This Week’s Highlights

• The UK-Russia incident off the Crimea coast …is serious… because of who the challenger is, but also because of when the challenge was made, writes Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Center. London’s apparent testing of the Kremlin’s red lines came less than a week after the meeting in Geneva between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden, he notes, adding that even as efforts are made to better manage or even somewhat regulate U.S.-Russian confrontation, preventing dangerous encounters between Russian and NATO countries’ forces should be the absolute top priority for both sides.
• Sino-Russian opposition is not the only, or even the most important reason for the Biden administration to be wary of deploying forces to Central Asia, write Jeffrey Mankoff of the National Defense University, and Cyrus Newlin of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The U.S. experience at Karshi-Khanabad and Manas is a reminder of the moral and political compromises attendant on security cooperation with authoritarian regimes, they assert, adding: as the United States plans for the next, post-withdrawal phase of its decades-long effort to stabilize Afghanistan, engagement with its Central Asian neighbors will remain an important element of any strategy. To be successful, though, that engagement must stop short of the direct military presence the United States maintained until 2014, the authors argue.
• The policy behind Artificial Intelligence (AI) development [in China] seems to advance the [Chinese Communist] party’s political motives regarding the transition to a knowledge-based competitive economy, writes Bekzod Zakirov of the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Public Policy. In contrast, the state-led policy of AI development in Russia reveals that drafting and implementing AI policy has been outsourced to a handful of important state-owned companies that share a close affinity with the president, he argues. Unlike China, Russian leaders seem to comprehend the regressive nature of their capabilities and thus aim to gain a comparative advantage in AI technologies by focusing on AI-powered military weaponry, according to Zakirov.
• The Biden administration should, over time, articulate where the South Caucasus stands in the long list of U.S. priorities, writes Paul Stronski of the Carnegie Moscow Center. The United States should continue efforts to promote regional stability, help abate or prevent regional conflicts, and stem illicit financial and human flows, he argues. Washington and its European partners can assist in stabilization, reconstruction, and integration after the latest Nagorno-Karabakh war, Stronski writes, adding that the [United States should be] enlisting the help of allies and partners to improve the South Caucasus states’ ability to balance against their assertive neighbors and to address their own internal challenges from the bottom up.

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

Nuclear security:

• No significant developments.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• No significant developments.

Iran and its nuclear program:

• No significant developments.

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

“Sailing Into Troubled Waters. Russia Counters Britain in the Black Sea,” Dmitri Trenin, Carnegie Moscow Center, 06.25.21. The author, Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, writes:       

• “The UK-Russia incident off the Crimea coast highlights Britain’s new role in the international system. It features the newly baptized ‘Global Britain’ as a proactive member of the U.S.-led coalition that seeks to reassert the West’s global leadership against the challenge of China and the actions of Russia. In doing so, London is willing to go to the edge and take non-negligible risks.”
• “Before, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United Kingdom was the first responder to U.S. calls for joint action. Now, Britain has demonstrated that in some cases it can lead the way. Until this week, Russia’s sovereignty in Crimea had been directly challenged only in 2018 by Ukrainian navy boats. … Now, the message of non-recognition of Russia’s incorporation of Crimea was delivered by HMS Defender, which sailed into the 12-mile territorial waters not far from Sevastopol. This potentially presages a new, riskier level of confrontation.”
• “The current incident is more serious than the 2018 one … because of when the challenge was made. London’s apparent testing of the Kremlin’s red lines came less than a week after the meeting in Geneva between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden.”
• “Simply put, fresh attempts to expose Russian ‘red line’ deterrence as hollow … would push Moscow to defend what it cannot give up without losing its self-respect. This would almost inevitably lead to clashes and casualties, which would carry the risk of further escalation. … Should this happen, Russia-NATO confrontation would deteriorate literally to the point of brinkmanship, a truly bleak scenario.”
• “In the 2020s, the risks of war between the major powers are higher than they were a half-century ago. … One likely path to war in the XXI century is an inadvertent escalation arising out of an incident … that gets out of hand. Even as efforts are made to better manage or even somewhat regulate U.S.-Russian confrontation, preventing dangerous encounters between Russian and NATO countries’ forces should be the absolute top priority for both sides.”

“A Difficult Balancing Act: Russia’s Role in the Eastern Mediterranean,” Paul Stronski, Carnegie Endowement for International Peace, 06.28.21. The author, a senior fellow in Carnegie’s Russia and Eurasia Program, writes:

• “Russia’s assertiveness in the Eastern Mediterranean is part of its broader strategy for undermining the cohesion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) and thus complicating the Western alliance’s ability to operate, plan, and formulate policy.”
• “The Kremlin’s interests are geared toward enhancing dependencies on Russian gas and financial flows, cultivating governing elites, and stymieing the ability of NATO and, to a lesser extent, the EU to expand. While Moscow’s efforts in the region after its 2015 intervention in Syria are often described as a means to reassert Russia’s great power status, the Russian leadership more likely sees its actions there as part of a broader standoff with the West that stretches from the Atlantic to the Black Sea and from North Africa to the Arctic.”
• “Russia has been skillful and successful in seeking opportunities to engage the region, cultivating rising political, economic, religious, or cultural decisionmakers in all three countries. It now has a clear presence in the Eastern Mediterranean that cannot be ignored.”
• “In sum, Russia’s capabilities in the Eastern Mediterranean are modest, based largely on symbolic diplomacy, energy, financial promises, and the ability to cultivate elites, some of which are quite eager to engage with Moscow for personal or political gain. That approach, however, does not resonate widely beyond the narrow Russia-friendly constituencies in each country. Furthermore, there is not much ballast to these relationships, all of which have proven to be volatile, as the 2015 freeze in Russo-Turkish relations over Turkey’s downing of a Russian fighter or the post-2018 plummet in Greek-Russian relations illustrate.”
• “To manage Russia’s assertiveness in the Eastern Mediterranean, NATO and the EU should shift away from trying to combat every instance of Russian activity there, not all of which is malign. Instead, they should work to enhance local resilience and to stabilize countries in the wider Mediterranean such as Lebanon, Libya, and Syria. They should also help Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus address their economic, governance, political, and security challenges.”

“A Measure Short of War,” Jill Kastner, William C. Wohlforth, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2021.  

“Being Open, Despite the Past,” Vladimir Putin, Die Zeit, 06.22.21. The author, President of Russia, writes:

• “We hoped that the end of the Cold War would be a common victory for Europe. It seemed that just a little more effort was needed to make Charles de Gaulle's dream of a single continent–not even geographically ‘from the Atlantic to the Urals,’ but culturally and civilizationally ‘from Lisbon to Vladivostok’–become a reality….But a different approach has prevailed.”
• “Moreover, many countries were put before the artificial choice of being either with the collective West or with Russia. In fact, it was an ultimatum. The Ukrainian tragedy of 2014 is an example of the consequences that this aggressive policy has led to. Europe actively supported the unconstitutional armed coup in Ukraine. This was where it all started. Why was it necessary to do this? Then incumbent president Yanukovych had already accepted all the demands of the opposition. Why did the [United States] organize the coup and the European countries weak-heartedly support it, provoking a split within Ukraine and the withdrawal of Crimea?”
• “The whole system of European security has now degraded significantly. Tensions are rising and the risks of a new arms race are becoming real. We are missing out on the tremendous opportunities that cooperation offers…”
• “We are open to honest and constructive interaction. This is confirmed by our idea of creating a common space of cooperation and security from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean which would comprise various integration formats, including the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Union.”
• “I reiterate that Russia is in favor of restoring a comprehensive partnership with Europe. We have many topics of mutual interest. These include security and strategic stability, healthcare and education, digitalization, energy, culture, science and technology, resolution of climate and environmental issues.”
• “Our common and indisputable goal is to ensure security on the continent without dividing lines, a common space for equitable cooperation and inclusive development for the prosperity of Europe and the world as a whole.”

“Building the Future: How China and Russia Promote AI Development,” Bekzod Zakirov, The National Interest. 6.25.21. The author, a scholar at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Public Policy, and a visiting scholar at the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University, writes:

• “The rapid changes in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies have set the stage for a global digital race, unleashing a flurry of AI nationalism for governments to rein in new technologies. Among them are two global contenders, China and Russia, which formulated AI policy and mobilized massive resources to gain prominent roles in the global tech race. Why would the political leaders of these countries want to pursue such ambitions with a global vision? Careful analysis of their national strategies indicates that different political motives coupled with economic advantages led to two divergent strategies on AI development in China and Russia. China aims to maintain its party power by promoting an AI-powered competitive economy, while Russia wishes to develop its AI capacity to further harness its military might that will help to keep its competitive advantage vis-à-vis the West.”
• “The Chinese government approaches AI development policy by designing a unique policy to data collection and creating an innovation ecosystem in which strong top-down state support promotes bottom-up private initiatives. The policy behind AI development seems to advance the party’s political motives regarding the transition to a knowledge-based competitive economy. In contrast, the state-led policy of AI development in Russia reveals that drafting and implementing AI policy was outsourced to a handful of important state-owned companies that share a close affinity with the president. Unlike China, Russian leaders seem to comprehend the regressive nature of their capabilities and thus aim to gain a comparative advantage in AI technologies by focusing on AI-powered military weaponry.”

“Russia and China: Unlikely Partners in Securing Afghanistan?” Arash Yaqin and Saba Sattar, The National Interest. 6.23.21. The authors, Yaqin—a graduate student at the Institute of World Politics who formerly served as a Cultural Affairs Specialist with the U.S. State Department in Kabul, and Sattar—a doctoral candidate at the Institute of World Politics, write:

• “After decades of failing to court rival warlords for intelligence cooperation, Western intelligence agencies now anticipate the possibility of Afghanistan slumping into the brink of civil war. To prevent a sweeping Taliban advance, these agencies are searching for viable intelligence assets for long-term on-the-ground support. … While Western intelligence agencies are in the quest to enlist new informants and intelligence assets, Afghanistan’s growing instability and the rise of great power competition between the U.S., China, and Russia continue. This makes it difficult for Washington to come up with a unilateral approach to counter-terrorism.”
• “For several years, Eastern powers, such as India, Israel, Iran, Russia, and China have maintained, to varying degrees, an active intelligence presence in Afghanistan. While the former two have strengthened their security ties with the U.S., the latter three are engaged in an adversarial geopolitical competition with Washington. … Despite Iran, Russia, and China's engagement in a regional geopolitical competition with the U.S., all three states maintain an abiding strategic interest to maintain stability in Kabul, given their close proximity to the border and access to Central Asia and Europe.”
• “The growing instability of Kabul will be in great peril if outside states with strategic interests, especially those residing within the outer peripheries, are not afforded a direct stake in discussing its future. Thus, the regional geostrategic competitors, in the interest of maintaining stability in Kabul, may come to understand, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’”
• “To sustain an effective intelligence cooperation mechanism, Western intelligence agencies along with the Eastern intelligence community have to establish an informal intelligence working group that shares real-time information.”
• “The informal partnership will provide a win-win security situation, one in which functional cooperation among regional competitors will facilitate stability in Kabul.” 

“Biden to Putin in Geneva: There’s a new sheriff in town,” Steven E. Miller, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, 06.17.21. The author, Director, International Security Program; Editor-in-Chief, International Security; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, writes:

• "Biden clearly intended to put down unambiguous markers about American positions in areas of friction or disagreement, but there was also an interest in finding areas of collaboration and cooperation. The most significant opening at Geneva was the agreement to initiate a bilateral Strategic Stability Dialogue aimed at promoting arms control and risk reduction measures. Russian-American arms control has been sputtering for two decades. Most of the arms control infrastructure built up during decades of painstaking negotiation has now been dismantled, with the destruction of agreements reaching a crescendo under Trump."
• "The arms control process, once well-established and regularly employed, has fallen into disuse. Meanwhile, new and difficult issues, driven by evolving military technology, introduce potential instabilities and crowd the arms control agenda. Agreeing to talk solves nothing and all the hard work lies ahead, but the Geneva opening provides the opportunity for a return to serious arms control—all the more important when US-Russian relations are so poor."

“Biden's new normal seems ominously heading toward a revival of Cold War politics,” Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Washington Post, 06.22.21. The author, a columnist for the newspaper, writes:

• “Biden's meeting with Putin hopefully marks an end to the deterioration of relations that has grown increasingly dangerous. Chinese President Xi Jinping's ambitions and China's rising economic prowess and new assertiveness pose a more difficult challenge. But before 'America is back' to a new Cold War, we need a far more serious discussion about the real security priorities of the American people—and the real challenges we face.”

“Chasing Muons in Geneva,” Yevgenia Albats, The Moscow Times, 06.24.21. The author, Editor-in-Chief of The New Times, writes:

• "The only thing that Putin and his chekist-oligarch-billionaires understand right away and very well is pure pragmatism that can be measured in dollars, euros, or pounds sterling. Of course, these might have different names: sanctions; large-diameter pipes; a house outside Atlanta, Georgia; software for drilling on the sea shelf; frozen accounts in a Swiss bank; a trip to see a favorite dog in Finland; reconstruction of a house on the rue de l'Université in Paris, and so on. I think this is what Biden meant when he waved away a journalist asking about the confidence he had in Putin. 'This is not about trust,' Biden said. 'This is about self-interest, and verification of self-interest.'"
• "The second important pillar in Biden’s analysis is: 'Putin doesn’t want a Cold War.' Putin doesn’t want isolation for himself and his entourage. He doesn’t want their children and grandchildren to sit in a golden cage, and he doesn’t want to spend more than he is on the arms race—like during the Soviet period when 100% of non-ferrous metals went into the military-industrial complex."
• "The Kremlin and his billionaires really don’t need a new Stalin or a new Brezhnev.  They need a front-man who will arrange it so they, their children and grandchildren can spend what they’ve earned—or stolen—anywhere in the world and who will ensure conditions that let them pass it on through inheritance (over many years to come!) everywhere, including—if not especially—in Europe and America."
• "If that was the case, and if those were basically the conceptual categories that Putin explained to Biden while letting him know that he was ready to deal, then this result of the summit isn’t bad at all."

China-Russia: Allied or Aligned?

“Washington’s Dangerous New Consensus on China,” Bernie Sanders, Foreign Affairs, 06.17.21.  

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

“Biden Looks for a New, New START,” Jack Detsch, Foreign Policy, 06.22.21. The author, a Pentagon and national security reporter for the news outlet, writes:

• “Even though the Biden administration and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top deputies in the Kremlin are optimistic about a follow-up nuclear deal, there’s little hope for any breaking of bread or clinking of glasses. As the U.S. State Department plots its negotiating strategy with the Russians ahead of an expected follow-up arms control talk after U.S. President Joe Biden’s meeting with Putin in Geneva last week, the talks are increasingly seen as less of a new start and merely a new starting point for a diminished relationship where the two sides can agree on avoiding nuclear war—but perhaps little else.”
• “Officials in the Biden administration are still hashing out an agenda that could include elements of nuclear conflict, space, cyber, and crisis avoidance between two of the largest militaries on the planet; some of those things might get shoehorned into a separate negotiation. Earlier this month, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan called nuclear arms control “the starting point of strategic stability talks” but said the administration was still weighing whether additional elements would come into play. There may be connective tissue between the risk of nuclear conflict and those emerging issues—as officials figure out how to mitigate cyberattacks that could disable nuclear command and control—or Russia’s emerging anti-satellite capabilities that have the potential to blind U.S. early warning systems.”
• “In the nuclear space, a complicated tit-for-tat between the two sides is emerging that is likely to test Biden’s patience. Russian negotiators, including Ryabkov, have already begun publicly and privately urging upgraded U.S. missile defenses be limited in a new deal. Moscow fears it wouldn’t be able to retaliate in a nuclear exchange even while it has continued developing the S-500 air defense system that can defend against incoming missiles; the request has long been a no-go for Washington.”
• “‘There is a mismatch between how the two sides are looking at the agenda,’ said Rose Gottemoeller, former deputy secretary-general of NATO who was the chief negotiator of New START during the Obama administration.”

Counter-terrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

“An early test for Mr. Putin,” The Washington Post Editorial Board, The Washington Post, 06.24.21. The newspaper’s editorial board writes:

• “‘We will out within the next six months to a year whether or not we actually have a strategic dialogue that matters,’ President Biden said last week following his first summit meeting with Vladimir Putin. In fact, the answer may be known much sooner than that. Among the issues Mr. Biden raised with the Russian ruler was Syria-and in particular, the reauthorization of a humanitarian aid corridor run by the United Nations that is crucial to providing food, medicine and coronavirus vaccinations to 2.8 million people, most of them women and children. Moscow is hinting it may block the U.N. Security Council resolution needed to keep the aid flowing after July 10, triggering a dire humanitarian crisis. If he is interested in cooperation with Mr. Biden, one of the simplest and easiest things Mr. Putin could do is relax that position. So far, he hasn't.”
• “‘Without cross-border access, more Syrians will die,’ as Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. representative to the United Nations, told the Security Council. ‘We know that. Front-line U.N. workers know it. NGOs know it. Assad knows it.’ Yet Russia's U.N. ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, was unmoved. He claimed that the U.N. corridor was being used ‘for the benefit of terrorists holed up in Idlib’ and that shipments from Assad-controlled territory were ‘the only legitimate way of delivering humanitarian assistance.’ If Russia sticks to that position through the next two weeks, Mr. Biden will have his answer about Mr. Putin.”

“US-Russia summit: Much ado about nothing in the Middle East,” Li-Chen Sim, Daniel Rakov, and Joze Pelayo, Atlantic Council, 06.24.21. The authors, respectively a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, a program assistant at the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative/Middle East Programs, and an assistant professor at Khalifa University in the United Arab Emirates, write:

• “No major breakthrough is going to happen in the Middle East following the Biden-Putin summit. Although the Iranian nuclear file and the humanitarian situation in Syria—and possibly other regional conflicts—were raised during the meeting, they do not seem to be the focus of the Russian-US agenda, which is centered around the European security architecture, “strategic stability,” noninterference in domestic politics, and Great Power Competition. Biden is yet to develop a coherent policy on most Middle East issues and a lack of mutual confidence does not substantiate new agreements.”
• “The separate press events by the two presidents showed the deep distrust and unbridgeable differences on core issues, but also emphasized the will to explore the possibilities for agreements where there is a convergence of common interests. Israel should help them on this exploratory mission—despite the visible obstacles ahead—focusing on the situation in Syria. The Great Power Competition will continue to be projected into the Middle East, but if Putin and Biden succeed in rehabilitating communication channels, its regional impact might be softened.”

Cyber security:

“Joe Biden attempted to set out no-go areas on cyber warfare when he met Vladimir Putin,” Katrina Manson, Financial Times, 06.21.21. The author, a U.S. foreign policy an defense correspondent for the news outlet, writes:

• “Red lines and US foreign policy have a tangled past. So it was not without risk that Joe Biden attempted to lay down some of his own to curb cyberwarfare when he met Russian president Vladimir Putin last week. ‘Certain critical infrastructure should be off-limits to attack, period,’ Biden said after handing Putin a list of 16 areas that both Russian state operatives and cyber criminals ought to spare.”
• “The list is no surprise: The cyber security and infrastructure security agency, a government body, has long warned that the assets, systems and networks of these sectors are so vital that ‘their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national public health or safety.’  The difference, says James Lewis, a cyber security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is the way the warning has been delivered. ‘Knowing there’s a list somewhere on the web and having a president tell you are different things,’ he said.”
• “The aim now is for both sides to agree these areas are off-limits. But the next question is what exactly Biden will do if Russia trespasses his red lines. The US president has lowered the bar for holding Russia responsible for various cyber misdemeanors. Notably he has indicated that he would be inclined to hold the Kremlin responsible for harboring supposedly independent Russian cyberhackers targeting U.S. assets.”
• “Biden has also spurred NATO into action. Members of the transatlantic pact said last week a cyber attack could lead to the invocation of Article 5, which stipulates an attack on one is an attack on all. … That matters because Russia’s goal is to avoid direct military confrontation with the US, said Lewis. No matter how aggressive Moscow may be, the US believes Russia has structured its policies so its engagements will always fall short of war.”

Energy exports from CIS:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

• See section on Great Powers above.

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

• No significant developments.

Defense and aerospace:

• No significant developments.

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• No significant developments.

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

• No significant developments

Ukraine:

• No significant developments

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

“Don’t Base U.S. Forces in Central Asia,” Jeffrey Mankoff and Cyrus Newlin, War on the Rocks, 06.23.21. The authors, a research fellow at National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies and an associate fellow in the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies respectively, write:

• “Given the preponderance of Sino-Russian influence in a region along their borders and the ability of Beijing and Moscow to impose unacceptable costs … Washington would face a high bar convincing Central Asian leaders to take the risk of accepting a permanent U.S. presence — especially at a time when Washington’s long-term commitment to Afghanistan faces widespread skepticism.”
• “Sino-Russian opposition is not the only, or even the most important reason for the Biden administration to be wary of deploying forces to Central Asia. The U.S. experience at Karshi-Khanabad and Manas is a reminder of the moral and political compromises attendant on security cooperation with authoritarian regimes. While national security may at times be given as justification for such compromises … the stakes for Washington as it pulls out of Afghanistan do not rise to that level, especially as it can achieve many of its post-withdrawal … through less visible means.”
• “Faced with growing Chinese and Russian influence, the Central Asian states have sought to exercise independence by engaging with the United States. However, for Washington to have a positive impact in the region, it needs to continue encouraging liberalization and transparency, which haggling over basing rights threatens to compromise … As in Kyrgyzstan before 2014, a permanent, visible U.S. presence can become an easy target for nationalist and populist appeals, which Russia (and likely China) would be only too happy to foment.”
• “As the United States plans for the next, post-withdrawal phase of its decades-long effort to stabilize Afghanistan, engagement with its Central Asian neighbors will remain an important element of any strategy. To be successful … engagement must stop short of the direct military presence the United States maintained until 2014.”

“The Shifting Geography of the South Caucasus,” Paul Stronski, Carnegie Moscow Center, 06.23.21. The author, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment’s Russia and Eurasia Program, writes:

• “The traditional geopolitical boundaries that have defined the South Caucasus in the post-Cold War era are shifting as the region becomes increasingly connected to the eastern Mediterranean and wider Middle East.”
• “Russia’s pull is, if anything, weakening. The centrifugal forces drawing its neighbors toward other parts of the world are becoming stronger … Although Russia will remain the most important power in the region for the foreseeable future, the capitals of the three South Caucasus states are geographically closer to many of the economic and political power centers of the eastern Mediterranean and Persian Gulf than they are to Moscow.”
• “While Russia and Turkey jockey for influence in the Caucasus, other countries are asserting their influence as well. Although geographically distant, China has pursued various opportunities, eyeing infrastructure projects across the South Caucasus, Persian Gulf, and the Mediterranean … Iran also is reasserting itself in the Caucasus.”
• “The United States and Europe certainly remain important actors in the region, but their influence—particularly in Armenia and Azerbaijan—is declining … Past patterns of U.S. policy implementation suggest that Washington does not, and likely never will, possess the same level of strategic interests in the South Caucasus as the region’s immediate neighbors.”
• “The Biden administration should, over time, articulate where the South Caucasus stands in the long list of U.S. priorities. The United States should continue efforts to promote regional stability, help abate or prevent regional conflicts, and stem illicit financial and human flows. Washington and its European partners can assist in stabilization, reconstruction, and integration after the latest Nagorno-Karabakh war … [U.S. should be] enlisting the help of allies and partners to improve the South Caucasus states’ ability to balance against their assertive neighbors and to address their own internal challenges from the bottom up.”

“What Does Pashinyan’s Victory Bode for Armenia and the Region?” Kirill Krivosheev, Carnegie Moscow Center, 06.24.21. The author, a journalist with Kommersant, writes:

• “The results of Armenia’s parliamentary elections surprised observers both at home and abroad. Despite Yerevan’s devastating defeat in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war under his leadership, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan secured a decisive electoral victory. His Civil Contract party won more than half of the votes (54 percent), compared to only 21 percent for Armenia Alliance, led by his main rival, former president Robert Kocharyan.”
• “Pashinyan will remain prime minister, form a single-party government, and have a constitutional majority in parliament. Of course, this also means that he will take sole responsibility for continuing the difficult negotiations with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, and for crafting a new Armenian foreign policy.”
• “Pashinyan will need to be as loyal as possible in relations with Moscow. He has already promised to expand cooperation with the Eurasian Economic Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), two Moscow-led projects that he had recently criticized for dillydallying over Nagorno-Karabakh.”
• “Aware of his new reputation as “Baku’s candidate,” Pashinyan will likely try to negotiate small victories, such as getting more prisoners of war released, and pass these off as the results of his firm position. Building on that, he will promise bigger victories soon to come, such as the transit of goods to Russia via Azerbaijan.”

“No more games with the Belarus bully,” Editorial Board, The Washington Post, 06.26.21. The newspaper’s editorial board writes:

• “For most of his quarter-century as the bullying boss of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko has wielded a heavy hand, then offered just enough leniency to disarm his critics. He has seesawed between the West and Russia, and between dictatorship and soft authoritarianism. The tactic was on display again last week when the European Union, United States and Canada announced coordinated sanctions in response to the brazen kidnapping of opposition journalist Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend, Sofia Sapega. After punishing weeks of incarceration, Mr. Lukashenko on Friday released them to house arrest. This time he must be told: No more games.”
• “The sectoral sanctions are more properly coming from Europe because that is where Belarus has greater economic ties. From both sides of the Atlantic, Mr. Lukashenko must get the message: Belarus deserves free and fair elections and freedom for all political prisoners. Nothing less.”