Since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine, the United States has provided Ukraine with $3 billion in reform and military assistance and $3 billion in loan guarantees. U.S. troops in western Ukraine train their Ukrainian colleagues. Washington, in concert with the European Union, has taken steps to isolate Moscow politically and imposed a series of economic and visa sanctions on Russia and Russians.

The furor over President Donald Trump’s sordid bid to extort the president of Ukraine into investigating his potential 2020 political opponent raises an obvious question: Why should the United States care so much about Ukraine, a country 5,000 miles away? A big part of the reason is that U.S. officials told the Ukrainians the United States would care when negotiating the Budapest Memorandum on security assurances, signed 25 years ago this week.

A nuclear-armed state breaks up

In the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, the United States, Russia, and Britain committed “to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine” and “to refrain from the threat or use of force” against the country. Those assurances played a key role in persuading the Ukrainian government in Kyiv to give up what amounted to the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal, consisting of some 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads.

When the USSR broke up in late 1991, there were nuclear weapons scattered in the resulting post-Soviet states. The George H. W. Bush administration attached highest priority to ensuring this would not lead to an increase in the number of nuclear weapons states. Moreover, as it watched Yugoslavia break apart violently, the Bush administration worried that the Soviet collapse might also turn violent, raising the prospect of conflict among nuclear-armed states. Ensuring no increase in the number of nuclear weapons states meant that, in practice, only Russia would retain nuclear arms. The Clinton administration pursued the same goal. With the prospect of extending the Non-Proliferation Treaty indefinitely looming, an alternative course that allowed other post-Soviet states to keep nuclear weapons would have set a bad precedent.

Eliminating the strategic nuclear warheads, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and strategic bombers in Ukraine was a big deal for Washington. The ICBMs and bombers carried warheads of monstrous size — all designed, built, and deployed to attack America. The warheads atop the SS-19 and SS-24 ICBMs in Ukraine had explosive yields of 400-550 kilotons each — that is, 27 to 37 times the size of the atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima. The 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads — more than six times the number of nuclear warheads that China currently possesses — could have destroyed every U.S. city with a population of more than 50,000 three times over, with warheads left to spare.

Assurances for Ukraine

Before agreeing to give up this nuclear arsenal, Kyiv sought three assurances. First, it wanted compensation for the value of the highly-enriched uranium in the nuclear warheads, which could be blended down for use as fuel for nuclear reactors. Russia agreed to provide that.

Second, eliminating ICBMs, ICBM silos, and bombers did not come cheaply. With its economy rapidly contracting, the Ukrainian government could not afford the costs. The United States agreed to cover those costs with Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction assistance.

Third, Ukraine wanted guarantees or assurances of its security once it got rid of the nuclear arms. The Budapest Memorandum provided security assurances.

Unfortunately, Russia has broken virtually all the commitments it undertook in that document. It used military force to seize, and then illegally annex, Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in early 2014. Russian and Russian proxy forces have waged war for more than five years in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas, claiming more than 13,000 lives and driving some two million people from their homes.

Some have argued that, since the United States did not invade Ukraine, it abided by its Budapest Memorandum commitments. True, in a narrow sense. However, when negotiating the security assurances, U.S. officials told their Ukrainian counterparts that, were Russia to violate them, the United States would take a strong interest and respond.

Washington did not promise unlimited support. The Budapest Memorandum contains security “assurances,” not “guarantees.” Guarantees would have implied a commitment of American military force, which NATO members have. U.S. officials made clear that was not on offer. Hence, assurances.

Beyond that, U.S. and Ukrainian officials did not discuss in detail how Washington might respond in the event of a Russian violation. That owed in part to then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin. He had his flaws, but he insisted that there be no revision of the boundaries separating the states that emerged from the Soviet collapse. Yeltsin respected Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity. Vladimir Putin does not.

U.S. officials did assure their Ukrainian counterparts, however, that there would be a response. The United States should continue to provide reform and military assistance to Ukraine. It should continue sanctions on Russia. It should continue to demand that Moscow end its aggression against Ukraine. And it should continue to urge its European partners to assist Kyiv and keep the sanctions pressure on the Kremlin.

Washington should do this, because it said it would act if Russia violated the Budapest Memorandum. That was part of the price it paid in return for a drastic reduction in the nuclear threat to America. The United States should keep its word.

       

Congress has long weighed sanctions as a tool to block the Nord Stream II gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany. Unfortunately, it has mulled the question too long, and time has run out. With some 85% of the pipeline already laid, new congressional sanctions aimed at companies participating in the pipeline’s construction will not stop it. Instead, they will become a new bone of contention between the United States and Europe.

There is a smarter way for Congress to proceed, one that could avoid a U.S.-Europe spat while ensuring significant gas flows continue to transit through pipelines in Ukraine.

The giant Russian Gazprom parastatal company currently moves a large amount of gas through Ukraine to destinations located further west in Europe. In 2018, the volume totaled 87 billion cubic meters (BCM), shipped under a contract that expires at the end of 2019.

The Ukrainians would like to negotiate a new long-term contract, ideally, for 10 years. Russian negotiators, however, have proposed an agreement that would last only one year, anticipating completion in 2020 of Nord Stream II and a separate pipeline to Turkey. The two new pipelines will have a combined capacity of about 71 BCM, meaning that they could take most of the gas that now traverses pipelines through Ukraine.

These new pipelines reflect a decision taken by Moscow more than a decade ago to find ways to get gas to Europe that circumvent Ukraine. The Russian government and Gazprom seek to eliminate Gazprom’s dependence on Ukrainian pipelines as well as to end the transit fees that last year generated $3 billion in revenue for Kyiv.

As Russia has reduced its dependence on Ukraine for transiting gas, Kyiv stopped importing gas directly from Russia for Ukrainian use in 2015, instead bringing gas in from Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia. That gas fills about one-third of Ukraine’s needs, with domestic production satisfying the remainder.

The European Union has sought to facilitate agreement between Kyiv and Moscow on a new contract on gas transit. A deal so far has eluded negotiators, given the wide difference in proposals for a new contract’s duration and Russia’s unreasonable demand that Ukraine drop a $2.7 billion judgment it won against Gazprom.

That all raises questions as to what happens on January 1, 2020. Some suspect that, if there is no agreed contract, Gazprom might nevertheless continue to ship gas west via Ukrainian pipelines, daring Kyiv to stop the flow and incur the wrath of those European countries that depend on that gas.

European Union officials have suggested a 10-year contract with a provision requiring that 60 BCM of gas be shipped each year via Ukraine. While making clear her support for Nord Stream II, German Chancellor Angela Merkel also expressed support for Ukraine continuing to transit significant volumes of Russian gas.

Nord Stream II has concerned Congress, which fears the pipeline would deepen Europe’s dependence on Russian gas and would allow Gazprom to reduce the gas it ships via Ukraine, perhaps to a trickle. Committees in both houses of Congress have developed legislation to sanction companies involved in constructing the pipeline, particularly those owning the ships that are laying the pipes. However, given that the pipeline is almost complete and Congress has not yet passed the legislation, those sanctions could end up punishing European companies — but not actually stopping the pipeline.

It will prove difficult for Congress to make Europe cut its dependence on Russian gas.

It will prove difficult for Congress to make Europe cut its dependence on Russian gas. In any case, Nord Stream II is less about how much gas Europe buys from Russia than about how Russia ships that gas to European markets.

On the latter question, Congress could help protect gas transit through Ukraine. It could amend the legislation, perhaps by adding provisions to provide for waiving the Nord Stream II-related sanctions if a long-term gas transit contract were agreed on between Kyiv and Moscow, a contract that entailed a significant flow of gas through Ukraine. That would give EU negotiators and Merkel an additional incentive to broker an agreement sustaining significant gas transit revenues for Kyiv.

Clearly, Congress’s preferred solution is to block Nord Stream II. That now seems all but impossible. Congress still has a chance to facilitate a second-best outcome, one that would ensure that Ukraine could continue to take advantage of — and profit from — its position as a transit country for Russian gas while avoiding creation of a new area of disagreement with Europe. Congress should amend its legislation accordingly.

       

U.S.-Turkish relations have plunged to a new nadir. In the past month, a senior Republican senator has suggested suspending Turkey’s membership in the NATO alliance, while the secretary of state implied a readiness to use military force against America’s wayward ally. In these circumstances, U.S. nuclear weapons have no business in Turkey. It is time to bring them home.

The signs of a strained and deteriorating relationship are hard to miss. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s increasingly autocratic leader, has turned away from both Europe and the United States. He instead is actively cultivating a close relationship with fellow authoritarian Vladimir Putin, as evidenced by their eight meetings just this year.

Erdogan rejected buying U.S. Patriot air defense missiles in favor of Russian S-400s—missiles that are incompatible with NATO’s integrated air defense system. As a result, the United States excluded Turkey from taking part in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, leaving the question of Turkey’s next-generation fighter literally up in the air.

Following President Donald Trump’s rash decision to withdraw the small U.S. military contingent from eastern Syria, Erdogan launched the Turkish army on a major offensive. In doing so, he showed no regard for the Kurdish forces that did so much in collaboration with the U.S. military to destroy ISIS at great cost—some ten thousand Kurdish fighters killed. At one point, Turkish artillery bracketed a position still occupied by U.S. troops. Trump has threatened various sanctions and repeatedly expressed his readiness to “devastate” the Turkish economy.

One other worrying matter. Erdogan says he wants nuclear weapons. In September, he told his political party: “Some countries have missiles with nuclear warheads. But the West insists ‘we can’t have them.’ This, I cannot accept.”

Turkey is not the place to host U.S. nuclear arms.

According to the Federation of American Scientists, the U.S. military maintains 150 B61 nuclear gravity bombs in Europe for use in conflict by the U.S. and certain allied air forces. Reportedly, fifty of those are located at an American facility at the Turkish airbase at Incirlik (bases in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy host the other one hundred). The 39th Weapons Systems Security Group, numbering about five hundred U.S. Air Force personnel, secures and maintains the bombs at Incirlik.

The United States has deployed nuclear weapons in Europe going back to the 1950s, though the number today is drastically lower than the peak of more than seven thousand in the 1970s. The long-stated purpose of these deployments has been to help deter an attack against NATO member states in Europe while reassuring European allies of America’s commitment to their defense.

Ten years ago, many in Europe questioned the need for such forward-basing of U.S. nuclear arms. That talk has become muted as Moscow adopted a belligerent attitude toward the West, and the Russian military seized Crimea and provoked an armed conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Washington and NATO still see a need for American nuclear bombs in Europe. While any use of a nuclear weapon would have a military effect, the Alliance has come to regard these bombs as having primarily a political purpose: deterrence and, should deterrence fail and a conflict break out, to signal (by their use) that matters are about to escalate to potentially horrific levels and thus bring the conflict to an end.

The one hundred B61 bombs deployed at bases in NATO countries other than Turkey can fulfill those requirements. There is no requirement to have U.S. nuclear weapons on the territory of five NATO members in order to deter attack and provide assurance to the twenty-seven European members of the Alliance; that can readily be done with B61 bombs based in four countries.

Moreover, while the U.S., German, Dutch, Belgian and Italian air forces each have dual-capable aircraft certified to carry nuclear weapons and crews trained in nuclear delivery, questions arose some time ago as to whether that is so with the Turkish Air Force. In that case, the most likely scenario in which a Turkish-based nuclear bomb would be used would envisage a U.S. fighter flying into Incirlik, loading a B61 bomb, and then taking off to fly to and strike its target. It would seem much simpler to launch a nuclear-armed U.S. F-16 from its base at Aviano, Italy.

The rationale for maintaining nuclear weapons at Incirlik becomes more dubious by the day. It is time for the U.S. Air Force to bring them home.

       

How do Ukrainians assess the performance and prospects of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, now five months in office, as he tackles the country’s two largest challenges: resolving the war with Russia and implementing economic and anti-corruption reforms? In two words: cautious optimism. Many retain the optimism they felt when Zelenskiy swept into office this spring, elected with more than 70% of the vote. At the same time, they express caution about how his presidency will perform.

Optimism

Almost everyone credits Zelenskiy with being open-minded and genuinely sincere in his desire to promote reform, make progress in ending the conflict with Russia in Donbas, and build a successful Ukrainian state. They see his young supporting team — the cabinet ministers’ average age is 39 — as energetic and pro-reform. They want to move quickly.

Zelenskiy has brought many new faces into his presidential office. Likewise, new faces populate the cabinet of ministers and his political party, Sluha Narodu (Servant of the People, which was also the name of his television show before he became president). These people went through their formative years in the mid 1990s and 2000s. Like Zelenskiy himself, they came of age after the collapse of the Soviet system.

Zelenskiy, moreover, has a position unique for Ukrainian presidents since the country regained independence in 1991. He has his own man as prime minister, and Sluha Narodu controls a solid majority of seats in the Rada (parliament). He thus is well positioned to press through reforms and other changes — and has every incentive to do so since, if things go badly, he will have no one to blame other than himself.

All of this generates optimism that, finally, Ukraine can make a definitive breakthrough and proceed quickly down the path to becoming a normal European state — what many joined the Maidan Revolution protests to achieve. However, cautions also arise.

Capacity to make domestic changes?

Some question whether Zelenskiy’s team has the professional skills and intellectual capacity to manage the government and deliver real change. They have set some lofty ambitions. For example, Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk has suggested the economy will grow by 40% in five years. Accomplishing that will prove a challenge. It will require a focused reform program and discipline among Sluha Narodu members in the Rada.

Whether Sluha Narodu can maintain the needed discipline is, for many, an open question. The party holds 252 of 423 seats in the Rada; another 27 seats that would represent Crimea, illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, or parts of Donbas occupied by Russian and Russian proxy forces, remain unfilled. As it takes 226 votes to pass legislation, Sluha Narodu has real political power. But questions have arisen about differences within the party, with some already seeing factions aligning with particular oligarchs. Lack of party unity could bode ill for Zelenskiy’s legislative agenda.

Another question concerns the nature of Zelenskiy’s relationship with oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, who owns the television channel that broadcast Zelenskiy’s popular comedy show. A September Zelenskiy-Kolomoisky meeting in the presidential office undercut prior Zelenskiy assurances that Kolomoisky would have no influence over him.

The primary test case for that relationship remains Privatbank, in which Kolomoisky was a major shareholder. The National Bank of Ukraine nationalized Privatbank in 2016, after an audit revealed losses on the order of $5.5 billion. Kolomoisky has filed suit to reclaim his ownership share or wants $2 billion in compensation. He won a favorable ruling in a Ukrainian court earlier this year, though he lost a ruling in a parallel case in London.

Questions about Privatbank’s future have slowed consideration by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) of a new program of credits for Ukraine. If Kolomoisky were to prevail, that would almost certainly kill the IMF program. However, the ministers of finance and economy oppose any compromise with Kolomoisky, and Zelenskiy supporters point to statements by the president and his office that Zelenskiy will not let Kolomoisky win. They express frustration that those statements have not satisfied IMF officials.

Another concern is that Zelenskiy follows opinion polls too closely and adjusts his positions if they appear unpopular. For example, Zelenskiy came out shortly after his election in favor of allowing the sale of agricultural land (a moratorium on such sales dating back to the 1990s has proven a major impediment to development of Ukraine’s agricultural sector). Apparently based on poll results, he subsequently decided to limit sales to Ukrainian citizens. While it might not be surprising that he follows polls, his approval rating in early October exceeded 70% — wildly high by Ukrainian standards. He has political space to take controversial decisions that might go against pollsters’ findings.

Peace, Donbas, and Russia

The simmering conflict in eastern Ukraine, where Russian and Russian proxy forces occupy part of Donbas, has now entered its sixth year. Zelenskiy attaches top priority to ending that conflict and restoring Ukrainian sovereignty. He and his team justify this in real and understandable terms: More Ukrainian soldiers die each week along the line of contact. Moreover, they feel that now could offer their best opportunity to reach a settlement with Moscow.

Zelenskiy seeks a summit meeting of the “Normandy format,” which would involve Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Emmanuel Macron. To try to shake things loose on Donbas, Zelenskiy endorsed the Minsk agreements reached in 2014 and 2015, accepted the “Steinmeier formula” for implementation of Minsk (albeit reinterpreting its terms), and ordered Ukrainian military forces to disengage and pull back from the line of contact in two locations, with a third disengagement possible in the near future.

The president’s team hopes these steps will set up a summit meeting in which progress can be made or, failing that, the blame falls on Putin. Other Ukrainians worry, however, that Zelenskiy appears too eager for agreement. That could lead Putin to up his demands. They also question whether he has solid red lines on where to stop in any negotiation with the more experienced Russian leader.

Concern about relationships with West

As Kyiv prepares for a possible Normandy format summit, Ukrainians are nervous about the backing they will receive from Germany and France. They note the decision to re-admit Russia to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the nearing completion of the Nord Stream II gas pipeline, and the apparent French desire to move toward business as usual with Moscow and restore the G-8 by bringing Russia back in. All these actions strike Ukrainians as steps to return to a more normal Europe-Russia relationship, despite the fact that the Russians have done nothing to correct their aggressions of the past five-plus years.

Ukrainians also express nervousness about whether the congressional impeachment inquiry might lead to a reduction in U.S. support for Ukraine. Ukrainian officials note that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s decision last week to cancel a visit to Kyiv just two days after it was proposed did not help in this regard. Kyiv wants full U.S. backing as it prepares for the possible Normandy summit, especially as Ukrainians see the United States as the only Western country that can serve as a counterbalance to Russia.

So, cautious optimism

The bottom line is that Ukrainians are both optimistic and cautious about what Zelenskiy might achieve. Depending on whom one speaks to, the emphasis on optimism or caution varies, though caution seems to win out more than optimism, at least in the short term.

Zelenskiy faces two early tests: how he handles a Ukrainian-Russian-German-French summit meeting (assuming that it happens), and whether he can reassure the International Monetary Fund and others (both in Ukraine and in the West) that he will protect Privatbank and that there will be no compromise with Kolomoisky. These questions will affect judgments about Zelenskiy’s ability over the longer term to press forward with the kinds of economic reforms and anti-corruption measures that would enable a significant acceleration in Ukraine’s growth rate and in its movement toward European normalcy.

       

For more than two weeks now, a stream of current and former U.S. officials, this week including Amb. Bill Taylor, have described to Congressional committees the White House’s sordid effort to outsource American foreign policy to the president’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who sought to advance the personal political interests of Donald Trump. Faced with compelling testimonies to the effect that the president subverted U.S. national interests to his own, the White House has begun to trash those officials.

Even for this White House, that is a despicable new low.

The testimonies make clear that President Trump insisted on a quid pro quo, as his Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney confirmed in an October 17 press conference (he later tried to walk it back, but watch the video of the press conference). The president wanted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate a long-debunked charge about former Vice President Joe Biden, his possible opponent in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. President Trump also wanted the Ukrainians to check whether the Democratic National Committee’s e-mail servers might have ended up in, of all places, Ukraine (no one has offered evidence to suggest that they have).

The White House now seeks to deny that the president demanded a quid pro quo. Early on October 23, President Trump tweeted a quote from Republican Congressman John Ratcliffe: “Neither he (Taylor) or [sic] any other witness has provided testimony the Ukrainians were aware that military aid was being withheld. You can’t have a quid pro quo with no quo.” Wrong — read pages 10–11 of Amb. Taylor’s testimony regarding the hold on military assistance; the Ukrainians knew about the hold in August.

True, in late July the Ukrainians were not yet aware that the president had placed a hold on the Congressionally-approved military assistance. The White House and Mr. Giuliani at that time dangled a different quo: a meeting in the Oval Office. For a young Ukrainian president, just two months in office, a meeting with the American president held huge value. It meant enhanced credibility with his domestic audience and a signal of high-level U.S. support to bolster his position vis-à-vis Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has waged a low-intensity war against Ukraine for five years.

The White House has now turned to denigrating career officers who have testified, officers who have well and faithfully served their country for decades. In his October 17 press conference, Mr. Mulvaney talked about “career bureaucrats who are saying, you know what, I don’t like President Trump’s politics.” Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham went further on October 22, referring to “radical unelected bureaucrats.” On October 23, Vice President Mike Pence said, “an awful lot of the swamp has been caught up in the State Department bureaucracy.”

Let’s look at three of these “radical unelected bureaucrats” (full disclosure: these are former colleagues and friends):

Amb. Masha Yovanovitch has more than 30 years of service as a career diplomat. She has held three ambassadorships — to Kyrgyzstan, Armenia and Ukraine — twice appointed by President George W. Bush. Her tour as ambassador to Ukraine was cut short for no reason other than that Mr. Giuliani concocted a false story of Ukrainian scandal and sold the sorry tale to the president.

Amb. Mike McKinley served for 37 years as a career diplomat, holding four ambassadorships — to Peru, Columbia, Afghanistan and Brazil. In 2018, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo personally asked him to return to the State Department to serve as his special assistant and informal liaison to career personnel in the department.

Amb. Bill Taylor has served the United States for 50 years, beginning at West Point and as a U.S. Army captain in Vietnam. He later served as a Senate staffer and a diplomat in the Middle East, Ukraine and Afghanistan. President Bush was the one who appointed him ambassador to Ukraine in 2006. This June, he returned to Kyiv as charge d’ affairs (acting ambassador) following Amb. Yovanovitch’s unwarranted early recall.

True, none of these officials — or others who have testified, such as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent or former NSC Senior Director for Europe and Russia Fiona Hill — were elected. But none of them are radical, and the use of “bureaucrat” as a pejorative is an unworthy insult to people who have worked long and hard in service to America.

A primary duty of U.S. Foreign Service officers and ambassadors is to implement the policy of the president, be he or she a Democrat or Republican. But the president owes it to them — and to the American people — to pursue policies that advance U.S. interests.

Asking Ukraine to investigate a false claim about Vice President Biden or to look for DNC servers, when nothing suggests they might be in Ukraine, is not about advancing American interests. These are the personal interests of Donald Trump. In his July 25 phone conversation with his Ukrainian counterpart, President Trump raised only personal interests; he did not do a single piece of U.S. government business.

Another duty of Foreign Service officers and ambassadors is, when they go before Congress, to tell the truth. The truth clearly has made the White House unhappy.

Sadly, unjustified attacks on career officials seem part of the modus operandi of this president and his inner circle. It would be preferable if President Trump would remember the oath of office that he took — an oath of office very similar to the one that Ambassadors Yovanovitch, McKinley, and Taylor took. The key difference: they honored theirs.

       

Trans-Atlantic Scorecard maintained by Sam Denney, Filippos Letsas, and Ted Reinert. Additional research by Naz Gocek and Cassandra Heward. Digital design and web development by Eric Abalahin, Abigail Kaunda, Yohann Paris, Rachel Slattery, and Cameron Zotter.

       

Serving as a senior member on the National Security Council at the Nixon White House from 1969-1974, Hal Sonnenfeldt was Henry Kissinger’s primary advisor on the Soviet Union and Europe. After Sonnenfeldt’s passing, Kissinger told the New York Times that Sonnenfeldt was “my closest associate” on U.S.-Soviet relations and “at my right hand on all the negotiations that I conducted with the Soviets,” including on arms control.

Sonnenfeldt brought a practical approach to U.S.-Soviet relations, realistic about the Soviet Union — its strengths, its weaknesses, and the challenges it presented to the West — and creative in trying to address those challenges. He was likewise realistic about the contribution that arms control could make to a safer and more stable bilateral relationship. As he noted in a 1978 article for Foreign Affairs, military and arms control issues were a fundamental part of the relationship, but “the problem [of dealing with Soviet power] does not end or begin with military measures alone.” Other factors — political, economic, ideological, and even cultural — mattered.

Still, arms control was important, and strategic arms control negotiations had a significant impact on the course of the Cold War. The agreements struck by President Richard Nixon and General-Secretary Leonid Brezhnev reflected growing understanding in Washington and Moscow that neither side stood to gain from an unchecked arms race, and that they would be better off applying some constraints on their nuclear arms competition. Those agreements played a key role in ushering in a period of détente between the United States and Soviet Union, an easing of tensions in a Cold War that had entered its third decade.

When Nixon and Brezhnev met in Moscow in May 1972, they signed two major arms control accords, collectively referred to as the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) agreements. The Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty prohibited the United States and Soviet Union from having nationwide missile defense systems and tightly constrained the number of ABM missile launchers each could maintain. The ABM Treaty’s limits on missile defenses essentially ensured that, even after suffering a first strike, the other nuclear superpower could retaliate with devastating effect. In such circumstances, the incentives for either side to strike first with nuclear weapons were greatly reduced.

The second agreement, the Interim Offensive Arms Agreement, essentially froze the numbers of launchers for U.S. and Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). It was a crude agreement — it did not even specify agreed numbers of ICBM and SLBM launchers existing or under construction — but it was the sides’ first effort to regulate their strategic offensive forces.

The SALT process produced the first two of a number of U.S.-Soviet (and later, U.S.-Russian) agreements limiting their strategic forces. When Kissinger became secretary of state for President Gerald Ford, Sonnenfeldt also moved to the State Department, where he became its counselor. He and Kissinger continued to work on arms control in those roles through 1976.

While the 1970s produced agreements to limit arms, major breakthroughs occurred in the mid-1980s and early 1990s. The 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty banned an entire class of U.S. and Soviet land-based missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (later referred to as START I) forced the United States and Soviet Union each to make significant cuts in the numbers of ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers and strategic bombers and in their attributed numbers of nuclear warheads. START I entailed a reduction of about 40% in attributed nuclear warheads for each side.

Most recently, the 2010 New START Treaty required the United States and Russia to reduce to levels of strategic forces not seen since the early 1960s: no more than 700 deployed ICBMs, SLBMs, and strategic bombers on each side with no more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads. From total nuclear arsenals that peaked at over 30,000 weapons for the United States and 40,000 for the Soviet Union, the United States and Russia today have active arsenals of about 3,800-4,500 warheads each (these include non-deployed strategic and non-strategic warheads as well as the deployed strategic warheads constrained by New START).

Unfortunately, however, the era of nuclear arms control threatens to draw to a close. Russia violated the INF Treaty by developing and deploying a prohibited ground-launched cruise missile. The Trump administration called on Moscow to return to full compliance but did not employ significant elements of leverage to persuade the Kremlin to do so, perhaps reflecting the antipathy of some senior administration officials toward arms control. Citing Russia’s failure to return to compliance, the administration this August withdrew from the treaty.

The demise of the INF Treaty leaves just one agreement intact regulating U.S. and Russian nuclear forces: New START. That treaty expires by its terms in February 2021, though it can be extended by up to five years. Over the past two-and-a-half years, Moscow has several times expressed readiness to discuss extending New START, but Washington has failed to take up the Russian offer, prompting concern that the administration is prepared to let New START end.

Extending New START is something that a sober realist such as Sonnenfeldt almost certainly would endorse. Extension would continue to limit Russian strategic nuclear forces until 2026 as well as continue the data exchanges, notifications and on-site inspections that provide the Pentagon significant information about those Russian forces. And extension would not affect U.S. strategic force modernization plans, as the Pentagon designed its plans to fit within New START’s limits.

Trump of late has suggested something different than extension. He has called for limiting nuclear weapons other than just deployed strategic nuclear arms and for including China in the negotiations along with the United States and Russia.

This certainly would be a creative and radical departure from past bilateral negotiations, but it is entirely unrealistic. The Russians to date have declined to discuss non-strategic nuclear weapons and likely would only do so if the United States offered up something of significant interest, such as limits on missile defense — which the Trump administration is not about to do. As for China, its total nuclear arsenal amounts to less than one-tenth the number of nuclear weapons in the U.S. or Russian arsenals. Beijing has stated repeatedly that it would not engage in nuclear arms negotiations with Washington and Moscow until the gap between its nuclear force levels and those of the two nuclear superpowers narrows.

On their current course, the United States and Russia may soon find themselves in a situation unseen since 1972: no constraints whatsoever on their nuclear forces and strategic missile defenses. That strategic relationship will be less predictable, less stable and less secure. We can only hope that some thinking of the kind that Sonnenfeldt brought to U.S.-Soviet relations 50 years ago will emerge to avert the total breakdown of nuclear arms control.

       

For more than five years, Russia has used its military and proxy forces to wage a low-intensity but still very real war in eastern Ukraine. Newly-elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy would like to end that conflict. On October 1, he announced an agreement based on the “Steinmeier Formula” to advance a settlement.

Angry crowds took to the streets of Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities over the weekend to denounce the agreement, equating it with capitulation to Moscow. But is it? At this point, not enough is known about details of the agreement — or even if the agreement will hold — to reach a judgment.

Shortly after the Russian military seized Crimea and Russia illegally annexed the peninsula in March 2014, fighting broke out in eastern Ukraine. So-called “separatist forces,” with Moscow-provided leadership, funding, ammunition, heavy weapons, and sometimes regular units of the Russian army, occupied part of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, also called the Donbas.

Five-plus years of fighting have claimed over 13,000 lives and caused some two million people to flee. Agreements reached in Minsk in September 2014 and February 2015 — the latter with the direct participation of the German and French leaders — have not been implemented.

In 2016, then German Foreign Minister (and current German President) Frank-Walter Steinmeier proposed to resolve some sequencing questions from Minsk disputed by Russia and Ukraine. He suggested that local elections be held in the part of the Donbas currently occupied by Russian and Russian proxy forces according to Ukrainian law and supervised by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Once the OSCE certified the elections as free and fair, the occupied areas would gain special status, and Ukrainian sovereignty would be restored over all of the Donbas, including along the Ukraine-Russia border.

The October 1 settlement announced by Zelenskiy referred specifically to the Steinmeier Formula. Many in Ukraine worry that the Steinmeier Formula aims at promoting peace — but not necessarily a just peace for Ukraine — so Germany and other European states can get back to business as usual with Moscow.

Zelenskiy, however, announced a seemingly modified version of the Steinmeier Formula. He stated that local elections in the occupied region would be held only after Russian and Russian proxy forces withdrew and Ukraine reestablished control over the border with Russia. This sequencing would amount to a victory for Kyiv and, if accepted by Moscow, would constitute a significant departure from Russia’s previous position. Of course, if the Kremlin does not accept this sequencing, the October 1 agreement is doomed.

Those who call the agreement a surrender fear that local elections, if not managed carefully, will give political power to allies of those who have run the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk “People’s Republics.” By all credible accounts, the “People’s Republic” authorities have done a horrible job managing local institutions and delivering government services. In elections held under Ukrainian law, monitored by the OSCE to ensure that it met free and fair standards, and with the bad guys with guns having left for Russia, would voters really choose to empower people with demonstrably bad track records at governance?

Another issue that provokes demonstrators’ concern is the question of special self-governing status for the occupied territories. At this point, however, the debate is taking place in a vacuum, because the meaning of “special self-governing status” has yet to be clarified.  Zelenskiy said that the Rada would develop a new law on local self governance and that it would protect Ukraine’s key interests.

Some oppose special status on principle, but it likely would prove impossible to settle the conflict without something that looks “special” for the Donbas. The appropriate question is how much autonomy does Kyiv cede to local authorities?

Certain government powers — such as the responsibility to set foreign, defense and security, macro-economic, and macro-financial policies, to name a few — should remain in Kyiv. That is vital for Ukraine’s coherent functioning as a national state. But other powers touching on questions related to education, health, and local police might be transferred to local authorities without comprising Ukraine’s national unity.

According to Zelenskiy, the Rada will develop the specific legislation that sets out what authorities can be passed down to the Donbas. That question also may well prove problematic with Russia, which could mean collapse of the October 1 agreement.

The 2003 Kozak memorandum provides a likely example of what the Kremlin envisages for special self-governing status for the Donbas. Kozak’s memorandum spelled out terms for reintegrating the breakaway region of Transnistria into Moldova. In the end, the Moldovan government rejected the memorandum, because it would have given regional authorities in Transnistria the ability to veto national-level decisions, such as foreign policy and Moldova’s relationship with the European Union, and made national policy-making unworkable.

Ukraine should not accept anything like the Kozak memorandum. To do so would severely complicate national policy-making and amount to abandoning Kyiv’s long-proclaimed course of drawing closer to Europe and its institutions.

The main point, however, remains: we do not know what the terms of special self-governing status are, just as we do not know whether Moscow would accept local elections in the Donbas only after it pulled out its forces and Ukraine had reestablished control. Depending on how these questions are answered, the October 1 agreement could be good for Kyiv, or it could bad.

Before pronouncing a verdict, having answers to these questions would appear wise.

       

Over the past two weeks, a CIA whistleblower’s complaint, a White House record of a July 25 telephone conversation between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and texts exchanged by American diplomats have dominated the news and raised questions about the president’s handling of policy toward Ukraine. Here are five observations:

First, President Trump was not doing the nation’s business on July 25. Trump has described the call as “perfect,” but the memorandum of conversation shows that he did not seek to advance U.S. interests. He did not ask Zelenskiy about progress in ending Russia’s war against Ukraine. He did not propose steps to facilitate more American trade. He did not raise how U.S. liquified natural gas might strengthen Ukraine’s energy security (something of interest to Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, whom Trump now says instigated a call that he did not want to make).

Instead, Trump posed two requests to his Ukrainian counterpart: check CrowdStrike (even though nothing suggests a Ukrainian link to the company that examined the Democratic National Committee’s servers in 2016), and investigate a thoroughly-debunked charge that Vice President Joe Biden sought to have a Ukrainian prosecutor general fired to protect his son, Hunter Biden. Neither ask advances U.S. national goals. Both are about Trump’s personal interest in undermining his potential Democratic rival in 2020.

Second, the president sounds poorly briefed on Ukraine. The fact that Trump did not raise any issues of interest to the United States — as opposed to issues of personal interest — suggests he took no briefing from National Security Council staff before the call. He raised discredited stories similar to those that his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has been peddling for months on cable news. Giuliani seems to have received much of his information, including his claim about the Bidens, from a former Ukrainian prosecutor general who held a grudge against the U.S. embassy in Kyiv — and who has since recanted or denied most of the stories he fed Giuliani.

Third, there was a quid pro quo. The president claims there was no quid pro quo in his call to Zelenskiy. From texts released late on October 3, however, senior U.S. diplomats believed there was. Consider the following text exchanges:

• July 25 text from Ambassador Kurt Volker (U.S. special envoy on Ukraine) to Zelenskiy aide Andrey Yermak (just prior to the Trump-Zelenskiy call): “Heard from White House — assuming President Z convinces trump he will investigate/‘get to the bottom of what happened’ in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington.”
• August 9 text from Ambassador Gordon Sondland (U.S. representative to the European Union) to Volker: “To avoid misunderstandings, might be useful to ask Andrey [Yermak] for a draft statement (embargoed) so that we can see exactly what they propose to cover.”
• From August 13 text from Volker to Sondland describing possible Ukrainian statement: “Special attention should be paid to the problem of interference in the political processes of the United States especially with the alleged involvement of some Ukrainian politicians. I [Zelenskiy] want to declare that this is unacceptable. We intend to initiate and complete a transparent and unbiased investigation of all available facts and episodes, including those involving Burisma [the company on whose board Hunter Biden sat] and 2016 U.S. elections, which in turn will prevent the resurgence of this problem in the future.”
• August 13 text from Sondland in response to above Volker text: “Perfect.”

In his statement to the House Committees on Intelligence, Oversight and Reform, and Foreign Affairs on October 3, Volker said that he and Sondland talked with Giuliani on August 16. In that conversation, Giuliani had noted that a more generic anti-corruption statement offered by the Ukrainians was insufficient and should specifically mention Burisma and 2016.

Ambassador William “Bill” Taylor, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2006–2009 and currently the charge d’ affairs in Kyiv, was clearly uncomfortable with all this:

• September 1 text from Taylor to Sondland: “Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?”
• September 9 text from Taylor to Sondland: “As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to hold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”

It is hard to read these texts and conclude that there was no quid pro quo. To his great credit, Taylor questioned the very idea and in a separate text even suggested that he would resign (full disclosure: Taylor is a former colleague and good friend whom I admire).

In his defense, Trump has pointed to Sondland’s response to Taylor’s “it’s crazy” text:

• September 9 text from Sondland to Taylor: “Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump’s intentions. The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quos of any kind.”

However, the president and his supporters at “Fox and Friends” fail to note that well over four hours passed before Sondland sent his rather formal reply to Taylor, raising a question about whether he might have consulted with anyone. Moreover, Sondland’s message went on to suggest “we stop the back and forth by text” — just what one might do if one did not want written records that later could be turned over to, say, the House Committees on Intelligence, Oversight and Reform, and Foreign Affairs.

In early June, Trump sent an invitation to Zelenskiy to visit the United States, yet nearly two months later, no date had been fixed for the visit. The text messages show Volker and Sondland in late July and August discussing what the Ukrainian president would say about launching investigations as a prerequisite for getting a specific date to meet with Trump. A visit to the United States, as for his predecessors, would be a big deal for the newly-elected Zelenskiy, playing well with his domestic audience and sending Moscow a helpful signal of U.S. support for Ukraine. (In the end, Zelenskiy only got a meeting in New York on the margins of the UN General Assembly, not a visit to Washington where, in addition to an Oval Office session, he could have met Congressional leaders.)

The president put a hold on $391 million in Congressionally-approved security assistance for Ukraine prior to the July 25 phone call. It was only at the beginning of September when the texts suggest that security assistance had also been held pending the kind of Ukrainian statement sought by Trump and Giuliani.

Fourth, Sondland’s role is curious. Sondland, a political appointee who arranged donations of $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee, is the U.S. representative to the European Union based in Brussels. While one aspect of his job is coordinating with EU officials on Western policy toward Ukraine, that is only part of a very broad U.S.-EU agenda. Yet Sondland visited Ukraine three times between February and July, hosted Zelenskiy at a dinner in Brussels in June, and traveled to New York to take part in the September 25 Trump-Zelenskiy meeting. He also reportedly spent considerable time in Washington where he often called on the White House.

The degree of Sondland’s involvement on Ukraine is extraordinary, especially as the United States had experienced diplomats on the ground in Kyiv and a special envoy dedicated to resolving the Russia-Ukraine conflict. When I served as ambassador to Ukraine, the U.S. representative to the European Union came to Kyiv just once in three years — and specifically at my request to talk to Ukrainians about how they might better engage with the European Union.

Fifth, Ukraine has to navigate a risky situation. All this places Ukraine in a difficult position. Zelenskiy understandably wants a good relationship with Trump, as shown by the obsequious comments he made during the July 25 telephone conversation. Such a relationship bolsters his domestic standing and position vis-à-vis Moscow. On the other hand, Zelenskiy presumably understands the danger of becoming the football in U.S. domestic politics that Giuliani seeks to make it. Since regaining independence in 1991, Ukraine has enjoyed a remarkable degree of bipartisan support in Congress. A wrong misstep in Kyiv would put that at risk.

On October 4, the new Ukrainian Prosecutor General, Ruslan Riaboshapka, announced that his office would conduct a general review of cases closed by his predecessor, including some involving Mykola Zlochevskiy, the owner of Burisma, though it is not clear whether Burisma would be subject of the review. Riaboshapka, who has a good reputation with Ukrainian civil society activists, stated “the key word [in this review] is neither Biden nor Burisma.” He added that he had no information suggesting that Hunter Biden had done anything wrong. He appears to be trying to walk a very fine line.

This is a sorry mess. The domestic debate in the United States threatens to overwhelm all things between Washington and Kyiv. It will not be easy, but U.S. officials hopefully can maintain focus on the U.S. interest in helping to foster a stable, independent and democratic Ukraine with a growing market economy and increasing links to the West. That is not the focus of the current American president, but it reflects the view of each of his predecessors and their administrations going back to the early 1990s.