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Anchor Katy Clark speaks with Slate columnist Anne Applebaum about what she thinks will shape the decade to come. We discuss anti-government rioting in Iran; Islamic fundamentalist terrorism; and question is it in part prosperity and not ideology that keeps authoritarian regimes in power?

• Slate: Twilight of the Totalitarianism

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KATY CLARK: I’m Katy Clark.  This is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston.  In recent days, the specter of international terrorism has returned to the United States. The would-be attacker on board the Christmas Day flight from Amsterdam to Detroit failed to spark his explosive device. But he ignited a national debate about security, privacy and official culpability. Anne Applebaum is a columnist for Slate Magazine. She’s currently in Poland.   Anne, you’ve just written a piece called “Twilight of the Totalitarians.”   And before we get to the world’s totalitarian regimes, I’d like your take on the failed Christmas Day bomb plot. You mention it in your piece.

ANNE APPLEBAUM: Yes, I may be alone here, in fact, but I don’t think it’s a major world changing, earth shattering event.

CLARK: Why not?

APPLEBAUM: First of all, it was a failed attack and from everything we can understand the bomber was obviously not entirely sane. He didn’t manage to set off whatever he was going to set off. And actually, it isn’t clear that even if he had set it off, that he would blown up the plane or made it crash.  It struck me as very ham-handed way to blow up an airplane. And, in fact, if this is the best Al Qaeda can now do, you know, I’m not afraid of them.

CLARK: You actually write that at the end of this decade Islamic fundamentalist terrorism is dwindling to the status of major nuisance.

APPLEBAUM: Yeah, I mean I don’t want to underestimate it and, you know, I spent a lot of this decade, in fact, writing about homeland security and so on.  But, in fact, the point of my piece wasn’t really to down play Islamic terrorism, which will remain a threat in our lifetimes.  The point was to say that there are also other things happening, and there are big changes happening in the world and if the President is now obligated to spend the next six months worrying about airport security in Amsterdam, then we are going to miss out on a lot of what else is happening in the world.

CLARK: Things like the anti-government rioting in Iran for instance.  I mean, as you look ahead, what do you think that signals for Iran’s leaders and for those like them elsewhere?

APPLEBAUM: What the rioting shows is that Islamic fundamentalist’s argument in the most powerful Islamic fundamentalist state is failing. The idea that they have legitimacy and that it’s divinely ordained legitimacy is no longer accepted by a larger proportion of the population. And that has all kinds of knock-on implications elsewhere in the world, in all the places where Iran supports terrorism, in all the states close to Iran which has seen it for a long time either positively or negatively as the standard bearer for these kinds of ideas.

CLARK: Well, not every authoritarian state is on shaky ground. You also write about China.

APPLEBAUM: Yeah, I was a bit struck by a story that I didn’t think was in the U.S. press at all but I noticed in a number of other places, which is China’s statement that it is now producing the world’s fast train.  And that is train is going to connect China’s sort of richer coastal cities with its interior and that there will not be these very fast rapid movements between different parts of what is a very large country.  Well, is the U.S. ever going to have a train like that?  And I thought, not in my lifetime.  It’s not just a financial question.  We don’t have a political system which could lead to the creation of a train system like that.  We don’t plan in that same kind of way and what we may be watching is China moving; not just competing with us but moving ahead of us.

CLARK: Your conclusion is in part that it’s prosperity and not ideology that keeps authoritarian regimes in power.

APPLEBAUM: Well, it’s keeping China in power, yes.

CLARK: Well, in recent years, though, we’ve been hearing the prevailing theory at least in the West is that prosperity generates a strong middle class, and that in turn creates the conditions for democracy to flourish. Is the theory plain wrong?

APPLEBAUM: Well, it’s never been proven. You know, that’s always been an assumption but it’s not a rule and, in fact, what has been rather unique about China and Russia and to some extent Venezuela and one or two other countries is that they have in effect done a kind of deal with their public. You know, we rule and as long as we give you rising prosperity and you continue to get richer and richer, then we stay in power.  The Chinese have no more ideas any more about Marxism or about, you know, creating the perfect society. They’ve simply done a kind of unspoken deal with the country.  It’s very, very similar to what happened in Russia.  You know, Putin doesn’t have an ideology in the old fashioned sense, but he has, “I will continue to make you richer. You won’t complain and I will stay in power.” But it’s a bad sign for both.  If that should run out or stop, then they’re in trouble.

CLARK: Anne Applebaum’s column, “Twilight of the Totalitarianism,” appears in Slate.  Good to speak with you.

APPLEBAUM: Well, thank you.

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