Modern Bullies Aren't World's Real Threat

Putin, Jintao no Stalin, Mao; today's rulers can't ignore democracy

By Harry Kimball, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 23, 2008 4:47 PM CDT

(Newser) – The world's strong-arm autocrats are surging to the fore, ignoring human rights, denying election results, and barging into neighboring nations. But Hu Jintao, Robert Mugabe and Vladimir Putin are not Mao, Hitler, or Stalin, Francis Fukuyama writes in the Washington Post. That “sort of ideological tyrant no longer bestrides the world stage,” he writes.

Putin will govern Russia like a 19th century czar, trampling weak states but working largely with European nations, Fukuyama predicts. Jintao holds no major grievances like Russia's with NATO, and will focus on internal stability. Neither will threaten the West, writes Fukuyama. The real peril is "whether gains in economic productivity will keep up with global demand for such basic commodities as oil, food and water."

[Images (8)]

[Quotes (1)]

Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. (AP Photo)

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, left, is greeted by Chinese President Hu Jintao. (AP Photo)

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. (AP Photo)

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez (AP Photo)

Francis Fukuyama. (Getty Images.)

Josef Stalin, secretary-general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and premier of the Soviet state, poses at his desk in the Kremlin, Moscow, in an election photo issued in Feb. 1950. (AP Photo)

In this July 3, 2008 file photo, a figure depicting former German dictator Adolf Hitler is displayed at the Madame Tussauds Berlin Wax Museum, in Berlin, on Thursday, July 3, 2008. (AP Photo)

Josef Stalin, Vladimir Putin, Adolf Hitler, and Robert Mugabe aren't so similar, Fukayama argues. (AP Photo)

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Hu Jintao felt compelled to talk about democracy in the run-up to Beijing's Olympic Games. And Musharraf proved enough of a democrat to let himself be driven from office by the threat of impeachment. - Francis Fukuyama

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Modern Bullies Aren't World's Real Threat