This Week’s Highlights 

• The U.S. has awakened to what it calls “a new era of great-power competition,” with China and Russia increasingly using their power to assert interests and values that often conflict with those of the United States, writes Graham Allison. Unipolarity is over, and with it the illusion that other nations would simply take their assigned place in a U.S.-led international order. For the United States, that will require accepting the reality that there are spheres of influence in the world today—and that not all of them are American spheres.
• The world is becoming less Western, according to the Munich Security Conference report. More importantly, the West itself may become less Western, too, in what the report calls “Westlessness.” While Russia has perhaps been the most immediate and blunt challenge to the West, many Europeans are still skeptical whether an intensified confrontation with Russia is in Europe’s interest. Defenders of the West would do well to pursue what Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff calls “robust liberalism,” according to the report’s authors.
• Mike Pompeo at the Munich Security Conference declared that ''the West is winning,” write David E. Sanger and Steve Erlanger. Pompeo was followed by Mark Esper, who described a bleak future if the U.S. and Europe did not work to contain China on all fronts, remarks that were met with silence by British and German officials, who are looking for ways to avoid offending the Chinese. At the conference, Emmanuel Macron argued that Western sanctions ''have changed absolutely nothing in Russia” and that ''we need a European policy, not just a trans-Atlantic policy” on Russia. The French leader called for re-engaging with Russia while also emphasizing its responsibility. 
• The enemy at hand is white supremacists in the U.S. and overseas, according to Max Rose and Ali H. Soufan. Just as jihadists exploited conflicts in Afghanistan, the Balkans and Syria, so too are white supremacists using the conflict in Ukraine as a laboratory and training ground. Almost twice as many foreign fighters have traveled to join the civil war in Ukraine than to Afghanistan in the ’80s—a conflict which birthed Al Qaeda, according to Rose and Soufan.
• Any hopes that the friendship between Russia and Belarus could be salvaged were dashed by their two presidents’ energy prices summit on Feb. 7, writes Artyom Shraibman. Minsk has run out of options for persuading Moscow to return to the old model of relations. Over the next few years, Minsk could build a relationship with the West like that of Armenia or Kazakhstan, who although members of the CSTO and EEU, have signed substantial bilateral agreements with Washington and Brussels. The one thing that is definitely not on the table for Russia and Belarus is the possibility of returning to their previous friendship.

 

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 world order:

“Sharing the Globe With Other Great Powers,” Graham Allison, Foreign Affairs, 02.10.20: The author, the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, writes:

• “U.S. policymakers had ceased to recognize spheres of influence … not because the concept had become obsolete. Rather, the entire world had become a de facto American sphere [after the end of the Cold War]. … Now … Washington has awakened to what it calls ‘a new era of great-power competition,’ with China and Russia increasingly using their power to assert interests and values that often conflict with those of the United States. But American policymakers and analysts are still struggling to come to grips with what this new era means for the U.S. role in the world.”
• “Unipolarity is over … For the United States, that will require accepting the reality that there are spheres of influence in the world today—and that not all of them are American spheres. … Yet because many U.S. analysts and policymakers still cling to images of China and Russia formed during this bygone era, their views about what the United States should and should not do continues to reflect a world that has vanished.”
• “If China is destined to be ‘the biggest player in the history of the world,’ … the United States must work to assemble allied powers who together will constitute a correlation of forces to which China will have to adjust. … In the military arena, the same logic applies, but with more complexity. Washington will need partners—but partners that bring more in assets than they introduce in risks.
• “If the balance of military power in a conventional war over Taiwan or the Baltics has shifted decisively in China’s and Russia’s favor, current U.S. commitments are not sustainable. The gap between those commitments and the United States’ actual military capabilities is a classic case of overstretch.”
• “Rethinking the United States’ commitments to its allies would enhance American security and make these same pacts stronger. … Going forward, U.S. policymakers will have to abandon unattainable aspirations for the worlds they dreamed of and accept the fact that spheres of influence will remain a central feature of geopolitics.”

“US Embrace of Great Power Competition Also Means Contending With Spheres of Influence,” Paul Saunders, Russia Matters, 02.13.20: The author, a senior fellow in U.S. foreign policy at the Center for the National Interest, writes:

• “U.S. rejection of spheres of influence after the Cold War was both logical and appealing. … Nevertheless, the gradual but inevitable emergence of other great powers in addition to the United States could not but undermine this immensely attractive state of affairs. This is the reality that America faces today.”
• It is important to “acknowledge that these areas exist and develop effective competitive strategies founded on an understanding that the United States cannot unilaterally determine the future course of events there—and that attempts to do so could lead to costly conflicts that are often most destructive for those whom we are seeking to protect.”
• “Washington’s national security bureaucracy and especially its national security elites are far from accepting a Chinese or Russian sphere of influence as an unavoidable structural element of today’s international system.”
• “The fact that many have been eager to pursue more competitive, and in some cases even more confrontational, policies toward Beijing and Moscow for some time has eased the transition away from America’s global counterterrorism project. Yet the officials, politicians and media personalities who dominate national discussions of U.S. foreign policy are visibly struggling to accept great power competition’s deeper implications, including not only spheres of influence, but also the limits of American power and the critical importance of placing competitive strategies toward individual rivals within a broader strategy to manage great power dynamics over time.
• “The global political system is emerging from an unusual period of American quasi-unipolarity and entering a period in which the United States will have to work much harder to have its way and will not be able to expend such effort everywhere. Understanding this, and undertaking the tough job of setting priorities, is the best way to maximize America’s future power.”

“The Folly of Retrenchment. Why America Can’t Withdraw From the World,” Thomas Wright, Foreign Affairs, 02.10.20: The author, director of the Center on the United States and Europe and a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution, writes:

• “Global retrenchment is fast emerging as the most coherent and ready-made alternative to the United States’ postwar strategy. Yet pursuing it would be a grave mistake. By dissolving U.S. alliances and ending the forward presence of U.S. forces, this strategy would destabilize the regional security orders in Europe and Asia. It would also increase the risk of nuclear proliferation, empower right-wing nationalists in Europe and aggravate the threat of major-power conflict.”
• “The most likely end state is a spheres-of-influence system, whereby China and Russia dominate their neighbors, but such an order is inherently unstable. The lines of demarcation for such spheres tend to be unclear, and there is no guarantee that China and Russia will not seek to move them outward over time.”
• “For all the flaws with retrenchment, it would be wrong for the United States to pretend that the world has not changed, to deny that the unipolar moment is over and that great-power competition has replaced counterterrorism as the central objective of U.S. foreign policy. In acknowledging the new circumstances it faces, the United States can employ retrenchment selectively.”
• “Using the Middle East as a justification for unilateral global withdrawal ignores the tangible benefits of U.S. engagement in Europe and Asia, where there is a clear purpose, strong partners, and shared interests. Now is not the time for a revolution in U.S. strategy.”

“Westlessness,” Munich Security Conference Report 2020, February 2020: The authors of the report write:

• “The world is becoming less Western. But more importantly, the West itself may become less Western, too. … Part of the reason for the seeming liberal inability to successfully confront nationalist populism may be found in the … conviction that all obstacles to liberalization were only minor setbacks, as liberalism’s eventual triumph was seen as inevitable.”
• “While Western politicians keep repeating the mantra that there are no military solutions to political conflicts, other actors are implementing them, with no concern for legal or ethical considerations. … This is most visible in Syria, where the Assad regime and Russian forces have deliberately targeted hospitals and schools and war crimes have become a daily business.”
• “As French President Emmanuel Macron noted, ‘Russia has maximized all its interests: it has returned to Syria, it has returned to Libya, it has returned to Africa, it is present in every crisis because of our weaknesses or mistakes.’ For him, ‘the failure to intervene in response to the use of chemical weapons in Syria […] was already the first stage in the collapse of the Western bloc.’ … Russia has perhaps been the most immediate and blunt challenge to the West … Still, many Europeans are skeptical whether an intensified confrontation with Russia is in Europe’s interest.”
• “As recent years have made all too clear, Western liberal democracies are far from perfect. … A revitalization of the West in the world must start at home. But, in contrast to autocratic regimes, liberal democracies have built-in mechanisms that allow for course corrections and democratic renewal.”
• “Defenders of the West would do well to pursue what Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff calls ‘robust liberalism’—a modern liberalism that, being aware of its limits, stays clear of overreach but is more determined to defend the core of the liberal project. The West should be able to defend the liberal international order while accepting that global power shifts will bring competing models with which the liberal order will have to coexist.”

“Was There a West? What Could Satisfy Sergei Lavrov,” Vladimir Frolov, Republic.ru, 02.17.20: The author, an international affairs columnist for Republic.ru, summarizing the Munich Security Conference, writes:

• The event did not result in any widespread excitement or become a “platform for serious negotiations” between the countries represented. The narrative of the weakening of the “liberal world order,” a theme of the conference, “almost verbatim coincides with the narrative of the Russian ministry of foreign affairs,” a major propaganda victory for Moscow.
• China’s leadership in internet technologies was also a major focus of the presentations, with American Secretary of Defense Mark Esper stating that 5G could represent a threat to NATO unity. “For Moscow, increasing Western paranoia around China is beneficial,” as it allows Russia to threaten closer relations with Beijing while dealing with the West.
• French President Emmanual Macron spoke in favor of closer relations between Russia and the EU, announcing that he was against giving ground on frozen conflicts but that he supported a resumption of strategic dialogue. Macron also stated that an alliance between Moscow and Beijing was not likely and therefore “it would be necessary for Russia to pursue European partnership.”
• The presentation from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted the “barbarization” of the international system and the importance of international organizations. One of the most important events of the conference was the secret one-on-one meeting between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Lavrov. The discussion likely focused on contacts with President Putin, an issue that is “politically sensitive for Donald Trump.”
• President Zelenskiy’s address focused on peace initiatives that had already been “rejected by the Russian side,” casting Russia as an impediment to peace. Zelenskiy’s remarks came after controversy around a report published on the conference’s website was deemed to “reflect the Kremlin’s position” by former President Petro Poroshenko and experts from the Atlantic Council.

New Cold War/saber-rattling:

“‘The West Is Winning,’ Pompeo Said. The West Wasn’t Buying It,” David E. Sanger and Steven Erlanger, New York Times, 02.15.20: The authors, a national security correspondent and the chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe for the news outlet, write:

• “Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appeared at an annual gathering of Western diplomats and business leaders to declare on [Feb. 15] that 'the West is winning' … Pompeo tried to be upbeat, talking about the joint work the United States and Europe were doing to confront Russia. … [T]he secretary of defense, Mark Esper, … described a bleak future if the United States and Europe did not work to contain China on all fronts … His remarks were met with silence by British and German officials, who are looking for ways to avoid offending the Chinese.”
• “This year's [Munich Security] conference reflected the division and unease that have plagued the NATO alliance in the era of Donald Trump and Brexit. The stated theme was 'Westlessness,' a sense that close allies were unmoored and uncompetitive in a world both more diverse and more autocratic. … There were fears of coming Russian interference in elections, including in the United States, despite an upbeat talk from Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook.”
• “Emmanuel Macron, the French president, arrived to declare that allies were wrongheaded about Russia, and that Europeans needed to deal with Vladimir V. Putin … on their own, not just through the lens of a growing cold war with America. … Macron tried to explain his outreach to Moscow, viewing it as a difficult neighbor but one that Europe cannot ignore. The current policy of harsh economic sanctions … has not changed Russian behavior, he argued.”
• “[Macron] said that he expected Russia will continue playing a destabilizing role in matters such as other countries' election campaigns, either directly or indirectly. 'I don't believe in miracles—I believe in politics, in the fact that human will can change things when we give ourselves the means,' Mr. Macron said.”

“The Cold War Over Venezuela,” Walter Russell Mead, Wall Street Journal, 02.11.20: The author, the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and the Humanities at Bard College, writes:

• “When I interviewed him recently, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo identified a short list of administration priorities for 2020. Real progress toward change in Venezuela and an improved relationship with Russia are both high on the list.”
• “More than three years into the Trump administration, the U.S.-Russia relationship remains icy. The U.S. has placed sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would connect Germany to Russian natural gas. In northeastern Syria, American and Russian forces have engaged in tense standoffs even as Vladimir Putin doubles down on his support for Bashar Assad. The week before the State of the Union, Mr. Pompeo visited Ukraine, bringing promises of aid and support.”
• “This looks and feels more like a Cold War than another ‘reset’ of the U.S.-Russia relationship. What's going on? One possibility is that the U.S. and Russian governments are both working to improve their bargaining position.”
• “What keeps Mr. Maduro afloat and Russia engaged … is the commercial value of Venezuelan oil shipments. … That flow of oil is vulnerable to U.S. pressure.”
• “While Washington's methods are tough, its goals seem relatively moderate. The Trump administration wants to end the economic collapse and social distress in Venezuela; honor the Venezuelan people's right to decide their own future in genuinely free elections and to bring Venezuelan oil back onto world markets. This wouldn't require a revolution or a coup but a negotiated opening to fair presidential elections.”

“Low-Yield Nukes Are a Danger, Not a Deterrent,” Cheryl Rofer, Foreign Policy, 02.11.20: The author, a former chemist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, writes:

• “Low-yield nuclear weapons are being manufactured and deployed again in the United States, for the first time since the end of the Cold War. They are not the lowest-yield nuclear weapons ever manufactured, and they still can destroy a city. The justification for this step, as for many others, is that it enhances deterrence.”
• “Advocates assure us that those lower-yield nuclear weapons are an essential step to stabilize deterrence by matching weapons. A Russian nuclear cruise missile, promoted by President Vladimir Putin as being able to stay aloft for long periods of time and real enough to have killed seven people when it was tested, means the United States must have nuclear cruise missiles; if Russia is developing maneuverable hypersonic missiles to avoid missile defenses, the United States must have hypersonic missiles too. If the United States matches every Russian weapon, if every move is potentially countered, advocates argue, deterrence exists.”
• “Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara recognized the tendency to shrink nuclear strategy to comparison of weapons. Thus the military theorist Carl von Clausewitz’s classical postulate is turned on its head; weapons rather than politics drive preparations for war.”
• “The doctrine that is to be countered with lower-yield nuclear weapons is called ‘escalate to de-escalate’—using a small nuclear weapon as a warning to an opponent to stand down as a larger conventional conflict appears to be going badly. Advocates for lower-yield nuclear weapons … assert that escalate to de-escalate is part of Russian war plans. The basis for this belief is a single sentence in an obscure part of a Russian strategy document, along with Russia’s large number of smaller nuclear weapons.”
• “Whether escalate to de-escalate in fact is Russian doctrine is disputed, but it is the easiest way to develop a scenario in which a conventional war goes nuclear.”

“The Sanctions Straitjacket on Russia’s Defense Sector,” Gustav Gressel, European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), 02.13.20: The author, a senior policy fellow at ECFR, writes:

• “The West tends to underestimate the effect of sanctions, but these measures have had a significant impact on Russia’s defense industry and are a successful containment tool.”
• “In military terms, the West now needs to distinguish between the sophistication of individual weapons and defense products on the one hand, and the effectiveness of the Russian army as a synchronized fighting force on the other. Russia lags on the former, but it can find ways to compensate for this, to some extent, with creative thinking on the latter. If Europe wants to credibly defend itself against Russia, it needs to pay this particular attention. European military planners need in turn to be creative in identifying Russia’s Achilles heel and working out how to exploit it.”

NATO-Russia relations:

“Saving America’s Alliances. The United States Still Needs the System That Put It on Top,” Mira Rapp-Hooper, Foreign Affairs, 02.11.20: The author, the Stephen A. Schwarzman Senior Fellow for Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, writes:

• “An undeniably powerful China and a revanchist Russia have developed military and nonmilitary strategies that seek to unravel [the United States’ 70-year-old alliance system] entirely. … [T]he changing nature of conflict is the true hazard. Faced with cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, economic coercion and more, Washington needs its alliance system to preserve order. If the pacts are to be saved, however, they must be renovated for the world they confront: one in which most threats to security and prosperity pass just below the military threshold.”
• “Beijing and Moscow have developed nonmilitary means … to advance their objectives. China and Russia use these tactics in very different ways, but the underlying logic is the same: to achieve their goals without activating U.S. security guarantees or violating laws against the use of force.”
• “The United States and its allies must start by rebalancing their respective responsibilities. Although Washington’s alliance strategy was affordable during the Cold War, the Trump administration’s heavy-handed demand that U.S. allies assume greater costs does contain a kernel of sanity.”
• “NATO allies must improve their military readiness and deter Russian aggression by demonstrating their ability to quickly reach and secure NATO’s eastern flank. … The allies must go further than self-defense: they must devise regional responses to the threats in their respective parts of the world.”
• “The United States’ alliance system endured because it advanced the country’s security and prosperity at a reasonable cost. The network outlasted the Soviet Union, the foe that it was meant to combat, and weathered drastic changes in the nature of conflict. If reformed, this remarkable system can again serve as the fulcrum of U.S. grand strategy and provide defense and deterrence for decades to come. If neglected, it will become irrelevant, just when it is needed most.”

“Trump's America Is Committed to Europe,” Elisabeth Braw, Wall Street Journal, 02.10.20: The author, leader of the Modern Deterrence project at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies, writes:

• “Soon 20,000 U.S. soldiers will arrive in Europe. They will bring tanks, armored vehicles and other equipment. Even as some Europeans claim the trans-Atlantic relationship is unraveling, the U.S. is about to launch its largest military exercise in Europe in more than a quarter-century, known as Defender Europe 20.”
• “The point is to show Russia that the allies are committed to defending Europe. Or rather, the exercises will show that the U.S. is committed: 31,000 of the troops will be American.”
• “Defender Europe 20 addresses an important question of European defense: Can the allies quickly move troops and equipment to their eastern flank? During the Cold War, the alliance practiced this annually … West Germany was then NATO's eastern front. Today it is Poland and the Baltic states … The front also includes Romania and Bulgaria, where NATO allies have been conducting exercises.”
• “A similar exercise could take place next year, under NATO leadership. NATO exercises typically take longer to plan and coordinate, but the urgency of military readiness ought to speed the process. “

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

“Putin Wants to Extend Arms Control. What’s Trump Waiting for?,” Editorial Board, The Washington Post, 02.10.20: The news outlet’s editorial board writes:

• “If New START lapses, both countries will be free to deploy more nuclear warheads and build new generations of weapons and delivery systems. While both have been steadily modernizing nuclear forces in asynchronous cycles, they were adhering to New START limits.”
• “All bets are off without it. Russia has lately boasted of new programs such as a hypersonic glide vehicle, and the United States has confirmed deployment of a new, low-yield nuclear warhead, the W76-2, on a submarine-based ballistic missile. These developments are but a hint of what will come with unrestrained nuclear competition. The new U.S. warhead is based on an unconvincing read of a possible Russian strategy for use of tactical nuclear weapons in combat.”
• “The administration's desire to include China at the nuclear weapons negotiating table is a worthy goal in the long run. But China, with its estimated 290 nuclear warheads, has said it won't join negotiations until both Washington and Moscow, each with a much larger arsenal, get serious about reductions. Right now, demanding China be included looks more like a poison pill for New START than a genuine attempt to keep the treaty alive.”
• “If the administration really cares about bringing in China, then speedy work toward a New START extension would be a better signal to China about a future negotiation than letting the treaty lapse.”

“The Military Case for Extending the New START Agreement,” Frank G. Klotz, RAND Corporation, February 2020: The author, an adjunct senior fellow at RAND, writes:

• “The most prudent course of action for the United States would be to take steps now to extend New START before it expires in February 2021. Doing so would ensure that Russia’s nuclear forces covered by the treaty are constrained for another five years.”
• “Additionally, U.S. officials would continue to have better insight into the disposition of those forces beyond those gained through more-traditional intelligence collection and analysis.”
• “Extending New START would also make more time available to pursue a new set of negotiations that address current U.S. concerns with both Russia’s and China’s nuclear capabilities. Viewed in this light, New START extension is not just an end in itself; rather, it is a necessary step in setting the conditions necessary to begin talks on a broader agreement—an objective that unquestionably commands widespread bipartisan support.”
• “Even if New START is extended, the treaty will eventually expire by 2026 at the latest. The Air Force should be preparing now for what might come next.” 

“The US Should Accept Russia’s Proposed Moratorium on Post-INF Missiles,” Luke Griffith, DefenseOne, 02.13.20: The author, a Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at the RAND Corporation, writes:

• “Last September, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a moratorium on missile deployments in Europe. The Trump administration rejected the idea, and NATO followed suit. But French President Emmanuel Macron and others have since urged President Trump to reconsider. They argue that a moratorium has no near-term downside for the United States—and might help jumpstart productive arms negotiations with Russia.”
• “The proposed freeze would leave Russia with about 100 SSC-8 intermediate-range, ground-launched cruise missiles in Europe."
• “While deploying U.S. intermediate-range, ground-launched missiles in Europe may mirror the SSC-8s in a tactical sense, it would not remove their threat to U.S. and allied security. At the moment, NATO allies have not yet expressed support for hosting American missiles … In contrast, arms control may offer an effective way to avoid a potential basing controversy and to stabilize Europe by eliminating the SSC-8s.”
• “The Trump administration might also reap political benefits from commencing disarmament talks about the SSC-8 during an election year.”
• “To make a potential accord more palatable to the Kremlin, U.S. officials could make a further proposal that would confine the agreement to Europe proper, allowing Moscow to station missiles east of the Ural Mountains.”

“Can Moscow and London Find a Way Forward on the NPT?,” European Leadership Network (ELN), 02.10.20: The authors of the ELN report write:

• “Nuclear-Weapon States (NWS), and two of the Treaty’s three depositary states, the U.K. and Russia hold pivotal roles within the NPT regime. … Russia, with the world’s most extensive inventory of nuclear warheads, has a strong track-record on promoting the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty and the Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone.”
• “London and Moscow share a common interest in preserving the longevity and viability of the NPT regime, facilitating constructive P5 relations, and strengthening arms control and disarmament. They are also well-placed to champion creative and pragmatic solutions to overcome the current nuclear impasse. While coordinated or parallel action promises a more fruitful approach, a joint exploration of opportunities could also serve as a step to rebuild bilateral dialogue.”
• “Undeniably, improving relations between the U.K. and Russia requires high-level consent and for London, consultation with NATO allies. But there are plenty of fora and areas with varying levels of engagement, intensity, visibility and impact on the NPT regime to explore.”

Counter-terrorism:

“We Once Fought Jihadists. Now We Battle White Supremacists,” Max Rose and Ali H. Soufan, The Washington Post, 02.11.20: The authors, a U.S. Representative and a former FBI special agent, write:

• “White supremacists today are organizing in a similar fashion to jihadist terrorist organizations, like Al Qaeda, in the 1980s and 1990s. They transcend national barriers with recruitment and dissemination of propaganda. And just as jihadists exploited conflicts in Afghanistan, the Balkans and Syria, so too are white supremacists using the conflict in Ukraine as a laboratory and training ground.”
• “The Australian who in March last year murdered 51 worshipers at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, claimed in his manifesto that he had traveled to Ukraine; during the attacks he wore a symbol used by the Azov Battalion … Among those who have trained with Azov are several of the men responsible for fomenting violence at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017.”
• “Almost twice as many foreign fighters have traveled to join the civil war in Ukraine than to Afghanistan in the ’80s—a conflict which birthed Al Qaeda.”
• “Designating these groups as foreign terrorist organizations would offer authorities three important advantages—ones they currently enjoy when dealing with jihadists. First, they could monitor communications between people connected to the designated groups. Second, they could share intelligence with our allies overseas … And third, they could bring charges for providing material support to the designated groups, with appropriately severe penalties attached.”

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant developments.

Cyber security:

• No significant developments.

Elections interference:

“Understanding Russian Subversion: Patterns, Threats and Responses,” Andrew Radin, Alyssa Demus and Krystyna Marcinek, RAND Corporation, February 2020: The authors of the report write:

• “Russian subversion lacks a single organizing principle. Instead, Russian foreign policy interests motivate different forms of subversion; Russian subversive capabilities vary greatly across countries and activities; Russian subversion often lacks strong centralized command and control; and the effectiveness of Russian subversive efforts remains largely unknown.”
• “Investing in defensive activities probably cannot eliminate all vulnerabilities to Russian subversion. It may be cheaper and easier for Russia to find new avenues of subversion than for the West to address vulnerabilities. Existing punishments fall into two categories: They either affect Russia too little to change its decisionmaking or are not linked closely enough to Russian subversive activities.”
• “There is significant uncertainty about when and to what extent Russian subversion is effective. … [I]t is difficult to fully articulate a proportionate response or to understand how this response should be prioritized among other U.S. efforts. Such an evaluation may be difficult but is possible through further study.”
• “Attribution limits the effectiveness of Russian subversion. A delay in attribution can therefore be almost as harmful as a lack of attribution.”
• “Recommendations: U.S. programs to build resilience should focus on the most vulnerable countries and institutions. Punishments should be more clearly linked to specific subversive activities, and statements identifying the behavior required to lift the punishment should be explicitly stated. Undertake efforts to better understand the effectiveness of Russian subversion. Responses to subversion have costs, and evaluating the effectiveness of Russian subversion is essential to determine whether to accept such costs. Rapid attribution is critically important—it makes covert activities overt and makes it harder for Russia to deny its actions. Evaluate existing U.S. and ally vulnerabilities, trace past U.S. efforts, and consider where U.S. assistance may be the most effective.”

Energy exports from CIS:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

“The Wily Country. Understanding Putin’s Russia,” Michael Kimmage, Foreign Affairs, 02.11.20: The author, a history professor at the Catholic University of America, writes:

• “Since 2013, [distinguished journalist Joshua] Yaffa has been writing about Russia for The New Yorker … Yaffa’s excellent new book, ‘Between Two Fires,’ traces the lives of a group of ambitious Russians who lived through the transition from the Soviet era to the post-Soviet one. Each is aware of a certain truth about the Russian world, and each must navigate a political system that runs less on tyranny than on carefully calibrated compromises.”
• “In conceptualizing a workable approach to Russia, the first thing American policymakers should do is acknowledge Russian nationhood as the key factor in the post-Soviet world. Putin has sought, with some success, to nudge the international system away from the ideals of democracy and sustained multilateralism and toward the imperatives of national power, prestige and influence.”
• “The goal of projecting autonomous nationhood outward will guide Russian foreign policy long after Putin chooses to retire or is pushed aside. Washington can seek out ways of bending this Russian goal to U.S. interests by stipulating redlines … exploring potential points of cooperation on counterterrorism and climate change and signaling to the Russian people that a European security architecture and Russian nationhood are not mutually exclusive.”
• “The familiar story of Russian liberty lost or unachieved … can help inform a better U.S. approach to Russia. But much more helpful would be the less frequently told story of Russian nationhood and of its development along lines very different from those that led to American or Western European nationhood. In this time of fervid preoccupation with Russia, that is not a narrative in search of an audience. It is a narrative in search of an author.”

 

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“Don’t Expect an Economic Miracle in Putin’s Russia,” Andrey Movchan, The Moscow Times/Carnegie Moscow Center, 02.14.20: The author, a nonresident scholar in the Economic Policy Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center, writes:

• “Amid all the speculation about the recent government reshuffle and what it signifies, one thing is certain: the new Russian government was not assembled to enact change or generate ideas. … The government’s tasks are pragmatic: to hold onto power and the cash flows that enable the authorities to buy loyalty and get rich. In addition, to eliminate the risk of losing control, society must be kept stable.”
• “One obvious trend in Russia is that of a decrease in GDP not generated by the oil and state sectors. There is no hope that the non-oil and non-state sector will become a driver of revenue growth. Under the ideology of PEP [Putin’s economic policy], growth must be sought in the state sector, which requires centralized investment.”
• “State investment plays a Rooseveltian role: providing people with work and food rations via a state salary and involving what’s left of private business in state contracts. But state investment has a very low rate of return; the money essentially recirculates. … Since printing money isn’t an option considered by the Kremlin, which has studied Venezuela’s experience so closely that it prints even less than it could, money can only enter the budget via taxes, either on natural resources or on consumption.”
• “Simply raising taxes is a dangerous path, as it risks sparking public resentment. Russia already has a large combined tax burden: bigger than in most developed countries, and much bigger than in the United States and China. … More new taxes could also be introduced, such as the tax on sole traders that has been gradually unrolled in recent months. If taxes are raised, then the level of inequality will decrease, which will go down well with society. … It’s unlikely that we will see any new elements in economic policy in the near future.”

“Pessimistic Outlook in Russia Slows Investment, and the Economy,” Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times, 02.18.20: The author, a reporter for the news outlet, writes:

• “Last year, Russia set a goal to quicken its economic expansion—to grow faster than the world as a whole—as a way to secure the country’s position as a dominant global power. … But this month, the government reported Russia’s gross domestic product grew only 1.3 percent in 2019, down from 2.5 percent the previous year. … In contrast, the global average for growth last year was 2.9 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund.”
• “A goal of lifting growth above the global average by next year now appears untenable. … Many economists are now pointing, paradoxically, to the budget surpluses and huge foreign currency and gold reserves, which totaled $562 billion at the end of last month, as a problem. The government’s reluctance to spend money on stimulus has sent a signal to private industry.”
• “Private investors are reluctant to sink money into the Russian economy, but they are more willing to send the money elsewhere … Last year, Russians moved $26 billion out of the country.”
• “There is a silver lining in this economy: For decades, rampant inflation was a scourge of the post-Soviet Russian economy, but low growth and declining real, or inflation adjusted, wages have brought price rises under control.”
• “Since Russia embarked on a more assertive foreign policy in 2014, the economy has grown on an average of about 0.7 percent a year, including two recessionary years. Given a well-educated population and abundant resources, it could grow faster, most economists say.”

“Unconsolidated: The Five Russian Elites Shaping Putin’s Transition,” Tatiana Stanovaya, Carnegie Moscow Center, 02.11.20: The author, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Moscow Center, writes:

• “President Putin has embarked on a renewal of Russia’s ruling regime to make sure it weathers the political transition of 2024 and to preserve his personal power-base. The elite can be divided into five distinct groups: Putin’s Personal Retinue; Putin’s Friends and Associates; the Russian Government’s Technocrats and Policymaking Elite; the Regime’s ‘Protectors’; the Regime’s Implementers.”
• “Each of these groups has a specific set of roles and functions in the present political regime. During the transition to and beyond 2024, some of these roles may change or evolve, but their overall place in the order of things is likely to be enduring.”
• “From afar, Russia may seem a country with a powerful and consolidated elite, closely knitted around its leader, Vladimir Putin. In reality, the Russian elite is becoming increasingly fragmented and conflict-ridden. The conflicts are arising not only over issues of influence or ownership; they are ideological in nature, too. This lack of unity and growing fragmentation … mean that virtually no lasting coalitions can be formed.”
• “The inter-elite schism is forming along one main dividing line: between the increasingly technocratic civilian section of the elite—i.e., those who are forced to remain politically neutral but who continue to be responsible for the country’s modernization—and the conservative, anti-Western ‘protectors’ who occupy the vacuum left by the hollowing-out of public politics.”
• “Regardless of whether Putin remains the key player even after 2024 or allows a handpicked successor to actually rule the country, a deepening of this schism is unavoidable.”

“Putin’s Children: The Russian Elite Prepares for 2024,” Andrei Kolesnikov and Denis Volkov, Carnegie Moscow Center, 02.13.20: The authors, the chair of the Russian Domestic Politics and Political Institutions Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center and a sociologist at the Levada Center, write:

• “In purely practical terms, the 2024 election will be one in which the generation of ‘Putin’s children,’ those who have made their careers and profited from the twenty years of Putin’s presidency, face a serious challenge to keep the assets they have acquired. Many are literally the children of the current elite and have now taken top jobs in government and business.”
• “The problem the elites face … is that ‘it’s impossible to inherit property fused with the state.’ In other words, if the fathers are removed from power, then the sons will instantly cease to be successful business leaders.”
• “The hope in the Kremlin is that when Putin’s fourth presidential term ends, everything will stay basically the same, despite the impression of a changeover.”

“Drop the Corruption, Keep the Authoritarianism,” Maxim Trudolyubov, New York Times, 02.17.20: The author, a senior fellow at the Kennan Institute, writes:

• “If adopted, the amendments that Mr. Putin introduced would give more powers to the office of the prime minister, the Duma (Russia’s parliament) and the State Council, a body comprising Russia’s regional governors and a number of select top-ranking officials. One widespread theory is that Mr. Putin does intend to leave the presidency in four years but will move on to the State Council or some other vantage point from which he would be able to survey Russia’s entire playing field and ensure an orderly transfer of wealth and power.”
• “It is important to understand, though, that none of this is meant to make Russia’s governance system less authoritarian. It is meant to make it less corrupt, chaotic, personalized and thus prone to human error.”
• “Of course, Russia is as far from achieving a fully rule-based political system complete with separation of powers as the United States is from descending into a personalist autocracy. What we are seeing is a convergence of sorts: Russia’s authoritarianism becoming less personalized while the American system of democratic governance acquires more familial and clan-based features.”

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:

“Taking Russian Assertiveness Seriously: Letting the Data Speak,” Stephan De Spiegeleire, Khrystyna Holynska and Yevhen Sapolovych, PONARS Eurasia, February 2020: The authors of the policy memo write:

• “Great power assertiveness is back, with Russia once again playing a leading role. … The dyadic Russia-United States data suggest a decrease in the number of Russia’s assertive events since the start of the Trump administration as well as a less negative tone. Military events have also played a much less dominant role in Russia’s reported behavior towards the United States than towards other top-targeted countries.”
• “We once again … find ourselves in an age of great power assertiveness, in which Russia plays an important role. Our empirical and theoretical knowledge about this type of international behavior and the geodynamics that surround it remains disappointingly limited.”
• “Our decidedly suboptimal understanding of Russia as a society, as a polity, as an economy and as an international actor is further exacerbated by the quite idiosyncratic way in which ‘foreign and security policy analysis’ is conducted … The very basic common-sense precepts of this discipline are routinely flaunted and/or ignored in the field of foreign policy analysis.”
• “Truly new approaches to (also Russian) security policy analysis are sorely needed. … Construct a more granular evidence- and knowledge-base for the various manifestations of Russian foreign and security policy thinking and acting, as well as for other actors’ thoughts and behaviors. Without this, any real analysis of the complex underlying dynamics will be impossible. Better align foreign and security policy analysis with the more mainstream (public) policy analysis field. Broaden our scientific aperture toward more synoptic analyses that also try to learn from other fields—both in terms of phenomenological analysis of what is happening and how to understand it but also of what it means for our policy options.”

“Vodka on the Rocks,” Dmitri Trenin, Security Times, 02.14.20: The author, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, writes:

• “The bad news is that the Moscow-Washington confrontation will continue; the good news is that there will be some guardrails built around it. Russia’s relations with European countries will vary from the pragmatic, such as with France, Germany and Italy, to the highly toxic, such as with several Eastern European neighbors.”
• “The conflict in Donbass is unlikely to rekindle or escalate, but nor will it be solved anytime soon. Crimea will stay Russian, but will not be internationally recognized as such. There will be no hostilities in the Baltic Sea area, but hostility on both sides of the NATO-Russian divide will become more deeply entrenched.”
• “The Arctic will become busier commercially, but more militarized as well. The Balkans, while no longer an East-West battleground, will be a sandbox for small-time geopolitical games. The Eastern Mediterranean, however, is emerging as an area where Russia, again, is competing with the West.”

China-Russia: Allied or Aligned?

• No significant developments.

Ukraine:

“Last Man Standing: How Avakov Survived in Ukraine,” Konstantin Skorkin, Carnegie Moscow Center, 02.12.20: The author, an independent journalist based in Moscow, writes:

• “The Ukrainian government has been in power for just six months, but is already in crisis. Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk was nearly forced to resign after a recording was leaked of him apparently criticizing President Volodymyr Zelenskiy; the young reformers are being harshly criticized in parliament and in the media; and there are rumors that some ministers could soon be fired for not meeting their Key Performance Indicators.”
• “The sole island of stability amid this storm is Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, a figure left over from the previous government … Already the longest-serving figure in authority, he is gradually gaining a new status: that of the main guarantor of stability.”
• “Avakov has the trust of the president, who feels increasingly isolated amid the divisions in his team. Zelenskiy needs Avakov as someone with ties to the dark side of the Ukrainian deep state, against which the young reformers are often powerless. The omnipotent minister, for his part, is prepared to put aside his personal ambition to become an informal mainstay of power—at least as long as the president himself retains his popularity and the people’s trust.”

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

“Oatmeal and Water: The Thinning Belarus-Russia Relationship,” Artyom Shraibman, Carnegie Moscow Center, 02.11.20: The author, a specialist in Belarusian foreign and domestic politics, writes:

• “Any hopes that the friendship between Russia and Belarus could be salvaged were dashed by their two presidents’ energy prices summit on Feb. 7 in Sochi. Minsk has run out of options for persuading Moscow to return to the old model of relations.”
• “At the Sochi meeting Lukashenko failed to secure either a discount on crude oil or compensation for Russia’s ‘tax maneuver,’ an end to crude oil export duties that has left Belarus—which used to buy crude from Russia and export it to other countries at a higher price—out of pocket.”
• “This means that Minsk is now losing the cheap energy benefits it used to enjoy with Moscow. The consequences will be serious. First of all, the dialogue over road maps for the long-discussed further integration of Russia and Belarus will either be buried once and for all or indefinitely postponed. … Second, Belarus will have to tighten its belt. Gasoline prices will have to rise. … This situation will push Lukashenko not only toward economic reforms but also to position himself more proactively at home as a protector of his nation’s sovereignty. In addition, Lukashenko will return to his foreign policy balancing act with renewed vigor.”
• “Over the next few years, Minsk could well build a relationship with the West like that of Armenia or Kazakhstan. Those countries, although they are members of the CSTO and EEU, have signed substantial bilateral agreements with Washington and Brussels.”
• “The one thing that is definitely not on the table in the relationship is the possibility of returning to their previous friendship.”

“Putin Has Set His Eyes on Belarus. The West Can Help It Resist,” Editorial Board, The Washington Post, 02.11.20: The news outlet’s editorial board writes:

• “Even if delivered, U.S. petroleum would not rescue Belarus's refineries. Instead Mr. Lukashenko may have to choose between knuckling under to Mr. Putin … and subjecting his economy to the shock therapy that would be necessary to free it from Russia. If he chooses the later course, the United States and the EU should do what they can to ease the pain, while continuing to press for improvements in human rights.”