The new Comprehensive Strategic Partnership indicates a reappraisal of Russia’s long term national interests by Putin in the wake of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. It demonstrates an acceptance of geopolitical instability as a necessary precondition for breaking the existing international order. This entails a pivot toward deepening military cooperation with fellow pariah states, and a willingness to support some nuclear proliferation as a means of establishing alternative poles of geopolitical power that are unassailable by the West. It is also, however less obviously, a strategy for balancing against Chinese power which may rise up to fill any void in global leadership.
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/putin-and-kims-comprehensive-strategic-partnership-alignment-against-west-hedge-against
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The new Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with North Korea indicates a reappraisal of Russia’s long term national interests by Putin in the wake of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. It demonstrates an acceptance of geopolitical instability as a necessary precondition for breaking the existing international order. This entails a pivot toward deepening military cooperation with fellow pariah states, and a willingness to support some nuclear proliferation as a means of establishing alternative poles of geopolitical power that are unassailable by the West. It is also, however less obviously, a strategy for balancing against Chinese power which may rise up to fill any void in global leadership.