CNN FAREED's Global Briefing - August 14, 2024 - The Audacity of Ukraine’s Kursk Offensive....

 

Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good   Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Sign up here.   August 14, 2024

The Audacity of Ukraine’s Kursk Offensive Ukraine has made a bold bet by charging into Russian territory, where it claims to have seized hundreds of square miles. Kyiv launched the advance into Russia’s Kursk region last week, to the surprise of analysts and Western allies.   “This offensive is a major gamble, especially since Russia dominates much of the frontline in Ukraine and has made significant inroads in the east,” seven coauthors write for The New York Times. “If Ukrainian troops are able to hold territory, they could stretch the capacity of Russian troops, deliver a major embarrassment for Mr. Putin and get a bargaining chip for any peace negotiations. But if Russia manages to push Ukrainian troops out of Kursk and simultaneously move forward in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian military leaders could be blamed for giving the Russians an opening to gain more ground, particularly in the Donetsk region.”   In the latest episode of the War on the Rocks Podcast, close Ukraine-war observers Michael Kofman and Dara Massicot of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace consider Ukrainian strategy and tactics in the Kursk offensive. As for what we know, Kofman notes an informational lag when it comes to fast-moving operations like this one. Massicot wonders how Kyiv will manage to resupply and refuel its offensive forces if it intends to hold the Russian territory it has seized.   The Economist observes: “The short-term gains are straightforward. Vladimir Putin has been palpably embarrassed.” Other initial goals likely included boosting Ukrainian morale, proving to Western allies that its defensive war effort is worth the investment, and forcing Russia to divert some of its troops to defend its own territory. “[T]he advance has moved so fast, and the Russians have been so slow to respond, that Ukraine may be rethinking objectives,” the magazine writes, suggesting Kyiv could seek to hold the territory or fall back part or all of the way to the Ukrainian border.   “Ukraine’s advance into Russia may yet turn out to be a turning point, a strategic blunder, or neither,” writes the Financial Times’ editorial board. “But achieving military success, or sufficient military gains to support effective diplomacy, sometimes requires bold throws of the dice. Not for the first time, Ukraine’s president has just made one.”

Divided Britain Inspired by online disinformation about the perpetrator of a brutal knife attack on children in northern England, opponents of immigration took to the streets this month, clashing with police, vandalizing property, and sowing fear among Britain’s Muslim minority. The unrest dragged on for days.   After about a week of national disorder, the riots gave way last week to anti-racist counterprotests. Headlines now report the jailings and sentencings of rioters and those who encouraged them online, rather than violence in the streets. “Britain’s justice system has responded forcefully,” The Economist proclaims, noting a 20-month sentence for a man who posted on Facebook calling for Britons to attack a Leeds hotel housing asylum seekers. That forceful response, some say, reflects positively on still-new Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who warned rioters: “You will regret taking part in this disorder.”   Still, the riots left their mark.    “About every ten years, summer seems to bring mindless violence and wanton destruction to some of our streets,” Financial Times columnist Camilla Cavendish noted last week before the tumult had subsided, pointing to past riots over various issues. At the London Review, Daniel Trilling wrote last week: “This time, it’s worse,” as the recent riots were standing out “for their geographical reach, for their viciousness and because they involve a far wider range of participants than the small groups of committed fascists who helped instigate the violence. Football hooligans, sympathisers with the anti-Islam and anti-immigration messages that have circulated online since the murders, bored kids who want to fight the police or engage in looting and curious onlookers have all joined in.” Indeed, the FT’s Cavendish observed that the scenes on British streets “should serve as a reminder of what fascism actually looks like.” The glaring evidence of division and angst is hard to avoid. “[O]nce the current crisis is over there will need to be a rethink,” Cavendish wrote: “about the desperate poverty in parts of the Midlands and the North; and about how to make the dream of social cohesion and fairness a reality.”   In The New Statesman’s current cover essay, Jason Crowley sounds a similar note: “[T]he hatred and division … had been revealed for all to see. Turn away in fear and loathing if you wish, but worse will follow if people’s smouldering resentment about mass migration and porous borders—as well as run-down high streets, broken community services, sub-standard housing and long-standing economic neglect—are not systematically addressed. … If Keir Starmer is serious about national renewal (and he is), he will have to hit the far right hard but also find ways to include those who feel excluded ... These are not the far right but the people of peripheral England for whom democratic politics is not working, who don’t vote for Labour or any other party … What do you do about these people and their anger, suffering and despair? As [French author and social geographer Christophe] Guilluy says, you can’t simply wish away a whole class.”

Opposition Leader, Now in Hiding, on Venezuela’s Vote and Future In Venezuela, election officials quickly declared authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro to have won a national vote in late July. But few seem to believe it, as the US and others have said Maduro actually lost. On Sunday’s GPS, Fareed spoke with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado—who is now in hiding—about what Venezuelans want, what should and will happen next, and the national crisis that has seen millions flee her country in recent years.

Momentum Shift Vice President Kamala Harris is now “the candidate with momentum,” the Financial Times’ editorial board writes. Democrats have faced several problems in this election year, and Harris’ candidacy appears to have solved two important ones.   For one, the party lacked enthusiasm behind President Joe Biden. Secondly, as The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson told Fareed on Sunday’s GPS, Democrats have faced a problem with young voters—particularly, young men. As Sam Wolfson noted in The Guardian, elections in Europe this summer saw young voters lurch toward the far right. America’s Democratic Party—which typically banks on the youth vote—should beware that “chill wind” from across the Atlantic, Wolfson warned.   At The New Yorker, E. Tammy Kim reports on new dynamics since Harris became Democrats’ presumptive nominee: “Whatever forbearance young Democrats and anti-Trumpers had mustered when it came to Biden is now transforming into a mix of relief and genuine zeal. … Mary-Pat Hector, the head of Rise, in Atlanta, a national nonprofit that mobilizes young voters, was getting used to a new level of energy among her staff. ‘It was very difficult the past few months, prior to Biden’s announcement [that he would exit the race],’ she said. ‘Our students were chasing down voters. Now voters are chasing organizers down, trying to get involved.’”