On Fareed Zakaria GPS ~ die Rechte koop

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Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good

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July 10, 2022

On Today's Show

On GPS, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET:

As Ukraine fights to defend its east and south—and as analysts weigh its ability to counterattack—Fareed calls for urgency among Kyiv's friends, warning that the West's strategy in Ukraine "is in danger of failing" unless updated.

"Winter is coming," Fareed says. "Homes in Europe might not have enough heat. Troops in Ukraine will find it much harder to dislodge Russians once the snow blankets the land. Time is not on our side."

Then: An assassination stuns Japan and the world. After former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was gunned down in broad daylight, Fareed and Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer remember Abe and discuss the effect of his assassination on a country that sees little gun violence.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has resigned, ending a three-year tenure riddled with trouble and controversy. Fareed asks Financial Times columnist Camilla Cavendish, who led 10 Downing's policy unit in the government of former Prime Minister David Cameron, what sealed Johnson's downfall and where the Conservative Party and the UK go from here.

At 99 years old, Henry Kissinger is still stirring up controversy—most recently with a proposal on ending the war in Ukraine. Fareed asks Kissinger what he makes of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Kissinger has met with numerous times over decades. Fareed also asks Kissinger if Jan. 6 was more significant than Watergate.

Finally: The US Space Force, created under former President Donald Trump, may sound like science fiction, but its mission becomes increasingly important as tensions rise with Russia and China. Fareed asks its leader, Gen. John Raymond, what the force will do and what challenges it will face.

Shock at Assassination, Reflection on Abe's Legacy

"The editorial commentary originally scheduled to fill this space was a cri de coeur to the United States, a plea for it to come to its senses and halt the devastating gun violence that has become a fact of daily life in that country," The Japan Times wrote in a Friday editorial. "It is with extraordinary sadness and anger that we instead are forced to substitute this comment decrying the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe."

The paper calls the assassination an "attack on us all," meditates on Japan's peaceful democracy, and credits the country's "strict gun control laws" with the "rarity" of such violence. Others note the practical implications of Abe's death: It "will drastically transform Japan's policy priorities on both the domestic and foreign fronts as the country lost a giant who was able to shift the political landscape from behind the scenes," Shunsuke Shigeta and Rieko Miki write for Nikkei Asia.

Elsewhere, the legacy of Japan's longest-serving prime minister is being praised and parsed. Calling Abe "the country's most consequential prime minister in decades," The Economist notes his efforts to revive Japan's economy and steer it toward a more active foreign policy—but also his "polarising" quality domestically and critics' charges of "nationalist revisionism."

"Ironically," the magazine writes, "Mr Abe's death also reinforced one of his central political messages: that the world is a dangerous place and Japan must outgrow its post-war pacifism."

Will Israel's Next Ruling Coalition Include an Arab Party?

Heading for its fifth election in less than four years, Israel must "break the cycle" of political deadlock, pleads the Financial Times editorial board. Elsewhere, commentators are asking if the most recent governing coalition set a meaningful precedent.

Among its notable facets—including its lack of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—was its inclusion of the Arab party Ra'am, which broke from the Joint List coalition of Arab parties to join with Jewish Israelis in governing, pursuing parochial concerns despite larger disagreements, Omar H. Rahman writes for the World Politics Review. Rahman suggests Arab inclusion is possible again, as long as opposing Netanyahu's return to power exists as a uniting factor.

In a New York Times opinion essay, Shmuel Rosner writes that both Israel's Arab minority and Jewish majority must make compromises, for another Jewish–Arab partnership to arise. But "(w)hatever happens, a once unthinkable coalition created just over 365 days ago opened the gate to a new and thrilling possibility of cooperation. A dam has broken."

Tense Times for the Baltics

Well before Putin's invasion of Ukraine, the Baltic countries—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—were considered NATO's most vulnerable members, when it comes to Russian aggression. Although NATO is now beefing up its eastern flank, Eka Javakhishvili writes for the Georgia-based Rondeli Foundation that Lithuania in particular faces tense times, given a spat with Moscow over the transit of EU-sanctioned goods by rail across its territory to Kaliningrad, the pocket of Russian land to Lithuania's west.

The Baltics can learn other lessons from the Ukraine war, besides needing military strength to face down Russia, Lukas Milevski argues at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, describing possible national actions vis-à-vis cell-phone networks and rail lines.

Wolf Warrior II

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to secure a third term at a Communist Party Congress later this year. At the same time, China's top two diplomats will likely see their appointments expire, Richard McGregor and Neil Thomas write for Nikkei Asia.

They could be replaced by officials "from different stock," McGregor and Thomas write: the so-called "wolf-warrior" generation of diplomats, known for sharp words and an aggressive posture. Though Xi will steer the ship, McGregor and Thomas suggest Chinese diplomacy could grow even bolder, depending on who steps in.

American Nonconformity

The Supreme Court's string of rulings at the end of June—most notably its overturning of Roe v. Wade—has prompted concern that the court is out of step with US public sentiment.

In its current edition, The Economist lambastes America's "new exceptionalism": US public attitudes on guns, abortion, gay marriage, and climate change are far more liberal than some policies reflect, while "America has been unable to settle any of these questions through elections and votes in legislatures." As the Global Briefing noted on Wednesday, an Atlantic essay by Nikolas Bowie and Daphna Renan argued last month, before the recent rulings, that the court has too much power generally.

In a New York Times opinion essay, Melissa Murray argues the conservative court is taking aim at one of America's bedrock principles: "the freedom to define oneself—to not conform," which "has deep roots in the American traditions of pluralism, independence and resistance to the prospect of government compulsion." In "crafting a society in which everyone must conform to the vision of American life that contemporary conservatives desire," Murray argues, the court "makes it harder for this country to continue as a multiracial, multiethnic, multifaith democracy. And perhaps that is the point."