What Actually Mattered This Week: Boris's Partygate, US/Russia/NATO Talks
WHAT ACTUALLY MATTERED THIS WEEK
My thoughts on some of this week’s biggest news stories:
It increasingly looks like Johnson’s not going to last the year. You'd think it would be because of Brexit or the economy going to hell in the UK (massive inflation, quality of life is going down). But it's none of those things. It's actually because the British citizens have a really strong sense of fair play, and Johnson has now been caught in a number of different scandals, the most shambolic of which has been a party for some hundred staffers that he denied he was at
I would say negotiations is on balance slightly better than not, because the Russians and the Americans both agree they'd like more talks in the near future. More talking means that the Russians aren't about to escalate in the immediate future. But the Russians continue to say that this is urgent, decisions have to be made quickly and that nothing has been provided so far from the Americans that would lead the Russians to believe that they don't need to escalate.
The real issue here is are the Russians prepared to escalate in ways that are short of invasion, but have the potential to drive apart the Americans and the Europeans. And as the Russians say that that is something they are credibly able to do, do the Americans in response allies or without even prepared to provide any level of concession to the Russians that would allow them both face saving and the ability to back down, the willingness to back down? And that right now is a very open question.
TRUTHS, DAMNED TRUTHS, AND STATISTICS
Winter 2021 vs Winter 2022:
Cases up drastically.
Hospitalizations up slightly.
Deaths nearly flat.
Most optimistic I've been since pandemic started.
-via New York Times
THE GZERO WORLD WE’RE JUST LIVING IN
GRAPHIC TRUTH
YOUR GZERO WORLD
One year after the attack on the US Capitol, American democracy is still hurting.
A democracy dies when regular people like the rioters choose violence over votes, and we can no longer agree on objective reality. But Republicans have done such a great job at whitewashing that Democrats are now the ones with their back against the wall ahead of the November midterms.
On GZERO World, I spoke with Fiona Hill, a former US national security official with a dim view of what lies ahead for American democracy.
For a longer, more in-depth version of my interview with Hill, check out the GZERO World podcast.
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WORLD IN 60 SECONDS
Is Boris Johnson's tenure as prime minister of the UK on the ropes?
As COVID fatigue sets in, where is the world in its mission to return to normalcy?
Finally, with China's zero-COVID policy, what's the outlook for the Winter Olympics?
Find out in this week’s World in 60 Seconds!
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BECAUSE THE INTERNET
Bad: lockdown
Worse: Lockdown at a blind date’s house
WHAT TO READ THIS WEEK
In his 2021 book, Chaos Under Heaven, Washington Post columnist and CNN political analyst, Josh Rogin details a rich and often suspenseful account of the Trump administration’s handling of China. Through many previously unreported anecdotes, Josh takes us behind the scenes of many controversial bilateral meetings, often vividly capturing the extent to which (in his estimation) the Chinese Communist Party has worked to co-opt US public and private institutions.
A central narrative is the author’s long held belief (since his early days in Washington) that so many elements of American society either directly or indirectly abet China’s rise and expansion, thereby exacerbating the damage being done to America’s economic and national security. The idea though that the US and China are hurdling toward Cold War – as hawks in the Trump administration and within the broader foreign policy establishment assert – is in my view untrue. Nevertheless, Josh ably lays out what the US and its allies got wrong about China – not just during Donald Trump’s presidency but over several decades and administrations. The irony, and a central tenet of Rogin’s analysis, is that Donald Trump correctly identified the threat posed by China, but where his administration failed was in the White House’s inability to formulate and implement a coherent strategy.
DEEP THOUGHTS
“A strategy, even a great one, doesn’t implement itself.” – Jeroen De Flander
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Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media and foreign affairs columnist at TIME. He currently teaches at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and previously was a professor at New York University. You can follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.