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. March 10, 2024 | |
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On GPS, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET: The Middle East may face a depressing war in Gaza, but it also has changed in encouraging ways, Fareed observes. For one, a different set of capitals enjoys the most clout. In the past, large countries Egypt, Iraq, and Syria had been among the region's Arab power centers. In the 20th century, a movement of pan-Arab nationalism coalesced behind charismatic Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. Today, by contrast, the Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar have parlayed their vast oil wealth and regional relationships to achieve preeminence. Attitudes have changed, too: While recent protests against Israel have been bitter, leaders across the region seem more willing to make peace with Israel, out of mutual interest, than they have been before. "This sea change … will not solve the Israeli–Palestinian issue," Fareed says. "But it does suggest there is some support for peace, stability and moderation in a region that desperately needs it." After that: It's been a big week in American politics, as former President Donald Trump all but sealed the GOP nomination and as President Joe Biden delivered a fiery State of the Union speech. Fareed talks with The New Yorker's Susan Glasser and Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer about America's top foreign policy challenges, as Ukraine and Gaza present difficult problems for Biden to solve. Is a new nuclear-arms race afoot? Has the war in Ukraine brought us closer to a major catastrophe? Fareed discusses new alignments and global danger with CNN Chief National Security Analyst Jim Sciutto, author of the new book "The Return of Great Powers: Russia, China, and the Next World War." Jews around the world have been struggling with how to respond to the Israel–Hamas war. That's a quintessentially Jewish reaction, Fareed hears from Harvard law professor and author Noah Feldman, whose new book is "To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People." Tonight at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CNN: Tune in to watch Fareed's latest special report, "Taiwan: Unfinished Business." The US and China could find themselves at war over the island, as tensions keep rising. Fareed details the complicated history of Taiwan and considers how Beijing and Washington can avoid disaster. |
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Russian President Vladimir Putin can't afford to keep his war in Ukraine going, Alexandra Prokopenko argued in a Foreign Affairs essay in early January. Putin faces an "impossible trilemma," Prokopenko wrote, in that "he must fund his ongoing war against Ukraine, maintain his populace's living standards, and safeguard macroeconomic stability." Income statistics have been artificially inflated by war salaries, Russia's economy looks shaky underneath, and it will be difficult to sustain the social spending needed to buy popular support, Prokopenko suggested. In a new Foreign Affairs essay, Andrei Kolesnikov argues similarly that Putin's warmongering authoritarianism has exhausted his country's political culture and warped its economy. Energy exports now provide "diminishing returns" as Western sanctions persist. Russia's population is aging to the point where "(b)ook publishers, for example, complain of a vanishing audience for children's books"—and that can only mean economic trouble. "Quite simply," Kolesnikov writes, "Putin and his team appear to assume that Russia will have enough reserves of all types—including the forbearance of its population—to last their own lifetimes. What happens after does not matter." |
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How will NATO proceed, now that US involvement has been thrown into new doubt by former President Donald Trump, who said he would encourage Russia to "do whatever the hell they want" to NATO allies that don't spend enough on defense? In a Politico op-ed, Greg Weaver and Andrea Kendall-Taylor say the danger is real. Russia appears committed to testing NATO, and the rises of Trump in the US and far-right parties in Europe cast doubt on alliance cohesion. A US war with China could stretch the alliance thin. It's time for NATO allies to work out some plans, Weaver and Kendall-Taylor write, including ways to evolve spending plans and force structure. Comparing Trump to the 20th century isolationist Charles Lindbergh—who opposed US involvement in World War II—Le Monde columnist Alain Frachon writes of the former US president and his hostility to NATO: "The Baltic states have been warned—all three members of NATO—bye-bye! The alliance would not hold up well to a second term of office for the MAGA leader." Disturbingly, questions over US commitment could lead Europe to build up its comparatively paltry nuclear arsenal, in order to maintain its own deterrent against Russia without the safety of the US nuclear umbrella, writes Vox's Joshua Keating. South Korea and Saudi Arabia, also seen as having varying degrees of nuclear ambition, will be worth watching too. "While these countries may not go nuclear overnight, these discussions seem to augur a world where nuclear strategy and brinkmanship are once again at the center of global politics," Keating writes. |
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Populism is still a global political watchword, and farmers are now carrying the pitchforks. Three years after north-Indian farmers swamped New Delhi to protest agricultural market liberalizations by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, Kiran Sharma writes for Nikkei Asia that they've returned ahead of India's national elections this year. The trend is widespread. Tractors have rumbled to Paris and Brussels this year, as farmers have voiced discontent. European farmers "are consumed by what Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo described this month as a multi-layered 'lasagne' of problems: volatile prices, high costs, cumbersome legislation and unfair competition," Alice Hancock and Andy Bounds write for the Financial Times. Proposed EU agriculture-policy changes and parts of the EU's Green Deal climate law have fed the animus, they note. At Bloomberg last month, Nayla Razzouk, Kim Chipman, Lyubov Pronina, and Pratik Parija wrote: "There have also been (farmer) protests in Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Romania. Farmers in Poland have been at the forefront of opposition to grain arriving from neighboring Ukraine, forcing the government back to a negotiating table. In Germany, they blocked highways last month for a week to rail against cuts to subsidies for their diesel. Thousands gathered on the road leading up to the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. In the US, farmers complain they are being priced out by big companies. … Taken together, farmers represent a significant challenge to governments that must navigate the tricky, but necessary transition to healthy, sustainable food production and diets, according to Chris Hegadorn, adjunct professor of global food politics at Sciences Po in Paris." |
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Iran held elections this month, and historically low turnout evidently reflected popular discontent with the ruling order. The Economist wrote recently that while Iran is frightening the Middle East with its proxies' aggression, the regime in Tehran—and the political order that supports it—quietly "rots." Among those Iranians who did cast ballots, Sina Toossi writes for Foreign Policy, the established conservative faction lost votes to a group of alternative, but even more conservative, candidate lists. "The nonestablishment conservative lists were predominantly composed of hard-line figures," Toossi writes. "Unlike the reformists and moderate conservatives, who have shown some willingness to adapt and compromise on certain issues, they seek a rigid and purist version of Islamic law, reject any reforms that might threaten their power or ideology, and are more skeptical or opposed to engagement with Western powers. For instance, the hard-line winners in Tehran this election were fervent opponents of the 2015 nuclear deal, unlike the current (Iranian parliament) speaker (Mohammad Bagher) Ghalibaf, who was more supportive and pragmatic about the talks." |
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Undersea events, like the suspected sabotage of the Nord Stream natural-gas pipelines connecting Russia to Germany in 2022, have revealed the vulnerability of undersea telecommunications cables. Recent conflict in the Red Sea, where Yemen's Houthi militants have attacked international shipping, has underlined the danger yet again. Amid preexisting concerns that the Houthis could attack undersea cables, Paul Cochrane notes at Middle East Eye: "Following the Houthi attack on British-owned vessel Rubymar off the coast of Yemen" last month, "three (undersea) internet cables were cut. It has caused the submarine cable industry to scramble to re-route internet traffic, with over 90 percent of all Europe-Asia capacity running through the Red Sea." While it has been suggested that the ship's anchor damaged the cables, the episode has heightened anxieties. "This is the latest of several recent incidents involving high-profile damage and disruption to undersea infrastructure," Sean Monaghan, Michael Darrah, Eskil Jakobsen, and Otto Svendsen write for the Center for Strategic & International Studies. "Internet cables near Svalbard and the Shetland Islands were cut in 2022, the same year the Nord Stream gas pipelines were sabotaged. Last year the Balticconnector pipeline between Finland and Estonia was damaged along with two subsea cables when the Chinese-owned commercial ship the Newnew Polar Bear dragged its anchor across them. These episodes highlight the vulnerability of vital undersea infrastructure around the world. The NATO alliance was so concerned it opened a new center last year for securing undersea infrastructure. Around 97 percent of global data runs through a few hundred undersea cables. These cables are vital to the global information economy, spanning over 1.4 million kilometers and connecting nearly every country in the world. This number is growing as big tech companies lay and operate their own cables." |
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