Autocracy, Inc. Book Summary

Modern autocracies are no longer run by a single dictator, but by sophisticated networks relying on kleptocratic financial structures, security services, and technological experts providing surveillance, propaganda and disinformation.

These networks are connected across autocratic countries and sometimes in democracies too. Autocratic regimes share a determination to repress their citizens, push back against transparency and accountability, and undermine anyone who challenges them.

Section: 1, Chapter: 1

In the 1990s, Western leaders optimistically assumed trade and globalization would inevitably spread democracy to Russia and China. They underestimated how:

• Russian "capitalism" was designed from the start to favor insiders, with no real free markets. Wealth came from connections and theft, not innovation.
• Chinese companies, even in the era of economic opening, still ultimately served the interests of the Communist Party and its hold on power.

In practice, Western trade and investment often fueled kleptocracy and dictatorship rather than reforming them. But few wanted to acknowledge the moral hazards at the time.

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In his first years as president, Putin paid lip service to democracy, declaring in speeches that only a democratic state could balance interests and ensure rule of law, free elections and human rights in Russia.

In practice, he constructed a Potemkin democracy designed to fool foreigners while allowing him to monopolize power. Elections featured no real competition. The market operated only within Kremlin-set limits. Putin could destroy any company that crossed him, as the expropriation of Yukos by state-owned Rosneft showed. Yet Rosneft still attracted major Western investment, showing the willful blindness of those who profited from the charade.

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When former coup leader Hugo Chávez was elected Venezuela's president in 1998, he vowed to replace the corrupt old elite. But when his chief of police first presented evidence of graft by Chávez allies, the president fired the whistleblower.

The incident taught officials that loyalty would be rewarded with impunity to steal. Over time, Venezuela's Bolivarian socialist system enabled massive embezzlement, siphoning billions from the state oil company PDVSA into foreign accounts. Currency manipulation spawned a "boligarchy" of regime cronies who exploited distorted exchange rates. As in Russia, corruption metastasized from an aberration into the regime's operating system.

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As Venezuela's crisis deepened under Maduro, the regime's salvation came from fellow autocracies:

• Russia provided bailouts, arms, and propaganda support. Rosneft took over PDVSA's defaulted assets.
• China offered billions in loans to help circumvent U.S. sanctions, in exchange for oil.
• Cuba sent security advisers to help contain unrest and track dissidents.
• Turkey facilitated illicit gold sales to generate revenue.
• Iran shipped gasoline and parts to restore Venezuela's collapsing refinery infrastructure.

This solidarity, based on shared authoritarianism rather than ideology, helped the unpopular Maduro cling to power despite Western pressure, hyperinflation, and chronic shortages.

Section: 1, Chapter: 2

Following the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, the Chinese Communist Party sought to eliminate the democratic "spiritual pollution" that spurred protesters. As the internet emerged, it constructed a pervasive system of online controls far exceeding a mere "Great Firewall":

• Social media is engineered for built-in surveillance
• Vague laws criminalize posting anything "endangering national security" or "detrimental to the honor and interests of the state"

The goal is to guide mass online discussion, marginalize dissent, and squelch organizing - a model gaining traction among autocracies worldwide.

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Unlike clumsy and unconvincing Soviet propaganda, modern Russian messaging aims not to inspire but to confuse, distract, and demoralize. Common themes:

• "Whataboutism" that deflects criticism by accusing the West of hypocrisy
• Amplifying voices that smear liberal societies as decadent and failing
• Portraying Russia as the defender of "traditional values" against liberal excess

Russians are fed a diet of nationalist triumphalism while "news" from democracies fixates on dysfunction, elite corruption, culture-war controversy, or civilizational decline.

Section: 1, Chapter: 3

Russia has made "multipolarity" its byword for a desired global order without the moral straitjacket of U.S. hegemony and liberal democratic norms, resonating with sovereignty-obsessed autocrats and post-colonial states.

In practice, Russian "multipolarity" has meant:

• Invading Ukraine and annexing territory by force
• Backing coup leaders and mercenary-linked warlords in Africa
• Courting illiberal nationalists and far-right extremists in Europe and the Americas

Its practical agenda is to free autocrats from external restraints or accountability to their citizens.

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Autocratic regimes are increasingly reaching across borders to intimidate, abduct, or assassinate dissidents with impunity, flouting international law:

• Russia has poisoned defectors in Britain and shot exiles in Germany
• Iran has kidnapped journalists from Iraq and plotted hits on U.S. soil
• Saudi Arabia murdered Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey and abducted a prince from France
• Rwanda has strangled opponents in Belgium and shot them in South Africa

Emboldened autocrats now barely bother to hide such crimes, calculating that Western law enforcement can't or won't retaliate. Lack of accountability only encourages escalation.

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The war in Syria incubated new models of deniable force projection by Russia, Iran and others, through proxies and private military companies (PMCs):

• Russia's Wagner Group, a deniable cutout for Russian military and intelligence, debuted covert combat capabilities
• Iran deployed Shiite militias like Hezbollah alongside "advisers" to augment Assad's forces
• Both exploited mercenary units' potential as business ventures, granting them access to oil and mineral rights

Proxy warfare's semi-corporate innovations make military meddling harder than ever to police.

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Compared to 20th century total censorship and mass violence, 21st century autocrats calibrate subtler ways to tarnish and intimidate critics, combining:

• Malign prosecution and stripped credentials to legally sideline opponents
• Manufactured scandals spread online to mar reputations
• Conspiracy theories alleging hidden foreign backing to undermine legitimacy
• Troll and bot armies that drown out or distort opposition messages
• Blackmail and threats to turn even family and friends into liabilities

The public, disillusioned, is left seeing honest brokers as no better than the ruling cabal.

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Modern autocrats grasp that their survival depends on weakening democracy as an idea and political model everywhere, not just in their own realms. Toward that end:

• Russia works across military, energy, cyber and information domains to destabilize Europe and commandeer its political debate
• China locks in influence over global media narratives and industrial assets while co-opting UN leadership posts
• Regional powers like Iran and Venezuela build sanctions-busting networks of trade and technology while aiding each other's repression

Autocrats increasingly coordinate and learn from each other's tools and tactics. Any victories against pro-democracy forces reverberate to embolden the autocratic bloc as a whole.

Section: 1, Chapter: 5