"North Korea could be the match that triggers global chaos"
According to Robert Manning, a researcher and former advisor of the US State Department, the alliance between North Korea and Russia is not only worrying about Ukraine, but for global stability as a whole. For the geopolitics specialist:
"We are currently in a moment of interregnum between an old order that is eroding and a new order to come whose contours are not yet fully defined."
For several months, we have felt this pressure rising, believes Robert Manning:
"In October 2023, the White House had reported that North Korea was delivering containers of weapons to Russia. And two months after signing a new security agreement with Putin last year, Pyongyang suddenly succeeded in launching a military satellite, after a series of unsuccessful tests."
Manning concludes:
"What's happening today seems to me to reflect Vladimir Putin's deep dismay, who is increasingly worried that Ukraine is gaining ground in Russia but doesn't want a general mobilization of its population. So he's turning to his North Korean ally."
"At what price? That's the question of the moment. Putin is a very transactional person. So he probably offered something to Kim Jong-un in exchange for sending troops to his soil. It could be a helping hand to Pyongyang to develop its intercontinental ballistic missiles, its nuclear submarines or the miniaturization of its warheads: whatever it is, I think it's a significant help in terms of technology."
(MH with AmBar/Source: L'Express/Photo: DPA/YONHAPNEWS AGENCY)