The New, Broader Alliance of Autocracies

Over the past decade, as global leadership has fractured and anti-U.S. sentiment has risen in some developing regions, democracy has faced significant challenges in many nations. Autocrats and other authoritarian actors have gained new means of mutual support—financially, militarily, and diplomatically. In this environment, a global network of autocratic states has emerged. Among these, China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia have garnered the most attention from policymakers, partly due to fears that they might collaborate to destabilize the international system and foster global chaos.

While these big four are indeed significant, with China and Russia possessing the military and diplomatic power to challenge leading democracies, the resurgence of authoritarianism extends far beyond them. A broader network of at least sixteen countries has been increasingly cooperating with one another and, at times, aligning with China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

Historically, autocracies offered each other ad hoc support, but this new collaboration is distinct. The expanded network includes Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Cuba, Chad, Ethiopia, Mali, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Sudan, Turkey, Venezuela, and Uzbekistan. These nations, some of which are regional powers, have distinct qualities that enable them to form this growing authoritarian bloc.

In the early post-Cold War era, regional authoritarian powers often needed to appeal to democracies for aid and diplomatic backing. Now, this broader network can draw on China, Russia, and, to some extent, Iran, for strategic, diplomatic, and financial support at levels previously unavailable. This emboldens them to resist pressure from democratic states, openly promote authoritarianism, and orchestrate autocratic takeovers in other countries—actions they were less likely to undertake a decade ago.

In the past five to seven years, these new autocrats have moved beyond informal cooperation, forming nascent institutions and fostering more formalized ties, often aimed at opposing democracies and existing global institutions. Some seek to transform BRICS into a platform for a global authoritarian alliance, while others are pursuing regional groupings, such as a proposed alternative to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which traditionally advocates for good governance.

One of the major factors preventing some authoritarian or semi-authoritarian states from joining this broader network is their economic and strategic links to the world. Such states include countries as wide-ranging as Jordan, Morocco, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, among others. Moreover, fragile democracies are less likely to fail if they are surrounded by strong democratic states that provide substantial aid and actively promote good governance. This group would include states as varied as Bulgaria (weak but still democratic), Moldova (weak but trending toward Europe), Indonesia (regressing somewhat today but the recipient of massive amounts of aid and governance support from Japan and others), and Mongolia (recipient of substantial backing over the years from Japan, South Korea, the United States, and others).

In contrast, members of the broader authoritarian network exploit globalization to advance their agendas, leveraging financial flows, arms smuggling, clandestine natural resource movements, and private military companies to influence regional conflicts. Countries like Ethiopia have also actively worked to destabilize neighboring democracies.

The network includes both powerful regional players, such as Belarus, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Sudan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan, and strategically significant but less powerful states, like Mali and Burkina Faso in the Sahel, Venezuela in Latin America, Cuba in the Caribbean, and Myanmar in Southeast Asia. These nations, often located in volatile regions, contribute to instability by enabling migration crises, fostering criminal networks, and facilitating the flow of illicit goods.

Emerging institutions within this authoritarian bloc, whether regional or global, could promote an alternative governance model and entrench autocrats in power across developing regions. While these autocracies do not always act in unison and occasionally have conflicting interests, they share common goals and increasingly collaborate to undermine fragile democracies, often through military interventions backed by the network.

Despite the growing threat posed by this broader alliance, policymakers have largely focused on China, Russia, and, to a lesser extent, Iran and North Korea. This narrow focus leaves the full implications of the broader authoritarian network underexplored. Understanding this informal alliance, its motivations, potential for expansion, and threats to global stability are crucial for crafting effective democratic responses.