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

Nuclear security:

“Nuclear Terrorism, the Last 40 Years: What Has and Has Not Happened,” Brian M. Jenkins, Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, September 2016 (PDF): The author, a RAND analyst and one of the world’s leading experts on nuclear terrorism, argues that in the past four decades, nuclear proliferation has not been as bad as we thought it might be. While several terrorist groups (examples included) have clearly contemplated acquiring nuclear weapons, such actors seem to have succeeded in getting only enough material and know-how for a radioactive dispersal device. This certainly doesn’t mean nuclear terrorism can never happen. On the contrary, all of society—not just nuclear facilities—will require increasingly stringent security measures. Though we don’t yet have “a nuclear underworld … even an attempt by a non-government adversary to acquire or use a nuclear weapon will change the world dramatically. The rules won’t be the same.”

Iran and its nuclear program:

No significant commentary.

New Cold War/Sabre Rattling:

“Three Dimensions: Is the Break Between the Kremlin and the West Permanent?” Carnegie Moscow Center, 10.31.16: Three veteran Russia experts weigh in on Moscow’s relations with the West ahead of the U.S. presidential election next week. Fyodor Lukyanov, editor in chief of Russia in Global Affairs, anticipates growing rapprochement, albeit nothing as extreme as the 1990s, but predicts that it will be “defined less by bilateral issues than by the dynamic of the whole world order.” If a new Cold War arises, it would be from “mere inertia or because the two sides camouflage their inability to find answers to real problems by name-calling a familiar enemy,” and the outcome of the U.S. election “won’t significantly change things.” Former Finnish ambassador to Russia Rene Nyberg lists some contentious issues like missile defense, Ukraine, Syria and the Caucasus, and concludes that “the most compelling … reasons for the Kremlin to look for a settlement with the West” are economic, but President Vladimir Putin’s record shows that “economics always defers to politics.” Meanwhile, Angela Stent of Georgetown University points out that “the harsh, adversarial rhetoric and military posturing certainly feel like the Cold War without the channels of communication that operated then”; nonetheless, “Putin is a pragmatic leader willing to make deals if he believes they are in Russia’s interest.” Some improvements possible in the relationship might include “resuming talks over a U.S-Russian cyber agreement and restoring high-level military channels.” After all, “Western relations with Russia have always been compartmented with elements of cooperation and disagreement coexisting.”

“New Cold War Chills Annual Kremlin Gathering of Foreign Experts,” Marc Champion, Bloomberg, 10.26.16: The author, a Bloomberg editor and former Moscow correspondent, describes his takeaway from last week’s Valdai International Discussion Club meeting in Sochi. One leitmotif is that the potential for war between Russia and the U.S.—“unimaginable just a few years ago”—has resurfaced and “could be triggered by minor mistakes,” according to one expert. Another Russia scholar described bilateral relations as a sort of “sleepwalking” and compared them to the tensions of the “early Cold War years of the 1950s and 1960s” except with “much larger, fully developed nuclear arsenals [that both sides] are upgrading on the pretext of replacement.” For Russia, a third expert said, after the collapsed ceasefire in Syria, “the main ambition is simply to avoid direct combat between U.S. and Russian forces” instead of cooperating in search of solutions to problems. “The best the two countries can hope to achieve for the next five to eight years is to establish agreed rules that avoid any inadvertent escalation, similar to the years of Cold War détente, an informal lunch of U.S. and Russian participants concluded.”

“Playing With Fear: Russia’s War Card,” Michael Khodarkovsky, New York Times, 10.27.16: The author, a Loyola University professor working on a history of the Russian Empire, warns that “the Kremlin is deliberately creating a sense of impending war by having its own media insist that NATO has put Russia under threat—from the military alliance itself and its democratic ethos.” As evidence he catalogues a number of war-preparedness measures by the state, including “a Russian civil defense drill reportedly involv[ing] 40 million civilians and 200,000 civil defense experts” Oct. 4-7. (Two other examples cited by the author seem to have been based on reports that have been contested. One is about government officials being ordered to bring home relatives who are abroad. That claim has not been backed by any substantial evidence and a Kremlin spokesman has denied any knowledge of such an order, as did a representative of Russia’s senate. The other claim is about authorities in Moscow posting fliers that asked local residents to contribute money for the construction of bomb shelters. The city authorities explicitly warned residents not to believe the leaflets, which they said were being distributed by swindlers.) “The Kremlin’s modus operandi is simple,” the author writes: to “spread fear and uncertainty through provocative military moves and unrelenting propaganda at home and abroad.” This is both “theater intended to intimidate the West” and a “cynical ploy … to distract Russia’s own citizens from their economic woes.” The West’s response, he argues, must be “unambiguous.”

NATO-Russia relations:

“NATO May Not Be Ready to Fight Russia: If Military Exercises Demonstrate Combat Readiness, Russia May Have the Edge,” Ian Brzezinski and Nicholas Varangis, The National Interest, 10.27.16: The authors, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense and a researcher on global security issues, “have published a chart comparing the magnitudes of military exercises conducted by NATO and Russia. The contrast was jarring, with Russian exercises dwarfing those of NATO. The updated chart  captures much of that data and indicates that since then, the NATO-Russia Exercise Gap, though reduced, remains strategically significant [and] … undercuts the alliance’s deterrent posture.”

Missile defense:

See “Nuclear modernization, arms control, and U.S.-Russia relations” below.

Nuclear arms control:

 “Nuclear Modernization, Arms Control and U.S.-Russia Relations,” Steven Pifer, Brookings Institution, 10.25.16: “Arms control can make a significant contribution to U.S. national security and is more important when relations are adversarial than when they are working well. The next administration should prepare a position in case Moscow decides to reengage. It should seek a negotiation on further nuclear arms reductions that would include all U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons while also indicating that it is prepared to address the related issues raised by the Russians. Even if Moscow does not engage, having a forward-looking approach may prove useful for maintaining the support of allies and resisting international pressures to pursue disarmament courses that Washington will not like.” The author is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and this brief is part of “Election 2016 and America’s Future”—an institution-wide initiative in which Brookings scholars have identified the biggest issues facing the United States this election season and are providing individual ideas for how to address them.

Counter-terrorism:

No significant commentary.

Conflict in Syria:

“Why Syrian Safe Zones Are Unworkable,” John Ford, The National Interest, 10.30.16: The author, a reserve captain in the U.S. Army who has previously written on terrorism and the Middle East, argues that “safe zones have a superficial appeal to western policymakers who want to protect civilians but are afraid of the consequences of deeper engagement in Syria”; however, they are not a tenable option any more as they “would create a host of challenges,” not least of these “the risk of a wider war with Russia.”

Cyber security:

“How the Kremlin Handles Hacks: Deny, Deny, Deny,” Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg View, 10.26.16: The author, a staff columnist and veteran Russia watcher, gives an overview of the alleged hack of an electronic mailbox belonging to Vladislav Surkov, “President Vladimir Putin's adviser for dealing with former Soviet breakaway regions.” The author points out that, while the allegedly hacked emails seem to be authentic, they failed to produce “any direct evidence of Surkov's personal involvement in the running of the separatist regions [in Ukraine] or the disruption of Ukrainian political life” for two main reasons: (1) “The Kremlin immediately denied the authenticity of the leaked communications,” thereby precluding any additional journalistic inquiries; and (2) “the cautious Surkov … doesn't send or receive messages himself; he is known to always correspond through intermediaries.” In conclusion, the author writes: “The degree of Russia's involvement in eastern Ukraine is well-known, yet no one has evidence of specific Putin aides giving any incriminating orders. It's a cynical but effective way to play the game if you believe you'll be hacked at some point—and if your e-mails are of interest to a hostile party, you probably will be.”

Energy exports from CIS:

No significant commentary.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

No significant commentary.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

“Valdai Showcased Putin's Terms for U.S.-Russia Cooperation,” Andrew Kuchins, Moscow Times, 10.28.16: According to the author, a senior fellow at the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies (CERES) at Georgetown University, Putin’s broad message seemed to be that, while deeply frustrated by U.S. policies that seemingly defy Russian interests, Moscow will want to work with and engage with the incoming administration.

“Trump Helps Putin—and All Dictators—When He Calls U.S. Elections 'Rigged,'” Scott Gehlbach and Konstantin Sonin, The Washington Post, 10.26.16: The article’s subheading conveys its overall point: “He's reinforcing [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's message to the world: The U.S. system is as fraudulent as any other.” The authors, professors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Chicago, respectively, go on to say: “We do not fully understand the rationale for Donald Trump's overt statements of support for Putin. But it is his highly inaccurate portrayal of U.S. politics that has most played into the Kremlin's designs. Regardless of the election outcome, Putin is one of the big winners of this presidential election.”

“How Congress can protect the U.S. from Russia. Presidents typically take the lead on foreign policy. But Congress has a major role to play too,” Jason Bruder, Politico, 10.26.16: The author, a fellow at the Kennan Institute and a former senior staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, proposes a number of measures Congress can take to help manage the U.S.-Russian relationship. These include increased Title VIII funding to “ensure that America’s future leaders within and outside government possess the deep understanding of Russia,” facilitating or expediting the approval of presidential “nominees for positions dealing with Russia and its neighbors,” upgrading U.S. cyber defenses and countering Russia’s information warfare, among others. “Members of Congress should make investments to enhance our national capacity to deal with the ongoing challenge from Moscow,” the author writes. “They also can invest personally in terms of their own knowledge, firsthand experience, and relationships to maintain and develop their important role in U.S.-Russia relations.

“The last Russian leader to mess with a US election? Josef Stalin,” Will Moreland, Vox, 10.26.16: “Though the election of 1948 is best remembered for the Chicago Tribune newspaper’s embarrassing, incorrect “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline, its forgotten story is of Henry Wallace, a liberal dreamer who, though unlike Donald Trump in nearly every respect, shares Trump’s fate of being too blinded by his self-messianic vision to realize he too had become a Kremlin pawn.”

“Trump, Putin, Xi and the cult of the strongman leader,” Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, 10.31.16: “Strongmen bring a distinct style to international diplomacy. They tend to want to sort things out man-to-man, rather than relying on institutions or international law. Mr. Trump has promised an early summit with President Putin.”

II. Russia’s relations with other countries

General developments and “far abroad” countries:

 “Russia and France's Right: How Moscow Is Playing in the French Presidential Elections,” David Cadier, Foreign Affairs, 10.31.16: “The United States is not the only Western country in which Russia is featuring prominently in electoral politics. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, Russia is also a hot topic in the French presidential campaign.” The author is a fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and an associate at the London School of Economics’ IDEAS.

“Is India Losing Russia?” Nabarun Roy, The National Interest, 10.27.16: “Russia is apparently upping its security ties with Pakistan, India’s traditional rival… How worried should one be about these developments in India-Russia relations? Also, what should be done to ensure that there is no fundamental realignment in the relations between the two nations?” The author is an assistant professor of international relations at the South Asian University in New Delhi.

China:

“Three Powers Will Shape Future State of World,” Dmitri Trenin, China Daily, 10.31.16: “The mutual empathy and closeness of world views between Putin and Xi has greatly promoted Sino-Russian cooperation and cemented the new ‘entente’—something more than partnership and less than an alliance—between Moscow and Beijing. … Going forward, Xi, Putin and the next US President will be largely responsible for the state of the world. … This will strengthen Beijing's hand in relations with Washington, and provide Moscow with a much-needed partner in constructing Greater Eurasia, Russia's newest geopolitical blueprint. The triangle which former U.S. president Richard Nixon and his top aide Henry Kissinger—two very strong and insightful foreign policy leaders—built in the early 1970s and which put the U.S. on top is now standing on its head.” The author is director of the Carnegie Moscow Center.

Ukraine:

“Bad History Doesn’t Make Friends,” Andreas Umland, Foreign Policy, 10.25.16: Ukraine’s official World War II narrative, which casts the so-called “Bandera faction” of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in a positive light, is unacceptable to its Western partners and threatens to subvert “Kiev’s all-important relationships with its Western partners,” warns the author, a German political scientist teaching at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. It also gives Russia grounds to accuse Kiev of glorifying Nazism. “For these and other reasons, Ukraine should embrace a more academic and less escapist approach to understanding its wartime history—as most Western countries have eventually done,” he writes.

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

No significant commentary.

III. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

No significant commentary.

Defense and Aerospace:

No significant commentary.

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

No significant commentary.