The Trump administration launched its Nationwide Safety Technique (NSS) in early December 2025, outlining the US’ “America First” overseas coverage goals. This coverage formulation seems to point the Indo-Pacific area will take a back-seat to areas nearer to house, akin to Latin America and the Caribbean (LATAM). Underscoring this strategic refocus is Washington’s January 4, 2026 army operation in Venezuela to seize Nicolas Maduro as a part of operations to allegedly fight drug trafficking issues emanating from the nation.
Nonetheless, the White Home’s obvious revival of the Monroe (or “Donroe”) Doctrine and subsequent aggressive engagement units a harmful precedent. Certainly, actors that the White Home views as adversaries may heighten their army capabilities to keep away from changing into the following Venezuela. It’s via this strategic lens that the omission of the Democratic Individuals’s Republic of Korea (North Korea or DPRK) from the most recent NSS creates a strategic blind spot for the White Home.
Regardless of its moniker because the “hermit kingdom,” North Korea is and at all times has been an energetic participant within the worldwide group, albeit not essentially throughout the Western hegemonic order. Pyongyang’s propensity for supporting anti-West forces will be seen most just lately and most vividly via its ongoing assist of Russia within the Ukraine battle, offering each weapons and troops. As different non-US-aligned international locations probably put together towards a extra aggressive US overseas coverage, Pyongyang may turn out to be a extra enticing army and financial companion for different international locations, together with these in Latin America or the Center East. This creates a heightened threat that Washington’s blind spot will depart it unprepared for potential provocations linked to DPRK-led arms proliferation.
To arrange for these situations, it’s important to look at each North Korea’s historical past of supporting anti-Western actors and why the US NSS creates fertile floor for Pyongyang to revenue from it. By doing so, Western policymakers and intelligence and safety companies will be capable to preserve a extra proactive method to threats prone to emerge from North Korea’s shifting place throughout the worldwide group.
Historic Precedent of North Korea’s Arms Trafficking Exercise
A typical false impression is that North Korea is an isolationist nation that doesn’t actively have interaction politically or economically with different international locations outdoors of its two most distinguished allies, China and Russia. In actuality, Pyongyang has a strong overseas coverage and an extended historical past of illicit arms trafficking, which has introduced a constant world menace to the West and its allies.
Pyongyang’s arms trafficking and army assist exercise dates again to the Chilly Conflict via its “guerrilla internationalism” technique. As part of this technique, the DPRK “dedicated to the ethos of guerrilla preventing and helping non-state actors in their very own struggles for sovereignty and independence” by offering coaching and army gear to anti-colonial forces. With this as the main target, every North Korean chief employed a model of the technique to capitalize on the geopolitical triggers of their period, offering army assist in trade for ideological causes and, later, financial advantages. The army help to Russia is simply the most recent and most pronounced instance.
Kim Il Sung Period
Underneath Kim Il Sung, the nation leveraged its experiences preventing Japan’s imperialist marketing campaign to tell its overseas coverage, devoting a “massive variety of assets to aiding guerrilla fighters” in areas akin to Latin America, Africa, and Asia. For instance, in 1966, a Tricontinental Convention introduced collectively “83 non-aligned leftist international locations” in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and led to the settlement that nations within the World South may intervene within the “inside affairs of different international locations” to additional anti-imperialist causes.[1] This created the platform via which Kim Il-sung’s DPRK may develop its affect by way of its illicit items and companies.
Based mostly on this 1966 settlement, the DPRK, for instance, supported the Sri Lankan Individuals’s Liberation Entrance, which used Pyongyang’s cash, arms, and explosives to unsuccessfully overthrow Colombo in April 1971.[2] Nonetheless, after the collapse of the Communist Bloc and the loss of life of Kim Il Sung within the Nineteen Nineties, the DPRK shifted its focus underneath the DPRK’s second chief, Kim Jong Il.
Kim Jong Il Period
In distinction to his father, Kim Jong Il solely selectively aided “teams with self-determination goals,” such because the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and the Moro Islamic Liberation Entrance (MILF) within the Philippines. The rationale for this shift was the collapse of the Communist Bloc and China’s opening to the West within the Eighties-Nineteen Nineties, which left a major diplomatic and financial void for the DPRK. As such, the funds raised via this additional privatization of the “guerrilla internationalism” idea sought not solely to fill Pyongyang’s coffers but additionally to safe new strategic allies.
In response to former US Protection Intelligence Company Officer Bruce E. Bechtol Jr., Kim was “keen and in a position to assist any non-state actor that chooses to have interaction in terrorism – that’s, so long as it might pay.”[3] As such, beforehand unsupported (non) state actors akin to Islamic extremist teams obtained assist from North Korea. For instance, MILF and Pyongyang allegedly signed an arms settlement in 1999 value an estimated USD 2.2 million in line with confiscated MILF paperwork. Equally, the DPRK supplied Iran with gear akin to Scud-B missiles, anti-tank weapons, and small arms throughout the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq Conflict.
Kim Jong Un Period
The pattern of illicit arms trafficking additional modified after Kim Jong Un took over following his father’s loss of life in 2011. For instance, the implementation of a extreme sanction regime towards North Korea for its nuclear and ballistic missile program within the 2000s made it a much less enticing buying and selling companion for non-state actors who had been looking for recognition and legitimacy on the worldwide stage, with Hezbollah or the Houthis as notable exceptions.[4]
As well as, the diversification of the North’s illicit operations, finally together with cybercrime, made assist of guerrilla internationalism much less enticing, or needed throughout the first decade of Kim Jong Un’s rule. In response to Chainalysis’s December 2025 report, for example, North Korean hackers have stolen a complete of USD 2.02 billion in cryptocurrency in 2025 alone. The profitable nature of any such exercise has largely supplanted a number of of the opposite illicit actions, which elicited important ire from each its allies and the worldwide group.
The Affect of the Russia-DPRK Partnership on Pyongyang’s Arms Trafficking
Whereas the aforementioned army assist developments held true all through the pre-COVID interval of Kim Jong Un’s regime, the extreme financial decline within the DPRK throughout the COVID-19 pandemic altered the nation’s stance. In response to Statistics Korea’s 2023 report, North Korea’s economic system contracted by roughly 5% over the primary three years of the pandemic. This contraction was largely on account of Pyongyang’s stringent COVID-19 insurance policies, which closed its borders to all international locations, together with its most necessary financial buying and selling companions, akin to China and Russia, to stop the unfold of the virus.
Nonetheless, the DPRK’s fortunes modified on 24 February 2022 when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since 2023, Western and South Korean intelligence companies allege North Korea has supplied Russia with important army assist, together with 14,000 to fifteen,000 troops, greater than 12 million artillery shells, and greater than 120 a number of launch rocket programs. In trade, not solely did Russia present North Korea with “data and means to modernize its army capabilities”, however additionally they supplied much-needed financial reduction.
Implications and Dangers
The Friedrich Naumann Basis for Freedom’s Korea Workplace reported in September 2025 that North Korea has despatched an estimated USD 10 billion value of weapons and troops to Russia. Nonetheless, they’ve solely obtained an estimated USD 1.2 billion in direct compensation from Mocow.[5] Regardless of this comparatively restricted financial compensation, earlier Kim regimes held the view that “civil wars and conflicts opened areas for Pyongyang to promote weapons and enhance their very own army techniques and capabilities.” If that is any indication of how DPRK might assess new alternatives going ahead, America’s shifting overseas coverage priorities create circumstances ripe for Pyongyang to revenue farther from its now battlefield-tested arms. These embody:
- Potential entry to areas “the place it [Moscow] holds sway and arms embargo enforcement is weak,” akin to Syria, Libya, Sudan, the Sahel, Cuba, and Nicaragua; and
- A dwell gross sales pitch of the effectiveness and robustness of its army gear to (non) state actors within the international locations being newly focused by the Trump administration.
For instance, throughout the operation towards Maduro, Venezuela’s Russian and Chinese language-built air protection programs had been allegedly unable to shoot down a single US plane. As such, present and potential consumers of Russian and Chinese language army gear might reassess their partnerships going ahead and select to diversify their procurement provide chains to incorporate different suppliers, akin to North Korea.
Certainly, North Korea’s obvious willingness to supply arms for both non-monetary means or at under market value, even when decrease high quality, could also be particularly interesting to actors who’re economically restricted and wish to increase their resilience to US army operations. Furthermore, Kim Jong Un indicated all through 2025 that he needs to enhance not solely typical weapons manufacturing but additionally weapons for future battlefields. This may doubtless sign to potential consumers that North Korea will stay related as an arms provider for the foreseeable future, adapting to fashionable strategies and desires.
Lastly, the omission of the DPRK and any reference to denuclearization from the US NSS means that Washington could also be looking for to extend its probabilities of reaching diplomatic headway with Pyongyang within the coming years. US President Trump has repeatedly indicated his eagerness to fulfill with North Korean chief Kim Jong Un with out preconditions. If Trump’s actions in direction of Putin will be taken as a baseline, this “dealmaking” fashion of diplomacy within the North Korean case may entail “ignoring” sure inflammatory habits from Pyongyang for the sake of the deal.
Ought to sanctions reduction or weaker sanctions enforcement be a part of any future US-DPRK preparations, this might entice actors beforehand reluctant to purchase from North Korea again into the fold, together with those that are in or may come into direct army battle with the US. This situation can be notably troublesome if North Korean army gear was discovered to assist deter a US operation and/or resulted within the deaths of US troopers, which may result in Trump reviving his “fireplace and fury” angle in direction of North Korea.
Conclusion
Contemplating these components, the continued reordering of US overseas coverage priorities might be monitored carefully not solely in international locations coming into America’s crosshairs, but additionally in international locations like North Korea, which now stand to realize—each politically and economically—from rising geopolitical uncertainties.
A decreased give attention to North Korea as a central US menace amid weakening worldwide regulation and norms—and total weaker sanctions enforcement—creates circumstances for Pyongyang’s enchantment in its place companion for arms and army provides to develop, notably in areas more and more focused by Washington, such because the World South. The prospects of North Korean army gear or troopers getting used to undermine future US army operations shouldn’t be taken evenly. Due to this fact, whereas North Korea’s nuclear program will not be certainly one of America’s high threats or priorities proper now, its illicit actions nonetheless pose a formidable cross-regional menace that wants sustained consideration to deal with.
