Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, we will not be posting The Day After & the Era of Transformation next Thursday.

The world of geopolitics has become increasingly polarized to the extremes. The US- China rivalry has begun taking on aspects of the Cold War’s nuclear arms race. In the UK, Boris Johnson is struggling to handle the consequences of his Brexit victory. Meanwhile, democracy and autocracy more generally have begun sorting into opposing blocs, and the autocrats may be gaining the advantage. This division will likely be on display in upcoming elections in Latin America, which have the potential to “shake up” the region’s politics and redraw the path ahead for several countries.

China’s Nuclear Build-Up: “One of the Largest Shifts in Geostrategic Power Ever”

Demetri Sevastopulo, Financial Times

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China’s test of a hypersonic glide vehicle in late July was an alarm bell for military strategists in Washington, demonstrating the PLA’s swift progress in its two-decade military buildup. Until now, China’s nuclear posture had been oriented towards defensive capabilities, but recent developments have seen the nation pivot towards a more offensive arsenal, with China’s military expected to grow its nuclear stockpile to at least one thousand warheads by the end of the decade. While China has long maintained a “no first use” policy on nuclear weapons, the scale of the buildup has some questioning whether such a stockpile can truly be for deterrence purposes. Such a stockpile may be intended to lock the US into a “vulnerability stalemate” in the event of a conventional (non-nuclear) war, as might be fought over Taiwan. With nuclear escalation in such a scenario off the table due to retaliation concerns, China would be able to use the full brunt of its massive non-nuclear arsenal. The buildup may also be an attempt to avoid being “boxed in” by international policy as the US shifts its military focus from the Middle to the Far East. In either case (and the truth may well be a combination of both), the rapid development has cast doubts on the integrity of the “no first use” policy itself – while China has stood by the policy, top PLA officials have indicated that the actual implementation of the policy could be bent if the CCP has a compelling interest to do so. According to analysts, the US’s response should not be to throw in the towel on developing quantitative and qualitative superiority, but rather seek strategic advantages in both military equipment and alliances. With the temperature of the US- China rivalry heating up, both countries’ nuclear capabilities have never been a more important issue.

Britain’s Uncertain Future After Brexit

World Politics Review

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Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s election win in 2019, three years after British voters narrowly voted to leave the European Union (EU), confirmed that Brexit would happen, but it did not heal the Tory versus Labour divisions ailing the United Kingdom’s political system, nor did it clarify Britain’s post-Brexit future. Johnson managed to do what his predecessor, Theresa May, could not: deliver a transitional Brexit deal that the majority of Parliament could agree on. However, the UK’s future remains uncertain. The Johnson administration has been pursuing post-Brexit trade deals, but its leverage to negotiate deals has diminished. The country’s permanent trading relationship with the EU, which took effect January 1st, has been just as disruptive to trade, if not more so than originally predicted. Furthermore, Britain’s role and influence as a global player remain to be seen as the world becomes increasingly characterized by great power competition. “For better and worse, Johnson will now own the consequences of having finally delivered Brexit.”

The Bad Guys are Winning

Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic

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The autocrats of the world have grown bolder. In Belarus, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a woman with no experience in politics put herself out as a candidate for president because the Lukashenko regime would not allow her husband to run. From the limited data the world has of the true results of the 2020 Belarusian election, she seems to have won. So when Alexander Lukashenko announced that he had won 80% of the popular vote, nearly 15% of the 9.3M Belarusian population rose up to protest the results. For a while, it seemed the pro-democracy protests would win the day – then a plane from the FSB, Russia’s primary security agency and a successor to the KGB, landed in Minsk. Suddenly the Lukashenko regime began using Russia’s playbook to crush the uprising, targeting key leaders and spreading misinformation through state propaganda engines. As his grip on power increased, Lukashenko began to push the boundaries of what he could get away with – be it grounding Irish flights to kidnap dissidents or luring Iraqi and Afghan refugees to Minsk with tourist visas only to force them across borders at gunpoint in an effort to destabilize Belarus’ EU neighbors. While the democratic bloc responded with words and sanctions, the autocrats and kleptocrats of the world, seeing an opportunity, closed ranks; China is developing one of its largest overseas projects in the country, Iran has expanded its relationship with Belarus, Cuba has expressed solidarity with Lukashenko, and of course, Russia has close ties with its former Soviet territory. Applebaum calls this behavior, this union of convenience between authoritarian regimes against democratic powers, “Autocracy Inc.”

The power of Autocracy Inc is that it allows autocrats to act with near impunity. China’s internment of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region is a prime example of this. Those few stories of “reeducation” camps (more accurately, concentration camps) which escape the Great Firewall generate little action for fear of waking the dragon. Nowhere is this truer than in Turkey, one of Xinjiang’s nearest ethnic neighbors, where Erdoğan has succumbed to Chinese promises and pressures; those Uyghurs who have escaped to Turkey face increased risk of prosecution and deportation. The model is similar in other countries – line the pockets of kleptocrats to keep their countries in line. The problem is that the model works in Western democracies too. From celebrities posing with dictators’ daughters to companies holding retreats near Xinjiang to politicians consorting with foreign actors, few sectors of Western life are untouched by autocratic soft power. Even as autocracy spreads abroad, the slow decline of democracy at home has weakened the case for liberalism. All hope is not lost, but Western democracies must both reinvigorate their civil society and inoculate themselves against the alluring draw of corrupt power if it is to condemn autocracy in bad actors across the globe. The fate of freedom may well depend on it.

Four November Elections Could Shake Up Latin American Politics

Frida Ghitis, World Politics Review

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Latin America is gearing up for several elections in the coming weeks which could very well shake up political sentiment in the region. Kicking off this year’s election season was Nicaragua’s presidential election which was widely viewed as a “sham” after the intensely unpopular incumbent president Daniel Ortega imprisoned many of his challengers and then declared victory. The upcoming presidential elections in Chile and Honduras have the potential to completely shift the course of each respective country. An intense head-to-head battle between the center-left and center-right parties in Chile to replace recently impeached President Sebastian Pinera was shaping up this summer, but now the field looks quite different. Far-right candidate Jose Antonio Kast has emerged from the ashes of right-wing Sebastian Sichel’s campaign, which crumbled due to alleged irregularities in his 2009 campaign for Congress. Recent polls put Kast in first place ahead of far-left candidate Gabriel Boric. In Honduras, the united opposition, led by leftist candidate Xiomara Castro, is gaining a significant lead over the ruling National Party, which has nominated Nasry Asfura as President Juan Orlando Hernandez’s successor. Like Orlando, Asfura stands in the center of corruption allegations, including an indictment by local authorities for embezzling public funds and laundering money.

In Argentina and Venezuela, ruling parties may lose ground in upcoming legislative elections. Argentina’s open primaries in September revealed disaster for leftist Peronistas President Alberto Fernandez and Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who are now blaming each other in the aftermath. The Peronistas lost in 18 of 24 provinces, putting them on track to lose their majority in the Senate and perhaps in the lower house of the legislature as well. President Nicolas Maduro’s ruling party faces similar challenges in Venezuela’s legislative elections in a couple of weeks. After boycotting several previous elections, the opposition has decided to participate, giving it a chance to make some inroads. However, the elections will undoubtedly be unfair given Maduro’s history and the opposition remains divided, with some factions not even fielding candidates. These elections over the next few weeks could certainly reshape Latin America’s political climate and redraw the path ahead for the region.