America’s neo-imperial rivals: China, Russia and Iran

Harold Macmillan, perhaps the shrewdest British prime minister in the second half of the 20th century, recognized before many of his countrymen that Britain would henceforth have a diminished role in world affairs.

Speaking to the South African parliament on February 3, 1960, and reflecting on his tour of newly created African states, Macmillan opined that, “The wind of change is blowing through this continent, and, whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact, and our national policies must take account of it.”

Perhaps because he recognized that the British Empire was rapidly becoming a thing of the past, Macmillan worked tirelessly to hitch his country’s wagon to what he perceived as the newly powerful American empire. Indeed, even during World War II, he had already observed to his colleague (and later senior Labour minister) Richard Crossman that “we are Greeks in this American empire. You will find the Americans much as the Greeks found the Romans — great big vulgar, bustling people, more vigorous than we are and also more idle…We must run [Allied Forces Headquarters] as the Greeks ran the operations of the Emperor Claudius.”

When Macmillan spoke of America, it was indeed still an empire that included the Philippines and Hawaii. America’s adversaries, whether during the Cold War or today, have argued that America remains an empire, notwithstanding the protestations of a succession of Democratic and Republican leaders that the U.S. is nothing of the sort.

On the other hand, three of America’s leading adversaries — China, Russia and Iran — not only are ancient empires themselves, but also continue to be imperial states that suppress subject peoples who would rather have their own independence.

Russia brutally repressed the fledgling independent Chechen state in two wars, in 1994-1996 and again in 1999-2009, the second of which established Vladimir Putin’s reputation for unbridled ruthlessness and brutality. Just as Russia had nearly completed crushing the Chechens, it seized part of Georgia in 2008. Russia then turned to seizing swaths of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of eastern Ukraine and, in 2014, Crimea. Were it not for the valiant Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s invasion that began in February 2022, Moscow would have swallowed most if not all of Ukraine by now.

China established its domination of Tibet in 1951 and annexed that country eight years later. For all intents and purposes, though not officially, it has annexed Hong Kong in violation of its 1997 agreement with Britain. It also took control of Macao in 1999. Beijing continues its brutal efforts to extinguish the Uyghurs’ identity and their desire for autonomy if not independence in the far-west province of Xinjiang. And it threatens to seize Taiwan, which rejects the mainland’s domination.

As for Iran, it continues to throttle a Baluch independence movement in its southeast, while retaining its claim to Bahrain to its south. And it has created and dominates an “axis of resistance” throughout the region that includes Iraqi militias, Hezbollah, the Yemeni Houthis and Hamas.

All three nations view America as a rival empire that at minimum should be restricted to a sphere of influence that does not overlap with their own. As seen from Moscow, the states that belong to NATO are nothing more than American protectorates, much like the former British protectorates in, for example, the Gulf. Those states — Britain’s treaty partners — governed themselves but were “protected” and thus indirectly ruled by London. Similarly, according to America’s adversaries, the European NATO allies might nominally rule themselves, but in reality are protected by the American nuclear umbrella, and many also play host to American forces and equipment.

Not all of America’s allies in the Middle East and East Asia are beneficiaries of the American nuclear umbrella, though Japan, South Korea, Micronesia, Palau, the Marshall Islands and Australia certainly are. In addition, most of these countries, and others like Singapore and the Gulf states (Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman) play host American forces, as do the NATO allies.

Not surprisingly, therefore, a neo-imperial Russia would like to roll back NATO’s potential expansion into Ukraine and Georgia, and its prior expansion to the Baltic States in particular. A neo-imperial China seeks to rid East Asia of the American presence. And a neo-imperial Iran pursues the same outcome in the Middle East.

Whether or not America views itself an imperial power is beside the point. Its imperial adversaries see it as an imperial rival, to be restricted to a limited sphere of influence that does not interfere with their own aggressive intentions. For that reason, they will continue to pose a threat to America’s worldwide interests, and indeed to America itself, for years to come.

This is a reality that whoever occupies the White House beginning in January 2025 would be foolish to ignore.

Dov S. Zakheim is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and vice chairman of the board for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He was undersecretary of Defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 and a deputy undersecretary of Defense from 1985 to 1987.