Dyer: South Korea could supply Ukraine, but would they?

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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 Zelensky himself said on Friday once Trump becomes president the war with Russia will “end sooner,” but he didn’t say it will end well.

The performative cruelty of Trump’s cabinet appointments also suggests nothing much has changed. As for Ukraine, the official MAGA lie is still that Ukraine is beyond saving.

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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 on Jan. 20.

That is 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. ($69 billion versus NATO’s European members and Canada at $85 billion.)

However, 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.

Where else could the extra weapons Ukraine 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 now also has sent 12,000 North Korean troops to fight the Ukrainians, initially in the Kurst salient.

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Russia already has escalated, and Ukraine would merely be matching it. In fact, Ukraine doesn’t even 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 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 U.S., 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 of thousand of those guns and a couple of million artillery shells would reverse Ukraine’s desperate lack of firepower on the front. That would 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.

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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 drop the whole idea.

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

Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist based in London, England.

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