Unholy Alliance

In case you missed it, Warren Strobel and Mike Gordon over at the Wall Street Journal, authored a splendid piece of journalism highlighting how Vladimir Putin rebuilt Russia's unprovoked war against Ukraine with the assistance of our adversaries - Iran, North Korea and China.

Russia's military cooperation with Iran, North Korea and China has expanded into the sharing of sensitive technologies that could threaten the US and its allies long after the war in Ukraine ends...

The speed and depth of the expanding security ties involving US adversaries has at times surprised US intelligence analysts.  Russia and the other nations have set aside historic frictions to collectively counter what they regard as a US-dominated global system, they said...

Russia's war in Ukraine is...propped up by China, North Korea and Iran, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday.  They want to see the US fail.  They want to see NATO fail.  If they succeed in Ukraine, it will make us more vulnerable and the world more dangerous.

This expansion among the world's most authoritarian and brutal regimes echoes observations made by Anne Applebaum and Bill Kristol. 

So communist China, nationalist Russia, theocratic Iran, Bolivarian socialist Venezuela, whatever North Korea is - these aren't countries that share an ideology....But they do share a common interest.  And the common interest is undermining us.  And by us, I mean America, Europe, the liberal world, the democratic world... 

Their own oppositions, whether it's the Hong Kong democracy movement, or whether it's the Navalny movement in Russia, or whether it's the women's movement in Iran, are inspired by and use democratic language.  And they use the language of freedom and liberty and rights and rule of Law.  And the dictatorships need to undermine that language in order to keep in power domestically...

And they have an interest in shaping the debate inside the liberal democracies in ways that benefit them.  And increasingly, they've concluded that what benefits them is the rise of illiberal, disruptive and radical parties, because when that happens, the Western world or the democratic world loses its sense of community and solidarity.  It loses its ability to make group decisions.  If we're divided by radical politics in different  countries, then we're not very good at standing up to them.  And they very much see this as a war, as a competition, as a conflict, even if we don't. 

And so now, they are betting that Trump will be the person who destroys the United States, whether he makes it ungovernable, whether he assaults the institutions, so that they no longer function, whether he creates so much division and chaos that the US can't have a foreign policy anymore.  That's what they want, and that's what they're hoping he will do.  And again, I don't want to the conspiratorial about how much power they have.  They don't run US elections, but they will try to influence the outcome however they can, because they think he will weaken the country ultimately.  And, by the way, from what we know, the Chinese are only just beginning to experiment in this world.  From what we know, the Chinese agree.  So, he's the candidate of the authoritarian world, not because he'll make America stronger, but ultimately because they think he'll make America weaker.

May you live in interesting times - has long been claimed to be a Chinese curse.  Who knows for sure?  What we know for sure is the world is a dangerous place and Russia, China, North Korea and Iran are seriously bad actors.  An unholy alliance.

*Content courtesy of The Bulwark