These regimes aren’t just opportunistic fellow travelers chasing cash and evasion routes. They are bound by a shared strategic necessity: the destruction of any international order that might hold them accountable.
A Functional Division of Labor
North Korean troops are not in Kursk because Pyongyang needed extra rubles for its missile program. They are there to test combined arms tactics against Western weapons in real time while Moscow bleeds its own conscripts. Chinese machine tools and dual-use electronics keep the Russian war economy breathing. Beijing calculates that a weakened but useful Moscow drains Western attention and ammunition stocks that could otherwise deter an assault on Taiwan.
Iranian Shaheds return to Tehran as improved Russian designs. The mullahs understand that every Ukrainian city hit delays NATO’s focus on the Strait of Hormuz and their own nuclear sprint. This amounts to an informal partnership without parades or joint statements. Something more dangerous: a functional division of labor among predators who all agree the biggest threat to their survival is the example of successful, accountable societies.
Rule of law, transparent budgets, independent courts, free media. These are not abstract virtues to them. They are existential weapons aimed at their own populations.
Every Ukrainian drone strike that exposes Russian corruption, every sanctions evasion scheme mapped in public, every Ukrainian soldier who refuses to surrender broadcasts the same message. These regimes can be resisted and beaten. They cooperate so fluidly.
The West’s Fragmented View
The West still treats this as a series of separate crises. Moscow’s war is “regional.” Iran’s nuclear program is “a Middle East issue.” Chinese industrial overcapacity is an “economic dispute.” North Korean arms shipments are “proliferation.” This fragmentation creates their opening.
While Washington was busy signing shameful memorandums with Tehran that left its ballistic and nuclear programs intact, Russian forces integrated Iranian production lines so completely that external supplies became secondary. The ayatollahs kept their regime, kept their proxies, and kept shipping technology. Moscow kept its meat assaults. Beijing kept the meter running on Western strategic distraction.
Dismantling the Enabling Conditions
The only coherent response is to stop managing symptoms and start dismantling the enabling conditions. That means:
- Speeding up Ukraine’s long-range strike capabilities
- Toughening up European energy and critical supply chains
- Treating technology transfers to any member as a direct security threat
This amounts to slow-motion surrender dressed up as sophisticated diplomacy.
One War with Multiple Theaters
The dictators understand the stakes perfectly. The question is when the West will finally admit that this is one war with multiple theaters, not five separate problems that can be appeased in turn. Ukraine needs practical support. The forward defense line for the concepts these regimes fear most: accountability, transparency, and real sovereignty. Ignore that reality and the cooperation Applebaum describes will only get tighter, smarter, and closer to your own borders.
