A recent hacking and leak campaign targeting Donald Trump‘s presidential campaign originated in Iran. While it appears to have targeted both the Trump and now defunct Biden campaigns, only documents from the Trump campaign were leaked.

The incident underlines the high priority that various nations place on seeing their favored candidate win the presidential election on Nov. 5.

Why would Iran want Biden or Harris to beat Trump?

For one, because Harris’ senior foreign policy advisers — from her national security adviser Phil Gordon on down — continue to prioritize diplomatic engagement with Iran. These officials favor a strategy of using sanctions relief as an incentive for Iran to limit its nuclear activities. They also oppose aggressive joint actions alongside Israel to damage Iran’s nuclear industry and terrorist proxies.

The record is clear. The Biden administration has responded only cautiously to repeated Iranian-led militia attacks on U.S. military forces. The administration has also pressured Israel to avoid actions that might exacerbate tensions with Iran. And when it comes to Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza, Harris has also been more critical of Israel even than Biden. Iran can credibly hope that a Harris administration might lead to a degradation of Israeli-U.S. security and political cooperation and a return to the appeasement policies that defined the Obama administration.

The same does not apply to Trump. The Trump administration adopted a so-called “maximum pressure” strategy against Iran. This involved the imposition of numerous sanctions, the withdrawal from the 2015 JCPOA nuclear accord, and the elimination of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps general Qassem Soleimani. These actions put extreme pressure on the Iranian economy. That pressure reduced supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s ability to provide financial support to allies and activities across the Middle East. And the killing of Soleimani was seen as a very personal attack, one that motivates continuing Iranian assassination plots against U.S. officials, including Trump. Harris offers Iran a preferable partner.

In contrast, Russia has a clear desire for Trump’s return to the White House.

Some conservative commentators have noted Vladimir Putin‘s stated preference that Biden returns to the White House as proof that he doesn’t like Trump nearly as much as the media portrays. But this is a willful delusion. The Russian president knows full well that any endorsement of Trump would be powerful ammunition for Harris to use against her challenger. Putin’s preference for Trump is clear.

Where Harris has committed to continued support for Ukraine and the more traditional maintenance of alliances in Europe, Trump wants a far more transactional relationship with allies, which, while not without some merit, risks undermining trans-Atlantic cooperation on the threats posed by China and Russia. Trump has also pledged to rapidly negotiate peace between Ukraine and Russia. This must be a very tempting proposition for Putin. Professionally trained in manipulation, the former KGB Lieutenant Colonel has long believed Trump can be manipulated via a mix of ego stroking and political intrigue. But when he lets his guard down, Putin makes clear that he views Trump with derision.

This is not to say that Putin’s preference for Trump might necessarily be the correct strategic choice for Russia. Trump was far more supportive of Ukraine in the early part of his presidency than was the Obama administration. He also enabled more robust intelligence and military activities against Russia. Trump has also pledged “100%” support for NATO allies, which meet the alliance’s 2%-of-GDP defense spending target (which all eastern flank allies exceed), and says he would not accept Russia’s proposed peace plan for Ukraine. But the top line is that where Putin sees Trump as a potentially malleable partner, he probably sees Harris as a predictable adversary.

Just over Russia’s southeastern border is North Korea.

Trump’s penchant for unconventional diplomacy underlines why Kim Jong Un wants him back in the White House. Kim valued his very public relationship with Trump for the international and domestic prestige it proffered. But also because that relationship allowed him to sidestep a U.S. national security bureaucracy that is far more naturally skeptical of North Korean intentions than Trump (this applies equally to Putin). Kim will have noted that Trump continues to value their personal relationship, frequently referencing how he and the North Korean leader got along.

Kim’s intention with a second Trump administration would likely center on a negotiated deal that allowed for major sanctions relief in return for suspended ballistic missile tests and some form of denuclearization. Kim would likely hope that Trump’s inattention to detail would enable him to retain the technical means of continued covert nuclear weapons/delivery system research and a means to quickly redeploy related capabilities if needed. This would give Kim major economic benefits without sacrificing his longer-term ability to threaten the U.S., Japan, and South Korea.

Finally, there’s America’s preeminent adversary, China.

The latest publicly released U.S. intelligence assessment stated that China does not have a preference for who wins the presidential election. However, much of the information forming that assessment was based on a Biden-Trump rather than a Harris-Trump matchup. I believe China will now prefer a Harris presidency.

Yes, China will welcome Trump’s recent emphasis that he had a good relationship with Xi prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yes, China will also welcome Trump’s recent suggestion that Taiwan has taken advantage of the U.S. and that defending the island nation would be far more difficult for the U.S. than it would be for China to attack. Securing Taiwan under the Communist Party flag is a matter of destiny for Xi.

That said, Trump favors both high defense spending and the imposition of new tariffs on China. On the flip side, Harris is likely to prioritize domestic spending designed to appeal to the Democratic Party voter base over increased defense spending. That matters because Xi’s longer-term strategy to displace the U.S. from the Pacific centers on gradually outmatching U.S. military capability. Those closest to Harris are more dovish on China than those closest to Trump.

Harris’ running mate Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) has made around 30 trips to China and spoken often of his affection for the country. True, Walz has repeatedly criticized China’s human rights record. But Walz also appears more dovish than hawkish toward Beijing. As he put it in 2019, “I don’t fall into the category that China necessarily needs to be an adversarial relationship, I totally disagree.” That will lead Beijing to hope Walz will push for a more pragmatic relationship.

The same is true of Harris’ national security adviser. Also in 2019, Phil Gordon signed an open letter calling on the Trump administration to stop treating China as an adversary. That letter noted, “We do not believe Beijing is an economic enemy or an existential national security threat that must be confronted in every sphere; nor is China a monolith, or the views of its leaders set in stone… many Chinese officials and other elites know that a moderate, pragmatic and genuinely cooperative approach with the West serves China’s interests.” As part of its broader call for a more conciliatory stance toward China, the letter signatories added their opposition to a build up of “offensive, deep-strike weapons.”

Some have defended Gordon by noting that the letter is now five years old. This is a thin excuse. Xi’s monolithic supremacy in the Chinese leadership structure was already plainly apparent in 2019. As was the fact that Xi is no pragmatist, valuing as he does total control at home and dominant power abroad. And a build-up of those offensive weapons that Gordon and his co-signers rejected is exactly what is needed to confront Chinese warships and missile forces at long range.

In turn, China likely prefers the prospect of Harris pragmatists seeking stability over an unpredictable Trump White House seeking transaction alongside military power. After all, China’s enduring strategy is built around buying time and political space via which to undermine and eventually overcome U.S. global leadership. Beijing would hope that it could use Harris’s interest in stable relations to extract concessions in areas such as tariffs and technology sharing while simultaneously continuing to ramp up its military capabilities.

This is no small concern. The People’s Liberation Army is already producing vast numbers of advanced new warships, missiles, and nuclear weapons. Absent urgent advances to the U.S. defense industrial base, China will find itself increasingly able to out-scale and outfight the U.S.

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Top line: different adversaries expect different things from Harris and Trump. Those calculations will increasingly affect how they respond to the presidential race as Election Day approaches.

As they do so, however, these adversaries must balance any interference efforts alongside the risks and associated political damage of being caught. For example, does Iran’s hacking and leaking of Trump help Harris? Probably not. But it may well move some pro-Israel independents into Trump’s corner.