Xi and Putin have a lot to celebrate.
Source: Kremlin Press Service/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images
It’s a Strongman’s World and We’re Just Living in It
Today’s autocrats and illiberal leaders aren’t just remaking their nations — they’re seeking vast influence in global affairs.
“A lot of people are saying, ‘Maybe we would like a dictator,’” President Donald Trump recently mused, while hastening to add, of course, that he isn’t one. The debate about whether Trump is a tyrant-in-the-making dates back to his first presidential campaign, and has been reenergized by his latest moves to intimidate opponents, defy the courts and bypass Congress. What’s undebatable is that Trump is part of a 21st-century cohort of strongmen aggressively reshaping their countries and the globe.
The rise of these strongmen — leaders who dominate their countries’ politics, shatter old norms and institutions, and rely on quasi-autocratic (or purely autocratic) methods and cults of personality — isn’t a new story. Over the past decade, that trend has been amply lamented by those who rightfully rue autocracy’s advance and democracy’s retreat. But increasingly, the real issue is less about politics than geopolitics. We’re seeing the emergence of a “strongman system” — a new international order in which highly empowered, illiberal leaders control many of the world’s mightiest, most energetic nations, and use concentrated domestic authority to seek historic changes abroad.