Many of the propagandists of Autocracy, Inc., have learned from the mistakes of the twentieth century. They don’t offer their fellow citizens a vision of utopia, and they don’t inspire them to build a better world. Instead, they teach people to be cynical and passive, because there is no better world to build. Their goal is to persuade people to mind their own business, stay out of politics, and never hope for a democratic alternative: Our state may be corrupt, but everyone else is corrupt too. You may not like our leader, but the others are worse. You may not like our society, but at least we are strong and the democratic world is weak, degenerate, divided, dying.
A short grim book. It details how the world’s tyrants have formed a kind of dark web that insulates them against actions by liberal democracies, including the economic weapons derailed in CHOKEPOINTS. It’s grim reading – Applebaum is a coldly angry writer. There aren’t any laughs. But the details are really interesting.
In 2023, the FBI arrested two people for operating an illegal Chinese “police station” in New York City, a set of offices used by Chinese security officers to monitor Chinese citizens and dissidents. The Dutch government says it has uncovered two illegal Chinese police stations in the Netherlands as well, and there are accounts and rumors of others.
| Love the detail of it, hating all the horror stories – including the Chinse cyber influence op that caused a social media mob that led a Taiwanese diplomat to kill himself. It’s important reading, but not happy reading. |
Like the founders of so many other successful start-ups, the original investors in Wagner’s African operation appear to be contemplating the creation of a franchise. A team from Britain’s Royal United Services Institute has described the current Russian offer to sitting dictators and would-be dictators as a “regime survival package.” This bundle of aid can include personal protection for the dictator; violent assaults on his political enemies; help in fighting an insurgency; broadcast or social media campaigns that echo the themes of multipolarity and anticolonialism; kleptocratic contacts that help the elite hide money (and possibly benefit the Russians as well).