The Despot's Accomplice

Democracy Retreats

Democracy gained momentum worldwide after the fall of the Soviet Union in December, 1991. But the spread of democracy ceased in 2006, and political freedom beat a slow but sure retreat as the United States and other Western democracies failed to promote global democracy effectively in the years that followed. The promise of the Arab Spring and Western interventions in Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq disappointed. Violence and disorder, rather than burgeoning democracy, replaced former iron-fisted but stable regimes. Now the West finds itself afflicted with “democracy promotion fatigue.” Meanwhile, the election of Donald Trump and British voters’ approval of Brexit have skeptics wondering whether democracy really yields the wisest decisions.

As democracy loses momentum, some in the West argue that the United States should get out of the state-building business altogether and treat all nations equally, regardless of their system of government. Another school of thought makes a distinction between dictators who support US interests and those who...