American leaders have long treated Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea as separate challenges, to be managed one at a time. The U.S.-Israel war with Iran exposed once again the folly of that approach and revealed a web of cooperation between Tehran and Washington’s major adversaries.

When the United States and Israel fired their opening salvos against Iran in February, starting a war whose ripple effects would be felt across the globe for months to come, the reactions from Russia and China were relatively muted. Yet it soon became clear, that below the surface, neither Moscow nor Beijing had been idle. Evidence mounted that Iran was not fighting alone; it had the support of Washington’s major rivals.

European intelligence officials disclosed that Iran shares information with Russia so freely that Russian officials knew of a strike that killed Ali Larijani, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, before the news broke anywhere else. This information-sharing runs both ways: Russian intelligence has reportedly supplied targeting details for Iranian attacks on U.S. forces and partners in the region, using the Shahed drones Tehran had once sent to Moscow for use against Ukraine—but now fitted with Russian upgrades.

Officials at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency indicated that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps had been planning missile and drone strikes using AI-annotated imagery of American bases published by a Chinese satellite firm. CNN reported, citing people familiar with American intelligence assessments, that Beijing was preparing to ship air-defense systems to Iran through third countries to mask their origin.

Such collusion should not have come as a surprise. Months before the war began, the warning had come from within the Trump Administration itself. General Dan Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified to Congress in June 2025 that China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, were “pursuing unprecedented levels of cooperation.”

Yet, when asked in early March about the potential danger that Russia’s involvement in the Middle East posed to American personnel, Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, replied, “We are not concerned about that.” President Donald Trump himself, when asked about Russia’s intelligence sharing with Iran, dismissed the coordination and equated it with American support for Ukraine: “They would say we do it against them. Wouldn’t they say that?”

When testifying to Congress in July, Hegseth acknowledged, when pressed, that “there’s definitely adversary alignment, attempts to do so” as both Russia and China were “enabling, at different levels, some of the things Iran is doing.” Trump contradicted him a few days later, claiming, “I don’t know that they are enabling,” and stated that the leaders of both countries had said they “will not partake” in the war. “I trust them,” he asserted. “I don’t think they would want to have me disappointed.”

In addition to Hegseth’s qualified concession of adversary alignment, Trump told reporters in March that President Vladimir Putin of Russia could “be more helpful by ending the war in Ukraine.” Hegseth also conceded that Russia “should not be involved.” And Trump threatened 50% tariffs against China.

These scattered rebukes only confirm the broader pattern: individual objections to individual provocations—a warning one week, a tariff threat the next— occur even as the connections among America’s adversaries go unaddressed and the collective threat they pose remains underestimated.

Know your enemy, fight your enemy

What is remarkable is how thoroughly American intelligence agencies foresaw the cooperation among America’s adversaries, and how quickly the........

© Time