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. May 12, 2024 | |
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On GPS, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET:
The US presidential race is not going as expected, Fareed says. When it became clear President Joe Biden would seek reelection, he seemed to have a strong pitch to voters: returning the country to normalcy after the chaos of former President Donald Trump's administration and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Things haven't worked out that way, as Fareed details. Polling shows Trump performing well in swing states, beating Biden on the top issues of immigration and abortion. Worryingly for Democrats, Trump also leads on perceived competence. If that last measure is related to Biden's age, Fareed points out, there's little the president can do to change it.
After that: Biden has threatened to suspend some US arms shipments if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moves ahead with a planned invasion of the Gazan border city of Rafah. What does that mean for US–Israel relations and the future of the Israel–Hamas war? Fareed asks former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
What would a ceasefire mean for Palestinians? And what are the prospects for lasting peace in the region? Fareed talks with former Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Nasser Al-Kidwa.
This week, Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited Europe for the first time in five years. His choice of countries—France, Hungary, and Serbia—seemed peculiar. Is Xi driving a wedge between the US and Europe? Fareed talks with Susan Shirk, founding chair of UC San Diego's 21st Century China Center and a former US deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific.
With Election Day less than six months away, some Americans wonder if Trump and his supporters will accept the result if he loses. Fareed discusses the future of American democracy with Robert Kagan, author of "Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart—Again."
Finally: the UK's plan to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda. Fareed examines the arguments for and against Britain's controversial law as it begins to take effect. |
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Who's Next to Go Nuclear? |
How close is the world to experiencing a second nuclear war? A few warning signs are blinking. Key nuclear nonproliferation treaties are in tatters, as Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin each backed out of longstanding agreements. Iran is on the brink of nuclear capability, with some international onlookers estimating a "breakout" time of as little as "zero." Russia's war on Ukraine has included repeated nuclear threats by Putin. North Korea continues to rattle its nuclear saber periodically.
On a recent episode of the Chatham House podcast "Independent Thinking," host Bronwen Maddox and guests considered which country will be the next to "go nuclear": i.e., which nuclear-capable country is most likely to use a bomb and which non-nuclear-capable country is most likely to develop one. North Korea is the most likely to use a nuclear weapon, and its poverty and seeming lack of safety concerns raise the possibility that it could sell nukes or suffer an accident, says Robert E. Kelly of Pusan National University. Japan and South Korea don't seem eager to develop nuclear weapons, but they might if they feel abandoned by the US, Kelly suggests. In the view of Chatham House's Patricia Lewis, a Trump return to the White House and a flagging US commitment to NATO could lead Poland and Ukraine to consider nuclear-weapons development. The likelihood that Saudi Arabia will develop nuclear weapons is "minimal," says Hanna Notte of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, but Iran's nuclear progress and the possibility of civilian-nuclear help from the US make the desert kingdom notable in this discussion.
On the last topic, a Foreign Affairs essay by Daniel Byman, Doreen Horschig, and Elizabeth Kos weighs the likelihood of a nuclear-weapons-capable Saudi Arabia. As they detail, that likelihood has been heightened by discussion of a potential diplomatic deal (frozen by the war in Gaza) that would see Saudi Arabia normalize relations with Israel in exchange for, among other things, American help starting a civilian nuclear-energy program, which the kingdom has planned to launch. Their assessment: "Saudi Arabia may well stick to civilian nuclear development for the time being. But given the looming threat of an Iranian bomb, it may be tempted to move toward military nuclearization in the future. The United States must work to mitigate that risk. It is a difficult line for Washington to toe: cooperate too little, and it could lose Saudi support for normalization with Israel and cede influence to rivals such as China; grant unconditional support for Saudi nuclear-enrichment capabilities, and Riyadh could seize the opportunity to develop a nuclear weapons program down the road. Washington must therefore accept Saudi Arabia's peaceful nuclear ambitions but insist on strong measures and strict regulations to preempt Saudi proliferation—and prevent a regional arms race." |
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The Evolving Meaning of Germany |
Where does Germany go next? In a New York Review of Books essay, historian Timothy Garton Ash notes that its geopolitical model may be need serious revision. Germany has sought to balance its relations with east and west, allying with the US and Western Europe while getting its energy from Russia and its economic-growth prospects from China, as the US-based German commentator Constanze Stelzenmüller has pointed out. Russia's war on Ukraine has disrupted part of that. After decades of relative pacifism—while exporting weapons to allies—the war in Ukraine also prompted Chancellor Olaf Scholz to declare a Zeitenwende, or historic turning point, ushering Germany back into the world of force.
If history is turning, which way will Europe's biggest economy and most-populous country turn, itself? Having posed the question, Ash concludes: "Pending the coinage of a catchier term, I would describe the strategy Europe requires from Germany as a Gesamteuropapolitik—an all Europe policy, putting together what have in the past been the largely separate Europapolitik, meaning EU policy, and Ostpolitik [meaning east policy]. Can Germany swing the balance of the European Union toward a genuine strategic commitment to include Ukraine, Moldova, the Western Balkans, and Georgia? Can it contribute the bold, innovative thinking needed to reform the EU … ? Can it help shape a realistic new European policy toward Russia … ? And how is Europe as a whole … to defend its values and way of life in a world where often reflexively anti-Western great and middle powers such as China, India, and Turkey are increasingly influential, while the US interest in Europe has diminished and will continue to diminish? Germany cannot do any of these things on its own, but without Germany none of them will happen. Here is today's German Question, and the only people who can answer it are the Germans themselves." |
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