The age of the carnivores is upon us: China, Russia and their war machine

The world is “made up of herbivores and carnivores”, French President Emmanuel Macron said in a speech this month. Europe, he said, was a plant-eater. And the meat-eaters are circling.

Until now, most Western nations have been content to live peaceful lives with minimal military capability because the biggest of them has offered to protect the others by maintaining a war-like vigilance. That, of course, was the US.

Illustration by Dionne Gain

Under the eagle’s wing, post-war Europe and Japan became so relaxed that they adopted a pacifist stance. They relinquished any effective offensive combat capability to the point where they were declared to be the world’s first “postmodern” states, together with New Zealand, which sheltered behind Australia, in the categorisation by the British diplomat Robert Cooper. These pacifists were full herbivores.

But almost all Western democracies, including Australia and Canada, also allowed themselves to stand down. Their statecraft and their defence forces operated on the assumption that war between the great powers was an artefact of history and if anything went wrong, America would deal with it. “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf,” according to a quote attributed to George Orwell. America was the rough man of the West.

The West’s enemies fell into a sullen survival mode. But they did not lose their appetites for the red meat of history – the urge to attack, butcher and digest the territories of their neighbours.

That era is over. America’s will has wilted, and its enemies sense opportunity. When Syria’s Bashar al-Assad crossed Barack Obama’s “red line” against chemical weapons use in 2013, and Obama did nothing in response, it whetted the appetites of the four greatest predators of the international system. Russia annexed Crimea the next year and still Obama did nothing meaningful, so the annexation became merely the prelude to Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Emergency workers extinguish a fire following a Russian rocket attack in Lviv, Ukraine, on Sunday.Credit: Ukrainian Emergency Service/AP

China activated its salami-slicing encroachments to seize territories that were also claimed by half a dozen of its neighbours and launched the world’s greatest military build-up since World War II. North Korea revived its ambition to conquer Seoul. Iran’s revolution negotiated with the West over its nuclear program while continuing to arm its proxies against Israel.

These four predators have been grouped under a new acronym: CRINKs, for China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. America’s Politico outlet dubbed it “the new axis of evil”.

Today, 1000 days since Vladimir Putin ordered his forces to strike Kyiv, we can see clearly that history has entered a new phase. These four have come together in a war of territorial conquest. Russia’s war on Ukraine has become a carnivores’ picnic.

China has become the main financier of the Russian economy by stepping up to buy 215 billion euros’ worth of its fossil fuel exports since the invasion began, according to the Finnish non-profit Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. China is the “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war effort, according to a NATO summit communique, by supplying industrial machinery and semiconductors and other technology.

Iran has given Russia 8000 Shahed drones, each carrying a payload of 50 kilograms of explosives, and has delivered the first of hundreds of promised Fath 360 ballistic missiles, according to the Pentagon. North Korea has sent 13,000 containers of weaponry to Russia, including 8 million artillery shells, missiles and anti-tank rockets, according to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service.

And now North Korea has ordered at least 12,000 of its combat troops to Russia. Just over two weeks ago, on November 4, they engaged in their first firefight with Ukrainian troops, according to the US State Department. They are the first foreign combat forces to enter the war.

In a speech on Friday, North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, urged his troops to “go all out” in fighting Ukraine, according to Pyongyang’s news service. Over the weekend, The Financial Times published a Ukrainian intelligence report that North Korea has given Russia “some 50 domestically produced 170mm M1989 self-propelled howitzers and 20 updated 240mm multiple launch rocket systems”.

CRINKs is no longer just an acronym. It now describes a group of nations engaged jointly in waging a war of aggression.

In an apparent response to the North Korean entry into the war, Joe Biden has released Ukraine from a key US-imposed restraint, it emerged on Monday. Until now, America supplied its HIMARS – high mobility artillery rocket system – to Ukraine on condition that it not be used against targets inside Russia. This was imposed to limit escalation. Biden now has freed Kyiv to hit Russia directly with a system capable of firing missiles up to 300 kilometres into its territory. Britain and France are expected to lift similar restraints on the missiles they supplied to Ukraine.

Wesley Clark, a former US army general and commander of the NATO forces, told CNN that this newfound Ukrainian freedom is “too little, too late” materially to change the course of the war but that it would be a useful bargaining chip in any ceasefire negotiations.

A central question for the global jungle is what the incoming US president will do. Will Donald Trump support the US allies – mostly herbivores – confronting aggression, or will he side with America’s traditional enemies – the carnivores?

The US is increasingly an unpredictable and unreliable protector. While the CRINKs moved earlier to take advantage, the herbivores finally have got the message. In the past few years, US allies have started to sharpen their claws and bare their fangs. In Macron’s metaphor, he wants the herbivores of Europe to, at the very least, become omnivores, he said.

US allies have stepped up their defence budgets and increasingly started to herd together for protection. Australia’s Northern Territory showcased the latest development in this trend at the weekend when Japanese troops joined US forces for the annual US Marine rotation. This is set to be an annual event.

The meat-eaters are hunting in a pack. The eagle is no longer a reliable protector. The age of carnivores is upon us.

Peter Hartcher is international editor.