Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean supremo Kim Jong Un met in far eastern Russia this week.
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There is a lot of anxiety that the two might form some kind of partnership or even alliance.
They certainly share a lot in common. Both are gangsters running mafia states, where enemies ‘accidentally’ fall out windows and corruption is widespread.
Both loathe American hegemony and are excluded from the world economy by sanctions. As mutual pariahs, an alignment seems natural, and there is probably not much the rest of the world can do about it.
But we need not worry that much. This is a partnership of the weak and the desperate. Neither remotely possesses the ability to undo the vibrant liberal world economy around them which they envy so much. Nor do either have the ability to challenge the global political order except by using nuclear weapons, which has its massive downsides of course.
They can surely cause troubl …