It has recently been revealed that North Korea has sent at least 3000 troops to Russia for military training. American officials say it is too early to know their purpose. Really? That should be obvious. This is a monumental escalation in world tension and warfare.
Up to this point, Russia has had to fight in Ukraine on its own – with only passive support from allies. Yes, they are getting weapons from Iran and North Korea – and technical assistance from China — but no boots on the ground. Even the Putin puppet government of Belarus has rejected sending troops into Ukraine. Conversely, no Ukrainian ally has sent in troops, including the United States. Yes, billions of dollars in weapons, munitions and humanitarian aid, but no western boots on the ground.
Let us assume that the North Korean troops are NOT there on vacation or attending a boy scout jamboree – and that they ARE there to be trained for on-the-ground combat in Ukraine.
Speculating on that possibility, White House National Security Advisor John Kirby spun the report as some sort of perverse good news – saying that it shows the Russian military has been weakened by the loss of more than 500,000 killed and wounded soldiers. But … the bad news is that Putin appears to have a means of compensating for those losses. Kim Jong-un sending his troops to fight for Russia is not – by any measure – good news for Ukraine.
There are several questions to be answered.
Why is North Korea sending troops? They must be getting something in return for such a bold and provocative move on the international stage. The best guess among the intelligence and military establishment in Washington is that Kim is getting valuable technical information and products to enhance and expand his nuclear capabilities.
Could President Trump have prevented North Korea from sending troops to Russia in view of his relationship with Kim? There can be little doubt that Kim’s more aggressive activities in recent years are a result of his perception of a weaker America. Would Trump’s election cool Kim’s activities? (Maybe Dennis Rodman can help. He and Kim are buds. But I digress.)
The key question is what are the United States, NATO, the European Union and Asian allies going to do about it? We can bet that Putin and Kim are betting that we will do nothing – at least nothing that will have an impact.
The biggest concern is that by intermingling military forces, the two-combatant local wars are starting to look like a multi-alliance global conflict. It looks like the same dynamic that kicked off World War II.
In case you forgot … Germany was aided by alliances with Italy and other European nations. With the West fighting in Europe, Japan’s ambitions led to an invasion of China.
European nations fought because they were being invaded, like Ukraine is today. The United States was reluctant to get involved even as Hitler took over most of Europe and was on the verge of invading Great Britain. In his 1940 campaign, President Roosevelt promised the mothers of America that their sons would not die on foreign soil. That was until Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 – three years after Hitler started the war by invading the Sudetenland and Poland. Immediately, Germany declared war on the United States.
In the Middle East, Iran has already expanded the war against Israel through alliances with Hamas in the Palestinian territories … Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon … Houthis in Yemen … and other terrorist allies, such as Syria.
While the Biden administration expresses concern about the escalation of a regional war in the Middle East, a multi nation regional war is already under way – and has been since October 7, 2023, if not before.
Unless the United States and our allies want to avoid being forced into a full-scale global war, we need to act quickly — with strength, determination, credible threats and potentially some surgical military actions. If we do not, we may find that we will face a more daunting and dangerous situation in the future – just as we did in World War II. We pulled victory out of the fire in that one. We may not have the resolve or ability to do that again if Russia, North Korea, China, Iran and other nations form a new evil Axis of aggressor warring nations.
What can world democracies do?
- Give Ukraine every bit of weaponry and munitions they need … total intel support … American operated drones attacking Russian military sites inside Ukraine … provide the jet fighters … declare Ukraine a no fly zone and use NATO planes and weapons to enforce it. Defeating Putin will chill the ambitions for other world aggressors.
- More sanctions on Russia – with serious enforcement, which has been lacking for past sanctions. Essentially make Russian oil a form of contraband. Possible disruption of the Nord Stream Pipeline that provides Putin with billions of rubles for his dirty war.
- Maximum pressure – even sanctions – on China to get them to order a North Korean withdrawal from Russia. Kind of a Cuban missile crisis moment. China is still dependent on commercial ties to virtually all of the world’s democracies.
- Re-open the Trump-like relationship with North Korea. It did result in a pause in intercontinental missile tests… the possibility of de-nuclearization talks … and had North Korea return the remains of missing in in action soldiers. That is a request every President has made since 1952.
- Provide Israel with all the support it needs to quickly destroy the Iran-sponsored terrorist network in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and elsewhere. This means putting more Navy forces in the area – and using them in defensive support of Israel.
- Push for regime change in Iran by isolating the nation from the rest of the Middle East … imposing crippling Trump-like sanctions on Iran and nations doing business with them … interdicting military supplies being shipped to Russia … promote internal dissension and revolution.
How all these actions would evolve strategically would be a matter of coordinated planning by the world democracies. They may not all be feasible or necessary. The objective is to stop and reverse the current evolution toward a major global conflict.
The shipping of North Korean troops may seem like a small event, but it is a game changer. It shows that the bonding between China, Russia, Iran and North Korea has become a unified and aggressive alliance. Putin and Xi Jinping had pledged an unbroken bond of friendship. Putin recently traveled to Pyongyang to cement ties with Kim (and we have seen one result of that rapprochement). North Korea has always been the stepchild of China. And all of them have ties to Iran. What is different today is that they are all operating off the same strategic plan of global expansion and domination.
We have a chance to avoid World War III, but it will take a tough form of diplomacy … and both symbolic and real actions to prove serious intent. We can avoid going to war by dissuading those who see benefit in starting wars. The movement of North Korean troops is just another aggressive move on the world chess board. As with World War I, World War II and the Cold War, America and the world democracies cannot afford to lose this one.
So, there ‘tis.