Understanding And Interrupting Authoritarian Collaboration

The conventional wisdom has long been that authoritarian regimes are less attractive military alliance partners. Nonetheless, autocrats have developed collective security institutions and intervened during members' intrastate conflicts and, to a lesser extent, interstate conflicts. Authoritarian regimes collaborate against traditional and non-traditional or evolving security threats. In the wake of 9/11, authoritarian regimes pivoted to focus heavily on cooperating against the threat of terrorism – as well as to exploit the potential to frame all armed oppositions as terrorists. Security sector assistance and exchanges between authoritarian regimes are seldom studied systematically beyond case studies. Yet, there is evidence that collaboration among authoritarian military and police forces in countering terrorism, organizing peace enforcement operations, and military training are often pursued with the aim of increasing the longevity of authoritarian regimes.

Recent research suggests that autocrats are less likely to cooperate in externally-oriented alliances, but they often expect their allies to assist them when they face domestic and transnational (non-state) threats to regime stability.¹⁰⁹ The extent to which autocrats mobilize collective security institutions to intervene in member state conflicts varies significantly by region. African regional organizations intervene in members' crises most often at the invitation of member state governments, while norms of non-intervention are much stronger in South Asia.¹¹⁰ At the invitation of leaders in Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo, coalition forces from SADC and the East African Community (EAC) have recently fought alongside government forces against insurgent groups.¹¹¹ In these African ROs (whose members are predominantly authoritarian or hybrid regimes), secretariat staff play an important role in coordinating across member state militaries.

Authoritarian-led security organizations also organize regional military exercises to improve the inter-operability of member state militaries and reveal members' capabilities. Despite CSTO members' misgivings about Russia’s neocolonial ambitions, the CSTO organized at least 38 military exercises between 2002 and 2016, while the SCO carried out at least 22 military exercises over the same time frame in Central Asia.¹¹² The rise of China's influence in Central Asia has bolstered the CSTO's ability to fill this role by helping Russia credibly commit not to use CSTO interventions as pretext to "take over" co-members; doing so would upset the regional balance of power between Russia and China.¹¹³ The balance established between China and Russia could have increased the willingness of other autocrats to invite CSTO assistance and cooperate in more complex CSTO exercises, but instead trust in Russia has plummeted among Central Asian governments due to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.¹¹⁴

Authoritarian "black knights" also intervene unilaterally to help their allies fend off challengers. Autocrats generally intervene militarily to support regimes with which they share deep economic, social, and security ties, and autocrats whose removal would cause broader regional instability. For example, when Syria was wracked by anti-government protests beginning in 2011, Iran provided technical support, equipment, and military assistance to the Assad government because Iranian leaders view Assad as a critical ally against the U.S., Israel, and liberalizing forces in Western Asia more broadly.¹¹⁵ Russia also intervened militarily to support the Assad government, motivated to push back against what it viewed as externally-promoted regime change targeting a fellow autocracy.¹¹⁶

Beyond crisis response, international collaboration is also essential for most authoritarian governments seeking to train and equip their security forces. On one hand, authoritarian-led ROs facilitate pooling of military resources to respond to security crises and jointly produce regional security benefits. Outside formal IO relationships, authoritarian regimes have fewer qualms than democratic governments about training and equipping certain autocracies' armies over the latter's human rights records.¹¹⁷ China has become one of the most important providers of professional military education (PME) for African countries in terms of the number of officers trained abroad, and has a "no questions asked" attitude regarding soldiers' prior violations of human rights.¹¹⁸ Through PME, China imparts its ideological party-army model, which is hostile to the liberal norm of separating the military from party politics. Though the implications of China's military training footprint are not well-studied, experts fear that China's military training programs orient officers toward regime protection and instill loyalty to ruling parties.¹¹⁹

The countries most reliant on Chinese PME also purchase military equipment from China and are recipients of Belt and Road Initiative projects.¹²⁰ The African countries that rely on China for more than 90 percent of their arms transfers (including Mozambique, Namibia, the Seychelles, and Zimbabwe) as well as those that receive more than 50 percent of arms transfers from China (Burundi, Ghana, and Kenya) represent a mixture of democracies, hybrid regimes, and autocracies.¹²¹ China remains a less significant source of military equipment in Africa compared to Russia, the continent’s top arms provider. The top recipients of Russian arms are all authoritarian regimes, including Algeria, Angola, and Sudan.¹²² Like China, Russia has been willing to step in when western countries cut military aid and arms supplies due to human rights abuses.¹²³ Russia has also lent support to some of Africa's diplomatically isolated regimes, including those in Mali and Sudan, through the brutal paramilitary Wagner Group.¹²⁴

Too often, democracies have responded to authoritarian regimes receiving security assistance from authoritarian great powers by engaging in a "race to the bottom."¹⁴¹ Particularly when they fear losing leverage to China or Russia over geo-strategically important autocracies, democracies overlook significant rights violations. It is important for the inter- national democracy support community to continue calling on democracies to stick to their commitments not to provide security sector assistance or weapons deals to human rights abusers. As the recent wave of coups d'état in Africa has demonstrated, democracies arm and train military units in hybrid regimes and autocracies potentially at the expense of civilian control, producing unintended consequences for international security and the future of democracy.¹⁴² The international democracy support community can also advocate for security sector assistance targeting localized security initiatives led by civil society organizations that are best-positioned to strengthen their communities without shoring up authoritarian regimes. Practitioner messaging should underscore that improving governance in insecure communities is a better investment for national defense than entrenching corrupt national security forces. The international democracy support community should also promote norms of transparency around security sector assistance, so that there is no ambiguity regarding whether democracies are upholding their commitments to cut security assistance to rights abusers.