D Day, 1944: the greatest generation, 80 years ago - Stephen Collinson, Caitlin Hu and Shelby Rose (CNN Meanwhile in America)

Before endeavors fade

Stephen Collinson, Caitlin Hu and Shelby Rose

CNN Meanwhile in America, June 5, 2024

 

The new world for which the greatest generation sacrificed in the bloody surf of the Normandy beaches is fading into history along with the last of the old soldiers.

 

The 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings observed by President Joe Biden in France on Thursday will likely be the last major decennial commemoration attended by significant numbers of veterans. Even a 19-year-old who stormed ashore in the biggest amphibious operation in history would soon be 100.

 

Biden is certain to cite an unrepayable debt owed to US, British, Canadian and other troops involved in Operation Overlord. He’ll walk among row upon row of white crosses and Stars of David shaded by pine trees and oaks overlooking Omaha Beach. This is where more than 9,000 fallen Americans from all 50 states and the District of Columbia lay at rest thousands of miles from the land they left to save foreigners they’d never met.

 

This year’s memorial ceremony represents far more than a poignant farewell to surviving comrades of more than 150,000 allied troops that forged a beachhead for the liberation of Europe from Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

 

Presidents, prime ministers and monarchs from NATO nations are gathering at a paradoxical moment. They are unusually united but experiencing growing dread. The alliance has a new sense of mission in opposing another war started by a tyrant bent on territorial expansion — this time in Ukraine. But at no point since June 6, 1944, has US leadership of the West and support for internationalist values that the invasion enshrined been so in question. 

 

Democracy is facing its sternest test in generations from far-right populism on the march on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Geopolitical empires like Russia and China are meanwhile resurgent and threatening to obliterate the global system dominated by Western values that has prevailed since World War II.

 

European nations that were already rattled by presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump’s constant attacks on NATO in his first term have been further rocked by his recent comment that he’d let Russia do “whatever the hell they want” with allies that he regarded as failing to “pay their bills” on defense spending. The comment weakens the foundational NATO creed of mutual self-defense, without which the alliance has no meaning. Some of Trump’s ex-advisors have warned that he might try to exit the alliance if he wins a second term in November. Even if Biden wins, there are growing indications that America’s willingness to maintain the security guarantees — even to former enemies like Germany and Japan that bought 80 years of peace — may be waning.

 

Trump’s “America First” philosophy has taken deep root in the Republican Party that once prided itself on winning the Cold War. Some GOP figures, led by the ex-president, now appear to have more empathy for Russian President Vladimir Putin than for the liberal European democracies that the United States rebuilt after World War II. And the months-long delay in funding Biden’s most recent aid package for Ukraine has raised doubts that Washington will always stand up for democracy in Europe.

 

 

US elections: These two states could decide it all: Michigan and Wisconsin - Stephen Collinson, Caitlin Hu, Shelby Rose (CNN Meanwhile in America)

These two states could decide it all

 Stephen Collinson, Caitlin Hu and Shelby Rose

CNN Meanwhile in America, April 3, 2024

By November, you’ll be bored with hearing about Wisconsin and Michigan.

 

The two midwestern states might well hold the key to the second terms that both Donald Trump and Joe Biden crave, but that only one can claim.

 

Because the US electoral system works on a state-by-state basis rather than according to a nationwide popular vote, presidential candidates must plot a path to the White House through a handful of states that are competitive.

 

This year, in a country that is becoming increasingly polarized, there are even fewer swing states than usual. Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and North Carolina make most lists. But there’s a strong case that the election will be decided in Wisconsin and Michigan.

 

In 2016, Trump won both, shocking Hillary Clinton on turf that her campaign had assumed was solidly Democratic. In 2020, Biden grabbed them back and made Trump a one-termer. The Midwestern pair could be even more critical in 2024. If Biden clings onto Pennsylvania and keeps Michigan and Wisconsin in his column, he will almost certainly be president again. He can even drop two far western states — Arizona and Nevada — that he won last time but that are tight in 2024.

 

This explains why Wisconsinites and Michiganders will see a lot of Biden and Trump. The former president had both on his itinerary on Tuesday, in a rare venture away from the court room and the golf course. Trump knows that if he can repeat his double win from 2016, Biden will probably have to find a much harder long-shot route to 270 electoral votes, assuming the rest of the map remains stable. The President in fact would have to fashion some combination of Georgia and Arizona that he won in 2020 and North Carolina which Trump carried — to get back to the White House.

 

Wisconsin and Michigan offer a passable approximation of the US as a whole. Both include cities — like Milwaukee and Detroit and their suburbs — where Democrats prosper and deep red rural areas that Republicans rule. Both reflect Biden’s current troubles. High interests rates and grocery prices are making life tough for many.  In Michigan, Arab American voters are critical of the president’s support for Israel in its war in Gaza. 

 

Biden needs to block Trump’s bid to claim a higher share of the Black vote in the cities than Republicans normally get. In Wisconsin, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could pose a particular threat to the president among disaffected Democrats. Trump, meanwhile, is trying to play up fears of auto workers around the Motor City that Biden’s support for electric vehicles could cost them their jobs. 

 

So there is an opening for the ex-president in two states that polls suggest are currently too close to call. And then there’s this. These two battlegrounds that could decide the election will probably depend on just a few thousand votes.

A verdadeira face de imigração americana: trabalhadores de manutenção na ponte que foi derrubada - CNN Meanwhile in America

The true face of immigration

Stephen Collinson, Caitlin Hu and Shelby Rose

CNN Meanwhile in America, March 28, 2024

Baltimore was sleeping when the fully laden cargo ship, adrift and without power, slammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge, bringing it down in seconds. 

Had the disaster taken place during the daytime, hundreds of cars and trucks could have been on the bridge over a channel leading to one of the busiest ports on the east coast. So it was a mercy it happened in the early hours and that police got sufficient warning to stop vehicles from driving onto the bridge.

But the six people presumed dead from the tragedy couldn't escape. They were maintenance workers — the kind of people few notice but who do tough jobs through the night to keep the country running.

All of those missing were immigrants, outsiders who had come to the US from Central and South America for a better life. Their stories and aspirations mirrored the lives of millions of new entrants to the United States. They are far more representative of the migrant population than the extremist, often racist picture spouted about migrants by Donald Trump. The Republican presumptive nominee often falsely claims foreign countries are entering their asylums and jails to send their “worst people” as a de-facto invasion force to the US. Trump’s demonization of immigrants who are trying to cross into the country illegally, who he claims are “poisoning the blood” of the country, often feels like a shorthand condemnation of migrants as a whole.

One of the missing in Baltimore is father-of-three Miguel Luna, from El Salvador, who has lived in Maryland for 19 years. Maynor Yassir Suazo, a Honduran father of two, is also missing. He has lived in the US for 18 years and has an 18-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter. Two Guatemalans are also unaccounted for. And three Mexicans were among the crew working on the bridge. One was rescued from the frigid waters below and two are yet to be found. 

Often, migrants do jobs that other people don’t want to do – the ones with the lowest wages and the worst conditions. Some do so to support families in the US and to lay the foundation of better lives for their children and grandchildren. Many send money home to support relatives who live in far less affluent economies. Mexican immigrant workers for instance transferred more than $60 billion in remittances to their country in 2023, according to Mexico’s central bank.

The sacrifices of those missing, presumed dead in Baltimore on Monday night might be worth remembering when the anti-immigrant rhetoric cranks up again in the run-up to November’s presidential election. 

And when the Francis Scott Key Bridge rises again, it's a good bet it will be immigrants who are building it.

A “nova Guerra Fria” começou a ficar mais quente - Paulo Roberto de Almeida, CNN Meanwhile in America

A “nova Guerra Fria” começou a ficar quente

A nova Guerra Fria econômica e tecnológica começou quando os EUA cometeram o terrível erro estratégico de considerar a China um adversário no campo da hegemonia global, em lugar de um parceiro na construção de um mundo multipolar deficiente. Sim, deficiente, mas pelo menos não dominado pela ideia de uma competição pela liderança global.

De 1972, quando Nixon vai ao encontro de Mao, até o início dos anos 2000, quando os EUA reinavam absolutos, mas quando a China começava a flexionar os seus músculos econômicos ao ingressar na OMC, EUA e China eram aliados tácitos, senão táticos, no confronto com a URSS, a inimiga de ambos, mas em forte declínio nos anos 1980, até desaparecer como entidade estatal, mas sobreviver como desafiante nuclear, na velha Rússia que nunca se desfez de seus sonhos imperiais. 

Os dez anos que abalaram o mundo, entre Gorbachev e Ieltsin, também representaram o começo do grande erro estratégico dos EUA, ao humilharem a Rússia e ao tentarem diminuir, conter, confrontar a irresistível ascensão econômica da China. Esse erro estratégico está bem representado pelo livro de Graham Allison sobre a falsa e equivocada “armadilha de Tucídides”, ou seja, o embate entre a Atenas americana e a Esparta chinesa. Escreverei mais longamente sobre porque eu considero esse livro de Graham Allison como o “mais perigoso do mundo”, depois do Mein Kampf de Adolf  Hitler.

No momento, só tenho a lamentar que as posições opostas dos EUA e da China caminhem para uma nova confrontação similar em tensão a uma Ucrânia-Berlim ou a uma Taiwan-Cuba, dos tempos “clássicos” da velha Guerra Fria geopolítica da era bipolar. A nova Guerra Fria econômica e tecnológica não precisaria ter essa nova bipolaridade que se desenha entre EUA-UE vs China-Rússia. Não precisaria, mas está tendo esse efeito. Talvez estejamos entrando numa nova fase dos velhos confrontos interimperiais que se estenderá pelos próximos 20 ou 30 anos, mas sem conflagração direta entre potências rivais: “apenas” uma nova e inútil corrida armamentista e um novo atraso de mais meio século no não desenvolvimento dos países pobres e regiões miseráveis.

O mundo perde, mas quem perde mais serão os países pobres; quanto ao Brasil e América Latina, permanecerão marginais e irrelevantes como sempre foram, meros fornecedores de commodities para o Ocidente e a nova e dinâmica região da Ásia-Pacifico. E não há nenhum “Não-Alinhamento Ativo” que resolva essa marginalidade estrutural da América Latina. 

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

'Conflict and confrontation'

CNN Meanwhile in America, March 7, 2023 We’ve written before about how volatile domestic politics in both Washington and Beijing threatens to tip the rivalry between the two super powers into open confrontation.   The fallout from the flight of a suspected Chinese spy balloon’s flight over the US last month sent the US capital into a frenzy -- and disagreements over Ukraine and Taiwan are making things worse.   Now, we’re getting a view of how hostility towards the US is becoming the default position for senior Chinese leaders, and one that is a political imperative in President Xi Jinping's new leadership team.   In one of his first appearances as China’s new foreign minister, Qin Gang warned Tuesday that “conflict and confrontation” with the United States is inevitable if Washington does not change course, delivering a stern and wide-ranging rebuke of US policies for his first news conference in the new role.   Qin had a reputation in Washington, where he was until recently the Chinese ambassador, as temperate and diplomatic -- while being an uncompromising messenger for Xi’s hawkish nationalism. But back in Beijing, he struck a different note, accusing the US of aiming to contain China and overreacting to incidents like the spy balloon.    “If the United States does not hit the brakes, but continues to speed down the wrong path, no amount of guardrails can prevent derailing, and there will surely be conflict and confrontation,” Qin said on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress in Beijing. His remarks on Taiwan got the most attention in DC, following Washington’s warnings that China shouldn’t send arms to Russia. “Why does the US talk up respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity on the Ukraine issue, but does not respect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity on the issue of Taiwan?” Qin said.   “Why does the US ask China not to provide weapons to Russia while it keeps selling arms to Taiwan?”

Presidents' Day ... in Ukraine - Stephen Collinson, Caitlin Hu and Shelby Rose (CNN Meanwhile in America)

CNN, February 20, 2023

Stephen Collinson, Caitlin Hu and Shelby Rose

Presidents' Day ... in Ukraine

US President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky embrace in Kyiv after their visit to the Wall of Remembrance to pay tribute to killed Ukrainian soldiers on Monday.

There is no more powerful symbol of Vladimir Putin's failure. A year ago, the Russian leader launched a blitzkrieg against Ukraine, mocking its history and sovereignty, sending his tanks churning toward Kyiv to obliterate the democratically elected government led by a former comic actor. His purpose was clear: To crush once and for all Ukraine's dreams of joining the West and to force it to return to the orbit of greater Russia. Back then, anyone predicting how the anniversary of the war would be marked might have mused about a Russian military parade and a visit by Putin himself to a puppet leader he installed in a nation again under Moscow's iron fist. The reality is far different following heroic Ukrainian resistance bolstered by weapons sent by NATO members. The president of the United States, in overcoat and shades, strolled through Kyiv in daylight Monday, visiting a historic church as air raid sirens wailed. He stood exposed alongside President Volodymyr Zelensky in the city's vast, open and iconic St. Michael's Square. Biden's presence sent a message of defiance to Putin most directly along with a cherished sign of resolve and empathy for the people of Ukraine. His audience also included European powers in a Western alliance that Biden has led and invigorated like no president since the end of the Cold War. And every time a commander in chief makes such an audacious splash on the world stage, he's also making a point to Americans -- on whose support continuing extraordinary aid for Ukraine's war effort depends -- and to his own fervent domestic critics.

President Joe Biden walks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at St. Michael's Golden-Domed Cathedral in Kyiv on Monday.

"One year later, Kyiv stands. And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands," Biden declared. "The Americans stand with you and the world stands with you."   Biden's words might have lacked the poetry of "Ich bin ein Berliner" or "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." But his visit instantly went down in history alongside two defining trips to divided Berlin by Presidents John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan that were flashpoints of the Cold War and each of which sent their own image of US resolve to the Kremlin.

President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attend a news conference in Kyiv on Monday.

Those presidential trips made clear that the United States stood with its Western allies for as long as it took to prevail over the Soviet Union. Biden's visit was meant to give similar historic heft to his comment that Washington is there for "as long as it takes" -- though it's unlikely that it will assuage fears in Kyiv and Europe that a change in president might weaken that US vow.   Biden's secret visit, which involved the president leaving the US unannounced and heading to an active war zone, matched some of the colorful stagecraft that Zelensky -- a master of public relations -- has used to maintain Western support for his people and the multi-billion dollar pipeline of weapons and aid. During America's Middle East wars of the last 20 years, Americans became accustomed to Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump leaving Washington in the dead of night and popping up in Baghdad or Kabul to visit US troops and US-backed leaders. And while those trips had their own measure of daring and danger, Biden's visit went a step further -- venturing into a foreign capital that is often under air attack and lacks the security offered by large garrisons of American troops and air assets.  Biden had always planned to visit Europe this week to mark the anniversary of the Russian invasion -- though his public program mentioned only a trip to neighboring Poland. But a journey across the Atlantic that lacked a Ukrainian component would have been unsatisfactory given that fact that many European leaders have already visited Kyiv. Still, the security footprint of the US president is far greater than the one accompanying those leaders, and his position as the leader of the West leaves him far more exposed. But by not visiting Ukraine, Biden would have been implicitly admitting that there were some things that Putin could prevent him from doing -- in effect showing US weakness.   Political symbolism is only effective if it gets results, drives policy and changes an entrenched situation. So, like the Berlin visits of Kennedy and Reagan, the true historic sweep of Biden's perilous journey to Ukraine can only be judged in the light of subsequent events. In other words, his gesture will be an empty one if Russia -- which appears to be mustering for a spring offensive -- wins the war.

In this handout photo issued by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, US President Joe Biden meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Ukrainian presidential palace on Monday.

Protestos populares na China: a postura dos EUA em 1989 e agora - Stephen Collinson, Caitlin Hu and Shelby Rose (CNN Meanwhile in America)

 

Stephen Collinson, Caitlin Hu and Shelby Rose

A familiar tug of war

Mass protests broke out in major Chinese cities during the weekend and early this week over the country's zero-Covid policy.

As China attempts to suppress mass protests, the Biden administration is treading carefully in its response -- a reflection of the possibility that a full-scale revolt against the Chinese Communist Party could leave the United States in a classic tug of war between its values and strategic interests.   Officials stressed that Washington strongly supports the right of people everywhere to peacefully demonstrate, but have not given any direct indication of support for the protests. Going further could imperil US President Joe Biden’s effort to improve relations between the two countries, after he met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Bali.   It’s a strategically defensible position, given the need to avoid a clash with China that could spiral into a superpower clash in Asia. But if the protests spread and are brutally put down, Biden will face pressure from both hawks and human rights advocates to take a harder line -- and live up to his promise to put promoting democracy at the center of his foreign policy.   He is not the first president to face such a dilemma.   In the run-up to Beijing’s suppression of pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, then-President George H.W. Bush’s White House was preoccupied with preserving relations with Beijing. In retrospect, though, the administration badly underestimated the ruthlessness of Chinese leaders.    China is unrecognizable since 1989, and recent protests -- this time arising out of frustration with Covid-19 lockdowns but expressing some dissent towards Xi -- are not fully analogous. But Bush, who was a China expert after serving as top US envoy in Beijing at the dawn of the diplomatic relationship in the mid-1970s, faced the same questions Biden must answer now: How explicitly to speak about the situation in public? What messages -- if any -- to send in private to Beijing? And ultimately, when does the US instinct to stand up for values of freedom and democratic progress cede to more cynical economic and geopolitical interests?   These conundrums shine through a fascinating set of declassified documents that became public several years ago.   After Chinese soldiers crushed the rebellion in Tiananmen Square, with estimates of the death toll ranging from hundreds to thousands, Bush deplored the use of force and called on Chinese leaders for restraint. But he also stressed that he didn’t want the aftermath of the horror to “break” US-China relations.    However, behind the scenes, there was a real debate about the efficacy of US policy. In a secret cable to Washington, then-US ambassador James Lilley argued that Washington’s overarching goal had blinded it to the real nature of the Chinese regime. “The Chinese declared martial law against their own people in Beijing the day we were cozying up to their military in Shanghai,” Lilley wrote, referring to a US naval visit to the eastern Chinese city. “We were not coping with or anticipating current realities.”    Lilley was not just being wise after the fact. He had warned in a cable in May -- the month prior to the Tiananmen Square massacre -- that the Chinese military was “ready to strike” against the students and that the US should “distance ourselves from the Chinese authorities who appear to be getting ready to crack down on their own people.”

George H.W. Bush speaks at the White House on June 5, 1989.

Global revulsion over the snuffing out of the reform movement left China isolated. But Bush, seeking to avoid an irrevocable fracture with Beijing, sent a private letter “with a heavy heart” to Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping.    He explained that he had forcefully condemned the bloody march into the square because it offended Americans’ reverence for freedom of assembly and democracy. But Bush also wrote that he was resisting clamor at home for tougher action against China and said Deng could ease the situation by ensuring the peaceful treatment of future protests and offering clemency to those arrested.    Several weeks later, he sent his national security advisor Brent Scowcroft on a secret visit to meet Deng. The official and declassified memorandum of their conversation offers an extraordinary glimpse into high-level crisis diplomacy. It reveals that China interpreted even muted US support for the right to protest as evidence of a US effort to seed rebellion against the Chinese Communist Party.    “This was an earthshaking event and it is very unfortunate that the United States is too deeply involved in it,” Deng lectured Scowcroft, adding that Washington had impugned Chinese dignity. The US official explained that Bush was powerless to oppose the House of Representatives, which voted 418-0 to impose stiffer sanctions on China. But Scowcroft also said Bush was “deeply appreciative of your willingness to explain the dilemma in which he finds himself. That’s the message from a true friend of the Chinese government and the people of China.”   It’s impossible to imagine a similar conversation unfolding today between a US delegation and Xi, partly because China is far more powerful and Washington is far more openly hostile to Beijing’s domestic repression and global ambitions.   Bush has been accused of appeasement. Some historians have argued that his obsequiousness to Deng encouraged China’s decision to develop as a hostile, nationalist power that in many ways defines itself through its defiance of the United States. But others suggest that Bush was correct to try to avoid the kind of superpower standoff that has since developed and that makes Biden’s decisions today considerably more fraught.   In the end, Bush came down in favor of a hard-nosed judgment of US national interests over ideals. Biden would be likely to show far less deference to Beijing given today’s broad, bipartisan anti-China feeling in Washington. But with China now a strong military power threatening Taiwan and increasingly keen to confront Washington, it’s hard to imagine he would ultimately take a different course of action.

A statue called The Goddess of Democracy on May 20, 1989 in Tiananmen Square. The statue was modeled after the Statue of Liberty.

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Putin, na conferência de Munique de 2007: não se pode dizer que ele não avisou o que iria fazer - CNN

CNN Meanwhile in America., February 16, 2022 

'A less complex time'?

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech on February 9, 2007, in Munich during the 43rd Conference on Security Policy.

European leaders, US Vice President Kamala Harris and lawmakers flock to the Munich Security Conference this week, which will serve as a rallying point as the West faces its sternest test in decades. 

Attendees trying to get in President Vladimir Putin’s head as he holds Ukraine hostage might want to remember what happened at the same venue 15 years ago. The Russian leader shook the world with a savage critique of “unipolar” US power and accused Washington, then mired in its post-9/11 wars, of an “almost uncontained hyper use of force.” 

 

Putin also lashed out at NATO expansion to include ex-Soviet satellite states, which he saw as a serious provocation. “We have the right to ask: Against whom is this expansion intended,” he said, and protested that the former Soviet Union had allowed walls and divides to tumble but that NATO’s march eastward had erected new ones. Then-US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a former top intelligence official, quipped: “As an old Cold Warrior, one of yesterday's speeches almost filled me with nostalgia for a less complex time. Almost.” 

For those who recall his Munich tirade, none of Putin’s hard, hostile turn against the United States, his incursion into Georgia, the annexation of Crimea, interventions in US elections and current thuggery toward Ukraine are a surprise. That speech also contains clues for what happens next. 

 

Putin has already shown he’ll never allow Ukraine to join the Western club even if he doesn’t invade. He can turn up the heat again anytime he thinks Russia’s demands for recognition and a say in Europe's security architecture are being ignored. The idea that the US can just look past Russia and get on with its new clash with China has been shattered in the last few weeks.

 

While the crisis may cool, allowing Americans to get back to tearing their own democracy apart, it's not going away. Putin will be a constant headache. The US might think the Cold War ended 30 years ago. But the Russian leader is still waging something very much like it because it is a way to demand respect for his country’s power, status and goals.

“Now they are trying to impose new dividing lines and walls on us,” Putin said of NATO during his 2007 speech in Munich. “Is it possible that we will once again require many years and decades, as well as several generations of politicians, to dissemble and dismantle these new walls?”