As Donald Trump prepares to take office, one of his earliest—and most important— foreign policy decisions will be how to move forward with the United States’ bilateral relationship with Russia. Will he pursue something along the lines of Obama’s reset or take a firmer stance? Given the president-elect’s opaque statements on the matter, The Cipher Brief spoke to CNA research scientist and Woodrow Wilson Center fellow Michael Kofman to examine how the incoming administration can employ a cohesive, long-lasting strategy for Russia.
The Cipher Brief: As the dust settles around the revelations of the level of Russian involvement in the DNC hacks and the Obama administration’s announcement of further sanctions on Russia, the incoming Trump administration will inherit a bilateral relationship at its lowest point since the Cold War. How will the new Administration set the tone for the U.S.-Russia relationship?
Michael Kofman: The Trump Administration needs to avoid high profile meetings for the sake of meetings, or resetting the tone without any substantive accomplishments. At the very least it would be imprudent, given the U.S. national security establishment’s policy consensus on Russia ranging from hostile to outright confrontational. The resulting narrative will be that the administration is being played, releasing Russia from political and diplomatic pressure, in exchange for nothing.
The first priority should be to get people in place that will manage Russia policy, as more often than not, people are policy in Washington, D.C. Then, this administration must determine its global priorities to decide not only how to redress the escalating confrontation with Moscow, but also how Russia can contribute to, or spoil, policy interests elsewhere, be it in the Middle East or Asia-Pacific region.
TCB: Following the new sanctions and the expulsion of Russian diplomats, Putin stated he would respond after seeing “the policy pursued by the administration of D. Trump.” Does the Trump administration have a first-mover advantage on this issue?
MK: No. We have not had a first move advantage over Russia at any point since February 2014, and we should expect Russia to continue setting the agenda. The reality is that the policy establishment will not permit Trump to set a positive agenda with Moscow, even if he wanted to do so, all while Russia excels at outmaneuvering Washington, D.C. This is in part because they're much more agile, but also because our bureaucracy is largely devoid of strategies on how to deal with Russia, and remarkably unimaginative. Therefore, they will have the first move and I suspect their winning streak will continue into 2017.
Moscow already responded to the expulsion of diplomats, in a characteristically Russian way – by not retaliating, as a parting indignity to the Obama administration. They have pocketed this victory, and at the same time avoided measures that would help domestic U.S. political forces in their efforts to "box in" the Trump administration on Russia policy. Revelations from our intelligence community on Russian hacking, which I think were important for the public record, have come late, and the entire matter was poorly managed. Frankly the tepid U.S. response has only validated the effectiveness of this tool for Moscow, and the subsequent political fallout at home has also been in the service of Russian interests. So why should they respond further?
TCB: In dealing with Russia and Putin, will it be possible for the new administration to engage on some issues and take a hard stance on others? Or is dealing with Russia under Putin an all-or-nothing proposition?
MK: With a power like Russia, it has never been an all-or-nothing proposition but the U.S. has failed to take them seriously in the past. This, in part, led to a terrible lack of judgment in the issues we chose to tackle. Russia is not an irrelevancy in the international system, destined to disappear or close up shop, and can prove a powerful spoiler to U.S. interests, as the Bush administration discovered. It is also not possible to work with another major power under the rubric of engaging on issues of interest to yourself, but not taking seriously any of their core interests – at least not for very long. That was in large measure the Obama administration's approach, and despite present day criticism, they successfully engaged with Russia on a checklist of issues that were chiefly U.S. policy interests.
During the ‘reset’ the Obama administration achieved catastrophic success in just three years. Having gained Russian cooperation on many U.S. policy priorities, that administration largely exhausted the positive agenda, all while Moscow realized that key elements of U.S. foreign policy were not going to change, and the cooperative agenda achieved little for their primary concerns.
This is their perception and therefore, their reality. They have now made it our reality in Ukraine and Syria. Russia's national security elite, after 16 years in power, does not believe that a grand bargain with the U.S. is possible. It would be the triumph of hope over experience, and their experience has taught them otherwise. Today the "all" proposition is off the table.
The Trump administration must choose its battles wisely and not fall victim to the predilections of Washington, D.C., which seeks to contest Russia everywhere, but has yet to produce any victories. The proximate causes of the present day confrontation must be addressed, namely the conflict in Ukraine and our sanctions, which are formally linked.
The goal should be stabilization, not reconciliation. On the "original sin" that cannot be forgiven — the annexation of Crimea — we will have to take a hard stance. However, it should not be a spoiling issue in relations, anymore than Kashmir drives our bilateral interactions with India and Pakistan.
TCB: The Obama administration is finishing its term amidst a perception that it was often “outplayed” by Putin. What are the strongest advantages and sources of leverage available to the Trump administration? What can it learn from the previous administration’s mistakes?
MK: I think the outgoing administration was indeed outplayed, repeatedly, but perhaps a more accurate depiction is that, in certain contests, it chose to play halfheartedly, or not at all. In Syria and Ukraine, the policy outcomes were commensurate with the inputs. Trump's leverage lies principally in changing the existing dynamic that the U.S. fears Russian escalation far more than Moscow fears U.S. retaliation. Russia has been taking calculated risks with the confidence that they have escalation dominance, or at least that we believe they have escalation dominance. Trump is a person who clearly escalates, and rapidly, to achieve dominance on issues big and small. Until Moscow gets a better sense of Trump the President it will assume that the present advantage in escalation has eroded.
The Obama administration left Donald Trump some good cards, but unfortunately, they are difficult to play. Sanctions offer considerable leverage if timed right, such as waiting until late next year when the Russian economy might truly need access to Western capital. However, Congress and much of the establishment will try to prevent their use as a bargaining tool.
But if a policy has demonstrably failed to coerce Russia, and at the same time cannot be retracted as a possible incentive, then it's not a playable card, is it? Yet that's exactly where we are today. U.S. force posture in Europe is another potential card, which Trump can threaten to ramp up, or scale down. Moscow also needs the U.S. in Syria, because military gains are unsettled without a political process to lock them in, but Washington has been left with no leverage on what happens in the actual conflict itself. Trump’s predecessor took steps in response to Russian aggression that offer positional advantages, placing pressure on the Russian economy and defending U.S. interests like the network of allies in Europe, but none of this resulted in leverage.
The list of mistakes to avoid is lengthy, as, in the parlance of D.C., many "mistakes were made" by previous administrations.
First, don't underestimate Russia and assume that it will wither and disappear from the international arena. Moscow will not permit itself to be ignored: either you have a Russia policy or they will make a Russia policy for you. The former is far preferable to the latter.
Next, you need a strategy for Russia, not a disparate collection of foreign policy interests that policymakers wish to pursue, all of which have a Russia component to them.
Finally, you must know what you actually want from Russia, and it has to be a bit more sophisticated than "stop doing bad things." The Trump administration should ask itself a question many administrations have not bothered with: what's in it for the Russians? If you don't have a good answer, then it's probably not going to happen.
