Are the members of the CRINK alliance (China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea) arming and abetting Iran? The informal cooperation between America's main geopolitical adversaries were already cooperating militarily before the start of Operation Epic Fury, but evidence is mounting that the other three members are actively sharing key military aid and technology with Iran.

US President Donald Trump set a 48-hour deadline for opening of the Strait of Hormuz, threatening to destroy Iran’s power grid if it doesn’t happen. Tehran warned of the “irreversible destruction of Gulf energy” in retaliation. However, more importantly Tehran said that it will formalize its security cooperation with Russia and China. Both Beijing and Moscow issued statements over the weekend suggesting that they would be open to more explicit security deals with Iran in that case.

The fact that both Russia and China have been supplying Iran with real time satellite intelligence, in the same way that the US has been surreptitiously supplying the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) with identical intelligence, is no longer in question.

In addition, while there is no reported evidence, it seems highly likely that Russia and China are also supplying Iran with advanced missile and drone technology. Since the 12-day war with Israel last summer, Iran's drones and missiles have made a noticeable jump in their sophistication, range, and ability to evade the best of the US and Israel’s air defences and flummox its electronic warfare (EW) counter measures. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth admitted in the first week of Operation Epic Fury that the Pentagon was “surprised” but the sophistication and accuracy of Iran’s missile strikes which have been able to penetrate even the most advanced Patriot missile interceptor defences.

China is already a major supplier of advanced missile electronics that are now widely used in Russian drones and missiles, replacing the previously imported western microchips, some of which were scavenged from washing machines.

At the same Iran is revealing new previously unknown capabilities. In the last week it fired its first hypersonic missile – a technology the US doesn’t have and that only  Russia and China possess. It also fired an IRBM with a range of 4,000km – twice the previous estimates of its longest range missiles, which is likely based on North Korean technology. It has also showcased sophisticated silent torpedoes and advanced mini-submarines that the US navy has little counter to.

The list goes on. The Pentagon has been caught out and Israel's Iron Dome is proving relatively ineffective at preventing missile strikes on military and civilian strikes in its homeland.

Russia

Russia is in a strong position to help Iran. President Vladimir Putin proposed a quid pro quo to the US at the end of last week where he said the Kremlin would stop sharing satellite targeting intelligence with Iran if US military cut Ukraine off from American satellite intelligence - key for the AFU operations against Russian military on the Donbas battlefield.

Russia can also help with drone technology. At the start of the Ukraine conflict the Kremlin imported thousands of Shahed drones from Iran to bolster its forces. That kicked off a drone war arms race that has seen drone technology transformed into some of the most effective battlefield equipment in the world today.

“The large-scale changes that have occurred on the battlefields of the Russian-Ukrainian war have changed the paradigm of how warfare is waged,” Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief General Valerii Zaluzhnyi said in an op-ed for the Telegraph last week. “Today, in a relatively cheap way, any country can have combat capabilities that completely outstrip its economic or demographic situation if there is a desire and political will for it.”

Russia has invested heavily in drone tech and improved on the original Iranian design. There is no reporting to confirm it, but it is highly likely that Russia has been sharing this tech with Tehran.

In the first week of the conflicts an Iranian defence official boasted that Tehran has torpedo technology that is unmatched and is only in the possession of “the country that made it, Russia, and us.”

US President Donald Trump claims to have destroyed Iran’s navy, but it has not destroyed any of its deadly mini-submarines against which the US Fifth Fleet would be defenceless if it enters the Strait of Hormuz.

China

China has been careful not to overtly supply any of its allies with munitions, but it has admitted to sharing satellite intelligence with Tehran. After the 12-day war with Israel last summer, Iran has abandoned the US run GPS positioning system and switched to China's BeiDou satellite navigation system that has greatly improved accuracy and effectively countered Israeli’s EW measures.

The most important support China gives to its partners is actively supporting their arms production by supplying increasingly sophisticated dual-use components. Moreover, with things like electronics, it has closed much of the gap with the US after turning its vast domestic R&D resource to upgrading things like microchips. Russia has largely replaced the electronics used in missiles that used to be smuggled in from the West or scavenged from western-made washing machines. A Russian reconnaissance drone was found on the battlefield in Ukraine that was almost entirely made using Chinese microchips, whereas before US components made-up 95% of the electronics in Russian missiles.

China is taking the same attitude that the White House has taken with the Ukraine conflict: sit back and watch your main geopolitical rival burn through its military stockpile and weaken its military potency.

North Korea

North Korea is far behind both China and Russia in terms of its development, however, as it has been preparing itself for possible evasion for decades it has built up some significant military capabilities.

In the first year of the war in Ukraine, North Korea supplied Russia with millions of artillery shells that were the conflict’s workhorse at the time. The quality of the shells was low but the supplies allowed the Armed Forces of Russia (AFR) to fire ten rounds for everyone the AFU could fire back.

Amongst the few technologies Pyongyang has developed is long-range missiles. Only ten days ago, North Korea fired ten ballistic missiles during a US-South Korean military exercise that fell into the sea just outside Japan's exclusive economic zone. North Korea has test-launched a wide range of ballistic and cruise missiles ​for more than two decades which have become steadily better.

Last week to everyone’s surprise, Iran fired its Khorramshahr IRBM that nearly reached the UK-US base on Diego Garcia some 4,000km away – twice the range of the previously assumed maximum range of Iran’s missiles. Independent experts’ assessment is the missile is based on North Korea’s Musudan missile.

Iranian weapons systems

Iran has surprised everyone by rolling out a range of new weapons that have not previously been seen and are causing devastation in the Gulf and Israel.

Both Tel Aviv and the Trump administration have restricted access to real time commercial satellite images of the Middle East and suppressed videos shared on social media to try and limit the reporting on the destruction these weapons wrecked.

Iran has focused on preparing for an asymmetric war and a “Command of the Reload” doctrine. Iran has had more than two decades to get ready. In his rush to push through the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal in 2015, former president Barack Obama dropped a ban on missile development from the deal in a rush to sign off before his presidency ended.

Tehran is not attempting to match the power of the US military but instead take advantage of the lessons learned from the Ukraine conflict. By focusing on cheap and plentiful drones and missiles it has a vastly superior cost-to-kill ratio that gives Tehran the edge over Washington. In the first days of the war, Iran fired hundreds of inexpensive drones at Israel, not to destroy anything, but simply to run down its supply of extremely expensive Patriot Pac-3 interceptor missiles. One interceptor costs $4mn each, whereas the drones cost between $20,000 and $30,000 each; for the same money Iran can make 150-200 drones for every PAC-3 missile and overwhelm Israel’s defences in a matter of days.

New hypersonic missiles: Last week the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) unveiled the Fattad-2 hypersonic missile – a technology that even the US does not possess yet – that can penetrate even Israel’s Patriot PAC-3 interceptor rockets to hit key military and infrastructure targets.

Putin showcased Russia’s hypersonic missiles during his 2018 state of the nation speech, including the Kinzhal missile that travels at Mach 10, which he claimed were unstoppable and penetrated US air defences with ease. Since then both China and Russia have developed a family of hypersonic missiles that travel at speeds of up to Mach 14 and are highly manoeuvrable inflight. Currently the US only has the Dark Eagle Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) that is still in the testing phase.

“The footage reveals the projectile’s unique capability to alter its trajectory by igniting a second-stage motor upon re-entry into the atmosphere. This level of missile technology is currently not operational in any Western nation,” bne IntelliNews’ military analyst Patricia Marins said in a commentary. That second-stage motor effectively allows the missile to jump sideways if fired on and the missile easily evaded US Patriot PAC-3 intercepts during an attack on a US base in the Gulf, hitting its target and causing chaos.

Navel anti-ship missiles: Another area where Iran has gotten ahead of the US is in the development of naval anti-ship missiles. US battleships carry the state-of-the-art Tomahawk missile, but the Pentagon has underinvested in defensive missiles to counter Iran, a capability that Israel and Russia, for example, have already integrated on corvettes, with systems able to intercept ballistic missiles during their terminal phase - until Mach 3.

Much of the Western fleet lacked defences against Russian hypersonic missiles like the Zircon (700–1,000 km range) or Chinese systems like the YJ-21 (1,500 km range). It remains to be seen how Iran’s hypersonic missiles will fare against US naval defences, but if Tehran is cooperating with Moscow and Beijing, it is likely to have some missiles designed to penetrate them.

Long-range missiles: Iran rolled out the Khorramshahr Intermediatory Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) last week that experts believe is built using North Korea’s Musudan missile, also known as the Hwasong-10, with a maximum range of 4,000km carrying a 1,800kg payload. Previously, experts believed that the furthest Iran could shoot a missile was 2,000km.

Two Khorramshahrs were fired at the US-UK Diago Garcia base in the Indian Ocean and a key launch pad for US strategic bombers. It was the first time the island base has ever been attacked. The range of the Khorramshahr means all of Southern and Central Europe as well as parts of Germany, Italy and Switzerland are now all in range of a land-based missile launch from Iran.

Again there is no evidence that Russia helped in the development of the Khorramshahr, but Russia is steeped in missile technology and unveiled the Oreshnik ICBM last year that can hit any capital in Europe. Moreover, as part of a security deal signed with Pyongyang last year, that includes an Article 5-like collective security guarantee, Moscow has been sharing military technology with North Korea as part of their cooperation.

Satellite intel: Russia admitted last week that it's been sharing satellite targeting intelligence with Tehran. China is openly doing the same and has given Iran access to its advanced BeiDou satellite navigation system and has openly published satellite images of US planes parked on the tarmac in US bases in the region, complete with AI generated labels identifying the kinds of planes written in Chinese. Moreover, the resolution of under one metre is extremely high – previously only the US had this high-quality satellite capabilities.

Satellite intelligence has already played a key role in the open phase of the war, after Iran successfully targeted and destroyed or damaged all four of the US THAAD radar systems in the region, severely impeding their ability to provide warnings of Iranian inbound missiles salvos.

Torpedoes: A defence ministry official boasted in the first week of the war that Iran possesses Russian-made unstoppable torpedoes, without naming them. Russia showcased the Poseidon nuclear powered torpedo last year that can travel around the world at very deep depths and is both unstoppable and undetectable.

It is unlikely Russia has shared this weapon with Iran, but Tehran has developed the Azhdar underwater drone that has effectively made the Strait of Hormuz a kill-zone for the US navy.

The Azhdar is powered with a lithium battery and can travel silently at 18-25 knots for up to four days as an underwater loitering munition. Azhdar are fired in a swarm and can search for targets, honing in using AI algorithms. Once the US Navy is close to the Strait of Hormuz with an invasion force, Azhdar can be released, wait and search for the chanced encounter at sea and cause havoc.

Mini-subs: Trump has claimed the US has destroyed the Iranian navy, but surface ships were never going to stand a chance against a head-on confrontation with the US Fifth Fleet. Submarines are a different matter.

Iran has invested in a fleet of small-high speed boats equipped with missiles and torpedoes as well as unmanned naval drones. The Iranian navy even has three Russian-made Kilo class submarines, which are undetectable when in stealth and have a range of 300km. But deadliest of all is Iran's fleet of Iranian Ghadir mini-submarines that cost $20mn each.

The Ghadir is a small diesel-electric submarine, about 29 metres long and displacing roughly 120 tonnes, designed for operations in confined and shallow waters like the Gulf, where average depths of around 50 metres make sonar detection useless.

Unlike nuclear-powered submarines, the Ghadir runs on batteries when in stealth mode and carries high-speed Hoot torpedoes, which uses supercavitation technology. So far the US navy has only reported one contact with one of the Ghadir subs. The USS Churchill detected a Ghadir on March 9 but was unable to run it to ground and destroy it. The mini-subs also make the Strait of Hormuz a kill-zone for the US navy.

Drones: Drone use has changed the face of war, but the US is running badly behind the CRINK alliance in its development and deployment of drone technology. It only recently announced the development of the Lucas drone (Low-cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System) that is a rip off of Iran’s own Shahed.

Iran was a world leader in drone technology even before the Ukraine conflict broke out in 2022. Unlikely, Ukraine, which now produces over 2mn small, cheap First Person View (FPV) drones for use against the Armed Forces of Russia (AFR) infantry, Iran has gone for bigger more powerful drones that are a “cheap cruise missile,” according to Marins and produces around 150,000 a year.

While there is no reported evidence, it is highly likely that Russia is sharing its recent advances in drone tech with Tehran. After buying thousands of Iranian drones in the first part of the Ukraine war, in 2025 Russia signed a technology transfer deal with Tehran and set up its own drone factories in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone that are churning out thousands of drones a day.

Russia has also invested heavily in bringing the technology forward rolling out its work was Geran-2 drone, based on the Iranian-designed Shahed-136 loitering munition and more recently released an upgraded Geran-5 which includes much more sophisticated electronic warfare protections and even jet engines that increased its range and payload.

The new Shahed-136 MS series is reported to feature an improved eight-channel Iranian-made jam-resistant satellite navigation system known as Nasir and since the 12-day war with Israel last year,

Israeli intelligence officials say Iran is likely to have more than 10,000 Shahed drones dispersed in hidden storage around the country. The cost of a single Shahed drone has been estimated at $30,000—35,000.

First unveiled in 2021, Shahed drones have been credited with precise daylight strikes, including attacks claimed against US and allied facilities in Bahrain, Qatar, Cyprus and Saudi Arabia. The Gulf allies have seriously depleted their stock of US-made air defence ammo as the defences are simply overwhelmed by the sheer number of drones attacking.

China is also playing a key role in supporting Russia’s drone production. Last year a Russian recognisance drone was found on the Ukrainian battlefield that was packed with Chinese electronics, where the year before US-made electronics made up 95% of Russian drone and missile electronics.