| | | | What the Ukraine Scandal Means for Everyone Else | | With House Speaker Nancy Pelosi launching an impeachment inquiry, the Ukraine scandal has sparked plenty of criticism of President Trump—it proves he "will do anything," David Frum writes in The Atlantic, while Kent Harrington argues in Project Syndicate it's another Trumpian siege on US intelligence agencies—but analysts see ramifications beyond US borders, too.
The scandal is good for the Kremlin, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt writes for The Washington Post, as it weakens Ukraine's ties to the US and allows Russia to apply more pressure. It's particularly painful for Ukraine, Alyona Getmanchuk, director of the Kiev-based New Europe Center, writes in The New York Times: "[I]t is bitter to learn that under Donald Trump, it appears that the leadership of the United States has now joined the list of those who would use Ukraine to pursue their own narrow ends, and do so in ways that hinder our own efforts to improve our country"—as Ukraine desperately needs to fight corruption and support the rule of law. | | | "It is hard to imagine a more damning indictment of a prime minister, let alone one who purports to support Brexit in order to restore parliament's sovereignty and escape the clutches of an 'undemocratic' EU," Martin Fletcher writes for the New Statesman, after the UK's Supreme Court ruled Johnson's five-week suspension of Parliament had been unlawful. The court held Johnson to account and reasserted the UK's commitment to democracy and the rule of law, the Financial Times writes in an editorial; future prime ministers, it predicts, won't be able to do the same thing. | | The Most Dangerous Moment of Trump's Presidency | | | That's what Richard Fontaine, CEO of the Center for a New American Security, calls the aftermath of the Saudi oil attacks. Writing for The Atlantic, Fontaine deems it one of the first real international crises of President Trump's tenure; the world is watching and waiting, and the US has no good options. Iran is testing the US, Dennis Ross writes for Foreign Affairs, and the Trump administration needs to define its strategy and goals.
The crisis raises a question, Keith Johnson writes for Foreign Policy: Having achieved energy independence, and needing its ships in Asia to counter China, should America still provide security in the Middle East? | | Responding to the Saudi Attacks: A Middle Road? | | Amid reports that the US is weighing cyberattacks, analysts see this as a risky strategy. "Gray-zone" attacks—things like sanctions, deniable attacks, and cyber strikes, which are meant to harass an enemy without provoking all-out war—are viewed as a useful, lower-risk method of deterring a foe, but James Holmes writes in The National Interest that such actions might lead to war with Iran anyway.
The US isn't good at operating in this in-between space, Michael Eisenstadt recently wrote for The Washington Institute for Near East Policy—strategically, America usually prefers overwhelming force and quick, decisive, battlefield victory—so if the US chooses a response short of physical strikes on Iran, it will need to learn to play that game better. | | Global Economic 'Chicken' | | The global economy hangs on four unpredictable "games of chicken," Nouriel Roubini writes for Project Syndicate. The US and China are butting heads over technology and trade, daring the other to back down; the US and Iran are squaring off, and a military confrontation could cause oil prices to spike; Britain is staring down the EU over Brexit, with a European recession at stake; and in Argentina, presidential frontrunner Alberto Fernández has criticized the country's IMF deal, foreshadowing a possible economic crisis in Argentina and a flight of investment from emerging markets, Roubini writes.
Each of these confrontations endangers the health of the global economy, Roubini writes; any of them could go wrong (due partly to the personalities involved), and negative effects would spill over. | | | | | | |
