Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Sign up here. January 7, 2024 | |
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On GPS, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET: As we head into 2024, Americans are deeply pessimistic about the direction of their country: One recent poll found three quarters see the US moving in the wrong way. But Fareed argues they don't have to be. On countless metrics, economic and otherwise, the US tops its peers in Europe and around the world.
The US is home to world-champion tech firms. Inflation has abated, and real wages are rising again. It's the world's largest oil-and-gas producer, and unlike Europe and Japan, its population is poised to keep growing. And yet, former President Donald Trump campaigns on reviving a supposedly superior American past. Glancing back at the US and the world 50 years ago, Fareed suggests we're in a better place now.
The US is capable of surmounting today's challenges, Fareed argues. It just needs perspective and confidence in its massive strengths.
After that: 2023 was a turbulent year in world affairs. What will 2024 bring? As wars continue in Gaza, Ukraine, and elsewhere—and as the world readies for a massive wave of elections that will give nearly half the global population a chance to vote this year—Fareed talks with Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor in chief of The Economist, and Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer about what's ahead.
Then: the world economy in 2024. Fareed talks with Ruchir Sharma, a contributing opinion writer at the Financial Times and former Morgan Stanley head of emerging markets and global macro, about his predictions of the economic ups and downs in store this year.
Finally: an AI executive on how he came to the technology and the risks and benefits it will present. Fareed talks with Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Inflection AI, co-founder and former head of applied AI at DeepMind, and author of "The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma." |
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Between the World and Israel |
Seen on US college campuses, in the Arab world, and elsewhere, there's a divide between how Israel and others perceive the war in Gaza. At the Israeli daily news site Ynet, an op-ed by Edna Shemesh points to that divide, expresses dismay at how some see Hamas, and laments simplistic viewpoints. "Israel and the Palestinians are looked upon from a binary point of view. Israel is seen as the perpetual aggressor even when its civilians are attacked by missiles, its kibbutzim destroyed and their people murdered," Shemesh writes.
At the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, another op-ed by Dahlia Scheindlin identifies the same divide, while accusing many Israelis of a having a "blind spot"—one that leads them to maintain that now is not the time for peace with Palestinians; to believe that peace has been tried and didn't work; and to think in terms of the previous day and the next, as if the world began on Oct. 7.
Gaps emerge between Israelis and others, Scheindlin writes, in part because of "vastly different personal experiences of life in what is, ultimately, an active zone of conflict (for Israelis) and occupation (for Palestinians). Within this generalization, there are plenty of interlocutors who try to span the divide, but the most effective first step is simply to acknowledge it. Israelis should work harder to close their blind spots. International audiences need to understand just how jarring and out of place their own axiomatic perspectives are, especially when the language or ideas are obsolete. Palestinians are not passive actors either; being human beings, they too have blind spots. … The situation today is so terrible that people run from reality as they run from rockets, and hide in the shelter of their blind spots. It's pointless to wag fingers. The only thing left to do is try and change that reality." |
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High Hopes for 'Postwar' Ukraine |
"It's possible that neither Ukraine nor Russia will win this war outright," Doug Irving writes for The RAND Blog. "When it comes, peace might instead take the form of a cease-fire or an armistice, with both sides seething but exhausted. That's rough ground on which to rebuild."
But Irving and others say rebuilding is critical to Ukraine's future, even as the tab keeps running higher with every Russian missile strike. "Ukraine already has an outline of what (rebuilding) will look like," Irving writes. "Its plan looks far beyond the immediate damages … and envisions more than $750 billion in economic support and projects that would raise a new Ukraine from the destruction. … In a 2022 Wall Street Journal op-ed, (Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky) promised to make Ukraine 'the greatest growth opportunity in Europe since the end of World War II.'"
At CNN Opinion, Matthew Schmidt made a similar argument in late December: that unless it wins the war outright by retaking Crimea, Ukraine could try something else: enter a ceasefire with Russia; rebuild itself economically and politically with the help of the European Union, NATO, and international investors; and seek to reclaim lost territory over the long haul, similarly to the reunification of Germany after decades of Cold War separation between East and West. "(I)n short," Schmidt wrote, "Ukrainians getting an upgraded country that can thrive in the Western fold … remains the likeliest way for Kyiv to win a long-term political face-off with Moscow." |
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The Immigration Debate Is Disrupting US Politics |
As Fareed has pointed out before—including in his most recent CNN special report "Immigration Breakdown"—the debate over immigration policy is dividing and in some ways twisting US politics. In a Financial Times feature, Myles McCormick and Eve Xiao explore some of the fault lines, beginning with the fact that America's southwestern has seen record numbers of migrants intercepted by border agents in each of the last two years.
"The surging numbers have spurred a political clash over migration policy in Washington as Republicans accuse President Joe Biden of failing to police the near-2,000 mile frontier," McCormick and Xiao write, summing up the broad strokes. "Democrats argue their opponents are weaponising the issue for political gain by stoking fear among voters. … At the heart of the matter are two fundamentally opposing views on immigration and asylum, says Doris Meissner, a senior fellow at the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute and former immigration commissioner. 'Democrats are trying to figure out ways to create legal ways of getting into the country,' says Meissner. 'What Republicans are saying is: 'We don't want these people getting in.'" |
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The Year of AI—and AI Hype |
Artificial intelligence was all the rage in 2023, after the late-2022 release of ChatGPT surprised users and generated worldwide buzz. Does this new technology signify the transformation brought by the steam engine, or the ephemeral, hype-driven investment binge of the dotcom bubble?
No one knows yet, but many are seeking the answer. In a Financial Times feature, Richard Waters assesses the current "large language models" like ChatGPT—and its competitors from Meta and others—which train on large swaths of available human-written text to write sentences predictively.
The current engines "are capable at times of breathtaking artistry, whether writing computer code or poetry," Waters writes. "But they also have an alarming tendency to return inaccurate information and 'hallucinate' by generating plausible-sounding responses that have little relation to reality. … Whether generative AI turns out to be as revolutionary as the boosters claim, or merely a useful addition to the IT arsenal with limited applications, should start to become clearer in 2024. The technology has been a catalyst for a powerful tech stock rally, helping to turn a small group of leading tech companies into undisputed stars on Wall Street. Without strong momentum behind generative AI's adoption, that could be shortlived."
The Economist notes a global race: "AI is already at the heart of the intensifying technological contest between America and China," the magazine writes. "In the past year their governments have pledged $40bn-50bn apiece for AI investments. Other countries do not want to be left behind—or stuck with a critical technology that is under foreign control. In 2023 another six particularly AI-ambitious governments around the world—Britain, France, Germany, India, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—promised to bankroll AI to the collective tune of around $40bn … Most of this will go towards purchases of graphics-processing units (GPUs, the type of chips used to train AI models) and factories to make such chips, as well as, to a lesser extent, support for AI firms. The nature and degree of state involvement varies from one wannabe AI superpower to another. It is early days, but the contours of new AI-industrial complexes are emerging." |
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