Month: January 2022

Briefings

Background Briefing: January 18, 2022

On By gram

 

A War Between Russia and Ukraine Will Likely Break Out Within Weeks

We begin with a last-minute effort by Secretary of State Blinken to head off a war between Russia and Ukraine with first negotiations in Ukraine then a meeting in Geneva on Friday with Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov. Joining us to assess whether this last-ditch effort at diplomacy will bridge the considerable divide between Russia and the U.S. and NATO as hawks on both sides rattle sabers is Christopher Chivvis, a senior fellow and director of the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. With more than two decades of experience working on U.S. foreign policy and national security challenges, he previously served in the U.S. Department of Defense and most recently served as the U.S. national intelligence officer for Europe at the National Intelligence Council. We discuss his article at The Guardian, “If diplomacy fails with Russia, we all lose. Biden must not abandon talks” and his concerns as a former top intelligence official that war likely break out within weeks unless a diplomatic path is found, leaving Biden no choice but to act on his threats while the Ukrainian people endure immense suffering and Russia and China forge closer ties in a world with worsening geopolitical fault lines. 

 

Biden’s First Year in Office at a Time His Domestic Agenda is Stalled and Poll Numbers Are Sinking

Then as Biden’s first year in office comes at a time his domestic agenda is stalled and there are more Americans hospitalized by COVID than at any previous time during the pandemic, we speak with Paul Glastris, the editor in chief of The Washington Monthly who was a special assistant and senior speechwriter to President Bill Clinton. He wrote over 200 speeches for the president on subjects ranging from education to health care to the budget and we discuss his latest article at the Washington Monthly “What Joe Biden Should Say: A transcript of President Joe Biden’s 2022 State of the Union address—if he’d let me write it.”

 

The Apparently Futile Senate Debate to Change the Filibuster Rules

Then finally, as the Senate debates what appears to be a futile effort to change the filibuster rules, we speak with Valeria Sinclair-Chapman, a Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Research on Diversity and Inclusion at Purdue University whose work focuses on American political institutions, legislative politics, minority representation in Congress, and minority political participation. She is the author of Countervailing Forces in African-American Political Activism, 1973-1994 and we assess the chances of democracy surviving in this country.