Pyongyang has also aggressively expanded its global military footprint following its June 2024 comprehensive strategic partnership with Moscow, dispatching more than 14,000 North Korean troops, artillery ammunition, and ballistic missiles to support Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. (Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that Kim is preparing to deploy 30,000 more.)
Trump’s criticism of South Korea for declining to help “denuclearize” Iran also sits uneasily alongside North Korea’s longstanding role in the development of Tehran’s strategic weapons programs. From a counter-proliferation perspective, North Korea presents a distinct challenge: unlike Iran, it already possesses an operational nuclear arsenal and has an extensive history of transferring missile and military technology abroad.
“The North Koreans provided Iran with technical assistance, building turnkey factories, technology design, production capabilities, tactics—those kinds of things,” says Daniel Pinkston, an international relations expert at Troy University in Seoul. “Technological agreements and high-level scientific visits go back years.”
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