Opinion | The Russia-North Korea pact bolsters a growing ‘alignment of evil’ (2024)

This isn’t quite an “axis of evil,” the unfortunate term President George W. Bush applied to Iran, Iraq and North Korea to justify his invasion of Iraq. Those states had little to do with one another; far from being allies, Iran and Iraq were enemies that had fought a bloody war in the 1980s. A more apt way to describe the current situation was suggested by Yoel Guzansky, a senior researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, when I met him Thursday. He calls it an “alignment of evil,” a phrase that accurately captured the dynamic.

The four dictatorships in question — Russia, Iran, North Korea and China — do not constitute a formal security alliance akin to NATO or the old Warsaw Pact, but they are broadly united in their desire to challenge the United States and its allies, ranging from Ukraine to Israel to South Korea.

North Korea has provided Russia with dozens of short-range missiles and as many as 5 million artillery shells to use against Ukraine. In return, Russia, which once supported international sanctions against North Korea over its weapons of mass destruction program, vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution in March to authorize a panel of independent experts to track compliance with North Korean sanctions. More significantly, Russia is expected to provide North Korea with economic aid (such as low-cost oil and gas) and technological help to upgrade its arsenal of nuclear weapons and missiles. Thus, while North Korean aid is making Russia more dangerous to Ukraine, Russian aid is likely to make North Korea more dangerous to South Korea, Japan and the United States.

Iran is the other country that is providing weapons to Russia. It has sent artillery shells, drones and ballistic missiles and has even opened a factory in Russia to produce its Shahed self-detonating drones. In return, Tehran said that it would be getting Su-35 fighter jets, Mi-28 attack helicopters and other Russian military equipment it needs to upgrade its own armed forces. Russia has even lofted Iranian satellites into orbit.

This military relationship represents a deepening of the ties between Moscow and Tehran, which had been growing closer ever since Putin decided in 2015 to send the Russian air force to aid Iran’s ally in Syria, Bashar al-Assad, to brutally quell a rebellion against his rule. The Russia intervention helped turn the tide in the Syrian civil war, entrenching Assad in power. It also led to close ties between Russia and Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist proxy in Lebanon, which had dispatched its own troops to fight for Assad.

Unlike North Korea or Iran, China apparently has not been supplying Russia with munitions, but it has provided microchips, machine tools and other dual-use components that have enabled Russian factories to keep manufacturing weapons for use against Ukraine. Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, told Congress last month: “China’s provision of dual use components and material to Russia’s defense industry is one of several factors that tilted the momentum on the battlefield in Ukraine in Moscow’s favor, while also accelerating a reconstitution of Russia’s military strength after their extraordinarily costly invasion.”

We should not exaggerate the extent of cooperation in the “alignment of evil” or ignore the real rivalries and frictions that exist under the surface. Beijing, for example, can hardly be overjoyed to see its allies in Pyongyang drawing so close to Moscow, thereby diluting Chinese influence in North Korea. Beijing and Moscow, for their part, have been at loggerheads over a proposed gas pipeline from Russia to China. Putin has been desperate to sell to China gas that he can no longer sell to Europe, but the Siberia 2 pipeline project has stalled because Xi Jinping would not commit to buying as much gas as Russia wants to sell at the price that it wants to charge.

But we should also not ignore the growing threat confronting the West from the alignment of its enemies. The democratic world must respond with at least as much solidarity as the autocracies are displaying. A good start would be to draw tighter links among U.S. allies in Europe and Asia. There has already been considerable movement in this direction: Last year’s NATO summit was attended by the leaders of Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Japan, and those Pacific partners have also been invited to next month’s NATO summit in Washington.

All four of those Pacific nations have applied sanctions on Russia and sent aid to Ukraine. South Korea and Japan have so far refused to provide direct military aid to Ukraine, but The Post reported in December that South Korea had sent artillery shells to the United States to pass along to Ukraine, while the Japan News reported in February that Japan was poised to send to the United States ammunition for the Patriot air-defense system to pass along to Ukraine.

Given that Russia now seems determined to upgrade North Korean military capabilities — thereby increasing the danger to Japan and South Korea — it would make sense for those two countries to provide direct military aid to Ukraine. Australia is already providing direct military assistance, but, as retired Australian Gen. Mick Ryan argues, it can and should do more.

Israel has been the big laggard among the world’s democracies in supporting Ukraine, even as Russia has taken an increasingly pro-Hamas stance. But while Israel — mired in war in Gaza and facing the possibility of another war in Lebanon — can no longer afford to donate military equipment to Ukraine, it could still join the sanctions regime on Russia. That would be the perfect riposte to Russian demands that the United Nations impose sanctions on Israel.

The world’s leading illiberal powers recognize their congruence of interests and are drawing closer together to tear down the rules-based international order. The world’s democracies need to be at least as staunch in staring down the threat from the “alignment of evil.”