How the new dictators are reeling in the world

ANNE APPLEBAUM is one of a handful of journalists and academics who deeply understand the major geopolitical powers and changes in the world around the East-West axis – America and Europe versus Russia and parts of the former Soviet Union and China, and also the major powers in the Middle East.

Since the fall of communism, she has consistently written about the changing nature of everything once linked to the Soviet Union and what is happening in China, and also about what has happened to these two powers' dozens of proxies and related states across the world. Right across our border is Zimbabwe and Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, but there are Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, India and Vietnam too. You get the picture – all the orphans.

When she uses the words “new world order", it is not with the parrot-like meaninglessness of a pickled MAGA supporter. People sit up, because she knows what she's talking about when it comes to order in the world. And when she can see how it is changing, people want to know what she can see.

This is why her latest book Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Rule the World is so important, because in 170 pages it gives you a very good picture of who now controls the levers of power in the world and where we are likely to be heading. It is the kind of book that world leaders read attentively, because not everything that appears in the book is discussed in their daily briefings.

It is a much more complex picture than at any point in the last 150 years, with more players, more networks, more agendas, and especially much more disinformation spread over much more powerful networks.

To some extent, it is even more depressing because it sometimes feels as if something in the nature of justice itself has changed. It feels as if the value of the word “truth" and what it is supposed to represent has itself lost much of its power. It feels as if expressions like “the truth will set you free" no longer have any meaning.

Decency’s time is over

It indeed feels as if the Democrats in America truly believed that all one needs to do when engaged in a major battle with a lying, mocking, demeaning, racist, sexist demagogue is to be as decent and polite as possible, without giving up one's power, and to consistently tell the truth, and the demagogue will fall apart and people will see him for what he really is. The truth will set you free.

Wrong. That time is clearly over. What many liberals see as Trump's weaknesses are actually his strengths. While he quite clearly lost a television debate with Kamala Harris, almost to the point where he should have felt embarrassed, he still established and dominated the overarching themes of the election campaign.

Applebaum shows you that what you see in Trump is not an American phenomenon. It is a world phenomenon. It is increasingly the way to treat the protesting voices of activists in autocratic countries or countries where dictators rule, or where diluted democratic principles apply.

Instead of kidnapping and quietly murdering these activists, as in the good old days, all marauding governments nowadays do is destroy the activist's credibility by spreading vile stories about them – portraying them as a villain and a traitor, a deceiver, a bully, a spy, anything that will destroy their reputation. On the internet and using one or two expert trolls, it is a simple game. This happened in Zimbabwe and Mexico, in Ukraine and Myanmar and many other places.

One of the Trump ironies is that he is a mini-study of the really big villain who has been pulling the strings with the world looking on for more than 30 years: Vladimir Putin. We are only now beginning to fully realise how long Putin has been building an autocratic kleptocracy in the most cynical way imaginable, which is more resilient against the rest of the world than we ever realised, and which is not only a blueprint for dozens of other autocratic kleptocracies but is also to a large extent the centre of networks connecting these autocracies on various levels – financially, militarily, criminally, massive disinformation ... Together this web of deplorables has become the greatest threat to liberal democracies with their fading dream of universal human rights.

Nothing in common except stealing

Vladimir Putin's biggest partner in establishing an autocratic kleptocracy, a complete mafia state, was in two very important respects the so-called West – America and its partners. According to Applebaum (and we all saw this happen before our eyes), there was a naive belief in the West in the 1990s, after communism had disappeared as a threat, and as the internet appeared on the scene, that in a more open and interconnected world, democracy and liberal ideas would spread to autocratic states, and the problem would solve itself. Nobody for a moment thought that an interconnected world could be used to spread autocracy and illiberalism to democracies. Nobody thought that democracy in its strongest fortresses would be threatened in 2024.

Nobody saw it coming that ideology would lose its value as a dividing factor among the world's kleptocracies. The Russians are basically capitalistic and kleptocratic autocrats, Venezuela is a radical populist socialist kleptocracy, Iran is a theocratic, autocratic republic. The autocratic states in the world have almost nothing in common except that they are determined to deprive their citizens of any real influence or public voice, to push back against any form of transparency and accountability, and to suppress anyone, at home or elsewhere, who challenges them.

They also share a brutally pragmatic approach to wealth. Applebaum says that unlike the fascist and communist leaders of the past, who had party machines behind them and did not display their wealth, the leaders of Autocracy Inc (as she has dubbed the phenomenon) equally willingly display their luxurious homes, and they structure most of their co-operation with each other as deals for profit. She says their bonds with each other, and with their friends in the democratic world, are established through agreements, deals and transactions. All aimed at weakening sanctions, exchanging surveillance technology, and helping each other become rich.

The Chinese have their own style

The one member of the club, and it's a massive and important one, that is a little different is China. China's world conduct still has a very clear ideological underpinning. While the Russians chose to send disinformation into the world in an attempt to influence part of the Western conversation, the Chinese initially decided to focus inward and control the information entering the country.

Bill Clinton made his audience laugh when he gave a speech at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies in 2000, taking the stance that Western technology would liberate countries like China from communism and autocracy, saying: “Now there's no question that China has been trying to crack down on the internet. Good luck! (Laughter). That's sort of like trying to nail jello to the wall! (Laughter)"

This was the last time Clinton and his entourage laughed about it. China is now the best example of successful internet censorship in the world with its Great Firewall. Ironically, a large part of this “achievement" was due to the help of Western companies. Microsoft, for example, changed its blogging software to comply with Chinese protocols, Yahoo signed an agreement, “a public promise of self-discipline", an undertaking to flag forbidden terms in internet searches, Cisco Systems sold hundreds of millions worth of equipment to the Chinese, including technology that would block traffic to forbidden websites. Even Google tried to play along, but the Chinese simply took what they wanted from American technology, and by 2010, all American companies had been kicked out.

With a combined system of simple technology, they completely control the internet. The most effective of these combined systems is allegedly used in the Xinjiang province with the Chinese minority Muslim population, the Uighurs. After the Uighur uprisings in 2009, the authorities, for example, installed so-called nanny apps on all phones in the province, which track “ideological viruses" on the phone. With these nanny apps, the authorities' monitoring of a phone's contents is complete, including the location of the carrier.

New autocrats are a rude bunch

A major theme in Applebaum's book is the style of the new autocrats compared to that of the great autocrats of the 20th century. She says the new autocrats have much less style, because style is actually counterproductive. They have moved away from the idea of model state propaganda to their own citizens. Both the communists and fascists of the 20th century tried to sell their own people the idea of a timeless utopia.

One only needs to have ridden the metro trains in Moscow once to see the incredible décor in the train stations – extensive and fantastic artworks depicting the workers' paradise of communism. Ditto the architecture and uniforms and the Ubermensch propaganda of the Nazis.

The new autocrats realised that oppressed people are smart enough to look at their miserable circumstances, and then at the utopia on the posters, and see as pure nonsense what is being sold.

The new approach, and the world has Putin to thank for this, is to candidly admit to your people that the gang in control is corrupt, but to make a great effort to convince them that you are not nearly as corrupt as anyone else, especially not as corrupt as the dirty democracies of the West.

The new approach is to continuously drive home to your citizens the idea that the political world is so disgusting, corrupt, and nihilistic, that it's a better idea not to get involved at all and leave it to the experts in control. Any resistance is useless and pointless. All forms of democracy are linked to chaos and regress.

The Bad Guys Work Well Together

Another central idea in the book is the “Inc." part, the way most autocracies work together to function in the world, despite ideological differences. If someone, for example, needs to smuggle gold, the Zimbabweans are called in. If drugs or drug money need to be moved, one of the South American countries is called for help. If weapons need to be moved, maybe the Russians or the Iraqis. You see how it works. There is a special solidarity between these countries.

She also consistently points out the co-operation of companies from Western democracies to keep these countries going – banks that are quite happy to take dirty money, to keep transactions obscure, and so on. Also the real estate industries in various countries that keep property transactions and the true owners of properties obscure.

Another feature of the new world we live in is the emergence of large military companies like the Russian Wagner Co, which is nothing less than an international criminal war machine that operates under the protection of a powerful super-politician and oligarch like Vladimir Putin. This enables him to carry out military operations in countries where the Russian military can only enter with great complications. And if the leader of the military company becomes too powerful and independent? Well, there are many other generals.

Applebaum says that Wagner and the Russians even have special packages for countries like smaller African countries that have problems with rebels or insurgents. They call it the “regime survival package". Wagner comes in and crushes the problematic military, and for that they get three diamond mines and a hell of a lot of cash.

What is the solution?

What can the democratic world do to head off this nightmare? Applebaum says it's obvious, but complex. There' s no point in trying to storm these countries and figures with tanks and fighter jets, because they are so evasive and shape-shifting that it would have no success. She says you must cut off their water and electricity by regulating the systems that make it possible for them to exist.

Banking legislation must be changed so that every transaction is absolutely transparent. Property legislation must be made so that no “shelf company" can own property anymore, but only true individuals or active companies, all companies must be registered in the name of their true owners, all trusts must reveal the names of their beneficiaries.

International solidarity and co-operation between the good guys must grow to a better level than the co-operation between the bad guys. It's a simple summary, but read Applebaum's book – she discusses the possible solution in detail.

Zuma’s games were nothing new

South Africa, fortunately, is not even mentioned in the book, not even as a compromised democracy. What struck me repeatedly, however, is how old and established almost every dirty trick the Gupta brothers tried to pull on us was. The corruption of leaders is centuries old, the takeover of semi-state companies is an ancient art, the takeover of company supply chains has been practised in Russia for decades, the undermining of democratic institutions has been done many times in South America, Eastern Europe and elsewhere in Africa.

The use of public relations companies to smear journalists and politicians is common practice, and the sewage pipe of false information through social networks – oh, old news. It's all part of the Putin playbook, and it's shocking how close Zuma, the Guptas, and Putin himself came to making a mark next to South Africa's name. 

• Autocracy, Inc. The dictators who want to rule the world, by Anne Applebaum, is available at Loot for R385 in hardcover.

♦ VWB ♦

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