If the 2016 presidential election taught us anything, it's that only fools make predictions. So let's give it a go! In this episode of GZERO World, Ian Bremmer poses a basic question: If Joe Biden wins the presidency how would he reshape U.S. foreign policy? Anne-Marie Slaughter, who served as a top State Department official under President Obama and now runs the think tank New America, weighs in.
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. This website uses cookies. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence (if different), and our use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy.
Knowing the secrets of the Earth requires a great deal of exploration and intellectual curiosity. Fit for this job is geologist Giuseppe Valenti, Eni's Senior Vice President, whose role is to explore below the Earth's surface and understand the history, movements and age of each single grain of sand. Today, he is able to go underground without leaving the office thanks to new technologies and advanced x-rays that relay real-time data. Though working in the lab is distinctly different from his past adventures traveling the world, Giuseppe is not nostalgic for the past. He says he will always be Indiana Jones in spirit.
Watch the latest Faces of Eni episode to learn more about Giuseppe's inspirational life.
The person a US president taps to assume the coveted role of secretary of state, the nation's top diplomat, says a lot about that president's foreign policy ambitions and global vision.
Indeed, the selection of Henry Kissinger (Nixon and Ford), James Baker (George H.W. Bush), Hillary Clinton (Obama) and Rex Tillerson (Trump) to head the State Department, provided an early window into the foreign policy priorities — or lack thereof — of their respective bosses.
<p>President-elect Joe Biden has now tapped his longtime adviser <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/22/us/politics/biden-antony-blinken-secretary-of-state.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Antony (Tony) Blinken </a>to head the US State Department, a sprawling bureaucracy with some 70,000 employees. The nomination of Blinken — an aide Biden has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/antony-blinken-steps-into-the-spotlight-with-obama-administration-role/2013/09/15/7484a5c0-1e20-11e3-94a2-6c66b668ea55_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_27" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">referred to</a> as his "go-to-guy" — suggests that the president-elect has an ambitious foreign policy agenda that he wants to be driven only by a person he knows well and trusts. </p>
<p>What do we know about Tony Blinken and how he might shape US foreign policy?</p>
<p><strong>Global alliances are key. </strong>Blinken, who served as deputy secretary of state under president Obama, has long maintained the <a href="https://ge.usembassy.gov/remarks-antony-j-blinken-value-u-s-alliances-june-29/" target="_blank">importance </a>of strong global alliances. It is through revitalizing relationships strained during the Trump years, he has <a href="https://www.hudson.org/research/16210-transcript-dialogues-on-american-foreign-policy-and-world-affairs-a-conversation-with-former-deputy-secretary-of-state-antony-blinken" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">said</a>, that the United States can reassert leadership on the world stage and better position itself to meet a host of pressing challenges: "Even a country as powerful as the United States can't handle them alone," he said this past July. </p>
<p>Indeed, this offers insight into how Biden might tackle key foreign policy issues like China's increasingly assertive policies in Asia and beyond. But Blinken has also argued that traditional alliances need to be redesigned in order to better tackle issues like global health, cybersecurity, and climate change: "Why shouldn't Germany and France work with India and Japan on strategic issues?" he says. </p>
<p><strong>Rebuilding the State Department itself.</strong> Under President Trump, who mistrusts non-partisan civil servants, the State Department — which oversees an annual<a href="https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/SFOPS%20FY19%20Conf%20Agreement%20Press%20Summary.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> budget</a> of $54 billion (2019) — has fallen on hard times. Career foreign service personnel reported that morale hit rock bottom in recent years amid sharp budget cuts, hiring freezes, and the politicization of the agency. (In 2017, the <em>Atlantic</em><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/03/state-department-trump/517965/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> reported</a> that "the normal day-to-day operations at the department had stopped, leaving employees with little to do and anxious about the future.")</p>
<p>Blinken will surely prioritize the refilling of senior State Department positions that have remained vacant under <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2018/3/13/16029526/rex-tillerson-fired-state-department" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Rex Tillerson</a> (2017-2018) and Mike Pompeo (2018-present), President Trump's secretaries of state. He may even rehire career diplomats who were fired after <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/10/11/769049841/fired-u-s-ukraine-ambassador-arrives-on-capitol-hill-to-testify-in-impeachment-p" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">threatening</a> to expose Trump administration <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-extraordinary-impeachment-testimony-of-fiona-hill" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">misdeeds</a>, a process that <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/31/how-the-trump-administration-broke-the-state-department/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Foreign Policy</em> </a>says led to "the State Department hemorrhaging its own talent."</p>
<p><strong>Blinken the centrist. </strong>As deputy secretary of state under President Obama, Blinken was instrumental in laying out America's Middle East policy during the tumultuous years of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/21/barack-obama-arab-spring-cairo-speech" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">"Arab Spring." </a>As civil war gripped Syria — and later Libya — Blinken advocated a more <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-joe-biden-foreign-policy-adviser-antony-blinken-on-covid-shortfalls-failures-in-syria/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">interventionist position, </a>breaking with Obama — and even <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/joe-biden-libya-wrong-224595" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Biden </a>at times — who favored a more restrained approach. </p>
<p>Indeed, during his years in the Obama orbit, and more recently, Blinken has made no secret of his belief that America should sometimes intervene in foreign conflicts to safeguard human rights. (He has <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/01/04/america-first-is-only-making-the-world-worse-heres-a-better-approach/" target="_blank">described</a> US retrenchment in recent years as the "progressive cousin" of Trump's "America First" foreign policy.) Blinken attributes his support for humanitarian intervention to his experience as stepson of a Polish-born Jew and Holocaust survivor. </p>
<p><strong>Bottom line: </strong>If President Trump's administration aimed to topple the global order and deprioritize America's relations with traditional allies, Biden's choice of Blinken to head the State Department shows that his administration plans to do the exact opposition: deepen engagement with allies and bury the "America first" mantra as quickly and fully as possible.</p>
More
Show less
Quick Take: Latest vaccine news may be a light at the end of the tunnel
November 23, 2020
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
Hey, everybody. Ian Bremmer here, happy Monday, Thanksgiving week. Things starting to look increasingly normal in terms of outlook, in terms of having all of these vaccines. I understand that the next few months in the United States are going to be incredibly challenging, but so much easier when you see that there's light at the end of the tunnel and you know where that's coming. Most recently, the AstraZeneca announcement, which for me, in some ways is a bigger deal globally, even than what we've seen from Moderna and Pfizer, because it doesn't require freezing, it's just refrigeration, which means that countries around the world that don't have the infrastructure to deal with this cold chain requirements of these vaccines will be able to use another set of vaccines with different technology. That's not just AstraZeneca, it will be Johnson and Johnson. It's the Russians. It's the Chinese.
<p>As you start rolling those out, that allows the world to actually get back to normal. It's going to take longer than the United States and Europe and Japan. The advanced industrial economies are going to get these vaccines first, they've put the money in, they've done the development, they have the infrastructure, but we're not talking about years, we're talking about months. By the time we get to first quarter next year, large numbers of people are actually going to be vaccinated. I also think it's really important that this is an issue that is not getting politicized. I mean, yes, there's the potential for fights among states, especially states that have difficulties in terms of how much money they have and can allocate to getting this infrastructure up and running. It's expensive, it'll take billions of dollars, and a lot of states are already got big budget deficit crunches, and you're going to have Democrats versus Republicans fighting over where money is and isn't going and difficulties and stimulus, all of that.</p><p>But the fact that these vaccines have been developed by or supported by Operation Warp Speed in the US, means that both the outgoing Trump administration and the incoming Biden administration are all going to be saying, "Get these vaccines." I mean, there will be anti-vaxxer sentiment in the world, and there will be anti-vaxxer sentiment in the United States. But when your top vaccines are at 95% effectiveness, and when the side effects are largely limited to a fever for a few days, but not more significant than that, more people are going to take it. When both Republicans and Democrats, when political leaders around the world are all saying, "Take it." This isn't like, is a mask useful or not? Should have never been politicized in the US. What about hydroxychloroquine? That works, or no, it really doesn't. Remdesivir it works, no it really doesn't.</p><p>These things have gotten politicized and they make people not believe it. I don't think people will feel that way about the vaccines. I'm worried that in some countries, Israel and France, the level of anti-vax sentiment and the disinformation around vaccines is very high. Russia, believe it or not, highest level of disinformation and anti-vax sentiment in the world, even though the Russians themselves are one of the producers that are pushing to get these vaccines out as fast as possible, a lot of Russians will refuse to take it, but I think the numbers will be lower than you expect. So if you add to the fact that you're going to have lots of vaccines available soon at very high efficacy, not getting politicized, more people believing in it, and a lot of people that will have already gotten the disease. I mean, in the United States right now, we know that a large percentage of the population has already gotten the disease.</p><p>Let's say 5%, but in reality, that's tested, given limitations of tests and level of asymptomatic spread. In reality, it's probably more like 15% of Americans have already gotten coronavirus. Once we start talking about end of winter and what this present second wave looks like, you're probably talking about closer to 25 or 30%. So you have 25 or 30% of the population has already gotten coronavirus, whether they know it or not, and have some level of immunity. Then you're able to get a meaningful piece of the population taking this vaccine, especially those that are most vulnerable to dying. Your mortality rate from coronavirus by spring is going way down. That's on top of all of the improvements with treatments that we've gotten with better ability to recognize quickly symptoms, both in-home treatments and in-hospital treatments and these antigen cocktails also getting approved. We see from Eli Lilly, we see others, the Regeneron, those are also making a significant difference in terms of improved treatment and lowering mortality rates.</p><p>You put that all together by middle of next year, we're starting to look at coronavirus in the rear view mirror. It's still an issue, it's still with us, and it's still a global problem, but it's no longer stopping us from engaging in big pieces of our daily lives. My God, that's great news. It's bigger news then the election in the United States, I've said it before, I'll say it again. Coronavirus is absolutely the most important issue in the United States and globally. It was true before the election. It's true after the election, a lot of people going insane because Trump refuses to concede. He may never concede. He's still leaving. Yes, it's a problem that we've got all this disinformation in the media, but that's very different from being able to respond in short order, in a year, to a disease that did not exist in the human population just over a year ago, has infected, we know of, some 50 plus million people around the world. Again, reality much greater than... suddenly we can address it. That's the news! That's the news!</p><p>Lots of other things going on, obviously, and I'll be spending more time on them. It'll be good to get back to daily, international affairs. The fighting that we see in Ethiopia, which is getting worse and a lot of hard liners in the Ethiopian government that the Abiy administration needs to stay in power, but pushing towards efforts against the Tigray region that could amount to war crimes. I hope they don't start shelling the general population. We've already seen lots and lots, I mean, 5,000 a day refugees, those numbers could pick up, it's a big new war and it's in a country that has over 100 million people, that's a pretty big deal. So got to watch out for that.</p><p>Certainly worried about the potential for US, China relations to continue to deteriorate. Trump is still President for a couple of months and there will be further measures taken against the Chinese government. There are plenty of things the Chinese government's doing that are antagonizing, not just the US, but other countries around the world, that has the potential to get worse. Also, of course, the fact that there's just been a meeting between the Saudi Crown Prince and the Prime Minister of Israel, both have their domestic challenges. Netanyahu may not be very long for power in Israel, MBS has had his internal fights and trying to consolidate power inside Saudi Arabia, and clearly worries that a Biden administration will not be as interested in working with him as the Trump administration has. But we're talking about a completely new geopolitics in the Middle East that allows America's allies in the region to work more closely with each other, puts more pressure on Iran at the margins, makes it easier to get back to a new tweaked Iranian nuclear deal.</p><p>By the way, my friend, Tony Blinken who's about to be appointed Secretary of State, he is someone who clearly understands that if you're going to get back to the Iranian deal, you're not doing the status quo ante, it's going to be more challenging. So the Saudi Israel alignment, which Secretary of State Pompeo was involved in, frankly, I mean, I'm sure that Pompeo and Blinken are not talking to each other right now, but I'd like to hope in the coming weeks, maybe they will, because they're both rowing in the same direction. This is an area where the American national security interest is the same, whether you're talking about Trump or whether you're talking about Biden, there's more of that than people generally think or appreciate it. So that's a little bit from me. Thanks everyone, be good.</p>
More
Show less
The Graphic Truth: Two different pandemics - EU vs US
November 23, 2020
Although the United States and the European Union have comparable population sizes, until recently the trajectories of their COVID-19 outbreaks have been vastly different, with the EU seeming to have kept the pandemic mostly in check during the summer months. The US has now surpassed twelve million total infections as most states, particularly in the Midwest, are fighting massive outbreaks. But now Europe is doing even worse: states across the continent are seeing an uptick in average infection and mortality rates that dwarf those of the US, leading several European countries to implement fresh national lockdowns. Here's a look at the seven-day rolling average of new COVID-19 cases, and three-day rolling averages of new deaths and new deaths per capita in the EU vs the US since March.
What We’re Watching: Guatemala slips into crisis, Bibi slips into Saudi Arabia,Trump slips out of Open Skies
November 23, 2020
Guatemala in crisis: In the latest unrest to hit the streets of a Latin American capital, a group of demonstrators — angry about a controversial new budget — set fire to the Guatemalan parliament building over the weekend. The budget, negotiated largely in secret while the country reels from the impact of the pandemic and back-to-back hurricanes, cuts funding for healthcare, education, and human rights organizations while boosting money for infrastructure and — get this — adds more than $50,000 for lawmakers' meal stipends. The mostly peaceful protesters, along with the Catholic Church, are demanding at a minimum that President Alejandro Giammattei veto the budget, but some on the streets are calling for him and his whole government to step down entirely. Vice President Guillermo Castillo has offered to do just that, but only if the president jumps ship with him. Can Giammattei find a solution or is this a rerun of 2015, when mass protests unseated the government of then-President Otto Perez Molina? With its economy battered by the pandemic and natural disasters, Guatemala can ill afford a prolonged crisis.
<p><strong>Bibi goes to Saudi:</strong> Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/23/netanyahu-met-with-mbs-pompeo-in-saudi-arabia-israeli-sources" target="_blank">reportedly</a> travelled to Saudi Arabia over the weekend for direct talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Although Riyadh has formally denied that any meeting took place, the reports come as speculation swirls about the possibility of a normalization of ties between the two countries. Israel and Saudi Arabia have grown closer in recent years, in part because of a shared interest in containing Iran, but Riyadh's formal position is that it cannot establish formal ties with the Jewish State until Israel and the Palestinians reach a peace accord. In recent months, Israel has pulled off a flurry of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-54151712" target="_blank">normalization deals</a> with Arab states — the UAE, Bahrain, and Sudan — but a pact with Saudi Arabia would be a much more <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/10/15/what-would-happen-if-israel-and-saudi-arabia-established-official-relations-pub-82964" target="_blank">dramatic achievement</a>, given the country's size, economic clout, and its role as the custodian of Islam's holiest sites.<br/><strong></strong></p><p><strong>Trump closes Open Skies:</strong> Six months after giving notice, the US has now <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/22/united-states-formally-withdraws-from-open-skies-treaty" target="_blank">officially exited </a>the Open Skies treaty, a 30-year old agreement with Russia that permits both sides to conduct unarmed reconnaissance flights over each other's territory. The pact was intended to increase transparency and reduce the risk of war by giving each side a window into the other's military movements, but the Trump administration had complained that Russia wasn't living up to its side of the bargain, by refusing US access to certain areas in the former-Soviet sphere. US President-elect Joe Biden, for his part, has said he supports maintaining the Open Skies treaty and would prefer to address Russia's violations via the agreement's dispute resolution mechanisms. But even if he wanted to rejoin the treaty after he becomes president in January, he'd have a problem: the Trump administration is retiring the specialized surveillance planes that are used in the program, and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-exits-open-skies-treaty-moves-to-discard-observation-planes-11606055371?mod=searchresults_pos2&page=1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">stripping them for parts</a> (paywall). If you are in the market for a highly sophisticated wet-film surveillance camera, call the Pentagon. </p>
More
Show less
Today In 60 Seconds
GZEROMEDIA
Subscribe to GZERO Media's Newsletter: Signal
