Zelenskyy in Washington, Spain Tries to Form a Government, UN Spotlights Nuclear Weapons, and More

MCMAHON:
In the coming week, Ukraine's president seeks more U.S. military aid, a divided Spain tries to form a government, and the UN marks the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, this September 21st, 2023 in time for The World Next Week. I'm Bob McMahon.

ROBBINS:
And I'm Carla Anne Robbins.

MCMAHON:
Carla, before we start, I'd like to note that our fellow CFR podcast, Why It Matters has begun a new season. Hosted by our Director of Podcasting Gabrielle Sierra, Why It Matters sets out to simplify complicated global topics and bring them home to audiences that might not always be dialed in to foreign developments. The season kicked off with an episode about the status of women leadership across the globe or the lack thereof, so please check it out. 

Carla, let's start here in Washington where the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy is meeting with President Biden at the White House. Zelenskyy is also supposed to meet with key members of Congress, which is due to take up Ukraine funding issues, I believe, next week. The United States has been one of Ukraine's biggest champions, of course, since the start of Russia's invasion, so why is Zelenskyy choosing now to press for more U.S. support?

ROBBINS:
Well, the indefatigable Zelenskyy who never misses a chance to argue Ukraine's case as we regularly note, came to the U.S. to take part in one of the biggest nerd proms ever, the UN General Assembly, which he addressed on Tuesday. He also blistered the Russians and the Security Council at a meeting of the UN Security Council on Wednesday and that was supposed to be his first in the room face-off with Russia's Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, but Lavrov arrived after Zelenskyy had finished and left the room, but he was doing a lot of politicking up in New York this week, and today, Thursday, he as you know, is scheduled to meet with Biden at the White House, go to the Pentagon and have meetings with Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill. 

This is Zelenskyy's second visit to D.C. since the war started and the mood is really different from December. You can remember he gave a really triumphant speech to a joint session of Congress, and while President Biden hasn't wavered from his whatever it takes commitment, and there's talk that the administration could soon approve another really sophisticated weapon systems for Ukraine this time something called an ATACMS, which is a long range surface-to-surface missile system that could hit Russian bases and depots in Crimea. On the Hill, there are a growing number of Republican politicians, mainly in the House but not solely in the House, who were publicly opposing spending any more money on Ukraine. More than two dozen of them sent a letter to the White House today saying they're going to vote against a 24 billion aid package the president is now requesting for Ukraine.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy who is waffled all over the place, "No blank check. I want accountability. Of course, I'm supporting Ukraine." Depends on the day of the week. He called off a group meeting with House members and is instead planning to meet with Zelenskyy one-on-one because he's, to be perfectly frank, running scared on this one. The aid request has also gotten caught up in the shutdown budget battle. McCarthy so far seems unable to persuade the right wing of his caucus to approve even a continuing resolution, and we could be looking at a shutdown at the end of the month, and every one of the deals so far on the table, and they haven't remained on the table for very long, in the House have no Ukraine money in them at all.

So this is not looking good, and I think that's part of the reason why he's here. Zelenskyy undoubtedly is going to get a much warmer reception in the Senate where both Schumer and Mitch McConnell have given the aid request full-throated support, but whether he's going to be able to persuade them to help push this through, unlikely because who knows if we're going to get any funding legislation for the entire government. So this is not a good time and he really needs the support. 

Interestingly, you see these polls where the American public is. We don't have a reputation for having a long attention span. A very much quoted CNN poll in July found that 55 percent Americans say the U.S. Congress should not authorize additional funding to support Ukraine. I don't find it all that surprising that the numbers are down from the beginning. I've seen a CBS poll that said, "We should be supporting them. We certainly shouldn't be sending troops." I'm not sure that's a definitive poll. 

Certainly, it's a really different time from when he was here before when they were the darlings because they were kicking the Russians all over the place. This has been a really tough counteroffensive. They are breaking through, but they're measuring it in yards. They're not measuring it in miles. And given the polarization of American politics, it's not surprising, but we are the main contributor of aid. If we back off, the Europeans are going to back off, so he's here to push it. Biden's going to push it. I think McConnell and Schumer will push it, but given the mess in the House, I don't know if he's going to get that money.

MCMAHON:
No, you're absolutely right. It looks really different than it did towards the end of last year when he arrived, and while the eight figures still seem really high, a new pledge, any sort of new concrete pledge, especially in this climate seems really doubtful. The other issue, Carla, I think it's worth noting is I continue to see reports about even if there is this sort of collective political will, the materiel the U.S. has to actually provide that won't take it away from its own defense needs seems to be limited. They need to really ramp up production of whether it's the ATACMS that you were talking about or other types of armaments, regardless of what happens, maybe going into a winter period of really more grind-it-out fighting on the Ukraine-Russian front as opposed to any sort of certainly clear Ukrainian momentum.

ROBBINS:
Well, listen. This was always going to be very hard because the Ukrainian goal here is to break through the Russian lines and into Crimea, which is a major supply line issue here for them. It's not just taking back the territory, which is obviously very important to them. The Russians are deeply dug in. This is deeply mined. This is a hard thing to do under the best of circumstances and the technology that they've wanted, whether it's the F-16s or now these ATACMS, the tanks that they were promised, these things have been very slow to get there. Not just because it's hard to move these things or because we're running low in stocks, and we're not running low in stocks of tanks. It's because of profound ambivalence from this administration from a lot of other ones. Where's the line with the Russians? Are we going to cross a line and provoke a more frightening response?

And once these commitments have been made, it takes a very long time to get these things there, and that's part of Zelenskyy's frustration. He's very frustrated, not surprisingly, because his country's life and his people's life is on the line about these tanks that were pledged months and months and months ago. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin just said that, "They're about to get there." The White House finally agreed that the Europeans could train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s, but the F-16s aren't going to be there for a while. These ATACMS, if they make the commitment to it, how long are they going to take to get there? 

So you can understand Zelenskyy frustration. At the same time, he's got to do a charm offensive. The former British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace warned Zelenskyy during the July NATO summit that he had a habit of treating his allies like "they were an Amazon warehouse," and what he told him is people want to see gratitude, so we'll see how he handles things on the Hill. You can understand why he's frustrated, but this is not just going to require the energy of Zelenskyy. It's going to also going to require charm.

MCMAHON:
You mentioned the United Nations General Assembly, as well, where Zelenskyy started out the week. It seemed like there was a lot of messaging or a lot of recognition that whether it was President Biden or other pro-Ukrainian leaders, that they didn't want to hit people over the head with Ukraine as a priority item, that the so-called Global South was getting a bit weary of hearing that as a top priority when they have obviously many, many other things to worry about, existential things to worry about. 

And Biden himself, even he'd led off speaking about sustainable development goals and a few other issues, and not Ukraine for starters, although he did offer a robust defense of Ukraine, but it does seem like that's an issue that's continuing to... The fact of Ukraine prioritization is something that has soured some of the countries in the Global South. They mentioned it at the G-20 meaning a little bit, although they did come up with some sort of a consensus document on Ukraine that was a bit watered down.

ROBBINS:
Far too watered down.

MCMAHON:
Yeah.

ROBBINS:
I mean, there is a really important warning I think for the United States and for the big countries in the reaction of the Global South, however you want to describe these countries because it should be as clear as water that the threat to Ukraine is a threat to all of these countries. It is the fundamental commitment of the United Nations that borders are not changed by force, and whether it is a priority issue or the sort of what-about-ism, "You did it in Iraq. Russia does it in Ukraine." The fact that so many countries have been sitting on the fence, there's a warning there and it's a warning about the way we've dealt with countries, our failures in Iraq. There is a really important warning there and they've had a hard time selling things like, "Who's responsible for rising food prices?" So if there's a wake-up call in this, that is a good thing. But let's face it, an object lesson in the long run is not going to let Ukraine survive, so we got to do all these things at the same time. 

So Bob, next Wednesday the Spanish parliament is going to vote to choose its next prime minister. Well, maybe they'll be able to choose it. We don't know. Although Alberto Núñez Feijóo came out ahead in the July snap elections, he doesn't have an outright majority to become prime minister, and the current guy, Sánchez, thinks he's going to be able to hold on. It seems like both these contending leaders have had to make a lot of promises to the more fringe parties there. Is Sánchez going to hold on? Is Feijóo going to win? And is Spain going to look really different no matter who does it?

MCMAHON:
Well, that last question is an intriguing one. I think it probably is going to look different I think because it seems clear if you do the math, some horse-trading has to go on, and which means that unwieldy coalitions might emerge that involve some trade-offs for whoever emerges. Feijóo seems like he doesn't have the numbers or to echo the line from Hamilton, "You ain't got the votes."

ROBBINS:
Will you sing it to me, please?

MCMAHON:
No. Maybe after the mic is turned off. But he has the support of Vox to the right of his PP party and he's pretty much ruled out and is seen as anathema from any of the blocs that are looking for more autonomy. So the Catalans in particular, they are never going to support Feijóo. They have indicated they would support Sánchez in a crucial way, but are exercising and looking for some major leverage. They might've gotten a little in this week by the way, which I'll mention in a second, but we'll have this vote. Feijóo needs to get 176 seats for his coalition to be able to govern alone. He actually had approached Sánchez about supporting him and after campaigning against what was known as "sanchismo" or progressive politics of the Sánchez administration, and Sánchez essentially said, "No way." So Sánchez does feel like he could wait this out and succeed, but we'll see what plays out next week.

Feijóo will have a couple of shots to see whether he can get a clear majority or a majority of the yays versus nays, and then it goes to, I believe according to the calendar, to November where Sánchez would be asked by the King of Spain to give it a shot. And again, looking at the way the numbers ramp up, if you get the block from Catalan, it looks like it gives a combination of leftist parties and the Spanish socialists the number of seats they need to be able to govern. 

Now, I mentioned some of the trade-offs or the leverage. We saw a little bit this week where parliament voted with some staunch opposition, but they did have enough votes to vote to allow three official languages in the country to be used and spoken in Parliament, which is Catalan, Basque, and Galician. Catalan has something like 9 million or so fluent speakers and Basque has the fewest at about 700,000. But it was seen as a really big deal. You had officials going right away and giving interviews, and making statements in those languages. You had some officials who oppose it storming off and not attending the session anymore. 

You also had a bid by the Spanish government to ask the EU to allow those three to be EU languages. The EU deferred that it's got enough issues with languages from other countries. I think there's something like twenty-four, twenty-five official EU languages as it exists right now, but it's a sign that Sánchez is ready to try to give back to get the support of the Catalans, and a big give back would be agreeing to amnesty up to 1,400 people who were seen as supporting an independence movement that was considered illegal under the Spanish constitution.

It's going to be very interesting to see how all this plays out, but it starts with Feijóo trying to line up the votes and if he did, he himself represents a right of center movement that would still hue towards some of the main policies of Spanish government. Certainly not progressive however, but the Vox party that supports him is very much to his right and would be trying to steer away from things like support for climate change policies and social policies including in the area of gender reform or workers' rights and things like that that have been a real staple of the Sánchez government.

ROBBINS:
So where does Feijóo stand on the project of Europe? We've certainly looked at Vox the way we looked at Le Pen in France and very worried that this was going to be one more country that was going to start bailing out of the project of Europe that was going to be desperately anti-migrant, all of that. Do we have to worry about that with Feijóo?

MCMAHON:
Well, the worry is that Feijóo makes enough deals with parties to his extreme right, that he comes in and is more handcuffed than he would be because he has signaled that he would be roughly steering a lot of the same policies, with the exception of potentially in the climate energy area where he's not as supportive of fostering alternative energies, let's say, or suppress the use of fossil fuels and things like that, but as it comes to social issues and other things, you have the Vox party, which wants to roll back some of the steps, and you could have some messaging and Spain is currently on the presidence of the EU and it took over in July in this kind of weird interim period, so it would be some very discordant messaging if a Feijóo-led government with far-right parties took over and started to push back against some of the things seen as European norms. 

I'm not clear on what they would do vis-a-vis European policies on Ukraine for example, but you could imagine stiffening in position towards climate policy or migrant reform policy, and things like that could have a more nationalist tone and a less, shall we say, progressive tone.

ROBBINS:
So I'm fascinated by this multilingual parliament. Obviously, we've seen Canada and I'm always intrigued when Trudeau gives one of his speeches, and he goes back and forth between the two languages, not just because we Americans and we have many, many multilingual Americans out there, but we stick to-

MCMAHON:
Don't often hear it in the chambers of Congress, though.

ROBBINS:
We hear people muttering and saying all sorts of things, but if they're multilingual, they're doing it sotto voce. Is this the sort of thing that if Feijóo wins that he would roll back or do you think that it's so that people are actually a lot more forward-looking and more accepting than the politicians are, and once it's done, it's done?

MCMAHON:
Good question. Again, if his path to power includes parties that are vehemently against this, like Vox, for example-

ROBBINS:
So Vox is vehemently against the multilingual, even though their name is Vox?

MCMAHON:
Yeah. Well, it's a bit of an irony, yes, but they are seeing it as part and parcel of an effort to the regions of the country where these languages are spoken is splitting away and seeking independence, and really fragmenting unified nation of Spain, so there's a very nationalist message there. I think we'd expect to see them push back against that. Now, you're right. The box may be opened and you can't get the languages stuffed back in it again after people get a taste for this, and again, Spain might not be modern-day Canada, Carla, but these people have been speaking these languages for years. They're all fluent Spanish speakers as well. They're not forcing others to speak their languages. It's really about can you stomach this in a national space, and do you see that as a threat to your very nationhood? 

And this is part of the divide I mentioned at the outset where we've certainly seen this nationalism manifest in other countries, including the United States in recent years. And so there's a question of whether it's vehement enough that they'll push back against that. 

Well, Carla, we did mention the UN General Assembly, and we'd be remiss if we did not talk about next Tuesday's UN International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. This is a day that is supposed to bring awareness and it pushes for greater efforts to build a nuclear weapon-free world. We seem to be going in the opposite direction right now. There are nine nuclear weapon countries at this point, including the five permanent members of the Security Council that possess the precious veto power and there are others that seem to be signaling interest as well, so is next week's day going to be a pessimistic affair or should we find inspiration from it?

ROBBINS:
I fear pessimism, but it's also really important. There's a lot of things that the UN, as well as in Washington, there's National Hotdog Day and National Ice Cream Day, which I love National Ice Cream Day.

MCMAHON:
No controversy over national Ice Cream Day, I think.

ROBBINS:
Right, back to nuclear weapons. This is really important. The war in Ukraine has reminded us that the dangers of a nuclear conflict really are not something from a distant past. It's really clear and present, and the non-proliferation treaty, which went into effect in 1970, recognized just five states, as you said, the U.S., Russia, France, Britain and China, the so-called nuclear haves, and they pledged to someday give up their weapons, but it doesn't say when. It's one of those someday things and everybody else who signed it agreed to never develop weapons. 

So what's the scorecard? And I think this day is a really good one to look at the scorecard. As you noted, instead of five nuclear haves, there are now nine, so who are the additions? India, Pakistan and Israel, which never signed. We've got North Korea, which got caught cheating and has refused to give up its arsenal. Then we have Iran, which also cheated and could have enough fuel for a weapon within weeks if it chose to, and then there are other states with nuclear appetites. The most recent is Saudi Arabia, which wants to develop a civilian nuclear program and is insisting that it includes the ability to make nuclear fuel and if they get that, whether they get it from the U.S. or from China, that fuel capacity, they could with just a bit more work and a willingness to follow North Korea and Iran steps make enough fuel for a weapon as well, so that's a pretty dangerous set of things that are going on. 

As for that pledge of eventual someday, we're not going to put a date to it, elimination. There's been some real progress. The only arms reduction treaties negotiated had been between the two main players, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, now Russia, but they have nearly 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons. In 1968, this is a really extraordinary number, those two countries together had more than 60,000 warheads. Today together they have around 11,000, 3,000 of those mounted on weapons, and the total nuclear count for the world is about 12,500, so we're around 1,500 for the other seven states out there, so there's a lot of them rattling around out there. 

And beyond those still staggering numbers, the trendlines are not good. The Chinese, after years of maintaining just a few hundred weapons are building up their arsenal. Indian and Pakistan has also seem interested in growing their stocks. The U.S. doesn't want to grow its arsenal, at least not for now, but President Biden has committed to spending hundreds of billions or more to modernize the U.S. arsenal and the Russians, who knows? They do a regular nuclear saber rattling. 

And there's only one nuclear arms control treaty left, that's the New Start Agreement, which Joe Biden extended until February 2026 the second he came into office, but earlier this year, the Russians announced that there were suspending participation in that one remaining treaty. What other way to say, they're not going to put more nuclear weapons out there, but it means they aren't sharing information on what they're doing with those weapons, and less information is never a good thing when it comes to nuclear arms races. It's a pessimistic time.

MCMAHON:
I think you've emphatically made that case, Carla, and we should add that Russia has now reportedly deployed nuclear weapons back into Belarus. Belarus had been one of the four former Soviet republics that had returned their weapons to Russia. Three had returned to Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Ukraine was supposed to be under the Budapest Memorandum, I think, was supposed to be-

ROBBINS:
Lisbon and Budapest, but yeah.

MCMAHON:
Yeah, its sovereignty was supposed to be protected and preserved because of that move. That was violated, so a great deal of cynicism out there, and also, we should mention China has, by many accounts, been ramping up and has rebuffed any attempts to get involved in nuclear control talks, whether bilaterally or trilaterally, I think, with Russia and China and the U.S. involved at the same time. 

ROBBINS:
Well, you can't really blame them because when you think about it, they only have 300 right now, and Russians and the Americans have 1,500, so what are we going to say to the Chinese? Cut? There are some people who suggest the Chinese want to build up to our levels, and then they're going to be willing to talk about cutting down.

MCMAHON:
Yeah, right.

ROBBINS:
We certainly don't want them to build up to our levels.

MCMAHON:
But it's all about, as so much of this was even during this Cold War Era, is about just trying to establish a baseline for trust, at least. Trust meaning you can check out each other's arsenals, and you can make sure that you're assured that they're not doing what they say they're doing, what they say they're not doing, and so forth, and now we're just in this tough spot, and yeah. These countries that are wannabes, because it gives them a bit of stature. They see what North Korea has been able to do. This poor, isolated country's been able to hold off the biggest powers in the world because they can nuclear saber rattle.

ROBBINS:
It's more than stature. It's also survival. I mean, what's the difference between Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi on one hand and the Kims on the other hand? Nobody's talking about invading North Korea because they've got a nuclear weapon, and Gaddafi, who had boxes and boxes and boxes of nuclear program equipment that he never put together that he bought from the A. Q. Khan smuggling network. If he'd actually built a nuclear weapon, would we have been so comfortable with supporting the overthrow of Gaddafi? Same thing, Saddam had a very nascent nuclear program. Would we have been so comfortable? 

I mean, this is the wrong message, of course. It's an incredibly wrong message here, and autocrats see this as a wonderful tool for survival, and so we send all of the wrong messages out there, and so this day is a very scary and pessimistic day, but I think it's a really important one for us to remember, and the way that the Russians have also reminded us every time, "Why is Joe Biden self deterring on sending everything that the Ukrainians need?" Because they don't know what the line is, and every time someone suggests that of Russia, "Well, we could drop a tactical nuke." Nobody has dropped a nuclear weapon except for the United States twice in the end of World War II, and let's hope it never happens again.

MCMAHON:
And as we talked about it quite a bit this summer with the Oppenheimer movie and so forth, it is unfathomable, but at the same time, there needs to be momentum in the right direction that it's not happening.

ROBBINS:
So Bob, it's time to discuss our audience figure of the week, which listeners can vote on every Tuesday and Wednesday at CFR_org's Instagram story, and this week they selected one I'm absolutely fascinated by, "India Accused of Killing a Canadian Sikh Leader." This is really an extraordinary story. If true, why would India take such a risk and why would Canada's Justin Trudeau call India out in public? That's not usually the way democracies deal with each other.

MCMAHON:
No, and it is the fact that it's two democracies involved here that has added to the unusual nature of this, the sense that we're in a bit of new territory here because this apparently came up at the G20 meeting, which Trudeau attended, and there was pretty tense talks that went on. G20 itself was seen as a triumph for India as this leader of the Global South, as a partner for the U.S., and so forth, and yet, Trudeau felt compelled to bring it up in Parliament that there were "credible allegations" of a link between agents of the government of India and the killing of the prominent Sikh activists named Hardeep Singh Nijjar, and this was just in the past June, and the responses were swift. The reprisals were swift in terms of withdrawing diplomats, in terms of the halting of trade talks between the two countries, and a lot of harsh rhetoric going back and forth as well.

The Indians have not been very happy with Canada's willingness to allow activists like Sikhs to be holding meetings and spouting their cause in Canada in this way. They see this leader who was head of something called the Khalistan movement, which seeks a separatist Sikh homeland in India's Punjab state. They see this as a terrorist threat. They see this as a national security threat. They've listed officials like this as national security threats. Canada, by the same token, to your point, one imagines that they had pretty strong intelligence that this was the case, and that they felt compelled to exercise this and surface it, and surface it at a week when there was going to be a gathering of world leaders, the UN General Assembly, where certainly we get discussion and generate interest, if not separate discussions among leaders. 

Interestingly, U.S. President Joe Biden, who is one of the first speakers at UNGA every year, or the U.S. President is, did not mention it at all and mentioned India in warm terms as a partner for the U.S., and there remains a great deal of speculation about the extent to which this revelation and any further ones that Canada might come out with will affect the way the U.S. or other partners in the Quad group will deal with India as a partner, as a security partner, how much they will trust it if it seems to be willing to go after what it sees as threats on other countries territories, including other democracies.

ROBBINS:
Well, we have very robust intelligence sharing with the Canadians, and I would suspect that if the Canadians know this, we know this. 

MCMAHON:
Yes. 

ROBBINS:
And the body language between Trudeau and Modi in the G20 was terrible. I mean, you could just see what they look like sitting together, and everybody was wondering about why that was. We knew that the trade talks had fallen apart, and if I were working up there, and I actually did work up there as a reporter, what I would want to know is did Trudeau say to Modi, "We have this intel. Let me show it to you"? Or show as much as he could without "threatening sources and methods." "What are you going to do about it? How can we move on from this?" You know?

MCMAHON:
Yeah. 

ROBBINS:
"Who are you going to pull out? Who are you going to blame for this? Who's going to take the fall for it so we can move on?" And Modi, I assume blew him off, so this would be the next step. I think the really interesting question is if the Americans had the same intel, why is Biden still sounding so warm about this? Because if this happened on American soil, can you imagine the American response? Not only would we be outraged, we'd expect our closest allies to be backing us up, so either there's some doubt here about the quality of the intelligence or something else really odd is going on here because this is a big step Trudeau took.

MCMAHON:
It's a very big step, and again, it's still kind of playing out. I do think we're likely to hear more from Canadian officials. I think they wanted to deliberately put this information out there and saying strong suspicion of links and so forth, and the question is what sort of conversations are going on behind closed doors with its Five Eyes partners, for example, which is the U.S., and Australia, New Zealand, and the U.K. about this type of thing, and to what extent has India in some way seriously ramped up its actions abroad to sort of take on what it sees as threats under a sort of newly empowered government and Modi's assertiveness and so forth? That's another question that's raised, and is India impervious to this type of exposure, and also any sort of warnings it gets behind closed doors or not? So it is fascinating and it is a question of how much this will firm up at all in public, if not in private.

ROBBINS:
And Modi is up for reelection and is he impervious or does he actually think that it's a political win for him to be called out in public? I think there are a lot of people are worried that Modi is going to be more of a divider than a uniter in this run up to this election, and this may be part of it.

MCMAHON:
We should note that India has pushed back strenuously against the allegation, but there have also been rallies in India, denouncing Trudeau, and so forth.

ROBBINS:
And they're suspending Canadian visas. I just saw this. 

MCMAHON:
Yes. So this will continue for a while and stay tuned. We'll surely talk about this again. And that's our look at the world next week. Here are some other stories to keep an eye on. South Sudan's President Salva Kiir visits Russia. China hosts the nineteenth Asian Games. And, Pope Francis marks the World Day of Migrants and Refugees with a mass.

ROBBINS:
Please subscribe to the World Next Week on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and leave us a review while you're at it. We really do 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 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. Special thanks to Sinet Adous for her research assistance. Our theme music is provided by Miguel Herrero and licensed under Creative Commons. This is Carla Robbins saying so long and stay safe.

MCMAHON:
And this is Bob McMahon saying goodbye and also be healthy.