Hal Brands
There are lies, damn lies and rumors about North Korea. So treat recent reports that Pyongyang will send troops to aid Russia’s assault on Ukraine with more than a grain of salt.
Yet the summit that spurred those rumors, and the North Korea-Russia military alliance it produced, are part of something very real and very worrying — the tightening of ties between America’s adversaries.
Those relationships are racing ahead in ways virtually no one would have predicted a few years ago. The US needs to get ready for a world in which they keep advancing, in surprising and disturbing ways.
The rumors about a potential North Korean deployment to Ukraine were the echo of a remarkable meeting in Pyongyang. Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pledged to continue building a relationship that has given Russia shells, missiles and bullets for use in Ukraine, in exchange for Russian help with North Korea’s weapons programs and diplomatic support in its confrontation with the international community.
The two leaders also shocked most foreign-affairs analysts by signing a mutual defense treaty that pledges one country to aid the other if it is attacked.
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