever strikes on Russia using ATACMS Kiev may claim, real control rests with Americans so they know very well what will be hit and where.

Let us put aside for the moment that the limitation on geography for attack is only temporary and will be expanded in the near future whenever Washington is ready to up the ante. Let us be explicit about what attacking the Kursk region means.

There are only two possible types of targets in Kursk oblast worthy of discussion. One is troop concentrations of Russians and North Koreans performing the mopping up operation in Kursk. ATACMS strikes there probably will not initially force the Russians to respond. The second is the nuclear power plant in the region which was believed to be the prize initially sought by Kiev when it began its incursion.

Let us remember that the Kursk nuclear power plant is an early type plant which has no protective concrete dome over it to contain radioactive leaks and to prevent missile strikes from disabling it. Accordingly, an ATACMS strike on the plant will likely create a big, even devastating leak of radioactive particles across the region, meaning predominantly on Russian territory. Such an eventuality would force the hand of Putin to respond with a nuclear attack, likely on the Continental United States with all that means.

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Before closing out this commentary, I am obliged to say what significance I see in the entry of North Korean soldiers on Russian Federation territory and possibly their deployment in Kursk.

I agree with Washington that this represents an important escalation by the Russians. But it has nothing to do with the war in and about Ukraine. It is a Russian response to U.S. actions in the Far East, where it is mobilizing South Korea and Japan against China in its containment policy there, against North Korea to apply maximum threats against Pyongyang, and ….against Russia in its containment policy on the RF everywhere.

By exercising its rights under the recently ratified mutual defense treaty with North Korea and inviting Pyongyang to move a substantial contingent of fighting men to the Western border of the Russian Federation, Moscow is serving notice on Washington that its own 'sphere of influence,' if I may paraphrase Barack Obama in his widely quoted insult to Putin about his country's place in the world, extends to many, many areas, as should be expected from the world's largest country accounting for 12 percent of the world's land mass.

Let us be frank, Russia is well positioned by its common land border with North Korea to enable Pyongyang to overrun South Korea at any time of its choosing. And this is what has set off alarm bells in the Biden camp, not the paltry supplemental fighting force that North Korea adds to a 600,000 Russian military in or just near the war zone with Ukraine.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024