The Dictators Who Want to Run the World

The celebrated historian and journalist, Anne Applebaum, joins David Aaronovitch, journalist, broadcaster, and author, to discuss the networks undermining global democracy—and how we can combat them.

Anne Applebaum has been monitoring the erosion of democratic systems for decades. Currently, a new threat has emerged: autocracies are collaborating to maintain power. These regimes are not led by a single dictator but are supported by complex networks involving kleptocratic financial systems, security services, and technological experts specialising in surveillance, propaganda, and disinformation. Countries with such centralised autocracies include Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Angola, Myanmar, Cuba, Syria, Zimbabwe, and many others.

Anne Applebaum will explain how rogue states endure sanctions, circulate their wealth, and redefine the post-war ‘rules-based order', and how the democratic world has unintentionally supported this new reality, risking the loss of control over our economic futures and democratic systems.

Join us in-person or online to understand the urgent,…