Frozen Conflicts Under Trump 2.0: Korea, Taiwan, and Turkey's Flashpoints

When President-Elect Donald J. Trump secured victory on November 5, 2024, he carried forward a signature campaign promise: that under his first term as the forty-fifth President of the United States, his nation never entered into any new foreign war, and during his second term as America’s forty-seventh president, he would ensure the very same. Yet this pledge faces formidable challenges beyond the active conflicts dominating headlines.

Alongside the Middle East’s knife-edge tensions, NATO’s anticipated confrontation with Russia, and surging jihadist insurgencies in Syria and the Sahel, Trump and his administration will confront a different category of threat—the world’s frozen conflicts. These are battle lines frozen in time, uncomfortable standoffs between nations that have never agreed to peace, some familiar and others simmering quietly until they suddenly erupt. If these conflicts unfreeze during Trump’s second term, they may rapidly evolve into situations where American intervention becomes unavoidable, and the very nature of Trump’s transactional foreign policy approach may help determine whether these nations maintain their fragile balance or overturn the negotiating table entirely.

Understanding Frozen Conflicts: Definition and Dynamics

The term “frozen conflict” refers to situations where two or more nations, or perhaps a nation and a breakaway province, a nation and an insurgency, or similar configurations, were once engaged in violent conflict before the fighting stopped. Whatever happened over the course of that conflict and whatever the specific reason, opposing soldiers ceased clashing on battlefields, tanks stopped meeting in head-to-head conflict, and aircraft stopped streaming into enemy territory—but what happened next fell one step short of peace. The involved parties may have formalized an armistice to cease hostilities indefinitely, agreed to a temporary ceasefire that simply never escalated back to full-scale fighting, or in some cases, never reached any formalized agreement at all.

For reasons either tactical, strategic, political, or something else entirely, the fighting simply fizzled out. Yet the parties haven’t actually agreed to a peace treaty and might even technically remain at war. Occasionally there may be skirmishes or temporary flare-ups, but nothing that rises past the status of a low-grade conflict.

In today’s world, the classic example of a frozen conflict is the situation on the Korean Peninsula, where for almost three-quarters of a century, North Korea and South Korea have technically been at war. The fighting stopped in 1953 for the most part, and both nations have gone through several generations of development and change since then, albeit in very different directions. But it remains an armistice, not a proper peace deal, that governs the state of affairs in Korea.

As strange as that situation is, it’s far from unique. Frozen conflicts are common across the former Soviet Union, where they function as a tool commonly employed by Russia, propping up breakaway regions that cause trouble in post-Soviet nations. Transnistria in Moldova, Abkhazia in Georgia, and until recently Artsakh in Azerbaijan serve as examples.

Morocco maintains a frozen conflict in the Western Sahara region. India and Pakistan share a frozen conflict in Kashmir, where China occasionally participates as well. Until the start of the ongoing Israel-Hamas War, the Arab-Israeli dynamic could have been rightly characterized as a frozen conflict too.

Historically, frozen conflicts tend to remain frozen or occasionally unfreeze before returning to the status quo for decades, and it is rare for them to restart in full. When they do reignite, it typically occurs for one of three reasons. The first is a minor dispute between the two sides—for example, North Korean troops and South Korean troops stumbling into each other, having a shootout, both sides calling in reinforcements, and before anyone realizes what’s happened, Seoul and Pyongyang are trading airstrikes.

The second is a buildup and deliberate assault by one side against the other, as occurred between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2023 when Azerbaijan surged across the breakaway region of Artsakh over several days and overwhelmed it, knowing Armenia couldn’t or wouldn’t resist. The third is instigation from abroad, something the world suspected might happen between Moldova and breakaway Transnistria in the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with the possibility that Transnistria might carry out attacks against NATO member Moldova as a distraction. The difference between a premeditated escalation and an accidental one can determine whether a flare-up is easily reversible or far more problematic.

The Korean Peninsula: The Most Dangerous Moment Since 1950

The Korean Peninsula represents the most emblematic frozen conflict of them all, and over the last year, global experts have been sounding increasingly urgent alarms that Korea is on a path to war. What began as occasional warnings that drew confusion from the foreign-affairs community has evolved into a cascade of expert opinions all conveying the same message. Regional expert Robert A. Manning, writing for Foreign Policy in October 2024, stated: “I have worked on the Korea nuclear problem in and out of government over the past three decades, and the Korean Peninsula seems more dangerous and volatile than at any time since 1950.”

The warning signs are numerous and varied. Some are symbolic in nature, such as North Korea blowing up the road and rail lines that symbolically join North and South in mid-October 2024. Others have been brewing for extended periods—North Korea’s posture meaningfully changed after a failed 2019 summit with then-President Trump, while South Korea acquired a new conservative government headed by President Yoon Suk-yeol in 2022.

Some developments have been particularly concerning: North Korea’s 2021 plan to pursue aggressive nuclear and hypersonic missile development, its nuclear buildup to an estimated fifty to one hundred warheads, and its increasing geopolitical realignment toward not just China but Russia. North Korea has formally abandoned its seventy-year-old policy of reunification on the Korean Peninsula and has destroyed not just the symbolic representations of that reunification process but the actual political infrastructure meant to make it happen.

South Korea has not been de-escalating either. Over recent years, the nation has become one of the world’s leading arms exporters, building industrial capacity for weapons manufacturing that, in the event of a flare-up or prolonged tensions, could very quickly be diverted to arming itself rather than other nations. These problems are compounded by the fact that both North and South Korea’s supporters are increasingly on opposite sides of a much more globalized divide.

South Korea has always counted the United States among its strongest supporters but is increasingly aligning with NATO in Europe, including as an arms supplier at a critical moment for the alliance. South Korea and Japan recently settled their longstanding issues relating to Imperial Japan’s use of South Korean “comfort women” in World War II. Meanwhile, North Korea is not only balancing between China and Russia but broadening ties with Iran, Venezuela, and other nations that have recently banded together despite their status as global pariahs.

Consequently, South Korea is firmly aligned with the U.S.-NATO-East Asia axis, while North Korea is firmly aligned with the major nations that define themselves in opposition to that axis.

Specific flashpoints abound, from the maritime border between the two nations to North Korea’s continual test launches of missiles, South Korea’s decision to send persuasive anti-regime propaganda into the North, and the North’s response of sending balloons carrying trash and often feces into the South. In a second Trump administration, there is reason to believe Seoul and Pyongyang might hold back from their worst instincts—after all, the incentives to make war haven’t outweighed the incentives to avoid war on either side since 1953. Neither side appears to explicitly desire violent escalation currently, and given the presence of nuclear weapons on both sides, including South Korea’s support from the U.S., it’s certainly preferable that no large-scale hostilities occur.

However, North Korea and its primary backers, China and Russia, are likely to spend the next several years watching Trump’s actions closely, knowing the incoming President is drawn to flashpoints that offer transactional benefits and disinterested in those with nothing for the U.S. to gain or lose. The key point is that if the U.S. were to de-prioritize its relationship with South Korea at any point, especially by pulling back on some of its long-time troop deployments, North Korea could very quickly see an opening for escalation. If Pyongyang perceives its own nuclear deterrent to be stronger than its rival’s, especially with China and Russia’s backing, it may begin to throw its weight around in a far more proactive way. In that scenario, it’s not certain Korea would return to active hostilities, but it would undeniably be several steps further down that path than today, and the threshold for misunderstandings or brief altercations to spiral out of control would be lower than ever.

China and Taiwan: The Invasion Timeline Accelerates

From Korea, the next frozen conflict lies just across the sea: Taiwan, staring at its far larger rival, China. Like the two Koreas, the two Chinas never signed a peace agreement when their conflict went dormant. But unlike the two Koreas, these adversaries share nothing remotely resembling military parity. Instead, it’s China barreling down on Taiwan, raising concerns among global experts that the nation might attempt to invade what it refers to as its rogue province before the end of this decade.

For anyone paying attention to recent geopolitical developments, China’s military buildup has been no secret. China already possesses the world’s largest navy, though not the world’s most powerful navy, and it’s building its maritime capabilities rapidly. The nation is heavily investing in amphibious landing ships, including the foreboding Type 076 currently in development, which is expected to carry well over a thousand Chinese marines, many aircraft and drones, and small-boat landing craft once complete.

China has invested in not just one but two lines of fifth-generation fighter aircraft, fields hundreds of strategic bombers, and maintains the world’s largest military. Within a decade, China expects to be on par with Russia and the United States in terms of its overall nuclear arsenal.

The idea that China would use military forces to attack Taiwan hasn’t been surprising over the last half-century. But in 2024, China’s threatening moves toward Taiwan have been louder and bolder than they’ve been for quite some time. In October 2024, China launched its second set of major military drills near Taiwan just that year, simulating the full-scale invasion of Taiwan in clear view of the entire world.

China has bombarded Taiwan with cyberattacks, conducted frequent fighter and bomber patrols around Taiwanese airspace, and taken steps to choke off Taiwan’s tourism industry. Taiwan’s new president, William Lai, has drawn China’s ire, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping has emphasized Chinese reunification harder and more often than ever. China has formally set the target date for reunification in 2049, one hundred years after the Republic of China government fled to the island of Formosa, called Taiwan today.

But experts in Taiwan, the U.S., and elsewhere have issued warnings that the true target date could come much sooner—especially, some experts argue, after China watched Russia invade Ukraine with near-impunity in 2022.

The relevance of a second Trump administration comes primarily in the degree of support Taiwan receives from the U.S. It is critically important to Taiwan that the U.S. is on its side, quite simply because without foreign backing, Taiwan stands no hope militarily of withstanding China in direct conflict. Taiwan can stockpile mass amounts of armament to inflict pain on China during an invasion, but the outcome without support is clear.

During his 2024 campaign season, Donald Trump emphasized that in his view of foreign policy, Taiwan should directly compensate the United States for the military support it receives. The converse implication is that if Taiwan didn’t pay the United States as requested, or couldn’t do so, then the United States would in turn begin pulling back its support for its outmatched ally.

The ramifications of such a withdrawal could very quickly be devastating for Taiwan. If the U.S. were to pull back even in a limited way, China would be able to meaningfully shift its battle projections, assuming it will deal with fewer American troops on the island, fewer American ships on the water, and fewer American aircraft in the sky. If the U.S. were to pull out entirely or near-entirely, they would functionally remove the nuclear umbrella Taiwan so thoroughly depends on.

Even for those who claim such talk from Washington is simply Trump being a tough negotiator, a more insidious reality remains. Even by raising the possibility at all, Trump places the prospect of lessened Taiwan support on the negotiating table with Beijing. Would China try to simply pay off the United States to look the other way?

Perhaps. But in a U.S.-China relationship defined by crippling tariffs and trade wars along with mutual military escalation, it’s a different story. How the United States would respond if China were to offer a major trade realignment or an agreement not to expand its influence in exchange for China’s right to do what it pleases with Taiwan remains anybody’s guess.

In the event that hostilities did break out between China and Taiwan, that larger global realignment discussed earlier would mean the world might risk restarting two major frozen conflicts at once. If China were to take the leap of invading Taiwan outright, it could very easily persuade North Korea into a parallel attack on the South, relying on China’s and probably Russia’s support—especially if America were to withdraw its nuclear umbrella from the region, partially or fully. While Trump’s foreign-policy proponents will likely insist that China wouldn’t dare take the risk and that Trump’s unpredictability and strong posturing would deter Beijing and Pyongyang, the counterargument centers on unpredictability combined with a second Trump administration’s likely strong focus on transactionalism.

If Beijing, Pyongyang, Moscow, and their partners would like to push the U.S. further from Taiwan and South Korea, that’s a process that can happen at the negotiating table before anything happens on the battlefield. This isn’t just about a decision by China to invade Taiwan; it’s about a fundamental shift to America’s Taiwan policy, setting the conditions for military action down the road.

Turkey and Its Orbit: Kurdistan and Cyprus Flashpoints

From East Asia, attention turns to the nation that bridges West Asia with the European continent—a NATO member and European Union candidate that boasts one of the Alliance’s largest standing militaries, second only to the United States, and hosts American nuclear weapons on its soil. That nation is Turkey, where the Turkish military’s Commander-in-Chief, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has made a habit of independent action from within NATO’s own ranks.

The relationship between Trump and Erdogan hasn’t been straightforward across the last decade, but it has been important to watch. The two had been quite cordial since early in Trump’s first term, when they shared congratulations over Trump’s election and Erdogan’s narrow victory in a referendum that vastly expanded his powers and extended his time in power through 2029. Trump reportedly ceded Syria to Erdogan directly in a conversation in 2018, granting Erdogan the ability to pursue broad military action in the country.

When in 2019 Trump sent a letter to Erdogan insisting that Erdogan rein in his military there and threatening to crash the Turkish economy if he didn’t, the two had a brief falling-out. Erdogan entirely disregarded the threats and moved ahead with his military action anyway. But in 2024, all signs indicate that Erdogan is quite pleased to return to work alongside Trump.

Since Trump’s re-election, Erdogan has spoken very favorably of Trump’s ability to end the war in Ukraine, and he was among the very first calls Trump took in the immediate wake of the election.

Turkey sits atop not just one but two conflicts that can be described as, at the very least, mostly frozen: Kurdistan and Cyprus. The first is more familiar to global conflict-watchers in 2024—the conflict between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, otherwise known as the PKK. The PKK is recognized as a terror organization across much of the world, and Turkey wages a low-grade war against its fighters in both rural southeast Turkey and the territory of Iraq and Syria. The conflict has very recently heated back up after a PKK terror attack on an aerospace firm in Turkey prompted massive retaliations, but most of the time, affairs between Turkey and the PKK tend to simmer rather than explode all at once.

Then there’s the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, where the world very recently marked the fiftieth anniversary of a war that has kept the island divided to this day. Since 1974, Turkey has controlled the territory of northern Cyprus, while the Republic of Cyprus, backed by Greece, has controlled the southern half, with a UN buffer zone in the middle. Although Greek and Turkish Cypriots have been able to work alongside one another more peacefully in recent years, several attempts to find a long-term solution have failed since 2014.

With the return of a Trump-led United States, Turkey’s leader is likely to be substantially emboldened regarding both of these frozen conflicts, while the already-weak power of the NATO alliance to rein Erdogan in is likely to be diminished even further. NATO cannot meaningfully place leverage on Turkey without the United States, especially given Turkey’s recent overtures toward both Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Xi Jinping’s China. If Erdogan is no longer concerned about potential negative repercussions coming from the U.S., then bold unilateral action is entirely possible in both spheres.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What exactly is a frozen conflict?

A frozen conflict refers to a situation where two or more nations, or a nation and a breakaway province or insurgency, were once engaged in violent conflict but the fighting stopped without a formal peace treaty. The parties may have formalized an armistice, agreed to a temporary ceasefire that never escalated, or simply stopped fighting. They remain technically at war, with hostilities limited to occasional skirmishes or low-grade conflict rather than full-scale warfare.

Why is the Korean Peninsula considered more dangerous now than at any time since 1950?

North Korea has built up its nuclear arsenal to an estimated 50 to 100 warheads, formally abandoned its 70-year reunification policy, and deepened ties with Russia and China. South Korea has become a major arms exporter. Both nations are firmly aligned with opposing global axes, and specific flashpoints include maritime border disputes, missile tests, and propaganda campaigns. Regional expert Robert A. Manning wrote in October 2024 that Korea is on a path to war.

What are the three main ways frozen conflicts typically reignite?

Frozen conflicts typically restart for three reasons: a minor dispute that escalates unintentionally, such as troops stumbling into each other and calling in reinforcements; a deliberate buildup and assault by one side, as occurred when Azerbaijan overwhelmed Artsakh in 2023; or instigation from abroad, where external actors prompt conflict as a distraction or strategic move, as was suspected might happen with Transnistria attacking Moldova during Russia’s Ukraine invasion.

How does Trump’s transactional approach create risks for Taiwan?

Trump emphasized during his 2024 campaign that Taiwan should directly compensate the United States for military support, implying that if Taiwan didn’t or couldn’t pay, the U.S. would begin pulling back. Even raising that possibility places U.S. support on the negotiating table with Beijing. If the U.S. were to pull back partially, China could meaningfully shift its invasion projections, and a full U.S. withdrawal would remove the nuclear umbrella Taiwan depends on entirely.

What are Turkey’s two frozen conflicts and why might they escalate under Trump?

Turkey wages a low-grade war against the PKK in rural southeast Turkey, Iraq, and Syria, and has controlled northern Cyprus since 1974 while the Republic of Cyprus holds the south with a UN buffer zone between them. With a second Trump administration, NATO’s already-weak leverage over Turkey is likely to diminish further, since the alliance cannot meaningfully pressure Turkey without U.S. backing. If Erdogan is no longer concerned about U.S. repercussions, bold unilateral action in either sphere becomes more likely.

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