1. Supporting rogue regimes economically and militarily

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watches a ballistic-rocket exercise in this undated photo. KCNA/via Reuters

China and Russia continue to provide military and economic aid to rogue regimes like North Korea, Iran, and Syria.

"China has kept the deranged North Korean regime afloat for years with economic aid and enabled Pyongyang's nuclear pursuits by its refusal to enforce UN sanctions," authors Douglas Schoen and Melik Kaylan wrote in "The Russia-China Axis."

As Pyongyang's closest ally, China is opposed to the bilateral decision between the US and South Korea to deploy America's most advanced missile-defense system to the Korean Peninsula.

A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery is slated to be operational in South Korea by the end of 2017 in order to counter increasingly aggressive threats from the North.

Pressure to deploy THAAD was spurred after Pyongyang tested its fourth nuclear bomb on January 6 and then launched a long-range rocket on February 7.

China argues that since Washington agreed to equip Seoul with the unique missile-defense system, the North's missile tests have expanded and are poised to increase.

So far this year, the Hermit Kingdom has conducted a little more than 13 rounds of ballistic-missile tests and has fired 29 various rockets, according to South Korea's UN ambassador.

Chinese Ambassador Qiu Guohong warned that deploying THAAD would irreparably damage relations between the countries, The Chosunilbo reported.

THAAD deployment, Qiu said, "would break the strategic balance in the region and create a vicious cycle of Cold War-style confrontations and an arms race, which could escalate tensions."

During a discussion at the Brookings Institution on identifying emerging security threats, CIA Director John Brennan said that the deployment of THAAD to the region was one of the US's "obligations" in the region.

"Clearly Kim Jong Un continues to go down a road that is exceptionally irresponsible as far as regional and global security, with his development of nuclear weapons as well as ballistic missiles," Brennan told Business Insider in a question-and-answer session.

"We have certain obligations to our partners and the region so that the appropriate steps are taken to reassure our friends, partners, and allies of US commitment to the security of that area."

During a Hudson Institute discussion on US missile-technology preeminence, US Army Gen. Charles Jacoby, former commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), was in agreement and stressed the importance of deploying THAAD, despite it upsetting near peers like Russia and China.

"Certainly the Russians and the Chinese and other stakeholders understand that in South Korea besides being a wonderful ally, significant economic engine for growth throughout the world, that there are tens of thousands of American citizens living there, there is still US forces there, they are playing a defense role and they are at risk everyday to a host of threats that now include the potential for ballistic-missile-carried weapons of mass destruction," Gen. Jacoby said.

"We cannot not act."

Meanwhile, the rogue regime continues to conduct defiant ballistic-missile tests.

The most recent test occurred at the end of August, when the North fired what was believed to be a KN-11 missile from a submarine.