Peloni: At one point, Trump stated to his Arab so called allies that they are either with him or they are not, implying that they are with him or against him. This was an important point to raise with the ever hedging Sunni Arab states who prefer to straddle their positions amid US and Chinese spheres of influence. Trump should press this standard firmly, following which he will know which of them he can rely upon, however few that number might actually be seen to be.
Bradley Bowman, Logan Rolleigh & Cameron McMillan
The United States now confronts one of the most dangerous geostrategic environments since 1945, in no small part because of the emergence of a new Axis of Aggressors consisting of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Their cooperation is making each of these adversaries more capable and increasing the chances that the United States may find itself fighting simultaneous major wars for which Washington is not prepared.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine warned in June 2025 that these four authoritarian adversaries were “pursuing unprecedented levels of cooperation.” Unfortunately, their cooperation has grown since then. “They are sharing intelligence, combat capabilities, and technology,” he told the Senate Appropriations Committee on July 21. The impact of this cooperation, Caine said, was that “our adversaries are aligning in their interests, creating simultaneous challenges across multiple domains.”
A new book, Axis of Aggressors: Countering the Cooperation of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, by Bradley Bowman (one of the authors of this piece), Elaine Dezenski, and RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery, reinforces Gen. Caine’s assessments. The book also underscores how Axis cooperation is empowering America’s adversaries in Europe, the Middle East, and the Pacific.
In Europe, Axis support for Russia has made Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine more effective and resilient, lengthening the war, increasing Ukrainian casualties, and imposing additional costs on the West.
Iran has provided Russia with one-way-attack (OWA) drones and close-range ballistic missiles, as well as small arms and artillery ammunition. Perhaps most significantly, Iran enabled Russia’s indigenous production of Geran OWA drones — modeled after Iranian Shahed OWA drones, which Tehran supplied to Moscow earlier in the conflict.
North Korea has provided Russia with ballistic missiles, vast quantities of rocket and cannon artillery ammunition, and cannon and rocket artillery pieces. Pyongyang has even sent thousands of its own troops to fight and die for Russia. Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Russia wants roughly 30,000 more North Korean troops to support Putin’s aggression.
Beijing, for its part, has provided Moscow with crucial dual-use and economic support to sustain Russia’s war machine, leading NATO to describe the People’s Republic of China as the “decisive enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine” in its 2024 Washington Summit Declaration. “China has provided 70 percent of the machine tools and 90 percent of the legacy chips that have enabled Russia to rebuild its war machine,” according to April 10, 2025, testimony from the top U.S.
military officer in the Indo-Pacific. Mark Montgomery rightly highlights that this Chinese support “is backstopping Russia’s war effort by providing microelectronics for ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles that are striking Kyiv.”
Helping Iran Target Americans in the Middle East
In the Middle East, Russia has provided Iran with satellite launch assistance, which aids Tehran’s intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting efforts. Russia has also provided Iran with improved drone technology and advanced attack-drone tactics to help Iran bypass American defenses.
This assistance has supported Tehran’s widespread drone-attack campaign against U.S. and partner forces across the region, which has been one of Iran’s most potent tools throughout the war. On March 1, 2026, an Iranian drone attack targeted a U.S. operations center in Kuwait, killing six American soldiers.
Russia reportedly even provided Iran with satellite imagery to help the regime more effectively target U.S. forces in the Middle East. On July 17, Iran launched ballistic missiles at an air base in Jordan, resulting in the deaths of three American soldiers.
China has provided Iran with several shipments of ballistic-missile-fuel precursor chemicals that fuel Tehran’s ballistic missiles. Beijing has also given Tehran full access to the BeiDou GPS-equivalent system, which Tehran could use to aid its targeting process. China also enabled Iran’s ability to attack U.S. forces in the Middle East by transferring a Chinese-launched surveillance satellite to Iran in 2024.
This Russian and Chinese support enhanced Iran’s attacks in the first months of the war, which damaged or destroyed more than 200 U.S. structures and equipment by May 7. Indeed, some of the missile attacks that injured or killed U.S. service members could have been fueled by Chinese chemicals and guided by intelligence Tehran received with the help of Russia and China.
Collectively, Axis support for Iran has already increased the lethality of the regime in Tehran and could increase its ability to survive in the future.
Preparing for Aggression in the Pacific
The negative consequences of Axis cooperation also extend to the Pacific.
Moscow has been willing to provide some of its most modern military hardware to Beijing, such as the Su-35 fighter aircraft and the S-400 advanced air defense system, as well as airborne equipment, training, and long-term maintenance assistance. Some of these transfers materially increase Chinese military capabilities that Beijing would likely employ in a war against Taiwan.
Russia and Iran also provide China with large amounts of discounted energy that Beijing needs to fuel its economy and massive military buildup, which then-commander of U.S. Pacific Command Adm. John Aquilino said in 2023 was the “largest, fastest, most comprehensive military buildup since World War II.”
To make matters worse, Russia could also provide critical submarine technology to China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). The PLAN has long sought to reach Western standards of low acoustic signature in all of its submarines but has been unable to do so domestically through its own defense industrial base or by reverse engineering older technology. Should Moscow provide Beijing with this technology, it would erode one of America’s most significant remaining military advantages over China, thereby altering the balance of power in the Pacific and weakening deterrence.
Unfortunately, the negative consequences of Axis cooperation extend to the Korean Peninsula as well.
Indeed, the Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA’s) 2025 Worldwide Threat Assessment concluded that “North Korea is in its strongest strategic position in decades.” A major reason for that is the military assistance Putin has sent to Pyongyang.
In addition to the valuable combat experience and enhanced tactics, techniques, and procedures that North Korean soldiers have gained from fighting Ukrainians, Russia is also providing Pyongyang with valuable military technology and equipment. The commander of U.S. Forces Korea, Gen. Xavier Brunson, told Congress in April 2025 that “Russia is expanding sharing of space, nuclear, and missile-applicable technology, expertise, and materials to the DPRK.” Potential assistance includes submarine propulsion and quieting technology, air defense equipment, and electronic warfare systems.
As the new Axis of Aggressors book demonstrates, cooperation among China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea is “multifaceted, growing, and increasingly consequential.” Their cooperation has “improved the readiness, capability, capacity, and/or resilience of all four Axis militaries.” That is creating serious dilemmas for the United States and “rendering longstanding assumptions regarding defense spending, industrial capacity, war plans, and combat capacity dangerously outdated.”
The security of the United States may depend significantly on the degree to which Americans take the Axis of Aggressors seriously — and act accordingly.
Bradley Bowman is the co-author of Axis of Aggressors: Countering the Cooperation of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea and the senior director of FDD’s Center on
Military and Political Power, where Logan Rolleigh is a research assistant and Cameron McMillanis a senior research analyst.
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