© REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

On June 2, 2020 the Presidential Administration of Russian Federation published a new decree, titled “On the principles of the state policy of the Russian Federation in the field of nuclear deterrence.” Though the text itself claims to be a planning document, it is in fact not exact enough for military planning purposes; nor is it a strategy. It does not even contain any clear references to Russia’s existing security policy documents.

Instead, the decree, five-and-a-half pages long, is a declarative text, designed for consumption mostly by the outside world. Thus, the Kremlin is sending a message about its own thinking on the use of nuclear weapons; more concretely, it serves the informational support of Russia’s nuclear deterrence policy.

The Use of Nuclear Weapons

The text outlines four main cases, in which Russia may use nuclear weapons in retaliation for various forms of attacks. In the first case, Russia would use the nuclear option if it received confirmed information about ballistic missiles having been launched against the territory of Russia and/or its allies. Though the document does not specify it, Russian experts interpret the term “confirmed” as information provided by Russia’s own early-warning systems.

A remarkable detail is that the text does not specify whether this applies to an attack with ballistic missiles carrying weapons of mass destruction (WMD) only, or with any ballistic missiles. This part is often interpreted as a manifestation of Moscow’s long-standing concerns regarding a mass non-nuclear strike launched with high-precision weapons. At present only the US would be capable of launching such an attack and China might gain similar capabilities soon; however, the Russian document does not specify any country as a source of threat.

The second eventuality is an attack by nuclear weapons on the territory of Russia and/or its allies, or by any other weapons of mass destruction. This option is not new; it can be found in the current military doctrine too, published in 2014, as well as in previous doctrines.

In the third case, Moscow would launch a nuclear strike if enemy activities were to target those elements of Russia’s military infrastructure in a way that would endanger Russia’s nuclear second-strike capabilities. Again, it is noteworthy that it remains unclear whether the attack would need to be nuclear to trigger the retaliatory strike or not. Both Russian and Western experts interpret this as the Kremlin’s intention to deter cyber-attacks against Russia’s critical military infrastructure.

The fourth case would be reached if the Russian Federation falls under a type of conventional attack that would endanger the very existence of the state. This part is not new either. Nevertheless, it is important to note that in the vicinity of Russia there is only country that has sufficient conventional forces for an attack of such a scale: China.

The document emphasizes that the Russian government considers the use of nuclear weapons only as a means of defense. However, this is not fully equal to a “no first use policy,” as Moscow reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to non-nuclear/WMD attacks.

Purposeful Ambiguity

In some passages of the presidential decree, its authors have purposefully avoided clear-cut wording, leaving room for multiple interpretations. The most important ambiguity is that the document does not differentiate between strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. Hence, it is unclear whether this decree applies to all nuclear weapons, or whether the use of tactical nuclear weapons is based on different considerations.

What makes this relevant is that while the possession, production, storage, and use of strategic nuclear weapons is a field that has been relatively well-regulated by arms control treaties, the state of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons is absolutely non-transparent. Moscow has consistently resisted repeated US efforts to bring tactical nuclear weapons under the umbrella of arms control processes.

The document also leaves it unclear whether nuclear deterrence applies to conventional weapons of strategic effect as well, i.e. to hypersonic weapons, high-energy lasers, space-launched conventional weapons, etc. Nor does it mention cyber threats in particular. It is also remarkable that the third case for using nuclear weapons, i.e. enemy activities against Russia’s critical state and military infrastructure, does not specify which elements of infrastructure count as “critical.”

De-Escalation by Escalation

The decree reflects a well-known characteristic of Russian military theory, namely that when it comes to the de-escalation of conventional conflicts, there is no clear line between conventional and nuclear deterrence. It is important to note, however, that using nuclear deterrence is not equal to actually launching nuclear weapons. Instead, nuclear deterrence is composed of a complex, multi-layered set of measures, such as declarations, exercises, demonstrative deployments, and a number of other steps which fall short of actually firing a nuclear missile, but may already have the desired deterring effect.

This approach has been present in Russian military thinking for decades. Moreover, simulated nuclear strikes have been part of many major strategic military exercises since the late 1990s. Nevertheless, the decree constitutes the first case of the Kremlin co-opting the concept of de-escalating conventional conflicts by employing nuclear deterrence. Of course, this very declaration itself is an integral part of Moscow’s nuclear deterrence policy.

Sending a Message

The timing seems not to be coincidental. In approximately half a year, in February 2021, the START treaty—the last remaining strategic arms control treaty between the United States and Russia—expires. Hence, it is quite likely that the publication of the document is meant to serve the purpose of motivating the US to continue the negotiations about a new START treaty, and possibly also about the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The fact that nuclear disarmament negotiations between Washington and Moscow have re-started in Vienna on June 22 indicates that framing that meeting was also part of the idea.

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© REUTERS/Alexey Malgavko

As the coronavirus was ravaging northern parts of Italy in March, Russia was one of the first countries to come to Rome’s aid, with the delivery of military medical aid. The final details were agreed during a phone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on March 21. The next day Russia’s Ministry of Defense began sending fifteen military transport airplanes to Italy, with 122 personnel and dozens of military vehicles on board. The Russian team consisted of military doctors, virologists, radiologists as well as disinfection experts, while the equipment included mobile disinfection and chemical defense units, and a mobile laboratory. 600 respirators were also delivered.

In Russia the military plays an important rolein handling all types of crises, including health-related ones, so it is not surprising that it was Russia’s Ministry of Defense that delivered the aid to Italy. As this was a military operation, Russian cargo airplanes landed in the Pratica di Maremilitary airport close to Rome, and from there they moved to the Bergamo region that was severely hit by the virus.

Russian aid was composed mostly of elements that could operate without constant cooperation with Italian medical personnel, such as disinfection units. Since they did not have to be integrated into the Italian health care system logistics were considerably easier than if Russia had sent surgeons or nurses, who would have had to work within Italian hospitals.

“From Russia With Love”

The Kremlin made sure to take the opportunity to make a witty gesture by labelling both the aid packages, as well as the military trucks sent to Italy, with “From Russia With Love” signs.

However, within days of the arrival of the first shipments the backlash started. Quoting Italian governmental sources, the influential newspaper La Stampa wrotethat 80 percent of the Russian equipment was useless, and the whole operation was aimed much more at gaining political influence than providing humanitarian aid. An expert at the Rome-based Gino Germani Institute said that some parts of the Russian deliveries could indeed be usefulbut voiced concerns about the possible presence of Russian intelligence operatives among members of the Russian team, who might have wanted to use the operation for intelligence purposes.

On April 1, a Russian medical aid shipment landed on New York’s John F. Kennedy airport. The giant Antonov An-124 cargo aircraft delivered large amounts of medical equipment, including masks, gloves, protective suits, and again respirators. Similar to the aid to Italy, this delivery also took place shortly after the countries’ leaders, Putin and US President Donald Trump, spoke. The Russian aid delivery created a sizeable scandal in the US, partially in the context of the upcoming presidential elections, and also due to the allegations about the role Moscow played in the election of Trump in 2016.

A Similar Pattern

Several problems have since arisen with the Russian aid delivery to the US. In May, the Russian government charged Washington $660,000 for the aid shipment. Furthermore, the Russian transport included equipment that was not of much use in a pandemic, such as military-type gas masks and household cleaning gloves. The 45 ventilators that were delivered also turned out to be essentially useless due to the electricity network voltage difference between Russia and the US.

To make things worse, it later surfaced that some of the ventilators Russia delivered were the Aventa-M brand, which earlier had caused a deadly fire at a St. Petersburg hospital, killing several COVID-19 patients.

From April 3 on Russia started to deliver military medical aid to Serbia, too, with similar equipment to that sent to Italy. Details were again coordinated between the countries’ two presidents. Eleven Russian military cargo planes delivered 87 military doctors and specialists, including infectologists and experts on chemical warfare and disinfection. (As there is an existing multi-layered security and military cooperation between Serbia and Russia, Moscow delivering military medical aid to Serbia is a lot less surprising than it sending such shipments to NATO countries.)

In all three cases, the deliveries followed a similar pattern: Putin made the offer directly to the leader of the given country in a phone conversation, thus partially circumventing traditional diplomatic channels. Once the agreement was reached, details were coordinated by lower level officials; though not always perfectly, as the problems with the shipment to the US revealed.

Hoping for Reciprocity

Concerning the United States in particular, Russia from the very beginning hoped for reciprocity. The Russian president’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, openly declared that the Kremlin hoped for the US would provide Russia with its own medical equipment should Russia need it.

Indeed, there is considerable evidence indicating that in all three cases the dominant motives were political. The primary objective was to get the sanctions against Russia suspended. The deliveries to Italy coincided with a Russian initiativevoiced first at the March 26, 2020 G20 summit. Russia suggested that due to the humanitarian crisis caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, all international economic sanctions should be suspended until the end of the pandemic.

While Russian diplomats referred only to the cases of Iran and Venezuela without mentioning their own country, it was still clear that Russian diplomacy’s intention was to get the sanctions against Russia suspended. On the same day Moscow submitted a similar initiative in the United Nations. Hence, it looks as if Russia tried to use the aid deliveries to get the sanctions lifted by using a humanitarian argument, and Moscow’s own humanitarian shipments were to demonstrate the Kremlin’s good will.  In fact, the way Russia has been employing a universalist, humanitarian-oriented narrative is a good example of how the Kremlin is using Western value-based arguments against Western sanctions. However, Russia’s initiatives at both the UN and G20 were rejected.

Not giving up easily, on April 27, 2020 Leonid Slutsky, Chairman of the Duma’s International Affairs Committee and President of the Russian Foundation for Peace NGO wrote a letter to his Italian counterpart, Vito Petrocelli, President of the Italian Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee, and a member of the Five Star Movement. In his letterSlutsky asked for Petrocelli’s help in getting all international economic sanctions lifted by putting pressure on Western countries. Slutsky referred to the Russian aid delivered to Italy, and also mentioned the humanitarian situation in Iran and Venezuela.

Propaganda Campaign

Also, Russia apparently intended to demonstrate that it was able to act much faster and more decisively than the EU could. A recent report by the EU vs. Disinfo project pointed out that during and after the delivery of Russian military medical aid shipments to Italy, Russian propaganda accusing the EU of being incapable and helpless was a lot stronger than usual. Meanwhile, the same disinformation outlets portrayed Russia as a responsible power able to provide an efficient reaction to the COVID-19 crisis. Regarding Italy specifically, Russian disinformation outlets particularly emphasized the narrative that “The EU is not helping, but Russia does.” Similar, anti-EU messages were targeted also at the Serbian population, where there is already a certain receptivity for such messages.

While no great success, it is highly unlikely that Moscow will abandon this project and particularly the strategy of employing a humanitarian narrative. The next voting on the extension of the most important EU sanctions is due to take place in September 2020, during the German EU presidency. Until then Moscow is likely to continue its information campaign and other efforts to break up or weaken the European coherence behind the sanctions. The military medical aid shipments constituted a brief albeit spectacular element of this larger campaign.

The post The Political Motives Behind Russia’s Coronavirus Aid appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

Artwork © Dominik Herrmann

It could be the title of the latest blockbuster action movie, but instead it has become the rallying cry of Russia hawks across the West. What is the latest fiendishly complex, ruthlessly cunning threat we face from the Kremlin? Why, of course it’s the “Gerasimov Doctrine.”

Named for Russia’s Chief of the General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov, this is a supposed plan for combined psychological, political, subversive, and military operations to destabilize the West. Or perhaps just covert operations and disinformation, without the shooting. Or maybe the aim is to destroy the whole architecture of the global order. The very confusion about what exactly this “doctrine” entails betrays the basic point: it doesn’t exist.

A Foolish Indulgence

I really ought to know, as I was the one who incautiously and unintentionally launched the “Gerasimov Doctrine.” Back in 2013, a speech Gerasimov delivered to a Russian military conference was published in the obscure journal called the Military-Industrial Courier. It made some interesting points, and so I published a translation by Robert Coulson of RFE/RL on my blog, In Moscow’s Shadows, along with my own thoughts and annotations.

In a bid to make it eye-catching, I gave the article the tongue-in-cheek title “The ‘Gerasimov Doctrine’ and Russian Non-Linear War.” It was a mistake I will regret forevermore, because even though in the text I explicitly stated that it wasn’t a doctrine and wasn’t even necessarily Gerasimov’s thinking, it turned out that a snappy headline is much more influential that the actual detail written beneath it.

Before I knew it, the “Gerasimov Doctrine” was being hailed as the Russian blueprint for future war. For the Financial Times, Gerasimov was “the general with a doctrine for Russia,” while Politico warned that “Russia’s new chaos theory of political warfare” was “probably being used on you.” It was even cropping up in official Western military documents.

Yet the text was in no way framed as a new Russian war plan. Instead, when Gerasimov talked of a “blurring of the lines between the states of war and peace” in which “the role of non-military means of achieving political and strategic goals has grown, and, in many cases, exceeded the power of force of weapons in their effectiveness,” he was explicitly addressing what he felt was a new Western way of war. To the Russians, the risings of the Arab Spring and the post-Soviet Eurasia’s Color Revolutions were not simply popular responses to corrupt and authoritarian regimes, but the result of cunning Western—American—campaigns of covert destabilization.

A Tempting Meme

So why did an article in an obscure defense magazine shape Western perspectives on Russian military thinking and, by extension, political ambitions?

The first answer is Crimea. The seizure of the peninsula in February 2014 by the so-called “little green men” was efficient in its execution but not especially novel in its means. Deploying troops without clearly identifiable insignia? Breaking the enemy’s lines of command and communications? Lying about what you’re doing? None of these were really ground-breaking.

Nonetheless, coupled with the subsequent incursion into Ukraine’s Donbass region (a more plausible case of unusual, asymmetric tactics, with its reliance on thugs, gangsters, mercenaries, and nationalists as proxies), it crystallized the notion that somehow Moscow had imagined and adopted a brand-new style of warfare.

More than anything else, this mythical doctrine was the sum of all fears held in the West about a modern world that once had seemed so comfortable—history had ended, remember? —and now was chaotic and threatening. The transatlantic relationship was under pressure, first as Barack Obama “pivoted to Asia” and then when Trump introduced a confrontational new transactionalism. Challengers from Beijing to Tehran were questioning the international order. Even the foundations of Western democracy and the European project were coming under pressure.

Such Perfect Villains

In such a climate, how comforting to have someone to blame. From Trump to Brexit, the rise of ultra-right anti-migrant movements to ultra-left climate activists, the West could affect to spy the sinister hand of Moscow—or its trolls and tweets—at work. How convenient to be able to portray these processes as the products of foreign interference rather than of domestic shortcomings.

And the Russians made such good villains. Consider Putin’s triumphalism over his Crimean land-grab and the stone-faced and cold-hearted denials of any blame for the shooting down of the MH17 airliner over the Donbass by Russian-backed forces using a Russian-supplied missile. Consider the string of Russian-linked assassination plots. Gerasimov himself even looks like a stock figure from Hollywood, the habitually-impassive, slab-faced Russian heavy.

The irony is, that even while railing against the “Gerasimov Doctrine” meme, Moscow itself helped it spread. A second-rank power trying to present itself as a global player—and given that politics are about perceptions, this means scaring or seducing other countries to treat it as such—Putin’s Russia actively seeks to look more formidable and threatening than it is. Hence the bomber patrols willfully straying into NATO airspace, the inflammatory rhetoric, the adventures in Syria and Libya.

A Dangerous Myth

Gerasimov is a decorated tank commander and a tough and competent manager of the Russian high command. His career has shown no evidence that he is a ground-breaking military theorist—or even that interested in the scholarship of war. He probably didn’t even write that famous speech himself. Nor is what people claim to see a “doctrine” in the Russian sense, which is a foundational notion of the wars Russia expects to fight and how it plans to win, driving everything from what weapons to buy to how many soldiers to recruit.

So what, though? Given that it is hard to deny that Russia is deploying propaganda, covert influence operations, threats, and “black cash” (untraceable, corrupt money) to divide, distract, and demoralize the West, and given that it has shown a willingness to back its political ambitions with military force, what’s in a name?

The academic pedant in me replies that it matters in its own right. Yet from a wider policy perspective, this myth also has several serious dangers. First, it mistakenly makes Russian policy somehow new and distinctive, whereas actually it simply reflects how inter-state conflict is changing in a modern age characterized by deep interconnections of our economic, information, and cultural spaces—and by the increasingly prohibitive cost of military conflict.

Second, by allowing the West to blame Russia for everything from political disaffection to football hooliganism, we get distracted us from addressing their root causes. Groups and individuals who have their own motivations are disenfranchised. Labelling them Moscow’s “useful idiots” only pushes them further into opposition.

Third, it misrepresents Russia’s approach in such a way as to distort Western policy. Central to the “Gerasimov Doctrine” notion is that there is a single Russian strategy, and—as in Crimea and the Donbass—all the political and social disruption is simply a prelude to war. In fact, the Kremlin is fundamentally risk-averse, with no signs of further territorial ambition, and a keen awareness of its relative weaknesses compared with the West. A European focus on when and where the “little green men” will appear next is a distraction, at best.

More to the point, Moscow’s approach is opportunistic, fragmented, and often contradictory. There is a broad vision from the Kremlin, but most of its interference in the West is driven by the interests and imaginations of individual actors and agents. If we truly want to resist Putin’s “political war,” we need to address the weaknesses they exploit in Europe, not look for some sinister grand plan in Moscow.

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© China Daily via REUTERS

The coronavirus has caused a global health crisis that risks fueling a pandemic of authoritarianism, nationalism, economic autarky, and malign foreign influence of the kind that the United States and its European allies constructed alliances and institutions to guard against after 1945. This is a time for democracies across the Atlantic to help and support each other, but also to rally around protecting the free and open international order from authoritarian assault.

By virtue of their open societies, Western nations are more vulnerable to this pandemic; their governments are more limited in their ability to control citizens’ behavior than the dictatorships in China and Russia, which are not subject to the same legal constraints. At the same time, both the Chinese Communist Party and the Kremlin view the crisis now mostly playing out in the West as a strategic opportunity to extend their influence at the democracies’ expense. Meanwhile, strongmen are using the cover of the crisis to consolidate power in ways that threaten the democratic integrity of the European Union.

Four Threats to Democratic Systems

Both the US and Europe will emerge from the fog of the immediate crisis and face a new world order profoundly reshaped by COVID-19. Western democracies will grapple with a new balance between the state and the economy, new powers in the hands of governments to surveil their populations in order to manage public health, new pressures on established political parties from nationalists and autarkists on the left and the right, intensified migration pressures from nations in the Middle East and Africa unable to handle the epidemic, new forms of malign foreign influence associated with leveraged Chinese and Russian forms of health assistance, and revolutionary demands from citizens for health and welfare safety nets following the extraordinary insecurities produced the pandemic.

In this new world order, questions of democracy and governance will be more, rather than less, relevant as governmental and societal responses to the crisis expose fissures and vulnerabilities within democracies. Throughout Europe, we already see these cleavages being exploited by China and Russia. At the same time, competing narratives of unity in the face of the crisis—ranging from those who advocate a more robust response capacity at the EU level to those who emphasize national unity, sometimes with a decidedly anti-EU cast—will shape transatlantic politics for years to come. So, too, will the consequences of emergency measures and societal controls and various forms of state-driven surveillance and enforcement introduced in response to the pandemic.

Those who believe in the ultimate strength of democratic forms of government to deliver best for the people that they serve—in particular Europeans and Americans—must begin now to prepare and act to win the battle for the post-crisis narrative. Even in the midst of the crisis, at least four potential post-COVID-19 threats to the democratic systems that the US and Europe have worked so hard to build since the end of World War II are becoming evident. It is incumbent on those who believe that a strong transatlantic response to these challenges is necessary in the wake of the crisis to begin to plan now for how we will address them, together.

Freedom Takes a Back Seat

In the short term, of course, the virus is putting enormous strain on freedom of movement as most European nations have effectively closed their borders, thereby reversing one of the founding tenets of European integration: the free movement of people. At the same time, some leaders are using the opportunity presented by the pandemic to centralize control and weaken institutions that countervail executive power. In Hungary, parliament has passed State of Danger legislation allowing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to rule by emergency decree. In both Serbia and Turkey, the governments have used the crisis to crack down even harder on the press and the capability of the opposition to function.

In the short term, democratic political and civil society leaders need to step in wherever necessary to stem moves to sidestep democratic processes, as illiberal politicians try to take advantage of the crisis to move their own political agenda forward. More broadly, in the aftermath of the crisis, democratic political leaders will need to address questions regarding how well democracies responded.

It is thus critically important that Europeans and Americans prepare for this eventuality by marshalling the resources to strengthen democratic institutions. European nation-states and the EU itself have an extensive infrastructure of such organizations at their disposal. So, too, does the US. Working together, we can effectively demonstrate what will be the real lesson of this crisis: that citizen-centered government that both communicates with and responds to the needs of the people it serves is best positioned to act effectively to meet the challenge—including supporting health and economic recovery over the long term. With a united response, we can help to build and rebuild trust between government and citizens, assist political leaders to respond in crisis situations, and amplify local, citizen-led responses.

The Temptation of Autarky

As the state takes more control over the economy in various countries in the transatlantic community, we must plan for calls for “industrial self-sufficiency” to grow louder in mainstream politics.

Few countries will want their pharmaceutical and broader medical supply chains dependent on China or other foreign countries. The question is whether this will simply be a readjustment to globalization, or whether there will be politically viable calls for each country to have its own production capacity for major products, in which case we risk reverting to a 1930s-like wave of introversion within European nations and in the US. Here, too, we risk losing a major accomplishment of the post-World War II era in Europe: the free movement of goods and services.

In fact, it is the private medical sector in the US and Europe that is most likely to come up with a vaccine for coronavirus. It is private markets on both sides of the Atlantic, not lumbering government bureaucracies, that will devise innovative health solutions to serve citizens who may expect too much from overextended governments. No amount of government spending will be capable of restoring nations to economic health should their large and small enterprises fail to lead their economies out of recession by re-hiring workers and restoring production and services. Furthermore, no nation will innovate its way out of this crisis on its own; institutionalized and multilateral forms of collaboration will be central to devising solutions to the pandemic’s fallout across so many national boundaries. Pulling up economic and political drawbridges would also only cede strategic space to Chinese and Russian efforts to build out new spheres of influence, including in eastern and southeastern Europe.

An Intergenerational Struggle?

It is now well-established that COVID-19 affects people very differently according to their age: while the elderly are especially vulnerable to succumbing not only to the virus but also to existing underlying conditions, younger people seem to have a much higher survival rate. This is a spectacular intergenerational change of fortunes in places like the south of Europe, where millennials and generation Z are the ones who have been the most socially and economically vulnerable recently—particularly in places like Italy or Spain. Now, it is the older members of society that are existentially vulnerable—and it is their turn to feel threatened by younger citizens’ visible unwillingness to change their lifestyles. This could have lasting consequences on intergenerational relations in the future and could lead to political tensions.

Additionally, data from studies we conducted in Europe indicate that the younger generations—even in advanced democracies—are much less prone to believe that democracy is the best possible form of government. Historical amnesia may be partly to blame—they don’t remember the police states that terrorized citizens behind the Iron Curtain, or the fight against fascism that occupied what Americans call the Greatest Generation. It is clear that we need a forward-looking transatlantic response to the concerns of younger generations that will have been shaped by the pressures of both the 2008 financial crisis and the coronavirus pandemic. This is a wholly different frame of reference than that of those who fought the Cold War and saw 1989 as a crowning achievement, and it will require both different forms of communication and engagement to ensure their commitment to the democratic process.

Propaganda Targets

As if the acute domestic pressures on democratic systems were not enough of a challenge, in the post-COVID-19 era, the transatlantic community will also have to contend with aggressive attempts by malign authoritarian powers to turn the crisis to their advantage.

In this regard, Europe’s southern peninsulas are the most economically vulnerable on the continent, and they are also the ones that are so far hardest hit by the virus. High levels of social contact in public spaces have contributed to the rapid spread of the virus in places like Italy and Spain, and since the confinement began, many citizens have expressed the opinion that they were left to fend for themselves by their purported friends and allies in the EU and the US—even though Western assistance to allied nations has in fact been higher (and of higher quality) than far-better-publicized Chinese and Russian forms of sometimes questionable medical support.

Chinese and Russian propagandists have picked up on this trend and launched operations to bolster their image at the expense of European governments. Chinese Communist Party propaganda is aggressively attempting to confuse people about the origins of the virus (contending that the US or even Italy were the source of the contagion), and is attempting to curry favor by sending masks and medical equipment to Italy, Serbia, and other places. Local politicians in these countries have praised the Chinese Communist Party for its generosity, and in Serbia, President Aleksandar Vucic said it most plainly on Serbian television: “European solidarity doesn’t exist—that was a fairy tale on paper,” contending that the Chinese “are the only ones who can save us.” Russia, for its part, has dispatched military medics and equipment to Italy and Greece to deal with the crisis—all while ignoring cases at home. The subtext of these efforts is that “we are all in this together,” so there’s no value any longer in continuing the EU’s sanctions on the Kremlin for its aggression in Ukraine.

In the propaganda narratives from Beijing and Moscow, there is also an obvious glorification of their respective regimes at the expense of democracies. In China, the focus is on the heroics of President Xi Jinping and the CCP, which they claim are doing what is needed to stop the spread of the virus, unlike ineffectual democracies—even though it was China’s authoritarian suppression of medical and media reporting on the virus at its inception, including the punishment of local officials who sought to sound the alarm, that helped turn COVID-19 into a global pandemic. Meanwhile, the Kremlin initially behaved as if COVID-19 had not reached the country at all and even sent scarce medical equipment abroad as part of its propaganda push. Indeed, the Kremlin seems to have devoted more resources to information warfare against the West than to protecting Russian citizens who will inevitably suffer from the pandemic.

It now seems that the tide of the narrative here may beginning to turn, as more and more stories of inter-European and US assistance efforts come to light. Similarly, it is increasingly clear that “assistance” from the CCP comes at a high price, as Chinese diplomats leverage assistance for political and economic concessions. Nonetheless, Chinese and Russian sharp-power influence in Europe was a significant and growing issue before the COVID-19 crisis broke, and there is every reason to assume it will continue afterward.

The Path Ahead

Europeans and Americans should understand clearly that both Beijing and Moscow define a strategic interest in weakening the cohesion of the Atlantic alliance in order to enhance Chinese and Russian influence in Europe at American expense. The Kremlin also defines an interest in weakening European unity, including by supporting political extremists, in various European countries in order to build out a Russian sphere of influence in the east at Brussels’ expense. Meanwhile, the Atlantic allies’ uneven and belated responses to the pandemic risk discrediting democratic systems in the eyes of fearful publics.

To meet these challenges, the transatlantic democracies must position themselves to shape the post-pandemic order. First, they must ensure that temporary measures limiting basic freedoms put in place to limit the spread of the virus remain just that: temporary. Emergency powers exercised by governments to beat back the pandemic by surveilling and controlling their citizens cannot become the norm. When the crisis is over, we are convinced that democracy will once again have proven itself vis-à-vis its authoritarian detractors to be the most effective—and certainly the most transparent and accountable—form of government in meeting the needs of the people. We must remain vigilant to push back against backsliding that undermines this basic truth: that sovereignty rests with the people and not a permanent class of political elites unwilling to yield power.

Second, democratic governments must resist the temptation to disengage their economies from one another, pursuing the fantasy that each one of them can build (or rebuild) an infrastructure making it fully self-sufficient. Economic globalization has helped produce a broadly middle-class world for the first time in human history. While countries will be more prudential about supply-chain security in the post-pandemic international economy, rebuilding prosperity will be impossible without an open international trade and investment regime. Europe and the US could even consider an economic version of NATO to protect intellectual property, consolidate free-world supply chains and innovation networks, and encourage a qualitatively superior form of market access than that accorded to imperialistic authoritarian powers outside the West.

Third, political parties, government leaders, and civil-society organizations must redouble their efforts to ensure engagement across generations in the political process to help minimize tensions between them driven by the different experiences they have suffered in the various crises that have buffeted the transatlantic space since 2008. The challenge for political parties will be giving young people a greater voice in politics so they do not become alienated and radicalized by disruptive economic conditions.

Fourth, democracies in Europe and America must further develop their capacities to push back against the malign forms of foreign authoritarian influence that risk undermining democratic institutions—and democratic unity among allies—in the West. This includes protecting their citizens from Russian and Chinese misinformation as well as piercing the information bubble that denies Russian and Chinese citizens objective news reporting and leads them to believe their governments’ self-serving and deeply anti-Western propaganda.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in her first national address on the pandemic, noted that the COVID-19 crisis presents the greatest challenge Germany has faced since the end of World War II. With old and new democracies working together, Europe and the United States overcame that challenge and built the most prosperous and free community of nations in the history of humanity.

Even as former enemies were able to put their immediate pasts behind them to rebuild Europe, today’s transatlantic democracies must do the same. Crises have a way of focusing the mind on what matters most. And what will matter most after the COVID-19 health crisis has passed is protecting the political liberties and democratic institutions that enable free nations to work together to serve their citizens, uphold their common security, and rebuild their prosperity.

Just as coronavirus presents a mortal threat to public health, so the aggressive authoritarianism of revanchist great powers presents a mortal threat to American and European leadership in the world. Building political resiliency to protect and sustain democracy through the pandemic will be as important as developing the medical antibodies against COVID-19 and restoring public health—and public trust in government—across the West and the world.

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© REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

Ironically, even the liberal opposition has been calling on the Kremlin to introduce the state of emergency, but with no effect: Russia’s government continues its muted response to the virus that spreads across the country. Indecisiveness and confusion in the Kremlin has not only confirmed the inability of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s personalized system to effectively react to the unpredictable circumstances. We also see the true nature of Putin’s governance style: his attempts to avoid responsibility and his distancing from unpleasant problems. Instead of using the crisis to shift toward a more restrictive rule, Putin has chosen “wait and see” tactics. He even postponed the national vote that has to legitimize his indefinite rule which were supposed to take place on April 22.

The most likely explanation: an introduction of emergency rule in Russia would mean a reconfiguration of power within the Kremlin and new political regime that Putin apparently is not yet ready to accept. Putin’s hesitation and foot-dragging could be explained above all by the belief that Russia will escape the dramatic spread of virus. (On April 7, Russia officially had a total of 7,497 cases, with 58 fatalities, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.) The seriousness of the pandemic, often described as “just a form of influenza,” has been grossly underestimated. And the authorities hoped that Russia’s economy would not be affected dramatically because it is more isolated than those of Western countries. Also, the Kremlin has built a financial “nest egg” for rainy days, with foreign-exchange and gold reserves presently around $570 billion. The political establishment until recently persuaded itself that moderate measures against virus spill-over were enough.

In addition, there’s a Russian habit of concealing bad news from the top and of attempting to create a glossy image of reality. Putin’s plan to celebrate the 75th anniversary of victory in World War II—the preparation for the May 9 parade continues at full speed—also played their role in the Kremlin’s attempt to minimize the hazards of covid-19.

In his long-delayed address to nation on the coronavirus crisis on March 25, Putin decided to refrain from introducing stringent measures against the pandemic. He did not adopt adequate measures to support the population segments that are losing their jobs, small and medium businesses, and big companies that will suffer from the pandemic. The measures announced so far have been piecemeal and are lagging behind those introduced by other states. Russian observer Sergei Shelin, expressing the dominant mood in Moscow, wrote on March 27: “The president’s ‘anti-coronavirus package’ has been prepared in haste with reasonable, opportunistic, and even absurd measures mixed together… There’s been an atmosphere of irresponsibility and chaos.” One could add a total disrespect for the human health and life as well as a fear of undermining the optimistic picture of Russia produced by Kremlin propaganda. In comparison, the Russian measures look meager:  the United States has announced to spend a sum equivalent of 9 percent of its GDP to fight the pandemic, the United Kingdom 14 percent, and Germany more than 20 percent. In contrast, Russia will only use means equivalent to about 1.3 percent of its GDP.

Moscow’s Mayor: Crisis Fighter

A week ago, however, Moscow finally woke up to the grim reality: the pandemic has started its deadly marathon across Russia. On March 30, Russia sealed its borders. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin ordered an indefinite city-wide quarantine (the self-isolation order applies to all residents regardless of age). Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin imposed the same restrictions in Russia’s regions.  On March 31 Russian lawmakers swiftly passed legislation threatening severe punishment—including up to five years in prison—for people convicted of spreading false information about the coronavirus. The ever-bustling Russian capital has been suddenly transformed into a post-apocalyptic sight. Precious time had been lost, however.

Moreover, the Kremlin continued to take a back seat. As Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov announced on March 30, “The state of emergency is not called because all necessary measures are being undertaken.” It seems now that the Kremlin’s strategy is based on several components: achieving “herd immunity”; attempting to force business and the middle class to carry the financial burden; relying on the population’s self-isolation, controlled by the authorities. However, even pro-Kremlin analysts think this approach is not any more satisfactory.

On April 2, Putin again addresses the nation. But he offered only the extension of Russia’s nationwide “non-working week” until April 30. Moreover, the Kremlin delegated the decision-making power on anti-coronavirus measures to the regional authorities. It looked as if the Kremlin was more afraid of introducing tough quarantine measures than of the coronavirus itself.  As one of the regional officials commented, “They even try to avoid the word ‘quarantine’.”

The Absent Leader

Meanwhile, Putin continues to shy away from publicity. Moscow Mayor Sobyanin (and not Prime Minister Mishustin!) was designated the lead figure organizing the coronavirus defense (Putin gave him the job of heading a special working group in the State Council for combatting the pandemic). But the state apparatus and society at large continue to wait for the Kremlin to define the mechanisms of fighting the virus. Having no definite agenda the police in the Moscow region introduced the curfew and then stopped it.

The speculation is that Mishustin and Sobyanin are hoping to use this crisis as a springboard if not to the status of Putin’s “successor” than at a minimum to that of his “number two.” However, the Russian system of personalized power has no place for the role of “successor” who could undermine the omnipotence of the only national leader. Meanwhile, the Russian system oriented toward solving bureaucratic tasks demonstrates its inefficiency in an emergency situation. It can  crack down on the protests, but is unable to tackle national disasters. It is quite a paradox: an authoritarian regime unable to successfully implement authoritarian measures!

Already, Putin’s popularity has fallen victim to the pandemic. Only 48 percent of respondents supported the idea of “Putin forever” in a Levada poll at the end of March, while 47 percent disagreed with this. Every second respondent preferred “a rotation of the authorities and the emergence of the new leaders”; only 37 percent of respondents opted for “stability and the same politicians.” Given that already a quarter of the population has to struggle to feed itself, there is much potential for disaffection growing for which there are no legal channels of articulation. The fight of millions left without jobs and financial help may well create “Titanic atmosphere” in Russia, pregnant with mass social turmoil.

Formidable Challenges

Russia will follow likely follow the Chinese pattern of restricting the freedom of information. However, the Russian system is lacking a uniting idea, basically relying on predatory clans. With Putin’s authority fading, there will be serious difficulties securing societal obedience even under threat of repression.

Systemic conundrums have become apparent, too. Putin will have to think about how to revive Russia’s ravaged economy. He will also have to balance Russia’s domestic insulation with its participation in the global politics, which he is eager to continue. Putin will try to return to the international scene as the responsible leader accepted by the West, and not only by China. Of course, in case of domestic disorder he may try to switch to the real “fortress Russia” mode. But this move will hardly be supported by the part of the Russian elite that has become globalized and personally integrated into the West.

The challenges Russia is facing are formidable. Depleted health care systems, corrupted authorities, an atomized and demoralized society, the state’s inability to help the most vulnerable segments of society—all that mean that Russia is moving toward an existential crisis. How Russia will respond to it will form its future destiny.

This article is based on a DGAP Study Group: Russia presentation delivered on April 7, 2020.

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© Sergei Chirikov/Pool via REUTERS

When the “family photo” was taken at the Berlin Libya conference on January 19, 2020, there he was standing confidentially in the front row, next to UN secretary general António Guterres and host Angela Merkel: Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. For the Kremlin, Libya is currently the most important African country when it comes to expanding Russia’s military influence as well as its influence on energy and migration policy—in a country that is of crucial importance to Europe’s security.

However, Libya is not an exception. All across Africa, Russia has expanded its presence recently, particularly as an arms exporter. The years 2018 and 2019 already saw a remarkable concentration of Russian diplomatic efforts to re-establish ties in Africa. In March 2018 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov conducted a spectacular diplomatic trip across the continent, visiting Namibia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Mozambique, and Ethiopia. Three months later, in June 2018 he visited South Africa and Rwanda. Even Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the continent once, when he attended the BRICS summit in South Africa in 2018. At the same time, plenty of African leaders paid visits to Moscow.

A Summit in Sochi

So far, the largest and most spectacular diplomatic effort was the first Russia-Africa Summit, held in Sochi at the end of October 2019. All 54 African states took part, and a number of bilateral agreements or letters of intent were signed. The message was clear. Moscow is not only interested in re-warming ties the Soviet Union once enjoyed during the Cold War. The Kremlin aims to establish partnerships of a new quality.

Russia is also using the newly-forged ties for practical diplomatic purposes. Moscow utilizes its position on the UN Security Council to support its African allies, for example, by publicly endorsing the idea of granting Africa a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. In exchange, Moscow can count on the votes of its regional partners in the UN General Assembly, when issues important to Russia arise. For example, on December 18, 2020 the UN General Assembly voted on a resolution about the human rights situation in Crimea and Sevastopol. Although the resolution was adopted by 65 votes, none of Russia’s newly (re)forged African partner countries voted against Moscow; Algeria, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Sudan, South Sudan all either voted against the resolution, abstained, or decided not to vote.  Closer relations, of course, do not necessarily guarantee unconditional support. In other words, there are limits to the loyalty Russia can buy. The results, however, had been largely similar in an earlier vote, held on December 9, 2019, on a resolution that condemned Russia for the militarization of Crimea, and generally for violating Ukraine’s sovereignty.

Meager Economic Ties

Moscow has long been trying to bolster its foreign policy by economic means. However, Russia’s economic capabilities are much smaller than those of the Soviet Union. Despite its diplomatic efforts, Moscow at present remains a comparatively small player in the continent´s economy, although its trade with African countries is undoubtedly increasing. While in 2009 its total trade turnover with African states was $5.7 billion, by 2018 it had reached $20 billion. However, even this spectacular increase is dwarfed by China´s approximately $200 billion annual trade with African countries, or by the EU´s $300 billion. The main comparative leverage that Russia has, particularly over Western investors, is that Moscow can be a lot more flexible by posing no political conditionality. Furthermore, trading with Russia does not pose the danger of a debt trap , which might make it a more attractive partner than China.

The situation is similar in terms of aid, assistance, and investments. While the EU, Japan, China, and the United States all have aid, investment and assistance programs worth of tens of billions of dollars, Moscow has no resources for providing investments or any economic assistance on a comparable scale. Although during the Russia-Africa Summit President Putin spectacularly announced that Russia was going to write off ex-Soviet debts of African states in the accumulated value of $20 billion, this seemingly generous move was less a real investment and more a recognition of the fact that these debts were anyway impossible to collect.

Despite Russia´s comparably small share in the continent´s economy, certain Russian companies have been remarkably successful in establishing strong regional positions, often with the Kremlin´s active support. During the Russia-Africa summit the state-owned nuclear energy company Rosatom signed a contract with Ethiopia to build a nuclear power plant there, and another one with Rwanda to build a nuclear science and technology center. Meanwhile, the Rosgeo State Geological Company signed cooperation agreements with South Sudan, Equatorial Guinea and Rwanda, while the diamond mining company Alrosa has already been active in Angola and Zimbabwe. The Russian state oil company Rosneft has been working in Nigeria on developing more than 20 different oil production facilities, and there are a number of other Russian entities (including the state-owned VEB bank) looking for expansion opportunities.

The Biggest Export Goods: Arms

Certain African countries also represent an important market for Russia’s arms exports. It is well known that arms sales are an important source of income for the Russian economy. In addition, they also serve as a foreign and economic policy tool, due to the fact that by supplying a country with weapons Moscow can establish long-term dependences and keep existing Russia-friendly regimes in power.

Those African countries that were Soviet allies in the Cold War have armed forces that relied heavily on Soviet-made weapons, and Russia is building on those ties. Furthermore, in some cases arms sales also constitute a form of debt relief: in exchange for writing off debts that would anyway probably be difficult to collect, Russia often agrees that the given country can instead sign arms procurements contracts.

Algeria is a good example in this respect. Back in 2006 Russia wrote off Algeria’s entire $4,7 billion state debt and in exchange signed contracts for arms exports as well as for positions in the country’s agriculture and energy sectors. More recently, in 2017 Moscow agreed to supply Algiers with Iskander-E long-range tactical missiles.

After the Sochi summit Russia confirmed that it is currently supplying 20 African countries with weapons, including Uganda, Rwanda, Angola, and Mozambique. The overall value of arms exports was put at $4 billion—approximately one-fifth of Russia´s total trade turnover with Africa.

Big Buyer Algeria

Based on data compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), between 2009 and 2019 Algeria has been the largest purchaser of Russian weapons on the continent by some margin. In this period Russia supplied 75 percent of all the country’s arms imports. Algiers has been buying practically the fully spectrum of what Russia’s defense industry has to offer, ranging from diesel-electric submarines to tanks, from helicopters to air defense systems.

Uganda is another significant buyer, procuring a wide variety of Russia-made weapons, ranging from old T-55 tanks to modern T-90 tanks, as well as missiles for the also Russian-made Sukhoi Su-30 fighter-bombers. Egypt has also been a major buyer of Russia-made weapons, although Cairo concentrates mostly on air defense systems, including radars, missiles and other equipment.

Earlier, Libya under Muammar Gaddafi had been the largest buyer of Russian-made weapons. When Gaddafi fell in 2011, Russia lost already signed contracts worth approximately $4 billion, together with the potential for future deals. This particular case also illustrates that Russia’s well-known aversion vis-à-vis externally imposed regime changes is not only because the Kremlin is worried about a potential similar regime change at home, but also because it may lead to significant economic losses.

Across the continent, the most popular military equipment sold by Russia are helicopters, whether they be Mi-8/17 military transport helicopters or Mi-24/35 attack helicopters. Moscow apparently sells military helicopters to whoever can pay, including Zambia, Chad, Angola, and a dozen other countries. The latest helicopter delivery contract was the one signed with Nigeria at the Russia-Africa Summit for 12 Mi-35 attack helicopters.

In addition, Russia is also successfully selling African countries even older, long outdated weaponry, left over from the Cold War era. Low-tech conflicts on the continent are absorbing even those largely obsolete weapons, ranging from small arms to mortars, from armored cars to outdated tanks. Sudan constitutes one of the main “depos” for aged, ex-Soviet Russian weapons and spare parts. Engines supplied by Russia help the Sudanese government keep their old T-55 tanks and BTR-80 armored personnel carriers still operational.

Proxy Boots on the Ground

While Russia has no military base on the African continent, Russian private military companies and mercenary groups are actively present in many armed conflicts there. The infamous Wagner Group, a private military company with close ties to Russia´s military intelligence (the GU), has already seen action in the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Mozambique, and Libya. In fact, despite their de jure private status, the group functions more like a proxy, irregular Russian force than a real private entity.

In the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Mozambique, operatives of the Wagner Group provide security assistance, military training as well as reportedly combat operational support to the central governments. In exchange, the Russian oligarch who owns the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, usually gets mining or oil production concessions, as well as other economic benefits.

From Russia´s point of view using private military companies such as the Wagner Group (or any other of the more than a dozen PMCs Russia already has) offers several benefits. First, unlike deploying the regular military, only a very low level of domestic accountability is involved, as Wagner operatives do not count as military personnel, only as employees of a private company. The same applies to international responsibility: the nominally private status of Wagner enables Russia to consistently deny its official involvement, even though Wagner is so closely connected to the GU that they even share a training facility in Russia, and Wagner´s commander, Dmitry Utkin, was a career military intelligence officer.

At present the group’s biggest operation is probably in Libya. Estimates vary, but it seems that at present there are at least 1,500 Wagner operatives deployed there, who conduct not only their usual support tasks, but also high-intensity operations, i.e. fighting. In addition, according to US sources, there are also Russian regular troops deployed in Libya, though there is only very limited public information available on this. What makes Russia´s presence particularly interesting is that in Libya Moscow is not supporting the legitimate, UN-recognized government residing in Tripoli, but the forces of warlord General Khalifa Haftar, who is opposed to the central government.  Russia’s likely motivations for involvement in Libya include the opportunity to have another military base on the Mediterranean (it would be the third one after the harbor and military airport in Syria), to get concessions in oil production, and also to gain a leverage over the migration flow coming from Sub-Saharan Africa towards Europe. These factors make Libya an operational theatre of very high interest for Moscow.

Having boots on the ground in Africa is not without risks for Russia. The Wagner Group recently suffered significant losses in Libya, losing more than 30 of their operatives in September 2019 alone, and another five in Mozambique, who fell victim to an ambush by rebel forces. However, so far these losses remain tolerable for Russia, mostly due to the deniability Moscow employs both at home and abroad. So far, the profit achieved through Wagner´s involvement conveniently outweighs the losses; hence, there is no reason to believe that Russia would downscale the operations of its proxy forces in Africa in the foreseeable future.

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© REUTERS/Charles Platiau/Pool

When it comes to Europe’s Russia policy, most of the impetus seems to be coming from Paris these days. For six months now, French President Emmanuel Macron has been setting the agenda. In August he invited Vladimir Putin to a bilateral meeting at Fort Brégançon ahead of the G7 summit, followed by an exchange at ministerial level between Paris and Moscow. Meanwhile, the most recent meeting of the Normandy Format—which brings together France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine to discuss the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine—took place in Paris in December 2019. And November 2020 marks the 30th anniversary of the Charter of Paris for a New Europe—an occasion that Macron would like to use for talks about a new European security architecture. Paris, Paris, Paris: France is in the fast lane to Moscow.

This is a new and unfamiliar situation for Germany. Since the beginning of the Ukraine conflict six years ago, it was Berlin that defined Europe’s position towards Russia and ensured cohesion and a hard-won consensus in the EU. However, France is now attempting to redefine this consensus and by doing so is overtaking Germany, or so it seems. Is it time for Berlin to modify its policy towards Russia? Has Germany perhaps held on to its previous “post-2014” approach to Moscow for too long?

Traditionally, Germany has always been the driving force in Europe’s relations with Russia. The German-Russian special relationship flourished after reunification and the end of the Cold War. The early 2000s, after Putin’s election and when Gerhard Schröder was still chancellor, is regarded by some as the “golden age” in relations between Berlin and Moscow. However, this closeness has often given rise to mistrust, especially among Central and Eastern Europeans: during this period, Germany was happy to leave it up to the EU to criticize Russia.

In French politics, on the other hand, Russia only really played a role at times when France remembered at its own great power ambitions. This was the case during the 2008 war in Georgia, when then President Nicolas Sarkozy—on behalf of the Europeans, but on a French mission—negotiated the ceasefire between Tbilisi and Moscow. In the Ukraine conflict, France left the leadership to Germany: President François Hollande was neither striving for proximity to Russia nor looking to project French power. Macron is now returning to the same pattern as Sarkozy. And in doing so, he is following the assertion of Charles de Gaulle: “France cannot be France without grandeur.” This includes a positive relationship with the other great power on the continent: Russia.

A German Lack of Direction

Up until the Ukraine conflict, German policy towards Russia was guided by three principles: reconciliation, integration, and rapprochement. Basically, it was a variation on the Ostpolitik theme: from “change through trade” to “rapprochement through interdependence” and “partnership for modernization.” The longer Berlin adhered to this approach, the louder the accusations of German naivety towards Russia became. The annexation of Crimea and the covert war in eastern Ukraine marked a turning point, leading to a short and medium-term reorientation: Russia policy now consisted primarily of “holding the line” and defending common European positions: extending sanctions, implementing the Minsk agreements, and preventing a sell-out of Ukraine—especially in the form of a “grand bargain” between Trump and Putin.

There was a path dependency to Germany’s Russia policy before 2014 remained. Which is why, despite all the political and economic doubts, Berlin stuck with the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. From the perspective of its supporters, it was important not to sacrifice the last pillar of the German-Russian special relationship: after all, the gas business with the Soviet Union had functioned reliably even at the height of the Cold War. That is why it is still considered a stabilizing factor in East-West relations today. For critics, Nord Stream 2 is the pivotal issue that could demonstrate a serious change in German policy towards Russia. There is no doubt that Berlin has massively underestimated the political consequences of continuing with the construction: Merkel’s argument that a Russian gas molecule remains a Russian gas molecule, regardless of whether it arrives via Ukraine or the Baltic Sea, has not convinced the US Senate. The pipeline will now probably have to be completed by Russia on its own.

German policy towards Russia thus currently consists of little more than sanctions on the one hand and a commitment to Nord Stream 2 on the other, coupled with an effort to maintain political dialogue, which often leads to frustration—whether in the Petersburg Dialogue or the High Working Group on Security Policy at the level of senior ministry officials. Moreover, the contrasting approaches from the period before and after 2014 make this policy very difficult for European neighbors to understand. In short: Berlin is treading water in its Russia policy. What is missing is a long-term strategy.

An Emotional Relationship

Russia is only 13th (based on total revenues in 2018) on the list of Germany’s most important trading partners, and under the current conditions, there is little potential for growth. It is therefore unclear on what basis German-Russian relations will develop over the next ten to 15 years. At the same time, a kind of “Russia fatigue” has started to take hold in Berlin. For example, the German EU Council Presidency, which starts in July, is setting very different priorities with an EU-China Summit and an EU-Africa Summit. Even a summit on the Eastern Partnership did not make it onto the German agenda, but will take place in Brussels in June instead.

It seems that Germany’s hopes for a positive change in relations with Russia have been dashed. It is the end of a strategic partnership; at the same time, German policymakers are reluctant to see Russia as a strategic adversary, as some other European member states are advocating. Such an approach would be difficult to communicate to the German public. For them, the relationship with Russia is an emotional one. According to a survey conducted by Körber-Stiftung, Germans are consistently in favor of more cooperation with Russia. Moreover, the concept of “decoupling” or “disentanglement” is not popular in German foreign policy, which is based on the principles of multilateral cooperation and collaboration. And Russia is now indispensable in many international policy fields.

Meanwhile, Macron is hoping for cooperation: he wants to form a common front with Russia in order to survive in a new world order marked by US-China rivalry. According to Macron, Europe will not be able to assert itself as a great power if it cannot get along with its biggest neighbor on the continent. The German approach is much more pragmatic: dialogue with Russia—especially in international crises such as Libya, Syria or Iran—is still urgently needed. A geopolitical “alignment” with Russia à la Macron seems, however, absurd. Russia and China each remain challenges in their own right.

Germany, unlike France, cannot take a great power approach to Russia. At the same time, however, Berlin should not leave Russia policy entirely to Macron, but should identify areas in which it can actively advance the Russia policy agenda together with France.

The five Russia principles that the former EU High Representative Federica Mogherini set out in March 2016—the implementation of the Minsk agreements, the strengthening of relations with Russia’s neighbors, resilience, selective cooperation, and civil society cooperation with Russia—are still valid, but they need to be reviewed. An exchange with Russia on European security would be in France’s interest— in the full knowledge that when it comes to European security, Russia is part of the problem, for example because of its violation of the INF Treaty, and only to a limited extent part of the solution.

Putin’s Russia Is Here to Stay

Macron is right to have placed the issue of arms control and strategic stability high on the Franco-Russian “agenda of trust and security” led by diplomat Pierre Vimont. And he is right to argue that European security cannot be decided between the US and Russia and over the heads of Europeans, as happened with the end of the INF Treaty. However, a sense of proportion is required: the Russian offer of a moratorium on the stationing of intermediate-range missiles, which Macron would like to talk about, is a rather unhelpful suggestion if NATO partners believe that such missiles have already been stationed by Russia. Overall, however, Germany, working together with France, can make a useful contribution to this issue.

Macron has also already announced that he will attend the celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Moscow in May 2020. Such symbolic gestures form an important part of France’s policy towards Russia. Should Chancellor Angela Merkel decide to follow Macron’s example, she will have to walk a fine line between remembrance on the one hand and rejection of Russian historical revisionism on the other. The politicization of history for the purpose of constructing a positive Russian great power idea and rehabilitating Stalin’s leadership reached a new high point in a speech President Putin gave late last year. History policy is thus also a field in which Germany—ideally together with France—should take a clear stance.

Europe’s Russia policy can only be shaped jointly and not by France alone. Germany should help define the framework conditions of the new French initiative on Russia: inclusivity before ambition, unity before great power. Without the support of other Europeans, Macron’s Russia policy will have little chance of success—and the skepticism in Central and Eastern Europe is already significant. Macron’s visit to Warsaw was a first step towards confidence-building, and others must follow. It is only by working together that the EU can exert a constructive influence on Russia and, if necessary, counteract destructive policies.

Realistically, however, one must accept the fact that there is little prospect of any change within Russia. The constitutional amendments now being pushed through in Moscow point to a continuity of the form of rule and of the ruling elites after 2024, the end of Putin’s current term of office. Whether the Russian president chooses the “Kazakh succession model,” whereby he steers the fortunes of the country as the éminence grise in the background, or whether he finds an alternative model—Putin will in all probability not leave the political stage. This makes it all the more important for the EU to review its principles for cooperation with Russia and ensure they are given a long-term orientation. Neither France nor Germany can achieve this alone.

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© REUTERS/Ilya Naymushin

Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in early 2014, the annexation of Crimea and the war in the Donbass, was a double shock for the West. Moscow attacked a neighbor, breaking numerous international agreements. Above all, it contravened a principle that is of fundamental importance for security and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area: the inviolability of national borders. Russia has demonstrated that it is prepared to use military force if it considers this necessary to assert its geopolitical interests and the associated risk to be manageable. This breach of taboo has fundamentally changed the security of Europe. Russia’s western neighbors feel insecure, and rather than seeking cooperation with Russia they are looking for protection from it.

Intimidate the Opponent

The way Russia operated was the second shock. This was an almost perfect application of the strategy that in the West is often called hybrid warfare, a broad, coordinated campaign of non-military means, covert military measures, and subversive actions: large-scale propaganda and disinformation; mobilizing and arming rebel groups and then controlling them centrally from Moscow; cyberattacks against civil and military infrastructure; the use of masked special forces to occupy key facilities; deploying troops along the Ukrainian border to establish a threatening posture; demonstrative exercises of Russia’s nuclear forces; and tough, intimidating public rhetoric.

Meanwhile, additional elements of the hybrid spectrum have come to the fore: interference in democratic elections; attempted blackmail using oil and gas supplies; deliberate violations of the airspace of NATO states; military exercises near NATO borders; and even the voicing of nuclear threats. The full range of options are used flexibly and tailored to an evolving situation and opportunity―in peacetime, in a crisis, and in war. This “strategy of active defense” (General Gerasimov, Russia’s Chief of Defense) is designed to blur the boundaries between peace and conflict, to complicate the attribution of an aggression, to remain below the threshold of a direct military confrontation with NATO, and thus avoid triggering military resistance—and yet to achieve an effect similar to military action: surprise, insecurity, intimidation, and paralysis of the opponent.

Recently, Russia has added another element: in breach of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, it has deployed new ground-based, intermediate-range nuclear-capable missiles. For the first time in almost 30 years, large parts of Europe face a potential nuclear threat from Russia’s soil. As a core element of its strategy, Russia has systematically modernized its armed forces and steadily increased its defense budget in real terms until 2014. According to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, in 2019, the defense budget amounted to $62.4 billion, which corresponds to a purchasing power in Russia of $162 billion. Around 40 percent is invested in modern equipment. Army units of around 60,000 troops at high-readiness can be quickly deployed anywhere. Every two years, in its large-scale exercise ZAPAD, Russia rehearses the way it would wage war against the West.

Although Russia might for the time being not be able to withstand a long war against NATO, it is in the process of achieving military superiority with conventional forces in the Baltic region. This gives Russia the option to create a fait accompli with a rapid regional attack, supplemented by cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns—and backed up by the threat of deep conventional or nuclear strikes against European capitals and critical civilian and military infrastructure essential for deployment of forces and defense. Such a situation could paralyze the Europeans’ determination to live up to their collective defense commitments, convince the Americans to stay away, and then force NATO to stand down for fear of nuclear escalation. The new situation has caused great unease in NATO.

And finally, Moscow’s entry into the war in Syria has further expanded its anti-Western sphere of action. It has shown that it is capable of projecting military power even over strategic distances. It has filled a gap left by the US and has established itself permanently as a central actor in the Middle East—as a protective power of autocratic rulers, not as a peacemaker.

A Deep-Rooted Fear of Invasion

In the West, people wonder at the motives of the Russian leadership. All the more as Russian strategists, too, are aware that there is no military threat to Russia emanating from Europe. NATO and EU enlargement have stabilized and pacified Eastern Europe. NATO’s voluntary commitment made in the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997 is still valid: NATO has pledged not to deploy nuclear weapons or to permanently station additional substantial combat forces in its eastern member states.

According to most experts, the Russian leadership’s strategic thinking and actions are based on a combination of offensive and defensive elements rooted in Russia’s history and geography. The leadership defines itself by its political and cultural demarcation and opposition to the West. One can identify four fundamental beliefs that overlap and reinforce each other:

First, the existence of the ruling system must be secured by all means, ostensibly out of concern for Russia’s stability and security. The Russian leadership believes that democracy and economic prosperity in Ukraine, where millions of Russians live, would be an existential threat to President Putin’s autocratic rule. The so-called “color revolutions” there and in Georgia crossed “red lines”; in the end, they had to be stopped by force.

Second, because of its imperial history, size and status as a nuclear power, Russia believes it has a natural right to be respected as a privileged great power and to act accordingly, on an equal footing with its rival, the United States. “Equal security” only exists between great powers. Institutional integration of democratic nations ensuring equal security for all of them, whether great and small, as provided by NATO and the EU, is foreign to the mindset of the Russian leadership.

Third, only a strong state with a central power, the “vertical of power” (Vladimir Putin), can hold together and secure such a huge country with more than 130 ethnic groups. Law and order serve to secure power.

Fourth, Russia’s vast expanse, with a land border of more than 20,000 kilometers that is almost impossible to secure, has led to a deep-rooted fear of invasion and encirclement which has fueled an almost insatiable need for absolute security. Dangers must be averted or at least kept under control far outside the Russian heartland.

No Protective Belt

These factors have always led Russia to surround itself with a multi-level cordon sanitaire. From a geostrategic point of view, this purpose was fulfilled by the Soviet republics and the Warsaw Pact states, supplemented by “non-aligned” states in Europe. The perceived loss of these buffer states after the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union was, in Moscow’s view, further exacerbated by the accession of Eastern European countries to NATO. The possibility of maintaining Eastern Europe as a zone of influence disappeared. Moscow’s insistence on “privileged interests” in its neighborhood, the “near abroad,” went unheard. In accordance with the principle of free choice of alliances, NATO’s door remains open for other states. Thus, Russia’s expectation that the US would guarantee it geostrategic spheres of influence and take into account its special interests there, for example in the Western Balkans (Kosovo 1999) and the Middle East (Iraq 2003) failed.

Since then, Moscow has sought to achieve the effect of a protective belt by other means. What stands in the way of the expansion of Russian control in Europe are the EU and NATO. Their cohesion must be undermined, their decision-making capacity paralyzed, and their ability to act blocked. Then Russian control over Europe would unfold almost on its own. This is the aim of Russia’s policy of permanent confrontation with the West. Its instrument is Gerasimov’s “hybrid” strategy, which seeks to destabilize Western states and institutions  from within and to intimidate them from the outside.

In sum, it is safe to conclude that Russia’s security policy action also has a defensive origin, which is understandable for historical and geographical reasons. But it manifests itself in an aggressive and unpredictable manner. The transatlantic community cannot, however, trade away its values and principles, or the freedom and security of its members, in order to accommodate the geopolitical interests of an autocratic Russia.

NATO’s Deterrence

Since 2014, after more than 20 years of focusing on crisis management beyond the alliance’s borders, NATO has therefore revitalized its primary task of deterrence and collective defense. In the last six years, the alliance has implemented an array of measures to significantly improve its responsiveness and enhance the operational readiness of its armed forces. It has also strengthened its nuclear deterrence.

In developing and implementing its strategy, however, NATO is taking into account the perceptions of the Russian leadership. It has enhanced its capabilities, but kept them defensive. Its actions are balanced and proportionate, not excessive. They do not pose a threat to Russia, but they do send the message that coercion is ineffective, that an attack would not be successful, that the disadvantages would outweigh the desired gains, and that, in extreme cases, an attack could result in unacceptable damage inflicted on Russia itself.

So, for instance, instead of permanently stationing larger combat formations along NATO’s eastern border, NATO relies on rapidly reinforcing alliance members should they be threatened.

What’s more, the presence of multinational NATO forces in the Baltic States and Poland is limited to one multinational battlegroup each. However, they are immediately operational. Even in the event of a limited incursion, Moscow would immediately find itself in a military conflict with the whole of NATO, including the three nuclear powers, the United States, France and the United Kingdom—and would therefore be faced with the risk of nuclear escalation. This is the essence of deterrence.

Also, the alliance will not respond to the new Russian intermediate-range missiles by deploying  new nuclear weapons in Europe. Instead, it is focusing on defensive conventional means such as air and missile defense, which are designed to counter the threat of the Russian missiles.

And NATO maintains a regular dialogue with Russia in the NATO-Russia Council. The two military supreme commanders also exchange views. The aim is to avoid misunderstandings, minimize risks, and maintain a minimum of predictability. The alliance is also committed to reinvigorating arms control in Europe. However, there is currently no incentive for the Kremlin to enter into serious negotiations. At present, it holds all the trump cards.

The China Factor

For some time now, there has been growing evidence of increased political, economic, and military cooperation between China and Russia—a “strategic partnership.” Cooperation between the two autocratic superpowers presents the Western community with a double strategic challenge. The US regards China as its main competitor and is shifting its strategic focus to Asia. This could encourage Moscow to take a riskier approach in the West, especially if there was to be a military conflict between the US and China.

As a consequence, the Europeans must do much more for Europe’s security, both within NATO and the EU. Allies should also respond to French President Macron’s call for jointly developing a strategy for Europe’s future relationship with Russia, without legitimizing Russian revisionism and breaches of international law. Europe and Russia share a common geopolitical space. And, as Napoleon once supposedly declared, geography is destiny.

The post A Threatening Neighbor appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin via REUTERS

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin appears to be going from strength to strength, restoring Russia’s global influence, be it in Syria, the Middle East or Africa. But is that assessment correct? Has 2019 really been an annus mirabilis for the Kremlin and its foreign affairs ambitions? How much is due to Russia’s strength (and strategic capabilities), and how much to US/the West’s mistakes? Is he overextending his military escapades and getting stuck in a Libyan quagmire? And by changing Russia’s constitution, has Putin secured his life-long hold on power without having to incorporate Belarus?

For a start, Russia’s resources are quite constrained, and its economy is stagnant. The Kremlin pays great attention to foreign policy to secure the legitimacy of its regime, so it is quite good at it. Unfortunately, the Donald Trump administration has offered the Kremlin inordinate possibilities to expand its power, and Europe remains weak in foreign policy.

60th in the World

By any measure, Russia is a classical declining power. Much has been written about Russia’s demographic crisis, but Russia’s population has been roughly stable around the current official number of 145 million since 1991. High levels of immigration from poorer former Soviet republics have compensated for Russians’ low life expectancy and low birth rates, and the substantial emigration of its elite to the West. At the same time, the population in the developing world is growing, so that while Russia has the ninth largest population country in the world after Bangladesh but before Mexico, several countries, such as Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, will soon overtake it.

Meanwhile, Russia’s economic standing has become slightly worse. Its GDP at the current exchange rate peaked at $2.3 trillion in 2013 and has since declined to $1.6 trillion. Much of this decrease is due to lower oil prices, but it also reflects a trend. The International Monetary Fund ranks Russia as the 12th largest economy in the world after South Korea and just before Australia and Spain. Similarly, by export volume Russia ranks 11th biggest in the world. GDP per capita is the best measure of level of economic development and in 2017, Russia ranked 60th in the world after all EU countries save Bulgaria, and just before the BRICS countries China and Brazil. Russia is a middle-income country with a GDP per capita of around $10,000 per capita.

Putin’s Cronyism

The country is an authoritarian kleptocracy, caught in an anti-reform trap. Its ruling elite, controlling the state, law enforcement, and state corporations, and Putin’s cronies have monopolized power and wealth. They would suffer from any political or economic reform, leveling of the playing field, and the opening of politics and economics to competition, while the vast majority of the population would benefit.

A serious reform would probably cause a major political destabilization, jeopardizing Putin’s policy of political and macroeconomic stability with budget surpluses, minimal public debt, large current account surpluses, and vast and rising currency reserves. Meanwhile, his regime ignores growth, efficiency, innovation, or the standard of living of the population.

When it comes to foreign policy, military power is the foremost measurement of power, and here Russia excels. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Russia has the third largest military expenditures in the world after the United States and China, though three other countries have similar military expenditures. Furthermore, Russia remains a superpower because of its nuclear arms, with the United States as its only competitor.

The disparity between Russia’s current military and economic powers is great and potentially explosive, and its economic regression aggravates this tension. To the Kremlin, the temptation is great to utilize its military strength, as long as it lasts. Quite logically, Russia has pursued three wars since 2014 – the annexation of Crimea, the incursion in eastern Ukraine, and the military intervention in Syria, as well as a number of minor military interventions in Africa. It would be foolhardy not to expect more Russian-initiated wars.

Putin and His Many Wars

Putin’s first two terms in power, between 2000 and 2008, can be summarized as representing political stability and a rising standard of living. Russia enjoyed a wonderful growth rate, averaging 7 percent a year from 1999-2008, but since then, it has grown at average of only 1 percent a year. During the last five years, the population’s disposable real incomes have fallen by a shocking 2.5 percent a year.

Instead of modernizing Russia during the good years, Putin consolidated his political power. Economic and political stability remains, but the Kremlin considers significant economic growth neither likely nor essential. Strange as it may sound, the low growth rate has not been a serious topic of public discussion for years, while Putin praises the economic stability all the time.

Putin’s regime is best characterized as a personal authoritarian system. Such a regime usually ends with the death or ouster of the incumbent. It has no spiritual source of legitimacy, such as monarchy, ideology, party, nationalism, or religion. Putin seems well aware of his need for another source of legitimacy beside stability. Yet he has clearly excluded political or economic reforms as too dangerous and possibly destabilizing. The Kremlin keeps itself well informed through opinion polls, and the FSB intelligence service is more focused on collecting intelligence than on repression.

An oft-quoted Russian saying runs, “We need a small victorious war.” The tsarist Minister of Interior Vyacheslav von Plehve uttered these words in 1904 before he was assassinated. The Russian foreign policy elite continues to cherish this idea, and few have embraced it more than Putin. His popularity rose on the back of the housing bombings in the fall of 1999 and the ensuing second Chechen war.

In October 2003, the arrest of the leading oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky amounted to a war on the oligarchs. In August 2008, Putin pursued a five-day war in Georgia, which took his popularity rating to a new peak of 88 percent, according to the independent polling institute Levada Center. In February 2014, he instigated the swift occupation of Crimea, and on March 18 of that year, he annexed it. This nearly bloodless action took his popularity to the same high level as in August 2008. The ensuing war in eastern Ukraine, however, has been neither small nor victorious.

The Skills of an Old Imperial Power

Russian television has turned increasingly propagandistic, and it has little good to report about the domestic situation. Therefore, news programs tend to focus on misery in other countries and Russia successes abroad, just like the Soviet television used to. As a consequence, foreign policy gains importance in the eyes of the population.

In his excellent book Destined for War, the eminent Harvard Professor Graham Allison discusses the risk of war between the United States and China, presuming that China will overtake the United States economically and militarily. A subtheme in his book is that Austria-Hungary was a declining power at the beginning of World War I. It started the war by declaring war on Serbia, and the Russian Empire, then a rising power, defended Serbia.

Today, it is Russia that is a destabilizing declining power. Its impressive military is set to decline because of its stagnant economy but, as an old imperial power, Russia possesses great strategic thinking and considerable diplomatic skills. It wants to be represented at each important international table, and it knows how to make its presence felt. The danger that Russia poses lies in its interest in aggression abroad to boost the regime’s domestic popularity, while the rulers understand that its military strength is set to decline with its economy. Therefore, the Kremlin is inclined to take ever greater risks.

Through its war with Ukraine, Russia alienated the United States, Europe, and all the former Soviet Republics. Putin seeks an evasive victory and is not ready to return to any respect of international law. The Kremlin is trying to compensate by reaching out to other countries—to China, the BRICS, the Pacific nations, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.

The Gerasimov Doctrine

The Russian authorities are well aware of their resource constraints. A year before they launched their war in Ukraine, Russia’s powerful chief of the general staff, General Valery Gerasimov, published an article that has become known as the Gerasimov Doctrine. The author noted that, as nobody declared war any longer, the line between war and peace had been blurred. Focusing on the Ukrainian Orange Revolution and the Arab Spring, his salient argument was that “the role of nonmilitary means of achieving political and strategic goals has grown, and, in many cases, they have exceeded the power of weapons in their efficacy.”

The Gerasimov Doctrine acknowledges that Russia’s economic resources are limited and military hardware is expensive. Therefore, Russian warfare has to rely more on unconventional or hybrid military techniques, such a cyber, disinformation, economic warfare, corruption, subversion, and assassinations. Especially cyber has dissolved the dividing line between war and politics, and Russia possesses particular strengths in its intelligence and special services. The Kremlin has abandoned many of the old constraints, while rationally focusing on its relative strengths. Not without reason, Gerasimov noted that the US has jeopardized many international rules—so why should Russia abide?

These factors shed light on Russia’s new foreign policy. It is highly imaginative and surprising. Neither the Russian annexation of Crimea nor its intervention in Syria were predicted. The Kremlin respects financial constraints and is anxious to keep its costs of warfare down. It uses outsourcing, just like the United States, with mercenaries, cyber war, corruption by oligarchs, and information war. Russian mercenaries seem to pop up anywhere. Modern social media and electronic means are used extensively because they are cheap and effective. The Russian security services are also keen on engaging with organized crime and using corruption as a means of warfare. Most worrisome is that Russia appears to raise its risk acceptance all the time.

Western Sanctions

The West has been slow in catching up with Russia’s new tactics. The news website Buzzfeed has suggested that no fewer than 14 people have been murdered by the Russians in the United Kingdom, starting with Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, but only after the attempted poising of the former GRU officer Sergei Skripal in March 2018 did the British authorities wake up. No less than 29 allied countries responded with expulsions of Russian diplomats that month, which certainly surprised the Kremlin.

After the Russian military aggression against Georgia in August 2008, the West did virtually nothing. Within a year, newly-elected President Barack Obama even launched his “reset” with Russia. The Kremlin took note. The Georgian war did not cost it anything. Encouraged, the Kremlin went ahead with the annexation of Crimea in February-March 2014, but now the Western attitudes had hardened. In a coordinated move, the United States and the European Union imposed substantial sanctions on the people and enterprises involved. These sanctions have remained effective, isolating Crimea economically.

The West also did something new. It sanctioned several close business friends of Putin, something that Putin reacted to quite sharply in public. He even pushed through a law allowing state compensation for oligarchs who had their assets frozen by Western sanctions. Such personal sanctions, freezing assets and prohibiting travel, are clearly hurting the Kremlin.

A Very Bloody War

Yet Russia was not deterred. It tried to arouse unrest in the eastern and southern half of Ukraine to create a “New Russia.” However, the Ukrainian armed forces reacted by getting organized with amazing speed, prompting the Kremlin to send regular Russian military forces into Ukraine in July 2014. In response, the United States introduced serious sectoral sanctions, hitting three sectors of the economy, finance, defense technology, and oil technology.

The EU hesitated, but on July 17, 2014, a sophisticated Russian missile shot down a Malaysian airliner with 298 people over rebel-controlled territory. The next day, the EU imposed the same kinds of sectoral sanctions as the United States. The Russian military attack stalled, but three percent of Ukraine’s territory in its two easternmost regions, Donetsk and Luhansk, remains under Russian-backed occupation, and a total of 13,000 Ukrainians have been killed in this very bloody war.

The West had never sanctioned such a large economy before, about three times as large as the Iranian economy. If Russia had defaulted, it could have caused a global financial crisis, a risk that prompted the West to limit its financial restrictions. Therefore, the West did not sanction Russia’s participation in the international payment system or its central bank reserves. Nor did the West sanction ordinary trade.

The severity of the Western sanctions on Russia must not be exaggerated, but they are a significant constraint on Russia. The International Monetary Fund has estimated that the Western financial sanctions have cost Russia 1-1.5 percent of GDP each year.

What More To Do

A few Western countries have provided Ukraine with some military equipment and training, but all the fighting has been carried out by Ukrainians and a limited number of foreign volunteers. Ukraine has obtained its Association Agreement with the EU, but this does not envision accession to the EU. NATO has been supportive, but it has not offered any possibility of accession either.

Even before Donald Trump became US president, he made it clear that he favored Russia and Vladimir Putin over Ukraine and opposed military support to Ukraine. Yet initially his possibilities to act were constrained. In the summer of 2017, the suspicious US Congress almost unanimously adopted the Combating America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which codified the existing sanctions on Russia so that Trump could not end them. However, Trump minimized coordination of sanctions with allies and constrained new sanctions, though he did not stop them. The United States no longer drives sanctions on Russia.

Some EU countries oppose sanctions on Russia (Italy, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, and Austria), but the majority support them and keep them going. Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and Belgium have pushed ahead with Nord Stream 2, which will allow Russia to reduce the transit of its gas through Ukraine, depriving the country of about 2 percent of its GDP annually.

The West remains disorganized with regard to countermeasures on cyber, disinformation, and corruption. Much more can be done. Western retired politicians should be prohibited from working for Russian state or crony companies for a long time after leaving office. Former German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, has been legally bought by Putin. The same is true of several former Austrian chancellors. This should be prohibited.

The best weapon against corruption is far-reaching transparency. The fifth EU anti-money-laundering directive of June 2018 requires the public registration of the ultimate beneficial owners of all significant assets. That would do the trick in Europe. The United States is considering similar legislation. The great risk is that with Brexit, the United Kingdom will become a black hole of dark Russian money.

Countermeasures like these will help the West restrict Russia’s interference and aggression. Its small wars may be going well, but Russia, the world’s largest country, is in decline.

The post We Need a Small War appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Tatyana Makeyeva

Russia’s ruling elites have been successful in preserving regime stability for two decades now. But their success cannot even begin to resolve a succession dilemma hanging over the Kremlin. No proven power transfer mechanism exists: when the man at the top goes, everything goes.

It is not just about political power; it is about businesses, properties, investments, and all other repositories of value. All wealth in Russia is first generation—and the principals are getting older. Russia’s weak institutions and lack of trust has driven money abroad. Most liquid assets still end up in other jurisdictions, not Russia. But you can only siphon off so much. There are factories, oil fields, chain stores that cannot be moved abroad.

The looming generational shift and its accompanying—and inevitable—power and property transfer is Russia’s central political problem. Russia’s vested interests should have been working on promoting strong institutions that would allow their families to hold on to their wealth.

The recent constitutional shake-up means that the Kremlin has recognized the challenge and is front-running an expected demand for change. Its response has been to come up with an array of constitutional reforms intended to address issues of continuity and wealth preservation. But exactly those issues could have been handled from the grass roots up, by pushing for the independence of the judiciary and strengthening institutions, instead of issuing top-down edicts.

Russia’s Homeowners

Many call them anthills. Rows of nondescript prefabricated blocks of various sizes dot the skyline of every Russian city. The blocks are grouped into so-called mikrorayony (micro-districts or neighborhood units) that were designed in the late 1950s to early 1960s to house tens of thousands of inhabitants each.

Taking up more than 70 percent of all housing development of the average Russian city, neighborhood units complete with prefabricated blocks are the country’s dominant urban form. The vast majority of Russians—this writer included—grew up in this sort of environment.

Those neighborhoods are no picture-postcard view, but they are the only kind of inheritance Russians could take with them when the Soviet Union collapsed 30 years ago. Most families’ savings were wiped out when prices were liberalized overnight in a big-bang transition to the free market. Much of the immaterial wealth perished, too. The skills and experiences passed down from the previous generations were nearly useless in the unregulated free-for-all that unfolded in post-Soviet Russia.

But the prefabricated blocks stood the test of the economic and political crisis. Built by the government to alleviate the postwar Soviet Union’s acute housing shortage, those anthills turned into real estate as soon as Russia’s new government announced its privatization program.

During the past 30 years almost 80 million Russians became homeowners; over 30 million apartments have been privatized. More than 40 million Russian residents own plots of land or other “second” real estate, while about 10 million hold non-residential space in their property. In US dollar terms, the price of a square meter of residential space in Moscow grew, on average, by a factor of three between 1999 and 2019. In ruble terms, the price grew 14 times, from about 10,000 rubles to 140,000  rubles (which is a less reliable indicator, given exchange rate fluctuations).

The anthills in Russia’s biggest metropolitan centers are the largest repository of value for most Russians and their investment vehicle of choice. The post-Soviet transition proved to be not so much about building free market and democratic institutions as about crossing from one historical reality to the next with at least something to take along.

A History of Forced Redistribution

Of the Russian 20th century’s many traumatic transitions, the post-Soviet one was unusual in that it allowed for the preservation of something of value. Previous generations could not build on what, in cultural and material terms, they had inherited from their predecessors because they had no inheritance to build on.

Land, houses, and life savings were lost in the 1917 revolution as the Bolsheviks expropriated factories, banks, and other assets. In rural areas, they allowed the spontaneous repartition of privately-owned land between peasant communes. In 1929-30, that same land was expropriated again, this time from the peasant communes. The most able and well-off farmers were labeled kulaks and executed, imprisoned, or exiled. The rest were forced into collective farms during Stalin’s breakneck collectivization drive of the early 1930s.

Few families could bequeath any possessions to their descendants. Fewer still could imagine sharing their pre-revolutionary memories and experiences with their children and grandchildren. Memories had to be hushed, suspicious last names changed, entire family legacies wiped out and lost forever.

Stalin’s demise in 1953 and the late Soviet Union’s mass housing construction program changed that. Apartment blocks built under Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev were a social phenomenon that affected the way of life and structure of families. In a way, it was a reversal of collectivization. If what took place in the 1930s was a vast destruction of rights, confiscation of property and destruction of value, the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s saw the creation of property and value. Of course, the phrase “private property” could not be used at the time but, for the majority of today’s Russians, the concept of owning one’s place and passing it down to one’s descendants was born then.

Apartments in ageing prefabricated blocks and other assets acquired over the past 30 years—from humble gardening plots to huge industrial conglomerates—is what constitutes Russia’s living generations’ “patrimony.” Overwhelmingly, today’s Russian citizens are first-generation owners.

Some Things Are More Ownable

Mass attitudes to owning different kinds of assets still reflect private property’s peculiar beginnings in the Soviet Union of Khrushchev and Brezhnev. As the concept of private property was forming in mass consciousness during the boom years of housing construction and late-Soviet consumerism, some assets were seen as more ownable than others.

In the late Soviet Union, it was highly desirable to have an apartment that one could leave to one’s children. It was also a matter of prestige to own a car and a dacha. Today’s studies show that Russians fully recognize an apartment (93 percent of those polled), a car (83 percent), and a dacha (81 percent) as legitimate “private property.” Passing down all those “anthill burrows” is not seen as a political problem: it has become routine. Meanwhile, only 52 percent of those polled by Levada Center, Russia’s leading independent polling organization, recognize securities as private property. Owning a company is defined as private property only by 59 percent of respondents.

Levada Center polls show that larger businesses are often associated with the privatization campaign of the 1990s, and privatization brings to mind oligarchs, fraud, and the inequitable distribution of state resources. Respondents believe that the three main beneficiaries of privatization were the oligarchs of the 1990s, government officials, and big business, with the oligarchs being far in the lead.

This is why an overwhelming majority of Russians polled believe that striking it rich while remaining honest is impossible. Passing on private companies, especially large ones, down to posterity is bound to be controversial because the Russian public considers owners of major assets to be suspect. The provenance of riches is still shrouded in mistrust, and attitudes toward private business overall, even when it is truly private and not oligarchic, are often negative. This is the background against which Russia’s next wealth transfer is going to unfold.

Billionaires and the State

An array of demographic and political factors point in the direction of a looming generational shift and a large family wealth transfer in Russia. Many of Russia’s private businesses, both oligarchic and non oligarchic, will have to change hands. According to Ruben Vardanyan, a former investment banker who is now running a wealth management consultancy, there are about 200,000 dollar millionaires in Russia. Counting all the family members, we are talking about up to 700,000 people. About 70 percent of principal owners are older than 50, and many are 70 or older.

Forbes Russia estimates the number of billionaires in Russia at 100. In its Global Wealth Report, Credit Suisse puts the number at 110. According to Credit Suisse, the top decile of wealth holders owns 83 percent of all household wealth in Russia. That is a high level even in comparison to the United States, which has one of the most concentrated distributions of wealth among advanced nations (in the US the top 10 percent owns 76 percent of all household wealth). Russia’s concentration of wealth is also higher than China’s.

Alisher Usmanov, an Uzbek-born Russian magnate who controls the USM industrial group, told the Financial Times recently that he had drawn up plans for dividing up his $16.5 billion empire between his family and the top managers of his businesses. “Fifty per cent to family, 50 per cent to management who deserve this, in my view,” Usmanov told the FT. The shares would be sold “at a friends and family price,” he added.

One way of looking at Usmanov’s interview is to place it among other tycoons’ public pledges. Ultimately, all such statements have one addressee: President Vladimir Putin. Oleg Deripaska, the owner of the Rusal aluminum corporation, told the FT in 2007 that he did not see himself as separate from the state and would unhesitatingly surrender his assets to it. Vladimir Potanin, the majority owner of the Nornickel corporation, has confirmed on various occasions that he will not bequeath all his property to his children. Oligarch Gennadii Timchenko said in a 2014 interview with Itar-Tass that he was entirely prepared to hand his assets over to the state. It is likely that most of Russia’s largest fortunes will not be passed to the next generation intact. They will either be diversified or pledged to causes directed by the Kremlin.

A Dangerous Political Environment

This kind of certainty is rare. It is characteristic for many of Russia’s business owners to keep a close eye on their companies’ day-to-day operations and see themselves as indispensable to their companies. Many of the “fathers” are unwilling to contemplate succession. According to a joint study by the Skolkovo Wealth Transformation Centre and UBS, the overwhelming majority of the wealthy parents’ children are not willing to take up responsibility for their parents’ companies. “We are talking about hundreds of thousands of people who are in their 50s to 70s and whose children are loath to take over their family businesses,” Vardanyan told me.

Wealth transfer in Russia is tricky not just because of the business owners’ management styles and family disagreements. It is a political problem which cannot be solved by the “fathers” alone. The children, in their turn, don’t just loath responsibility; they are afraid to take on the impossible task of running a private business in an environment like Russia’s. This environment is unpredictable at best and outright dangerous at worst.

In truth, the reason why few business owners have clear road maps for succession is that the “fathers’” ability to navigate the opaque and fluid world of Russian politics is hard to pass on to the next generation. And without this set of political skills and personal connections, private ownership in Russia is precarious: private property and political power are too closely intertwined.

The Kremlin’s Dilemma

Russia’s looming transition of wealth and power is the elephant in the room but few seem to be ready to address it. “Properties that are contingent on political power are impossible to pass on to the next generation,” one of the high-ranking officials told the Levada Center as part of the center’s study of Russia’s political transition. When fathers are thrown out of the system of power, their children cannot get in and become business leaders.

Younger generations of wealthy Russians study abroad, but neither knowledge nor skills acquired at a Western university can prepare them for the task of running a business that the Kremlin does not consider fully private. In fact, the knowledge gained at Western universities could even be harmful in their case. Seizing a market and maintaining a monopoly by cementing it with legislation made possible through access to the lawmaking process is very different, after all, from running a textbook business.

The Kremlin is pursuing two goals that seem to be in conflict with one another. One is to hold on to uncontested autocratic power; the other is to ensure continuity of the regime. To reach the first goal, the leader needs personal agreements, informal arrangements with law-enforcement agencies, and de-institutionalized arbitrary rule. Those are the kinds of tools that allow one to quash opposition and keep officials and the public on their toes.

To achieve the second goal, i.e. to transfer one’s wealth and power to the next generation and thus provide for the regime’s continuity, the leader needs to build impersonal institutions that provide citizens with the right to personal inviolability and to a fair trial, and that ensure the inviolability of property, enforcement of contracts, and control of corruption.

There are indications that President Vladimir Putin does understand the challenge of the coming wealth and power transfer. A demand from the grass roots for more impersonal institutions and fair rules also seems to be causing some soul-searching in the Kremlin. Judging from his recent constitutional amendments, Putin is trying to solve a complicated problem: he seems to be undertaking to turn his regime into a more rules-based governance system without making it any less authoritarian.

Less Corruption, Not More Freedom

In mid-January 2020, Putin announced an array of changes to Russia’s constitution. The draft amendments appear to give more powers to the office of the prime minister, the Duma, Russia’s parliament, and the State Council, a body comprising Russia’s regional governors and a number of top-ranking officials. Putin may have to leave the presidency in four years, as the Russian constitution requires, but he is expected to move on to the State Council or some other vantage point from where he would be able to oversee a transfer of wealth and power.

A reformed office of the president will share some of its policy-making powers with other bodies, but the president will continue to be the commander-in-chief and the foreign-policy czar. “I would agree, Putin is moving away from personalism,” Konstantin Gaaze, a sociologist at the Moscow School for Social and Economic Sciences, tells me. And to ensure the kind of transfer that is favorable to the Kremlin, they [the leaders] “also need a clear legal order on top of the informal hierarchy they have long established,” Gaaze observes.

It is important to understand, though, that none of this is meant to make Russia’s governance system less authoritarian. It is meant to make it less corrupt, chaotic, personalized, and thus prone to human error. Mikhail Mishustin, a former technocratic head of Russia’s tax service and one of the leading officials responsible for the state digitalization drive, has now become Russia’s new prime minister. Mishustin’s mandate is to cement the system, not to develop it.

Putin may be genuinely convinced that he is leaving the presidency in 2024, but that conviction hinges on an assumption that, by 2024, the economy will run nicely and Putin’s power base—employees paid out of the state budget—will be happy. If the base is unhappy and the broader society is in turmoil, Putin will find a pretext to stay on. Russia’s political transition thus depends in large part on the country’s new prime minister. Mishustin’s future success, meanwhile, is not to be taken for granted just because Putin and his close allies will continue to be around.

In fact, Mishustin’s is not the first technocrat entrusted with the task of turning Russia’s economy around. On multiple occasions since 2000, when he first took office, Putin has from time to time hired a “technocrat cabinet” and thought that Russia’s economy was taken care of. He then proceeded to wage wars, annex other countries’ territories, crack down on media, quash protests, and let his businessmen friends enjoy government-funded contracts. In Russia, by now, there are lots of able bureaucrats well-versed in public administration. But the ever-unpredictable Kremlin sets limits to what a technocrat can do.

On the Threshold of a New Period

Russia’s current leaders have been successful in anticipating a bottom-up call for change and thus staying on top of the institutional game. It is not surprising that the Kremlin knows how to intercept Russian society’s bottom-up drive to transform Russia’s institutions. This is what Russia’s center of power has traditionally been good at.

Still, this current decade will likely see Russia crossing into a new period. Creating a less personalized and more rules-based governance system that is still authoritarian might not solve the fundamental problem, namely that of succession. It is supposed to do so, but it will not.

Nonetheless, for the first time in many years Russian society has a chance to pass a substantial amount of wealth and experience to the next generation. The wealth is highly concentrated, and the experience is all about living for the moment, however. Planning ahead will continue to be difficult.

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