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FAREED ZAKARIA
Fareed’s Global Briefing ... February 13th 2022
FAREED ZAKARIA
Fareed’s Global Briefing
Original article:
Burgess COMMENTARY
Peter Burgess
February 13th, 2022 8:31 AM
Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good
February 13, 2022
On Today’s Show ... On GPS, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET:
US government warns that Russia could invade Ukraine imminently
First, as the US government warns that Russia could invade Ukraine imminently, Fareed discusses the crisis’ latest developments and possible outcomes with a panel of Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass; Economist Paris bureau chief Sophie Pedder, who traveled with French President Emmanuel Macron on his recent trip to Moscow and Kyiv; and CNN International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson.
Next, Fareed gives his take on an economic conundrum: Growth is strong, and jobs are plentiful, but it seems few Americans believe things are going well.
Inflation is a problem, but the economic recovery from Covid-19’s initial onslaught has been remarkable, with GDP growth rebounding to a nearly 40-year high in 2021. Jobs are readily available in many corners of the economy, as employers struggle to hire. And inflation may not be as devastating as it seems: Disposable incomes increased last year, and inflation has risen up from a low baseline.
So why the sense of dread? Something else may be going on, Fareed suggests: “People are not responding rationally to objective data right now. We are living in intensely polarized, partisan times. Questions about consumer confidence or about the country being on the right or wrong track are meant to get at peoples’ views of the world outside of politics. But nothing lies outside of politics anymore.”
After that, as Afghanistan spirals into economic collapse and post-war uncertainty, how are its neighbors dealing with the chaos? Fareed has an exclusive interview with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who discusses diplomacy with the new Taliban government, the current state of the war on terror, and China’s treatment of its Muslim minority.
Diplomatic Solution Watch
As the US government trumpets urgency in the Ukraine crisis, diplomatic proposals are pouring in from analysts and think-tankers.
In Foreign Affairs, Samuel Charap suggested post-Soviet states like Ukraine should commit to non-aligned status; in Foreign Policy, Anatol Lieven proposed a non-aggression pact and a new European security council composed of the US, UK, France, Germany, and Russia. Now, former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul lobbies for his own ideas in the former magazine.
They include reviving since-abandoned or -deteriorated accords and protocols that helped Russia and the West manage tensions before 2000: reviving, for instance, limitations on force positions and deployments of intermediate-range nukes in Europe, while returning to free access for military reconnaissance flights, all to go along with more-ambitious pledges against assassinations and political meddling. Like others, McFaul sees the current crisis as an opportunity to forge a larger agreement on European security—to “[w]ide[n] the aperture” of discussion with Moscow—or at least to buy time for broad-based negotiation. “Three years of peace is, after all, far better than three years of war,” McFaul reminds us.
Canada, Anti-Vax Truckers, and Everyone
After Canadian truckers opposed to a vaccine mandate made international headlines by blocking streets in Ottawa and obstructing a bridge connecting Canada to the US, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board writes of a global, Covid-19 zeitgeist.
“This latest act in a week-long show of civil disobedience is more akin to political life in France or the U.S.,” the paper writes. “That it happened in restrained Canada is a signal to the political class across the West: Large swaths of humanity are done with Covid-19 restrictions, mandates and excessive meddling in their lives. They want to go back to making their own health-risk assessments.”Toronto Star columnist Susan Delacourt, on the other hand, sees this as proof of “a northern migration of Trumpism.”
On Foreign Policy, What Does the Trump-Era GOP Stand For?
The Republican Party’s Trump-era metamorphosis has captivated longtime US-politics analysts who marvel at the GOP’s revision of presidential norms and near-total Trumpian capture. But what does that all mean for the party’s center of gravity on foreign policy?
In a New York Times opinion essay, conservatives and conservatism observers Sohrab Ahmari, Patrick Deneen, and Gladden Pappin argue that despite Trump’s departure from some traditional Republican foreign-policy trends—e.g., Cold Warrior hawkishness and faith in installing liberal democracy around the world—the GOP still has its hawks, who hold the party back from pivoting thoroughly to a Trumpist foreign-policy future.
Roadmaps to Covid-19 Coexistence May Vary
As the Omicron wave recedes, and as some European countries and Democratic-led US states do away with various public restrictions, Jonathan Rauch writes for Persuasion that it’s time to rethink our Covid-19 response wholesale: for instance, to forget about mask mandates and social distancing and to focus instead on developing and rolling out vaccines that would work against more variants, to prepare for what’s next.
On a personal level, The Atlantic’s Katherine J. Wu writes, it’s possible to navigate the new reality without abandoning precaution entirely. One psychologist and risk-behavior expert tells Wu “that his approach to the pandemic has morphed into a version of hurricane watch, in which the right tools can be rapidly deployed when danger threatens and shelved when it clears,” Wu writes. “If we truly are heading into a low-case-number lull, then it’s actually a time to prepare—to come to a mutual understanding about taking risks wisely, about selecting joys judiciously, about distributing protection as widely and equitably as we can.”
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