Winter Stalemate in Ukraine, Argentina’s Presidential Runoff, Turkey’s President visits Berlin, and More

MCMAHON:
In the coming week, Ukraine begins a second winter at war while U.S. lawmakers weigh whether to support the fight. Argentinians choose their president amidst spiraling inflation. And Turkey's President Erdogan visits Berlin. It's November 16th, 2023 and time for The World Next Week.

I am Bob McMahon.

ROBBINS:
And I'm Carla Anne Robbins.

MCMAHON:
Carla, let's start in Ukraine. It's been over a year and a half now since the February 2022 invasion by Russia and the conflict grinds on. Ukraine's counteroffensive momentum such as it was has stalled in the last five months. There's growing concern about a possible Russian bombing campaign stepping up just as the coldest months of winter roll in. At the same time, there's a whole lot of political maneuvering happening in the U.S. Congress where the future of U.S. military to Ukraine is uncertain. So in the bigger scheme of things here, what is it going to look like for Ukraine to break the stalemate or at least show some momentum?

ROBBINS:
Well, the Ukrainians are certainly worried about that. Zelenskyy just said that he doesn't want another frozen conflict. He certainly does know about frozen conflicts, he went through this with Crimea. It has been a very hard counteroffensive. It has truly stalled is the only word you can use for it or stalemate, which the Ukrainian head of the military has used that term just last week. They've advanced only seventeen kilometers since June and they're nowhere close to their goal of breaking that land bridge that links Crimea and Russia.

This is a really hard thing to do. They're fighting deeply dug in forces. It's very easy to drop mines, very hard to dig them out. Ukraine's commander in chief told The Economist, "Just like in the first World War, we've reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate." He said they need new technological weapons systems and innovative approaches to break out. So, what we think he's asking for are things like advanced drones for mine-breaching technology for new decoy systems to defeat Russian missiles. They need a lot more help and everybody loves a winner, and right now they're not losing, but they're not winning. War is hard, and this is a particularly hard one. 

Now, they've made some progress in the Black Sea using missiles and drones that have been supplied by us and by the Europeans. Earlier this month, the Ukrainians launched cruise missiles supplied by France against a Russian shipyard in Crimea and reportedly did serious damage to one of the newest ships in Russia's fleet. They've been able to resume merchant shipping from southern ports, so there's been a little bit of progress there. But this counteroffensive that everybody was waiting for really has gone almost nowhere, and it's hard to read at the same time what's going on with the Russians.

This expected winter bombing campaign hasn't started. Some positive, perhaps they're running short on missiles or maybe they're just waiting for it to get really cold to start it. Russians have a lot of people, they're still calling up a lot of people. The Ukrainians, there's a fear they're running low on manpower, so there's this real fear of a frozen conflict, and you add on top of this concern about whether the United States is going to come through on aid.

MCMAHON:
So Carla, just a few things to follow up there. One, and on the aid front, is there any sign that if the U.S. levels off or even just closes off or stalls aid for a while, do the Europeans step in? There have been some indications that they might be willing to do more on that front, but they're also dealing with their own set of domestic pushback and elections and so forth.

Then separately, the Ukrainian morale itself. You mentioned this term stalemate. It has always been said that the Ukrainians are the more motivated side in this war, and the Russians quickly, first of all, made it illegal to refer to it as a war domestically, and then started calling up everybody from prisoners to ethnic minorities to fill in the ranks and as other people fled the country. But it just seems like there's more happening here that we're just not aware of maybe on the Russian side.

ROBBINS:
So the Europeans are vowing that they'll do whatever it takes, which is what we've heard again and again from President Biden, and I don't doubt President Biden's commitment to it. Interestingly enough, I don't doubt the commitment of a majority of the United States Senate and probably a majority of the U.S. House. A big part of this has to do with parliamentary maneuvering and what happens on the Hill.

They passed finally we're not going to have a shutdown this weekend, but whether or not they can get this through the Rules Committee in the House, whether they can get past sixty. All the problems that we all know about what happens on Capitol Hill, that's really what's holding things up here in the United States. In Europe, the former prime minister and now foreign secretary of Britain is in Ukraine right now. He's vowing to do whatever it takes. You're hearing this from most European, but not all European countries. But they don't have the resources. They certainly don't have the military resources the way the United States does, they don't have the deep pockets of the U.S. to do things. We've got a lot more equipment and we are worrying about backing and filling our own resources. They need the United States to keep this going. 

I don't see right now a plan to get this money through. Interestingly enough, I also don't see a plan to get the money for Israel through. A lot of that has to do with this deep isolationist streak of the Republican Party, and a lot of it has to do with the dysfunction in Washington. This is really, really frightening, and when you hear Zelenskyy for the first time using this term frozen conflict, he's obviously very concerned, because this international attention has been shifted away because of what's happening in Gaza and because of the dysfunction in Washington.

MCMAHON:
Yeah, and that dysfunction, what we're seeing in reports is that it starts with some just deep divisions within the Republican House members themselves. They got this spending extension through, but at the cost of some increasing bitterness and just sort of altercations in the hallways, things you haven't heard before happening.

ROBBINS:
People elbowing each other in the hallways.

MCMAHON:
Yeah. Yeah, so that's not great news for the U.S. in its regular state of affairs, but certainly for allies in countries like Ukraine so dependent on the support. As you say, even Israeli aid where there's no real major challenge to it, and yet that's going to get caught up in this process as well.

I'm wondering if we get into the winter now, the Russians call it Ded Moroz, Father Frost, whether or not there's this leakiness of sanctions and fatigue that Putin's been counting on, he's going to be able to test that this winter or not, or whether we learn how deep the divisions in Russia are.

ROBBINS:
Well, it's a big difference between trying to run a war in a democracy and run a war in an autocracy, and he throws people in jail who criticize and complain. The war's not being fought on their soil and he's managed to keep a lid on it, although we've seen things like the Prigozhin and the problems that they've had there.

MCMAHON:
Right, right.

ROBBINS:
As you said, they called people up from far out and far away, but they're calling up a lot of people and it's got to have some reverberations. I think if you wanted to ask what Putin's strategy is, Putin's waiting for Trump to win the election. He is holding on, and I think the frightening thing about that strategy is that he may not have to hold on even that long to the U.S. election. If that money doesn't come through from the Congress, I think that Ukraine is going to be in a whole world of trouble.

MCMAHON:
Again, Trump is clearly leading the field of GOP candidates for president. He's made no secret that he would take a different tack on the Ukraine, Russia war. He says he could end it right away, he's not in favor of supporting the Ukrainian side the way the U.S. has been. There are many members of the Republican Party who are swayed by that, even those who support Ukraine. As you say, it's a waiting game that appears to be playing out right now.

ROBBINS:
Yeah, and you can see shifts. I mean, you saw Slovakia was a huge supporter of Ukraine and then they have a political shift and they want to cut off all aid. This impulse, "Well, let's spend the money at home," is not solely in the United States, but in a situation like this with Ukraine, when the Ukrainians say you're either going to fight them there or you're going to end up fighting them here, I think they are really the frontline in this pushback against Putin. And Americans got that. If we have a limited attention span, I think Zelenskyy gets us. I think he knows it and I think that's why he sounds so worried about it. I think he should be worried about it, I'm worried about it.

MCMAHON:
Just a final note on that front is not to dismiss the creativity and the resourcefulness of Ukrainians in terms of being able to fight asymmetrically and put up a resistance, even in the way that they've sort of run an end around the embargo of their grain. They're still getting grain out through other ways by hook and by crook that are avoiding some of the Russian bombardment. Much less than previous pre-war levels, but they've been able to maneuver that in creative ways. They've often said as Russia chews up more Ukrainian territory and absorbs the country, if it goes in that direction, it will then be swallowing a porcupine. So there's that whole aspect as well, but it's not a great position that they wanted to be in at this point in the war.

ROBBINS:
Zelenskyy, when he talked about the frozen conflict, he said, "Fight us, you'll fight our children, you'll fight our grandchildren." He's not giving up, but certainly they shouldn't have to do that fight.

So Bob, let's return to Argentina, which we've spoken about. Last month we discussed Argentina's first round of presidential elections. The results required a second runoff election and the center-left economy minister, Sergio Massa, a man who was handing out money with wild abandon, and the libertarian populist, Javier Milei, who of course seemed to be running against the pope and wants to shut down the central bank, and these two people are going to face off on Sunday. Massa came out in the lead after the first round, but with the economy is hitting an annual inflation now of 143 percent, is he going to win? Is Milei going to win? Does the pope have a dog in this fight?

MCMAHON:
Those are all great questions, Carla, especially the last one. If you look at the polls, which you always do first, they're showing basically dead heat if you take the cross section of polls. Milei is ahead in a couple of points in some, and he trails or is almost even with Massa in others. He looks to have secured the support of the person who pulled third in the first round, Patricia Bullrich, who's a center-right politician, after winning her over following some really critical, crude comments about her early in the previous part of the campaign. Milei is known for that. He's also known for being able to try to smooth things over with grandiose language. He is a phenomenon in this campaign and is being looked at closely if he does end up winning. 

The reason he has a very solid chance of winning is just this discussed over the things you mentioned, the state of the economy, 143 percent inflation. Remember how outraged Americans were when it hit 7 percent in June 2022, imagine having it 143, what that does to your savings, to your prospects, to your children's prospects. People are frustrated, they're outraged at the system that has brought them to this point. They had been outraged at the system that had been led by the Peronist movement, which is what Massa comes from, yet he's been able to parlay concerns and some of the longstanding support for the Peronist candidate on his side because of concerns about Milei.

So, we're going to have to see how this plays out. As we enter into this final weekend of campaigning, we're seeing some telltale signs that we've seen in the past from populous candidates, and Milei in this case, fueling suspicions that there could be voter fraud if the vote doesn't go his way. We saw that in Brazil, we saw that here in the United States. Let's keep an eye on the comportment of the polling process in Argentina.

As we've said previously, through all of its economic travails, it has proven to be a resilient democracy, but its political governance is really, really challenged. Again, it's got these epic figures, huge amounts out to the IMF. It is looking at the prospect of a Milei presidency in which he would swap the peso for the U.S. dollar. A number of economic experts say it's just not feasible, others say, "Well, let's see what he's able to pull off, it may be a new territory economically." Argentina has also innovated in economic gamesmanship in the past to get through its debt travail, so we got a lot of new territory to look at ahead, even if Massa wins.

ROBBINS:
So we've heard this a lot, obviously President Trump questioned the legitimacy of the U.S. election long before it was held, we heard this in Brazil. It's more complicated in Argentina because of this weird way they do this, that the parties print their own ballot papers and then they have to send them to this oversight body to be distributed to polling stations. Milei's team has held back some of the ballot papers and they're going to distribute it themselves, and this seems like a recipe for disaster in terms of legitimacy of the election. Are we barreling towards some real crisis?

MCMAHON:
Well, that's the other new territory, 'cause again, we haven't seen this kind of crisis at the polls in Argentina and its other perils and its other challenges. They've had a very rambunctious political landscape there for many years now, and the Cristina Kirchner government was another case. They've also had their many bouts of corruption to deal with, and so it's not outside the bounds of possibility that we have some tampering that takes place with ballots and so forth.

I think we should be prepared for that. I think we should come in Monday prepared to deal with a new situation in Argentina, unless we have some clear figures. Let's say Milei wins outright by 4 percent, or Massa is out so far ahead that Milei decides he's not going to challenge it. Otherwise, if it's extremely, extremely close, that creates all sorts of openings for discovered votes or votes that were said to be disappeared, and then you have the country's institutions having to step up like they did in Brazil, by the way.

Brazilians among others are watching this very closely, they're concerned about the language coming out of Milei. The Lula government did prevail against Bolsonaro just a year ago and face their own sort of mini insurrection in their capital. So this is something that major democracies are looking at and confronting, and Argentina is no exception.

ROBBINS:
Just one final thing I think we should be watching here is the Chinese have been really interested in Argentina. They have this really intriguing project in the south of Argentina in which that's supposedly a satellite tracking station, which may or may not be a satellite tracking station and may have more nefarious military uses for it. Milei really, I mean, there's a lot of people he doesn't like, but he really doesn't like the Chinese. He's called China an assassin, and he's not going to make deals with communist China and all of that. So we'll see if he were to win the Chinese, whole Argentine paper, the Chinese like to spread money around, we'll see whether or not he changes his tune on this, but if he were to keep his word, he could be trying to oust the Chinese from a place that they've been quite comfortable for quite a while.

MCMAHON:
It's a really good point, Carla, because of, as you say, what Milei has said. He has basically said he won't make deals with communists in China or Brazil for that matter. He said he will not join the BRICS, which Argentina was invited to join the BRICS group, which China is a member of and is touting increasingly as an alternative to groups like the Group of Seven.

But also, one would imagine China would have to play some sort of supporting role in dealing with its debt problems. I mean, for example, our colleague Brad Setser's pointing out in an upcoming piece on CFR.org that the government currently in Argentina has had to make payments in Chinese yuan, the external currency, when possible, because the China's central bank has been willing to let Argentina make more use of what's known as a standing swap line to exchange pesos for yuan. China has helped Argentina make book in ways that other countries wouldn't be so inclined to. It's played an important role. Obviously there's leverage there as well, and China sees Argentina as this important foothold in the region, but also a source of resources and everything else, so there's a lot at stake in just that area alone.

Carla, let's bring it back to the European continent. Tomorrow Turkey's President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will arrive in Berlin to meet with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Now there's likely to be discussions on refugee flows, Turkey's resistance to Sweden's NATO bid, although that appears to be moving its way through. But the conversation looks to get most attention around the issue of Israel and the war in Gaza with Hamas. Erdogan himself has now referred to the Israeli campaign as "terrorism." Very strong words. Germans have been strong in their defense of Israel's right to defend itself. So, how productive will this meeting in Berlin be, you think?

ROBBINS:
This is sort of extraordinary. I mean, we weren't even sure it was going to go ahead, but Scholz decided to continue with it. Erdogan is a problematic NATO ally at the best of times. He's an autocrat in an alliance of democracies, he's been far too fond of Vladimir Putin and far too willing to buy technology for the Russians for someone whose security is guaranteed by an Article 5 NATO commitment. Remember we talked about this in September. He told the Associated Press that, "he trusts Russia as much as he trusts the West." So, this guy's part of the greatest military alliance in history...so he's a problematic ally.

The thing that's of course driving everybody crazy right now is the thing you quoted from him, is that he has described Hamas after October 7th as "liberators." He accused Israel of committing crimes against humanity in Gaza, and he described the Israeli government as practicing fascism and genocide, and on Wednesday this week, he reiterated that Israel's a terrorist state.

So this of course is a great deal of disagreement about this and a great deal of pain involved, we've talked about this extensively, about what was going on in Gaza, but this is obviously hugely out of step with what the Europeans believe, and certainly hugely out of step with what Scholz and his government believes. They are very strong supporters of Israel. Germany like the UN, the U.S., who designate Hamas as a terrorist group...Scholz was the first head of government to visit Israel after the October 7th attack, so this is something that they are not in the same place about.

Scholz in particular called the accusations against Israel as absurd, so how much they're going to publicly spar about this, I don't know. I think this is obviously going to have to be dealt with in public in some way. Erdogan is not a guy who likes to be disagreed with in public, so we'll see what it looks like there. But they have a lot of other things to talk about, and reportedly the people around Scholz weighed about whether or not to cancel and decided not to.

So, what do they have to talk about? This question about Sweden's bid to join NATO. It looked like Erdogan had made a commitment and he's finally submitted a bill recommending that Sweden be ratified as a NATO member, but his parliament hasn't acted on it yet, so that has got to be jollied ahead. Other issues expected to be discussed are migration. They of course famously had that migration deal. A huge, huge number of migrants are in Turkey, and I think the EU wants that to be always the backup state and they want to continue to move ahead with this. I think they want to have this as a back or potentially a new migration deal, and he's there for that.

They also see him as a crisis mediator. We remember the role that he played with the black seed grain deal. If there is a potential for the situation in the region spiraling out of control, it's really hard to imagine anybody who refers to Hamas as a liberator and calls Israel as a fascist state being able to be a mediator, but somehow he manages to straddle these lines, and so cultivating him perhaps for that is one of the other reasons why they're still talking to the guy.

Finally, Germany is home to the largest Turkish population outside of Turkey. With those millions of Turks inside of Germany, they have another reason. That's one of the reasons also why Erdogan will probably be not as in Scholz's face as he might be, because those Turks that live in Germany vote in Turkey, so there's a mutual interest there as well.

MCMAHON:
That last point is particularly a good one, Carla, and I think partly due to that and other recent developments, Germany carries a bit more credibility on migrant issues in Europe than other countries do. It absorbed I believe more than a million from the 2015 wave, many of them from Syria, and obviously Turkey itself is still hosting more than three million Syrians on its territory. So these are the important countries as it relates to migrant issues involving Europe, and that's going to be a really big deal. But again, it could even get overshadowed because of the passions running high over Israel and Gaza right now. So it is a consequential visit, I can see why it's taking place, but a lot of storylines to watch.

ROBBINS:
Well, I do think one of the reasons why I wanted to talk about this is that these divisions that exist, this is really a profound division among countries, among inside alliances, and its profound divisions inside of countries. You're seeing this in organizations, you're seeing this on college campuses, you're seeing the level of dissent even inside the United States government.

More than 500 U.S. government employees sent a letter to President Biden calling for a ceasefire. There's this dissent cable that's been circulating inside the State Department, 1,000 USAID employees signed a letter of dissent. These are not people who are just sort of randomly protesting, these are people who live in the world of foreign policy and national security who are writing things with profound concern.

You're seeing this conflict really dividing families. Thanksgiving is going to be a difficult conversation for people who care about national security and foreign policy and human rights. This is a very hard time, so if there's a disagreement among Scholz and Erdogan, it is a disagreement that's reflected among relationships all over the world right now.

MCMAHON:
Yes, and back to one of your points. Turkey, despite its harsh language, still potentially could play some brokering role due to its connections to Hamas among other things. Whether or not that's an incremental one and it plays a role with negotiating hostage releases or whatever, it's not clear. Qatar seems to be playing a bigger role at this point, but still in all it could be. Some of this rhetoric is designed to gain some leverage there, but we're going to see some harsh language and looking at some navigation of tough divisions among allies.

ROBBINS:
By the time that this drops, there may be a hostage release, 'cause there are reports that Hamas has agreed to this, and President Biden said he was deeply involved in this and that they're waiting to see which way the Israelis jump. Whether or not that relieves some of the pressure or just brings a pause to it, we'll have to see. This is something that is moving ahead at quite a pace, but these divisions, these profound divisions are not going to go away for quite a while.

So Bob, it's time to discuss our audience figure of the week. This is the figure listeners vote on every Tuesday and Wednesday at CFR_org's Instagram Story. This week, Bob, our audience selected, well, he's not a guy who makes it on many lists of figures, "David Cameron Returns to UK Government." How and why is the former prime minister back?

MCMAHON:
Well, it's a fascinating time at 10 Downing to say the least. There's a whole bunch of things going on including damage control involving the top cabinet ministers in the government, and it starts with the figure of Suella Braverman, the home secretary, who has been known for her caustic comments about any number of things, but most recently it was about people taking part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. She called them "mobs", she called them "hate marches." She published an op-ed that was apparently not approved by the government that included such strong language, and it was seen as time for her to go. For her to go, she'd be replaced by the foreign secretary at the time, James Cleverly. That meant that he needed to be replaced, and it was sort of a statement assignment for David Cameron to come back into the fold. He's not from the typical spot that foreign secretary would be chosen from, which would be House of Commons, he's from the House of Lords, actually. That's kind of uncommon to see a peer-

ROBBINS:
They actually put him into the House of Lords to give him the slot in the first place. I mean, this is sort of unheard of. I mean, they created the gig for him.

MCMAHON:
Indeed, and I think it does a number of things. There's been all sorts of interesting commentary on it. As the Financial Times says, "Cameron brings experience and baggage as he returns to politics." The experience is undeniable. He knows a lot of the major leaders of the world who are still in power and knows them well enough to be able to maybe cut through some tangles, some diplomatic tangles that might be necessary at this moment of two major global wars playing out and a lot of frictions going on, big power frictions.

But he also brings the baggage of what a number of people have said is the worst policy disaster in the modern UK history, which is the Brexit referendum. The vote against staying in the European Union occasioned him to leave government shortly after that, and you've seen a succession of some rocky governments in the UK.

So Cameron comes back as someone who's, on the one hand, a calm hand in government and also has this baggage. Soon after he was brought back in, there was a really important ruling that took place that also shook the Sunak government, which was striking down its 2022 immigration law that was sending asylum seekers to Rwanda. This is a UK Supreme Court ruling, and so the government's very unhappy with it and still vowing to put up a wall against what it sees as an invasion of refugees and so forth. But it's a government that's kind of looking for answers and looking for a calm month of news to help steer it into a very difficult electoral year when it's facing a strong challenge from Labour.

ROBBINS:
Cameron, interestingly enough, is a much more centrist conservative than the Sunak government is. He's much more pro-social reform, he's much more of a green guy. He obviously was ... be careful of the idea that he opened the door to this referendum, which he did not want. He was very much a remain person, but one wonders what Sunak was thinking. Maybe he is tacking more center with this.

You can't imagine anybody who's more different from the person who left, from Suella. He certainly, they like to say, has hit the ground running, because what did he do? He came in and immediately went off to Ukraine to meet with Zelenskyy. So looks like a very calming presence, as you said, and I'm not sure it's going to help their electoral prospects very much. But at a period of time in which the United States is struggling with its own commitment to Ukraine, it was sort of nice to see Cameron off there.

MCMAHON:
It was, as you said, a name we're not used to seeing in the news by any chance, and the fact that we're going to end the year-

ROBBINS:
Not going to be be on the cover of People Magazine any time soon.

MCMAHON:
No, and the fact we're going to end a year where we might see his name popping up quite a bit is very interesting. One other note that some people have pointed to, some people who watch the UK closely, is that he's not seen as a threat to Sunak himself. There might've been many other close members of cabinet who would eagerly jump at the leadership position, but Cameron himself was out of the fray, didn't seem to be someone who was clamoring to get back into the top position, and had been a long time career politician prior as well, but is coming back to be able to play this particular role that he could be very well-suited for.

ROBBINS:
Yeah.

MCMAHON:
That's our look at the roiling world next week. Here's some other stories to keep an eye on. The Solomon Islands will host the Pacific Games. South Korea's President Yoon visits the UK. And, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly meets in Armenia.

I'd like to just make a note that Carla and I will be taking a short break next week in light of the Thanksgiving holiday. We will be back on November 30th.

ROBBINS:
And we wish everybody a peaceful Thanksgiving.

Please subscribe to The World Next Week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts, and leave us a review while you're at it. We appreciate the feedback. Also, would love to hear some great recipes. If you'd like to reach out, please email us at [email protected]. The publications mentioned in this episode, as well as the 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 hosts, 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. Markus Zakaria was our recording engineer and editor. Special thanks to Sinet Adous, Kaitlyn Esperon and Molly McAnany for their assistance. Our theme music is also produced by Markus Zakaria, and this is Carla Robbins saying so long.

MCMAHON:
And this is Bob McMahon saying goodbye and have a safe, healthy two weeks.