Role Reversal

Kim Jong Un may or may not be on his way to Moscow for a summit with Vladimir Putin; reports on whether the meeting has been confirmed vary at this point. Nevertheless, at 1945 we jumped the gun and decided to think through the implications of a meeting…

At the same time, the growing relationship is surely bittersweet from Russia’s point of view. Seventy-three years ago, Kim Jong Un’s grandfather had a series of conversations with Josef Stalin that paved the way for Kim’s invasion of the South. The Soviet Union then bankrolled the war efforts of both North Korea and the People’s Republic of China. Today, Putin meets Kim Jong Un virtually hat in hand, begging for the shells and equipment that the Soviet Union originally licensed for North Korean production. However Putin tries to frame it, the moment represents a deep humiliation for Russia’s foreign and military policy.