Expansion of Wars, Convergence of Battlefronts, and the Imminent Eastern European War
Stephen Cho | Coordinator of the Korean International Forum
The expansion of wars and the convergence of battlefronts are accelerating. The West Asian and Ukrainian wars are expanding, with an increasing possibility of the Ukrainian war escalating into an Eastern European war. The West Asian and Ukrainian wars are converging and the likelihood of European NATO involvement in the West Asian war is rising. Military tensions in East Asia are also escalating rapidly. The potential convergence of the war in Ukraine with the East Asian war, as well as that of the West Asian war with the East Asian war, is also growing.
US imperialism is being defeated in the West Asian war centered around the war in Iran. US military bases not only in the Gulf states of West Asia, but also in Saudi Arabia and Jordan, have been mostly destroyed, along with numerous aircraft, including aerial refueling tankers. This is precisely why US imperialism and Israeli Zionists have recently been unable to carry out aerial bombardment of Iran. The sheer power of Iran’s combined strikes using ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones has been fully demonstrated. Iran’s Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) policy has, in effect, been realized.
Iran has driven recent changes in the situation in the Red Sea by concentrating the support capabilities on Ansar Allah forces. Even without a full-scale assault from Iran, Saudi Arabia is facing a critical crisis solely due to attacks by Ansar Allah forces in southern Yemen and Shia militias in northern Iraq. In September, Ansar Allah forces in Yemen drove out government forces from key strategic positions near the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, thereby gaining full control over the area. This signifies that the West Asian war has expanded from the Persian Gulf into the Red Sea. As Saudi Arabia’s Aramco oil refining facilities and part of its pipelines were destroyed, oil prices surpassed $100 a barrel.
Trump rejected Mohammed bin Salman’s request for strikes against Ansar Allah. In reality, the USA lacks the weapons to attack Ansar Allah forces. This is the fundamental reason why the USA agreed with Ansar Allah forces that they would not attack each other. While Saudi Arabia attempts to navigate this crisis through a Mecca Joint Defense Agreement with Pakistan and Türkiye, the likelihood of full-scale military intervention by Pakistan and Türkiye remains low, given the strategic alliance between Ansar Allah and Iran. BRICS and the SCO are the strategic organizations of the anti-imperialist camp countering the G7 and NATO of the imperialist camp. At the SCO summit held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in late August and early September, Pakistan participated as a full member alongside Iran, while Türkiye participated as a partner.
US imperialism has depleted most of its advanced conventional weaponry through NATO’s war in Ukraine, the Israeli Zionists’ wars in Palestine and Lebanon, and its own war with Iran. It will take several years just to expand these production lines, which have been scaled back for a long time, to the necessary capacity. Crucially, China holds a monopoly of more than 90% on the supply of rare earth elements required for high-performance permanent magnets (NdFeB), which are essential for controlling advanced weaponry. Even with extraordinary levels of investments, it would take 10 to 15 years for the USA to replace Chinese rare earth magnets in its advanced weapon supply chains with domestic and allied sourcing. This is why the US government remains on the defensive against China, even while waging a tariff war against the world.
It has become even clearer that NATO cannot defeat Russia in the war in Ukraine. NATO’s objective is to exhaust Russia’s national power through a proxy war fronted by Ukrainian neo-Nazis, while accelerating the full-scale escalation of World War 3 by raising the possibility of expanding the Ukrainian war into an Eastern European war and combining it with a West Asian war. To this end, drone weapons, whose effectiveness has been proven in modern warfare, are being utilized to the maximum.
On the occasion of the NATO Defence Ministers’ meeting in Brussels in June, the UK Ministry of Defence officially announced a new large-scale military package. This includes a plan to supply 150,000 drones, linked with local production in Ukraine. On the final day of Russia’s general elections in September, Ukraine launched a large-scale drone attack. Although drones may not alter the outcome of the war or its overall course, they can demonstrate that Ukrainian neo-Nazis remain active and, they can threaten Russia’s “red lines.”
In July, Ukraine attacked an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea. The Ukrainian drone strike caused an explosion aboard the ship, resulting in casualties. This served as a symbolic event showing that the Ukrainian and West Asian wars have become linked as a single theater. Although it has been temporarily defused, it could recur at any time.
In August, when Bulgaria approved the deployment of US aerial refueling tankers to its air force bases, Iran strongly condemned it. Subsequently, Iran warned that if US imperialism were to launch large-scale air strikes against Iran, it would retaliate by striking NATO bases in Bulgaria and Cyprus. The growing possibility of direct warfare between Iran and European NATO comes as no surprise.
In September, Russia bombed a train passing through the Ukrainian region near the Polish border. On board this train were a former British prime minister, a former Swedish prime minister, and a former US CIA director who were returning from a strategic conference in Kiev. The following day, in international waters off Denmark, a Russian naval vessel fired two warning flares at a Danish helicopter conducting surveillance. The day after that, a drone suspected to be Russian was shot down over Lithuanian airspace by NATO air defense. Russia and NATO are now in a highly volatile situation on the brink of war.
In the same month, the Lithuanian parliament was pursuing constitutional amendments to legalize the deployment of nuclear weapons. The Finnish parliament had already passed legislation in June rescinding its ban on the introduction and deployment of nuclear weapons, fully integrating the country into NATO’s nuclear sharing system. The deployment of NATO tactical nuclear weapons in close proximity to Russia—such as in Finland and Lithuania—represents a decisive provocation against Russia’s “strategic patience.”
In mid-August, Vladimir Putin visited the Kuril Islands, followed immediately by Russian missile test launch exercises in the region. This was a countermeasure against Japan’s first Tomahawk test firing from an Aegis destroyer in late July and US imperialism’s plans to deploy intermediate-range tactical nuclear missiles in East Asia. This reads as a concrete sign that the Eastern European war and the East Asian war are imminent, and that the possibility of their convergence has grown.
Russia, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and China are the most powerful and representative anti-imperialist states. During World War 2, the Soviet Union and the communist forces of Korea and China fought together against Japanese fascism. During the Korean War, China entered the war, and the Soviet Union provided weapons and other forms of support. The DPRK and Russia fought together in the Kursk liberation battle. In the great confrontation between the anti-imperialist camp and the imperialist camp, the Eastern European war and the East Asian war constitute a single, closely interconnected battlefield.
The decline of the USA and other G7 countries is accelerating in proportion to the rapid growth of China and other BRICS countries. The hegemony of the imperialist camp is weakening rapidly, and all the wars and covert operations currently pursued by imperialism stem from efforts to preserve at least part of that hegemony. The war in Iran is simultaneously deepening divisions within the imperialist camp and strengthening unity within the anti-imperialist camp. The anti-imperialist camp is pursuing strategies aimed at further deepening divisions within the imperialist camp, with China at the center of these efforts.
The one-year postponement of the trade war agreed upon by the Chinese and US leaders at APEC summit in the ‘Republic of Korea (ROK)’ last November was extended by another two months to January next year, through the Beijing summit in May and the Washington summit in September. The key issues between the two countries were postponed to the China-US summits to be held in Shenzhen, China, in November and in Miami, USA, in December after the US midterm elections. This time as well, the Chinese and US leaders each emphasized “tremendous progress” and “pursuing constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability.” This has been a consistent trend between the two leaders since the Beijing summit.
Meanwhile, in the current war situation, the deployment of intermediate-range tactical nuclear missiles is, in a word, a provocative trigger for war. The decisive factor leading to the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in Eastern Europe was the attempt by the USA and other NATO members to integrate Ukraine into NATO as a precondition to deploy intermediate-range tactical nuclear missiles there. Russia’s “Special Military Operation” in February 2022 occurred after the USA suddenly withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021, CIA Director William Burns visited Russia in November, discussions over Ukraine’s NATO membership became increasingly frequent, and the Ukrainian neo-Nazi armed forces’ “plan for a full-scale invasion of the Donbas in March” was confirmed.
The UK’s efforts to goad Ukrainian neo-Nazis through large-scale military support and thereby drive a war of attrition against Russia evoke the “Great Game” between Russia and the UK in the early 20th century. The “Cold War” after World War 2 can likewise be viewed as a “New Great Game” between the Soviet Union and the USA. It is no coincidence that, in the 21st century, the Western imperialist powers, including the USA, have sought to isolate, divide, and dismantle Russia and China under the names of the “Eurasian encirclement strategy” and the “Asia-Pacific strategy.”
Facing a crisis caused by the rapid depletion of advanced conventional weapons, the USA is operationally considering the deployment of those very hazardous intermediate-range tactical nuclear missiles in East Asia. The danger has doubled through Japan’s first Tomahawk test launch. In East Asia, an “Asian version of NATO” comprising the USA, Japan, and the ‘ROK’ has been established, and aggressive joint military exercises such as “Freedom Edge” are being expanded every year and being carried out without exception. This year, the DPRK commissioned the Choe Hyon and Kang Kon, the world’s first advanced destroyers capable of launching tactical nuclear cruise missiles, into the West Sea and East Sea, respectively. The commissioning ceremony for the Kang Kon was held on September 6, the day before Freedom Edge began, with Chairman Kim Jong Un in attendance.
Under its “New Cold War” strategy, the imperialist camp is seeking to provoke World War 3 in order to frame Russia and China, alongside the DPRK and Iran, as a “New Axis of Evil.” What is needed for its full-scale escalation is a war in Eastern Europe and a war in East Asia, both of which are now within sight. Just as a war in the ‘ROK’ and a war in Taiwan are linked, the Eastern European war and the East Asian war are closely interconnected. The current situation is such that if a war breaks out in one theater, a war in the other is bound to break out almost automatically. The imperialist camp is aiming for an Eastern European war in the second half of 2026 to replace the East Asian war that failed to materialize in the second half of 2024. As the imperialist camp’s war offensive intensifies, the expansion of the wars and the convergence of battlefronts are accelerating. The world is now witnessing the imminent Eastern European war.
