The George W. Bush Institute’s Malign Alignment: How China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea (CRINK) threaten U.S. and our allies project analyzes how these four countries’ growing partnerships challenge the United States’ leadership, global stability, and peace.
Olivia Hernandez:
The George W. Bush Institute’s malign alignment – how China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea threaten the U.S. and our allies – analyzes how these four countries’ growing partnerships challenge the United States’ leadership, global stability, and peace. We’re here today with the Bush Institute’s Elizabeth Kennedy Trudeau, Bradford M. Freeman Managing Director of Global Policy, and Executive Director David Kramer to talk about how Russia’s relationship with CRINK countries affects the United States, and how the U.S. can respond to the malign alignment.
Elizabeth Kennedy Trudeau:
Hi David, and welcome to the conversation that we’re going to have as part of our ongoing project on CRINK – China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea – what the Institute characterizes as a malign alignment about these countries and about how the United States can approach our dealings with them. We’re here today to talk about your expertise: Russia and how Russia deals with those countries. So, do you want to open us up?
David Kramer:
Sure. Well, first I’m really pleased that this project has reached its culmination because it’s really important that we focus on the threat that these countries pose. They are more effective, more powerful, and more influential together than they are on their own.
Russia, of course, has relied heavily on support from Iran in the early stages of the full-scale invasion against Ukraine when Iran sent Shahed drones that Russia relied on very significantly. North Korea has sent possibly as many as 15,000 soldiers to fight in the campaign against Ukraine on behalf of Russia. China, of course, has also been an important player in providing dual-use technology to the Russians. China has also imported significant volumes of Russian energy, providing a financial lifeline to Russia’s stagnating economy.
And so, this is a reflection of how these countries supporting each other can bail each other out, and be helpful to each other, and run against the interests of countries like Ukraine, the rest of Europe, and the rest of the world full of democracies.
Elizabeth Kennedy Trudeau:
I love the way you frame that. How about on the flip side, the Middle East conflict? How has Russia supported Iran?
David Kramer:
Russia, according to press reports, has clearly provided intelligence support to the Iranians to target Americans, which is to say that Russia is providing information to the Iranians so that the Iranians can try to wound and kill Americans. Russia, according to some reports, has also provided some weapon systems. But Russia is stretched pretty thin here, because Russia doesn’t have a lot of weapon systems at its disposal to provide to Iran that it isn’t using on its own against Ukraine.
China has also been providing some support to the Iranians, although it appears less so. China takes a little more subtle and sophisticated approach in supporting Iran. But both Russia and China – should a UN Security Council resolution come to the table – would be able to exercise their veto. And so, China and Russia have been supporting Iran in the campaign against the United States and Israel.
Elizabeth Kennedy Trudeau:
One of the projects and the work that we do here at the Institute is providing solutions, providing recommendations. How should United States policymakers address this malign alignment?
David Kramer:
I do think that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is at the center of this. I think providing support and assistance to the Ukrainians – whether it’s through the Europeans or directly – is really the key here. A Ukrainian victory over Russia would be a huge setback, not just to Russia, but to the whole CRINK group. And I think that would be a setback to the Iranians. It would be a setback to the North Koreans, and of course also to the Chinese.
I also think it’s important that we ramp up our use of sanctions – both direct sanctions and secondary sanctions; secondary meaning that companies and countries that provide indirect support to the Russian regime would also be subject to being sanctioned by the United States – encouraging Europeans to work more closely with us. There has been some tension in the transatlantic relationship. There’s no denying it.
But we have to recognize that if we work together more effectively, we will be a better counter to the CRINK countries as well. If they can work together, where Russia and China clearly dominate that gathering – China in particular being the second largest economy in the world – we can and should be able to work more effectively together because, collectively, our economic weight, our military weight, our political weight carry much more than the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, and North Koreans together.
Elizabeth Kennedy Trudeau:
And, in a final word: here at the Institute, we focus a lot on the people of those countries, the people who are suffering under these autocratic regimes. How should the United States and our allies and partners address and help the people of the CRINK countries?
David Kramer:
100% right, Elizabeth. This is the key to where we focus and I think where U.S. policy should focus as well. When we talk about the territory in Ukraine that is currently occupied by Russia, we should focus on the people, the Ukrainians, who live on that territory. When people say Ukraine should make territorial concessions, it isn’t just about the land. It’s about the people living on that land who would then be consigned to living under brutal, repressive, Russian rule. And the same for Iranians. We should recognize that the majority of Iranians, if given the opportunity, would probably vote for change. Standing with the Iranian people is very important, standing with the people of North Korea, with the people of China.
President Bush, of course, firmly believed that people everywhere, if given an opportunity, would want to live in freedom. And what is currently the situation is that the people in these countries are denied that freedom. They’re denied that opportunity. And so, you have, in many cases, unpopular – if not outright illegitimate – leadership in these countries. And we need to recognize that supporting the people there will redound to the benefit of the people in those countries and, of course, it will redound to the benefit of the U.S. as well.
Elizabeth Kennedy Trudeau:
That’s fantastic, David. Thank you.
David Kramer:
Thank you.
