Autocracies' Deepening Security Ties: Origins, Variations, and Effects

Over the past 15 years, autocracies have expanded their security cooperation, often in informal and ambiguous ways. Chinese actors, for instance, supply Russia with dual-use goods and political backing during its war in Ukraine without declaring an alliance; likewise, despite deepening ties with Iran, Beijing and Moscow kept their distance when Israel and the United States attacked Iran in June 2025.

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Research on autocracies’ security cooperation has largely focused on regional dynamics, yielding important insights but limiting our understanding of how and why autocracies collaborate beyond their neighborhoods. Only recently has attention shifted to security cooperation between autocracies more broadly, particularly among China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. Yet, these studies provide little understanding of the variation in the durability and depth of security ties among autocracies, as they rarely identify the domestic actors that initiate and sustain them or how they benefit from them.  Most explanations for why autocracies form security ties emphasize structural factors, such as balancing the United States and shifts in capabilities, neglecting domestic factors, particularly concerns about regime survival. Finally, despite growing interest in autocratic alignment, broad claims about its destabilizing potential abound; however, systematic evaluations of its effects on regional stability and international security remain scarce.

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This project addresses these gaps by introducing a new conceptualization of security ties that reflects the distinct logic of security cooperation among autocracies. “Security ties” are understood as sustained, security-related interaction between actors from at least two states that serve the goal of regime survival. These interactions unfold in five domains: (1) diplomatic and military contacts, (2) support for regime security, (3) military capacity building, (4) non-combat operations, and (5) wartime support. We examine the domestic, inter-, and transnational origins of security ties, including variation in depth (frequency and the political level of interaction), durability (temporal continuity), and domestic involvement (which domestic actors drive interactions). We assess their effects on regional stability and international security. Central to this effort is the creation of the first open-source database that systematically captures security-related interactions between 15 strategically relevant autocracies since 2011. These “anchor autocracies” are states with regional power projection capabilities and ambitions for regional leadership across all world regions: China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria, Azerbaijan, Venezuela, Honduras, and Hungary.

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A better understanding of security cooperation between autocracies is urgently needed due to the risks they pose for liberal democracies, specifically undermining diplomatic pressure and sanctions, facilitating arms transfers, nuclear cooperation, and technology sharing, and increasing the likelihood of conflicts escalating simultaneously across regions.