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All of us have in our minds a cartoon image of an autocratic state. There is a bad man at the top. He controls the army and the police. The army and police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators, and maybe some brave dissidents. But in the twenty-first century, that cartoon bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are run not by one bad guy but by sophisticated networks relying on kleptocratic financial structures, a complex of security services—military, paramilitary, police—and technological experts who provide surveillance, propaganda and disinformation. The member of these networks are connected not only to one another within a given autocracy, but also to networks in other autocratic countries, and sometimes in democracies too.

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A world in which autocracies work together to stay in power, work together to promote their system, and work together to damage democracies is not some distant dystopia. That world is the one we are living in right now.

In the 1979 film , Jill Johnson (Carol Kane) is on the worst baby-sitting gig ever, terrorized by a psychopathic killer. The most famous line of the film takes place when the police inform her that the most recent threatening call is from inside the house. In the battle between democracy and autocracy the same can be said for those who support Western values as we face manipulation, money-laundering, foreign influence in our political life, and many more challenges, not only from abroad, but from within our countries.


Anne Applebaum - image from her site

In Autocracy, Inc. Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer-prize-winning author, columnist at The Atlantic and contributor to many other publications, paints a picture of the world that is a far cry from our bi-polar East-West, Communist-Capitalist view of international relations. Iran’s theocracy shares few elements with North Korean totalitarianism, Russian autocracy, or China’s international bribery-and-control-via-development-capital program spreading across the planet. But the leaders of all these nations, as well as many more noted here, share a desire to remain in power. That power is typically used to enrich themselves and their cronies at the expense of their own populations. When you get big enough, you can steal all you want, particularly if you have the power to stomp on anyone who objects.

The point of the book is that dark forces have not been softened by exposure to democracies. The flow of values from West to East that was expected after the Berlin Wall fell has been rich with backwash, as an illiberal infestation and its corresponding rampant corruption has spread to the West.

[back in the 1990s] we had this illusion that our system was so strong that anybody could come and play around in it and it wasn’t ever going to affect us. And it didn’t really matter what happened over there in Russia because it was so far away, and they’re so weak now they can never affect us and they don’t matter anymore and we’re really interested in other things now. And that was the mistake. What we did was enabled the growth of what’s now a real security threat to us and to other Europeans. We know it was a mistake and now it’s time to backtrack and change it. - from the Tortoise interview

Autocracy is the question. Democracy is the answer. Every autocratic nation generates its dissenters, those who recognize their shackles and seek to break free of them. It has been the case that once truth, the scent of denied freedoms and awareness of outrageous greed by leaders gains a grip in such countries, there will be the possibility of revolt. The may not have all been successful, but they do show a way forward in domestic challenges to criminal administrations.

If people are naturally drawn to the image of human rights, to the language of democracy, to the dream of freedom, then those ideas have to be poisoned. That requires not just surveillance, and not merely a political system that defends against liberal ideas. It also requires an offensive plan, a narrative that damages the idea of democracy, wherever it is being used, anywhere in the world.

This requires, of course, that autocracies stifle any meaningful dissent inside their own borders. But crushing domestic opposition is not limited to the autocratic homeland.

Freedom of the press in these autocracies means the freedom to write or broadcast whatever the local administration has cleared. (See In a Trump 2.0 he would not be asking.) It also means that disinformation has become government sanctioned-and-or-produced propaganda that calls into question the very values that could undermine their control.

The manipulation of the strong emotions about gay rights and feminism has been widely copied throughout the autocratic world. Yoweri Museveni, president of Uganda for more than three decades, also passed an “anti-homosexuality�� bill in 2014, instituting a life sentence for gay couples who marry and criminalizing the “promotion�� of a homosexual lifestyle. By picking a fight over gay rights, he was able to consolidate his supporters at home while neutralizing foreign criticisms of his regime. He accused democracies of “social imperialism��; “Outsiders cannot dictate to us; this is our country,�� he declared. Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, an illiberal hybrid state, also ducks discussion of Hungarian corruption by hiding behind a culture war.

Sound familiar? Leveraging wedge issues and appealing to bigotry is part and parcel of the autocratic approach. Consider campaign ads in the USA that target immigrants and transgender people.

As is usually the case with sociopolitical analysis books, it is one thing to describe the problem, and quite another thing to offer solutions. One feature of this system that Applebaum points out is that one can buy property anonymously in Western nations. This allows kleptocrats to hide their wealth in safe investments. She cites some instances, mostly in the purchase of real estate, and failing companies. It is usual for there to be several shell companies layered between the name on the bill-of-sale and the actual purchaser. Why is this allowed? It makes countries that allow this practice money-laundering centers, keeping the people of the relevant states from knowing just how much their leaders are stealing. It also drives up prices for everyone else. (See property costs in London and New York.) But do we really think that there are any governments with the courage to insist on sunlight for such transactions? I suppose we can hope, and dream.

While the analysis is quite eye-opening, there is little here about how to cope, for example, with the and other Western democracies. Twitter has already been transformed into a propaganda machine. Maybe this is what Nikita Khruschev meant when he said, "We do not have to invade the United States, we will destroy you from within." Or Lenin, who wrote ��When it comes time to hang the capitalists, they will vie with each other for the rope contract.��

It is certainly clear that we are facing massive challenges from actors and nations that seek to undermine our values, planting disinformation in order to create and exploit cultural differences, and taking advantage of our Byzantine national and international legal systems to hide their ill-gotten gains in our countries. They are unspeakable to their own citizens, stifling all meaningful forms of politicking, and trying their best to undermine the values that could actually threaten their control. Applebaum has painted a dark portrait of the world in which we live. It remains uncertain if there are national actors willing to shine some cleansing sunlight on the hidden practices that feed autocrats around the world. New laws can help, but who will vote to pass them? Autocracy, Inc. is a remarkable analysis of a frightening and spreading global problem. Hostile forces seek to undermine our financial and political systems. We are on the receiving end of a threatening call, and it is being made from inside our own house.

Around the world, democratic activists, from Moscow to Hong Kong to Caracas, have been warning us that our industries, our economic policies, and our research efforts are enabling the economic, and even the military aggression of others, and they are right.

Review posted - 10/25/24

Publication date �� 7/23/24




This review will soon be cross-posted on my site, . Stop by and say Hi!

=============================EXTRA STUFF

Links to Applebaum’s , and pages

Check out her personal site. It offers a cornucopia of her writings

Profile �� from her site

Anne Applebaum is a staff writer for The Atlantic and a Pulitzer-prize winning historian. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the SNF Agora Institute.
She was a Washington Post columnist for more than fifteen years and a member of the editorial board. She has also worked as the Foreign and Deputy Editor of the Spectator magazine in London, and as a columnist at Slate as well as the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs.

Interviews
-----Deutsche Welle - - video �� 3:06
-----* Tortoise ThinkIn - - video �� 56:27
-----The Belfer Center of the Kennedy Center at Harvard - with Nicholas Burns �� Audio �� 12:47

My review of Applebaum’s prior book
-----2020 - Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

Items of Interest from the author
-----Washington Post -
-----The Atlantic -

Items of Interest
-----International Center on Nonviolent Conflict - - full text
-----Madeleine Albright - Fascism: A Warning
-----David Frum - Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic
-----Rick Wilson - Running Against the Devil
-----Michael Cohen - Disloyal
-----The Hill - - BY DOMINICK MASTRANGELO
-----Time - by Flora Carr
-----Wikipedia -
-----NY Times - 12/27/24 - - A major roadblock to making corporations reveal their ownership will only secure the dark anonymity about which Applebaum warns