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Streaming live from Tokyo: Ian Bremmer delivered his highly anticipated annual ‘State of the World’ speech, an analytical look at the most important geopolitical moments in the year that have moved markets, altered policy priorities, and reshaped economies.
Watch live: Tuesday, October 22, 2024 @ 8:30 PM ET | 9:30 AM (Wednesday) JST
To watch, go to: https://www.gzeromedia.com/stateoftheworld
Election Countdown: 4 things you need to know in the last week of US presidential race
The final week of the 2024 presidential campaign is upon us, with early voting in full swing, absentee ballots in the mail, and the polls too close to call. With seven days left before Election Day, here are the four things you need to know.
1. It’s going to come down to the seven swing states. The candidates need 270 electoral college votes to win, and some combination of Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada are likely to be the states that deliver the Electoral College to the next president.
Many states lean toward one party or are at least gerrymandered to make it likely their votes go that way. If both candidates win the states where they are heavily favored, Harris would still need 44 electoral votes from the tossup states to win, and Trump would need 51. Pennsylvania is getting the most attention because, according to election analyst Nate Silver, the candidate who wins Pennsylvania has more than a 90% chance of winning the White House.
Because of this, the two candidates are concentrating their efforts on the swing states in the last week. Kamala Harris visited Ann Arbor, Michigan, on Monday, and her running mate Tim Walz held down the fort in Wisconsin. Meanwhile, Donald Trump held a rally in Atlanta, Georgia.
Because of this, the two candidates are concentrating their efforts on the swing states in the last week. Kamala Harris visited Ann Arbor, Michigan, on Monday, and her running mate Tim Walz held down the fort in Wisconsin. Meanwhile, Donald Trump held a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, and JD Vance also went to Wisconsin, where he defended racist comments made by speaker comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at the Madison Square Garden rally. Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”
“We have to stop getting so offended at every little thing in the United States of America. I'm just — I'm so over it,“ said Vance.
2. It’s incredibly close. The New York Times reports that polls are getting even tighter in the final days of the campaign, with Harris ahead by just one point nationally. In the swing state polls, neither candidate has a lead that exceeds the margin of error.
3. Both candidates are making their closing arguments. Harris will deliver a speech at the Ellipse in Washington, DC, on Tuesday evening that is expected to draw nearly 20,000 people, rivaling the size of Trump’s rally in Madison Square Garden on Sunday.
In New York, in the last major event of the campaign trail, Trump and his allies’ speeches were full of anger at the political system and used rhetoric that railed against the state of the economy and immigrants – often in openly racist terms.
At the rally in DC, Harris will stand at the same place where on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump delivered remarks to his supporters who went on to storm the US Capitol. The location choice is no accident, as Harris is expected to make her last major speech about Trump posing a threat to democracy. Whether that will motivate voters to the polls is up for debate, as recent Gallup polling shows that the economy is the biggest issue for voters, followed by democracy, national security, and potential Supreme Court picks.
4. Expect results a lot sooner than in 2020, when the last election took nearly five days to decide because more than 43% of all ballots were mailed in due to the COVID pandemic.
Since then, many states have updated their policies to allow them to start counting absentee ballots before Election Night – including swing states like Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina – and fewer absentee ballots are expected overall. The fact that the election is likely to hinge on just a few states means that a result could be clear by the middle of the night or by early morning the next day.
The only hold-ups could come from Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, especially if the election is very close because neither state allows for envelope processing to begin before Election Day.
Overnight, and after months of deliberation, a United Nations advisory body studying artificial intelligence released its final report. Aptly called “Governing AI for Humanity,” it is a set of findings and policy recommendations for the international organization and an update since the group’s interim report in December 2023.
“As experts, we remain optimistic about the future of AI and its potential for good. That optimism depends, however, on realism about the risks and the inadequacy of structures and incentives currently in place,” the report’s authors wrote. “The technology is too important, and the stakes are too high, to rely only on market forces and a fragmented patchwork of national and multilateral action.”
Before we dive in, a quick humblebrag and editorial disclosure: Ian Bremmer, founder and president of both Eurasia Group and GZERO Media, served as a rapporteur for the UN High-Level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence, the group in charge of the report.
The HLAB-AI report asks the UN to begin working on a “globally inclusive” system for AI governance, calls on governments and stakeholders to develop AI in a way that protects human rights, and it makes seven recommendations. Let’s dive in to each:
- An international scientific panel on AI: A new group of volunteer experts would issue an annual report on AI risks and opportunities. They’d also contribute regular research on how AI could help achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs.
- Policy dialogue on AI governance: A twice-yearly policy dialogue with governments and stakeholders on best practices for AI governance. It’d have an emphasis on “international interoperability” of AI governance.
- AI standards exchange: This effort would develop common definitions and standards for evaluating AI systems. It’d create a new process for identifying gaps in these definitions and how to write them, as well.
- Capacity development network: A network of new development centers that will provide researchers and social entrepreneurs with expertise, training data, and computing. It’d also develop online educational resources for university students and a fellowship program for individuals to spend time in academic institutions and tech companies.
- Global fund for AI: A new fund that would collect donations from public and private groups and disburse money to “put a floor under the AI divide,” focused on countries with fewer resources to fund AI.
- Global AI data framework: An initiative to set common standards and best practices governing AI training data and its provenance. It’d hold a repository of data sets and models to help achieve the SDGs.
- AI office within the Secretariat: This new office would see through the proposals in this report and advise the Secretary-General on all matters relating to AI.
The report’s authors conclude the report by remarking that if the UN is able to chart the right path forward, “we can look back in five years at an AI governance landscape that is inclusive and empowering for individuals, communities, and States everywhere.”
To learn more, Ian will host a UN panel conversation on Saturday, Sept. 21, which you can watch live here. And if you miss it, we’ll have a recap in our GZERO AI newsletter on Tuesday. You can also check out the full report here.
There are less than two months before the US presidential election. Do you, dear US voter, know whom you are going to vote for? Chances are the answer is “yes.”
True undecideds are a rare species, especially this late in the cycle.
Back in the final days before the 2020 election, our satire series “Puppet Regime” went to find the last three of them in America: They were Lowly Worm, who had been living under a rock; Rip Van Winkle, who had been asleep for 20 years; and Pinocchio, whose nose grew every time he told a pollster he still wasn’t sure whom he’d vote for.
The point? In a deeply polarized country choosing between two starkly different candidates — one of whom has been a well-known quantity for almost a decade — there aren’t many people out there whose minds aren’t already made up.
The data backs this up. A recent poll in Pennsylvania, a major swing state, showed that just 3% of those registered “don’t know who they will vote for.” Meanwhile, 85% already had their choice set, and an additional 12% said they had a preference but could still potentially be swayed.
But even small numbers matter, of course. If recent elections are any guide, the margin of victory in the Keystone State will be about 1%. The same will likely be true of other swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, and Arizona.
So, if you are one of the true holdouts who is still perplexed about whom to vote for — or whether to vote at all — we are here to help. We put together a list of the best reasons an imaginary moderate might vote for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris.
Here goes.
If you vote for Kamala Harris, it’s because:
Protecting access to abortion is a major issue for you. Since the Trump-sculpted SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, it’s been a mixed bag for abortion rights. Some states have rejected the most restrictive laws — or look set to in upcoming referendums — while others have imposed draconian ones. Conservative activists have called for national-level prohibitions, either by Congress or executive action. Trump has given no indication he would stand in the way of either. Harris, on the other hand, has promised to sign national abortion protection into law — though that would require it to pass Congress first.
You think the richest Americans should pay more taxes. To be fair,you aren’t quite sure what Harris intends to do about grocery prices or housing – you like that she’s mentioned both, but her proposals sound a little heavy-handed – but at a basic level, you think inequality is a problem, and that the rich should pay a bigger share than they do today. You also like what she’s said about expanding child tax credits and giving a boost to small businesses. You are going on vibes here, but you buy her concern about small businesses and the middle class.
You think a certain kind of character matters for the presidency. Trump is chaotic. He lies a lot. He is a convicted felon. He has disputed a fair election and at least tacitly encouraged a riot protesting the transfer of power. Even if you don’t object to some of his ideas on the economy or immigration, you think at a minimum that it would diminish the presidency, and the country, to honor a person like this (again) with the most powerful job in the world. At a maximum, you think his impulses, coupled with a recently expanded interpretation of presidential immunity, would imperil America’s democratic institutions.
You think a US-led world order is important. You are well-informed enough to understand that the US supports both democracies and dictatorships around the world, but you also think that alliances with fellow democracies like NATO matter and that Washington should push back against efforts by the world’s most powerful non-democracies to expand their power and territory.
On the other hand, if you vote for Donald Trump, it will be because:
You miss the pre-pandemic economy. Poll after poll shows that voters think Trump will be better for the economy, likely because they have fond memories of the pre-pandemic good old days. In 2019, median household income saw the biggest spike in more than four decades — hitting arecord high of $68,700. The poverty rate fell to 10.5%, the lowest since records started six decades earlier, and prices for food and gas were much lower. To bring back the party, Trump has promised to cut regulation and lower the corporate tax rate to 20%. He’d also extend his 2017 tax cuts, which would give everyonea tax break, even if the largest would go to the wealthiest Americans.
You think the US should prioritize domestic industry and energy. Trump says the welfare of US industries and workers is more important than global economic integration. He renegotiated NAFTA (now USMCA) to appeal to those who believe past deals hurt American workers, and his willingness to impose tariffs on China resonates with voters concerned about Beijing’s economic rise and unfair trade practices.
Trump has proposed a 10% global tariff and a 60% tariff on Chinese imports, which could raise up to $3.8 trillion over a decade, even if raising the price of goods would also constitute a de facto tax on households. He also wants to unleash more American energy production and thinks that overemphasis on the green energy transition hurts US industries and hampers growth.
You think the US should keep its nose out of other countries’ wars. Trumpis overtly skeptical of foreign intervention, which aligns with voters who, after two decades of fighting in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq, are fed up with wars that seem to go on indefinitely.
He believes the West has exaggerated the threat posed by Vladimir Putin and opposes sending more US military aid to Ukraine. China, he believes, is more dangerous than Russia because Beijing threatens to outpace the United States as the world’s dominant economic power.
You think the border is a big problem. As he did in 2016, Trump has put illegal immigration at the center of his campaign. The former president says he would militarize the border and conduct mass deportations of the undocumented. While his rhetoric sometimes veers into xenophobia or conspiracy, his emphasis on the gravity of the issue is in line with the broader feeling in the country. Gallup p0lls show that the majority of Americans view the situation at the US border to be a crisis and favor stricter asylum policies and more border control agents. Many of these voters blame Harris for the current situation at the border, since immigration was part of her portfolio as vice president.
You think he might not be a good person, but he tells it like it is. Democrats can make a mountain of moralistic condemnations of Trump — that he’s been indicted on criminal charges and incited an insurrection – but many voters don’t care about the political drama. They just want a president who speaks to their lived reality. Trump’s message of “America in decline” resonates with many voters living in communities where industries and opportunities have fled, where crime and costs-of-living crises have taken their place, and where politically correct pieties seem to take precedence over solutions to their problems.
_____
And the case for not worrying too much regardless of who wins? You probably think that whatever the excesses of Trump or Harris might be, a narrowly divided Congress and strong US institutions will restrain their worst impulses and ideas. There will be, you are confident, no “fascism” or “socialism” in America under either Harris or Trump. This raises a new question: Will you, unconcerned, fair-minded voter, bother casting a vote at all?
Well, who’s it going to be? Tell us what you think is the best case for and against each candidate here. If you include your name and where you’re writing from, we may include your response in an upcoming edition of the GZERO Daily, our flagship newsletter.
The G-Zero is getting worse: Why no one’s stepping up to solve today’s biggest wars
The lack of global leadership that characterizes our G-Zero world is getting worse.
As I explained during my annual “State of the World” speech in Tokyo last night, this leadership vacuum is most obvious in the ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, where everyone claims to want peace but no one is both willing and able to make it happen.
The United States has abdicated its leadership responsibility in the Middle East. It is by far the most powerful friend of Israel, but it has used none of its influence to bring the conflict to an end. The US hasn’t just been sitting on the sidelines – it has been actively supporting Israel’s capacity to wage a war that’s destroying the Palestinian and now Lebanese people.
China has likewise abdicated its leadership responsibility in Eurasia. It is by far the most powerful friend of Russia, but it has used none of its influence to bring the conflict to an end. China hasn’t just been sitting on the sidelines – it has been actively supporting Russia’s capacity to expand an illegal invasion and bring itself to the precipice of war with NATO.
As for the rest of the world? We’re just getting used to the higher level of instability that comes when the world’s most powerful actors – but especially a politically divided and dysfunctional America – step back.
None of the major conflicts in the world today are heading toward sustainable resolution. Ukraine is on a path to partition. The Palestinians are set to be removed from their territory and once again forgotten. Americans are fighting Americans. This is our present trajectory, and it’s not remotely sustainable.
Ukraine’s path to partition
Ukraine lacks the manpower and weaponry to take back all its land, and Vladimir Putin isn’t going to return it voluntarily. Alas, there is no magical third option. With or without a peace deal, Ukraine will eventually be de facto partitioned.
The real question is whether a post-war Ukraine can expect a safer and brighter future with deeper integration into the rest of the world, free from the constant threat of Russian aggression. Ukraine’s ability to achieve that depends on how much diplomatic, economic, and security support Kyiv receives from its Western allies over the next two to three years.
Diplomatic support remains a strong bet. EU integration will take many years and face growing resistance as populist and Russia-friendly parties gain ground across Europe. But with unanimous European support for the overall goal and a strong and pro-Ukraine EU leadership in place for another term, accession will remain on track.
Economic support will likely continue but diminish from present levels. Russia’s destruction of Ukraine’s infrastructure has sharply increased funding needs while undermining Ukraine’s productive capacity, at the same time as Western willingness and ability to provide aid is waning.
Security support – specifically, NATO membership or a similarly strong kind of formal security guarantee – remains the most challenging, though not impossible, area. It’s Putin’s brightest red line but also Ukraine’s primary and unconditional demand for accepting a cease-fire that cedes any territory. Without it, there’s nothing to deter Russia from trying to take additional Ukrainian territory in the future, and Kyiv will never come to the table. With it, NATO risks direct war with Russia.
Even if that offer is eventually made, Russia has a veto. If Putin doesn’t agree to a cease-fire and Russia is still launching missiles at Ukrainian cities, then NATO membership for Ukraine would be tantamount to an automatic NATO declaration of war on Russia. Dangerous … but still constructive if this trade of membership for land can earn international support for Ukraine and put pressure on Russia to end the war.
In the meantime, we should expect limited Russian advances at great human cost and missile strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure to continue. We should also expect more asymmetric warfare from Ukraine, along with the real risks of military escalation that come with it.
All the while, the West will continue in an undeclared hybrid war against a rogue Russia as Putin grows older, more isolated, further from day-to-day decision-making, and more prone to impulsive mistakes. And Russia’s alliance with Iran and North Korea – two other rogue states committed to sowing chaos on the global stage – will grow stronger and less predictable.
So even if the war in Ukraine stabilizes over the next few years, Russia’s broader struggle with the West will undoubtedly become more dangerous.
The Middle East’s paradox
The dynamic in the Middle East is precisely the opposite. There is no outcome of the war in Gaza that is acceptable for both Israelis and Palestinians. But the regional and global risks may prove less severe than in the Russia-NATO case.
Though a cease-fire remains elusive and Palestinian suffering continues, the Gaza war is effectively over. Israeli forces have largely achieved their military objectives, with most IDF troops now withdrawing and many redeploying to Lebanon.
The war has radicalized Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, who face dire economic prospects, worse security, and no hope of creating a better life for themselves or their families. Israeli settlers in the West Bank have grabbed even more occupied territory in recent months. No matter what happens, Palestinians are more willing than a year ago to follow leaders who call for revolutionary action against Israel. The risk of deadly terrorist attacks – in Israel and elsewhere – has risen sharply and will remain high for a generation. Meanwhile, Israeli attitudes have hardened against Palestinian statehood across the political spectrum – even among Netanyahu’s opponents.
Yet the broader Middle East outlook is more stable.
The Abraham Accords persist. Saudi Arabia now officially demands the creation of a Palestinian state as its price to normalize relations with Israel, but behind the scenes, Saudi-Israeli economic and security engagement continues apace. It’s not inconceivable that Riyadh will quietly drop its demand once the war is over.
For its part, Iran – now with normalized relations with Saudi Arabia – has shown restraint against Israel, even as Israel has crossed Tehran’s red lines, killed Hezbollah’s leaders, crippled its military capacity, and invaded southern Lebanon. Yemen’s Houthis, another heavily armed, well-funded Iranian proxy, continue to carry out strikes in the Red Sea. But that’s not enough to ignite a broader Middle East war, which none of the major powers in the region want.
Hezbollah, the Houthis, and even Iran itself know they can’t win an all-out war with Israel, and even the IDF’s very aggressive push into Lebanon hasn’t persuaded these enemies to launch effective counterattacks, because while they’re much more powerful than Hamas, Israel has established clear escalation dominance in the war.
The most likely long-term outcome of the war is that longstanding friends and allies in the West will keep Israel’s government more at arm’s length. Younger Europeans and Americans will view Israeli actions with deeper suspicion. But Israel will remain a small, asymmetrically powerful country in military, economic, and technological terms. It will continue to defend itself effectively. The plight of Palestinians, meanwhile, will gradually fall from the headlines. The Middle East will stabilize because the region’s most powerful actors know that they don’t want and can’t afford a regional war.
America vs. itself
Perhaps most concerning is the United States’ war against itself. Unlike the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, the growing crisis of American democracy is a structural cause rather than a symptom of the vacuum in global leadership.
With the presidential election less than two weeks away, the problem is not just who's going to win (although there are certainly risks in that, too, and the outcome is anyone’s guess). The bigger problem is that most Americans strongly agree that there are forces inside the United States intent on destroying democracy – they just disagree on the nature and identity of those forces. The left sees Trump’s attempts to overturn 2020’s results, current legal maneuvers, and hyperbolic rhetoric as dire warnings. The right believes globalist elites and “deep state” bureaucrats have already subverted democracy by persecuting Trump, committing large-scale voter fraud, and enabling widespread lawlessness and illegal immigration.
The post-election period is uniquely dangerous, as nearly half of the country will view the outcome as illegitimate. No matter who wins, tens of millions of Americans will find evidence that their political system is broken. And they’re not entirely wrong.
While America’s economic and geopolitical fundamentals are resilient, its political dysfunction will reverberate around the world. Allies and adversaries are headed toward a world where the once-indispensable nation cannot be counted on to uphold global security, free trade, and the rule of law. Yet as long as most Americans’ daily lives remain unperturbed, US political woes will matter much more for the rest of the world than for the US itself.
That’s precisely why the G-Zero is going to get worse before it gets better: Nothing short of a “come to Jesus” moment can get the United States to finally confront its political division and dysfunction. Jan. 6 was clearly not enough of a jolt to elicit a response. Maybe this year’s post-election theatrics will do it – or perhaps it’ll take a run on the dollar or a military defeat to shake Americans out of their complacency. Until then, though, the country’s political crisis will continue to fester, and the global leadership crisis will grow accordingly.
Looking ahead
Nature abhors a vacuum. The deepening of the G-Zero world order has left us uniquely vulnerable to escalating geopolitical conflict and disruption. Without effective global leadership, these crises feed on each other and make responding much harder.
Yet despite these challenges, some of the greatest opportunities in human history still lie ahead. Other “crises” aren’t as bad as they may seem. In next week’s newsletter, we’ll explore why – despite everything I’ve outlined above – I remain cautiously optimistic about our capacity to build a more prosperous, equitable, and peaceful world.
The International Monetary Fund and World Bank released their much-watched World Economic Outlook on Tuesday, projecting that the world economy will grow by 3.2% in 2025 as inflation cools to an average of 4.3%.
It provides a fairly rosy picture, and these two key institutions in emerging economic development are urging the governments they work with to seize the moment by loosening up interest rates and cutting down on debts and deficits. In other words: Inject more money into economies and use the resulting growth to balance national checkbooks.
That picture is based on some YUGE assumptions, though – first and foremost being policy continuity in the US. “Over coffee and in the halls of the Annual Meetings, everyone is talking about one thing,” says Eurasia Group’s Rob Kahn. “Trump.”
The World Economic Outlook hints at the problem, noting that “upgrades to the forecast for the United States [are] offsetting downgrades to those for other advanced economies” like China and the EU. If Trump carries out the major overhauls to US trade, industrial, and fiscal policy that he is promising, the assumptions that undergird global growth projections collapse, and the picture grows much darker, particularly for key middle-income economies.
“Trump’s policies would be inflationary, which creates headwinds for growth in the developing world,” Kahn explains. Countries like Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa — brimming with potential — could find themselves unable to effectively manage monetary policy and see their economies lose steam.
Representatives from vulnerable economies seem to know the risks they run in saying anything at the moment. In response to a question from GZERO about the risks of a Trump presidency for developing economies, Filipino Secretary of Finance Ralph Recto said Manila felt confident in its alliance with Washington and expected it could avoid the worst consequences through that strong relationship. Argentine Undersecretary for International Economic Affairs Candelaria Alvarez Moroni echoed Recto’s argument about political cover, while Nigerian Finance Minister Wale Edun said his country was a “bystander” to the US election.
We’ll see how their tunes might change at the Spring Meetings in Bangkok, four months into the new US administration.
I am holding a copy of The Economist magazine. The cover photograph shows Vladimir Putin, bundled up in a heavy black overcoat. His face is turned away from the camera. He stares out at the Moscow skyline. Above him are the words: The Beginning of The End for Vladimir Putin.
With Ukraine’s recent thrust into the Kursk region, the first time anyone has invaded Russia since World War 2, you might think Putin suddenly does look vulnerable, uncertain, maybe even teetering on the edge of collapse.
But the magazine issue isn’t from this week. It came out on March 3, 2012.
At that time, Putin – then in power for 13 years already – was about to return to the Russian presidency in an election that everyone understood was rigged. Several hundred thousand protesters were in the streets of Moscow, led by a charismatic young dissident named Alexei Navalny. “His time is running out,” the magazine warned.
In the dozen years since his end supposedly began, Putin has met three different US presidents, ordered two illegal invasions of Ukraine, rigged two more elections of his own, eliminated his most prominent critic, and even survived a major insurrection.
Experts have predicted at least half a dozen of the last zero collapses of Putin’s regime. Even I, at one point, thought he was spinning an untenable “Fairy Tale.” The Russian proverb says you measure seven times before cutting. By that standard, Putin seems to be a ruler beyond measure entirely.
He has, of course, has done no great wonders for Russia lately. Despite what Tucker Carlson may tell you from a Moscow grocery store, Russia today is a corrupt, militarized, and increasingly isolated economy. The population is shrinking and the oil-based business model is slowly becoming a fossil of its own as the global energy transition accelerates. Meanwhile, Putin’s neo-imperialist outbursts have brought immense destruction to Ukraine, yes, but they’ve done no favors for Russia’s own future either.
So how does the Teflon Tsar do it?
For one thing, Putin has mastered the dark art of the Russian system. Backed by the men with guns – his old KGB cronies – he has spent years honing the role of indispensable arbiter, balancing the various clans of spooks, bureaucrats, and businessmen who constantly war with each other, but who rise against Putin himself only at the risk of falling out of a window.
In this sense, he is more godfather than goon.
And to the Russian people, easily moved to national pride but also plagued by political apathy, he uses a totally captive media to tell a good story. Putin, as he tells it, is the last champion of Russia, an old, great civilization, always unfairly held back by a decadent, perfidious West. And in that role, Vladimir Putin makes sure there is no viable alternative to Vladimir Putin.
But perhaps most importantly, his economy is simply hard to kill. For years, Putin built up a war chest, hiring some of the world’s best financial whizzes to run the books. Now, despite the best attempts of the West to sanction Russia into submission, GDP is set to grow faster than most of the world’s rich economies, this year and consumer confidence is surprisingly high.
That’s partly because China and India have continued to purchase Russian oil, yes. But it’s also because of something else.
As the Russia scholar Cliff Gaddy once put it, Russia’s economic model, which basically pulls money out of the ground and uses it to pay pensions, buy weapons, and keep state employees happy, is “the cockroach of economies — primitive and inelegant in many respects but possessing a remarkable ability to survive. Perhaps a more appropriate metaphor is Russia’s own Kalashnikov automatic rifle — low-tech and cheap but almost indestructible.”
Over the past two weeks, the keeper of that Kalashnikov cockroach has suffered an especially sharp blow. Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk is, to my knowledge, the only time the core territory of a nuclear power has been invaded. (Sorry Argentines, the sheep pastures of the Falklands aren’t quite the marchlands of Mother Russia.)
The Kremlin, clearly caught off guard, is struggling to respond. Thousands of Russians have been evacuated. The Ukrainians say they don’t plan to hold the territory, but they also seem ready to push further if need be.
In principle, this should be intolerable for a leader like Putin. The boss can’t protect his own borders? The elites must be whispering that the old man is slipping. Surely it’s another beginning of Putin’s end.
Don’t bet on it.
We’ve been here before. A little more than a year ago Wagner mercenary group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin led an insurrection of thousands of armed men, marching unopposed through Southern Russia and coming to within 125 miles of Moscow before flinching. The spell of Putin’s power looked certain to be broken. Instead, it was Prigozhin who met his end in a fiery plane crash two months later.
It seems to me that the obsession with predicting Putin’s demise comes less from a detailed understanding of what’s happening inside the Kremlin, and more from a kind of wishful, indignant disbelief that a leader like Putin can keep getting away with the things he gets away with. The killing of dissidents. The rigging of elections. The invasion of neighbors. He is a leader who has made a career out of bending back that “moral arc of the universe” we keep hearing about.
Still, if there’s something different about the Kursk advance, maybe it’s this: it’s a reminder that Putin isn’t the only nine-lives leader in the neighborhood. How many times has Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky been on the ropes, his counter-offensives doomed, his end beginning?
It’s a reminder that two years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, perhaps the “end” of Putin, or of Zelensky, simply isn’t a viable goal -- for either side.