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.
Willis Sparks
Willis Sparks is a senior editor for GZERO Daily. He is also a Director in the Global Macro practice at Eurasia Group, where he has worked since 2005. He has made speeches on international politics on every continent except Antarctica and appears regularly as an analyst on CBS. Willis holds degrees from Brown University, the Juilliard School, Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, and the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris. He also holds an honorary degree from the Moscow Art Theatre School. A native of Macon, Georgia, Willis has worked as a stuntman at New York's Metropolitan Opera. As a child, he declined an opportunity to spend an afternoon riding the Great American Scream Machine, a rollercoaster, with Ronald McDonald, for money. He has never regretted that decision.
Breaking: GZERO Media’s “decision desk” is now ready to project that Vladimir V. Putin will be reelected president of Russia this weekend. We’re walking out on this limb because the Kremlin controls most media in Russia, any opposition candidate who might embarrass Putin is barred from running, and protests are not tolerated.
But there are a few factors worth watching. Will the government get the turnout it wants? Probably. As Eurasia Group’s Alex Brideau told us yesterday, “Government employees, soldiers, and people working for state-owned companies will be under pressure to vote and ensure others vote for Putin, too.” Even if turnout is low, Russian state media will likely tell us it was high.
We should also watch to see if protesters, including supporters of recently deceased political prisoner Alexei Navalny, ignore the risk of arrest, violence, or both to hit the streets of Russia’s largest cities.
The wildcard to watch is whether Ukraine has plans to disrupt the voting in whatever way possible. Recent drone attacks on Russian infrastructure have demonstrated the Ukrainian military’s long reach.
Yes, this carefully choreographed election will probably go off pretty much exactly as planned. But some inside Russia and beyond would like to use this occasion to make their own statements on Russia’s government and its Potemkin democracy.
Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders will not become prime minister of his country, despite getting the most votes in last year’s election.
Although Wilders’ PVV party swept to victory on a scorching anti-Islam and anti-migrant “Dutch First” message, he still needed coalition partners to form a government. Months of talks with a handful of center-right parties ended this week without support for Wilders as PM.
The result prolongs the political uncertainty for the Netherlands, which looks headed for a bizarre “extra-parliamentary cabinet” headed by a technocrat cabinet in which none of the ministers is from the PVV or the other three parties.
On the one hand, the episode is another example of the practical limits for European far-right parties, despite their rising electoral fortunes. (We saw something similar in Portugal last weekend, where the far-right Chega party was sweet at the polls but still too toxic for a coalition.)
But watch closely. Wilders has said he would “like a right-wing cabinet.” Will Wilders, given his obvious popularity, be able to pull policy rightward even from outside the government?
In June 2022, a man fleeing a drug gang took refuge inside a church in a remote region of northern Mexico. Armed men followed him into the church, killed him, and murdered two Jesuit priests who tried to intervene.
That event has since strained relations between the Catholic Church and President Andres Manuel López Obrador, whom church leaders blame for failing to contain the country’s still-high rates of violent crime.
López Obrador’s presidency will end – he’s term-limited – later this year following an election to choose his successor. The popular leader has endorsed former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum of his Morena party, and she is the heavy favorite in June’s election.
This week, all three presidential candidates signed a document entitled “Commitment for Peace,” drafted by Mexico’s Roman Catholic leadership, that calls for new efforts to lower the country’s violent crime rate. But Sheinbaum, beating back implicit criticism of López Obrador’s failure on the issue, noted that she disagreed with the church’s claim that Mexico suffers a “profound crisis of violence.”
López Obrador’s security minister reported in January that the country’s homicide rate fell 10.8% in 2023, but Mexico's 29,675 murders last year still averaged 81 per day. The challenge of violent crime, and the delicate political dance around it, will continue.On Monday, a TV interviewer asked Donald Trump to detail his “outlook on how to handle entitlements: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid?” His response: “There is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements — in terms of cutting — and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements.”
Within hours, strategists working on President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign issued a 20-second digital response for release on its X, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads social media accounts. It featured Trump’s words followed by a quick clip from Biden’s State of the Union Speech last week in which he pledged that “If anyone here tries to cut Social Security, Medicare or raise the retirement age, I will stop you.”
The Trump campaign quickly accused the Biden team of twisting Trump’s meaning. A spokesman insisted he meant cuts to “waste” in the programs, not to benefits.
Despite widespread concerns about the impact of long-term US debt, cuts to entitlement benefits or calls to raise the retirement age have long been taboo – nearly 80% said last year that they opposed reducing the size of Social Security – in American politics. We may find out this election year if that’s still true.
Trump has opened divisions within his own party on this issue in the past, and no matter what he says on it in the future, the Biden campaign will highlight his every word.After last year’s failed Ukrainian counteroffensive, Russia’s Vladimir Putin has signaled confidence that, thanks to lagging support from the West and Ukraine’s shortage of troops and weapons, Russia can win a war of attrition. But a series of stories today remind us the Kremlin still has plenty of security concerns.
Tuesday’s raids by Ukraine-aligned paramilitaries into Russian border provinces won’t change the war, but they raise the threat level for this weekend’s Russian elections.
Tuesday’s drone attacks on energy sites in multiple regions of central Russia, including one that reportedly inflicted major damage on one of the country’s biggest oil refineries, demonstrate again Ukraine’s ability to hit long-range targets. Ukraine has already disabled about one-third of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
NATO's newest members are also creating new security headaches for Moscow. Sweden’s prime minister is reportedly weighing a plan to refortify the Swedish island of Gotland, a strategically crucial piece of real estate in the Baltic Sea.
And for the first time, Sweden and Finland have joined in Operation Steadfast Defender, exercises involving 90,000 troops from all 32 NATO countries. This year’s event is the largest NATO military exercise since the end of the Cold War.
The EU, meanwhile, is expected to approve €5 billion in funding for new military supplies for Ukraine on Wednesday.The most hotly debated question about a possible second Donald Trump foreign policy: Would he simply abandon Ukraine and its fight to repel Russian invaders? We might now have an answer.
Hungary’s PM Viktor Orbán, a political ally of both Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, announced after meeting with Trump in Florida yesterday that the former president “will not give a penny in the Ukraine-Russia war.” He told Hungary’s M1 TV channel that “if the Americans don’t give money, the Europeans alone are unable to finance this war. And then the war is over.”
Trump himself has yet to comment on this claim that he would end the conflict by forcing a Ukrainian surrender.
Putin has also added more pressure on Ukraine. On Monday, he called it “quite understandable” that Pope Francis has reportedly urged Ukraine’s leaders to find “the courage of the white flag” to negotiate with the Kremlin.
Does Ukraine have any cause for near-term optimism? Despite delays, a few trained Ukrainian pilots will likely have six US-made F16 aircraft ready to go by this summer. Their successful use against Russian forces could accelerate the pace of training and delivery. (A total of 45 F16s have been promised.)
These aircraft won’t win the war for Ukraine, but significant numbers of them will boost Ukraine’s offensive and defensive capabilities. The timing of their delivery is critical. You can read details on their possible battlefield importance here.
Hard Numbers: Oscars go global, Congress does its job, Peru revives the Senate, Mauritania gets migration money
460,000,000,000: The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a $460 billion spending bill, which is expected to clear the Senate in time to avoid a partial government shutdown this weekend. The bill keeps about a quarter of the government running through September, and legislators will now turn to the lion’s share of federal spending, which must be passed by March 23.
60: Peru will elect 60 new Senators after legislators passed a bill reviving the institution some 30 years after President Alberto Fujimori dissolved it and rewrote the constitution. Half the body will be elected by individual districts, while half will run nationwide races in elections scheduled for 2026.
210,000,000: The European Union has signed a €210 million ($229 million) deal with Mauritania that includes funds to prevent irregular migration from the Saharan nation into Europe. The money will help Mauritania patrol its waters for vessels carrying migrants to Spain’s Canary Islands and is part of a larger EU effort to work with African countries in tackling migration.
Last week, Axios reported that a half dozen swing-district House Republicans were signing onto a resolution in support of continuing access to fertility treatment as other prominent national Republicans struggled to settle on a GOP message on the subject. In response, first lady Jill Biden invited an Alabama woman seeking IVF services as a guest at last night’s State of the Union address. To double down on the point, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) invited 42-year-old Elizabeth Carr, the world’s first “test-tube baby” to attend the speech.
Alabama Republicans quickly decided to get in front of the controversy. On Wednesday, the Alabama State Legislature passed a bill that grants civil and criminal immunity for in vitro fertilization service providers and receivers, and Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed the bill into law less than an hour later. The move allows both patients and clinics to restart IVF treatments in the state without fear they could be prosecuted if embryos are damaged or destroyed during the procedure. It also highlights the election-year political stakes surrounding all aspects of reproductive rights, one of America’s most controversial political issues.