An arc of autocracies. By Greg Sheridan.
The West is effectively opposed today by a pragmatic de facto alliance among the majority of the world’s autocracies. They are united by their hatred of the West, their rejection of liberalism, their desire to snuff out democracy even among their neighbours (lest it prove contagious), and their willingness to co-operate with each other.
In a population of 10 million, 1.5 million came out in support of pro-democracy demonstrations in Belarus in 2020. The Belarus government sought help from Russia on the techniques for suppressing such movements, and it was eagerly given. Mass arrests are not necessary if you arrest the demonstrators’ leaders and rape, torture and murder them. …
Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic late last year wrote about “Autocracy Inc”, which, she said, “grants its members not only money and security but something less tangible and yet just as important — impunity.” And Walter Russell Mead argues that the West is alone in another way. NATO members plus Japan, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand and Singapore have come out strongly against Russia in this war. But most other nations have been quite circumspect.
When US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited recently, senior US officials told me that the Biden administration believes the geostrategic future of the world depends heavily on the way key “swing states” develop ––nations such as India and Vietnam. But both of those, as well as others like Brazil and South Africa, reject the Western political and sanctions campaign against Russia. …
When the US reached out to India under George W Bush, the idea was that it would become India’s chief defence hardware supplier. But it is too expensive and the regulatory burdens it places on India are too great, so India remains overwhelmingly dependent on Russian technology for its nuclear submarines, air-defence systems and many other military capabilities critical to India’s disposition towards China.
Israel needs to be able to strike Iranian military establishments in Syria. To do this, it needs the tacit acceptance of the main foreign power in Syria, which is Russia. So even Israel is not implementing the full sanctions suite against Russia. …
Woke lies laid bare:
The Ukraine war … demonstrates the essential idiocy of the psychedelic cul-de-sac of woke nuttiness the contemporary West has wandered down, mistakenly thinking it has discovered the future.
Ukrainian women, like their men, have been transcendently brave. But no Ukrainian family goes to the Polish border and sends the husband and children off to seek safety abroad while the wife goes back to fight the war. Ukrainian men kiss their wives goodbye at the border, weep over their children — and then take their rifles to turn around and go back to fight and if necessary die for their country and their family.
That is the way it has always been, and always will be. The West’s woke fruitiness is at war with human nature. …
What are we to make of Western education systems that tell children and undergraduates that their societies are evil at their core, based on slavery, founded on racism, with unconscious bias afflicting every moment of national life — sexist, racist, patriarchal, colonial, hetero-normative, economically exploitative … blah blah blah. Such evil places, these Western societies! …
How does that evil compare with real evil, with a Russian army which bombs maternity hospitals and attacks theatres where civilians are huddling for shelter — which levels Mariupol and shells refugee convoys.
Normal people know that the Western education systems are basically teaching lies. But no matter how many times conservatives win elections, the dominant cultural institutions never change. …
So much that has been confidently asserted by the climate consensus about energy policy turns out to be completely untrue, a reality both revealed and accelerated by Ukraine. For example, forget all the ridiculous talk about “stranded assets” in coalmines and the like. Volodymyr Zelensky asked Australia for extra coal. He didn’t, as Matt Canavan acidly observed, ask for solar panels.