Just two days ago, four people were killed and 20 more injured by a Russian missile strike in the Ukrainian city Zaporizhzhia. Putin is trying out new, more lethal ballistic missiles, continuing attacks that—according to President Zelensky—are entirely preventable. While visiting Kyiv in May 2023, RDI CEO Uriel Epshtein experienced how bad Russia’s attacks could get and how effective American defense systems are at stopping them. “The Kremlin launched six hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, nine Kalibr cruise missiles, three Iskander ballistic missiles, and several Iranian-made Shahed attack drones. Moscow was pursuing a terror campaign against Kyiv with some of its most formidable weapons, but it came to remarkably little effect,” Epshtein noted, citing the American Patriot missile system.

2. Make Putin pay already

The cost of arming Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion is a constant political football. An easy solution is still sitting there, staring us in the face—one that wouldn’t cost Americans anything. Over a year ago, RDI commissioned a report outlining the legal, practical, and moral case for the transfer of Russian frozen assets to Ukraine. This week, Greg Wilson took up the banner of this common sense idea, writing in a letter to the editor in The Washington Post, “If President Joe Biden does not seize all Russian sovereign assets in the United States to aid Ukraine at no cost to U.S. taxpayers, then President-elect Donald Trump should. This will be a litmus test for him: He either protects American taxpayers by using Russian assets first, or he shrinks from his peace-through-strength posture and fails to make Vladimir Putin pay for his illegal aggression against a peaceful neighbor.”

3. The geopolitics of short attention spans

The advent of social media has made it incredibly difficult to focus on anything, really. This feature of modern life can be harnessed by repressive regimes, argues Sam Kahn in Persuasion, noting all the major news stories that slip under our radar: “That’s China with its economic imperialism in Africa. That’s Russia testing out the capabilities of the Wagner Group in the Sahel—exactly where they think the West is least likely to notice.” He continues, “That’s Saudi Arabia’s long-standing war in Yemen. That’s Putin slotting his wars into the calendar wherever he thinks they will do the least public-relations damage.” Does the fate of the democratic world depend on strengthening our attention spans?

4. Iran's Axis of Resistance is losing its wheels

For years, Iran has made a name for itself through its ability to project power across the Middle East via its axis of proxies. But it has been a tough year for Iran and its so-called “Axis of Resistance.” The current reality is that Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon have been severely diminished by Israel and the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria has essentially cut off Iran’s ability to project influence into the Levant. And with a number of Iran’s axis members weakened, the remaining ones are vulnerable. Protests within Iran against the regime are also impacting Tehran's ability to respond to its international problems. Iran is far from seeing the collapse of its regime, but right now, the momentum is against the mullahs.

5. Can we fix what everyone agrees is broken?

Our election system suffers from lack of competition, gerrymandering, and poor representation. To address those problems, the system needs reform. Easier said than done. A recent article from The xxxxxx articulates the problem of electoral reform quite well: “we’re a democracy badly in need of reform, and at some level most people agree about that. But at the same time we’re pretty unhappy about the options for reform that happen to be on the table.” The authors offer a path forward, recommending that the US adopt a system of “open list proportional representation” used by other democracies around the world to elect their national legislatures.

Lessons From South Korea’s Six-Hour Dictatorship

Public servants can prevent authoritarian drift, but only if they get out of bed for their democracy.

By Christopher Schaefer — December 4, 2024