A story in the Wall Street Journal illustrates some of the dictator’s incentives and trade-offs. It shows that it is not easy to be a dictator, how his country cannot be innovative and rich, and how it is not fun to live there even for somebody happy to serve the regime (Ann M. Simmons, “Spy Mania Sows Fear Among Russia’s Scientists,” October 2).
The illustration focuses on Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. A dictator needs a powerful army, a fortiori if he intends to invade foreign countries. A powerful army has always required state-of-the-art technology, which is now based on advanced science. Recall the chilling 2018 video where Putin showcased his new hypersonic missiles with an animation of one whizzing around the earth to bring a nuclear bomb to what looked like Florida. Hypersonic missiles, which travel at more than five times the speed of sound—Putin even said 20 times, which is even more impressive if you don’t know that the cost of lying for a dictator is low. Hypersonic missiles have since been used in Ukraine. They don’t seem to be available to the American armed forces yet. Their development requires advanced physics in the field of high-speed aerodynamics or hypersonics. At the beginning of Putin’s reign, his regime financed research in this field and encouraged its scientists to participate in related scientific conferences in the Western world.
The dictatorial regime now claims that its scientific advances may have been partly leaked during these international conferences, although this is probably part of the two signals it wants to transmit: first, to external enemies, actual and potential, that the Russian government has new missiles more effective than any other in the world; second, to its scientists. academics, and apparatchiks, that any loyalty lapse will be severely punished.
Individuals being cheap and the rule of law inexistent, an easy way for the dictator to achieve these goals is to charge with treason the very scientists and academics who did the tyrant’s bidding. Since 2018 and especially since the invasion of Ukraine, a number of scientists who were involved in hypersonic research, even only at the theoretical level, have been arrested. Two pictures accompanying the WSJ story show two of the detained old men: physicist Anatoly Maslov, now 78 and recently condemned to 14 years in prison, looks with incomprehension and terror as a Russian praetorian manipulates his handcuffs; physicist Victor Kudryavstev looks despondent behind bars in a “court” hearing in 2019. Other documented cases are cited by the WSJ. Trials for treason are held in secret and their consequences are not pleasant.
The Wall Street Journal also reports another reason a dictator can arrest innocent individuals:
The suspicion among some observers is that the Russian security agencies are pursuing these arrests in part “to convince themselves, and to convince Putin, that Russia has really advanced scientific achievements and that spies from all over the world are trying to steal them,” [Russian lawyer] Smirnov said.
Within the deep state (the real deep state) of a dictatorial regime, information is unreliable and misinformation is an essential part of the game.
Note another consequence of these persecutions: Russian scientists are now afraid and have a strong incentive to avoid meaningful research in areas somehow related to military affairs. New scientific and technological developments are less likely to help Putin or his successor strengthen their military force and attack foreign countries, which would be a good thing, of course. Yet, future Russian dictators may, like Stalin or Kim Yong Un, continue to reign over poor and despondent subjects.
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