Authoritarianism: a formula for failure

US intelligence has confirmed what we have long suspected about the Russian system.  Before the invasion, even Putin himself was grossly misinformed about the situation in Ukraine and the capabilities of the Russian military, and he's still being misinformed now, including about the impact of sanctions on the Russian economy -- because his advisers are afraid to tell him anything he doesn't want to hear.  The US hopes that making these findings public will prod the Russian dictator to demand more accurate information and ultimately reconsider his position.

As secretary of state Anthony Blinken observed, "One of the Achilles heels of autocracies is that you don't have people in those systems that speak truth to power or have the ability to speak truth to power, and I think that's what we're seeing in Russia."

It's inevitable that this problem is endemic in authoritarian regimes.  How willing do you think that Kim Jong-un's toadies are to tell him anything he doesn't want to hear?  How accurate is the information Xi Jinping gets about Taiwan's capacity and willingness to fight, or about the Chinese military's capabilities?  How well-informed are the ruling thugs of Iran or Saudi Arabia about their own people's attitudes toward them?  It's been claimed that Mao Zedong never knew that the "Great Leap Forward" caused mass starvation in China, because nobody dared to tell him.  It's all too believable.

For that matter, I've been pointing out for years that China's claimed stunning economic growth figures over the last few decades are just not plausible for a country where everything outside the cities is still so decrepit and primitive and even the cities are, well, like this.  In an authoritarian state, every layer of administration has incentives to exaggerate the accomplishments it reports to the layer above, while actual spending is partly bled away by corruption, corners are cut, and there's no free press to create independent accountability.  By the time information reaches the top, it's completely divorced from reality.  There's no doubt that China's economy has grown considerably since the end of Mao's calamitous reign, but probably nothing like as much as the official numbers we're given would suggest.

A free press keeps officials at least somewhat honest by being able to independently check up on what they claim to have accomplished, and can contradict and expose propaganda.  Free elections allow ordinary people to hold the authorities accountable for lies and bad decisions.  An open, rules-based government allows officials to be honest with their superiors and tell them truths they do not want to hear, even up to the head of the state.  Democracy is not a perfect system, and no actual existing state is a perfect democracy, but it's the best system we've come up with so far for achieving these things.  Authoritarian states, inevitably operating under a miasma of fear and lies, are inherently weak and inferior.

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Here's a detailed discussion of why the Russian military was so ill-prepared for the type of war it was called upon to fight in Ukraine.  I rarely watch videos of this length (56 minutes), but I did watch this one, and it's worth it for the insights it provides.  There's also a text summary at the link.

Russia's military communications are pitifully inadequate, but this has been clear since at least 2014 and nothing has been done to fix the problem.

There are increasing reports of Russian troops committing rape in Ukraine.  Evidence of other war crimes is being discovered in areas recently liberated from Russian control.  Even the results of shelling of civilian areas are awful enough (found via Hackwhackers).  All this horror and misery was completely unnecessary and is benefiting no one.  I don't believe even Putin himself would have gone ahead with the invasion if he had known it would turn into such a debacle.

Russian troops developed serious illness after digging up contaminated soil near Chernobyl.  The Russians have now withdrawn from the Chernobyl area.

Taiwan, facing a similar threat, is intensively studying the Ukraine war.

The Russian army will probably be just as bad at retreating as they have been at advancing.

Against an enemy that depends on lies, accurate information can itself be a weapon.

The outcome of the war could resemble that of the 1939 Russia-Finland war.

Here's another interview with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, about Putin's mentality and limited sources of information:


This is the Biden I voted for: