Why Dictators Always Underestimate Liberal Democracies

Diversity of thought and action, self-criticism and transparency create stronger institutions and processes than do authoritarian systems. JL 

David French reports in The Atlantic:

Although it is very true that polarization can be dangerous and that political combat can grow far too toxic, the baseline level of relentless self-critique is also a source of strength. Our liberal democracies are thus learning organisms. We know how to change. even when today’s dictatorships can replicate a version of the West’s economic vitality, there is still the challenge of kleptocracy, the tendency towards corruption that is immune from correction as the rule of law fails.Corruption plus sullen compliance is not a formula for ultimate military success.

We’re in the middle of one of the most remarkable news cycles of my lifetime. The once-feared Russian military is reeling from repeated battlefield defeats at the hands of an upstart Ukrainian military, and it is now staring at the possibility of outright defeat and total expulsion from Ukrainian territory. I’m not predicting outright Russian defeat (yet), but the unthinkable isn’t just thinkable; it might even be probable.

It turns out there’s life left in liberal democracy after all. Contrary to the allegations of the hard right, liberal societies are not “soft,” and authoritarian nations are not “strong.” Authoritarianism is brittle, and brittle societies—and the armies they create—break more easily.

There’s abundant scholarship examining why democracies tend to win wars against autocracies, and the complicated analysis often boils down to a simple-sounding formula. The combination of democratic accountability, economic vitality, and the individual liberty protected by free societies yields armies that reflect their nations—more technically advanced, more creative, and with command structures that reward success and punish failure.

None of this is to say that Western armies do any of this seamlessly. I served in the U.S. Army and deployed to Iraq during the 2007 surge, and I know firsthand that our army isn’t perfect. It can be frustratingly bureaucratic, and sometimes promotes and protects mediocrity. But I also know that it’s fundamentally an institution full of courageous, honorable soldiers, and it’s the most fearsome and powerful instrument of land warfare in the world.

But for this newsletter, I’m less interested in the power of liberal democracies than I am in the consistent way that dictators (and liberal democracies’ domestic critics) consistently underestimate that power. From the Kaiser to Hitler to Soviet leaders throughout much of the Cold War, dictators have made the same mistake. Liberal democracies, they say, are weak; they themselves are strong. Yet liberal democracy endures.

Our luxury and liberty are deceptive. Vitality creates luxury, and then luxury hides vitality. To illustrate this principle, let’s examine an archetypal picture of Western decadence: a fine restaurant in a leafy suburb serving expensive wines and locally sourced food to a wealthy array of doctors, lawyers, and software engineers who spend their meal talking about pickleball and politics.

Not exactly the picture of a society prepared for the hell of war, is it?

But let’s peek under the hood just a bit. Chances are, the owner of the restaurant is both a risk taker and an innovator. She gambled with her life savings that the precise way she’s learned to prepare and serve food can provide for her family. The tattooed server pouring the wine? He’s working two jobs to get through school, the first member of his immigrant family to go to college.

The Teslas in the parking lot were the product of a company envisioned by another American immigrant, built by working-class Americans who produce a vehicle that’s the wonder of every generation that came before. And the customers themselves? Although many come from prosperous families, their own stories are marked by tales of self-discipline, risk, innovation, and courage. They live lives not of casual comfort, but of intense energy and effort.

So what on the surface can look a lot like pure decadence is, in fact, also the product of an enormous amount of industry and virtue.

The economic freedom that yields prosperity is accompanied by political freedom that births a deceptive form of contention. Although it is very true that polarization can be dangerous and that political combat can grow far too toxic, the baseline level of relentless self-critique is also a source of strength. Our liberal democracies are thus learning organisms. We know how to change.

(Incidentally, this is a key reason why I’m so zealous about defending the law and culture of free speech. As Frederick Douglass declared in his legendary defense of free expression in Boston, free speech is the “great moral renovator of society and government.”)

But from a distance, the dictator sees only luxury. He hears the airing of doubts and even despair. And what does he see when he looks at his own land and people? He sees unity. He sees loyalty. He sees a vast military at his command. But what looks like unity and loyalty is actually mere sullen compliance.

And even when today’s dictatorships can replicate a version of the West’s economic vitality, there is still the challenge of kleptocracy, the tendency towards corruption that is immune from correction as the rule of law fails.

Corruption plus sullen compliance is not a formula for ultimate military success. That does not, however, mean that authoritarian militaries are always weak. The Kaiser’s Imperial German Army and Hitler’s Wehrmacht were mighty instruments of war. The Red Army at its peak was one of the most formidable fighting machines in the history of armed conflict.

Yet, in their confrontations with liberal democracies, their militaries and systems failed in part because authoritarianism draws down and diminishes their nations’ underlying cultural strength. They leech off their civilizations.

Modern critics of liberalism thus get the reality exactly backwards. They argue that liberalism diminishes virtue, that liberty leeches away the underlying strength of great civilizations. In reality, liberal democracy, better than any other system of government designed by the mind of man, enhances and maximizes its people’s potential, including their will and capacity to wage necessary war.  

In a short piece, I have to deal with generalities. Liberal democracies can struggle with corruption. They have to fight to preserve the rule of law. There are even times, of course, when Western militaries lose—and when they lose, it’s often because their own people have decided, through free and open debate, that the war they’re waging is not necessary to fight. Thus U.S. soldiers left Vietnam when no enemy force could push us off the battlefield. We left Afghanistan when the Taliban could never hope to throw us off the land by force.

But few wars are more necessary than the war in Ukraine, and while Ukraine is an emerging liberal society, we’re watching the power of a people who aspire to be free, and we’re seeing the raw power of a small fraction of the weaponry produced by the United States, the arsenal of democracy still.

Ukraine’s battlefield success—and the courage of elected leaders accountable to their population—should serve as an inspiration. There are those in the West—especially on the right—who have looked to Vladimir Putin as the future. They say he is a guardian of Christian civilization, the strong man who shames and confronts the soft. Deceived, they share Russian military propaganda, believing it to reveal something profound and true.

But it is a lie. We must remember that it is a lie. Our liberal culture—our pluralism—isn’t just a means of keeping a diverse people together. It’s an end. Our liberty doesn’t mean that we’re free; it also keeps us strong, and our strength helps keep us free.