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382. Russia Is Down, But Not Out, in Central Asia
- Author:
- Maximilian Hess
- Publication Date:
- 02-2023
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
- Abstract:
- Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has weakened its influence in Central Asia, especially in Kazakhstan. Russia is no longer a regional hegemon, which may increase regional instability. Tensions between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are especially dangerous. Despite Moscow’s diminished influence in Central Asia, regional states cannot afford to completely ignore Russian interests. Western hopes for Central Asian gas resources to be pumped westwards and circumvent Russia remain unlikely to be fulfilled.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Gas, Political stability, Regional Power, and Russia-Ukraine War
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Central Asia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan
383. The Roots of Russian Military Dysfunction
- Author:
- Philip Wasielewski
- Publication Date:
- 03-2023
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
- Abstract:
- An unwillingness to decentralize decision making authority and a failure to communicate accurate information are the most consequential weaknesses at the state level that have contributed to the Russian military’s subpar performance to date in the war with Ukraine. These characteristics are exacerbated by other historic factors found throughout Russian society, which also permeate the military as a reflection of that society. They include an imperialist national identity, endemic corruption, and societal brutality. To these systemic problems must be added the inherent difficulties of what the Russian military was supposed to achieve in its first major peer conflict since World War Two and elements of simple military incompetence. The unwillingness to decentralize decision making authority is symptomatic of over five centuries of Russian autocracy. It is why Russia lacks an effective noncommissioned officer (NCO) corps and has a top-down command-and-control system, which is slow to provide timely direction to forces at the front. This is exacerbated by a failure to communicate accurate information, especially at the strategic level, which results in decision making based on faulty information and reinforces bad decisions due to inaccurate feedback. These two characteristics create a command, control, and communications system unsuited for modern warfare but congruent with a Russian way of war that has been influenced by a culture of imperialism, corruption, and brutality. Imperialism prevented Russian national security elites from seeing agency in other peoples, which led them to underestimate possible Ukrainian resistance and Western resolve. Corruption compounded personnel and supply challenges for the Russian military. A reliance on brutality to control its own soldiers and assert control over occupied populations exacerbated factors in the Russian military that are detrimental to good order, discipline, morale, and unit cohesion and provided additional motivation to Ukrainians to resist Russian aggression. These are not really “weaknesses” of the Russian system but consequences of that system. Furthermore, despite their detrimental impact on military effectiveness, these factors have sometimes “worked” for Russia and provided, counterintuitively, advantages such as the political will to conduct attrition warfare at a cost that no Western society would accept. This is significant because all the above factors are endemic to Russian social and political culture and will continue, barring a major social revolution in Russia of the scale of 1917. This means there will be no permanent solution to the war in Ukraine even if a peace treaty is signed. These cultural factors will eventually drive Russia to regain its military capacity and renew its aggression against Ukraine and hostility to the West. As long as Russia is autocratic with a propensity for self-deception and imperialism, it will try again to assert hegemony over Ukraine and other portions of its former empire. That future war will likely resemble the war in Ukraine, a high-intensity war of attrition where Moscow is willing to make brutal sacrifices to outlast its foes. This is not a case of predicting that history will repeat itself, but that Russia’s basic political nature will. Only if Russia overcomes its history and changes internally, will it ever behave differently externally.
- Topic:
- Corruption, Autocracy, Military, and Russia-Ukraine War
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, and Eurasia
384. The Wagner Group’s Expanding Global Footprint
- Author:
- Raphael Parens, Colin P. Clarke, Christopher Faulkner, and Kendal Wolf
- Publication Date:
- 04-2023
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
- Abstract:
- 1. The sanctions discussion needs to be expanded, as such designations should aim to shame Wagner’s state partners. 2. Sanctions lists should expand to include actors in third-party countries, such as Broker Expert LLC, a Russian-owned company widely reported to be shipping heavy machinery to support Wagner Group forestry activities in CAR, and First Industrial Company, a business owned by Wagner operator Dimitri Sytyi which concocts cheap “Russian” alcohol in Cameroon and sells it in CAR. 3. Perhaps one of the more important lessons for countering Wagner and other Russian PMCs is the importance of multilateralism. 4. NATO must also continue to consider proactive tools to counter Russian and other PMCs. 5. NATO should work to amplify efforts to push the adoption of the 2008 Montreux Document—an international agreement designed to reaffirm the legal obligations of states where PMCs originate and for those who hire them. 6. The Wagner Group and other Russian PMCs require consideration within a larger great power discussion, particularly as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has firmly aligned Europe and the US against Russia. 7. US senior leaders should demonstrate a greater diplomatic commitment to African allies and put pressure on other African leaders considering, or currently contracting, the Wagner Group and other Russian PMC operations. 8. International bodies such as the African Union, ECOWAS, and the East African Community (EAC) should reevaluate their approaches to peacekeeping and instability. 9. Exploiting the friction between Wagner’s financier and the MoD should also be considered a worthwhile policy option. 10. Last, NATO members must formalize methods of blocking contact with the Wagner Group through their international activities.
- Topic:
- NATO, Sanctions, Wagner Group, and Russia-Ukraine War
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, and Ukraine
385. Russia’s Military Industry Forecast 2023-2025
- Author:
- Pavel Luzin
- Publication Date:
- 04-2023
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
- Abstract:
- After the start of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the arms expenditures and military budget of Russia skyrocketed and continue to grow for the foreseeable future. However, the military industry is under threat Despite the additional massive financial inflow. The military industry could not—with few exceptions—increase the production capacity significantly nor solve its other major problems of workforce deficit and annual net losses. Moreover, the Western embargo on the supply of components, industrial equipment, and technologies makes the further development of the Russian military industry doubtful. Even reverse engineering has become an impossible task. However, the Kremlin’s choice in this situation would be in favor of more arms expenditures and extending the practices of the command economy.
- Topic:
- Military Affairs, Budget, Industry, and Russia-Ukraine War
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Eurasia, and Ukraine
386. The War as an Accelerator
- Author:
- András Tóth-Czifra
- Publication Date:
- 05-2023
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
- Abstract:
- Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine laid bare the problems with Russia’s domestic governance. The war caught the federal and regional governments unprepared and exacerbated existing bottlenecks in fields such as infrastructure and state capacity. Even before 2022, Russia’s domestic policymaking had prioritized the short-term political interests of a shrinking ruling class and made long-term thinking and deep structural reforms impossible. The invasion completely eliminated long-term policy planning and subordinated policymaking to war aims. One year after the invasion, these problems are causing frictions and elevating domestic political risks for the Kremlin. The botched invasion and subsequent economic sanctions have caused irreversible losses and put significant upfront costs on the Russian state. This stretches Russia’s peculiar, highly centralized system of fiscal and political governance to its limits. In particular, the interlocking challenges of reorienting trade towards Asia without the necessary infrastructure in place, improving an inflexible multi-level public administration system, and turning Russia into a digital securocracy, show how, by starting the invasion, Russia’s rulers contributed to the destabilization of their own country. They also demonstrate how international sanctions impact Russia by increasing domestic risk factors from the Kremlin’s point of view.
- Topic:
- Infrastructure, Governance, Trade, Domestic Policy, and Russia-Ukraine War
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Eurasia, and Ukraine
387. Russia’s War in Ukraine: Critical Vulnerabilities to Russia’s Military Operations and Systems
- Author:
- Rob Lee and Philip Wasielewski
- Publication Date:
- 06-2023
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
- Abstract:
- Some of the critical vulnerabilities to Russia’s military operations and systems—revealed during the war in Ukraine—are due to its military culture and poor strategic choices at the beginning of the war including overly ambitious strategic aims. Deficiencies in Russian military culture include a highly centralized decision-making process, a disregard for the welfare of its soldiers, and flagrant dishonesty. Certain aspects of Russia’s military culture, especially the disconnect between front-line soldiers and senior officers, complicate the Russian military’s ability to adapt, develop solutions to obvious deficiencies, and institutionalize lessons learned from the battlefield. Other critical Russian military vulnerabilities are not inherent to its military culture but to Russia’s national demographic and industrial capabilities. Limits in these areas make it difficult for Russia to regenerate military power by either increasing the size of its military or increasing the quality of its weapons systems. Even if Russia’s military culture experiences a post-war military renaissance, its ability to regenerate military power lost in Ukraine will be limited by its declining population and industrial bases as well as Western sanctions on high technology.
- Topic:
- Sanctions, Armed Forces, Military Affairs, and Russia-Ukraine War
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Eurasia, and Ukraine
388. Russia’s Nuclear Policy After Ukraine
- Author:
- Stephen Blank
- Publication Date:
- 07-2023
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
- Abstract:
- The recent mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary force, generated international concern about the control of Russian nuclear weapons and Russia’s future nuclear policy.[1] Therefore we must ask, will Russia change its nuclear policy due to contemporary strategic developments? This question correctly assumes that the war in Ukraine and all its ramifications, despite their undoubted importance, are not the only factors influencing Russian decision-making on nuclear policy. Accordingly, we analyze those factors—including, among others, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine—that will likely influence the direction and nature of Russia’s nuclear policy. Those factors influencing policy, itself the outcome of myriad domestic and foreign pressures, also include Russia’s overall security policies, the global strategic environment, and the lessons Russia learns from recent wars—most prominently its aggression against Ukraine. Russian national security strategy and policy originate in what Carl Schmitt called the presupposition of unceasing conflict.[2] Since the U.S. is Russia’s principal interlocutor, it also is its primary antagonist. Russian security policy is inherently adversarial. It postulates a state of permanent conflict with Washington and its allies where Washington seeks to undermine, if not destroy, the Russian state and prevent it from restoring its empire (i.e., global great power status). As Deputy Foreign Minister Rybakov recently stated, “Russia’s foreign policy interests as a great power have a global projection. Our country plays a stabilizing role in various regions of the world.”[3] Allegedly the U.S. employs nuclear weapons, missile defenses, and advanced conventional weapons that could negate Russia’s nuclear deterrent to frustrate Russia’s policies.[4] Thus it is an article of faith in Moscow that its nuclear weapons are the main guarantees of Russia’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, great power status, and the factor that deters the West from intervening against Russia in Ukraine.[5] Moreover, those weapons, when deployed abroad, also deter NATO’s potential, largely maritime, threats to Russia. Therefore, Russia must conduct a global military—i.e., an expeditionary, nuclear, and military policy.[6] Indeed, Putin has recently and revealingly called nuclear weapons, “the key guarantee of Russia’s military security and global stability.”[7] Russian nuclear strategy and behavior also derive from a cognitive universe wholly unlike and unfamiliar to American strategic thought. Identical words often mean entirely different things to Russians and Americans; much Russian rhetoric is politicized, deliberately deceptive, or opaque, and invariably follows state requirements. Yet, despite voluminous and even insightful commentary on war, Russian forces often do not fight as its doctrine stipulates, adding to the difficulties involved in determining what its policy is.[8] Simultaneously, however, Russian strategy and policy are also inherently evolutionary—i.e., they respond to changes in the strategic environment that are then incorporated into doctrine, strategy, official statements, exercises, procurement, and policy. Finally, despite our own difficulties in understanding Russia, either willfully or because it cannot help itself due to the deep-seated paranoia in its political culture, equally misreads the West, wholly misunderstands the West, and habitually ascribes the worst motives to U.S. and Western policies.[9] This misreading of the West repeatedly generates worst-case threat assessments that frequently lead to Russian nuclear threats or procurements. Taking all these factors into account, including Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, it is quite likely if not certain that Russian nuclear strategy and policy will change in the wake of the war in Ukraine, win, lose, or draw. Unfortunately, in most potential outcomes to the war save defeat and collapse of the government, that change points to an enhanced role of nuclear weapons in Russian policy with no letup in hostility toward the West. The war in Ukraine has been instrumental in fostering still more animosity toward the West and an enhanced role for nuclear weapons.[10]
- Topic:
- National Security, Nuclear Weapons, Wagner Group, and Russia-Ukraine War
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Eurasia, and Ukraine
389. Fighting to Win: Ukraine, Russia, and the War for Survival
- Author:
- Philip Wasielewski
- Publication Date:
- 08-2023
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
- Abstract:
- Both the Kremlin and Ukrainians see the war as an existential conflict, even as a “holy war,” and are prepared to fight for years to achieve victory. Russian war aims vis-à-vis Ukraine have morphed into creating a “frozen conflict” to maintain its land bridge with Crimea. However, its primary war aim remains weakening NATO to regain its sphere of influence in the former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact states. To achieve this, Russia will conduct a prolonged strategic defense in Ukraine to demonstrate that Ukraine will never regain its territorial integrity and to show that American support will eventually end as it has for other client states. Ukraine’s primary war aim of restoring its territorial integrity is shared across its society. To achieve this, Ukraine’s strategy is to break the will of the Russian army and then reclaim Crimea, even if that takes several years. Ukrainians do not fear a long war but an inconclusive one that reignites in five or ten years. They want to settle this conflict with Russia once and for all, and see NATO membership as the only way to prevent it from happening again. For US policymakers, the dangers arising from the war overshadow opportunities. One opportunity is a Russian defeat that can serve both as a brake against further Kremlin aggression and as a catalyst for Russia to possibly change her imperial identity. Another opportunity is the chance to strengthen NATO’s conventional forces and geographic position to give it an overwhelming advantage against any possible future Russian aggression. For that to happen, Ukraine must enter the alliance.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, NATO, Armed Conflict, and Russia-Ukraine War
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Eurasia, and Ukraine
390. The Frontline States: Conversations and Observations About Russia’s Other War in Europe
- Author:
- Philip Wasielewski
- Publication Date:
- 09-2023
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI)
- Abstract:
- From late June to mid-July 2023, I visited Georgia, Moldova, Hungary, Poland, and Lithuania on a research trip. The analysis and conclusions in this report are based, in part, on conversations with a wide variety of individuals from former government officials, university students, academics, and members of non-governmental organizations to ordinary citizens. The Kremlin desires to reestablish a sphere of influence in former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact states between the Black and Baltic Seas. To do so, it is fighting a conventional war in Ukraine and political wars elsewhere to remove Western influence and reestablish hegemony. Russia’s political warfare operations have a major flaw; they only offer people the past and not a future. However, US efforts against them could be more effective and citizens in frontline states facing Russian subversion have constructive criticisms to improve them. Resisting Russian subversion depends as much on the political health of the targeted state as Western countermeasures. Efforts to oppose backsliding on democratic norms are vital, even if they spark tensions with partners and allies. Several countries in the region will hold elections between the fall of 2023 and 2025 that will determine their geopolitical orientation. If the war in Ukraine is a battle of modern weapon systems, these elections will be a war of ideas between East and West. It is important that the United States not cede the narrative for these elections to Moscow and work with allies and partners to counteract anti-Western propaganda.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Regional Politics, and Russia-Ukraine War
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Eurasia, and Ukraine