When the Department of Homeland Security’s Advisory Council announces it plan next week for overhauling how the agency combats the spread of disinformation online, its focus will be on “how to achieve greater transparency across our disinformation related work” and how to “increase trust with the public,” according to council meeting minutes released Monday.

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Just days into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Dmitri Medvedev, the former president and prime minister of Russia, took to social media to post a chilling message. He raged against Western sanctions on his country and suggested darkly that Russia could rip up some of its most important agreements with the West. He mentioned the New START treaty, the nuclear arms reduction agreement signed with the United States over a decade ago, but the threat was broader still: the sundering of all diplomatic ties with Western countries. “It’s time to hang huge padlocks on the embassies,” he wrote.

Read the rest at Foreign Affairs

After months of watching hundreds of new nuclear missile silos being dug in the dirt northwest of Beijing, it is welcome news that President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping seemingly agreed at last week’s summit on the need for strategic stability talks. Strategic stability — the idea that nuclear-armed countries should not be able to gain decisive advantage over one another — has taken on new importance as China expands and modernizes its nuclear arsenal.

China is expected to quadruple its number of warheads in the next decade, and is upgrading its nuclear capabilities with new missiles, submarines and bombers. Over the summer, it reportedly fired a missile from a hypersonic glide vehicle while testing its fractional orbital bombardment system (FOBS) — a technical advance that, if true, means the Chinese can attack targets from space with nuclear weapons. Although China insists it will never be the first to use nuclear weapons, this claim has less credence than in the past, when the country’s nuclear force was much smaller.

Read the rest at Politico 

Nearly every Latin American country opposed the U.S. war in Afghanistan in 2001. Most also opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Why is the region more divided on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine today? Despite the Latin American consensus opposing unilateral uses of force against weaker states, governments across the region have refused to impose sanctions on Russia to respond to its invasion of Ukraine. There are even some countries, like Brazil, whose diplomats in U.N. forums have condemned Russia while the executive ponders whether to help Vladimir Putin’s administration economically. Does Latin America solidly condemn interventions only when the United States is the intervener?

Read the rest at War on the Rocks

A week before Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, unleashing the biggest military operation in Europe since World War II, three experts on Russia—Rose Gottemoeller, chief U.S. negotiator for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) and former NATO deputy secretary-general; Olga Oliker, program director for Europe and Central Asia for the International Crisis Group; and Thomas Graham, distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former U.S. presidential adviser on Russia—were interviewed on Zoom and email by Carol Giacomo, chief editor of Arms Control Today, about the origins of the crisis and what an eventual solution might involve. Their comments, made as U.S. and European leaders were still working for a diplomatic solution, have been edited for clarity and length.

Read the rest at Arms Control Today

Rose Gottemoeller, the Steven C. Házy lecturer at the Center for International Security and Cooperation in Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and research fellow at the Hoover Institution, leads a conversation on international security and cooperation.

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During the last two months of 2021, Russia created a crisis by deploying large military forces near Ukraine and demanding security guarantees from the United States and NATO.  In mid-December, Moscow publicized draft U.S.-Russia and NATO-Russia agreements encapsulating its demands, many of which were clearly unacceptable.

Over the past four days, U.S. and Russian officials have held bilateral talks, the NATO-Russia Council met, and a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe took place.  Russian officials now have an idea of what is and is not negotiable.

The question remains as it was in late December:  does the Kremlin seek a genuine give-and-take negotiation, or will the Kremlin use rejection of certain of its demands as a pretext for military action against Ukraine?  Unfortunately, it increasingly looks like the latter.

By the end of 2021, the Russian military had deployed some 100,000 troops on or near the Ukrainian border.  U.S. intelligence projected that the number could reach 175,000 soldiers early in 2022.

In December, Vladimir Putin called for security guarantees for Russia.  This seemed ironic.  The Kremlin controls the world’s largest nuclear arsenal and the most power conventional forces of any country in Europe, and Russian military forces are deployed—unwanted—on the territory of Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova.

In mid-December, Russian officials gave U.S. officials a draft U.S.-Russia treaty and a draft NATO-Russia agreement and promptly made them public.  The fact that the drafts contained provisions, such as NATO foreswearing further enlargement, that Russian officials had to know NATO would not accept, their immediate publication, the inflammatory rhetoric pouring out of Moscow, and the continuing troop build-up near Ukraine raised questions about whether the Kremlin truly sought a negotiation.

Presidents Biden and Putin held two video conferences in December.  The U.S. president outlined the costs that would ensue if Russia launched a new attack on Ukraine—new, more punitive sanctions, greater Western military assistance to Ukraine, and a bolstering of NATO’s military presence on its eastern flank near Russia (all in addition to the costs that Ukraine would impose in resisting the Russian assault)—but he also expressed a readiness for dialogue.  The two leaders agreed to discussions in January.

U.S. and Russian officials met for nearly eight hours in Geneva on January 10.  Deputy Secretary of State Sherman afterwards told the press that some Russian ideas, such as limits on missile placement in Europe and reciprocal constraints on military exercises, might provide a basis for discussion and negotiation.  However, the Americans were firm “in pushing back on security proposals that are simply non-starters for the United States.  We will not allow anyone to slam closed NATO’s “Open Door” policy [on enlargement].”   

Officials from NATO allies took similar positions when the NATO-Russia Council met in Brussels on January 12.  Following the four-hour session, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg told the press that NATO allies “reaffirmed NATO’s Open Door policy and the right for each nation to choose its own security arrangements” and “made clear that they will not renounce their ability to protect and defend each other, including with presence of troops in the eastern part of the Alliance.”   However, NATO was prepared for a discussion of concrete proposals on military transparency, arms control and reciprocal limits on missiles.

Sherman separately said “Thirty sovereign nations spoke separately—NATO allies—and also spoke as one.”  They made clear “that all countries must be able to choose their own foreign policy orientation, that sovereignty and territorial integrity are sacrosanct and must be respected, and that all nations are and must be free to choose their own alliances.”

The Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe session in Vienna on January 13, in which Ukrainian officials took part, concluded with no movement reported on resolving the tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

The Kremlin spokesperson gave a downbeat assessment of the U.S.-Russia and NATO-Russia discussions.  He noted that, while there were “some positive nuances, positive elements,” the sides disagreed on what Russia considered the principal issues [Russia’s demands that NATO agree to no further enlargement and remove military forces deployed to countries that had joined the Alliance after 1997].  Other Russian officials likewise depicted the West has showing no movement on Moscow’s key demands.

While Russian officials suggested that there might yet be written responses to their proposals, U.S., European and Ukrainian officials consulted intensely in the run-up to this week’s meetings.  There is no reason to expect that any written response would differ from what Russian diplomats heard in Geneva, Brussels and Vienna.  Moscow now should have a good sense for what in their draft agreements would and would not provide a basis for negotiation.

The Kremlin has largely framed this as a crisis between NATO and Russia.  Putin is unhappy about how the post-Cold War situation in Europe has evolved, especially the enlargement of NATO.  He would like to wind back the clock, something NATO members will not agree to do.

For the Kremlin, however, this is first and foremost about Ukraine and Moscow’s desire for a sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space.  After meeting U.S. officials on January 10, Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov said “it’s absolutely mandatory to make sure that Ukraine, never, never ever becomes a member of NATO.”  (While there is little enthusiasm among NATO members now for putting Ukraine on a membership track, as the Russians almost certainly understand, NATO will not foreswear the future possibility.)

Moscow worries that it is losing Ukraine, which it is.  Over the past eight years, the Russian military seized Crimea, and Russia instigated and sustained a conflict in Donbas that has claimed more than 13,000 lives.  Such actions, not surprisingly, have driven Ukraine away from Russia and bolstered elite and public support there for joining NATO. 

The Kremlin’s policy toward Ukraine has produced a strategic failure.  Launching a new attack now would hardly improve Ukrainian attitudes toward Russia, but the Russian military is by all appearances preparing for a major operation.

It may be that Putin has not yet decided what to do.  However, he seems to be painting himself into a corner in which military action remains his only feasible choice.  While leaving the path for dialogue open, the West should redouble its effort to dissuade and deter him from taking that choice.  But it increasingly appears that the West will not succeed. 

Russia’s massing of military power near Ukraine was certain to dominate the December 7 video conference between Presidents Biden and Putin. A Russian assault would turn into a bloody affair (for Russians and Ukrainians alike) and plunge relations between Russia and the West deeper into crisis. Is Putin prepared to take that step?  Perhaps even he has not yet decided.

By all appearances, Biden did what he had to do. He spelled out for Putin the costs that would ensue if Russia attacked. These include more painful Western economic sanctions, more military assistance for Ukraine, and a bolstering of NATO’s military presence in the Baltic states and Poland. Moreover, he strengthened his hand by consulting the day before with the leaders of Britain, Germany, France and Italy.  That meant he could talk to Putin on the basis of a consolidated Western position.

Biden also described a way out of the crisis: de-escalation and dialogue, or dialogues, to address the Russia-Ukraine conflict in Donbas and broader European security questions. Neither of those discussions will prove easy. For example, NATO will not, and should not, accede to the Kremlin’s demand that the alliance renounce its "open door" policy on enlargement. But diplomacy is all about finding ways to defuse such difficult problems.

Did Biden succeed? That remains to be seen. One thing to watch is whether Moscow’s recent over-the-top rhetoric moderates. Of course, the more important signal would come from the movement of Russian troops away from Ukraine and back to their regular garrisons.

Read more views on what the Biden-Putin video call means for the regional security situation on Atlantic Council.

All eyes are on Ukraine (including ours). Steven Pifer, a William J. Perry Research Fellow at CISAC and former ambassador to Ukraine, joins co-host Tom Collina to discuss Putin’s motivations for Ukraine and more. 

Ploughshares Fund · Will Russia Invade Ukraine?

Look up! The ghosts of space weapons past have once again darkened our cosmic doorway. Recently Britain’s Financial Times reported that China flight-tested a new breed of space weapon when it launched a massive “Long March” rocket tipped with a nuclear-capable, hypersonic glider. The missile briefly entered orbit before descending on its target, which it missed by roughly two dozen miles. The report suggested that the test was evidence that China has “made astounding progress on hypersonic weapons and [is] far more advanced than US officials realised.”

Read the rest at The Washington Post