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World
Russian Black Sea Fleet commander still alive despite Ukraine's claims
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Is Russian commander Sokolov still alive?
Black Sea fleet commander. The Ukrainians said he was killed in a missile strike, but after that missile strike, he's attending a meeting with the Kremlin and looks very much alive. Should all remember that there is a lot of disinformation and a lot of misinformation in the fog of war. You remember that Snake Island strike. And that, of course, turned out those guys didn't die. They were made prisoner and then they were released. So Russians are absolutely at fault for the invasion. Ukrainian information is meant to promote Ukrainian efforts in the war. And this is one of those instances.
Will the West intervene in Nagorno-Karabakh?
Intervene in the sense that they are trying to put pressure on the Turks and the Azeris not to engage in war crimes, not to support war crimes against the Armenians, the 120,000 Armenians living in this autonomous region that is part of Azerbaijan. Thousands and thousands are streaming out, getting out. They're not forced out, but they certainly don't feel that they're going to be safe in this region for long. The war has been lost pretty decisively by the Armenians. And the question I suspect that you are going to see a level of ethnic cleansing, ethnic migration of the Armenians from this space is going to be problematic. Armenia itself is a small country. It's going to be a serious burden for them to resettle these people. And of course, it's been their homes and their homes for generations. It's very sad to see like we've seen in the Balkans, like we've seen in Iraq after the Iraq war. But it's hard to imagine anybody intervening at this point to stop that from happening. That's where I think we are. Armenia's best friend has been Russia, and that's not very useful for them.
How is China's proactive approach to trilateral cooperation impacting its relations with South Korea and Japan?
Well, it's making them harder, especially because Japan right now is on a, their food, their seafood is being banned from China. It's a significant export because of the irradiated water from Fukushima that is being released into the Pacific. Certainly, I have a hard time seeing a friendly trilateral relationship given that and I don't think it would be fixed anytime soon. But the South Koreans and the Chinese are working hard to try to make this work, and it doesn't need to be at the head of state level. It historically hasn't been frequently. I suspect that comes off and it will be formulaic and incrementally positive, but won't lead to an immediate breakthrough in relations between those two countries.
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Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
What's the future for Canada-India relations amidst the accusation of Sikh leader murder?
Also Canadian citizen, by the way, this is the equivalent of Jamal Khashoggi if he had been assassinated in the United States as opposed to Turkey. It's a big deal. The Canadians have hard intel. They've shared it with all of their top allies. The Americans certainly see it's very credible. This is, frankly, since the Russians invaded Ukraine, US relations with all of their top security partners and allies have only gotten closer and stronger over the last 19 months. This is the single big exception to that. India and Canada, two increasingly strong security partners of the United States with a very major flap. Trudeau called them out directly. There's been, you know, already some diplomats that have been tossed out of each other's countries. Doesn't really matter from an economic perspective. There's very little trade relations between the two countries, but it matters a lot in terms of domestic politics.Indian population in Canada is pretty big, and they have fair political autonomy because they're dominant in a couple of key districts politically. The Indian government views this guy as terrorist that was killed. They also deny it, so they had nothing to do with it. And there's a lot of nationalism. So it's very hard for me to see this getting fixed any time soon. Watch how the Americans respond, because they are between a rock and a hard place in this flap.
Another missing Chinese minister. That's the defense minister. Is this a coincidence or something bigger happening?
Well, we know when we don't hear from ministers for a couple of weeks, we're not going to hear from them going forward. They have been purged. And in this case, it does look like a significant corruption issue, something that the Chinese and the Ukrainians have in common right now, except Ukrainians you still hear from. The Chinese, house arrest or a lot worse. I guess the one positive thing you can say is that with corruption still being a big problem and the Chinese clearing house domestically inside the military, they're not going to be looking to invade Taiwan any time soon. Of course, I didn't think that was going to happen anyway. But there is also the possibility that we could see a breakthrough on US-China defense relations, because this defense minister, one of the reasons the Americans didn't and couldn't see him is because he was sanctioned by the US. That will not likely be true of his successor.
Is Azerbaijan and Armenia on the precipice of full-scale war?
Hard to know whether the Armenians in Armenia will be getting involved, but the autonomous Republic of Karabakh, mountainous Karabakh, 120,000 Armenians inside Azerbaijan. They're in very serious trouble. For years, the Armenians had the upper hand. The Russians were their primary security and defense partner. They had control of their region, also took over Azeri territories, buffer territories, kicked the Azeris out of it. They didn't want to negotiate. Why? They didn't have to. Well, now they do. Now the Russians are in trouble. They're distracted. No one else is going to support them. They're in big trouble. So as a consequence, the Azeris first cut off all the humanitarian aid, cut off the ability to get any food in, any medicine in. And now they've actually invaded. They are in very seriously dire straits. It's a tragedy playing out. And I am hard-pressed to imagine anyone intervening on their behalf. Hate to see it.
Talk to you all real soon.
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Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
First, will there be long-term regional consequences following the devastating Moroccan earthquake?
I hopefully I think the answer to that is, no. I mean, the response from the government was relatively, it wasn't immediate. And it wasn't great to begin with, in part, because the king, I guess, was in Paris. And it's very vertical. Nothing happens without the king. But now they're moving. There's a lot of international humanitarian aid going in. And as devastating as it is in terms of human lives, the ability to keep Marrakech going is pretty high. Even the IMF annual meeting in a few weeks’ time should still be there. So on balance, I think this is one where the consequences are borne by all of the families, but not on Morocco more broadly.
Secondly, is the Middle East on its way to becoming “the new Europe,” as Mohammed bin Salman recently said?
Yeah, no, I wouldn't go that far. But certainly, Mohammed bin Salman has done more in terms of reform and dramatic transformation of his country, and yes, with some downside, than anyone could have imagined before he came in. That's why he's so incredibly popular among the young people in Saudi Arabia, and certainly, it's why he's attracting a lot more attention to the region, including capital investment from a lot of different places.
And finally, Kim Jong Un is traveling to meet Putin. How concerned is the West?
Should be concerned in part because that's the only person out there that really supports Putin right now. It's like Belarus, it's North Korea, it's Iran, it's rogue states that the Americans and the Europeans cannot contain or constrain. And that's a serious problem.
That's it for me. I'll talk to you real soon.
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Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo just visited China. Was it a success?
Yeah, the bar is low, the expectations are low. But the meeting was successful. In particular, we have the announcement of two more lanes of engagement within the US Department of State and Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. One on commercial disputes, one on export controls. And, you know, given that these are sides that were barely talking to each other a year ago, that is an incremental positive. Also on the back of the Chinese economy continuing to underperform and the Chinese response being very incremental, they're not looking for any economic blow up with the US. And Raimondo, like Janet Yellen, who's been there recently, like John Kerry's been there recently, are the warmer, more pro-integration faces of the Biden administration. Haven't heard so much from Kurt Campbell recently. So all of that is nominally positive.
How will the Ukraine counteroffensive unfold?
Well, so far it is also marginal improvement for Ukraine. A little bit more land being taken in the southeast. One of three Russian lines of defense being broken in one place. You know, the Russians are holding pretty well defensively. The more significant counteroffensive is Ukrainian drone capabilities striking more targets inside Russia, in Moscow, in Pskov, in lots of places. And, you know, that's not about Ukraine getting their territory back. That's about Ukraine showing that their military can exact damage to the Russians. You know, on the one hand, that's a positive for Ukraine's capabilities. It's, of course, concerning in terms of the level of escalation that we might end up seeing between Ukraine and Russia and potentially between Russia and NATO. But so far, still relatively limited real news about how the counteroffensive is going.
Finally, what's next for the US economy?
Well, I'm not an economist, so I'm not going to answer that directly. What I will say is the fact that a lot of Americans continue to suffer from high levels of inflation means that even though the performance of the US economy, compared to the rest of the advanced industrial economies is actually quite strong coming out of the pandemic. That's true in terms of low unemployment levels. It's true in terms of comparatively low inflation. It's true in terms of comparative GDP growth. But overall, a lot of working class and middle class Americans still do not feel that the economy is doing well for them. Some of that is political perception, tribalism. Some of that is really suffering and a lot of inequality in the United States that hasn't been structurally addressed and probably won't be. There's more downside here for Biden in the next 12 months than there is upside from getting a Goldilocks economy going. And so on balance, I'd say this is an area of concern. But again, right now, hard to say that this is much more than incremental improvements.
Is democracy dead in Israel? Will a fugitive decide Spain's next prime minister? What does Qin Gang's removal say about China? Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Is democracy dead in Israel?
No, not at all. It's very much alive. It's precisely the fact there has been such an extraordinary outcry among so many Israeli citizens and completely peaceful, mind you, over so many months because they're not happy with the efforts to reform, and by reform, I mean, undermine Israel's independent judiciary. The first piece of that that has passed in the last 24 hours is by itself certainly not a death knell for democracy, though it probably would allow Netanyahu to appoint cabinet members that could allow him to no longer face jeopardy from these corruption cases that have been against him. If they persist with the next couple of pieces of legislation that would allow the Knesset, the legislature, to overturn with a simple majority, a judicial decision, that would be a much more significant threat to democracy. We'll see how that plays out over the fall, but certainly this is going to impact the economy, society, and the rest.
Will a fugitive decide Spain's next prime minister?
No, what's happened is that Prime Minister Sanchez recognized that by calling early elections, he could make everybody worry about the far-right Vox party and that if they went down in the polls, there was a shot for him to stay on his PM. That has played out pretty well. The center-right in Spain has done much better, but they don't have enough votes to create a parliament because they don't have a majority and that's because Vox has fallen apart. They're talking about like, anti-woke politics at a time when everyone wants to talk about the economy and people increasingly worried about climate change. So, Vox got destroyed. What's probably going to happen is, can't get a majority and so you'll have to have yet another election. We'll play this out again in the fall.
Finally, what does Qin Gang's removal say about China?
This is the former, now former foreign minister, pretty clear he was going to be out. We haven't heard from him at all in four weeks. China said he was ill for a couple days then didn't. There've been all these rumors and scandals around him. And the reason I thought he was out is because Chinese state media was not trying to repress all of the social commentary about those rumors at any point in the last couple weeks. And given that he was a Xi Jinping direct appointee and skyrocketed and how fast he was able to get the appointment, it was pretty clear there were serious problems. But I don't think this changes foreign policy in China, one whit. I was talking to the US ambassador to the UN the other day, has been dealing with the Chinese ambassador all the way through and she's like, "Nah, he's still been engaging with me as he normally does," so it's bad news for him, but no change for Chinese policy.
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What are the consequences from Russia's exit from the Black Sea grain deal? Where is Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang? "Oppenheimer" is out. Will you be watching? Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
What are the consequences from Russia's exit from the Black Sea grain deal?
Well, a lot of antagonism from the Global South because prices are now going up. That's why the Russians hadn't wanted to leave. Look, I mean, there is an ammonia pipeline that was sabotaged that the Russians wanted to use traversing Ukraine, that hasn't gotten fixed. They also wanna be able to get back into SWIFT for the agricultural banks, and neither of those things happen. So they have pulled out of the deal. They are also now attacking Odessa, stepped up way, including grain capacity and blowing up a whole bunch of food. And this is, these are all war crimes. And now you've got a whole bunch of sub-Saharan countries in particular that are gonna be angry with Russia as a consequence, one of the places they've done comparatively well since the beginning of the war.
Where is Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang?
I have no idea, and especially because, I mean, I know him pretty well. When he was ambassador to Washington, I used to see him all the time and he is very close to the Chinese president. So the fact that it's been about four weeks now and he has not been heard from, initially, the Chinese government said it was a medical issue. They stopped saying that after the first couple of times. And the only thing we've heard is some scandals about, you know, maybe a relationship with some journalist. I have no idea, but clearly given who he is and his backing, it's going to be a fairly big deal. And some long knives from opponents have to be seriously out for him to be away as long as he has. Hopefully we'll hear about that soon because you need an effective foreign minister.
"Oppenheimer" is out. Will you be watching?
Well, I'm not watching "Barbie." I wasn't sure if I was going to, but then I saw my buddy Fred Kaplan, who wrote "Wizards of Armageddon" and is like probably one of the preeminent historians on the atomic bomb, he saw an early version of the film, all three hours of it, and said it was not only historically accurate, but also fantastic. And that makes me want to go see it, because let's face it, I mean, this is the guy, the father of the Manhattan Project, made the atomic bomb happen. He is a very, very controversial figure, and it's an issue we need to be talking a lot more about because we are facing much greater dangers from nuclear proliferation and from nuclear war today than at any point since 1962. So I'm glad it's coming out and hopefully it raises some awareness.
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Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Sweden will join NATO. Is Ukraine next?
Well, sure, but next doesn't mean tomorrow. Next means like at some indeterminate point, which makes President Zelensky pretty unhappy and he's made that clear, but he has massive amounts of support from NATO right now, and he needs that support to continue. So, it's not like he has a lot of leverage on joining NATO. As long as the Americans are saying it's not going to happen, that means it's not going to happen. No, the real issue is how much and how concrete the multilateral security guarantees that can be provided by NATO to Ukraine actually turn out to be. We will be watching that space.
Is Taiwan readying itself for an invasion by conducting its biggest evacuation drills in years?
I wouldn't say readying for an invasion. I would say, you know, sort of preparing for every contingency, and that means taking care of your people. I mean, the Americans weren't readying themselves for nuclear Armageddon by doing drills in classrooms and by, you know, having bomb shelters, but they had them because we were in a world where nuclear war was thinkable. Well, we're in a world where Chinese, mainland Chinese invasion of Taiwan is very unlikely, but thinkable. And of course, the Taiwanese have to think about it a lot more than you and I do.
Elon vs. Zuck. Thoughts?
Well, my thoughts are mostly about the battle of the social media platforms and the fact that of course you now have the big gorilla in the room with a Twitter competitor. And I've seen it pretty functional for the first several days. Obviously, massive numbers of people are on it, mostly because it's really easy to sign up. They're all coming over from Instagram and it's owned by the same person, by the same shareholders. Unclear to me who's going to win. If I had to bet, I would say that within 6 or 12 months, we're going to have a fragmented social media landscape politically, the way we do blogosphere or cable news, which is, I guess, good for consumer choice, but it's bad for civil society. What else is new?
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