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Quick Take
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take on the latest in the Middle East crisis. And things actually looking a little bit more stable today than they have over the past couple of weeks. And that is some very welcome news.
The headlines, of course, that the Iranians have been hit by Israel, though no one is saying that Israel has admitted to doing it, in the town of Isfahan. Clearly, military targets and the Iranians trying to knock down those missiles coming over. But this was a significantly more restrained attack than what the Israelis did to kick off this crisis, which was attack an Iranian government building in Damascus and target and assassinate a senior Iranian leader. That led to the Iranian response that we saw over the weekend, which was a significant and serious one, with a few hundred missiles and drones. And now we are in the escalatory portion of the cycle.
The United States said very clearly to Israel, “We're going to help defend you no matter what. We don't want any offensive strikes against Iran. Take the win.” The fact that they said that meant that it was very, very likely that they were going to do something, but that something was going to be restrained, where if the Americans said, “Hey, just take it easy, don't do anything big,” then they’d end up doing something bigger, right? And you give them an inch, they take two inches. This is the way these things work. And it was coordinated with the United States. The US was not involved directly in the military strikes, but they knew it was coming. They had that cooperation, communication from Israel, which was important because the US had to be in position in case the Iranians decided that they were going to strike real time in response to Israel. The Americans were going to help the Israelis defend themselves yet again.
Now, the big question here is not, “Do the Iranians respond in a big way?” They don't. They've already signaled that that's not the intention. You've seen them downplaying the nature of these strikes on Iranian state media. So, this crisis, this proximate crisis between Israel and Iran is now in the rearview mirror. But going forward, what's the likelihood that we can stabilize this war, which is now well beyond just a matter of Israel versus Hamas?
One thing that makes me a little bit more positive is the fact that Bibi Netanyahu is himself in a little more secure position domestically. What do you mean, makes you more positive? Does that mean he's going to last longer? Yes. But it also means he doesn't necessarily have to go ahead with massive strikes against Hamas in Rafah, killing lots of civilians. Or eventually against Hezbollah, pushing them back so that almost 100,000 Israeli citizens can get back to the north. If he wanted to take a win and show that he now has, you know, a historical legacy of leading Israel in defending against an unprecedented strike from Iran, with strong support from the Americans, from the Brits, from the Jordanians, from the Saudis, this is the opportunity that could create Saudi normalization with Israel. This is the opportunity that could create a peace deal that the Palestinians would have some form of governance over the West Bank and Gaza together.
That's the opportunity that comes from this, precisely because Israel domestically now has a leader that doesn't have to look over his shoulder every moment. But the strong effort by Netanyahu, at least as of today, is to still go ahead with these Rafah strikes. You've got the battalions on the ground. You want to use them, you want to take out, these Hamas leaders, irrespective of the civilian cost. And that continues to be very popular among the entire population of Israel as well.
So, when I think about the next couple of weeks, I think that you're not going to get a breakthrough deal on hostages with Hamas, and that means that the fighting only stops if there's a broader agreement. And that broader agreement requires that the Israeli war cabinet is willing to stand down and not continue their war on the ground in Gaza. And in return, has a broader agreement with the Americans, with the Gulf states, and ultimately with a path forward for the Palestinians. Most people around the world would welcome, would love to see that. Getting the Israelis from here to there, especially when you are surrounded by enemies that consider you, to be, illegitimate as a country and refuse to recognize your right to exist, that makes it a lot harder. So that's where we are. But some breathing space for now. The mood in the United States, certainly better than it was at any point over the last week and a half, and that's a good thing.
That's it for me. I'll talk to you all real soon.
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here, and a Quick Take on a Sunday, which usually means something is not going well, and that is certainly the case in the Middle East, where you had unprecedented strikes by Iran and its proxies against Israel.
Now, on the one hand, clearly a very dangerous thing to do, on the other hand, could have been a hell of a lot worse. What do I mean by that? Well, it is not World War III. Americans warned Iran not to hit the United States, and the Iranians gave a heads-up, days in advance, through a number of actors, most importantly through Iraq. This reminds me very much of after the American servicemen and women, three were killed in Jordan, by an Iranian proxy. The Americans did not want a war to break out with the Iranians directly, waited about a week, gave a heads up through Iraq, of the kind of attack that the Americans were planning, waited four days, gave the Iranians a chance to basically prepare and get their own forces out, and warned them that if this were to happen again, there would be direct consequences, a direct strike on Iran itself.
In this case, you had the Iranian heads-up that gave the Americans and allies time to pre-position, to provide diplomatic support, both publicly and privately, to the Israelis. Send the head of CENTCOM to Israel, say that American support for Israel was ironclad, help ensure that the Israelis would be able to most effectively defend itself against the coming Iranian attack. That was, on the one hand, a really big deal by the Iranians that was meant to be a maximal display of force and a minimum likelihood of casualties. But still, there was a significant possibility of accident, that you could have a risk that would lead to a war directly between Iran and Israel. Something that the Americans desperately wanted to avoid because it would bring the US in. It would spike oil prices. It would probably mean the end of Biden's, potential of a second presidency. And it, of course, would also mean that Iran was going to get hit massively by the United States and Israel, something they wanted to avoid.
We saw hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles, many from proxies, but many from Iran itself, over 99% of which were taken down. And they were aimed solely at military targets in Israel. So again, lots of effort to try to reduce the risk but the potential that you would have had a number get through, accidentally hitting civilians or having significant military hit, that was a risk that the Iranians were prepared to take. So, it's a big deal, it’s a clear escalation, and it is certainly an effort by the Iranians to say, that if this is to happen again, that the likelihood that there will be a major war between Iran and Israel come what may, is very real. And the Iranians also said, and they said this before the missiles even hit their targets, or in the case of the vast majority of them were intercepted, said through the United Nations mission that this was directly in retaliation for the Israeli strike against an Iranian leader in Damascus, and that the matter, from Iran's perspective, should be considered closed.
In other words, no further attacks were coming. So, trying to in a sense, you know, reduce the likelihood of further escalation, in advance. And clearly, all of that kept the United States from responding directly. So, the US strategy here is do everything possible to show that you will get massive support for Israeli defense and national security in the event of an attack, any attack, but also to try to put maximum constraint on the Israeli government against a response directly against Iran, and that the Americans don't want to support Israel if they were to engage in offensive attacks against Iran at this point.
What are the Israelis going to do? I mean, the hope for the United States is that while Prime Minister Netanyahu wants to do more and suck the United States into a broader war against Iran, that he is going to be constrained from doing so. In part because he was so successful, they now have a major victory on their belt under his watch, being able to defend the Israeli people completely in response to an unprecedented Iranian attack. And there's also going to be a big distraction away from the war in Gaza. Doesn't mean that Israel suddenly loses its isolation or wins the PR war globally, I think that's certainly not going to happen, but, there's less pressure on the Israelis, on the prime minister, in terms of Gaza right now as a consequence of what Iran has done. And there's also less pressure for Netanyahu to be forced out domestically in the near, in the immediate future.
Further, if he were to try to go considerably farther than Benny Gantz wants to, and the war cabinet wants to, in a response against Iran, then Netanyahu risks that they would bolt from the war cabinet and that his government would then fall apart. That's certainly a proximate risk that contains what the Israelis are likely to do. I don't think they'll sit on their hands and do nothing. At the very least, I think there'll be more significant strikes against Iranian proxies in the coming days. And the Israelis will also continue to engage in strikes against Iranian targets as they see them, as is opportune, in proxy states going forward. This is the problem, of course, is that, even though you have averted major escalation in a very dangerous period over the weekend, the Israelis and the Iranians haven't accomplished anything to stabilize their relationship longer-term.
Israel has shown that they are capable of taking out Iranian leaders in Syria, and Iran can't defend them. Iran has no intention of suddenly leaving those proxies to fend for themselves. And further, the likelihood that Israel now gets a breakthrough agreement on hostage release by Hamas, and that leads to a ceasefire, has gone down, at least in the near-term. The other side of that is the likelihood that the Israelis proceed with at least some form of ground attack into Rafah, which the Americans have warned them not to, also has gone up.
So the Hamas war with Israel is nowhere close to ending, the likelihood of continued Palestinian civilian casualties continues to grow, and the potential for further military engagement, both vis-a-vis proxies, including the Houthis in the Red Sea, the fact that the Iranians have also boarded an Israeli linked vessel in the Red Sea and that there is no effective deterrent in place right now between Israel and Iran, despite all sorts of other actors not wanting this to expand into a broader war, that all makes the Middle East right now, more dangerous.
So, I mean, none of us know, what the next shoe is going to be to drop. But if you are looking ahead over the next, let's say, six months, a couple things I think you can say. First, it is more likely that the present Israeli government is going to be in place for longer, and that the war in Gaza is going to continue without a serious effort at stabilization, or at least not one that's consequential.
That's problematic for Biden as you look ahead to the election in November. The potential that this war expands and eventually does drag in the United States and Iran more directly, is also going up. It's not imminent but it is certainly reasonably plausible, and the guardrails on that war are becoming, they are eroding as both sides are taking shots against each other.
So, a dangerous environment. A second war that is not going the way the Americans or anyone else in the world would like it to. And that's how we're kicking off our week.
That's it for me and I'll talk to you all real soon.
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Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take to kick off your week. Want to talk about the most important geopolitical relationship in the world, the US and China. Janet Yellen, the secretary of treasury, back over to China yet again, both to help ensure that the relationship is reasonably stable, also to deliver tough messages in places where she feels like that is required, the Biden administration feels it's required. And it's been a useful trip.
On the one hand, the United States, like the Europeans, delivering tough messages on Chinese dumping, on overproduction and low-cost goods going into the American and European markets, because of massive state subsidy, into key sectors. Particular concern on transition energy. On the one hand, great to see more effort to reduce carbon emissions, both in China and globally, and as the prices come down, that's a good thing. On the other hand, really hurting less competitive corporates that don't have that level of state subsidy in the United States and Europe. Tesla was really fast out of the box, hasn't got much support from the White House, but that's been the American champion to the extent that there is one. On the other hand, when you talk about other corporations, American and European, nowhere close to the Chinese. The hundreds of Chinese EV companies that are less expensive, they are higher quality, they are manufacturing at scale, and people can buy them all over the world. So, that is creating a lot of friction.
On the one hand, Americans and Europeans that are saying, “We want to move towards net-zero faster.” On the other hand, if the Chinese government is leaning into that and US and European jobs are at stake, and production is at stake, then they don't feel so comfortable with it. So, that's the primary area of tension between Yellen and her counterparts in China. Having said all of that, the meetings have been open, they've been pretty frank, they've been reasonably friendly, certainly not hostile, and Chinese state media and state influence media has been both very detailed and very fair in their coverage of Yellen, as they have been every high level meeting the Americans have had with the Chinese for months now. And that clearly has been a shift from the top in China, saying, “We don't want you to be picking on the Americans. We want you to show that this is a relationship that is treated with respect, and we want you to cover it reasonably accurately.” That's a big plus.
You know, you go to Russia, you go to Iran, you read their media and I try to follow their media pretty closely, it is overwhelmingly anti-US, anti-Western, strongly propaganda in orientation. That used to be more the case in China. It is not today. In fact, in many ways, I would argue, presently, US media covering US officials, certainly much more hostile, towards China, than the Chinese are towards the United States right now. That's very unusual in this relationship. And in large part it's because the Chinese economy continues to underperform and they're trying to get more American, more Western investment in, they're trying to have less pressure for capital flight out.
There are plenty of other areas where there are big tensions. In particular, we see that with semiconductors, with TSMC now getting, speaking of industrial policy, billions and billions in American government loans, as well as direct grants, subsidies, to expand production in the United States, which TSMC is now planning on doing. The Americans want 20% of semiconductor production globally in the United States by 2030. It is plausible that they get there. A big fact is at TSMC, the world's leading producer of semiconductors, now saying they are going to put their highest end production in part in the United States. That's a big win for the Americans.
It also, over time, makes Taiwan less critically important. That's also true for mainland China, as the Chinese will have to build their own. Finally, when you talk about Taiwan, you talk about the upcoming, in a month, inauguration and an incoming Chinese, Taiwanese president, who is has no engagement with mainland China as former President Ma is meeting with XI Jinping this week. Those things are not connected. They are very far apart. So former president of Taiwan, that China says, “We can work with that guy, we can't work with the incoming guy,” potential for greater tensions going up.
Also, especially around the South China Sea, in the Philippines, their president coming to the United States this week, He’s going to meet with Biden in addition to Japanese PM Kishida and it's going to be more coordinated and deepening defense relations as the Chinese are pushing the Philippines pretty hard in contested waters that the international legal community has ruled on in favor of the Philippines and the Western position. The Chinese say, “Sorry, we don't accept that outcome.”
So, plenty of areas where there is fighting, plenty of areas with this tension, but lots of communication at the high level and generally speaking, and Yellen said this, but I completely agree, the relationship is more stable than we've seen it, certainly in the first three years of the Biden administration and the four proceeding of Donald Trump.
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Now Jose Andres is, he's obviously very angry. He's very upset. Who wouldn't be in that environment? He's blaming Israel, says that this was intentionally targeting his workers. I have a hard time believing that the Israeli Defense Forces would have wanted to kill his workers intentionally in the sense that they understand the blowback that would come and the idea of just going after aid workers, if the West were to find out about that, would clearly be damaging for Israel across the board. Having said that, I do believe that they targeted these convoys. In other words, they knew that they were going to hit aid workers, but they believed that one of the people in this convoy was a militant, a Hamas militant, and the willingness to take civilian casualties, known civilian casualties in order to get a target that has some value, Hamas target is not only considered acceptable, but is sort of standard practice in the war in Gaza.
So yes, they hit one of the cars in the convoy, the truck, then the second and then a third. Those targets were assessed and evaluated. These are not dumb missiles. These are guided missiles, and they know exactly what they are hitting and what they are trying to take out. The question of course is, is this acceptable? And this is not new. It is not a one-off. I mean, they apologize this time because of the high level of attention, because it's Jose Andres and because an American and Westerners were killed.
But others have brought this up in previous aid worker strikes. We saw Cindy McCain on behalf of the World Food Program connected to the United Nations, has said that this has been going on for months now, and she's brought it up and Congress members have brought it up directly with Prime Minister Netanyahu. He's promised he's going to do something about it. That hasn't been the case. Hasn't gotten much attention because there you're talking about Palestinians that are getting targeted and getting killed, and that doesn't get anywhere near the attention that Jose Andres and an American and a bunch of white people.
But nonetheless, it is a consistent level of focus of if you're trying to ensure that you are getting every high, mid and low value Hamas militant target, and there's tens of thousands of them, you are willing to accept that large numbers of civilians are going to get caught up in this. Now, who's to blame for all of this? Anyone that's saying the Israelis are only to blame for this, I strongly disagree because Hamas, as an organization is operating in civilian areas, densely populated civilian areas, in hospitals, under hospitals, in schools, under schools with human shields. They're doing so intentionally both to try to protect their fighters, but also to ensure maximum PR information war damage on the Israelis when they target Hamas so that they have to be responsible for killing civilians.
And the fact that Hamas is actively doing that, putting their civilians in maximum danger, maximum danger, to help ensure that they can achieve their own ideological and political goals, it means that they are responsible for deaths of Palestinian civilians. But anyone that says that Hamas is solely responsible and Israel has no responsibility, clearly isn't paying attention. I mean, if Israel is apologizing for these aid workers because they happen to be Westerners, that means that they are targeting people that is excessive, that that's not okay even if they believe that there is one militant in that group. And that would be equally true if those people that were killed were all Palestinians. It's not just because they are Australians or Americans, that their lives have value after all. And we are talking about over 30,000 people that have been killed. Two thirds of which according to the IDF are civilians.
That's an enormous number. It's a higher rate of civilian casualties per day than we have seen in any war in modern times. More than Syria, more than Iraq, more than Afghanistan, or Ukraine, or Sudan, or Yemen. That's what we're seeing in Gaza right now. And that is why the United States government has said that they will not continue to support Israel the way they have if there is not a change in protection of civilians and ensuring that humanitarian aid gets through. This is new for the Biden administration. President Biden has been very, very reluctant to have any direct consequences to the Israelis. And now you are talking about conditioning a level of military support for Israel on an active change, not just no longer attacking Rafah, which is something that Netanyahu has said he's going to do. The war cabinet has said they're going to do, and they have not yet done a ground offensive on the ground in Rafah.
But now they're saying, unless you change the rules for how you are protecting civilians and how you are allowing humanitarian aid, then American aid for Israel is going to be withdrawn, American military support. It's a hard thing for Biden to do. He's going to get a lot of opposition both from Republicans and from some Democrats and Bibi Netanyahu is going to increasingly, I suspect publicly, try to use that against him. Now, the pressure is on the Israeli Prime Minister at home. It is growing because, well, for a number of reasons. One is because they're having a hard time with whether or not there will be exemptions for Orthodox, for the Haredim, Jews that are given exemptions from military service. Benny Gantz has said, if that exemption continues, that he's not going to stay in the government. On the other hand, the far right, the religious right have said that they will no longer support Netanyahu and his coalition if he backs away from that.
Now you've seen that Gantz has said that he is no longer going to support the government going forward. He's calling for elections, though if he pulls out of the war cabinet, then they still have a coalition in the Knesset. So it's not an immediate push away from Netanyahu, but the pressure is growing. Clearly Bibi is more willing both to continue and escalate the war, but also to take the fight directly and politically to Biden and the United States to do what he can to stay in power. So that pressure's growing. That certainly is part of it. It informs why we're seeing more talk of growing strikes into Lebanon, deeper into Lebanon that could bring Hezbollah into the war. This also informs the decision to attack right next to the Iranian embassy in Damascus, taking out a high-level IRGC leader that is providing support in the proxy war in Syria against the United States, against Israel makes it more likely, whether by accident or through direct escalation that the United States and Israel are eventually in a war with Iran.
And the one part of the conversation between the Israeli Prime Minister and Biden that was clearly aligned was when Biden told the Israelis that they are very aware of the expanded threats from Iran against Israel. And the US will do everything they can to support Israel in that fight. So this is a really, really sticky situation politically. It is a very dangerous military situation in the region. It is one that is clearly hurting Biden at home. It's likely to get worse before it gets better. That's it for me. I'll talk to you all real soon. Be good.
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Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take to kick off your Monday morning. Let's talk for a moment about the state of US politics, US democracy. It's the one thing that almost all Americans today can agree on, and that is that their political opponents at home are fundamentally opposed to democracy.
Now, that is actually something I think that unites Americans in kind of a weird way. If you are a Biden supporter, you believe that Trump and MAGA supporters are fundamentally opposed to democracy. If you are a MAGA supporter, you believe that Biden and the establishment Democrats are fundamentally opposed to American democracy. It is incredibly dysfunctional. It is no way to operate a government.
It is no way to build a nation. And that means, you know, when you believe that your political opponents are opposed to democracy, you take away their value as people, you think that their political views are wrong and they need to be erased. They don't need to be engaged with sensibly. You also believe that anything that you might do to ensure that your opponents don't take power is justified because you're fighting over something very essential. And so it's kind of Machiavellian. It's the ends justify the means. Any means are justified if your opponents are fundamentally opposed to your system. And I mean, I certainly have political views of who I think is and is not appropriate. And I've said that historically, and I will continue to with this election. But this piece is not about this.
This piece is about the need not to jump into “the ends justify the means” in American politics, not believing that every slight or perceived slight is an 11 on a ten point scale. I think that Trump has committed real crimes, in my view. I look at his unwillingness, for example, to respond to the FBI and efforts to obscure, actively obscure where his classified documents were and weren’t and get his people to move them and lie about it. It's never the crime itself. It's the cover up of the crime that really gets you in trouble. That does, I think, make a real difference in the way that the classified documents case plays out for Trump as it did for Biden, who should not have had documents in many places but was completely forthcoming in responding to government requests.
I also think that for Trump, the Georgia case, in attempting to overturn to find votes in an election, a state election that was administered by, run by members of his own Republican Party, that's a serious issue. I think it would be impeachable. But impeachment no longer functions as a check on the executive in the United States. That part of the US political system is broken, has become politicized. It should be tried in a court of law, is being tried in a court of law. But there will be no conviction, in my view, certainly not before the election is over. And it's been mishandled by the prosecutor for her own ethical lapses. Now, that case does not make me feel that all cases against Trump are legitimate or should be pursued.
Some of them, in my view, are ridiculous. The fact that a bond was set for almost half a billion dollars and then a New York court said, no, actually 175 million implies that the original setting of that bond was politicized against Trump. A felony charge in New York would have been misdemeanor for any other citizen, politicized by a district attorney that was looking to make a name for himself politically in a state that is overwhelmingly anti-Trump. Take Trump off the ballot in Colorado or other states too. Ridiculous. Not in accordance with rule of law. And thankfully, a divided Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that that should not proceed. Nonetheless, there were lots of intelligent people in several states, in the United States in positions of authority that believed that they should take Trump off the ballot.
Because if someone is trying to destroy democracy, anything you do against that person is acceptable. We see these kinds of things being promoted in the political hit jobs that are being done across the board by cable news and in social media. The headlines you would think you were in two different countries. The people you follow, you'd think that they reflect two different worlds, never mind world views.
This happened yet again. This Easter weekend. Here I was minding my own business, candlepin bowling with the family on Easter Sunday, and turns out that it is proclaimed by Biden that Easter is the Transgender Day of Visibility. Easter Sunday. Can you believe that? What he or she is risen? Is that what we've come to as America? I mean, you can just imagine that the anti-Biden folks were apoplectic that he could do that. And of course, it turns out a little bit of research. That's not what happened at all. Actually turns out that the Transgender Day of Visibility is not new. It's been going on for over a decade. It's always on March 31st, which is only Easter Sunday. Every seven years, give or take a leap year. And there are literally hundreds and hundreds of days all throughout the year that get proclaimed as various days. And nobody really cares or pays attention except that we're in stupid season right now in a country where the most important thing politically is that you are able to score a point and take a piece off of your political opponent.
And the more we do that, the less we can talk to our fellow citizens. And it's not the country that any of us actually want to live in. It is being driven by political entrepreneurs that use that violent political sensibility to stay in power, to achieve power, to make money. It's being driven by media organizations that are having a hard time raising money to continue to feed their shareholders.
And so as a consequence, they are much more willing to drive anything, any headline for clicks. And of course, it's being driven by algorithms and social media that only give you the things that you agree with or that are going to make you very angry and to drive more and more engagement. And every one is very easily shaped by that.
Even if you spend only a little bit of time on politics. But that time is always being pushed in favor of you and your political tribe and opposed to the tribe that you want to defeat, then there is no common ground. There's no sensibility. Anything they say is wrong and should be used against them. Anything you and your team say is correct. And if you believe that and if you're following people who only engage in support in one side of the partisan divide, then you are part of a propaganda bubble. You are being misled politically, you're being spun up, you're being taken advantage of, you're being used. And increasingly that is the dominant theme in this very long, very expensive US election.
And I am going to continue to do everything I can to refuse to play ball in that easier, since I'm not a member of a political party and I've never been in a political position. Harder in the sense that everyone's going to whack you one time or another if you irritate their sensibilities. But at the end of the day, I'd be unhappy with myself if I did anything else, and that kind of matters, right? So anyway, that's my view for this election. I'm sure I'll come back to this theme again and again. But it seems to have been a lot in the headlines of late, so I thought I would make mention of it.
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Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
A Quick Take to kick off your week. Lots we could be talking about. But I want to go to Russia, where we have had a major terrorist attack with over 130 Russian citizens gunned down, killed by terrorists.
The United States has warned the Russians both publicly so that American citizens would know about the concern, but also with actionable intelligence privately over the past couple of weeks that ISIS was planning an attack on an area with major crowds in Moscow. Putin publicly dismissing that, kind of wish he hadn't, but that we are where we are. And Putin has now spoken to the nation. There have been a number of gunmen that have been rounded up and arrested four, that we know of, Tajik citizens and Putin did not mention that ISIS has taken credit for this terrorist attack, nor that they then released videos of some of the attackers as they were engaging in terrorism inside the rock concert venue.
Instead, he spoke implausibly about links to Ukraine that don't actually exist. Why would ISIS-K do this? I mean, the main reason is because one of their two home bases, Syria and Iraq, in Syria, destroyed by Bashar al-Assad with the direct help from Putin and the Russian military. Nobody else doing that with Assad on the ground. And there have been many terrorist attempts against Russians as a consequence in that regard, but none with spectacular success for them like we've just witnessed.
Why wouldn't Ukraine be responsible? Well, first of all, because they haven't actually been targeting civilians at all. In fact, the one time that they engaged in terrorism and it was terrorism was an attempt to kill an individual, high level Russian extremist, but who was not a political figure. He had been informally an inspiration to the Kremlin and been calling for pogroms against Ukraine, which he said shouldn't exist as a nation. And they didn't get him. Instead, they got his daughter and the United States and other NATO allies were quite angry about the fact that Ukrainians were engaged in that. But aside from that, it's been attacks on critical infrastructure. That's another thing. And certainly, if you want to talk about the Nord Stream pipeline, highly unlikely the Russians would have blown up their pipeline. Much more likely the Ukrainians either by themselves with support would have been responsible for that. The investigations have been inconclusive. That strikes me as not enormously plausible.
Also, Ukraine has been hitting a lot of refineries, Russian refineries, and that's a pretty big deal. About 5% of Russian exports are now offline. Oil exports. That could go up a lot. It could be more than half easily in coming weeks to months of over 3 million barrels a day that the Russians export. If Ukraine starts hitting Black Sea facilities, which they're certainly capable of doing. So global economic impact of this war continues to be very significant. Ability and willingness of the Ukrainians to hit targets inside Russia as well as occupied Crimea, Ukrainian territory, but the Russians annexed it back in 2014 illegally, all of that is certainly par for the course. But the idea that the Ukrainians would be involved in large scale terrorism or support it is not only implausible on the basis of the evidence, but also implausible in terms of what they've been doing historically. But of course, that doesn't matter to Putin, who now intends to use this to drive more military efforts against Ukraine, more civilian casualties.
And that's what we saw in the initial 48 hours after the attack. Unprecedented levels of missiles being sent against the capital, Kyiv, with lots of civilian targets as well as west Ukraine, Lviv in particular. We are seeing that Putin is indifferent to civilian deaths, those of the Ukrainians and, of course, those of his own people. And we probably do now see a much more mobilization from Russia, especially now that the election, the so-called election, is over and more Russian weapons that are going to be used against the Ukrainian people.
The most concerning piece of all of this, I mean, leaving aside the fact that Russia now has a second front they need to fight on, they have, you know, a concern with radical Islamic terrorism that has grown in terms of the capabilities and whether or not Putin says he's going to fight it, he's going to need to fight it. And that's going to take away scarce resources for him and it's going to put more Russian civilians at risk. But the bigger concern, the global concern, of course, is the potential for this war to expand. And there are a couple of incidents that should raise those warning bells. First, the fact that just over this weekend, of all of the missiles that were launched by Russia against Ukraine, one went through Polish airspace for less than a minute, something like 40 seconds, but nonetheless, a Russian missile that actually went through the airspace of a NATO ally. Clearly wasn't targeting that NATO ally.
But Polish and other NATO allied aircraft scrambled. And that is not something we have seen so far since the war started a couple of years ago. Also, the fact that there were a missile explosion targeting Odessa just a couple of weeks ago when President Zelensky was there, in addition to Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. And it was literally only a few hundred yards away that this missile exploded while those two men, those two leaders were on the ground and exposed very clearly. I don't believe that Mitsotakis was targeted, but the fact that he could have been hit as an NATO leader would have also put us in unprecedented danger in terms of the geopolitical order.
Certainly since anything we'd seen since 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis. What's behind that? Well, I mean, I think the most likely thing behind is that Putin doesn't have complete and operational control over everything that's going on on the ground. His military is badly trained and organized. And this was probably a mistake. Woops. But, you know, the fact is that when you have lots of people go into Ukraine and borders, look, you know, they look very defined on a map, but they're very porous in real life. And the potential for mistakes to lead to extraordinary escalation, pretty high. And certainly the willingness to allow for those mistakes to be made is higher than you would like it to be. The checks and balances there don't seem to be all that concerning for the Kremlin or for Vladimir Putin. Of course, a worse explanation would be that Putin actually is prepared to take those risks to brush NATO back. And that, of course, would lead to much more likelihood that we would have escalation that would bring a NATO ally into the war, something that clearly nobody out there wants to see.
But it's worth talking about in the context of all of this, it's much more likely the Ukrainians are now going to get their 60 billion of support. That would be the largest piece of military support so far from the United States, approved likely in mid to late April. They're seeing more ammunition, more economic, more military support from the Europeans, even though the lion share of the military support is from the US and the war continues to be dangerous, continues to be unstable and continues to be no end in sight.
So that's where we are after some very unfortunate headlines and events over the last couple of days. And I'll talk to you all real soon.
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Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
A Quick Take to kick off your week. Want to talk about things Russian. We, of course, just had an “election” that Putin “won.”
There is no opposition to speak of in Russia. If you're running against him and allowed to run, that means that you are considered acceptable to the regime and you're basically there to play against the Harlem Globetrotters. What was it, the senators, the generals? I can't remember what it was called, but that was the group that was there to make the winning team look good. Of course, you know, Putin is not as much fun to watch as the Globetrotters, but he certainly is politically talented and of course, it's important for him to show that he has an historic win with historic turnout better than anyone before in Russia, not quite Turkmen in Turkmenbashi in Central Asia, not quite Aliyev levels in Azerbaijan, but strong enough for Russia.
It's not just about his ego. It is important as a messaging function to the Russian people that he is seen as a legitimate leader. And, you know, there are others around the world that are prepared to play that game. Already so warm congratulations from Narendra Modi in India, who's strong enough domestically and geopolitically that he can say pretty much what he wants to and get away with it. Still a little sad that he felt it was worth doing that. Even sadder to see that from Pope Francis, who has been putting his thumb on the scale in favor of Russia vis a vis Ukraine in the war in the past weeks, the Vatican tried to walk that back, but he was one of the first, apparently, according to Russian state media, to congratulate Putin. Normally, you wouldn't believe Russian state media, but in this case, Pope Francis could very easily say that isn't true. So one assumes that it is.
But nothing good here in terms of the war vis a vis Ukraine. Putin feels domestically quite stable. That's true politically. It's also true economically. The Russian economy is not performing well. The growth we're seeing in the Russian economy is because of the war economy, which is a massive piece of what the economy represents today. But they're losing lots of human capital. If you look at places like Armenia, Georgia, you see that those economies are booming right now because all of the talented young Russians are leaving and they're going there to work. Great for those tiny countries, not so good for the Russian Federation, but none of this is a threat to Putin, is a threat to the Kremlin, nor is the war in Ukraine two plus years on, in part because of the consequences if you dare oppose it publicly, in part because Putin, while throwing hundreds of thousands of troops into the front, many, many of whom hundreds of thousands, are casualties now, an estimated minimum 300,000 Russian casualties in this war, but most of them are not coming from the major cities. A lot of them aren't even Russian ethnically.
They're coming from the middle Volga and Siberia and they're poor and disenfranchised. And, you know, it's an easier way for Putin to keep this going. Also, large numbers of prisoners that were furloughed and given some money to be sent to the front lines, treated very badly by the Russian army and also many that have come from other countries, including Kazakhstan, for example, Cuba, Nepal, other countries that have sent some of their citizens that to make some money too quick money, and some of whom have been engaged in human trafficking. So that's what's going on inside Russia.
In Ukraine, the war continues not to go well. The Ukrainians are losing some territory. They only have one real line of defense behind the front lines. The Russians have had three. They're much better dug in. And also the Ukrainians are having a serious manpower challenge, a serious ammunition challenge, and don't have the military equipment at the high level that they really need to continue to fight. That is starting to change for the near term. There's been more ammunition sent by the Europeans in the past couple of weeks. And there's also, I think, increasingly very likely that the Americans will give an additional package. I'm now hearing $60 billion for 2014 that should allow the Ukrainians to mostly maintain the land that they presently occupy. That's where we are for 2024.
Or what about after that? It's only getting more challenging not only because of the US election, but also because the Ukrainians are a much smaller country and it's harder for them to raise the personnel. It's also a democracy, even though they've pushed off their elections and it's much harder for Zelensky to get away with doing the kinds of things that Putin is doing on the ground to his own country.
All of which means ultimately, it is hard to imagine the Ukrainians winning. It's also hard to talk about the Ukrainians winning. I understand that that's something that we want to do from a morale perspective. But, you know, when we talk about people that have gone through rape, we don't talk about winners. Even if the rapist was captured and imprisoned. We talk about survivors, talk about people that go through cancer and guess you can beat cancer, but you're really a cancer survivor. And what's happened to the Ukrainians with the war crimes and the torture that they have been through, is survival. And even if they were to get all their land back, you couldn't say they won the war in reality. Say if they survived the war and Russia is still there and they have to maintain their defenses and they have to continue to have the capacity to do so. And this is not a matter of one or two or three years. It's a matter of a generation, certainly as long as the Russian regime continues to exist in its present form, I do think that it's possible for Ukraine as an entity to truly survive this war.
NATO allies continue to say that they have a role in NATO, that they are being welcomed, but they haven't given them a timeline. They really should, and they need to provide hard security guarantees until that timeline of the remaining territory that Ukraine presently occupies. The French President Macron has been talking about that, if the Russians are able to make more gains, the Americans, the Germans have not, the Poles, the balls certainly have.
There needs to be more alignment on that in the run up to the NATO summit meeting in July, I believe it is in Washington, DC. There's also needs to be capacity for the Ukrainians to continue to pay for their own economic rebuilding. And that is a significant effort that right now the Europeans are providing more than the United States is all in economically.
And that includes the cost of military support, something we don't hear as much about as we should in the United States. But that doesn't mean that's going to continue. And the pressure and stress over time is only going to grow. But I do think that there is still such a window and it is good to see that a strong majority of Republicans and Democrats in the United States are continuing to focus on this issue, even as the Middle East gets more time and more attention. And that, I think, is ultimately I mean, Trump has said very clearly he doesn't want any money or support for the border because he wants that to continue to be a disaster for Biden, something that people to vote for him for in the run up to November. But when we talk about the Ukraine war, Putin has not tried so hard to say no more money under Biden. He's instead said, if I win, not another penny. So the pressure is there. We'll see where it goes. Clearly, we are talking about a de facto partition of Ukraine, but the ability to help the Ukrainians survive this and the impact that will have on NATO more broadly and on American allies around the world, like Japan, South Korea, you name it, Taiwan.
These are all long term very, very important precedents that are going to be set on the back of whether the Americans can indeed continue to stand up for themselves and for their allies and helping the Ukrainians defend themselves.
That's it for me, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
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