Hello! I hope you have a great weekend. I want to start with a special warm welcome to readers from Listenbourg.
This week, we’re looking at the red ripple former president Donald Trump’s Republican Party managed to create in the United States’ midterm elections, instead of the “red wave” it had predicted. The election outcome will have a direct impact on America’s domestic politics and will influence the country’s foreign policy.
We’re also looking at Russia announcing withdrawal from Kherson city — the only Ukrainian regional capital it had managed to capture since its invasion started — and Chinese President Xi Jinping warning Russian President Vladimir Putin against using nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
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Now, let’s get started.
This day that year
2004: Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), died from unidentified causes. Mahmoud Abbas (the current leader) took over.
1918: The First World War ended with the Allied nations and Germany signing an armistice near Compiègne, France.
Red ripple
There was no “red wave” after all, just a red ripple.
The Republican Party managed to wrest control of the House of Representatives (Lower House of their parliament) this week in the midterm elections. However, this result was nowhere close to the landslide the party — led in part by former president Donald Trump — was predicting.
At the time of writing this, 396 of the House’s 435 seats had been called by The Associated Press. The Republicans had won 209 of these, just 22 ahead of President Joe Biden’s Democrats. The Republicans were, however, on track to secure a majority in the House. In the Senate (Upper House), the Republicans and Democrats managed to hold control of 49 and 48 seats, respectively (only 35/100 seats were up for elections). They were on track to win one more seat each. The Senate election in Georgia state will have a runoff — where the Democrats had won in similar circumstances in 2020-2021. Therefore, if the Democrats win the decider Senate race in Georgia, they would have retained the control of the Upper House as the tie-breaker vote is cast by the vice president (currently Democrat Kamala Harris, who has cast 26 tie-breaker votes since 2021 — the third-highest number by any US VP ever). The Democrats also gained two seats in the polls to elect state governors. In short, the Democrats performed better than expected.
Despite the Republicans gaining control of the House, the overall result is, therefore, a setback for Trump for three reasons: the Republicans seemingly failed to harness Biden’s falling popularity and the anti-incumbency against the Democrats in the US Congress as much as they had hoped for; Trump’s party rival Ron DeSantis won a landslide in Florida; and the outcome casts a shadow over his imminent 2024 presidential election campaign launch.
DeSantis’ re-election as the governor of Florida with a wide margin paves the way for a possible presidential run in 2024 rivalling Trump. Trump doesn’t want that and has already threatened to reveal “things” about DeSantis “that won’t be very flattering”. Trump’s campaign launch was to launch as early as next week, but he may have now been forced to delay it.
The midterm result also challenges assumptions within the US and around the world that Trump could easily return to the White House in 2024.
If the Democrats manage to retain control of the Senate (with a run-off win in Georgia), Biden would have something to play with. Biden has, meanwhile, already sought to project his party’s better-than-expected performance as a vindication. He was quick to indicate that he’ll seek re-election in 2024. However, a final decision will be taken early next year. Ahead of the midterms with and faced with low popularity ratings, there were increasing questions about whether Biden and VP Harris should seek re-election if the Democratic Party wants to have any chance of retaining the presidency.
Impact on US foreign policy
The Grand Old Party (GOP), as the Republican Party is called, taking control of the House will have an impact on American foreign policy and may handicap Biden in some areas. The House may now probably stop issuing blank cheques to Ukraine with people back home “sitting in a recession”, and would want a greater scrutiny of Washington DC’s assistance to Kyiv. However, with public opinion overwhelmingly in support of helping Ukraine, the Republicans are unlikely to pull the plug on assistance. The House would also take a harder stance against the new American rival China, especially over the issues of Taiwan and trade.
Results mentioned here are as of 2:45 pm Eastern Time on November 10.
What else?
Withdrawal from Kherson
In a significant retreat being seen by some as a potential turning point in the war, Russian soldiers have been ordered by their Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu to withdraw from the western bank of the Dnipro River amid Ukrainian attacks near Kherson city. That amounts to a full Russian withdrawal from Kherson city, which is situated entirely on the western bank of the river.
Kherson is the only Ukrainian regional capital Russia had been able to capture since its invasion began in February this year. General Sergei Surovikin said he proposed to set up defensive lines on the eastern bank of the river. The general cited the difficulty in maintaining supplies to the strategically-vital city, and the threat to Russian troops as reasons for the withdrawal. The Ukrainian military had been making advances on the city and surrounding areas, but is seeing this Russian withdrawal with caution.
This also comes at a time when the US has reportedly privately asked Ukraine to show it’s open to negotiations with Russia. With optimism that with the West’s aid they would be able to eventually retake much of Ukrainian territory currently under Russian occupation, Kyiv has so far publicly refused to talk to Moscow unless President Vladimir Putin is removed from power. Even if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy softens this stand on negotiations, some of his core conditions — such as return of all of Ukraine’s occupied lands, prosecution of war crimes and compensation for war damage — are non-starters for Putin.
Putin’s ally Xi warns against nuke use
Chinese President Xi Jinping, seen as one of Russia President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies, this week warned against the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine. The international community must “oppose the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons” over Ukraine, Xi and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who was visiting Beijing, agreed.
The international community should “advocate that nuclear weapons cannot be used and that nuclear wars must not be fought, and prevent a nuclear crisis in Eurasia,” Xi added, according to a readout by the state-operated news agency, Xinhua.
The German chancellor’s office quoted Scholz as saying that “both [leaders had] agreed that threats to use nuclear weapons were extremely dangerous” and that “any such deployment (usage of nuclear weapons) would cross a red line”. Scholz added that he asked Xi “to use his influence on Russia”.
However, the Chinese president stopped short of criticising the Russian invasion of Ukraine or asking his Russian counterpart to end the war.
This week
Leaders of the Group of Twenty (G20) nations will meet in Bali, Indonesia on November 15-16. They’ll focus on digital transformation, health, and food and energy security. The bloc represents about 80 percent of the global gross domestic product. There will be a number of bilateral meetings on the side-lines of the summit. Russian President Putin will stay away, perhaps fearing he could get snubbed by other world leaders. At the summit’s closing session, Indonesian President Joko Widodo will symbolically hand over the G20 presidency to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (India formally takes charge on December 1 and New Delhi hosts the summit next year).
Meanwhile, representatives (and some leaders) from nearly 200 nations are meeting in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm El Sheikh for the United Nations’ (UN) annual climate change summit. This is the 27th annual Conference of Parties (COP27) — a meeting bringing together all nations who agreed to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992. The conference began on November 6 and is scheduled to conclude on November 18. Many, especially in vulnerable nations, argue that countries and corporations responsible for the emissions that have led to human-induced climate change causing threatening extreme weather events, should be footing the bill. This issue of “loss and damage” has been included in the COP agenda for the first time.
Interesting stuff
Bloomberg columnist Hal Brands is writing a series of opinion pieces on the intensifying great power competition between China and the Quad members (Australia, India, Japan and the US). The three opinion pieces published so far can be read here, here and here.
“The old adage about politics in Pakistan is that there are only three types of people who live there: the rich, the poor, and the soldiers. At this rate, Khan seems to have captured the imagination of many of the first two, while forcing a split in the third.” GZERO’s Wajahat Khan writes about how Pakistan's politics has been polarised further in recent weeks. Read the full piece here.
“For all its embrace of allies and partners, President Joe Biden’s administration hasn’t done nearly enough to restore a sense of balance in its economic relations with allies in Europe and Asia.” Ivo Daalder, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and former American ambassador to NATO, writes in Politico about why European nations are feeling restless about the direction of the US’ foreign and trade policy. Read the article here.
“Some leaders in losing wars have taken dramatic actions to stave off defeat. But often they have decided against the most drastic options, for either political or strategic reasons.” Dan Reiter, author and Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Political Science at Emory University, writes in Foreign Affairs about why Russian President Putin is likely to avoid using nuclear weapons. Read the full article here.
Bloomberg’s Hussein Ibish argues that Benjamin Netanyahu’s election victory in Israel and a simmering intifada has paved the way for annexation of the West Bank. Read the opinion piece here.
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