‘Axis of Upheaval’ Adds Urgency to Review of UK Defence Spending

“Russia has been the catalyst of this,” said Richard Fontaine, the co-author of an April paper in Foreign Affairs entitled The Axis of Upheaval. A desperate search for munitions as the war in Ukraine has continued far beyond its initial expectations of a quick victory has led Moscow to source Shahed drones from Iran, artillery shells from North Korea and microelectronics, as well as other components and chemicals, from China to support its offensives.

In return, Russia is supplying record levels of cheap crude oil to China (in 2023 it overtook Saudi Arabia as the leading supplier to Beijing) and defence technology and intelligence to Tehran, whose drone and missile attack on Israel in April used methods familiar to the war in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, visited Pyongyang last month and signed a mutual defence pledge with North Korea.

“You are not seeing leaders of all four countries coming together and holding summits, but there is a glue bringing them together,” Fontaine said. “There is Russia’s need for support for its war in Ukraine but it is taking place against a broader rejection of the rules-based international order,” in other words, scepticism or even hostility to the post-cold war dominance of the US and its allies.

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Others prefer stronger language to gain attention. Fontaine, the creator of the phrase “axis of upheaval”, argues it summarises the sense of mutual dissatisfaction with western dominance and is less heavy handed than “axis of autocracy” or the George W Bush “axis of evil”, with which it nevertheless rhymes. And if Nato remains cautious, it was picked up by the British army last week.

Read the full story from The Guardian.