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Preface
iii
iv Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
Figures and Tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii
Abbreviations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxv
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Methodology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Overview and the Central Argument of the Report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
CHAPTER TWO
Russia’s Anxieties and Vulnerabilities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Russia Since 1991. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Contemporary Russian Military. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Contemporary Russian Economy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Contemporary Russian Politics.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Contemporary Russian Foreign Policy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Russian Anxieties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
CHAPTER THREE
Economic Measures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Recent Russian Economic Performance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Measure 1: Hinder Petroleum Exports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Measure 2: Reduce Natural Gas Exports and Hinder
Pipeline Expansions.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
v
vi Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
CHAPTER FOUR
Geopolitical Measures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Measure 1: Provide Lethal Aid to Ukraine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Measure 2: Increase Support to the Syrian Rebels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Measure 3: Promote Regime Change in Belarus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Measure 4: Exploit Tensions in the South Caucasus.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Measure 5: Reduce Russian Influence in Central Asia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Measure 6: Challenge Russian Presence in Moldova. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Recommendations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
CHAPTER FIVE
Ideological and Informational Measures.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Pathways for Influence Operations.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Current Status of Russian Regime Legitimacy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Russian Domestic Environment.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Policy Measures to Diminish Domestic and Foreign Support for the
Russian Regime. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Recommendations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
CHAPTER SIX
Air and Space Measures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Measure 1: Change Air and Space Force Posture and Operations. . . . . . . . . 175
Measure 2: Increase Aerospace Research and Development. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Measure 3: Increase Air and Missile Components of the Nuclear Triad. . . . 189
Recommendations .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
CHAPTER SEVEN
Maritime Measures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Measure 1: Increase U.S. and Allied Naval Force Posture and Presence. . . . 197
Measure 2: Increase Naval Research and Development Efforts. . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Measure 3: Shift Nuclear Posture Toward SSBNs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Measure 4: Check the Black Sea Buildup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Recommendations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Contents vii
CHAPTER EIGHT
Land and Multidomain Measures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Measure 1: Increase U.S. and NATO Land Forces in Europe.. . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Measure 2: Increase NATO Exercises in Europe.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Measure 3: Withdraw from the INF Treaty. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
Measure 4: Invest in New Capabilities to Manipulate Russian Risk
Perceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
Recommendations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
CHAPTER NINE
Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
Implications and Recommendations for the Army. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Figures and Tables
Figures
2.1. Gross Domestic Product of Russian Federation, 1989–2016. . . . 12
2.2. 2016 Defense Spending of Russia, Saudi Arabia, India,
France, and United Kingdom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3. Net Inflows for Foreign Direct Investment in the Russian
Federation, 1992–2016. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.4. Russian Population Natural Growth Rate and Life
Expectancy, 1960–2015. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.5. Number of Terrorist Attacks and Resulting Fatalities in
Russia.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.1. Value of the Reserve Fund, 2012–2018. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.2. Value of the National Wealth Fund, 2012–2018. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.3. Russian Export Percentages by Broad Sector, 2012–2016. . . . . . . 55
3.4. Import Share Percentages of Russian Gas Exports, 2016. . . . . . . 60
3.5. Russia’s Population Pyramid, 2015. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.1. Georgia, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
4.2. Russian Goods Exports and the Founding Members of
the EEU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
8.1. Active Component European NATO and Russian Army
Troops, 1989–2016. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
8.2. Approximate Maximum Range of INF-Compliant
Short-Range Missiles Fired from Russian Territory. . . . . . . . . . . . 241
8.3. Number of Naval Platforms Capable of Firing Land-Attack
Cruise Missiles, 1989–2015.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
ix
x Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Tables
2.1. Current Military Vulnerabilities of the Russian Federation. . . . 20
2.2. Current Economic Vulnerabilities of the Russian Federation.. . . 30
2.3. Current Domestic Political Vulnerabilities of the Russian
Federation.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.4. Current Foreign Policy Vulnerabilities of the Russian
Federation.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.1. Findings for Economic Measures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.1. Findings for Geopolitical Measures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
5.1. Findings for Ideological Measures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
6.1. Strategic Nuclear Arms Control Agreements.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
6.2. Findings for Air and Space Measures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
7.1. Russian and U.S. Naval Force Levels, 2015. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
7.2. Findings for Maritime Measures.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
8.1. Findings for Land and Multidomain Measures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
9.1. Extending Russia Summary of Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
Summary
1 The origin of this quote is unclear, but it has been around for hundreds of years. See
Mark N. Katz, “Policy Watch: Is Russia Strong or Weak?” UPI, July 10, 2006.
xi
xii Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
allies when they are judged as a whole, Russia can and does threaten
the United States and its allies through other means—short of conven-
tional conflict.
Recognizing that some level of competition with Russia is inevita-
ble, this report seeks to define areas where the United States can do so
to its advantage. We examine a range of nonviolent measures that could
exploit Russia’s actual vulnerabilities and anxieties as a way of stressing
Russia’s military and economy and the regime’s political standing at
home and abroad. The steps we examine would not have either defense
or deterrence as their prime purpose, although they might contribute
to both. Rather, these steps are conceived of as elements in a cam-
paign designed to unbalance the adversary, leading Russia to compete
in domains or regions where the United States has a competitive advan-
tage, and causing Russia to overextend itself militarily or economically
or causing the regime to lose domestic and/or international prestige
and influence.
Economic Policies
Geopolitical Measures
Maritime Measures
There are several measures the United States and its allies could take
to encourage Russia to divert defense resources into the maritime
domain, an area where the United States already possesses key com-
parative advantages.
More-aggressive U.S. and allied patrolling near Russian naval base
areas could cause Russia to adopt expensive countermeasures. With
limited access to the open sea, Russia would be sensitive to threats
posed to these areas—particularly the Arctic, home of its nuclear bal-
listic missile submarine fleet, and the Baltic and Black Seas.
Anti-submarine warfare is a particularly difficult and expensive
mission. Frequently operating U.S. and allied submarines in those waters
and making their presence evident periodically could lead Russia to
xviii Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Compared with the United States or even the NATO allies in aggre-
gate, Russia spends far less on its land forces—but geography gives it
notable advantages. In general, it is much costlier for the United States
to position ground forces close to Russia’s borders than it is for Russia
to undertake countervailing buildups. Such measures can assure U.S.
friends and allies, encouraging their self-defense investments and
strengthening their resolve in the face of Russian coercion. While such
Summary xix
Conclusions
good deal more than the likely Russian response, which would be to
increase its number of missiles and warheads.
The other area where Russia has maintained parity and even
achieved superiority is in air defense and long-range fires. Here, greater
U.S. investment in longer-range air defense suppression, more-advanced
electronic warfare, new and longer-range sea- and air-launched cruise
missiles, and more-exotic systems with advanced capabilities would
likely lead to an expensive Russian response.
Basing large additional U.S. ground forces in Europe might be
necessary for deterrence and would likely impel a Russian force posture
response, particularly if these forces were positioned close to Russia.
The costs to the United States are likely to be higher than those to
Russia, however, while increasing deployments near Russian borders
would increase tensions, generate controversy among NATO members,
and possibly provoke Russian reactions elsewhere.
The demise of the INF Treaty would be of limited benefit to
NATO, given the great advantage the United States holds in sea-
launched cruise missiles of comparable range, which are not con-
strained by the treaty. Russian violations of this treaty might cause
the United States to withdraw, and this might be advantageous vis-à-
vis China, but deploying a new generation of INF missiles in Europe
would be expensive, politically challenging, and—depending on the
missile type—potentially destabilizing.
Most of the steps covered in this report are in some sense escala-
tory, and most would likely prompt some Russian counter-escalation.
In addition to the specific risks associated with each measure, there-
fore, there is additional risk attached to a generally intensified competi-
tion with a nuclear-armed adversary to consider. Consequently, every
measure needs to be deliberately planned and carefully calibrated to
achieve the desired effect. Finally, although Russia would bear the cost
of this increased competition less easily than the United States, both
sides would have to divert national resources from other purposes.
Extending Russia for its own sake is, in most cases, not a sufficient basis
to consider the steps outlined here. Rather, these need to be considered
in the broader context of national policy based on defense, deterrence,
and—where U.S. and Russian interests align—cooperation.
Acknowledgments
This study would not have been possible without the help of many
individuals. First and foremost, we thank David Markowitz and
Timothy Muchmore of the Army Quadrennial Defense Review
Office, Headquarters, Department of the Army (G-8), which spon-
sored this study, for their invaluable assistance throughout the course
of this effort. Olga Oliker and Jacob Heim provided thoughtful
reviews of an earlier version of this report. Sally Sleeper, the director
of the Strategy, Doctrine, and Resources Program, provided valuable
guidance throughout the research and editing phases of this project.
Arwen Bicknell provided masterful editing of the final document and
Beth Seitzinger provided invaluable administrative support.
xxiii
Abbreviations
xxv
xxvi Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
EU European Union
FY fiscal year
G-7 Group of Seven
G-8 Group of Eight
GDP gross domestic product
GLCM ground-launched cruise missile
HARM high-speed antiradiation missile
IADS integrated air defense system
ICBM intercontinental ballistic missile
IFPC2 Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2
IISS International Institute for Strategic Studies
IMF International Monetary Fund
INF Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
LACM land attack cruise missile
LNG liquefied natural gas
MIRV multiple independently targeted reentry vehicle
MLRS Multiple Launch Rocket System
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
R&D research and development
RDIF Russian Direct Investment Fund
REFORGER Return of Forces to Germany
Rosstat Russian Federation Federal State Statistics Service
SALT Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty
SDI Strategic Defense Initiative
Abbreviations xxvii
Introduction
1
2 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
and then from Eastern Europe, while agreeing to cut strategic nuclear
weapons and eliminate ground-based intermediate-range missiles.
It is also worth noting that most of those late–Cold War U.S.
policies were conceived at the time as defensive measures against a
Soviet Union that was thought to be strong, growing stronger, and
harboring further expansionary aspirations. We can now see that the
Reagan-era Soviet Union was weaker than was realized at the time,
growing progressively weaker, and was already badly overextended.
Russia today is not the Soviet Union of the late 20th century. It is
weaker, but more contained. It possesses half the population and domi-
nates almost no external empire. Russia is, in consequence, less power-
ful than the Soviet Union, but its population is more homogeneous,
its territory more compact, and its economy more open. While it is
an open question whether Vladimir Putin’s regime is as brittle as that
of the Soviet Union in its last years, it probably is not. Yet while U.S.
policy must focus on coping with Russia’s current leadership, setting
conditions that incentivize better behavior on the part of Putin’s even-
tual successors should also be a consideration.
Russia also is not America’s most formidable potential adversary
today. Russia cannot afford to compete head to head with the United
States, whereas China can, with increasing strength. Some measures
that could stress Russia at little cost to the United States might prompt
Chinese responses that, in turn, could stress the United States. Wash-
ington is no longer in a bipolar competition with Moscow, and this
introduces new complexities in any effort to design cost-imposing or
extending strategies focused on straining Russian capacity, will, and
legitimacy.
The United States can select from a range of approaches for
extending Russia that emphasize different strategic objectives. These
choices each present a unique set of costs and risks that policymakers
must weigh against their potential benefits. Furthermore, most of these
choices affect U.S. allies and strategic partners at least as much as they
do the United States, and some of these measures would require the
participation of allies to be effective.
This report examines a variety of measures that the United States
and its friends and allies might take to extend Russia. Most fall into the
Introduction 3
Methodology
1 The origin of this quote is unclear, but it has been around for hundreds of years. See
Mark N. Katz, “Policy Watch: Is Russia Strong or Weak?” UPI, July 10, 2006.
7
8 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
2 Dominic Lieven, Russia Against Napoleon: The Battle for Europe, 1807 to 1814, London:
Penguin UK, 2009.
3 Irina V. Bystrova, Sovetskii voenno-promyshlennyi komplks: problem stanovleniia i razvitiia
(1930–1980-e gody) [The Soviet Military-Industrial Complex: Problems of Establishment
and Development (Years 1930–1980)], Moscow: Institut Rossiiskoi Istorii RAN, 2006,
Chapters 1–2.
Russia’s Anxieties and Vulnerabilities 9
4 Bystrova, 2006.
10 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Putin is far from the sole author of Russia’s present autocratic regime.
The anti-democratic aspects of the country’s current government date
back to the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991. During the 1990s,
fears that Communist rule might return enabled Boris Yeltsin, presi-
dent of the Russian Federation, to construct a highly centralized exec-
utive state that marginalized his political rivals. Yeltsin insisted that
these dramatic steps were essential to preserve Russia’s nascent democ-
racy and navigate the difficult transition to a market economy, but in
retrospect he laid the foundation for his successor’s domineering rule.
5 A 2014–2015 study by the Levada Center found that only a small percentage of Russians
associated the word demokratiia (democracy) with the “chaos of the 90s.” Denis Volkov
and Stepan Goncharov, “ДЕМОКРАТИЯ В РОССИИ: УСТАНОВКИ НАСЕЛЕНИЯ,”
[“Democracy in Russia”], Levada Center, August 11, 2015.
Russia’s Anxieties and Vulnerabilities 11
Figure 2.1
Gross Domestic Product of Russian Federation, 1989–2016
1,800
1,600
Billions of U.S. dollars
1,400
1,200
1,000
800
600
400
200
0
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
Year
SOURCE: World Bank, “World Development Indicators (WDI),” data file, Washington,
D.C., undated-b.
NOTE: Measurements are in billions of 2010 constant U.S. dollars, converted by
exchange rates.
8 Martin Nicholson, “Putin’s Russia: Slowing the Pendulum Without Stopping the Clock,”
International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944–), Vol. 77, No. 4, Octo-
ber 2001, p. 868.
Russia’s Anxieties and Vulnerabilities 13
NATO came to a head during the 1999 Kosovo War, in which Russia
sympathized with Serbia. At the end of the war, Russian forces seized
the Pristina airport to protest the postwar peacekeeping arrangement,
resulting in a short international crisis and a brief chill in NATO-
Russia relations. After assuming office at the end of 1999, however,
Putin sought a more constructive relationship with NATO. Russian
officials expressed hopes that NATO would evolve from a military alli-
ance antagonistic toward Russia to a political organization with which
Moscow could cooperate. The Kremlin hoped that its assistance to the
NATO-led campaign in Afghanistan would encourage NATO to recip-
rocate and respect Russian interests. Russian leaders’ muted response to
the expansion of NATO in 2004 to include the three former Soviet (and,
earlier still, former Imperial Russian) Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia,
and Lithuania belied intense displeasure at this development, similar to
their initial attitude toward the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia and
the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, which installed anti-Moscow
governments in those countries. Convinced that diplomatic measures
had proved impotent to resist further NATO expansion and prevent so-
called color revolutions, Russian leaders undertook a military interven-
tion in Georgia in 2008 to signal their determination to prevent further
expansion of the Alliance into former Soviet republics that are referred
to as Russia’s near abroad. While Russian forces attained a quick victory
over the Georgians, the campaign made it clear that the Russian military
still remained in desperate need of reform.11
11 Tor Bukkvoll, “Russia’s Military Performance in Georgia,” Military Review, Vol. 89,
No. 6, 2009.
Russia’s Anxieties and Vulnerabilities 15
Reform Efforts
After decades of abortive military reforms dating back to the Soviet
period, the Russian military has in recent years successfully moved
away from the outdated institutional structures and concepts it inher-
ited from the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union maintained an immense
conscript army primarily to fight a campaign in central Europe,
backed by a huge body of reservists and an officer corps sufficient to
lead them. These forces were grossly maladapted for the needs of post-
Soviet Russia, but institutional opposition forestalled meaningful reform
for nearly 20 years. In the late 2000s, the country revamped its scle-
rotic and massively unpopular system of conscription. While universal
male conscription still exists in Russia, the draft period was reduced
from two years to one, and the military has accordingly increased the
role of volunteer soldiers (referred to as contract soldiers), who finally
outnumbered draftees in 2015. These reforms helped alleviate long-
standing problems with low morale and hazing. The Russian military
also reduced the size of its bloated officer corps to better match that of
12 Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, “Russian Nuclear Forces, 2016,” Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists, Vol. 72, No. 3, 2016.
13 Information Handling Services Jane’s, “Strategic Weapon Systems,” Jane’s Sentinel Secu-
rity Assessment—Russia and the CIS, Englewood, Colo.: IHS Global Limited, April 25,
2016c; Information Handling Services Jane’s, “Air Force,” Jane’s Sentinel Security Assess-
ment—Russia and the CIS, Englewood, Colo.: IHS Global Limited, April 25, 2016a.
14 Center for the Analysis of Strategy and Technology, Gosudarstvennye programmy vooru-
zheniia Rossiiskoi Federatsii: problem ispolneniia i potentsial potimizatsii, Moscow, 2015, p. 16.
16 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Figure 2.2
2016 Defense Spending of Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, and United
Kingdom
80,000
70,000
Millions of U.S. dollars
60,000
50,000
40,000
30,000
20,000
10,000
0
Russia Saudi Arabia India France UK
SOURCE: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, “SIPRI Military
Expenditure Database,” online database, undated.
NOTE: Figures are in current prices, converted at the exchange rate for 2016.
15 Emmanuel Karagiannis, “The Russian Interventions in South Ossetia and Crimea Com-
pared: Military Performance, Legitimacy and Goals,” Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 35,
No. 3, 2014.
16 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2016.
Russia’s Anxieties and Vulnerabilities 17
Military-Industrial Complex
To support its military, Russia maintains a vast military-industrial
complex. Defined in Russian law and policy as the defense-industrial
complex, it is overseen by the Military-Industrial Commission. For-
mally headed by Putin himself, this body produces both the State
Armaments Plan, which guides long-term procurement planning,
and the annual State Defense Order, which determines how the Rus-
sian procurement budget is spent each year.20 The Russian military-
industrial complex has shown it can produce modern weapons, if only
in relatively limited numbers. Certain systems favored by Russian deci-
sionmakers have benefited from decades of sustained investment and
are world class. The S-400 air-defense system and T-14 Armata tank
are advanced systems with no U.S. counterpart, as is Russia’s family of
mobile ground-based strategic nuclear launchers. Russia’s brisk arms
17 John Chipman, ed., The Military Balance 2016, London: International Institute for Stra-
tegic Studies, 2016, pp. 22–23.
18
Julian Cooper, Russia’s State Armament Programme to 2020: A Quantitative Assessment of
Implementation 2011–2015, Stockholm: FOI, 2016, p. 3.
19 Cooper, 2016.
20 Cooper, 2016, p. 10.
18 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
21 Putin gave this figure in a November 2016 meeting of the President’s Council for Strate-
gic Development and Priority Projects. “Putin: podderzhim exporterov i predpriatiia OPK,”
Vesti Ekonomika, November 25, 2016.
22
Richard Connolly and Cecilie Sendstad, “Russian Rearmament: An Assessment of
Defense-Industrial Performance,” Problems of Post-Communism, Vol. 62, No. 2, 2016.
23 Cooper, 2016, pp. 39–41.
24 Although no systematic estimate of the cost of corruption in the Russian defense sector
is available, the Military-Industrial Commission website reproduced a newspaper article by
defense analyst Vitalii Ovechkin asserting that it “likely total(s) tens of billions of rubles.”
Vitalii Ovechkin, “Kak Voenno-promyshlennaia kommissia Rossii boret’sia s korruptsiei,”
Lenta VPK, April 22, 2015.
25 D. K. Latiushenok, “Sovremmenoe sostoianie oboronno-promyshlennyi kompleksa Rossii,”
Vestnik Sibirskogo gosudarstvennogo aerokosmicheskogo universiteta im. Akademika M.F. Reshet-
neva, Vol. 16, No. 1, 2015; Roger McDermott, “Russia’s Defense Industry Creaks Under High-
Tech Military Demands,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol. 13, No. 86, May 3, 2016a.
Russia’s Anxieties and Vulnerabilities 19
procurement are so large that the Russians are often highly competitive
on a cost-comparison basis.26
Potential Vulnerabilities
For all their strengths, the Russian military and defense industry still
suffer from many vulnerabilities. Even though ground forces make up
the bulk of the Russian military and are still using outdated equip-
ment, the Russian defense budget deemphasizes them in comparison
with other services. While the quality of the average Russian soldier
and his equipment is improving, it still lags considerably behind U.S.
standards. The need to recapitalize the defense industry and the inad-
equacy of available funds to do so have helped perpetuate these critical
weaknesses. Such areas as surface shipbuilding are in parlous condition,
contributing to an uneven modernization. Furthermore, the scientific
and technical capital underlying Soviet military strength has atro-
phied, as have the human resources available to the Russian military-
industrial complex. Finally, military spending has been more protected
from the effects of Russia’s budget crisis than have other areas of the
state budget, but it is likely only a matter of time before economic reali-
ties catch up with Moscow’s military ambitions.
Table 2.1 presents some broad areas of Russian military vulner-
ability and some illustrative U.S. moves to exploit them.
26 Russian media reported in 2011 that the unit price of the Borei-class nuclear-powered
ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) would be 23.1 billion rubles—about $770 million at the
then-current exchange rate. “SMI uznali stoimost’ podlodok dliia Minoborony” [“Media
Determines Cost of Submarines for Defense Ministry”], Lenta.ru, November 2, 2011. While
the price of each submarine has probably increased in nominal terms since then, the collapse
of the ruble since 2014 has been sufficient to cancel out substantial cost growth in dollar
terms. In contrast, the submarine planned to replace the U.S. Ohio class in the 2030s is
expected to have a per-unit cost of more than $6 billion. Ronald O’Rourke, Navy Columbia
(SSBN-826) Class Ballistic Missile Submarine Program: Background and Issues for Congress,
Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, R41129, October 4, 2017b, pp. 10–11.
20
Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Table 2.1
Current Military Vulnerabilities of the Russian Federation
Comparative Moderate; unclear how A need to reallocate Probably limited Successful efforts to modernize
disadvantage Russia will respond resources from other ground forces that could
in ground force to increased NATO areas of military and increase threat to NATO allies
resources capabilities civilian spending
Need to Moderate to significant; Increasing inability to Reallocation of resources Possible Russian sales of
recapitalize targeted sanctions could develop and field modern from civilian needs to advanced military hardware
defense be very effective military hardware defense industry that to potential adversaries (i.e.,
industry could reduce economic S-400s to Iran)
growth
Decline of Moderate to significant; Increasing inability to Loss of human and Lessened Russian ability to
scientific and could incentivize develop and field modern technical capital that contribute to such areas as
technical capital emigration of talented military hardware could undermine long- space exploration, nuclear
Russians term Russian economic nonproliferation
prospects
Conflict Moderate; measures Politically fraught choice Major cuts in social Lower Russian standards of
between reducing total Russian to cut social spending spending that are likely living that could legitimize
military and state revenue indirectly could greatly increase to reduce millions of official hostility to the United
social spending strain military budget domestic opposition Russians to poverty States for population.
for state
revenues
Russia’s Anxieties and Vulnerabilities 21
Unlike its efforts to reform the military, which have enjoyed consider-
able success, the Russian government’s attempts at economic reform
have mostly resulted in disappointment. In contrast to the Soviet Union,
which was the world’s second-largest economy for much of its history,
Russia is a comparatively minor economic power, with a much smaller
nominal GDP than France or the United Kingdom and well below that
of Japan, China, or the United States.27 The common charge that modern
Russia is just a petrostate like Saudi Arabia is grossly overstated, but its
economy and state budget are disproportionately dependent on energy
exports, the value of which has collapsed.28 Russia possesses sizable man-
ufacturing and service industries, but these are relatively uncompetitive
on the world market, and the country exports few manufactured goods
other than weapons. Recognizing the folly of Russia’s economic depen-
dence on energy exports, the liberalizing technocrat Dmitry Medvedev
pursued a policy of economic modernization during his presidency that
sought to diversify Russia’s economy. Encouraging the development of
high-tech goods with high added value for export, including passenger
jets and nuclear power plants, he directed substantial government funds
toward subsidizing such projects as the Skolkovo Center, which he envi-
sioned as a Russian Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, these well-intentioned
schemes largely came to naught, partially because of bad luck, but also
because of corruption and policy reversals undertaken by Putin follow-
ing his return to the presidency in 2012.29 Furthermore, the Russian
government squandered immense sums on economically unproductive
27 According to the World Bank, France’s 2016 GDP in current U.S. dollars was $2.465 tril-
lion while that of the United Kingdom was $2.619 trillion. Russia’s, by contrast, was $1.283 tril-
lion. See World Bank, “GDP (current US$),” database, Washington, D.C., undated-a.
28 Michael Bradshaw and Richard Connolly, “Barrels and Bullets: The Geostrategic Signifi-
cance of Russia’s Oil and Gas Exports,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 72, No. 3, 2016.
Oil and gas represent over half of Saudi GDP, compared with 16 percent of Russian GDP in
2012.
29
Kenneth Wilson, “Modernization or More of the Same in Russia: Was There a ‘Thaw’
Under Medvedev?” Problems of Post-Communism, Vol. 62, No. 3, 2015.
22 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
30
Robert W. Orttung and Sufian Zhemukhov, “The 2014 Sochi Olympic Mega-Project and
Russia’s Political Economy,” East European Politics, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2014.
31
One model predicted that real Russian GDP would drop 19 percent in 2016–2017. Yelena
Tuzova and Faryal Qayum, “Global Oil Glut and Sanctions: The Impact on Putin’s Russia,”
Energy Policy, Vol. 90, Issue C, 2016.
32 Keith Crane, Shanthi Nataraj, Patrick B. Johnston, and Gursel Rafig oglu Aliyev, Russia’s
Medium-Term Economic Prospects, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR-1468-RC,
2016, pp. 25–33. On recent “reprivatization” rumors, see Hannah Lilley and Emily Ferris,
“Russian Privatization: A Fresh Start,” Forbes, July 27, 2016.
Russia’s Anxieties and Vulnerabilities 23
80
70
Billions of U.S. dollars
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
Year
SOURCE: World Bank, undated-b.
Effects of Sanctions
International economic sanctions imposed on Russia after its 2014
annexation of Crimea have caused serious problems for the Russian
economy, but they have not yet had the desired effect on Kremlin poli-
cies. While the direct economic impact of the sanctions is considerably
smaller than that of the collapse in oil prices, they seriously aggravate
the stresses that cheap oil places on the Russian economy. In addi-
tion to sanctions against specific individuals, the United States and
other Western nations imposed restrictions on specific Russian banks
and firms, denying them access to U.S. debt markets and needed capi-
tal equipment. These restrictions limit the options available to Rus-
sian institutions and companies for managing their ongoing crises and
keeping themselves economically competitive. The sanctions also have
a symbolic value within domestic Russian politics that Westerners
underappreciate. The Kremlin felt the need to impose sanctions of its
own against Western countries, including a total ban on food imports
from the United States and European Union (EU). These sanctions
imposed costs on foreign nations, but they damaged Russia’s own
economy as well.35 The fact that the Kremlin resorted to such measures
shows that the economic calculus about sanctions employed by Putin
and his inner circle is very different than might be anticipated. The
international sanctions have not improved Russian behavior and have
furthermore allowed the regime to plausibly blame the West for ordi-
nary citizens’ economic distress.
34 Craneet al., 2016, pp. 48–50; Irina Sidorova, “Fewer Russians Want to Emigrate, Poll
Shows,” Russia Beyond the Headlines, June 20, 2017.
35 Matthieu Crozet and Julian Hinz, Friendly Fire: The Trade Impact of the Russia Sanc-
tions and Counter-Sanctions, Kiel, Germany: Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Working
Paper No. 2059, 2016.
Russia’s Anxieties and Vulnerabilities 25
36 Unless otherwise noted, we use official figures from the Russian government throughout
this report because that is what is available. However, it should be noted that these figures
might not be accurate.
37 Svetlana Bocharova, Ol’ga Volkova, and Ivan Tkachev, “Dolia neftegazovykh dokhodov
v biudzhete Rossii upala do semiletnogo urovhia,” RBK, March 24, 2016.
38 The “social policy” line of the consolidated state budget, which totaled 4.265 trillion
rubles in 2015, was predominantly spent (3.864 trillion rubles) supplementing the Pension
Fund of the Russian Federation. This sum exceeded the total defense budget for that year
(3.181 trillion rubles). Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, “Federal Budget of the
Russian Federation,” Moscow, undated-a.
26 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Demographic Trends
Long-term trends suggest that Russia faces a looming demographic
crisis that will place increasing stress on the economy and state budget
in future decades. Russian life expectancy dropped precipitously in the
1990s when the Soviet health care system collapsed, but a concerted
effort by Putin’s government has managed to reverse the worst of these
trends. According to official statistics, Russian life expectancies are now
higher than they have ever been, even though they are still consider-
ably lower than those in developed Western countries, particularly for
men.40 Russian men tend to die young of such lifestyle-related causes
as alcoholism and heart disease. This not only undermines Russian
economic productivity but also perpetuates a range of social problems.
These challenges are compounded by the baby bust of the 1990s, when
Russians had very few children. The Russian government recognized
this demographic threat and invested considerable resources in pro-
grams to encourage higher birth rates and reduce premature deaths.
These efforts seem to have enjoyed some success, as the country has
managed to stem its population decline, particularly in conjunction
with immigration from other former Soviet republics (see Figure 2.4).
39
Olga Taras, Ilya Arkhipov, and Evgenia Pismennaya, “Russia Said to Shield Reserves as
Putin Taps Sovereign Fund,” Bloomberg, June 28, 2016.
40 Russian Federation Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), “Ozhidaemaia
prodolzhitel’nost’ zhizni pri rozhdenii,” March 19, 2018.
Russia’s Anxieties and Vulnerabilities 27
Figure 2.4
Russian Population Natural Growth Rate and Life Expectancy, 1960–2015
Growth rate
30
25 Collapse
of Soviet Union
20
Birth rate
Per 1,000 persons
15
Death rate
10
5
Natural growth rate
0
–5
–10
1960
1962
1964
1966
1968
1970
1972
1974
1976
1978
1980
1982
1984
1986
1988
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
2010
2012
2014
Year
Life expectancy
78
76
Women
74
72
70
Age at death
68
66
64 Men
62
60
58
56
1960
1962
1964
1966
1968
1970
1972
1974
1976
1978
1980
1982
1984
1986
1988
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
2010
2012
2014
Year
SOURCE: World Bank, undated-b.
Potential Vulnerabilities
Russia’s economic weaknesses are extensive, but the counterintuitive
effect of the sanctions regime exemplifies how weaknesses are not the
same thing as vulnerabilities that the United States can leverage to its
advantage. Recent experience suggests that Russian economic distress
would have to be extremely deep to elicit greater cooperation from the
Kremlin. It should be kept in mind that Russia’s present economic dif-
ficulties are actually quite minor compared with the disastrous experi-
ence of the 1990s, which older Russians remember. According to offi-
cial statistics, 29 percent of the Russian population lived in poverty
at the time Putin became president, but as of 2016 that number was
13.8 percent.42 Similarly, unemployment peaked at 14 percent after the
1998 default, and it was at 5.5 percent in 2016.43 Russian economic
weaknesses can be leveraged for cost-imposing strategies, but those
costs are liable to be imposed on ordinary Russians rather than the
Kremlin. Moscow’s capital flight problems, on the other hand, might
present an underexploited strategy for extending Russia economically.
41
Information Handling Services Jane’s, “Demography,” Jane’s Sentinel Security Assess-
ment—Russia and the CIS, Englewood, Colo.: IHS Global Limited, April 25, 2016b.
42 Rosstat,
“Chislennost’ naseleniia s denezhnymi doxodami nizhe velichiny prozhitoch-
nogo minimum v tselom po Rossii i po sub”ektam Rossiiskoi Federatsii,” December 20,
2017b.
43 Rosstat, “Uroven’ bezrabotnitsy naseleniia po sub”ektam Rossiiskoi Federatsii, v srednem
za god,” April 4, 2017a.
Russia’s Anxieties and Vulnerabilities 29
Facilitating the flow of both financial and human capital from Russia
to the West could not only weaken the current regime by depriving it
of resources but also bolster the economies of the United States and its
allies at the same time.
Table 2.2 presents some broad areas of Russian economic vulner-
ability and some illustrative U.S. moves to exploit them.
44 Thisis a reference to a Leonid Brezhnev-era term. For a Soviet explanation of this term,
see E. D. Mordzhinskaia, Iu. E. Volkov, and V. I. Tsapanov, Real’nyi sotsializm v SSSR i ego
burzhuaznye fal’sifikatory [Real Existing Socialism in the USSR and Its Bourgeois Falsifiers],
Moscow: Mysl’, 1977.
45 Dmitry Trenin, “Russia’s Conservative Modernization: A Mission Impossible?” SAIS
Review of International Affairs, Vol. 30, No. 1, 2010.
30
Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Table 2.2
Current Economic Vulnerabilities of the Russian Federation
Financial Considerable but Reduced total revenues Economic difficulties Economic distress for investors
capital flight already target of that could reduce living and trading partners
sanctions regime standards
Human Considerable Reduced human capital Loss of human and Emigration of pro-Western
capital flight for defense and civilian technical capital that Russians that might consolidate
needs could undermine long- anti-U.S. attitudes among the
term Russian economic population
prospects
Resource Uncertain but Reduced state revenue Economic difficulties Low commodity prices that
dependency potentially that could reduce living could adversely affect some U.S.
considerable standards strategic partners
Demographic Limited; economic Decline of military age, Population decline Could legitimize official hostility
crisis distress likely to working age, and total to the United States
deepen existing population
problems
Russia’s Anxieties and Vulnerabilities 31
tently enjoyed high approval ratings for his entire political career, and
they have exceeded 80 percent since the seizure of Crimea in 2014.50
Political Parties
When Putin first came to power at the end of the 20th century, he
ruled without an associated party, instead working with a coalition of
sympathetic parties in the State Duma. In 2001, Putin’s political allies
formed the United Russia party, but Putin himself has never joined
it, even during the 2008–2012 period when he was prime minister.
United Russia advertises itself as the “president’s party” and serves as a
home for a variety of schools of thought that compete for influence.51
In the late 2000s, these included former Russian deputy prime min-
ister Vladislav Surkov’s notion of sovereign democracy,52 which con-
trasted with the modernization boosted by liberalizing technocrat
Medvedev. In recent years, Putin has been supplanting more and more
of his earlier associates with siloviki—former employees of the security
services.53 This trend should not be overstated, however; many of the
figures in Putin’s inner circle have been there since his initial ascent to
the presidency, including Medvedev and Surkov.
Despite the existence of numerous political parties in Russia, none
presents a plausible threat to Putin’s power. Unlike the Soviet Commu-
nists, Putin finds the existence of opposition parties potentially useful.
He wants to appear (and actually be) genuinely popular, so a one-party
state would be counterproductive. The Communist Party of the Russian
Federation is still the closest thing Russia has to a functioning opposition
party, and was a popular protest vote in the 2012 elections for individu-
als alienated from Putin and his United Russia party. The Communist
ens, all of whom number well over one million people. While separat-
ist national movements (particularly that of Chechnya) posed the most
pressing threat to the Russian government in the 1990s and 2000s,
domestic terrorism from the volatile Caucasus region appears to have
waned in recent years. At the peak of the insurgency in Chechnya,
terrorist attacks were relatively limited in number even though they
resulted in large numbers of fatalities. Recent statistics find that both
the number of attacks and resulting fatalities are smaller than they were
prior to the start of the Second Chechen War in 1999 (see Figure 2.5).
Potential Vulnerabilities
Despite its success consolidating political power in the president’s hands,
Putin’s government still has many vulnerabilities. These include the pit-
falls of having eliminated all meaningful political opposition, particularly
in light of the parliamentary supermajority enjoyed by United Russia fol-
lowing the 2016 elections. Since United Russia completely dominates
the government and can even amend the Russian constitution without
the consent of other parties, one can no longer plausibly scapegoat the
opposition for unpopular policies. Voting irregularities are rampant in
Russian elections—undermining the legitimacy of the Russian govern-
ment, even if Putin still enjoys high personal approval ratings. The gov-
ernment’s failure to rein in graft and corruption during the Medvedev
years raises the question of whether the current system is really reform-
able. Even if it is, Putin’s return to the presidency and his rollback of
Medvedev’s modernization efforts called the legitimacy of the regime
into question and alienated educated urban people, igniting the 2011–
2012 “winter of discontent.”57 The regime’s lack of a coherent ideology is
both a strength and a weakness; it enables flexibility but also deprives the
regime of subtle ideological justifications for its actions. Finally, Putin
himself appears to be increasingly subject to an echo chamber effect as
his inner circle of advisers seems to be less diverse than in previous years.
Table 2.3 presents some broad areas of Russian domestic vulner-
ability and some illustrative U.S. moves to exploit them.
57 Wilson, 2015.
Russia’s Anxieties and Vulnerabilities 35
Figure 2.5
Number of Terrorist Attacks and Resulting Fatalities in Russia
400
300
100
0
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
Year
600
Number of incidents
500
Fatalities
400
300
200
Attacks
100
0
1992
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
Year
SOURCE: Jane’s by IHS Markit, Terrorism and Insurgency Centre, “Events Since 2009,”
database, undated; National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to
Terrorism, “Global Terrorism Database,” June 2017.
36
Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Table 2.3
Current Domestic Political Vulnerabilities of the Russian Federation
Potential Blowback to
Potential Cost to Potential Impact on United States and Its Allies
Strategic Exploitability by Russian Government of Russian Population of from U.S. Extension
Vulnerability United States U.S. Extension Strategy U.S. Extension Strategy Strategy
Elimination of Limited; already target of Loss of legitimacy Likely to elicit further Worsened relations with
real political unsuccessful messaging crackdowns on free Russia
opposition campaigns expression
Poor Moderate; limits Russian Potentially extreme Economic distress likely Possible Russian
reformability ability to respond to many economic or military to affect ordinary citizens engagement in external
of Russian state types of external pressure failure much more deeply than aggression to distract from
institutions elites internal problems
Lack of coherent Minimal; might attempt Might complicate Likely to elicit further Worsened relations with
ideology messaging campaign domestic signaling for crackdowns on free Russia
against multiple threads Russian state expression
of Russian political
discourse
Russia’s Anxieties and Vulnerabilities 37
Objectives
Russia has two overwhelming foreign policy objectives. The first of
these is the prevention of color revolutions leading to increased West-
ern influence in any additional former Soviet republics. Particularly
after the 2011–2012 protests in Moscow, Putin’s government fears that
these events threaten the stability of the regime. The Kremlin has sig-
naled its willingness to resort to extreme measures, including military
force, to prevent or counteract such events and to preserve friendly gov-
ernments in neighboring capitals, notably in Belarus. Moscow’s second
and more nebulous foreign policy objective is to perpetuate Russia’s
status as a major global power. The Russian government has invested
vast resources on projects that demonstrate its global influence but
make a dubious contribution to the country’s strategic interests, such
as the 2014 Sochi Olympics and its campaign in Syria.
59
Emma Gilligan, “Smart Sanctions Against Russia: Human Rights, Magnitsky and the
Ukrainian Crisis,” Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, Vol. 24,
No. 2, 2016.
60 G-8 was an intergovernmental political forum that lasted from 1997 until 2014, with
the participation of major industrialized countries in the world that viewed themselves as
democracies. Members were Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United
Kingdom, and the United States.
61 Crozet and Hinz, 2016.
Russia’s Anxieties and Vulnerabilities 39
Methods
Russia employs both diplomatic carrots and sticks toward the United
States to advance its foreign policy agenda. The former includes coop-
eration with the United States and other major powers on such issues as
combating international terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Although
Russia’s shared interest in managing these threats explains much of the
Kremlin’s willingness to work with Washington on these issues, it has
shown an openness to making what Russian leaders consider serious
concessions in the hope that their Western counterparts will respond
in kind. The most extreme example of this is probably Russia’s seeming
acquiescence to NATO expansion during the Yeltsin and early Putin
years, which Kremlin leaders considered a massive concession that they
ultimately came to regret.62 A more recent example of a concession the
Kremlin soon regarded as a serious mistake was the 2011 decision to
allow United Nations (UN) authorization of the NATO intervention
against Moammar Gadhafi’s government in Libya.63 Putin and his advis-
ers feel that Western governments do not reciprocate adequately and have
increasingly resorted to aggressive, belligerent diplomacy instead.
Thanks in considerable part to the international legacy it inher-
ited from the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation has many goads
to interfere with the foreign policy objectives of its rivals. Moscow’s
possession of the UN Security Council veto allows it to both prevent
that body from passing any resolutions inimical to Russian interests
and influence the West by threatening to veto its resolutions. Russia
62 Michael Rühle, “NATO Enlargement and Russia: Discerning Fact from Fiction,” Ameri-
can Foreign Policy Interests, Vol. 36, No. 4, 2014.
63 Yf Reykers and Niels Smeets, “Losing Control: A Principal-Agent Analysis of Russia in
the United Nations Security Council’s Decision-Making Toward the Libya Crisis,” East
European Politics, Vol. 31, No. 4, 2015.
40 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
has also sought to punish the West by refusing to comply with inter-
national agreements or withdrawing from them. Moscow pioneered
this approach with its decision to cease complying with the Conven-
tional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty in the aftermath of the
2004 round of NATO expansion, but it has recently grown much more
aggressive in its willingness to resort to this tactic.64 In late 2016, Putin
announced that his country would cease implementation of the Russia-
U.S. Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement, signaling
that he was now willing to compromise some aspects of nuclear arms
control in pursuit of diplomatic leverage and implicitly threatening that
Russia might withdraw from more-important agreements, such as the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.65 Similarly, Russia’s
withdrawal in November 2016 from the International Criminal Court
demonstrated its waning commitment to international institutions.
Along with conventional diplomacy, Russia also cultivates foreign
proxies to maintain its influence abroad. While Syrian dictator al-Assad
is Moscow’s most prominent client at the moment, Russia also supports
subnational political figures with funding and influence operations. A
key weapon in Moscow’s foreign policy arsenal is the increasing ambi-
tion and apparent success of Russian influence operations, which have
grown from conventional media (such as the television channel Russia
Today) to include systematic leaks of hacked documents intended to
embarrass and compromise foreign adversaries.66 Finally, the Krem-
lin has demonstrated its willingness to resort to armed force. The risk
and expense of Russian military involvement in Ukraine and Syria,
moreover, demonstrate that real resolve underlies Putin’s diplomatic
maneuvering.
64 Mark R. Wilcox, “Russia and the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE
Treaty)—A Paradigm Change?” Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 24, No. 4, 2011.
65 United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Treaty on the
Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles (INF Treaty), Decem-
ber 8, 1987.
66 GeirHågen Karlsen, “Tools of Russian Influence: Information and Propaganda,” in
Janne Haaland Matlary and Tormod Heier, eds., Ukraine and Beyond, Cham, Switzerland:
Springer International Publishing, 2016.
Russia’s Anxieties and Vulnerabilities 41
Potential Vulnerabilities
The success of its influence operations notwithstanding, Russia’s for-
eign policy position remains quite vulnerable overall. Unlike the Soviet
Union, which could count on the support of its socialist satellite states,
modern Russia has few real allies—and some of those, such as Syria,
are arguably net liabilities. Furthermore, Moscow’s actions in Crimea
and Eastern Ukraine alienated world opinion, leaving it with little
sympathy in foreign capitals. Finally, Russia has few positive incen-
tives to induce greater cooperation from skeptical governments since
the collapse in resource prices after the 2008 economic crisis rendered
its earlier resource diplomacy largely impotent, although it might be
trying to regain this leverage.
Table 2.4 presents some broad areas of Russian foreign policy vul-
nerability and some illustrative U.S. moves to exploit them.
67
Roger N. McDermott, “Does Russia Have a Gerasimov Doctrine?” Parameters, Vol. 46,
No. 1, 2016b.
68 Regina Smyth and Sarah Oates, “Mind the Gaps: Media Use and Mass Action in Russia,”
Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 67, No. 2, 2015; Michael Reilly, “Russia Turns to China for Help
Building Its Own ‘Great Firewall’ of Censorship,” MIT Technology Review, November 29,
2016.
Table 2.4
42
Current Foreign Policy Vulnerabilities of the Russian Federation
Lack of useful Considerable Further diplomatic Reduced political and cultural Worsened relations with
allies isolation contacts with Westerners Russia, attempts to interfere
and increased difficulty of with politics of other
international travel countries
Alienation of Considerable Further diplomatic and Economic distress that is likely Worsened relations with
world opinion economic isolation to affect ordinary citizens Russia, attempts to interfere
much more deeply than elites with politics of other
countries
Low commodity Uncertain but Loss of state revenue Economic distress that is likely Low commodity prices
prices and potentially to affect ordinary citizens adversely affect some U.S.
resultant considerable much more deeply than elites strategic partners
weakness of
“resource
diplomacy”
Russia’s Anxieties and Vulnerabilities 43
Russian Anxieties
69 Unpublished RAND research. We would like to thank Scott Boston, Keith Crane, Olga
Oliker, and Brian Nichiporuk for sharing this material.
Russia’s Anxieties and Vulnerabilities 45
Economic Measures
47
48 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
The recovery that has taken place so far has been spurred by strong
policy measures. These have included making the exchange rate more
flexible; cutting government spending; recapitalizing banks; and draw-
ing from the Reserve Fund, which accumulates federal revenues from
the production and export of oil, natural gas, and oil products during
times of surplus for use during times of deficit.5
The Russian economy has a number of positive characteristics that
bode well for it. The government has low external debt, minimizing its
exposure to negative exchange rate movements, and large U.S. dollar
export revenues largely from energy sales. Russia has a positive balance
in its current account, a broad measure of the trade balance, and the dif-
ference between the interest rate on its government bonds and those of
more economically advanced countries has narrowed.6 The unemploy-
ment rate actually fell to roughly 5.5 percent in the first quarter of 2017,
from 5.9 percent a year earlier. However, the government discourages
large enterprises from shedding workers in difficult economic times, so
there is hidden underemployment or real wage reduction. Additionally,
inflation fell from 15.6 percent in 2015 to 7.1 percent in 2016.7
Despite these positive trends, the Russian economy still faces
numerous problems and has an uncertain medium-term outlook. Eco-
nomic problems include falling incomes, increasing poverty, low per-
sonal savings and investment, adverse demographics, and low productiv-
ity. Although real wages have started growing, nonwage components of
5 World Bank, The Russian Economy Inches Forward: Will That Suffice to Turn the Tide?
Washington, D.C.: Russia Economic Report No. 36, November 2016; Ministry of Finance
of the Russian Federation, “Reserve Fund: Mission,” Moscow, undated-f.
6 IMF, A Broadening Recovery, Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe: A Broadening Recov-
ery, Washington, D.C., Regional Economic Issues series, May 2017b.
7 World Bank, 2017.
Economic Measures 49
13 Kremlin, 2017.
14 Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, “Appendix 3.1: Brief Information on the
Federal Budget Execution (Bln Rub),” Excel spreadsheet, Moscow, 2017a. Notably, the level
of oil and gas revenues has fallen from 7.4 trillion rubles in 2014 to 5.9 trillion in 2015 and
4.8 trillion in 2016. In contrast, the level of non–oil and gas revenues has increased from
7.1 trillion in 2014 to 7.8 trillion in 2015 and 8.6 trillion in 2016. As noted in the paragraph,
some of these non–oil and gas revenues might be indirectly tied to the oil and gas industry.
15
Andrey Movchan, Decline, Not Collapse: The Bleak Prospects for Russia’s Economy, Moscow:
Carnegie Moscow Center, February 2, 2017.
16 World Bank, 2017.
Economic Measures 51
Figure 3.1
Value of the Reserve Fund, 2012–2018
100
90
80
Billions of U.S. dollars
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Jan-12
May-12
Sep-12
Jan-13
May-13
Sep-13
Jan-14
May-14
Sep-14
Jan-15
May-15
Sep-15
Jan-16
May-16
Sep-16
Jan-17
May-17
Sep-17
Jan-18
17
Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, “Reserve Fund: Volume of the Reserve
Fund,” Moscow, June 5, 2017c.
18 “Russia’s Finance Ministry Fully Spent Its Reserve Fund in 2017,” Reuters, January 10,
2018. This termination did, in fact, occur.
52 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Figure 3.2
Value of the National Wealth Fund, 2012–2018
100
90
80
Billions of U.S. dollars
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Jan-12
May-12
Sep-12
Jan-13
May-13
Sep-13
Jan-14
May-14
Sep-14
Jan-15
May-15
Sep-15
Jan-16
May-16
Sep-16
Jan-17
May-17
Sep-17
Jan-18
19 Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, “National Wealth Fund: Mission,” Moscow,
undated-c; Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, “National Wealth Fund: Accumula-
tion,” Moscow, undated-b; Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, undated-d.
20 Stanislav Prokofiev, “Public Finance Management: Agents, Objects, Goals,” PowerPoint
briefing, Federal Treasury (Russian Federation), Moscow, April 2017; Johanna Melka,
“Russia: Out of the Crisis,” BNP Paribas, First Quarter, 2017; Ministry of Finance of the
Economic Measures 53
tributed to the growing poverty rate. However, pensions for 2017 were
indexed to end-of-year inflation, so they will likely positively affect
poverty statistics and income if all goes according to plan.21
Along with declines in both funds, Russia has lost foreign exchange
reserves. These fell from $441 billion at the beginning of 2012 to $323 bil-
lion at the end of April 2017. Most of the decline occurred from the end
of October 2013, when foreign exchange reserves were $467 billion, to
the end of April 2015, when foreign exchange reserves were $297 billion,
a decline of 36 percent. Since then, they have rebounded.22
The economic underperformance since 2014 might have contrib-
uted to growing unrest in Russia. One nongovernmental organization
in Moscow recorded more than 1,100 labor-related protests in 2016.23
There are some indications that the protests are shifting from economic
issues to political and cultural ones. The issue was even raised in Putin’s
annual call-in session, when a caller noted, “The number of disgrun-
tled people is on the rise. Some are protesting in social media, others
are taking to the streets. Is that an opposition? Are you prepared to talk
to anyone among them?”24
Russia is already extended economically. Although international
institutions are projecting renewed growth, there is no guarantee these
projections will come to pass. Russia could outperform or underper-
form. In the remaining sections of this chapter, we discuss measures
the United States could take to further extend Russia economically. We
discuss measures in four broad areas:
• petroleum exports
• natural gas exports and pipelines
Russian Federation, Public Debt Management Policy of the Russian Federation for 2017–2019,
Moscow, 2017b.
21 World Bank, 2017.
22 Central Bank of the Russian Federation, “International Reserves of the Russian Federa-
tion, Monthly Values, Missions of U.S. Dollars,” Moscow, June 30, 2017.
23 Kathrin Hille and Max Seddon, “Russia’s Activities Find Their Voice,” Financial Times,
June 11, 2017.
24 Kremlin, 2017.
54 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
• sanctions
• Russian brain drain.
In 2016, Russia’s exports of oil, gas, and other fuels totaled $135 billion
and constituted 47 percent of all Russian goods exports, a dramatic
decline from the 2015 figures, which were $216 billion and 63 percent,
respectively. (Figure 3.3). Notably, the share was above 70 percent in
2012 and 2013. This share and revenue decline has been driven com-
pletely by declines in prices rather than volumes. Although Russian
exports of natural gas to Europe command much attention, Russia’s
most important commodity export is actually oil. This section dis-
cusses extending Russia economically by affecting oil sales. (Oil-related
sanctions are covered in the separate section on sanctions.)
From 2010 to 2016, Russia’s export revenues from oil and refined
oil products averaged almost 330 percent of export revenues from natu-
ral gas, ranging from a low of 275 percent in 2015 to a high of 393 per-
cent in 2014, the highest since at least 2000. Revenues also exhib-
ited dramatic declines as world prices fell—total oil export revenue fell
from a high of $284.6 billion in 2012 to $119.8 billion in 2016, and
total gas export revenue fell from $66.0 billion in 2013 to $31.3 billion
in 2016.25
25 Central Bank of the Russian Federation, “Russian Federation: Crude Oil Exports, 2000–
2016 (according to Customs Statistics and Rosstat, Harmonized System, Code 2709),” online
database, undated-b; Central Bank of the Russian Federation, “Russian Federation: Natural
Gas Exports, 2000–2016 (according to Customs Statistics and Rosstat, Harmonized System,
Economic Measures 55
Figure 3.3
Russian Export Percentages by Broad Sector, 2012–2016
100
Mineral fuels, lubricants, and related materials
Manufactured goods classified chiefly by
80 material
Chemicals and related products, not specified
elsewhere
60 Machinery and transport equipment
Percentage
Code 271121),” online database, undated-c; Central Bank of the Russian Federation, “Rus-
sian Federation: Oil Products Exports, 2000–2016 (according to Customs Statistics and
Rosstat, Harmonized System, Code 2710),” online database, undated-d.
26 YegorGaidar, “The Soviet Collapse: Grain and Oil,” American Enterprise Institute for
Public Policy Research, April 2007.
56 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
27 Keith Crane, Andreas Goldthau, Michael Toman, Thomas Light, Stuart E. Johnson, Ali-
reza Nader, Angel Rabasa, and Harun Dogo, Imported Oil and U.S. National Security, Santa
Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, MG-838-USCC, 2009.
28
U.S. Energy Information Administration, “Europe Brent Spot Price FOB,” data file,
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Energy, February 8, 2018.
29 Central Bank of the Russian Federation, undated-b.
30
U.S. Energy Information Administration, “U.S. Field Production of Crude Oil,” data file,
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Energy, April 30, 2017a.
31
U.S. Energy Information Administration, “tight oil” entry on “Glossary,” webpage,
undated.
Economic Measures 57
tight oil totaled about 5.1 million barrels per day, up from 1.3 million
barrels per day as recently as May 2008.32
There are two policy implications. The United States has little con-
trol over global demand, which also affects prices. However, it does have
some control over production and supply. If the United States desires to
keep oil prices low as a way to extend Russia, then allowing oil produc-
tion and exports to proceed unimpeded is a good first step. Opening new
territories for exploration and drilling could also increase supply. Encour-
aging the transfer of technologies to produce tight oil, or collaborations
between U.S. oil companies and foreign oil companies to produce tight
oil abroad, can also contribute to supply increases. Finally, encouraging
continued development of producing technologies would help. In 2014,
the breakeven price for tight oil production was estimated to be in the
$60 to $90 per barrel range. But technological progress has lowered that
dramatically. While the breakeven price for parts of the Permian basin in
Texas was estimated to be $76 per barrel in June 2014, it was estimated
to be only $37 per barrel in August 2016.33 Thus, technological changes
can lead to more oil being brought to market.
Potential Benefits
Encouraging U.S. oil production can have a variety of benefits. Most
directly, it would depress prices—and therefore also depress export rev-
enue to Russia. Within the United States, it would lower the price for
businesses and consumers. Money that businesses would otherwise spend
on oil to fuel their trucking fleets instead could be used, for example,
on investments to create jobs, higher wages, or modernized infrastruc-
ture or on higher dividends to shareholders. Consumers would be able to
take money they otherwise would have spent on oil products and use it
to purchase other goods and services, helping expand the domestic and
global economies. Most important, these benefits can result from unilat-
32 U.S. Energy Information Administration, “U.S. Tight Oil Production,” data file, Wash-
ington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Energy, May 1, 2017b.
33
Robert L. Kleinberg, Sergey Paltsev, Charles K. Ebinger, David Hobbs, and Tim
Boersma, Tight Oil Development Economics: Benchmarks, Breakeven Points, and Inelasticities,
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, CEEPR
WP 2016-012, December 2016.
58 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
eral action on the part of the United States, and most allies and friends
in Europe would benefit from lower oil prices.
Risks
Low oil prices present two main risks. First, they would harm U.S. com-
panies that produce oil or support producers and the regions in which
those companies are located. Second, low oil prices would depress rev-
enues not only to Russia but also to partner nations that depend on such
revenues for their national budgets, such as some of the Gulf states in the
Middle East. Furthermore, these low oil prices could hamper the abil-
ity of some oil-state governments to either govern or redistribute income
to their populations, leading to unrest. Finally, low oil prices typically
encourage the use of oil products, potentially exacerbating pollution and
associated climate change to at least a small degree.
Likelihood of Success
Maintaining low oil prices through increased production and exports
would likely extend Russia economically. Already, the decline in oil
revenues is degrading Russia’s ability to maintain its federal budget.
The federal budget plan for 2017 to 2019 has large cuts in expendi-
tures. Even with those cuts, Russia expects to deplete the Reserve Fund
and draw down from the National Wealth Fund, hurting its future
ability to ensure that people receive the pensions they were promised.
Maintaining low oil prices over several years would push Russia into
continuing to make difficult decisions regarding its funding priorities.
Conclusion
Maintaining low oil prices and encouraging the increase of produc-
tion worldwide would certainly extend Russia economically. It would
also benefit the United States and, on those grounds alone, should be
pursued. The most important caveat is that prices and production are
beyond the full control of a single country, so while the United States
could institute policies that encourage those trends, it could not on its
own bring them about.
Economic Measures 59
Although Russia earns far more from oil exports, it is more tightly
bound to Europe by natural gas exports. About 40 percent of Europe’s
natural gas imports are from Russia, but a much higher proportion of
Russia’s natural gas exports go to Europe, of which the vast majority
go to the EU (Figure 3.4).34 Russia delivers the gas through the Uni-
fied Gas Supply system, which includes pipelines that transit Belarus,
Ukraine, Turkey, and (going directly to Germany) the Baltic Sea. In
2015, 39 percent of Russian gas to Europe flowed through Ukraine,
30 percent to Germany through the Baltic subsea pipeline known as
Nord Stream, and 29 percent through Belarus.35
In 2006 and 2009, Russia temporarily cut off gas shipments
through Ukraine over geopolitical and commercial disputes with that
country, thus cutting Ukrainian transit fees, as well as Ukrainian and
European gas supplies. In the wake of those events, Europe has stated
a goal of lowering its purchases of gas from Russia and building more
resilience within the European system—i.e., being able to move gas
throughout the continent rather than having parts of it being depen-
dent on only one supplier. In September 2009, the European Coun-
cil issued a directive that, among other steps, set up a coordination
mechanism in the event of oil or gas disruptions.36 In February 2016,
34 Konur Alp Kocak, Pasquale De Micco, and Faustine Felici, The Quest for Natural Gas
Pipelines—EU and Eastern Partner Energy Policies: Security Versus Transit Benefits, Brussels:
European Parliamentary Research Service and Directorate-General for External Policies,
Study PE 586.626, July 2016. Exactly what proportion of Russian natural gas exports goes to
Europe varies by source and by how Europe is defined. The U.S. Energy Information Admin-
istration reports that 75 percent of Russia’s gas exports go to Europe (U.S. Energy Informa-
tion Administration, Country Analysis Brief: Russia, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of
Energy, October 25, 2016). Data from BP indicate that about 60 percent goes to identified
EU members, and 76 percent goes to identified EU members, Turkey, and “other Europe”
(BP, BP Statistical Review of World Energy June 2016, London: BP p.l.c., 2016).
35
Kocak, De Micco, and Felici, 2016, pp. 12, 39. This report also says that about half of
Russian gas sent to the EU transits Ukraine.
36 Eurostat, “Energy Production and Imports,” webpage, January 23, 2017a.
60 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Figure 3.4
Import Share Percentages of Russian Gas Exports, 2016
100
90
80
70
Percentage
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
North Central Europe CIS Middle Africa Asia
America and South East Pacific
America
SOURCE: BP, Statistical Review of World Energy June 2017, London: BP p.l.c., 2017.
NOTE: The chart shows the proportion of trade movements by pipeline and as
liquefied natural gas (LNG) combined. Cases where the data indicated a trade
movement of less than 0.05 billion cubic meters (bcm) were counted as zero. North
America includes Canada, Mexico, and the United States (excluding territories);
Central and South America includes those regions and the Caribbean, Puerto Rico
and the U.S. Virgin Islands; Europe includes European members of the Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development (Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic,
Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy,
Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain,
Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom), Albania, Bosnia-
Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,
Georgia, Gibraltar, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Montenegro, Romania, and Serbia; the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) includes Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and
Ukraine; the Middle East includes the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan,
Lebanon, and Syria; Africa includes only that continent; and the Asia Pacific category
includes Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, China, China Hong
Kong SAR, China Macau SAR, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia,
Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand, North Korea, Oceania, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea,
Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. In the
BP data, the identifiable members of the EU received 80 percent of all Russian gas
exports to Europe and 70 percent of all Russian exports worldwide in 2016.
Economic Measures 61
37 International Energy Agency, Global Gas Security Review: How Flexible Are LNG Markets
in Practice? Paris, 2016.
38 Eurostat, 2017a.
39 Eurostat, “Imports,” from “Simplified Energy Balances—Annual Data [nrg_100a],”
online database, June 8, 2017c.
40 F. Stephen Larrabee, Stephanie Pezard, Andrew Radin, Nathan Chandler, Keith Crane,
and Thomas S. Szayna, Russia and the West After the Ukrainian Crisis: European Vulnerabili-
ties to Russian Pressures, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR-1305-A, 2017.
62 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
gas.41 Despite gains in LNG, Russian gas via pipeline is still projected
to be the largest single source of gas to Europe through 2035.42
In addition, Europe—or at least some of it—is building Nord
Stream 2, a major pipeline for Russian gas running parallel to the exist-
ing two Nord Stream pipelines, that will bypass Ukraine and all of
Eastern Europe, running directly from Russia under the Baltic Sea to
Germany. Officials from the European Commission and leaders from
nine EU states have expressed concern about the project, specifically
that it would increase European dependence on Russia for gas. In addi-
tion, it will diminish the shipment of Russian gas through Ukraine,
reducing transit fees to that country. However, Germany (the termi-
nus) is in favor of the project, and the EU cannot stop it. The pipe-
line needs approvals from Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and
Russia because it will pass through the waters of those five countries.43
At the end of April 2017, Nord Stream 2 AG signed financing agree-
ments with five European energy companies to pay half the project
cost; Gazprom remains the only owner of the project company. When
completed, the pipeline will have capacity of 55 bcm a year, and con-
struction is expected to run from 2018 through 2019.44
A variety of options exist for diversifying European gas supplies
and extending Russia economically, although it is not clear how much
control the United States has over them. A first step would involve
stopping Nord Stream 2. In 2015, the EU imported 410.6 bcm of natu-
ral gas, of which 121.7 bcm came from Russia.45 Nord Stream 2 at full
capacity would account for 45 percent of 2015 imports from Russia—
14 percent of total imports. Europe would still need to import the gas,
and that gas might still come from Russia, but at minimum it would
41
Elena Mazneva and Anna Shiryaevskaya, “Putin’s Russia Seen Dominating European
Gas for Two Decades,” Bloomberg, March 2, 2017.
42 Shell, LNG Outlook, The Hague: Royal Dutch Shell PLC, 2017.
43
Rochelle Toplensky, “Setback for Brussels Challenge to Nord Stream 2,” Financial Times,
March 16, 2017.
44 RNS, “Nord Stream 2 AG Sign Financing Agreements,” press release, RNS No. 2223D,
April 25, 2017.
45 Eurostat, “Imports—Gas—Annual Data, nrg_124a,” online database, February 17, 2017b.
Economic Measures 63
46 Agnia Grigas, “As Russia’s Gas Market Gets Weaker, Europe Gets Stronger,”
Euractive.com, January 11, 2017.
47 “Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline Project,” Energy, Oil & Gas, No. 145, June 13, 2017.
48
Simone Tagliapietra, “Is the EastMed Gas Pipeline Just Another EU Pipe Dream?” Bruegel,
May 10, 2017.
49 Kocak, De Micco, and Felici, 2016.
50 Mason Inman, “Can Fracking Power Europe?” Nature, March 1, 2016.
64 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
51 Brigitte Osterath, “What Ever Happened with Europe’s Fracking Boom?” DW, July 20,
2015; Arthur Neslen, “The Rise and Fall of Fracking in Europe,” The Guardian, Septem-
ber 29, 2016.
52 International Energy Agency, 2016.
53
King & Spalding, LNG in Europe 2016/2017: An Overview of LNG Import Terminals in
Europe, Georgia, 2016.
54
Gas Infrastructure Europe, “LNG—The Fuel for the Energy Transition,” press release,
December 12, 2017.
55 International Energy Agency, 2016.
56
Heather Nauert, “First LNG Delivery to Poland,” press statement, Washington, D.C.:
U.S. Department of State, June 8, 2017.
57 International Energy Agency, 2016.
Economic Measures 65
58 At the end of October 2016, the world had an LNG export capacity of 445 bcm (Interna-
tional Energy Agency, 2016).
59 International Energy Agency, 2016.
66 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Potential Benefits
In terms of extending Russia economically, the main benefit of creat-
ing supply alternatives to Russian gas is that it would lower Russian
export revenues. The federal Russian budget is already stressed, leading
to planned cuts in defense spending, and lowering gas revenues would
stress the budget further. An additional benefit would be that Russian
threats to cut off gas for geopolitical reasons, or even actual cutoffs,
would affect far fewer people in the EU and in countries that are or
strive to be EU partners, such as Ukraine. Not only would energy secu-
rity be increased for Europe, individual European residents and their
businesses would face a reduced threat level.
Risks
There are three important risks to changing the gas supply relation-
ship. First, it could lower the reliability of gas supplies to Europe. The
ongoing dispute over whether to construct Nord Stream 2 illustrates
this. Some in the West argue that Russia should be forced to con-
tinue to ship gas through Ukraine, a victim of Russian aggression, so
that Ukraine could earn up to $2 billion per year in transit fees. But
others argue that Ukrainian siphoning and periodic gas price disputes
with Russia have made this route less than reliable for both Russia and
its European customers. Moreover, U.S. policy has long favored more
sources of supply and export routes, to make the global energy market
more competitive and resilient.
Second, alternative gas supplies are likely to be more expensive
in terms of both infrastructure costs and gas prices. If governments
subsidize the infrastructure, they will have to reduce expenditures for
other purposes or raise taxes, both of which might create a drag on the
economy. Higher gas prices will reduce the ability of Europeans to pur-
chase other goods and services, also creating a drag on the economy.
Third, one of the downsides of working to limit Russian export of
energy or other material is that the dependence of Russia on Western
markets is, within limits, an element of deterrence—this access would
likely be cut in the event of an escalation of tensions or conflict. Cut-
ting Russian access to Western markets in peacetime reduces the scale
of the further cuts that would result from conflict and thus the deter-
rent effect of such a threat. This would argue for restraining the growth
of Western purchases from Russia, rather than reducing them.
Western credits to Eastern Bloc countries in the 1980s present an
analogous situation. The deteriorating economic conditions of those
countries and the benefits they gained through Western loans were
68 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Likelihood of Success
Reducing European peacetime consumption of Russian gas has a
medium to low likelihood of success. Diversifying away from Russia is
expensive, and projects might be difficult to accomplish. The EastMed
pipeline will not succeed if it is not cost-competitive with Russian gas,
unless subsidized. Furthermore, the suppliers might fail to execute the
project, or they might find it more profitable to supply Egypt’s growing
consumption instead.63 LNG must still compete with cheaper pipeline
gas, so dramatically expanding LNG imports into Europe might also
require subsidies.
Furthermore, Germany appears determined to complete Nord
Stream 2. Although European Commission officials have challenged
the pipeline, the German regulatory agency responsible for that coun-
try’s infrastructure networks argued that the pipeline was not subject
to the EU’s energy laws.64 However, when the U.S. Senate approved
tougher sanctions on Russia in June 2017, including on Nord Stream 2,
the German foreign minister and the Austrian chancellor argued that
“Europe’s energy supply is a matter for Europe, not the United States of
America.”65 Accordingly, it is difficult to see a way to stop or even limit
Nord Stream 2, which might increase European imports from Russia
and harm Ukraine and Central European members of the EU as well.
62 Keith Crane, The Creditworthiness of Eastern Europe in the 1980s, Santa Monica, Calif.:
RAND Corporation, R-3201-USDP, 1984; Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Directorate
of Intelligence, The Soviet Bloc Financial Problem as a Source of Western Influence, National
Intelligence Council Memorandum 82-10004, 1982, approved for release through the His-
torical Review Program of the Central Intelligence Agency, February 25, 1994.
63 Kocak, De Micco, and Felici, 2016.
64 Toplensky, 2017.
65 Henry Foy and Demetri Sevastopulo, “Berlin Hits Back at U.S. Move to Tighten Sanc-
tions on Russia,” Financial Times, June 15, 2017.
Economic Measures 69
Conclusion
Reducing Russian market power over gas consumption in Europe
would certainly extend Russia economically. It would reduce Russian
pricing power and could create a situation in which European threats
to purchase gas elsewhere could become the new version of Russian
threats—and actions—to cut off gas to European consumers. The
most important flaw in this area is that creating new, non-Russian gas
supplies for Europe would be more expensive than continuing to pur-
chase Russian pipeline gas. In the early 1980s, President Reagan had
to retreat when he sought to constrain energy technology exports in an
effort to encourage Europe not to become too dependent on Russian
gas; any similar effort today might meet the same fate. Therefore, this
policy could require both planning to make sure it is as efficient as pos-
sible and cost-sharing to make sure that all countries that would benefit
would also have an incentive to participate.
of Certain Persons and Prohibiting Certain Transactions with Respect to the Crimea Region
of Ukraine,” Washington, D.C., Executive Order 13685, December 19, 2014d.
68 U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control, Ukraine/Russia-
Related Sanctions Program, Washington, D.C., June 16, 2016.
Economic Measures 71
69 European External Action Service, “EU Restrictive Measures in Response to the Crisis
in Ukraine,” press release, European Union, Brussels, March 16, 2017; European Union,
“Concerning Restrictive Measures in View of Russia’s Actions Destabilising the Situation in
Ukraine,” Council Regulation (EU) No. 833/2014, July 31, 2014.
70
Neil Buckley, “Moscow Accuses EBRD of Becoming ‘Tool’ of the West,” Financial Times,
May 10, 2017.
71 European External Action Service, 2017.
72 Andrey Gnidchenko, Anastasia Mogilat, Olga Mikheeva, and Vladimir Salnikov, “For-
eign Technology Transfer: An Assessment of Russia’s Economic Dependence on High-Tech
Imports,” Foresight and STI Governance, Vol. 10, No. 1, April 3, 2016.
73 Crane et al., 2016.
74 Andres Mäe, Impact of Sanctions on the Russian Oil Sector, Estonian Foreign Policy Insti-
tute, Policy Paper No. 29, March 2016.
72 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
75 Sanctions estimates in this paragraph are as reported in Rebecca M. Nelson, U.S. Sanc-
tions and Russia’s Economy, Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, CRS Report
R43895, February 17, 2017.
76 Crane et al., 2016.
77 Nelson, 2017.
78
Max Seddon, Thomas Hale, and Elaine Moore, “Russia Launches First Bond Since
Ukraine Crisis,” Financial Times, May 25, 2016.
79 Max Seddon, “Russia Issues 10yr and 30yr Dollar-Denominated Debt,” Financial Times,
June 20, 2017.
Economic Measures 73
80 Mäe, 2016.
81 Nelson, 2017. Some European companies have been affected as well, although we do not
have dollar figures for their costs. These include Shell, which suspended a shale oil project
with Gazprom Neft; Total, which suspended a shale oil project with Lukoil; and Statoil,
which had an Arctic project stalled (Mäe, 2016; Ed Crooks and Henry Foy, “US Oil Groups
Feel Russia Sanctions Freeze More Than Europeans,” Financial Times, June 19, 2017).
82
Bradley Olson and Jay Solomon, “Despite Sanctions, Russia’s Oil Industry Powers On,”
Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2017.
83 Crooks and Foy, 2017.
74 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
In fact, the biggest flaw with any sanctions regime is the inclu-
siveness of the countries sanctioning Russia. For example, the Rus-
sian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), a $10 billion fund established
in 2011, continued to actively form a variety of partnerships with
Middle Eastern and Asian countries after the sanctions started in
2014.84 Those countries are simply not participating in the sanctions.
In fact, as of spring 2017, RDIF noted that it had attracted $30 bil-
lion in foreign capital since its founding. This total includes at least
$16.5 billion, and possibly more, from Middle Eastern countries,
including Bahrain, Israel, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and
the United Arab Emirates (UAE).85 All of these except the Israeli
investment were from public-sector entities, and most are close U.S.
partners in the region.
Major investments have also been received from China, India,
Japan, and Vietnam.86 A partnership with the state-owned China
Investment Corporation was the earliest announced international
84 RDIF, “About Us: Overview,” webpage, undated. The authors thank RAND policy ana-
lyst Becca Wasser for first bringing the activities of the RDIF to their attention.
85 All of the following investments were announced after sanctions were instituted: RDIF,
“RDIF and Mumtalakat to Strengthen Economic and Investment Cooperation Between
Bahrain and Russia, Mumtalakat CEO to Join International Advisory Board of RDIF,” press
release, April 29, 2014; RDIF, “RDIF and Israelis Co-Invest in Joint Agricultural Projects,”
press release, March 9, 2017b; RDIF, “Kuwait’s Sovereign Wealth Fund Doubles Its Invest-
ment with RDIF to $1 Billion,” press release, November 10, 2015b; RDIF, “RDIF Attracts
Major Investment from the Middle East into the Russian Economy: Saudi Arabia’s Sover-
eign Wealth Fund to Commit USD 10 BN,” press release, July 7, 2015a; RDIF, “RDIF and
Türkiye Wealth Fund Create Russia-Turkey Investment Fund,” press release, March 3,
2017a; RDIF, “Russian Direct Investment Fund and Mubadala Establish Co-Investment
Fund,” press release, June 20, 2013a; RDIF, “DP World and the Russian Direct Investment
Fund Form a New Joint Venture,” press release, January 21, 2016a; “Qatar Fund Commits
$2 Billion Investment to Russia: RDIF CEO,” Reuters, May 23, 2014.
86 All of the following investments were announced after sanctions were instituted: RDIF,
“RCIF and Tus-Holdings to Create Russia-China Venture Fund,” press release, November 7,
2016d; RDIF, “NIIF and RDIF to Establish a $1BN Russian Indian Investment Fund,”
press release, October 15, 2016c; RDIF, “RDIF and JBIC Agree Key Terms and Condi-
tions for Russia-Japan Investment Fund,” press release, April 27, 2017c; RDIF, “Russian
Direct Investment Fund and Vietnamese State Capital Investment Corporation to Create a
$500 Million Russian-Vietnamese Investment Platform,” press release, May 16, 2016b.
Economic Measures 75
87 RDIF, “Russian Direct Investment Fund and China Investment Corporation Announce
the Russia-China Investment Fund,” press release, October 11, 2011.
88 RDIF, 2015a.
89 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Vision 2030, Riyadh, 2016; Simeon Kerr, “Sleepy Saudi Sov-
ereign Wealth Fund Wakes and Shakes Global Finance,” Financial Times, January 28, 2017.
90 RDIF, “Abu-Dhabi’s Department of Finance Contributes up to $5 Billion to Create Part-
nership with RDIF for Investing in Russian Infrastructure Projects,” press release, Septem-
ber 12, 2013b.
91 RDIF, 2016a.
92 RDIF, 2017b.
93 RDIF, 2016d.
76 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
9.9 percent for the Silk Road Fund.98 In addition, Russia has turned to
China for equipment. However, this is not an ideal solution—although
cheaper than Western equipment, it is lower quality and tends to break
down more.99
Nonetheless, instituting new sanctions is certainly an option
for extending Russia economically. In August 2017, President Trump
signed a new Russia sanctions bill that cleared in Congress with over-
whelming support.100 While Trump included “caveats” signaling that
he might try to alter implementation, the bill turned existing sanctions
implemented by executive order into law, which makes them more dif-
ficult (though not impossible) to halt. Furthermore, the bill extended
sanctions to the railway, shipping, and metals and mining sectors;
tightened limits on financing; instituted new sanctions on large invest-
ments in Russian privatization; and instituted new sanctions on the
investment in or sale, lease, or provision of goods, services, technology,
information, or support for the construction of Russian energy export
pipelines. This last measure specifically targeted any country in the
world, including European countries, involved with the construction
of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, described earlier. Aside from broaden-
ing and deepening sanctions applied to the actions of U.S. entities,
the new measures would be extraterritorial and could even cause the
United States to oppose loans to Russia from such international finan-
cial institutions as the IMF and World Bank.101
The 2017 legislation provided one set of options for enhancing
sanctions. If the United States wished to extend Russia economically
via sanctions, there are a number of other steps it could take. One
98
Novatek, “Novatek and China’s Silk Road Fund Conclude Selling 9.9 Percent Stake in
Yamal LNG,” press release, March 15, 2016.
99 Olson and Solomon, 2017.
100 U.S. Senate, S. 722, Countering Iran’s Destabilizing Activities Act of 2017, Title II, Sanc-
tions with Respect to the Russian Federation and Combating Terrorism and Illicit Financ-
ing, Washington, D.C., 115th Congress (2017–2018), June 15, 2017; Peter Baker and Sophia
Kishkovsky, “Trump Signs Russian Sanctions into Law, with Caveats,” New York Times,
August 2, 2017.
101 S. 722, 2017.
78 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
106 Technically, this is the international direct investment position of Russia in the United
States on a historical-cost basis (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, “Foreign Direct Invest-
ment in the U.S., Foreign Direct Investment Position in the United States on a Historical-
Cost Basis,” Balance of Payments and Direct Investment Position Data, online database,
undated-a).
107 Central Bank of the Russian Federation, “External Sector Statistics,” online database,
undated-a.
108 Patrick Gillespie, “Russia Is Buying Up U.S. Debt,” CNN Money, May 18, 2017.
80 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
109
Stephen Heifetz and Evan Sherwood, “Those Other Economic Sanctions: Section 311
Special Measures,” Banking Law Journal, September 2014.
110 George F. Thomas, “Offshore U.S. Dollar Clearing Systems: A Risk Businesses Can No
Longer Afford,” GT News, October 13, 2009.
111 Federal Reserve Bank of New York, “CHIPS,” webpage, April 2002.
Economic Measures 81
Potential Benefits
Decades of empirical analysis provide evidence that sanctions can have
serious consequences on a target country. Especially when smaller
countries are the targets, trade sanctions can decrease trade anywhere
from very little to up to about 90 percent.113 For example, during the
sanctions period against apartheid South Africa from 1986 to 1991,
South African exports to the United States and the EU fell by 33.4 per-
cent and 27.2 percent, respectively.114 Financial sanctions tend to have
more serious effects. One analysis of U.S. sanctions on Iran through
about 2000 found that the annualized total effect of financial and
investment sanctions was $637 million for 2000 and 2001, compared
with $140 million in losses per year due to trade sanctions.115 Besides
declines in GDP, financial sanctions can cause higher inflation, higher
borrowing costs, and capital flight.
Almost all analyses show that multilateral sanctions are more
effective than unilateral sanctions.116 This is even the case with lim-
ited sanctions, rather than comprehensive sanctions. For example, one
112 Bankfor International Settlements, “Payment, Clearing and Settlement Systems in the
United States,” in CPSS—Red Book, Basel, Switzerland: Committee on Payment and Set-
tlement Systems, 2012.
113
A good overall review of sanctions can be found in Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Jeffrey J.
Schott, Kimberly Ann Elliott, and Barbara Oegg, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, 3rd ed.,
Washington, D.C.: Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2007.
114 Simon J. Evenett, “The Impact of Economic Sanctions on South African Exports,” Scot-
tish Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 49, No. 5, 2002.
115
Akbar E. Torbat, “Impacts of the U.S. Trade and Financial Sanctions on Iran,” World
Economy, Vol. 28, No. 3, 2005.
116 Jiawen Yang, Hossein Askari, John Forrer, and Hildy Teegen, “U.S. Economic Sanctions:
An Empirical Study,” International Trade Journal, Vol. 18, No. 1, Spring 2004.
82 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
analysis of G-7 trade found that limited, unilateral U.S. sanctions did
not demonstrate a recognizable effect on U.S. trade with the target.
However, limited multilateral sanctions decrease both U.S. and G-7
trade with the targeted country by 56 percent.117
This means that if the United States were to further broaden and
deepen sanctions, it could gain the most benefit by coordinating those
sanctions with other countries. U.S. financial sanctions would cer-
tainly hurt the Russian financial and business sectors, not to mention
wealthy, well-connected Russians doing business internationally. How-
ever, such sanctions carried out in coordination with the EU (and the
United Kingdom after it exits the EU), Switzerland, Singapore, Dubai,
and other major financial centers would shut down Russia’s transac-
tions with most of the world. Getting China and Hong Kong on board
would be even better, but that currently appears unlikely.
Risks
There are three notable risks regarding broadening sanctions. First,
U.S. businesses would be hurt. While the Russian direct investment
position in the United States is $4.6 billion, the U.S. direct invest-
ment position in Russia is $9.2 billion.118 U.S. business activity with
Russia would be hampered, potentially but modestly affecting U.S.
jobs and profits, as well as any future investments that could be made
with those profits.
A second, related risk would be that the sanctions could be inef-
fective if other countries do not join. The United States would have
used one tool in its kit for international influence, potentially limit-
ing future use of that tool for influencing Russia. More importantly,
companies of foreign countries will have gained advantage over
U.S. companies, so that Russia might be only lightly harmed or not
harmed at all.
117 Raul Caruso, The Impact of International Economic Sanctions on Trade—An Empirical
Analysis, Milan: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano (Catholic University of the
Sacred Heart of Milan), 2003.
118 U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, “U.S. Direct Investment Position Abroad, U.S.
Direct Investment Position on a Historical-Cost Basis,” Balance of Payments and Direct
Investment Position Data, online database, undated-b.
Economic Measures 83
Likelihood of Success
Significantly deeper economic sanctions would likely extend Russia
economically, but that success would be limited unless other countries
joined in. If other major economies joined a new sanctions regime, the
Russian economy could be damaged over the short run and the long
run. Over the short run, inability to access foreign currencies would
limit trade and investment and would probably drive the economy back
into recession. Over the longer run, lack of investment and technology
transfer would limit Russia’s ability to grow economically and diversify
its economy, pushing it to rely more on exports of conventional (and
depleting) supplies of oil and gas. Already, slow economic growth has
caused Russia to write in defense budget cuts for 2017 to 2019. These
would likely be compounded with deeper multilateral sanctions. How-
ever, in the absence of expanded Russian aggression abroad, the United
States would have difficulty persuading other countries to take extra
measures against Russia, such as shutting down financial transactions.
Conclusion
Sanctions have had a negative, although limited, effect on the Rus-
sian economy. Natural gas production appears to have been unaffected,
and oil production has actually risen. Natural gas production was at
66.1 bcm in January 2014, 60.9 in January 2015, and 62.3 in Janu-
ary 2016. Likewise, crude oil production actually hit a peak in 2016,
84 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
119 Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, “Production of Natural Gas and Crude
Oil,” Statistics, online database, Moscow, undated. As of this writing, the Ministry of Energy
does not have the 2017 or 2018 data on natural gas posted.
120 U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2016.
121 Gnidchenko et al., 2016.
Economic Measures 85
42.1 years (Figure 3.5). The median age is expected to rise steadily
to 45.9 in 2035, and then to peak at 46.6 in 2039 (42.3 for men and
50.0 for women).122 The proportion of prime working-age adults (those
ages 25 to 54) in the population was 45.5 percent in 2015 and expected
to fall below 40 percent in 2033. In contrast, the median age in the
United States in 2015 was 37.8 and was expected to hit 41.0 in 2035.
The proportion of prime working-age adults in the U.S. population was
actually lower in 2015, 39.8 percent, and expected to decline slightly,
but this is in large part the result of a higher proportion of people
younger than 25 (32.6 percent in the United States in 2015, compared
with 26.8 percent in Russia).
Declines in the working-age population are usually associated
with slowdowns in economic growth, but this also depends on the level
Figure 3.5
Russia’s Population Pyramid, 2015
55–59
50–54
45–49
40–44
35–39
30–34
25–29
20–24
15–19
10–14
5–9
0–4
8 6 4 2 0 2 4 6 8
Millions
SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau, 2016.
123 Rosstat, “Attachment to the Yearbook: Socio-Economic Indicators of the Russian Federa-
tion: 1991–2016,” Russian Statistical Yearbook 2017, undated.
124 Rosstat, undated.
125 UnitedNations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, Institute of Statistics,
“Global Flow of Tertiary-Level Students,” webpage, undated.
Economic Measures 87
exited between 2002 and 2011.126 However, that is only a small portion
of the working-age population and even of university graduates. In the
2011–2012 academic year, almost 6.5 million students were registered
at higher education institutions.127
Still, raw numbers might not be the correct metric. One ana-
lyst suggested that those leaving include small- and medium-business
owners, entrepreneurs, and scientists—all groups that are needed to
spur Russian growth.128 Without hard numbers, it is difficult to estab-
lish that outflows of people in those professions will cause a serious
problem for the Russian economy. In fact, one analyst considered a
leading expert on the issue of human capital has written that even
though the net talent flow is negative for Russia, emigration is not large
enough to damage the economy.129
Regardless, Russia, does face a different human capital problem:
its deteriorating education system. The World Economic Forum, in
its Human Capital Report 2016, ranked Russia as 28th overall in its
human capital index. By age group, the ranking was the same for those
of prime working age, 25 to 54, and even higher—14th—for those
ages 15 to 24. However, for members of the population ages 0 to 14,
the ranking was only 53rd, below Sri Lanka, Kazakhstan, Albania, and
even Tajikistan (which ranked 52nd).130
If the United States wished to extend Russia in the realm of human
capital, it could take a number of steps. One measure would be to insti-
tute immigration programs to attract Russian entrepreneurs, scientists,
and university graduates. Such programs could include easing entry
126
Denis Abramov, “Russia’s Brain Drain Worse Than Previously Believed—Report,”
Moscow Times, October 6, 2016.
127 Tempus Programme, Higher Education in the Russian Federation, Brussels: Education,
Audiovisual and Cultural Executive Agency, European Commission, July 2012.
128 Andrew S. Bowen, “Russia’s Next Crisis: A Brain Drain?” The National Interest, July 28,
2014.
129 LeonidBershidsky, “Russia Is Not Dying from a Brain Drain,” Bloomberg View, July 6,
2016. Bershidsky is the founding editor of Vedomosti, a Russian business daily, and the Rus-
sian opinion website, Slon.ru. He left Russia with his family for Germany in 2014.
130
World Economic Forum, The Human Capital Report 2016, Cologny/Geneva: Insight
Report, 2016.
88 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Potential Benefits
Immigrants in general have been shown to contribute to innovation
and technological change in the United States.131 Other countries
have benefited by immigration of Russian scientists, engineers, and
students: The most powerful illustration of that is the track record of
Israel, which attracted more than 810,000 people with Russian Jewish
roots in the 1990s. These immigrants were an important part of Israel’s
high-technology revolution from the 1990s through today.132 However,
the number of people from the former Soviet Union who emigrated to
Israel was much larger than the United States is likely to attract, and
those large flows likely constituted a one-time event following the fall
of the Soviet Union. For the United States, attracting talented Russians
is likely to have a modest positive effect, especially in the informa-
131
Annalee Saxenian, Silicon Valley’s New Immigrant Entrepreneurs, San Francisco, Calif.:
Public Policy Institute of California, 1999.
132 Vladimir (Ze’ev) Khanin, chief scientist, Israeli Ministry of Immigrant Absorption,
“Aliyah from the Former Soviet Union: Contribution to the National Security Balance,”
position paper, presented on behalf of the Israeli Ministry of Immigrant Absorptions [sic]
to the 10th Annual Herzliya Conference, Jerusalem, February 2010. Admittedly, because
Israel’s policy was to accept all Jewish immigrants, it took in a wider cross-section of immi-
grants than just those in the technology sector.
Economic Measures 89
Risks
There are few risks to attracting skilled people to the United States. One
possible risk is that some of the scientists or engineers could be Russian
agents seeking to gain access to restricted U.S. technology or informa-
tion. A second is that bringing in more skilled workers could widen
income inequality in the United States. If a skilled worker increases
the productivity of a less-skilled worker, that should result in higher
incomes for both, but an income decline would occur for a less-skilled
worker simply displaced by a skilled worker operating alone or paired
with technology. Finally, a larger number of skilled people could cause
more competition in that segment of the labor market, putting down-
ward pressure on wages among those with higher skill levels. However,
similar to the benefits of this measure, the number of potential Rus-
sian immigrants would likely be too small to have a noticeable effect on
wages, labor market performance, or income inequality.
Likelihood of Success
The United States certainly has an ability to attract residents from
Russia. From 2013 through 2015, slightly more than 28,600 people
from Russia gained lawful permanent U.S. resident status. However,
this was only 0.9 percent of all such people gaining that status.133 The
United States could attract more, but the amount is unknown. A con-
certed program by the United States, the EU, and other allied nations
could attract many more than the United States alone, but the numbers
involved would be unlikely to have a noticeable effect on the Russian
economy in the short term. Moreover, Russia could block emigration,
although doing so might risk increasing domestic discontent within
Russia. Even in the long term, any effect on the Russian economy is
likely to be small.
133 U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics, 2015 Yearbook
of Immigration Statistics, Washington, D.C., December 2016.
90 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Conclusion
Encouraging entrepreneurial and highly skilled Russians to exit Russia
and settle in the United States is likely to positively affect the United
States, although any effect would be difficult to find in the data. Russia
would likely experience similarly small negative effects, and those
would manifest over the long term. Certainly, if such an effort were
made on a large scale—such as by encouraging millions of univer-
sity graduates to emigrate—the Russian economy could be harmed.
The recipient countries would also likely be helped, and those benefits
could manifest over the medium term or even short term. But that
would also be extraordinarily costly for the recipient countries, both
in terms of any incentives they provided and any transition costs the
economy experienced while it absorbed the new labor-market entrants.
So, immediate net benefits would be low and could even be negative.
The United States, through its open markets, its ability to assimilate
immigrants, its large and dynamic economy, and its (usually) welcom-
ing attitude toward immigrants already encourages brain drain from
around the world. That policy could be enhanced toward Russia but is
unlikely to have large effects.
Recommendations
This chapter has presented policy measures in four domains that could
economically extend Russia (Table 3.1). There are certainly other
actions beyond those four domains that the United States and its allies
could take. For example, there is credible research that the Russian
state colludes with criminal networks not only to carry out some Rus-
sian policies but also to gather pools of capital that can be used for
policy implementation.134 A much more aggressive—and perhaps more
politically attractive—multinational effort against such networks with
an emphasis on sanctioning and prosecuting Russian officials who
work with and benefit from them could remove some revenue from
134 Mark
Galeotti, Crimintern: How the Kremlin Uses Russia’s Criminal Networks in Europe,
London: European Council on Foreign Relations, April 2017b.
Economic Measures 91
Table 3.1
Findings for Economic Measures
Likelihood
Measure Benefits Costs and Risks of Success
135 Marco Siddi, “Germany: The EU’s New Foreign Policy Engine,” EUROPP: European Pol-
itics and Policy, blog post, The London School of Economics and Political Science, April 25,
2016.
Economic Measures 93
Geopolitical Measures
95
96 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
This chapter describes six possible U.S. moves in the current geo-
political competition: providing lethal arms to Ukraine, resuming sup-
port to the Syrian rebels, promoting regime change in Belarus, exploit-
ing Armenian and Azeri tensions, intensifying attention to Central
Asia, and isolating Transnistria (a Russian-occupied enclave within
Moldova). There are several other possible geopolitical moves discussed
in other RAND research but not directly evaluated here—including
intensifying NATO’s relationship with Sweden and Finland, pressur-
ing Russia’s claims in the Arctic, and checking Russia’s attempts to
expand its influence in Asia.3
Intensifying the challenge to Russian military presence and opera-
tions abroad could have several consequences. It might cause Russia to
withdraw from some of these commitments, which could be an impor-
tant win for the United States but would do the opposite of extend-
ing Russia—causing it, rather, to contract, perhaps to a more defensible
perimeter. Crimea, Eastern Ukraine, and Syria are drains on the Russian
treasury and defense budget. Alternatively, and more likely, Russia might
escalate, possibly seizing more of Ukraine, supporting further advances
of the Damascus regime, or actually occupying a wavering Belarus. Such
moves would likely impose serious additional strains on Russian defense
and economic capacity, but would also represent a serious setback for
U.S. policy. Given this range of possible responses, any U.S. moves of the
sort described in this chapter would need to be carefully calibrated and
pursued within some larger policy framework.
3 See Stephanie Pezard, Abbie Tingstad, Kristin Van Abel, and Scott Stephenson, Main-
taining Arctic Cooperation with Russia: Planning for Regional Change in the Far North, Santa
Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR-1731-RC, 2017; Christopher S. Chivvis, Raphael S.
Cohen, Bryan Frederick, Daniel S. Hamilton, F. Stephen Larrabee, and Bonny Lin, NATO’s
Northeastern Flank: Emerging Opportunities for Engagement, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Cor-
poration, RR-1467-AF, 2017.
Geopolitical Measures 97
association agreement with the EU.4 More than 100 protesters were
killed over the next several months, and the Yanukovych regime col-
lapsed in February 2014.5 Within days, Russian troops seized Crimea’s
airport and other strategic locations in a largely bloodless invasion, and
96 percent of Crimean voters—many of whom are ethnic Russian—
voted in a referendum marred by accusations of fraud to secede from
Ukraine and join Russia on March 16, 2014.6 In the Donbass region
of Eastern Ukraine, a Russian-inspired intervention started similarly
but did not go as smoothly. Armed separatists seized key buildings in
the region in April 2014 and later held referendums, where the pop-
ulations of Donetsk and Luhansk voted overwhelmingly (89 percent
and 96 percent of those voting, respectively) for independence.7 This
time, however, Ukraine fought back. Newly elected Ukrainian Presi-
dent Petro Poroshenko ordered an “anti-terrorist operation” targeting
the separatists that summer.8 By early 2017, some 60,000 Ukrainian
soldiers were facing off against some 40,000 Russian-backed separatist
forces—including an estimated 5,000 Russian soldiers—in a conflict
that has so far cost some 10,000 people their lives.9
The United States and its European allies imposed economic
sanctions on Russia and provided Ukraine with economic and non-
lethal military assistance. In 2014, Congress authorized military
and economic assistance under the Ukraine Freedom Support Act.10
4 Vincent L. Morelli, Ukraine: Current Issues and U.S. Policy, Washington, D.C.: Congres-
sional Research Service, RL33460, January 3, 2017, p. 2.
5 Morelli, 2017, p. 2.
6 Morrelli, 2017, p. 3.
7 Morelli, 2017, pp. 21–22.
8 Morrelli, 2017, p. 22.
9 “Put Asunder: Ukraine’s Leaders May Be Giving Up on Reuniting the Country,” Econo-
mist, February 11, 2017. For a detailed analysis of Russia’s operations in both Crimea and the
Donbass, see Michael Kofman, Katya Migacheva, Brian Nichiporuk, Andrew Radin, Olesya
Tkacheva, and Jenny Oberholtzer, Lessons from Russia’s Operations in Crimea and Eastern
Ukraine, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR-1498-A, 2017.
10 Public Law 113-272, Ukraine Freedom Support Act, December 18, 2014; Morelli, 2017,
pp. i–ii.
98 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
From then through fiscal year (FY) 2016, the United States provided
$600 million in security assistance.11 These funds have been used to
train Ukrainian military forces and provided nonlethal military equip-
ment, including counterartillery and countermortar radars, secure
communications, logistics systems, tactical unmanned reconnaissance
aircraft, and medical equipment.12 During the 2014 Wales Summit,
NATO also agreed to aid Ukraine with command, control, communi-
cations and computers, logistics, cyberdefense, military personnel, and
medical support issues.13
The United States could increase its military assistance to
Ukraine—in terms of both the quantity and quality of weapons. In
a February 2, 2017, open letter to President Trump, Senator John
McCain urged him “to provide defensive lethal assistance to Ukraine to
defend its territory against further violations by Russia and its separat-
ist proxies” in response to the uptick in violence in Eastern Ukraine.14
McCain’s statement echoed a February 2015 letter from Democratic
Assistant Minority Leader Senator Dick Durbin and Ohio Republi-
can Senator Rob Portman also calling for the United States to provide
anti-tank missiles to Ukraine.15 In December 2017, the United States
approved the sale of “defensive” lethal weapons to Ukraine, although it
did not specify what weapons fell into the category.16
The United States could also become more vocal in its support for
NATO membership for Ukraine. Some U.S. policymakers—including
Republican Senator and 2016 presidential candidate Marco Rubio—
Benefits
Expanding U.S. assistance to Ukraine, including lethal military
assistance, would likely increase the costs to Russia, in both blood
and treasure, of holding the Donbass region. More Russian aid to the
separatists and an additional Russian troop presence would likely be
required, leading to larger expenditures, equipment losses, and Rus-
sian casualties. The latter could become quite controversial at home,
as it did when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.
Two other somewhat more speculative benefits might flow from
such an expanded U.S. commitment. Countries elsewhere that look to
the United States for their security might be heartened. Some of those
states might find new reasons to avoid developing their own nuclear
weapons.
In the December 1994 Budapest Memorandum, the United
States, the United Kingdom, and Russia provided the newly sovereign
Ukraine with security “assurances” in exchange for Ukraine giving up
its 4,000-warhead nuclear arsenal.18 Action by the United States to
make good on these assurances could enhance the credibility of formal
and informal security guarantees that the United States has provided
other partners around the world, and could reduce their perceived
need for their own nuclear deterrents. These benefits, however, would
only accrue if the additional U.S. assistance actually allowed Ukraine
to prevail in its conflict with Russia. Moreover, some scholars doubt
17 Marco Rubio, “My Vision for Europe,” Politico, February 17, 2015; “Ukraine’s Poroshenko
Plans Referendum on NATO Membership: German Media,” Reuters, February 1, 2017.
18 Russian Federation, United States of America, and United Kingdom, “Budapest Memo-
randums on Security Assurances,” Budapest, 1994; David S. Yost, “The Budapest Memo-
randum and Russia’s Intervention in Ukraine,” International Affairs, Vol. 91, No. 3, 2015,
p. 514.
100 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Risks
An increase in U.S. security assistance to Ukraine would likely lead
to a commensurate increase in both Russian aid to the separatists
and Russian military forces in Ukraine, thus sustaining the con-
flict at a somewhat higher level of intensity.20 Lieutenant General
Ben Hodges, the former commanding general of U.S. Army Europe,
argued against giving Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine for pre-
cisely this reason.21
Alternatively, Russia might counter-escalate, committing more
troops and pushing them deeper into Ukraine. Russia might even pre-
empt U.S. action, escalating before any additional U.S. aid arrives. Such
escalation might extend Russia; Eastern Ukraine is already a drain.
Taking more of Ukraine might only increase the burden, albeit at the
expense of the Ukrainian people. However, such a move might also
come at a significant cost to Ukraine and to U.S. prestige and credibil-
ity. This could produce disproportionately large Ukrainian casualties,
territorial losses, and refugee flows. It might even lead Ukraine into a
disadvantageous peace.
Some analysts maintain that Russia lacks the resources to esca-
late the conflict. Ivan Medynskyi of the Kyiv-based Institute for World
Policy argued, “War is expensive. Falling oil prices, economic decline,
sanctions, and a campaign in Syria (all of which are likely to continue
in 2016) leave little room for another large-scale military maneuver
by Russia.”22 According to this view, Russia simply cannot afford to
19
For example, see Robert Einhorn, “Ukraine, Security Assurances, and Nonproliferation,”
Washington Quarterly, Spring 2015, pp. 47–72.
20 Yost, 2015, p. 528.
21
Ivan Medynskyi, U.S. Lethal Weapons for Ukraine: Mechanisms and Consequences, Kyiv,
Ukraine: Institute for World Policy, January 2016, p. 6.
22 Medynskyi, 2016, pp. 7–8.
Geopolitical Measures 101
maintain a proxy war in Ukraine, although, given Russia’s size and the
importance it places on Ukraine, this might be an overly optimistic
assumption.
There is also some risk of weapons supplied to the Ukrainians
winding up in the wrong hands. A RAND study conducted for the
President of Ukraine found reasons for concern about the potential
misuse of Western military aid. While Ukraine has been tarred by
Russian propaganda claims that it mishandled Western military aid,
the RAND team also found that “Ukraine’s paper systems for tracking
equipment are outdated and vulnerable to corruption.”23 Moreover, the
RAND team also expressed concern that, absent reforms to Ukraine’s
defense industry, Western military equipment might be reverse-
engineered and enter the international market in competition with
U.S. suppliers.24 Ultimately, the team concluded, “The perception of
misuse or corruption, whatever the reality, is sufficient to deter donors
that might otherwise provide free equipment or supplies, and to make
U.S. or other officials concerned that Ukraine cannot be trusted with
high-tech systems.”25 The RAND team also concluded, however, that
these problems are fixable and offered recommendations to Ukraine on
how to overcome them.
On the other hand, Ukraine is certainly a more capable and reli-
able partner than others to whom the United States has provided lethal
equipment—for instance, the anti-Russian Afghan mujahidin in the
1980s.
One might imagine an unacknowledged U.S. effort to provide
Ukraine with weapons of non-U.S. origin, but such efforts likely would
not remain secret for long; furthermore, Ukraine can probably procure
such weapons itself on the open market.
23
Olga Oliker, Lynn E. Davis, Keith Crane, Andrew Radin, Celeste Gventer, Susanne
Sondergaard, James T. Quinlivan, Stephan B. Seabrook, Jacopo Bellasio, Bryan Frederick,
Andriy Bega, and Jakub Hlavka, Security Sector Reform in Ukraine, Santa Monica, Calif.:
RAND Corporation, RR-1475-1-UIA, 2016, p. 91.
24 Oliker et al., 2016, p. 86.
25 Oliker et al., 2016, p. 91.
102 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
26 KatieSimmons, Bruce Stokes and Jacob Poushter, “NATO Public Opinion: Wary of
Russia, Leery of Action on Ukraine,” Pew Research Center, June 10, 2015.
27
Christoph Schult and Klaus Wiegrefe, “Network Close to NATO Military Leader Fueled
Ukraine Conflict,” Der Spiegel, July 28, 2016.
28 Simmons, Stokes, and Poushter, 2015.
29 Simmons, Stokes, and Poushter, 2015.
Geopolitical Measures 103
Likelihood of Success
Eastern Ukraine is already a significant drain on Russian resources,
exacerbated by the accompanying Western sanctions. Increasing U.S.
military aid would certainly drive up the Russian costs, but doing so
could also increase the loss of Ukrainian lives and territory or result in
a disadvantageous peace settlement. This would generally be seen as a
serious setback for U.S. policy.
Conclusion
The option of expanding U.S. military aid to Ukraine has to be evalu-
ated principally on whether doing so could help end the conflict in the
Donbass on acceptable terms rather than simply on costs it imposes on
Moscow. Boosting U.S. aid as part of a broader diplomatic strategy to
advance a settlement might well make sense, but calibrating the level
of assistance to produce the desired effect while avoiding a damaging
counter-escalation would be challenging.
30 Carla E. Humud, Christopher M. Blanchard, and Mary Beth D. Nikitin, Armed Conflict
in Syria: Overview and U.S. Response, Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service,
RL33487, January 6, 2017, p. 7
31 Humud, Blanchard, and Nikitin, 2017, p. 7.
104 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
forces who don’t differ that much from blood thirsty head choppers.
We therefore view the step as a hostile act.”36 Zakharova argued that
this move directly threatened Russian troops in Syria.37 Given these
sentiments, if the United States were to pursue this policy in the future,
it likely would provoke a Russian response.
The United States might provide the rebels with air support, or at
least deny the Syrian government the use of air power through a no-fly
zone. Several high-profile actors—from former Secretary of State Hill-
ary Clinton to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan—advocated
no-fly zones.38 This might be conducted in conjunction with creating
safe zones—or areas that would protect the civilian population from
ground attack as well—through either the threat of or the explicit use of
force against Syrian government (and presumably also Islamic extrem-
ist) forces.39 For his part, President Trump expressed some openness
to both ideas. On January 27, 2017, Trump said he “will absolutely do
safe zones in Syria,” although he did not specify how he would execute
these strategies.40
More recently, the Trump administration seems to have been
moving in the opposite direction, reportedly ending a CIA program
to arm and train anti-regime elements. The United States is continuing
to arm, train, and provide air support to Kurdish and Arab opponents
of the Islamic State, some of whom might ultimately wish for help in
defending against the Damascus regime as well.
36
Andrew Osborn, “Russia Calls U.S. Move to Better Arm Syrian Rebels a ‘Hostile Act,’”
Reuters, December 27, 2016.
37 Osborn, 2016.
38 Spencer Ackerman, “Why Clinton’s Plans for No-Fly Zones in Syria Could Provoke
US-Russia Conflict,” The Guardian, October 25, 2016; Suzan Fraser and Bassem Mroue,
“Turkey Calls on U.S., Allies to Reconsider Syria No-Fly Zone,” Associated Press via Mili-
tary Times, November 21, 2016.
39
For an example of this proposal, see Nicholas Burns and James Jeffrey, “The Diplomatic
Case for America to Create a Safe Zone in Syria,” Washington Post, February 4, 2016.
40 Stewart, 2017.
106 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Benefits
Increased U.S. support to the moderate Syrian opposition could per-
petuate and intensify a civil war that had begun to wind down, thereby
imposing attritional costs on both Russia and Iran. (Iran already
spent significant resources to prop up Assad—between $6 billion and
$35 billion annually, according to some estimates—and the United
States could help to drive the price tag up further.41) Such support
could also reduce the moderate opposition’s reliance on the better-
armed, more extremist groups and ultimately might improve the will-
ingness and ability of moderate opposition forces to combat the more
extremist elements.
Risks
Unlike Ukraine, the United States does not have a single actor to aid
in the fight in Syria but rather faces a plethora of groups—often with
murky affiliations—increasing the chances of weapons falling into
the wrong hands. The New York Times reported in 2016 that weapons
intended for Syrian rebels and shipped into Jordan and Saudi Arabia by
the CIA had been systematically stolen and that, as a result, the Middle
East black market for arms is now awash in assault rifles, mortars, and
rocket-propelled grenades.42
Second, arming the rebels would fuel greater turmoil in Syria. For
better or worse, the Syrian government has made significant gains in
such places as Aleppo with Russian help.43 Aiding the rebels could pro-
long the conflict but—barring direct U.S. military intervention against
the Damascus regime—probably would not change the ultimate out-
come. Additional refugee flows might put further pressure on Syria’s
immediate neighbors, several of whom— Jordan, Turkey, and Israel—
are U.S. allies.
41 Eli Lake, “Iran Spends Billions to Prop Up Assad,” Bloomberg, June 9, 2015.
42 Mark Mazzetti and Ali Younes, “CIA Arms for Syrian Rebels Supplied Black Market,
Officials Say,” New York Times, June 26, 2016.
43 Angela Dewan, Euan McKirdy, and Joe Sterling, “Russia: Syria Establishes Control over
Eastern Aleppo,” CNN, December 13, 2016.
Geopolitical Measures 107
Likelihood of Success
Apart from the risks outlined above, any policy to boost support to
the Syrian rebels would likely need to overcome multiple hurdles—
starting with a political obstacle. Aiding the Syrian rebels has never
been popular. Back in 2013, Gallup found that only 37 percent of
Americans approved of Obama administration plans to arm the rebels
(54 percent disapproved).46 Since then, the numbers declined further
as the Obama administration’s attempts to stand up a moderate oppo-
sition faltered. Polling from August 2016 showed that a mere 26 per-
cent of Americans supported such a move.47 Reverting back to such a
policy, consequently, would require a significant effort to sell it to the
American public.
The United States would also face an international political hurdle.
Boosting support to anti-regime elements would likely require Turk-
ish cooperation because Turkey is not only geographically adjacent to
Syria but also one of the most powerful actors backing the opposition.
Turkey, however, might back the initiative only if the United States
were to cease its support for the Kurdish rebels that Turkey views as a
threat. The Kurds, however, are staunch U.S. allies in Syria and Iraq,
and one of most militarily competent secular rebel groups remaining.
Finding other rebel groups without ties to Islamic extremist orga-
nizations would also be difficult. Much of the moderate opposition
has already been eliminated and U.S. attempts to build its own Syrian
opposition failed.48 For example, according to media accounts, the
U.S. Department of Defense clashed with the CIA over whether the
Aleppo rebels were affiliated with al Qaeda in Syria or with Jabhat al
Nusra and whether they deserved U.S. military aid.49
Finally, in the highly unlikely event of total success—if Russia
were to abandon the Assad regime and the opposition were to seize
Damascus—the result would be a major geopolitical setback for
46 Frank Newport, “Americans Disapprove of U.S. Decision to Arm Syrian Rebels,” Gallup,
June 17, 2013.
47
Adam Taylor, “Poll: Most Americans Support U.S. Military Action in Syria—but Only
Want a Limited Amount,” Washington Post, August 15, 2016a.
48
Spencer Ackerman, “U.S. Has Trained Only ‘Four or Five’ Syrian Fighters Against ISIS,
Top General Testifies,” The Guardian, September 16, 2015.
49
Nancy Youssef, “CIA and Pentagon Bicker While Russia Wipes Out U.S.-Backed Rebels,”
Daily Beast, June 9, 2016.
Geopolitical Measures 109
Conclusion
This course of action might have been viable a few years ago, when the
armed opposition was stronger and less radicalized. Under current cir-
cumstances, the most that expanded U.S. aid could likely do would be
to perpetuate a conflict that has already destabilized an entire region.
Russia might be forced to pay a bit more for its Syrian commitment but
only at the cost of continued regional turbulence, societal radicaliza-
tion, and increased civilian casualties and displaced personnel.
since 1996, they are virtually ignored by state-affiliated media and the
government have restricted their right to protest.”53 In October 2015,
Lukashenko won reelection with 83.5 percent of the vote in an election
fraught with problems.54
And yet, Lukashenko’s grip on Belarus might be loosening.
Beginning in 2015, oil prices and foreign support dipped and Belarus
faced a worsening recession.55 Political scientists Charles Crabtree,
Christopher J. Fariss, and Paul Schuler argue that this challenged
“Lukashenko’s unspoken political compact with Belarusians that
involves him providing large social welfare programs in exchange
for political acquiescence.”56 Lukashenko responded by blaming the
unemployed and the underemployed for not trying to find work.
He introduced a “law against social parasites,” targeting people who
work fewer than 183 days a year with an annual tax of $250, a siz-
able fine considering that most Belarusians made an average of $380
a month at the start of 2017.57 The tax affected some 470,000 people,
according to the Belarusian Tax Ministry, and failing to pay it could
be punished with up to 15 days in jail.58
The 2016 “social parasite” tax deadline came on February 20,
2017. Some 54,000 individuals paid the tax; many more did not.59
Beginning on February 17, thousands of Belarusians took to the streets
53 Siarhei Bohdan, “‘A 4.1 Is Impossible in Belarus,” The Guardian, March 25, 2015.
54 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Office for Democratic Institu-
tions and Human Rights, Republic of Belarus Presidential Election, October 11, 2015: OSCE/
ODHIR Election Observation Mission Final Report, Warsaw, Poland: January 26, 2016, pp. 3,
23.
55
Charles Crabtree, Christopher J. Fariss, and Paul Schuler, “In Belarus, Europe’s ‘Last
Dictator’ Is Actually Allowing Protest. Here’s Why,” Washington Post, March 24, 2017.
56 Crabtree, Fariss, and Schuler, 2017.
57 Amanda Erickson, “Belarus Had a Large Protest Today. Is It the Beginning of a Move-
ment, or the End?” Washington Post, March 25, 2017; “Belarusian President Suspends Collec-
tion of ‘Parasite’ Tax on Jobless People,” Belarus Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, March 9,
2017.
58 Erickson, 2017; “Belarusian President Suspends Collection of ‘Parasite’ Tax on Jobless
People,” 2017.
59 “Belarusian President Suspends Collection of ‘Parasite’ Tax on Jobless People,” 2017.
Geopolitical Measures 111
to protest the tax.60 The government initially allowed the protest and
even waived the collection of the tax, but the protests continued and
eventually the government cracked down. By March 27, 2017, accord-
ing to human rights groups, at least 1,000 people were arrested and
150 were sentenced to up to 25 days in jail.61 From the opposition’s
standpoint, the protests presented an opportunity “to build on the out-
rage to create a more sustained, far-reaching movement.”62 As Anatol
Lyabedzka, leader of the opposition United Civic Party stated, “It will
never do to be satisfied with a scrap thrown by the authorities. We have
to continue demanding a completely different situation. . . . It is neces-
sary to change a large number of laws, to create different opportunities
for the people, to give them a right to choose.”63
From a U.S. policy standpoint, Belarus’ unrest might present
an opportunity to extend Russia by aiding the opposition, removing
a long-standing Russian-allied dictator, and supporting liberalization.
This aid to Lukashenko’s opposition could come in a variety of forms,
ranging from public declarations of support by U.S. leaders to more-
direct financial and organizational assistance helping the opposition
parties reach the end state of being a free and democratic Belarus. Alter-
natively, the United States could adopt precisely the opposite approach
and try to leverage the recent unrest to build a closer relationship with
Lukashenko’s regime through the offers of economic aid.
Benefits
In a zero-sum world, denying Russia its one and only true ally would
be a clear geopolitical and ideological gain for the West. It would bring
an end to “Europe’s last dictatorship,” a long-standing U.S. policy
goal.64 Moreover, it would undermine Russia’s attempt to create an
Risks
Russia likely regards a friendly Belarus as even more important to its
security than Ukraine.66 Any effort to alter the character or geopoliti-
cal orientation of the government in Minsk would likely encounter a
strong and, if necessary, violent Russian reaction. At the very least,
Russia would likely employ political and economic pressure to keep the
regime in place.67 The most likely domestic response in Belarus to such
a campaign would be greater local repression and efforts to brand any
domestic opposition in Belarus as agents of the West. In the less likely
Likelihood of Success
Starting revolutions is not easy, and the United States lending public
support to opposition movements does not guarantee that they will be
successful. In 2007, Gallup found that 60 percent of Belarusian respon-
dents believed democracy was important and 47 percent believed it was
“somewhat” or “very” important for Belarus to have an active opposi-
tion party.69 A 2013 poll similarly found that 55 percent of Belarusian
respondents had a positive image of the EU, up 15 percent from five
years earlier.70 That said, more-recent polling found that Belarusians
were not clamoring for revolution. An Independent Institute for Socio-
Economic and Political Research survey in 2015 found that 78 percent
of Belarusians believed a better future was “not worth people’s blood”
and 70 percent “did not want a Ukrainian-style revolution.”71 As Belar-
usian expert Balazs Jarabik summed up, “People don’t want more free-
dom. They want more government. They want the better life they used
to have.”72 Although Belarus’ more-recent protests might have shifted
opinions somewhat, the United States would still likely face an uphill
battle at promoting regime change.
Effectively promoting liberalization in Belarus would require
European support. Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine all border
68
Juliusz Sabak, “Major Deployment of Russian Equipment to Belarus Expected in 2017.
Exercise, Aggression or a New Military Base?” Defence24, November 29, 2016.
69
Cynthia English and Neli Esipova, “Democracy Important to a Majority of Belarusians,”
Gallup, April 4, 2008.
70
Vadzim Bylina, “New Poll: Belarusians Became More Pro-European,” Belarus Digest,
November 7, 2013.
71 Bohdan, 2015.
72 Erickson, 2017.
114 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Conclusion
Promoting regime change in Belarus is one of the most escalatory
options considered in this report. Such an effort probably would not
succeed and could provoke a strong Russian response, including the
possibility of military action. Such a reaction might extend Russia by
requiring the nation to commit resources to preserve its grasp over
Belarus, thereby provoking the United States and its European allies
to respond with harsher sanctions, but the result would be a general
deterioration of the security environment in Europe and a setback for
U.S. policy.
Nevertheless, if the United States were to step up its ideologi-
cal and informational competition with Russia more generally, as will
be examined in Chapter Five, including Belarus in such a campaign
might make sense.
74 Jim Nichol, Russia-Georgia Conflict in August 2008: Context and Implications for U.S.
Interests, Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, RL34618, March 3, 2009.
75 Nichol, 2009, p. 9.
76 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, 2016.
77 Damien Sharkov, “Russia Drills 4,000 Troops in Georgian Breakaway Region,” News-
week, September 26, 2016.
78 Tom Day, “Russia Ratifies Military Agreement with South Ossetia,” Georgia Today, Janu-
ary 25, 2018.
116 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Figure 4.1
Georgia, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia
Russia also plays a key role with Azerbaijan and Armenia, par-
ticularly over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Ethnically
Armenian but geographically located within Azerbaijan, Nagorno-
Karabakh’s bid to join the Armenia Soviet Socialist Republic during
the latter years of the Soviet Union was denied by the Soviet Politburo
because of the risk of encouraging secessionist movements elsewhere.79
In 1992, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Armenia and Azer-
baijan declared independence and fought a war over this enclave. The
war ended with Armenian forces controlling Nagorno-Karabakh
and some surrounding provinces, and Russia brokered a cease-fire in
79 Thomas De Waal, Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War, New
York: New York University Press, 2003, p. 21.
Geopolitical Measures 117
Benefits
While the principal aim of these policies would be to extend Russia,
closer relationships with Georgia, Azerbaijan, or Armenia might yield
important secondary benefits for the United States. The geographic
position of Azerbaijan makes it a prime location for both intelligence-
gathering and deterrence measures relating to Iran, especially because
many of Iran’s Kurdish and Iranian populations are concentrated near
the Azeri-Iranian border. Stronger ties with Georgia, hailed by the
conservative Heritage Foundation as “one of America’s best allies in
Europe” for providing one the largest contributions of troops to Iraq
and Afghanistan, could pay strategic dividends in the future.85
Increased U.S. involvement in the region could produce addi-
tional economic benefits as well. The Caspian Sea remains a key pro-
ducer of both oil and natural gas. Indeed, the U.S. Department of
Energy estimates that there are “48 billion barrels of oil and 292 trillion
cubic feet of natural gas in proved and probable reserves in the Caspian
basins. Almost 75 percent of oil reserves and 67 percent of natural gas
reserves are located within 100 miles of the coast.”86 A closer politi-
cal relationship with Azerbaijan would help secure continued access to
these resources for the United States and—perhaps more important—
for its allies in the future.
Risks
Azerbaijan—an authoritarian country often cited by nongovernmental
organizations for its poor political and civil rights record—has shown
Likelihood of Success
None of these initiatives offers much hope of success. Attempts to
develop closer relationships with Azerbaijan or flipping Armenia likely
87 In 2017, one nongovernmental organization rated Azerbaijan a 7 out of 7 (the worst pos-
sible ranking) for political rights and 6 out of 7 for civil liberties. Freedom House, “Azerbai-
jan,” Freedom in the World 2017, Washington, D.C., 2017.
88 Moreover, all three countries already receive between $60 million and $174 million in
U.S. foreign aid, and this would probably need to be increased if the United States pushed
for closer ties. United States Agency for International Development, “Foreign Aid Explore,”
web tool, December 12, 2017.
89 Nichol, 2009, pp. 12–13.
120 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Conclusion
European allies are not likely to extend defense commitments into the
South Caucasus in the foreseeable future. Short of that happening,
there is only limited scope for more Western economic and political
ties to the region, although even small changes could continue to stoke
Russian anxieties and divert Russian resources in a minor way.
Figure 4.2
Russian Goods Exports and the Founding Members of the EEU
30
2010
2011
25
2012
Billions of current U.S. dollars
2013
20 2014
2015
2016
15
10
0
Exports to Imports from Exports to Imports from
Belarus Belarus Kazakhstan Kazakhstan
EEC and the organization’s rules and processes, and Russia has taken
unilateral trade measures outside the EEU, such as its sanctions on
European and U.S. agricultural imports.
The other major Eurasian initiative of which Russia is a part, the
Belt and Road Initiative, was launched in 2013 with two speeches by
Chinese President Xi Jinping, one announcing the Silk Road Eco-
nomic Belt and the other a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. Orig-
inally known as One Belt One Road, the venture has now become
known by its current name. The Belt consists of a series of overland
infrastructure networks through Russia and Central Asia to South
Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.104 The Road refers to maritime
routes from China through the South China Sea and across the India
Ocean to South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. Chinese
official statements have portrayed it as an effort to build a vast web of
infrastructure—such as roads, railways, and pipelines—coupled with
other efforts to build five types of “connectivity”: policy or political
coordination, transportation connectivity, trade and investment coop-
eration, financial integration and use of the Chinese renminbi as a cur-
rency, and stronger people-to-people connections.105
The Belt and Road Initiative has been cited as involving more
than 60 countries and leading to almost $1 trillion of new investment.
However, it is not a comprehensive strategy or plan. Chinese officials
note that it is an initiative, not a strategy; that all countries are invited
to participate; and that it is meant to complement existing national
and regional initiatives.106 Although many elements of the Belt and
104 Alicia Garcia Herrero and Jianwei Xu, “China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Can Europe
Expect Trade Gains?” Brussels: Breugel, Working Paper Issue 5, 2016.
105 National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and
the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China with State Council Authoriza-
tion, Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Mari-
time Silk Road, Beijing, March 28, 2015.
106 Alice Ekman, “China’s New Silk Roads: A Flexible Implementation Process,” in Alice
Ekman, Françoise Nicolas, John Seaman, Gabrielle Desarnaud, Tatiana Kasatouéva-
Jean, Şerif Onur Bahçecik, and Clélie Nallet, Three Years of China’s New Silk Roads: From
Words to (Re)action? Paris: Études de l’Ifri, Institute Français des Relations Internationales,
February 2017.
Geopolitical Measures 125
107 Wade Shepard, “I Spent Two Years on China’s Belt and Road, and This Is What I Found,”
Forbes, May 13, 2017c.
108 Peter Wells and Don Weinland, “Fitch Warns on Expected Returns from One Belt, One
Road,” Financial Times, January 25, 2017.
109 Kremlin, “Press Statement Following Russian-Chinese Talks,” Moscow, May 8, 2015a.
110
Mathieu Duchâtel, François Godement, Kadri Liik, Jeremy Shapiro, Louisa Slavkova,
Angela Stanzel, and Vesella Tcherneva, “Eurasian Integration: Caught Between Russia and
China,” London: European Council on Foreign Relations, June 7, 2016.
111 Tatiana Kasatouéva-Jean, “Russian Perceptions of OBOR: From Threat to Opportunity,”
in Ekman et al., 2017.
112 Duchâtel et al., 2016.
126 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
tive known as the C5+1 in 2015 might signal that they do. The United
States and the Central Asian countries have agreed to five projects,
including security, competitiveness, transport, energy, and climate.113
In addition, at a meeting in Riyadh in May 2017, Kazakhstan Presi-
dent Nazarbayev, speaking to U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson,
expressed hope for stronger bilateral ties.114
As part of Belt and Road, China is establishing railway and
other transport corridors to Europe, with 29 Chinese cities linked to
Europe by railway as of late May 2017.115 Although most routes run
through Russia, one bypass runs through Kazakhstan, from Khorgos
on Kazakhstan’s eastern border with China to the western Kazakhstan
port of Aktau on the Caspian Sea and then by ship to Azerbaijan and
on to Europe.116 Such a route, bypassing Russia, reportedly causes ten-
sion between China and Russia.117
This combination of vulnerabilities suggests a number of possible
actions, a few of which the United States could take alone, but most
of which would require cooperation with Europe or are Europe-only
approaches.
The first action involves trade and technical agreements. Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia are members of the EEU and thus cannot
sign separate trade agreements with the United States or Europe. Fur-
thermore, the framework of the EU’s association agreements and deep
and comprehensive free trade area agreements would need the partner
country to control its external tariffs,118 and the EU is not seeking to
113 U.S. Department of State, “U.S.-Central Asia (C5+1) Joint Projects,” Washington, D.C.,
via U.S. Embassy Dushanbe, August 15, 2016.
114 “NazarbaevMeets Tillerson, Voices Hope for Closer Cooperation,” Radio Free Europe/
Radio Liberty, May 22, 2017.
115 Sidney Leng, “Next Stop Belarus: China Gets Rolling on Direct Shenzhen-Minsk Freight
Rail Link,” South China Morning Post, May 23, 2017.
116 Kasatouéva-Jean,
2017; Wade Shepard, “A Look Inside Aktau, Kazakhstan’s Other Hub
on the ‘New Silk Road,’” Forbes, April 15, 2017a; Wade Shepard, “The Central Station of the
New Silk Road Has Emerged,” Forbes, April 29, 2017b.
117 Kasatouéva-Jean, 2017.
118 International Crisis Group, 2016.
Geopolitical Measures 127
Russian route to Europe. Taking this action could include help with
transportation planning, aid for road and rail infrastructure improve-
ment, and aid to improve the operations of the Kazakhstan ports of
Aktau and Kuryk to the Azerbaijan port of Baku. Politics allowing,
there could also be assistance in creating a better land route via Turk-
menistan through Iran to Turkey, bypassing the intermodal logistical
hurdles of traversing the Caspian Sea. The United States could join
with Europe to support—or Europe could unilaterally accelerate—
the Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia initiative, conceived in
1993 with nine non-EU countries and expanded after 1998 with an
additional five non-EU countries.123 The EU stopped funding this ini-
tiative in 2009 and funding had not been restored as of June 2016;
restoring it could help accelerate the project.124 Furthermore, both the
United States and the EU could support Chinese transport corridor
efforts that bypass Russia. There is room for improvement: Routes
from China through Central Asia feature “border delays, hefty cus-
toms fees, [and] poor roads and railways,” all of which are amenable
to policy action.125 The geographic hurdles of mountain ranges in
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are less amenable, however.
Benefits
Engaging more with Central Asia could have modest benefits. Expand-
ing Central Asian connectivity to the rest of the world could reduce
that area’s trade with Russia. It must be noted, however, that economic
growth within these countries would likely have the opposite effect and
increase their trade with Russia because economic size and trade are
correlated. However, greater connectivity suggests that the proportion
of total trade with Russia would likely fall. Better trade routes could
also decrease the amount of transit through Russia, lowering Russian
revenues from that trade. Finally, if successful, spurring growth in
123 Şerif Onur Bahçecik, “OBOR and Turkey’s Turn to the East,” in Ekman et al., 2017.
124 Duchâtel et al., 2016.
125 Filippo Costa Buranelli, “Why China’s $1 Trillion New Silk Road Plan Is Being Greeted
Coolly by the West,” The Conversation, April 5, 2017.
Geopolitical Measures 129
Central Asia might also increase trade with the United States and ben-
efit the U.S. economy, albeit to a limited extent.
Risks
There are several risks to increasing engagement with Central Asia.
First, it could be costly. These are distant, sparsely populated countries
that might not have the capacity to absorb large amounts of invest-
ment efficiently; this could mean that a more moderate, longer-term
approach might be a better strategy. Transit routes through Russia
are cheaper, and developing alternative transit routes through Central
Asia could require subsidies. Further strengthening transit routes is
also likely to benefit China. If U.S. policymakers are concerned about
a rising China, then economically extending Russia in this domain
could mean helping a rival power economically.
An additional risk arises from Russia’s perceptions of (and poten-
tial reactions to) U.S. actions. Russia views Central Asia as an impor-
tant area of influence. Likewise, Central Asia relies on Russia for
security, especially with challenges from terrorism and a deteriorating
situation in Afghanistan. A challenge to Russian primacy in this region
could invite unwelcome retaliation from Russia that could range from
cyber actions against the United States, its allies, and the Central Asian
countries to the movement of Russian troops into these countries.
Likelihood of Success
Increasing engagement with Central Asia could have many benefits. It
could expand market opportunities for the United States and its allies and
partners; lead to economic development in the region; and create closer
cooperation between the region and the United States in a number of
areas, including economic, political, and even scientific domains. How-
ever, it would be unlikely to economically extend Russia without a very
large monetary cost to the United States, and most Central Asian coun-
tries likely would be reluctant partners in any campaign aimed against
Russia. Geographic proximity to Russia and China, existing trade links
and security links, and historical patterns of cooperation suggest that
these countries would prefer to stay within the Russian orbit and seek
cooperation with it, even as they diversify their relations. The real work
130 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Conclusion
Reducing Russian influence in Central Asia would be very difficult and
could prove costly, and Russia’s influence might be reduced there in the
long term without this measure. China will continue to expand there
through its Belt and Road Initiative, and Japan and India have also
engaged with the region, all of which could reduce Russia’s dominance.
The main reason for increasing U.S. engagement in the region would
be to benefit the United States: gaining modest help in implementing
U.S. foreign policy goals, creating new opportunities for U.S. businesses,
and channeling China’s outward efforts in directions amenable to the
United States. Without great cost, however, increased engagement would
be unlikely to extend Russia much economically, and backlash would
need to be guarded against.
126
Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST), “Moldova’s Transnistrian
Conflict,” Huffington Post, July 26, 2016.
127 Laura Mallonee, “Meet the People of a Soviet Country That Doesn’t Exist,” Wired,
March 7, 2016.
Geopolitical Measures 131
Benefits
Such an effort might be welcomed in Romania. Moldova, then known
as Bessarabia, was once part of Romania and many Moldovans speak a
language similar to Romanian. In the early 1990s, there was some dis-
cussion of whether Moldova would eventually merge into Romania.143
Even though that has not yet occurred, Romania still takes a protective
attitude toward its smaller eastern neighbor.144
A policy aimed at supporting and unifying Moldova might also
help resolve the perennial threat of crime and political conflict in this
region. Historically, Transnistria has had high levels of organized
crime, mostly engaged in black market trade.145
Risks
Russia might employ economic sanctions against Moldova. Before
the Ukraine crisis, Russia accounted for 23 percent of Moldova’s for-
eign direct investment, 26 percent of its exports, and 14 percent of its
imports.146 In some sectors, such as Moldova’s fruit exports, Russia rep-
142
Cristi Vlas, “President Igor Dodon Believes Russian Peace-Keepers in Transnistria
Ensure Stability,” Moldova.org, January 19, 2017.
143 ADST, 2016.
144
Based on discussion with Romanian policymakers in Bucharest, Romania, June 23,
2016.
145 ADST,2016; U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Diplomatic Security, “Moldova 2017
Crime and Safety Report,” webpage, Washington, D.C., January 24, 2017.
146 Kamil Całus, “Russian Sanctions Against Moldova. Minor Effects, Major Potential,”
OSW Commentary, Centre for Eastern Studies, November 6, 2014.
134 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Likelihood of Success
Moldovan cooperation in an effort to expel the Russians would not be
easy to secure. In an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty,
Moldova’s pro-Russian President Igor Dodon stated, “A NATO office
in Chisinau [Moldova’s capital], in a neutral country, is a provocation.
I do not want this. I want neither NATO nor this Russia-led [military]
alliance as far as armed forces are concerned.”150 Dodon is also a fan of
keeping a Russian presence in Transnistria. In January 2017, he stated,
“It is necessary to understand that peacekeepers at the Nistru River did
not appear accidentally but because of the conflict. And they were and
remain the guarantor of certain stability. They are there to ensure trust
between the banks.”151 Despite the fact that political power lies with Mol-
dova’s prime minister rather than its president, Dodon was still the first
president to be directly popularly elected since 1997 and consequently
an important symbolic figure.152 Moreover, given the blow that Russian
sanctions had to the Moldovan economy, Dodon might not be alone.
On the other hand, after the Russian embargo, Moldovan exports
to the EU grew by 27 percent and EU aid to Moldova amounted to
some 335 million euros from 2014 to 2017.153 The EU also gave Mol-
dova visa-free access in 2014, a key benefit for a landlocked country.154
Conclusion
The expulsion of Russian troops from Moldova would be a blow to Rus-
sian prestige, but it would also save Moscow money and quite possibly
impose additional costs on the United States and its allies. It might be
worth trying as an essentially punitive measure that would be part of a
broader campaign to limit Russian prestige and influence, as discussed
in the next chapter, but success would not extend Russia.
Recommendations
Table 4.1
Findings for Geopolitical Measures
137
138 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
The hold that regimes have on power can weaken or collapse for many
reasons, from external invasion to coups to a withdrawal of popular
support. While Russia does have genuine external security concerns,
which are covered elsewhere in this report, this chapter focuses on
4 Andrew E. Kramer, “More of Kremlin’s Opponents Are Ending Up Dead,” New York
Times, August 20, 2016b.
Ideological and Informational Measures 139
5 Laryssa Chomiak “The Making of a Revolution in Tunisia,” Middle East Law and Gov-
ernance, Vol. 3, No. 1–2, 2011; Kurt Schock, Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Move-
ments in Nondemocracies, Vol. 22, Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 2005,
p. 73–79.
6 For a more detailed discussion of these criteria, see David Beetham, The Legitimation of
Power, Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 17–18; Jean-Marc Coicaud, Legiti-
macy and Politics: A Contribution to the Study of Political Right and Political Responsibility,
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 10; Bruce Gilley, The Right to Rule:
How States Win and Lose Legitimacy, New York: Columbia University Press, 2009, p. 8.
140 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Acquisition of Power
After adopting a democratic constitution in the wake of the collapse
of the Soviet Union, Russia experienced a turbulent period of relatively
free political expression and elections in the 1990s. Throughout his first
Ideological and Informational Measures 141
7 Steven Lee Myers, The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin, New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 2015, pp. 212–213, 245–252, 261–262.
8 Jim Nichol, Russia’s March 2012 Presidential Election: Outcome and Implications, Wash-
ington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, R42407, March 14, 2012, pp. 2–6; Jim
Nichol, Russia’s December 2011 Legislative Election: Outcome and Implications, Washington,
D.C.: Congressional Research Service, R42118, December 13, 2011, pp. 4–7.
9 Kathy Lally and Will Englund, “Putin Wins Election as Russian President; Opponents
Claim Widespread Fraud,” Washington Post, March 4, 2012.
10
Trevor Hughes, “Putin Elected as Russia’s President for Another Six-Year Term,” USA
Today, March 18, 2018.
11 Hughes, 2018; “Alexei Navalny Barred from Russia Presidential Poll,” BBC News,
June 23, 2017.
142 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
by the state likely changed the margin of the vote but not the outcome,
given the regime’s structural advantages in the campaign.12 The same
cannot necessarily be said for the Duma elections of December 2011,
the results of which touched off widespread protests. United Russia was
reported as having won 47 percent of the vote and a majority of seats,
but some analysts suggested that the party’s true total might have been
36 percent, which would have left it well short of a majority.13 The most
recent Duma elections in September 2016 were also likely marred by
substantial fraud, though popular protests in response were limited.14
The current regime’s adherence to formal election procedures has been
relatively strict, although it has also felt free to change those rules as
needed with some frequency.15 On balance, then, Russian perceptions
regarding whether their leaders have legitimately acquired power are
likely mixed, with Putin having a stronger claim to the presidency than
other actors to their positions.
Exercise of Power
The programmatic justification for the Putin regime has shifted over
time. In the 2000s, high levels of economic growth and a consolidation
of the state following the turbulent 1990s were most frequently cited
as evidence of government accomplishment and goals.16 From 1999
12
Lally and Englund, 2012; Ellen Barry and Michael Schwirtz, “After Election, Putin Faces
Challenges to Legitimacy,” New York Times, March 5, 2012.
13 Ruben Enikolopov, Vasily Korovkin, Maria Petrova, Konstantin Sonin, and Alexei
Zakharov, “Field Experiment Estimate of Electoral Fraud in Russian Parliamentary Elec-
tions,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 110, No. 2, 2013.
14 Valentin Baryshnikov and Robert Coalson, “Numbers Don’t Lie: Statistics Point to Mas-
sive Fraud in Russia’s Duma Vote,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, September 20, 2016;
Andrew Osborn and Maria Tsvetkova, “Putin Firms Control with Big Win for Russia’s
Ruling Party,” Reuters, September 19, 2016.
15 Mikhail Turchenko and Sergey Shevchuk, Executive Branch and Major Electoral Reforms
in Russia, Moscow: National Research University, Higher School of Economics, Working
Paper BRP 31/PS/2015, 2016.
16 Erin Carriere-Kretschmer and Kathleen Holzwart, “Putin’s Popularity Propels Chosen
Successor in Russian Election,” Pew Research Center, February 27, 2008; William H.
Cooper, Russia’s Economic Performance and Policies and Their Implications for the United
States, Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, RL34512, June 29, 2009.
Ideological and Informational Measures 143
17 Cooper, 2009.
18 Gel’man, 2015, pp. 127–128.
19 Movchan, 2017.
20 Michael Birnbaum, “A Year into a Conflict with Russia, Are Sanctions Working?” Wash-
ington Post, March 27, 2015.
21
Julie Ray and Neli Esipova, “Economic Problems, Corruption Fail to Dent Putin’s
Image,” Gallup World Poll 2016, March 28, 2017.
22 For example, only 22 percent of Russians in a 2016 poll said they had confidence in the
Duma. “Russians Losing Trust in Government and Putin—Poll,” Moscow Times, October 13,
2016.
144 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Evidence of Consent
Despite Putin’s overall high levels of popularity, evidence of discontent
with the regime more broadly is increasing. While the 2016 Duma elec-
tions and their results were not accompanied by mass protests, the early
months of 2017 saw several surprisingly large-scale demonstrations pro-
testing corruption.23 Russian leaders appear concerned about the poten-
tial for such protests to grow surrounding Putin’s anticipated re-election
to a fourth term in 2018.24 While protests have historically been gener-
ally confined to Moscow and Saint Petersburg—where wealthier, better-
educated Russians form the core of anti-regime sentiment—the
March 2017 protests were notable for occurring throughout Russia.25
Rising discontent and support for protests in Russia might have been
foreshadowed in the record-low turnout in the 2016 Duma elections
and raised what turned out to be unnecessary concerns for turnout levels
in the 2018 presidential elections.26
23 Julia Ioffe, “What Russia’s Latest Protests Mean for Putin,” The Atlantic, March 27, 2017;
“Navalny Jailed, More Than 1,100 Detained at Protests in Russia,” Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty, June 12, 2017.
24 Regina Smyth, “Russians Are Protesting! Part 7: This May Discredit Putin in the Next
Election,” Washington Post, March 31, 2017.
25
Ola Cichowlas, “Russia’s Nationwide Anti-Corruption Protests in Videos,” Moscow
Times, March 27, 2017.
26 Smyth,2017; Neil MacFarquhar, “Putin Wins Russia Election, and Broad Mandate for
4th Term,” New York Times, March 18, 2018.
Ideological and Informational Measures 145
27 Richard Pipes, Russia Under the Old Regime, New York: Penguin Press, 1997, pp. 292–293.
28 T. M. Goriaeva, Politicheskaia tsenzura v SSSR. 1917–1991, Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2009.
146 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
32
Sheila Fitzpatrick, ed., Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet
Russia in the 1930s, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 9.
33 D. F. Markov and L. I. Timofeev, “Sotsialisticheskii realism,” Bol’shaia sovetskaia entsik-
lopediia, 3rd ed., Moscow: Sovetskaia entsiklopediia, 1969–1978.
34 Jukka Gronow, Caviar with Champagne: Common Luxury and the Ideals of the Good Life
in Stalin’s Russia, New York: Bloomsbury, 2003; Fitzpatrick, 1999.
148 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
35 Vadim Volkov, “The Concept of Kul’turnost’: Notes on the Stalinist Civilizing Pro-
cess,” in Sheila Fitzpatrick, ed., Stalinism: New Directions, New York: Routledge, 2000,
pp. 210–230.
36 Boris Yeltsin, then president of the Russian Federation, issued a decree on November 6,
1991, banning the Communist Party and nationalizing its property. Post-Soviet Russia has
several Communist parties, most prominently Gennady Ziuganov’s Communist Party of
the Russian Federation, which was founded in 1993. Jeff Berliner, “Yeltsin Bans Communist
Party,” United Press International, November 6, 1991.
Ideological and Informational Measures 149
37
Mikhail Strokan, “Church-State Relations and Property Restitution in Modern Russia,”
Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, August 18, 2016.
38 Markus Mathyl, “The National-Bolshevik Party and Arctogaia: Two Neo-Fascist Grou-
puscules in the Post-Soviet Political Space,” Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 36, No. 3, 2002.
39 Following Rodina’s electoral successes in the mid-2000s, authorities sharply constrained
the party’s ability to campaign by raising legal challenges to its “inciting ethnic hatred” with
its political rhetoric. Marlene Laruelle, “Russia as a ‘Divided Nation,’ from Compatriots to
Crimea: A Contribution to the Discussion on Nationalism and Foreign Policy,” Problems of
Post-Communism, Vol. 62, No. 2, 2015.
150 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
42 Kremlin, 2015b.
43 Kremlin, 2009.
152 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
44 Kremlin, 2015b.
Ideological and Informational Measures 153
45 Steven Lee Myers, Jo Becker, and Jim Yardley, “Private Bank Fuels Fortunes of Putin’s
Inner Circle,” New York Times, September 28, 2014.
46 TV Dozhd’ was forced to pioneer a subscription-based business model that reaches only a
small fraction of its previous viewership. As of February 2016, the channel had only 70,000
paid subscribers, whereas millions of Russians had watched it every month under the old
model. “Nazvano nyneshnee kolichestvo podpischeka telekanala ‘Dozhd,’” sat-world.net,
February 23, 2016.
47
Maria Tsvetkova, “Russian TV Channel Sees Censorship After Being Taken Off Air,”
Reuters, January 19, 2014.
154 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Radio
Although radio was a critical means of reaching Russian audiences in
Soviet times, today it plays a much lesser role. Because the immense
size of the Soviet Union left much of the country beyond the range
of conventional radio transmissions, the Soviet government undertook
the mass production of shortwave radio receivers during the postwar
period. This created the possibility for Western governments to reach
Soviet listeners in their own homes, which Radio Liberty and Radio
Free Europe attempted to exploit for maximum effect. Today, very few
Russians still listen to shortwave radio, and most of the Cold War–era
Russian-language shortwave broadcasters have shut down.48 Other
forms of radio have also seen massive audience declines or shut down
since 1991. Longwave AM radio was a ubiquitous feature of Soviet
radios but was completely abandoned in Russia as of 2014.49 Medium-
wave AM radio has been abandoned by state Russian radio broadcasters
as well, but it is still employed by religious and some regional stations.
FM radio is dominated by music broadcasters and a few state-owned
stations, such as Radio Rossiia and Radio Mayak. FM radio is also the
home of Ekho Moskvy (“Echo of Moscow”), a news and talk station
targeted at the intelligentsia. Known as a regime-critical outlet histori-
cally, Ekho Moskvy experienced a major shakeup in 2012 at the insis-
tence of its owner, Gazprom Media Holdings.50 As a consequence of
comprehensive state domination, changes in listening patterns, and a
demonstrated willingness to intervene against broadcasters who incon-
venience the regime, radio is no longer an attractive means of reaching
Russian audiences for outside actors.
Print Media
As in most countries, newspapers and magazines are losing readership
in Russia as internet penetration grows. Many Soviet-era newspapers
continue publication, such as Izvestiia and Argumenty i Fakty, but their
readership has declined immensely from 1980s levels. Many news-
papers are owned by the same state enterprises and individuals who
control TV and radio stations. Russian law dictates that newspapers
cannot be foreign-owned. National Media Group owns Izvestiia, and
the Moscow municipal government owns Argumenty i Fakty. Even so,
there is much more diversity in Russian newspaper publication than in
television and radio. One of Russia’s major newspapers, Nezavisimaia
Gazeta, is owned by its editor Konstantin Remchukov. The newspaper
Novaia Gazeta, founded in 1993, is owned as a collective and is one
of the only publications in the country that undertakes investigative
journalism. Novaia Gazeta has a respectable circulation for a Russian
newspaper, but its investigative journalism has proved hazardous for its
reporters, at least five of whom have been murdered.51
Internet
Compared with broadcast and print media, the internet offers a more
attractive means for foreigners to reach Russian domestic audiences.
As of 2017, internet users constituted about 70 percent of the Russian
population.52 Compared with its neighbor China, Russia has histori-
cally pursued a relatively non-interventionist policy toward internet
regulation. However, there are signs that the Russian government is
considering a policy of online censorship, in part to counteract per-
ceived “information security” threats from foreign powers.
The Russian-language internet (dubbed “Runet” in Russian)
includes both localized versions of international services, such as
Google, as well as homegrown alternatives, such as the search pro-
51 The Committee to Protect Journalists counts five employees of Novaya Gazeta who
have been murdered: Natalya Estemirova, Anastasiya Baburova, Anna Politkovskaya, Yuri
Shchekochikhin, and Igor Domnikov. Committee to Protect Journalists, “Journalists Killed
in Russia,” undated.
52 “Auditoriia Runeta perestala rasti,” Meduza, January 26, 2017.
156 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
vider Yandex.53 Such firms as Yandex, Mail.Ru, and the social net-
work VKontakte compete handily with their larger international com-
petitors in local markets. The most important characteristic of the
Russian-language internet by Russian historical standards, however, is
that it makes it possible for ordinary citizens to access an extraordi-
nary amount of information about almost any subject, including much
that would have been considered highly classified state secrets in Soviet
times. Due to widespread piracy of everything from books to corpo-
rate financial documents, anonymous bloggers, and online discussion
forums that act as clearinghouses for rumors, the internet has turned
the deficit of information that oppressed Soviet citizens into an ava-
lanche. As is true of the internet in other countries, the quality of this
information often varies dramatically, and in many cases, it serves to
confuse more than enlighten.
Once the importance of the internet to Russian domestic dis-
course became apparent, the Russian government began subjecting key
firms to similar mechanisms of formal and informal control as more
traditional media. These steps included the acquisition by oligarch and
Putin ally Alisher Usmanov of a controlling stake in VKontakte, after
which its founder Pavel Durov was pushed out of the company. Durov
fled Russia declaring that he had “no intention of going back.”54 Today,
the Russian tech sector is concentrated into a few large firms whose
management can be trusted not to defy the Kremlin, namely Yandex
and Mail.Ru (which now owns the entirety of VKontakte in addition
to the online auction site Molotok.ru).
Until the early 2010s the Russian government took a hands-off
approach to internet regulation, not merely abstaining from censorship
but actually allowing some forms of cybercrime to flourish. Russian
law did not forbid possession of child pornography, abetting the traf-
ficking of this content, and the Russian government turned a blind eye
53 In contrast, the Chinese “Great Firewall” has blocked YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter
since 2009; Jonathan Sullivan, “China’s Weibo: Is Faster Different?” New Media and Society,
Vol. 16, No. 1, February 7, 2013.
54 Danny Hakim, “Once Celebrated in Russia, the Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses
Exile,” New York Times, December 2, 2014.
Ideological and Informational Measures 157
55 Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, “Russia’s Surveillance State,” World Policy Journal,
Vol. XXX, No. 3, Fall 2013.
56 Jaclyn A. Kerr, “Chill of Victory: Russia Targets Bloggers Amid Celebrations,” Indepen-
dent Journalism 101 [previously Journalism for Change], May 13, 2014.
158 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
62
Andrew Roth, “Russia: New Law Allows Governors to Be Appointed, Undoing Reform,”
New York Times, April 2, 2013; Vladimir Ryzhkov, “United Russia Wins Elections but Not
Respect,” Moscow Times, September 22, 2014.
Ideological and Informational Measures 161
lashing out and pursuing a diversionary conflict abroad that might run
counter to Western interests.
Likelihood of Success
Given that most media sources are controlled by the state, reaching a
large Russian audience with such a campaign would be difficult but
not impossible. For one thing, a sophisticated internet-based campaign
would be difficult for Russia to block completely. For another, the success
of Alexei Navalny’s YouTube-hosted documentary accusing Prime Min-
ister Dmitri Medvedev of corruption demonstrates that greater effects
are possible,63 although any U.S. campaign is likely to reach a limited
audience that probably already believes the information being presented.
Even if not distributed as broadly, such a Western-based campaign could
help to galvanize already-skeptical urban and better-educated audiences
to take greater action. It also remains uncertain as to whether electoral
fraud can be a mobilizing issue in Russia. The country lacks any real tra-
dition of competitive, fair elections, so violations of electoral rules and
norms may generate less outrage than other issues.
63 Ioffe, 2017.
162 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
64 A
2009 estimate placed the cost of bribes paid annually in Russia at roughly one-third of
GDP, $318 billion. See Fred Weir, “Russia Corruption Costs $318 Billion—One-Third of
GDP,” Christian Science Monitor, November 23, 2009.
65 Karen Dawisha, Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? New York: Simon and Schuster,
2014, pp. 313–325; Masha Gessen, “The Myth of the Russian Oligarchs,” New York Times,
December 10, 2014.
66 Dawisha, 2014, pp. 1–4, 10–11.
Ideological and Informational Measures 163
67 Ioffe, 2017; “Navalny Jailed, More Than 1,100 Detained at Protests in Russia,” 2017.
68 Ioffe, 2017.
69 Oliphant, 2017.
70 Andrew E. Kramer, “Kremlin Critic Aleksei Navalny Says Attack Left Him Mostly Blind
in an Eye.” New York Times, May 2, 2017.
71 “U.S. Announces New Tank and Artillery Deployment in Europe,” BBC, June 23, 2015.
72 “Russia Moves to Block Navalny’s Latest Investigation,” Associated Press via Business
Insider, February 10, 2018.
73 Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 2017. To clarify, it would seem highly
inadvisable for Western intelligence agencies to attempt to cooperate directly with anti-
corruption groups inside Russia, such as Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation. Such coop-
eration would undermine the effectiveness of those groups within Russia, as well as put their
members at greater risk of imprisonment or death. Instead, Russian-language outlets outside
Russia would need to be identified or created.
164 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
74
“Navalny Video Accusing Medvedev of Corruption Posted on Government Websites,”
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, June 11, 2017.
Ideological and Informational Measures 165
75 Hanna King, “East Germans Protest for Democracy (The Peaceful Revolution), 1988–
90,” Global Nonviolent Action Database, October 10, 2010.
76
Zein Nakhoda, “Defense of Soviet State Against Coup, 1991,” Global Nonviolent Action
Database, May 14, 2011.
77 ShaunWalker, “Russia Stays Loyal to Kremlin in Election with Record Low Turnout,”
The Guardian, September 19, 2016.
78
Andrew E. Kramer, “Unpaid Russian Workers Unite in Protest Against Putin.” New York
Times, April 21, 2015.
Ideological and Informational Measures 167
79 Thomas Grove, “Russia’s Putin Signs New Law Against ‘Undesirable’ NGOs,” Wall Street
Journal, May 25, 2015.
168 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Russian groups over such actions, even if loose and tacit, would likely
lead to prison (at best) for those involved. It might also undermine
the domestic legitimacy of these movements. The Kremlin also would
likely consider such activities to be a direct attempt to undermine and
change the regime and would respond accordingly, which could include
escalations of its own information campaigns against Western govern-
ments or escalations of disputes in other domains, including cyber or
even potentially kinetic actions against Western interests. Depending
on the scale of the protests or strikes, they would have the potential to
distract Russia in the short term. Assuming the regime survived, how-
ever, it would be strongly motivated to try to reestablish deterrence and
discourage the West from taking such actions again in the future.
Likelihood of Success
As already noted, it would be difficult for Western governments to
directly increase the incidence or intensity of anti-regime activities in
Russia without coordinating with domestic groups, and that in itself
is a dangerous and difficult proposition. It is plausible that an external
information campaign could increase these activities if the informa-
tion were sufficiently compelling, targeted, and well-presented, though
it would likely be only one contributing factor among many in any
success. Even if such a campaign were successful in increasing anti-
regime activity, however, it could plausibly extend Russia while still
harming Western interests because of the strong potential for Russian
retaliation.
and President Putin specifically, remains quite negative.80 Russia lost its
place in the (formerly) G-8 meetings after the invasion of Crimea; it has
been the subject of multiple sets of sanctions by the United States and
the EU; and it received widespread condemnation in Europe following
the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 in 2014.81
Nonetheless, Russia’s international standing could be weak-
ened further. Russia could be excluded from additional international
forums, such as the G-20; face wider sanctions and travel bans; and
lose the right to host prestigious international events. Domestic threats
to Russia’s legitimacy, such as information campaigns that reveal cor-
ruption or electoral manipulation or efforts to increase protests, could
also serve to weaken Russia’s international prestige by highlighting
the regime’s domestic shortcomings. Western governments could try
to make clear to Russia that its status would be restored and punitive
measures lifted if it were to cease targeting Western political institu-
tions. Separate measures that have been put in place in reaction to Rus-
sia’s interference in Ukraine would remain.
Potential Benefits
The principal benefit of such an effort would be to diminish Russian
standing (and thus influence) abroad while contributing domestically
to a sense of isolation and international opprobrium. This sense would
undercut regime claims of restoring Russia to its former glory, which
the regime has used to justify why Russians should accept recent poor
economic conditions without complaint.
Risks
The risk, as with the preceding three measures, is that domestic repres-
sion in Russia and Russian efforts at disinformation and destabilization
abroad might be increased to compensate for the greater domestic chal-
lenges the regime might face.
Likelihood of Success
Western efforts to damage Russia’s international prestige can be effec-
tive if broadly implemented. Further sanctions, the removal of Russia
from non-UN international forums, and boycotting of international
events are largely within the power of Western states to unilaterally
implement and would damage Russian prestige. The extent to which
these steps would damage Russian domestic stability is more uncertain,
however. Russia has managed to turn Western sanctions over Crimea
to its domestic political benefit, at least in the short term, as evidence of
a Western plot to resist Russia’s return to greatness. Nonetheless, Rus-
sian leaders benefit from demonstrations of their international status,
and the loss of international sporting events or access to key forums is
likely to deepen concerns within Russia that the current regime might
not be effectively pursuing policies that are returning Russia to glory.
Recommendations
Table 5.1
Findings for Ideological Measures
Air and space have long been attractive domains for cost-imposing
strategies against Russia. They are two of the most technologically
demanding and expensive places to operate. The United States excels
in the development of sophisticated technologies, and its economy has
been the world’s largest and most dynamic since the mid-20th century.
As a result, the United States enjoyed significant advantages in air and
space systems during its military competition with the Soviet Union,
and it continues to benefit from these advantages vis-à-vis Russia today.
The end of World War II left the United States as the sole nuclear
power and with a large bomber force that could range targets across East-
ern Europe and much of Russia. U.S. developers capitalized on these
advantages in heavy-lift, long-range aircraft technology in the first decade
of the Cold War, developing nuclear-capable intercontinental bombers,
such as the B-36 Peacemaker and B-52 Stratofortress that could reach
any target on the Eurasian continent.1
Conversely, even after the Soviet Union exploded its own atomic
device in 1949 and began feverishly building a nuclear arsenal, it lacked
bombers able to reach the continental United States and focused instead
on developing ICBMs to offset this strategic disadvantage. Missile devel-
opment led to space exploration, and Moscow enjoyed some notable
achievements early in that competition. But the moon race established
the United States as the undisputed champion in space technology and
demonstrated the enormous economic potential of a free enterprise
1 Walton S. Moody, Building a Strategic Air Force, Washington D.C.: Air Force History
and Museums Program, 1996, pp. 235–281.
173
174 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
2 For a definitive history that illuminates the centrality of the space race in the Cold War,
see Walter A. McDougal, The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age, Bal-
timore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985.
3 For arguments consistent with this line of thought, see Martin E. Malia, The Soviet Trag-
edy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917–1991, New York: Free Press, 1994; Mira Duric, The
Strategic Defence Initiative: US Policy and the Soviet Union, Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2003;
Thomas C. Reed, At the Abyss: An Insider’s History of the Cold War, 1st ed., New York: Bal-
lantine Books, 2004; Robert Service, The End of the Cold War: 1985–1991, New York: Pub-
licAffairs, 2015. For counterarguments, see Frances Fitzgerald, Way Out There in the Blue:
Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War, New York: Simon & Shuster, 2001; Pavel
Podvig, “Did Star Wars Help End the Cold War? Soviet Response to the SDI Program,” Rus-
sian Nuclear Forces Project, working paper, March 2013.
4 For a detailed history of these developments, see Keith L. Shimko, The Iraq Wars and
America’s Military Revolution, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Air and Space Measures 175
5 CPGS is an R&D effort to develop conventional weapons capable of striking targets any-
where on Earth in as little as an hour. Concepts that have been considered for this mission
include arming ICBMs or SLBMs with conventional warheads and developing air-delivered
or submarine-launched hypersonic (Mach 5+) cruise missiles and several types of hypersonic
boost-glide vehicles and hypervelocity (Mach 8+) test vehicles. See Amy F. Woolf, Conven-
tional Prompt Global Strike and Long-Range Ballistic Missiles: Background and Issues, Wash-
ington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, R41464, July 7, 2017d.
176 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Potential Benefits
Deploying bombers to distant bases around Russia’s periphery would
certainly get Moscow’s attention and raise Russian anxieties. U.S.
leaders used this tactic several times during the Cold War, sometimes
hinting that the aircraft were nuclear-armed, to threaten their Soviet
counterparts during crises.10 Russian leaders would likely find such
deployments even more threatening today. Low-observable bomb-
ers, such as the B-2 Spirit or B-21 Raider (currently under develop-
ment), might be able to penetrate Russia’s integrated air-defense system
(IADS), particularly if supported by electronic warfare (EW) assets to
Risks
The potential benefits would not come without risks, and some of
them would be substantial. Deploying bombers and additional tac-
tical nuclear weapons to bases in Western Europe and on Pacific
islands would threaten Russian leaders, but Moscow might react to
those threats in ways contrary to U.S. and allied interests. Instead of
investing large amounts of money in air defenses, Russia could choose
to build up its arsenal of longer-range missiles to hold these bases at
risk. Deploying missiles with ranges above 500 km would violate
the INF Treaty.13 Were Russian leaders committed to remaining in
compliance with that agreement, they would need to invest in more-
expensive defensive measures, such as upgrading their IADS or devel-
oping advanced long-range fighters. However, recent behavior sug-
gests Russian leaders might not consider the INF Treaty a constrain-
ing factor.14 Russian missile investments in reaction to U.S. bomber
and fighter deployments might alarm European allies and risk the loss
11 Kremlin, Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation, Sec. II, Para. 12.d, Moscow, 2014.
Also see Sec. II, Para. 15 and Sec. IV, Para. 106 of Kremlin, 2015b.
12 Bilyana Lilly, Russian Foreign Policy Toward Missile Defense: Actors, Motivations, and Influ-
ence, Lantham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2014.
13 See United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 1987.
14 See Michael R. Gordon, “Russia Has Deployed Missiles Barred by Treaty, U.S. Gen-
eral Tells Congress,” New York Times, March 8, 2017b; Amy F. Woolf, Russian Compliance
with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty: Background and Issues for Congress,
Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, R43832, March 15, 2017c.
180 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
15 For an analysis of instabilities that could result from basing strike fighters close to
an opponent, see Forrest E. Morgan, Crisis Stability and Long-Range Strike: A Compara-
tive Analysis of Fighters, Bombers, and Missiles, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation,
MG-1258-AF, 2013.
Air and Space Measures 181
Likelihood of Success
Of the four changes in force posture and operations examined, the
bomber option (augmented with the redeployment of nonstrategic
nuclear weapons to Europe) would seem to offer the greatest promise
as a cost-imposing strategy. Confronted with frequent bomber deploy-
ments to theater bases where nuclear warheads are stored, Russian
leaders would likely invest in additional precision-guided missiles with
sufficient range to hold those bases at risk. However, Moscow would
also realize that the United States would keep a substantial percent-
age of the bombers airborne at all times during a crisis, leaving Russia
little opportunity to destroy many of them with a preemptive strike
on the bases. Therefore, Russian leaders would be forced to consider
how to increase the effectiveness of their IADS and the survivability
of the bombers’ potential targets. Attempting to harden critical targets
against even small-yield nuclear strikes, or making greater numbers of
fixed nodes mobile, could require expensive investments. Were U.S.
leaders able to communicate a credible threat that the bombers might
be armed with nuclear weapons, Russian leaders might become anx-
ious enough to invest considerable sums in increasing survivability and
improving their air defenses.
Posturing fighters close to Russia’s borders could have effects sim-
ilar to posturing bombers at more-distant bases but would carry greater
risk. U.S. and European leaders would be less inclined to position
nuclear weapons at these locations because of the stability concerns
their proximity would raise and the need to rotate the fighters among
multiple locations. This would still confront Russia with a height-
ened conventional threat that could cause its leaders to invest more in
upgrading the IADS. However, with the fighters deployed to locations
in range of much higher numbers of Russian ballistic and cruise mis-
siles, Moscow might be inclined to rely more heavily on countering the
fighter threat by striking those airfields, even if they are dispersed and
the aircraft rotated among them. As in the bomber option, U.S. leaders
might try to keep some percentage of fighters airborne throughout a
crisis. But, given the need for each aircraft to fly multiple sorties during
a conventional conflict, Russian leaders would probably be confident
that they could destroy considerable numbers of fighters on the ground
182 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
and shut down their deployment airfields early on with little or no addi-
tion to their missile inventory. Even if Moscow were to decide to add
some number of missiles to its inventory, that response would probably
be less expensive than upgrading its IADS, offering the United States
little benefit in return for the increased risk of crisis instability.
Repositioning BMD assets in Europe and Asia to better intercept
Russian missiles would likely be the least effective cost-imposing strat-
egy. Russia could easily saturate current systems and planned upgrades
with a small percentage of its existing missile inventory, leaving many
missiles still available to hold U.S. and allied targets at risk. Given that
repositioning BMD assets would probably make them less effective
in their assigned missions—defending Europe and the United States
from missiles launched from the Middle East, and defending Japan,
South Korea, and U.S. forces in Northeast Asia from missiles launched
from North Korea—doing so would appear to be a poor move with
little or no cost imposition on Russia.
During the Cold War, the U.S. air- and space-related actions that
appear to have been most effective in getting Moscow to spend money
on programs it could not afford have usually been in the realm of R&D.
U.S. developments in air and space have goaded Russian leaders into
spending billions of rubles on a moon race and multiple arms races.
Therefore, increases in aerospace R&D might be an effective way to
get Russia to extend itself in the emerging strategic competition. Pos-
sible approaches include making greater investments in low-observable
aircraft, autonomous aircraft or RPAs, long-range strike aircraft and
missiles, longer-range HARMs, and new EW technologies for degrad-
ing or defeating enemy IADS. More-exotic R&D efforts could focus
on such items as long-range, precision-guided conventional missiles
(e.g., CPGS); space-based weapons; or transatmospheric strike aircraft
(i.e., “spaceplanes”). Alternatively, the United States could focus on
Air and Space Measures 183
trying to make its own national security space infrastructure and that
of its allies more resilient to Russian attack.
Potential Benefits
Most of these developments would exploit Moscow’s demonstrated fear of
U.S. airpower capabilities and doctrines. As mentioned earlier, Russia has
already invested a great deal of money in developing a highly sophisticated
IADS, focusing mainly on ground-based defenses, because it feels threat-
ened by U.S. airpower. Russian military publications have ruminated
over threats presented by low-observable aircraft armed with precision-
guided weapons,16 and Russia’s national military doctrine has even sug-
gested that conventional long-range strike could present an existential
threat that would justify Russia resorting to the use of nuclear weapons.17
Developing new low-observable, long-range bombers or simply adding
significantly more of types already available or programmed (B-2s and
B-21s) would be worrisome for Moscow. Similarly, developing autono-
mous or remotely piloted strike aircraft and producing them in high
numbers would present Russia with the threat that its IADS could be
penetrated via saturation attacks at selected locations.
Developing more-sophisticated EW capabilities to degrade Rus-
sia’s detection and tracking radars or a new long-range HARM for tar-
geting and destroying them would threaten the viability of the Russian
IADS directly. Developing new long-range cruise missiles or signifi-
cantly adding to the inventory of existing missiles would threaten both
the IADS and the targets it is designed to protect, such as operational
and strategic command-and-control nodes. Long-range precision-
guided conventional missiles, such as those envisioned for the CPGS
mission, would be even more frightening because they could strike
with very little warning and be difficult to defeat. Posturing weapons
in space or developing spaceplanes designed to strike terrestrial targets
16 See, for instance, V. F. Miruk, “Aerospace Defense as a Strategic Stability Factor,” Mili-
tary Thought, No. 2, 1997; G. P. Kupriyanov, “Principal Trends in the Evolution of Space
Warfare,” Military Thought, No. 1, 2005; B. F. Cheltsov, “Matters of Air and Space Defense
in Russia’s Military Doctrine,” Military Thought, No. 2, 2007.
17 See Sec. III, Para. 27, of Kremlin, 2014.
184 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
would have similar effects with even shorter warning times and longer
reach. Alternatively, investing in making U.S. and allied space capa-
bilities more resilient (using such approaches as proliferating and dis-
persing force enhancement capabilities across high numbers of Small-
Sats) would not threaten Russia directly but would generate pressures
in Moscow to develop ways to overcome these systems and undermine
the warfighting advantages they provide to U.S. forces.
Any of these developments could prompt Moscow to invest sub-
stantial resources in trying to find ways to defend Russia’s leaders,
infrastructure, and critical capabilities. Developing new EW systems
or more-capable penetrating bombers could compel Russia to invest
in expensive upgrades to the detection, tracking, and targeting capa-
bilities of its IADS. Adding substantially to the numbers of existing
U.S. bombers; developing autonomous strike aircraft; or developing a
new, longer-range HARM or cruise missile could have similar effects.
These developments could also prompt Russia to develop new air supe-
riority fighters with greater capabilities and longer ranges to intercept
the bombers and strike aircraft farther from Russian targets. This
response would be even more likely if the United States developed air-
delivered hypersonic cruise missiles or boost-glide vehicles because of
the difficulty of defeating such weapons once they are launched. CPGS
would not trigger new fighter development in Russia because it would
be based in hardened silos or on submarines or aircraft and operating
at distances that fighters could not reach. However, CPGS might lead
Russia to invest greater sums of money in hardening critical targets or
making more of them mobile. CPGS could also trigger Russian invest-
ment in BMD, which could be a very costly undertaking. The devel-
opment of space-based weapons or spaceplanes, alternatively, would
likely prompt Russian leaders to invest in counterspace weapons, such
as direct-ascent kinetic anti-satellite systems and high-powered lasers
or other directed-energy weapons. U.S. SmallSats could have similar
effects, although pressures to find ways to defeat those would likely be
less than if the United States were to put weapons in space. In any case,
all of these developments would likely incentivize Moscow to devote
ever-greater resources to making its command-and-control systems
harder, more mobile, and more redundant.
Air and Space Measures 185
Risks
Some of the risks associated with increases in aerospace R&D mirror
those of changes in force posture and operations, while others are dif-
ferent. The most-serious risks revolve around undermining stability in a
crisis. If reposturing existing BMD systems in Europe and Asia would
be destabilizing, then deploying new BMD systems with greater capa-
bilities could be even more destabilizing if they are deployed to either
theater. Developing autonomous strike aircraft and new penetrating
bombers could also be destabilizing if they are deployed to bases within
range of Russia’s conventional missiles. Space-based weapons could be
destabilizing because of their vulnerability to counterspace weapons.
Deploying CPGS could be the most destabilizing of all, if Russian
leaders were to conclude that the only way to protect themselves would
be to strike first in a crisis. CPGS could be particularly dangerous if
launched on ICBMs or SLBMs with trajectories resembling those used
by nuclear-armed missiles because it would be difficult, perhaps impos-
sible, to determine whether the vehicle is armed with a conventional or
nuclear warhead until detonation. In a crisis or conventional conflict,
Russian leaders might panic upon receiving alarms from their strategic
warning systems and launch nuclear counterstrikes without waiting for
the incoming missiles to detonate.18
Another risk that U.S. policymakers should consider is that of
being drawn into arms races that result in cost-imposing strategies
against the United States. Investing in BMD systems and space-based
weapons would alarm Moscow, but measures that Russia could take
to defend against such developments would probably be considerably
cheaper than what these systems would cost the United States. BMD
is a challenging mission. Developing capable systems and fielding
them in sufficient number to present a credible threat to Russia’s mis-
sile forces would be very expensive. Conversely, defeating such systems
18 Another issue worth considering is that CPGS launchers would count against the number
of strategic launch vehicles allowed under New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). If
U.S. leaders chose to deploy some number of CPGS launchers, they would have to reduce the
number of strategic nuclear delivery vehicles available to the United States by that number to
remain in compliance with the treaty.
186 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Likelihood of Success
Increases in aerospace R&D offer good options for cost-imposing strat-
egies against Russia, but some are clearly better than others and some
approaches should be avoided. The approaches that offer the most
promise are those that would be difficult and expensive for Russia to
defend against but affordable for the United States. Among those that
best meet those criteria are systems designed to degrade or defeat Rus-
sia’s IADS. Developing more-capable EW systems and longer-range
HARMs and cruise missiles would appear to be affordable moves that
could drive disproportionately expensive upgrades to Russia’s IADS.
19 For a discussion of the costs of missiles compared with missile defense based on data from
Israel, as well as a discussion of that situation in a Russian context, see Raphael S. Cohen,
David E. Johnson, David E. Thaler, Brenna Allen, Elizabeth M. Bartels, James Cahill, and
Shira Efron, From Cast Lead to Protective Edge: Lessons from Israel’s Wars in Gaza, Santa
Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR-1888-A, 2017, pp. 56, 182–183.
Air and Space Measures 187
sian leaders would conclude that they need a new long-range fighter.
U.S. leaders should develop these capabilities if they are affordable but
should be cautious in posturing them during a crisis to avoid scaring
Russian leaders so badly that they conclude that their only alternative
is to launch a preemptive attack.
SmallSats and other approaches for making U.S. space force
enhancement capabilities more resilient are probably good investments
even if they do prove to be expensive. They might not contribute to cost-
imposing strategies against Russia; in fact, if they succeed in making
the U.S. national security space infrastructure highly resilient to attack,
Russia might not bother investing in capabilities to do so. However, given
the many ways that U.S. forces’ warfighting effectiveness is enhanced
by support from space systems, investing in making these systems more
resilient would be worthwhile in its own right, in terms of a potential
conflict not only with Russia but also with other actors.
Conversely, investing in additional BMD or putting weapons in
space would not appear to be sound cost-imposing strategies. These
systems might be not only be destabilizing but also very expensive,
easily defeated, and—potentially—globally unpopular. Engaging
Russia in an arms race in either of these classes of weapons would
be tantamount to falling prey to a cost-imposing strategy against the
United States. Developing spaceplanes would face similar challenges in
that such a capability would be very expensive. However, spaceplanes
would not be as vulnerable as space-based weapons because they would
not go into orbit until they are employed, so they would not be as
easily detected, tracked, and targeted. Further analysis should be done
to determine whether missions of sufficient importance exist to justify
the costs of developing spaceplanes and the threats to crisis stability
they might generate. In any case, whether needed for other reasons,
investing in spaceplanes probably would not be an effective strategy for
imposing costs on Russia.
Air and Space Measures 189
During the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet Union invested enormously in
its nuclear forces in efforts to overmatch the capabilities presented in
the U.S. nuclear triad. Even after signing the Strategic Arms Limita-
tions Treaty (SALT) in 1972 and the SALT II in 1979, Moscow contin-
ued investing in platforms, delivery systems, and warheads not barred
under provisions of these and other arms control agreements. Since
the end of the Cold War, Moscow and Washington have entered into
a series of additional nuclear arms control agreements, progressively
reducing the size of each side’s strategic nuclear arsenal and the num-
bers of delivery systems it can field. Table 6.1 summarizes the nuclear
arms control agreements reached by Moscow and Washington during
and since the Cold War.
As Table 6.1 indicates, U.S. and Russian leaders have signed a
series of arms control agreements reducing the numbers of strategic
nuclear warheads that each side could have—from the tens of thou-
sands they had in the 1970s to 6,000 in the early 1990s and the goal of
1,550 set in 2011 (to be implemented by February 5, 2018).20 Similarly,
the agreements have reduced the maximum allowed numbers of stra-
tegic nuclear delivery vehicles from 1,710 ICBMs and SLBMs for the
United States and 2,347 of those types for the Soviet Union in 1972
to the current limit, set in 2011, of 700 of all types (including strategic
bombers) for each side.21 Although not all the treaties went into force—
Congress never ratified the SALT II agreement, and implementation
of START II was indefinitely delayed after the United States withdrew
20 See United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Treaty on Reduc-
tion and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms and Associated Documents (START), July 31,
1991; United States of America and the Russian Federation, Treaty on Measures for the Further
Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START), April 8, 2010.
21 United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 1991; United States
of America and the Russian Federation, 2010.
Table 6.1
190
Strategic Nuclear Arms Control Agreements
Date signed May 26, 1972 June 18, 1979 July 31, 1991 January 3, 1993 May 24, 2002 April 8, 2010
Date ratified in United August 3, Not ratified October 1, 1992 January 26, March 6, 2003 December 22,
States 1972 1996 2010
Date entered into force October 3, N/A December 5, N/A June 1, 2003 February 5,
1972 1994 2011
Maximum allowed U.S.: 1,710; 2,250 1,600 Eliminated Not addressed 700
delivery vehicles Soviet Union: heavy ICBMs
2,347 and MIRVs on
(ICBMs and ICBMs
SLBMs only)
SOURCE: Arms Control Association, “U.S.-Russian Nuclear Arms Control Agreements at a Glance,” April 1, 2014.
NOTE: MIRV = multiple independently targeted reentry vehicle; SORT = Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty.
Air and Space Measures 191
Potential Benefits
Given the determination that Russian leaders have historically demon-
strated to at least maintain parity with the United States in strategic
nuclear weapons, U.S. leaders could probably goad Russia into a costly
arms race by breaking out of the nuclear arms control regime. Wash-
ington could abrogate New START and begin aggressively adding to
its nuclear stockpile and to its air and missile delivery systems. Moscow
would almost certainly follow suit, whatever the cost.
Risks
It is doubtful that the benefits of such a strategy would outweigh the
costs for the United States. The financial costs of a nuclear arms race
would probably be as high for the United States as they would be for
Russia, perhaps higher. But the more-serious costs would be political
and strategic. Breaking out of the nuclear arms control regime would
trigger a hail of condemnation from multiple quarters, domestic and
international. It would cause Russian leaders to question whether to
remain in other important treaties, such as the INF Treaty. It could
jeopardize continued support for the Non-Proliferation Treaty in many
countries, possibly encouraging states that are technically capable of
developing nuclear weapons but have thus far chosen not to do so to
reverse that stance and take steps to protect themselves in what they
22 During the delayed implementation of START II, neither side made the specified reduc-
tions. However, negotiations for START III began in 2000, and the Strategic Offensive Reduc-
tion Treaty, signed in 2002 and implemented in 2003, mandated deeper reductions with which
both sides complied. On SALT II compliance, see Office of the Historian, “Strategic Arms
Limitations Talks/Treaty I and II,” Milestones: 1969–1976, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Depart-
ment of State, undated-b. For details on START II and the Strategic Offensive Reduction
Treaty, see United States of America and the Russian Federation, Treaty on Further Reduc-
tion and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START II), January 3, 1993; Arms Control
Association, “Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty at a Glance,” September 15, 2006. Russia,
however, has begun to add MIRVs to its nuclear arsenal, which would have been banned under
START II. See Michael Scollon, “Russia: A New MIRV Emerges,” Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty, May 31, 2007.
192 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Likelihood of Success
All considered, this would not appear to be a desirable strategy for
imposing costs on Russia, assuming Russia does not do it first.
Recommendations
Table 6.2
Findings for Air and Space Measures
could counter some of these options relatively easily with modest invest-
ments in additional capabilities. Breaking out of the nuclear arms control
regime would appear to be the worst strategy of all, given the costs and
risks that such a move would entail.
Finally, although developing SmallSats and making other invest-
ments in the U.S. orbital infrastructure would probably not be an effec-
tive cost-imposing strategy against Russia, such investments might be
warranted to improve the operational resilience of U.S. national secu-
rity space capabilities.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Maritime Measures
1 U.S. Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) and U.S. Office of Naval Intel-
ligence (ONI), Understanding Soviet Naval Developments, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Depart-
ment of the Navy, NAVSO P-3560 (Rev 7/91), 1991, pp. 49–81.
195
196 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
but construction has not been initiated.2 Meanwhile, Russia has several
small surface combatant programs under way.
Russia’s submarine production situation is less dire. Russia has
commissioned nine submarines since 1990 and has four more hulls in
construction. However, only one of these is a nuclear-powered attack
submarine (SSN). The other submarines commissioned are three
SSBNs and five diesel-powered submarines. The predominance of die-
sel-powered submarines is consistent with a coastal navy focus. The
contrast in naval vessel construction with the U.S. Navy is startling.
Since 1990, the U.S. Navy has acquired 64 destroyers and 16 SSNs.
The U.S. Navy continues to acquire two to three destroyers and two
SSNs per year (Table 7.1).3
The Russian Navy has introduced several weapon systems that
mitigate some of the deficiencies to its current fleet structure and acqui-
sition program. The Kalibr family of missiles includes a land attack
cruise missile (LACM) and an anti-ship cruise missile (ASCM). Both
missiles can be fired from surface ships, submarines, and ground launch-
Table 7.1
Russian and U.S. Naval Force Levels, 2015
SSBN 12 14
Diesel submarine 18 0
Aircraft carrier 1 10
Amphibious ships 19 30
2 ONI, The Russian Navy: A Historic Transition, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the
Navy, December 2015, p. 23.
3 CNO, Report to Congress on the Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels
for Fiscal Year 2017, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Navy, July 2016, p. 5.
Maritime Measures 197
ers. The reported operational ranges for the LACM and ASCM are
2,500 km and 300 km, respectively. Supplementing these cruise mis-
siles is the Oniks anti-ship missile that combines long range (300 km)
with high speed (Mach 2.5).4
The emerging picture of the Russian Navy suggests a force that
is recapitalizing around a limited set of capable coastal platforms
outfitted with excellent weaponry. There are two notable exceptions.
First, the Russian submarine force continues to acquire and deploy
advanced nuclear-powered attack and ballistic submarines. Russian
SSNs, though few in number, are particularly capable of operations
at extended ranges from Russia. Second, the combination of smaller
surface combatants, diesel-electric submarines, and long-range modern
anti-ship weapons means that the Russian surface navy can carry out a
robust access denial strategy.
The decision to focus on local operational areas with its navy
means that Russia’s industrial infrastructure to design, build, and
maintain a large blue-water navy has atrophied. An obvious means to
extend Russia would be to lead it to invest in capabilities aligned to a
blue-water navy. To move away from its littorals would take time and
resources that Russia is currently applying elsewhere.
Increasing U.S. and allied naval force posture and presence in Russia’s
operating areas could lead Russia to increase its naval investments, thus
potentially diverting funds from more-dangerous areas. There are two
possible components to this strategy. First, to maximize pressure, the
United States and its allies should increase their naval presence in all
of the Russian operational areas. Russia’s geography makes it difficult
to move ships and submarines between its operational fleets. The U.S.
Navy has the force structure and—equally important—a global set
of allies that can increase presence within Russia’s northern, Baltic,
Benefits
Increasing U.S. and allied naval presence in the Russian operational
areas has three potential areas of benefit. First, it could lead to increased
Russian investments in areas of U.S. and allied strengths. Second, it
5 Franklin D. Kramer and Magnus Nordenman, “A Maritime Framework for the Baltic Sea
Region,” Washington, D.C.: Atlantic Council, Issue Brief, March 2016.
6 NATO signed host-nation support agreements with Sweden and Finland at the 2014
Wales summit.
7 In 2016, the Northern Fleet’s flotilla was composed of seven SSBNs, 17 SSNs, and six
diesel-powered submarines. ONI, 2015, pp. 17–19.
8 Assessment is based on the challenges the United States still has in detected submarines,
despite its sophisticated anti-submarine capabilities and the comparative lack of Russian
response to U.S. submarine activity in Europe and the Western Pacific.
200 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
could lead to increased U.S. and allied naval capacity and improved
collaboration. Third, it could improve the capability of the United
States and its allies as pertain to China. This policy would also be con-
sistent with the U.S. Navy’s desire to expand its size to 355 ships.
The most obvious potential benefit of this policy measure is
increased Russian investment in ASW and blue-water naval capa-
bilities. These investments would maximize the resource demand on
Russia while minimizing the impact on the United States and its allies.
ASW is extremely time-consuming and resource intensive, and Russia
has historically used its nuclear submarine force for this purpose. How-
ever, the increasingly stealthy nature of modern submarines has shifted
ASW to an enterprise dominated by surface and aviation forces.9 The
U.S. Navy has a relatively large and modernizing fleet of SSNs that
could directly threaten the Russian Northern and Pacific fleets, includ-
ing SSBN bastions. Should Russia choose to respond to this increased
SSN presence, it would require costly ASW investments. The high
quality of the United Kingdom’s Astute-class SSNs and of Japan’s large
diesel-powered submarines can also contribute to this effort. The chal-
lenge for the U.S. Navy would be to generate sufficient availability of
SSNs to make this a consistent and concerted threat. The demand on
the U.S. SSN fleet is already greater than the supply,10 and the shrink-
ing size of the fleet means this mismatch will increase until 2024,
when the size of the fleet will begin to grow. In the Baltic Sea, Russian
diesel-powered submarines have been an increasing source of concern
for Sweden, Finland, and NATO.11 This tactic can be turned on the
Russians with the existing NATO and Swedish submarine fleets. In
particular, Germany and Sweden have small but high-quality subma-
rines that exceed Russian capabilities in terms of quality and quantity.
Increasing their presence near the Russian operating areas could lead to
investments that Russia has deemed unnecessary thus far.
The U.S. Navy and its allies have the ability to operate in and
around Russian operating areas with a set of capabilities that Russia
cannot currently counter. Russia’s ability to project naval forces into
blue-water areas is limited in both capacity and capability. Unless
Russia chooses to completely cede those areas, it could have to increase
its level of investment into blue-water naval assets.
Increased U.S. and allied naval presence has two ancillary ben-
efits: improved collaboration with allied navies and improved posture
relative to China. The U.S. Navy has a long tradition of conducting
joint operations and exercises with its allies. Increasing the frequency
and length of those interactions would be beneficial, particularly if
those allies increase the size of their navies in response to Russia. For
example, Japan recently announced an increase in its submarine force
from 16 to 20 boats. While this increase is primarily driven by con-
cerns about China, it might allow for increased Japanese undersea
activity in Russia’s Pacific Fleet operating areas. The secondary benefit
of an improved posture relative to China is equally clear, particularly in
light of improved collaboration with allies. As the United States and its
allies increase their naval presence in Russian operating areas, the U.S.
Navy effectively increases its capacity. Improved coordination in the
Northern and Baltic operating areas could allow the United States to
move more forces to the western Pacific. Any improved collaboration
and capacity with Japan directly affects the calculus of China.
Risks
Improving the ability of the U.S. Navy to find and threaten Russian
SSBNs, through either increased presence or improved capability,
carries implicit risk. To generate increased expenditures, the elevated
threat to their SSBN force must be apparent to Russia. The knowledge
that this strategic asset is threatened could increase the propensity for
a first strike from Russia.12
In addition, extending Russia by leading it to increase its naval
investments broadly—and its ASW capabilities specifically—involves
12
Barry R. Posen, Inadvertent Escalation: Conventional War and Nuclear Risks, Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell University Press, 1991.
202 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Likelihood of Success
The size of investment required by Russia to reconstitute a blue-water
naval capability makes it unlikely it could be compelled or enticed to
do so. However, Russia could be compelled to increase its ASW capa-
bilities in response to U.S. and allied efforts. U.S. and allied subma-
rines are relatively unaffected by Russia’s access denial efforts, which
threaten surface ships. Russia has a significant SSBN force that it con-
tinues to modernize and rely on as part of its strategic posture. Any
threats that the United States and its allies might make against this
force are more likely to drive a Russian response.
Deploying U.S. and allied surface fleets in and around Russian
operating areas might be less likely to drive a Russian response. But the
cost required to increase those deployments is equally low. Addition-
ally, increased U.S. and allied naval exercises have the secondary ben-
efit of improved collaboration.
The situation in the Baltic Sea presents a particularly interest-
ing opportunity. NATO naval forces already have both numeric and
capability advantages. The military balance becomes even more favor-
able if Swedish forces are included with those of NATO. Russia has
made significant investments in access denial capabilities that threaten
the ability of surface and aviation forces to operate freely. The combi-
nation of NATO and Swedish forces, particularly with the periodic
assistance of U.S. naval forces, can challenge these Russian improve-
ments. NATO and Sweden have a significant advantage in undersea
capabilities, which could lead Russia to make ASW investments. In an
Maritime Measures 203
13 Lockheed Martin is considering using its Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile to deliver
multiple smaller munitions. See Rachel Karas, “Highlights from Inside the Air Force,”
Insider Defense, April 28, 2017.
204 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Potential Benefits
R&D into technologies that challenge Russia’s operational advantages
can directly impose costs on Russia or invert the cost curve in the
current relationship between offensive and defensive systems. Devel-
oping new weapons that allow U.S. submarines to threaten a broader
set of targets or enhance their ability to threaten Russian SSBNs could
impose ASW costs on Russia. Development of air and missile defenses
that use directed energy and cost less on a per engagement basis could
call into question Russia’s access denial strategies. Spreading these new
capabilities across allied navies could impose more cost on Russia.
The benefit of these R&D efforts is not limited to Russian chal-
lenges. Improving the number and variety of strike weapons available
14 The U.S. Navy is developing hypervelocity projectiles for its deck-mounted 5-inch guns
and rail guns for future surface combatants. Both technologies improve air and missile
defense, potentially changing the cost ratio between offense and defense. Ronald O’Rourke,
Navy Lasers, Railgun, and Hypervelocity Projectile: Background and Issues for Congress, Wash-
ington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, R44175, October 17, 2017c.
Maritime Measures 205
to the U.S. Navy would have the same benefits in a Chinese context.
Access denial weapons, primarily ASCMs and ballistic missiles, are
becoming increasingly common. The benefit of low-cost but effective
air and missile defense options would be useful in all future conflicts.
Risks
There are limited risks in pursuing these R&D efforts, which are
broadly useful to the U.S. Navy and its allies. There is the possibility
that Russia, or more likely China, would develop ASW capabilities in
an effort to counter these threats, but those efforts are likely to be pur-
sued anyway. There is also a chance that the opportunity cost of these
R&D efforts would be too high if the United States were to pursue
these efforts at the expense of other, higher-margin investments.
Likelihood of Success
Success is dependent on being able to develop these capabilities and
on whether they are sufficient to influence Russian expenditures. The
development of new weapons for submarines is a relatively low risk,
though it would not necessarily come at a low cost. New undersea
strike weapons can combine missile bodies, sensors, network links,
and warheads from numerous systems already in production or devel-
opment. Developing improved submarine-launched torpedoes also
reflects low risk. The key question is whether the potential strike capac-
ity from undersea platforms is significant enough to generate a Russian
response—instead of pursuing expensive ASW efforts, Russia could
choose to absorb the increased damage to its forces or add sufficient
force structure to compensate.
The more-esoteric systems that invert the cost curve of air and mis-
sile defense have a higher development risk but also a higher potential
payoff. Developing directed-energy capabilities that blunt access denial
weapons and make the marginal defensive capacity cheaper than the
marginal offensive capacity would impose major costs on Russia—and
China. Strategies to limit the impact of U.S. air and naval dominance
would become less relevant, and opponents would be forced to mark-
edly increase force structure—a cost imposition—or radically change
their military strategies.
206 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
The United States could increase the size of its SSBN fleet, which
is considered the most secure leg of the strategic triad. SSBNs are
deployed to Atlantic and Pacific operating areas, creating an extraor-
dinarily difficult problem for Russia. Finding, tracking, and targeting
the SSBN fleet would require a full set of blue-water naval capabilities
and a robust ASW force.
Potential Benefits
If successful, this policy measure would lead Russia to invest in capa-
bilities that can operate in a blue-water environment in two oceans.
Russia would have to develop and acquire the ability to find and track
these extremely stealthy submarines along with the ability to provide
protection to those ASW assets in the face of vigorous opposition from
the U.S. Navy. If Russia were to go down this path, significant invest-
ment would be required.
Risks
The risks to the U.S. strategic posture are limited. In order to actually
threaten the undersea leg of the strategic triad, Russia must have the
ability to threaten at least a significant portion of the deployed SSBN
fleet simultaneously. That is an incredibly difficult task, and any Rus-
sian progress toward achieving it would be highly visible to the United
States. A second risk involves the cost of increasing the size of the SSBN
fleet. SSBNs are expensive to acquire and operate,15 and increasing the
fleet is likely to create opportunity cost because the U.S. Navy would
not be able to invest those funds in other areas of need. Finally, any
shift in nuclear posture would also require navigating relevant arms
control treaties and other political considerations.
Likelihood of Success
Shifting the U.S. strategic posture is unlikely to entice Russia into
changing its strategy. The requirement to build a robust blue-water
navy capable of defending large ASW task forces across two oceans is
too expensive and the possibility of success too remote. Furthermore,
Russia’s implementation would be so slow that the United States could
easily respond at far less expense. Moreover, while any shift in the U.S.
nuclear posture might be viewed by Russia with apprehension, it might
not be sufficient to prompt a change in policy.
The Black Sea has long been an important economic and strategic
outlet for Russia. One of the country’s few year-round warm-water sea-
fronts, the Black Sea ports provide a key economic transit point. Some
74,300 Russian vessels crossed through Bosporus in 2013, and some
24.6 million tons of Russian oil went through the Black Sea in 2014.16
Unsurprisingly, the Black Sea also provides an important base for Rus-
sian power projection, and the base at Sevastopol is home to Russia’s
Black Sea Fleet.
Since its annexation of Crimea, Russia has increased its military
presence in the region. It planned a $1 billion upgrade to its the Black
Sea Fleet by 2020, including six submarines, six frigates, two missile
corvettes, and other smaller craft.17 Russia also plans to modernize the
Belbek air base in Crimea and has deployed an advanced S-400 sur-
face-to-air missile system to control the skies over the Black Sea.18 It
also has stationed some 28,000 troops there and could deploy up to
43,000 between 2020 and 2025, three times the number there were
before Crimea’s annexation.19
16
“Turkey Has No Legal, Economic Basis to Close Bosphorus for Russian Ships,” Sputnik
News, November 26, 2015.
17 Sharyl Cross, “NATO–Russia Security Challenges in the Aftermath of Ukraine Con-
flict: Managing Black Sea Security and Beyond,” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies,
Vol. 15, No. 2, 2015, p. 164; Sam Jones and Kathrin Hille, “Russia’s Military Ambitions
Make Waves in the Black Sea,” Financial Times, May 13, 2016.
18 Cross, 2015, p. 164; Ridvan Bari Urcosta and Lev Abalkin, “Crimea: Russia’s Stronghold
in the Black Sea,” European Council on Foreign Relations, September 1, 2016.
19 Urcosta and Abalkin, 2016.
208 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Potential Benefits
The principal benefit of strengthened NATO anti–access and area
denial (A2AD) measures over the Black Sea would be to drive up the
cost of defending Russian bases in Crimea and to lower the benefit to
Russia of having seized this area.
Romania has expressed concern over the Russian buildup in the
Black Sea and has tried to bolster its ties to NATO accordingly. Indeed,
it has pushed for a Black Sea NATO brigade, as well as more maritime
exercises in the region.24 Ukraine arguably remains more focused on
the land conflict in the east of its country, but it too has expressed con-
cern about Black Sea security and offered to participate in a NATO-led
task force there.25 Similarly, Georgia would like to see increased NATO
capabilities in the region. Lacking much of a navy, it offered NATO a
base near the port of Poti.26
Risks
On a basic level, Russia would certainly regard an increase in NATO
A2AD capabilities around the Black Sea as threatening and would
mount a vigorous diplomatic and informational campaign to dissuade
coastal NATO and non-NATO states from participating.
23 Terrence K. Kelly, Anthony Atler, Todd Nichols, and Lloyd Thrall, Employing Land-
Based Anti-Ship Missiles in the Western Pacific, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation,
TR-1321-A, 2013.
24
Daniel McLaughlin, “Romania Boosts NATO Role as Black Sea Tension Rises,” Irish
Times, December 14, 2016.
25 “Ukraine and Romania Agree to Create NATO-Led Black Sea Fleet,” UAWire, April 21,
2016.
26 JoshuaKucera, “Georgia Offers NATO to Build a Black Sea Base at Poti,” Eurasianet,
March 9, 2017.
210 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Likelihood of Success
Improving NATO’s A2AD capabilities in the Black Sea will depend
principally on the willingness of coastal states to brave Russian objec-
tions and accept the risks involved in the event of an actual conflict.
Romania seems the most likely to respond positively to such an initia-
tive. It is less clear how Turkey would respond, and Bulgaria is unlikely
to participate. In June 2016, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov
resisted the idea of Bulgaria joining a NATO maritime exercise, saying
“I always say that I want the Black Sea to see sailboats, yachts, large
boats with tourists and not become an arena of military action. . . . I
do not need a war in the Black Sea.”30
27 Steven Beardsley, “Russian Missiles Prompt Navy to Look at Ships’ Close-In Defenses,”
Stars & Stripes, April 8, 2016.
28 Ivan Watson and Sebastian Shukla, “Russian Fighter Jets ‘Buzz’ U.S. Warship in Black
Sea, Photos Show,” CNN.com, February 16, 2017.
29
Franco Ordoñez, “Russia Considers Opening Military Base in Cuba,” McClatchy DC
Bureau, October 11, 2016.
30
“Bulgaria Says Will Not Join Any NATO Black Sea Fleet After Russian Warning,”
Reuters, June 16, 2016.
Maritime Measures 211
Recommendations
Table 7.2
Findings for Maritime Measures
Increase U.S. and allied naval force posture Medium Low Medium
and presence
31 According to CNA Russian naval expert Dimitry Gorenburg, many of the plans to
rebuild the Russian Navy are likely to be “unfulfilled aspirational documents,” and “the like-
lihood that Russia will retain its position as the world’s most powerful navy after the United
States until 2030 remains quite low.” Simply put, the Navy will likely not be a procurement
priority going forward. See Dmitry Gorenburg, “Russia’s New and Unrealistic Naval Doc-
trine,” War on the Rocks, July 26, 2017.
However, this is not a universal view, and some Russian naval experts actually see a slow
but steady positive trend line. See, for example, Michael Kofman and Jeffrey Edmonds, “Why
the Russian Navy Is More Capable Than It Appears,” The National Interest, August 22, 2017.
CHAPTER EIGHT
213
214 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
The United States has sharply decreased its land forces in Europe
since the end of the Cold War. U.S. Army forces in Europe declined
from more than 200,000 troops in 1989 to roughly 26,000 in 2016.1
This was accompanied by a decline in capabilities. For example, the
United States withdrew the last of its forward-stationed heavy armor
from Europe in 2013.2 Both European NATO members and Russia
have seen dramatic declines in the size of their ground forces over
this period, although the Russian declines have been more substan-
tial. Despite their own declines, NATO ground forces in Europe have
become much larger in comparison with Russia since the late 1980s,
although the gap has remained roughly constant over the past decade
(Figure 8.1).
Figure 8.1
Active Component European NATO and Russian Army Troops, 1989–2016
1.8
1.6
Number of troops (in millions)
1.4
0.6
Russia/Soviet Union
0.4
3 The six largest armies belonged to France, Greece, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and the United
Kingdom. See IISS, 2017.
4 Michael Shurkin, The Abilities of the British, French, and German Armies to Generate
and Sustain Armored Brigades in the Baltics, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation,
RR-1629-A, 2017.
5 Defense Manpower Data Center, 2017.
6 Shlapak and Johnson, 2016.
Land and Multidomain Measures 217
12 Michael Kofman, “The ABCs of Russian Military Power: A Primer for the New Admin-
istration,” The National Interest, February 2, 2017a.
13 Craig Caffrey, “Russia Adjusts Defence Spending Upward,” Janes Defence Weekly, March
21, 2018.
14 Kofman, 2017a; Michael Kofman “Reports of Deep Cuts to Russia’s Defense Budget
Have Been Grossly Exaggerated,” World Politics Review, March 22, 2017b; Mark Gale-
otti, “The Truth About Russia’s Defence Budget,” European Council on Foreign Relations,
March 24, 2017a.
15 A return to Cold War force levels such that the U.S. Army in Europe alone would become
roughly comparable in size to the current Russian Army, not to mention vastly more capable,
seems both unnecessary for any plausible deterrent purpose and highly unrealistic from an
economic and strategic perspective.
Land and Multidomain Measures 219
Europe, or did not always rotate to the same country, which could
avoid creating local expectations of permanent presence.
The second option would involve substantial increases in spend-
ing by European NATO members to improve the readiness and capa-
bilities of their military forces. As shown in Figure 8.1, even though
they have continued to see reductions in recent years, European
NATO member ground forces remain substantial in size, at least on
paper. Their lack of ability to deploy in a short-warning conflict sce-
nario stems from very low levels of readiness and from equipment
shortages, both symptoms of persistent underinvestment and more
than a decade of no perceived Russian threat.18 The solution, in broad
terms, is to spend more money. Some increases in end strength might
be necessary to allow for a larger number of forces to remain at a
heightened state of readiness, but procurement, training, and mainte-
nance appear to be the most-pressing needs for most states.19 Ideally,
this money would come from the taxpayers of the countries them-
selves, and there are signs that investments in defense have slowly
started to increase again among key European NATO members.20
In this option, we will assume for illustrative purposes that all of
the larger and more militarily capable states in NATO increase their
18 Shurkin, 2017.
19 Georg Löfflman, “Pulling Germany’s Military Back from the Brink,” The National Inter-
est, September 16, 2015; Gregory Viscusi, “French Military Overstretched as Hollande
Pushes Active Role,” Bloomberg News, January 21, 2016; Sam Jones, “Britain’s ‘Withered’
Forces Not Fit to Repel All-Out Attack,” Financial Times, September 16, 2016; Natalia
Kopytnik, “EAA Report Casts Doubt on Polish Military Readiness,” Warsaw Business Jour-
nal, June 16, 2015.
20 “Germany Says Boosting Defense Spending, Demands Clear U.S. Agenda,” Reuters,
January 18, 2017. The ability of U.S. policymakers to bring about an increase in the defense
spending of European NATO members has historically proven to be limited. While there
are signs that the potential threat posed by Russia might be shifting the calculations of some
members, it should be noted that this option is not entirely within the ability of U.S. policy-
makers to achieve. One option for U.S. policymakers that would be more politically difficult
would be to provide some of the needed additional money or targeted equipment in the form
of U.S. military assistance, though such funding has not recently been available to large,
wealthy countries that have simply chosen not to spend more on defense. The sums involved
would be substantial. Taking German defense spending alone from 1.2 percent of GDP to 2
percent of GDP (of a $3.6 trillion economy) would involve an additional $27 billion per year.
Land and Multidomain Measures 221
defense spending much more rapidly, such that even such coun-
tries as Germany (currently spending about 1.2 percent of GDP) are
spending the targeted 2 percent of GDP within the next few years.21
Increasing capabilities in smaller, frontline NATO members, such as
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, would also be highly welcome for the
purposes of deterrence. But given their population sizes, it is unlikely
that their capabilities could be increased to an extent that they would
prompt Russia to materially extend itself in response. Relatedly,
the common budget for the NATO Security Investment Program,
funded through country contributions proportionate to their GDP,
could also be substantially increased.22 This would allow for larger,
primarily European contributions to fund more-extensive construc-
tion of infrastructure in eastern-flank members of the Alliance; in
turn, that would provide the capability of those members to receive
additional NATO forces rapidly in a crisis.
The third option would involve the deployment of much greater
numbers of either U.S. or Western European NATO member forces
directly in either the Baltic States or Poland.23 NATO’s Enhanced For-
ward Presence initiative has already led to the rotational deployment of
multinational battalions to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, but
this option considers forces of much greater scale and effective combat
power.24 For illustrative purposes, this could involve the forward-
stationing of one or more BCTs or equivalents in each of the Baltic
21 “Germany Says Boosting Defense Spending, Demands Clear U.S. Agenda,” 2017.
22 Contributions to the NATO Security Investment Program budget were 690 million euros
in 2016, with the U.S. share roughly 22 percent of that total. The GDP-based cost-sharing
formula for the program ensures robust European support for vital infrastructure spend-
ing. Further increases in program funding could retain the same proportional formula. See
John Aguirre, “Management of NATO’s Common-Funded Resources,” presentation slides,
Garmisch, Germany: North Atlantic Treaty Organization, March 2016; Military Construc-
tion Program, “FY2017 Budget: North Atlantic Treaty Organization Security Investment
Program,” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Defense, February 2016.
23 The NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997 is currently interpreted by most NATO mem-
bers as preventing the permanent stationing of large NATO forces in eastern-flank members
of the Alliance, but these forces could alternately be permanently or rotationally deployed.
See NATO, “NATO-Russia Relations: The Facts,” February 28, 2018.
24 NATO, “NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence,” Brussels, fact sheet, May 2017a.
222 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
States, with even larger forces involving several U.S. or European BCTs,
including heavy forces and fires, stationed in Poland. Stationing this
size force in this location would aim to proportionately mirror NATO
presence in West Germany during the Cold War, although at much
lower total force levels and this time much nearer the Russian border.25
Two additional differences from the Cold War context are worth high-
lighting. First, this option will be assumed not to include the stationing
of nuclear weapons on the territory of these states, although that possi-
bility is explored elsewhere in this chapter. Second, forward-stationing
forces of this size in the Baltic States or Poland would, from the per-
spective of Russia and at least some European NATO members, appear
to violate the 1997 NATO Russia Founding Act. The key sentence in
the Act reads,
Some analysts have argued that the phrase “in the current and
foreseeable security environment” clearly does not encompass the
changes in the European strategic situation since the Russian invasion
of Ukraine. But this argument has not been persuasive to all NATO
members, most notably Germany.27 The current NATO battalion-sized
forces deployed to the Baltic States and Poland are deployed rotation-
ally, rather than permanently, partly for this reason. At larger force
25 This option is intentionally designed to include a large force in order to illustrate more
clearly the potential to extend Russia in this manner. If deterrence, rather than extension, of
Russia is the goal, then fewer forces would likely be sufficient.
26 NATO, “Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation, and Security Between NATO
and the Russian Federation Signed in Paris, France,” October 12, 2009.
27 Vanessa Gera, “Polish and Baltic Hopes for Permanent NATO Bases Frustrated by 1997
Agreement with Russia,” Associated Press, September 4, 2014; Luke Coffey and Daniel
Kochis, “The 1997 NATO–Russia Founding Act Does Not Prohibit Permanent NATO
Bases in Eastern Europe,” Washington, D.C.: Heritage Foundation, April 29, 2016.
Land and Multidomain Measures 223
28 Hicks et al., 2016, p. 54; Michael J. Lostumbo, Michael J. McNerney, Eric Peltz, Derek
Eaton, David R. Frelinger, Victoria A. Greenfield, John Halliday, Patrick Mills, Bruce R.
Nardulli, Stacie L. Pettyjohn, Jerry M. Sollinger, and Stephen M. Worman, Overseas Basing
of U.S. Military Forces: An Assessment of Relative Costs and Strategic Benefits, Santa Monica,
Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR-201-OSD, 2013.
224 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
29 Kofman, 2017a.
Land and Multidomain Measures 225
sharply since that time, a stronger and more capable NATO ground
force that remains centered in Western Europe likely would not be
perceived as a political or military challenge to vital Russian concerns.
The risks are more substantial when considering a dramatically
larger high-readiness ground force that is centered closer to or on
Russia’s borders. As noted earlier, such a force would have the poten-
tial to extend Russian military spending precisely because it would
represent a clear challenge to Russian interests politically—and, pos-
sibly, strategically—in such places as Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia.
Russia could consider enhanced forward posture part of an overall
NATO effort to contest its near abroad, encouraging such countries
as Ukraine to take a harder line against Moscow and offering rhe-
torical, and possibly material, support to other countries consider-
ing shifting their strategic orientations toward Europe. Such shifts
would threaten Russian regime security by moving key states out of
its strategic orbit and by demonstrating the potential for states in the
region to undertake political and economic reforms inimical to the
current regime in Moscow. By representing a potential threat to these
core Russian interests, the deployment of such forces would create an
incentive for Russia to push back forcefully in an attempt to deter the
United States and NATO from undertaking these deployments—or,
failing that, to push for reversal of the deployments after they are in
place. This pushback could take several forms, including but not lim-
ited to the following:
Likelihood of Success
To the extent that enhanced NATO ground forces remain centered
in Western Europe, they can likely be increased substantially and
provide multiple benefits, including enhanced deterrence and greater
capabilities for contingency operations in nearby regions, with rela-
tively low risk. The United States would likely face fewer political
obstacles to increasing its own forces in Western European countries.
Incentivizing large increases in European NATO member defense
spending would likely prove much more difficult, but even relatively
modest increases by members with large economies, such as Ger-
many, could have a substantial effect over time. However, ground
forces postured primarily in Western Europe also seem unlikely to
notably extend Russia.
Alternatively, the United States or larger European NATO mem-
bers could increase their ground forces substantially in eastern-flank
members of NATO, perhaps declaring the 1977 NATO Russia Found-
ing Act null and void by reason of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and
invasion of Eastern Ukraine. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland
have shown great enthusiasm for hosting other NATO forces (particu-
larly U.S. forces), although new deployments in those countries might
still result in increased costs over established bases in Western Europe.
Some Western European NATO members, notably Germany, might
have reservations about deploying larger concentrations of their own
forces so close to the Russian border—or even supporting the perma-
nent stationing of large forces of other states because doing so would
228 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
30 J. David Lashlee and James H. Robinson, “Tactical Mobility Modeling for REFORGER
87,” Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, Vol. 58, No. 8, August 1992, p. 1223.
Land and Multidomain Measures 229
31 Michael R. Gordon, “U.S. War Game in West Germany to Be Cut Back,” New York
Times, December 14, 1989; U.S. General Accounting Office, Computer Simulations Can
Improve Command Training in Large-Scale Exercises, Washington, D.C., Report to the Chair-
man, Subcommittee on Readiness, Committee on Armed Services, House of Representa-
tives, GAO/NSIAD-91-67, January 1991, p. 34.
32 Anne Applebaum, “NATO’s Next Mission,” Washington Post, November 23, 2010; Pat-
rick D. Allen, Simulation Support of Large-Scale Exercises: A REFORGER Case Study, Santa
Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, R-4156-A, 1992, pp. 2–3.
33 NATO, “NATO’s Steadfast Jazz Exercise Gets Underway,” November 2, 2013; Ian J.
Brzezinski and Nicholas Varangis, “The NATO-Russia Exercise Gap,” Atlantic Council,
February 23, 2015. It should be noted that the United Kingdom–hosted exercise Joint War-
rior was roughly twice the size of Steadfast Jazz, although still far smaller in scale than the
major Cold War exercises.
34 NATO, “Trident Juncture Shows NATO Capabilities ‘Are Real and Ready,’” Novem-
ber 4, 2015.
35
Alex Duval Smith, “NATO Countries Begin Largest War Game in Eastern Europe Since
Cold War,” The Guardian, June 6, 2016.
36 NATO, “Key NATO & Allied Exercises,” Brussels, fact sheet, July 2016a.
230 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
post–Cold War trend, the size of these exercises remains well below
Cold War levels and below comparable Russian activities.
Russia has dramatically increased the scale of its military exercises
over the past decade. In 2009, the Zapad-2009 exercise, the largest
Russian exercise since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, involved
roughly 12,500 troops.37 By 2014, however, Russia executed the
Vostok-2014 exercise, involving some 155,000 personnel.38 In these and
other recent exercises, Russian forces practiced mobilization and high-
end combat, including the integration of nuclear weapon forces.39 In
addition, Russia conducts sizable “snap” exercises, sometimes involv-
ing up to 50,000 troops, executed with little or no advance warning.40
These exercises are perhaps of most concern to NATO because, in a
crisis, they might be difficult to distinguish from preparations for an
actual Russian attack.41 While advance notification of such exercises
was required under the CFE Treaty, Russia suspended its participation
in the treaty in 2007.42 NATO followed suit in 2011 by suspending
many of its obligations, leaving both sides without the greater reassur-
ances and stability that the notification and inspection regime outlined
in the CFE Treaty was intended to provide.43
37 Johan Norberg, Training to Fight: Russia’s Major Military Exercises 2011–2014, Stock-
holm: Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI), December 2015, p. 11.
38 Norberg, 2015, p. 12.
39 Norberg, 2015, pp. 33, 42, 61.
40 Ian
J. Brzezinski and Nicholas Varangis, “The NATO-Russia Exercise Gap . . . Then,
Now, & 2017,” Atlantic Council, October 25, 2016.
41 Keir Giles, Russia’s ‘New’ Tools for Confronting the West: Continuity and Innovation in Mos-
cow’s Exercise of Power, London: Chatham House, March 2016, p. 68.
42 Areplacement for the CFE Treaty (about which Russia is enthusiastic) was negotiated in
1999, but NATO members have refused to ratify it until Russia withdraws its troops from
frozen conflict zones in Moldova and Georgia. See Richard Weitz, “Global Insights: As
NATO and Russia Argue, CFE Treaty Gathers Dust,” World Politics Review, July 30, 2013.
43 Mika Hayashi, “Suspension of Certain Obligations of the CFE Treaty by NATO Allies:
Examination of the Response to the 2007 Unilateral Treaty Suspension by Russia,” Journal
of Conflict and Security Law, Vol. 18, No. 1, 2013, pp. 133–134.
Land and Multidomain Measures 231
Several analysts have called for the United States and NATO
to resume exercises in Europe that are much more robust.44 These
exercises could help signal a strong U.S. and NATO commitment
to the defense of eastern-flank members of NATO and achieve such
practical benefits as shortening mobilization and deployment times
for units either not kept at a high state of readiness or not stationed
in Europe. By strengthening NATO’s ability and credibility to use
force to protect its members in Eastern Europe, larger-scale exercises
could also extend Russia by encouraging Moscow to increase the size
of its own exercises, shift its domestic posture (including the con-
struction of new basing facilities), and increase military spending and
investments in ways that would help it to counter the capabilities that
NATO is exercising.
Next, we assess the possible benefits and risks of a return to larger
NATO exercises in Europe. While NATO could choose to conduct
any number of different exercises to practice or demonstrate different
capabilities, there are at least four important characteristics of these
exercises that could reasonably vary and affect the benefits and risks
involved.
First, larger NATO exercises could be conducted with larger or
smaller numbers of U.S. troops deployed to Europe for the occasion.
Large numbers of troops—for illustrative purposes, roughly a divi-
sion—deployed from the United States specifically for the exercises
would resemble the Cold War REFORGER experience and help the
United States demonstrate and streamline its ability to deploy forces
to Europe more rapidly. It would also be quite costly and, depend-
ing on the size, could strain the overall force or limit its availability
for other contingencies, at least at current readiness levels. Trans-
port costs alone for the 17,000 troops attending REFORGER 1988
from the United States were roughly $39 million, not adjusted for
inflation.45 Costs for U.S. participation in a future large-scale NATO
exercise would vary widely, depending on whether the equipment
44 Hickset al., 2016, p. 41; Brzezinski and Varangis, 2015; Robert Bateman, “America’s
Show of Force Towards Russia Has Changed. Here’s How,” Esquire, January 10, 2017.
45 U.S. General Accounting Office, 1991, pp. 17, 34.
232 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
that U.S. troops would use was already present in Europe or would
have to be shipped from the United States. The former option would
be cheaper; the latter would provide more benefits for testing the
logistics requirements for further rapid deployments in a crisis. The
United States could also substantially increase the forces it perma-
nently deploys to Germany, then employ those forces in regular exer-
cises elsewhere in Europe.
Second, larger NATO exercises could involve the mass mobiliza-
tion of European reserve forces or active forces generally kept at lower
states of readiness. For example, Estonia mobilized virtually its entire
reserve component of 13,000 troops for the Siil (Hedgehog) exercise
in 2015.46 The exercise, conducted with U.S. and other NATO forces,
demonstrated Estonia’s ability and willingness to mobilize its reserve
forces and, despite Estonia’s small population size, led to one of the
larger NATO member exercises in Europe in recent years. Exercises
that involved a similar intensity of effort from Poland or Germany
could generate large numbers of forces and demonstrate a greater polit-
ical commitment by those countries to NATO collective security than
Russia might currently perceive.
Third, larger NATO exercises could be conducted in a range
of different locations: the Baltic States, Poland, Romania, or West-
ern Europe. Planners must consider logistical and operational fac-
tors in choosing where to conduct exercises. While infrastructure
and transportation links are generally more developed in Western
Europe, the region is also more crowded than the Baltic States that
are less densely populated and offer more room, and more open air-
space, for military maneuvers. If an exercise focused on the large-
scale mobilization of forces from a particular country (such as Poland
or Germany), it would be logical for the exercise to be conducted in
or near that country. Beyond these pragmatic concerns, however, the
location chosen for the exercise can also be used to send a signal to
Russia. A large-scale exercise conducted in Latvia is likely to send a
different signal of resolve (and potentially, of threat) than one con-
46 Sam Jones, “Thousands Take Part in Estonia’s War Games,” Financial Times, May 13,
2015.
Land and Multidomain Measures 233
47 In a spring 2017 survey, 53 percent of Germans said that Germany should not use mili-
tary force to defend a NATO ally that became involved in a serious military confrontation
with Russia. The U.S. figure, by contrast, was 31 percent. Bruce Stokes, “NATO’s Image
Improves on Both Sides of Atlantic,” Pew Research Center, Global Attitudes and Trends,
May 23, 2017.
Land and Multidomain Measures 235
48 Dmitry Dima Adamsky, “The 1983 Nuclear Crisis—Lessons for Deterrence Theory and
Practice,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 36, No. 1, 2013, pp. 26–30; Gordon Barrass, “Able
Archer 83: What Were the Soviets Thinking?” Survival, Vol. 58, No. 6, 2016, pp. 19–21.
Land and Multidomain Measures 237
Likelihood of Success
Undertaking larger and more-frequent military exercises in Europe,
particularly with the participation of substantial U.S. forces that arrive
from outside the continent, appears to be a viable means for NATO to
increase Russian perceptions of Alliance capability and commitment
to collective security. The location of the exercises and the capabilities
they include present trade-offs for the Alliance between demonstrating
the ability and resolve to defend potentially vulnerable eastern-flank
members and threatening Russia in a manner that could produce an
unwanted or precipitous reaction. NATO member support for these
exercises is likely to be higher in countries that perceive a greater threat
to their own territory from Russia, although large-scale participation
from Western European NATO members that have greater military
potential would arguably be the most beneficial for the Alliance if it
238 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
The INF Treaty was signed in 1987 at the pinnacle of arms control
efforts between the United States and the Soviet Union late in the Cold
War.49 The treaty pledges the parties to eliminate from their arsenals
all land-based missiles with maximum ranges between 500 km and
5,500 km, as well as their launchers.50 Both sides feared that missiles
in this range were destabilizing, allowing rapid strikes on London or
Moscow while providing leaders with only minutes to decide whether
49
For an overview of the historical context, see Ulrich Kühn and Anna Péczeli, “Russia,
NATO, and the INF Treaty,” Strategic Studies Quarterly, Spring 2017.
50 United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 1987.
Land and Multidomain Measures 239
51 Woolf, 2017c.
52 Woolf, 2017c, p. 5.
53 Woolf, 2017c, p. 5.
54 Woolf, 2017c, p. 28.
55 Kühn and Péczeli, 2017, p. 70.
56 For the United States, at least, the first limitation cuts against the second limitation
because of the substantial number of U.S. sea- and air-based launch platforms for interme-
diate-range missiles. For a discussion of the potential concerns about the effects of the INF
240 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
For years, some domestic critics have called for the United
States to pull out of the INF Treaty and reconstitute an intermedi-
ate-range ground-based missile capability, on the grounds that the
treaty’s restrictions hamper U.S. abilities to deter other actors that
have or might develop intermediate-range missiles, such as China,
Iran, or North Korea.57 Since the sharp decline in relations with
Russia following the invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014,
these calls have grown louder, particularly following public revela-
tions that Russia might be violating the INF Treaty by apparently
developing, and even deploying, a new class of intermediate-range
ground-launched cruise missile (GLCM).58 With Russia already pos-
sibly cheating on the INF Treaty, it is worth considering whether
the United States might be able to extend Russia by abandoning the
treaty and requiring Russia to adapt to the reintroduction of land-
based intermediate-range missiles into the U.S. arsenal.
Treaty on the U.S. strategic situation compared with China, see Jacob Heim, Missiles for
Asia? The Need for Operational Analysis of U.S. Theater Ballistic Missiles in the Pacific, Santa
Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR-945-A, 2016.
57
John R. Bolton and Paula A. DeSutter, “A Cold War Missile Treaty That’s Doing Us
Harm,” Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2011.
58
Michael R. Gordon, “Russia Deploys Missile, Violating Treaty and Challenging Trump,”
New York Times, February 14, 2017a. Also see U.S. Department of State, Adherence to and
Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commit-
ments, Washington, D.C., July 2014.
Land and Multidomain Measures 241
Estonia Russia
Denmark Latvia
Ireland
Lithuania
United Kingdom
Neth.
Belarus
Poland
Bel. Germany
Ukraine
Lux.
Czech Rep.
Slovakia
France Liech.
Switz. Austria Hungary Moldova
SloveniaCroatia
Romania
Andorra Bosnia &
Portugal
Spain Herz. Serbia
Mont. Bulgaria
Kos.
Italy
Macedonia
Albania
Tu r k e y
Greece
Malta Cyprus
NOTE: Red line indicates a 500 km radius from Russian territory.
Morocco Lebanon
Tunisia
59 A potential fourth option, withdrawing from the INF Treaty formally without fielding
any new weapon systems, is excluded on the grounds that it seems to be clearly the worst
of all worlds: incurring substantial diplomatic costs without any strategic benefits—and,
indeed, potential costs assuming that Russia would welcome the opportunity to unilaterally
deploy these systems.
242 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
60 Itshould be noted that NATO does not base short-range ballistic missiles in the Baltic
region, and if it were to do so, Russia would likely view the deployment as a highly escalatory
step.
61 Intermediate-range missiles could include either cruise missiles or ballistic missiles. At
the present time, however, ballistic missiles deployed by the United States and Russia, such
as Minuteman III or Trident II, have longer ranges. This section will therefore deal with the
ability to launch intermediate-range cruise missiles.
Land and Multidomain Measures 243
Figure 8.3
Number of Naval Platforms Capable of Firing Land-Attack
100
Number of naval platforms
80 Vietnam
India
60 France
U.K.
China
40
Russia
U.S.
20
0
1989 2000 2010 2015 1989 2000 2010 2015
Surface Subsurface
SOURCE: IISS, The Military Balance, Vol. 116, No. 1, 2016, p. 26.
62 It should be noted that while the United States has eliminated its ability to launch
nuclear-armed LACMs from naval platforms, restricting itself now to conventional LACMs,
a limited number of Russian naval platforms retain this nuclear capability. See Kristensen,
2012, pp. 53, 57.
63 Shlapak and Johnson, 2016, pp. 5–6.
64 It
is worth noting that most sea and air platforms are also capable of launching nuclear
weapons and are therefore controlled under the New START Treaty. See Amy F. Woolf,
The New START Treaty: Central Limits and Key Provisions, Congressional Research Service,
R41219, February 1, 2017a.
65 IISS, 2016.
244 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
missiles from other platforms not prohibited by the INF Treaty than
Russia is.66
Develop Missiles but Do Not Deploy Them
One option that the United States could pursue would be to develop
new intermediate-range nuclear missiles but not actually deploy
them. In early 2017, the INF Treaty Preservation Act was introduced
in Congress with the stated intention of pursuing this goal.67 R&D
into new intermediate-range nuclear missiles is not a violation of the
INF Treaty.68 The 2017 legislation allocated $100 million in FY 2018
toward R&D of a U.S. ground-launched intermediate-range nuclear
missile system and $400 million toward the development of defen-
sive capabilities, such as missile defense systems designed to limit the
effectiveness of Russian ground-launched intermediate-range nuclear
missiles.69 Progress toward development of a missile that the United
States could make while remaining in compliance with the treaty
would be quite limited. For example, even the fielding of a prototype
system would likely constitute a treaty violation. The stated intent of
66 The disparity in launch platforms is largely driven by strategic and economic factors,
although the New START Treaty does have some bearing on the issue. Under New START,
the United States and Russia are each restricted to 700 deployed launchers capable of deliv-
ering strategic nuclear weapons. The majority of the launchers that the United States and
Russia have chosen to count against their limits under the treaty—including ICBM silos,
mobile launchers, and ballistic missile submarines—would not be used to launch LACMs
or other intermediate-range missiles because doing so would detract from the state’s strate-
gic nuclear capabilities. A smaller number of strategic bombers capable of carrying nuclear
weapons have been retained on both sides, and some of these bombers are capable of car-
rying LACMs. With regard to sea-launched intermediate-range cruise missiles, however,
the United States has chosen to deploy these from submarines that are not capable of also
carrying long-range ballistic missiles, meaning that they are not subject to the limitations
on launch platforms in New START and do not count against the U.S. deployed launchers
quota. See: Woolf, 2017a, pp. 20–21.
67 Thomas Karako, “How to Stop Russia from Cheating on Missile Treaty,” The Hill, Febru-
ary 28, 2017.
68 United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 1987.
69 U.S. House of Representatives, House Resolution 1182, To Require Certain Actions
Regarding Russian Federation Noncompliance with the INF Treaty, and for Other Pur-
poses, February 16, 2017.
Land and Multidomain Measures 245
this policy is to demonstrate to Russia that the United States has the
capacity to respond in kind to further INF Treaty violations, raise
fears in Russia regarding what U.S. ground-launched intermediate-
range nuclear missiles (presumably ballistic missiles, which would
be less duplicative of current U.S. sea-launched intermediate-range
nuclear cruise missile capabilities) could do if deployed, and thereby
encourage Russia to return to compliance with the treaty.70
A potential benefit of such a policy is that it could extend Russia
by encouraging heavier investment in expensive missile defenses or in
hardening and distributing its own command and control systems to
address fears that NATO intermediate-range nuclear ballistic missiles
could be used in a decapitation strike. Russia currently has limited
missile defense capabilities.71 A new or expanded intermediate-range
nuclear missile program is also potentially expensive, although the
fact that Russia appears to have deployed such a missile and already
invests heavily in its short-range nuclear missiles suggests that such a
cost might be born willingly. A more-developed U.S. missile defense
architecture in Europe—this time targeting Russian, rather than Ira-
nian, capabilities—could also persuade Russia to invest in R&D of
new systems designed to defeat these defenses.72
70 This roughly mirrors the U.S. strategy to convince the Soviet Union to agree to the INF
Treaty in the first place. The Soviets initially enjoyed a clear advantage in intermediate-range
missiles in Europe and resisted U.S. arguments that they were destabilizing and should be
eliminated. It was not until after the United States introduced Pershing II ballistic missiles
to Europe in 1983 that the Soviet position changed, although it should be noted that the
change in leadership and policy of perestroika (“restructuring”) might have improved Soviet
willingness to conclude such agreements absent the demonstrated U.S. capability. (See Avis
Bohlen, William Burns, Steven Pifer, and John Woodworth, The Treaty on Intermediate-
Range Nuclear Forces: History and Lessons Learned, Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution,
Arms Control Series, Paper 9, December 2012.) Ballistic missiles reach their target much
more quickly than cruise missiles and are therefore more potentially worrisome for crisis
stability.
71 Sean O’Connor, “Russia Upgrades Its Missile Arsenal,” Jane’s Intelligence Review, 2015,
pp. 6–8; Leonid Nersisyan, “America vs. Russia: Will Missile Defense Help in a Global
Nuclear War?” The National Interest, October 20, 2016.
72 It should be noted that Western analysts generally view such systems as incapable of
defeating simultaneous strikes of the scale of which Russia is already capable.
246 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
The primary risk of such a policy is that Russia might not react to
U.S. signals in the desired manner. Rather than returning to compli-
ance with the INF Treaty, Russia might instead interpret U.S. R&D as
a sign that the United States is preparing to unilaterally breach or with-
draw from the treaty, the way it did in 2002 with the ABM Treaty.73
U.S. assurances that it intends to develop new weapons but not deploy
them as long as Russia alters its behavior simply might not be credible
to the Russians—indeed, Russia already accuses the United States of
at least preparing to breach the INF Treaty because of the possibility
that Aegis Ashore sites could be rapidly modified to fire “Tomahawk”
intermediate-range LACMs.74
Developing these new missiles would likely trigger a sharp Rus-
sian response, but it might not be the desired one of investing in costly
missile defense capabilities. Russia could decide that developing an
effective missile defense system is beyond its financial or technologi-
cal means and instead invest in offensive or retaliatory capabilities for
deterring a U.S. strike. This could mean Russia further expands its cur-
rent breach of the INF Treaty while still refusing to publicly acknowl-
edge that such a breach is occurring. Given the current U.S. advantages
in conventional sea- or air-launched intermediate-range missiles, such
moves by Russia would likely represent a deterioration of the strategic
situation in Europe (from the U.S. perspective). How much more Russia
could be induced to spend in response is somewhat unclear, although
any substantial sum would likely come at the expense of other Russian
defense priorities. After a long period of growth, the Russian military
budget has plateaued and is scheduled to decline gradually over the
next few years.75 Russia is already making difficult choices regarding
which new, expensive systems it will develop and field, including next-
generation tanks and stealth fighters, so additional expenditures on
73
Terence Neilan, “Bush Pulls Out of ABM Treaty; Putin Calls Move a Mistake,” New York
Times, December 13, 2001.
74
Andrew E. Kramer, “Russia Calls New U.S. Missile Defense System a ‘Direct Threat,’”
New York Times, May 12, 2016a.
75 Kofman, 2017b.
Land and Multidomain Measures 247
76 Kofman, 2017b.
77 U.S. House of Representatives, 2017.
248 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
78 European leaders feared that threats of U.S. retaliation using missiles launched from the
United States in later retaliation would be less credible, as the Soviets could threaten nuclear
retaliation against the U.S. homeland but promise to withhold doing so if no U.S. nuclear
retaliation occurred from strikes on Western Europe.
Land and Multidomain Measures 249
79 It should be noted, however, that even shorter-range missiles based in Poland could still
cover most of the territory of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania and be of substantial value in a
conventional conflict in those states.
250 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
80 Kramer, 2016a.
81 Kristensen, 2012, p. 52.
82 Heim, 2016, p. 3.
Land and Multidomain Measures 251
including from close allies, for potentially escalating the risk of war in
Europe.
The United States has the capabilities and resources to develop
and deploy ground-based intermediate-range nuclear missiles on its
own and can withdraw from the INF Treaty if it chooses. Basing
missiles in Europe, however, would require the consent of the allies
and partners where such missiles would be based, and this might
be difficult to achieve. In the 1980s, there were large-scale protests
over the introduction of Pershing II missiles into Europe, and West-
ern European governments were reluctant to host these missiles even
when faced with a more geographically proximate and extensive
Soviet military threat.83 While much might depend on the context
in which such missiles were reintroduced, it seems prudent to assume
that securing host-nation support for these deployments would be
challenging.
Two other alternative versions of this policy option are worth
discussing separately. First, the United States could deploy interme-
diate-range missiles, including those that are nuclear-capable, on the
territory of NATO allies in Eastern Europe, such as Poland, rather
than or in addition to locations in Western Europe. In some ways,
this would mirror the deployment of Pershing II missiles to Western
Europe in the mid-1980s, intended to assure both the Soviet Union
and NATO allies that an attack on NATO would be met with a
nuclear response. This time, however, the deployment would take
place directly on the borders of Russia. In principle, the deployment
of such missiles would send a strong signal that the United States
was willing to use nuclear weapons in defense of NATO’s eastern-
flank members, with the potential to enhance U.S. deterrent efforts.
Such a move would also be tremendously threatening to Russia, how-
ever, because of the proximity and short flight time of the missiles to
Moscow. Russian concerns about purely conventional U.S. sea- or air-
launched precision strike systems’ ability to execute regime decapita-
tion strikes would likely be magnified several times. This could help
deter a Russian attack on NATO territory, but it could also prompt
Recommendations
At least in the European theater, an effective, respected INF Treaty
is in the interests of the United States. The treaty has helped to limit
the risk of nuclear escalation in Europe and has a relatively smaller
constraining effect on U.S. conventional capabilities than it does on
the conventional capabilities of Russia. Furthermore, the ability to
extend Russia by withdrawing from the treaty appears either limited
or accompanied by substantial risks to U.S. interests. U.S. policies that
would undermine or eliminate the INF Treaty would therefore need to
be motivated by one of two concerns.
84 This would be similar to U.S. decisions to carry sea-launched conventional cruise missiles
only on separate submarines from those that carry sea-launched nuclear ballistic missiles.
Land and Multidomain Measures 253
First, the United States could conclude that broader strategic con-
cerns, including those in Asia, require the United States to withdraw
from the treaty (to which only itself and Russia are bound) and recon-
stitute its own intermediate-range missile capabilities. Analysts appear
divided on this question with respect to China, and addressing this
debate lies outside the scope of this report.85 Second, based on pub-
lished reports of current Russian violations, the United States could
conclude that the treaty is no longer exercising any restraining influ-
ence, and it is worth trading the political and diplomatic costs of for-
mally withdrawing from the treaty first in order not to be unilaterally
constrained by it.
As of this writing, and despite public reports of Russian violations
of the treaty, this second cause for concern does not appear likely to
occur. While Russia is apparently taking steps to develop intermediate-
range missile capabilities, its deployment of these systems seems to
remain limited. Russia’s treaty obligations and the threat of U.S.
development of similar capabilities appear to be exercising a restrain-
ing effect on Russian behavior. This being the case, U.S. withdrawal
from the treaty does not seem advisable at this time, especially con-
sidering the potential risks to strategic stability in Europe that such
a move could bring. Continued unilateral U.S. compliance with the
INF Treaty could also strengthen U.S. efforts to expand the treaty to
cover other states, such as China, as well as other U.S. arms control
efforts.
A more complex question is whether investing in the development
of U.S. intermediate-range missiles in order to prompt Russia to return
to compliance with the INF Treaty would be effective or advisable. If
the United States could credibly signal to Russia that it would aban-
don such a development program—halting spending and ultimately
85 See, for example, Heim, 2016; Evan Braden Montgomery, “China’s Missile Forces Are
Growing: Is It Time to Modify the INF Treaty?” The National Interest, July 2, 2014; Jim
Thomas, “Why the U.S. Army Needs Missiles: A New Mission to Save the Service,” Foreign
Affairs, May–June 2013; David W. Kearn, Jr., Facing the Missile Challenge: U.S. Strategy and
the Future of the INF Treaty, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, MG-1181-TSF,
2012; Mark Stokes and Dan Blumenthal, “Can a Treaty Contain China’s Missiles?” Wash-
ington Post, January 2, 2011.
254 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
not deploying any missiles—in the event that Russia returned to full
compliance with the INF Treaty, then such investments could increase
U.S. leverage over Russia and encourage compliance with the treaty.
On the other hand, if such a program were perceived solely as a drive
toward the redevelopment of such a U.S. capability, the opposite effect
would likely occur, hastening the disintegration of the treaty regime. A
development program that is relatively transparent in its funding and
time lines, clearly indicated in both U.S. official statements and autho-
rizing legislation to be conditional on Russian behavior, and supported
by NATO allies that are strong supporters of the existing INF Treaty
would be most likely to lead Russia to return to compliance. A develop-
ment program that lacked these characteristics might not be preferable
to the status quo, which remains relatively favorable to U.S. interests in
Europe even with limited Russian violations.
86 Kofman, 2017a.
Land and Multidomain Measures 255
Russian concerns and cause a shift in its defense spending. It has been
argued that the SDI in the 1980s contributed to such an outcome
during the Cold War, heightening Soviet fears that the United States
might be able to counter the strategic nuclear deterrent on which Soviet
security depended and prompting the Soviet Union to invest scarce
resources at a time of economic difficulty in countering an overinflated
perception of U.S. advancements.87
In this section, we will assess the potential for the United States
to use similar advancements, deceptions, or a combination thereof to
manipulate Russian defense spending in the current constrained Rus-
sian fiscal environment. In doing so, we will assess both evolutionary
and revolutionary potential increases in U.S. capabilities. Even incre-
mental improvements to existing U.S. weapon technologies (such as
anti–air defense systems) could prompt changes in Russian defense
investments, although these changes would likely be in rough pro-
portion to the U.S. investments made as both sides make tit-for-tat
changes to gain or maintain an advantage. However, we will also con-
sider investments that could take longer to bear fruit but could lead to
more-radical leaps in U.S. capabilities and disproportionate concerns
on the part of the Russians.
This section surveys three avenues for U.S. investment in land
or multidomain capabilities that appear to have the most promise for
extending Russia in this manner: systems that could threaten or limit
the utility of Russia’s A2AD capabilities, systems that could threaten
Russian heavy ground forces, and weapon systems based on more-
novel emerging technologies, such as directed energy. While we identi-
fied these systems as the likeliest candidates to extend Russia, there are
many other possibilities as well—some of which are covered elsewhere
87 More-recent scholarship, however, suggests that this effect has likely been overstated, and
that while U.S. investments in the SDI were a subject of intense interest by the Soviets, they
never made substantial investments to try to compete with the United States in this area.
See David E. Hoffman, “Missile Defense Didn’t Win the Cold War,” Foreign Policy, Septem-
ber 22, 2009; Pavel Podvig, “Did Star Wars Help End the Cold War? Soviet Response to the
SDI Program,” Science & Global Security, Vol. 25, No. 1, 2017.
256 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
88 One area that is not covered elsewhere in the report and that we do not discuss in detail
here is cyber capabilities. While increasingly important for the battle space, cyber capabilities
that could be used against military systems are also incredibly difficult to assess using publicly
available information. Furthermore, they represent a difficult capability to develop to extend
an adversary because foreknowledge about their potential capabilities could limit their utility.
89 By contrast, Russia appears to have decided not to compete with the United States in the
air-to-air domain. Russia’s fifth-generation fighter, the Sukhoi T-50, will not be operational
until 2018, and Russia is not producing many for its own use. Instead, the plane will mainly
be produced in India, and India is currently demanding a technology transfer. See Dave
Majumdar, “Long-Range Precision Fires (LRPF),” The National Interest, February 16, 2017;
Rajat Pandit, “To Avoid Sukhoi ‘Mistake,’ India to Go for Russian 5th-Generation Fighter
Only on Complete–Tech Transfer Pact,” Economic Times, March 9, 2017.
Land and Multidomain Measures 257
90 TheUnited States has not signed the Cluster Munitions Treaty. However, as of 2008,
the U.S. Department of Defense will not use cluster munitions that “result in more than
1 percent unexploded ordnance (UXO) across the range of intended operational environ-
ments.” U.S. Secretary of Defense, “DoD Policy on Cluster Munitions and Unintended
Harm to Civilians,” memorandum to secretaries of the military departments, Chairman of
Joint Chiefs of Staff, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics,
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Commanders of the Combatant Commands, and
General Counsel of the Department of Defense, Washington, D.C., June 19, 2008.
91 U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center, “Long-Range Precision Fires (LRPF),” undated-b.
92 Kris Osborn, “The U.S. Army’s Ultimate Super Big Gun (Firing 5,000 Mile Per Hour
‘Bullets’) Is Almost Here,” The National Interest, January 3, 2017.
258 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
tiles can travel at more than three times the speed of existing muni-
tions, allowing for faster targeting of Russian fires units and reducing
the effectiveness of “shoot and scoot” artillery techniques. Although
air-launched, the United States is also developing an extended range
advanced anti-radiation guided missile (AARGM) that has the
potential to strike Russian air defense systems at a greater distance
and with greater effectiveness than existing systems.93 The United
States could also invest more heavily in the number of munitions it
stockpiles, allowing operations to be sustained for a longer period of
time, and in the number of sites from which those munitions could
be launched, increasing the difficulty of avoiding U.S. strikes.
Another option would be for the United States to improve its
defensive capabilities against Russian air-defense and long-range
fires. The United States could invest in efforts to field the forthcom-
ing Indirect Fire Protection Capability Increment 2 (IFPC2) system
more quickly and in greater numbers, which could help provide short-
range air, cruise missile, and counter-unmanned aircraft defense
from Russian attack.94 Further improvements to IFPC2 could also
be made through these investments, including longer-range missiles.
Relatively cost-effective investments in systems to jam Russian radars
in Kaliningrad could also help degrade the effectiveness of Russian
air defense, though deploying the jammers closer to Moscow could
raise concerns regarding the security of Russian command and con-
trol systems. Whether offensive or defensive in nature, these invest-
ments could prompt Russia to invest further in its own missile sys-
tems to try to maintain or regain their current edge, though doing
so would be costly. Failure to do so could risk ceding an uncontested
air domain to U.S. and NATO forces in relatively short order in the
event of a conflict.95
The second way in which the United States might seek to over-
come existing Russian A2AD capabilities would be to invest in
revolutionary capabilities, such as autonomous unmanned aircraft.
Autonomous systems are those with an increased—potentially total—
ability to operate independently of human direction. In principle,
taking humans out of the equation enables dramatic increases in the
speed and coordination with which such systems can operate; this, in
turn, might enhance their lethality, scalability, and usability in cer-
tain conflict situations.96 One possible investment that could under-
mine Russian anti-air capabilities would be in “swarm” capabilities
for large numbers of autonomous, unmanned aircraft. The Depart-
ment of Defense recently announced that it successfully released 103
microdrone swarms that “demonstrated advanced swarm behaviors
such as collective decision making.”97 Swarms of autonomous aircraft
have the potential to saturate Russian targeting systems, limiting the
ability of these systems to target U.S. or NATO conventional air-
craft or to deliver munitions of their own. Their ability to operate
autonomously could allow them to be scaled dramatically, deploy-
ing dozens or even hundreds for a fraction of the cost of traditional,
human-operated aircraft, while still engaging in complex evasion or
even targeting behavior.98 The United States, including the Strategic
95 Munitions with a wider area of effect might be particularly useful against softer targets,
such as radars, that require less-concentrated fire to be adversely affected.
96 Colin Roberts, “Killer Robots: Moral Concerns vs. Military Advantages,” The National
Interest, November 3, 2016.
97
U.S. Department of Defense, “Department of Defense Announces Successful Micro-
Drone Demonstration,” Washington, D.C., press release No. NR-008-17, January 9, 2017.
98 Taking humans out of the loop of targeting decisions is the most complex and controver-
sial part of this research, with substantial implications for adherence to the Law of Armed
Conflict. For example, see Bryan Frederick and David E. Johnson, The Continued Evolu-
tion of U.S. Law of Armed Conflict Implementation: Implications for the U.S. Military, Santa
Monica, Calif.: RR-1122-OSD, 2015, pp. 51–55; David Smalley, “LOCUST: Autonomous,
Swarming UAVs Fly into the Future,” Office of Naval Research, April 14, 2015. However,
final targeting decisions could continue to be approved by a human while still allowing for
the other benefits of autonomous swarms, such as scalability and automatic maneuver.
260 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
99 Shawn Snow, “Pentagon Successfully Tests World’s Largest Micro-Drone Swarm,” Mili-
tary Times, January 9, 2017; Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research, “Swarm Control
Using Physicomimetics,” undated.
100 The previous section deals with efforts to degrade Russian attempts to limit the utility of
the U.S. air advantage.
101 Dave Majumdar, “Russia’s Armata T-14 Tank Could Be Super Dangerous on the Bat-
tlefield (But There Is One Simple Problem),” The National Interest, November 7, 2016b;
Brendan McGarry, “These Foreign Tanks Now Match the M1 Abrams, US General Says,”
Defense Tech, March 28, 2017.
Land and Multidomain Measures 261
develop long-range precision fires for the MLRS can provide fires up
to 500 km.102 Second, R&D into an advanced anti-tank missile to
upgrade the Javelin might provide an inexpensive way to undermine
Russian armor capabilities and increase the usefulness of light infantry
in a conflict with Russia. It is uncertain whether the current Javelin can
defeat Russian T-90s and T-14s, many of which have been upgraded to
counter Javelins.103 Potential upgrades could focus on extending mis-
sile range, increasing missile ability to defeat advanced active armor
protection systems, and enhancing launcher mobility, increasing the
survivability of the lighter forces firing them.104 The costs involved
likely would not be dramatic; in 2015, an upgrade program with a
multipurpose warhead that increased lethality against personnel cost
$4.1 million in R&D and $77.7 million for procurement of 338
weapons.105 An additional means of undermining Russia’s edge in
heavy forces would, of course, be to deploy more U.S. or NATO
armor forces in Europe and on the Alliance’s eastern flank. While the
T-14 and T-90A are capable tanks, the M1 Abrams is an equivalent
system.106
An investment the United States could make to produce a more
revolutionary increase in its ability to counter heavy Russian forces
would be in semiautonomous—and, eventually, fully autonomous—
armored vehicles. Such vehicles could be deployed on their own, but
they could also be integrated with existing light infantry and motorized
infantry units.107 An unmanned armored vehicle could offer advances
102
Kyle Mizokami, “The Army Is Getting a New Long-Range Tactical Missile,” Popular
Mechanics, June 16, 2017.
103 SebastienRoblin, “Javelin: The American Military’s Ultimate Tank Killer,” The National
Interest, October 1, 2016.
104 Roblin, 2016.
105
Defense Comptroller, FY 2015 Program Acquisition Costs by Weapon System: Javelin
Advanced Anti-Tank Weapon, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Defense, March 2014.
106 DaveMajumdar, “Russia’s Armata T-14 Tank vs. America’s M-1 Abrams: Who Wins?”
The National Interest, September 11, 2016a; McGarry, 2017.
107 The
Army Science Board recently showed a concept for integrating robotic and autono-
mous systems into the current force. Army Science Board, “Robotic and Autonomous Sys-
262 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
112 Stephen
Blank, Russia and the Next RMA, Washington, D.C.: American Foreign Policy
Council, October 2016, p. 2.
113 Blank, 2016, pp. 3, 9.
114 David Vergun, “Laser Weapons Development by 2023,” U.S. Army News Service, Feb-
ruary 25, 2016. There are several additional types of weapons-based research that could
be explored. One area that is often considered in this category—hypersonic vehicles and
missiles—is discussed elsewhere in this report. Nonlethal—or, perhaps, more accurately,
less-lethal—weapons are another focus of several ongoing U.S. military development pro-
grams. The already constructed Active Denial System uses millimeter wave beams to create
an intense burning sensation on the skin of those affected. Acoustic weapons, such as the
Distributed Sound and Light Array, can induce wide-area loss of concentration, discomfort,
and nausea. However, these systems are likely to remain short-range weapons, with their
effects focused on personnel, and are intended to affect primarily lightly armed troops or
civilian populations. Additional weapons that could involve genetic targeting or atmospheric
or geologic disruptions are farther out on the horizon and could involve tremendous risks
that are not yet properly understood. For these reasons, this section focuses on directed-
energy weapons. For reference to some of these other research programs, see U.S. Depart-
264 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
A2AD capabilities are not only a means of projecting power and ensur-
ing the freedom of movement and effectiveness of its ground forces.
They are also a vital component of Russia’s efforts to safeguard its stra-
tegic and command and control systems. Truly revolutionary U.S.
capabilities able to substantially undermine the effectiveness of these
systems—such as air-based directed-energy weapons; hypersonic con-
ventional munitions; or large, autonomous drone swarms—could leave
Russia feeling exposed, perhaps with a perception that it is unable to
defend itself against a U.S. first strike, even one limited to conventional
weapons. While this would doubtless prompt changes in Russian mili-
tary spending in an attempt to restore the previous strategic balance, it
could also threaten Russian security to an extent that leadership might
consider an attack to forestall the deployment of such capabilities near
its borders, or it might consider other destabilizing actions, such as
adopting launch-on-warning doctrines or distributed command and
control over nuclear weapon use. Finally, it is possible that Russian
R&D might be able to counter whatever new U.S. weapon capabilities
are developed. If the U.S. strategy here is partially based on a bluff and
the United States exaggerates its own ability to develop such weapons,
the United States could end up in a worse strategic position than where
it started out.
Likelihood of Success
Research into emerging technologies always carries a high degree of
uncertainty, particularly with regard to costs and time lines. None-
theless, it seems likely that, absent a massive, national-level commit-
ment on the part of the United States, many of the more revolutionary
technologies discussed will not be deployed over at least the next five
to seven years.117 In the near term, therefore, investments in these capa-
117 Autonomous vehicles and drones might be an exception in this regard because substan-
tial private-sector investment is increasing the speed with which these advancements would
otherwise occur. Private-sector advancements are also likely to become available quickly
to other states as well, however. Johana Bhuivan, “The Complete Timeline to Self-Driving
Cars,” Recode, May 16, 2016; Richard Viereckl, Dietmar Ahlemann, and Alex Koster, Con-
nected Car Report 2016: Opportunities, Risk, and Turmoil on the Road to Autonomous Vehicles,
Frankfurt: PwC, 2016.
Land and Multidomain Measures 267
bilities are capable of extending Russia to the extent that they signal a
dedicated commitment to spend what it takes to field this capability
eventually. If testing success or other development milestones could
be plausibly embellished, Russia also might be induced to shift its
spending in response. But effective deception operations surrounding
multibillion-dollar development programs involving large numbers of
both civilian and military personnel are likely to be difficult to execute,
although some exaggeration regarding time lines and, above all, ambi-
tions could be achieved.
Investments in more-limited and easily realizable capabilities—such
as extending the range, speed, and area of effect of existing U.S. fires—
could be projected more confidently to result in deployable improve-
ments in a shorter period of time. Such improvements might not cause
fundamental shifts in Russian defense spending, but they could lead to
an incremental arms race over short-range missile capabilities between
the two sides as Russia seeks to maintain its current position of relative
advantage, at least in areas close to its borders. They could also, at least
until Russia was able to respond, lead to noticeable improvements in the
balance of capabilities in Eastern Europe. However, even these incre-
mental improvements, if deployed at sufficient scale, could affect Russian
perceptions of its own regime security and the threat that NATO might
pose, so they should be deployed with care.
Recommendations
Table 8.1
Findings for Land and Multidomain Measures
Conclusions
271
272 Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground
Table 9.1
Extending Russia Summary of Findings
Costs and Likelihood of
Measure Benefits Risks Success
Economic
Hinder petroleum exports High Low High
Reduce natural gas exports and hinder High Medium Medium
pipelines
Impose sanctions High High High
Reduce Russian influence in Central Asia Low Medium Low
Enhance Russian brain drain Low Low Low
Geopolitical
Provide lethal aid to Ukraine High High Medium
Increase support to the Syrian rebels Medium High Low
Promote regime change in Belarus High High Low
Exploit tensions in the South Caucasus Low Medium Low
Reduce Russian influence in Central Asia
Challenge Russian presence in Moldova Low Medium Low
Ideological
Expose the corruption in the Russian Medium High Low
electoral system
Diminish the perception that the regime is Medium High Medium
pursuing the public interest
Encourage protests and other nonviolent Medium High Low
resistance
Undermine Russia’s standing internationally Medium Medium Medium
Air and space
Change air and space force posture and operations
Shift posture of bombers Medium Low High
Shift posture of fighters Medium High Low
Deploy additional tactical nuclear Low High High
weapons in Europe
Reorient BMD Low Medium Low
Increase aerospace research and development
Develop more low-observable aircraft Medium Medium Medium
Develop autonomous aircraft or RPAs Medium Medium High
Develop longer-range cruise missiles High Medium High
Develop longer-range HARMs High Medium High
Develop more-sophisticated EW Medium Low Medium
Invest in CPGS Medium High Medium
Develop space-based weapons Medium High Low
Develop spaceplanes Medium High Low/Medium
Invest in SmallSats Medium High Low
Increase air and missile components of the nuclear triad
Break out of nuclear arms control Medium High Low
agreements
Conclusions 275
Table 9.1—Continued
279
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