BRULOTTE: A new authoritarian axis is taking shape between China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia

Dr. Bryan Brulotte is Chairman of Sterling-Trust, a Canadian private equity firm. He brings more than four decades of leadership experience spanning the military, private, and public sectors.For much of the war in Ukraine, the West has treated the conflict primarily as a confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, with NATO supporting Kyiv while trying to prevent a direct war with Moscow. That description is becoming increasingly incomplete. What began as Vladimir Putin’s attempt to subjugate Ukraine has evolved into something larger: a proving ground for cooperation among Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.These countries are not allies in the NATO sense. They have different interests, competing ambitions, and no integrated military command or collective-defence commitment. But focusing on what they lack risks missing what they are actually building: an increasingly effective network in which authoritarian states exchange weapons, energy, technology, diplomatic support, and battlefield experience.North Korea provides the clearest evidence. Pyongyang moved from political support for Moscow to supplying artillery ammunition, ballistic missiles, and soldiers, with approximately 14,000 North Korean troops ultimately assisting Russia in the campaign to retake territory in the Kursk region. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has gone so far as to describe Russia and North Korea as working together toward a new world order.The ammunition numbers are even more striking. South Korean military intelligence estimated in July 2025 that North Korea had supplied Russia with the equivalent of more than 12 million 152-mm artillery shells, while Ukrainian intelligence estimated that North Korean supplies at times represented roughly half of Russian artillery ammunition. This is not symbolic assistance; North Korea has materially helped Russia sustain a major European war while gaining battlefield experience against Western weapons and tactics..Iran has played a similarly important role through drone technology. Iranian-designed Shahed drones demonstrated how inexpensive unmanned systems could be employed at scale against Ukrainian cities, infrastructure, and military targets. At the same time, Russia subsequently developed substantial domestic production based on that technology. Weapons transferred into one conflict can now be tested, improved, mass-produced, and eventually employed elsewhere.China occupies a different and more sophisticated position. Beijing has been careful about direct military involvement, but Russia’s ability to withstand Western economic isolation would be considerably more difficult without China. Even after bilateral trade declined in 2025, China-Russia trade still amounted to roughly $228 billion, following several years of rapid expansion and increasingly important cooperation in energy and technology.China does not necessarily require a decisive Russian victory in Ukraine to benefit strategically. A prolonged confrontation consumes Western ammunition, air-defence interceptors, financial resources, and political attention, while giving Beijing valuable information about Western military capacity and endurance. It also complicates Washington’s attempt to concentrate greater strategic attention on the Indo-Pacific.Calling these relationships an “axis” nevertheless requires some care. Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea do not constitute another Warsaw Pact, and we should neither exaggerate their unity nor assume that every interest is shared. Their common denominator is opposition to important elements of the Western-led international order that constrain their ambitions, and each benefits when Western countries are divided, distracted, or deterred..The financial scale of the challenge should remove any remaining complacency. SIPRI estimates that China spent $336 billion on its military in 2025, while Russia spent approximately $190 billion, meaning those two countries alone devoted more than half a trillion dollars to defence. Russia’s military burden reached 7.5% of GDP, while China’s military spending increased for the thirty-first consecutive year.The broader trend is equally important. Global military expenditure reached a record $2.887 trillion in 2025, marking the eleventh consecutive annual increase, while European spending increased 14% to $864 billion. These are the economics of a world becoming more dangerous, and governments still thinking in terms of the relatively benign post-Cold War environment are already behind events.The democratic world still possesses vastly greater combined economic and military resources. NATO, together with democratic partners such as Japan, South Korea, and Australia, possesses enormous technological, industrial, and financial advantages. The question is not whether we have the resources, but whether we possess the political will, industrial capacity, and strategic coherence to convert those resources into credible deterrence.Ukraine has demonstrated how quickly high-intensity warfare consumes artillery shells, drones, missiles, vehicles, and air-defence interceptors. North Korea’s ability to provide millions of artillery rounds while Western countries struggle to expand production should be understood as a warning about industrial capacity, not simply an interesting feature of the Ukrainian war. Deterrence ultimately depends upon the ability to sustain a military once the shooting starts..NATO therefore needs to think beyond Ukraine. Higher defence budgets must translate into actual combat capability, ammunition stocks, industrial production, personnel, and deployable forces. NATO members have committed to a substantially higher defence-spending objective by 2035, but percentages of GDP mean little unless the money produces forces capable of fighting and sustaining operations.Canada has a particular responsibility in this changing strategic environment. We possess oil, natural gas, uranium, critical minerals, industrial capacity, technological expertise, and Arctic geography that matter increasingly to our allies. Yet for decades, Canada allowed the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) to decline, ammunition stocks to diminish, and defence procurement to become almost synonymous with delay.That must change. Canada should rebuild the CAF, expand ammunition and defence production, strengthen our Arctic presence, and develop our oil, natural gas, uranium, and critical minerals as strategic national assets. Economic policy, energy policy, and defence policy can no longer be treated as separate domains because national power increasingly depends upon all three.We must also recognize that Europe, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific are no longer isolated strategic theatres. North Korean soldiers gaining combat experience in Europe can eventually apply those lessons on the Korean Peninsula, while Iranian drone technology refined through cooperation with Russia can migrate to other conflicts. Chinese economic support for Russia similarly affects the balance of power in Europe, just as Western weakness in Ukraine would inevitably be studied in Beijing..None of this means another world war is inevitable, nor should the West manufacture one through careless rhetoric or unnecessary escalation. Deterrence exists precisely to prevent war, and diplomacy remains essential when dealing with nuclear-armed powers. But history repeatedly demonstrates that diplomacy is most effective when supported by credible economic and military power.This emerging authoritarian network also has substantial weaknesses. Russia is becoming increasingly dependent upon China, Iran has significant domestic and economic vulnerabilities, and North Korea remains isolated and impoverished. Their cooperation is driven less by deep mutual trust than by converging interests, and the West should exploit those differences rather than assuming their partnership is permanent or monolithic.Our greatest danger is not that Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are inherently stronger than the democratic world. It is that they may prove more determined, patient, and willing to coordinate their resources in pursuit of clearly defined national objectives. Authoritarian governments have learned that cooperation can help each withstand Western pressure, and they are acting accordingly.Canada and its allies must rediscover the same strategic clarity. The international order Canadians have benefited from for generations will not defend itself, and peace cannot be sustained indefinitely by countries unwilling to invest in the capabilities required to preserve it. The authoritarian axis may never become a formal alliance, but it is taking shape before us, and the time to strengthen our alliances, rebuild our military capacity, and prepare for that reality is now.Dr. Bryan Brulotte is Chairman of Sterling-Trust, a Canadian private equity firm. He brings more than four decades of leadership experience spanning the military, private, and public sectors.

BRULOTTE: A new authoritarian axis is taking shape between China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia

Related Stories

BARCLAY: Xi, Lee, and the fight for the S(e)oul of South Korea

BRULOTTE: Canada is losing the race for the Arctic

DND poll finds more Canadians see Trump as top security threat than China or Russia

BRULOTTE: Ukraine is proving that industrial power still wins wars