We understood nothing about Russia, China and Iran

Public opinion, even in Italy, has not understood the deterioration of the regimes in Russia, China and Iran.?The speech by Marco Mayer, professor of Cybersecurity at LUISS University and Intelligence and National Security at Lumsa.

March 18, 2024 09:15

Over the last five years, Russia, Iran and China have changed profoundly.?The authoritarian involution at the domestic level and the unprecedented aggressiveness at the international level constitute an unpleasant yet widely documented reality in terms of empirical evidence.

The underlying problem is that in numerous countries around the world - including Italy - public opinion has not yet fully understood how radically the situation in these countries has worsened in the space of a few years.

The Moscow regime is no longer the one in which?Alexei Navalny?could run for mayor of Moscow and carry out his election campaign almost regularly.?Today's China is where 200,000 Hong Kong citizens have fled due to the repressive laws introduced in the former British colony in 2020-21 by the Chinese Communist Party.?In 2023, the Iranian regime eliminated the few spaces of freedom that existed in the country, severely hitting hundreds of thousands of young people and women protesting the death of Mahsa Amini.

China provided and provides raw materials and dual materials to support the Russian invasion of Ukraine.?Iran fuels the war and terrorist activities of the Houthis who block the Red Sea, of Hezbollah in Lebanon and of Hamas in Gaza.?The Russian Federation with its mercenaries (renamed from Wagner Group to Africa Corps) is destabilizing Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and other African countries.

In such a negative international situation, the first thing to do is to be aware of what has happened in the last five years and to be fully aware of it, which unfortunately is not yet happening in Europe.

In Japan, India, the Philippines and other Asian countries, awareness of the threat posed by China's latest policy and the rearmament of the Dragon has grown.?A similar alarm has spread widely in Finland, Sweden and the Baltic countries towards Russia.?Fear of Iranian expansionism is present in various Gulf countries, Egypt and other Mediterranean countries damaged by the Suez blockade.

However – less than three months before the elections for the Strasbourg Parliament – the majority of European citizens are not adequately informed about what is happening in Russia, Iran and China and about the dangers that could loom over our freedoms.

Many factors contribute to blurring the renewed distinction between the free world and totalitarianism which is at the basis of the birth of Asian and African democracies no less than the "Western" ones.?Incidentally - regarding the term and concept of totalitarianism - Gianfranco Pasquino was right when he?wrote?in the Treccani Encyclopedia that it is a category of political science that should not be abandoned.

We can discuss how to react to such a dangerous situation and think about what are the best actions to take in terms of deterrence to prevent escalation.?However, I would like there to be substantial convergence at a political and academic level on incontrovertible facts such as those I have cited in this article, on the right as well as on the left, in the secular world, in the Vatican and in other religious communities.

During the last five years it hasn't been like this because too many have acted like ostriches.?Many subjects have economic interests in authoritarian regimes such as, for example, the so-called Big Con multinationals (where?Con?stands for?Consulting?).?How many times has the aseptic language of their reports covered dramatic realities, but ignored by everyone, from the World Global Forum in Davos to Putin's Valdai Club...

From the 1990s onwards, the image of a world sweetened in language and substance became established in which, on the basis of political correctness, a dictator with imperial ambitions like Vladimir Putin was transformed into an "autocrat", a term whose meaning few understand.

On February 24, 2022 (if not before) this world has ended and the time has come to call things by their name.

The problem is that in Hungary, in Germany, in other European countries (and also in Italy) Russia, Iran and China can count on many beachheads: compliant publishers, import-export companies, good managers for all the seasons, ignorant politicians or worse... This is the real game that will be played in the European elections and that the great disinformation machine is trying to obscure.

History, and the Shoah in particular, have taught that we cannot be lambs with wolves.?The first thing to do is to recognize the facts, not as happened with the International Red Cross which did not say a word about the extermination camps.

Anyone who denies the responsibilities of Putin, Khamenei and Xi Jinping in the current international situation, or worse - as Giuseppe Conte or Matteo Salvini propose - wants to suspend aid to the resistance of the Ukrainian people, is objectively complicit in Russian aggression.?Once again, as after the Second World War, the main path is deterrence and containment, in the hope of starting negotiations on an equal basis.

But for believers there is a further possibility that should not be underestimated: the power of prayer.?Thirty years ago Cardinal Renato Martino, at the time Apostolic Nuncio to the UN, allowed me to attend the choral prayer of the Poor Clares of the cloistered monastery of Boves.?At that time, in all the monasteries of the world, people were praying for the success of the Beijing Conference.?It was an unforgettable experience.

On the last day of the farce of the presidential elections in Russia, I ask myself and?Startmag?readers if it would make any sense to think of something similar in favor of the tormented Ukrainian people.?What do you think of the idea that in all the convents and monasteries of the world they pray for Putin's conversion on the Road to Damascus?