The CRINK supremacy: WWII-era military power flipped as Global South powers take over

In WWII the Allies produced about 65% of the world's weapons. Today that has been flipped. The CRINK (China, Russia, Iran, Norrth Korea) produce 65% of arms and the West has fallen badly behind. / bne IntelliNews

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By Patricia Marins in Rio de Janeiro January 9, 2026

In a world where military alliances are rapidly reconfiguring themselves, a recent bne IntelliNews analysis of Chinese naval power reveals an alarming historical reversal: China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea (CRINK) dominate a large part of global military ship and submarine production.

This bloc controls 60-70% of the world's warship construction and 55-70% of submarine production, based on the average of the last six years of defence shipbuilding activity.

Who is the most powerful military powers in the world has been flipped. It used to be the wartime allies of the developed nations. Now it is the emergent powers from the Global South.

The CRINK supremacy contrasts sharply with the dynamics of the Second World War (1939-1945), when the Allies – the US, the UK, the USSR, and France – held 75-85% of global naval production, leaving the Axis (Germany, Japan, and Italy) with only 15-25%.

WWII Allied naval superiority

During the conflict, the Allies' naval superiority was overwhelming in almost every category.

In the case of aircraft carriers (including fleet, light, and escort models), for example, Japan, the sole producer for the Axis powers, manufactured only...8 units - 15% of the total global production. The Allies, on the other hand, built 38 (USA 28, UK 10), guaranteeing 85% of production.

In the battleships, the balance tipped slightly towards the Allies: the Axis produced 8 (Germany 2, Japan 3, Italy 3), or 40%, compared to 13 for the Allies (USA 9, UK 4), which represented 60%.

The advantage widened in cruisers, with the Allies manufacturing almost 90% of the total: the Axis manufactured 10 (Germany 3, Japan 5, Italy 2), while the Allies reached 85 (USA 43, UK 37, USSR 5).

Similar pattern among destroyers: Axis with 101 (Germany 18, Japan 63, Italy 20), or 15%, versus 542 for the Allies (USA 349, UK 143, USSR 50), totalling 85%,

Almost all escort ships were Allied: 80 from the Axis (Germany 20, Japan 50, Italy 10), or 5%, against 850 (USA 500, UK 300, USSR 50), which totalled 95%.

The exception was submarines, where Germany gambled everything on U-boats, raising the Axis to 70% of the war effort, contrasting sharply with the pre-war period (1930-1938), when the Allies led with 60%. Axis 180 (Germany 70, Japan 60, Italy 50) vs. Allies 285 (USA 35, UK 60, USSR 150, France 40). Already in the war: Axis 1,446 (Germany 1,162, Japan 177, Italy 107) vs. Allies 570 (USA 232, British 200, USSR 120, France 18) (Source: for Germany 1,162 U-boats; for confirmed totals).

Apart from this German strategy, the Allied naval capacity was 60-70% or more, driven by industrial mobilization.

Allies led in ground power

In terms of ground equipment, Allied superiority was even greater, thanks to the USSR.

Ammunition for tanks and artillery (in millions of units):

• Axis: Germany 300; Japan 100; Italy 50. Total: 450 (30%).
• Western Allies: USA 600; UK 200; France 10. Total: 810 (50%).
• USSR: 500 (20%)

Artillery pieces:

• Axis: Germany 73,484; Japan 13,350; Italy 7,200. Total: 94,034 (10%).
• Western Allies: USA 257,390; UK 226,113; France 1,000. Total: 484,503 (40%).
• USSR: 516,648 (50%) Source: Tanks (including self-propelled):
• Axis: Germany 46,857; Japan 2,515; Italy 2,500. Total: 51,872 (20%).
• Western Allies: USA 88,410; UK 27,896; France 500. Total: 116,806 (40%).

USSR: 105,251 (40%)

Armored vehicles, including APCs and tank destroyers

• Axis: Germany 49,777, Japan 2,200; Italy 1,240. Total: 53,217 (30%).
• Western Allies:USA 20,000 UK 47,420; France 500. Total: 67,920 (40%).
• USSR: 10,000 (30%)

In aircraft production, the Allies manufactured three-quarters of the fighter planes.

Fighter jets (fighters, attackers, bombers, reconnaissance):

• Axis: Germany 94,000; Japan 50,000; Italy 10,000. Total: 154,000 (25%).
• Western Allies: USA 200,000; UK 100,000; France 5,000. Total: 305,000 (50%).
• USSR: 120,000 (25%)

The Allies dominated 75-80% of global production, focusing on volume during the war, while the Axis powers prioritized initial quality and were ultimately outperformed.

Role reversal

This relationship has reversed today. Under Nato, the Allies produce 25-30% of artillery and tank ammunition compared to their enemies –Russia, China and Iran. Adding North Korea, this group accounts for 75-85% of global production.

Although official data is scarce for Iran, China, and North Korea, estimates based on tank and artillery stockpiles can give a good idea about the stockpiles following the communist doctrine:

Annual artillery pieces:

• Nato: 500 (USA 150,Europe 350, including Czech Republic 30, Spain 40, Romania 50, Nordic countries 30)
• China, Russia and Iran: 1,000 (Russia 600, China 300, Iran 100)

Tanks (including SPGs, units per year):

• Nato :400 (USA 150, Europe 250 including Czech Republic 50, Romania 50, Poland 50)
• China, Russia and Iran: 2,100 (Russia 1,500, China 500, Iran 100)

Armoured vehicles (including APCs and tank destroyers, units per year):

• Nato: 2,000 (USA 800, Europe 1,200 including Czech Republic 500, Slovakia 200, Romania 200, Nordic countries 100)
• China, Russia and Iran: 4,000 (Russia 2,500, China 2000,Iran 200

Combat aircraft (fighters, bombers, attack aircraft and reconnaissance aircraft, units per year):

• Nato: 280 (USA 200, Europe 80)
• China: Russia and Iran: 250 (China 180, Russia 60)

Missiles:

But nothing is as disparate as missile production. Today, China, Iran and Russia, account for approximately 90% of the production of ballistic and cruise missiles, both short, medium, and long range.

Between them China and Russia dominate the production of the new hypersonic missiles which Putin showcased during his 2018 state of the nation speech.

Russia has deployed multiple hypersonic weapons, including the Avangard glide vehicle and Kinzhal air-launched missile, though some systems have faced mixed performance reports during combat use in Ukraine.

China has tested and partially deployed systems like the DF-17, with ongoing development of more advanced hypersonic glide vehicles.

The US is in a distant third, scrambling to catch up and Europe hasn’t even made a start on rolling out this deadly class of missile. The US is investing heavily in hypersonics, with several programmes in advanced testing phases, though it also has no fully deployed systems as of early 2026.

Currently, no European country has an operational hypersonic missile system in service – not even at the experimental testing stage. Moreover, the vaunted Franco-British Storm Shadow cruise missile and Germany’s powerful Taurus missile have both been out of production for around a decade with new facilities commissioned recently in a bid to catch up.

Explosives:

The production of raw materials for modern explosives in Russia, Iran, and China also accounts for more than 50% of global production.

Drones:

It would be amiss not to mention drone production, where the CRINKS also account for 80-85% of global production, especially after Russia ramped up its production as a result of the Ukraine war.

Western intelligence assessments, Ukrainian military sources, and independent defence analysts, in 2025, Russia likely produced between 1,500 and 2,000 long-range attack drones, primarily Shahed-type loitering munitions (Iranian-designed drones known as Geran-2 in Russian service).Most of these were manufactured at a large facility in Alabuga, Tatarstan, which has become the cornerstone of Russia’s efforts to domestically produce Iranian-designed UAVs under licence or technical assistance agreements with Iran.

A 2023 report by the US Department of Defence estimated that China possessed over 50,000 military UAVs, including large numbers for battlefield ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance), and was producing several thousand annually. China produces thousands of military drones annually, across a wide spectrum.

• Reconnaissance drones (e.g. BZK-005, ASN-209)
• Combat drones (UCAVs) (e.g. Wing Loong, CH (Caihong) series, GJ-2)
• Loitering munitions (Chinese equivalents to Shahed/Lancet types, increasingly used in exercises and exports)
• Stealth and high-end systems, such as the Sharp Sword and WZ-8, are in lower-rate production or testing phases.

By contrast, the US is the world's top producer of high-end military drones, especially in the medium- and high-altitude long-endurance (MALE/HALE) categories and stealth systems. However, it doesn’t make the mass produced cheap and simple models that dominate the battlefield in Ukraine. In drone warfare, increasingly it is the ability to manufacture millions of drones a year that is the decisive factor, not the sophistication of the drones.

The EU is badly lagging behind the US and China in drone production due to fragmented national efforts, limited funding, and lack of joint procurement. Belatedly, several major programmes are under development, but as yet the EU has not found an affordable solution to building a “drone wall” on its eastern borders to repel an anticipated attack by hundreds of thousand cheap and effective Russian drones.

Who wins the war?

In short, today’s Western Allies face a very challenging scenario should the CRINK bloc attack Nato. If in WWII they produced 65-75% of the world's weapons, now their enemies are the ones producing them.

After decades of underinvestment, Europe has belatedly launched the €800bn four-year ReArm military modernisation programme. But this has its work cut out for it if Russia is intending to invade Nato in the next five years, as German intelligence services have suggested. In the meantime, defence spending has increased following the Nato summit in the Hague where European Nato members pledged to increase their defence spending to 5% of GDP. But as bne IntelliNews reported, after the US withdrew its military aid to Ukraine and switched to a take-and-pay system, Europe has failed to offset the end of US military aid and weapons deliveries to Ukraine fell last year.

If Western Europe and the USA were the industrialized world during WWII, that has also changed. The CRINK bloc now accounts for more than 40% of the world's industrialization. As bne IntelliNews reported, today Russia and China are the world’s predominant manufacturing powerhouses, while both the US and most of Europe have exported their manufacturing bases and become largely service economies. This lack of a manufacturing base is precisely what US President Donald Trump has been aiming to reverse with his Liberation Day tariffs. Reversing the outflow of manufacturing jobs to the Global South has now become an irreversible process. As the Draghi report pointed out, the only way the West can compete is to stay ahead in technology and labour productivity gains, but that will cost an additional €800bn a year for the foreseeable future.

 

The secret room a giant virus creates inside its host amoeba

Uncovering a subcellular environment specialized for efficient viral translation

Kyoto University

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How a mismatch between the virus’s codon usage and the host's genome can hinder viral translation. 

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Credit: Ruixuan Zhang

Kyoto, Japan -- A virus relies on the host's translation machinery to replicate itself and become infectious. Translation efficiency partially depends on the usage of a codon, or sequence of three nucleotides, that matches the cellular pool of tRNA, key molecules in translation. Using rare codons that are poorly supported by the cellular tRNA pool tends to induce ribosome pausing and mRNA instability, often weakening the virus.

Yet many eukaryotic viruses use a codon pattern that deviates from their host's while still relying on the host's translation mechanism. Theoretically this mismatch should hinder viral mRNA translation, but these viruses may have found a way to alleviate this unfavorable translation condition during infection. To understand how this happens, an international team of researchers, including a team from Kyoto University, decided to investigate.

The team focused on the giant virus Acanthamoeba polyphaga mimivirus, or APMV. This virus has a genome rich in AT sequences but a GC content of only 28 percent, while the amoeba that hosts this virus has a GC content of 58 percent. To identify the dynamics of this viral infection, the researchers examined APMV-infected amoeba cells using a combination of sequencing methods, including Ribosome profiling to estimate the frequency of translation pausing and tRNA sequencing to determine tRNA composition.

The Ribosome profiling data revealed a counterintuitive result: ribosome pausing events were less frequent on viral mRNAs than on host mRNAs despite the mismatched codon usage. Initially, the researchers predicted the tRNA pool would change after viral infection to favor the AT-rich viral mRNA translation, but subsequent analyses uncovered no significant changes.

Instead, the research team discovered a subcellular environment specialized to translate viral mRNAs. In this organelle-like structure, codons frequently used by the virus are more accessible to tRNA than the same codons on the host mRNAs, alleviating the mismatch between codon supply and demand.

This heterogeneous strategy is completely different from the homogenous strategy of bacterial viruses, which tend to employ the same codon as their hosts for optimal translation. The researchers speculate this newly discovered local translation mechanism may represent a strategy common to many other viruses, including human pathogens.

"I have always thought that the AT-rich codon usage of APMV is an evolutionary consequence of mutational bias," says team leader Hiroyuki Ogata. "However, our results imply that it may be an adaptive evolutionary strategy to efficiently use cellular resources while avoiding competition with the host."

In the future, the team intends to obtain more data on this subcellular environment and provide a more systematic understanding of the viral infection process.

"Our study naturally leads to many fascinating questions," says first author Ruixuan Zhang. "How is this subcellular environment created? Which specific proteins or RNAs drive its formation? Can this heterogeneous molecular distribution be generalized to other intracellular microorganisms? These are challenging questions I am excited to dive into."

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The paper "A giant virus forms a specialized subcellular environment within its amoeba host for efficient translation" appeared on 9 January 2026 in Nature Microbiology, with doi: 10.1038/s41564-025-02234-x

About Kyoto University

Kyoto University is one of Japan and Asia's premier research institutions, founded in 1897 and responsible for producing numerous Nobel laureates and winners of other prestigious international prizes. A broad curriculum across the arts and sciences at undergraduate and graduate levels complements several research centers, facilities, and offices around Japan and the world. For more information, please see: http://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en

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Journal

Nature Microbiology

DOI

10.1038/s41564-025-02234-x 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Cells

Article Title

A giant virus forms a specialized subcellular environment within its amoeba host for efficient translation

Article Publication Date

9-Jan-2026

 

New test shows which antibiotics actually work

University of Basel

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Drugs that act against bacteria are mainly assessed based on how well they inhibit bacterial growth under laboratory conditions. A critical factor, however, is whether the active substances actually kill the pathogens in the body. Researchers at the University of Basel have presented a new method for measuring how effectively antibiotics kill bacteria.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are one of the biggest health problems of our time. Due to mutations, bacteria are increasingly resisting the effects of common drugs, making these infections increasingly difficult to treat.

But even without resistance, bacteria are sometimes able to withstand antibiotics, especially if the bacteria are in a dormant state. Although they do not reproduce when in this state, they are not killed by the antibiotics either. This allows the bacteria to wake up and start growing again at a later time, for example after antibiotic therapy has been stopped. Particularly in the case of tuberculosis and other complex infections, which take many months to treat, selecting drugs that kill the bacteria and completely sterilize the infection is crucial.

Previous laboratory tests mainly reported whether a drug stopped bacteria from growing – not whether the bacteria actually died. Researchers led by Dr. Lucas Boeck from the Department of Biomedicine at the University of Basel and University Hospital Basel have developed a new method to better predict treatment success. They have described this new method in the scientific journal Nature Microbiology.

Filming the fate of individual bacteria

The method, which the researchers call “antimicrobial single-cell testing,” is based on microscopic imaging of millions of individual bacteria under thousands of different conditions. “We use it to film each individual bacterium over several days and observe whether and how quickly a drug actually kills it,” explains Lucas Boeck. This makes it possible to measure precisely what proportion of the bacterial population is eliminated by the treatment and how efficiently.

To demonstrate their method, the research team tested 65 combination therapies on the tuberculosis pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The researchers also tested the method on bacterial samples from 400 patients with a different complex lung infection triggered by Mycobacterium abscessus, which is related to the tuberculosis pathogen.

Differences were observed firstly between different therapies and secondly between different bacterial strains in different patients. Experts call the latter antibiotic tolerance. Subsequent analyses revealed that certain genetic characteristics are responsible for how well the bacteria can “sit out” the antibiotic treatment. 

“The better bacteria tolerate an antibiotic, the lower the chances of therapeutic success are for the patients,” says Lucas Boeck, summarizing the results. Compared with data from clinical studies and animal models, the results of antimicrobial single-cell testing provided a very good reflection of how well the different therapeutic agents eradicate infections.

Benefits for patients and drug development

The new method has so far been used as a research tool, but it could also be used in clinics and industry in the future. It could one day be beneficial both for patients and for drug development in a number of ways, explains Lucas Boeck. “Our test method allows us to tailor antibiotic therapies specifically to the bacterial strains in individual patients.” He adds that a better understanding of the underlying genetics could one day enable even simpler and quicker antibiotic tolerance tests to be performed and could also help improve estimates of the efficacy of new drugs during their development.

“Last but not least, the data can help researchers to better understand the survival strategies of pathogens and thus lay the foundation for new, more effective therapeutic approaches,” says Boeck.

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Journal

Nature Microbiology

DOI

10.1038/s41564-025-02217-y 

Article Title

Large-scale testing of antimicrobial lethality at single-cell resolution predicts mycobacterial infection outcomes

Article Publication Date

9-Jan-2026

 

World’s vast plant knowledge not being fully exploited to tackle biodiversity and climate challenges, warn researchers

University of Cambridge

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This plant is endemic to Ecuador, and endangered in the wild. Around 40% of the world’s plant diversity is at elevated risk of extinction, and botanic gardens form a critical safety net against this by enabling species to be restored to the wild.

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Credit: University of Cambridge

An international group of researchers says that biodiversity conservation and scientific research are not benefiting from the vast knowledge about the world’s plants held by botanic gardens, because of fragmented data systems and a lack of standardisation.

In a new report published today in the journal Nature Plants, researchers based at more than 50 botanic gardens and living plant collections warn that a patchwork of incompatible, or even absent, data systems is undermining global science and conservation at a critical moment.

They call for a unified and equitable global data system for living collections to transform how the world’s botanic gardens manage and share information. This would enable them to work together as a ‘meta-collection’ to strengthen scientific research and conservation efforts.

Climate change, invasive species, habitat loss and increased global movement of plant material all require rapid access to high-quality, trusted information about living plants. Achieving this depends on a shared culture of open, accurate, and affordable data - allowing living collections of all sizes, particularly in the Global South where much of the world’s biodiversity is located, to participate on equal terms.

Curator of Cambridge University Botanic Garden Professor Samuel Brockington, who led the work together with researchers at Botanic Gardens Conservation International, said: “The digital infrastructure needed to manage, share, and safeguard living plant diversity wasn’t designed to operate at a global scale.”

He added: “We’ve built an extraordinary global network of living plant collections, but we’re trying to run twenty-first-century conservation with data systems that are fragmented, fragile, and in many cases inaccessible to scientists and conservationists working where most biodiversity originates. We urgently need a shared data system so the people managing collections can work together as a coordinated whole.”

Thaís Hidalgo de Almeida, Curator of Living Collections, Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro and a co-author of the report, said: “Having an integrated and equitable global data ecosystem would greatly help us address urgent conservation needs in biodiversity-rich countries like Brazil, making our work faster, more collaborative, and more effective.”

Scientific research in many areas depends on accurate, well-documented living plant material.  As climate change accelerates extinction risk, living plant collections are increasingly used to support species and ecosystem restoration, and climate-adapted urban planting.

Yet many collections remain undigitised, and those that are often rely on incompatible systems shaped by institutional or commercial priorities rather than shared standards. As a result, vital information on threatened species, climate resilience, provenance, and legal status cannot be shared efficiently between institutions or across borders.

“In healthcare, fragmented and proprietary data systems are recognised as a serious risk and the focus of major public investment,” said Brockington. “In plant conservation, we face the same problem, but without treating the data as critical public infrastructure.”

At least 105,634 plant species - representing around one third of all plant species in the world - are grown in the world’s 3,500 botanic gardens. As much as 40% of the world’s plant diversity is at elevated risk of extinction and these living collections form a critical safety net against that.

Organisations like Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) have already established the foundations of a better data system but the researchers say coordinated, considered investment is now needed to create a long-lasting and trusted resource.

Paul Smith, Secretary-General, BGCI and a co-author of the report, said: “In an era of accelerating biodiversity loss, harnessing the full conservation potential of living collections requires a step-change in how collections data are documented, standardised and connected through a global data ecosystem. This publication, supported by more than fifty gardens worldwide sets the stage for achieving that transformation.”

Last year, Brockington announced his previous report showing how living collections metadata could be used to give global insights into the acquisition and conservation of the world’s plant diversity.

 

This tree is endemic to Australia and is critically endangered. Thanks to the efforts of botanic gardens, there are now more of these trees in cultivation - like this one in Cambridge University Botanic Garden - than can be found in the wild.

Curators across the world have built an extraordinary global network of living plant collections. But they warn that a patchwork of incompatible, or even absent, data systems about these collections is undermining global science and conservation at a critical moment.

Credit

University of Cambridge

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Journal

Nature Plants

DOI

10.1038/s41477-025-02192-6 

Article Title

High-performance living plant collections require a globally integrated data ecosystem to meet twenty-first-century challenges

Article Publication Date

9-Jan-2026