BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians

BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians growth and was among the vanguard in embracing e-government and other innovations associated with a modern open society. Since the invasion of Ukraine and the Russian military's menacing gestures along its border, Estonia has ramped up defense spending and launched war games to increase preparedness. Indeed, all three Baltic countries announced major increases in military spending in 2016. Conditions are even worse for states where Russia has instigated frozen conflicts. Russia maintains military bases in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both on the territory of Georgia, and in Transnistria. These enclaves, as well as the occupied portions of Ukraine, are impoverished, heavily militarized, and marked by gangsterism and corruption. Crimea is an instructive case for neighboring peoples who live under the threat of Russian military interven- tion. Residents of the peninsula enjoyed a reasonable array of civil liberties under the Ukrainian government. Under Russian occupation, all that has changed. Moscow has sent Russian officials to run the region as de facto viceroys. Freedom of the press, which was rel- atively vigorous before 2014, has been extinguished, and independent voices have been arrested or forced into exile. Property rights are routinely ignored, and expropriation is used as a blunt instrument against those who oppose the new order. The fate of the Crimean Tatars is especially tragic, given the group's history of persecution and mass removal during Soviet times. Their leaders have been silenced or driven out of the region, their commemo- rations banned, and their media muzzled. By support- ing a still-deadly frozen conflict in eastern Ukraine, the Russian leadership has ensured that the attention of policymakers in the democracies will be focused on the fighting there, and not on the dreadful conditions in Crimea.” Since its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has cone its best to maximize the intimidating effect on other neighbors. It conducted war games in which 33,000 troops rehearsed the invasion of Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark.!? The Russian navy has held multiple, large-scale exercises in the Black Sea to defy NATO, assert its control over Crimea, and threaten Georgia.'* Russian and Abkhaz separatist officials have announced what amounts to a merger of troops from the two sides under the command of a Russian officer.'5 Russia's military is developing the capacity to simultaneously carry out several operations on the scale of the Ukraine conflict—limited, rapid offensives involving elite troops, deception, and propaganda that would leave opponents fumbling for an appropriate re- sponse.!® The intervention in Syria has already demon- strated Russia's ability to project force unexpectedly in a new theater while maintaining its existing engage- ments in Ukraine and elsewhere. Russias renewed embrace of cross-border aggres- sion has had wide repercussions in Central Europe, a region that had expected a secure alignment with the democratic world after the end of the Cold War. Poland, for example, had achieved something quite remarkable prior to 2014, given its history of domina- tion by outside powers. It enjoyed friendly relations with Germany, one of its past occupiers, and stable ties with Russia, traditionally the other main threat to its sovereignty. After the annexation of Crimea, Poland's leaders were forced to seriously contemplate the possibility of a Russian invasion, especially given Putin's bellicose language about the speed with which his tanks could reach nearby capitals.'” As a result, Po- land has embarked on a military buildup to maintain its hard-won independence and territorial integrity.!® But no single European country could ever match Russia's present military might. If Poland, the Baltic states, and their allies fail to maintain solidarity based on shared democratic standards, it will not be long before their sovereignty erodes under pressure from the Kremlin. 50 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019284