The world has become an extraordinarily dangerous place, and events are happening that most of us never expected to witness. The complexity of the struggles in various parts of the world and their utter brutality and violence are hard to understand. It is important to realize how global politics has changed with the rise of autocracies and the weakening of democratic governments on every continent. This “big picture” will help us see the connection between the Russian-Ukrainian war and the battle between Israel and Hamas.
The map below highlights the types of political regimes across the globe and provides an impactful visual reminder of just how much things have changed in the last two decades with the rise of dictatorships and autocracies worldwide.
These autocracies are deeply committed to retaining their political power and, in many cases, protecting the assets that they have stolen from their own people. Their countries have often become “failed states,” and their domestic rule is enforced by extreme repression. The primary political goal of these autocracies, besides increasing their power and enabling their greed, is to destroy the rules-based world order created after the Second World War and to take charge of setting the rules for how the world is run, rules that they will create and enforce.
What is new and frightening is that these autocrats have developed a militarized form of terrorism. They are starting conflicts that are not conventional wars, and they do not care about the laws of war that previously constrained some of the earlier conflicts. Their goals are to create fear among civilian populations and their primary targets are innocent citizens, not the armed forces of their opponents. Anne Applebaum took the lead on making this clear in her essay, “There Are No Rules” (The Atlantic, October 9, 2023). For these autocrats, uninhibited violence against civilians is their primary weapon. Russian and Hamas invaders do not hide their war crimes - they film them and circulate the videos online. These terrorists pursue children and the elderly, searching house-to-house for victims, and abducting young women and children.
The four autocracies that are now working together to reshape the world into their own image are Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. There are considerable tensions between these four dictatorships, and yet they are currently active in supporting each other’s aggressive foreign engagements. To democratic states, these four countries are pariahs – outcasts – and for that reason they are committed to work together to disrupt the security arrangements and democratic alliances on the European continent and in Asia.
Russia set the example for these autocracies, by deliberately targeting civilians in Syria in 2015. In support of the dictator, Bashar al-Assad, the Russians, together with Syrian armed forces, bombed power stations, hospitals, and water systems, committing war crimes that violated international law. Putin is using the same tactics in Ukraine – targeting apartment buildings, restaurants, medical clinics, schools, and cultural centers. Every day I get reports of the daily attacks from Russian artillery, drones, and cruise missiles across Ukraine, attacks that kill and injure innocent victims – often the elderly and children.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is driven by Putin’s need for war to justify his domestic oppression of any opposition to his rule, but also because the Ukrainians want to develop an independent democracy and Putin sees this as a threat to his autocracy. Hamas launched this attack against Israeli and Palestinian civilians because they want to generate war in the Middle East. Their goal is to stop any plans by Arab nations to accept Israel’s right to exist – principally the negotiations that were underway between Saudi Arabia and the United States.
The inhuman, brutal killing of civilians by Hamas was a deliberate attempt to get Israel and its allies, particularly the United States, to respond with a massive invasion of Gaza, which would result in the deaths of many more residents trapped in the war zone. They are confident this emerging war would end any further attempts to embrace Israel as a legitimate nation.
This is the most important connection between Ukraine and Gaza – not the issue of aid, which will have to be worked out by the Biden administration, as well as by Ukraine’s NATO supporters. These two wars – in Ukraine and Gaza – are not just regional conflicts, they are driven by autocracies who work together to divide weakened democracies by openly – and sometimes clandestinely – supporting their fellow autocrats.
Robert M. Gates, the former U. S. Secretary of Defense, wrote a stunning “wake-up call” to the American people in his article “The Dysfunctional Superpower” (Foreign Affairs, September 29, 2023). His opening sentence was clear on the challenge our country faces.
The United States now confronts graver threats to its security than it has in decades, perhaps ever. Never before has it faced four allied antagonists at the same time – Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran – whose collective nuclear arsenal could within a few years be nearly double the size of its own. . .. The problem, however, is that at the very moment that events demand a strong and coherent response from the United States, the country cannot provide one. Its fractured political leadership – Republican and Democratic, in the White House and in Congress – has failed to convince enough Americans that developments in China and Russia matter.
Gates concludes his essay with this powerful warning:
. . . nothing makes war likelier than putting one’s head in the sand and pretending that the United States is not affected by events elsewhere. . . failing to deal with aggressors only encourages more aggression.
Russia and Hamas need to be defeated before further aggression from these two sponsors of terrorism spreads across central Europe and the Middle East. Domestic bickering and chaotic leadership in the Congress must end, before the brutality and violence generated by autocrats widens its devastating impact across the globe.