Nikki Haley to Rally West against ‘Axis’ of ‘Fanatical Dictators’

I n a speech later this morning, former South Carolina governor and U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley will argue that Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine should awaken the world to an even greater threat: that of a burgeoning global “axis” uniting the dictatorships in Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran.

The possible 2024 presidential candidate is staking out a firm position on the hawkish side of the intra-GOP foreign-policy debate, even as some rising stars and establishment voices within the party advocate a more restrained stance. Her remarks will highlight the nature of the threat posed by foreign, anti-American regimes with a totalitarian bent.

“We face a set of powerful and fanatical dictators with dreams of conquest,” Haley is expected to say in an appearance at Policy Exchange, a London-based conservative think tank, according to a copy of her prepared remarks obtained by National Review. “Imperial Russia, Communist China, and jihadist Iran pose existential threats to us and to free peoples all over the world.”

“The Western way of life depends on deterring these threats. Victory is required,” Haley will add. “The reality of who they are, and what they are about, is clear in the mass graves of Bucha and the concentration camps of Xinjiang.”

Haley’s speech will come against the backdrop of a fraying international security situation, as Russia makes gradual gains in Ukraine, China pushes forward with an unprecedented military buildup, and Iran marches toward nuclear capabilities while plotting a global terrorism campaign.

In her prepared remarks, Haley blames the “total failure of [Western] deterrence” in the years before the Ukraine crisis, homing in on the Biden administration’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and a Russia policy defined early on by an in-person Biden–Putin summit, as well as the decision to block sanctions that would have killed the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

Haley will also point to the West’s mishandling of the 2014 Crimea crisis, Russia’s “largely unchallenged” role in Syria, and the Kremlin’s use of a chemical weapon to target dissidents in Salisbury, England, in 2018.

Central to the speech is the “no limits” partnership between Russia and China that Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping unveiled on February 4. Since then, the two countries have emphasized their alignment on geostrategic issues. Although all indications are that China has declined to ship military equipment to Russia in support of its war on Ukraine, Xi and Putin both played up their mutual cooperation after speaking on a call last week.

Haley will single out this intensifying partnership, offering her reading of a February meeting between Putin and Xi: “They also signed a 5,000-word manifesto that is dramatic in its boldness. It proclaims a redistribution of power in the world away from free countries toward tyrannical ones. It heralds a Chinese–Russian alliance closer than in the days of Mao and Stalin.”

In addition to increased Sino–Russian cooperation, Haley will warn that Iran “has its own ambitions for regional domination and the destruction of free nations,” ambitions which put it in alignment with Russia and China. Both the Kremlin and Beijing have undertaken diplomatic efforts to convince the Biden administration to re-enter the Iran nuclear deal on terms favorable to Tehran.

Ultimately, Haley will say, it will only be possible for Western countries to counter the growing threat by repudiating the policy of economic interdependence that has left the U.S. and its allies tied to foreign dictatorships. She will argue that this can only be accomplished by weaning the West off of the Russian energy supply, “securing strategic supply chains completely free of Chinese control or leverage,” and leaning on the private sector to act in a way that promotes the interests of Western societies.

Haley’s speech is significant not only for its focus on this new “axis,” but because it will place her among the most hawkish Republicans on Ukraine, just as some within the party are wondering why the U.S. should continue to support Kyiv’s war effort at all. Haley is expected to say that Russia cannot be allowed to “come away with a shred of territorial victory,” and to call the NATO membership bids of Finland and Sweden “uplifting.”

“This is a clash of civilizations — a classic struggle between light and darkness, good and evil, right and wrong,” she will say. “We need look no further than the streets of Mariupol, Hong Kong, and Tehran for proof.”