Autocracy’s human costs
“To achieve success in the elections, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. And as a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them.” —Nikolai Patrushev, part of the Russian president’s inner circle and former Secretary of the Security Council
The Geopolitical Earthquake:
Implications of the US-Russia UN Alignment on Ukraine
America just did the unthinkable — siding with Russia to block UN resolutions that condemned the Ukraine invasion. This decision has sent shockwaves around the world, throwing long-standing alliances into chaos, undermining the institutions we built to keep peace, and giving the green light to countries looking to redraw borders by force.
The timing couldn’t be more symbolic, coming exactly three years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion. This represents a complete reversal of decades of American foreign policy and changes the rules of the international game in ways we’ll be dealing with for generations.
A closer look at three of America’s newfound diplomatic partners reveals concerning patterns about our future direction.
Comparative Analysis of Living Standards in Russia, Belarus, and North Korea (2025)
Russia, Belarus, and North Korea each tell a different story about life under autocracy in 2025. Though all three countries struggle with the economic fallout of authoritarian rule and global isolation, daily life for their citizens varies dramatically in terms of living standards, access to food, and basic social services.
Here’s how these three countries stack up when it comes to economic policies, hunger issues, and general living conditions.
Russia: Militarized Economy and Declining Living Standards
Economic Stagnation and Inflationary Pressures
Russia’s war-driven economy has entered a phase of “stagflation,” with growth projections falling to 0.5–1% for 2025 despite official claims of 3.8–4% growth in 2024. The Central Bank’s benchmark interest rate stands at 21% — a two-decade high — to combat inflation officially reported at 8.9% but estimated at 22.1% by independent analysts. Essential food prices have skyrocketed:
Potatoes: +81% year-over-year
Cabbage: +37%
Butter: +36.5%
These increases disproportionately impact public sector workers — teachers, doctors, and pensioners — whose incomes are indexed to official inflation rates rather than real market prices.
The Russian central bank is currently enforcing one of the strictest monetary policies in the world, particularly in terms of the real interest rate. —Institute of New Europe
Urban Development vs. Rural Neglect
The Kremlin is pushing a fancy-sounding “reference settlements” program to spruce up 2,000 urban areas by 2036, promising a 30% boost in quality of life by 2030. But here’s the catch — it completely ignores rural areas where a quarter of all Russians live. This creates a two-tier Russia: Moscow and St. Petersburg get shiny new infrastructure while rural villages empty out as their healthcare systems crumble.
Labor Market Distortions
Russia’s economy is missing 1.8 million workers, thanks to military drafts sucking up young men and others fleeing the country. Construction companies desperately need 400,000 migrant workers each year but can’t get them because of red tape and anti-foreigner policies. Meanwhile, the job market is completely distorted — defense industry workers rake in triple the normal salary while teachers in small towns suffer massive 45% pay cuts.
Defense and security spending will exceed 8% of GDP and account for 40% of total federal expenditure, a record not seen since the Soviet Union’s Cold War era. These funds are directed primarily toward two areas: arms production and military salaries. —The Moscow Times
Belarus: Managed Stability with Structural Vulnerabilities
Food Security as Political Tool
Belarus maintains nominal food security through state-controlled agriculture, producing:
841 kg milk/person (3.5x consumption)
100 kg meat/person (40% surplus)
517 kg potatoes/person (3x domestic needs)
All this excess food brings in $3 billion yearly in exports, but it hides a broken system underneath. In a bizarre twist, grocery stores prefer to stock imported foods because they make more money on them. The result? Minsk supermarkets somehow run out of Belarusian potatoes in a country drowning in them.
With Russia’s war against Ukraine, the weaponization of food has taken on a new global dimension. Nations need to rethink their approach to food security.—Internationale Politik Quarterly
Lukashenko’s “Five-Year Term of Quality”
The 2025–2029 initiative seeks to:
Increase median wages by 25%
Digitalize 60% of manufacturing
Reduce bureaucratic procedures by 40%
So far, all the fancy upgrades are happening in Minsk’s tech parks and the special zones built with Chinese money, while people in rural areas are told to wait their turn for basic improvements. And here’s the kicker — this whole plan works only if Russia keeps supplying cheap energy, which currently props up nearly half of Belarus’ entire budget.
Demographic Time Bomb
Despite official claims of 2.5% hunger rates, fertility has plummeted to 1.3 children/woman — below replacement level. Pensioners now constitute 28% of the population, straining social services designed for a 1990s demographic profile.
Will Belarus ensure its own food security? Lukashenko wants to turn on ‘total dictatorship’ — Belarus
North Korea: Chronic Deprivation as Systemic Policy
Nutritional Catastrophe
UN agencies estimate:
40% population undernourished
860,000 metric ton annual food deficit
17% child stunting rate
The regime’s big farming plan for 2025 aims for 4.5 million tons of food — but that’s still almost 40% below what they actually need to feed people. The result? North Koreans are forced to rely on smuggled Chinese food that costs three times what it should.
Healthcare Collapse
Hospitals in Pyongyang report:
90% medicine shortages
70% equipment dysfunction rate
1 doctor/1,200 citizens (vs. 1/250 in 2010)
Their so-called “improved” childhood vaccination program is a joke — it reaches barely a third of babies in rural areas because they can’t keep vaccines properly refrigerated. Now measles is spreading through three provinces as a result.
Elite Privilege in a Starving State
While average caloric intake sits at 1,700 kcal/day (below 2,100 kcal survival threshold), Pyongyang’s ruling class accesses:
24/7 electricity in secured districts
Chinese-manufactured pharmaceuticals
UN-donated rice diverted through Military First policy channels
Under totalitarian leader Kim Jong Un, North Korea maintains fearful obedience through arbitrary punishments, torture, executions, unjust imprisonment, and forced labor. Sexual and domestic violence against women and girls is widespread and normalized. Basic freedoms, including expression, assembly, and access to information, are severely restricted. In 2024, North Korea maintained extreme and unnecessary measures under the pretext of Covid-19 protection. —Human Rights Watch
Comparative Analysis Matrix
Systemic Drivers of Disparity
Sanctions Adaptation
Russia’s getting around sanctions by tapping into $300 billion in frozen reserves and using China’s yuan-based banking systems, managing to maintain nearly two-thirds of their pre-war imports.
Belarus plays a clever game — claiming they’re not involved in the Ukraine war while secretly helping Russia dodge sanctions by funneling 40% of Russia’s microchips to world markets.
Meanwhile, North Korea funds itself through outright theft — stealing $2.3 billion through hacking in 2024 alone — and selling weapons to terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
Military Prioritization
Russia: 6.7% GDP to defense vs. 3.1% to healthcare
Belarus: 1.9% GDP to defense vs. 4.3% to subsidies
North Korea: 25.8% GDP to defense vs. 0.9% to agriculture
International Aid Dynamics
Nobody’s sending humanitarian aid to Russia, but they’re getting a sweet $45 billion in energy deals from China. Belarus is playing the system too — grabbing $700 million from the IMF through special rights that Russia guaranteed for them.
And North Korea? They’re so paranoid about outsiders seeing what’s really happening that they turn away 92% of UN aid packages rather than allow inspections.
Future Trajectories
Russia (2025–2030):
Projected 15% decline in real wages
Potential hyperinflation if oil falls below $60/barrel
5 million workforce reduction from alcoholism crisis
Belarus (2025–2029):
40% probability of Russian annexation under Union State agreements
$12 billion required for Soviet-era factory modernization
Youth emigration wave targeting EU Blue Card programs
North Korea (2025–2030):
Famine death toll estimate: 850,000–1.2 million
78% urbanization rate as peasants flee collective farms
China-Russia buffer state consolidation
Autocracy’s Human Costs
Looking at how differently people live in these three countries shows us the many ways autocracy fails its citizens. Russia proves that even oil wealth can only prop up a militarized economy for so long before things fall apart.
Belarus shows what happens when a country tries to stay afloat by playing both sides. And North Korea? It’s the ultimate example of a dictatorial system in decay, where keeping the elites happy matters more than whether the country can actually function.
When the UN releases its Human Development Index for 2025, these countries will stand out as proof that closed, repressive systems just don’t work in today’s interconnected world. But there’s a bigger message here for Americans: this is what awaits any democracy that starts embracing authoritarian ideas. It’s regular people who pay the price through worse living conditions, fewer freedoms, and broken economies. Is that really the path we want to follow?
The question remains: Is this the America you want?
I leave you with these thoughts.
If you want to truly understand how regular people get sucked into supporting dictators, check out Milton Sanford Mayer's eye-opening book, 'They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45.' Written back in 1955, it shows exactly how everyday citizens gradually accept the unacceptable.
The book contains one of the most chilling observations about how freedom disappears:
“To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.”
Mayer got this insight by sitting down with ten ordinary Germans who had been Nazi party members. His conversations expose exactly how authoritarianism creeps in so slowly that people don't notice their freedom slipping away until it's too late.
For those curious about what happens next, Madeleine Albright’s ‘Fascism: A Warning’ offers a definitive insider perspective on how fascism unfolds in our modern world and today's America.
Images ©2025 Gael MacLean
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