Avoiding World War III...under Donald Trump?

The Russia, China, North Korea and Iran alliance is out to end US global dominance.

North Korean troops’ recent arrival in Russia to fight against Ukraine has transformed worries that war will spread regionally into fears that a global World War III may be on the horizon.

North Korea’s entry into the conflict is but a piece of an anti-Western alliance that stretches from the Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. It includes not only Russia and North Korea but also Iran, including proxy militias it sponsors in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq, as well as China.

Each harbors an ambition to upend eight decades of dominance by what they consider a sclerotic yet bullying West, and especially leadership by the United States, which they regard as being in decline.

Western analysts see Russia’s war on Ukraine, along with the participation of North Korean troops, as a first step toward undermining the democratic West.

“We’re in a pre-war era leading to global war, the most serious, the most dangerous and the most challenging we have had since World War II,” said Jack Keane, a retired US general who heads the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank. “I do believe World War III is in the future,” he said in a television interview aired last Sunday.

On Tuesday, NATO chief Mark Rutte doubled down on alarm by describing a military peril that stretches from the Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea.

“Russia, working together with North Korea, Iran and China, is not only threatening Europe, it threatens peace and security—yes, here in Europe– but also in the Indo-Pacific and in North America,” he concluded in a statement read following a meeting with French President Emanuel Macron.

As evidence of spreading danger, he pointed to alarming current events, namely:

• The transfer of Russian missile technology to North Korea, an event that that particularly alarms South Korea and Japan.

• The burgeoning military alliance and exchanges between Russia and Iran that incudes Russian purchases of armed drones from Iran that provides the Islamic Republic with cash to pay “proxies” that “destabilize the Middle East” and to fund “terrorism further afield.”

• China, underwrites Moscow’s domestic war-making industries by making massive cash purchases of Russian fossil fuel in defiance of international sanctions. Beijing also supplies spare parts for a variety of run-down Russian military equipment.

The NATO chief pleaded for allied unity to face an anti-Western alliance. “We must stand together – Europe, North America and our global partners – to keep our people safe and prosperous,” Rutte said.

Rutte’s rallying cry was clearly aimed at Western countries whose enthusiasm for supporting Kyiv is flagging. The future of US policy under President-elect Donald Trump is attracting special interest and worry.

Trump promised voters a self-centered “America First” foreign policy, raising questions if that means an end to support for Ukraine. Keane fears that creeping US isolationism has encouraged belligerent adversaries to challenge US resolve.

“China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, who are cooperating, collaborating, coordinating together, believe that our leadership in the United States is weak, that we’ve lost the political will to confront them, much less go and fight them,” the retired US general said.

Apocalyptic commentary is not limited to the West. Zheng Yongnian, a foreign affairs analyst whose commentary frequently appears in official Chinese media, recently wrote that “The possibility of a world war may have been underestimated.”

“Looking at today’s situation, regional wars involving multiple countries, especially major powers, have already broken out, such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict,” he added.

Zheng blamed the West for current Middle East turmoil. “While the wars in the Middle East have manifested themselves mainly as a conflict between Israel and Hamas, many other countries, especially the US, have become deeply involved,” he concluded.

This summer, Dmitri Medvedev, a Putin ally and former Russian president, warned NATO that providing military aid to Ukraine was ensuring that “World War III is getting closer.”

In any event, much has moved in a warlike direction since the end of Trump’s previous residency in the White House in 2021. Containable problems Trump faced in his first term have morphed into tensions and even deadly hostilities as US adversaries have turned to warfare.

Putin appears determined to continue the Ukraine war into Trump’s new term, despite certain estimates his forces have suffered around 610,000 casualties. North Korean intervention in Ukraine is due in part to Russia’s need for fresh troops, observers surmise.

“Russia is desperate for manpower but wants to avoid a second mobilization, which would involve involuntary call-ups of Russian citizens,” wrote the Center for International and Strategic Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

“US officials estimate that Russia is recruiting 25,000 to 30,000 new soldiers a month, barely enough to keep pace with the reported daily casualty rate of 1,000–or 30,000 a month,” the influential think tank wrote.

About 12,000 Korean soldiers have gathered near the Russian border town of Kursk, which Ukrainian forces took over this summer in a surprise attack. The North Koreans have joined about 40,000 Russian troops deployed for a counteroffensive. Beyond manpower, North Korea is also supplying weapons, including missiles.

“North Korea sent eight million shells to Ukraine last year, as well as dozens of short-range missiles, which will do far more to keep the Russian war machine afloat than a few thousand troops,” reports the US-based Council on Foreign Relations. “Western supporters of Ukraine, by contrast, have struggled to match this provision of ammunition and weapons.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky insists that his forces can expel the Russians from Ukraine if they receive desired weapons. He is not only begging the US to continue providing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of arms but also for permission to fire missiles at enemy forces deep inside Russia.

After much dithering, US President Joe Biden has relented and given permission for Ukraine t strike targets deep into Russia, reports from Washington said Sunday. The Kremlin called it a step toward further escalation.

“It is clear that the outgoing administration in Washington intends to take steps to continue to add fuel to the fire,” Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters today. “This decision is reckless, dangerous, aimed at…a qualitative increase in the level of involvement of the United States.”

World War III talk has become more frequent as the Ukraine war drags on. Trump has said only that he will end the war “within 24 hours” of taking office next January, or even before, though he hasn’t explained how.

Trump supports Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to bomb Iran, an attack recently launched in retaliation for Iranian missile strikes previously aimed at Israel.

At the same time, two Iran-backed proxies—Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon– are under intense Israeli military pressure in a 13-month onslaught.

Trump considers both Hamas and Hezbollah to be terrorist agents of Iran. He supports Israel’s massive assault on Hamas as due retaliation for its October 7, 2023 attack on communities inside Israel.

He has also supported Israel’s invasion of Lebanon but has not laid out how much he thinks Hezbollah should be punished for supporting Hamas. Last week, the US Justice Department announced federal charges in a thwarted Iranian plot to kill Trump before the November 5 presidential election.

Finally, Trump has promised to slap 60% tariffs on China, a pledge that was central to his campaign. He justifies the taxes as a means of enticing manufacturers that fled to low-wage China to relocate to the US and create new jobs for Americans.

He hasn’t yet taken a position on China’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, nor on Beijing’s ever-louder insistence that it must “reunify” Taiwan with the mainland.

During his 2017-2021 period in office, Trump specialized in unconventional overtures to ease tensions with potential adversaries, none of which succeeded in reaching any significant breakthroughs.

He tried flattery with Putin, called the Russian leader a “genius” and described Russia’s 2014 limited invasion of Ukraine “savvy.” Flattery got Trump nowhere, however, judging from Putin’s decision to launch a second invasion in 2022, on Biden’s watch.

Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jung Un in Singapore and Vietnam to discuss denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. Trump followed up with a series of what he called “love letters” to the North Korean dictator. The exchanges eventually fizzled out and the denuclearization proposal died.

Most quixotically, perhaps, Trump hosted Chinese leader Xi Jinping at his sumptuous waterfront mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, where the two discussed trade disputes but reached no accords to ease economic tensions. Trump later imposed tariffs on a limited range of Chinese products, all of which are in force today as he prepares to raise more.

It all begs the question if Trump’s unconventional approach to high-stakes diplomacy will have better luck this time around, or will he instead be in the chair when World War III becomes a reality, not a threat?