This article originally appeared at Brookings.

On December 21, the United Nations General Assembly voted down a Russian-proposed resolution calling for support for the INF Treaty. That Moscow gambit failed, in large part because Russia is violating the treaty by deploying prohibited missiles.

This bit of diplomatic show came one week after Russian officials said they would like to discuss INF Treaty compliance concerns. That could be—not is, but could be—significant. Washington should test whether those suggestions represent just more Kremlin posturing or a serious effort to save the treaty.

THE INF TREATY

Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev signed the INF Treaty in 1987. It resulted in the elimination of some 2,700 U.S. and Soviet missiles. The treaty continues to ban the United States and Russia from having ground-launched missiles of intermediate range (500-5,500 kilometers) as well as from having launchers for such missiles.

In 2014, the U.S. government publicly charged that Russia had violated the treaty by developing and testing a ground-launched intermediate-range cruise missile. In early 2017, U.S. officials said the Russian military had begun deploying it.

From 2013 to late 2017, Russian officials claimed that they did not know what missile Washington had in mind. After a U.S. official revealed that the Russian designator for the offending missile was 9M729, Russian officials conceded that the 9M729 ground-launched cruise missile existed but asserted that its range did not exceed 500 kilometers.

On December 4, NATO foreign ministers stated that the development and deployment of the 9M729 constituted a material breach of the INF Treaty. Secretary of State Pompeo the same day said that, if Russia did not return to compliance within 60 days, the United States would suspend its obligations under the treaty, meaning that it would face no treaty bar to testing and deploying its own intermediate-range missile. U.S. suspension of its obligations would relieve Russia of the requirement to observe its obligations.

The treaty seemed fixed on a path for demise.

SIGNS OF POSSIBLE LIFE?

Then, on December 14, Reuters reported that a Russian foreign ministry official had said Moscow envisaged the possibility of mutual inspections to resolve the sides’ compliance concerns. The next day, the Associated Press and TASS said Defense Minister Shoygu had sent Secretary of Defense Mattis a message proposing “open and specific” talks on compliance issues.

As with the failed U.N. resolution, these statements could just represent posturing. Indeed, given the lack of serious engagement for nearly five years, it likely is part of Moscow’s effort to ensure that blame for the INF Treaty’s end falls on Washington.

There is, however, a small chance that the Russians seek a settlement. U.S. officials should explore this, if for no other reason than that a failure to do so would increase the prospects that Washington bears the responsibility for the agreement’s collapse in the eyes of publics and allies.

The big question: Are the Russians willing to exhibit the 9M729 and provide a technical briefing to American experts on why the missile’s range does not exceed 500 kilometers? That invariably would entail questions about the capacity of the missile’s fuel tanks and power of its engine. U.S. experts might also ask why, if the 9M729 can fly no further than 500 kilometers, Russia built the missile when it already deploys the modern 9M728, a ground-launched cruise missile whose range is also less than 500 kilometers.

Working out the details for this kind of exhibit and briefing would require some patience and delicacy. It would require agreeing to procedures not specified in the INF Treaty. It would also require steps to ensure that U.S. experts had the opportunity to view a 9M729, not something else. But the State Department, Defense Department, and intelligence community have bright people who could figure out how to make this work.

Of course, if the 9M729’s range exceeds 500 kilometers, the treaty requires its elimination. Senior American officials, however, have allowed for the possibility that Russia might satisfy U.S. concerns by modifying the missile so that it could not fly to intermediate ranges.

WOULD HAVE TO BE MUTUAL

Russian readiness to conduct the exhibit poses one test. A second test is for the American side. While denying that they have violated the INF Treaty, Russian officials charge that the United States has committed three violations. Two of the charges lack any real foundation, and Russians themselves seem to be setting them aside.

They continue, however, to press a third charge. The Russians assert that the Mk-41 launcher used by the Aegis Ashore missile defense facility in Romania can hold and launch offensive cruise missiles of intermediate range in addition to the Mk-41’s stated purpose of containing and launching SM-3 missile interceptors.

U.S. officials respond that the Mk-41 launcher used in Romania (and soon to be deployed at an Aegis Ashore site in Poland) has not been tested with a ground-launched missile. They argue that it thus is not a prohibited intermediate-range missile launcher.

Technically, U.S. officials may be correct. Moreover, nothing suggests that the Aegis Ashore facility hosts anything but SM-3 missile interceptors.

However, the Mk-41 launcher is standard on U.S. Navy warships. On board warships, the Mk-41 holds a variety of weapons in addition to SM-3 interceptors, including the BGM-109C Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile. The Tomahawk has a range of about 1,500 kilometers. Other than that it is launched from the sea rather than land, it shares many similarities with the BGM-109G ground-launched cruise missiles eliminated under the INF Treaty.

Were the Russians instead of the Americans using something like the Mk-41 launcher on land, the U.S. side might well have questions about its compliance with the treaty.

Speaking in mid December, a Russian foreign ministry official ruled out a unilateral demonstration of the 9M729 but seemed to leave open the possibility for mutual measures. If Russian officials were prepared to allow an exhibit and provide a technical briefing on the 9M729, U.S. officials should be prepared to demonstrate the Mk-41 launcher in Romania to Russian experts and explain why it cannot hold cruise missiles. If it can do so, there should be ways to address Moscow’s concerns, either by modifying the shore-based Mk-41 or allowing periodic visits by Russian experts to show that the launchers contain SM-3 missile interceptors only.

Again, working out the details for such a demonstration would take some time, but the sides have experts with the expertise to do so.

AN OPPORTUNITY?

Some may object that this kind of proposal equates Russia’s material breach of the INF Treaty with a question of technical compliance on the American side. Perhaps, but U.S. officials—and European officials, since the treaty affects their security—should ask whether offering to address Russian questions about the Aegis Ashore’s Mk-41 launcher is worth the chance to resolve the 9M729 issue and preserve the INF Treaty.

At worst, if Russia is merely posturing, U.S. officials will be able to cite their effort and finger Moscow’s lack of seriousness. At best, they could preserve a treaty that has made a substantial contribution to U.S., European, and global security.

Washington should take up Moscow’s offer for dialogue. It can do so while allowing the 60-day clock to run, though it might consider allowing more time if technical talks get underway and make progress.

The INF Treaty may still have a glimmer of hope, but someone still needs to act to save it.

The aggression that Russia unleashed against Ukraine in 2014 is now well into its fifth year. Unfortunately, Moscow has shown no readiness to end the conflict it keeps simmering in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, let alone address the status of Crimea. Hopes of a year ago that a U.N. peacekeeping force might offer a path out of the Donbas morass have dimmed. It appears the Kremlin will wait another year, until after the presidential and parliamentary elections in Ukraine, to reconsider its policy.

In the meantime, attitudes among Ukrainians toward Russia continue to harden. The country is deepening its links to Europe while severing ties to its eastern neighbor. The longer that Moscow holds off on changing its policy, the more the already wide gulf between Ukraine and Russia will grow.

CONTINUING CONFLICT
Soldiers in Russian-style combat fatigues (but without identifying insignia) seized Crimea in late February 2014. Ukrainians called them “little green men.” Russian President Vladimir Putin denied they were the Russian military. Weeks later, he admitted that they were and awarded their commanders commendations for the seizure.

Little green men appeared again in Donbas, triggering a conflict that has now claimed well more than 10,000 lives. While Moscow has tried to minimize its visible footprint in the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk “People’s Republics,” those entities survive only due to Russian assistance, which comes in the form of funding, leadership, heavy weapons, ammunition and, at times, regular units of the Russian army.

The Minsk II agreement, brokered in 2015 by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and then-French President François Hollande, aimed to end the fighting and provide a path, if less than well-defined, to a settlement of the Donbas conflict. More than three years later, its first two provisions—ceasefire and withdrawal of heavy arms away from the line of contact—have yet to be implemented. Most attribute blame for this failure to Russia and Russian proxy forces.

September 2018 generated hope that a way to resolve the conflict could be found. Mr. Putin suggested that Russia might agree to a U.N. peacekeeping force, though Russian officials envisaged it operating only along the line of conflict and limited to providing protection for Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) monitors.

That kind of mandate seemed overly narrow, and OSCE officials privately indicated that armed escorts would put their monitors at greater risk. Ukrainian officials, including Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, nevertheless indicated a readiness to consider a U.N. peacekeeping force—provided that its mandate was properly structured and that it could relatively quickly expand its area of operations to cover all of occupied Donbas, including the Ukraine-Russia border.

Serious countries have offered to provide troops. Those include Finland, Sweden, and Austria. A peacekeeping force, perhaps complemented by an interim international administration, offers a means to ensure a peaceful and orderly transition of Donbas back to Ukrainian sovereignty. It also offers the Kremlin a face-saving way to extract itself from a conflict that has no goal or end in sight.

ELECTIONS
Some analysts, including Russians, speculated that Mr. Putin might look for a way out after he won reelection in March. That election, however, is long past, and five months have gone by since the Russian president’s inauguration. It may be that the Kremlin has decided to wait until after next year’s elections in Ukraine to use the peacekeeping plan, or some other notion, to produce a settlement in Donbas.

Ukraine’s 2019 calendar has a presidential ballot on March 31 and Rada (parliamentary) elections no later than October. No clear favorite has emerged in either. The Kremlin undoubtedly will seek to influence both elections with money, supportive electronic media, active social media, and cyber operations. The few openly pro-Russian faces that remain in Ukraine, such as Victor Medvedchuk, also will likely help out.

Moscow’s influence campaign faces challenges, however. Ukrainians are on the alert for Russian interference. Moreover, no candidate or party wants a “pro-Moscow” label. And Russia’s occupation of Crimea and part of the Donbas means that a significant portion of the electorate that in the past has been pro-Russian will not be voting.

Russian interference thus may make the Ukrainian elections more chaotic. It will not, however, deliver a pro-Russian president or sizable pro-Russian bloc in the Rada.

IN THE MEANTIME
While the Kremlin continues the simmering conflict in Donbas and waits for change in Kyiv, Ukraine is steadily moving away from Russia.

Opinion polls reflect this. A June survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology showed 47 percent of Ukrainians favoring integration with the European Union, as opposed to 12 percent who supported joining the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union. In a country where the Russian language was once used as commonly as Ukrainian, many today have made the political choice to use Ukrainian.

Big changes are afoot in Ukraine’s religious scene. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate, once the largest in numbers of adherents and parishes, has in recent years lost followers to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyiv Patriarchate. Sometime this fall, the Ukrainian church is expected to gain independent recognition from Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople. That will sever links between the Ukrainian church and Russia. The Russian Orthodox Church bitterly opposes this but appears to have little leverage to stop it.

Ukraine is moving west in economic terms as well. The European Union has displaced Russia to become Kyiv’s largest trading partner. Ukraine-EU trade made up more than 40 percent of Ukraine’s total in 2017. The decline in energy trade has accounted for a big part of the overall drop in Ukraine-Russia trade. Ukraine today imports no natural gas directly from Russia, a striking fact given that in the 1990s some 75 percent of Ukraine’s natural gas came from Russia or from Central Asia via Russia. Any Russian-origin gas that Ukraine now uses comes from Central Europe.

Ukraine is becoming more connected in other ways with the West and less so with Russia. In September, low-cost carrier Ryanair announced connecting flights between Kyiv and 12 European cities. In contrast, there have been no regular direct passenger flights between Ukraine and Russia since late 2015 (a boon for the Minsk airport). Ukraine’s transportation minister, citing Russia’s continuing aggression, this summer suggested ending rail and bus links between the two countries as well.

RUSSIAN INTERESTS
The Kremlin could choose to adopt a course aimed at settling the conflict in Donbas. However, it seems unready to do so. As it continues its present approach, the gulf between Ukraine and Russia continues to widen. While the two will remain neighbors in a geographic sense (you cannot move one or the other), Moscow’s policy makes restoration of good, stable, neighborly relations a more difficult and difficult task.

One has to question whether a policy that drives Ukraine away and presses it closer to the West really is in Russia’s interest. The answer lies in the Kremlin—with Mr. Putin.

This article originally appeared on the Brookings website.

Colin H. Kahl will serve as co-director of the social sciences for Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC).

Kahl, a top international security expert and veteran White House advisor, is the Steven C. Házy Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI) for International Studies. He begins his new position on September 1, following Amy Zegart, the previous co-director for the social sciences. Rodney Ewing is the CISAC co-director for science and engineering.

Prior to Stanford, Kahl was an associate professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. From 2014 to 2017, he was deputy assistant to the U.S. president and national security advisor to the vice president. In that position, he served as a senior advisor to President Obama and Vice President Biden on all matters related to U.S. foreign policy and national security affairs, and represented the Office of the Vice President as a standing member of the National Security Council Deputies’ Committee.

Kahl’s research is focused on American grand strategy and a range of contemporary international security challenges, particularly digital and nuclear security, which are core CISAC research areas.  He also leads the Middle East Initiative at FSI. The Initiative seeks to improve understanding of how developments in the Middle East impact people in the region and security around the globe.

In the Winter Quarter, Kahl will teach a course, “Decision Making and U.S. Foreign Policy,” in the Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy program; he will also co-teach CISAC’s introductory class, “International Security in a Changing World.”

“For more than three decades, CISAC has been one of the nation’s premier centers for interdisciplinary research on international affairs,” Kahl said. “The Center has a long tradition of bringing together social scientists and hard scientists to conduct cutting edge, policy-relevant research on some of the most pressing security challenges we face,” Kahl said. “I look forward to working with Rod Ewing and my other CISAC colleagues to continue and expand upon this tradition of excellence.”

“Colin Kahl, who has both academic and extensive policy experience through his work in government and think tanks, will be a terrific co-director and asset to CISAC,” said Ewing.

“We are thrilled that Colin will be leading CISAC with Rod Ewing. Colin’s extensive experience in both theory and policy will enhance CISAC’s work in all areas,” said FSI Director and Senior Fellow Michael McFaul.

Kahl received his B.A. in political science from the University of Michigan (1993) and his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University (2000).

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Colin H. Kahl, Center for International Security and Cooperation: ckahl@stanford.edu
Katy Gabel, Center for International Security and Cooperation: (650) 725-6488, kgabel@stanford.edu