This Week’s Highlights

• Harvard’s Graham Allison and Israel’s former chief of defense intelligence Amos Yadlin share their answers to 10 key questions about the Ukraine conflict in The National Interest. They argue that Kyiv may agree to an end of active fighting along a boundary beyond which “a Russian puppet government rules in the east,” but rule from Moscow or further annexation of territory is likely to spur a popular resistance. In terms of sanctions’ effectiveness, they believe Vladimir Putin won’t soon conclude that the costs of continuing his war are high enough that he should abandon fighting, “turn to a diplomatic path and accept less [in Ukraine] than he had demanded.”
• Numerous experts—including Lawrence Freedman, six scholars writing for The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage and two analysts writing in Foreign Affairs—argue that prospects for a negotiated settlement in Ukraine are looking bleak. Putin’s problem, Freedman writes, “is that he needs substantive gains, but none are on offer through either military action or diplomacy. Anything that might be achieved now in negotiations will appear trivial compared with Putin’s opening demands.” The Monkey Cage authors point out, meanwhile, that “Putin is a personalist dictator,” and research shows that “almost a third of the personalist dictators who lost a war were removed from office and severely punished, sometimes killed.”
• U.S. plans to send more natural gas to Europe and thus help it break its dependence on Russian energy “will largely be symbolic, at least in the short run,” The New York Times’ energy business correspondent Clifford Krauss writes. He explains that “the United States doesn’t have enough capacity to export more gas and Europe doesn’t have the capacity to import significantly more.”
• Stanford’s Niall Ferguson argues in Bloomberg Opinion that “the Biden administration is making a colossal mistake in thinking that it can protract the war in Ukraine, bleed Russia dry, topple Putin and signal to China to keep its hands off Taiwan.”
• International sanctions—rather than force ordinary people to abandon Putin—will likely push Russians closer to the regime, especially since dissent “has drastic consequences,” two scholars from Colorado State University and University of South Florida, Julia Khrebtan-Hörhager and Evgeniya Pyatovskaya, write in The Conversation. “Encouraging Russians to protest their autocratic government, as the West has done, while cutting ties with them,” they add, “is punishing the people for what that government does while suffocating them economically.”

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:

"How Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Is Rebounding in Iran," Ali Fathollah-Nejad, The National Interest, 03.21.22. The author, an associate fellow at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy & International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, writes:

• “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has not only dominated global headlines, but also triggered a wide-ranging debate in Iran and among Iranians about Tehran’s ties with Moscow. In a phone call between Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi and Russian president Vladimir Putin, the former told Putin that ‘NATO’s expansion eastward creates tension and is a serious threat to the stability and security of independent states in various areas. I hope what is happening will benefit peoples and the entire region.’ This pro-Kremlin narrative about the purported causes and rationale of the invasion of Ukraine is also echoed by other key Iranian power centers.”
• “Such a portrayal also serves to justify Iran’s own policies, namely its ‘axis of resistance’ across the Middle East that is also purportedly resisting Western policies that are seen as destabilizing Iran’s immediate neighborhood. Moreover, Friday Prayer Imams, who are directly appointed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, raised their voice, suggesting that the West ought to be blamed for what is at play in Ukraine.”
• “In another layer of Iran’s official discourse about Russia’s war on Ukraine, it is claimed that this would be another instance demonstrating the decline, if not collapse, of U.S. power.”
• “It seems Moscow has finally abandoned its attempts to hijack the Vienna talks. On March 15, Lavrov claimed Russia had written guarantees from the United States — reportedly assuring full Russian cooperation with Iran under the JCPOA but not necessarily beyond that in case this would clash with sanctions that have been imposed against Russia over its war on Ukraine. Russia may have decided against derailing the nuclear talks because the JCPOA remains in its interest. For example, an Iran freed from many sanctions could help Russia circumvent the onerous sanctions regime it now faces. Indeed, this is quite a reversal from the past, when an Iran under crippling sanctions looked to Russia for support. In sum, a sanctioned Russia and an Iran largely freed from sanctions is opening a new chapter in the tormented history of Iranian–Russian relations.”

War in Ukraine—Military aspects:

“Ukraine’s violent stalemate: how Russia’s offensive became a war of attrition,” Tim Judah, Henry Foy, Ben Hall and John Paul Rathbone, Financial Times, 03.25.22. The news outlet reports:

• “What was supposed to be a lightning Russian ground incursion has shuddered to a halt, crippled by broken supply lines, tactical mistakes, low morale and determined Ukrainian resistance. Russia’s army, the largest in Europe, lacks the manpower and the tactics to punch through Ukrainian defenses. For several days it has made no notable advances. Increasingly the Kremlin is resorting to use of indiscriminate force — missiles, rockets and artillery fired from long distances — to level Ukrainian cities. According to analysts and western officials, Russian forces outside Kyiv this week began to dig in behind defensive positions.”
• “The stalemate may explain why Russia’s top army commanders on Friday said the war had entered a new phase focusing on the eastern Donbas region, where some 40,000 Ukrainian troops risk being encircled by Russian forces. Sergei Rudskoy, head of the Russian army’s main operations directorate of the general staff, said Moscow’s strategy all along had not been to seize Ukraine’s main cities but to distract and weaken its defenses before the ‘full liberation’ of the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.”
• “Western officials and analysts say Russia’s forces may be reaching the so-called point of culmination, where an army weighed down by losses, fatigue and supply problems can no longer advance and fails in its objectives, a theory developed by the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz. ‘Any complex, military heavy force starts to get bogged down, get stuck,’ says Ben Wallace, the U.K. defense minister. ‘You only have to see the open-source pictures of T-80 tanks stuck in the mud in significant numbers, with no one ever around by the looks of things, they seem to have done a runner,’ adds Wallace. ‘Those are all sorts of characteristics of a culminating force.’”

“Piercing the Fog of War: What Is Really Happening in Ukraine?” Graham Allison and Amos Yadlin, The National Interest, 03.24.22. The authors, the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at the Harvard Kennedy School and the former chief of Israel’s Defense Intelligence, write:

• “We ask ourselves—and each other—ten key questions—and force ourselves to write down our best guesses about the answers.”

1. “How is the military war going on the battlefield?  We find it more difficult to make confident judgments than most commentators. In essence, we agree with the ‘senior [Department of Defense] official’ quoted in The New York Times … ‘a very dynamic and active battlefield.’”
2. “Will Russia transition to an aggressive total war? Putin’s disappointment with his army’s initial performance … has given way to increasingly aggressive and brutal moves against civilian buildings and infrastructure.”
3. “When will negotiations end the military campaign? Successful negotiations require that the parties have overlapping ‘zones of agreement.’ At this stage of the fighting, both sides have fortified their positions and think time is on their side.”
4. “What about Zelensky and the future of Ukraine? We cannot imagine Zelensky or any other Ukrainian successor of a rump state formally accepting Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian territory. Nonetheless, they might agree to an end of active fighting along a line of control across from which a Russian puppet government rules in the East.”
5. “If Russia installs a puppet government or annexes part of Ukraine, will a popular resistance develop? We think yes.”
6. “What are the prospects of the war in Ukraine leading to war between NATO and Russia? A NATO-Russia war remains unlikely.
7. “How is Russia employing its cyber capabilities? Like others, we have been surprised by the relative lack of Russian strategic cyber operations.”
8. “How effective are the economic sanctions imposed on Russia? Putin thought that he could build a sanctions-proof Fortress Russia … That theory did not work. The key question is whether Putin will conclude that the costs of continuing the war so far exceed its benefits such that he will turn to a diplomatic path and accept less than he had demanded. At this point, we think that is unlikely to happen soon.”
9. “What are the implications for China and Taiwan? If Russia had achieved a quick victory at low costs, and the West’s response essentially mirrored the sanctions imposed after Crimea, the likelihood of a Chinese move against Taiwan would have increased. … [W]e suspect Beijing is pausing to review its plans for military action against Taiwan.”
10. “Will Putin go nuclear? As of this writing, since we believe that Putin still thinks he can achieve his goals on the battlefield, we see any use of nuclear weapons as highly unlikely. If, however, Putin’s only alternative was humiliating defeat, we fear that this could become a live option.”

“Putin’s Afghanistan. Ukraine and the Lessons of the Soviets’ Afghan War,” Milton Bearden, Foreign Affairs, 03.24.22. 

“Preparing for the Unthinkable in Ukraine: America and Europe Must Be Ready for Russian Biological or Chemical Attacks,” Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshakerm, Foreign Affairs, 03.25.22. 

“Ukraine’s Lessons For Japan: Securing The First Island Chain,” Nozomu Yoshitomi, War on the Rocks, 03.23.22. The author, a retired major general of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, writes:

• “If the Japan Self-Defense Forces and the U.S. Marine Corps establish sea-denial zones on the north and south sides of Taiwan, the U.S. Navy would then be able to focus on conducting operations for broader sea control in the East China Sea and the northern part of the South China Sea. At the same time, U.S. Air Force aircraft can fly there, and the U.S. Army’s Multi-Domain Task Forces with medium- and long-range missiles can deploy there. This posture will have strong impacts on China’s intention and capability to invade Taiwan.”
• “By the end of 2022, Tokyo will revise Japan’s central guiding documents for national security and defense. These documents, the National Security Strategy and National Defense Program Guidelines, were last updated in 2013 and 2018, respectively. Much has changed in the intervening years. Given these changes, especially in PLA capabilities and increasingly assertive and coercive behavior, major revisions to both documents are essential. Ukraine’s lessons for Japan should be also considered. How to carry out robust sea denial around the Southwest Islands needs to be one of the main focuses.

“A Proxy War In Ukraine Is The Worst Possible Outcome—Except For All The Others,” Sam Winter-Levy, War on the Rocks, 03.28.22. The author, a Ph.D. student in politics at Princeton University and the editorial director of the Irregular Warfare Initiative, writes:

• “As the Russian invasion of Ukraine grinds on, the West needs to be clear-eyed about the situation it confronts. It is currently waging a proxy war with Russia—one that poses very real risks of escalation. Western policymakers should not deceive themselves about just how ugly proxy wars tend to be. As it continues to back Ukrainian forces, the Biden administration should continue to carefully calibrate its support against the risk of a wider war, especially as arms supply routes become more limited. It should be prepared to rein in the activity of local allies, if necessary. And at some point, its leverage may help bring about a settlement, one that will require bitter compromises but that may be the only way to preserve an independent Ukraine, end the suffering caused by the war, and lower the risk of a wider conflict. Ultimately, the only options worse than a proxy war are a cheap Russian victory in Ukraine—or a direct confrontation between Russia and the United States.”

"Problems With Russia’s Political Prepwork in the Russo-Ukrainian War," Julian G. Waller, The National Interest, 03.25.22. 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 ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War may only be in its early stages, yet deficiencies in the Russian military campaign have already been noted by political-military analysts in a variety of fora. Among the many elements of the operation that have elicited surprise, the failure to prepare the political ground in Ukraine for a future political settlement is particularly awkward.”
• “This lack of political prepwork has had ramifications for the course of the war, most critically affecting the ease by which Russia can guarantee a satisfactory off-ramp for withdrawal with its strategic aims intact. Failure to pre-position internal political forces to take political authority in the wake of Russian military advances, or even work as a fifth column in preparation for a forced negotiation, has been puzzling and a clear detriment to the Russian war effort.”
• “The lack of political prepwork is so evident that rumors surfaced in early March that the Kremlin intended the disgraced former president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, to take charge after the war’s successful conclusion. It is hard to imagine a less appetizing or realistic political plan than the loser of the 2014 political struggle.”
• “As far as elite political capital for a post-conflict political settlement to Russia’s liking, figures associated with OP-FL remain the most likely. As more territory falls under Russian control, it is certainly plausible that mayors in eastern and southern Ukraine may accept guarantees of peace over a siege. We have now seen one such example in occupied Kherson, where the local city councilwoman Galina Danilchenko has been named as the new Russian-backed mayor. Following the ‘People’s Republic’ playbook, a referendum declaring such a status is rumored to be in preparation.”
• “Yet the lack of preparation for the scenario has left many nominally pro-Russian figures out of position. As the war grinds on, politicians and ambitious figures will continue to emerge from the woodwork without a doubt — yet their absence in the war’s opening stages has undoubtedly complicated Russia’s political designs and the plausibility of their goals to shape a future Ukrainian regime(s) to their liking.”

War in Ukraine—Sanctions:

“No More IMF Subsidies for Dictators,” John Kennedy, The Wall Street Journal, 03.23.22. The author, a U.S. senator, writes:

• “As Mr. Putin prepared to invade a sovereign democracy, the Biden administration continued pushing for more than $17 billion in International Monetary Fund allocations for Moscow.”
• “President Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen ultimately got what they wanted in August, when the IMF doled out more money in one general allocation than ever before. The $650 billion outlay of IMF IOUs backed by the U.S. Treasury … sent money to Moscow while the world watched Mr. Biden abandon Bagram Air Base to the Taliban. Iran gained access to about $4.5 billion through the IMF deal, and China had a windfall of $40 billion.”
• “The White House's most egregious move may be yet to come. The Biden administration purposefully structured the 2021 allocation as a down payment on another flood of special drawing rights this year, totaling $350 billion. Some Democrats asked Ms. Yellen in November to back a tranche of about $2 trillion. In either case, Treasury would again lay tens of billions of dollars at the feet of dictators and terror states. But more free money won't beget better behavior.”
• “Mr. Biden's end-run around Congress left rogue leaders emboldened and enriched. His task now is to get America out of Iran-deal negotiations, force Russia out of Ukraine, and keep China out of Taiwan. He needs to demonstrate resolve. He can start by disavowing future IMF allocations that would pour money into Russia, China, Iran and their like. Let's shut off the IMF spigot to communists and terrorists and make sure it stays shut.”

"Corporate rejection of Russia marks new era of political risk," Nigel Gould-Davies, IISS, 03.25.22. The author, an IISS senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia, and editor of Strategic Survey, writes:

• “Since the war began, dozens of companies across multiple sectors have announced they will leave Russia or suspend business there. … This marks a sea change. In the past, companies did little more than comply with sanctions policy, while quietly lobbying against it. Now they are voluntarily and loudly reinforcing. This reflects a remarkable outpouring of popular support for Ukraine. ... But in the context of wider trends, this corporate boycott is less a novelty than the latest phase in the transformation of political risk. ... demands for ethical responsibility have been codified into an environmental, social and governance (ESG) agenda whose demands are escalating and spreading rapidly.”
• “Three implications follow.”
  • “Firstly, the voluntary corporate boycott of Russia will drastically deepen Russia’s isolation and impose further strain on its economy and society. There are few, if any, substitutes for many of the goods and, especially, services that Western companies have provided. While Russia demands recognition as a great power, its economy remains highly dependent on its adversaries – which, for the first time, now include companies as well as states.”
  • “Secondly, this raises questions for companies that continue to do business with Russia. Company, and even sectoral, responses vary.”
  • “Thirdly, this raises the bar for future responses to unacceptable state conduct. Corporate rejection of Putin’s Russia contrasts starkly with obeisance to China, which has repeatedly compelled companies to change policies and issue apologies for maps or statements they have published on Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang. But since China is a far more significant market and investment partner, the commercial costs of virtue will be higher. How will Western companies react if, for example Beijing invades Taiwan? The new corporate geopolitical activism is a striking development, but will face sterner tests.”
• “If civic regulation demands that any complicity in Russia’s actions be held to account, ethical chains of responsibility will lengthen accordingly and bring critical scrutiny onto other actors. As the ESG agenda escalates, the limits of civic regulation become ever-less clear. In this respect, too, Russia’s war in Ukraine may prove a geopolitical case study in unpredictable and rising political risks.”

War in Ukraine—Great Power rivalry/New Cold War:

"Losing Wars and Saving Face," Lawrence Freedman, Comment is Freed/Substack, 03.24.22. The author, the Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King's College London, writes:

• “Both sides [ed: Russia and Ukraine] have incentives to conclude this war. Channels of communication between the two have been open since early in the war. A number of would-be mediators have tried to identify the basis for a cease-fire. Occasionally there have been hints that progress is being made, and disclosures about possible terms, but no agreed text. Meanwhile, with each passing day, the stakes for the belligerents are going up, along with the levels of distrust.”
• “Those who assumed that Ukraine would be unable to resist the formidable Russian military machine also assumed that Ukraine would therefore have to offer big concessions to escape being crushed. That assumption lingers on in laments that Zelensky and his Western backers are being unrealistic in refusing to recognize the compromises that will need to be made to end the war. If nothing else, according to this argument, without something to show for all this effort Putin dare not withdraw for fear of a loss of face.”
• “It is however extremely difficult to identify a compromise solution that can be made to work. Moreover, as Ukraine is not being crushed, and the tide of war may be turning in its favor, instead of asking Kyiv what is it prepared to do to stop the war, perhaps it is time to direct that question to Moscow.”
• “A cornered leader can be dangerous. He might be tempted to escalate in more terrible ways. But he has put himself in this corner by the way that he launched and conducted this war. We can warn him of the consequences of escalation but we cannot entice him out of his corner with minor concessions. Perhaps it will take a shock on the battlefield to administer a shock to Russia’s political system. Whatever the prompts, in the end, the major concessions necessary to end this war must come out of Moscow, and they will only come with a realistic appreciation of the tragedy which Putin has inflicted on Russia as well as on Ukraine.”

“The prospects for a negotiated peace in Ukraine are bleak,” Hein Goemans, Sarah Croco, Michael Joseph, Alex Weisiger, Thomas M. Dolan and Page Fortna, The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage, 03.24.22. The authors write:

• “At least three hurdles stand in the way of a stable and lasting peace settlement. First, both sides would have to agree on the likely outcome of the war. Second, belligerents face the difficult task of constructing agreements they can trust in the long run. If peace grants one side an opportunity to recuperate and come back stronger, their opponent is unlikely to agree to such terms. And third, even when countries commit to peace, some leaders might still prefer war to ensure their personal political survival.”
• “Leaders who start wars are especially unlikely to accept defeat or even a draw. That’s because their fate is tied to the war and its outcome. … Putin is a personalist dictator. While he is trying to move to a more repressive system, he is not there yet and he has a lot to lose. Almost a third of the personalist dictators who lost a war were removed from office and severely punished, sometimes killed, the research shows. For Putin to stay in power requires the continued support of the strongmen — the siloviki — who are the crucial backbone of his regime. While it’s not clear that this group disapproves of the war, if things continue to deteriorate in Russia, they may change their tune.”
• “All of this leaves little room for optimism. It’s possible that events on the battlefield, or widespread desertion and refusal to serve by Russia’s new April conscription class, would make clear to everyone in Russia that the war cannot be ‘won.’ In the case of such clear evidence that the war is lost, opposition to Putin could coalesce to a degree sufficient to remove him from power. But absent a major battlefield loss for Russia, or major domestic upheaval, in the near future an enduring negotiated settlement is unlikely. Instead, the war could drag on for years, with tens of thousands of casualties.”

“What If Russia Makes a Deal? How to End a War That No One Is Likely to Win,” Liana Fix and Michael Kimmage, Foreign Affairs, 03.23.22. 

“The west is rash to assume the world is on its side over Ukraine,” Edward Luce, Financial Times, 03.24.22. The author, U.S. national editor for the news outlet, writes:

• “Not for the first time, the west is mistaking its own unity for a global consensus. One misleading measure is at the U.N. In the organization’s last tally earlier this month, 141 of 193 member states condemned Vladimir Putin’s blatant violation of international law. But the 35 that abstained account for almost half the world’s population. That includes China, India, Vietnam, Iraq and South Africa. If you add those that voted with Russia, it comes to more than half.”
• “Moreover, many of those nominally against Russia are hedging their bets. … Both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates refused to take Joe Biden’s calls this month when he wanted them to step-up oil production … Last week the UAE hosted an official visit from Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s dictator.”
• “All this may look academic in a few months if Ukraine continues to humiliate Russia and the west can sustain its unity. Everybody loves a winner and the hedging countries would probably tilt back towards the west. The bigger abstainers, such as India … would adjust their stance … But the world’s ambivalence should give Biden and Europe food for thought.”
• “One red flag is the west’s habitual tendency to claim moral leadership. This creates three problems. First, it is hypocritical. U.S. public opinion paid little attention to the horrific carnage in Syria, for which Assad is primarily culpable. … Many in the Muslim world, in particular, think America practices double standards. Thousands of civilians died in Iraq and Afghanistan from U.S. munitions, though they were not deliberately targeted (unlike in Ukraine).”
• “A second point is that the west is rash to assume its values are universal. … A third is that much of the world resents western sanctions. … The western public’s response to Putin’s barbarism has been admirable. But it is inevitably selective. The more western governments grasp how large parts of the world see them, the better able they will be to practice effective diplomacy.”

“Biden called Putin a ‘war criminal.’ That’s risky,” Alexander Downes and Daniel Krcmaric, The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage, 03.24.22. The authors, professors of political science, write:

• “Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine has many crying for justice. In the month since Russia’s invasion, the wheels of international justice are already turning. In early March, the International Criminal Court launched an investigation into possible Russian war crimes in Ukraine. And last week, the United States entered the fray when President Biden labeled Russian President Vladimir Putin a ‘war criminal.’”
• “It is hard to disagree with Biden’s assessment. Putin’s forces have committed horrific abuses during their attack on Ukraine. In the city of Mariupol alone, Russia bombed a maternity hospital and a theater where more than 1,000 civilians were sheltering. For these crimes—and many others—Putin certainly deserves to face justice.”
• “As appealing as it might be to imagine Putin behind bars, threatening him with prosecution carries significant risks. Most notably, it forecloses Putin’s ability to flee abroad in the event of a domestic threat to his rule.”
• “Regardless of what the international community does, it’s doubtful that Putin will leave power, voluntarily or not. But threatening to prosecute him for war crimes lowers the probability even further. Policymakers might still reasonably conclude that trying to prosecute Putin is the most appropriate course of action. But they may wish to be aware of the risks involved.”

"Biden’s Remark on Putin Stirs Anxiety Among Western Allies," Sabrina Siddiqui, Tarini Parti, The Wall Street Journal, 03.27.22. The authors, reporters at the newspaper, write:

• “President Biden’s remark that Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘cannot remain in power’ came under fire for muddying U.S. policy and threatening to undermine diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine. Administration officials and Democratic lawmakers said Sunday the off-the-cuff remark was an emotional response to the president’s interactions in Warsaw with refugees—some of whom had fled violence in Mariupol, a Ukrainian southern port city under weekslong Russian bombardment and attacks on civilians.”
• “European diplomats warned too that Mr. Biden’s comments could threaten Western efforts to keep lines of communications with Moscow open. Still, they said Mr. Biden’s remarks don’t endanger any current peace talks, since Russia has shown little inclination to engage seriously in such negotiations. ‘No one thinks there’s the chance of a diplomatic solution in the next few days or even a few weeks,’ said a senior European Union official. Mr. Putin is ‘going to keep on pushing and trying to overhaul’ the Ukrainian government.”
• “Some analysts warned that the U.S. president’s remark could strengthen Mr. Putin’s hand at home, causing Russians to rally around him and an invasion they may not otherwise support. ‘It’s not the aim of Western policy to get rid of a president of a nuclear-armed nation,’ said Olga Oliker, program director, Europe and Central Asia, at International Crisis Group. ‘That is why the White House walked it back. No, they don’t like Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Putin doesn’t like them. But the goal is to get Russia to leave Ukraine and to put an end to the war.’”
• “Mr. Biden’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, amplified the same point Sunday to reporters in Jerusalem. ‘We do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia, or anywhere else, for that matter. In this case, as in any case, it’s up to the people of the country in question, it’s up to the Russian people,’ he said.”

“The Friend of Our Enemy Is Not a ‘Traitor,’” Peter Beinart, The New York Times, 03.28.22. The author, a journalist and commentator on American foreign policy, writes:

• “Earlier this month, former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News, where they both alleged that the United States was secretly funding dangerous biological research laboratories in Ukraine. Prominent politicians and commentators responded by calling them traitors.”
• “Sometimes the people who challenge American foreign policy are noble. Sometimes they’re loathsome. Either way, calling them traitors is almost always wrong. … Ms. Gabbard and Mr. Carlson’s isolationist, populist and conspiratorial foreign policy views are quintessentially American. As self-styled dissidents, they gain strength by skewering the corruption and insularity of America’s foreign policy elite. Their views are often odious, but calling them disloyal is precisely the wrong way to blunt their appeal.”
• “The genesis of Ms. Gabbard and Mr. Carlson’s opinions about Russia and Ukraine isn’t the Kremlin. It’s the war in Iraq. … [S]he’s made opposition to U.S. military intervention her ideological north star. … Mr. Carlson has traveled a parallel journey. After working early in his career at The Weekly Standard, which aggressively promoted the Iraq invasion, he felt betrayed by the Washington hawks who he claimed had convinced him to support it. “
• “Mr. Carlson and Ms. Gabbard’s views may be marginal in Washington. But as Donald Trump’s election showed, telling Americans they’re being duped by a warmongering, globalist elite can be a potent message. And answering it requires recognizing the way America’s foreign policy establishment fuels populist distrust.”
• “Washington’s military-industrial complex did not orchestrate Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But many of President Biden’s top foreign policy aides did spend their years between government service at either consulting firms funded by defense contractors or think tanks funded by defense contractors. Few politicians acknowledge how unethical that is. By contrast, Ms. Gabbard … calls the defense industry’s political influence a scandal. … Ms. Gabbard and Mr. Carlson have identified a genuine problem: The corruption and lack of accountability that plagues American foreign policy. Addressing that problem will sap their appeal. Calling them traitors will only ensure that it grows.”

“A month into war, Putin’s mind-set is complex — and dangerous,” David Ignatius, The Washington Post, 03.23.22. The author, a columnist for the news outlet, writes:

• “As the Ukraine war nears a month of brutal fighting, Vladimir Putin is obsessed with Ukraine, angry at his generals, paranoid about enemies at home and abroad, and wrapping his bloody deeds in spiritual language almost mystical in its vision of Russia’s past and future.”
• “Astonishingly, he quoted the Bible to justify his blitzkrieg: ‘I recall the words from the Holy Scripture: Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’ Putin’s words sound perverse, even blasphemous, to us in the West. Putin’s army has bombed maternity hospitals, shopping malls and opera houses in Ukraine. But this twisted version is evidently what Putin believes. Putin’s religiosity is a little noted but powerful part of his personality.”
• “Take a good look at the face of the West’s adversary in Ukraine. Putin does not appear to be simply a bully or an opportunist, who can be swayed by economic pressure or vanquished by arms. He believes deeply in the evil that he is doing. He sees the destruction of an independent Ukraine almost as a religious duty. Two obvious warnings emerge from this narrative: Handle the volatile mix that is Putin with care, lest it explode in a far wider war. And do not let him succeed.”

“Putin Can't Think He's Won This War,” Kaja Kallas, The New York Times, 03.24.22. The Prime Minister of Estonia writes:

• “First, we must help Ukraine in every possible way. The people of Ukraine have not tired, and neither can we. True, Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine has galvanized us into action. Allies and partners have made decisions with remarkable determination and unity. But now is the time to go the extra mile. Ukrainian soldiers are able fighters, but they need weapons and matériel … Defensive military aid must be our top priority, and we must commit ourselves to it for the long haul.”
• “Second, we must show the aggressor that we are ready to defend ourselves and, if need be, to fight. Sometimes the best way to achieve peace is to be willing to use military strength. To do so, we need to strengthen our collective defense, especially on the alliance's eastern flank that borders Russia.”
• “Third, we must paralyze the Kremlin's war machine. We must do so not only to end the bloodshed and occupation in Ukraine but also to disarm Russia economically, to prevent Mr. Putin from further expanding the war. At the heart of the machine is oil and gas. Last year exports from hydrocarbons amounted to roughly 40 percent of the Russian state budget, and this year they're likely to turn into the biggest source. Our focus must be on drying up these revenues.”
• “Stopping the Kremlin's aggression will require time and a lot of effort. But as NATO members, Europeans and human beings, we cannot flinch from that task.”

“Measuring Out Putin’s Defeat in Ukraine. The Russian leader has run out of escalations that wouldn’t invite greater opposition and isolation,” Holman W. Jenkins, Jr, The Wall Street Journal, 03.25.22. The author, a member of the news outlet’s editorial board, writes:

• “Militarily, the battle lines have become static in the last two weeks. … At home, Kremlin propaganda began hinting that the goal all along had been to ‘liberate’ those parts of Ukraine Russia had already occupied since 2014, with the new line becoming official at a Friday briefing.”
• “Economically, where the long-term damage is being done to Vladimir Putin’s regime and likely won’t be reversed in a decade or more, the initiative belongs to the allies. Consider Mr. Putin’s feeble attempt this week to leverage Germany’s and Europe’s fear over their natural-gas supplies without actually threatening their gas supplies, demanding they start paying their bills in rubles rather than euros or U.S. dollars. … If he believed escalation in the energy war could get him out of his mess, he would shut it off now or at least issue an ultimatum demanding that the Europeans stop arming Ukraine. He hasn’t.”
• “Mr. Putin has run out of possible escalations that wouldn’t just make his situation worse, such as unleashing a nuclear, biological or chemical weapon, or withholding energy exports, or aiming a destructive cyberattack at one or more NATO countries.”
• “Even more crucially, Mr. Putin would risk exhausting the Chinese tolerance on which his regime and personal survival now depend. Russia has become North Korea: As noxious as the Pyongyang regime may be to Beijing, China has been willing to bear almost any headache to avoid its client being overthrown lest the example infect the minds of 1.4 billion Chinese.”
• “Right now, Mr. Putin and his regime seem likely to survive the Ukraine debacle, at least in the short term. But there is no end in sight that doesn’t leave him in far worse shape than when he started. This, I suspect, is a perfectly satisfactory outcome for the Western allies, with the details of any eventual cease-fire being distinctly secondary. Those details aren’t secondary to 44 million Ukrainians … The world’s problems with Mr. Putin won’t be done until he’s done, no matter how the next chapter of the Ukraine fight plays out.”

“Will Russia Create New “People’s Republics” In Ukraine?” Andrew Lohsen, War on the Rocks, 03.25.22. The author, a fellow in the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, writes:

• “A month into its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has a problem: The expectation that it would quickly achieve regime change and forced demilitarization through limited engagements proved overly optimistic. Russian combat units are sustaining high casualty rates and equipment losses as Vladimir Putin’s ‘special military operation’ turns into a grinding war of attrition. As Michael Kofman noted in the most recent episode of the War on the Rocks podcast, for Russia to salvage any claim of victory, Moscow might be looking to revise its war aims downward. If Putin is contemplating how he might snatch some sort of achievable victory from his shambolic military campaign, he might be considering Russian-held areas in southern and eastern Ukraine.”
• “So far, Russia has adhered to its 2014 playbook to administer areas wrested from Kyiv’s control. If it continues to follow that playbook, Russia might establish new pseudo-states similar to the separatist Donetsk and Luhansk ‘people’s republics.’ But this depends on how the Kremlin redefines its goals in Ukraine and whether it can overcome operational challenges that were not present eight years ago.”
• “If Russia retains control over southern Ukraine and proceeds to create new pseudo-states there, Western policymakers should act decisively. … First, they should support Ukraine in holding puppet leaders accountable and deterring would-be collaborators. … Second, Western policymakers should make occupation costly, both economically and militarily. … Third, they should support Ukrainians living in occupied areas by neutralizing Russian disinformation used to justify the establishment of new ‘people’s republics,’ transmitting objective information into these areas, and keeping functional the secure communication platforms used to coordinate actions of civil resistance.” 

"Putin Misunderstands History. So, Unfortunately, Does the U.S.," Niall Ferguson, Bloomberg Opinion, 03.22.22. The author, a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, writes: 

• “According to [the New York Times’ David] Sanger, who cannot have written his piece without high-level sources, the Biden administration ‘seeks to help Ukraine lock Russia in a quagmire without inciting a broader conflict with a nuclear-armed adversary or cutting off potential paths to de-escalation.’”
• “Reading this carefully, I conclude that the U.S. intends to keep this war going. … I have evidence from other sources to corroborate this. ‘The only end game now,’ a senior administration official was heard to say … earlier this month, ‘is the end of Putin regime…’ I gather that senior British figures are talking in similar terms. … It helps explain, among other things, the lack of any diplomatic effort by the U.S. to secure a cease-fire.  It also explains the readiness of President Joe Biden to call Putin a war criminal.” 
• “It would indeed be wonderful if the combination of attrition in Ukraine and a sanctions-induced financial crisis at home led to Putin’s downfall. … It is, when you come to think of it, archetypal Realpolitik to allow the carnage in Ukraine to continue; to sit back and watch the heroic Ukrainians ‘bleed Russia dry’; to think of the conflict as a mere sub-plot in Cold War II.”
• “The optimism … is the assumption that allowing the war to keep going will necessarily undermine Putin’s position; and that his humiliation in turn will serve as a deterrent to China. I fear these assumptions may be badly wrong… Betting on a Russian revolution is betting on an exceedingly rare event, even if the war continues to go badly for Putin.”
• “I fail to see in current Western strategizing any real recognition of how badly this war could go for Ukraine in the coming weeks. The incentive for Putin is obviously to create for himself a stronger bargaining position … before entering into serious negotiations.” 
• “In my view—and I really would love to be wrong about this—the Biden administration is making a colossal mistake in thinking that it can protract the war in Ukraine, bleed Russia dry, topple Putin and signal to China to keep its hands off Taiwan. … Allowing Ukraine to be bombed to rubble by Putin is not smart; it creates the chance for him to achieve his goal of rendering Ukrainian independence unviable.” 

"Washington Can’t Treat Russia as It Does North Korea," Ted Galen Carpenter, The National Interest, 03.25.22. The author, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute

• “Insistence on Russia’s capitulation and humiliation virtually guarantee that the war in Ukraine will continue to rage on, causing a rising toll of casualties on both sides. The Kremlin will have little incentive to reach a compromise peace if there are no significant benefits to be gained. Conversely, a promise that Russia’s international and political status will be restored as soon as the fighting ends would create an inducement for Moscow to compromise and seek an early truce.”
• “Pursuing a strategy of isolating Russia diplomatically and economically over the long term amounts to trying to replicate the U.S.-led policy toward North Korea that has produced decidedly unsatisfactory results.”
• “Applying the same rigid, misguided approach to a country that is one of the world’s major powers and already possesses several thousand nuclear weapons would be much worse. However angry they might be, the United States and its allies must not seek to treat Russia as an international pariah.”
• “The good news is that even making such an attempt is almost certain to fail. U.S. and other Western leaders already are reacting with disappointment and annoyance because other important countries, such as China, India, and South Africa, declined to join the anti-Russia crusade. Some of them have even refrained from explicitly condemning Russia’s invasion. When it comes to implementing tangible sanctions, the resistance is far stronger and more pervasive.”
• “ U.S. and NATO leaders need to take a deep breath and develop a strategy to restore the West’s relations with Russia to normal as soon as possible. That modification may need to include easing some sanctions even before the fighting in Ukraine comes to an end. Above all, NATO governments must convey a message to the Kremlin that the West’s long-term strategy does not amount to Cold War 2.0. Such a myopic, confrontational approach would not only do lasting damage to the global economy, it would significantly increase the chances of a catastrophic military collision.” 

"The Aftermath of the War in Ukraine," Hugh De Santis, The National Interest, 03.22.22. The author, who was responsible for NATO and arms control on the Policy Planning Staff of Secretary of State George Shultz, and later directed the European Security Project at Carnegie Endowment and chaired the Department of National Security Strategy at the National War College, writes:

• “The Biden administration believes that the reason Russia has invaded Ukraine is ideological. It maintains that President Vladimir Putin aims to destroy Ukrainian democracy because it poses a threat to his autocratic rule. … This position’s unstated assumption is that Putin would not have attacked Ukraine if it had been less democratic or had remained more closely tied to Russia. A compliant Ukraine would surely have lessened the likelihood of an invasion, but it would not necessarily have precluded it.”
• “As a matter of power politics, what Putin seeks is to assert his control over Ukraine and other former constituent republics of the Soviet Union and recoup some of the territory lost after the Cold War. He has long reviled the dismemberment of the Soviet Union and the eastward expansion of NATO to Russia’s borders.”
• “The United States has been an unwitting accomplice in Russia’s belligerence. … In the heady days that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, President George H.W. Bush and his successors, even as they envisioned a more cooperative relationship with Moscow, trumpeted their Cold War success and the dawn of a U.S.-centered world order it signified.”
• “For Putin, however, then a KGB officer in Germany, the end of the Cold War horrifyingly truncated Russia, leading to the collapse of its economy and its dependence on Western goodwill. As he wrote in his 2000 book, First Person, Russia had disappeared, as if it had never existed. … Despite Putin’s blistering criticism of NATO expansion at the Munich Security Conference in 2007, Bush overrode allied opposition and, a year later, committed to bringing Ukraine and Georgia into NATO.”
• “Intent on leaving a legacy as the defender of a great people, Putin will need to extol a peace agreement to his public as the restoration of Russian power and pride. Washington and its NATO allies should allow him that narcissistic riff. With any luck, Russia’s future relations with the West will be led by politicians for whom national prestige will be defined by their contribution to the stability of a rules-based system of international relations.”

"Can America and NATO Avoid a Broader War Over Ukraine?" Christopher Layne, The National Interest, 03.22.22. The author, a professor of International Affairs and Robert M. Gates Chair in National Security at Texas A&M University, writes:

• “By supplying Ukraine with weapons, ammunition, and intelligence the United States and NATO are waging a proxy war against Russia. And in his speech to Congress, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky pulled on America’s heartstrings in a plea for Washington to ‘do more.’ That is, to deepen U.S. involvement. But the United States and NATO already are pushing their support for Ukraine into a danger zone where the risk of a direct U.S./NATO confrontation with Russia is rising. At the same time, negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow suggest a diplomatic resolution of the war is within reach. It is to this effort to end the war that Washington’s energies should be focused.”
• “In the early days of the Iraq war, Gen. David Petraeus famously asked, ‘Tell me how this ends?’ As the New York Times reported, with respect to Ukraine the ‘question resonating around the White House is more like: ‘Tell me how we don’t get sucked into a superpower conflict.’ The answer to that question, of course, is a negotiated end to the war. But for the Biden administration, this is not a straightforward proposition.”
• “Having described Putin as a ‘murderous dictator,’ Washington’s endorsement of a peace accord may be dismissed as ‘appeasement’ by domestic critics. Moreover, for the United States, the stakes in Ukraine radiate outward to East Asia.”
• “The Biden administration is using this war to send a signal about American resolve and credibility to Beijing. And, in so doing, to preserve the so-called liberal rules-based ‘international order that the United States created after World War II.”
• “The administration has backed itself into its own corner. With these stakes believed to be on the line, Washington is likely to reject any outcome in Ukraine that appears to get Putin off the hook. This augurs badly for the chances of de-escalating and resolving the Ukraine conflict.”

"The Unexpected Consequences of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine," Muqtedar Khan, The National Interest, 03.22.22. The author, a professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware, writes:

• “Most of the dominant explanations of why this war is happening are relying on either constructivism or on psychology.”
  • “Constructivists are arguing that the Russian president Vladimir Putin has a vision of a Russian imperium that sees both Russians and Ukrainians as members of the same ethnoreligious civilization — ethnically Slav and religiously Christian orthodox … Russian invasion is, therefore, in defense of this shared civilization.”
  • “The Biden administration and its allies have floated the theory that Putin has gone insane partly from frustration and partly from pandemic-related isolation. This invasion is indicative that he has lost his grip on reason and reality. But this is unpersuasive. … If indeed they did, then they would seek to pacify not aggravate him, to take the madman’s finger off the nuclear trigger.”
• “I am convinced that the constructivist arguments have merit. Civilizational and theological concerns are indeed playing a role in Putin’s thinking about what is in peril by NATO’s expansion. But there seems to be an effort not to examine how NATO’s persistent eastern expansion and the West’s military relations with Ukraine may have triggered a security dilemma and Russian response. … The madman rhetoric precludes the discussion of the failures of the liberal order and liberal IR theories.”
• “While the global horizon appears gloomy, there is one favorable development for the United States. At the end of this conflict, we will have a much-diminished Russia and much scared Europe. The former will be less of a challenge to the United States, and the latter will be more firmly committed to NATO, more in need of U.S. military presence and leadership. And don’t forget booming demand for U.S. weapons. Between Finland and Germany alone the United States has already received orders for ninety-nine F-35 jet fighters. Let us hope the war ends soon, sanity prevails, and the unleashed demons die before they become unmanageable crises.”

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

"Why China Won’t Break With Russia Over Ukraine," Alexander Lukin, The National Interest, 03.28.22. The author, director of the international relations department at Moscow's Higher School of Education, writes:

• “The idea that China considers Russia’s reaction to be excessive is indicated in particular by the fact that, in recent statements, Chinese officials have formulated their position in such a way that many can interpret it as a criticism not only of the United States and NATO for their power politics but also of other states, including Russia. China achieves this non-committal middle way by leaving certain subjects of criticism unspecified.”
• “Overall, it seems that Beijing has not yet formed its final position, which may be subject to change throughout the conflict; however, its principal features are clear.”
  • “On the one hand, China’s principled approach to protecting the territorial integrity of all states remains unchanged.”
  • “On the other hand, Russia is a highly important partner of China in its confrontation with the United States, which has done a great deal in recent years to make Beijing understand that this confrontation is serious and set to last for a long time.”
• “Consequently, current U.S. calls for China to assist in attempts to asphyxiate Moscow cannot have been received positively in Beijing, where they are well aware that, once the United States and NATO have finished with Moscow, they will redouble their efforts to rein in a solitary China. The United States will not be able to intimidate Beijing into changing its stance on Russia through anti-Chinese sanctions, since China would find the adoption of an anti-Russian policy self-defeating.”
• “China does not stand to gain from a weakening of Russia. It is far more likely that Beijing will provide it with all possible assistance whilst trying to avoid the secondary effect of U.S. sanctions, for which it can make certain concessions in more sensitive areas, such as banking, whilst also persuading Russia to resolve the situation as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, close collaboration with Russia in the future will depend more on purely geopolitical interests than on a common vision of world order.”

“Beijing Gains From the Ukraine Invasion,” Dan Blumenthal, The Wall Street Journal, 03.28.22. The author, director of Asian studies at the American Enterprise Institute, writes:

• “Beijing is taken aback by Russian military failures. The war will surely lead Mr. Xi to question his military's ability to attack Taiwan. Yet Mr. Xi has long heralded a new era in international relations that overturns the U.S.-made world order. Mr. Putin signed on to this agenda in the Chinese-Russian Joint Statement of Feb. 4. From Beijing's perspective, a new international politics is emerging.”
• “It turns out that the Sino-Russian Joint Statement was less an aspiration than a description of the current state of international relations. With so many countries staying on the sidelines in the wake of the Ukraine invasion, China has an opportunity to build greater support for its anti-American vision. Over the past decade, Russia has done much of this work by providing arms and extending its influence. China will also exploit distaste for promiscuous use of U.S. sanctions and American hectoring on human rights.”
• “China hasn't miscalculated. It was right about the geopolitical fundamentals. And since few countries joined the West in resisting Russian aggression against a sovereign nation, Beijing may conclude that fewer still would punish it for an attack on Taiwan, which most of the world doesn't recognize as a country. Washington must urgently make a sustained diplomatic case to its partners that such an attack would devastate international security and prosperity. China doesn't need allies to support its aggressive plans. It merely needs nations to stay neutral, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine has given China more confidence that most of the world will stay on the sidelines.”

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

“Let’s Curb Loose Talk of Using Lower-Yield Nuclear Weapons,” Joseph Cirincione, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, 03.24.22. The author, a distinguished non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute, writes:

• “Vladimir Putin would not detonate a nuclear weapon if he were winning his war in Ukraine. Using nuclear weapons is a loser’s move. It is an act of desperation. Which is exactly why the nuclear risks grow as Putin searches for ways to regain momentum in his stalled offensive.”
• “What do we do to lower the risks? ‘Assemble the elders,’ says Tannenwald, meaning that we need experienced, senior leaders to reinforce the barriers to any nuclear use. She cites the testimony of former Secretary of Defense James Mattis. ‘I do not think there is any such thing as a tactical nuclear weapon,’ he told Congress in 2018, ‘Any nuclear weapon use any time is a strategic game changer.’”
• “Having senior validators speak publicly and clearly about the dangers could encourage President Joe Biden to declare that the United States and NATO have no intention of using a nuclear weapon first in this conflict, as former White House official Jon Wolfsthal recommends, thereby strengthening the norm against use.”
• “In the longer term, we must change our attitude toward these weapons, understanding that nuclear weapons are not our greatest strength but our greatest weakness. ‘The U.S. nuclear arsenal does nothing for us in this conflict. It did not keep Mr. Putin out of Ukraine,’ writes Ploughshares Fund Policy Director Tom Collina. ‘Because he is willing to use the threat of nuclear war to deter intervention in Ukraine, the existence of nuclear weapons, if anything, helped enable him.’”
• “We need a chorus of wiser voices to still the cries of the nuclear warriors and calm journalistic nuclear voyeurism. Former officials could have their statements join calls from anti-nuclear activists, advocates for restraint, and all those who understand that any nuclear use is unnecessary, immoral, and unacceptable. We must hold this line.”

Counter-terrorism:

“Exploding 'kamikaze' drones are ushering in a new era of warfare in Ukraine,” Gerrit De Vynck, Pranshu Verma and Jonathan Baran, The Washington Post, 03.24.22. The news outlet reports:

• “Recently photos surfaced on social media of a roughly four-foot-wide tan, airplane-shaped drone that had fallen out of the sky in the Kyiv region, crashing into the sandy ground. While that one failed to explode on impact, the images verified by The Washington Post provide some of the first evidence Russia is using a new and terrifying weapon in its war against Ukraine: a killer drone that can dive bomb into targets, destroying them with little notice.”
• “The Russian kamikaze drones, also known as loitering munitions, will soon be joined on the battlefield by ones sent to Ukrainian forces by the United States, making the war the largest direct conflict between two countries in which they've been deployed on both sides. Researchers who specialize in the field say it shows that these drones are becoming the norm in modern warfare, and are likely to make the conflict more deadly and unpredictable.”
• “The widespread rollout of loitering munition drones has lead some of the warfare experts to warn about the potential for these tools to fall into the wrong hands, like terrorists. They're particularly useful for assassination attempts, Lee said, pointing to when Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was unsuccessfully targeted by two Chinese made DJIM600 drone's strapped with C-4 explosives.”

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant developments.

Cyber security:

"Learning the Right Cybersecurity Lessons From Putin," Christopher Whyte, Foreign Policy, 03.24.22.  The author, an assistant professor in the homeland security and emergency preparedness program in the Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University, writes:

• “Scholars and practitioners alike would do well not to forget the micro-foundations of cyberconflict behaviors.”
• “On the one hand, there exists sufficient evidence to think that internal political machinations and culture in Moscow dictated Russia’s minimal use of cybertactics in Ukraine.”
• “On the other, the odd juxtaposition in the effectiveness of nonstate actors — i.e., a noteworthy pro-Ukrainian groundswell of active cybersupport and an oddly stuttering response from Russia-affiliated actors often thought to be among the most dangerous in the digital world — has shaped an unexpected dimension of Putin’s war that has real foreign-policy relevance. These nonstate developments, in particular, would have been hard to foresee using arguments that center on the utility of cyberweapons alone.”
• “As such, the message here is simple. General principles about the practicality of cyber-operations only tell us what is likely. Parochial political, social, and institutional contexts determine what transpires.”

Energy exports from CIS:

"Why the U.S. Can’t Quickly Wean Europe From Russian Gas," Clifford Krauss, The New York Times, 03.25.22. The author, 

energy business correspondent for the news outlet, writes:

• " President Biden announced Friday that the United States would send more natural gas to Europe to help it break its dependence on Russian energy. But that plan will largely be symbolic, at least in the short run, because the United States doesn’t have enough capacity to export more gas and Europe doesn’t have the capacity to import significantly more."
• "The United States has plenty of natural gas, much of it in shale fields from Pennsylvania to the Southwest. Gas bubbles out of the ground with oil from the Permian Basin ... and producers there are gradually increasing their output of both oil and gas after greatly reducing production in the first year of the pandemic, when energy prices collapsed. But the big problem with sending Europe more energy is that natural gas, unlike crude oil, cannot easily be put on oceangoing ships. The gas has to first be chilled in an expensive process at export terminals, mostly on the Gulf Coast. The liquid gas is then poured into specialized tankers. When the ships arrive at their destination, the process is run in reverse to convert LNG back into gas."
• "A large export or import terminal can cost more than $1 billion, and planning, obtaining permits and completing construction can take years. There are seven export terminals in the United States and 28 large-scale import terminals in Europe, which also gets LNG from suppliers like Qatar and Egypt. Some European countries, including Germany, have until recently been uninterested in building LNG terminals because it was far cheaper to import gas by pipeline from Russia. Germany is now reviving plans to build its first LNG import terminal on its northern coast."
• "While reducing demand would help, some climate scientists and activists are worried that the Biden administration’s and European Union’s focus on building L.N.G. terminals could deal a grievous blow to the effort to address global warming by encouraging the use of fossil fuels."

Climate change:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

• No significant developments.

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

"The Making of Vladimir Putin: Tracing Putin’s 22-year slide from statesman to tyrant," Roger Cohen, The New York Times, 03.28.22. 

"We must win the struggle for the minds of the Russian people," Mikhail Khorodrkovsky, Financial Times, 03.26.22. The author, an exiled Russian businessman and member of the Anti-War Committee of Russia, writes:

• “Russian society is at risk of becoming not simply a hostage to the Kremlin’s fascist ideas and crimes, but an accomplice. This would be an extremely dangerous development, not only giving the Kremlin a mandate for continuing aggression, but actually encouraging it.”
• “We will win the struggle for the minds of the Russian people, defeating not only Putin, but the very phenomenon of Putinism. For this, we—Ukrainians, Russians, Britons, western Europeans, Americans—need to understand that this is not just a war against Ukraine, this is the first stage of a new struggle pitting democracy against fascism and dictatorship. It is in our hands to ensure that it will be the last.”

"Putin Has Coup-Proofed His Regime," Adam E. Casey, Foreign Policy, 03.23.22. The author, a postdoctoral fellow at the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies at the University of Michigan, writes:

• “With fresh wartime horrors every day and no obvious route to peace, it’s tempting to imagine a swift, decisive end via Putin’s removal. But this might be as mistaken as Putin’s own hopes of a decapitation strike in Ukraine were. Putin, the product of a ruthless security system himself, has been preparing for the risks posed by a palace or military coup since he came into power in 1999. The Russian coercive apparatus has multiple mechanisms to prevent a coup. If Putin is to fall from power, it is likely to come from elite defection rather than a premeditated coup.”
• “But for decades Putin has also cultivated an environment where the Russian military has few incentives to launch a coup. After neglect and decline under President Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s military has been pleased with the resources it has received to fund a large-scale modernization. While this brought Putin support before the war, the conflict has demonstrated the toll the corruption in this modernization process has wrought on the effectiveness of the military. ... If all of this weren’t enough, Putin’s regime also maintains a series of well-armed security services with formidable intelligence collection capacities outside the regular army and Rosgvardia. Were they to attempt a coup, the plot might be discovered and resisted from these agencies.”
• “Authoritarian regimes appear to be very stable until suddenly they are not. Putin’s regime is not likely to be an exception. While a coup may be unlikely, it is of course not impossible. The odds are certainly higher than at any other point in Putin’s reign. Yet Putin’s greatest risk comes not from a coup but from elite defection.”
• “Like his old ally Yanukovych, Putin may find that he cannot effectively order sufficient security service repression to stave off protests. Resignations may increase into a cascade of defections by key elites in his regime anxious to not sink with the ship. While the costs of resigning could be serious, they likely pale in comparison to the risks of a failed coup. While they might not oust him themselves, his security services may not save him.”

“The West thinks that Russians, suffering from sanctions, will end up abandoning Putin—but history indicates they won’t,” Julia Khrebtan-Hörhager and Evgeniya Pyatovskaya, The Conversation, 03.18.22. The authors, a professor at Colorado State University and a PhD candidate at University of South Florida, write:  

• “[T]hose who think that sanctions will turn Russia and Russians around and end the war know very little about the country, its history and its people. Russians are used to turmoil and instability. … Russians cannot be scared by a sanctions-induced absence of goods. … Historically, any political and economic struggle united Russia and its people, especially in the face of a common enemy. The enemy was traditionally represented by the West.”
• “World War II and the Cold War united the nation around the idea of self-sacrifice as central to the Soviet identity. The identity—a kind of Soviet exceptionalism—consisted of a morally superior nation that values the ephemeral Soul … more than the perishable Western flesh. … The USSR used pompous discourse that glorified Soviet sameness and the moral sacrifice of its people as a trigger for patriotism and loyalty to the motherland, whose core was Russia.”
• “We believe the West’s sanction strategy could backfire. Not all Russians support the war in Ukraine and the government that dragged them into it. But all Russians are suffering from the sanctions and the crisis. Their common suffering … makes them angry, and some are eager to strike back. … Western freedoms are only partially appealing, since historically, Russians never had them – not freedom of speech, self-determination, religion nor unrestricted travel.”
• “Where does that leave the Russians? From our perspective, in a deep limbo: The country-aggressor that is currently bombing and destroying Ukraine is also their beloved homeland, and by now the only place in the world that accepts them as they are. … We believe the chances that Russians will turn toward their government—as they feel rejected by the global community—are high.”
• “That will likely lead to the intensifying of Putin’s autocratic regime under the guise of restoring the country’s industry and economy in the face of Western rejection. Russia will have a common enemy again, and because thinking—and acting—disobediently in Russia typically has drastic consequences, dissent will not be heard.” 
• “Encouraging Russians to protest their autocratic government, as the West has done, while cutting ties with them, thus becomes an ideological oxymoron. It is punishing the people for what that government does while suffocating them economically.” 

"On why Russian military casualties may not turn Russians against the war," Jade McGlynn, Twitter, 03.26.22. The author, a senior researcher on Russian media and memory for Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies (MIR), writes:

• “Several people have put it to me that surely, once lots of young Russian men start coming back in body bags, Russians will turn against the war. I am not so convinced. … There are lots of stories of Russians refusing to believe the truth about Ukraine from their relatives, or even their own POW sons.”
• “Lots of people believe the Kremlin propaganda because it is easier and more preferable to admitting or accepting you are the bad guys. Now, imagine accepting your son died in a pointless war and that he was part of a genocidal campaign? It is natural, anyone would try to resist believing that, especially when the entirety of the state is offering you a much more consolatory version and when you can’t really do anything about the situation so avenging your son or acknowledging your anger is pointless & dangerous. So instead you become even more attached to the myths and propaganda of brave Russian heroes fighting Nazis. Bc you want your son to have died for something epic, not for nothing.”
• “This same process will happen to many sectors and groups of people in Russia. For example, those who will lose their life savings and business or lifestyle due to the war and sanctions. It is much easier and nicer to accept this loss as a sacrifice, in the name of an epic civilizational fight against fascism, that it is your part in defeating a new Hitler, than to accept everything you ever worked for disappeared because of the sick fantasies of an ex-KGB agent.”
• “This is yet another way for the Kremlin, Putin, to make ordinary Russians complicit. They become invested in the lies and in the continuation of this horrific war. Until victory at whatever price and in whatever guise so long as it justifies the loss.”
• “It’d be hard to face reality even with support. So in an atmosphere where the government is terrorizing even mild opposition, ppl are unlikely to resist the comfort of lies+myth. Which is why I think young Russian boys in body bags will harden rather than change [ed: Russian] opinions.”

"Moscow’s Manipulated Memory Politics and Attack on Ukraine," Marat Iliyasov, PONARS Eurasia, 03.19.22. The author, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Political Science at the Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia (CREECA) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, writes:

• “Russia’s memory politics, coupled with President Vladimir Putin’s desire to preserve his own power, made a direct military clash almost inevitable.”
• “Putin’s government put much effort into constructing a new Russian identity by utilizing narratives about the Great Patriotic War and promoting the memories of Russian and Soviet glory. It also encourages obliterating the memory of shame for Soviet crimes against humanity. This identity has been reinvigorated, as Gulnaz Sharafutdinova puts it, by the entrenchment of an idea of the ‘besieged fortress,’ which portrays Russia as a country surrounded by enemies.”
• “The success of memory politics is difficult to measure, but the fact that Putin’s popularity soared after the annexation of Crimea in 2014 demonstrates that it had an effect on a large percentage of the Russian population. This success is explicable by two interrelated factors: 1) a certain nostalgia that persisted and that was nurtured by Putin’s memory politics among the Russian population regarding the powerful position of the Soviet Union on the world stage, and 2) disappointment with liberal values from the 1990s and a negative or confrontational attitude toward the West. Both factors suggest that the Russian electorate is or was ready to trade some personal material comforts in exchange for greater Russian state power.”
• “Russian memory politics is based on two main principles: it cherishes the memory of Soviet glory and suggests obliterating the memory of shame. This memory politics led to a new Russian identity, which is based on the anti-liberal values of the Soviet era. The return to a Soviet-style collective identity constrained Putin’s choices in international politics. To maintain his own popularity and secure his position in power, he had to back his anti-Western rhetoric with actions. An efficient, victorious war in Ukraine, which does not have NATO protection, would suit the goal. However, Ukraine’s defiance coupled with the unified support of the West produced the opposite effect: Putin’s position is now more vulnerable than ever.”

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:

"Russia’s war in Ukraine galvanizes extremists globally," Isaac Stanley-Becker and Souad Mekhennet, The Washington Post, 03.27.22. The authors, reporters at the newspaper, write:

• “Europe's largest land war since 1945 has brought nationalist passions back with a vengeance. In launching his assault, Russian President Vladimir Putin invoked ethno-nationalist principles of blood and culture, denying the existence of an independent Ukraine. Leaders in Kyiv, responding to the aggression, have welcomed armed nationalist factions into the fold, among them the far-right Azov Battalion.”
• “The clashing nationalist appeals have inspired extremists in other countries to take sides in the fight — and to seek combat experience that could incite conflict far from today's front line. Nowhere does that raise louder alarms than in Germany, where making amends for Nazi crimes has meant subordinating national aims to those of a multinational European community. Now, the month-long war has galvanized hardliners, from neo-Nazis supporting paramilitary factions to militant Islamists who see cracks in Western power.”
• “In Germany, the number of far-right extremists crossing into Ukraine is still minimal, according to Germany's Interior Ministry. So far, just 27 either have traveled to Ukraine or made plans to do so, authorities said this week, out of an estimated 33,300 far-right extremists, with 13,000 assessed to be inclined to violence.”
• “Extremists not joining the fight are nevertheless using it to spread propaganda. … Others are Islamist extremists who are using the war to highlight what they see as Western hypocrisy. … Some Islamist extremists have backed Ukraine, condemning Chechen Muslim fighters who have taken up arms for Putin, according to analysis by the Anti-Defamation League. Others see both sides as nonbelievers and are encouraging their mutual annihilation. Meanwhile, there are white supremacists decrying the conflict as a war between ‘brothers,’ saying there is no advantage in the deaths of fellow White people.”
• “That the war divides opinions within extremist groups, however, could undermine its potency as a tool of radicalization, some experts said. The disunity … stands in stark contrast to the consensus forged by hostility to public health measures aimed at controlling the spread of COVID-19.”

"Are Europeans Ready to Pay the Price for Ukraine’s Sovereignty?" Judy Dempsey, Carnegie Europe, 03.24.22. The author, a non-resident senior fellow at the organization, asks several experts their opinions on whether EU solidarity with Ukraine may begin to wane with energy prices rising. Responses include:

• Jan C. Behrend, history professor at Viadrina University: “Here in Germany, it is still widely believed that we can somehow muddle through this war without major sacrifices. That’s simply not going to happen. But this dangerous state of denial persists. Instead of putting the economy first, we need to understand that it is in Europe’s best interest to first and foremost support Ukraine in any way possible. Berlin needs to think in terms of the American Lend-Lease Act of 1941 that supplied the UK with much-needed weapons. Instead of more failed Merkelism, Berlin needs a strong dose of Rooseveltian determination.”
• Thomas De Waalsenior, fellow at Carnegie Europe: “If Russia continues on its current brutal path, European solidarity will surely hold. The hard part will come, I suspect, if Putin’s operation goes from bad to worse and he tries to do a deal. He might offer, for example, to leave Ukraine’s sovereignty more or less intact—perhaps minus Crimea and Donbas — and ask for sanctions relief in return. That might split the EU. But relations with Russia will never be the same again. Of all the actions the EU has taken the pledge made at Versailles ‘to make Europe independent from Russian fossil fuels’ is surely the most important.”
• Maria Domańskasenior, fellow at the Center for Eastern Studies in Warsaw: “Russia’s invasion may lead to a worldwide food crisis and has already led to the biggest refugee crisis since World War II. We need to deter Russia. Failing to withstand the aggression invites more of it. We need a sovereign and secure Ukraine to protect our own homes. Growing food or energy prices is the lowest price we can pay. This war has started because we did not want to pay the price in 2014.”
• Alena Kudzkovice, president of the Globsec Policy Institute in Bratislava: “Europe has the upper hand in any war of economic attrition with Russia. But people will need to see that Europe is winning and that a long-term strategy is in place to both effectively respond to Russia and strengthen the economy at home.”

"Purchasing from a pariah: India’s arms-acquisition dilemma," Douglas Barrie, Viraj Solanki, IISS, 03.22.22. The authors, respectively a senior fellow for military aerospace and a research associate for South Asia with IISS, write:

• “India’s public response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has amounted to limited expressions of unease. In what it believed to be an act of neutrality, India abstained in the February 25 United Nations Security Council vote on Ukraine, as well as in the March 2 UN General Assembly vote for a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion. New Delhi has been trying to navigate a delicate path between a longstanding strategic relationship with Moscow, including significant defense acquisitions over decades, and an ever-closer strategic partnership with Washington, with increased defense and security relations. The fallout from the invasion will only make that more difficult, and the impact could be felt by India’s armed forces.”
• “Even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Washington had been attempting to discourage New Delhi from continuing to buy Russian weapons. As the US and India’s strategic convergence on the need to counter China’s role in the Indo-Pacific region has increased, Washington has not so far, however, used the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act regarding India’s purchase of the Almaz Antey S-400 (RS-SA-21 Growler) long-range air-defense system, which it did apply to Turkey. A second regiment of the S-400 is notionally due for delivery to India in June 2022, and the US this time around could prove to be less sanguine. India may also seek to delay the delivery of the second S-400 regiment, to avoid controversy. It is another factor that New Delhi will have to consider as it weighs its pressing defense needs against how the relative value of its relationships with Moscow and Washington is likely to evolve into the future, not least in the context of countering China.”

"Russia’s Invasion Unleashes ‘Perfect Storm’ in Global Agriculture," Christina Lu, Foreign Policy, 03.24.22. The author, an editorial intern at the magazine, writes:

• “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatens to spark a global food crisis, as simultaneous disruptions to harvests and global fertilizer production are driving up food prices and sending economic shock waves throughout the world.”
• “After a month of war, economists and aid agencies say the world is facing merging crises that could rapidly spiral into a global food emergency. The conflict has already slashed Russian and Ukrainian exports of crucial commodities such as wheat, sunflower oil, and corn, a disturbance that has rippled across import-reliant countries in the Middle East and North Africa. At the same time, the ongoing energy crunch has drastically increased fertilizer prices and transportation costs, squeezing the key inputs for global agricultural production.”
• “Together, Russia and Ukraine account for roughly 30 percent of global wheat exports, while Russia is the world’s top fertilizer exporter. Both fertilizer and food prices have already climbed to record levels as the war impedes shipments and Western sanctions hit Russia.”
• “In the early weeks of the conflict, Kyiv also banned exports of wheat and other key food staples, while Moscow urged its fertilizer producers to temporarily suspend exports. In the coming months, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that food prices could surge by as much as 20 percent, a significant spike that could exacerbate global food insecurity. Nearly 283 million people in 81 countries currently face acute food insecurity or are at high risk, according to the World Food Program, with 45 million on the brink of famine.”
• “Russia’s invasion could be a ‘tipping point’ into a world hunger crisis, Cousin said: ‘The entire global community will be hard hit by this.’”

Ukraine:

"The Ukrainian Exodus: Europe Must Reckon With Its Selective Treatment of Refugees," Alexander Betts, Foreign Affairs, 03.28.22. 

"Russia and Ukraine: talking while fighting," Samir Puri, IISS, 03.23.22. The author, an IISS senior fellow in Urban Security and Hybrid Warfare, writes:

• “As Russian bombardments across Ukraine continue and the conflict escalates, the search for a negotiated end to the war seems premature. Nevertheless, the speed at which Russia and Ukraine began direct talks, the regularity of their meetings, and the third-party countries lining up to mediate, cannot be ignored. Is this the start of a meaningful negotiation process or merely a smokescreen to cover Putin’s desire for battlefield success?”
• “Given the complex issues at play, reaching a putative deal may require international mediation, and its implementation will require external guarantors to secure lasting adherence by the signatories. Without this, the talks may produce only a temporary ceasefire that soon breaks down. A putative deal will also require far stronger international monitoring than that which accompanied the failed Minsk Accords of 2014–15.”
• “The first attempt to internationalize the talks ended in farce in Turkey’s Antalya, where Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba met his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, only for Lavrov to make a bizarre claim Russia ‘did not attack Ukraine’. Russia’s senior officials will have to overcome their propensity for barefaced lying if the talks are to move from the working level to agreement and codification.”
• “Other countries have attempted to find a mediation role, with Israel, France and Germany exploring back channels. China remains the wild card as a possible guarantor of a future settlement, given Beijing’s relationship with Moscow.”
• “There will be no absolute victor on the battlefield. Russia is unlikely to achieve regime change, and Ukraine cannot counterattack fully across such a sprawling series of front lines. At some point a deal may be struck to end the fighting and to disengage the fighting forces, but there may be many more cycles of fighting until then.”

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

• No significant developments.