Interview with Andrea Kendall-Taylor

CSDS-SWJ STRATEGY DEBRIEFS • 7/2024

Interview with Andrea Kendall-Taylor, by Octavian Manea

9.12.2024

The so-called “Axis of Upheaval” is undermining global order and raising serious questions for Western allies and partners. At the heart of this axis is a growing strategic alignment and partnership between Russia and China. How far this partnership will go to undermining global order is unclear, but it is already destabilising security in areas such as Ukraine. Iran is also playing a destabilising role in the Middle East, and North Korea is sending its troops to fight alongside Russia in Ukraine. The growing axis between China and Russia is also having a wider influence on how the West engages with the “Global South”. What is certain is that this axis will animate a Western response, but in what ways will the United States and its allies respond to these momentous shifts in global politics? Octavian Manea asks Dr Andrea Kendall-Taylor for her views on the Russia-China partnership and its implications.

The centre of gravity of the “axis of upheaval” is really about the Russia-China strategic partnership. How should we understand today the strategic relationship between China and Russia? Is it temporary or long term? Is it something contingent on the personalities of the two leaders of each nation? What brings and keeps the two countries together? 

Dr Kendall-Taylor: The Russia-China relationship is something that has been deepening for quite some time, but was accelerated by Russia’s invasions of Ukraine, both in 2014 as well as the full-scale invasion in 2022. We did see Russia-China relations warming in the waning days of the Cold War. But that first invasion of Ukraine in 2014 was a really important accelerant of their partnership because Russia realised it did not have viable options in the West. In that context, Moscow pivoted and turned much more eagerly towards deepening relations with Beijing.

The two countries are united in their shared desire to weaken the United States and US power and to revise the international order that Russia and China both believe disadvantages them. It remains very much a top-down relationship. Putin and Xi have very close personal ties. I think they are the two leaders who have spent the most time together out of any other pair of international leaders. But it is increasingly an institutionalised relationship. We are seeing more and more that there are working groups within government at lower levels in the bureaucracy. It is this kind of repeated interaction that creates the foundation for a durable and lasting partnership.

By working together so much and so closely over a span of many years, they have worked to overcome the historical mistrust that has plagued their relationship in the past. In sum, it is a relationship that has benefitted from pragmatic needs in the wake of Russia’s two invasions of Ukraine, but that ultimately is being built on and fuelled by their deeply held and shared convictions to undermine US dominance.

From time-to-time, it appears fashionable in the policy and academic communities to resurrect the old 1970s Kissingerian mantra of trying to split the two, of driving a wedge between them. How realistic is this in the current security predicament?

Dr Kendall-Taylor: This idea that we can either pull Russia away from China or pull Beijing away from Moscow is just magical thinking. The structural conditions that are pushing them together and their shared objectives to weaken the United States and revise the international national order are far too powerful. The two countries would not allow themselves to be pulled apart at this point because they both seem to judge that the US is in inevitable decline and that they therefore just need to lean it to accelerate that decline. You see this in their rhetoric. Putin and Xi talk about the fact that they are driving changes the likes of which we have not seen for 100 years, they say. There are, of course, fissures in their relationship: they have diverging interests in Central Asia, differing interests in the Arctic; certainly, China is not very enthusiastic about Russia’s deepening relationship with North Korea. These are things that could, over time, eventually cause Russia and China to go their own separate ways. But the reality is that the United States and Europe have very little leverage to pull at the seams in their relationship as they are very careful to compartmentalise their differences to prevent them from spilling over and derailing their broader agenda of taking on the West. The reality is that for the time being they are deepening their cooperation, which has the potential to create a lot of risks and threats to the United States and Europe before they go their own separate ways.

Policymakers who might contemplate pulling the two countries apart have to be very clear-eyed about the costs of that strategy. Basically, what we would be talking about is that the United States and Europe would have to accept spheres of influence in Europe and in the Indo-Pacific. Both regions are so central to US and European interests that we should not allow a hostile foreign power to dominate in those spaces. The costs are just too high to entertain a notion of pulling the two apart.

The axis is also increasingly involving Iran and North Korea. Where do Iran and North Korea fit into the axis in terms of the roles they perform?

Dr Kendall-Taylor: North Korea and Iran are amplifiers, they are magnifying the effect and amplifying the impact that the cooperation between Russia and China has on Western interests. Just from the perspective of the war in Ukraine, clearly Iran and North Korea have been critical lifelines for the Kremlin that have enabled Russia to continue its warfighting against Ukraine. Moscow is receiving valuable weapons from both of these partners. The North Koreans have given something like 2.5 million rounds of ammunition and missiles that Russia is using in the battlefield. In this context, we should note the value of the ammunition. This has been predominantly a war where ammunition has been a highly valued and coveted commodity. The fact that they are getting large amounts of ammunition has given Russia an important advantage at a time when Ukraine has been shell starved. The Iranians, for their part, have been sending the attack drones that Russia has used to target Ukraine’s critical infrastructure and that have led to civilian deaths. These two actors, along with China – which is also sending dual use goods, component parts, and buying vast amounts of oil and sending dollars into the coffers of Moscow – have enabled Russia to stay in a war in a way that would not have been possible without their support.

But it also works in the other direction. Just as important of what Russia is getting from these partners is what they are giving away in return. Russia is amplifying the military capabilities of Western adversaries. Russia is giving away increasingly sophisticated military technologies to sustain its backers support, technologies that make these countries a greater military threat. It is also emboldening them. In the wake of having these historic and unprecedented defence partnerships, we have seen North Korea act more belligerently on the Korean Peninsula. Although we cannot draw a direct line between what Russia has done for Iran, I would argue that it emboldened Iran’s work with its proxies and therefore contributed to Hamas’ attack on Israel because Iran, knowing that it has the backing of Russia and the political top-cover Moscow can provide at the UN, has acted more provocatively.

I think the other thing we have to realise is that it is not just military. The participation of Iran and North Korea in this axis also further dilutes the foreign policy tools that the United States and Europe use to confront these revisionist actors. They are actively helping Russia to circumvent sanctions. All of these countries are working to develop alternative payment systems and move away from the dollar, which limits the effectiveness of Western sanctions. Russia and Iran, for example, now have an agreement to do many of their transactions in their own currencies. Together, they are insulating themselves from Western economic tools of coercion.

It is also worth pointing out that, over time, we might see an expansion of the axis of upheaval as these countries are working ever more closely with Belarus, Venezuela and Syria. Russia and Iran are working quite a lot in Sudan. There are other countries that are also on the periphery of this that are also creating challenges that the US and Europe will have to navigate.

Probably the most fertile terrain that they have is in the “Global South” now, where in a way the West is not that present like it used to be before or at least not with a coherent, competitive agenda.

Dr Kendall-Taylor: Russia recognises that.  It is really remarkable to see how in the aftermath of Hamas’ attack on Israel, Russia, who has had a long standing and important relationship with Israel, has more or less been willing to jettison that relationship because it sees the opportunity that it can exploit to undermine the US in the region, discredit it, and try to work towards the revision of the global order.

China became at some point a key enabler of Russian aggression in Ukraine. How far is Beijing willing go? Do we foresee any red line/threshold that they will not cross?

Dr Kendall-Taylor: It is quite remarkable how far China has been willing to go in its support of Russia. In the early days of the war, there were a lot of questions about how Beijing would respond. People believed that China would not want to assume any costs on behalf of its partner or be negatively associated with Russia’s actions. For a time, Beijing tried to create some distance between itself and Russia. But since then, it is fair to say that the relationship has not diminished from China’s perspective. If anything, China continues to lean into this relationship. The big surprise has been the cost that China has been willing to incur in order to sustain its support for Moscow. There was a belief that China would not jeopardise its relations with Europe, that Europe, because of the economic ties and because China wants to keep Europe from fully siding with the United States, would not want to jeopardise those relationships.

But they have continued to support Russia in this war in Europe’s backyard. They are providing the component parts, jet engines, all of these dual-use goods that have been restricted by Western sanctions and export controls. China is filling the gaps in this military domain. They have not been willing to send lethal aid. And I think that has been a clear red line for them and probably they would not be willing to cross that line in large part because the United States and Europe have warned so forcefully about the costs that would come with doing that. But they are basically looking to do everything short of that and using loopholes with these dual-use goods that are still having military applications that enable the Russian military. It is very clear where China’s loyalties lie and they have been willing to go further than I would have expected in their efforts to back Russia.

What are the potential lessons that China is learning from Russia’s war in Ukraine? There is always this emphasis on a fait accompli, on short sharp blitzkrieg style wars. But is China not relearning the value of protraction as a theory of victory? Particularly in a context in which the West is ill-equipped – both in terms of capabilities or industrial depth – for protracted wars?

Dr Kendall-Taylor: Beijing has been watching this war exceptionally carefully. I think that they have learned the dangers of underestimating the adversary and expecting that you can get away with a short, sharp war so they are learning lessons about how they might have to fight better. At the same time, they are learning about the limits of Western military power, commitment and resolve. In this way, if Russia walks away from its war in Ukraine believing it was not defeated, Russia’s war could pave the way for more assertive actions from China and other adversaries intent to weaken US power and influence.

But there are also all sorts of tactical lessons that China is learning. The scope and scale of military exercises between Russia and China has grown. That is critically important from Beijing’s perspective, because they are then able to learn the lessons from a battle-tested Russia who has now fought both in Syria and in Ukraine, and that addresses a key vulnerability for the People’s Liberation Army, which has not been involved in direct wars.

There is quite a lot of learning, which is why it is so critically important that the United States and Europe defeat Russia and Ukraine, because that is the most important way that you can deter China from taking future action against Taiwan.

There is a big debate in Washington these days about strategic sequencing and how to deal with strategic simultaneity, about the need to focus on the pacing challenge or the trade-off of focusing on the acute threat. Does the “axis of upheaval”, as you describe it, increase the potential for strategic simultaneity, for contingencies that might happen at the same time, including multi-theatre wars at both ends of Eurasia? And all this at a time when the US still has a one-war kind of military.

Dr Kendall-Taylor: To be sure, Putin still views NATO as a credible deterrent. He understands that Russia would lose a war against NATO, especially given the degraded state of his military as a result of the fighting in Ukraine. But we also understand that Russia’s goals have not changed, that his ultimate objective is to undermine NATO. In this context, the scenario I worry most about is a scenario in which the United States is engaged in a conflict with China in the Indo-Pacific and Putin judges that that is the time that he is going to try to test NATO once and for all. The reason would be not just the distraction of the United States being focused on a conflict in the Indo-Pacific, but it would change US force structure in Europe in a way that could undermine deterrence. If the United States is engaged in the Indo-Pacific, it will have to send certain capabilities, things like its logistics (like air-to-air refueling, heavy lift or ISR) and certain weapon systems, especially the long-range munitions to the Indo-Pacific. These are capabilities that would not be available to Europe and NATO, significantly affecting Europe’s ability to fight given that NATO relies on the US to fulfil these roles. Putin may view that as the best time to test NATO.

This is a really important reality that Europe needs to recognise. It is critically important that as Europeans are increasing defence spending, that some of those resources are being invested into the capabilities that the United States would have to redeploy so that we can maintain that credible deterrence in the event that the United States is engaged in the Indo-Pacific. At the Vilnius Summit, NATO announced its new defence plan. It is critically important that the allies now invest in and enable these defence plans to be executed. At the same time, it is critically important that they recognise where the gaps in NATO would emerge if the United States is involved in an Indo-Pacific contingency and in addition to fulfilling the defence plans, are also investing some of the defence dollars in those capabilities that only the United States can provide.

How should the West respond to the axis? One of the key messages during the NATO Summit in Washington was that “the security of the Indo-Pacific is directly related to the security of the Euro-Atlantic”. Has the time come for building a global “arsenal of democracies”, of bridging alliances in order to offset the axis?

Dr Kendall-Taylor: This axis of upheaval will be among the most significant challenges that the United States and Europe will face in the coming years. Figuring out how to push back is and should be at the top of policymakers’ lists.

We have already talked about a few factors that will be critical in any response. Most important is the fact that we cannot isolate threats. The United States simply cannot ignore Russian aggression in Europe to focus on rising Chinese power in Asia. These challenges are interlinked, and we have to think about it that way.

Confronting the axis will be expensive. I think it will require the United States and Europe to boost spending on defence, foreign aid, diplomacy and strategic communications. A large part of this effort, at least in the United States, is communicating these challenges to the public. Politicians, the elected leaders, at least here in the United States, are not having these discussions with the American public. I do not think people recognise the challenges that the United States and its allies face. Having these discussions so that we can fund the approach is critically important.

One of the most important things that the United States and Europe will need to do is to increase the strategic outreach to the so-called swing states: Brazil and India, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey. We have to prioritise these outreach efforts. It is critically important that we are focusing on denying advantages to the axis countries in these nations. This means using our trade incentives, military engagement and foreign aid to prevent swing states from hosting axis members’ military bases. We want to prevent those countries from allowing the axis members to access their critical technology. We want to prevent them from helping axis members circumvent sanctions. We have to figure out how to do that outreach, but with a focus on incentivising them to make choices that favour the prevailing order.

Is there value in connecting European allies with those in the Indo-Pacific region? I think that US alliances could benefit a lot from consolidating cross-theatre horizontal links – whether they be industrial, economic or military – with the broader aim of creating a sort of “arsenal of democracies” with a global reach. The current Biden administration has undertaken several decisions that seem to support this idea. However, these initiatives are still in their early stages and there is a lot of potential to facilitate stronger connections between Indo-Pacific allies and key NATO allies in the future. Has the time come for the bridging of alliances across theatres in order to offset the axis? What dimensions should we have in mind – a proliferation of AUKUS and other minilateral formats of this sort?

Dr Kendall-Taylor: This aspect is an important part of the strategy. We observe how Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are deepening their cooperation. They are sharing best practices. They are trying to signal to onlooking countries that they are ready, willing and able to stand up to the United States and the US-led order. It is critically important that the United States, Europe and the Indo-Pacific allies are similarly deepening their cooperation, sharing their best practices, learning from one another. In this way, we will more effectively be able to compete and reduce the negative implications of this axis of upheaval.

It is also important to signal a united front. One such example is the German frigate navigating through the straits. It is not that we expect the Europeans are going to be a central part of a potential conflict with China, but it is an important demonstration of the unity and strength of alliances. At the same time, the most important thing that Europe can do is to develop a more capable European pillar within NATO so that Europe can really do more for its own security and defence, maintain a credible deterrent against Russia so that the United States has more freedom and ability to do more in the Indo-Pacific.

Europe has to do more, not just because it is what the US wants them to do, but because it is the reality of the moment. In this world where there is growing cooperation between Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, the United States needs a more capable Europe because we have more challenges that we have to face.

What about a more enhanced European role in the Indo-Pacific in terms of physical hard-power?

Dr Kendall-Taylor: I see the European role in the region as being more about the symbolism and the signalling of strength and unity. What we need is really a Europe that is able to do more for its own security and defence in Europe, so that the United States is freed up to take on the rising challenge in Asia.

How should we interpret the video footage of Xi telling Putin: “right now there are changes, the likes of which we have not seen for 100 years, and we are the ones driving these changes together”? Although a propagandistic snapshot, is it symbolic for what they see as an unique window of opportunity?

Dr Kendall-Taylor: I think it really reflects what they believe they are working towards and what they are hoping to accomplish. They do perceive a United States that is in inevitable decline and they are leaning in to try to accelerate that demise. They see an international order that is being stretched and strained and they are willing to take on greater risk to ultimately break it.

This axis of upheaval has created a perception that an alternate order exists. Other countries, such as the India or Venezuela and those like them, now have alternatives that they can turn to when they are displeased with the rules that the US and this current order adhere to. This will have ramifications for the world that we live in – especially by creating an environment more conducive for conflict and instability. Let us remember what we have all seen since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. We saw the war flare up between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the Hamas attack on Israel and the threat that this war could widen. Venezuela was threatening to take parts of Guyana by force. There were growing tensions on the border between Serbia and Kosovo. We have seen a magnificent return of coups across Africa, which really speak to the shifting foundations of this international order.

So, like it or not, we have to take this axis seriously and think about how we limit the negative implications that it could produce for the United States and Europe. This really feels like a fundamentally different kind of challenge.

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