HOT AIR BALLOON FLIGHT

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Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good

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October 13, 2021

In Defense of Kissinger

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has had his critics, but veteran former US Middle East diplomat Martin Indyk writes for Foreign Affairs that Kissinger's strategy and methods carry important lessons for the US today.
 
For one, Kissinger pursued limited goals in the Middle East, letting regional actors work things out with US guidance. Some, like Columbia University historian and past GPS guest Rashid Khalidi, have argued Kissinger's Middle East aims were strictly of the Cold War: to keep countries aligned with the US, not the USSR, and to preserve America's necessity as a power broker. But Indyk contrasts Kissinger's "shuttle diplomacy"—the tactic of shuttling between foreign capitals to meet with leaders—with the preference of successive US presidents for pursuing grand bargains. 
 
Rather than attempt to solve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in one fell swoop, as Presidents Carter and Clinton hoped to at different points, Indyk writes that Kissinger's brokerage of one-off ceasefires and temporary alliances was wise, as it maintained a delicate stability without aiming for too much. In Israel's multiple wars, settlements, and diplomatic accords with its neighbors, Kissinger kept the US engaged and maintained its influence without being ham-fisted, in Indyk's view.
 
"In the aftermath of the pullout from Afghanistan, [President Joe] Biden is unlikely to overreach in the Middle East," Indyk writes. "But as Kissinger could tell him, it would also be a mistake for him to turn his back on it."

The Fascinating Lab-Leak Debate

To some, the evidence is overwhelming: In a recent Wall Street Journal column, Richard Mueller and Steven Quay made a convincing case that it's time to stop asking if Covid-19 came from a laboratory. That no animal-to-human vector has been identified, and that the virus's binding mechanism appears unique, prove to them conclusively that the virus was made by scientists and spilled from a lab.
 
But serious experts fall on each side of the lab-leak debate, as Carolyn Kormann details at The New Yorker. (Dr. Anthony Fauci recounts to Kormann, of an early presentation on the virus's seemingly unusual qualities, "Knowledgeable people were saying, It does look like it could be something that might be engineered, because it's not something you usually see. … Then you have somebody else equally as knowledgeable say, Oh, nonsense, you can see that in other situations.") It comes down to a debate between skeptics who think some scientists are lying about their work, Kormann writes, and others who point to the overwhelming diversity of the natural world and see the virus's development in nature as entirely plausible.

China Talks Softly, Carries Stick of Undetermined Size

Despite Beijing's recent ramping-up of aerial incursions into Taiwan's air-defense zone, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a speech over the weekend that was surprisingly muted in tone, Walter Russell Mead writes for The Wall Street Journal. That's because Xi is playing to two different audiences, one domestic and one international, in Mead writes: China doesn't want to spook other countries, but its government needs to look strong at home.
 
"To keep the economy running, China must stroke its neighbors rather than slap them," Mead writes, pointing to China's need for trade. "From Beijing's point of view, this would be a terrible time for a major Taiwan crisis. … Xi seems to have decided, for now, on a two-track foreign policy. … [T]he goal is to rattle sabers without starting a fight, while Beijing waits for better times."

The Tricky Question of Helping Afghanistan

With concerns about terrorism and civil-rights abuses running high after the Taliban's takeover, the US promptly froze billions in Afghan government currency reserves, and help for Afghanistan through the International Monetary Fund (where member countries like the US vote on loan packages) suddenly looked doubtful. But as The New York Times reports, the European Union has pledged $1.15 billion in aid to Afghanistan and its neighbors, and some are warning that the country needs help.
 
In a Times opinion essay, Norwegian Refugee Council Secretary General Jan Egeland writes that Afghanistan's failing economy could soon instigate a humanitarian crisis. More problems lie ahead for Afghanistan, former US Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter reminds us at Just Security, writing that "many of the poorer communities are simply relieved that the fighting has ended ... even if they disagree with other elements of governance. But in the mega-capital, and in provincial cities like Herat or Jalalabad, holding things together will be more difficult."

Has America Built the Wrong Navy?

It has, according to an essay by Alexander Wooley in the new issue of Foreign Policy. For years, the US has pursued fancy technologies that haven't panned out. (Of the newfangled Ford class of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, Wooley writes, "The overly ambitious design includes new propulsion, a buggy magnetic catapult, a new aircraft arresting system, a new primary radar, and advanced weapons elevators. Each new technology has had extensive problems, cost overruns, and delays.") After such delays in bringing new, advanced ships online—and after multiple warnings from the Government Accountability Office—Wooley writes that the US Navy "has instead fallen significantly behind, accepting into service ships that struggle to even 'float, move, and fight'—the basic functions of the most rudimentary warship."