OPINION:
North Korean troops and munitions beef up Russia’s war against Ukraine. In return, Russia provides North Korea with sophisticated technology for its missiles, drones, satellites and submarines.
Tehran has sent Moscow drones. Repaying that favor, Moscow reportedly provides intelligence to help the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps target U.S. bases in the Middle East.
Beijing is believed to give Moscow microelectronics for ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles. Credible reports say Beijing now plans to send Tehran hundreds of portable shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles capable of shooting down American aircraft. Discounted Iranian oil keeps Chinese refineries running.
Do you see a pattern?
Several years ago, Waller Newell — perhaps the world’s leading scholar on tyrants throughout history — observed the increasing alignment among America’s four principal adversaries.
On March 14, 2023, he and I co-authored a column for The Washington Times arguing that four of the world’s most tyrannical rulers appeared to have formed an “axis” with the goal of establishing a new international order — one in which they, not the U.S., would call the shots.
Before long, experts at my think tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, began putting meat on these theoretical bones. Years of research by FDD’s Bradley L. Bowman, Elaine K. Dezenski and retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery have culminated in a new book: “Axis of Aggressors: Countering the Cooperation of China, Russia, Iran & North Korea.”
Its comprehensive analysis includes more than 600 instances of security cooperation among the four regimes from 2019 through 2025, including arms transfers, joint exercises, intelligence sharing, weapons development and military exchanges.
At the axis’ core is the “no-limits” partnership established between Russian ruler Vladimir Putin and Chinese ruler Xi Jinping on Feb. 4, 2022 — just 20 days before Mr. Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Since then, Chinese dual-use technology has helped sustain Russia’s defense-industrial base, raising the cost of supporting Kyiv.
Moscow shares battlefield lessons from Ukraine with Beijing. This operational knowledge could alleviate one of the biggest weaknesses of the People’s Liberation Army: its lack of recent combat experience ahead of any future military moves against Taiwan.
Mr. Putin and Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator, concluded a mutual defense pact in 2024. That was 30 years after President Clinton announced the U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework — ballyhooed as a great diplomatic success that would prevent the dynastic regime from acquiring nuclear weapons. Today, analysts believe Mr. Kim has more than 60 nukes, plus enough highly enriched uranium and plutonium to make dozens more.
North Korean engineers reportedly enabled the construction of subterranean “missile cities” in Iran, as well as elaborate tunnel networks for Hamas, the Tehran proxy in the Gaza Strip, and Hezbollah, the Tehran proxy in Lebanon.
A few days ago, the Houthi rebels in Yemen — another Tehran proxy — declared a blockade on Saudi oil tankers attempting to transit the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to exit the Red Sea. Tehran supplies the Houthis with missiles and drones. The Houthis allow Chinese vessels to pass freely.
The members of the axis flout international law with virtual impunity. Mr. Putin has subjugated Chechnya and other Muslim territories within Russia’s borders. Mr. Xi’s policies toward the Uyghurs of East Turkistan (aka Xinjiang) are deemed genocidal by the U.S. and several European nations. His campaign to erase Tibetan identity, language and religion has been no less savagely methodical — and, I would argue, deserves the same name.
According to American and other officials, Iran’s rulers slaughtered tens of thousands of their own subjects in January in what may be the largest single massacre in the Middle East in more than a century. What has been the response of the United Nations, most news media and what people like to call the “international community”? Shrugs.
The authors of “Axis of Aggressors” are honest enough to note where cooperation among the four regimes is thin and where interests diverge. Overall, however, their cooperation is concrete, mutually reinforcing and still growing.
Treating these four countries as isolated — a China problem, a Russia problem, an Iran problem, a North Korea problem — misunderstands and underestimates the threat.
The U.S. military no longer has the luxury of planning, sizing and budgeting for one war at a time. If Beijing attempts to seize Taiwan while North Korea attacks South Korea, Japan or Guam, American leaders will face a simultaneous-conflict scenario — an eventuality our military is not currently constructed to handle.
The book’s recommendations include overhauling foreign military sales, reshoring critical supply chains, standing up a dedicated Cyber Force and hunting for fractures within the adversarial entente. One example of those is the distinct possibility that Mr. Xi covets the resources in Russia’s sparsely populated Far East territories.
During the Cold War, the U.S. had only one major enemy and, though the men in the Kremlin were evil, they were rational and deterrable.
The People’s Republic of China is more economically and technologically powerful than the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ever was. Mr. Putin is obsessively determined to restore the Russian empire. Iran’s rulers believe they have a religious duty to wage jihad against the “Great Satan.” We can only guess what goes on in the mind of North Korea’s third-generation dictator.
The book’s authors note that on Dec. 29, 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt warned that the German-Italian “axis” proclaimed by Benito Mussolini in 1936 posed an unprecedented “danger” to “our American civilization.”
He acknowledged that some Americans preferred to turn a blind eye but asserted that most wanted “to hear the plain truth about the gravity of the situation.” One year later, Imperial Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Four days after that, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States.
• Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a columnist for The Washington Times and host of the “Foreign Podicy” podcast.
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