What Zelensky means for world democracy

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky came to America a few months back to cajole and plead for support — both military and political. He saw the storm coming. It is now a Putin-driven hailstorm of rockets and bullets raining down on cities and civilians. Urban residents have gone from sheltering-in-place against COVID to picking up arms to fight in the streets. Europe is again embroiled in a war that will not end all wars.

San Francisco feels a million miles away from today’s shooting and mayhem. Yet when Zelensky came to visit President Biden in September, he made a pilgrimage to America’s largest Ukrainian community: California. He gave a critical speech warning of Russia’s intentions at Stanford’s FSI center, the academic home of Mike McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia. READ MORE

Bad-boy foreign leaders shouldn’t underestimate Trump’s appetite for election-year drama

Turkey, Russia and China are just three countries taking advantage of the moment to act aggressively around the world and test American resolve. All three are betting that the United States is too mired in crisis to react powerfully to strategic challenges overseas. All three might be making a miscalculation.

Turkey is threatening its neighbors and claiming new maritime borders; Russia is poisoning its opposition and posturing around Belarus; and China continues to build up its defense forces while cracking down on dissent at home and abroad. It’s all a potently toxic brew of hyper-national ambitions heartily guzzled by Presidents Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

They are drunk with the idea that right now is their time to act aggressively because America can’t or won’t seriously engage to stop them. If they’re right and can achieve their goals because America continues to stand on the sidelines, they win their bet without paying a hefty price. READ MORE

Putin is counting on your vote in November. Are you in with ‘Vova?’

Vladimir Putin is on the ballot this November.

You won’t see his name or watch his ads. But make no mistake, Putin has a lot riding on this election and he’s counting on your vote.

What will a vote for Putin mean?

First, Putin is looking to reshape the world order in a way that benefits Moscow, builds his personal power and establishes him as the world’s toughest leader capable of outrageous cunning, manipulation and disruption.

A successful outcome — meaning President Trump is re-elected — means his Russia will be able to wantonly throw its weight around globally. He will assertively create unseen but ever-present fear and dependence in neighboring nations including Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltic states and Georgia. Russia’s renewed and enhanced influence also will be felt in countries farther away and immediately affected by America’s acquiescence to Putin’s newfound power. Countries such as Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. READ MORE

There’s nothing like using cheap Russian oil and an iron fist to stay in office

All-star authoritarians are a ruble a dozen in Russia these days. Vladimir Putin leads the pack, of course, but there are plenty of local and regional tough guys running their neighborhoods and governments like mob bosses. Many of them are direct offshoots of Putin’s United Russia party, some are even worse. Ultra-nationalists in the far east of the country are protesting their inability to run their own government and local syndicates, complaining that Moscow insists on central control over the means of corruption.

Russia is not the only former Soviet state that is stuck with megalomaniacal overlords. Next door and related, Belarus — the country also known as White Russia — is a paragon of parasitic politics. Run by the same guy since 1994, Belarus is heading toward “elections” next month where the main opposition candidates have been disqualified or arrested.

A vlogger, a banker and a diplomat were all running against incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko and have dubiously found their way into the political penalty box, or jail. In their stead, their spouses have stepped in to strut their candidacies and keep the erstwhile candidates’ messages alive. Surprisingly, there is an early anti-establishment groundswell coalescing around the candidacy of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the wife of popular Belarus online journalist vlogger Sergei Tikhanovsky. She been dismissed by Lukashenko, who said the demanding presidential pressures of governing would cause Svetlana to “collapse, poor thing.” READ MORE

A tough leader enacted tough policies, and wiped out COVID-19 in New Zealand

Florida is a red-hot COVID zone, Texas is on a one-way ride up the infection escalator and California is reversing course after early lockdown success. Together, these three states make up 20 percent of all new global coronavirus cases. The United States is a pandemic-policy mess, and the whole world is watching the meltdown.

Not every nation, however, is experiencing Washington’s infighting, chaotic approach and inability to implement a nationally coordinated pandemic response. New Zealand is an odd exception in a coronavirus world in turmoil.

How did such a small place take on such a big role on the world stage to lead the fight against infection’s spread throughout its country? READ MORE

In fight for Libya, Russia and Turkey keep a 19th-century war on the front burner

Russia and Turkey just escalated their two-front war over which country will be the big dog in the Middle East. The two rivals have been at this game for a couple of centuries, but it just got a lot more serious this week when Russia introduced jet fighters into the Libyan civil war.

Coronavirus may have shut down Texas beauty parlors and Louisiana bars, stopped international travel and cleared streets across the globe, but hasn’t brought war to a halt. Rather, Russia and Turkey are in the midst of a multifront proxy escalation in both Libya and Syria.

Russians have long memories. They recall when Imperial Russia fought Ottoman Turkey in the bloody Crimean War. Ottoman Muslim forces fought Christian Tsarist troops on the Black Sea peninsula, where more fighters fell to the Asiatic cholera epidemic than on the battlefield.

Turkey won. Russia today, however, once again occupies Crimea. The 19th-century Crimean War was the crucible in which were forged Russo-Turkish antagonisms and their 21st-century imperial dreams. READ MORE

The political spouse: It’s not a job just for women anymore

Women on the world stage are increasingly playing lead roles. Whether New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern, the newest all-female Finnish government’s cabinet led by 35-year old Prime Minister Sanna Marin or the record number of American women who ran and won in the 2018 midterm elections, women are moving on up. Get used to it.

Increasingly, women have elbowed and edged their way into previously male-dominated representative chambers around the world in what were once more smoke-filled men’s clubs than curtained lactation stations. As a result, the public , too, should wake up and prepare for a new category of men who will accompany and support these freshly elected women.

Happily, I am one of them. Last year, I became California’s “Second Partner” after my wife, Eleni Kounalakis, was elected overwhelmingly the state’s first female lieutenant governor. READ MORE

Trump’s failed Latin American policy puts Florida in play in 2020

He does business here. He wants to move his permanent residence here. He even tried to bring the G-7 heads of state here. But it is also here, in Florida, where President Trump’s re-election bid faces the greatest danger.

Democrats who want to win the 2020 election would do well to focus their foreign-policy positions both on attacking Trump’s Latin American failures and building their own plans for a prosperous, peaceful and democratic future in this hemisphere.

Ignoring southern and Caribbean basin nations is both bad policy and bad politics. A geopolitically sensitive understanding of Latin America’s importance and opportunities could be key not only to strengthening U.S. foreign-policy interests and extending our values, but to winning Florida’s electoral votes. READ MORE

The death penalty? Kill it off, around the world

Newspaper columnist Jamal Khashoggi’s killing is the latest high-profile example of a sovereign meting out extreme justice and capital punishment. CIA analysts concluded that Khashoggi was brutally killed last October inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Turkey.

And, shockingly, it was legal.

One reason the Saudis have not faced international retribution in the courts or official diplomatic blowback for the killing is simple: Death is a legal form of punishment in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Like it or not, the sentence was handed down, perhaps by Prince Mohammed bin Salman himself, and the cruel execution was conducted within the consulate and on what is arguably Saudi Arabia’s diplomatically sovereign territory. READ MORE

Brexit has become a royal pain. Queen Elizabeth needs to step in and take a stand

Queen Elizabeth II may be the only person who can fix the Brexit mess. She has the power to wave her scepter and declare a solution. It’s a power that the royals have not exercised in years, but at 92 years old and with her nation riven, the Sovereign should step in and decide on the United Kingdom’s sovereignty.

Does she want to continue to cede some of her nation’s power to a mostly faceless European Union based in Brussels? Or should she pull up the island nation’s drawbridge, shut down its borders and add friction to the relatively free trade and capital flows that keep London’s coffers overflowing? What to do?

Dear Queen,

Here’s some advice from a mere commoner living in a former colony: If the current Brexitprocess and eventual vote do not provide a clear decision, shine up that crown, warm up your voice and take a stand. My presumptuousness ends there — I’m not going to advise you what Brexit direction you should take. That’s your burden. And your prerogative.

In fact, it is known as the “Royal Prerogative” READ MORE

There’s a renaissance on the African continent that the U.S. can’t afford to dismiss

Ethiopia is the latest nation where an international aviation accident is in sharp focus, but the country itself is treated merely as the hazy backdrop and tragic context for a larger geopolitical story. This one involves Boeing, China trade wars and the credibility of American regulatory institutions.

All important stories, for sure, but Ethiopia is more than the tragically fatal scene of a plane crash. With more than 100 million people, Ethiopia is the second most populous African nation after Nigeria. Landlocked Ethiopia is also the continent’s fastest growing economy with arguably its most dynamic young leader.

While other African countries, such as Algeria, struggle to put to pasture their near-comatose leader-for-life Abdulaziz Buteflika, Ethiopia broke the old clichéd mold of African strongman leaders who were generals or geriatrics and instead, almost a year ago, appointed a fresh and energetic reformer, the 42-year old prime minister, Abiy Ahmed. READ MORE