This Week’s Highlights

• “China’s and Russia’s primary activities [in Central Asia] are not in direct competition with each other,” write journalists Lindsey Kennedy and Nathan Paul Southern. “[T]his has developed into a rough division of power between the two superstates, with Russia dominating the security side, and China cornering infrastructure and development. … Whether the current allocation of power is the product of collaboration or circumstance, China is clearly the stronger partner here—and Russia knows it.” Giulia Sciorati, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Trento, writes that while “[t]he Russo-Chinese security-economy paradigm has become popular in scholarly works around Central Asia’s Great Game as a way to explain an apparent lack of regional competition between the two powers,” a new Chinese-funded outpost in Tajikistan “has once again stirred this debate.”
• “When considering Moscow’s policies toward the United States and NATO, the Russian defense industry’s influence can only be understood in the context of this administrative-market-driven feedback loop,” writes political scientist Pavel Luzin. “In its foreign policy, the Kremlin relies on asserting its military might and on continued legitimacy in the eyes of Russian citizens; consequently, it needs to keep the defense industry afloat, covering the constantly growing costs and sometimes making up work for enterprises that would be redundant in a true market—including the manufacture of weapons deemed threatening by Washington and Brussels.”
• “The criticism of foreign-made vaccines by Putin and state media, intended to boost Sputnik, instead convinced many Russians that if international products were not much good, their own version was surely worse,” writes the FT’s editorial board.
• “While neither the conflict with the Soviet Union nor the current competition with China has led to all-out combat, the games are very different,” writes Harvard Prof. Joseph S. Nye Jr. “During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was a direct military and ideological threat to the United States. … Because the game was based on a simple two-dimensional premise—that the only fight was between their respective militaries—each side depended on the other not to pull the trigger. But with China, the three-dimensional game features a distribution of power at each level—military, economic and social—not just one. That is why the Cold War metaphor, although convenient, is lazy and potentially dangerous.”
• “The Kremlin’s anxiety about the Russian people’s capacity for explosive anger has … thus far constrained their willingness to more rigorously censor the internet,” writes Prof. Peter Rutland. ““Putin’s team will have to carefully weigh the costs and benefits of a further tightening of internet censorship. There could be a fierce social reaction if the Kremlin were to try to shut down YouTube in Russia.”

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

Nuclear security:

• No significant developments.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

• No significant developments.

Iran and its nuclear program:

• No significant developments.

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

“Sanctions & War: Contending Western-Russian Approaches and Prospects for Strategic Stability,” Adam Stulberg, PONARS Eurasia, 11.01.21. The author, a professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech, writes:

• “Given the lack of common understanding about sanctions and war, U.S. and Russian policymakers are advised to transcend complacency surrounding the status quo and focus on creating fire-breaks to inadvertent escalation below the line of employing kinetic force. This can begin with greater strategic empathy, understanding not only what is driving the other’s behavior but how it assesses costs, benefits and risks. The burden here is less about accepting the other’s objectives or ending strategic competition than appreciating the strategies behind the other’s posture.”
• “For the United States, this can help to distinguish escalatory coercive signals from demonstrations of restraint or weakness with the employment of sanctions. Similarly, greater attentiveness by Moscow to U.S. strategy can aid with understanding when Russia’s implicit gray zone operations either have fallen on deaf ears or portend a costly punctuated reaction. In this regard, a constructive focal point for strategic stability talks should be deconstructing escalation pathways associated with the pursuit of each’s sanctions and counter-responses. Doing so can offer insight into dangerous inflection points between horizontal and vertical escalation in cross-domain competition.”
• “Together the processes of sharing empathetic insights and escalation scenarios can assist with identifying common aversions within the gray zone of long-term competition, thus setting the parameters for a broader concept of strategic stability above and below the line of use of force to mitigate risks of blundering into costly military conflict.”

“US and China Must Heed Kissinger’s Stark Warnings,” Edward Luce, Financial Times, 11.04.21. The author, a columnist at FT, writes:

• “As the diplomat who did most to capitalize on the Cold War Sino-Soviet split, Henry Kissinger is dismissed by some as a China apologist. Yet his alarm at the risks of what is rapidly turning into a second cold war should be taken very seriously.”
• “Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, said that whoever led in artificial intelligence would dominate the world. Kissinger, who, with Eric Schmidt, former chief executive of Google, is co-author of a new book, ‘The Age of AI,’ says we have not yet begun to grasp the impact it is having on future warfare and geopolitical stability.”
• “We do not know enough about AI on either side even to determine if China is ahead, or what it could do if it were. [Kissinger] likened today to the period before the first world war in which Britain and Germany were so ill-informed about each other’s aims that a seemingly unrelated incident  … triggered what at the time was the bloodiest war in history.”
• “‘We need to learn about these AI capabilities while simultaneously understanding that they produce a level of uncertainty in the world within which permanent peace is very difficult to sustain — probably impossible,” Kissinger said … ‘The US and China are not close to understanding the potency of each other’s AI — and there are no plans to start a formal dialogue,’ he says. The scope for confusion and escalation is thus greater than during most of the cold war.”
• “‘With nuclear weapons it was possible to conceive of principles of deterrence in which there was some symmetry between the damage on each side,’ he said. ‘If an unrestrained [US-China] arms race goes from nuclear to AI, the dangers of dramatic escalation would be very great.’”

“When It Comes to China, Don’t Call It a ‘Cold War,’” Joseph S. Nye Jr., The New York Times, 11.02.21. The author, a professor at Harvard University, writes:

• “A new idea is gaining currency among some politicians and policymakers in Washington: The United States is in a “Cold War” with China. It’s a bad idea—bad on history, bad on politics, bad for our future.”
• “While neither the conflict with the Soviet Union nor the current competition with China has led to all-out combat, the games are very different. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was a direct military and ideological threat to the United States. We had almost no economic or social connections: Containment was a feasible objective. Because the game was based on a simple two-dimensional premise—that the only fight was between their respective militaries—each side depended on the other not to pull the trigger. But with China, the three-dimensional game features a distribution of power at each level—military, economic and social—not just one. That is why the Cold War metaphor, although convenient, is lazy and potentially dangerous.”
• “The political competition today is also different. The United States and its allies are not threatened by the export of communism in the same way they were in the days of Stalin or Mao.”
• “For better and worse, we are locked in a “cooperative rivalry” with China that requires a strategy that can accomplish those two contradictory things—compete and cooperate—at the same time … President Biden is correct that Cold War rhetoric has more negative than positive effects. But he also needs to ensure that his China strategy suits the three-dimensional game.”

“The U.S. and EU Shake Up Global Trade,” Walter Russell Mead, The Wall Street Journal, 11.01.21. The author, a Hudson Institute fellow, Bard professor and columnist with the newspaper, writes:

• “The most important news out of Rome had nothing to do with the G-20. The temporary trade deal announced by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and President [Joe] Biden … lays out a new approach to world trade that … could usher in the most consequential changes to the international trade regime in half a century or more.”
• “Instead of fighting each other over steel, the U.S. and the EU agree to turn their mutual fire on China. The EU gets 4.4 million tons of duty-free steel exports to the U.S. for the next two years and 3.3 million tons after that. The U.S. gets EU cooperation against the Chinese steel industry and forestalls EU retaliation against U.S. tariffs that the EU argues are illegal under World Trade Organization rules.”
• “For the Biden administration, the deal is a significant victory. It strengthens the kind of economic trans-Atlantic cooperation against China that the administration wants. It employs the leverage that President [Donald] Trump's unconventional tariff policies produced… And it simultaneously pleases two of the constituencies the administration cares most about: organized labor and climate activists.”
• “The other notable aspect of the G-20 summit was the number of no-shows. … [B]oth Russia and China stayed away. The rituals of the American-led world order no longer hold much appeal for them. From Chinese President Xi Jinping's perspective, listening to moralistic lectures from the globally insignificant leaders of former colonial powers is beneath the dignity of one of the most powerful figures in the long history of China. For President Vladimir Putin, it is more fun to stay home in the Kremlin manipulating gas flows than to sit through interminable dinners while the Canadian prime minister natters on about the rights of sexual minorities. Both leaders are also skipping the Glasgow climate meeting, where they would inevitably be targeted by Western leaders.”
• “What the Rome summit tells us is that the big issues that some hope will unite humanity—climate change and globalization—are increasingly dividing it, while the gap separating China and Russia from the West continues to widen.”

“Civilian-Based Resistance in the Baltic States: Historical Precedents and Current Capabilities,” Anika Binnendijk, Marta Kepe, RAND, November 2021. The authors, a political scientist and a senior defense analyst at RAND corporation, write:

• “In the event of an occupation of Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania, a conventional military intervention by allies—including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union and the United States—would be crucial for the Baltic countries to regain national independence. But Baltic civilians could play a powerful role in their own defense—and, in fact, the Baltic countries' constitutions and national security strategies highlight the importance of the willingness and preparedness of their civilians to meet external aggression with resilience and resistance.”
• “Civilian communication efforts could expand support for resistance, engage external audiences and build domestic morale: Civilians could document and disseminate instances of repression to provoke outrage among international audiences; Baltic émigré communities could amplify messaging within their own communities, combat disinformation and enhance support for their home countries' involvement in a Baltic crisis.”
• “Civilians could help lead national continuity during a crisis: Civilians could protect national institutions, providing clarity regarding the national chain of command, maintaining a focal point for foreign governments to engage and reinforcing the illegitimacy of external aggression.”
• “Clear separation of civilian and military roles would harness popular potential to inflict costs while protecting vulnerable populations: Providing opportunities for low-risk activities could increase widespread participation and bolster morale; [p]roviding institutional avenues for high-risk activities would ensure that civilians could engage in armed roles consistently with international law and without endangering civilians. … Economic emergency plans could buffer the impact of a crisis on civilians and increase costs to the adversary: Economic planning could ensure the supply of vital goods and services, protect critical infrastructure, and deny an occupier access to resources.”
• “Ultimately, allied military and economic interventions remain crucial: Prompt conventional military intervention, likely through NATO, would represent the most significant factor in imposing military costs upon an aggressor; [t]he most important nonmilitary costs, such as sanctions, would similarly require cooperation and sacrifice from international allies.”

“Report—Havana Syndrome: American Officials under Attack,” Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, 11.04.21. The report—based on a discussion hosted by the Belfer Center’s Intelligence Project between former CIA officer Marc Polymeropoulos and New Yorker journalist Adam Entous and moderated by Intelligence Project director Paul Kolbe—says:

• “In September 2021, the CIA recalled its Vienna station chief reportedly over his response to a series of ‘anomalous health incidents’ experienced by over two dozen personnel. These incidents mark the latest entry in a series of mysterious afflictions more commonly referred to as ‘Havana Syndrome.’ Since 2016, over 200 U.S. diplomats, intelligence officials and their family members across the globe have reported similar experiences of severe headaches, vertigo and … cognitive difficulties while in their homes or hotel rooms on assignments. The effects can persist for years, leading to early retirement, impacting quality of life and harming close-knit communities that represent Washington abroad and provide America’s first line of defense.”
• “The initial U.S. government response to Havana Syndrome lacked coordination across agencies and left many victims without adequate medical care. Senior officials questioned whether the symptoms were the result of deliberate attacks but did little to investigate other explanations even as the frequency of incidents increased. Some suggested the victims were simply experiencing mass hysteria. The Biden administration and CIA Director William Burns have redoubled their efforts to uncover the cause of Havana Syndrome and provide care to affected officials, but the U.S. government’s policy response options remain limited by the nature of an opaque threat with no definitive attribution. How the White House and partners in Congress identify and respond to these aggressive actions will have policy implications in the years ahead.”
• “Washington must protect and care for its diplomats, intelligence officials and their families. More broadly, the U.S. must consider how it can deter and defend against asymmetric warfare without definitive evidence. Doing so will require renewing focus on traditional intelligence tradecraft to uncover threats, improving defensive detection and mitigation measures and developing novel policy strategies to protect America’s intelligence officers and diplomats serving abroad. Failure to address these attacks will impair U.S. diplomatic and intelligence activities, challenge strategic warning capabilities and hinder crisis response.”

“The Mystery of ‘Havana Syndrome’,” Serge Schmemann, New York Times, 11.03.21. The author, a member of the newspaper’s editorial board, writes:

• “The 200 or so U.S. officials who have reported neurological symptoms … deserve every effort by the government to get to the bottom of their problem. The trouble is that Havana syndrome has become so deeply enmeshed in the contentious politics of our time that agreement on an objective cause may prove all but impossible.”
• “Despite the absence of any conclusive evidence about what causes it, or any reason it would appear in locations as diverse as India, Colombia, Vietnam, Austria, China, Serbia and Russia, or even a concrete number of officials afflicted, powerful lobbies have concluded that the symptoms are the work of a hostile power, and that this points to Russia. (For the record, Russia and Cuba both deny any role.)”
  • “A top State Department official brought back from retirement to coordinate a response to the illness was released after only six months, presumably in part because she would not rule out a mass psychogenic illness.”
  • “The C.I.A. station chief in Vienna, a hotbed of espionage, was removed in September, purportedly because he did not take the incidents seriously enough.”
• “In September, Congress unanimously passed the Helping American Victims Afflicted by Neurological Attacks (HAVANA) Act, which will provide financial support to sufferers… Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who is a son of Cuban exiles and was one of the authors of the bill, dismissed some of those skeptical of the theory that the symptoms were caused by directed-energy attacks as ‘influence agents.’”
• “The skeptics, however, include many serious scientists, such as Cheryl Rofer, a former chemist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, who wrote in Foreign Policy that no proponent of the directed-energy theory has outlined how such a weapon would work and that any nation has developed one.”
• “That does not mean there is no mystery weapon. … But the potential ramifications of such a conclusion … demand dispassionate and objective investigation, not speculative bombast.”

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

“Russia’s China Policy: Growing Asymmetries and Hedging Options,” Igor Denisov and Alexander Lukin, Russian Politics, 11.02.21. The authors, a senior research fellow at Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) and the head of the department of international relations at the Higher School of Economics, respectively, write: 

• “When analyzing relations between the Soviet Union/Russia and China, many experts in the West get caught up in the political aspirations and desires of the West itself and are less concerned with what is actually happening. As a result, they are often late to the party when it comes to assessing actual events.”  
• “In the meantime, however, the context of bilateral relations is being altered by objective shifts in the structure of the global system and the changing relative strengths of Russia and China, and not by ideological dreams… [W]e will attempt to demonstrate the essence of these changes and outline the prospects for the possible development of bilateral relations.”  
• “China is not Russia’s rival. Rather, Russia and China need to balance out the United States and its Western allies, which under the Biden administration are clearly trying to form a balancing coalition against the growing Sino-Russian partnership.” 
• “Under these circumstances, hedging appears to be the most rational option for Russia. This policy … means combining both ‘balancing’ and ‘bandwagoning’ approaches: developing close relations with the strong partner while respecting one’s own interests and diversifying ties with other partners to avoid overdependence and subordination.” 
• “In this respect, close interaction with China will remain a long-term or maybe permanent political and economic necessity. At the same time, China’s newfound interest in Russia has created a real opportunity to redress the balance in the bilateral relationship, as current trends threaten to move Moscow’s approach from hedging to bandwagoning.”

“The Collapse of the Afghan Government Provides a Challenge for China and Russia, Not a Windfall,” Elizabeth Wishnick, PONARS Eurasia, 11.01.21. The author, a professor of political science at Montclair State University, writes:

• “The collapse of the Afghan government and takeover by the Taliban is not a net win for China and Russia, nor will these developments automatically cement their partnership. Today, Chinese and Russian officials see the swift collapse of the Afghan government as confirmation of the bankruptcy of Western efforts at democracy-building. But, in the near future, Russia and China will face an unpredictable political and security environment close to their borders, as well as new challenges to their strategic partnership.”
• “Despite some optimistic reporting about developments in Afghanistan prodding the two countries to ‘synchronize their clocks’ and bind their ties more tightly, it is far from clear that they are coordinating their strategies. Although some of their concerns overlap—counterterrorism, for example—the two countries approach Afghanistan from different strategic vantage points and have divergent interests in the endgame that they wish for the broader region.”
• “Although China and Russia may be in agreement about the broad brushstrokes of international relations and authoritarian governance, it remains to be seen whether or not they will speak with one voice on Afghanistan and if Russia will welcome a more active Chinese role in regional security in Eurasia. Russia appears to be retaking the initiative in regional efforts to address security concerns in Afghanistan, but China has its own agenda for the region, thus far largely connected to the security of Xinjiang and the promotion of the Belt and Road Initiative, but increasingly involving a greater Chinese role in regional security.”

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

“What Would Nuclear Peace Look Like?” Michael Krepon, Arms Control Wonk, 11.01.21. The author, co-founder of the Stimson Center, writes:

• “We know what nuclear war would look like. … Few of us think about or can visualize what nuclear peace would look like—even those of us over 40 who have experienced it.”
• “Now we’re heading in the direction of increased nuclear dangers… The geometry of nuclear competition is way more complex than ever before. There are four pairings of nuclear-armed rivals, and there will be more if Iran acquires the means to make nuclear weapons.”
• “As I write in my book, ‘Winning and Losing the Nuclear Peace: The Rise, Demise and Revival of Arms Control,’ the conditions of nuclear peace were established when deterrence and arms control became mutually reinforcing. This was a rare conjunction, enabled when the Soviet Union was dissolving and when deterrence strategists embraced the concepts of arms control.”
• “Another [necessary condition of nuclear peace] was the acceptance of vulnerability to nuclear attack by a well-armed rival. Most crucial of all, rivals did not use nuclear weapons in warfare. They even stopped testing these ‘war-winning’ weapons, as every test was a declaration of military utility.”
• “At the very apogee of success for arms control, conditions moved into place for its demise. Bipartisanship waned. Parity between Washington and Moscow … became fictional. After 9/11, the United States could no longer accept vulnerability as a central strategic concept. And respect for national sovereignty and territorial integrity took a battering when Vladimir Putin pushed back against the prospective inclusion of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO.”
• “Dangerous military practices have been on the upswing ever since, in Ukraine, the Taiwan Strait and along disputed borders between China and India and between India and Pakistan.”
  • “The first thing to do is to remember how we survived nuclear dangers in the past. We survived because national leaders recognized that stand-alone deterrence was too dangerous, and that arms control was needed.”
  • “The top-most priorities at present are strengthening norms, devising codes of conduct and seeking to reduce dangerous military, space and cyber practices. Numbers will have to be dealt with, but the lengthening and strengthening of norms cannot wait.”
  • “A new multilateral forum devoted solely to norm building might usefully be created—a forum where all nuclear-armed rivals have a seat at the table along with Britain and France. And given the speed and scope of Chinese nuclear force buildups, it’s time to do our homework about trilateral negotiations dealing with numbers.”

Counterterrorism:

• No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant developments.

Cyber security:

• No significant developments.

Energy exports from CIS:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

“NDAA-2022: How US Priorities Regarding Russia Have Shifted,” Aleksandra Srdanovic, Russia Matters, 11.05.21. The author, a graduate student at Harvard University and a student associate with Russia Matters, writes:

• “On Sept. 23, 2021, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which, if it becomes a law, would provide over $700 billion to further America’s defense policies and priorities. … The Senate’s own version of the bill was officially filed by the chairmen of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Sep. 22, 2021, but the bill and its growing list of amendments have yet to be put on the Senate floor for debate. … As of now, there is no clear date for when the Senate’s version will go to the floor.”
• “Compared to the 2021 NDAA, the House’s 2022 draft NDAA would increase funding for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, U.S. European Command and the NATO Security Investment Program … At the same time, it decreases funding for the European Deterrence Initiative, NATO Alliance Ground Surveillance and overall NATO-related research and development … The 2022 NDAA also introduces a total of $175 million for the Baltic Security Initiative and $5 million for the NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence. The Senate’s 2022 draft NDAA recommends identical funding levels for all of the aforementioned programs, except for the European Deterrence Initiative and the Baltic Security Initiative.”
• “Compared to NDAA 2021, the House-passed NDAA-2022 features more provisions relating to NATO; the United States’ commitment to post-Soviet states such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan; the Nagorno Karabakh conflict; and Russia’s human rights abuses. At the same time, compared to the enacted 2021 NDAA, it excludes mention of Russia’s support for extremist groups and networks, as well as Russian illicit finance … The current version of the Senate NDAA-2022, compared to the House-passed NDAA, is a more bare bones document, with no reference to Russia in the context of energy security, nuclear security and arms control, human rights and extremism and terrorism. Also, notably absent are mentions of any post-Soviet states except for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.”

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“Russia’s vaccine disinformation has let down its own people,” Editorial Board, Financial Times, 11.04.21. The news outlet’s editorial board writes:

• “Despite developing one of the first vaccines, Russia has among the lowest uptakes of any large economy and, Financial Times analysis suggests, one of the highest excess death rates. Its fate reflects official mishandling, popular distrust—and disinformation efforts that backfired by knocking confidence in jabs and fueled conspiracy theories. Comparing mortality data with historical trends, FT analysis suggests Russia recorded 753,000 excess deaths during the pandemic to the end of September. That is second only to the U.S. in absolute terms, and third after Peru and Bulgaria on a per capita basis.”
• “After racing to develop the Sputnik-V vaccine, however, it is on vaccinations that Russia has really fallen down. Just 33 percent of the population have had two doses. Levada, an independent pollster, this week found 45 percent of people were ‘not ready’ to get the jab. Dubiousness about vaccines partly reflects a distrust of state authorities dating back to pre-Soviet times.”
• “The sham democracy and slavishly propagandistic media of the Putin era have only heightened distrust and a tendency to believe in conspiracies. Levada polling found 61 percent of respondents agreed coronavirus was a ‘new form of biological weapon.’ Anyone who thinks the virus is man-made is unlikely to see vaccines as an answer.”
• “The criticism of foreign-made vaccines by Putin and state media, intended to boost Sputnik, instead convinced many Russians that if international products were not much good, their own version was surely worse. An EU report last month said a systematic disinformation campaign by Russian media to sow doubt about vaccines in the West, with materials on European websites in multiple languages including Russian, had backfired.”

“Russia's political prisoners are no longer a thing of the past,” Vladimir Kara-Murza, The Washington Post, 11.02.21. The author, a Russian politician, author and historian, writes:

• “‘Institutionally, today's repressions have still not reached the Soviet level, but we are heading firmly in that direction,’ Alexander Podrabinek, a prominent journalist and prisoner of conscience in the 1970s and 1980s, told Echo of Moscow radio last week. ‘People are being convicted not for committing any offenses but because security services believe them to be disloyal to the authorities.’”
• “Just as in Soviet times, international advocacy is often the last line of defense for those who are imprisoned at the whim of an authoritarian regime. … Western leaders can do more, including personally advocating for political prisoners in their meetings with Kremlin leaders. Such advocacy can, at the very least, improve these prisoners' conditions, and at best pave the way for their release.”
• “For Russia itself, the lesson of 30 years ago is equally clear. Preoccupied by the urgent needs of political liberalization and economic reforms, the country's democratic leaders of the 1990s neglected … a fundamental requirement of successful post-totalitarian transformation: a proper reckoning with the past. … Russia never went through a full process of decommunization and lustration, opening the archives, disbanding the old security services, publicizing the crimes of the former regime and making it impossible for their perpetrators ever to return to positions of power. ‘We don't need witch hunts’ was a popular argument offered at the time. The most farsighted of Russian democrats … warned that the witches would soon return and start a hunt of their own. They turned out to be exactly right.”
• “One day, in some form, Russia will get another chance at democratic transition, and it is imperative that this mistake not be repeated. Perhaps Oct. 30 will yet become a day of commemoration, after all.”

“Did the Internet Bring Down the Soviet Union?” Peter Rutland, Transitions, 11.03.21. The author, a professor of government at Wesleyan University, writes:

• “Tim Berners Lee, on Aug. 6 1991, put up the first world wide website on a computer at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva. Two weeks later, Soviet hardliners launched a coup, which failed, leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union. A coincidence? Yes, as it happens. A pure coincidence. The invention of the internet had nothing to do with the Soviet collapse.”
• “Putin’s team has been very skilled at controlling television and newspapers—drawing on their decades of experience in media manipulation in the Soviet Union. But the internet was not around in Soviet times, so the Kremlin is playing catchup.”
• “The Kremlin’s anxiety about the Russian people’s capacity for explosive anger has also thus far constrained their willingness to more rigorously censor the internet. However, the government seems wary of angering internet users, who now make up 80 percent of the Russian population. People rely on the internet for communications, for entertainment and for business. The government was forced to back down in the face of public opposition and technical difficulties after it tried to close down the encrypted messaging service Telegram in 2018. The Kremlin is trying to encourage users to watch Russia-based platforms, such as RuTube, but as yet these are far inferior to YouTube.” 
• “Putin’s team will have to carefully weigh the costs and benefits of a further tightening of internet censorship. There could be a fierce social reaction if the Kremlin were to try to shut down YouTube in Russia.”

Defense and aerospace:

“Russia’s Defense Industry and Its Influence on Policy: Stuck in a Redistributive Feedback Loop,” Pavel Luzin, Russia Matters, 11.03.21. The author, a political scientist focusing on international relations, global security and space policy and a columnist at Riddle, writes:

• “Russia’s large defense corporations and their subsidiaries compete not in a free market but within a so-called administrative market—an ongoing redistribution of government resources, mostly via Moscow, among players important to the political system and its sustainability. … This gives the state too little freedom to reform a sector plagued by economic inefficiencies that create a drain on the budget, leading instead to the partial restoration of a command economy and raising the specter of economic overstretch.”
• “When considering Moscow’s policies toward the United States and NATO, the Russian defense industry’s influence can only be understood in the context of this administrative-market-driven feedback loop: In its foreign policy, the Kremlin relies on asserting its military might and on continued legitimacy in the eyes of Russian citizens; consequently, it needs to keep the defense industry afloat, covering the constantly growing costs and sometimes making up work for enterprises that would be redundant in a true market—including the manufacture of weapons deemed threatening by Washington and Brussels.”
• “The interests of state-owned defense corporations and their subsidiaries are too deeply intertwined with the interests of ministries and federal agencies, the Kremlin and the entire political elite, not to mention the personal interests of Putin’s inner circle and other high-ranking officials. This administrative-market system does not accommodate proper oversight and decisions concerning the defense industry are determined primarily by political rationale.”
• “Despite the fact that Russia’s political elite tries not to repeat the mistakes that led to the Soviet collapse, the risk of economic overstretch is growing. The defense industry’s rising debt burden and the government’s intense spending on the sector … suggest that balancing between market and command-administrative sectors within the Russian economy will become increasingly challenging. This in turn raises the question of the economy’s overall sustainability and, consequently, the question of the long-term sustainability of Russia’s political system.”

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:

“Transformation of alliances: Mapping Russia’s close relationships in the era of multivectorism,” Ecaterina Locoman and Mihaela Papa, Contemporary Security Policy, 11.03.21. The authors, a senior lecturer at the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania and an adjunct assistant professor at the Fletcher School of Tufts University, write:

• “Russia is an important stakeholder in the global security system, given its military and geostrategic relevance as well as its global governance entrepreneurship. Examining how Russia’s epistemic community views alliances in the context of multivectorism gives insight into Russia’s conceptual repertoire for action and associated conventions.” 
• “First, the article challenges the claim that traditional alliances are ‘ending,’ or obsolete, as extant literature suggests. Both academic and policy discourses demonstrate Russia’s aversion toward traditional, security-focused alliances. They emphasize that alliances are an outdated institutional form and inefficient in meeting Russia’s security needs. … However, … Russia still binds itself through defense commitments, although less so than in the early 1990s. CSTO most closely resembles a traditional alliance, even though the Russian government has conveyed mixed messages about framing CSTO as Russia’s alliance. … Engaging post-Soviet states enables Russia to portray itself as an important power and security provider, keeps pro-Russia states in its orbit, and helps Russia develop a new vision of Eurasian integration. The closest Soyuz relations entrap Russia in a family-like narrative, which is inconsistent with the principles of multivectorism.”
• “Second, our analysis counters the call for a paradigm shift from alliances to alignments in the security field from a process perspective. Although Russian discourses often suggest that multivectorism replaced prior bloc thinking, Russian multivectorism coexists with alliances, rather than serving as their replacement. While prior multivectorism scholarship focused on geographical and ideological diversification of relationships, we argue for examining various institutional forms as vectors. … More often, Russia uses strategic partnership rhetoric in joint statements and declarations to signal the importance of its relationships without producing agreements that carry the same weight. Yet it leaves the doors open to upgrading relationships, which can eventually turn into formal alliances.”
• “[W]e suggest following the path of conceptual repertoires of ‘close alignment’ choices and capturing dynamics involved in their maintenance and change. Russian alignment practices also suggest that using isolated security-specific entities as examples of allied cooperation does not adequately consider the issue and institution linkages close relationships entail.”

Ukraine:

• No significant developments.

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

“Central Asia Is Turning Back to Moscow,” Lindsey Kennedy and Nathan Paul Southern, Foreign Policy, 11.07.21. Kennedy, a journalist and documentary filmmaker, and Southern, an investigative reporter and security specialist, write:

• “Over the past two decades, the war next door [in Afghanistan] incentivized some U.S. aid and investment … With troops gone, the United States seems increasingly unlikely to pay the region much thought—unless China is involved. … But for the Central Asian states … the old occupier, Russia, and, increasingly, China are often more tempting prospects.”
• “With the supposed benefits of freedom nowhere to be seen, it’s little wonder that many Central Asians have become nostalgic for the strength and stability Russia claims to provide. … While Moscow is able to control the narrative, it can’t always disguise facts on the ground. The visible scars left by Russian colonialism and communist rule remain—stark warnings of the risks of trusting too much in the powerful neighbor to the north.”
• “It’s unsurprising that Central Asians tend to be more comfortable working with Russia than with China. Many speak Russian, use the Cyrillic alphabet, and, due to their political history, understand Russia’s institutions and business culture. … By contrast, very few people in the region speak Chinese, and Sinophobia runs deep.”
• “China’s and Russia’s primary activities are not in direct competition with each other. Russia simply doesn’t have the capital to rival Chinese economic expansion—especially with the extra pressure of international sanctions … Instead, it focuses on security … In Central Asia, this has developed into a rough division of power between the two superstates, with Russia dominating the security side, and China cornering infrastructure and development. … Whether the current allocation of power is the product of collaboration or circumstance, China is clearly the stronger partner here—and Russia knows it.”
• “The West’s lengthy neglect of Central Asia has served to undermine faith in democracy while making it easier for opportunistic regimes to establish exploitative relationships that will last for generations to come. Similar stories are emerging in countries throughout Africa, where China and Russia continue to carve up control along comparable lines. Political isolationism and inward-looking policies will only make this worse.”

“Not a Military Base: Why Did China Commit to an Outpost in Tajikistan?” Giulia Sciorati, ISPI, 11.02.21. The author, a postdoctoral research fellow in Chinese studies at the University of Trento, writes:

• “Last week, China committed to building a military base in Central Asia’s neighboring Tajikistan, raising the number of its foreign military bases to two. However, Djibouti is not yet at risk of being stripped of its unique position in China’s foreign military engagement. Reports have revealed that China will fund the construction of a Tajik outpost and not a military base located at the intersection between Tajikistan’s eastern Gorno-Badakhshan province, China’s north-western Xinjiang region and Afghanistan’s eastern Badakhshan province.”
• “As such, China’s military presence in Tajikistan is not set to increase dramatically for the time being. Indeed, the outpost will not be operated by members of China’s army nor the military police, but rather by the Tajik police force. China’s People’s Armed Police … China’s security presence in the area should then be considered in terms of the porosity of the Tajik and Pakistani borders, which facilitates drugs, weapons, and people smuggling from Afghanistan to China.”
• “The Chinese-funded Tajik outpost responds to China’s increased concerns around the spreading of an Afghanistan-inspired wave of regional instability rather than a willingness to step into the U.S.’ left behind shoes. China continues to have no interests in finding a way to mediate its global peaceful rise narrative to acquire a more assertive role as an external security provider in Central Asia, or anywhere else for that matter.”
• “The Russo-Chinese security-economy paradigm has become popular in scholarly works around Central Asia’s Great Game as a way to explain an apparent lack of regional competition between the two powers. In brief, this explanation ascribes a security role to Russia in Central Asia against China’s economic one. The Tajik outpost has once again stirred this debate. … [P]roposals [made within the SCO] indicate that complementary roles between the two powers have emerged, at least at the institutional level … [S]trategic considerations have spurred Russia and China towards developing their respective regional roles along balancing lines. Both countries, though, have crossed these penciled lines at some point or another.”

“Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova between Russia and the West,” Henrik Larsen, ETH, November 2021. The author, senior researcher in the Swiss and Euro-Atlantic Security Team at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zürich, writes:

• “The three countries [Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova] over the past five years have benefitted from in-creased trade with the EU, without however strengthening the rule of law to boost investments and lift them out of economic stagnation.  The elites remain unwilling or unable to break vested interests, despite the pressure exercised by the Western actors, and partly because of Russian attempts to counterbalance or undermine pro-Western forces.”
• “Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova in the around five years that passed since the Association Agreements entered into force are reaping the free-trade benefits with the EU, but without achieving the structural change that would allow them to tap into their bigger economic potential. For the Western actors, the price of keeping the countries afloat in the absence thereof seems to be that of permanent subsidy. Conditionality linked to macro-financial support manages to make elites take incremental steps forward but are not enough to prevent them from afterward backsliding, while they often use ‘European choice’ as a leverage to extract financial or political concessions.”
• “Yet, it is in the countries’ own interest to define their destiny as economic resilience rather than geopolitics, where the options are limited due to Russia’s willingness to use military force. Giving up the separatist territories is politically impossible in either of the three countries, and Moscow has no interest in conflict resolution. The more the countries can emphasize the implementation of the Association Agreements and strengthening the rule of law and democracy as a fight against economic insecurity rather than as a geopolitical choice, the more the process will be surrounded by stability. The drive for economic development is a question of the countries themselves delivering, possibly as a question of generational and slow cultural shifts.”

“Moldova’s Gas Crisis and Its Lessons for Europe,” Katja Yafimava, Carnegie Moscow Center, 11.05.21. The author, a senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, writes:

• “The Moldovan crisis has demonstrated that no European supplier will sell gas at a price below hub level and that any country—especially where the EU acquis is being implemented—can be sure that Gazprom’s price will not be higher than the price set by the European hubs (which makes Gazprom a supplier like any other) and may be lower (which could make Gazprom a preferred supplier in countries with weaker economies).”
• “The ongoing European gas supply crunch this winter has demonstrated the limitations of EU diversification efforts. It is important to recognize this and encourage countries in the shared EU-Russia neighborhood to create gas markets on which both Gazprom and non-Gazprom exporters can compete.”

“How Do You Solve a Problem Like Misha? Former President Mikheil Saakashvili’s hunger strike is a test case for Georgia’s trembling democracy,” Amy Mackinnon, Foreign Policy, 11.05.21. The author, a national security and intelligence reporter for the magazine, writes:

• “Georgia, the country, was once the regional poster child for democracy: a rare success story in Eurasia, where many countries are still battling an extended hangover 30 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now, the polarizing former President Mikheil Saakashvili, who is credited with spearheading the country’s transformation, is in prison and beginning his second month on hunger strike.”
• “As Saakashvili’s health deteriorates, a battle of wills has emerged between the notoriously strong-willed former president—widely known as Misha—and the current government led by the Georgian Dream party. As Georgian civil society and the country’s Western allies have increasingly sounded the alarm in recent years about democratic backsliding, the fate of the former president could be the most profound signal yet about where the country is heading.”
• “The country’s political crisis also poses a challenge for the Biden administration, which has made the struggle for democracy a cornerstone of its foreign policy. While Washington and Georgia’s European allies once had outsized clout in Tbilisi, that has diminished in recent years as the ruling party, founded by the country’s richest person, Bidzina Ivanishvili, has slowly consolidated its grip on power.”

“In the South Caucasus, Can New Trade Routes Help Overcome a History of Conflict?” Thomas De Waal, Carnegie Europe, 11.08.21. The author, a senior fellow with Carnegie Europe, writes:

• “The economic benefits of the opening of closed transport routes in the South Caucasus, including as set out in the November 2020 ceasefire agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, could extend to all the countries of the region as well as to Russia, Turkey, and Iran. But the politics remains difficult within the region and between its neighboring powers, with trust in short supply.”
• “The economic case for reopening the railway through Abkhazia is potentially strong, and this could have a positive effect on the conflict dynamics of the conflict there. However, many in the Georgian elite are nervous about supporting a project that will connect their country more closely to Russia. Security concerns also haunt plans to reopen the crucial transport route across southern Armenia to and from Azerbaijan’s exclave of Nakhchivan.”
• “These are political issues, not economic ones. Their resolution currently depends on Russia, which has interests in reopening this route as well as complex bilateral agendas with Armenia and Azerbaijan. … Political questions also hover over the issue of the funding of these different reconstruction projects. … While some in the South Caucasus have been eager to turn to China for financing and infrastructure, Beijing has no history of funding such projects there.”