Has the apparent fragility of the US democracy and its democratic institutions of governance emboldened autocracies around the world?

The best route to improvement is to identify the actual central idea and write a draft around it. The existing language is rhetoric, plausibly string together. It's as though the tautological question serving as a title had been used as a chatbot prompt, and the draft were what the bot strung together in response. As time goes by more works of this genre—human beings writing like chatbots—will accumulate, I'm sure. We are trying not to write like that here.

What is the actual idea? Where did it come from? (The text does not mention any other human being who has ever thought about international relations before, does not refer to any history, political science, or other actual learning from which we could learn.) How is your idea related to other contemporary views from which it differs or out of which it develops? What consequences flow intellectually from the idea you have learned your way to? How might the reeder take your idea forward from the conclusion to which it led you? How does what you have learned in the formation of your idea affect your lawyer's theory of social action overall? How does it modify or reinforce your developing intentions with respect to your future practice?

In short, the way to improve the draft is to give it human dynamics. The problem with prose assembled by mindless language shuffling, or with sort-of human prose paralleling the mechanical literary form, is that it is static, impersonal, isolated, and therefore antithetical to the purposiveness of lawyer's writing.

Paper Title

-- By AngusGaffney - 24 Feb 2024

Has the apparent fragility of the US democracy and its democratic institutions of governance emboldened autocracies around the world?

The world is watching… holding its breath. Ordinary Ukrainians are watching and praying. NATO allies are watching and worrying. But, more consequentially, global autocrats are watching and waiting....poised to press their advantage as America’s defense of the international world order seems to falter. As the world seems precariously balanced on the brink of a widening global conflict, the US seems increasingly impotent in its ability to defend vulnerable democracies from the ambitions of bad-faith autocrats. As global crises threaten on multiple fronts, bad actors from authoritarian regimes form strategic alliances to test the resolve of the world's so-called ‘policeman’. They sow the seeds of geopolitical unrest not only on the battlefront, but through the financial markets, and more insidiously through misinformation spread throughout US society for the hearts and minds of ordinary Americans.

Their goal is to undermine the international rules-based order advanced by the US and its Western partners, which seeks to hold ambitious autocrats in check as they seek to undermine peace and security. As International bodies of global governance such as the United Nations and International Criminal Court have become increasingly undermined by authoritarian state actors colluding to veto resolutions, or refusing to accept their jurisdiction, global governance requires bolstering by strong democracies who seek to hold authoritarian autocracies accountable.

However, global conflicts orchestrated by authoritarian dictators, such as Putin, continue to threaten the stability of sovereign democracies, whose democratic governments and electorates are put under strain through migration flows and energy dependence. Social destabilization within democratic sovereign states represents a successful strategy for autocrats such as Putin, whose close collaborations with autocracies such as North Korea, China and Iran, welcome new members to their bad actors club - intent on diminishing US dominance.

Consequently, their threat to US democratic norms and values remains insidious and nuanced as the autocrats’ club patiently waits for their opportunities. However, their concerted approach to undermine the resolve of the US and its allies remains undiminished through their support of each other to evade international sanctions, provide military support and create diversionary conflicts to test the US playbook and resilience. Their tactics to destabilize moderate governments have led to a shift to far-right politics whose governments pivot towards authoritarian policies. However, it is the war they wage through cyber misinformation and espionage that creates the most insidious threat to the US pillars of democracy and systems of governance.

While US and partner intelligence agencies, such as the “ Five Eyes” liaise to monitor the tireless efforts of the members of the bad actors club to subvert global norms of governance, more nuanced warfare waged through manipulations of oil and gas prices, together with food and commodity prices can be effective at creating electoral defeat of one’s enemies and the installation of more ideologically aligned leaders.

Consequently, conspiracy theories abound about Russian interference in US political life, and yet because such interference lurks in the shadows, it rarely pierces the consciousness of everyday Americans. It seems too incredible for us to believe that bad actors are shaping our political conversations and shifting the US political landscape towards more extreme political discourse and dysfunction. Indeed, it seems that our complacency about the security of US democratic institutions and pillars of government was only shaken by the events of January 6th, 2020, when American ‘patriots’ were convinced that they had to save their country.

The attempt at the disruption of the peaceful transfer of power was a powerful exhibition of social disintegration that was portrayed into the sitting rooms of people all over the world. It was a display of the collapse, if only transitory, of the world's most powerful democratic nation, whose vivid display of anarchy served to undermine US moral authority around the globe. Autocratic governments relished the dysfunction of US democracy showcased in such chaotic technicolor, which laid bare our own democratic vulnerabilities and undermined US efforts to advance democratic principles of governance around the globe.

In the aftermath of the violence to disrupt Congress in its efforts to certify the 2020 US election results, the wheels of democratic governance and the rule of law have steadily sought to bring those to justice for their lawlessness. Yet the world has seen America's soft underbelly exposed, its growing political chasms that belie genuine political discord and distrust in our previously revered institutions, are ripe conditions for an autocrat. The genuine belief held by huge swathes of the American people that they have been left behind and remain unheard, provides fertile ground for the identity politics that now threaten the effective passage of legislation and the decline in political discourse within the legislative branches of government. More pertinently, our freedoms and democracy in themselves become vulnerabilities that bad actors exploit through infiltration of our free speech on social media and the freedom of our press. Autocrats such as Putin employ sophisticated espionage and propaganda to subvert democracies and sow distrust in our institutions. We can see evidence of his efforts in the Republican front-runner’s grassroots campaign to spread discord and American isolationism - characterized as patriotism. Such adversarial statecraft remains nuanced and in the shadows, and to suggest that American political life is shaped by global autocrats seems conspiratorial and unsubstantiated. Their weapons of assault against the US democracy are subtle and autocrats like Putin are patient and strategic actors. The spymaster needs only to spread his web of misinformation and espionage, secure in his own political immunity from any political discord.

Perhaps the most consequential indication of dysfunction within the pillars of US governance is the failure of the US Congress to pass legislation for the supplemental funding of Ukraine which emboldens authoritarian regimes like Russia and China to act with impunity. Subsequently, the world order disintegrates as powerful and efficient autocracies thrive. As American cries of patriotism ring hollow as mere appeasement, democracy remains under threat

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