China, Russian, Iran, and second-tier adversaries are increasingly collaborating. That fact must influence how the U.S. responds to the threat they pose.
China, Russian, and Iran, as well as second-tier adversaries, are increasingly collaborating. That fact must influence how the U.S. responds to the threat they pose.
T oday, the challenges to American hegemony and the Western-led world order have become obvious and direct. Still, China, Russia, Iran, and their second-tier proxies (Venezuela, North Korea, Syria, et al.) are often viewed as separate trials for the West to deal with. Each wishes to claim predominance in its own near abroad, and politicians and pundits tend to address them separately. The debates over prioritization have been fierce; some want a focus on the war in Ukraine; others, a shift of priorities to the Pacific. Differences over how to deal with Iran are just as stark, while some have failed to see it as a threat at all.
What these debates miss, however, is the very crux of the matter: These seemingly disparate challenges are inextricably bound together. They are all rooted in the same goal: the demolition of the American-led world order and its replacement with hard spheres of influence. Segmenting the challenges into regional siloes is tempting but fails to address their root cause and shared mission. It also ignores the reality of the situation, as these three powers — China, Russia, and Iran — have far more in common than base motivations.
All three are in the midst of significant upgrades in their nuclear-weapons capacity, a direct strike at the uneasy nuclear détente that has characterized the post–Cold War landscape. Iran has enriched uranium to near-weapons-grade status. Russia has withdrawn from the New START treaty, and China has begun a building spree of new ICBM launchers, surpassing the capacity of the United States. The similarities in unconventional warfare don’t end there. Russia and Iran have funded mercenaries and proxies, China has weaponized space, and all three (North Korea, too) are heavily involved in cyberattacks.
Economically, these powers work to undermine sanctions, exert control over trade, and build closed lines of supply and payment. For years, this group has been evading sanctions, including those imposed on Venezuela, North Korea, Iran, and Russia. Russia has impeded international trade, endangering food security in the developing world, while China has militarized the South China Sea to gain the ability to interdict commerce. They have also created an alternative to the SWIFT international banking system, hoping to develop a more authoritarian-friendly model.
Besides their antipathy to the current order, these nations seek to impose internal totalitarian control, personal and party government, and regional dominance. Vladimir Putin’s kleptocracy, the Iranian mullahcracy, and Xi Jinping’s Mao-like status are more alike than different. They clamp down on dissent, imprisoning political rivals, executing protesters, and targeting dissidents’ families. They also claim dominance of their near abroad. Russia is asserting it with its invasion of Ukraine — a clear example of these connections in action. China and Iran have aided Russia in evading sanctions, Iran has supplied it with weapons (and China may be looking to do the same), and all of the associated regimes protect it at the U.N. When push came to shove in February 2022, the fundamental alignment of these nations became undeniable.
Why should we care about this budding pseudo-alliance? Because it strikes at the heart of America’s prosperity, security, and culture. The world order of free trade between sovereign nation-states, inherited by the U.S. from the British after the Second World War, is the foundation on which America became rich. The status of the United States as the world’s leading naval power and as the prime advocate for rule of law has, together with the status of the U.S. dollar as the world’s leading reserve currency, cemented us as the wealthiest large nation on the planet. The international norms around sovereignty and war have promoted peace and security; in Ukraine, we are seeing the consequences of their repudiation. A less free world where Anglo-American ideas about sovereignty and democracy were denigrated would not spare our culture. Such a world order would influence our domestic scene, further shifting our society in a more authoritarian direction and threatening our national interests.
Grand strategy is often dismissed in modern democracies, but it is the best means to dissolve this opposing alliance. Tactics for countering its threats can vary, but all must fit within a broader paradigm of opposing the ideological goal that unites them. They are like the heads of a mythological hydra, each distinct in its appearance and actions but fed by the same heart. Dealing with them successfully means striking at the heart, not at each head separately.
In a perfect world, America would meet this destabilizing push with a strategy of containment and confrontation across the globe. But we live in a world of scarcity, meaning that smart choices need to be made about the allocation of resources. In the Middle East, working with the Israelis and the Gulf States to shut down Iranian regional aspirations; in Europe, revamping NATO — led by Poland, the U.K., and the Baltic states — to contain Russia; in Asia, doubling down on the Quad, linking with other partners including Vietnam and the Philippines, and prioritizing American power deployment in the Indo-Pacific.
In this quest to defend the world order, policy-makers cannot allow purity tests to determine our partnerships — it isn’t 1995 anymore. We need to see the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be. This is not strictly a black-and-white battle of autocracy vs. democracy, as President Biden would have it. It’s far more complicated. Some nondemocratic or illiberal regimes want to maintain the American-led order, while others are neutral. We dismiss these potential relationships of mutual interest at our peril.
The linkages between these powers mean that we cannot appease one head of the hydra while antagonizing another. Allowing Russia to overrun Ukraine to save our strength for the defense of Taiwan would ensure that China would have a vigorous backer when the time came. Allowing Iran to rejoin the JCPOA would not turn it into a pro-Western partner but would instead embolden the regime.
Given the need to pull this weed out at its root, American power will be taxed to the limit. That militates against the military and fiscal retrenchment that politicians of both parties favor. A decline in the military budget, especially as it would lead to reduced production of important weapons systems and matériel, would leave America unprepared for the challenges that await it. As during the interwar period of the 20th century, the proponents of the world system would be left disarmed when its enemies, fully rearmed, went on the march. We cannot afford to make that costly mistake again.
Rearming also gives us a crucial tool with which to extend American efforts across the many theaters of geopolitical competition. Expanding the U.S. military industrial base is the most important part of that strategy. We have seen the effectiveness of American hardware on Ukrainian battlefields, where it aids a smaller nation against a larger invader — Taiwan, take note. This successful military aid has left many Western nations in a precarious position with respect to their stockpiles. Revamping production would allow us to replenish those stocks, develop innovative systems that met battlefield needs, and send them abroad to the nations on the front lines. America can once again become the “Arsenal of Democracy,” getting the most bang for our buck with the least risk to American lives.
Two things have become eminently clear: The geopolitical threats originating from China, Russia, and Iran are bound by a shared goal of destroying American primacy, and the best way to effectively counter that danger is through a grand strategy that recognizes that reality. Like Hercules, we cannot slay the geopolitical hydra by working alone and dealing with one head at a time. Instead, we must strike at the beast’s heart — at its aim of demolishing the world order. We can do that only by acknowledging the inseparable nature of these threats, addressing them together, and doing so with a grand strategic plan. To do otherwise would be to court disaster.