Paperback, 228 pages
English language
Published July 23, 2024 by 23 juli 2024.
We think we know what an autocratic state looks like: There is an all-powerful leader at the top. He controls the police. The police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators, and maybe some brave dissidents. But in the 21st century, that bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are underpinned not by one dictator, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, surveillance technologies, and professional propagandists, all of which operate across multiple regimes, from China to Russia to Iran. Corrupt companies in one country do business with corrupt companies in another. The police in one country can arm and train the police in another, and propagandists share resources and themes, pounding home the same messages about the weakness of democracy and the evil of America.International condemnation and economic sanctions cannot move the autocrats. Even popular opposition movements, from Venezuela to Hong Kong to Moscow, don't …
We think we know what an autocratic state looks like: There is an all-powerful leader at the top. He controls the police. The police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators, and maybe some brave dissidents. But in the 21st century, that bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are underpinned not by one dictator, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, surveillance technologies, and professional propagandists, all of which operate across multiple regimes, from China to Russia to Iran. Corrupt companies in one country do business with corrupt companies in another. The police in one country can arm and train the police in another, and propagandists share resources and themes, pounding home the same messages about the weakness of democracy and the evil of America.International condemnation and economic sanctions cannot move the autocrats. Even popular opposition movements, from Venezuela to Hong Kong to Moscow, don't stand a chance. The members of Autocracy, Inc, aren't linked by a unifying ideology, like communism, but rather a common desire for power, wealth, and impunity. In this urgent treatise, which evokes George Kennan's essay calling for "containment" of the Soviet Union, Anne Applebaum calls for the democracies to fundamentally reorient their policies to fight a new kind of threat.
Summary of the book….
Russia, China, Iran, a list of African and South American countries…..BAD USA, Western Europe….GOOD.
Little to no mention of the US and its foreign policy interventions over the decades. Oh….and between 2022 to 2024, there was only one war. Ukraine. Apparently nothing else happening. And the Middle East was all peace, love and mung beans.
Mercifully short and deeply flawed.
I found it an interesting read but a bit one-sided leaving out the involvement of the "western democraties". Which for decades had (and have) no problem other toppling democratic governments, selling weapons to autocrats and stifling change and democratic progress by insisting the depth made by autocrats (for eg. weapons) have to be paid back even after a regime change. As well as e.g mentioning the torture of US soldiers during and following the war in Vietnam but leaving out torture committed et the time by US forces.
This leave me with questions and the feeling that the story is too straight
