Yes — we’ve gotten pretty close to a Cold War-style alignment , especially in the way Russia and North Korea have tightened military and political cooperation against the U.S.-led order. But it is not a full Cold War in the classic sense yet, because the world is not split into two neat, fully locked blocs like the U.S.-Soviet standoff was.

Quick take

The closest match today is a “new Cold War” dynamic , not an exact replay of the old one. Russia and North Korea have expanded ties through weapons support, troop involvement, sanctions resistance, and strategic coordination, and that has made the relationship look much more bloc-like than before.

Why people say “cold war”

A few developments are driving that language:

  • Russia and North Korea have publicly deepened their partnership, including a 2024 strategic treaty and repeated high-level visits.
  • North Korea has reportedly supplied artillery shells, missiles, and other military support to Russia for the war in Ukraine, while North Korean troops have also been involved on Russia’s side.
  • Analysts describe the relationship as part of a broader anti-Western alignment that also includes China, which echoes Cold War-era bloc politics.

Why it is not quite a Cold War

The current situation is still different from the original Cold War in important ways:

  • There is no single, rigid Soviet-style bloc with the same level of global ideological control.
  • Russia and North Korea are cooperating mainly from shared security needs and sanctions pressure , not because they have built a universal alternative world system.
  • The U.S. is not facing only one opposing superpower; instead, it is dealing with a messier, more flexible network of partnerships.

Bottom line

So the best short answer is: we are not in a literal Cold War with Russia and North Korea, but we are closer than we’ve been in decades to a Cold War- like alignment in Northeast Asia and the Ukraine war context.

If you want, I can also turn this into a short forum-style post or a more detailed timeline of how Russia-North Korea relations escalated.