The only thing to "fear" in the Russo-North Korea apparent alliance if Pyongyang's missile development and nuclearization program. The two are not mutually exclusive. NK has developed some "indigenous" capability on this front but the fact of the matter is that rogue states like Iran and failed states like Pakistan have been shipping old technologies to NK. Babyface Kim needs new technology that matches, say, Russia's, India's, Israel's -- all this before we even start talking old colonial and sinking power Britain, the old imperial but declining power, the US. Until then the fear is minimal, not for the likes of Philip Bowring to make a mountain out of a molehill. What NK doesn't have is a "society" that is cohesive, rich in education and economics. Why? Because Babyface Kim plunders NK's coffers like the thug that he is, like so many corrupt Asian autocrats past and present. And he knows he operates in the nuclear program under the threat of deterrence.
What Bowring should have focused on is not NK but the supposedly developing axis between Beijing and Moscow. Will it come to anything that might worry the rest of Asia along the Pacific and Indian oceans? Or is this yet another flash in the pan where both sides want to rattle the supposed hegemony of the US -- until one side backs down and pronounced a kind of reverse Fukuyama-ian end of history? Which I think is what all this boils down to -- for now. And which explains why scaredy-cat rest of East and Southeast Asia are privately hiding US skirts for geostrategic protection, much as Australia has been doing -- shamelessly -- since 1945. The problem with Asia is how two-faced it is, especially its so-called leaders (though their western counterparts are no better). They want more liberalised trade with China (as if China practices this) but US military protection against China's projection of imperial power (just like the US if one goes back in history).
As for Donald Trump and what he might do if he is president again (hope bloody not; it'll be the end of America, for sure): of course of lowlife scumbag like Trump will sleep with Putin and Babyface Kim. If it's not for commercial reasons that makes him money, it will be to show Americans and the world what a pathetic "leader", compulsive liar and fraud he is (still). It's showman's stuff and immature by any definition, the form of a low-intellect.
Point is, there's not much to worry about in the Pyongyang-Moscow axis, if it materializes. Russia is basically broke financially and cannot modernize its military or any of its hardware. It can print more rouble but it'll send the sick Russian army into septic tank that Putin runs. His promise of taking over all of Ukraine win a month or two was always exaggerated, just as China's dictator Xi Jinping tends to exaggerate things when, clearly, the "emperor" is protecting his power and his golden goose (personal wealth) and disallowing scrutiny of the latter by any means.
It's not all "foreign policy" or "inernational relations" stuff. It's not all state-state politics. What feeds into these categories, like it or not, is domestic politics and domestic policies. Philip Bowring should know this by now.
A friendly meeting between leaders of countries with common interest, especially after the Covid pandemic. I will not parrot the US line that the meeting is ominous in nature. If one recalls the US claim that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, wisdom would dictate to dismiss anything that comes out from the US administration about countries not in tandem with its policies. Anyway, as Putin put it , political commentators and political scientists are charlatans. There is some truth in that.
Who cares what the US state says, or the White House and their presidents say. If the critics of the Stalinist Putin regime are charlatans, what does it say about Putin who murders in cold blood his political enemies. Or Xi Jinping who moves quietly and certain members of his regimes vanish, tainted by accusations by the (also) Stalinist CCP regime that these people are "corrupt". Putin is amongst the most corrupt in Russia. Xi and his cronies in China are no better: how did Xi and his family amass so much wealth that it is hidden from scrutiny? And what about Babyface Kim of North Korea, who starves his people to keep them weak from rising against his murderous regime? The Putin-Kim so-called meeting was mostly about Russia's desperation to buy weapons to be used against its illegal invasion of Ukraine and Kim's desperation for outdated Russian weapons technology to build his nuclear program as well as whatever worthless roubles he can get to fatten his wealth at the expense of the people of North Korea. Xi hasn't said much about the Putin-Kim "meeting" but if you read the Chinese media, it has irked him, and he's watching, especially now that Belarus wants to forge a tripartite axis with Russia and North Korea. I'm not so concerned if this happens; I'd be more concerned if China joins that axis. And I think Xi might have thought, before, during and after his last "summit" with Putin, that he would be able to influence Russian policy on maters defense, economic and ideology. What ideology? Certainly not Marxism, which dies in China 1978. The practice is definitively more and more Stalinist. And ordinary Chinese people should be worried where Xi is taking China. And as long as China refuses to supply Kim of North Korea with its nuclear technology, the Putin-Kim meeting doesn't matter all that much. Just as one didn't pay much attention to Barack Obama's call for the US to "pivot to Asia". The only "pivot is the old Cold War one of containing China. And it isn't working. An "enlightenment West" is seeing its own disintegration, slowly but surely. But that doesn't mean Putin or zKim or Xi are in more "enlightened" positions. Look at their economies now. Look at their politics too. It says more, much more, than your naive use of the cliched weapons of mass destruction line. I repeat: the sources of all foreign policies and international lies in the laps of each country's domestic policies and politics. Understanding the latter helps one better understand IR -- realism or otherwise.
You are a parrot; you keep repeating yourself. Obviously you have nothing intelligent to add. If you have insights into the minds of Xi, Kim and Putin, share them, even if you were to copycat the state media that are controlled by these three people.
Why must the alliance be ominous?? Just because the US thinks so? ? Hasn't the writer his own thoughts on the matter?
❤️❤️❤️🙏🏾👏🏾🫶🏾🇨🇳🇷🇺🇰🇵
The only thing to "fear" in the Russo-North Korea apparent alliance if Pyongyang's missile development and nuclearization program. The two are not mutually exclusive. NK has developed some "indigenous" capability on this front but the fact of the matter is that rogue states like Iran and failed states like Pakistan have been shipping old technologies to NK. Babyface Kim needs new technology that matches, say, Russia's, India's, Israel's -- all this before we even start talking old colonial and sinking power Britain, the old imperial but declining power, the US. Until then the fear is minimal, not for the likes of Philip Bowring to make a mountain out of a molehill. What NK doesn't have is a "society" that is cohesive, rich in education and economics. Why? Because Babyface Kim plunders NK's coffers like the thug that he is, like so many corrupt Asian autocrats past and present. And he knows he operates in the nuclear program under the threat of deterrence.
What Bowring should have focused on is not NK but the supposedly developing axis between Beijing and Moscow. Will it come to anything that might worry the rest of Asia along the Pacific and Indian oceans? Or is this yet another flash in the pan where both sides want to rattle the supposed hegemony of the US -- until one side backs down and pronounced a kind of reverse Fukuyama-ian end of history? Which I think is what all this boils down to -- for now. And which explains why scaredy-cat rest of East and Southeast Asia are privately hiding US skirts for geostrategic protection, much as Australia has been doing -- shamelessly -- since 1945. The problem with Asia is how two-faced it is, especially its so-called leaders (though their western counterparts are no better). They want more liberalised trade with China (as if China practices this) but US military protection against China's projection of imperial power (just like the US if one goes back in history).
As for Donald Trump and what he might do if he is president again (hope bloody not; it'll be the end of America, for sure): of course of lowlife scumbag like Trump will sleep with Putin and Babyface Kim. If it's not for commercial reasons that makes him money, it will be to show Americans and the world what a pathetic "leader", compulsive liar and fraud he is (still). It's showman's stuff and immature by any definition, the form of a low-intellect.
Point is, there's not much to worry about in the Pyongyang-Moscow axis, if it materializes. Russia is basically broke financially and cannot modernize its military or any of its hardware. It can print more rouble but it'll send the sick Russian army into septic tank that Putin runs. His promise of taking over all of Ukraine win a month or two was always exaggerated, just as China's dictator Xi Jinping tends to exaggerate things when, clearly, the "emperor" is protecting his power and his golden goose (personal wealth) and disallowing scrutiny of the latter by any means.
It's not all "foreign policy" or "inernational relations" stuff. It's not all state-state politics. What feeds into these categories, like it or not, is domestic politics and domestic policies. Philip Bowring should know this by now.
Full of speculations !
Let’s hear yours.
A friendly meeting between leaders of countries with common interest, especially after the Covid pandemic. I will not parrot the US line that the meeting is ominous in nature. If one recalls the US claim that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, wisdom would dictate to dismiss anything that comes out from the US administration about countries not in tandem with its policies. Anyway, as Putin put it , political commentators and political scientists are charlatans. There is some truth in that.
Who cares what the US state says, or the White House and their presidents say. If the critics of the Stalinist Putin regime are charlatans, what does it say about Putin who murders in cold blood his political enemies. Or Xi Jinping who moves quietly and certain members of his regimes vanish, tainted by accusations by the (also) Stalinist CCP regime that these people are "corrupt". Putin is amongst the most corrupt in Russia. Xi and his cronies in China are no better: how did Xi and his family amass so much wealth that it is hidden from scrutiny? And what about Babyface Kim of North Korea, who starves his people to keep them weak from rising against his murderous regime? The Putin-Kim so-called meeting was mostly about Russia's desperation to buy weapons to be used against its illegal invasion of Ukraine and Kim's desperation for outdated Russian weapons technology to build his nuclear program as well as whatever worthless roubles he can get to fatten his wealth at the expense of the people of North Korea. Xi hasn't said much about the Putin-Kim "meeting" but if you read the Chinese media, it has irked him, and he's watching, especially now that Belarus wants to forge a tripartite axis with Russia and North Korea. I'm not so concerned if this happens; I'd be more concerned if China joins that axis. And I think Xi might have thought, before, during and after his last "summit" with Putin, that he would be able to influence Russian policy on maters defense, economic and ideology. What ideology? Certainly not Marxism, which dies in China 1978. The practice is definitively more and more Stalinist. And ordinary Chinese people should be worried where Xi is taking China. And as long as China refuses to supply Kim of North Korea with its nuclear technology, the Putin-Kim meeting doesn't matter all that much. Just as one didn't pay much attention to Barack Obama's call for the US to "pivot to Asia". The only "pivot is the old Cold War one of containing China. And it isn't working. An "enlightenment West" is seeing its own disintegration, slowly but surely. But that doesn't mean Putin or zKim or Xi are in more "enlightened" positions. Look at their economies now. Look at their politics too. It says more, much more, than your naive use of the cliched weapons of mass destruction line. I repeat: the sources of all foreign policies and international lies in the laps of each country's domestic policies and politics. Understanding the latter helps one better understand IR -- realism or otherwise.
Speculations and emotive opinions , again regurgitation of Western media.
You are a parrot; you keep repeating yourself. Obviously you have nothing intelligent to add. If you have insights into the minds of Xi, Kim and Putin, share them, even if you were to copycat the state media that are controlled by these three people.