Brookings: Topics - Russia and Eurasia

Options for Reducing Nuclear Arms

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:00:00 -0400

Event Information

May 22, 2013
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM EDT

Saul/Zilkha Rooms
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

Recent visits to Moscow by National Security Advisor Tom Donilon and Secretary of State John Kerry appear to have injected a more positive tone to U.S.-Russian relations, as Washington and Moscow prepare for meetings between Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin in June and September. Further nuclear arms reductions beyond those mandated by the New START Treaty, now in its third year of implementation, appear to figure high on the U.S. agenda. What sort of additional nuclear reductions, if any, should the United States now pursue?

On May 22, the Arms Control Initiative at Brookings hosted a discussion to explore the possibilities for further nuclear reductions, looking at the spectrum of possibilities. Brookings Senior Fellow Michael O’Hanlon moderated a discussion with Global Zero Co-Founder Bruce Blair, National Institute for Public Policy President Keith Payne and Brookings Senior Fellow Steven Pifer, co-author with O’Hanlon of the recent Brookings Focus Book, The Opportunity: Next Steps in Reducing Nuclear Arms (Brookings Press, 2012).

Audio

Options for Reducing Nuclear Arms

American Foreign Policy in Retreat? A Discussion with Vali Nasr

Tue, 14 May 2013 09:30:00 -0400

Event Information

May 14, 2013
9:30 AM - 11:00 AM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

For the past decade, a debate has raged about the future of American power and foreign policy engagement. In his new book, The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat (Knopf Doubleday Publishing, 2013), Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Vali Nasr questions America’s choice to lessen its foreign policy engagement around the world. Nasr argues that after taking office in 2009, the Obama administration let fears of terrorism and political backlash confine its policies to that of the previous administration, instead of seizing the opportunity to fundamentally reshape American foreign policy over the past four years. Meanwhile, China and Russia – rivals to American influence globally – were quietly expanding their influence in places where the U.S. has long held sway. Nasr argues that the Obama administration’s foreign policy decision making could have potentially dangerous outcomes, and, what’s more, sells short America’s power and role in the world.

On May 14, Foreign Policy at Brookings hosted Vali Nasr for a discussion on the state of U.S. power globally and whether American foreign policy under the Obama administration is in retreat. Brookings Senior Fellow Robert Kagan joined the discussion, which was moderated by Vice President Martin Indyk, director of Foreign Policy.

Video

Audio

American Foreign Policy in Retreat? A Discussion with Vali Nasr

NATO and the Costs of Star Wars

Clara M. O'Donnell — Wed, 01 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Over the last decade, the US has spent tens of billions of dollars constructing a shield to stop nuclear missiles from North Korea or Iran reaching its soil. So far, the shield does not work. Fortunately for the Americans, neither Pyongyang nor Tehran has nuclear missiles that could hit the US. Unfortunately, however, America's missile defence programme has upset China and Russia, two countries that do have nuclear arsenals that could reach its homeland. America's European partners in NATO should try to convince Washington to scale back its missile defence ambitions for the next few years. Not only would this allow the US government to spend its shrinking defence budget on more pressing military needs. It would also improve European security by reducing tensions between NATO and Russia.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has been increasingly worried about nuclear attacks by 'rogue' states. In 1998, a study group chaired by Donald Rumsfeld predicted that North Korea and Iran could field intercontinental ballistic missiles within five years. Today, however, Iran has neither intercontinental missiles nor a nuclear bomb. In March of this year, a report from the Pentagon's intelligence agency (erroneously declassified) assessed "with moderate confidence" that Pyongyang could build a nuclear device that fits on a missile. But there is still no evidence that North Korean missiles are sophisticated enough to reach the US.

Although the American mainland is not currently under threat, every president since George H.W. Bush has sought to deploy nation-wide defences against a limited attack by ballistic missiles. Reviving some of President Ronald Reagan's 'star wars' ambitions, the US has had missile interceptors deployed in Alaska and California since 2004. Both the George W Bush and Obama administrations have also had various plans to deploy interceptors against intercontinental missiles at bases in Europe. (The Obama administration, working with NATO, has also been deploying interceptors in Europe to protect Europeans and US troops in the region against shorter-range missiles from Iran – a threat which does exist.) In March, Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel announced that because of technical problems and budgetary constraints, the US is suspending its efforts to build Europe-based strategic interceptors. He also said that in response to the bellicose attitude of North Korea's new leader, the US will add 14 missile interceptors in on its West Coast, and perhaps deploy a few more on the East Coast, too.

The Obama administration has been wise to cancel the European leg of its strategic missile defence plans. Several recent studies had highlighted significant shortcomings in the programme. For example, a 2012 report by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the interceptors planned for Europe would have been too slow to stop an incoming missile. But the US would be ill advised to increase the number of interceptors on the West – and possibly East – Coast. Studies have shown that the interceptors in Alaska and California do not work well either. According to Congress' Government Accountability Office, ten out of the 30 interceptors rely on technology which has never intercepted a missile during tests. The GAO estimates that it will take several years to repair this technology, costing the US taxpayer an additional $700 million. Hagel has promised to fix these glitches before the new interceptors are deployed. But the Pentagon does not yet have a solution to another big problem. None of its interceptors can distinguish between an incoming warhead and debris or decoys. (Ballistic missiles can easily carry decoys in addition to warheads.)

America's strategic missile defence efforts have made the US taxpayer fund a weapon that does not work to tackle a threat that does not exist. They have also antagonised China and Russia. Both countries worry that US technological breakthroughs could undermine their strategic deterrents. Moscow has been most displeased. The Kremlin has been asking for legal guarantees that the US would not direct its missile defences against Russia's strategic nuclear weapons. To reassure Russia, the Obama administration has encouraged Moscow to co-operate with NATO's defence programme against Iranian short and long-range missiles. (Moscow is less worried about NATO's defences against Iranian short-range missiles because the interceptors used would be too slow to stop a Russian strategic missile.) Washington has also been willing to provide Moscow political guarantees that its nuclear deterrent is not under threat.

But so far, the Obama administration has refused to give Russia legal guarantees. The US has made such commitments in the past. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty established limits on what Moscow and Washington could do in this area from the 1970s until 2002. President George W Bush then withdrew from the agreement in order to pursue America’s missile defence ambitions unhindered. The Obama administration fears that Republican senators – who are keen on missile defence – would not ratify a treaty that would constrain the US. As a result, missile defence has become one of the most contentious issues in a troubled US-Russia relationship. Moscow has refused to negotiate further cuts in its nuclear arsenal until the issue is resolved. Last year, the chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces threatened to attack the European NATO countries hosting US missile defences. And according to press reports, Russian bombers have been simulating strikes against American missile defence installations.

Now that Hagel has cancelled the European leg of US strategic missile defences, there is a chance that NATO and Russia could end their dispute. Senior American and Russian officials have resumed talks about Russia co-operating with NATO's missile defence efforts. US policy-makers have also been encouraging Moscow to negotiate new bilateral nuclear reductions – a top priority for President Barack Obama. According to some Russian officials, President Vladimir Putin may be open to an agreement when he meets President Obama at the G8 in June or at their bilateral summit in September. But the Russians still want legal guarantees on strategic missile defences.

Europeans welcome the possibility of improved NATO-Russia ties. Most of them have never been convinced of the need for, or feasibility of, strategic missile defences and many disliked Washington's decision to leave the ABM treaty. Germany and others have been keen for Russia to co-operate with NATO's missile defence programme as a way to alleviate tensions. To maximise the chances of a deal between Washington and Moscow, Europeans should now encourage their American allies to include legal guarantees on missile defence in a new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia. Steven Pifer and Michael O'Hanlon from the Brookings Institution point out in their book 'The opportunity' that treaty limits could still allow the US to deploy all its planned defences against North Korea and Iran: the US and Russia could for example agree to each having a maximum of 125 interceptors capable of engaging intercontinental missiles. (The ABM treaty initially allowed for 200.) The treaty could also be limited to ten years, so that both sides could reconsider its ceilings in light of how the threats from North Korea and Iran evolve.

The White House, and Europeans, would struggle to convince some Republican senators to ratify such a treaty. But without it, Russia is unlikely to reduce its numerous tactical nuclear weapons – an arsenal that worries both Democrats and Republicans. Europeans should also discourage their US counterparts from deploying additional interceptors against strategic missiles until tests have shown them to be effective. The risk of wasting large sums of money at a time of savage defence cuts should help senators to reassess their views on missile defence.

As Greg Thielmann, a former senior US state department intelligence official, remarks, Europeans have "tamed ill-considered American instincts" in the past: in the 1980s, Europeans encouraged a reluctant Reagan administration to negotiate the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. For the benefit of NATO-Russia relations and global arms control, the Europeans should encourage their ally to reassess its stance again.

Authors

Clara M. O'Donnell

Publication: Centre for European Reform

Image Source: © Yves Herman / Reuters

Is Obama’s Red Line a Green Light?

Salman Shaikh — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

The use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime was finally blown open last week. In a letter to U.S. lawmakers, the White House stated that U.S. intelligence agencies believed "with varying degrees of confidence" that Syria had used the nerve agent sarin on a "small scale." The letter followed others sent to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon by Britain and France alleging the use of chemical weapons in Syria, and similar assessments by Israeli military intelligence in the last few weeks.

Still, President Barack Obama's administration sounded a cautious note. Asked whether Assad crossed the "red line" Obama drew last year that could spur American intervention, a U.S. official replied, "we're not there yet." The White House continues to contend that the evidence is not "airtight," and that it needs further corroboration. In meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan on Friday, Obama stated that "there are a range of questions around how, when, where these weapons may have been used."

While these are important questions, especially a decade after the intelligence failure in Iraq, the evidence already gathered by Western countries from inside Syria provides significant evidence of chemical-weapons use by the Assad regime. Here is what I have learned about the regime's use -- and logic for the use -- of chemical weapons over the past six months.

The Assad regime's scientists have been experimenting for more than a year with mixtures of toxic and poisonous gasses that could be used to "cleanse areas" of what it calls "terrorists" -- the rebel forces it is fighting. Its security and military apparatus has sought to devise methods to use artillery shells or aircraft to deliver chemical weapons in "localized ways" -- in areas of one or one and a half square kilometers.

The regime's logic was that the relentless bombardment of rebel-controlled areas, including in the neighborhoods around the main cities of Aleppo, Homs, and Damascus, had forced most civilians to leave. Civilian casualties, in this warped thinking, could therefore be kept to a minimum if chemical weapons were used in these areas. This was important if the regime was to avoid the attention of the international community, especially the United States, which clearly did not want to intervene in Syria.

I first heard this frightening information in the late summer and fall of last year. It came from a small number of privileged Syrians who often travelled to and from Damascus. I had gotten to know and trust them, especially as their information was often corroborated later by other sources and events. All spoke often to current and former senior security officers and regime personalities from the Assad regime's feared security forces, including the presidential guard, Syrian military intelligence, and Syrian air force intelligence -- people they had known in some cases since childhood.

Listening to them, it was clear to me that the regime had the intention to use these horrendous weapons -- and that it would do so as it came under further pressure in key strategic areas, especially the major cities in the west of the country.

According to my interlocutors, Assad and those closest to him had been emboldened by the international community's weak response to his bloody military campaign. The United Nations claimed in February that the death toll from the fighting in Syria was well over 70,000 people, while, during that same month, a lieutenant from Syrian military intelligence informed one of my Syrian interlocutors that the regime estimated that around 85,000 civilians had been killed, with many more thousands "missing."

Successive statements from Obama and senior U.S. officials, these interlocutors said, had been interpreted by the regime as a "green light" to continue its campaign. The exclusive focus on political and diplomatic solutions, as well as the international community's rising fear of Islamic jihadists, further reinforced the regime's belief that "the U.S. and its Western allies did not mind the current military operations," according to a retired general in Damascus. "Like any war, there are political and diplomatic efforts, while it is the winner that dictates terms in the end."

In the eyes of the regime, therefore, Obama's "red line" prohibiting the use of chemical weapons -- first drawn last August, in the midst of an election campaign -- had to be tested.

Read the full article »

Authors

Salman Shaikh

Publication: Foreign Policy

The Chechen War Comes to Boston

Pavel K. Baev — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

In the days that have passed since the terrorist attack in Boston, the many details of this crime and the even greater volume of speculations have still provided no satisfactory explanation of reasons and motives. What had seemed to be a picture of an émigré family working hard for their pieces of the American dream turned out to be a story of failed socialization and a frustrated search for identity that turned into blind hatred. The US media has focused on the blunders of the security services in preventing this premeditated crime, on the shortcomings of the American immigration policy (currently distorted by the deadlocked battles in the US Congress), or on the continuing mutations of Islamic extremism. There is, however, a twist to this tragic story that sets it apart from other cases of quiet Americans turning into Muslim fanatics. This twist originates in the humanitarian catastrophe in the North Caucasus and spins through the protracted agony of the Chechen diaspora.

One family in the trail of tears

The uprooting of the Tsarnaev family was a micro-episode in Stalin’s punishment of the Chechens and other peoples that were forcefully displaced from the Caucasus and dumped into Siberia and Central Asia in February 1944. Most of the survivors were allowed to return to their devastated villages in 1957, but the Tsarnaevs, who had managed to find steady jobs in Kyrgyzstan, opted to stay. It was the fast decomposition of social fabric in the newly-independent Kyrgyzstan after the collapse of the USSR in 1991 that forced them to flee, but the North Caucasus, which had been badly affected by the war that engulfed Chechnya in 1994, proved to be an equally unwelcoming home. An attempt to return to Central Asia was another failure, and they joined the sad journey of many Chechen families moving from temporary shelters in Turkey to refugee centers in Poland to asylum-seekers institutions in Austria or Norway. The difference was that this family ended up in the US, where the Chechen community is so small that, much to the dismay of the Czech Republic, first reports on the manhunt misrepresented the Tsarnaev brothers as Czechs.

As he passed his teenage years in Boston suburbia, Tamerlan Tsarnaev never developed a feeling that he could fit in despite his moderate success as amateur boxer. It is unclear how he convinced his American girlfriend to convert to Islam and to marry him, but it is a fact that he was once arrested for beating her. His father Anzor dismissed that episode as nonsense: “In America, you can’t touch a woman,” implying that in the Caucasus, a self-respecting man wouldn’t think twice about it. Unable to find a job at 26, Tamerlan was probably deeply frustrated with the role of house-father taking care of his baby daughter, while his wife supported the household with her salary. His sister married an American and cut ties with the family, but Tamerlan had a strong influence on his younger brother Dzhokhar. Still a teenager, the youngest Tsarnaev was struggling with college courses and his habit of smoking marihuana didn’t help.

The call of the war

Confused about their identity, both brothers kindled a passion for their imaginary homeland Chechnya, but it was the older one who found a way to blend this yearning with a progressively consuming devotion to Islam. The local mosque was unable to satisfy this craving and he turned to surfing through the archipelago of proselytizing and extremist websites. His parents could have checked that journey, but a few years ago they returned to Russia and settled in Makhachkala, Dagestan. In early 2012, Tamerlan came to visit them and stayed for as long as six months. It was this exposure to war as a way of life that most probably sealed his violent radicalization.

Dagestan is indeed the theater of a protracted low-intensity civil war of unique complexity, in which feuds between criminal clans are barely distinguishable from guerilla attacks of rebels of various persuasions and underground Islamic networks challenge the alliance of authorities and clergy. According to NGO data for 2012, 405 people were killed and 290 wounded in the republic. Russian society pays scant attention to the shootouts and explosions, and in the West, this smoldering war in a far corner of Europe is completely forgotten. Russian troops stick to their routine of counter-terrorist operations, but the rebels now see themselves not as ‘al-Qaeda franchises’ but as a part of the powerful revival of political Islam. Tamerlan had plentiful opportunities to internalize this powerful message.

Kadyrov can and will deny everything

Russian media is full of speculations about the ‘setup’ of the Tsarnaev brothers and ‘plots’ of US special services, but these conspiracy theories avoid one person who has benefitted from the Boston bombing – Chechnya’s warlord-president Ramzan Kadyrov. He described Tamerlan and Dzhokhar as ‘products of American culture’ but counts on this terrible incident to severely discredit the whole Chechen diaspora, which he seeks to terrorize with every means available. He was irked by his de-facto inclusion in the ‘Magnitsky list’ and knows that the Obama administration has suffered a painful ‘lesson’. More importantly, he expects that Moscow has registered the message that cutting federal subsidies to Chechnya would be unhelpful. US investigators will struggle to establish how the idea of taking the ‘jihad’ from the war-torn Mahachkala to the finish line of the Boston marathon was planted in Tamerlan’s head, but Kadyrov, the master of terror in Grozny, had a good week and enjoys being untouchable in the matter.

Authors

Pavel K. Baev

Publication: NRK

Image Source: © Handout . / Reuters

'Operative in the Kremlin': De-mystifying Putin

Fiona Hill — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's note: In an interview with Russia Beyond the Headlines, Fiona Hill spoke about her new book Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin and the difficulty of de-mystifying Vladimir Putin.

Russia Beyond The Headlines: While working on your book, have you had any new, exclusive information? Have you tried to interview Putin himself?

Fiona Hill: We’ve had an opportunity to essentially interview him, because we have been taking part in Valdai Club discussions since 2004. So we used these expert meetings with the Russian president, in many respects, to kind of interview him. Also, we watched him for hours.

Moreover, we quote a lot of things he said during Valdai Club meetings with foreign experts, and we quote a lot from his presentation speeches.

Since I joined Brookings in 2004, I have spent an enormous amount of time watching Putin’s every presentation on Russian TV and Internet, analyzing his pronunciations and even body language, which also tells you a lot. So I had a lot of open and available material about him at my disposal.

RBTH: Do you have any feedback from the Kremlin on your new book?

Hill: No. Actually, I would be surprised if they did, because it is usual for world leaders to comment when somebody writes something about them. In politics, one of the first lessons is not to directly challenge things that people say, because it seems like giving them validity.

RBTH: When I was reading your book, it caught my eye that you constantly refer to the period of Vladimir Putin’s work in the KGB, which is certainly crucial to understanding his personality. However, it’s well known that Putin, as a college student, studied law. Have you paid attention to this period in his biography, and what kind of conclusions have you drawn from that?

Hill: We had a look at what exactly he was studying at that period. We know a lot about his legal work later on.

Also, we have a section it the book called “The Statist,” on Putin’s kind of legal views that were very much shared by people like Anatoly Sobchak. It’s clear that Putin has appropriated and learned many theories from a strain of liberal-conservative thoughts that originated in the 1990’s and early 2000’s.

From his early days in the Kremlin, and up to the point when he decided to step down and become prime minister, because of the sanctity of Russian Constitution, he made many references to the importance of the law, legislative process and idea of “pravovoye gosudarstvo” (“rule-of-law state”) – which we translated as a law-abiding step where, really, the law is supreme.

The constitution theme may also be very important to Putin, because Anatoly Sobchak was one of the drafters of the [Russian] Constitution. So I think law, for Vladimir Putin, is indeed very important and is part of his personality and identity.

RBTH: In your book you make a rather strong assertion referring to some of Vladimir Putin’s hobbies as “fake identities.” What makes you think so?

Hill: Actually, I think that some of his hobbies – like judo, for example – are not fake. During his younger years he was a pretty accomplished sportsman. For him, sport is important. And we see this reflecting into politics – Sochi Olympics in 2014, Soccer championship in 2018, and so on. He is really trying to lead by example and trying to engage young people in sport.

However, the risky car driver, the deep-sea diver and amphora explorer identities, etc., don’t really belong to Putin. It was even admitted by his staff that Putin assumes these just as a costumes.

But we believe he did all that because he wanted to set an example for people: He wanted people to think about cranes, he wanted people to think about conservation of historical artifacts and archeology, and so on. Our argument is that he has some of these fake guises […] but he has them for a real and political purpose.

Basically, every serious political figure engages in something like this, but he has probably done more than anyone else. So some of these fake identities – or these costumes that he deliberately assumes – are part of his political profile and his agenda.

RBTH: In some Western countries – and especially in Washington, D.C. – there is a strong anti-Putin atmosphere. A lot of Western politicians tend to simplify and even demonize the incumbent Russian president. Do you believe that your book could help these kinds of people to understand what Putin is really about?

Hill: That’s exactly why we wrote this book. To be frank, we didn’t write it for the Russian audience. We wrote it to try to explain that one has to be very careful when it comes to demonizing anybody.
Really, in any of study leadership, you have to go as deep as you possibly can. It doesn’t help to have superficial responses. We have never really thought that designating Putin as “KGB guy,” and “autocrat,” and all these kinds of labels, is useful.

Simply dismissing someone’s significance in global affairs doesn’t serve us well. It leads to mistakes and miscalculations.

Certainly we don’t know the exact mechanism of his rise and his pick up, and we won’t spend [an] endless amount of time trying to figure this out. Even if we were able to go back and interview people like Voloshin and Berezovsky or others, they will tell stories that make them look good. That’s called selective memory.

RBTH: How do you explain Putin’s popularity in Russia?

Hill: When you look at Russian polls, he is indeed pretty popular. We can argue what his percentage was during [the] last elections and keep in mind the fact of limited political competition in Russia, but, if you compare this to other politicians, he would still most likely [have] won the presidency.

So we tried to explain why he does resonate with Russians – not with everyone and, as we know, he doesn’t resonate with a large section of population in Moscow and other places. But, in general: What makes him so popular in Russia? That’s the phenomena we tried to understand.

And the only way to do this, [to] understand this popularity, is to put it in context. For instance: How to explain Berlusconi’s popularity in Italy? From the outside, no one can understand this, and you can only understand Berlusconi in an Italian context. The same is true when it comes to Margaret Thatcher, who was very much a product of the United Kingdom at a particular time or Ronald Reagan of the U.S. in a particular period. These are all leaders who had big impact.

Lastly, we didn’t write these books to make friends with anyone. We used the opportunity of Valdai Club meetings to get as much as we could, and we know that these events were heavily orchestrated to get favorable responses. We even got a lot of criticism in Washington for attending these meetings.

Authors

Fiona Hill

Publication: Russia Beyond the Headlines

Image Source: © RIA Novosti / Reuters

The Limits of U.S. Cooperation with Russia on Counterterrorism

Fiona Hill — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

In the wake of the Boston bombings, some have speculated whether cooperation on counter-terrorism could put the U.S.-Russian relationship back on a more stable footing at a particular tense moment in bilateral relations. This will not be an easy task, even if both President Putin and President Obama are willing to try.

When Vladimir Putin became Russian president in the 2000s, coordination on anti-terrorism efforts was his central idea for Russian-U.S. cooperation. Chechnya was an integral element for Putin. Even before the events of September 11, 2001, Putin repeatedly warned the United States of the connection between Russia’s Chechen insurgency and international terrorism. Now, 12 years later, when terrorists of Chechen ethnicity have struck the United States itself, that connection appears to have been made for him.

On Tuesday April 16, right after the Boston bombings, Putin was quick to extend his condolences to Obama and to try to revitalize Russian-U.S. cooperation on counter-terrorism. In fact, Putin’s message to Obama in response to the Boston bombings is almost identical to his message to President Bush after the 9/11 attacks, when Russia extended similar offers of intelligence-sharing in Afghanistan.

The first question the U.S. intelligence services asked after word of the bombs was: did we pick up any “chatter” from al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups that would hint at this? Now we’re asking, did the Russian FSB (the successor to the KGB) pick up chatter from Chechen groups or other extremist networks in Russia, especially given the FSB’s already-established interest in Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of the two brothers involved in the Boston bombings?

Read the full article »

Authors

Fiona Hill

Publication: MSNBC

Ukraine at a Crossroads with Europe?

Steven Pifer — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:43:00 -0400

The Kyiv Security Forum, held in the Ukrainian capital on April 18-19, brought together Ukrainians, Europeans and Americans to discuss the current challenges facing Ukraine. Much of the discussion centered on Ukraine’s relationship with the European Union, in particular on whether Kyiv will make sufficient progress in meeting EU conditions to permit signature in November of an EU-Ukraine association agreement.

Several speakers asserted that Ukraine is at a crossroads with Europe. “Ukraine is at a crossroads” has been written or said so many times over the past 20 years that it has become something of a cliché. This time, however, it may be for real. The choices that Kyiv makes in the next weeks and months will determine whether Ukraine moves closer to Europe or whether the EU-Ukraine relationship gets stuck on hold.

EU and Ukrainian negotiators concluded the association agreement at the end of 2011. It would significantly deepen Ukraine’s links with the European Union. Among other things, it includes a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement that would open up large segments of the EU’s economy to Ukrainian exports. It is a big deal.

Although the association agreement was initialed in early 2012, it has since sat in limbo. The European Union has declined to sign given growing concerns over the past two years about negative developments regarding democracy within Ukraine.

EU officials have asked Kyiv to make progress on three conditions—implementation of its general reform agenda, reform of its electoral law, and an end to selective prosecution—in order to permit signature of the agreement at the EU Eastern Partnership summit in November. These conditions were reaffirmed at an EU-Ukraine summit in February, which called for “concrete progress” by May.

Many regard the third condition as the most critical. More than a dozen senior members of the opposition have been sent to jail since President Victor Yanukovych took office in 2010. Most attention focuses on the case of former prime minister Yuliya Tymoshenko. She was convicted in 2011 for signing a gas contract with Russia in a trial that received broad criticism in the West. The near unanimous view in European capitals and Washington holds that Tymoshenko is a victim of selective prosecution. On the day her conviction was announced, even Moscow joined in the barrage of condemnation of the verdict.

In the seven weeks since the EU-Ukraine summit, there has been good news and bad news. The good news: Yanukovych pardoned Yuriy Lutsenko, a leading opposition leader, along with one other opposition member.

The bad news: Serhiy Vlasenko, Tymoshenko’s lawyer, was stripped of his membership in the Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) on grounds that he could not hold his Rada seat and continue his legal work. Critics cite this as another selective application of the rules, as many Rada members, including in the pro-government Regions Party, hold outside jobs that would appear to contravene the rule. And more bad news: the Prosecutor General is pursing another case against Tymoshenko, alleging her involvement in the 1996 murder of businessman Yevhen Shcherban. Given the many questions about how the 2011 trial was conducted, few analysts have confidence that this legal process will be objective.

At the Kyiv Security Forum, several speakers made clear the key importance that Europe attaches to what happens to Tymoshenko. Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, Vice President of the European People’s Party—the European Parliamentary party with which Tymoshenko’s party is affiliated—took a stark position: Tymoshenko had to be released, or there would be no signature in November, and Ukraine would miss its window of opportunity with the European Union. EU Ambassador to Ukraine Jan Tombinski cautioned that Kyiv had to understand that the European Union only accepted democratic states that abided by the rule of law. European Parliament member Pawel Robert-Kowal warned that, even if the association agreement were signed, Ukraine had to demonstrate real progress, as the agreement would face the challenge of ratification by 27 individual EU member states.

During and on the margins of the conference, some Ukrainians expressed optimism that the Ukrainian government would take a positive step regarding Tymoshenko. Others doubted that Yanukovych would take any action on his archrival. Some expected the Ukrainian government to try to do the minimum necessary in order to argue that it had met the EU conditions and assert that freeing Lutsenko, but not Tymoshenko, should prove sufficient progress on the condition of selective prosecution.

Right now, EU member states appear to be split. Some, primarily in Central Europe and the Baltic region, do not want to delay signature of the association agreement over Tymoshenko. They fear that Ukraine might otherwise drift into Russia’s orbit.

Other EU member states, apparently now in the majority, believe Kyiv must do more to show its commitment to European democratic values. France and Germany lead this group. The fate of Tymoshenko has become a domestic issue in Germany, and Chancellor Angela Merkel said on April 17 that, “if the Yuliya Tymoshenko case is not settled, the association agreement cannot be signed.” Ukrainian diplomats understand that Berlin presents the toughest case to win over.

Although the European Union and Ukraine have agreed that concrete progress should be made by May, that might not prove a hard deadline for an EU decision on whether or not to sign the association agreement in November. Some in Kyiv believe a final EU decision could wait until later in the year, perhaps as late as October.

The question remains, regardless of when the European Union decides: will Ukraine do enough to secure signature? That may turn on Tymoshenko’s fate—and how badly Yanukovych wants the association agreement.

Neither Brussels nor Kyiv appear to have a Plan B in case the association agreement is not signed. In late March, Tombinski warned that, if the agreement were not signed in November, the press of other EU business in 2014 and the Ukrainian presidential election in 2015 would put Ukraine and the association agreement on the back-burner until late 2015. Another European diplomat recently suggested the delay would last until 2016.

Ukrainians do not want to think about what happens if the association agreement is not signed. But they expect a failure to sign to be warmly welcomed in Moscow, to be followed by a greater Russian push to draw Ukraine into the Customs Union that currently includes Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Yanukovych thus far has resisted joining the Customs Union. Doing so would be incompatible with a free trade agreement with the European Union and would essentially kill the association agreement—which is almost certainly Moscow’s objective.

So, Ukraine may indeed be facing a critical crossroads. It is one where the key choices are as much about Yanukovych’s domestic policy—how democracy will develop and how the opposition is treated—as they are about foreign policy. If Yanukovych makes the right choices, he will take an important step in integrating Ukraine into Europe. If he makes the wrong choices, he risks miring the country in a gray zone between Europe and Russia and having to face Moscow’s pressure with a severely weakened hand.

Editor's note: Steven Pifer, a senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe and a former ambassador to Ukraine, was in Ukraine April 18-20 to attend the Kyiv Security Forum.

Authors

Steven Pifer

Four Reasons Sens. Graham and McCain are Wrong about Military Detention for Dzhokar Tsarnaev

Benjamin Wittes — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 15:00:00 -0400

Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain were quick out of the box last night in declaring that the Obama administration should hold Dzhokar Tsarnaev in military detention for his role in the Boston bombing:

Now that the suspect is in custody, the last thing we should want is for him to remain silent. It is absolutely vital the suspect be questioned for intelligence gathering purposes. We need to know about any possible future attacks which could take additional American lives. The least of our worries is a criminal trial which will likely be held years from now.

Under the Law of War we can hold this suspect as a potential enemy combatant not entitled to Miranda warnings or the appointment of counsel. Our goal at this critical juncture should be to gather intelligence and protect our nation from further attacks.

We remain under threat from radical Islam and we hope the Obama Administration will seriously consider the enemy combatant option.

We will stand behind the Administration if they decide to hold this suspect as an enemy combatant.

Bobby quickly explained why this is both unnecessary and a bad idea; this very fine Wall Street Journal blog sketches out why it would pose legal problems as well. But the idea has had legs on Twitter, so I want to bring together in one place and explain the several distinct but overlapping reasons why it would be not merely ill-advised but absolutely nuts to try to treat Tsarnaev as an enemy combatant.

Broadly speaking, there are four reasons:

First and most important, Tsarnaev may not be an enemy combatant. Graham and McCain warn that “The accused perpetrators of these acts were not common criminals attempting to profit from a criminal enterprise, but terrorists trying to injure, maim, and kill innocent Americans.” That’s certainly true. But not every terrorist with a bomb is an enemy combatant whose military detention is authorized by law. Some are just killers with bombs. Under the AUMF as interpreted by the courts, and under the NDAA as passed by Congress, the administration is authorized to hold in military detention only those who are “part of” or “substantially supporting” Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces. Nothing that has come to light publicly has shown that Tsarnaev was operating as part of any group covered by the AUMF. Unless and until such evidence arises, military detention is not merely a bad idea. It is simply not legally available. Particularly for those of us who support military detention in appropriate circumstances and have argued for its propriety and legality, it is absolutely essential to reject it where the facts do not support it. Military detention does not flow legally from the fact of someone’s being more than just a common criminal. It flows from the fact of someone’s being a part of a military enemy’s fighting cadre. Calling for detention of people who don’t meet—or may not meet—that threshold comes perilously close to calling for a roving power to lock up nasty people.

Second, assuming for a moment that the facts as they emerge would support an enemy combatant designation, there’s the small matter of Tsarnaev’s citizenship. Tsarnaev is reportedly a naturalized American citizen, and the government’s appetite for the detention of American citizens under the laws of war has waned—and rightly so. This began under the Bush administration, which tried twice—in the early cases of Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla—to detain U.S. citizens under the laws of war and ultimately backed down both times. The question of whether such detention is legally appropriate for a U.S. citizen captured by law enforcement remains an open one. But it’s an open question that no sane executive would want to test in the presence of a viable alternative—like, say, an open-and-shut prosecution in federal court. As a matter of policy, it was informally off the table long ago, and the Obama administration made that informal policy formal. John Brennan, in a speech at Harvard Law School, declared:

when it comes to U.S. citizens involved in terrorist-related activity, whether they are captured overseas or at home, we will prosecute them in our criminal justice system. There is bipartisan agreement that U.S. citizens should not be tried by military commission.

Third, even if the reports of Tsarnaev’s citizenship prove erroneous, he was certainly captured in the United States, and the military detention of domestic captures is problematic for many of the same reasons that the detention of the citizen poses difficulties. Again, whether it is or is not legally available is an open question of law; this was the issue in the Al Marri case. But this is not a question of law that any administration should be eager to test. And just as it has adopted a policy of not testing the citizen detention question, the Obama administration has taken military detention off the table for domestic captures. As Brennan put it,

it is the firm position of the Obama Administration that suspected terrorists arrested inside the United States will—in keeping with long-standing tradition—be processed through our Article III courts. As they should be. Our military does not patrol our streets or enforce our laws—nor should it.

Fourth, even if all of these legal and policy problems could be overcome, as Bobby explained last night, military detention offers no clear advantages in this case and has several big disadvantages. The public safety exception to Miranda means the FBI has a considerable degree of flexibility in conducting this interrogation, so there’s no particular reason to expect the Bureau will be unable to glean from Tsarnaev the answers to the critical questions at stake right now: Are there accomplices still at large, and to what extent was the bombing the work of any foreign group? On the other hand, military detention would gravely complicate the longer-term interest in punishment and in Tsarnaev’s legitimate long-term incarceration. In the Hamdi and Padilla and Al Marri cases, the consequence of military detention was a substantially shorter sentence than the suspect’s conduct would have supported.

In short, there is simply no case for military detention here. By pushing for it, Sens. Graham and McCain risk bringing into disrepute the one avenue realistically open to those who want answers and justice.

***

This was reposted from Lawfare, where Wittes and others have been following the situation surrounding the Boston bombing. You can read more on the Lawfare Blog »

Authors

Benjamin Wittes

Al Qaeda is Probably Pleased with Boston Bombing

Bruce Riedel — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:40:00 -0400

The two Chechen immigrants apparently responsible for the terror attack on the Boston Marathon may never have had any contact with al Qaeda—or even a single member of al Qaeda—but they are likely soon to be lauded as “heroes” of the global jihad.

It is much too soon to come to any hard conclusions about the motives and intentions of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the alleged perpetrators, but it is not too soon to understand how al Qaeda and associated jihadists see the Chechen struggle against Russia in the context of their own ideology and narrative. Al Qaeda has long seen the Chechen struggle as part of the global war between Islam and its enemies. For the extremists who run al Qaeda and related movements, Russia’s actions in Chechnya are no different than Israeli actions in Gaza, French actions in Mali, or American actions in Afghanistan. All are allegedly part of a global conspiracy against Islam that ranges from the Caucasus to Kashmir to Bali.

In an audio message issued less than two weeks ago, Ayman Zawahiri, the Egyptian leader of al Qaeda and its chief ideologue, said the greatest enemies of Islam are the “biggest criminals in Washington, Moscow and Tel Aviv.” Thus Zawahiri lumped American, Russia and Israel together as the enemies of Muslims everywhere.

For Zawahiri and his predecessor, Osama bin Laden, this argument that Islam is under siege by a global conspiracy is nothing new. Zawahiri and bin Laden began their careers fighting in Afghanistan against the Russians. The Chechen struggle against Russia is for them only a continuation of that war and indeed of the Central Asian and Caucasian Muslims’ struggle against Tsars, Commissars, and now Putin that goes back to the 18th century. Zawahiri himself was briefly arrested in Russia in the mid-1990s, apparently while he was actively assisting the Chechen insurgency. Bin Laden encouraged Saudis to go to Chechnya to fight Russia.

For angry young Muslims radicalized by what has happened in their own homeland, the al Qaeda narrative provides an explanation for a bigger struggle that involves not just their own country but the entire Muslim world. At the same time it also gives them more targets for their anger. If an angry Chechen cannot attack a Russian target, then a soft target in his own city in America or Europe—a marathon or another public space—is an easier target.

Al Qaeda has been encouraging just such attacks for the last several years. The Yemeni American Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by a drone strike in 2011, articulated it in the English language web magazine he helped create, called Inspire, that also printed simple manuals for how to build a bomb in your family kitchen. The attempt by a Pakistani American, Faysal Shahzad, to blow up a car bomb in Times Square in May 2010 (which was foiled by NYPD at the last minute), was an early example of this kind of small but devastating attack. Shahzad has now become a hero in the al Qaeda narrative even though he failed in his attempt.

Whether al Qaeda had any role – direct or indirect by the internet – in the radicalization of these two men, it is likely to revel in the results of their attacks in Boston. While the attack was nowhere near the magnitude of 9/11, it has consumed the American media and political scene for almost a week so far, led to the unprecedented lockdown of an entire American city, and sent the White House itself into enhanced security.

Americans have every right to ask: Why do they hate us? Americans are not responsible for the ugly civil war in Chechnya, or the horrendous terrorist attacks carried out by Chechen terrorists in Moscow and other Russian cities. Unfortunately the global jihadist movement and its violent ideology doesn’t see the differences that we rightly see. For according to the narrative of Ayman Zawahiri, Islam is under attack from every direction, and the jihadist answer is to strike back in New York, Madrid, London, Toulouse—and now Boston.

Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: The Daily Beast

The Unfolding Situation with the Boston Marathon Bombing Suspects

Benjamin Wittes — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 10:35:00 -0400

One quick thought on the unfolding situation in the Boston suburbs...where one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects is dead and the other is on murderous rampage: It is very important that the remaining suspect be taken alive.

The New York Times has identified the two suspects as Chechen brothers, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26—the latter of whom is apparently dead. The most important thing, of course, is to apprehend and stop the remaining suspect before anyone else is killed or hurt. That may require the use of lethal force, and the state and federal law enforcement officers who are dealing with this situation will use their best judgment as to how to protect the public—and themselves.

But it is critically important to understand what, if any, connection these suspects have both to overseas terrorist groups and to domestic folks not yet tied to the bombing, and that project will be far easier if the surviving Mr. Tsarnaev is not killed. The question is important both for obvious reasons—if some group is attacking the United States, we need to understand with maximum precision who that is and who is involved—and for less obvious legal reasons: Is this a home-grown terrorist problem that’s purely a matter of criminal law? Is this a feature of the US’s existing armed conflict with Al Qaeda and its associated forces? Or is this some new overseas terrorist threat—an extra-AUMF threat—against the United States playing out in the streets of Cambridge and Watertown? Or is this an example of a blurry line between categories? The chance to interrogate a Mr. Tsarnaev who can still talk is the quickest and easiest way to answer these questions.

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This was reposted from Lawfare, where Ben Wittes is following the situation in the Boston suburbs. You can read more on the Lawfare Blog »

Authors

Benjamin Wittes

Publication: Lawfare

From Chechnya to Boston: Bombing Suspects and a Trail of Homegrown Radicalism and Terror

Fiona Hill — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:00:00 -0400

Two young men—brothers Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev with origins in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus regions—have been connected to this week’s bomb attacks at the Boston Marathon. They lived, for a time, in Dagestan, which is recognized as the epicenter of the Islamic insurgency that spilled over from Chechnya. Senior Fellow Fiona Hill, director of the Center on the United States and Europe, says Chechnya and Russia have spent centuries at war and it isn’t surprising that this conflict, which has spanned generations, would provide fertile ground to incite and radicalize sympathizers wherever they happen to live.

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From Chechnya to Boston: A Trail of Homegrown Radicalism and Terror

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From Chechnya to Boston: A Trail of Homegrown Radicalism and Terror

Authors

Fiona Hill