Psychological defeats are the most serious of all. Nations suffer the consequences for many years, even generations.
China was defeated in its own country by the British and French empires; Spain, in Cuba; the United States, in Vietnam; France, in Algeria; the USSR, in the cold war. Defeats write history as much or more than victories and, of course, condition the present.
China, Russia and the United States want to win not only to dominate the world, but to forget the humiliations of the past. The same goes for Xi, Putin and Trump. It is a personal thing, characteristic of authoritarian leaders. They confuse their private interest with the interest of the State.
History teaches us that no one, no leader, wins anything forever. Victories are ephemeral compared to historical time. Even those that last more than a century fade away with the next twist of fate.
When the going gets rough, open societies survive more easily than closed ones. Where tyrannies, violence and subjugation had flourished, defeats have been far deeper and more lasting.
In the fall, autocrats drag down peoples and states. This has happened throughout history. It is likely, therefore, that Xi will drag China, Putin Russia and Trump the United States if he regains the presidency next year.
All three are united by the personal experience of psychological defeat, of humiliation, of not having been accepted in their respective societies. Xi went through prison and ruin, the degradation of his father and the suicide of his sister.
Putin's mother had him unmarried, and he never met his father. Mother and son lived very modestly until he joined the KGB. When the Berlin Wall fell and he lost his job in Soviet counterintelligence, he drove a taxi and returned to a small apartment in Sant .
Trump grew up in Queens, New York's most mobster borough, far from the upper Manhattan elites who, despite his fortune, never considered him one of their own.
After winning for several years, all three have now begun to lose. They are at the gates of the final redemption. If Trump doesn't return to the White House, he'll be done for good, but America will move on.
Putin and Xi have it more difficult. They are not Mao or Stalin. They can't be, and that's good for the world. Technology allows them to subjugate the masses, but not to mobilize them. Progress has strengthened individualism even in the most authoritarian regimes. Chinese and Russians put up with their leaders, but they don't follow them. They are not messianic. We see no patriotic fervor on the streets of Russia and China, and this collective prudence should please us.
Xi and Putin dream of leading changes not seen in a hundred years, but they cannot change their own people. Xi has a national rejuvenation project that is almost impossible to fulfill. Demographic projections indicate that by the end of the century China will have lost almost half of its population.
Russia, already experiencing demographic decline, will also see Muslims become the majority by 2063.
The size of the population and the territory have been decisive in consolidating geostrategic hegemonies. Xi, Putin and Trump know this. They know what they are facing: the end of a China at the center of the world, as well as the end of a white, Christian Russia and America.
How will history remember them? All three are obsessed with the place they will occupy in the books that speak of the 21st century. They project power, but it is a power that does not emanate from the ability they have to feed their people, but from media and military power, from propaganda, threats and constant provocations.
As citizens of liberal democracies, we are concerned that all weapons will end up being used, that wars will continue to fascinate us as they always have. Periods of peace and prosperity are boring compared to the adrenaline that revolutions and armies bring us. Technological acceleration makes the tension of war bearable, even desirable.
This is a danger that, however, we can nullify from liberal democracies. Europe can compensate for the intellectual decline by encouraging the humanities and the demographic decline by accepting immigrants who would never want to live in China or Russia. When circumstances require it and institutional and political corsets allow it, open societies are creative, flexible and supportive. Much more than closed ones.
If the democratic leaders of Europe and the United States take all this into account, they will be able to negotiate with China and Russia from an advantageous position. Note that Xi listens to European leaders when they ask him to convince Putin to withdraw from Ukraine.
It is true that these European leaders are small and improvise. Their changes of course are discouraging, but in their doubts and modesty is also the solidity of our progress. They're not strong, but they're also not spiraling down the way Xi, Putin and Trump are. They don't win much, but they don't lose either. We should not forget that time always runs in favor of modest and resilient turtles.
