The Election and Ukraine

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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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September 26, 2024

The Election and Ukraine

What will the US presidential election mean for Ukraine? It's not precisely clear. Former President Donald Trump has called for the war's immediate end, while Vice President Kamala Harris has pledged continued support for Kyiv.

Trump's inclination, however, is coming more sharply into focus.
 
Trump has said publicly that he wants the war to stop—and that he could end it in a day. On the campaign trail, James Politi and Felicia Schwartz write for the Financial Times, Trump has amplified criticisms of Ukraine and its leader, President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is in the US this week for the UN General Assembly. Zelensky has said he will present a "victory plan" to President Joe Biden, Harris, and Trump.
 
The FT's Politi and Schwartz write: "Trump has accused … [Zelensky] of refusing to strike a deal to end the war with Russia and casting 'aspersions' against him as he increased his attacks on Kyiv ahead of the US election. … 'We continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal: [Zelensky],' Trump told the audience [at an event in Charlotte on Wednesday]. 'There was no deal that he could have made that wouldn't have been better than the situation you have right now. You have a country that has been obliterated.'" Broadly, Trump and his team have attacked US spending in support of Ukraine. A recent op-ed in The Hill by Donald Trump, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (now a member of Trump's transition team) warned against Biden's and Harris' "insane war agenda" and called for "direct negotiations with Moscow." In February, vice-presidential candidate JD Vance had articulated the Trumpist case against helping Ukraine in an FT op-ed, questioning the cost and arguing Europe must do more.
 
To Ukraine and its Western supporters, the counterpoints have always been that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not stop or negotiate in good faith, especially as long as Ukraine's battlefield position is weak. Giving away Ukrainian land could merely preview further encroachment, as two negotiated agreements did after the initial Russian incursion in 2014, analysts and Ukrainian officials have said. Zelensky, for his part, makes the case in an interview with The New Yorker's Joshua Yaffa, arguing: "Trump makes political statements in his election campaign. He says he wants the war to stop. Well, we do, too. This phrase and desire, they unite the world; everyone shares them. But here's the scary question: Who will shoulder the costs of stopping the war? … My feeling is that Trump doesn't really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how. With this war, oftentimes, the deeper you look at it the less you understand. I've seen many leaders who were convinced they knew how to end it tomorrow, and as they waded deeper into it, they realized it's not that simple."
 
As for what Harris wants and what Ukraine should do, Ukrainian-American retired US Army Lt. Col. and former White House National Security Council staffer Alexander Vindman argues in Foreign Affairs that Harris can be expected to continue Biden's levels of support. A second Trump administration, on the other hand, would likely be hostile to European allies, Vindman writes. In the interim, Vindman suggests, Ukraine should conscript more soldiers, afford them Western training, and build more drones to bolster its position.

Did Hezbollah Miscalculate?

"With the lack of headway on the Gaza front, Israel has turned its attention to Lebanon and effectively launched what looks like the third Israel-Lebanon war," as the Middle East Institute's Patricia Karam wrote this week. Destruction there has raised questions about the strategy employed by Hezbollah—the Lebanese Shiite Islamist militia and political party, designated as a terrorist group by the US government, that began launching rocket attacks at Israel in the wake of Oct. 7.
 
"[I]t now appears that [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah has miscalculated," The Economist writes. "What was meant to remain a limited conflict has become much bigger. In the past two weeks Israel has dealt [Hezbollah] the harshest blow in the group's four-decade history. Mr Nasrallah seems at a loss for how to proceed." 
 
The magazine also writes of what could come next: "Despite the escalation, this is not yet all-out war. Neither side has unleashed anything close to its full firepower. From [Hezbollah], that would mean firing much larger salvoes, including long-range missiles towards key civilian and military locations in central Israel, and mounting multiple ground incursions into Israeli territory. For Israel it would include a much wider bombing campaign against [Hezbollah's] missile network, including launch-sites within civilian areas, and as a final resort destroying civilian infrastructure in the hope of turning the Lebanese population against the organisation (many Lebanese already resent the group's war with Israel). Military sources say that Israel is also planning a ground offensive that would include the capture of a buffer zone consisting of a few miles of territory north of the border."

Hillary Clinton: It Felt 'Exhilarating' to Endorse Kamala Harris

In a wide-ranging interview with Fareed on Sunday's GPS, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discussed her new book, "Something Lost, Something Gained"—and what it means to break the glass ceiling in politics.

China Goes Green

China emits less carbon per capita than the US, but with the world's second-largest population, its total emissions dwarf those of the US and other world regions. So, if the planet is to avoid a climate catastrophe, China's energy landscape will be important.
 
In the Financial Times, Edward White notes rapid progress: "The scale and pace of the country's transition away from fossil fuels has smashed international forecasts … In July, China hit its target of having 1,200 gigawatts of installed solar and wind capacity, enough to power hundreds of millions of homes each year, six years early. There is more to come: around two-thirds of all new solar and wind power projects under construction are happening in China. … These measures are at the heart of plans to achieve leader Xi Jinping's dual targets for China: to hit peak carbon emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality, or net zero, by 2060. Doing so has the potential to not only transform its economy, but turbocharge its global influence."