Category: Book Note

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      

25-7-24

Dear Partners in Thought,

Russia has gradually become a key concern for Europe and the West since Putin made his speech in 2007 at the security conference in Munich, when he complained about the way the West treated Russia. And then we saw Russian military operations in Georgia in 2008, followed by a game-changing involvement in Syria and, of course, Ukraine, first in Crimea and Donbas in 2014 and then with his full invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the latter I dealt with in previous pieces. This Ukraine invasion, which was widely expected, did not bring Russia the results that it wanted, stressing familiar weaknesses of its armed forces as seen historically (the number of dead speaking for itself) but also most notably in the post-Soviet 1990s and while Putin strongly focused on rebuilding what he perceived as being Russia’s core strength and reflecting his regime’s legitimacy. I thought it would be good to focus on Russia and its military and understand its developments since the Yeltsin years.       

As such, I wanted to tell you about “Putin’s Wars” a key book from Mark Galeotti, today one of the leading Western experts on Russian affairs with a strong personal exposure to post-Soviet Russia and a unique knowledge of all aspects of Russian military history and the Putin era. Having taught at NYU and now a Honorary Professor at University College London, Galeotti was a Visiting Professor at Charles University, Prague and is still involved as a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of International Relations of my beautiful city here. I had the pleasure of exchanging on a few topics with him in recent years. Of note, he was placed on the list of 28 individuals barred from traveling to Russia by Moscow in Q2 2022, this showing the quality of his writing and where he stood.  “Putin’s Wars” is a complete history of the Russian armed forces post-Soviet collapse with a focus on Putin. As a warning, the book, which is very encyclopedic, is indeed very detailed – at times overly so for some readers in terms of the descriptions of military units, names of commanders, number of soldiers, kits and armaments and precise military acronyms involved, making it akin to a PhD thesis: but every piece of information is accurate and adds to the seriousness of the book which is also based on actual interactions with many Russian soldiers over three decades. 

The book covers the last thirty-five years of Russian history starting with the end of the Cold War and the Soviet Union under the Gorbachev era. Many of us remember these times, mixing hope and worry as the Soviets were collapsing and the Yeltsin leadership was concerning, eventually leading to an oligarchic regime, chaos and then to Vladimir Putin, who coming from the KGB became PM to put Russia back on track in what he saw as the right order. His focus on restoring military strength was a core mission in restoring Russia’s relevance globally. Before going through all the wars (each described in small, focused chapters), Galeotti offers us a description of the state of the steeply declining post-Soviet Russian army in the 1990s with its bullying culture, perennial absence of NCOs, poor command structure, lack of proper funding when not proper food for the troops was available and, in fact, many features explaining the roots of the very poor battlefield performance seen in Ukraine – and finally why a war of one week is now well into its third year. One feature few of us knew was the impact of the withdrawal of Soviet troops from CEE in the early nineties with no funding to do so (apart from a West Germany that would then stand in) and infrastructure to welcome them back home, leading to 280,000 military families without housing at the time.  

The main story starts with the first Chechen war in 1994 – seen as a humiliation for the Russian forces – and a good reminder of the challenging relation between Chechens and Moscow, ever since Stalin and his decision to deport its population from North Caucasus to Central Asia. Many of us will remember the name of Dudayev, an air force general who declared Chechnya’s independence, even if Yeltsin had initially promoted such moves during the Soviet collapse, which eventually led to Moscow’s military retaliation. We learn about the superior military abilities of the Chechens due to their training from a young age, traditionally leading them to join Russian paratroopers and special forces units. This first Chechen war was a clear failure for Russia, showing its military weaknesses and inability to operate as a strong country any more, even if it had decided to become a regional and not global military power. While the capital, Grozny, was taken in 1996 at a high cost of lives, and the war seemed over after Dudayev was killed in a targeted air strike, Yeltsin returned to domestic politics, failing to prevent Maskhadov, the then Chechen military leader, unexpectedly taking the capital city back. The Kremlin then decided to stop the war it could not easily win (even against a “ramshackle guerilla”) and grant autonomy to Chechnya as long as it stayed part of the Russian Federation. As the Chechen leadership was more able to fight than to govern efficiently, another war would occur in 1999.

The war had been a blow to Russia’s military prowess but also to the country’s ability to manage its own affairs as it was rebuilding itself. Aside from the initial Chechnya conflict, Galeotti also covers the Transnistrian ethnic Russian drive for independence from the new Moldova, the civil war in Georgia and the implosion of Yugoslavia, giving rise to a nationalistic Serbia led by former Communist leader Milosevic, thus underlining the challenges of the former Soviet Union and its “region.” As I was reading these early chapters leading to the core book focus – Putin and his own wars – I can recall these times when I was also working occasionally in Russia for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) whose mission was to create a new and better economic region, also to ensure peace in Europe and beyond. It was a time when we could see that Yeltsin and his team were trying to get Russia more world-integrated, while even those of us in the filed did not know all the side stories we know today. It was also a world of daily chaos that we took for granted, given the times. When I was attending the EBRD annual meeting of 1994 in St. Petersburg and leaving the hotel-boat (as there were not enough hotels for all the attendees of the annual meeting) I could see in the parking lot a car with five cadavers inside, one of the results of the ongoing gang war that was business as usual in key Russian cities at the time. The Yeltsin years, while being almost naturally chaotic given the Russian regime transition, were also characterized by a leader who was better known for being good at being “against” than “for something” and lacked a clear vision for a new Russia, all of this compounded with poor health and an increasingly clear state of drunkenness. 

Putin is dealt with very well by Galeotti, who goes through who the man initially was – someone totally unknown to most Russians and the world before he became PM in 1999, acting President and then won the presidency against Communist Zyuganov in 2000.  Putin was “a scrappy kid from a poor family” with a childhood in post-war devastated Leningrad. Although Galeotti does not dwell on his teenage years which I recall were a bit wild, we get quickly into his strong desire to join the KGB (also driven by the spy movies of his childhood) as a way to “belong” to something great, where he was not deemed to be a star. He would end up being a liaison officer with the East German Stasi in Dresden when the whole system collapsed, creating a personal shock that would explain a few of his key features. He then worked at the Leningrad State University, a job he likely secured via KGB connections, and became an adviser to liberal and first democratically-elected mayor Anatoly Sobchak ‑ to many in the West the new face of a Russia we all wanted (looking back it was an odd mutual fit, if any). He eventually became Head of International Affairs to the Mayor and then Deputy Mayor until Sobchak lost his reelection in 1996. Having being noticed for all his qualities and, crucially, soberness by the “Family” (Yeltsin’s inner network) he gradually became a potential successor and then in 1999, Deputy Prime Minister and Prime Minister the same day. Within five months of his new role, Yeltsin resigned and Putin became acting President. His first challenge was to be the second Chechnya war, while offering a new face of Russia to the West as 9-11 took place and he sided with America in helping it seek revenge in the “Global War on Terror.” It was a time when George W. Bush could see into Putin’s soul (some mean critics would see another sign of shortsightedness). While Putin started reasserting Russia’s role on the international scene, he also re-drew the rules of the game at home by forcefully controlling all the oligarchs who had been running, or at least benefitting from, the country behind the scene under Yeltsin, all the more since funding and securing his re-election in 1996. Many Russians must have liked this strategic correction.

The book is not simply about Putin and his wars, but focuses mainly on the Russian military and the great efforts by Putin to overhaul it following the first Chechen war debacle, while taking it away from the declining Soviet times. Russia under Putin spent much time and work gradually recreating a defense (some would way ultimately an offense) force seemingly of the first order that would go well beyond the beautiful and local population-reassuring May day Victory parades, or its ever-present nuclear capabilities (today still the largest in the world in terms of “rockets”, which says a lot given where the country really is). A few chapters are devoted to what went on and who led this key overhaul since 2000. Names like Sergeyev, Ivanov and Serdyukov who ran the Ministry of Defense may have been forgotten today, while Sergei Shoigu, in post since 2012 until recently and the Ukraine “special operation” unhappiness, will be well known. In an unusual way, some chapters address specific troops (which were much of the focus of the re-engineering – in itself a weakness as too overly focused) like the paratroopers and their desired hyper-masculinity mirroring the well-known “propaganda” picture of the bare-chested Russian leader seen on a horse in the wilderness.

We then go into the second Chechnya war in 1999, which stressed Putin’s desire to reassert control over what was deemed to be Russia and started after a few Moscow apartment bombings took place, even while the origin of the perpetrators is still being “discussed.” Chechnya became indirectly the focus of al-Qaeda via an Islamic leader, Saudi-born “Emir Khattab,” who had led a small invasion of Dagestan and was close to Bin Laden, the plan being to eventually create an Islamic caliphate and not Chechen independence. It turns out that his move was stopped by local Russian troops while Maskhadov, now running Chechnya, was not able to show a good enough control of the situation, thus leading Moscow to start a second intervention and regain control of Grozny. The intervention was not that of a massive war, while the opposition was not the best either. That successful war for Russia nevertheless heralded the new times of what some called “Kadyrovstan” after Ramzan Kadyrov, the pro-Russian Chechen leader who took over Chechnya as a result of the second war and still runs it today (funnily his son, 16, has been, the head of his father’s Security Service since November 2023, illustrating one of the issues that Russian-flavored forces may encounter in our interesting times).

We then go into the Georgian operation that marks the first foray into non-Russian territory even if an old Soviet land as Stalin would agree. We go back to the now almost-forgotten and jailed Mikheil Saakashvili, then the US-educated leader of Georgia, who post-Shevardnadze era, wanted to get closer to the West while spending 9.2% GDP on defense (some NATO members would blush). This very new post-Soviet approach led to Russian-assisted separatism in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and a swift Russian military intervention in the former to counter Tbilisi’s reaction to forcefully ensure national unity. As a prelude to what the world would see in Ukraine since February 2022, the swift and successful Russian operation, which Galeotti goes through in detail, also showed some flaws in terms of weak coordination and communication between the various Russian military units and branches. Georgia, if anything, led the Russia leadership to focus on the strategic need to change its military further. Many changes were indeed made to the Russian forces, and then applied in light-footprint interventions first in Crimea and then Syria, the latter that saw Russia operating militarily outside its regional sphere, and ultimately and unexpectedly helping save the shaky Assad regime.

Russia’s military overhaul was focused on modernization and professionalization to make the forces more adaptable to modern warfare. Combat platforms, electronic warfare forces, long-range precision weapons and drones, and hybrid and cyber weapons were also developed, as soldiers were better-trained while deployed in small conflicts like in Georgia and then Syria. The navy did not seem to get Putin’s focus and stayed a “green water” one as opposed to becoming a “blue water” one, unlike that of the US or even British and French navies – all while suffering substantial losses in recent months, making the Black Sea less “Russian.” However, all these positive developments did not go with the required battlefield effectiveness also for larger conflicts showing the challenges of an unfinished military revamp. Prior to February 2022, Russian armed forces had only been involved in relatively small conflicts (even if presented as “Little Green Men” like in Crimea and parts of Donbas in 2014 and later). To be fair, special operations, were also the focus of NATO and Western military forces over the last 20 years, especially since Iraq 2.0 for the US, this leading also some European countries, well beyond their reliance on Washington, to focus less on maintaining a credible defense machine. In addition, great wars were simply no longer in the minds of many in the West, all the more among younger generations, while the economy and jobs were the primary focus. War was simply no longer a factor. Ukraine would change this, to some extent even if foreign affairs were rarely on top of voters’ preoccupations.      

The Ukraine invasion is naturally dealt with in great detail (I shall keep for you to discover), even if we know that Galeotti was not helped by Putin’s timing as he had just finished his initial final draft in early 2022. While we were in a state of a “new cold war” since Crimea as of 2014, we will always speculate as to what drove Putin to invade the whole of Ukraine in 2022. Did the relatively soft Western response to Crimea à la Obama in 2014 help? Did Covid and his isolation and actual distancing from his top team wrongly enhance his dreams of restored imperialistic grandeur? Did the relative successes of the small (and at times low-key) operations in Crimea and Syria lead to misplaced over-confidence? We will never know and can keep speculating. What we do know is that the Ukraine invasion showed a more disorganized Russian army than most in the West would have expected. Such an invasion and the seizure of Kyiv should have taken one week as many believed, especially Putin. And then Ukrainian forces pushed back (NATO training since 2014 having helped) even if not able to lead a successful counteroffensive as seen in the summer of 2023. The state of the long insurgency war in Ukraine reflects both Russian military weakness and a much stronger and unexpected Ukrainian preparedness to repel such an invasion. If there is one key feature I would personally stress, it is that “equipment” does not replace or improve “management,” the key weakness of the Russian forces, also historically, being found in command and control from the top to the strangely still-absent NCOs at basic level. Securing obedience and loyalty among military commanders, a key and deeply-rooted feature for autocracies even if disguised as democracies, does not create efficiency on the battlefield. This key weakness for Russia is added today to deficiencies in logistics – spare parts, food, water or transport trucks, not to mention a still-poor training of junior officers, a remnant hazing of enlisted men, barracks from another age, bad troop nutrition and, of course, low pay.  The fact that the Wagner group pre-Prigozhin “downfall” seemed to be the best unit on the ground  was no surprise while using jail inmates (something Ukraine is now experimenting with) and a focus on mobilizing ethnic minorities were strange even if understandable,- also given the strong but unexpected outflow from the motherland of many educated men, like IT professionals, away from urban centers (this even if many Russians deep down backed “prestige restoration” – as long as it did not involve them it would seem). 

Finally, another key feature of Russian military issues is that the defense of one’s country does not guarantee the same energy and drive of military personnel when invading another, all the more so if not really threatened (this whatever the odd official line repeated by wooden-looking Kremlin spokesmen Dmitry about NATO’s intentions). Ukraine is a case in point, even if it does not guarantee that an 8% GDP war economy-transformed Russia (also perhaps reflecting an existential need, alongside its world leading nuclear stockpile) would not win over the long-term. Wars of that sort are clearly not linear in their developments, as seen with Ukraine also having gradually addressed its weaknesses in manpower, fortifications and munitions, while the current Russian offensive on Kharkiv is fizzling out and weaponry supply and refurbishing stocks appear to be key new issues going forward. A Russian ultimate win – largely focused on staying the course come what may – is clearly always possible if and when Ukrainians and the West were to get “tired”, also “helped” for the latter by an increasingly possible and ill-fated isolationistic and resulting Ukraine-forgetting Trump-Vance victory in November.

Warmest regards,

Serge                        

22-9-23

Dear Partners in Thought,

After nineteen months of the Ukraine invasion and many pieces on the tragic subject, I decided to focus briefly on another matter carrying its share of upheaval, by writing about Bashar al-Assad. Here is a man who led an improbable life from potential Western-like leader, if only in appearance, to civil war maker and despot. Con Coughlin, a veteran war correspondent since the Beirut of the early 1980s, wrote “Assad – The Triumph of Tyranny”, an eye-opening book on a man of benign appearance behind one of the greatest and bloodiest tragedies of the 21^st century. I have to admit that my knowledge of the Middle East as a child living in Paris in the 1960s and 1970s was limited to “Exodus” with Paul Newman and “Lawrence of Arabia” with Peter O’Toole until the Yom Kippur War suddenly changed that for me into a darker story – all while knowing on the surface, that the region was not a symbol of stability, since the state of Israel had been recreated also to assuage the sins of the Nazi German era. The book about Bashar al-Assad is full of many stories and provides a flood of angles reflecting the complexities of the Middle East. It also sheds some light on a man that we all saw but few knew well. As such, this Book Note will be longer than usual, so as to capture all the key events of the Bashar al-Assad saga.

We all remember Bashar as a nice and mild-mannered individual carrying hopes of modernity. Often with his charming wife Asma (once known by Vogue as “the rose of the desert”), they created a stylish and sympathetic couple in the early 2000s, after he took the leadership of Syria. The impactful couple, boosted by a very photogenic Asma, could have been a strategic tool for Syrian image re-engineering. Asma was a London-born Syrian, part of the refined Sunni elite (quite remote from the Assads’ rough Alawite crowds) and a JP Morgan investment banker. (On a funny side note, Asma, a very bright young lady, forewent Harvard Business School to elope with Bashar, after they had met when he was training as a compulsorily low-profile ophthalmologist in London, studying hard and quietly listening to Phil Collins and Whiney Houston in his flat). French President Jacques Chirac found him to be a nice leadership style-change for the region, and the former French League of Nations protectorate. Queen Elizabeth and the Syrian couple posed together for nice pictures stressing the normalcy of the new Syria, after the often-hard regime of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father. The future would destroy all of this genuine feel-good factor following tragic events in Lebanon post-Iraq invasion, the Arab Spring and the dreadful civil war that ensued—even if Arab states now seem to wish to reintegrate Bashar into the community of regional nations in mid-2023, and as the Middle East is also changing with Saudi Arabia working on a new regional and global role at many levels including sports. Coughlin’s book is a fascinating and often too-horrific story that deserves much reflection.   

Bashar was not destined to be a leader of Syria. He was not the eldest son or even eldest child of Hafez, and had no interest in politics. He indeed studied in London and became an ophthalmologist, something few realise today. The al-Assad family (Assad meaning “lion” and actually not the original family name in the Alawite region) was not destined to lead either, and came from a humble background. But times changed and a new version of Arab “socialism” helped the family seize power gradually from 1963 and fully in 1971. Then as often is the case with strong regimes or monarchies, Hafez’s brother thought he should lead the country instead of Hafez, but was finally exiled (although not shot, due to the intermediation of their mother). When Hafez became gradually ill and thought of succession in the 1990s, his first son, Bassel, who had the characteristics of a strong if not tough leader in the making, died at 31 in a car crash. Hafez’s daughter, Bushra, thought she could lead the country at 41 and was indeed equipped with many of the requisite features. But it was many years before “Me Too”, all the more in an Arab Muslim country, so she was discarded by her father and his senior team. Bashar then became the one left in the shop, with many arguing whether a medical doctor, probably too westernised and with a such a benign appearance, could become the successor of strongman Hafez. But then Bashar was the only Assad with the right seniority left, and when his father died in 2000, the debate was quickly and forcefully closed by him and he became the leader of Syria.    

Syria, since the advent of Hafez, was a country not led by religion and a monarchy as often seen in the Middle East, but by the socialist Baathist party—even if ten families around Hafez controlled the wealth of the country. A phenomenon often seen and lived with in what the West used to call “developing nations” the world over (see the 56-year Bongo dynasty in now coup-ridden Africa). Benign kleptocracy was at work, with all the slogans that the regime naturally worked for the people. Bashar ensured that the succession plans went well, even hiding the death of his father from his mother and family the day it happened, so he could prepare his next steps. While he was seen as a benign and even game-changing moderate when he “took over”, he had made sure he cleaned up the military and security services of dissenters. And he warned others with the wrong aspirations, like Rifaat, Hafez’s brother and perennial would be leader, that he was the one in charge.                          

The book stresses how Hafez’s Syria was not a friend of the West, and preferred to side with the Soviet Union during the Cold War on many issues, as well as post-Shah Iran. Notably when the latter, through its sponsored Hezbollah, sought to exert some control over Lebanon, a neighbour it also saw as its own. Syria’s opposition to Israel, a strong historical US ally in the region, also made the Moscow-Damascus link natural, even if so many Russians (admittedly not Soviet-supporting), emigrated to Israel. On a funny note and a regional scale prelude to how many nations today do not always side with the US or China, preferring to follow an opportunistic approach (like India liking Russian oil, but also getting closer to the West on grand strategic matters due to China), Syria backed the West in the 1990 Gulf War. It never liked its Baathist neighbour Saddam Hussein, while funding and supporting Iranian-led disruption in Lebanon and the region. In the last years of Hafez, Bashar had been in charge of the “Lebanon brief” for Damascus, and had facilitated Iran’s direct and indirect involvement in Lebanese affairs. This included supporting terrorist organisations and their leaders like then well-known Abu Nidal, not to mention Carlos “the jackal” (who liked the Damascus haven) and Islamic Jihad founder Mughniyeh, the man behind many bombings of US and French military barracks in Lebanon in the early 1980s.  When he took over the leadership of Syria in 2000, it seemed that Bashar tried initially to be a man of change (more economically than politically) and was perhaps conflicted by projecting the image of a modernised leader with a Western suited-look, while gradually following the steps of his father. More than likely helped by the not so enlightened Baathist old guard. Most observers would agree that it took one year for Bashar to adopt the old Assad style of power management, thus killing any hopes for a long Damascus Spring. Bashar clearly condemned 9-11 and provided intelligence to the CIA, to the delight of its Director George Tenet. All the while the Pentagon still saw him and Syria as part of the “Axis of Evil” and state sponsors of terrorism like Iran. Even the Blair administration tried very hard to get Syria to change its tack, going as far as for the “glamorous Bashar-Asma couple” to meet with the Queen in 2002 (apparently no trace of the visit can be found in the Buckingham Palace registry). As the 2000s unfolded, Bashar showed signs of not knowing where he wanted to stand, being very foreign affairs progressive on one-on-ones with Blair in Damascus, while attacking Israel publicly with a startled British leader at his side the same day. Or being very open with John Paul II, and then blasting Israel publicly during the same visit for having killed Jesus.  Bashar initially got closer to the Iranians in order to move away from Russia (who would come back in a decisive way during the Civil War, led by the now disgraced, Prigozhin-friendly General Surovikin) and surprisingly get better weaponry and communication systems from Tehran (on a side note, the fact that Moscow goes to Pyongyang today to get ammunitions it is lacking so much for its ill-fated Ukraine invasion, is also telling).    

The first major step in Bashar’s new direction, even if it was not clear or public at the time (nor that it was ever admitted), was the assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri in 2004, when a suicide bomber threw himself and two tons of explosives (more than what was used at Oklahoma City in 1995) into the politician’s car and his convoy of bodyguards. It turned out that investigations (including from the UN) pointed to Bashar’s brother and other family members being the culprits, even if Damascus always denied the facts. The roots of the assassination (and Bashar’s gradual anti-Western stance) were to be found in Hariri wanting truer independence for Lebanon, while Bashar wanted Syria to stay in the country as it had since 1976 in a controlling mode during the civil war, and make sure Lebanon would be part of Greater Syria as it should always have been historically. Bashar’s move may have also been helped by George W. Bush’s decisions to back a truly independent Lebanon and sanction Syria in 2003 while DoD Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was pushing for regime change and keeping Syria as a member of the “Axis of Evil” together with Iran. As a result, Bashar would wish to get closer to Iran and Hamas and take part in making the invasion of Iraq a failure for America, while helping to send Islamic fighters to Iraq to fight Western troops. At the same time even France, not an Iraq war supporter, was now backing the US in wanting Syria out of Lebanon, which stressed a different approach than the one taken by Chirac in 2000 when hopes were high for a new Middle East due to a perceived game-changing Bashar. In 2005, a few months after Hariri’s murder, and as Lebanon had become ungovernable, Syria and its 14,000 troops and intelligence officers left Lebanon after 29 years of “occupation” or “presence”, as Bashar could no longer manage it, and the anti-Syrian political blocks were about to win the elections; pro-Syrian politicians, like the Maronite Christian President Emile Lahoud, were to be gradually removed from office. Even allies and indeed funders like Saudi Arabia, became dismayed by Bashar’s perceived role in Harari’s assassination. Arab diplomats visiting an ally in Damascus also became concerned about Bashar’s erratic behaviour. Even his vice president, Halim Khaddam, a member of the Baathist old guard, decided to resign, while criticising the blunders of the leadership in Lebanon – and flying to Paris to avoid retribution, while becoming a voice for the opposition to Bashar, a dangerous role in itself even from afar. As he was reaching a low ebb, and questions about his political survival were raised, Bashar strengthened his ties with Iran and Hezbollah in a defensive move and further alienated the West, and even Damascus’s allies in the region. Damascus began a clearing house for Jihadi fighters traveling to Iraq, making Syria the clear enemy of the West and a dangerous, if not unstable, player for the region and its leaders. Only the very intense three-week summer 2006 fight between a Syrian ammunition and equipment-supported Hezbollah and an attacking Israel helped Assad to benefit from Hezbollah not losing (even if no side won) and him not to be the main focus of the region, while he gradually recovered from the setback of the Hariri assassination. Boosted by this rise in popularity, that he doubtless played on, he was “re-elected” for a second presidential term with 99% of the votes, in ways that were expected but without any local troubles. The end of the Iraq war would still see Western powers trying to get Bashar to stop his involvement in Iraq (which he eventually did, at least on the previously known scale) and stopping his support of Hezbollah and Hamas (which he did not, perhaps (or not) pressed by the old Baathist guard, his intelligence agencies, and the key strategic link to Iran). Syria was trying to play a leading regional and international role in hosting the Arab League Summit in 2008, while Sarkozy invited Bashar to the 2008 Bastille Day parade, a feat seen with Macron inviting Modi for the same key French celebration in 2023, also driven by clear foreign policy goals. While he still was strongly opposed to Israel also in very practical ways, Bashar wanted to get Syria supporting the never ending Arab-Israeli peace talks as if living in a parallel world of a country.

At the personal level a benign-looking and seemingly happily-married Bashar was also known as a party goer, heavy drinker and womaniser, even having had a regular German mistress according to clear evidence from Western intelligence. His personal life, like his political stances, appeared very conflicted, all the more given the projected image of a glamorous couple with three young children. His family affairs were not too happy either, with his decision to exile his Hariri-friendly brother in law (once shot by one of his brothers in a brawl), head of military intelligence, and putting aside his sister, once a “could have been” leader of Syria, who had remained too vocal in her aspirations. It nevertheless looked like a big public relations campaign was underway when American Vogue focused on Asma in February 2011 with its “Rose of the Desert” issue, and Damascus was trying hard to manage conflictual geostrategic positions while getting more accepted in the Western world.

At the same time, the Obama administration—in a hopeful gambit—was trying to adopt a more pragmatic approach to Bashar and Syria than his predecessor. And then the Arab Spring erupted following a street vendor setting fire to himself in Tunis in December 2011, as he could no longer stand police harassment. Protests and riots started all over the Arab world, across monarchies and secular countries. Leaders of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya would fall, at times paying the ultimate price, while Saudi Arabia and Jordan weathered the storm. Syria’s descent into chaos started with misbehaving children suffering very seriously at the hands of the local police led by Bashar’s cousin Najib in Deraa, which led to mass protests all across the country in a local replica of the Arab Spring. Bashar, who blamed the Muslim Brotherhood, seemed initially hesitant in how to deal with the unrest, likely due to the new image he was trying to project, but went for usual and tested force (while keeping for himself USD 200m that Saudi Arabia had just given to help him mend fences in Deraa through the funding of community projects). His youngest brother, Maher, also known for his heavy drinking and womanizing, was put in charge of the repressions of the protests. The first international victim of the repressions was the Vogue article that disappeared from the magazine’s website. While what was left of the Syrian opposition hoped that protests might have led Bashar to start implementing his old Damascus Spring reforms, he went to the Syrian Parliament to denounce a conspiracy to destabilise the Syrian government, stressing under the standing ovation of state-appointed delegates that Syria would not be Iraq.        

The Syrian civil war, which we all remember unfolding, was deemed by Con Coughlin to be worst war he experienced in forty years of reporting since Beirut in the early eighties. It started with the Arab Spring protests that mutated into a war at home. The difference with other Arab Spring war-like developments, like in Libya, was that chemical weapons were used to defend the regime, likely since December 2012 in Homs, this without clear evidence in spite of suspicions from the international communities and various NGOs. Of historical note, Syria in the 1980s had the third largest chemical weapons stockpile in the world after the US and the Soviet Union. Iran had then contributed in the Bashar years to Syria’s ability to keep using such weapons.  In August 2013 various parts of Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, were massively attacked by chemical weapons which, while the strike was always officially denied by the regime, reflected Bashar’s determination to defeat the rebel forces and his gambling drive in extreme circumstances. The attack was launched as a UN inspection team was in the Damascus Four Seasons hotel to investigate such matters under challenging terms and conditions, so as to seed the fact that they could only be the result of rebel actions even if Ghouta itself, under siege for six months, was an opposition stronghold. Chemical weapons had been Obama’s red line which if crossed would lead to US military intervention of an Iraq war nature ten years before. However, Obama did not want to experience an Iraq 2.0 in Syria, nor follow the Franco-British approach that overthrew Gaddafi in Libya in 2011, even if he made clear in December 2011 that Bashar should step aside for the sake of the Syrian people. The UN officially designated the conflict in Syria as a civil war in June 2012, while Obama would forget his chemical weapons red line – at a personal political cost, even if many at home did not want another far away war – while sanctioning Bashar and his brother Maher and funding pro-Western rebel groups. Chemical weapons were one terrible feature of the overtly new Bashar Syrian management style – intelligence was another.

By 2011, the Mukahbarat, the leading domestic intelligence agency and all other security organisations comprising up to 70,000 agents became coordinated under the CCMC or Central Crisis Management Cell that had been created in March of that year, days after the initial Deraa uprising. Most security officials were Alawites as they could be trusted to preserve the Assad regime, and controlled one third of the USD 9bn annual defence budget. At this time, there was one intelligence officer for every 240 Syrian nationals. At some point the regime also turned to irregular militias or “shabiha”, usually from poor Alawite extraction and in the drug trade or racket business, to control the unrest through industrial murder, rape and torture. This very powerful security and repression apparatus was completed by the Baathist Party, set up to control the country, while its local leaders were known to enrich themselves, as seen in many developing countries the world over, via endemic corruption (and knowing that 30% of Syrians were living below the poverty line while 11% were below subsistence levels while the leadership was seen at the opening of the new Opera House in Damascus to cater to the needs of the ruling elite). Bashar would not get involved in details of the repression, but was aware of them and giving a clear freedom of action to his security services to act as they saw fit irrespective of the horrors that would ensue, like with barrel bombs and the targeting of hospitals.      

The West was not the only party asking for Syrian reform, as Turkey and Saudi Arabia started to request it, fearing a meltdown of Syria. This prompted Bashar to speak about reforms of many institutions, including the constitution, but keeping the repression which only fostered the civil war. The repression involved death, torture and rape of men, women and children by the Syrian security services to break the opposition, which it only strengthened. Bashar kept arguing that Jihadists and foreign powers wanting to topple his government were responsible for the unrest, insisting it was not another wave of the Arab Spring. He went as far as freeing many Jihadists, only to point to them later, and not the actual secular opposition, as the enemy in order to justify, if not rationalise, the hard repression. At some point, this new turn became more real than Damascus wanted, as Jihadist fighters left Iraq to fight in Syria in an internationalisation of the local conflict. And then these fighters became funded by Turkey, Qatar and even Saudi Arabia as Jabhat al-Nusra, a local al-Qaeda franchise, was created and al-Qaeda chief al-Zawahiri declared a jihad against the regime, leading to Islamist fighters from the whole region including Libyans and Chechens to come to Syria. The internationalisation of the conflict came at a point when a US-Russia initiative would eventually make Damascus agree to destroy its chemical weapons arsenal. Obama, using Putin’s initiative as likely excuse, would step away from a direct US involvement to remove Bashar, even if many US foreign policy pundits stressed the opposite (as would Britain, as the Commons did not back PM Cameron who would have joined Obama). The US non-involvement made Russia and Iran de facto the only foreign powers involved, this on the side of Bashar in dealing with Sunni Islamist fighters in what was an unexpected salvation. The civil war – and war it had become – saw Damascus losing gradually against the secular and Islamist opposition forces, this prompting Iran and especially Russia now to take a step Obama had not been able to take – direct intervention on the side of Damascus – all the more given the American void and the rise of a new Sunni Islamist group known as Daesh. Russia had been an ally of Syria since the Soviet days, and was the main provider of military equipment to Damascus, also enjoying two bases in Syria. Putin, however, did not seem to be keen on getting involved directly in the conflict, seeing Syria as a side show even if Russia kept vetoing UN resolutions against Syria and was badly in need of an influence-booster globally, but also in the Middle East.   

At some point, the war involved up to 150,000 opposition fighters, 80% coming from 100 countries on the secular and mostly Jihadist side, while the Syrian forces, initially 200,000 strong were down to 50,000 (always comprising Sunni conscripts led by Alawite commanders) due to casualties and increasingly mass desertions. It was estimated that 1,000 opposition groups were fighting the Assad regime, some very small and local. The Assad regime was losing and was about to go away. By 2015, there was an assumption that the Assad regime could not survive while the West, that wanted Bashar out, was concerned about who would replace him, a Jihadist takeover not being seen as a viable option in what was increasingly viewed as a lose-lose game. In what could be seen as a bad joke given the Prigozhin story years later, Belarus was deemed to be a viable relocation option for Bashar and his family. While the tide was not good for Bashar, his mother Anisa would have reprimanded him, stressing that if his father and older brother had been around, this defeatist scenario would never have happened. All while Asma would seem to live in another parallel world, focused on design and artistic projects, and trying to defend her husband with her lady friends part of the leading families ruling the Middle East.    

Iran had been the reason why Bashar could cling to power as the war was not going his way. Iran’s conservative Islam was at odds with a secular Baathist ideology (even if only power really mattered), but it took a wider view of the conflict and its opposition to Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region. Iran was not enough for Syria to prevail, which drove Qds Forces Commander Soleimani (who would meet his death in January 2020 with a US drone strike in Baghdad) to convince Russia’s Putin to get involved to stop the debacle that might also hurt Russian interests and see them lose two bases in which they had heavily invested. A Russian-Iranian cooperation pact was signed in July 2015. Putin’s masterstroke was to go to the UN after ten years of absence and announce Russia would be ready to lead the fight against international terrorists in Syria, very much stressing Daesh at the main target (on a quasi-funny note, there had been some 2,400 Russians identified as Daesh members but to be fair the terrorist organisation also included British Jihadists known as “The Beatles” due to their strong Liverpudlian accents).

When the first Russian bombings started, the targets turned out to be US-backed rebel forces. While Russia wanted to support a vital strategic ally, even if Putin held the Syrian leader in low esteem, its key motivation was also to challenge the West in what few saw as a proxy war. All of this only a few months before Russia went into Crimea, thus helping to refocus Western minds about what Russia really was about, and which Putin stressed again following his February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. It should be stated that the US national security apparatus was not all enamoured by Obama’s cautious approach, since the red line had been crossed and nothing happened, even if his approach was also motivated by the instability seen in Iraq again with Daesh – the likes of Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and new CIA David Petraeus wanted some direct intervention on the side of the “secular” opposition. But the problem was that Syrian anti-aircraft defences were Russian-made, and also operated, which the new direct Russian officially anti-terror groups involvement was making impossible to consider lest WW3 was possibly an option.    

As Coughlin aptly notes, Russian military’s preferred tactic is to apply brute force to achieve its objectives, irrespective of destruction and misery it may cause (including on its own). 4,000 artillery shells were fired per day at the city of Grozny during the Chechen war. Georgia in 2008 had also been a case of military ineptitude, which would be found again 15 years later in Ukraine. As Russia was increasingly looking at a direct intervention, the Libyan conflict, that had seen a mainly Franco-British operation successfully ejecting Gaddafi, was reviewed by Moscow as it essentially involved support to local militias that carried out the operations, a model William Hague had stressed as “the paradigm for future military interventions to remove rogue regimes”. Russia was very wary of committing ground forces, preferring to follow the Libyan business model, which led to the Gerasimov Doctrine of hybrid warfare. Thus Crimea became the test in 2014, when “little green men” did the initial job, allowing Putin to deny anything until Russia was effectively in control of the peninsula. Crimea, and the lack of Western response, doubtless bolstered Russia’s confidence in going into Syria in the Autumn of 2015, even if 3,000 miles away. Russia would lead a massive air campaign against both the secular and Daesh forces led by now well known if removed General Sergei Surovikin, assisted by the Wagner mercenary group which built its reputation in Syria before venturing into Africa. In a novel development, Russia and its leading officers were also financially rewarded for their support of Bashar in a model adopted later by Wagner Group’s Prigozhin and his various mines in the African Sahel.

While Russia was effectively a war gamechanger, and as Bashar was nominally in charge of Syria, he was no longer leading the war (even if he never was in practical terms and as Iran’s Qds Commander Soleimani had done it before). Russia decided every aspect of the war, making him likely feel he could be replaced if unhappy. Bashar maintained the appearance of being in control of the war for internal purposes, and kept to his state of denial about any atrocity committed in the name of his regime, even during BBC and CBS interviews in the midst of the onslaught. He increasingly stressed to the West that it was better for them that he kept leading Syria than Daesh as the nature of the war had changed its key dynamics. He even kept stressing that diplomacy was the best option, even inviting a French delegation to review what sensible settlement of the war could be achieved. The war was a complex military and foreign policy matter as allies were not liking each other, and foes were also not clear. Turkey supported both the secular opposition and Islamist terror groups, while the latter like Daesh would attack the former alongside Russia which it also fought against. The war had taken a turn in becoming an extension of the now old “war on terror” more than one focused on the current Syrian regime. The West wanted regime change in Damascus but did not want to be helping Daesh. This situation helped Russia (and Iran) take the lead out of a lack of clear Western commitment (based on rational reasons), which eventually led to Bashar staying in power against all odds when Racca, the Syrian capital of Daesh, was taken in October 2017 marking the real end of a conflict that would go on in various small locations for months to come. Bashar’s main challenge to his rule had been destroyed, and he thought he had won, even if in a pyrrhic mode, actually not making much mention of Russian and Iranian assistance.  Perhaps the only real winners in this conflict were Russia and Iran.  But did the Kremlin use that experience in the best of ways when looking at what came next?         

The Syrian tragedy deserves many studies, on too many awful topics, as there are so many questions left. The philosopher in each of us could ask whether “Bashar created the tragedy” or “the tragedy created Bashar” but it is far beyond the point today. How can Syria come back in the world of nations – even if the old-fashioned Western term may seem obsolete? (The same could be asked about Russia of course.) How can half a million dead be forgotten? How can 13 million displaced Syrians, nearly 60% of its 2012 population, many having unwittingly created immigration and refugee havoc in Europe since the mid-2010s, be humanly but also realistically dealt with? (the UN officially stated in August that there were 40 million asylum seekers in the world today, Syrians likely taking first place.) Will Assad be ever forgiven, even on tactical grounds, for what we know, this even as he shows some caution in dealing with the Druze these days? Will his re-joining the Arab community, as seen with the “practical” welcoming back from the Arab League in mid-2023 after 12 years of being shunned, be a sign of things to come? How will Israel, Qatar or even Egypt and Jordan react, not to mention the investment community? There are many questions around Assad, but the region seems to be also on another path with a different Israel, led by a Netanyahu captive of his never seen before coalition. Or, come to that, a Saudi Arabia and an Iran finally being on talking terms, thanks to a more foreign policy assertive Beijing, primarily focused on its world leadership rise and its features, all the more at a time of serious economic and demographic problems at home. It is clear that Saudi Arabia, now a BRICS member (with the UAE and fragile Egypt), and the Gulf states, redefining their economic and existential roots, are taking a more proactive leadership role in the region that would go beyond leading world golf and football for one, and luxury havens for the others. A visionary Saudi MBS stated a few years ago that the Middle East was the new Europe, even if the dream proved to be hard on the economic and political front recently, as seen with protests in Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and the deepening civil war in Sudan. 

One of the major Syrian issues we can see today for the region (and thus the world) is the Damascus regime having become a major exporter of drugs, its slow path in taking back refugees, and the Iranian-backed militias running around the country. While the UAE was a leading promoter of Syrian rehabilitation, other countries like anti-Bashar Qatar or US-following Kuwait were not keen, while Egypt and Jordan had strong question marks. Saudi Arabia changed its mood in the context of its own leadership rationale, lesser tensions with nemesis Iran and wanting the region more stable, taking the February 2023 earthquake as an opportunity to also change its tune and restart a dialogue with Bashar.

These developments have been indirectly a victory for both the Russian-Iran team and war as a viable option given that it secured Bashar’s regime. Russia also hopes that the Arab League’s rehabilitation will allow it to keep its gains while not focusing as much on Syria going forward, given its other main focus. While the US has reduced its military presence in the Middle East since Obama, the West seems to keep sanctioning Syria, but is too busy today with Ukraine to really care about a regional rehabilitation or trying to stop it. As for Syria itself, Bashar who stands “for Arab identity against Western hegemony” (his speech in Riyadh last May) does not seem apologetic for anything, and would even seek apologies from those in the region who opposed him, while likely using the drug trade as leverage in discussions with its neighbours and their deep concerns about its impact on their own countries. All in all, Bashar has not changed and has benefitted from a complex, and at times strange, geopolitical chessboard to keep ruling Syria, even if at times in vacillating ways. And today some Western analysts see Syria potentially as the last and odd addition to the new anti-Western axis in the making, though not yet very firm, comprising Russia/Belarus, China, North Korea and Iran.         

Coughlin’s book is very useful to remember Bashar’s journey and better understand the many features that led to the Syrian tragedy, even if it is full of facts and at times going back and forth with events, making the chronology harder to grasp, especially in the last twelve years. A thorough reading is required, all the more for those not being Middle East old hands, as events, especially during the civil war were plentiful. The story of Bashar and his family could have been one crafted by Shakespeare, and reminds us that freedom and democracy are rare features in today’s world, and that they are worth actively defending and strengthening, unless we all end up becoming residents of Ghouta.    

Warmest regards,

Serge

4-11-22

Dear Partners in Thought,

As we are living through times reminiscent not only of the forgotten Cold War, but also of the gradual rise to WW2, it should be useful to review “Danger Zone”, the new book on the collision course of China with the West by American scholars Hal Brands (Johns Hopkins, American Enterprise Institute) and Michael Beckley (Tufts, American Enterprise Institute). 2022 has seen a return to old geopolitical ways in the middle of Europe, with Russia’s failed rapid invasion of Ukraine and, more globally, with a China, under the leadership of an increasingly Mao-like Xi Jinping, that seemed ready to assert its ambitions through old ways at a time when it is also faced with serious internal challenges. The dual threat to both the West and the world order as we knew it was surprising to many (like me and…Angela Merkel amongst others) who genuinely thought that globalisation and the “economy first” would create enough incentives to (relatively, for some) powerful autocratic states never to return to old ways of supremacy assertion. Ukraine changed everything rapidly, putting Taiwan on the map of serious potential world issues. While Russia leads an ill-fated and, so far, unsuccessful existential drive not to be relegated to what it actually is, energy and nuclear weapons aside, China is the “potential” and “eventual” world leader in the making, the question being in how many years. While the world is getting upside down due to an erratic Russia and a soul-searching China, the West is getting weaker by the year led by a Civil War-like-divided America. Even the European Union, weakened by a Brexit that that never made Britain stronger, is divided among its members on many issues and policies, the latest being the funding of its energy needs. At this stage, China may be a factor of stability or one of crisis enhancement globally, the latter being the topic covered by Brands & Beckley.

Brands & Beckley start the book with a bang in January 2025, and a Taiwan invasion at a time when a truly-divided America is arguing anew who won the 2024 presidential race, with fights in the streets in a super-January 6 mode—this time across the whole land. The USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier is also hit by a missile, while Chinese special forces target Taiwanese leaders, and cyberattacks take down Taiwan’s power grid and an amphibious assault begins. While this scenario seemed outlandish in the early to mid-2010s, the world changed as China started to assert itself more forcefully but also Russia gradually changed the game, first starting via “little green men” and local Russian nationalists in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine in 2014 and then more clearly in February 2022 with the direct invasion of its European neighbour. Brands & Beckley put forward a sound explanation for China’s potential bellicose assertiveness, that would not be driven by seeking world leadership (as often stated) but more as a result of serious internal weaknesses, like poor demographics, slow economic growth and a more autocratic leadership style—as seen with the new (life?) term of Xi Jinping. China is still relatively strong, if only due to its size and its role in the world economy, but actually not so much as seen with the inept Zero Covid policies in large urban centres, that create economic and social havoc, with no real health basis, annoying the local population, and stressing a rather incompetent Chinese political leadership. Some should question the relevance of the Chinese Communist Party in 2022 in terms of its current relevance and societal usefulness—in the same way the out-of-this-world Iranian theocratic regime and its inept policies, that could likely fall at some point as younger and even older Iranians who want to live in the real world “don’t want it anymore”. The deal between the CCP and the middle class based on “travel the world and buy Western goods” is under potential threat (hopefully not, especially for Toorbee, a start-up I am close to and which is focused on making Chinese travel the world better as well as bringing good ideas back home). According to Brands & Beckley, the key Chinese problem lies in its “peaking power” status that makes it very dangerous. One of Beijing’s problems, that could accelerate a conflict, is that it has reached a point of historical weakness in its competition with the US for world supremacy, which might trigger a more hostile stance. Insecurity would be a driver, as it may have been for Putin, arguing that his Ukraine move (once the childish Peter the Great points are cast aside) is driven by the eastern NATO expansion and the direct threat to Russia (as if the West wanted to invade it… which makes eyes roll across all Western capitals). It would seem that China’s problems may be linked to its earlier economic successes that were not skilfully managed by a CCP leadership, also going back to a Mao-like era, with Xi Jinping who drew a line over the recent past (what was to be gained from the public dismissal “for health reasons” of former Premier Hu Jintao as if to make things of a new era clearer?). Brands & Beckley point to declining economic performance, misallocation of capital on a grand scale, an oversized property sector and rising uncontrolled debt—to which could be added issues with its grand “Belt and Road Initiative” scheme of investing in developing nations, like across Africa, and suffering many financial setbacks—all reminding observers of many of the lethal pitfalls that made the former Soviet Union eventually fall. This last point opens the debate on whether autocracies can really manage the economy well and, again, whether loyalty to the leader(s) is not always accompanied by incompetence that eventually destroys the leader(s)—Russia and Iran being ongoing cases in point.

China should be engaged more forcefully—not to make it more dangerous but to remind it that its best interests are to be part of the concert of key nations in a globalised world. China should learn from Turkey’s Erdoğan who seized the Ukraine crisis to play a positive moderating world role, at a time its image had not been very positive for years. It looks like China was taken by surprise by the Ukraine invasion, right after a warm declaration of mutual friendship with Putin’s Russia a few days before the invasion. China had to be neutral and not condemn Moscow but grew increasingly concerned as months went by and Putin failed militarily (both on the battlefield, and with his ill-fated mobilisation drive, that showed more Russians leaving the motherland than joining the army) and found itself gradually isolated, only finding firm support from the likes of North Korea or Iran. It should be noted that the US is not the only party to have issues with China, as seen with the recent visit of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Beijing, as he deals with the massive and increasingly Berlin-uncomfortable trade between the two countries. The West, as a whole, has good reasons to ensure that China stays on a globalised course and avoids Putin’s delusions that will mark Russia for generations likely after he is gone, willingly or not.

There are other books on China today that are worth mentioning, namely from Mandarin-speaking former Australian Premier Kevin Rudd’s “The Avoidable War”, which presents a more optimistic future of the challenging US/Western -China relationship. While always being attentive to the hostility of autocracies, and fighting its overt expressions like with Russia, the united West (hopefully also at home in the case of America) should always remain positive when dealing with China, as it is too big an opponent to have regardless of its many own challenges. A Western-China conflict would be a lose-lose scenario, which does not mean that the West should be too accommodating or forgetful of its founding values. The world should concentrate on stability, and sound globalisation should be its focus as a way of maintaining mutually-beneficial peace.

Warmest regards,

Serge

19-8-22

Dear Partners in Thought,

As I wrote about leadership-making in David Gergen’s recent book “Hearts Touched with Fire,” where leadership was deemed “good” in essence, I also stressed that some leaders were not always good in nature, often leading their countries and the world to a dangerous path. As such, I thought it would be good to do a Book Note on “The Age of the Strongman – How the Cult of the Leader threatens Democracy around the World” from the Financial Times’ Gideon Rachman. The very gifted journalist and author (one of the best columnists at the FT today) tells us about those leaders who are easily identified as strongmen—and there are many today. These men (there is no woman yet) are household names, and sadly represent a large segment of the world population, usually in the developing world or (in the case of China) as the aspiring world leader. Rachman tells us more about Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Xi Jinping, but also Narendra Modi, Jair Bolsonaro and others like daringly, Boris Johnson for whom he makes a strong case for strongmen club membership—however mild he may be in comparison to the others. He reminds us of earlier times, when many of those leaders in the developing or actually rising world, showed a more Western-like democratic flavor in their governing style (and policies) when they fully played the global cooperative game—unlike today also, in the new cold war scenarios we see unfolding.

The picture we get is worrying at two levels: i) these leaders, often representing very large countries, seem to increasingly rule the world or have a great impact on its events and ii) the democratic West is not healthy today, due to a combination of the rise of the extremes, a loss of basic values that made it, and the initially-unplanned adverse impact of tech, via truth-distorting and opinion-shaping social media: all affecting how people, and then voters, think. These leaders at both macro (country) and micro (corporates, business and investments) levels also create never-seen post-Cold War geopolitical risks, this including in parts of the West, when leadership can at times slip into practical authoritarianism in style, and increasingly in substance—as seen on a few occasions in post-Brexit Britain and in Trump’s America, even if in a mild way given the democratic context.

Vladimir Putin is emblematic of the old-fashioned strongman as seen with the invasion of Ukraine but also in the way Russia was governed since 2000, and especially since “Georgia” in 2008—not that Russia ever was a beacon of freedom and peaceful foreign policy-making. Even if George W. Bush in post-9-11 shock was able to “get a sense of his soul” in 2001. Twenty-two years is a long time in politics, though strongmen tend to stay in power forever—as shown with Xi’s plans for life ruling, or Erdoğan’s tenure in Ankara, that mirrors Putin’s. While Putin is naturally the first strongman to be addressed by Rachman, there is a large number of them that he focuses on. Rather than going into the features of each of them, I thought it was better to list them and their short chapters (about 15 pages on average) so as to let readers discover their details, while focusing on interesting aspects of the world of strongmen. The main feeling, admittedly very worrisome, arising from reading Rachman’s book, is that the West is not the world, and that the world is not democratic—also at a time when Western democracy is in peril due to its own issues today.

Rachman’s strongmen list starts with i) Putin – aptly named the archetype (2000); followed by ii) Erdoğan– from liberal reformer to authoritarian strongman (2003); iii) Xi Jinping – China and the return of the cult of personality à la Mao (2012); iv) Modi – strongman politics in the world’s largest, still-called, democracy (2014); v) Orban, Kaczynski and the rise of illiberal Europe; vi) Boris Johnson and Brexit Britain (2016); vii) Donald Trump – American strongman (2016); viii) Rodrigo Duterte and the erosion of democracy in South East Asia; ix) the rise of Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and the Netanyahu phenomenon (2017); x) far rightist Bolsonaro, in Brazil, radical leftist “Amlo” in Mexico and the return of the Latin American caudillo (2018); xi) Abiy Ahmed and democratic disillusionment in Africa (2019); xii) lonely Merkel, Macron and Europe’s struggle against the strongmen; xiii) George Soros, Steve Bannon and the battle of ideas. The book finishes with an epilogue on President Biden in the Age of the Strongman. It is worth noting that some strongmen like Lukashenko in Belarus, Hun Sen in Cambodia or Kim Jong-un in North Korea are not addressed, not as they are gentle ones, but as they do not play a key role (so far) in changing the climate of global politics (one could disagree with the erratic Kim, but selection is key when dealing with such a large population of leaders that would give political commentator and author David Gergen a strong headache).

While the stories of these strongmen make for fascinating reading in terms of how they got to power and managed their often evolving “leaderships,” Rachman makes very useful points as to the nature of these types of leaders and their times, as follows:

• The general backdrop is clear. Over the last 20 years, liberal values like freedom of speech, independent courts, and minority rights have been under assault all over the world and especially as strongmen developed their autocratic style and/or rule.

• The West and its elites, especially political and mediatic, mistook many future strongmen like Putin, Erdoğan, Modi, Orban, and even Xi as reformers who could take their countries on a Western liberal path, that was deemed the universal way post-Cold war. These future strongmen, some who changed very quickly like MBS, also showed unusual liberal and reformist “tendencies” as they started leading their countries when compared with past leadership, this for a short time as the “Riyadh hotel jail” episode showed. The West did not see what was coming.

• The strongmen are different in nature from the unchallenged autocrats (Xi in China, MBS in Saudi Arabia) to those in the middle (Putin in Russia—this arguably— , Erdoğan in Turkey) who are subject to some increasingly-vanishing forms of democratic constraints like elections, and limited press freedom—to those who operate in democracies, but show contempt for its norms, and keep eroding them (Orbán in Hungary, clearly Trump in the US, and even Johnson in Britain, who showed perhaps the mildest, but a real strongman-case on many occasions).

• The strongman model was furthered even among clear authoritarian regimes like China or Saudi Arabia, where the likes of Xi and MBS gradually concentrated power around them, and away from a more collective leadership, either from the Communist Party or the Saudi Royal family. Today Xi is becoming a new Mao with no term limits.

• The two emerging powers of the 21st century, China and India, have both gradually adopted strongman politics, while representing an immense part of the world population that, so far, seem to accept such a political modus operandi that projects nationalism, strength, and a strong hostility to weak (Western) liberalism.

• The strongmen are not all the same, but they are similar through four cross-cutting common features: i) the creation of a cult of personality; ii) contempt for the rule of law; iii) the claim to represent the real people against the elite a.k.a. populism, well shown with Donald Trump even today and; iv) a politics driven by fear and nationalism.

• Strongmen sell themselves as indispensable and the only ones to save the nation, making little or no distinction between the state and the leader. They stress their nationalism, cultural conservatism, little tolerance for minorities, and dissent for the interests of foreigners, however fair and valid.

• Very often, strongmen rule as a family, with Erdoğan having appointed his son-in-law as finance minister and Trump his own son-in-law to take a key role in foreign and domestic politics. Bolsonaro appointed his three sons to key official positions, including one as Ambassador to the US. Duterte’s candidate to succeed him in Manila was his daughter (but then a young Marcos also came in). Even Boris Johnson appointed his brother Jo to the cabinet and then the House of Lords, as an aside (my comment), not the most democratic or meritocratic of institutions.

• Strongmen, unlike the dictators of the 1930s, operate in a challenged but still globalized world, where international law theoretically prevails, though take advantage of the technologies of the 21st century, allowing them to connect directly with the masses and, in many ways, shape their views and/or control them. These developments can take different forms, with two extremes in motion: in the West, actual and aspiring populist strongmen rely on social media and the likes to shape and control the minds of voters, while in true autocracies like China, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube (the latter used by Alexei Navalny in Russia in earlier days to post online videos of the corruption of Putin and his inner circle) are blocked, and the internet is under strict online social control.

• Long periods of power allow strongmen to appoint loyalists in key positions, including in the courts, that have an impact on the daily life of their citizens. Duterte “restructured” the Filipino Supreme Court to his liking, while 4,000 judges were purged in Turkey during a state of post-coup emergency in 2016. Although not in the same environment, Trump (admittedly due to his timing in office and following a legal process) ensured the US Supreme Court became very conservative for some time, resulting in decisions (or no decisions) not reflecting the views of a vast majority of Americans today.

• Strongmen disdain institutions but love “the people”—this being associated with populism as still seen in 2022 with Trump and his die-hard base. Simple solutions for complex issues are put forward also, as they can be understood by the largest number, many of whom are not troubled with analytical processes. Simple messages like “Get Brexit Done” and “Build that Wall” were famously heard in recent years with great results for the strongmen.

• Legal and state institutions are often portrayed by strongmen as obfuscation tools used by the elites and a “Deep State” to protect themselves, and need to be broken when the ends justify the means. Similarly, shadowy foreigners are often portrayed by strongmen as plotting against the interests of the people, George Soros having been a case in point in Orbán’s Hungary.

• In most cases, strongmen fight for the people living in small towns and the countryside against the urban elites, often splitting the vote—when there is one—like in the US in 2016 and 2020—on educational lines. Trump lost heavily among college graduates, but gained 80% of the vote of non-college educated white men in both presidential elections. In the UK, 73% of school leavers without any qualifications voted Leave while 75% of voters with post-graduate degrees voted Remain.

• Nostalgic nationalism works also for the strongmen, hence the famous “Making America Great Again”, as they attract those poorly educated voters who have not benefitted the most, if at all, from globalization and experienced standards of living declines in recent decades. Bringing back the good times also works well in America or Britain, whatever the precise message. Similar messages are heard in Turkey, Hungary or Russia, with the Peter the Great approach about regaining territories, therefore past grandeur. Even Global Britain, that drove Brexit is linked to some nostalgia for an era when Britain was ruling the global waves, a sentiment not lost on the oldest voters even if they should remember the dreadful seventies better than a Victorian era they only read about.

To look at this week’s world, the already-disputed election of William Ruto in Kenya, a self-styled “hustler” and former chicken street farmer, also known as an African Bolsonaro, is a potential additional sign of a slide into authoritarianism and strongman ethos in Africa—even if resulting from an official democratic process. The news that former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison took over “discreetly” five ministries during the peak of the Covid era, this whatever the rationale for doing so, is another (admittedly mild as Western-flavored) example—very unusual for Australia—of the rising strongman era, even in the democratic West.

The Age of the Strongman brings three additional remarks: i) there were many strongmen in history in recent centuries like Louis XIV or Napoléon Bonaparte. If anything, strongmen always ruled “their” world; ii) the current era may make us realize that democracy, as we used to know it even in its more natural incarnation and fullest form in the West, is a very short and thus fragile experience in world history. There were only 12 democracies in the world in 1945; and iii) while being nationalist first, strongmen can work together especially against the West and its positions, as seen with their effective support or lack of condemnation of Russia, also for tactical reasons, in the context of the Ukraine invasion. In a rather low-key though telling development, China will send troops to a Russia-led military exercise in the Russian Far East where India, Mongolia and Tajikistan will also take part.

Liberal democracy was only ascendant for 20 years following the end of the Cold War, also reflecting a unipolar US world that non-Western strongmen started to attack as they built their power at home. The financial crisis of 2008, the ill-fated Iraq war, and rapid rise of China stopped taken-for-granted Western world dominance, even if the US stayed the leading world player. The rise of the strongmen and the fragility of Western style-democracy is also why it is imperative for liberal democrats not to be weak, and defend democracy with the utmost vigor. This fight is implying a renewed Western focus on education in order to best fight against the domestic dangers of social media-driven populism and its vote-grabbing and skill-less politicians of our times.

Gideon Rachman’s book is very dense, going through all the key strongmen of the moment and their main themes, like migration, which became a central tactical focus of the far-right parties in Europe since 2015. The Age of the Strongman is a book that needs to be read thoroughly and in a focused way, so rich are its contents and consequential its essence—all the more for the West, as we would like it to be, and how it should react to stop the authoritarian tide.

Warmest regards,

Serge

04-08-22

Dear Partners in Thought,

Ian Bremmer, founder and CEO of Eurasia Group—a New York-based global research and consulting firm—and G-Zero—a media company providing coverage on international affairs via its Signal newsletter—wrote a new book (from a “measured” American vantage point) on the three threats facing the world. The three global threats are i) deadly viruses similar to Covid-19 as experienced globally since early 2020; ii) climate change and; iii) the unexpected impact of new disruptive technologies (seen as the greatest threat of all as they impact mind and behavior. This is, incidentally, a threat that I wrote about in previous Interludes as a source of self-harm today in Western society. In doing so, and perhaps due to the timing of his publishing that coincided with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ian Bremmer is not listing among major threats the large traditional wars, all the more within or close to the West, that belonged to a forgone era—before Putin’s Russia brought them back into the limelight. He does mention, however, this tragic example of a return to old times in an Addendum. Incidentally, Bremmer likes the number three, as shown with his 2015 “Superpower” opus, where he stresses the three choices America could make for its role in the world

While having identified the three threats, Ian Bremmer emphasizes the poor level of preparedness to fight them due to two key factors. One is the state of domestic politics in America where consensus has disappeared and he rightly calls (with a degree of irony) a state of “uncivil war” that weakens the still-sole-superpower’s ability today to manage key problems for itself and the world. It is for Bremmer the only nation able to project multi-faceted power into every region of the world, while being at war with itself through a lack of unity on essential socio-political themes. All worsened by hardened partisan politics, and a rise of extremism, vividly seen among elected officials since the Trump era. Bremmer also sees America as a nation of contradictions, with Texans at times struggling without electricity, while NASA is landing on Mars. He provides a sound review of what is wrong with America today, and how it goes against its own interests and that of the West—and to a great extent the world. The key domestic dysfunctional drivers, at times combined, would be according to Bremmer i) the widening wealth gap; ii) the veneration of the private sector, leading to the neglect of American workers, this enhanced by; iii) the importance of money in politics, and the dependence trap of elected officials given the expected returns on investment of donors (see with the NRA); iv) the discredited societally-dividing formal and social media; and v) the embedded structural racism still pervading society (this, I would humbly add, in spite of much visible progress in many walks of American public and private life). He could have added more starkly, mass-shootings and politicized Supreme court disconnections with American society. Ever the pragmatic one, Bremmer then comes up with solutions to fix the American dysfunctionality, many of which may seem hard to reach today—or any time soon.

The other factor is the gradually-rising “new cold war,” far worse than the first one, between the US and China—two powers that should be rationally inter-dependent in our globalized set-up, which could eventually hamper the world’s collective future. Bremmer actually sees it as a more guaranteed way to the MAD scenario (Mutually Assured Destruction) of old. As of 2017 in Davos, Xi Jinping made it clear that China’s time had come to change history, following his plans for China’s global supremacy in AI, quantum computing, robotics and other tech segments—an initiative led by the state, and thus communist party, (whatever the latter means today in relation to its roots)—all in a globalized, inter-dependent world. Nine months later, Xi switched his official message from being a member and co-reformer of the international system, to leading it in providing the “Chinese solution” to the world’s problems. China has since then wanted to expand its control of the South China Sea, controlled Hong Kong further, and pushed Taiwan to “rejoin” (when not demonstrating aggressive military strength when top US officials visit the island nation). Beijing became externally more assertive in creating the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank that invests globally, and developed its (now struggling) Belt and Road Initiative further with more ports, roads and bridges—especially in Africa and Asia. All while Americans increasingly want the White House to focus on domestic problems, as gas price at the pump and inflation are rising today. As a key side-show, Covid-19 created more opportunities for Beijing to develop authoritarian solutions to control the disease, such as recently seen in Shanghai with its strange Zero-Covid policy, potentially and unexpectedly bearing the roots of key domestic middle-class dissent.

Bremmer’s G-Zero, a third issue of a permanent nature the world deals with, is rooted in a world once run by the G7 from 1975 to 2009. At that time of the global financial crisis the US, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada, who shared political values, led the world economy. By 2005 other countries like China, India, South Korea, Brazil, Turkey, Indonesia and Mexico started rising to more preeminence and independence from the West. This led to the G20 that regrouped key players with different views on democracy and free market economics. They all worked during the financial crisis (as they did post-9-11) to defeat the common enemy, but did not agree on much afterwards—hence Bremmer’s quasi-humorous G-Zero as the world entered an era of “geopolitical recession” which is ongoing, if not worsening. The Trump presidency had a major role in making the US more inward-looking and less globally-focused, with doubts about key organizations like NATO or the withdrawals from trade agreements, climate accords and the World Trade Organization. This G-Zero geopolitical recession in turn emboldened populist leaders (Gideon Rachman’s “Strongmen”) who were focused on easy answers to complex issues with a narrow nationalist focus. Bremmer therefore argues that global crises should enhance global cooperation in their fight and de facto that we actually need them for the world to work “together” in spite of rivalries, and to reset a failing world governance. Bremmer sees the hard-won nuclear reductions of the past as having been much easier to reach collectively, than creating a new “global public health system”, managing climate change fallout, or dealing with the destructive aspects of disruptive new technologies. Global cooperation will be all the harder in wealthy countries, as the non-college educated struggle to be part of a secure middle class, while in poorer countries the many have-nots now have a clearer and frustrating view of those who are more fortunate at home and globally. And a return to an “America First” in 2024 with Trump or one of his copycats would kill global cooperation. Bremmer however favors cooperation between rivals, even enemies.

Bremmer stresses that the US dysfunctionality and confrontation with China hurt the world’s response to Covid-19, a type of virus which was not only predictable but was indeed predicted by George W. Bush (2005), Barack Obama (2014) or Bill Gates, who actively led his foundation to focus on this matter. Both the dysfunctional US and autocratic China harmed the global response to Covid-19, that grew from one Chinese death to one million infections globally in three months. China, in particular, initially tried to silence doctors who wanted to share information on the virus, or avoided smooth global cooperation on finding its origins. This in turn leading to a more authoritarian stance on Chinese activism, more control on Hong Kong, and stronger views on Taiwan. Bremmer goes through the few real successes in global cooperation, and the many failures to be learned from, as Covid-19 (still persisting even if in a milder form after two-and-a-half years) should be one of many such threats arising in the future. Investing and cooperating early are the two simple recipes that are hard to achieve in a cold war environment among the two world leaders (all the more today, in the new context resulting from the invasion of Ukraine and its multiple impacts). Successful efforts against future pandemics will demand investment, moral imagination and political will in the context of a “Global Covax” in a cooperative context, involving rivals that will stay politically different.

Climate change does not care about borders and political tribes. It threatens the collective future of humanity on a larger and longer scale than pandemics, while affecting countries at all levels. Such a mega-threat requires cooperation on climate policy among direct competitors facing a direct enemy (in a wink to that scenario, Bremmer tells us of Reagan, a sci-fi movie lover, asking Gorbachev the first time they met in 1985 whether the US and the Soviet Union would cooperate if the earth was attacked by someone from outer-space. The quick answer was yes, perhaps paving the way for another world). Climate change has created famines that played roles in unrests and civil wars that led to displacements of populations, leading to backlashes as seen in Europe in the mid-2010s, with consequences favoring unforeseen political developments like Brexit. The section on climate change provides a very useful way for readers to understand its stakes and how to fight it, again in a global cooperation mode. Bremmer proposes a “Green Marshall Plan,” taken from the original post-WWII American design that involved rebuilding Europe—not the US—and was only enabled due to the Soviet threat in Europe. The American population had not been keen on it initially, preferring focusing back on domestic matters after years of fighting in Europe and Asia. Bremmer’s “Green Marshall Plan” would involve multinational investment in renewable energy and green jobs, and a global agreement to help resettle people displaced by climate change.

Tech has been front and center of news in the West via Big Tech, as the US (and more so the EU) have tried to regulate it as it gradually became omnipresent and thus increasingly powerful. Tech, like Aesop’s tongue, has been the best and the worst of things. The threat of rapid and disruptive technology is not new, and was always there in history. It is just far more rapid and more disruptive than ever, even if not always unleashing bad outcomes for mankind—far from it. Covid-19 started a war nobody won, but tech and the makers of disruptive tech were among those benefitting from it. Covid-19 showed that tech, in spite of having a chaotic virus to deal with, enabled a better management of the crisis through a better monitoring of the virus evolution, a vaccine development and, crucially, efficient remote working. The rapid, and the biggest threat of all—according to Bremmer—is, however, very real and deep when looking at the impact, not all positive, of lethal autonomous drones, cyberwarfare, biotechnology, Artificial Intelligence or the algorithms that replace people with machines in the workplace. These technologies have been rapidly shifting the relationship of individuals between themselves and with institutions in the West, while China gradually controlled the internet at home. In stark contrast to the message of 20 years ago, that the internet revolution would empower individuals and spread democracy, the reliance from too many on tech-based social media, often hate dissemination conduits of fake news, conspiracy theories and tools of oppression and violence, has been heavily damaging societally. These new media pushing clear agendas have curtailed independent thinking from individuals primarily seeking confirmation of their opinions, and have been highly damaging behaviorally also (my take) when combined with what seems a parallel declining focus on the quality of basic formal educational standards in the West. Lastly, communications tech, even “neutral” in nature, gave more exposure of inequalities to the have-nots globally, giving rise to massive anger and social disruption with direct attacks on institutions and their leaders. This section also gives us a very useful exposure to the race between China and the US to dominate quantum computing, which is another source of conflict, even if it should lead to more cooperation. Bremmer stresses the need to work together and set up the right framework, and indeed entity, to deal with the key issues related to tech.

Bremmer uses a quote from French scientist Louis Pasteur summarizing what is needed going forward and why: “Chance favors the prepared mind” or as Napoleon said and I like: “To govern is to foresee.” This, of course, is a rather basic fact, though not easy to implement in the context of a conflictual world, both domestically and globally. While we live in times of extraordinary opportunities, built over the last 50 years, when billions have comforts and opportunities far beyond the reach of medieval kings, we also face rising catastrophes in a context where world leaders fail to work together on common threats. Bremmer advocates “practical cooperation” among democracies and dictatorships, rich and poor countries that share common aspirations like security, dignity and prosperity, and need to work together on managing global threats. Bremmer offers several paths forward (ideally combined) like a “Global Covax”, a “Green Marshall Plan” and a “World Data Organization” all with roots in the then post-1945 UN-driven “new world in the making,” and based on the concept of international cooperation. Bremmer is also keen on not only outsourcing human crisis management to the private sector and ensuring governments also directly help those less fortunate in their countries, with the likes of strengthened social safety nets and guaranteed basic income.

In his short Addendum at publishing time, Bremmer touches upon the Russian “imperial” invasion of Ukraine in the context of the three threats and feels that, in spite of tragedies on the battlefield, and harm globally due to sanctions, and food and energy shortages, it helped unify the West, without creating too strong a Russia-China axis—whatever tactical approach is taken by the latter. Bremmer even thinks that Xi might restrain Putin’s imperial efforts and globalization destroying features, as not being to the advantage of a China that still needs clear borders, a behaving neighbor, and even more so globalization. This new cold war is also not like the old one, as Russia does not have the clout of the Soviet Union globally, even if the nuclear factor saving it from military irrelevance, in case of a wider conflict, is real. Bremmer, admittedly optimistic, feels that this type of conflict from another age, while “complicating things” and disrupting a world with less efficiency and more impunity at play, should not substantially derail the collective ability to manage global responses to the three key global threats he focused on —assuming the right steps are taken. He may indeed be too optimistic.

While “The Power of Crisis” is focused on key issues, threats and solutions, it is also a book full of details and nuances as to what is happening today and why, as well as how the world could fix problems that a Book Note could not give credit for. “The Power of Crisis” is certainly a book looking forward with hope, that is worth reading and reflecting upon.

Warmest regards,

Serge

17.07.22

Dear Partners in Thought,

As we live again in challenging geopolitical and economic times, where people cross-generations now seem lost in a compass-less world, led by too many social media that changed their minds, I thought it was useful to go back to basics and review what was and should be a key matter for us: Leadership.

“Hearts touched with fire” is the new book by David Gergen who deals with the many aspects of the making of leadership across the ages. The author, now 80, known for his gentle demeanor and crisp insights, has been a key fixture of CNN, where he has commented on political matters, notably American elections, for the last 20 years. Before this, he was a seasoned public official having served as a White House advisor to four American Presidents including Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton, and is still leading the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. The “Hearts touched with fire” quote was borrowed from Oliver Wendell Holmes, one of the most memorable US Supreme Court Justices, from his 1884 Memorial Day speech referring to the civil war that had shaped him into the man and indeed, while he did not stress it then, the leader he would become. While this book is focused on the American experience of leadership, it borrows from other leading examples in the world as well. It also brings us back to an America we thoroughly miss today, as David Gergen would agree. If there is one possible reservation, the book, while very rich, may also be very dense with at times too many great features to absorb, though it should be read as a novel, depicting a multi-facetted journey into history as a guide to a better future, and perhaps not just as a mere leadership guide.

Gergen makes some useful preliminaries about the “three pillars” of leadership, notably leaders, followers and context, using interesting examples to illustrate them. As Ronald Reagan defined it “a great leader is one that gets people to do the greatest things.” As such, for leaders to achieve their goals, they need followers. While the American revolution was a success and led to greater things, the French revolution died early simply as the French were not ready for it at the time as they had been living under monarchic rule for too long and did not make an effective revolutionary transition (even if some would dare to say that Napoleon brought many advancements to French society, and not only on the battlefield). Context is also key regardless of the leader: In 1939 Winston Churchill was a washed-up politician whom the war two years later transformed into the essential leader—not only for Britain but for Western democracy. Gergen offers a fourth natural pillar of leadership with “goals,” quoting the very able Reagan closest adviser, James A. Baker III, who had defined a hierarchy of goals for his President to ensure that the main ones were reached.

Gergen selects three charismatic leadership figures coming from very different walks of life — with different upbringings, politics, backgrounds and goals — indeed as leading examples at the start of his book: John Lewis, the impoverished young leader of the Civil Rights movement, Selma Bridge hero of the 1960s and Democratic leader in Congress for 33 years; Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the societal record-breaking individual with a deeply struggling childhood, who then became the Supreme Court Justice known for always fighting for women’s rights; and John McCain, the son of a top naval Admiral, rebellious character, who became a military hero in Vietnam and could have been American president in 2008. He finds common features in their intersecting journeys as: i) each felt called to the public arena; ii) each began their leadership journey early; iii) each had to summon inner courage; iv) each stumbled but came back stronger; v) each began sorting out and embracing core values early on and ; vi) each found a true north; and vii) each was an idealist to their core.

David Gergen then takes us into his own journey when he interns for a North Carolinian politician in civil rights times, trying to bridge the white and African American communities in the South. One of his memorable experiences will be to go to a Ku Klux Klan meeting with two friends and barely escape, at a time when other young people following the same track would be caught, tortured and die. His early involvement in these society-changing events will teach him that he wanted to act in the public arena. In his own words, he did not know what he wanted to be but he knew where he wanted to be. Borrowing from Peter Drucker’s 1999 essay on “Managing oneself,” he stresses self-awareness as a key element of leadership creation. The main facets of self-awareness according to Drucker are i) knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses; ii) knowing how to learn by reading or listening; iii) knowing one’s place on the introvert/extrovert scale; iv) knowing how to respond to stress; and v) defining if one is a good number one or a better number two. We learn about Jefferson, Lincoln and notably Theodore Roosevelt having been avid book readers in order to shape their thinking — TR read one book a day — while Reagan (as I remember too) would not deal with briefing notes beyond one page — all while all of them were great leaders in their own times. We learn great stories about Michael Jordan who had not been selected in his high school basketball team, Winston Churchill’s dedication in his speech rehearsals or Bill Bradley, the basketball star who became US Senator. We learn about General Marshall who had decided that General Patton was at his best commanding an army but not the Army. Then, beyond self-awareness, comes self-mastery, via focusing on one’s strengths, improving constantly one’s performance, eventually leading to game-changing events like the miraculous landing of his plane on the Hudson by captain “Sully” Sullenberger, or the instant shooting by three Navy Seals of three Somali pirates as they were about to execute Captain Richard Phillips (incidentally two stories Hollywood made into movies with Tom Hanks).

David Gergen, applying a chronological approach to this main theme, focuses on the “gathering years,” when young leaders-to-be launch their careers. He has again a structured way to stress what matters at that stage: i) take time-outs; ii) choose jobs that align your passion and values; iii) perform every task — no matter how small — with excellence; iv) look for stretch jobs; v) understand your value to an organization; vi) spot those with high promises and join forces; vii) accept that you will make big mistakes early on; and viii) keep a parachute in the closet. He then goes on with the crucial necessity of finding mentors, coaches and role models. We learn how diverse personalities like Eisenhower, Henry David Thoreau and Alexandra Ocasio Cortes were mentored. We also learn about the role of sponsors in the making of future leaders. We then cover the importance of pinning down core values and principles and constructing a moral compass, all with examples of people who left their mark in American history, the latter being the author’s natural focus.

In the “Surviving the Flaming Crucible” chapter, Gergen gives us more in-depth illustrations of extraordinary leadership roads taken with FDR, a once 39-year old who could not walk one morning, having been struck by polio, but would become a game-changing American President. Another example is Malala, the young Afghan girl who was shot three times in the head by the Taliban, survived, led the fight for girls’ education around the world and, at 17, became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. In “The Keys to Resilience” chapter, Gergen goes though the reasons why some crumble at times of crucibles while others come successfully to grips and grow. He stresses the importance of a sunny temperament, adaptability, hardiness and stoicism as the four qualities needed to conquer crucibles with inner resilience. Turning adversity into purpose is also a recipe that was taught to John Quincy Adams, the future President, by his mother during the darkest days of the American Revolution. In focusing on this key feature, Gergen provides the fighting examples of the stories of Harvey Milk, the champion of the gay cause and Katherine Graham, who would end up leading The Washington Post, both illustrating the necessity of moral purpose, a key leadership ingredient.

David Gergen then focuses on “Learning to Lead Up,” something we should do in our twenties and thirties, having gone through the “gathering years.” One of the funny aspects of this learning curve is to know how to “manage your boss” so you know them and play to their strengths. All while keeping one eye on today and the other on tomorrow. Speaking conscience to power, while arguing your case, and then getting on board and being emotionally supportive. One of his personal examples of having “an iron fist in a velvet glove” is again James Baker, the close adviser to President Reagan whom David Gergen actually worked with in the White House. Those who know of James Baker, still with us at 92, will remember a highly decent and professional individual focused on public service.

“Leading your Team” is a natural chapter so often addressed by leadership experts (read the game-changing “Team of Teams” by General Stanley McChrystal and also his most recent “Leaders”) driving David Gergen to tell us about the key basics of building a good team, well-defining mutually acceptable responsibilities, and building strong enabling structures and a compelling direction. The key thing would then be to turn a good team into a great one with getting the right individuals on the bus, while getting the wrong ones off it. David Gergen offers us a roll calls of great coups in team-building from different spheres of society such as Steve Jobs at Apple, Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center; Lockheed Martin’s “Skunk Works” team or the Bauhaus Movement. In doing so he helps us understand what distinguishes great teams. He finally covers the legacy of croup-centered leaderships, notably seen in the civil rights movements and its organizations.

One key tool of leadership for Gergen is the art of public persuasion. Leaders need to be heard to have an impact, and he lists a few requirements, such as finding your own voice and ensuring the basics of public speaking are well covered. Key tools should be: i) know your purpose; ii) have a clear message; iii) pay attention to the key elements of a speech; iv) have great stories to tell; and v) master the elements of eloquence. Very usefully, and showing he is aware of a changing world, Gergen goes through these pre-requisites in our digital world, stressing both its good and bad aspects, as eloquence may be used and perceived differently in our times.

As David Gergen addressed the inner and outer journeys into leadership-making, he then goes into the convergence of these two or their integration in ways that also turned into serving others. In doing so, he goes into the existential journey of Robert Kennedy after his brother was assassinated, the assent and transformational impact of Susan Berresford as the first female CEO of the Ford foundation (today the second largest foundation in America) and the national rise, through her elector registration work in Georgia, of Stacey Abrams, an obscure Democratic State House Representative back in 2010. In a personal touch, Gergen then gives us his own experience in the White House with four Presidents, stressing what he felt had been especially key, like hitting the ground running (due to the usual “first hundred days”), keeping an eye out for young talents among the staff (telling us about a young Nixon intern, John, who became a partner and then a friend of 50 years) and, first and foremost, not surprisingly, remembering common sense. On the latter, we learn that while Reagan had not read the briefing note for a G8 meeting he was hosting in colonial Williamsburg in 1985, as he had watched instead The Sound of Music, a favorite movie of his, he was still able the following day to rise above all the details and spend time with each leader on the big picture issues.

Leaders are not without failure and may also lose their way. The common failures and their antidotes are provided starting with i) hubris vs. humility, ii) narcissism vs. empathy; iii) greed vs. modesty; iv) obstinacy vs. resolution; v) imprudence vs. wise judgment; vi) basic dishonesty vs. straight shooting; and vii) distrust vs. openness. Many examples are provided, like for basic dishonesty the chronic lies of President Trump — 30, 753 cases even before the astounding findings of the January 6 House committee hearings. David Gergen also tells us about the self-derailment of Rajat Gupta, a former CEO and partner of strategy consultancy McKinsey until 2008. Gupta, closely associated with the Harvard Business School and a role model for business leadership, was charged with three counts of insider trading having benefited Raj Rajaratnam, following instant disclosure by Gupta of a USD 5bn investment Warren Buffett was making in Goldman Sachs, on which board the ex-McKinsey CEO was a member. He spent 19 months in jail. Gergen’s view, corroborated by his friends at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs, was that while Gupta was dealing with his top corporate CEO clients as equals, he could not stand in retirement that they had billions and he merely tens of millions, hence the self-derailment. Other examples abound with Elisabeth Holmes and Jeremy Falwell Jr. (both hubris “victims” one of investor fraud and the other of sexual predatory practices) or Don Regan (a former Merrill Lynch CEO, Reagan’s chief of staff in his second term, and a clear narcissist who finally got fired as Nancy had had enough).

Leadership is often best seen at times of crises. In a rare departure from leading American examples, David Gergen tells us about Nelson Mandela and his fight in South Africa in the 1960s and later when all seemed lost for his cause. He then stresses qualities leaders should deploy at crisis times, such as a great carelessness of self, prudent judgment, instinctive feeling or intuitive flair and coolness under fire. Leaders often better revealed at times of crisis should heed the following advice: i) head off crises that are preventable; ii) prepare for the worst; iii) when it hits, reassure the public and then solve the problem; and iv) when it subsides, write an after-action report.

David Gergen finally mentions additional traits that leaders should have to be full, such as having a good reading of history, humor (that can create the best environment for any team) and naturally, an integrated life, as leaders are also men and women usually with families. On the humorous point, Gergen gives the story of JFK and Pierre Salinger, his press secretary (incidentally I met once on a flight 30 years ago — a good man) asking him if he could secure 1,000 Havana cigars by 11:00 am the following morning. A perplexed but cigar-loving Salinger did his best to accomplish the somewhat challenging mission only to discover that JFK announced a trade embargo against Cuba at 11:00 that following day. Similarly, when Reagan got shot two months after he took office, by a Jodie Foster-obsessed John Hinckley, and while going into surgery at Walter Reed Hospital, he turned around in his gurney, looked at his doctors and said: “I hope you’re all Republicans.”

David Gergen rightly reminds us of WW2 being the defining experience in shaping leadership for a generation. All Presidents, from JFK to George H.W. Bush, fought in it (incidentally one having his famed “PT 109” boat sliced by a Japanese destroyer, while the other’s Avenger aircraft got shot down over the South Pacific) — but for Jimmy Carter who was at the Naval Academy when the war ended — making what television anchor Tom Brokaw famously nicknamed “the greatest generation.” The war created leaders especially in America that was left as the strongest country in the world — economically, militarily, scientifically and culturally. While born in 1960, I felt this hard-to-describe reality which made so many of us worldwide want to be part of the story. This greatest generation wanted also to “serve,” creating a noble basis for the deployment of their hard-won leadership. While America was far from being perfect and racism, sexism and other forces were eating away at its undergirding, most Americans were proud of their democracy and whom they were, also as a result of WW2 and its societal impacts. These leaders sent America to the moon, created many international institutions, passed many legislations to advance the causes of women and communities of color, enhanced social security, developed world-class higher education and pushed science and technology further. This was made through collective and individual leadership often born in the ashes of a world war. As America is now faced with threats to its republic in forgotten ways since 1865, David Gergen wonders if new leaders will rise to the challenges and answer “the clarion call for unity and action.” He still bets on the young — the millennials and Gen Zers with a focus on both progressives and mainstream moderates — to lead the fight in an environment marked by rising global temperature and the insanity of those who refuse the Covid vaccine, putting their own families at risk. He could have added the insanity of mass shootings like recently at Uvalde and in suburban Chicago, not to mention the astounding US Supreme Court decisions we saw last June.

It is worth noting David Gergen, in spite of his advanced age, is definitely in touch with our times and often very vocal in his defense of movements that he sees as expressions of leadership, but which some would find controversial — if not in their essence, at least in the exercise of their agendas, such as BLM or Black Lives Matter that, while grounded in well-known tragedies, also led at times to violent demonstrations triggering destruction and property theft in recent years. He also found leadership in footballer Colin Kaepernick disrespectfully kneeling down at the time of the national anthem, as a sign of protest and demand for racial justice, that indeed became followed by many. Personally, while I can understand the historical roots and current societal triggers of such activism, I am equally not keen on statues brutally going down — not a sign of great leadership in action — as I believe that we should live with and learn from our history, trying to improve the future without erasing the past, which is also who we are, or allowing uncontrolled violence on the altar of demand for any type of justice. However, he also stresses similar milestones that most, if not all, would welcome, such as the election of Michelle Wu, the first Asian American female mayor of Boston. It is clear that he sees the rise of movements like BLM and others as a response to the toxic atmosphere created by the presidency (leadership?) of Donald Trump, a man who paradoxically may have unwittingly “woken up” activism. He also sees the current nature of those movements, not all aggressive in their expressions but certainly forceful, as reflecting the current times we know and the engagement of the younger generations. Some of the new and very young leaders, like the often odd, but powerful, Greta Thunberg or the figureheads of the Parkland School student survivors, while determined in their message, be it on climate change or mass shootings — both sadly ever topical matters — fight the good fights also in remarkable ways that go beyond their years. He sees them, borrowing from Steve Jobs, making “a dent in the universe” in five ways: leading social movements; becoming elected officials; being social entrepreneurs; joining the national service; and/or simply but crucially being voices of change. His main advice is to start “now” and “throw yourself in the arena,” an expression he borrows from Theodore Roosevelt’s memorable speech, often referred to these days, on “Citizenship in a Republic” at the Sorbonne after his presidency in April 1910.

One theme David Gergen does not address in his book is that there can also be bad leaders, as history showed with Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin, who caused massive death and misery to millions in Europe, including in their own countries. While they led their countries to their massive losses, or eventually later disappearance, were they “leaders” according to David Gergen’s rule book? Can leadership be achieved for the wrong reasons and against most of the values and principles shown in his book? Are the leaders of China and especially Russia today to be considered leaders according to David Gergen? All while Vladimir Putin benefits — as far as we know — from the support of a majority of Russians, his “followers,” in a strange “Stockholm syndrome” way, even after the unprecedented and tragic Ukraine invasion that must be hard to conceal or show in the best light, even if the Kremlin is the greatest domestic sales organization and controller of news on earth. And would President Trump, while having achieved the top role in the land, be considered a true leader knowing the blows, at times of a long-term nature, he delivered to America leading to the state of quasi-civil war and institutional demise seen across its entire society? Some of the greatest examples of the Trump legacy can be seen today in the US Supreme Court, now time and time again politicizing its decisions — overturning 49-year old Roe V. Wade, 100-year old New York gun concealment legislation, EPA’s ability to curb carbon emissions — under the veneer of legal review, or an overstated focus on historical and legal form over substance — all against a clear and massive majority opinion of Americans against these court moves, and the pleasure of some largely unrepresentative political, religious and business lobbies.

In his Executive Summary, David Gergen gives us a nine page “20 key takeaways,” perhaps as a recognition that in 2022 the attention span has been reduced via current means like social media and our tech world, resulting in people reading far fewer books (a sad thought that hopefully is still unproven). Again, his main audience is American, explaining his natural focus, though his takeaways are rather universal. Each would deserve to be read in full.

1. Our country needs a serious course correction
2. Prepare now to pass the torch to new generations
3. Leadership, always hard, has become harder
4. Leadership comes from within
5. Have three objectives early
6. Find your true north
7. Focus on your strengths
8. Extend your leadership journey outside yourself
9. Try hard things, fail, move on
10. You are never too young to lead
11. Devote a year to national service
12. Secure your finance
13. Embrace crucible moments
14. Learn to manage your boss
15. Mobilize others through persuasion
16. Your greatest enemy might be you
17. Learn from new models of leadership
18. Seek guidance from the past and present
19. Friends and networks still matter
20. Maintain a celestial spark

“Hearts touched with fire” is a great book of the journey type into the soul of people who have made a difference around them, while usually impacting society. It is definitely a summer read for those who may want to go back to basics and seek more sanity in our challenging world.

On a personal note, it might be a sign of wise and forward-thinking leadership for David Gergen to send a copy of his book to Vladimir Putin (as long as sanctions are not infringed of course).

Warmest regards,

Serge

19-05-2022

Dear Partners in Thought,

Bill Browder’s new book “Freezing Order – A True Story of Russian Money Laundering, Murder and Surviving Vladimir Putin’s Wrath” is a great thriller (as noted even by Stephen Fry), except that it is sadly not a work of fiction. It is also especially timely and more potent as the true nature of Putin’s Russia is more transparent to the world (even if some countries would debate the point on their own strategic and tactical grounds).

As Moscow is the focus of the Western world today, it was all the more important to stress the kleptocratic nature of this autocracy. Bill Browder is one of the Western investment professionals who started operating in Russia in the post-Soviet Yeltsin 1990s through Hermitage Capital, his pioneering platform. He did not know Russia, did not speak the language and had not managed an investment fund. Nevertheless, he established what was to be a leading investment company with assets under management once valued at USD 4.5bn, in what was literally a new market. Browder was smart in using strong local talent to identify undervalued companies in Yeltsin’s Russia, when the country was open for the first time to Western-like investment activities. He was supportive of Putin’s fight to control the Yeltsin oligarchs, though in doing so he did not focus as much on weak governance and legislative and enforcement processes. His story then was one of great business success, until the latter became too blatant and he was faced with an increasingly authoritarian Russia that led him to stop his operations and leave the country for his personal safety in 2005. The Browder story is particularly telling for me as when he was starting to invest In Russia, I was leaving SG Warburg, the leading City of London investment bank to join the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) which had been established in 1991 to facilitate the market transition in the former Soviet empire, thus combining my interest in finance and international affairs. On a related personal note, as I was joining the EBRD in early 1993, I crossed paths with Mike Calvey, who was about to leave the multilateral bank to start Baring Vostok, another one of the most successful private equity firms in the then-new Russia. Like Browder, although later on, he would run into serious legal wrangles with the Russian authorities – as if success was possible, but only if strictly obedient and “flexible” enough.

“Freezing order” is about the process and travails of tracing and seeking to freeze laundered money from Russia, and is a follow-up to “Red Notice” published in 2015 that went into how Browder built Hermitage Capital and then lost it. It is much centered on Browder as stressed by himself, and may be seen by some readers as less independent that it could have been, while at times going through events that were not directly related to him – like the assassination of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov in 2015 (even if the liberal politician was an ally of Browder in relation to what became the well-known Magnistky case that defined Browder post-Hermitage Capital.) This is definitely a story of dogged persistence and personal courage in dealing with the Russia which the West sees more clearly today. It is also a very personal story involving the theft of USD1bn from Hermitage Capital combined with Kafka-like punitive Russian legal action, misappropriation and laundering of funds and murders along the way. As Browder withdrew from Russia, his main lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, who stayed behind as he wanted to fight the misappropriation of funds, was eventually murdered in jail. This tragedy, which the perpetrators thought would stay local and low-key, led to the money laundering-focused Magnitsky Act in the US in December 2012 and later its extension, the human rights-focused US Global Magnitsky Act of December 2016, with an impact on 33 other countries that passed similar legislation, including eventually the EU. Browder had attended many conferences involving security and money-laundering experts at Cambridge University, Monte Carlo and other places across the Western world while participating in shows with leading TV stations worldwide, trying to successfully generate support for his case. Meanwhile Russia was fighting back, trying to criminalize him as if he were the culprit and they the victim. Russia pursued Browder in Russian and US courts, using the latter system to their advantage, including Interpol to issue local arrest warrants like in Spain in 2018 when such warrants had been deemed illegal. While he would eventually succeed in US courts, Browder eventually received two sentences in the Russian courts totaling 18 years, which put him at great risk of being extradited or “forcibly taken” there by Russian agents abroad.

Russia initially wanted to stop Browder from investigating some fraud involving a theft of USD 230m linked to Hermitage Capital – engineered by criminals with the support of security officers and the Russian government – a matter that had some New York connections as some of the money had been used by Prevezon Holding, a Cyprus company controlled by a Russian close to the Kremlin, to purchase real estate in Manhattan, and would thus involve US jurisdiction. Eventually, and due to the Magnitsky Act that put much of the wealth of the Russian oligarchs at risk, this as a ten-year prelude to the Ukraine war sanctions, Browder became the main target of Putin himself (Putin’s wealth was likely one of the highest, if the not the highest in Russia, well beyond his USD 300,000 annual salary). In a meeting with Trump in Helsinki in 2018 Putin, who appeared much in command, floated the idea that Russia and the US could both extradite in what was deemed a fair deal some indicted individuals to the US and Russia, while mentioning the name of Browder and former Ambassador to Russia McFaul (Trump did not seem to object then and after the Helsinki meeting which created a furor back in America with a Senate vote of 98-0 to condemn such a crazy and baseless path).

The book is also an amazing story of how Russian interests in the Prevezon Holding case used the US legal system, hiring a top US law firm, Baker Hostetler, to fight Bill Browder and make him appear as if “he” had stolen the USD 230m from the Russian Treasury – all while the law firm was conflicted as they had represented Hermitage Capital a few years earlier (they had conveniently, though irrationally, argued that there was no conflict as now they were going against Browder himself and not Hermitage Capital, their former client and then plaintiff, even if broadly dealing with highly similar money laundering matters). A top US law firm was by then acting indirectly on behalf of the Russian Treasury – that was de facto the offending party in a money laundering case against the owner of a former corporate client whom they had advised on a similar case and had access to confidential information from – which was to a great extent rather unbelievably reversing the previous roles of plaintiff and defendant. The case took years to be dismissed as Baker Hostetler and the top lawyer (the aptly-named John Moscow), a former US District Attorney, who had personally advised Browder when he started his Russian money laundering-focused Magnitsky case lobbying, were finally disqualified in court (the process to reach that outcome being a story in itself).

At the same time, that same law firm had hired a Washington DC investigative firm, Fusion GPS, to find “dirt” on Browder and his associates and help serve subpoenas in remote locations so they would appear in US courts. The same firm, that was de facto working for the Russians in Browder’s case, was also broadly at the same time famously involved (via an ex-MI6 agent, Christopher Steele) in conducting opposition research on Trump in 2016 (on a funny note the “Steele Dossier” was later seen by some, but not all, as a way to create such a gross and salacious case that it would not be credible, which might have been the astute end game of the mandate, while actually helping hide some close Trump links to the Kremlin). The review of these activities performed by many high profile and highly paid American firms stressed a modus operandi that was well-known in places like London – or indeed “Londongrad” – where many Western enablers from real estate agents, accountants to bankers (without forgetting high end prostitutes) were working for a large array of Russian oligarchs and their families and friends who had elected the English capital city, and especially Mayfair, as their second, if not first home (the book is sadly a bit too silent on that London post-Soviet feature that one could hope was not due to Browder’s often forgotten British citizenship and many links there). Browder had a few easy but well-known jokes about oligarch enablers and especially lawyers stressing that for many the words “lawyers” and “ethics” were mutually exclusive and why won’t sharks attack lawyers? Professional courtesy. As for some well-known investigative or “strategic intelligence” firms, fees are often the main if not sole drivers and the only advice in terms of probity check for potential clients should be to closely review their board and especially advisory boards where the quality of their members should naturally speak for itself and separate the good from the potentially less so.

The Browder story is not just about court battles, and direct oligarch and indirect Western Kremlin enablers, but also involve very dire developments involving murder and murder attempts – like with the principled Browder lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky and a few others. As the Putin regime gradually evolved, such murders of dissidents or “defectors” carried out by Russian agents like that of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 had become commonplace in central London (as also seen with oligarch Boris Berezovky in 2013), Canterbury or across Europe like Germany, even if these would happen also in Russia like with the high-profile unsolved assassinations of Central Bank Deputy Chairman Andrei Kozlov, journalist Anna Politovskaya and politician Boris Nemtsov in Moscow in 2006, 2007 (the first two marking a turn in Russian affairs) and 2015 respectively. It is actually amazing that after escaping a poisoning attempt, leading opposition figure Alexei Navalny, having courageously but strangely, not following Browder’s approach, returned to Russia to continue his fight, was arrested and now serving a combined 11-and-a-half-year sentence on what the West would call dubious charges (CNN released a recent “Navalny Documentary” that received two key awards at the Sundance Film Festival, in which he had participated just before returning to Russia post-poisoning in January 2021). A few aides of Browder in his fight against Russia also ended up being poisoned or even killed as the book tells in great detail, while some Russian security services and surprisingly known mafia leaders were at the forefront of the actions taken against Browder and his friends, some very openly like at conferences which Browder was attending in his lobbying efforts. It is actually a miracle that Browder or his family members survived unscathed while being harassed at many border crossings, like we read at Geneva airport in 2018, through the powerful reach of Russian operatives, again taking advantage of Western rules and regulations to carry out their missions.

In one last feature of Browder’s story (which will never know any ending until Putin and his system eventually lose power in Russia – indeed a timely topic with the multi-layered Ukraine developments), he discovers via an audit of Danske Bank, another Russian money laundering fraud of a USD 234bn magnitude. While this number is staggering, Browder estimates that the amount of Kremlin-backed and oligarch-laundered money would stand at or beyond USD 1tn (1,000 bn) since Vladimir Putin came to power around 2000, not a small chunk to be his, if not in name. While an estimate, and knowing too many vested interests including in the West are involved to make it smaller or simply not quantify it, the statement is clear.

Browder’s book reflects, through a highly-personal account, the gradual slide experienced by Russia in relation to the rule of law and business ethics that the Ukraine invasion finally made impossible for the West to ignore. At the forefront of this reckoning is the Western business community and its many companies across sectors that for years developed a presence in Russia and brought the local population a vivid example of globalization away from the Faulknerian “sound and the fury” of 20th century history. A great majority of these Western companies have now decided to withdraw from Russia, which for some has been heavily loss-making while not easy in terms of speed and ways (some had to sell quickly their Russian operations on the cheap to local oligarchs like Société Générale to Vladimir Potanin or Renault its controlling stake in Lada-maker Avtovaz for a token 2 roubles) as they also try to stay in Eastern Europe, this leading to many strategic reviews ahead of relocations and business redeployments throughout the region, also making an eventually post-war Ukraine market another focus as the country would go through its reconstruction phase.

“Freezing Order” is another detailed example of what Putin’s Russia always was while the West was sleeping and never wanted to see it that way on the altar of hopefully ensuring a mutually-beneficial and peaceful relationship. Today Russia, through its insane invasion of Ukraine, stresses how blind the West (and the world even if partly ambiguous today) was but now the curtain has fallen. Bill Browder, not himself a saint, and initially driven by sheer money-making, helped us see Russia for what it was for years, and successfully contributed in a small but impactful extent to a saner world, via meaningful anti-money laundering and human rights-focused legislations and their applications in many countries across the world.

Warmest regards,

Serge

02-05-22

Dear Partners in Thought,

After a long lull in Book Notes, and to create a possibly unsuitable (though related) break from the tragic invasion of Ukraine, it seemed a good idea to go back to this genre and mention “Twilight of Democracy.” Its author, Anne Applebaum, now writing for The Atlantic, is well-known for her liberal outlook and excellent books on the Communist era in Central & Eastern Europe, notably the highly recommended “Iron Curtain – The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956” (one of my favorites on the topic), and Pulitzer Prize-winning “Gulag: A History.”

Twilight of Democracy (2021) addresses the rise of populist parties in the West, which is a very timely topic as Viktor Orban was reconducted as Hungarian leader in April while Marine Le Pen failed but came closer to be the next French President and upend the future of France, NATO, possibly the EU and the Euro – and clearly the world as we know it, even if clearly already being altered by Putin’s Russia. In many ways, this book is why this blog exists as it was started by the rise of both populist-flavored Brexit and then Trump, rightfully two of the six chapters of Twilight of Democracy – also a good fit given Applebaum’s roots in both Britain and the US, not to mention Poland, one of the two current populist hotspots of Europe. Twilight of Democracy projects very strong views on populism, some of which covering Brexit or Central Europe, may possibly be seen as extreme or one sided by some readers.

A very personal history of broken friendships. The subtitle of her book is “The failure of politics and the parting of friends”, the latter is very fitting as she recalls the New Year’s Eve party in their Chobielin home in Northern Poland that she and her husband, former minister Radek Sikorski, had held to celebrate the passage to the new millennium. It was a time of joy, a decade or so after Poland had made the transition to both democracy and market economy. They had a lot of friends joining them, many no longer speaking to them twenty years later as they gradually espoused the nationalist and undemocratic views that prevail among the Law & Justice party members that has been fully in power in Warsaw since 2015. She has great stories to tell about two well-known Polish brothers with different career success, which describe how the challenged one used his old association to deceased Polish President Lech Kaczynski to get the top job at the leading Polish TV operator and totally changed it as if it were an official conduit for the ruling Law and Justice Party. In this telling example of how populists operate when in power, Applebaum also stresses how the under-achievers in our modern democracies can use politics and indeed populism to get to prominence, all the more when what matters to elected autocratically-flavored rulers in a European context is obedience and not skills, as also seen in Russia today. She then recalls the tragic crash of the Polish presidential plane in 2010 on its way to a commemoration of the Soviet Katyn massacre of thousands of Polish officers that was then gradually used as a conspiracy theory to put the blame on political opponents without any rationale (the President had forced the plane to land totally unsafely in atrocious weather conditions). Applebaum, borrowing from Yale historian Timothy Snyder, introduces us not to the Big Lie of the Soviet days but to the Medium-sized Lies used by current European autocrats to weaken democracy and liberalism when elected to public office, like today in Poland or Hungary and for a while Italy during the Salvini days. She goes into another old friendship that had turned sour with Maria Schmidt, the curator of Terror Haza, the Budapest museum focused on the dreadful aspects of the Communist area. Her lost friend being a typical example of an anti-communist individual espousing autocratic features, tainted of anti-Americanism and (unlike in Poland for obvious historical reasons) benign admiration for Putin’s Russia. Such individuals, who battled communism, formed part over the last decade of the corps of self-serving (also financially) “clercs” (she uses the French word for clerks) who made possible for leaders like Viktor Orban, another liberal 25 years ago, to succeed in governing while suppressing many individual and constitutional rights gained in the post-Communist era. These examples are very interesting for readers not living in Poland or Hungary, two countries which benefitted from huge EU subsidies (especially Poland, the perennial top financial assistance receiver from Brussels), who can also see their leaderships struggling with the EU in terms of fights over judicial appointments if not court structures. As Applebaum stresses, these should not be dismissed as “regional stories” involving “hard to pronounce names.”

Going back to the roots of populism. Applebaum notes there was no anti-democratic wave after the Communist transition in Central Europe, while populist leaders and ideas strongly emerged only in the last decade also as a link to the refugee crisis of 2015-16. She stresses rightly that the “Eastern European problems” we see now, also through the disputes with the EU, are not unique to former Communist countries experiencing a long hangover from 1989. She notes from her discussions with a Greek sociologist that polarization is normal in our Western societies and that history in our times is circular with its liberal and more autocratic phases. Angry, resentful and vengeful are the characteristics of the populist leaders and movements that are “against elites,” have dreams of “cleansing violence” and support an apocalyptic cultural clash, altogether with attacks on the rule of law, free press and academia. There is a commonality of image between the Marxist-Leninist states of old and the new nationalist regimes or parties, from the Polish Law & Justice party or the Hungarian Fidesz to the Venezuelan Chavistas or the French Lepenistes and even some hardline Brexiters. In many ways the Western world of today increasingly represents, via its growing extremist parties in their modus operandi, the Eastern Europe of the past. This is perhaps the key lesson of her book, which may not have been clear to many of us.

Brexit as the great populist success. Applebaum spends a chapter on Britain – or more exactly England – and the nostalgia of when it made the rules, which she says drove Brexit. England wanted to make things happen in a Thatcherite way when she played with her bag in Brussels and got the famed EC rebate, or when she sent a task force to the now totally forgotten and irrelevant Falklands 40 years ago. This approach was epitomized by a younger Boris Johnson (an Oxford Bullingdon Club fellow member of her husband Radek) who, when at the Daily Telegraph, would publish numerous half-lies or tall tales that his ardent Tory readership enjoyed, such as those about the EC or EU that would cancel London “double decker buses” or prawn cocktail-flavored crisps, giving the younger editor a “weird sense of power.” The Single Market, that Britain had helped build, was a great Thatcherite achievement for the country and its entrepreneurial class, but also a major source of annoyance and embarrassment in having to lower itself to negotiate with a lesser Brussels – even if the later was always very commercial and flexible in its approach. Britain, on the other hand, was always keener on its “Special Relationship” with the US as the latter was, according to Prime Minister Harold McMillan in his half-disguised exceptionalism “the Romans to us Greeks.” Not totally wrongly, Britain would not forget that they were the only European country to have from the start won WW2, which put it in a category of its own among nations, all the more so in Europe. Sadly, restorative nostalgia usually goes hand in hand with mild conspiracy theories and medium-sized lies, which the Tories started to spread gradually about Europe for electoral and existential purposes stressing that the EU had perverted the course of history. The phenomenon was aggravated with the fall of the Berlin wall, which vindicated the often-left wing criticized Tory cold warriors, but created a vacuum after the great fight had been won – this enhanced by post-Thatcher leaders who fitted a calmer new normal. John Major was snubbed by many Tories as a leader without a fight, also due to his lack of charisma and moreover university degree (something top PE firm Carlyle later never minded) together with his pragmatic focus on reuniting Europe, while Tony Blair brought a non-exceptional Britain or an England that would see devolution all in a way that recalled the radical 1960s in Tory eyes. To the Tories, many of whom were slowly shifting toward the more extreme regarding the EU, as it provided a program to sell voters, Brussels had become the embodiment of everything that had gone wrong in British life – leadership, culture, capitalism and national vigor with on top all the Polish plumbers and Spanish data analysts threatening the national identity. In an almost funny list of medium-sized lies perpetrated by the Leave camp were Johnson claiming that Brexit would bring in GBP 350m a week to the National Health Service, that if Britain stayed it would be forced to accept Turkey as a member all with Nigel Farage’s UKIP posters showing him with trails of Syrian refugees reaching the English shores. Dominic Cummings, the sadly bright Brexit architect later compared their messages to Soviet propaganda, some of his videos having been seen by at times in excess of 500,000 viewers. The Vote Leave camp also cheated and broke electoral laws to advertise more on Facebook or used data famously stolen by the company Cambridge Analytica, all while benefitting from Russian trolling operations that served the ultimate goal of the Kremlin to weaken both the EU and Britain (to his credit Boris Johnson has led a “good war” against Russia following the invasion of Ukraine). Joe Cox, a Labour MP and Remainer, was murdered during the referendum campaign by an unsettled fake news-radicalized man who thought Brexit meant “liberation” for Britain. Many Leave leaders and opinion makers thought that only a radical change such as Brexit could save Britain, that they perceived as once a leading nation now terminally lost. The Brexiteers became immune to facts and means as long as the victory was reachable, and when it was in sight, the harder the Brexit the better so a healthy shock would wake Britain up, whatever the costs including economic – this leading to what was to be known as a hard Brexit. Chaos was seen as good, including perversely by many in the Labour Party’s Corbyn leadership who believed that it would eventually bring voters to the radical left while others on the free market front thought it would bring an end to burdensome regulations. The majority of the country had not voted for this type of disruption but the extremists, going beyond any mandate, had produced it. Applebaum generously stressed that Boris Johnson had not ideologically loved autocracy but was simply about winning, which drove him to use and pursue whatever means and avenues were available – with clear success. There were talks among hard Brexiteers after the December 2019 elections of altering the funding of the BBC, curtailing or limiting the courts or purging civil servants with obedient individuals, as if London had changed to Budapest-on-Thames (with all due respect to Budapest whose mayor is actually a liberal like in Warsaw). It is clear that all is not yet well with Britain today, and that Brexit has not yet been digested – notably with job shortages from the trucking industry to the famed NHS. However, as in Fawlty Towers the official populist line in a rather unnatural mode is “don’t mention Brexit” or more aptly, destroy agreements that were in place, like dealing with trade and Northern Ireland.

Hard-line Tories liked undemocratic polities in other countries, especially Poland and Hungary, while they were becoming more authoritarian and attacked their judicial systems, prompting a stark condemnation from the EU. At that time, according to Applebaum, the British government, consumed with how Brexit would unfold, had dropped any pretense of standing for democracy around the world, which admittedly can be viewed rightly by many as too strong a statement. Tory MEPs and Law & Justice MEPs were part of the same caucus in the European Parliament, leading the Tories to defend Law & Justice when under EU attack. Formerly well-known anti-Communist MPs became friends of Law & Justice officials, which the anti-Russia stance may have helped. Tory and UKIP MEPs voted to protect Orban from being censured by the EU, in a way to assert the right of a democratic nation, however in name only and de facto authoritarian, to defy Brussels’s “interference”. To some of her British friends and former colleagues at The Spectator, Applebaum was now part of a “liberal, judicial, bureaucratic, international elite” opposed to “democratically elected parliaments”. One of them now a resident scholar at The Danube Institute founded and funded by Orban supporters, who made the remark about her “elite belonging” would have only dreamed to be part of it in London but simply could not, underlining Appelbaum’s point about underachievers usually joining the ranks of less-traditional achievement-demanding populists at home or abroad to access better jobs and roles, whatever the cost to their image and probity.

How the populists operate and why they get an audience. Applebaum makes the point that authoritarian predisposition is not the same thing as closed-mindedness but is closer to simple-mindedness. People are attracted to authoritarian ideas as they are simple and, unlike the democratic debate, not cacophonic. This blog always stressed the damage done by easy and indeed simple solutions to complex issues that populists love, as allowing to sell extremist ideas to voters who feel more at home with a lack of diversity of opinions and experiences and react aggressively against the complexity of drastic changes like the refugee crisis of 2015-2016. Applebaum goes into the role of social media in shaping the minds of voters, and more generally users, as many people in our age like to click on the news they want to hear, even if they may be false stories based on incorrect facts and disseminated by able spin doctors also using algorithms that radicalize their audiences, leading to hyper-partisanship. This hyper-partisan mode results in a rejection of normal politics, establishment politicians, the so-called elite, derided “experts” and mainstream institutions. No neutrality is acceptable in a polarized world as non-partisan or apolitical institutions are not desired. Reddit, Twitter and Facebook have unwittingly become the perfect media for irony, parody and cynical memes, creating a generation of young people who either vote for extreme parties or show a disdain for democracy that does not work for them. While being clear about the role of tech-enabled social media, Applebaum is also acknowledging their good aspects and not advising a return to an analog past when all was indeed not perfect. She just stresses that the new information world provides a new set of tools and tactics that populist leaders can use to reach people who want a simple language, powerful symbols and clear identities as if searching for an elusive unity.

Going into less well-known cases of European populism. Applebaum goes into a less well-known story about European politics that starts with the post-Francoist transition that led to the new Spanish political landscape post-1975. The new Spain eventually showed the center right Popular Party with names like Aznar (time indeed flies) and the center left Socialist Party, in a mirror image of many of its neighboring countries like France with its Socialist and Gaullist parties, the latter under many different names over the years (the two, as a sign of the times, having garnered less than 7% of the votes against 58% for all radical or extremist candidates and their parties in the first round of the presidential election in April 2022). As the 2010s started, the traditional parties got weaker as everywhere in Europe and new movements like populist-nationalist party Vox led by Santiago Abascal took more of a center stage as radical left Podemos and liberal Ciudadanos also appeared. Applebaum tells us about the trail of an ex-Aznar center right politician, Rafael Bardaji, who had disappeared for a decade, was forgotten and engineered a re-emergence away from its center-right roots with a “Make Spain Great Again” that had some Transatlantic Trumpian feel to it. Vox, which represented Francoism’s de-hibernation, became stronger in its opposition to the Catalonian referendum of 2017, that unlike the British one failed, and increasingly attracted more younger voters than their more liberal elders. Vox wanted to bring back the feeling of unity of the old “Arriba Espana” with leaders now using YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Telegram and WhatsApp to channel their easy solutions to complex issues. Vox, not unlike other populist extreme right parties, took ownership of a mixed bag of resentment-filled issues for a large group of Spanish voters: opposition to Catalan and Basque separatism, same sex marriage, feminism, immigration of a Muslim kind (even if very low in Spain unlike historically France), and corruption, while supporting hunting and handgun ownership and showing boredom with mainstream politics that destroyed Spanish unity, all with a talent for mockery and a huge dose of restorative Franco nostalgia. NATO was deemed only useful for Eastern European countries bordering Russia (indeed) though Trump’s radical Islam fight was seen as a good one and more generally his governing style a fit for Vox. This foray into Spain was useful as not a country where populism comes immediately to mind, showing the extent of the problem across Europe.

And of course, focusing on Trump, the most successful populist of our times. Appelbaum had to spend some pages on the advent of the Trump presidency that was a high point of the rise of populism globally, and shattered for many the previously immovable image of the American liberal democracy. As Lincoln spoke of America as “the last best hope on earth” and Reagan’s 1989 speech of “the shining city on a hill”, both wanting to stress American exceptionalism and greatness, many extremists disagreed or wanted to go back to its perceived roots ranging from the radical left in the early 20th century to the Christian right more recently – as well as the great history of the KKK or even the noble rise of domestic terrorists like Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh, who had plotted mass murder in order to rescue a nation. Trump’s inaugural address marked a turning point for modern America, as it contained left and right strands of anti-Americanism combining a rejection of the self-serving “Establishment” and the evangelical despair about the moral decay of the country delivered time and time again by someone who was the son of a multi-millionaire, himself a powerful elite businessman and a draft dodger. Trump, who had little or no knowledge of and thus no faith in the American story, added the deep cynicism of a man who ran unsavory business schemes globally (some now under scrutiny even in the US) while appealing to the millenarianism of the far right and the revolutionary nihilism of the hard left. He had no interest in America being a model among nations, indeed crudely rejecting its exceptionalism, and thus its role in the world, leading to a contempt for American international engagement and thus NATO, a well-known admiration for Putin he saw as a true leader and an isolationism characterized by “America First” as the only way to make it great again. American ideals would be false and its institutions fraudulent – the latter as when he described the FBI and its “corrupt and disgraceful leadership” two years into his mandate. As Trump would state it clearly in 2020, two years before the invasion of Ukraine, America would have no vital interest in choosing between warring factions whose animosities go back centuries in eastern Europe. There should be no important distinction between democracy and dictatorship. For the party of Reagan to become that of Trump and abandon American idealism and adopt the rhetoric of despair was a sea change. In a return to 1995 Applebaum recalls a gathering of Republican thinkers and writers which, like in a prelude of her own Polish New Year 2000 party, would see attendants not speaking to each other years later with David Brooks, David Frum or Irving Kristol (and indeed others like Max Boot even if not invited then) going away from the party happy to be taken over by the populist Trump on the altar of winning elections.

In looking back at history, Appelbaum tells in her last chapter about the famous Dreyfus affair in 1894 France, which targeted an innocent Jewish French officer accused of treason, in what was a fight between the ancestors of today’s national-populists and the democratic liberals of the day and with hindsight a prelude to the 1930s in Europe. The societal shock of the Dreyfus affair – that almost destroyed the tissue of France – was very reminiscent of Appelbaum’s vivid experience of those lost friendships of the new millennium. In a fascinating and rarely-expressed comparison, Appelbaum notes that those who maintained Dreyfus’s guilt against all evidence were the American alt-right, or the Polish Law and Justice Party, or the French National Rally of the day, knowingly pushing a conspiracy theory, the means justifying the ends. This fascinating story resonates at a time when Marine Le Pen, supposedly being the voice of the traditional France and the left-outs, in a classical, modern day contest against elitism, was losing for the second time in the final round of the presidential race to technocratic, democratic, liberal and pro-EU Emmanuel Macron. As Trump was born with a golden spoon in his mouth, and went on to be a populist politician and President, we too often forget that Marine Le Pen is also the rich daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen – making her indeed an aristocrat of sorts both financially and politically – who has nothing in common with the voters she is targeting with her appealing vote-buying messages. As her more clearly extremist and Vichy-flavored father scored 17.8% in 2002 against Jacques Chirac and she scored 33.9% against Macron in 2017, her score of 41.4% in 2022, even if much lower than anticipated (whilst some would also see her potentially win based on first round vote make-up), shows a trend where democracy and liberalism are gradually losing voting ground against populism and its easy answers to complex issues. Will a populist finally take over the Elysée Palace in 2027 and start dismantling the democracy of a G7 country and key historical player? And what about Donald 2.0 in 2024, all the more so,following a likely control of Congress in November by the Republicans who will be focused on revenge, even for some if losing their souls?

As Applebaum says at the end of her book, her title “Twilight of Democracy” was not a prediction but a warning. Anti-democratic forces using and abusing the democratic electoral process have won many followers in the past, especially in the last decade, building on distrust on the back of apparently noble (for some) but fallacious themes, and they actually will in the future too. It was interesting to note in the recent French election that polls showed that well besides and beyond electoral programs, 71% of Macron voters considered themselves “happy” in life while 80% of Le Pen’s felt unhappy, thus more prone to resentment and following extreme, if unrealistic and dangerous, political solutions for France. Winning elections will be the key driver for populist leaders for whom messages will be secondary and remain tools of the end game. And if they succeed, democracies will be gradually altered, as already seen in parts of Europe, and elections might eventually vanish as an unnecessary process.

Warmest regards,

Serge