On July 17, an Iranian missile struck the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, resulting in the deaths of three American soldiers and leaving four others wounded. The strike was characterized by military analysts as unusually precise. In the weeks that followed, U.S. intelligence officials made a critical discovery: prior to the attack, Tehran had received high-resolution satellite imagery of the base, granting them the vital reconnaissance needed to hone their targeting. After the strike, Iran obtained additional imagery, potentially assisting operatives in assessing the damage and planning subsequent offensives. The source of these intelligence feeds was traced back to Chinese entities.
China, however, is not acting alone in providing tactical assistance to Iran. Russia has similarly aided Tehran in identifying and striking American and allied positions throughout the region. Just two days before a March 27 attack on the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia—an assault that wounded 12 American personnel—14 Russian spy satellites passed directly overhead. U.S. officials later concluded that Moscow had funneled critical satellite intelligence to Iran, directly enabling the precision strike. Furthermore, Moscow has supplied Iran with advanced weaponry and military expertise, including upgraded iterations of Iranian-designed drones that have been battle-tested and refined on the battlefields of Ukraine. Russian engineers are also actively assisting Iran in the development of sophisticated supersonic cruise missiles capable of evading both U.S. and Israeli air defense systems.
Neither Russia nor China has formally or directly entered into the war between Iran and the United States. Indeed, they have found that they do not need to. By supplying vital intelligence on American targets, advanced military technology and critical components, and unwavering economic and diplomatic support, these powers can furnish Iran with the resources it requires without committing troops or entering into direct military conflict with Washington.
When the conflict initially escalated, the United States entered with structural advantages that its adversaries notably lacked: a vast, formalized network of international allies, strategically positioned military bases, deep intelligence-sharing arrangements, institutional defense partnerships, and highly interoperable forces spanning Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Yet, as the campaign unfolded, many of Washington’s traditional partners displayed a marked reluctance to closely associate themselves with the military objectives. Some allies denied the United States specific forms of military access, at least temporarily, while others publicly resisted U.S. calls to help secure vital maritime chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz.
This dynamic illustrates a striking shift since security analysts first characterized Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea as an "axis of upheaval" in foreign policy discussions two years ago. The United States’ adversaries began this broader confrontation with a comparatively weaker and fragmented network, while Washington commanded the far superior coalition. However, after years of coordinating to sustain Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, the members of this revisionist axis have successfully adapted their network to function effectively in a brand-new theater. They are fine-tuning their cooperation mechanisms to make their individual partners more resilient—and consequently, far more dangerous to the United States—while successfully containing their own costs and risks. Meanwhile, Washington risks fracturing many of its traditional partnerships rather than deepening them, threatening to squander its formidable network precisely as its adversaries learn to maximize the utility of theirs.
Sources of Upheaval
Much has fundamentally changed in the international landscape. Most visibly, the United States itself has transformed into an internal source of disruption within the global system. Recent shifts in U.S. governance have challenged long-standing international institutions, strained historical alliances, and ushered in a decidedly more transactional approach to foreign policy. Long-established trade agreements have been upended, the sovereignty of close democratic allies has occasionally been threatened, and a foreign policy of radical unpredictability has been embraced. At the same time, Washington has pursued improved relations with Beijing, Pyongyang, and Moscow while simultaneously attempting to isolate and weaken Tehran. None of these diplomatic maneuvers, however, have loosened the strategic ties binding America’s primary adversaries together.
Early in this political shift, U.S. officials expressed quiet optimism that normalizing relations with Moscow might peel Russia away from the burgeoning coalition. Yet, repeated expressions of goodwill toward the Kremlin failed to create any diplomatic wedge between Russia and the other members of the axis. From Moscow’s perspective, Washington has proved incapable of delivering a durable settlement regarding the war in Ukraine. Furthermore, any short-term rapprochement driven by the executive branch is widely viewed in Moscow as ephemeral, given that the U.S. Congress maintains persistent pressure on Russia and a future administration could easily revert to a more hostile posture.
More fundamentally, attempts by Western policymakers to peel members away from the axis often misunderstand the core grievance that holds the coalition together. Its members share a profound objection to an international order that they view as explicitly designed to enshrine Western dominance at their direct expense. More pointedly, they collectively oppose the extraordinary, coercive power wielded by the United States to constrain, isolate, and punish them, and ultimately to threaten the survival of their ruling regimes. Recent high-profile U.S. actions have only served to rekindle those deeply held fears. The U.S. capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and the targeted killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei reinforce long-standing anxieties in Beijing, Moscow, Pyongyang, and Tehran regarding unilateral American interventionism and regime security.
While these axis nations may occasionally moderate their anti-American rhetoric when it proves tactically advantageous, their underlying motivation to systematically reduce their vulnerability to American power remains entirely intact. The prevailing American skepticism toward multilateral international orders will do little to ease anxieties in axis capitals; on the contrary, efforts to foster a purely transactional and coercive global environment only increase the intrinsic value of their partnerships. As international rules and institutions lose their binding authority and raw geopolitical power becomes the primary currency, nations naturally seek out partners capable of helping them blunt economic sanctions, access critical technologies, compensate for glaring military weaknesses, and resist international isolation. Axis cooperation is continually evolving to meet these exact challenges.
New Regions, New Problems
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, cooperation among the four adversarial nations was relatively straightforward to map. Iran supplied Russia with explosive drones, while North Korea funneled millions of artillery rounds, ballistic missiles, and eventually military personnel. China emerged as Moscow’s most critical economic lifeline, purchasing discounted Russian oil while supplying the machine tools, microelectronics, and dual-use components necessary to sustain and rapidly expand Russian military manufacturing. In return, Russia began transferring increasingly sophisticated military technology to its partners.
Although these initial exchanges were profoundly consequential, they could largely be understood as a series of bilateral transactions focused narrowly on supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine. That is increasingly no longer the case. Cooperation has evolved into a deeply networked enterprise explicitly geared toward solving tactical and strategic problems across entirely new geographic regions.
Russia’s domestic drone program illustrates this systemic transformation. Although Iran initially sold its Shahed loitering munitions directly to Moscow and subsequently helped establish domestic manufacturing facilities on Russian soil, Moscow did not merely replicate the foreign technology. Instead, Russian engineers incorporated advanced Chinese components and continually modified the drones’ onboard navigation, communication systems, payloads, propulsion mechanisms, and operational tactics in direct response to Ukrainian air defenses. Newly formed specialized military units fed successful battlefield modifications straight back into the industrial production cycle, generating an unusually rapid loop of military adaptation. Russia’s Unmanned Systems Forces—a specialized drone and robotics branch of the Russian armed forces—was established to formally institutionalize this cycle. This potent combination of domestic technological adaptation and axis partnership has proved exceptionally effective, yielding advanced jet-powered Geran drones that fly faster, carry heavier payloads, and present a significantly greater interception challenge for Ukrainian defenders than earlier variants.
Crucially, these Russian military improvements do not remain isolated within Russia. They circulate fluidly through the broader axis network. For Iran, the technological advancements that originally flowed outward to Russia are now returning home, accompanied by invaluable tactical advice drawn directly from Russia’s brutal experience on the Ukrainian battlefield. Should these advanced, jet-powered drones begin appearing in the Middle East—an outcome military analysts consider highly probable—future Iranian attacks on U.S. military forces and regional energy infrastructure will become considerably more difficult and costly to defend against.
North Korea and China are likewise reaping substantial dividends from this collaborative ecosystem. According to intelligence reports from Ukraine, Russia has brokered arrangements to help Pyongyang expand its own production of Shahed-type autonomous drones. North Korean engineers have gained vital technical expertise through hands-on work inside Russia’s massive Yelabuga drone manufacturing complex, while North Korean troops deployed alongside Russian forces have acquired firsthand experience integrating unmanned aerial systems into modern, high-intensity combat. Similarly, Chinese military personnel have received specialized training in drone warfare from combat-tested Russian forces, and Chinese industrial suppliers are acquiring invaluable empirical data regarding how their commercial and dual-use technologies perform under actual combat conditions. Beijing is thus deriving significant strategic insights from a cycle of drone warfare that originated with Iranian technology and was subsequently perfected in the fires of Ukraine.
The Model Can Travel
When these partnerships first accelerated, it remained an open question whether the cooperative ties among the four members of the axis could outlast the specific conflict that catalyzed their formation. Analysts questioned whether the relationships would lose momentum if the war in Ukraine were to conclude and Russia no longer relied heavily on Iranian drones, North Korean ammunition, and Chinese economic and technological backing.
Yet, the protracted conflict has done more than simply create an immediate operational necessity for cooperation. It has provided a definitive proof of concept demonstrating what these integrated partnerships can accomplish collectively—far exceeding what any single nation might achieve operating in isolation. Ukrainian defense efforts, sweeping Western sanctions, Western military supplies, and diplomatic isolation have all proved measurably less effective than they would have been had Russia been forced to wage its campaign alone. By actively helping one another withstand external pressure, the axis countries make it significantly harder for the United States and its allies to compel them to alter their strategic courses.
Iran is currently demonstrating that this collaborative model can be successfully exported to other regional conflicts. Russia’s support for Tehran has been operationally significant yet carefully bounded. Even while managing its own intensive war effort in Ukraine, Moscow has identified ways to help Iran strike American targets and sustain its regional posture through vital diplomatic cover and material support, while deliberately stopping short of actions that might drag Russia into a direct, catastrophic military clash with the United States. China has maintained an even more cautious public posture, but its steady provision of dual-use electronics and continued purchases of sanctioned Iranian oil have similarly enhanced Tehran’s capacity to withstand severe U.S. economic pressure.
Such diplomatic and operational restraint is not evidence of a weakening axis; rather, it is a defining operational feature of how these modern partnerships function. With the notable exception of North Korean combat troops deployed directly on Russia’s behalf, the axis countries have largely avoided fighting one another’s wars. Instead, they provide calculated political backing, vital economic support, actionable intelligence, advanced technology, and limited military assistance whenever doing so advances their individual national interests at a manageable level of risk.
Furthermore, the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have taught the axis another vital lesson: supporting a fellow member does not merely strengthen the direct recipient. Armed conflict in one theater can systematically create strategic opportunities and economic windfalls for partners elsewhere. For instance, Iranian disruptions and threats surrounding the Strait of Hormuz sent global oil prices soaring, delivering a massive financial windfall to Moscow while prompting Washington to temporarily ease restrictions on Russian petroleum exports. Iran’s regional conflict thus inadvertently generated critical financial resources that Russia could leverage to sustain its own military machine.
Similarly, prior to initiating significant military actions against Iranian proxies, the United States was forced to redeploy key military assets, including vital air and missile defense batteries, away from the Indo-Pacific theater and into the Middle East. As fighting persisted, the U.S. military committed two carrier strike groups to the Middle Eastern theater, temporarily leaving zero aircraft carriers stationed in the Indo-Pacific. This redistribution affords China immediate operational freedom resulting from a thinner U.S. military presence in the western Pacific, while simultaneously draining critical American munitions stocks. If Washington settles into a prolonged, resource-intensive strategy of containing Iran—reminiscent of its long-term containment policy toward Iraq during the 1990s—Beijing stands to reap the strategic advantages of those military diversions for years to come.
Do No Further Harm
The ongoing evolution of the axis of upheaval demonstrates that the sheer size and nominal strength of a national security network matter very little if its members cannot effectively translate their individual capabilities into coordinated, collective power. The United States and its allies undeniably start from a position of immense structural advantage: they command vastly superior economic and technological resources, possess highly capable professional militaries, and maintain a far larger institutional network of international allies and partners. The central question facing Western policymakers is which network can ultimately make superior use of its available assets.
Meeting this strategic challenge begins with visionary leadership. For decades, the United States championed an international order that strictly forbade wars of conquest, upheld the freedom of the seas, maintained a generally open global economy, and permitted populations to exercise democratic rights even where authoritarian regimes persisted. Washington coupled this compelling vision with an implicit strategic bargain: any nation that wished to join and support the international order was welcome to do so, and upholding those foundational principles conferred tangible benefits, including robust trade relations, diplomatic preferences, and reliable security alliances.
For governments that explicitly rejected this open international order—much like the axis countries do today—the institutional benefits were far fewer and the penalties considerable. The United States routinely sanctioned, pressured, and occasionally went to war against rogue states, while actively resisting the establishment of competing geopolitical orders like the communist blocs of the Cold War. American foreign policy was built upon the premise that Washington should steadfastly befriend like-minded democracies and treat cooperative nations better than hostile rejectionists.
Current political dynamics, however, have occasionally demonstrated inclinations pointing in the opposite direction. Senior diplomatic figures have noted instances where trade and defense arrangements appeared disconnected from traditional alliance structures, while executive rhetoric has sometimes displayed greater affinity for authoritarian leaders than for democratically elected heads of allied states. Furthermore, intermittent pressure placed on partners fighting for survival against external aggression, alongside unpredictable threats directed toward long-standing regional partners, risks sending mixed signals. Such policy shifts inadvertently strengthen the cohesion of axis countries while simultaneously eroding the trust and cohesion of the democratic network best positioned to confront them.
Adopting a posture of doing no further harm would mark a constructive starting point in managing the challenges posed by the axis. Beyond that foundational step, Washington should actively help its partners grow stronger and more resilient. Just as the axis nations are actively assisting one another in evading severe economic sanctions, preserving access to critical technologies and components, and sustaining their domestic economies under intense pressure, the United States must actively support its own network. This requires strengthening supply chains that run exclusively through trusted partners, sharing advanced defensive technology, and encouraging regional allies to shoulder greater security responsibilities.
Washington must take careful precautions, however, not to transfer defense responsibilities faster than allied nations can realistically develop the industrial and military capabilities to assume them—and to avoid executing such shifts in ways that erode mutual trust, operational interoperability, and strategic coordination. Otherwise, the United States and its partners risk becoming individually more capable on paper while remaining collectively less effective in practice.
The United States should also systematically reverse policies that actively undercut its own network. Protectionist tariffs and unilateral economic measures frequently harm allied economies and damage allied industrial bases. Expressing transactional ambivalence toward the territorial integrity of partners or attempting to undermine allied political leadership does not foster a capable, enduring international network. Washington must project enduring vision and reliable leadership to its friends, avoiding jarring unpredictability and heavy-handed transactionalism.
Even if the United States successfully changes course, American and allied policymakers must prepare themselves for a protracted, generational struggle. As recent efforts have demonstrated, there are no simple shortcuts to besting revisionist axis powers, whether acting in concert or individually. This ongoing contest of competing networks will remain virtually global in scope, waged across multiple technological and economic domains, with immense strategic stakes riding on the ultimate outcome. The United States and its allies possess the material capacity to prevail; the remaining challenge is demonstrating the sustained strategic will to do so.
