Daniel DePetris
Adm. John Aquilino and Assistant Secretary of Defense Ely Ratner traveled to Capitol Hill on Wednesday for an appearance in front of the House Armed Services Committee. The topic of the hearing: the U.S. military posture in Asia.
It was a relatively uneventful occasion for those used to watching them. But there was a moment that raised an eyebrow. At one point in the hearing, Aquilino, the commander of Indo-Pacific Command, referred to the budding relationships between China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea as an aspiring “axis of evil” primed to undermine U.S. interests not only regionally but globally.
Ratner seemed to agree with his military counterpart, insisting that what happens in Europe directly affects security in Asia. You could be forgiven for thinking you were transported back to 2002, when then-President George W. Bush coined the phrase “axis of evil” to hype a connection between Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Iran, and North Korea.
The term didn’t make sense back then. Iran and Iraq were mortal enemies for decades. Saddam launched a war of choice against the Iranians in 1980 in part to stir up a counterrevolution against the ayatollahs, whom he viewed as expansionist troublemakers. The war lasted for eight long years, and the two neighbors have been highly distrustful of each other ever since. North Korea, meanwhile, was concerned first and foremost with its own survival. While the North Koreans and Iranians cooperated to a degree on missile development, it was less about striking an alliance and more about bolstering their own domestic capabilities.
Twenty-two years have gone by, but the “axis of evil” phraseology is still alive and well. The so-called members of this evil grouping may be different, with the exception of North Korea, but the assumptions undergirding the “axis of evil” framing are as silly today as they were in 2002. Simply put: Just because U.S. adversaries may be cooperating doesn’t mean they are engaged in a global conspiracy against the United States. To suggest as much gives China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea far too much credit.
There’s no doubt cooperation is happening. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin are chummy these days, with the former visiting the latter last year to tour Russia’s space program. Pyongyang has been one of Moscow’s biggest partners since the war in Ukraine began, shipping about 7,000 containers of munitions to Russia since 2023. Iran is aiding the Russians, too, not with munitions but rather with attack drones, which Moscow has used to deadly effect in Ukraine. In November, satellite imagery picked up the construction of a plant inside Russia that would manufacture Iranian drones at scale.
China is the biggest buyer of Iranian crude oil, providing Tehran with billions of dollars in revenue at a time when its oil industry is still sanctioned by the U.S. and Europe. China is also bailing out the Russian economy, which, for the most part, is closed off from Western markets, and remains a key enabler of Russia’s imports of sensitive military technology. Last week, Chinese, Russian, and Iranian sailors conducted trilateral military exercises in the Gulf of Oman.
It all seems a bit mischievous to the naked eye. But U.S. policy officials should remember that none of these activities portend an alliance of any sort. Sure, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea would like nothing more than to see U.S. policy fail and U.S. power weakened, but we shouldn’t pretend these four powers are teaming up like the Axis Powers did in World War II. The arrangements between them are less strategic and more tactical, with a big dollop of opportunism on top.
Russia needs as many munitions as it can get. North Korea possesses a large number of Cold War-era stockpiles, and Kim is willing to part with some of them at the right price. This price includes more Russian food aid, cover at the United Nations Security Council, and even Russian military technology. Putin is willing to sign on to this arrangement because, frankly, winning the war in Ukraine (or staving off defeat) is more important to him than anything else.
A similar dynamic is at play between Russia and Iran. The Iranians have terrible conventional military platforms but are quite advanced with missiles and drones, the very systems Moscow needs to carry on in Ukraine. Like Pyongyang, Tehran is happy to help out at a price, such as getting its hands on Russian fighter aircraft and anti-missile defenses.
The point here is not to dismiss that a relationship exists. Only that the relationship probably isn’t as scary as the Biden administration makes it out to be.
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