| | | | The World Economy Is Being Mismanaged | | World leaders have grossly mismanaged the global economy, Steven Rattner writes in a New York Times column, arguing heads of state from President Trump to Xi Jinping have squandered the real momentum that carried over from the world's long, post-crash recovery. Trump's trade war and Brexit may top the list of bad policies, but China's protectionism and India's ethno-nationalism haven't helped, either.
So as markets and market-observers continue to panic—stalled growth in trade-dependent Singapore is the latest bad omen, warns the Nikkei Asian Review's James Crabtree, while The Economist writes that US tariffs are halting investment—Rattner concludes that all this trouble is "completely self-inflicted by major world leaders who have delivered almost universally poor economic stewardship." | | After Israel said it would deny entry to Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar (Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.)—a decision it reversed for the latter—the move has been widely panned as a misguided kowtowing to President Trump. Critics of the two congresswomen saw, in their desire to visit, a ploy to draw media attention, but others saw Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu crossing a serious line.
"One must ask though, is Netanyahu's vision of Israel so feeble that it can't tolerate intense public criticism?" Peter Fox wrote for The Jerusalem Post, while David Rothkopf wrote for Haaretz that Trump and Netanyahu had "profoundly damaged" the US-Israel relationship; in an editorial, The Washington Post called the episode "a disgrace to both countries and a demonstration that craven domestic political self-interest drives each leader far more than principle or the underlying importance of what until now has been an enduring alliance." | | The Strategic Value of Greenland | | | Reports that President Trump has wanted to buy Greenland may have elicited chortles, but Quin Hillyer defends the idea in The Washington Examiner, noting Greenland's natural resources, hosting of a US air base, and previous US attempts to buy it in 1867 and 1946. As the world gets warmer, so too has debate over Arctic competition; though that conversation has mostly focused on Russia and NATO, Mark Rosen recently wrote for The National Interest that Greenland could be a focal point for Chinese investment, as it seeks its own Arctic inroads. (The US and China have both eyed a larger footprint there, Martin Breum wrote for Arctic Today in October, although the US military's interest may have had more to do with detecting ICBMs.)
As The Economist wrote in 2016—the 100th anniversary of the Treaty of the Danish West Indies, wherein the US bought St. John, St. Thomas, and St. Croix from Denmark for $25 million—country-to-country land purchases have been unheard of in the post-colonial era, but "[c]limate change could stimulate demand." | | Population fears typically center on an unsustainable number of people crowding the planet, but Zachary Karabell writes in Foreign Affairs that two books, Paul Morland's The Human Tide and Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson's Empty Planet, paint the opposite picture: one of population decline and a different set of problems.
Though a recent UN report predicted world population will reach 9.7 billion by 2050 and 10.9 billion by 2100 (up from 7.7 billion now), the forecast was mixed, as growth is slated to come mostly from developing countries, and as it's predicted to plateau by century's end. Karabell writes that the UN's estimates might be too high, and he warns that population decline could endanger the very idea of economic growth: "[T]he demographic future could end up being a glass half full, by ameliorating the worst effects of climate change and resource depletion, or a glass half empty, by ending capitalism as we know it," he suggests. | | Remaking Syria in Assad's Image | | That's what Jasmine El-Gamal suggests the Syrian leader is doing, in a Cairo Review of Global Affairs essay. President Bashar al-Assad is controlling humanitarian assistance and using it to reward his allies, destroying territory and allowing supporters to rebuild and repopulate it, El-Gamal writes. Reconstruction and zoning will likely keep refugees from returning to their homes, locking Assad's opponents out of the country for good as he uses a strategy of "destruction and consolidation."
This will have a lasting effect on Syria's future, El-Gamal predicts—which supports an argument, offered by the Middle East Institute's Elizabeth Tsurkov, that the US should retain a presence in Syria to use what leverage it has to help shape the country's future. Tsurkov's is among three recent Middle East Institute essays to focus on America's role in Syria: Arguing the counterpoint, Daniel Serwer writes that bad outcomes will arrive regardless of whether the US stays or goes, while Charles Lister argues a US (and Kurdish) presence can at least prevent ISIS from filling the void. | | | | | | |
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