Until the 20th century, one could have advanced the argument that war was mostly a bilateral affair, occurring more or less in a vacuum.
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The First World War went a long way to shatter that paradigm: the assassination of an aristocrat in the Balkans at the hands of a rival domestic dissident lit the match that kicked off a global war in earnest.
And, in 2025, the world is remarkably more interconnected than it was even in 1914, particularly in the oil-rich Middle East, where geopolitical interests collide.
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Via Iran International, January 2024 (emphasis added):
“Iran officially became a member of the China-led BRICS economic organization on Monday, as it seeks to overcome the impact of US sanctions and overcome it isolation.
In its policy of finding shelter under Chinese and Russian-dominated international organizations, Iran achieved full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in July 2022 and concurrently pursued entry into the BRICS group. Following an official invitation, Iran announced its acceptance into BRICS on August 24, 2023, with the official membership commencing on January 1, 2024.”
Given Iran’s accession to the burgeoning alternative to the neoliberal order of the West, BRICS, in January of last year, it comes as no surprise that the two juggernauts of that group, Russia and China, have expressed indignation that their staunchest ally in the Middle East faces, perhaps, existential peril.
Via Reuters (emphasis added):
China condemns Israel’s violations of Iran’s sovereignty, security and territorial integrity and urges Israel to immediately stop all risky military actions, China’s U.N. Ambassador Fu Cong said, state media Xinhua News Agency reported.
“China opposes the intensification of contradictions and the expansion of conflicts, and is deeply concerned about the consequences that may be brought about by Israel’s actions,” Fu was quoted as saying at a meeting held by the UN Security Council on the Middle East situation on Friday.”
Via Newsweek (emphasis added):
“An ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin has said that “a full-scale war” in the Middle East is possible following Israel’s airstrikes on Iran…
Konstantin Kosachev, vice-speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament and head of the Foreign Affairs Committee, made clear that Moscow would stand by its ally, Iran.
“Israel’s actions cannot be justified from a legal, political, military or moral point of view. The only hope, albeit illusory, of avoiding a full-scale war is a consolidated condemnation of this operation by the international community,” he said, according to Russia’s official TASS news agency.”
Although their visions for what might come after neoliberal Western hegemony may vary radically— and would likely move into competition if not outright hostility to one another if the current order were, in fact, to collapse — what unites some of the biggest non-Western powers of the world is a desire to see the geopolitical balance of power upended.
Via Global Taiwan Institute (emphasis added):
“Russia, China, Iran… are all… revisionists. They may not agree on what world order should ultimately look like—or whether there should even be a world order—but they are united in opposition to the order as it stands. And they are making headway. The world now may be approaching a moment in which, to use Kissinger’s framing, no single concept of order enjoys widespread legitimacy and the balance of power that has long upheld the presiding order proves no longer up to the task…
At the moment, Russia, Iran, and Iranian state and nonstate satellites are the main antagonists in the assault on global order.”
All said, it’s unclear to what lengths nuclear-armed Russia or China would be willing to go to defend what it sees as its interest in maintaining the current Iranian regime.
Yet, here we are, yet again, flirting with nuclear Armageddon.
Benjamin Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile (now available in paperback), is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.
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