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 17, 2024 | |
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On GPS, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET: Russian President Vladimir Putin is firmly committed to winning in Ukraine, Fareed points out. Is the West? Putin recently told Russian state TV that while the West sees the war as a venue to incrementally better its position against Russia, for Russians the war "is our fate, it is a matter of life and death." Fareed argues that "the fundamental mistake in Western strategy against Russia has been to ignore this reality." To prevail, US President Joe Biden "and other Western leaders must demonstrate that they too will do what it takes—and that time is not on Putin's side," Fareed says. "France's president, Emmanuel Macron, is surely right that the central fact that must guide Western strategy is that Putin cannot win. If that means greater Western involvement (in Ukraine), even military forces of some kind on the ground, that's better than watching Russian aggression succeed. Macron gave a speech this week in which he said that the conflict was 'existential' for France and Europe. The West can only gain the upper hand in this war if it truly believes this and acts on that belief." After that: As war continues in Gaza, so does disagreement over how it should proceed and what should come after—seen notably in US Sen. Chuck Schumer's (D-N.Y.) call for new Israeli elections and his suggestion that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition does not suit Israel's present needs. Fareed talks with Shibley Telhami, a Brookings Institution fellow and the Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland, who recently coauthored a Foreign Affairs essay arguing it's time to stop paying lip service to the two-state solution. This week saw a rare moment of bipartisan agreement in Washington, as the US House voted overwhelmingly to pass a bill that would require TikTok to separate from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, or face a ban in the US. What are the arguments for and against bringing down the hammer on this massively popular—and massively addictive—social-media app? Fareed hears the pros and cons from Kori Schake, director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, and Glenn Gerstell of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, formerly general counsel of the National Security Agency (NSA). AI is poised to transform modern warfare. How worried should we be? Fareed talks with Paul Scharre, executive vice president and director of studies at the Center for a New American Security, who recently wrote for Foreign Affairs that the use of fully autonomous weapons on the battlefield could snowball dangerously. Finally: This week, Haiti reached new levels of violent chaos. Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced he will resign after gangs, which control most of the capital Port-au-Prince, laid siege to the airport and blocked Henry's return to the country. Fareed hears from Amy Wilentz, author and a contributing editor for The Nation, about what's behind this insurgency. |
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An Encouraging Vision of Post-Khamenei Iran |
Iran's recent election, featuring a record-low post-1979 turnout that reflected wide dissatisfaction, saw a new wave of conservatives succeed, Sina Toossi wrote this month for Foreign Policy—and they're even more conservative than the current establishment of hardliners. In the Substack newsletter Persuasion, Mariam Memarsadeghi laments that Iran's women-led protest movement, which surged in late 2022, has failed to cohere and force change. But in a New York Times guest opinion essay this week, author Arash Azizi suggested that after the reign of 84-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Iran's next leadership will likely change things in ways many have hoped for. Despite the fealty current top officials profess to Khamenei, austere Islamic conservatism, and regional aggression, Azizi writes that this class of leaders is largely made of up "military technocrats" who will be less interested in many of those things. "(E)ven today's conservatives and ardent hard-liners are likely to bring about change," Azizi writes. "Take Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, who was a leading commander of Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in the Iran-Iraq war before entering politics. (He became the speaker of Parliament in 2020.) Despite his loud declarations of support for the ayatollah, Mr. Ghalibaf is mostly known for his technocratic mayorship of Tehran from 2005 to 2017, when, amid astronomic corruption, he was able to make transportation infrastructure in Iran's giant capital more efficient." Criticism of regime policies can now be heard from within, Azizi says. The "sheer unpopularity of Ayatollah Khamenei's policies may propel change from the next person who comes to power, even if only to keep some semblance of control over the country." To Azizi, that could include softening the mandatory dress code for women and reopening the possibility of a nuclear deal with the US. |
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'What Happened to Boeing?' |
America's top maker of commercial-carrier airplanes has been in big trouble. Following past-year crashes of its 737 Max, Boeing was already working to revamp its safety culture in 2022. 2024 has only brought more problems, most notably the terrifying mid-flight emergency-exit-door blowout on an Alaska Airlines flight on Jan. 5. "You'd think Boeing's already miserable 2024 couldn't get any worse," CNN Business's David Goldman wrote this week. "But on Monday, a 787 Dreamliner plunged suddenly mid-flight, injuring dozens of passengers, after a pilot said he temporarily lost control of the aircraft." Boeing's stock price, predictably, has taken a hit. "Restoring the confidence of airlines, regulators and passengers becomes more difficult with every new incident and bad headline," CNN's Goldman wrote. Practically, The Wall Street Journal's Sharon Terlep identifies one problem: a seemingly disjointed manufacturing process. More conceptually, CNN's Allison Morrow writes: "Given Boeing's singular importance in the American aviation industry, it is the definition of Too Big to Fail. Boeing is immune to most of the forces, like consumer choice, that other companies must contend with to stay in business. We the people couldn't get rid of it if we wanted to." Advancing broader concepts of organizational culture, Ashley Fulmer and Michele Gelfand argue in a Project Syndicate op-ed that Boeing's has been revealed as too "loose." They write: "(E)very organization, or units within it, can be classified as tight or loose. In organizations characterized by tight cultures, the people, practices, and leadership typically follow a pattern that creates order through coordination, efficiency, and self-discipline. Practices are standardized, formal, and carefully transmitted, and employees focus on following the rules and preventing mistakes. … In contrast, loose cultures place an emphasis on openness, by embracing latitude, showing tolerance, and fostering creativity." (United Airlines, in contrast to Boeing, was criticized by Gelfand in 2017 for being too "tight.") Boeing, Fulmer and Gelfand argue, must revamp its culture and tighten up. |
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