Chelsey Wiley
On 4 November, the United States Department of Defense confirmed that 10,000 North Korean soldiers had been deployed in Russia’s Kursk oblast as a part of Moscow’s war against Ukraine. In late October, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that the US would view such a development as a ‘very serious issue’, with implications reaching beyond Europe. This development has alarmed Japan and South Korea (Republic of Korea – ROK), who fear that some dimensions of the conflict in Europe will spill over into their neighbourhood.
In recent years, US collective-defence commitments to its allies – including Japan and the ROK – have helped to stabilise the regional security environment, which has seen North Korean ballistic-missile tests (the latest occurring on 5 November), China’s nuclear buildup and overflights around Taiwan, and a proliferation of joint Chinese and Russian military exercises. Critically, these defence commitments include a nuclear umbrella in an arrangement known as extended nuclear deterrence. While President Joe Biden has taken several steps since 2021 to deepen Washington’s defence relations with its Northeast Asian allies and increased the credibility of US extended deterrence, these relationships will face new tests after Donald Trump assumes the presidency in January 2025.
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