This Week’s Highlights

The major difference between Biden’s approach to Russia and Trump’s is that, under Biden, Russia has ceased to be a domestic political issue, writes Georgetown’s Angela Stent. No one has suggested that there are questionable ties between Biden and Russian actors, she writes. Russian foreign policy toward the West is evidently designed not to be predictable, Stent argues. Russia claims that it seeks stability, but that presupposes some basic agreement between Moscow and Washington as to where each side’s red lines lie; expectations must be carefully managed in what will surely remain a brittle and volatile relationship for the foreseeable future, she writes.

No single country involved in Afghanistan is well placed to help, write Kai Eide and Tadamichi Yamamoto, both of whom previously served as United Nations envoys to Afghanistan. For its part in the conflict, the United States is now viewed with suspicion, while Russia and China, which have different allies among Afghanistan’s neighbors, aren’t seen as neutral either, the authors write. Pakistan, regarded with hostility by the Afghan government for its ties to the Taliban, doesn’t want the involvement of India, which has opened its own channels of communication with the Taliban, they argue. Turkey, Iran and the Central Asian states are all important, but cannot act alone, the authors write, asserting that the United Nations must step into this vacuum.

In about a dozen years, ransomware has emerged as a major cyberproblem of our time, big enough for President Biden to put it at the top of his agenda with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, writes the editorial board of The New York Times. Letting Russian hackers continue to wreak havoc on America’s and the world’s digital infrastructure with impunity is an immediate and critical challenge; if this is not stopped soon, further escalation—and the growth of organized cybercrime syndicates in other dictatorships—is all but certain, the editorial board argues

Even if ‘hard security’ no longer dominates the German-Russian agenda, this bilateral relationship should be considered of central importance to both countries, writes Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Center. Angela Merkel’s successor will inherit not just Nord Stream II but also the legacy of personal contacts with the Kremlin leader, he writes. While there is still uncertainty about the new chancellor’s name and the composition of the new coalition government, one might hope and expect that Germany’s new leadership will deal responsibly with both issues, according to Trenin.

With the global move toward carbon neutrality and the prospect of imminent new regulation of its key export markets, the Russian leadership has finally been forced to focus on climate issues, writes Tatiana Mitrova, Director of the Skolkovo Energy Center. In theory, climate change and green energy are areas in which Russia, the United States, the European Union, China, and developing countries all share an interest. There is scope for joint projects, new investment, and the transfer of green technology to Russia. Yet the drastic differences in targets set and regulatory frameworks make such an optimistic scenario unlikely, according to Mitrova.

 

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

Nuclear security:

• No significant developments.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

“A Grand Bargain With North Korea. Pyongyang’s Economic Distress Offers a Chance for Peace,” Vincent Brooks and Ho Young Leem, Foreign Affairs, 07.29.21. The authors, retired four-star generals from the U.S. and South Korean armies, respectively, write:

• “Washington and Seoul should begin the hard work of progressively normalizing relations with North Korea. The allies’ previous attempts to alter North Korea’s behavior have involved military pressure, international economic sanctions, and winning some degree of cooperation from Beijing to push for denuclearization.”
• “For North Korea, however, this approach did not offer a convincing alternative to China’s economic dominance or the military danger posed by the U.S.-South Korean alliance. A better approach would be to offer Kim a path toward what he desires most: a way out of his economic and political woes. U.S. and South Korean leaders should adopt a policy of ‘strategic deliberateness,’ moving forward to deeper phases of collaboration only when mutual trust has been built. This will prevent North Korea from pocketing any goodwill without providing anything in return.”

Iran and its nuclear program:

• No significant developments.

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

“Trump’s Russia Legacy and Biden’s Response,” Angela Stent, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, July 2021. The author, a professor at Georgetown University and a senior non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution, writes:

• “The major difference between Biden’s approach to Russia and Trump’s is that, under Biden, Russia has ceased to be a domestic political issue. No one has suggested that there are questionable ties between Biden and Russian actors. … A key difference between the Biden administration and its predecessor is the former’s emphasis on mending alliance relationships, both in Europe and in Asia. … Another way in which Biden’s White House contrasts with Trump’s is in its explicit commitment to democracy promotion and human-rights advocacy.”

• “So far, the Biden administration’s policy toward Russia has been well coordinated. … The White House accepts that there are urgent issues on which it must seek to work with Russia.”
  • “Chief among these are arms control and strategic stability at a time when Russian rhetoric about the possibility of a nuclear confrontation is becoming shriller, and both countries are modernizing their nuclear and conventional arsenals. The administration’s focus on climate change offers new channels for cooperation, as does the pandemic and the challenge of global health.”
  • “In theory, counter-terrorism is another potential area for cooperation, although it is hampered by the fact that the US and Russia define ‘terrorism’ differently.”
• “The Biden team must ensure that the US does not take actions that push Russia and China closer together, as the Trump administration’s trade war with China and sanctions on Russia did.”
• “If Russia undertook escalatory actions in Ukraine or in cyberspace, the US would be obliged to respond. That being the case, can a stable and predictable relationship ever be achieved? Putin’s modus operandi is to use Russia’s unpredictability to keep the West off-kilter. He likes to surprise. ... Russian foreign policy toward the West is evidently designed not to be predictable.”
• “Russia claims that it seeks stability, but that presupposes some basic agreement between Moscow and Washington as to where each side’s red lines lie. Expectations must be carefully managed in what will surely remain a brittle and volatile relationship for the foreseeable future. The erratic policy of the Trump administration is gone, but the challenge of dealing with Putin’s Russia remains.”

“Russia seeks to forge ties with Taliban as US troops leave Afghanistan,” Nastassia Astrasheuskaya in Moscow and Stephanie Findlay in New Delhi, Financial Times, 07.27.21. The authors, respectively a reporter and an editor for the newspaper, write:

• “Russia is stepping into the security vacuum created by the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, with President Vladimir Putin looking to re-exert influence in central Asia and prevent Islamist extremism from spilling over the borders.”
• “Moscow last week moved tanks to the Tajikistan-Afghanistan frontier for military drills to shield its ally from a possible collapse of the Kabul government, as the resurgent Taliban continues to advance and the US prepares to end a 20-year military mission that has failed to bring peace to the country.”
• “Russia, which has cheered a US exit despite parallels with the Soviet Union’s humiliating 1989 retreat from Afghanistan, was one of the first to publicly engage with the Taliban....Zamir Kabulov, his special representative on Afghanistan, recently described the Taliban’s advance as a security boost for Russia because it would wipe out more dangerous jihadist groups.”
• “But Arkady Dubnov, a Russian political scientist and Central Asia expert, said the strategy was risky. ‘Moscow’s position, which openly bets on one force and tries to limit the influence of the other, seems dangerous to me. It looks awkward and an attempt to settle old scores.’”
• “Despite its imminent withdrawal, the US will not be entirely powerless in Afghanistan’s fate, said Harsh Pant, a director at New Delhi’s Observer Research Foundation think-tank. ‘Every country in this Afghanistan game [is] waiting for what the US does next,’ he said, adding: ‘America still holds a lot of cards.’”

“Reframing Russia’s Afghanistan Policy,” Ivan Ulises Kentros Klyszcz, Foreign Policy Research Institute, July 2021. The author, a columnist at the BMB Russia Blog, writes:

• “During the Soviet Union and since its collapse, Russia has had a military presence in the Central Asian ‘frontline’ states, in particular Tajikistan; has had direct engagement with the warring parties inside Afghanistan itself; and limited diplomatic initiatives meant to facilitate the two. These three measures form the basis of Russia’s ‘containment policy’ for Afghanistan.”
• “Russia’s goal is not to resolve or manage the civil war in Afghanistan. Instead, its objectives are operational; namely, to ensure Russia’s own security by ‘containing’ the ‘instability’ from Afghanistan, ensure a continued Russian presence in Central Asia and facilitate Russia’s peace initiatives.”
• “The logic behind Russia’s containment policy can point to some potential outcomes in the near future. It is possible to speculate that, as the U.S. approaches its Afghanistan withdrawal, Russia will welcome other third parties willing to contribute to its ‘containment policy’ by engaging Afghanistan along parallel lines. If a greater Chinese presence—for instance—contributes to Moscow’s containment policy, then it will likely be welcomed by the Russian government.”

“We Cannot Stand By and Watch Afghanistan Collapse,” Kai Eide and Tadamichi Yamamoto, The New York Times, 08.02.21. The authors, both of whom previously served as United Nations envoys to Afghanistan, write:

• “No single country involved in Afghanistan is well placed to help. For its part in the conflict, the United States is now viewed with suspicion. Russia and China, which have different allies among Afghanistan’s neighbors, aren’t seen as neutral either. Pakistan, regarded with hostility by the Afghan government for its ties to the Taliban, doesn’t want the involvement of India, which has opened its own channels of communication with the Taliban. Turkey, Iran and the Central Asian states are all important, but cannot act alone.”
• “The United Nataions must step into this vacuum. In the first instance, the secretary general must immediately convene the Security Council and seek a clear mandate to empower the U.N., both inside the country and at the negotiating table. That would mean the United States, Russia, China and other members of the council coming together to authorize a special representative to act as a mediator. With the pivotal support of member states, this would put pressure on both sides to halt the fighting and reach a settlement.”

“Foreign Policy Returns to Normal, for Both Better and Worse,” John Bolton, The Wall Street Journal, 07.28.21. The author, former U.S. National Security Advisor, writes:

• “Last week, responding to Chinese hacking of Microsoft's email systems, Washington orchestrated pronouncements by European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization members condemning the attacks. The statements, however, were not uniformly critical of Beijing's actions. These statements amounted to little more than what diplomats call ‘a stiff note.’”
• “Mr. Biden also acquiesced to the completion of Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline. The administration had previously said it opposed the project, even while waiving sanctions that could have crippled it. (Mr. Trump also had opportunities to stop the pipeline, but didn't.) Mr. Biden's final surrender means the U.S. is done trying to stop Nord Stream 2.”
• “In both cases, there was immediate criticism. Republicans were dismayed by Mr. Biden's flaccid answer to China's cyberattacks and incandescent about Nord Stream 2. Had these same decisions been made by Mr. Trump, Democrats would have taken the offensive, accusing Mr. Trump of coddling Xi Jinping and reprising the clamor about ‘Russian collusion.’ In reality, the two political parties are simply returning to their traditional stances. Mr. Trump's posture on Beijing was confused and inconsistent, from yearning for ‘the biggest trade deal in history’ to imposing tariffs when the chimerical deal disappeared. He criticized the Wuhan origin of the coronavirus when politically advantageous but never censured China on North Korea, Hong Kong, human rights or much else.”
• “Even under Mr. Trump's helter-skelter decision making, his Republican advisers repeatedly recommended strict sanctions against Russia, which he often approved, albeit unhappily. Republican officials also recommended and obtained U.S. withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces and Open Skies treaties, and a tough negotiation approach to any renewal of the New Start Treaty. Mr. Trump's absence empowers congressional Republicans to express themselves with full force against Mr. Biden's supine position on the pipeline.”
• “Only six months into Mr. Biden's term, politics are reverting to familiar contours. Mr. Trump is increasingly visible only in the rearview mirror.”

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

“Is This the Start of a Russia-China Military Alliance?” Mark Episkopos, The National Interest. 08.01.21. The author, a national security reporter for the magazine, writes:

• “Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian announced on Thursday that Russia and China will hold joint military exercises in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in northern China during the first half of August. “
• “The drill’s underlying premise remains vague, with the Defense Ministry reportedly stating that the aim is to ‘strengthen and develop a comprehensive strategic partnership between Russia and China, maintain regional peace and stability and demonstrate the resolve to fight terrorism.’”
• “The Chinese state news outlet Global Times framed the exercises in stark geopolitical terms, averring that the upcoming drills display ‘a high level of mutual trust between the two militaries while also eyeing security and stability in Central Asia as the United States irresponsibly withdraws troops from Afghanistan.’”
• “The contours of Russian-Chinese cooperation in Afghanistan are already beginning to take shape. Both Beijing and Moscow have held high-level talks with the Taliban as the militant group inches closer to becoming the dominant actor in the country. Beijing has thrown its weight behind Russia’s ongoing efforts to secure the border between Afghanistan and Central Asia within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which counts both Russia and China as members.”

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

• No significant developments.

Counter-terrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

“The Search for a Syria Strategy. What Biden Can Learn From Trump’s Successes and Failures, Andrew J. Tabler, Foreign Affairs, 07.27.21. The author, a fellow in the Geduld Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, writes:

• “The decade-long Syrian conflict began as a popular uprising against Assad’s rule before morphing into a civil war dominated by U.S.-designated terrorist organizations. Today, it has become a truly global battlefield, where military forces from five countries—Iran, Israel, Russia, Turkey, and the United States—conduct operations against different foes in pursuit of disparate goals.”
• The only plan for resolving the Syria conflict that has won international backing is UN Security Council Resolution 2254. Passed unanimously in 2015 after extensive diplomatic efforts by the Obama administration, the resolution calls for a nationwide cease-fire and a process through which Syrians—including those outside the country—can establish ‘credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance,’ draft a new constitution, and hold ‘free and fair elections’ under UN supervision. Instead of pursuing these goals, however, the Assad regime and its patrons in Russia and Iran announced fake cease-fires and used massive aerial bombardments to seize opposition-controlled territory in the name of fighting terrorist groups.”
• “Behind the scenes, the Trump administration, like its predecessor, quietly worked with Russia to find a diplomatic solution whereby progress on Washington’s goals would lead to the gradual softening of sanctions and other pressure on Assad. …Washington and its allies achieved little progress on implementing the UN resolution and changing the Assad regime’s behavior.”
• “The best instruments in Washington’s Syria policy toolbox remain sanctions. … The Biden administration must use sanctions much differently if it hopes to achieve a different result. Broad-based sanctions on individuals should be reserved for crises. To limit the impact that economic warfare has on people simply trying to eke out a living in the misery of the Syrian conflict, and to make sure that humanitarian activities can proceed, the administration should expedite licenses to international nongovernmental organizations providing aid throughout Syria.”
• The Biden administration should appoint a special envoy for Syria charged with developing what the Trump team never did—a coherent political strategy, supported by the U.S. intelligence community, to isolate Assad and his regime’s facilitators and limit the malign influence of Iran and Russia."

Cyber security:

“Russia’s New Form of Organized Crime Is Menacing the World,” The New York Times Editorial Board, The New York Times, 07.31.21. The newspaper’s editorial board writes:

• “In about a dozen years, ransomware has emerged as a major cyberproblem of our time, big enough for President Biden to put it at the top of his agenda with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, when they met in June and for lawmakers in Congress to be working on several bills that would, among other things, require victims to report attacks to the government.”
• “It is a war that needs to be fought, and won. While the extortion business is run by a relatively small network of criminals seeking windfall profits, their ability to seriously disrupt economies and to breach strategically critical enterprises or agencies also makes them a formidable potential threat to national security. The Colonial Pipeline attack created an almost instant shortage of fuel and spread panic in the southeastern United States.”
• “Whatever the true scope, the problem will not be solved with patches, antivirus software or two-factor authentication, though security experts stress that every bit of protection helps. … The battle must be joined elsewhere, and the place to start is Russia. That, according to the experts, is where the majority of attacks originate. Three other countries—China, Iran and North Korea—are also serious players, and the obvious commonality is that all are autocracies whose security apparatuses doubtlessly know full well who the hackers are and could shut them down in a minute. So the presumption is that the criminals are protected, either through bribes … or by doing pro bono work for the government or both.”
• “Drawing red lines for Russia does not usually work. The message would best be delivered privately, so that Mr. Putin would not be challenged to publicly back down before the United States. It is possible that Mr. Biden has already delivered such a message. If so, he should be prepared to follow through.”
• “Mounting a multifront attack against ransomware will take time and effort. … But letting Russian hackers continue to wreak havoc on America’s and the world’s digital infrastructure with impunity is an immediate and critical challenge. If this is not stopped soon, further escalation—and the growth of organized cybercrime syndicates in other dictatorships—is all but certain.”

Energy issues:

“Is Russia Finally Ready to Tackle Climate Change?” Tatiana Mitrova, Carnegie Moscow Center, 07.27.21. The author, director of the Skolkovo Energy Center, writes:

• “Until recently, there was little interest in climate change among Russian society, business, financial institutions, and the government.”
  • “Although the country is the world’s fifth biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, it is ranked a dire fifty-second in a list of sixty-one countries in the Climate Change Performance Index 2021.”
  • “The Russian establishment was caught off guard by the long-term threat to the entire functioning of the country’s economy posed by the global goal of decarbonization and net zero emissions. Nearly all of Russia’s main foreign trade partners have declared their ambition to become carbon-neutral by 2050.”
  • “Tackling climate change was not even mentioned among the goals and priorities announced by the Russian government through 2024, nor did it feature in other strategic documents, including the new energy strategy through 2035, which was adopted in 2020.”
  • “Although Russia has the largest potential capacity to generate wind and solar power in the world, those energy sources accounted for just 0.32 percent of its power grid in 2020. Even if the most ambitious of the current plans are implemented, the proportion of renewable energy (excluding hydroelectric energy) used in generating electricity in Russia will only reach 2–2.5 percent by 2035.”
• “In the last eighteen months, however, the situation has started to change. With the global move toward carbon neutrality and the prospect of imminent new regulation of its key export markets, the Russian leadership has finally been forced to focus on climate issues.”
• “Currently, Russia’s position on green energy is essentially no more than the mantra ‘we have great potential.’ Most work in this field is at the embryonic stage in Russia in terms of technology and personnel, without even taking into account the country’s capricious regulation and lack of realized projects.”
• “In theory, climate change and green energy are areas in which Russia, the United States, the EU, China, and developing countries all share an interest. There is scope for joint projects, new investment, and the transfer of green technology to Russia. Yet the drastic differences in targets set and regulatory frameworks make such an optimistic scenario unlikely."

“Nord Stream 2 and the Energy Security Dilemma,” Maria Shagina and Kirsten Westphal,SWP (German Institute for International and Security Affairs), July 2021. The authors, respectively a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Eastern European Studies at the University of Zurich, and a senior associate in the Global Issues Research Division at SWP, write:

• “While the US-Germany deal [on Nord Stream 2]  has been signed, it is still far from a grand bargain. A consensus in the EU has not yet been achieved, and Brussels’s role goes well beyond issuing an opinion on the application of the Gas Directive. The EU has to join forces to integrate Ukraine into the Green Deal, as envisaged in the US-German agreement. Domestic political pressure in Washington, Berlin and Kyiv will make agreeing on the ultimate deal a challenging task. It will require a great degree of flexibility for all sides, forcing concessions on important and sensitive issues and compelling the parties to engage with Russia. This grand bargain also presupposes a conciliatory approach on the part of Russia.”
• “The agreement between the US and Germany has outlined a broad range of important long-term measures to offset the negative impacts of Nord Stream 2. Kyiv, however, is focusing on short-term and concrete security guarantees. Seeing itself trapped in a traditional energy security dilemma makes it unlikely to accept the long-term prospect of energy transformation, especially as security concerns and energy interests interact.”
• “In Germany, the federal elections in September are likely to lead to a new government coalition, with the Green party, a fierce opponent of Nord Stream 2, being a strong contender. Still, regardless of the composition of the next government, Russia will remain a challenge. The situation may call for less of an explicit ‘compartmentalization of energy ties’ and more for an implicit ‘management of confrontation’. In doing so, Germany may be able to use energy affairs to ensure that its relations with Russia remain within certain parameters while balancing cooperation, confrontation and competition with Russia in the neighborhood.”
• “Above all, however, energy relations between Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Ukraine must contribute to European cohesion within the Green Deal. Here, the joint declaration by Washington and Berlin could well point the way forward."

“Why Everyone’s a Winner in the Nord Stream 2 Deal,” Alexander Baunov, Carnegie Moscow Center, 07.29.21. The author, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center and editor in chief of Carnegie.ru, writes

• “The U.S.-German agreement to allow completion of Russia’s controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which will run from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea—bypassing Ukraine—has been largely described as a victory for Russia, a defeat for the West, and the trampling of Ukrainian sovereignty.”
• “In fact, the agreement, which at first glance appears to be to Russia’s advantage, is—in its own way—beneficial to all parties.”
  • “Given Germany’s determination to get the pipeline completed, and Russia’s ability to do so, the agreement has given Russia the chance to do just that without coming under additional pressure, while allowing Germany to do it with the U.S. blessing rather than going against it.”
  • “The Biden administration, faced with a done deal, managed at the last minute not to be left standing on the sidelines, but to step up as a friend to some of its allies and a guarantor of the interests of others. The gas pipeline would have been built and Germany would have tried to ease the situation for Ukraine in any case, but now the United States is the co-author of that effort.”
  • “Finally, Ukraine, which could easily have been left with nothing but vague promises, has a written agreement between its allies, half of which is devoted to Ukraine, and which includes specific figures.”
• “For now, Russia and its hydrocarbons are still needed, but depending on its political behavior and its technological achievements, it will either be brought along into the low-carbon future, or left impoverished in the polluted past with its increasingly irrelevant hydrocarbons. Russia can either prepare for this new format of relations or, as it has done so far, bank on the green plans of its rivals ending in failure.”

“Biden Isn’t Selling Out on Nord Stream 2. He’s Protecting U.S. Firms,” Elisabeth Braw, Foreign Policy, 07.29.21. The author, columnist at Foreign Policy and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, writes:  

• “The Nord Stream 2 deal struck by U.S. President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel is big news of the worst kind in Central and Eastern Europe. In the conventional analysis of the news, the United States and Germany teamed up to please Russia, leaving Ukraine by the wayside. But there was another reason, connected to U.S. businesses rather than lacking sympathy for Ukraine, that likely forced Biden’s hand: U.S. sanctions on companies open the door for other countries to sanction U.S. companies too. What’s more, U.S. sanctions could convince companies to stop trading in dollars—and that would severely weaken the United States’ role in the world.” 
• “[Biden] realized unilateral U.S. sanctions on Nord Stream 2 and businesses connected to it risked boomeranging—crippling U.S. firms just as the sanctions were intended to cripple Nord Stream 2.” 
• “If China begins using sanctions the same way the United States has been using them, U.S. companies may discover some of their international activities risk becoming uninsurable … [T]he United States’ frequent use of its powerful sanctions could convince countries and companies they should limit their trade with the United States and with the dollar. And once again, China wins.”  
• “It’s safe to say many thoughts crossed Biden’s mind before he agreed to the Nord Stream 2 deal with Merkel. Ukraine was certainly one of them. The need for good relations with Germany certainly mattered too … Washington’s NATO allies in the region certainly entered into the equation too. But insurance may have mattered even more. Without it, the United States can kiss a globally operating private sector goodbye. And in case Biden failed to consider insurance, he should do so before imposing any new unilateral sanctions.” 

“US-German gas deal is a disservice to Ukraine,” Financial Times editorial board, Financial Times, 08.01.21. The newspaper’s editorial board writes:

• “Nord Stream has always been at root a geopolitical project. It will give Russia capacity to deliver almost all its current gas exports to western Europe under the Baltic Sea direct to Germany, circumventing the transit pipeline across Ukraine. That would deprive Ukraine of $2 billion a year in gas transit fees, vital for an economy of only $155 billion.”
• “So why did the White House do a deal that has also aroused bipartisan opposition in Congress? The answer seems to be a push by some advisers to ‘park the Russia problem’, freeing the US to focus on the main threat: China. Russia, they say, is a declining power whose clout, beyond fossil fuel reserves, derives from a nuclear arsenal that is unusable in practice. This argument, too, is flawed. Recent years have shown Russia menaces European—and hence global—security. It retains a sizeable conventional army it is ready to use.”
• “Far from uniting democracies, as Biden has pledged, this deal has split the EU east-west, with Poland and neighbors such as the Baltic states deeply worried about the implications. Most importantly, failure to stand up to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and assaults on Ukraine’s sovereignty sets a dangerous precedent that will be noted in Beijing, which has its own territorial pretensions towards neighbors. Responding to the Chinese threat means responding properly to the Russian threat—not trying to wish it away.”

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

• No significant developments.

 

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“A Repressive Regime Creates Tremendous Instability for the Government,” interview of Sergei Guriyev by Dmitry Kolezev, Republic, 07.28.21. In this interview, Russian economist Sergei Guriyev says:

• “After the crisis, Russia is recovering quickly. But its recovery growth is insufficient to significantly reduce the gap with developed countries. Labor productivity and living standards in Russia are about three times lower than in the United States. This gap cannot be overcome by growing at two to three percent per year, at the same rate as the American economy. The share of Russia in the world economy today is less than two percent and has been declining over the past 10 years. This is directly related to the fact that the Russian authorities have come to their ideal model of the economy.” 
• “Whatever the Russian authorities say about economic development, this stagnation is the ideal model of Putinomics… There is no need to think that there are some things that [Putin] could fix in 20 years and did not. Everything has been done exactly as he wanted. State contracts are received by the ‘kings of state orders’ who have been friends with Putin for decades. The dominant heights in the economy are occupied by the state. Russia is a much more corrupt country than countries with comparable income levels. The authorities are quite sympathetic to the leak rather than the inflow of financial and human capital. This is Putinomics.” 
• “Russian authorities understand that economic growth will lead to the creation of a middle class independent of the government, which will take to the streets and say: ‘We also want representation, we want the Russian government to make decisions that take into account our point of view.’ We saw this already 10 years ago. Therefore, the Russian government prefers stagnation.” 
• “So many unpopular things have already been done in Russia that much can be corrected and improved. For example, as I said, cancel counter-sanctions. Or go from a conscript army to a professional one.” 
• “But the most popular reform should be the fight against corruption. Especially with regard to small and medium-sized businesses. It is necessary to simplify the business climate, deregulate the business environment, and protect small and medium-sized enterprises from law enforcement agencies. All of these will be popular reforms that will lead to faster economic growth. They will be unpopular only among the top Russian leadership and their friends.” 

“After Navalny, Challenging Russia's Putin Is Getting Even Harder: Opposition leaders have been detained, media sidelined and legal rights groups forced to disband in run-up to parliamentary elections in September,” Ann M. Simmons, The Wall Street Journal, 07.28.21. The author, Moscow Bureau Chief for the newspaper, writes:

• “Challenging Vladimir Putin has always been difficult. Now his opponents say it is almost impossible, as the Kremlin launches a full-court press against anyone daring to stand up against the Russian president. In recent weeks, authorities have stepped up a campaign to suppress critics and organizations seen as being antigovernment ahead of parliamentary elections in the fall”
• “For some political commentators and Kremlin-watchers, the clampdown is further evidence that Mr. Putin's regime is growing stronger, despite social discontent over the economy and Western sanctions for its alleged transgressions, including human-rights abuses. He doesn't appear to feel threatened by the opposition or pressure from the U.S. and cares little about appeasing the public.”
• “The past three months have seen a sharp escalation in the way authorities have used draconian laws to brand opposition groups and individuals as ‘foreign agents’ or ‘undesirables,’ compelling at least 17 media organizations and journalists to cease operations or limit the scope of their work since late April.”
• “Lawmakers are also being squeezed. Pavel Grudinin, a high-profile Communist Party candidate who won 12% of the vote against Mr. Putin in the 2018 presidential election, was barred from running in September's election after prosecutors said they found he owns shares in a foreign company. Dmitry Gudkov, who served in the lower house of parliament from 2011 to 2016 and had hoped to run for a seat again in September's election, was prohibited from standing after participating in protests in support of Mr. Navalny earlier this year and because prosecutors filed criminal proceedings against him in relation to an unpaid debt allegedly owed by his aunt on a basement she rented over six years ago.”
• “Mr. Gudkov and other activists said they would continue encouraging Russians to practice what they call smart voting, a strategy Mr. Navalny has championed where people are urged to vote for the strongest opponent to Mr. Putin regardless of which party they represent. The difficulty is that fewer and fewer such candidates will make the ballot.”

Defense and aerospace:

“How Much Does Shoigu’s Bragging Cost” Aleksandr Golts, Republic, 07.19.21. The author, the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Yezhednevny Zhurnal writes:

• “Statements, such as the one made by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, about the technological superiority of Russian military forces require some qualifications.”
• “First and foremost, Russia is the only major power that actually measures the ‘percentage of modern weapons. Other major powers, such as the United States, expect equipment to last a longtime when deployed overseas, and thus do not concern themselves with such statistics.”
  • “Russia, in fact, only started tracking this indicator in the aftermath of the 2008 Georgian War, when Russian tanks broke down before reaching the border.”
  • “Furthermore, this boast about modern weaponry must be taken with a grain of salt given the impossibility of verifying it due to Russia’s culture of military secrecy.”
• “Shoigu’s claim also sheds light on another interesting issue-the state of the military industrial complex. If Russia actually boasts such a high percentage of ‘modern weaponry’ then the defense industrial complex, which is tasked with producing this weaponry, should be prospering.”
  • “In reality however, 10% of defense-industrial complex industries are close to bankruptcy, trapped in an endless cycle of debt due to entanglement with state loans.”
  • “This too suggests that Russia’s claim of technological supremacy should be met with some level of skepticism.”
• “At the heart of the defense-industrial complex’s problems is its archaic organizational structure. When Sergei Ivanov re-organized the industry into a more vertical structure, it inherited the corruption and bureaucratic red tape endemic in the Soviet era. This new organization, however, did not yield the production system of Soviet times.”
  • “This is largely due to the fact that the government cannot force these private industries to make defense components at a loss.”
  • “Because of this, the defense-industrial complex produces components at final assembly plants, resulting in a very slow pace of production”
• “Ultimately, even if one were to take Minister Shoigu’s statement at face value, it nonetheless is important to keep in mind the heavy economic cost of claiming superiority in the arbitrary category of ‘modern weaponry.’”

“Be Careful What You Wish For: Russia, China and Afghanistan after the Withdrawal,” Jeffrey Mankoff, Russia Matters, 07.29.21. The author, a distinguished research fellow at the U.S. National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies, writes:

• “The ongoing withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan aims to put an end to what has been the United States’ longest war. The departure is accelerating the long-running effort on the part of Afghanistan’s neighbors, including Russia, China and other regional stakeholders, to shape Afghanistan’s future and secure their own interests in the wider region. Their ability to do so will depend on multiple factors, not least the extent to which the U.S.-backed Afghan government led by President Ashraf Ghani can maintain control in the face of escalating Taliban attacks and the questionable willingness and capacity of the security forces to fight back.”
• “The U.S withdrawal raises the stakes for both Beijing and Moscow. China and Russia have long maintained a dualistic approach to the U.S. presence: calling on Washington to leave while chiding it for failing to stabilize Afghanistan first. In recent years, the calls for Washington to depart have only gotten louder. Once the U.S. is out for good, Beijing and Moscow will face a real test.”
• “Do they have sufficient influence to oversee a managed transition, contain any spillover of violence, and provide reassurance to anxious Afghanistan neighbors? The whole region is about to find out.”

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

“The Russian State Takes Ominous Steps To Bolster 'Foreign Agents' Law,” Yelena Rykovtseva  and Robert Coalson, RFE/RL, 07.28.21. The authors, correspondents for the news outlet, write:

• “Earlier this month, the Federal Security Service (FSB) published a draft instruction listing military and technical topics that Russian citizens could be deemed ‘foreign agents’ for discussing, making them subject to restrictions and possible administrative or criminal punishment.  The FSB's instruction—containing 61 separate points—would be an explanatory supplement to the controversial ‘foreign agents’ law from last year under which individuals can be designated ‘a person carrying out the function of a foreign agent’ if they ‘are deliberately collecting information about military or military-technical activities of the Russian Federation that, if received by foreign sources, could be used against the security of the Russian Federation.’ Under the law, which President Vladimir Putin signed in December 2020, designated ‘foreign agents’ can face up to five years in prison for failing to report on their activity.”
• “The FSB's draft document includes points such as ‘information about evaluations or predictions of the development of the military-political or strategic environment,’ information about the purchase of goods and services for the army, the location or number of military units, personal information about military personnel or their families, and information about investigations by the FSB or military investigative agencies. It could also be dangerous to comment on the space agency Roskosmos, which is mentioned by name in at least a dozen points.”
• “The document's third point is particularly sweeping, including ‘information about the locations, real names, organizational structures, weaponry, or numbers’ of military units, units of the National Guard, executive branch units responsible for civil defense, the foreign intelligence services, all organs of the FSB, organs of government security, military prosecutors, the military investigative units of the Investigative Committee, organs responsible for military mobilization, military firefighting units, or any special structures created during wartime.”
• “The looming expansion of the ‘foreign agents’ law not only does not necessarily involve state secrets, but it also does not necessarily involve foreign governments. The FSB document emphasizes that Russians can be designated if their information reaches ‘foreign governments, foreign government organs, international or foreign organizations, foreign citizens, or people without citizenship.’”

 

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

“Merkel faces Russia: Dialogue with limited results,” Dmitri Trenin, Clingendael Spectator, 07.27.21. The author, director of Carnegie Moscow Center, writes:

• “Now, as Merkel is set to leave office after 16 years, relations between Berlin and Moscow are at their lowest point post-Cold War. Admittedly, this is not all her fault. Domestic changes within both Russia and Germany; NATO and EU enlargement to the east; successive US administrations’ foreign policies and the resultant fluctuations in US-Russia relations; and military conflicts and/or political crises in Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia have all had a decisive impact on the state of relations between the Bundeskanzleramt and the Kremlin.”
• “Yet, Merkel’s handling of that evolving relationship has undoubtedly been a key factor. Her successor would do well to seriously evaluate Merkel’s policies vis-à-vis Moscow. Although no longer crucial to the fate of Europe, the German-Russian relationship is still important, and remains the chancellor’s responsibility.”
• “Today, Germany’s new generation has a different agenda, focused on economic and financial matters, technology and climate change, and ideology and values. To this new generation of German politicians, Russia has become a matter of secondary concern, and relations with Russia have moved far down Berlin’s policy-agenda. More worryingly, Germany’s relations with Russia are now more adversarial than they have been for a very long time. They are marked by a sincere lack of trust and are thus at best pragmatic and mostly transactional.”
• “Yet, even if ‘hard security’ no longer dominates the German-Russian agenda, this bilateral relationship should be considered of central importance to both countries. Merkel’s successor will inherit not just Nord Stream II but also the legacy of personal contacts with the Kremlin leader. While there is still uncertainty about the new chancellor’s name and the composition of the new coalition government, one might hope and expect that Germany’s new leadership will deal responsibly with both issues.”
• “Finally, there is an issue in this defunct German-Russian partnership that remains central to all Russians, and that needs to be absolutely preserved by Merkel’s successor: the historical reconciliation between Russians and Germans following World War II. This is no small miracle, as the reconciliation after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union that claimed over 26 million Soviet lives was achieved outside of any alliance structure or any EU integration project. If that is lost, all is lost."

Ukraine:

“Ukraine Is Part of the West. NATO and the EU Should Treat It That Way,” Dmytro Kuleba, Foreign Affairs, 08.02.21. The author, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, writes:

• “In the case of Ukraine and Georgia, moving forward with NATO membership should be a top priority. As NATO itself declared in its 2008 Bucharest summit communiqué and reaffirmed in Brussels this year, this outcome is inevitable.”
• “Western capitals also have an opportunity to make inroads in other countries where Moscow historically has held sway.” 
• “Ukraine’s membership in NATO and the EU will not just reinforce progress in Ukraine; it will also help unify the West once more.”
  • “As a player in central and eastern Europe and in the Black Sea, Ukraine has much to offer as part of NATO on matters of regional security.” 
  • “Ukraine also has a vital role to play in ensuring Europe’s energy independence. For decades we have been a reliable transit country for gas supplies to Europe.”
  • “Other elements of Ukraine’s economy show enormous promise, too, from its demonstrated capacity for digitalization to an agricultural sector with the potential to guarantee global food security.”
• “For all the progress Ukraine has made so far, the country still needs further reform. Efforts to root out corruption fall into this category. The government has already made meaningful headway, including the implementation last month of a historic land reform law—previously stalled for two decades—that will both increase transparency and boost the economy. Other crucial bills were finally passed this summer to clean up the judiciary, granting international experts a decisive vote in the process of filtering out prospective judges with dubious reputations. We are realistic about how much more there is to do to address corruption in the judicial system, the defense and security sectors, and other institutions. But the strength of the current political will is clearly evident in these brave recent steps, taken despite the enormous resistance of vested interests.”
• “Under President Volodymyr Zelensky’s leadership, Ukraine is fully committed to accelerating reform efforts in line with the expectations of its European and transatlantic partners. This is what the people of Ukraine want, and they have paid a high price defending their choice. The sweep of history, too, now appears to be on their side.”
• “But Ukraine’s own efforts will not be successful without the strong support of the EU, NATO, and the two bodies’ member states. The steps we take must be reciprocated, with all sides working toward the goal of Ukrainian membership in both organizations. The United States and Europe must recognize that Ukraine is part of the West. Only then will our current efforts prove not to be in vain.”

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

• No significant developments.