9Хрущев Игорь Эдуардович - директор филиала федерального бюджетного учреждения «Агентство автомобильного транспорта», г. Владивосток. E-mail: kigor64@mail.ru
ОСОБЕННОСТИ ФОРМИРОВАНИЯ СЕВЕРОКОРЕЙСКОГО
НАПРАВЛЕНИЯ ВНЕШНЕЙ ПОЛИТИКИ СОВРЕМЕННОЙ РОССИИ
В ноябре 2013 г. мир вправе отметить 70-ие знаменательного события расширившего рамки международной системы сотрудничества. Решение участвовавших в Каирской конференции (22-26 ноября 1943 г.) представителей США, Великобритании и Китая о необходимости создания единого, независимого государства Корея явилось мощным стратегическим прорывом, повлекшим серьезные геополитические перемены в регионе Северо-Восточной Азии. Поддержанное СССР, оно послужило интересам развития долгосрочного и всеобъемлющего международного альянса, направленного на противостояние агрессивной политике милитаристской Японии.
На 2013 г. выпали еще две юбилейные даты, имеющие самое прямое отношение к решениям Каирской конференции. Это 65-летие возникновения Республики Корея (15 августа 1948 г.) и 65-летие провозглашения создания единого корейского государства Корейской Народно-Демократической Республики (9 сентября 1948 г.). Первая из них примечательна вдвойне, ибо искусственный характер стоящего за ней события явился знамением нового внешнеполитического курса США, направленного на инициирование этнических конфликтов и дробление национальных государств.
Упомянутые юбилейные даты побуждают задуматься над политическим измерением международного права и идентифицировать наблюдаемые в нем и сейчас аномальные отклонения. Эскалация напряженности на Корейском полуострове, чреватая началом очередной братоубийственной войны двух суверенных корейских государств требует, как никогда ранее, ясно выраженного заверения США в своей безоговорочной приверженности межгосударственным договоренностям, отход от которых создал в регионе СВА катастрофическое нарастание противоречий и конфликтов.
Рассматриваемые в предлагаемой статье проблемы позволяют сформировать объективное представление об особенностях оформления российского внешнеполитического курса в отношении КНДР, в основном преемственного советскому и никогда не служившего проводником экспансионизма. Он направлен на сохранение правовой основы стабильности евразийского геополитического пространства, на динамичное развитие комплексной структуры взаимосвязанных институтов и процедур, ответственных за развитие партнерства в мировом устройстве, основанном на подлинном равенстве.
Ключевые слова: внешняя политика, международное сотрудничество, Республика Корея, КНДР, этнический конфликт, экспансионизм.
Igor E. Khruschev, Director, Branch of the Federal Public Division of Automobile Transport Agency, Vladivostok. E-mail: kigor64@mail.ru
PECULIARITIES OF FORMING THE NORTH KOREAN DIRECTION OF THE RUSSIAN FOREIGN POLICY
In the November of 2013, the world can legitimately celebrate the 70th anniversary of the event that expanded the ranges of the international cooperation system. The decision made by the
representatives of the USA, Great Britain and China at the Cairo Conference (November 22-23, 1943) on establishing a sovereign Korean nation was a powerful strategic breakthrough, which resulted in dramatic geopolitical changes in the Northeast Asia. Supported by the USSR, this decision served the interests of developing a long-term international alliance aimed at opposing the aggressive policy of the militarist Japan.
The year 2013 will see two more important anniversaries directly related to the decisions made at the Cairo Conference: the 65th anniversary of Republic of Korea (August 15, 1948) and the 65th anniversary of announcement of the sovereign Korean nation Democratic People's Republic of Korea (September 9, 1948). The first date is especially significant, since the artificial character of the following event became an indicator of the new foreign political course of the USA aimed at initiating ethnic conflicts and fragmentation of national states.
These anniversaries make us think about the political dimension of the international law and identify its current anomalies. Escalation of tension in the Korean peninsula, which can result in another fratricidal war between the two sovereign Korean nations, calls for a clear assurance from the American side of the need for their compliance with international agreements; breaking these agreements brought to the Northeast Asia the catastrophic growth of conflicts and disagreement.
The problems discussed in the following article allow forming of an objective opinion about the peculiarities of the Russian foreign policy towards the DPRK - the policy that was mostly predetermined by the Soviet political course and that never pursued any attempts of expansionism. This policy is aimed at preserving the legal grounds of the stability in the Eurasian geopolitical space, at dynamic development of the complex structure of interconnected institutions, and procedures which are responsible for developing global partnership relations based on real equality.
Keywords: foreign policy, international cooperation, Republic of Korea, DPRK, ethnic conflict, expansionism.
Russia is one of the few countries in the world which has established the full-scale diplomatic relations and quite stable economic relations with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). These relations can hardly be considered a politically normal process, since they do not essentially serve the benefit of the mutual progress of the two countries. This process can more likely be explained by the decision of the Russian government to maintain good neighborly relations in order to prevent an influence of an external force on the North Korean nationhood and to help North Korea to not fall a victim to the democratic neo-colonialism. So far, this most unordinary decision does not have a desirable alternative that could ensure the safety of the Russian Far Eastern borders.
The very essence of the Russia-North Korean relations leads to ambivalent attitudes even among the Russian people. Discussions on the nature of these relations and the necessity of maintaining a dialogue between Moscow and Pyongyang either surge or fade in direct relationship to the situation on the Korean Peninsula. Unfortunately, the analysis of the arguments presented by both sides shows the inefficient objectivity in explaining political and historical facts that are directly related to the topic of the discussion. First, this includes ignoring the official position of the DPRK on the existing problems and disputable issues.
The relations between Russia and North Korea were established during the peak of the development of the Soviet civilization when victory in the World War II brought the country prosperity and allowed it to successfully engage in changes impacting the global order. This global geopolitical plan lead to the awakening of the Asian self-perception, which slowly began to internally destroy the Western colonial system already weakened by the military actions of Japan against the USA, Great Britain, Holland, and France.
The Korean approach to the Soviet foreign policy was formed in November, 1943, when the independence of Korea was proclaimed at the Cairo Conference (November 22-26, 1943) by
the USA, Great Britain, and China as one of the consequences of the victory over the militarist Japan. Since that conference, the fledgling Korean nation has gained specific self-governing tools and political dynamics initially supported by the international community. Before November, 1943, the Soviet leaders simply had no resources and favorable political conditions for constructing strategic political engagement with Korea, which had lost its sovereignty in 1910 (long before the USSR emerged). Up until 1945, Korea was a Japanese colonial domain but lacked a nationwide popular anti-Japanese movement that would enable it to organize and present its patriotic Korean forces at the international level to defend their interests. Nevertheless, the Soviet diplomatic system was greatly interested in the sovereignty of Korea, even though it seemed like a weak and ideologically alien but a geopolitically important neighbor; most likely, the Soviets counted on Korea to become a strategic partner in collective security and stable political balance in the Northeast Asia. However, initiation of this strategic relationship could have resulted in conflict and even a full-scale war with Japan, which was very preoccupied with the state of its internal affairs.. This situation was extremely undesirable for the USSR, since the country was still involved in the war with the Nazi Germany and its European satellites. Supporting other countries in their efforts to recognize the future status of Korea as a sovereign nation remained the best solution to the problem.
Due to these circumstances, the USSR leaders based their foreign policy on voting in favor of the North Korean sovereignty at the Cairo Conference of Anti-Hitler Coalition Countries - the resolution that called for the liquidation of Japanese rule on the Korean peninsula. Only this condition could launch the process of creating a sovereign Korean nation and its legitimate government.
The resolutions at the Cairo Conference on the Korean problem turned out to be quite controversial and ambiguous; however, they proved overall positive. They all complied with the doctrines and geostrategic ambitions of the USA and the Great Britain in the Asia-Pacific Region, which was now in charge of shaping the destiny of the Asian nations. In late 1934, the Communist Chinese leader Mao Zedong provided an impartial evaluation of these policies and came to the conclusion that the Pacific problems (including Korean) could not be fully and finally solved without the Soviet Union [9].
The Soviets supported the sovereignty of the Korean nation not only through passive diplomatic correspondence but at the highest level of influence.. The record of the talks between the leaders of the USSR, the USA and the Great Britain took place on November 30, 1943, and illustrates that I.V. Stalin, the USSR Chairman of the Council of Ministers, agreed to the idea of creating an independent Korea [13].
The agreed precepts of the direction of the North Korean statehood as part of the Soviet foreign policy were recorded in the documents of the Yalta Conference that convened the heads of the three allied countries - the USSR, the USA and the Great Britain (February 4-11, 1945). These concepts were announced consecutively by I.V. Stalin to counterbalance the radical initiatives of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who personally insisted on discussing the Korean problem.
During this time, the American government suggested restricting the sovereignty of the future independent Korean nation by the guardianship of three countries - the USA, China, and the USSR. Based on the American colonial experience in the Philippines, F.D. Roosevelt considered it expedient to establish the maximum guardianship period over Korea (between 2030 and 50 years), which could finally result in the three countries on the Korean peninsula becoming influenced and directed respectively by Washington, Moscow and Beijing. These suggestions failed to hide the contours of an ambitious American doctrine saturated with the idea that Korean people were unable of embracing democracy and self-administration without external assistance [14].
The Soviet counterproposals suggested by I.V. Stalin emphasized the indefensible position of the USA towards the Korean problem. These proposals were based on the realistic geopolitical calculations: creation of an independent Korea would contribute to the long-term stability ofinternational relations in the Asia-Pacific region and assist in maintaining a political
balance as a counterweight to the politically unstable and ethnically diverse neighboring countries. These initiatives complied with the Soviet foreign political principles toward China: assistance to China never involved any conditions of granting any privileges [10].
The protocols of the Crimean Conference recorded the Soviet interest in ensuring a full sovereignty to the future independent Korean nation. Implementation of this scenario could have prevented the international guardianship from transforming into protectorate, which I.V. Stalin considered completely unacceptable. Moreover, the Soviet political leaders considered it unreasonable to impose even a temporary foreign military presence on the Korean peninsula. In the end of the discussion of the future of Korea, I.V. Stalin expressed his hopes that the international guardianship over this country would by as short as possible [13].
Entry of the USSR into war with Japan on August 8, 1945, was the first and the determining military operation aimed at liberating the Korean peninsula from the Japanese occupation. Efficient strategy and operation of the Soviet Army resulted in the liberation of Korea in 3 weeks.
On August 15, 1945, the US President, Harry S. Truman, approved the surrender terms of Japan in the order issued to the General MacArthur. Clause 1b of this document called for surrender of all Japanese senior military officers and all land, sea, air and auxiliary forces on the territory of Manchuria and on the territory of Korea, north of 38th parallel [5].
The soviet army remained in the Korean peninsula as an integral part of the USSR obligations before the allies of the Anti-Hitler Coalition arrived. The Russian forces succeeded in eliminating the major Japanese forces before the American army reached Korean shores and landed in Inchon on September 9, 1945. However, some Russian and foreign researchers tend to view the Soviet military presence in Korea as calculated agenda of the aggressive foreign policy of the Soviet Union in the Northeast Asia. How legitimate and reliable is this point of view?
As early as 1943, Soviet political leaders realized that the liberating mission of the USSR in the World War II would be perceived by the West as communist expansion. The USA and the Great Britain started considering the victory of the Soviet Army over the Nazis as the onset of a direct threat to the global democratic community.
In 1952, J. McCarthy, an American republican senator, wrote that for him and his supporters, the Third World War started with the Russian victory at Stalingrad [11]. During the same time period, the tone of some messages sent to Stalin by the British Prime-Minister became overtly threatening [5].
Acute insufficiency of loyalty of public forces towards Moscow in Korea did not allow the USSR sufficient control over Korea's domestic affairs and the ability to protect its national interests like it was able to secure in Eastern Europe. For example, the Seoul-based communist party in Korea headquarters (Choson Kongsan-dang) started its organizational activities only on September 11, 1945. Its major members were in the American zone of influence and were mostly Chinese-oriented.
The North Korea Bureau of the Communist Party of Korea was founded on October 10, 1945, and it was undoubtedly Chinese-oriented. These and other occurrences enabled the foreign policy of the Soviet Union to comply with the international agreements on creating a united Korean nation and its legitimate government without any regard to any political preferences.
The Soviet foreign-policy approach to its relationship with Korea was initially more a defensive weapon rather than an offensive measure. In essence, it could not lead any expansive campaigns, which would primarily involve maintaining an administrative control over the territories and long-term military presence.
The Soviet Military Administration in Korea, founded in September, 1945, was supposed to control all economic and public affairs in Korea; but, it only operated until the late 1948. This body was disbanded almost simultaneously with the complete withdrawal of the Soviet Army from North Korea, which occurred on December 26, 1948. The Administration followed the guideline of the Supreme High Command General Headquarters of the Soviet Army, dated September 20, 1945, which called for "not establishing Soviet bodies or imposing Soviet order
on the territory of North Korea; to assist in establishing a bourgeois-democratic authority based on the wide block of all anti-Japanese democratic parties and organizations" [12].
Soviet administrative bodies and military forces in North Korea did not impose on the nation the communism which would be ideologically identical to the Stalinist regime in the USSR.
When famous Russian researchers like L.V. Zabrovskaya and O.P. Maltseva write about ideological unity being the foundation for Soviet-North Korean relations, they stipulate that there was a political force that embraced Stalinism in the post-war Korea [18].
The attempts of some researchers to find a non-existant expansion of WWII era ideaologies,especially that of Stalinism, are quite understandable. But, specific historical facts prove the opposite: communism could not have been brought to Korea by the Soviet army, since this ideology was well-spread there before August of 1945. Stalinism proved to be a respected force in Korea but not a particularly influential one.
The Korean model of Marxism-Leninism was closer to the Chinese ideology than to the Soviet beliefs. It did not even require the North Korean Bureau of Communist Party, which merged with the New People's Party and finally formed the Workers' Party of North Korea, headed by Kim Tu-Bong, who represented a Chinese-oriented party fraction. Similar merger process took place in the American zone on the Korean peninsula: on November 23, 1946, in Seoul, the assembly of the Workers' Party of South Korea elected Pak Hon-Yong to be its leader.
Since the 1920s, Marxism-Leninism in Korea provided a fertile ground for creative thinking and was successfully synthesized with the advanced traditional Korean ideas of the Left Radical "Down-With-Imperialism" Unit established on October 17, 1926. Its members laid the foundations of the Juche (Chuch'e) ideas of identity, which combined some social-democratic principles with classical medieval philosophy of Korea. This fact is crucial for understanding the genuine nature of the USSR foreign policy (as well as that of Russia), which never placed much importance to the act of spreading ideological unity in Korea.
Almost everywhere, diplomacy follows the logic of tactical reasonability defined only by contemporary circumstances. The Soviet diplomatic system was not an exception. It always concentrated on protecting the interests of the USSR in Central and Eastern Europe and made no attempts to oppose the hegemonic policies of the USA on the Korean peninsula. The attempts of Russian diplomats in encouraging the Americans to take concrete steps in creating the government of united independent Korea and withdrawing its military forces from the Korean territory proved futile. On November 14, 1947, the Soviet Union was not included to take part inthe UNO Temporary Commission to Korea at the insistence of the US.
The first sovereign country in the post-war history of the Korean peninsula - the Republic of Korea - was established on August 15, 1948, with the active support of the US foreign policy, which was motivated exclusively by political interests and not ethno-demographic criteria. Anti-communism became the ideological foundation for its leaders, and not until the present time, defined the official ideology, national identity, behavioral patterns and social self-regulation of South Korean society. These circumstance triggered mass public protests, which seized the southern part of the Korean peninsula and occasionally turning into armed uprisings.
Soviet political leaders had all reasons to view the newly-established Republic of Korea as a geopolitically-undesirable entity, a challenge to the USSR national interests, and another source of instability in the already unsettled region of Northeast Asia. Since then, all previous international leverage and agreements on creating a united Korean nation lost significance. The only logical solution that could provide for the security, defense, and free geostrategic actions of the USSR in Asia involved establishing an additional independent nation on the Korean peninsula that would answer to the interests of the Korean people.
On September 9, 1948, the second session of the People's Assembly of Korea in Pyongyang proclaimed the creation of the DPRK, which was supported by many authoritative representatives in South Korea. Kim Il-Sung became the first Prime Minister of this new country
and on February 8, 1946, headed the North Korean Provisional People's Committee - a regional body of civil self-administration. On October 12, the Soviet Union became the first country to officially recognize the DPRK as a sovereign nation and acknowledge the legitimacy of its political administration.
Soviet and modern historiography lacks research work that would objectively enlighten the whole spectrum of influences related to the conditions of forming the Soviet foreign policy towards Korea. This insufficiency can be explained by the influence of the political situation and the consequent raise of certain doubts in the present day. The complexity, controversy, and growing significance of this topic call for deeper research that should undertake a complex analysis of foreign and domestic political aspects, in addition to social, economic, and ethno-cultural factors.
However, there are no doubts among researchers of these problems: the dialogue between the USSR and the DPRK was based on the shared principles of greater freedom in domestic decision-making of both sides than on ideology-based relations. This viewpoint explains the success of the maneuvering policy between the USSR and the DPRK, which was followed by the officials at Pyongyang since the initial days of sovereignty of North Korea [18].
The Agreement on Economic and Cultural Cooperation between the USSR and DPRK signed on March 17, 1949 became a milestone event in the Soviet-North Korean relations. This document strengthened the political and economic position of North Korea thanks to the financial assistance from the Soviet Union, but it didn't solve the problem of reviving international agreements on establishing a united Korean nation signed during World War II. Even after 1948 the Soviet Union kept using its foreign political potential to achieve a peaceful solution of the problem preferring the non-military path in unifying the two independent Korean nations [8].
The fact that the USSR avoided open involvement in the 1950-1953 War on the Korean peninsula can be lauded as a successful decision of the Soviet foreign policy. The USSR provided military assistance to the DPRK in accordance with the principle that paid off in the1930s in Spain and China - supplying of weapons, food, and medicines, and manning the military aircrews. As a result, the USSR took a very favorable position equidistant from all sides involved into the conflict and used the growing antagonism against the aggressive policy of the USA for drastic geostrategic actions in Asia.
In the 1950s, the North Korean direction of the Soviet foreign policy was extremely dynamic when the cooperation between the USSR and the DPRK became more efficient and diverse as a result of the following agreements: On Scientific and Technical Cooperation (February 5, 1955); On Air Transport (December 7, 1955); On Expansion of Trade (July 12, 1956); On Cooperation in Radio Broadcasting (October 14, 1957); On Regulating the Frontier Issues (October 10, 1957); and the Agreement on Trade and Marine Navigation (June 22, 1960).
The USSR's foreign policy towards the DPRK did not undergo substantial changes during Khrushchev's rule and during the period of reevaluation of Stalin's influence and heritage. This USSR-DPRK foreign policy became an integral part of cementing the success of Soviet breakthrough into Asia, which aimed at establishing and developing friendly relations between the USSR and the new democracies of the East - the process that started from the unprecedented trip of N.S. Khrushchev to India, Burma, Indonesia, and Afghanistan (1960) [6].
Months before Khrushchev's trip, the third session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (October 31, 1959) announced the latest official USSR approach towards Korea - full withdrawal of foreign military forces from South Korea, thus allowing the Korean people to achieve an agreement on peaceful, democratic reunification of the two Koreas [7].
The Agreement on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance that was signed in 1961 was the culmination in development of the relations between the USSR and North Korea. Around the same period, similar agreement was signed between North Korea and China. This process resulted in a powerful alliance in the Northeast Asia that served as an efficient counterbalance to the USA and its Far Eastern Allies, whose policies dramatically changed the
balance of powers in the Asia-Pacific Region by overwhelmingly influencing the countries to favor the so-called people's democracy. Unfortunately, this ambitious project turned out to be non-durable and static, since its implementation was not efficient when it came to international cooperation, primarily with China.
However, the Agreement on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance with DPRK (1961) gave the USSR the reputation as one of the major architects of the sociopolitical and economic landscape in the Asia-Pacific region. This agreement provided 30 years of DPRK's security as an ally and allowed it to assert its political identity as well as capitalize on freedom of self-determination, primarily in relation to the other countries of the world.
Ideological dependence of North Korea on the USSR resulted in the successful development of the economic relations between the two countries until the mid-1980s, most likely reinforced by the stagnation of foreign policy initiatives at the level of the party leaders. The eventual break-down of these ideological ties was not a a result of any situational crisis, but rather an eventual tectonic breakdown in the allied ties due to the changing landscape of international affairs and relations.
International alliances rely on mutual trust; lack of trust deems the collapse of any inter-country union unavoidable. The official Pyongyang rapprochement with Maoist China when the Sino-Soviet relations were becoming tense as well as the struggle between Soviet influence and religious influences that were initiated by the ideologists of the Catholic Church, threatened the future of the relations between the USSR and North Korea. Soon, the Soviet Union no longer considered North Korea a future military ally. Since then, the Soviet party documents rarely mentioned North Korea; in fact, it was mentioned only once in the foreign policy section of the epochal report of L. Brezhnev, the General Secretary of the Communist Party, at the mutual session of the Central Committee of the USSR Communist Party devoted to the fiftieth anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution (November 3-4, 1965).However, the same report contained detailed abstracts devoted to China and Vietnam [2].
One cannot ignore the fact that North Korea had many justifiable reasons to be unhappy with the USSR, especially since it was driven to despair by severe international sanctions, which were often triggered by foreign disputes between DPRK and the USA and its allies. The USSR was not able to reduce the burden of these sanctions; in some cases, it did not dare to use its right of veto in the UNO Security Council to render assistance to North Korea.
Thus, before the time of Perestroika, the relations between the USSR and North Korea were going through a crisis of mutual mistrust.. The alliance between Moscow and Pyongyang called for dramatic renewal based on the thorough clarification of the positions of domestic and foreign agenda and the development of new, mutual goals and common values.
The task of renewing and strengthening the alliance with the DPRK could have been successfully solved in the period of democratic changes sweeping the USSR in the late 1980s. However, the Soviet elite preferred to sacrifice the North Korean alliance to the strategic prospects of establishing friendly relations with South Korea, which was fundamentally justified in the project On Our Policy in South Korea, approved at the session of the Communist Party Central Committee (November 18, 1998) [15].
Establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and the Republic of Korea in September, 1990, threatened the collapse of the in-force and operative Agreement on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance with the DPRK (1961). This diplomatic favor of South Korean allegiance was supposed to have taken place in late 1991; however, it's the success of the proposed alliance was ultimately dependent on South Korean authorities.. Nevertheless, despite the pessimistic forecasts on USSR's relations with DPRK, the Agreement on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance with the DPRK wad successfully extended. Soon after, the Soviet Union seized to exist.
Throughout the history of social power relations, international relations have operated in line with national interests and territorial control. These imperatives became especially significant for the new Russian democracy, since it had to fight for the territorial integrity of
Russia that was potentially vulnerable in the face of external pressures for reform and internal conflicts that accompany radical political and socioeconomic changes. The East Asian approach to Russian foreign policy directed its focus on preserving the important geostrategic assets like the Kuril Islands and the territories of the Russian Far East that neighbor with China.
The Russian Federation inherited a heavy burden of accumulated and unsolved problems which confirm our review of forming and realizing the Soviet foreign policy towards North Korea. North Korea's specific geographical location determined Russia's immediate national priorities in terms of its Far East relations: the insufficiency of military, economic and political power of the new nation in Northeast Asia was successfully compensated for by the maintenance of the allied relations with North Korea. During his visit to Seoul in November, 1992, the first Russian President, B. Yeltsin, openly announced the intention to renew the alliance agreements with North Korea after making treaty adjustments in accordance with the new international affairs landscape [16].
Since Russia is the main legal successor of the USSR, it had all reasons to consider the Far East its special geopolitical space, its historically-formed zone of national interests protected by international agreements. The Russian political leaders started viewing the US support of the Japanese claims over the Kuril Islands as a real attempt of revising the territorial agreements of World War II. In the midst of these developments, even symbolic economic relations and the development of a system of mutual security with the DPRK became of great significance for Russia.
Maintaining the status of the country on the northern part of the Korean peninsula strengthened the geostrategic position of Russia in the Asia-Pacific Region. It further allowed Russia to have influence over dramatic geopolitical power shifts, which it sought as s an effective, long-term strategy of responding to external threats and challenges.
Unfortunately, the crisis in the Russian economy was exacerbated by the internal instability in 1990s and prevented Russia from further developing its foreign policy towards DPRK. Moreover, Russia made a strategic mistake by announcing its intention to reverse the military clause of the Agreement on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance with North Korea, and later fully denouncing it in August, 1995. This mistake resulted in the instinctive efforts of the abandoned Pyongyang to use all means necessary to ensure its national security. Therefore, Russia became partially responsible for the current growth of international tension on the Korean peninsula and the alienation of North Korea, which over the years precipitated doubtless successes of the DPRK in developing missile and nuclear weapons.
In the 1990s, the economic relations between Russia and North Korea also diminished in the midst of the degradation of the political ties between the two countries. This is more obvious at the level of interregional relations which seemed quite promising to many Russian experts.
However, the prospects of the Russian, Far Eastern market turned out to have been overestimated; and it failed to compete with the manufacturers from other parts of the Far East regions of the country. The market failed to integrate into the economic web of the Asia-Pacific region and to pursue the course of creating a powerful and competitive economic space alongside the economies of the neighboring countries. Primorsky Krai is the most developed subject of the FE Russian region with the foreign trade turnover with the Northeast Asia of 624.4 million dollars (export), 766.4 million dollars (import). The DPRK accounted for 1.6 million dollars (0.2% of the total export); 0.2 million dollars (0.03% of the whole import) [1].This quantitative data shows that Russia and North Korea do not have great economic relations but can be interested in maintaining economic relations for political reasons. The Far Eastern region calls for a dramatic modernization of the whole production structure, reorganization of the industrial and technological systems and modernization of its transport infrastructure. This region rated very low among the countries and regions of Northeast Asia, with its geopolitical interests excelling DPRK only in a few aspects.
In 1997, Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski, a famous American expert in politics and the consultant for the US Center for Strategic and International Research, published a new book
titled The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives. Brzezinski states with conviction that Russia is losing its role as an active participant of the Asia-Pacific geostrategic processes to China, and that the USA is ready to pay the price of unifying the two Koreas for the future pact between China and America [4].
A. Toynbee, an English historian, very accurately emphasized the political weaknesses of the dominating elites as the main factor that destroyed empires, claiming that "civilizations die of suicide" [17]. There is an impression that in the 1990s, the political instability of the government almost brought Russia to an internal catastrophe characterized by the loss of national identity and historical heritage. Many of the predictions made by Z. Brzezinski did come true. Supported by the USA and other Western countries, China reached global economic supremacy through vast ties, successfully entered the WTO and became the major player in the six-party talks with North Korea [5].
By the late 1990s, Russia slowly started to resolve the negative trends in its path to democracy and institutional development and started to actively oppose American strategies of opportunistic hegemony; these trends resulted in successful realization of several Russian foreign policy efforts. Signing the Treaty on Friendship and Good Neighbor Relations and Cooperation between Russian Federation and DPRK (February 9, 2000) and the visit of President V. Putin to Pyongyang in July, 2000, undoubtedly became the pinnacle of victory for Russia in its struggle to attain geostrategic influence in the Asia-Pacific.
In the consequent years, the relations between Russia and North Korea started developing dynamically, which can be evidenced by many agreements and treaties that regulated various ties between the two countries: economic and technical cooperation, taxation, investments, cultural interaction, use of satellite navigational systems, transport routes, joint efforts in fighting criminality, etc. These international acts showcase the development, intensification and mutual reliance in the cooperation between Russia and DPRK.
Inclusion of Russia into the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program became yet another victory of the Russian foreign policy. It was a symbolical act, since it happened in 2003 - the time period when, according to the American foreign affairs, their country's ability to gain trust and international support on the issues of the threat posed by nuclear programs of Iran and DPRK was seriously weakened [5].
Currently, Russia has reestablished its role as an active geostrategic actor and is building its international authority in order to participate and express its will in addressing the issues that relate to its ties with North Korea. The relations between Russia and North Korea are no longer bound by the history of military and political domination characterized by the WW II era.
Despite the attractiveness of the current model of Russia-North Korea relations, it does have a few shortcomings. First of all, it possesses geopolitical weaknesses: both Russian and North Korean politicians failed to develop a fundamental basis that outlines the nature of their relations, which leaves room to generate multiple stipulations and interpretations of the signed treaties, political decisions and specific actions of the parties involved. If the cooperation between Russia and North Korea relies on equal partnership principles, then the ideology of these relations has to be concisely developed in order to be well-established and disseminated in the public spheres of these two countries.
The relations between Russia and North Korea are very vulnerable in terms of their geopolitical and geostrategic alliances, since they lack clear goals and objectives that would conform to the national interests of the Russian and North Korean people.. The fact that the actions of the North Korean party often lead to a negative response from the Russian political leaders, gives room to conclude that relations between the two countries are weak or even failing.
Efficient foreign policy always relies on rational and reasonable approaches to the practical questions of defending national interests and national borders from most probable and concrete threats. Russia's North Korean foreign policy is directly connected to its security interests of the
Russian Far East, which is an essential condition for preserving the territorial integrity of the whole country.
However, historical experience shows that realization of an insufficiently planned foreign policy towards the DPRK always brings with it the danger of having to rebuild the relations between the countries from scratch and hoping for the favorable influence of a long-standing friendship between the people of Russia and Korea as the basis for a successful reestablishment of cooperation. In order to avoid this scenario, the respective countries have to carefully develop conceptual and ideological foundation for the Russia-North Korea international partnership.
Evidently, the cooperation between Russia and DPRK has to be strengthened by assisting North Korea in finding a way out of its international isolation andto improve its political, economic and cultural ties with other countries of the world. If the country needs international guarantees of its security as the main precondition for abandoning its programs of developing the missile and nuclear weapons, then this country deserves and should get those guarantees.
The relations between Russia and North Korea can acquire a new quality as a result of the gradual involvement of South Korea in negotiations, development of economic, political and cultural ties between these countries in order to lay the foundations for future reunification and the gradual establishment of a single, democratic Korean nation.. Any different path can be a potential source of danger for the geopolitical stability in Northeast Asia.
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