This Week’s Highlights

• Artificial intelligence and autonomous systems may reduce strategic stability, according to nine authors writing for the RAND Corporation. Since 2014, the strategic relationships between the U.S. and Russia and between the U.S. and China have each grown far more strained. Countries are attempting to leverage “thinking machines” against this strategic context of strained relations. By lowering the costs or risks of using lethal force, autonomous systems could make the use of force easier and more likely and armed conflict more frequent.   
• Unless Putin decides to declare himself “President-for-Life” à la Xi Jinping, he will have no choice but to redesign Russia’s nuclear launch authority if he intends to keep his finger on the nuclear button, writes Matt Korda of the Federation of American Scientists.
• Beijing views what it considers a myopic American focus on Iran as a strategic asset, argues former national-security official Brett McGurk, because it deflects attention from the Pacific, divides Washington from its allies and allows China, together with Russia, to expand its influence across the Middle East. Beijing and Moscow, he writes in Foreign Affairs, now enjoy close relations with all countries in the region, from Israel to Saudi Arabia to Iran, and those capitals now see Putin—not Trump—as an indispensable power broker.
• Pursuing superpower diplomacy, along with asymmetric pressure on Iran, will not come without some price for the U.S., former CIA and FBI official Don Hepburn writes in The Hill. Washington may need to compromise with Moscow and Beijing on other matters of considerable geopolitical significance. However, Iran is one area where all three superpowers might find a workable agreement that brings the country back into the fold.
• The Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) gives Washington the ability to impose punitive measures on countries that purchase weaponry from Moscow and, in theory, tilt the playing field in its favor, according to the Stratfor Worldview consultancy. However, the CAATSA threat might not land the United States all the arms business it is expecting; indeed, in chafing at America's heavy-handed approach, plenty of middle powers could spurn Washington in favor of other suppliers—or even Russia itself.
• Regarding Moscow’s invitation for Western leaders to attend a grand WWII victory parade, the Financial Times editorial board writes that the idea of a 75th-anniversary summit of countries that did the most to form the postwar world order has some merit. While any full-scale reset with Russia is surely impossible without resolving the Ukraine issue, restoring limited engagement on issues such as security and nuclear arms is desirable.
• Philip Remler of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace describes the Russian concept that true sovereignty is possessed by only a few great powers, while the sovereignty of states Moscow views as dependent on great powers is limited. The territory of true sovereigns and those states under Russian protection, according to this view, is sacrosanct and can be defended by force; for the others, it is impermissible to regain territory that is “in dispute” by force.
• By creating a new Cabinet, Vladimir Putin bets on more subjugation, more state planning, more milking of the economy to achieve growth through government-led redistribution, writes Bloomberg’s Leonid Bershidsky. The careerists on the new team are good at that kind of thing, he adds, but the kind of results they know how to get don't translate into the kind of economic exuberance that only unleashed private initiative can achieve. 

 

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

Nuclear security:

“Closer than ever: It is 100 seconds to midnight,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 01.23.20: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, who created the Doomsday Clock to convey threats to humanity and the planet, says:

• “Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers—nuclear war and climate change … In the nuclear realm, national leaders have ended or undermined several major arms control treaties and negotiations during the last year, creating an environment conducive to a renewed nuclear arms race, to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and to lowered barriers to nuclear war. … U.S.-Russia cooperation on arms control and disarmament is all but nonexistent.”
• “Both the United States and Russia have massive stockpiles of warheads and fissile material in reserve … Should China decide to build up to U.S. and Russian arsenal levels … deterrence calculations could become more complicated, making the situation more dangerous. An unconstrained North Korea, coupled with a more assertive China, could further destabilize Northeast Asian security.”
• “Faced with this daunting threat landscape and a new willingness of political leaders to reject the negotiations and institutions that can protect civilization over the long term, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board today moves the Doomsday Clock 20 seconds closer to midnight—closer to apocalypse than ever. In so doing, board members are explicitly warning leaders and citizens around the world that the international security situation is now more dangerous than it has ever been, even at the height of the Cold War.
• There are many practical, concrete steps that leaders could take—and citizens should demand—to improve the current, absolutely unacceptable state of world security affairs. Among them: U.S. and Russian leaders can return to the negotiating table to: reinstate the INF Treaty; extend the limits of New START beyond 2021; seek further reductions in nuclear arms; … The countries of the world should publicly rededicate themselves to the temperature goal of the Paris climate agreement. … The United States and other signatories of the Iran nuclear deal can work together to restrain nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.”

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• No significant developments.

Iran and its nuclear program:

“Why the US needs Russia and China to help change Iran's behavior,” Don Hepburn, The Hill, 01.17.20: The author, who held senior executive positions in the CIA and FBI, writes:

• “As the next stage of this latest twist with Iran unfolds, the U.S. cannot, alone or with regional Arab allies, change Iran’s adventurism unless Russia and China become part of the calculation out of self-interest.”
• “Ultimately, any major U.S.-Israeli military operation should be kept for one purpose only: destroying Iran’s nuclear capabilities. That leaves the U.S. with only one practical option: American-led diplomacy, backed by asymmetric pressure from our intelligence and special operations communities abroad and the FBI at home. Direct political engagement with Iran … will not result in some magical capitulation to U.S. demands … Iran already has significant superpower recognition—from Russia and China.”
• “Washington needs to renew the U.S. strategic focus on hardball diplomatic negotiating tactics. We must find the best combination of carrot and stick to appropriately dissuade further assistance to Iran by these two powerful nations … to help secure that desired change in Iran’s behavior.”
• “Washington may need to compromise with Moscow and Beijing on other matters of considerable geopolitical significance. However, Iran is one area where all three superpowers might find a workable agreement that brings the country back into the fold. Iran is an ancient, formidable regional player and the actions taken by all concerned … will have long-term repercussions for each stakeholder’s critical geopolitical goals in the region and beyond.”

New Cold War/saber rattling:

“Deterrence in the Age of Thinking Machines,” Yuna Huh Wong, John M. Yurchak, Robert W. Button, Aaron Frank, Burgess Laird, Osonde A. Osoba, Randall Steeb, Benjamin N. Harris and Sebastian Joon Bae, RAND Corporation, January 2020: The authors of the report write:

• “AI and autonomous systems may also reduce strategic stability. Since 2014, the strategic relationships between the United States and Russia and between the United States and China have each grown far more strained. Countries are attempting to leverage AI and develop autonomous systems against this strategic context of strained relations. By lowering the costs or risks of using lethal force, autonomous systems could make the use of force easier and more likely and armed conflict more frequent. A case may be made that AI and autonomous systems are destabilizing because they are both transformative and disruptive.”
• “AI and autonomous systems could lead to arms race instability. An arms race in autonomous systems between the United States and China appears imminent and will likely bring with it the instability associated with arms races. Finally … the proliferation of autonomous systems could ignite a serious search for countermeasures that exacerbate uncertainties and concerns that leave countries feeling less secure.”
• “Russia is interested in developing AI for military use. The Russian Ministry of Defense announced a ten-point plan in 2018 outlining key public-private partnerships and next steps in research and development.”
• “Other militaries, most notably those of China and Russia, are making major investments to keep up with and potentially offset U.S. autonomous military capabilities and U.S. attempts to obtain significant military advantages.”

NATO-Russia relations:

• No significant developments.

Missile defense:

“Missile Defense: Keystone of the New Cold War. Russia and the United States hope to cancel out the other's arsenal of weapons,” Leonid Nersisyan, The National Interest, 01.23.20: The author, a military columnist for the REGNUM information agency and editor-in-chief for Moscow’s New Defence Order magazine, writes:

• “Strategic missile defense systems in global nuclear conflict do not lend any real advantage at the moment; nor will they in the foreseeable future. … The efficiency of intercepting ICBM warheads is not high enough. … The high cost of the missile defense system and the need to use one to two interceptors per one warhead for security reasons (while one ICBM can carry up to ten warheads) makes the creation of a real global missile defense practically impossible—even the United States can’t afford it. Increasing the number of ICBMs and warheads would be much cheaper for Russia or China.”
• “In the end, we return to the absurd arms race of the Cold War, which culminated in the signing of the START treaty since none of the countries could maintain such a quantity of strategic weapons under normal conditions. Trying to develop a missile-defense system will result in exactly the same situation in a few decades. There is no prospect for any side violating of the strategic nuclear balance, as long as the prospect of global thermonuclear war remains. The development of tactical missile systems is the real key, as it will ensure that countries will be more secure during future local conflicts.”

Nuclear arms control:

“How to address the Russian post-INF initiatives,” Dmitry Stefanovich, European Leadership Network, 01.20.20: The author, an expert at the Russian International Affairs Council, writes:

• “On Feb. 2, 2019, when the United States announced that it intended to withdraw from the INF Treaty on Aug. 2, Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting … to discuss the possible weapons that might be developed in response, and framed a ‘formula’ for the moratorium on their deployment: ‘… Russia will not deploy intermediate-range or shorter-range weapons, if we develop weapons of this kind—neither in Europe nor anywhere else until U.S. weapons of this kind are deployed to the corresponding regions of the world.’ This formula has been re-iterated by Russian officials frequently at different levels and in different formats.”
• “Last year I argued that this ‘no first deployment’ proposal could and must be part of a broader security architecture. It is yet to be defined and there needs to be agreement over how the moratorium will work in practical terms. A good opening for such discussions is the letter sent by Russia to 50+ countries and international organizations asking to support and/or join this initiative.”
• “To kick start a dialogue on a reciprocal moratorium, the parties will have to remove 9M729 and Aegis Ashore from the debate, at least for the time being. … A European solution must be seen as a stop-gap until arms control resumes between the U.S. and Russia. It may be useful to attempt to codify parts of the ‘moratorium’ and establish transparency measures.”
• “In the current situation, the best possible next step for European countries would be to try to reach out … to Russia to clarify the technical parameters of the proposed moratorium.”

Counter-terrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant developments.

Cyber security:

• No significant developments.

Elections interference:

• No significant developments.

Energy exports from CIS:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

“Why America Must Lead Again. Rescuing U.S. Foreign Policy After Trump,” Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Foreign Affairs, 01.27.20: The author, a former U.S. vice president and current Democratic presidential hopeful, writes:

• “As president, I will take immediate steps to renew U.S. democracy and alliances, protect the United States’ economic future and once more have America lead the world.”
• “China represents a special challenge. … The most effective way to meet that challenge is to build a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China’s abusive behaviors and human rights violations, even as we seek to cooperate with Beijing on issues where our interests converge.”
• “I will lead the effort to reimagine [our historic partnerships] for the world we face today. The Kremlin fears a strong NATO … To counter Russian aggression we must keep the alliance’s military capabilities sharp while also expanding its capacity to take on nontraditional threats … We must impose real costs on Russia for its violations of international norms and stand with Russian civil society, which has bravely stood up time and again against President Vladimir Putin’s kleptocratic authoritarian system.”
• “On nonproliferation and nuclear security, the United States cannot be a credible voice while it is abandoning the deals it negotiated. … As president, I will renew our commitment to arms control for a new era. I will also pursue an extension of the New START treaty.”
• “As new technologies reshape our economy and society, we must ensure that these engines of progress are bound by laws and ethics … and avoid a race to the bottom, where the rules of the digital age are written by China and Russia. … Putin wants to tell himself, and anyone else he can dupe into believing him, that the liberal idea is ‘obsolete.’ But he does so because he is afraid of its power.”

“How Putin Outfoxed Trump in Venezuela,” Andrew Restuccia, Jessica Donati and Ian Talley, Wall Street Journal, 01.27.20: The authors, reports for the news outlet, write:

• “The Trump administration's bid to replace Venezuela's authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro hit a roadblock after a meeting with Russian officials in Rome last year—and has never recovered. U.S. envoy Elliott Abrams … [was] hoping to persuade Russia to withdraw its support for Mr. Maduro and to recognize Juan Guaidó as Venezuela's legitimate leader. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov instead demanded the U.S. back down from military threats and lift the economic sanctions intended to force Mr. Maduro's hand.”
• “In the months that followed, the U.S. campaign spiraled into a foreign-policy debacle, thwarted by familiar adversaries, Russia and Cuba, as well as allies, Turkey and India—all countries that one way or another helped Venezuela sidestep U.S. sanctions, according to current and former U.S. officials and Venezuelan opposition activists.”
• “The Trump administration, confident Mr. Maduro would fall, didn't foresee Russia leading the way for other countries to eclipse the sanctions. In turn, administration reluctance to impose sanctions on Russian enterprises and others kept Venezuela's oil and gold flowing to buyers.”
• “Russia now handles more than two-thirds of Venezuela's crude oil, current and former administration officials said, including helping to conceal export destinations. The lifeline has helped Mr. Maduro slow the economy's free fall, consolidate his grip on power and weaken the opposition.”

“How Washington's Infinite CAATSA Sanctions May Actually Help Russia Sell More Weapons,” Stratfor Worldview, The National Interest, 01.26.20: The geopolitical intelligence and advisory firm writes:

• “In the competition to sell arms around the world, the United States and Russia are on a collision course. And in this battle, the former happens to have a trick up its sleeve: the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), a law that gives Washington the ability to impose punitive measures on countries that purchase weaponry from Moscow and, in theory, tilt the playing field in its favor. ... [H]owever, the CAATSA threat might not land the United States all the arms business it is expecting; indeed, in chafing at America's heavy-handed approach, plenty of middle powers could spurn Washington in favor of other suppliers—or even Russia itself.”
• “The act, however, is in many ways a double-edged sword … First, countries are particularly sensitive about foreign powers telling them whom to choose to fill their defense needs … [S]uch cajoling destroys trust between potential customers and Washington. … Second, many countries, such as India and Vietnam, have a major preexisting arms import relationship with Moscow, making it exceedingly difficult for them to substantially cut purchases quickly, especially as their forces are already familiar with Russian equipment.”
• “Washington and Moscow will continue to battle for market share as both prioritize arms sales. This competition, however, is assuming ever-higher stakes, especially as the United States is now willing to brandish sanctions as part of the battle. Adopting such a zero-sum approach could help the United States keep countries … from pursuing arms from Russia. But as the case of Turkey highlights, playing hardball could also drive the countries in question even further into Moscow's arms. And with the United States likely to lean on traditional Russian arms customers … to ‘buy American’ in 2020, it's an approach that's likely to ruffle some feathers with major international players in the year ahead.”

“When U.S. Companies Fund Propaganda,” L. Gordon Crovitz, New York Times, 01.21.20: The author, co-founder and co-chief executive officer of NewsGuard, writes:

• “Lenin is sometimes said to have predicted that capitalists would sell Russia the rope with which they would be hanged. Yet not even Lenin could have imagined Vladimir Putin's success in getting some of the largest Western companies to subsidize his disinformation efforts by advertising on his government-run 'news' websites.”
• “The top programmatic advertiser on Mr. Putin's Sputnik News site? The Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett, through ads bought on behalf of Berkshire Hathaway's Geico insurance. Sputnik News peddles Kremlin propaganda on topics such as Syria and straightfacedly reports Mr. Putin's denials of interfering in other countries' elections.”
• “Geico is hardly alone in financing propaganda through … ads that are placed automatically by algorithms, without judgment based on the content or journalistic standards of the websites. Mr. Putin's leading disinformation arm, RT.com, attracted programmatic advertising from 477 companies and brands over a recent six-month period … Among RT.com's top 20 programmatic advertisers: Amazon, PayPal, Walmart and Kroger. For Sputnik, its 196 programmatic advertisers in addition to Geico included Best Buy, ETrade and Progressive Insurance.”
• “Advertisers and ad agencies that limit their programmatic ads to trustworthy news sites do more than keep their brands safe: They also return advertising revenues to news publishers that badly need the support. If this approach catches on, Mr. Putin will just have to spend more of his government's own money to promote its disinformation.”

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“Putin Puts Russia Inc. Under New Management,” Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg/The Moscow Times, 01.23.20: The author, a columnist and veteran Russia watcher, writes:

• “The new lineup of the Russian government … means significant changes in how the world’s 11th-biggest economy by nominal gross domestic product is run. President Vladimir Putin expects a new generation of senior officials … to boost growth with efficient, tightly monitored and well-targeted government spending. Reality probably will soon make a dent in these expectations.”
• “In Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s new cabinet … the balance has shifted toward a new breed of public servant—those with a proven ability to run complex projects and with self-presentation skills equaling those of private-sector executives.”
• “The average age of the 31 members of the Mishustin government is just over 50, compared with 53 for the previous cabinet … Few of these people, however, have any meaningful experience in the private sector. The achievements that led to their appointments were notched in the service of the state or in state-owned firms.”
• “But Russia's slow growth (1.2% last year, according to economists tracked by Bloomberg) isn't really an execution problem. It is, in large part, the result of a smoldering conflict between an all-powerful and increasingly all-seeing state and the rest of Russian society … By creating this new cabinet in the last four years of his presidency, Putin bets on more subjugation, more state planning, more milking of the economy … to achieve growth through government-led redistribution.”
• “The careerists on the new team are good at that kind of thing, and they’ll probably get some results, enough at least to enhance their resumes. But the kind of results they know how to get doesn't translate into the kind of economic exuberance that only unleashed private initiative can achieve. That, however, can only be tried after Putin is gone. He doesn't believe in that kind of thing.”

“Russia’s New Government Is Its Least Political Yet,” Tatiana Stanovaya, Carnegie Moscow Center, 01.23.20: The author, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Moscow Center and the founder of R.Politik, writes:

• “The Russian government has never been as nonpolitical as it is today. The new cabinet appointed by President Vladimir Putin this week is purely technocratic. … It’s not hard to see why a new cabinet was required: the lack of progress being made on the national projects …, billions of unspent budget funds at the end of last year, barely perceptible economic growth and falling household incomes. Together with the unpopular move to raise the retirement age, this has dragged down the governments’ approval ratings, which was reflected in the outcome of elections, making it a problem for Putin.”
• “The new government is also the first under Putin to contain none of his old friends. … It appears that the main political priority of the new government will be social policy.”
• “It’s no surprise that the post of first deputy prime minister has been given to Andrei Belousov, a former presidential aide on economic affairs. He was the main initiator and supervisor of the national projects during Putin’s presidential campaign, and now he will be responsible for their implementation.”
• “Many [new] ministers are nonconfrontational, efficient, young, adaptable and don’t poke their noses into politics. Many of them are young enough to be Putin’s children. They are the next generation and they live in a different world: the digital world that is so difficult to understand for the country’s aging leadership. It’s possible that with time, the victim of this process of becoming a technocracy will be the highest powers themselves, having proved too conservative for the new technocrats that they are currently promoting to the top ranks.”

“Succession and Punishment: Putin’s plans to avoid leaving power show that he hasn’t solved a central puzzle of Russian politics,” Chris Miller, Foreign Policy, 01.21.20: The author, an assistant professor at the Fletcher School, writes:

• “The news that Russian President Vladimir Putin does not plan to retire when his term as president ends in 2024 was not particularly surprising. Putin has ruled the country for more than two decades, including for four years in 2008-2012 during which, because of the Russian Constitution’s pesky term limits, he had to serve as prime minister rather than president. It was never plausible that he would simply ride off into the sunset. Instead, he declared, he will amend the constitution to formalize a yet undefined State Council, which he seems likely to lead.”
• “The question of succession does, however, present Putin with a puzzle that he has only begun to solve. The issue has bedeviled Russian leaders for centuries. There is an obvious risk in staying around for too long.”
• “Optimistic Russians, including some close to the Kremlin, imagine similarities to Singapore. … The city-state’s founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, continued to serve in the cabinet after he retired as prime minister, guaranteeing that everything would stay as regimented and efficient as it was under his personal rule. Similarly, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping continued to shape Chinese politics long into his retirement in the 1990s, even though his only formal position was as honorary president of China’s association for bridge, his favorite card game.”
• “The difference between this scenario and Putin’s succession, however, is that Russia is not hyper-efficient Singapore.”

“Vladimir Putin’s New Orchestra,” Ivan Krastev, New York Times, 01.27.20: The author, chairman of the Center for Liberal Strategies and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, writes:

• “By constraining the powers of the president, empowering the Parliament, and making himself the ultimate power center beyond the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin has injected institutional competition that was not present. In doing so, he may have triggered the ‘Chekhov’s Gun’ principle. As the esteemed Russian writer counseled young dramatists, ‘If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, in the following one it should be fired.’ When rulers start cosmetic changes to prevent real change, they should be aware that there are no guarantees things will not actually change.”

“The Near-Instant Death of Russia’s Constitution,” Sergey Parkhomenko, Wilson Center, 01.23.20: The author, a Russian journalist and publisher, writes:

• “The current Russian constitution has ceased to exist, and no longer provides a foundation for the legal order in Russia. No later than this spring, the entire set of constitutional changes will be adopted as a package in a mysterious procedure dubbed ‘the popular vote.’ Until then, Russian law will no longer bother to comply with this or that constitutional provision. Why worry about it when the constitution is about to be changed anyway? Who needs the limitations codified in this antiquated document that no longer interests anyone?”
• “Indeed, not one person in the entire Russian power vertical seemed to be flustered when the newly dismissed prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, was appointed deputy chair of the Russian Security Council—four hours before the legal act establishing this office was introduced in the Duma. The law will take several weeks to adopt, yet Medvedev will spend all the intervening time occupying an influential official position that does not exist. The Russian constitution is dead.”

"Russia’s rally puts it back on the radar for global fund managers,” Anna Gross and Max Seddon, Financial Times, 01.22.20: The authors, a reporter and the Moscow correspondent for the news outlet, write:

• “Russia’s equity market was stuck six years ago. … The market has since made a remarkable revival. The Moex Russia Index, the main ruble-denominated benchmark, is up more than 150 percent since its early 2014 trough, as the waning threat of fresh U.S. sanctions and signs of a recovering economy feed momentum.”
• “The dollar-denominated RTS Index rose more than 40 percent last year, making it the second best-performing among more than 90 major markets tracked by Bloomberg. … Investors have been drawn back into Russian assets by lower interest rates, higher dividends paid by state-run companies and improved corporate governance.”
• “Having appeared to bring inflation under control, Russia’s central bank cut interest rates five times last year, to 6.25 per cent. Banks have passed on lower rates to savers, prompting some to pile in to stocks in search of income. The number of private investors on the Moscow exchange doubled last year to 3.85 million, while total retail inflows went up by 47 billion ($760 million) … Overseas investors’ stakes in Russian companies totaled $80 billion at the end of last year.”
• “‘We’re looking for corporate governance, which is really important for protecting minority shareholders— that’s why we really struggle in Russia,’ said Rob Marshall-Lee, an emerging-markets portfolio manager … ‘There’s every prospect of the rally continuing for a little while, but with growth not very strong and governance poor it’s unlikely it will last.’”

Defense and aerospace:

“What do Putin’s constitutional changes mean for Russian nuclear launch authority?,” Matt Korda, Federation of American Scientists, 01.27.20: The author, a research associate at the Federation of American Scientists, writes:

• “Interestingly, the [Russian] Prime Minister appears to have no nuclear decision-making authority and does not possess a Cheget briefcase. …. The apparent absence of the Prime Minister in the nuclear chain of command prompts a question … ‘When Dmitry Medvedev held the presidency during 2008–12, and Vladimir Putin was prime minister, was Medvedev authorized to use nuclear weapons without Putin’s approval?’”
• “We don’t know the answer to this question, but it has significant implications for Putin’s proposed constitutional changes. If Putin was comfortable being formally left out of the nuclear chain of command for those four years, he might be similarly comfortable being kept out of the loop after he vacates the presidency. If so, then the current nuclear command system could be maintained even after the constitution is revised, and Putin would have to trust that his presidential successor would informally follow his direction on nuclear policy.”
• “However, it is also possible––although perhaps unlikely, depending on your assessment of Putin’s intentions––that ultimate nuclear launch authority will follow Putin wherever he goes. This would mean that if the proposed constitutional changes are adopted, the chain of command and their associated laws would also need to be revised in order to reflect Putin’s new position. According to the bill submitted to the Russian parliament, the proposed changes will constitutionally empower the State Council to determine ‘the main directions of home and foreign policy.’”
• “Unless Putin decides to declare himself 'President-for-Life' à la Xi Jinping, he will have no choice but to redesign Russia’s nuclear launch authority if he intends to keep his finger on the nuclear button.”

“Russian A2/AD: It is not overrated, just poorly understood,” Mikhail Kofman, Russia Military Analysis, 01.25.20: The author, a senior research scientist at CNA and a fellow at the Wilson Center, writes:

• “Russian A2/AD is overrated in large part because of our own technology fetishism and terrible understanding of how Russian forces are actually organized. It does not exist as a doctrine, or a military strategy, but we should not over simplify the discussion in attempts to debunk the tactical capabilities of Russian military technology.”
• “All you have to do to achieve air dominance is eliminate the VKS [aerospace forces]  radars, the low-frequency radars and the Russian air force—then you’re largely okay right after dealing with the countless PVO-SV [air defense units belonging to the Russian land forces] air defense systems. Assuming you don’t run out of munitions early on into this process, or aircraft, and all the high value enabling platforms do not get attrited, then it’s a manageable problem.”
• “In some respects, Russian IADS are a sort of McGuffin plot vehicle. As long as time and munitions are spent on them, Russian critical objects are safe, and one way or another the IADS end up executing their mission—which is not to defend themselves but to defend that which is strategically significant for the success of operations in the TVD [theater of military operations].”
• “In my view, the balance of aerospace assault vs. air defense remains offense dominant, but that is probably not enough to offer confidence in the initial period of war. The problem is that Russia’s military has always seen defense to be cost prohibitive, and therefore focused on an offensive damage limitation strategy [plus] functional defeat of the adversary. So, whether you think Russian A2/AD systems are amazing, or overrated, just remember—there is no such doctrine or term in the Russian military and the conversation misses the plot on how Russian forces actually organize at the operational-strategic level.”

“The Sneaky Way Russia Is Increasing Its Military Power,” James Mugg, The National Interest, 01.22.20: The author, a researcher at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, writes:

• “In order to be thrifty, Moscow has, for the most part, been investing in modernized or upgraded versions of existing platforms, rather than waiting for altogether new platforms like the Armata tank or PAK-FA fighter to enter service. Most of the Russian Armed Forces’ equipment is of Cold War vintage, and their priority appears to be an increase in the volume of modern equipment in service, rather than introducing revolutionary new capabilities.”
• “Recent economic hardships appear to have driven the Russians further toward improved or upgraded platforms rather than the pursuit of entirely new platforms. But there’s no halt in the modernization process, only a course adjustment. If anything, some services may be able to reach their modernization goals even sooner thanks to dependable production lines. And late Cold War-era designs are still sufficiently deadly to be taken seriously, especially when equipped with modern sensors and weapons.”

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:

“The Distortions of Holocaust History by Russia and Poland Are a Disgrace,” Andreas Kluth, Bloomberg/The Moscow Times, 01.27.20: The author, an editor for Bloomberg, writes:

• “On Jan. 27, 1945—75 years ago today—the Red Army liberated Auschwitz, the concentration camp that stands for the worst crimes ever committed, by Germans or anybody in history. It was already hard enough to find the right tone to mark this occasion … but now some people are making it so much harder, by deliberately choosing cynical words intended not to commemorate and reconcile, but to distort and divide.”
• “The main culprits are the presidents of Russia and Poland, Vladimir Putin and Andrzej Duda. At a ceremony in Poland today at the site of the camp, Duda will present his nationalist government’s interpretation. In this story, the Poles were victims of the Hitler-Stalin pact to carve up eastern Europe between Germany and the Soviet Union (true), then victims of the Nazis (true) and of the Soviets (also true), but never collaborators (not true).”
• “Putin is demonstratively boycotting this event. But he already spoke a few days ago in Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, an event that Duda boycotted in turn. In the narrative Putin has developed in recent months, it was in fact the Poles … who left the Germans and Soviets no choice but to form a pact (a jaw-dropping distortion of the facts). The only heroes in Putin’s tale are the Russians and other Soviets who liberated Auschwitz and defeated the Nazis (true) but otherwise committed no noteworthy atrocities against Poles. That is manifestly untrue: In 1940, the Soviets massacred 20,000 Poles in Katyn Forest, to name just one of their crimes.”
• “What’s tragically getting lost in this deceitfulness is the objective of genuine commemoration.” 

“Vladimir Putin Wants to Rewrite the History of World War II,” Sergei Radchenko, Foreign Policy, 01.21.20: The author, a professor of international politics, writes:

• “Once again, Russian President Vladimir Putin has weighed in on the history of World War II. Speaking on Dec. 20 at an informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), he appeared to blame Poland for the outbreak of the war while downplaying if not altogether denying Soviet responsibility. … Putin’s remarks have triggered angry rebuttals.”
• “This is where Putin’s interpretation falls flat—it is naive to argue that Stalin … would have jumped at the chance to join France in a war against Germany in 1938. Indeed, none of the evidence he cites shows that the Soviet Union was genuinely committed to Czechoslovakia’s defense.”
• “[Putin] argues that Poland was an architect of many of its misfortunes as it not just prevented the Soviets from helping Czechoslovakia but actively colluded with Germany to partition it. … The problem with Putin’s interpretation is that he fails to distinguish between Poland opportunistically seizing a part of a long-disputed territory deemed essential for national defense … and active collusion with Nazi Germany to bring about this result.”
• “The third part of Putin’s history lesson zeroed in specifically on anti-Soviet and anti-Semitic statements made by various Polish leaders, [including] Polish ambassador in Germany, Józef Lipski … It is hardly a revelation that anti-Semitism was pervasive in Eastern Europe … Poland was no exception. Soviet leaders, too, shared anti-Semitic views, and Stalin … waged an anti-Semitic campaign in the final years of his life. Seen in that broader context, Putin’s attack on Lipski is nothing short of bizarre.”
• “There is no doubt that Hitler shoulders the lion’s share of the blame for the war. … At the same time, denying any Soviet responsibility, as Putin has done, is equally unwise.”

“Putin’s invitation is an early test for post-Brexit Britain. Boris Johnson needs to start shaping an independent foreign policy,” Editorial Board, Financial Times, 01.26.20: The news outlet’s editorial board writes:

• “Just months into his premiership, Britain’s Boris Johnson has been thrown a diplomatic curveball. Should he accept Vladimir Putin’s invitation to a Moscow parade marking the 75th anniversary of the end of the second world war?”
• “Concerns not to be co-opted into a Kremlin photo opportunity must be weighed against the need for a U.K., which departs the EU this week, to show it is still a global player. U.K. diplomats need to clarify several questions.”
• “First, on the nature of the May parade. If it is a show of military muscle-flexing, with rows of Mr. Putin’s beloved nuclear missiles trundling on their carriers across Red Square, Mr. Johnson should take a pass. … The second is the broader context of the event. Mr. Putin in Jerusalem last week proposed a summit of leaders of Russia, China, the U.S., France and U.K.—the permanent five members of the U.N. Security Council—to discuss ‘current challenges and threats.’ Some diplomats speculate Russia’s president may seek to combine that with the May parade.”
• “Some other capitals—especially Kyiv—may question whether other P5 members should allow Russia to host such a summit when it remains sanctioned over its annexation of Crimea and military intervention in east Ukraine. Yet the idea of a 75th-anniversary summit of the countries that, as Mr. Putin noted, did most to form the postwar world order has some merit. While any full-scale reset with Russia is surely impossible without resolving the Ukraine issue, restoring limited engagement on issues such as security and nuclear arms is desirable.”

“Russia at the United Nations: Law, Sovereignty and Legitimacy,” Philip Remler, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 01.22.20: The author, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writes:

• “The central task for Russian foreign policy in the era of President Vladimir Putin has been to regain recognition that Russia is a world power like the Soviet Union before it. The United Nations is a positive platform for this aspiration, as Russia, with its U.N. Security Council (UNSC) veto power, is a privileged member of what it sees as a concert of world powers.”
• “Russia’s participation in the U.N. is governed by an interlocking series of concepts, starting with Russia’s definition of international law, narrowly based on the U.N. Charter and Security Council resolutions, as opposed to a ‘rules-based order’ … This division enables Russia to reject on principle commitments regarding human rights and democratic governance. A second concept, multipolarity, asserts that an oligarchic group of states must take collective action on the basis of equality and consensus.”
• “The concept of a multipolar oligarchy leads to the Russian concept that true sovereignty is possessed by only a few great powers; the sovereignty of states it views as dependent on great powers is limited. The territory of true sovereigns and those states under Russian protection is sacrosanct and can be defended by force … As an example of the former, consider the lengths to which Russia has gone to protect Syria’s use of armed force against its own population, whereas the sovereignty of former Soviet states such as Azerbaijan, Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine must be negotiated.”
• “In Russian practice, the legitimacy of recognized governments is absolute regardless of their origins, governance, human rights record or any other external norm. This concept echoes Russian domestic preoccupations in the era of color revolutions, the Arab Spring and domestic unrest.”
• “The rejection of all external norms has led to the breakdown of the modus vivendi at the U.N. since the days of the Korean War: deferring issues involving great power interests while engaging elsewhere in peacekeeping, mediation and humanitarian relief. Neutral powers that share democratic values are best placed to defend against the legitimation of autocratic governance.”

“The Cost of an Incoherent Foreign Policy. Trump’s Iran Imbroglio Undermines U.S. Priorities Everywhere Else,” Brett McGurk, Foreign Affairs, 01.22.20: The author, the Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford University, writes:

• “The current White House runs a foreign policy with irreconcilable objectives, no internal coherence and no pretense of gaming out critical decisions before they are taken. Maximalist objectives are set with little thought to what might be required to achieve them. … Nowhere is this incoherence more apparent than in policy toward Iran.”
• “Despite resource constraints and a supposed grand strategic shift toward Asia, the Trump administration expanded American aims across the Middle East—focusing above all on Iran. … This strategic muddle is the focus of discussion in regional capitals, as well as in Moscow and Beijing. Foreign leaders see Washington as pursuing maximalist policies under a minimalist president with no clear, let alone achievable, aims. Their shared assessment is that Iran can continue to harass U.S. friends in the Gulf, intrigue against the U.S. presence in Iraq and consolidate Assad’s grip on Syria.”
• “Such an assessment has drawn Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates toward Russia and China—and even Iran—as hedges against a careening and uncertain Washington.”
• “Washington is effectively using its economic might to coerce allies into enabling a policy that those allies believe is self-defeating and unacceptably high-risk. This strong-arming may have lasting consequences for American stewardship of the global economy … China and Russia are seeking to exploit these concerns by developing trading networks, including with India and Turkey, that avoid the net of American sanctions.”
• “Beijing views what it considers a myopic American focus on Iran as a strategic asset, because it … allows China, together with Russia, to expand its influence across the Middle East. Beijing and Moscow now enjoy close relations with all countries in the region, from Israel to Saudi Arabia to Iran, and those capitals now see Putin—not Trump—as an indispensable power broker.”

“The Berlin Conference on Libya: Will hypocrisy undermine results?,” Jeffrey Feltman, Brookings Institution, 01.21.20: The author, the John C. Whitehead Visiting Fellow at Brookings, writes:

• “At President Putin’s insistence, Fayez Serraj, head of Libya’s internally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA), and Khalifa Haftar, the self-styled head of the putative Libyan National Army besieging Tripoli since April, were both present in the German capital. But, by design, they did not attend the conference nor meet together separately. The Germans and U.N. officials briefed both on the conference’s outcome.”
• “Should they choose, both Serraj and Haftar could cherry-pick from the communiqué and the U.N. operational plan to claim achievements in terms of their stated goals and nudge their supporters to move from a military to a political approach. Serraj seems to be playing along … But one suspects that Haftar, in particular, will need to feel the full brunt of sustained Russian, Egyptian, Emirati and French pressure to reconsider his vision of heroically conquering Tripoli by force.”
• “In his rejection of last week’s Russian-Turkish ceasefire proposal (which Serraj accepted), Haftar showed his curious disregard for Moscow, given that Moscow’s deployment of Wagner Group mercenaries in recent weeks gave him a tactical advantage in the battle for Tripoli. Haftar also seems to have missed the opportunity to reduce the momentum for the ongoing Turkish “neo-Ottoman” military build-up in Libya to counter his Russian support.”
• “The Germans deserve credit for taking a risk in lending the prestige and political weight of Chancellor Merkel to support the U.N.’s mediation efforts to end the Libya conflict. If the external actors fulfill their Berlin commitments, the focus could then shift to the next stage of the U.N.’s proposal for Libya: intra-Libya talks on a basket of issues including security, economics and finance, and political issues.”

China-Russia: Allied or Aligned?

• No significant developments.

Ukraine:

“Is bipartisan U.S. support for Ukraine at risk?” Steven Pifer, The Brookings Institution/the Atlantic Council's UkraineAlert, 01.23.20: The author, a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings, writes:

• “It has long been clear that Trump buys Moscow’s disinformation line that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 U.S. election. It is true that individual Ukrainian officials criticized candidate Trump, just as officials from many European countries did. But it was Russian intelligence agencies, with Putin’s approval, that hacked the Democratic National Committee’s e-mails and gave them to Wikileaks. It is Russia’s Internet Research Agency that used social media to sow division among Americans.”
• “However, in November and December as they sought to defend Trump against impeachment, Republicans began to make the Russian argument that Ukraine had interfered. There were many examples of this from Republicans who will sit in judgment as the Senate conducts the impeachment trial. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) commented, ‘I think both Russia and Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election.’ Meanwhile, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) argued, ‘There’s no difference in the way Russians put their finger early on, on the scale and how Ukrainian officials did it,’ and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) stated bluntly, ‘Ukraine blatantly interfered in our election.’”
• “Will Republicans who assert that the Ukrainian government interfered in the U.S. election vote in the future to approve assistance for Ukraine? And, if they can separate their espousal of the Kremlin’s talking point from their votes on assistance, how do they defend to constituents and others less sympathetic to Ukraine a vote to assist the country that they say interfered in the 2016 U.S. election? This is dangerous ground that could undermine U.S. support for a country whose success is in America’s national interest.”

“Yes, Secretary Pompeo, Americans Should Care About Ukraine,” William B. Taylor, New York Times, 01.26.20: The author, United States ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009 and chargé d’affaires at the embassy in Kyiv from June 2019 until January 2020, writes:

• “As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo prepares to meet President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine in Kyiv later this week, he has reportedly asked, ‘Do Americans care about Ukraine?’”
• “Here’s why the answer should be yes: Ukraine is defending itself and the West against Russian attack. If Ukraine succeeds, we succeed. The relationship between the United States and Ukraine is key to our national security, and Americans should care about Ukraine.”
• “Russia is fighting a hybrid war against Ukraine, Europe and the United States. This war has many components: armed military aggression, energy supply, cyber attacks, disinformation and election interference. On each of these battlegrounds, Ukraine is the front line.”
• “The front line in the Donbas region marks the only shooting war in Europe. … On the energy battlefield, the Kremlin is trying to bypass Ukraine and increase German and European dependence on Russia by spending billions on an unnecessary underwater natural gas pipeline.”
• “Russia’s hybrid war is also an information war. … We and other NATO allies are working with Ukraine to counter this malign influence. … The Russians interfered in our elections in 2016—but not before interfering in Ukraine’s elections in 2014, and Britain’s Brexit referendum earlier in 2016. … Until Russia recommits to a rules-based international order, Western nations are in jeopardy. Ukraine is the front line.”

“Cracks Emerge in Ukraine’s Ruling Party,” Konstantin Skorkin, Carnegie Moscow Center, 01.22.20: The author, an independent journalist based in Moscow, writes:

• “Faced with a fluctuating approval rating (a poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology showed that it fell to 52 percent in November, but rose to 62 percent by the end of the year), Zelenskiy is attempting to instill order in the [Servant of the People] party ranks. In December, three deputies were excluded from the party’s parliamentary faction for either political disloyalty or concealing an unsavory past (one had been convicted of rape).”
• “Upon being elected president, Zelenskiy dissolved parliament in order to reboot the system and eliminate the self-interested oligarchs’ club. But having achieved a dream result in the ensuing parliamentary elections, he used that result to turn the Rada into a machine for voting. Now it is beginning to malfunction, as deputies refuse to be mere cogs in that machine, even for the noble cause of rebuilding the country.”

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

“Can Azerbaijan Deliver on Reform Promises?” Farid Guliyev, Institute for War and Peace Reporting, January 2020: The author, a postdoctoral fellow at Justus Liebig University Giessen in Germany, writes:

• “Setting aside the Azerbaijani leadership’s genuine willingness to make ambitious changes, the country may face a fundamental problem when it comes to devising, let alone implementing, successful policy. Its education system is just not good enough.”
• “As it currently stands, young people simply lack the training to supply the government with the skilled cadres it needs. Results of an educational assessment released by the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment’s (PISA 2018) in December 2019 amply illustrate this issue.”
• “The PISA survey showed that Azerbaijani students ranked below the OECD average in all main subjects. Their performance was dismal in literacy and science. A reading score of 389 put Azerbaijan some 100 points below the OECD average of 487, and only just above the worst performing country, the Philippines. In the post-Soviet space, Azerbaijan only does better than Georgia and Kazakhstan, and that only marginally. Azerbaijani test results were equally unimpressive in the field of science, with its score of 398 far below the OECD average of 489.”

“A Former Official’s Unsettling Death Exposes Armenia’s Lasting Trauma,” Paul Stronski, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 01.27.20: The author, a senior fellow in Carnegie’s Russia and Eurasia Program, writes:

• “The violent death of Georgi Kutoyan on Jan. 17 is a troubling development for Armenia. Found by his wife with a gunshot wound to his head, the thirty-eight-year old former security chief was once a rising star … His untimely death has thrown back into public view the wide fissures and deep animosities in Armenian politics. … His death occurred in a political context where former government officials struggle to reinvent themselves in the new Armenia and often find themselves under pressure by investigators, even if they are not formal targets for indictment.”
• “More troubling is the fact that former police chief Hayk Harutyunyan in September 2019 reportedly also killed himself, again with a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Harutyunyan headed the police during the violent 2008 crackdown against the opposition, believed to have been ordered by then-president Robert Kocharyan. … [B]efore his death, Harutyunyan complained he was being pressured to provide false testimony against Kocharyan.”
• “Shots were fired on Jan. 22 at the window of the judge, who was appointed by the previous government and has handed down rulings in several high-profile and politicized cases. On Jan. 23, a gunman fired at the office building that houses Kocharyan’s office and several media outlets that are loyal to him. Beyond timing, it is unclear whether these two shooting incidents are related.”
• “The Pashinyan government has made great efforts in improving governance and instilling faith in the country’s future. But, events of the past week highlight how much work the government has ahead of it to try curb political violence and create an independent judicial and law enforcement system that all citizens can trust. It also needs to improve health care services for unspoken illnesses.”