Russia, Iran, and Autocratic Friendship Circles

I live my life by a simple set of rules.  Rule Number One?  Don’t go to jail.  It’s not relevant to today’s Wandering, but it always bears repeating.  Rules Number Two and Three, however, are germane: read, and read often.  The written word remains the most efficient way to spread ideas, and they can come from anywhere.  Case in point, this line from the novel The Light Brigade: “Any human power can be changed by human beings.  That is a truth, a constant.  Humans can’t build power structures that cannot be destroyed.  We are the power structure.”  I love that concept and want to apply it to a thought loitering in my mind—autocratic friendship circles.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine took a nasty turn recently as Iranian-made kamikaze drones started targeting civilian buildings and critical infrastructure across Ukraine.  Leaving aside how Russia seems intent on racking up war crimes like Stalin is grading their performance, Iran’s support marks the first time the country has gotten involved in a major European conflict.  Given how poorly Russia has fared in the conflict and in international opinion (though not nearly poorly enough, unfortunately), it seems odd that Tehran would look at the situation and think yeah, that seems like something we want in on.  Why would they do this?  Sure, Iran has a history of fighting Western interests via proxies, and yes, their economy can use whatever boost arms sales can provide, but I think the driving reason is more environmental.

The internet credits Jim Rohn with coining the phrase we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with.  Pair this with Dr Marshall Goldsmith’s thoughts (with Mark Reiter) on environment in his book Triggers: “We think we are in sync with our environment, but actually it’s at war with us.  We think we control environment but in fact it controls us.”  Together, the two points indicate that the people we spend the most time with are our environment, and our environment shapes who we are and what we do.  Now we come back to autocratic friendship circles.

Whenever Russia does something naughty, it can rely on its clique of fellow ne’er-do-wells to have its back.  It says something about a country when its closest partners are China, Iran, Syria, and North Korea.  I think it’s fair to say that the five of them are responsible for a truly depressing amount of the sum total of human suffering in the last century.  And much like any Mean Girl crew, none of them see anything wrong with each other’s horrifying behavior.  Assassinating political opponents on foreign soil?  Not a hint of condemnation.  Illegally annexing territory of a sovereign nation and launching a proxy insurgency to claim more in the future?  Nothing to see here.  Launching an unprovoked invasion of that same sovereign nation in a naked land grab attempt?  Not only do they fail to condemn it, they appear fully onboard.

There are two reasons why this autocratic friendship circle is so strong.  First, because it pays to have friends when you decide to cosplay as a tzar and the majority of the world treats you as a pariah.  No country can go it alone, a case proven by how even the infamous Hermit Kingdom of North Korea relies on lifelines to China and Russia to keep from collapsing in on its own incompetence.  Second, the autocratic friendship circle provides what Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jung Un, Bashar al-Assad, and Ali Khamenei all really want—a friend.  More importantly, a friend who never critiques.

At the surface level, autocratic regimes seem like an efficient way to get things done.  If only one person is making decisions, you don’t have to worry about pesky things like elections or compromise to make forward progress.  However, that advantage fades as that sole decision maker becomes a bottleneck.  The situation worsens as the decision maker inevitably surrounds him or herself with Yes Men that only feed the decision maker what they want to hear, regardless of its veracity.  Putin invading Ukraine, Xi doubling down on draconian COVID policies, Asaad using chemical weapons on his own people, and literally anything Kim Jung Un does are all examples of actions that a stable of sane advisors could have talked those respective dictators out of if they had any shred of humility left inside them.  We can now add shipping thousands of Iranian-made kamikaze drones and ballistic missiles to Russia as they target civilians to that list.

I like to imagine that Supreme Leader (not a joke title) Khamenei had a moment like this as he made such a terrible decision.  His advisors come to him with the proposal.  “Sir,” they say, “you know how Russia has become a comic book villain while also getting its collective posterior handed to it by Ukrainian forces?”  The Supreme Leader nods—of course he knows how his buddy Vlad is doing, such a shame how his invasion—I mean, ‘special military operation’ has gone.  “What if we tied ourselves inextricably to that situation?” the advisors suggest. 

Khamenei goes to answer, then stops himself with a frown.  Wheels long atrophied start cranking as he considers the ramifications of helping Russia double down on becoming the war crime champion of the century.  He opens his mouth to order the execution of his advisors for wasting his time with such a stupid idea when his sleeve slides down and reveals something colorful on his wrist– the friendship bracelet Putin made for him at their last autocratic friendship circle.  He smiles fondly, then gives the go-ahead for his country to further alienate itself from the world with little to no benefit in return. After all, what else are friends for?