This is hardly a revelation, but caffeine truly is a miraculous substance. Its powers of revival are unmatched.
It is almost 8am in Notting Hill, a fashionable enclave of west London, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning US journalist and historian is coming to breakfast. Anne Applebaum is renowned for being among the world’s most astute writers on international affairs, a clear-eyed chronicler of despotic politics. This morning, however, she looks as if she would rather die.
Just before the allotted hour Applebaum slinks into the restaurant and is shown to the table on the front terrace. She wears enormous shades even though the sun has yet to punch a hole in the clouds obscuring the London sky. She is pale and tired.
She explains from behind her shades that there is nothing wrong; it is just a particularly bad case of jet lag: “It is always worse when you fly from west to east.”
A waitress brings a cappuccino, the delivery vehicle for that sweet caffeine. It is swiftly dispatched and the miracle begins. Within minutes, Applebaum is in full-on Lazarus mode. The shades come off and her eyes flit into life. The weak drawl leaves her voice as the discussion bounces from Vladimir Putin to Xi Jinping to the full gamut of threats facing democracy today.
Breakfast arrives and she orders another cappuccino. This is getting serious now. Keeping up with her could turn into a challenge.
Applebaum is back in London, where she lived and worked for years, to promote her new book. Autocracy Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World is a devastating account of how modern autocracies such as those in Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran and North Korea – a networking group of dictatorial regimes – collaborate in their shared mission to undermine democracy and chip away at the old world order. It also investigates the kleptocratic tendencies of “mafia states” such as Russia.
“Look at Venezuela, run by Nicolás Maduro. His rule has almost destroyed the country. It creates more refugees than Ukraine. There is hunger. It is an unpopular regime and there is also a capable opposition,” she says. “And yet [the opposition] can’t win. They realise they can’t win because of Russian arms for Venezuela, Chinese investment and Cuban surveillance technology.”
[ Putin visits North Korea amid growing concern over alleged arms tradeOpens in new window ]
Applebaum’s theory is that autocracies buttress each other’s positions by supplying arms among themselves, amplifying each other’s propaganda, and collaborating on creative ways to sidestep economic sanctions.
“The reason they are pushing so hard is because they have felt threatened: internally not externally.” She believes the late former Russian dissident Alexei Navalny and his movement “actually scared Putin. The Hong Kong demonstrations scared the Chinese. The Iranian women’s movement scared the mullahs. They are threatened not by military powers but by their own internal opposition.”
Her book also throws a focus on how democracies such as the UK and US allow their economic, communications and political systems to be used by autocrats to hide their plundered wealth, spread their propaganda and expand their reach along the vestibules of democratic power.
“It is about understanding the ways in which our societies are vulnerable, the ways we need to change. The way we consume information, the ways our financial systems are conducive to being abused. We must understand the levels of influence [autocrats] have within our societies.”
London, for example, is famously awash with the plundered gains of the Russian oligarchs who prop up Putin. Applebaum argues for reform of financial systems, a fightback against the propaganda that autocrats use to toxify discourse, and regulation of the algorithms of the social media platforms she says help to spread it.
Trump is a transactional person whose interest is in himself. In that sense he is like [the autocrats]. It’s why he is more dangerous
On the day we meet, US president Joe Biden and his challenger for the White House, former president Donald Trump, are due that night to hold their first televised debate. Sipping her coffee, Applebaum has no idea that hours later Biden will fluff his debate lines, threatening his campaign. She doesn’t yet know that, a couple of weeks later, Trump will come within an earlobe of succumbing to a would-be assassin’s bullet, which may help to grease his route back to power.
In the democratic world’s struggle to beat back the influence of autocratic leaders such as Putin and Xi, just how much is riding on the result of the US’s November 5th presidential election?
“A lot. This book was rushed out – it probably should not have come out until January. I’m aware of some flaws in it that I didn’t have time to fix. But the election is part of the reason for bringing its publication forward. I am not egotistical enough to imagine that every American reads it. But I hope some people take it into consideration [when they vote].”
If Trump wins – and he is now the clear favourite – Applebaum does not believe he will immediately do deals with Putin’s Russia or Xi’s China. “But he is a transactional person whose interest is in himself. In that sense he is like them. It’s why he is more dangerous.”
In the vista she paints, the role of the US as guarantor of the current order is vital. “It may be time for others to step up to that role, depending on what happens in November,” she says.
Applebaum, who turns 60 next week, was born into a Jewish family in Washington DC. She received an elite education at Yale, the London School of Economics and Oxford University. She has written for the Economist, the Spectator, the Daily Telegraph, the Washington Post and Atlantic magazine, where she works now. She won the Pulitzer Prize 20 years ago for her book Gulag, a history of the Soviet system of political prison camps.
A Russian speaker and keen student of the country’s political culture, she was an early critic of Putin. She warned of his danger even when he was still courted in the West in his early years. What darkness did she sense in Putin that others did not – at least not at first?
“That’s easy. Even before he became Russia’s president, when he was prime minister he revived this myth of the loyal Chekist [Soviet secret police] as patriots,” says Applebaum. “He admired Yuri Andropov” – a 1980s leader of the Soviet Union– “who was famous for repressing dissidents. For me, those were red flags. I think Putin was always about repression.”
The Ukraine war will only ever be over – and I mean over, over – when the Russians understand it was a mistake and that Ukraine cannot be their colony. We’re not there yet
In recent years, Applebaum has written extensively about the threats to the West (she generally eschews that term) posed by Putin’s Russia. In November 2022, nine months after the invasion of Ukraine, the Putin regime placed her on a sanctions list. Did it have any practical effect on her?
“Not really. I used to spend a lot of time there. I have lots of Russian friends. But I haven’t visited in 10 or 15 years. I stopped going pretty early because I had some weird things happen to me there, and also my husband is involved in Polish politics.”
She is married to Radek Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister. What “weird things” happened?
“Somebody broke into a hotel room I was staying in. As for the sanctions, I felt rather sad about it. When I wrote my first book I spent months in archives, not only in Moscow but all over the country. People were nice to me. They helped me. It just feels sad that now I can’t go there any more.”
Applebaum believes Putin’s war in Ukraine will not end until he concludes “it isn’t worth it any more” and Russians understand that Ukraine “is not their country” and has its own culture.
“We will understand when it happens. It will only ever be over – and I mean over, over – when the Russians understand it was a mistake and that Ukraine cannot be their colony. We’re not there yet. It’s not unlike the realisation the British came to at the end of the 19th century, when they began to understand that, actually, Ireland was not a part of Britain.”
She is dismissive of the idea that Putin was ever provoked into invading Ukraine by the eastward expansion of Nato, the US-led military alliance.
“The proof that Putin doesn’t care about Nato is that he doesn’t care about Finland and Sweden joining it. Finland has a long land border with Russia. He doesn’t feel threatened by Nato; he never did. The reason he invaded Ukraine is actually because it is not in Nato.”
For now, she says, Putin has not given up on his original goal – to destroy Ukraine as a state.
Applebaum argues that while the Russian leader doesn’t care what others think of him abroad, China’s Xi is different and the rest of the world cannot afford not to interact with the world’s emerging second superpower. China’s international image is also still of some importance to it.
“There are no circumstances under which complete disconnect and sanctioning is going to be good for us. It might happen eventually. [But] everybody would like to avoid it for as long as possible.”
She argues that western democracies need to write new laws to regulate the algorithms of social media platforms such as Elon Musk’s X. It is not about censorship, she says, but about understanding how the algorithms present information to the public, especially anti-western propaganda from states such as Russia.
“The purpose of Russian propaganda now is to make everybody feel pessimistic and cynical so they won’t be hopeful and they won’t try to change anything.” This, she says, must be combated.
Regulate social media and also artificial intelligence; defeat the propaganda; staunch the kleptocrats’ flow of dark money; beat the network of autocratic states that are trying to undermine the democratic world. It sounds like one hell of an in-tray. Applebaum believes it can be done.
“I am an optimist because I believe pessimism is irresponsible. If you don’t think of how things might be better, you plunge into despair. It is a tough subject. People get overwhelmed by it. But we are able to change things ourselves. We have done big things before.”
She cites the US’s success in building a defensive military alliance after the second World War. The European Union was developed so Germany and France would never go to war again. Britain built a National Health Service.
She is inspired by dissidents in countries such as Venezuela and Iran who never give up: “For me in my lucky life to say ‘I don’t believe things can get any better’. What would that say to them?”
It has been a busy year for Applebaum with so much happening in geopolitics. She is covering the US election for Atlantic. She also had her book to finish. She hasn’t had time for a holiday.
“When war in Ukraine is over and when Trump is no longer president, then I’m going on a year-long holiday,” she says. Unless the Democrats turn things around, she could be waiting longer than she would like.
The waitress clears away breakfast and Applebaum orders yet another coffee.
Fuel for jet-lagged writers. Fuel for life.
Anne Applebaum will appear in an event as part of the Dublin History Festival on September 6th. Further details will be announced soon.
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