September 26, 2022
Russia, Iran, and the Perils of Post-autocracy
Sometimes a news cycle constitutes more than just noise. It provides a loud, uncanny signal about what may lie beyond the horizon. That happened this month, when a more hopeful, dangerous, and radically different geopolitics came into view. Within literally a few days of each other, we have witnessed the near-collapse of the Russian army in Ukraine and the humiliation of a regime in the streets of Iranian cities.
Neither the Russian nor the Iranian regime is now specifically threatened. Each could hang on for years. But this month provided a glimpse of their eventual demise.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s soldiers revealed themselves to be little more than a mob on the move, having tortured and mistreated the civilians under their control, they abruptly abandoned their positions and literally ran away from advancing Ukrainian forces. Putin’s fascist-trending national security state may be turning to ashes. His threat of nuclear war only reveals that autocratic regimes are at their most dangerous in the years before they expire.
As for Iran, the regime’s disrepute among its own subjects has been on full display, with massive protests engulfing dozens of cities and crowds demanding the end of the Islamic Republic. The rage, spread by social media, was ignited by the death at the hands of the so-called morality police of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, who had been detained for not properly wearing her hijab. But the fuel was decades of repression and corruption, and a ruined economy.
Read the full article from Project Syndicate.
More from CNAS
-
‘The U.S. Has Got to Get Involved’: Townsend on NATO Boosting Polish Air Defences
Video
Jim Townsend, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, discusses what actions NATO countries need to take amidst Russia’s incursions of NATO airspace.W...
By Jim Townsend
-
Commentary
Defense / Transatlantic Security
Europe’s Delusions Over What It Means to Deter RussiaToday’s European leaders are in a Singapore trap, crafting a training mission designed to signal resolve rather than achieve an actual military objective....
By Franz-Stefan Gady
-
The Wrong Way to Do Diplomacy With Russia
Commentary
In fact, the summit helped Putin legitimize Moscow’s grievances, giving Russians who might doubt the wisdom of the invasion reason believe that it was, as Putin promised, just...
By Celeste Wallander
-
Commentary
Indo-Pacific Security / Transatlantic Security / Middle East Security
A Project for a New World OrderIndeed, the gathering in Beijing suggests that the axis, rather than withering following the war in Iran in June, has momentum....
By Richard Fontaine & Andrea Kendall-Taylor
