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. This website uses cookies. 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 (if different), and our use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy.
A global look at the celebrations, protests, and riots spurred by International Women's Day, March 8, 2021. It was a day that millions of women across the world took to the streets to demand that their voices be heard.
Watch the GZERO World with Ian Bremmer episode: Why the pandemic has been worse for women: UN Women's Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
Ian Bremmer shares his perspective on the latest news in global politics on World In :60 - that is, :180.
First. What is going on with the AstraZeneca vaccine?
Well, around Europe, we have all of these countries that have suspended giving out AstraZeneca vaccines, because there have been some side effects of people that are taking it. Blood clots, a tiny number of folks, actually fewer side effects for AstraZeneca than we've seen for Pfizer, but it's become this big political show. After a few countries start shutting it down, others do because they can't be left by themselves. I just talked to a major senior official from one country saying, "Yeah, we were under pressure. We want to keep it going." World Health Organization said it's fine. AstraZeneca itself who has done the trials, say it's fine. And this is slowing down an already very slow vaccine rollout in Europe. They were doing a lot of things reasonably well in terms of dealing with the pandemic, but absolutely not this. They're a couple of months behind the United States right now in terms of getting to herd immunity. This is going to slow them down. It's going to hurt their economic growth this year. Okay.
Why are people protesting in Britain?
Well, big demonstrations opposed to the killing of a woman by serving member of the police force. Now there is proposed legislation that would limit demonstrations in the country. The demonstrations have been responded to with fairly aggressive policing, especially in the case of the UK, where police forces not carrying lethal force, the historic idea of the bobbies who are very well behaved and very little violence as a consequence in the UK. Knives are a big problem, but not gun violence. Well, it turns out that this is becoming a much more challenging, and as a consequence, the UK is trying to respond. There were certainly a lot of women that were protesting, were seen pushed down to the ground by police, serving on the same force as the fellow that had killed this woman. It's a challenge in the UK and Boris Johnson who had been doing well the last couple of weeks, has another thing that he's got to deal with.
Okay. And then finally, did you read Jared Kushner's op-ed on the middle East? What is the Biden administration's approach to the region compared to his predecessor?
Yeah, I thought it was a pretty good piece actually. First of all, basically came out and said that he thinks that what Biden is doing in China first and foremost, and in the Middle East, largely speaking, the right thing. They basically agree. Where they disagree is on the Iran deal. Kushner saying it was right of Biden to bring up the JCPOA and then back off, because the Iranians aren't serious. I think the Iranians are serious, but they're posturing because they can't be seen domestically before their own election in just accepting the old JCPOA deal. But I think that by the beginning of next year, that is what they will accept. Kushner doesn't think that's a good idea. He thinks that the US should not accept anything unless it's a broader, tougher deal that includes ballistic missile limitations, includes limiting of funding, for example, for proxies in the region and extremist groups. I think that may be possible over the medium to long-term, but in the near-term, I think both sides will end up accepting almost exactly the old JCPOA, maybe with an extended timeline around it. That means the Iranians will stop with their expanded nuclear capability development and they'll also have about a million more barrels a day of oil being produced, which means prices will go down.
A tried-and-true argument that autocrats frequently make to their constituents isn't so much that life is amazing at home, but that it's just as bad elsewhere. That's according to Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Applebaum, who joins Ian Bremmer on GZERO World to unpack the enduring allure of authoritarianism around the world. "Everything that goes wrong inside the United States or in Scandinavia or in Southern Europe is immediately beamed back to Russians in the form of state propaganda," Applebaum says.
Watch the episode: Authoritarianism's Enduring Appeal: Anne Applebaum Discusses
Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Sweden, with the view from Europe:
What is going on with the recent terrorist attacks in Europe?
Well, there have been both the attacks in - one in Paris, the awful beheading, the subsequent attack in Nice, and the attack in Vienna. They've all been evidently acts by individuals without any planning, without any coordination, without any sort of major other thing behind it. That's the good news. The bad news is, of course, that these things happen. And it's very difficult for the security authorities to deal with. I mean, the Vienna case, it's obvious that there had been warnings about this particular individual, and I'm quite certain that will be quite a number of questions to be answered about that later on.
Why are there massive demonstrations in Warsaw, Poland?
Well, that's really massive in Warsaw, if you've seen the pictures. Polish women are revolting against the government that now severely, severely, severely nearly takes away abortion rights. And that is, of course, seen as an affront by the vast majority of women in Poland. You will hear more about this, I believe.
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here. Yet another exciting week in the run-up to the US elections. Not the only thing going on, though, not at all. I mean, first of all, coronavirus continues to be by far the biggest story in the US, in Europe, as we have a major second wave, and indeed in many countries around the world. Also, we're seeing a lot more instability pop up. I mean, we've had every Sunday now for about three months massive unprecedented protests in Belarus. They're not slowing down at all. We see major demonstrations, including anti-royal demonstrations in Thailand, Pakistan. You've got significant instability right now, of course, we'd seen in Lebanon over the past months. Why is this all going on? Is this a GZERO phenomenon?
I would say not quite, but it is related in the sense that the reason you have a leaderless world today, the reason you have a GZERO world is because increasingly, political architecture and institutions have been weakening and they aren't aligned with the geopolitical order. Similarly, the reason why you're seeing so much more instability these days is because a lot of people feel like their own domestic governance has not been fit for purpose, certainly in the United States and the big social movements and the growing divide between red and blue on the back of an unprecedented economic crisis and pandemic in modern times that is hitting not just everyone together, but really those economics are on the back of the working class and the middle-class, what people are increasingly calling a K-shaped recovery, where Bezos is now worth almost $200 billion, anyone in the knowledge economy is doing pretty well.
You can socially distance. You can work at home. Your jobs are doing fine. Your 401ks are fine. The markets are popping. But what if you don't have any of that access? What if you're not in a job like that? What if you don't have stocks in a portfolio? Well, then your life has gotten a lot harder and you're feeling that support for those that say they're going to do better for you doesn't really make your life any better. I thought it was really interesting that we had these big rallies in the last couple of days from President Trump and we'll see them again every day for the next couple of weeks where he's saying, if you elect Biden, he's going to listen to the scientists.
If you're a PhD, you say, "Well, okay, that's a good thing, right? We want the experts being listened to." But if you're someone for whom life has been getting worse for them decades now, not just in the last four years, but for a long time, you feel like you've been lied to. That's not just political leaders from one party or another. That's the media, that's the scientists, that's everyone out there with their so-called facts and great education who may be really smart and they may be really smug, but they're not helping you, and in that regard, the fact that President Trump can still have a 40% approval rating and say the sorts of things he's saying and respond the way he is responding to this coronavirus shows you how deeply the system has eroded.
Whether Trump wins or whether Biden wins coming up, these problems are not going away. They're much more structural, and I do get the sense that a lot of people in the foreign policy establishment in the United States and the foreign policy establishment in the US, both left and right, is largely anti-Trump and they see how much Trump is disliked outside the United States in many, most countries around the world, America first as an overt strategy and tagline doesn't surprise you that it's not going to work very well if you don't happen to be American.
But I think there is a broad belief that if we just get rid of Trump, if Biden comes in, then everyone's going to flop to the United States as a leader again. Number one, that's just not the case. I mean, the erosion of American leadership was happening well before Trump. The feeling that the United States was increasingly hypocritical in the way that it led, I mean, you think about the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, you think about Guantanamo, you think about failed promotion of democracy internationally at the same time that America's own democratic capabilities at home are increasingly seen by its own people as not fit for purpose, nevermind the way that the Canadians or the Germans or the Scandinavians or others who might look at the United States would increasingly see the United States is not such an effective model.
Well, you need to realize that it's not like everyone is just sort of gagging at the bit for anyone but Trump and now we're going to love the United States again. It's going to be much more fragmented. This GZERO world is not a product of Trump and it's going to persist beyond whether it's one or two Trump administrations. I guess, I've always thought that's more important. I mean, I do worry about the further acceleration of the erosion of American institutions happening under a president that doesn't care particularly for rule of law and doesn't really believe that in the strength of representative democracy or human rights, he's much more transactional his orientation. So certainly, I've seen that whether it's the executive or corruption in the civil service, or whether it's the effective functioning of the legislature in the US, all of those things have been eroding for some time, but they're eroding more quickly under the Trump administration.
But I mean, so too, is the media having its legitimacy erode in the last four years, and I would argue that's largely self-inflicted how they've chosen to respond to a very divided and commercially very enriching political landscape for them. How social media has chosen to ignore the importance of coexisting well with a civil society and fabric that supports it because they'd rather ensure that they can maximize eyeballs, advertising and revenue, and the business models are not particularly aligned.
So I think it's important for us to understand that these issues are much more structural than the election that we're going to have in the next couple of weeks. Also, because lots of other countries continue to experience these things challenges, and the next two years are still, irrespective of who's leading the United States, largely going to be defined by how humanity both collectively and the deeply fragmented are responding to this continued coronavirus. We now have caseload in many countries across Europe that is higher than it was during their first wave. Deaths are certainly going down. In the United States, deaths are going up from a month ago, but they're down from where they were in the early wave.
Science is responding more effectively to the crisis, but we are nowhere close to out of this and we won't be until we have a vastly more effective and broader testing regime, until we have much better political leadership and until we have vaccines that are distributed and across the world in sufficient amounts with education that people are going to take them. we're talking about still another couple of years where that's defining the way that the global political environment and economic environment actually works, and in that regard, I think irrespective of how this us election turns out, you're still going to be in this period of extraordinary crisis of headlines on a daily basis, whip-sawing you from issue to issue.
Yes, if Trump is gone, Twitter will drive you a little less crazy and there won't be as many headlines driven by it. But the country I think is going to be every bit as divided, in fact, in many ways more so in part because the election will be seen as illegitimate by many, and in part more importantly, because the economic impact of this crisis is going to be so much harder for people.
Final thing I would say is that in 2020, the healthcare response to coronavirus has been radically mixed and differentiated around the world. Some have done very well in response on the healthcare side. We know who those countries are. It's Japan, it's South Korea, it's Germany, it's Canada, it's others. Some have done a poor job on the healthcare side, frankly, including our own United States, the United Kingdom and many others, Brazil. But economically, almost every major economy in the world has done a really good job in the first year of this crisis, responding to it. All the central bank governors, almost all the ministers of finance, the US Secretary of Treasury, almost all the major legislatures in the world have responded adequately or more than adequately to the nature of the economic crisis.
In 2021, the primary issue is not going to be the healthcare fallout. That will be better, in part because we've learned a lot. The death rate is going to go down, in part because the effectiveness is going to be better. You'll have more treatments, you'll start to have vaccine, all those things, but the economic impact is going to be much worse and I fear the economic response is going to be much more differentiated and haphazard, and that is one of the reasons why we need to pay a lot more attention to coronavirus in 2021, even as there's going to be such fatigue from talking about and dealing with the pandemic, but most human beings around the world are still going to be experiencing it and that's that bottom of the K.
Keep in mind that the one thing the K-shape recovery really doesn't teach you is that when you hear about a K, you think, "Well, both legs of the K are actually equivalent." Not true. That top of the K only reflects about 10% of the population in the advanced industrial economies. The bottom of the K is pretty much everybody else. Going to have to address that in a serious way in the next year. Thanks everyone. Be safe. Avoid people. Talk to you soon.
Number one, your questions. Can Putin rescue Belarus' President from his own people?
Well, not really. In the sense that Belarus has shown that their special services and their military are still very much loyal to Lukashenko. And while there have been significant and very courageous demonstrations of the Belarusian people across the country, and particularly in Minsk, among all of the major enterprises, state industry, the demonstrations happened briefly and then they stopped, because people didn't want to lose their jobs and their livelihood. And the fact that this is now gone on for well over a month. I mean, President Putin has basically said that he was going to act as the backstop for Lukashenko. He'd provide military support if needed. He's now provided some additional cash, a loan of over a billion dollars, they're saying, and it was a deeply embarrassing trip by the Belarusian President to Sochi, to bend on knee, and prostrate himself in front of his boss and ruler, the Russian President.
But it seems pretty clear that Russia is willing to take steps to ensure that Lukashenko stays in power. Unless he really oversteps by trying to clear out with a lot of violence, his own people. If he's willing to be patient, I suspect, and you don't have a unified opposition, the Belarusian people are nowhere near as organized as the Ukrainians were, and they don't have the international support that the Ukrainians did. I suspect that this looks more like Venezuela, where a lot of people are hoping, myself included, that Lukashenko is forced out, but he isn't forced out. In that regard, Lukashenko has very much been bolstered and supported by the Russian President, and probably doesn't have to pick up his dacha on the Russian coast of the Black Sea.
What do you make of the Taliban peace talks in Doha?
Well, it's good that peace talks are going on. The United States very clearly wants to get out of Afghanistan, the longest standing military conflict in American history. We're well into two decades at this point. It's a lot of people dead. A lot of American soldier's dead and injured. Trillions of dollars spent and vastly more Afghan civilians, as well as military killed. The fact that the Americans are sitting down with the Taliban directly as part of these talks in Doha, in Qatar, show that the world has changed. That the Americans are prepared to say, "If you could sit down with Kim Jong-un, you can certainly sit down with the Taliban." I'm even a little surprised that the US hasn't tried harder to sit down with the Iranian leadership, just because Trump generally thinks that you get anyone in the room and there's a shot, so why not? Harder for Iran, because the country itself is more divided. Interestingly, the Taliban, this is not just with the Afghan government. It's also with the opposition, because they say they don't recognize the government.
My concern here is that the Taliban right now are playing nice. They are willing to support a more consistent cease fire. They're willing to say the right things in terms of shared governance and Islamic state. But that's because there are still US troops in Afghanistan, and they are drawing down. My view is that the Taliban understands that time is on their side, and once the Americans leave, and the interest of the Americans at that point in continuing to pay huge amounts of money into the Afghan coffers, and that is most of the Afghan state budget is American aid at this point, goes down. Then the Taliban are in a vastly better position to refuse continued talks, step up military attacks and the Afghan government collapses. I'm not in any way clear that this is a positive for Afghanistan, because I'm just not convinced the Americans have a lot of staying power, once the troops are out. I'm completely sympathetic to pulling the troops out. I wish that the Americans were more willing, absent US troops to be heavily involved in continued humanitarian aid, and diplomacy in a multilateral format. This administration certainly is not. I'm not sure a Biden Administration would do a lot more on that front either.
Why is Mexico's President raffling off his own plane?
Well, he's really anti-corruption. This is a guy who's still at almost 60% approval ratings, despite having mishandled coronavirus pretty badly, and the economy in free fall. Largely that's because he is not only seen as being anti-corrupt, but he's truly anti-corrupt. In Brazil, Bolsonaro was really seen as being anti-corrupt, but a lot of the recent cases against members of his family are putting a question to that. Where Lopez Obrador truly, is not on the take. I think that makes him very widely supported. He's opened the Presidential Palace on days for the people to be able to come in and see it. That was a big populous move. Also offering to raffle off his presidential plane. He doesn't need a presidential plane. He can fly commercial he says. That also was such a move. Unfortunately, it's been a bit of a dog's breakfast in terms of the way it's come about. They've not been able to sell it. The raffle prizes will actually be cash, as opposed to the plane itself. The whole thing has been handled bureaucratically in a lousy way, and an economically inefficient way. That describes a lot of his administration so far, even if the intentions are pretty good. One thing I will say is when I talked to a lot of people on the other side, a lot of Mexican conservatives, especially former conservatives in government that know Lopez Obrador personally. They like him. They like him as a person. They say he's a good man. He's a decent man, but my God, they think he's horrible in government. I think that divide is getting bigger over time.
Finally, what can we expect from the 75th UN General Assembly?
Well, it's virtual, so you're going to have a lot of speeches, but the speeches will not be delivered in person. Of course, politics is very much a contact sport. You're not going to have all of these bilaterals on the sidelines, which is where the biggest news usually gets made. But, a big speech at the UN from the Chinese President in this environment, given what's happening for example, in Hong Kong and with the United States, and Australia, and Canada, pretty interesting. From the Indian Prime Minister, what he has to say about China, pretty interesting. From Mohammad Bin Salman, what he's going to say about the opening of relations with Israel, and about Iran. There are more pieces at play geopolitically in the 75th UN General Assembly, than at any time in my lifetime. Even though it's going to be virtual, the nature of the speeches themselves are probably going to be more content heavy, and more interesting for those of us observing on the sidelines, than you would otherwise normally expect.
We're doing an enormous amount of programming, GZERO, Eurasia Group, and Microsoft together to bring the virtual UN General Assembly to all of you. You can check it out through the social feeds here, as well as on gzeromedia.com. We're kicking it off with an hour interview between myself and my good friend, Antonio Guterres, Secretary General. It is convivial and pretty open. I think you'll get a kick out of that, and you'll be lots of surprises over the course of the week.
Ian Bremmer shares his perspective on global politics on this week's World In (More Than) 60 Seconds:
First, who is Lebanon's new prime minister?
His name's Mustafa Adib and I had never heard of him. Apparently, he wasn't being considered for prime minister until apparently 24 hours ago. He was Lebanon's ambassador to Germany or is Lebanon's ambassador to Germany. And also, a PhD in political science. So clearly, we must like him. He can't be a bad guy. He looks basically like a technocrat. But in part, it's because Lebanon is impossible to govern and can't agree on any of the well-known and outspoken figures. And this is a massive economic challenge that they're facing. Their currency is falling apart. Their budgets, they can't fund. They had that massive explosion that's going to cost billions to rebuild Beirut. Just happened a couple of weeks ago. They're also fighting coronavirus. They have millions of refugees on their territory that they're paying for. And they don't have as much money from the Gulf states that they had historically because they're facing their own budgetary challenges. On top of which, it's really hard to get an IMF deal done when you don't have effective governance and when Hezbollah is part of your government structure.
So, it's pretty ugly. I wish this guy well. I can't imagine we're going to be hearing from him for very long. But that is the situation in Lebanon. Godspeed.
With daily COVID cases surging to record highs, why is India reopening?
Well, a couple of reasons. First, because, you know, it's a very poor country and people are getting tired and angry of a pretty significant and severe lockdown that Prime Minister Modi had originally put in place. Also, India is a relatively young country. And so even if they have lots of cases, not as many people are going to need hospitalization and mortality rates are comparatively much lower than they are in the United States or Western Europe. That matters. Also, I mean, you have so many people that are prepared to live with a threat of disease, whether it's coronavirus or others, if that means that they can work, and they can continue to provide for their families. Because the alternative, with so many people at subsistence living, is much worse. And that's particularly true when you're not even testing many people. So, you don't really understand the broad contours of the crisis. I mean, there were some recent tests in this one slum that's the largest in Mumbai, over a million people live in it, I've not gone into it, but I've driven right by it on many occasions, and that 50% of that population was shown to have some kind of antibodies for coronavirus. I mean, just ripping through that area. And yet you didn't see big demonstrations or riots about coronavirus. Where you will, if the lockdowns last for longer. It's a lot easier to engage in longer lockdown and longer quarantine in countries with a lot of money and the ability to provide continued support for their populations, like in Europe, like at least until now, the United States. Though, we'll see what happens with the Phase 4 stimulus deal. In the US is getting a lot tougher for a lot of people, too.
What's the update on Belarus? Will Lukashenko fall?
It's looking less likely. The demonstrators, nonviolent, completely nonviolent, and in some cases hundreds of thousands, certainly most cases tens of thousands on the streets for a few weeks solid now in Minsk and in some other places. But Lukashenko, the president, the dictator who stole this election, claiming 80% of the popular vote, he clearly got nowhere close to that, is now arresting, detaining and arresting journalists. He has taken away the accreditation of all of the local journalists for Western institutions. So, we're not getting the same news on the ground that we were just a couple of days ago. They've also brought in special forces and they brought in tanks into Minsk, certainly sending a very disturbing message. All of that happening on the back of President Putin, of Russia, saying that if certain red lines were crossed, that the Russians would come in and provide direct support for Lukashenko. Putin had been staying on the sidelines for weeks. He certainly does not want to engage militarily. That will undermine popularity for Russia in Belarus. But he's now providing nearly a blank check for Lukashenko. And at the end of the day, you have to believe that that makes it much less likely that the supporters of democracy on the streets in Belarus are going to succeed. Horrible to say that. Horrible to see this. But that is what it looks like right now.
Certainly, personally continuing to stand for those demonstrators and hope that they can persist and prevail. But, my God, very dangerous and very courageous. If I had a kid right now in Belarus, I wouldn't want him or her to be out there on the streets. And that's what you also have to watch out for, right? I mean, the human dimension here, it's very easy to say, "stand for them." But in many of the industries, for example, in Belarus, you had seen demonstrations, but they're not willing to risk their jobs because otherwise, how are they going to make a living? And so, they haven't persisted with the kind of grass movement action in shutting down the strike action and shutting down those places that you've seen among the population as a whole in Minsk. It does look like it's moving towards Lukashenko and towards state power.
Finally, what do I make of recent Far Right protests in Germany?
Well, you know, even in Germany, where they've done an awful lot to provide support for the middle and working class and to ensure that people continue to have the ability to take care of themselves, to meet their bills, to not get evicted from their apartments, all of that, there is a significant level of impatience with very tough lockdowns and shutdowns across Germany. That's been very wide support for Merkel and the federal system in Germany, but much better alignment among the among the federal leaders, the regional leaders in Germany, than you've seen among red and blue states in the United States, for example. Merkel's popularity remains very high consistently through the pandemic. But you also saw thousands of the far right actually demonstrating in Berlin. Opposed to social distancing. Opposed to mandatory lockdowns. It is a tiny percentage of the population compared to those sorts of sentiments in other parts of Europe and certainly in the United States. But something to watch out for, particularly something to watch out for in former eastern Germany, where that political sentiment is by far the strongest, but also a part that's done comparatively well, given the social and economic response of the German government since coronavirus has hit. So, I wouldn't worry too much about that. But clearly, something that's worth the headlines, especially as the US continues to be dominated by Trump, dominated by social racial instability, and of course, our own pandemic. So, important to be looking at the news happening around the world today, especially because this pandemic is truly global and is affecting all of us together.
Jon Lieber, Managing Director for the United States at the Eurasia Group, shares his perspective on a special Republican National Convention wrap up edition of US Politics In 60 Seconds:
So, what struck me about the convention this week was that it became really clear the messages that Donald Trump wants to hammer home as the campaign enters into its final two months. The first is his record of accomplishments, which included renegotiating trade deals, getting tough on China, a record number of jobs, and a great economy, that of course, all went away during the coronavirus, which did not really get much of a mention during the convention. The second thing he wants to hammer on is Joe Biden. Two claims in particular about Biden. One is that he's a tool for the radical left. I believe President Trump even said he'd be a Trojan horse for socialism in the United States. And the second is that Trump really wants to focus on some of these images of urban protests and riots in the streets and tie the protests to the Democratic Party, claiming that it's the fault of Democratic mayors and that if you elect Democrats, you're just going to get more protests.
So, Biden got a very small convention bounce, really none at all, after his week-long Democratic convention and I expect you're going to see Trump not get much of a bounce after his and what's really notable about this race is how static it's been. Biden's had a national eight to nine-point lead and the polling aggregates. Trump's approval ratings have been in the low 40s, but now they've rebounded slightly to 42% on average nationally. And it's probably going to remain that way for the rest of the campaign. The goal here for President Trump, and you saw a lot of this on display at the convention, is to target messages directly at his base by saying he's the most pro-cop, pro-life, pro-farmer, pro-veteran president that's ever existed on the Earth, and in doing so, he wants to get out his base, who is predominately white, rural voters. If he can do that in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, then he still has a shot to win this election because even a small increase in participation by white voters in those states would overwhelm any potential turnout advantage that Joe Biden might get from, say, African-American voters who are showing up to vote in the numbers they did in 2012 for President Obama.
So, two months to go left in the race. Lots can still change. I think that even though Biden's got this big polling lead, it actually remains fairly close. And we'll be checking in to see how it goes.
