The Ukrainian military’s successful drone strike on an Iranian-flagged cargo ship that Kyiv says was transiting weapons components from Russia to Iran has underscored the growing convergence between the most active wars raging on the world stage. 

Tehran, which for years has supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in exchange for strategic backing from Moscow, is threatening direct counterstrikes against Ukrainian targets. Ebrahim Azizi, the chairman of Iran’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, wrote on X that “Ukraine may soon come to understand that Iran does not leave its actions unanswered.”

Mr. Zelenskyy is pushing the narrative that the U.S.-Iran war and the Ukraine-Russia war are two fronts in a global conflict against autocratic states, asserting that Kyiv has “recorded active Russian satellite surveillance” over the Middle East that Moscow has provided to Tehran to help Iranian forces more accurately monitor and target American assets in the region.

U.S. and Saudi Arabian forces struck sites in eastern Iraq on Tuesday after Iran-backed militias used those locations to launch drone attacks across the region, Pentagon officials said. The strikes came just hours after the American military said it repelled a surprise Iranian missile attack targeting U.S. troops.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, said in a statement that “all Iranian missiles were successfully intercepted.” Riyadh, meanwhile, said its forces shot down drones fired by Iran-backed militias in Iraq that attempted to target oil facilities in Saudi Arabia.

The back-and-forth strikes ended a brief pause in the U.S.-Iran war, which has drawn in countries across the Middle East. Despite a renewed U.S. bombing wave, Iran and its proxy forces in Iraq and Yemen retain stockpiles of missiles and drones that can target American and allied forces in the region.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un’s ever-evolving nuclear deterrent, which was once bolted onto land-based launch systems, is now shifting toward a “nuclear triad” of ground-, sea- and air-based assets. Asia Editor Andrew Salmon, who is based in South Korea, writes that Mr. Kim’s pursuit of such a shift looks increasingly prudent when viewed within the context of the situation in Iran, which is armed with only conventional non-nuclear weapons.

North Korea’s nuclear triad pursuit expands Pyongyang’s strategic options, upgrades second-strike capabilities and enables better dispersal and concealment of assets, reducing vulnerability to incoming strikes. It’s an aggressive, costly strategy, but one that analysts say has been validated by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, in which Iran has been pummeled by waves of Israeli and American airstrikes. 

Mr. Kim and his late father, who oversaw the country’s first nuclear detonation in 2006, may have managed, despite the colossal costs of their program, to have attack-proofed one of the world’s most repressive regimes, a foreboding lesson for the West as authoritarian governments around the globe take note.

North Korea is “now strategically closer to Russia and China than at any other time since the Korean War,” according to Joseph R. DeTrani, who writes in an op-ed for The Washington Times that “the United States is doing nothing to challenge the growing power of the axis of authoritarians: China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

“The irony is that North Korea has, since 1994, wanted a normal relationship with the U.S., yet the U.S. appears incapable of addressing the North Korean nuclear threat,” writes Mr. DeTrani, a former associate director of national intelligence and opinion contributor to Threat Status.

“On July 19, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and declared that North Korea ‘stands by Moscow until victory in the war with Ukraine is achieved. Ties with Russia are a strategic priority for Pyongyang,’” he writes. “I worked with Ms. Choe, a fluent English speaker, from 2003 to 2016, and I know that she and others would prefer to engage in dialogue with the U.S.”

Mr. Trump has stated repeatedly that Iran’s rulers “must never be permitted to obtain nuclear weapons, but he has not clearly explained why, so let me put it bluntly: They would use them,” Clifford D. May writes in his column for The Times.

“Iran’s rulers are self-proclaimed Islamic revolutionaries and the world’s leading sponsors of terrorism,” writes Mr. May, also a Threat Status opinion contributor and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “For 47 years, they have vowed ‘Death to America!’ If they obtain nuclear warheads and missiles that could deliver them to American cities, why would they refrain?

“If you think they would not dare because, in retaliation, we would strike back with our own nukes, think again,” he writes. “These are jihadis who, for decades, have been murdering their own people, including dissidents, religious minorities and women who have failed to cover their hair as the mullahs prefer.”

• July 29 — North Korea’s Post-Party Congress Economic Course and Implications for the Korean Peninsula, Stimson Center

• July 30 — Responding to Global Threats: A Conversation with Sen. Rick Scott, Florida Republican, Hudson Institute

• July 30 — Future of U.S. Land Power: Under Secretary of the U.S. Army Mike Obadal, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• July 30 — The Board of Peace’s Gaza Plan: Broken or Working as Intended? Arab Center Washington, D.C.

• Aug. 4 — Navigating the Strait of Hormuz Energy Crisis: Global Policy Responses, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• Aug. 4 — Taiwan’s Ever-Changing Security Environment, Hudson Institute

• Aug. 4-5 — 2026 Air Force & Space Force Procurement Conference, American Defense Alliance

• Aug. 5-6 — Border Security & Intelligence Summit, Defense Strategies Institute