The existential threats to world stability are working together. Autocrats in Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang are moving in concert with both their clients and fellow travellers in Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Myanmar, Belarus and other despotisms. United not by ideology but by a love of repression, wealth and power, these new tyrants strike deals to consolidate their control and threaten their shared enemy: us.

What does this League Against The Nations want? And how can we combat it? Pulitzer-winning author and historian Anne Applebaum talks to Gavin Esler about her new book Autocracy, Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World. 

• “Putin began his career by stealing money from St Petersburg, laundering it and bringing it back… His path to power came through Western financial institutions.”

• “It’s one thing to fight a dictator with a bunch of soldiers in his palace. It’s another to fight one who has billions to buy the latest technology – or just bribe people.” 

• “Putin developed a scorn for the West. ‘You let me steal, you’re corrupt.’ And the conviction that the West is corrupt feeds into modern autocracy.” 

• “The kleptocracy comes first. The autocracy follows.” 

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Written and presented by Gavin Esler. Produced by Robin Leeburn. Original theme music by Paul Hartnoll – https://www.orbitalofficial.com. Executive Producer Martin Bojtos. Group Editor Andrew Harrison. This Is Not A Drill is a Podmasters production

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