On March 28, the UN Security Council disbanded the Panel of Experts, an auxiliary panel to the Sanctions Committee on North Korea that monitored the enforcement of UN sanctions imposed on North Korea, due to Russia’s veto against the annual renewal of its mandate.
The council’s Resolution 1718 created the committee in 2006 soon after North Korea’s first nuclear test and, since 2009 the committee has relied on the panel for impartial and authoritative fact-finding information to ensure the implementation of the sanctions.
Although the committee would continue, and is the core of the sanctions regime, the effectiveness of the sanctions regime would be hollowed out because the panel’s impartiality and authority cannot easily be replaced by other sources of information, and the compliance of individual UN member states.
The veto marked a shift in Russia’s North Korea policy. Amid the protracted war in Ukraine, Moscow-Pyongyang relations have seen a swift formation of strategic alignment against the US-led West. In return for substantial arms transfer to Moscow, such as cannon shells and ballistic missiles, Pyongyang is receiving benefits from Russia in the form of food and oil assistance, and military technology transfers.
Needless to say, this contravenes legally binding UN sanctions against Pyongyang, which Moscow agreed to, or at least it did not veto. In principle, the council could seek to impose economic and military sanctions on Russia, but in practice, Moscow could just sanction any proposal brought to the Council.
It appears that Moscow is purposely disrupting the UN-centered international legal order.
Moscow is now seen as a revisionist power intent on overthrowing the order, especially from the perspective of liberal democracies where the domestic rule of law is firmly established.
Yet no international order is politically neutral, as orders are built on the “status quo” characterized by the values and interests of the great powers who shape and form that order.
This is inevitable given the anarchical nature of international relations, where interests and power sometimes play a more decisive role than values, especially when a particular basic value or interest is not shared or only loosely shared among great powers.
The UN was constructed upon a military alliance formed during World War II. As a result, the UN Charter gives a veto in the Security Council to the Permanent Five (P5) victorious allied powers, reflecting their realpolitik interests and power relations at the time of its establishment.
This means that the council can only function well when the P5, particularly the US, Russia and China, see no serious challenge to their values, interests and power. Thus, it is imperative that a good balance be struck between the three great powers in international relations by continually making compromises among the P5. Pushing hard on one particular factor against the other two would only impair the council’s function.
Unfortunately, the West committed a fatal mistake in prioritizing liberal-democratic enlargement through NATO’s eastward expansion, especially to Ukraine. The priority might be politically correct, but it substantially challenged Russia’s interests and power and weakened the basis of the UN-centered international legal order for peace and security.
Thus, the ongoing protracted war in Ukraine as a de facto “surrogate war” between the US-led West and Russia is a natural consequence, at least in causation, but not in jus ad bellum, on the former’s breach of the realpolitik modus operandi, followed tit-for-tat by the latter’s reaction in the form of determined armed invasion of Ukraine.
Power struggles are commonplace in international relations, and there is nothing wrong with the US-led West’s politico-strategic offensives against Russia.
However, the West’s serious lack of prudence is evident as demonstrated by the evolving circumstances, both within and without Ukraine, such as Russia’s operational superiority in land warfare, the strong negative boomerang effect of the West’s economic sanctions against Russia, the West’s fatigue in continuing arms transfer and economic aid to Ukraine, the Russia-China strategic alignment and the West’s growing isolation from major Global South countries, all of which might accelerate the relative decline of the West in world politics.
Hence, the recent developments in North Korean affairs are merely epiphenomenal to the US’ relative decline as a result of its confrontation with Russia centered on the war in Ukraine.
With the UN sanctions regime hollowing out, Pyongyang is moving out of international isolation, and might find greater diplomatic and international economic opportunities with Russia and from many Global South countries. It could rise as a political-military middle power, particularly if it completes limited, but significant nuclear weapons development.
As a result, Japan as a frontline liberal-democratic state would face three nuclear-armed neighbors: Russia, China and North Korea.
The limited war in Ukraine has brought repercussions in Northeast Asia and might generate severe adverse regional ramifications for great power relations.
Japan and major European powers must enhance their solidarity and cooperation in international security while diplomatically striving to put an end to the war in Ukraine.
Masahiro Matsumura is a professor of international politics and national security at St. Andrew’s University in Osaka, Japan, and a 2024 ROC-MOFA Taiwan Fellow-in-Residence at NCCU-IIR Taiwan Center for Security Studies.
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