| | | | While President Trump faces impeachment, Ukraine is the true loser in the scandal over his phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky, David J. Kramer writes for The American Interest. "Ukraine cannot afford to lose—or even appear to be losing—the backing of the United States," Kramer writes—something that can only please Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Writing at Bloomberg, Leonid Bershidsky—who views Democrats, rather than Trump, as using Ukraine as a political "prop"—suggests the scandal will freeze any progress in Ukraine's conflict with Russia. Ukraine wants America's diplomatic help, but any activity will spark accusations of impropriety, meaning Eastern Ukraine's citizens will continue to suffer, Bershidsky predicts.
The scandal is America's loss, too, Mike Giglio writes at The Atlantic: Ukraine is an important ally against Russia, supplying intelligence as Russia tests its tactics there, and Washington's relationship with Kiev has now been complicated. | | Has the Next Middle East War Already Begun? | | That's what Der Spiegel suggests, in a two-part story on the unfolding crisis in the Persian Gulf. "It is a new kind of war, a 21st century conflict for which there is no formal declaration of war, no clear fronts and a wide variety of battlefields," the paper writes. "More than anything, it is a confusing war, in which nobody really has control, not even those who are ostensibly leading it."
Featuring hidden cyberattacks and deniable attacks by proxies, the burgeoning conflict is being driven by unpredictable leaders, Der Spiegel writes: President Trump, who offers contradictory signals; Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose military weakness has been revealed in Yemen; and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who is surrounded by various factions. As for Iran, Maysam Behravesh of the Middle East Institute suggests hardliners in Tehran may have prompted the Saudi oil attacks to scuttle any chance of talks with the US. | | Can Autocrats Fight Global Warming? | | | They'll have to, The Economist writes, as much of the world's emissions come from nondemocratic, emerging economies in Asia, which are hit hard by natural disasters. Some argue that autocrats are more efficient on the climate front—and China has proven more effective than the US, the magazine writes, at producing national plans for emissions—but China also retains an affinity for coal, and its Belt and Road initiatives may expand global emissions in the end. "Climate is going to test many states in Asia to destruction, but authoritarian ones most of all," the magazine predicts. | | Will The Trade War Shift to Oil? | | | Kimberly Ann Elliott writes at the World Politics Review that it's difficult to know who has the upper hand in the US-China trade war, while Jeffrey J. Schott of the Peterson Institute for International Economics identifies a trade-war shoe that's yet to drop: oil sanctions. As the US has applied them to Venezuela and Iran, China has continued to buy oil from both countries. The US has so far "kept its powder dry," declining to sanction individual Chinese buyers, and "hitting those firms would escalate the US-China economic conflict to another level," Schott writes. | | Did the US Sleep Through the Arctic Thaw? | | "As the United States has stood by, rivals such as Russia and China have seized that opportunity both economically and militarily, and their intentions are not wholly benign," Heather A. Conley writes in Foreign Affairs writes of territorial, resource, trade, and military opportunities opened by the melting Arctic. The US has been preoccupied with China's general expansionism, but it would do well to focus on Russia's security investments around the Arctic; troublingly for America, there has been talk of the two countries partnering in that region.
The answer for Washington, Conley writes, is to invest more in the Navy and Coast Guard, devote more diplomatic and scientific efforts to the Arctic, and keep its strategic importance in mind. | | | | | | |
