Ukraine and South Korea in the second age of Trump

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/11/2024 (333 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The consensus assumption is still that U.S. president-elect Donald Trump will force Ukraine to yield to Russia as soon as he takes office on Jan. 20. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself said recently that once Trump becomes president, the war with Russia will “end sooner” than it would otherwise have done.

On the other hand, the performative cruelty of Trump’s cabinet appointments argues that nothing much has changed (although the plan to appoint Jack the Ripper as surgeon-general has been abandoned after re-animation attempts failed). As for Ukraine, the official MAGA line is still that Ukraine is beyond saving.

Trump himself said in September: “What deal can we make? It’s demolished. The people are dead. The country is in rubble.” Vice-president-elect JD Vance takes an even harsher line: “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.” Pending news to the contrary, therefore, we should assume that U.S. aid to Ukraine will end.

That is certainly a heavy loss to Ukraine, but not necessarily a death blow. Less than half the military aid to Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022 has come from the United States. (US$69 billion, and from NATO’s European members and Canada, US$85 billion.)

Perhaps the Ukrainians can get by economically just by tightening their belts, but more arms and ammunition are critical to their survival. The non-U.S. NATO members cannot produce enough new weapons to replace the American contribution themselves, and they are reluctant to dig further into their existing stocks in case they are next on Russia’s list.

If Ukraine is not to surrender to Moscow’s demands, then, where can the extra weapons it needs come from?

How about South Korea?

Two years ago, North Korea started selling self-propelled howitzers, long-range rocket systems and vast quantities of other arms and ammunition to Russia for use against Ukraine. Pyongyang has now also sent 12,000 North Korean troops to fight the Ukrainians, initially in the Kurst salient.

If that is escalation, then Russia has already done it. It would involve no further escalation for the other Korea to follow suit, but in fact Ukraine doesn’t need South Korean troops; just South Korean arms and ammo.

South Korea’s weaponry is already NATO-compatible, so its shells would fit Ukraine’s artillery and Ukrainian weapons crews would need no retraining to use South Korean-made weapons. Moreover, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeo said two weeks ago that Seoul doesn’t rule out sending weapons to help defend Ukraine, so it could happen.

South Korea can easily spare some of its weapons. With one-sixth the population of the United States, it has twice as much artillery (3,000 self-propelled howitzers, mostly 155 mm, and 4,000 towed guns). It has vast stocks of ammunition, and ample production lines to make more of everything.

A couple thousand of those guns and a couple million artillery shells would reverse Ukraine’s desperate lack of firepower at the front and give the country at least a chance to negotiate a ceasefire with the Russians from a position of relative strength.

South Korea would still be able to stop any North Korean attack at home, and NATO’s European members could easily cover the cost of the weapons. There are only two potential deal-killers. One is NATO’s fear of Trump. The other is South Korea’s reluctance to annoy Trump.

South Korea’s only security against attack by North Korea’s nuclear weapons is the U.S. guarantee to retaliate with similar weapons. If Trump, eager to impose an unjust “peace” on Ukraine, even hinted that giving Ukraine more artillery might invalidate that U.S. guarantee to South Korea, Seoul would instantly drop the whole idea.

NATO’s non-U.S. members have a similar problem. They want Ukraine to survive because they worry that a Russian victory there would tempt Putin to try reconquering other parts of the old Soviet Union as well. However, they also worry that an aggrieved Trump might pull out of NATO.

If he threatened to do that, NATO countries would quickly block the South Korean deal.

In the end, unfortunately, all roads lead back to Trump.

Gwynne Dyer’s new book is Intervention Earth: Life-Saving Ideas from the World’s Climate Engineers.