Russia

The EastWest Institute (EWI) today released Terrorism in Afghanistan: A Joint Threat Assessment, the culminating report from the institute’s Joint U.S.-Russia Working Group on Counterterrorism in Afghanistan. Authored by American and Russian contributors, the report provides a timely, even-handed assessment of terrorism and armed conflict in Afghanistan, while also exploring the counterterrorism agenda in the broader geopolitical context of U.S.-Russia relations.

“In spite of ongoing tensions between the United States and Russia, Afghanistan and counterterrorism have remained rare dynamic areas for constructive, bilateral dialogue,” said Vladimir Ivanov, director of the Working Group and EWI’s Russia and the United States program. “At this critical juncture in Afghanistan’s road to peace, and as violence continues to plague the country, it is more important than ever for the U.S. and Russia to better align their counterterrorism and peace-making efforts, not just for the safety and stability of Afghanistan, but for the region and world.”

Click here for the full report. The Russian translation of Terrorism in Afghanistan: A Joint Threat Assessment will be made available in June 2020.

Terrorism in Afghanistan: A Joint Threat Assessment is intended to serve as an analytical tool for policymakers and an impetus for joint U.S.-Russia action. The report provides an overview of the security situation and peace process in Afghanistan, taking into account U.S. and Russian policies, priorities and interests; surveys the militant terrorist groups in and connected to Afghanistan and explores the security interests of various regional stakeholders vis-à-vis Afghanistan. Challenges relating to border management, arms trafficking and terrorist financing in Afghanistan are also briefly addressed.

Launched in October 2017, the Working Group convened U.S. and Russian policy and technical experts in Moscow, Washington, D.C., Brussels and Vienna over the course of two years. The Working Group has since garnered positive feedback and support from key interlocutors, including the U.S. Department of State, U.S Department of Defense and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, as well as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

Artificial intelligence (AI) is an increasingly important component of weapons systems, with both positive and negative implications for nuclear deterrence. Integration of AI into military platforms has the potential to allow weaker nuclear-armed states to reset the imbalance of power, but at the same time it exacerbates fears that stronger states may further solidify their dominance and engage in more provocative actions.

China, Russia, and the US are all engaged in developing and integrating AI applications into their military modernization programs. These applications include machine learning, neural networks, and autonomy that feature in Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems. They also include the deployment of unmanned weapons-delivery and defense platforms.

Click here to read the full article on the East-West Center website.

In September 2019, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Western Command sent 1,600 troops, aircraft, tanks and other hardware to participate in this year’s strategic exercise of the Russian Armed Forces. Dubbed Center-2019 (Tsentr-2019), the exercise took place from September 16-21 in Russia’s Central Military District and in neighboring Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia.

The large PLA contingent was yet another indicator of the growing military ties between Beijing and Moscow and highlighted a warming trend in the military-to-military relations between the countries. The Russian military’s strategic exercise the year prior, Eastern-2018 (Vostok-2018), was not only the largest Russian military exercise in almost four decades, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), but also included the largest PLA contingent participating in Russian-led military drills to date: more than 3,500 PLA personnel, 900 pieces of heavy weaponry and 30 fixed-wing aircraft from the PLA’s Northern Theater Command took part in the exercise, which simulated inter-state warfare.

The most notable feature of this year’s Center-19, next to the participation of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) member states—India, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan—has also been the emphasis on high intensity combat and inter-state conflict. Although the Russian Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, stressed that the exercise was principally focused on “counter terrorist” operations, the drill included repelling enemy air strikes and counter-attacks against a conventionally-armed state to the southwest of Russia. In other words, China and Russia are practicing to jointly defeat a nation-state enemy, if only at a minuscule scale.

It is another sign that the two countries may slowly be moving toward a de-facto Entente Cordiale, the 1904 Anglo-French agreement that paved the way for France and Great Britain to become allies against Germany and Central Powers during the First World War. Just like France and Great Britain over a century ago, China and Russia are not treaty allies nor do they have any explicit defense commitments to come to the aid of one another if attacked. Nonetheless, pressured to cooperate by a perceived to be increasingly hostile United States, they, like France and the United Kingdom at the turn of the 19th/20th century, are slowly ending their mutual antagonism, despite divergent and conflicting interests, in order to jointly confront a common competitor.

The U.S. National Security Strategy notes the two countries “challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity. They are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and to repress their societies and expand their influence.” A January 2019 unclassified assessment by the U.S. intelligence community stated that “China and Russia are more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s.” 

Notably, bilateral trade between the two countries for the first time surpassed $100 billion in 2017 and is rising. Russia also became China’s biggest supplier of crude oil in 2016 and, beginning in 2019, Moscow has agreed to sell Beijing 1.3 trillion feet of cubic gas annually for three decades.

However, it is also in the economic sphere that cracks in the idea of ever-closer Sino-Russian ties appear foremost. China’s economy is nearly eight times as large as Russia’s and has a much faster growth rate. With its Belt and Road initiative, China has also been aggressively expanding into Central Asia and undermining Moscow’s “Eurasian Economic Union.” More critically, China appears increasingly intent on populating Russia's Far East with Chinese migrants, which has raised deep-seated Russian fears of outright Chinese annexation of parts of the country. This economic imbalance, which translates into a growing gap in power capabilities, is bound to create tensions between the two countries, unless Moscow is willing to play the junior partner.

Closer relations in the military realm is nonetheless real. Two documents have laid the foundation for closer military cooperation and possible military assistance in times of war. First, Article 9 of the 2001 bilateral Treaty of Good Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation states that “when a situation arises in which one of the contracting parties deems that peace is being threatened and undermined or its security interests are involved or when it is confronted with the threat of aggression, the contracting parties shall immediately hold contacts and consultations in order to eliminate such threats.” Second, a 2018 joint Sino-Russian declaration notes that China and Russia will "build up cooperation in all areas, and further build up strategic contacts and coordination between their armed forces, improve the existing mechanisms of military cooperation, expand interaction in the field of practical military and military-technical cooperation and jointly resist challenges to global and regional security.” Similar language can be found in other documents and underlines the potential for mutual military assistance under certain circumstances.

In 2017, both countries adopted a three-year road map that set the legal framework for military cooperation supplementing a 1993 agreement concluded by the Chinese and Russian defense ministries  to foster closer cooperation between the armed forces of both countries, especially in the field of military technology. China and Russia are also in the process of negotiating an updated military cooperation agreement. In September, the two sides once more committed to boost military ties during a visit of Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, to Moscow. The Russian MoD, also announced on September 20 that Russia and China have developed a new plan for cooperation between their respective militaries for 2020 and 2021, “which will be approved in the near future.”

Indeed, China’s new national defense white paper states that “the military relationship between China and Russia continues to develop at a high level, enriching the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era and playing a significant role in maintaining global strategic stability.” The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and the Russian Air Force conducted their first ever joint long-range aerial patrol in the East China Sea and Sea of Japan in July 2019 “to strengthen global strategic stability.” The importance of the joint mission cannot be understated. For the first time, Chinese and Russian nuclear-capable bombers flew in close proximity to the airspace of U.S. allies in East Asia. This sortie was meant to send a clear message to the United States that the commitment of both countries to what Beijing has referred to as a “strategic partnership” might also extend into the strategic nuclear realm.

Of course, these recent joint actions can, and should be viewed with some perspective, as there are limitations to the level of cooperation the two nations are willing to engage in. China historically has eschewed standing alliances. Indeed, both countries time and again have publicly stressed that they are not allies but partners. For example, earlier this year a Chinese Ministry of Defense spokesperson reiterated that China seeks “partnerships, not alliances.”

Beijing and Moscow’s (in)actions in Asia, have also shown the limits of their partnership. Russia’s close ties to Vietnam and India, as well as China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea for which it received little diplomatic support from Russia, have exposed that neither country sees much benefit from supporting the other at the expense of national interests. Despite burgeoning ties, both countries up to a point also continue to see one another as a military threat. For example, Russia’s decision to abandon the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was partially influenced by China’s growing ground-based medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missile arsenal. 

Nonetheless, this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia is helping China build a ballistic missile early warning system. Moscow had previously refused to cooperate with Beijing in this area.

And here is the main lesson from the Entente Cordiale: France and Great Britain had just as many divergent interests as China and Russia. Paris and London saw one another as principal rivals for centuries and fought numerous wars against each other. In 1898, they came close to blows one more time over territorial disputes in East Africa (the so-called “Fashoda Incident”). Nonetheless, jointly threatened by German power, they put aside what commentators at the time thought unbridgeable disagreements together fought a bloody world war against Germany and its allies. Stated differently: A common enemy, despite lacking a joint vision, a strategic plan and joint national interests, may suffice to forge a de-facto alliance. 

Franz-Stefan Gady is a Senior Fellow with the EastWest Institute. He tweets @hoanssolo.

The views expressed in this publication are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the EastWest Institute

On December 3-5, Vladimir Ivanov, Director of the EastWest Institute’s (EWI) Moscow Office, participated in the First Annual International Forum: “Freedom of Journalism in the Context of Human Rights, New Technologies and International Information Security.” Also branded as the Free Media Forum, the event took place in Bratislava, Slovakia, and was co-sponsored by International Affairs, a leading Russian diplomatic journal, the Moscow State University (MSU), including the MSU-affiliated Institute for Information Security Issues, the Union of Journalists of Russia, and Comenius Analytica, a Bratislava-based expert center. 

Featuring an opening address by Alexey Fedotov, Russian Ambassador to the Slovak Republic, and bringing together a diverse mix of media professionals, academics and public opinion makers, the forum highlighted Russia’s ambition to contribute to the international debate on the impact of modern media and information technologies. 
 
Speaking in Bratislava at the session on “Safety of Use and Resilience of Global Information Infrastructure” Ivanov focused on the difficulties of the current global diplomatic process, particularly at the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly, to come to terms on the rules of responsible state behavior in cyberspace. 

“Simultaneous approval by the UN First Committee of two competing draft resolutions on this matter, one led by the Russian Federation, and another by the United States, show that the international community is highly conscious of the urgent need for action to counter threats stemming from modern information and communication technologies,” Ivanov commented. “Unfortunately, actionable agreement in this area is hampered by the lingering antagonism between Russia and the United States.”

At the same time, according to Ivanov, any political uncertainty about cyber-related diplomatic initiatives should not discourage multiple constructive efforts on the part of experts and the global business community to explore viable approaches to developing and implementing norms of responsible conduct in cyberspace. In this context, EWI supports several leading multilateral and multi-stakeholder initiatives as well as the bi-lateral dialogues between the U.S. and Russia, and between the U.S. and China.
 
The forum in Bratislava has the potential to grow into a promising new platform to address aspects of international cyber cooperation, and its role in today’s reflecting an evolving landscape of media standards, including the safety of journalists in military conflicts, relationship between media and governments, as well as challenges to political pluralism and cultural diversity.

Click here for more information about the forum.

Where does Russia stand in the post-Cold war era? In recent years, scholars have debated whether Russia has regained its former superpower status or experienced a decline in the 21st century. A new report from the Russia Matters Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs seeks to provide a data-driven assessment of Russia’s national power under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, arguing that Russia’s standing in the global order bears considerable implications for U.S. and international interests.

To measure Russia’s national power, authors Simon Saradzhyan, director of the Russia Matters Project, and Nabi Abdullaev, lecturer at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, analyzed economic output, energy consumption, population, life expectancy, military expenditures, government effectiveness and other data, such as patents and tourist visits, during the period from 1999 to 2016. Russia was first compared against the world as a whole; and then against its competitors (including five of the West’s leading powers) and peers (including other BRICS members, former Soviet republics and select countries with hydrocarbon economies). Nearly all research models indicated growth vis-à-vis the world, while Russia occupied a middle position vis-à-vis its peers, lagging behind China but outrunning the West.

Whether in the ascendant, in decline or in stagnation, the trajectory of Russia’s national power matters. Russia’s ability to impact counterterrorism efforts, the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, energy supply and other global issues is in part determined by its national capabilities. In turn, how the global community perceives Russia—as a nation on the rise or in decline—can color its policies toward Russia.

Please visit the Russia Matters website for the full report and executive summary.

About Russia Matters

Russia Matters is a project launched in 2016 by Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and made possible with support from Carnegie Corporation of New York.

The project’s main aim is to improve the understanding of Russia and the U.S.-Russian relationship among America’s policymakers and concerned public. It does so by showcasing the best expertise on Russia and its relationships with the rest of the world by providing top-notch analysis, relevant factual data and related digests of news and analysis.

Russia Matters likewise endeavors to build bridges between academe and the policymaking community.

Image: "Black Square" (CC BY 2.0) by tinou bao

Franz-Stefan Gady, senior fellow at the Eastwest Institute, spoke on This Morning with Alex Jensen (tbs eFM 101.3 MHz) in Seoul about the new Russian S-400 air defense system.

"One of the most effective long-range air defense systems in the world", said Gady. He compared the S-400 with the U.S. THAAD system and discussed the global sale of these air defense systems in Turkey, China, Greece, India and South Korea.

According to Gady, "the S-400 is not really a threat to U.S. ballistic missiles . . . given that they are all stationed in the continental U.S. or on submarines or bombers," however "these weapons . . . would be used to shoot down U.S. aircraft or allied aircraft and missiles" in the event of a conflict between the U.S. and Russia or China.

Listen to the complete interview here.

Photo: "THAAD_2010_June_c" (CC BY 2.0) by U.S. Missile Defense Agency