Book excerpt: Buy now to get the main key ideas from Anne Applebaum's Autocracy, Inc. In Autocracy Inc. (2024), journalist Anne Applebaum explores the sophisticated networks that sustain modern autocracies, which include Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. These regimes collaborate to maintain power, often evading international sanctions and supporting each other through illicit trade. They undermine transparency and accountability, use brutal tactics to repress opposition, and control narratives through disinformation. Western institutions play a role in enabling them, and their corruption has global impacts. Democracies can fight back, however, and Applebaum details tools and tactics that can be used effectively to ensure transparency and protect freedom.