U.S. Adversaries Create a Web of Threats

By Beth Sanner

Beth Sanner served in the U.S. Intelligence Community for 35 years holding senior roles at ODNI and CIA.  She was former Deputy Director for National Intelligence at ODNI, and served as daily briefer to the president during the Trump Administration.

EXPERT Q&A — Closer collaboration between China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea – increasingly referred to as the ‘Axis of Authoritarians’ – requires a more holistic response when it comes to U.S. policy and national security. Experts say the U.S. and its allies are finding that to address concerns posed by one of these countries, action directed towards the others is more often required.

Cipher Brief expert Beth Sanner, former Deputy Director of National Intelligence, talked to us about the new complexities this closer collaboraton is presenting for the U.S.

Our interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

The Cipher Brief: How should the U.S. be understanding this closer alliance between authoritarian states?

Sanner: This is a fundamental challenge. Some people call it a war of ideas, which I think is valid, but I think it’s just a fundamental difference in the way that we want to live our lives and the way that these authoritarian leaders want to live theirs.

Is it our system or their system? And that speaks to rule of law, it speaks to security, and the question of ‘does might make right’. It also speaks to economic systems and infrastructure, and all of the economic competitiveness issues as well.

We should be worried that these countries now are powerful enough that they are starting to say ‘no’ more often. ‘We’re not going to live under your system. We don’t like it and we’re going to challenge it.’

We need to look very practically at what this means. Should we be worried about BRICS? Should we be worried about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization? Probably not, except that they are clubs of countries that are growing that include countries that are absolutely anchored in our system. Turkey says they want to apply and that they want to become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization [but] they’re a NATO member. That’s not good. India is already a part of BRICS. Saudi Arabia says they want to join. But at the same time, what can they do in those organizations? Not much. But there are practical matters of these four countries that I think matter to us.


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The Cipher Brief: What are those practical threats?

Sanner: There are things about the way that China wants the world to work in terms of authoritarian systems and the export of the tools of authoritarianism all around the world. Russia also is using The Wagner Group, reinvented to export their tools to authoritarians around the world. And they’re bucking up a lot of their allies, small letter A, like-minded countries, and they’re trying to entice these fence-sitter countries.

In the short to medium term, there are real practical effects. Particularly, with China providing 90% of the microelectronics and 70% of the machine tools to Russia that provide the fodder for their war machine and also props them up so they can sustain themselves through sanctions. Without China, sanctions would’ve largely worked. It’s actually making the war last longer and it’s making Russia strong enough that even they can outlast us.

The other two actors are being supported by both countries. Iran’s ability to export oil to China has allowed them to continue to build their arsenal. It’s the same with North Korea, when it comes to coal sales and sanctions busting. China just says outright, we just don’t believe in sanctions. We don’t believe in UN sanctions, and we’re not going to uphold these anymore because these are US-led.

Russia and China have voted to constrain North Korea and Iran under JCPOA in the past. Those days are gone. That means that we don’t have international partners, even difficult ones, that are going to work with us to prevent the growing missile and nuclear arsenal of North Korea and the potential nuclear, but certainly military, capabilities of Iran.

Russia has not been a country that supported proliferation. And now it’s like, ‘Well, whatever. We need the materials from these people, so we’re in‘. What does that mean? The U.S. intelligence community says that Russia is helping North Korea on their rocket and missile program. When you look at Kim’s trip to Russia, he stopped in the submarine factory. They’re going to have—with Russia’s help—an ability to build out their submarine launch nuclear capability much, much faster than if they were on their own. That’s hard for us because it’s harder to detect, and it’s harder to have warning.

We do know that Iran is getting a lot of money. They’re probably getting gold. I’ve seen a couple reports on that. This is helping Iran build their program and sustain their ambitions as a regional hegemon. But they’re also talking about a strategic agreement between Russia and Iran that’s not signed yet, and we’ve been waiting for it.

What’s going to be in there? What if Russia provides Iran with modern air defense? What if they provide them with modern fighter jets? They’re using our fighter jets from the 1970s right now. We could see a much stronger and regionally threatening Iran because of what Russia, and to a lesser extent China, is doing.


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The Cipher Brief: So, what should the U.S. do?

Sanner: The first step is similar to going to Alcoholics Anonymous. We’ve got to realize that we have a problem and acknowledge that this isn’t a one-off thing. The problem isn’t just about China and we can ignore the rest. It is that there is this interlinking problem, and unless you understand the linkages, then you can’t go after it because where you go after it, is in the linkages. You’ve got to figure out whether you need to sanction Chinese banks in order to prevent them from trading with Russia.

In terms of taking it to the next level, we have to have a bigger conversation with Americans and explain the issues and how we think about them. Americans have to be okay with the risks that we will have to take as a country in dealing with it, because these are not risk-free policies.

If we really go after enforcement of Iranian oil exports, that will raise the price at the pump. No president wants to do that, but there is no getting around it.

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