From Ankara to Beijing to Budapest to Moscow, wannabe sultans, emperors, tsars and kings trample the vestiges of democracy in order to feed their addiction to power. This talk will explain the “autocracy playbook” used across the globe by Putin, Xi, Orban, Erdogan and others to solidify and extend their illiberal stranglehold on leadership. Furthermore, this presentation will address potential consequences of the worldwide surge in autocracy for the United States.
Bob Beck, a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, retired to NH with his wife, Meg, in 2020 after a 30+ year career overseas with the United States Government. In retirement, he teaches foreign policy classes for Keene State's CALL program and Rivier University’s RISE program, speaks frequently across the Monadnock region of New Hampshire on the discipline, and writes a monthly column on international relations for the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript and the Brattleboro Reformer. Bob has a BA in Soviet/Eastern European Studies from the University of Maryland and an MA in International Relations from Boston University.