NATO’s North Korea blindspot is a security nightmare

On June 24-25, the 32 member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) gathered in The Hague, Netherlands, to discuss the most pressing geopolitical threats facing the alliance. During this latest summit, the world’s most prominent security organization agreed to a non-binding spending agreement that will ramp up defense spending, with each member state aiming for 3.5 percent of GDP by 2035. On top of this, NATO members will allocate 1.5 percent of GDP to upgrading “infrastructure – roads, bridges, ports, airfields – needed to deploy armies to the front.”

This non-binding agreement, coupled with Washington’s reaffirmation of its commitment to NATO’s collective defense clause, Article 5, led NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte to express positivity about the summit during his closing remarks. Despite this, the summit’s focus on appeasing U.S. President Donald Trump came at the expense of collective action against NATO’s most pressing security concerns. On the list of issues that were not discussed in any significant detail at the NATO summit, the most notable entry is the growing threat posed by North Korea vis-à-vis the Ukraine conflict.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 initiated Europe’s biggest land conflict since World War II, and Pyongyang’s military and logistical support of Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine has brought the conflict to a global scale. However, North Korea was scarcely mentioned by attending world leaders or the event’s experts, despite its presence on the agenda at the previous summit. Those watching this year’s summit would, therefore, be excused for thinking that the threat posed by Pyongyang in Ukraine had retreated. However, the reality is far from this: North Korea is expected to send more troops to Russia in July or August to aid its efforts against Ukraine, according to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service.

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