Newsweek International April 01-08, 2022

WHEN SHOULD THE U.S. INTERVENE IN FOREIGN CONFLICTS? › When and where should America get involved, including the current Ukraine crisis? Charles Kupchan, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Jim Hanson, executive director of America Matters, face off about the role of the U.S. in disputes overseas. HOSTS › Celeste Headlee, author of We Need to Talk and Andrew Tallman, host of The Daily Break IN THEIR WORDS › “The stronger the U.S. is, the less problems the world has,” says Kupchan. Counters Hanson, “We [don’t have] an obligation to serve as [the world’s] firemen every time a blaze pops up.”…

THE PARTING SHOT Your weekly dose of everything pop culture The Renée Zellweger Interview › The Oscar-winning actress chats with host H. Alan Scott about her new NBC series, The Thing About Pam; plus Danny Pellegrino of the Everything Iconic podcast. THE DIPLOMAT Candid conversations on world issues Ukraine, From a Middle East Perspective › Host and former Mideast envoy Jason Greenblatt dissects criticism about what’s seen as a weak response to the Russian invasion from countries in the region. THE DAILY BREAK Fun, informative watercooler chatter From Serious to Surreal › Spanning the latest news from Ukraine to whether McDonald’s soft-serve is purposely out of order, host Andrew Tallman tackles the day’s trending stories in under 10 minutes. COLIN ANDERSON/GETTY; AMY SUSSMAN/GETTY…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses Congress virtually on March 16 to appeal for more military assistance to fight Russia’s invasion. He invoked images of Pearl Harbor and 9/11, saying, “Remember…when evil tried to turn U.S. cities into battlefields, when innocent people were attacked from air.” Afterward, President Joe Biden pledged an additional $800 million in security assistance to the nation. PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP/GETTY; J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/AFP/GETTY; CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP/GETTY…

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shone the spotlight on a small coterie of fabulously rich Russians with ties to President Vladimir Putin. Many of these so-called oligarchs amassed great wealth through the privitazation of state assets after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Some played a role in Putin’s rise to president in 2000, though he subsequently clipped their influence on politics while allowing them to thrive. They’ve continued to do so despite the sanctions imposed when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. ¶ The invasion of Ukraine has triggered condemnation of Putin and made his rich friends pariahs. The U.S., Europe and others have vowed to seize their big bank accounts, fabulously equipped yachts and fantastically overpriced real estate—much of which casts a long shadow over…

THERE’S A LOT OF CHATTER these days, sometimes wistful, about Civil War 2.0. Recently, Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican, said Texas could take its oil, NASA and go its own way. In January, professor Barbara Walter warned of the possibility of another war between the states in her book, How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them. A few years back, a The Week editor Bonnie Kristian, said, “We should chop America into seven different countries. Seriously.” And in 2020, right-wing provocateur Candace Owens tweeted, “I wonder if we’re past the point of reconciliation with the Left. Maybe we’d all be happier letting them pick a few states they can turn into their own country w/ no guns, no police, no statues, no genders, no flags, no men and…

WHEN RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR Putin ordered the first of his 190,000 troops into Ukraine on February 24, the invasion had a seismic effect on Europe and the Western world. But tremors were also felt some 5,000 miles to the east: Taiwan rapidly became a trending topic. For years, the world has speculated nervously on when President Xi Jinping will finally make good on the Chinese Communist Party’s vow to annex Taiwan, a self-ruling island off the east coast of the People’s Republic of China—an act that threatens to provide the spark that ignites a hot war between Beijing and Washington. The developments in Ukraine offer Beijing a hazy window into its own future. Russia’s many failures and miscalculations in its blitzkrieg, and its struggle to assert full control in Ukraine against a…