What is the Axis of evil?

Abstract

The issue of the emergence and transformation of the concept of the Axis of Evil, which is relatively new in political science and the theory of international relations, is considered. There are two stages of its interpretation, in the first of which the "Axis of Evil" was understood as the political regimes of countries that sponsor international terrorism and develop biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, in the second - autocracies, whose actions began to fan the flames of a new world war. The author emphasizes that the transition from the first stage to the second was caused by Russia's full-scale military aggression against Ukraine, which caused a crisis in the world order, and analyzes the actions of the actors in this alliance.