The Economist March 26th 2022 57
InternationalGeopolitics
New cold war, new compromises
T
he strugglebetween autocracy and
democracy is “the defining challenge of
our time”, President Joe Biden said in De
cember at a virtual “Summit for Democra
cy”. Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine
offers evidence he was right. With missiles
and tanks, an autocrat is trying to snuff out
a freely elected government.
Further, the core of the coalition
against Mr Putin, consisting of America
and most of Europe, is solidly democratic.
In short, the pushback against Mr Putin
would seem to fit Mr Biden’s framing—a
“battle between democracy and autocracy”,
as he said in his stateoftheunion speech.
But geopolitics is never so neat.
Though Mr Putin’s most important
backer, China, is authoritarian, several de
mocracies are ambivalent. India, a big buy
er of Russian arms, refuses to condemn
him. South Africa, whose ruling party had
a long friendship with the former Soviet
Union, lays some blame for the war on na-
to. Brazil’s president, whose “masculine
qualities” Mr Putin once praised, professes
neutrality. Israel says it is temporising in
hopes of playing mediator.
And Mr Biden is also seeking help from
authoritarian regimes, provoking worries
that, just as the West overlooked abuses by
anticommunist allies during the cold war,
it will make ugly compromises now to
counter Mr Putin. Doing so would pose
diplomatic and political challenges. Com
pared with claiming compromise was nec
essary to resist the spectre of communism,
it may prove trickier to argue—to allies
abroad and voters at home—that one
should curry favour with autocrats in order
to confront autocracy.
Consider Turkey, a country of vast stra
tegic importance where democracy is un
der siege. Western criticism of Turkey’s
strongman, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has
gone quieter since the war began.
While sympathising with Ukraine and
selling it remarkably effective combat
drones, Mr Erdogan has opposed sanctions
against Russia and kept his airspace open
to Russian planes. He has also thrown Mr
Putin a financial lifeline, suggesting that
trade between Turkey and Russia be car
ried out using roubles or gold. Ordinary
Russians fleeing persecution at home havefound a haven in Turkey. Yet so have Rus
sian oligarchs fleeing Western sanctions.
Two superyachts belonging to Roman
Abramovich, a billionaire friend of Mr Pu
tin, have docked there.
Western officials are urging Turkey to
take a tougher line on Russia. Turkish
democrats fear Mr Erdogan will demand a
steep price, such as Western leniency to
wards his habit of locking up his critics and
muzzling the media. On March 1st Mr Erdo
gan suggested that Turkey be given a fast
track to European Union membership. A
week later, he urged Mr Biden to lift sanc
tions against Turkey’s defence industry,
imposed after Mr Erdogan bought an s400
airdefence system from Russia. America
has since offered a way out, suggesting that
Turkey send the s400s to Ukraine. That is
unlikely to happen for technical and politi
cal reasons, not least Turkey’s fear of retri
bution from Russia. But America may yet
cut a bargain with Mr Erdogan. America
put up with an undemocratic Turkey dur
ing the first cold war because it was an ally.
It may do so in the new cold war, too.
Among the Western countries, liberal
ones face a version of this dilemma. Poland
is a lot more democratic than Turkey, but
in the past few years its government has in
terfered with judges and harassed opposi
tion media. Because of this, the eufroze
€36bn ($40bn) in pandemicrecovery
funds earmarked for Poland.
Today, however, Poland has welcomed
the largest share of Ukrainian refugees and
allows weapons for the Ukrainian resisB UENOS AIRES, DUBAI, ISTANBUL AND PARIS
How Vladimir Putin provokes—and complicates—the struggle against autocracy