Chapter 2 Russia (Week 2)

2.1 Discussion questions

Questions denoted with an * means they are not directly related to an assigned reading. They are generally designed to whet your appetite for next week’s readings.

• Is Russia an adversary of the US? Basing on what you have read, how should the US navigate its relations with Russia? Why?

• Is China a friend, adversary, or competitor of the US? (*)

2.2 Any questions with the syllabus?

2.3 Russia’s war in Ukraine

• Mobilization
• Referendum in occupied territory
• Nuclear threat

2.4 Readings

• Ohanyan (2021)
  • containment, principled pragmatism, and selective engagement
  • “a new look at Russia from the ground up and from the margins inward”: bilateral to regional
  • regional order: avoids “explicit incorporation into formal Euro-Atlantic structures or geopoliticized democratization”
• Kagan (2022)
  • the US needs to recognize “the global hegemon cannot tiptoe off the stage”
  • better to risk confrontation with belligerent powers when they are “in the early stages of ambition and expansion”
  • the risk of Moscow using nuclear weapons is not higher now than 2008 or 2014 (in the West intervened); and it has always been extraordinarily small

2.5 US national security strategy 2022

The five bullet points in the new national security strategy, the US will:

• "continue to support Ukraine in its fight for its freedom, we will help Ukraine recover economically, and we will encourage its regional integration with the European Union.
• defend every inch of NATO territory and will continue to build and deepen a coalition with allies and partners to prevent Russia from causing further harm to European security, democracy, and institutions.
• deter and, as necessary, respond to Russian actions that threaten core U.S. interests, including Russian attacks on our infrastructure and our democracy.

2.6 US national security strategy 2022

• Russia’s conventional military will have been weakened, which will likely increase Moscow’s reliance on nuclear weapons in its military planning. The United States will not allow Russia, or any power, to achieve its objectives through using, or threatening to use, nuclear weapons. America retains an interest in preserving strategic stability and developing a more expansive, transparent, and verifiable arms control infrastructure to succeed New START and in rebuilding European security arrangements which, due to Russia’s actions, have fallen in to disrepair.
• sustain and develop pragmatic modes of interaction to handle issues on which dealing with Russia can be mutually beneficial."

2.7 US foreign policy toward Russia

• Biden warns Putin is ‘not joking’ about nuclear weapons

2.8 Next week:

• Is China a friend, adversary, or competitor of the US?

2.9 China

• Scholz’s point on decoupling

• “Globalization has been a success story that enabled prosperity for many people. We must defend it,” Scholz said. “Decoupling is the wrong answer.” The chancellor added that his government was aiming to diversify business ties. “We don’t have to decouple from some countries,” he said. “I say emphatically we must continue to do business with China. But we also have to ensure that we trade with the rest of the world, look at the rest of Asia, Africa, South America - that’s the opportunity.”

• American views on Russia and China

2.10 Additional resources

Ukraine Support Tracker provides up-to-date account on the support provided to Ukraine by different countries.

For Ukraine’s military progress, check The turning points in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine . Check also this: What Will Be Ukraine’s Pre-Winter Gains?, by Michael Kofman who talks about the window of opportunities for Ukraine. And this: Winter in Europe: A View from Ukraine, interview with Yevgeniya Gaber, a former foreign policy adviser to the Prime Minister of Ukraine. And this recent FP article by Andriy Zagorodnyuk , the former Minister of Defence of Ukraine: Ukraine’s Path to Victory How the Country Can Take Back All Its Territory

For how the war may end, check this report on the ideas of several war scholars who study termination: How the War in Ukraine Might End. Relatedly, check this piece: WILL PUTIN’S WAR IN UKRAINE CONTINUE WITHOUT HIM?. And this: RUSSIA’S PLAN TO STAY IN THE WAR. For a relatively recent study, I recommend Should I Stay or Should I Go? Leaders, Exile, and the Dilemmas of International Justice.

For the risk of nuclear war, check these:

• WE ARE ON A PATH TO NUCLEAR WAR
• WHAT IF RUSSIA USES NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN UKRAINE? A look at the grim scenarios—and the U.S. playbook for each
• The risks of escalation in the Ukraine war are rising fast: No comprehensive settlement is possible for the moment, but the US must start laying the groundwork for crisis diplomacy, by Alexander Gabuev (senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace).
• Putin’s Apocalyptic End Game in Ukraine: Annexation and Mobilization Make Nuclear War More Likely.
• Reducing or Exploiting Risk? Varieties of US Nuclear Thought and Their Implications for Northeast Asia, by Van Jackson.
• A Russian Nuclear Strike in Ukraine Would Cross a Point of No Return, by Paul Poast.
• ‘Limited’ Tactical Nuclear Weapons Would Be Catastrophic Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shows the limits of nuclear deterrence.
• The Crazy Logic of Brinksmanship Is Back The West can only counter Putin’s nuclear threats with ruinous threats of its own..
• Russia’s Nuclear Bluster Is a Sign of Panic: Yielding to Putin’s blackmail would be folly.
• And tweets by Hein Goemans as well as Nicholas Miller
• Addressing Putin’s Nuclear Threat: Thinking Like the Cold War KGB Officer That He Was

For some reflections of US foreign policy toward Russia, check this: WHEN YOU WISH UPON A TSAR, by Daniel Fata, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy. And this: Putin’s war in Ukraine A conversation with Fiona Hill and Angela Stent. And The Biden-⁠Harris Administration’s National Security Strategy, 12Oct 2022. Check also the full strategy here: NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY 2022.

Finally, some miscellaneous topics:

• Elon Musk Spoke to Putin Before Tweeting Ukraine Peace Plan: Report, by VICE News. For Musk’s tweek, check here: Ukrainian Diplomat Tells Elon Musk to ‘Fuck Off’ With Terrible Idea to End War
• Radoslaw Sikorski argues that a European army, independent of NATO, to deter Russian aggression
• Chinese dipomats on Russia nuclear threats
• Putin confronted by insider over Ukraine war, U.S. intelligence finds: The disagreement by a member of Putin’s inner circle was deemed significant enough that it was included in President Biden’s daily intelligence briefing. And check this:
• Biden needs to ‘back off’ Armageddon language, work to get Russia to the table with Ukraine: Mullen The former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman said Vladimir Putin was “cornered.”
• What the West Gets Wrong About the SCO
• Behind Russia’s War Is Thirty Years of Post-Soviet Class Conflict
• The Downside of Imperial Collapse: When Empires or Great Powers Fall, Chaos and War Rise, by Robert D. Kaplan
• WHY WOULD PUTIN SABOTAGE NORD STREAM?
• Putin Acknowledges Mistakes in Carrying Out His Draft
• Putin’s Last Hope to Win in Ukraine Is a GOP Victory in November
• https://www.thedailybeast.com/putins-last-hope-to-win-in-ukraine-is-a-gop-victory-in-november
• Putins Charmeoffensive

The Perpetually Irrational Ukraine Debate The war continues to be discussed in ways that are self-serving—and self-defeating., by Stephen Walt.