REPORT: The Post-Iran Deal Era — How the CRINK Axis Is Preparing to Rearm Tehran

Pyongyang, a supplier of ballistic missiles since the 1980s

The relationship between North Korea and Iran regarding ballistic missiles dates back to the 1980s, when Pyongyang sold its first Scud-B/Hwasong-5 missiles to Tehran. Since then, this relationship has continued to deepen. Iranian missiles—such as the Qiam and Khorramshahr—are for the most part direct derivatives of North Korean technology. Engineers from the DPRK have also helped build the extensive networks of underground bunkers that protect Iranian military facilities, including uranium enrichment sites.

In a post-agreement scenario, North Korean ballistic missile specialists could accelerate the development of Iran’s long-range capabilities, integrate improved precision-guidance technologies—notably guidance systems inspired by the Russian Iskander systems, which North Korea has used and refined in Ukraine—and enable Tehran to develop missiles capable of striking targets thousands of kilometers away with improved accuracy. This would be a major strategic development.

The CRINK Axis as a Sanctions-Circumvention Network

Beyond arms transfers, the CRINK axis functions as an increasingly sophisticated sanctions-evasion network. According to CSIS analyses, trade among the four CRINK countries has increased by nearly 50% since 2021, largely through the China-Russia relationship. Dual-use goods—electronic components, machine tools, semiconductors—flow between these countries along trade routes that circumvent Western export controls.

Iran benefits from this network in several ways. Chinese and Russian companies act as intermediaries to acquire export-controlled technologies. Trade routes via third countries allow for the transit of goods that could not be delivered directly. And North Korea, subject to extreme sanctions, has developed unique expertise in circumvention methods that other members of the axis use and adapt. In this sense, the CRINK axis is also a training ground for sanctions circumvention.

Sanctions evasion by the CRINK axis is a structural problem that the West has not yet resolved. Imposing sanctions without closing off the evasion routes is like plugging a water leak while leaving all the windows open. Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea have jointly developed an ecosystem for economic survival in the face of Western sanctions. We must understand it in order to counter it.

What CSIS Researchers Have Found About Military Coordination

The “CRINK Axis” special initiative of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has produced a series of analyses that paint a troubling picture. Since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the number of military exercises involving at least two CRINK countries has risen from an average of 3.2 per year to 9.5 per year. China and Russia dominate these exercises—83% of recorded CRINK exercises are bilateral China-Russia exercises. But trilateral China-Russia-Iran exercises have become an annual occurrence since 2022, and North Korea has participated as an observer in at least one trilateral exercise involving the two major powers of the axis.

The CSIS also notes that CRINK cooperation remains uneven and fragmented. China seeks economic stability, while Russia, Iran, and North Korea prioritize regime survival and confrontation with the West. These divergent objectives limit formal coordination. But they do not prevent transactional cooperation in specific areas—missiles, drones, electronic components, and sanctions evasion—which is very real and well-documented.

Ukraine as a Testing Ground for CRINK Technologies

One of the most insidious outcomes of the war in Ukraine is that the technologies developed in this conflict are subsequently spreading throughout the entire CRINK axis. North Korea, which has deployed up to 15,000 soldiers in Russia, is bringing back combat expertise, tactical experience, and knowledge of the vulnerabilities in NATO systems. According to intelligence reports, it has also acquired Russian technology for long-range suicide drones and electronic jamming systems. This enhanced North Korean expertise is then potentially accessible to Iran through established cooperation networks.

For Ukraine, this technology transfer network has a direct consequence: the weapons striking it today are the product of international cooperation that extends beyond Russia. The Shahed drones carry Iranian DNA, Chinese components, and funding from petrodollars not seized by sanctions. This reality makes support for Ukraine a battle against the proliferation of war technologies within the CRINK axis—not just against Russia alone.

Ukraine is fighting Russia on the ground. But it is also fighting, indirectly, against a technological and industrial ecosystem that involves Beijing, Pyongyang, and Tehran. Understanding this dimension means understanding why Ukrainian victories have strategic implications far beyond the conflict itself.

37 CRINK military exercises since 2022: an unprecedented increase

The CSIS figures speak for themselves. Since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, military exercises involving at least two CRINK countries have risen from an average of 3.2 per year to 9.5 per year—37 exercises in less than four years. China and Russia dominate—83% of the exercises are bilateral Sino-Russian exercises. But trilateral China-Russia-Iran exercises have become an annual occurrence since 2022. And North Korea has participated as an observer in at least one trilateral exercise, which had never happened before. This increasing frequency is no coincidence—it is a deliberate policy of military convergence.

Chinese military officers have been authorized to visit Russian front lines in Ukraine to draw direct tactical lessons. This is a form of on-the-job training whose value no war game simulation can replicate. These officers return with data on the effectiveness of NATO systems, the vulnerabilities of Western lines of communication, and the electronic countermeasures employed. This expertise will be incorporated into the doctrines of the Chinese Navy and Army—particularly in preparation for a potential scenario involving Taiwan.

North Korea: 15,000 Soldiers Trained in Live Combat in Ukraine

North Korea has deployed up to 15,000 soldiers to Russia to support the war against Ukraine. These soldiers are fighting alongside Russian forces, gaining training under real-world, high-intensity combat conditions that Pyongyang cannot obtain anywhere else. They are returning with firsthand experience in drone warfare, electronic warfare, and precision strikes. According to the CSIS Korea Chair, North Korea has received between $9.6 billion and $12.3 billion for its contributions to the Russian war effort—a colossal sum for an economy whose total trade amounted to only $2.7 billion in 2024.

The accuracy of North Korea’s KN-23 and KN-24 ballistic missiles has improved from a margin of error of 500–1,000 meters to 50–100 meters thanks to the integration of Russian guidance systems similar to those used in the Iskander. This qualitative improvement in North Korea’s arsenal is directly linked to military cooperation with Russia, reinforced by the presence of North Korean soldiers on the ground in Ukraine. This is the virtuous cycle of the CRINK axis: each conflict enriches the coalition’s collective expertise.

15,000 North Korean soldiers trained in modern warfare in Ukraine. This figure would have been unimaginable five years ago. It speaks to a fundamental truth about how quickly the international order can reconfigure itself when democracies let their guard down. By resisting, Ukraine is delaying this reconfiguration. Every day it holds out is a day gained for the free world.

The West’s Strategy Toward the CRINK Axis: Between Sanctions and Engagement

The documented emergence of the CRINK axis as a network for military and economic cooperation poses a major foreign policy challenge for Western democracies. Bilateral sanctions against each CRINK country individually have shown their limitations: they push these countries to draw closer to one another, develop alternative economies, and collaborate on innovation in areas that allow them to circumvent restrictions. A more coherent and coordinated approach is needed.

Several options are on the table: more aggressive secondary sanctions targeting companies that facilitate technology transfers between CRINK members; enhanced cooperation among intelligence agencies to map and disrupt circumvention networks; and massive investments in technologies that enable the West to maintain its qualitative edge despite the axis’s collective rise in power. In this battle, Ukraine serves as the West’s testing ground and first line of defense.

South Korea, India, and Indo-Pacific Partners Facing the CRINK Challenge

The CRINK axis is not only a threat to Europe and the Middle East. South Korea, which is closely monitoring Pyongyang’s enhanced military capabilities resulting from its cooperation with Moscow and Beijing, is on the front lines in the Indo-Pacific. India, which has complex relations with Russia as well as with the West, must decide which side of this geopolitical divide it will align itself with in the long term. Countries such as Japan, Australia, and the Quad partners have already recognized the threat and are coordinating their responses.

The Atlantic Council’s initiative to create a “U.S. Command for Northeast Asia”—merging U.S. forces in Korea and Japan to counter the combined China-DPRK-Russia threat in the region—illustrates the gravity with which Western strategists view this convergence of threats. The CRINK axis is no longer an analytical abstraction—it is an operational reality that is reshaping global geopolitics, from Kyiv to Seoul, from Taipei to Tel Aviv.

I am struck by how quickly the CRINK axis has evolved from an academic concept into a tangible military reality. Five years ago, talking about coordination between China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea sounded like paranoia. Today, CSIS has dedicated an entire initiative to it, and Western militaries view it as an organizational threat. The world has changed—and the West must adapt just as quickly.

A compromise framework that leaves Iran’s offensive capabilities intact

The framework agreement between Washington and Tehran, as described in analyses available at the end of June 2026, is an agreement to cease hostilities rather than one involving disarmament. Iran retains the bulk of its conventional military capabilities; its nuclear facilities are not dismantled but are subject to negotiated inspections; and sanctions are only partially lifted. Under these terms, relations with the CRINK axis countries are neither prohibited nor sanctioned. Iran can theoretically cooperate militarily with Russia, China, and North Korea in areas not directly related to nuclear weapons.

This structural ambiguity is precisely what U.S. Republican hardliners denounce. An agreement that does not explicitly close the door to conventional rearmament via CRINK partners is a variable-geometry agreement—useful for reducing immediate escalation, but insufficient to guarantee strategic de-escalation in the medium term. Iran could sign a ceasefire in the morning and receive shipments of Russian weapons in the afternoon, if the agreement does not explicitly prohibit it. This is the loophole that Western strategists are viewing with growing concern.

Iran’s Strategy of Using the Strait of Hormuz as a Lever for Pressure

During the negotiations and after their conclusion, Iran continued to assert control over the Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately 20% of the world’s oil passes. This claim is not merely symbolic—it is a lever for global economic pressure that gives Tehran a weapon of blackmail that neither the framework agreement nor the sanctions can eliminate. German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul described Iran’s strategy regarding the strait as an illustration that “security and economic policy cannot be separated.”

For Ukraine and its allies, this context is directly relevant. An Iran that maintains its leverage over the Strait of Hormuz is an Iran that has not been strategically neutralized. It is an Iran that can continue to supply drones to Russia, export ballistic technologies, and coordinate with its CRINK partners while manipulating the oil markets to generate the revenue needed for its rearmament. The war in Ukraine and the Iranian crisis are two acts of the same strategic play.

I’ll conclude this section with an uncomfortable thought: the U.S.-Iran agreement may have averted a broader war in the Middle East in the short term. But if it creates the conditions for Iranian rearmament in the medium term, it will simply have postponed the escalation. Diplomacy that postpones without resolving is not de-escalation—it is deferred crisis management. And Western democracies cannot afford to postpone difficult strategic choices indefinitely.

China as the Central Hub of All CRINK Trade

Trade among the four CRINK countries has increased by nearly 50% since 2021, but 90% of this increase is concentrated in the China-Russia relationship. Beijing is the financial and commercial linchpin of the entire coalition. Without China, neither Russia, Iran, nor North Korea could maintain their military capabilities at their current levels despite sanctions. Chinese exports to Russia consist mainly of dual-use electronic and mechanical goods essential for the production of weapons systems. Beijing supplies 70% of the machinery used in Russia’s production of ballistic missiles and 90% of the microelectronics needed for Russian missiles, tanks, and aircraft.

This Chinese economic support for the Russian war machine—and indirectly for those of Iran and North Korea—represents the most glaring flaw in the Western sanctions regime. Brussels and Washington have imposed massive sanctions on Russia, but they remain dependent on trade with China. As long as this dependence is not reduced, the sanctions will not be fully effective. On the one hand, the West is funding Ukraine’s defense industry; on the other, it continues to prop up the Chinese economic machine that fuels Russia. This contradiction is the structural limitation of the sanctions strategy.

Iranian oil, Russian gas, and the financing of the axis

The CRINK axis has a fundamental economic resource: hydrocarbons. Russia exports its oil and gas to countries that do not comply with sanctions—primarily India, China, and Turkey. Iran does the same, despite U.S. sanctions, by exporting via illegal routes to Asian buyers. These oil revenues directly finance the military expenditures of both countries. North Korea, lacking its own energy resources, receives energy from Russia in exchange for its supplies of weapons and soldiers—a strategic barter arrangement that allows each party to obtain what it needs.

This hydrocarbon-based financing of the CRINK axis is the Achilles’ heel of Western sanctions strategies. As long as Russia and Iran can sell their oil—even at reduced prices, even through informal channels—they have the revenue to finance their wars and rearmament. The EU’s oil price cap on Russia, currently set at $44 per barrel, is an imperfect but necessary tool. The goal of the 21st European sanctions package is precisely to maintain and strengthen this economic pressure before July 15, 2026.

There is a grim logic to the CRINK axis’s economy. Oil finances weapons, weapons finance war, war yields tactical lessons, those lessons build capabilities, and those capabilities enable the sale of more oil. It is a self-perpetuating system. And until the West figures out how to short-circuit it, it will have to finance both Ukraine’s defense and the economy that threatens it.

Calling the CRINK axis by its name is a necessary first step

There is a reluctance in Western diplomatic circles to refer too directly to the CRINK axis, for fear of hardening positions that could still be negotiated. This caution is understandable. But it has its limits. When four countries act in a coordinated manner to rearm Iran, support Russia, enable North Korea’s nuclear development, and circumvent Western sanctions, clearly and publicly naming this network is a necessary political act.

Ukraine, which has been fighting on the front lines of this confrontation since 2022, has long understood that its conflict is not a bilateral one. It is fighting Russia, but also its Iranian-technology drones, its missiles with North Korean components, and its Chinese supply chains. Zelensky says this in every speech he gives before Western parliaments: this is not Ukraine’s war; it is the war of the free world. The report I have just produced only confirms what he has been saying for months.

Ukraine, the free world’s sentinel against the axis of authoritarianism

In this broader context, the Ukrainian resistance serves as a bulwark against the steady rise of the CRINK axis. If Russia were to win, Iran would be freed from U.S. military pressure and could rearm without constraint. North Korea would see its strategy validated. China would capitalize on a demonstration of the West’s ineffectiveness. The dominoes do not fall in order but in the same direction. Ukraine’s resilience is an equation that the CRINK axis cannot solve. That is why supporting Ukraine is the West’s number one strategic priority.

This report cannot conclude on a note of certainty. The future of the Iranian issue, the evolution of the CRINK axis, the outcome of the war in Ukraine—all of this remains uncertain. But the dynamics are clear, the facts are documented, and the trends are troubling. The West must face these trends head-on and act with the consistency that the situation demands. Not tomorrow. Now.

I conclude this report with the uncomfortable conviction that we are living through a pivotal moment in history. The CRINK axis is not a geopolitical curiosity—it is a coalition that challenges the liberal international order. And Ukraine, despite everything, stands firm. It is up to us, in the Western democracies, to stand as firm as necessary.

Signed, Maxime Marquette, columnist