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Authoritarian States Are Failing–They Have Us Right Where They Want Us!

After Ralph Peters’ last laughable effort (the short version of which was “Obama might not save Bolivia from itself!”), we might just as easily ignore his new column, but it serves as a useful example of the adaptability of fearmongers.  Once certain states have been put on the enemies’ list, they never come off, even when they have objectively ceased […]

After Ralph Peters’ last laughable effort (the short version of which was “Obama might not save Bolivia from itself!”), we might just as easily ignore his new column, but it serves as a useful example of the adaptability of fearmongers.  Once certain states have been put on the enemies’ list, they never come off, even when they have objectively ceased to pose much of a threat to anyone.  When they are stronger but not particularly aggressive, it is because they are biding their time; when they become weak they are going to start lashing out as a distraction from their economic problems.  At no point are these states treated as if they have their own self-interest that may not entail attacking or invading other states at all. 

When the petro-states were flush with cash and seemed to be gaining ground on all fronts, we were hearing grim warnings about the reconstitution of the Soviet empire, Russian naval visits to Venezuela (which even Peters acknowledged to be a meaningless display) and the growing power of the Tehran-Caracas axis, sometimes as recently as early September of this year.  Now that they are becoming weaker as oil prices drop in response to the global downturn, it is their bankruptcy and weakness that make them terrible threats to the world, even though the sudden change in their fortunes shows how limited and frail their ability to project power always was. 

Here is one scenario Peters proposes: Russia starts going broke, and so has no incentive not to start invading other countries.  No incentive, that is, except for the possibility of foreign investment and aid to shore up its slumping economy.  Another scenario: Iran goes broke, but somehow has the resources to acquire a nuke, which it would naturally then launch on Israel.  This makes as little sense as Iran committing national suicide in boom times.  If Iran is going broke and suffering from the significant internal disorder that will accompany a worsening economy, doesn’t it seem more likely that it will have more pressing concerns than developing a nuclear weapon?  Peters has to acknowledge that Venezuela is such a shambles that it cannot threaten anyone–but it might collapse in on itself in nasty ways! I suppose that has always been true, but it hardly fills the rest of the world with dread and it makes Santorum’s warnings against Venezuelan-Bolivian conquests in Latin America seem even more outlandish than they were at the time. 

Economically weakened authoritarian governments have even less interest in and opportunity for aggressive actions outside their borders as they become increasingly preoccupied with internal dissent and upheaval and the basic problems of economic failure and excessive dependence on natural resource extraction.  Ahmadinejad was elected on a platform of additional subsidies to the poor and some kind of solution to the chronically high unemployment Iran has, but now finds himself failing to control rampaging inflation (officially at 30%) and has fewer and fewer resources at his command as revenues shrink.  Remember–this failure is the clown that filled interventionists with fear and became synonymous for them with the threat represented by Iran.  We should never have been afraid of these people, and now that he is flailing and failing and the entire regime is suffering from the economic downturn we are supposed to be more afraid?

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