A “convergence” of adversaries is threatening global security, a development made more complex by the proliferation of battlefield technology and commercial disruptions, a senior Army officer said.

Gen. Bryan Fenton, commanding general of U.S. Special Operations Command, said he sees the security environment through three lenses, the first of which is the volatile alliance formed among the adversaries of the United States and its allies.

“The first lens would be the convergence of the adversaries that have been so named in our National Defense Strategy,” Fenton said Nov. 18 during an event hosted by the Economic Club of New York.

Topping the list, he said, is China, which is flexing its military and diplomatic muscles.

“In singularity, the People's Republic of China has manifested in the military space a very large military presence in the Indo-Pacific,” he said. At the same time, “they’ve got a diplomatic corps that we … assess is all about diplomatic pressurization and combined with economic coercion at times to really turn countries in a different direction from even, at times, relationships with the United States and other partners and allies that we all have.”

Close behind is Russia, whose invasion of Ukraine is underscored by an industrial base “that’s starting to crank up again with armaments and materiel” with a speed that is challenging not only Ukraine, but NATO and allies, Fenton said.

Iran poses a special threat with not only its nuclear capabilities, but with long-range missiles and weaponry and its use of regional proxies such as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen and Iranian-aligned militias in Iraq and Syria, Fenton said.

North Korea, which deployed some 10,000 soldiers to Russia “to add to Russian capability against the Ukrainians,” poses a nuclear threat not only on the Korean peninsula but in the Indo-Pacific, Fenton said.

“What we see is it’s Ukraine against Russia, plus Iran, plus now North Korea, and certainly in materiel solutions, [China],” Fenton said. “That’s a fusion that concerns not only the Ukrainians and NATO, but certainly the U.S. and our security senior leaders.”

On the ground in Ukraine, he pointed out, the second lens shows that the character of war has been turned on its head with World War I-style trench warfare made more terrifying and deadly by unmanned technology.

“If you look up in the skies, its 21st century moving into 22nd century type warfare with  uncrewed anything—big drones, little drones, one-way munitions, things you can’t see in the electromagnetic spectrum that’s knocking these things down, there’s the infusion of space and cyber, the maritime surface and subsurface vessels that have no one in them being used for reconnaissance or kinetic effect,” Fenton said.

The threats are exacerbated by a third prism, namely shipping disruptions in the Red Sea, where over the past two years there have been bellicose actions against commercial and U.S. vessels as well, he said.

“We’re watching the markets fracture,” Fenton said, recalling how the Ukrainians were interrupted trying to export their wheat. “The commercial shipping in the Red Sea is at risk based on the Houthi actions over the last two years plus, not only against Israel, not only against the U.S. fleet, but also against the commercial shipping that many of them now … are having to find alternate routes to bring their goods to market.”

Together, “those three prisms are making it one of the most complicated times that I certainly think I’ve ever seen,” Fenton said.