--- title: How America’s Adversaries Have Stopped Fighting Alone description: The war with Iran has made it clear that America’s adversaries are increasingly acting as a coordinated bloc. canonical: https://time.com/article/2026/08/04/america-russia-china-iran-war/ author: Ariane Tabatabai article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-08-04T12:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-03T19:06:49.079Z article:section: Ideas og:title: How America’s Adversaries Have Stopped Fighting Alone og:description: "The war with Iran has made it clear that America’s adversaries are increasingly acting as a coordinated bloc," write Ariane Tabatabai and John Drennan. og:url: https://time.com/article/2026/08/04/america-russia-china-iran-war/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7654d4d66b0e1a50/6a70e1fef0972a167cb99432/GettyImages-2286802768.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: GettyImages-2286802768.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How America’s Adversaries Have Stopped Fighting Alone twitter:description: "The war with Iran has made it clear that America’s adversaries are increasingly acting as a coordinated bloc," write Ariane Tabatabai and John Drennan. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7654d4d66b0e1a50/6a70e1fef0972a167cb99432/GettyImages-2286802768.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  IDEASTime ideas # How America’s Adversaries Have Stopped Fighting Alone by [Ariane Tabatabai](https://time.com/author/ariane-tabatabai/) and [John Drennan](https://time.com/author/john-drennan/) Aug 4, 2026 12:00 PM UTC  Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov meets with Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi in the Kyrgyz resort city of Cholpon-Ata to discuss rising tensions in the Gulf region on July 24, 2026. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov meets with Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi in the Kyrgyz resort city of Cholpon-Ata to discuss rising tensions in the Gulf region on July 24, 2026.Russian Foreign Ministry-Handout-Anadolu via Getty Images by [Ariane Tabatabai](https://time.com/author/ariane-tabatabai/) and [John Drennan](https://time.com/author/john-drennan/) Aug 4, 2026 12:00 PM UTC American leaders have long treated Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea as separate challenges, to be managed one at a time. The U.S.-Israel war with Iran exposed once again the folly of that approach and revealed a web of cooperation between Tehran and Washington’s major adversaries. When the United States and Israel fired their opening salvos against Iran in February, starting a war whose ripple effects would be felt across the globe for months to come, the reactions from Russia and China were relatively muted. Yet it soon became clear, that below the surface, neither Moscow nor Beijing had been idle. Evidence mounted that Iran was not fighting alone; it had the support of Washington’s major rivals. European intelligence officials [disclosed ](https://apnews.com/article/trump-iran-russia-intelligence-35afae34198408d670941f971d383378)that Iran shares information with Russia so freely that Russian officials knew of a strike that killed Ali Larijani, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, before the news broke anywhere else. This information-sharing runs both ways: Russian intelligence [has reportedly supplied](https://www.wsj.com/world/russia-is-sharing-satellite-imagery-and-drone-technology-with-iran-0dd95e49) targeting details for Iranian attacks on U.S. forces and partners in the region, [using](https://apnews.com/article/russia-iran-drones-shahed-war-israel-ukraine-840b4f885d99714bdb7813c0d56213cf) the Shahed drones Tehran had once sent to Moscow for use against Ukraine—but now fitted with Russian upgrades. Officials at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency [indicated](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-06/us-intelligence-chinese-satellite-imagery-middle-east/106508322) that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps had been planning missile and drone strikes using AI-annotated imagery of American bases published by a Chinese satellite firm. CNN [report](https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/11/politics/us-intelligence-iran-china-weapons)ed, citing people familiar with American intelligence assessments, that Beijing was preparing to ship air-defense systems to Iran through third countries to mask their origin. Such collusion should not have come as a surprise. Months before the war began, the warning had come from within the Trump Administration itself. General Dan Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, [testified](https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/general%5Fjohn%5Fdcainetestimony.pdf) to Congress in June 2025 that China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, were “pursuing unprecedented levels of cooperation.” Yet, when asked in early March about the potential danger that Russia’s involvement in the Middle East posed to American personnel, Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, [replied](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hegseth-us-iran-russia/), “We are not concerned about that.” President Donald Trump himself, when asked about Russia’s intelligence sharing with Iran, [dismissed](https://www.newsweek.com/trump-dismisses-russia-giving-iran-intel-on-us-troops-11640713) the coordination and equated it with American support for Ukraine: “They would say we do it against them. Wouldn’t they say that?” When testifying to Congress in July, Hegseth [acknowledged](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15rCrBky0ro), when pressed, that “there’s definitely adversary alignment, attempts to do so” as both Russia and China were “enabling, at different levels, some of the things Iran is doing.” Trump contradicted him a few days later, [claiming](https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/trump-confronted-hegseth-contradicting-him-201938611.html), “I don’t know that they are enabling,” and stated that the leaders of both countries had said they “will not partake” in the war. “I trust them,” he asserted. “I don’t think they would want to have me disappointed.” In addition to Hegseth’s qualified concession of adversary alignment, Trump [told ](https://nypost.com/2026/03/10/us-news/hegseth-says-russia-should-not-be-involved-in-iran-war/)reporters in March that President Vladimir Putin of Russia could “be more helpful by ending the war in Ukraine.” Hegseth also [conceded](https://nypost.com/2026/03/10/us-news/hegseth-says-russia-should-not-be-involved-in-iran-war/) that Russia “should not be involved.” And Trump [threatened ](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/13/trump-threatens-50percent-tariffs-on-china-as-report-suggests-plans-for-arms-shipment-to-iran.html)50% tariffs against China. These scattered rebukes only confirm the broader pattern: individual objections to individual provocations—a warning one week, a tariff threat the next— occur even as the connections among America’s adversaries go unaddressed and the collective threat they pose remains underestimated. ### Know your enemy, fight your enemy What is remarkable is how thoroughly American intelligence agencies foresaw the cooperation among America’s adversaries, and how quickly the political leadership chose to look away. Russian support for Iran in the war with the U.S. was not a new development. Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea had been deepening and widening their cooperation, particularly in defense. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 served as the catalyst for some strands of this cooperation, though some of it predated the invasion. The war on Ukraine showed that, despite historical distrust and disagreements on policy, America’s major adversaries would band together in pursuit of shared goals. China [provided](https://www.economist.com/china/2026/05/20/how-china-quietly-helps-russia-in-ukraine) Russia with political and economic support, particularly goods with commercial and military uses, and [helped](https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2025-11/Chinas%5FFacilitation%5Fof%5FSanctions%5Fand%5FExport%5FControl%5FEvasion.pdf) it evade sanctions. Iran supplied the drones Russian forces used to strike Ukrainian military and civilian infrastructure. North Korea sent troops to serve inside Russia and [to fight](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/13/world/asia/north-korea-soldiers-russia-ukraine.html) alongside Russian forces on the battlefield. The Biden Administration attempted to focus on these bilateral relationships, and, ultimately, began trying to frame parts of its defense policy around the growing integration among the four countries. Testifying [before](https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/congressional-testimonies/congressional-testimonies-2024/3798-dni-haines-opening-statement-as-delivered-on-the-2024-annual-threat-assessment-of-the-u-s-intelligence-community) Congress in 2024, Avril Haines, then the director of national intelligence, explained that these relationships would remain far short of “formal alliances or a multilateral axis.” Yet, she emphasized that increased cooperation still enabled these countries to cooperate on “competitive actions,” assisted them to “further undermine the rules-based order,” and to provide one another a measure of “insulation” from external pressure. On the whole, the Biden Administration’s approach remained largely diagnostic, pairing analysis with some modest countermeasures: trying to rally allies, or sanctioning Chinese entities that directly supported Russia’s war effort. In the end, the administration ran out of time before developing a comprehensive strategy, let alone imposing costs sufficient to prevent further integration or roll it back. The Trump Administration has largely abandoned this organizing principle and, it seems, the very concern that such integration threatens U.S. national security. The first Intelligence Community Annual Threat Assessment produced after Trump returned to office in 2025 [noted](https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-2025-Unclassified-Report.pdf) that “growing cooperation between and among these adversaries is increasing their fortitude against the United States, \[and\] the potential for hostilities with any one of them to draw in another.” The 2026 edition reversed course, [declaring](https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-2026-Unclassified-Report.pdf) that the very idea of “adversary alignment” overstates the depth of cooperation that is “currently occurring.” In essence, the intelligence community had predicted Russian behavior in the Iran war, only to disavow, a year later, the very framework that got it right. And this, even as the same war opened a second front where the impact of that cooperation was felt directly on the battlefield. The Trump Administration’s first priority is the Western Hemisphere. Its [National Security Strategy](https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf) and [National Defense Strategy](https://media.defense.gov/2026/Jan/23/2003864773/-1/-1/0/2026-national-defense-strategy.pdf) hold that the U.S. should neither “dominate” nor “humiliate” China but rather establish a balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, shifting away from the bilateral consensus of the past decade—a consensus that held the U.S. must prevail in a deepening strategic competition with China, a view even Trump’s first term [recognized](https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf). Russia is relegated to a regional threat that Europe, especially NATO’s eastern flank allies, should worry about most. The National Defense Strategy, released weeks before the U.S. and Israel began military strikes against Iran, concedes that Tehran “appears intent on reconstituting its conventional military forces.” Yet it never asked the question: who might be helping it do so? Russia is one of the few countries to have provided Iran with conventional military capabilities since the Islamic Revolution in 1979\. This goes unmentioned. The strategy document briefly examines the North Korean threat to Seoul and the danger of a nuclear attack on the U.S. homeland, without mentioning that this danger would partially be driven by the combat experience North Korean troops have gained in Russia’s war. The change likely stems in part from Trump not seeing Russia through the same lens as his predecessor. He has long advocated a closer relationship with the Kremlin, willing even to risk tensions with America’s closest allies in the process. More fundamentally, Trump [treats](https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/understanding-trump-s-coercive-foreign-policy) foreign policy as a series of bilateral transactions rather than a cohesive project designed to advance national security—and this applies to allies and adversaries alike. That worldview has become policy, aided in part by the [hollowing out](https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/how-the-white-house-broke-the-nsc-and-how-to-fix-it) of the national security workforce—now stretched thin and focused on daily operations and multiple crises—and by the stripping of its coordination functions. ### Four enemies of America The relationships among Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea do not constitute alliances in a formal sense of the word. The question of how to describe these relationships is simply a distraction. Only one of the bilateral relationships resembles a formal alliance: the Russia–North Korea Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership [contains](https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12760) a mutual-defense clause of the kind that anchors American treaty alliances. The rest fall well short, and the four capitals do not pretend otherwise. In his April testimony to Congress, the Director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency [noted](https://armedservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/lt.%5Fgen.%5Fadams%5Fwitness%5Fstatement.pdf) that Iran’s strategic agreements with China and Russia contain no defense clause, and that Tehran has received no full weapons systems from Beijing, Moscow, or Pyongyang in its war with the U.S. and Israel. Moscow sat out Iran’s 2025 war with Israel, its officials [stressing](https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/russia-sits-back-as-the-iran-war-escalates-expecting-long-term-gains/4072408/) that their strategic partnership required no military assistance. The distrust that has historically—in some cases for centuries—limited these relationships has not disappeared. What these capitals have built is a series of bilateral relationships, some stronger than others, that function as force multipliers. Each shares lessons learned and capabilities that the others could not develop alone, at least not quickly. Nor, with the exception of North Korea, has any of the four fought for another—and that exception is instructive. North Korean troops [have fought and died](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clypr5985ejo) in Russia’s war against Ukraine, but only on Russian soil, helping expel Ukrainian forces from the Kursk region in exchange for cash, food, and technology. Even the partnership with a mutual-defense clause has not produced a commitment to fight Russia’s wars abroad, let alone against the U.S. What these four American adversaries can do for one another is exploit the moment: open a new front while American forces and attention are pinned down, or turn up pressure below the threshold of war. That cooperation compounds. The cycle in which Iran supplies Russia with drones that Russia upgrades and returns will not end with this war. Iran [has learned](https://www.ft.com/content/08629b39-9d82-4046-a1b9-3023009ffa81?syn-25a6b1a6=1) from Russia’s war in Ukraine. Russia is [studying](https://www.eurasiareview.com/14042026-what-russia-can-learn-from-the-iranian-war-strategic-lessons-from-a-six-week-conflict-analysis/) Iran’s fight against the U.S. And China [is watching](https://understandingwar.org/research/china-taiwan/lessons-learned-with-chinese-characteristics-understanding-the-limits-of-pla-efforts-to-adapt-to-contemporary-warfare/) both as it prepares for a potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific. As Tehran seeks to rebuild what the U.S. military has degraded, it will turn to Moscow for help, having already [begun](https://www.kyivpost.com/post/79511) the process of acquiring Su-35 fighter jets before the first U.S.-Israeli missile struck. Pyongyang, for its part, is rotating Kursk veterans home to [teach](https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/foreignaffairs/northkorea/20260205/n-korean-troops-still-active-in-russias-kursk-region-against-ukraine-report) the rest of its army what modern war looks like. Each war one of these four countries fights becomes a low-cost laboratory for the others. ### American allies and partners make their choice Slow though they were to embrace the notion of addressing adversary integration during the Biden Administration, many American treaty allies and other partners are now beginning to recognize the real impact of this cooperation. When Iran started hitting Gulf Arab energy and tourism sectors using Shahed drones upgraded by Russia, the impact of Russia-Iran military cooperation stopped being theoretical, or a problem for the future. Meanwhile, an America in retreat had started the war without consulting its allies and partners, but was asking them to do the heavy lifting when it came to defending against the war’s consequences. And because Iran, in responding to U.S. strikes, could not reach the American homeland, it took the fight to American partners in the region. As a result, some of these allies and partners began building a [bypass network](https://warontherocks.com/as-adversaries-integrate-u-s-partners-bypass-washington/) to address the threat, [working](https://militarnyi.com/en/news/ukraine-persian-gulf-interceptor-drone/) directly with Ukraine, for example, to learn from that country’s innovations in counter-drone technology. That American allies and partners are now working together to address this challenge is a positive development, but the response remains partial and uneven, in part because it lacks American leadership to guide and streamline it. For instance, the European Union recently [granted](https://www.ft.com/content/f6cf99e0-21f7-47c0-b5b1-64b77c18d204?syn-25a6b1a6=1) Ukraine an exemption to spend EU funds on Chinese drone components—the only ones available at the speed and scale Kyiv needs for some of the systems it fields. And those Chinese suppliers also feed Russia's drone production. The network the allies are building against adversary integration still runs, in places, through Beijing’s supply chains. Yet Washington lags behind even this imperfect effort, even as adversary cooperation expands, with implications for Europe, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific. ### How to counter America’s adversaries Countering integrated adversaries requires three things: officials whose job is both to watch and respond to the intersections among adversaries; the bandwidth to handle more than one adversary at a time; and allies and partners willing to channel their cooperation through Washington. The Trump Administration has divested itself of all three. The coordination functions once housed in the National Security Council have been [degraded](https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/how-the-white-house-broke-the-nsc-and-how-to-fix-it), and the workforce that tracked and formulated policy responses to each of these relationships—let alone their intersection—has been systematically hollowed out. Allies and partners have not stopped cooperating; they have simply stopped waiting for Washington, as the Ukrainian trainers [deployed](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-sends-drone-experts-three-countries-middle-east-zelenskiy-says-2026-03-10/) to Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia to teach counter-drone tactics can attest. And far from preparing for simultaneous pressure from all four adversaries, the Trump Administration is straining to [manage](https://www.wsj.com/world/gulf-allies-turn-away-from-u-s-for-fresh-ammo-9960be73) the war against Iran, [delaying](https://breakingdefense.com/2026/06/the-us-is-delaying-weapon-sales-to-allies-will-there-be-long-term-impact/) weapons deliveries to the very allies it has asked to absorb the war’s consequences. The allies, for their part, have little bandwidth left over for adversary cooperation, consumed as they are with a challenge in some ways more pernicious: [managing Washington](https://globalaffairs.org/index%2Ephp/commentary/analysis/beyond-defense-spending-whats-stake-nato-ankara#price). The NATO summit in Ankara [was absorbed](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/a-fractured-front-inside-the-ankara-nato-summit/) by questions about the American commitment to the alliance, rather than by efforts to counter the adversaries arrayed against it. While the U.S. and its allies remain consumed with one internal crisis after another, their adversaries continue to deepen cooperation with one another. The question is not whether China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are cooperating. They are. Nor is it whether the long-time allies and partners of the U.S. see the threat. They do. And they have begun to answer it. The question is whether Washington will rejoin an effort that its own generals call necessary and that its own allies are no longer waiting for it to lead. [TIME Ideas](https://www.time.com/ideas) hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary on events in news, society, and culture. We welcome outside contributions. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/08/04/america-russia-china-iran-war/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/08/04/america-russia-china-iran-war/"},"headline":"How America’s Adversaries Have Stopped Fighting Alone","datePublished":"2026-08-04T12:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-03T19:06:49.079Z","description":"The war with Iran has made it clear that America’s adversaries are increasingly acting as a coordinated bloc.","url":"https://time.com/article/2026/08/04/america-russia-china-iran-war/","keywords":["World"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7654d4d66b0e1a50/6a70e1fef0972a167cb99432/GettyImages-2286802768.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ariane Tabatabai","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/ariane-tabatabai/"},{"@type":"Person","name":"John Drennan","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/john-drennan/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7654d4d66b0e1a50/6a70e1fef0972a167cb99432/GettyImages-2286802768.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"GettyImages-2286802768.jpg","caption":"","creditText":"Russian Foreign Ministry-Handout-Anadolu via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/08/04/america-russia-china-iran-war/","name":"How America’s Adversaries Have Stopped Fighting Alone"}}]}] ```