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At the Munich Security Conference, Trump isn't the only elephant in the room
The Munich Security Conference (MSC) is all about providing a space to address the elephant in the room and fostering discussion on that one big topic people would rather avoid, says Benedikt Franke, the forum’s vice-chairman and CEO. But there’s more than just one elephant this year — a herd.
GZERO’s Tony Maciulis spoke with Franke in the lead-up to the conference about the various “elephants” on the agenda: The war in Gaza, Donald Trump, AI, and the war in Ukraine, to name a few.
They also delve into how the conference has always been defined by turning points for the world, recounting times when the forum collided with major historical moments — or made history itself. The 2024 MSC comes amid a year in which a record number of voters will head to the polls in dozens of critical elections across the globe when many people feel increasingly pessimistic about the future.
Franke says the conference hopes to answer the question of how to inject some optimism back into discourse on the world’s problems. “We don't want this to be a doom and gloom conference, we want to do everything we can to look for the silver lining at the horizon, for the low-hanging fruits, and there are many,” he says.
Join Ian Bremmer and a panel of experts this Saturday, February 17, at 12 pm ET/9 am PT/6 pm CET for our Global Stage discussion at the Munich Security Conference: Protecting Elections in the Age of AI.
Keep up with GZERO's Global Stage coverage of MSC 2024 for more.
Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with China Media Group anchor Wang Guan
Putin’s pessimistic prospects in Beijing
President Vladimir Putin – on a rare venture outside Russia – is in China for a forum marking the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative. While Putin hopes to deepen the countries’ “no limits” partnership, what he really wants is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s promise to build the Power of Siberia 2, a massive pipeline project that would transport natural gas from western Siberia to China.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, meanwhile, met with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on Monday in Beijing, where the two discussed resolving the war in Ukraine with “political and diplomatic methods” and the war between Israel and Hamas. They didn’t outline any concrete agreements, which may become a theme this week.
The Belt and Road Initiative, so promising a decade ago, is looking worse for wear. At its peak in 2018, Beijing was pumping nearly $60 billion a year into cargo ports, railways, power plants, and much more across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and even attracting some interest from European economies.
But one global pandemic later, and the picture isn’t so pretty: Beijing is holding a ton of debt from developing nations that look like they may struggle to repay while China faces domestic debt problems. The political dividends in Europe have largely vanished as well, with the only G7 country to sign on to BRI, Italy, now looking for the exit.
As for Putin’s pipeline dream? The Russian leader wants it more than Xi, and China is hardly starved for energy these days. US and European sanctions on Russian oil exports have netted Chinese importers a cool $10 billion in savings thanks to steep discounts. Besides, publicly putting cash in Putin’s pocket would be hard for Xi to explain to US President Joe Biden should they meet as expected in San Francisco next month.
Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, deputy head of the military council and head of paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
What We’re Watching: Worsening clashes in Sudan, Biden’s waiting game, Lavrov’s Latin America tour, a Chinese police station … in NYC
Violence spreads in Sudan
Fighting in Sudan raged on for a fourth day Tuesday, and it’s unclear who is now in control of the country. Many of Khartoum’s 5 million residents are hiding in their homes as street fighting and air raids continue in the capital. So far, more than 1,800 people have been injured, while the death toll is nearing 200.
Who is fighting? Two military factions are vying for control of the oil-rich country that’s been trying to transition to democracy since longtime despot Omar al-Bashir was ousted in 2019. Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the country's army chief and de facto leader since 2021, is facing off against Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, head of the RSF militia. (For more on the rivalry, see here.)
Amid a battle for control of key infrastructure, Khartoum's international airport has been subject to ongoing shelling, while a US diplomatic convoy also came under attack Tuesday. And while the UN, US and regional bodies have called for a truce, both sides have rejected ceasefire calls.
Still, we’re watching to see whether regional heavyweights – including Egypt and the United Arab Emirates – that have a vested interest in the outcome have any luck in getting the two sides to stand down.
What’s Biden waiting for?
Anyone who has paid attention to his comments over the past few weeks knows that Joe Biden is running for reelection. On Friday, as he finished his much-ballyhooed visit to Ireland, he told reporters that, “I told you, my plan is to run again” and that a formal announcement was coming “relatively soon.”
So, what’s the holdup? Will Biden, as some have speculated, announce on April 25, the four-year anniversary of the formal announcement of his 2020 candidacy? Or might he wait longer? By announcing soon, the president would end any remaining speculation that he might change his mind, a shock move that would open the field to other Democrats. It might also help him avoid the suggestion, whispered by some Democrats and shouted by many Republicans, that he’s indecisive or hiding from the cameras.
But by waiting he could keep the media focused a while longer on Donald Trump’s legal problems and on the squabbling among Republicans. Why hurry, some ask, when Biden faces no viable challenge from within his party? It’s his decision to make, of course, and he’ll surely decide soon on how, when, and where to take on the combined roles of president and presidential candidate.
Russian foreign minister visits Latin America
Sergey Lavrov spent Monday in Brasilia, where recently elected President “Lula” Da Silva has already irked Washington by both-sidesing the Ukraine war and refusing to sell weapons to Kyiv.
For Russia, it’s no small thing that one of the world’s largest democracies is at least sympathetic to the Kremlin’s version of the Ukraine story. The fact that Russia exports lots of fertilizer to Brazil’s powerful farm industry probably helps.
Lula, meanwhile, has long sought to carve out a role as a leader of the Global South, where many view the faraway Ukraine war chiefly through the lens of food and energy price inflation and are skeptical of American arguments about defending democracy or the “rules-based order.” Still, he has to tread carefully – os gringos are Brazil’s largest foreign investors and key partners on Lula’s climate change agenda.
While Lavrov thanked Lula for his support, the White House, in a tough rebuke, accused the Brazilian president of "parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda without at all looking at the facts.”
After Brasilia, Lavrov will visit old Kremlin comrades in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. All are countries where US sanctions have enabled Russia to gain significant footholds in energy, arms sales, and general “rogue-state” bonhomie.
But beyond that, Russia lags well behind the region’s two major external players: China and the US. See our GT below for more.
US cracks down on China’s foreign police stations
The US Justice Department on Monday arrested two US nationals of Chinese origin and charged them in connection with allegedly running a secret police station in New York City. Separately, the Feds also accused 34 Chinese cops of using fake social media accounts to harass California-based dissidents. The indictments are part of a wider yearslong DOJ probe into China's efforts to go after ethnic Chinese who are openly critical of Beijing in America.
This is a big deal because it's the first time any criminal charges have been filed against anyone suspected of operating one of China's alleged 100 overseas police stations. Also, the fact that the indictments were handed down in the US will surely shine a brighter spotlight on China's foreign policing shenanigans, putting other countries in a tough spot amid worsening ties between China and the West.
But the charges of conspiring to act as agents for the Chinese government fall short of actual espionage or unlawful detainment on US soil. And making them public might send China the wrong message, encouraging its consulates to do a better job of covering up their foreign police ops, which many fear seek to lure dissidents back to the mainland. Either way, expect a fiery response from Beijing.Russian Ambassador to the UN Vasily Nebenzya speaks at the United Nations Security Council in New York, U.S., September 30, 2022.
Hard Numbers: Russia to helm Security Council, Sonko seized, Stubborn EU inflation, Australia vs. climate change
30: Russia is set to helm the UN Security Council as of April 1, a transition of power that Ukraine has dubbed "an April Fool's joke." The council's presidency rotates every 30 days. As president, Russia – and Putin, by extension – will have the ability to set the security council’s agenda. While there have been calls to boycott, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is expected to chair the meeting in New York in April.
2: Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko received a 2-month suspended prison sentence on Thursday. He was found guilty of defaming Senegal's minister of tourism by accusing him of embezzlement. Sonko came in third in the last presidential election and is looking like a frontrunner ahead of the 2024 race. In an attempt to placate supporters who saw his arrest as politically motivated, authorities decided the sentence will not prevent Sonko from running for office.
7.8: Inflation in Germany remains stubbornly high, hitting 7.8% this month, despite drops in energy costs and easing economic pressures in the Eurozone. Meanwhile, Spain's annual inflation dropped by half, which sounds promising … but core consumer inflation (which excludes energy and food) remains just as high there as in Deutschland. The report comes on the heels of the European Central Bank raising interest rates by half a percentage point earlier this month.
30: Australia passed an emissions reduction bill on Thursday aimed at lowering greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030. The bill, which uses a "safeguard mechanism" to target the most significant industrial polluters, represents some cooperation on environmental matters in a country where climate change has been a divisive political issue.
Damages from the hits in Przewodów, a village in eastern Poland near the border with Ukraine.
What We're Watching: Missiles in Poland, Chinese anger at zero-COVID
Who fired those missiles into Poland?
Explosions apparently caused by rockets or missiles killed two people Tuesday in the Polish town of Przewodów, several miles from the Ukrainian border. The incident occurred amid a barrage of Russian missile attacks on critical infrastructure across Ukraine. Poland went on heightened military readiness as some Polish officials suggested the projectiles might be Russian. An investigation is underway.
But the plot thickened early Wednesday when US President Joe Biden said at an emergency meeting on the subject in Bali, where he’s attending the G-20, that preliminary info suggests it’s “unlikely” the weapons were fired "from Russia." This raises the prospect that malfunctioning Ukrainian air defenses could have been responsible, or that the missiles could have been fired from nearby Belarus, which has supported Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Russia, for its part, says it has nothing to do with the incident at all.
The big questions are: Was it in fact a Russian missile or not? If so, is there any evidence the attack was deliberate, as some Ukrainian officials have friskily suggested, or merely a mistake in the fog of war?
The implications are huge — Poland is a NATO member, so any deliberate attack by Russia would raise the prospect of invoking the alliance’s Article 5 collective defense mechanism, in which all members go on a war footing to respond. That, of course, could set in motion an escalation between the world’s two largest nuclear powers.
In the meantime, an Article 4 response is possible: a much mellower undertaking in which the alliance convenes a formal discussion on the incident but doesn’t take military action.
But a big question remains: Even if this incident was a Ukrainian own goal or a Russian mistake, what would NATO’s response be if Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to tweak the alliance with a bite along the Polish border?
Zero-COVID anger boils over in China
Zero-COVID is driving some people to do things they normally wouldn't dare in authoritarian China. On Monday night, scores of residents trying to escape lockdown in the 13-million strong southern megacity of Guangzhou clashed with cops. Although local protests against zero-COVID are fairly common, even in tightly controlled China, this one is significant for two reasons. First, they rarely turn violent, but this time the protesters overturned a police car and tore down COVID control barriers — an act of defiance that could put them behind bars for years. Second, the demonstrators — mostly migrant laborers from China's poorer provinces whose food supplies are running low — apparently reacted to an online rumor that Chinese pharmaceutical companies were faking COVID positive results to inflate case numbers and make more money. A similar conspiracy theory spurred a mass exodus of employees from China's largest iPhone factory two weeks ago. Beijing relaxed some zero-COVID measures on Friday, but the bulk of the policy remains in place — with no end in sight.This was featured in Signal, the daily politics newsletter of GZERO Media. For smart coverage of global affairs that normal people can understand, subscribe here.
What We’re Watching: Trump’s 2024 plans, G-20 & Basquiat in Bali, AMLO vs. Mexican democracy
Donald Trump’s “big announcement”
Tuesday is the day. We think. It’s not completely clear. Former US President Donald Trump has dropped a number of not-so-subtle hints that he will announce his candidacy for president on Tuesday. Millions of his supporters will be watching and hoping he pulls the trigger. Millions of Republicans who fear he’s become a liability for their party are hoping he’ll postpone or shock the world by not running. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other potential Trump rivals for the GOP nomination will be watching with dread for a first glimpse of the campaign Trump plans on waging against them. President Joe Biden, who will celebrate his 80th birthday later this month, will be watching to see what sort of Republican Party his reelection campaign is likely to face. The media will be watching in expectation of the opening salvo of the wildest presidential campaign in living memory. And you know we’ll be watching too.
Basquiat in Bali
The G-20 summit of the world’s 20 largest economies, representing 80% of the world economy, begins Tuesday in the Indonesian beach resort of Bali. What’s on the agenda? Pandemic recovery is the big theme, but the main gab will be about the war in Ukraine, where leaders are seeking a common position against nuclear weapons and for renewal of the Ukraine grain export deal, which expires on Saturday. Also, attendees will be keen to keep the growing US-China rivalry manageable for everyone else on the planet. But by our lights, the biggest intrigue isn’t that Vladimir Putin is skipping the event — why subject yourself to an earful about an unprovoked war that’s going so badly? — but instead his replacement’s latest antics. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov went to ironic-trolling level nine by giving an interview on the balcony of his Bali hotel room, where he shot down reports he’d been hospitalized and blasted Western journalists while rocking … a Basquiat t-shirt. Basquiat! Hard to imagine the iconoclastic, bisexual, Black fixture of the early 1980s NYC street art scene finding a happy home in Putin’s ultraconservative war-mobilized Russia these days, but stone-faced absurdity is a diplomatic style that Lavrov has long elevated to an art form of its own.
Mexicans rally against AMLO’s election reform
Is democracy in trouble in Mexico? On Monday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, aka AMLO, blasted the tens of thousands of people who spoiled his 69th birthday the day before by protesting his electoral reform plans. AMLO called the rallies — the biggest he's faced after nearly four years in power — a "striptease" by conservatives that smacks of "privilege, racism, and classism." No way, say the protesters, who fear AMLO's authoritarian crusade against the independent National Electoral Institute. The president wants to make elections more "democratic" by cutting the number of legislators, slashing public funding for political parties, and electing INE officials by popular vote. But his critics argue that he only wants to give the ruling MORENA Party a bigger slice of the legislative pie ahead of the next election in 2024, when the term-limited AMLO aims to handpick his successor. What happens next? Congress — where MORENA and its allies lost their two-thirds majority in both chambers in 2021 — will start debating the legislation in the coming weeks, but Eurasia Group analyst Matías Gómez Léautaud says that the bigger-than-expected turnout might make it harder for AMLO to muster enough opposition votes to get his election reform plans passed.This was featured in Signal, the daily politics newsletter of GZERO Media. For smart coverage of global affairs that normal people can understand, subscribe here.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni walk during their meeting in Entebbe.
Russia and the West battle it out in Africa
Russia’s brutal military offensive may be taking place in Europe, but the battle to shore up support for its cause is now playing out in … Africa.
Russia’s top diplomat, Sergey Lavrov, is currently on a tour to reassure African allies of Moscow’s commitment to alleviating the global food crisis.
But Lavrov is not to be outdone by French President Emmanuel Macron, who is also on a three-nation tour in Central and West Africa. Washington, meanwhile, has sent an envoy to Ethiopia and Egypt.
Russia, the EU, and US have long tried to court developing countries in bids to expand their respective spheres of influence. But as war rages on in Europe, why the intense focus on Africa now?
Who’s going where?
Lavrov started his African tour in Egypt, where he sought to assure a jittery President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi that Russia is taking the global grain shortage seriously. (Egypt is the world’s largest wheat importer.) Russia’s top diplomat doubled down on the Kremlin’s talking point that a Western-backed Ukraine is responsible for the blockade in the Black Sea that’s pummeling import-reliant Cairo. (The Egyptians, who have strong security ties with the US but rely on Russia for grain, have so far refused to pick a side in the war.)
This week's itinerary for Lavrov also had stops in Uganda, the Republic of Congo, and Ethiopia. The latter could be a tougher sell because Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is seeking a rapprochement with the US after Washington imposed sanctions on Ethiopian officials over the brutal war in Tigray.
The French president is visiting Cameroon, Guinea-Bissau, and Benin to reiterate France’s postcolonial commitment to African prosperity and security. Food supply issues will be on the agenda, too.
Meanwhile, the US special envoy to the Horn of Africa is holding a series of talks in Ethiopia and Egypt to discuss the ongoing Grand Ethiopian Dam dispute that has pitted Addis Ababa against Khartoum and Cairo. Washington says it will also discuss ways to mitigate the global food crisis.
Why Africa?
Moscow has been boosting its investment in African countries for years to gain a strategic foothold on a continent where it once yielded great influence during the Cold War. As part of this effort, it’s been sending mercenaries to support counterinsurgencies in West Africa and Libya, and flooding some African states with weapons.
What does Russia get out of it? Metals, diamonds, gold, and other commodities. Indeed, Russia has been leveraging relations with weak and corrupt African governments to secure lucrative mining deals. (Moscow uses some of the metals it extracts to make weapons that it then sells … back to Africa.) What’s more, Russia’s trade with African states has doubled since 2015 to around $20 billion a year, and it has signed arms deals with more than 20 African states.
Crucially, while the European Union remains Africa’s largest trade partner, many African countries have long resented the bloc’s strings-attached approach to cooperation. (The EU, for instance, has previously conditioned aid and investment on Africa cracking down on migration to the bloc.)
The war in Ukraine is also being waged on the diplomatic front. Though its enforcement powers are limited, the United Nations is a powerful arbiter of international norms, and the 55-member African Union is the largest voting bloc in the UN. Indeed, it was a boon for the Kremlin that 17 African states refrained from taking a side when Russia’s aggression in Ukraine came up for a vote at the UN in March.
The view from Africa. For many African states, relations with Russia offer an appealing alternative to China, the EU, and the US, which have historically had the resources to make inroads throughout the continent.
Beijing, for its part, has promised Africa prosperity and innovation … but in the process saddled dozens of African countries with debt. And though many states – particularly in sub-Saharan Africa – rely on Western aid, they also have come to resent Europe’s imperialist legacy and Washington’s preachiness on human rights.
Russia, on the other hand, has managed to foster a lot of goodwill among numerous African states by not lecturing them about human rights or burdening them with shady loans. Indeed, some African states believe Russia is cultivating a partnership of equals.
Still, Eurasia Group Africa expert Tochi Eni-Kalu says that although the Russians have had some success with their recent diplomatic outreach, there are limits to how far this will take them.
“Russia has few dependable allies in Africa,” he says, adding that “most African states would detest the idea of being seen as being too close to Russia, even if their nonaligned orientation might see them vote in line with Russia (or abstain) on certain resolutions.” Plainly, they don’t see themselves as having to make a binary choice between Russia and the West.
To be sure, Putin knows Russia is no match for Beijing’s financial prowess or Washington’s military might.
“Though Russia is a key arms exporter to numerous African states, the Kremlin lacks the resources that the US, EU, or China can draw on in negotiating political concessions on the global stage,” Eni-Kalu says, noting that this is especially true for Africa's biggest economies.
So what’s Russia trying to do then? As we’ve written before, Moscow is seeking “discrete pressure points where, with minimal expenditure, it can win friends and influence people in ways that directly benefit the Russian state or affiliated cronies.”
After years of deprioritizing the continent, the US is (sort of) interested again. The Biden administration recently announced that it will host more than 50 African leaders at a US-Africa summit this December. The event, according to the White House, will focus on deepening economic engagement and tackling the global food crisis. Washington has also doled out cash to help the continent weather the food crisis.
Still, “Western engagement with Africa has been more rhetoric than action for several years now,” Eni-Kalu says, noting that there is little indication that the current geopolitical situation will result in any new concrete commitments from the West.
Protesters rally agains the constitutional referendum in Tunis.
What We're Watching: Tunisian referendum, Lavrov on African tour
Tunisia holds constitutional referendum
Tunisians go to the polls Monday to vote in a referendum over the new constitution pushed by President Kais Saied. The vote is scheduled on the first anniversary of Saied sacking the government and suspending parliament in the only country that emerged a democracy from the Arab Spring. At the time, he justified the move as necessary to prevent a bigger crisis, but his opponents called it a coup; since then, Saied has consolidated power by taking it away from any institution or group that challenged him, including judges and trade unions. The president's growing dictator vibes have upset many Tunisians who initially supported him, but he still has fans among younger people tired of corruption and dysfunctional parliamentary politics. Most opposition groups have boycotted the plebiscite, so the "yes" vote is likely to win (albeit with a low turnout). If the new charter is approved, Saied promises to hold legislative elections within six months. But they'll be less decisive under the revised constitution, which vastly expands presidential power at the expense of parliament and the judiciary.