The Duran Podcast - Putin in North Korea & Vietnam, driving collective west crazy

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

Putin in North Korea & Vietnam, driving collective west crazy

All right, Alexander, let's talk about Putin's visit to North Korea, which has wrapped up. And let's then talk about Putin's visit to Vietnam. Interesting itinerary, first North Korea, then Vietnam. And the collective west is freaking out, by the way, which is to be expected. Anyway, what are your thoughts on? Let's start with North Korea. And then, of course, we'll go to Vietnam. I think the trip to North Korea is extremely important because it fits in with a series of important diplomatic moves that the Russians have been making over the last few months.

And what they together signaled to me is that the Russians have finally concluded that the post-Cold War period is over. even the detent period, if you like, of the sort of late Cold War era is also over, that there's now straightforward confrontation between the West and Russia, and that that isn't going to change anymore. So the result is that the Russians are now reconstructing some of their Cold War alliances, and they're doing that with North Korea. We'll come to that in a moment. they're doing that with Vietnam.

Now, remember, in the 1960s, the Soviet Union, two of its key allies at that time in Asia were North Korea and Vietnam, North Vietnam, both of which, of course, were divided countries at that time. North Korea, South Korea facing off against each other. North Vietnam, South Vietnam facing off against each other. By the way, North Korea and North Vietnam in the 1960s had excellent relations. And North Korea and Vietnam also have excellent relations. The relations never cooled between these countries. So the Russians rebuilding those relationships, those old Cold War alliances, they're sending their fleet to Cuba.

and carrying our exercises off the coast of Florida. Fairly provocative, one would have once said. I think given all that's happened now, it almost looks moderate by comparison with what the West has been doing in Europe. But clearly, the fact that they've sent their fleet to Cuba, it's a show of force, it's a show of support for Cuba. It's a sign that they're going to reestablish relations with Cuba again. and almost certainly there'll be a military dimension to this,

as well as an economic one. We'll come to that shortly. And they're also, by the way, and this is not attracted so much attention. They've basically rehabilitated the Taliban in Afghanistan. They're now forging economic and political links with the Taliban also. They're looking like they're preparing to, established diplomatic relations with the Taliban.

They're providing economic assistance to Afghanistan. They seem to be moving steadily towards an improvement of relations with Afghanistan too. So these are countries that are Western adversaries. And of course, Iran, with which the Russians also have close relations, is an adversary as well. The Russians parked all these alliances. They let them sort of wither during the Gorbachev-Yelsen era. Now they've decided sacrificing all these alliances.

Achieve nothing. The West took advantage. It didn't really result in any permanent reproschement between us and the West. so the moment has come for us to re-establish all these alliances, and to go ahead and form military-political economic links with these generally friendly countries. Now, I'm going to start with Vietnam, actually, because, of course, Vietnam is an economic giant

and a rapidly growing economy. Its major trading partner is, of course, China, with which its trade is $200 billion in terms of turnover every year. The second is the United States, $100 billion turnover every year. Russia is far behind just $5 billion, but it's growing very fast. The Russians will want to improve, accelerate economic relations with Vietnam, with which they used to have very close economic ties indeed. Beyond that, what the Russians want to do, they've always had very friendly political relations with Vietnam.

They want to ensure that Vietnam aligns with them and ultimately China, not with the United States. Vietnam looks like it's going to apply to join the bricks, and the Russians want to consolidate that. They want Vietnam to commit itself once again to, you know, the, Eurasian system. And I think they will do it. I think that you see Putin being extremely well received in Vietnam. And I suspect there'll be an arms deal, by the way. The Vietnamese traditionally have sourced their weapons from Russia, but there'll be economic links, but the most important part of it will be Vietnam joining the bricks, participating in the construction, of the economic and financial architecture

that the bricks now seems to be primarily about. And that is an important visit. Because the one that's attracted the most attention is North Korea. Now, North Korea is a country which is not just an adversary of the West, but straightforwardly an enemy of the West. I mean, you know, the way people in the West write and talk about North Korea, you can see that. It is also, however, a significant industrial power, much more so than people, I think, are willing to acknowledge. And, of course, it's become militarily a very powerful country with its own nuclear weapons.

Anyway, Putin has now concluded what is in effect a military alliance. with North Korea. Now, if you look at the treaty, the comprehensive partnership agreement, which has now been published, three of the clauses have military dimensions. They commit Russia to defending North Korea if it is attacked. And by the way, North Korea has taken on similar commitments with respect to Russia. There's clearly going to be military technical exchanges as well, so the Russians will be helping the North Koreans develop their military even further. No doubt they'll be getting lots of weapons from the North Koreans. There's been lots of talk about this, but it looks like this is now going to be formalized. There's reports the Russians have received 5 million shells from North Korea this year, which is a staggering number, especially if you bear in mind that the Russians are said to be producing 4.5 million shells themselves. So, you know, it's a huge. number of shells from North Korea, but all sorts of other weapons as well. But so it's an outright alliance with what is now a powerful nuclear country.

But I think there is another factor as well, which is where we've discussed this many times, which is that the Russian economy is currently undergoing an economic surge, the single biggest problem that Russia faces. is shortages, labor shortages. North Korea has an abundance of well-trained workers. And I think what we're going to start to see is more and more North Koreans coming to Russia to work there. Apparently, that is already happening in the Far East. The Russians have lifted restrictions on North Koreans coming to work in the Vladivostok area. And we're going to see this happen on a much bigger scale with North Korean factories probably

also be rebuilt with machine tools and all that, and fulfilling orders for the Russian consumer and heavy industry markets. So I think this also has a major economic dimension over and above the strategic and military one. But it's a major step. And of course for North Korea, it means that the siege which the country has been under ever since the Soviet Union collapsed in the late 80s, early 90s, that is now in effect being lifted. The sanctions have effectively been nullified. If you again look at the treaty, it talks about things like food security, a very important issue, obviously, for the North Koreans.

Russia, the world's biggest food producer. It can easily supply North Korea with food, with raw materials, with energy, with all of those things. You can also supply North Korea with technology, things which have the US has been trying to prevent North Korea accessing. It's now going to get. So a great achievement for the United States and its foreign policy, if you like. It's been trying to engineer regime change in North Korea.

It's been trying to engineer regime change in Russia. It's waged sanctions and economic wars against both. And the result is that it's brought these two countries together. And it's made them each more formidable than they would have been. And in North Korea's case, significantly more powerful than it was before. Yeah, big winner from Project Ukraine is North Korea. No. The biggest winner.

Who could have seen that one coming? Well. You could have seen that one, probably. Well, indeed. The Wall Street Journal, they put out an article and they said that U.S. Intel, Biden, White House officials are shocked. They're absolutely shocked at the fact that Russia is created. all of these partnerships with China, with North Korea, throw Vietnam in there as well, Iran.

They can't believe this is happening. That's what the Wall Street Journal reported, U.S. Intel and Biden White House officials and all the brainiacs at the think tanks, they can't believe that this is happening. They never saw this coming. Yeah, because, because of course. What can you say? What can say? I mean, all I can say is, you know, they should, they should, they should, they should, they should,

of us our advice. I mean, that's all I can say to that. I mean, it's... They could have asked the advice of a three-year-old. And they would have said, you know, maybe if you sanction Russia 60,000 times, they may partner up with North Korea. I don't know.

Yeah. I mean, it's... The other thing is, of course, I mean, it means that it's not only that the sanctions war is over. North Korea is in from coming in from the cold. But to be absolutely clear about this, the Russians would not have done this with North Korea unless the Chinese had also greenlighted it. Because I know there's some people who are trying to argue otherwise.

But Putin was in China and Beijing just a few weeks ago. He would have discussed all of this with Xi Jinping. The Chinese also have a commitment to defend North Korea. It goes all the way back to the 1950s, by the way. and the Chinese media has been recently reminding people that that agreement exists and it is still live. It's not just fallen by the wayside. So, you know, all of these pieces were always there. They were always going to be moved.

US policy should have been to keep all of these countries divided from each other. It's bringing them all together. And it's doing this at accelerating speed. And by the way, if you read again this strategic partnership document, it's quite straightforward now that they're talking about the multipolar world. North Korea is going to be a part of that. All sorts of things are going to happen. It's all centred on creating alternatives to the US-led system. And North Korea, of all countries, the hermit kingdom, as people call it, the most isolated country, is being basically invited in, not just by the Russians, but by the Chinese two, and will be a full participant.

It will mean, by the way, certain, shall we say, adaptations to North Korean ideology. The North Koreans have always talked about complete self-reliance and all of that. if they're going to participate in a multipolar system, then to some extent they'll have to adapt themselves to that. But I'm sure they can. And Kim Jong-un-un shows every intention of doing just that. It's so bad for the United States. This policy of Project Ukraine is so bad that you have. Kim Jong-un giving a speech and talking about the multipolar world. That just says it all. It's, it amazes me how, how bad the foreign policy of the Biden White House is. It really is incredible, astonishing. I mean, I don't think there's any words to describe how bad the foreign policy of the Biden white.

I mean, four years ago, Trump was meeting with Kim Youngland. Whatever you may think of Trump, whatever you may think of like them, don't like him. doesn't matter. He was actually meeting with Kim Jong-un. Of course, Bolton sabotaged the whole thing. Okay, fine. But from that point to four or five years later, where we're getting Kim Jong-un saying that he is entering the multipolar world with China and Russia at his back, what can you say? This is what happens when you don't conduct diplomacy, when you pursue policies of conflict and war when you want to sanction everybody. I mean, the sanctions are just, as I said, getting completely out of control. It leads you into a, it leads you into a, you know, into a cul-de-sac. And eventually, people start working around you, which is what they're now increasingly doing.

It was all completely predictive. Exactly. It was all, oh, then, either way. And they also again said that the sanctions unilateral sanctions are illegal. They also said that the misuse of international courts to pursue political objectives is wrong also. And an awful lot of things to say. There was a bit of boilerplate as well. They also talked about climate change, by the way,

just saying North Korea committing itself to fighting climate change. But there you go. Okay. Maybe they're trolling. Maybe they're having it. Yeah, I think there's a bit of that. I think there's a bit of that too. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

All right. Anything else to add to that meeting? I think you've got it exactly right. I mean, this has been a disastrous week for US foreign policy. We had that conference in Switzerland. We've talked about it. I mean, but that was not just a failure. It was a complete debacle.

We're seeing a crisis in the Middle East, which is not under control. In fact, it's getting worse. And now we've seen all of these further diplomatic moves by the Russians of assault, which, as you rightly say, to anybody, anybody who took a step back and thought about the state of the world ought to have been fully predictable. But the geniuses in Washington apparently didn't predict it. They couldn't predict it. They didn't predict it.

and Russia would come together. You remember? They said that these two countries were... That one's an easy one. That one's even easier than China and Korea. I know. Exactly. But, you know, they didn't think that would ever happen.

So now it has. And everything else is now falling into place. Exactly as a three-year-old might have predicted. This is not hard stuff. This really is not hard stuff. It doesn't... No, no. It makes you wonder, where are all of those hundreds of billions in the MIC, the think tanks and the policy that surrounds the Pentagon and the State Department?

What is that money being put towards if you're getting these types of results? I mean, these aren't bad results. These are catastrophically bad incompetent. dumb, almost dumb results that they're achieving. I mean, you have to actually work to achieve the week that the United States just had in foreign policy. You have to actually work very hard to achieve these types of bad results. Absolutely. I completely agree.

You have to work very hard. What does happen in the think tanks and in the NGOs and in all the things, you have to read what these people write to understand how completely disconnected from reality they are and how unified they are in what they think they spend all their time talking to each other and working each other up and of course they don't really follow properly the current of what is happening in the wider world. You know, Bismarck, the most famous, one of the most successful practitioners of foreign policy,

great practitioner of real polity. He said the most important thing in conducting foreign policy is to know how to read the constellations. How do you need to look up, look at what's going on in the world, get a feeling of what is happening, get the sense of what countries are thinking and leaders are thinking,

And if you do that, if you are able to read it well, then you will shape your policy in a right way. Well, these people don't do that. They don't try to read the constellations. They talk to each other. They're very ideological. They still believe that their power is limitless. And, of course, as a result, they get the results we see. Okay, we will edit there.

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