Anne Applebaum on the dictators who want to run the world

we're joined today uh and I forgive me um by a person I consider to be not just a great historian but probably one of the most important journalists working today and normally I urge people to buy their books because it's a nice and polite thing to do given that you've made your time and you've probably done a couple of these conversations already today um today I would really urge you to go and buy an's book because I think it's speaks to a subject that we are at risk of neglecting and missing and it's going to creep up on all of us and the way in which we live um when we get done and forgive me I'm adopting the role of head of marketing here but when we get done an uh there are going to be a bunch of books to buy Here an is kindly sign and do pick them up and if we have a ranging conversation today and we don't touch on all the points in the book I'll consider that's a good thing because what I really wanted to do is come away from this conversation thinking I must read this book Because as far as I'm concerned you must read this book um rather then that was a very interesting conversation I've heard everything that I need now I don't buy the book now exactly now we'll talk about everything else so they go what is that book about maybe I should read it um um uh an apple bam as people will know uh some of you will have read her history the gag an extraordinary uh piece of research and uh work some people will have read read her writing at the Atlantic The Washington Post and elsewhere and I should say one thing and before we get stuck into this it's my mom's 80th birthday today so I went to a lunch for her birthday we had a party and someone said to me what are you doing this evening I said I'm talking to Anne appleb about autocracy Inc they said oh what's that about I described the book and I said oh my God that's going to be depressing and I said I said actually the weird thing about it is that when you get to the end of it having been you know ch and and finding the future in fact the present very fearful it's incredibly invigorating it's incredibly invigorating you think there are things that we can do so I hope in the course of this conversation we'll talk get to those too um can we can we start uh if we might in a pub in Bramley in Hampshire because you go to I can't remember what the Pub's called but you go to a pub turn it so it turns out because one of the elements of autocracy Inc is money and the way money works so tell us what you discovered in a pub in in Bramley in Hampshire this was a this was a this was some years ago so the precise details are now may be a little foggy but U I did go visit some friends who live in Bramley Hampshire and they said oh it's so interesting um we have our the local large house I mean it wasn't a famous house or you sort of a grand house uh has just been purchased by the mayor of Moscow and I said that's very strange place for the mayor of Moscow to buy a house um and they knew it was the mayor of Moscow because he'd been seen at the pub this is you know and he's a he's a recognizable person he was the former mayor he's not the mayor anymore um and I thought that's really that's very extraordinary I mean but let's look it up uh and so I tried to find in the in the in the in the in the in the records of the sale and so on I looked around Who had who had bought the house um and of course the mayor of moscow's name is nowhere on it and it was another name actually I'm now forgetting what it was but um sunlight or sunight Sunshine Sky Mist Skyfall right something some kind of bondie bondie name and you know but as I said I knew who'd bought it because my friends lived there and they had noticed um Yuri L he was called uh and L and I and I um and I and and then I wrote something about it in which I I casually mentioned this and then of course I got a a kind of letter from the mayor's um lawyer saying this is an outrageous thing he has not bought this house his wife has bought it so okay um but the but the point was that um that it's possible to buy a very large piece of property in the middle of a of a town in in in rural England um under a hidden name you can disguise who you are you can you know you can you can unless you hang around the pub as he did um you can go completely undetected and of course as we know I'm sure we're in the middle of Central London there's quite a lot of property around here that's owned by Anonymous companies and the and at least until very recently we were just discussing the ways in which this might or might not be changing it was possible to buy property in London completely anonymously to hide your identity and sometimes it would be hidden behind several things so Sky Mist Holdings would be owned by skyall Holdings which would be owned by Spectre Holdings you know and it would and then and you would never you would have no way and there would be legally no way to trace who it was and it wasn't possible to find to find that out and so why would you want to buy property anonymously well you might want to do it if you'd stolen the money uh you might want to do it if you were hiding the money from somebody from the tax authorities or from your wife or um uh you know or you know or or or you might want to do it because because you're a public figure or a politician who's not supposed to have that much money and you have it for we don't know why you have it but you do um and and what but but the effect of it was is that people over the last um couple of decades began to use this is not only a London problem although it's somehow not very notable in London people began to use the London property Market the way old-fashioned Swiss bank accounts used to be used so you would use a piece a flat in London as a way to store money secretly you know and it would be and maybe you would use it or maybe you wouldn't or maybe your daughter would use it while she was attending the LSC on an you know under a fake name or whatever um so but but but maybe it was just a way to keep some money that you didn't want to have detected and so but the question is and and and people I should say this was legal I'm not this I'm not accusing anybody of illegality it was legal but the question is why was it legal who in whose interest was that you know why what you know why is it why is it good that people saw the London property Market as a place to hide stolen money and not as a place to live uh how much did that distort the London property Market why is it that Central London property became totally unaffordable for for most people um and ju and just and just drawing the dots with you because I suppose when I read your piece in the Ft when I read the start of the book I was surprised that you kicked off with kleptocracy given that there seems to be so much around ocracy that is about hard power that's about technology what's the link between the the money laundering the the secrecy the lack of transparency and your view on the threat to democracy so um all those things lack of transparency secrecy opacity around how people have money and why U these are traits of autocratic systems this is one of the things that is notable about modern autocratic States um and the degree to which those practices have become normal here or in America or uh in any in in in a lot of modern democracies is a sign of the deterioration of our own political systems or our own our own democracies rather that's the better word um because uh you know in a healthy democracy you know you know who owns what and you you know why um and actually mean a healthy and healthy property Market people buy houses to live in them and not to store stolen money um so so so it's it to to me I mean first of all the in part it's also that the story of how a lot of modern kleptocracies came to be involves us we were we contributed to it it was it was Western Financial systems and yeah and and Banks and lawyers and accountants who enabled the the rise of certainly certainly that's true in the case of Russia but I think almost in in in many other countries as well um and then because that has a that's had an effect on us and and you know there are a lot of things that we have as I said we seem to accept it as normal I mean that that property could be purchased anonymously why is that normal what why do we why you know these are people often treat I mean even for example offshore tax Havens people treat them like their natural landmarks like it's I don't know it's a you know it's a coral reef or a volcano it's just there it's not just there it's a it's cre cre by a set of laws there's a set of there's a legal system that creates them and allows people to use them and we could uncreate it I mean they don't have to be there we could REM them if we wanted to um and anyway and and so let's come to that in a bit because I think the I was saying to an before we got started I was saying one of the invigorating things about reading at your piece in the Ft was reading a piece that was pointing out things in the pages of the Ft that are about the readers of the FD I did it um so why actually why don't we not tiptoe around why don't we get to it right now what do we what is your view of the enablers and how do you deal with the with that problem you know you you you know you make what they do illegal I mean but there when we talk call them enablers I mean I feel slightly we're not talking about people who are breaking the law you know we're talking about people who are doing things that are legal but if we change the rules then they'll stop doing it I mean you know if it's if it's illegal to sell property to somebody um who's who's who who's buying it with stolen money and if you as the real estate agent are legally responsible for making sure that your client isn't laundering money then people will begin to behave differently we can we can we can change that behavior I mean and it's a very weird thing because I know the system in America better than I know it here but um you know if you were to you know if somebody's to open a bank account in the United States you have to produce documents you have to produce a passport and you have to you know you have to you have to say who you are and if you're and if you invest money in a in in in a in a company or you buy a company you have to show where your money is from I there a lot of a lot of um American businesses regulated to death I mean that if you run a pension fund or something like that um you're constantly filling out forms and proving things and showing that you're following the law and yet at the same time there are these parallel parts of the economy where you don't have to show anything at all and so that you can you can open a company you can found a company and not show a document um and that's a that's extraordinary so so so let's just go through what you would do in order to uh in order to prevent the kinds of things that we see every day in London either ownership of property and you can't identify who the true owner is operations of trusts where you can't see who the beneficial owner is and you know in the book you point out the IPOs of companies like rosf where the ultimate beneficiaries are part of Vladimir Putin's Circle what would you what would you say needs to happen for those things to stop happening well I mean some of them are easy I mean you you make it you know you can't buy a piece of property anonymously you have to give your real name you have to produce an ID card or I don't know passport and say who you are that doesn't seem to be very hard to fix at all um you know there there there are other you know I I once had this other scheme um which is probably undoable that which was my idea was that um you could require everyone who owns residential property in Britain to pay taxes in brit on their worldwide income yeah and then you would have a you know sea change in and who who buys property and why I mean um and I you know I'm not there might be adverse consequences but I mean we don't think very creatively about about any of the you know about any of this and my suggestion was why not can I can I just ask you about that the personal thing and I'm going to get bring the lights up in a moment because people are going to want to weigh in and have things to things to say too but kind I a personal thing about this the really interesting thing about this book I found by comparison for example with you know the history with Gulag for example is it's it's a piece of reporting and it's an argument and it leads you to a place as you say which is a campaign for for certain changes how does that feel oh that's what my journalism is a lot I mean I'm I I I I write reported arguments so that's that's sort of what I do reported the reported arguments bit I get and what I'm asking really about is is is once you've got to that conclusion the campaign the making the change happen so so you know I'm I'm I'm not a in a position to run and organize the campaign but I would be very keen for other people to do it and I would like to encourage them and to to to do it no that's that that's fair enough and I and I and I do spend a lot of time talking to people who run campaigns and who different you know both inside autocracies and and elsewhere and to people who think about this stuff and how to uh how to change it so so let's let's move on from the so so the book if you like if youve some people have read the book but the book deals with I think kind of three really big broad elements of modern autocracy the extent to which it's moneyed the extent to which it's on offense and the extent to which it's coordinated particularly in technology terms the the the offense nature of it the idea that it's out to actually undermine perceptions of democracy and liberal values in Western societies is that something that you think is coordinated between autocrats or it's just instinctive given their needs to survive so so the book is an argument that it's not coordinated um there is there is a network um but the network is not joined up ideologically so you have communist China you have nationalist Russia you have Theocratic Iran you have bolivarian socialist Venezuela you know you have you know whatever North Korea is you know you have a you have a group of states um that share certain things but they don't have this common vision of the world and they don't have common goals they don't have the same Aesthetics and so on they're you know some of them are one onean rulers and some men are some are run by parties and so on so they're not the same um but they do collaborate opportunistically when it suits them sometimes for financial reasons uh sometimes in the interest of of staying in power or keeping power and sometimes in the interest of undermining us I mean the all of them are states which um uh you know which you know where the where the ruling party or the leader seeks to rule without checks and balances they don't want to have um be bothered by independent courts or Media or or or any kind of transparency um they don't they aren't states where the rule of law holds this is their rule bylaw meaning the the ruler decides what the law is um they aren't States where people have rights you know and they aren't states that respect anything that would look like human rights or Universal rights um and so the so their fight is very often against the people who use that language and some of those people are their own dissonant or their own democracy activists inside their countries me whether it's the Hong Kong democracy movement or the really amazingly well organized and and talented Venezuelan opposition or whether it's the Iranian women's movement those are those are their opponents but of course we use that language too and part of the fight against their opponents is now is now also undermining us and under you know the um attacking the the positive narrative and image of democracy as well and and we've touched if you like on the sort of financial Craven forces that might have enabled that kleptocracy particularly in you know Capital centers like you know London or New York ideologically one of the things you touch on the book is the optimism I think I was in a room when Bill Clinton gave the speech in China that you describe where yeah where they talked about Hey listen you try holding back the internet you know good luck it's like nailing he said it was like nailing Jello to the wall nailing Jello to the wall and we all laughed yeah we all laughed and we thought yeah right this thing's going to change everything it didn't in fact control of the internet control of Technology proved to be much more powerful and available than we thought so what is the governing thinking now around globalization trade the you know the making available Technologies and exchange what do you think is the right way of approaching that I first of all it's important you know the the globalization ation uh turned out not to be the one-way street that we imagined we imagined that somehow as we used to say that democracy and democratic ideals or ideas would flow from west to east and instead it turned out that also authoritarianism so to speak I don't know about this East and West anymore but I mean um um would move in the other direction um once for example you had a global political conversation um then it was you know the why should the Russians intervene and enter into the into the conversation and join it I mean that they'd been trying to do that as when they were the Soviet Union in the past much less successful successfully and um with much more effort um and I think we we we miss you know we we assumed that these changes like all technological changes would be somehow good for us but of course technology is neutral you know there's nothing good or bad about technology it's a question of how it's used and how it's deployed um and the you know the Chinese saw the internet coming and this is like back in the 1990s um they saw they they guessed it what it could do and they sought to control it from the beginning so from the beginning they they they used it as a way of supporting their system and and they turned it into a a system of surveillance and kind of control of conversation and and I don't know we didn't have the imagination to see that that was possible so so you describe in the book and in the journalism quite a lot of the journalis you've written that that that that Ukraine and and Russia's invasion of Ukraine is if you like the first real uh occasion that we've seen autocracy Inc in a kinetic way challenging democracy and the the legal principles that underpin it yes so just explain that so the Russian invasion of Ukraine there were there were Putin had several motivations one some were he has a grandiose vision of himself as the leader of a new Empire so it's a very classic Imperial Imperial War colonial war um at the same time it had it had another purpose um Putin was saying with that Invasion and it continues to this day I mean with the with the bombing of hospitals and and residential apartment buildings yesterday and today um he's saying I don't care about your rules I don't care that you think in in postwar Europe we don't change borders by force you know I don't care about the Geneva conven itions on on on warfare um I don't care about this slogan never again you know this is this Mantra that people said after the Holocaust that we will never let this happen again I'm going to build concentration camps in occupied Ukraine which he has done and I'm going to kidnap children in in occupied Ukraine and I'm going to deport them to Russia and change their names um and I'm going to treat people however I want to treat them and I'm going to torture ukrainians you know at random or or or murder them as as they did in bcha um and and he was and he was he and he continues almost every day to show that I'm doing this because I don't believe in these rules or these Norms or whatever you call them and some of them by the way are nothing to do with with the so-called West I mean these is this language written in the UN Charter which is something that was accepted by the Soviet Union and China and so on you know decades and decades ago um but they have decided they don't that the language of Rights the language of human dignity all the the language that's written into International institutions they want it gone they he wants to show that he can behave abroad around the world exactly the way he behaves at home with no checks and balances with no respect for the law you know if he wants to arm mercenaries in Africa and send them in to help um an African dictator stay in power you know he he'll he'll do that and if he wants to occupy and murder ukrainians he'll do that and what do you think the West response tells him about what we believe so he did not expect any Western response I mean he we famously he thought he would get to Kev in 3 days and then the plan was to conquer the rest of Ukraine in 6 weeks um so he was surprised that there was still the possibility of an organized response from the Democratic World which is includes by the way more than 50 countries have have contributed to the defense of Ukraine so it's not just even America and Europe it's a Asian democracies Australia other other so-called Global South as well um you know so he has he was surprised by that he didn't expect it it's cost him far more in in all kinds of ways than than than he thought it was um but it's also true that at the same time we didn't anticipate the degree to which the autocratic world would help him and so what have we seen we've seen the Iranians sending drones um the shaki drones which that which the Russians use to attack Ukraine uh the North Korean sending ammunition uh the Chinese have sold parts and components that have been useful to the Russian defense industry um so there is a there is a kind of network around Putin and his War uh you know and his and his war that have supported him as well and we didn't anticipate that and I also think we you know we we we underestimated what it would take to well we haven't there I my my current CR not current criticism my my argument that we we never decided to win the war we have not we did not decide to make sure that Ukraine won and this is a this I think is a real catastrophe so so so so can we just talk about that though for a moment because it seems or it feels more and more as though what's being revealed about the West is that in one form or another we don't care enough and that there is not a willingness to put significant resources and certainly lives at risk in defense of a those people or B those principles and do you think that's right even if it pains you to admit it do you think that's right and do you think that as a result of that we head to a different world it's it's possible I mean I think in Ukraine there was actually a there has been mostly from Washington I mean there's been I I don't want to downplay what was done I mean actually the the the galvanization of the democratic world was pretty remarkable and their previous presidents wouldn't have done it you know so you know the fact that Biden did that was was was was remarkable and extraordinary in the fact that Biden went to Ukraine in the middle of the war that a couple of years ago I mean all those things are I don't want to downplay them it's just that the um we didn't quite ever get the decision that the ukrainians should win you know it's always been about the defense of Ukraine or the endurance for Ukraine and I'm wor now at two and a half years into the war there's just a question whether Ukraine can stay together as a society particularly after the I mean I'm not so where do you think this heads um you know either it heads towards a decision that we we will we will let them for example begin striking Russian targets which they've been asking to do for a year um the thing I'm worried about now is that we may get another wave of Ukrainian refugees this winter um because you know the Russians are targeting uh power plants and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine it might become impossible for many people to live in Ukraine you can't live in a UK Ukrainian City in the winter if you have no heat and no water um and so that that may be the next the next the next phase you know unless we I don't know unless we unless we be we didn't we didn't plan from the beginning to help them win and what would it need now to win I mean what it might would certainly need now would be to help the ukrainians defend their cities so I don't know no fly zone is now a kind of cliche that means different things to different people but yeah we we need to help we need to send in air defense right now um we would need to cover at least Western help them cover Western Ukraine um uh and we would need to let them begin striking the the the objects that are that are hitting them you know anyway that's that's the beginning let me just say also this is a war that will be over it will be won when the Russians decide that they don't want to fight it anymore and so when when the Russians are at the point that the French at when the French ended their war in Algeria it's a very interesting moment um they made they fought for 10 years this Algerian war and it was you know bloody and damaging to France in a lot of ways as well um and then finally there was a moment when they didn't want to do it anymore and that was actually a moment of great political turmoil in Paris there was an attempt at coup and someone tried to assassinate Charles de gal and so on but they did end it and they made a decision that Algeria is not France we're not going to make it be part of France and we're ending and that that's the that's where the Russians and they can they can reach that conclusion in a lot for a lot of reasons in a lot of ways they can reach it for military reasons and they can also reach it for economic reasons or political reasons I mean so the another piece we haven't discussed yet and this is maybe more in the weeds than you want to go but we also haven't really tried to uh you know use sanctions in a way that it makes the Russian defense industry impossible to produce new things and we could we could be trying harder to do that that's there's a there's a whole technical argument we're not we don't we're not really thinking about this as an economic war in which we need to shut this down and we we haven't done that yet either but Sam will you just bring a light up Cy so people who want to wear in can just catch my eye and I will do that I'm going to come Paul I'll come to in one second um and can we just finish up one just one final part on on Ukraine there will be people there are people who say we've always done things too little too late there was the Convoy you could have attacked the Convoy there was a call for defenses those could have been put in much sooner then they were called for actually strikes onto uh Russ those Russian positions earlier every time the fear has been that Russian retaliation the risk of Russian retali retaliation was too great do you think that Putin has read the West right and the West has read Putin wrong that actually the West is willing to compromise on those principles and Putin is not too much of a retaliation threat so first I mean this this is this is May maybe more farther in the direction of of of Ukraine and Putin than you want to go but um but the you know the it's it's become pretty clear I mean all the things that were supposed to be red lines that were going to provoke Putin you know hitting Targets in Moscow hitting the Russian oil refineries um which the ukrainians do with drones um capturing Russian territory the ukrainians are now occupying a part of Russia you know the first time this is the second world war that Russia has been invaded um all those things were supposed to be unthink and you know how could you do that there would be some horrible and actually there's not yeah and so almost every time you know there's there's been a supposed Red Line um they've crossed it I mean it's it's pretty clear to me that the Russians don't want to use nuclear weapons the Chinese have made publicly and probably off the Record clear that they don't want them to do that the Chinese are now in a dominant position in that relationship um the also this is more technical but it's it's very hard to see how they could use nuclear weapons on the battlefield there was a lot of conversation about tax iCal weapons but they would hit their own troops and winds blow East and you it's not it's not easy to see what they could do um I mean I can't exclude the the the idea that Putin would finally and some do something suicidal but nobody really thinks he's suicidal at the moment no um he's not crazy you know so all that should lead you to the view that it's it's more winnable than perhaps we thought 2022 we just haven't wanted to win it anyway that's that's a but let's get people to away will you just say your name and then how have a point of view we have a sort of loose rule no questions we want to hear what your point of view and want an to engage with your points of view but it's it's not I'd love to not have to answer questions not fiercely enforced um Paul come to gentleman here in you sir thank you thank you thanks very much Paul Aon um what I'm most interested in when we began this conversation there was this sort of notion of optimism around what local societies could do in respect of these things now as a social campaigner here in Britain and looking at sort of British issues one of the big problems I see is being able to communicate to masses in through media that doesn't necessarily want to take that communication and I was just curious through your research this is a question um through your research whether or not um there is a means to communicate to those people that have the influence to sort of change the laws say in respect to um where the finance is coming from especially as Britain created most of these sort of bald holes for tax purposes I mean there so there are there are people who campaign for that I mean there is Transparency International and there are other several other groups who who do study that and campaign around it I mean what I would think would be interesting to do is not so much try to influence I don't know the London Bankers but start to connect the dots for people um you know the the most the one really successful opposition campaign that worked in Russia was Alexi naval's campaign and that was actually not a human rights democracy campaign that was an anti-corruption campaign and what he did was he made he would make these films um the most famous one was about a palace that Putin built and the financing of it and so on it doesn't matter um but he made the connection between that Palace and the way ordinary Russians lived you know you don't have you know paved roads and you have bad health care because he has the palace um and that's not exactly the same situation here but you know why is London property so expensive you know why why are the these weird distortions in the British economy it's because of this stuff and I'd like to see more people make those connections I mean there's some other connections to be made as well I mean I've always felt that the the people who care about autocracy and dictatorship and the people who care about climate change have more in common than they think because many of these states are petrol you know P States um uh you know many of the you know Russia is a state that survives on is is a fossil fuel producer that's how that you know that's a lot fossil for a lot of reasons that I'm sure you know that fossil fuel states with ver with natural resources often tend towards autocracy because someone controls that enormous resource and it's likely to be a small group of people and so on I mean then there's a big exception which is is Norway but um but but the Norwegians found their oil after they already had a democracy so it's a you know just out of Interest actually my colleague Paul karon galitzia is here and he he did a whole bunch of work years ago on on Greg Barker and rousel and the Russian uh kind of um the move of Russian energy assets and energy businesses here can I tell one thing he also wrote a great book is he here he wrote a great book there's Paul yeah he did wrote a great got a great book got many but can I just one thing in your book you point out the ukos story Mel kovski builds in whatever fashion he built it this enormous energy business yukos it essentially gets requisitioned by the Russian State at the end get Bund to rosn rosn eventually lists on the London Stock Exchange I think its chief executive is Putin's Deputy Chief of Staff time yeah and rosf lifts lists on the London Stock Exchange every big name bank is involved in the IPO all the big city law firms are you saying an that we don't want a world in which rosn lists on the London Stock Exchange we don't I mean how why is it legal for a company that's built on Stolen assets to be listed on the London St and so you don't buy this the argument which was the argument that that that I grew up with I grew up at the Ft as a journalist and we operated if what we thought of the Wimbledon principle which is we didn't mind where people came from but if they B Because tennis England had no good tennis players obviously so we wanted to get all the good ones but if they but if but if you came here and you observed the rules of tennis that was a good thing and the argument of the London Stock Exchange historically was by bringing companies like that to the UK they had to observe rules of transparency and disclosure that were a good thing your view is actually no we don't want companies like that but you know sure I'm sure it's good for them but how much disclosure is disclosure I mean um true I I don't know I mean I I'm I I the Ros enough sale was was a long time ago now um but you know how much how much are they required to show where the assets of the company came from I mean isn't shouldn't shouldn't we need to know that or and shouldn't we if if they were illegally obtained should they you know shouldn't that be disqualifying y so did you say your name yes you the gentleman right yes hello hi there thank you um going back a little bit to the Russian story so I specialize in demographics and there was a wonderful guy writer in the early 1970s he wrote a book called uh the fall of the Soviet Union and he used demographic data to show that the Soviet Union was fundamentally rotten to its cor you know very high suicide rates plunging or very high mortality rates and he s of 20 years before the Soviet Union collapsed he predicted it pretty accurately now of course you know Broken Clock is still looking at Russian demographics now they are some of the worst you've ever seen they wereing and this is before the war so 15-year-old boy in Russia has a higher chance of reaching age 60 if he move to Iraq wow and that was before so I looking at it I see Russia as a country where you have you know an elite at the top that's stolen all the wealth that delivers very little for the people MH you look at the opinion polls coming out of Russ increasingly people are now saying in Russia we wouldn't mind a ceasefire you know we wouldn't mind some of the compromise which in Russia is probably close you going to get saying we don't agree with the war anymore I suppose I'm interested in the idea there's that Russia can both be a great threat to us but also can be incredibly weak at the same time these two things think this at the same time I don't think that's terribly contradictory I mean you know in some Cas s it's you know because it's partly because of the failure of Putin's econ iic promise to Russia so he essentially I mean it wasn't said exactly like this but a couple of decades ago the idea was okay I'm corrupt and I've stolen a lot of stuff but at least living standards are going up in Russia and everybody's pension is paid on time and that was sort of the deal and when that began to collapse mostly originally because of falling oil prices he needed a different narrative to give people and then he came up with not very originally with this Narrative of nationalism you know I'm going to make us great and we're going to matter on the world stage and maybe you're going to going to be poor and down beaten but at least you know we're going to challenge the United States and um you know so so often it it you know it's it's not really about how wealthy a country is it's about how venal I mean how how um how focused their their aggression is and you know the Russians may not be as certainly they're not as wealthy as China but the Russians are also the Chinese are not as focused as the Russians are on undermining us I mean there are people in Moscow who wake up every morning thinking you know how do we screw the Americans or how do we or you know how do we break up the European Union that's their job right and so if you put enough resources into that um you get some impact whereas I as I said I mean there are other you know there are other there are also a lot of other awful dictatorships on the planet who who don't spend their time thinking about I don't think uh do most people in Vietnam wake up in the morning and think how do we break up the European Union I don't think so you know um on the contrary actually the the Vietnamese are very Pro weirdly actually pro-american and they want to trade and they're you know they're a country that does not want to not involved in our politics at all so so so so when we talk about Russia and China and Iran and and and the kind of group of other dictatorships who who who think weaker ones who think the same way I mean that's a they POS a very specific kind of problem there there someone to the back Fe po two people next to each other back can we take you one's right at the back thank you and I'll come to you soon say thank you thanks V hi and thank you um my name is be so I I'm going to try and frame this as a as a comment but it will probably end up as a question I guess I'm I'm really struck by the the thought that we're having a conversation about um autocracy and democracy um but the very specific Prem of our democracy is is entirely bundled up with capitalism and I didn't hear that is it's entirely wrapped up with capitalism right and the sort of premise of of free markets and prosperity and growth and all of these ideas that we sort of hoped to export to the world and I guess I'm interested in these questions you ask around why why is it the UK why is it the US which are absolutely the most sort of rampant form of that that sort of free market capitalism that actually become the enablers of clto kleptocracy and autocracy and I I guess it's an interesting point to kind of consider which is does does democracy really survive this particular brand of capitalism that we have and are there other models which are more socialist more European which actually are much more effective at countering some of these um some of these kleptocratic Tendencies because actually what our formal capitalism enables is such a profound ability to pursue interests in vested interests which are not really met particularly well by process so I guess I wonder how much that's informed your thinking sort of capitalism as a specific part of democracy and also forgive me because I haven't yet read your book but I absolutely will be doing so very good beex will you will you before before you answer an there's a gentleman just next to you uh yes a slightly different uh point but um I'm half Russi so what's your name sorry Christian Christian um I'm half Russian my father was Russian and he told me a lot of stories about Russia um in prear days even he was very old when I was born and uh it's very clear that Russia has never been kind of well- ruled really the OD saw that was kind of okay but it's always been uh an autocracy of one sort or another um and I slightly disagree with your thesis in in your book that you say that Russia could could never was going to kind of become good after uh the fall of the Berlin Wall it was it was doomed to kind of I didn't say that I didn't you say that I thought you implied that in in the previous talk I went to um uh but um do you think there's any hope for Russia to not be an autocracy I mean I sorry that's a question no no far away no that's good Christian thank you um so those are confusingly different questions so do you want to do you want to deal with but be's Point actually I think is a really interesting one if you have a capitalism that is really focused and prioritizes financial return does that enable all of the secrecy and confidentiality and you know I I was thinking about I mean so are there nice European social democracies where capitalism works better I mean there are I I was thinking about Switzerland um Switzerland actually Switzerland has a brilliant democracy actually it's one of the most if you the more you learn about it the more fascinating it is I they use referenda a lot but it's also very very local they're actually towns in Switzerland where they vote for things by everybody coming into the Town Square which is almost it's like Greek yeah Greek I mean ancient Greek um and and you know and yet Switzerland was also a society that a little bit less now actually but which enabled for a long time you know money laundering the classic thing was the Swiss bank account which was was an anonymous bank account where you could keep money and nobody would know who it was um you know they they supported this this secrecy so it's not so much the problem isn't so much capitalism um um which is a very broad term that means a lot of things to different people it's you know it's how you regulate it and and what you de you know what values you put into it um I mean you know another this is slightly maybe it's actually this maybe a way to combine the two questions I mean another one of my objections uh in the way people talk about um Russia and the Russian transition in the 1990s is people talked about it as a transition to capitalism it wasn't really I mean there was never a moment when you had rule of law and when people with really good ideas and you know could invest in things and build up their companies and pull themselves up by their bootstraps and compete you know in a in a in a fair market you that never happened there wasn't a moment like that instead from the very beginning the market was dominated by people who had essentially had taken over or got access to State resources and some people had access and others didn't that's a that's a very again I'm simplifying to to tell a complicated story um but you know the the it's the what rules you put into the system and what you allow and don't allow um you know I change the way your your your system works and I you know I just think that we possibly for the Wimbledon rule that you said I mean we had this illusion that you know our system was so strong that anybody could come and play around in it and it wasn't ever going to affect us and it didn't really matter what happened over there in Russia because it was so far away and anyway they're so weak now they can never affect us and they don't matter anymore and we're really interested in other things now and and and that was the mistake you know we what we did was enabled the growth of of what's now a real security threat um to us and to other Europeans and we um and we um you know we it was a mistake I mean well we can you know now it's and now it's time to backtrack and change it and I want to say actually about Russia you know it's a it's it's a your your question the way it went was interesting because usually what people say is um oh Russia's always been a dictatorship and it always will and there's something culturally about Russia it's actually there was if you were in Russia in the 9s which I was there was a moment when a lot of people wanted Russia to be different and there were a lot of people people who also believed that by integrating their economy with ours that they would open up and they would become more liberal or they would become more democra and actually for a while it was true you know so um there was a it was Russia of the 90s was completely different from Russia in the 80s and there was this open conversation and so on um and and it it felt for a long time like that might still be possible and you know the but but the truth is is that the Russian state was taken over and captured by this little group of KGB officers LED eventually led by Putin um and they you know they made decision they pushed it in the other direction so I mean leadership is very important and they had a set of leaders um who were nostalgic for the Soviet past as it turned out in the end and who structured the system to benefit themselves financially and in terms of power but I didn't think it was inevitable at all it wasn't inevitable but can I jump on that because at the end of your book an you you say look the the idea of the liberal World Order is over it doesn't exist in the way it did and I was just thinking I think I think you grew up as a journalist at The Economist I grew up as a reporter yeah very briefly the but now the Atlantic and the Washington Post you know we basically knock around knocked around newsrooms which have quite a similar worldview and certainly through the '90s and the first decade or so of this Century prog globalization believing that you know a good Financial tide will lift all boats excited by technology and the democratizing power of technology and if you look because partly that was our experience that is that's what had happened hither to and all of those things have been if you like the drivers and the enablers of autocracy Inc in the in the past decade yes MH and so what do you now think is the right approach to integrating autocracies into World Trading systems providing technology financial markets so so I don't want to the one of the points my book is that I don't want to um it's not a new Cold War and I don't want to isolate parts of the world I mean um any more than we have to um and obviously we're not going to cut off trade with China tomorrow and and do lots of economic damage to people unnecessarily it's just that you know the Chinese think strategically about trade you know they think about I don't know buying ports you know and and how those could be used um you know they think about investing in you know the there was the Huawei um controversy you know they think about how they can their telecoms companies can be used to you know collect information here um Tik Tock you know is I don't know among other things is it may well be a Chinese information gathering operation um you know they think about those things and we don't you know we we kind of pretend that it's all neutral and it doesn't really matter and every we're just trading widgets and and there's no impact and I just think it's time for us to think more strategically are these Investments that we want are they good for us yeah um are the Investments that we're making good for us um and just and and and think about it more carefully there's a gentleman here and sorry here uh David here do you want to pause the mic and then there gentleman here oh to one second yeah David G um someone said and I didn't really know how to answer this um what what could the West have have done better and this is sort of the the common argument from some people are pro Putin um and I don't really know how to answer it completely but maybe you can I mean the people say well the Berlin War fell and then a lot of Western money flowed in but it flowed into the wrong people and Moscow became Gangster City based on Western money and then the KGB officer said well we didn't like that so we're going to take over someone also said um you know Putin was actually trying to modernize Russia and then what happened in 200 4 is there was a violent overturning of an election in Ukraine and the West went in flag waving somebody also said that Putin is was extremely upset about Western double standards in Libya and Iraq could we have done things better that that's quite a a wrap sheet um we are coming to we're going to we will finish on the dot at 7:30 I don't know if you want to and we'll just take this one other point deal with us then you na I my thought is more that aren't we getting what we deserve as Citizens as institutions and as a society like for instance we have a foreign uh a foreign office secretary that goes out right out from a NATO Summit to a party with a son of a KGB officer allegedly with no security Precinct and we and when he comes back instead of going to the basement of MI6 he goes to number 10 we make him prime minister like we have like on the real estate come on they are participating actively in two or the three layers of money laundering that are lering and placement the thing is that and they require uh source of funds real estate agents A a guy from a country that was until 4 days ago or well four days is now but until few years ago a communist republic appears flashing money like The Duke of Westminster and just just one last Point very briefly and The Economist has come come up that should be like the world standard in certain and the thing is that I read on on Sunday oh the elections in Germany puts put Germany in unch in Uncharted Territory yeah the thing is that don't we have memory don't we have willing to fight so natur thank you forgive me we're going to ask and I'm going to ask you I'm going to ask you to address both of these things because in so many ways there are a similar question could the West have done something differently and do we have fundamental problems that sit within our own democracy and that are not just being you know exacerbated or caused by autocracies I mean so there is a there is a very long conversation to be had about going back to the 1990s and and Western policy towards Russia um I mean but but just do remember that it was it was early in the 990s that the the Baltic states and famously there's a moment when the uh prime minister of Estonia began to warn the West about the you know the the the the imperialism of Russia the continuing effort you know the continuing aggression towards neighbors um you know there was a there was an attempt to destabilize Estonia this is the famous bronze Soldier been I think 2006 or 7 um there's the invasion of Georgia in 2008 um there's a series of events there's actually the transnistria which is much earlier than that you know the the the the idea that Russia would you know be a destabilizing force in its neighborhood isn't something that we made up or we forced Russia to do I mean they you can go back you know 20 30 years and you can find them beginning with that um and so you know I you know I would I when you talk about mistakes that we make I mean I I would argue that we didn't recognize and those things for what they were early enough I you know I would also argue that we we didn't you know our our mistake was in laundering the money of the of the of of Russia's leaders um you know um Russia was invited to join you know fora after fora you know the G7 and various other different kinds of councils and there was a NATO Russia uh there was a kind of special NATO Russia organization that was designed to iron out problems there was the occe and Russia re you know you know repeatedly refused to participate in these organizations refused to follow the rules would would eventually say we are an imperial country and we can do whatever we want um so but it's a that's a I don't want to because that's a very um that's a very um it's a long long story um so an let let me let me make sure that we respect time and that we end on time and we're going to have to come back natur a future time and Peter forgive me to kind of questions about what sits within our democracy but I want to ask you one final question I wrote by the way I wrote another book about that which one are we talking about called Twilight of democrac oh Twilight democracy yes that was that was about that was more about us this is more about them but it's a that's but if so if you want my answer to that question read Twilight in democracy excellent I'm not the only one who's in marketing could I and I've got one final question for you this book is dedicated at the very front first page of the book it's for the optimists are you one I am because the bravest people that I know are all optimists because the people that I really admire you know uh the the the people who've been who who've been activists in Russia in China in Iran uh in Venezuela um because they have spent theyve dedicated their time to be active and to try and change the most difficult Societies in the world and if they can do that you know who am I in you know sitting here in central London to say everything's terrible so I I I I believe that change is possible out of their admiration but but just forgive me this is a slightly personal note on which to end in with the death of Alexi Nali whom you knew of course did that change your view on the prospects for optimists I no I mean there there there are other there will be other people I mean it was a it was a terrible blow um to the to to to to the people around him and to um but there will be there will be another generation of of descent um you know there will there will always be you know one of the one of the features if you will of the autocratic world is that it produces its own descent you you don't need America to do democracy promotion you don't need um evangelists talking about John Stewart Mill in in in Iran because people find it themselves you know anybody who lives in in a in a in a dictatorship of the of you know a truly harsh dictatorship works out that it's unjust um or some people work out that it's unjust and some people will always want to change it and so you know the book is really dedicated to them ladies and gentlemen an apple b