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. January 11, 2022 What does Russian President Vladimir Putin really want? Western analysts have examined that question feverishly in recent months, as Putin has stationed some 100,000 troops near Ukraine's border while presenting the US with a list of stark demands, compiled in a draft treaty.
As talks resume, Maxim A Suchov argues at War on the Rocks that Putin wants to redraw Europe's post-Cold War security arrangement—and that his back really is against a wall, as Ukraine's growing Westernization could put Western military and intelligence assets on his border.
At Nikkei Asia, Andrew North calls such fear "an invented victim narrative. What Putin will not say, especially to audiences back home, is that the NATO members already on Russia's borders voted to join of their own free will." Russia isn't under any threat from NATO, the Financial Times' Gideon Rachman surmises, but Putin's popular legitimacy at home is suffering—not that another invasion of Ukraine would "ensure the survival of the Putin system, any more than invading Czechoslovakia in 1968 ensured the survival of the Soviet Union."
Intentions aside, another question is: What can the US and Europe do? Washington has threatened heavy economic sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine again, but Chris Miller writes for Foreign Affairs that Moscow isn't intimidated.
"[N]otably, after Biden administration officials escalated their threats, the Russian stock market and its currency barely budged," Miller writes. "The markets' collective shrug mirrors the Kremlin's view that the United States will not follow through on the harsh sanctions it has discussed. Russian policymakers know that many of the tactics that could seriously hurt Russia—such as curbing Russian commodity exports or blacklisting Russian banks—would be costly to the West, too, making it uncertain if the Biden administration would follow through on those threats. Finally, economically tough sanctions will require Chinese acquiescence, and that could create a host of other problems for the United States." Kazakhstan's Seeds of Unrest Kazakhstan's current unrest was sparked by the government's decision to lift caps on the price of fuel, but at Foreign Policy, Raushan Zhandayeva and Alimana Zhanmukanova trace the deeper origins of public discontent.
"Kazakhstan was once seen as an example of authoritarian stability despite a weak civil society," they write. "However, the prerequisites for political instability emerged long before 2022 ... The crash of the tenge, Kazakhstan's currency, in 2015 amid low oil prices; public disapproval of selling land to China in 2016; lavish spending on EXPO 2017; the resignation of long-term autocrat [former president Nursultan] Nazarbayev from the presidency (only to take up another position of power) and subsequent renaming of the capital after him in 2019; and the devastating effects of COVID-19 are just a few instances of public frustration with the regime."
Is the Supply-Chain Crisis Permanent? Crises are typically decisive moments that pass, but the global supply-chain crisis hasn't yet: In the US, recent reports have indicated shortages in groceries and home-building materials, while semiconductor supplies are expected to remain backed up, globally.
Things aren't quite as bad as they were last year, when pandemic port closures in China and a "freak" Suez Canal blockage brought things to a head, Harry Dempsey writes for the Financial Times, but they're not good. Shipping companies have been adapting to Covid-19, but ports and domestic distribution are still plagued by worker shortages, Dempsey writes. (At Bloomberg, Karl W. Smith goes so far as to argue that domestic distribution and its labor shortages are the main problem.)
At the FT, Dempsey points to two other big factors worth watching: Chinese production, as the country's lockdown-heavy zero-Covid strategy is tested by the Omicron variant (and as some factories close, due to smog-fighting measures surrounding the Beijing Winter Olympics), and US consumer demand for goods. A Choice to Make on Afghanistan Afghanistan and its economy are falling apart, Laurel Miller of the International Crisis Group writes for The New York Times—and the US has abetted that spiral by refusing to assist its erstwhile foes, the Taliban, instead freezing assets and blocking financial help.
Though Washington "has gradually broadened humanitarian carve-outs from its sanctions," Miller writes, NGO aid isn't sufficient to support the whole of Afghanistan, and sowing reliance on it can be counterproductive. "The Taliban are never going to have a policy on women's rights that accords with Western values," Miller writes. "They show no signs of embracing even limited forms of democratic governance. … No one in Washington or European capitals can be pleased to contemplate working with this kind of government. But the alternative is worse … The tough choice must be made." The 'Infodemic' Is Still Costing Lives Warned of almost since the virus first arrived, misinformation about Covid-19 is still a big problem, Stephen Maher writes for the Canadian magazine Maclean's, tracing some spreaders of it and their views after falling ill.
"We can't know where we would be if it weren't for misinformation on social media, but we can be sure that more people would be vaccinated, and fewer would have died," Maher writes. "[W]e have no choice but to tackle this problem, in part because it will not go away when the pandemic ends. The dark techniques that social networks have enabled will be manipulated to sow discord and mislead the public about other issues, like climate change and immigration, for example. Would-be regulators around the world are struggling with this issue, and there are no easy solutions, in part because we must protect the right of [former Saskatoon political candidate and Covid-19-vaccine conspiracy theorist Mark] Friesen [whose social-media posts Maher chronicles] to think and say what he likes if we are to continue to have a free society." |
