Rethinking Iran's 'Axis of Resistance'
From central hub to networked ecosystem
Iran's 'Axis of Resistance' has evolved from a ‘hub-and-spoke’ system - where groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis were overwhelmingly reliant on Tehran - to a networked ecosystem with multiple hubs, and much greater resilience. The shift demands a rethink from Western policymakers who have continued to deploy strategies based on targeting what they believed to be a single point of weakness.
For years, policymakers and analysts have tended to characterise Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance as a centralised system, with Tehran provisioning and directing a collection of proxy organisations, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Hamas in Gaza, and the Houthis in Yemen.
“the report highlights the tell-tale signs that might help policymakers take advantage of a narrowing window of opportunity to intervene”
But there is compelling evidence that some members of this network are no longer passive recipients of Iranian support. Increasingly, they can manufacture sophisticated weapons, train other armed groups, build their own procurement networks, and adapt independently when traditional supply routes are disrupted.
This is the central argument presented in Beyond the Axis, a groundbreaking report published last week by Century International,1 to which I contributed my Sudan expertise.
“The Axis of Resistance has proven exceptionally resilient because it represents a new kind of dispersed power that is a distinct feature of a highly interconnected world - a type of challenge that will shape the twenty-first century.”
‘Beyond the Axis’, Century International, June 2026
The ‘Capability Ladder’
Drawing on a wealth of cross-disciplinary evidence,2 the report analyses the evolution of Iran’s relationship with other members of the Axis, and shows how in certain cases its partners have grown from a reliance on the provision of complete Iranian weapons systems to building their own weaponry, and later becoming hubs for the cultivation of new partners.
The report names this process the capability ladder. Hezbollah, and more recently the Houthis, have reached the top rung. There is evidence that the Houthis, for example, are now providing weapons training to groups such as the Sudanese Armed Forces, and al-Shabaab in Somalia. Other groups continue to climb the ladder.
Drones & modern warfare
Anyone following the conflicts in recent years in Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar, and the Middle East will be well aware of how modern warfare has been re-defined by the dramatic growth in the production of UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles - or drones), and the proliferation of drone technology.
The report shows how Iranian drones - particularly one-way attack drones, also known as suicide drones - have been deployed by armed groups in several of these conflicts.
It also demonstrates how, at a certain point in the relationship, armed groups climbing the capability ladder are provided with complete Iranian weapons systems. Further up the ladder, they are given the technology and training to assemble, or manufacture, the systems without the involvement of Tehran.
Global trade re-mapped
“Over the past quarter century, two parallel transformations - one in how Iran and its allies build military capability, the other in how the global economy moves goods, money, and information - have rewired both the Axis and international commerce from hub-and-spoke networks with identifiable choke points into complex, adaptive ecosystems with no clear points of failure.”
‘Beyond the Axis’, Century International, June 2026
The development of this ecosystem has been made possible by changes in the configuration of global trade.
China has overtaken the US as the world’s largest exporter of manufactured goods, and new international trading hubs have emerged. This means there is now a global network for the shipment of arms components that is beyond the reach of Western regulations or sanctions.
Policy implications
The report makes clear the policy challenges posed not just by the direct threat of Iran and the Axis, but by drone proliferation and armed groups within the ecosystem. There are no easy solutions, but the report highlights the tell-tale signs that might help policymakers take advantage of a narrowing window of opportunity to intervene.
If groups can build their own one-way attack drones from components sourced from indigenously run supply chains, the report considers them to have reached capability breakout, at which point it becomes infinitely more difficult to degrade and destroy them.
The capability ladder model - and the tracking of drone proliferation as a marker of progress up the rungs - can help policy actors identify which groups are pre- and post-breakout, and therefore which might be susceptible to intervention.
If you liked this post, please click the ❤️ to help Substack’s algorithm show it to more people. 🙏🏻☀️The report is the main publication for ‘Beyond the Axis’, a Century International project supported by the Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) research programme, funded by UK International Development.
The report’s claims are substantiated by two years of fieldwork, open-source investigations, and data analysis by a multidisciplinary research team. It draws on more than 250 key-informant interviews with officials, Axis group members, businesspeople, and analysts across the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. The report also makes use of purpose-built databases of intercepted weapons shipments, drone proliferation, sanctions, and training events; vessel-tracking using automatic identification system (AIS) data and satellite imagery; and hundreds of documentary sources in English, Arabic, Farsi, and Hebrew.