World Order

by Henry Kissinger

Catherine the Great, Russia’s autocratic reformist ruler from 1762 to 1796 and overseer of a historic period of cultural achievement and territorial expansion (including Russia’s conquest of the Khanate of Crimea and its laying low of the Zaporizhian Host, the onetime autonomous Cossack realm in what is today central Ukraine), justified Russia’s extreme autocracy as the only system of government that could hold together such a gigantic territory: The Extent of the Dominion requires an absolute Power to be vested in that Person who rules over it. It is expedient so to be that the quick Dispatch of Affairs, sent from distant Parts, might make ample Amends for the Delay occasioned by the great Distance of the Places. Every other Form of Government whatsoever would not only have been prejudicial to Russia, but would even have proved its entire Ruin. Thus what in the West was regarded as arbitrary authoritarianism was presented in Russia as an elemental necessity, the precondition for functioning governance.

Good Hypothesis of why countries with huge landmasses (China/Russia) require/develop Autocratic political systems