The United States is the world’s most powerful nation, with the most advanced military and largest economy. It enjoys the most enviable geographic position of any great power in history, luxuriating in splendid near isolation with only two weak and pacific neighbors.

The US also is allied with most of the central industrial states. Even as the Trump administration seeks to curtail American trade with the world, other nations clamored for greater commercial relations with Americans. The US attracts immigrants worldwide and possesses enormous “soft power,” including a globe-spanning culture.

America Fears the New Axis…

Yet denizens of the imperial city of Washington, D.C. are uneasy.

The emergence of several adversary regimes, of late tagged as the Axis of Disruption, Axis of Upheaval, Axis of Autocracy, and even new Axis of Evil, has come as a terrible shock to the imperial wannabes in Washington, yielding much wailing and gnashing of teeth. The Carnegie Endowment’s Christopher S. Chivvis and Jack Keating warn: “Historical precedents from the 1930s and the early Cold War suggest that even deeper cooperation among them is possible and that a more coherent bloc determined to blunt and roll back U.S. power worldwide might develop.”

Of greatest concern is the relationship between Moscow and Beijing. Robert D. Blackwill and Richard Fontaine, respectively with the Council on Foreign Relations and Center for a New Security Policy, criticize those who minimize the degree of cooperation: “the China-Russia relationship continues to deepen and widen, and occasional disagreements are dwarfed by the scale and momentum of their strategic cooperation. Theirs is a formidable partnership bordering on alliance, bound together by resistance to what they view as a U.S.-led, anachronistic international order, one that does not permit either country its rightful place despite their power, history, domestic legitimacy, civilizational triumphs, and vital regional interests.”

Other analysts also paint the new “axis” as a dire threat. One could be forgiven believing that America had been transported back to 1939 or 1956, on the verge of World War II or in the midst of the Cold War. A Brookings Institution analysis published last month cited several factors as “top threats to vital U.S. interests”: supporting Russia against Ukraine, challenging US hegemony in the Indo-Pacific, and “weakening the underpinnings of American leadership on the world stage and core elements of the existing rules-based international order.” None of these seem truly vital for a superpower that dominates its own hemisphere and faces so few direct threats, but such is Washington’s almost pathological fear of any foreign challenge.

A Different Time, a Different View on Russia

Analysts once proposed conciliating Moscow. For instance, in 2021 Charles Kupchan of the Council on Foreign Relations opined that “as Biden builds a coalition to tame Beijing, he also needs to work the other side of the equation by weakening China’s own international partnerships. He can’t stop China’s rise, but he can limit its influence by trying to lure away from China its main collaborator: Russia.”

Kupchan urged Washington to help “Russia redress the vulnerabilities that its relations with China put in stark relief.” However, shortly thereafter came the Ukraine crisis, ending serious support for engaging Moscow. As the war dragged on the allied desire grew to convince Beijing to break the partnership. Analysts similarly discussed strategies to use the PRC to divide Russia and its other dubious associates, most importantly North Korea.

Some analysts, such as the Atlantic Council’s John Herbst, suggested that Moscow is likely to drift back westward so no special concessions to anyone are needed. Others urge a more active approach. For instance, in October President Donald Trump declared: “the one thing you never want to happen is you never want Russia and China uniting. I’m going to have to un-unite them, and I think I can do that.” However, he offered no strategy or timeframe for playing a “reverse Nixon” on China and Russia.

Whom to Ally With?

The idea of weakening the opposing coalition and even turning one of Washington’s chief antagonists into a minor partner is obviously appealing. However, with whom should the US seek to effectively ally?

In 1972, China was the obvious counterweight to a much more dangerous Soviet Union. No longer. While the Europeans want Beijing to stop aiding Russia’s war effort against Ukraine, virtually no one imagines a present need for the West to align with the PRC against Russia, a declining power. Even victory in Ukraine would leave Moscow weaker than before the war began. Despite Europe’s desperate nightmares of Putin conquering the continent, there is little sign that Moscow possesses either the will or the ability to take on NATO, let alone America.

Thus, today the PRC is widely recognized as the more threatening power. Although China’s continuing dramatic rise is no longer seen as quite so inevitable, Beijing is likely to be an increasingly formidable adversary in the future. Thus, the sensible objective would be to make Moscow a partner and friend, if not an ally, of America and Europe. Alas, that will be almost impossible so long as the Russo-Ukraine war rages and will remain difficult even if the conflict ultimately settles, given the severe damage done to US and European relations with Moscow.

In fact, there is a dearth of will in Washington to improve relations with either country. The belief in America’s virginal omnipotence is bipartisan and overwhelming. Hence, compromise is widely regarded as unthinkable. For instance, Brookings insisted that “It would be extremely misguided to try to win over one or both parties through fundamental concessions, such as endorsing China’s claims to Taiwan or recognizing Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territories. Such appeasement would not only undermine U.S. credibility with its allies and partners but also embolden China, Russia, and other revisionist regimes to engage in further aggression.”

Instead, the general Washington view is that the US should double down, more strongly and effectively punishing both major “axis” members. However, Russia already has weathered multiple rounds of sanctions. China’s greater integration in the world economy gives the West more retaliatory options, but the PRC also enjoys more commercial partners. The Brookings commentary suggested that “A mix of strategic and reputational costs, such as the threat of secondary sanctions, as well as diplomatic incentives, should be employed to push Beijing to limit and constructively leverage its ties with Russia.” However, the PRC so far has maneuvered carefully. Noted the Economist: “Taking advantage of Russia’s semi-isolation, China is buying its oil and gas at low prices, and will soon pay for more of it with its non-convertible currency, the yuan. Ever-cautious about its interests, China has avoided overt challenges to Western sanctions.”

Moreover, the cost of sustained economic war would be high for all and the US would find little support for such a campaign in the Global South and even among its own allies, especially in Asia. Moreover, the West already is punishing Beijing for other reasons—relations with North Korea, threats against Taiwan, advances in critical technologies, abuses of human rights, and more. The longer the list of American sanctions, the more likely China is to decouple than concede.

Blackwill and Fontaine would not only expand economic sanctions, but also increase military outlays, seek new military partners, increase military deployments, enhance military alliances, and up military aid. All of these would raise tensions and likely push Beijing to respond accordingly. Nor do the authors specify how to pay for their program when the US government seems to be plunging toward insolvency—with interest payments over $1 trillion annually, annual deficits approaching $2 trillion a year, and the national debt at 100 percent of GDP, headed for twice that by mid-century. There is little will to make massive cuts in social welfare programs or to enact draconian tax hikes.

The Plan to Break the Axis

Even if Washington attempted to disrupt relations between China and Russia, how could it do so?

Despite some tensions between the two, their relationship is much more harmonious today than throughout much of their history. Nixon made his move shortly after open border warfare between Russia and China. In contrast, Observed Jo Inge Bekkevold of Norway’s Institute for Defence Studies: “by comparing today’s Sino-Russian ties to the past Sino-Soviet alignment along five key factors—geopolitics, economics, ideology, leadership, and institutions—it becomes obvious that the Beijing-Moscow axis is stronger today on all accounts.”

Moreover, neither Beijing nor Moscow has reason to trust Washington. The basic problem, noted Brookings, is that “China and Russia’s strategic partnership will persist as long as each continues to see the United States as its principal adversary. The United States maintains a significant trust deficit with both Beijing and Moscow which creates challenges for bilateral engagement. Neither Beijing nor Moscow believes that they have anything to gain by working with Washington to check the other’s influence.” Who can blame them?

Washington’s policy toward both is overtly hostile. The Trump administration would have to convince one or both governments that turning westward served their interests. Observed Chivvis and Keating: “What these states do share is an autocratic antipathy for the liberal aspects of the U.S.-led order, which they believe threatens their very existence. This is important because threat perceptions play a key role in the formation of alliances, blocs, and groups.” How to reduce Beijing’s threat perceptions when Washington is unabashedly seeking to contain the PRC militarily and economically, in effect treating it as a likely enemy?

Moscow is an even tougher case. In earlier times Kupchan suggested that Washington “should exploit Russia’s own misgivings about its status as China’s junior partner. By helping Russia redress the vulnerabilities that its relations with China put in stark relief—in effect, helping Russia help itself—Biden can encourage Moscow to drift away from Beijing.” Another idea was encouraging Moscow “to help check China’s growing influence in developing areas, including Central Asia, the broader Middle East, and Africa.”

The Path Ahead

Such steps seem impossible today, since they would be vilified by allied critics as rampant appeasement and enhancing “the Russian threat.” Moreover, for Moscow such issues pale in contrast to the stakes of the ongoing conflict with Kyiv. By aiding Ukraine militarily, the US is responsible for thousands or even tens of thousands of Russian casualties. Moreover, America and Europe both violated multiple assurances that NATO would not expand, exploited Moscow’s weakness to extend the alliance to Russia’s borders, dismantled Russia’s historic friend Serbia, sought to exclude Moscow from Balkan affairs, and supported regime change along Russia’s border. (Washington would not docilely accept similar behavior by Moscow.) Trump says he wants to end the war, but unless he is prepared to recognize Moscow’s advantageous position, negotiations are likely to prove a nonstarter, as he might now be learning.

Still, the US should not treat the status quo as the new normal. Ultimately, running a proxy war-plus against a nuclear-armed power over interests it believes to be existential is reckless and dangerous under any circumstances. Especially when Washington is also contributing to the creation of a new Axis of Evil.

To change that, the administration must reduce the perceived US threat to Russia, China, or both. As part of such an effort, Washington should place priority on ending the Russo-Ukraine war. Doing so would advance US security while improving Moscow’s relations with the West, thereby reducing pressure on Russia to ally with China. America might not be able to force members of the new axis apart, but it could at least stop pushing them together.