Nation States: The Axis of Aggressors and the Multi-Front Threat

A new national security warning argues that China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are cooperating more closely than many Americans realize. Steve Yates examines the core findings of The Axis of Aggressors, outlining how military support, technology transfers, energy partnerships, and cyber coordination could create simultaneous crises that strain U.S. resources, alliances, and readiness. He explains why this matters for Main Street, from supply chains to energy costs and national security. Listen and consider what stronger deterrence, resilient supply chains, and capable alliances mean for America's future. Follow Nation States with Yates for clear, common-sense insights where Steve Yates serves as your personal national security advisor, breaking down world events in ways that matter to Main Street, not just Washington. Connect with the show at [e-mail] and follow on X @NSWithYates.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Nation States with Yates. I'm Steve Yeates. You'r
a humble host here to help you understand the wild
and wooly world we live in. You know, the world
comes at you fast, whether you're in the White House
or in your house. We aim to serve as your
personal national security advisor to make sense of it all.
Today we want to share a conversation take a little

(00:22):
deep dive into a book that was put out by
a friendly think tank called the Foundation for Defensive Democracies.
The title of the book is The Axis of Aggressors China, Russia, Iran,
and North Korea teaming up against America. So today we
want to take a look at some of the core

(00:43):
themes of the book. It's sounding a clear alarm. It's
written by Brad Bowman, Elaine Dozenski, and retired Rear Admiral
Mark Montgomery. Fox News has covered it. They put a
segment up on their web page about it and talked
about it in a couple of interviews myself and the
messages straightforward, China, Russia, and Iran and North Korea are

(01:05):
coordinating more closely than most Americans realize, across military help, money, technology,
and cyber and that coordination is making each of them
a little stronger while stretching us a little thinner. So
this is not just an abstract think tank kind of talk.
These four regimes are united in one big thing, shared

(01:26):
hostility towards the United States, our interests, and our allies.
The book documents hundreds of examples of them helping each other,
and today we're going to walk through the core findings
and plain english about what they're actually doing, why it
matters to our security and to our wallets, and what
the authors say America ought to do about it. So
we'll try to keep it practical, and after the brief break,

(01:48):
we'll come back and have a deep dive on the
Axis of Aggressors. Stay with us after this brief break,
Welcome back to Nation States with Yates. Today we're going
to talk about a fun new book called The Axis
of Aggressors. It's been put out by our friends at
the Foundation for the Defensive Democracies. I came into contact

(02:12):
with the subject matter when I was doing a media
interview with a friend and she was asking me questions
that were based on this axis. Is it real, what
do we know about it? How big of an adjustment
should we be making. And it just struck me that
this is one of those challenges to the nation state,
which is our core theme of conversation, that doesn't seem

(02:34):
to get that much conversation, and when it does get conversation,
it might be overblown or overly dismissed, And from time
to time I might be do the one that is
dismissing it to a degree, because in the end, America
and its allies in aggregate, when doing the right things
for each other, really are overwhelmingly powerful. Our challenge is

(02:58):
the hurting cats, divisions within America, divisions among our allies,
especially those in Europe, but not just in Europe. And
so it's that kind of effort that sort of makes
this more of a challenge than it otherwise might be.
But there's some really interesting parts of the message of
this book that I thought you might want to think

(03:19):
about at your kitchen table, among your friends and your
church community, and to be prepared for when you engage
those you've elected to represent you to be good advocates
for what we are doing as a nation state, to
stand for ourselves and for our allies, to try to
push back on what this axis is doing so, first

(03:40):
let's jump in with what is this axis really? Access
is just a term when we talk about kind of
a grouping of powers. You think back to World War Two,
the axis powers were the bad guys. They were the
tyrannies of Imperial Japan. You had, of course Nazi Germany,

(04:02):
and then there was Mussolini's Italy. But in other kinds
of conflicts you have axes, whether it's the axis of
evil in the war and terrorism. You had the communist
axis powers during the Cold War. So this is just
part of the terms that we use. Usually we're talking

(04:22):
about the bad guys when we're talking about an axis,
but really that axis is just who's working together. So
when we start with the basics, this particular axis of
crink China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. It's not a
formal military alliance, say like NATO. There's no mutual defense
treaty aspect of it. We're an attack on one as

(04:44):
an attack on all and they automatically jump in the
authors of this book are clear about that. But what
it is is a practical growing partnership of convenience. China, Russia,
Iran and North Korea have different priorities, but they share
a common goal of pushing back against American power and
the free world system that has kept relative peace and

(05:06):
prosperity for decades. The book really goes into some interesting detail.
If you've got the time and interest, encourage you to
go to the FDD website and find a way to
get yourself an online or in person copy. They go
into six hundred and sixteen instances of security cooperation among
these four from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty five, six

(05:27):
year period. It takes us right up to the precipice
of the current operations with Iran, and it goes into
things like arms transfers, joint weapons work, military exercises, intelligence sharing,
and official exchanges. In June of twenty twenty five, the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the United
States of America told Congress, these regimes are pursuing an

(05:52):
unprecedented level of cooperation. I don't doubt that that's actually true,
and we're seeing it manifest in several different ways. We
talked about in a previous episode about North Korea being
involved in the conflict in Ukraine, so helping Russia but
also actually showing up in the conflict in Ukraine, and
we talked a little bit about what that looks like

(06:13):
in a separate episode. Encourage you to go back to
a previous Nation States episode on North Korea. That's sleeping topic.
This is one of a collection of them now in
this broader axis conversation. So the book goes into all
of that ground of the unprecedented levels of cooperation and
what does it all mean? But how do they help

(06:35):
each other in real conflicts? As I alluded, we did
do a deep dive into the North Korea and Ukraine element.
We've also long talked about China's bankrolling of Russia, the
Russian war machine that makes that conflict go longer. But
let's put it in some simple terms. North Korea has
sent troops, millions of artillery rounds and ballistic missiles to Russia.

(06:58):
In return, Moscow has helped Pyongyang with missile, space drone
and nuclear nohow Iran has supplied Russia with drones and
production knowledge to make them make more of each of
those in their enterprises. Those Iranian drones often contain Chinese components,
so a hybrid of the players in this axis. China

(07:22):
is the economic backstop it buys discounted Russian oil. It
provides dual use technology, including microelectronics that show up in
ballistic crews and hypersonic missiles. Chinese chemicals have also fueled
Iran's ballistic missile program. So another collection of how this
access is doing things together. The longer America and our

(07:45):
partners stay entangled in one fight, the more that China
and Russia tend to benefit the battlefield lessons from Ukraine.
Of course, there's some that the Ukrainians have adapted to
and learned from that can help the free world do
some important, impressive things. But the bad guys have also
been learning from a multi year grinding conflict and how America,

(08:07):
American technology and Europeans and European technology has fared. And
so it draws time and resources away, time including just
leadership time. And while we are busy in one area,
the bad guys can play in another. So there's some
benefit to the sort of anchor powers in this axis

(08:32):
of aggressors China and Russia in the potential for a
Pacific crisis. There's also the way that there could be
coordination by those bad powers to make things harder for us.
So this is not just theoretical coordination. It's operational help
that's making each regime a little more lethal, and that

(08:54):
makes life more complicated for us and our allies. Needs
to be taken seriously. Another area is in this access
has to do with money and technology, and there's sort
of a backbone in that China buys as much as
ninety five percent of Iran's oil exports, often the sanctioned stuff,

(09:15):
especially prior to this conflict. But what's getting through now
is still going to be helping Iran out some in
China's the number one buyer of these things. It can
go through third countries and independent refiners, but China also
soaks up Russian energy, and that cash keeps the war
machine running. They're building workarounds to our sanctions, including China's

(09:39):
cross border interbank payment system that tries to reduce reliance
on the dollar. I wouldn't overstate what that is, but
it is kind of an effort to get around some
of our financial sanctions. The dollar remains by far the
dominant currency for international commerce, international banking, the international financial system.

(10:00):
This axis is exploring ways to find breathing space outside
of it, and has in ways that are much more
than before, but it's still a minority, but something to watch.
And then on cybersecurity and the technology side of things,
the lines between state actors and criminal groups are blurred. Iranian, Russian, Chinese,

(10:22):
and North Korean network share tools, forums, and infrastructure. The
result is a more resilient authoritarian ecosystem that is harder
for us to disrupt and in some ways easier for
them to disrupt us. The more we focus on one
of them, the less we're focusing on the other actors.
And so we have our hands full the United States

(10:45):
of America and keeping our nation state prosperous and secure,
protecting our communities and our people and our businesses, our
critical infrastructure, and our industries, all things that are vital
to a successful nation state all at risk by this axis.
And we probably need to have better strategy and coordination

(11:08):
to find ways to disrupt this axis and sort of
put the burden back on them about how are they
holding this together on their side, rather than the overwhelming
amount of our attention being how are we holding things
together in our country and across alliances. There's an interesting
problem that comes from a threat to America in this

(11:33):
sense that is called the simultaneity problem just means things
happening at once and how it can overwhelm us. So
if you think about it this way, the more pieces
of this axis that are healthy, contributing value for value
to each other, it makes them more resilient. It makes
them more resistant to our pressure, whether diplomatic, economic, or military.

(11:58):
And if they're there is a conflict in one area,
it might make us more vulnerable to trying to concentrate
our effort to resolve that conflict. So in this case,
let's take the simultanety problem and apply it to another
topic we've covered in Nation States with Yates, and that's
a Taiwan crisis. Potentially, say there's a major move by

(12:21):
China to put a very muscular embargo or blockade on
Taiwan imposed by force. Maybe there's some missiles landing on
or around Taiwan that are trying to put ultimate pressure
on that government to relent and to block us and
our allies from intervening to block that effort at embargo

(12:41):
or in position of their will by force. We'll say,
as that's happening, North Korea decides they want to launch
some missiles, they want to mobilize, they're now improved cyber
and military capabilities. Now that they've gotten a little fighting
experience in the Russia Ukraine Front, and they've benefited from
both China and Russia on some spillover technology enhancements. They

(13:05):
might present more of a challenge if they moved on
South Korea opening that front. Pinning are forces that are
on that peninsula and it's near abroad in having to
deal with that contingency, at the same time, we're having
to deal with a broader, more weighty Taiwan Strait contingency.
That's a real problem. And two front wars or multitasking

(13:28):
in the really most significant sense, is not something that
humans are really built for. We have done it in
times past. We did have a European and Pacific theater
to World War two, and so these things can be done,
but it comes at great expense. You have to mobilize

(13:49):
a lot of your manufacturing. I'll deploy a lot of
hard power, and it could take multiple years, and that
takes a lot of energy, it takes a lot of
your economy. You have to be ready to sacrifice and
build up as a country to do that. We've not
had to deal with that weight on American families and

(14:11):
communities since the World War Two generation we've called the
Greatest Generation, and they might have been pre wired to
do more of that mobilization and sacrifice because they came
out of the Great Depression, whereas we have a generation
of war fighters and civilian leaders in America who've come
up during one of our most prosperous times. And so

(14:34):
this is a real challenge. It's a simultaneity problem and
their ability to sort of put the squeeze on us
in different theaters at once, whether it's an Iran and
a China contingency, a Russia and China contingency, Europe and Asia,
or some combination thereof. That's the simultaneity problem that this
axis can present. And it's a little different. So America

(14:56):
is not structured to fight major conflicts in multiple theaters
at the same time with the force we currently have.
It's something that's talked about in theory and something that
appropriators in Congress and officials in the Pentagon grapple with.
But if China moves on Taiwan, North Korea can threat
in South Korea, if Russia pressures the Baltics or NATO's

(15:20):
eastern flank, Iran can stir terrorism or regional chaos assuming
we don't get that region buttoned down. In the course
of the conflict we're dealing with, one crisis becomes two
or three, and our military and our industrial base, our
attention gets stretched. And that's exactly what this axis benefits from.
And the longer we're tied down in one place, the
more room the others have to advance their own goals.

(15:42):
Retired to Admiral Montgomery put it plainly, we need to
treat the Axis as a combined threat that will confront
us in every crisis arena. So I think that's important advice,
something that we really have to think about and internalize
things that I'm sure that there are a keyp Pentagon
who've already been thinking along these lines. But it's really

(16:05):
crunch time about how do we revolutionize our forces, our manufacturing,
our capabilities. How do we pivot from a several month
grind in Iran to this more balanced and spread out
effort at deterrence and capabilities and alliances. I think we

(16:25):
will do it, but this is a really important wake
up call. Now let's pivot now to talk a little
bit more about what the book recommends. The authors aren't
just giving a diagnosis of the problem, which happens a
lot in commentary, especially critical commentary. But this isn't meant
to just be criticism for the sake of criticism and

(16:46):
shaking fingers at other people for not doing enough. They
give their version of a roadmap built around some clear goals.
Strengthening America, bolster alliances who actually share a load, and
weaken the axis. I think those are three legitimate buckets.
They're also consistent with things we've talked about in nation states,

(17:08):
so I appreciate that too. I like it when good
ideas cross fertilize independently among different think tanks, different commentators,
different leaders, and government across different alliances. So here we
have some of that strength in America. First, bolster alliances
that actually will share the load and weaken the axis.
That means rebuilding our defense production here at home so

(17:31):
we can surge when needed. Means protecting critical infrastructure, energy ports,
cyber supply chains, because those are now battlefields too, and
we've had dedicated episodes just talking about supply chains and
critical infrastructure very very important to the nation state. Means
enforcing sanctions aggressively on the full network not just on

(17:51):
the tankers, but the refiners, the insurers, the financiers, the
middlemen who keep the sanctioned oil and dual use goods
moving across the players in this axis, and it means
a real grand strategy that coordinates all the tools of
national power, military, economic, technological, diplomatic instead of treating each
of these crises in isolation. This falls very clearly under

(18:14):
that umbrella of smart power, which we also had a
dedicated episode on the great book written by our good
friend Christian Whiten. But the bottom line is of this
axis of adversaries is that we have a situation where
Washington has to stop underestimating how these four reinforce one

(18:34):
another and start building the capacity and alliances that can
deter them together. It's a very very good aspiration, I
think again, this is something where the national security strategy
and the team that's in the administration are open to this,
maybe already believe they're doing elements of this, and really
it's a matter of being able to get more evidence

(18:56):
of progress and results. As we've emphasized our first rule
of polistics, it's not enough to do good. You have
to be seen doing good. And so I think that
falling through on this is a critical way of doing that.
So that's a bit of a deep dive through the
book that came out again from the Foundation for Defensive Democracies.

(19:18):
It is called The Axis of Aggressors, and I encourage
you to take some time with it now if you
agree with me, having this kind of mindset is really
really important, and it's important for our leaders to communicate
with our citizens about this axis and what kind of

(19:38):
adjustments we need to make to it, because in our
media we tend to only take things piecemeal. When you
hear things one at a time, you don't think more holistically.
We don't feel like we're living in a cold war
environment that has sort of a global competition going on,
but we do. I think that competition is primarily with
the People's Republic of China, and I think it's the big,

(20:00):
big weight in this Access of aggressors, But these others
are part of the mix too, and I think that's
really important context that's contributed by this publication. And so
if you agree with me that this is useful, please like,
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your friends to do so. If you have the inclination

(20:23):
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(20:44):
you there, or send us an email on Nation States
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some feedback on how we're covering things. But we hope
that these are topics that are of interest to you
in being able to unders stand these challenges in a
meaningful way, but also a way that makes sense not

(21:05):
just in the Oval office, but in your house. So
after a brief break, we'll come back with some parting thoughts.
Stick with us here at Nation States with Yates. Welcome
back to Nation States with Yates for today's conversation about
the axis of aggressors. I hope this was an interesting
line of inquiry for you. Let's talk for a minute

(21:27):
about what does this end up really meaning for our
nation state and our grassroots communities. First, this is clear
eyed realism. These regimes are not our friends, and their
growing cooperation raises the odds of simultaneous pressure points that
could hit American interest hard. Higher energy costs, disrupted supply chains,
stretched military readiness, higher risks for our troops and our allies. Second,

(21:52):
strength is the best deterrent. America First is not isolationism.
It's built on an industrial base, energy independence, technological edge,
and military capacity so that no combination of adversaries believes
they can stretch us past the breaking point. Strong allies
who pull their weight help us. Free riders don't. And

(22:15):
it's another part of the adjustments that we're living through
in the current era, much much needed. Third, this is
not just a Washington problem. When manufacturing, shipbuilding, and critical
minerals stay overseas, we stay dependent on adversarial supply chains.
Main street pays a higher price in the higher costs
and with less resilience. Grassroots pressure for reshoring, securing energy

(22:39):
and keeping a ready military is a part of the solution,
and you, our humble audience, are a part of that
conversation and bringing that of those recommendations to our elected leaders.
The book is a wake up call and a roadmap.
We give them credit for that. Encourage you to read
the summaries, share the facts with neighbors and local leaders,
and insists our strategy meet the reality of an access

(23:02):
that's coordinating against us. We'll keep tracking this here at
Nation States. We urge you to please continue to like, subscribe,
and share episodes, and tell your friends to please do
the same. If you can, give us a good review
that helps grow the program. But until next time, we
encourage you to stay sharp and stay strong America