INTERPENDENȚĂ TRANSFORMATĂ ÎN ARMĂ. RECONFIGURAREA COERCITIVĂ A AXEI IRAN-CHINA-RUSIA
INTERPENDENCE TRANSFORMED INTO A WEAPON. THE COERCITIVE RECONFIGURATION OF THE IRAN-CHINA-RUSIA AXIS

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the European Union’s designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (CGRI) as a terrorist organization as a structural intervention into the transnational networks of clandestine military and economic cooperation linking Iran, Russia, and China. Moving beyond normative interpretations centered on “naming and shaming“, the analysis conceptualizes the designation as a mechanism of networked coercion that reshapes the conditions under which sanctioned authoritarian regimes sustain repression at home and war-making abroad. Drawing on the literature on weaponized interdependence, sanctions evasion, and illicit political economies, the article argues that the CGRI has long functioned as a central node in trade-based sanctions-evasion and dual-use procurement networks. The EU’s decision does not dismantle these networks, but compresses, fragments, and raises the costs of their operation, thereby weakening the flexibility and deniability of the Iran-Russia war-supply axis and its enabling interfaces with China. The article concludes that overlapping EU sanctions regimes should be understood not as instruments of behavioural correction, but as tools of systemic risk management aimed at preventing the synchronization and mutual reinforcement of multiple major security crises in an increasingly contested international order.

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