What Actually Mattered This Week: America’s Promise to Ukraine, January 6 Fallout

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WHAT ACTUALLY MATTERED THIS WEEK

Some quick thoughts on this week’s biggest news stories:

US sending $1 billion more military aid to outgunned Ukraine

The Ukrainian military is increasingly arguing in public they need more artillery faster or they’ll lose the war.

The level of military and humanitarian aid the country is receiving presently is close to or at the high-water mark.

Which means next year they’ll have to make do with radically less.

Former engineer claims Google’s chatbot AI is sentient

I’m agnostic on whether artificial intelligence can ever achieve consciousness.

But the idea that it’s already been built is ludicrous.

Germans told to conserve energy as Russia cuts gas flows to Europe

Europe’s energy woes won’t be letting up anytime soon.

There was no good reason to expect Putin to wait around for the Germans to stop buying Russian gas on Scholz’s timeline.

TRUTHS, DAMNED TRUTHS, AND STATISTICS

% of American journalists who say they should separate their views from what they report on: 82%

% who say they are actually able to: 55%

-Pew

DIG DEEPER WITH MY BULLETIN

Where I make sense of global affairs with whatever I decide is honest & fair analysis.

Opinion: January 6 failed but the threat to U.S. democracy is far from over

The January 6 hearings are a stark reminder of how divided & dysfunctional the U.S. political system has become.

The event shattered democratic norms, fueled tribalism, deepened our crisis of truth, normalized political violence, delegitimized our system of governance, and pushed us closer to democratic failure than we’ve been since the constitutional crisis of 1876.

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THE GZERO WORLD WE’RE JUST LIVING IN

GRAPHIC TRUTH

YOUR GZERO WORLD

In recent years, part of the pushback against globalization has been led by autocrats who reject things like free trade and the liberal international order.

For them, globalization means losing control, which they don't like one bit. But the world today remains more interconnected than ever, particularly in cyberspace. So, do they want less globalization, or rather a version that fits their narrative?

On?GZERO World, I speak to Gideon Rachman, the chief foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times who knows a thing or two about Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Donald Trump, and has just written a book about strongmen.

Rachman explains why resentment at minorities motivates both autocrats and their supporters, why strongmen use emotions to justify their nationalism and protectionism, and why Narendra Modi is the least bad of them right now.

For a longer, wider-ranging version of my interview with Rachman check out the?GZERO World podcast.

WORLD IN 60 SECONDS

What does Biden hope to come from his trip to Saudi Arabia?

Is the bear market in the United States a prelude to a recession?

Will China's return to mass testing help combat China's COVID problem?

Find out in this week’s World in 60 Seconds!

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BECAUSE THE INTERNET

Putin: the boy who cried Nazi

WHAT TO READ THIS WEEK

In Isolation: Dispatches from Occupied Donbas

Part oral history, part sociological analysis, Aseyev’s In Isolation artfully chronicles life in the Russian-occupied Donbas between 2015 and 2017. The Donetsk native collects first-hand testimonies to understand the insidious effects of Russian propaganda on the local residents and expose the human and psychic toll of life under separatist rule. A monument to suffering and resilience in wartime, the book provides a window into the banal violence of occupation and stands as an ominous warning of what awaits southern and eastern Ukraine should Russia’s latest war of aggression succeed.

DEEP THOUGHTS

“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” – Jimmy Dean

Thanks for reading!?Please subscribe to Signal?for daily coverage from GZERO Media and my?Bulletin?for weekly deep dives from yours truly. And make sure to read my new book?The Power of Crisis?for a roadmap of this decade's great crises and how they might help us build a better world.

I am president of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media and foreign affairs columnist at TIME. I currently teach at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and previously was a professor at New York University. You can follow me on?Twitter,?Facebook, and?Instagram.