This Week’s Highlights

• “Absent another galvanizing terrorist attack of the scale of 9/11, a substantive revival of U.S and Russian intelligence cooperation is unlikely,” writes Paul Kolbe, director of the Intelligence Project at the Belfer Center. “The U.S. and Russia should of course exchange threat information, particularly related to terrorist WMD plans and ambitions. But history teaches us that such cooperation is unlikely to remain anything other than one-off exchanges.”
• “U.S. interests in the Middle East are best advanced by a sober, clear-eyed appraisal of the specific challenges posed by Russian activity—not breathless alarmism,” write the Carnegie Endowment’s Frederic Wehrey and Andrew S. Weiss. “In particular, Washington should recognize that in many instances, Moscow will fall short because of its limited capabilities and the ability of local actors to confound its plans.”
• “In the longer term, the current equilibrium in Sino-Russian relations is not stable,” writes Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center. “China dwarfs Russia economically and offers a viable alternative to Western technology and financial resources that are becoming less available or are increasingly considered unreliable and unsafe in Russia. ... In the next few decades, Russia’s status and role in world affairs will depend far less on its military and diplomats and much more on the success or failure of its domestic transformation.”
• “The current energy crisis [in China] shows just how paradoxical the transition to green energy in China will be,” write Vita Spivak, an analyst for Control Risks. “On the one hand, Beijing needs to guarantee the country’s energy security, and therefore buy more coal. On the other hand, it needs to reduce its dependency on coal-fired energy and move over to gas-powered electricity plants. Both of these imperatives create new opportunities for Russian exporters of energy commodities.”

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:

“Why NATO Must Transform for the Twenty-First Century,” Nikolas K. Gvosdev, The National Interest, 10.12.21. The author, a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, writes:

• “NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg bluntly sums up the key problem: ‘Just look at the numbers: eighty percent of NATO’s defense expenditure comes from non-EU allies.’ Thus, the strategic perspective and priorities of the three principal non-EU NATO states—Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States—runs up against the conflation of NATO’s mission with the defense of ‘Europe.’”
• “President Emmanuel Macron has made it clear that he views NATO’s role in limited geographic terms, bounded by the Atlantic basin, which calls into question how far east across the Eurasian plain NATO’s remit should fall—especially in terms of relations with Russia—as well as the idea that NATO should be playing a more active role in partnering with U.S. friends in the greater Indo-Pacific basin.”
• “Both London and Washington view the rise of China as a global, not merely a regional challenge, and want to see Western states in closer security collaboration with Pacific partners. However, the conclusion of the Australia-U.S.-UK defense pact also signals that neither London nor Washington want this process to be subject to a European veto.”
• “But a greater focus on China also has implications for the relative importance of Russia in the threat matrix of different European allies. One defining characteristic of the Biden administration has been to subordinate other considerations to developing and strengthening a coalition of European and Asian partners to balance China. Even relations with Russia are now seen in this framework.”
• “For some of NATO’s eastern tier allies, however, steps taken to try and keep Russia from moving closer to China have the added problem of strengthening Russian capabilities and making Moscow a more capable challenger in its immediate neighborhood. … NATO will survive to seventy-five, but it is starting to look different.”

“The End of American Militarism? Biden Must Confront Washington’s Addiction to Force,” Andrew J. Bacevich and Annelle Sheline, Foreign Affairs, 10.15.21. 

“Cooperation with China and Russia is the only way forward,” Stephen Kinzer, The Boston Globe, 10.16.21. The author, a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, writes:

• “The urgency of transnational challenges like climate change, pandemics, nuclear proliferation and terrorism requires a new level of global cooperation. For the United States, that means curbing our campaigns against China and Russia and trying a more conciliatory approach. Opportunities abound. How about regulating the militarization of outer space? China and Russia have proposed a new treaty, but the United States is reluctant.”
• “Deep cooperation with Russia and China would require compromises that some Americans would find distasteful. To win Russia's trust, we would have to accept its quest for influence in its ‘near abroad’ and at least tacitly recognize its annexation of Crimea. To work cooperatively with the Chinese, we should not be expected to offer Taiwan on a platter, but we might reframe our support for activists in Hong Kong so it sounds more like support for democracy and less like an attack on China's national sovereignty. As for the repressed Uighur minority, we should recognize that as long as we stridently demand better treatment for Uighurs, the Chinese are likely to refuse, in order not to be seen as succumbing to foreign pressure.”
• “The pain of choices like these pales beside the prospect of onrushing threats to humanity's future. China, the United States and Russia are all among the world's top polluters and deploy more than 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons. Instead of joining to confront looming global catastrophes, all three devote immense resources to strengthening their armies and navies. Meanwhile, our planet broils.”
• “Maintaining a friendly government in Ukraine or sending aircraft carriers through the Taiwan Strait will not improve American lives or secure our place in the world. We can do that in two ways: by building a more successful society at home, and by joining with other countries to fight the true security battles of our age. … The world has changed dramatically. Our understanding of it, not so much.”

“The new geopolitics of fragility: Russia, China and the mounting challenge for peacebuilding,” Bruce Jones and Alexandre Marc, Brookings Institution, October 2021. The authors, the director of the Project on International Order and Strategy of the Foreign Policy program at Brookings and a former Brookings expert, write:

• “Western policy can no longer ignore these new geopolitical realities in fragile states. The search for coherent policy within and between Western nations can and should continue but it needs urgently to be complimented by an effective approach to dealing with Chinese and Russian investment, activism and disruption and the increased engagement of more constructive players like India as well as regional powers with new ambitions such as Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.”
• “There are several vehicles that OECD members can use to increase both the coherence and the effectiveness of their engagement in fragile states: Concerted pressure within multilateral institutions … Improve coordination of Western nation involvement in fragile states. … Requiring more transparency from fragile states with which the West is engaging. … Improving the visibility and impact of Western nation development aid for the population in fragile states. … Get serious about adapting development aid to meet the specific challenges of fragility. … Support a lead nation. … Avoid proxy warfare. … Back strong multilateral action through innovative partnerships.”
• “There’s long been competition at the regional level in fragile states, but as fragility has spread across the Middle East, that dynamic has brought in more influential, more capable regional actors … What’s more, Russia and China have increased their engagement both at the global policy level and in specific fragile states. These countries, and the West, all adopt different strategies and approaches based on their capabilities and strategic economic and security interests … The core of Russia’s strategy in these cases is disruption; China has a more elaborate strategy that defined by longer-term economic and security interests. … Countries like Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia have more regional ambitions that are connected to their own security, ideological views and economic opportunism. In the Indo-Pacific, Japan, Australia and increasingly India are also playing an active role in fragile states, in part to try to fence off China’s ambitions.”

“Russia-Japan Relations: Were Abe’s Efforts in Vain?” Dmitri Trenin, Kyodo/Carnegie Moscow Center, 10.15.21. The author, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, writes:

• “Does anything remain of the eight-year-long effort by former prime minister Abe to improve relations with Russia on the basis of greater economic engagement tailored to Moscow’s needs?”
• “To many, the answer to the above question is clear, and it is negative. Yet that attitude amounts to de facto resignation, a questionable approach.”
• “Japan will remain a trusted ally of the United States for the foreseeable future. It is also safe to predict that at least in the medium term, and possibly longer, the Russo-Chinese partnership will continue to grow. That is no reason for Moscow and Tokyo to regard each other as adversaries, however. Moreover, since an armed conflict between America and China would spell a global calamity and have a high chance of turning nuclear, other major powers, including Russia and Japan, have a vital interest in preventing such a collision.”
• “Expanding the still very modest elements of trust in the Japan-Russia relationship, talking through reciprocal concerns before they lead to conflict, avoiding bilateral incidents, and engaging in mutually beneficial economic cooperation is the way forward. The absence of a peace treaty between the two countries more than seventy-five years after the end of the war is abnormal, yet that same unfinished business should serve as a stimulus to persevere. Giving up is an option, but not a good one.”

China-Russia: Allied or Aligned?

“The Impact of Sino-American Rivalry on Russia’s Relations With China,” Dmitri Trenin, Carnegie Moscow Center, 10.18.21. The author, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, writes:

• “To side with Beijing against Washington in peacetime would be giving away a large chunk of Russia’s strategic sovereignty and leaving the fate of the country dependent on the outcome of a rivalry between other powers. This calculus might change in a time of crisis, should the Russian leadership conclude that allowing the United States to first deal militarily with China and then, if successful, turn to bring pressure to bear on Russia would lead to a strategic defeat and possibly a catastrophe.”
• “In keeping its cool regarding the U.S.-China rivalry so far, Moscow may have borrowed a leaf from Beijing’s own playbook. When in 2014 the crisis broke out between Russia and the United States over Ukraine, China did not join those accusing the Kremlin of aggression and annexation, but nor did it fully take Russia’s side.”
• “In the longer term, the current equilibrium in Sino-Russian relations is not stable, however. China dwarfs Russia economically and offers a viable alternative to Western technology and financial resources that are becoming less available or are increasingly considered unreliable and unsafe in Russia. Domestic economic development, including energy transition as a result of climate change, and technological transformation have moved up the Kremlin’s agenda—above even military power and political cohesion, which are the principal achievements of the Putin era—as the key factors shaping Russia’s international position in the twenty-first century. In the next few decades, Russia’s status and role in world affairs will depend far less on its military and diplomats and much more on the success or failure of its domestic transformation.”

Missile defense:

• No significant developments.

Nuclear arms control:

“Bilateral strategic stability: What the United States should discuss with Russia. And China,” Robert J. Goldston, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 10.14.21. The author, a professor of astrophysical sciences at Princeton University, writes:

• “There are at least four topics that should be on the table in the dialogue with Russia: Limits on ballistic missile defense … Elimination of silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles … Prohibition of intermediate-range nuclear-armed missiles … A common nuclear declaratory policy.”
• “The world is at a fork in the road. One path forward leads to a safer world, potentially free of nuclear weapons, while the other leads to rapidly increasing risk of nuclear annihilation. Bilateral strategic stability dialogue is a promising means to choose the safer path. Success will require the participants in these dialogues to view themselves as sitting on the same side of the table, trying to solve together the problem of reducing the vast nuclear threat to all humanity.”

“Nuclear Modernization Remains Important for Arms Control,” Mark Massa, The National Interest, 10.13.21. The author, assistant director of Forward Defense at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council, writes:

• “The Biden administration should formulate a nuclear posture review (NPR) consistent with the longstanding, bipartisan consensus on U.S. nuclear strategy—pairing strong nuclear deterrence with robust arms control and risk-reduction measures.”
• “U.S. nuclear forces are aging, so it is essential to maintaining deterrence, assurance, damage limitation, and the ability to hedge against an uncertain future that the United States modernize all three legs of the nuclear triad. This includes the B-21 Raider stealth bomber, Long-Range Standoff weapon (LRSO), Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), and the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine. No less important are efforts to modernize nuclear command and control as well as underlying nuclear infrastructure.”
• “The Biden administration should also vigorously pursue arms control and risk-reduction measures like holding strategic-stability talks and including China where possible. Arms control with China will be a challenge, given the PRC’s refusal to engage, and the extension of New START could leave the United States with less diplomatic leverage over Russia. The resumption of strategic-stability dialogues is a welcome first step. The administration should seek to engage China, even if it must settle short of a binding treaty, by, for example, inviting Chinese technical experts on New START inspection visits to familiarize them with treaty-verification procedures. Even if arms control overtures seem likely to fail, demonstrating U.S. good faith is essential to maintaining domestic and allied public support.”
• “The Biden administration has a few options to reduce the role of nuclear weapons while meeting these imperatives. … The NPR must also address China’s alarming nuclear buildup yet recognize practical constraints for U.S. responses in the next three years.”
• “Some have called for the Biden administration to strike out on a bold new path for U.S. nuclear strategy, but the central themes of U.S. nuclear strategy have undergirded the U.S.-led, rules-based international system for decades. The bipartisan consensus on U.S. nuclear strategy should not be so easily discarded.”

Counter-terrorism:

“The Global War on Chechnya: What Does 9/11 Teach Us About Counterterrorism Cooperation With Russia?” Paul Kolbe, Russia Matters, 10.13.21. The author, director of the Intelligence Project at the Belfer Center, writes:

• “A colleague of mine who worked closely with Russian security services on sharing intelligence in the weeks and months after the 9/11 attacks was fond of pointing out a fundamental disconnect. He noted that while the United States wanted Russia to join the Global War on Terror (GWOT), the Russians just wanted the United States to join in the GWOC, the Global War on Chechnya.  His wry joke perfectly encapsulated the counterterrorism relationship between the United States and Russia as it evolved after 9/11.”
• “Absent another galvanizing terrorist attack of the scale of 9/11, a substantive revival of U.S and Russian intelligence cooperation is unlikely. Nevertheless, with relations at a sustained low point, counterterrorism cooperation is again being touted as having the potential to revive the bilateral relationship.”
• “The U.S. and Russia should of course exchange threat information, particularly related to terrorist WMD plans and ambitions. But history teaches us that such cooperation is unlikely to remain anything other than one-off exchanges. The historical pain points in the bilateral relationship are now compounded by a long list of new grievances. America resents Russia’s relentless cyber-attacks, disinformation, election meddling and likely involvement in the Havana Syndrome neurological attacks plaguing U.S. officials overseas. Direct attribution to Russia of these incidents would destroy any prospect of meaningful intelligence cooperation. In turn, Russia resents U.S. sanctions, its support for Ukraine, increasing military presence in Eastern Europe and perceived interference in Russian domestic affairs.”
• “Mutual interest in fighting terrorism simply cannot counter all these negatives to serve as a basis for improved overall bilateral ties. The only real path to improvement in relations lies in addressing the contentious issues that have effectively driven the two countries into a state of conflict.”

Conflict in Syria:

“Russia Is No Mideast Superpower. Washington Shouldn’t Overhype the Threat from Moscow,” Frederic Wehrey and Andrew S. Weiss, Foreign Affairs, 10.18.21. 

“Admit It: The United States Has Already Lost in Syria,” Ali Demirdas, The National Interest, 10.17.21. The author, a Ph.D. in political science from the University of South Carolina, writes:

• “America has many great accomplishments, but nation-building is not one of them. From Vietnam to Afghanistan to Iraq, Washington has repeatedly proven that nation-building is not where its strength lies. America’s inaptitude to understand thousands of years of old social and tribal dynamics that define the Middle East, its over-reliance on the U.S. military—that has only begotten more destruction and chaos—and its reckless and impulsive support for proxies that upset the regional balance have all been contributing factors for America’s failure to make progress in the Middle East.”
• “Since the fall of the Soviet Union, America has wasted the last thirty years by getting bogged down between the Euphrates and the Tigris Rivers of Iraq and in the mountains of Afghanistan, chasing the specter of terrorism that has only served to deplete it financially, to beset the American people with chronic “forever wars fatigue,” and allowed China to become a serious challenger to U.S. global hegemony. Instead of staying this course and spinning its wheels in Syria, Washington would be better served by turning its attention to more important matters. It should let regional powers handle a problem that has never been its responsibility.”

Cyber security:

• No significant developments.

Energy exports from CIS:

“What Does China’s Energy Crisis Mean for Russia?” Vita Spivak, Carnegie Moscow Center, 10.14.21. The author, an analyst at global consulting firm Control Risks, writes:

• “While the world discusses the unprecedented rise in gas prices in Europe, another energy crisis is unfolding on the other side of Russia’s borders. In China, electricity shortages have forced several provinces to effectively introduce power rationing. At the end of September, the Chinese authorities asked the Russian power generator Inter RAO to increase supplies to China.”
• “In recent weeks, nineteen major Chinese provinces have started rationing electricity. Energy-intensive industries such as the manufacturing of metals, cement and chemicals have been almost universally affected. The current crisis has three main underlying causes. … [A] spike in energy commodity prices on global markets amid the post-coronavirus recovery. … [B]y the end of the third quarter of 2021, many Chinese provinces had realized that they were not on target to meet the environmental recommendations issued by Beijing. … [W]hile power generation may be growing, in some Chinese regions, especially in the southeast, it still lags behind demand.”
• “Accordingly, Chinese demand for gas will double by 2035, forecasts McKinsey. The development of Russian gas exports … to China could not, therefore, have come at a better time. The cheapest gas available to Chinese consumers as of January 2021 was that supplied via the Power of Siberia pipeline launched in 2019. There are already plans for a Power of Siberia 2 … Russia also began supplying LNG to China in 2019.”
• “As long as coal plays a key role in Chinese energy, Russian exporters have another window of opportunity. In 2020, China was the biggest importer of Russian coal, accounting for 15 percent (29.4 million tons) of all Russian coal exports.”
• “The current energy crisis shows just how paradoxical the transition to green energy in China will be. On the one hand, Beijing needs to guarantee the country’s energy security, and therefore buy more coal. On the other hand, it needs to reduce its dependency on coal-fired energy and move over to gas-powered electricity plants. Both of these imperatives create new opportunities for Russian exporters of energy commodities.”

“Scapegoating Russia Over Our Gas Problems Is Not the Answer,” Mark Galeotti, BNE InelliNews/The Moscow Times, 10.13.21. The author, an associate senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, writes:

• “There seem to be three main reasons for the unusually crude ‘analysis’ being deployed over the gas crisis, each of which has a particularly problematic impact on policy, which is why this is more than just a jeremiad against crass Western political headline-chasing.”
• “That lazy and self-interested search for an external excuse is certainly one of those factors. … The second is that the Nord Stream 2 issue has become about much more than the pipeline but a tribal divide over the place of Russia in the world … Thirdly, the easy assumption that whenever Russia is involved ‘hybrid war’ and ‘malign influence’ come in its wake, while understandable, always risks spiraling into a vicious circle.”
• “In many ways, the gas crisis is a fitting metaphor for the challenges of the modern world: complex, global, hard to fix and likely to have long and unpredictable impacts. The policies of particular countries may exacerbate it a little here, alleviate a little there. Certainly were Germany to approve Nord Stream 2 and other countries then buy gas from Russia—especially on the longer-term contracts it craves—that would help. It wouldn’t magically make the underlying issues disappear, though.  The answer to problems of wicked complexity is not to pretend they are simple, not to look for a ‘usual suspect’ to blame. It is to look for solutions of appropriate complexity. At present, for the West, this looks like a fail.”

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

• No significant developments.

II. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“Scientists Want Out of Russia,” Natalia Antonova, Foreign Policy, 10.15.21. The author, a journalist and online safety expert, writes: 

• “The Russian government recently announced an ambitious project: convincing half a million emigrants to return to Russia by 2030.”
• “In spite of the Kremlin’s lofty pronouncements that Russia has triumphantly ‘gotten off its knees’ due to Putinism, brain drain continues … In fact, the number of scientists who have left Russia has risen fivefold since 2012.”
• “The Russian Academy of Sciences explains this as a funding problem. And while it does have a point … there is another problem lurking under the surface, one of fear. The pervasive paranoia of the Russian state means that anyone in sensitive sectors is in real danger of being accused of espionage … Speak to anyone working in the Russian space industry or adjacent industries such as defense, and you learn that stories of witch hunts for ‘traitors’ and ‘foreign agents’ are just the tip of the iceberg.”
• “Why? The Russian space sector is notoriously corrupt, even by Russia’s abysmal standards… This creates a dilemma: Space and defense programs are a major source of prestige for the Kremlin. Yet allowing the elite to steal … is an important cornerstone of Putinism. Thus, failures must be explained away by pinning the blame on scientists and experts who consort with ‘evil foreigners’ and are otherwise letting the country down.”
• “The brilliant people already out of the country might miss their homeland, but they have little desire to return. ‘Something drastic has to happen for me to even consider going back,’ my source told me glumly …. ‘None of this is happening because of an idea. Or an ideology. It’s just everything [in Russia] revolving around money. Kind of embarrassing, when you think about it.’” 

Defense and aerospace:

• No significant developments.

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• No significant developments.

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

• No significant developments.

Ukraine:

• No significant developments.

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

• No significant developments.