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You would not know if from the onslaught of nuclear weapons threats from Russian TV propagandists and political figures, but there is a 1973 Treaty between the USSR and the United States -- still in effect with Russia -- under which both sides agree to refrain from the use of nuclear weapons threats. I spoke with Tom Countryman, Board Chair of the Arms Control Association, about how to understand and confront Russia's barrage of threats. Tom knows of what he speaks. His 35-year career in the Foreign Service culminated in positions as Assistant Secretary and Acting Undersecretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation.
Topics included: The positions of China, India and the Global South on Russian nuclear threats; the possibilities for continued arms control with Russia despite its aggression and past treaty violations; the extreme danger of supposed limited nuclear weapons use leading to a strategic nuclear exchange; and the role of the Arms Control Association in advocating for a world without nuclear weapons. -
Romania plays an often under-appreciated role as a bulwark for NATO on its eastern flank. I spoke with Black Sea security expert and George Washington University Professor Iulia Joja on June 14 about Romania's security challenges amid Russia's war on neighboring Ukraine. Among the topics covered were: traditional Romanian attitudes toward Russia; issues in Romanian-Ukrainian bilateral relations; the changing NATO and US military presence in Romania; the threat to Moldova from Russia; the centrality of Crimea to the future security of Ukraine; the "Bucharest 9"; and the outlook at the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius for signals on future Ukrainian membership in NATO.
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President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador has declared an unprecedented and controversial war on the country's gangs. Under a "State of Exception" in effect since March 2022, over 60,000 suspected gang members have been arrested. Some human rights groups warn that the round up is coming at the expense of proper due process. Bukele's supporters note a dramatic drop in the murder rate and the return of the rule of law on the streets. Bukele's approval rating is over 80 percent. Bukele's experiment is being watched closely in the region, where others are also at the mercy of gangs and cartels.
I spoke about Bukele and his anti-gang efforts with El Salvador native and elections expert Mario Velasquez. Mario has been tracking politics in El Salvador since the 1970s. From 1985-95 he was Executive Director of MAES - Medical Aid for El Salvador. He was at one time affiliated with the leftist FMLN party. -
How is Russia's information war against Ukraine going? What are the main propaganda and disinformation narratives Russia is pushing -- and are they working? What is happening in cyber space? We explore these and other topics with Gavin Wilde, Senior Fellow in the Technology and International Affairs program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Gavin is a noted Russia expert with broad experience in and out of government, including as a Director for Russia at the National Security Council. We spoke on March 16. Gavin had recently returned from a trip to Ukraine.
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We review what Russia's war on Ukraine has meant for Central Europe with Matt Boyse, who served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for coordinating policy toward Central Europe from 2018-2021. Poland has emerged as a clear leader in the wake of the invasion, but we examine how the rest of the region, with the exception of Hungary, has risen to the challenge as well. Putin's aggression has vindicated the warnings Poland and others in Central Europe have been making for decades - often to the chagrin of their Western partners - about the threat of resurgent Russian imperialism. We will discuss how regional fora, such as the Bucharest-9, can enhance coordination and forge a bulwark in Europe's east - from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea - against further Russian encroachments.
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The Nordstream 2 natural gas pipeline -- Putin's project to make Germany energy dependent on Russia, divide the Euro-Atlantic Community, bypass Ukraine, and make Europe subject to energy blackmail -- went from zero percent completed to 95 percent completed during the Trump Administration. This took place despite bipartisan legislation from Congress in 2017 that called for the US to sanction Russia's energy export pipelines. It happened despite urgent pleas from Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic countries, and others, for the US to implement sanctions against Nordstream 2. And it happened despite Trump's own repeated public denunciations of the pipeline. How? And how today could Trump and Pompeo blame the Biden Administration for the fait accompli Trump left behind? In fact, the Trump Administration only took concrete action to stop Nordstream 2 in December 2019 -- after Congress mandated than they do it and only after the pipeline was 95% complete. We explore all of this in today's episode of the Freewheeling Diplomat podcast.
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I spoke with Mike Purcell who had decades of experience as a Russia watcher for the U.S. Marines. Mike, now retired and teaching at GW University, brings unique operational, strategic and area expertise to the analysis of Russian military performance. He led a combined armed force of 800 marines and 200 vehicles during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He was later a Foreign Area Officer in Russia and a Liaison at the UN Observer Mission in Tbilisi, Georgia. Mike was also Director for Strategic Planning for Marine Forces Europe at EUCOM. We discussed the brutal culture of the Russian military, including the tradition of widespread hazing. Mike provided historical context to Russia's use of proxy forces, such as the Wagner Group and Chechen militias. We also reviewed the state of play in Kherson and Bakhmut. Mike cautioned that the Russian military can -- and does -- learn from failure. Optimism about the poor performance of Russian forces to date should thus not breed overconfidence.
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Russian and Soviet history make it clear that defeat in war can result in the overthrow of the leader and that -- in the Soviet period especially -- the inner circle has repeatedly taken action against a leader seen to have failed. Autocrats rule through the appearance of strength. Putin is weakened and getting desperate. Yet he continues to hold on to his imperial fantasies. There is no hope for any real peace while Putin remains in the Kremlin. However strong he may seek to appear, if history is a guide, Putin's fall may occur as Hemmingway once said of bankruptcy: gradually -- and then suddenly.
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I spoke with my former State Department colleague Ben Schmitt on August 12 about energy sanctions against Russia. We reviewed how Germany had willfully made itself more dependent on Russian energy through a misguided policy of "change through trade." We discussed the outlook for Europe's efforts to rapidly wean itself off Russian oil and gas. While in the near term, Russia is finding alternative markets for its oil in China and India, medium and longer term trends resulting from energy sanctions spell peril for the Russian oil and gas industry.
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I spoke with Mykola Vorobiov, journalist and political-military analyst based in Kyiv. Mykola has devoted the past eight years to analyzing and writing about Russia's war on Ukraine, including covering the front in Donbas.
Mykola evaluates prospects for Ukraine's much anticipated counter-offensive in the key Kherson region in the South. He examines the composition and morale of Russian forces. He also reviews the political and economic affects of the war on Ukraine - and the solidity of U.S and European support.
Mykola is realistic: he underlines that Ukrainians understand that the war will not be over soon. But he makes a compelling case for why Ukraine will prevail. -
China has been cagey in its support for Russia since the February invasion of Ukraine. On one hand, China echoes Russia’s propaganda line and has ramped up purchases of Russian oil, giving the Putin regime a lifeline.
On the other hand, China has not sent military supplies to Russia. Chinese companies have actually decreased exports to Russia in recent months out of fear of sanctions. And China has not recognized the “independence” of the self-declared Russian puppet statelets in the Donbas region.Putin’s deeply misguided and brutal aggression in Ukraine -- and the fact that the war is now nearing the end of its fifth month with no end in sight -- should give China pause.
President Xi declared a “partnership without limits” with Putin in February. But – given Putin’s brutality and ineptitude – is this “partnership without limits” still in China’s interest? Or might Xi and the Chinese elite – for their own reasons – be persuaded to back away from a damaged Putin?
Perhaps a few key adjustments in U.S. diplomacy might help shift China's calculus on Russia's war in Ukraine in a more positive direction.
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Putin's war against Ukraine is already a nuclear war. Although he has not pushed the nuclear button, Putin and his propagandists have used Russia's nuclear arsenal extensively to try to intimidate Ukraine and -- in particular -- the West. Threats of nuclear war have been fast and furious, with Russian TV commentators expressing outright glee at the prospect of nuclear annihilation of the UK, the US and other Western targets. The Putin regime has discarded limits that even the USSR had in place on the inadvisability of nuclear threats. If Putin's nuclear threats succeed in Ukraine, we can expect him deploy such terror tactics against his next target. Western leaders must tred carefully, but not succumb to Putin's nuclear blackmail.
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Putin's history of getting Ukraine wrong did not begin will his brutal and bungled invasion in February 2022. In fact, Putin himself prompted the overthrow of the Russia-friendly, NATO-neutral, corrupt Ukrainian Administration of Victor Yanukovych in 2014. This episode explores Putin's repeated ineptitude in his dealings with Ukraine -- from the Orange Revolution of 2004 to the Maidan Revolution of 2014 to the present war.
