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.
{{ subpage.title }}
Jane Harman: Trump trial a distraction away from urgent global crises
GZERO caught up with former US Rep. Jane Harman at the US-Canada Summit in Toronto, hosted by the Eurasia Group and BMO Financial Group.
She shares her thoughts on why Donald Trump's trial in New York helps the former US president politically, and why Finland joining NATO is good for the Finns — and the West.
Harman also weighs in on why the US and Canada are still unprepared for all cybersecurity threats, and the big global problem Washington and Ottawa should try to solve together right now.
Ian interviews Mitt Romney: US political divisions & tough foreign policy calls
Note: This interview appeared as part of an episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, "Sen. Mitt Romney on DC dysfunction, Russian attacks, and banning TikTok" on February 6, 2023.
On GZERO World, Utah Senator Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential candidate sits down for an exclusive interview with Ian Bremmer to talk debt ceiling drama, Ukraine war fatigue, and pondering war with China. He also has thoughts on the "woke-ism" debate and whether the US should ban TikTok.
Back in 2012, as a presidential candidate, Romney was mocked by Barack Obama during a debate for claiming that Russia was America’s top geopolitical threat. Now, he shares his views about the risk that Russia poses today, where China stacks up in the mix, and much more.
Ukraine: Biggest foreign policy test for the Biden administration
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, shares his perspective on Biden's strategy on the Ukraine crisis.
How has Biden's response to the Ukraine crisis been so far?
Well, Ukraine is emerging as a major foreign policy test for the Biden administration who came into office seeming to want to set the Russia issue aside so they could focus on US policy in Asia. The Biden administration wants a diplomatic response because diplomacy is probably all they have. In public opinion polling, Americans say they do not want to get involved militarily in Ukraine, even if Russian invades, but near majority of Americans say they're not following the issue closely either, which means many of them could probably be convinced one way or the other. The White House efforts to deterrence have included a clever play to foil Russia's invasion plans by releasing intelligence about misinformation President Putin was planning on releasing as a pretext for invasion.
But one thing they have not yet done are sanctions, which members of Congress are pushing for to do in advance of a Russian invasion. If Putin invades, sanctions are likely to come very fast for Russian state-owned banks, individuals involved in the invasion, and against anyone globally for trading in new Russian debt. This will cut off a number of critical financial lifelines for the Russians. It'll have significant cost for the West, however, as it could dramatically increase energy prices and potentially cut off supplies for Western European countries that rely on Russian gas.
Politically, if the Biden administration's unable to stop an invasion, it will contribute to a narrative that undermines the foreign policy credibility that Biden ran on in 2020, and will be another major drag on Biden's approval ratings, which have already suffered due to high inflation and the ongoing pandemic.
- Biden and Putin to talk tough on Ukraine - GZERO Media ›
- The small aims of the big Putin-Biden summit - GZERO Media ›
- Is Putin going to invade Ukraine? - GZERO Media ›
- Biden's rocky start on foreign policy - GZERO Media ›
- How Biden’s handling of Russia-Ukraine war is viewed in US - GZERO Media ›
- Zelensky plea for additional Ukraine support puts US in a bind - GZERO Media ›
Russia and the U.S. are playing chicken over Ukraine
Russia and the U.S. are playing chicken over Ukraine
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had a two-hour meeting with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday, in an effort to lower the temperature after weeks of tense negotiations over Ukraine ended in deadlock. Lavrov described the discussion as "constructive, useful."
The first round of talks between Washington, NATO and Moscow had made little progress, with Russian officials last week describing them as a “dead end” until and unless the West addresses Russia’s security concerns in writing.
Since then, hostilities have flared up.
First, there was the cyberattack targeting Ukrainian government websites and the malware attack against the country’s computer networks. Then, Russia announced the deployment of additional troops to Belarus and reportedly evacuated its Kyiv embassy staff. US intelligence has also reportedly discovered that the Kremlin is planning a false-flag operation in Ukraine to fabricate a pretext for an invasion.
Want to understand the world a little better? Subscribe to GZERO Daily by Ian Bremmer for free and get new posts delivered to your inbox every week.
Meanwhile, the UK stepped up its arms shipments to Ukraine over the weekend, and the US is reportedly preparing new sanctions against individual separatists in Donbas. While the White House is still banking on a diplomatic solution, the administration has understandably soured on the outlook for averting Russian military intervention.
“We’re now at a stage where Russia could at any point want an attack in Ukraine,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday. A day later, President Biden himself predicted that Russia will “move in” on Ukraine, while speculating that Putin “still does not want any full-blown war.”
There are some pundits and officials who believe that the Kremlin does not actually want the negotiations to succeed. Rather, they think, Putin has already made up his mind to invade Ukraine, and now he’s just looking for a pretext to do so. That’s why he’s insisted on extracting such maximalist terms from the US and NATO that everyone knows they can’t possibly agree to.
While that’s a plausible interpretation of the facts, my view is different. I think Putin is using hostilities not as a prelude to an invasion but as a cudgel to force the West to take his concerns about European security seriously.
As I wrote back in December, another large-scale invasion of Ukraine would impose high human, economic, and political costs on Russia and Putin. For one, most Russians would not welcome a new war with Ukraine. The Ukrainian army is much stronger today than it was in 2014 and would inflict heavy losses on Russian forces. An invasion of any region other than Crimea would pit them against hostile local populations. In addition to the human toll, occupation doesn’t come cheap—Russia spends about $4 billion on the Donbas and $2 billion on Crimea annually, and that’s before you factor in the high cost of new Western sanctions. Finally, an invasion would bring the Americans and the Europeans closer together, and bolstering NATO is the last thing Putin wants.
That’s why I think a full-scale invasion is unlikely, and why negotiations are likely to drag on—albeit complicated by further posturing and low-grade escalation along the way. More of the same from Russia to extract concessions from the West (such as further troop or weapons build-ups, cyber operations on non-critical infrastructure, flare-ups in fighting in Donbas) will invite more targeted sanctions as well as greater military assistance to Kyiv. As long as Moscow’s moves fall short of an outright invasion, Western responses will continue to be limited in nature—making it harder for the Americans and Europeans to maintain a united front.President Biden acknowledged as much during a press conference on Wednesday, when he let it slip that NATO allies would be divided on how to respond to a “minor incursion” short of a full-scale invasion.
“It depends on what he does, to what extent we'll get total unity on the NATO front,” Biden said. That discord in and of itself would count as a win for Putin, who’s always been intent on sowing division within NATO
At the same time, we shouldn’t dismiss the chance that a breakdown in talks prompts Moscow to see overt military action as the only alternative, no matter the cost. Whether that happens or not depends on whether the Kremlin sees a clear path toward an agreement with the West. Such a deal would need to at least partially address Russia’s concerns regarding Ukraine’s NATO membership prospects, a central issue for Putin.
While a concession on this front won’t be palatable to Washington and its European allies—who in fact publicly refused to formally halt NATO expansion last week—it could be achievable in practice if not in principle given that there is no real-world path for Ukraine to enter the alliance. That could not only defuse the current crisis but also increase trust between the two sides and reduce the risk of further confrontations in the future.
But should Putin conclude that the US and NATO will not grant the security guarantees he seeks, he might look to secure his objectives by military means instead. In that sense, I don’t think Putin is bluffing. If he doesn’t get meaningful assurances from the West, he will escalate. The question is whether he may be better served by a more limited military incursion short of outright invasion that puts the Americans and the Europeans at odds with each other.
Finally, even if neither side intends to go to war—as I think is the case—they could very well stumble into it. The next few weeks will bring further rhetorical and security escalations as diplomatic avenues get explored (and exhausted). With so many troops and arms lying around and so little trust between the sides, the risk of miscommunication, miscalculation, and accidents will remain high. It wouldn’t be the first case of brinkmanship gone wrong.
🔔 And if you haven't already, don't forget to subscribe to my free newsletter, GZERO Daily by Ian Bremmer, to get new posts delivered to your inbox.
What the Afghanistan fiasco means for Biden
What the Afghanistan fiasco means for Biden
If you had asked me two days ago whether the messy withdrawal from Afghanistan would spell doom for Joe Biden at the ballot box, I would have said no.
That’s changing. Here’s why.
Voters normally don’t care about foreign affairsMost Americans care very little about foreign policy when it’s time to vote. Poll after poll show that voters tend to choose leaders based on their performance (in the case of incumbents) and positions on domestic priorities such as the economy, health care, and culture war issues. Infrastructure at home, for one, matters a lot more.
That’s why, before today, I suspected that the recent decline in Biden’s approval ratings was more about the Covid-19 surge than the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. Yes, Biden’s perceived competence took a hit on account of this crisis, but the next election isn’t for another 15 months and I expected this blip would be short-lived.
Want to understand the world a little better? Subscribe to GZERO Daily by Ian Bremmer for free and get new posts delivered to your inbox every week.
After all, voters have notoriously short memories, withdrawal from Afghanistan remains broadly popular, and past administrations bear much more responsibility for the costs of a two-decade war than the president who was inaugurated 8 months ago.
As I wrote last Friday, as long as no Americans got kidnapped or killed on the ground, Biden should’ve been able to get away with it, with little damage done to his domestic agenda:
If the US manages to evacuate all Americans safely, this debacle shouldn’t weigh heavily on the president’s agenda moving forward. Tragic as it may be, insofar as the victims continue to be largely Afghan, any violence is unlikely to drastically shift US opinion about a war that has long since faded from the public interest.
That was, of course, a big if.
All bets are off
On Thursday morning, two suicide bombers affiliated with ISIS-K detonated explosions near Kabul airport, killing at least 13 US service members and injuring 14 (in addition to dozens of Afghan casualties).
Causing the first US combat fatalities anywhere since March 11, 2020, today’s attacks happened mere hours after the State Department advised US citizens to stay away from the airport, and days after the Pentagon warned of imminent security threats to the area.
While evacuations had been proceeding at an impressive pace (including 13,400 civilians on August 25 alone and 104,000 since August 14) and most US nationals are already out of Afghanistan, over 1,000 Americans remain in the country.
It’s hard to imagine the remaining evacuations will go without incident, but either way, the point is moot. Americans have already died under Biden’s watch, during a withdrawal that he oversaw whose disastrous execution he is widely blamed for.
Biden is now all but certain to pay a political price. Today’s events will erode public confidence in the president’s competence both at home and abroad. The tragic images of carnage will be used by Republicans to portray Biden as Jimmy Carter reincarnated. His approval numbers will slide further and stay lower for longer.
What to watch for
Completing the withdrawal is now more urgent than ever, but Biden faces a catch-22. Leaving Americans behind is not an option; extending the US presence to ensure their safety is incredibly risky.
On one hand, the longer the evacuation takes and American troops are on the ground, the more exposed Americans will be to further terrorist attacks. But Biden vowed on Thursday afternoon to find and rescue "any American who wishes to get out of Afghanistan."
"The mission is still to get as many Americans out as possible within the allotted timeline," he assured.
On the other hand, hundreds of Americans in need of evacuation remain outside of Kabul, and it’s possible their extraction would require an expansion of the US area of operations, which cannot be done without risking more troops. President Biden said he would grant a request to send in additional troops if the military needs them, but no requests have been made at this time.
Another challenge is that as the US transitions from withdrawing civilians to withdrawing troops, its ability to control events at the Kabul airport will diminish. Since the Taliban have shown themselves incapable of securing the airport perimeter, American forces may have to defend their own evacuation from hostile fire.
President Biden has made his resolve clear:
We can and we must complete this mission. We will not be deterred by terrorists. We will continue the evacuation. We will rescue all Americans [...] America will not be intimidated.
As he remarked on Thursday, the buck stops with him: "I bear responsibility for, fundamentally, all that's happened of late."
Taking responsibility is important. But the blame is growing.
🔔 And if you haven't already, don't forget to subscribe to my free newsletter, GZERO Daily by Ian Bremmer, to get new posts delivered to your inbox.
Why ‘America first’ means “America involved”
What's the biggest foreign policy misconception that Americans have about the US's role in the world? According to international relations expert Tom Nichols, too few Americans believe that the US, in fact, has a critical role in the world, and that the things Americans enjoy, from cheap goods to safe streets, are made possible because of American global leadership. "Americans have become so spoiled and inured to the idea that the world is a dangerous place that they don't understand that the seas are navigable because someone makes them that way. They don't understand that peace between the great powers is not simply like the weather, that just happens," Nichols tells Ian Bremmer. Their conversation is featured on an episode of GZERO World, airing on US public television – check local listings.
Watch the episode: Make politics "boring" again: Joe Biden's first 100 Days
- Trump didn't invent Americans' rejection of US post-war leadership ... ›
- Who is Tony Blinken, Biden's pick for Secretary of State? - GZERO ... ›
- “A referendum for the whole world”: Global voices on the US election ... ›
- Anne-Marie Slaughter on a Biden administration's top foreign policy ... ›
- Quick Take: "America Is Back": Biden on Munich's virtual tour ... ›
Chinese trade attack against Australia prompts calls to restrict vital iron ore flows
SYDNEY - In the waters off China, scores of massive ships filled with Australian coal have been left anchored and unable to enter ports in recent weeks - a stark signal of Beijing's recent moves to inflict trade punishments on Canberra.
Australia passes law that can scrap state govts' deals with China
CANBERRA • Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has new powers to veto or scrap agreements that state governments reach with foreign powers under laws that could stymie China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Australia and further inflame tensions between the trading partners.