This Week’s Highlights

Given Vladimir Putin's greater ideological affinity for China than for the United States and his obsession with the possibility of liberal revolution, a frenemy alliance with the United States to counter the material danger posed by China is highly unlikely as long as Putin's regime continues, writes Mark L. Haas of Duquesne University.

Expert on the activities of the Russian secret services Andrei Soldatov offers his answer to the question on why Russia is not using Pegasus spyware. On the world market for espionage technology, Russia is a seller, not a buyer, he explains, noting that the FSB is extremely paranoid about foreign spyware. 

Revitalizing U.S. foreign policy will require more than a renewed commitment to diplomacy;  instead, policymakers should embrace the evidence-based policy movement, write Dan Spokojny and Thomas Scherer for War on the Rocks. Its methods would enhance American leaders’ ability to achieve national security objectives by reducing costly inefficiencies, reducing misperceptions, and transforming U.S. institutions into organizations that can continually learn, they argue.

When German chancellor Angela Merkel steps down after the 2021 Bundestag elections, she will leave a substantial void in EU-Russia relations, write Janis Kluge and Leslie Schübel for the National Interest. Despite the different profiles of the front-running candidates, Germany’s foreign policy will most likely face only a gradual update once the dust of the election campaigning has settled, they assert. The most probable outcome of the election is a coalition government that involves both Laschet and Baerbock, leading to bipartisan compromise instead of radical change, according to Kluge and Schübel.

The main message [in Putin’s recent article on Ukraine] can be interpreted as both a proposal and a warning, writes Fyodor Lukyanov, head of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. Putin’s proposal is that Moscow recognizes the reality and does not intend to restore what was lost or to dispute what happened, which it was always suspected of, while the warning is that the proposal is only valid if the reality is understood by all interested parties, which are not going to abuse it, he writes.

With Belarus, the past to be remembered and studied is right before our eyes, according to Michael Kimmage, professor of history at the Catholic University of America. Call it the Ukraine trap, he writes. He argues that worst-case scenarios have been avoided in Ukraine not because Russia has been coerced into backing down but because of the unspoken moderation of Western policy, he writes. In Belarus, the worst-case scenarios should be avoided too, he writes.

 

I. U.S. and Russian priorities for the bilateral agenda

Nuclear security:

• No significant developments.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• No significant developments.

Iran and its nuclear program:

• No significant developments.

Great Power rivalry/New Cold War/NATO-Russia relations:

“Biden's options on Afghanistan are shrinking,” David Ignatius, The Washington Post, 07.22.21. The author, a foreign affairs columnist for the newspaper, writes:

• “Afghanistan's neighbors—Pakistan, India, Russia, China and Iran—all oppose a military takeover by the Taliban. So a regional consensus for stability is within the realm of what can be achieved. But the United States needs urgent help from Afghanistan's neighbors in assembling a broader coalition government and preventing a Taliban takeover. This shouldn't be an ask, as in Secretary of State Antony Blinken's March letter to Ghani, but a demand—backed by all the carrots and sticks America has in hand.”
• “If Afghanistan turns out to be a freewheeling disaster, it will obliterate other seeming gains in the battle of influence with Russia or China. The trickiest issue is how to get help from China, which is worried about an Afghan government collapse but has seemed to be gloating over the United States' troubles.”
• “America is grateful that our troops are coming home, after 20 years. Biden needs to move quickly to make certain that they leave behind something more than ruin and broken promises.”

“Is There a New Status Quo in Russia-West Relations?” Liana Fix, Carnegie Moscow Center, 07.21.21. The author, program director at the Körber Foundation, writes:

• “The Biden-Putin summit has elicited hopes for a new status quo in relations between Russia and the West, marked by guardrails and the prevention of further destabilization.”
• “For the momentum to last, however, the United States and Europe need to coordinate their policies, and Moscow must demonstrate that it is willing to accept and engage within this new status quo.” 
• “With better preparation, an EU-Russia summit could put the United States and Europe on the same page and contribute to common political messaging. A European equivalent of the Biden-Putin summit could focus on setting the guardrails in that relationship and identify areas that should be off limits, such as election interference (especially with upcoming elections in Germany and France), and cyber attacks on critical infrastructure. Moreover, the United States has embarked on a Strategic Stability dialogue with Russia. Although Europe is still seeking its role in U.S.-Russian arms control talks, European security—including the situation in eastern Ukraine—is too important for Europeans to remain bystanders. A well-prepared summit could serve the purpose of limiting the risk of escalation in all these areas.”
• “Most importantly, however, a new status quo in Russia-West relations requires Moscow to demonstrate that it is willing to commit to a mutual policy of guardrails and escalation prevention. The best-case scenario would be that nothing happens in relations with Russia: the absence of crises, whether in the form of cyber attacks, election interference, a military standoff, or escalating repression. If this new status quo proves to be solid, further topics of joint interest can be put on the agenda, such as the fight against COVID-19 and climate change.”

“Washington’s Democracy Dilemma. It’s Not Easy to Balance Great Power Politics and American Values,” Frances Z. Brown and Thomas Carothers, 07.23.21. The authors, respectively the co-director of the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program and interim president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, write:

• “Biden and his team have taken up the increasingly common view in the broader U.S. policy community that countering China and Russia is central to supporting democracy globally.”
• “It is undeniable that China and Russia are working against democracy in different ways and places, and the United States of course needs to get smarter at finding ways to blunt such efforts. But enshrining a focus on these two countries as the main thrust of a democracy strategy would be a mistake. … [M]uch of the recent global democratic backsliding has little to do with China and Russia.”
  • “The erosion of democratic norms in many of the world’s most populous countries over the past ten years … was not primarily the result of Chinese or Russian influence.”
• “The administration rightly is embracing a big-tent approach to supporting democracy abroad, one that encompasses as many of the world’s democracies as possible. But the more Washington elevates China and Russia in its democracy policy, the less inclusive its tent will be.”
• “To craft an effective democracy strategy, the Biden administration must also squarely face a long-standing tension in U.S. foreign policy. The United States has committed itself to promoting democratic values and institutions across the globe out of the conviction that it is more secure and prosperous in a more democratic world. At the same time, many specific economic and security interests incline the United States to soft-pedal democracy with its nondemocratic friends and allies. This tension produces diplomatic inconsistencies that have persistently undercut the credibility of U.S. democracy policy....The Biden administration should openly acknowledge these tensions, not try to hide them.”
• “The Summit for Democracy may amplify the administration’s recognition that domestic and global democratic reforms are linked. And more broadly, it can elicit commitments for improvement from democratic partners that advances democracy across the globe. But as champions of democracy parse every aspect of planning for the meeting, they should keep in mind that the fundamental challenge they face is addressing the urgent dilemmas of democracy policy in the current, troubled international landscape. Settling on a strategy that does so will position the Biden administration to leave a lasting imprint.”

“Less Than a Full Deck: Russia’s Economic Influence in the Mediterranean,” Joanna Pritchett, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 07.21.21. The author, a visiting scholar at the organization, writes:

• “Russia’s intervention in Syria in 2015, and then subsequently in Libya, marked its return as a major actor in the Mediterranean. Much has been made of Russia’s use of all elements of statecraft, including diplomatic, ideological, military, and economic instruments, to advance its interests in this region, a vital shipping and transit corridor. A closer look at Russia’s economic tool kit in this region, however, suggests concerns about Russian economic capabilities are likely overstated.”
• “Russia’s most important economic tools in the Mediterranean are its energy resources, arms exports, and ability to launder money through corrupt networks.”
• “These tools have proved of limited utility elsewhere, however, as they have not been backed by the traditional instruments of economic statecraft: trade in non-energy goods and services, foreign direct investment, and development assistance. Russia has trailed the United States and Europe, and in some cases China, in deploying these fundamental economic elements of foreign policy in the Mediterranean region.”
• “If Russia’s ambitions in the Mediterranean region are limited to maintaining access, currying favor with key decisionmakers, and remaining a nuisance to NATO, then its current level of economic ties is likely sufficient. If Russia aims to grow its influence and clout with more countries in the region, however, its current economic tool kit does not appear to be large or sophisticated enough to achieve this.”
• “Economic statecraft is an important tool in any country’s foreign policy. Trade and investment deals link countries together in vital ways to improve living standards in each country. They also build relationships between people—politicians, business leaders, students, tourists—that promote mutual understanding and respect for each other’s cultures. The United States and the European Union have generally excelled in building these types of economic ties in the post–World War II era, and economic data show they continue to be the dominant economic powers in the Mediterranean. Continuing this leadership in the economy will likely ensure that Russian influence in the Mediterranean remains a manageable, if persistent, problem for the West."

“Updating Space Doctrine: How to Avoid World War III,” Jim Cooper, War on the Rocks, 07.23.21. The author, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, where he serves as chairman of the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, writes:

• “First, the United States should create deterrence in space that the world knows and respects, not just reiterate empty and sometimes misleading space doctrines. America needs the will, the technology, and, yes, the publicity, to make deterrence real to potential adversaries.”
  • “Establishing space deterrence will be made easier by the fact that any nation initiating a space attack would be transgressing a deep taboo, like dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.”
  • “Another source of deterrence comes from fully understanding the space environment and its current players. Space wars are, by definition, remote-controlled robot wars....Fortunately, the United States has a substantial advantage in virtually every field of space machinery. That alone should sober up an attacker.”
  • “Other ways of promoting deterrence include warning of denial of U.S. space discrimination capabilities—the ability to identify and track ‘space junk’—to any nation that crosses red lines, leaving their satellites more vulnerable to space debris.”
  • “Another is to have legions of replacement satellites ready for launch, like modern terra-cotta warriors, rendering anti-satellite weapons useless. Impossible? That’s what was said about SpaceX’s reusable rockets.”
• “Another fundamental of space is the recognition that no one should die for a robot. The laws of war haven’t caught up to this idea yet, but they will. This isn’t self-righteousness. It’s realism. The United States would have a hard time persuading a skeptical global public that it really knows why a U.S. satellite died without divulging national technical means.”

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

“When Do Ideological Enemies Ally?” Mark L. Haas, International Security, July 2021. The author, an international relations professor at Duquesne University, writes:

• “When predicting the likelihood of cross-ideological alliances, it is tempting to believe that the famous realist dictum ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ provides an adequate guide. There is certainly much wisdom in this phrase. Mutual animosity toward pressing dangers is often sufficient to induce alliances among states, even among those founded on opposing ideological principles.”
• “Unfortunately for ease of analysis and prediction, frenemy alliances defy easy categorization. While ideological enemies sometimes set aside their ideological disputes in the face of shared threats, leaders in these situations just as frequently adhere to the reverse logic, with the enemy of their enemy remaining an enemy. … The values of two ideological variables in addition to ideological enmity … provide the key to understanding when either the common-interest or rivalry dimension of frenemy relationships is likely to determine leaders’ alliance policies.”
• “The argument indicates not only when leaders are likely to ally to balance a material threat, but when they are likely to bandwagon with this state and when they are likely to try to pass the costs of balancing to other countries. At its broadest level then, the argument seeks to explain when states engage in a range of security policies when taking ideological variables into account.”
• “The argument can also aid policymakers by helping them predict the likelihood of effective balancing both regionally and globally.”
  • “Given Vladimir Putin's greater ideological affinity for China than for the United States and his obsession with the possibility of liberal revolution, a frenemy alliance with the United States to counter the material danger posed by China is highly unlikely as long as Putin's regime continues.
• “In sum, analyzing only the effects of shared material threats will frequently provide a poor guide to predicting when ideological enemies are likely to form stable coalitions. To understand the likelihood of frenemy alliances, analysts must identify the conditions that make either the material forces that attract potential allies or the ideological forces that repel these states more salient to decision making.”

“Trying to Pry Russia Away Fom China is a Fool's Errand,” Michael McFaul, The Washington Post, 07.21.21. The author, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, writes:

• “Abstractly, the idea of pulling Russia toward the United States to balance against China sounds appealing. It's classic realpolitik logic. Along these lines, Daniel Yergin recently praised U.S. flexibility on sanctions toward the German-Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline as a possible ‘olive branch’ that would encourage Russia to distance itself from China, in what is described as ‘a priority strategy for this administration.’”
• “The current Sino-Russian partnership is worrying, and the impulse to view all other foreign policy issues through the U.S.-China bilateral lens is tempting. But this particular Cold War play won't work today—and even if it did, it would not yield the same benefits that it produced last century.”
• “Advocates of the ‘Nixon-goes-to-China’ strategy forget the essential precondition for its success: the Sino-Soviet split....By contrast, Chinese-Russian economic, security and ideological ties today are closer than ever. ... So why would Putin abandon his autocratic soul mate to flirt with a democratic leader he's met only twice? Moreover, the United States is a democracy, giving other actors—especially Congress—a say in foreign policy decision-making, particularly regarding human rights. In Putin's view, Xi is a powerful, more reliable partner—in ways that Biden and his successors can never be.”
• “Second, in return for pivoting, Putin would demand unsavory concessions, especially regarding Ukraine and Georgia. That's a bad trade. A return to sphere-of-influence geopolitics—pro-Putin pundits sometimes call it Yalta 2.0—hurts the long-term interests of the United States and our European allies.”
• “Most detrimentally, closer relations with a Russian autocrat to help contain a Chinese autocrat will undermine Biden's aspiration to unite the free world, about which he has spoken so passionately in the last six months. … Someday, the United States should seek deeper partnership with Russia in containing and competing with China. But that policy should be initiated with a democratic Russia, not an autocratic Putin—however far in the future that moment might be.”

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control

“A New Paradigm: Mutually Assured Security,” Raymond Smith, War on the Rocks, 07.20.21. The author, who spent 25 years in the U.S. Foreign Service dealing primarily with the Soviet Union and Russia, writes:

• “There is a viable alternative [to mutually assured destruction concept]. As I argued five years ago, the United States, Russia, and other nuclear powers should adopt ‘mutually assured security,’ a strategic system dominated by defensive weapons. Mutually assured security would have no greater, and probably less, risk of failure than mutually assured destruction, without threatening the civilization-destroying consequences of any such failure. Political and military developments over the past five years—among them the deteriorating relationship between the two nuclear superpowers, new types of hypersonic weapons, and new concerns that the barriers to nuclear use have eroded—have increased the risks associated with mutually assured destruction. Nothing has occurred to reduce the catastrophic consequences should it fail.”
• “A system of mutually assured security would need to have four important characteristics.”
  • “First, countries with nuclear weapons would possess low numbers of offensive weapons, each having somewhere between zero and 100 such weapons.”
  • “Second, those countries would need defensive systems capable of destroying a high proportion of the offensive systems they are aimed at.”
  • “Third, countries would need to possess substantially larger numbers of defensive than offensive systems, in an agreed proportion.”
  • “Fourth, there would need to be an international agreement on the points above, as well as on the following additional matters: how to manage the transition from offensive to defensive deterrence; a freeze on research related to, and improvement of, offensive strategic systems; cooperative research on improving defensive systems; and an extensive and intrusive national and international verification regime.”
• “Perhaps the current administration will be able to take a fresh look at America’s, and the world’s, fundamental strategic interest, which is to ensure that if deterrence fails nuclear Armageddon does not follow.”

Counter-terrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant developments.

Cyber security:

“Why Is Russia Not Using Pegasus Spyware?” Andrei Soldatov, The Moscow Times, 07.21.21. The author, an investigative journalist and expert on the activities of the Russian secret services, writes:

• “When a group of international investigative journalists and researchers broke the news that spyware called Pegasus, produced by the Israeli NSO Group, had helped repressive governments across the world spy on journalists, activists and lawyers on an unprecedented scale, the question emerged: Where was Russia?”
• “Russia’s government bodies—the secret services—are known to actively spy on journalists, activists, and lawyers. The NSO Group said it only sold spyware to vetted government bodies, not to private actors. And the relationship between Israel and Russia has been sufficiently close for years. So why is the FSB, or any other Russian agency, not on the list of NSO clients?”
  • “On the world market for espionage technology, Russia is a seller, not a buyer. Russian spy masters are proud successors to a long tradition of excellent intelligence technology, first developed under Joseph Stalin. They include famous inventions such as the Great Seal bug, a listening device concealed inside a gift given by the Soviet Union to W. Averell Harriman, U.S. Ambassador, and used to spy on the American ambassadors in Moscow for seven years. The technology being used today to identify Mexican phone users was developed by a company which is a direct successor to a Soviet-era sharashka—the top secret military research and development labs based in Gulag prison camps, where detained academics and scientists were forced to work.”
  • “The FSB is also extremely paranoid about foreign spyware.  The FSB suspects—for good reason—that foreign developers cooperate with the intelligence agencies of their home countries, and that once any equipment is acquired through them, it could provide those foreign intelligence services with a decent chance of penetrating and compromising Russia’s operations. Looking into the way Pegasus operates, this concern seems to be justified. The NSO Group sells Pegasus mobile phone spyware to government agencies as a product, but when it is put to use, things get tricky.”  

“Russia and China's hypocritical attempt to control cyberspace,” David Ignatius, Washington Post, 07.20.21. The author, foreign affairs correspondent for the newspaper, writes:

• “At the very moment that Russia and China are facing more pressure from Western governments to stop malicious cyberattacks, they've announced a pact to work together for new rules to control cyberspace.”
• “The June 28 Russia-China accord was revealed in a little-noticed posting the next day by the Chinese embassy in Moscow, which was sent to me by a European Internet activist. It amounts to a manifesto for joint Internet control through capture of existing United Nations-sponsored organizations, such as the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).”
• “This expansion to cyberspace of an existing treaty on ‘good neighborliness, friendship and cooperation’ is a sign of what Biden administration officials tell me is a deepening strategic alignment between Moscow and Beijing. To formalize the agreement, Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping held a joint teleconference last month, according to a story by the Russian news agency Novosti.”
• “The Internet is the high ground of the 21st century, in terms of economic, political and even military power. But however advanced the technology, the battle for control is trench warfare, fought in obscure meetings and forums and standard-setting bodies. ‘We're very, very actively engaged on this front,’ Secretary of State Antony Blinken told me in an email in May.”
• “The Russians and Chinese have now formed an alliance for control. It's encouraging that after four years of deference under President Donald Trump, the United States and its allies in the world's techno-democracies are fighting back.”

Energy exports from CIS:

“Biden’s Surrender to Merkel on Nord Stream 2” Kiron Skinner and Russell A. Berman, FP, 07.26.21. The authors, professors at Carnegie Mellon University and Stanford University respectively, write:

• “Bipartisan opposition to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was a cornerstone of the foreign policies of both the Obama and Trump administrations, an unambiguous response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the Kremlin’s record of using gas deliveries as a weapon of coercion in Eastern Europe. The recent decision by the Biden administration to reverse the policy of its predecessors and to refrain from sanctioning participants in the pipeline project is nothing but a capitulation to pressure from Germany and a gift to Russian President Vladimir Putin.” 

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

“Foreign Policy Should Be Evidence-Based,” Dan Spokojny and Thomas Scherer, War on the Rocks, 07.26.21. The authors, respectively the founder of the fp21 think tank and director of the Center for Peace and Security Studies at the University of California, San Diego, write:

• “An ascendant China. A revanchist Russia. The failure of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to achieve U.S. objectives. Climate change. The threat of nuclear proliferation. Rising authoritarianism. The challenges to U.S. influence on the world stage have become so numerous, serious, and complex that some experts see the ‘unraveling’ of American power.”
• “Revitalizing U.S. foreign policy will require more than a renewed commitment to diplomacy. Instead, policymakers should embrace the evidence-based policy movement. Its methods would enhance American leaders’ ability to achieve national security objectives by reducing costly inefficiencies, reducing misperceptions, and transforming U.S. institutions into organizations that can continually learn. Simply put, yesterday’s tools may not be up to the task of solving today’s problems.”
• “All foreign policy professionals will agree that evidence is vital to our work. …  Features of an evidence-based policymaking process include: an emphasis on fact-finding; citations of the available evidence for various options; metrics of success in all policy memos; an emphasis on transparency of decision-making; and an emphasis on learning from successes and failures.”
• “Too often, policymakers rush from the discovery of a few facts to forming a confidently held conclusion, or, worse yet, start with a conclusion and then go hunting for supporting evidence.”
  • “The first step of the scientific method is something policymakers are already good at—generating hypotheses.”
  • “The next step is to test the hypotheses by evaluating evidence on all sides of the argument. … When policymakers fail to test their claims, they make mistakes that could have been avoided.”
  • “Evidence can vary greatly in type and quality in ways that are not readily apparent. Evidence can be qualitative, data-driven, comparative, historical, or the result of a randomized control trial, but the principles of the scientific method remain unchanged.”
• “One of the biggest misconceptions about evidence-based foreign policy is that science should provide the ‘right’ answers to the problems we face. It will not. It cannot. … We encourage the Biden administration to more explicitly promote evidence-based policymaking for foreign policy processes.”

“Tough Biden Talk, Little Action,” The Wall Street Journal Editorial, The Wall Street Journal, 07.21.21. The newspaper’s editorial board writes:

• “A troubling pattern is emerging in President Biden's foreign policy: Officials talk tough—then follow up with diplomacy that amounts to little. Two examples this week—on Chinese hacking and Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline—underscore the point.”
  • “Giving a revisionist power more influence over Europe's economy doesn't help U.S. interests. The big win for Russian gas also comes as the Administration moves to restrict fossil-fuel production in the U.S. Angela Merkel, who negotiated the deal with President Biden, soon won't even be Chancellor.”
  • “Meanwhile, on Monday the Administration called out China for cyber attacks ... the hackers focused on traditional espionage targets, then broadened their efforts to include others in the private and public sectors, nonprofits and academia The U.S. response this past week was to unseal an indictment against four Chinese citizens involved in another hacking campaign.”
• “Biden officials, including the President, believe in the power of diplomacy almost for its own sake. But diplomacy that yields only talk achieves nothing against determined adversaries with malign intentions.”

"Russia, the United States, and the Counterrevolutionaries: A Trilateral Chess Match in the Middle East, Jon Hoffman, Russia Matters, 07.21.21." The author, a PhD student at George Mason University, writes:

• “In the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, great power competition has returned to the Middle East. Russia in particular has sought to exploit U.S. policy blunders and retrenchment (real or perceived) in order to push for greater regional multipolarity.”
• “While it is easy to understand why regional states outside of the ‘U.S. camp,’ such as Iran or Syria, would turn to Moscow as a way to hedge against the United States, of particular concern for this analysis is how supposed U.S. allies–those regional states firmly within the ‘U.S. camp’–are using the return of great power competition for their own domestic and geopolitical purposes. Therefore, this analysis examines Russia’s return to the region through the lens of what is commonly referred to as the ‘Counterrevolutionary Bloc’ (CRB),consisting of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), post-2013 Egypt, and Israel, which has emerged as the dominant regional coalition following the Arab Uprisings.”
• “In conclusion, Russia’s return to the Middle East is far from one-sided. Regional actors view the return of great power competition to the region as an opportunity to exploit great-power politics to their own advantage. Important to recognize, however, is that competition between Moscow and Washington in the Middle East is only a small piece of the broader great-power competition between Russia and the U.S. that will be shaped by both regional developments and hostilities elsewhere.”
• “If tensions between the U.S. and Russia were to escalate elsewhere–such as in Eastern Europe–this could result in increased direct competition in the Middle East as well. Moreover, Russia is not the only other great power expanding its presence in the region. China’s footprint in the Middle East continues to grow considerably, and increased competition in the region between Washington and Beijing could alter the calculus of both Moscow and the CRB states. … Regardless, what is certain is that regional actors will continue to exploit these tensions however possible in order to advance their own agendas.”

 

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

• No significant developments.

Defense and aerospace:

• No significant developments.

National security, law-enforcement and justice:

“Is Russia playing the victim, or is the sense of impending siege justified?” Geoffrey Roberts, Responsible Statecraft, 07.22.21. The author, a history professor at University College Cork, National University of Ireland and a member of the Royal Irish Academy, writes:

• “Moscow’s current view is that external dangers to Russia have only multiplied and intensified in recent years. Accordingly, the National Security Strategy [approved by President Putin earlier this month] asserts that Russia and its citizens are under attack. A number of foreign states identify Russia as a threat or, worse, a military opponent. These same states strive to isolate Russia internationally and to interfere in its domestic affairs. Amid a tough global struggle for spheres of influence, the use of force to resolve international problems has become increasingly common. There is a moral vacuum at the global leadership level. The liberal democratic model is in crisis and Western states are attempting to solve their domestic problems at Russia’s expense.”
• “Strategically, Russia will respond to this unstable and threatening situation by strengthening its military, enhancing its internal security, and reducing its dependence on foreign trade, finances, and technologies. … Equally, the document lays out Russia’s commitment to a unified international order based on legal norms and respectful, trust-based relations between states.”
• “A vigorous assertion of Russia’s sovereignty is the persistent theme: state sovereignty in the face of foreign interference in the country’s domestic affairs; the autonomy of its economy, financial institutions, and information technology systems; the country’s cultural specificity and independence; and the moral right of its citizen to choose a traditional way of life based on their religion, family, and community values.”
• “The document includes a section devoted to the social welfare and moral well-being of Russian citizens and the state’s role in fostering the full flowering of their human potential. Another section is entitled ‘Defense of Traditional Russian Spiritual-Moral Values, Culture and Historical Memory.’ In effect, this defines Russia as a conservative state resistant to the extremes of liberal individualism. Russia’s traditional values are seen as under attack by Western states aiming to undermine the country’s cultural autonomy, while its past is being falsified by those trying to obliterate its common historical memory in order to fan the flames of inter-ethnic and inter-religious conflict.”
• “Further evidence of Moscow’s defensive stance came in a recent piece Putin wrote on the history of Russian-Ukrainian relations in which he says the western anti-Russia project dates back centuries.”

 

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

Russia’s general foreign policy and relations with “far abroad” countries:

“The Power of Putin in Russian Foreign Policy,” Elias Götz and Michael McFaul, International Security, July 2021. Elias Götz, an assistant professor in the Institute for Strategy and War Studies at the Royal Danish Defense College responds to an article by former American ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul:

• “‘Putin, Putinism, and the Domestic Determinants of Russian Foreign Policy’ is well timed and likely to play a big role in shaping the debate about contemporary Russian foreign policy … [H]owever, it fails to convince for four reasons.”
  • “First, the article's research design is flawed. By exploring only cases of Russian interventionism (e.g., Syria and Ukraine), McFaul is selecting on the dependent variable.”
  • “Second, the article's account of Russia's Syrian policy is not on solid empirical grounds. For example, McFaul writes, ‘Imagine … a counterfactual in which Russia mediated a political settlement in Syria … in which [Bashar al-] Assad departed, but many pro-Russian actors of the Assad regime stayed in the government.’ In fact, Moscow initially pursued this track. In 2012 … Russia's permanent representative to the United Nations … proposed a peace plan for Syria, which included the condition that Assad would step down and be replaced by an interim government. The Barack Obama administration, however, ignored the proposal, convinced that Assad would soon fall … [The] proposal … shows that the Kremlin was not wedded to keeping Assad in power … as McFaul's account suggests.”
  • “Third, and related, McFaul's analysis of Putin's Ukraine policy overlooks that Russia has repeatedly meddled in Ukrainian domestic affairs since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.”
  • “Fourth, McFaul's focus on the personal worldviews of Putin raises the question of what shapes his views in the first place ... McFaul's … account of Russian foreign policy brings international-level factors through the back door, thus creating significant ambiguity in his theoretical framework …  Putin's worldview surely matters in shaping Moscow's external behavior, but the extent to which it matters is much more limited than McFaul would have one believe.”

Michael McFaul Replies:

• “Götz's most important criticism is that my research design is flawed. I agree that the argument of the article … would have been better tested with variation on the dependent variable, a task that I tried to accomplish implicitly using within-case variation: no Russian intervention in Ukraine in 2004 but intervention in 2014, and no Russian intervention to save Libyan autocracy, but intervention to save Syrian autocracy.”
• “Second, Götz states that my ‘account of Russia's Syrian policy is not on solid empirical grounds.’ Here, we will have to agree to disagree and let other researchers and readers reach their own conclusions. Contrary to Götz's claim, it is not true that ‘in 2012, Vitaly Churkin, Russia's permanent representative to the United Nations, proposed a peace plan for Syria, which included the condition that [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad] would step down and be replaced by an interim government.’”
• “Third, Götz argues that apparent continuities in Russian policy toward Ukraine from the 1990s through the 2010s present a significant, alternative hypothesis to my argument. My reading of the evidence does not support his claim. First, President Boris Yeltsin supported Ukrainian independence … Second, the kinds of interventions in 2014—annexation and support for separatists—were qualitatively different from those in the 1990s. Third, Russian objectives were radically different. Yeltsin never sought to undermine Ukrainian democracy. Putin did.”
• “Finally, I obviously disagree with Götz that Putin's belief system is not ‘an independent cause’ of Russian foreign policy. I do agree, however, that tracing this causality is a complex task, because Putin and his ideas interact with other domestic and international variables and his ideas changed over time. The Putin whom I met in 1991 had a different worldview than Putin in 2021.”  

“Merkel's Exodus Will Leave a Void in EU-Russia Relations,” Janis Kluge and Leslie Schübel, The National Interest, 07.22.21.  The authors, a senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and a Master’s student of International Relations in Berlin and Moscow respectively, write

• “When German chancellor Angela Merkel steps down after the 2021 Bundestag elections, she will leave a substantial void in EU-Russia relations. During her time in the chancellery, Merkel saw the EU-Russia relationship deteriorate from a complicated partnership in the mid-2000s to a deep crisis in 2021. After Russia annexed Crimea and intervened in Ukraine’s Donbas region, she demonstrated a principled and clear-eyed view on Moscow’s actions and Russian president Vladimir Putin. Her efforts were crucial for delivering the EU’s economic sanctions on Russia and, later on, the Minsk Agreements. At the same time, Germany’s Russia policy under Merkel was often merely reactive and lacked strategic vision. This became particularly clear in the case of Nord Stream 2, which she consistently supported although it ran counter to Berlin’s sanctions policy, caused strife within the EU and isolated Germany in the transatlantic community.”
• “Merkel’s most likely successors advocate for very different foreign policies in their election campaigns.”
  • “The Christian Democratic Union’s Laschet stands for a continuation of the Merkel era approach, which includes sanctioning Russian violations of international law, but also protecting German-Russian business interests.”
  • “The Green Party’s Annalena Baerbock has called for a break with the Merkel tradition. The Greens have a stronger focus on human rights and support for civil society abroad and are also skeptical of the dominant fossil energy links between Germany and Russia. These factors also explain Baerbock’s rejection of Nord Stream 2.”
• “However, despite the different profiles of the front-running candidates, Germany’s foreign policy will most likely face only a gradual update once the dust of the election campaigning has settled. The most probable outcome of the election is a coalition government that involves both Laschet and Baerbock, leading to bipartisan compromise instead of radical change.

“Angela Merkel: Putin Whisperer?” Kathryn Stoner, The National Interest. 07.22.21. The author, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, writes:

• “The task of managing Vladimir Putin will soon fall to a new German Chancellor. Can they do as well as Merkel has? Can they do better? The trick for any new German leader will be to recognize that they are inheriting a different Russia compared to the one that faced Merkel when she took over the chancellorship in 2005.”
  • “It has long recovered from the shock of the Soviet collapse in 1991, and despite ongoing serious economic problems, Russia is now classified by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as an upper-middle-income country.”
  • “Russia’s ‘New Look’ military reform that began in 2008 and is now mostly finished, modernized its military and produced a professionalized, nimble fighting force with battle experience in Syria. It is well equipped too with new weapons–including an array of hypersonic missiles that are nuclear and conventionally capable–and a huge advantage over any other European country in terms of tanks, aircraft, and artillery. Although only partially updated, Russia’s navy is the most powerful in Europe. Should Putin decide to roll tanks into NATO/EU member countries on Russia’s western border … there would be little the West could do about it for a number of weeks if not months according to American and NATO military leaders.”
  • “Finally, and perhaps most significantly, Merkel’s replacement will have to deal with an enhanced willingness of an emboldened Vladimir Putin to actually use what Russia has developed to exercise influence far beyond Russian borders.”
• “Merkel was able to call Putin out on these sorts of interferences, but she didn’t necessarily prevent him from doing largely what he pleased. Unfortunately, her successor will face more of the same challenges with Russia as Putin’s regime grows more repressive within and aggressive abroad.

“The EU and Russia: Stuck Between Friendship and Enmity,” Vuk Vuksanovic, The National Interest. 07.26.21. The author, a Ph.D. researcher in international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a researcher at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, writes:

• “Despite the downturn in relations, and irrespective of the outcome of German elections, the German-Russian relationship will not change. The deep structural forces will ensure that the relationship continues in ‘neither friend nor foe’ mode.”

“Common Ground: Why Russia and Canada Should Cooperate in the Arctic,” Andrea Charron, Carnegie Moscow Center, 07.26.21. The author, director of Centre for Defence and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba, writes:

• “Of all the Arctic states, Canada and Russia’s Arctics are the most similar in terms of geography, climate, and development potential.”
  • “Canada and Russia are firm supporters of fora and institutions that have promoted good governance in the Arctic, from the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy to the Arctic Council and its subsidiaries, the Arctic Economic Council and the Arctic Coast Guard Forum.”
  • “Canada and Russia’s Arctics are sparsely populated: Russia has approximately 2.5 million people in the Arctic, while Canada has just 150,000. Russian Arctic cities and Canadian hamlets are often isolated, with fewer services available and lower life expectancy than in other parts of the countries. This is directly linked to the concentration of Indigenous peoples in the Arctic, who have suffered from the harmful policies of both governments and the marginalization of residents in both nations.”
  • “Finally, continued respect for processes enshrined in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, as well as curbing illegal fishing, are very important to both Canada and Russia, which have the largest Exclusive Economic Zones in the Arctic.”
• “In other ways, the Russian and Canadian Arctics are very different.”
  • “For Russia, the Arctic is an economic driver: it currently accounts for 10 percent of Russia’s GDP … and major investment is helping to commercialize the Northern Sea Route. Canada’s Arctic is not a driver of national economic growth.”
  • “The lack of infrastructure in Canada’s Arctic is stark, and acts as a brake on large-scale investment. Furthermore, Canada’s Northwest Passage is not suited for commercial traffic.”
• “As the largest Arctic states, Canada and Russia have the most to lose if we allow differences to stymie cooperation … There are many opportunities for each nation to learn from the other, improve governance, and promote Arctic economic empowerment.”

“Will Russian forces really leave Libya?” Mark N. Katz, Atlantic Council, 07.22.21. The author, a professor of government and politics at George Mason University, writes:

• “At the second Berlin Conference on Libya, which took place on June 23, Russia (as well as other participants) reaffirmed their earlier calls for ‘credible steps towards the dismantling of armed groups and militias by all parties.’ One of the ‘armed groups and militias’ present in Libya is the Russian private military force, Wagner. Does this mean that Moscow really intends to withdraw Wagner from eastern Libya? It is possible that this will happen. But it seems more likely that Moscow will retain a military presence in Libya in one form or another.”
• “This may seem implausible to some, but Putin’s approach to conflict between opposing parties elsewhere in the region has been to back them both—to some extent—to have leverage over them all.”
• “The Libyan conflict resolution process could break down altogether, in which case neither the Russians nor any other outside party now supporting one side or the other in Libya is likely to end its involvement there. Indeed, this outcome seems more likely than not. However, even if the process does proceed, it seems far likelier that Russia will maintain some form of military presence in Libya as opposed to ending it—no matter what Moscow may have agreed to.”

Ukraine:

“A Fuse for the Future,” Fyodor Lukyanov, Valdai Club/Rossiiskay Gazeta, 07.21.21.  The author, the research director of the Valdai Discussion Club, chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy and Editor-in-Chief, Russia in Global Affairs journal, writes:

• “Vladimir Putin’s article ‘On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians’ evoked a variety of responses … [and] raised a sensitive issue related to the identification and self-identification of people living within the territory of what was once a unified country. That state no longer exists, but it is naive to believe that the new nations within that vast space have acquired their final form.”
  • "First, because there has not been a century in history when the borders in Europe and Eurasia have not changed …  It is strange to believe that the 21st century will be an exception."
  • "Second, the processes of nation-building in the countries that emerged in the place of the USSR are far from complete … judging by the stormy events taking place almost everywhere, they are entering a decisive stage."
• “The main message can be interpreted as both a proposal and a warning. The proposal is that Moscow recognizes the reality and does not intend to restore what was lost … The warning is that the proposal is only valid if the reality is understood by all interested parties … What the author called ‘anti-Russia’ is an allegory for a certain approach. Namely: attempts to use the proximity of a country close to Russia in order to create an outpost to contain it."
• “[C]ommentators usually considered that the message was addressed to the West … We would like to assume that the addressee is … the neighbors themselves. They are invited to think together on new forms of coexistence, because the success of this reflection is vital for them and for Russia. And not for anyone else.

“Why Putin Still Covets Ukraine,” Walter Russell Mead, The Wall Street Journal, 07.20.21. The author, a distinguished fellow in Strategy and Statesmanship at Hudson Institute, columnist at The Wall Street Journal and professor of foreign affairs at Bard College, writes:

• “Last week he [Putin] published a 5,000-plus-word article that reviews the last millennium to conclude that Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians share a common history, faith and destiny. In Mr. Putin's view, Western powers have tried for centuries to separate them, but those efforts are doomed to fail.”
• “The Russian president's policies will always and inevitably reflect his calculations about the opportunities and risks he faces at any given moment, but his strategic objectives are unmistakable. Mr. Putin's quest to rebuild Russian power requires the reassertion of Moscow's hegemony over Belarus and Ukraine.”
• “What keeps Russian troops out of Kyiv is neither the Ukrainian army nor the faltering prestige of the West. It is Mr. Putin's grudging realization that Russian public opinion wouldn't countenance the accompanying sacrifices and the staggering Russian economy couldn't bear the costs. Since an Anschluss-style solution is, for now, beyond him, the Russian president must cajole where he seeks to command. In this spirit, Mr. Putin's essay suggests that if Ukraine adopts a friendly attitude toward Moscow and de-aligns from the West, Russia will welcome the prodigal home without demanding a formal reunion.”
• “Mr. Putin can reasonably hope that time is on Russia's side. Ukraine shows few real signs of overcoming the corruption and stagnation that keep it weak and poor. The EU continues to dither, the Western world order continues to erode, and Washington's intensifying rivalry with Beijing both distracts U.S. attention and weakens its hand when it comes to Russia policy. If these trends persist, many things about our world will change, and the political balance between pro- and anti-Russian forces in Ukraine might be one of them.”

“In Putin’s Vision of Ukraine’s Past, A Warning About Russia’s Future,” Kathryn David, Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia, July 2021. The author, an assistant professor of Russian and East European Studies at Vanderbilt University, writes:

• “On 12 July 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin published a historical essay titled ‘On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.’”
• “‘On the Historical Unity’ is not the first sweeping interpretation of Russian-Ukrainian relations to signal a possible reset in the region. On 12 January 1954, an article titled ‘Theses on the 300th anniversary of the reunification of Ukraine with Russia’ appeared in Pravda, signaling its adoption as an official historical narrative by the Central Committee of the Communist Party.”
• “The 1954 narrative closely resembles the one Putin presented last week. Both essays imagine the medieval kingdom of Kyivan Rus’ as the origin of the modern Russian state and argue that it was foreign interventions by Poles, Turks, and Germans that pulled apart the unity of the ‘Rus’ peoples.’”
• “The publication of the 1954 Pravda piece signaled the ascension of Nikita Khrushchev and his vision for Soviet Ukraine. In publishing the ‘300 Theses,’ Khrushchev was signaling to cadres the type of Ukrainian history and culture that was acceptable to promote … Putin picks up where the ‘Theses’ left off, reflecting on the catastrophes that befell Ukraine as soon as it left the USSR and its fellow East Slavs. Per Putin, because Ukrainian leaders sought a separation from Russia, they should no longer be welcome as inheritors of the territorial legacy of Kyivan Rus’. Russia must once again take on a role as the guardian of Rus’ culture, whereas Ukraine has become a foreign power from which land must be recovered.”
• “The impression Putin wants to leave is that there is no Ukrainian history apart from Russia, and that ultimately Ukraine owes its existence as a sovereign state both to imperial Russia and the Soviet Union — the same claims made in the 1954 Pravda piece.

“Putin's threats to Ukraine a wake-up call,” Boston Globe Editorial Board, Boston Globe, 07.26.21. The editorial board writes:

• “There is more the [U.S.] president should offer [to Ukraine]:
  • “It would, of course, be helpful to have a permanent US ambassador in Kyiv.”
  • “It's also long past time for the United States to take a leadership role in negotiating an end to the conflict in the Donbas.”
  • “Increasing US military aid to Ukraine will provide that muscle.”
• “These are all significant steps the United States can and should take to help a democratic ally ward off the threatened advances of its acquisitive authoritarian neighbor. They make both strategic and political good sense — and there can't be nearly enough of that these days."

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

“Belarus and the Ukraine Trap,” Michael Kimmage, War on the Rocks, 07.21.21. The author, a professor of history at the Catholic University of America, writes:

• “Belarus is among the most likely places where a war could break out between Russia and the West.”
• “Belarus and Ukraine present similar policy challenges to the West. A former Soviet socialist republic, Belarus (like Ukraine) was a part of the Eastern Partnership program, established by the European Union in 2009. Policymakers in Europe and the United States … believe that both Belarus and Ukraine should determine their own relationships to Europe. These leaders also champion the machinery of reform in Belarus, preferring it for obvious reasons to the agonies of authoritarian rule. They would like to see civil society prosper and serve as the precursor to democratic renewal. A similar Western preference was palpable for Ukraine when protestors thronged Kyiv’s Maidan Square in opposition to Viktor Yanukovich. The West emphasizes sovereignty and hopes for democracy. Hence a joint U.S. and E.U. policy of punishing Russia for violations of state sovereignty and, at the same time, of encouraging a regional transition to democracy, which is likely to entail ‘Euro-Atlantic integration,’ an explicit aim of the American and E.U. Ukraine policy.”
• “With Belarus, the past to be remembered and studied is right before our eyes. Call it the Ukraine trap … The worst-case scenarios have been avoided in Ukraine not because Russia has been coerced into backing down but because of the unspoken moderation of Western policy … Whatever the immediate security dilemmas, and however they evolve, they should not stand in the way of a decades-long project of discrediting authoritarian rule in Eastern Europe and of journeying toward a regional order based not on repression and violence but on the consent of the governed. The ultimate power of the West in Belarus … happens to be the power of its example.”

“Can sanctions change the behavior of Belarus? Why imposing them might lead to perverse outcomes,” Daniel W. Drezner, The Washington Post, 07.20.21. The author, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law, writes:

• “This is the kind of idea that seems easy to support. A bad man is running Belarus, and a brave woman who risked her life for her country is offering useful economic intelligence on how to hit him and his cronies. An easy call, right? As someone possessing a passing familiarity with economic statecraft, I fear a reality check is needed. And the reality is that even if these sanctions bite Lukashenko and his inner circle hard, they are likely to make things worse and not better.”
• “Admittedly, Tikhanovskaya’s call for sanctions is significant for two reasons. First, sanctions tend to have a better track record of success when legitimate elements of civil society are calling for them. Furthermore, if Tikhanovskaya’s economic intelligence is accurate, then the new sanctions have the potential to appreciably hurt Lukashenko and his allies.”
• “The problem is that Belarus has an obvious black knight, a great-power benefactor willing to offset the costs of any additional sanctions: Russia. Time and again, the administration of Russian President Vladimir Putin has doubled down on supporting Lukashenko when his grip on power has been threatened by civil society movements. Additional sanctions would simply force Lukashenko even more into Putin’s grasp.”
• “The scholarly research backs this up. In a 2019 paper in the journal Democratization on this very question, Mikkel Sejerson concluded that E.U. sanctions imposed on Belarus between 2004 and 2016 strengthened that country’s ties with Russia and worsened the human rights situation … Lukashenko’s pattern over the past two decades has been clear: He does not want to lose any further autonomy to Russia, but he does not want to lose power either. When faced with a hard choice, he will appease Putin rather than the West.”

“Biden will not find a clearer case than this to put his muscle behind democracy,” The Washington Post Editorial Board, The Washington Post, 07.19.21. The editorial board writes:

• “When people took to the streets to protest a stolen election in Belarus in August 2020, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya was sure that the world's democracies would rush to their side. Ms. Tikhanovskaya had won the vote, but dictator Alexander Lukashenko declared himself the winner and forced her out of the country. The world's democracies were sluggish in responding, the regime steadily intensified the brutality of its response, and as winter set in, the demonstrations lost momentum.”
• “Now is the time to make up for lost ground … To start, the Biden administration ought to match or exceed the European Union's most recent round of sanctions on Mr. Lukashenko's henchmen … The United States also can extend a hand to the beleaguered folks inside Belarus. Lately, Mr. Lukashenko's thugs have been seizing activists in order to extract contacts from their phones, then arresting everyone on the list. The activists need Internet circumvention techniques, financial support through cryptocurrency and replacement of the equipment the regime has confiscated.”
• “Rarely will there be a clearer place or time for President Biden to put muscle behind his pro-democracy rhetoric. He should meet with Ms. Tikhanovskaya, who is simply asking that the world's democracies press the regime to enter negotiations leading to new elections. Then Mr. Biden should act.”

“Reformers just won a rare victory in Russia’s backyard. Biden should help them.” Washington Post Editorial Board, The Washington Post, 07.21.21. The editorial board writes:

• “Maia Sandu, a 49-year-old former World Bank technocrat who was elected as the first female president of her former Soviet republic last November, followed up by leading her Party of Action and Solidarity to a crushing victory over pro-Russian parties that had dominated Moldova's politics for most of the past 30 years. Ms. Sandu unabashedly advocates closer ties between Moldova and the European Union, and a large part of her victory margin came from the votes of some 200,000 Moldovan expatriates in the West, 86 percent of whom supported her party.”
• “Ms. Sandu's pitch to voters was not about breaking with Russia, but cracking the stranglehold corrupt politicians and oligarchs have had on the country. According to Transparency International, Moldova is the third-most-corrupt nation in Europe, after Ukraine and Russia.”
• “Ms. Sandu could use some help from Russia, to which Moldova sends much of its exports. But even more so, she needs help from the Western democratic community she would like her country to join. As she works on her crucial domestic agenda, including cleaning up the judiciary, Ms. Sandu will need to attract more foreign investment and aid from the European Union. The United States should step up its engagement as well. President Biden has often spoken about the importance of winning the global contest between liberal democracy and autocracy; Moldova now offers a tangible opportunity to gain some ground.”

“She leads Estonia’s democracy while keeping an eye on ‘the bully next door’,” George F. Will, The Washington Post, 07.25.21. The author, a politics and foreign affairs columnist at The Washington Post, writes:

• “‘August is the month to watch,’ said Estonia's 44-year-old prime minister during a recent visit to Washington. The guns of August 1914 announced the beginning of what was called the Great War until an even worse one began nine days after the Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact of Aug. 23, 1939. However, Kaja Kallas radiates serenity during lunch near Lafayette Square across from the White House.”
• “She does not think Russia's late-summer military exercises near Estonia, scheduled by the man she calls ‘the bully next door,’ presage aggression. She does, however, think it prudent to consider that Vladimir Putin's revanchist ambitions might not be confined to Ukraine.”
• “Christine Lagarde, head of the European Central Bank, has joked that if Lehman Brothers had been Lehman Sisters, the collapse that triggered the 2008 financial crisis might not have happened. Sexual chauvinism aside, the Cato Institute's freedom rating places Estonia eighth among 162 nations (Venezuela is 160th), and Freedom House gives Estonia a sparkling grade of 94 out of 100. The United States gets 83.”