The United States must recognize that China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are cooperating as part of a coordinated effort to weaken American power and reshape the international order, Foundation for Defense of Democracies President Cliff May said during an interview with Dan Proft on Chicago’s Morning Answer.
May discussed the findings of “Axis of Aggressors,” a new book from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies examining the military, economic and diplomatic relationships connecting the four authoritarian governments.
The project grew out of research May conducted with historian Walter Russell Mead into cooperation among countries with sharply different political and religious systems. May said additional researchers spent approximately two years documenting more than 600 examples of security cooperation among the four governments over a six-year period.
Despite their ideological differences, May said, the countries share an interest in diminishing American influence and replacing the existing international system with one in which they exercise greater regional and global control.
China under President Xi Jinping seeks to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s authority, while Russian President Vladimir Putin is attempting to restore elements of the former Russian empire through his war against Ukraine, May said. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un wants to dominate the Korean Peninsula, while Iran’s government seeks regional supremacy and remains committed to the destruction of Israel and opposition to the United States.
Their cooperation is increasingly visible on the battlefield. North Korea has provided troops and munitions to assist Russia’s war in Ukraine, while Russia has reportedly supplied Pyongyang with technologies related to submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles. China is also studying recent conflicts to prepare its military, which has limited modern combat experience, for a possible confrontation over Taiwan.
May said those relationships amount to a new Cold War involving four interconnected adversaries rather than a collection of isolated regional disputes. That reality, he argued, makes limited agreements with individual governments insufficient unless American policymakers account for the larger network supporting them.
The discussion included Iran’s threats to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important energy corridors. May said freedom of navigation is a foundational principle of international law that the United States has defended for more than two centuries.
Allowing Iran to exercise effective control over the strait would hand Tehran a significant strategic victory, he said. It could also weaken American efforts to preserve navigation through other critical waterways, including the Bab el-Mandeb strait connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden.
May argued that Washington should seek to cripple the Iranian government’s ability to project power while warning China and other countries against rebuilding Iran’s military defenses. He pointed specifically to reports that Beijing could provide Iran with man-portable air-defense systems capable of threatening American aircraft.
Iran’s air-defense network suffered extensive damage during its conflict with Israel, allowing American stealth bombers to operate with a reduced risk of interception. May said the United States should treat any Chinese effort to restore Iran’s ability to attack American aircraft as a hostile act.
Proft questioned how durable the partnership among the four countries would prove during a major crisis, noting that China has not committed its own forces to save Russia from battlefield losses or directly defended Iran against attacks on its military infrastructure.
May acknowledged that the partnership has limits and is driven by national interests rather than genuine loyalty. China may view Russia, Iran and North Korea as useful strategic assets without being willing to fight on their behalf. That makes clearly communicated and consistently enforced American red lines especially important, he said.
The conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East are also providing all four governments with opportunities to study modern warfare. Drones and counter-drone systems have become particularly important, both on battlefields and in attacks against commercial shipping.
Relatively inexpensive unmanned aircraft can damage costly equipment, threaten military installations or disrupt international commerce. Even a single attack on a merchant vessel can cause insurers and shipping companies to reconsider traveling through a region, magnifying the economic impact far beyond the physical damage.
May also addressed the Trump administration’s efforts to negotiate an agreement restoring reliable passage through the Strait of Hormuz. He expressed concern that a temporary arrangement could leave Iran with an implicit claim of sovereignty or control over an international waterway.
Arab governments in the Persian Gulf face a difficult choice, May said. Some have spent heavily on military equipment while continuing to depend on American bases and forces for protection. If the United States appears unwilling or unable to defend them from missiles and drones, they may conclude that accommodation with Iran is their safest option.
That uncertainty could ultimately determine whether Tehran emerges as the dominant power in the region. May said Gulf states must decide whether to align more closely with the United States or accept an arrangement in which they defer to Iran and potentially pay for protection.
The conversation began with a broader discussion of socialism and industrial policy. May, a former foreign correspondent who reported from the Soviet Union and China, said socialist systems fail because government officials cannot successfully direct complex economies. He agreed with Proft that responding to left-wing central planning should not mean replacing it with a different group of central planners.
May said free markets and individual liberty remain essential to American prosperity, but preserving those principles also requires recognizing the coordinated challenge posed by authoritarian governments abroad. The United States, he argued, needs a strategy that treats China, Russia, Iran and North Korea as interconnected adversaries while establishing firm limits on how far their cooperation can go.