Can Trump Drive a Wedge Between Russia and North Korea?

In recent weeks, North Korea deployed troops to Russia to reinforce Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. This is only the latest example of the increased collusion among the new Axis of Aggression: China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

How can the new Trump administration address this challenge?

While the Trump 2.0 National Security Strategy has yet to be written, a major part of the answer will center on the president-elect’s promise to bring a quick end to the war in Ukraine.

The interlinkages among this Axis of Aggression are not as deep and robust as some might think. Rather, almost all of the ties revolve around the other dictators supporting Putin’s war against Ukraine.

North Korea is providing troops and munitions. Iran is providing drones. China is providing enormous economic support short of lethal military assistance, including the heavy-duty trucks and excavation equipment that are allowing Putin to literally dig in to Russian-occupied Ukraine. In exchange for this largesse, it is rumored that Russia is providing advanced military assistance related to nuclear weapons and space technology.

Apart from backing Putin’s war against Russia, however, the ties among these dictators are sparse. To be sure, there would remain a general antagonism to the U.S.-led, post-World War II international system, but the near-term, life-or-death incentives for urgent military collaboration would be removed.

Bringing the war in Ukraine to a quick and decisive conclusion, therefore, as Donald Trump has promised to do, would remove many of the incentives for autocratic collaboration.

This would provide time and space for the natural enmities among these dictators to emerge, providing Washington and the free world with the opportunity to develop a coherent long-term strategy to counter, deter, and if necessary defeat the Axis of Aggression at the same time.