North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at an MLRS test in May 2024 | Image: KCNA

North Korea has long been regarded as an isolated pariah state, a "hermit kingdom" with few resources and more bark than bite. But 2024 was arguably the year that began to change.

The signing of a mutual defense treaty with Russia catapulted bilateral ties to the highest levels since the collapse of the Soviet Union, culminating in the dispatch of at least 11,000 North Korean troops to fight against Ukraine in the country's biggest-ever deployment to a foreign conflict.

This is a possibility that was unthinkable just a few years ago, a vivid demonstration of Pyongyang