This Week’s Highlights

• While Biden ordered sanctions against the separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, “he wisely desisted from firing the full fusillade of punitive measures he has threatened should Mr. Putin unleash the invasion he has prepared. … The possibility of deterring the threat of full-bore invasion through diplomacy simply cannot be abandoned so long as it has the slightest chance,” writes The New York Times editorial board. “Mr. Biden and his allies and partners have been right not to overreact, and to continuously offer Mr. Putin an exit strategy. … Whatever Mr. Putin’s end game, his moves for now seek to prod and provoke Ukraine and its Western friends into just the kind of overreaction the hawks advocate.”
• "In the coming months, even if all Russian pipeline exports through Ukraine were cut off, U.S. exports could make up the deficit. But in the unlikely event that Russia cuts off all gas exports to Europe, U.S. exports wouldn't be enough,” according to Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of IHS Markit. “Europe would have to scramble, using gas from already-thin storage and restarting coal and nuclear facilities to generate electricity.”
• Carnegie Moscow Center’s Alexander Baunov writes: “Those who believe that sanctions could prevent Russia from invading Ukraine or punish it for doing so need to understand that the most hawkish part of the Russian leadership is not opposed to Western sanctions against oligarchs, banks, companies, national debt and so on. For the hawks, the ideal scenario would be a sovereign socioeconomic autarky, the end of ties with the West, the complete sovereignization of the elite, and the substitution of everything possible, even if that requires assistance from friendly China.”
• “Neither Russia nor the West can defeat the other, whether on the battlefield or at the negotiating table. Since the early years of the nuclear age, we have been yoked together as co-hostages, with one side’s security dependent on ensuring adequate security for the other,” writes George Beebe, vice president and director of studies at the Center for the National Interest. “The Kremlin cannot drive the United States from Europe, and Europe cannot be stable so long as Russia is excluded from the region’s most influential security organizations. Under such circumstances, any efforts to produce ‘win-lose’ scenarios between the West and Russia will inevitably result in ‘lose-lose’ outcomes.”
• “Despite deep discord between the United States and Russia—which long precedes the standoff on Ukraine’s border—their interests continue to align on many items on the nonproliferation and disarmament agenda,” write Hanna Notte and Sarah Bidgood, a senior research associate with the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation and director of the Eurasia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. “Particularly as tensions rise, Moscow and Washington should prioritize those areas where walling off nuclear diplomacy seems to be most possible.” 
• “The weekend protest [in Moscow] was only the latest in the growing chorus of voices within Russia itself opposing Putin’s threats to Ukraine—a trend that has been underreported by international media, leaving many Westerners with the impression that everyone in Russia supports the war. This is certainly not the case,” writes Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza.

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:

"An Illusory Entente: The Myth of a Russia-China-Iran ‘Axis,’" Nicole Grajewski, Asian Affairs, 02.14.22. The author, an International Security Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford in the Department of Politics and International Relations, writes:

• “The Russian factor in Sino-Iranian relations has been an outgrowth of Moscow's relations with Beijing and Tehran which each occupy distinct, though at times overlapping, roles in Russian foreign policy. Whereas the economic ties between Beijing and Tehran have been crucial in the evolution of Sino-Iranian relations, Russia-Iran relations have been driven by converging security concerns with an emphasis on regional issues ranging from the Caspian Sea to Afghanistan.”
• “The Russia factor in Sino-Iranian relations illustrates a complex mosaic of converging visions on international order underpinned by latent schisms in grandiose visions for regional integration.”
• “In official rhetoric, Russia and China have portrayed their cooperation on the Iranian nuclear program as a testament to their commitment to the nuclear non-proliferation regime, yet have argued against the imposition of unilateral sanctions on countries and favored resolving the Iranian nuclear issue through multilateral forums.”
• “At the same time, Beijing and Moscow’s policies towards the Iranian nuclear program and P5 + 1 negotiations have been outgrowths of their individual policies towards the West. At the regional level, the SCO has provided a multilateral forum for trilateral engagement between Russia, China, and Iran while focusing on common approaches to security. China and Russia’s transmission of sovereignty-boosting practices and conferral of legitimacy to Iran has been a crucial area for Tehran’s ability to withstand international pressure over its domestic affairs.”
• “Notwithstanding the commonalities in Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran’s approaches to international order, power-political concerns and diverging national interests have precluded the realization of anything akin to a cohesive alliance. The absence of institutionalized trilateral cooperation akin to Russia, India, and China limits the scope for addressing shared concerns as a common front. The divergences between Russian and Chinese approaches to diplomacy with Iran further highlights the challenges of characterizing Russia, China, and Iran as a durable alignment or entente. Nascent collaboration in the international legal, transportation nodes, and financial domains boasts the potential to form a basis for more purposeful trilateral cooperation if consciously pursued by Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran.”

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

"Are Russia and America Headed Towards a Disastrous Conflict Over Ukraine?," George Beebe, National Interest, 02.18.22. The author, vice president and director of studies at the Center for the National Interest, a former head of Russia analysis at the CIA, writes:

• “As the distrust and fear plaguing Russia’s relations with the West today spiral toward a modern catastrophe, we should ponder some critical realities.”
• “The first is that, like Imperial Germany and Edwardian Britain, each side today believes that it is the other that harbors hostile intent, while regarding its own actions as merely defensive.”
• “The second reality is that neither Russia nor the West can defeat the other, whether on the battlefield or at the negotiating table. Since the early years of the nuclear age, we have been yoked together as co-hostages, with one side’s security dependent on ensuring adequate security for the other. Our mutual vulnerability has only grown as cyber technology has deeply entangled the worlds of military operations, espionage, news, and commerce.”
• “Neither Russia nor the West can bring Ukraine into its sphere of influence without tearing that country apart internally. The Kremlin cannot drive the United States from Europe, and Europe cannot be stable so long as Russia is excluded from the region’s most influential security organizations. Under such circumstances, any efforts to produce ‘win-lose’ scenarios between the West and Russia will inevitably result in ‘lose-lose’ outcomes.”
• “John Kennedy observed that the chief lesson of the Cuban missile crisis was that the leaders of nuclear superpowers needed to defuse crises by helping each other find mutual, face-saving compromises. That applies today, no less than in 1962. The window of opportunity for averting disaster is fast closing.”

“This is the way the postwar world ends,” Editorial Board, The Washington Post, 02.21.22. The news outlet’s editorial board writes:

• “This is the way the postwar world ends, and the post-Cold War world, too: not yet with a bang, and not with anything close to a whimper, but with a rant. In an extraordinary soliloquy viewed live around the world Monday, President Vladimir Putin of Russia attacked and delegitimized not just independent Ukraine and its government but all facets of the security architecture in Europe, declaring both to be creatures of a corrupt West—headed by the United States—that are unremittingly hostile toward Russia.”
• “By the time he was done speaking, Mr. Putin had not only broadcast his intent to disrupt institutions that have kept the peace in Europe, mostly, after 1945 but also laid out the ideological basis for launching a war—even if he did not quite declare it.”
• “The key point was to recognize two Russian-backed breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine, and thus to discard any pretense of respecting Ukraine’s territorial integrity. … War looming, he had this warning to those who helped oust a Kremlin-backed regime in Ukraine in 2014: ‘We know their names, and we will find them and bring them to justice.’”
• “Rebutting Mr. Putin’s arguments is almost beside the point—it’s doubtful even he believes his wild accusations about Ukraine as a future platform for NATO aggression—but not entirely. The truth is that Ukraine is a member state of the United Nations, whose security Russia itself undertook to respect 28 years ago, in exchange for Ukraine’s nuclear disarmament.”

“A Letter From Moscow: (In)Divisible Security and Helsinki 2.0,” Alexander Graef, Ulrich Kühn, War on the Rocks, 02.14.22. The authors, respectively a researcher and an arms control program director at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg, write:

• “A Russian letter recently darkened Europe’s door. In it, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov criticized the alliance’s understanding and use of a principle known as ‘indivisible security.’”
• “The principle of the indivisibility of security emerged from negotiations at the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe … that took place in Helsinki from 1972 to 1975. From the start, the East and the West pursued different goals.”
• “Against this backdrop, realizing ‘indivisibility’ after Helsinki aimed primarily at mitigating the worst consequences of the geopolitical division for citizens and at reducing the imminent risks of military escalation. To this end, the Final Act introduced modest confidence-building measures to observe and inspect military activities. Nearly a decade later, the Stockholm conference (from 1984 to 1986) took a leap forward and transformed these measures into ‘military significant, politically binding and verifiable’ instruments. … This vision of cooperation never fully materialized, however. Instead, the parallel enlargements of NATO and the European Union promoted two different approaches to indivisible security.”
• “To Russia, however, these developments brought home a very different message: Shaping strategic decisions on the continent would be impossible outside of Western organizations from which it remained excluded. At the same time, it was those organizations’ continued enlargement to the east that Russia increasingly viewed as infringing on its security and status, thereby negating the indivisibility principle. In addition, Russia turned out to be unable to create sufficient gravitational pull in its own neighborhood.”
• “The West needs to adapt to the new realities and launch a broad and concerted diplomatic initiative. Breaking the cycle of escalation will be a balancing act, but it can be done without compromising on the basic rules and measures OSCE-participating states have agreed to in Helsinki and in Stockholm. Most important would be to start with a clear reconfirmation of the non-negotiable principle of the non-use of force.”

"As Ukraine Escalation Peaks, What’s the Logic on Both Sides?," Alexander Baunov, Carnegie Moscow Center, 02.16.22. The author, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center and editor in chief of Carnegie.ru, writes:

• “It’s probable that at some point last year, Moscow really did fear that Ukraine would use force to regain control of its breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk regions… And so Moscow issued a warning signal by massing troops close to Ukraine in spring of last year.”
• “It quickly became clear that this was very effective as an instrument of hard diplomacy. A series of intensive, unscheduled communications between the new U.S. administration and the Kremlin ensued, culminating in a presidential summit, which would have been a long time coming without the tension on Ukraine’s borders. Russia moved from the periphery of the new administration’s agenda to its center. Having achieved moderate results through a moderate, short-term concentration of troops, the Kremlin decided to maximize the efficiency of this new tool.”
• “In all their recent public statements, Russian officials have stubbornly come back to two points: that at the foundation of the current Ukrainian regime lies a coup d’etat, and that Ukraine is not implementing the Minsk agreements. These two leifmotifs represent the choice on offer: either the regime must legitimize itself in Russia’s eyes by implementing the legal Minsk agreements, or Russia will solve the issue of an illegitimate government in a neighboring country itself.”
• “Those who believe that sanctions could prevent Russia from invading Ukraine or punish it for doing so need to understand that the most hawkish part of the Russian leadership is not opposed to Western sanctions against oligarchs, banks, companies, national debt, and so on. For the hawks, the ideal scenario would be a sovereign socioeconomic autarky, the end of ties with the West, the complete sovereignization of the elite, and the substitution of everything possible, even if that requires assistance from friendly China.”
• “In contrast with a military attack against Ukraine, recognition of the DNR and LNR would not be the worst outcome of the crisis, but for Russia, certainly, it would be one of the least constructive, since it would shut down any discussion of its key demands.”

"A path out of the Ukraine crisis," Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Washington Post, 02.15.22. The author, editor and publisher of the Nation magazine, writes:

• “Russia’s central demand is that Ukraine not be admitted into NATO. Rather than agree, NATO’s members have decided the alliance can’t say that it won’t do what it has no intention of doing.”
• “Ukraine certainly has the rights of a sovereign nation, but it cannot align with NATO without being admitted. The ‘open door’ policy, per NATO’s founding treaty, applies to countries ‘in a position … to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area.’ Ukraine is in no position to do that.”
• “Furthermore, the post-Cold War international order — with the United States as a unipolar power — is already over. China has emerged as a global economic power and a regional military force. Whatever one thinks of Russian President Vladimir Putin, his country is no longer a lap dog and now sees itself as a great power once again, with security interests to defend.”
• “The test for this administration isn’t to defend the pretensions and follies of any international order. It is to adjust U.S. global policy to meet the threats we face. Those include catastrophic climate change and global pandemics, which cause more damage and deaths than military conflicts.”
• “Putin’s goal is the status quo: Keep Ukraine out of NATO. We have already made clear we aren’t prepared to defend Ukraine militarily. Isn’t it time for a deal that guarantees Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence in exchange for guaranteeing its neutrality? That outcome has already been detailed in the Minsk accords—negotiated by Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine, and endorsed by the European Union and the United Nations. Rather than invoking a global order that no longer exists, the Biden administration should consider an agreement that offers a path out of this mess.”

“Wooing Allies, Publicizing Putin’s Plans: Inside Biden’s Race to Prevent War,” Michael D. Shear, Julian E. Barnes and Eric Schmitt, The New York Times, 02.21.22. The authors, reporters for the news outlet, write:

• “In a series of top-secret meetings last October, President Biden’s national security team presented grim intelligence that would soon trigger a fierce effort to prevent what could become the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II. … Not only did the United States have images of troops moving into position, it also had the Russian military’s plans for a campaign against Ukraine—elements of which had already begun. At one of the morning meetings, Mr. Biden dispatched William J. Burns, the CIA director, to Moscow with a message for Mr. Putin: We know what you’re planning to do.”
• “The White House acknowledged from the start that its campaign to stop Mr. Putin might not actually prevent Russia from invading Ukraine. But at the very least, White House officials say, Mr. Biden exposed Mr. Putin and his true intentions, which helped unite, at least for now, the at-times fractious NATO alliance.”
• “Biden made three critical decisions about how to handle Russia’s provocations … Early on, the president approved a recommendation to share intelligence far more broadly with allies than was typical, officials said. … Biden also gave the green light for an unprecedented public information campaign against Mr. Putin. With the support of his top intelligence officials—and with a promise to protect the intelligence agencies’ ‘sources and methods’—the president allowed a wave of public releases aimed at preventing Mr. Putin from employing his usual denials to divide his adversaries.”
• “And when it became clear this year that Mr. Putin was continuing to build up forces at Ukraine’s border, the president approved sending Ukraine more weapons … and deploying more troops to other countries in Eastern Europe as a show of solidarity with Ukraine and to reassure nervous allies on NATO’s eastern flank.”
• “‘The risk for the United States is that the allies don’t stay together,’ said Jeremy Bash, a former chief of staff at the C.I.A. and the Defense Department under President Barack Obama. ‘This crisis and this mode of a standoff with Russia is going to be around for months and years, not days and weeks.’”

"Russia may be about to invade Ukraine. Russians don’t want it to.," Henry E. Hale, Ora John Reuter, Bryn Rosenfeld, David Szakonyi, Katerina Tertytchnaya, The Washington Post, 02.11.22. The authors write:

• “Our team has followed Russian public opinion since August as part of the Russian Election Studies, surveys that have asked Russians about the West, NATO and other foreign policy topics since the mid-1990s. Here are four things you need to know about how ordinary Russians view Putin and the events unfolding in Ukraine.”
  • “Sending arms or deploying Russian troops into Ukraine is unpopular — and has only become more so as Russians tire of the war.”
  • “If Putin does invade Ukraine, he will have to convince the Russian people that it was the right move or risk harm to his popularity, which remains lower than during most of his time in office.”
  • “If Vladimir Putin’s rule increasingly relies on a picture of the West as an enemy, remarkably few Russians want Russia to treat the West as such. Only about 6 percent nationwide said Russia should approach the West as an enemy. In August and December, even as the current crisis was unfolding, Russians were more likely to prefer treating the West as an ally (44-46 percent) or even friend (13-15 percent), and much less likely to favor treating it as a rival (27-31 percent).”
  • “The surveys also suggest that while Russians do not want to annex Ukraine or to treat the West as an enemy, they do think it is important to resist NATO. At home, Putin has been emphasizing that NATO is to blame for the ratcheting up of tensions, and the public appears to share this view. Three in four Russians we surveyed think NATO will try to weaken their country if Putin does not stand up to it.”
• “While Russians oppose a broader conflict in Ukraine and would rather not approach the West as an antagonist, standing up to NATO is a popular theme. It’s likely that a strategy of hard-nosed and prolonged negotiations would be more popular with Putin’s domestic audience than armed intervention. But time may be running out.”

"In Ukraine, Putin Has Already Lost," Kevin Ryan, The National Interest, 02.18.22. The author, a senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, writes:

• “In the event of a Russian victory in Ukraine, Germany‘s position in Europe will be severely challenged. Germany is a marginal military power that has based its postwar political identity on the rejection of war. The ring of friends it has surrounded itself with, especially in the east with Poland and the Baltic states, risks being destabilized by Russia. France and the United Kingdom will assume leading roles in European affairs by virtue of their comparatively strong militaries and long tradition of military interventions. The key factor in Europe, however, will remain the United States.”
• “Eastern member states, including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania, will likely have substantial numbers of NATO troops permanently stationed on their soil. A request from Finland and Sweden to gain an Article 5 commitment and to join NATO would be impossible to reject.”
• “Ukraine’s predicament will be very great. Refugees will flee in multiple directions, quite possibly in the millions. And those parts of the Ukrainian military that are not directly defeated will continue fighting, echoing the partisan warfare that tore apart this whole region of Europe during and after World War II.”
• “For the United States, a Russian victory would have profound effects on its grand strategy in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East….Russian success in Ukraine would require Washington to pivot to Europe. … A bitter consequence of a wider war in Ukraine is that Russia and the United States would now encounter each other as enemies in Europe. Yet they will be enemies who cannot afford to take hostilities beyond a certain threshold. … Maintaining communication, especially on strategic stability and cybersecurity, will be crucial.”
• “Much as the United States retained the diplomatic properties of the three Baltic states in Washington, D.C., after they had been annexed by the Soviet Union during World War II, the West can put itself on the side of decency and dignity in this conflict. Wars that are won are never won forever. All too often countries defeat themselves over time by launching and then winning the wrong wars.”

“Can Ukrainian Resistance Foil a Russian Victory?,” Brian S. Petit, War on the Rocks, 02.18.22. The author, an adjunct lecturer for the Joint Special Operations University and retired U.S. Army colonel, writes:

• “There are remarkably few historical cases of resistances that, by themselves, defeat the more powerful occupier.”
• “As a rule, it takes external support to tip the scales in favor of the resistance. For example, France had Britain and America in the early 1940s. North Korea had China in the 1950s, Iraqi militias had Iran in the 2000s, the Afghan mujahideen had the United States in the 1980s, and the Taliban had Pakistan in the 2000s.”
• “Ukraine, however, has no partner visibly committed to a post-occupation resistance. The rush of reassuring diplomacy, military equipment packages, and public-private sanctions are, without question, good external support. However, it is still unclear whether a Ukrainian citizen resistance would be supported when the ‘coalition of the willing’ roll call comes.”
• “Ukraine’s modern resistance strategy employs small-state thinking inside of big-state depth. This is a unique case with few contemporary parallels. If the Ukrainian total defense plan – bolstered by citizen-resistance – does its job well, it will succeed as a deterrence mechanism. Should this deterrence work, then citizen-soldiers will, gratefully, remain untested as a fighting force. The grand aim of the Ukrainian resistance right now is to prevent the need for a final liberation story.”

"Russia and the West Keep Misreading Each Other," Leonid Gozman, Foreign Policy, 02.15.22. The author, a Russian commentator and politician, writes:

• “A war with Ukraine would bring nothing good for Russia, no matter how it plays out. Neither Ukraine itself nor its accession to NATO poses a threat to Russia. A stable and effective democracy in Ukraine threatens the Russian regime, but that’s quite another question. A war would bring Russia enormous human losses, a sharp deterioration in its economic position, an exacerbation of all social problems, total isolation, and the transformation of the country into a military encampment.”
• “Tragically, none of this means a war can’t happen—for reasons linked to the psychology of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his cronies. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that the Russian people themselves want this war—or that they wouldn’t also be victims of it.”
• “Failure to understand Putin’s real objectives makes negotiations with him difficult. The demands that he makes, which his negotiation partners often take seriously, aren’t that important to him; they are just a cover for what is left beyond the framework of the documents — his pursuit of recognition, admiration, and respect. This is what motivates him to amass troops, not implementation of the Minsk agreements.”
• “There are two factors that could restrain the Russian government from a disastrous decision: Western sanctions … and the understanding that the Ukrainian army will put up a fight.”
• “But even if the deterrents are effective, Putin will need a way to save face. He will need to declare his victory, whatever this victory comprises. Prestige is more important for Putin than anything else. If he does not find a solution, Putin may opt for war, no matter how senseless and destructive it would be.”

“Russia’s Shock and Awe: Why Moscow Would Use Overwhelming Force Against Ukraine,” Michael Kofman and Jeffrey Edmonds, 02.21.22. The authors, the research program director and a senior research scientist in the Russia Studies Program at the Center for Naval Analyses, write:

• “There is a chance that Russia ultimately opts not to launch a new war. But if one happens, it would not look like the limited offensives Russia mounted in Ukraine in 2014 and 2015. … This time, if Russia invades, it would not constrain itself. It would use the bulk of its military resources—ground forces, airpower, attack helicopters, powerful missiles and its navy—in a violent, open conflict. It would roll across large parts of Ukraine, not just the east, and try to seize the capital with the goal of installing a pro-Russian government. Such ambitions would require an extensive initial operation, followed by the entry of additional forces that could hold territory and secure supply lines.”
• “A war between Russia and Ukraine could prove to be incredibly destructive. Even if the initial phase were quick and decisive, the conflict could morph into a dragged-out insurgency featuring a great number of refugees and civilian casualties—especially if the war reached urban areas. The scale and potential for escalation of such a conflict are difficult to predict, but they would likely produce levels of violence unseen in Europe since the 1990s, when Yugoslavia tore itself apart.”

Sanctions:

“A Pointed Response to Putin’s Provocations,” Editorial Board, The New York Times, 02.21.22. The news outlet’s editorial board writes:

• “Vladimir Putin’s bewildering aggression toward Ukraine took an ominous turn on Monday when he recognized the independence of two breakaway Ukrainian enclaves and ordered Russian troops into them as ‘peacekeepers.’ The actions were accompanied by a new gush of concocted history depicting Ukraine as entirely a creation of Bolsheviks who were desperate to bolster their cause.”
• “President Biden promptly condemned the actions and ordered sanctions against the two separatist regions. But he wisely desisted from firing the full fusillade of punitive measures he has threatened should Mr. Putin unleash the invasion he has prepared … The possibility of deterring the threat of full-bore invasion through diplomacy simply cannot be abandoned so long as it has the slightest chance.”
• “Though hawks like Sen. Lindsey Graham are demanding crushing sanctions now, the potent punishment threatened by the United States and NATO—which is likely to include severely limiting financial transactions with major Russian banks; restricting the sale of technologies needed by Russian industries; closing the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline; and personal sanctions on Mr. Putin and his lieutenants—would become useless as a deterrent once ordered, making a full invasion more likely. Recognizing the separatists in the ‘peoples’ republics’ of Donetsk and Luhansk is not tantamount to that invasion.”
• “Mr. Biden and his allies and partners have been right not to overreact, and to continuously offer Mr. Putin an exit strategy. High-level meetings have been scheduled; Mr. Biden has expressed readiness to meet Mr. Putin again; the leaders of Germany and France are in constant contact with him.”
• “A wary patience at this point is not the same as appeasement, of which the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, accused the West. Whatever Mr. Putin’s end game, his moves for now seek to prod and provoke Ukraine and its Western friends into just the kind of overreaction the hawks advocate. There is no justification for Russia’s recognition of the two comical ‘peoples’ republics,’ an action as illegal as it is outrageous, but the cataclysm that would befall Ukraine and Europe in the event of a full invasion warrants continuing to give diplomacy a chance.”

"Don’t Use Chips to Play Poker With Putin," Bhaskar Chakravorti, Foreign Policy, 02.14.22. The author, dean of global business at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, writes:

• “According to an unnamed senior administration official speaking in a White House press call, cutting Russia off from any semiconductor chips made with U.S. inputs … would have ‘massive consequences that were not considered in 2014’—the last time Russia invaded Ukraine.”
• “There are reasons to be doubtful [this strategy would work], given the industry’s hard realities and the complex geography of its supply chain. Consider three questions.”
  • “How much control does the United States have over the world’s chip supplies?”
    • “U.S. dominance in semiconductors is not what it used to be. Back in the 1990s, the United States produced 37 percent of the world’s semiconductor chips, but that share is down to only 12 percent today. Chip-making has shifted to Asia.”
  • “How much pain would a chip blockade inflict on Russia and Putin? …Despite Russia’s dependence on continued access to chips, Biden’s blockade threat has a few credibility issues. Consider five:”
    • “The semiconductor supply chain is notoriously complex.”
    • “The U.S. government’s punishment for companies that do not comply with the blockade may lack teeth.”
    • “The world should expect Putin to turn to Russia’s new ally, China, for chips and end products.”
    • “Russian military semiconductor needs can also be met by other intermediaries, small trading companies, and surreptitious networks eager for the business.”
    • “Even if one takes the attitude of ‘let’s try the strategy and see what sticks,’ there are wider risks to keep in mind.”
• “Whether the chip blockade idea was a trial balloon or a real threat, the risk is Washington cannot credibly follow through. Given that Putin must be presented with severe costs … it is best to make threats that Putin believes the United States is actually willing and able to carry out. It is wise to play poker with plenty of chips on hand—including economic sanctions, military buildups, and diplomatic isolation. But Biden should keep real chips off the table.”

"I Dug Into Whether Sanctions Will Work Against Russia," Peter Coy, The New York Times, 02.16.22. The author, an opinion writer for the newspaper, writes:

• “I’ve concluded that the predictions of harm to Russia from a Swift cutoff are overblown, but sanctions can be at least somewhat effective.”
• “Trying to do international banking business without Swift is cumbersome and costly but not impossible. Russian banks could do business (albeit laboriously) by email, fax machine or possibly even telex, the telegraph-like system that preceded Swift and still exists vestigially.”
• “The bigger risk to Russia would come from certain other measures that are under discussion. Most significantly, the Biden administration could simply prohibit U.S. banks from dealing with their Russian counterparts, which would make Swift access largely irrelevant. Most of the rest of the world’s banks would most likely follow suit for fear of running afoul of the United States if a transaction between them and Russia inadvertently triggered an interaction with a U.S. bank.” 
  • “Brian O’Toole, a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center and a former senior adviser to the director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control at the Department of the Treasury gave an example of a currency conversion: To turn rubles into euros, foreign-exchange dealers typically use dollars as the go-between, first exchanging the rubles for dollars and then exchanging the dollars for euros. The portion of the transaction involving dollars would usually be cleared through the United States and thus violate U.S. sanctions, O’Toole said.”
  • “Railways, metals and mining, insurance and diamonds are other sectors that the United States and its allies might target with sanctions, O’Toole said.”
  • “Companies in the United States and other countries could be effectively blocked from selling Russia critical components such as computer chips. The consideration of such extreme measures reflects America’s abandonment of hope that Putin can be cajoled into becoming a responsible player on the world stage.”

"The West Can Prevent Putin’s Third Invasion of Ukraine," Jeff Hartman, The National Interest, 02.15.22. The author, Associate Professor of the Russian Way of War at the George C. Marshall Center, writes:

• "Vladimir Putin’s third invasion of Ukraine will not be ‘a Crimea’ or ‘a Donbas.’ It will be large-scale, brutal, and decisive. It will be horrible and change Europe forever. There will be millions of refugees, disruptions to energy markets, and it will ignite economic crises across Europe and the United States."
• "For Europe and the United States, the consequences of this war will be catastrophic and remain mostly undiscussed. This is how World Wars I and II started. The U.N. was created to prevent this current type of scenario. But even as Russian forces move into their attack positions, this war remains preventable. In these last moments, it requires bold, focused U.S. leadership to unify the world, stand with Ukraine, and convince Putin that Russia’s security environment after an invasion will be far worse than it is today."
• “The number one policy goal of the United States and its allies should be to prevent this war by any or all instruments of U.S. national power. U.S. senior leaders, especially President Joe Biden, should go to eastern Ukraine, meet with Ukrainian leaders, physically demonstrate U.S. support, and rally U.S. allies and partners at the point of impact. Visit Kharkiv and Mariupol, not Kiev. Russia will not likely invade with world leaders present. Complicate and disrupt their plans. This could become America’s and its allies’ and partners’ finest hour. Simultaneously use every diplomatic, informational, economic, and cyber tool available to disrupt Putin’s timelines and Russian decision-making now before it is too late.”
• “The United States and Europe need to immediately shake themselves out of their sleepwalking and do more than scream “brace for impact.” We are pretending that this is not a worldwide emergency while Russia has amassed the most powerful invasion force in Europe since World War II. Today’s geopolitical complacency, callousness toward an innocent nation-state, and the loss of allied credibility were exactly how two world wars started. The consequences of this pending invasion for the United States, Europe, and Russia demand every desperate effort to prevent it.”

"A Russian Invasion of Ukraine: An Unlikely Game Changer?," Liam Collins, The National Interest, 02.15.22. The author, a publishing contributor with The MirYam Institute and retired U.S. Special Forces Colonel, writes:

• "A Russian invasion of Ukraine, which would be a game-changer and fundamentally different from previous incursions, is unlikely. A Russian invasion today would be game-changing because it would represent the first undeniable and telegraphed invasion in Europe since the end of World War II, when Russia gobbled up Eastern Europe.”
• “In 2008, President Vladimir Putin tried to convince the world that he was protecting Ossetians from Georgian ‘genocide’  to justify Russia’s invasion under the pretense of the international norm of the responsibility to protect. The evidence, however, indicated that the war was “premeditated” and Georgia acted preemptively, similar to what Israel did in the 1967 Six-Day War. Unsurprisingly, the international community did not buy Putin’s justification back then.”
• “Learning from this experience, Putin avoided the overt use of Russian military force in Ukraine in 2014. Instead, he used “Little Green Men” and other hybrid means to seize and annex Crimea without firing a shot. After Ukraine had Russian-backed separatist forces on the ropes, Putin was forced to send smaller formations into Ukraine’s east, but he continued to deny Russian support. What makes an invasion of Ukraine in 2022 fundamentally different from Russia’s previous invasions is that this one is being telegraphed by Moscow. Russia’s invasion of Georgia came as a complete surprise, as did its seizure of Crimea. A second major difference is that Russia lacks even an implausible justification for the invasion. In both previous wars, Russia attempted to justify its interventions under the responsibility to protect. … Thus, if Russia were to invade, it would be an unequivocal declaration of war.”
• “Nevertheless, an invasion is also unlikely. Putin behaves rationally, even if he routinely operates outside of widely accepted international norms. He recognizes that he would pay a high economic cost for an invasion. Sanctions against Russia following its seizure of Crimea in 2014 have been estimated to have cost Russia roughly $50 billion per year. With President Joe Biden signaling to Russia that it would ‘pay a heavy price’ for any invasion, Putin knows that sanctions would be swift and severe if it were to invade.”

"Not Just Gas: Why Europe Is Reluctant to Follow the U.S. on Ukraine," Kristóf György Veres, The National Interest, 02.18.22. The author, a senior researcher at the Migration Research Institute in Budapest, and an Andrássy Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, DC., writes:

• “As Ukraine faces a possible Russian invasion, the specter of yet another refugee crisis looms over Europe. Apart from the heavy economic costs, an all-out war in Ukraine would hurl millions of refugees westward, forcing the EU frontier states of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and perhaps Romania to bear the brunt of the humanitarian crisis to follow. The United States should keep this in mind when it makes demands of its European allies regarding Ukraine.”
• “Economic interdependence and diverging attitudes regarding Russian natural gas have been identified as the main reason for Europe’s initial reluctance to engage with Putin on terms dictated by United States. Obviously, EU countries have much more to lose than the United States if Putin invades, triggering Biden’s sanctions from hell and subsequent Russian countersanctions. Then there is the issue of refugees who would attempt to flee the war by crossing into the EU.”
• “As the EU was still reeling from the consequences of the Syrian crisis, the hasty American withdrawal from Afghanistan, and Afghanistan’s ensuing economic collapse—only made worse by draconian sanctions—also tossed a ticking refugee time-bomb into Europe’s lap.”
• “And now the sword of Damocles of a possible Ukrainian refugee crisis also hangs over Europe. This time, however, there would be no transit countries to bribe, no gatekeeper nations outside of Europe. The Polish government recently announced that they are taking steps to receive up to one million refugees in an event of war. However, it is doubtful that Poland has the institutional capacity to manage a sudden deluge of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion without extensive help from other European nations.”

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

“Ukraine Crisis Tests Xi Jinping’s Pivot to Vladimir Putin,” Edward White, Nastassia Astrasheuskaya, Kathrin Hill, Financial Times, 02.20.22. The authors, reporters and correspondents for the news outlet, write:

• “Russia’s threats to invade Ukraine are forcing China to strike a balance between Xi Jinping’s growing support for Vladimir Putin and Beijing’s self-interest in the region’s stability, according to analysts. The crisis, sparked by Vladimir Putin’s decision to concentrate 190,000 Russian troops near the Ukraine border, remains volatile. Putin and Joe Biden have accepted ‘the principle’ of a summit to ease tensions over Ukraine following warnings from the U.S. president that Russia could invade within ‘several days.’ China joined Russia this month in opposing NATO expansion, highlighting a new level of co-operation between Xi and Putin.”
• “But Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, told a European security conference on Saturday that ‘the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of any country should be respected.’ ‘We hope that a solution can be found through dialogue and consultation that will really guarantee security and stability in Europe,’ said Wang.”
• “The foreign minister’s remarks reflected a change from late January, when he offered support for Russia in its stand-off with the U.S. and NATO over Ukraine, saying Moscow had ‘reasonable security concerns.’ ‘There is a common misunderstanding among western media—and even some western officials—that China supports a Russian invasion of Ukraine, that is fictitious,’ said the academic, who asked not to be named.”
• “‘Any military conflict, especially large-scale war, will undoubtedly hurt China’s interests there.’ China’s interests in Ukraine include billions of dollars in construction contracts as well as telecommunication investments via Huawei and its purchase of Ukrainian military equipment.”
• “Cao Xin, secretary-general of the International Opinion Research Center, Charhar Institute, a Beijing think-tank, said he believed a Russian invasion remained ‘highly unlikely’ but that Moscow appeared to be exploiting fissures between the U.S. and Europe’s big powers to sow divisions in NATO.”

"China’s Ukraine Crisis What Xi Gains—and Loses—From Backing Putin," Jude Blanchette and Bonny Lin, Foreign Affairs, 02.21.22. 

"Chinese Support for a Russian Attack on Ukraine Cannot Be Cost-Free," Bonnie S. Glaser and Andrew Small, Foreign Policy, 02.14.22. The authors, respectively director of and senior trans-Atlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States’ Asia program, write:

• “U.S. threats of robust sanctions enforcement can certainly affect how Chinese technology and financial sector actors deal with Russia. But much of the impetus at the political level will have to come from Europe.”
• “As a first step, European leaders should echo the recent warning by U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan that Chinese support for a Russian invasion of Ukraine would have costs for Beijing. These statements should be followed by intra-European deliberations on measures that could be taken to signal to China the kinds of damage that its decisions would impose.”
• “A rhetorical step could include the European Union formally stating, as the German Social Democratic Party’s paper laid out, that systemic rivalry with Beijing is now foundational for European policy, limiting any scope for partnership and conditioning the nature of the EU’s economic competition with China.”
• “It is possible that these warnings will have no significant effect on China’s behavior. That would itself be indicative that compartmentalizing the risks that Europe faces from China and Russia no longer makes sense and the wider rebalancing of Europe’s China policy underway in recent years needs to assume greater urgency. Beijing’s approach to its own partners and allies is entering a new phase, and Russia now tops that list, even if that means associating with its military adventurism. Europe needs to get ready.”

"Entente Multiplies the Threat From Russia and China," John Bolton, The Wall Street Journal, 02.15.22. The author, former U.S. national security adviser, writes:

• “Our current strategic adversaries, Russia and China, aren't an axis. They've formed an entente, tighter today than any time since de-Stalinization split the communist world. … Moscow is junior partner to Beijing, the reverse of Cold War days. … This entente will last. Economic and political interests are mutually complementary for the foreseeable future.”
• “Washington would undoubtedly be more secure if it could sunder the Moscow-Beijing link, but our near-term prospects are limited. This entente, along with many other factors, renders especially shortsighted the common assertion that opposing China's existential threat to the West requires reducing or even withdrawing U.S. support for allies elsewhere.”
• “Sen. Josh Hawley and others even believe we shouldn't be deeply involved in the Eastern Europe crisis, to avoid diverting attention and resources from countering Beijing. Such assertions about reduced or redirected U.S. global involvement are strategic errors. They reflect the misperception that our international attention and resources are zero-sum assets, so that whatever notice is paid to interests and threats other than China is wasted.”
• “Critically, those who exclusively fear China ignore the Russia-China entente. The entente serves to project China's power through Russia, as Beijing also projects power through North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs. Moreover, Beijing closely assesses Washington's reactions to crises like the one in Ukraine to decide how to structure future provocations.”
• “Beijing is not a regional threat but a global one. Treating the rest of the world as a third-tier priority, a distraction, the U.S. plays directly into China's hands. Pivoting to Asia wouldn't strengthen America against China. It would have precisely the opposite effect and weaken our global posture. We need to see this big picture before the Russia-China entente grows up to be an axis.”

"Why is the Biden administration uniting our adversaries?," Fareed Zakaria, The Washington Post, 02.17.22. The author, a foreign affairs columnist for the newspaper and CNN presenter, writes:

• “The Biden administration has handled the Ukraine crisis intelligently and effectively, formulating a policy that could be described as ‘deterrence plus diplomacy.’”
• “This crisis, however, has highlighted a larger strategic failure, one that extends beyond this administration. One of the central rules of strategy is to divide your adversaries. But, increasingly, U.S. foreign policy is doing the opposite. Earlier this month, in a more-than-5,000-word document, Russia and China affirmed a ‘friendship’ with ‘no limits.’ The two powers appear to be closer to one another than at any time in 50 years.”
• “China and Russia are both adversaries of the West, but they are very different from one another. Lumping them together is a sign that ideology has triumphed over strategy in Washington these days.” 
• “There was talk in Washington about attempting a ‘reverse Kissinger’ - an effort to wean Moscow away from Beijing. And the Biden administration moved in that direction last year. But that was a naive misunderstanding of Putin, whose response has been to initiate the current crisis. Perhaps what was needed was not a reverse Kissinger but simply Kissinger, an effort to have a better working relationship with China. That, in any event, is what Henry Kissinger has advocated.”
• “Let's hope that this time we do not have to endure a long and costly misadventure before we finally recognize that we should not be helping to unite our foes.”

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

“What Would Russia’s Break With the West Mean for Nuclear Arms Control?” Hanna Notte and Sarah Bidgood, War on the Rocks, 02.14.22. The authors, a senior research associate with the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation and director of the Eurasia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, write:

• “Increasing tensions over Ukraine and the broader European security order will likely have a far-reaching impact on nuclear diplomacy, including in areas that appear largely unrelated to the immediate crisis.”
• “With respect to regional issues, nonproliferation-averse actors in both the Middle East and Korean peninsula may see expanding opportunities to play Moscow and Washington off against each other and will feel little incentive to advance arms control efforts on their own turf if the two largest nuclear weapon states are unable to do so themselves.”
• “Within the multilateral nonproliferation regime, meanwhile, deepening divisions between Washington and Moscow threaten to dominate deliberations at the upcoming review conference while putting progress on nuclear disarmament farther out of reach. While the precise nature and severity of these impacts will differ from one file to another, these mounting challenges all deserve greater attention from the expert community than they have yet received in the context of the current crisis.”
• “Despite deep discord between the United States and Russia—which long precedes the standoff on Ukraine’s border—their interests continue to align on many items on the nonproliferation and disarmament agenda. Particularly as tensions rise, Moscow and Washington should prioritize those areas where walling off nuclear diplomacy seems to be most possible, such as the restoration of the Iranian nuclear deal, while pursuing nuclear risk reduction as a matter of urgency and ensuring that the upcoming review conference on the Treaty on Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons is not hijacked by issues attendant to the current confrontation. Although it may be tempting to put these efforts on the back burner amidst the urgency to avert war, the threats posed by the spread of nuclear weapons and unchecked arms racing will outlive the present crisis. Policymakers on both sides are well advised to not lose sight of these large and long-term stakes.”

"Hard Times for Arms Control: What Can Be Done?" Steven E. Miller, Hague Center for Strategic Studies, 02.22. The author, Director of the International Security Program, Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly journal, International Security and also co-editor of the International Security Program's book series, Belfer Center Studies in International Security, writes:

• “The international politics of arms control are problematic, the domestic politics of arms control, at least in some key countries, are intractable, the imperative of modernization seems irresistible, some of the issues on the agenda do not appear to be amenable to arms control solutions, and the uneven record of arms control undercuts its appeal.”
• “Some respond to these circumstances by asking whether we have come to the end of the age of arms control. There are those that doubt whether it will ever again play a role as central as it once did, whether treaty-based arms control is viable in a world where key states are reluctant to negotiate and unable to ratify agreements, whether arms control will be relevant to the challenges posed by emerging technologies. This is a serious and plausible set of propositions that suggest we ought to be doing some thinking about how to manage in a world with less arms control or without arms control.”
• “For those who continue to regard arms control as a useful and desirable instrument that can be helpful in taming some of the hazards of the modern era, a challenging time lies ahead. Paradoxically, the world has grown more dangerous but less hospitable to arms control measures that could limit some of the dangers.”
• “However, this simply highlights the need to rebuild the case for arms control … Arms control will not truly recover unless international coalitions of supporters make it possible to preserve what still exists, attempt to rebuild what has been lost, and find measures that address the new and daunting challenges that have arisen.”
• “Obstacles exist, but there are ways around them, however imperfect … There are areas, such as the realm of informal dialogue, in which governments have full license to be active and play a leadership role to the limits of their interest. However long the path and however tough the mission, giving priority to this agenda offers the best chance for Europe to avoid the unappealing outcome of living in a much less constrained and much less regulated world full of dangers and instabilities.”

“Mitigating Challenges to U.S.-Russia Strategic Stability,” Samuel Charap, John J. Drennan, Luke Griffith, Edward Geist, Brian G. Carlson, RAND, February 2022. The authors of this report write:

• “Various historical developments relating to the sides' nuclear forces and their other strategic capabilities have led to an asymmetry of perceived vulnerability to preemption.”
• “The United States has pointed to certain Russian activities as problematic or even destabilizing, but Washington has not raised concerns that Moscow could undermine its retaliatory capability. … Although the United States lacks the ability to deliver a decisive disarming blow, it does maintain far greater counterforce capabilities and leaves open the possibility of using its strategic forces for damage-limitation strikes. … The United States continues to develop related strategic capabilities, such as ballistic missile defense, that Moscow believes could be used in concert with a counterforce nuclear strike to blunt Russia's deterrent.”
• “There are four major consequences for the United States of Russia's growing concern about its ability to retaliate after a counterforce first strike … Russia has developed a suite of new capabilities to address this concern. … Russia seems unwilling to reduce its strategic nuclear forces below current levels. … The overall stability of the bilateral relationship has eroded. … Russian concerns about preemption might incentivize a first strike in a serious crisis.”
• “Policy changes could mitigate the current instability in the U.S.-Russia deterrence relationship … Self-restraint measures would provide a degree of reassurance about the parties' lack of intention to execute a preemptive counterforce strike by complicating the ability to carry out such a strike on short notice. … These modest steps could mitigate the negative consequences of current approaches without dramatic changes in force structure, posture, or employment policy.”

“Biden promised nuclear-policy reform. He’s not delivering,” Joseph Cirincione, The Washington Post, 02.15.22. The author, a distinguished fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, writes:

• “In 2020 … Biden pledged to ‘restore American leadership on arms control and nonproliferation as a central pillar of U.S. global leadership,’ and in March 2021 his administration announced it would ‘take steps to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy.’ News reports, however, suggest that Biden will fail on both counts when his administration issues its Nuclear Posture Review in the next few weeks.”
• “While the Trump administration said such weapons might be used in the event of a devastating nonnuclear attack on the United States, including a cyberattack, the current administration is expected to say they are ‘fundamentally’ intended to deter the use of nuclear weapons by America’s foes. That is a significant change that would bring U.S. policy back to where it was under President Barack Obama. … At the same time, though, the review is expected to endorse dozens of new and existing nuclear weapons programs that will cost an estimated $634 billion over this decade … Biden is also not expected to declare that the United States will never be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict.”
• “The status quo is further protected by a powerful consortium of arms corporations that realize vast profits from manufacturing and maintaining these arsenals. Since the start of the Afghanistan war, Pentagon spending has totaled $14 trillion, with one-third to one-half going directly to military contractors. The annual budget is now at its highest level since World War II.”
• “Biden has still not approved the Pentagon’s draft. … Biden could greatly increase security with the stroke of a presidential pen by following the advice of experts on crucial matters of nuclear policy. … He could begin by declaring that the United States will never start a nuclear war. … He could declare that henceforth, another senior official will have to agree before launch orders are given. … Biden could also announce that the United States will take weapons off hair-trigger alert, allowing more time for deliberations.”

Counter-terrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant developments.

Cyber security:

“The Cybersecurity Risks of an Escalating Russia-Ukraine Conflict,” Paul Kolbe, Maria Robson Morrow and Lauren Zabierek, Harvard Business Review, 02.18.22. The authors, director of the Belfer Center’s Intelligence Project, program coordinator for the Intelligence Project and executive director of the Cyber Project, write:

• “So, if it is too late to improve your cyber defense and conflict appears imminent, what can leaders do besides throw up your arms?”
• “The first rule is that a cyber or IT problem quickly becomes a business problem. … Second, closely examine your supply chain. … Third, connecting with peer networks, vendors and the FBI can dramatically improve your odds of identifying and mitigating cyber intrusions … Fourth, instill a security mindset in your employees. … Finally, recognize cyber security as closely connected to overall business security and risk.”
• “If you’re building relationships in crisis, it may be too late. It’s far better to build communication and cooperation before disaster strikes. Be wary of risk assessments that assign too much weight to proximity or presence. In a cyber war, innocent bystanders far afield can be hit by stray cyber bullets or precise cyber sniper fire.”
• “In a crisis, corporate resilience and business continuity plans become paramount, and these require whole of company attention and solutions. With the threat of war in Europe looming, which will certainly include cyber, it is time to pull out those contingency plans and test if they are current, realistic, and fit for purpose.”

Energy exports from CIS:

“America Takes Pole Position on Oil and Gas,” Daniel Yergin, The Wall Street Journal, 02.15.22. The author, vice chairman of IHS Markit, writes:

• “While the Ukraine crisis was raising anxiety about Europe's dependence on Russian natural gas, something remarkable happened. Last month, for the first time ever, U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas to Europe exceeded Russia's pipeline deliveries. Russian exports, which normally account for about 30% of Europe's gas use, dropped substantially because of Russian pricing. And with European gas prices about four times as high as normal, U.S. exports surged to fill the gap.”
• “The global oil market, which was drowning in oversupply less than two years ago, has tightened dramatically as the world emerges from Covid shutdowns. That makes the market vulnerable to crisis. … [U]nless a new virulent Covid wave causes more shutdowns (or the Omicron variant slows China's economy), prices will remain high.”
• “With new export capacity coming this year, the U.S. will become the world's largest LNG exporter, ahead of Australia and Qatar. In a tight global gas market, U.S. LNG is critical to avoid a world-wide shortage and keep the lights on in Europe, as demonstrated by the flotilla of tankers headed to Europe.”
• "In the coming months, even if all Russian pipeline exports through Ukraine were cut off, U.S. exports could make up the deficit. But in the unlikely event that Russia cuts off all gas exports to Europe, U.S. exports wouldn't be enough. Europe would have to scramble, using gas from already-thin storage and restarting coal and nuclear facilities to generate electricity.”
• “Today there is no doubting the geopolitical importance of America's new oil-and-gas position. The Ukraine crisis and Europe's energy crisis shine a light on the global impact of U.S. oil-and-gas production. Some saw this significance much sooner than others. At the 2013 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, … Putin reacted sharply, denouncing shale gas as a grave threat that should be stopped. Reflecting afterward, I realized he had two strong reasons to oppose U.S. shale gas. First, it would compete with Russian gas in Europe. Second, shale gas and oil would enhance America's global strategic position. Given how events are unfolding in Europe today, one would have to say he was prescient.”

Climate change:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

"Senate needs to hurry up on Russia sanctions," Editorial Board, The Boston Globe, 02.14.22. The newspaper’s editorial board writes:

• “If the U.S.-led effort to deter amoral marauder Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine is to succeed, the West must offer a credible threat of tough and painful sanctions. Unfortunately, what looked like a salutary congressional effort to show resolve on Russia has become bogged down. The major push on that legislation was supposed to come in the Senate; once the Senate settled on its approach, the House hoped to slipstream those efforts by passing a similar bill that can quickly go to President Biden’s desk.”
• “But both Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Robert Menendez and ranking Republican James Risch have now acknowledged that the much-delayed sanctions package has hit an impasse. Their inability to get this sanctions package done in a timely fashion undercuts the Biden administration’s desire to send a united and powerful message in order to deter Putin.”
• “In general, Republicans have favored imposing sanctions targeting Nord Stream 2 regardless of whether Russia invades, while Democrats have generally come around to the view that pipeline sanctions should take effect only if Russia moves against Ukraine. Given the current circumstances, the latter approach makes more sense, since it increases the pain Putin and Russia would feel in the event of an invasion and so creates a disincentive against going that roguish route.”
• “If they simply can’t work out their disagreements, senators should vote on rival approaches — with an agreement that a decision must be made one way or another, meaning the legislation can’t be allowed to fail because of a filibuster. And if filibuster-addicted senators can’t keep from leveraging their power of obstruction by invoking the so-called 60-vote threshold? Then the GOP must find 10 senators to end such a filibuster and allow the measure to come to a decisive vote.”
• “The US Senate is often considered the broken branch of the United States government, where individual willfulness too often stands in the way of collective accomplishment. But this is an extraordinary international challenge, one that requires a heightened level of seriousness. Senators must put partisanship and pride of prerogative aside and strengthen President Biden’s hand in the West’s war of wills with Putin.”

"When the US shrinks from the stage, things fall apart," Jason Pack, The Boston Globe, 02.16.22. The author, a senior analyst at the NATO Defense College Foundation, writes:

• “American domestic dysfunction only emboldens our adversaries. It’s not hard to imagine that in 2024, things could get even worse. … Independent of how a contentious 2024 scenario actually plays out, with Americans absorbed in internal strife, Russia’s Vladimir Putin could push the United States out of our traditional interests in Eastern Europe, while the Chinese might seize Taiwan.”
• “Seen in this light, the implosion of the Syrian, Libyan, and Yemeni states, the rise of sophisticated disinformation campaigns, the inability of the international community to enforce consensus solutions to climate change, the waxing global financial power of corrupt oligarchs, and Putin’s current menacing behavior toward Russia’s neighbors are not actually separate crises. They are mutually reinforcing symptoms of the same disease: the withdrawal of American global leadership.”
• “For those who are squeamish about the idea of American empire, we need only ask Libyans, Syrians, Kurds, and Ukrainians if they would currently prefer less American support. Having lived for a couple of years in Syria and recently returned from cohosting the first American trade mission to Libya in nine years, I can confidently tell you the answer: Libyans of all political stripes, other than the old Gaddafi cronies, want the maximum American presence in their politics and economics, and the Syrians and Kurds begrudge us for abandoning them.”
• “It’s not as if Putin is trying to impose a different coherent solution on the Ukrainian and Libyan crises. Russia is not strong enough for that. Putin is more than happy to leave these hot spots as emitters of disorder likely to exacerbate intra-Western tensions. Similarly, these days he is particularly keen on promoting American infighting as it hastens our withdrawal from global hegemony. Even if he soon pulls his forces back from the Ukrainian border, he has already achieved his strategic objectives of exposing fissures within the West.”
• “Looking ahead, no one knows how the current crisis over Ukraine will play out. But we can be assured of one thing: If we increasingly turn on each other over wokeness, QAnon, progressive policing policies, abortion, mask mandates, and voter rights, Ukraine won’t be the only piece on the global chessboard in danger of being captured. If 2024 goes wrong, American democracy may still recover. For our Taiwanese, Hong Kongese, Georgian, Kurdish, and Libyan allies, the danger is likely existential.”

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“It’s not just the West that opposes Putin’s war on Ukraine. A lot of Russians do, too,” Vladimir Kara-Murza, The Washington Post, 02.21.22. The author, a Russian opposition politician, writes:

• “The weekend protest was only the latest in the growing chorus of voices within Russia itself opposing Putin’s threats to Ukraine—a trend that has been underreported by international media, leaving many Westerners with the impression that everyone in Russia supports the war. This is certainly not the case.”
• “In recent days, the country’s leading cultural figures—who traditionally hold significant moral clout here—have spoken out against an attack on Ukraine. ‘Russia does not need a war with Ukraine or with the West,’ read a statement signed by, among others, rock musician Andrei Makarevich and actress Liya Akhedzhakova. ‘Nobody is threatening us, nobody is attacking us. The policy that pushes for war is immoral, irresponsible and criminal.’”
• “For all the difficulties of measuring public opinion in an authoritarian state … the available surveys point to the strong unpopularity of a military attack on Ukraine among Russian citizens at large. Most Russians neither favor sending troops to Ukraine nor buy into the Kremlin’s narrative of treating the West as an enemy.”
• “If Putin really does attack Ukraine, he might be doing so at his own peril. Russian rulers do not have a good track record of ‘small victorious wars’ launched for domestic political purposes — from the czarist regime’s disastrous campaigns in Crimea and Japan in the 19th and early 20th centuries to the invasion of Afghanistan in the waning years of the Soviet Union. The result is usually the opposite of what was intended. … For someone as obsessed with Russian history as Putin, it would be ironic if he were to stumble into one of its most oft-repeated mistakes.”

"Don’t Forget Putin’s Domestic Critics," The Editorial Board, The Wall Street Journal, 02.16.22. The newspaper’s editorial board writes:

• “As the world braces for a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin's war on domestic critics continues. On Tuesday a new criminal trial began in which Alexei Navalny stands accused on phony charges of embezzling millions of dollars from his anti-corruption organization. The opposition leader could face more than a decade in prison if convicted by the kangaroo court.”
• “Mr. Navalny has remained relevant despite his imprisonment. His video about Mr. Putin's alleged billion-dollar Black Sea palace was the most viewed on Russian YouTube in 2021. Last year his organization recommended imposing sanctions on 35 Russian elites connected to the regime's abuses, but most still haven't faced consequences. If he is convicted again, Western sanctions on the remaining targets would be a fitting response.”
• “Anyone wondering why Ukrainians want to bring their country into the West and out of Russia's sphere of influence need only study the Navalny saga. He has shown rare courage, and the West shouldn't forget him.”

Defense and aerospace:

"If New Looks could kill: Russia’s military capability in 2022," James Hackett, Nick Childs, Douglas Barrie, IISS, 02.15.22. The authors, The authors, respectively Editor of The Military Balance and Senior Fellow for Defence and Military Analysis; Senior Fellow for Naval Forces and Maritime Security; and Senior Fellow for Military Aerospace, write:

• “The New Look military modernization process, that began in late 2008, has made Russia a far more capable military power today than at any time since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. There were previous attempts to reform Russia’s armed forces, including in the 1980s and 1990s. But the lackluster performance in the October 2008 war with Georgia, renewed political will and an upturn in finances combined to kick-start the New Look. The State Armament Program 2011–2020 proved particularly important in delivering re-equipment ambitions.”
• “Progress has been uneven across the services, with the strategic forces and aerospace forces faring best and, alongside the navy, generally possessing more modern equipment than the ground forces. Command and control has also been the focus of attention, both in the services and at a higher-level: a National Defense Management Centre was established in 2014.”
• “Russia’s armed forces gained valuable operational experience through successful military interventions in Crimea, in the covert campaign in eastern Ukraine and in the conflict in Syria. Many of Russia’s senior military commanders served in Syria and, in contrast to the situation in 2008 when some combat aircrew in Georgia had to be recalled from test centres, the Russian pilots deployed to Syria were from frontline squadrons. Another objective was to finally move away from the Soviet mass mobilisation model and generate a force not dependent on conscription and mobilisation. Overall, the initiative to develop a contract service cadre of professionals has been successful, not just in changing the balance of the armed forces away from conscripts to contract service personnel, but also in increasing readiness.”

"Global defense spending – the impact of inflation," Fenella McGerty, IISS, 02.15.22. The author, senior fellow for Defense Economics, writes:

• “After holding steady in 2020, global defense spending fell in real terms in 2021 as inflation rates spiked across the world. If higher rates persist, this will create pressure both on and within defense budgets.”
• "High inflation rates resulted in real contractions in spending in … Russia and Eurasia, even though nominal increases were evident across most regions. … Russia has committed higher amounts of rubles to defense since 2017 but in dollar terms and real terms, spending has been severely constrained.”
• “In 2020, the MoD indicated that the main target of the State Armament Program for 2011–2020 – that the inventory should by the end of this period comprise 70% of ‘modern’ weapons and other military equipment – had been achieved. The growth rate of military spending has subsequently moderated and this trend is set to continue to 2024. Contrasting with the heightened military activity near Ukraine, the draft federal budget law for 2022–24 indicates mild nominal increases for defense and as a proportion of GDP, total military spending is set to fall from 3.8% in 2021 to less than 3.5% by 2024.”
• “[An uptick in the pace of European defense spending in 2021] is not projected to continue in 2022. The European defense budgets that have been announced so far present more muted increases, although these may be adjusted upwards if security concerns intensify, for instance relating to Russia’s actions vis-à-vis Ukraine. The longer-term outlook for defense spending will depend on the ultimate economic cost of the pandemic and the scale of the fiscal measures that governments will need to enact to bring deficits back to more sustainable levels.”

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• No significant developments.

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

"Russia Has Big Plans for Africa America Must Push Back — Without Getting Dragged In," Samuel Ramani, Foreign Affairs, 02.17.22. 

“India’s Faltering Nonalignment,” Manjari Chatterjee Miller, Foreign Affairs, 02.22.22.

Ukraine:

"Putin Cannot Erase Ukraine No Russian Invasion Can Undo Ukrainian Nationhood," Maria Popova, Oxana Shevel, Foreign Affairs, 02.17.22.

"Russian Duma Offers a Possible Post-Invasion Vision of Ukraine," Julian G. Waller, The National Interest, 02.18.22. The author, an associate research analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses and a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at George Washington University, writes:

• “The Duma’s resolution on DNR and LNR statehood … is the first attempt in an official Russian state format to signal what Russia wants to see in a reconfiguration of Ukraine’s political geography. Recognizing or annexing the separatist territories to different degrees have been raised before but with far less clarity and institutional impetus. Given credible evidence that a major invasion plan is in its advanced stage, observers are left to speculate what exactly the invasion’s political and geographic goals amount to.”
• “The key problem is that we have had shockingly little to go on from the Russian side as to what Moscow’s preferred political geography in Ukraine looks like in the event that negotiations fully break down and an invasion begins. For this reason, the Duma’s proposed solution is analytically helpful.”
• “This is the partition and breakup scenario, with the DNR and LNR declared to be independent states, under guarantees of sovereignty by Russia as the neighboring regional hegemon. This is qualitatively different from Russia’s view of the separatist republics prior to this year, which preferred they stay within Ukraine and act as constitutional breaks on NATO and EU integration following the implementation of Minsk II.”
• “Moving towards separatist statehood also gives analysts something to work with when assessing Russian designs for territorial revision. As formal sovereign entities, the DNR and LNR would be easy to grant the rest of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces to, in the event of a Russian occupation. They already formally claim authority over non-occupied territories. The separatist republics could similarly be used as paper structures to which other occupied provinces of Ukraine could be appended on a temporary basis. Alternatively, recognizing statehood for the LNR and DNR allows other captured Ukrainian provinces to have puppet occupation governments and form a confederation to manage their collective affairs.”
• “These speculations quickly go off the rails and are far more in the realm of grim armchair map-drawing than anything real—at least for the time being. But the Russian State Duma has at the very least provided a concrete policy to shape a post-conflict political analysis should an invasion occur.”

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

"Where Does Belarus Stand in the Russia-West Standoff?," Artyom Shraibman, Carnegie Moscow Center, 02.14.22. The author, a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Moscow Center, writes:

• “There’s no way Lukashenko would involve Belarusian troops in a conflict of his own volition. Militarily speaking, Moscow doesn’t particularly need them, but there are also significant political reasons. Throughout his twenty-seven years in power, Lukashenko has stressed his success in preserving peace. It would be extremely difficult for him now to explain taking an active role in a war — especially one with neighboring Ukraine — to his supporters, let alone most ordinary Belarusians.” 
• “Judging by his recent state of the nation address, Lukashenko understands this perfectly. There was a lot of militaristic rhetoric in his speech, but when a woman in the audience asked whether Belarusian mothers would be sending their sons to fight in a foreign war, Lukashenko replied that the Belarusian army was created to protect the country on its own territory. There are no questions at such events that are not agreed in advance, which means that Lukashenko wanted an opportunity to calm some of the growing fears of war.” 
• “For the Belarusian regime, either extreme outcome to the confrontation between Russia and the West — war or reconciliation — is undesirable. In the event of war, Belarus would be forced into making risky and likely self-destructive concessions to the Kremlin, while a reconciliation would make it difficult for Belarus to interest the Kremlin in its anti-Western posturing. But a gray zone of manageable conflict would be ideal, allowing Belarus to sell its rhetorical loyalty to Moscow without sustaining any serious losses.” 
• “In a situation of protracted confrontation, Lukashenko would be seen as a true ally who, at a crucial time, fulfilled his obligation to Russia while the Kremlin sought its sacred security guarantees. Wouldn’t such loyalty be a reason for Moscow to be a little more generous when it came to the next round of debt negotiations?”

"Lessons Learned From the Kazakhstan Crisis," Paul Stronski, Carnegie Moscow Center, 02.16.22. The author, senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center’s Russia and Eurasia Program, writes:

• “Nazarbayev is out … The crisis highlights how headwinds from the global economy, the pandemic, and a carefully orchestrated leadership transition can bring unexpected destabilizing consequences for regimes that appear to have tight control on the reins of power.”
• “Russia’s wins… the intervention showed that the Russian-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization is not a paper tiger, as experts in the West have so often dismissed it. At a time when NATO is struggling to coordinate a collective response to renewed threats of Russian aggression against Ukraine and Moscow’s efforts to rewrite the European security architecture on its own terms, the Kremlin quickly coordinated (or coerced) a collective response from its allies. The intervention in Kazakhstan was a clear win for Putin. It created an image of Russia as a powerful, decisive, and effective force for stability in a region where those qualities are in short supply. Having lost ground to China in Central Asia over the past two decades, Russia was able to reestablish itself as a geopolitical actor and major force in the region thanks to the events in Kazakhstan. The West largely stood by and watched.”

"Can Russia Be Trusted at Negotiation Tables?" Anna Ohanyan, Carnegie Moscow Center, 02.18.22. The author, a non-resident senior scholar of CEIP's Russia and Eurasia Program, writes:

• “Russia’s dual approach to resolving regional conflicts continues. Russia-brokered negotiations between Baku and Yerevan are ongoing and have opened up space for the revived participation of Western institutions in mediation diplomacy, a prospect that will further legitimize Moscow’s role in the region. After consolidating its geopolitical position as the key broker in this conflict, Moscow is relatively comfortable cooperating again with Western powers in high-level diplomacy, but has done little to support the bottom-up peacebuilding efforts across conflict lines or to address any remaining humanitarian, legal, and security issues. Its security provision for Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh is existential for the population there. Yet cross-conflict peacebuilding work remains elusive.”
• “In eastern Ukraine, Russia is using its military buildup to force its will onto Kyiv. Russia’s attempt to challenge NATO’s fundamental ‘open door’ policy and undermine Ukrainian sovereignty, and its retrograde insistence on reestablishing nineteenth-century-style ‘spheres of influence’ reduces the chances of a comprehensive security accord. Instead, the prospect of war in Ukraine seems to grow by the day.”
• “For Moscow, opting to mediate or militarize is largely driven by the immediate geopolitical benefits it can accrue in conflict regions, but not necessarily a long-term vision for stability. In Nagorno-Karabakh, it found a way to accommodate Turkey, a rising regional power, and gain legitimacy as a broker, including from its geopolitical rivals in the West. In Ukraine, the West is far more torn between how far to engage and legitimize Russia, a party to the Ukraine conflict and a growing threat to European security. Eurasia needs a modicum of stability. Success on that front is not guaranteed in either the Caucasus or Ukraine, but it looks slightly more promising in the former, where Russia has far more successfully managed geopolitical tensions through mediation, as opposed to coercion.”

"Mapping Russia’s New Approach to the Post-Soviet Space," Dmitri Trenin, Carnegie Moscow Center/Kyodo News, 02.18.22. The author, Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, writes:

• “Russia is strengthening its geopolitical position in northern Eurasia. It has used military force to deter the United States and NATO in Ukraine; employed economic, financial, and political means to promote integration in Belarus; engaged in diplomacy and peacekeeping in the South Caucasus; and organized a multilateral stabilization mission in Kazakhstan.”
• “So far, Moscow has succeeded in protecting and promoting its security and geopolitical interests with comparatively limited means, but the task of rebuilding Russia as the leading great power — not an empire — in the space previously occupied by the Soviet Union will take a sustained effort over a fairly long period of time. One thing is clear: the geopolitical retreat that Russia began three decades ago has ended, and a new policy of selective expansion based on Russia’s national interests has commenced.”

"Armenia’s New Swathi Radar and Defense Imports from India: Eurasian Geostrategy or Technology Interface?," Jason E. Strakes, PONARS Eurasia, 02.16.22. The author, coordinator at the Caucasus-Asia Center, writes:

• “Armenia’s recent purchase of the Swathi weapon locating radar from India is significant. It represents New Delhi’s first international customer as its defense sector transitions from being a net arms importer to a global military and technology supplier. The transfer also took place against the backdrop of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in the autumn of 2020 and nascent linkages between the Armenia-Azerbaijan and India-Pakistan rivalries. Observers have characterized the sale as mutual counterbalancing against an emerging Turkey-Azerbaijan-Pakistan axis, or an effort by Armenia to move away from its military dependency on Russia.”
• “Defense trade journals made much of how India successfully outbid the Russian Almaz-Antey and Polish PIT-RADWAR armament firms with which the Armenian military has a more extensive procurement relationship. Armenia has had a formal alliance with Russia since the late 1990s.”
• “One must identify other factors behind the diversification of Armenian defense imports. A major point of contention has emerged in recent years involving Russia’s policy of providing an equal number of arms to Azerbaijan, eventually becoming its main supplier … despite its security commitments to Armenia. … At the same time, purchases of new Russian weaponry remain expensive.”
• “Given Russia’s historical arms supply relationship with India dating to the Soviet period (a reported 49 percent of total imports from 2016-2020) and President Vladimir Putin’s December 2021 summit meeting with Modi in which new arms deals were signed, there is also potential for the above acquisition strategy to develop as a complement rather than an alternative to the Russia-Armenia alliance. The employment of Swathi in local conflicts by both countries can be expected to reinforce this foundation as the Indian defense industry expands its portfolio of foreign clients and the Armenian military seeks more advanced technologies to counter national security threats.”