The whole mess with them and create "unreliable allies" out of democracies will come to bite the autocracies in the ass rather soon. Every country on their border will be a south-korea, armed to the teeth having several mini-NATOs, unwilling to trade with them or share tech with them, while being willing to army anyone else resisting to the teeth. The mad zhar nailed the coffin for the age of empires.
And as much as they want to deny it, they are for new things highly dependent on the non-stagnant west.