For those of us living in 21st-century Britain, wars more often than not feel remote. Neville Chamberlain, in 1938, famously described the Sudetenland crisis as a “quarrel in a far away country, between people of whom we know nothing.” It wasn’t long before Britain was disabused of this notion. In 2024, the war in Ukraine might be close to Nato borders, but for many in the West feels on another planet.
This is understandable. There is most of continental Europe between us and where the fighting is taking place. But that distance shouldn’t make us complacent. Russia is creeping toward some slow kind of victory, most officials now accept. That might not mean Ukraine collapsing, but it could mean Russia taking Ukrainian territory and moving its war machine ever closer to central Europe.
The dangers of that, should they not be obvious, include Russia edging west with control of Ukraine’s weapons, arms production and resources, not to mention a potential migration crisis. And now, confirmation that North Korea has sent 1,500 troops to Russia – possibly to fight inside Ukraine – has added a new global dimension to this conflict. There is increasing anxiety about an Axis of Autocracies – a new anti-Western alliance between Russia, North Korea, China and Iran.
“If North Korean troops fight for Russia, then tensions in two areas – the Korean Peninsula and Ukraine – will have welded together. This would greatly complicate the global situation and, because of the international alliance system, would increase the risk of other states being dragged into conflict” John Everard, a former British ambassador to North Korea, tells me. It’s not hard to imagine how quickly that situation might escalate.
Further complicating the picture, South Korea, the Western-friendly powerhouse loathed by Kim Jong Un’s regime, has rushed to help Nato. A South Korean delegation attended a foreign ministers’ meeting at alliance HQ for the first time last week. On Monday, the Nato-South Korean partnership took another public step, with Seoul saying it wanted to join a Nato information-sharing system so it can pass on intelligence to the allies, and Ukraine, in real time.
To some extent, this was all predictable. North Korea had already been supplying Russia with weapons, alongside China and Iran. But as long-term North Korea watchers have pointed out, despite all the pomp and ceremony around the country’s military parade, they don’t really have any battle experience. Given this, diplomats say it’s unlikely North Korean troops would be much use on the front line. But multiple Western officials believe it’s possible that North Korea saw an opportunity for its troops to get some superior Russian training and gain some battlefield experience.
It’s unlikely Kim would want his men to fight on the frontline and fail, bursting the myth of his supposed military might. But these troops are transparently useful to the Kremlin anyway. Russia has manpower problems, most analysts and officials say. Having an ally willing to send you troops, even if they are not going to the frontline, helps to plug gaps. Having an ally that doesn’t particularly care about the lives of its own citizens willing to help you plug those gaps is even better. No public backlash to worry about, no damning inquiries after the fact. If he really wanted to, Kim could get away with sending thousands more troops to feed Putin’s war machine and face zero personal consequences. It’s a favour between friends.
On top of these strategic advantages for Russia, this overture will damage morale in Ukraine as it braces for a winter that could be pivotal in the outcome of this war.
For all the warm words, Nato allies have not offered as much support to Ukraine as Volodymyr Zelensky would like. Squeezing more weapons and cash from Western countries has been a painful process. Zelensky knows that some European countries are being made to help Ukraine against their will. Even now, Zelensky is pleading with America for permission to use long-range missiles that have already been donated.
This makes the current state of alliances look start: on one side, the US-led liberal democratic order stands fully behind Ukraine, up to a point; on the other, the autocrats are happy to throw their own troops into a meat grinder. Their promises are not merely rhetorical.
But the picture remains murky: no one, for example, really knows what China thinks. And these states forming around the axis do not have reputation for charity. Should the momentum suddenly change against Russia, its friends may scarper.
Geopolitics lends itself to grand narratives. And these recent developments tell a story of autocrat allies succeeding in their mission to expand global instability, deepening their friendships as they go. The West must find a way to respond – the world is getting smaller, and hiding will not stop the problem landing squarely at our feet, sooner or later.
