Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) bids farewell to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un following their meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of victory in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the end of World War Two, in Beijing in September2025. File Photo by Sergey Bobylev/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool
July 22 (UPI) — The author prefers to use the lowercase “n” to challenge the Kim family regime’s legitimacy.
Northeast Asia has reached a strategic inflection point.
China, Russia, Iran and north Korea can no longer be treated as separate security problems managed through isolated policies, disconnected commands or narrow bilateral initiatives.
They increasingly operate as a loose, but consequential, CRInK axis. It is not a formal alliance. It is flexible, transactional, and opportunistic. That makes it more difficult to deter because its members can cooperate without a unified command or mutual-defense treaty.
Each regime pursues distinct interests. China seeks regional dominance and weaker U.S. alliances. Russia seeks resources for its war against Ukraine and leverage against the West. Iran seeks strategic depth, sanctions relief, and stronger military partnerships. The Kim family regime seeks survival, military modernization and acceptance as a nuclear-armed state.
Their interests differ, but they converge when cooperation weakens the United States, divides democratic allies, circumvents sanctions and protects authoritarian rule.
China provides north Korea economic support and diplomatic cover. Russia provides revenue, operational experience and possible military technology. Iran contributes weapons cooperation, sanctions-evasion expertise and pressure in the Middle East. north Korea provides ammunition, missiles, personnel, cyber capabilities and a persistent threat to the Republic of Korea, Japan and the United States.
A crisis in one theater creates opportunity in another. This is more than collusion. It is coordinated political warfare.
The democratic answer must be equally coordinated. The ROK, United States and Japan need a durable trilateral strategy that connects deterrence with diplomacy, intelligence, economic security, technology protection, law enforcement, information and the human domain.
Evolution of trilateral cooperation
Wednesday’s ministerial meeting in Manila showed that ROK-U.S.-Japan cooperation is expanding beyond coordination on north Korea. The ministers reaffirmed deterrence and denuclearization, but they also addressed maritime security, economic coercion, critical minerals, nuclear energy, emerging technologies, supply-chain resilience, advanced technology protection, transnational crime and disaster relief.
That wider agenda reflects strategic reality. north Korea’s military growth cannot be separated from Russian support or Chinese protection. China’s coercion cannot be separated from maritime security, critical technologies, energy, shipping or supply chains. Iran’s support to Russia and its military relationships with north Korea connect Northeast Asian security to conflicts beyond the region.
The threats are interconnected, so the response must be, as well.
The Manila meeting demonstrated political alignment. The test is whether that alignment produces shared intelligence, integrated planning, coordinated sanctions enforcement, resilient supply chains and combined responses to coercion. Statements matter. Institutions, capabilities and sustained action matter more.
Stop calling It the gray zone
The first requirement of strategy is to describe the threat accurately. The term “gray zone” suggests uncertainty about attribution, legality, responsibility or intent. The Philippines offers a clearer description: ICAD, or illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive activities.
The actions of the CRInK regimes are rarely purposeless or truly ambiguous. China combines maritime harassment, economic pressure, cyber operations, military intimidation, information warfare and lawfare.
Russia employs sabotage, proxies, espionage, disinformation, energy leverage and military threats. Iran uses proxies, covert action, missiles, drones and economic networks.
north Korea uses nuclear coercion, cyber theft, criminal finance, missile tests, maritime incursions, subversion and information control. These are integrated instruments of political warfare.
Calling them “gray” can create passivity. Democracies debate thresholds while authoritarian regimes consolidate gains. Shared terminology should identify hostile activity, attribute responsibility and connect each act to the larger campaign. Shared language is the beginning of shared strategy.
West Sea as a test of trilateral resolve
The West Sea, also known as the Yellow Sea, shows how political warfare can change the status quo without conventional war. The unresolved maritime boundary creates opportunities for Pyongyang to manufacture disputes, employ civilian-looking vessels, deploy drones, mobilize maritime forces and portray aggression as routine law enforcement.
Such a campaign would create a dilemma for Seoul. A forceful response could be portrayed as escalation. Restraint could permit a fait accompli. The decisive terrain would not be the water alone. It would be international perception. Who changed the status quo? Who controlled the narrative? Who convinced regional audiences that coercion was legitimate administration?
China has used similar methods across the Asia Pacific through coast guard vessels, maritime militia, legal claims, economic pressure and information operations. Pyongyang could adapt those methods with Chinese political protection and Russian technical assistance.
The ROK would remain the principal actor in a West Sea crisis, but Japan and the United States would contribute intelligence, maritime domain awareness, attribution, cyber defense, diplomatic coordination, sanctions enforcement and strategic communication. A maritime provocation could test whether trilateral cooperation can recognize coordinated coercion and act before it succeeds.
From consultation to integrated campaigning
Deterrence remains necessary. It is not sufficient. The three nations need integrated campaigning across military, diplomatic, economic, financial, intelligence, informational, cyber, technological, legal and law-enforcement domains.
They should begin with a recurring trilateral strategic estimate of the CRInK axis. It should assess China, Russia, Iran and north Korea as an interacting network, identify warning indicators and vulnerabilities, trace sanctions-evasion and technology-transfer networks, and examine how simultaneous crises could divide attention and resources. This estimate should guide policy and campaign planning.
Military cooperation should build on exercises such as Freedom Edge, but interoperability must serve clear political objectives. The three countries should deepen missile warning, maritime awareness, anti-submarine warfare, cyber defense, air and missile defense, logistics, space support and intelligence sharing.
Planning must also cover crises involving coast guards, fishing fleets, commercial shipping, criminal intermediaries, cyber actors, proxies, disguised military personnel and manipulated civilian incidents. The seam between military and civilian activity is where the CRInK regimes will seek advantage.
Economic security Is national security
The Manila ministerial meeting also recognized that economic resilience is part of deterrence. China can exploit dependencies in critical minerals, manufacturing, shipping, energy and advanced electronics. Russia uses energy and commodities for leverage. Iran and north Korea rely on illicit finance, cyber theft, front companies, arms networks, overseas labor and sanctions evasion.
The ROK, United States and Japan possess immense combined economic and technological power, but only if they coordinate. They should align export controls, protect advanced technologies, diversify supply chains, strengthen access to critical minerals, enforce sanctions and develop common responses to economic coercion.
Cooperation on small modular reactors, emerging technologies, and energy security can give vulnerable states alternatives to Chinese or Russian dependence. The objective is not economic isolation. It is reduced strategic vulnerability.
Political warfare and the human domain
The CRInK regimes understand that strategic competition is a contest of will, legitimacy and political endurance. The democracies must compete without abandoning their principles. A coordinated trilateral information strategy should expose military cooperation, sanctions evasion, corruption, maritime coercion, cyber theft, technology transfers and human rights abuses, while explaining how separate incidents form a larger campaign.
For north Korea, information and human rights are strategic. The regime survives by isolating the Korean people in the north and monopolizing information. Truth weakens that monopoly. Human rights pressure exposes the regime’s illegitimacy.
Support for the Korean people affirms that the Kim family regime does not permanently define Korea’s future. The ultimate objective should not be the endless management of division, but the peaceful resolution of the Korea question and a free and unified Korea.
Holistic imperative
The central danger is not only CRInK military strength. It is allied fragmentation. The adversaries integrate military power, economic leverage, proxies, cyber operations, lawfare and information. Democracies still divide those problems among separate ministries, commands and bilateral channels.
The Manila meeting suggests that this may be changing. Trilateral cooperation is becoming a framework for regional security, maritime law, economic resilience, energy, technology and resistance to coercion. That is necessary, but not yet sufficient. Diplomatic continuity matters. Deterrence becomes credible only when political alignment produces operational capability.
The essential question is not whether the ROK, United States and Japan can issue strong statements after the next provocation. It is whether they can anticipate, decide and act together before individual acts of coercion accumulate into a new strategic reality. The CRInK axis already thinks and acts holistically. The democracies must do the same.
David Maxwell, executive director of the Korea Regional Review, is a retired U.S. Army Special Forces colonel who has spent more than 30 years in the Asia-Indo-Pacific region. He specializes in Northeast Asian security affairs and irregular, unconventional and political warfare. He is vice president of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy and a senior fellow at the Global Peace Foundation, where he works on a free and unified Korea. After he retired, he became associate director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. He is on the board of directors of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and the OSS Society and is the editor at large for the Small Wars Journal.