The German government and many Germans breathed a sigh of relief when Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in November.  Mr. Trump damaged U.S. relations with its trans-Atlantic allies, and he often targeted Germany and Chancellor Angela Merkel for particular ire.  Berlin has welcomed President Biden’s readiness to rebuild U.S.-German and U.S.-European ties.

All to the good, but rebuilding the U.S.-German relationship could well prove more difficult than it first appears.  Trump’s four years have left nagging questions in the German capital about the future of U.S. politics and Trumpism, and several issues will entail difficult exchanges between Washington and Berlin.

The Trump presidency meant a difficult time for Europe and the trans-Atlantic relationship.  He regarded the European Union as an economic adversary and questioned NATO’s value.  He held Germany in particularly low regard, criticizing its trade surpluses—telling his first NATO summit that “the Germans are very, very bad”—and decrying its defense spending levels, even suggesting that Berlin owes “vast sums of money” to the Alliance and America.  Trump had no personal chemistry with Merkel, reportedly referring to her as “stupid.”  In 2020, she publicly referred to “the limits of populism and denial of basic truths” without naming names.

In May 2020, Merkel declined, in the midst of the global COVID19 pandemic, to attend an in-person G7 summit at Camp David.  Shortly thereafter, Trump ordered the withdrawal of some 10,000 U.S. troops from Germany—a decision for which the Pentagon could offer no compelling strategic rationale (the Biden administration has suspended and ordered a review of the decision).

Berlin thus was delighted with Biden’s election, but Trump left much ground to make up.

What is the New “Normal” in America?

One senior German official privately observed that Trump had done real damage to German perceptions of the United States.  While welcoming Biden’s desire to rebuild relations with Germany and Europe and seeing his election as marking a return to “normalcy” in Washington, he wondered whether that “normalcy” was acceptable to the large segment of the American electorate that had voted for Trump.  Moreover, could Trump—or Trumpism—return to power?

In a separate discussion, another senior German official agreed that Trump had done significant damage to trans-Atlantic relations, noting that he had provided a boost to ideas such as strategic autonomy for Europe.  He pointed to the Conservative Political Action Conference held in late February as reminding Germans that Trump and Trumpism were not over.  What would the Republican Party look like in the future?

A third German official reiterated that Trump had caused many in Europe to contemplate how they might have to cope without strong U.S. leadership.  Germans had lost confidence in parts of the American political class.  It would be important that Biden define the level of U.S. leadership that his administration intended—and would be able—to provide.

Opinion surveys show that German citizens share these questions about America.  In a late 2020 poll commissioned by the European Council on Foreign Relations, 53 percent agreed or strongly agreed that “after voting for Trump in 2016, Americans cannot be trusted.”  The poll had 71 percent of Germans agreeing that the U.S. political system was somewhat or completely broken, though 48 percent believed that America could overcome its internal difficulties and contribute to solving global problems.  However, when asked whether they trusted in Europe or the United States, 53 percent opted for Europe compared to 4 percent for America.

Difficult Issues Loom

Early moves by Biden, such as rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement and World Health Organization, both of which Trump had quit, and reaffirming the U.S. commitment to NATO’s Article 5 (an attack on one shall be considered an attack on all) won plaudits in Berlin.  The Germans likewise welcomed Biden’s agreement to extend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia, as well as his administration’s readiness to return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran’s nuclear program and reengage with the UN Human Rights Commission.  However, other issues that promise to figure prominently on the U.S.-German agenda could prove contentious between Washington and Berlin.

The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline running under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany tops the list.  The Biden administration, under pressure from Congress, has made clear its opposition to the pipeline, which is now about 95 percent finished.  Secretary of State Blinken issued a statement on March 18 reiterating the administration’s intent to comply with Congressional legislation calling for sanctions and warning that “any entity involved in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline risks U.S. sanctions and should immediately abandon work on the pipeline.”  On March 23, Blinken voiced U.S. opposition to the pipeline directly to German Foreign Minister Maas.

The German government, however, appears committed to finishing the pipeline, which has the support of the bulk of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (and the allied Christian Socialist Union) and the Social Democratic Party, the parties that together make up the current governing coalition.  The German business community also supports the pipeline.  The CDU/CSU-SPD coalition, moreover, has an incentive to complete the pipeline prior to the German national election in September.  Polls indicate that, whatever coalition emerges following that election, the Greens Party will be part of it.  The Greens strongly oppose Nord Stream 2, both on ecological grounds and because of their concern about the human rights situation in Russia.  If the pipeline remains unfinished in September, this will be a major issue for the negotiation on forming a new governing coalition.

German officials note that stopping the pipeline now would be potentially costly; the German government could find itself on the hook for part or all of the nearly 10 billion Euros (about 12 billion dollars) already invested in the pipeline.  They note that U.S. sanctions on German or European companies would provoke a backlash in Germany.  Even those opposed to Nord Stream 2 caution against sanctions on German or European companies, which would go down badly with the pro-America CDU and could unite the European Union against the extra-territorial application of U.S. sanctions.  German politicians dismiss American charges that buying gas from Russia feeds the aggressive Moscow machine and point out the United States now imports billions of dollars’ worth of oil from Russia.

Creative thinking by U.S. and German officials might find a way by which Washington could acquiesce in the pipeline’s completion without applying U.S. sanctions against German companies.  That most likely will entail developing some benefits for Ukraine, which stands to lose the most if Nord Stream 2 is completed.  German officials acknowledge that the Biden administration needs something to show if it does not go forward with sanctions, but the mood in Washington appears to be hardening, and time to find a settlement is running short.

China poses a second issue that could prove difficult for U.S.-German relations.  As the Biden administration puts in place a policy to compete more effectively with Beijing, it will look to its European allies for support.  Berlin, however, pushed the European Union to complete an investment deal with Beijing without waiting to consult with the incoming Biden administration and does not share U.S. concern about the security considerations of allowing Huawei, the Chinese IT giant, to take part in providing the German 5G network.

German business interests on this issue matter—a lot, as China has become Germany’s largest trading partner.  While some in Berlin have become more wary of Beijing’s policy objectives and the means used to advance those goals, the German government does not want to have to choose sides between Washington and Beijing.  It may well have been China that Merkel had in mind when she told the (virtual) Munich Security Conference on February 19 that, while Europe and the United States should develop joint approaches, “that doesn’t mean that our interests will always converge.” 

That appears to have the backing of the German public.  Asked what Germany should do if there were a disagreement between Washington and Beijing, the European Council on Foreign Relations-commissioned poll showed 16 percent favoring support for the United States, while 8 percent favored support for China and 66 percent opted for neutrality.  (Worryingly for Washington’s effort to maintain a trans-Atlantic front against Russia, the poll showed identical numbers when substituting Russia for China.)

A third issue is German defense spending and the NATO-agreed goal that allies devote 2 percent of gross domestic product to defense by 2024.  Germany is now spending much more on its military than in 2014 but likely will fall short of the 2 percent target.  The Biden administration almost certainly will be more diplomatic than Trump on this issue.  Still, it will look to NATO allies in Europe to bear a larger share of the burden of deterring and defending against Russia as the United States shifts its military focus to the Asia-Pacific region. 

And a German Election

One complicating factor is that Germany will soon move into the campaign season for the national election in September.  As one German think-tank analyst put it, the issues that would help solidify U.S.-German relations—suspending construction of Nord Stream 2, adopting a tougher policy toward China, dramatically bolstering defense spending, and moving forward to procure a nuclear-capable fighter to replace the aging Tornado and sustain Germany’s nuclear-sharing role in NATO—are not positions that will attract votes.  Quite the opposite, too close an embrace of Washington’s views on these questions could drive ballots to other parties.

The September election, moreover, will mean an end to Merkel’s long run as chancellor.  Most expect her replacement to come from the CDU or CSU, though prognostications are less certain after the lackluster showing by the CDU in March 14 state elections in Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland-Pflaz.  Regardless, a new chancellor will need time to get up to speed, and that could affect how quickly he or she might engage and decide on issues of interest to Washington.

This does not mean that the U.S.-German relationship is headed for trouble.  The good news is that both Washington and Berlin clearly want to restore the comity that was lost during the Trump administration.  However, building that relationship back, and not letting things get derailed by difficult issues that could divide the two allies, will require flexible diplomacy and that each take some account of the other’s interests and domestic pressures.

* * * * *

CISAC affiliate Steven Pifer is spending the first part of 2021 on a fellowship with the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin.

Extending the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, with Russia was one of President Biden’s first foreign policy acts after he took the oath of office on Jan. 20. The treaty would have otherwise ended on Feb. 5, leaving the U.S. and Russia without any agreed upon limits on their strategic nuclear forces for the first time since 1972. When relations are as bad as they are now between Moscow and Washington, U.S. national security would suffer from severe uncertainty over an unconstrained Russian nuclear arsenal.

Read the rest at The Hill

In a December 2020 New York Times interview, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed Joe Biden’s election as U.S. president. Zelensky observed that Biden “knows Ukraine better than the previous president” and “will really help strengthen relations, help settle the war in Donbas, and end the occupation of our territory.”[1]

While Zelensky’s comments may prove overly optimistic, there is little reason to doubt that the Biden presidency will be good for Ukraine. The incoming president knows the country, and he understands both the value of a stable and successful Ukraine for U.S. interests in Europe and the challenges posed to Ukraine and the West by Russia. That might—might, not will, but might—help break the logjam on the stalemated Donbas conflict, which Zelensky of course would welcome. Perhaps less welcome to the Ukrainian president may be Biden’s readiness to play hardball to press Kyiv to take needed but politically difficult reform and anti-corruption steps. Ukraine’s success as a liberal democracy depends not just on ending its conflict with Russia but also on combating corruption and advancing still necessary economic reforms.

U.S.-Ukraine Relations under Trump

In one sense, U.S. policy toward Ukraine during the Trump administration had its strengths. It continued political and military support for Kyiv, including the provision of lethal military assistance that the Obama administration had been unwilling to provide. It maintained and strengthened Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia. And it took further steps to bolster the U.S. and NATO military presence in central European states on Ukraine’s western border.

However, Donald Trump never seemed committed to his administration’s policy. His primary engagement on Ukraine was his bid to extort Kyiv into manufacturing derogatory information on his Democratic opponent, a bid that led to his impeachment.[2] Beyond that, Trump showed no interest in the country and consistently refused to criticize Vladimir Putin, who has inflicted more than six years of low-intensity war on Ukraine.

The Biden presidency will end this dichotomy in Washington’s approach to Kyiv. The president and his administration will align on policy. That new predictability will mean that Ukrainian officials no longer have to worry about late night presidential tweets or the subjugation of U.S. policy interests to the president’s personal political vendettas.

Two Challenges Confronting Ukraine

As Biden takes office, two principal challenges confront Ukraine. The conflict with Russia poses the first.[3] In March 2014, in the aftermath of the Maidan Revolution, Russian military forces seized Crimea. Weeks later, Russian security forces instigated a conflict in Donbas, masked poorly as a “separatist” uprising. The Kremlin provided leadership, funding, heavy weapons, ammunition, other supplies and, when necessary, regular units of the Russian army. Now in its seventh year, that conflict has claimed the lives of some 13,000 people.

While Moscow illegally annexed Crimea, it has not moved to annex Donbas. It appears instead to want to use a simmering conflict in that eastern Ukrainian region as a means to put pressure on, destabilize and disorient the government in Kyiv, with the goal of making it harder for the government to build a successful Ukrainian state and draw closer to Europe. (Moscow has interfered elsewhere in the post-Soviet space to try to maintain a Russian sphere of influence.)

Without the Kremlin’s cooperation, Kyiv on its own cannot resolve the conflict in Donbas, and Crimea poses an even harder question. However, meeting the second of the challenges facing Ukraine—implementation of reforms and anti-corruption measures needed to build a fair, robust and growing economy—lies largely within Kyiv’s purview. Unfortunately, after a good start by Zelensky and his first government, reforms have stagnated, oligarchs retain undue political and economic influence (including within Zelensky’s Servant of the People party), and the judicial branch remains wholly unreconstructed.[4] Among other things, this depresses much-needed investment in the country.

Progress Toward a Resolution in Donbas?

The Biden presidency might well play a more active role in the moribund negotiating process regarding Donbas. As co-chairs of the “Normandy process,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron have had little success of late in implementation of the 2015 Minsk agreement, which laid out a path to a settlement and restoration of full Ukrainian sovereignty over Donbas.[5] Unfortunately, it appears that the Kremlin calculates that the benefits of keeping Kyiv distracted currently outweigh the costs, including of Western sanctions.

Zelensky believes that a more active U.S. role could change that calculation and inject momentum into the process. At a minimum, the Biden presidency should appoint a special envoy to coordinate with the Germans and French, and, more broadly, with the European Union, Britain, Canada and others on Western support for Ukraine and sanctions against Russia. That position has gone unfilled since September 2019.

Whether Biden, who will face many demands on his time, will choose to engage personally is a different question. He knows Ukraine, having traveled there six times when he served as vice president. And, unlike Trump, who sought quick victories, Biden understands that solving a question like Donbas would require an investment of his time over a sustained period. It would make sense if it became clear that his engagement would shake up things in a way that would increase the prospects of a settlement and return of Donbas to Ukrainian sovereignty.

At first glance, the Kremlin might not welcome that kind of U.S. involvement, but there are good arguments for it. First of all, the United States is Ukraine’s strongest Western supporter, and Washington’s voice carries considerable weight in Kyiv. Second, Russia’s current conflict against Ukraine is not just about Donbas; it is also about Ukraine’s place in Europe, that is, where the country fits between Russia and institutions such as the European Union and NATO.[6] Addressing that question will require diplomatic finesse. Given the trans-Atlantic relationship, which will be revived under Biden, it is difficult to see such a geopolitical discussion taking place without American participation.

As for Crimea, Ukraine cannot at present muster the political, diplomatic, economic and military leverage to effect the peninsula’s return. Still, the U.S. government knows how to do non-recognition policy.[7] It did so for five decades with regard to the Baltic states’ incorporation into the Soviet Union. The Biden presidency will remain supportive of Kyiv’s claim to Crimea and not recognize its annexation by Russia—and the White House will express this view.

Domestic Reform

After an encouraging start on reform, Zelensky wavered in 2020. He has to do more, and Biden can be helpful, though in a manner the Ukrainian president may not appreciate. A big part of the problem is that Zelensky himself seems to have lost his way. Ruslan Ryaboshapka, his reformist first prosecutor general, observed that “Instead of fighting oligarchs, [Zelensky] chose to peacefully coexist with them.”[8] Biden could well prove the kind of friend that Ukraine needs now: supportive but direct with Zelensky on what must be done, and ready to push him to take politically hard measures that he might prefer to avoid.

Biden has already shown that he can do this. As vice president in the Obama administration, he had the lead on U.S. engagement with Ukraine. When necessary, he applied “tough love,” famously withholding a one-billion-dollar loan guarantee until then-President Petro Poroshenko fired a prosecutor general who was viewed widely, inside and outside of Ukraine, as corrupt.[9]

A dose of such tough love now seems necessary with Kyiv. One question concerns access to low interest credits under Ukraine’s stand-by agreement with the International Monetary Fund.[10] The IMF conditions disbursements of those credits on how Ukraine implements reform commitments that it made to secure the agreement. The Biden administration should, and almost certainly will, back the IMF in insisting that Ukraine needs to deliver on its commitments in order to secure additional disbursements.

Likewise, the Biden administration should make more bilateral U.S. assistance conditional on Ukraine tackling particular reforms. In doing so, it should consult and coordinate closely with the European Union, which has greater assistance resources available. Introducing a higher degree of conditionality to Western assistance programs could usefully ratchet up the pressure on the leadership in Kyiv to take reform steps that are in the country’s broader interest but opposed by key oligarchs or political groups who stand to lose from such reforms.

Priority should go to encouraging reform of the judicial branch, including the Constitutional Court, which has a core of judges who appear beholden to special interests. The high court reversed earlier laws requiring members of parliament and government officials to disclose their assets and could threaten other reforms.[11]

At home, the Biden administration can assist Ukraine by implementing a ban on anonymous shell companies by requiring disclosure of who actually forms companies in the United States as contained in the Corporate Transparency Act, part of the National Defense Authorization Act.[12] This will make it more difficult for corrupt Ukrainians to shelter ill-gotten gains in U.S. assets.

The Biden presidency is good news for Ukraine and those who wish to see it develop into a modern European state. It will mean more high-level but hard-nosed U.S. support. That could lead to greater progress on reform within the country. And, with some imaginative diplomacy and luck, it might even help break the logjam with Russia over resolving the fate of Donbas.

[1] Kramer, Andrew E. “With Trump Fading, Ukraine's President Looks to a Reset With the U.S.” The New York Times. The New York Times Company, December 19, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/19/world/europe/trump-zelensky-biden-ukr....

[2] Nichols, Tom. “Trump Is Being Impeached over an Extortion Scheme, Not a 'Policy Dispute'.” USA Today. Gannett Satellite Information Network, January 30, 2020. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/01/30/trump-impeachment-blac....

[3] Masters, Jonathan. “Ukraine: Conflict at the Crossroads of Europe and Russia.” Council on Foreign Relations. Council on Foreign Relations, February 5, 2020. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-crossroads-europe-and-....

[4] Iliyas, Boktakoz. “Anti-Corruption Backtracking in Ukraine – Has Ze Reform Moment Passed?” Control Risks. Control Risks Group Holdings Ltd., December 17, 2020. https://www.controlrisks.com/our-thinking/insights/anti-corruption-backt....

[5] “Ukraine Walks a Tightrope to Peace in the East.” International Crisis Group, January 29, 2020. https://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/eastern-europe/ukraine/ukraine-walks-tightrope-peace-east.; “Ukraine Ceasefire: New Minsk Agreement Key Points.” BBC News. BBC, February 12, 2015. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31436513.

[6] Tefft, John F. “ Reflections on Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. in the Post-Soviet World.” American Foreign Service Association, n.d. https://www.afsa.org/reflections-russia-ukraine-and-us-post-soviet-world.

[7] Pompeo, Michael R. “Crimea Is Ukraine.” U.S. Department of State. U.S. Department of State, February 26, 2020. https://www.state.gov/crimea-is-ukraine-3/.

[8] Kranolutska, Daryna, and Volodymyr Verbyany. “Ukraine's Leader Is Being Broken by the System He Vowed to Crush.” Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, December 16, 2020. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-17/ukraine-s-leader-is-b....

[9] Subramanian, Courtney. “Explainer: Biden, Allies Pushed out Ukrainian Prosecutor Because He Didn't Pursue Corruption Cases.” USA Today. Gannett Satellite Information Network, October 3, 2019. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/10/03/what-really-happ....

[10] “IMF Executive Board Approves 18-Month US$5 Billion Stand-By Arrangement for Ukraine.” International Monetary Fund. International Monetary Fund Communications Department, June 9, 2020. https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2020/06/09/pr20239-ukraine-imf-exec....

[11] “Ukraine's Constitutional Court Attacks Anti-Corruption Laws.” The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, November 14, 2020. https://www.economist.com/europe/2020/11/14/ukraines-constitutional-cour....

[12] Pearl, Morris. “Commentary: Congress Just Passed the Most Important Anti-Corruption Reform in Decades, but Hardly Anyone Knows about It.” Fortune. Fortune Media IP, December 26, 2020. https://fortune.com/2020/12/26/ndaa-2021-shell-companies-corporate-trans....

Originally for Stanford International Policy Review

Sanctions will remain part of the US toolkit for dealing with Russia under the incoming Biden administration. Certain principles should guide their use and could increase the chances that they will achieve US policy goals: sanctions should be embedded in an overall Russia policy, linked to a specific policy goal, understood by the Kremlin, clearly reversible if Russia ceases the offending action, and coordinated with US allies.

As Joe Biden prepares to become the 46^th president of the United States, speculation has begun on what a Biden administration will mean for US policy toward Russia and sanctions on Russia. Sanctions will remain part of the US toolkit for responding to egregious Russian misbehavior. It would be useful if the new administration set down principles early on for their application.

As relations between Washington and Moscow—and, more broadly, between the West and Russia—deteriorated over the past decade, the United States and Europe applied an increasing number of sanctions in response to Russian actions. The United States has now sanctioned Russia for its aggression against Ukraine, cyber and disinformation activities aimed at affecting US domestic politics, and support for Syria and Venezuela, among other things. The United States has long applied sanctions on the Soviet Union and Russia due to human rights concerns.  The 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment denied permanent normal trade relations status to the Soviet Union until Moscow allowed religious minorities to emigrate. The 2012 Magnitsky Act sanctioned Russian officials involved in serious human rights violations such as torture or extrajudicial killings (it was later amended to apply to other countries as well).

The sanctions result from both executive orders and legislation. Some target individuals with visa denials and asset freezes. Other sanctions hit specific companies. Still others aim at key elements of the Russian economy, particularly the financial, energy, and high-tech sectors.

The sanctions have had an impact on Russia’s economic growth, though the exact amount is difficult to measure and a subject of debate. Some sanctions may not be felt for some time. For example, sanctions that deny Russian companies access to American technology and financing for developing new and technically challenging oil fields do not constrain Russian oil production now. They will, however, limit Russia’s ability to develop new oil fields requiring high-tech extraction techniques as current wells are depleted.

The Kremlin regularly pooh-poohs sanctions, but Russian officials miss no opportunity to call for their lifting. Lifting sanctions was a key point during Vladimir Putin’s intervention in the virtual G-20 summit in November. True, in most cases, sanctions have not achieved their desired goal. Russia has not, for example, ended its conflict against Ukraine in Donbas. Sanctions, however, may well have deterred the Kremlin from other steps. Russian and Russian proxy forces have not tried to seize Mariupol, as many feared they might in 2015, and Putin dropped the claims to vast amounts of Ukrainian territory he made in  2014 (so-called “Novorossiya”).

When the Biden administration takes office, sanctions will undoubtedly remain an element of US policy toward Russia. To enhance its effectiveness, the administration should base its sanctions policy on certain principles.

First, the Biden administration should embed sanctions in a broader US policy toward Russia.  If the Trump administration had an overall Russia policy, it never articulated it. Absent a broader framework, sanctions seemed to take on a life of their own.

An overall policy should include strong measures to deter and push back against Russian misbehavior. These measures include enhancing the NATO military posture in the Baltic region, support—including lethal military assistance—for Ukraine, and sanctions. The overall policy should also include dialogue, both to apply guardrails, such as arms control, on what has become an increasingly adversarial relationship and to professionalize discussion of hard issues that might (or might not) chip away at some problems over time. The Reagan administration successfully used this combination in the 1980s.

Second, sanctions are not an end in themselves and should not be treated as such. They offer a means to achieve a policy goal and, thus, should be clearly linked to that goal, as in “this sanction will apply until Moscow does X” or “if Moscow does X, Washington will respond with this sanction.” The aim of sanctions should be to affect Kremlin calculations of the benefits and costs of its actions, hopefully tipping the balance against those actions that threaten key Western interests.

The Kremlin should also have clarity on what it must do to get the sanctions lifted. Thus, the sanctions should be tied to a single policy goal. Sanctions that seek to get Russia to correct two different kinds of misbehavior—for example, a ban on the export of dual-use technologies stemming from Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the attempted poisoning of Sergey Skripal in Britain—likely will achieve neither objective.

Third, sanctions should seek to deter, if possible. It is easier to deter and dissuade an adversary from taking an unwanted action than  compel the adversary to reverse an action it has already taken. Specifying the sanction(s) that would result from a particular Russian action in advance could have a greater chance of affecting the Kremlin’s cost-benefit calculation.

Fourth, for sanctions to be effective in achieving their policy goal, Moscow has to believe that, if it takes the action desired by Washington, the sanction will be lifted. Unfortunately, US sanctions do not have the best history in this regard. The 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment applied to the successor states, including Russia, following the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse. Russia permitted open emigration, leading the Clinton administration in 1994 to determine that Russia had fully complied with Jackson-Vanik. Yet it was not until 2012 that Congress removed Russia from the amendment’s purview and granted the country permanent normal trade relations status—and then only in the Magnitsky Act, which applied new sanctions. If the Kremlin concludes that the sanction will remain in place regardless of what it does, it will have no      incentive to change its behavior.

Fifth, coordination with allies, particularly the European Union (EU), can dramatically enhance the impact of sanctions. Multilateral sanctions send a stronger political message. They also generate a greater economic impact. When the United States and European Union began consulting on sanctions against Russia after its seizure of Crimea, EU trade with Russia dwarfed US-Russia trade. Europe, thus, had more to withhold.

Currently, the fate of the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline could complicate sanctions coordination with Europe. The US government has good reasons to oppose Nordstream 2, which is hardly a commercial project. Renovating the Ukrainian pipelines would have been vastly cheaper, but Russia wants to circumvent Ukraine for geopolitical reasons. Nordstream 2, however, could pose a major problem between the Biden administration and Germany, the pipeline’s main European backer. Finding a solution to this issue will strengthen Washington’s ability to maintain a united sanctions front with Europe against Russia.

Sixth, the US government might consider pairing a carrot with sanctions to affect Kremlin thinking. For instance, to break the deadlock on a Donbas settlement, Washington could work with Berlin and Paris on a plan for a UN-mandated peacekeeping force and interim international administration. The peacekeeping force and interim administration would deploy to Donbas, providing a transition between the departure of Russian and Russian proxy forces and full restoration of Ukrainian sovereignty. When offering this as a face-saving way to help Russia leave Donbas, Washington and its partners could quietly add that failure to take up the offer would trigger additional sanctions.

Seventh, the Biden administration should consult with Congress as it shapes its sanctions policy. This coordination should prove easier than it has during the past four years, when both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill did not trust the White House’s management of sanctions. That mistrust led to an overwhelming vote for the 2017 Countering America’s Adversaries through Sanctions Act, which gave Congress power to block the lifting of sanctions. The Biden administration will want to ensure that, if Moscow moves to correct offending misbehavior that justifies lifting sanctions, Congress does not block their lift. If the Kremlin adjusts its policy on a particular question and the linked sanction remains in force, that will undercut the power of all other and any future sanctions. Sanctions, in that case, would become just a means of punishment, not of attaining a policy objective.

Within these principles on sanctions, there is room for creative thinking. For example, would it make sense, when targeting individuals for visa sanctions and asset freezes, to sanction their families as well? It is one thing if a Russian businessman cannot travel to the United States or Europe; it would be quite another if his spouse could not make her annual shopping trip to London and his kids could not attend school in the United States or Britain.

Principles such as the above offer a structure for managing sanctions policy toward Russia. They also could increase the chances that sanctions succeed in achieving their desired policy outcomes.

. . .

Steven Pifer is a William Perry Research Fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. A retired Foreign Service officer, his 25+ years with the State Department included assignments as Deputy Assistant Secretary responsible for Russia and Ukraine, Ambassador to Ukraine, and Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia on the National Security Council.

Originally for Georgetown Journal of International Affairs

The New Europe Center, a Ukraine-based think tank, asked six American experts to comment on the implications of the U.S. presidential election for Ukraine.  The following is Steven Pifer's contribution.

For Americans, the November 3 presidential election will be the most significant vote in many decades.  The election also will have consequences for Ukraine:  Whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden sits in the White House at the end of the day on January 20, 2021 will matter greatly for U.S. policy toward Ukraine and Europe.

Since Ukraine regained its independence in 1991, the United States has proven a strong and supportive partner.  Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama each saw a stable, independent, democratic Ukrainian state with a robust market economy as in the U.S. interest, including in contributing to a more stable and secure Europe.  Washington thus has provided substantial political, economic and—particularly since 2014—military support to Kyiv.  It has sanctioned Russia for its aggression in Crimea and Donbas and sought to bolster NATO in the face of a growing Kremlin challenge to Western security.

The Trump administration has largely continued these policies.  It has provided Kyiv reform and military aid, including lethal military assistance.  It has applied additional sanctions on Russia, albeit under pressure from Congress.  And it has taken steps to strengthen the U.S. military presence in NATO, at least until recently.

However, it has never been clear that Mr. Trump himself supports these policies.  His principal engagement on Ukraine was his attempted extortion of Kyiv to advance his personal political prospects, an effort that led to his impeachment.  While his administration has taken a tough line on Russia, Mr. Trump seems incapable of criticizing Vladimir Putin or Russian misdeeds.  He apparently thinks that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, ignoring the conclusions of the U.S. intelligence community, the Mueller investigation and the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee.

Mr. Trump’s disdain for NATO has long been clear, going back to the 1980s.  In June, he decided to withdraw 10,000 U.S. troops from Germany, apparently out of pique at Chancellor Merkel’s refusal to attend a G7 summit at Camp David.  Senior Pentagon officials scrambled for weeks to offer military justifications for the drawdown, but those that they provided did not survive serious scrutiny.

If Mr. Trump is re-elected, he will not have to worry about facing the voters in another election campaign.  He will cement his control of the Republican Party, leaving Republicans in the Senate and House of Representatives less able to block his bad instincts.  What accommodations would he make with Mr. Putin?  Would he be inclined, as he suggested in 2016, to recognize Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and lift economic sanctions?   Would he withdraw the United States from NATO, as many former U.S. officials fear?  The Alliance’s collapse would be a huge gift to Mr. Putin and leave Ukraine in a precarious geopolitical position.

It will be different if Mr. Biden is elected (full transparency:  the author fervently hopes for this).  The United States would have a president who understands the U.S. interest in a successful Ukraine and who knows the country well from his time as vice president.  He would be the kind of friend that Ukraine needs, supportive but also ready to press the Ukrainian leadership to take necessary reform steps.  He recognizes the security challenge that Russia presents to Ukraine and the West, and he realizes the importance of a strong trans-Atlantic relationship with a robust NATO at its core.  And Mr. Biden might prove a president who could bind some of the differences that so badly divide Americans today.  An America more unified at home would be a stronger international actor.

Whether Mr. Trump or Mr. Biden wins the elections will mean very different things for U.S. policies affecting Ukraine.  That said, the American electorate will decide the next president largely on domestic issues, such as the Trump administration’s handling of COVID19 and the economy.  Ukraine has no role to play in this, and Ukrainian officials should continue to do all that they can to avoid their country becoming a political football in the U.S. campaign.

* * * * *

Steven Pifer is a William Perry Research Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

The clock for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty runs out on February 5. The Trump administration has not taken up Russia’s offer to extend the treaty, believing it has leverage to get something more from the Kremlin, and it has even threatened an arms race.

This is delusion and bluff. If the administration does not change course, New START will lapse and, for the first time in decades, U.S. and Russian nuclear forces will be under no constraints.

Read the rest at Defense One

Failing to renew the New START arms control treaty with Russia “is not a wise direction of travel,” said Rose Gottemoeller, a former Deputy Secretary General of NATO who ranked as one of President Barack Obama’s top nuclear security experts. 

She knows better than most. Gottemoeller was the chief US negotiator at the Moscow and Geneva talks where details of the treaty were hammered out between 2009 and 2010. Officially ratified a year later, New START limited both the United States and Russia to seven hundred delivery vehicles and just over double that count in total warheads, and was reinforced with a stringent verification process to closely monitor each country’s compliance. 

Read the rest at National Interest

President Donald Trump’s chief arms control envoy last week acknowledged the possibility that the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) could be extended, but he added, “only under select circumstances.”  He then put down conditions that, if adhered to, will ensure the Trump administration does not extend the treaty.

New START and Extension

New START limits the United States and Russia each to no more than 700 deployed strategic missiles and bombers and no more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads.  It expires by its terms on February 5, 2021 but can be extended for up to five years.  The Trump administration has adamantly refused to do that.

From the perspective of U.S. national security interests, extending New START is a no-brainer.  As confirmed by the State Department’s annual report, Russia is complying with the treaty’s limits.  Extension would keep Russian strategic forces constrained until 2026.  It would also ensure the continued flow of information about those forces produced by the treaty’s data exchanges, notifications, on-site inspections and other verification measures.

And extension would not force a single change in U.S. plans to modernize its strategic forces, as those plans were designed to fit within New START’s limits.

Russian officials, including Vladimir Putin, have raised New START extension since the first days of the Trump administration.  In 2017, Trump administration officials deferred on the issue, saying they would consider extension after (1) completion of a nuclear posture review and (2) seeing whether Russia met the treaty’s limits, which took full effect in February 2018.

Russia fully met the limits in February 2018.  At about the same time, the administration issued its nuclear posture review.  Yet, more than two years later, New START extension remains an open question.

On June 24, Amb. Marshall Billingslea, the president arms control envoy, briefed the press on his meeting with his Russian counterpart two days before in Vienna.  Asked about extending New START, Amb. Billingslea—never a fan of the treaty or, it seems, any arms control treaty—left the option open.  However, he described three conditions that will block extension.

China

Amb. Billingslea’s first condition focused on China, which he claimed had “an obligation to negotiate with [the United States] and Russia.”  Beijing certainly does not see it that way—saying no, no and again no—citing the huge disparity between the size of the Chinese nuclear arsenal and those of the United States and Russia.  China has less than one-tenth the number of nuclear warheads of each of the two nuclear superpowers.

To be sure, including China in the nuclear arms control process is desirable.  But Beijing will not join a negotiation aimed at a trilateral agreement.  What would such an agreement look like?  Neither Washington nor Moscow would agree to reduce to China’s level (about 300 nuclear warheads).  Nothing suggests either would agree to legitimize a Chinese build-up to match their levels (about 4,000 each).  Beijing presumably would not be interested in unequal limits.

This perhaps explains why, well more than one year after it began calling for China’s inclusion, the Trump administration appears to have no proposal or outline or even principles for a trilateral agreement.

For its part, Moscow would welcome China limiting its nuclear arms.  The Russians, however, choose not press the question, raising instead Britain and France.  Amb. Billingslea pooh-poohed the notion, but France has as many nuclear weapons as China, and Britain has two-thirds the Chinese number.  The logic for bringing in one but not the other two is unclear.  The question raises yet another hinderance to including China.

A more nuanced approach might prove more successful.  It would entail a new U.S.-Russian agreement providing for reductions beyond those mandated by New START.  Washington and Moscow could then ask the Chinese (and British and French) to provide transparency on their nuclear weapons numbers and agree not to increase their total weapons or exceed a specified number.  Much like his president, however, the arms control envoy does not appear to be into nuance.

Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons

Amb. Billingslea’s second condition dealt with including in a new negotiation nuclear arms not constrained by New START, especially Russia’s large number of non-strategic nuclear weapons.  Again, this is laudable goal, but getting there will require much time and unpalatable decisions that the Trump administration will not want to face.

Russian officials have regularly tied their readiness to discuss non-strategic nuclear arms to issues of concern to them, particularly missile defense.  The Trump administration,  however, has made clear that it has zero interest in negotiating missile defense.

Even if Moscow severed that linkage, negotiating limits on non-strategic nuclear weapons would take time.  New START limits deployed strategic warheads by virtue of their association with deployed strategic missiles and bombers.  The only warheads directly counted are those on deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

By contrast, most if not all non-strategic warheads are not mounted on their delivery systems.  Monitoring any agreed limits would require new procedures, including for conducting on-site inspections within storage facilities.  This does not pose an insoluble challenge, but it represents new territory for both Washington and Moscow.  Working out limits, counting rules and verification measures will prove neither quick nor easy.

Verification

Amb. Billingslea earlier suggested some dissatisfaction with New START’s verification measures, though he did not articulate any particular flaw, and, as noted, the State Department’s annual compliance report says Russia is meeting the treaty’s terms.  Last week, he made verification measures for his desired U.S.-Russia-China agreement the third condition for New START extension. 

Verification measures are critical.  Treaty parties have to have confidence that all sides are observing the agreement’s limits or, at a minimum, that any militarily significant violation would be detected in time to take countervailing measures.  Working out agreement on those measures will prove a long process, even in just a bilateral negotiation, especially if it addresses issues such as stored nuclear weapons.  That is not just because of Russian reluctance to accept intrusive verification measures such as on-site inspection; the U.S. military also wants verification measures that do not greatly impact its normal operations.

Russian officials have reiterated their readiness to extend New START now.  Amb. Billingslea’s conditions will thwart extension for the foreseeable future.  That’s unfortunate.  By not extending New START, the Trump administration forgoes a simple action that would strengthen U.S. national security and make Americans safer.

Ending the moratorium would not advance U.S. security interests.  The United States has conducted about as many nuclear weapons tests as the rest of the world combined (and 30 percent more than the number conducted by the Soviet Union/Russia).  U.S. weapons scientists learned more from testing.  When I served as a diplomat at the American Embassy in Moscow in 1988, I accompanied a U.S. team to the Soviet nuclear test site at Semipalatinsk (in what is now Kazakhstan).  Our Soviet hosts showed us a vertical shaft for an upcoming underground test; it was about three feet in diameter.  A U.S. team member from the test site in Nevada, which the Soviets would visit the following month, commented that U.S.-drilled vertical shafts for nuclear tests typically were nine to eleven feet in diameter.  That maximized the area above the weapon for instruments that would gather a burst of data in the nanosecond before they vaporized.

The testing moratorium and the CTBT, if ratified and entered into force, would seem to lock in an area of U.S. advantage regarding nuclear weapons and nuclear effects.  Why would we want others to test and erode that advantage?

Up until the idea of gaining leverage with Beijing and Moscow arose, the primary possible reason for a return to testing was if it became necessary to confirm the reliability of a weapons type in the stockpile.  However, the National Nuclear Security Administration has overseen for 25 years the Stockpile Stewardship Program, intended to confirm that U.S. nuclear weapons are safe, secure and reliable without having to test them in a manner that produces a nuclear yield. To do so, the program uses supercomputers, modeling and tools such as the Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test Facility (think of the world’s most powerful X-ray device).

Each year, the commander of Strategic Command and the directors of the national nuclear laboratories at Los Alamos, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore certify the safety and reliability of the nuclear stockpile.  When I visited Los Alamos several years ago, the director told me that, as long as the Stockpile Stewardship Program was funded, he was confident that nuclear testing was not needed.  He added that, as a result of the program, weapons scientists had learned things about how nuclear weapons work that they did not and could not learn from testing nuclear weapons underground.

The smart thing for U.S. national interests is to continue the moratorium, ratify the CTBT, and press others to ratify so that the treaty can be brought into force.  The Senate failed to give consent to ratification in 1999, due to concerns about how to maintain the stockpile’s reliability without nuclear testing and about monitoring the treaty.  The Stockpile Stewardship Program, just in its beginning stage then, can now answer the first concern and has been doing so.

As for monitoring a test ban, U.S. national technical means have improved over the past two decades, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization has established the International Monitoring System with some 300 stations around the world.  It can detect underground nuclear explosions down to below one kiloton (the weapon that destroyed Hiroshima had a yield of 15 kilotons) as well as detecting tests in the atmosphere or ocean, both of which are banned by the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty.  Once in force, the CTBT also provides for an inspection mechanism.

As former Secretary of State George Shultz said in 2013, senators might have been correct not to consent to ratification in 1999, but given the Stockpile Stewardship Program’s development and enhanced monitoring systems, they would be right to vote for ratification now.

Conducting a nuclear test to bring China and Russia to the negotiating table will not work.  It will instead open the door for others to resume testing and close a nuclear weapons knowledge gap that favors the United States.  That will not make us safer or more secure.  It is an unwise idea that hopefully will continue to meet resistance within the U.S. government.