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The Cold War that the Free World is not even fighting [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-07-30

Every child that grew up in the Soviet Union or one of eastern Europe’s countries occupied by it knows the world maps of the spread of communism. They started with the Soviet Union as the only red-painted and therefore communist country. Further maps followed on the same page from later decades followed, showing more and more “red” countries. The message was to show that history will end with every country being communist as Karl Marx’ ideology predicted.

In the end, this was all about a fight between good and evil, between dictatorship and freedom. During the first Cold War, American presidents took up and led the battle. Starting with the Truman doctrine, they fought against the spread of communist dictatorial regimes — unfortunately often by supporting dictatorial regimes themselves as long as they simply opposed the Soviet Union. No matter how controversial and debatable many decisions were, every suppressed inhabitant of the Eastern Bloc always knew that he had every support when trying to oppose the oppressors. The revolutions all over central and eastern Europe at the historic year of 1989 would have been impossible without this clear message by the Free World.

But the fight goes on. The compelling Democracy Report (pdf link) of the V-Dem project examines the worldwide developments and measures the of democracy or autocracy in every country (opinions might of course differ on the situation of specific countries you have ties to or interest in). For anyone with a light interest for the world, the results are not completely astounding, but the condensed development is still shocking:

The level of democracy for the average global citizen by 2022 is back to 1986.

72% of the world’s population – 5.7 billion people – now live in autocracies, which is an increase from 46% ten years ago.

Nine new countries have descended into closed autocracies in just the last two years (and this is already outdated).

Only 32 liberal democracies remain in the World.

This list of bad developments could be continued for several pages.

Vladimir Putin certainly remembers the historic maps of the spread of communism. Since his intervention in Syria, he obviously sees himself as a mapmaker himself, supporting dictatorships worldwide and even changing regimes as with the current successful coup in the once slightly democratic Republic of the Niger — which follows similar events in neighboring countries which were always followed by the emerging dictator declaring his opposition to the West and very often by inviting Russian troops to quell any remaining opposition. How often does Putin has to declare that he sees himself in a ruthless fight against the West? And all he needs to invest is a little support and money for some power-hungry and greedy generals and dictators.

The Free World is reacting with warm words — and nothing else. This seems reasonable for most of the voters. Who cares for countries most have never even heard of, whose capital could be named by only a few people and who only a handful of people have ever visited? Who hasn’t been traumatized by the events in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya (despite Iraq being now a country in the middle of the worldwide comparison)? There seems to be absolutely nothing left that could trigger any serious response from the remaining democracies. Any dictator is more or less given green light to react to any unrest in the most brutal way. Take the war in Ukraine: A lot of important democracies like South Korea or Japan don’t supply weapons to Ukraine in one of the biggest and brutal historic fights for freedoms, others like Brazil or South Africa don’t openly side with the victim of the attack, and India (still a democracy in its own understanding, but considered an electoral autocracy by V-Dem) is even economically supporting Putin’s madness.

So what am I asking for? Honestly, this question is much too difficult to be answered, as every country and situation around the World is different. But at least some real support for the people openly revolting against repression would be needed. And as in Ukraine, the Free World should offer more than nothing to those who are courageous enough to revolt. The best case for making an example would be Myanmar, another one of those countries unheard of and completely ignored. It was once an evolving democracy, before the military ruler took over, with full support of Russia who delivers him with all weapons he needs to continue his campaign of murdering any opposition. Nonetheless, several ethnic and pro-democratic militias fight a heroic but doomed fight against the junta. Not even here where only a few Javelins and Stingers would dramatically change the situation in the jungle, no leader in the liberal democracies seems to have even thought of supplying the resistance with weapons.

The current fight between good and evil could not be more one-sided, as the good side might either not have even realized that a fight is going on or is simply not willing to defend themselves. If this does not change soon, the result of this ignorance will be most devastating for the people of the world.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/30/2184151/-The-Cold-War-that-the-Free-World-is-not-even-fighting

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