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Don’t fall for the myth of the ‘brittle’ strongman
Liberals need to fix the dysfunctions within their own systems rather than wait for authoritarian leaders to burn themselves out.
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(From left) Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Tianjin in September 2025 for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit.
PHOTO: AFP
Adrian Wooldridge
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If there was still any doubt that we live in an age of strongmen, it was snuffed out on the night of Jan 4, when one strongman seized another, in his Venezuelan lair, and flew him to the US. Mr Donald Trump has declared that he is now “ultimately” in charge of Venezuela, and his deputy chief of staff, Mr Stephen Miller, poured scorn on idle talk about “international niceties”, proclaiming that we live in a world “that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power”. Which raises another question: How long will this new world last?
Will the strongmen burn themselves out and the rules-based global order reassert itself? Or are we in for the long haul?
