Everyone is worried that Greece might default on its national debt. That's really not news. By one estimate, in the 180 years since it gained its independence from the Ottomans in 1832, the country has been in default or restructuring for half this period. The news is that this time, Germany is willing to bail Greece out.

Throughout the euro-zone crisis, it has been conventional wisdom to regard the Germans as narrow-minded, ungenerous and dogmatically wedded to prescriptions of austerity to treat Europe's problems. These criticisms are vastly overstated.

Read more about Germany's response and my column at TIME

Editor's Note: Be sure to catch "Fareed Zakaria GPS" on CNN every Sunday at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET.

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

Everyone is looking at Europe these days as economic and political protests mount across the continent.

The downward spiral has produced a great debate about the virtues of "austerity," the idea that governments with large budget deficits must reduce these deficits -– mainly by cutting spending. If they don't get their budgets in order, so the idea goes, they won't be able to borrow money and will face a fiscal nightmare of ever-rising interest rates. FULL POST

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

Whatever you thought of President Obama's recent speech on Afghanistan, it is now increasingly clear that the United States is winding down its massive military commitments to the two wars of the last decade.

We are out of Iraq and we will soon be largely out of Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden is dead, and al Qaeda is a shadow of its former self. Threats remain but these are being handled using special forces and intelligence. So, finally, after a decade, we seem to be right-sizing the threat from terrorist groups.

Or are we? FULL POST

Editor's Note: Be sure to catch Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN every Sunday at 10am and 1pm ET.

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

At the start of this year, I predicted, rather hopefully, that the U.S. economy would recover nicely in 2012. I'm returning to that topic with some preliminary good news. If you look around the industrialized world, the U.S. economy is the most promising of the bunch.

The American recovery is not as vigorous as one might hope, but it is remarkably broad-based. Manufacturing is up - including, for the first time in thirty years, non-technology based manufacturing. Retail sales are up; consumer confidence and spending are growing. The new employment numbers are encouraging. American businesses continue to do astonishingly well.  Corporate profitability continues to grow and the stock market reflects this.

The one area that continues to lag is housing, and it's a huge area. Traditionally, housing leads every recovery. This time it hasn't because the bursting of the housing bubble and the problems associated with mortgages and housing debt have left it struggling. But at some point that will end. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Be sure to catch Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN every Sunday at 10am and 1pm ET.

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

We’re going to hear a lot of polarized rhetoric over the next few months. The Republicans and Democrats will seem to disagree about everything. But there is one huge and important area where there is a possibility - a possibility - of bipartisan action and that’s tax reform.

Most Americans - Republicans and Democrats - dislike the tax code. They’re right to do so. America has what is arguably the world’s most complex tax code. The federal code plus IRS rulings is now 70,000 pages long. The code itself is 16,000 pages. The statist French, for example, have a tax code of only 1,909 pages - only 12% as long as ours. And then there are countries like Russia, the Czech Republic, Estonia that have innovated and moved to a flat tax, with considerable success.

You have to understand, complexity equals corruption.

FULL POST

Editor's Note: Be sure to tune in to GPS this Sunday at 10am and 1pm ET.  Also, don't miss my special episode of GPS, "Global Lessons – The GPS Road Map for Saving Heath Care", which airs Sunday night at 8pm and 11pm ET/PT.  The special will run again Saturday, March 24th, at 8pm and 11pm ET/PT.

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

When I was in college, in the early 1980s, I invited Ronald Reagan’s defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, to give a speech on campus. At the time, U.S. colleges were hotbeds of opposition to the Reagan administration, especially to its defense policies. Sure enough, as Weinberger began to speak, a series of students stood up and began to heckle. One after another, they rose and chanted a single line, “Deterrence is a lie!”

I am reminded of that turbulent meeting as I listen to the debates over Iran’s nuclear ambitions because it highlights a strange role reversal in today’s foreign policy discourse. It used to be the left that refused to accept the idea of deterrence - searching instead for options such as a nuclear freeze. And it used to be those on the right who would patiently explain the practical virtues of deterrence.

The conservative thinker Charles Krauthammer wrote in the New Republic in 1984. "Deterrence, like old age, is intolerable, until one considers the alternative." FULL POST

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

President Obama has been trying to cool down the war fever that suddenly gripped Washington early this month. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit and the flurry of statements surrounding it have created a dangerous dynamic. It is easy to see how things move toward war with Iran. It is difficult to see how they don't.

The pressure is building on Iran, but there are no serious discussions of negotiated solutions. Israel has already discounted the proposed new talks. Republican candidates will denounce any deal, no matter how comprehensive the inspections.

So either Iran suddenly and completely surrenders - or Israel will strike. And Bibi Netanyahu knows that the window presented by the U.S. political season is closing. If he were to strike between now and November, he would be assured of unqualified support from Washington. After November, the American response becomes less predictable no matter who is elected president. The clock is ticking.

FULL POST

Editor's Note: Be sure to catch GPS every Sunday at 10a.m. and 1p.m. EST. If you miss it, you can buy episodes on iTunes.

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

The controversy over the desecration of copies of the Quran in Afghanistan and the murders of Americans that have followed is, on one level, one moment in a long, complicated war. But it also highlights the difficult and ultimately unsustainable aspect of America's Afghan policy. President Obama wants to draw down troops, but his strategy remains to transition power and authority to an Afghan national army and police force as well as to the government in Kabul, which would run the country and its economy. This is a fantasy. We must recognize that and pursue a more realistic alternative. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Be sure to catch GPS every Sunday at 10a.m. and 1p.m. EST. If you miss it, you can buy episodes on iTunes.

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

The American economy seems to have picked up. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is hovering around 13,000 - the highest since the financial crisis began in May 2008. The NASDAQ is actually at its highest level since the technology bubble burst more than a decade ago. Stock prices aren't everything but data from the economy on the ground is also slowly getting better. Jobless claims are down; housing starts are up. Things do seem to be getting better, slowly but surely.

This is all good news for President Obama because there is a very strong correlation between economic growth and a president's prospects for reelection. The unemployment numbers are still pretty high but they are falling. Also, many models suggest that unemployment is not the crucial statistic to determine whether a President will win reelection.

Most people are employed. It's the rise in per capita GDP - the average person's income rise - that determines whether they feel things are getting better and thus whether they will vote for the incumbent or seek a change.

So does that mean the economy - and the president - are in good shape?

FULL POST

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

If you're trying to understand the recent protests against the Putin regime in Russia, one of the best guides is an outspoken columnist who's been writing trenchant essays in the nation's leading newspapers over the past month.

"Political competition is the heartbeat of democracy," this author writes, noting the absence of such competition in contemporary Russia. He describes the frustrations of the Russian middle class, demanding political rights.  "Today, the quality of our state does not match civil society's readiness to participate in it." On corruption, perhaps the issue that most riles the public, the author is scathing. "The problem comes from the lack of transparency and accountability of government," he says.

Now, what makes this all deeply strange is that the author of these essays is Vladimir Putin - the architect, builder, and chief enforcer of the system that he is critiquing. Putin seems to understand Russia's problems better than your average dictator. He doesn't seem to understand that he is the source of those problems in many people's eyes.  FULL POST