The increasing threat of the anti-American axis: exploiting US vulnerabilities and prepared to strike
For anyone slow on the uptake, Presidents Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un provided some helpful show-and-tell in Pyongyang on Wednesday.
A year ago, I warned that a new “Axis of Ill Will” was forming.
Now you get my drift.
Kim gave Putin a vintage 1930s reception, complete with vast flags, red carpets and temporarily well-fed children.
The two signed a pact committing themselves to mutual assistance in the event of “aggression” against either country.
Putin hinted at the “development of military-technical cooperation” — the least he can do in return for the dozens of ballistic missiles and 11,000 shipping containers of munitions that (according to US intelligence) Kim has sent him to carry on Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
With a cynicism worthy of Joseph Stalin, Putin thanked Kim for his “consistent and unwavering support” against “the hegemonic and imperialist policy” of the United States.
The new recruit
Kim is a relatively new recruit to an Axis that originated in Beijing three weeks before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when Putin signed a “no limits” security pact with Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader.
In March 2023, the two dictators met again.
“Right now, there are changes, the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years,” Xi told Putin at the Kremlin.
“And we are the ones driving these changes together.”
The fourth member of the Axis of Ill Will is the Islamic Republic of Iran, led by Ali Khameini (inset, far right).
After Hamas’s Oct. 7 pogrom in Israel, China promptly took the Palestinian side at the United Nations as well as in social media, where TikTok has been a key channel for anti-Israel propaganda.
The Chinese are, of course, the number-one buyers of Iran’s oil exports.
The Russians, meanwhile, have been buying drones from the Iranians and massive quantities of dual-use hardware from China.
The British government believes China is now sending Russia weapons, too.
The “Axis of Evil” that George W. Bush talked about after 9/11 was a speechwriter’s flight of fancy.
The Axis of Ill Will is real — and becomes better organized with every passing month.
The original Axis was dreamt up by Benito Mussolini in 1936, to mark the signing of a protocol pledging lasting friendship between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.
Of course, now as then, an Axis is an alliance between villains, based on mistrust as much as common interest.
