View this email in your browser Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good   Aug. 13, 2019 'Misunderestimating' Putin Borrowing a term from president George W. Bush, that's what Susan Glasser—a staff writer for The New Yorker and a CNN analyst—suggests the West has done during Russian President Vladimir Putin's two decades in power. Writing in Foreign Affairs, Glasser argues Putin's mission has never changed: "For Putin, the goal of the state remains what it was when he came to office two decades ago. It is not a policy program, not democracy or anything approaching it, but the absence of something—namely, the upheaval that preceded him." Now, Glasser writes, the West might be "misoverestimating" Putin, as a lagging economy and domestic dissent have revealed some flaws. With Putin constitutionally required to step aside in 2024, broad assessments of his reign have begun to abound. In another, Kadri Liik of the European Council on Foreign Relations portrays Putin as a leader who "wants to do good for Russia (as opposed to just for himself)" and who is still searching for a vibrant political class to succeed him—though he may have pushed the brightest minds out of his government. Hong Kong Confusion  As chaos continues to unfold in Hong Kong, Minxin Pei writes for Project Syndicate that "considering the catastrophic consequences of a military crackdown" by China—fierce resistance and mass resignation of Hong Kong's civil servants, for instance—Beijing may have to choose the "least bad" option and offer concessions to demonstrators. Not all Hong Kongers agree about the protests, the Financial Times' Primrose Riordan tells the Lowy Institute's Rules Based Audio podcast (Riordan says she's heard heated street arguments over whether they should stop); in the same podcast episode, Lowy's Ben Bland says it's always tough to know when protest movements will start or end, but discontent had been simmering in Hong Kong for some time. How to Not Get Influenced In an essay for Foreign Policy, cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier proposes some ways democracies can fight disinformation. His recommendations: strengthen the public's "shared knowledge" and teach media literacy; get social-media companies (by law, if necessary) to delete false accounts early, work together to identify them, and label fake content; "replace the fake news with accurate narratives"; publicly attribute malign campaigns, even if it means disclosing more sensitive information as proof; and respond with limited cyberattacks, sanctions and indictments. Schneier's conclusion is a comforting one: "Just as overly optimistic technologists were wrong that the Internet was the single technology that was going to overthrow dictators and liberate the planet, so pessimists are also probably wrong that it is going to empower dictators and destroy democracy." Kashmir's Potential Spillover India's rollback of Jammu and Kashmir's autonomy could become a problem outside of that state's disputed borders, Anubhav Gupta writes for the World Politics Review. Indian control of Kashmir sparked Pakistani-fueled resistance in the 1980s, and there's a risk such militancy will be revived, Gupta writes, with nuclear escalation at stake. ("Every clash and infiltration along the disputed border will be closely monitored for months," Gupta suggests.) India's move could become a problem for Afghanistan, too, according to Gupta: Pakistan will have to play a key role in brokering any peace deal there, and if Islamabad is dissatisfied with international cooperation on Kashmir, it could play the spoiler. After Brexit, UK Could Find Itself Caught in the Middle on Trade Brexiteers may be looking forward to a trade deal with the US, but Kimberly Ann Elliot of the World Politics Review writes that things won't be so easy. Britain may have to finalize Brexit before negotiating with Washington, she suggests, and in the end, the UK may find itself caught in the middle. The UK would have to accept some US regulatory standards to conclude a deal with Washington, Elliott writes, and that might be problematic. Taking one example, Elliott notes that in the US, chicken is washed with chlorine, while in the EU, that process is banned. For the UK to import and export food to and from both markets, such thorny issues will have to be ironed out. Writing for Foreign Affairs, Jeremy Shapiro doubts that Britain can get a good deal from America, noting that "[w]ithout the Europeans to fall back on, [Prime Minister Boris] Johnson will bring little to the negotiating table with the United States." Share Tweet Fwd unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences  Copyright © 2019 Cable News Network, Inc. A WarnerMedia Company., All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to CNN newsletters. Our mailing address is: Cable News Network, Inc. A WarnerMedia Company. One CNN Center Atlanta, GA 30303 Add us to your address book What did you like about today's Global Briefing? What did we miss? Let us know what you think: GlobalBriefing@cnn.com Sign up to get updates on your favorite CNN Original Series, special CNN news coverage and other newsletters.​   Sign Up for Fareed's Global Briefing