Please note there will be no Russia Analytical Report on Feb. 20 due to the President's Day holiday.

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

Nuclear security:

• No significant commentary.

Iran and its nuclear program:

• No significant commentary.

New Cold War/Sabre Rattling:

“Why Russia Won't Help Trump on Iran, Moscow Needs Tehran More Than Ever,” Ilan Berman, Foreign Affairs, 02.10.17: The author, senior vice president at the American Foreign Policy Council, writes that the new U.S. administration’s desire to disrupt the Russian-Iran alliance may be more difficult to achieve than expected. Iran plays a vital part in the goals of the “postmodern Russian empire—one not of actual military control but of political and economic dependency.” Moscow’s attempt to make Iran a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization illustrates Tehran’s strategic value, while its economic value is clear in the nearly $10 billion in arms deals between the two. Russia’s presence in the Middle East also benefits from close ties with Tehran. Although the new U.S. administration wants warmer relations with Moscow, Russia’s necessity for a relationship with Iran may complicate things.

NATO-Russia relations:

• No significant commentary.

Missile defense:

• No significant commentary.

Arms control:

“Order From Chaos. The Problem With President Trump’s Hasty Denunciation of New START,” Steven Pifer, The Brookings Institution, 02.10.17: The author, director of the Brookings Institution's Arms Control Initiative, recounts the Reuters report about U.S. President Donald Trump’s Jan. 28 phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which Trump allegedly denounced the New START treaty as a bad Obama administration deal without knowing what the treaty was. Pifer calls the report “disturbing,” and that it furthers the impression that Trump “does not understand much about nuclear weapons or arms control.” The author suggests that Trump discuss the treaty with his Joint Chiefs of Staff, as the treaty is in the U.S. national interest. The treaty provides caps on Russia’s strategic nuclear weapons and gives the U.S. more deployed strategic warheads than necessary for “a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent.” It also provides detailed data exchanges, notifications of certain actions and allows for up to 18 inspections of the other side’s strategic forces and for modernization of those forces. These provisions help keep “the U.S. military from having to make potentially costly worst-case assumptions.” Withdrawing from the treaty could trigger a new, expensive arms race that Russia already has a several year head start on.

“A Simple, Unthreatening Way to Shore Up NATO,” Michael Krepon, Arms Control Wonk, 02.07.17: The author, co-founder of the Stimson Center, writes that the Open Skies Treaty could be a solution for strengthening NATO without antagonizing Russia. The treaty, negotiated during the George H.W. Bush administration, “has now become an effective means of reassuring allies and states around the periphery of Russia.” However, critics oppose the Open Skies Treaty’s openness due to the possibility that it could facilitate Russian spying, while Russia’s own reluctance to keep with the treaty in the skies over parts of Ukraine, Georgia and Kaliningrad may also complicate matters. “The answer here is to keep pressing for full compliance, not to forfeit the benefits of the Treaty.” The U.S. Air Force, which does not see the Open Skies Treaty as a priority, could also block the treaty’s potential benefits. In contrast to Russian monitoring planes, the U.S. planes are old and prone to mechanical troubles, and two new planes would cost around $200 million; however, “by adding these funds to the European Reassurance Initiative, Secretary Mattis and Members of Congress can clearly demonstrate America’s commitment to European friends and allies.”

Counter-terrorism:

“Intelligence Sharing With Russia: A Practitioner’s Perspective,” Steven L. Hall, Carnegie Endowment–Chicago Council on Global Affairs Task Force on U.S. Policy Toward Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, 02.09.17: The author, retired CIA Chief of Russia Operations, writes that among people outside the intelligence community, there is a reasonable expectation that the U.S. and Russia should be able to find some common interests on which to share intelligence information. However, “sharing secrets…by definition carries risk.” Counterrorism information is a particularly thorny area due to its time-sensitive nature. Russian intelligence services “operate under a different set of assumptions” for general intelligence and threat reporting alike. Because information is treated as “raw power,” it “is viewed first and foremost through a political lens,” contrasting sharply with the American all-source approach. Manipulating information for strategic gain, even at the cost of human lives, “is not unreasonable to the Kremlin.” Another complication for sharing information with Russia is Moscow’s geopolitical goal to reaffirm Russia’s superpower status “by asserting itself at the expense of the United States when it can.” Russia’s recent cyberattacks against the U.S. also illustrate the need for increased security in information sharing, which decreases efficiency. “On a spectrum running from easy and commonsensical to difficult and inadvisable, sharing intelligence with U.S. allies should be (and usually is) on the easy end. Sharing with Russia should be (but sometimes is not) on the opposite side of the spectrum, on the inadvisable end.” When considering commonality of interest, it also important to consider whether or not the government the information is being shared with shares “our value system and interests to make the sharing worthwhile.” While the U.S. needs to continue to seek new ways of sharing threat information, it must also “not be naïve in this endeavor.”

Conflict in Syria:

• No significant commentary.

Cyber security:

• No significant commentary.

Energy exports from CIS:

• No significant commentary.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

• No significant commentary.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

“Illusions vs. Reality: Twenty-Five Years of US Policy Toward Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia,” Eugene Rumer,  Richard Sokolsky,  Paul Stronski,  Andrew S. Weiss, Carnegie Endowment–Chicago Council on Global Affairs Task Force on U.S. Policy Toward Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, 02.09.17: The authors, several prominent Russia experts, write that repairing the U.S.-Russian relationship will not be quick or easy due to “long-standing disagreements about … each country’s national security interests and policies.” While warmer relationships between the countries’ leaders could “be useful … they are not enough.” The authors advise the Trump administration to “temper” their expectations regarding better ties with Russia and refocus on managing the relationship with Russia’s “emboldened and unpredictable” leadership. To move forward, either or both sides need to make compromises. Putin is unlikely to do so on vital Russian interests, so unless Trump “is prepared to cave” on U.S. interests, the relationship will remain tense. The authors outline four guiding principles for U.S. policy toward Russia and its neighbors, including a commitment to its NATO allies, defending “the norms that underpin European security,” continued support for Ukraine, and not sacrificing Russia’s neighbors for the sake of engagement with Russia. The authors also highlight issues that need immediate attention: a signal to Russia that meddling in U.S. domestic politics is unacceptable, a reduced risk of NATO-Russia military conflict, a lasting ceasefire in Ukraine and cooperation on arms control and nonproliferation matters.

“Backing Into World War III America Must Check the Assertive, Rising Powers of Russia and China Before It's Too Late. Accepting Spheres of Influence is a Recipe for Disaster,” Robert Kagan, Foreign Policy, 02.06.17: The author, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, writes that the major trend lines of today’s world are the activism and ambition of Russia and China and the declining “confidence, capacity, and will of the democratic world, and especially of the United States” to maintain its geopolitical dominance. Russia and China are both “classic revisionist powers” discontent with the distribution of world power and wanting to restore their lost dominance. U.S. military and economic power along with that of its allies has until recently kept Russia and China from achieving their goals. This obstacle has depended not only on U.S. power, but also “on coherence and unity” in the democratic world. A noticeable decline in America’s commitment to its allies will influence China to act on its growing power: “As the trend lines draw closer, this is where the first crisis is likely to take place.” Russia, on the other hand, has been more aggressive and successful in disrupting the democratic world. Accepting spheres of influence would only bring us back to the end of the 19^th century and its inevitability of conflict.

“The Media's Self-Defeating Outrage Over Trump and Russia,” Daniel McCarthy, The National Interest, 02.08.17: The author, editor at large of The American Conservative, writes that in free countries such as the U.S., it is easy to lose sight of the reality that “all states lie, and all states kill.” He addresses Bill O’Reilly’s recent comment to U.S. President Donald Trump that “Putin is a killer” and Trump’s controversial response: “There are a lot of killers. We have a lot of killers. Well, you think our country is so innocent?” The author notes that “a comparison is not the same thing as an equivalence,” and that Trump was undercutting the assumption that U.S.-Russia relations “should be conducted as if between and confessor and a penitent.” Trouble is often caused by the idea that the U.S. is “an almost angelic enforcer of justice,” leading to “difficult details” being overlooking for “simple moral clarity.” Both the press and policymakers need to think more realistically and in a more historically grounded way. Although the human rights abuses of today’s China overshadow those of today’s Russia, a similar outcry would be unlikely had Trump said he respects Chinese President Xi Jinping. The author notes that the media’s “selective outrage” is not moral, but rather “faddish.” He stresses the need to keep power and history in mind when examining relationships between states, and that the media needs “to inform the public about just how complex and distant the relationship between statecraft and morality can be.” While the previous two presidents’ “moral reach far exceeded [their] practical grasp, Trump seems to have learned from his predecessors’ mistakes, but it’s not clear that his critics have.”

“We Can’t Let Trump Go Down Putin’s Path,” Michael McFaul, The Washington Post, 02.06.17: The author, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, writes that he does not understand why U.S. President Donald Trump continually praises Russian President Vladimir Putin, citing Trump’s recent interview with Bill O’Reilly. While this behavior may be merely naïve foreign policy, McFaul sees a “more worrisome” possibility that “Trump admires Putin’s policies and ideas, and may even seek to emulate his method of rule.” McFaul claims that Trump’s actions and characteristic parallel those of Putin and his early methods “for consolidating autocracy.” McFaul urges American democratic institutions to learn from the mistakes of Russian democrats and act “before it’s too late.”

“When It Comes to His Contacts With Russia, Michael Flynn Has Bigger Problems Than the Logan Act,” David Ignatius, The Washington Post, 02.12.17: The author, a columnist for the Washington Post, writes that the problem facing Michael Flynn, U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, is greater than the “obscure and probably unenforceable” Logan Act. The most troubling aspect of this issue is whether or not Flynn attempted to hide a discussion about sanctions. While Flynn’s defendants justly point out that there are good reasons for Flynn to have contacted Kislyak “about future policies,” the issue of Flynn’s truthfulness is more complicated. Flynn’s denial of a sanctions discussion “became inoperative … when a spokesman said Flynn ‘indicated that while he had no recollection of discussing sanctions, he couldn't be certain that the topic never came up.’”

II. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

“Munich Security Report 2017 Post-Truth, Post-West, Post-Order?,” Munich Security Conference, February 2017: The authors of this year’s Munich Security Report alert their readers to what they see as illiberal forces gaining ground across the West and beyond. These illiberal forces “cast doubt on liberal democracy and weaken the international order.” The biggest risks for the current international order are: the increasing contestation of liberal democracy, the unraveling of the open international economic order, and the weakness of multilateral institutions, like NATO, at the heart of the international order. “The international security environment is arguably more volatile today than at any point since World War II,” according to Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security Conference, which commissioned the report. The report highlights what its authors describe as “revisionist Russia” and its role in the increasingly tense security situation in Eastern Europe. Efforts to reengage dialogue between Russia and NATO on military incidents, transparency and arms control continue to be fraught with difficulty, and while some are hopeful that potentially warmer relations between the U.S. and Russia will benefit the situation in Europe, others worry a U.S.-Russia détente will come at Europe’s expense.

China:

“Russia and China: A New Model of Great-Power Relations,” Samuel Charap, John Drennan and Pierre Noel, Survival, February-March 2017: The authors, experts at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, write that the change in Russia-West relations following the Ukraine crisis pushed Russia towards an asymmetrical relationship with China. However, “through mutual accommodation and compromise,” the two countries have avoided tensions. By pragmatically resolving disputes out of the public eye and touting the positive aspects of their relationship in the public eye, they have effectively managed their relationship. This “positive dynamic …  is also a natural outgrowth of their shared views on the international order,” particularly in regards to their views of the U.S. However, there are limits, including China’s increasingly global foreign policy that places the U.S. in a more central position than Russia, and Russia’s desire for foreign-policy independence, which has led to partnerships with some of China’s Asia-Pacific rivals.

Ukraine:

“Kiev is Fueling the War in Eastern Ukraine, Too. A Muted White House isn't Just Emboldening the Kremlin—It's Inciting the Politics of War Throughout Ukraine,” Isaac Webb, Foreign Policy, 02.06.17: The author, a former junior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writes that renewed escalation of fighting in Ukraine followed quickly on the heels of U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration. While Kiev is blaming Russia for the outbreak of fighting, for which there is evidence, “Kiev’s advances have also contributed to the rekindling of the war.” Through Ukraine’s “increasingly frequent incursions” into the no man’s land in the midst of the fighting, followed by more recent separatist incursions, “eastern Ukraine has become a tinderbox.” This has created an inopportune time for lifting sanctions. The U.S. State Department’s “muted response” to the fighting, along with carefully worded statements from the White House on the Ukraine conflict is fueling uncertainty about the Trump administration’s position. The difficulty of implementing the Minsk agreements coupled with “the potential of reduced support from Washington” has made much of Ukraine “reluctant to make any kind of deal in eastern Ukraine.”

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

• No significant commentary.

III. Russia’s domestic policies

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“From Rome to Russia. Moscow's Byzantine Myth,” Iver B. Neumann, Foreign Affairs, 02.04.17: The author, a professor of international relations, discusses the idea of Russia as the “Third Rome” and its relationship to modern day Russian nationalism. Recently, a reinterpretation of the nineteenth century notion that Russia is “a spiritual counterweight” to the West has gained traction, creating “a Russian exceptionalism for the twenty-first century.” The idea of Russia as the Third Rome surfaced in a 1523 letter that divided Christian history into three parts: the First Rome, which lasted until the rise of Charlemagne; the Second Rome, which lasted until a 1493 proposed union between the Orthodox and the Catholics and the Third Rome, led by Russia, alone free from “Catholic heresy or … Muslim domination.” This idea, celebrating “Russia as a source of opposition to the liberal West,” is shared by contemporary Russian nationalists. However, “even the certified academics among [Russian nationalists] make no attempt to separate myth from history.” While Russia is open to cooperating with anti-liberals globally, Russian nationalism needs to be watched closely as it “moves closer to the heart of Russian foreign policy debates.”

Defense and aerospace:

• No significant commentary.

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

• No significant commentary.