Defending Democracy in 2022 and Beyond
President Biden’s virtual democracy summit held last month was in one sense a breath of fresh air. For the first time in decades, we witnessed world leaders recommit to values that have made us relatively prosperous, safe and free for 75 years. Yet leaders’ words will ring hollow if not backed up by actions commensurate to the scale of the autocratic challenge. The free world cannot afford to go back to business as usual, which is why the Summit should be the first action in a process to build a global alliance of democracies.
The Summit for Democracy met against a perilous global backdrop. Russia threatening an offensive into Europe; China mounting its threats against democratic Taiwan and blacklisting Lithuania from international trade; and Belarus weaponizing migrants on Europe’s border.
Those commentators complaining that the Summit creates division in the world should look at just the past few weeks and understand that the dividing line has been drawn by the autocrats. The only question in doubt is how long the free world will allow these ‘divide and rule’ tactics — a cocktail of interference, coercion and threats — to continue.
This year will see a ‘Year of Action’ following the summit. One side of that coin must be internal democratic renewal. The events of January 6th at Congress underscored that even advanced democracies have become vulnerable. All democracies must do their own homework in the year ahead, and many leaders should take a hard look in the mirror.
However, the other side of the coin is pushing back against authoritarian advance. Together, the world’s democracies make up around 60 percent of global GDP. We have the power and the ability to defend our values, but to save our free world must be a conscious choice.
In one year, President Biden will re-convene the Summit for Democracy physically to assess progress. The free world now faces a choice: coast on autopilot until the 2022 Summit and rehash last year’s speech paying lip service to democracy; or roll up your sleeves and work together with other like-minded partners to strengthen the spine of the free world.
On a global level there are three specific initiatives that a nascent alliance of democracies could undertake.
First, we should unite to confront economic coercion, especially from China. Beijing uses its economic firepower and strategic investment to bend governments and multinationals to its will. We must blunt that weapon by developing a mechanism similar to NATO’s Article 5. The world’s democracies could state that an economic attack on a democracy would elicit a response from all, whether that’s economic retaliation against the aggressor, creating a global credit facility to cushion the impacts of coercion, or just consumers making a choice to support businesses facing coercion for their values-based choices.
Second, we should see the bigger picture on the existential question of emerging technology. United, we will win the global race for new technology and set its global norms and standards in our own image. Divided, with fragmented regulatory systems and approaches, China will win and set the norms of the Internet of Things in its image. Tech can be made to facilitate both democracy and autocracy; it falls to us to make the democratic model attractive with greater cooperation on standards-setting, from election integrity to platform regulation, data flows and privacy.
And finally, we should commit to do more to support those on the front lines defending our democracy. This means finding new means to coordinate penalties against states that brutalize or suppress peaceful protests, from targeted sanctions to financial and tangible support for pro-democracy champions. People fighting for freedom should be supported with deeds as well as words.
Autocrats seek to weaponize our freedoms to divide and undermine the legitimacy of our democracies with disinformation, economic coercion and cyber assaults. They get away with it because we allow them to.
Leaders have made commitments to defend democracy. We will hold them to those commitments. Exactly six months after Biden’s Summit for Democracy, my foundation — the Alliance of Democracies Foundation — will convene the fifth Copenhagen Democracy Summit. The first summit was opened by Joe Biden himself, who has long championed the cause of democratic caucusing and renewal. Next year we will look at the progress made and discuss how we take further steps to strengthen the unity and resolve of our free societies. President Biden’s Democracy Summit showed what determined American global leadership can do, but it now falls to all leaders to use their pledges at this event to kick-start a process that will put the autocrats back in their place.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen is former NATO Secretary General and Founder of the Alliance of Democracies Foundation
