(MENAFN- Asia Times)
North Korean troops' recent arrival in Russia to fight against Ukraine has transformed worries that war will spread regionally into fears that a global World War III may be on the horizon.
North Korea's entry into the conflict is but a piece of an anti-Western alliance that stretches from the Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. It includes not only Russia and North Korea but also Iran, including proxy militias it sponsors in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq, as well as China.
Each harbors an ambition to upend eight decades of dominance by what they consider a sclerotic yet bullying West, and especially leadership by the United States, which they regard as being in decline.
Western analysts see Russia's war on Ukraine, along with the participation of North Korean troops, as a first step toward undermining the democratic West.
“We're in a pre-war era leading to global war, the most serious, the most dangerous and the most challenging we have had since World War II,” said Jack Keane, a retired US general who heads the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.“I do believe World War III is in the future,” he said in a television interview aired last Sunday.
On Tuesday, NATO chief Mark Rutter doubled down on alarm by describing a military peril that stretches from the Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea.
“Russia, working together with North Korea, Iran and China, is not only threatening Europe, it threatens peace and security-yes, here in Europe– but also in the Indo-Pacific and in North America,” he concluded in a statement read following a meeting with French President Emanuel Macron.
As evidence of the spreading danger, he pointed to alarming current events, namely:
The transfer of Russian missile technology to North Korea, an event that that particularly alarms South Korea and Japan.
The burgeoning military alliance and exchanges between Russia and Iran that incudes Russian purchases of armed drones from Iran that provides the Islamic Republic with cash to pay“proxies” that“destabilize the Middle East” and to fund“terrorism further afield.”
China, underwrites Moscow's domestic war-making industries by making massive cash purchases of Russian fossil fuel in defiance of international sanctions. Beijing also supplies spare parts for a variety of run-down Russian military equipment.
The NATO chief pleaded for allied unity to face an anti-Western alliance.“We must stand together – Europe, North America and our global partners – to keep our people safe and prosperous,” Rutter said.
Rutter's rallying cry was clearly aimed at Western countries whose enthusiasm for supporting Kyiv is flagging. The future of US policy under President-elect Donald Trump is attracting especially intense interest and worry.
Trump promised voters a kind of self-centered“America First” foreign policy, raising questions if that precludes continued support for Ukraine. General Keane fears that creeping US isolationism has encouraged belligerent adversaries to run amok.
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