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? Subscribe here. November 25, 2021 With Russian troops massed near Ukraine—some 100,000 of them, according to the latter country—two essays in Foreign Affairs warn of real reasons to worry about an invasion.
Russia conducted a similar buildup last spring, only to pull troops back and claim it was all a successful training exercise, but Melinda Haring writes that this one is "out of cycle" in its timing and seems less "routine," including "furtive" nighttime movements, all of which has disquieted observers.
"The scenario of a wider war is entirely plausible," Michael Kimmage and Michael Kofman write. Collectively, the two essays note that Moscow sees diplomacy as having failed, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as difficult to manipulate, his regime in a moment of domestic weakness, and past uses of force having succeeded in achieving Russia's goals. It might be "foolish" for Putin to attempt to take over Ukraine entirely, Kimmage and Kofman suggest, but "it would not be unrealistic for him to try to divide the country in two or impose a new settlement that seeks to reverse Ukraine's slide into 'Euro-Atlantic integration' and security cooperation with the United States."
No one in the West knows what Putin is thinking, Haring writes, but he seems unwilling to let Ukraine out from under his pressure campaign or out of Russia's grasp. He appears to genuinely see territorial expansion as Russia's right, but also as a way for him to cement his place in its history; in Haring's view, the US might want to prepare its ally for an insurgent guerilla war, to make the idea of occupation less palatable to Moscow.
Note to readers: After a short Thanksgiving break, the Global Briefing will be back in your inbox Tuesday, Nov. 30. This Sunday at 10 a.m. ET on CNN, you can see Fareed's recent special report, "A Radical Rebellion: The Transformation of the GOP," which traces the Republican Party's trajectory from mid-20th-century conservatism to the rage of Jan. 6.
And this Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on CNN, be sure to catch Fareed's latest special report, "China's Iron Fist: Xi Jinping and the Stakes for America," which examines where Chinese President Xi Jinping is leading his country and what it means for the rest of the world. What to Expect from Germany's New Chancellor Germany has a new incoming Chancellor to replace the iconic Angela Merkel, after Social Democrat Olaf Scholz cemented a post-election deal to form a government. What can we expect from him? At The New York Times, Katrin Bennhold writes that Scholz, who until now served as Merkel's Finance Minister, won office by "convincing voters" he'd be much like her.
Formerly on the left wing of his center-left party, Scholz is now "considered to be to the right of much of its base—not unlike President Biden in the United States, with whom he is sometimes compared," Bennhold writes. "But like with Biden, some see some leftist reflexes," as in Scholz's "bazooka" of pandemic aid comprising "hundreds of billions of euros in state aid to help struggling workers and businesses … Like Ms. Merkel, he has a reputation for being a safe pair of hands and a decent person with a bipartisan aura."
The Economist writes that Scholz's proposals are "not radical" but "contain enough social-democratic red meat to satisfy the left wing of [his] party. Caution and competence, his signature traits, have brought Mr Scholz a long way. Now they are on the verge of carrying him into Germany's chancellery." What's Driving Vaccine Hesitancy in the Heart of Europe? As Europe faces a new pandemic wave, some have noted that German-speaking countries in the heart of Europe report lower vaccination rates than their neighbors to the West: While Portugal and Spain boast vaccination rates over 80%, for instance, Germany (70%), Austria (69%), and Switzerland (67%), lag behind. At The Spectator, Katja Hoyer theorizes that a mix of government-leadership problems (Austria's Chancellor resigned in scandal last month; German's Merkel has been on her way out) and a deeper current of conspiracy theories might be to blame. 'Where Did All the Workers Go?' The US has reported its lowest weekly total of unemployment claims since 1969, as employers look to snap up workers and as many Americans quit their jobs or voluntarily stay out of the labor force. In the lead essay of a Financial Times series exploring this global trend, Delphine Strauss asks where all the workers went, finding a mix of early retirements, reassessments of life priorities, searches for better benefits or more satisfying work, and a surge in housing prices that has lifted wealth and provided a cushion.
"The crucial question is whether those workers now standing on the sidelines will rejoin the labour force," Strauss writes—"or whether employers, consumers and policymakers will need to adapt to a world in which labour is scarce. As Jason Furman, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, puts it: 'The biggest wild card is not the [...] desire of employers to hire, but the desire of workers to find jobs.'"
In another FT essay, Taylor Nicole Rogers writes that workers in their 20s and 30s are easily changing careers or finding better jobs, as workers' leverage rises. The feel-good story does have a troubling side: As Moira Donegan writes for The Guardian, part of this "Great Resignation" entails mothers being forced from their jobs by a child-care "crisis."
Things are playing out differently in different countries, Anna Gross and Eir Nolsoe detail in another FT-series essay. Examining France, where employment and labor participation are both cresting, they write that some European countries have missed the global labor-shortage trend, reasons being that early retirement was already the norm and that much of Covid-19 economic relief went to employers, rather than to workers in the form of unemployment checks, and was designed to keep employees on the payroll. |
