Daniel Williams
Donald Trump says he doesn't want war but if his diplomacy doesn't work he may not have a choice as adversaries coalesce against America. Image: Wikimedia
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.
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