As U.S.-Russia tensions escalate, the sharply deteriorating bilateral relationship between the former Cold War foes may be at an inflection point.
Experts say that in the wake of a flurry of public statements, accusations, and nixed arms control agreements last week, the United States and Russia have hit another low in a period of terrible diplomatic relations.
“If you wrap all these together, the Russians are clearly trying to show they’re back, they’re a great power, and they can project force beyond their borders,” William Courtney, an adjunct senior fellow at the nonpartisan RAND Corporation and a retired U.S. ambassador to Georgia and Kazakhstan, said.
Last week, Russia suspended a nuclear disarmament deal with the United States on disposing weapons-grade plutonium, saying in a statement that the decision to nix it stemmed from “a drastic change in circumstances, the appearance of a threat to strategic stability due to unfriendly actions of the United States toward Russia.” Due to sanctions imposed on Russia over Ukraine, Moscow also said it would be shelving a nuclear energy research agreement and ending another one on uranium conversion.
“Clearly the suspension of the agreement is just a further escalation of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s confrontation with the U.S. and the West in general. It’s not surprising,” Michael Sulick, former director of CIA's National Clandestine Service and a Russia expert, said. “But this latest move kind of enters a new dimension by crossing the nuclear red line, if you will, because despite a number of foreign policy disagreements in the past, these nuclear nonproliferation treaties appeared untouchable.”
Jeffrey Mankoff, deputy director and senior fellow with the CSIS Russia and Eurasia Program, agreed, saying that “symbolically it’s important just because it’s one of the areas going back to the beginning of the post-Cold War period that was touted as an area where the two countries can cooperate.”
Breaking off these agreements “would indicate we’re in a period where things are even worse than they have been in other periods where there has been increased tension,” he added.
And on Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry warned it would shoot down any aircraft attacking pro-government forces. That comes on top of the recent failed ceasefire effort in Syria, where strained tensions between Russia and the United States are most pronounced.
According to Steven Hall, a former senior CIA officer, the Russians have the United States “pretty much exactly where they want us on Syria.”
“I actually think that they’re being bold enough to say, 'look, we’ll shoot you down if you go after (Syrian President Bashar) Assad positions' is reflective of the fact they realize in Syria there is nothing to lose by doing that,” said Hall, who retired from the CIA in 2015 and spent much of his career overseeing intelligence operations in the countries of the former Soviet Union and the former Warsaw Pact.
“There’s no reason they can’t dictate terms right now in Syria,” he added.
On Sunday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russian state TV that “we have witnessed a fundamental change of circumstances when it comes to the aggressive Russophobia that now lies at the heart of U.S. policy towards Russia. It's not just a rhetorical Russophobia, but aggressive steps that really hurt our national interests and pose a threat to our security.”
Meanwhile, the United States on Friday officially accused Russia of the hacks targeting the Democratic Party, with a joint statement from the the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security saying the intelligence community is “confident” the Russian government directed the hacks.
“These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process. … We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities,” the statement reads.
The hacking “seems to be part of a larger application of active measures,” Courtney noted.
This “seems to be related in part to an effort to show that Russia’s back and ‘we’re a player, we’re going to intimidate the West and cause confusion in the West,’” Courtney, who also served as special assistant to the President for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, said. “They want to show that elections are rigged in the West, implying that whatever elections are in Russia are no worse than in the West.”
“The souring in the relationship and the amplified active measures kind of correlate really well,” he added.
And earlier that day, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry also called for Russia to face a war crimes investigation for its actions in Syria.
As the United States moves closer to election day — and seemingly further from the potential of a Russia-friendly candidate in Republican nominee Donald Trump — and the subsequent transition period in Washington, Mankoff said Moscow is likely to take advantage of what it perceives as a key period of opportunity. Given that the Kremlin perceives the Obama administration as weak and feckless and the presumed Hillary Clinton administration is going to be aggressive, “I would not be terribly surprised to see surprises,” Mankoff said.
Hall agreed, saying that there are “a set of windows the Russians are always looking for when they can have the maximum impact to get the U.S. and West into the position they want.”
U.S. presidents and their senior advisers have historically “come in with, ‘this is our time, we’re going to do this,’ and Putin and his guys know it, and they manipulate it. And they do it artfully,” he said.
Tensions between the United States and Russia show no sign of abating, especially as Syria and political hacking dominate the news and the country’s military intervention in Ukraine and simmering issues with NATO continue to impact the relationship. Even with relations at such a low, strained point, Russia’s effort to be seen as a great power may be an attempt to set the terms of upcoming negotiations with the next U.S. president.
“For all the talk that we’re back in the Cold War — and I do think there is a new paradigm compared to where we were before 2014 — that said, there’s going to be a diplomatic relationship. To some extent what’s happening now is about positioning for when those negotiations happen,” Mankoff said.
According to Sulick, an “existential fear of democracy underpins all of Putin’s foreign policy moves.” The Slavophile philosophy Putin has embraced sees Russia as a divinely ordained nation, as the moral bulwark against the decadent West and believes that “democracy leads to mob rule,” he noted.
Combining that understanding with the idea that Russia is trying to restore and shore up its superpower status is key to understanding the country’s moves in the context of its relationship with the United States and the West, he said.
Russia’s aggressive foreign policy stems from its very specific worldview, according to Hall.
“What it really is and what it has always been all about is Russia being a great power. This is their ideological fight, and they believe the West is trying to take advantage of them and trying to abuse them,” he said.
Mackenzie Weinger is a national security reporter at The Cipher Brief.
