After retiring from the world of chess, Garry Kasparov has found a new calling: promoting U.S. foreign policy goals. From his hawkish foreign policy positions, including supporting American invasions and the use of nuclear weapons against its enemies, his full-throated defense of Israeli genocide, and his bizarre belief that the Middle Ages never happened, MintPress examines the career arc of the former World Chess Champion turned U.S. State Department flatterer-in-chief.

Dubious Definitions of Democracy

Garry Kasparov has become a star of the Western human rights industry. In addition to appearing regularly in print and on cable news, the former chess star is the founder and chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative (RDI), the vice president of the World Liberty Congress, and the former chairman of the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), three U.S.-based human rights organizations.

Together, these groups claim to fight for a better world, free of authoritarianism and political prisoners. Closer inspection, however, reveals that they are deeply embedded with the State Department’s agenda.

The RDI describes its mission as to “unmask and confront the alliance of dictators threatening freedom around the world.” “By doing so,” they state, “we inspire those in the United States and in other free countries to value and protect their own democracies.”

Yet its board of directors reads more like a weapons corporation or a neoconservative think tank than a human rights group. Sitting alongside Kasparov are a host of American military leaders, including:

General Mark Miley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and chief of staff of the Army;

General Stanley A. McChrystal, former commander of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the leader of U.S. forces in both Afghanistan and Iraq;

Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, ex-Commanding General of the U.S. Army Europe and NATO’s current Senior Mentor for Logistics;

Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, the one time Director of European Affairs for the U.S. National Security Council.

In addition to the military leaders, senior figures from the U.S. government are also present, including the RDI’s vice chair, Linda Chavez, who was the Director of Public Liaison under President Ronald Reagan and President George W. Bush’s Secretary of Labor.

While the RDI couches itself in the language of democracy promotion, the countries they appear particularly focused on, such as China, Russia, Cuba, and Nicaragua, directly line up with U.S. strategic ambitions. In 2019, the RDI’s first conference, “Reawakening the Spirit of Democracy,” was headlined by neoconservative figures such as Bill Kristol, Max Boot, Dana White, Bret Stephens, Anne Applebaum, and Paul Wolfowitz.

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