Follow us on social

Kim Jong Un

N. Korean troops in Ukraine? Don't overreact.

How the West chooses to respond to this news could mean the difference between de-escalation and a wider all-out war

QiOSK

U.S. officials are now saying that North Korean troops may be fighting for the Russians in Ukraine.

"There is evidence that there are DPRK troops in Russia," U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters in Rome, using North Korea's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "What exactly they are doing? Left to be seen. These are things that we need to sort out.”

Austin called the situation a “very, very serious” one, saying that it will impact U.S. interests in both Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

The Ukrainian government said last week it had obtained intelligence that at least 10,000 troops were being prepared for dispatching to Russia’s front lines in Ukraine. Meanwhile, as of today, South Korea’s national spy agency said 3,000 North Korean special forces had already arrived in Russia, with more on the way.

The South Korean and Ukrainian accusations prompted a wave of alarm throughout the West. Russia and North Korea have denied the claims, but Austin’s comments lend further credibility to the previous reports: a third player appears likely to enter the Ukraine War. How will the West respond?

“This is a challenge, but we know how to respond to this challenge. It is important that partners do not hide from this challenge as well,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in last night’s video address to Ukrainian citizens, seemingly urging a strong American reaction.

Concerns from U.S. allies with a more direct stake in these proceedings, such as South Korea and Ukraine, are very real and deserve to be heard. But, as research fellow at the Quincy Institute’s Eurasia program Mark Episkopos says, they also must be held against the backdrop of these states’ broader interests and how they differ from ours.

“The Zelenskyy government has made it a foreign policy priority to draw the West into a direct conflict with Russia, because there is a recognition that this is the only way Ukraine can win, and now it falls to us in the West to determine whether or not getting into a direct war with Russia is in our interests,” Episkopos said.

Prior to Austin’s comments this week, the story had proliferated in a manner similar to that of other rumors of rogue Russian actions over the past three years: several major Western media outlets wrote headlines already accepting the reports of North Korean troops fighting for Russia as absolute fact, Western officials expressed alarmist and threatening rhetoric, and Zelenskyy pushed for a “proper and fair response” from NATO and the U.S.

Now that U.S. officials are giving credibility to these stories, a trend of tightening friendship between Russia and North Korea this year becomes even more evident. In June, the two signed a treaty that included commitments to each other’s security. There are credible reports that North Korea has been supplying Russia with various weapons systems for months. As this relationship has evolved, so have Western worries.

In a New York Times article on Wednesday, North Korean expert and former member of President George W. Bush’s National Security Council Victor Cha warned that the connection between North Korea and Russia is now a “real ‘no-limits partnership’” and that “we are in a whole different era if North Korean soldiers are dying for Putin.”

While this rhetoric can feed alarmism, the larger problem is not the premise of North Korean involvement itself, but in the ways American foreign policymakers may be inclined to respond.

In terms of the U.S. and NATO’s overall security, experts say the external threat of North Korean battalions, Iranian bombs or Chinese intelligence in backing Russia’s Eastern European excursion pales in comparison to the self-induced threat of continuing to prolong the war and falling down an escalatory spiral with Russia and its allies.

“We should be careful not to overreact to this alleged development in a way that would present the West with a very serious military quagmire,” said Episkopos. “If we were to take this as grounds for some kind of intervention, it would have catastrophic consequences for both Ukraine and the West.”

While Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea are indeed helping each other, it is also true that an alliance of over 30 countries has been giving “unprecedented levels of support” to Ukraine since the war began, point out experts. Commentators and columnists visualizing the dawn of a new anti-Western axis as a metaphysical battle of ideological dominance — democracy versus authoritarianism, good versus evil — fail to recognize the simple reality that Russia is a rational state that can and will build alliances to protect its interests, just as the United States and its allies have.

“The U.S. talks rightfully about the strength of its alliances, and that NATO is the greatest, and, by many standards, the most successful military alliance in the world,” Episkopos said. “But then we are somehow shocked and appalled to find that our adversaries have allies too, and their allies help them out in all sorts of ways, directly and indirectly. But that is the reality of this war and that has been the reality since 2022.”

Episkopos called for a rational line of thinking amongst U.S. decision-makers, leaning away from an overemphasis on liberal internationalism that misrepresents Putin’s goals.

“I'm afraid that we've returned to a similar understanding of our adversaries,” he continued, “that these are not complex, varied governments with a whole range of interests, but are simply evil, malignant actors who seek to destroy liberal democracy — and our only choice is to stand against them to the very end. This kind of framework should be rejected.”


Top Image credit: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits Korean People's Army Air Force headquarters on the occasion of Aviation Day in North Korea, in this picture released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on December 1, 2023. KCNA via REUTERS
QiOSK
Munich Dispatch: Gaza issue banished to the sidelines this year
Top photo credit: Ursula von der Leyen speaks to the Munich Security Conference, 2/15/25 (MSC/Lennart Preiss)

Munich Dispatch: Gaza issue banished to the sidelines this year

Europe

MUNICH, GERMANY — Last year, the Munich Security Conference was dominated by the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. This time around, the Gaza War has remained a notable absence in Munich, at least on the confab’s main stage.

This was confirmed on Sunday, the last day of the conference, which was light on headlines amid the snowy Munich outside. The big news story Sunday didn't even originate from the conference, but in reports suggesting U.S. and Russian officials will meet in Saudi Arabia next week for talks to end the Ukraine War without the participation of Ukraine or other European countries.

keep readingShow less
Volodymyr Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference
Top photo credit: Volodymyr Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference 2/15/25 (MSC/Angelika Warmuth.)

Munich Dispatch: Zelensky calls for an 'Army of Europe'

Europe

MUNICH, GERMANY — During his keynote speech at the Munich Security Conference today Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky repeated the need for a “European army” — also framed as “an Army of Europe.”

What this specifically means is unclear, but the Ukrainian leader delivered the message home, if we are to judge by the headlines of the main European newspapers this afternoon. Zelensky tried to further raise the stakes by saying that Ukraine has intelligence that next summer Russia plans to send troops to Belarus. On that, he noted: “Is this Russian force in Belarus meant to attack Ukraine? Maybe, or maybe not. Or maybe it's meant for you. Let me remind you, Belarus borders 3 NATO countries.”

keep readingShow less
Munich Dispatch: Vance lectures Euros on democracy & tolerance
Top photo credit: MSC/Lennart Preiss

Munich Dispatch: Vance lectures Euros on democracy & tolerance

Europe

MUNICH, GERMANY — The Munich Security Conference started this Friday in a city recovering from an attack in which a suspect drove his car into a crowd of people, leaving 36 people injured on Thursday morning.

The international meeting also takes place against the backdrop of the German parliamentary elections on Feb. 23. Friedrich Merz, the chancellor candidate of the center-right Christian-Democratic Union (CDU) — which comfortably leads the polls with around 30% of support — could be spotted in the first row of the conference hall. Merz held a short meeting with United States Vice President J.D. Vance earlier in the day.

keep readingShow less

Trump transition

Latest

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.