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 }}
Podcast: How crisis can help us fix broken systems: from Ukraine to COVID
Listen: To fix our broken international political system, we need a crisis. For instance, a pandemic, climate catastrophe, Big Tech having too much power, or a Russian invasion of Ukraine. But it must be a crisis that's so destructive it forces us to respond fast, and together — like World War II. That's the crisis that created the international system we have today, and kept the peace until now. On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer talks to Anne-Marie Slaughter, former US State Department official and now CEO of New America, and political scientist and Harvard professor Stephen Walt about the war and other crises.
Slaughter and Walt debate key issues such as the tough choices NATO faces on expanding to more countries but not Ukraine or other former Soviet republics, what we learned from the pandemic, and whether there are still reasons for hope in our current gloomy political environment. "If you're going to use a crisis effectively for change, you have to be able to have the right time horizon, the right group of countries, and a very specific set of goals," says Slaughter, who thinks we do have the ability to address many of the problems affecting the Global South: the most powerful countries are now all over the world. Many voices of people who need to be at the table — civic groups, CEOs, women, people of color — are not being heard.
This interview comes from the weekly show on global politics, GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, which is available to view on US public television stations. Check local listings to watch.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.
Russia escalates in Donbas in push to take eastern Ukraine
As Russia is launching a new phase of war, will eastern Ukraine fall? What is the West's last resort if the war further escalates? With US airlines dropping mask requirements for passengers, is this a bold move? Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
As Russia is launching a new phase of war, will eastern Ukraine fall?
Well, first of all, they said they were going to launch the new phase like a few weeks ago. What gives? It's like weeks for the new phase but yeah, they're now really moving into military escalation across the Donbas. Remember, this is the territory that the Russians have declared, recognized as independent. It's about two-thirds more than the territory they had occupied from 2014 until just before the war started, February 24th. And yeah, the Russians clearly have learned some lessons from mistakes that were made in the last eight weeks of the war. They've got new leadership on the ground. They've sent some additional troops, but they also have poor morale. The troops have been depleted and the Ukrainians have an awful lot of military capability. I'll tell you, I think it's very unlikely that east Ukraine will fall by May 9th, which is when Putin wants to make his announcement of victory on Victory Day. I think eventually yes, it's more likely than not that eastern Ukraine will fall, but this is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. And that's a very sad thing.
What is the West's last resort if the war further escalates?
Well, I mean the biggest thing that the West can do is Europe can cut off all of the remaining energy that they're getting from Russia, which is continuing to fund the war. And the problem is that that's going to happen anyway. I mean if the Russians use chemical weapons or, God forbid, or if the Russians decide that they're going to engage in just scorched earth across major Ukrainian cities like they have in Mariupol. Maybe it happens faster. If they don't, then it happens over another year, two years. But if you're Russia, does that really change the way you think about your relationship with the West or your behavior on the ground? It probably doesn't. So, I mean, short of the West actually engaging in the war directly, a no-fly zone or troops on the ground, there's really very little additional that they can do. And that's part of the reason why it's unlikely that the Russians are going to change their behavior in any way here. It's hard to come up with a deterrent effect.
With US airlines dropping mask requirements for passengers, is this a bold move?
No, it's not a bold move, it's a stupid move in the sense that it was made arbitrarily by a Trump-appointed justice on the ground in Florida. It's a horrible way to actually decide that you're suddenly getting rid of a mandate. I personally think that the implementation of the mandates has been pretty arbitrary. It's been badly enforced. It's not N95 or KN95 masks, people wearing bandanas for Christ's sake. And they're on an hour-long shuttle to Washington DC and they're having drinks while they're barely wearing masks at all. So, it doesn't feel very effective to me. And in that regard with all the vaccines we have, this is not something that I'm worked up about. I'm kind of glad they're gone. I understand that given how nuts everyone has been over the pandemic the last two years and how politicized it's gotten that people are angry. But no, I don't think it's a bold move. I think it's just one more thing that shows that the United States does not have its political shit in order if you don't mind, because we are just so politically divided and dysfunctional. It's yet one more example of that.
- COVID hypocrisy & misinformation - GZERO Media ›
- Zelensky plea for additional Ukraine support puts US in a bind ... ›
- Zelensky knows how to talk to the West - GZERO Media ›
- What We're Watching: Battle of Donbas, Turkish attack on Kurds in ... ›
- Risks of Russia losing: Putin, Ukraine, and potential for escalation ... ›
- Putin punishes Ukraine to avoid looking weak - GZERO Media ›
Going after war criminals
The accusations of Russian war crimes in Ukraine have shocked the world. The Kremlin, of course, denies targeting civilians and says it’s the Ukrainians who are violating the rules of war. So what happens when one side does commit atrocities during a conflict?
It might be prosecuted for war crimes, like the Nazis who were tried in Nuremberg after World War II, just a few years before the latest version of the Geneva Convention was ratified in 1949, establishing the core of international humanitarian law.
More recently, the UN has set up special courts to prosecute war crimes like those in the former Yugoslavia (this week is the 30th anniversary of the start of the war in Bosnia), and 20 years ago the UN-backed International Criminal Court was established.
Such bodies were able to try the likes of Slobodan Milošević, the former president of Yugoslavia, and convict Charle Taylor, the Liberian warlord-turned-president.
But others evaded justice. Not everyone is on board with international tribunals for war crimes.
The US, China, and Russia have not joined the ICC — in the American case, Bill Clinton tried but it was never ratified by Congress.
Lack of jurisdiction will make it hard — but not impossible — to go after Russians accused of war crimes in Ukraine.
Biden's State of the Union address: 3 takeaways
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, shares his perspective on how the State of the Union address.
Today's topic is: Three takeaways from last night's State of the Union address.
My first takeaway is that Biden hasn't backed down at all from his aggressive and very progressive agenda, listing off a series of policies that excited Democrats, but are really non-starters with Republicans, from gun control to immigration reform. None of this is going to happen because Biden lacks the votes in the House and definitely in the Senate. And the parts that do happen are really up to the whims of one man, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin who signaled today that he was willing to work with the White House on parts of Biden's agenda, including drug price reform, money for decarbonization, reforming the tax code, and deficit reduction. And it's really up to Democrats to decide if that would be enough for them.
The second takeaway is that Biden's guests, as always, tell a story. He featured in the First Lady's box, a steel worker, a diabetes advocate, a COVID nurse, a war widow, a Native American. The two that were most interesting to me, however, was one the CEO of Intel, the semiconductor company, and two, the whistleblower from Facebook. The Intel CEO was used to tell a story to advocate for the passage of a package of semiconductor subsidies which should get done later this year as part of anti-China competition bill that has bipartisan support.
The Facebook whistleblower is a woman who released a bunch of documents to Congress that talks about the harm of social media to kids and how the companies know that it's doing harm. And Biden used her as a platform to talk about support for more mental health funding and strengthening privacy protections for kids, something that could happen on a bipartisan basis if they find the right way to do it.
My final takeaway is that while Biden spent a lot of time rallying support for the financial war he's waging against Russia, he didn't spend a lot of time preparing Americans for the eventual cost of that war. The entire first part of his speech was a forceful call to arms to help Ukraine. And this financial war that Biden is waging is popular for now, but these actions are going to have a price for Americans in terms of higher energy costs and potentially future supply chain snarls. And Russia could escalate the war both against Ukraine and broader against the West.
Biden didn't talk much about these potential costs, how long Americans are going to have to bear any burden that comes, or what he's going to do to mitigate them. And while the war is popular for now as these costs go on and the costs grow, this is going to be a political pain point for him in the future.
Kyiv likely to fall as Russians escalate war on Ukraine
As Russian troops approach Kyiv, what will happen if it falls? How has the West reacted to Lavrov's UN speech? Will Taiwan be the next Ukraine? Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
First, as Russian troops approach Kyiv, what will happen if it falls?
I think it's increasingly what will happen when it falls. I hate to say that. Unless the Russians lay down arms in large numbers because they don't want to fire on their brothers and sisters, the Ukrainians, which is possible and I hold out hope. But it doesn't look very likely thus far. The Russian force will overwhelm the Ukrainians as it is buried upon Kyiv. Look, what's going to happen is you're going to get a government in exile that will either be in the west of Ukraine conceivably, but that's a rump Ukraine that I can't imagine the Russians want, or they move to another country, Poland, maybe France.
Then we have a proxy war going on where the West is continuing to provide weapons going to partisans on the ground in Ukraine. This does not get better. This is a full economic decoupling from Russia with Europe and the United States. This is massive economic damage to the Russian economy, the Belarusian economy, of course the Ukrainian economy too. The Russians don't seem thus far to be backing down. I can't see any room for rebuilding the relationship or for negotiations to be successful. Hold out hope. They had yesterday, again, five hours of talks. But so far, everything we see on the ground is that the Russians are only escalating at this point. That means only very bad things for the Ukrainian people.
How has the West reacted to Lavrov's UN speech?
We're talking about Foreign Minister Lavrov, Sergey Lavrov, who is no stranger to the United Nations. He was ambassador to the UN for Russia for about a decade and was one of the most effective ambassadors on the ground in the UN. Everyone had respect for him, even if they didn't like him. But that is not true anymore. A large majority, I don't have the exact numbers, but a large majority of everyone attending in the United Nations walked out as Lavrov began the speech because, of course, this government is increasingly perceived as one of war criminals by advanced industrial democracies and even many poorer democracies around the world.
The Chinese as well increasingly publicly saying that they're deeply unhappy with the invasion of Ukraine, and they want to see a cease fire and the Russian troops leave. This is very far from where the Russians and the Chinese were back when Putin just three, four weeks ago was in Beijing signing this big new friendship agreement with Xi Jinping. The Russians have lost not just a lot of enemies and made them much more hostile, but they've also lost, or at least weakened, a lot of their friendships.
Will Taiwan be the next Ukraine?
The answer is no. Interesting, a bunch of friends of mine are presently in Taiwan on a mission sent by the Biden administration, Republicans and Democrats, to show the Taiwanese that the Americans are committed. But more importantly, given what I just said about China, Chinese are not looking to be seen as opportunists taking advantage of this crisis, because if that were the case, they would be seen as on the Russian side of an emerging, evolving second Cold War. Absolutely not where the Chinese are right now. So I actually feel that Taiwan is ... I wouldn't say comfortable, I wouldn't say sitting pretty because long term, the power imbalance away from Taiwan is very clearly in Beijing's favor. But on the back of this invasion in Ukraine, I'd be stunned to see an intervention that made Taiwan into a real additional crisis. I really don't think that's something we have to worry significantly about.
- The US is at war with Russia: 4 scenarios from here - GZERO Media ›
- The Graphic Truth: The cost of the crisis for Ukraine - GZERO Media ›
- Zelensky's next move? - GZERO Media ›
- What We're Watching: Zelensky stays put as EU, US sanction Putin ... ›
- Explainer: Why there’s a Y in Kyiv, but no “the” in Ukraine - GZERO Media ›
Ukraine Always Get What You Want
Soon Ukrainians will head to the polls to a pick a president. And Putin is paying attention. Ian will dig into it and then dig a whole lot deeper with former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul. And of course, we've got your Puppet Regime.