This Week’s Highlights

• Even while conducting a nuclear posture review, the Biden administration should launch strategic stability talks with Russia, argues Brookings’ Steven Pifer. Those should have a broad agenda, including doctrine, strategic nuclear forces, non-strategic nuclear weapons, missile defense, long-range precision-guided conventional strike systems, hypersonic weapons and third-country nuclear forces. The Biden administration should also be prepared to put missile defense on the table if Moscow agrees to negotiate limits on all nuclear weapons, according to Pifer. 
• The United States, in concert with the world’s democracies, can resist the coercion of authoritarian regimes without forcing a direct confrontation between the two systems, writes Alexander Vindman, former director for European Affairs at the National Security Council. In fact, writes Vindman, in a multipolar world, democracies must both cooperate and compete with authoritarian powers. Countries of both descriptions see climate change, nuclear proliferation and transnational terror as threats: to counter these forces, among others, will require the United States to cooperate with China, Russia and emerging powers in Africa, Asia and Latin America. 
• Russia’s dependence on China has not yet reached a critical level, writes Carnegie Moscow Center’s Alexander Gabuev, but if relations with the EU and United States continue to deteriorate during the next 10 to 15 years, and the role of China as a trade partner and source of technology continues to grow, then Beijing could end up with the means to put pressure on Moscow. And if in 2014 the Kremlin at least had some alternative to the West in China, writes Gabuev, in the mid-2030s there might be no alternative to China. 
• Moldova now provides an opportunity for the EU to start being a strategic “player rather than the playground,” writes SWP’s Dumitru Minzarari. The EU needs to understand that the political processes in its neighborhood are subject to huge authoritarian pressure from  Russia; no politician or party in the post-Soviet area can withstand that pressure alone and undertake genuine democratic transformations. The fate of Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, who is disliked by Russia, could easily be repeated in the case of Maia Sandu. Indeed, Minzarari writes, there is a high likelihood that Russia will use its leverage in Moldova to undermine Sandu and then try to replace her, as it did last year. 
• Azerbaijan’s abandonment of diplomacy would be reason enough for the White House and State Department to end its waiver of Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act of 1992, but Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev has also violated counter-terror commitments by utilizing Syrian mercenaries who apparently have al-Qaeda or Islamic State links in the fight, writes Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute. It is time for Congress to act, acknowledge the illegality of any further aid to Azerbaijan and ensure individuals responsible for war crimes are held to account, according to Rubin.

 

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:

“Re-Engaging With Iran Will Not Be a Simple Matter for the US,” David Gardener, Financial Times, 12.03.20: The author, international affairs editor for the news outlet, writes:

• “The murder of Iran’s nuclear chief has only reinforced the hardliners who have been empowered by Trumpian ‘maximum pressure.’ They are likely to become yet more intransigent after the Iranian presidential elections next year.”
• “Tehran has successfully carved a Shia axis through Arab land. It chairs a club of failed or failing states, but these states nudge up against U.S. allies: Yemen and Iraq against Saudi Arabia; Syria and Lebanon against Israel. … Almost all significant actors in the Middle East, and each external force behind them, are invested in the paramilitarism they want Iran to abjure. … The U.S. and Russia (and sometimes the U.K. and France) use their air forces and special forces alongside militia allies and private armies on the ground.”
• “The nature of warfare has changed amid the tumult of the Middle East. The modern paramilitary paradigm, dating back to the Lebanese civil war and the creation of Hezbollah, was pioneered by Iran. It is hard to see why, in the present twilight zone of conflict lit by episodic explosions that threaten to set fire to the region, the Islamic Republic would give it up.”
• “The assassination of Fakhrizadeh was aimed at sabotaging plans by the incoming U.S. president Joe Biden to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal. Mr. Biden has offered Iran ‘a credible path back to diplomacy’ if it returns to compliance. While that idea already looks problematic, reining in Iran’s regional interventionism, in a context where paramilitary combat assisted by drones and precision missiles has become the new way of war, seems harder still.”

New Cold War/saber rattling:

“Will President-Elect Biden Wage a New Cold War With China?” Gregory Mitrovich, The Washington Post, 12.03.20: The author, a research scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, writes:

• “Today's conflict between the United States and China is considerably different from the U.S.-Soviet Cold War. Unlike the USSR, China lacks a powerful ideology to foster worldwide insurgency movements. Indeed, China's major attraction is its economic power, including its dominant trade position with many countries and the finance it extends countries with poor credit ratings and corrupt leadership. With China's advancements in 5G cellular technology and artificial intelligence, the real hegemonic battle will be fought in the realms of international trade, finance, development and technology.”
• “Nevertheless, the Cold War playbook could help the United States counter China today. The United States could act to convince the world of the superiority of the West's democratic, free-market system, expose the debt traps created by China's Belt and Road Initiative, discredit the Chinese dream and convince the Chinese that being a ‘responsible stakeholder’ in the international community would best enable their nation's continued, peaceful rise as a great power.”
• “But the Cold War playbook hinges on Biden convincing the world that America has reembraced internationalism and repairing the enormous damage to America's global image caused by President Trump's failure to address the coronavirus pandemic. It also requires reinvigorating alliances throughout Asia, rebuilding ties with NATO, enabling Taiwan to defend itself from a Chinese invasion and addressing the challenge of misinformation and cyber warfare. By confronting China's hegemonic ambitions while also reassuring Beijing that the United States considers it a global counterpart just like Japan and the European Union, Washington and Beijing could be one of the few sets of great powers in history to have peacefully resolved their competition.”

NATO-Russia relations:

“A New Path Forward for NATO,” Sergey Rogov, Adam Thomson and Alexander Vershbow, The National Interest, 12.07.20: The authors, the director of the Institute of USA and Canada Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a former U.K. Ambassador to NATO and a former NATO Deputy Secretary-General, write:

• “Over the past four months, we have joined with more than thirty other security experts, including retired diplomats and military officers from the United States, Russia and other European countries, for detailed discussions on how NATO and Russia might reduce the risk of inadvertent conflict. … The situation cries out for more dialogue and re-establishing political and military contacts.”
• “Those exchanges could lead to new arrangements building on the 1972 U.S.-Soviet (Russia) Agreement on Prevention of Incidents at Sea to regulate how NATO and Russian warships and aircraft operate when near one another. … Arrangements based on the 1989 U.S.-Soviet Prevention of Dangerous Military Activities Agreement could increase confidence by requiring that military units behave with particular caution when in border areas.”
• “NATO and Russia should consider additional transparency about exercises, including lowering the thresholds for pre-notification and observation. … [They] need to explore measures to provide greater transparency regarding new weapons, in particular intermediate-range conventional strike systems. … NATO and Russia ... should revive consultations on this and consider conducting annual exchanges of information on current missile defenses in Europe as well as plans for their development over the coming ten years.”
• “This is not a plan for a ‘reset’ or a return to ‘business as usual.’ … It will take concerted efforts by both sides to move their interaction to a more positive plane. In the meantime, however, policymakers and military leaders should explore the kinds of reciprocal measures we suggest. No one has an interest in accidentally or inadvertently stumbling into war. By the same token, these steps can contribute to an atmosphere in which resolution of the fundamental issues that divide us could eventually become more achievable.”

“Why Can't Europe Defend Itself?” Ted Galen Carpenter, The National Interest, 12.01.20: The author, a senior fellow in security studies at the Cato Institute, writes:

• “The sense of relief among European political and policy elites in response to Joe Biden’s election is almost palpable. So, too, is their desire for a return to the pre-Trump status quo ante with respect to Washington’s policy toward NATO.  There are some dissenters, especially French President Emmanuel Macron, who has called for European defense ‘sovereignty’ regardless of who occupies the Oval Office, now or in the future.”
• “Berlin’s response to Macron’s stance, while unsurprising, bordered on pathetic. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Germany’s defense minister asserted: ‘Without America's nuclear and conventional capabilities, Germany and Europe cannot protect themselves. Those are the plain facts.’ Those are ‘plain facts’ only if one accepts several popular but questionable or blatantly absurd Atlanticist propositions.”
• “One is that that the European Union, with a collective population larger than America’s and a highly sophisticated economy nearly as large, cannot build a capable continental defense. … Another is that Russia, despite being a pale shadow of the defunct Soviet Union with an economy barely one-tenth the size of the EU’s economy, poses a dire threat that the EU cannot hope to deter. …  A third faulty assumption is that Russia is hell-bent on an expansionist binge despite reducing its military expenditures in both 2017 and 2018 and barely increasing them in 2019.”
• “The reality is that continuing to rely on the United States is merely a convenient security blanket for Europe.”
• “An attempt by the Biden administration and like-minded European elites to restore an idealized status quo ante marked by incessant happy talk about transatlantic solidarity will not make those fundamental differences go away. It merely will feed an unhealthy delusion. The time has come for the Europeans to grow up and for the European Union to take its rightful place in the world as a meaningful political and military, not just an economic, player.”

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

“Starting Off on the Right Foot: Biden’s Near-Term Arms Control and Strategic Policy Challenge,” Frank A. Rose, Brookings Institution, 12.04.20: The author, co-director of the Center for Security, Strategy and Technology in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings, writes:

• “As President-elect Joe Biden prepares to officially take office on January 20, 2021, he and his administration will face a number of near-term arms control and strategic policy challenges. These challenges include: 1) extending the New START treaty with Russia; 2) finding a way to integrate China into a future arms control and strategic stability framework; 3) reviewing U.S. nuclear modernization and deterrence policy; 4) responding to the growing anti-satellite threat to U.S. and allies’ space systems; and 5) rebuilding the State Department’s arms control workforce.”
• “The fate of … [New START] with Russia is the most pressing near-term issue on the arms control and strategic policy agenda. … According to recent press reports, Biden’s key national security advisers have confirmed that the Biden administration would seek to extend the treaty. The Biden administration will need to move quickly if it is to make this a reality, given that the treaty is set to expire just a few weeks after Biden’s inauguration. There are several steps the Biden team can take now.”
• “Bringing China into the fold: Biden should propose to Chinese President Xi Jinping that the United States and China hold bilateral discussions on the full range of arms control and strategic policy issues in early 2021. The purpose of this dialogue should … [be] to build trust and reduce the possibility of miscalculation and misperceptions.”
• “Nuclear modernization and deterrence: the Biden administration must find a way to effectively deter states like Russia and China in a way that is fiscally sustainable over the long-term.”
• “Addressing the anti-satellite threat: … the Biden administration should work to ensure that the Space Force improves the integration of space across the Joint Force; encourages further integration of U.S. allies and partners into space operations; and enhances the resiliency of our national security space systems. … Rebuilding the State Department’s arms control workforce: … A key priority for the incoming team must be to rebuild this workforce.”

“Reviving Nuclear Arms Control Under Biden,” Steven Pifer, American Ambassadors Review/Brookings Institution, 12.01.20: The author, a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings, writes:

• “When Biden takes office on Jan. 20, he will have to move quickly to extend New START, as only two weeks will remain until the treaty will expire. … [T]he new administration should rapidly communicate an extension offer to Moscow—for five years and with no conditions.”
• “The Biden administration should early on conduct a nuclear posture review. … Even while conducting the review, the administration should launch strategic stability talks with Russia. Those should have a broad agenda.”
• “The Biden administration should [also] try, at least initially an agreement with a single limit covering all U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons, strategic or non-strategic, deployed or in reserve. … On a related issue, reviving the INF Treaty would prove to be difficult … The Biden administration might, however, consider proposing an agreement to ban nuclear-armed variants of such missiles.”
• “The United States should seek to avoid a race between missile defenses and strategic offensive forces. … Russia, China and, for that matter, North Korea can deploy additional nuclear warheads and decoys far more cheaply than the U.S. military can add additional GBIs. The Biden administration thus should be prepared to put missile defense on the table if Moscow agrees to negotiate limits on all nuclear weapons.”
• “The Biden administration should discuss with Russia, China, Britain and France nuclear risk-reduction measures … and greater transparency regarding nuclear forces. If the administration can reach another bilateral agreement with Russia on further cuts in U.S. and Russian nuclear forces, Washington and Moscow could then ask Beijing, London and Paris not to increase their total number of nuclear weapons so long as the United States and Russia were reducing.”

“The Softening Rhetoric by Nuclear-Armed States and NATO Allies on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,” Tom Sauer and Claire Nardon, War on the Rocks, 12.07.20: The authors, an associate professor in international politics and an intern at the Universiteit Antwerpen, write:

• “While nuclear-armed states and NATO allies remain opposed to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the tone is softening, and at least two NATO allies are breaking the consensus.”
• “In the year after the conclusion of the treaty, different initiatives were taken by the nuclear-armed states and their allies … All these initiatives aimed at lowering the expectations of the non-nuclear weapon states about drastic disarmament steps in the short or medium term.”
• “The rhetoric of nuclear-armed states and NATO allies vis-à-vis the nuclear ban treaty seems to be changing, perhaps as a result of these initiatives. … They first of all acknowledge the lack of nuclear disarmament and the resulting frustration on behalf of the non-nuclear weapon states. … Secondly, nuclear-armed states and NATO allies are starting to show respect for the case of non-nuclear-armed states and even for the treaty. … One reason for this shift in tone is the fact that the treaty will enter into force on Jan. 22, 2021, since the treaty reached its 50th ratification on Oct. 24, 2020.
• “At an institutional level, NATO may present a united front about its status as a ‘nuclear alliance,’ but cracks are becoming visible. … A November 2020 survey found that 77 percent of the Belgian population is in favor of Belgium signing the treaty. … If the Belgian position is echoed by other NATO allied states like the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, and/or Portugal … the cracks in NATO’s nuclear wall will widen. … Once an allied state signs the treaty, one could expect others to quickly follow suit.”

Counter-terrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant developments.

Cyber security:

• No significant developments.

Elections interference:

• No significant developments.

Energy exports from CIS:

“The Ghost of Blinken Past,” Chris Miller, Foreign Policy, 12.03.20: The author, an assistant professor at the Fletcher School, writes:

• “‘The Atlantic Alliance is showing serious cracks,’ declared President-elect Joe Biden’s pick for Secretary of State, Antony Blinken. ‘On a number of seemingly unrelated fronts, the United States and Western Europe are at each other’s throats … mounting protectionist sentiment has pushed the allies to the brink of economic warfare … Republicans and Democrats alike are tired of seeing the U.S. devote almost one half of its defense budget to NATO and receive little more than complaints in return … more generally, a new climate of isolationism is in the air—a belief that Europe is becoming less relevant, that American attention would be better devoted to the Pacific basin.’ The year: 1987. The president: Ronald Reagan. The dilemma: What to do about the new gas pipeline that Europe was building to Russia, one of America’s key foreign policy rivals.”
• “The ‘Siberian pipeline crisis’ that formed the subject of Ally Versus Ally has been forgotten by all but specialists. During the mid-1980s, though, it was a source of angry debate in U.S.-European relations.”
• “If Blinken’s analysis of the 1980s is any guide, he’ll place less emphasis on pressuring allies and more on listening to their concerns. After four years of America First, Europe will be glad to get friendlier treatment from a secretary of state who has written an entire book on the importance of being nice to allies. The test of Blinken’s strategy, though, will be whether he can heal the alliances by making them work better, not simply by asking allies to do less.”

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

“The United States Must Marshal the ‘Free World.’ Together, Democracies Can Counter the Authoritarian Threat,” Alexander Vindman, Foreign Affairs, 12.07.20: The author, a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army and former director for European Affairs at the National Security Council, writes:

• “For two decades, a distracted United States neglected the reemergence of great-power competition, and China and Russia reaped the benefits.”
• “Under Trump, the United States disengaged from global affairs, and China and Russia took advantage of its absence to act with impunity and accelerate China’s climb toward preeminence. If the United States further retrenches or shifts to such strategies as offshore balancing, a void will expand that autocratic states will fill.”
• “Although there is no clear consensus as to whether China and Russia are collaborating to undermine democracies or simply advancing their independent interests, their common efforts are bearing fruit. During the Trump administration, nationalist populist movements blossomed globally, while many democracies backslid.”
• “Uniting the democratic world against the clear and present danger of rising authoritarianism is not an act of idealism but of realism. China and Russia already hold similar interests and perceive similar threats, such that they are inclined to view the world in terms of ‘us versus them.’ … The idea of a democracy summit is not new, but the need for one has never been greater.”
• “The United States, in concert with the world’s democracies, can resist the coercion of authoritarian regimes without forcing a direct confrontation between the two systems. In fact, in a multipolar world, democracies must both cooperate and compete with authoritarian powers. Countries of both descriptions see climate change, nuclear proliferation, and transnational terror as threats: to counter these forces, among others, will require the United States to cooperate with China, Russia, and emerging powers in Africa, Asia and Latin America.”

“Biden’s Approach to US Allies and Adversaries Will Challenge Russia,” Dmitri Trenin, Carnegie Moscow Center, 11.27.20: The author, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, writes:

• “On the Biden administration’s foreign policy agenda, major power rivalry with China will continue to feature as the top international issue. Biden calls China America’s principal challenger. This is serious: Americans cannot imagine falling to the position of a number two power and will do their utmost to prevent this. … Meanwhile Russia, defined by Biden as a major threat rather than a major power competitor, will continue to be the subject of U.S. sanctions, with new ones likely to be added as Washington sees fit.”
• “Faced with such a challenging domestic and international setting, Russia’s ruling elites are torn in opposite directions, based on their specific corporate interests. … One faction, which includes … would-be political modernizers, systemic liberals and business tycoons with global interests, insists that Russia has already made its point about its sovereignty vis-à-vis the West … That leads this group to conclude that now is the time for at least a truce with the West, bought with Russian concessions.”
• “The other faction, led by the security community and military chiefs, but including a number of civilians, rejects any notion of a surrender with honor and insists on resisting Western pressure and pushing back against it.”
• “For now, President Putin is holding the balance, keeping both groups in check and charting his own course that merges strength with flexibility.”
• “Make no mistake: no second perestroika is coming. There is no specter of a latter-day Gorbachev stalking the corridors of the Kremlin. The bulk of the Russian people … are unlikely to embrace the United States as their ally, as Joe Biden would like to see. Yet President Biden will certainly challenge the Kremlin both domestically and geopolitically. To thwart that dual challenge, Russia needs to deal with its numerous vulnerabilities effectively before its adversary is able to exploit them.”     

“How to End a Forever War,” Editorial Board, New York Times, 11.30.20: The news outlet’s editorial board writes:

• “President-elect Joe Biden is unlikely to depart radically from the Trump administration’s exit [from Afghanistan] plan. Mr. Biden opposed the Obama-era surge in Afghanistan and wrote in the spring in Foreign Affairs magazine that ‘it is past time to end the forever wars.’ But an American withdrawal does not have to mean ending financial support for the Afghan people or leaving the region in chaos. The United States has a moral obligation to work with regional partners to try to clean up the mess we are leaving behind.”
• “Americans have the geopolitical luxury of flying away from a war they plunged into in 2001 in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Afghanistan’s neighbors do not. Six countries share a border with Afghanistan. Not one wants a failed state on its doorstep. Afghanistan has been at war almost continuously since 1978, partly because its powerful neighbors have all tried to manage the chaos inside it by funding proxies. A debilitating free-for-all might be prevented if Afghanistan’s neighbors work together to support a peace process. This is a rare instance where Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan and the United States all share a common interest: the orderly departure of American troops and preventing Afghanistan from imploding.”
• “The Biden administration has time to craft a more responsible withdrawal.”

 

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“‘Foreign Agent’: Putin’s New Crackdown on the Opposition,” Henry Foy, Financial Times, 11.30.20: The author, the Moscow bureau chief at the Financial Times, writes:

• “Ksenia Fadeeva was born and raised in Tomsk … Yet the next time that Ms. Fadeeva runs for election, her name on the ballot will most probably come with an official warning for voters that she is a ‘foreign agent’—if indeed she is permitted to run at all.”
• “That is just one upshot of a series of bills rushed to Russia’s parliament in November, following the unexpected success of Ms. Fadeeva and other anti-Kremlin candidates in September’s local elections, which are set to further tighten Russia’s already repressive electoral laws in a bid to stifle rising dissent at the ballot box.”
• “This year, GDP is expected to fall by 6 per cent. … Even as Russian incomes dropped 8 per cent in the second quarter of this year, the largest fall for more than 20 years, the government refused to increase financial stimulus, which has been much smaller than other major European nations. According to a survey conducted in October by the Levada Center, … 43 per cent of citizens said they thought the country was heading in the wrong direction.”
• “At the last parliamentary election in 2016, opposition parties made little impact. United Russia romped home with 54 per cent of the vote. … But much has changed since then. …   Today, United Russia’s support stands at just 31 per cent, according to state-run pollster VCIOM, after hitting a record low of 30.5 per cent in August. … Mr. Putin’s trust ratings have fallen this year, while support for his United Russia party has sunk to a record low. As a result, at next year’s parliamentary election the party will probably struggle to retain its current hold on more than three quarters of the chamber’s seats. … That threat has sparked a rash of legislative proposals designed to hamper opposition parties.”

“Linkages Between Experiencing COVID-19 and Levels of Political Support in Russia,” Margarita Zavadskaya and Boris Sokolov, PONARS Eurasia, November 2020: Zavadskaya, a research fellow at the European University at St. Petersburg, and Sokolov, associate professor at the Higher School of Economics, write:

• “The preliminary results from our online survey ‘Values in Crisis’ devoted to the societal consequences of COVID-19 in Russia coupled with the evidence from other Russian pollsters suggest that:”
• “First, direct encounters with the coronavirus do not lead to a significant decrease in political support and institutional trust in Russia, at least as of the time this study was conducted.  At the same time, overall anxiety, irrespective of actual direct experience with COVID-19, weakly and positively correlates with political approval. It also may explain a relative success of the official blame avoidance strategy (blaming reckless citizens and business).”
• “Second, negative economic consequences of the coronavirus outbreak for the Russian population have not translated to political discontent either. On the other hand, this crisis situation has not caused any kind of ‘rally ‘round the flag’ effect yet.”
• “Third, more than one-third of Russians express a total lack of trust in any information concerning COVID-19 and fatigue from coronavirus-related news. … This group of so-called ‘COVID-dissidents’ constitutes the most prominent protest group standing out from among the rest of the respondents.”
• “So far, there have been few examples of open political protest organized by conservative forces. The most prominent ones are the protests in Vladikavkaz against self-isolation measures and the infamous rebellion by a schema-hegumen (a clerical title in the Eastern Orthodox church) Sergii who took over a women’s monastery not far from Yekaterinburg … with self-organized Cossacks’ troops and openly denied the existence of the coronavirus. While both instances, as of now, seem to be rather marginal events with no organized large-scale political mobilization, our data suggest that, if the pandemic and related restrictive measures continue for a relatively long time, the Russian government may face growing opposition among conservative groups.”

“Claim in 2020: ‘Nobody wants to invest [in Russia],’" RM Staff, Russia Matters, December 2020: In this fact-check, the RM staff writes:

• “In an article published Feb. 18, 2020, by the New York Times, Vladislav Inozemtsev, the director of the Center for Post-Industrial Studies in Moscow, was quoted as saying that ‘nobody wants to invest’ in the Russian economy. He explained that ‘nobody believes the economic situation will be better tomorrow than it is today.’ Inozemtsev’s comments imply that while the Kremlin has worked to make investors believe that the Russian economy is in good shape despite Western sanctions, these investors’ confidence in Russia is nonetheless low.”
• “Overall, while the fact that foreigners have retained an active presence in Russian financial markets makes Inozemtsev's statement incorrect, stagnant or negative trends in greenfield investments, FDI inflow and stock and cross-border M&As show that his claim is not groundless.”

Defense and aerospace:

• No significant developments.

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• No significant developments.

 

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

“Russia’s Port Sudan Naval Base: A Power Play on the Red Sea,” Samuel Ramani, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), 12.07.20: The author, a PhD candidate in international relations at the University of Oxford, writes:

• “In November, Russia’s Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin approved a draft agreement to establish a naval base in Port Sudan, on Sudan’s Red Sea coast. According to Russian state media outlet TASS, the Port Sudan logistics facility would be ‘defensive’ in nature and aimed at ‘maintaining peace and stability in the region.’ The facility would also be used to carry out repairs, replenish supplies and as a resting spot for Russian navy personnel.”
• “Although Russian officials have not commented on the Port Sudan facility’s geopolitical significance, Russia’s construction of a Red Sea base is an important landmark in its resurgence as a great power. Russia possesses just one major naval base outside of the post-Soviet space: Tartus in Syria. This facility furthers Moscow’s vision of securing recognition as a blue-water navy and revives historical memories of the Soviet Union’s superpower status.”
• “In spite of prior concerns about the poor quality of Sudan’s port facilities and a potential spillover of violence from Khartoum’s war with South Sudan, Russia sees three potential benefits from its logistics center in Port Sudan. … First, Russia could use its facility in Sudan as a launchpad for expanded power projection on the Mediterranean Sea. … Second, Russia will use its Port Sudan facility to bolster its credibility as a bulwark against maritime security threats in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.”
• “Third, Russia will use its new logistics facility to protect its investments in Sudan and consolidate its bilateral partnership with Khartoum.”

China-Russia: Allied or Aligned?

“Is Putin Really Considering a Military Alliance With China?” Alexander Gabuev, Carnegie Moscow Center, 12.01.20: The author, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center, writes:

• “Russia’s dependence on China has not yet reached a critical level. … But if relations with the EU and United States continue to deteriorate during the next ten to fifteen years, and the role of China as a trade partner and source of technology continues to grow, then Beijing could end up with the means to put pressure on Moscow.”
• “In recent years, Moscow has tried to exploit the issue of its rapprochement with Beijing to scare the West with the prospect of a Sino-Russian bloc taking shape. … This approach is starting to bear fruit with the EU. … But neither the EU nor individual European countries … can limit the Russian-Chinese rapprochement without coordinating their efforts with the United States.”
• “Responding to China and Russia’s growing closeness is unlikely to be a priority for Joe Biden’s foreign policy team, but the issue will inevitably come up. … Moscow knows full well that the United States’ main concern is the military rapprochement of Moscow and Beijing. … An even more alarming prospect is the transition from a non-aggression pact between Russia and China … to … the formation of a more profound security partnership that would increasingly resemble a military alliance.”
• “The main problem for the United States and its European allies is sketching out a realistic strategy that would take into account the importance for any Russian government of good relations with China, the immovability of current Western sanctions, key Western interests … and Moscow’s red lines. For the Kremlin, the key challenge is not to put too much stock in Western fears of the Sino-Russian rapprochement, and to be capable of changing policy in order to stabilize ties with the United States and Europe, while at the same time preserving good relations with Beijing.”

“Why Chinese-Russian Law Importing Is a Myth,” Pavel Bazhanov, Carnegie Moscow Center, 12.03.20: The author, a lawyer and expert on Chinese legislation, writes:

• “The authoritarian nature of their political regimes has always brought Russia and China together. …It seems that in recent years, cooperation between China and Russia has expanded into the realm of lawmaking. This is something that has been commented on even by senior officials, such as Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, who noted that three years after Russia introduced a law toughening the restrictions on foreign nongovernmental organizations, China had devised a similar law.”
• “Such convergences have given rise to suggestions that Russia and China are assimilating each other’s laws with the aim of aligning their legal systems. But analysis of legislative initiatives undermines that theory. Both China and Russia prefer to follow countries with mature justice systems. If they do study each other’s legislation, it’s out of practical considerations for the purposes of doing business and protecting the interests of their own nationals.”

Ukraine:

“It’s Time to Start Treating Ukraine’s Corrupt Judiciary as a Criminal Syndicate,” Mykhailo Zhernakov, Atlantic Council, 12.01.20: The author, the chair of the board at the DEJURE Foundation, writes:

• “Ukraine’s High Council of Justice, which is tasked with protecting the independence of judges and disciplining them for wrongdoing, is instead accused of prosecuting whistleblowers while keeping corrupt people and structures intact. … In October, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine dismantled a key element of Ukraine’s anti-corruption infrastructure. It ruled that those who provide false information in asset declarations will no longer face criminal liability.”
• “It is widely believed that Ukraine’s anti-corruption architecture was not the ultimate target of the 47 pro-Russian and oligarch-controlled members of the Ukrainian parliament who first signed the submission to the Constitutional Court. Instead, the MPs who pushed for the Constitutional Court ruling were actually aiming to harm the relationship between Ukraine and the country’s Western partners. … This requires immediate action not only from the Ukrainian government, but also from the country’s Western partners.”
• “First, Ukraine must fix the Constitutional Court. The number of votes required from individual judges in order to adopt any Constitutional Court decision should be raised in order to reduce the potential for corrupt officials to influence the workings of the court. The composition of the court also needs to change.”
• “The roots of the problem go deep inside the Ukrainian justice system and can only be dealt with by full-scale, comprehensive judicial reform.”
• “Unless the court system is cleansed of chronic corruption, any future attempts to pursue reform and Euro-Atlantic integration will be hostage to the kind of legal sabotage we have seen in recent months from the Constitutional Court. Ukrainians will remain trapped in a society controlled from behind the scenes by a flawed justice system that operates in the interests of oligarch clans and the Kremlin.”

Belarus:

“Belarus Protests Have Explosive Potential for EU-Russia Relations,” Arkady Moshes, Carnegie Moscow Center, 11.30.20: The author, program director of the EU Eastern Neighborhood and Russia Research Program at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, writes:

• “The Belarusian revolution is far from over, and there are at least three scenarios in which the EU and Russia won’t be able to keep their differences over Belarus from escalating from the current moderate competition into an open geopolitical crisis like that seen in Ukraine.”
• “The first scenario is a sharp increase in Russian influence. If the Belarusian economy takes a drastic turn for the worse, including as a result of Western sanctions, then Russia will have to bail it out.”
• “The second scenario envisages the Belarusian revolution entering a geopolitical phase. Sociological research shows that Russia’s support for Lukashenko is eroding pro-Russian sentiment among Belarusians. A large section of society is turning once again to Europe for their geopolitical orientation. If the columns of protesters start unfurling EU flags (like in Ukraine, Georgia, and even Belarus itself back in 2010), then the EU will have to change tactics and adopt a more active policy.”
• “The third and final scenario is that of a new reset in relations between Brussels and Minsk. If Lukashenko remains in power, that scenario barely seems credible. But if he is replaced by someone from within the current regime, or—especially—by a new figure, then that outcome is virtually inevitable. And then it might be Moscow that loses patience.”

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

“In Nagorno-Karabakh Peace Deal, Putin Applied a Deft New Touch,” Anton Troianovski and Carlotta Gall, The New York Times, 12.01.20: Troianovski, a Moscow correspondent for the New York Times, and Gall, the Istanbul bureau chief for the New York Times, write:

• “It was Mr. Putin … who by all accounts stopped the war that killed thousands this fall in the fiercest fighting the southern Caucasus has seen this century. But he did so by departing from the iron-fisted playbook Russia has used in other regional conflicts in the post-Soviet period, when it intervened militarily in Georgia and Ukraine while invading and annexing Crimea. Those tactics, which helped turn those countries into implacable adversaries, seem to have fallen out of fashion in the Kremlin, which analysts say is increasingly applying a more subtle blend of soft and hard power.”
• “The Kremlin’s lighter touch has been visible in the recent Belarus uprising, where Russia refrained from intervening directly and offered only lukewarm support for President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, whose violence against protesters was infuriating the population. In the negotiations to end the recent war, Mr. Putin leaned on the threat of Russia’s military power, forcing concessions from both sides in the conflict but gaining a grudging measure of trust in the rival camps. … The strategy seems to have paid immediate dividends, providing the Kremlin with a military foothold in the region and welding Armenia firmly into Russia’s sphere of influence, without alienating Azerbaijan.”
• “The deal with Mr. Putin appears to have suited Mr. Aliyev—only in part because Azerbaijani forces were already strung out and faced a tougher, wintertime fight ahead while bearing the added burden of managing a hostile ethnic Armenian population.”
• “For Armenians … the war was a harsh reminder that Russia remains critical to their security. Because Azerbaijan’s main ally, Turkey, posed what many Armenians considered to be an existential threat, Armenians have come back ‘to our default position: the reflexive perception of Russia as the savior,’ said Richard Giragosian.”

“Sanctions on Azerbaijan Should Go Beyond Military and Aid Embargo,” Michael Rubin, The National Interest, 11.30.20: The author, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, writes:

• “Armenians are angry at the U.S. State Department. On March 26, 2020, Deputy Secretary Stephen Biegun granted Azerbaijan its annual waiver to Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act of 1992. In effect, Biegun certified that Azerbaijan both remained committed to diplomacy to resolve its dispute with Armenia and would assist to counter terrorism. … Either there was a massive intelligence failure or diplomats lied. Azerbaijanis surprised Armenians when they launched a massive, multi-pronged assault on Nagorno-Karabakh.”
• “Azerbaijan’s abandonment of diplomacy would be reason enough for the White House and State Department to end its waiver of Section 907, but Aliyev has also violated counter-terror commitments by utilizing Syrian mercenaries. … Any continued waiver for Azerbaijan flies in the face of the law and insults Congress.”
• “Now that the guns have fallen silent, however, the incoming Biden administration should impose Global Magnitsky Act sanctions on those responsible for human rights abuses and war crimes in the conflict. Azerbaijan is an absolute dictatorship. … The decision to deceive the United States and resort to a military surprise attack rests with both Aliyev and his wife.”
• “The need for Magnitsky sanctions is also crucial because both during the war and in its aftermath, Azeri forces and Syrian mercenaries have videoed themselves torturing and subsequently executing prisoners, both military and civilian. At the very least, the United States and Europe must demand Azerbaijan identify its personnel and militias who appear on the videos and to hand them over to international authorities for war crimes prosecutions. Any Azeri or Turkish official under whom they served should also face prosecution.”
• “It is time for Congress to act, acknowledge the illegality of any further aid to Azerbaijan and ensure individuals responsible for war crimes are held to account.”

“Moldovan Presidential Elections Driven by Insecurity Not Geopolitics,” Dumitru Minzarari, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, December 2020: The author, an associate in the Eastern Europe and Eurasia Division at SWP, writes:

• “World media have hailed the victory of Maia Sandu in the Moldovan presidential elections on 15 November. They celebrated it as a triumph of democracy and pro-Western preferences over post-Soviet cronyism, authoritarianism and Russian apologists. The reality is more complex.”
• “Moldova now provides an opportunity for the EU to start being a strategic ‘player rather than the playground.’ The EU needs to understand that the political processes in its neighborhood are subject to huge authoritarian pressure from Russia; no politician or party in the post-Soviet area can withstand that pressure alone and undertake genuine democratic transformations. The fate of Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, who is disliked by Russia, could easily be repeated in the case of Maia Sandu. Indeed, there is a high likelihood that Russia will use its leverage in Moldova to undermine Sandu and then try to replace her, as it did last year.”
• “The EU should throw its full support behind Sandu and thereby protect the current opening towards genuine democratic transformation in Moldova. It needs to engage dynamically with the conservatives in Moldova at the grassroots, winning hearts and minds. Given Moldovans’ exposure to Russian disinformation, such engagement should address the fears among conservatives, associated with Moldovan rapprochement with the West. Ideally, this would be done through a number of EU targeted projects, carried out under the auspices of President Sandu, that address the insecurities and needs of the risk-averse electorate. … The underlying logic is that the greater the conservatives’ trust in the EU, the more likely they are to vote for local democratic politicians. These insights could be useful for EU work in other post-Soviet countries as well.”

“Moldova's New President Is Likely to Seek Closer Ties With Europe. Russia Won't Be Pleased,” Marius Ghincea, The Washington Post, 12.04.20: The author, a PhD researcher at the European University Institute in Florence, writes:

• “The Republic of Moldova, a tiny nation sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine, held its second-round presidential elections on Nov. 15. The voters ousted the incumbent pro-Russian president, Igor Dodon, electing Maia Sandu, the pro-Western, Harvard-educated former prime minister. Sandu will become the first female president of this former Soviet republic, population 3.5 million. What shaped her victory, and what does it mean?”
• “Moldova has deep political divisions: Disagreements about three big issues have shaped Moldova's politics in recent years—and corruption topped the list. … Second, Moldova has been embroiled in a decades-long fight about national identity. Many within the country consider themselves Romanian—diplomatically and politically, the Romanian government supported the work of Plahotniuc, a Romanian citizen, for instance. Others argue for a distinct Moldovan national identity. … And third, the country's identity divide mirrors current geopolitics. Those who support Russia, including the outgoing president, typically identify as Moldovans and favor a strong relationship with Moscow. Those identifying as Romanians—mostly the country's bureaucratic and educated elite—including Sandu—seek to align the country with Romania, the European Union and the West.”
• “Sandu homed in on corruption: Sandu campaigned against the corruption associated with Plahotniuc, who remains an important presence in Moldovan politics. … The outgoing president still has political support: Moldova has a semi-parliamentary political system, which means that most of the executive power rests in the hands of the prime minister. The current prime minister, Ion Chicu, a former advisor of Dodon's, leads a minority government and relies on political support from the Socialists, Democrats and other MPs to remain in power.”
• “Russia will still have some influence in the country, as Moscow effectively controls the breakaway region of Transnistria, which declared its independence from Moldova in 1992.”

“The People of Belarus Are Still Marching Against Dictatorship. The US Can Help,” Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, The Washington Post, 12.04.20: The author, the leader of the opposition in Belarus, currently exiled in Lithuania, writes:

• “Although our uprising is not directed against any other country, the Kremlin is offering Lukashenko crucial support in the forms of security assistance, significant financial support and propagandists who disseminate pro-regime propaganda on Belarus state television.”
• “We need more help from the United States, even in this complex transitional period. I appeal to the U.S. Senate to swiftly pass the Belarus Democracy, Human Rights, and Sovereignty Act of 2020. This bill will expand the scope of those who can be sanctioned under U.S. law for their complicity in the repressions. At the same time it will provide support to independent media and technology for circumventing state censorship. Access to information is the strongest weapon in our possession. Lukashenko’s efforts to stifle the free flow of information and hide his violent crackdown cannot go unanswered.”
• “The regime is brittle and in dire need of financial support. Under Lukashenko, the Belarusian economy has not grown for the past decade. The economy has entered a financial crisis; the exchange rate has plummeted by 20 percent this year.”
• “The people of Belarus have endured Lukashenko’s rule for more than two decades. They want a better life, and they are convinced that democratic change is the best way to achieve it. Our protests are not pro-West or anti-Russia — they are pro-Belarus.”