West must confront ‘deadly quartet’ of global adversaries

LONDON — In the wake of last week’s NATO summit, which highlighted the threat and “systemic challenges” posed by Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, geopolitical and defense experts say the West must now prepare to confront such adversaries.

Former NATO chief George Robertson warned on Tuesday that Britain’s armed forces must be able to take on a “deadly quartet” of rivals, as he launched a strategic review into Britain’s defensive capabilities.

“We are faced with a deadly quartet of nations working increasingly together,” he said, in comments reported by Sky News.

“We in this country and in the NATO alliance… must be able to deal with this particular quartet and the other problems that are sweeping the world,” he added.

Robertson did not explicitly name the members of the quartet, but the other three countries are believed to be Russia, Iran and North Korea, countries that NATO described last week as posing a systemic threat and challenge to “Euro-Atlantic security.”

The use of the word “deadly” to refer to China fits with an intensification of rhetoric against Russia’s ally at last week’s NATO summit, where Beijing’s status as an adversary was acknowledged more publicly than ever.

In the summit statement, China was described as a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war against Ukraine and as posing “systemic challenges to Euro-Atlantic security,” with the military coalition citing “sustained malicious cyber and hybrid activities” and concerns about Beijing’s diversification of its nuclear arsenal and space capabilities.

NATO leaders meeting in Washington agreed that China’s “coercive” policies and ambitions challenged the “interests, security and values” of the defense pact, positioning Beijing as a key adversary of the alliance.

The NATO statement also said that China’s “deepening strategic partnership” with Russia was a “deep” concern, although it was clear that Russia and its ongoing war against Ukraine remained the alliance’s most immediate concern.

The coalition called Moscow “shattering” peace and stability in the West and “seriously undermining global security.” Russia’s nuclear capabilities and hybrid actions through proxies, such as malicious cyber activities, provocations on allied borders, and disinformation campaigns, were all cited as particular threats.

Russia’s allies North Korea and Iran have also been accused of “fueling Russia’s war of aggression” against Ukraine by providing direct military support to Russia, such as munitions and drones, which NATO says “has serious implications for Euro-Atlantic security and undermines the global non-proliferation regime.”

Russia and North Korea deny any arms transfers. Iran has previously claimed to have supplied drones to Russia, but said it shipped them before the war began. China has been threatened with sanctions after being accused of sending “dual-use” materials, including weapons components and equipment, for the Russian defense sector to use in its own weapons production.

China denies supplying arms to Russia. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian called NATO’s latest comments “biased, slanderous and provocative.” He also called NATO a “relic of the Cold War.” China’s mission to the European Union said the NATO statement was “full of Cold War mentality and belligerent rhetoric.”

Ian Bremmer, founder and chairman of Eurasia Group, said the latest NATO summit showed that the West and its adversaries appeared to be positioning themselves in a “new Cold War posture.”

Labeling China as a primary adversary would, he said in emailed comments Monday, “increase pressure for decoupling from China in areas that are strategically important to Europeans … and given the presence of Asian allies as strategic partners in NATO, this increasingly looks like a broader containment that could tip the world into a new Cold War posture.”

It remains to be seen how the West will be able to confront such adversaries. Russia, North Korea and Iran are already subject to significant international sanctions, and these restrictions on trade and in key sectors have arguably brought them closer together.

Lumping China with “rogue states” is an important step for NATO, a security expert noted, but it still provides no clarity on how Western allies might confront an opposing power axis.

“The statement states that ‘the PRC (People’s Republic of China) cannot allow the largest war in Europe in recent history to occur without negatively impacting its interests and reputation,’ which is an important step for the Alliance in denouncing its hostile intentions,” said Ed Arnold, senior fellow for European security in the international security department of the Royal United Services Institute think tank.

“However, he focused mainly on identifying and assessing the problem, rather than describing what NATO should do about it,” he noted in a commentary last week.

Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank, said the West’s economic superiority could help it prevail as its adversaries put enormous pressure on their own economies and resources – whether by waging war, in the case of Russia, or by supporting conflicts elsewhere, such as in North Korea and Iran.

“In an increasingly multipolar world, the free and advanced democracies of the global West face ever-increasing challenges,” Schmieding said in emailed comments Monday.

“Russia is waging a high-intensity war against another European country while China is aggressively asserting its power,” he noted.

“It is easy to be pessimistic about the prospects of advanced countries as defenders of freedom, peace, and democracy. But that would be a mistake. Time is not on the side of the enemies of the global West. China’s share of global GDP (gross domestic product) appears to be peaking, Russia will struggle to wage its costly war for more than a few more years, and Iran is increasingly turning into what North Korea already is, an economic basket case with very limited resources.”

The global West has superior resources, Schmieding said, and “if it musters the will to use its power, support Ukraine, finance its defense and play the long game, it can prevail while the spoilers suffer the consequences of overextending their economies.”