The signing of the new comprehensive strategic partnership agreement between Russia and North Korea is a reflection of the profound realignment in geopolitics that is taking place to challenge America’s long-standing dominance in world affairs.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, the United States has been the world’s dominant power, dictating the agenda on key issues, directing the course of the global economy, and launching military action against threats to its hegemony, as it did in Saddam’s Iraq.
Yet, as recent events demonstrate, Washington’s ability to steer global policy in a direction that suits its own interests is increasingly being challenged by world leaders who no longer bow to US dominance. Nor do they see it as providing global benefits.
This challenge was very much in evidence at a recent summit in Switzerland, which the US hoped would rally support for Ukraine in its two-year-war against Russia.
In the event, a significant number of the participating countries—including Brazil, India, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia—opted not to support the joint declaration reaffirming Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
Putin-Kim partnership
The new partnership signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un therefore needs to be seen within the broader context of this global realignment and challenge to America’s long-standing political and military pre-eminence.
As Putin made clear in a letter published in North Korea’s state media on the eve of his visit, the deepening cooperation between the two countries was a response to what he called US efforts to impose a “neo-colonialist dictatorship” over the world.
On one level, the signing of the pact between Moscow and Pyongyang is their attempt to demonstrate solidarity against their increasing isolation from the West, with both nations subject to punitive sanctions.
