Democracy Has Enemies

Our Obligation Beyond Borders

Once we’ve secured our own democracy, our obligation doesn’t end—it begins anew. We owe justice to those whose freedoms are crushed by authoritarian regimes that meddled in our affairs, oppressed their citizens, and undermined democratic principles worldwide.

Forgiveness is not on the table for tyrants. Justice is.

Let me be clear about what this means—and what it doesn’t. This isn’t a call for the kind of cynical interventionism that characterized American foreign policy for decades, where we supported convenient dictators and launched misguided wars that served narrow interests rather than democratic values. America’s past failures—backing authoritarian regimes when expedient, conducting regime change operations for strategic advantage rather than human rights—created legitimate skepticism about American global engagement.

But the choice isn’t between cynical power projection and moral abdication. It’s between learning from those failures to engage more ethically or abandoning engagement entirely while authoritarians fill the vacuum. And yes, this could mean the use of military force when necessary—not for imperial expansion or strategic convenience, but for genuine accountability to democratic principles that these regimes have attacked.

This is about holding accountable regimes that have made themselves enemies of democratic values through their actions, not imposing democracy on unwilling populations. When authoritarian governments interfere in our democratic processes while crushing dissent at home, when they build surveillance states with stolen democratic technology while exporting oppression globally, they forfeit any claim to protection under principles they systematically violate.

I know what you’re thinking. “This sounds like neoconservativism. This sounds like the Bush doctrine. This sounds like endless wars for democracy.” I don’t care what it sounds like to you. We have now witnessed the consequences of moral failure, and I will not participate in the comfortable delusions that created this crisis.

Looking the other way while the Chinese Communist Party accumulated power through stolen American innovation, with complicit Western capitalists selling them the tools of oppression. Looking the other way while the People’s Republic of China transformed into an AI surveillance panopticon that makes Orwell’s darkest fantasies seem quaint. Looking the other way while Putin built a global network of corruption and interference that reached into every democratic nation on earth.

This is fucking unacceptable.

You think “sovereignty” is a moral category that trumps these considerations? I disagree. And I’m going to tell you exactly why your conception of sovereignty is not just wrong—it’s morally bankrupt.

The False Choice

The foreign policy establishment has trapped us in a false binary: either we respect national sovereignty and allow authoritarian regimes to do whatever they want within their borders, or we become imperial crusaders imposing democracy at gunpoint. This is intellectual cowardice disguised as sophisticated analysis.

There is a third path, and it’s the only morally coherent one: democratic accountability for those who have attacked democracy.

When Vladimir Putin interfered in American elections while crushing dissent in Russia, he forfeited any claim to non-interference in Russian affairs. When the Chinese Communist Party stole American technology while building concentration camps for Uyghurs, they made their domestic oppression a legitimate concern for every democracy they robbed. When the Iranian regime funded terrorism abroad while hanging protesters at home, they declared war on the very principle of human dignity that sovereignty is supposed to protect.

These aren’t separate issues. They’re the same authoritarian project operating on different fronts—the systematic destruction of democratic values wherever they exist, whether in Tehran, Moscow, Beijing, or Washington D.C.

The Sovereignty Shell Game

The people who invoke “sovereignty” to defend authoritarian regimes are playing a shell game with moral categories. They want you to believe that respecting borders means ignoring what happens within them, that non-interference is a sacred principle that trumps all other considerations.

But sovereignty was never meant to protect oppression—it was meant to protect self-determination. And there is no self-determination under authoritarian rule. There is only the systematic elimination of the capacity for self-determination.

When we invoke sovereignty to protect regimes that deny their people basic human rights, we’re not defending principle—we’re defending the right of tyrants to tyrannize without consequences. We’re using international law as a shield for the very forces that make international law meaningless.

The Chinese Communist Party doesn’t respect sovereignty—they violate it daily through cyber warfare, economic coercion, and systematic interference in other nations’ internal affairs. Putin doesn’t respect sovereignty—he’s built his entire foreign policy around violating it through assassination, election interference, and territorial aggression. The Iranian regime doesn’t respect sovereignty—they export terrorism and oppression across every border they can reach.

Yet somehow, when democracies consider holding these regimes accountable, suddenly sovereignty becomes sacred. Suddenly the principle these authoritarians routinely violate becomes the shield that protects them from consequences.

This is moral incoherence dressed up as legal principle.

To the anti-imperialist left and pro-authoritarian right, your claim that American interference in the foreign affairs of other countries makes Xi Jinping and Putin’s anti-democratic moves fair game, I have only one thing to say: “I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.”

The Technology Transfer Catastrophe

The most damning example of our moral failure is what we allowed to happen with technology transfer to authoritarian regimes. For decades, Western corporations and governments facilitated the transfer of cutting-edge technology to the Chinese Communist Party, knowing full well how that technology would be used.

We gave them the tools to build the most sophisticated surveillance state in human history. We taught them how to use artificial intelligence for population control. We provided the systems they now use to track, monitor, and control over a billion people. We didn’t just look the other way—we actively participated in building the infrastructure of oppression.

And we did it for profit. American corporations sold their own country’s technological advantages to a regime they knew would use those advantages to oppress its people and undermine American interests. Western venture capitalists funded Chinese companies that they knew would serve the surveillance state. Tech executives shared trade secrets with a government they knew was building concentration camps.

This wasn’t just poor judgment—it was moral collaboration with authoritarian oppression. And the excuse? “Business is business. Politics is politics. Sovereignty means we can’t interfere with what other countries do internally.”

Bullshit.

When you provide the tools for oppression, you become complicit in that oppression. When you profit from authoritarianism, you become responsible for its consequences. When you strengthen regimes that attack democracy, you become an enemy of democracy yourself.

The comfortable fiction that business and politics are separate spheres allowed Western capitalism to become the funding mechanism for global authoritarianism. The principle of sovereignty became the excuse for moral abdication.

The Putin Network

Vladimir Putin didn’t just interfere in American elections—he built a global network of corruption that reached into every democratic institution he could penetrate. He funded far-right movements across Europe. He corrupted politicians in dozens of countries. He weaponized social media to spread disinformation and division throughout the democratic world.

All while systematically destroying civil society in Russia. Murdering journalists. Poisoning dissidents. Rigging elections. Imprisoning opposition leaders. Turning an entire nation into a mafia state designed to serve his personal power and global ambitions.

The sovereignty principle says we should respect Russia’s borders and allow Putin to do whatever he wants within them. But Putin never respected anyone else’s borders. He made the internal affairs of every democracy his business through systematic interference and corruption.

When a regime exports authoritarianism, it forfeits any claim to protection from the principle of sovereignty. When a dictator makes other countries’ democratic processes his target, he makes his own autocracy a legitimate target for democratic intervention.

The Iranian Terror State

The Iranian regime has spent decades funding terrorism across the Middle East while hanging protesters in Tehran’s squares. They’ve bankrolled Hamas, Hezbollah, and dozens of other terrorist organizations while systematically oppressing women, minorities, and anyone who dares to speak for freedom.

They’ve plotted to assassinate American officials on American soil. They’ve provided weapons that killed American soldiers. They’ve funded the very forces that America has spent trillions of dollars and thousands of lives fighting.

All while the sovereignty principle supposedly protects them from consequences for their actions. All while the international community treats their oppression of the Iranian people as an “internal matter” not subject to outside intervention.

But there are no internal matters when a regime’s internal oppression is funded by external terrorism. There are no sovereign rights for governments that systematically violate the sovereignty of other nations. There are no protections for regimes that have declared war on the very principles that sovereignty is meant to protect.

The Chinese Genocide

The Chinese Communist Party is conducting genocide against the Uyghur people while building the most sophisticated surveillance and control apparatus in human history. They’ve created a system of oppression so total, so technologically advanced, so systematically dehumanizing that it represents a qualitatively new form of authoritarianism.

They’re not just oppressing their people—they’re conducting experiments in human control that they export to other authoritarian regimes around the world. They’re building the prototype for digital totalitarianism that every aspiring dictator studies and seeks to implement.

And they’re doing it with technology stolen from the democratic world. With innovations developed by free societies and then weaponized against the very concept of freedom. With tools created to expand human possibility now used to eliminate human agency entirely.

The sovereignty principle says this is China’s internal affair. That what happens to the Uyghurs is not the business of the democratic world. That genocide conducted with our own stolen technology is somehow protected by international law.

This is not just moral blindness—it’s moral suicide. When we allow sovereignty to protect genocide, we make sovereignty meaningless. When we treat systematic dehumanization as an internal matter, we abandon our own humanity.

The Democratic Obligation

Democracy is not just a form of government—it’s a moral commitment to human dignity and self-determination. When authoritarian regimes attack democracy abroad while denying it at home, they declare war on that moral commitment. They make themselves enemies of the principle that gives their own sovereignty whatever legitimacy it might claim.

The spirit of democracy should recognize that it’s under siege. And yes, it should grab its fucking sword and point it outward.

Our obligation is not to impose democracy through force—it’s to defend democracy against those who attack it. Our responsibility is not to invade every non-democratic country—it’s to hold accountable those non-democratic countries that have invaded our democratic processes.

The regimes that interfered in our elections, corrupted our institutions, stole our technology, and funded our extremists have forfeited any claim to protection under principles they’ve systematically violated. They’ve made themselves accountable to the democratic values they’ve attacked.

This isn’t about spreading democracy everywhere—it’s about defending democracy from those who’ve made it their target. This isn’t about imposing our values on unwilling populations—it’s about supporting the billions of people living under regimes that have attacked our values while denying theirs.

Justice, Not Forgiveness

I said at the beginning that forgiveness is not on the table for tyrants. Let me be clear about what justice means in this context.

Justice means targeted sanctions against regime officials, oligarchs, and enablers who profit from oppression. It means asset freezes and travel bans for those who build surveillance states and fund terrorism. It means cutting off access to Western financial systems for institutions that serve authoritarian power.

Justice means international legal accountability through bodies like the International Criminal Court, bringing charges against those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, and systematic oppression. It means refusing to let diplomatic immunity protect war criminals and human rights violators.

Justice means technological and financial support for dissidents, civil society organizations, and democratic movements fighting oppression from within these regimes. It means providing secure communication tools, funding independent media, and creating pathways for those seeking to organize resistance to tyranny.

Justice means economic isolation for regimes that export authoritarianism—cutting off trade relationships that fund oppression, ending technology transfers that enable surveillance states, and creating economic consequences for countries that systematically violate human rights while attacking democratic institutions abroad.

And yes, justice means the credible threat and, when necessary, the use of military force against regimes that pose existential threats to democratic values and human dignity. Not for conquest, not for territorial gain, not for strategic advantage—but for accountability to the principles these regimes have violated through their actions.

Justice means recognizing that authoritarian regimes are not legitimate governments but occupying forces holding their own people hostage. That supporting the liberation of oppressed populations isn’t imperialism—it’s solidarity with the human desire for dignity and self-determination.

Justice means understanding that we cannot secure democracy in one country while ignoring the global authoritarian network that attacks democracy everywhere. That our security depends on the security of democratic values wherever they’re threatened.

Justice means refusing to let sovereignty become a shield for oppression, non-interference become an excuse for moral abdication, and international law become a protection racket for the world’s worst regimes.

The Realist Delusion

The so-called “realists” will tell you this is naive idealism. That we must accept the world as it is rather than as we wish it to be. That working with authoritarian regimes is more practical than confronting them. That stability matters more than freedom.

These realists gave us Trump. These realists allowed the Chinese Communist Party to build a surveillance state with stolen American technology. These realists watched Putin construct a global corruption network while calling it “pragmatic engagement.” These realists treated genocide as a trade issue and election interference as the price of doing business.

Their realism has proven to be the most unrealistic position possible. Their stability has created chaos. Their pragmatism has empowered the very forces that threaten everything they claimed to protect.

The truly realistic position is recognizing that authoritarian regimes are inherently unstable, inherently aggressive, inherently threatening to any society that values human dignity. That appeasing them doesn’t create peace—it creates the conditions for greater conflict. That ignoring their crimes doesn’t make those crimes disappear—it makes them easier to commit.

The Path Forward

Once we’ve restored democratic integrity in America—and we will—our work doesn’t end. It expands. Because the threats to American democracy didn’t originate solely within American borders, and they can’t be defeated solely within American borders.

We owe justice to the millions of people living under regimes that attacked our democracy while crushing theirs. We owe accountability to the billions who dream of the freedoms these regimes sought to destroy in America and deny at home.

This doesn’t mean endless wars for strategic advantage or cynical regime change operations. It means principled engagement based on democratic values rather than narrow interests. It means distinguishing between military action for moral accountability and military action for imperial expansion.

It means recognizing that in an interconnected world, no democracy is safe while authoritarianism thrives anywhere. That the technology these regimes use to oppress their people will eventually be turned against free people everywhere. That the corruption networks they build to undermine foreign democracies will ultimately corrupt every institution they touch.

It means understanding that sovereignty without human dignity is meaningless, that borders without freedom are just the boundaries of larger prisons, and that international law that protects oppression is not law at all—it’s the organized abandonment of justice.

The Moral Imperative

Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And authoritarian regimes that attack democracy while oppressing their people have made themselves enemies of human dignity itself.

The comfortable position is to treat this as someone else’s problem. To hide behind sovereignty and non-interference while people suffer under regimes that recognize no such limits on their own behavior. To pretend that what happens to others doesn’t affect us, that their oppression isn’t connected to our security, that their freedom isn’t tied to ours.

That comfortable position is what created this crisis. That moral abdication is what allowed authoritarianism to spread, to strengthen, to reach into our own institutions and corrupt them from within.

The uncomfortable truth is that we are all connected now—by technology, by economics, by the global flows of information and influence that make isolation impossible. In such a world, there are no purely internal affairs when those affairs involve the systematic denial of human dignity.

The choice is not between intervention and non-intervention. The choice is between conscious engagement with the moral implications of our interconnected world and unconscious complicity with the forces that seek to destroy everything we claim to value.

I choose engagement. I choose accountability. I choose justice for the oppressed and consequences for their oppressors.

You can call it whatever you want. Just don’t call it optional.

The revolution is linguistic honesty. The rebellion is calling things by their proper names. The resistance is refusing to participate in the euphemistic erosion of moral clarity.

Authoritarianism is authoritarianism. Oppression is oppression. Genocide is genocide.

And our obligation to oppose these things doesn’t end at our borders any more than their threat to us begins at theirs.

Remember what’s real.