Standard neorealist interpretations of international economic coercion assume that targeted alliances formed under systemic pressure are inherently volatile and short-lived. This study challenges this consensus by analyzing the structural and institutional convergence between the Russian Federation and the Islamic Republic of Iran. We argue that rather than merely generating tactical, temporary sanctions-evasion frameworks, prolonged Western containment has catalyzed a qualitative shift toward institutional co-adaptation, rooted in the cross-pollination of Iran’s structural doctrine of Eqtesad-e Moqavemati (Economy of Resistance) within Russia's technocratic crisis-management apparatus. Utilizing historical-institutional process tracing and a micro-economic analysis of cross-border data—including bilateral clearing mechanisms, local currency integration, and physical transit metrics along the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC)—this paper demonstrates how asymmetric actors achieve network sovereignty. The findings reveal that totalizing Western sanctions have failed to induce domestic compliance; instead, they have structurally institutionalized an autonomous, non-Western economic ecosystem in the Eurasian heartland. By linking the SPFS and SEPAM payment networks and securing the Caspian maritime sanctuary from Western jurisdiction, Moscow and Tehran have created a path-dependent, counter-hegemonic regional order that permanently diminishes the extraterritorial leverage of Western unilateral embargoes.
The Evolution of Russia-Iran Sanctions Evasion Frameworks: From Tactical Cooperation to Systemic Institutional Convergence
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