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 10, 2021

On Today's Show

On GPS, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET:

First, Fareed gives his take on President Joe Biden's protectionist bent.
 
As a candidate, Biden criticized Donald Trump's isolationism, tariffs, and trade war with China, only to maintain Trump's protectionist policies once in office. Trade with China is often blamed for American job losses, Fareed notes, but net numbers don't bear that out, while Americans have paid the price of Trump's China tariffs.
 
"Trade protectionism has become one of those zombie ideas that continues to move forward despite all the evidence showing it to be wrong and failing," Fareed says. "Most worrying, it is part of a sea change in America's basic outlook. From an optimistic and confident view that we can thrive in a world in which others also do … we are now retreating to a cold, curdled view of international life, one that is dark and zero-sum … in which we simply try to gain some narrow benefit for ourselves by screwing everyone else. It is Donald Trump's ultimate victory."
 
After that, Fareed talks with newly minted Nobel laureate Maria Ressa, CEO of the Philippines news outlet Rappler, and human-rights lawyer Amal Clooney about the fight for free expression in the face of harassment, oppression, and autocracy.
 
Next, with Beijing flying a record number of warplanes into Taiwan's air-defense zone in recent days, Fareed asks former US National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. (ret.) H.R. McMaster if war is possible.
 
Finally, as winter approaches, Fareed asks New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman what's behind the world's energy shortages and high fuel prices.

The End of Intervention?

Has the US and NATO exit from Afghanistan signaled the end of an interventionist era? At Foreign Affairs, former UK MP Rory Stewart opines on three decades of foreign military interventions and attempts at nation-building—in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan—and concludes that a large foreign presence, which seeks to impose one-size-fits-all formulae for governance, have finally been proven hubristic and wrong.

Where interventions have succeeded, Stewart writes, they've involved small military footprints and have allowed local actors to take the lead in solving problems, albeit with international backing. (For Stewart, Bosnia is a case in point: It "was ultimately transformed not by foreign hands but by messy and often unexpected local solutions that were supported by international diplomacy.") Ironically, Stewart writes, the US had finally landed on a successful, small-footprint strategy in Afghanistan, but it chose to leave rather than stay at a low and, to Stewart, worthwhile cost.

'Vaccine Plus' vs. 'Vaccine Just'

England has a high Covid-19 vaccination rate, but as the Delta variant produces breakthrough cases, Christina Pagel and Martin McKee write for The Guardian that vaccines aren't enough. While England has largely lifted restrictions, other countries have combined vaccination efforts with other measures. Pagel and McKee point elsewhere to France's exposure-alert app, indoor mask requirements elsewhere in various European countries, restricting nightclubs and large events, investments in ventilation, and requirements for masks and distancing in schools.
 
To Pagel and McKee, that "vaccine plus" strategy is much better than what England is doing: in their words, "vaccine just."

An Odd Moment for Crypto

Cryptocurrency is part of the zeitgeist, but its own zeitgeist is hard to pin. El Salvador recently recognized Bitcoin as legal tender; Cuba will recognize and regulate cryptocurrencies, issuing licenses for crypto-related services; and China has banned cryptocurrency transactions altogether.
 
At the World Politics Review, Oxford Information Labs CEO Emily Taylor writes that China's move is likely about more than just state control, as computer-powered "mining" to create crypto-coins is energy intensive—and as China is in the process of rolling out its own, central-bank-backed digital currency. 
 
To many, the jury remains out on crypto's utility: MIT economist Daron Acemoglu writes for Project Syndicate, for instance, that crypto reflects a "puerile libertarian ideology" more than any legitimate purpose. At the same time, nation-states are eyeing the benefits of digital currency, Alexander William Salter reminds us in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. Less interested in the anonymous, blockchain-based architecture of crypto, countries see the upside of smooth transactions if they roll out their own, central-bank-issued digital coins—an idea Salter warns against, as it could create a "financial panopticon" if governments start tracking individual transactions.

AUKUS Is Great—if Trump Doesn't Tear It Up

After the US, UK, and Australia announced a splashy new Pacific security partnership, Grant Wyeth writes for the Australia-based Lowy Institute's Interpreter blog that the idea is a winner—but that allies ought to think twice about trusting US commitments these days. With the Republican Party thoroughly captured by former President Donald Trump, who has shown a penchant for ripping up international agreements and spurning allies, there's no guarantee he won't do the same to London and Canberra if he retakes the White House in 2024.