It was only a matter of time before Kim Jong Un raised his profile as a member of the contemporary Axis of Evil led by Russia, China and Iran in their coordinated attack on the U.S.-inspired international order.
North Korea was already supporting Vladimir Putin’s renewed invasion of Ukraine by supplying ballistic missiles, drones and other weapons to Russia. And last week, while the world was focusing on Ukraine, Iran’s proxy war on Israel, and China’s escalating threats against Taiwan, North Korea decided to rear its head and claim attention. It fired a military reconnaissance satellite and other launches using ballistic missile technology, all in violation of United Nations sanctions.
The missile misfired and crashed. To express its anger and cover its embarrassment, Pyongyang launched a barrage of other missiles along with a fusillade of verbal attacks on South Korea and the United States.
For its contribution to the common anti-Western project, Iran is supplying drones and glide bombs for Russia’s deployment against Ukraine, and its terrorist proxy, Hamas, delivered a birthday gift to Putin with its horrific attack against Israel on Oct. 7.
Two weeks ago, Putin and Xi Jinping reaffirmed the strategic partnership they announced to the world in February 2022, just weeks before Russia launched its second invasion of Ukraine. China has more than matched its rhetoric by providing essential dual-use technology to Russia for military purposes, but it escapes Western sanctions because the technology can also be applied to civilian uses.
At the same time, China has decisively propped up Russia’s economy and helped finance the war by buying massive amounts of Russian oil, all of which defeated the purpose of U.S. and Western sanctions.
The West is belatedly awakening to the existential threat to democratic values and security posed by the unholy cabal of communists, revanchists and clerical fascists. Western governments have undertaken their own cooperative measures to coordinate strategy, and while slow to react to the common danger presented by Putin’s renewed aggression, NATO now collectively provides more military and material aid to Ukraine than does the United States.
The U.S. nevertheless plays the traditional leadership role in NATO and sets the example for other nations to follow, sometimes reluctantly. Germany, for instance, has at times been a laggard in coming up with the weapons systems Ukraine urgently needs. At critical points in the two-year war, however, it has been Washington that has refused to provide the weapons systems, strategic vision and full moral support required to counter Russia’s huge advantages in arms and personnel.
It has often fallen to smaller countries next on Putin’s target list, like Poland, Estonia and Lithuania, to provide the necessary moral and strategic leadership.
President Emmanuel Macron has taken up the nuclear gauntlet Putin and his spokespersons have recklessly bandied about, treating them as empty threats and recommending Western support for Ukrainian strikes inside Russia. President Biden, still fearful of escalation to “World War III,” has hesitantly yielded to Ukrainian, French and other nations’ pressures, but with strict constraints on how deeply inside Russia Ukraine can hit with U.S. weapons.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis has noted the inherently self-defeating nature of yielding to Putin’s intimidation tactics. “The core problem is that avoidance of escalation is not a winning strategy. If we would really allow Ukraine to win this war, then all the questions would be answered much easier. … Decisions that come late cost lives and land.”
The anti-appeasement principle applies equally to the Indo-Pacific front of what now can accurately be called the lukewarm war. The Biden administration has admirably built on his predecessor’s transformational assertive posture toward China while deepening security relations with allies and security partners that Donald Trump personally spurned. Predictably, that has brought howls of protests from China about Cold War “containment” and “encirclement” and warnings of moving the world closer to major conflict and even nuclear conflagration.
If Taiwan is not to suffer the same fate as Ukraine — the failure of U.S. and Western deterrence, massive loss of life and destruction of cities, incalculable suffering at the hands of Russian war crimes and crimes against humanity — Washington and Western capitals must avoid repeating the mistakes made in Ukraine.
The first and overriding error has been the fear that meeting naked aggression with clarity of purpose, resolve and firm military action would trigger further escalation and threaten wider war. That trepidation has unnecessarily caused greater Ukrainian death, destruction, and suffering and invited yet more aggression.
China must be made to understand that, this time, the U.S. and its allies will respond with force sufficient to defeat any military action against Taiwan, including blockades or embargoes, and will certainly respond against China if it attacks a U.S. ship, plane or facility anywhere. America will also honor its security commitments to Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Thailand and Australia.
In light of the expanding Cold War and threatening hot war, Biden needs to shake off his excessive and unrealistic fears of escalation and to generate some inhibiting fears of escalation in America’s enemies.
Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He is a nonresident fellow at the Institute for Corean-American Studies and a member of the advisory board of the Global Taiwan Institute.