The author of the article notes that the four aggressive Eurasian dictatorships – Russia, China, Iran and North Korea – are cooperating strategically, and their cooperation is deepening.
With the dispatch of thousands of North Korean special forces to the front lines in Russia's war against Ukraine, new contours of the global struggle in the era of post-Cold War are becoming more distinct.
This is stated in an article by Nicholas Eberstadt, chair of the political economy department at the American Enterprise Institute, for The Washington Post.
A lifeline for the Russian Federation
“Four ambitious revisionist states in the center of Eurasia – Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea – are increasingly coordinating their actions to challenge, if not destroy, the dominant international security order known as Pax Americana (American Peace),” the publication notes.
Eberstadt marvels that over the past two years, tiny North Korea has somehow managed to provide vast quantities of weapons to Russia's war effort. Western military intelligence suggests that Pyongyang has managed to send up to 20,000 rail containers of missiles and ammunition to the Russian war effort.
According to some Western estimates, up to half of the ammunition used by Russian forces in Ukraine this year and last year was of North Korean manufacture.
The author notes that North Korea has already become a lifeline for the Russian war effort.
North Korean troops in Ukraine
Professor Bruce Baxtall of Angelo State University in Texas ponders whether the first North Korean brigades could be an advance party for a much larger deployment? Say 50 000 special forces from Pyongyang's million-strong army.
Such a surge, Bechtol argues, could indeed change the course of this war: smashing the Ukrainian army; allowing Russia to conquer much more Ukrainian territory; and then forcing Putin to offer a settlement in Ukraine to his own taste and on his own terms. In other words: a Russian victory, with North Korean forces as the game changer.
“Behtol's worst-case “nightmare” hypothesis is a scenario that may never come to pass, but it is precisely the kind of strategic surprise from the new Russia-North Korea partnership that Western governments should be preparing for. And it seems they are not doing so,” the WP notes.
The Threat from the “Axis of Evil”
The author notes that the four aggressive Eurasian dictatorships – Russia, China, Iran and North Korea – are cooperating strategically, and their cooperation is deepening. Three have nuclear weapons, and a fourth, Iran, is seeking to join the nuclear club.
China and Russia Subsidize North Korea Russia relies on China for markets, Iran for drones, and North Korea for military hardware and soldiers. Iran receives military technology from North Korea and economic cooperation with Russia and China. And they act as each other's advocates in international and diplomatic forums.
“We must understand that the war in Gaza and Lebanon against Israel, waged by Iranian proxies, is Russia's war against Ukraine, just as the war in Taiwan could be launched by China at a time convenient for Beijing.
Countering the threats of this confederation of dictators will be difficult enough even if we recognize the challenge they pose. If we fail to recognize the logic and intentions behind their actions and respond accordingly, the coming years will be unpleasant,” The Washington Post notes.
Ukraine in World Geopolitics
Eberstadt recalled the work British geopolitician of the first half of the 20th century John Mackinder “The Geographical Pivot of History”. It was Mackinder who authored the geopolitical concept of the Heartland. This geopolitical concept states that control over the Heartland allows one to control the world.
The author of the article notes that Ukraine is approximately the zero point in Mackinder's depiction of the Heartland on which world politics will be guided – and now the zero point of the last military competition for primacy on this land.
Earlier, The Telegraph named the reasons why the DPRK decided to enter Russia's war against Ukraine.
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