For three full days this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with other world leaders in the picturesque Russian city of Kazan, along the Volga River.

Surrounded by mostly like-minded leaders, Putin has positioned himself as the head of a major force contributing to a more equal world order.

Elsewhere on the planet, Putin’s war in Ukraine is entering its third year.

Reports that thousands of North Korean troops that US intelligence says are already in Russia for training have raised concern that they will be deployed to bolster Moscow’s front in Ukraine.

At the same time, the United States and its allies have sounded the alarm as they believe that the ever-increasing coordination among anti-Western countries poses a broad and immediate security threat.

Hundreds of Iranian drones have also aided Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine with the US revealing last month that Tehran had sent short-range ballistic missiles to Russia.

Meanwhile, China has also been accused of bolstering the Russian war machine with significant amounts of “dual-use” goods, such as microelectronics and machine tools, that can be used to make weapons. Last week, the US took action for the first time against two Chinese companies for supplying integrated weapons systems. All three countries have denied providing support to Moscow.

Taking stock of this emerging partnership, a congressional-backed panel that assesses US defense strategy has labeled Russia, China, Iran and North Korea as an “axis of malign partnerships.”

The shared hostility to the US raises fears that it is increasingly pushing these countries to work together – amplifying the threat any one of them poses alone to Washington or its allies in many parts of the world.

“The intention of North Korea to participate in this war on behalf of Russia is a very serious issue, and it will have implications not only in Europe but also affect things in the Indo-Pacific as well,” said US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday in the first confirmation that North Korean troops are in Russia.

“Guided by a survival strategy”

Decades after the Axis powers of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan and the bitter anti-Western coalition of the Cold War era – and years after the enemies of the US that George W. Bush had labeled the “axis of evil,” Iran , Iraq and North Korea, there is a perception that a new, dangerous alliance is emerging with Putin’s war as a catalyst.

That alliance includes two nuclear-armed powers, North Korea, a state believed to have stockpiled illegal nuclear warheads, and Iran, which the US says could likely build a nuclear weapon within weeks.

Meanwhile, North Korea’s military cooperation with Russia now links the bitter conflict in Europe to the ongoing one on the Korean peninsula, as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has stepped up threats to the South, with which he remains technically at war.

Following reports of North Korea deploying troops to Russia, South Korea said it could consider supplying Ukraine with weapons for the first time.

North Korea has little to lose by sending millions of artillery rounds, short-range ballistic missiles and, more recently, troops into Russia.

In return, cash-strapped and internationally isolated Pyongyang has likely received food and other necessities — and possibly support to develop its space capabilities, which could also help its missile program.

The drone war in Ukraine has also led Russia to look to Iran for supplies – deepening a security partnership that dates back to 2015 and the war in Syria, when both supported Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

And for Tehran – hit by heavy Western sanctions and embroiled in the Middle East conflict with US-backed Israel – the supply of arms to Russia is seen as strengthening its defense sector, while its ties with Beijing and Moscow provide diplomatic coverage.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who called for “no-limits” cooperation with Putin weeks before his invasion, has claimed Beijing is neutral in the conflict and has largely barred Chinese companies from providing direct military aid.

But it has filled large gaps in Russian demand for other goods, including products considered by the US to be dual-use, and has benefited from Russia’s lower energy prices. China defends its “normal trade” with Russia. China has also continued to expand joint military exercises and diplomatic ties with Moscow, which it sees as a key partner in confronting the West in international forums.

But while these four countries have their own incentives to cooperate with each other individually, especially in the context of Russia’s war, there are clear limits to any broader coordination, mutual trust, and even interest in cooperation — at least for now, they say. the observers.

“This is a set of bilateral relations that are driven by each country’s survival strategy or the field of geopolitical strategy,” said Alex Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin.

“These are regimes… and they all see the US as a common adversary. That’s the glue that holds them together, but whether we can talk about a degree of coordination between the four … I think we’re a long way from that,” he said.

This raises the pressing question of whether this temporary cooperation can last beyond the war in Ukraine and develop into full coordination between all four states.

The China factor

A key factor in how any further alignment of the four plays out is China, observers say – by far the most powerful player in the group, the main trading partner for Russia, North Korea and Iran, and also the main rival of USA.

As its differences with Washington have deepened, Beijing has stepped up efforts to challenge US global leadership and shape an international order that favors China and other autocracies.

Russia’s role in that effort was revealed this week in the southwestern city of Kazan, where Xi and Putin hailed their commitment to building a “fairer” world on the sidelines of a summit of the BRICS group whose members had worked since audience for its development this year.

The two have brought Iran into the fold and have largely sided with Tehran in the Middle East conflict. China, Russia and Iran have also held four joint naval exercises since 2019, and China is by far Iran’s biggest energy buyer.

But at the same time, a heavily sanctioned Iran is no longer “China’s partner in the Middle East” as Beijing builds relations with richer Gulf states, according to Jean-Loup Samaan, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute of National University of Singapore. .

Beijing is also carefully managing its relationship with North Korea – which is almost entirely economically and diplomatically dependent on China. Beijing is also believed to be wary of the Kim-Putin alignment as a strong North Korea could cause trouble and divert US interest in the region.

When asked about the North Korean troop move to Russia at a press briefing on Thursday, China’s foreign ministry said it had “no information on that.”

While engaging in its own aggressive behavior in the South China Sea and toward Taiwan, China likely does not want to appear to be closely involved in these partnerships as it seeks to impose an image of a responsible, global leader.

“Russia, North Korea, Iran is the group that China does not want to be associated with openly,” said Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

China “wants to make it clear that it is not part of the tripartite alliance with Russia and North Korea” and also “has more options than those countries … and prefers to work with a larger number of countries” to compete with the West, he said.

“Real danger”

China’s refusal to cut economic aid to North Korea, which defies UN sanctions, and Russia, which has threatened to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, is interpreted by the West as open support for those regimes.

In July, the Committee on National Defense Strategy, an independent panel charged by Congress with assessing US defense strategy, said China and Russia cooperation had “deepened and broadened” to include a military and economic partnership with the Iran and North Korea.

China has repeatedly insisted that its relationship with Russia is one of “non-alignment, non-confrontation and non-targeting of a third party”.

NATO has also moved in recent years to strengthen relations with US allies and partners in the Asia-Pacific, with a meeting of defense ministers last week featuring for the first time Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

In the short term, Russia’s defense partnerships also open the door for Iran and North Korea to acquire and potentially produce Moscow’s sensitive technologies and even ship them around the world, according to Carnegie’s Zhao.

The current dynamic also raises the risk that future conflicts — including one where China is at the center rather than Russia — will involve coordination among the four, some analysts say.

For example, in a potential conflict in the South China Sea or over Taiwan, there is a question of whether Beijing would seek a role as a distraction from North Korea or Russia in North Asia.

However, some experts warn of the danger of a definitive conclusion as these relationships remain opportunistic, rather than based on deep ideological alignment or trust.