EU, Latin America, and the Caribbean Summit, U.S. Defense Spending Conflicts, Women’s World Cup Down Under, and More

MCMAHON:
In the coming week, the EU hosts a summit with Caribbean and Latin America leaders, congressional battles over defense spending intensify, and the Women's World Cup kicks off in New Zealand and Australia. It's July 13th, 2023 in time for The World Next Week. I'm Bob McMahon.

ROBBINS:
And I'm Carla Anne Robbins. So Bob, hope you had a lovely fourth and got a chance to do some reading and lolling in your hammock.

MCMAHON:
Thank you. Likewise, Carla.

ROBBINS:
Actually, we went to see movies and we saw Asteroid City, which was great. So if you haven't seen it, I really recommend it. So let's start next week in Brussels and not in Arizona where leaders from the EU and from the community of Latin American, Caribbean states are going to hold their third annual summit. The U.S. has really been accused of neglecting the region and especially while China and even Iran are pushing to increase their presence. Does Europe have a serious plan for the region that we should be watching and is it coordinating with the U.S. about this or is it competing with us?

MCMAHON:
Neglect is an important word and I think that's something that Europeans have been concerned about it as it goes with this region because this particular summit was supposed to take place every two years and it's been on hiatus for eight years. So it's basically the re-recognition of a large important chunk of the world that there had been some momentum on, partly because of a major trade deal, the Mercosur-EU trade deal, and Mercosur is only four countries from the region: Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. But it was a significant deal that's been percolating for now a quarter of a century. It's not clear that that's going to go ahead, but that's certainly among the things that are on the table and that'll be in the corridors being discussed as this meeting gets underway. 

As it pertains to EU and U.S. coordination, not really clear on that. Other than that, in the past there had been common cause on trying to bolster the democratization of the region. That seems to have fallen by the boards a bit. I do think though there is an interest, a common U.S., EU interest in getting these countries to be both reform-minded and supporting democracy.

And so there's a whole bunch of cross-cutting issues that are very interesting in this summit, Carla, that certainly U.S. officials keeping an eye on, one of them is Ukraine of all places. It's I guess important that the summit is taking place in this case in Brussels on the continent of Europe, which has been very much focused on Ukraine. A number of these leaders have just come from the NATO summit in Vilnius where there was a great deal of support for Ukraine of setting out game plans for everything short of a NATO membership timeline to support Ukraine and its ongoing struggle against Russia's aggression and Russia's ongoing attacks on all sorts of places in Ukraine, and concern about how long that's going to continue. So I think there was this big sense that there was common cause in the transatlantic alliance in supporting Ukraine and supporting a defense strategy to deter Russian aggression.

The countries in the CELAC region don't see things in quite the same way, starting with the returned President of Brazil Lula, who has been pretty straightforward in saying, "Well, there's blame to go on multiple sides." I'm paraphrasing here, but he's basically made some comments that have rankled Western leaders and have sought to sort of stake out an independent position for Brazil in not trying to be pointing the finger at Russia or joining in sanctions and so forth. And a number of leaders in the region feel the same way I think there's at last report, I believe the CELAC countries had continued to request that all mentions of Ukraine and Russia's war in Ukraine be removed from the summit draft declaration. I believe President Zelensky an invitation to attend was dropped after pushback from Latin American leaders and Zelensky has been at almost every summit we can think of in the past six months, certainly.

ROBBINS:
He may still show up, knowing Zelensky.

MCMAHON:
I would not rule that out actually, whether it's a virtual big screen appearance or whatever, I would not rule that out. We have seen that happen in too many cases, you're right. But again, there's still opportunity for common cause. Let's note that the rotating EU presidency is with Spain this month. Spain has a outsized interest and importance in this CELAC region as a former colonial power, but also an ongoing connection there. The EU Foreign Policy Chief, Josep Borrell is a Spaniard. He is been active in the region already. One of the subplots of the summit is whether or not you're going to see a high level representation from the three rogues in the region, and by that I mean Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. EU has maintained lines of communication with all three, but has not ruled out trying to chastise them over their human rights record, the backsliding on democracy and so forth. So that's another subplot.

And there are also questions about what sort of agreement outside of an Mercosur, any sort of momentum on Mercosur finalizing that deal, whether there's going to be some new renewed commitment, if not formal commitment to ramping up trade with the region. It's newly important because of its incredibly rich commodities, especially those commodities that help in things like creating electric vehicles and things. And it's not escaped the EUs notice that China has become a crucial, very big trade partner with the region and the EU would like to have a piece of the action as well.

ROBBINS:
So that's just a normal sort of economic competition.

MCMAHON:
Mm-hmm.

ROBBINS:
Do you think there's going to be any sort of conversation about China's security presence? Just a few weeks ago we were talking about Chinese listening into the United States from Cuba. We know that the Chinese have this satellite monitoring station in Argentina, and we also know that there's been all this talk about Iranian presence in Latin America. Is there going to be a security component to this dialogue?

MCMAHON:
That is, I think one of the more intriguing storylines that I have not seen much on in the setup coverage to this. For the reasons you mentioned, it's obviously extremely important, especially the most recent reports we've had coming out of Cuba in terms of China's role and China's seeming intention to sort of counter U.S. influence in Taiwan by having its own maybe growing interest in Cuba, we'll have to see whether that's overwrought or whether that's a real thing. But certainly as you say that piggybacking on economic ties, it stands to reason that China would strengthen its role in other areas.

So not quite clear, certainly as we talked about previously in the podcast, Lula's second big trip I believe after returning to office this year, was to China with a very large delegation. Doesn't mean that he's playing into Chinese hands in terms of working with them or in any way allowing them to have some security inroads, but it still raises concerns he's got connections with China through the BRICS organization, they're going to have a big meeting next month. And so I think it's just one of those issues to see whether the Europeans raise it and open conversation or not.

ROBBINS:
I sort of wonder, are we getting why so many countries in the, I don't know what terms we use, Global South, developing world, are still fence sitting on Ukraine or should we be doing more to really push them? I mean, is the EU enabling them by allowing them to disinvite Zelensky, allowing them to leave out all mention of Ukraine from the final declaration? I mean the EU has quite a lot to offer Latin America in terms of market and a potential amount of leverage. And it seems a little bit like they're enabling them by allowing them to do this.

MCMAHON:
It's tough because when you talk about them as the Global South, yes, it's a useful way of referring to that group of countries, which is a vastly wide-ranging group, but it's very complicated when you actually see what these countries are, whether it's South Africa or a Southeast Asian country or the Latin American countries. The Latin American countries are not a block, there will be a sort of a sense of their view on Ukraine clashing with Europeans, but they're very different and they have their own idiosyncrasies and areas of contestation. It's been pointed out for example, that the three countries in the region that are in the G20, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, never align on virtually anything, whether it's in the G20 or elsewhere. They don't tend to make common cause on a lot of these things. So I say that to say it's not clear whether there's a single message that can be delivered to woo them all or whether there's just a lot of patient individual work that needs to go on to try to keep them more interested in what's going on.

It is worth saying that Brazil's a leading country and an influential country in the region and I think sets the tone and some of these issues. And so Lula's willingness to sort of dismiss concerns about Venezuela at a recent regional summit for example, drew a lot of eyebrows, but I think it's partly a resentment of finger wagging at what these countries should do. There is a great deal of defensiveness about that, even in the case of Brazil, sort of how it's going to set aside its rainforest to block off development and to create greater controls there. 

Lula has brought in much stricter controls on rainforest development. There are signs that he's really reversed some of the problems under Bolsonaro, but there's still a common sense of resentment that we had from Bolsonaro and under Lula that, "Let's be careful about telling us what to do with our own sovereignty." So I say that to say they don't like being lectured by the West, which they see as having taken advantage of them. But by the same token, I think you're right, there is with some patient diplomacy, there is an opportunity for EU countries and it's important that this summit is back on track that they can use this to sort of say, "Look, we do have commonalities and common values and let's try to create those bridges."

ROBBINS:
Yeah, I can understand why they don't want finger wagging. I'm just not really sure. I want to be in Putin's camp.

MCMAHON:
Carla, there's also contention in the air in Washington. Surprise, surprise, in the coming days, the House of Representatives is set to vote on the highly contentious National Defense Authorization Act that is an $886.3 billion act. Several Republican lawmakers have filed amendments to curtail Pentagon policies they see as being going too far on diversity and inclusion, abortion and climate change to name a few issues. Are these issues going to get sorted out in time for there to be movement or are we looking at some sort of stalemate that's going to become a real problem?

ROBBINS:
So Bob, Congress loves its cram sessions and the House and Senate just got back from its July Fourth recess and they have only nine legislative days left to pass a whole raft of bills before the start of their long August recess. So they not just like their cram sessions, they really do like their vacations. So the bill, let's get the most attention right now, is this NDAA, and this is not the legislation that funds the DOD, it's not an appropriation, it's the one that sets policies. But Congress has passed an NDAA every year for the last six decades, and it's always had bipartisan support, but this year it's gotten caught up in the house's culture wars, and questions about whether Kevin McCarthy can control the MAGA wing of his party.

So what's in the actual bill? $840 billion of that is for the DOD. The rest of that money is for the nuclear complex. So we're going to nerd out here on the money for a bit. There's a 5.2 percent pay increase next year for service members. This is the highest military pay raise since 2002, and that really matters for service members. There's more money to build up U.S. military forces in the Pacific, you know our game with the Chinese, there's increased investment for advanced technology including hypersonics, AI, cyber, precision missiles. So there's $300 million in military aid for Ukraine, which sounds like a comparatively small amount of money when you look at all we've been giving them, but there's high symbolism attached to that and this bill that made it through both the Senate and House committees really easily, but the real drama has been around these amendments in the house.

It's incredible, more than 1,500 of them were filed, many of them by the MAGA wing of the party. What they're saying is to exorcise so-called "wokeness" from the U.S. military, and there are dozens of these that are already scheduled for votes. One amendment particularly popular with more than sixty co-sponsors would overturn a Pentagon policy that was adopted after the overturn of Roe that provides time off and travel expenses to any service member that needs to go out of state for abortion services. Other amendments would defund diversity training, deny or limit healthcare for transgender service members, bar research and development money for projects involving electric vehicles or batteries, bar the Pentagon from using green materials and building, block the removal of Confederate names from military bases, and Republicans also submitted nearly twenty amendments to reduce or eliminate U.S. funding to Ukraine and to NATO. So McCarthy's agreed to let dozens of these amendments be put to a vote and we'll see how many of them pass. So that's what's going on in the House. 

The Senate, remember there are two chambers could move next week on a much cleaner bill, and then they'll have to go to conference to reconcile their two versions and send the final bill back once again to each chamber for a vote. And while McCarthy doesn't need the Democrats in theory to get through, he has a very, very slim majority. He decided with these amendments that he was going to go with MAGA to get it through. We'll see if he gets it through that way, but he's going to need Democratic votes for the final bill, because any compromise bill is not going to get his far right to pass it. And so he's once again in a really tough position having to choose between mollifying his far right and proving he's in charge. And it's going to be pretty devastating if for the first time in sixty-two years the house can't deliver a defense authorization, not because of disagreements over defense policy, but because of posturing on culture wars.

MCMAHON:
Yeah, we're again seeing this culture war issue playing out in unprecedented ways and you're right, it's a real test for McCarthy's leadership. He seemed to be facing intractable set of issues going into the final days of the debt ceiling standoff, and yet was able to work out something which wasn't great, but it created a big sigh in all sorts of sort of analysis that look at McCarthy's ability to negotiate and navigate and so forth. Do we think he's got the ability to do that again? And what happens if we find this getting mired in weeks of acrimony?

ROBBINS:
The thing about authorization bills is that in the end of the day, as long as the appropriators pass the money, the money goes through, government doesn't get shut down If there isn't an authorizing bill and Bob, you know that for decades there wasn't an authorizing bill for the State Department, but it's not a good way to make policy because you're not supposed to make policy on appropriations. And the system is set up that in which you're supposed to have a serious debate over policy, and that's supposed to take place in the authorizing bills. But the symbolism of it is pretty significant. It's pretty significant for McCarthy's leadership and it's pretty significant for the way we make policy. 

And the world is certainly not watching on whether or not we're barring money for research and development on EVs, but the world is going to be watching if these amendments pass and the bill gets snarled and not passed over the question of cutting off funding for Ukraine. We're talking about NATO and about this summit, there were very serious commitments made to Zelensky and Ukraine, yes, "We're not going to give you an immediate path to membership in NATO," and we can talk about whether or not that was the right decision, but we are going to make a very serious long range commitment. President Biden was talking comparing this to the commitment we've made for decades to Israel, and that includes a huge amount of money over a very long period of time, consistent funding and if a bill like this goes down in part because of amendments, and there were a lot of them, to cut off funding or restrict funding to Ukraine. That sends a very bad signal, not just to Ukraine, but a very bad signal to our allies and a very bad signal to our adversaries around the world. So a lot of people are going to be looking, it's not going to paralyze the Defense Department if the authorizing bill doesn't get through the House, but it sends a very bad signal and in good part for the Ukraine funding and for our inability to come up in the midst of these polarizing times with serious policy.

MCMAHON:
Do you think it also has an effect, Carla, or is it too soon to say on this issue that we're seeing more about, which is the recruitment of people to the U.S. military, that they're seeing these kinds of battles playing out and the military has drawn on a certain demographic for a while, but it has been interested in expanding its demographic base, do you see that as an issue or is that connection not necessarily a straight one?

ROBBINS:
I think it's connected. I don't think that most people who were volunteering to join the force are spending a lot of time looking, nerding out, looking at the NDAA the way you and I do and the way a lot of our fabulous listeners do. But what does matter is among these amendments are lots of things that say, let's do away with any discussion of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Let's do away with any discussion of extremism. Let's do away with anything that creates a more inclusive force, that makes sure that we have a more inclusive force. 

Already in the version that made it through the House Armed Services Committee was doing away with the Chief Diversity Officer, making sure that quote-unquote "They don't teach critical race theory at the military academies". If you say that diversity is a bad word in the U.S. military, you're not going to have a more diverse force and we need to bring in people from lots of different walks of life to have more diverse ideas, to have a more effective force and just to have more people. And the army missed its recruitment targets by 20 percent last year, and that's not a good thing for us for a secure country and we need a more representative military force, you don't want to have a force that doesn't look like America. So saying that diversity is a bad thing and a lot of those amendments said that, is a bad thing for the country.

MCMAHON:
Yeah, we're certainly looking at a set of unprecedented challenges facing the U.S. military as well as just the direct challenge by Congress in ways, as you say, that haven't been seen in six decades. We hope this summer yields some more compromise.

ROBBINS:
Well, the thing is the Senate bill is going to be a much cleaner bill, but the Senate also has its own problems. And right now, a single senator, we've talked about this before, Tommy Tuberville from Alabama has been blocking the Senate Armed Services Committee from moving ahead on hundreds of military promotions and confirmations for generals and admirals because he too is demanding that the Pentagon drop this policy about providing travel support and time off for women who need to go out of state to get abortions. And just this past week, the commandant of the Marines stepped down and they don't have a confirmation for a new commandant. And I saw tweeted this photograph from the Pentagon when that quarter where the chief sit that has the photographs of all of the different chiefs up there and the one for the commandant of the Marines was empty and that's not a good look.

MCMAHON:
No, it's not. And there has been repeated commentary from very senior military officials that this is already having impact on morale down the line on military families and all who you can imagine would be affected by the inability to get so many crucial positions filled. So again, unprecedented place we're in right now.

ROBBINS:
So Bob G'day.

MCMAHON:
G'day.

ROBBINS:
Let's go down under, throw some shrimp on the barbie. I'm going to come up with every cliché I could possibly come up with. Next Thursday kicks off the FIFA Women's World Cup and we all know that women play much better soccer than men. Australia and New Zealand are co-hosting with several countries making their debut and after all the really grim news surrounding last year's Men's World Cup and Qatar, especially the abuse of migrant workers to build the stadiums and the banning of armband celebrating LGBTQ rights, will these games be a lot more upbeat and anchored in the twenty-first century? We certainly know that American women are going to be stars.

MCMAHON:
Well, a few things. First, it's hard to imagine that we had sort of just wrapped up the Men's World Cup back in December, which wasn't that long ago, but it seems like a distant planet and it was for all its controversy and there and there was a lot and there was a big fog hanging over the event when it happened, it ended up absolutely thrilling. It's worth just repeating, the France vs Argentina final was just incredible. It's great soccer. It's why people go nuts for soccer. 

And the good news about the Australian, New Zealand version of this for the Women's World Cup is that it seems like we're going to be looking at another set of really exciting events, both in terms of an expanded pool of countries going from twenty-four to thirty-two, but also while the U.S. has dominated this event won the last two, won four of the last eight, there are a lot of up and coming countries now that can give a serious run at this and the U.S. needs to look out. U.S. has also had some key players that are out for this tournament.

So we're going to be looking at a very interesting event. Looks like there's going to be more interest than ever in sort of global audience. It's got to be according to one report of the largest and most attended standalone women's sporting events in history, more than a million tickets already have been sold. I watched a good bit of the last two World Cups, not only because the U.S. was doing well, but I found myself just enthralled the skill level. Just the down to the wire aspect of so many of those games was just great. And also just getting insight into all these different teams. I mean, one of the eight teams that are competing for the first time is Haiti, the fact that Haiti could put together a team. There's also the first team from the Arab world to play at the Women's World Cup from Morocco. You've got the Republic of Ireland, Vietnam, Zambia, joining the other powerhouses from Europe and Asia as well. 

There are some great individuals to watch for both on the U.S. side, one of the great new stars is Trinity Rodman, but also it's going to be the last bow for Megan Rapinoe who's been just one of the great stars of the U.S. team; Alex Morgan, another veteran, is going to be playing; Brazil's Marta, who's thirty-seven years old, might be her last big tournament; Germany's Lena Oberdorf is  superstar; Alexia Putellas of Spain might be the single most skilled player in the world on the women's side. So just, I'm really looking forward to sort of some of the new stories that come out of these big events.

I'm also, you might be a defense budget nerd. I'm a global sports nerd. I really geek out on the Olympics and on these big global spectacles, and I'm just looking forward to that. I should also add back to your original question, I'll just quote the headline of a intro piece from Sports Illustrated, which is that looking at the efforts that Australia and New Zealand are making to be more progressive and inclusive countries in hosting these events, that's titled "Down Under and Right-Side Up." And so you're going to see things like at every sporting venue, the names and directions and so forth in both English and in the indigenous languages. In the case of New Zealand, would be Maori. In the case of Australia, I think it's First Nations... And just a great deal of attention to representation.

And also the fact that you have a sport in which women have been making greater strides towards pay, towards resources and which is also added to the size of the tournament, to the number of women who can play and can support themselves as soccer players. I think it's going to be in some ways a bit of a opposite reflection of the Qatar games, though again, not dismissing when those games got underway, there was some thrilling soccer that was played, but you don't have the situation of the kafala work arrangement that you had for Qatar as you mentioned, or the banning of pro-LGBTQ signs and armbands and so forth. So it's going to be a different kind of vibe going. I'm really looking forward, even though it's going to require late nights or very early mornings flipping on the TV because of the other side of the world aspect, I am looking forward to just seeing how this plays out and I think it's going to be a really tough road for the U.S. to go all the way.

ROBBINS:
And there will be beer.

MCMAHON:
Yes, I should have mentioned that, kind of buried that, there will be beer.

ROBBINS:
And I think that's fascinating, the notion that it's two countries.

MCMAHON:
Yes, and actually two countries that are not that close together, by the way. I mean one of the estimates of the range of cities that are hosting events is like 3,500 miles. So some athletes might have to be jetting for considerable length of time to get to some venues.

ROBBINS:
Lots to watch there. And you're not predicting that the U.S. is going to win. So we're going to have to revisit this. I'm not predicting whether or not the NDAA is going to pass Bob, so we'll have to see.

MCMAHON:
All sorts of odds taking we can do in the weeks ahead, Carla. 

Well, we've kicked our way into the audience figure of the week portion of the podcast. This is where listeners can vote every Tuesday and Wednesday at cfr_org's Instagram story. Carla, this week the audience selected, "Wagner Chief Meets with Putin." So the Wagner chief is Prigozhin. Is he still with us? Is he still alive?

ROBBINS:
Who knows? It feels like we're back in those deep dark days of the Cold War when Kremlinologist had to study pictures of who was standing on top of Lenin's tomb reviewing the troops to try to figure out who was still in power and who was languishing in Lefortovo prison or worse. As you know, right after the uprising, was it a mutiny attempted coup? Belarus's Lukashenko claimed Prigozhin and his man were going to settle on an old military base in Belarus. Then we heard that Prigozhin was supposedly still in Russia. And then we heard from the Kremlin that Prigozhin had even met with Putin a few days after the uprising. While all this news such as it is has dribbled out, no one has seen Prigozhin. 

And meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal is reporting today that even as Prigozhin was marching on Moscow, Putin's security services were rounding up several top military leaders with close ties to the Wagner chief, including his closest ally, general Sergei Surovikin, the former commander of forces in Ukraine. And the journal says that at least thirteen senior officers were held for questioning, some later were released and that some fifteen have been suspended or fired. And none of this is surprising because Putin is not a man who forgives or forgets, but all this roiling at the top of his military in the midst of a war that isn't going well does not seem like a sign of strength to me. So we don't know where Prigozhin is, and until we have eyes on him, we don't know whether he's even alive. But as I said, not a sign of strength for Putin, even though certainly not a sign of strength for Prigozhin.

MCMAHON:
And we've also seen recent reports about the Wagner group handing over weapons, which if true then defangs, at least at times, one of the more useful wings of Russian military projection, they were essentially, from reports I've seen, cannon fodder and the big battle for Bakhmut, which is still going on, but without Wagner to put into battle, without some of these more brutal generals because the ones who are seemingly being purged are among the more brutal ones that we know about in the Russian military. It does raise a question, what is the Russia's capability in Ukraine? What's going to happen on that front?

ROBBINS:
This is further intriguing. I mean, Putin would obviously have to clean up if there genuinely are people who were on Prigozhin's side in the midst of this uprising, but you just don't know how much of this is his paranoia. We know that he's incredibly cut off from the general public, from reality, whatever, I mean clearly miscalculated in the first place with this war and clearly is doing a very bad job of running the war, so he becomes more and more isolated and has to reach further and further down in the ranks as he cuts off from the generals. This is not going well for him, and he has to prove his strength and letting Prigozhin go off to Belarus made him look weak. So I hate to predict that anybody is not going to be with us on this planet, but he has to assert his power, but by asserting his power, I think he weakens his military force.

MCMAHON:
And you're right, and we've seen that the track record on these types of things before. And you're right, it doesn't look good for Prigozhin, but he's in a tough spot.

ROBBINS:
Well, if I were Prigozhin and if he is still walking this planet, as I said a few weeks ago, I would stay away from windows, not touch doorknobs, not drink a cup of tea, and hope that I can find a safe spot far away from Vladimir Putin.

MCMAHON:
Well, on that note, that is our look at The World Next Week. Here's some other stories to keep an eye on. The Central African Republic holds a referendum on removing term limits. The UK joins the trade deal known as CPTPP and Israel's President Isaac Herzog addresses a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress.

ROBBINS:
Please subscribe to The World Next Week on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and leave us a review while you're at it and say something nice, we appreciate the feedback. The publications mentioned in this episode, as well as a transcript of our conversation are listed on the podcast page for The World Next Week on CFR.org. Please note that opinions expressed on The World Next Week are solely those of the host not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. 

Today's program was produced by Ester Fang with Director of Podcasting Gabrielle Sierra. Special thanks to Sinet Adous and Jiwon Lim for their research assistance. Our theme music is provided by Miguel Herrero and licensed under Creative Commons. This is Carla Robbins saying so long and watch that soccer.

MCMAHON:
And this is Bob McMahon saying goodbye and go team U.S.A.