Tuesday’s meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Sochi, Russia, was the result of a recent phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to Lavrov, both heads of state directed to their subordinates to intensify the dialogue between their two countries.
The agenda was anchored in arms control and nuclear issues, but it covered the globe, where the U.S. and Russia are oftentimes coming down on opposite sides of the issues.
Some experts have criticized the Administration’s strategy of engaging with Russia’s senior leaders, saying it gives them too much credit on a world stage, for wielding more power than they actually have and not appearing tough enough on issues like Russian meddling in U.S. elections.
The Cipher Brief spoke with expert Dan Hoffman, who is a former CIA Chief of Station, about the U.S. strategy and how effective it may or may not be in keeping Russia in check.
The Cipher Brief: What did the U.S. get out of this meeting?
Hoffman: I'm not among those people who think that the U.S. shouldn't be engaging with Russia. It's true that Russia wants to be perceived to be playing on the world stage and equal to the United States. They want the world to think that the U.S. can't solve any problem on its own. All the hotspots you ticked off, Venezuela, Iran, Syria, North Korea, China ... that the U.S. can't solve those problems without Russia. They want to appear to be indispensable so they wield greater influence, and influence in terms of the decisions that are made. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be talking to them.
We’ve got kind of a Venn diagram relationship with Russia where we've got some shaded space, things that we actually need to work together on that include arms control and counter-terrorism. There is also some unshaded space that includes their espionage operations and aggressive military activity throughout the world, starting with their own region, Ukraine, Georgia. There is some gray area where we may be able to find some common ground to our advantage, and potentially even to theirs, too.
For example, China. Russia and the United States have interest in the Arctic. We'd both like to exclude China from predatory behavior. We also share with Russia concern over China's One Belt, One Road initiative. Russia's President Vladimir Putin has made public statements about that and has been critical of Chinese influence in central Eurasia.
And then lastly, the stated reason for the meeting was over arms control. The Chinese don't want any part in that for understandable reasons. That may not go anywhere, but the idea of the U.S. playing Russia off of China - that's diplomacy. That's what Secretary Pompeo should be doing, trying to drive a wedge between those two countries.
Remember in the 1970s when the U.S. established relations with China? That was as much about China wanting relations with the U.S. as it was a counterbalance to the Soviet Union. Right now, Russia and China see the world the same with their efforts to establish cyber-sovereignty and attack human rights in their own countries and all over the world, but it doesn't mean that we should allow them to have that alliance without associated costs. I think that's part of what Secretary Pompeo was doing.
The Cipher Brief: Both sides agreed that there is interest in normalizing dialogue, and both sides came away saying that they had agreed to rebuild channels of communication. How do those channels of communication remain open when you have the U.S. Intelligence apparatus saying Russia interfered in the 2016 election and is likely to try and do the same in 2020?
Hoffman: There are always going to be domestic partisan issues over Russian interference in the U.S. election. That isn't ever going to be entirely separated from U.S. foreign policy towards Russia. But it doesn't mean that the U.S. shouldn't be engaging with Russia and seeking to get as much benefit as it can from that relationship. Like it or not, even though Russia has an economy the size of Italy's, they do wield some influence. Winston Churchill said that being jaw to jaw in conversation, is better than being in war. And he's right.
The Cipher Brief: Lavrov said that allegations that Russia was involved in collusion and election interference in the United States were “fake”. Pompeo responded by saying, "We've communicated to Russia that there are some tangible steps they can take that will demonstrate publicly that the era of interfering in U.S. domestic politics is a thing of the past." What are the tangible steps that they could take?
Hoffman: None. They're not taking any steps. They never have, never will. But that's okay. When Secretary Pompeo says that, he knows the Russians won't take any steps. We shouldn't expect it. But he's putting them on notice and saying, "We know you did it. Now you can expect us to hit you back." That's the implication. “When you complain, please don't complain to us about how we hit you back with our Cyber Command or whatever else we choose to do, because you asked for it.” That's what defending, and deterring, and countering Russian nefarious aggression is all about.
As far as what Lavrov is doing, he's trying to cast dispersions on the Department of Justice and the FBI, which are major threats to Russia since they defend us from Russia's offensive espionage operations against our people and our installations. He's saying, "We didn't do anything." So, he's criticizing, essentially, the Department of Justice and Robert Mueller and his team. He's clearly trying to target them. It's also that classic kind of a wink and a nod, we didn't do it but, wink and a nod, you know we did it. They don't admit officially that they do these things, even though Vladimir Putin is sitting in the Kremlin with the Cheshire grin.
They wouldn't have bought ads on Facebook with rubles or put a Kremlin return address on all their cyber operations from the Internet Research Agency run by Vladimir Putin's ship, if they didn't want us to know about it.
The one point I would add about all of this, that I find fascinating, is that the Mueller report is right. It echoes what the DNI said about the Russians supporting then-candidate Trump and disparaging Secretary Clinton, but that all happened in a discoverable way. The Russians wanted us to know that they were seeking to support the candidacy of Donald Trump. I'm not so sure that that ultimately helps the candidate.
We don't know how much of an impact the Russian interference had. We can speculate, but I don't know that we'll ever be able to determine that. But what Putin wanted to do was just insert that virus into our political system, and I think with Lavrov's not-so-believable denials, they feel like they're just adding a little bit of throw weight, maybe. And they just don't comment on their spy operations, which is their tradition.
The Cipher Brief: There are obviously multiple current issues that bring the U.S. and Russia together in some way right now. Iran is one. Obviously with the tension that we see building in Venezuela, that’s another. How do you see those issues playing out over time?
Hoffman: We don't share a whole lot of anything in common when it comes to Iran and Venezuela. North Korea, the Russians have actually implemented some sanctions which has been helpful. And let's keep in mind that Iran and Russia have been historical competitors and are certainly long-term competitors.
The Russians are benefiting from a rise in oil prices because of the Iranian oil that's not being exported, and they're benefiting because they can blame the U.S. for it. So they're actually not too upset with that state of affairs. I would argue that they have a short-term kind of Machiavellian engagement alliance with the Iranians. But again, they're long-term rivals in that region, and then they'll go back to being rivals, just like Russia and China are long-term rivals. That's why it's important for the U.S. to have these conversations and be prepared to drive a wedge between the alliances of our enemies.
Read also Russia's Global Ambitions, a Cipher Brief Members-Only Briefing with Steve Hall
