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 }}
SpaceX's next-generation Starship spacecraft atop its powerful Super Heavy rocket lifts off on its third launch from the company's Boca Chica launchpad on an uncrewed test flight, near Brownsville, Texas, U.S. March 14, 2024.
Hard Numbers: SpaceX has a rocky reentry, Norway to hit NATO target early, British MPs are OOO, Somalia debt is canceled, Berlin techno is protected
2: Norway announced that the country intends to meet its NATO defense spending target of 2% this year — two years ahead of schedule — citing a “serious” security situation. Sweden, the alliance’s newest member, says it will do the same. The two Nordic states can now rest assured that at least Donald Trump would protect them from a Russian invasion.
49: A new analysis found the workday for members of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s parliament is 49 minutes shorter than the 1997-2023 average, clocking in at only seven hours and nine minutes long. With all that extra time on their hands, Kate Middleton should be found in no time.
99: This week, 99% of Somalia’s debt was canceled by the Paris Club — a group of officials from major creditor countries including the United States, Japan, and Russia. Somalia’s information minister, Daud Aweis, called the move a “big milestone in the country’s journey to financial recovery.”
150: The number of UNESCO heritage sites in Germany rose to 150, with six entities being added this week. Notably, an Intangible Cultural Heritage designation was given to Berlin’s techno scene for its contribution to German culture. Oonts Oonts.
NATO unity will hold no matter the US election, says Norwegian PM
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Støre sits with Ian Bremmer on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference for a candid conversation about NATO’s uncertain future and its enduring importance. The challenges and necessities facing NATO and the broader transatlantic alliance amidst ongoing global security concerns have only become more heightened given the conflict in Ukraine.
"We have to continue to support Ukraine defending itself,” Støre tells Bremmer, especially given the uncertainty of the US presidential election. "We experienced four years under President Trump. The elections have not been held, it's not a given. It'll be exciting months ahead."
Støre emphasizes Norway's NATO contributions, both in terms of military support to Ukraine and hosting a significant number of Ukrainian refugees. He also highlights Europe's substantial financial and military support for Ukraine, illustrating the collective effort to defend democratic values and territorial integrity in the face of aggression. His conversation with Ian Bremmer, which can be found in the latest episode of GZERO World, outlines the complexities of international defense politics, the indispensable role of NATO, and the ongoing commitment of European nations to support Ukraine, underscoring the critical importance of unity and collaboration in addressing global security challenges.
Watch full episode: Solving Europe's energy crisis with Norway's power
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week online and on US public television. Check local listings.
Solving Europe's energy crisis with Norway's power
Europe's energy security hinges on Norway and its transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources. That has big geopolitical implications for Ukraine and NATO.
On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer delves into Europe's urgent quest for energy independence and the broader geopolitical shifts that could redefine the continent's future. With the specter of reduced US support for Ukraine after November’s election, Europe's resilience, particularly in energy security and military capabilities, takes center stage. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Støre joins Ian to discuss Norway's critical role in this transition, emphasizing the need for a swift move from oil and gas to renewables, a monumental task that Europe and Norway are determined to undertake in a remarkably short timeframe. “Norway will transition out of oil and gas. When we pass 2030, there will be declining production, and then we want to see renewables transition upwards,” Prime Minister Jonas Støre tells Ian.
Their conversation delves into the ramifications of the US election outcome on NATO and Ukraine, underscoring Europe's precarious position should American support wane. The discussion reveals the continent's vulnerability to fuel crises and the imperative for a robust energy strategy that lessens dependency on external forces, notably by severing ties with Russian fossil fuels in response to the invasion of Ukraine. “Europe's ability to assist Kyiv on the battlefield will hinge not just on military capabilities but also Europe's own energy security,” Ian explains.
This is a moment of transformation for Europe as it navigates the complexities of energy transition and geopolitical uncertainties, highlighting the interconnectedness of sustainability, security, and solidarity in facing the challenges of the 21st century.
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week online and on US public television. Check local listings.
- Northern exposure ›
- Will Norway pull the plug on itself? ›
- Can the world run on green energy yet? Author Bjorn Lomborg argues that's very far off ›
- The Graphic Truth: Natural gas prices make EU power costs soar ›
- Norway's school phone ban aims to reclaim "stolen focus", says PM Jonas Støre ›
- With electric bills soaring, should the EU cap natural gas prices? ›
- The Graphic Truth: EU natural gas prices plunge ›
- World Bank announces plan to bring power to 300 million in Africa - GZERO Media ›
Ian Explains: If the US steps back from Ukraine, can Europe go it alone?
Two years into Ukraine's all-out war with Russia, Europe has had to cut off nearly all energy imports from Moscow. Can Europe secure its energy future and defend itself without relying on Russia or, depending on the November election, the United States? Ian Bremmer explains on GZERO World.
Europe is facing a critical juncture in its energy and security landscape. When Russia invaded Ukraine, European leaders rallied for a united front. But in the ensuing two years, some of these intra-European ties have shown signs of fracturing. More concerningly, Europe is no longer confident it can rely on steadfast support across the Atlantic.
Depending on the outcome, the November election in the United States could signal a death knell for American support for Ukraine. With Trump's wavering commitment to NATO and Europe facing a future without Russian fossil fuels, the region is reevaluating its energy security and defense strategies. Europe remains vulnerable despite recent price drops and increased renewable energy capacity. The continent's post-pandemic recovery, climate change-induced weather extremes, and Putin's aggression have highlighted the urgent need for energy independence.
To put it bluntly, Ukraine needs Europe now more than ever, and Europe needs to ensure it is strong enough to provide the support Kyiv relies on. No amount of weaponry shipped to Ukraine's battlefields will matter if Europe can't keep its own homes lit or its factories running
Watch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer on US public television (check local listings) and online.
- The Graphic Truth: EU natural gas prices plunge ›
- The Graphic Truth: The European Union's energy mix ›
- Dambisa Moyo: Europe's energy transition needs more than a "band-aid solution" ›
- Who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines? ›
- Europe’s Russian gas dilemma ›
- Norway's PM Jonas Støre says his country can power Europe - GZERO Media ›
- NATO unity will hold no matter the US election, says Norwegian PM - GZERO Media ›
- Europe welcomes US Ukraine package, but pushes to add even more aid - GZERO Media ›
Norway's school phone ban aims to reclaim "stolen focus", says PM Jonas Støre
Sometimes the best ideas are the ones that seem obvious in retrospect. In recent weeks, Norway's government has made a concerted push to ban smartphones and tablets from classrooms nationwide. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Støre explains his administration's radical move, which Education Minister Kari Nessa Nordtun has spearheaded, to Ian Bremmer in a wide-ranging conversation on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
Their interview is featured in the latest episode of the show GZERO World on US public television stations nationwide (check local listings). Bremmer and Støre's discussion focuses primarily on Norway's energy transition and NATO, but towards the end of the conversation, they talk about schools and screentime and the remarkable benefits so far.
"We see students have started to play in the breaks [recess]. The girls say, 'We can finally take a shower after the gym. We are not afraid anymore to be photographed.' And there's a completely different level of social interaction."
This move, Støre explains, reflects a broader effort in Norway to prioritize community well-being and address the effects of the digital age on children's development, including declining reading abilities. And it's not just children who benefit from less screen time, he adds, but adults as well. And it's a decision, Støre explains, that other governments across Europe and the world could also do well to implement.
Watch the full interview on GZERO World with Ian Bremmer on public television beginning this Friday, March 1. Check local listings.
Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa speaks to the media in Harare, on Aug. 27, 2023.
Hard Numbers: Zimbabwe election results, deadly attack in Haiti, British Museum recovery, valuable mug shot, chasing reindeer
52.6: President Emmerson “Crocodile” Mnangagwa claimed victory in Zimbabwe’s recent election with 52.6% of the vote, beating his main rival, Nelson Chamisa, according to official results announced late Saturday. The opposition is refusing to accept the results, claiming widespread voting irregularities.
7: At least seven people were killed in a gang attack on a Christian protest in Haiti. Gang violence has increased dramatically since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, and criminals now control up to 80% of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince.
2,000: The British Museum says it has recovered some of the 2,000 items believed to have been stolen by an insider over a long period of time. The thefts – which led to the recent resignation of the museum’s director – included 3,500-year-old gold jewelry, gemstones, and antiquities, some of which were found for sale on eBay.
7,000,000: Say cheese. The campaign of Donald Trump says it has raised over $7 million since he was booked in Georgia on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election and became the first-ever former US president to have a mug shot.
500,000: Norway is building a fence at a cost of €500,000 to stop its Sámi reindeer herds from crossing into Russia. Sounds costly, but this should save Oslo money, as Russia has demanded compensation of €6,700 per reindeer plus a lump sum of nearly €6.3 million for the days the animals have grazed on the Russian side of the border.
The Graphic Truth: How much it costs to supply Ukraine
As the war in Ukraine enters its second year, proponents of continued military aid to Kyiv say it’s a cut-rate investment for security while others wonder whether the cost is worth it. We look at how much the biggest suppliers spent on military aid to Ukraine as a percentage of their defense budgets last year.
Who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines?
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here. Quick Take to kick off your week, and I want to talk about Nord Stream one and two. These are the pipelines, the gas pipelines that the Germans had wanted and the Russians had built, multi-billion dollar pipelines to bring gas from Russia into Germany and Europe. The United States had been very critical of these pipelines for years. The Trump administration particularly vocal about it, and only shut down after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and then sabotaged, blown up.
So who did it? It's a big question. And the presumption immediately after the explosions back in September that came from the West and Ukraine was that it was the Russians. And there was no evidence, but you're blaming the Russians for everything since they invaded Ukraine and they're committing all these war crimes. But this one always struck me, Nord Stream, as not having enormous credibility, trying to figure out why would the Russians blow up their own multi-billion-dollar pipelines?
Especially because, when you talk to Russian advisors, the presumption was that, over time, over years, Russia's focused on Ukraine. The Europeans perhaps not so much. The expense for the Europeans and providing support goes up. The costs, as they get colder over time, goes up and they get weary. And so having an option of getting Russian gas turned back on could be attractive for a potential peace movement. Not saying it's going to happen, but certainly was seen as an option by the Russians that they wouldn't want to suddenly take off the table by blowing up their own pipeline. So then after the pipelines were blown up, there have been a couple of investigations that the Europeans have conducted for months now. And there has been not a shred of evidence that has pointed to the Russians being responsible for this sabotage. And you'd know that if they found anything that pointed to Russia, because they'd want the world to know, they would tell us.
And especially after the extraordinary intelligence from the United States on Russia's plans to invade Ukraine, as well as various faults, flag efforts that the Russians were scheming up as the drumbeat of war was increasing, that the Americans made known to allies and some of which they made public. The fact that the United States has come up with nothing, I mean, I'm not just talking about fingerprints or signature on the explosions, I'm also talking about any communications, signals intelligence and email, anything from anyone involved in this effort. We have no idea who's behind this. So it doesn't smell right to me that the Russians are responsible. So then who is?
And, well, enter Seymour Hersh, a very well-known journalist. He got a Pulitzer Prize for his work uncovering the Mỹ Lai massacre by the United States in Vietnam. And he writes this extraordinary piece independently published on his Substack newsletter that fingers the United States and Norway in a covert operation blowing up these pipelines. It got huge attention, especially and predictably with Russian state media and the Russian government now saying that they're planning on taking steps to retaliate. The question is, does the story hold up? If it does, it's an extraordinary story. It would risk driving a wedge in the NATO coalition. It's worth taking a look at. And I've done that now, and I will say that, as skeptical as I am that the Russians are behind Nord Stream one and two exploding, the Hersh story doesn't hold up at all.
First of all, the core concept that the United States would target infrastructure partially owned by a key ally without telling the Germans about it runs very counter to what the United States has been doing in the war. I mean, at the same time that this occurred, the US was pursuing much deeper ties with Germany on a lot of issues like tech regulation and China decoupling and strengthening transatlantic ties to reverse the pullback and cooperation that you saw in the Trump administration. Blowing up Nord Stream risks all of those initiatives for a very questionable benefit to the United States, which is breaking Russia-Germany ties, while also risking spiking energy prices in the EU.
Partnering with Norway, a chartered NATO member, to sabotage Nord Stream also risks fracturing internal NATO cooperation, which Biden and his entire team have made very clear, both publicly and privately, has been the single most important gain that they have seen since the invasion has started. The fact that NATO, which was fragmenting, now has a reason for being. It's expanding, it's very coordinated, consolidated under US leadership. You risk that. Biden administration strikes me as much more risk averse than that. But okay, that's a practical and theoretical argument. Now, need to talk about some of the things Hersh said in the piece itself. Explanation that he lays out for hiding the operation from Congress isn't actually internally consistent. Hersh's claim that the operation was devised without using special operations personnel in order to avoid notifying Congress is actually incorrect.
A covert action pursued under Title 50 authority, that's the part of US Code that allows the CIA to pursue covert action regardless of what assets are used, would still be briefed to Congress. And that never happened. Specifically, CIA can request DoDEA personnel through the Defense sensitive support system. And those requests are briefed to Congress every month. And in Hersh's telling, the CIA would've asked the US Navy for deep water divers via that system, and Congress would've been notified. Whether those divers were special operations or not actually is immaterial to that process. He then suggests that the operation was downgraded to avoid congressional notification. That's not actually a thing. If it was a covert action, there would've been a finding before DoDEA assets were requested or before operational planning got past the initial stage. So the argument here kind of is nonsensical. Okay.
Also, the publicly verifiable facts, which are critical, don't line up with Hersh. He specifies that a Norwegian Alta-class minesweeper was used to support the divers that were planting explosives during the Baltops exercises. Now, public tracking shows that none of Norway's five Alta-class ships were in the region during the exercise. Further, Hersh claims that a Norwegian P-8, that's an aircraft that does marine tracking, dropped a sonar buoy on the day of the explosion that triggered the explosives. But none of the five P-8s that Norway operates were in the area that day per flight tracking. That these don't show up on public tracking is critical because Hersh's whole claim is that the reason that the Norwegians were used is so that the flights and ship activity wouldn't need to be covert. This doesn't align with the data. The other thing I would say is that Hersh's own anti-establishment and specifically anti-intelligence community bias should draw some skepticism.
As I mentioned, Hersh, the work he's done on Mỹ Lai was extraordinary and a true public service, and he got a Pulitzer for it. But more recently, he's done work claiming that the Osama bin Laden killing was a coverup, that the Syrian government didn't use chemical weapons. And they're both notable for being unbelievable and designed really to rebut specific claims made by the US intelligence community. And unfortunately, this article really lines up with that ideologically, and also without having the information to back it up. So, what then is really going on here? Who was behind it? I mean, the fact that Hersh is wrong doesn't mean that that NATO wasn't in some way behind this. And it's, by the way, not inconceivable that Hersh's anonymous source, gave him details that are disprovable in order to undermine the central argument in the piece. I mean, if you dismiss it as "I'm doing right now" as clearly factually wrong, it colors future claims that the United States was responsible that are potentially more credible.
I personally think that the Ukrainians are the most likely culprit. I mean, in the sense that they're the ones that have the most to gain. And they're also the ones that are the most risk acceptant. I mean, this war is an existential risk to them, and they're willing to do almost anything to ensure that their country still exists. And if the NATO alliance starts to break, that's an utter disaster for them. They need to make sure that that energy can't go to the Germans going forward. They don't want that to be a possibility because it's their future, literally their future as human beings that's on the line. Now, the main problem with the Ukrainian argument is, do they have the capabilities, the technical capabilities? And six months ago, I would've been very skeptical. But I also wouldn't have thought they'd be able to blow up the Kerch Bridge connecting Russia to Crimea, and they did. And that was pretty sophisticated operationally.
They also, of course, attempted to assassinate Alexander Dugin, ended up killing his daughter just outside Russia. Also pretty sophisticated assassination just outside Moscow. They also have been involved in shelling the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant that was occupied in Ukraine, the largest nuclear plant in Ukraine, but occupied by the Russians. I mean, if those shells had gone awry, you could have had a nuclear accident. So the willingness of the Ukrainians to take big risks is significant. I suspect they're the most likely. Could it have been with some NATO support, for example, Poland? Who knows that, if it wasn't for the Ukrainians fighting, they'd be fighting themselves.
They're therefore by far the most hawkish in orientation towards Russia. That is plausible. They're the ones that have been pushing the hardest for getting fighter jets to the Ukrainians to fight the Russians, for example. It's certainly possible. The Americans, of course, would have the most operational capability to pull off such an attack. And that is at face what makes Hersh's article very interesting. But again, at least, as he's argued, it strikes me as completely wrong, and frankly very irresponsible. So that's why I wanted to use my platform to go through the facts as they stand.
I hope everyone finds this useful. I look forward to talking to everybody real soon.
- What a mysterious pipeline attack says about European unity ›
- Who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines? ›
- Russia cutting Nord Stream 1 gas to undermine European leaders ›
- Nord Stream explosion mystery: We need proof, says Estonia's PM Kaja Kallas - GZERO Media ›
- Did Ukraine blow up Nord Stream pipelines? - GZERO Media ›