Atlantic Council Editors' Picks by Daniel Malloy : Meet the new authoritarian axis - Sept.16, 2023

 

This week's edition brought to you by Daniel Malloy, Managing Editor

SEPTEMBER 16, 2023 | World leaders typically have planes and helicopters at their disposal, but 2023 is the Year of the Train for high-stakes diplomacy. We’ve seen US President Joe Biden and others take the ten-hour rail journey from Poland to Kyiv to show their support for Ukraine. And this past week North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hopped into his specialized armored train for a ride to Russia to commune with Vladimir Putin. Beyond the fact that trains are cool (as any two-year-old will tell you), the old-school method of travel speaks to the throwback nature of today’s geopolitics; as our experts explain below, there are echoes of not just the Cold War but also World War II in the air. Read on for more on the dictators’ summit, Iran’s women-led protests, and pandas. Yes, pandas.

Dictatorial duo. You could call it the “Summit of the Rogues,” like former Moscow-based foreign correspondent Brian Whitmore, or the “new authoritarian axis,” like former US National Intelligence Officer for North Korea Markus Garlauskas. But whatever name you choose, the Kim-Putin get-together this week was a troubling sign, as Moscow seeks arms for its war in Ukraine and Pyongyang seeks technical know-how for its nuclear program. As Markus argues, the strategic and military coordination among Russia, North Korea, and China now exceeds that of the World War II axis.  Read more expert takes on Putin and Kim.

Unveiled. It’s been one year since the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests first gripped Iran. The theocracy and its mandatory hijab laws remain in place thanks to brutal oppression, but as a diverse array of experts reveal in this “twenty questions” feature, Iran will never be the same. Even if the mass protests have died down, individual acts of defiance by Iran’s Gen Z, captured on social media, continue. “The clerical establishment cannot and will not be able to control much of this generation,” writes analyst Holly Dagres. Read more expert views on where Iran goes from here.

Mind the Gulf. Amid the barrage of news this week, a new US security deal with Bahrain may have flown under the radar. But Adam Ereli, a former US ambassador to Bahrain, forecasts that this deal with the tiny Gulf island nation “will serve as the framework and basis for all future agreements with other regional powers—and they are coming, make no mistake.” Under the deal, the United States would consult and assist Bahrain with an imminent security threat (neighboring Iran being the most likely culprit), but there’s no NATO Article 5-style mutual-defense pact. Read more about why Bahrain matters.

Standing tall. In the coming days, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will make the rounds in Washington and New York, and you can bet he will be extolling the resilience of his people in the face of Russia’s full-scale invasion—while also asking for more help from world leaders to defend against it. This powerful video on our brand new ACTV platform explores Ukraine’s extraordinary resolve so far and what will come next. As our Ukraine-based editor Peter Dickinson puts it, the chief concern now is “getting long-term security. And if it’s not NATO, it needs to be something else. ”  Watch more on Ukraine’s remarkable resilience.

Bamboozled. As if US-China relations weren’t already strained enough, add panda abuse to the list of complaints. The sudden death of Le Le the panda at the Memphis Zoo, and the chronic skin condition of his partner Ya Ya, evolved into a full-scale misinformation campaign by Chinese netizens and state media. Our Digital Forensic Research Lab team methodically reports how these wild rumors about abuse and torture spread—and how they crowded out conversation about a deadly mine collapse in China’s Inner Mongolia region. The pandas were on loan from China, and now Ya Ya is back in Beijing, where Chinese social media users are commenting favorably on her alleged weight gain.  Find out whether Washington’s pandas could be next in line for scrutiny.

Something else catch your eye at the Atlantic Council this week?