by Adele A. Wilby
Renowned and respected for her scholarship, her history of authorship of many books on dictatorship and her political experience, is it any wonder that Anne Applebaum’s new book Autocracy, Inc. The Dictators Who Want to Run the World has been so critically received; she is an expert on her subject. This slim volume provides us with an incisive exposition and analysis of how autocrats function in the world today, securing their own personal power and wealth, and in Applebaum’s view, posing a threat to democracies.
For Applebaum, autocratic regimes clearly pose a threat to democracies, but about which states is she referring? The number of autocrats is, according to her, extensive and includes communists, monarchists, nationalists and theocrats. On Applebaum’s ‘list’ of autocracies are, predictably, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea – the well-known adversaries of the West – amongst many others. ‘Softer autocracies and hybrid democracies, sometimes called illiberal democracies’ such as Turkey, Singapore and India also come under her purview. It appears that autocracies and ‘softer autocracies’ outnumber the democracies in the world today and most of the world’s population lives under such regimes, and that is the problem for Applebaum.
We learn from Applebaum that the ‘art’ of autocracy in the modern world is very much up to speed, taking advantage of a globalised world, involving sophisticated networks of ‘financial structures, a complex of security services – military, paramilitary, police – and technological experts who provide surveillance, propaganda and disinformation’. The apparatus deployed by autocrats to achieve their political and financial objectives are probably used by most states across the globe; it is the purpose for which they are used that irks Applebaum. In her view a ‘ruthless, single-minded determination to preserve their personal wealth and power’ drives the autocrats in the world today.
The most notorious example of autocratic kleptocracy functioning today, in Applebaum’s view, is Russia under Vladamir Putin. In her analysis, following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, the idea of ‘change through trade’ in Russia gained some traction and there was a confidence amongst the reformers in Russia that engagement with the outside world would pave the way to a new political and economic system. Vladamir Putin was one such optimist, but a nostalgia for the lost Soviet Empire following the collapse the Soviet Union, according to Applebaum, haunted him. Still, the lost Soviet Empire has not been recovered and instead, after assuming the presidency, Russia under Putin eventually emerged as a ‘full-blown autocratic kleptocracy, a mafia state built and managed for the purpose of enriching its leaders’. Putin’s project was, Applebaum argues, the realisation of a long-term ambition that began in the 1980s when he was stationed at the KGB headquarters in Dresden. While in that post he set up a network of spies and secret bank accounts with his schemes becoming increasingly complex and extensive over time.
Chavez in Venezuela in the 1980s is another of Applebaum’s examples of autocracies. Chavez opted to turn the other way when confronted with allegations of corruption. In so doing he allowed corruption to seep into his administration, becoming the norm under his regime, with billions of dollars of oil revenue being siphoned off and ending up in private bank accounts in Switzerland and other foreign countries. To cover up the corruption, according to Applebaum, Chavez had to undermine democratic institutions – the press, the courts, the civil service – rendering them ineffective and finally entrenching Chavez’s autocracy.
But how actually does the network of Autocracy, Inc. function in the international system according to Applebaum? How does a dictator such as Putin or a state such as Venezuela, survive under sanctions, for example.
Apparently, when one autocratic state is in difficulty other autocracies offer support to sustain that autocracy and further their own interests and consolidate their wealth in the process. Thus, when firms from the US, Europe and South America, unnerved by the political instability in Venezuela for example, started to pull out, Russian companies and the Russian state seized the opportunity and moved in to replace the withdrawing companies. Russian money was invested in Venezuelan oil, agriculture and manufacturing, and grain exports to Venezuela were subsidised and arms also were sent to the country, propping up Chavez’s dictatorship while expanding their own financial interests at the same time. Moreover, when caution in lending to Venezuela grew, China also stepped in with financial support to the country. China, known for lending money to states without conditions, was not concerned with any reforms in the country in exchange for the loans to Venezuela. Even when Venezuela proved unreliable to China, it continued to provide surveillance technology and crowd-control equipment to the post Chavez, Maduro government. The technological support from China as part of Autocracy, Inc, in the post Chavez era, Applebaum argues, was used to prevent people from joining protesting crowds and the opposition from gaining political power.
The use of new technology, such as face recognition and other surveillance equipment to identify and control possible internal popular opposition to an autocratic regime, is only one method applied to control domestic populations. China and Russia also use modern media internally to perpetuate disinformation, the glorification of the regime and anti-Western propaganda to shore up their legitimacy. Billions of dollars are spent on sophisticated international media to spread their version of the world globally, a practice though that most states engage in, on one level or another.
Applebaum’s palpable disapproval of autocratic kleptocracies in global politics is not, as her book reveals, without foundation. However, deeply disturbing in her analysis is her acknowledgement that autocracies have been, and continue to be, enabled by companies in western democracies, and it would have been interesting to learn more about this, although a deeper exposition of such a topic would probably require a much more extensive book. In reference to Putin and his autocratic and kleptocratic practices she says, ‘from the beginning to the end of this story, Western cooperation was essential’, quite an indictment and one that raises issues of double standards when it comes to criticism of autocracies from western sources.
According to Applebaum, Western institutions, companies, lawyers and politicians not only enabled Putin’s kleptocratic practices, but they earned a profit in the process and appear to have had no qualms in covering up for them when required to do so. Likewise, she points out, some British and other foreign businesses were more interested in securing their financial interests in a new relationship with China than the politics of democracy when British relinquished authority over Hong Kong. And then there is the arcane world of shell companies and the purchase of real estate without due diligence of the source of the clients’ funding in Europe and in the United States. Shell companies with anonymous ownership hide money in offshore tax havens such as Jersey and the Cayman Islands, practices which, according to Applebaum, could amount to as much as 10 percent of global GDP. States in the US – Delaware, Nevada, South Dakota and Wyoming – have put in place financial instruments that allow anonymous investors to squirrel away their appropriated wealth from the world, including Russian oligarchs. Similarly, clandestine finances pass through the United Kingdom. The king of Jordan, for example, used shell companies to purchase homes in England.
By turning a blind eye to the sources of wealth from autocratic leaders, bankers and real estate agents, lawyers and others in western democracies undermine the rule of law in their own countries and enable conditions for autocratic kleptocracies to exist. This begs the question of at what point a line can be drawn between an ‘enabler’ and a functionary of Autocracy, Inc in western democracies, such as the US.
Applebaum points out that autocracies pose a threat to democracies, but she also acknowledges that democratic political systems that include concepts such as ‘accountability’, ‘transparency’ and ‘democracy’ are an anathema to autocrats. Indeed, Applebaum is unequivocal in her identification of the common enemy of autocratic states, which is, she says, ‘us’, ‘the democratic world, ‘the West’, NATO, the European Union, their own internal democratic opponents’. According to Applebaum, the objective of autocracies such as Russia and China is to change the world order and it is ‘part of a conscious plan to undermine the network of ideas, rules, and treaties that have been built into international law since 1945, to destroy the European order created after 1989, and, most important, to damage the influence and reputation of the United States and its democratic allies’. Yet Applebaum, although clear in how Autocrat, Inc. functions and its objectives, fails to demonstrate that there is a ‘conscious plan’ behind these practices. Autocratic regimes may exhibit common features, but they also have their vast differences, are not bound by a single ideology and do not form a bloc as such; their bonds ‘are cemented not through ideals- but deals – deals that take the edge off sanctions, to exchange of surveillance technology, to help one another get rich’. Questions must be raised therefore as to just how far autocratic kleptocracies might form a common cause against the United States and other democracies or whether in fact the relationship between autocracies isn’t just supportive state-to-state relations in a similar fashion to relations between democratic states, and forms part of how international relations work.
Still, that autocracies are her main opposition is summed up rather passionately when she says, ‘the autocracies want to create a global system that benefits thieves, criminals, dictators, and the perpetrators of mass murder’. Moreover, Applebaum is not prepared to wait to find out if autocracies will ever pose a strategic collective threat to the democracies. Instead, in the Epilogue we hear the voice of Applebaum the political activist as she engages with exiled politicians and like-minded people, ‘we, the proponents of freedom’ who ‘can drown out the advocates of dictatorship’. Like all political activists, she turns to how to engage in resistance politics. In what could be construed as a political manifesto, she sets out the multifaceted connections between autocrats and autocratic political movements and politicians in the United States and across Europe and puts forward practical measures that, she feels, if implemented effectively, will ‘stop them’, the autocrats.
Her depth and sophisticated knowledge of international relations and real-world politics in dealing with autocracies is apparent in her highly nuanced comments on forms of resistance to autocracies. Rather that advocating all-out confrontation between states, she suggests that ‘the struggle for freedom’ should not be seen as a ‘competition with specific autocratic states, and certainly not as ‘war’ with China’. Clearly Applebaum’s use of nuanced language suggests that she does not wish to be seen to be encouraging strained interstate relations, particularly between America and China, or to be advocating regime change or revolution in any state.
Yet her repugnance for and determination to resist autocracies is apparent in her use of the powerful noun ‘war’ to metaphorically express the depth of resistance necessary when dealing with autocracies. However, given her well-articulated abhorrence for autocracies, her strategy for resistance is significantly muted and the strategy to be adopted is seen in terms of a ‘war against autocratic behaviours, wherever they are found’. (italics in original) How this ‘war’ on ‘behaviour’ is be waged is indicated by her list of personnel and tactics required to wage this freedom struggle, it is extensive, involving many levels of society. She also calls for more action in America and Europe and transnationally to implement effective measures to control and make transparent money laundering and other financial dealings that enable kleptocracy. ‘War’ is also to be waged against the propagation of false ideas and information laundering. And then there is the plan to ‘decouple, de-risk and rebuild’, measures that will reduce the economic vulnerability of democracies when dealing with autocracies. In effect, she is calling for a radical overall in democracies in their dealings with autocratic states, a monumental task indeed, given the impact such a strategy would have on many vested interests within democracies.
Applebaum’s Autocrats, Inc is an astute and carefully crafted analysis of how autocrats function in the globalised political and financial world to secure their personal power and wealth at the expense of the interests and well-being of their own people. Furthermore, despite her support and advocacy of extending democracy globally, it is also clear that there is much to be done within existing western democracies where the enabling of autocratic kleptocracies has become ‘normal’ in systems where profit is the overriding concern. In this process, the rule of law, transparency and accountability and consequently democracy itself is undermined. We should not be surprised therefore that, in the tradition of a political activist whose primary concern is ‘freedom’, Applebaum advocates deeper concern and more active participation by people in resisting autocracies in democratic societies. For her a great deal is at stake as, she argues, ‘nobody’s democracy is safe’.