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Global Stage: Global issues at the intersection of technology, politics, and society
GZERO Media and Microsoft have joined forces to launch Global Stage, a partnership to present conversations about critical global issues at the intersection of technology, politics, and society.
On location from prestigious events including Davos, Munich, the UN General Assembly, COP, and more, Global Stage takes you to the frontlines of monumental global gatherings, where pivotal dialogues unravel at the crossroads of technology, politics, and society. Watch our live discussions tackling the world's most urgent challenges, featuring respected leaders and experts from both the public and private sectors who illuminate topics from cybersecurity, AI, and climate change to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Stay engaged throughout the year with thought-provoking livestreams, in-depth interviews, compelling podcasts, and more. Welcome to the Global Stage.
Iraq War's legacy: Loss of lives, rise of ISIS, & political turmoil
On the 20th anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, US Senator Tammy Duckworth and NBC's Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel sit down with Ian Bremmer on GZERO World to reflect on the legacy of a war that reshaped the Middle East and continues to reverberate around the world.
Senator Duckworth, a former helicopter pilot who lost both her legs in the Iraq War and now sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee. She emphasizes the importance of honoring the promises made to veterans and the impact it has military readiness. "The cost of going to war isn't just the tanks, the guns, the helicopters, and the ammunition during the period of actual conflict," Duckworth says, "The cost of war goes on for many decades."
Engel shares his experience as a journalist in Iraq during the 2003 invasion, including the initial reception from the Iraqi people and the increasing hostility as the war dragged on. He notes that while the people are now “freer,” the country is not yet "fully functioning" or "embraced by the larger Middle East."
Today, as the war in Ukraine drags into its second year, both Duckworth and Engel share their perspectives on what lessons we can learn from Iraq and its aftermath to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
Watch the upcoming episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, featuring Senator Duckworth as well as NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel, on US public television. Check local listings
War in Ukraine heading to "violent" new phase, warns NATO's Mircea Geoană
Ukraine's military has lasted far longer than anyone expected when the war in Ukraine began one year ago. Much of that success comes down to Ukraine's ability to mobilize the energy of the nation, as well as material support from NATO and its allies. On the one-year anniversary of Russia's invasion, GZERO World traveled to the Munich Security Conference and spoke with NATO Deputy Secretary General, Mircea Geoană, for his candid assessment of the state of the war.
Geoană sees a "very significant and violent" new phase in the offensive and, despite public unity, acknowledges there are internal divisions within NATO about how best to engage and support Ukraine. Plus, there's still an open question about Ukraine's path toward NATO membership, and whether joining the alliance is in Kyiv's best interest. Ian Bremmer asks Geoană about Ukraine joining NATO, the lessons the alliance has taken away from Russia's fighting capacity, and what that means moving forward as the war enters its second year.
Catch Bremmer's full interview with Geoană in this week's episode of "GZERO World with Ian Bremmer," airing on public television stations in the US. Check local listings.
A police officer blocks the street after an explosion on busy pedestrian Istiklal street in Istanbul, Turkey.
Hard Numbers: Istanbul’s explosion, FTX’s downfall, Ukraine’s win in Kherson, Terminal 2F’s farewell
6: At least 6 people were killed and dozens were wounded on Sunday when an explosion rocked a busy district in central Istanbul, Turkey. The cause remains unknown, but the same location was the target of a 2016 suicide attack carried out by an Islamic State affiliate.
900 million: FTX, the major crypto exchange that filed for bankruptcy and is being investigated for potential financial crimes, held just $900 million in saleable assets against a whopping $9 billion of liabilities. Headed by crypto megastar Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX has been accused of unethical business practices. Meanwhile, its downfall has sent crypto and stock markets into a tailspin.
8: For eight months, residents of Kherson – the only provincial capital held by the Russians – were living under the Kremlin’s control, but the province is now firmly in Ukrainian hands after an embarrassing Russian retreat wrapped up over the weekend. Still, Ukrainian authorities have much work to do to restore electricity, water access, and medical supplies in the province.
18: Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian refugee who made Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport his home for 18 years, died at the airport’s Terminal 2F on Saturday. Nasseri, whose story inspired the film "The Terminal" starring Tom Hanks, was granted refugee status in France and lived at a hostel for a period but recently returned to the airport where he died.
A view shows the city centre without electricity after critical civil infrastructure was hit by a Russian missile attacks, in Kamianske, Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine.
Hard Numbers: Ukraine’s battered power grid, Turkey slashes interest rates, the Philippines scraps Russia deal, Black Death’s lingering effects
40: Up to 40% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has been seriously damaged since Russia began its latest bombardment on Oct. 10. The Ukrainian government on Thursday told residents to charge all their appliances ahead of more disruptions to the power grid, which are being felt as far west as Lviv.
3: President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in a bid to lower borrowing costs and boost his reelection chances, has slashed Turkey’s benchmark interest rate for the third consecutive month – from 12 to 10.5% – despite record-high inflation. Long opposed to tightening monetary policy, Erdoğan says growth is more important than price stability.
16: The Philippines confirmed Thursday that it's scrapping a deal to buy 16 military helicopters from Russia. It's the first time new Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has weighed in on the touchy issue of relations with Moscow, as he tries to thread the needle of getting along with both mighty neighbor China and the US, a treaty ally.
700: A new study reveals that a mutation that helped people survive the Black Death 700 years ago is linked to a series of auto-immune diseases impacting people today, including Crohn’s disease. Researchers believe that the event – which killed as many as 200 million people – shaped human evolution.Will Nepal cash out?
Like much of the world, Nepal saw digital payments soar during the pandemic.
Tulsi Rauniyar, a young Nepalese documentary photographer, experienced the transition firsthand. With COVID making human touch a big concern, e-commerce and cashless transactions became more commonplace — so much so that Rauniyar herself rarely uses cash anymore. This technological globalization is increasingly helping female entrepreneurs and businesswomen succeed in Nepal. But it still needs to reach rural areas — where many hard-working women are unaware of these transformative technologies.
Watch our recent livestream discussion on remittances and other tools for economic empowerment.
- Connecting the world: the power of digital trade - GZERO Media ›
- Why regulating cross-border digital trade is tricky - GZERO Media ›
- What We're Watching: Digital payment lifelines for cash-strapped ... ›
- The Graphic Truth: The digital payment boom - GZERO Media ›
- Adapting to a digital economy around the world - GZERO Media ›
- How digitization is accelerating international trade - GZERO Media ›
A shopper pays with a euro bank note in a market in Nice, France, amid sky-high inflation.
Hard Numbers: Eurozone inflation record, Saudi woman sentenced for tweeting, US life expectancy drops, Russia cuts off gas to EU … again
9.1: Year-on-year inflation in the Eurozone’s 19 countries rose to 9.1% in August, up from 8.9% last month. It’s the highest rate on record since the group began recording in 1997, and will put pressure on the European Central Bank to again raise interest rates, raising the likelihood of a recession in some EU countries.
45: A Saudi woman has been sentenced to 45 years in prison after a court convicted her of using the internet to "tear the kingdom’s social fabric.” Though Saudi officials have not released many details on the case, a human rights NGO said the woman used a pseudonym to tweet her political opinions.
76: Average life expectancy in the US dropped to 76 in 2021, down three years from 2019. The dip was more pronounced among white Americans and is partly attributable to the pandemic.
745: Russia has again completely halted natural gas deliveries to the European Union via the 745-mile-long Nord Stream 1 pipeline under the Baltic Sea. The pipeline was already operating at just 20% capacity after Russia slashed supply because the EU hit Moscow with sanctions over Ukraine. For now, this move has not impacted global gas prices.Is China’s Rise Inevitable, Why Should America Help Ukraine, and More: Your Questions, Answered
Is China’s Rise Inevitable, Why Should America Help Ukraine, and More: Your Questions, Answered
You ask, I answer.
Note: This is the fourth installment of a five-part summer mailbag series responding to reader questions. You can find the first part here, the second part here, and the third part here. Some of the questions that follow have been slightly edited for clarity. If you have questions you want answered, ask them in the comments section below or follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn and look out for future AMAs.
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.
A "Chinese century" is far from a sure thing.Nicolas Asfouri - Pool/Getty Images
As the U.S. is losing influence in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, China is gaining. China is ahead of the U.S. in 5G technology and hypersonic missile systems. While the U.S. can accomplish almost nothing because of political division, China can accomplish almost everything it wants, from lockdowns to surveillance. How can the U.S. compete with China in the future? Is the rise of China as the next superpower inevitable? (Shahin H)
Not at all. Yes, the U.S. is terribly divided and politically dysfunctional, but it still has the most powerful military and the most dynamic economy in the world. And China also has massive domestic challenges: growth is slowing structurally because they no longer have a labor cost advantage and the world is moving against globalization; zero-Covid means continued rolling lockdowns, depressed consumption, and supply challenges for the foreseeable future; there’s tremendous financial stability risks that they keep kicking down the road but could eventually blow up; and they are looking at an unprecedented demographic cliff that seriously threatens long-term growth and therefore political stability. Put these things together and it’s plausible China doesn’t even overtake the U.S. as the world’s largest economy. The big uncertainty is whether China becomes dominant in core new technologies like AI, big data, 5G, quantum computing, etc. It’s possible, but given everything else they’re dealing with, it’s far from inevitable.
China has large advantages for renewable energy. Do you think that green energy could soon become another major source of geopolitical instability, alongside fossil fuels? (Oana C)
I see it more as a major source of great power competition… which is leading the United States to drive a lot more industrial policy than it used to. That’s not necessarily destabilizing, because green energy is more decentralized in production and even supply chains than fossil fuels.
How does the U.S. balance the geopolitical reality of needing to produce fossil fuels, especially natural gas, with the need to combat climate change due to greenhouse gases? (Jason M)
By nudging the private sector to drive the green transition. The United States will get there—the misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act” actually does a lot to this end.
What is a realistic best-case scenario for U.S.-China relations? Will it always be adversarial or can it be neutral at best? (Peter K)
Near term, the best-case scenario is managed competition. It can be constructive in positive-sum areas where cooperation is essential for both countries and the world—like climate change and the global economic commons—especially given the deep and broad economic interdependence that binds them… which is hardly going away because both countries have strong vested interests in maintaining it. But the relationship is devoid of trust, which means that unmanaged competition—my base case—is likely, with all the risks of accidents and miscalculation that entails. And active hostility is possible, too.
How concerned should we be about domestic unrest because of economic issues in China? Would that have any impact on political stability and the good functioning of the Chinese economy? (Daniele S)
Near term, this is more a problem for China’s global competitiveness and knock-on impacts of slowing growth than for political stability, because Chinese political power is very consolidated. Longer term, it’s plausible that this could also undermine political stability, although I wouldn’t bet on it. The question is whether a surveillance state in the age of AI and big data is politically stable irrespective of the economic conditions for the masses. It’s hard to even know what to wish for in that case…
One year from now, what will be the bigger problem: inflation or recession? (@Zuiderman)
Inflation, because it will have a bigger impact on poor people and poor countries. What we’ve just seen in Sri Lanka looks imminently likely in Pakistan and could end up hitting a large number of other developing countries.
Where do you think the UK will be economically and geopolitically a few years after having decoupled from the EU? (James M)
More isolated and poorer than it would have been otherwise. In a decade, it may not even be the United Kingdom anymore: I could plausibly see Scotland and—less likely but still possible—Northern Ireland seceding, rejoining the EU, and the UK ultimately being just England and Wales. Brexit is without a doubt the biggest own goal by a developed country in decades.
How would you describe what is next for the world order in a G-Zero world? (Joshua P)
I think we’ll see more crises pop up and fester because of the G-Zero—the growing vacuum of global leadership and coordination—but we’ll also have plenty of opportunities to use those crises to reform and rebuild institutions—in some cases successfully, in others less so. The EU is actually becoming politically more stable because of the G-Zero. Sadly, the same cannot be said of the United States.
Will super-polarization and multiculturalism lead to the breakup of the United States in the XXI century? Samuel P. Huntington argued that was a serious possibility, as happened to Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. (Fernando N)
No, but it’s possible that national governments will no longer be the principal global actors in another 50 years, and that includes the United States. There’s nothing essential about the Westphalian system. Technological change is outstripping the present capabilities of governments to govern, especially in the digital world. If that continues, we’ll see a very different global order—and a very different United States.
What’s the most underreported issue of the Ukraine war, U.S. foreign policy, or global politics in general? (Robert M)
One billion more Africans joining the planet with the full potential to participate in global development and thrive as human beings, but neither the infrastructure nor the investment to do so.
Why shouldn't the U.S. help Ukraine?Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images
Why should working-class Americans be pleased with the amount of money their federal government has spent to aid Ukraine? (@Mnemosnye)
Because it’s a drop in the bucket compared to what we spent in Afghanistan and it’s actually being used to uphold American/Western/human values? Because Democrats and Republicans both agree it’s the right thing to do? Because the Ukrainians are fighting for their lives and have done nothing wrong to earn this fate? Or maybe because we still have the capacity to do the right thing, even if we only use it sparingly. :)
Knowing what we know about the Ukraine war now, what should the West have done differently in early February 2022? (Ken K)
Not much. I was advising the Biden administration at the time, and I can tell you they were trying hard to avoid war (and they knew exactly what the Russians were planning). You’d have to go back years to reach a point where a change in policy could’ve made a realistic difference, and even then, I don’t buy the claim that things the West did or didn’t do two decades ago forced Putin to invade. That was Putin's decision.
At this stage of the war, what would be the biggest (realistic) victory for Russia politically? They lost on so many fronts, but what could count as the best-case scenario for them going forward? (Linas E)
The best-case scenario is the Russians accept a negotiated settlement whereby they withdraw to the pre-February 24 borders (and/or President Zelensky is willing to accept some marginal buffer zone or compromise over Luhansk) and Western sanctions eventually get rolled back. But that’s the absolute best case for Russia, and it’s extremely improbable. This whole thing was a spectacular misjudgment by Putin.
What do you want to be remembered for after your life ends? (Lia M)
Helping the world avoid World War III. And helping inspire young people around the world to carry that torch long after I’m gone.
Do you have a favorite quote? Or a line from a song that encompasses the current state of affairs? (Neline S)
“The future is already here—it’s just not evenly distributed,” by the brilliant American speculative fiction writer William Gibson. It’s funny, he follows me on Twitter but I don’t know if he knows that’s my favorite quote! William, if you’re reading this: big fan.
What is the one question you wish someone would ask you, and what is the answer? (Pam W)
—Why are you so awesome?
—Aw shucks, you clearly have bad judgment to ask me a question like that, but I appreciate you.
What do you think heaven is like? (Jenny K)
Like nothing we can imagine.
Worst-dressed current world leader? Best-dressed current world leader? (Vikram L)
Best: Christine Lagarde. Though I did once call her out on an outfit I’d seen her wear before. A small win for the style-challenged of the world.
Worst: Does it matter? Most of them are pretty blah.
Are you a COMMUNIST? (William S)
In the sense that I believe there are some basic things that every human being should have access to? Absolutely. The question is what those things are. Libertarians think it should be freedom from external constraints (other people, government, rules and obligations). Marxists think it should be as much as can be equally distributed to everyone. In the liberal (classic) and social-democratic tradition, everyone should have the means and opportunities to pursue their goals and realize their full potential. I don’t believe in a society where some people are considered to have no or less fundamental worth. I also don’t like labels. Especially with all-caps. Those are the worst kind of labels.
Let's say a celebrity runs for president in 2024. Who's your money on? (Brendan O)
Whoever is running against the celebrity.
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