Anne Applebaum, an award-winning American author and historian, published “Autocracy, Inc” in 2024. Drawing wide critical acclaim and recognized as a book of the year by the Economist, “Autocracy, Inc” warns us about the dictators who want to rule the world. In this book, Anne Applebaum talks about sophisticated kleptocratic networks underpinning dictatorships. Corrupt companies, technologically advanced mass surveillance and armies of propagandists are all at the service of autocratic regimes in Russia, China, Iran, and other countries.
The police in one country can arm and train the police in another, and propagandists share resources and themes, pounding home the same messages about the weakness of democracy and the evil of America.
International condemnation and economic sanctions cannot move the autocrats. Even popular opposition movements, from Venezuela to Hong Kong to Moscow, don’t stand a chance. The members of Autocracy, Inc, aren’t linked by a unifying ideology, like communism, but rather a common desire for power, wealth, and impunity. In this urgent treatise, which evokes George Kennan’s essay calling for “containment” of the Soviet Union, Anne Applebaum calls for the democracies to fundamentally reorient their policies to fight a new kind of threat.
The world can count itself lucky indeed if a book like this were to serve as a wake-up call, causing a coordinated push-back against the autocratic regimes of the world.