Success or failure for Vladimir Putin’s gambit in Ukraine, however, will have global consequences. All eyes are on Ukraine. Not all of them watching for salvation for the outgunned, struggling and imperfect democracy. Some are watching to see what consequences the world levies against the strongman. What fate is in store for the dictator if he loses? Or if he is preceived to have lost?
Historian Micahel Beschloss this morning drew attention to a lengthy offering in the Financial Times on what implications the war in Ukraine has for the spread of autocracy.
“I’m not planning to leave,” chuckled Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orban while visiting Moscow weeks before the invasion. Now the longest serving leader in the EU and accused of undermining Hungary’s democracy, Orban elicited a laugh from Putin when he remarked, “I have good hopes that for many years we can work together.” As the world watches Ukraine now, the world’s strongmen watched and learned from the mistakes and shortcomings of Donald John Trump. He has yet to face consequences for his actions. Putin at least faces economic sanctions.
Gideon Rachman writes:
Since 2000, the rise of the strongman leader has become a central feature of global politics. In capitals as diverse as Moscow, Beijing, Delhi, Ankara, Budapest, Manila, Washington, Riyadh and Brasília, self-styled “strongmen” (and, so far, they are all men) have risen to power.
Typically, these leaders are nationalists and cultural conservatives, with little tolerance for minorities, dissent or the interests of foreigners. At home, they claim to be standing up for the common man against the “globalist” elites. Overseas, they posture as the embodiment of their nations. And, everywhere they go, they encourage a cult of personality.
It is possible that the catastrophe of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will permanently discredit the strongman style of politics. But those hopes should be balanced by the knowledge that this is a movement — and a political style — that has put down deep roots over the past 20 years.
Like other autocrats, Trump played to fears “that a dominant majority is about to be displaced — suffering enormous cultural and economic losses in the process.” That waning majority will believe up is down, war is peace, freedom is slavery, etc., if it means they will retain their ability to dominate ethic and religious minorities they view as lessers.
Once secured in power, strongmen have little reason to leave and hang onto power by any means necessary. The U.S. just witnessed an attempt to do just that. Fortunately, our would-be “strongly” man is a poseur. In his four years in office, he wrecked or undermined many institutional guardrails in this now struggling democracy, and retains an unsettling amount of support in places of power. But his and his cadre’s ineptitude, plus the remaining institutional ballast at the highest levels of the military, helped prevent an attempted coup from being realized.
Read Rachman’s entire essay remembering how fragile our enduring, imperfect union has proved in the Age of the Strongman.
There are good reasons to believe that the liberal democratic world will ultimately prevail. Strongman rule is an inherently flawed model. It cannot deal with the problem of succession and it lacks the checks and balances that allow democracies to ditch failed policies and rulers. The longer a strongman ruler is in power, the more likely he is to succumb to paranoia or megalomania. Putin’s decision to attack Ukraine exemplifies that danger.
But strongmen are very hard to lever out of power. The Age of the Strongman has taken hold over the course of a generation. There may be a lot more turmoil and suffering before it is consigned to history.
No rest for the weary.
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