Xi, Putin, Khamenei: In 2023 Same Beds, Same Bad Dreams
The three caballeros peddling a new world order all face growing political fissures at home that threaten the foundations of their regimes
Like gift wrapped fruitcakes, cats climbing Christmas trees, and holiday party hangovers, new year forecasts are appearing in quantity as December draws to a close. From the invasion of Ukraine and the crypto collapse to a possible recession, the old year’s crises and policy conundrums provide ample grist for predictions, provocative prognoses included.
But as the forecasters opine, they should reflect on what won’t change in 2023 as well as what could. Take the outlook for Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Ali Khamenei. For China, Russia, and Iran, the top tier of US national security threats, it’s not been a good year for their bad boys. Nonetheless, the three are forging ahead despite domestic unrest, the failure of signature policies, and for Putin, a war meant to display Russia’s power that is doing anything but.
Compare Xi’s performance at the Arab summit in Riyadh and developments in China this month. Marketing his new international order, Xi preened before the crowd while infections surged at home following the end of his zero-Covid policy. Xi abandoned his ballyhooed zero-Covid “success” and its mass quarantines after protests erupted over more lockdowns. With sickness spiking, it’s doubtful Beijing is ready, or even has a plan on how to fix the mess.
In Russia, Putin has ordered his badly mauled forces to prepare a new year offensive in Ukraine. Failing on the battlefield or not, he isn’t mincing words: in 2023 Russia’s war will mean more of the same. Putin is all but acknowledging that the end of the “special military operation”—including its mounting toll in casualties and costs—is nowhere in sight. He said as much last week, denying another “mobilization” is in the offing, while allowing that he expects a long war.
In Iran, the Supreme Leader similarly is holding his course. Protests over a young woman’s death in police custody now encompass every class, age group, and ethnic faction. Worse yet for the mullahs, strikes, demonstrations, and open disrespect for the religious elite include broad-based demands for political as well as social reform. Neither mass arrests and executions nor Khamenei’s pronouncements are curbing protests or their threat to the regime.
To be sure, some may well see potential for the trio to take a different tack. Xi, Putin, and Khamenei obviously are ignoring the rule of holes—when you’re in one, stop digging. But uncertainties raise possibilities. Internal divisions, policy missteps, or failed foreign adventures can cumulate, compelling even strongmen to make accommodations. Who’s to say the effects won’t catalyze talks on Ukraine, or steps to lower tensions in Asia, or even dialogue with Iran?
But for US policymakers as well as prognosticators, there’s another way to think about the outlook for 2023. Napoleon suggested the alternative in 1805 when he counseled his generals at the Battle of Austerlitz: never interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake. Xi, Putin, and Khamenei all face economic, social, and political problems that are coming home to roost. With Napoleon’s advice in mind, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to consider letting each stay on track.
Xi’s decision to sunset his zero-Covid policy is a case in point. Astonishingly low vaccination rates, a mediocre Chinese vaccine, and a highly vulnerable population represent a public health nightmare. Add the fact that pulling the plug on Covid controls has gutted comprehensive testing, blinding authorities to the pandemic’s actual spread. With only 138,000 ICU beds for 1.4 billion people and hospitals filling fast, analysts suggest the country could face from one to two million deaths in the months ahead.
A public health crisis isn’t Xi’s only problem. In 2022 China tallied record low growth and its languishing economy is raising political risks. Indeed, with youth unemployment in cities near 20 percent, protesters took to the streets this fall over more than their confinement. Will they do it again? China’s leaders may think so. They’re diluting Xi’s directives that have hammered business—for example, easing financing for real estate developers and making nice with technology companies—trying to juice growth to five percent in the new year.
For Putin, who is making clear Russia is now on a war footing, it’s hard to see any sign that his options, much less his willingness to entertain a new direction, will bring Russia a happier 2023. For one thing, at home the effects of his catastrophic invasion are compounding. Labor shortages are strapping industry including defense; the talent flight to Europe and the near abroad to escape military call-ups has hamstrung the technology sector; and sanctions are hurting average Russians as well as the Kremlin’s war machine.
More ominously, the abject failure of Putin’s invasion has exposed the real costs of his regime’s pervasive corruption. Incompetent commanders, criminally deficit military supplies, communications, and logistics, as well as poorly trained troops and inept battlefield leadership are the tip of the iceberg. Together, they point to the high likelihood that the rot pervades not only Russia’s defense industries but also crucial supporting sectors, with all that implies for the would-be Peter the Great’s prospect to turn his failing imperial overreach around.
In Iran, Khamenei, aging and ailing, may well wonder if the actuarial tables that apply to 89-year-olds just might be relevant to his regime. To be sure, the brutal repression of protests continues. But so do broad based demonstrations not only for greater freedom, but also fundamental reform. As Carnegie Endowment senior fellow Karim Sadjadpour noted last week, “the protest movement has not yet reached that tipping point, but there are ample signs that a critical mass of Iranian society has doubts about the regime’s continued viability.”
In the final analysis, experts are usually cautious about predicting major political turnabouts, much less any regime’s demise. And well they should be when it comes to China, Russia and Iran. Xi has consolidated his power in a third five-year term. Putin lacks challengers despite his Ukraine debacle. And protests notwithstanding, Khamenei retains a massive repressive apparatus and the willingness to use it in order to keep the ayatollahs’ grip.
That said, authoritarian regimes are stable until they’re not. Or as Gideon Rachman, author of Age of the Strongman: How the Cult of the Leader Threatens Democracy Around the World, put it: “Durable political systems ultimately rely on institutions, not individuals.”
For the Biden administration and its allies in the new year it’s an argument for staying the course, costly though it may be, strengthening Asian alliances, supporting Ukraine, and confronting Iran as the new world order’s three caballeros steam ahead, and reap the consequences.