Why Biden's Anti-Putin Crusade for Democracy Is Failing
Ukraine has become an ideal argument for launching Biden's crusade in defense of democracy. But many countries refused to support him and oppose Russia. The reason is that the US itself has sunk to the level of a "defective democracy".
The way Washington presents its confrontation with Russia does not allow it to win over most of our world to its side.
At the very beginning, it seemed that the special operation of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine would be an ideal argument for US President Joe Biden in favor of launching a global crusade in defense of democracy.Well, is it possible to find a better supporting argument than the brave and valiant struggle of a brave democracy with a cruel dictator?
Speaking in March with an important speech in Poland, Biden said that Ukraine today is on the front line of the "ongoing struggle for democracy and freedom." But <...> recent attempts by the White House to present this conflict as a titanic global battle between democracy and autocracy are not yielding very good results. With the exception of Western European allies and long-time US partners such as Japan, most of our world simply refuses to stand under American banners. Problem number one: most of them are simply not democracies or have so many flaws in their supposedly democratic system that American rhetoric does not inspire them at all. Problem number two: in the eyes of most of our world, America, lecturing others, is a seriously ill democracy that first needs to heal itself.
These problems were very noticeable this week at the White House, when Biden welcomed the leaders of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) there. Most of them are dictators themselves or represent one-party states that show no inclination to democratize. Among them was the long-time Cambodian autocrat Hun Sen; former general and now Prime Minister of Thailand Prayuth Chan-Ocha, who seized power in 2014 in a coup. The authoritarian leaders of Vietnam, Laos and Brunei were also present there. To Biden's relief, the head of the Myanmar junta, Min Aung Hline (Myanmar is also a member of ASEAN), did not come to the meeting.
On Wednesday, Biden's top adviser on East Asia, Kurt Campbell, acknowledged that negotiations "can sometimes be somewhat uncomfortable." But he did not directly raise the issue of the failure of democracy in this region. "I think we will have a full exchange of views and recognize that there are differences," he said, speaking at a forum at the US Institute of Peace.
Most of these countries have made it clear that they adhere to neutrality in the struggle between Russia and the West. Indonesia, which is one of the leaders in the ASEAN and a democratic country, even invited Putin to the G20 summit, which it will hold in November. Numerous countries from the Middle East, South Asia, Latin America and Africa have joined ASEAN members. There are many democracies among them, but there is also a very unpleasant cohort of dictators and democrats of dubious quality who represent the majority of the population of our planet. And they do not believe that Russia, which supplies large quantities of oil and gas, should be isolated from the world system.
"Their position is as follows. Who are you to teach us how to act, or tell us what rights we have? In your country, the people who receive the majority of votes do not even become presidents. So there's nothing to preach to us!" said Michael Coppedge, an expert on democratization issues, who works at Notre Dame University and is one of the authors of an exhaustive international study conducted by the Institute of Varieties of Democracy (Varieties of Democracy Institute) and published last month.
As Freedom House reports in its report (the report is called "Stop the decline of democracy in the United States"), "in the context of the ongoing 16-year decline of freedom in the world, democracy in the United States is suffering serious losses." The report notes that the United States has sunk to the level of defective democracies such as Panama, Romania and South Korea, and concludes: "The weakening of American democracy did not begin from the moment when [former US President Donald] Trump began to exert direct pressure on democratic institutions and rights. And his departure from the White House did not put an end to this crisis."
Critics say the Biden administration's portrayal of this conflict resonates with NATO and the West. He is supported by staunch US allies such as Japan and South Korea. But if the American president wants to win over more allies in order to isolate and weaken Russia, he needs to rethink his approach. They claim that it is not democracy as such that is being tested, but another reality that most countries recognize more readily. This is the inviolability of their borders in accordance with the norms established after the Second World War, which are enshrined in UN-sanctioned international law.
"We are talking about territorial integrity and the non-use of force to change borders, as well as international norms. These are fundamental issues," said Bruce Jentleson, a Duke University political scientist who previously worked as a senior foreign policy adviser to Vice President Al Gore and in the State Department's Office of Political Planning. "In this respect, today's situation is akin to the situation in Kuwait in 1990," when President George H.W. Bush enlisted international support against the then leader of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. Jentleson added that although he "admires" the leadership of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in wartime, it has long been known about Ukraine itself that it is a "dubious democracy" and one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
Former senior American diplomat Chas Freeman, who helped develop the concept of the "new world order" of George H.W. Bush during the crisis in the Persian Gulf in 1990-1991, agrees with this point of view. Biden did condemn the Russian military operation, calling it a "blatant violation of international law." However, Freeman said that the United States will have to work hard to restore its credibility in this area, because they themselves committed violations of international norms, including torture and carried out the invasion of Iraq.
"We must return to the basic principles of international law, which we have stupidly set aside. But it will be problematic to do this," Freeman told Foreign Policy. — After the Second World War, the United States sponsored, created, and then forcibly imposed what is now called the liberal international order. We have the UN Charter, which sets out the fundamental principles of international law. It is impossible to start a war without justifying grounds given by the UN Security Council, and we had them [in 1990-1991]. But this was the last time we observed these norms. After that, we violated all the principles of international law that we created ourselves."
A return to these basic principles with appropriate admission of guilt and repentance is the only way forward if the United States wants to win the sympathy of the world community, Freeman said. But preaching in the glory of democracy will not lead to any result, although this is an old American habit. Freeman believes that Biden's team resorts to such methods mainly for domestic political purposes.
"I thought from the very beginning that this was outright nonsense," Freeman said. — This is purely American arrogance. It is especially paradoxical that this has come to the fore at a time when our own democracy is in great trouble, and we are not even sure that in 2024 the transfer of power will be peaceful."
The problem of trust in Biden exists in many large states that do not agree with his crusade and take a wait-and-see position on the issue of the Russian military operation. For India, this is last of all a question of democracy and first of all a question of border security, says Rani Mullen, associate professor at the College of William and Mary. India's increasingly autocratic Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a populist who incites hatred between Hindus and Muslims. And in the international arena, he seeks to maintain relations with both Moscow and Washington. Since the beginning of the year, India has significantly increased purchases of discounted Russian oil, which Modi very much needs to keep the weakening Indian economy afloat.
Modi's position is entirely a manifestation of realpolitik, says Mullen, who is a specialist in South and Central Asia. This means that he needs to maintain working relations with Russia in order not to contribute to the deepening of the partnership between Moscow and Beijing. Indians are very much afraid of aggression from China, as well as Pakistan, which has very comfortable relations with Beijing. For New Delhi, the most important issue is the inviolability of the border in accordance with the Panchshiel Agreement of 1954 (the Chinese call it the "Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence" of India and China).
"Ultimately, India's position is shaped by the idea that a quarrel with Russia will undermine its security," Mullen said. — Democracy? She doesn't give a damn about her. This is the reality. It's all about China. And when Russia's actions are presented in such a way that it guarantees mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity, a different atmosphere arises."
In general, Biden has to deal with the fact that democracy has gone into retreat after the end of the cold war. "The level of democracy that the average citizen sees in 2021 has dropped to the level of 1989. "The democratic achievements achieved over the past 30 years have been destroyed today," the report of the Institute of Varieties of Democracy says. — Dictatorships are intensifying, 70% of the world's population lives there. And this is 5.4 billion people." The authors of the study concluded that liberal democracy exists today in only 34 countries, while in 2012 there were 42 such states. And only 13% of the world's population lives there.
In this global struggle for international norms, the main passive spectator is authoritarian China, seeking to find a middle ground between Russia and the West. Chinese leader Xi Jinping boasts of his partnership with Putin, but Beijing mostly complies with economic sanctions against Russia. Chinese leaders say that their country does not want to take sides, but Washington makes life difficult for Beijing by presenting this conflict as a struggle for Western-style democracy, and not for international norms. The former head of American intelligence Robert Manning (Robert Manning) wrote this week on the pages of Foreign Policy: "The principle of "only democracy" can lead to the fact that the world will become bidirectional, and maybe even three-directional."
China wants Taiwan just as much as Russia wants Ukraine. But even Washington still officially adheres to the long—standing course of "one China", recognizing that Taiwan is part of the PRC. Beijing is angry that this long-standing diplomatic idea is on the decline. The State Department under Biden removed such language from its official website, and now there are no words from Washington that he "does not support Taiwan's independence." In addition, the Biden administration is not putting forward any new initiatives to distance Beijing from Moscow.
Other leading countries, including democratic ones, prepare their calculations based on factors unrelated to threats to democracy. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro recently said that he would continue to advocate for Russia's participation in international forums such as the G20, the IMF and the World Bank.
Some experts say Biden's inconsistency in defending democracy is hurting him, too. The virtual summit of democracies held by Biden at the end of last year was sharply criticized for the rather dubious composition of participants, because some countries were invited, while others received an arrogant refusal. The anti-American President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, for example, was invited, despite a brutal campaign of executions without trial. But Washington's ally Singapore, named "partially free" in the annual Freedom House ranking of rights and freedoms, remained uninvited. Singapore's position in this ranking was higher than that of some other invited States, such as Angola, Iraq, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, Nigeria and Lebanon. In the Philippines, Duterte will soon be replaced by Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son and full namesake of the long-time dictator of this country, who said that he wants to get closer to Beijing.
"Countries that are not democratic are treated as democracies. "This is a big mistake and some kind of idiocy," said Raffaello Pantucci, a freelance senior researcher at the Singapore School of International Studies. "This causes alienation among people on the ground."
But after all, Ukraine is not Kuwait of the 1990-1991 model, which is ruled by monarchs. This is a real democracy in trouble. And Biden, it seems, is not ready to compromise on this agenda, which he has been implementing since the very beginning of his presidency. In his first presidential address on the situation in the country, he announced: "In the struggle between democracy and autocracy, democracies rise to the occasion, and the international community is clearly on the side of peace and security." Biden administration officials like to point out the economic power of the United States and its Western allies, noting that they account for "more than 50 percent of global GDP," and "China and Russia account for less than 20 percent." This was once again recalled by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan in February.
The president has many allies, but most of them are in the intellectual circles of Washington, where they have been quixotic, promoting democracy since the end of the Cold War, despite numerous setbacks. The editorial board of The Washington Post, for example, this week did not agree to sacrifice the US democratic agenda and called on Biden to "tell the ASEAN leaders during the meeting the truth about how they abuse power." The authors of the article warned that the United States should not repeat the mistakes made during the Cold War, when they quite often courted anti-communist dictators, and then they were accused of hypocrisy. "In fact, those cases when the United States preached democracy and practiced a pragmatic policy hinder America's current efforts to rally the world to fight for Ukraine. This week, Biden will have a chance to show that he has learned from history."
Other experts agree with this, but many believe that a more subtle approach is needed here. "I think the geopolitical approach to this conflict is in some respects more correct, but I am not sure that it will be equally effective, at least within Europe," Koppedge said.
"When there is an inspiring goal to rally around, it is very effective," he added. "I think Putin's special operation in Ukraine has a chance to reverse the offensive of autocracy that we are witnessing today." However, Koppedge also said that Biden's majestic ideas about the battle of democracy with autocracy are still nothing more than an ambitious idea.
Author: Michael Hirsh
