Russia's Interest in Trading with the "Axis of Evil"
The puzzle is why a Russia that has improved its relations with the United States and Western Europe, that has supported the United States in the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Central Asia, and that seeks membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and to attract foreign investment would maintain and even deepen trade with North Korea, Iran, and Iraq— countries with regimes that reject market economics and democracy. Furthermore, Russian trade with Iran and Iraq, in particular, appears to support those regimes in their pursuit of what the United States believes to be policies to acquire weapons of mass destruction and the means for their use. This apparent contradiction suggests that Russia does not hold as a priority economic transformation, international integration, and fundamental cooperation with the United States and its Western allies. It suggests, some have argued, that Russia’s true purpose is a new round of competition with the United States, determined by great power ambitions rather than Soviet ideology.