It's mostly self-preservation of the regimes in that country, Fidel Castro taught the worlds' dictators that they can stay in charge for life as long as there i

It's mostly self-preservation of the regimes in that country, Fidel Castro taught the worlds' dictators that they can stay in charge for life as long as there is a big external enemy so people naturally rally around a strong leader. It triggers a deeply instinctive group behavior where it's not the right time for "change". If the world becomes more unsafe it's because autocratic leaders are feeling the pressure of their citizens, mainly due to the internet and free access to information. You can see this in the Arab world where the enemy is always "israel and the zionist world order", the US in Cuba and Venezuela, NATO in Russia, the "western humiliation" in China, Colonization in Zimbabwe, ... It somehow always winds up that organizations that promote democracy are agents of the west and should be suppressed. Formenting domestic problems in democracies only serves to make their regime look better in comparison. Will this lead to a world war? I don't think so, but there will definitely be a lot of manufactured conflict designed for their own internal consumption. In Russia's case, the Belarus and Kazakhstan revolutions apparently triggered the regime sufficiently to into an unprovoked invasion with a "kill list" of Russian speakers that were critical of the kremlin and the resolve to drag the only russian-speaking area under democratic rule into poverty. China doesn't have a pressing need to invade anybody at the moment but I do believe that they will blockade Taiwan in the next decade.