The ‘Axis of Evil’ Is Overhyped

Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in July, longtime U.S. intelligence official John McLaughlin described the threat posed by China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia as “the distinguishing characteristic of our world right now.” McLaughlin, the former acting director of the CIA, warned that the United States’ adversaries had “formed a group” and were increasingly cooperating against Washington and its allies.

He is not the first to make this case. Many foreign-policy analysts, policymakers, and senior U.S. military officers have argued that China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia are increasingly aligned, if not outright joining forces. Others have described the relationship as a new “axis of evil,” recalling then-U.S. President George W. Bush’s phrase in the months after the 9/11 attacks. Whether people call them the axis of upheaval, axis of authoritarians, or axis of disorder, the tendency to see combinations of these four powers as a unified threat spans the U.S. political spectrum.

Fortunately, fears about a resurrected axis of evil are as sensationalized today as they were more than 20 years ago. Although China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia are cooperating more fruitfully than in the past, what they share is best described as a collection of pragmatic, largely bilateral, and likely temporary arrangements held together by geopolitical circumstances and a shared view that current U.S. policy and posture are highly detrimental to their respective interests.

Grouping these four U.S adversaries under a single banner distracts from the self-interest and very different ambitions driving them, oversimplifying the individual partnerships that connect them. If anything, the axis of evil treatment harms the United States’ ability to protect its interests more than it helps.

There is little disagreement that China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia have built stronger ties since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But rather than viewing them as a bloc, it is most accurate to think of their cooperation as a series of overlapping but distinct bilateral engagements.

Isolated from the United States and Europe by sanctions and export controls, Russia has leaned the hardest into these renewed relationships for military, economic, and political assistance. China has become its economic lifeline. In 2023, Russia was China’s largest source of crude oil, earning Moscow tens of billions of badly needed dollars. Russia-China trade reached a record $240 billion last year as Chinese goods saturated Russian markets. China has also helped keep the Russian war machine running by providing dual-use technologies and industrial inputs used in defense production. The Russian and Chinese militaries now also conduct joint exercises with greater frequency, including in sensitive regions in the Western Pacific and near Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. On July 24, the North American Aerospace Division Command intercepted two Russian and two Chinese aircraft operating in Alaska’s Air Defense Identification Zone.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has also built closer ties with North Korea and Iran, but this cooperation is narrowly focused on Russia’s military needs. Reports from June 2024 suggest that North Korea may have transferred as many as 1.6 million rounds of munitions to Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine. In return, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has won Russian support at the U.N. Security Council and significant access to Russian oil. A partnership agreement signed during Putin’s June visit to North Korea committed the two countries to come to each other’s defense in the event of an attack, though its terms remain vague.

For its part, Iran has also reportedly provided Russia with military assistance of around 400 ballistic missiles, including many from the Fateh-110 family. Russia has offered to reciprocate, at least indirectly, by considering arming Houthi rebels attacking shipping vessels in the Red Sea.

At first glance, these growing relationships seem concerning for the United States—and they can be on specific issues. Ties among all four states complicate Washington’s attempts to coerce major policy changes from any of them. China’s steady imports of Iranian crude oil give Tehran an opportunity for much-needed revenue when its oil industry remains blocked in the United States and Europe. Meanwhile, collaboration between Russia and China at the U.N. Security Council has frustrated U.S.-led diplomatic initiatives, including on Syria, North Korea, and Gaza. Joint military exercises between Russia and China allow both parties to learn from each other’s tactics and strategy, which is no doubt worrisome to the Pentagon.

Closer scrutiny, however, suggests that each of Russia’s new partnerships is transactional and almost certainly temporary. Although it would be disingenuous to downplay the growing inroads between Russia and North Korea as just a business deal, mutual need is a big motivator. Putin needs as many munitions as possible to support his war in Ukraine. Kim, in turn, is in desperate need of food and energy supplies given widespread domestic shortages and his desire to lessen North Korea’s dependence on China. While Pyongyang likely hopes that the improved relations will last in the long term, Moscow’s need for a partnership has a shelf life pegged to the war.

Russia and China’s cooperation is more substantive and worrisome to the United States and its allies, but it too has clear limits. Although Moscow and Beijing have done a great deal to overcome their mutual suspicion, their interests don’t perfectly align. Consider Putin’s May 15-16 visit to China. Despite the pomp and circumstance, the Russian leader came away empty-handed; the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline meant to redirect Russian natural gas from Europe to China remains dormant despite years of Russian lobbying.

At its core, this relationship is based on near-term convenience. Russia needs China to serve as its bankroller, a situation Chinese President Xi Jinping no doubt desires as he presses for preferential terms on energy contracts. For Xi, the partnership with Russia is a way to boost China’s power in the international system and challenge U.S. dominance. Much like Putin will deprioritize ties with Kim once the war in Ukraine ends, Xi could pull away from his partnership with Putin if it outlives its usefulness.

Beyond these Russia-centric relationships, cooperation within the group is more limited, undermining claims that the countries are acting as a bloc to challenge U.S. interests. China and Iran’s working relationship is primarily focused on economic exchange. Of the 1.5 million barrels of oil Iran exports daily, 85 to 90 percent goes to China at an up to 15 percent discount. China has also offered some support for Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency and enabled Iran’s efforts to normalize ties with Saudi Arabia. However, it’s unlikely that Beijing would support Tehran if it decided to push the envelope too far, such as by weaponizing its nuclear program.

Meanwhile, despite their formal alliance, China’s ties with North Korea seem somewhat tenuous. Concerned about its neighbor’s potential for belligerence—and that an aggressive North Korea could lead to a more entrenched U.S. military presence in the region—Beijing has grown wary in its dealings with Pyongyang. It has resisted being drawn into any tripartite alignment with Russia and North Korea that might worsen tensions with the West.

For some U.S. officials, that cooperation between these four powers falls short of a true axis may be a meaningless distinction given that they are still looking to challenge the U.S.-built institutional order. But this distinction does matter, as it reveals the factors holding these relationships in place. It also helps U.S. policymakers distinguish aspects of this cooperation that warrant a U.S. response from peripheral ones that can be managed or ignored.

For example, the United States has spent considerable political capital trying to cut off economic exchange of basic electronics, consumer goods, industrial materials, and other commodities among the four adversaries. But while trade in these areas frustrates U.S. policymakers, these products will do little to shift the long-term balance of power between any of the four states and the United States and its allies.

On the other hand, exchange of more advanced military systems and know-how—ballistic missiles, drones, nuclear and satellite technology, and the secrets to mastering silent submarines and high-performance jet engines—could shift the balance of military capabilities between the United States and its adversaries in meaningful and lasting ways. These exchanges are less frequent but should be the focus of U.S. policymakers’ attention.

The axis of evil framing distracts from these nuances, potentially leading to overly broad policy prescriptions with lackluster results. Driving wedges between these four powers on a grand scale may not be possible, and trying to do so could encourage an already overextended United States to adopt more unsustainable commitments.

Instead of treating these four powers as a unified bloc, policymakers should pursue differentiated strategies that address the unique challenges posed by each country and target the bilateral exchanges of greatest concern. Specifically, rather than relying so heavily on broad economic and financial sanctions, U.S. policymakers should experiment with positive inducements that exploit the diverging ambitions of the four countries. Iran and North Korea, for instance, may be willing to limit military transfers to Russia in return for the relaxation of existing economic restrictions or limited cooperation on infrastructure development and commercial technologies. China, which may feel disenfranchised by the current U.S.-led international system, could be enticed into curtailing technology sharing with Russia or North Korea in exchange for inclusion in new multilateral forums and a greater decision-making stake in global governance.

Such moves would face opposition, especially from those attached to the axis of evil framing. China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia would all prefer an international order that isn’t dominated by the United States, but the worst thing that Washington can do is overhype the threat of their alliance. That would be a major disservice to the core objectives of U.S. grand strategy: maintaining a favorable global balance of power, minimizing the risk of becoming entangled in needless conflict, and preserving opportunities to build better relationships with these states if the geopolitical landscape shifts in the future.