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Ukraine dam sabotage: not enough evidence to speculate
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Is the destruction of the dam in Ukraine Nord Stream 2 all over again?
We don't know, and I would wait until we have some evidence before we announce who's behind this. It's not going to make much of a difference for the Ukrainian counteroffensive, this is not where the land bridge is most easily broken. So that's probably not an impact. It's also going to affect both a lot of Ukrainians and a lot of Russians on the ground. Maybe the biggest catastrophe is for Russians if they lose all of the access to fresh water for Crimea. So maybe you'd say the Ukrainians had more reason to do it, but if the Russians felt like they were like in desperate shape, it's possible they'd sabotage. I don't have a strong view here and I think we should wait till we have some evidence, kind of like we needed to on Nord Stream.
Does the near-collision between US and China warships signal a new era of competition for dominance in the Asia Pacific?
Well, sure, in the sense that both warships and jet fighters were having more near accidents, both the Americans and Chinese trying to convince the other side to back down, and that's not about to happen, and that's absent any high level military to military diplomacy, we've got economic coordination happening. A lot more policy meetings there. That's not going to help you if suddenly a couple of ships bang into each other and people die.
What are the wider implications for the LIV-PGA merger?
Well, I think that this is basically complete rehabilitation for Saudi Arabia. They're now in the post Khashoggi era. Just a year ago, less than a year ago, the commissioner of the PGA said that, "Can you imagine golfers having to apologize for what league they're a member of?" Well, obviously he's not feeling that way anymore. This is the Chinese doing a deal between the Saudis and the Iranians, the American president traveling over there. I would say that from a perspective of the global economy, the Saudis have, at this point, completely rehabilitated their brand. How people feel about that is going to be different depending on who you talk to. But certainly this is a very, very big move for the KSA and a lot of money speaks very loudly.