Ukraine War and Francis Fukuyama

Ukraine War - a turning point in global history?  Some self-reflection and a sad sounding Francis Fukuyama.

8 minute interview by Simon Jack on 'Today' at 0750 (or 50:57 in) on 12.3.22.  Recorded on 11.3.22.

Does it rock our assumptions that liberal democracy is the preferred form of government to deliver the most happiness to the most people and therefore most likely to triumph, with there being no evolution to a better system beyond that?

That roughly was the view sketched out by political scientist, Francis Fukuyama in his book 'The end of History' written at the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union.  So I asked him yesterday if this conflict, this history had started again and whether its future direction depended on who won this conflict.

FUKUYAMA:  "The war, on Putin's part, is not about Ukraine or some supposed threat that Ukraine poses to Russia's security.  It is really about the entire post-1991 European order in which democracy unrolled throughout all E Europe and reached in to the former Soviet Union.  That is what Putin wants to reverse.  And I think he believed he could get away with that because what he calls the correlation of forces had changed.  But if he fails miserably at this, I think the solidity of democratic Europe will have been reinforced.  So it's these completely competing visions of politics on the continent that I think are at stake here."

INTERVIEWER:  "If we go back to 1989, and perhaps even before that to 1972 when Nixon met Chairman Mao there was an assumption that an extension of liberal democracy and Western consumerism would make them more like us.  That seems to have been an assumption that has been turned on its head, particularly with China."

FUKUYAMA:  "There was something that academics call modernisation theory that says as you get richer and develop a middle class that you also develop a desire for greater political freedom and participation.  Unfortunately, China has proved that theory pretty wrong because it is now at a level of per capita income where they should have made that transition.  Yet, they are becoming much more autocratic as they get richer.  So I'm afraid that is not a theory that we can rely on anymore."

INTERVIEWER:  "If Putin was trying to test the boundaries of NATO and felt that the West was dancing on the Soviet Union grave since 1989, where do you think we are with that?  Do you ascribe any blame to NATO's lack of sensitivity to Russian paranoia?

FUKUYAMA:  "I think what has unfolded is not the fault of NATO.  I think it was probably a mistake in 2008 to offer NATO membership to Ukraine and Georgia.  But the reasons the countries of E Europe wanted an entry into NATO was because they felt that the moment Russia got the upper hand in terms of the balance of military force, they would come under attack.  I think that is something, unfortunately embedded in Russia's own conception of its national identity.  It can't be happy with itself unless it dominates the areas around it.  So I think this likely would have happened and instead of Ukraine being the victim at this point it would be the Baltics or some other former part of the Soviet Union that would have come under attack."

INTERVIEWER:  And for you personally - you were a neo-Con or, you identified as one.  You renounced your neo-Conism.  Here we are now.  I just wonder - you wrote 'The End of History' - saying we are coming to an end state of the accepted form of government.  Did you get that wrong?  What do you think now?"

FUKUYAMA:  "It's clear we are at a very different political age.  When I wrote the original essay, 'The End of History', it was right in the middle of this big explosion of democracy around the world that peaked in the early 2000s.  Now, we are at a very different moment where democracy has come under attack but the real point of 'The End of History' was a more philosophical one.  If we understand history as a long-term process of modernisation, the question is in what direction does it point?  Does it point to Communism which is a Marxist view of the end of history or does it point to something like liberal democracy?  And I really don't see an alternative endpoint to that process, other than liberal democracy that is really much of a competitor at the moment."

INTERVIEWER:  You have studied history and the sway of powers and ideas.  What is your personal reflection on the point we are at right now?

FUKUYAMA:  "It's a very dangerous one.  I've had the belief right from the beginning that there is no automatic mechanism that produces good stable, prosperous democracy.  You have to fight for it and if you don't have people who are willing to fight for it, it's not going to survive.  So I've been going to Ukraine for the past seven years trying to promote uncorrupt, good leaders from that country because I have felt for several years that this would be the big battleground between authoritarian government and democratic government.  So unless we all actually get active in support of democracy, it will be taken away from us.

INTERVIEWER:  You say if you want that you must fight for it.  How far should the West go in this endeavour?

FUKUYAMA:  I actually think that the Biden administration has done a very good job.  They have marshalled NATO in a very effective way.  I was surprised that the Germans were so strong standing against what Russia has done.  It's terrible for the Ukrainians who are bearing the burden for this larger fight for democracy on behalf of all of us and I think we owe them a great debt of gratitude and we owe them all the aid we can give them.

INTERVIEWER:  This fear of escalation.  Doesn't MAD, the deterrent value of nuclear weapons, rely on rational actors and I wonder what you make of Putin as a rational actor?

FUKUYAMA:  "I think he is rational.  He just has different objectives than we do.  I don't think he is trying to invite annihilative warfare just because he is throwing a fit.  I do think he is dangerous because he is willing to take much bigger risks than almost every prior Soviet leader but I don't think he is crazy in that respect.  So I think we need to count on his sense of self-survival as we proceed in this conflict.