Making sense of the geopolitical landscape after 1989 would be hard enough without the self-inflicted fantasy that ideology, and thus history, had reached its final resting place. Once the infamous Iron Wall pulverized into the dustbin of history, Western intellectuals fed on a steady diet of dialectics proclaimed the emergence of a new consensus. The new world no longer needed to be brave: it was becoming flat.

　　Although the lion and lamb didn’t start exchanging parenting tips, a sigh of popular relief was reflected in the 1995 National Security Strategy: “The end of the Cold War, the central security challenge of the past half century—the threat of communist expansion—is gone.” The remaining dangers were comparatively minor: ethnic conflict, rogue states threatening stability in several regions of the world, nuclear proliferation, drug trafficking, and environmental degradation. Militarily unchallenged, America would employ its “extraordinary diplomatic leverage to reshape existing security and economic structures and create new ones.”

　　The potent soporific of self-deception having induced a virtual strategic coma, it took a literal bolt from the sky to jolt us into reality. As the Twin Towers smoldered, it fell to George W. Bush to take a first stab at trying to explain the nature of America’s enemy. He called it the “Axis of Evil,” consisting of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, thus echoing the eponymous World War II alliance of Germany, Italy, and Japan. It was inspired rhetoric: fascism being routinely used as shorthand for Satan, it resonated fear and loathing.

　　But partisan politics inevitably intrudes to muddy the conceptual waters. In 2018, Princeton economist Paul Krugman thundered, Theres a new axis of evil: Russia, Saudi Arabia—and the United States. Declining to endorse the United Nations’ climate study at a UN Conference notoriously reflected the standard progressive premise that America bears a disproportionate responsibility for the world’s ills. National security requires at least a modicum of strategic clarity and bipartisanship.

　　Journalist Anne Applebaum seems qualified for that task, given her credibility with conservatives earned on the strength of Gulag: A History (2004) and recent progressive turn. She attempts it in her new book, Autocracy, Inc., but fails.

　　The term “autocracy” being value neutral—literally meaning rule by one person, whether a benevolent philosopher-king or a ruthless tyrant—may apply to regimes with different historical roots, goals, aesthetics, and languages. Don’t be fooled by mere labels: “Some [autocrats] call themselves communists, monarchists, nationalists, and theocrats,” writes Applebaum. But “unlike military or political alliances from other times and places, this group does not operate like a bloc.” It consists primarily of political leaders, but also features “an agglomeration of companies, bound not by ideology but rather by a ruthless, single-minded determination to preserve their personal wealth and power.”

　　Post-ideological autocrats’ “bonds with one another, and with their friends in the democratic world, are cemented not through ideals but through deals—deals designed to take the edge off sanctions, to exchange surveillance technology, to help one another get rich. The purpose of their crass cabal is simple: keeping and wielding power.” How distant is the brief moment when the Berlin Wall fell and freedom had been expected to triumph. At that time, “nobody imagined that autocracy and illiberalism would spread to the democratic world instead.”

　　Yet surely any impartial observer unburdened by détente-era fantasies could have seen the former Soviet kleptocracy dismantling during the 1990s. The turn into “a mafia state built and managed entirely for the purpose of enriching its leaders” was no mere “transition” to free markets and rule of law. Were the Western elites, businessmen, and Sovietologists lurking about Moscow just kidding themselves, or were they in on the joke? Either way, “from the beginning of this story to the end, Western cooperation was essential.” This was especially true for money laundering purposes, but also for plain old-fashioned profits.

　　While Applebaum’s examples of greedy, lying, and (mostly) murderous dictators who systematically destroyed economic, political, and cultural institutions come mostly from the totalitarian world (also, strangely, Hungary and Poland), she underscores their often-intimate relationship with CEOs of transnational mega-companies. This is especially dangerous given “the democratic world’s dependence on China, Russia, and other autocracies for minerals, semiconductors, or energy supplies … poses more than just an economic risk.” Chinese businesses are notoriously aggressive in collecting, and stealing, data and information that may be used to wage cyberwarfare. Russian, Chinese, and other oligarchic money in real estate distorts property prices, harming the local population.

　　History is back. Except this time, the evil axis cuts right through our own society.

　　But the specific examples she selects to illustrate how anonymous shell companies purchase condominiums are singularly one-sided, as are the other examples of globalized kleptocracy. Her purpose is unabashedly partisan. She could have referenced at least one of Peter Schweitzer’s impeccably researched books on this topic, such as Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win. But most of his targets are Democrats, which doesn’t fit Applebaum’s narrative. She never mentions the Clinton Foundation and its “nonprofit” recipients, or the Biden family saga, never mind the Soros and Tides Foundation networks.

　　Above all, she distrusts social media platforms that are “among the wealthiest and most influential companies in the world,” predictably singling out Elon Musk for opposing online censorship. She also accuses “many politicians, especially on the far right … [of] having shifted the legitimate political debate about online platform regulation into an argument about ‘bans’ and ‘free speech.” This is at the expense of “the academics and other researchers” who allegedly want nothing more than to explore how the online world “could be made more transparent. [Read: be regulated.]” Noting, moreover, that modern autocrats—specifically from Russia and China—spend lavishly “on television outlets, local and national newspapers, [and] troll networks,” she commends the State Department’s Global Engagement Center’s efforts to combat disinformation. Not a word about the Congressional report documenting GEC’s violating its mission by itself engaging in partisan censorship. Nor does she discuss the perils of academic institutions being subsidized by Qatar, China, and other autocratic regimes.

　　Instead, Appelbaum urges that “the United States and its allies,” to protect the public, “may need to join forces with one another and with media companies to make Reuters, the Associated Press, and other reliable outlets the standard source of global news.” But who decides what is a “reliable” news source? Politicians and media moguls? According to a 2023 University of Chicago survey, 45 percent (of Americans polled) have little to no confidence in the media.

　　AP is a case in point. A controversy followed after it announced the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah with a headline describing him as “charismatic and shrewd.” But what did one expect when its journalists had joined their fellow “reliable source” correspondents working in Gaza to celebrate Hamas’s “Day of Loyalty to the Palestinian Journalist,” hosted by the Government Media Office on September 29, 2024? Since the GMO’s aim is to align the media with Hamas’s agenda, sympathetic coverage by pliable Western press is a given. If any business sector should be singled out as cynically disseminating selective information that endangers not only Israel but America and its allies, it is the mainstream media.

　　Yet what Applebaum is most worried about is our failure “to regulate social media, with negative consequences for politics around the world.” She thus urges democracies to work “in coalitions, to promote transparency, to create international standards [specifically regarding AI], to ensure that autocracies don’t set the rules and shape the products.” She labels such a coalition “Democrats United” on the model of the newly-established World Liberty Congress, whose members are fellow Americans and also “people who share their values inside autocracies.” For “they need one another, now more than ever, because their democracies are not safe. Nobody’s democracy is safe.”

　　So dualism is back after all: autocratic kleptocracy vs. progressive “democracy;” amoral cynics vs. enlightened idealists; mostly-right-wing peddlers of conspiracy theories vs. selfless-antiracist champions of “reliable” reporting. Ideology 1.0 is dead, long live ideology. History is back. Except this time, the evil axis cuts right through our own society. It divides us down the middle, weakening our self-confidence and sowing distrust.

　　She ends her book by observing that few free societies have ever survived for long. “They can be destroyed from the outside and from the inside, too, by division and demagogues.” It remains a mystery why she herself contributes, whether she knows it or not, to that suicidal effort.