Battlegrounds Page 7
While threatening nuclear war, Russia demonstrated how its offensive cyber capabilities threatened the United States and its allies. Prior to its attack on the 2016 U.S. election, Russia conducted malicious cyber intrusions targeting U.S. critical infrastructure.62 The Kremlin had already revealed its capabilities overseas. On Christmas Eve 2015, the lights went out in Eastern Ukraine, affecting more than two hundred thousand people. It was the first time that a cyber attack switched off a nation’s power grid. As the Russians were turning off the lights in Ukraine and hacking the Democratic National Committee, they inserted malicious code into American water and electric systems, as they had attempted to do earlier at U.S. nuclear power plants.63 Like the nuclear strategy of escalation control, Russian cyber threats to infrastructure are meant to intimidate and deter the United States and other NATO allies from responding to Russian aggression against a member of the alliance.
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ECONOMIC COERCION through dependence on Russian energy is another powerful tool of Putin’s, as it augments the threats from Russia’s conventional, nuclear, and cyber capabilities. The countries that gained independence from Soviet control after the demise of the Warsaw Pact and the dissolution of the Soviet Union are particularly vulnerable because they inherited a transportation and energy infrastructure that depends on Moscow. Moscow demonstrated in Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan that it will restrict access to energy supplies or use energy pricing tactics to coerce target countries. In 2010, Russia forced Ukraine to grant a twenty-five-year extension of the lease to its Black Sea Fleet’s base in Crimea, one of the bases Russia used to annex Crimea by force years later. Moscow used economic coercion to convince Kyrgyzstan and Armenia to join the Eurasian Economic Union, an organization designed to compete with the European Union and extend Russia’s influence over former Soviet territory.64
Even Germany made itself vulnerable through policy choices that eliminated alternative sources to Russian natural gas. Shameless corruption played a role. In 2005, during his final months as chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder gained approval for a multibillion-dollar Nord Stream pipeline project with the Russian state gas company, Gazprom, to transport gas from Russia to Germany. Soon after he left office, Schroeder became chairman of the pipeline shareholders’ committee. In April 2017, Nord Stream II AG, the developer of the pipeline, signed a deal for a second pipeline under the Baltic Sea called Nord Stream 2 that will double the amount of gas being transported from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea. The pipeline not only deepens Germany’s dependence, but also punishes Ukraine, which will lose up to $2 billion a year in transit fees, or 1.5 percent of its GDP. The pipeline also denies transit fees to other NATO and European Union members, including Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary. The Polish government deemed the pipeline a “hybrid weapon” born of Moscow and intended to divide the European Union and NATO.65 In early 2020, the U.S. Congress placed sanctions on companies completing Nord Stream 2 in an effort to “stop construction.” It was too little too late, however, as the pipeline was nearing completion. The sanctions succeeded mainly in souring relations between the United States and Germany.
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GERMANY IS the most prosperous and powerful nation in Europe, which makes it a particularly attractive target for Putin—for weakening Europe is the priority in Putin’s effort to break apart the post–Cold War order and reestablish Russia as a great power. Indeed, the continent remains the principal battleground for RNGW’s combination of disinformation, denial, disruptive technology, and dependence to sow division and exhaust the will of European nations, the EU, and NATO.
Writing about the period between the world wars, the diplomat and historian George Kennan observed that Soviet diplomacy depended not on the “strength of their ideas,” but on “the weakness of the Western community itself: from the spiritual exhaustion of the Western people.”66 Although the challenges Europe faced in the 2000s paled in comparison to the trauma of the First World War, they were sufficient to generate spiritual weariness if not spiritual exhaustion. At the end of the Cold War, Europe celebrated freedom from Soviet domination and Communist totalitarianism, but as newly freed peoples confronted practical problems such as inefficient agriculture and tired industries, solidarity based in newfound freedom slowly gave way to economic concerns and a tendency to take their rights for granted.67
To diminish confidence in the European Union, the Kremlin exploited events, magnifying crises such as the global financial crisis of 2008; the European financial crisis in 2015 that strained the euro; the refugee crisis from 2011 onward associated with the civil war in Syria and violence from Afghanistan to North Africa to the Maghreb; Britain’s referendum to exit the European Union in 2016; the gilets jaunes (“yellow vest”) movement in France in 2019, and the rise over several years of nativist, secessionist, and Euroskeptic political parties in Spain, Hungary, Italy, and Poland.68 The weakening of Europe began well before the turn of this century, however. Economic internationalism of the 1990s affected Europe as well as the United States. Factories moved to cheap labor markets, and many citizens were left behind by the transforming global economy and growing income inequality.69 As the promise of free-market capitalism at the end of the Cold War confronted the realities of lost jobs and income disparity, skepticism of the European Union grew. The Union expanded rapidly, growing from twelve countries to twenty-eight between 1995 and 2013. As the introduction of the euro moved monetary policy away from the states and EU bureaucracy and regulations grew, so did sentiment across the Continent that “faceless” men and women in Brussels, including the 732 elected members of the European Parliament, were usurping national sovereignty. Skepticism of the European Parliament and unbounded globalization gave rise to populist parties that polarized European politics and created opportunities for Russia to weaken NATO and the European Union.
Strained transatlantic relations between the United States and Europe created still more opportunities for Russia. The Atlantic alliance was adrift for much of the post–Cold War era. Although Europe supported the United States after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, many Europeans opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and opposition to that war grew in ensuing years. After President Barack Obama continued to withdraw the bulk of U.S. forces from Europe and violence spread across the greater Middle East, centered on the rise of ISIS and the civil war in Syria, some Europeans blamed U.S. precipitous disengagement for emboldening Russia and exacerbating crises. When President Obama declared his desire to pivot toward Asia, many Europeans concluded that he was turning his back on seven decades of transatlantic partnership. Then, in 2016, Republican candidate for president Donald Trump professed profound skepticism about NATO, suggesting that the alliance was “obsolete.” He described the European Union as a competitor rather than a union of allies and like-minded nations that shared democratic principles. After President Trump took office in January 2017, his revival of the “America First” slogan seemed to herald disengagement from Europe and the abandonment of American leadership of the postwar international order. President Trump’s sudden decision in October 2019 to withdraw U.S. special operations forces from northeastern Syria surprised NATO allies and put their forces in a precarious position. Those allies saw the lack of consultation as an example of diminished U.S. commitment to NATO and Europe. Soon thereafter, French president Emmanuel Macron described the European Union as on “the edge of a precipice,” noting that the combination of Great Britain’s impending departure from the Union and the EU’s internal divisions could make it “disappear geopolitically.” He also partly blamed Trump for the Union’s struggles, saying that the U.S. president “doesn’t share our idea of the European project.” At the end of 2019, after starting a new diplomatic initiative with Russia, Macron stated that NATO was experiencing “brain death” and asked rhetorically how Turkey could remain a member of the alliance and still purchase sophisticated defense systems from Russia.70
Putin, of course, t
ook advantage of tensions among European nations and between the United States and Europe. Indeed, in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, he has been undeterred due to a lack of unity among these allies, to diminished confidence among them, and to their failure to impose costs on the Kremlin sufficient to force Putin to abandon his playbook. Putin’s perception of Europe as weak, combined with the unenforced red line in Syria in 2013, almost certainly contributed to his 2014 decision to annex Crimea and invade Eastern Ukraine. Perceived European impotence and American reluctance probably contributed to other Kremlin decisions, such as attacking elections in Europe and the United States, the Skripal poisoning in the United Kingdom, and support for Assad’s use of chemical weapons to commit mass murder in Syria. Despite sanctions on Putin’s regime and the Russian defense industry, Nord Stream 2 was a reminder of how Russia could extend its influence in Europe despite egregious violations of international law and infringements on European sovereignty. While subverting Europe politically, Russia was rewarded financially and gained coercive economic influence.
Russia’s appearance of strength, however, belied significant weaknesses that cut across its economy, demographics, public health, and social services. As former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright has observed, Putin’s Russia played a poor hand well.71 The United States and its allies, particularly in Europe, played a much better hand poorly. Or, as the Stanford professor of international relations Kathryn Stoner pointed out to me, understanding the game that is being played is more important than the face value of the cards a player holds. Understanding the Kremlin’s strategy and the fear, sense of lost honor, and ambitions that drove its actions is the first step in parrying Putin’s playbook and protecting our free and open societies.
Chapter 2
Parrying Putin’s Playbook
A country that does not respect the rights of its own people will not respect the rights of its neighbors.
—ANDREI SAKHAROV
THE UNITED States and Europe were ill-prepared for Russia’s toxic combination of disinformation, denial, dependence, and disruptive technologies. Responses to the Kremlin’s sustained campaigns of subversion not only were slow and inadequate, but also tended to aid and abet those who sowed dissention and division. In her November 21 testimony before the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, Dr. Fiona Hill observed that “when we are consumed by partisan rancor, we cannot combat these external forces as they seek to divide us against each other, to degrade our institutions and destroy the faith of the American people in our democracy.”1 When we are considering how best to counter Russian aggression, Hill’s admonishment is the best starting point. Putin seeks to divide; Americans and Europeans should not divide themselves. Putin employs disinformation; Americans and Europeans should restore trusted sources of information. Putin cultivates dependencies; Americans and Europeans should depend more on each other and like-minded nations. Putin employs disruptive technologies to compensate for Russia’s weaknesses; Americans and Europeans should counter those efforts and maintain their considerable competitive advantage. The United States and European nations should be confident.
When I met Patrushev in Geneva, the combination of fear and injured pride was palpable. He appeared tough, but his was the kind of toughness that comes from bitter disappointment, in his case, in a system he had spent his whole life defending. The Soviet Union was corrupt to its core, but Patrushev had been taught to look—from the inequality in a system that professed egalitarianism; from the brutality that belied the Soviet concept of social justice for workers as a fraud; and from the cynical patriarchy in the Stalinist order that during and after World War II killed six million of its people and put approximately one million others in barbaric prisons in which many more perished.2 Patrushev’s long face carried his disappointment and anger over the collapse of the corrupt system he had worked so hard to perpetuate. And since 2000, he had joined Putin in an effort to recreate that system—but not exactly. He, Putin, and the Siloviki dropped all pretense of egalitarianism, doubling down on nationalism and pride in Mother Russia. And they added a strong dose of greed, as both Putin and Patrushev became personally wealthy at the top of their corrupt system. Blaming the United States for their failings became a habit, and competition with the United States and Europe was necessary to distract the Russian people from those failings. It was also natural. Putin, Patrushev, and the Siloviki define themselves and their system, as they did during the Cold War, based on a perceived threat from the West.3
Because the Kremlin’s base motivation is unlikely to change while Putin is in power, the United States, its allies, and like-minded partners must parry Putin’s playbook and, in particular, its critical components of disinformation, denial, dependence, and the use of disruptive technology. Because the Kremlin’s objective is to divide and weaken the United States and Europe from within, defeating Putin’s sophisticated strategy will require strategic competence and a concerted effort to restore confidence in democratic principles, institutions, and processes.
Putin’s aggressive behavior and Patrushev’s tough demeanor mask Russia’s underlying vulnerability and diminishing power relative to the United States and Europe. In 2019, Russia’s GDP was roughly equivalent to that of the state of Texas and smaller than Italy’s.4 After Russia’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine, NATO countries finally increased defense spending. Excluding the United States, their combined $299 billion budget in 2019 compared favorably to Russia’s 2018 defense budget of $61.4 billion. The U.S. defense budget alone was eleven times larger, at $685 billion in 2019.5 But although Europe and the United States enjoy tremendous comparative advantages over Russia, parrying Putin’s playbook requires mobilizing those advantages and remediating vulnerabilities that the Kremlin exploits.
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AFTER TWO decades of Putin’s rule, Russian aggression itself may be most effective at restoring trust in democratic principles and institutions. As the historian and author Timothy Garton Ash observed in 2019, Europe recognizes that it faces an existential threat of disintegration, “like the prospect of death, that concentrates minds.”6 Concentrating minds might lead to the abandonment of flawed assumptions that have, in the past, masked the growing threat. Because of flawed assumptions, the United States and its European allies, in spite of all good intentions, have allowed and, at times, encouraged Russian aggression.
I return here to the idea of strategic narcissism, for America’s failure to develop an effective response to Russian aggression was based in it and, in particular, in a kind of wishful thinking: that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian leaders would accept the status quo. Multiple U.S. administrations neglected the emotional drivers behind Putin’s actions. Even after the pattern of Russian attacks and subversion of European nations was undeniable, over-optimism about prospects for change in Russian policy delayed effective responses.
Nearly eight years before I met Nikolai Patrushev in Geneva, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met her counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in that same city. Only seven months had passed since Russia’s invasion of Georgia, the first war in history in which cyber attacks were used in combination with a military offensive and a sustained disinformation campaign. Clinton presented Mr. Lavrov with a “reset button” meant to symbolize a fresh start in the relationship. She described her reset attempt as “a very effective meeting of the minds” that she hoped might lead to “more trust, predictability, and progress.”7 Optimism about the reset policy grew as work progressed on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which reduced the number of strategic nuclear missile launchers by half and limited the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads. Also positive was Russian support for the expansion of a Northern Distribution Network to supply U.S. troops in Afghanistan and new sanctions on Iran. In March 2012, President Obama was caught on an open microphone whispering to Russian president Dmitry Medvedev—Putin would return to the presidency from the
position of prime minister two months later—that he would have “more flexibility” after the U.S. presidential election in November of that year. Obama was referring to the potential for a new arms agreement, but his comment also communicated to Medvedev a willingness to overlook Russia’s transgressions in the interest of making progress on that and other priorities.8 Seven months later, during his reelection campaign for president, Obama mocked his opponent, Senator Mitt Romney, for describing Russia as a geopolitical foe: “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back. Because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”9
Over-optimism led to complacency as the Obama administration pursued a Russia policy based on its hopes to work with the Kremlin rather than the needs to deter and defend against Russian aggression. Those hopes soon vanished when Russia annexed Crimea, invaded Ukraine, intervened in Syria, hacked the Clinton campaign and the DNC, and attacked the 2016 presidential election. In the 2000s, as the Russian threat grew more complex and sophisticated, the United States wrongly assumed that Russia’s goals aligned with those of the United States. It believed that diplomatic efforts could bring the Kremlin in from the cold to join the community of responsible nations and abandon its disruptive behavior. Psychologists define optimism bias as the tendency of those beginning a treatment to believe in the success of the treatment even if the result is uncertain. President Obama and Secretary Clinton were not the first to succumb to optimism bias and wishful thinking while pursuing improved relations with Russia, nor would they be the last.
In the summer of 2001, President George W. Bush met with President Vladimir Putin and reported that “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul; a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country. And I appreciate so very much the frank dialogue.”10 Putin’s talent for deception and manipulation was on full display as he told President Bush a fabricated story about how he had saved from a fire in a dacha a cherished Russian Orthodox cross given to him by his mother and worn around his neck. As he would later do with the Clinton Foundation and the Trump organizations, he tried to do a favor for President Bush by arranging a lucrative job in a Russian oil company for one of Bush’s friends.11 By the end of his second term, Bush was forced to revise his assessment of Putin. In August 2008, as both presidents were in the receiving line to greet Chairman Xi Jinping at the opening of the Beijing Olympics, Russian forces were invading Georgia.