Besides having a small army that has been fighting to prop up Bashar Assad’s rule in Syria, an estimated 150,000 missiles aimed at Israel in Lebanon (a country it more or less controls), and engaging in terrorist attacks on Jewish, Israeli, and American targets worldwide, Hizballah also runs a global crime syndicate that serves to fund its other activities. Money laundering for drug cartels forms the core of the Iranian proxy group’s illicit activities, but it also runs its own narcotics operation, smuggles illegal timber, and much else. Emanuele Ottolenghi provides an example:

In the past few decades, the Jewish state has vastly expanded its diplomatic, economic, and sometimes military ties with South and East Asia, while doing its best to stay away from the conflicts that divide the countries in the region. Daniel Samet surveys the potential for these relationships, urging Jerusalem to avoid deepening cooperation with China and instead to focus on cultivating further its alliances-in-the-making with China’s competitors: