U.S. ATACMS for Ukraine, COP29 Wraps Up, Cease-Fire Negotiations in Lebanon, and More

MCMAHON:
The coming week, the Ukraine-Russia conflict escalates after the U.S. approval of missiles that target Russia. The COP29 climate summit comes to a close in Azerbaijan, and diplomatic efforts continue to try to bring a cease-fire in Lebanon. It's November 21st, 2024, and time for The World Next Week. I'm Bob McMahon.

ROBBINS:
And I'm Carla Anne Robbins.

MCMAHON:
Carla, let's kick off with Ukraine, where there's a lot going on. This past Sunday, November 17th, President Biden gave Ukraine permission to use the U.S.-supplied, long-range missiles, ATACMS to hit targets inside Russia. Now, President Zelenskyy has long campaigned for the use of these missiles to strike into Russia, given the way the campaign is going over there, the Russian offensive that we've been citing repeatedly in this podcast, and Zelenskyy did not hesitate once he got this green light. Just two days later, November 19th, he launched U.S. ATACMS into Russia for the first time. And then yesterday, in November 20th, he launched British Storm Shadow missiles. So with these new missile capabilities, are they enough to turn the tide of the war in Ukraine's favor, Carla?

ROBBINS:
Well, Bob, we've been talking for weeks about whether and how President Biden would use his remaining months in office to try to preserve his legacy in Ukraine and change the facts on the ground. And in addition to the ATACMS, we learned on Wednesday that the administration had also agreed to supply Kyiv with American anti-personnel mines. Those are really nasty things to bolster Ukrainian front lines in the country's east. I fear these decisions speak more than anything to the really desperate circumstances in Ukraine.

That and the presence of 10,000 North Korean troops backing up the Russians in what is anticipated to be a pretty nasty offensive to retake Ukrainian-occupied Kursk. But the situation in the eastern Donbas is especially grim, where Ukrainian forces are badly outnumbered. So this is just a really bad situation and I think they're basically giving the Ukrainians everything they can possibly give them, every weapons and permission in hopes that they can hold things off and change the situation before President Trump comes in and perhaps forces negotiations.

They're bracing for more air attacks on Kyiv as well. These longer-range missiles are not going to win the war for them, but they can certainly do real damage going into these potential negotiations. On Tuesday, according to U.S. officials, the Ukrainians shot off eight of them. Six of them apparently hit an ammunition depot in a place called Karachev. They could also use them to target military equipment, logistics nodes, more ammunition, depots, supply lines. I suppose they could target troop concentrations and equipment in that big drive to retake Kursk.

The problem is that Ukraine only has a very limited number of ATACMS. No one's actually certain how many, but the estimate is between fifty and sixty, and they've already used some of them to hit Russian emplacements in occupied Crimea because they were allowed to use them before, just not inside of Russia. So they could run down the supply pretty quickly. And they also have a very limited number of these French and British longer-range missiles as well. The Biden administration still has billions of dollars worth of surplus weapons that they still have authorization to push out to Ukraine, so they could send them more, but we also have a limited supply, and I don't think they're going to get much more into their inventory. We'll have to see.

So not going to win them the war, but potentially do enough damage to the Russians to either slow down what's going on, save a bunch of lives, and perhaps put the Ukrainians in a slightly better position than it looks like they're going to be in, if they're going to be forced negotiations by the time President Trump comes in.

MCMAHON:
So Carla, on the Russian side, while they've been quick to be dismissive about damage caused by these and the threat that they pose in the immediate future, they also have played up, and President Putin has played up, that this has forced Russia to basically change its nuclear posture in such a way that's lower the threshold for possible use of nuclear weapons and include the Western-backed nuclear powers that are helping Ukraine as potential targets themselves.

There was a lot of reaction from arms control experts ranging from, "This is a merely a ploy" to, "We are in a very dangerous spot that we haven't been in before." Probably the truth might be somewhere in between, Carla. But how do you read the Russian reaction, including potential Russian use of a more powerful missile? Although the latest reports show that a missile that was fired at Ukrainian target last night was not an ICBM as initially claimed.

ROBBINS:
The Russians have been nuclear saber-rattling from the beginning of this conflict, and this change in their doctrine, which has been anticipated since September, I don't think it's an accident, as they say, "Not an accident, comrade," that it took place the same day, that Zelenskyy hit off these ATACMS inside of Russia. I mean, what do the Russians have? I mean, they have a lot of people who were dying in industrial numbers, and they have nuclear weapons.

And certainly, President Biden has been self-deterring. One of the reasons he denied them permission to use the ATACMS is fear that we don't know exactly where the...Putin's red line is. But again and again and again, and we've talked about this many times, he denied them the HIMARS. He denied them the F-16. He denied them the tanks. And then, of course, he has given the Ukrainians permission to do this, and who knows how much territory in lives has been lost in all of this delay. But Putin has played this. He certainly used the saber-rattling, and this is one more saber-rattling.

The change in the doctrine lowers the threshold for their use of nuclear weapons, declaring that they now have a right to respond to a conventional attack by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power. So you can see what it's saying here is that Ukraine isn't armed with a nuclear weapon, but it's backed by a country that has a nuclear weapon, and watch out. U.S. officials interestingly basically said, "Ho-hum. We're watching closely. They haven't changed their nuclear posture. And really, the thing we're worried about are those North Korean troops."

They've been telling RAF this for a long time. There's been a lot of nuclear saber-rattling, but at the same time, I don't take their ho-hum utterly seriously because if they weren't worried about it, they wouldn't have been self-deterring for such a long time. And I don't think the Ukrainians wouldn't be as bad a situation as they are if we had given them permission to do a lot of these things a lot faster.

MCMAHON:
In meantime, there may or may not have been some movements among some Russian officials discussing a freeze in the conflict. That's the term I've seen used. I've seen it dismissed. I've seen it confirmed. Do we know anything more about what might be in the works, or is there something pending that might be happening in the early Trump administration days?

ROBBINS:
I don't know anything about that, so I can't answer that question.

MCMAHON:
Fair enough. Again, you referenced previously that there is anticipation that the Trump administration comes in, and maybe there's a willingness or a new momentum for talking. So we'll have to see.

ROBBINS:
Well, you can certainly hear a difference even among supporters of Ukraine. You hear the Europeans go back and forth to, "Let's give them everything we can. We're never going to back down" to this coming feeling that, "If Americans cut the Ukrainians off, we're going to have to have some sort of a peace deal here." And the word, what the word freeze says to me is freeze in place, and freeze in place is giving up a lot of territory to the Russians and that is a very bad message here.

And Zelenskyy has vowed he's never going to put up with that, and it would send a very bad message. It's a ultimate violation of you don't change borders by force. And that has been the Russian position all along. The Russians wants two things. They want to keep Crimea. They probably want to keep what they've taken so far and they want a commitment of Ukrainian neutrality that is really appeasement, as far as I'm concerned. But we will see because you certainly are hearing a lot more of this in Europe, and that's the Vance plan. And we'll see what President Trump tries to enforce on the Ukrainians, and we'll see how desperate the circumstances on the ground. A lot of what the Biden administration is pushing out right now is intended to bolster the Ukrainian position, going into what I think pretty much everyone thinks is going to have to be some form of negotiated settlement.

MCMAHON:
Meanwhile, as they say, winter is coming.

ROBBINS:
It certainly is coming, and it's going to be very cold in Ukraine.

Bob, let's take our conversation to Azerbaijan, where this year's climate summit, COP29, finishing up on Friday, November 22nd, the world is getting hotter, but it seems like this conference has barely gotten any attention. Do yu remember when we used to pay attention to these things? This was supposed to be the climate finance summit. Did they make any progress on that or anything else? I don't really get this. I mean, this is a massive emergency. Why isn't anyone paying any attention?

MCMAHON:
The world is preoccupied, Carla. The world is dealing with transition in a very big, important country called the United States.

ROBBINS:
Yeah. And with a president who says climate change is a scam.

MCMAHON:
And they've been around the block on this climate finance issue for quite some time. They came into the summit, as you said, with this as a focus point and with some sense of just the slightest bit of optimism that there could be some ponying up of bigger numbers. And let's talk about the bigger numbers are. A number of economists have estimated that we take at least a trillion dollars, that's a trillion with a T, per year, to help the developing world in climate finance to cover a whole panoply of things. This is mitigation efforts in terms of transferring energy reliance from heavy carbon-emitting polluting energies to more greener solutions, for example, as well as helping the adaptation. And again, it's the poorer countries that bear, disproportionately bear a heavy, heavy burden of climate change, whether it's rising sea levels, incredibly intense storms dumping tons of water, wildfires damaging just incredible swaths of countryside.

And by the way, it's not limited to poor countries because we're seeing this happening in the United States and other rich countries. However, the poorer countries have fewer means to respond. It just tends to result in people being displaced. Sometimes, we're starting to hear the term climate refugee and so on. It is recognized as a problem. This 1 trillion with a T figure isn't close to being reached at latest account. This morning, there were reports from wire services in Baku about the issuing of a vague draft text that was released that was immediately scorned and sort of dismissed because it did not mention an amount. It mentioned X as a placeholder figure because the rich nations have yet to make an offer in negotiations. Time's running out. Supposed to all wrap up by tomorrow, Friday. COPs previously have gone into the weekend to try to come up with some sort of language that can give the delegates and the world as a whole some sense of progress, and that shouldn't be ruled out. We have seen this happen before, and maybe the issuing of this document was a way of trying to force attention to get some sort of a bigger commitment.

The previous commitment was for $200 billion by 2020. That was reached after a couple of years late, but it was reached. But again, the U.S., as always, is seen in the forefront as the country that to corral nations into action partly by demonstrating its own commitment. As you suggested, you have an outgoing Biden administration, which was notable for its efforts to try to get climate talks back on track, giving way to a Trump administration that has gone out of its way to indicate its dismissal of human-caused climate change as, take your term, hoax or "weird science" as JD Vance said at his vice presidential debate and has started naming officials coming in, the head of EPA, head of energy department, who are climate skeptics to say the least. Previous Trump administration methodically removed climate change from many documents and commitment statements and so forth.

So we're not going to see a big push from the United States as a leader on climate negotiations. It doesn't mean other countries can't step up, though, Carla. And I'll just note that there's a lot of attention being paid to what China might be willing to do. China occupies a very interesting place. First of all, we got to note China is the world's number one emitter of greenhouse gases, and it's the second-largest economy in the world. And yet, through an anomaly, it is still listed as a developing country, thereby not being required to commit funding for climate finance but being asked to donate.

And I'll just leave you with the fact that China actually has stepped in. According to a number of accounts, since 2016, has contributed more than $20 billion to climate finance efforts. It's also a very large producer of renewable energy sources, solar panels, to say the least. It is also...Continues to rely heavily on fossil fuels, including coal, to provide its power. So it sits in a very anomalous place. There had been excitement around the Paris talks almost ten years ago because the U.S. and China seemed to be making common cause. But that's going by the boards, at least for the immediate future.

So we're in a really weird place, and it's a place in which we're going to need to have other countries stepping up individually or tandem to try to provide some sense of momentum to wrap up this COP. The next COP is in Brazil. Brazil has tried to indicate it wants to really find some progress on this. As steward of the world's lungs, the Amazon rainforest, Brazil is...Under Lula, has really stepped up efforts at arresting deforestation, for example, but it can't do it alone. And Brazil did just finish hosting the G20 Summit, which they did make a statement about commitment to climate change goals, climate change policy goals. So a lot there, Carla, and look to see whether these talks go into the weekend with some sort of climate change figure attached.

ROBBINS:
Hopeful or shall we hope?

MCMAHON:
Hopeful. Yes.

ROBBINS:
Okay.

MCMAHON:
Let's take hopeful. Carla, let's go over to the Middle East because there's always something to talk about in the Middle East, and the word hope has not been used a lot lately there.
First of all, we should say as we came in to tape this podcast, there was some breaking news out of the International Criminal Court, which issued warrants for two Israeli leaders, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as the military chief of Hamas who may or may not have been killed in an Israeli strike months ago, Mohammed Deif, over the actions that both sides: first Hamas in attacking Israel on October 7th, 2023, and Israel and its response to crush Hamas, what the ICC had to say was very strong about Israel's response. So Carla, anything else we should take away from this? How's it going to change any facts on the ground at all as we continue to look at the Middle East conflicts play out?

ROBBINS:
Well, I'm skeptical that these indictments are going to change Israel's calculus on the conflict. If anything, it's likely to make Prime Minister Netanyahu more defiant and make President-Elect Trump bind himself even closer to him. As we sat down to tape this, we hadn't heard anything from the former president, soon to be president, but Representative Mike Waltz of Florida, who was the president-elect's choice to be national security sdvisor, condemned the ICC of which he said in X. He said it had no credibility and quote, "Israel has lawfully defended its people and borders from genocidal terrorists. You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC and UN come January."

And it has to be noted that President Biden previously called the ICC's moves toward an indictment of Netanyahu and Gallant outrageous. So nobody in the United States has been particularly happy with this move and what was seen as a moral equivalency between Hamas and the Israelis.

The Trump administration, of course, had incredibly bad relationships with the ICC the first time around. And in 2020, they leveled sanctions against the ICC's chief prosecutor, who was investigating allegations that U.S. troops had committed war crimes in Afghanistan. So they're certainly not going to be leaning on Netanyahu more because of this indictment. That said, let us not forget that there's a huge amount of condemnation and isolation that these Israelis are facing for this.

And for a democracy to suffer something like this, this is a pretty awful condemnation that's coming out of the ICC. There's no sign that it's going to change Netanyahu's behavior. And, of course, the split between Gallant and Netanyahu has already happened. Gallant's out of the government itself. Certainly, not going to change Hamas's behavior. They don't care.

MCMAHON:
Gotcha. So with that as yet another factor, controversial factor playing out in the Middle East, there is an effort to try to bring peace, at least to the Lebanon front. What do we know about the latest prospects for actually at least ceasing the fire in Lebanon?

ROBBINS:
We've covered a lot of Middle East negotiators in our careers, including our colleague Martin Indyk, whom we sadly lost just a few months ago. It takes extraordinary will to keep at it and when these odds seem so impossibly long, but there was Amos Hochstein. He's shuttling back and forth between Beirut and Israel. Since the start of this war in Gaza, Hezbollah has insisted that it wouldn't agree to a cease-fire until Hamas did.

But now seems to be seriously considering a separate peace with Iran's tolerance or blessing or insistence. That's the biggest question I have. Is this really a change? We know that Lebanon barely has a government, but on Friday, last Friday, its caretaker prime minister spoke with Ali Larijani, who is a close advisor to Iran's supreme leader, and asked for his help in getting a cease-fire deal between Hezbollah and Israel. Now, Lebanese, they're really caught in the middle between Hezbollah and Israel, but clearly, their country's being pounded beyond belief. It, to me, is a great puzzle. I can't figure out where Iran fits into this. I can't figure out why Hezbollah seems to be, if they're serious about this or even partially serious about that, seems to be separating itself from the Hamas negotiations.

But Hochstein, is this the triumph of hope over experience, or is there movement here? We'll have to watch it. He spent two days in Beirut this week. Both the Lebanese government and Hezbollah announced on Tuesday they had accepted a U.S. draft proposal with some comments. We still don't know the full terms of the deal or where the Israeli stands. And the devil is, of course, always in those comments. But we have a basic sense of the outline in the areas of contention, a cease-fire, a sixty-day period of preparation in which the Israelis would withdraw their troops from southern Lebanon. And in that period, Hezbollah is supposed to move its heavy weapons away from this frontier area between Lebanon and Israel north of the Litani River. It's about thirty kilometers or eighteen miles to the north. And in that time as well, the Lebanese army, along with UN peacekeepers, would deploy to maintain the peace.

We've talked before. Lebanon has this multi-sectarian army. It's the rare institution that has some respect in the country. The U.S. has poured more than $3 billion into the Lebanese armed forces since 2006. But it's still a really, really weak institution. I just read this morning that this Lebanese armed forces, they let a lot of their people take second jobs because they can barely pay them. And at the same time, you have Hezbollah, which has Iran's backing, is far better armed and far more motivated. So whether they and UN peacekeepers could actually keep the peace, Israelis are certainly very skeptical about it. So that's one of the big sticking points.

I mean the Israelis are already insisting that they want to maintain what they're calling the "freedom to act," that even if they agree to a cease-fire, they can go back in and bomb Hezbollah, and the Lebanese are saying, "No." That would be a violation of the cease-fire. So we'll see where this goes. And this gives to this question of here is, why would Hezbollah even want to consider this? We know they've been badly weakened by Israeli airstrikes. Of course those pager attacks, the assassination of many of its top leaders including Hassan Nasrallah, but they are not destroyed. They're still lobbing rockets into Israel and fighting back against Israeli soldiers.

And the last month of attacks on Lebanon has really shattered what is really already a shattered country. More than 3,500 people in Lebanon have been killed, including two hundred children, according to the UN. And a lot of those deaths have just come since September. So this is a really horrifying thing for Lebanon. So maybe Hezbollah, which is not just a terrorist group and not just a military force, but is also part of the government, and maybe they're feeling it.
And finally, why would the Israelis consider this? Netanyahu is, I think, feeling strong political pressure. Thousands and thousands of Israelis have been forced to move out of their homes on the border. So maybe this time. It's a long response, Bob, but it's a complex thing, and we've talked about this so many times before, but maybe this time?

MCMAHON:
Yeah, I think as you were talking, I was particularly interested in your point about the weakening of Hezbollah and what exactly that might mean because we don't fully know the extent of that weakening. It stands to reason. It's quite a bit for all the reasons you mentioned. And prior to these Israeli attacks on multiple fronts, it was widely touted as the most robust force, anti-Israeli force in the region. It's a state within a state in Lebanon, power broker in the country.

The extent to which Lebanon, as a country, gets to assert itself a bit more in its own destiny without overweening influence from Hezbollah will be very interesting to watch, if that's at all possible yet, because Lebanon was getting some support. Its military, which has been oddly...They been forced to stand on the sidelines, and is considered by opinion service to be one of the best-regarded institutions in the country. It has not had much of a role. It's gotten support from the U.S. to train. It stands to reason it could get more support to try to make it more viable. But that still seems to be a long road. But that might be what is part of the calculation going on as we enter this phase of a possible at least pause and then something more meaningful. So it could be an exhaustion issue, and it could be a pivot for Lebanon itself, I think.

ROBBINS:
Well, what the Israelis say is, "This doesn't look any different from what was the UN Security Council resolution that was supposed to end the war in 2006, and Hezbollah never left that area itself." What the Lebanese say is, "This isn't going to work. You can't depend on the Lebanese army to defeat Hezbollah. That everybody in Lebanon has to agree that this is what they want. That this has to be a political sentiment and not a military sentiment" to which the Israelis go back to, "This looks like 2006," and it never was...It never was a deal.

So it goes to your question, which is, has this burned itself out? Does everybody really want some sort of an agreement? And then how do you trust and verify it? Do you strengthen the Lebanese army enough? Do UN peacekeepers do it? What I haven't been hearing, and I must admit this isn't my transcendent area of expertise, I haven't been hearing any discussion of putting in a larger peacekeeping force, bringing in NATO, the sort of things that you might normally hear. So strengthening the Lebanese army certainly is the long-range goal, but I think it's got to be a political settlement. And that's why the Israelis are insisting on the right to be able to go back in and do it because they say, "Look, we tried this before." So it seems like a lot of sticking points there. We'll have to see what happens.

MCMAHON:
Yeah, quite a bit.

ROBBINS:
Bob, it's time to discuss our audience figure of the week. And this is a figure listeners vote on every Tuesday and Wednesday at cfr_org's Instagram story. And this week, Bob, our audience selected what you predicted, "Thousands Protest for Māori Rights." What's going on there in New Zealand?

MCMAHON:
So yes, we have not spoken about the Māori's really much at all on this podcast. And there had been a period until fairly recently of Māori sort of recognition of Māori rights and of further Māori integration into New Zealand society and so forth. To the uninitiated outsider, including myself, the Māori's maybe best known for the famous haka dance that they would do before sporting events and other big international occasions. And it was well known. It was part of New Zealand identity really.

And so the latest manifestation of the haka, though, was this viral video that started going around about a week of a Māori lawmaker, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, if I pronounced that right, in which she tore up a copy of proposed legislation and began performing a haka and then was joined by members of the opposition and on the floor of the New Zealand Parliament.

And it was a big event that was part and parcel of a set of protests that Māori's have been lodging about a bill that was introduced to revisit the sort of founding treaty between what was in thne British Crown and Māori chiefs in New Zealand, a bill that by wide accounts is never expected to become law. It was entertained as part of some brokering going on between the ruling parties, but the leader of a minority party who himself is Māori background, David Seymour, had wanted to introduce this as a way of revisiting this document and sort of readdressing rights as spelled out in a way that didn't seem to advantage Māori's over the rest of New Zealanders.

So seen as something to just sort of create a level playing field, but hugely controversial for a minority that was just starting to get a sense of its rights back, you know, its patrimony back in New Zealand in a way. We should note, people of Māori ancestry constitute about 20 percent of New Zealand's population of 5.3 million, but they disproportionately have unmet needs for primary healthcare. Their life expectancy is about seven years shorter than non-Māori residents. And so this is all to point to the fact that there were still areas of redress going on to try to address the rights of Māori citizens in New Zealand. The law itself that was being re-examined has a little bit of a murky history because the translations of it into English and Māori apparently say different things, or there are certain reading-between-the-lines elements-

ROBBINS:
How convenient.

MCMAHON:
...That were causing different interpretations. Yes. So I think if anything else comes out of this whole affair, it could be perhaps a once and for all equal reading, equal translation of this treaty, the Treaty of Waitangi, and a way of the country to front and center address its Māori population, what the law say, what any sort of elements in the law that address their needs or redress wrongs to them. All of that, I think, it's a time for the country to deal with front and center.

As I said, there is a widespread expectation, this proposed law on revisiting the treaty will never see the light of day, but it really has brought to the surface obviously something that was festering in some part of the population that is now going to be addressed by the country as a whole.

And that's our look at The World Next Week, Carla. From New Zealand to Europe. Here's some other stories to keep an eye on: the year of elections continues to roll on, with votes taking place in Romania, Uruguay, and Namibia; Russia's President Vladimir Putin visits Kazakhstan.

ROBBINS:
President Vladimir Putin, who is also under ICC indictment, and seems-

MCMAHON:
Yes.

ROBBINS:
...To have no problem traveling around.

MCMAHON:
And G7 foreign ministers meet in Italy to discuss the Middle East, Ukraine, and the Indo-Pacific, if time allows.

ROBBINS:
Please subscribe to The World Next Week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast platform and leave us a review while you're at it. We appreciate the feedback. If you'd like to reach out, please email us at [email protected]. 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. And 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. And special thanks to Helena Kopans-Johnson, Justin Schuster, and Colette Yamashita Holcomb for their research assistance. Our theme music is provided by, he's everywhere, Markus Zakaria. And this is Carla Robbins saying so long.

MCMAHON:
And this is Bob McMahon saying goodbye and be careful out there.