REPORT: After the Iran Deal — How the CRINK Axis Is Preparing to Rearm Tehran

Introduction: the ink is not dry, the rearmament is already planned

A US-Iran deal and its strategic blind spots

In late June 2026, Western strategic circles were buzzing with a shared concern: a framework agreement between Washington and Tehran on the Iranian nuclear file could open a rearmament window that would directly benefit the CRINK axis — the informal alliance between China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. According to analyses published by Ground News and other geopolitical sources, once military pressure and sanctions are partially lifted, Iran would be positioned to rapidly integrate weapons systems supplied by its CRINK partners into its arsenal.

This scenario is not idle speculation. It rests on concrete data: supply agreements for Russian Su-35 fighters and Chinese radars, North Korean ballistic specialists already present in certain Iranian programmes, and a documented intensification of military cooperation between these four countries since 2022. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has even launched a special initiative called "CRINK Axis" to assess the real degree of military coordination between these powers. The findings are troubling.

Republican hardliners and their rejection of the deal

On the American side, the most conservative Republicans judge the US-Iran deal "too vague" and "too advantageous for Tehran." Their central argument: a deal that lifts pressure without verifiable dismantling guarantees gives Iran the time and space to rearm via its CRINK partners. While diplomats negotiate, rearmament workshops are activating in axis countries. This time window between an announced deal and effective controls is precisely the terrain that Iranian strategists know how to exploit.

The tension between short-term diplomatic interests — avoiding a direct military confrontation with Iran — and medium-term strategic risks — a rearmed Iran galvanized by its new regional position — is at the heart of the debate in Washington. Donald Trump, who managed this crisis in his own way, declared having "defeated Iran in a week." But analysts know that wars are won in days, arsenals rebuilt in months. And Iran has very motivated partners to accelerate that rebuilding.

The components of rearmament: Chinese radars, Russian aircraft, North Korean missiles

China as a supplier of radar technology and navigation systems

China is positioned to become the primary supplier of radar systems and navigation technologies for a post-deal Iran. Strategic sources indicate that Iran is considering integrating the Chinese BeiDou navigation system — the Chinese equivalent of American GPS — into its weapons systems, thereby reducing its dependence on Western technologies or systems that can be neutralized by NATO countermeasures. 65% of the components in Iran's Shahed-136 drone already come from China according to CSIS experts — a structural dependence that foreshadows an even deeper integration.

Beyond navigation, China can supply Iran with advanced air defense radars, electronic warfare systems, and secure communication technologies. This equipment would fundamentally transform Iranian defensive capabilities, making them less vulnerable to American-Israeli air strikes that demonstrated their limits in the recent conflict. It is a defensive as much as an offensive rearmament, considerably complicating any future military planning against Iran.

Russia and the Su-35 contract: fighters for the axis

One of the most troubling data points regarding Iranian rearmament is the contract signed between Moscow and Tehran for the supply of 48 Sukhoi Su-35 fighters, valued at $6.5 billion. According to CSIS sources, this is the largest Russian arms transaction since the 2022 Ukrainian invasion. These aircraft, among the most capable multirole fighters in Russian production, would radically transform Iranian air capabilities — currently aging, composed largely of pre-1979 American aircraft and dated Soviet planes.

An Iran equipped with Su-35s represents a qualitatively different threat to Israel, to American forces in the Gulf, and to regional stability in general. These are modern, versatile aircraft capable of advanced air-to-air and air-to-ground missions. Combined with S-400 air defense systems also on the list of potential Russian deliveries, post-deal Iran could become a first-tier regional military power — precisely what non-proliferation agreements are supposed to prevent.

North Korea and Iran: a brotherhood of missiles and bunkers

Pyongyang, ballistic missile supplier since the 1980s

The relationship between North Korea and Iran on ballistic missiles dates back to the 1980s, when Pyongyang sold Tehran its first Scud-B/Hwasong-5 missiles. Since then, this relationship has only deepened. Iranian missiles — Qiam, Khorramshahr — are mostly direct derivatives of North Korean technologies. DPRK engineers have also helped build the vast underground bunker networks that protect Iranian military installations, including uranium enrichment sites.

In a post-deal scenario, North Korean ballistic missile specialists could accelerate the development of Iran's long-range capabilities, integrate improved precision guidance technologies — notably guidance systems inspired by the Russian Iskander, which North Korea has used and perfected in Ukraine — and allow Tehran to develop missiles capable of striking targets thousands of kilometres away with improved precision. This would be a major strategic evolution.

The CRINK axis as a sanctions circumvention network

Beyond arms transfers, the CRINK axis functions as a sanctions circumvention network of growing sophistication. According to CSIS analyses, trade between the four CRINK countries has increased by nearly 50% since 2021, largely through the China-Russia relationship. Dual-use goods — electronic components, machine tools, semiconductors — circulate between these countries through commercial routes that bypass Western export controls.

Iran benefits from this network in multiple ways. Chinese and Russian companies act as intermediaries to acquire export-controlled technologies. Commercial routes through third-party countries allow transit of goods that could not be delivered directly. And North Korea, sanctioned at extreme levels, has developed unique expertise in circumvention methods that other axis members use and adapt. The CRINK axis is, in this sense, also an academy of sanctions evasion.

The CSIS CRINK initiative and Western analysis of the axis

What CSIS researchers have established on military coordination

The "CRINK Axis" special initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has produced a series of analyses painting a troubling portrait. Since the 2022 Ukrainian invasion, the number of military exercises involving at least two CRINK countries went from an average of 3.2 per year to 9.5 per year. China and Russia dominate these exercises — 83% of recorded CRINK exercises are bilateral China-Russia. But trilateral China-Russia-Iran exercises have become annual since 2022, and North Korea participated as an observer in at least one trilateral exercise involving the two major axis powers.

What CSIS also notes is that CRINK cooperation remains unequal and fragmented. China seeks economic stability, while Russia, Iran and North Korea prioritize regime survival and confrontation with the West. These diverging objectives limit formal coordination. But they do not prevent transactional cooperation in specific domains — missiles, drones, electronic components, sanctions circumvention — which is real and documented.

Ukraine as a testing ground for CRINK technologies

One of the most insidious results of the war in Ukraine is that technologies developed in this conflict subsequently diffuse across the entire CRINK axis. North Korea, which deployed up to 15,000 soldiers in Russia, brings back combat know-how, tactical experience, knowledge of NATO system vulnerabilities. It has also acquired, according to intelligence reports, the technology of long-range suicide drones and Russian electronic jamming systems. This enriched North Korean expertise is then potentially accessible to Iran via established cooperation networks.

For Ukraine, this technological diffusion circuit has a direct consequence: the weapons striking it today are the product of an international cooperation that extends beyond Russia. Shahed drones carry Iranian DNA, Chinese components, funding from petrodollars not captured by sanctions. This reality makes supporting Ukraine also a battle against the proliferation of war technologies within the CRINK axis — not just against Russia alone.

Russo-Chinese joint training: when military exercises become doctrine

37 CRINK military exercises since 2022: an unprecedented acceleration

The CSIS figures speak for themselves. Since the 2022 Ukrainian invasion, military exercises involving at least two CRINK countries went from an average of 3.2 per year to 9.5 per year. 37 exercises in under four years. China and Russia dominate — 83% of exercises are bilateral Sino-Russian. But trilateral China-Russia-Iran exercises have become annual since 2022. And North Korea participated as an observer in at least one trilateral exercise, which had not happened before. This growing frequency is not coincidence — it is a deliberate policy of military convergence.

Chinese military officers were authorized to visit Russian front lines in Ukraine to draw direct tactical lessons. This is a form of on-the-job training whose value no command simulation can replicate. These officers return with data on the effectiveness of NATO systems, vulnerabilities of Western communication lines, electronic countermeasures used. This know-how will be integrated into the doctrines of the Chinese navy and army — particularly for a possible Taiwan scenario.

North Korea: 15,000 soldiers trained in real combat in Ukraine

North Korea deployed up to 15,000 soldiers in Russia to support the war against Ukraine. These soldiers fight alongside Russian forces, gaining training in real high-intensity warfare conditions that Pyongyang cannot obtain anywhere else. They return with direct experience of drone warfare, electronic warfare, precision strikes. According to the CSIS Korea Chair, North Korea earned between $9.6 and $12.3 billion for its contributions to the Russian war effort — a colossal sum for an economy whose total trade was only $2.7 billion in 2024.

The precision of North Korean KN-23 and KN-24 ballistic missiles improved from an error margin of 500-1,000 metres to 50-100 metres through integration of Russian guidance systems similar to the Iskander. This qualitative improvement in the North Korean arsenal is directly linked to military cooperation with Russia, reinforced by the presence of North Korean soldiers on Ukrainian soil. It is the virtuous circle of the CRINK axis: each conflict enriches the coalition's collective expertise.

What this means for the West and for Ukraine

Western strategy facing the CRINK axis: between sanctions and engagement

The documented emergence of the CRINK axis as a military and economic cooperation network poses a major foreign policy challenge for Western democracies. Bilateral sanctions against each CRINK country separately have demonstrated their limits: they push these countries closer to each other, push them to develop alternative economies, to co-innovate in the areas that allow them to circumvent restrictions. A more coherent and coordinated approach is necessary.

Several options are on the table: more aggressive secondary sanctions targeting companies that facilitate technological transfers between CRINK members, enhanced intelligence cooperation to map and disrupt circumvention networks, and massive investments in technologies that allow the West to maintain its qualitative lead despite the collective rise of the axis. Ukraine is, in this battle, the laboratory and the West's first shield.

South Korea, India and Indo-Pacific partners facing the CRINK challenge

The CRINK axis is not only a threat for Europe and the Middle East. South Korea, which closely watches Pyongyang's reinforced military capabilities through cooperation with Moscow and Beijing, is on the front line in the Indo-Pacific. India, which has complex relations with Russia but also with the West, must decide on which side of this geopolitical line it permanently positions itself. Countries like Japan, Australia and Quad partners have already become aware of the threat and are coordinating their responses.

The Atlantic Council initiative to create an "American Command for Northeast Asia" fusing American forces in Korea and Japan in the face of the combined China-DPRK-Russia threat in the region illustrates the seriousness with which Western strategists view this convergence of threats. The CRINK axis is no longer an analytical abstraction — it is an operational reality reshaping global geopolitics, from Kyiv to Seoul, from Taipei to Tel Aviv.

The US-Iran deal and the limits of de-escalation: a fragile peace without disarmament

A compromise framework that leaves Iran's offensive capabilities intact

The framework agreement between Washington and Tehran, as described by analyses available in late June 2026, is more a cessation of hostilities than a disarmament. Iran retains the bulk of its conventional military capabilities, its nuclear installations are not dismantled but subjected to negotiated inspections, and sanctions are only partially eased. In this framework, relations with CRINK axis countries are neither prohibited nor sanctioned. Iran can theoretically cooperate militarily with Russia, China and North Korea in areas that do not directly concern nuclear weapons.

This structural ambiguity is precisely what American Republican hardliners denounce. A deal that does not explicitly close the door to conventional rearmament via CRINK partners is a flexible-geometry deal — useful for reducing immediate escalation, but insufficient to guarantee medium-term strategic de-escalation. Iran can sign a ceasefire in the morning and receive Russian arms deliveries in the afternoon, if the deal does not explicitly prohibit it. This is the gap that Western strategists are watching with growing concern.

Iran's Hormuz Strait strategy as a pressure lever

During negotiations and after their conclusion, Iran continued to assert control over the Hormuz Strait, through which approximately 20% of global oil transits. This claim is not symbolic — it is a global economic pressure lever that gives Tehran a blackmail weapon that neither the framework deal nor the sanctions eliminate. German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul described the Iranian strategy around the strait as an illustration that "security and economic policy cannot be separated."

For Ukraine and its allies, this context is directly linked. An Iran that maintains its leverage over the Hormuz Strait is an Iran that is not strategically neutralized. It is an Iran that can continue supplying drones to Russia, exporting ballistic technologies, and coordinating with its CRINK partners while playing oil markets to generate the revenues necessary for its rearmament. The war in Ukraine and the Iranian crisis are two theatres of the same strategic play.

CRINK trade up 50% since 2021: the economics of authoritarianism

China as the central pivot of all CRINK exchanges

Trade between the four CRINK countries has increased by nearly 50% since 2021, but 90% of this increase is concentrated in the China-Russia relationship. Beijing is the financial and commercial pivot of the entire coalition. Without China, neither Russia nor Iran nor North Korea could maintain their military capabilities at current levels despite sanctions. Chinese exports to Russia consist primarily of dual-use electronic and mechanical goods essential to weapons systems production. Beijing provides 70% of machines used in Russian ballistic missile production and 90% of microelectronics needed for Russian missiles, tanks and aircraft.

This Chinese economic support for the Russian war machine — and indirectly for those of Iran and North Korea — represents the most glaring gap in the Western sanctions regime. Brussels and Washington have imposed massive sanctions on Russia, but they remain dependent on trade with China. As long as this dependence is not reduced, sanctions will not produce all their effects. The West funds Ukrainian defense on one side, and on the other continues to sustain the Chinese economic machine that feeds Russia. This contradiction is the structural limit of the sanctions strategy.

Iranian oil, Russian gas and the axis's funding

The CRINK axis has a fundamental economic resource: hydrocarbons. Russia exports its oil and gas to countries that do not respect sanctions — primarily India, China and Turkey. Iran does likewise, despite American sanctions, by exporting via informal routes to Asian buyers. These oil revenues directly fund both countries' military spending. North Korea, lacking its own energy resources, receives energy from Russia in exchange for its arms deliveries and soldiers — a strategic barter that allows each party to obtain what it needs.

This hydrocarbon funding of the CRINK axis is the Achilles heel of Western sanction strategies. As long as Russia and Iran can sell their oil — even at reduced prices, even via informal routes — they have the revenues to fund their wars and rearmament. The oil price cap applied to Russia by the EU, currently set at $44 per barrel, is an imperfect but necessary tool. The stake of the 21st European sanctions package is precisely to maintain and reinforce this economic pressure before July 15, 2026.

Conclusion: the West must name the threat to better counter it

Calling the CRINK axis by its name is a necessary first step

In Western diplomatic circles there is a reluctance to name the CRINK axis too directly, for fear of hardening lines that could still be negotiated. This is understandable prudence. But it has its limits. When four countries act in a coordinated manner to rearm Iran, support Russia, enable North Korean nuclear development, and circumvent Western sanctions, naming this network clearly and publicly is a necessary political act.

Ukraine, which has been fighting on the front line of this confrontation since 2022, has long understood that its conflict is not bilateral. It fights Russia, but also its drones with Iranian technology, its missiles with North Korean components, its supply chains fed by China. Zelensky says it in every speech before Western parliaments: this is not Ukraine's war, it is the free world's war. The report I have just written only confirms what he has been asserting for months.

Ukraine, sentinel of the free world against the axis of authoritarianisms

Ukrainian resistance is, in this broader context, a dam against the coherent rise in power of the CRINK axis. If Russia won, Iran would be freed from American military pressure and could rearm without constraint. North Korea would see its strategy validated. China would capitalize on a demonstration of the ineffectiveness of Western resistance. The dominoes do not fall in order but in the same direction. A Ukraine that holds is an equation the CRINK axis cannot solve. That is why its support is the West's number one strategic priority.

This report cannot conclude with certainty. The future of the Iranian file, the evolution of the CRINK axis, the outcome of the war in Ukraine — all of this remains uncertain. But the dynamic is clear, the data are documented, the trends are troubling. The West must face these trends and act with the coherence the situation demands. Not tomorrow. Now.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

My editorial position and its foundations

This report is constructed from analyses published in late June 2026 by various academic and journalistic sources on CRINK axis dynamics. I am openly hostile to the CRINK axis, which I consider a coalition of authoritarian regimes seeking to dismantle the liberal international order. This editorial position clearly assumes a pro-Western and pro-democracy perspective. I do not claim to be neutral on this question, which engages fundamental values I share with liberal democracies.

Limits and areas of uncertainty

Data on arms agreements between CRINK members are partly based on declassified intelligence reports, expert analyses and journalistic sources whose levels of certainty vary. The Iran-Russia Su-35 contract is reported by serious sources but was not officially confirmed at the time of writing. Estimates on North Korean arms deliveries to Russia and their volumes come from several concordant but not all independently verifiable sources. The analysis of the CRINK axis as a formalized coalition is academically contested — some experts believe diverging interests limit the real scope of this coordination. I chose to emphasize the concordant data while acknowledging these limits.

Sources

Primary sources

Ground News — Iran's next military arsenal comes from China, Russia and North Korea — June 2026

CSIS — CRINK Axis Special Initiative — accessed July 2026

Eurasia Review — The U.S.-Iran Framework: Strategic Compromise After Military Deadlock — June 30, 2026

Secondary sources

CSIS — CRINK Security Ties: Growing Cooperation, Anchored by China and Russia — September 2025

Foreign Policy — CRINK axis and Iran coverage — accessed July 2026

Militarnyi — CSIS: New CRINK Axis acting against Ukraine — August 2025

The Guardian — International CRINK axis coverage — accessed July 2026