Publishing Institution: Foreign Policy Research Institute / Political Geography: Eurasia / Publication Year: within 10 Years

1. Putin the Green? The Unintended Consequences of Russia’s Energy War on Europe

Author:: Mitchell Orenstein
Publication Date:: 02-2023
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: Both before and during its re-invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia cut energy supplies to Europe in an effort to force the continent to abandon Ukraine. Instead, Vladimir Putin accelerated Europe’s transition to green energy, decimating a key market for Russian exporters. Over the long term, Europe is well-positioned to win the energy war with Russia.
Topic:: Energy Policy, Markets, Renewable Energy, Energy Crisis, Russia-Ukraine War, and Invasion
Political Geography:: Russia, Europe, Eurasia, and Ukraine

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. Russia’s Military Industry Forecast 2023-2025

Author:: Pavel Luzin
Publication Date:: 04-2023
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: After the start of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the arms expenditures and military budget of Russia skyrocketed and continue to grow for the foreseeable future. However, the military industry is under threat Despite the additional massive financial inflow. The military industry could not—with few exceptions—increase the production capacity significantly nor solve its other major problems of workforce deficit and annual net losses. Moreover, the Western embargo on the supply of components, industrial equipment, and technologies makes the further development of the Russian military industry doubtful. Even reverse engineering has become an impossible task. However, the Kremlin’s choice in this situation would be in favor of more arms expenditures and extending the practices of the command economy.
Topic:: Military Affairs, Budget, Industry, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Russia, Eurasia, and Ukraine

4. The War as an Accelerator

Author:: András Tóth-Czifra
Publication Date:: 05-2023
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine laid bare the problems with Russia’s domestic governance. The war caught the federal and regional governments unprepared and exacerbated existing bottlenecks in fields such as infrastructure and state capacity. Even before 2022, Russia’s domestic policymaking had prioritized the short-term political interests of a shrinking ruling class and made long-term thinking and deep structural reforms impossible. The invasion completely eliminated long-term policy planning and subordinated policymaking to war aims. One year after the invasion, these problems are causing frictions and elevating domestic political risks for the Kremlin. The botched invasion and subsequent economic sanctions have caused irreversible losses and put significant upfront costs on the Russian state. This stretches Russia’s peculiar, highly centralized system of fiscal and political governance to its limits. In particular, the interlocking challenges of reorienting trade towards Asia without the necessary infrastructure in place, improving an inflexible multi-level public administration system, and turning Russia into a digital securocracy, show how, by starting the invasion, Russia’s rulers contributed to the destabilization of their own country. They also demonstrate how international sanctions impact Russia by increasing domestic risk factors from the Kremlin’s point of view.
Topic:: Infrastructure, Governance, Trade, Domestic Policy, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Russia, Eurasia, and Ukraine

5. Russia’s War in Ukraine: Critical Vulnerabilities to Russia’s Military Operations and Systems

Author:: Rob Lee and Philip Wasielewski
Publication Date:: 06-2023
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: Some of the critical vulnerabilities to Russia’s military operations and systems—revealed during the war in Ukraine—are due to its military culture and poor strategic choices at the beginning of the war including overly ambitious strategic aims. Deficiencies in Russian military culture include a highly centralized decision-making process, a disregard for the welfare of its soldiers, and flagrant dishonesty. Certain aspects of Russia’s military culture, especially the disconnect between front-line soldiers and senior officers, complicate the Russian military’s ability to adapt, develop solutions to obvious deficiencies, and institutionalize lessons learned from the battlefield. Other critical Russian military vulnerabilities are not inherent to its military culture but to Russia’s national demographic and industrial capabilities. Limits in these areas make it difficult for Russia to regenerate military power by either increasing the size of its military or increasing the quality of its weapons systems. Even if Russia’s military culture experiences a post-war military renaissance, its ability to regenerate military power lost in Ukraine will be limited by its declining population and industrial bases as well as Western sanctions on high technology.
Topic:: Sanctions, Armed Forces, Military Affairs, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Russia, Eurasia, and Ukraine

6. New Canal Threatens the Peace Between the Taliban and Central Asia

Author:: Bruce Pannier
Publication Date:: 07-2023
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: Since their return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban have managed to reach an understanding with most of the Central Asian governments to preserve a relative calm along the areas of the Afghan-Central Asian frontier. Disputes over water use have suddenly become an issue that could derail ties between Afghanistan and Central Asian states. Specifically, the construction of the Qosh Tepa canal in northern Afghanistan could lead to the loss of water for tens of thousands of people in downstream communities in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. In addition, three people were killed in recent clashes between Iranian border guards and Taliban fighters along the Afghan-Iranian border over rights to water from the Helmand River.
Topic:: Natural Resources, Water, Taliban, Borders, and Regional Politics
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, Iran, South Asia, Central Asia, Eurasia, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan

7. 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

8. Fighting to Win: Ukraine, Russia, and the War for Survival

Author:: Philip Wasielewski
Publication Date:: 08-2023
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: Both the Kremlin and Ukrainians see the war as an existential conflict, even as a “holy war,” and are prepared to fight for years to achieve victory. Russian war aims vis-à-vis Ukraine have morphed into creating a “frozen conflict” to maintain its land bridge with Crimea. However, its primary war aim remains weakening NATO to regain its sphere of influence in the former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact states. To achieve this, Russia will conduct a prolonged strategic defense in Ukraine to demonstrate that Ukraine will never regain its territorial integrity and to show that American support will eventually end as it has for other client states. Ukraine’s primary war aim of restoring its territorial integrity is shared across its society. To achieve this, Ukraine’s strategy is to break the will of the Russian army and then reclaim Crimea, even if that takes several years. Ukrainians do not fear a long war but an inconclusive one that reignites in five or ten years. They want to settle this conflict with Russia once and for all, and see NATO membership as the only way to prevent it from happening again. For US policymakers, the dangers arising from the war overshadow opportunities. One opportunity is a Russian defeat that can serve both as a brake against further Kremlin aggression and as a catalyst for Russia to possibly change her imperial identity. Another opportunity is the chance to strengthen NATO’s conventional forces and geographic position to give it an overwhelming advantage against any possible future Russian aggression. For that to happen, Ukraine must enter the alliance.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, NATO, Armed Conflict, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Russia, Eurasia, and Ukraine

9. 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

10. Takeaways from Russia’s Regional and Municipal Elections

Author:: András Tóth-Czifra
Publication Date:: 10-2023
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: The Kremlin, for the most part, engineered the results it desired in Russia’s 2023 regional and municipal elections. However, the campaigns showed that a positive portrayal of the war in Ukraine is not necessarily popular among Russian voters. In the occupied territories in Ukraine, elections demonstrated that Russian power remains firm, even in the face of Ukraine’s counteroffensive. Since independent observers had virtually no access to these votes and they were held illegally, it is both impossible to verify the authorities’ claims and futile to analyze the results as if real elections had been held. In many regions, the elections saw the demise of the Communist Party as the largest “alternative” party to Vladimir Putin’s ruling United Russia party. A notable exception was the Siberian region of Khakassia, where the incumbent communist governor was able to see off a threat from his Kremlin-supported opponent. The extensive use of a still-opaque online voting system, along with the overt intimidation of election observers and opposition personalities, suggests that the Kremlin is eager to evolve and test its manipulation toolkits ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Topic:: Elections, Domestic Politics, Political Parties, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Russia, Eurasia, and Ukraine

11. The Dragon and the Bear in Africa: Stress-Testing Chinese-Russian Relations

Author:: Robert E. Hamilton
Publication Date:: 11-2023
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: This report is based on a chapter of my forthcoming book on the relationship between China and Russia. For the US, this is arguably the most important bilateral relationship in the world today. A robust, resilient partnership between Beijing and Moscow has the potential to remake world order. It would usher in an era of international relations based on power and polarity, eroding the role of international law and institutions, and undermining the sovereignty and agency of smaller states. This world order would represent a serious threat to US interests, as currently defined. On the other hand, transactional, “thin” ties between China and Russia allow the US some breathing space. Instead of a revisionist authoritarian alliance, the US would confront two states that represent different types of challenges. In this case, Washington could deal with the acute, militarized threat of Russia in the near term, while remaining postured to confront the “pacing” threat of China—the only potential peer competitor to the US—over the longer term. The academic and policy worlds have been seized with the China-Russia relationship for almost two decades. Policy debates revolve around how to confront the two, with some arguing that the current focus on reversing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine puts the US at risk of being unprepared for the threat China represents. Others argue that Russia is not merely a disruptive power but represents a profound and immediate danger to US interests. Competition for resources often lurks in the background of this debate: US government organizations focused on Europe tend to argue for focusing on Russia first; those with an Indo-Pacific focus tend to argue that China should be the focus. What this debate often fails to consider is the nature of their relationship and its impact on US policy options. The scholarly debate fills this gap by focusing directly on the nature of the relationship: one camp defines it as a strategic partnership and the other defines it as an “axis of convenience.” Often missing from scholarly analysis, though, is an analysis of the implications for US policy. In other words, scholars often argue forcefully for one of these characterizations of the China-Russia relationship but then fail to advise what the US should do in response. Instead, their analysis focuses on the implications of the relationship for theoretical approaches to international relations. The book that will include this report aims to close this gap between the policy and scholarly debates. It aims to provide a better understanding of the nature of the China-Russia relationship and use that understanding to inform US policy options. It will do this through a novel approach. Instead of focusing on Chinese-Russian interaction at the level of the international system, as most approaches do, it focuses on their interaction “on the ground” in regions where both have important interests at stake. This report examines Chinese-Russian interaction in Africa; other chapters of the book focus on Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and East Asia. Africa and Central Asia provide good testing grounds for the China-Russia relationship because both have important but different interests there. How they advance and defend those interests and how they interact in doing so, can yield important insights into the nature of their overall relationship. These regions are also important because the US footprint is light. The US has been called the “binding agent” in ties between Beijing and Moscow. The idea here is that shared resistance to the US is the only major thing they have in common. In this view, removing the US from the equation will make China and Russia more likely to find reasons to compete rather than cooperate.
Topic:: International Relations, Foreign Policy, Bilateral Relations, and Strategic Interests
Political Geography:: Africa, Russia, China, Eurasia, and Asia

12. Russia Is Down, But Not Out, in Central Asia

Author:: Maximilian Hess
Publication Date:: 02-2023
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has weakened its influence in Central Asia, especially in Kazakhstan. Russia is no longer a regional hegemon, which may increase regional instability. Tensions between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are especially dangerous. Despite Moscow’s diminished influence in Central Asia, regional states cannot afford to completely ignore Russian interests. Western hopes for Central Asian gas resources to be pumped westwards and circumvent Russia remain unlikely to be fulfilled.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Gas, Regional Power, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Russia, Central Asia, Eurasia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan

13. Moscow’s Mind Games: Finding Ideology in Putin’s Russia

Author:: Olga Khvostunova
Publication Date:: 02-2023
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: Debates about the nature of the Putin regime have intensified in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Some experts argue that Russia has turned fascist. While such claims are understandable in the face of Russian aggression, they obfuscate the complexity of the problem and distract from identifying the regime’s actual ideological predisposition. In fact, the Putin regime is conservative, authoritarian, and reactionary, and its core beliefs include anti-Americanism, ressentiment, and Russian messianism. These beliefs operate under the guise of patriotism, Russia’s official national idea, which is used by the regime to rally public support and secure its grip on power.
Topic:: Authoritarianism, Domestic Politics, Ideology, and Vladimir Putin
Political Geography:: Russia and Eurasia

14. Stress-Testing Chinese-Russian Relations

Author:: Robert E. Hamilton
Publication Date:: 05-2023
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: A debate over the nature of the China-Russia relationship has raged for almost two decades. One side believes the two are strategic partners; the other believes their ties are an “axis of convenience” lacking depth. Understanding the true nature of their relationship is of vital importance to U.S. national security. A true strategic partnership represents a grave threat; less robust ties between the two give the U.S. more latitude in dealing with them. We can gain a deeper, more nuanced understanding of China-Russia ties by observing how they interact in regions of the world where they both have important interests at stake. Four regions emerge as key here: Central Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, and East Asia.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Bilateral Relations, Partnerships, and Strategic Engagement
Political Geography:: Russia, China, Eurasia, and Asia

15. Russian Disinformation in Africa: No Door on this Barn

Author:: Dan Whitman
Publication Date:: 08-2023
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: Recent gains by Russian disinformation in Africa make up one of the quickest propaganda victories in history. Wagner Group-Kremlin narratives work to Russia’s material advantage, and to Africa’s strong disadvantage. Understandably, Western governments are skittish toward employing underhanded tactics to counter Russian lies. An alternative to inaction could be to marry Western government resources with the work of non-governmental organizations in Africa and elsewhere. As is sometimes said about climate change, it may already be “too late” to mount efforts to remedy the situation. But that is hardly a reason for doing nothing.
Topic:: Climate Change, Propaganda, Disinformation, and Wagner Group
Political Geography:: Africa, Russia, and Eurasia

16. Biden’s Bombs: The Dance of Ethics and Interests

Author:: Dominic Tierney
Publication Date:: 08-2023
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: On the same day in July 2023, the Biden administration destroyed America’s last chemical weapon, and also, controversially, announced the supply of cluster bombs to Ukraine. The story of the two bombs shows how America’s view of ethics in war is shaped by an underlying strategic logic. The focus on humanizing war by banning certain weapons may do more to help America on the battlefield than to protect civilian lives.
Topic:: Ethics, Weapons, Civilians, Joe Biden, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Russia, Eurasia, Ukraine, North America, and United States of America

17. Wagner’s Head is Dead, Now Bury the Body

Author:: Marcel Plichta, Christopher Faulkner, and Raphael Parens
Publication Date:: 09-2023
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: The core of Wagner leadership was effectively decapitated with the deaths of Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitri Uktin, but the group’s fingerprints won’t disappear quickly. Although the Kremlin may attempt to appoint new leadership, semi-nationalize Wagner, or attempt a full takeover, a Wagner descendant organization will continue causing problems for the West. The Wagner model of weaponizing private military companies to use as a foreign policy tool, will continue as well. U.S. and European authorities should avoid complacency by intensifying efforts to counter Wagner and its employees, so that Wagner members cannot slip into anonymity amidst Russian gray zone warfare.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Leadership, Wagner Group, Russia-Ukraine War, Private Military Companies (PMCs), and Yevgeny Prigozhin
Political Geography:: Russia, Eurasia, and Ukraine

18. 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

19. Russian Perceptions of Military AI, Automation, and Autonomy

Author:: Anna Nadibaidze
Publication Date:: 01-2022
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: President Vladimir Putin declared 2021 to be the Year of Science and Technology in Russia, with November named as the month of artificial intelligence (AI), signaling Russian leadership’s strong interest in this umbrella term. The Russian defense sector is particularly captivated by the opportunities associated with AI-based technologies. In recent years, AI, robotics, as well as the further integration of automation and autonomy into weapons systems and military decision-making have all been highlighted as priorities for modernizing the Russian armed forces. In 2017, Putin famously said that “artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia, but for all humankind … Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.” Quoting these words, analysts often attribute Russia’s development, testing, and use of weaponized AI to the necessity of competing in the so-called global AI race or the global tech race with the current leading AI developers: the United States and China. While the perceived need to compete and catch up is part of Russia’s motivations, its interest in military AI should not only be attributed to a quest for relative power. Understanding the depth and complexity of the debates surrounding AI, autonomy, and automation in Russia requires an examination of discussions about its strategic implications for the Russian army, the perceived benefits and risks of autonomy, and, more broadly, the importance of technological modernization and innovation for Russia’s place in the world. This report aims to provide an overview of the different conceptions and motivations, both oriented towards domestic and international audiences, that have been and are guiding Russian political and military leaderships in their ambitions to pursue weaponized AI. First, it outlines the various factors, both external and internal, behind the quest for pursuing AI, autonomy, and automation in the Russian military. Second, it presents some of the Russian plans in this area, what is known about their capabilities, and the challenges to strengthening them. Third, it dives into Russian debates on autonomy, and especially autonomous weapons systems, as well as discussions on the ethics of developing so-called “killer robots,” or autonomous combat robots (боевые роботы, or военные роботы), a term often used in the Russian-language literature. The analysis is based on a survey of open-source materials, including media reports, press releases, official statements and speeches, peer-reviewed articles and think tank reports, as well as publications in Russian military journals. The author would like to present it as the first step in an ongoing doctoral research project, as well as a contribution to the emerging English-language literature on how weaponized AI is perceived in Russia.
Topic:: Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence, Autonomy, Automation, and Military
Political Geography:: Russia and Eurasia

20. Electronic Warfare: Russia's Approach

Author:: Pavel Luzin
Publication Date:: 02-2022
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: Russia considers electronic warfare (EW) one of the key military capabilities in its ongoing confrontation with the West. EW provides a non-nuclear deterrence capability and helps Russia keep its great power status and strategic autonomy while also taking into account its long-term economic and demographic weakness. Russia has made significant advances in EW during the 2010s. However, at the beginning of 2020s, Russia still faces technological, technical, industrial, organizational, and political challenges that prevent Moscow from getting the EW capabilities it wants. Technological challenges are related to delays in developing air- and space-based EW capabilities, and to the need to unify EW systems. Technical challenges stem from the number of different types of EW systems that must be maintained, the relatively short lifespans of various EW systems, and issues integrating them with other combat systems and units. The last point also indicates why Russia has struggled to transform its quantity of the EW systems into a higher quality of combat capabilities. Industrial challenges are caused by the volatile dynamic of Russia’s arms procurements and R&D programs and the capacity of defense corporations to develop and produce advanced EW systems with acceptable costs. The main organizational challenge is that the number of EW troops that has already achieved its objective limit. Now EW troops need to be transformed from combat support into a combat branch. Finally, a political challenge appears in the confrontation between Russia and the West, which is the main driver for efforts related to EW. Russia is unable to compete with the United States and Europe in a symmetric way, and Russia’s political system does not allow Moscow to realize a “revolution in military affairs” because the centralized system struggles to implement a net-centric approach to the armed forces in effective way. For that reason, Russia has chosen a classic approach of asymmetric warfare with the goal of disrupting the command and control systems of a superior adversary. The coming decade promises to be challenging for Russia in terms of electronic warfare. Moscow will need to fix its previous EW efforts, pay more attention to the overall quality of electronic warfare rather than on the quantity of deployed EW systems, and bridge the evident gaps in EW on tactical, theater, and strategic levels. Moreover, after defense spending stabilized and even declined during the late 2010s, Russia has been forced to increase its defense budget again. This means spending for EW will also increase. Russia will try to fill gaps in air- and space-based EW capabilities, with the sea-based component continuing to play a secondary role in Russia’s military planning. It is also possible that Russia will chose to extend its ground-based EW infrastructure in Belarus with creation of an EW “chain” from Crimea to Kaliningrad.
Topic:: Science and Technology, Cybersecurity, Deterrence, Military, and Electronic Warfare
Political Geography:: Russia and Eurasia

21. How the Intervention in Kazakhstan Revitalized the Russian-led CSTO

Author:: Bruce Pannier
Publication Date:: 03-2022
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: The Russian Federation-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has existed for nearly 30 years, and, during all that time, it had never sent troops into a conflict zone in one of its members states. CSTO members Armenia and Kyrgyzstan had requested assistance in the past, but the organization did not send help as those situations were not part of the CSTO mandate. Faced with unrest that broke out in early January 2022, Kazakhstan’s government requested CSTO assistance to fend off what Kazakhstan’s president said was a threat to the country’s sovereignty from tens of thousands of terrorists. For the first time, the CSTO answered a call for aid and deployed some 2,500 troops to guard key facilities in Kazakhstan—but only in a few cities, and for less than two weeks. It looks now like there were no terrorists, and Kazakh President Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev’s call for help was not to save his country, but to save himself from elements in the government that were trying to oust him. That makes the CSTO decision to deploy forces more intriguing, as it appears the organization did not send the force to Kazakhstan to defend that country’s sovereignty, but to defend Tokayev and preserve a government that was friendly towards Russia.
Topic:: Security, Sovereignty, Regional Integration, and Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO)
Political Geography:: Russia, Central Asia, Eurasia, and Kazakhstan

22. Control, Development, Legitimacy, and the 2024 Problem: Russia Two Years Before the End of Putin's 4th Term

Author:: András Tóth-Czifra
Publication Date:: 03-2022
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: In 2020, the Russian Federation’s legislature adopted constitutional reforms initiated by President Vladimir Putin. The reforms allowed Putin to “zero out” his presidential term count, and thus maintain ambiguity about his plans in 2024. They also set the stage for a radical revamp of governance in the country, with hope to kick-start Russia’s economic growth before 2024 and to ensure that the system could withstand instability stemming from a potential succession crisis. The reforms did bring substantial changes. However, as it is evident from major policies regarding capital investments, public administration, and the COVID-19 pandemic, the reforms left political decision-making top-heavy, poorly informed, short-sighted, and constrained, making it highly questionable whether they could achieve the goal of stimulating growth and stabilizing the regime’s domestic position before 2024. It was amid this set of contradictions and ambiguities that Putin decided to start a war of submission against Ukraine in February 2022. As of March 2022, it is too early to conclusively evaluate the consequences of the war on Russia’s future, and having been finalized in early February, this report cannot attempt to do it. However, by undoing the foundations of economic and social development, the war seems to have set Russia on a course where the regime aims to resolve the contradictions and ambiguities detailed in this report by previously unseen levels of domestic repression and external aggression.
Topic:: Development, Reform, Constitution, Legitimacy, and Vladimir Putin
Political Geography:: Russia and Eurasia

23. 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

24. The Rise of Sino-Russian Biotech Cooperation

Author:: Svitlana Lebedenko
Publication Date:: 05-2022
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: The People’s Republic of China’s rise as a global innovation power is rooted in the development of a sovereign innovation infrastructure, one that allows China to compete in high-technology races with the United States. This process is complemented by an intensifying science and technology partnership with the Russian Federation. By decoupling from China and Russia, the United States and its allies are pushing China and Russia closer to each other. The paper discusses recent examples of Sino-Russian biotechnology cooperation projects, offering an early account of the emerging integration of two distinct but complementary innovation infrastructures.
Topic:: Development, Science and Technology, Infrastructure, Innovation, and Biotechnology
Political Geography:: Russia, China, Eurasia, and Asia

25. 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

26. Filling the Geopolitical Void in Central Asia

Author:: Bruce Pannier
Publication Date:: 11-2022
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: A new era in foreign policy is starting for the five Central Asian states—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—in which the role of former colonial master Russia is significantly diminished as Moscow concentrates its attention and resources on the debacle it created when it started a war on Ukraine. China also has considerable influence in Central Asia, but China has not indicated it is willing to fill the vacuums Russia is leaving in Central Asia’s security, finances, or trade. The Central Asian states of necessity are seeking new partners, but it is possible that as the Central Asian states develop new foreign partnerships, they will create new divisions regionally, and the case of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan is possibly an example of what is come for Central Asia.
Topic:: Security, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Finance, and Trade
Political Geography:: Russia, China, Central Asia, Eurasia, Kazakhstan, Asia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan

27. Ecological Path to Peace Is Possible in Ukraine

Author:: Saleem H. Ali
Publication Date:: 11-2022
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: A key stumbling point in trying to chart a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine has been an inability of both sides to consider hybrid solutions that recognize resource interdependencies that could benefit either side. Such a pragmatic view would not undermine American or Western principles and lead to a more durable peace agreement. The peace process in the Russian-Georgian War and the governance mechanism set up for the autonomous region of Adjara provide useful examples in this regard. Science diplomacy, particularly in the Arctic, could be a useful “ice-breaker” between Russia and the West, and the climate crisis makes such interaction even more urgent.
Topic:: Treaties and Agreements, Governance, Peace, Ecology, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:: Russia, Eurasia, and Ukraine

28. Putin Is Doing Xi’s Dirty Work (and the West Is Helping Him)

Author:: William R. Spiegelberger
Publication Date:: 11-2022
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: Vladimir Putin’s diplomatic turn to China has been a disappointment for good reason: Beijing is more interested in advancing its own anti-Western interests than in helping Moscow. The more fruitful and natural partnership would be between Russia and the West, since both face a common threat from China and the infrastructure for mutual prosperity is already in place. The main impediment to improved Russian-Western relations is the continued rule of Putin, who is increasingly doing China’s bidding at Russia’s expense.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Bilateral Relations, Partnerships, Xi Jinping, and Vladimir Putin
Political Geography:: Russia, China, Eurasia, and Asia

29. Strategic Connectivity in the Black Sea: A Focus on Georgia

Author:: Batu Kutelia and Vasil Sikharulidze
Publication Date:: 12-2021
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: This report argues that the government of Georgia needs to reshuffle its priorities in advancing its strategic connectivity in three major areas: democratic statecraft, economic modernization, and geopolitical identity. By prioritizing these three areas, Georgia can secure a better place as a major hub for transportation and logistics. Taking concrete actions and reforms will secure sustainable economic growth if Tbilisi reinforces its strategic partnerships. The wider Black Sea region has become a strategically important area because it connects Europe to the Eurasian landmass and allows the development of multidimensional and multimodal linkages related to energy, infrastructure, logistics, cyber, military, environment, and migration. This report provides policy recommendations on transportation, logistics, and critical infrastructure supporting proactive approaches for risk management and increasing resilience. The recommendations include innovative public-private cooperation for introducing modern technological and financial solutions. Other recommendations include a Western strategy to push back on Russian aggression and to strengthen security and stability.
Topic:: Partnerships, Geopolitics, Economy, Economic Growth, Modernization, Connectivity, and Strategic Engagement
Political Geography:: Eurasia, Georgia, and Black Sea

30. Reconceptualizing Lithuania’s Importance for U.S. Foreign Policy

Author:: Nikolas Gvosdev
Publication Date:: 07-2021
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: During the immediate post-Cold War period, the importance of Lithuania, along with other Central-Eastern European countries, to U.S. foreign policy increased. Lithuania became one of the jumping-off points for further “democratic enlargement” in Europe, Eurasia, and the Greater Middle East. Today, U.S. policy is focused on retrenchment and consolidation—defined by a shift in attention and resources away from the Euro-Atlantic region and the Greater Middle East towards the Indo-Pacific region—as well as the growing priority of climate change and the environment as central organizing principles. U.S. foreign policy is also increasingly subordinated to domestic political considerations about the costs and benefits of overseas action for constituencies within the United States. In the 2020s, Lithuania’s importance will rest less on the Russia dimension and further Euro-Atlantic enlargement into the post-Soviet space, and more on its ability to play a greater role in European affairs, to assist in the rebalance to Asian affairs more generally, and to contribute to energy, supply chain, and environmental security.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Energy Policy, Geopolitics, and Supply Chains
Political Geography:: Europe, Eurasia, Lithuania, and United States of America

31. Russia’s Coercive Diplomacy: Why Did the Kremlin Mass Its Forces Near Ukraine This Spring?

Author:: Rob Lee
Publication Date:: 08-2021
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: During March and April 2021, the Russian military conducted a large-scale buildup in its regions bordering Ukraine, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. Scores of videos appeared on TikTok, Telegram, Twitter, and other social media sites showing Russian military equipment, including tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, artillery, and air defense systems, moving toward or appearing in the vicinity of Ukraine’s borders. The United States Department of Defense’s spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that the Russian buildup was even larger than during the peak of the fighting in 2014. Ukrainian officials estimated that the Russian military buildup would reach a total of 120,000 Russian troops with more than fifty-six battalion tactical groups (BTG). United States defense officials gave a lower estimate that 48 BTGs had moved into the border area and 80,000 Russian troops were in Crimea or elsewhere near Ukraine’s borders. To put this in perspective, the Russian military has approximately 850,000-900,000 servicemembers in total, and 168 constant readiness BTGs, according to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. If these estimates were accurate, the Russian military massed roughly 10-15% of its total manpower and approximately one third of its BTGs near Ukraine’s borders. In response to the buildup, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and President Joe Biden all called their Russian counterparts to discuss the situation. U.S. European Command (EUCOM) raised its alert status to its highest level. The buildup also coincided with an increase in fighting along the line of contact, with at least 36 Ukrainian servicemen killed thus far in 2021. The movement of Russian forces led to intense speculation about Russia’s intentions, including fears of a large-scale ground invasion. However, U.S. intelligence indicated that a large-scale ground invasion was unlikely because of a lack of prepositioned spare parts, field hospitals, ammunition, and other logistics necessary for such an operation. Likewise, EUCOM commander General Tod Wolters said on April 15 that there was a “low to medium” risk of a Russian ground invasion of Ukraine in the coming weeks. On April 22, after the end of a large-scale exercise at the Opuk training area in Crimea, which included an amphibious landing, a helicopter air assault operation with two companies, and a multi-battalion airborne operation with more than two thousand paratroopers and sixty vehicles parachuted from forty Il-76MD transport aircraft, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that the winter verification tests for the Western and Southern Military Districts had been a success and the troops would return to their permanent bases. However, he indicated that equipment from Central Military District’s 41st Combined Arms Army, which included BM-27 Uragan multiple launch rocket systems and Iskander-M short-range ballistic missile systems and other heavy equipment, would remain at the Pogonovo training area in Voronezh near Ukraine’s border until the Zapad 2021 strategic exercise in September. Furthermore, Shoigu did not state clearly whether all of the equipment and units deployed near Ukraine’s borders outside of Crimea would also return to their bases, nor how those units were employed during the snap inspection. Two weeks after Shoigu’s announcement, U.S. defense officials said that Russia had removed only “a few thousand” troops and that there were approximately 80,000 servicemen near Ukraine’s borders, despite Shoigu’s order for most of those units to return to their permanent bases by May 1. Thus Russia can still escalate rapidly in Ukraine in the future, though the immediate threat of a serious escalation of fighting in the Donbas appears to have passed with Shoigu’s announcement.
Topic:: Conflict Prevention, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Military Affairs
Political Geography:: Russia, Eurasia, Ukraine, and United States of America

32. Engaging Russia over Syria: Managing Peripheral Conflict and Narrowing Interests

Author:: Aaron Stein
Publication Date:: 09-2021
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: The United States is examining how to narrow core objectives in the Middle East to focus on improving military readiness and increasing the number of low-density, high-demand assets available for deployment in Asia and Europe. To free up more forces and to help improve readiness, Washington should explore selective engagement with Moscow about securing a formal ceasefire in Syria’s northwest and reaching agreement on a “no-foreign forces zone” in Syria’s south. This policy would not alter the status quo in Syria, but seek to use diplomatic tools to allow for the reallocation of certain resources now tasked with protecting U.S. ground forces. This engagement with the Russian Federation would elevate a key U.S. interest and use counter-terrorism capabilities based in Jordan to disrupt plots against the homeland. It would also seek to use diplomatic tools to create conditions to remove forces that do not directly support this counter-terrorism effort. This approach would retain U.S. forces in the Middle East, but in a way that allows for certain assets to be repositioned in either the United States, Indo-Pacific, or Europe.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Conflict, and Strategic Interests
Political Geography:: Russia, Eurasia, Middle East, Syria, and United States of America

33. Zapad 2021 and Russia’s Potential for Warfighting

Author:: Johan Norberg and Natalie Simpson
Publication Date:: 09-2021
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: According to press information, on 10 September 2021, the Russian Armed Forces plan to start the one-week-long active phase of this year’s annual strategic-level exercise (STRATEX), Zapad (West) 2021, a bilateral large-scale Russo-Belorussian strategic-level exercise, primarily in Belarus and Russia’s Western Military District (MD, see map 1). Large-scale Russian exercises understandably attract much attention and speculation both in Russia and abroad. Most Western comments about Zapad 2017 addressed Russian and international political aspects and detailed several capabilities employed in the exercise and its scenarios or steps and phases. Few, if any, addressed what it meant for the potential of Russian forces to fight wars, which these exercises are all about actually. Russia’s warfighting potential is important for the West writ large for several reasons. Tensions between Russia and NATO are increasing. Russia perceives a growing military threat in its west. Russian strategic documents re-emphasise the importance of military power. Russia actually uses military force to achieve its geopolitical goals, such as in Eastern Ukraine and in Syria.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Armed Forces, Military Affairs, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:: Russia, Eurasia, and Belarus

34. Even Thieves Need a Safe: Why the Putin Regime Causes, Deplores, and Yet Relies on Capital Flight for its Survival

Author:: William Spiegelberger
Publication Date:: 11-2021
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: Early in the millennium, Vladimir Putin resurrected the Russian economy and reasserted state power, but the methods that he employed have more recently led to economic stagnation. In response, the Kremlin regime proposed several economic reforms. It has not, however, implemented these reforms for fear of undermining its control, which is exercised largely by applying the law selectively to advance the regime’s interests, instead of impartially on behalf of the country at large. This arrangement is a profitable one for the elite. Without legal security, however, even the elite cannot know whether the regime will someday come for their property. The resultant fear of expropriation has led to massive capital flight from the Russian Federation to jurisdictions where, in contrast to Russia, the law will protect private property. Collectively, these jurisdictions comprise what could be called a vast, virtual “Anti-Russia.” The Kremlin has acknowledged the problem of capital flight, but is loath to stop it for fear of provoking Russia’s moneyed classes to press for reform should they be forced to keep their wealth in Russia. The result is a regime that has expanded at the expense of the wellbeing of the country at large, which is shrinking, a good part of its wealth having fled across the border to a flourishing Anti-Russia
Topic:: Reform, Economy, Capital Flight, and Wealth
Political Geography:: Russia and Eurasia

35. Cooperation, Competition, and Compartmentalization: Russian-Turkish Relations and Their Implications for the West

Author:: Robert E. Hamilton and Anna Mikulska
Publication Date:: 04-2021
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: The relationship between the Russian Federation and Republic of Turkey is one of the most important bilateral relationships in Eurasia today. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) original adversary and one of its earliest members have in recent times veered sharply between cooperation—often against NATO’s interests—and competition so intense that it seemed war between them was possible. Politically, their leaders and their systems of government share a basic compatibility predicated on authoritarianism and resistance to what they claim is Western meddling in internal affairs. Militarily, Moscow and Ankara have at times cooperated closely. For instance, the two have worked to marginalize the U.S. military’s influence in Syria, and Turkey has purchased and deployed Russian S-400 air defense systems, putting its defense relationship with the United States in jeopardy. At other times, such as in the military escalation in Idlib (Syria), the Libyan Civil War, and the Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict, the two have found themselves backing different sides and had to work assiduously to prevent a direct military clash. Economically, the relationship has been historically unbalanced in Russia’s favor, but Turkey’s increasing trade in services and emergence as an important energy storage and transport hub may change this. The two economies share a basic complementarity, with few areas where they compete in the production of goods and services. This dynamic may increase the ability of their economic relationship to act as a “shock absorber” and minimize the impact of disruptions in other facets of their ties. Overall, Moscow and Ankara have worked to emphasize areas of cooperation and “compartmentalize” areas of difference. Policymakers in Western capitals will need to develop an understanding of the drivers of the Russian-Turkish relationship and their effects on Western interests.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, NATO, International Cooperation, Bilateral Relations, Geopolitics, and Strategic Competition
Political Geography:: Russia, Eurasia, Turkey, Middle East, and Syria

36. Russia’s Nuclear Activity in 2020: A Show of Strength Despite COVID-19

Author:: Maxim Starchak
Publication Date:: 05-2021
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation’s powerful nuclear arsenal has stood as a cornerstone of its political and military influence. In 2020, despite the COVID-19 pandemic and related restrictions, Russia’s strategic nuclear forces maintained a high degree of activity. The number of nuclear exercises and air and sea deterrence patrols was stable and not much different from 2019. The Russian strategic nuclear arsenal remains an integral tool of the Kremlin’s pressure on rivals in Europe and North America.
Topic:: Nuclear Power, Geopolitics, and COVID-19
Political Geography:: Russia, Europe, Eurasia, and North America

37. The Russian Way of War in Syria: Implications for the West

Author:: Robert E. Hamilton
Publication Date:: 12-2020
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: The Russian Federation’s intervention in Syria is a watershed event. However the war there ends, its impact on Russia is likely to be profound. For the first time in its post-Soviet history, Russia’s military is fighting outside the borders of the former Soviet Union. In doing so, it is exercising military capabilities that had atrophied from long lack of use. Moscow is also rebuilding its diplomatic muscle through its role in Syria by managing a diverse coalition, leading a parallel peace process, and forcing the United States to take the Kremlin’s preferences into account when making decisions in the Middle East. Through Syria, Russia has reemerged on the geopolitical stage. The war is not over, and there are many ways in which things could still go badly for Russia. Moscow may find that a return to geopolitical prominence entails costs and risks at least as great as the rewards that status brings. Nevertheless, the West will be dealing with a Russia that has changed fundamentally through its experience in the war. Understanding these changes and their implications for Western governments is the focus of this conclusion chapter. It is structured around two questions. First, what does Syria tell us about how Russia fights its wars? Second, how has Russia’s experience in Syria affected the capabilities of its armed forces? Answering these questions should increase our understanding of Russia as a geopolitical actor and allow Western governments to make more effective policy on issues where Russia is a factor.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, War, Armed Forces, Military Intervention, and Syrian War
Political Geography:: Russia, Eurasia, Middle East, and Syria

38. Russian Naval Forces in the Syrian War

Author:: Igor Delanoe
Publication Date:: 10-2020
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: Since the late 2000s, the Russian Federation has expanded its naval footprint in the Eastern Mediterranean, and even resurrected its Mediterranean Squadron in 2013. The backbone of this operational squadron is provided by units coming from the Black Sea Fleet, complemented by vessels from other Russian naval formations (namely, the Northern, Baltic, and Pacific Fleets, as well as the Caspian Sea Flotilla) on a rotational basis. As the Russian State Armament Program for the period 2011-2020 was implemented, the Black Sea Fleet received new warships and new diesel-powered submarines. Consequently, by the outbreak of the Syrian crisis, Moscow’s naval footprint in the Mediterranean had already been reconstituted. Yet, since the mid-2010s, a structural change occurred in the Mediterranean Squadron’s order of battle. The Squadron has morphed qualitatively and quantitatively, and has become more capable. Featuring fewer ex-Soviet large platforms and more modern green water units, this naval task force has been assigned mainly a defensive objective: locally counterbalance navies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and protect Russia’s southern flank from perceived instability emanating from the Mediterranean’s southern shore, in the context of the Arab Spring. Moreover, Moscow’s direct military involvement in the war in Syria has provided the Mediterranean Squadron with a new purpose while highlighting a conventional deterrence mission.
Topic:: NATO, Armed Forces, Navy, and Syrian War
Political Geography:: Russia, Eurasia, Middle East, and Syria

39. Russian Aerial Operations

Author:: Anton Lavrov
Publication Date:: 10-2020
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: Before the start of the military intervention in Syria in 2015, even top Russian generals were uncertain what the result would be. Shortly before the start of the intervention, the Russian Aerospace Forces (RuAF) received hundreds of new airplanes and helicopters and new “smart” precision weapons. Almost all of them had never been tested in real combat. The pilots and commanders also did not have combat experience and were trained by textbooks filled with outdated concepts and tactics. The five years of war in Syria have been the most intense period of transformation for the RuAF since the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The Russian military not only gained an unprecedented amount of experience, but also made substantial improvements in tactics and strategy.
Topic:: Military Affairs, Military Intervention, Conflict, Syrian War, and Air Force
Political Geography:: Russia, Eurasia, Middle East, and Syria

40. The Russian Ground-Based Contingent in Syria

Author:: Charles Bartles and Lester Grau
Publication Date:: 10-2020
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: The Syrian Civil War produces a new set of problems involving extended urban combat, intense fights for key resources (oil fields, water, and lines of communication and supply), conventional combat among irregular units, ethnic and religious cleansing, a large number of foreign combatants with varying motivations, and contending outside powers fighting a proxy engagement. The Russian Federation is not an expeditionary power, and its entry into Syria on the side of the regime has strained its logistical resources. From the beginning of the Syrian campaign, it was clear that Russian involvement was initially envisaged to be through the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS). Although the Syrian government was on the verge of collapse, and the Syrian military was on its hind legs and a shell of its former self, there was a sufficient number of Syrian ground units that were mission capable. With this understanding, the VKS was to be the principal supplier of Russian combat power aimed at disruption of the command and control and leadership of the groups fighting the Bashar al-Assad regime through the provision of reconnaissance and target destruction. In particular, Russia’s priority was the destruction of the Western-backed, moderate opposition groups, since it saw these as the greatest immediate threat to Assad. The Islamic State (ISIS) and other Sunni extremist groups were targeted, but sat lower on Russia’s priority list. As with other such operations, «mission creep” soon resulted in Russia’s involvement quickly expanding past the provision of aerospace support to planning, and, in some cases, conducting ground operations. General Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia, confirmed this expansion of Russian involvement in a December 2017 interview. Russia’s ground-based contingent in the Syrian campaign involves a diverse set of forces and capabilities. Some of the key features of this expanded ground force mission included a Russian model of military advisors, integrated and modernized fires, mobility and countermobility operations, a featured role for military police, use of coastal defense, spetznaz, and private military company (PMC) forces. Russian ground forces have benefitted from the opportunity to provide combat experience to a large number of professional soldiers, conduct battlefield testing of new systems and observe the impact of different terrain on tactics. The forces opposing the Syrian government provide a different opponent than the “enemy” encountered in normal Russian peacetime training and much of the “Syrian experience” is discussed and dissected in Russian professional military journals.
Topic:: Armed Forces, Military Intervention, and Syrian War
Political Geography:: Russia, Eurasia, Middle East, and Syria

41. “Engaged Opportunism”: Russia’s Role in the Horn of Africa

Author:: Samuel Ramani
Publication Date:: 07-2020
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: After spending nearly three decades as a marginal player in the Horn of Africa, the Russian Federation has made significant progress towards recapturing its great power status in the region. Russia has engaged with all countries in the Horn of Africa and refused to take sides in the region’s most polarizing conflicts, so Moscow can be best described as an “engaged opportunist” on the Horn of Africa. Russia is principally focused on establishing itself as the region’s leading arms vendor, but prospectively, has one eye on constructing a Red Sea base. Russia’s resurgence in the Horn of Africa has generally dovetailed with the People’s Republic of China’s regional aspirations, but has placed it increasingly at odds with France and the United States. Looking ahead, Russia’s ability to link its Horn of Africa strategy to its aspirations in the Middle East will shape the future trajectory of its involvement in the region. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a non-partisan organization that seeks to publish well-argued, policy-oriented articles on American foreign policy and national security priorities.
Topic:: International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Engagement
Political Geography:: Africa, Russia, Eurasia, and Horn of Africa

42. Russia’s Struggle to Gain Influence in Southeast Asia

Author:: Bennett Murray
Publication Date:: 08-2020
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: As the United States and People’s Republic of China jostle for influence among member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Russian Federation has also declared the bloc a priority. Southeast Asian nations, in turn, would like third powers to counterbalance Beijing and Washington in the region. However, Russia has not made a huge impression in the bloc since its first summit with ASEAN in 2005. Economic success has been mostly limited to bilateral trade centered around arms sales, while security partnerships have not been forthcoming. Part of the problem is that Russia lacks historic ties in its former Cold War rivals, which are also ASEAN’s largest economic powerhouses, to lean on. More crucially, Southeast Asian nations perceive Moscow as deferential to Beijing’s geopolitical ambitions in the region.
Topic:: International Trade and Finance, Geopolitics, Soft Power, and Economic Diplomacy
Political Geography:: Russia, Eurasia, Asia, and Southeast Asia

43. Georgia’s Doomed Deep-Sea Port Ambitions: Geopolitics of the Cancelled Anaklia Project

Author:: Maximilian Hess and Maia Otarashvili
Publication Date:: 10-2020
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: Georgia has long sought to take advantage of its strategically important location and establish itself as a significant transit hub connecting Europe and Asia. This endeavor has been slowly advanced by an array of innovative economic reforms, as well as some successful, smaller infrastructure and development projects. However, it has also been marked by repeated failures in making larger-scale initiatives happen. Despite its 190-mile-long Black Sea coastline, Georgia still does not have a deep-sea port, and enjoys very limited overall maritime capacity. This shortcoming poses a major impediment on the country’s aspirations of becoming a significant hub for the Eurasian transit system.
Topic:: Infrastructure, Geopolitics, Maritime, and Port
Political Geography:: Eurasia and Georgia

44. COVID-19 and Authoritarian Regimes: China vs. Russia

Author:: Yaroslav Shevchenko
Publication Date:: 07-2020
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: The Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China are certainly the two most prominent authoritarian regimes in the world today, with their quasi-alliance characterized as an “axis of authoritarians” and portrayed as a major threat to the West and global liberal democracy. However, despite unmistakable similarities that exist between Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia, the reality is far more complex. Their respective responses to the COVID-19 crisis shed some light on differences between the political-governance models of these two countries.
Topic:: Authoritarianism, Economy, Crisis Management, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:: Russia, China, Eurasia, and Asia

45. The Role of Russian Private Military Contractors in Africa

Author:: Anna Borshchevskaya
Publication Date:: 08-2020
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: It is no secret that Moscow is increasingly utilizing so-called “private military contractors” (PMCs) to pursue foreign policy objectives across the globe, especially in the Middle East and Africa. What has received less attention is that Moscow’s deployment of PMCs follows a pattern: The Kremlin is exploiting a loophole in international law by securing agreements that allow contractors to provide local assistance. The problem is, however, Russian PMCs are not simply contractors. This pattern of Russian behavior presents a new challenge that Western policymakers should address, as it speaks to broader Russian influence in Africa in the context of great power competition. This challenge is about Moscow’s erosion of broader behavioral norms.
Topic:: International Law, Military Affairs, and Private Sector
Political Geography:: Africa, Russia, and Eurasia

46. U.S. Troops Injured in Altercation with Russian Forces: What It Means for the War in Syria

Author:: Robert E. Hamilton
Publication Date:: 08-2020
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: On August 26, Politico reported that U.S. service members were injured after an altercation with Russian forces in northeast Syria. This pattern of Russian challenges to U.S. forces was enabled by the Trump administration’s decision to retreat from parts of northern Syria in 2019, allowing Russia to fill the void. Until this decision was made, the two countries had agreed to make the Euphrates River the deconfliction line to keep U.S. and Russian forces separated. Russia stayed on the west side of the river, and the United on the east side, where this incident took place. Robert Hamilton, Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, commented on the story and warned that it will not be a one-off incident: “We need to respond to this immediately and forcefully. Russian forces deliberately escalated against U.S. partners when I was running the ground deconfliction cell for Syria in 2017, but tended to be careful when U.S. forces were present. Unless we make it clear that we’ll defend ourselves, these escalations will continue with dangerous and unpredictable results.” Below, we offer readers an excerpt from a chapter written by Robert Hamilton from a forthcoming edited volume on Russia’s Way of War in Syria.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, War, Military Strategy, Military Affairs, and Troop Deployment
Political Geography:: Russia, Eurasia, Middle East, Syria, United States of America, and North America

47. The Realist Victory in Nagorno-Karabakh

Author:: Maximilian Hess
Publication Date:: 11-2020
Content Type:: Commentary and Analysis
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: Armenia’s accession to a Russian-mediated settlement with Azerbaijan over their long-running conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, known as Artsakh to Armenians, on November 10 marks a major, perhaps irreversible, loss for Yerevan. But it is not just Armenian forces who stand defeated. It also marks the trouncing of a liberal approach to the region and the supremacy of realist power politics.
Topic:: Treaties and Agreements, Territorial Disputes, and Armed Conflict
Political Geography:: Eurasia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Nagorno-Karabakh

48. Five Years of War in Donbas

Author:: Robert E. Hamilton
Publication Date:: 10-2019
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: The war in the eastern Ukrainian region known as the Donbas has killed over 13,000 people, displaced millions, and led to the worst rupture in relations between the Russian Federation and the West since the end of the Cold War. The war was caused by inherent cleavages in Ukrainian society, combined with clumsy and self-interested intervention by outside powers. The war’s effects on Ukraine have been profound: the collapse of the post-Soviet Ukrainian political elite; billions of dollars in direct and indirect losses to the Ukrainian economy; a wholesale restructuring of the Ukrainian armed forces; social dislocation and psychological trauma; and unprecedented environmental damage. Despite these sad legacies, there are reasons to be optimistic that a settlement to the conflict is in view. The exhaustion and frustration of people in the separatist-controlled regions, Russia’s changing policy on the war—at least in part a result of rising frustration among the Russian public—and the election of a new Ukrainian government without regional ties or ties to networks of oligarchs all contribute to the possibility of peace. But in order for peace to endure after the war, the Ukrainian state must construct a broad-based, civic national identity, and it must tackle the country’s endemic corruption. The international community must be engaged in both crafting a settlement to the war and helping Ukraine deal with its consequences. External observers may be inclined to point to social division and corruption as the internal causes of the war, and argue that Ukraine has to fix itself before the outside world can intervene to help. And this is true as far as it goes. But it is also true that the outside world contributed to the start of war in Ukraine by making the country the object in a geopolitical tussle between Russia and the West. Any honest accounting of the war’s history must acknowledge this fact. And any fair treatment of Ukraine after the war should seek to compensate it through significant, long-term assistance.
Topic:: War, Territorial Disputes, Conflict, and Separatism
Political Geography:: Russia, Eurasia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe

49. Russian Private Military Companies: Continuity and Evolution of the Model

Author:: Anna Borshchevskaya
Publication Date:: 12-2019
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: Russian private military companies or contractors (PMCs) have received much attention in recent years, but the Russian state has a long history in utilizing such groups. Under Vladimir Putin, however, this model is growing, evolving, and expanding. This study reviews the history of semi-state military forces in Russia and explains the unique way the Russian state utilizes PMCs, which is different from how Western governments utilize private contractors. An important aspect of PMCs is that they are officially illegal under Russian law. The study then traces the rise of the PMC model under Putin. It notes that while plausible deniability is a major reason for Moscow to utilize PMCs, it is also linked to other considerations, such as internal rivalries within the Russian government and other domestic reasons. Competition with the West drives the Kremlin’s use of PMCs. Paradoxically, the Russian PMC model demonstrates both state strength and weakness. The study reviews PMCs activities in Ukraine, Syria, and Africa, examines who joins these groups and under what circumstances, and concludes with policy recommendations.
Topic:: Non State Actors, Military Affairs, Private Sector, and Mercenaries
Political Geography:: Russia and Eurasia

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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS