Trending Now
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. 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, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
News
German Chancellor and chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Angela Merkel addresses a news conference in Berlin, Germany September 19, 2016.
Angela Merkel was elected chancellor of Germany on November 22, 2005, becoming the first woman to hold that job. In many ways, she was the ballast of Europe through the Eurozone crisis, the refugee surge, and the COVID pandemic.
During that time Merkel was arguably the most powerful woman in the world, presiding over one of its largest economies for four terms in the Bundesregierung.
Twenty years on, the anniversary is a reminder of how singular her breakthrough remains. It’s still the exception when a woman runs a country.
Consider the scoreboard. As of September 2025, 29 countries had a woman as head of state or government, just 14% of nations on a planet that is half female. Even after 2024’s “year of elections” which sent more than 4 billion people to the polls, men still outnumber women by three to one in legislative positions.
In 1995, when then First Lady Hillary Clinton famously declared, “Women’s rights are human rights,” 11% of parliamentarians globally were female. Today it’s 27%, but their share of cabinet leadership roles slipped over the past year. In short: representation in legislatures inches forward glacially, but control of the levers of power remains overwhelmingly male.
There are high-profile women in top offices, Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni among them, but they are still swimming against a powerful tide: more than 100 countries have never had a woman leader.
Why does it matter who sits at the top? Beyond basic fairness, evidence keeps mounting that diverse leadership broadens policy priorities and improves decision-making. Studies have pointed to reduction of violence, greater gender equality, and strengthened education, healthcare, and social welfare policies. In geopolitical terms, it also affects how states engage in multilateral forums and crisis response.
At the Paris Peace Forum in October, former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said women are more likely to bring empathy to positions of power. “Empathetic doesn't mean sympathetic,” she told GZERO. “It means that you can put yourself in the shoes of the other so you can understand the problem.”
Madam Secretary-General. About a third of the 193 United Nations member states have had a female leader, but the UN itself has never elected a woman to its top spot. As the organization marks its 80th anniversary, there are growing calls to change that next year, when a new Secretary-General will be chosen.
The organization GWL Voices has backed a campaign called “Madam Secretary-General,” and several prominent geopolitical players vocally supported the movement at this year’s General Assembly.
Ecuador’s Permanent Representative to the UN and GWL Voices Executive Director Maria Fernanda Espinosa told GZERO, “I think after 80 years of history, the organization deserves to have a woman at the helm. If the UN really wants to be transformed, there is a shift in styles of leadership that is needed. And the question I ask is, ‘Why not a woman?’"
After Merkel. While in office, Chancellor Merkel often promoted women’s rights in her speeches and once said, “I hope we won’t have to wait 100 years to achieve [full equality].”
Actually, the organization UN Women reports at the current pace it will take 130 years to attain an equal balance of men and women in positions of power.
While there has been progress since Merkel made history two decades ago, the path to parity remains elusive.
What We’re Watching: Kyiv gets a nugget US peace plan, Election day in Guinea-Bissau, Two men from Queens meet at the White House
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets with US Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on November 20, 2025.
A nugget for Kyiv in the US plan for ending the war
The United States’ 28-point plan for ending the war in Ukraine appears to contain many items from Russia’s wish list, but it has emerged that it also has something for Kyiv: a security guarantee akin to NATO’s Article 5, which says that an attack on one member state is an attack on all. The US and its European allies would be part of this guarantee. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who faces domestic pressure over a corruption scandal, said on Thursday he’s willing to engage with the plan – although he did draft a statement with European leaders that disavowed parts of the proposal. The Kremlin said it hasn’t formally received the plan.
This West African incumbent may struggle to win reelection
Guinea-Bissau, a West African country of two million people that plays a central role in global cocaine trade, is holding the first round of its presidential election this Sunday. One-term incumbent Umaro Sissoco Embalo faces fierce competition from opposition leader Fernando Dias, who has centered his campaign on security and keeping soldiers out of politics – a rather tough challenge in a country that has had several military coups. The issue hasn’t gone away, either: there was reportedly a coup attempt this year. Most incumbents have won reelection on the continent this year, often amid reports of vote-rigging. Will it be different in Guinea-Bissau?
Two men from Queens walk into the Oval Office
New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is heading to the White House today to meet with Donald Trump, setting the tone for the relationship between the leader of the US’s biggest city and the US president – and there’s plenty that could go wrong. While they both hail from Queens, they represent movements on vastly different sides of the political spectrum. If things go south, Trump holds a more powerful hand: he has threatened to cut off funding for the city, flood its streets with ICE agents, and send in the national guard. While Mamdani may hesitate to provoke the president, he’ll lose his base if he’s seen as cowing to the president.
Argentine President Javier Milei speaks during the America Business Forum at the Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida, USA, on November 6, 2025.
$20 billion: Argentine President Javier Milei had a fantastic midterm election last month, but the celebration might be coming to an abrupt end: A group of US banks shelved its $20-billion bailout plan for the South American nation, favoring instead a short-term loan package.
6: A group of six US Democratic lawmakers published a video telling military and intelligence officials that they must disobey illegal orders. The move irked President Donald Trump, who suggested that the move constituted, “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”
70 million: The Louvre wasn’t the only site of a successful heist in broad daylight this fall, as a group of men posing as Indian central bank officials robbed a vehicle that held 70 million rupees ($800,000) in the southern state of Karnataka on Wednesday afternoon, per police. Law enforcement is still searching for the culprits.
41: Relentless rains and flooding in central Vietnam have killed at least 41 people, left nine missing, submerged over 52,000 homes, and cut power to half a million households. Hard-hit cities like Hoi An and Nha Trang face evacuations, landslides, and infrastructure collapse as typhoons grow increasingly frequent.
10.5: The former leader of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party was sentenced to ten-and-a-half years in prison this morning for accepting pro-Russian bribes. Nathan Gill was paid thousands of pounds to deliver TV interviews in favor of an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Reform UK has taken a more dovish position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine than other parties in the United Kingdom.
$1 trillion: During his White House visit this week, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pledged to increase his investment in US firms to nearly $1 trillion. There’s just one problem: Riyadh’s Public Investment Fund is running low on cash, according to a New York Times report.
What We’re Watching: US and Russia’s peace framework, West Africa on edge, Iran asks Saudi Arabia to put in a good word with Trump
A psychologist comforts a resident in front of an apartment building that was hit yesterday by a Russian missile, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Ternopil, Ukraine, November 20, 2025.
Details emerge of US-Russia plan for Ukraine
The proposal would give Russia more territory, cap the size of Ukraine’s military, and grant both the Russian language and the Russian Orthodox Church official status within Ukraine. While it envisions some US security guarantees for Kyiv, it also prohibits foreign troops and long range weapons on Ukrainian soil. In its current form, some consider it a Kremlin Christmas list, though officials say it’s just an initial “framework.” The Ukrainians see the plan as a non-starter, but the corruption scandal currently engulfing President Volodymyr Zelensky may complicate his ability to push back. Who’s funding Ukraine’s war effort now? See our recent Graphic Truth here.
Military governments continue to struggle with militants in West Africa
Islamist militants with ties to al-Qaeda killed at least 10 government soldiers in western Niger on Wednesday. The attack from the Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam al-Muslimin (JNIM) group, which controls a portion of West Africa that spans Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, will likely fuel further fears of these insurgents seizing power in this trio of military-controlled West African countries – the militants already have Mali’s capital surrounded (read more here).
Iran’s leader asks Saudi Arabia to help bring Washington back to the table
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian sent a letter to Saudi Arabia’s leader on the eve of his visit to the White House asking him to pass on a message to Donald Trump: please resume US-Iran nuclear talks. Since the US and Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear program during the 12-day war in June, diplomacy has stalled. Iran is getting desperate to return to talks in order to lift the sanctions that are crippling its economy and worsening chronic water and energy shortages. The note marks that Iran’s leadership may be scrambling for a breakthrough with Washington — now we’ll see if Trump bites.
Hard Numbers: 80 years since the Nuremberg trials, Gazan ceasefire holds despite strikes, US and India inch closer to detente, Epstein files out before Christmas
Senior Nazi figures – Hermann Goering (1893-1946), Rudolf Hess (1894-1987), Joachim von Ribentrop (1893-1946), and Wilhelm Keitel (1882-1946) – stand trial in Nuremberg, Germany, 1945-46.
80: Exactly 80 years ago today, the Nuremberg trials began. One scholar who knows a thing or two about the subject says it’s a reminder that international law – despite the punchline that it sometimes seems to be – can also make a real difference.
25: The Israeli military struck parts of Gaza yesterday, killing at least 25 people, per Hamas-linked local health officials. Israel said the attacks were in response to Hamas militants opening fire on its forces. There were another set of Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday that reportedly killed five. Both sides said they were still committed to keeping the ceasefire, though each side is struggling to move forward with the second phase of the ceasefire deal.
$93 million: In another sign that trade tensions between the world’s richest country and the world’s most populous country are easing, the US approved a $93-million deal to sell arms to India. The purchase also marks Delhi’s latest move away from buying Russian arms and toward purchasing US ones.
30: After US President Donald Trump signed the bill last night, the Justice Department has 30 days to release all of the Epstein files. It remains to be seen whether the release will be comprehensive – the department can withhold documents related to ongoing investigations – but Attorney General Pam Bondi has said that she would “encourage maximum transparency.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivers the State of the European Union address to the European Parliament, in Strasbourg, France, September 10, 2025.
While the European Union has never been more critical, it is also facing a trifecta of divisive challenges.
There are real forces strengthening the EU’s cohesion. Militarily, Russia’s war on Ukraine and challenges to EU members poses a profound security threat to the continent. Economically, the 27-country bloc has coordinated its response to US tariffs. And public support remains strong — 73% of EU citizens say their country has benefitted from membership.
Yet beneath this united front, three divisive issues are exposing the fault lines between European solidarity and individual national interests.
Issue #1: Funding Ukraine with frozen Russian assets. Ukraine desperately needs more funding, but European budgets are stretched and no country wants to prioritize Ukraine over its own citizens. Now the EU has reached an impasse: Belgium recently blocked a long-awaited loan plan that would have used $160 billion in frozen Russian central bank assets to support Ukraine's war effort. Belgium fears it could be held liable if Russia successfully demands its money back, with Euroclear, the Belgian securities depository holding the funds, calling any confiscation illegal and accusing leaders of seeing the assets as a “pot of gold.”
EU proponents are scrambling to address Belgium's concerns by proposing to jointly guarantee the funds against potential Russian legal claims. But the Russian-friendly states of Slovakia and Hungary are opposed to this approach, or taking the funds at all.
According to Eurasia Group's Managing Director for Europe Mujtaba Rahman, “using these reserves has become a really important goal for many member states” as a way to demonstrate commitment to Ukraine without straining their own budgets. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen agrees, calling the frozen assets “the most effective way to sustain Ukraine's defense and its economy.” The challenge is convincing the holdouts to come onside.
Issue #2: Migration gridlock. Last month, interior ministers gathered to hammer out implementation details for the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum. The deal was adopted in 2024 to tighten border security, share the cost of hosting migrants, and streamline deportations. While most EU leaders support reform in principle, putting the pact into practice has sparked fierce disagreement.
At the heart of the dispute is the pact’s “solidarity pool,” designed to ease pressure on Southern European states — namely Spain, Greece, Italy, and Cyprus — by redistributing asylum seekers across the continent. Countries unwilling to accept migrants can provide financial compensation instead. But many nations, particularly in Eastern Europe, resist accepting migrants who wouldn’t otherwise reach their borders, and resent being financially penalized for refusing.
This pressure is fueling nationalist parties throughout the EU. “It’s not going to get better,” warns Rahman. “You’re going to continue to see far-right support increase because the perception is migration is running out of control and governments don’t have a handle on how to secure their borders.”
Issue #3: National sovereignty versus European law. The EU’s handling of migration provides ammunition for nationalist and Euroskeptic leaders like Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico. Riding that moment, Fico recently changed his country’s constitution to assert that national laws take priority over EU legislation.
The constitutional change accompanied an amendment recognizing only two sexes, and explicitly prioritizing Slovak law on matters of national identity, culture, and ethics. It echoes Poland’s 2021 clash with the EU, when Warsaw faced tribunal proceedings over conflicting laws on judicial reforms, media freedoms, and LGBT rights.
Slovakia’s moves directly challenges the EU’s legal framework, in which EU law supersedes national legislation to maintain unity across the bloc. “I want to be absolutely clear: the primacy of EU law must be upheld in all cases across the European Union,” declared EU Justice Commissioner Michael McGrath. The EU has issued a warning to Slovakia and will soon decide whether to pursue legal action.
The EU hopes cracking down on Slovakia will reinforce its own control over the bloc. But as ever, it risks exacerbating the current issues that it faces, and encouraging member states to prioritize national interests over that of the bloc.
So the United States is gearing up for what looks like regime change. And I think it's a bad idea.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see the back of Maduro. He’s a brutal dictator who's rigged elections, destroyed Venezuela's economy, overseen a humanitarian catastrophe that's displaced 9 million people, and turned his country into a narco-state playground for transnational cartels and Cuban intelligence. The opposition leader María Corina Machado is a genuine democrat who won the Nobel Peace Prize this year. Her running mate Edmundo González won last year's presidential election in a landslide that Maduro brazenly stole.
If we lived in a world where removing tyrants by force was very likely to produce better outcomes, I'd be all for it. But we don’t live in that world.
The 1989 Panama regime-change intervention gets trotted out as the model to emulate here – quick, surgical, successful. Remove Manuel Noriega, restore an elected government, get out. But Venezuela is not Panama.
Panama had 2.5 million people; Venezuela has nearly 30 million. Panama is tiny; Venezuela spans a territory the size of Texas and Oklahoma combined. The US had deep knowledge of Panamanian politics and faced minimal armed resistance; even then, the operation killed hundreds of civilians and left lasting scars.
Venezuela is far more complicated. It's got a heavily armed, economically entrenched, Cuban-supported military apparatus. Dissident FARC units. The ELN. Hezbollah. The Tren de Aragua gang. Armed colectivos loyal to the regime. And American intelligence on the ground has been spotty – which is why, despite months of military buildup, the US has mostly been blowing up fishing boats it claims are running cocaine, killing over 80 people since September without much evidence to show for it (and with little legal justification).
The Trump administration's theory of victory is that targeted strikes will crack Maduro's inner circle. Hit enough cartel assets, maybe take out figures like Iván Hernández Dala – who runs military counterintelligence and is responsible for kidnapping Americans – and senior military leaders will do the math and push Maduro out.
It's not crazy. These guys aren't ideologues; they're in it for money, power, and – ultimately – survival. Change their risk calculus enough and maybe Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López or other top brass decide Maduro isn't worth dying for.
But if that pressure campaign fails – and history suggests it will – Trump will face pressure from Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe to escalate by targeting Maduro directly. A full ground invasion remains off the table despite Trump saying Monday that he doesn't "rule anything out." The president wants to avoid the political costs of a botched operation or a lengthy quagmire; he’s increasingly comfortable with limited strikes à la Iran.
But then what? Even if the US manages to force Maduro out, the most likely outcome is an internal transition. Someone from the regime takes over, probably from the military or existing power structure. Maybe it's Vice President Delcy Rodríguez or her brother Jorge, the National Assembly president. They're no democrats but they’re pragmatic, have negotiated with Washington before, and could potentially mend fences while keeping enough of the state apparatus functioning to prevent anarchy.
Getting from that to an actual opposition-led government with Machado or González at the helm? That's the hard part. It requires street pressure, contentious negotiations, and credible guarantees for the security apparatus – you know, the guys currently running drugs, torturing regime critics, and starving millions of their fellow citizens. Some need to stay for the sake of stability; others need to go because of their crimes. Who decides which is which? Who enforces it?
Not Machado, who has moral authority but no armed forces and limited organizational capacity on the ground. When I interviewed her on GZERO World earlier this year, she told me she has plans for the first 100 hours and the first 100 days of a transition. But Ambassador James Story, who served as US Ambassador to Venezuela from 2018 to 2023, thinks Machado needs to be much more public about her plans for regime figures. "There needs to be a plan in place that says when we change, not everybody is gonna be out," he told me. “De-Baathification was a disaster.” No matter how unpalatable it sounds, some form of amnesty or integration will be necessary.
This is where the "anything is better than Maduro" argument falls apart. Not because Maduro doesn't deserve to go – he does. But because US-led regime change risks creating the kind of chaos that produces more refugee flows, more drug trafficking, and more regional instability. Iraq taught us that toppling a dictator is easy; building a functioning state is hard. Libya taught us that even "leading from behind" can produce chaos. Afghanistan taught us that twenty years and trillions of dollars can't conjure competent governance from scratch.
Now, Venezuela isn’t Iraq or Libya. The country is not riven by deep ethnic, religious, or sectarian cleavages. Any violence following Maduro's fall would likely be short-lived, rather than a protracted civil war. But the underlying problem remains: removing a dictator creates a vacuum, and vacuums get filled by whoever has the most organization and firepower. Not necessarily by the people with the best democratic credentials.
These are risks the Trump team doesn’t seem equipped to manage. Rubio is a true believer who sees Caracas as the linchpin for toppling the regimes in Cuba and Nicaragua – a domino theory for the 21st century. Trump himself is uncomfortable with prolonged foreign entanglements and wants quick wins he can sell to his MAGA base. That's a recipe for going in hard, declaring victory prematurely, and leaving a mess behind.
What Venezuela needs is a multilateral diplomatic solution with buy-in from Brazil, Colombia, and other regional players. Back-channel negotiations to guarantee safe exit for regime figures. A phased transition roadmap – the kind that worked in Brazil and Uruguay – that brings in opposition leadership gradually while keeping enough institutions functional. And a commitment to stick around – diplomatically, economically, maybe even with security assistance – for years, not months. Does any of that sound like Trump 2.0 to you?
There's one asterisk. Trump's Gaza ceasefire, like the Abraham Accords during his first term, showed that the president can occasionally pull off complex diplomatic breakthroughs when he's personally invested and has capable people executing. Maybe – and it’s a big maybe – Venezuela could become that if Trump sees it as legacy-defining. But stacking maybes on top of maybes isn't a bankable strategy.
Even as it has ramped up preparations for military escalation, the White House has simultaneously reopened negotiations with Maduro – "I talk to anybody," Trump told reporters Monday, though he rejected Maduro’s offer to step down after a two-to-three-year transition. It’s classic Trump: maximize pressure while keeping diplomatic options open. But if talks fail – and they probably will – the massive buildup leaves him little choice but to strike, likely before the year’s end.
So here we are. Maduro needs to go. But we've seen this movie before, and it doesn't end well.