16-8-24
Dear Partners in Thought,
As most of us are keen on defending democracy in our challenging times – as we have to – I thought it would be good to cover “Autocracy, Inc.”, the new book by Anne Applebaum, an expert on the subject of the slide into dictatorship as experienced in Central & Eastern Europe following WW2. Anne Applebaum is a Pulitzer Prize winner for “Gulag: A History,” renowned for her “Iron Curtain” opus and currently a senior Fellow at Johns Hopkins in DC and a key writer at The Atlantic. While a scholar and writer, Applebaum also knows politics and its challenges very directly, being married to Radek Sikorski, the current Polish foreign minister and right-hand man to PM Donald Tusk, both having come back to lead Poland following the hard-right and EU-unfriendly rule of the Law and Justice party since 2015.
One of the great features of the book is that it shows the nature of autocracy, which has evolved over the ages, especially since Hitler’s Germany or Mussolini’s Italy. Autocracy today is no longer a one man show (or at times woman show like with Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh) but an intricate set-up involving the police, military, intelligence, domestic disinformation and the whole financial structure of countries. Autocracies may not be clear dictatorships but can also be fake democracies where controlled elections happen. Autocracies today may also be systems where leaders do not care to be called as such and trample very clearly for all to see on the rights of their own people. Independent judiciaries and free press are not acceptable to autocracies as they tend to endanger their rule. A key feature of autocracies is kleptocracy which is a natural, almost human, attribute of such an unruly political system.
One of the key geopolitical realizations one makes is that true democracies are in a tiny minority group globally these days, even if usually Western-based, thus making us feel that all is well – this being also problematic as autocracies, even if at times not formally allied, usually team up against the democratic West or when it matters to them depending on the core issue at hand. Russia, China, Iran or North Korea while being the obvious members of Autocracy, Inc. are also mirrored by the likes of Venezuela, Cuba, Myanmar, Syria or Zimbabwe, which the West notices less, apart for their endemic subsistence problems, as presenting less direct massive risks, even if at times theaters of geopolitical tragedies. And then there are illiberal democracies like Turkey, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan even if at times enjoying some fragile degrees of democratic transition, as happened in the Philippines, Taiwan, South Africa, South Korea and Mexico. A notable trend I felt has been the increased bullishness of established autocracies while some key democracies, admittedly not of the Western type like Modi’s India, have been less democratic as years went by.
Applebaum goes back to the Western drive, especially of a German flavor, that was focused on peace through trade, starting at first during the late 1960s with gas pipelines to link the Soviet Union to the West in a peaceful way. This approach that Germany led and most of Europe enjoyed, also given energy needs, lasted for decades as seen with Chancellor Merkel in the 2010s. The same approach with China since the early 1980s supported the concept that trade would bring democracy to the rising key country. There was an assumption in the West that an inter-connected world through trade would bring liberal ideas and democracy to an autocratic world where in fact the opposite surprisingly happened as seen today with autocracy and illiberalism being spread to the democratic world instead, as seen in recent elections across Europe.
One of the main leaders of the anti-democracy and anti-West move is naturally Russia, which made history return in Europe with its invasion of Ukraine, however failed a project. While Russia’s past shows a historical liking for autocracy of different flavors, nothing was pre-ordained after the Soviet Union and its system collapsed. Applebaum goes in detail through Glasnost in the 1980s in Russia to stress that democracy as we know it was also sought after. It was not a given that Putin’s Russia would be what it became, even if its early roots were to be found in St. Petersburg when the future leader was oddly Deputy Mayor to Anatoly Sobchak, the most liberal Russian mayor ever and would have started what became a national kleptocratic scheme later. As Applebaum describes it, Russia became the poster-child, if not hard to reach model, for a mix of autocracy and kleptocracy or a mafia-state managed with the officially main hidden goal of enriching its leaders. The successful ones were not the entrepreneurs building leading businesses, but individuals benefitting from favors granted by or stolen from the Russian state. As she says: “Nobody became rich by building a better mousetrap.” Russia never became a competitive market for success, but one where obedience to the leader was the only driver while the system was mutually sustainable and beneficial for the leader and its oligarchic subjects, making it, in my own view, unclear who was at the top, if not an inter-linked “system” in itself. Applebaum stresses the key successful combination of Russian autocratic kleptocracy, to be initially found in the KGB’s terrorist group-funding money laundering expertise and some sad expedient features of international finance that helped hide great wealth outside Russia. It should be stressed that Putin and the obedient oligarchs were also empowered by Western banks, lawyers and even regulators that benefited from the scheme, not making that autocracy-kleptocracy model wholly-Russian in essence, and stressing that capitalism needs to be regulated closely on such matters. And as we know, some highly flexible countries, like the UAE, welcomed perfectly legally many sanctioned Russians who invested there, to the point that some jokingly would say that Russian is the first language in Dubai. Applebaum gives many examples of Russian, but also Nigerian or even Jordanian money, being hidden in the West in real estate or other assets in the most anonymous way (one in five purchasers of Trump properties were anonymous through shell companies often concealing a Russian origin, Trump Tower in New York being always well known for its Russian condo owners). Applebaum, who shares amazing personal British-related Russian purchase experiences like in Hampshire, stresses that anonymously-owned shell companies based in well-known leading tax heavens represent today 10% of global GDP, not that all would be linked to autocracies but likely many. One of the key features stressed in the book is the double standards of Western democracies preaching liberal values but helping build illiberal regimes as it made financial sense for many of its own economic actors.
Applebaum then takes us to Venezuela, once the leading, oil-rich, country in Latin America while focusing on Hugo Chavez, who seized power in 1998 and held it until his death in 2013. While a revolutionary at heart, Chavez, who became known for his anti-Americanism, neo-Marxism and flamboyant populism decided to opt for a kleptocratic and corruption-flavored country with domestic institutions such as press, courts, civil service slowly broken, in order to manage it better and stay in power while stressing his formal attachment to democracy. Many of the US$ 800bn in oil revenues during Chavez’s tenure went into private bank accounts around the world. The story of currency exchange manipulation also involving young Venezuelan students, supposedly for many studying abroad, provides another chapter in what some called the “democratization of kleptocracy.” All in all, estimates put the Chavez regime steal in 2013, when he died, at USD 300bn, much of it seen in empty brand-new apartment buildings in Caracas but also in Florida. It is notable that, while the Chavez regime pursued its corrupted course, the official emphasis was that the Bolivarian socialist revolution was good for ordinary people even if corruption eventually brought down the whole economy as its key state oil company floundered. As Chavez had disappeared and demonstrations rippled the country, Autocracy, Inc. came to the rescue, also to deal with sanctions. Drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping, and gasoline smuggling could not be enough to put the country on a fragile, if illicit, road to survival, so Russian companies stepped in with the likes of Rosneft, Gazprom, Lukoil even the odd TNK-BP. Subsidized Russian grain exports flew in as did arms and armament, not to mention crowd control equipment. China replaced wary Western lenders with loans without conditions, while enabling the Maduro regime to keep going until the country was broke, and what had once been the richest country in Latin America became the poorest. Cuba stepped in too, driven by the similar anti-American agenda as Putin’s Russia and then Xi’s China, even providing trustworthy soldiers, police officers and security and intelligence experts to Caracas. Turkey, even if a NATO member, also supported Maduro based on the close relationship of its two leaders, while Iran, with no common features with Venezuela, provided food and gas for gold as of 2000. Recent elections, not covered by the book due to their timing, showed us the extent of Maduro’s blatant violations of civil rights and the electoral process, all while displaying a laughable adherence to an obviously fake democratic cover story for his regime.
We then go to Zimbabwe, once known as Rhodesia, and see as a vivid example a picture of a leading local show-business-type preacher, who sells ways to become rich to locals willing to pay a fee – also someone involved in gold-smuggling and formally a Special Ambassador for Harare. Zimbabwe is an interesting case reflecting African post-colonial developments where many countries, initially democracies at their independence, gradually became autocracies to different degrees, and naturally kleptocracies for their elites. This August, Paul Kagame just started his fourth five-year term as leader of Rwanda on the official basis of having won 99% of the votes – underlining a new autocratic trend covered by Applebaum that there is no limit to lies in autocracies. And in a classical scheme, many of these fake democracies were helped by some Western institutions not keen on mixing morality and business while anti-Western countries (and at times Western ones for practical geopolitical purposes) would support them. The case of Mali or Burkina Faso in the Sahel being an example as seen with ex-Wagner Group mercenaries, but also China’s inroads via the Belt and Road Initiative and weapons delivery, or Putin’s Russia support as Zimbabwe backed it at the UN following the invasion of Ukraine. Kyrgyzstan, a former part of the Soviet Union is covered by Applebaum as another good example where autocracy occurred post-Soviet days, de facto keeping the country on its longstanding historical course.
One of the key features for autocracies is “controlling the narrative.” As the West hoped that trade could democratize dictatorships and build world peace, it also thought technology would ensure that democratization would happen across the world. More than two decades before the Xi era, China thought the opposite, believing that using the internet would enhance control of its people, all the more after the 1989 Tiananmen uprising and at a time where Central & Eastern Europe was entering a new democratic phase viewed as potentially contagious. Applebaum goes to great lengths in describing the many ways tech was used through all sorts of tools to control populations in autocracies and illiberal democracies. In the case of China, its government was even initially assisted by great Western names like Facebook, Google or Cisco (we would hope not fully aware of the end use of their products) that agreed to adjust to the demands of the Chinese leadership as a new big market was opening up – this before leaving or being banned a few years later (even TikTok, recently much criticized in the US, is not allowed to operate in its place of birth).
Applebaum goes through the many ways and tools – a long list of examples – countries like Russia ensured tailored information was disseminated domestically while disinforming about the “declining West” and massively ensuring fake news were spread in the West where it was strategically required. Lies, however great, no longer mattered as seen in the anti-democratic world on all continents – as if the more outrageous the better for their makers, who would never spend time defending them. The main goal in autocratic domestic messaging is not to bother with politics and enjoy their lives, whatever those might be, while knowing their government cares for them. Words like “Tiananmen” or “democracy” were simply eliminated from the internet in China while too-free-thinking journalists were pursued ceaselessly, combining old-fashioned repression with the new tools of the tech era. “Safe city technology”, another name for tools of control, were also sold by China’s Huawei on the back of their domestic successes to Pakistan, Brazil, Mexico, Serbia, South Africa and Turkey. Western democracies also started using spyware tools to fight both crime and terrorism, making it sadly easier for autocracies to escape criticism even if the end goals would be vastly different. Hacking of Western targets and countries became a national sport for Russia, all the more at election times (the 2016 US elections being a classic case today) and since the invasion of Ukraine, which Russians were told every day through various channels (an average of 18 times a day for some tools) was to save them from an imminent NATO offensive.
Applebaum stresses that many in targeted countries, especially in the developing world, would also sadly fall for the exported disinformation from autocracies like Russia. It is hard to give enough credit in a short Book Note to Applebaum’s deep dive into how autocracies “control the narrative”, hence a direct reading being the best way to “enjoy” it (if I may say). Applebaum gives us the best lessons on dark topics few of us know and we all need to take. On a positive note, and as recently stressed by Alec Russell in the Financial Times, enduring autocracies can also end as seen with the rushed chopper exit in Bangladesh due to the pandemic of incumbency fatigue that sweeps the world, even if staying in power is naturally easier for strong rulers as long as the army is on their side. Similarly, leaders of “strong” African democracies like Kenya or Nigeria were recently reminded that victory at the ballot box, all the more if elections are “controlled” to some extent, is no longer a free pass. However, what matters is how people feel, and in some countries like China and India where 1.1bn people were lifted above the international poverty line in recent years, matters of autocracy or democracy may be not the primary focus. Autocracies have different ways to survive like totalitarianism plus isolation for North Korea, or a release valve-porous border with South Africa that needs workers for Zimbabwe.
As Applebaum stresses, Autocracy, Inc. (especially China and Russia as its key leaders) is not simply about destroying democracy, which is a challenging task, but to rewrite the rules of the world order as set since the end of WW2. “Human rights,” which was the key focus, needs to be replaced by “Sovereignty,” which means that countries should behave as they want as independent world actors, this validating all aspects of autocracy at home. Another key autocratic driver today is creating a “win-win cooperation” whereby every country does what it wants, but they can still work together – in other words, to each its own political order. The Russians on that matter stress their desire to foster “multi-polarity” that stands for refusing an American-hegemonic world. With this in mind, Putin hosted on August 13 the Moscow International Conference for Security to address delegates of 70 countries – some likely non-aligned if not all autocracies – and give his version of geopolitics focused on Western neo-colonialism, the need for military cooperation, Russia’s new pivot to Asia (to counter the recent AUKUS alliance) and a required new world order. It is also amazing to see how autocracies articulate existential and governing ways with no regards for the well-being of their own people, underlining the low priority they represent. Applebaum then gives us detailed accounts of elections in Venezuela in 2016 (2024 would have been an even clearer case as time moved on) and in Belarus in 2020, which we all likely recall. In her epilogue, she focuses on the key move that would be to prevent the otherwise legal work of Western banks, lawyers and other advisers from advising autocrats and their followers by making transnational kleptocracy less easy. She gives us another detailed recipe to undermine the information war led by autocracies that have had so much impact on Western populations. And finally, she stresses the need to ensure “Democrats United” (also smiling about that easy heading) to find the right ways to protect and indeed promote needed democratic values and principles across the world today.
Autocracy, Inc. is a great book that needs to be read, all the more so today. Applebaum makes us think about the precarious position of democracy as we know it on the global chessboard and how easy it could be for it to disappear as a simple, and indeed short chapter of world history. The biggest threats today are, on one hand the apathy of many of our voters in our established democracies as to what democracy means, while too many others get bamboozled by cheap populist parties and their usual “show business” leaders taking advantage of issues that need solving, but incompetent at managing governments, especially (but not only) in Europe. The upswing populist trend experienced throughout Europe may also strengthen illiberal EU leaders like a Hungarian control-focused Viktor Orban, or let Georgia Meloni shift back to old approaches dear to her Brothers of Italy, as seen with recent news of her dealings with journalists. Autocracy, Inc. critically reminds us that our democratic world also has clear geopolitical enemies wishing very actively and increasingly our demise, not stopping at any means and using the latest tools, like social media and tech developments, to achieve their goals. Autocracy, Inc. is a wake-up call as to what matters and what we should do if we keep wishing for people to be in charge of their destinies, this requiring active involvement in preserving our democracies and working together, also globally at government level. While strongmen rulers are not immune to the pandemic of incumbency fatigue, as rightly stated by Alec Russel in the Financial Times, we should do more. Perhaps a good initiative would be to establish the democracy-focused equivalent of NATO globally.
And on a funny final note, one should notice that the leading medal winners at the Paris Olympics were all old-fashioned democracies by a long shot (putting China aside of course).
Warmest regards,
Serge
Desperate Measures 
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