This Week’s Highlights

• What is both possible and necessary is to stabilize U.S.-Russian relations at their currently low level and to prepare the groundwork for more constructive relations, write Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Center and Thomas Graham of the Council on Foreign Relations. In time, Moscow and Washington should be able to foster what we might call responsible great-power competition, which would be grounded in mutual restraint, leavened by collaboration on a narrow range of issues, and moderated by multilateral formats. Such a relationship would help us safely navigate what promises to be a long era of great-power competition in global affairs, according to Trenin and Graham.
• The United States has long maintained a diplomatic channel with Russia regarding Syria, write Elizabeth Dent of the Middle East Institute and Ariane M. Tabatabai of the German Marshall Fund. While recognizing Russia’s limited influence and will to engage Iran, the United States should continue to work with Russia where interests align, they write. The United States can press Russia to help remove Iranian forces and their affiliated militias from areas along the Euphrates River valley and from areas within striking distance of Israel. In exchange, Dent and Tabatabai argue, it can offer to cede to Moscow areas that are not important to the United States but that Russia deems critical to its objectives of reestablishing the Assad regime’s control over all of Syria, such as the U.S. base in al-Tanf.  
• It is worth considering whether the benefits Russia enjoyed from its 2016 interference actually outweighed the costs, writes Prof. Angela Stent. Despite the trollish pleasure that Putin clearly took as Trump cast doubt on the judgments of U.S. intelligence agencies and instead accepted Putin’s denials of responsibility, the Russian leader could point to precious little evidence that the interference had actually served his country’s interests. Putin’s ability to undermine U.S. democracy has been exaggerated, Stent argues, but Russian active measures will not disappear, and Americans would do well to make their country a less inviting target.
• The U.S.-EU sanctions against Russia surrounding the 2014 Ukraine crisis appear to have been both economically harmful and smart, up to a point, write Georgetown University’s Daniel P. Ahn and Rodney D. Ludema. A targeted company loses roughly one-quarter of its operating revenue, over one-half of its asset value and about one-third of its employees after being added to a targeted sanctions list compared to non-targeted peer companies. Empirically, Ahn and Ludema find that the set of firms publicly designated as “strategic” by the Russian government are largely spared the effects of sanctions, and using their point estimates, infer that the total cost to the Russian government from sanctions-related bailouts during the 2014–2016 period was a significant share (about 45 percent) of the overall cost of sanctions to the country. Such shielding has diverted the economic harm away from strategic and toward non-strategic parts of the economy, such as the average taxpayer, according to the authors.  
• Doctrinally, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict offers useful lessons, especially for Western audiences, writes CNA's Michael Kofman. The diffusion of cheap, high-quality sensors on the battlefield negates many of the benefits of terrain and camouflage and can easily be backed by a reconnaissance-strike package. This raises doubts about the ability of maneuver to generate cognitive dilemmas even for great or even middle powers, Kofman argues, and in terms of operational design, the proliferation of cheap means of surveillance suggests that forces will have to accept much higher levels of attrition, especially against firepower-heavy militaries like Russia’s. Lyle J. Goldstein, meanwhile, argues that from the American perspective, there are many potentially disturbing implications of the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The conflict, Goldstein writes, implies that even not especially advanced militaries can make use of imported technologies to overturn local military balances previously believed to be reasonably stable. 
• Bellingcat and The Insider have lifted the lid off the Russian security state, with a detailed investigation of the FSB team that, according largely to flight and telephone logs, shadowed Alexei Navalny right up to his poisoning in Tomsk, writes RUSI’s Mark Galeotti. That Navalny would be under surveillance is hardly surprising. However, instead of specialists from ORU, he was being stalked by a team including medical doctors and chemical weapons specialists operating out of NII-2, the FSB Criminalistics Institute. While having a genuine role in specialist forensic investigation, Galeotti writes, NII-2 is also widely regarded as a cover for the FSB’s poison laboratory. 

Dear readers: Please be advised that Russia Analytical Report will resume publication on Jan. 4 due to Harvard’s winter holidays. We wish you all happy holidays and the best in the New Year!

 

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

Nuclear security:

• No significant developments.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• No significant developments.

Iran and its nuclear program:

• No significant developments.

New Cold War/saber rattling:

“The End of the Wilsonian Era: Why Liberal Internationalism Failed,” Walter Russell Mead, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2021: The author, the Ravenel B. Curry III Distinguished Fellow in Strategy and Statesmanship at Hudson Institute, writes:

• “More than a century before [Woodrow] Wilson proposed the League of Nations, Tsar Alexander I of Russia had alarmed his fellow rulers at the Congress of Vienna by articulating a similar vision.”
• “In the early 1990s, leading U.S. foreign policymakers and commentators saw the fall of the Soviet Union through the deterministic prism: as a signal that the time had come for a truly global and truly liberal world order. On all occasions, Wilsonian order builders seemed to be in sight of their goal. But each time, like Ulysses, they were blown off course by contrary winds. … Today, those winds are gaining strength. Anyone hoping to reinvigorate the flagging Wilsonian project must contend with a number of obstacles. … China, Russia and a number of smaller powers aligned with them … correctly see Wilsonian ideals as a deadly threat to their domestic arrangements. … These powers' opposition to the Wilsonian order is corrosive in several ways.”
• “One of the central assumptions behind the quest for a Wilsonian order is the belief that as countries develop, they become more similar to already developed countries and will eventually converge on the liberal capitalist model that shapes North America and western Europe … At least for the medium term, the belief in convergence can no longer be sustained. Today, China, India, Russia, and Turkey all seem less likely to converge on liberal democracy than they did in 1990.”
• “Beyond Europe, the prospects for the Wilsonian order are bleak…In truth, Wilsonianism is a particularly European solution to a particularly European set of problems. … For now, the United States and the world are in something of a Wilsonian recession. But … [t]he Wilsonian vision is too deeply implanted in American political culture, and the values to which it speaks have too much global appeal, to write its obituary just yet.”

“Biden Must Call Out Putin’s Secret War Against the United States,” Editorial Board, The Washington Post, 12.09.20: The news outlet’s editorial board writes:

• “American diplomats and intelligence officers were targeted in Cuba and China with a mysterious attack that began with a loud noise, a pain in the ears, a headache and dizziness. It was followed by visual problems, tinnitus, cognitive difficulty and lasting health troubles. Two CIA officers were hit with the same malady while traveling in Australia and Taiwan. A Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill coalition forces in Afghanistan—including U.S. troops. A prominent U.S. cybersecurity firm was targeted in a breach that saw the looting of valuable hacking tools. The Democratic National Committee's computers were raided by Russian military intelligence to disrupt the 2016 election.”
• “Who aimed those invisible beams at the Americans? Who offered to pay for the killing of U.S. soldiers? Like a good veteran KGB officer, Mr. Putin offers denials. But it is time for these black operations by the Kremlin to be seen for what they are and called out by the new U.S. president.”

NATO-Russia relations:

“Turn the NATO-Russia Council Into an Incident-Prevention and Information-Exchange Mechanism,” Dmitri Trenin, Nuclear Crisis Group’s NATO-Russia Crisis Brief, December 2020: The author, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, writes:

• “It is time to transform the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) established under the 2002 agreement into a proper military liaison office with a mandate to prevent incidents between the two sides’ armed forces on the ground, at sea and in the air and, should such incidents happen, prevent them from escalating.”
• “The NRC could be also used for timely clarification of military activities that either side might find suspicious or dangerous. Both sides would be able to use the revamped NRC to explain their military doctrines, defense strategies, and nuclear postures in order to reduce the other side’s misinterpretation and thus prevent miscalculation.”
• “The reformed NRC should be essentially a military mechanism. Political relations between Russia and NATO are unlikely to be restored in the foreseeable future. It is also crucial to keep the new relationship businesslike and avoid any diplomatic posturing. Military professionals, by their training and ethos, are thoroughly suitable for such an exercise. Their mission would not be to defend their government’s official positions; nor would it be to engage in arguments with the other side. They would focus squarely on a narrow but exceedingly important task: to keep the NATO-Russia confrontation from leading to a military confrontation.”
• “The current confrontation is not a new cold war. These days, conflict between NATO and Russia could only happen inadvertently. To prevent it, handling incidents and exchanging information is key.”

“Reducing Tension in Russia-NATO Relations: A Two-Part Act,” Sarah Bidgood, Nuclear Crisis Group’s NATO-Russia Crisis Brief, December 2020: The author, director of the Eurasia Nonproliferation Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, writes:

• “The following two proposals could offer a starting point that aligns with NATO’s dual-track approach to engaging with Russia today.”
• “First, the NATO-Russia Council (NRC)—which continues to meet periodically at the ambassadorial level—should conduct a parallel threat and risk assessment exercise to identify likely scenarios leading to conflict, whether deliberate or accidental. … A parallel threat assessment exercise would serve two purposes.”
• “First, it would highlight the most dangerous pathways for escalation where Russia and NATO could usefully develop crisis-stability mechanisms. … Second, it would increase the likelihood that Russia and NATO will be able to signal effectively to one another as part of their respective deterrence strategies.”
• “The second, related proposal is that the NRC establish a stand-alone task force of former officials and non-governmental experts from Russia and NATO countries … The task force would be asked to produce ideas to address the specific risks and threats identified by the NRC.”
• “For instance, it could examine existing Russia-NATO risk-reduction measures and evaluate whether they are sufficient to maintain stability in the kinds of crises that might arise—or whether they need to be expanded or replaced. … Likewise, it could assess the current status of Russia-NATO military-to-military communication and determine where it should be enhanced to address the pathways to escalation that the NRC identifies.”

“Military Measures to Stabilize the Situation in the Baltic Region,” Lt. Gen. (ret.) Evgeny Buzhinsky, Nuclear Crisis Group’s NATO-Russia Crisis Brief, December 2020: The author, vice president of the Russian International Affairs Council, writes:

• “Just sharing statistical information about armaments and equipment located in the [Baltic] area may be of little value in reassuring either side. Much more valuable would be both sides adopting measures of restraint focused on troop movements and actions that could lead to miscalculations or dangerous confrontations.”
• “Under such an agreement, Russia would agree to significantly lower the intensity of military activity in the northwestern part of the Western Military District, ensuring that force groupings in Pskov and Kaliningrad regions take a more pronouncedly defensive posture and pledging not to strengthen them in the future. At the same time, NATO countries would do the same with respect to their armed forces in the region.”
• “For all troop movements above a certain size, prior notification would be given indicating the purpose, destination, start and end time, the number of armaments and equipment moved, as well as troop numbers. Information would also be provided on their withdrawal from the area.”
• “CSBMs for the Baltic Sea could include prior notification of certain aspects of naval military activities, including activities in which non-littoral states take part. This provision would create no direct requirements for third states, and it would not restrict the passage of any specific warships into the Baltic Sea. Yet participating littoral states would be responsible for notifying all other participating states and sharing of information with third-state partners.”

“COVID-19 Nuclear Lesson: First Regenerate Trust,” Rear Adm. (ret.) John Gower, Nuclear Crisis Group’s NATO-Russia Crisis Brief, December 2020: The author, a senior advisor with the Council on Strategic Risks, writes:

• “The strong national responses [to COVID-19] were necessitated by the failure to properly use available global and multinational responses to address COVID globally. … The parallels for the global nuclear order could not be more stark or disheartening. The markers of international nuclear cooperation—the arms-control and -reduction treaties—are a critically endangered species.”
• “Additionally, new stresses on cooperation and internationalism are rapidly developing. The effects of climate change are disproportionately striking equatorial and tropical nations. … The imminent and inevitable arrival of artificial-intelligence and machine-learning capabilities in national and military analysis and decision-making risks exacerbating these stresses and accelerating crises.” 
• “Last year … I presented at the UNHQ a paper advocating a 10-point Code of Nuclear Responsibility as a means for improving trust and stability and as a baseline for re-establishing arms-control norms and, ultimately, arsenal reductions. Two elements are worthy of attention. … The first step to restoring and maintaining trust is for countries to demonstrate restraint, for example by constraining nuclear weapons to the strategic level. … Second, the modern multipolar nuclear world urgently needs viable crisis communications.”
• “The simple lesson for the nuclear order from COVID-19 is that global problems require global solutions arising from global cooperation. Global cooperation exists only in an environment of international trust. In the nuclear domain, the current state of this trust is discouraging. All NAS, especially the U.S. and Russia, bear an urgent responsibility to reverse this.”

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

“Reducing Tensions and the Risk of Conflict in NATO-Russia Relations,” Łukasz Kulesa, Nuclear Crisis Group’s NATO-Russia Crisis Brief, December 2020: The author, deputy head of research at the Warsaw-based Polish Institute of International Affairs, writes:

• “To address nuclear risks in Europe, and building on some preliminary pre-2014 work, NATO should develop and present a proposal for reciprocal and phased actions in the area of non-strategic nuclear weapons.”
• “Phase one could include information exchange and opening up a dialogue about current operational status and doctrinal role of U.S./NATO and Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons.”
• “Phase two could include a process to develop options for reducing the quantity and strategic salience of such weapons, including partial or complete withdrawal from current storage sites in Russia and on NATO’s territory, or phasing out of some Russian non-strategic systems (NATO has only one).”
• “Russia should consider coming back to the table with a proposal that would build on its own moratorium. Such an offer would need to include the withdrawal from service (if Russia prefers, as a ‘goodwill gesture,’ without disputing the range of the system) of the 9M729 missiles.”

Counter-terrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

“The New US Administration Has to Factor Tehran Into Its Plans,” Elizabeth Dent and Ariane M. Tabatabai, Foreign Affairs. 12.14.20: The authors, a non-resident scholar with the Countering Terrorism and Extremism Program at the Middle East Institute and a Middle East Fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund, write:

• “The incoming Biden administration will need to accept that its options for countering Iranian influence in Syria are limited, but it can still take some immediate steps.”
• “Current U.S. policy is to refuse to normalize relations with the brutal Assad regime. But many Arab countries are already seeking to reinstate diplomatic ties with Syria—with or without American input. … The United States could attempt to influence these discussions by engaging Gulf countries and thus signaling it will tolerate their backchannels to the Syrian regime.”
• “The United States has long maintained a diplomatic channel with Russia regarding Syria. While recognizing Russia’s limited influence and will to engage Iran, the United States should continue to work with Russia where interests align. Both Moscow and Tehran seek to declare Assad’s victory and capitalize on it; the United States should leverage the growing gap between Russia and Iran.”
• “The United States can press Russia to help remove Iranian forces and their affiliated militias from areas along the Euphrates River valley and from areas within striking distance of Israel. In exchange, it can offer to cede to Moscow areas that are not important to the United States but that Russia deems critical to its objectives of reestablishing the Assad regime’s control over all of Syria.”
• “The United States should also work with Ankara and Moscow to box out Tehran. … The United States may be able to use the talks it has separately with Israel and with Russia as a springboard to a trilateral negotiation, in which the United States and Israel can hold Russia accountable for any promises it makes. … A new U.S. administration must accept that for the time being, Iran will neither fully leave Syria nor completely lose its influence there. But a realistic, incremental U.S. policy in Syria will help the United States lower tensions and mitigate its losses.” 

Cyber security:

“Possible Options for NATO-Russia Crisis Reduction,” Hon. Madelyn R. Creedon, Nuclear Crisis Group’s NATO-Russia Crisis Brief, December 2020: The author, a research professor at the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs and a non-resident senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, writes:

• “The U.S. better understanding Russia’s intent with respect to U.S. space-based nuclear command-and-control systems would reduce the chance of misunderstanding, and potential escalation to a nuclear crisis. Russia has similar concerns about NATO and U.S. capabilities and would no doubt benefit from similar understandings.”
• “To ensure the integrity of their respective nuclear command-and-control systems and reduce the chance of miscalculation, Russia and the United States, through NATO, could agree to an initial exchange of data identifying space-based systems associated with nuclear command and control and early warning.”
• “Next, both sides would agree to share information in advance about activity such as orbital maneuvers or activity involving lasers, that would come within a certain distance or otherwise appear to interfere with the identified satellites.”
• “A secure method of voice and data communications would have to be established between the CSpOC and NATO and between NATO and the Russian location, but there would be no need to exchange personnel, establish any physical facilities or participate in any cooperative programs.  Such an arrangement would also be consistent with NATO’s recent declaration that space is an ‘operational domain.’”
• “A similar concept could also be established for cyber threats to nuclear command-and-control systems. While this would be much more difficult and might not include an advance notification requirement, establishing a dedicated voice and data communications capability to identify any potential cyber interference with nuclear command and control could be useful.”

Elections interference:

“Moscow’s and Washington’s Covert Campaigns,” Angela Stent’s review of Thomas Rid’s “Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare” and Tim Weiner’s “The Folly and the Glory: America, Russia, and Political Warfare, 1945–2020,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2021: In this review, Stent, director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies and a professor of government and foreign service at Georgetown University, writes:

• “Unlike Chinese election meddling … the Kremlin’s schemes have a more diffuse aim: to sap Americans’ trust in their democracy and to magnify the already dramatic polarization of U.S. society.”
• “One reason these schemes succeeded in sowing so much discord and confusion was that the Kremlin was pushing on an open door … Why, however, did Washington seem so unaware of the risk? Why were critical systems, both public and private, so insufficiently protected? And has the country learned anything from what happened that will make it less vulnerable to future meddling? … Two recent books tackle those questions by delving into the long history of political warfare between Moscow and Washington. The political scientist Thomas Rid’s ‘Active Measures’ is the more comprehensive and analytic of the two … The journalist Tim Weiner’s ‘The Folly and the Glory’ offers a somewhat more familiar portrait of the covert struggle between Moscow and Washington.”
• “These books raise a larger question that neither answers adequately: How can the United States and other democratic societies make themselves less vulnerable to disinformation? … Retaliating against cyberattacks … is also an important part of the toolkit, but it must be used judiciously, so as not to lead to escalation. It is worth noting that Russia has on several occasions offered to begin talks with the United States about a pact on mutual noninterference.”
• “In the meantime, perhaps the most important things the United States can do to protect itself from foreign meddling are to address its own social and political divisions and better communicate with Americans about the difference between genuine news and propaganda.”
• “It is also worth considering whether the benefits Russia enjoyed from its 2016 interference actually outweighed the costs. … One hopes that the end of the Trump presidency will lead to a revival of a more reasoned discussion about where Washington should cooperate with Moscow and where the two sides will inevitably compete. Putin’s ability to undermine U.S. democracy has been exaggerated, but Russian active measures will not disappear, and Americans would do well to make their country a less inviting target.”

Energy exports from CIS:

“Pipeline Problems: Is Turkey’s TurkStream Project Doomed to Fail?” Mark Episkopos, The National Interest, 12.13.20: The author, a national security reporter for the magazine, writes:

• “The opening of Turkstream was hailed in Moscow as a triumph of Russian economic strategy. One year later, the project has only generated dubious successes that have come at steep costs.”
• “After one year, Serbia still has not completed its section of TurkStream; according to the latest estimates, this will not happen until mid-2021. … One of the core strategic aims behind TurkStream was to divorce Ukraine from Russia’s natural gas exports to southeast Europe. However, a new study by Russia’s Institute for Natural Monopolies Research (IPEM) contends that it is impossible to cut Ukraine out of Russia’s natural gas routes with present levels of demand from Europe; even as late as 2035, IPEM projects that as much as 41 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas will have to pass through Ukraine.”
• “Further still, it is increasingly clear that the project is slated for economic failure: according to experts, the pipeline will take around 47 years to become profitable.”
• “The pipeline is underperforming partly due to the vastly different priorities of its two operators. For Moscow, the pipeline is a vital means of transferring its gas to European markets. … Ankara, meanwhile, sees TurkStream as merely another opportunity to diversify its already-large portfolio of gas import options.”
• “TurkStream has proven to be only as resilient as the Russian-Turkish relationship itself. As Moscow enters what appears to be a period of renewed competition with Ankara, the future of Russian gas exports into southeastern Europe hangs in the balance.”

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

“The Sword and the Shield: The Economics of Targeted Sanctions,” Daniel P. Ahn and Rodney D. Ludema, European Economic Review, November 2020: The authors, affiliates of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, write:

• “How effective are ‘smart’ sanctions in imposing costs on an adversary? We consider this question in a model where a targeted regime may choose to ‘shield’ strategically important firms from harm. Using detailed firm and individual data, we estimate the impact on firm performance from smart sanctions deployed by the U.S. and EU against Russia beginning in 2014.”
• “The U.S.-EU sanctions against Russia surrounding the 2014 Ukraine crisis appear to have been both economically harmful and smart, up to a point. We find that targeted companies are indeed harmed by sanctions relative to their non-targeted peers. On average, a targeted company loses roughly one-quarter of its operating revenue, over one-half of its asset value and about one-third of its employees after being added to a targeted sanctions list compared to non-targeted peer companies.”
• “Using our point estimates, we infer that the total cost to the Russian government from sanctions-related bailouts during the 2014–2016 period was a significant share (about 45 percent) of the overall cost of sanctions to the country.”
• “While government shielding is an important source of the overall economic harm of sanctions to the target country, it also presents a problem from the standpoint of smartness. Shielding diverts the economic harm away from strategic and toward non-strategic parts of the economy, such as the average taxpayer. This points to a tradeoff between the ‘tactical’ and ‘strategic’ objectives of sanctions policy.”
• “Indeed, narrowly interpreted in terms of final economic impact, targeted sanctions that are countered by shielding may appear little different from comprehensive sanctions if ‘innocent bystanders’ in the general public ultimately shoulder the burden. However, there is one crucial difference between comprehensive sanctions and smart sanctions under shielding: the former implies collateral damage caused by the sanctioning country, whereas smart sanctions force the target government to choose whom to save. The importance of this distinction should be a subject for future research.”

“Managing US Sanctions Toward Russia,” Steven Pifer, Brookings Institution, 12.11.20: The author, a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings, writes:

• “When the Biden administration takes office, sanctions will undoubtedly remain an element of U.S. policy toward Russia. To enhance its effectiveness, the administration should base its sanctions policy on certain principles.”
• “First, the Biden administration should embed sanctions in a broader U.S. policy toward Russia. … Second, sanctions are not an end in themselves and should not be treated as such. They offer a means to achieve a policy goal and, thus, should be clearly linked to that goal … The aim of sanctions should be to affect Kremlin calculations of the benefits and costs of its actions, hopefully tipping the balance against those actions that threaten key Western interests.”
• “Third, sanctions should seek to deter, if possible. … Specifying the sanction(s) that would result from a particular Russian action in advance could have a greater chance of affecting the Kremlin’s cost-benefit calculation. … Fourth, for sanctions to be effective in achieving their policy goal, Moscow has to believe that, if it takes the action desired by Washington, the sanction will be lifted.”
• “Fifth, coordination with allies, particularly the European Union (EU), can dramatically enhance the impact of sanctions. … Sixth, the U.S. government might consider pairing a carrot with sanctions to affect Kremlin thinking. … Seventh, the Biden administration should consult with Congress as it shapes its sanctions policy ... If the Kremlin adjusts its policy on a particular question and the linked sanction remains in force, that will undercut the power of all other and any future sanctions. Sanctions, in that case, would become just a means of punishment, not of attaining a policy objective.”

“How to Safely Manage US-Russian Great-Power Competition,” Dmitri Trenin and Thomas Graham, Carnegie Moscow Center, 12.11.20: The authors, the director of the Carnegie Moscow Center and a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, write:

• “Moscow and Washington—despite all their differences—need to develop a working relationship. This is not a call for a reset or a new partnership, but rather for a responsible, less hostile relationship between rivals bitterly divided by visions of world order, geopolitical interests and values.”
• “Today’s confrontation is systemic. It is not a product of misunderstandings or disagreements between leaders that could be overcome through better dialogue. Biden’s inauguration will not alter the basic nature of relations, nor will Putin’s eventual departure. The conviction that the other side’s policies are inimical to their national interests is firmly embedded in the mindset of each country’s elites.”
• “In these circumstances, the two countries need to acknowledge the perils of the current unrelenting enmity and seek to build relations on the basis of three broad goals that are in both countries’ interests: the prevention of nuclear war, the responsible management of competition to avoid inadvertent escalation into a military conflict, and cooperation on common, transnational threats.”
• “What is both possible and necessary is to stabilize relations at their currently low level and to prepare the groundwork for more constructive relations. In time, Moscow and Washington should be able to foster what we might call responsible great-power competition, which would be grounded in mutual restraint, leavened by collaboration on a narrow range of issues, and moderated by multilateral formats. Such a relationship would help us safely navigate what promises to be a long era of great-power competition in global affairs.”

“Biden Sees the A-Team. I See the Blob,” Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy, 12.11.20: The author, the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, writes:

• “There are some obvious reasons to worry about the new administration’s proclivities. Both Biden and his closest advisors remain committed to an image of U.S. global leadership, that was never as successful as they believe and is badly outdated today. … Although Biden et al may recognize that the unipolar era is over and that the United States cannot solve every global problem on its own, their own statements suggest that they would still like to try.”
• “Consider Biden’s March 2020 essay in Foreign Affairs. The title, ‘Why America Must Lead Again,’ is itself revealing, as is Biden’s confident assertion that his foreign policy ‘will place the United States back at the head of the table.’ Not just at the table, mind you, but at the head. That instinct is a recipe for overcommitment … Biden’s pick to run the National Security Council—Jake Sullivan—is on the same page as his future boss.”
• “The danger … is that ‘when all think alike, no one thinks very much.’ One need not fully embrace the notion of a ‘team of rivals’ to believe that the Biden administration might benefit from a few appointees who had managed to be on the opposite side of earlier debates.”
• “As soon as Biden takes office, he and his associates will receive a steady stream of requests from a long line of supplicants. Europeans will want to know what he’ll do about Ukraine … Asian countries will want more help balancing China … America’s traditional Middle East clients will push hard to keep Biden from rejoining the nuclear deal with Iran.”
• “The question is: How will Biden & Co. respond as these requests start piling up? … The concept of buck-passing—the idea of getting others to do the heavy lifting instead of trying to do it all yourself—seems to largely absent from Team Biden’s worldview, and so I fear they’ll spend too much time convincing others that Trump was just a temporary aberration and too little time getting allies to pull their own weight.”

 

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“Putin, Unlimited? Challenges to Russia’s Regime After the Reset of Presidential Terms,” Andrei Kolesnikov and Denis Volkov, Carnegie Moscow Center, 12.09.20: The authors, the chair of the Russian Domestic Politics and Political Institutions Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center and a deputy director at the Levada Center, write:

• “Removing the limitation on presidential terms for Putin has failed to solve the Kremlin’s political problems. … The cabinet that Putin installed in January 2020 to spur on the economy has had to focus on public health issues. … Putin’s majority has proven to be conditional rather than absolute. … Public disgruntlement and discontent are widespread, and Joe Biden’s victory in the U.S. presidential election promises a tougher and more coordinated Western approach to Russia.”
• “The 2024 election is still a few years away, but 2021 will see Russia’s second most important vote: for the State Duma. Even with new techniques in hand and [Alexei] Navalny out of the country, this will not be a walk in the park for the Kremlin.”
• “The recently passed law on the absolute immunity of former Russian presidents demonstrates that the Russian authorities are seriously preparing for a variety of scenarios: the sudden illness and incapacitation of Vladimir Putin; a sharp decline in his popularity; and the preservation of Putin as president for a very long time. The adoption of this legislation does not mean that Putin is going to leave soon. Rather, it is just an additional safety net for the possible extension of his presidency to 2036.”
• “It is, of course, impossible to predict whether the 2024 election will be held amid an atmosphere of calm. This is why in the Belarusian scenario that is still unfolding, the Russian authorities see a vision of their possible future and demonstration of various models of behavior in the event of unrest by elements of Russian civil society. The Kremlin believes that it must be ready to uphold Putin’s continued rule. Yet at the same time, it must also be able to deal with dissatisfaction with his long reign, and protests that may prove surprisingly intense and broad.”

“An Epidemic of Foreign Agents,” Vladimir Slivyak, The Moscow Times, 12.10.20: The author, co-chair for the Russian Ecodefense environmental group, writes:

• “Russian lawmakers have prepared several bills that threaten to further suffocate Russia’s civil society.  Not only would they introduce new penalties for registered NGOs listed as ‘foreign agents,’ but they would also enable the authorities to hang that same label on individuals and unregistered organizations. A significant change in the current legislation, it would give the authorities a far broader license to apply punitive measures against whomever they find undesirable, and even against unsuspecting citizens who happen to find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. In this new epidemic of suppression, it could be just as easy to wind up listed as a ‘foreign agent’ as it is to catch the coronavirus.”
• “Although Russian civil society has been under increasing pressure for the better part of two decades, the fact that the authorities are now prepared to label even informal groups, and just about anyone else as a foreign agent indicates that leaders have so far failed to achieve their goal. That iron heel might now come down not only on members of the opposition, but even on Putin’s loyal supporters whose only complaint is that their salaries are too low and prices too high. It is unlikely that such a policy will engender greater support for the government among any group except, perhaps, diehard Stalinists.”
• “Tensions between the government and civil society are growing. This might be a cause for alarm, but it also indicates that those members of society who are ostensibly weaker, have refused to give up over a very long period of time. And this means that they have actually grown stronger. It seems that the time has come to think about what course a post-authoritarian Russia will take. One thing is certain: in that society, the government will not be in conflict with the people.”

Defense and aerospace:

• No significant developments.

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

“Latest Navalny Investigation Puts an Increasingly Paranoid Kremlin on the Spot,” Mark Galeotti, The Moscow Times, 12.14.20: The author, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), writes:

• “Once again, Bellingcat and The Insider have lifted the lid off the Russian security state, with a detailed investigation of the FSB team that, according largely to flight and telephone logs, shadowed Alexei Navalny right up to his poisoning in Tomsk.”
• “That Navalny would be under surveillance is hardly surprising. However, instead of specialists from ORU … he was being stalked by a team including medical doctors and chemical weapons specialists operating out of NII-2, the FSB Criminalistics Institute. While having a genuine role in specialist forensic investigation, NII-2 is also widely regarded as a cover for the FSB’s poison laboratory.”
• “Medical doctors are not generally used as surveillance operatives. Indeed, in general, none of this is something that would be done lightly or without intent. The scale of the surveillance operation the Bellingcat/Insider inquiry has uncovered is as expensive as it was intensive, especially as it probably would have been run in parallel with a regular ORU operation.” 
• “The speed with which the Kremlin moved into full defensive mode, though, was the first strike against this theory. After all, in cases like Nemtsov’s, at first it launched a serious investigation. The second, and more serious, was the German revelation that a new variety of Novichok, one not yet encountered, had been used. … The Bellingcat/Insider investigation is the third, and surely final confirmation.”
• “No maverick general could or would go after as high-profile a figure as Navalny without clear orders coming down the chain of command. … Maybe there was a belief that Navalny was being groomed or supported by Western intelligence agencies, which may have made him a ‘traitor.’ However, it could simply be that the red lines of permissible opposition had changed, and the adroit operator who until then had always managed to stay on the right side of those lines (such as by not going after Putin or his family), was suddenly fair game.”

 

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

• No significant developments.

China-Russia: Allied or Aligned?

“To Counter China and Russia, Biden Has Said He Will Strengthen Alliances,” Paul Sonne, The Washington Post, 12.09.20: The author, a national security reporter at The Washington Post, writes:

• “President-elect Joe Biden has said he will stand up to China and Russia, but unlike President Trump, he has stressed the need to work closely with allies and international organizations to present a united front against two countries that Washington considers its foremost competitors. … The Trump administration viewed competition with China and Russia largely through a realpolitik lens, christening a new era in foreign policy as one of ‘great power competition.’ Biden is more likely to cast the matter in ideological terms, seeing the situation not just as a contest among nations for power, but also as a struggle of like-minded democracies against rising authoritarianism.”
• “Biden is likely to reassert human rights as a key plank of his foreign policy toward China and Russia. … Biden has said he will focus on ending China's coercive economic tactics.”
• “On Russia … Biden has said he will sign a five-year extension of New START with Putin, and then pursue other arms-control initiatives with Russia. … Biden has also suggested changing U.S. nuclear doctrine to state that the sole purpose of American nuclear weapons is to deter or respond to a nuclear attack by an adversary, a departure from the current U.S. nuclear doctrine.”
• “Unlike Trump, who regularly denigrated NATO, Biden for decades has been a strong proponent of the alliance and will seek to reestablish trust with European allies and continue to shore up NATO's defenses against Russia. … Biden is also likely to reengage in Ukraine.”
• “Broadly speaking, the Biden administration is expected to continue the U.S. military's focus on preparing for possible conflict with China or Russia. But with the need for large government stimulus packages during the coronavirus pandemic, the Pentagon may not enjoy the escalating budgets it has experienced during the Trump administration.”

“The World China Wants. How Power Will—and Won’t—Reshape Chinese Ambitions,” Rana Mitter, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2021: The author, professor of the history and politics of modern China at the University of Oxford, writes:

• “China's growing stature in Asia might lead to the strengthening of the authoritarian tendencies among the region's democracies. With Chinese influence, the thumb would fall on the nondemocratic side of the scale in countries with fragile democratic structures, such as Myanmar and Thailand. Countries such as the Philippines have already become more vulnerable to Chinese norms as their politics have become more authoritarian; South Korea, much more liberal in its politics, would become vulnerable to a form of Cold War-era Finlandization.”
• “India, Japan, Russia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations cannot replace China's influence in Asia, let alone the world. China is by far the largest actor in the region, which gives it the heft to dominate. But the opacity of China's current system and its assertive, sometimes confrontational posture generate regional and global mistrust.”
• “The major obstacle to China's rise on the international stage is not U.S. hostility or internal foes. Rather, it is the authoritarian strand of the CCP's core identity. That authoritarianism and at times confrontational expansionism has the effect of tarnishing the other components of China's model—the emphasis on consumerism and improvements in material lifestyles, the flawed but sincere commitment to global development and poverty reduction, and China's truly astonishing capacity for technological innovation. The key elements of China's ideological mixture—Marxism-Leninism, traditional thought, historical analogy and economic success—have largely eclipsed the always limited power of Western liberalism to influence how the CCP sees the world. But China's global future depends on how it can successfully recombine the other aspects of its ACGT model. At the moment, Chinese authoritarianism threatens to limit Beijing's ability to create a plausible new form of global order.”

Ukraine:

“National Parties Lose Out to Local Candidates in Ukraine’s 2020 Municipal Elections,” Brian Mefford, Atlantic Council, 12.12.20: The author, the director of a governmental-relations and strategic communications firm based in Kyiv and a senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, writes:

• “Early December saw most of Ukraine’s remaining local election runoff votes take place, giving us a more or less complete picture of the situation across the country. It is now clear that the most striking feature of this local election cycle was the success of incumbent mayors and their locally-based parties.”
• “The 2020 Ukrainian local elections were a clear victory for independent-minded regional mayors. Out of 24 oblast centers, 11 were won by candidates who were either self-nominated or representing their own regional parties. The list includes Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Zaporizhia, Lviv, Kherson, Chernivtsi, Chernihiv and Vinnytsia.The so-called ‘party of mayors,’ Proposition Party, won a solid four regional capitals: Dnipro, Zhytomyr, Mykolaiv and Kropyvnytskiy. Meanwhile, the For the Future party (Volyn, Poltava and Cherkasy) and Svoboda (Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk and Khmelnytskiy) won three capitals each.”
• “Ironically, Ukraine’s largest national political parties won just three oblast capitals. European Solidarity won in Rivne, Yulia Tymoshenko’s Motherland took Sumy, and Opposition Platform-For Life triumphed in Luhansk. President Zelenskyy’s ruling Servant of the People party failed to win elections in any regional capitals.”
• “In summary, the decentralization that began in 2014 has not only increased the powers and budgets of local governments, but it has also helped to democratize Ukrainian local governance. That may be bad in the short term for the major parliamentary parties, but its good in the long term for citizens seeking local solutions to their problems. After all, as Thomas Jefferson said, ‘the government closest to the people serves the people best.’”

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

“An Assertive Turkey Muscles Into Russia's Backyard: Erdogan extended support for Azerbaijan's military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, a rare foray into Kremlin's sphere of influence,” David Gauthier-Villars, Wall Street Journal, 12.11.20: The author, Turkey bureau chief for the news outlet, writes:

• “When Russia single-handedly brokered an agreement last month to stop fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia, … the Kremlin granted an important concession to Turkey. … Turkey played a critical role in Azerbaijan's victory over Armenian forces in the fight for control of Nagorno-Karabakh.”
• “Turkish analysts say Russia remains the pre-eminent force in the region. … They also concede that Mr. Putin may have allowed Ankara to become a power broker in the Caucasus … to keep driving a wedge between Turkey and other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But they say the idea that Moscow would remain impassive while Russian-equipped Armenian forces were getting trounced by Turkish-backed Azeri forces was unthinkable.”
• “Russia had to accommodate … the establishment of a 30-mile travel corridor across Armenia that connects Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhichevan. The corridor will allow for direct road transport from Ankara to Baku. … Mr. Aliyev walked a fine line, launching construction of a natural-gas pipeline through Turkey, but also making ample room for Russian investors in Azerbaijan's energy sector.”
• “Azerbaijan gradually built up a powerful military capable of overtaking the miles of trenches Armenians had dug around Nagorno-Karabakh. … An opening came last year when David Tonoyan … said that … his country should go on the offensive and prepare a ‘new war for new territories.’ When skirmishes erupted along the front line between Armenian and Azeri forces … Baku pointed to Mr. Tonoyan's aggressive stance to justify its decision to launch a full-scale offensive.”
• “The battle allowed Turkey to display the efficacy of its attack drones. … Shortly after signing the peace agreement, … Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said his country faced a military debacle if combat had continued. Mr. Unal said this new situation created a fertile ground for Turkey to resume talks with Armenia.”

“A Look at the Military Lessons of the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict,” Michael Kofman, Russia Matters, 12.14.20: The author, director of the Russia Studies Program at CNA, writes:

• “On Nov. 9, an armistice was signed to end the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan. … The implications of the conflict continue to reverberate well outside the region given its potential significance for regional and great powers alike, while further spurring debates on the character of modern warfare.”
• “Azerbaijan’s successful use of drones proved a tactical sensation, although it broadly confirmed long standing lessons on the devastating effect airpower can have on a large ground force with relatively poor air defenses. The use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in this war marks an evolution more so than a revolution in the applications of airpower.”
• “In terms of capabilities, it seems clear that remotely operated systems offer the advantage of airpower, sensors and precision-guided weapons to small and middle powers at a dramatically discounted price compared to the cost of manned aviation. This technology is diffusing much more rapidly than customized counters, or air defense systems designed to deal with it. … The Nagorno-Karabakh war helped settle the question on whether legacy air defenses, such as the dated Soviet systems employed by Armenia, could be suitable or adapted to dealing with contemporary drones. The answer is decidedly negative.”
• “Doctrinally, the war offers useful lessons, especially for Western audiences. ... [T]he diffusion of cheap high-quality sensors on the battlefield negates many of the benefits of terrain and camouflage and can easily be backed by a reconnaissance-strike package. This raises doubts about the ability of maneuver to generate cognitive dilemmas even for great or even middle powers. Similarly, dispersing forces may have negligible effects against loitering munitions, and as the Nagorno-Karabakh war illustrated, terrain offers fewer advantages against such systems.”
• “The Nagorno-Karabakh war is a reminder about the need to link military power, and military strategy, to state policy. The conflict continues to illustrate the gap between political leaders’ perceptions and military reality.”

“Lessons for the US From the Armenia-Azerbaijan war,” Lyle J. Goldstein, Ocregister.com, 12.10.20: The author, a research professor at the U.S. Naval War College, writes:

• “The short war between Armenia and Azerbaijan seems to have ended—at least for a time.  Undoubtedly, the vast majority of Americans would have trouble finding Nagorno-Karabakh on a map.  But the incoming American president and his national security team may want to dwell on this conflict for more than a few minutes.”
• “From the American perspective, there are many potentially disturbing implications. … The conflict implies that even not especially advanced militaries can make use of imported technologies to overturn local military balances previously believed to be reasonably stable.  … Then, there is the not very appetizing notion of a small Christian state getting pulverized in a situation wherein aggressive maneuvers (if not outright aggression) appears to have paid handsome dividends for Azerbaijan.”
• “It’s worth considering that Putin has put Russia’s own troops on the line as ‘peacekeepers.’ Moving thousands of troops and their equipment into an active warzone hardly constitutes an easy decision, but is instead one fraught with risk.  Russian generals must have groaned, as Russia’s armed forces are already badly overstretched as is. Arguably, 2,000 Russian peacekeepers are not adequate to effectively patrol the challenging new cease-fire line. Nor was the crisis diplomacy a simple matter either.”
• “What lessons should President-elect Biden draw from these dramatic events? … First, he should realize that the U.S. does not need to intervene and mediate in every dispute across the globe.  It must be realized that the new multipolarity is not a disaster for U.S. interests, but actually can lead to decent outcomes. … Second, regarding Moscow as a ‘bad actor’ in all circumstances is clearly inappropriate. … Most importantly, the world plainly needs more peacekeeping troops to quickly and decisively put an end to such brush-fire wars.”

“Is Armenia’s Democracy on Borrowed Time?” Anna Ohanyan, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 12.11.20: The author, professor of political science and international relations at Stonehill College, writes:

• “Saving democracy in the postwar scenario Armenia faces places real and very pressing demands on Pashinyan’s government. The current government needs to explain much more clearly how the economic dividends of the peace will flow to the general public. Armenian leaders need to make a renewed commitment to, and articulation of, democratic institutions. They need to demonstrate their ability to compromise and deliberate. And they need to reinvigorate their commitment to consensus-based governance through existing political institutions and grassroots civic capacities.”
• “Constitutional snap elections will likely be essential for Armenia to regenerate and replenish the legitimacy and viability of its democracy. With or without Pashinyan at the helm, this is a prerequisite for a more honest and inclusive public discourse on Armenia’s foreign policy challenges moving forward.”
• “Hard questions abound for Armenia. Should its diplomacy involve more Russia or less Russia? More Europe or less Europe? What about Turkey? Should Armenia focus more on diplomacy or more on weapons, or both? Should it expand its alliances or deepen its diplomatic capacities in the region? What are the prospects for a peace treaty with Azerbaijan? What is the future of the country’s proposed anti-corruption reforms? All of these themes will be front and center for any political party with ambitions to contest such elections, including Pashinyan’s.”

“How Belarus’ Soviet Past Led to its Modern-Day IT Success,” Benjamin Cooper, Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), 12.09.20: The author, an associate scholar in the Eurasia Program at FPRI, writes:

• “Belarus’ IT sector has been characterized by higher wages (upwards of 4x the average salary) and significant economic growth (IT contributed to 5.5% of gross domestic product in 2018, an increase of 4% since 2011). It has even stymied a portion of Belarus’ brain drain to Western markets and diversified the high-tech economy away from Russia.”
• “What has enabled the IT sector’s success in a restricted and closed economic environment? Primarily a government-sponsored tax regime in which companies register as part of the Belarusian Hi-Tech Park and receive generous tax breaks in return, including a 0% rate on value-added tax, as well as on income, offshore, real estate and land taxes.”
• “In an economy hampered by structural difficulties, Belarus’ IT sector has been a rare success. However, with the ongoing political crisis, the leaders of almost 300 IT companies in Belarus threatened to relocate their companies.”