“Beware those who once hailed ‘the age of democracy’ and now proclaim ‘the age of autocracy,’” argues the historian Stephen Kotkin. The world’s authoritarian regimes seem formidable, but they are “shot through with weaknesses,” facing a “debilitating incapacity stemming from corruption, cronyism, and overreach.” Kotkin claims that the United States can still help lead the effort to exploit that weakness. This does not mean trying to replace autocratic regimes, as “Washington cannot directly bring down nuclear-armed authoritarian adversaries such as China and Russia without risking Armageddon”. Instead, Koktin advocates for a reenergized United States, which can certainly “make it harder for the authoritarians to marshal their strengths and easier for their weaknesses to hold them back.”
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“Beware those who once hailed ‘the age of democracy’ and now proclaim ‘the age of autocracy,’” argues the historian Stephen Kotkin. The world’s authoritarian regimes seem formidable, but they are “shot through with weaknesses,” facing a “debilitating incapacity stemming from corruption, cronyism, and overreach.” Kotkin claims that the United States can still help lead the effort to exploit that weakness. This does not mean trying to replace autocratic regimes, as “Washington cannot directly bring down nuclear-armed authoritarian adversaries such as China and Russia without risking Armageddon”. Instead, Koktin advocates for a reenergized United States, which can certainly “make it harder for the authoritarians to marshal their strengths and easier for their weaknesses to hold them back.”