In new book, Michael McFaul explores the global fight between autocracy and democracy

Transcript

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Amna Nawaz: The former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul has been analyzing the rise of autocracies around the globe and the threats they pose to small-D democracy for decades.

He chronicles these challenges and prescribes policy to deal with them in a new book, “Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder.

We spoke recently and I asked him if the U.S. is in a new cold war with China.

Michael McFaul, Author, “Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder”: Yes and no.

(Laughter)

Michael McFaul: And that’s one of the hypotheses that I wanted to wrestle with in the book.

Amna Nawaz: Yes.

Michael McFaul: And so let’s take China for a minute.

Two global powers, superpowers, yes. They’re ahead of everybody else. Ideological conflict, yes. The book’s called “Autocrats vs. Democrats.” Do they have global aspirations? Both countries do, just like the Soviets and the Americans did during the Cold War. So that’s on the similarity side.

The differences, I think, are probably even more important. One, our economies are intertwined between China and the United States in a way that the Soviet and American economies never were.

Amna Nawaz: Yes.

Michael McFaul: That’s different, and that requires a different strategy for dealing with China.

In addition, China’s integrated into the global economy in a way that the Soviet economy never was. And if we think our Cold War strategies are going to work with that, we’re wrong.

Second, yes, there’s an ideological conflict, but I don’t think it’s as acute, as acute as it was during the Cold War. But, third, the biggest difference is us. We are more isolationist today in both parties, not just the Republican Party, than at any time during the Cold War. And we’re more polarized today as a society than we were at any time during the Cold War. Those are big differences.

Amna Nawaz: When you look at the relationship between the U.S. and Russia specifically, a country you know so well, you have lived there, you have represented the U.S. there as well, and you see more of a relationship between our president here in the United States and President Putin, more of a willingness to engage, does that bode well for that competition? Does that mean less of a security risk for American prosperity and power?

Michael McFaul: Yes and no, again.

On the one hand, another important lesson from the Cold War, often forgotten today, is that even when we had lots of competition and we were at war, proxy wars in Vietnam, with the Soviets, we learned to cooperate on interests that were of benefit to the United States and the Soviet Union.

So arms control, we did that during the Cold War. We should do that with Russia today. The New START Treaty, the last treaty we have with them, is about to expire. I think President Trump should use that relationship he has with Putin to extend that treaty.

At the same time, I sometimes think the president is a bit naive about Putin’s intentions. I don’t think Putin wants a close relationship with the United States. He actually wants to weaken the United States and weaken more broadly the democratic world. He wants to blow up NATO and he wants to conquer Ukraine.

And no amount of schmoozing is going to stop him from pursuing those ideological pursuits.

Amna Nawaz: What about the approach for this administration when it comes to China? If the competition is mainly economic and not ideological in nature, does a trade war, do tariffs, does that help to contain China and the Chinese threat?

Michael McFaul: Yes and no. The world’s complicated. So…

Amna Nawaz: I’m sensing a trend here, Ambassador, by the way.

Michael McFaul: That is a trend. And that’s the main message of my book, is that you have got to understand the complexity. And if we oversimplify things, we are going to make mistakes as Americans in the world.

So, on the one hand, I think it was a good thing that the president and Chairman Xi met and talked. We should talk to everybody. On the other hand, I think the president eroding our alliances in Asia and Europe, tariffing our friends for no apparent reason because sometimes they run an ad that we don’t like divides the democratic world.

And in this competition with China today that’s going to last for decades, we need our allies. We cannot afford to do this alone. President Trump has an affinity for coercive power. He likes to coerce people and tell them what to do.

But there are two things that are wrong about that strategy when dealing with China. One, it doesn’t work with the Chinese because they have power over us too. They have choke points over us too. And we just learned that. You play a game of chicken with the Chinese, we back down. And that is not in our long-term national interest to look weak.

And the second problem with that strategy is just because you go along with coercion doesn’t mean you like it. And I just think, if we’re going to compete effectively with the Chinese and the Russians and the rest of their autocratic allies, we’re going to need our democratic allies on our side, and therefore we should stop coercing them.

Amna Nawaz: I mean, the stakes when you’re talking about great power competition are great military conflicts, right?

Michael McFaul: Yes.

Amna Nawaz: And on the horizon is this worry about NATO and the Western alliance being pulled into a ground war in Europe as Russia continues its war in Ukraine and also, if China invades Taiwan, how the U.S., other nations would respond. Would the U.S. go to war with China?

Michael McFaul: Right.

Amna Nawaz: Do you see either of those as real possibilities?

Michael McFaul: Absolutely. They’re the two things that worry me the most. There are lots of books about wars, lots of books about revolutions, lots of books about electoral outcomes.

You don’t read a lot of books about the revolution that almost was or the war that almost was. And in the Cold War, the greatest nonevent, the greatest success of diplomacy of the entire Cold War, in my opinion, was the nonevent of the war over Taiwan. We now need nonevents in both Europe and Asia, avoid war.

And we do that through deterrence and engagement. If Putin prevails in Ukraine, that will make it more likely we might be dragged into a war with one of our NATO allies in Europe, and I think it will make it more likely that Xi Jinping will act against Taiwan.

And you know what really brought that home? I was in Taiwan just a few months ago, and there’s no group of people around the world watching what’s happening in Ukraine closer than the Taiwanese, because they understand this relationship very clearly.

Amna Nawaz: A lot of this rides on the democratic institutions here in the United States being protected, standing firm.

Michael McFaul: Yes.

Amna Nawaz: They are being tested like never before in modern history.

Michael McFaul: Yes. Yes.

Amna Nawaz: Are you optimistic that they will survive?

Michael McFaul: Well, I’m worried. I have seen this playbook before. This reminds me, what’s happening here, to the early Putin years, when he pushed back and he took over the media. He removed some people he didn’t like.

But I’m cautiously optimistic, basically for two big reasons. One, our institutions, our check on executive power are much more powerful today than they were in the early Putin era, independent media, parliament, opposition party. I’d like them to be a little bit stronger, by the way, personally. Civil society. That — we’re a better place there.

And the other thing we have that the Russians didn’t have in the early 2000s is, we have hundreds of years of experience with democracy. But let’s make no question about it. In my lifetime, this is the biggest, hardest fight for consolidating and preserving democratic institutions in the United States of America.

And it’s going to be a fight. It’s not going to happen just because there’s a piece of paper that says you have these rights. People are going to have to fight for the things that are in that Constitution. But I’m cautiously optimistic we’re going to be OK.

Amna Nawaz: Ambassador Michael McFaul. The book is “Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder.”

Thank you for being here.

Michael McFaul: Thanks for having me.