Chile’s Inferno, NATO Ramps Up Security Exercises, Indonesia’s Presidential Election, and More

MCMAHON:
In the coming week, Chile confronts a devastating wildfire season, NATO ramps up its largest exercise since the Cold War, and Indonesia holds the largest elections so far this year. It's February 8th, 2024 and time for The World Next Week. I'm Bob McMahon.

ROBBINS:
And I'm Carla Anne Robbins. So Bob, let's begin with Chile. Last Friday, wildfires began to surge across the central of Valparaíso region and the destruction has been really catastrophic. Thousands of homes burned down, the death toll has climbed to more than one hundred thirty people. And President Gabriel Boric has called the fires the country's deadliest disaster since the magnitude-8.8 earthquake in 2010. Some people have linked this disaster to the floods in California. Is this the toll of climate change?

MCMAHON:
Yes, so it's very much been linked according to the reporting that I'm seeing from the meteorologists and those who watch these things. I mean, this is the warning shot for this year on extreme climate events. It seems like every year we get them pretty early. This year feels a little bit earlier, but in the case of Chile, what's happened—actually, also California—is a little bit reminiscent of the famous line from Hemingway's Sun Also Rises, when the characters ask how he went bankrupt. And he says, "Two ways, gradually then suddenly." And basically you've had these gradual buildups in the case of Chile over a decade of severe drought. And then you have this El Nino system, which is a phenomenon that further kind of exacerbates the climate conditions in which incredibly dry tinder is poised to erupt and it did, and you have just huge swaths just burnt to a crisp, as you said, more than one hundred thirty dead. There seem to be hundreds reported to be missing in Chile. So unfortunately the toll is going to go higher there. There are last count, something like one hundred sixty fires still burning in Chile, although it seems like the worst of the intense torrent has passed. 

And then you have in California, which a meteorologists have say like this part of Chile was considered a sort of a temperate zone, almost Mediterranean style weather, suddenly you have a year's worth of normal rainfall coming in two days. These atmospheric rivers that this term we've heard and will likely hear more of dumping incredible rain that the footage out of places like San Diego and parts of LA and the counties nearby are just incredible. And less death toll, thankfully, but still the destruction is incredible. And at this point these are communities dealing with both drought and high water flows. And so again, it's a warning bell that human caused fossil fuel created climate change can have such impacts. Last year was the hottest year on record. This year is looking like it's going to be among the hottest so far, and we're just into February.

ROBBINS:
California of course is a very blue state, so this isn't going to change anybody's mind politically about climate change. Do you have any sense in Chile the reaction to the government on its handling of this, whether this is going to change anything politically on the ground? This is a pretty horrifying thing that people are going through.

MCMAHON:
Yeah, it's tough in places like Chile, first of all, you have certainly for the region of prosperous country, a country which has come through some democratic challenges, but seems to be pretty strong democratically. And yet whatever steps it takes are probably going to be more effective in the kind of mitigation and sustainability mode as opposed to taking further steps to roll back climate change. It needs to be the big industrial countries, the big emitters that take the most meaningful action and others can follow. Chile has been trying to devote more resources towards fighting fires and towards making itself more resilient in the case of these fires because it's a heavily forested country, but it's not clear whether much else is going to arise from that. The president has declared a two-day state of mourning on top of it all former president was killed in a tragic accident involving a helicopter he was in. It's former President Piñera.

So the country's dealing with a bit of trauma right now, and as I say, there are still fires to be fought and one wonders whether this will be yet another country lending its voice to this year's climate diplomacy in the year-end COP meeting to try to raise awareness about what's going on. And we've seen that happen in recent years at these COP meetings, where other countries that have been hit by major climate events have come really charged up about trying to do something about it. 

I would add one more thing, which is as these extreme events were being reported, Europe is going through an interesting debate about calling for emissions reduction. So it has gone through with a plan. The European Union has called for a 90 percent emissions cut by 2040, but it's facing on its own turf what's been known as a "greenlash," especially among agricultural groups who say that they're unduly targeted by these cutbacks and what they would face in terms of having to change their way of business would make it onerous for them. 

So it is not an easy problem as we have said many, many times before to kind of make meaningful inroads and yet it's going to have to take tough bite the bullet type measures to start to really limit the fossil fuel emissions that are said to be, repeatedly by scientists, at the core of all this.

ROBBINS:
Some so much of the discussions about these loss and damage funds and all of that is because so much of the suffering has been in the global south and the countries that haven't done the major emissions, but we are also seeing just these impacts. Europe's incredibly hot and these floods in California. One would think that the countries that are the major emitters would wake up because we're seeing it too. But I haven't seen a lot of enthusiasm or optimism for this year's COP either, but we will be paying attention to that.

MCMAHON:
No, and the age-old thing so far is that the countries that can afford it will rebuild, will try to bolster themselves against the next occasion of this and try to forge ahead while not slowing down too much the ongoing reliance on fossil fuels. But as you say, these are happening over and over again. They are focusing attention. Let's see if they focus action. 

Carla, let's move our conversation to NATO. This Sunday, NATO and the UK will hold a joint exercise called, "Agile Defender." These are the types of names that we like to hear in our exercises. They connote a sense of nimbleness and purpose. This is part of the wider NATO 2024 Steadfast Defender series and it's the largest military exercise by the alliance since the end of the Cold War. So more than thirty years, this is the biggest one. We've seen large ones taking place by Russia and Russians allies in recent years too. But certainly ever since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, governments across Europe have started to take their NATO defense spending commitments more seriously. It doesn't mean there is no pushback and does not mean there are not concerns about signs ahead in the upcoming elections in the U.S. and other countries, but are we going to see an ongoing commitment to keep NATO strong? Are these exercises going to be part and parcel of something that can be built on or are we starting to see erosion for that support?

ROBBINS:
Well, certainly Steadfast Defender '24, which began at the end of January, is intended to test, develop, and demonstrate NATO's ability to quickly move a large number of troops and equipment to reinforce NATO's eastern flank to respond to an attack by an unnamed, nudge nudge, read Russia, near peer competitor. And this is a big one. Some 90 thousand troops, fifty ships including aircraft carriers, destroyers, fighter jets, helicopters, drones are scheduled to take park. And over the next four months, there's going to be a whole series of these exercises. And they have, as you pointed out, these classically unsettled military names like Polish Dragon, which is going to practice river crossings; and Saber Strike, which is cold weather training in the Baltics; and Northern Viking, which is in Iceland; and a whole bunch of them. And there's even immediate response in Sweden, which is participating even as it's still waiting for Hungary to sign off on its membership.

So NATO not only is having its biggest exercises since the end of the Cold War, it's also testing out plans that it's developed because it wasn't developing new plans at the end of the Cold War. It is definitely much more alert because of obviously Putin and Ukraine. The U.S. is still carrying a lot of the weight, but I think these exercises are a sign that the Europeans are a lot more engaged and a growing number of countries are more willing to spend on defense than they were just a few years ago. About half of NATO's thirty-one members are expected to hit the alliance's target of 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense by 2024. Yes, this year was the long awaited target. And when that target was adopted in 2014, just two members were at the 2 percent of the GDP spending on defense. 

In late January, the NATO Secretary General announced a $1.2 billion contract for 200,155 millimeter artillery shells. So they're trying to ramp up their own production. So we have to credit Putin's invasion of Ukraine for this, but there's also a growing fear in Europe of U.S. abandonment, and that was planted in Trump 1.0 and people are also really freaking out about the fact that the Congress can't get it together to fund Ukraine and they're really freaking out at the prospect of a Trump 2.0. And what we're seeing in Europe, you're seeing sort of this...They're exercising NATO and at the same time they're really worrying that NATO may not have a future, certainly not a future with the U.S. in it. 

Usually politicians don't talk about what goes on behind the scenes. But last month at the European Parliament, the French European commissioner, this guy Terry Briton, came out and he described it to the parliament, a 2020 Davos meeting between Trump and the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, at which he said Trump told her she had to understand that, "If Europe is under attack, we will never come to help you and to support you." Added, "By the way, NATO is dead and we will leave, we will quit NATO." So as you can imagine, they certainly are scrambling. They want to spend more money, they want to have these exercises, they want to demonstrate to Putin and to themselves and to us that they're taking it seriously, but it's a very slow process and their economies aren't particularly strong right now and they have a really long way to go.

MCMAHON:
We should also note that just within the Republican Party during the Trump presidency, he faced a good bit of pushback from Republican lawmakers who both wanted to show solidarity with NATO as well as support Ukraine. And the record shows the U.S. did provide support for Ukraine during that period, even as Trump was downplaying what Russia was doing there in some instances. But we should also note what the Russians are signaling now. They are continuing to show that they have no signs of lessening their moves against Ukraine and blaming the war increasingly on NATO countries, on NATO expansion and so forth. It also so happens that as these exercises are playing out, Vladimir Putin is scheduled to go to Turkey, I believe, a NATO member. Is this ongoing sort of Erdogan-Putin connection going to yield anything? What do you think, Carla?

ROBBINS:
Well, I mean Erdogan is the problematic member of NATO, the way that Orban is the problematic member of the EU. Although one might argue that Erdogan's relationship with Putin has occasionally borne some fruit. I mean, there was the Black Sea grain deal because of it. So we'll see. I haven't heard people freaking out about this meeting. Remarkably, the Ukrainians are getting grain out even without this. I don't see any predictions for any big breakthrough from this meeting as well, but I also don't hear a lot of people calling to toss Erdogan for commingling with the enemy for this meeting. It's Erdogan. It's Erdogan being Erdogan. 

I think the thing that people are freaking out more than anything else is what's going on in Washington right now. The inability of the Congress to support Ukraine and the knowledge that if this goes on much longer, as much as the Europeans are trying to ramp up their production, they know that they...they have come up with this 50 plus billion dollars of economic support for Ukraine, which means that they're going to get to the point in which they will have given Ukraine as much money for economic support as we have given them for military support. So you can't say that they're slackers, but they do not have the capacity to provide military support. And yes, that's the result of free rider phenomenon of NATO for years. You can criticize them, but we are where we are right now and Ukraine needs our support. And they're also really worried about the long-term U.S. commitment to NATO, and they take very seriously what Donald Trump says on the campaign trail. The legislation's been passed. He can now unilaterally pull out of NATO if he is reelected. But once you start questioning that Article 5 commitment, it's like breaking your marriage vows. People are really, really worried. 

And one final point, Bob, I don't think it's surprising, but I found it really, really chilling in late January that Manfred Weber, who's the head of the center-right European People's Party, which could very well come out first in the European Parliament election, he told Politico that Europe has to build its own nuclear deterrent just in case Trump is elected and it has to go it alone. He said, "We want NATO, but we also have to be strong enough to be able to defend ourselves without it," or as he said, "in times of Trump." I find that really scary.

MCMAHON:
And that's a sentiment you'll see increasingly from other allies potentially if the U.S. goes in this direction. And again, what's playing out in Congress now is really, really important. It's even leading to ongoing discussions about getting creative in terms of aid for Ukraine. We're even seeing discussions as our colleague Brad Setzer has shown in his blog about how do you take the assets frozen or seized from Russia, the immobilized Russian assets that are in European banks, and maybe you skim off the interest from those to the tune of billions of dollars a year and send it to Ukraine. Those kinds of conversations are happening a bit more often now because it's becoming so powerless in terms of the debate in Washington. So again, lots of things to watch here as this other NATO exercise plays out.

ROBBINS:
So Bob, let's pivot to Southeast Asia. Next Wednesday, Valentine's Day here, millions of Indonesians are going to head to the polls. Indonesia is the world's third-largest democracy. It is geographically vast and complex. It's got over 17,000 islands, crosses four time zones. And so this election, besides being an utter logistical feat, this marks the end of Joko Widodo's decade in office and he's leaving office with a 78 percent approval rating. I know a lot of American presidents would kill for an approval rating like that. And, there are three leading presidential candidates, but apparently the real rock star is Jokowi's eldest son who's running as the vice presidential candidate under... I'm going to say his name incorrectly, Prabowo Subianto.

MCMAHON:
That's correct. Very good.

ROBBINS:
Okay. Yay. So what are the big issues in this election and what's the handicapping for who's going to win?

MCMAHON:
So as you say, it's a vast country and it's a vast election. The big deal is the presidential race, but we're looking at... Just to give you a sense of scale, there's something like 20 thousand representatives to national provincial and district parliaments that we elected from something like a quarter million candidates. The big thing that everybody's looking at though, as you say, is will Prabowo prevail? He is a well-known figure. He's current defense minister, he's former military general. He has a good deal of controversy in his past, although he has been a bit rehabilitated under Jokowi who brought him into government and has now cast his lot behind him in no small part because his son, thirty-six-year-old Gibran is running as vice president. 

Surveys have shown that Prabowo is the front-runner. It's not clear whether he will be able to prevail though in this round. He's going to have to get more than 50 percent of total votes cast and at least 20 percent of votes in more than half of the country's provinces. If he fails, there's going to be a June runoff with whoever comes in second. And so the other main candidates are Anies Baswedan. I hope I got that right. He's a former governor of Jakarta and he is running alongside the leader of the biggest Islamic party in the country. Indonesia is the world's largest Islamic population. And another challenger is Ganjar Pranowo, who is a former governor of central Java. 

They have cast a light on this sort of dynastic effect going on, especially Ganjar on the fact of Joko's son is running. And now Prabowo by the way is the former son-in-law of Suharto. So there's this dynastic element going on that's concerning a number of democracy advocates, and I would just quote our colleague Josh Kurlantzick, who has cast a pretty dim view on this election. He wrote a set-up piece for us on cfr.org. He basically says that Jokowi has, in his words, "failed in virtually every other policy arena aside from his successful economic policy," which is not insignificant, but he has failed to uphold democratic rights. According to Josh, he has allowed the army to become extensively involved in domestic affairs, including taking control of critical ministries, and he has undermined the anti-corruption watchdog and made alliances with some of the country's sort of most notorious, not archaic politicians. 

So someone who had come in as a breath of fresh air seemingly seems to be using old tried and true methods to try to retain some influence on power. According to Josh, Prabowo, he says, "would in some ways be a candidate of stability in terms of Indonesia's defense ties." Certainly its defense ties to the U.S. It's a solid ally in the region. It's maybe a leading more sort of vigorous role in ASEAN in the region and a counter-China role, but also will play his cards closely as it regards to China by far the number one trading partner of Indonesia. And so that's going to be very interesting to see how that plays out. 

We should note that there was concern when another return of dynasty happened in the nearby Philippines, and Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was elected and he's actually surprised a lot of people by his anti-China stance and by his willingness to kind of open up in some respects democratically compared to Rodrigo Duterte, his predecessor. So a huge amount at stake in a huge country, a huge influential country, and it's going to be very interesting to see whether Prabowo is able to gain a first round win or this is going to go to a runoff.

ROBBINS:
Prabowo has claimed that he received information that there are going to be plans to tamper with ballots. He said that last weekend. I mean, is this just what everybody does these days, the "stop the steal" thing? There is a long history of corruption in this country, but how much do we have to worry that this could become a seriously contested election?

MCMAHON:
Yeah, it is a concern when the front running candidate starts to put out information that if they do not win, there must be some tampering or raising concerns about the legitimacy of the process.

ROBBINS:
Have we heard this before?

MCMAHON:
I think we've heard this before. I can detect faint echoes in other places, Carla.

ROBBINS:
Sounds familiar.

MCMAHON:
Yeah, so that is absolutely a concern. There are concerns and with the spread of disinformation and other things. Social media seemed to be playing a bigger role. There's a lot of young voters. They make up more than half the electorate this year. This is all playing into what is the state of the Indonesian democracy, basically. As I said, it's not clear that if Prabowo wins, it's suddenly a decline in return to bad old days. But it also does raise concern if his party starts to seize control.

And as I said, this increasing role of military interests in the running of the government affairs does raise concern. Some of the maneuvering that got Jokowi's son onto the ballot as a running mate, as also raised concern, there had to be a special dispensation to allow for a thirty-six-year-old to be able to run. So there's a concern about the fix being in this country again with this giant sprawling democracy with a outsized interest in the reason. 

Well, Carla, we've talked our way into the audience figure of the week part of the podcast, And that ding means listeners have voted this Tuesday and Wednesday at cfr_org's Instagram story.

ROBBINS:
So do you think we have to worry about the legitimacy of that vote?

MCMAHON:
About the Instagram vote?

ROBBINS:
Yeah.

MCMAHON:
I think we can't rule that out. So we'll bear scrutiny, Carla. We'll have to take another look at that. We'll come back to our listeners on that. Meanwhile, this week they selected Blinken as the figure of the week, as in U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. And the vote was for, "Blinken Talks Peace in the Middle East." So there have been some developments since that vote, Carla. Has Blinken been able to bring peace or the start of a peace process in the Middle East?

ROBBINS:
Wow, that would definitely merit the audience figure of the week.

MCMAHON:
Yeah, I don't think we'd be doing it as an audience figure. I think that might be a bigger story, be that as it may.

ROBBINS:
So Bob, as you know, this is Tony Blinker's fifth trip to the Middle East since the October 7th Hamas attacks in Israel in the start of the Gaza War. And listening to him last night Wednesday insists that there's still space for negotiations after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected as "delusional," the Hamas counteroffer for a ceasefire for hostages deal. 

I thought that Middle East diplomacy is the real triumph of hope over experience, and this is really a very lonely and repetitive job. But Blinken has been pushing on multiple fronts. He's been pushing to get an extended ceasefire, which would include a hostages for Palestinian prisoners exchange. He's been pushing for the development of a day after plan for stabilizing and rebuilding Gaza with regional support, and this revamped Palestinian Authority that no one really knows what that means. And he was in Saudi trying to revive this pre Gaza-U.S. effort to get Saudi Arabia to open diplomatic relations with Israel someday in exchange for a U.S. defense treaty and support for civilian nuclear program. And central to that plan now, and it wasn't before the Hamas attack, a clear path toward the creation of a Palestinian state, a goal that Bibi Netanyahu also has repeatedly and volubly rejected. 

So this seemed pretty grim last night, but there was Blinken insisting that there's still room for maneuver. But today, Thursday, despite Bibi's rejection, Hamas delegation was in Cairo for more talks on a potential ceasefire and Israeli officials were walking Bibi's rejection back saying that there are negotiations, hostages have to be gotten out, and all of this is still possible. So hope over experience.

MCMAHON:
Yeah, and I should know we'll be going up shortly on our website with a take from our colleague Steven Cook about this as well, noting that yes, it was a repudiation of the deal, partly reflecting real concerns on some part of the Israeli side about what Hamas was asking for in the deal, what Hamas was possibly gaining in terms of remaining viable in Gaza and the Israelis turning over too many Palestinian prisoners exchange-

ROBBINS:
And calling for a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops as part of the ceasefire.

MCMAHON:
It was a big reach.

ROBBINS:
It was one of the things that Hamas was asking for. Yeah.

MCMAHON:
Exactly. And then as you said, and yet talks continue, and talks are continuing in multiple capitals, including in Qatar and other places to see whether they can get some traction on some sort of a deal. Maybe that's a more modest version of the one that was discussed heavily at the start of this week, and it couldn't be more consequential. We should note the situation in Gaza has been awful for weeks. It could get even worse as you have half of the population in Gaza now crowding into Rafah, the main municipality in southern Gaza Strip right near the Egyptian border. Egypt is taking especially keen interest in terms of what role it might play including as a place for any further passage of Palestinians. It's been holding off against that, but it has a keen interest in trying to get the situation under control as well.

ROBBINS:
And the Israelis say that they're going to now push even further into Rafah, which is where everybody is. Everybody's been herded further, further south, and there's no safe space. There's also no food, no medicine, no hospitals. Blinken said he spoke to these Israelis once again about just the humanitarian disaster that's in Gaza. It's really a horrifying situation. So you can understand why Blinken might be frustrated, but you can also understand why he's going to be back again soon pushing.

MCMAHON:
Yeah. And on top of everything else, there is serious concern about the UN Relief Agency for Palestinians and ongoing funding for that, given reports that a number of its members were involved in plotting the attack on Israel, the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th, and that UN agency is the main conduit for aid and all sorts of other support for the vast majority of Palestinian refugees. So it's an incredibly tough situation and only getting harder, which is again, I think among the many things, giving urgency to this diplomacy right now. 

Well, that's our look at the world in turmoil next week. Here's some other stories to keep an eye on. U.S. President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz meet in Washington to discuss support for Ukraine. Finland holds its presidential runoff election. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits the United Arab Emirates. And the Super Bowl is going to be played, Carla, between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers.

ROBBINS:
And you of course are a big Taylor Swift fan, so I know who you are rooting for.

MCMAHON:
I'm not going to say anything. It's hard to root against the Chiefs regardless of whatever pop star are in their camp, but just hoping for a good game, Carla.

ROBBINS:
Bob, are we now demoting Taylor Swift to pop star status?

MCMAHON:
No. I need to stay agnostic here.

ROBBINS:
Please subscribe to The World Next Week on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts, 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 twnw@cfr.org. 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, 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 and Sinet Adous with Director of Podcasting Gabrielle Sierra. Special thanks to our new intern, Olivia Green, a California girl for her research assistants. Our theme music is provided by Marcus Zacharia. This is Carla Robbins saying so long and I'm supporting the 49ers.

MCMAHON:
And this is Bob McMahon saying goodbye and be careful out there, Kansas City Chiefs.