World Democracy Means World Security

The concept of democracy promotion has a negative connotation, particularly since the War in Iraq. The cost of the Iraq war and the public controversy over it generated an aversion towards democracy promotion. Such negativity was associated with the idea that Americans soldiers are sacrificed for a cause that is not theirs. Losing lives over foreign democracies is not worthwhile and less so when instead of democracy what we see is civil war, anarchy, and chaos.

The problem is not so much with the argument raised. In fact, it makes sense to think that sacrificing U.S. troops to build a foreign nation is too high of a price to pay. However, this argument has spilled into a general blindness regarding democracy promotion up to the point that there is an aversion to even discussing the issue and against this background, a neo-isolationist concept has developed in important sectors of the right and the left.

I will state that there is in the world today a deterioration of democracy that begins with elections, but quickly turns into a rule by executive decrees, subjugation of the branches of power, fraudulent elections, restriction of the press, and eventually violent repression of society. They begin as illiberal democracies and end up in an authoritarian regime. The cases of Russia, Venezuela, and Turkey are the clearest examples. Several countries in the Western hemisphere such as Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua have followed the Venezuelan example of establishing a powerful authority. (Fortunately, Ecuador is now walking back this path). In Europe, countries such as Poland and Hungary are following suit.

The problem is that those regimes are not friendly to the liberal world order that the U.S. and its allies have tried to build. In the past, not every authoritarian regime was anti-American or anti-West. Many of them were authoritarian capitalistic or semi-capitalistic regimes that aligned with the U.S. during the cold war. Even today, the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Kashoggi allegedly by order of the Saudi crown prince, has generated a dilemma given the fact that Saudi Arabia is an important geo-political ally of the U.S at a time that the U.S needs to counteract Russian and Iranian expansion in the Middle East. Indeed, to adopt a puritan human rights position when it comes to international relations is not realistic given the complex set of factors and interests that are involved in U.S foreign policy.   However, I would argue that despite these exceptions, democracy is not only a concern based on a pure moral value. It is also in the strategic interest of the United States and the West in general.

The International Threat of Undemocratic Rule in the 21st Century

In illiberal democracies, the ruler expresses contempt for institutions such as the judiciary and the legislative branches and attempts to establish a charismatic/emotional relationship between the leader and the people above those institutions. Such is the case of countries such as Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Turkey, and the Philippines. Hungary and Poland are most likely to follow suit. The impunity and sense of power experienced by populist elected leaders in those countries lead them to exercise arbitrary rule without accountability. This lack of accountability often has international consequences.

When the populist leaders are promoting a revolutionary regime, it most likely has regional consequences. That is the case of Venezuela that pledged a sort of socialist revolution for export, and Turkey where its leader, Recep Tayip Erdogan, promoted a new Islamism against the secular traditions of the country and also claimed leadership in the Middle East invoking the memory of the old Ottoman Empire.

Venezuela established relations with revolutionary terrorist groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Marxist group responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people and the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah. Likewise, Venezuela strengthened relations with rogue states such as Iran and drug cartels and also declared open hostility towards the United States and its regional influence.

Turkey is another case whose leader is a revolutionary whose actions have deviated Turkey from its commitments as a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the military alliance that defends the West and its values. Despite its membership in NATO, Turkey has closer relations to countries such as Russia and Iran. Likewise, Erdogan publicly spoke to a six-year-old girl encouraging martyrdom, confirming Mr. Erdogan’s radical Islamist views. Erdogan’s view of democracy has been very clear. In his own words , “Democracy is like a streetcar. When you come to your stop, you get off”.

Erdogan’s view of democracy represents the views of most contemporary illiberal autocrats. They use democracy to get elected and then perpetuate themselves in power through manipulation, fraud or intimidation of opponents.

They use the “democratic mandate” to give legitimacy to anti-democratic measures and perpetuate themselves in power.

The new authoritarian regimes not only reject democracy but are also afraid of the liberal world order. The European Union has supported the liberal order for decades as democracy was a condition to enter the European Common Market. Spain and Portugal were able to join the group only after they transitioned to democracy. After the end of the Cold War, the U.S. also moved from its “Realpolitik” approach to supporting the spread of democracy in the world.

Current illiberal regimes consider the West an adversary directly or indirectly. By the same token, they do not feel committed to the same geo-strategic goals and values that the West promotes. It is precisely for this reason that illiberal regimes will try to get closer to Russia, China and even rogue states such as Iran, North Korea or Syria. At this point, Russia and China compete with the United States for world influence.

Vladimir Putin’s Russia seeks to recover its status as a world power. Russia has also inherited a strong military machine from the communist era, in deep contrast to the undeveloped civil-economic sector. This military might have enabled Russia to pursue imperial ambitions and extend its influence, but mainly through military means. That is the case with Russia’s intervention in Crimea, in Georgia and in Syria. As a military superpower Russia supplies weapons to regimes it considers allies or friendly to its cause such as Venezuela, Nicaragua, Pakistan, the Taliban and others.

China, by contrast, is an economic superpower that through trade has penetrated large parts of the world. It is technologically advanced and is the fastest growing economy. China is the largest manufacturer of goods, and a major exporter and importer of goods. This gives China tremendous political influence in the world. Their economic power provides them with non-military soft power that provides them in turn with political influence.

China’s trade has expanded geometrically. In Latin America alone trade with China went from almost nothing in 1990, to 10 billion in the year 2000, to 270 billion in the year 2012. This also includes the area of telecommunications and space. China’s demands for Latin American commodities contributed to the economic boom that characterized many countries in Latin America in the last decade. China’s economic involvement in Latin America has taken the form of direct investments and heavy lending by Chinese banks. This has brought about political dividends to China. Countries such as El Salvador, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and Panama recognized the “One China Policy”, endorsing China’s ambitions over Taiwan.

But the Chinese are not only an economic attraction. China has also supported authoritarian regimes. China does not seek to change regimes and make them authoritarian necessarily, but once an authoritarian regime is established, it would support it.

By the same token these authoritarian regimes have sought alliances with China and Russia.   Erdogan himself amid tensions with the United States and the West spoke about seeking new friends in Russia, China, Iran, and others. Venezuela has had developed strong military, political, and economic relations with Russia and China.

The countries of Central Europe present a worrisome trend as well. Poland took a series of measures and passed laws that subordinated the courts to executive prerogatives. Poland has also curbed public gathering and restricted the freedom of the press. Most recently. it passed a law outlawing public discussion of Poles’ collaboration with the Nazis, something that affects not only freedom of speech but also freedom of research. Hungary has also cracked down on nonprofits, the press and on the judiciary, and has vindicated dubious figures of the past that collaborated with the Nazis. As a result, Poland and Hungary are currently at odds with the European Union. Their conflict with the European Union over democratic practices affects the unity of the free world. Moreover, the illiberal character of these countries and these tensions with Europe may push these countries into Russia or China’s sphere of influence. In fact, Hungary is already very close to the Kremlin. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban warmed up to Moscow and received large loans from Russia. Likewise, there were reports about connections between Russian intelligence officers and far right groups in Hungary. Poland still views Russia as a threat, but nothing guarantees that this situation would not be reversed.

In terms of these countries’ relation with China, Orban enthusiastically opened his country to China. Hungary’s foreign minister Peter Szijjarto has proudly pointed out that Hungary is China’s best ally in Central Europe. Poland is the largest trade partner of China in Central Europe and the overall trade with China in this area is 57 billion dollars.

The relation between illiberal democracies and the international context comes clear in a speech delivered by Mr. Orban in 2014 when he said that

… today’s world can perhaps be described by saying that there is a race underway to find the method of community organization, the state, which is most capable of making a nation and a community internationally competitive. This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the explanation for the fact that the most popular topic in thinking today is trying to understand how systems that are not Western, not liberal, not liberal democracies and perhaps not even democracies, can nevertheless make their nations successful. The stars of the international analysts today are Singapore, China, India, Russia and Turkey. And I think that our political community recognized and touched on this challenge correctly several years ago and perhaps also succeeded in processing it intellectually, and if I think back on what we have done over the past four years and what we will be doing during the upcoming four years, then things can indeed be interpreted from this perspective. Meaning that, while breaking with the dogmas and ideologies that have been adopted by the West and keeping ourselves independent from them, we are trying to find the form of community organization, the new Hungarian state, which is capable of making our community competitive in the great global race for decades to come.

To give further justification to his views Orban stated that “societies that are built on the state organization principle of liberal democracy will probably be incapable of maintaining their global competitiveness in the upcoming decades and will instead probably be scaled down unless they are capable of changing themselves significantly”.

So, Orban mentioned several illiberal countries where with the exception of India and Singapore (probably the most liberal in the list), the rest are rather directly or indirectly adversaries of the West. It is reasonable to assume that the more countries follow the illiberal model, the more countries such as Russia and China increase world influence.

Therefore, what the United States needs is to develop an active foreign policy that promotes and defends democratic rule. This policy still needs to be designed in order to prevent the emergence of illiberal democracies. Every time such regime surfaces it is a strategic wound to the free world. Once an illiberal leader such as Orban, Erdogan or Hugo Chavez win the first election, they will resort to undemocratic means to stay in power. The perpetuation in power of an anti-western tyrant becomes a problem for western interest and world stability. This is not a matter of just spreading our values or “nation-building”. It is a matter of strengthening world stability and doing it in the strategic interest of the U.S. and its allies.

The time has come for U.S. policymakers to understand that at the end of the day democracy reflects the strength of the free world more than anything. Democracies might elect the wrong leader, but they must have the chance to remove him/her from power in the next election.

It is this very order that the United States needs to defend and maintain.