Month: January 2025

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian provided US President-elect Donald Trump a pre-inaugural gift that he ignores at his peril.

The timing was as significant as the Russian-Iranian “comprehensive partnership agreement” itself.

Three days before the US inauguration, Pezeshkian and Putin met in Moscow to sign the deal that covers trade, military cooperation, science, education, culture, and more. It also underscores the growing four-way relationship of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea—an “axis of aggressors” whose combined challenge the US president-elect has not yet acknowledged as a priority.

Yet nothing sets apart Trump’s first-term challenges from those of his second term more than this axis’s burgeoning defense industrial, economic, and political cooperation. “This treaty is not only a key turning point that strengthens our bilateral ties,” said Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Telegram. “This is not just a political agreement; it’s the road map to the future.”

Russia, Iran, and China have been growing steadily closer since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago. Iran has sent short-range ballistic missiles, as well as drones and drone technology, to Russia. A CNN investigation in December found that a factory in Russia’s southern Tatarstan region is mass producing Iranian-designed Shahed drones with Chinese components. In the first nine months of 2024, the factory manufactured nearly six thousand Shahed drones, more than double what it had the year before.

In June 2024, Putin signed a partnership agreement with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Pyongyang followed this in November by providing Moscow with ten thousand troops to fight the Ukrainian offensive in Russia’s Kursk region. Earlier this month, two North Korean soldiers were captured by Ukrainian forces near the border. Then in December, Putin concluded a security treaty with Belarus that included the Russian deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in the country.

That followed the continued expansion and enhancement of the “no limits” partnership that Putin concluded with Chinese President Xi Jinping shortly before Russia’s Ukraine invasion in February 2022. China’s leadership has resisted all efforts by both European and US officials to persuade Beijing to reduce its support for Russia, without which Moscow would not have been able to sustain its military campaign.

For all of Trump’s recent focus on regaining the Panama Canal, acquiring Greenland, and adding Canada as a fifty-first state, how he addresses the China-Russia-Iran-North Korea collaboration will be of infinitely greater historic and geopolitical consequence.

Yet the newest Iran-Russia deal is as much about the weaknesses among the four partners as it is about their combined strength, which offers Trump opportunities to disrupt their common cause. Iran hasn’t been this weak economically and militarily in thirty years. Its proxies Hamas and Hezbollah are decimated, its air defenses are eroded, and its unprecedented missile strikes on Israel last year failed to weaken Israel militarily. It’s telling that Russia didn’t provide Iran the mutual defense deal that was part of its agreements with Belarus and North Korea. 

The Russians have “a great nose for someone in trouble,” Jon Alterman, a Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CNN. He added that Moscow could be thinking “we can help them a little bit, but we can get them where we need them and extract more from them that we want.”

So how will Trump respond to this pre-inaugural gift? One of US President Joe Biden’s failings was excessive caution in addressing the rising Russia-China challenge, alongside Iran and North Korea, though he was ground-breaking in diagnosing the “inflection point” that such autocratic collaboration signaled. Trump may be more willing than Biden to take action to enforce US interests, but I will be listening to his inaugural speech for an early indication of how he diagnoses the largest global challenges.

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on X: @FredKempe.

This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points newsletter, a column of dispatches from a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.

The post A Russian-Iranian inaugural gift for Trump appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Trump Administration / Confirmation Hearings

• Senate Testimony on Confirmation of Attorney General: Preserving the Independence of the Department of Justice
  by Mary B. McCord
• Stefanik’s Senate Confirmation Hearings Bring Mix of Worry and Opportunity at UN
  by Richard Gowan
• Questions for Senators (and Journalists) to Ask Secretary of State Nominee Marco Rubio
  by Just Security
• Questions for Senators (and Journalists) to Ask Secretary of Energy Nominee Chris Wright
  by Just Security
• Questions for Senators (And Journalists) to Ask Attorney General Nominee Pam Bondi
  by Just Security
• Questions for Senators (and Journalists) to Ask CIA Director Nominee John Ratcliffe
  by Just Security
• Questions for Senators (and Journalists) to Ask Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem
  by Just Security

Biden Administration / AI

• Unpacking the Biden Administration’s Executive Order on AI Infrastructure
  by Clara Apt and Brianna Rosen

Supreme Court / TikTok Ban

• How Not to Decide TikTok: U.S. press freedom hangs in the balance
  by David Cole

Israel-Hamas War

• Why Palestinian Families Are Suing the State Department for Failing to Enforce the Leahy Law
  by Sarah Leah Whitson
• A Brief Reflection on the War in Gaza as the Biden Administration Ends
  by Andrew Miller

Sudan

• The US Sudan Genocide Determination Requires the Suspension of Arms Sales to the UAE
  by Yonah Diamond and Mutasim Ali

US Foreign Policy / Georgia

• Crisis in Georgia: Why the Trump Administration Should Step In To Shore Up US Influence
  by Ambassador (ret) Ian Kelly and David J. Kramer

Human Rights

• Human Rights Priorities for 2025: The Global Landscape
  by Andrew Friedman and Michelle Strucke
• Spyware Company NSO Group Faces Setbacks in Attempts to Avoid US Lawsuits
  by Allie Schiele

Special Counsel Jack Smith

• 3 Highlights in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Final Report on 2020 Election Subversion Case
  by Tom Joscelyn and Ryan Goodman
• Judge Cannon and the Special Counsel’s Report
  by Steve Vladeck

Podcast: 2020 Election Interference

• The Just Security Podcast: Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Final Report in the 2020 Election Interference Case
  Paras Shah interview with Tom Joscelyn and Marty Lederman

The post Digest of Recent Articles on Just Security (Jan. 13-17, 2025) appeared first on Just Security.