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2. The Roots of Russian Military Dysfunction
- Author:
- Philip Wasielewski
- Publication Date:
- 03-2023
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy Research Institute
- Abstract:
- An unwillingness to decentralize decision making authority and a failure to communicate accurate information are the most consequential weaknesses at the state level that have contributed to the Russian military’s subpar performance to date in the war with Ukraine. These characteristics are exacerbated by other historic factors found throughout Russian society, which also permeate the military as a reflection of that society. They include an imperialist national identity, endemic corruption, and societal brutality. To these systemic problems must be added the inherent difficulties of what the Russian military was supposed to achieve in its first major peer conflict since World War Two and elements of simple military incompetence. The unwillingness to decentralize decision making authority is symptomatic of over five centuries of Russian autocracy. It is why Russia lacks an effective noncommissioned officer (NCO) corps and has a top-down command-and-control system, which is slow to provide timely direction to forces at the front. This is exacerbated by a failure to communicate accurate information, especially at the strategic level, which results in decision making based on faulty information and reinforces bad decisions due to inaccurate feedback. These two characteristics create a command, control, and communications system unsuited for modern warfare but congruent with a Russian way of war that has been influenced by a culture of imperialism, corruption, and brutality. Imperialism prevented Russian national security elites from seeing agency in other peoples, which led them to underestimate possible Ukrainian resistance and Western resolve. Corruption compounded personnel and supply challenges for the Russian military. A reliance on brutality to control its own soldiers and assert control over occupied populations exacerbated factors in the Russian military that are detrimental to good order, discipline, morale, and unit cohesion and provided additional motivation to Ukrainians to resist Russian aggression. These are not really “weaknesses” of the Russian system but consequences of that system. Furthermore, despite their detrimental impact on military effectiveness, these factors have sometimes “worked” for Russia and provided, counterintuitively, advantages such as the political will to conduct attrition warfare at a cost that no Western society would accept. This is significant because all the above factors are endemic to Russian social and political culture and will continue, barring a major social revolution in Russia of the scale of 1917. This means there will be no permanent solution to the war in Ukraine even if a peace treaty is signed. These cultural factors will eventually drive Russia to regain its military capacity and renew its aggression against Ukraine and hostility to the West. As long as Russia is autocratic with a propensity for self-deception and imperialism, it will try again to assert hegemony over Ukraine and other portions of its former empire. That future war will likely resemble the war in Ukraine, a high-intensity war of attrition where Moscow is willing to make brutal sacrifices to outlast its foes. This is not a case of predicting that history will repeat itself, but that Russia’s basic political nature will. Only if Russia overcomes its history and changes internally, will it ever behave differently externally.
- Topic:
- Corruption, Autocracy, Military, and Russia-Ukraine War
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, and Eurasia
3. The Wagner Group’s Expanding Global Footprint
- Author:
- Raphael Parens, Colin P. Clarke, Christopher Faulkner, and Kendal Wolf
- Publication Date:
- 04-2023
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy Research Institute
- Abstract:
- 1. The sanctions discussion needs to be expanded, as such designations should aim to shame Wagner’s state partners. 2. Sanctions lists should expand to include actors in third-party countries, such as Broker Expert LLC, a Russian-owned company widely reported to be shipping heavy machinery to support Wagner Group forestry activities in CAR, and First Industrial Company, a business owned by Wagner operator Dimitri Sytyi which concocts cheap “Russian” alcohol in Cameroon and sells it in CAR. 3. Perhaps one of the more important lessons for countering Wagner and other Russian PMCs is the importance of multilateralism. 4. NATO must also continue to consider proactive tools to counter Russian and other PMCs. 5. NATO should work to amplify efforts to push the adoption of the 2008 Montreux Document—an international agreement designed to reaffirm the legal obligations of states where PMCs originate and for those who hire them. 6. The Wagner Group and other Russian PMCs require consideration within a larger great power discussion, particularly as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has firmly aligned Europe and the US against Russia. 7. US senior leaders should demonstrate a greater diplomatic commitment to African allies and put pressure on other African leaders considering, or currently contracting, the Wagner Group and other Russian PMC operations. 8. International bodies such as the African Union, ECOWAS, and the East African Community (EAC) should reevaluate their approaches to peacekeeping and instability. 9. Exploiting the friction between Wagner’s financier and the MoD should also be considered a worthwhile policy option. 10. Last, NATO members must formalize methods of blocking contact with the Wagner Group through their international activities.
- Topic:
- NATO, Sanctions, Wagner Group, and Russia-Ukraine War
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, and Ukraine
4. Russia’s Nuclear Policy After Ukraine
- Author:
- Stephen Blank
- Publication Date:
- 07-2023
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy Research Institute
- Abstract:
- The recent mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary force, generated international concern about the control of Russian nuclear weapons and Russia’s future nuclear policy.[1] Therefore we must ask, will Russia change its nuclear policy due to contemporary strategic developments? This question correctly assumes that the war in Ukraine and all its ramifications, despite their undoubted importance, are not the only factors influencing Russian decision-making on nuclear policy. Accordingly, we analyze those factors—including, among others, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine—that will likely influence the direction and nature of Russia’s nuclear policy. Those factors influencing policy, itself the outcome of myriad domestic and foreign pressures, also include Russia’s overall security policies, the global strategic environment, and the lessons Russia learns from recent wars—most prominently its aggression against Ukraine. Russian national security strategy and policy originate in what Carl Schmitt called the presupposition of unceasing conflict.[2] Since the U.S. is Russia’s principal interlocutor, it also is its primary antagonist. Russian security policy is inherently adversarial. It postulates a state of permanent conflict with Washington and its allies where Washington seeks to undermine, if not destroy, the Russian state and prevent it from restoring its empire (i.e., global great power status). As Deputy Foreign Minister Rybakov recently stated, “Russia’s foreign policy interests as a great power have a global projection. Our country plays a stabilizing role in various regions of the world.”[3] Allegedly the U.S. employs nuclear weapons, missile defenses, and advanced conventional weapons that could negate Russia’s nuclear deterrent to frustrate Russia’s policies.[4] Thus it is an article of faith in Moscow that its nuclear weapons are the main guarantees of Russia’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, great power status, and the factor that deters the West from intervening against Russia in Ukraine.[5] Moreover, those weapons, when deployed abroad, also deter NATO’s potential, largely maritime, threats to Russia. Therefore, Russia must conduct a global military—i.e., an expeditionary, nuclear, and military policy.[6] Indeed, Putin has recently and revealingly called nuclear weapons, “the key guarantee of Russia’s military security and global stability.”[7] Russian nuclear strategy and behavior also derive from a cognitive universe wholly unlike and unfamiliar to American strategic thought. Identical words often mean entirely different things to Russians and Americans; much Russian rhetoric is politicized, deliberately deceptive, or opaque, and invariably follows state requirements. Yet, despite voluminous and even insightful commentary on war, Russian forces often do not fight as its doctrine stipulates, adding to the difficulties involved in determining what its policy is.[8] Simultaneously, however, Russian strategy and policy are also inherently evolutionary—i.e., they respond to changes in the strategic environment that are then incorporated into doctrine, strategy, official statements, exercises, procurement, and policy. Finally, despite our own difficulties in understanding Russia, either willfully or because it cannot help itself due to the deep-seated paranoia in its political culture, equally misreads the West, wholly misunderstands the West, and habitually ascribes the worst motives to U.S. and Western policies.[9] This misreading of the West repeatedly generates worst-case threat assessments that frequently lead to Russian nuclear threats or procurements. Taking all these factors into account, including Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, it is quite likely if not certain that Russian nuclear strategy and policy will change in the wake of the war in Ukraine, win, lose, or draw. Unfortunately, in most potential outcomes to the war save defeat and collapse of the government, that change points to an enhanced role of nuclear weapons in Russian policy with no letup in hostility toward the West. The war in Ukraine has been instrumental in fostering still more animosity toward the West and an enhanced role for nuclear weapons.[10]
- Topic:
- National Security, Nuclear Weapons, Wagner Group, and Russia-Ukraine War
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Eurasia, and Ukraine
5. The Frontline States: Conversations and Observations About Russia’s Other War in Europe
- Author:
- Philip Wasielewski
- Publication Date:
- 09-2023
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy Research Institute
- Abstract:
- From late June to mid-July 2023, I visited Georgia, Moldova, Hungary, Poland, and Lithuania on a research trip. The analysis and conclusions in this report are based, in part, on conversations with a wide variety of individuals from former government officials, university students, academics, and members of non-governmental organizations to ordinary citizens. The Kremlin desires to reestablish a sphere of influence in former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact states between the Black and Baltic Seas. To do so, it is fighting a conventional war in Ukraine and political wars elsewhere to remove Western influence and reestablish hegemony. Russia’s political warfare operations have a major flaw; they only offer people the past and not a future. However, US efforts against them could be more effective and citizens in frontline states facing Russian subversion have constructive criticisms to improve them. Resisting Russian subversion depends as much on the political health of the targeted state as Western countermeasures. Efforts to oppose backsliding on democratic norms are vital, even if they spark tensions with partners and allies. Several countries in the region will hold elections between the fall of 2023 and 2025 that will determine their geopolitical orientation. If the war in Ukraine is a battle of modern weapon systems, these elections will be a war of ideas between East and West. It is important that the United States not cede the narrative for these elections to Moscow and work with allies and partners to counteract anti-Western propaganda.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Regional Politics, and Russia-Ukraine War
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Eurasia, and Ukraine
6. Turkey's Response to the Russia-Ukraine Crisis
- Author:
- Aaron Stein
- Publication Date:
- 01-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy Research Institute
- Abstract:
- On October 26, 2021, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense released video of a TB2 unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) striking a separatist D-30 howitzer in Russian-occupied Donbas. The strike was Ukraine’s first confirmed use of the now ubiquitous TB2, the Bayraktar-manufactured drone that the Turkish military has used to great tactical effect in Syria, Libya, and Nagorno-Karabakh. The Turkish-Ukrainian defense relationship is understudied, but it could become an important factor in how Russian elites view North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) support for non-member Ukraine, and be used to justify an invasion to assuage Moscow’s concerns about a US-allied military presence along its borders. The Turkish support for Ukraine is not the main driver of Russian discomfort about the future of Ukraine. The TB2 is also not a decisive game changer, and the use of UCAVs is almost certain to have little impact on how Russian leadership weighs risk during debates about the efficacy of armed conflict in a neighboring state. Nevertheless, Turkish-Ukrainian defense ties are worthy of deeper study, precisely because Ankara’s relationships with Kyiv and Moscow have a secondary impact on American interests in Eastern Europe. The Turkish-Russian relationship is marred by bureaucratic distrust, which is papered over by a very functional leader-to-leader dynamic that enables the two Black Sea neighbors to cooperate and manage numerous regional conflicts. The Turkish-Ukrainian dynamic, in turn, is part of a broader Turkish effort to establish itself as an independent actor, committed to pursuing a foreign policy that often clashes with much of the NATO alliance. This paper will explore Turkish-Russian and Turkish-Ukrainian relations; the reasons for Turkey’s efforts to “fence sit” and establish itself as a neutral political actor in the Black Sea; and what these efforts portend for US interests in the region.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, NATO, and Crisis Management
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Turkey, Ukraine, and Middle East
7. How Will China Respond to the Russia-Ukraine Crisis?
- Author:
- Chris Miller
- Publication Date:
- 01-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy Research Institute
- Abstract:
- How will China respond to a potential Russian military escalation against Ukraine? Relations between Russia and China have intensified in recent years, with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping holding regular summits and the two countries’ militaries participating in joint exercises and cooperating in some defense industrial efforts. Ties between Moscow and Beijing are now closer than any time since the days of Stalin and Mao, driven by a shared perception that the United States is each country’s primary foreign policy challenge. One top Russian official told media in December 2021 that the relationship now “exceeds an alliance.”[1] Chinese state media, meanwhile, have vocally backed Russia in arguing that the current crisis stems from the US “using NATO as a tool to cannibalize and squeeze Russia’s strategic space.”[2] The 2014 war in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea was an important factor driving Russia and China closer to each other, as Russia sought to reduce post-Crimea international isolation and as Beijing realized it could drive a hard bargain in its bilateral relationship with Russia on issues like energy. China’s response to the 2014 war, however, was generally to avoid taking sides. China accepted a narrative that placed blame on the West for causing the crisis, with top diplomats citing Western “foreign interference for causing the crisis,” but didn’t approve of Russia’s seizure of Crimea or its military actions in the Donbas.[3] China abstained from voting on the key United Nations resolutions regarding Crimea, for example, and it still declines to recognize Crimea as Russian territory. Similarly, it verbally rejected US and European sanctions on Russia though it let Chinese firms, including the country’s big state-owned banks, abide by these sanctions to avoid being cut off from US financial markets and the international banking system. Compared to 2014, however, China may find it more difficult to avoid involvement in an escalating crisis. Leaders in Beijing and around the world will see the US response to any military escalation against Ukraine as sending signals about whether the US could effectively respond to future crises in the Taiwan Strait or East or South China Seas. The success or failure of US efforts to impose meaningful costs on Russia if it escalates will be seen as a test of whether the US could do something similar in Asia. Moreover, after repeated summits between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, including Xi’s description of Putin as his “best friend,” China’s approach to Russia amid a crisis will also be interpreted as sending signals about China’s own capabilities and influence. Because of this, China will not see a new phase of war between Russia and Ukraine as a peripheral issue in its foreign policy, even though China has no core issues at stake in Ukraine itself. China is most likely to be implicated in the crisis by potential Western sanctions on Russia, which in contrast to 2014 will impose substantially more pressure on Beijing to take sides. China’s decision either to adhere to new Western sanctions or to help Russia avoid them will shape escalation pathways and determine the magnitude of economic and political isolation that sanctions impose.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Politics, Sanctions, Military Affairs, Economy, Crisis Management, and Escalation
- Political Geography:
- Russia, China, Europe, Eurasia, Ukraine, and Asia
8. Appraising the War in Ukraine and Likely Outcomes
- Author:
- Philip Wasielewski
- Publication Date:
- 04-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy Research Institute
- Abstract:
- After six weeks of combat, where is the Russo-Ukrainian War going? Modern technology both facilitates and hampers the answer to that question. Every day, this war is evaluated from every angle and perspective, but modern technology provides only a soda-straw view of the war’s entire canvas. This article will try to discern that larger canvas of the war, including a focus on casualties, information operations and morale, and logistics to see how they and the tactical correlation of forces may influence several possible strategic outcomes.
- Topic:
- Conflict, Military Tactics, and Russia-Ukraine War
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Eurasia, and Ukraine
9. Reviving the Prospects for Coercive Diplomacy in Ukraine
- Author:
- Sean Monaghan
- Publication Date:
- 05-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy Research Institute
- Abstract:
- The United States and its allies in the West have been unable to use the threat of military force to coerce Russia into stopping its war in Ukraine. In part, this is because the West is more concerned about escalation than Russia. Further analysis using Alexander L. George’s framework of coercive diplomacy, however, suggests the problem is more complex and deep-rooted: Few of the historical conditions or factors that favor coercive diplomacy are present in Ukraine. This analysis reveals three things the United States and its allies should do to revive the prospects of ending the war in Ukraine through coercive diplomacy. First, they should take smaller, more achievable steps which are less likely to inspire Russia to double-down. Second, they should exploit Russia’s deteriorating position through a mixture of carrots and sticks. Finally, the West should seek to minimize the intensity of its wider confrontation with Russia and focus on strategic stability as an end in itself. This will be challenging because of the gravity of Russian atrocities in Ukraine. But it may help end the war through coercive diplomacy, and avoid a serious miscalculation with Russia.
- Topic:
- Diplomacy, Conflict, Coercion, and Russia-Ukraine War
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, and Ukraine
10. The Evolving Political-Military Aims in the War in Ukraine After 100 Days
- Author:
- Philip Wasielewski
- Publication Date:
- 06-2022
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy Research Institute
- Abstract:
- Russian war aims have contracted from conquering Ukraine to simply expanding the territory of the statelets it supposedly went to war to protect. By contrast, Ukraine’s war aims have grown from survival to the recovery of all territory lost to Russia since 2014. These uncompromising objectives lock Russia and Ukraine into a war of attrition with little hope of a negotiated settlement. The ongoing battle in Donbas could provide Russia with some tactical successes and a propaganda victory but probably not a strategic one. In fact, further losses could weaken the Russian army to the point that it enables later Ukrainian counterattacks or even causes the Russian army to fracture. Leaders in Moscow may find that a depleted army leaves them few options for victory and that even their superiority in nuclear weapons may not be as useful as supposed.
- Topic:
- Politics, Armed Forces, Conflict, Military, and Russia-Ukraine War
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Eurasia, and Ukraine