Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spent January 31 in Kyiv underscoring American support for Ukraine, including in its struggle against Russian aggression. While Pompeo brought no major deliverables, just showing up proved enough for the Ukrainians.

The U.S. government should now follow up with steps to strengthen the U.S.-Ukraine relationship, which has been stressed by President Donald Trump’s bid to drag Ukraine’s leadership into U.S. politics.

A ROUGH PATCH FOR U.S.-UKRAINE RELATIONS

2019 was not the best year for U.S.-Ukraine relations. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, elected in April, found himself pressured to launch an investigation into a long-discredited corruption claim about former Vice President Joe Biden and Biden’s son, Hunter, in order to benefit Trump’s reelection bid. In the process, the White House withheld an Oval Office visit from Zelenskiy and, for a time, congressionally-approved U.S. military assistance.

Zelenskiy managed to walk a narrow path carefully. He did not contradict Trump by saying there was pressure. Why would he? He and Ukraine had nothing to gain by alienating the American president. At the same time, authorities in Kyiv did not announce Trump’s desired investigation. Doing so would have unraveled the bipartisan support that Ukraine has enjoyed in Congress for nearly three decades.

Against this backdrop, the Ukrainians warmly welcomed the secretary of state’s visit. Pompeo, who had canceled planned visits in November and earlier in January, became the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Kyiv in two-and-a-half years (Vice President Mike Pence reportedly was instructed by Trump not to attend Zelenskiy’s inauguration last May).

Kyiv was so eager to host Pompeo that Ukrainian officials overlooked the secretary’s faux pas a week before his arrival. In an interview with National Public Radio’s Mary Louise Kelly, Pompeo took umbrage when she raised Ukraine and questioned the secretary’s failure to speak up for U.S. officials called to testify in Trump’s impeachment hearings. An angry Pompeo asked: “Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?”

THE RIGHT MESSAGES

Pompeo’s visit aimed to show Ukrainians — and Moscow — that Americans do care. As Kyiv think-tanker Alyona Hetmanchuk correctly predicted: “Pompeo will pretend that he didn’t say anything, and his Ukrainian counterparts will pretend that they didn’t hear anything.”

Pompeo had meetings with Zelenskiy, Foreign Minister Vadim Prystaiko, and Defense Minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk. The secretary had no major new announcements, but his public remarks following his meeting with Zelenskiy struck the right notes from the Ukrainian perspective:

• “The United States sees that the Ukrainian struggle for freedom, democracy, and prosperity is a valiant one. Our commitment to support it will not waver.”
• “We have maintained support for Ukraine’s efforts to join NATO and move closer to the European Union.”
• “In July of 2018, we released the Crimea Declaration, which clearly stated that Crimea is part of Ukraine and the United States will never recognize Russia’s attempts to annex it. We will never accept anything less than the full restoration of Ukraine’s control over its sovereign territory.”

In addition to meetings with Ukrainian officials, Pompeo laid a wreath in honor of Ukrainian soldiers who have died fighting Russian and Russian proxy forces the past six years in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas. He later visited wounded soldiers.

The secretary’s words, wreath-laying, and hospital visit made the day a good one for Ukrainians anxious for reaffirmation of U.S. support. The only discordant note: The secretary ducked a question as to when Zelenskiy could visit Washington. Zelenskiy, who received an invitation from Trump last May, but no specific date, made clear his readiness to travel.

NEXT STEPS

Pompeo’s visit went some way to reassure Ukrainians. Never fully confident in Trump’s view of their country, they became more nervous about the depth and resilience of American support last fall as the impeachment drama played out in Washington. The U.S. government and Pompeo should follow up on his visit with steps to bolster the relationship and Ukraine’s confidence.

First, the president should quickly nominate an ambassador to Ukraine. Since Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch’s unjust early recall last spring, the U.S. mission in Kyiv has been led by chargés d’affaires. The current chargé is a very able and experienced career Foreign Service officer, but Ukrainians can be forgiven for thinking that the absence of a confirmed ambassador means that the United States does not care as much as it should.

Interestingly, during his February 1 visit to Belarus, Pompeo expressed hope that there would soon be an American ambassador in Minsk. Ukraine matters much more to U.S. policy interests than does Belarus. Pompeo should propose a name for Kyiv to the White House and urge the president to make a rapid decision.

Second, the secretary should task Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun, who took up his office in early January, to devote some of his time to Russia and Ukraine. Deputy secretaries at the State Department typically have one or two regional questions in their direct portfolio. Biegun knows the post-Soviet region well. He spent time in Moscow during the 1990s. He is familiar with the Russia-Ukraine conflict, having taken part in a Track II effort to promote a settlement.

The State Department has indicated that it does not intend to replace Ambassador Kurt Volker, who resigned in September from his position as special envoy for Ukraine negotiations. The department apparently plans to have the slack taken up by diplomats such as Acting Assistant Secretary Phil Reeker, who has deep European experience, and Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent, who knows Ukraine as well as anyone at State. Adding Biegun to the mix would signal heightened U.S. interest in facilitating an end to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and ensure that Ukraine gets appropriate attention from the highest levels of the State Department.

Third, the secretary should ask Trump to give Zelenskiy a specific date to come to Washington. During his time in Kyiv, Pompeo denied that there were conditions for a visit — a denial that flies in the face of testimony to Congress by current and former U.S. officials. However, what better way to make the case than by extending an invitation for Zelenskiy to visit now?

Pompeo’s visit helped put U.S.-Ukraine relations on a better track. When he returns to Washington, he should take the above actions to further bolster that relationship.

Originally on Brookings

Ukraine unhappily found itself at the center of the impeachment drama that played out in Washington last fall and during the first weeks of 2020. That threatened the resiliency of the U.S.-Ukraine relationship, a relationship that serves the interests of both countries.

With Donald Trump’s impeachment trial now in the past, Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukrainians undoubtedly hope that their country will no longer feature so prominently in U.S. domestic politics. That would be good, but it may not happen.

Last year, Trump sought to get senior Ukrainian officials to announce an investigation of a political rival and extorted Kyiv to do so by withholding military assistance and a White House visit. Revelations of those actions led to the third presidential impeachment in American history. Last week, Republican senators voted to find Trump not guilty, disregarding damning testimony, rejecting further witnesses, and ignoring a courageous floor speech by their colleague Mitt Romney.

The impeachment hearings and trial proved a difficult time for Ukraine and for its friends in America. It had to be especially painful for Ukrainians to hear reports that the U.S. president referred to their country as a “terrible place” with “terrible people” and one of the “most corrupt countries.”

Impeachment is now over, but Ukraine may find itself again an object in U.S. politics, as America ramps up for the November presidential election.

Start with Trump. Rejecting the analysis of the U.S. intelligence community, State Department and Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee, the president has bought fully into the Kremlin disinformation lie that it was Ukraine—not Russia—that interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. “They [Ukrainians] tried to take me down.” Mr. Trump revels in playing the victim. As the campaign heats up, he almost certainly will depict himself as the victim of the “Ukraine hoax.” He will repeat the falsehood that the Ukrainian government organized an effort to sabotage his 2016 bid for the presidency.

If anyone believes Trump will let this go, or that the impeachment experience left him somewhat chastened, look at how he has behaved in the week since his acquittal.

Then there is Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, who oversaw the effort to extort Kyiv. He wants to drag Ukraine into U.S. domestic politics. He continues pursuit of the discredited claim that former Vice President Joe Biden sought to have Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin fired to protect his son, and he is not going away. Attorney General William Barr said he would take information provided by Giuliani, even though Giuliani himself reportedly is under U.S. Department of Justice investigation.

In the Senate, Lindsey Graham plans to conduct hearings to investigate the Bidens and their connection to corruption in Ukraine. Mr. Graham, who has become one of the president’s biggest cheerleaders, seeks to boost Mr. Trump’s reelection prospects.

So Ukraine may find itself again enmeshed in American politics. How should Kyiv respond?

First, Zelensky and the Ukrainian government should keep walking that narrow path that they have walked successfully over the past five months: say or do nothing that would antagonize either Trump or Democrats in the Congress.

The Ukrainian president can continue to stay silent when Trump asserts that he said there was no pressure; Ukraine gains nothing by contradicting and alienating the U.S. president. By the same token, the Ukrainian government should not announce or launch bogus investigations, which would undermine the strong bipartisan support that Ukraine has enjoyed in both the House of Representatives and Senate for nearly three decades. This is a real asset for Ukraine, which should do nothing that would risk it.

Second, Kyiv should work to change the unflattering narrative that has taken hold in the United States. It has good news stories to tell. The Ukrainian government and Rada should work to get members of the House and Senate, particularly Republicans, to visit and see for themselves how the country is changing. Kyiv should send some of the bright young faces in government and Rada to Washington to tell their country’s story, not just in the halls of Congress but on CNN, PBS, Fox News and MSNBC.

Third, Ukraine’s political leadership should take steps that will reinforce the story of a country changing for the better, despite being the victim of Russian aggression: press the fight against corruption; enact and implement land reform; get back on program with the International Monetary Fund, which offers low-interest credits and a seal of approval that will help attract foreign investment.

After the last half-year, few in Ukraine presumably want their country again in the middle of American politics. If that nevertheless happens, Kyiv needs to position itself to avert damage to U.S.-Ukraine relations or to Ukraine’s image in the United States.

Steven Pifer, a William Perry research fellow at Stanford University, served as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 1998 to 2000.

Originally in the Kyiv Post

This article originally appeared on the website of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where Rose Gottemoeller is a nonresident senior fellow in Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program. She is also the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Russia is replacing older nuclear technology with more modern, more functional options. What are the implications for the United States, Europe, and the future of arms control?

Do the U.S. and Russia have different reasons for modernizing nuclear weapons?
In the big strategic game, the Russians and Americans have the same reason for modernizing their nuclear forces: they want to maintain parity. If the two sides have the same number of nuclear warheads deployed, then they will not be tempted to shoot at each other. They also have a reason to avoid an arms race that would entail constantly seeking more nuclear weapons to try to achieve superiority—however temporary. As expensive as nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles are, parity has kept the costs down by holding the arms race in check.

In the past few years, Vladimir Putin does seem to be after nuclear weapons for another reason—to show that Russia is still a great power to be reckoned with. He has been trumpeting new and exotic systems that are unique, like the nuclear weapon delivery system known as the Burevestnik nuclear-propelled cruise missile.

These exotic systems have more of a political function than a strategic or security one. Their role is to signal Russia’s continuing scientific and military prowess at a time when the country does not otherwise have much on offer. Devilishly expensive and sometimes dangerous to operate, they are unlikely to be deployed in big numbers, as a 2019 fatal testing accident of the Burevestnik shows. If U.S.-Russian arms control remains in place, such systems definitely will not be deployed in big numbers, because they would displace proven and highly reliable intercontinental ballistic missiles in the Russian force structure. These ballistic missiles are the backbone of nuclear deterrence for Russia. The exotics don’t add to that deterrent. They have some show-off value, but they will do no more than make the rubble bounce.

What are European concerns with Russia's nuclear weapon modernization?
The Europeans, most prominently the NATO Allies, are very concerned about Russia’s nuclear modernization programs. Their concerns revolve more around new nuclear missiles to be deployed on European soil than the intercontinental systems that threaten the United States. Poland and Lithuania, for example, are NATO countries bordering Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave in the heart of NATO territory. Russia has put increasingly capable missiles there, including the Iskander, a highly accurate modern missile that is capable of launching either nuclear or conventional warheads.

Likewise, the Europeans are of one mind about the threat posed by a missile known as the 9M729 (SSC-8 in NATO parlance), which is a intermediate-range ground-launched cruise missile that the Russians developed and deployed in violation of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. The Allies all agree that this missile poses a threat to NATO. Although it has not been deployed forward in Kaliningrad, its range is sufficient to threaten all of NATO Europe when deployed in European Russia. It too is said to support both nuclear and conventional weapons.

Since Russia seized Crimea in 2014, the Russians have begun to build up basing sites for their advanced systems there too, including the Iskanders. If Russia brings nuclear weapons into Crimea, it will spark complex political, legal, and moral problems. The world community has largely held firm in condemning Russia’s seizure of Crimea and considers Crimea to be Ukrainian territory. Should Russia bring nuclear weapons to Crimea, it will be violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in a fundamental manner, for Ukraine is a non-nuclear weapon state under the NPT. Russia in this case would be behaving in a manner no better than North Korea.

What is the role of arms control in managing U.S. and European relationships with Russia?
The most basic role of arms control regimes is to create mutual predictability, ensuring that no country participating is uncertain about its security both now and into the future. In this way, arms control helps to keep defense spending in check, but it also allows countries to build up mutual confidence and stability, which can translate into broader security and economic ties. This assumes, of course, that the deal is properly implemented by all parties, which is why Ronald Reagan’s old adage “trust but verify” is so important. If participants are allowed to cheat on an arms control regime, then it becomes hollowed out, detrimental to the security of all.

The fundamental benefits of arms control, however, can be helpful in times of trouble. I like to think that all the work Russia, the United States, and Europe did together in the 1990s was enabled by the then thirty-year legacy of arms control cooperation. We worked together to protect nuclear weapons and materials from the former Soviet arsenal from being stolen or misused. The same goes for the safety of nuclear power plants. When Ukraine, Russia, the European Union, and the U.S. began to work together in the early 1990s to mitigate the effects of the 1987 Chernobyl disaster, existing relationships in the nuclear realm helped the cleanup project run smoother. Nuclear energy is clearly a different world from the nuclear weapons establishment, but the scientific underpinnings and the scientists and engineers working the issues are the same.

Nowadays, I think that we must contemplate what it will mean if no nuclear arms control regimes remain in force. For the generation that worked these issues in Russia, the U.S., and Europe, enough of a residual relationship exists that experts can grasp at opportunities for cooperation when they present themselves. Some mechanisms such as scientist-to-scientist dialogues are likely to remain, such as the Pugwash and Dartmouth dialogues and the National Academy of Sciences exchanges with the Russian Academy of Sciences. These were the first places where Soviet and Western scientists gathered together to confront the problems of nuclear war and to look together for solutions.

We should be concerned, however, that they may revert to the talk shops of the Cold War, with few opportunities to work together on practical projects. Meanwhile, pragmatic and persistent tools, such as the Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers (NRRCs) that operate in the U.S. Department of State and the Russian Ministry of Defense, may find their missions sharply curtailed as they cease to serve any treaty purpose. The U.S., Russia, and Europe may thus be heading to a time when their means of communications in a nuclear crisis is no better than they had during the Cold War.

In a story released on Christmas Day, 2019, the Washington Post reported that U.S. Cyber Command is “developing information warfare tactics that could be deployed against senior Russian officials and oligarchs if Moscow tries to interfere in the 2020 U.S. elections through hacking election systems or sowing widespread discord.” According to this story, one option being explored is the targeting of “senior leadership and Russian elites (though probably not President Vladimir Putin, which would be considered too provocative)” to demonstrate that the “sensitive personal data” of these individuals could be hit if the election interference did not stop. The Post article also quotes Lawfare’s Bobby Chesney saying that such actions would send “credible signals to key decision-makers that they are vulnerable if they take certain adversarial actions.” Photo: U.S. Cyber Command Public Affairs

Read the Rest at The LawFare Blog

For the first time in the history of the Leonard M. Rieser Award, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists gave an honorable mention. The honor goes to Ivan Andriushin, Cecilia Eiroa-Lledo, Patricia Schuster, and Evgenii Varseev for their essay “Nuclear power and global climate change.”  (Photo is of the authors.)

This essay, written by an a team of two Russian and two American young researchers sprung from a collaboration under the umbrella of the U.S.-Russia Young Professionals Nuclear Forum (YPNF), a project established by CISAC’s Siegfried Hecker to encourage dialogue on critical nuclear issues between the younger generations of nuclear engineers and scholars in the US and Russia.

The essay that received the Rieser honorable mention was one of a series of articles born out of the YPNF program. “Their articles are of interest because they represent the views of some of the younger generation of professionals working together across cultural and disciplinary divides,” said Hecker.  “We were particularly struck by the following comment in their essay reflects on the perceived urgency of the task at hand: ‘We are the first generation that is experiencing the dramatic effects of global climate change and likely the last that can do something about it.” 

Since its first meeting in 2016, the YPNF meets alternatively in Moscow and Stanford, with its agenda designed to promote an open-minded approach to consideration of technical and political challenges presented by the use of nuclear power in energy production and in the military realm. The participants represent not only two different countries, each a world leader in nuclear scholarship, research, and technology expertise, but also a range of disciplines from nuclear engineering to particle physics to international relations to anthropology. 

On the 4th YPNF in Moscow in November 2018, one forum exercise was on The Future of Global Nuclear Power. It was designed to have the young professionals take a close look at the benefits and challenges facing nuclear power globally and to examine and debate the role that nuclear power should play globally in this century. The backdrop for the discussion was the trend of the declining share of electricity produced by nuclear power plants in the world electricity. In the past few years, it dropped to only 11% of global electricity in spite of increasing concerns about the impact of burning fossil fuels on global climate change. This exercise was the start of the winning essay.

Read the Rest at Bulletin of Atomic Scientists