Most news media in the United States, and probably everywhere else, report on world affairs country by country with only occasional forays into regional reports. We learn about events piecemeal. In China. In Russia. And in every other country where something newsworthy has proven to be dramatic or threatening enough to attract enough interest in the public. But even a global phenomenon like the widespread emergence of autocratic governments rarely attracts analysis. And that’s the mission Pulitzer-winning author Anne Applebaum takes on in Autocracy, Inc. Read this book, and you will wonder how even the most thoughtful media outlets could have failed to report on the shocking developments she reveals about autocracy worldwide in this eye-opening new book. Together, these developments presage the advent of a truly new world order that threatens the global leadership of the democratic West.
Three takeaways
No lonely dictators
Applebaum dispels the notion of the all-powerful dictator whose every whim becomes law. “Nowadays,” she writes, “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.”
An emerging global network
None of the world’s three or four dozen autocracies is likely to thrive in seclusion, no matter how much the West might try to isolate them through sanctions. As Applebaum observes,”The members 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.” As we have seen clearly in the war in Ukraine, Russia has received support from China, Moldova, Iran, and North Korea as well as arms and equipment obtained through illicit channels from Western countries.
It’s all about money
If there is any single purpose that motivates these autocracies, it’s money. Autocracy breeds corruption. And it’s no exaggeration to say that most of the men (and it’s mostly men) who operate these autocratic networks are in it to get rich. Because the riches in evidence are beyond the comprehension of mere mortals. Not just billions, but tens, even hundreds of billions. Possibly even a trillion dollars stolen from Russia alone.
Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World by Anne Applebaum (2024) 210 pages ★★★★★
The commonalities among them trump the many differences
Any report on autocracy in a single country is likely to dwell on the ways in which it is unique. The Chinese Communist Party, for example, which has no peer. Or the Russian siloviki, a unique product of the country’s security services. But, in Applebaum’s estimation, the commonalities among the world’s autocracies far outweigh the differences.
“Instead of ideas,” she writes, “the strongmen who lead Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Angola, Myanmar, Cuba, Syria, Zimbabwe, Mali, Belarus, Sudan, Azerbaijan, and perhaps three dozen others share a determination to deprive their citizens of any real influence or public voice, to push back against all forms of transparency or accountability, and to repress anyone, at home or abroad, who challenges them. . . Their primary goal is to stay in power, and to do so, they are willing to destabilize their neighbors, destroy the lives of ordinary people, or—following in the footsteps of their predecessors—even” send hundreds of thousands of their citizens to their deaths.
About the author
Anne Applebaum won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 2004 for Gulag: A History, and she has received plaudits for her work ever since. The list of honors and prizes she has accumulated over the years is long. She is a journalist and historian who writes primarily about the history of Communism and the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe.
Applebaum was born in 1964 in Washington, DC, and educated at Yale, the London School of Economics, and the University of Oxford. At various times she has held senior positions at the Washington Post, where she was a columnist for 17 years, and the American Enterprise Institute. Autocracy, Inc. is her ninth book. Since 1992, Applebaum has been married to Radosław Sikorski, a Polish politician and statesman who has served as Defense Minister and as Minister of Foreign Affairs since 2023. They have two sons. She speaks Russian and Polish and holds Polish citizenship.
For related reading
Check out these posts for links to good books about related matters:
- Gaining a global perspective on the world around us
- 20 top nonfiction books about history
- Good books about Vladimir Putin, modern Russia and the Russian oligarchy
- 30 insightful books about China
And you can always find my most popular reviews, and the most recent ones, on the Home Page.
