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. August 9, 2024 |
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Ukraine Fights On—in Russia |
A new Ukrainian incursion into Russian territory could be consequential, The Economist writes.
"Three days in, Ukraine's unexpected cross-border raid into Russia's Kursk region"—a border area that sits northwest of the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv—"shows no signs of abating," The Economist writes. "Since the start of the operation on the morning of August 6th, Russia has lost full control of at least 350 sq km of its territory. Scores of its soldiers have been killed or captured. A race is on to halt the advance—and prevent the Ukrainians from digging in." Reporting that the advance "stunned Moscow," The Washington Post's Isabelle Khurshudyan, Alex Horton, John Hudson, and Samuel Oakford write that Kyiv is seeking Washington's permission to use US-supplied long-range missiles to hold the territory. Russia has announced it is sending reinforcements, The New York Times' Constant Méheut reports.
As for the strategic purpose of advancing into Russian territory while Russia's forces progress further into Ukraine, The Economist suggests that one of Kyiv's goals "might be to create an embarrassing 'buffer zone' on the border, similar to Russia's own attempts to create one in nearby Kharkiv over the past three months. It could even become a bargaining chip in some future negotiation."
Andreas Umland of the Swedish Institute for International Affairs writes for Foreign Policy: "One speculation that has gained a lot of traction is that [this offensive] could lead to a quicker end to the war. The [Ukrainian] operation makes it clear to Russian President Vladimir Putin that Ukraine retains significant potential to inflict pain on Russia. … Already, Ukraine's lightning foray into Russia undermines the widespread idea that Putin holds all the cards to dictate the terms of a cease-fire." |
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What Does Haniyeh's Assassination Mean for Ceasefire Talks? |
The bold assassination in Tehran of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh prompted a common observation by regional and international onlookers: Haniyeh was a critical interlocutor in ceasefire negotiations with Israel, shepherded by the US, Egypt, and Qatar. His killing, then, would seem to damage any progress toward halting the Gaza war. The Washington Post's David Ignatius portrayed it as a blow to American diplomats' painstaking work.
Hamas' Gaza-based leader Yahya Sinwar has since replaced Haniyeh atop the terrorist group's political structure. At the left-leaning Israeli daily Haaretz, Middle Eastern affairs analyst Zvi Bar'el writes (contrary to other views) that the Hamas leadership change won't have much impact on peace talks: "The appointment [of Sinwar as Hamas' political leader] 'only underscores the fact that it's really on him to decide whether to move forward with a cease-fire,' U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday, repeating a long-held assumption. It was Sinwar and not Ismail Haniyeh who had always been the decision-maker, a role he ensured himself from the war he started with Israel and his control over the fate of the hostages."
Meanwhile, Binar FK writes for the Stimson Center that Haniyeh's death could strengthen Iran, allowing it "to increase its regional influence by harnessing Arab outrage at Israel and fostering Sunni-Shi'ite convergence." |
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When Olympic Participation Is Political |
At the Wilson Center, Merissa Khurma notes the political significance of female athletes from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)—a region not known for gender equality—merely taking part in the Paris Olympics.
Khurma writes: "This Paris tournament features a refugee team, as well as varying numbers of young women amongst the athletes of the MENA Olympic Committees—as high as 53 from Egypt and as low as one from Libya, Syria, and Sudan and none from Iraq. Out of the 650 athletes from MENA, including Turkey, Israel, Iran, as well as Afghanistan, 222 are female (approximately 34%). While these numbers are still quite modest, signaling that there is still much work to do to close the gender gap in sports across the region, it is worth noting that those young women who made it to Paris represent shining role models for other younger women and important reminders of why it is crucial to invest in sport development for all." |
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Electric Cars Hit a Speed Bump |
They're still the future, but as Fareed detailed on Sunday's GPS, electric cars have struggled to catch on in the US. The supply of charging stations is still an issue, and consumers seem to like hybrids, Fareed points out, wondering if government policies should have supported hybrids more actively as a bridge to EVs. |
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Questioning NATO's Past and Future |
Will NATO expand again? Is admitting Ukraine the key to protecting it from future Russian aggression?
Those questions hovered over the alliance's 75th-anniversary summit in Washington last month, as did the main obstacle to answering them in the affirmative: NATO's Article V common-defense clause, which would mean that if Ukraine joined during its war with Russia, all of NATO would be obligated to enter the conflict in Kyiv's defense. In The Washington Quarterly, Lise Morjé Howard and Michael O'Hanlon propose a workaround: building another Western-aligned security coalition, with personnel in Ukraine, that is not NATO.
In the London Review of Books, Tom Stevenson offers a more critical view of NATO, from its beginning to its present. NATO is sometimes presented as history's first benevolent alliance, with due respect to the Delian League, Stevenson writes, but there are good reasons to doubt that, as NATO has bolstered US wars politically and has prevented the development of independent European security. As NATO's common-defense commitment is questioned loudly by former US President Donald Trump, Stevenson writes, it's fair to ask if the alliance will survive.
Stevenson concludes: "A world without American military domination of Europe would be a different world. It would demand a new equilibrium between both Europe and Russia and Europe and the US. But ideas of European strategic autonomy have always been vague. The Weimar Triangle group—the alliance between France, Germany and Poland established in 1991—does little beyond holding an occasional summit. The Franco-German defence and security councils are empty shells. Instead, European leaders still speak, as [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz did recently, of Nato as 'the ultimate guarantor of peace and security in the Euro-Atlantic area'. So it is now, Scholz said, and so it 'must continue to be'. Military spending by European states has increased by more than 60 per cent since 2014. Yet G7 meetings are still surpassingly easy for US diplomats to run. Nato is both stronger than ever and just as unsuited to averting the next world crisis." |
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