Stephan Ossenkopp, researcher, Schiller Institute

The 16th BRICS Summit in the Russian city of Kazan represents a historic milestone. With more than 200 events in the run-up to the summit, Russia as host has paved the way for the new BRICS leaders to spearhead the creation of a multipolar, equitable world order. The four new members – Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Ethiopia – come from the strategic land bridge between Asia, the Arabian Peninsula and Africa. Saudi Arabia will also join. They all contribute significant potential in terms of energy and other resources. Economic growth has shifted even more towards the BRICS countries. At a meeting of BRICS finance ministers a few days ago, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that the BRICS countries’ annual economic growth rate of 4.4 per cent was well above the world average of 3.2 per cent, while the G7 was lagging far behind at 1.7 per cent.

At least 30 other states are expected to join and participate in some form of BRICS activities. Countries such as Belarus, Cuba, Malaysia, Azerbaijan and many others have already applied for membership. Even Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will attend the summit, even though Turkey is a NATO member and has close trade relations with the European Union. Interest is high for a number of reasons. The US, and increasingly the EU, is widely perceived as a country whose economic, financial and political systems have failed. It is unable to cope with the speculative excesses of Wall Street and can no longer control its own public debt. It also risks a direct confrontation with nuclear power Russia and supports Israel’s brutal actions in the Middle East. It is therefore clear to the majority of the world community that BRICS is the rising star of a new world order, while parts of the West are trying to fight it with all the means at their disposal.

These means include sanctions, trade wars and decoupling. It is in this area that the BRICS will discuss a package of solutions at the summit, which should ultimately lead to the creation of a new financial system. A BRICS expert group, as well as BRICS finance ministers and central bank governors, have already put forward proposals. The first goal is to create a cross-border payment system that bypasses the dollar and is faster and cheaper than the Western-dominated Swift system. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the creation of such a payment system a top priority. Economists such as Jeffrey Sachs, Paulo Batista and Sergei Glazyev have gone a step further. They are calling for the creation of a digital clearing currency for intra-BRICS trade.

This would allow all BRICS countries to continue using their national currencies, but still be able to settle international accounts. Experts are convinced that the Western financial system is unreformable. The reputation of the dollar as a reserve currency has deteriorated. Institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have degenerated into instruments for maintaining American hegemony. That is why the BRICS economists are calling for the creation of a BRICS reserve currency. Even if the host, President Putin, wants to proceed more cautiously and gradually in this area, the expectations of the developing countries, which have been plagued by sanctions and the neo-colonial methods of the Western-dominated system, are very high that the BRICS will create a new, fair and decentralised financial system. At the same time, the Russian president has announced that the BRICS-owned New Development Bank (NDB) will be expanded into a new multilateral institution. The share of local currencies will increase and the dollar will be increasingly marginalised. At the same time, more loans and private investment will be mobilised for large technology and infrastructure projects in the global south.

This year’s BRICS Summit can and must give voice to the global majority. The world is undergoing such gigantic tectonic shifts that the role of the US, but also that of the European colonial powers of the last five centuries, is dwindling due to their own arrogance. The policy of this hegemon towards the countries of the southern hemisphere, but also towards Russia, China, Iran, the Middle East, etc., has proved intolerable. The majority of the world’s population does not want to be dragged back into the straitjacket of a cold or even hot war, in which they will once again be the victims and bear the massive damage.

If the eagerly awaited BRICS summit can find a way to open the door to all these countries, to include and integrate them, then the shift from the transatlantic to the Asia-Pacific, with a non-aligned global South, will have been completed. The changes that are taking place are of historic proportions. By comparison, even the US elections are of limited significance. Many recognise that neither party, Democrat or Republican, has the answers to the needs and imperatives of the global community. The big question is whether the US and its NATO satellites will start a war whose consequences could be fatal for the entire planet. But this is not inevitable if the BRICS dynamic is gradually accepted in the transatlantic states as well. The realisation must prevail: BRICS is not a hostile military alliance, but a multipolar community of shared destiny based on development and progress. As the Russian President told the representatives of the BRICS media groups: “We are not turning anyone away; the door is open to everyone.”

On 17 October, the Yonhap news agency confirmed through North Korean media that the Supreme People’s Assembly, North Korea’s legislature, had amended the constitution 10 days earlier to explicitly define South Korea as an ‘enemy country’. Over the past week, North Korea has taken a series of high-profile actions to demonstrate its strength to South Korea. At noon on the 15th, North Korea blew up the military demarcation line between the two countries north of the Gyeonggi Line, the Donghae section of the inter-regional highway, cutting off both sides of the road. In response, South Korea conducted a symbolic ‘counter-fire’ on its side of the demarcation line, firing German-made Taurus cruise missiles capable of penetrating the ground for the first time in seven years.

North Korea accused the South Korean military of using drones to enter its airspace and even infiltrated the capital Pyongyang on the 3rd, 9th and 10th of the month to distribute anti-North Korean leaflets. Although the South Korean military has denied any involvement, observers believe this is the ‘drone version’ of the two sides’ past psychological warfare, which has evolved from the traditional methods of loudspeakers and air-dropped balloons. Given the widespread use of drones in modern warfare and the reality of multiple battlefields, it is clear that North Korea’s harsh response is not an act of grandstanding, but rather a ‘might makes right in the face of strength’ approach to express itself more forcefully.

On 9 October, North Korea appointed a new defence minister and agreed to test-fire 240 mm guided rocket artillery shells with a maximum range of 67 km to hit the target that would completely cover the South Korean capital Seoul, about 50 km from the 38th parallel, in the event of a war between North and South. On 11 October, the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) issued an operational readiness directive, ordering the joint artillery units in the border area and the units carrying out important fire attack missions to go into a state of full fire readiness. On the 11th, the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) issued a combat readiness directive, ordering the joint artillery units in the border areas and the units conducting significant firepower strikes to go into a state of full fire readiness and threatening that further detection of South Korean drone strikes would be considered a ‘declaration of war’. The DPRK also announced that eight artillery brigades on the DPRK side of the 38th parallel had been placed on ‘stand-by’.

However, observers find it unusual that Russia has seized the opportunity to strengthen diplomatic interaction with the DPRK and even to consolidate joint defence commitments, promising to send troops to help the DPRK in the event of an ‘invasion’. At a delicate time when the battlefield struggle between Russia and Ukraine has entered a critical phase and Israel and Iran are preparing to ignite a war in the Middle East, the Korean peninsula, known as one of the world’s powder kegs, has once again deteriorated due to North-South relations, adding colour to the great power chess game.

The three hotspots are closely linked by a strong internal correlation and logical chain. The United States has no time to pay attention to the normalisation of US-North Korean relations, which has created an opportunity for North Korea to take advantage of the situation and try to break its isolation by trying to resume North-South Korean relations and US-North Korean relations. Russia, on the other hand, needs to further strengthen its diplomatic focus on the East. It is ready to take advantage of the situation to exert pressure on Northeast Asia and to work closely with North Korea to achieve its goal of encircling and defeating the enemy in order to diffuse and balance US and European pressure.

On 14 October, Russian President Vladimir Putin submitted to the Duma a bill on the ratification of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement between Russia and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Article 4 of the treaty states that if one of the signatory parties is attacked by force by one or more states and is in a state of war, the other party shall immediately provide military and other assistance by all available means. The alliance agreement between Russia and North Korea is a bilateral matter within the sovereign, constitutional and international law competences of the parties and in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter. However, the timing of Putin’s request is intriguing. The agreement was signed with Kim Jong-un during Putin’s visit to Pyongyang in June this year.

Putin’s submission of the Russian-North Korean alliance treaty to the National Assembly for consideration and approval, in order to make it a document with legal force and strategic deterrence, is a concrete demonstration of the close interaction and mutual cooperation between the two sides. It is difficult to say who is more active between Russia and the DPRK, or who needs whom more. In truth, this is a result of the emotional cohesion of the two ‘lone shepherds’ and their joint efforts to counter external threats. However, the bilateral strategic need to strengthen Russian-North Korean relations, especially the military alliance, is not due to a sudden change in the situation on the peninsula or the deterioration of inter-Korean relations, which prompted Vladimir Putin to legalise the agreement and send a signal to the outside world.

In June this year, the two Koreas accused each other of dumping large quantities of waste paper and soil from weather balloons. In the same month, Putin visited North Korea for the second time in 24 years and the two sides signed a military alliance agreement. However, it is difficult to say whether Putin’s failure to submit the Russian-North Korean treaty to the legislature for ratification in time for his return was due to the fact that the relevant procedures needed more time, or whether the Kremlin deliberately waited to see what would happen. In any case, it is clearly unusual for Putin to take such a critical step at a time when inter-Korean relations have suddenly thawed.

In fact, the key turning point in this period of deteriorating inter-Korean relations came on 30 December 2023. On that day, Kim Jong-un pointed out at a Workers’ Party meeting that the inter-Korean relationship was not an inter-Korean relationship, but a hostile wartime relationship, and proposed to completely cut off bilateral land transport links. Based on the latest and highest definition of bilateral relations, the DPRK Supreme People’s Assembly decided in January this year to dissolve the long-standing ‘Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland’, the ‘National Economic Cooperation Bureau’ and the ‘Geumgangsan International Tourism Bureau’. The DPRK National Assembly also accused South Korea of making ‘reunification through assimilation’ and ‘systemic reunification’ a national policy for nearly 80 years, which contradicts North Korea’s national policy of reunifying the country ‘on the basis of one nation, one state and two systems’. Therefore, North Korea has said that ‘national reunification can never be achieved’ in relations with the South.

The main reason for the rapid deterioration of South Korea-North Korea relations is North Korea’s deep disappointment and dissatisfaction with the inter-Korean and inter-American relations, which did not meet North Korea’s expectations and did not progress after many warm interactions in 2018, especially after the Singapore, Hanoi and Panmunjom summits. In particular, the failure of the United States to find a solution for the lifting of sanctions in exchange for Pyongyang’s denuclearisation by the end of 2019, in line with its expectations, has caused great disappointment in North Korea. The strategic trust between North Korea and the United States has long been in serious deficit, and US-North Korea relations have once again reached an impasse as party changes and domestic political struggles in the United States have come to the fore. At the same time, North Korea continues to take decisive steps towards ‘de facto nuclear armament’ and a ‘unified nuclear missile strategy’, making it impossible to lift US-led sanctions and creating a worsening, even deadly, vicious circle between the two countries.

With the Russian-Ukrainian war at a stalemate and relations between China and the United States severely strained, American attention to Northeast Asia is not possible. This situation is providing North Korea with space and diplomatic and security leverage to regain strategic favour with China and Russia. At a time when unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are at the forefront of the world’s debate on how they have ended the era of tanks and changed the course of warfare, South Korea’s unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have repeatedly entered North Korean airspace, objectively deepening North Korea’s hostile assessments and countermeasures. This situation is the unavoidable responsibility of South Korea.

Russia’s strong support for North Korea shows that, on the one hand, Russia is indeed strengthening its ‘pivot to the East’ strategy in its foreign policy and, on the other hand, it is showing a rather pronounced pragmatism and leverage thinking by treating relations with North Korea as ‘reheating the old dish’. Putin’s first visit to North Korea in 24 years clearly shows that since he came to power in 2000, his focus on relations with America, Europe and China has led him to neglect and treat Pyongyang, his former East Asian neighbour, former war buddy and old friend, coldly. Now, however, in the face of Western military, diplomatic, economic and financial pressure, he has been forced to greatly enhance North Korea’s diplomatic status and strategic role by reopening the long-closed gates of Pyongyang and signing an alliance agreement in order to gain a solid and reliable strategic backyard and establish a common eastern line in the Asia-Pacific region against the strategic dimensions of America and NATO. Similarly, Russia has fully consolidated its ‘New Era Partnership of Comprehensive Strategic Cooperation’ with China and increased its focus on Vietnam, one of its strategic partners in Southeast Asia.

The sudden warming of Russian-North Korean relations and the reaffirmation of the alliance in recent months has much to do with the fact that Japan and South Korea follow the United States and are close military allies, especially since they chose sides in the Russia-Ukraine war and are small followers of the United States, even actively seeking to join NATO and promote the ‘Asia-Pacificisation’ of the alliance. This creates a strategic constraint and threat to Russia from the Asia-Pacific region, particularly from the Far East. Moreover, since August 2023, the DPRK has provided Russia with a ‘certificate of loyalty’ by supplying more than 1 million artillery shells and missiles.

Drastic changes in the international environment, especially the prolongation of the Russia-Ukraine war and the crisis in Northeast Asia, which have not been fundamentally resolved and even the common rivals and enemies are still the same, will inevitably push the DPRK to show its goodwill to Russia in various ways, at the same time attracting Moscow’s ‘two-headed eagle’ to the Far East, especially to the US’s mortal enemy, North Korea. Of course, Russia and North Korea have renewed their honeymoon not only because of the unforgettable memories of the Cold War, but also because of the realistic need to deal with the risk of a hot war and to jointly reconstruct the world and regional order in accordance with their respective goals. In a way, this situation is particularly dangerous because it resembles the international strategic environment before the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, the dynamics of the great power game and the internal conflicts on the Korean Peninsula.

At a time of renewed tensions on the Korean peninsula, with Russia and North Korea forming a close alliance, China launching large-scale military exercises to encircle Taiwan, and maritime police patrolling around the island for the first time, the premiere of the major television drama *’Shangganling’ on CCTV-1 on 16 October inevitably raised many associations for some observers. But this is purely coincidental. None of the world’s three major hotspots were triggered by China, nor did China play a leading role; on the contrary, China has always hoped for and advocated an immediate end to these conflicts.

History is always similar and often repeats itself, but as the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus warned, ‘you cannot bathe in the same river twice’. The relations between China and Russia have reached their best level in history, China and North Korea have renewed their friendship and mutual assistance agreements. On the other hand, China and the US have once again entered a period of serious friction and confrontation. However, unless the US invades North Korea again and threatens China’s core interests, it is impossible for China, Russia and North Korea to return to the same trenches as during the Cold War. Therefore, no matter how close relations between Russia and North Korea become, this will not lead to a return to the old path of military antagonism between China and the US and the Western camp.

The continuous broadcasting of Chinese television dramas about the Korean War and the strong conflicts and frictions that Russia and North Korea have with the United States are two different things. The fact that China has crossed a forbidden zone with its television dramas and presented a series of productions on the Korean War basically expresses the determination of the Chinese government and people to stand up against tyranny and oppression. This sends a message to American policymakers that they should not repeat the mistakes of the Korean War and return Sino-US relations to the bloody and dark past.

*Battle on Shangganling Mountain is a protracted military engagement during the Korean War, during which China fought to resist US aggression and aid Korea (1950-53).

Prof. Ma is the Dean of the Institute of Mediterranean Studies (ISMR) at Zhejiang International Studies University in Hangzhou. He specializes in international politics, particularly Islam and Middle Eastern affairs. He previously worked as a senior Xinhua correspondent in Kuwait, Palestine, and Iraq.

On the first anniversary of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, the possibility of a direct confrontation between Iran and Israel is now on the world’s agenda. Israel’s attack on Lebanon, the escalation of Netanyahu’s inhumane activities and Israel’s destructive actions in Lebanon have become a new page of events in the Middle East over the past year, and we still see Israel’s war machine advancing on this battlefield. However, the Iranian issue could lead to a new type of conflict, and the regional and global implications of this war will be profound.

One year after Israel’s attack on Gaza and the historic genocide, and with the war spilling over into Lebanon – aimed at destroying the Lebanese Hezbollah, one of Iran’s main allies in the Middle East – what is the analytical situation in Iran, and how do ordinary citizens and public opinion assess the situation?

Ordinary citizens are worried, but united against the external enemy

Iran has gone through a difficult social, economic and political period in recent years. The events surrounding the rise in petrol prices, which led to violent demonstrations in some cities, and the events that followed with the death of Mahsa Amini are considered to be one of the most important turning points in Iran’s social history in recent years. The sudden and suspicious death of President Ebrahim Raisi and the sudden change in the ruling wing were also among the issues that preoccupied Iranian society last year. In addition to these events, chronic inflation and economic stagnation, the continuous devaluation of the national currency, rising prices and falling incomes are among the deep crises in Iran’s social environment. Growing income inequality, rising unemployment and dwindling hopes for a better quality of life in the future have placed a heavy psychological burden on Iranian society. In such an environment, the prospect of war looming over the country seems alarming at first glance. When the threat of war is added to the existing economic and social crises, it can be expected that these crises will deepen or that social conflicts will erupt in the country. Based on this analysis, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the Iranian people in a video message in recent weeks, trying to put psychological pressure on society and the government by drawing attention to the current problems in Iran.

Contrary to this initial perception, however, it is clear from the wider Iranian society and people’s reactions on social media that the sense of national consensus and unity has increased across the country as the war approaches. The attendance of millions of Tehranis at Friday prayers, where Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei delivered a sermon after a four-year hiatus, is a clear indication of this sense of national unity. The missile attacks on Israel by the Iranian armed forces and their reverberations around the world have both increased the Iranian people’s sense of national pride and honor and reduced their worries about how their state would respond to a possible attack by Israel.

Israel’s inhumane behavior in Gaza and Lebanon has also drastically changed the Iranian public’s view of the war. Compared to a year ago, Israel now has no credibility among the Iranian people, and they have developed a sense of disgust at the atrocities committed by Israeli forces in Gaza and Lebanon. This disgust manifests itself in the form of support for the Iranian state in any action against Israel. The last time the Iranian people experienced this disgust and support for the government was in 2014 and 2015. In those years, ISIS committed the most brutal crimes against humanity in Syria and Iraq, which led the Iranian people to support the armed forces in their cross-border operations in Iraq and Syria, making Qassem Soleimani a historic national hero for Iran. For the Iranian people today, Israel is not much different from ISIS in 2014.

One of the most important effects of the tensions between Israel and Iran has been to discredit and even destroy the opposition abroad in the eyes of the Iranian public. Over the past year, the Iranian opposition group abroad has become a supporter of Israeli crimes in Gaza and, with the escalation of tensions between Iran and Israel, a supporter of Israeli military aggression against Iran. This small but vocal group claims that the Israeli attack on Iran is actually directed against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and that this attack poses no danger to the Iranian people. With this rhetoric, this group belittles and ridicules the humanitarian feelings of the Iranian people as well as their nationalistic feelings. Therefore, one of the consequences of the year-long war in Gaza for Iran can be seen as the erosion of domestic support for the Iranian opposition abroad.

The elite community is divided: Defence or offence

The Iranian political elite, and especially the strategic analysts, have been going through turbulent times, especially in the last year and after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Iran. The current discourse among Iranian analysts can be divided into two groups: those who approach the war situation in the region from a tactical perspective and those who see the current situation as the result of some strategic actions. Both groups draw different roadmaps for the future, depending on their approach to events.

According to the pro-minimal intervention group, Iran should not fall into Israel’s trap of escalation and its responses should be calibrated so as not to lead to a direct war and serious conflict with Israel, while providing deterrence. This is because a direct conflict between Iran and Israel would trigger a war between Iran and the United States, which could create an uncertain future for the region and the country. According to this group, Iran should allow Hamas and Hezbollah to fight Israel on their own and manage the situation in such a way that the conflict eventually ends in a ceasefire. While it is possible that Iran could provide support to prevent Hezbollah’s defeat, too much support would create unnecessary costs for Iran. Moreover, this group sees the possibility of Israeli damage to Iran’s oil infrastructure and Iran’s inability to repair it in the short term due to sanctions as one of the main reasons for a minimalist approach to intervention.

On the other hand, some Iranian analysts believe that ignoring a major war in the region that could have strategic consequences and adopting a minimalist approach to the current situation is strategic blindness. According to this group, Iran is engaged in a major war, and whether or not Iran strengthens its position on the battlefield will not change the intensity of the war; it will only affect Iran’s interests.

This group argues that Iran should immediately move from a position of reacting to Israel’s military actions to a more active and entrepreneurial stance. As long as there is a constant reaction to Israel, the power to control tensions will remain in the hands of Tel Aviv and the Israelis will continue to be able to manage the field through various shocks. According to this group, Hezbollah is a strategic asset of Iran and Iran cannot and should not give up this asset. Giving up its strategic assets means cutting off its own hand and arm, and the counter-front will only stop by destroying all existential aspects of Iran.

According to these analysts, Israel has convinced America that the best way to reduce the strategic power of Russia and China is to create chaos in the Middle East, weaken Iran’s strategic power and intimidate Middle Eastern countries. America is therefore prepared to support Israel for a long time to continue this war. They argue that Iran should not wait for Israel’s actions and should prevent Israel’s next moves in advance by attacking Israel’s security and economic infrastructure. Therefore, some analysts believe that Iran is considering an attack on Jordan as an option to damage American forces in the region and Israel’s military security system.

This group of analysts believes that the transfer of the war to Iran could become an opportunity and an advantage for Iran. This is because Israel has been waging a security war against Iran for the past two decades and has carried out numerous assassinations and sabotage against Iran’s strategic installations. Iran has always been weak in this security war because of its lack of resources and technology and because it does not have the intelligence support of the Mossad. But now that the conflict has shifted from a security war to a military war, Iran has gained considerable power and initiative and should use this opportunity to pacify Israel in the future. Otherwise, Israel will compensate for its military weakness with security sabotage in the post-war period.