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Ian Explains: How is America's "Pivot to Asia" playing out?
Why can't the US seem to focus on the Asia-Pacific region instead of the Middle East?
In November 2011, President Barack Obama laid out his vision for America’s expanded role in the Asia-Pacific region, which soon became known as the "pivot to Asia.” American foreign policy, Obama announced, would be shifting its focus away from costly wars in the Middle East and towards strengthening partnerships in the Asia-Pacific to curb a rising China. In short, America’s 21st-century foreign policy would be pointed firmly to the East.
Fast-forward to 2023, and America’s “Pivot to Asia” is a little more complicated. The Israel-Hamas conflict, which could quite easily spiral into a larger regional war with the US and Iran, is only the latest example. And though not in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine remains one of the biggest and most expensive US foreign policy priorities. This is not, in short, the 21st-century foreign policy vision that President Obama had in mind.
And yet, if you talk to any American national security official, they’ll tell you that China’s rise remains Washington’s main national security challenge – after all, America’s biggest global rival is also one of its largest trade partners. That’s just one of the many reasons that President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met at the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Forum in San Francisco last month.
If the US is ever going to fully “pivot to Asia,” they must bring Japan along for the ride.
So, will 2024 be the year that the United States government makes good on decade-old pivot-to-Asia promise?
Watch the upcoming episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer on US public television (check local listings) and at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld.
Biden's Israel policy hurts his 2024 reelection chances from all angles
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Why is Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war hurting his reelection bid?
Well, look, there is virtually no position he can take on Israel and not alienate a significant piece of his own support base in the United States. He is presently stapled to the Netanyahu government and policy, which is really antagonizing more than 50% of committed Democrats, people who say they're going to vote for Biden. On the other hand, strongly pro-Israel Biden, Israel being America's most important ally in the Middle East, is seen as soft on that policy vis-a-vis the Republicans. The only way this is a winning issue for Biden is if it's no longer anywhere close to the headlines when the election hits.
Does France have a terrorism problem?
Well, sure they do, and they also have a radical Islamic extremist problem, and we've seen most recently that someone, a French national but is sworn allegiance with ISIS, knifed and killed one tourist next to the Eiffel Tower, injured a couple others. What they don't have is a major gun violence problem. If this guy had an assault weapon, probably would've killed a couple dozen.
Are Venezuela and Guyana on the brink of war?
I think the answer to that is no, but certainly we're going to hear a lot about major tensions. And the reason for that is because President Nicolás Maduro, who is very far from being a Democrat, his economy has been driven by him and his predecessor, Chávez, into a ditch. He has virtually no support domestically, and the opposition really, really wants to take power. And there has been a lot of pressure, including from the United States, carrots and sticks economically, to move forward on an election. Problem being that Maduro doesn't want to have a free and fair election, and he needs to find a way to rally support. And one thing he can do is Guyana, piece of Guyana, which the Venezuelans claim as their own, is one of the very few things that the Venezuelan people actually agree with Maduro on. So he decided to host a referendum, which the people strongly support, and they say, "We want to take that piece of territory." Now, supporting it and actually taking it are two very different things. First, because the Americans would strongly oppose. The Brazilians would strongly oppose, and you'd see a lot of sticks as a consequence of that against an economy that can't really afford them. But also, China is a partial owner of the massive oil find that is just offshore this territory in Guyana, and they are the only friend that spends real money with the Venezuelans right now. So I think this is a lot of bluff and a lot of bluster, but nonetheless, it's going to drive some headlines as maybe, maybe people worry about violence and another war in another part of the world.
- Israel-Hamas war: Biden's second foreign policy crisis ›
- Venezuela and Guyana border dispute ›
- Maduro’s weapon of mass distraction ›
- Venezuelan vote puts the neighbors on edge ›
- The Democrats post some wins – but continue to worry about 2024 ›
- Biden's 2024 prospects slip even as Democrats make gains ›
- Biden's 2024 election vulnerabilities and strengths ›
State of the World with Ian Bremmer: December 2023
Ian Bremmer, president and founder of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media, delivered his landmark State of the World speech at the annual GZERO Summit Japan in Tokyo, hosted by Eurasia Group, the world’s leading geopolitical risk firm. In the speech, streamed live on GZERO’s website and on social media, Ian presented his vision for where the world is headed in 2024 and outlined the major themes and forces shaping the geopolitical landscape.
Watch the full speech in the video above and read his full remarks below.
State of World Summit speech 2023
At last year’s summit, I warned that our G-zero world, the lack of leadership in today’s international order and the geopolitical conflict that grows as a consequence, was gathering speed. That acceleration is only increasing today while international cooperation – multinational institutions, the alliances, the global supply chains that we all rely on – are losing their ability to absorb shock.
Today, when we speak of war, I have to specify which war we’re talking about. Is it the war that is remaking the security architecture of Europe? Or is it the war that is destabilizing the Middle East, and threatening global religious conflict? Or is it the war that the Americans are fighting among themselves? I have to be clear. We don’t want that.
Also, serious doubts have emerged about the economic well-being of China, the nation that along with the United States has done most in recent decades to power our global economy. Just how problematic is China’s post-pandemic recovery, and how are the anxieties in China from that weakness changing their already assertive foreign policy?
Serious doubts have emerged about the political well-being of the United States. People no longer look surprised when I warn that the world’s most powerful country has become the most politically divided and dysfunctional democracy of all the G7,though the United Kingdom is still competitive. For the US, 2024 is like Voldemort, it’s the year that we really don’t want to talk about. But it’s coming.
I’ll open this morning with these urgent challenges for the coming year and the unprecedented—in my lifetime at least—dangerous state of global politics.
All that said… there’s more good news than you’d expect. We just have to look for it. Opportunities created by new international players and by new technologies. They all deserve our attention. And I’ll get there.
But first, let’s start with crisis. And let’s start with the Middle East.
*****
Israel vs. Hamas
When we talk about Israelis and Palestinians, we have to decide how deep in the earth we want to dig to expose the conflict’s roots.
Since we’re talking about 2024, I’ll resist going back decades and centuries.
I will start with the terrorist attacks of October 7 and the now two-month war that has followed and is expanding, without guardrails. They come from two central realities. You will rarely hear people talking about both of them, they usually mention one…
One, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows he can’t remain Israel’s prime minister without active support from political parties who believe God intends for Israel’s Jews to live on land still settled by and legally claimed by Palestinians. He has governed his country accordingly.
Two, a total failure of leadership on the Palestinian side, aided by the Arab world more broadly and most every international actor engaged in the Middle East conflict, has allowed Hamas – a terrorist organization – to act on behalf of the Palestinian men, women, and children that they use as human shields.
Hamas is responsible for the murder of 1,200 Israeli citizens, more than 90 percent of them civilians. In response, Netanyahu’s government feels entitled to eradicate Hamas… with little regard for the more than 2.3 million Palestinians who can’t escape the line of fire.
Israeli Defense Forces are today fighting across the entirety of Gaza, and the killing continues.
The United States government has at least little leverage over Israel – they are the most important ally of the US in the Middle East – though, given political challenges at home, less than many would think, to influence the conduct of the war and the scale of its carnage. The Biden administration, working with Qatar and the United Nations, has helped finally bring humanitarian aid to the Palestinians as well as securing the release of some, though not many, Israeli hostages and the Palestinians in Israeli custody have also been released.
The US has also pressed Israel to minimize civilian deaths as it works to destroy Hamas. But for most of the world, these moves are too little too late, and the United States government today finds itself nearly alone in supporting the continued war. It’s shocking to say, the US today is as isolated on this issue globally as Russia was when Putin invaded Ukraine two years ago.
President Biden has had more success, at least so far, in avoiding a massive expansion of the war beyond the borders of Israel and Gaza. That work will become more difficult as the next phase of the war in Gaza advances and as we have just seen, the Houthis in Yemen are expanding their attacks on American military vessels and commercials transit.
The US officials know that Iran has leverage too… in its material and moral support for Houthi fighters in Yemen, for Hamas, for Hezbollah in Lebanon, for militant groups in Iraq and Syria. Iran is funding, training, and arming these forces. It isn’t directly ordering these attacks but it certainly appears happy to see them. And when it comes to Israel, there are no differences of opinion between Iran and these terrorist groups—none of them recognize the right of Israel to exist.
Under no circumstances will President Biden renounce the US alliance with Israel–but Israel has permanently lost some of its traditional support inside the United States. American public opinion has shifted with the nation’s demographics. Younger voters increasingly supporting Palestinian position. More Americans are publicly questioning its continuing occupation of the West Bank and even Israel’s basic commitment to democracy. These concerns will grow.
This morning, we are not close to any resolution of this war or of the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Indeed, for now the war is set to further escalate.
Russia vs Ukraine
Then there’s the Russia-Ukraine war that no one asks me about anymore. Have to say I’m a little annoyed about that—I wrote my dissertation on Russians in Ukraine back in 1994. So, you’ll all have to humor me.
At last year’s summit, I noted that Russia controlled about 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory, and that Ukrainian forces were unlikely ever to evict Russian fighters fully. Today, twelve months later, very little has changed—that which has, has been negative. Again, a conflict that, for now, does not have guardrails.
In the past year, Vladimir Putin followed through on threats to exit a deal, agreed with the United Nations, that allowed Ukraine to export grain through the Black Sea. He also formally annexed some of this occupied land into the Russian Federation, though almost nobody in the world actually recognizes it.
Ukraine’s counteroffensive has moved the front line less than 25 kilometers since the operation began this past summer—and with Ukraine’s installation of defensive fortifications, it’s safe to say the counteroffensive is over.
While in Russia, a sudden failed mutiny aside—I’ll say the name Prighozin, only because we’ll never have to mention it again—Putin’s strategic position has improved over the past year—and especially over the last two months.
New questions have emerged about the staying power of Ukraine’s main backers in America and Europe. In the US, in particular, the Kremlin is encouraged that Republicans increasingly do not want to spend money on Ukraine, and that’s particularly true when Trump gets the nomination, and when the Republican party gets behind him. Zelensky, not Putin, now faces increased pressure to move toward a negotiated settlement.
Putin’s international standing is now less isolated. The Gaza war has helped Moscow argue that Americans are hypocritical neocolonialists who care more about power than about the lives of innocent people. This message plays very well across the Global South. It also threatens to create divisions in the transatlantic alliance, which rallied so effectively in the early stages of the war.
In recent weeks, Russia has expanded missile strikes across Ukraine to the highest levels we’ve seen this year. Higher oil prices have helped boost Russia’s domestic production of missiles to greater levels than before the war started. North Korea is helping supply more of both, which China is not happy about, and Iran continues to provide drone aircraft on the ground in Russia. An additional troop mobilization in 2024 (that Ukraine will struggle to match) might even help Russia take more territory.
In Europe, support for Ukrainian refugees remains high, but countries now have much less capacity to absorb refugees or pay for financial help for the war effort. That means that Europe is becoming less certain for its economic support for Ukraine just as the United States is becoming less certain in its military support for Ukraine. And if Donald Trump is again elected president of the United States next November, right now a coin flip, Putin’s hopes for success in Ukraine will grow greater.
We know what the outcome is. Partition. Ukraine can’t get their land back. Nobody is going to formally announce that, of course. It’s unacceptable to the United States, Europe, and most of all the Ukrainians. But we live with lots of things that are unacceptable—a North Korean nuclear arsenal, Assad in power in Syria, the end of democracy in Venezuela. The critical question in the coming months is can the US and Europe provide enough security and economic guarantees that they can continue to plausibly be aligned with each other, with Zelensky and the Ukrainian government, creating a European and a NATO future for the majority of Ukraine that they still have control over.
I want to be clear, none of this will resolve the war. Ukraine risks losing, but Russia doesn’t “win.”
Whatever longer-term gains Russia’s forces can make on the ground in Ukraine, NATO is expanding. This month, the EU will open a process for Union membership for Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova, also an option that wasn’t on the table before Putin ordered his invasion.
Russia has faced 11 rounds of sanctions from the European with more coming. Half of its sovereign assets have been frozen. Europe will not buy Russia’s commodity exports, which must still be sold to China, India, and others at discounted prices. Moscow will be left much more deeply dependent on China. All this damage for pieces of eastern and southern Ukraine that will take years to consolidate.
It leaves us with a bigger problem. Russia remains on the road to permanent rogue state status. Seriously in decline and seriously angry at the West. The first time that’s ever been true of a G20 economy...never mind one with 6,000 nuclear weapons. We won’t be talking as much about Ukraine in another year, I’ll have to get over it. But I fear we’re going to be talking a lot more about Russia.
China’s challenges
Now we turn to China. The economic situation in China is very serious and it’s very easy to explain: The “China Growth Engine” no longer works the way it used to. The 40 years of economic expansion are over.
Youth unemployment stands at record highs. Manufacturing activity is contracting. The property sector, making up a fifth of the economy (not to mention 2/3 of China’s household wealth and about 40% of the collateral held by its banks), is in serious trouble. Exports have declined on the back of inflation and historically high interest rates in the US and Europe. Foreign investment has turned negative for the first time since we’ve recorded the data.
Property prices are declining, household wealth is contracting, and borrowers are no longer willing to underwrite property construction. That triggers a wave of defaults from developers and lenders. Revenues for local governments are drying up even as their debt servicing costs rise. Domestic demand is stagnant, slowing growth further. China’s government has responded with limited stimulus, but large-scale bailouts are off the table for now.
Headline growth may well come in at 5 percent this year, but the economy faces deflation created by persistently weak consumer spending, slowing private investment, overcapacity and mounting financial stress. Next year’s growth target might be high, but the leadership is right to focus more on the quality of the growth than its absolute level. The IMF now expects the Chinese economy to grow under 4% a year for the coming years; absent reform it could go lower. Unfavorable demographics, chronically high debt, and intensifying geopolitical competition with the United States and its allies have made a bad situation worse.
The Chinese people are worrying if the next generation will be better off than the present one for the first time since the 1980s. The increasingly centralized, opaque, and capricious nature of Chinese policymaking – and a series of disruptive domestic policies – tech crackdowns, the zero-COVID lockdowns and abrupt exit from them, and raids on foreign firms – has undermined confidence.
The positive story is that China remains a highly competitive economy, with advantages in manufacturing, renewable energy, and electric vehicles as well as leading-edge innovation in frontier industries like advanced computing, AI, and biotechnology. It has an educated workforce, increasingly world class infrastructure, and an innovation ecosystem that is a major source of strength.
China is also politically stable. Which allows President Xi to avoid the temptation to revert to debt-fueled growth if he chooses. Only a systemic financial contagion or mass protests, neither of which looks likely in 2024, could force his hand. Instead, he will simply add stimulus at the margins and call on China’s people to persevere.
The risk is that the wrong policy choices could leave China’s economy in a scenario of prolonged deflation, stagnant growth, and high indebtedness Japan faced in the 1990s, but at a much lower level of development.
A silver lining: All of this has fostered the charm offensive we’ve witnessed in past months is likely to remain strong...even if it’s only a “tactical” retreat, because China’s economic problems aren’t going to be resolved anytime soon. The question is how much the Smile Diplomacy can accomplish, and where a “thaw” opens up short term opportunity for both governments and businesses.
The fentanyl deal is one of the biggest positive stories that we’ve seen between the US and China in decades. We had a very productive meeting between Xi and Biden at the APEC Summit, and the Chinese officials are hopeful that this momentum will continue. So, unlike the conflicts that I just talked about in the Middle East and between Russia and Ukraine, the US-China relationship has interdependence and does have guardrails. In the environment of great instability, that is meaningful for the world.
The two countries are still continuing down the path toward a technology cold war, with Americans using export controls to limit China’s development of world-class semiconductors and artificial intelligence, while the Chinese use critical minerals and green tech for much the same purpose.
But the Biden-Xi meeting, and the months of careful diplomacy that led up to it, reminds that the governments of both countries are geopolitical adults. Both prefer stability to chaos. Each has tried to contain the damage from international emergencies.
So, while the United States and China have very different views of the war in Ukraine and Israel’s war with Hamas, both Washington and Beijing have carefully avoided action that might expand the fighting’s fallout. Especially with the economic challenges I’ve described, Beijing remains geopolitically risk averse. China’s approach to the rest of the world is still driven mainly by economic, not political, or ideological, incentives.
The exception is in areas Beijing considers to be within China’s sphere of influence, most critically in Taiwan. Voters on the island will elect a new president in January. If they choose William Lai, the candidate Beijing warns will harm cross-Strait relations—and that looks more likely than not--tensions will rise between China, Taiwan, their neighbors, and the United States. But no matter the outcome, China is in no position to start a destructive and unpredictable war in a time of economic anxiety. Overall, 2024 looks comparatively benign for the US-China relationship (yes, in part, because lots of other things look worse).
America’s political dysfunction
Even though the economy is doing well in the US, the system is in crisis.
How dysfunctional is it?
Earlier this year, personal rivalries among Republican lawmakers left the US House of Representatives without a leader – and, therefore unable to pass legislation – for the longest period in 160 years. The last time divisions within the House stopped business in this way, the main issue dividing them was the legal status of slavery.
Now we face the 2024 presidential election. I can’t avoid it, much as I’d like to. We’re on track for a rematch: President Joe Biden vs former president Donald Trump.
Polls paint a bleak picture: just 37% of Americans approve of Biden’s performance as president. About 65% of voters don’t want him to be president again. More than 70% of likely voters say the 81-year-old Biden is too old for the job.
On the other side, there is the twice-impeached, twice-acquitted Trump. Let’s review the record.
After he was defeated for re-election in 2020, Trump refused to concede his loss, created a plan to remain in power that has now landed him in court, and incited a violent insurrection to stop the formal certification of Biden’s victory.
He has been indicted in four separate criminal cases and, unless he’s elected next year, faces prison. In a civil case, a jury found charges that Trump had raped a woman in the mid 1990s to be “substantially true.”
Just 38% of Americans approve of his four years as president, 60% don’t want him back in the White House. And he now leads all other Republican 2024 presidential candidates by more than 30 points.
Can Trump be president again? Absolutely. If the election were held today, Trump would win. The outcome now looks like a coin toss.
Biden does have one important advantage: There has never in American history been an election in which the challenger’s reputation matters at least as much as the incumbent president’s. And that will make this race unusually – perhaps uniquely – difficult to forecast.
For now, we can say that an economic slowdown in 2024, further age-related decline for Biden, deeper fractures over Israel among Democrats, or early court victories for Trump would further reduce Biden’s chances.
But a US economy that avoids recession, clearer signs of age-related decline for Trump, policy overreach (especially on abortion) from congressional Republicans, or an early criminal conviction in one of Trump’s several trials would tip the scales further in Biden’s favor.
In the meantime, other governments – allies and rivals of the United States – are already calculating the opportunities, costs, and risks that US elections might create for them. In Beijing, in Tel Aviv, in Brussels, and here in Tokyo, policymakers must reckon with an unprecedentedly uncertain US election outcome that will impact the global role of the world’s most powerful country.
********
As we turn to 2024, there are also positive emerging stories that deserve much more attention than they receive, trends that promise both more stability in geopolitics.
India
I’ll start with India.
For all its many shortcomings, India is a politically stable democracy, and the stall of China’s growth has made India’s historic economic expansion that much more important for the global economy. But this isn’t India’s most important contribution to the world in 2024.
Instead, I’m highlighting India today because of its emerging role as crucial bridge between the Global South on one side and the United States, Japan, and Europe on the other. It’s hard to overstate the geopolitical importance of this leadership role for Delhi.
Today, much of the developing world feels ever more alienated by the role the United States and advanced industrial economies more broadly play in international politics and the global economy.
The pandemic, climate change, Russia-Ukraine, the Middle East. They endured all the challenges, they see that the industrialized countries do not pay attention to them; they see how much the Western powers care about Ukrainian refugees and how little they care about people in other parts of the world.
But when India, the biggest, strongest economy in the developing world, a country whose independence of thought and action is not in question, works to strengthen its relations with the United States and its G7 allies, that’s a strong recommendation for pragmatic relations with the West.
India’s role as bridge makes existing global architecture both more stable and more inclusive. It helps prevent a China-led and still-expanding BRICS partnership from becoming a geopolitical counterweight to the G7.
Further, India is one of the very few countries in the world—certainly the largest—where the implications of the 2024 US election don’t particularly matter. Modi has proven he can get along with both Biden and Trump.
Will India’s current foreign-policy direction outlive Modi and the growing pains it will surely face? We can’t yet say. But for 2024 and the foreseeable future, the world has picked up surprising geopolitical resilience from India’s new role.
Europe
Next up, the European Union.
No question, Europe faces strong economic challenges in 2024, not to mention the rise of populism in countries across the continent, low economic growth.
But a series of crises over the past decade—the pandemic, climate change, the Russian invasion and Brexit—has solidified the multinational political commitment to the world’s most ambitious experiment in supranational governance—the European Union is strengthening as an institution.
The EU now has a more centralized authority over fiscal and economic challenges, climate and energy policy, data policy, health policy, and other critical aspects of state governance.
A stronger EU leaves euro-skeptics in France, Italy, and other EU states groping for new political arguments. Italy’s prime minister Georgia Meloni has moderated her country’s budget-busting economic populism. Voters in Poland have pushed out their country’s Brussels-defying illiberal government. Fist-shakers like Hungary’s Viktor Orban are left without leverage to extort concessions from EU institutions.
And though populists have scored recent gains in the Netherlands, Slovakia, and Germany, none of this has undermined the strength of the European Union—and they won’t matter to EU elections next year.
There is still plenty of anger directed at Brussels bureaucrats and much resistance to more centralized EU decision-making. But as we enter 2024, the European Union’s social contract has never been stronger, more resilient, and more necessary.
Mexico
There’s Mexico. Like India and the EU, Mexico will hold elections in 2024, but here a term-limited leader must step aside.
Mexico is an increasingly dynamic economy that is strongly integrated into the new US-Mexico-Canada agreement and a lead beneficiary of a growing trend of nearshoring of investment and production. It helps, of course, to be lead trade partner of the world’s largest economy, but the country’s political predictability is helping it capture more benefits from that relationship.
Likely incoming president Claudia Sheinbaum has the backing of enormously popular outgoing leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, but she’s also a committed technocrat and former climate scientist with strong relations with the business community built through her work as mayor of Mexico City. In a country with one of the largest and most talented bureaucratic classes in the developing world, it’s hard to overstate the value of those connections.
Just as India can bridge Global South and the G7, Sheinbaum can create better opportunities for new links between North, Central, and South America—the most geopolitically stable region of the world (something that increasingly matters when you’ve got wars raging and defense spending skyrocketing most everywhere else).
This push for greater hemispheric integration in the world’s most stable region will be important for years to come. The domestic and regional politics won’t favor a new multilateral trade deal for the foreseeable future, but we’re liable to see something stronger and more durable here than the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, because the public-private partnerships can help create something increasingly close to a regional US-led Belt and Road-style project for the Americas. It will be bolstered by new tech and energy investments and alignment, with support from the World Bank.
The Divided States of America
And while we’re in the Western hemisphere, I’m glad to have some good news to report on political culture in the United States.
Not about Washington, to be sure.
But… though Americans hold their national political institutions in historically low regard, that’s not true at the local level. In fact, the decentralization of US politics has allowed for a free market of political strategies driving some of the most remarkable growth and human capital attraction in the developed world.
Among so-called blue states, those that favor Democrats, the Bay Area in Northern California, home to Silicon Valley,leads the way in global artificial intelligence development. That, in turn, has led a startling economic turnaround in San Francisco, a city long home to one of the country’s worst examples of wealth inequality and urban blight.
The greater New York City areais arguably the world’s most global metroplex for its availability of capital and its power to attract diverse top-level talent. It also remains the epicenter of global finance.
Among red states, those that support Republicans, Texas has not only rebounded to hit record levels of fossil fuel production, but has also seen genuinely explosive growth in post-carbon energy production and supply chains. This state now leads the country in both.
And south Florida’s ability to attract and drive finance, banking, and tech has powered one of the most remarkable surges in inbound investment growth in the country.
It’s important to remember the economic scale here. Florida’s economy is larger than Turkey’s. New York’s economy is larger than South Korea’s. Texas’ economy is the same size as Italy’s. California’s economy is larger than Britain’s.
Blue and red states represent radically different growth models, but the decentralization of political and economic power nationally allows the United States to become a laboratory of competing geopolitical and socioeconomic experiments on the scale of major industrialized countries.
Add record levels of federal infrastructure investment, the impact of industrial policy from the Biden administration, and US job creation through the pandemic, and there’s good reason to believe the United States will have plenty of growth despite the increasingly alarming dysfunction in the nation’s capital.
Japan
You’ll note Japan isn’t on this list.
I’ve honestly been surprised at how low Prime Minister Kishida’s popularity is here right now, given how well he’s respected in government and among the business community in the United States. We need more of Japan – in my speech and in the world.
A lot of people in the United States criticize the United Nations. I think it’s because we’re a little ashamed that when we look at the UN, we see that the US doesn’t reflect a lot of the values that we built in 1945.
Japan reflects those values. It reflects those values today as the largest, most powerful country in the world that reflect the values that the Americans stood for so proudly at the end of WWII: rule of law, transparency, multilateralism, the desire to consider wellbeing of 8 billion on the planet, not just a small number of citizens that we connect with every day on social media.
I can’t say how important that is. It makes me very proud to have started our GZERO Summits here in Tokyo. We’ve worked here for a long time with so many of you, as partners and friends, and we’re not going anywhere, we’re here to stay.
On that note, I want to thank you all for listening, for joining us, and I think we will have a very exciting day.
Thank you very much!
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US-Israel relations strained as Gaza war continues
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody. Ian Bremmer here from Tokyo, Japan. And a Quick Take to kick off your week. And, of course, we are still talking about the ongoing war in the Middle East, which is very much on again, as there is inability to get further deals on hostages for prisoners and aid. And that means the Gaza War is not only in the north, but now across the south as well. And this is a significant problem for the United States which, increasingly, is finding itself isolated on this issue. In fact, I would say in terms of global support for the US on Israel, it's about as opposed as we saw in the initial weeks of the world against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It's a shocking place to be, given, first of all, how important and how deep the US Military alliance is and has been with Israel. And, also, given that it is in response to horrific, unprecedented terrorist attacks and unspeakable atrocities on October 7th.
But the reality is that, as the war has pressed on, the information war is being won by Hamas internationally. And the level of atrocities that are being committed on the ground, and impossible to remove Hamas, short of that, is hurting Israel's position. We are seeing the Americans start to move publicly towards a position of pressuring Israel more. And I specifically note, with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who came out in recent hours saying that the Palestinian civilian population would be the center of the future of whether or not there's resolution and peace and stability following this war. And that Israel was in danger of winning the tactical battle, but losing the strategic battle, as Palestinians continue to be devastated in large, large numbers. That's the first time I've ever seen a US Secretary of Defense talk about the potential strategic loss in a war of a principal US ally, certainly in my lifetime. And it was said pointedly and certainly with preparation. In other words, this was a message, even like a brushback against Bibi Netanyahu and the war cabinet.
Two other things I would mention quickly. One is that the cases against Bibi Netanyahu at home in Israel, you'd think these aren't relevant to the war, but they have been reopened. And those investigations are restarting now in the Jerusalem District Court. And certainly Bibi understands that unless he's able... Very unpopular right now, not likely to last very much beyond the war. Unless he's able to get his political allies to find a way to make those crimes not crimes, legislatively, then he's facing jail time. So he has an incentive to keep the war going domestically, in addition to removing Hamas.
There's also the question of what it means to destroy Hamas. Is it you have to kill the leadership, but you can still have a lot of people running around with weapons? Is that you have to get rid of all of the tunnel infrastructure and all of their military infrastructure? At some point, someone's going to make that decision inside the Israeli war cabinet, and it's not going to be 100 or zero. It's going to be 50% or 60% or 70% or 80%. And that decision is going to be not just about what the Israeli generals think, but also the level of international pressure on the country. So it's a tough one.
Finally, when we look at the Middle East more broadly, as the Israelis have restarted the war in Gaza against Hamas, you also have a significant escalation of Houthis, the Shia militant forces in Yemen, attacking the United States. And an unprecedented level of military strikes against the US warship, as well as lots of commercial traffic and the Americans responding in kind. That is very different. For the first time, not a nuisance attack against an American ship or a base that would be easy to shoot down, but rather a more significant and extended amount of violence. The potential for this war to expand across the region is very real indeed. And in that regard, we don't see guardrails in the Middle East. That's also something that a Biden administration, facing a very tough reelection campaign, is super, super concerned about. So anyway, that's it from me for now, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
COP28 climate talks complicated by UAE oil deals
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Will the UAE’s pursuit of oil deals during COP28 undermine the summit's climate goals?
Well, it certainly doesn't make it any easier. I mean, this is the time when the world comes together and tries to reduce the level of carbon in the atmosphere, and the fact that it's being hosted by one of the world's largest oil producers and by the chairman, the CEO of one of the world's largest oil companies, who also is driving his country's sustainability goals. Well, I mean, I guess you can say he's hedged. You can definitely say that but you can also say it's challenging and problematic. Look, there was a chance that COP was going to fall apart completely and you were just going to have fragmented bilateral deals. The Chinese, for example, get much more influence giving out money directly in return for things with countries than being a part of a multilateral group. Having said that, US and China recently have come together on climate in advance, specifically of COP28, and there is more movement on methane emissions from the two largest emitters in the world. There's more movement on carbon capture and storage than we've seen before. Look, I'm glad the meetings happened. It is happening. It's going to be more successful than it not showing up. But there are big challenges and you're going to hear those frustrations loudly from the developing world who are taking climate on the chin.
How will Taiwan's upcoming election affect US-China relationship?
It's coming up January 13th and it look like there was a deal being put together between the two opposition candidates. That deal is now falling apart, which means it is more likely that the vice president and his representative in Washington who is going to run on the ticket with him for the DPP, the Nationalist Party, the pro autonomy as the Chinese government in Beijing says the pro-independence party, is likely to win. That means more tensions over Taiwan, with China and Taiwan and with the Americans and China. So definitely next year that's going to be a more significant risk, something for us all to watch.
Will Elon Musk provide Starlink to Gaza?
Sure he will, as long as the Israeli government says it's okay. The interesting point here is that do you want decisions over where technology is and is not provided that will change the security balance on the ground between countries decided by one man. That is what happened with Russia and Ukraine, largely to Ukraine's favor, though not consistently and not always. That is what's happening in Israel and Gaza to Israel's favor. And that is what would happen between mainland China and Taiwan in mainland China’s favor, because that's where Elon has all of his economic bets, not in favor of Taiwan. And by the way, if you're the US government or a NATO member or Japan, what that means is that you really need to be developing your own technologies or having those technologies in companies that are national champions like Lockheed was in the days in the 20th century, first company ever referred to as “too big to fail” because of the dangers to American national security if something happened to it. This is a very important issue what I call a techno-polar moment and one that is becoming much more significant over time.
Israel-Hamas war: Hostage release doesn't mean the end is near
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take to kick off your week. And yes, we are back to the Israel-Gaza war and it is at least a little bit of good news with some hostages finally being released over a month and a half from when they were originally taken. That has gotten us some Palestinian prisoners released, some humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza and a ceasefire for a few days. And indeed, looks like it will now plausibly be extended for another day or two as more hostages are being let go.
Got to give Qatar a lot of credit here for playing a role in negotiating between Israel and Hamas. Not an easy thing to do. Qatar, an ally of the United States, the biggest military base on the ground, but also a government that has allowed the political leadership of Hamas to live inside their territory in peace and security as they have Taliban leadership for years. And that proves to be useful for both the Americans and the Israelis, more on that later. But is this potentially the beginning of the end of the war? And on that front, I think we have to say absolutely not for a few reasons.
First of all, because there are still well over 100 hostages and they're going to be much harder to get released because here you're not talking about women and children. You're talking about men of fighting age, and in some cases you're talking about soldiers. And Hamas is going to demand a lot more in return. And the Israelis are going to be very reluctant to provide it. So first, I don't expect that's going to happen. And as long as there are hostages on the ground, there's still going to be an awful lot of fighting from the Israeli side.
Secondly, we still have a Hamas leadership, a military leadership active in the north of Gaza. Their ability to continue to fire rockets and their ability to continue to have command and control infrastructure, that's not been destroyed. And the Israeli military saying that it's probably another two months of fighting that they need in the war. By the way, this is about a month after they told the Americans privately that there would be 4 to 6 weeks required.
Now, part of that is, hey, just say the absolute minimum so you get support from the US. You can always extend it later. It's a tactic, but also because it's proving to be more challenging on the ground than the Israeli Defense Forces had anticipated. Not to mention the fact they haven't started fighting in the south, where they told all the Palestinian civilians to evacuate to, but there are also Hamas militants operating in the south. And so Israel intends to try to take them out as well. In other words, we're still talking about weeks, maybe months of active fighting.
The other thing I will say, though, is that the level of pressure on Israel internationally to stop that fighting is going to grow a lot. You've seen the Chinese, the Gulf states, the Egyptians, the Jordanians and Europeans, many Europeans, though not all, and increasingly many inside the United States as well, now actively calling for a ceasefire. And Biden even saying, President Biden, something he had been saying privately, but is now saying publicly that he might be willing to condition further military and financial support to Israel on the basis of Israeli behavior on the ground in the war. And he's very concerned, certainly as everyone is, about the level of civilian casualties that we've all seen in Gaza. Now, does that mean that Israel is no longer America's top ally? No. Under no circumstances can I see that. And Biden would not move in that direction, not personally and not politically. But I could see, for example, some high tech offensive weaponry being held back by the Americans for example, becoming more controversial.
And I also see that happening from Democrats in the House and in the Senate. Again, this is no longer a matter of just a small number of hard-line progressives on the squad in the House. This is much broader. I think we are at the point where Israel has probably lost some degree of support from the United States permanently. The demographics in the United States and how they feel about Israel and what that means politically for the country longer term has shifted. And certainly you can now see things in mainstream media that never would have been printed sort of even three months ago, never mind ten years ago, about their feeling of how Israel does and doesn't run a democracy, nature of the occupation in the West Bank, nature of detentions of those that are accused of, but not yet convicted of crimes, and on and on and on. That level of attention, which only grows, that level of scrutiny that only grows, the longer this war goes on. And of course, the longer we see massive civilian casualties on the ground, that's going to be more challenging for Israel.
There also remains what is the plausible long-term impact of all of this. And for now, it just looks like misery and it's very hard to imagine how the Palestinians could ever come to peace in the region until they have an option that looks attractive. And right now, if you're a Palestinian in Gaza, the option is run away and find someplace to not get blown up. And they're not going to leave Gaza and they're not allowed to leave Gaza, even if they did want to leave Gaza and they don't want to. And then you have Palestinians in the West Bank who are living on smaller and smaller pieces of territory and their lives have become more and more challenging. So, I mean, clearly, at some point, the Israeli government, with a lot of international support and pressure, are going to need to provide meaningful opportunities for the Palestinian people.
And we are not close to that. We are still talking about more war, not less, and less opportunities for building peace, not more. I hope that that will turn in the coming weeks and months. Certainly the international pressure is turning, but not yet the situation on the ground. From that perspective, we're still going to be talking about this quite a bit.
That's it for me. I'll talk to you all real soon.
- Israel-Hamas war: "Just bring them back," says brother of 9-year-old Israeli hostage ›
- Why Israel’s war aims may “break Israeli society”: a conversation with Israeli hostage negotiator Gershon Baskin ›
- Third hostage and prisoner exchange goes ahead, but will there be ... ›
- Dealing with Hamas: What a former hostage negotiator learned ›
- The debate over a “cease-fire” for Gaza ›
Argentina's economy will get a lot worse before it gets better
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Will Israel and Hamas finally reach a hostage deal?
We keep hearing about this deal. We're now saying it's imminent, but imminent doesn't mean announced. And, you know, things can go wrong at the last minute still, where the details make it seem like this is going to happen. And what that means is not only we're going to see at least a few dozen Israeli women and children released and some Palestinians, also mostly women, it looks like, released as well from Israel, but that you'll get a temporary ceasefire in three days, five days, and maybe that leads to more diplomacy. It doesn't lead to Israel no longer attacking Hamas. Let's be clear. It's not an actual ceasefire, but it creates more space for people to be talking, especially talking with the Israelis, major leaders in the region. That is something we'll be watching very closely.
What does Javier Milei’s election mean for the future of Argentina?
Well look, it means that the Argentines were absolutely sick of the country falling apart and they were voting between a guy who said he was going to dollarized and get rid of a lot of the government and someone who represented economic policies that have driven the country into a ditch, 140% inflation and massive poverty and, you know, nobody investing and close to a default from the IMF. So, I mean, all of this is a disaster. But Milei, he doesn't have a single governor. He won't have a majority in Congress. He doesn't have an economic team. And his economic plans are mostly vaporware. So, I mean, this is not a country that has the ability to screw around for an awful lot. It's not like the United States in Afghanistan or Iraq. You make mistakes. But the economy is still great. Argentina is not Afghanistan, but they are in serious, serious trouble. And so, yeah, the economy is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. And we'll watch that. It's very expensive to dollarize by the way. And so that means you got to have to print a lot more. I suspect that this is going to be a lot more hardship on the backs of a lot of Argentines. Okay.
Happy Thanksgiving! What world leader has the most to be thankful for this holiday season?
What a hard thing. I mean, all leaders should be thankful because, you know, in principle, they're doing a hell of a lot better because they're representing their people and they should appreciate that and they should take that seriously. And a lot of them don't. But I guess I probably say Modi. Narendra Modi in India, because I mean, he is a very popular leader of the world's largest democracy, 1.4 billion people, the most populous country in the world, is pretty democratic. It's growing economically. It is a leader of the Global South, but it's also with increasingly stable relations with the United States, with Japan and with Europe. And Modi has accomplished a lot of that. So he has a lot to be thankful for. And he is not going anywhere anytime soon. So there's that.
Why the Israel-Hamas war is so divisive
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take to kick off your week. And more from the Middle East, the story that continues to dominate the headlines.The story that continues to dominate the headlines. And right now, foreign ministers from across the Middle East and the Muslim world, including the Palestinian foreign minister in Beijing and soon to be in Moscow and soon after that, to be in London and Paris to talk about efforts to contain and end the war in the Middle East. The Chinese foreign minister calling for an immediate ceasefire, also calling for a two-state solution, agreeing with the Americans on the latter, not agreeing with the Americans on the former. This is an environment where pretty much everybody involved is trying to get an end to the fighting except the United States, which is the most important ally, the critical ally of Israel.
And the Israelis intend to continue their military strikes until they feel like they have destroyed Hamas on the ground. And that means not just in Gaza City, but also it means in the south of Gaza. This is causing difficulties inside the United States with stronger opposition inside the Democratic Party, especially among young people where Biden is under water wanting a much more balanced, much less pro-Israel policy. And Republicans who on balance think that Biden has been too soft in his support for Israel. This means that Biden's at 40% approval right now, the lowest of his administration to date. And it's hard to see this getting any better any time soon. I think that the Israelis are clearly having military successes on the ground in Gaza. And when you talk to the generals, they feel like they're on the timeline they want to be. They are finding the tunnels, finding the militant leaders, able to go after with impunity, those that are there. Of course, the very fact that Hamas is fighting inside a civilian area, that they have tunnels underneath schools and hospitals, and that's where they're putting the hostages. And we've seen those videos now that are confirmed and where they're putting their military equipment makes Hamas responsible for a lot of the civilians that are getting killed, but also makes the Israelis responsible in the global environment for not being able to take out Hamas unless they put massive numbers of civilians at risk.
And so what you have is the Israelis winning, at least tactically, the military battles on the ground, whether one can destroy Hamas or extremist militarism against Israel through bombing and a ground war is another longer question. But losing the information war where around the world and including in the United States, there is just a lot more sympathy increasingly for the Palestinians. Only six weeks after the worst terrorist attacks, the worst violence against Jews anywhere in the world since the Holocaust. That is the reality.
And, you know, it's very different in this regard than covering the Russia-Ukraine invasion, where, first of all, the Ukrainians were winning the information war and also it was very clearly a black versus white struggle. I mean, these were, you know, not that the Ukrainians are Democrats and didn't have problems with corruption, but they were minding their own business. They wanted to join NATO. True. That's a decision that is made by a sovereign country. But they weren't threatening Russia. They weren't invading Russia. They were doing nothing to Russians in the Federation. And that was even true despite years of annexation illegally by the Russians of Ukrainian territory. So it was very clear when the Russians invaded Ukraine that the Russians were at fault and that the question is how can you respond to that? It was black and white.
In the case of Israel and Palestine, it is very clear that Hamas is responsible for October 7th. That's clear. But it's also clear that the Israelis have engaged in a lot of illegal actions in taking Palestinian territory on the ground in the West Bank and continue to occupy territory that is not theirs that nobody thinks is theirs and not prepared to do anything about it. It's also clear that the Israeli government had been supporting Hamas in undermining the Palestinian Authority and in refuse thing to consider a two-state solution under Netanyahu and his far right coalition. So, I mean, it's not black and white. There are different shades of gray. There are you know, it's very easy to say that Hamas is a terrorist organization and that means they should be destroyed and Netanyahu is a bad leader and that means he should be voted out. But there's no equivalence between these two leaders. But saying there's no equivalence doesn't mean that one is good and the other's bad. Here we are talking about different shades of illegal activity and we're also talking about different shades of behavior that is causing immense amounts of responsibility for human suffering.
And you can't simply say that Hamas is only responsible for all the people that are getting killed. You can't say that. You can say they're mostly responsible because they're the ones that have the hostages. They're the ones targeting the civilians. They're the ones putting civilians in harm's way. But certainly the Israeli Defense Forces deserve some culpability for their willingness to, you know, have a siege and not allow in humanitarian aid. And their willingness to engage in attacks that are going to take out some militants, but are going to risk the lives of far more civilians. And, you know, how do you balance that? Is it 90:10 Hamas responsible? Is it 70:30? Is it 80:20? I'm not sure I care, you know, doing a percentage as I am in recognizing that we have to describe the nuance. We have to be reasonable in not trying to play one side off as purely responsible and guilty and bad, that the only way this is going to lead to peace is if Hamas is removed, if they are destroyed as a terrorist organization. Number one. If there are prospects for peace for Palestinians to have livelihoods in Gaza and the West Bank going forward, and if Netanyahu and his far right coalition are removed from office, those things are all necessary antecedent conditions before we can have stability in the region.
That's where we are. So it's not an easy conversation. It's a nuanced conversation. It's one that makes almost nobody satisfied and happy in a way that on Russia and Ukraine, it was very easy to be on team Ukraine, even though they frequently lied about stuff in terms of propaganda and support of the war. And their government wasn't 100% clean and isn't 100% clean. But it's still very easy to say the Ukrainians deserve their territory back. It's much harder in this environment on Israel-Palestine to put your thumb on one side of the scale, you have to have a broader conversation if you want to be accurate and if you want to have peace. And that's where we are, and that's part of the reason why it's been so damn difficult to get peace in the Middle East for decades and decades, why the Americans, like many others, have kind of given up on it in favor of just trying to create stability with everybody else. And that worked to a degree. But now we see it wasn't enough. And so we're going to have to go back yet again in one of the most challenging geopolitical missions that we face in the world today.
So that's it for me, but I'm sure we'll be back to this real soon.
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- Israel-Hamas war: Biden's second foreign policy crisis ›
- How Netanyahu used Hamas to avoid talks of a two-state solution ›
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