| | | | Fareed: History Is Not a Hollywood Movie | | Sunday is the 100th anniversary of the end of the World War I, an event that profoundly shaped the course of history and whose "most significant intellectual legacy was the end of the idea of inevitable progress," Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column.
"In 1914, before the war began, people had lived through a world much like ours, defined by heady economic growth, technological revolutions and increasing globalization. The result was that it was widely believed that ugly trend lines, when they appeared, were temporary, to be overwhelmed by the onward march of progress," Fareed notes. Then, "a generation of Europeans was destroyed in the carnage of war."
Some leaders have recognized the danger. French President Emmanuel Macron has "organized a Paris Peace Forum of more than 60 world leaders, set to begin this Sunday, to try to combat the dangers of rising nationalism and eroding global cooperation."
After all, "things are not simply going to work themselves out while we watch. History is not a Hollywood movie." - Tune into GPS this Sunday for Fareed's exclusive interview with Macron about the legacy of World War I, the future of Europe and much more. 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET on CNN.
| | Trump: Macron's Idea Is "Very Insulting" | | President Trump was just landing in France for this weekend's World War I commemorations when he took a jab at his host, President Macron. Earlier this week, Macron said the continent needed a "real European army" in order to "protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America." Trump tweeted that he found the idea "very insulting" and called on European countries to "pay [their] fair share of NATO, which the U.S. subsidizes greatly!"
Trump isn't the only one to criticize Macron's idea. The Economist editorializes that Macron's "loose talk of a Euro-army is confused, quixotic—and reckless at a time of growing transatlantic uncertainty."
"The danger is that little new fighting strength will be created, giving America yet more reasons to feel exasperated with its allies," The Economist says. "The only effective European 'army'—or armies—are forces that plug firmly into NATO. Anything else would be good only for ceremonial parades, not real wars." | | Be the Global Briefing Editor! | | | Hello loyal newsletter readers, Fareed here. Are you (or is somebody you know) eager? Ambitious? Do you have a passion for foreign policy? Are you a great reader of all things international? Can you write and edit well? If you answered "yes" to all of the above, please apply to be the next editor of this newsletter. | | Will the Left Go Too Far? | | After Tuesday's midterm elections, the prospects are brightening for Democrats to retake control of Congress and the White House in 2020.
But, Peter Beinart writes in The Atlantic, as the party drifts left and the "Democrats pursue their newly ambitious agenda, an unstoppable force will confront an immovable object." Republicans who hang on to their Senate seats will likely be "deeply conservative legislators," armed with the power of the filibuster and aided by "the most conservative Supreme Court since the 1930s."
To accomplish their agenda, Beinart suggests, Democrats may resort to extreme measures like abolishing the filibuster and adding new justices to the Supreme Court, spurred by "the growing influence that activists now enjoy within the party." And a Democratic president may exercise less restraint after seeing Trump "plowing through so many procedural guardrails."
The Democrats must be careful. A "lesson of the 1930s and the 1960s" -- previous eras when the party took a hard left turn -- "is that threatening entrenched norms and disrupting public order... can eventually provoke a fierce backlash."
| | Taiwan's Digital Democracy | | Digital tools like social media are blamed for the toxic polarization plaguing much of the West today. But in the East, Taiwan is demonstrating how the Internet can actually bolster democracy, says Pamela Kennedy in The National Interest.
After "the Sunflower Movement in 2014, in which student protesters occupied the legislative [building] over dissatisfaction with the lack of transparency," the government decided to "create the vTaiwan public platform for discussing domestic policy issues," Kennedy writes. "Citizens can use vTaiwan, which is publicly-funded and open-source, to submit opinions on policy issues in a collaborative process designed to generate a final consensus for the government to consider for legislation."
"The Taiwanese have demonstrated that a democracy under assail can strengthen itself with engaged, creative citizens." | | | | | | |
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