Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Subscribe here. April 14, 2021 A View of the War America Is Ending President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that the US will end its longest war, withdrawing from Afghanistan by Sept. 11. For a view of what America is ending, The Atlantic published an excerpt of a new book, "The Hardest Place," by journalist Wesley Morgan, on his time spent in the Pech valley of Eastern Afghanistan in 2010, which was reviewed at Foreign Policy as a masterstroke of embedded war reporting.
"[I]nstead of a war of hidden bombs, this was a war of firefights and firepower," Morgan writes. "... [Y]oung infantrymen not only routinely shot at the enemy but called in huge numbers of mortar shells, howitzer shells, rockets and missiles from attack helicopters, and satellite-guided bombs from jets."
US forces and the Taliban had fought to a stalemate in the area, Morgan recounts. "For counterinsurgents as for insurgents, the cooperation of the people was everything, and there, the people were sick and tired of both," Morgan writes. "Children in the village outside COP [Combat Outpost] Michigan, who tended to stare frostily at American patrols as they walked through town or flash them the middle finger, were so hardened to the violence that during gunfights they would often stroll through the cross fire, picking up expended brass shell casings so that they could sell them in the market. ... Life at the embattled Pech outposts was what it was, and their garrisons were just trying to get through it, to the end of their year, not wondering too much about the decisions their predecessors had made or how American goals in the valley had morphed over the years." Myanmar and the Future of Southeast Asian Democracy Myanmar's ruling junta has reportedly killed hundreds of citizens since seizing power in a coup on Feb. 1, as security forces have fired on protesters who've demonstrated in force. The UN's human-rights chief has warned of the potential for a "full blown conflict."
At The New York Times, Southeast Asia Bureau Chief Hannah Beech writes that Myanmar's chaos is part of a broader democratic collapse in the region. In Thailand, the leader of a 2014 coup still serves as prime minister, Beech notes. "After a brief interlude out of government, Malaysia's old establishment is back in power, including people associated with one of the largest heists of state funds the world has seen in a generation," Beech writes. In communist Vietnam, a "crackdown on dissent is in high gear. In Cambodia, Hun Sen, Asia's longest-ruling leader, has dismantled all opposition and set in place the makings of a family political dynasty." At Nikkei Asia, Richard Heydarian adds that the region's once-promising multilateral bloc, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), has proven feckless in the face of Myanmar's coup in particular.
That said, Beech finds reason for hope in widespread protests in Myanmar and Thailand. The region's so-called "Milk Tea alliance" has developed into an attractive pro-democracy movement online. In Yangon, Beech writes, "protesters have faced the military's rifles with a sense of an existential mission." A Case for Pandemic Optimism As bad as the pandemic has been, at Foreign Affairs, Charles Kenny makes a concise case that things are looking up. The world's two largest economies—America's and China's—are bouncing back, which should spur a global economic resurgence. The IMF might deliver more help to poor countries, as the US now backs the idea. Vaccines are here, as the Duke University Global Health Innovation Center estimates that enough doses will be produced in 2021 to inoculate 70% of the world's population.
Overall, Covid-19 may have been a blip in a very encouraging arc of progress, Kenny argues, noting that "the seismic economic shock of last year was predicted to increase global extreme poverty by 60 million—which would bring it back to its level of 2015 or 2016, only five years before." Turkey's Illiberal Slide: Is It Erdoğan's Fault? On Sunday's GPS, Fareed detailed Turkey's decline since the 2000s, when it was known on the world stage for promising reforms and progress toward EU membership, to its current state of illiberal democracy. At Der Spiegel, Sebnem Arsu, Maximilian Popp and Anna-Sophie Schneider examine that same path, asking if President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is really pulling all the illiberal strings.
After the failed coup attempt against him in 2016, Erdoğan made an alliance with the country's ultra-nationalist political wing, they write, noting the power of "the right-wing extremist party MHP," Erdoğan's coalition partner. "Many Europeans see the Turkish president as a kind of modern-day sultan, who can do whatever he likes in Turkey," they write. "In fact, though, Erdoğan has never been strong enough to govern the country on his own." They do, however, suggest Erdoğan is actively pursuing "radical polarization of Turkish society" for his own political ends. |
