Is the United States facing a new ‘Axis of Evil’?

American officials are becoming increasingly concerned about the emerging partnership among China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. A bloc that is being talked about in Washington as a new “Axis of Evil.”

On Wednesday, those worries intensified with confirmation by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin during a trip to Rome that North Korean troops are now present in Russia. Presumably, they are preparing to participate in Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

Just days earlier, Russia took part in naval drills hosted by Iran. 

China, North Korea, and Iran have supported Moscow’s military machine in different ways. Tehran has provided missiles and drones. Pyongyang has sent artillery shells. Beijing has provided dual-use tech, including semiconductors and drone engines.

Republican congressman Rob Wittman, the vice-chairman of the US House Armed Services Committee, said during an online discussion last month hosted by the Center for a New American Security:

We’ve seen the emergence of Axis of Evil back in the late 1930s, 1938, 1939. We saw what the world did at that particular point to come together.

Revisionist powers

“We find ourselves at that same crossroads today where we have nations that do not believe in the same things that we believe in, do not believe in the rule of law, do not believe in protecting the rights and dignity of human beings,” he added.

In 2002, former United States President George W Bush used the term “Axis of Evil” in his State of the Union address to describe countries supporting terrorism, such as North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. 

Recently, it has been applied in Washington to describe China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken describes these four countries as revisionist powers. He wrote that fierce competition to define a new era of international affairs is underway, with a few countries determined to change the international system.

In the November-December issue of the Foreign Affairs publication, he pointed out:

While these countries are not an axis, and the administration has been clear that it does not seek bloc confrontation, choices these revisionist powers are making mean we need to act decisively to prevent that outcome.

Wittman does use the term “Axis of Evil” and said the countries involved are more capable of destabilizing the world than were Nazi Germany and its allies in 1939, as they cooperate and share technology at all levels. He told Voice of America:

So, as you look at drones that have been taken out in Ukraine, you find Chinese printed circuit boards in there, Chinese systems on board those drones.

New partnership

“You also see the arms that are being fired into Ukraine from Russian artillery pieces are being manufactured in North Korea. You see the drones that are being used by Russians in the battle space there are being manufactured by Iran,” Wittman added.

He also said the new partnership is learning from the Ukrainian conflict at a rate that keeps pace with the times, gaining capabilities that cannot be achieved in normal testing and development processes in a peaceful environment.

“The biggest difference in the 2024 Axis of Evil is that at least three of the four countries are in expansionist mode,” wrote Merrill Matthews, a resident scholar at the Institute for Policy Innovation earlier this year, adding: 

They want much more land and power. And they are coordinating their efforts to benefit each country’s goals. It’s a very dangerous development.

Matthews told VOA the group is working to create a largely self-sufficient economic zone – out of both necessity and desire – that does not rely on Western economies for survival.

Christopher S Chivvis, a senior fellow and director of the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told VOA that China is key to the strength of the four-way relationship, adding:

If China were not part of this four, it would look like three countries that are highly isolated from the world cooperating with each other. We would have much less to worry about. 

“It’s China’s participation in this grouping that really has the potential to make it very problematic for the United States,” Chivvis said.

He added that the four countries can use a crisis in one region to launch a war, coordinate actions, or create chaos in another.

Military campaign

For example, Chivvis lays out a more extreme version of this scenario in his recent report. He speculated that if China attempted a military operation against Taiwan, Russia might seek to take advantage of the strain on US resources.

That could involve an even more aggressive military campaign in Ukraine or even an incursion into NATO territory.

Similarly, a major escalation with Iran in the Middle East that draws in US naval and air forces could also embolden China to take a highly-aggressive approach against Taiwan. Chivvis said:

It would be difficult for these four countries to sign a formal treaty that would commit them to doing that kind of thing, but you can see it emerging spontaneously or organically out of a crisis situation.

And a crisis in one region can spill over to another part of the world.

“If you look at, for example, the Gulf Arab states, they’re critical energy suppliers to both China and Taiwan,” Michael Singh, the managing director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said, adding:

If you look at Iran, [it] has the capabilities we’ve seen through proxies like the Houthis to disrupt international waterways. So, to think that a conflict over Taiwan will be restricted to the Indo-Pacific is, I think at this stage, simply naive.

Blinken has described the relationship among the four countries as “largely transactional,” adding that their cooperation “entails tradeoffs and risks that each may find more distasteful over time.”

International system

“And yet all four revisionists share an abiding commitment to the overarching objective of challenging the United States and the international system,” Blinken wrote, adding:

That will continue to drive their cooperation, especially as the United States and other countries stand up to their revisionism.

Xiaoshan Xue is a producer at Voice of America. 

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.

This article is republished courtesy of Voice of America. Read the original article here.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of China Factor.