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<ul class="summary-list"><li>North Korea fighting alongside Russia would be a serious escalation to the Ukraine war.</li><li>NATO and Western allies are facing pressure to respond — but have historically been hesitant.</li></ul>Western allies have options to react to the threat of North Korean troops in Russia, but are hamstrung by fears of escalation, military experts told Business Insider. On Monday, the Pentagon<a target="_blank" href="https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/article/3948100/pentagon-deputy-press-secretary-sabrina-singh-holds-an-off-camera-on-the-record/"> said</a> that 10,000 North Korean troops had been shipped to Russia for training and were likely to join Russian forces"over the next several weeks." NATO chief Mark Rutte said that some troops are already in Kursk, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_230105.htm">calling</a> the move "a significant escalation." He added that it is "yet another" contravention of UN Security Council resolutions. He said the bloc is "actively consulting" on what to do next. Despite these statements — and a similar chorus of condemnation from Western governments — few commitments have been made. On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed frustration, saying that his allies' response was "not so loud as it has to be" in reaction to the North Korean threat,<a target="_blank" href="https://www.politico.eu/article/volodymyr-zelenskyy-war-in-ukraine-russia-north-korean-troops-western-allies-response/"> Politico reported</a>. "Till now, we heard some reactions, but it is not strong enough," he added. <h2>A watershed moment?</h2>In itself, 10,000 more troops in Russia's war in Ukraine is not a game changer, Patrick Bury, a military analyst at the UK's University of Bath, told BI. The troops, many with no experience in real war situations, could also be of limited help. There is reason, however, to imagine the numbers could rise. North Korea has steadily ramped up its cooperation with Russia, reportedly supplying<a target="_blank" href="https://www.thetimes.com/world/russia-ukraine-war/article/north-korea-supplies-half-of-the-shells-used-by-russia-in-ukraine-d3fkhppjs"> half of all artillery shells</a> used in Ukraine in the last year. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has the fourth-largest standing army in the world, so there is no shortage of troops. Crucially, experts consider his regime to be receiving<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/north-korea-military-officials-helping-russia-ukraine-win-for-kim-2024-10"> an economic and technological lifeline</a> in exchange. Edward Hunter Christie, a former NATO official and a research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, described the dangers of the partnership as "a much more serious test of resolve for the West than most people currently realize." He added: "There's a reluctance to act." This at least means there will be no rash decisions, he said. Christie, along with other experts BI spoke to, described a hesitancy and fear of escalation among Ukraine's biggest Western partners that amounts to alack of overall strategy. <h2>The West has some options — and a history of slapping them down</h2>When it comes to options for the US and Europe, "the tools are the same tools that have been there all along," Richard Fontaine, CEO of the Center for a New American Security,<a target="_blank" href="https://www.bloomberg.com./news/articles/2024-10-28/ukraine-allies-face-limited-options-as-north-korea-troops-arrive?embedded-checkout=true"> told Bloomberg.</a> That includes the ad-hoc trickling through of aid packages like one<a target="_blank" href="https://kyivindependent.com/norways-pm-announces-new-500-million-euro-aid-package-for-ukraine/"> recently announced by Norway</a>. It also includes things that have long been ruled out, like allowing Ukraine to make long-range strikes in Russia with Western-supplied missiles. A bipartisan group in Congress has called on Biden to allow Poland to intercept Russian missiles in Ukrainian airspace, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4960374-biden-poland-air-defense-ukraine/">The Hill reported</a>. It's a move that NATO's former chief Jens Stoltenberg had earlier ruled out, saying it would risk the alliance "becoming part of the conflict," the outlet reported. South Korea, too, has said it is considering sending military aid directly to Ukraine. It's an unprecedented move that could prove highly beneficial, but which the state is hesitant to make,<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/south-korea-ukraine-weapons-big-difference-russia-north-korea-2024-10"> experts told BI</a>. Lithuania's foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, has also revived a suggestion made in February by France's President Emmanuel Macron of not ruling out the deployment of <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/french-president-wont-rule-out-sending-troops-ukraine-2024-2">NATO troops in Ukraine</a>, in support roles. "We are still on the back foot, reacting to escalation instead of reversing it,"<a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/GLandsbergis/status/1848006509013225679"> Landsbergis wrote on X</a>. "Macron's ideas should now be revisited." That idea was earlier<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/everyone-angry-germany-series-screw-ups-leaks-scholz-macron-ukraine-2024-3"> publicly slapped down</a> by Germany's Chancellor, Olaf Scholz. Such a move "would free up a lot of resources for Ukraine," said Ann Marie Dailey, a geopolitical strategist at RAND. It would also send an important signal to Russia, she said: "That they don't have dominance on the escalation ladder." <h2>The escalation trap</h2>President Joe Biden's administration — along with much of Western Europe — has largely avoided actions that could be seen as escalating the conflict. The fact that now a serious escalation looks possible thanks to North Korea is an indication of the failure of that policy, Christie told BI. The US presidential election and the impending change of administration also puts a chilling effect on any dramatic changes in policy for the coming months, he said. "We live in an age of US-led hesitancy within the Western world, which just keeps on failing us, which just keeps on increasing the level of danger to the security of the collective West," he said. The bind for the Biden administration is not only in dealing with two nuclear states, but also that North Korea's belligerence could cause the conflict to spill over toward its southern neighbor and<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-muted-response-russia-north-korea-alliance-costly-ukraine-economy-2024-10">damage relations with China.</a> Western states are likely to have been quietly hoping that China might step in diplomatically and dissuade North Korea, Christie said. At some point, the West has to react decisively, he argued. Dailey told BI: "The problem with having a strategy of de-escalation is that if that is your stated strategy, you've already ceded every step on the escalation ladder to the enemy." In Bury's view, the West's problem is that it cannot even agree on its broader strategy, let alone decide how to implement it. "The broader point here is: the West, we're not doing the strategy," he said. "We're muddling through."

What can the West do about North Korea giving troops to Russia? Not much it hasn't already flinched from.

In the early 2000s, the business of for-profit college was booming. After the University of Phoenix's parent company, the Apollo Group, went public in 1994, others were close on its heels: Corinthian, ITT Tech, and Kaplan each had IPOs in the 1990s, netting tens of millions of dollars and setting off tremendous periods of growth.Soon, private equity firms caught wind of the opportunity. In 2003, there were just 18 for-profits owned by private equity firms; less than a decade later, that number had more than tripled, to 61. For-profit enrollments were also exploding, from a little more than 425,000 in 2000 to 1.7 million in 2012 — an increase of more than 300%. By contrast, public colleges had grown by just 31%.Increasingly the boom could be characterized as a Wall Street versus Main Street match-up. Even in the 1980s, the majority of for-profit programs were still mom-and-pop affairs: short-term certificate courses in subjects like cosmetology and truck driving. By the early years of the new millennium, students were attending Fortune 500 chain schools for full-fledged degrees in teaching, medical assisting, business, and psychology. In 2012 there were 21 publicly traded for-profit colleges, and less than a quarter of for-profit college students attended a mom-and-pop operation; the other 1.3 million went to publicly traded or private-equity-owned schools.The profits in this new world were beyond belief. One study found that the for-profit industry netted 55% profit margins between 2000 and 2012. In other words, for every dollar they took from students, 55 cents went to shareholders, with overall profits peaking in 2011 at $5 billion. Within a decade of Apollo's IPO, Phoenix's student body had grown tenfold, and thanks to students' easy federal money, the company was bringing in more than $1 billion a year.It was a win-win for just about everyone involved. The schools' profits came almost exclusively from federal grant and loan moneys. The federal government was bankrolling not only their and their investors' windfalls but also those of the financial institutions and guarantee agencies that did the lending and collecting under the Federal Family Education Loan program.But there were two groups left out of the bonanza: the public at large, whose tax dollars kept the machine running, and the students who got sacked with the bill.Then the evidence started coming in, yet again, that the for-profit corporate darlings of the '90s and aughts were no more sophisticated — certainly no more beneficial — than the shady computer schools that had preceded them. In 1970 there had been only 18,333 students enrolled at degree-granting for-profit schools, less than a quarter of a percent of the total number of college students. By 2009 there were 1.85 million — almost 10% of the total. The grift had grown a hundredfold."I had worked in the sales industry for many years," the admissions supervisor stated. "But Ashford [University] had the most aggressive sales floor I have ever seen." The supervisor's employer was putatively an accredited institution that offered a wide variety of bachelor's and advanced degrees; in reality it was effectively a money-printing operation.The school's many sordid practices were revealed in a 2017 lawsuit filed against the institution by the attorney general of California. Among them were the tales of Ashford's salespeople — aka "admissions counselors" — who made hundreds, sometimes even a thousand, cold calls a week. Still their managers berated and taunted them, forcing underperformers to stand all day, jangling keyrings with the ID cards of their fired former colleagues in their faces. Some of them cried; some had mental breakdowns; eventually most quit or were fired. Managers created "lowest performer lists" and then fired the bottom 10th of recruiters. When the salespeople did manage to land a mark, they celebrated by ringing cowbells or flapping plastic hand clappers. "The sales floor had a true boiler room atmosphere," said the supervisor, not unlike that "portrayed in the movie The Wolf of Wall Street." And if they all misled some naive fools in the process, say, a few hundred a month, well, that was just the cost of doing business. It wasn't like they were going to get fired for calling loans "grants" or promising a program would lead to high-paying jobs or guaranteeing that if things didn't work out at the school, any credits earned there would transfer elsewhere (as they almost certainly would not). One Ashford admissions counselor got 25 violations in eight months and the managers dished out only a slap on the wrist. The risk of punishment by the company's Compliance Department was low, but the reward was irresistibly high: admissions counselors got paid by the sale, and the best of them made in the six figures. Recruiters preyed on their marks' naiveté about higher education, convincing them that they couldn't receive their financial aid until well into the semester (when it would be too late to get a refund), lying about what their degrees would qualify them to do, and encouraging them to spend their federal aid funds on things like cars or expensive vacations (against federal law).Ashford University was owned by Bridgepoint Education, which was backed by Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm. And the secret to its success was a foolproof tactic that for-profit financiers had discovered for getting their business off the ground and gaining access to the all-important stream of federal aid money. The trick was to gobble up existing mom-and-pop proprietary schools — as well as small, financially struggling nonprofits — and to acquire their accreditations, assets as valuable as New York City taxi medallions.But for students, the business model was a bust — at Bridgepoint, just as at any number of for-profit giants. With only seven full-time faculty for almost 74,000 students, Bridgepoint, like many of its competitors, spent way more on recruiting than it did on instruction. And it showed: Only about a quarter of students in any given year went on to get their "diplomas" within six years (public and nonprofit schools consistently graduated about two-thirds of students in that timeframe). Those who did graduate tended to leave with a hefty amount of debt — nearly $35,000 on average. By 2017 almost 20% of alumni were unemployed, and almost half didn't do anything related to their degree.Five years after California filed suit against Ashford, a state superior court judge found that the company had engaged in widespread deception — estimating that over an 11-year period, its recruiters had spread misinformation in more than 1.2 million calls — and issued more than $22 million in penalties. (In 2024, an appeals court reduced the penalty by nearly $1 million).The beneficiaries of Bridgepoint's grift were its shareholders and managing partners. The losers were everybody else. And if theirs wasn't a particularly victimless crime, so what? Nobody cared much about students anyway. "You stop thinking of these students as people," said one recruiting manager.In 2010, Tom Harkin, chair of the Senate's education committee, began a two-year investigation into for-profit schools. Harkin's assessment of the sector was scathing. He declared for-profits expensive, exploitative, and concerned only with their own profits. "They are not focused on the success of their students," Harkin declared.A number of these schools were held by private equity firms like Goldman Sachs. In 2011, one Goldman-backed chain took in more than $350 million in Pell Grant funds and made a little more than that in profit. At a time when the federal government was refusing to help unemployed, down-on-their-luck, and defrauded borrowers, it was bailing out banks like Goldman Sachs twice over: They had already benefited from billions of dollars in Great Recession recovery funds, and now they were scooping up ill-begotten federal student aid via failing for-profit colleges. Fifteen of the schools Harkin's team investigated were publicly traded. These schools received, on average, 86% of their revenues from federal sources, right up to the line of what was legal. One of the ways they did this, Harkin found, was by recruiting veterans. In the years after World War II, legislators reinvented the GI Bill several times to reward veterans of later conflicts, like the Vietnam and Iraq wars, and to adapt to the evolving military, which had become an all-volunteer force in the 1970s. A loophole allowed them to count Defense Department moneys, including GI Bill funds, as non-federal money. In 2009, a Bloomberg News reporter uncovered a tactic used by Ashford University recruiters. They were targeting a wounded warriors unit at Camp Lejeune, signing up veterans with brain injuries who couldn't remember which classes they were taking. Each veteran was a lucrative prospect, allowing schools to gobble up yet more federal funds.And gobble they did. By 2010, Harkin found, for-profits were taking in a third of all GI Bill education funds. But even more shocking, federal money flowing to for-profit schools accounted for 25% of all federal student aid and 47% of eventual loan defaults. This, in spite of the fact that the schools enrolled little more than 10% of all American college students.So what happened to all the extra money for-profits took in? Harkin's investigation found that for-profits spent nearly a quarter of all revenues on marketing and recruiting and often paid their executives multimillion-dollar salaries, far above the average rates for public- or nonprofit-university presidents. Students' money enriched every corner of the for-profit industry except one: quality of instruction.<div type="image" title="Cover image of Burdened: Student Debt and the Making of an American Crisis by Ryann Liebenthal" height="2775" width="1838" msid="113224481" hostid="261" sizebytes="715136"></div>Economist Stephanie Riegg Cellini co-authored a sweeping study of for-profits, which found that students of for-profit certificate programs were slightly less likely to hold a job than their counterparts in public programs. In 2015, a separate study found that job applicants got just as many call-backs by listing no educational experience on their résumés as they did by listing for-profit credentials.When for-profit grads did find employment, Cellini found, they earned about a 10th less than the public program certificate holders. In fact, these for-profit students were actually worse off than if they hadn't gone to school at all. When taking into account their debt loads, for-profit graduates were projected to lose about $1,200 on their educational "investments" over the course of their lifetimes.In short, a simple equation summed up the for-profit ethos at this time: charge as much as federal student aid will supply, and cut costs to the bone. Everything in the middle could be harvested as profit. For-profit education was an industry on the dole.<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/ryann-liebenthal">Ryann Liebenthal</a> is a writer and editor living in Oakland, California, who has reported extensively on the student loan crisis. She is the author of "BURDENED: Student Debt and the Making of an American Crisis."Excerpted from the book "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/burdened-ryann-liebenthal?variant=41472117669922">BURDENED: Student Debt and the Making of an American Crisis</a>." Copyright © 2024 by Ryann Liebenthal. From Dey Street Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.

Wall Street tried getting into higher education. Disaster ensued. 

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Neither Harris nor Trump outline specific disaster-relief policies on their website.</li><li>Their records, however, offer clues into how they'd deal with natural disasters as president.</li></ul>As another <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hurricane-milton-evacuation-empty-gas-station-full-hotels-gridlock-traffic-2024-10">hurricane</a> threatens to devastate swaths of the Southeast, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are under new scrutiny about their disaster response strategies. And though neither have specifically addressed how they'd approach disaster relief on their campaign websites, their environmental records offer clues into how they might deal with similar crises in the future.When Hurricane Helene bore down on six states, and with particular force in North Carolina and Georgia, both Harris and Trump said that the focus should be on providing aid, not politics. But the storm, which has killed more than 230 people and destroyed entire towns, has already crept into the presidential race. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hurricane-helene-milton-tampa-florida-desantis-clean-disaster-dangerous-2024-10">Hurricane Milton is expected to hit Florida</a> on Wednesday night, only exacerbating the focus on environmental devastation."Disasters are always political," Thomas Birkland, a political scientist at North Carolina State University who studies the politics of national disasters, told Business Insider. He said that disaster relief is not, however, usually <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hurricane-milton-category-five-threatens-florida-fema-funding-2024-10">discussed during campaigns</a>.Timothy Kneeland, a professor at Nazareth University who studies politics and natural disasters, thinks that as hurricanes become more common, candidates should address them more explicitly."Having a short but clear statement on disasters should be part of any campaigner's policy," he wrote in a statement to BI.Both candidates have visited impacted areas, with Trump visiting Georgia on September 30 and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kamala-harris-donald-trump-crises-middle-east-strike-hurricane-election-2024-10">Harris on October 2</a>. Republicans criticized Harris for attending a fundraising event in California when Helene struck, while she maintained that politicians should stay out of the most devastated areas as first responders begin their early work.In the days since Hurricane Helene, Trump has spread misinformation about the storm and response efforts, prompting the Federal Emergency Management Agency to publish a fact-checking page. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hurricane-helene-relief-disinformation-misinformation-north-carolina-democrats-republicans-2024-10">Democrats and Republicans alike</a> say that the baseless claims are complicating <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-elon-musk-starlink-hurricane-helene-fema-2024-9">clean-up efforts</a>, and Harris has put out a digital ad slamming his former disaster relief. When he was president, Trump responded to several hurricanes. As with Hurricane Helene, he <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.vox.com/politics/376982/trump-hurricane-helene-fema-lies-debunked">publicized</a> misinformation. When Hurricane Dorian threatened Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, he incorrectly said that its path included Alabama as well. During a briefing in the Oval Office, he showed a map of the hurricane's path that included a Sharpie mark extending the storm's reach to Alabama. Trump also falsely claimed that the death toll from Hurricane Maria in 2017 was overblown, the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/08/trump-hurricane-helene-natural-disasters/">Washington Post reported</a>.The former president occasionally threatened to hold back disaster funding over political spats. In 2020, for example, he floated withholding money from flood-ravaged Michigan because he was frustrated with absentee voting procedures in the state."A charitable interpretation would be mixed on crisis management," Birkland told BI about Trump's past responses to natural disasters. Kneeland said that storm victims and disaster experts largely criticized his handling of Hurricane Maria.During his time in office, Trump's administration rolled back more than 125 environmental rules, the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks-list.html">Washington Post</a> found, with a big focus on deregulating the fossil fuel industry. Trump's campaign has, according to Birkland, "been pretty clear that it disdains alternative fuels."Harris doesn't have a presidential record to back up her approach to disaster relief, but Birkland anticipates she'd take a relatively similar approach to President Joe Biden.As attorney general, Harris prosecuted oil companies that broke environmental rules. During her tenure as vice president, she voted for the Inflation Reduction Act, which devoted $370 billion to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.But both Birkland and Kneeland told BI that Harris has become less aggressive about addressing climate change this election, likely in an attempt to court more moderate voters."Harris' position is a little murkier," Birkland said. "Harris has been clear that we should be doing things like alternative energy, but also supports, as of recent months, continued fossil fuel production. So it's kind of a both-and strategy."Presidents are somewhat limited in their disaster responses — both Kneeland and Birkland told BI that states and local governments lead disaster responses, with the federal government's assistance."Even when FEMA is on the ground they must work within the structure of existing state and local government," Kneeland said in his written statement. The responsibility is, he said, layered throughout the government.Regardless, all eyes are on how Harris and Trump respond to the twin storms — and the outcome of the election could theoretically hang in the balance. Kneeland said that disaster response can either greatly boost or doom an incumbent, pointing to instances as varied as Hurricane Betsey in 1965, Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.Though Birkland doesn't anticipate that the hurricanes will sway many voters, he said that even a small impact in swing states could matter."I think most people's minds are made up. I think that you're really dealing with the margins," he said. "On the other hand, this election is going to be won or lost on the margins, so that matters."

Hurricanes are taking the election by storm. Here's where Harris and Trump stand on natural disaster policies.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>China last week said it was "not aware" of North Korean troops being sent to Russia.</li><li>Its muted response may undercut its efforts to improve trade with the EU, experts said.</li></ul>With North Korean forces believed to be moving toward <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-cant-sustain-ukraine-attack-without-north-korea-nato-chief-2024-10">Russia's front lines, </a>fears are growing that the Ukraine war is about to enter a new phase.Around 3,000 North Korean soldiers arrived in Russia last week, according to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_230104.htm">US, South Korean, and Ukrainian intelligence.</a>The reports signaled a deepening military alliance between Russia and North Korea — an alliance that has been met with a muted response from China.China's foreign affairs ministry last week said it was "not aware of the relevant situation."The bland statement may have been aimed at balancing its influence over North Korea and Russia with its relationship with Ukraine's Western allies.Some experts believe such a move could come at a cost.<h2 id="84e9dc8b-068f-459d-b4de-60dc958e5127">A threat to trade</h2>"Unless China distances itself more explicitly from North Korea-Russia cooperation, the West's perception of China as an enabler in the Ukraine war and a growing geopolitical threat will only harden," said a recent <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/north-korean-troops-russia-dangerous-new-phase-ukraine-war">report</a> by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)."This could further undercut Beijing's efforts to improve its trading relationships with the European Union (EU). Just weeks ago, the EU signaled its growing ire with China, agreeing to impose hefty tariffs on electric vehicles."China is the EU's second-largest trading partner for goods after the US, with bilateral trade reaching<a target="_blank" href="https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-country-and-region/countries-and-regions/china_en#:~:text=China%20is%20the%20EU's%20second,and%20the%20biggest%20for%20imports."> $799 billion in 2023.</a> However, EU-China relations have become increasingly strained in recent years.Earlier this month, the EU <a target="_blank" href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_24_5041">voted to impose tariffs</a> on Chinese EV manufacturers in a bid to protect its automotive industry from what some politicians believe are <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/eu-chinese-ev-subsidies-market-cheap-prices-cars-2023-9">unfairly subsidized Chinese electric vehicles</a>.As <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-electric-vehicles-european-tariffs-retaliation-vw-bmw-mercedes-tesla-2024-10">BI previously reported</a>, the move means Chinese EV makers will be subject to a maximum 35.3% tariff on their vehicles, in addition to an existing 10% levy.That could impact plans to revive China's economy, which has been dragged by factors including youth <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-economy-3q-gdp-growth-stock-market-stimulus-2024-10">unemployment, a housing crisis, and deflation.</a> Earlier this month, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-economy-growth-stimulus-demand-emerging-markets-world-bank-2024-10">the World Bank forecast that China's economic growth</a> would slow to 4.3% next year, down from a forecast of 4.8% for 2024."Beijing would see little benefit to establishing a more formal trilateral alliance because being too closely linked to Russian and North Korean provocative behavior could trigger secondary sanctions against China," wrote Bruce Klingner, a Senior Research Fellow, in an April report for the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.heritage.org/asia/report/china-russia-north-korea-solidarity-poses-risk-the-us-and-its-allies">Heritage Foundation.</a><h2 id="0ef3ca54-23c2-448e-8102-52187e0dce2d">China's balancing act</h2>Analysts believe China is remaining publicly impartial in a bid to save its reputation on an international stage while maintaining its ties with North Korea and Russia.China has provided Russia with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-and-china-anti-us-coalition-is-growing-more-threatening-2024-9">diplomatic and economic support </a>as it has faced sanctions over its invasion. The US has said China is also giving Russia increased support for its weapons industry.For North Korea, China has long been its most important ally, providing trade, diplomatic support, and military aid to Kim Jong Un. China and North Korea's mutual aid and cooperation treaty from 1961 is the only existing defense treaty that China has with any country."Declining to distance itself publicly would likely entrench the West's assessment that China seeks to sustain Russia's warfighting capacity," Ali Wyne, a senior Eurasia advisor at the Crisis Group think tank, told Business Insider."Distancing itself publicly, however, could strain China's ties with its alleged 'no limits' partner as well as its only treaty ally."Wyne added that North Korea's reported decision to deploy troops on Russia's behalf makes this balancing act harder for China to sustain — and for the US and the EU to accept.Not everyone agrees, however.Sari Arho Havrén, an associate fellow at the UK's Royal United Services Institute, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/north-korea-cozying-russia-suits-china-xi-putin-kim-alliance-2024-10">previously told BI </a>that North Korea and Russia would not have moved into such a close alliance without China's blessing.She doesn't believe that the threat of losing partial access to EU trade will cause China to speak more vocally against North Korea and Russia."This doesn't seem to be the case considering the amount of European leaders queuing up to Beijing with business delegations," she said."In addition, the return of Trump to the White House might just drop Europe into China's lap. I don't see how the EU single market and disunited member states could potentially be enough for China to distance itself, particularly from Russia."Ann Marie Dailey, a policy researcher at RAND, also isn't convinced that China is threatened by sanctions."The longer this conflict goes on, the more difficult it will be for ministers and heads of state to make a link between China supporting Russia, Russia hurting Ukraine and therefore needing to endure economic hardship due to sanctions against China," she said.

China's muted response to the Russia-North Korea alliance could come at a cost

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Ukraine started this year on the back foot in its fightback against Russia's invasion.</li><li>But since the start of the year, it's switched things up, including by going on the offensive.</li></ul>After entering 2024 in a sorry state, Ukraine has notched up a series of notable achievements since the start of the year, giving fresh impetus to its fight back against Russia.After struggling with ammunition shortages, in February the US approved an urgently needed <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/house-republicans-plan-ukraine-israel-aid-explained-2024-4">$60 billion military aid package</a> for Ukraine after months of political wrangling and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/which-house-republicans-voted-against-ukraine-russia-aid-2024-4">Republican blockade</a>.Western allies have let it use some of the missile systems they've supplied to hit targets inside Russia, with notable caveats, giving it a better chance to defend itself against incoming Russian attacks.And it also <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kursk-battle-ukraine-russia-war-strategy-2024-8">regained</a> the initiative with its surprise incursion into the Russian region of Kursk in August, even while gradually <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-kursk-invasion-russia-hasnt-eased-pressure-off-front-line-2024-9">losing ground</a> in eastern Ukraine.Ukraine remains locked in a ground fight with a Russian army that's absorbing heavy losses and continuing to swell as it eyes a grinding victory. The greatest danger is this pressure collapses part of Ukraine's defenses in the east."What Ukraine has done in the past month, starting with Kursk, is not going to turn around the war by any means," Abishur Prakash, the founder of The Geopolitical Business, Inc., a strategy advisory firm in Toronto, told BI."But it's definitely changed the war," he added.<h2 id="3d77a8ff-5cba-455e-a24a-68cfdc483296">Getting F-16s and long-awaited weapons</h2>Delays in getting Western equipment have long been a source of frustration for Ukraine.In May, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the West always seems to provide weapons a year after it needs them."Every decision to which we, then later everyone together, comes to is late by around one year," Zelenskyy told <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/west-always-gives-ukraine-weapons-year-after-needs-them-zelenskyy-2024-5">Reuters</a>.But some long-awaited Western weapons have started to arrive.These include US-provided Army Tactical Missile Systems, or <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-longe-range-missiles-atacms-storm-shadow-russian-cant-hide-2024-5">ATACMS</a>, in April, and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/missiles-on-ukraines-f-16s-hint-at-missions-against-russia-2024-8">F-16 fighter jets</a> last month.<div type="image" title="Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi in front of the first F-16 fighter jets received by Ukraine on August 4, 2024." height="3333" width="5000" msid="113193883" hostid="261" sizebytes="445220"></div>According to Mark Temnycky, a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center, F-16s will not immediately give Ukraine air superiority in the conflict — something neither side has managed to accomplish — but they will bolster Ukraine's ability to shoot down missiles and drones from the skies."Aside from the military capabilities of these aircraft, the arrival of these jets will provide a morale boost to Ukrainian soldiers and civilians," he said.But it's not all good news for Ukraine: Lithuania's foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-promised-aid-not-coming-until-2027-nato-state-says-2024-8">said</a> recently that some vital military equipment that had been pledged to Ukraine wouldn't arrive until 2027.<h2 id="345d72bd-b695-440e-b13c-68b8478ab7bb">Striking inside Russia</h2>From the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, allies, including the US, barred Ukraine from using advanced weapons they'd supplied to strike targets inside Russia like the air bases and resupply lines critical to its invasion.A Ukrainian commander operating in the Kharkiv region near the Russian border told <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-troops-in-sight-couldnt-attack-us-ban-ukraine-commander-2024-5">The Times of London</a> in May that his unit watched as Russia amassed a huge force but had to wait for the troops to cross the border into Ukraine to hit them.Western allies lifted some <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-using-allies-weapons-russia-soil-wont-change-war-experts-2024-5">restrictions</a> in May, allowing Ukraine to strike Russian troops building up at its borders.But Ukraine is still not allowed to use Western weapons to carry out <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-ukraine-is-striking-deep-inside-russian-territory-experts-2024-8">deep strikes</a> within Russia, despite the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-missile-attack-shows-us-must-drop-weapon-restrictions-ukraine-2024-8">pleas</a> of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.There are 245 military targets in Russia within range of the ATACMS missiles Ukraine now has on hand, according to a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/interactive-map-shows-russian-targets-ukraine-could-hit-with-atacms-2024-8">map</a> released last month by the Institute for the Study of War and the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project.<h2 id="0f3992bf-25f4-4916-8ce1-7d9fb3971aee">Taking the war inside Russia</h2>The biggest change this year is that Ukraine altered the dynamics of the conflict by launching a surprise attack on Russia's Kursk region.The incursion — the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-messy-response-ukraine-kursk-shows-weaknesses-still-plaguing-army-2024-8">first foreign military operation</a> on Russian soil since World War II — caught Russia and the West off guard.In just two weeks, starting on August 6, Ukraine <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-captured-more-territory-kursk-than-russia-seized-ukraine-year-2024-8">claims</a> its forces took more territory in Kursk than Russia had since the beginning of 2024.<div type="image" title="An aerial shot of Ukrainian forces fighting in&#xa0;Kursk with smoke everywhere" height="2130" width="3788" msid="113193887" hostid="261" sizebytes="118908"></div>Russia, meanwhile, has struggled to respond quickly and effectively, partly due to its <a target="_blank" rel="" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kursk-ukraine-exploited-russias-dysfunctional-military-command-2024-8">complex military structures</a>, a lack of <a target="_blank" rel="" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-general-disbanded-group-meant-protect-kursk-border-ukraine-report-2024-8">contingency plans,</a> and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-messy-response-ukraine-kursk-shows-weaknesses-still-plaguing-army-2024-8">poor command and control</a>.According to Mark Cancian, a retired US Marine Corps colonel and defense strategy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, what Ukraine has done is show that it can shift to the attack.This is important "after eight months on the defensive and last year's failed counteroffensive," he told BI.However, "Ukraine is still in a precarious military situation," he said.<h2 id="1b65cfc1-284e-4507-958e-8f9afadf0397">Creating a winning strategy</h2>According to an <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-3-2024">update</a> from the Institute for the Study of War, the Kursk incursion has likely failed to change Putin's strategic thinking.Putin still believes Russia can slowly and indefinitely take over Ukraine through grinding advances and accomplish its objectives by fighting a war of attrition and outlasting Western support, it said. Ukraine's emphasis on regaining territory and reluctance to mobilize more soldiers may have complicated its defenses.Ukraine, meanwhile, is hoping its incursion will help it to achieve victory.During a <a target="_blank" rel=" nofollow" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfYXPOVCuWM">press conference</a> in Kyiv last month, Zelenskyy said Kursk was the first step in a four-part plan for victory, which he would present to President Joe Biden this month.The other steps include Ukraine's strategic place in the world's security infrastructure and a powerful package of diplomatic and economic pressures on Russia to end the war, per <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/27/americas/ukraine-zelensky-victory-plan-biden-unga-intl-latam/index.html">CNN</a>.Ukrainian officials seem focused on retaining the territory they hold and threatening more, which could affect the war's course or negotiations for its end. However, it's increasingly possible that the battle for Kursk fails to alter the difficult battle for the Donbas.Ukraine is "losing territory and may suffer a breakthrough," Benjamin Friedman, policy director at the Defense Priorities think tank, told BI."They need manpower most of all," he added.The Kursk offensive "has shifted the formerly gloomy narrative, at least for the moment, about the negative trajectory of the war," wrote Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Rob Lee, a senior policy fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, in <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/ukraines-gamble">Foreign Affairs</a> last week.But they added: "But Kyiv must decide what to make of its initial win.""Kyiv will have to choose whether to hold what it has or to invest more scarce resources into the operation in an effort to force a much larger Russian effort to counter it," they wrote.However, this comes with risks, they said.In the worst-case scenario, this could mean losing substantial areas of land in its east and not holding territory in Kursk that could be used as leverage in peace negotiations.Ultimately, Ukraine may have to make some big decisions about its available resources.Prakash, the founder of The Geopolitical Business, Inc., asked, pointedly, what the next steps are for Kyiv, "because what happens if Ukrainian forces in Kursk are pushed back, and what happens if Russia starts making a big push in eastern Ukraine?"

Ukraine started this year on the brink of disaster. A lot has changed since.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Iran has vowed a "crushing response" following Israel's late October airstrikes.</li><li>Israel's attack came in response to an Iranian missile barrage on October 1.</li></ul>Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said there would be a "crushing response" following Israel's airstrikes on the country last week.Israel said it carried out <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-military-idf-targets-iran-retaliatory-strikes-missile-barrage-2024-10">"targeted and precise strikes"</a> on Iranian military sites on October 26, almost four weeks after <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/iran-attacks-israel-with-missiles-after-hezbollah-leader-killing-2024-10">Iran launched around 180 ballistic missiles</a> at Israel in retaliation to the killings of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders."The United States of America and the Zionist regime will definitely receive a crushing response for what they do against <a target="_blank" class="css-1jxf684 r-bcqeeo r-1ttztb7 r-qvutc0 r-poiln3 r-1loqt21" href="https://x.com/hashtag/Iran?src=hashtag_click">#Iran</a> and the <a target="_blank" class="css-1jxf684 r-bcqeeo r-1ttztb7 r-qvutc0 r-poiln3 r-1loqt21" href="https://x.com/hashtag/Resistance?src=hashtag_click">#Resistance</a> Front," a post on Khamenei's <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://x.com/khamenei_ir/status/1852657586505384183">X</a> account on Saturday read.Speaking at a press conference last week, a senior US official said that while the US was not a participant in the planning or execution of the Israeli operation, President Joe Biden and his national security team had encouraged Israel to respond to Iran in a "targeted and proportional" manner with "low risk of civilian harm."Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced on Friday that it <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-warships-bombers-troops-israel-iran-middle-east-tensions-2024-11">planned to send</a> additional ballistic missile defense destroyers, fighter squadron and tanker aircraft, and "several" US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers to the Middle East in the coming months.Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said the moves were designed to help protect US civilians and forces in the region, defend Israel, and de-escalate "through deterrence and diplomacy."US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a post on X on Saturday that B-52s from Minot Air Force Base's 5th Bomb Wing had arrived in CENTCOM's area of responsibility.Khamenei's comments have taken a more hostile tone from those he made in the immediate aftermath of the Israeli strikes in late October.Khamenei said then that Iranian officials should decide how to respond to the attacks, adding that they "should neither be magnified nor downplayed."<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-strikes-iran-middle-east-tensions-next-moves-2024-10">Experts had predicted</a> that Iran may look "an off-ramp" or launch a small-scale retaliation following Israel's strikes.

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