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Home , Authoritarian capitalism, Centralisation, Confucius Peace Prize, Democracy, Morton Halperin

Democracy vs : How Shapes Great- Power Conflict

Hal Brands

Historical turning points are not always recognised as such by contempo- raries. Yet it was hard to miss the import of Xi Jinping’s address to the 19th Congress of the in October 2017. Xi’s three-hour speech, the culmination of a congress that cleared the way for him to remain ’s ruler indefinitely, offered the most explicit statement to date that a rising China would no longer be content to hide its capabilities and bide its time. Xi declared that China was ready to ‘take centre stage in the world’ – to seek global influence commensurate with its growing power. He also argued that China now represented a successful alternative to the combination of liberal and free markets espoused by the reigning , the . Because China had achieved great prosperity and power through its model of authoritarian , it offered ‘a new option for other countries and nations who want to speed up their development while preserving their independence’.1 Xi’s address, then, was not simply a decla- ration of geopolitical ambition. It was a reminder that modern great-power revolves around clashes of and systems of govern- ment no less than around clashes of national interests. Today, it verges on cliché to observe that great-power competition is back – that resurgent rivalry between the most powerful states is once again a defining feature of global . After a period of historically

Hal Brands is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. His most recent book is American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump (Brookings Press, 2017).

Survival | vol. 60 no. 5 | October–November 2018 | pp. 61–114 DOI 10.1080/10.1080/00396338.2018.1518371 62 | Hal Brands low geopolitical tensions, revisionist powers – namely, China and – are increasingly testing the liberal international order created and led by the United States.2 From the Western Pacific to Eastern , they are seeking to carve out privileged spheres of influence and dominate their strategic peripheries. They are contesting global ‘rules of the road’ such as freedom of navigation and non-, and using tools ranging from inducement to intimidation to military coercion to make the international environment more receptive to their ambitions. They are competing for influence in pivotal countries and regions across Eurasia; they are probing the vulnerable peripheries of US power. As all this occurs, they are coming into progressively sharper rivalry with Washington and other defenders of the post-Second international system. Whether these intensify- ing rivalries will ultimately climax in great-power war is perhaps the central question of twenty-first-century geopolitics. But the era of deep great-power peace that followed the is undoubtedly over.3 Less widely appreciated, however, is the extent to which ideological competition – tensions between the ideas around which societies organise themselves, and between the forms of they adopt – is fuelling geopolitical competition.4 States are not interchangeable billiard balls, dis- tinguishable only by the level of power they possess. The chief defender of the existing international order is a that has traditionally sought to shape the global environment in accordance with its ideological values as well as its strategic interests. The leading revisionists are autocra- cies that practise a distinctly authoritarian version of capitalism and see the advance of liberal ideals as an existential threat to their and power. These divergent approaches to and society are never far from the surface in world politics. We may not be witnessing a new cold war, in which two diametrically opposed, universalistic ideologies square off in a contest to propagate themselves around the globe. But it is no coincidence that today’s sharpest geopolitical conflicts break down along ideological lines. Admittedly, it may not always seem like ideology is at the forefront of great-power relations these days, as an American president openly expresses his admiration for and disparages many of the liberal aspects of US grand strategy. And, as noted in the conclusion of this essay, Donald Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 63

Trump’s predilections and behaviour are often distinctly at odds with what might be thought of as an American liberal world view. Yet even at a time when his antics dominate the news cycle, it is important to remember that today’s great-power conflicts are not simply struggles between individual leaders who – in the American case, at least – will pass, in a relatively short time, from the scene. They are struggles between larger systems that are rooted in very different views of politics and geopolitics alike. Trump’s ten- dencies notwithstanding, that deeper conflict is likely to continue shaping great-power strife. In fact, the competition between democracy and authoritarianism suf- fuses virtually every aspect of modern great-power rivalry. It feeds the antagonisms between America and its competitors by undermining trust, complicating compromise and fostering irreconcilable views of interna- tional order. It powerfully shapes the strategies that Russia and China are employing to reshape . Finally, the differences between liberal and illiberal forms of government have profound implications for the strate- gic fitness and competence of the great powers – for their ability to compete effectively on the global stage. Carl von Clausewitz wrote that no good com- mander should embark on a war without comprehending its nature.5 As America gears up for an era of protracted geopolitical competition, it must first understand how duelling ideologies are shaping those rivalries.6

Ideology and geopolitics When we think of the role of ideology in great-power competition, we often think of the Cold War. The Cold War was a struggle for geopolitical influ- ence, but it was equally a struggle between two antagonistic ideologies. and – not only entailed utterly conflicting views of politics, economics and society; they also made compet- ing claims to universality. This clash of ideas dramatically exacerbated the clash of geopolitical interests between Washington and Moscow, intensify- ing the passion and conflict that infused the Cold War. ‘This is not a struggle for the supremacy of arms alone’, John F. Kennedy remarked. ‘It is also a struggle for supremacy between two conflicting ideologies: Freedom under God versus ruthless, godless tyranny.’7 64 | Hal Brands

Measured against this standard, the ideological aspects of today’s great- power conflicts do pale by comparison. For one , the ideological gulf between the competitors is not nearly as vast, because both Russia and China have discarded socialist economics for a form of -managed capi- talism. For another, neither country has explicitly asserted, as communist ideology did, the desire to spread its form of government to the ends of the earth. Given these differences between past and present, one might easily conclude, as a number of observers have, that today’s geopolitical competi- tions are essentially non-ideological.8 Yet precisely because the Cold War was the very epitome of an ideological confrontation, this comparison misleads more than it informs. Throughout recorded history, even more ‘traditional’ geopolitical rivalries have been powerfully Ideology influences informed by ideology. In ancient , ide- great-power interests ological differences between , a liberal, seagoing proto-democracy, and , a militarised, agrarian slave society, inflamed the tensions that led to the .9 In the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries, divergent religious and political philosophies helped shape the conflict between a comparatively liberal, Protestant Dutch and an absolutist, Catholic . In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the ideological and geopolitical challenges that an aggressive, posed to European stability went hand in hand.10 In the subsequent decades, one of the key geopolitical alignments of the post- Napoleonic era – the – was cemented by a shared ideology of and in the face of rising threats from and .11 In the 1930s and 1940s, ideological cleavages between the and the fascist powers again helped determine the geopoliti- cal line-up.12 Realists argue that states make decisions based on power and interests.13 Historians of great-power conflict might well reply that ideology inevitably influences how those interests are defined. This should not be surprising, because few foreign- interests are more fundamental than the need to protect a country’s internal arrange- ments – its way of life – from external interference. ‘Definitions of national Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 65 interest in international affairs’, John Lewis Gaddis observes, ‘all seem to boil down … to the need to create an international environment condu- cive to the survival and prospering of the nation’s domestic .’14 Moreover, precisely because ideology shapes how and nations view the world, it naturally colours assessments of threat and opportunity in the global arena.15 Countries do, of course, make ideological compromises. Nations with utterly opposing domestic systems have banded together when compelled by geopolitical necessity, the Grand Alliance during the Second World War or the Sino-American alignment of the 1970s and 1980s being two obvious examples. But generally speaking, ideological cleavages have pronounced geopolitical implications. This point is relevant today because the ideological cleavages between America and its authoritarian challengers are more significant than is sometimes realised. There are, admittedly, myriad differences between the Russian and Chinese systems and the sets of ideas that underpin those systems. The world views of these countries and their leaders are informed by a vast array of factors including distinctive national histories, narratives, interests and cultures, and even the personal idiosyncrasies of their respec- tive leaders.16 But just as these countries share a geopolitical antipathy to the liberal, US-led international system, they share a fundamentally illiberal approach to organising their societies. Both Russia and China have deeply and increasingly authoritarian political systems that vest immense in a small elite headed by a paramount leader. Both countries lack free and fair and accountability under the , and both use repression and coercion – in addition to softer methods – to maintain control. Leaders of both countries stress the hostil- ity of foreign influences and the dangers of contamination by liberal values to legitimise their repressive rule. In both countries, the has become progressively more personalistic in recent years, as Russian President and Chinese President Xi have centralised power and con- structed elaborate cults of personality. Both countries practise a version of , in which mechanisms are embraced but nonetheless managed – sometimes with a fairly heavy hand – by the state. And in both countries, the preservation of the ruling elite’s political power 66 | Hal Brands is the fundamental theme linking all policy decisions. As Wang Qishan, one of China’s top leaders, said in 2017, ‘all President Xi Jinping’s key speeches over the past five years can be summarized with one message: ensuring the leading role of the Communist Party in all aspects of life’.17 For Russian and Chinese officials, moreover, authoritarianism is more than an approach to governing or a means of enriching a corrupt ruling class. It is an ideology in its own right – a distinctive way of looking at the world. Russian and Chinese leaders give every indication that they view authoritarianism as a superior method for organising society. They portray liberal political ideals as antithetical to the national strength and stability they aim to achieve. Putin has repeatedly touted his model of ‘’ as an improvement over the political chaos, economic privation and geopolitical weakness of the 1990s.18 Xi has extolled China’s authoritar- ian capitalism as the path to prosperity and power, and he has described democracy as a flawed alternative that would bring social chaos, moral deg- radation and vast suffering. At the Party Congress in 2017, notes one assessment, Xi ‘left no doubt that he regards China’s illiberal concepts of political and economic order as superior to so-called Western models, and that he seeks to export “Chinese wisdoms” to the world as a “contribution to mankind”’.19 Liberal democratic leaders believe the opposite. Liberal democracy entails a commitment to democratic procedures and forms, from free and fair elections to accountability under the rule of law. More fundamentally, it rests on a commitment to a set of key ideas: ‘a defense of individual liber- ties and rights, an appeal to over custom, and a demand for government limited under law and based on the ’, in addition to a preference for free-market economic approaches.20 Although generally view themselves as pragmatic, non-ideological people, their commitment to liberal democracy thus is rooted in a series of strong, even revolutionary claims about the proper relationship between individu- als and the state, and about what makes for a good and just society. As put it, the founding claim of the American experiment is that ‘the people reign over the American political world as God rules over the universe. It is the cause and the end of all things; Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 67 everything rises out of it and is absorbed back into it.’21 Or, as national secu- rity advisor Anthony Lake explained in 1993, in asserting the connection between America’s and its , ‘we see indi- viduals as equally created with a God-given , , and the pursuit of happiness. So we trust in the equal wisdom of free individuals to protect those rights: through democracy, as the process for best meeting shared needs in the face of competing desires; and through markets as the process for best meeting private needs in a way that expands opportu- nity.’22 , in other words, is an ideology as powerful and encompassing as any other; it is not just a system of government but a coherent world view. The clash between that world view and the authori- tarian ethos is at the heart of the strategic under way.

Why we can’t just get along The US competitions with Russia and China are often described as con- flicts over geopolitical influence in key parts of the world, or as conflicts between an established power and its rising or resurgent challengers. Yet these descriptions tell only part of the story. A rising China might still challenge American interests in the Asia-Pacific and beyond if it were a democracy; a more liberal Russia might still aspire to pre-eminence within its near abroad. But the ideological divides between Washington and its rivals greatly intensify the diplomatic antagonisms between them. If Francis Fukuyama famously argued that ideological convergence was leading to the end of great-power conflict, today ideological divergence is once again fuelling geopolitical strife.23 It is doing so, firstly, by ensuring an irreducible level of international distrust. The US government may cooperate with Russia or China on counter-terrorism or other issues, but most Americans nonetheless view authoritarian regimes with instinctive suspicion. Because do not derive their authority from the freely expressed consent of the gov- erned, Americans often see them as illegitimate. Because autocracies repress their own citizens, believers in democracy naturally see those regimes as morally problematic, if not downright repugnant. ‘The perception by liberal states that non-liberal states are in a permanent state of aggression against 68 | Hal Brands

their own people’, writes Michael Doyle, is a potent source of hostility.24 Americans have also traditionally viewed autocracies as more aggressive and unpredictable than democracies: aggressive, because their coercive, illegitimate rule predisposes them to seek conflict and project their insecu- rities outward, and unpredictable, because a lack of makes it hard to discern their intentions and capabilities.25 Roughly a century ago, Woodrow Wilson argued that authoritarians could never fully participate in a peaceful international society because ‘no autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants’.26 More recently, US leaders have drawn on these same ideas in openly their desire to see the Russian and Chinese regimes replaced – someday, somehow – by more representative Putin described . ‘Don’t compromise on the basic Western liberalism elements of democracy’, vice president Joe Biden told Russian students in 2011. ‘You need not as decadent make that Faustian bargain.’27 Authoritarian regimes amply reciprocate this hostility. Russian and Chinese leaders believe, not inaccurately, that the political concepts America espouses are inherently threatening to the regimes and societies they wish to construct. Putin has described Western- style liberalism as a decadent and morally corrupt philosophy that would throw Russia into degeneracy and upheaval. In speeches, he warns that the spread of democracy has led to the ‘growing spread of chaos’ in many coun- tries, and that liberal tolerance has bred a mindless relativism that threatens Christian values.28 Chinese leaders, for their part, see democratic values as part of a Western tradition that ‘de-legitimizes and destabilizes regimes that espouse alternative ideas such as and Asian-style developmental authoritarianism’, and that threatens to pollute their stable, illiberal polity.29 Moreover, Russian and Chinese leaders fully understand that Americans perceive autocratic regimes to be illegitimate and threatening, so they believe that America and other democratic powers will never leave them in peace. ‘Because China and the United States have longstanding conflicts over their different ideologies, social systems, and foreign ’, one Chinese military document argued in the 1990s, ‘it will prove impossible to funda- Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 69 mentally improve Sino-US relations.’30 For decades, Chinese officials have argued that Washington is pursuing a sinister campaign – a ‘smokeless World War III’, as Deng Xiaoping called it – to delegitimise and subvert the Chinese Communist Party. In Chinese parlance, this is referred to as the ‘peaceful evolution’ strategy, whereby the United States uses , cultural exchanges, human-rights advocacy and other non-military tools to promote liberal concepts and engineer the eventual replacement of the regime.31 Similarly, Russian officials have long alleged that Washington aims to weaken and ultimately overthrow the Putin-led government, through the encouragement of anti-regime , support for pro-democracy non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and efforts to pressure and de- legitimise the Kremlin internationally. In 2013, Russian Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov even argued that Western efforts to promote ‘colour ’ in otherwise stable authoritarian states represented ‘the typical war of the twenty-first century’.32 These allegations exaggerate the degree to which the replacement of illiberal regimes represents a coherent US strat- egy, as opposed to a vague, long-term aspiration. Yet they testify to the inherent difficulty in achieving lasting accommodation between democratic and autocratic governments. Exacerbating that difficulty is a second factor, which is that ideological differences raise barriers to diplomatic compromise. Were Russia and China liberal democracies, America might more readily yield to their desires for greater global influence, trusting that they would wield that influence responsibly. This was, after all, the calculation that British leaders made about the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.33 In a different scenario, one can imagine an authoritarian America cutting an explicit spheres-of-influence deal with Moscow in , or Beijing in the Western Pacific. Given the existing ideological alignments, however, such compromises are more difficult to contemplate. It might or might not be wise forUS leaders to accede to a Russian sphere of influence in the former Union, or to accept China’s subjugation of Taiwan and other countries along its periphery. Yet such concessions would be particularly painful because they would consign the people of those countries to the dominant influence of 70 | Hal Brands oppressive, authoritarian regimes. ‘We will not recognize any nation having a sphere of influence’, Biden warned Russia in 2009. ‘It will remain our view that sovereign states have the right to make their own decisions and choose their own alliances.’34 The projects of regional primacy that Russia and China are pursuing, the Trump administration agreed in its first ‘National Security Strategy’, are ‘antithetical to U.S. values and interests’ alike.35 Far from facilitating compromise, ideological differences predispose today’s authoritarian challengers to stoke diplomatic tensions for domes- tic benefit. Lacking organic legitimacy, the Chinese government works to manufacture it by fanning and hostility toward America and its democratic allies, including through educational curricula that stress China’s historical victimisation at the hands of rapacious foreign powers. ‘The Communist Party’, Susan Shirk observes, ‘has embraced nationalism as its new ideology in an age when almost nobody believes in anymore.’36 Putin, too, has hyped the threat of a democratic, domineering United States, allegedly set on spreading its values globally and destroy- ing those countries that stand in its way. He has done so, in part, as a way of inspiring Russian nationalism and strengthening his own position amid growing disillusion with and poor economic perfor- mance. As Marie Mendras puts it, ‘the West serves as the “useful foe” in the building of Russia’s closed, inward-looking and clannish system of rule’.37 All this relates to a in which ideological differences stoke geo- political tensions – that is, by leading to radically different views of what sort of international order is just and desirable. America, as a liberal democracy, has long associated the advance of its political values with the advance of peace, prosperity and US influence. America’s ‘cherished goal’, proclaimed in the 1990s, was a ‘more secure world where democracy and free markets know no borders’.38 And while Washington has made many ideological compromises over the , this idea has anchored some of the core aspects of America’s international behaviour: its efforts (incon- sistent but nonetheless persistent) to promote democracy and abroad, to build alliances and enduring partnerships with many of the world’s key democracies, to promote a rules-based system rooted in liberal norms and concepts, and to prevent any authoritarian power from achiev- Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 71 ing geopolitical dominance. In this and other ways, America’s commitment to democratic liberalism has underpinned its approach to global order.39 For Russia and China, however, this approach is undesirable and even dangerous. It threatens to deprive autocracies of international influ- ence and legitimacy – to leave them, at best, as second-class citizens in a democratic world. At worst, it threatens to make them targets of pressure, containment, subversion and intimidation by democracies that are glob- ally dominant. In a US-dominated liberal order, Vladimir Putin declared in 2007, ‘No one feels safe! Because no one can feel that international law is like a stone wall that will protect them.’40 The Pax Americana, the state- run China Daily agreed in 2016, has been a ‘period of incessant warfare’ provoked by America’s continual ‘interference in the domestic affairs of countries’.41 The Orange What the autocrats seek is a different international Revolution was order: one that tolerates ‘ideological diversity’, one in which the geopolitical and ideological power of ‘Russia’s 9/11’ America and other democracies is diluted, and one that is built not on liberal values but on protective legal norms such as non-intervention and absolute .42 A stable system, Xi declared in 2015, must be based on an understanding that ‘the sovereignty and ter- ritorial integrity of all countries are inviolable and their internal affairs are not subjected to interference’.43 This is not some abstract theoretical dispute. This dispute, rather, has far- reaching implications for everyday diplomacy. It promotes vastly different views of events such as the colour revolutions in the former during the early 2000s. The US government and many Americans saw those upheavals as triumphs of democracy and moral progress; Kremlin officials saw them as CIA-backed plots that menaced Russian political sta- bility. The in Ukraine, writes Ivan Krastev, was ‘Russia’s 9/11’; Russian officials spoke ominously of an ‘Orange Plague’ that might sweep the post-Soviet space.44 This dispute also means that the United States will generally view powerful authoritarian countries as threats to the world it seeks to construct, and expect that those authoritarian coun- tries will never fully accept such a world insofar as they have the power 72 | Hal Brands to challenge it. ‘China has long been alienated politically by the ’, said Fu Ying, the chair of the Committee of China’s National People’s Congress, in 2016; it was therefore necessary to ‘re-shape the order structure’.45 As Minxin Pei explains, authoritarian regimes may economically from a liberal world order, but ‘a truly liberal-interna- tional is inconceivable for a ruling elite steeped in realism and authoritarianism … Autocracies simply are incapable of practicing liber- alism abroad while maintaining authoritarianism at home.’46 In that basic conflict lies a powerful source of today’s global tensions.

Making the world safe for authoritarianism If ideological cleavages drive the growing tensions between America and its great-power competitors, they also shape the particular strategies Russia and China employ. As noted previously, the United States has long pursued an order-building project that is, in many respects, an outward projection of its domestic values: it has sought to shape a world in which democratic values and respect for human rights are widespread, and the democracies, led by Washington, are geopolitically supreme. The goal, said George W. Bush in 2002, is to forge a ‘balance of power that favors human freedom’.47 The authoritarian powers, by contrast, view that aspiration as highly pernicious. Russia opposes a ‘world in which there is one master, one sovereign’, Putin remarked in 2007; Chinese officials have long criticised America’s ‘hegem- onism’ in geopolitical and ideological matters alike.48 Accordingly, these countries desire an international system that is more geopolitically balanced, less dominated by liberal values and more conducive to the survival and global power of their regimes. If the United States has long sought a world that is safe for democracy, the dictators are seeking a world made safe for authoritarianism. Ideological and geopolitical go hand in hand.49 Broadly speaking, in fact, much of what the Russian and Chinese govern- ments do in foreign affairs is related to securing their domestic power. This is not the sole motivation for policy, of course: a great many factors, from long-standing narratives of national greatness to the blend of insecurity and ambition often found in great powers, are driving the Russian and Chinese challenges. Yet today’s authoritarian rulers intuitively perceive a symbiosis Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 73 between power and prestige in the world, and political stability at home. Strong, centralised rule, Chinese and Russian officials argue, is vital if their countries are to be influential and effective in foreign affairs. The stronger and more influential their countries are in foreign affairs, the more secure they will be against outside interference, and the better they can justify repressive rule to their own populations.50 In this sense, the increasingly assertive foreign policies Russia and China are implementing – their efforts to assert greater sway along their peripheries, to revise key global norms, and to project military might and other forms of power ever farther afield – are measures of domestic fortification as well. At the same time, Russia and China are also employing strategies more specifically tailored to making the international environment safe for their regimes. Firstly, protecting begins at home, so both Russia and China are hardening their defences against an aggressive liberal world. ‘Hostile international forces have never abandoned the strategic intent of Westernizing and splitting us’, one guidebook for Chinese government and party officials stresses; vigilance and countermeasures are essential.51 In China and Russia, those countermeasures include strengthening military capabilities to guard against any potential physical attack. Both regimes have devoted substantial resources to building up and modernising their militaries, while also developing creative strategies and operational concepts – such as China’s ‘counter-intervention’ strategy and Russia’s ‘escalatory de-escalation’ doctrine – meant to deter or defeat US intervention.52 Yet because a direct military attack by the United States on the Russian or Chinese homeland remains unlikely, the primary manifestations of this strategy are in the political, ideological and economic realms. Russia and China have intensified political repression in recent years, cracking down on political dissidents, human-rights activists, civil-society groups and other actors accused of embracing subversive liberal ideas. Restrictions on internet freedom and NGOs have tightened; censorship of political speech and virtually all media has increased. Both governments have sought to reduce the influence of foreign news sources and strengthen their information dominance at home. Both governments have redoubled ideological indoctrination, through school curricula, the use of 74 | Hal Brands and other approaches that emphasise the virtues of the Russian and Chinese systems, and warn of the hostility and moral depravity of the liberal world. Finally, in China especially, the government is now harnessing technol- ogy to develop more advanced forms of political control, such as advanced facial-recognition capabilities that enable omnipresent policing, and a ‘social credit’ system through which the state will be better able to allocate or with- hold benefits on the basis of an individual’s perceived political reliability.53 The economic dimensions of this strategy are equally important. Both Russia and China (particularly the latter) have reaped the benefits of interna- tional trade and investment provided, in no small part, by the open America anchors.54 Yet Russian and Chinese leaders also understand that, in a world dominated by a liberal superpower and its allies, they risk being targeted with or other punishments in response to either their external behaviour or their treatment of their own citizens – as has indeed happened to both countries.55 Moreover, they know that they have limited ability to fall back on other sources of legitimacy if outside pressure impairs their ability to provide for the citizenry. Accordingly, even as both regimes have remained engaged in the international , they have sought greater resilience against economic pressure from abroad. Under the banner of ‘sovereign democracy’, the Kremlin has encouraged Russian oligarchs to repatriate their so they will be less vulnerable to asset freezes and other sanctions. Moscow also aims to reduce import dependence by encouraging domestic production of goods ranging from agricultural commodities to electronics, and its efforts to bring the former Soviet states into a Eurasian Economic Union represent a bid to decrease economic reliance on the , thereby helping ‘preserve per- sonalized rule in each state’.56 ‘We will work … more decisively to carry out transformation’, Putin announced after Russia was hit with Western sanc- tions following the invasion of Ukraine in 2014. ‘Pressure from outside … will only consolidate our society, keep us alert and make us concentrate on our main development goals.’57 The Chinese face a more complex task, due to Beijing’s deeper and more profitable immersion in the global economy. But just as Deng Xiaoping warned, in commencing China’s economic reforms, that it was necessary Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 75 to keep out the flies even while letting in the fresh air, the government has taken steps to limit the exposure integration brings. State-owned enter- prises (SOEs) have aggressively bought up foreign mines, oilfields and other sources of critical commodities and energy supplies; and they have purchased the infrastructure of global trade, from ports to railroads and shipping lines, to strengthen China’s control of its economic fate. Beijing’s Made in China 2025 project, which aims to make China dominant in an array of high-tech and other critical industries, is both a grab for economic and geopolitical dominance and a hedge against a potential US embargo or other measures that might expose Beijing’s dependence on imports of tech- nology and other goods. Equally ambitiously, China is using its Belt and Road (BRI) to assert greater control over global trade routes, including overland Made in China trading routes that will limit China’s vulnerability to 2025 is a grab maritime interdiction or other disruption by America and its allies. ‘China’s leaders are deeply concerned for dominance about the perceived legitimacy and prospects for sur- vival of their entire regime’, writes Aaron Friedberg. They are ‘reluctant to entrust their careers, and possibly even their lives, to a global economic system … which they perceive still to be managed and controlled primarily by … the United States’.58 Russia and China are simultaneously seeking to improve the global outlook for authoritarianism via a second strategy: building regional spheres of influence in which autocracy is privileged and protected. The efforts of Moscow and Beijing to dominate their peripheries are well documented, and they feature an array of measures designed to roll back US influence and bend their neighbours to their geopolitical will: concerted military build-ups, campaigns of economic pressure and inducement, incremental coercion and information warfare, and other means.59 Admittedly, Russia and China would probably be attempting to shape their regions even if they were led by committed . Yet just as America constructed its sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere in part to keep a hostile form of governance (in that case, ) at bay, the sphere-building projects Russia and China are carrying out have a strong ideological flavour. 76 | Hal Brands

A principal reason Beijing desires preponderant influence in the Asia- Pacific is to decrease the danger of ‘ideological contagion’ from neighbouring democracies, to prevent those neighbours from ‘providing aid and comfort’ to anti-regime forces within China and to reduce the chances that regional states will participate in campaigns to punish Beijing for repressing its own population – as a democratic did after the Tiananmen Square mas- sacre in 1989.60 In short, the farther democratic powers are pushed away from China’s frontiers, the more secure Beijing’s autocratic rulers will be. Creating a periphery populated by autocratic states will, in turn, make it less likely that neighbouring countries will ally with a democratic America. China has thus offered a vision of a ‘harmoni- ous Asia’ featuring a ‘political order shaped China offers a vision by Chinese political principles’.61 Similarly, of ‘harmonious Asia’ Russia’s fear of strategic encroachment by NATO and the European Union has long been linked to its fear of ideological penetration by the liberal values those institutions espouse; ‘colour revolutions’ in Ukraine and were so threatening to Putin because he viewed them as sources of democratic contagion no less than footholds for Western geopo- litical influence. ‘If Ukraine and Georgia could embrace liberal democracy and successfully become part of the West’, wrote Ronald Asmus in 2010, ‘the Russian ruling class’s narrative about its own “sovereign democracy” at home … might be exposed as hollow.’62 As Russia and China have reached for mastery in their ‘near abroads’, then, they have emphasised creating regional conditions conducive to autocracy. As part of its drive for influence in Central Asia, China has provided that region’s authoritarian states with military aid, expertise in the arts of repression and other assistance to head off feared political destabilisation. In , Beijing has instructed Myanmar, , Vietnam and other countries on the Chinese experience of blending capitalist econom- ics with authoritarian governance, and shared insights on how to use tools such as internet surveillance and regressive legal codes to monitor and stifle . As Cambodia’s has pushed his country deeper into dicta- torship in recent years, China has enhanced bilateral military and vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 77 ties. More broadly, observes Ely Ratner, BRI is meant not simply to create a China-centric ring of infrastructure and economic projects, but to foster an ‘illiberal regional order … in which democracy and individual rights are largely subservient to and social stability’.63 To this end, Beijing has often used BRI projects and other assistance to shore up friendly authoritarians, while also extracting policy concessions, such as support for China’s stance on the South China Sea. Finally, China’s authoritarian pro- clivities are evident in another aspect of its sphere-of-influence project: its hostility to an autonomous, democratic Taiwan. A major part of the threat Taiwan poses to China, write Andrew Nathan and Andrew Scobell, ‘comes from Taiwan’s simply being what it is – a modern Chinese society that is economically prosperous and politically democratic’.64 For this reason, China’s campaign to undermine Taiwan is about isolating and delegitimis- ing an ideological threat to the communist regime, as well as recovering a wayward province. Russia is taking a similar tack in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Moscow has long bolstered the authoritarian regime in Belarus through military, economic and diplomatic support, on the theory, as Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko once said, that ‘a revolution in Belarus is a revolution in Russia’. That assistance has been critical to Lukashenko’s political survival amid pressure from Washington and the EU; in 2005 he publicly thanked Moscow ‘for the immense support we received … in a very complex period of our history’.65 Putin has also undermined EU and for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) - monitoring mechanisms, and supported authoritarian regimes in Central Asia; he has forged closer ties to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as Orbán’s drive to erect an ‘illiberal state’ has created conflict with the EU. The counterpart to protecting autocracy is preventing or simply undermin- ing democracy: Moscow has used economic coercion, diplomatic pressure, propaganda, covert and paramilitary meddling, cyber attacks and other means to weaken or discredit democratic governments from Estonia to Georgia. The Russian regime has even used force to dismember unfriendly democratic states that seemed to be breaking away from Moscow, doing so in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014. Not least, Russian officials such as 78 | Hal Brands

Gerasimov have explicitly warned that Moscow will prevent any further colour revolutions in nearby countries, through military action if necessary. Russia, writes Thomas Ambrosio, is a quintessential ‘“guardian” state – one which actively seeks to halt, resist, or contain in order to preserve its autocratic political system’.66 In some cases, Russia and China have cooperated in these endeavours. In 2005, Beijing and Moscow both pushed the Uzbek to evict US military forces after the Bush administration criticised its penchant for bloody repression.67 Often working through the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Beijing and Moscow have also pursued complemen- tary or coordinated to insulate Central Asian regimes against political instability. These initiatives have included sharing on subversive threats, disseminating Russian and Chinese insights on ‘tech- niques of political control’, coordinating the forced repatriation of political exiles and dissidents, and providing military, economic and diplomatic support to friendly authoritarian governments. Additionally, the SCO has taken a strong public stand against and other meas- ures that might ‘lead to disturbances and unrest’, and it has declared that information must not be used for ‘political purposes that … trigger social instability’.68 China and Russia may be long-term rivals for influence in Central Asia. Currently, however, they have a shared interest in making sure this region – the strategic rear of both powers – remains hospi- table to authoritarian rule. Looking beyond their immediate regions, Russia and China employ a third and related strategy: supporting and enhancing cooperation with authoritarian regimes under pressure. Just as America feels safer in a world populated by democracies, autocrats believe that their own prospects for influence and survival will be enhanced if authoritarianism is prevalent. They believe that the ‘costs of suppression’ at home will be lower in a world in which more leaders are authoritarians and thus disinclined to punish that repression. They further judge that fellow authoritarians will not under- mine their regimes or diminish their international prestige as democracies often do.69 They recognise that they are more likely to establish fruitful dip- lomatic relationships with other illiberal governments, and they fear that Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 79 the toppling of one today may set a that will be used against another autocrat tomorrow. As a result, Russian and Chinese efforts to cultivate and protect autocracies are increasingly global endeavours. In the Middle East, Russia has strengthened cooperation with strongmen such as Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi of and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of , acting as an alternative patron for regimes whose increasingly authoritarian bent has brought greater criticism from the West. In Latin America, Moscow has delivered economic and diplomatic backing for a repressive Venezuelan regime and provided arms and other aid to Daniel Ortega’s illiberal govern- ment in Nicaragua. These policies reflect geopolitical and economic motives, of course, and in many cases they have a distinctly transactional quality. Yet this does not mean they are ideologically neutral. These initiatives, write Eugene China provides Rumer and Andrew Weiss, all involve ‘exploiting no-strings- opportunities to undermine and hollow out the US-led international order, with its norms of economic open- attached trade ness, democratic accountability and the rule of law’.70 China’s policies are having the same effect. ‘Pick a dictator anywhere on the globe’, James Mann has written, ‘and you’ll likely find these days that the Chinese regime is supporting him.’71 At various points, China has shielded authoritarian regimes in Myanmar, Zimbabwe and other countries from UN censure or sanctions. It has provided weapons, intelligence, trade, loans, investment and other support to autocrats in Angola, Guinea, Iran, North , Syria, Sudan, Venezuela and Uzbekistan; it sold arms to Libya’s Muammar Gadhafi nearly up to the demise of his regime. In sub-Saharan and Latin America, China provides no-strings- attached trade, investment and loans, allowing dictators to elude Western pressure on corruption, human rights and other governance issues. Beijing has also bolstered authoritarian systems in any number of countries by educating officials on how to police the internet, repress dissent and build modern without opening their political systems, and by providing internet-control technology, facial-recognition software and other surveillance equipment. Not least, China furnishes ideological cover for authoritarian regimes by touting the accomplishments of illiberal 80 | Hal Brands rule, arguing that democracy is not a universal but a neo-colonial, Western imposition, and highlighting the chaos that has sometimes accompanied the breakdown of authoritarian rule in the Middle East and other regions.72 Xi and his advisers would argue that they are simply being respectful of national sovereignty and traditions, and China’s support for fellow autocrats can be just as transactional as Russia’s. But Chinese officials see the benefits of a more illiberal world, and their policies are promoting just that outcome. Russia and China also work in concert to frustrate or delegitimise against abusive authoritarian leaders. This tendency dates back at least to the 1990s. The NATO-led intervention against Libya in 2011 was merely the exception that reinforced the rule. Neither Beijing nor Moscow vetoed the UN Security Council resolution allowing the use of force to protect civilians from Gadhafi’s regime, but both regret- ted that forbearance once Washington and its allies used this resolution to prosecute a regime-change campaign that ended in Gadhafi’s murder. Russian leaders were particularly horrified by the prospect that Gadhafi’s overthrow might set a precedent for subsequent interventions. Putin said that the NATO campaign reminded him of ‘a medieval call to crusade’, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov vowed, ‘We will not allow anything like this to happen again in the future.’73 That determination has subsequently been evident in the course of the Syrian . Both Russia and China – along with another authoritarian revisionist, Iran – have worked to shore up Assad’s regime, through measures ranging from intelligence support and military training to full-on military interven- tion. Both countries have also assiduously opposed efforts to condemn, isolate and sanction Assad through the UN Security Council.74 Putin even used his 2015 address to the UN General Assembly to condemn America’s enthusiasm for the ‘export of revolutions’ in the Middle East, and to pro- claim his determination to stand with the forces of order.75 Supporting autocracies under strain relates to a fourth strategy, which involves reshaping international norms and institutions to make them friendlier to illiberal rule. Russian and Chinese leaders understand that ideas are power, and that the liberal ideas that characterise the US-led inter- Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 81 national system are prejudicial to their domestic and international standing. They equally understand that international institutions play an essential role in shaping and legitimising action. Accordingly, Moscow and Beijing are fostering an institutional and ideational climate that strengthens, rather than weakens, authoritarianism. They are doing so in part by touting the benefits of their own systems. After the Cold War, it often appeared that liberal democracy was ascend- ant and unrivalled. More recently, however, democratic systems have often stumbled economically and socially, creating an opportunity for Russian and particularly Chinese officials to advance a different narrative. Kremlin officials argue that Russia’s ‘sovereign democracy’ offers a better way of defending ‘traditional values’ such as Christianity and heterosexuality against the Democratic moral decay associated with liberalism, and of ensur- systems have ing national prosperity, stability and independence after a decade of post-Cold War chaos, poverty and often stumbled subservience.76 And although Russia’s lacklustre economic performance limits the resonance of this message, Chinese pros- elytism has been more impressive. After the 2008 , both Western and Chinese observers began arguing that the ‘Beijing Consensus’ – a mixture of state-directed capi- talism and authoritarian political control – was displacing a Washington Consensus that had been badly tarnished. Chinese officials and intellectu- als have since argued that Beijing’s experience offers a model for countries wishing to progress economically while preserving their ‘independence’ and traditions, and they have hammered home the idea that political lib- eralism leads to social instability and other ills. ‘China wishes to share its development experience and foreign philosophies with all countries’, one Chinese writes, to ‘rejuvenate’ other civilisations.77 The theme, writes Chinese foreign-affairs expert Wang Jisi, is that ‘China’s development model provides an alternative to Western democracy and experiences for other developing countries to learn from, while many developing countries that have introduced Western values and political systems are experiencing disorder and chaos.’78 This message has been 82 | Hal Brands

conveyed through a variety of media, including state-controlled print, tel- evision and radio outlets with international reach. The long-term success of this programme remains to be seen, but Beijing’s economic record has already helped popularise a model of ‘’ that seems ever more prevalent today.79 The flip side of this advocacy consists of efforts to limit foreign criticism of the Russian and Chinese models. Russia’s support for illiberal politi- cians and movements across Europe and America has multiple motives, but among them is the desire to empower ideological allies who will be less critical of Russia’s government and policies – or simply to tarnish Western democracies and thereby make their condemnations of Russian autocracy China froze political less credible.80 China has pursued an equally relations with Oslo aggressive strategy for stymieing foreign cri- tiques. After the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded its peace prize to , China reduced imports of fish from Norway by more than 50% and froze political relations with Oslo, one of many instances in which Beijing has economically or diplomatically punished countries that take ‘unfriendly’ positions on China’s internal practices. Beijing has similarly used the allure of investment, commerce and other economic rewards to purchase the silence of Greece, the Czech Republic and other European governments. Through these and other initiatives, the Chinese govern- ment aims to fortify ‘a deeply illiberal surveillance state at home while also exporting – or at least trying to popularise – its political and model abroad’.81 These policies are part of a broader campaign to ‘illiberalise’ global norms and institutions. China has argued that existing international insti- tutions, such as the UN and multilateral development banks, should be ‘regime-neutral’ – that they ought not opine or make decisions based on judgements about a country’s domestic institutions. To this end, China has also worked to prevent the UN Commission on Human Rights from sin- gling out violators, and argued that discussions of such issues should be handled privately.82 Both Moscow and Beijing, moreover, have urged the Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 83 establishment of pro-authoritarian norms such as ‘internet sovereignty’ – the concept that governments should be able to police their national cyberspace much as they police their national territory or airspace – while also redefining ideas such as human rights and the responsibility to protect (R2P) in ways that make them less threatening. China’s concept of human rights emphasises poverty reduction and social stability, while Russia has reinterpreted R2P to legitimise interventions on behalf of Russians abroad, whether they desire such intervention or not.83 Not least, these countries have sought to delegitimise the actions of NGOs focused on democracy and human rights, by restricting their activities and access to foreign funding, and by depicting them as agents of liberal subversion. These efforts, writes Carl Gershman, are intended ‘to replace established norms contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international covenants with alternative norms based on unrestricted state sovereignty and justify- ing harsh measures against political and ethnic dissidents’.84 The same ethos guides Russian and Chinese moves to erect an alter- native institutional order. The major authoritarian states, write Daniel Brumberg and Steven Heydemann, aim ‘to enhance mechanisms of author- itarian control and contain Western influence’, so they are working ‘to build regional and international institutions’ that serve these objectives.85 Chinese-led institutions such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and BRI have emerged as competitors of the existing web of international institutions and development banks led by the United States and other democratic coun- tries. In the process, they have weakened the ability of the democracies to insist on political conditionality as the price of economic assistance, and they have established mechanisms for channelling resources to friendly authoritarian regimes. Russia is working, on a more limited basis, to use institutions such as the Eurasian Economic Union and Collective Security Treaty Organization to promote economic and security cooperation between authoritarian regimes.86 As Russian and Chinese leaders promote authoritarianism, they are pur- suing a fifth and parallel strategy meant to degrade democracy. ‘A creative strategist’, writes Bradford Lee, ‘ought to focus most intently on courses 84 | Hal Brands of action that attack the enemy political system.’87 Beijing and Moscow have taken this counsel to heart. Just as they accuse America of seeking to subvert their regimes, they are now pursuing systematic political-warfare campaigns meant to weaken, corrupt, delegitimise and distort the political systems of their democratic rivals.88 Putin’s regime, notes Larry Diamond, has waged ‘an opportunistic but sophisticated campaign to sabotage democracy and bend it toward his interests, not just in some marginal, fragile places but at the very core of the liberal democratic order, Europe and the United States’.89 That campaign has featured tactics such as using fake and inflammatory information to exac- erbate divisions within democratic states; providing media praise, financial support and other assistance to illiberal politicians on both the left and right; employing state-controlled media to critique liberal democracy and spread propaganda in the guise of news; and deploying cyber attacks and other methods to interfere with Western electoral processes. The US intelligence community concluded that Putin’s intervention in the US presidential cam- paign in 2016 was meant to ‘undermine public faith in the US democratic process’ and benefit an illiberal, pro-Russian Donald Trump.90 It also ignited a ferocious and debilitating political controversy within America that per- sists today. More broadly, these efforts have the intention and, where successful, the effect of manipulating and discrediting liberal democracies, thereby making them less geopolitically effective and less willing or able to effectively criticise autocracy.91 In undertaking these efforts, moreover, the Russian regime is using the same tools and methods – disinformation, cyber attacks and cyber harassment, manipulation of the media, suborning cor- ruption among political actors – it employed to empower autocracy within Russia itself.92 China is also waging political warfare, although its efforts are only start- ing to receive the same level of attention.93 In countries throughout the Asia-Pacific, and also in the United States and Europe, Beijing has used nominally independent front organisations to disseminate pro-Chinese propaganda; employed financial largesse, access and other incentives to reward (or punish) academics, politicians, media outlets and leaders based on their treatment of China; and utilised the increasingly Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 85 global reach of Chinese-language to spread favoured narra- tives. It has influenced the agendas of foreign universities through economic pressure and the sponsorship of Institutes and other pro-Beijing organisations, as well as by having Chinese students abroad keep tabs on one another as a way of limiting free and open debate. It has even engaged in bribery of politicians and officials in countries such as Australia, as part of what one Chinese official has called a ‘structured effort to infiltrate’ -demo cratic systems, and it is now aping Russian tactics by employing ‘troll ’ and bot-driven computational propaganda to pollute online discourse, par- ticularly in Asia.94 As these examples indicate, Chinese political warfare includes tar- geted efforts (such as bribery) meant to produce specific policy outcomes (a ‘friendlier’ position on China’s activities in the South China Sea, say), as well as broader efforts to shape the overall political environment. And while such ‘influence operations’ are part and parcel of global politics, what makes these activities more ominous is that they exploit the openness of democratic societies and distort debate in countries that depend on a free marketplace of ideas. This approach has been labelled ‘sharp power’, a form of influence which ‘helps authoritarian regimes coerce and manipulate opinion abroad’.95 For Beijing as well as Moscow, political warfare repre- sents a way of attacking rivals’ political systems at their weakest points, and it exploits the democratic disillusion – the declining faith in democratic systems to deliver the economic and social goods – that is plaguing many Western societies today.96 All of these efforts relate to a sixth and final strategy Russian and Chinese leaders are employing: strengthening ties between their two regimes. Russia and China have historically been adversaries far more often than allies. That pattern may reassert itself in the future, because ambitious, continent-sized powers that share long borders often find it difficult to get along, and because growing Chinese power could easily threaten Russian interests from Siberia to Central Asia and beyond. In the near and medium terms, however, Russia and China share a formi- dable animus toward an international system based on liberal values and US hegemony, and they know cooperation is essential in challenging a 86 | Hal Brands

powerful Western coalition seen as both geopolitically and ideologically hostile. ‘At a state level’, writes James Palmer, ‘authoritarianism seems to be the best glue of Sino-Russian friendship.’97 As a result, Russia and China have been enhancing their bilateral rela- tions across an array of issues, including energy sales, development of military technology, and opposing additional US military deployments in sensitive areas such as the Korean Peninsula. They have lent each other diplomatic support or simply avoided isolating each other on controversial diplomatic issues, such as Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014.98 Their navies have conducted joint manoeuvres in the South China Sea, the Mediterranean and the Baltic, and their militaries have participated in multilateral exer- Moscow and cises in Central Asia.99 As we have seen, moreover, Beijing exchange Moscow and Beijing have taken numerous steps – whether explicitly or simply mutually best practices reinforcing – to strengthen autocrats and stave off democratic regime change from Syria to Central Asia and beyond; they have exchanged best practices on how to contain lib- eralising influences within their own countries; and they have touted their common identity as illiberal powers. Russian officials have studied China’s success in marrying prosperity with political repression and announced their intention to learn from China’s ‘expertise in Internet ’, while China awarded its Confucius Peace Prize in 2011 to Putin, lauding his ‘iron hand and toughness’.100 ‘Despite their historic rivalries’, writes Ambrosio, Russia and China have forged a strategic partnership aimed at resisting ‘an American-dominated international system which stresses the desirability of furthering the spread of democracy’.101 In this and other respects, Russia and China are not simply conduct- ing geopolitical campaigns to shift the global balance of power. They are waging ideological campaigns to shift the global balance between authori- tarianism and democracy as well. Ideology also suffuses the competition between America and its rivals in one final way: by influencing the competi- tive fitness of the participants – that is, their strengths and weaknesses in protracted geopolitical struggle. Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 87

Systems check Competition between America and its challengers is, in the final analysis, a test of systems – an audit of whose political–economic model is best placed to generate resources, craft sound policies and act effectively on the global stage. Ideological differences have as profound an impact here as inany aspect of contemporary geopolitics. For centuries, many observers – even admirers of democratic rule – have believed that democracies are poorly suited to the imperatives of global policy. ‘Foreign politics demand scarcely any of those qualities which are peculiar to a democracy’, de Tocqueville wrote; ‘they require, on the contrary, the perfect use of almost all those in which it is deficient’.102 Contrarily, more recent scholarship indicates that democracies may actually outperform the authoritarian competition. On balance, the autocratic qualities of the countries testing the US-led order do provide them with certain near-term advantages in conducting statecraft. Yet over the long term, those same qualities also make it difficult to match a democratic superpower’s enduring strengths. Consider the advantages of illiberal rule. The centralised, non- transparent nature of authoritarianism allows dictators to practise some of the darker arts of statecraft with greater facility than most democracies. Moscow has repeatedly shown that it can move with greater speed and secrecy than Washington: it can launch a surprise attack on Ukraine or deploy forces unexpectedly to Syria, whereas the open and deliberative nature of the American system makes it far harder to arrive at, let alone conceal, major strategic decisions.103 Similarly, Russia and China are freer to use disinformation and dishonesty than are democracies encumbered by legal constraints, a free press and ; and they can use the sophisticated propaganda capabilities and media controls of a modern autocratic state to convey a more coherent message; they can more readily suborn corruption or partner with criminal groups, patriotic hackers and other dubious proxies.104 Autocracy comes with additional blessings. Authoritarian rulers can employ covert action, or simply deny their involvement in activities such as the destabilisation of Ukraine, of mercenaries in Syria or use of quasi-autonomous maritime militias in the South China Sea, to a degree 88 | Hal Brands that would be more difficult for a democracy. Finally, authoritarian regimes have traditionally had a freer hand to mobilise resources, combine the ele- ments of national power, unify and pursue a coherent policy with minimal interference from state or society. ‘Decision, activity, secrecy, and despatch will generally characterize the proceedings of one man in a much more eminent degree than the proceedings of any greater number’, wrote Alexander Hamilton; ‘and in proportion as the number is increased, these qualities will be diminished.’105 The dictator’s advantages are not merely theoretical; they have recently been on display. As Robert Blackwill and Jennifer Harris argue, the Chinese government has leveraged its control over the Chinese economy to mount a coordinated geo-economic campaign America can only envy. Beijing has employed China’s SOEs as agents of corporate espionage, technology acquisition and Chinese state influence. China’s SOEs, Xi declared in 2016, should ‘become important forces to implement’ Communist Party decisions and ‘enhance overall national power’. At government behest, SOEs have secured access to critical oil supplies by paying above-market rates to pur- chase equity in African state energy firms; they have rewarded countries that sever ties with Taiwan; they have built artificial islands, drilled for oil in disputed waters and otherwise staked Beijing’s South China Sea claims. The government also uses its influence over trade and investment flows to reward friends and punish enemies, as when Chinese ceased shipments of rare earth metals to Japan following a maritime dispute, or when Chinese SOEs froze new investments in Vietnam in 2014 amid a flare- up in the South China Sea.106 The contrast with US policy is striking. In 2011, Chinese SOEs contracted to buy 30 Brazilian Embraer jets just as Hu Jintao, then the Chinese presi- dent, launched a bid to enhance Chinese–Brazilian relations. Notes Edward Luttwak, ‘that is not the sort of gift that the US government, or Japan’s, could or would give – All Nippon or United would not obediently line up to buy diplomatically preferred aircraft, and announce their purchase exactly on the diplomatically preferred date’.107 Quite the opposite: when the Obama administration sought to enhance economic ties with Indonesia as part of its Asia pivot, its appeals for US companies to invest there fell Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 89 flat.108 More broadly, whereas Beijing has resourced and implemented its major geo-economic initiatives – AIIB, BRI and others – with comparative steadiness in recent years, US foreign has gyrated wildly due to the vicissitudes of American politics. US diplomats spent years nego- tiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership with numerous allies and partners in the Asia-Pacific, only for Washington to withdraw from the pact when the political winds changed and Trump took office. Consider also the example of political warfare. It is a mistake to think that only authoritarian regimes can wage political warfare, or that only democ- racies are vulnerable thereto.109 Yet Russia’s recent efforts to manipulate political processes and influence foreign societies have nonetheless underscored certain asymmetries between liberal and illiberal systems. Russian political warfare US policy has against the United States and other countries has fea- gyrated wildly tured sophisticated, synchronised operations that merge activities across diplomatic, economic, informa- tional, intelligence, paramilitary and other realms; that utilise the full media and propaganda apparatus of an illiberal state; that adeptly blend and falsehood; that employ a broad mixture of state and non-state actors, from intelligence officials to internet trolls to quasi-official news media; and that are often shrouded in ambiguity and denial. These qualities, concludes the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, are directly related to ‘the organizational character of authoritarian regimes’. 110 As one former Russian diplomat quipped, ‘We engage in foreign policy the way we engage in war, with every means, every weapon, every drop of blood.’111 Meanwhile, the openness of US democracy arguably left America particularly vulnerable to Russian attacks in 2016. As Moises Naim writes, those attacks exploited ‘the free flow of information in a democratic society, the effect of that informa- tion on public opinion, and the electoral mechanisms through which public opinion determines a country’s leadership’.112 An authoritarian edge has been manifest in other areas as well. China has used its growing and centralised rule to make potentially transform- ative investments in critical future such as (AI), and to achieve a level of coordination between government and the 90 | Hal Brands tech industry that Washington has been unable even to approach. ‘US tech firms will have the advantage if the race to develop AI depends mainly on experimentation and in multiple areas at once’, Ian Bremmer writes. ‘But China is the better bet to win if the decisive factor is depth of commitment to a single goal and the depth of pockets in pursuing it.’113 Beijing is also wagering that its political model will allow it to better with- stand the pain of any trade war with America, because an authoritarian government can more easily shore up affected companies and redistribute resources, while also manipulating the accessible US political system to target economic interests in the states of key US .114 Overall, the apparent purpose and coherence of Russian and Chinese policies seem to compare favourably with American , confusion and disarray. China has been skilfully conducting a coercive campaign in the South China Sea and implementing geo-economic projects with the potential to reshape the strategic landscape of Eurasia; Russia has waged operationally successful wars in Ukraine and Syria, and re-established itself as a global player. The United States, meanwhile, has been failing at tasks as mundane as passing annual budget resolutions to fund the Defense Department, and suffering from the politically induced whipsawing of policy on issues from climate change to arms control. Regime type matters, then, and to the extent that strategic rivalry hinges on the ability to make and execute decisions quickly, exploit secrecy and sur- prise, remain committed to a single long-term objective and operate in the shadows or outside of democratic legal norms, the authoritarians may indeed have the edge. Yet it is still wrong to conclude that fractious, easily distracted democracies cannot compete with more committed, cohesive autocracies. For the asymmetries between liberal and illiberal regimes cut both ways, and America’s democratic character gives it significant longer-term advantages. The bulk of the historical and social- literature suggests that, over time, democracies are better than autocracies at a panoply of critical strategic tasks: generating economic resources, developing and employ- ing capable militaries, winning allies and building , exerting influence without generating massive global resistance, and sustaining competent decision-making. All of this has traditionally made for a pow- Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 91 erful, often decisive, edge in protracted competition. ‘In every prolonged conflict in modern history’, observe Kenneth Schultz and Barry Weingast, ‘such [liberal] states have prevailed over their illiberal rivals’.115 Social science offers only probabilistic findings, of course, and past performance is no guarantee of future results. But there are to think that these factors will have an effect in today’s competitions as well. Firstly, nearly everything we know about economic growth suggests that all regimes are not created equal: democracies consistently outperform autocracies in building the wealth that is essential to strategic success. This is because democratic rule fosters the free exchange of information, stable legal and regulatory frameworks, and individual and property rights that help unleash investment, and innovation. Additionally, All regimes are not precisely because power is decentralised in created equal democracies, they are better able to avoid rash economic decisions – such as Mao’s Great Leap – that can have disastrous consequences. And because democracies are accountable to the citizenry, they provide the ‘relatively equal access to economic resources to a broad cross-section of society’ that fosters broad- based growth.116 Finally, democracies can more easily obtain resources and finance economic expansion through borrowing, because they are seen as comparatively trustworthy debtors. ‘It is no accident’, wrote, ‘that the countries that have reached the highest level of economic perfor- mance across generations are all stable democracies.’117 China is currently testing this historical law; Russia, a classically corrupt and stagnant autocracy, is not.118 Yet, as Olson also observed, although ‘experience shows that relatively poor countries can grow extraordinarily rapidly’ under enlightened autocratic leadership, ‘such growth lasts only for the ruling span of one or two dictators’.119 Today, Chinese growth has clearly been slowing for at least a decade, and leading experts assess that the country is confronting quintessential authoritarian pathologies that will jeopardise its continued ascent. In China’s system, says Odd Arne Wested, ‘conformist medi- ocrity is rewarded above unsettling brilliance’, especially in areas deemed 92 | Hal Brands politically sensitive.120 Similarly, the dominant characteristics of China’s system – strict political controls, censorship and repression – obstruct top- flight innovation. Factors such as corruption, , factionalism, a fear of social instability and the power of entrenched interests impede reforms needed to further liberalise the economy. ‘Until and unless China relaxes its draconian political controls’, writes David Shambaugh, ‘it will never become an innovative society and a “knowledge economy”.’121 Not least, the vast size and power of the same SOEs that so benefit Chinese diplo- macy limit competition and distort the domestic economy. The regime’s unwillingness to take politically risky steps, such as promoting greater transparency, liberalising flows and enshrining stronger individual and property rights, further inhibits China’s potential.122 To the extent that the Chinese political system is evolving today, in fact, it is moving toward greater authoritarianism, information control, ideological conformity and other economically unhealthy characteristics.123 America, by contrast, has enjoyed only modest growth rates since the Great . But taking the longer view, it benefits from all the advantages traditionally associated with stable democracies: the ability to borrow at extremely low rates, an open intellectual climate and world-class educational system, respect for individ- ual rights, the rule of law and other factors.124 What, precisely, this means for the future balance of economic power and growth between Washington and Beijing is impossible to say, given all the other variables involved and the fact that the two countries are still at very different stages of develop- ment. But generally speaking, the contrast in systems seems likely to favour the United States. The same seems true in a second key area: developing and wielding mili- tary power. As Paul Kennedy argued in Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, ‘a combination of economic laissez-faire, political and military pluralism, and intellectual liberty’ has traditionally underwritten both economic and military dominance.125 Admittedly, authoritarian regimes such as Nazi have sometimes achieved very high levels of military effective- ness and innovation, but on balance history and social science suggest that democracies do better at waging and winning wars. In part, this may be because democracies are simply choosier in the conflicts they fight, given Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 93 that democratic leaders will face electoral trouble should they start a war and lose. Yet it is also because professional, civilian-controlled militaries tend to perform at a higher level than politicised, corrupt authoritarian armies, and because democratic militaries are generally more comfortable with delegating authority, permitting operational initiative and flexibility, and fostering relatively free flows of information, all of which are crucial to conducting war.126 Indeed, for all the strategic travails the United States has encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past two decades, the American military has shown extremely high levels of combat effectiveness in these and other recent conflicts, in part for these very reasons. The Russian military, for its part, has developed niches of excellence that have allowed it to perform well in limited conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, and it would be a formidable foe in a ‘home-field’ fight with the United States and NATO in the Baltic region.127 Yet Russia is still no match for America’s overall military strength, not simply because of resource limitations, but also because large portions of the force continue to suffer from corruption, organi- sational bloat, low morale and other pathologies common to authoritarian regimes.128 Likewise, China’s military modernisation has been remarkable in many respects. But its efforts to develop forces fully capable of dominating information-age warfare are likely to ‘be hampered by the highly central- ized, hierarchical structures of China’s military, which [do] not emphasize either delegation or flexibility’.129 A RAND report concludes that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is also ‘riddled with corruption’ and weakened by the pervasive influence of political commissars and other manifestations of the PLA’s subservience to the Communist Party.130 Finally, although PLA responsibilities for internal security are no longer as taxing as they were under Mao, they continue to consume resources and otherwise act as a ‘domestic drag’ on the ability to conduct overseas missions.131 Xi is now making a determined effort to overcome many of these obstacles, and the Chinese military has made real progress in certain respects. But achiev- ing the truly superior performance Beijing seeks may require confronting the ingrained characteristics of authoritarian rule. Military effectiveness is closely related to a third aspect of democratic dominance: establishing and maintaining alliances. Here, the attributes that 94 | Hal Brands

define the internal behaviour of authoritarian states – coercion, inflexibility, intolerance of dissent, lack of respect for – have historically repulsed more partners than they attract. The Soviet Union, for instance, did assemble an alliance bloc during the Cold War, but those relationships were based on compulsion and fell apart the moment Moscow relaxed its iron grip. Democracies are better able to cultivate and keep allies, because the habits of democratic governance – traditions of compromise and tol- erance, respect for minority rights and the rule of law – lend themselves to more organic, durable partnerships characterised by strong cooperation and mutual respect.132 This contrast is one of the major reasons the United States has dozens of allies and close geopolitical partners, which include most of the richest and most Democracies technologically advanced countries in the world.133 are better at Those few allies and genuine partners Beijing and Moscow possess tend to be relatively weak and iso- cultivating allies lated authoritarian regimes. One has only to observe how powerfully America’s allies magnify its own strength – militarily, economically, diplomatically and otherwise – to see what a massive advantage this asymmetry provides.134 With respect to a fourth key competency – generating soft power – the issue is more complicated. Many analysts and US policymakers believe that leading democracies have inherent soft-power advantages, because their political model naturally appeals to the aspirations for freedom and liberty of people around the world.135 Yet if a corrupt, autocratic Russian regime has generated little international admiration outside of fellow authoritar- ians, China has developed considerable prestige and esteem due to its rapid growth. (A historical parallel would be the way rapid Soviet industriali- sation generated significant soft power in the developing regions during the Cold War.) Additionally, America has been depleting its international respect with alarming rapidity under Trump’s abrasive, erratic leadership, raising questions about who has the soft-power edge after all.136 Just as Soviet prestige tended to dissipate once people in the develop- ing regions and elsewhere became better acquainted with the nature of the Soviet system, however, China confronts real limits in sustaining its Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 95 own soft power. Hu declared in 2007 that China ‘must … enhance culture as part of the soft power of our country’, but the cultural dimensions of Chinese soft power remain comparatively weak.137 China’s soft power is inherently tenuous, in fact, because it hinges almost entirely on economic performance, rather than any broad global desire to emulate a Chinese in which individual freedoms are severely circumscribed. As Chinese academic Yan Xuetong has observed, ‘an increase in wealth can raise China’s power status but it does not necessarily enable China to become a country respected by others, because a political superpower that puts wealth as its highest national interest may bring disaster rather than blessings to other countries.’138 One suspects this is why, as recently as 2016, respondents in only two countries surveyed in the Asia-Pacific and Europe had a majority positive view of China, and overwhelming majorities in nearly every country sur- veyed had a negative view of Beijing’s respect for individual freedoms.139 For years, Beijing has suffered repeated soft-power setbacks as a result of its authoritarian rule, such as the fallout it experienced following Chinese repression in Tibet in 2008, or after its sharp diplomatic reaction to Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Prize in 2010. American soft power, dissimilarly, has his- torically been extremely resilient, because over the long term it attaches more to what the country is – an whose system is founded on the dignity of the individual – than to any particular presi- dent.140 At the very least, then, the United States and China possess very different types of soft power as a result of their opposing political models, and one suspects that America’s democratic version will ultimately prove stronger and more enduring. These third and fourth asymmetries are linked tightly to a fifth, which is that democracies are normally better suited than autocracies to building vast international power without generating vast international resistance. It stands to reason that authoritarians wield great global power coercively and exploitatively, because that is how they wield power at home. ‘The charac- teristics of [Communist Party] governance inside China include intolerance of criticism, limited respect for civil and political human rights and the rule of law, little accountability of the state to society, and nontransparency in 96 | Hal Brands

decision making’, Denny Roy writes. ‘Reflected in China’s , these characteristics generate friction with other countries, espe- cially the liberal democracies in the Asia-Pacific.’141 The fact that America embraces liberal ideals and has a political system based on the consent of the governed, in contrast, seems to provide some degree of reassurance – now supported by decades of experience – that it will pursue a more consensual, less nakedly aggressive primacy. One can easily see this dynamic at work in the way that many of Russia’s and China’s neighbours – those countries most exposed to Russian and Chinese power – are seeking greater US engagement to counter that power. The reason for this, as Zachary Selden notes, is that the US-led system, ‘built on generally liberal 100 of the world’s principles, is designed to support relatively free largest states lean trade, adherence to a rules-based economic order, and a general respect for national sovereignty. towards America There is no certainty that the order that would come with the rise to regional predominance of illiberal states such as Russia and China would be nearly as beneficial to the broad interests of secondary states.’142 According to one estimate, in fact, 100 of the world’s 150 largest states lean towards America, with only 21 leaning against it.143 The US-led liberal order has proven so attractive to many coun- tries precisely because it is based on America’s liberal values; an illiberal order would surely engender more unease and resistance. Sixthly and finally, although authoritarians can move with enviable speed and decisiveness, democracies may be better at decision-making over the long term. The qualities that make democratic decision-making infuriatingly slow and messy – checks and balances, alternation in power, vicious public debate – also lend themselves to reasoned and the ability to make course corrections when necessary. The things that make authoritarians enviably quick and decisive – centralisation of authority, empowerment of a small elite, the stifling of debate – can also lend themselves to big mistakes. History is replete with examples of who made horrific blunders because the nature of their rule allowed them to take decisions emotionally or illogically, distorted or Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 97 closed off information flows, weakened accountability, or simply meant that their subordinates were too terrified to challenge them.144 Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill both had plenty of bad ideas during the Second World War, but Churchill’s advisers were able to argue with and dissuade him in a way that Hitler’s advisers weren’t. Neither Russia nor China has so far replicated the epic miscalculations of Hitler, Stalin or Mao. Yet the weaknesses of autocratic decision-making have become more evident as both the Russian and Chinese regimes have become more illiberal. Putin’s blindness to growing domestic in 2011–12, which erupted in major public protests surrounding his return to the presidency, occurred, as Clifford Gaddy and Fiona Hill observe, because ‘he seemed to live in a bubble of his own propaganda’.145 In the same vein, Putin apparently decided to invade Ukraine in 2014 alone, with minimal consultation or diplomatic planning beforehand. That process allowed the operation to unfold quickly and with maximum surprise, but it also ensured that Putin did not adequately anticipate the ensuing economic, diplomatic and military blowback.146 In China, Xi’s centralisation of power is weaken- ing the guardrails on individual decision-making put in place after Mao’s death, and it has overturned the term limits that previously required turno- ver at the top. These changes will enable Xi to move more expeditiously, but they may also render Chinese decision-making more vulnerable to group- think, sycophantism, unforced errors and other authoritarian diseases. As Francis Fukuyama writes, solving what the Chinese call the ‘bad emperor problem’ and other challenges associated with arbitrary rule ultimately requires increasing ‘the formal procedural constraints on the state’.147 Both Russia and China, however, are moving in the opposite direction, with potentially significant risks for their competitive fitness. To be sure, ideology is not destiny. A wise leader may mitigate the drawbacks associated with her system of government; a foolish leader may squander the benefits associated with his. Luck, contingency and other factors will play critical roles in determining who comes out ahead in the end. As great-power rivalry unfolds in the coming years, however, it appears certain that the nature of the contending democratic and authoritar- ian systems will influence their competitive virtues and vices. And although 98 | Hal Brands it may seem, at first glance, that the dictators have the upper hand in the world of statecraft, over the longer term a democratic superpower may have the greater structural advantages after all.

* * *

Ideology has gotten a bad name in US foreign policy in recent years, because it is often taken to signify a dogmatic adherence to faith in the face of reality, or a commitment to dangerous, moralistic crusades. What would be truly dangerous, however, would be to ignore the unmistakable ideological content of contemporary great-power rivalry. America’s com- petitions with Russia and China are not dry, value-free affairs. They are infused with the ideas, values and proclivities that flow from the opposing systems of the competitors. Grasping how ideological differences sharpen geopolitical antagonisms, shape great-power strategies and influence the competitive strengths and weaknesses of America and its rivals is thus critical to accurately assessing the global challenges the United States con- fronts. It also highlights four additional points American policymakers should keep in mind. Firstly, a focus on ideology reminds us that the stakes of today’s compe- titions are even higher than they might initially seem. The US–China and US–Russia rivalries would be deadly serious if they concerned ‘only’ the future balance of power and influence. Yet they have equally fundamen- tal ramifications for the future ideological balance between democracy and autocracy, liberalism and illiberalism. It is no coincidence that the global advance of democracy seems to have stalled, and perhaps gone into reverse, at a time when resurgent authoritarian powers are challenging a global order founded on America’s liberal precepts.148 Insofar as Russia and China succeed in further revising that order, they will bring about a world that is not just less amenable to US influence, but one that is less hospitable to democratic values. That, in turn, could trigger a vicious cycle: a world in which democracy is weaker might also be a world in which it is harder for a liberal superpower to rally global opposition to the depredations of illib- eral rivals. The present competitions concern the fate of ideas as well as the Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 99 fate of nations. To recognise that fact is to engage not in melodrama but in simple realism. Secondly, understanding the ideological components of great-power rivalry helps dispel certain illusions about the ease of resolving those con- flicts. Academics and certain policymakers – including President Trump – have proposed various ‘grand bargains’ that would dramatically reduce tensions between Washington and its challengers by clearing away certain geopolitical disputes that divide them.149 Let us leave aside, for a moment, whether it would be wise to trade away Taiwan in hopes of gaining Chinese restraint elsewhere, or to abandon Ukraine with an eye to pur- chasing Russian cooperation on other issues. Leave aside, also, whether such bargains would stay struck or simply encourage further revisionism. The fact remains that today’s competitions are so fraught because they are not simply about clashing desires for geopolitical influence, but about contradictory conceptions of governance, political values, even . They involve fundamental questions about what sort of nations America, Russia and China are, and what kind of world their political nature leads them to envision. History suggests that such conflicts tend to be protracted and inherently difficult to resolve.150 This is certainly not to say that com- petitions with Russia and China are struggles to the death, or that shrewd negotiation has no role to play in managing tensions and even forging select areas of cooperation. But it is a reminder that competitions combin- ing geopolitical tensions with ideological conflict often frustrate efforts at transcendent diplomacy.151 Thirdly, if there is a pronounced ideological dimension of great-power competition, then there should be a pronounced ideological component of American strategy. US rivals are pushing for advantage in the political and ideological spheres; to refrain from answering in kind would be a form of unilateral disarmament. Limits are important here: ideological competition need not entail actively promoting regime change in Russia or China, and there is room for debate on precisely how forward-leaning the United States should be – and what tactics it should embrace or eschew – in the ideo- logical realm. Yet the robust defence and promotion of democratic values abroad should be a key part of any comprehensive effort to shore up the 100 | Hal Brands

liberal international order against illiberal Russian and Chinese challenges. The United States might also explore, with appropriate caution and pru- dence, whether there are ways of manipulating the domestic weaknesses of the Russian and Chinese systems for geopolitical advantage, just as Moscow and Beijing are doing to Washington today, and just as America did against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Indeed, if today’s competitions are as encompassing as recent US policy statements indicate, fighting back on all fronts would seem warranted.152 Finally, all of these considerations reinforce the overriding strategic imperative that America remain true to the better angels of its nature. All things being equal, the United States is likely to enjoy great long-term advantages in today’s The US is practising strategic competitions simply by virtue of illiberal diplomacy being a liberal democracy. Yet all things are not equal right now, because at the presi- dential level, the United States seems to be practising an extraordinarily abrasive, illiberal diplomacy that is eroding its alliances, spending down its soft power and causing many international observers to wonder whether American leadership is still less threatening than the alternatives. So far, the other elements of the American foreign-policy apparatus have done a decent job of containing the damage. The US president clearly dis- dains America’s democratic allies, for instance, but day-to-day cooperation remains quite robust. Trump openly praises dictators, but his Treasury Department has employed sanctions meant to punish human-rights viola- tors fairly vigorously.153 And as this quiet campaign to contain the president indicates, some of the most troubling aspects of Trump’s diplomacy appear to have more to do with the particular personal qualities of the president than with deeper structural shifts in the way the United States approaches foreign policy.154 It seems unlikely, then, that Trump’s presidency – as diplo- matically destructive as it has been – represents a permanent move toward a strategically illiberal America. Yet Trump’s behaviour nonetheless illumi- nates the fact that individuals and individual policy choices still matter in the larger clash between rival systems. Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 101

Trump’s approach does not represent ‘smart’ or ‘tough’ diplomacy. It is not what the ‘National Security Strategy’ claims – a more competitive and effective approach to great-power relations. The president’s conduct, rather, is a recipe for devaluing many of the assets that have traditionally benefited a democratic superpower, and thereby weakening America’s strategic com- petitiveness for as long as Trump’s ethos persists. At the outset of another great-power competition, George Kennan argued that the most important thing America could do was to ‘measure up to its own best traditions and prove itself worthy of preservation as a great nation’.155 It was good advice then, and it is good advice now.

Notes

1 Carrie Gracie, ‘China’s Xi Jinping (Tokyo: Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Opens “New Era” for Country and the 2017); Aaron Friedberg, ‘Competing World’, BBC, 25 October 2017. with China’, Survival, vol. 60, no. 3, 2 Iran is sometimes included in the list June–July 2018, pp. 7–64; and Robert of revisionists threatening the US-led Kagan, The Return of History and the order. But by virtually any standard, End of Dreams (: Alfred A. Iran is not nearly in the same power- Knopf, 2008). The present essay builds political league as China or even on these earlier works by offering Russia. a more systematic, comprehensive 3 Thomas Wright, All Measures Short of approach to the subject. War: The Contest for the Twenty-First 5 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, edited Century and the Future of American and translated by Michael Howard Power (New Haven, CT: Yale and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: University Press, 2017). Princeton University Press, 1989), pp. 4 Representative of the general view are 88–9. Odd Arne Westad, ‘Has a New Cold 6 In this essay, I use ‘autocracy’ and War Really Begun?’, Foreign Affairs, ‘authoritarianism’ as synonyms. The 27 March 2018; Dmitri Trenin, Should United States is technically a ‘liberal We Fear Russia? (London: Polity, democracy’, but for convenience I often 2016); and Michael Lind, ‘Cold War use ‘democracy’ as shorthand when II’, National Review, 10 May 2018. For describing the US political system. works that usefully highlight the role ‘Liberalism’ and ‘illiberalism’ are also that ideology plays in certain dimen- used as imperfect but convenient short- sions of great-power competition, see hand for the approaches to governance Aaron Friedberg, The Authoritarian and society taken by the United States, Challenge: China, Russia, and the on one hand, and its authoritarian chal- Threat to the Liberal International Order lengers, on the other. 102 | Hal Brands

7 Thomas G. Paterson, ‘Introduction: 17 See ‘The “One Simple Message” John F. Kennedy’s Quest for Victory in Xi Jinping’s Five Years of Epic and Global Crisis’, in Thomas Speeches’, , 2 Paterson (ed.), Kennedy’s Quest for November 2017; Elizabeth Economy, Victory: American Foreign Policy, 1961– The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and 1963 (New York: Oxford University the New Chinese State (New York: Press, 1989), p. 12. Oxford University Press, 2018); Masha 8 See, for example, Lind, ‘Cold War II’. Gessen, The Future Is History: How 9 Victor Davis Hanson, A War Like No Reclaimed Russia (New Other: How the Athenians and Spartans York: Riverhead Books, 2017); Masha Fought the Peloponnesian War (New Gessen, The Man Without a Face: The York: Random House, 2005), p. 13. Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin (New 10 David Bell, The First Total War: York: Penguin, 2012); and David Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Shambaugh, China’s Future (London: Warfare as We Know It (Boston, MA: Polity Press, 2016). Houghton Mifflin, 2007). 18 See Andrew Kuchins, ‘Russian 11 , Diplomacy ( and : Back York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), pp. to the Future’, Testimony prepared 78–102, 121. for US Commission on Security and 12 P.M.H. Bell, The Origins of the Second Cooperation in Europe, 8 February World War in Europe (New York: 2006, https://carnegieendowment. Longman, 1997), pp. 57–8, 120–3. org/files/helcommtestimony.pdf; 13 , The Tragedy Steven Lee Myers, The New Tsar: The of Politics (New York: Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin (New Norton, 2014), pp. 10–11. York: Simon and Schuster, 2015); 14 John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of and Charles Recknagel, ‘As Russia Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Claims Democracy, Is It Redefining American National Security Policy the Word?’, Radio Free Europe/Radio Since World War II (New York: Oxford Liberty, 27 December 2010. University Press, 1982), p. 27. 19 Thorsten Benner et al., Authoritarian 15 Tony Smith, America’s Mission: Advance: Responding to China’s Growing The United States and the Worldwide Political Influence in Europe, Global Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Institute and Mercator Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Institute for China Studies, February University Press, 1994), p. 31. 2018, p. 7. See also Stein Ringen, The 16 See Howard French, Everything Perfect Dictatorship: China in the Twenty- Under the Heavens: How the Past First Century (: Hong Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Kong University Press, 2016), esp. pp. Power (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 142–3; and Richard Bernstein and Ross 2017); and Fiona Hill and Clifford Munro, The Coming Conflict with China Gaddy, Mr. Putin: Operative in the (New York: Knopf, 2007), p. 16. Kremlin (Washington DC: Brookings 20 Smith, America’s Mission, pp. 14–15. Institution Press, 2015). 21 Ibid., pp. 16–17. Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 103

22 Anthony Lake, ‘From Containment Press, 2015), pp. 97–8. to Enlargement’, Johns Hopkins 30 , ‘What China Knows University School of Advanced That We Don’t: The Case for a New International Studies, 21 September Strategy of Containment’, Weekly 1993, https://www.mtholyoke.edu/ Standard, 20 January 1997. See also acad/intrel/lakedoc.html. Hal Brands, ‘The Chinese Century?’, 23 Francis Fukuyama, ‘The End of National Interest, no. 154, March/April History?’, National Interest, no. 16, 2018, pp. 35–45. Summer 1989, pp. 3–18. 31 See Samuel Kim, ‘Human Rights 24 Michael Doyle, ‘Kant, Liberal in China’s International Relations’, Legacies, and Foreign Affairs, Part 2’, in Edward Friedman and Barrett Philosophy & Public Affairs, vol. 12, no. McCormick, What if China Doesn’t 4, Autumn 1983, p. 325. Democratize? Implications for War and 25 See Ibid.; Daniel Kliman, Fateful Peace (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2000), Transitions: How Democracies Manage pp. 130–1; Denny Roy, Return of the Rising Powers, from the Eve of World War Dragon: Rising China and Regional I to China’s Ascendance (Philadelphia, Security (New York: Columbia PA: University of Pennsylvania University Press, 2013), pp. 49–50; Press, 2014); and Kenneth Lieberthal and Cui Tiankai and Pang Hanzhao, and Wang Jisi, Addressing US–China ‘China–US Relations in China’s Strategic Distrust (Washington DC: Overall Diplomacy in the New Era’, Brookings Institution, 2012), p. 24. 24 July 2012, http://my.china-embassy. 26 Henry Kissinger, World Order (New org/eng/zgxw/t954784.htm. See York: Random House, 2014), p. 260. also Aaron Friedberg, A Contest for 27 Ellen Barry, ‘Plain Speaking from Supremacy: China, America, and the Biden in Moscow Speech’, New Struggle for Mastery in Asia (New York: York Times, 10 March 2011. See also W.W. Norton, 2011), pp. 44–5, 134–5. James Mann, About Face: A History 32 See Hill and Gaddy, Mr. Putin, pp. of America’s Curious Relationship with 260–1; Robert Nalbandov, Not by China, from Nixon to Clinton (New Bread Alone: Russian Foreign Policy York: Vintage, 2000), p. 236. under Putin (Lincoln, NE: University 28 See Vladimir Putin, ‘Remarks at Press of Nebraska, 2016), pp. 163–5; Meeting of the Valdai International and Wright, All Measures Short of War, Discussion Club’, 24 October 2014, p. 46. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/ 33 Kori Schake, Safe Passage: The news/46860; and Maria Lipman, Transition from British to American ‘Russia’s Newly Designed Traditional Hegemony (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Values’, Carnegie Moscow Center, University Press, 2017). 30 January 2014, https://carnegie.ru/ 34 Ahto Lobjakas, ‘Vice President Says commentary/54364. US Will “Lead by Example”’, Radio 29 Andrew Nathan and Andrew Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 7 February Scobell, China’s Search for Security 2009, https://www.rferl.org/a/ (New York: Vice_President_Says_US_Will_Lead_ 104 | Hal Brands

By_Example/1380969.html. of Non Interference: A New World 35 ‘National Security Strategy of the Order’, China Daily, 25 January 2016; United States of America’, December and Michael Mazarr, Timothy Heath 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/ and Astrid Cevallos, China and the wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS- International Order (Santa Monica, CA: Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf. RAND Corporation, 2018), p. 98. 36 Susan Shirk, China: Fragile Superpower 42 As discussed subsequently, Russia (New York: Oxford University Press, and China have become increasingly 2007), p. 11. It is true that the Chinese willing to violate the sovereignty of government also worries that popular their neighbours and rivals in recent nationalism could get out of con- years. Nonetheless, they have insisted trol, limiting the regime’s options in that their own sovereignty must foreign affairs or even resulting in remain inviolate. Such hypocrisy is domestic blowback should the regime hardly unusual among great powers, not follow a sufficiently assertive authoritarian or democratic. course. But even as these fears have 43 Mazarr, Heath and Cevallos, China and become more pronounced in recent the International Order, pp. 15–16. See years, Xi Jinping’s regime has contin- also Friedberg, Authoritarian Challenge; ued to emphasise nationalist concepts and Jeffrey Mankoff, Russian Foreign such as the ‘China Dream’ as intellec- Policy: The Return of Great Power tual and ideological underpinnings of Politics (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Communist Party rule. Littlefield, 2011), pp. 34, 182, 192. 37 Marie Mendras, ‘The Rising Cost of 44 See Brian Taylor, ‘Putin’s Own Goal: Russia’s Authoritarian Foreign Policy’, The Invasion of Crimea and Putin’s in David Cadier and Margot Light Political Future’, Foreign Affairs, (eds), Russia’s Foreign Policy: Ideas, 6 March 2014, available in Crisis Domestic Politics and External Relations in Ukraine, Foreign Affairs Special (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, Collection, http://www.isd.al.uw. 2015), pp. 90–1. edu.pl/pliki/aktualnosci/Crisis%20 38 Hal Brands, Making the Unipolar in%20Ukraine.pdf; and Ivan Krastev, Moment: US Foreign Policy and the Rise ‘Russia’s Post-Orange ’, of the Post-Cold War Order (Ithaca, NY: 20 October 2005, https://www. Cornell University Press, 2016), p. 349. opendemocracy.net/democracy- 39 G. , Liberal : europe_constitution/postorange_2947. The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation jsp. of the American World Order (Princeton, 45 Fu Ying, ‘Disorder or the NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012). Reconstruction of Order’, 9 July 2016, 40 Vladimir Putin, ‘Speech and Following http://www.china.org.cn/world/2016- Discussion at the Munich Conference 07/09/content_38844749.htm. on Security Policy’, 10 February 2017, 46 Minxin Pei, ‘Assertive Pragmatism: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/ China’s Economic Rise and Its transcripts/24034. Impact on Chinese Foreign Policy’, 41 See Chua Chin Leng, ‘The Politics IFRI Security Studies Department, Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 105

Fall 2006, https://www.ifri.org/sites/ December 2015. default/files/atoms/files/Prolif_Paper_ 53 See James Fallows, ‘China’s Great Minxin_Pei.pdf. Leap Backward’, Atlantic, December 47 ‘Full Text: Bush’s National Security 2016; Julia Famularo, ‘The China– Strategy’, New York Times, 20 Russia NGO Crackdown’, Diplomat, September 2002. 23 February 2015; Simina Mistreanu, 48 See Putin, ‘Speech and Following ‘Life Inside China’s Social Credit Discussion at the Munich Conference Laboratory’, Foreign Policy, 3 April on Security Policy’; and Bernstein and 2018; Myers, New Tsar; and Alina Munro, The Coming Conflict with China, Polyakova, ‘The Kremlin’s Latest pp. 46–7. See also Timothy Heath, Crackdown on Independent Media’, ‘What Does China Want? Discerning Order from Chaos, 6 December the PRC’s National Security Strategy’, 2017, https://www.brookings.edu/ Asian Security, vol. 8, no. 1, April 2012, blog/order-from-chaos/2017/12/06/ pp. 54–72. the-kremlins-latest-crackdown-on- 49 A similar formulation has been offered independent-media/. by Larry Diamond in ‘Russia and the 54 As discussed below, Russia’s access Threat to Liberal Democracy’, Atlantic, to the global economy has been 9 December 2016; and by Friedberg in constricted since the imposition of A Contest for Supremacy. Ukraine-related sanctions by the West 50 See Friedberg, A Contest for Supremacy, in 2014. pp. 159–61; Kagan, Return of History 55 Russia has been subject to human- and the End of Dreams, esp. p. 55; and rights-related US sanctions since the Shirk, Fragile Superpower. enactment of the Magnitsky Act in 51 See Thomas Mahnken, Ross Babbage 2012 (in addition to Ukraine-related and Toshi Yoshihara, Countering sanctions since 2014). China was hit Comprehensive Coercion: Competitive with US and international economic Strategies against Authoritarian Political restrictions following the Tiananmen Warfare (Washington DC: Center for Square massacre. Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 56 See Lilia Shevtsova, ‘Forward to the 2018), p. 47; and Chris Buckley, ‘China Past in Russia’, in Larry Diamond, Takes Aim at Western Ideas’, New York Marc Plattner and Christopher Walker Times, 19 August 2013. (eds), Authoritarianism Goes Global: 52 See Eric Heginbotham et al., The The Challenge to Democracy (Baltimore, US–China Military Scorecard: Forces, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, Geography, and the Evolving Balance 2016), p. 44; Jason Bush, ‘Russia’s of Power 1996–2017 (Santa Monica, Import-Substitution Drive Will Take CA: RAND Corporation, 2015); Max Years – and May Be Misguided’, Fisher, ‘How World War III Became Reuters, 1 October 2015; and Henry Possible’, Vox, 29 June 2015; and Meyer, ‘Putin Tries to Lure $1 Trillion Catrin Einhorn, Hannah Fairfield Home as Sanctions Fear Grows’, and Tim Wallace, ‘Russia Rearms Bloomberg, 26 December 2017. for a New Era’, New York Times, 24 57 Putin, ‘Remarks at Meeting of the 106 | Hal Brands

Valdai International Discussion Club’. January 2018, https://www.uscc.gov/ 58 See Aaron Friedberg, ‘Globalisation sites/default/files/Ratner_USCC%20 and Chinese Grand Strategy’, Testimony%20CORRECTED.pdf. See Survival, vol. 60, no. 1, February– also Thomas Ambrosio, Authoritarian March 2018, pp. 7–40, esp. p. 22; Backlash: Russian Resistance to Greg Levesque, ‘China’s Evolving Democratization in the Former Soviet Economic Statecraft’, Diplomat, Union (New York: Routledge, 2009), 12 April 2017; James McGregor, pp. 128, 169–75; Julia Bader, China’s ‘China’s Drive for “Indigenous Foreign Relations and the Survival of Innovation”: A Web of Industrial Autocracies (New York: Routledge, Policies’, US Chamber of Commerce, 2014); Stefan Halper, The Beijing 2010, https://www.uschamber. Consensus: How China’s Authoritarian com/sites/default/files/documents/ Model Will Dominate the Twenty-First files/100728chinareport_0_0.pdf; and Century (New York: Basic Books, Nadege Rolland, China’s Eurasian 2010); and Daniel O’Neill, ‘One Century? Political and Strategic Belt, One Road, One Regime Type: Implications of the Belt and Road The Limits of Chinese Influence in Initiative (Seattle, WA: National Developing States’, http://web.isanet. Bureau of Asian Research, 2017). org/Web/Conferences/HKU2017-s/ 59 See Stephen Kotkin, ‘Russia’s Archive/0e71d222-d061-45a8-a87e- Perpetual Geopolitics: Putin Returns 6970a6605d4c.pdf. to the Historical Pattern’,Foreign 64 Nathan and Scobell, China’s Search for Affairs, vol. 95, no. 3, May/June 2016, Security, p. 213. pp. 2–9; Hal Brands and Charles Edel, 65 Ambrosio, Authoritarian Backlash, pp. ‘The Disharmony of the Spheres’, 106, 112. Commentary, vol. 141, no. 1, January 66 See Ibid., pp. 5, 54–6, 131–46; Asmus, 2018, pp. 20–7; and Jennifer Lind, A Little War That Shook the World; ‘Life in China’s Asia: What Regional Heather Conley et al., The Kremlin Hegemony Would Look Like’, Foreign Playbook: Understanding Russian Affairs, vol. 97, no. 3, March/April Influence in Central and Eastern 2018, pp. 71–82. Europe (Washington DC: Center 60 Friedberg, A Contest for Supremacy, pp. for Strategic and International 160–3. Studies, 2016), esp. pp. 36–41; Anton 61 Heath, ‘What Does China Want?’. Shekhovtsov, ‘The Challenge of 62 Ronald Asmus, A Little War That Shook Russia’s Anti-Western Information the World: Georgia, Russia, and the Warfare’, Diplomaatia, April 2015, Future of the West (New York: Palgrave https://www.diplomaatia.ee/en/ Macmillan, 2010), esp. pp. 8–9. article/the-challenge-of--anti- 63 Ely Ratner, ‘Geostrategic and Military western-information-warfare/; and Drivers and Implications of the Belt Christopher Walker (eds), ‘Dealing and Road Initiative’, Prepared state- with the Authoritarian Resurgence’, ment before the US–China Economic in Diamond, Plattner and Walker, and Security Review Commission, 25 Authoritarianism Goes Global, p. 222. Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 107

67 See Peter Finn, ‘Russia–Uzbek org/2017/08/04/vladimir-putin-s- Military Pact Allows Mutual Use of russia-goes-global-pub-72736; and Bases’, Washington Post, 15 November Andrew Weiss and Moises Naim, 2005; and Halper, Beijing Consensus, ‘Putin’s Latest Anti-American pp. 78–9. See also Christian von Intervention: Venezuela’, Washington Soest, ‘Democracy Prevention: Post, 6 September 2017. The International Collaboration of 71 James Mann, The China Fantasy: Why Authoritarian Regimes’, European Capitalism Will Not Bring Democracy to Journal of Political Research, vol. 54, no. China (New York: Penguin, 2008), p. 4, November 2015, pp. 623–38. 24. 68 See Carl Gershman, ‘A Strategy 72 See Amnesty International, China’s for Democratic Renewal’, National Trade in Tools of Torture and Repression Endowment for Democracy, 27 May (London: Amnesty International, 2016, https://www.ned.org/a-strategy- 2014); Thomas J. Christensen, The for-democratic-renewal/; Ambrosio, China Challenge: Shaping the Choices Authoritarian Challenge, pp. 169, 175; of a Rising Power (New York: Norton, Andrew Nathan, ‘China’s Challenge’, 2015), pp. 61, 79–80; Alexander in Diamond, Plattner and Walker Cooley, ‘Countering Democratic (eds), Authoritarianism Goes Global, Norms’, in Diamond, Plattner and pp. 30–1; and Richard Bernstein, Walker (eds), Authoritarianism Goes ‘China and the Rise of the New Global, pp. 118–29; Elizabeth Economy, “Authoritarian International”’, Real ‘China’s New Revolution: The Reign Clear Investigations, 14 November 2017. of Xi Jinping’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 97, 69 The phrase comes from H. Yilmaz, no. 3, May/June 2018, p. 66; Elizabeth ‘External–Internal Linkages in Economy and Michael Levi, By All Democratization: Developing an Means Necessary: How China’s Resource Open Model of Democratic Change’, Quest Is Changing the World (New Democratization, vol. 9, no. 2, York: Oxford University Press, 2014), September 2002, pp. 67–84. There are pp. 74–7; Halper, Beijing Consensus, exceptions. The Sino-Soviet split of passim, esp. pp. 30–1, 79–87; Mann, the 1960s saw two totalitarian regimes China Fantasy, p. 25; Nathan, ‘China’s seeking to undermine each other Challenge’; Roy, Return of the Dragon, ideologically and diplomatically, and pp. 164–5; and David Shambaugh, even coming to the brink of war. Yet China Goes Global: The Partial Power as a general proposition, the idea (New York: Oxford University Press, that today’s authoritarians feel less 2013), pp. 139–40. threatened by authoritarians than by 73 See Michael Kofman and Matthew democratic regimes seems to hold. Rojansky, ‘What Kind of Victory for 70 See Eugene Rumer and Andrew Russia in Syria?’, Military Review, 24 Weiss, ‘Vladimir Putin’s Russia January 2018; Myers, New Tsar, p. Goes Global’, Carnegie Endowment 384. On China’s decision-making, for International Peace, 4 August see Christensen, China Challenge, pp. 2017, https://carnegieendowment. 267–9. 108 | Hal Brands

74 See Michael Clarke and Raffaello Friedberg, ‘Globalisation and Chinese Pantucci, ‘China Is Supporting Syria’s Grand Strategy’, pp. 28–9. Regime: What Changed?’, National 82 Nathan, ‘China’s Challenge’, p. 34. Interest, 17 September 2016; and Euan 83 See Bernstein, ‘China and the McKirdy, ‘8 Times Russia Blocked UN Rise of the New “Authoritarian Security Council Resolution on Syria’, International”’; Michael Boyle, ‘The CNN, 13 April 2017. Coming Illiberal Order’, Survival, vol. 75 ‘Read Putin’s U.N. General Assembly 58, no. 2, April–May 2016, pp. 49–50; Speech’, Washington Post, 28 and Sergey Sukhankin, ‘Russia’s September 2015. New Information Security Doctrine: 76 See Cooley, ‘Countering Democratic Fencing Russia from the “Outside Norms’, esp. pp. 118–23; ‘Putin World”?’, Eurasia Daily Monitor, 16 Criticizes Western Countries for December 2016. Abandoning Christian Roots’, Free 84 Gershman, ‘A Strategy for , 28 December 2016, http:// Renewal’. See also Charles Gartles, www.freerepublic.com/focus/f- ‘Getting Gerasimov Right’, Military news/3508713/posts; and Dmitri Review, January–February 2016, pp. Trenin, ‘Russian Foreign Policy as 32–3; and Hill and Gaddy, Mr. Putin, Exercise in Nation Building’, in Cadier pp. 347–8. and Light (eds), Russia’s Foreign Policy, 85 Daniel Brumberg and Steven p. 38. Heydemann, Global Authoritarians 77 Peter Ferdinand, ‘Westward Ho – The and the : New Challenges China Dream and “One Belt, One for US Diplomacy, Woodrow Wilson Road”: Chinese Foreign Policy Under International Center for Scholars and Xi Jinping’, International Affairs, vol. US Institute of Peace, https://www. 92, no. 4, July 2016, p. 946. wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/ 78 Lieberthal and Wang, Addressing US– global_authoritarians_and%20_the_ China Strategic Distrust, esp. p. 10. arab_spring_1.pdf. 79 Joshua Kurlantzick, State Capitalism: 86 See Evan Feigenbaum, ‘China and How the Return of Is the World: Dealing with a Reluctant Transforming the World (New York: Power’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 96, Oxford University Press, 2016). no. 1, January–February 2017, pp. 80 Grigorij Meseznikov and Gabriela 33–40; Gershman, ‘A Strategy for Pleschova, ‘Testing Democratic Democratic Renewal’; and Ratner, Resolve in Slovakia’, in National ‘Geostrategic and Military Drivers Endowment for Democracy, and Implications’. See also Friedberg, Sharp Power: Rising Authoritarian Authoritarian Challenge; and G. John Influence(Washington DC: National Ikenberry and Darren Lim, ‘China’s Endowment for Democracy, 2017). Emerging Institutional Statecraft: See also the subsequent discussion of The Asian Infrastructure Investment political warfare. Bank and the Prospects for Counter- 81 See Benner et al., Authoritarian Hegemony’, Brookings Institution, Advance, pp. 2–3, 17–18, 20–1; and April 2017. Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 109

87 Bradford Lee, ‘Strategic Interaction’, Nathan, ‘China’s Challenge’, pp. in Thomas Mahnken (ed.), Competitive 28–30. Strategies for the 21st Century: Theory, 94 Hamilton, Silent Invasion, p. 2; Mazarr, History, and Practice (Stanford, CA: Heath and Cevallos, China and the Stanford University Press, 2012), p. 41. International Order, p. 57; J. Michael 88 For good overviews, see Anne-Marie Cole, ‘Taiwan Confirms China’s Brady, ‘China’s Foreign Propaganda “Black Hand” Behind Anti-Democracy Machine’, in Diamond, Plattner Protests’, Taiwan Democracy Bulletin, and Walker (eds), Authoritarianism vol. 1, no. 10, 18 July 2017. Goes Global; Conley et al., Kremlin 95 ‘What to Do About China’s “Sharp Playbook; Mahnken, Babbage and Power”’, , 14 December Yoshihara, Countering Comprehensive 2017. Coercion; Peter Mattis, ‘China’s 96 On this disillusion, see Roberto Stefan “Three Warfares” in Perspective’, Foa and Yascha Mounk, ‘The Signs of War on the Rocks, 30 January 2018; Deconsolidation’, Journal of Democracy, Linda Robinson et al., Modern vol. 28, no. 1, January 2017, pp. 5–16. Political Warfare: Current Practices 97 James Palmer, ‘The Great and Possible Responses (Santa Authoritarian Kinship’, Foreign Policy, Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 20 January 2016. 2018); and Peter Pomerantsev, ‘The 98 China abstained on a UN Security Kremlin’s Information War’, Journal Council resolution that would have of Democracay, vol. 26, no. 4, October urged member countries not to recog- 2015, pp. 40–50. nise the results of the Russian-backed 89 Diamond, ‘Russia and the Threat to in Crimea in March 2014. Liberal Democracy’. Chinese diplomats also refrained from 90 ‘Highlights: US Intel Report on criticising the annexation, despite Russian Cyber Attacks in 2016 Beijing’s own fears of ‘’. Election’, Reuters, 6 January 2017. See Henry Foy, ‘Rosneft Deal Boosts 91 Mahnken, Babbage and Yoshihara, Russia–China Relationship’, Financial Countering Comprehensive Coercion. Times, 20 November 2017; Dave 92 Shekhovtsov, ‘The Challenge of Majumdar, ‘Russia and China Are Russia’s Anti-Western Information Now Building Weapons Together’, Warfare’. National Interest, 30 March 2018; and 93 See Anne-Marie Brady, ‘Magic and Shannon Tiezzi, ‘China Backs Weapons: China’s Political Influence Russia on Ukraine’, Diplomat, 4 March Activities under Xi Jinping’, Woodrow 2014. Wilson Center, September 2017, 99 See ‘For Russia and China, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/ Cooperation Is the Name of the default/files/magicweaponsanne- Game in Central Asia’, Stratfor, 9 mariebradyseptember162017.pdf; March 2018; Sam LaGrone, ‘China, Clive Hamilton, Silent Invasion: China’s Russia Kick Off Joint South China Influence in Australia(Melbourne: Sea Naval Exercise; Includes “Island Hardie Grant Books, 2018); and Seizing” Drill’, US Naval Institute, 12 110 | Hal Brands

September 2016, https://news.usni. 1788, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_ org/2016/09/12/china-russia-start-joint- century/fed70.asp; and Doyle, ‘Kant, south-china-sea-naval-exercise-in- Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs, cludes-island-seizing-drill; and Ankit Part 2’, p. 326. Panda, ‘Chinese, Russian Navies Hold 106 Quote from Levesque, ‘China’s Exercises in Sea of Japan, Okhotsk Evolving Economic Statecraft’. See Sea’, Diplomat, 21 September 2017. also Blackwill and Harris, War by 100 See Mark Eades, ‘China and Russia Other Means, esp. p. 107; ‘China Join Hands for ’, Blocked Exports of Rare Earth Foreign Policy, 2 May 2016, https:// Metals to Japan, Traders Claim’, foreignpolicyblogs.com/2016/05/02/ Daily Telegraph, 24 September 2014; china-and-russia-join-hands-for- Kurlantzick, State Capitalism, pp. internet-censorship/; and Roy, Return 204–8; Halper, Beijing Consensus, p. of the Dragon, p. 165. 104. Russia has used its SOEs, such 101 See Ambrosio, Authoritarian Backlash, as the state oil Gazprom, p. 182; and Jeanne Wilson, Strategic for similar purposes. See Robert Partners: Russian–Chinese Relations Donaldson, Joseph Nogee and Vidya in the Post-Soviet Era (New York: Nadkarni, The Foreign Policy of Russia: Routledge, 2015). Changing Systems, Enduring Interests 102 Miroslav Nincic, Democracy and (New York: Routledge, 2015), pp. Foreign Policy: The Fallacy of Political 150–2, 178–9. Realism (New York: Columbia 107 Edward Luttwak, The Rise of China vs. University Press, 1994), p. 3. the Logic of Strategy (Cambridge, MA: 103 China, too, has a rich tradition of Press, 2012), p. 31. deception and surprise attack, which 108 Joshua Kurlantzick, ‘Why the “China is ‘entirely consistent with the char- Model” Isn’t Going Away’, Atlantic, 21 acter of its current domestic regime’. March 2013. Friedberg, A Contest for Supremacy, 109 The United States has a tradition p. 43. The US military is, of course, of political-warfare and covert- capable of achieving tactical surprise. action initiatives – sometimes But America cannot so easily achieve successful, sometimes not – dating the sort of strategic surprise of which back generations. The Soviet Union, authoritarian regimes are capable. for its part, proved vulnerable in 104 See Robert Blackwill and Jennifer the later years of the Cold War to a Harris, War by Other Means: Western political-warfare offensive Geoeconomics and Statecraft emphasising human-rights issues. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University 110 Mahnken, Babbage and Yoshihara, Press, 2017), pp. 61–3, 101–2; Myers, Countering Comprehensive Coercion, p. 6. The New Tsar; and Dmitri Trenin, 111 Ibid., p. 6; Pomerantsev, ‘Kremlin’s Should We Fear Russia? (London: Polity Information War’. Press, 2016), pp. 91–2. 112 Moises Naim, ‘How Democracies Lose 105 See Alexander Hamilton, ‘The in Cyberwar’, Atlantic, 13 February Papers: No. 70’, 18 March 2017. Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 111

113 See Ian Bremmer, ‘How China’s He’s Leonid Brezhnev’, Foreign Policy, Economy Is Poised to Win the Future’, 12 February 2018. Time, 2 November 2017; and Michael 119 Olson, ‘Dictatorship, Democracy, and Horowitz, ‘Artificial Intelligence, Development’, p. 572. International Competition, and the 120 Odd Arne Westad, Restless Empire: Balance of Power’, Texas National China and the World Since 1750 (New Security Review, 15 May 2018. York: Hachette, 2012), p. 454. 114 Steven Lee Myers, ‘Why China Is 121 David Shambaugh, ‘The Coming Confident It Can Beat Trump in a Chinese Crackup’, Wall Street Journal, Trade War’, New York Times, 5 April 6 March 2015. 2018. 122 Matthew Kroenig, ‘Why Democracies 115 Kenneth Shultz and Barry Weingast, Dominate’, National Interest, 15 June ‘The Democratic Advantage: 2015. Institutional Foundations of Financial 123 See Shambaugh, China’s Future; and Power in International Competition’, Economy, Third Revolution, esp. pp. International Organization, vol. 57, no. 121–52. 1, Winter 2003, p. 4. See also Matthew 124 For one bullish assessment of Kroenig, ‘Dominant Democracies: the American economic future, The Domestic Sources of International see the Markle Economic Future Power’, http://www.matthewkroenig. Initiative, America’s Moment: Creating com/Kroenig_Dominant%20 Opportunity in the Connected Age Democracies.pdf. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2015). 116 , Simon Johnson See also Michael Beckley, Unrivaled: and James Robinson, ‘Institutions as Why America Will Remain the World’s a Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Sole Superpower (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Growth’, in Philippe Aghion and University Press, 2018). Steven Durlauf (eds), Handbook of 125 Paul Kennedy, Rise and Fall of the Great Economic Growth, Volume 1A (New Powers (New York: Vintage, 1988), p. 30. York: Elsevier, 2005), p. 395. See also 126 See David Lake, ‘Powerful Pacifists: Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, Democratic States and War’, American : Power, Prosperity, Review, vol. 86, no. and Poverty (New York: Crown, 2012); 1, March 1992, pp. 24–37; Stephen Joseph Siegle, Michael Weinstein and Biddle and Stephen Long, ‘Democracy Morton Halperin, ‘Why Democracies and Military Effectiveness’,Journal Excel’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 83, no. 5, of Conflict Resolution, vol. 48, no. 4, September/October 2004, pp. 57–71. August 2004, pp. 525–46; and Dan 117 See Mancur Olson, ‘Dictatorship, Reiter and Allan Stam, Democracies Democracy, and Development’, at War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton American Political Science Review, University Press, 2002). vol. 87, no. 3, September 1993, pp. 127 David Shlapak and Michael Johnson, 572–3; and Shultz and Weingast, ‘The Reinforcing Deterrence on NATO’s Democratic Advantage’. Eastern Flank (Santa Monica, CA: 118 Chris Miller, ‘Putin Isn’t a Genius. RAND Corporation, 2016). 112 | Hal Brands

128 See Andrew Bowen, ‘Russia’s Haven, CT: Deceptively Weak Military’, National Press, 2007); Richard Wike, Bruce Interest, 7 June 2015; Mark Galeoitti, Stokes, Jacob Poushter and Janell ‘Don’t Buy the Hype: Russia’s Military Fetterolf, ‘US Image Suffers as Is Much Weaker than Putin Wants Publics Around World Question Us to Think’, Vox, 23 February 2016; Trump’s Leadership’, Pew Research and Maria Tsvetkova, ‘Special Report: Center, 26 June 2017, http://www. Russian Soldiers Quit Over Ukraine’, pewglobal.org/2017/06/26/u-s-image- Reuters, 10 May 2015. suffers-as-publics-around-world- 129 Stephen Brooks and William question-trumps-leadership/; and Wohlforth, ‘The Rise and Fall of Hal Brands, American Grand Strategy the Great Powers in the Twenty- in the Age of Trump (Washington DC: First Century: China’s Rise and the Brookings Institution Press, 2018), pp. Fate of America’s Global Position’, 176–7. International Security, vol. 40, no. 3, 137 Nathan and Scobell, China’s Search for Winter 2015/16, p. 40. Security, p. 321. 130 Michael Chase et al., China’s Incomplete 138 See French, Everything Under the Military Transformation: Assessing the Heavens, p. 284; and Shambaugh, Weaknesses of the People’s Liberation China Goes Global, esp. pp. 214–67. Army (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 139 See Richard Wike, Jacob Poushter Corporation, 2015), esp. pp. 48–9, and Hani Zainulbhai, ‘China and 55–6. the Global Balance of Power’, 131 Nathan and Scobell, China’s Search for Pew Research Center, 29 June Security, p. 299. 2016, http://www.pewglobal. 132 See John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: org/2016/06/29/3-china-and-the- Rethinking Cold War History (New global-balance-of-power/. York: Oxford University Press, 1997). 140 See Joseph Nye, Soft Power: The Means 133 For an accounting of US allies and to Success in World Politics (New York: partners, see Adam Taylor, ‘The US PublicAffairs, 2004); and Elizabeth Is Bound by Treaties to Defend a Economy and Adam Segal, ‘China’s Quarter of Humanity’, Washington Olympic Nightmare: What the Games Post, 30 May 2015. Mean for Beijing’s Future’, Foreign 134 Hal Brands and Peter Feaver, ‘What Affairs, vol. 87, no. 4, July/August 2008, Are America’s Alliances Good For?’, pp. 47–56. Parameters, vol. 47, no. 2, Summer 141 Roy, Return of the Dragon, pp. 164–5. 2017, pp. 15–30. 142 See Zachary Selden, Alignment, 135 Walter Russell Mead, Special Alliance, and American Grand Strategy Providence: American Foreign Policy and (Ann Arbor, MI: University of How It Changed the World (New York: Michigan Press, 2016), p. 28; and Alfred A. Knopf, 2001), pp. 169–71. Ikenberry, Liberal Leviathan, pp. 213– 136 See Joshua Kurlantzick, Charm 14, 252–3. Offensive: How China’s Soft Power 143 Joseph Nye, ‘Trump Has Learned a Is Transforming the World (New Lot. But He’s Neglecting a Huge Part Democracy vs Authoritarianism: How Ideology Shapes Great-Power Conflict | 113

of American Leadership’, Washington Kingdom during the late nineteenth Post, 25 April 2017. and early twentieth centuries – 144 See and G. John occurred between two relatively Ikenberry, ‘The Myth of the Autocratic liberal powers. Similarly, the rap- Revival: Why Liberal Democracy Will prochement between post-Napoleonic Prevail’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 88, no. 1, France and its former enemies in the January/February 2009, pp. 77–93; and late 1810s rested, at least in part, on Gaddis, We Now Know. shared ideological support for monar- 145 Hill and Gaddy, Mr. Putin, p. 239. chy and opposition to revolution. The 146 Daniel Treisman, ‘Crimea: Anatomy rapprochement between the United of a Decision’, in Daniel Treisman States and the Soviet Union at the end (ed.), The New Autocracy: Information, of the Cold War was not really a rec- Politics, and Policy in Putin’s Russia onciliation between equals: it occurred (Washington DC: Brookings because Moscow essentially gave up Institution Press, 2018), pp. 277–95. the game, and started transforming See also Bobo Lo, Russia and the New itself internally to boot. World Disorder (Washington DC: 151 This dynamic has, somewhat ironi- Brookings Institution Press, 2015), pp. cally, been confirmed by the inability xvii, 3–14. of President Trump to engineer a 147 See Francis Fukuyama, Political Order rapprochement with Moscow. An and Political Decay: From the Industrial unusually illiberal American president Revolution to the of may want detente with the Kremlin, Democracy (New York: Farrar, Straus, but few other actors in the US political and Giroux, 2014), pp. 384–5; and system do. Alina Polyakova and Torrey Taussig, 152 See, for instance, ‘National Security ‘The Autocrat’s Achilles’ Heel’, Foreign Strategy of the United States of Affairs, 2 February 2018. America’, December 2017. 148 Robert Kagan, ‘The Weight of 153 See Robert Berschinski, ‘Trump Geopolitics’, Journal of Democracy, vol. Administration Notches a Serious 26, no. 1, January 2015, pp. 21–31. Human Rights Win. No, Really’, Just 149 See Charles Glaser, ‘A US–China Security, 10 January 2018. Grand Bargain? The Hard Choice 154 See Frank Newport, ‘Trump’s Foreign between Military Competition and Policy and American Public Opinion’, Accommodation’, International Gallup, 12 July 2018. To be clear, this Security, vol. 39, no. 4, Spring 2015, is not to say that Americans are as pp. 49–90; and ‘Donald Trump Seeks committed to an assertive interna- a Grand Bargain with Vladimir Putin’, tionalism as they traditionally have The Economist, 11 February 2017. been since the Second World War – an 150 It is noteworthy that the ‘grand bar- issue about which there has been, gain’ most commonly cited as an quite justifiably, much concern. It is example of great-power reconcilia- simply to say that the more illiberal tion – the rapprochement between aspects of Trump’s foreign policy the United States and the United have not proven widely popular with 114 | Hal Brands

the US public. On the larger issue of Haven, CT: Yale University Press, support for American international- forthcoming). ism, see Hal Brands and Charles Edel, 155 X (George Kennan), ‘The Sources of The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and Soviet Conduct’, Foreign Affairs, vol. the Preservation of World Order (New 25, no. 4, July 1947, p. 582.