This Week’s Highlights

• Despite all the talk of “a newly consolidated Western alliance,” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “does not draw a line in the sand between the allies of the free world and its foes,” Shivshankar Menon, a professor who served as national security adviser to India’s prime minister in 2010-2014, writes in Foreign Affairs. Instead, the author sees “greater fragmentation of the global order,” with the war reinforcing “Asia’s sense of its own difference—its focus on stability, trade and the bottom line that has served Asian countries so well in the last 40 years.” Two other authors implicitly agree: Both C. Raja Mohan, writing in Foreign Policy, and Abhinav Pandya, in The National Interest, describe how India has shrewdly pursued its interests—including purchases of discounted Russian energy and fertilizers—while balancing among Moscow, Washington and Beijing.
• "I don’t know what the outcome of this war will be,” influential Russian foreign policy thinker Sergey Karaganov tells Bruno Maçães in a New Statesman interview, “but I think it will involve the partition of Ukraine, one way or another. … Russia cannot afford to ‘lose,’ so we need a kind of a victory. And if there is a sense that we are losing the war, then I think there is a definite possibility of escalation.” Karaganov calls the conflict in Ukraine “a kind of proxy war between the West and the rest … for a future world order” and the stakes for the Russian elite “are very high—for them it is an existential war.”
• “Russia has been bedeviled by an inability to keep supplies flowing to troops in a longer ground war” than it had anticipated, reporters Bonnie Berkowitz and Artur Galocha write in The Washington Post, and they try to analyze why. Through interviews with experts the authors point out that Russia’s ratio of support to combat soldiers does “not come close to that of the U.S. Army,” its logistics—including repair depots, medical stations, stockpiles and convoy security—were not fit for purpose, its forces lacked “a single, unified chain of command” and the concentration of professional, well-trained troops seems vastly uneven.
• “Washington should be wary of the siren call of regime change,” RAND’s Samuel Charap writes in Foreign Affairs: “Recent U.S. experience in Iraq, Libya and elsewhere suggests that it almost never produces the desired results.” Instead, he argues, the U.S. must focus, in the short term, on “denying Putin a battlefield victory” while limiting the war’s “humanitarian and economic costs” and, in the long run, on shaping Russian behavior so as to minimize risks to U.S. geopolitical interests and international stability. This, the author writes, will require “some kind of deal with the Kremlin.”
• The U.S. and its allies should empower Ukraine “to dial back or even withdraw elements of the unprecedented sanctions regime that has cut Russia off from the global economy,” Harvard professors Rawi Abdelal and Alexandra Vacroux argue in The Boston Globe. “The Kremlin assumes that the sanctions imposed since February are all but permanent,” they write; authorizing Kyiv to lift or soften them as conditions warrant “would strengthen the Ukrainian position in the peace talks. Making it clear that certain sanctions can be lifted—by [Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr] Zelensky—would turn them into a flexible tool of statecraft and alter the Russian calculus.”
• Much like World War I, today’s war in Ukraine is likely to lead to a new wave of deglobalization, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman writes in The New York Times. “And while there were important downsides to globalization as we knew it, there will be even starker consequences if … we see a significant rollback in world trade,” he argues, adding: “The benefits of globalization are always at risk from the threat of war and the whims of dictators. To make the world durably richer, we need to make it safer.”
• “Russian television primed viewers for war,” in part, by reminding them “of past victories as well as betrayals,” Carleton University professor Paul Goode writes for PONARS Eurasia. Doing so, he explains, “accomplished what is known in the literature on memory politics as ‘chronographic suturing,’ or knitting together past and present such that people can experience a personal connection with national history through their observation of the present. For Russian viewers, state-controlled television deftly merged this ‘war talk’ with narratives about Western and Ukrainian aggression before fully joining the war effort by advancing claims about the prevention of genocide and fighting fascism.”

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:

"'The president will get his way': Congress likely can't stop new Iran nuke deal," Andrew Desiderio, Politico, 03.31.22. The author, a congressional reporter for the outlet, writes:

• “If the Biden administration can clinch a new nuclear deal with Iran, it’s likely in for a 2015 throwback in Congress. The original U.S.-Iran nuclear agreement set off a partisan battle on the Hill as hawks tried and failed to block then-President Barack Obama’s implementation of the deal, even as a majority of lawmakers went on-record opposing it. Congress could be on track for the same jostling in the coming weeks."
• “But yet again, despite skepticism among some Democrats — in particular those up for re-election this year — it’s unlikely that Congress will be able to block any new agreement with Iran. A disapproval resolution in the Senate would require 60 votes; even if that hurdle is cleared, opponents of the new deal would not be able to reach the two-thirds threshold required to override a presidential veto.”
• “That doesn’t mean the sales job for a still-unfinished deal will be easy for President Joe Biden and his national-security deputies. They’ve already been forced to try to corral some recalcitrant Democrats who have complained recently about a dearth of information about the ongoing talks in Vienna. And they’ll need to work hard to convince enough Democrats that a new agreement with Tehran is even necessary.”
• “The revived Iran talks, a top priority for Biden, are incredibly delicate at the moment, as U.S. officials warn that Iran is closer than ever to producing enough material for a bomb. Republicans are uniformly opposed to a new agreement, and several Democrats have expressed reservations surrounding the current negotiations. On top of that, lawmakers from both parties are putting pressure on the Biden administration to allow the Senate to vote on any new agreement, pointing to the same legal mechanism that paved the way for such votes in both chambers nearly seven years ago.”

War in Ukraine—sanctions, other punitive measures and voluntary boycotts:

“Putin’s gas ploy may rebound on Russia,” Editorial Board, Financial Times, 03.31.22. The news outlet’s editorial board writes:

• “One of Europe’s biggest economic fears since Russia invaded Ukraine has been a cut-off in Russian natural gas supplies. This week such a threat seemed more real. G7 ministers rebuffed Vladimir Putin’s demand to switch to paying in rubles, not euros, for gas; Moscow warned it would not continue deliveries ‘for free.’ Germany, Austria and others began preparations for rationing.”
• “Russia’s president may feel he has hit back at the west by forcing it to pay in rubles. But by in effect rewriting contracts he will have further damaged trust in Moscow as a supplier. Even if some sanctions are lifted as part of a peace deal in Ukraine, Europe’s new determination to end its reliance on Moscow’s gas will be here to stay.”

“The Sanctions War Is Just Beginning. Targeting Russia Was the Easy Part,” Richard Nephew, Foreign Affairs, 03.31.22. 

"To Up the Pressure, Washington Must Sanction Russian ADRs," Saeed Ghasseminejad, The National Interest, 04.03.22. The author, a senior advisor on Iran and financial economics at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), writes:

• “One way to send a shockwave into the heart of the Russian economy is to target Russian firms cross-listed or traded in U.S. stock markets through American Depository Receipts (ADRs) or Global Depository Receipts (GDRs). While the United States has sanctioned two cross-listed firms, there is no sign that the Biden administration is planning to impose a blanket sanction against Russian ADRs and GDRs. While doing so would carry costs for American investors, that price is worth paying to increase the cost Putin will pay for continuing his war of aggression.”
• “Ordinary Americans own shares of cross-listed Russian firms as part of their retirement accounts, in mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, or directly as ADR or GDR shares. … The decline in value of the two sanctioned firms exceeds those of non-sanctioned firms, which suggests imposing firm-specific sanction creates a larger negative abnormal return. Firm-specific sanctions also impose an additional layer of constraint that prevents the price of designated firms from bouncing back.
• “Still, this is a price Americans, both major corporations and ordinary citizens, have shown themselves willing to pay. Putin’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine has ignited a global outpouring of support for Ukraine and for tough economic measures against Russia. U.S. companies have scrambled to disassociate themselves with Russia. An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll published on March 4 found that 83 percent of respondents support sanctions against Russia, up from 67 percent in a similar poll released a week earlier. When asked whether they support sanctions even if it meant higher energy prices, 69 percent still said yes, up from 51 percent.”

War in Ukraine—Military aspects of the conflict:

“Why Russia’s military is bogged down by logistics in Ukraine,” Bonnie Berkowitz and Artur Galocha, The Washington Post, 03.30.22. The authors, graphics reporters for the news outlet, write:

• “The Russian army operates with fewer support soldiers than other militaries. About 150 of the 700 to 900 troops could be considered support, and because this formation would be an arm of a larger force in the area, they could also expect help from other logistics units. But the ratio would still not come close to that of the U.S. Army, which deploys about 10 support soldiers for every combat soldier, retired Lt. Col. Alex Vershinin said.”
• “If Russia’s invasion plan had called for slow, steady advances, Vershinin said, it would have tried to quickly control the airspace and then set up secure mini-bases every 30 to 40 miles as it captured territory. Each base would have a repair depot, medical station and stockpiles so that supplies were never far away. But Russia instead tried to dominate in long, fast, first pushes, which stretched its supply line much further.”
• “Russia’s command structure has been ‘confused, at best,’ said Andrew Galer, head of Land Platforms and Weapons at open-source defense intelligence agency Janes. It is not one structure but four, coming from four different regions of Russia. ‘A single, unified chain of command makes life a lot simpler,’ he said, ‘and they’ve not got that.’ … Stark evidence of the faulty chain of command is that at least 15 senior Russian commanders, including seven generals, have been killed.”
• “Many Russian troops in the south appear to be professional soldiers who had been deployed in Crimea. But elsewhere, especially in the north, Russian forces appear to have many draftees who may be less motivated and less well-trained.”

“Moscow Regroups, Signaling It's Ready for a Prolonged War,” Yaroslav Trofimov, The Wall Street Journal, 04.02.22. The author, chief foreign-affairs correspondent for the news outlet, writes:

• “Russia's war on Ukraine shifted gears this past week, as Moscow, lacking the strength to pursue rapid offensives on multiple fronts, began pulling back from Kyiv and other cities in the north, and refocused for now on seizing parts of the country's east. The pivot, after five weeks of intense fighting, was a gauge of the intensity and effectiveness of Ukrainian resistance and signaled a decision by the Kremlin to pursue what is likely to become a prolonged war of attrition.”
• “Russia's ‘military and political strategy hasn't changed, it remains to annihilate Ukraine,’ said Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian minister of defense who advises President Volodymyr Zelensky's government. But he said, ‘Now, their capabilities no longer match their strategic vision.’ That could be a recipe for a prolonged conflict, increasing the stakes for both sides' ability to raise troops and money and access weapons, ammunition and supplies.”
• “Russia's declared shift toward trying to seize Donbas could allow it to concentrate firepower on a smaller front, shorten supply lines and make air support easier, giving Moscow a better chance at military success. It would also position Russia to try to encircle some of Ukraine's best units, which are stationed there. The Russian pullbacks from Kyiv, however, also allow Ukraine to redeploy additional resources to the eastern Donbas front—and to do it much faster because of shorter routes.”
• “‘The next three weeks will determine whether Russia's war of attrition can succeed. If we, the West, have the sense of urgency and can provide Ukraine with what it's been begging for, then they can break the back of the Russians while the Russians are down, and can win,’ said retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe.”

“Russian Casualties in Ukraine: Reaching the Tipping Point,” Mark F. Cancian, CSIS, 03.31.22. The author, a senior adviser with the CSIS International Security Program, writes:

• “Russian losses to date are high. NATO estimates that Russia has lost between 7,000 and 15,000 soldiers. Wounded who cannot rapidly return to duty generally number about twice the number of dead. That would mean that Russia has lost between 21,000 and 45,000 troops in four weeks of conflict. To put that into perspective, Russia reported 14,400 killed through 10 years of war in Afghanistan. The initial invasion force numbered about 190,000 troops. However, that included militias in the Donbas and security forces (Rosgvardiya) for occupation. Ground combat troops numbered about 140,000. Thus, Russia may have lost about a quarter of its initial combat force.”
• “Russia is sensitive to losses. … Commentators suspect that Putin is not getting objective advice about the war and thus may not fully appreciate the difficulty his forces are in. This is a common problem in authoritarian regimes where officials do not want to bring bad news to an all-powerful leader. However, eventually, battlefield realities will assert themselves. Likely a group of generals will agree among themselves that Putin must be made aware of battlefield circumstances before the army breaks from continuing casualties, physical exhaustion, dwindling supplies and munitions, and sinking morale. Bringing that message forward may be the push that convinces Putin to get serious about negotiations.”

"Russians Likely to Encounter Growing Guerrilla Warfare in Ukraine," Alexander J. Motyl, Foreign Policy, 04.01.22. The author, a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark, writes:

• “Instead of waiting for their defeat, they [ed: Ukrainian forces] say they’re planning to launch a coordinated guerrilla campaign within the next few weeks—parallel to the regular war and just as spring turns forests green to provide cover.”
• “Judging from reports, irregular civilian resistance has already taken place, so the guerrilla campaign announced by Budanov will not be starting from scratch. ... Civilians are also playing a role in confiscating weapons, equipment, and supplies from the enemy and handing them over to the Ukrainian forces. ... In addition, peaceful resistance in the form of demonstrations and marches is taking place almost every day in Russian-controlled cities such as Kherson, Melitopol, and Enerhodar. Residents of Kyiv and other unoccupied cities, in turn, have gotten busy preparing Molotov cocktails in case invading Russians come their way.”
• “Most elements of an effective guerrilla struggle are thus in place. The only missing piece is friendly terrain, but once the forests and hedges turn green, as they will in April, they will provide guerrillas with better cover. At that point, the fighters will be able to systematically infiltrate Russian-occupied territory—especially in the forested north—and strike the Russian military from the rear while regular Ukrainian forces attack from the front.”
• “Even after the Soviets displaced the Germans as masters of Ukraine in 1944, nationalist partisans managed to continue their struggle for another decade, killing more than 30,000 Soviet functionaries and secret police, according to the Ukrainian historian Ivan Patryliak. This history matters, because western Ukrainians have lionized the nationalist guerrillas and their struggle for independence.”

"Ukraine needs better air defense systems, not more excuses," Josh Rogin, The Washington Post, 03.31.22. The author, a columnist for the newspaper, writes:

• “More than two weeks have passed since Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin traveled to NATO ally Slovakia, where he discussed transferring that country’s most advanced air defense system to Ukraine. But as Russian missiles continue to rain down on Ukrainian hospitals, schools and apartment buildings, there’s no visible progress. As a result, Congress is losing patience and Ukrainians are losing their lives.”
• ”The Biden administration is doing a lot to arm Ukrainian forces and deserves credit. At the same time, the bureaucratic and policy bottlenecks delaying the S-300 transfer are costing lives each day. If Austin can’t find one Patriot missile system to put on a plane and send to Slovakia, what message does that send to Ukrainians — or Putin, for that matter — about our commitment to the fight?”
• “Of course, the United States should be mindful of needlessly escalating the crisis. But the best way to prevent the war from spilling over is to give the Ukrainians what they need to win. The more the United States drags its feet on things such as the S-300, the more people will die and the longer the fighting will continue. And if Ukraine falls, the risk of a greater conflict will only increase.”

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

“Ukraine Isn’t yet a ‘Strategic Defeat’ for Putin,” Editorial Board, The Wall Street Journal, 04.03.22. The news outlet’s editorial board writes:

• “There is already a strong prima facie case that Russia's bombing of civilians is a war crime, even if it doesn't meet the definition of genocide. Scenes like those in Bucha, Mariupol and Kharkiv will have to inform the extent of Ukrainian, and Western, cooperation with Mr. Putin even if he withdraws from all of Ukraine.”
• “[It is] dismaying that Biden officials continue to assert that the war is a ‘strategic defeat’ for Mr. Putin. They repeat the talking point as if they're trying to persuade Americans that the war has already been won. ‘If you step back and look at this, this has already been a dramatic strategic setback for Russia and, I would say, a strategic defeat,’ Mr. Blinken said on CNN Sunday.”
• “No, it isn't. Russia has killed thousands of Ukrainians, inflicted untold damage and still controls more territory than it did before the invasion. If Mr. Putin secures a truce that ratifies those territorial gains, he will have snatched the part of Ukraine that contains the bulk of its energy resources. He would be able to re-arm and continue as a lethal threat to the rest of Ukraine, the Zelensky government and the border nations of NATO.”
• “The West's goal shouldn't be some abstract ‘strategic defeat’ but an actual defeat that is obvious to everyone, including the Russian public. Ukraine will have to decide how long it is willing to fight. But as long as it is willing, the U.S. and NATO should provide all of the military and sanctions support it needs. If Mr. Putin gains from this war, there will be more invasions, more war crimes, and more horrific scenes like those in Bucha in the future.”

“The atrocities in Bucha are no aberration. This is the Russian way of war,” Max Boot, The Washington Post, 04.03.22. The author, a columnist for the news outlet, writes:

• “It is one thing to kill civilians with bombs and missiles. It is another to kill them with bullets to the back of the head.”
• “This, sadly, is the Russian way of war. It is how Putin’s forces fought in Chechnya and Syria—and before that, how Soviet forces fought in Afghanistan and in central Europe during World War II. They commit war crimes to terrorize the population into surrender. But it hasn’t worked in Ukraine. Russia’s savagery has simply caused the Ukrainians to resist all the harder because they know they are fighting not just for their freedom but for their very survival.”
• “The West must continue to ramp up aid to Ukraine, providing it with the kind of heavy combat systems needed to drive back the Russians in the south and east as they have already done in the north. It is good to see the Biden administration getting ready to transfer tanks to Ukraine. Other weapons, including artillery, fighter aircraft and long-range air defense systems, must follow. The only way to achieve peace at this point is not by negotiating with the Russians but by defeating them. As for the Europeans: It is time, finally, to stop all oil and gas purchases from Russia.”

“‘Russia cannot afford to lose, so we need a kind of a victory’: Sergey Karaganov on what Putin wants," Bruno Maçães, The New Statesman, 04.02.22. The author, who served as the Portuguese Europe minister from 2013-2015, interviews former Kremlin adviser Sergey Karaganov, who says:

• On why Russia invaded Ukraine: "For 25 years, people like myself have been saying that if NATO and Western alliances expand beyond certain red lines, especially into Ukraine, there will be a war. I envisioned that scenario as far back as 1997. ... So the first objective is to end NATO’s expansion. Two other objectives have been added: one is the demilitarization of Ukraine; the other is denazification, because there are people in the Russian government concerned with the rise of ultra-nationalism in Ukraine to the extent that they think it is beginning to resemble Germany in the 1930s.”
• On whether Karaganov believes Zelensky is a Nazi: “Of course not.”
• "I don’t know what the outcome of this war will be, but I think it will involve the partition of Ukraine, one way or another. Hopefully there would still be something called Ukraine left at the end. But Russia cannot afford to ‘lose,” so we need a kind of a victory. And if there is a sense that we are losing the war, then I think there is a definite possibility of escalation. This war is a kind of proxy war between the West and the rest –  Russia being, as it has been in history, the pinnacle of ‘the rest’ – for a future world order. The stakes of the Russian elite are very high – for them it is an existential war.”
• On whether Moscow will fall under Beijing's control: "There are two answers to your question. One is that China’s economic influence in Russia and over Russia will grow. China has most of the technologies we need, and it has a lot of capital, so there is no question about that. Whether Russia would become a kind of a satellite country … I doubt it.”

“Will Putin Kill the Global Economy?,” Paul Krugman, The New York Times, 03.31.22. The author, an opinion columnist for the news outlet, writes:

• “Keynes was right to see World War I as the end of an era for the global economy. To take one clearly relevant example, in 1913 the Russian empire was a huge wheat exporter; it would be three generations before some of the former republics of the Soviet Union resumed that role. And the second wave of globalization, with its world-spanning supply chains made possible by containerization and telecommunications, didn't really get going until around 1990.”
• “So are we about to see a second deglobalization? The answer, probably, is yes. And while there were important downsides to globalization as we knew it, there will be even starker consequences if, as I and many others fear, we see a significant rollback in world trade.”
• “Russia's decision to turn itself into an international pariah probably wouldn't by itself be enough to drastically reduce world trade—as China, which plays a key role in many supply chains, could if it decided to turn inward.”
• “Unfortunately, we're relearning the lessons of World War I: The benefits of globalization are always at risk from the threat of war and the whims of dictators. To make the world durably richer, we need to make it safer.”

“Biden, Putin and the danger of Versailles,” Edward Luce, Financial Times, 03.31.22. The author, the U.S. national editor for the news outlet, writes:

• “Biden’s challenge will thus be even trickier than what faced his predecessor, Woodrow Wilson. Unlike Germany in 1919, Russia has nuclear weapons and cannot be forced to surrender. The best definition of Russian defeat would be its withdrawal from the slices of Ukraine it has occupied. Even that would be a tall order. Ejecting Russia in whole would be hard for Ukraine to do alone. Yet direct western involvement is unthinkable. That means Ukraine could be forced to suffer months or even years of bloody stalemate.”
• “In 1919, a crushed Germany had no friends. By contrast, Putin can count on Russia’s ‘no limits’ partnership with Xi Jinping’s China, the world’s second-most powerful country. For a potentially humiliated nation such as Russia, history would struggle to find a better safety net. This puts the west’s quandary in perspective. Not only is Russia almost certain to emerge from this war still a nuclear state, it can also rely on help from the world’s rising great power.”
• “Even if the west were to dictate Versailles-style terms to Russia, its ability to enforce such a debt would be handicapped. What options then are available to Biden? The U.S. president says that Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky should be the judge of what kind of deal Ukraine will tolerate. That is the right stance.”  

“The Perilous Long Game in Ukraine: Compromising With Putin May Be America’s Best Option,” Samuel Charap, Foreign Affairs, 03.30.22. 

“Is Russia’s Invasion a Case of Coercive Diplomacy Gone Wrong?” James Siebens, War on the Rocks, 03.31.22. The author, a fellow with the Defense Strategy and Planning program at the Stimson Center, writes:

• “Putin’s decision to invade may have been driven by the perceived need to make good on his tacit threats and may indicate that his political demands were sincere. … The leadup to the war in Ukraine thus provides an object lesson in why coercive diplomacy fails.”
• “First, Russia’s demands were fairly clear and consistent, but they were not particularly realistic, nor were they attached to a defined deadline. … Second, Russia badly underestimated Ukraine’s resolve to fight rather than make any territorial or political concessions, as well as NATO’s resolve to preserve its open-door policy … Additionally, one or more parties may have miscalculated Russia’s resolve.”
• “Either NATO, Ukraine, or both, did not fully appreciate the seriousness of Russia’s tacit threat to invade, or they were simply not concerned enough by the prospect of war to grant Russia the political concessions required to avoid it.”
• “The good news is that in spite of Russia’s stated commitment to completing the demilitarization of Ukraine, its overtures before and during the invasion indicate that Russia is interested in a political settlement … Last year, Putin’s unrealistic, maximalist demands, coupled with doubt over the credibility of Russia’s tacit threats, undermined Russia’s efforts to intimidate Ukraine and NATO, and utterly failed to produce the desired concessions and security guarantees.”
• “Zelensky has recently indicated his openness to discussing a formal end to Ukraine’s bid for NATO membership, and to some of the territorial concessions that Russia has demanded. … However, he is understandably less keen to demobilize his armed forces in the face of Russia’s brutal invasion, and in the midst of what looks to be a successful series of (limited) counteroffensives…”

“The Work to Come: Russia, Ukraine and the West at the Negotiating Table,” Tom Hill, War on the Rocks, 03.29.22. The author, executive director of the Center for Peace Diplomacy, writes:

• “Neither the scale of the negotiating enterprise, nor the tradeoffs that will have to be faced to end this war, are small. Considering the potential options shows four key implications.”
• “Firstly, the political and technical obstacles to agreements on the core issues are substantial. Negotiations will take time, protracting hostilities—and, with them, the war’s considerable humanitarian cost and global economic disruptions.”
• “Second, Western states that support Ukraine should stand ready to make a clear offer of relief for Russia on sanctions. This will strengthen Ukraine’s hand at the negotiating table as it seeks to bargain for the crucial goals of full Russian military withdrawal and robust long-term guarantees of Ukraine’s independence.”
• “Third, there is the distinct possibility of a scenario of indecisive military action followed by failed peace talks, and back again — in a pattern of fight and freeze — as the two sides bargain, fight, and try to maneuver their way to a more advantageous position, using both the talks and violence to advance their goals.”
• “Fourth, just as we can expect failed military assaults, we can expect failed talks. But failed talks are not useless. The history of peace negotiations shows that the path to a stable peace agreement is often paved with failed talks that teach the parties what is fantasy, what is reality, and where the real bridges between them might lie. Much like confrontations on the battlefield, talks are relational and a learning process for the participants. Support for and participation in talks should be embraced, even when prospects seem poor, because the belligerents and the many great-power stakeholders are going to need to learn how to end this war.”

“Peace in Ukraine will be elusive until one side makes a military breakthrough,” Lawrence Freedman, Financial Times, 04.01.22. The author, emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London, writes:

• “Kyiv has all but accepted that while it will never agree in principle to Russia’s annexation of the Crimea, in practice this is a fait accompli. But it will not agree to Russian control over the Donbas, the area for which Putin went to war.”
• “It seems doubtful that this shattered territory, with its hostile population and vast reconstruction costs, requiring defense for the indefinite future, will appear now as such an attractive prize. But without it Putin has absolutely nothing to show for all this effort. This war should end with Russian forces out of the Donbas. That would also be the most stable outcome. Without an agreement on this core issue, whatever else has been settled in negotiations, the conflict will not be concluded. That is why the search for a durable peace cannot be separated from the search for military success.”

"The Realist Case for a Ukraine Peace Deal: Conflict Resolution Isn’t Just for Woolly-Headed Idealists.," Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy, 03.29.22. The author, a columnist for the magazine and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University, writes:

• “It’s a mistake to think that realists see no interest in resolving conflicts when one can. Properly understood, there is a hard-nosed realist case for resolving conflicts whenever possible. Let me lay it out for you.”
  • “The most obvious reason for great powers to try to resolve ongoing conflicts is to remove existing problems from the current foreign-policy agenda.”
  • “A second reason to resolve conflicts is to protect allies and friends who are involved in a regional dispute or likely to get drawn into one.”
  • “Third, by definition, resolving conflicts reduces the risk of unwanted escalation. When any war is underway, there is always a chance that third parties will enter it voluntarily or get drawn in as the protagonists try to prosecute the conflict more effectively.”
  • “Fourth, helping to stop an ongoing war is an ideal way for a great power to demonstrate its influence and its ability to work for the greater good.”
  • “Fifth, a world where conflict and war are endemic is a world where trade and investment cannot flow as safely or as freely.”
  • “Last but by no means least, resolving conflicts is desirable because it reduces human suffering and enhances human dignity.”
• “Now that Russia has been denied the swift victory it expected going in, the war is likely to turn into a grinding and costly stalemate that won’t end until the protagonists realize that they cannot achieve all their original goals and will have to accept a less-than-ideal outcome.
  • “Russia won’t get a compliant Ukrainian satellite or a Moscow-centered “Eurasian empire” that includes it.”
  • “Ukraine won’t get Crimea back or full membership in NATO.”
  • “The United States will have to give up trying to bring other states into NATO someday.”

"The West can strengthen Zelensky’s negotiating position," Rawi Abdelal and Alexandra Vacroux, The Boston Globe, 03.30.22. The authors, Harvard professors and, respectively, the director and executive director of the university's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, write:

• “Since the Russians invaded Ukraine in February, Zelensky has emerged as one of the great wartime leaders of our time. Yet Russia retains the upper hand in peace negotiations. Representatives from Ukraine and Russia have met five times to negotiate a resolution to the war. Zelensky is seen by the Russians to be in a relatively weak position and they have thus tried to dictate terms. Putin assumes that the Russian military presence will force the Ukrainians to give up some sovereignty over borders, official languages, and domestic political institutions.”
• “The United States and NATO are not parties to the peace negotiations, but they have leverage — leverage they can give to Ukraine. The Western allies — and especially the United States — should announce that Zelensky has been empowered to dial back or even withdraw elements of the unprecedented sanctions regime that has cut Russia off from the global economy. While Western leaders cannot literally transfer this authority to Zelensky to dial back sanctions, they can publicly clarify to the Russian government that the Ukrainian government will directly participate in decisions to relieve the Russian economy from the powerful effects of sanctions.”
• “The Kremlin assumes that the sanctions imposed since February are all but permanent. Authorizing Zelensky to lift or soften sanctions as conditions warrant would strengthen the Ukrainian position in the peace talks. Making it clear that certain sanctions can be lifted — by Zelensky — would turn them into a flexible tool of statecraft and alter the Russian calculus. If Russia expects sanctions to last for a long time, expect the ruthless, reckless Russian president to double down on the military campaign to achieve his objectives. He would have, after all, little left to lose.”

“Painful choices lie ahead for Ukraine,” David Ignatius, The Washington Post, 04.01.22. The author, a columnist for the news outlet, writes:

• “Often, wars don't end with a peace treaty but a cease-fire that leaves forces in place along a ‘line of control.’ Some analysts think Russia may be moving toward such an outcome by consolidating its forces in a swath of southeastern Ukraine that could eventually stretch from Odessa to the Donbas region. Such partition lines are messy but can be surprisingly durable.”
• “Harvard's Graham Allison argues that such a division could allow the Western-allied part of Ukraine to prosper. Before the Russian invasion, he contends, Ukraine was a failing state—one of the rare post-Soviet republics whose real gross domestic product per capita actually declined after 1991. A future Western Ukraine might become a version of South Korea, Allison says.”
• “The most hopeful development I saw in last week's peace feelers was a statement by Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky that, although Moscow rejects Ukrainian membership of NATO, it ‘has no objection to Ukraine's aspirations to join the European Union.’ Maybe that is a building block for a real settlement. For a European Ukraine would represent a profound defeat for Putin's dream of hegemony over Kyiv. That's an essential requirement for a peace deal, along with stopping the killing.”

“Russia's military losses give diplomacy a fighting chance,” Alina Polyakova and Sasha Stone, The Washington Post, 04.01.22. The authors, the president/CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and a senior program officer at CEPA, write:

• “Russia's recent willingness to come to the negotiating table is a reminder for the United States and its European allies that their adversary is open to diplomacy only when it's on the back foot militarily. This means now is the time to ramp up, rather than wind back, economic and military pressure—to clear the path for a resolution that Russia will respect and abide by.”
• “The more Russia loses on the battlefield, the better the chances for diplomacy to succeed. This means Ukraine's military must continue to make gains. … That means the best strategy for the West is to sharply increase military assistance to Ukraine. …  If the allies also ratchet up economic sanctions on Russia even more, it will be harder for the Kremlin to sustain its war effort.”
• “The West has still not fully hit Russia where it hurts: energy exports. … Europe can use its economic leverage to press Russia into accepting non-ruble payments - or, better yet, suspend Russian energy imports altogether.”
• “Together, the military support and economic pressure are the only way to keep up negotiations. In those negotiations, the aggressor - Russia - will have to make the bulk of the compromises. But Ukraine has signaled that it's open to concessions that it was not willing to make before the war, especially agreeing to not pursue NATO membership, a goal enshrined in Ukraine's constitution. However, there are two major sticking points.”
• “The first is the status of the contested regions: Crimea and the so-called Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics (LNR and DNR) in the Donbas. … The second problematic issue is how to arrange security guarantees for Ukraine that would deter a future Russian attack.”

“A forgotten Russian retreat is a model for ending the Ukraine war,” Caroline Kennedy Pipe and James Rogers, Washington Post, 04.04.22. The authors, professor of war studies at the University of Loughborough, U.K. and DIAS assistant professor in war studies within the Center for War Studies at SDU in Denmark, write:

• “In 1946, Soviet troops retreated from the Danish island of Bornholm, after a year of occupation. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin accepted a Danish proposal under which he would withdraw his troops in exchange for a promise that Bornholm would not house foreign soldiers. This agreement confounded Western expectations about Soviet strategy and Stalin. Yet it may offer a model for crafting an end game that could be acceptable to Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2022, while securing Ukrainian sovereignty and independence.”

"Why Russian-Ukrainian Peace Talks Won’t End Putin’s War," Mark Episkopos, The National Interest, 04.01.22. The author, a national security reporter for the news site, writes:  

• “In what appeared to some as a significant volte-face, the Kremlin signaled earlier this week that it is seeking substantive progress in ongoing peace talks with Ukraine. ... Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin announced shortly following the talks that the Kremlin has decided to scale back military operations in several key theaters, citing the progress being made at the negotiating table.”
• “Moscow’s vow to ‘drastically’ reduce operations in the [Kyiv] region and to Ukraine’s northeast elicited widespread skepticism in Washington. … The skeptics were promptly proven right; within twenty-four hours of the Istanbul negotiations, the invading Russian forces resumed airstrikes and shelling against Kiev and Chernihiv.”
• “It remains unclear exactly what prompted Russia’s Defense Ministry to make the promise, only to abruptly renege on it. ... It remains unclear exactly what prompted Russia’s Defense Ministry to make the promise, only to abruptly renege on it. The announcement may instead have been the latest illustration of a divergence amongst Russian elites over the desirability of a negotiated settlement.”
• But there could a deeper factor at play: the announcement may have been partly intended by the Kremlin as a trial balloon to gauge public reception of a settlement that swiftly achieves peace, albeit at the cost of Russia’s major war aims. … The Kremlin received an unequivocal response: news of the potential settlement and the reported military de-escalation in parts of Ukraine was greeted by the Russian public not with jubilation, but with widespread confusion and even outrage.”
• “The Kremlin stands to incur a steep political cost if it accepts anything less than the total capitulation of the Zelenskyy government.”

"Finding an Off-Ramp in Ukraine," Gerald F. Hyman, The National Interest, 03.31.22. The author, a senior associate  at the Center for Strategic & International Affairs, writes:

• “What does Vladimir Putin want? What would he accept? What should the United States and its NATO allies do to have this end with Ukraine still intact?”
• “He [Putin] wants to restore Russia to its former status, and he has already succeeded in many respects, whatever the future holds. … Russian security, Putin says, cannot countenance hundreds of missiles aimed at it and only ten minutes’ flight from Moscow … NATO replies that it is a defensive, not an offensive, alliance designed to respond to exactly the kind of attack Russia has launched against Ukraine. To this, Putin replies that the missiles and other weapons do not know the difference between offensive and defensive and will launch on command. … Putin wants to reincorporate Ukraine as it was in the Tsarist world. … Putin wants recognition of and legal guarantees against the security threat of Ukraine’s membership in NATO.”
• “Putin’s security concern may seem — and may be — supercharged from a distance. But how would the United States react with short and long-range missiles and Russian troops on its border with Mexico?”
• “NATO genuinely and authentically asserts its defensive, not offensive, nature. Fair enough, but how does Putin rely on that for Russia’s core security interests? Just as Ukraine and the Western alliance did not count on Putin’s averred intentions but responded to the facts on the ground, so too does Putin. Intentions can change — on both sides. Defensive weapons can be turned into offensive ones. If there is any hope of a diplomatic solution to the crisis, it cannot be forged without considering the adversary’s perspective. One need not accede to Putin’s position even while comprehending it and, with it, his plausible anxieties.

“How Putin and Zelensky Have Defined the Ukrainian Conflict,” Margaret Macmillan, Foreign Affairs, 03.29.22.

“Biden's Putin comments could warp U.S. policy,” Joseph Stieb, The Washington Post, 04.01.22. The author, a postdoctoral fellow at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at the Ohio State University, writes:

• “Putin already says that the United States has been trying to topple him for years and that the fate of Russia is at stake in this crisis. Confirming his delusions will only increase his recklessness, allow him to pose as the defender of Russian sovereignty against an existential foreign menace and reduce the space for a possible compromise.”
• “One of the tragedies of foreign policy is that the United States has to fight aggression without always being able to eliminate its roots, which, in this case, lie mainly in Putin and his regime. Thinking that the United States can transcend this tragedy may create far worse problems, as the painful experience in Iraq demonstrates. Defeating Putin's aggression and restoring Ukrainian sovereignty are tall enough tasks without embracing regime change and its attendant hazards.”

"The U.S. Can’t Afford a Double Cold War," Mathew Burrows and Robert A. Manning, Foreign Policy, 03.28.22. The authors, the director of foresight in the Scowcroft Strategy Initiative and a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, write:

• “Once upon a time, when there were world-historical crises such as the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fate of German reunification, the world’s single superpower didn’t issue demands or ultimatums. Rather, as in those cases, Secretary of State James Baker subtly employed inherent U.S. leverage. The United States used strategic empathy to grasp other parties’ perceived interests, red lines, and minimal requirements and find an enduring solution that reconciled differences.”
• “At the moment, the Biden administration appears less focused on shaping a new era than preparing for a repeat of the Cold War or an even worse one with both Russia and China as opponents. … The current hands-off approach only increases the chance of a breakdown.”
• “After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Baker and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft had to manage not just Russian qualms about the reunification of Germany but those of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as well. The Bush administration’s plethora of artful assurances, balancing U.S., European, and Soviet interests (e.g., only German NATO troops in the former East Germany), gained Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s assent to a reunified Germany inside NATO.”
• “There may be lessons from that experience of how to find a favorable balance of interests. The inclusive 2+4 negotiating process … may offer a model for Russia-Ukraine negotiations, with the Russians and Ukrainians at the center and the others—perhaps the other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany—supporting and facilitating a mutually acceptable solution.”
• “This is an inflection point in history and, as such, requires bold leadership, vision, and contemplation of new paradigms.”

"Ukraine Has Forever Changed Europe’s Balance of Power," Ramon Marrks, The National Interest, 03.30.22. The author, a retired, New York international lawyer, writes:

• “A top foreign policy priority for the United States must be to work on a multi-year plan to shift the bulk of responsibility for European defense leadership to allies. Gradually reducing the U.S. military footprint in Europe will not mark a return to American isolationism. A strategic readjustment of military resources will instead enable the United States to redeploy its over-stretched forces to meet other global challenges. A reorganization of military responsibilities and resources among democracies in Europe is long overdue. To bring about this change, the biggest hurdle might ironically be not so much European opposition as the mindset in Washington.”
• “Over the last seventy-five years, almost a century, U.S. national security policy has been glued to the principle that the United States must exercise global military leadership to safeguard democracy. As Europe looks at alternatives for building up a more effective fighting force, U.S. diplomats and the Pentagon must accept its historical inevitability. Whether under the NATO framework or in tandem with other alternatives, such as the European Defense Force, Strategic Compass initiative that was recently approved by EU defense ministers, the goal must be to support European allies in finding the right formula for their own security.”
• “Ukraine is fighting a total war over its determination to follow a path independent of Russian domination. A strategic result of Russia’s invasion must be that European democracies shed an anachronistic, Cold War structure that has been centered far too long on an over-extended, American shield.”

“A Country of Their Own. Liberalism Needs the Nation,” Francis Fukuyama, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2022. 

"In Ukraine, Joe Biden Violated the First Rule of Strategy," Daniel Khalessi, The National Interest, 03.28.22. The author, a J.D. Candidate at Stanford Law School, writes:

• “The late Cold War diplomat Charles Hill cautioned that the ‘first rule of strategy’ is to ‘never tell your opponent what you are not going to do.’ The rationale for this rule is common sense: Even if you are not going to do X, there is seldom an upside to announcing to your opponent that you will not do X. Announcing the actions we won’t take undermines our flexibility, maneuverability, deterrence, and leverage.”
• “Right now, the Biden administration’s approach toward Ukraine can be characterized as follows: ambiguity about what we are willing to do and clarity about what we are not willing to do. A more sensible approach would be to establish clarity about what we are willing to do and ambiguity about what we are not willing to do.”

“Putin Had No Clue How Many of Us Would Be Watching,” Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, 04.03.22. The author, an opinion columnist for the news outlet, writes:

• “Almost six weeks into the war between Russia and Ukraine, I’m beginning to wonder if this conflict isn’t our first true world war—much more than World War I or World War II ever were. In this war, which I think of as ‘World War Wired,’ virtually everyone on the planet can either observe the fighting at a granular level, participate in some way or be affected economically—no matter where they live.”
• “Though this war is far from over, and Vladimir Putin may still find a way to prevail and come out stronger, if he doesn’t, it could be a watershed in the conflict between democratic and undemocratic systems. It is worth recalling that World War II put an end to fascism, and the Cold War put an end to orthodox communism, eventually even in China. So, what happens on the streets of Kyiv, Mariupol and the Donbas region could influence political systems far beyond Ukraine and far into the future.”
• “Putin, it turns out, had no clue what world he was living in, no clue about the frailties of his own system, no clue how much the whole free, democratic world could and would join the fight against him in Ukraine, and no clue, most of all, about how many people would be watching.”

“Biden Told the Truth: Putin Has to Go,” Garry Kasparov, The Wall Street Journal, 04.03.22. The author, chess grandmaster and chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative, writes:

• “The outcome in Ukraine will define a new world order, for good or ill. Taiwan and China are watching closely. Xi Jinping's natural alliance with his fellow dictator is looking less attractive after the free world's outpouring of support for Ukraine. The U.S. can restore its leadership of the free world, or it can lead from behind while democracy continues to lose ground. The West fell asleep when the Cold War ended. Ukrainians are sacrificing everything to shake President Biden, the White House and the world awake.

"There Is No Liberal World Order," Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic, 03.31.22. The author, a staff writer at the magazine and a fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, writes:

• “There is no natural liberal world order, and there are no rules without someone to enforce them. Unless democracies defend themselves together, the forces of autocracy will destroy them. I am using the word forces, in the plural, deliberately. Many American politicians would understandably prefer to focus on the long-term competition with China. But as long as Russia is ruled by Putin, then Russia is at war with us too. So are Belarus, North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, Nicaragua, Hungary, and potentially many others. We might not want to compete with them, or even care very much about them. But they care about us. They understand that the language of democracy, anti-corruption, and justice is dangerous to their form of autocratic power—and they know that that language originates in the democratic world, our world.”
• “Why haven’t we built a Russian-language television station to compete with Putin’s propaganda? … Our foreign-language broadcasters … need not only money for programming but a major investment in research. We know very little about Russian audiences—what they read, what they might be eager to learn.  Funding for education and culture needs rethinking too. Shouldn’t there be a Russian-language university, in Vilnius or Warsaw, to house all the intellectuals and thinkers who have just left Moscow?”
• “Perhaps, in the aftermath of this crisis, we can learn something from the Ukrainians. For decades now, we’ve been fighting a culture war between liberal values on the one hand and muscular forms of patriotism on the other. The Ukrainians are showing us a way to have both. As soon as the attacks began, they overcame their many political divisions, which are no less bitter than ours, and they picked up weapons to fight for their sovereignty and their democracy. They demonstrated that it is possible to be a patriot and a believer in an open society, that a democracy can be stronger and fiercer than its opponents. Precisely because there is no liberal world order, no norms and no rules, we must fight ferociously for the values and the hopes of liberalism if we want our open societies to continue to exist.”

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

“The Fantasy of the Free World: Are Democracies Really United Against Russia?” Shivshankar Menon, Foreign Affairs, 04.04.22. 

“Could the Arctic be a Wedge Between Russia and China?” Jeremy Greenwood and Shuxian Luo, War on the Rocks, 04.04.22. The authors, a federal executive fellow and a post-doctoral research fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, write:

• “China is likely still in the process of assessing the ramifications of the war in Ukraine for its Arctic interests. It would be ideal for China to continue its Arctic engagement as usual. But Russia’s isolation as well as tough sanctions have cast much uncertainty on the sustainability of China’s omnidirectional Arctic engagement. Even if a divided Arctic becomes an inevitable reality in the near future, Beijing may live with it and strive to walk a fine line between Russia and other Arctic countries. Beijing knows that Russia does not want China to have a growing role in the Arctic and that their Arctic partnership is and will likely remain a marriage of convenience. Therefore, China may see a more cautious approach toward its cooperation with Russia in the Arctic best serve its own interests as it navigates through great uncertainty in the region.”
• “The western Arctic states should responsibly leverage China’s desire for increased investment and voice in the region’s development to tilt China away from Russia, even if a complete breakup of the Sino-Russian Arctic partnership is unlikely. Reducing Europe’s and China’s dependence on Russian hydrocarbons will probably present an opportunity. Washington’s recent decision to supply 15 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas to Europe this year may mark the first step toward this goal. In the longer term, U.S. domestic energy production needs to be increased to sustain deliveries to Europe and probably China as well. U.S. diplomatic efforts, though bumpy and difficult, may also yield the reopening of Venezuelan and Iranian oil markets in the future.”
• “The western Arctic states should maintain, and when necessary, enhance, cooperation with China while ensuring that controlling interests would remain in local communities or host nations.”

"What Chinese media is saying about Russia’s Ukraine war," Jen Kirby, Vox, 04.03.22. The author, a reporter for the news site, interviewed Maria Repnikova, an assistant professor in global communications at Georgia State University, who said:

• “The pro-Russian [sentiment] is often veiled as this larger critique of the West—so it’s hard to tell how much of it is pro-Russia, how much of it is actually anti-U.S., or if it’s fused together.”
• “Whether [the Chinese government] sees the Ukraine war as positive or negative, I think overall, it’s probably more on the negative side because it is an overall disturbance to the global economic flows and China’s own imports of grain, wheat from Ukraine—and from Russia, arguably, as well. It’s also keyed in on potential repercussions for itself, if it ends up somehow bypassing Western sanctions and engaging with Russia in some way that’s seen as saving Russia or enhancing its economic activities, despite sanctions.”
• “The war hasn’t been that widely covered in Chinese state media for the domestic public. CGTN, a television station aimed at external, global audiences, has covered it quite extensively. But in domestic media, you often see the stories being buried in the midst of other stories about domestic affairs. … The other theme is that we see very cautious rhetoric, but no direct blaming of Russia. Not calling it an invasion. I don’t think war is even being invoked, mostly ‘military operation.’ We see quite a bit of language or rhetoric about the war bordering on Russian rhetoric, so a bit of that kind of infiltration or infusion of Russian statements and sources. That’s another thing that I’ve observed.”
• “So far, I don’t think we’ve seen any signs of that bolder role [for China in the Ukraine conflict]. Maybe if something more drastic happens. It’s already very horrific, but if it escalates more, or if it expands geographically toward NATO, maybe China will take a different role.”

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms:

“Why—and how—the world should condemn Putin for waving the nuclear saber,” Pavel Podvig, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 03.29.22. The author, a physicist and expert on the Russian nuclear arsenal, U.S.-Russian relations and nonproliferation, writes:

• “Russia’s willingness to use nuclear weapons to protect its war against Ukraine is unsurprising. This is how nuclear deterrence is supposed to work. What is surprising, however, is the blunt nature in which nuclear weapons have been openly put on the table. Such explicit messaging is very dangerous and should be condemned in the most forceful way.”
• “The wrong thing to do would be to get into a nuclear threat competition with Russia, as it is likely to have an advantage in that contest. In mentioning nuclear weapons explicitly and often early in the conflict, Moscow has already demonstrated a certain degree of unpredictability and its high tolerance for risk.”
• “The response to Russia’s nuclear signals should be expressed as a clear, forceful, and consistent message: Introducing nuclear weapons into this situation is dangerous, reckless, and unacceptable. Politicians, experts, journalists, and citizens should not get into discussions about what kind of nuclear weapons could be more or less effective from a military or political point of view. The very thought of nuclear weapon use should be condemned as irresponsible and criminal. This message will receive the broadest possible support—and could help end this war without sliding into a nuclear confrontation.”

“Why Putin Went Straight for the Nuclear Threat,” Jonathan Stevenson and Steven Simon, The New York Times, 04.01.22. The authors, who have worked in government on national security and teach and write extensively about history and politics, write:

• “The United States and NATO should be less deferential to Mr. Putin’s attempt to wield the threat of nuclear weapons—not only for the sake of supporting Ukraine but also to ensure global geopolitical stability in the future. Mr. Putin has presented strategists with a situation they haven’t really confronted: a rogue actor employing the threat of nuclear weapons for conquest rather than regime survival—the latter being a primary reason for countries like Iran, North Korea and Pakistan to build or deploy nuclear weapons.”
• “In turn, the United States’ posture of restraint with respect to Ukraine may compromise its position elsewhere. For example, a nuclear agreement with Iran, which appears within reach, might be undone if Iran and Israel infer from Washington’s stance that great powers would refrain from exercising conventional military capabilities when their adversaries have nuclear weapons, or if Iran calculates—correctly or not—that Israel would be deterred from resisting a nuclear-armed Iran’s regional projections of conventional power.”
• “What Mr. Putin likely fears is U.S. and NATO conventional military superiority at every level of war except for the nuclear one. Hence his premature nuclear threat, which seems to rule out even limited NATO military options.”
• “If the United States doubled down on tactical nuclear weapons in response to Russia’s threat, it would return the world to a state of nuclear dread similar to what it experienced in the early 1980s. Instead, the United States should reassert confidence in conventional deterrence by emphasizing its adherence to the established framework.”

"Nuclear Proliferation and Nuclear War," Robert Legvold, Valdai Discussion Club, 04.04.22. The author, Marshall D. Shulman Professor Emeritus, Columbia University, and Director of the Euro-Atlantic Security Initiative, writes:

• “The link between nuclear proliferation and nuclear war, and, hence, the role of the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) in preventing nuclear war is not simple. The direct link is not proliferation but possession — not those striving to build nuclear-weapons capabilities, but those who have them: the weapons they possess and the doctrines that guide their strategies for using them.”
• “In the half century since the NPT was opened for signature, the nuclear non-proliferation regime has gone through several phases: from early fears of a rapid expansion in the number of nuclear powers that coincided with the nascent Brazilian and South African programs to a lesser concern over numbers and a greater concern over a specific region—the Middle East with North Korea as an outlier.”
• “Today, however, we arrive at a new point where two arrows point in the wrong direction. One is the all-to-familiar problems of a nuclear North Korea and the prospect of a nuclear Iran with all the ramifications of both for further nuclear proliferation. The other is suddenly new: a return to the original issue of the nuclear weaponization of US allies.”
• “Conceivably the risk of such a war growing out of the violence in Ukraine may have the positive effect of introducing caution into the growing strategic rivalry between the United States and China and ease the way to a more serious strategic dialogue between them, along with efforts to better manage their nuclear relationship.”
• “But in what is still the most critical bilateral nuclear relationship, that between the United States and Russia, the effect almost certainly will be to halt progress on nuclear arms control and destroy the prospect of the two together acting to protect, let alone, strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation regime.”

"New Approaches Needed to Prevent Nuclear Catastrophe," Daryl G. Kimball, Arms Control Association, 04.01.22. The author, Executive Director of the Arms Control Association, writes:

• “Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch a massive assault on independent, democratic, non-nuclear Ukraine has unleashed a war that has killed thousands, displaced millions, and raised the risk of nuclear conflict.”
• “Instead of reverting to destabilizing Cold War-era behaviors, leaders and concerned citizens in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere need to embrace new thinking and strategies about nuclear weapons and disarmament that move the world from the shadow of nuclear catastrophe.”
• “Putin and other Russian officials have made nuclear threats and put their strategic nuclear forces on a heightened state of readiness to ward off a direct U.S. or NATO military intervention in Ukraine. ... Nuclear threats and alerts were not uncommon and were no less dangerous during the Cold War. Such rhetoric and orders to raise the operational readiness of nuclear forces can be misinterpreted in ways that lead to nuclear countermoves, escalation, and a nuclear attack.”
• “There is no plausible military scenario, and no legally justifiable basis for threatening or using nuclear weapons first, if at all. Once nuclear weapons are used between nuclear-armed states, there is no guarantee it will not lead to an all-out nuclear exchange. New thinking is needed. The adoption of policies prohibiting the first use of nuclear weapons would increase stability. But even that would not eliminate the dangers of nuclear deterrence strategies and arsenals, which depend on maintaining the credible threat of prompt retaliation in response to a nuclear attack. U.S. and European citizens need to mobilize and press their leaders to pursue even bolder initiatives to steer the nuclear possessor states away from nuclear confrontation and arms racing.”
• “The last remaining U.S.-Russian arms reduction agreement, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, expires in 2026. Without commonsense arms control guardrails, the dangers of unconstrained global nuclear arms racing will grow.”

Counter-terrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant developments.

Cyber security:

“Cyberattacks have yet to play a significant role in Russia’s battlefield operations in Ukraine—cyberwarfare experts explain the likely reasons,” Nadiya Kostyuk and Erik Gartzke, The Conversation, 04.04.22. The authors, professors at Georgia Institute of Technology and University of California San Diego, write: 

• “Cyber operations did not replace the military invasion, and as far as we can tell, the Russian government has not yet used cyber operations as an integral part of its military campaign.”
• “We are political scientists who study the role of cybersecurity and information in international conflict. Our research shows that … that cyber and military operations serve different political objectives.”
• “Cyber operations are most effective in pursuing informational goals, such as gathering intelligence, stealing technology or winning public opinion or diplomatic debates. In contrast, nations use military operations to occupy territory, capture resources, diminish an opponent’s military capability and terrorize a population.” 

Energy exports from CIS:

• No significant developments.

Climate change:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

"The truth about Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian ‘bio labs’," Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post, 03.29.22. The author, a staff writer for the newspaper, writes:

• “Russia for years has been seeding the ground to claim that the United States set up biowarfare labs in Ukraine and other former Soviet republics — claims that have been revived as part of the invasion of Ukraine. As part of his media presentation, Igor Kirillov of the Russian armed forces alleged the labs were part of the U.S. plot to study the natural immunity of the population to identify the most dangerous pathogen for people in the region. The Defense Ministry released a complex-looking flow chart with spaghetti lines depicting not only the involvement of Hunter Biden but financier George Soros in the alleged financing of ‘bioweapons labs.’”
• “There is a U.S.-led project, known as the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, to help former Soviet republics transform old labs which had once been integrated into the Soviet biological weapons program into state-of-the-art civilian biological research facilities. Various American companies received contracts from the Pentagon to do that work. One of those subcontractors — a relatively minor one called Metabiota — did some work in Ukraine. That firm received an investment from a private equity firm associated with Hunter Biden. That investment had nothing to do with the labs in Ukraine. But the Russian Defense Ministry’s flow chart is a good illustration of how tenuous connections can be made to look sinister.”
• “’There are only diagnostic laboratories for routine human and animal health requirements akin to any standard U.S.-based public-facing diagnostic laboratory… The work has always centered on improving the health, safety and well-being of the Ukrainian people,’ said Andrea Chaney, a DTRA spokesperson. Dangerous pathogens are kept in freezers in these labs, so U.S. officials have expressed concern that a loss of electrical power due to the war could allow for their escape.”

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“Putin called fleeing Russians 'traitors.' Who's actually leaving?” Laura A. Henry and Elizabeth Plantan, The Washington Post, 03.31.22. The authors, a professor of government at Bowdoin College and an assistant professor of political science at Stetson University, write:

• “Russians are also fleeing their country in record numbers. Some fear arrest and imprisonment for participating in antiwar protests or for speaking out against the war. … Other Russians fear retaliation at work or at school for opposing President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine—or worry about being forced into military service. And some Russians no longer see a future in a country sliding rapidly toward full authoritarianism, isolation and deep economic crisis.”
• “Will this wave of emigration result in new pressure on the Kremlin? Our research shows how exiles—particularly well-connected activists—can become a force for political change at home, even from beyond Russia's borders. Russians who are departing appear to be disproportionately young, urban and well-educated. Many of them work in the tech sector or other white-collar professions, prompting economists and policy analysts to warn that Putin's Russia may also face an unexpected ‘brain drain.’”
• “Along with Ukrainian refugees, Russia's latest emigres may need help to resettle—and the activists now fleeing Putin's Russia may still have a significant role to play in the future politics of their home country.”

"How Russian Television Prepared the Public for War," Paul Goode, PONARS Eurasia, 03.28.22. The author, an associate professor and McMillan Chair of Russian Studies at the Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at Carleton University, writes:

• “A close examination of Russian television content helps to make sense of the cognitive dissonance experienced by Russian viewers following the declaration of war: while pre-war surveys by the Levada Center showed a majority of Russians to be uninterested in war, 50-60 percent were nevertheless certain that the United States and NATO would be to blame if war broke out. While pushing the United States and NATO as a security concern from the December crisis, Ukraine emerged from the woodwork on Russian television in January and took over as its main focus once the war began.”
• “Russian television primed viewers for war with steady doses of “war talk” prior to the invasion. It reminded Russians of past victories as well as betrayals. Doing so accomplished what is known in the literature on memory politics as “chronographic suturing,“ or knitting together past and present such that people can experience a personal connection with national history through their observation of the present. For Russian viewers, state-controlled television deftly merged this “war talk” with narratives about Western and Ukrainian aggression before fully joining the war effort by advancing claims about the prevention of genocide and fighting fascism.”
• “While there is little likelihood of displacing the central role of state-controlled television in rationalizing the war for Russian viewers, Western policy-makers should be mindful of actions that weaken countervailing voices in Russia. This is especially the case with regard to access to social media like YouTube, which are crucial alternative sources of information and income for Russian youth and opposition. Policy-makers might also consider ways to facilitate easy access to free VPNs that would allow Russians to bypass state censorship and propaganda. While these are unlikely to change domestic political dynamics in the short term, they may prove important in the longer run to ensure such spaces preserve an alternative to state-controlled media in Russia.”

“The Dots Were All There. We Just Couldn’t Connect Them,” Michelle A. Berdy, Politico, 03.27.22. The author, a writer and editor at The Moscow Times, who has lived in Moscow since 1978, writes:

• “I flew back to Moscow on the evening of February 23. The next morning the war began. Everything changed in the blink of an eye. Within two weeks, I would find myself in a minivan with a driver and six people, three dogs and mountains of suitcases and bags, getting ready to cross the border out of Russia. I would be the last one of the Moscow Times staff to leave the country, part of an exodus that included most of the foreign correspondents in Russia and thousands of Russians.”
• “The strangest part of that last week was the sense of navigating between two realities. There was my reality of a brutal war being waged against Ukraine and foreigners making frantic travel plans. And then there was my neighbors’ televised reality of children handing flowers to Russian soldiers in the warring republics of the Donbas, thanking them for saving them from genocidal Ukrainians.”
• “On Friday, March 4, the eighth day of the war, the Russian Parliament passed a law on the media. ‘Fake news’ about the war would be punished by up to 15 years in jail. … I panicked. I got on my computer, turned on my VPN and went into the administrative section of the newspaper to scrub the site. Section titles like ‘Russia Invades Ukraine’ became ‘Ukraine.’ I took the words ‘war,’ ‘attacks,’ ‘invades’ and ‘invasion’ out of every header. … It was time to leave.”

Defense and aerospace:

"Is the Russian Military Running Out of Soldiers?" Kevin Ryan, The National Interest, 03.28.22. The author, a retired brigadier general and senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, writes:

• “There is a fatal flaw in Russia’s new military machine that is beginning to manifest itself. The manpower system is about to fail, and it will fail at the most basic level—the soldiers.”
• “The first problem, which has no real solution, is that Russia’s military is unable to fight the war in Ukraine with only contract soldiers even though this is required by Russian law. The Russian military has a mix of contract (volunteer) soldiers and conscripts (draftees). … According to Russian minister of defense Sergey Shoigu, about 64 percent of Russia’s enlisted troops are contract soldiers. … Since there aren’t enough contract soldiers, a force that size would have to include some conscripts.”
• “A second significant problem for Russian forces is the system for recruiting and discharging conscripts who comprise the other 30 to 40 percent of enlisted soldiers. ... In the Russian system, combat units train new conscripts at their home bases, and it takes about six months to achieve a basic skill level. But those Russian combat units are now in Ukraine fighting a war. They will not be present at their home base to train the new conscripts when they arrive.”
• “When the fighting stops in Ukraine and the two sides stake out their claims and demands, it is almost guaranteed that Russia’s new conventional military force will be weaker than it was before the war. The force will be far less useful to Putin and Russia as leverage in arguing for a new security framework for Europe. Instead, Russia’s military power will continue to rest almost solely on its nuclear arsenal and the threat to use it. This suggests that any new security arrangement in Europe will be even more unstable and dangerous than before.

"Vladimir Putin’s Casus Belli for Invading Ukraine," Scott Radnitz, PONARS Eurasia, 03.28.22. The author, an associate professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies in the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, writes:

• “In contrast to the rationale for the previous invasions, Putin pulled out all the rhetorical stops to paint a dire picture of the forces arrayed against Russia: a long-term buildup of forces in Eastern Europe and a short-term plot by Nazis to acquire nuclear weapons, backed by NATO. To an uninformed observer, Putin’s scowling demeanor and steely resolve would be understandable on the premise that time is working against Russia and war is inevitable. However, two contradictions emerge from Putin’s latest casus belli.”
• “First, the timing of Russia’s invasion was arbitrary, as there was no imminent threat. The absence of anything on the order of a ‘Russian 9/11’ led some analysts to speculate that Russia would manufacture a false flag attack, as Biden Administration explicitly warned. Yet, despite some disputed claims amid murky circumstances in the Donbas, there was no provocation that Putin could point to as the catalyst for urgent military action.”
• “Second, given the scale and seriousness of the purported threat facing Russia, one might expect Putin to make a case for a large-scale war to roll back the Western advance. Yet he announced only a ‘special military operation’ … and even promised, ‘We are not going to impose anything on anyone by force.’”
• “By not acknowledging that Russia was about to fight a war, Putin could not expect to benefit from rallying effects. The disconnect between the apocalyptic rhetoric of threats to Russia, the supposedly limited response, and the reality of a full-scale invasion implies that Putin expected a quick victory with minimal Russian casualties and assumed Russians would not obtain information independent of official sources. After all, a short, victorious war would not require any sacrifice from the Russian population.”

"Ukraine: Russia’s air-launched cruise missiles coming up short," Douglas Barrie, IISS, 04.01.22. The author, a senior fellow for military aerospace at IISS, writes:

• “In a 21 March 2022 US Department of Defense briefing, an unnamed official noted in discussing Russia’s guided weapons inventory that ‘they still have the majority of their stocks available to them, but they have expended quite a bit, particularly in sensitive cruise missiles, air-launched cruise missiles, and they have also suffered a not-insignificant number of failures of those munitions.’ … The official added, however, that the air force still had ‘more than half of their air-launched cruise missile capability available’. If this comment relates to conventionally armed cruise missiles only, then this figure may well cover several hundred rounds.”
• “Given that Ukraine appears to have a significant number of ground-based air defense missile systems and air-surveillance radars that remain operational, and are being used effectively, Kh-101 launches are likely to have taken place well inside Russian air space. The nearest bomber base is at Engels, where Tu-160s and the Tu-95MSs are based. Ukraine’s eastern border is only 500 kilometers away, with its western border some 1,500 km distant.”
• “The conventional variant of the Kh-101 has a likely range of more than 3,500 km. The Kh-101 uses inertial and satellite navigation, terrain contour-matching and electro-optical digital scene matching for terminal guidance. The last is absent with the Kh-102, given that the same level of accuracy is not required for a nuclear warhead. The Russian Air Force may also have used the Kinzhal (RS-AS-24 Killjoy) aero-ballistic missile at least once during the fighting, which would be the first operational firing of the missile. … Only a small number of these aircraft have been converted to carry the very high-speed Kinzhal, and it is probable that the air force also has only a limited inventory of the missile in far smaller numbers than the Kh-101/Kh-102.”

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:

“Dancing in Two Weddings: Israel Balances Russia and Ukraine,” Ksenia Svetlova, War on the Rocks, 03.30.22. The author, director of the program on Israel-Middle East relations at the Mitvim Institute for Regional Foreign Policy, writes:

• “Israel’s balancing act with Russia goes back to well before Russia intervened in Syria. But it will be hard to sustain in the coming months. Not only will Western pressure increase, but many of the Israeli government’s current justifications will fall apart. If Jerusalem cannot play the role of meditator [sic] or protect Jewish communities in Ukraine from Russia’s assault, it will have little to show for its current fence-sitting. Beyond this, Israel’s identity as a Western democratic country will make it harder for the government to follow the ambiguous approach of its Middle Eastern neighbors.”
• “The shift in Israel’s policy is real. In December 2021, Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the Russian Duma, was supposed to pay a visit to the Knesset and even speak at a plenary session. Today, Volodin is under sanctions from the United States and European Union, while Zelensky had addressed the Knesset directly. As the situation on the ground develops quickly, the traditional Israeli position on Russia and Ukraine is being constantly challenged and, as a result, changing. Being a democratic country and an ally of the United States, Israel simply cannot afford to conduct its relations with Russia as if nothing has happened.”

"For India, Putin’s War Starts to Look Like a Gift," C. Raja Mohan, Foreign Policy, 03.20.22. The author, a columnist at the magazine and a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, writes:

• “When Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine, India first appeared stuck in an unenviable corner. … Now, it appears that the war may actually be a gift for New Delhi. Washington has muted its criticism—it knows that New Delhi is needed as a partner against Beijing and understands that India’s dependence on Russian military hardware requires it to play nice with Moscow. Just like China, resource-constrained India has also made good use of the crisis to snap up cheap Russian oil, which it is buying at a heavy discount to market prices as Western customers increasingly shun Russian deliveries.”
• “Far from being in an unenviable bind, New Delhi now looks well placed to leverage its position in the middle for its own benefit in the short and long term. From Russia, India is getting discounted oil, fertilizer, and other commodities as Moscow desperately seeks new buyers. From China, India is looking to extract an easing of the Sino-Indian military confrontation in the Himalayas. With the United States and other Western partners, India is looking to modernize its defense industrial base and reduce its dependence on Russian military supplies.”
• “In the new situation created by Russia’s war, India’s dependence on Moscow for weapons has also gotten the Biden administration’s attention. Although India’s massive reliance on Russian arms and spare parts is unlikely to come down quickly, the United States can play a critical role in accelerating India’s diversification.”
• “In India’s ideal but currently elusive scenario, Russia would be at peace with Europe and the United States and help in stabilizing (or stay out of) the Asian balance of power. Putin’s Russia, however, has embraced China, invoked Western wrath with its war on Ukraine, and complicated India’s quest for Asian balance.”

“Deconstructing Indian ‘Neutrality’ on Ukraine,” Abhinav Pandya, The National Interest, 03.31.22. The author, a founder and CEO of Usanas Foundation, an India-based geopolitical and security affairs think-tank, writes: 

• “New Delhi is not a passive fence-sitter this time; instead, it is an active player with both a principled stand and shrewd realpolitik. On the one hand, New Delhi has sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine, invoked diplomacy and dialogue to resolve the conflict and categorically stated that nations should respect territorial integrity and sovereignty, albeit without mentioning any names. On the other hand, the Modi government has shown itself as a strategic realist taking bold decisions in the ruthless pursuit of national interests. Over the last month, India has made six abstentions from the United Nations Security Council … and other United Nations (U.N.) institutions voting on the issue.”
• “India’s stance can be best summarized by what Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, its current foreign minister, said at the Raisina Dialogue 2019 while addressing a question on India’s alliance with the West. He explained, ‘I think we should take a stand and choose a side and that’s our side… [T]here will be a lot of areas where our interests converge with the U.S. and Europe and there will be areas where they won’t or they will be partial … and to my mind, east of India, there seems to be more convergence and to the west, there seems to be less.’” 

Ukraine:

“Putin’s Pyrrhic Victory,” Brian Milakovsky, Foreign Affairs, 03.31.22. 

"Creeping Finlandization or Prudent Foreign Policy? Georgia’s Strategic Challenges amid the Ukrainian Crisis," Kornely Kakachia, Shota Kakabadze, PONARS Eurasia, 03.28.22. The authors, respectively a professor of Political Science at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University/director of the Tbilisi Georgian Institute of Politics, and a junior policy analyst at the Tbilisi Georgian Institute of Politics, write:

• “Inconsistency in Georgian foreign policy raises questions for the country’s strategic partners and gives Moscow hope since the neutrality of Georgia, as well as other Eastern Partnership countries, is an acceptable scenario for Russia. However, taking into consideration the Kremlin’s rhetoric toward Ukraine, one should assume that Moscow perceives Finlandization as a temporary step toward the gradual inclusion of Eastern Partnership countries in Russian-dominated organizations like the Eurasian Union, CSTO, etc.”
• “There is very little chance that Russia — a superior military power operating within its sphere of influence — is going to respect its neighbors’ neutrality. Hence, the future status of Ukraine is a problem for Kyiv and Tbilisi.”
• “If Russia manages to acquire an informal veto over NATO’s open-door policy and halt eastern enlargement perspectives, it will lead to Georgia’s regional and international isolation. It is crucial for Georgia to be as active as possible in the international arena and actively engage in different strategic formats that ensure Western involvement in regional security. This is more important now as a consolidated West is united against Russian aggression, which creates momentum for the Eastern Partnership countries, including Georgia, to finally acquire an EU membership perspective.”
• “Regardless of the war’s final outcome, its consequences will have a significant effect on regional and Black Sea security for decades to come. The Georgian government’s policy of accommodating Russia will be difficult to sustain—as well as dangerous to Georgian sovereignty—when the West and Russia are locked in a major conflict over Moscow’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine. Tbilisi’s position confuses its Western partners, alienates its closest allies (including Ukraine), and strengthens Russia’s perception of Georgia deliberately returning to Russia’s sphere of influence. If the Georgian government does not adapt to changing circumstances, it will risk being isolated internationally and left alone with Russia.”

"Turbulence Across Eurasia Will Not Slow Kazakhstan’s Progress," Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, The National Interest, 04.04.22. The author, president of Kazakhstan, writes:  

• “The Russian-Ukraine conflict is a tragedy the scale of which the European continent has not experienced since long ago. Just two months prior to the outbreak of this war, Kazakhstan experienced its own tragedy: nationwide demonstrations that escalated to violence unprecedented in this country’s thirty years of independence. We are still recovering from those wounds, but we are fully committed to learn lessons and to boldly address challenges and move forward.”
• “Eurasia has always been a dynamic region, but concerted efforts must be made to keep it peaceful, open, and prosperous. As the President of Kazakhstan, the largest ex-Soviet state after the Russian Federation, I must fight for these goals.”
• “As states that share the longest border in the world Kazakhstan and Russia enjoy special relations of mutual cooperation. Meanwhile we also have deep traditions of friendly relations with Ukraine. We respect its territorial integrity — as the overwhelming majority of the world does. We hope for a swift and just resolution of the conflict in accordance with UN Charter. I have been in direct communications with Presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky urging for dialogue and peaceful settlement of hostilities. Kazakhstan is both willing and able to continue its role as international mediator.”