North Korea and the Eurasian Alliance: North Korea’s shift in focus toward Moscow is due to two parallel reasons related to the changing global geopolitical scene. The beginning of the change was visible in the change of emphasis of the “Ministry of Foreign Affairs website” in Pyongyang. Previously a repetition of the official line of support for China, it was in the wake of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, which marked the evolution towards a much broader commentary on foreign affairs. He “collapse of the world of American style” marked what Kim Jong Un called a shift toward a neo-Cold War.

This came on the heels of the collapse of the relationship between the United States and North Korea. hanoi summit in 2019. While Pyongyang had leveraged nuclear deals for economic and security benefits in previous decades, Afghanistan marked a foreign policy reset. Non-alignment with China and Russia was abandoned.

North Korea had contributed its chips to the new multipolar reality, this was a turn towards Russia and the specter of the multipolar world. The practical result was North Korea’s five-year nuclear program. defense plan which saw a move towards greater self-sufficiency away from strategic agreements with Washington.

The second reason for North Korea’s realignment was the war in Ukraine. Pyongyang quickly supported the war and recognized the two annexed regions. The new entente cordiale is both strategic, in the case of the bipolar geopolitical orientation, and transactional, with regard to the mutual benefits happening in both Moscow and Pyongyang.

Putin, Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping have united in the desire to counter American dominance in the political economy. Everywhere American hegemony seems to be threatened. From Ukraine to Israel, putting out fires was the traditional goal of the United States. The wild card, of course, is the US elections. A Trump victory could cause the United States to accept the new polarity and embark on a foreign policy shift toward noninterference. The Nomos of the Earth (1950), as Carl Schmitt predicted in his influential book, sees the world dividing into “grossraums.”

The Old World of Europe passed to the New World of the US. However, the conflict between economic presence and political presence in the world has created geopolitical problems for the US. The US wants economic dominance at the price of a confused foreign policy juggling disparate regimes, and now the New World is moving east, from Beijing to Moscow.

He considers the West’s internal dissent to be self-destructive. Their perception is that liberal democracy is dying and is like vultures circling their prey.

the alliance signed This year between Moscow and Pyongyang means greater diplomatic, economic and military support for North Korea. What both countries aspire to is a type of Keynesian war economy. The Ukrainian battlefield is not only strategic, for Russia to control NATO, but also economic. The problem for the West is to what extent Pyongyang will use the war as an economic boost.

Now we have seen the deployment of North Korean troops in the Ukrainian war. Therefore, relations are symbiotic for both Russia and North Korea. We can predict North Korea union the Alliance of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) soon, as an integral part of the “war against the dollar.” The more alliances and alternatives Pyongyang creates, the more immune it will be to sanctions.

While there has been an increase in Russian skiers at the Masikryong ski resort and North Korean tourists in Moscow, there are perceived limits to the benefits of cooperation. The Rand Corporation states that the dynamics of the alliance are limited, particularly by Moscow’s relations with Beijing.

The Chinese mantra of Tianxia sees China as the arbiter of a prosperous and settled Asia; a boisterous North Korea, possibly without need for a conflagration with the South, could soon become enraptured by the same thought. Alliances beget counteralliances, and North Korean troops in Ukraine have already angered the South with a threat of sending weapons to kyiv. This is no longer a Metternichian system of cunning diplomacy, nor Alexander meeting Napoleon over wine at Tilsit in 1807.

The nature of technology and the absence of statesmen of caliber risk a serious conflagration leading to a world war. Bruce Klingner stated that “North Korea will not send troops to increase forces in Ukraine.” Such is the speed of change in international relations, with fires breaking out regularly. I think the relationship between North Korea and Russia is more strategic than transactional. This is more dangerous because it indicates a long-term intention.

It illustrates the vacuity of talking about the “liberal rules-based order.” The world has entered bipolarity 2.0 and the rules of the Cold War no longer exist. This is due, in part, to the West’s inability to play fair in the “Global South.” Globalization became unilateral, the first bipolar change was the Russian-Chinese one alliance based on the accumulation of resources. The second is much more serious because it considers the United States vulnerable. Europe does not want to and cannot counteract or interpret the new changes, stuck as it is in a bureaucratic and disparate mess of the EU.

For the Russians, distancing themselves from the West also represents a strategic pattern. Although relations between Beijing and Moscow are traditionally complicated, Russia is returning to the Soviet era in one Great Strategic Triangleplacing itself in competition between the United States and China. North Korea, as in Soviet times, is aware of this new aggrandizement. Ties with Pyongyang make Russia less dependent on China. It also means increasing pressure and influence on US allies Japan and South Korea.

Evgeny Bazhanov outlined the logic of cooperation with North Korea back in 2011. Russia wants to participate in the economic recovery of the Asian region; facilitating the modernization of North Korea’s factories and using its labor in Russia, meeting its energy needs and modernizing the North Korean military. The alliance with North Korea did not happen overnight and is not just a response to the war in Ukraine. This was helped by Biden anti-China rhetoric which brought Xi Jinping closer to Moscow.

The war in Ukraine has less to do with stopping NATO, although that is paradigmatic. It is also about the new vision of Eurasianism in Russia. The look towards the West no longer exists, while Russia looks towards the flourishing East. North Korea is part of that outlook, and the United States and the West are behind the game by cultivating a long-term strategy, dependent as it is on the short-termism, or five-year terms, of liberal democracy. The West does not understand the limits of economic globalization in foreign policy.

About the author

Brian Patrick Bolger LSE, University of Liverpool. He has taught political philosophy and applied linguistics at universities across Europe. His articles have appeared in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada and Germany in magazines such as ‘The Spectator’, ‘Comment Central’, ‘The Times’, ‘The American Spectator’, ‘Asian Affairs’, ‘Deliberation’. , ‘L’Indro Quotidiano Indipendente di Geopolitica’, ‘The National Interest’, ‘GeoPolitical Monitor’, ‘Merion West’, ‘Voegelin View’, ‘The Montreal Review’, ‘The European Conservative’, ‘Visegrad Insight’, The Hungarian Magazine”, “The Salisbury Review”, “New English Review”, “American Thinker”, “Indian Strategic Studies”, “Philosophy News”. His new book, ‘Nowhere Fast: Democracy and Identity in the 21st Century’, is now published by Ethics International Press. He is an advisor to several Think Tanks and corporations on geopolitical issues.

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