July 11, 2024

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IntelBrief: How Do U.S. Adversaries Approach Great Power Competition?

Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP, Pool, File

More than two decades after launching the “Global War on Terrorism,” the United States has shifted focus to great power competition or strategically maneuvering against near-peer rivals, including China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. The reallocation of resources has been evident in the way Washington has rallied support for Kyiv in fighting back against Russia’s invasion and continued onslaught. The United States has been the fulcrum of the NATO alliance as it backs the Ukrainian military and provides various forms of support, including financing, training, and equipment. The deemphasis on countering violent non-state actors and the transition back toward the primacy of nation-states has, in some ways, helped to reinvigorate NATO, which expanded to include Western allies Finland (2023) and Sweden (2024).

Yet, America’s adversaries have not been static in response. On the contrary, China and Russia declared a “no limits” partnership, with Beijing providing support for the Russian war effort. Other U.S. adversaries have also come to Russia’s aid, including Iran and North Korea. Iran has been a critical supplier of unmanned aerial systems to Moscow, while Russian President Vladimir Putin recently visited North Korea for the first time in over two decades, where he met with dictator Kim Jong Un and signed a military pact stipulating that each country will assist the other if one is attacked. The North Korea issue remains among the most intractable, with no coherent Western policy in place to engage with the Hermit Kingdom. Meanwhile, Pyongyang continues to build a nuclear arsenal, posing a major threat to regional and international security.

Both Russia and Iran have been impacted by the wars that have dominated global attention — Ukraine and Gaza — with Moscow suffering the loss of more than 100,000 troops and Tehran under intense pressure for its ongoing support of proxy groups, including ‘Axis of Resistance’ members such as Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah, Iraqi Shia militias, and the Houthis in Yemen. Since the Hamas attacks of October 7^th, Iran has crept toward the precipice of all-out conflict with Israel on several occasions, especially after its mid-April missile and drone barrage. Iran recently threatened Israel after growing tensions with Hezbollah along its northern border.

Even as China assists Russia, both countries compete to project power in regions such as Central Asia and the Arctic. Moscow’s struggles in Ukraine have opened up opportunities for Beijing to make deeper inroads into Russia’s traditional sphere of influence. All five Central Asian states – Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyz Republic, and Kazakhstan — have remained neutral in terms of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. China’s diplomatic and economic initiatives have resonated in the region, where it sees its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as an engine of growth, which in turn brings political benefits for Beijing.

In Asia, China remains wary of U.S. influence, Washington’s strong relationship with Japan and South Korea, and a renewed push to engage in security cooperation and building partner capacity activities with the Philippines, as well as basing agreements. The Quadrilateral Dialogue, or “Quad” — a partnership of the U.S., India, Australia, and Japan — is clearly aimed at limiting China’s reach throughout the Indo-Pacific. Despite numerous attempts to “pivot to Asia,” U.S. foreign and security policy is still focused squarely on the Middle East, with the war in Gaza just the latest example of how that region continues to occupy the Biden administration’s bandwidth.

Washington sees New Delhi as a bulwark against Beijing, but Indian President Narendra Modi has sought chiefly to engage with a wide range of countries, recently receiving the ‘Order of St. Andrew the Apostle,’ Russia’s highest civilian honor, in a visit to the Kremlin in Moscow this week. Modi was feted with an official state dinner at the White House last June and India’s size, economic influence, and geography led nations, in both the West and throughout the Global South, to covet a closer relationship. Border skirmishes with China have been a tripwire over the years.

On balance, Russia will emerge from the war in Ukraine significantly weakened, with a limited ability to compete with the United States on a global basis. Iran remains content to fight for regional hegemony, but Tehran’s moves have contributed to a growing list of adversaries in the Middle East and beyond. China, for its part, is the pacing challenge for the United States and managing the relationship will continue as a strategic priority for whoever wins the U.S. presidential election in November. There are lingering fears that under Chinese President Xi Jinping, Beijing could seek to invade Taiwan. Visiting the White House in April, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida stated bluntly: “Ukraine of today may be East Asia of tomorrow.” His words may yet prove prophetic.

Great power competition is a multiplayer game and should not simply be viewed through a zero-sum lens, particularly as countries in the Global South seek to navigate how to leverage U.S.-China competition for their national interests. But to operate effectively in this paradigm, the United States needs to understand how its adversaries view this competition. In some parts of the world, whether Africa’s Sahel region or the Caucasus, Washington’s adversaries are seeking new partnerships and exploiting security vacuums to their advantage. Without a comprehensive grand strategy that leverages American strengths and attenuates the influence of near-peer competitors, the U.S. will continue to muddle through, ceding valuable terrain to opponents and making it more likely that illiberal regimes will band together to thwart Western objectives.