A Community of Autocracies?
1 May 2006

In an April 30 Washington Post Op-Ed entitled “League of Dictators?”, Robert Kagan reassesses the characteristics of the international system after the Cold War.  Instead of “religious, ethnic and cultural antipathies” serving as the driving forces of international relations, Kagan proposes that the age old struggle between authoritarianism and liberalism continues. 

Kagan suggests that an informal arrangement has been made between some of the world’s authoritarian regimes, notably China and Russia, which focuses on the perpetuation of their existence.  Kagan cites skepticism of two recent ideas: that Russia was on a liberal path, and that China’s integration into the global economic order would result in internal political liberalization.  He contends that the expectations for liberalization to result in the gradual democratic transformations of Russia and China are “questionable” and suggests that “they can be expected to do what autocracies have always done: resist the encroachments of liberalism in the interest of their own long-term survival.”

Kagan claims that Russia and China support regimes like those in Belarus, Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Iran, and Burma, not just because of the economic, resource (such as oil), and security benefits they can provide, but more simply because “defending these governments against the pressures of the liberal West reflects their fundamental interests as autocracies.”  He argues that Russia and China oppose legitimizing sanctions as a tool to pressure authoritarian regimes, and abuse and undermine the United Nations as a means to defend their interests.  “As usual in eras of conflict between liberalism and autocracy, perceived strategic and ideological interests tend to merge on both sides,” Kagan writes. 

While acknowledging that the world is not about “to divide into a simple Manichean struggle between liberalism and autocracy,” Kagan posits that autocracies will increasingly pursue common interests.  “The question,” he writes, “will be what the United States and Europe decide to do in response.”