“Rogue Allies: The Strategic Partnership Between Iran And North Korea”
Biblio File column
Former Marine Bruce Bechtol Jr., who grew up in Chico, teaches in the Department of Security Studies and Criminal Justice at Angelo State University in Texas, and is a former intelligence officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Together with Anthony Celso, professor of security studies at Angelo State University, who specializes in the politics of the Middle East, the two have produced a ground-breaking study of “Rogue Allies: The Strategic Partnership Between Iran And North Korea” ($29.95 in paperback from The University Press of Kentucky; also for Amazon Kindle).
Published at the end of April 2025, “this book,” the authors note, “is the first comprehensive study of the North Korea-Iran relationship and the damage that partnership has done to Middle Eastern and Asian security.” The book documents in scholarly detail all that is known about that partnership (fully half the volume is taken up by notes and a comprehensive bibliography).
“We argue,” they write, “that analysts should view Iran and North Korea’s partnership as an integrated global threat network—North Korea’s supplies of advanced weapon technologies, platforms, and missile systems are provided to Tehran’s armed forces in return for Iranian cash and oil.”
Furthermore, “Financial transactions between these two heavily sanctioned nations are maintained by an elaborate system of clandestine criminal finance spearheaded by a global network of front and shell companies.” Cryptocurrency is used to launder money involving Russia and China. Though Iran and North Korea are not ideologically aligned, the marriage of convenience is clear if one follows the money.
As for policy implications, Bechtol and Celso write that “within months, Iran could fabricate enough weapons-grade fissile material to produce a handful of nuclear weapons.” Presciently, they note that “American provision of bunker-busting bombs for the Israeli Air Force will be vital to the success of a future military strike against Iran’s diverse nuclear infrastructure”—though “such a development will not guarantee that the regime will fail to restart its program.” The future, it seems, is now.
Copyright Chico Enterprise-Record; used by permission