While Iranian missiles, and their proxies, continue to attack U.S. troops and partners in the Arabian Gulf, one fact has disappeared from the coverage: North Korea supplies the weapons. The rockets that Hamas fired on October 7, 2023, the ballistic missiles Tehran launches at American positions today, and the tunnel networks that still threaten Israeli forces all trace back to Pyongyang. Few analysts have called it out. Bruce E. Bechtol Jr. has.
Bechtol, author of the new book Rogue Allies: The Strategic Partnership Between Iran and North Korea (which he co-authored with Anthony N. Celso), has spent years documenting the flow. In a recent Korea Regional Review analysis, he wrote that after reviewing reporting from the United States, Europe and East Asia, he found “zero” mentions of North Korea’s role. “The evidence is there,” he told Military.com.
Nobody in the mainstream coverage is connecting those dots.
A Pragmatic Partnership Built on Cash and Survival
The relationship started as cold realpolitik. Iran needed weapons after the 1979 revolution and its war with Iraq. North Korea needed hard currency once Soviet subsidies dried up. Ideology drove Tehran while money drove Pyongyang. Bechtol describes it as a marriage of convenience that has lasted more than 40 years.
Iran’s leaders see the partnership as part of their revolutionary fight against the United States and Israel. North Korea views it as business. Bechtol stated:
For North Korea it isn’t ideological, just a way to make money
Iran has, until very recently, been able to provide North Korea with roughly $3 billion a year, a significant slice of Pyongyang’s income. That cash funded not only Iranian systems but arms for Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis. North Korean technicians stayed on site, refurbishing factories right up until the current war began.
Missiles in Combat: Pyongyang’s Designs Powering Tehran’s Strikes
The liquid-fuel ballistic missile program that Iran uses today is almost completely North Korean. The Qiam short-range missile that has hit U.S. facilities and Gulf targets is an upgraded Scud-C. North Korea shipped about 200 Scud-Cs starting in 1986 and built the factory that produces them. Iranian crews still rely on North Korean engineers and components to keep the line running.
Longer-range strikes rely on the “No Dong” family. Pyongyang sold Iran roughly 150 of them in the late 1990s and built the production facility. From that missile base came the Emad and Ghadr missiles now targeting Israel and U.S. bases in the region. Bechtol calls them direct derivatives. “Those missiles have been fired a lot at Israel,” he said. “Simply derivatives of the No Dong.”
The Khorramshahr-4, with its two-ton cluster-munition warhead, follows the same pattern. It began as 19 Musudan missiles that North Korea delivered in 2005. Iranian engineers, working with North Korean help, added a heavier warhead that shortened the range to 2,000 kilometers, but was ideal for hitting Israel. Strip the warhead and the missile regains its original reach to places like Diego Garcia.
Bechtol put it plainly in the conversation with Military.com:
The liquid fueled missile program that Iran has is almost completely North Korean.
The ICBM Threat: North Korea’s 80-Ton Booster Heads Toward America
The pipeline goes beyond today’s fight. Since 2013, North Korea has shipped components for an 80-ton rocket booster based on the RD-250 engine, the same technology that powers its own Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile. Transfers continued during the 2015 nuclear talks—also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JPOA), which Iran seemingly had no intention of honoring.
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned both countries in 2016 for their cooperation. United Nations experts confirmed shipments of critical parts as recently as 2020.
Bechtol warns that Iran now holds the pieces for an ICBM capable of reaching the United States. In “Rogue Allies,” he writes that North Korea has proliferated Scud, No Dong, Musudan, Unha and Hwasong technology, updating Iran’s capabilities as it updates its own. The question is no longer whether Iran has the hardware. It is whether Tehran will field it with the regime in its death throes.
What Comes Next if Iran Falls
Iran’s potential collapse would cost North Korea a major customer. The $3 billion a year from Tehran has long helped keep the regime afloat. Russia now pays more, about $20 billion annually for weapons used in Ukraine, but the loss still hurts. Bechtol notes that Pyongyang’s technicians were rebuilding Iranian missile sites until the fighting started. If Iran survives, those same experts will return quickly.
Bechtol stands out because he has followed this relationship for decades, when most analysts looked the other way. His book and recent reporting make one thing clear: the rogue strategic pipeline is not history. It is the reason Iranian missiles keep flying at U.S. forces. Let there be no doubt: Pyongyang has been a center of gravity behind Tehran’s fight and American troops and allies have paid the price.
Neutralizing the Iranian regime will, for now, at least remove that source of funding for North Korea. But if the Mullahs remain in charge, then North Korea will immediately move in to reconstitute them. Recognizing the gray zone actions between these rogue allies will be important moving forward regardless.
“Rogue Allies: The Strategic Partnership Between Iran and North Korea,” by Bruch Bechtol and Anthony Celso, is available wherever books are sold.
