Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Jason Miks.

January 10, 2018

Think This Flu Season Is Bad? Just Wait.

The growing influenza activity across North America this winter certainly feels bad — especially to those that have been hit by it. But it's nothing compared with the "flu pandemic that is almost certainly on the horizon if we don't dedicate energy and resources to a universal vaccine," write Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker in The New York Times.

"Influenza pandemics occur when a novel animal flu virus acquires the ability to infect humans and they, in turn, transmit it to other humans. The 1918-19 Spanish flu epidemic (which despite the name may have originated in the American Midwest) killed 50 million to 100 million around the globe. Accounts at the time described people falling ill in the morning and dying that night.

"Given the century of medical progress since then, one might conclude that we are far better prepared today to deal with such a worldwide catastrophe. Unfortunately, the opposite is true.

"The world has about four times the number of inhabitants it did in 1918, including hundreds of millions of people, poultry and pigs living close together. This provides a potent biologic mixing bowl and natural influenza virus mutation factory. What's more, nearly any point on the planet is accessible to any other point within hours, and there are more than a billion international border crossings each year. The virus will spread rapidly."

Why the US Military Is the Best Hope for Climate Change Action

The Trump administration might not be treating the climate change threat with the seriousness it deserves. But its decision to drop the issue from the latest National Security Strategy's list of chief threats to the United States is far from the end of the argument, suggests Anatol Lieven in Foreign Policy. It's time for the US military to make its voice heard.

"[T]he sheer scale of the threat to the security of the country means that the US military has an institutional and patriotic duty to instruct Americans concerning this threat, just as it has influenced them in the past on other threats falling within the military's sphere of competence," Lieven writes.

"Two wider issues are involved here. The first is that as an institution that depends on science for its weapons and intelligence systems, the US defense establishment not only has a keen understanding of its importance, but can remind the American public of the vital urgency of reckoning with scientific fact.

"The second relates to the role of patriotism and nationalism in America. At present, climate change has been turned — quite unnecessarily — into an issue that divides Americans rather than unites them. Nationalism is the only force in the United States and elsewhere that can motivate the masses to make sacrifices in the struggle against climate change not on behalf of abstract ideas of planetary responsibility but on behalf of a commitment to the future of their countries."

There's more to understanding climate change than stepping outside. Fareed explained on Sunday's "What in the World?" segment why Americans shouldn't be fooled by those pointing to a frigid spell across much of the country as evidence that the world isn't getting warmer.

"Global Warming is real. NASA shows us that 16 of the 17 warmest years in the 136-year old record have all occurred since 2001 with one exception, 1998. And even as we are freezing here, a lot of other places in the world are recording warmer-than-normal temperatures." Watch the full segment here.

Why the Outlook Is Cloudy for Sunshine Policy 2.0

South Korean President Kim Dae-jung got what he wanted in securing North Korea's participation in next month's Winter Olympics as well as further military talks. But Sunshine Policy 2.0 this won't be, the Wall Street Journal editorializes.

"North Korea may hope the South will continue talks after the Olympics and break ranks with the US Stricter United Nations sanctions are now coming into force, cutting the flow of fuel imports and preventing North Korea from earning hard currency with exports. That makes the prospect of a reconciliation with South Korea especially appealing.

"But even if Mr. Moon wants to help the North, he faces greater constraints than his predecessors. The sanctions restrict his ability to offer monetary aid, and the heightened tension on the Korean Peninsula as a result of the North's dash to become a nuclear-weapons state has increased the South's dependence on the U.S. security umbrella."

Don't get too excited they're talking. With his nuclear program at or near completion…[Kim Jong Un] comes to the table with the strongest possible hand," writes Ben Forney for NPR.

"[W]hile these talks may temporarily reduce tensions on the peninsula, they do not herald any meaningful change of the status quo. Negotiations on North Korea's terms were not likely to focus on the existence of their nuclear weapons, but on how much support Pyongyang could extract from Seoul," Forney says.
"Specifically, the North will have used token gestures of reconciliation to co-opt the Moon administration into helping his regime ease the burden of international sanctions. These gestures might include further high-level talks, a summit between Kim and Moon or a freeze on Pyongyang's nuclear testing."

Team Trump Is All Wrong About Green Card Holder Threat

President Trump may have "appeared to contradict himself multiple times in a meeting on immigration with a bipartisan group of lawmakers Tuesday," CNN reports. But Alex Nowrasteh writes for Newsweek that his administration has been clear in suggesting the number of family-sponsored immigrants on green cards poses a security risk. The problem? The numbers show no such thing.

"The odds of dying in a terrorist attack committed by an immigrant who entered on a green card during that time are about one in 723 million per year. This number even exaggerates the danger to American citizens and legal immigrants. If you do not include the deaths of the six out of eight people murdered by Saipov on Halloween who were Argentinian tourists, the danger to American citizens decreases even further, to about one in 1.2 billion a year," Nowrasteh argues.

"That miniscule probability merits a comparison to far-more routine dangers. About 800,000 people were murdered in nonterror homicides during the 43-year period I studied. That means your annual chance of dying in a normal homicide is about one in 14,000 a year—about 50,000 to 80,000 times more likely than being killed in a terror attack committed by a green card recipient."

It's not just Trump. Emmanuel Macron praised German Chancellor Angela Merkel's refugee policy when he was a candidate for France's presidency. But a new immigration bill suggests that his administration is starting to pull the welcome mat in, The Economist says.

"In 2017 a record 100,000 people asked for asylum in France. Although this was only half the number that applied in Germany, it marked a jump of 17% on the previous year. Many migrants used to shun France, preferring Germany or Sweden; they often passed through France only to reach Britain…Now the mood has shifted. A surge of applicants, led by Albanians, Afghans, Haitians and Sudanese, is putting fresh pressure on the processing system—and on the unity of President Emmanuel Macron's governing party," The Economist says.

Critics condemn the bill "as authoritarian and illiberal. One measure under consideration, for instance, would reduce from a month to 15 days the deadline for lodging an appeal against a refusal of asylum. Another would increase the maximum period of detention for illegal immigrants from 45 days to 90. In December, refugee charities were outraged when the government ordered a census of migrants in emergency reception centers."

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