[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE GROWING RUSSIAN
MILITARY THREAT IN EUROPE
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 17, 2017
__________
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COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
HOUSE
SENATE
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi,
Co-Chairman Chairman
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas CORY GARDNER, Colorado
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee MARCO RUBIO, Florida
RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
SHIELA JACKSON LEE, Texas TOM UDALL, New Mexico
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
Vacant, Department of State
Vacant, Department of Commerce
Vacant, Department of Defense
[ii]
THE GROWING RUSSIAN
MILITARY THREAT IN EUROPE
----------
May 17, 2017
COMMISSIONERS
Page
Hon. Roger F. Wicker, Chairman, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.......................................... 1
Hon. Christopher H. Smith, Co-Chairman, Commission on Security
and Cooperation in Europe...................................... 3
Hon. Sheldon Whitehouse, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.......................................... 15
Hon. Jeanne Shaheen, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.......................................... 17
Hon. Robert Aderholt, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.......................................... 19
Hon. Cory Gardner, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.......................................... 21
Hon. Marco Rubio, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.......................................... 23
Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin, Ranking Member, Commission on Security
and Cooperation in Europe...................................... 24
WITNESSES
Dr. Michael Carpenter, Senior Director, Penn Biden Center for
Diplomacy and Global Engagement................................ 4
Stephen Rademaker, Principal, The Podesta Group.................. 6
Ambassador Steven Pifer, Senior Fellow and Director of the Arms
Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative, The Brookings
Institution.................................................... 9
[iii]
APPENDICES
Prepared statement of Hon. Roger F. Wicker....................... 36
Prepared statement of Hon. Christopher H. Smith.................. 38
Prepared statement of Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin.................... 39
Prepared statement of Hon. Michael Burgess....................... 40
Prepared statement of Dr. Michael Carpenter...................... 41
Prepared statement of Stephen Rademaker.......................... 45
Prepared statement of Ambassador Steven Pifer.................... 50
THE GROWING RUSSIAN
MILITARY THREAT IN EUROPE
----------
May 17, 2017
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Washington, DC
The hearing was held at 9:30 a.m. in Room 208-209, Senate
Visitors Center (SVC), Washington, DC, Hon. Roger F. Wicker,
Chairman, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe,
presiding.
Commissioners present: Hon. Roger F. Wicker, Chairman,
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe; Hon.
Christopher H. Smith, Co-Chairman, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe; Hon. Sheldon Whitehouse, Commissioner,
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe; Hon. Jeanne
Shaheen, Commissioner, Commission on Security and Cooperation
in Europe; Hon. Robert Aderholt, Commissioner, Commission on
Security and Cooperation in Europe; Hon. Cory Gardner,
Commissioner, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe;
Hon. Marco Rubio, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe; and Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin, Ranking
Member, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Witnesses present: Dr. Michael Carpenter, Senior Director,
Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement; Stephen
Rademaker, Principal, The Podesta Group; and Ambassador Steven
Pifer, Senior Fellow and Director of the Arms Control and Non-
Proliferation Initiative, The Brookings Institution.
HON. ROGER WICKER, CHAIRMAN, COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND
COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Mr. Wicker. Good morning to everyone. Our first hearing on
April 26th rightly focused on human rights abuses within
Russia. Today's hearing will examine Russia's actions beyond
its borders, specifically Moscow's use of military force to
further its ambitions. The mandate of the Helsinki Commission
requires us to monitor the acts of the signatories, which
reflect compliance with or violation of the articles of the
Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in
Europe, also known as the Helsinki Final Act.
Even a casual observer of international affairs would
recognize that Russian military aggression has posed a
tremendous threat to the European security in recent years. The
Russian leadership has chosen an antagonistic stance, both
regionally and globally, as it seeks to reassert its influence
from a bygone era. The actions taken by the Russian leadership
under the aggressive posture of Vladimir Putin have, without
any doubt, violated commitments enshrined in the Helsinki Final
Act and other agreements.
To name three examples: Number one, Russia has breached its
commitment to refrain from the threat or use of force against
other states. Number two, Russia has breached its commitment to
refrain from violating their sovereignty, territorial
integrity, or other political independence. And third, Russia
has breached its commitment to respect other states' right to
choose their own security alliances. Many of Russia's neighbors
have faced Russian military aggression in recent years. Ukraine
and Georgia have both seen important parts of their territories
forcibly occupied, including the illegal attempted annexation
of Crimea in 2014.
Russian forces continue to be present in Ukraine, Georgia
and Moldova, against the wishes of the governments of those
countries. In addition to its direct aggression toward its
neighbors, Moscow has also made it a priority to undermine the
effective functioning of several conventional arms control
agreements and measures for confidence and security building.
These measures, to which Russia is a party, include the
treaty on conventional armed forces in Europe, which limits
heavy ground and air weapons in Europe and provides information
on current arms holdings, including their location. Number two,
the Open Skies Treaty, which provides for mutual unarmed aerial
reconnaissance of member states. And, number three, the Vienna
document on confidence and security-building measures, which
provides for information exchanges, on-site inspections, and
notifications of the military activities, arms, and force
levels of OSCE-participating states. These agreements, along
with others such as the INF Treaty--which Russia is also
violating--together form an interlocking web of commitments
that have proved fundamental to the stability of the post-Cold
War European security architecture. They were designed to
enhance military transparency and predictability, thereby
increasing confidence among the OSCE-participating states.
Unfortunately, the actions of the Russian leadership in recent
years have demonstrated that it sees little value in the
transparency and predictability that have kept the peace in
Europe.
I want to reiterate my dismay regarding the tragic death of
American paramedic Joseph Stone on April 23rd. Mr. Stone, of
Arizona, age 36, was killed while serving his country as a
member of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine when
his vehicle struck an explosive, likely a landmine, in
separatist-controlled territory, an event that also injured two
other monitors. This is the first time in history of the OSCE
that a mission member has been killed in the line of duty.
And make no mistake, Mr. Stone's death was directly related
to Russia's aggression toward its neighbors. Had Russia not
invaded Ukraine, and had it lived up to the Minsk Agreement and
ceased supporting, directing, funding and fueling separatists
in this region, there would have been no need for the
monitoring mission to continue. So I once again extend my
condolences to Mr. Stone's family, including his son, and his
many friends. I want to take this opportunity to call for an
end to the harassment faced by these brave monitors on a daily
basis. And I urge all sides to provide the observers with
unfettered access. We have put a photograph to my right, over
my shoulder, of OSCE monitors as a reminder of the continuing
challenges faced by these brave monitors as they carry out
their extremely important mission.
Our hearing today will have three objectives. First,
examine Russia's undermining of European security, the OSCE and
its arms control agreements and commitments. Secondly, assess
whether it will be possible to move Russia back toward
compliance. And third and finally, explore how we can maximize
the value of our agreements in the OSCE as a whole going
forward.
I'm grateful to the members of our distinguished panel for
their willingness to provide expert views on these topics. And
I look forward to our discussion today. We'll first hear from
Dr. Michael Carpenter, now a senior director at the Biden
Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the University of
Pennsylvania. Next we will hear from Stephen Rademaker, who has
previously testified on a number of occasions before our
Commission. Mr. Rademaker is a former assistant secretary of
state who headed three bureaus in the State Department. And
thirdly, we will welcome back Ambassador Steven Pifer, who has
appeared before the Commission previously. The ambassador
currently serves as the director of the Arms Control and
Nonproliferation Initiative at the Brookings Institution.
We're joined by my friend, Congressman Chris Smith of New
Jersey. Congressman, would you have some opening remarks before
we hear our testimony?
HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, CO-CHAIRMAN, COMMISSION ON SECURITY
AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Mr. Smith. I do. Thank you very much. Thank you for
convening this very important hearing to examine Russian
military aggression in the OSCE region. Russia today stands in
violation of the central commitments of the Helsinki Final Act.
These commitments include respect for the territorial integrity
of states, fundamental freedoms, and the fulfillment in good
faith of obligations under international law. In violating
these commitments, Russia is threatening the foundations of
European security and recklessly endangering the lives of
millions.
One such victim, that you just mentioned so well, is Joseph
Stone, the 36-year-old American medic who was killed by a
landmine while on patrol in separatist-controlled eastern
Ukraine with the OSCE's Special Monitoring Mission. And he lost
his life on April 23rd. If it wasn't for Russia's aggression,
and the plethora of challenges that they faced from the
beginning of that deployment, there would have been no death of
that wonderful young man, Joseph Stone, and so many others--
about 10,000 lives that have been lost in this conflict.
Russian aggression is not a localized phenomenon. It
threatens the entire region. Moscow has seized sovereign
territory by force, threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons
against other countries, harassed U.S. and allied military
assets, and abandoned key transparency measures and
commitments. These actions are unacceptable. In the face of
such provocations, the United States must leave no doubt that
we stand behind our Eastern European and Baltic allies. There
is no time to waste. We must ensure the confidence of our
friends at this critical juncture.
One way to do this is to continue building a credible
conventional deterrent to Russian aggression alongside our
allies, in particular Poland and the Baltic States. I and many
others have consistently supported robust funding for the
European Reassurance Initiative. With the support of this
initiative, since 2014 NATO members have held over 1,000
military exercises in Europe. ERI has allowed the U.S. to
participate more extensively in such exercises and increase its
deployment of soldiers and military assets in allied countries.
Furthermore, it has also helped us to build the capacity of
our partners and generally make our commitment to European
security felt. These kinds of activities must be sustained and
expanded to ensure that we are ready to counter any threat at
any time. This hearing will give us an opportunity to learn
what more the U.S. can do on this front, both bilaterally and
within NATO.
In particular, I look forward to Dr. Carpenter's testimony
about the extent of the challenge posed by Russian aggression
in the OSCE region; Secretary Rademaker's thoughts about the
implications of Russia's flouting of its arms control and
transparency commitments; and Ambassador Pifer's perspective on
developments in Ukraine and what they mean for the region.
Again, thank you, Chairman, for convening this important
hearing.
Mr. Wicker. Thank you very much.
And welcome to all of our guests today. We'll begin with
the testimony of Dr. Carpenter. Thank you, sir.
DR. MICHAEL CARPENTER, SENIOR DIRECTOR, PENN BIDEN CENTER FOR
DIPLOMACY AND GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT
Dr. Carpenter. Chairman Wicker, Co-Chairman Smith,
Commissioner Whitehouse, thank you for this opportunity to
speak to you today about the Russian military threat to Europe.
There is no question that the Putin regime today poses the
greatest threat to the security of Europe, and to the United
States. Over the last decade, the Kremlin has twice used
military force to violate borders and occupy other countries'
territory. It has breached arms control agreements, such as the
CFE, INF and Open Skies Treaties. It has undermined
transparency and confidence-building measures, like the Vienna
Document. And it signs political agreements that it never
intends to honor, such as the 2008 Georgia ceasefire and the
Minsk Agreements on Ukraine.
One of the chief drivers of Russia's aggression, and its
deliberate violation of international agreements, is its desire
to roll back Western influence in the post-Soviet region by
subverting the foundations of Western democracy and undermining
NATO and the EU. In the non-NATO countries, Russia has proven
it is willing to use military force to achieve its aims. In
NATO countries, it is turning to asymmetric tactics, such as
cyberattacks, covert subversion operations, and information
warfare. In either case, denial and deception,
unpredictability, and non-transparency maximize Russia's
advantages. Nuclear threats and dangerous military activities
are also meant to send a deliberate message to the West to stay
out of Russia's neighborhood.
In other words, Russia's dangerous and unpredictable
behavior is part of a deliberate strategy. Whereas Russian
foreign policy for much of the last 25 years was based on
cooperating with the West where possible and competing only
where necessary, now Russia is engaged in a full-blown
competition short of conflict across all domains all the time.
That is why is not the time to negotiate new European security
arrangements or agreements with Russia. Expanding channels of
crisis communication is important and necessary. The
administration should also consider a new round of bilateral
strategic stability talks to clear up faulty assumptions that
could lead to miscalculation. But in general, we have to
understand that Russia is no longer interested in cooperation
to strengthen European security--just the opposite.
Our goal, therefore, should be to continue to bolster
defense and deterrence in Europe. The U.S. should consider
suspending its compliance with the NATO-Russian Founding Act so
long as Russia continues to violate its basic principles. This
would allow the U.S. to permanently deploy an additional
brigade combat team to Eastern Europe as a deterrent force, a
step that could be reversed if and when Russia's aggressive
posture in the region changes.
The United States should also employ the legal principle of
countermeasures to respond to Russia's violations of the Open
Skies and INF treaties. Just as Russia denies access to part of
its territory under the Open Skies Treaty, the United States
should restrict Russian access to U.S. territory until Moscow
returns to compliance. The same is true of the INF treaty. The
United States should immediately begin research, which is
legally permitted by the treaty, into the development of an
intermediate-range missile that would match Russia's new
capability. And the Pentagon should be tasked with implementing
more robust defensive measures to deny Russia an advantage in
the meantime.
With regards to Ukraine, Congress should encourage the
administration to lift the existing de facto arms embargo and
provide defensive armaments such as air defense, anti-tank and
counter-
artillery capabilities. The United States must also get off the
sidelines and join France and Germany in the Normandy Group
negotiations to develop a road map with concrete timelines for
implementing the steps laid out in the Minsk Agreements. It is
clear that Russia is not going to honor its commitments until
greater leverage is applied.
One option is to inform Russia that sanctions on Russian
banks will go into effect if Russia fails to honor specific
deadlines for implementing the Minsk road map. The U.S. can do
this unilaterally since, unlike sanctions on the defense or
energy sectors, financial sanctions can be highly effective
even if the EU does not match them. The administration should
also consider developing the mandate for an armed U.N. mission
for eastern Ukraine.
In response to the cyberattacks and information warfare
that the Kremlin has perpetrated against the U.S. and our
European allies, the U.S. should invest significantly more
resources in cyber defense. And Congress should legislate a
common set of cyber defense standards for the private sector
companies that control our critical infrastructure. We are way
behind the curve on this.
Finally, we must immediately appoint an independent special
prosecutor to determine whether or not there was collusion or
cooperation between the Russian Government and Trump campaign
representatives in the last election cycle. Congress must also
establish a select committee to look at the broader question of
Russian interference in the U.S. electoral process and Russia's
ability to undermine our institutions and infrastructure.
Chairman Wicker, Co-Chairman Smith, members of the
Commission, the United States has an obligation to enhance
deterrence and build resilience against Russian aggression and
malign influence across the OSCE region. It starts here at
home, by responding forcefully to Russia's subversive actions.
We must also push back on Russia's violations of arms control
and confidence-building agreements. And finally, we must apply
greater leverage against Moscow, and strengthen Ukraine's
defenses. If we do not check Russian aggression with more
forceful measures now, we will end up dealing with many more
crises and conflicts, spending billions of dollars more on the
defense of our European allies, and potentially seeing our
vision of a Europe whole and free undermined. Thank you and I
look forward to your questions.
Mr. Wicker. Thank you, Dr. Carpenter.
Mr. Rademaker.
MR. STEPHEN RADEMAKER, PRINCIPAL, PODESTA GROUP
Mr. Rademaker. Thank you, Chairman Wicker, Co-Chairman
Smith, Commissioner Whitehouse. Thank you for the invitation to
testify today. Let me say at the outset that I work at a
government relations firm in Washington. We have a number of
clients. I'm not here on behalf of any of my clients. I'm here
on behalf of myself. I was asked to present my personal views,
and that's what I'm doing here.
I was asked to assess Russia's compliance with the various
arms control agreements that Chairman Wicker outlined in his
opening statement. I have prepared a lengthy written statement.
I will summarize the written statement and then come to my
conclusions.
The first treaty I was asked to evaluate in terms of
Russia's compliance was the CFE Treaty, Conventional Armed
Forces in Europe Treaty, that was concluded in 1990. This was a
very important treaty. The conventional military imbalance in
Europe, the advantage that the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact
had during the Cold War was the driver of the nuclear arms race
for much of the last century. And with the achievement of the
Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, the imbalance was
corrected, and it became possible to negotiate deep reductions
in nuclear force levels. And so this was a very important
treaty at the time it was concluded.
Regrettably, in 2007 President Putin ordered what he called
a suspension of Russian implementation of the treaty. Now, this
is not something that the United States or any of our allies
consider to be a legally permissible step on their part. It's
essentially breach of the treaty by Russia. We have continued
to try to implement the treaty to the extent we can. But in
2011, we and our allies concluded that Russia was determined
not to comply. And so we have stopped requesting inspections
and expecting data declaration by Russia pursuant to the
treaty, although among ourselves we continue to abide by the
CFE Treaty. And technically we hold that it's still in force.
The reason that Russia essentially pulled out of the CFE
Treaty in 2007 was because for a long time Russia had become
increasingly unhappy with the way that the treaty applied to
them. Russia was especially unhappy with what are called the
flank limits of the treaty, which limited military deployments
on Russia's periphery. They believed that those limits
interfered with their ability to prosecute the war they were
waging in Chechnya, for example.
They were also very unhappy that the treaty was being used
by Georgia and Moldova to try and compel Russia to withdraw its
armed forces from their territory. Those armed forces remain
present in those two countries without the consent of the two
governments. And that is a violation of the CFE Treaty. Those
countries, with our support, were pressing Russia to withdraw
those forces, and to eliminate the equipment that Russia had
deployed in those countries. For all of these reasons, Russia
reached the conclusion in 2007 that this treaty no longer
served their interests. And as I indicated, President Putin
suspended Russian implementation
of it.
The second treaty I was asked to look at was the Open Skies
Treaty. This unarmed aerial observation treaty is a confidence-
building measure. There are 34 parties to it among the OSCE
countries. Russia continues to implement the Open Skies Treaty,
but it does so in a way to minimize the benefits of the treaty
to other parties, such as the United States.
Perhaps the best illustration of that is the Kaliningrad
Oblast, which is that part of Russia that's sandwiched between
Poland and Lithuania. It doesn't border the rest of Russia.
Obviously, it's a very sensitive piece of territory. It's
subject to aerial observation under the Open Skies Treaty.
Russia has adopted, unilaterally, restrictions on the
overflights that would be conducted for surveillance purposes.
The effect of these restrictions--they limit the distance of
the flights out of the relevant airfield in Russia. The effect
of that restriction is not to prevent us from doing aerial
observation of Kaliningrad, but it requires us to use multiple
flights to completely observe the territory of the Kaliningrad
Oblast. So it's essentially a nuisance restriction designed to
make it harder for us to achieve the benefits under the treaty
to which we and our allies are entitled.
They've adopted a number of other measures--minimum
altitude restrictions that limit observation over Moscow.
They've previously applied that same restriction over Chechnya.
They ended that last year. But again, they were trying to
minimize the benefits of this treaty to us with respect to
Chechnya. They do not allow flights adjacent to Abkhazia and
South Ossetia, those two regions of Georgia. And then in the
case of Ukraine they've adopted a nuisance restriction. They
require Ukraine to make payment in advance before Ukraine can
conduct overflights over Russian territory. This is
inconsistent with the provisions of the treaty. And the
consequence has been that Ukraine has not conducted any
overflights of Russia since that policy was adopted. So Russia
implements the treaty, but it does so in a way designed to
defeat some of the purposes of the treaty.
Similarly, I was asked to look at the Vienna Document,
which is what's called a CSBM, a confidence and security-
building measure about force levels in Europe. And Russia has
implemented it in a very similar manner to the way that it has
implemented the Open Skies Treaty. They comply with it, but in
a way that minimizes the benefits. The State Department's
annual arms control compliance report, which it issued just
last month, said the following, which I think said it all about
Russian compliance with the Vienna Document. The State
Department said: ``The United States assesses that the Russian
Federation's . . . selective implementation of certain
provisions of the Vienna Document, and the resultant loss of
transparency about Russian military activities has limited the
effectiveness of the CSBM's regime. Russia's selective
implementation also raises concern as to Russia's adherence to
the Vienna Document.''
As with Open Skies, there are a number of examples of
things they've done to not fully implement their obligations
under the treaty. Perhaps the best illustration or the best
example is with regard to advanced notification of military
exercises. A pattern has emerged where Russia either provides
no advanced notification or notifies that there will be a
limited exercise, and then when the exercise takes places it
turns out to be a much larger exercise. They put forward legal
explanations for this. Sometimes they claim that, you know,
these were just snap exercises, or they claim that these were
multiple exercises under separate command and therefore they
didn't have to be notified as one exercise. But considering the
pattern, these are sort of legalisms, and they really reveal a
pattern of attempting to minimize their compliance with their
commitments under the Vienna Document.
Finally, I looked at the INF Treaty, a very important
treaty that limited intermediate-range missiles in the United
States and Russia, where both countries are prohibited to have
these missiles. Under the Obama Administration, it was
determined that Russia was testing a missile that was not
compliant with the INF Treaty. More recently, it's been
reported in the press that Russia has moved from testing that
missile to actually deploying it. And it's supposed to be
operationally deployed with two Russian battalions.
Both the Obama Administration and the Trump Administration
have tried to have a dialogue with Russia about this to
persuade them to correct the violation. It's a very sterile
dialogue, because the Russian side essentially says, we have no
idea what you're talking about. There is no such missile. We've
never tested such a missile. The U.S. government has presented
details about the location of--you know, geographic coordinates
of tests, the dates of tests. The Russians throw up their hands
and say, we have no idea what you're talking about. There was
no such test.
So there's not even really a willingness on the part of the
Russians to engage in a dialogue about returning to compliance.
The underlying issue here, I believe, is that, as with the CFE
Treaty, Russia concluded some time ago that the INF Treaty no
longer serves its interests. I think they consider it's an
unfair treaty because it prohibits them, and us, to have
intermediate-range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. But
it doesn't impose such a restriction on some of Russia's
neighbors--like China, Iran, Pakistan, North Korea. And those
countries are deploying missiles of those ranges. So from
Russia's point of view this is unfair to them. And for a long
time, they've expressed interest in trying to get out from
under the treaty. I think their steps to simply deploy a
missile that violates the treaty is consistent with their view
that they need to somehow sidestep the restrictions of the
treaty.
So my conclusion is that, looking at the overall pattern of
Russian compliance with their arms control agreements, that
Russia will comply with them to the degree that Russia judges
that they serve Russia's interests. But to the degree Russia
concludes that these treaties and transparency measures no
longer serve its interests, it will either seek to terminate
them, as it did with the CFE Treaty; it will violate them,
while continuing to pay lip service to them, as it's doing with
the INF Treaty; or it will selectively implement them, as it is
doing with the Open Skies and Vienna Document agreements.
So what's the underlying issue here, both with respect to
arms control and some of the other activity we see in Ukraine,
for example? What I suggest in my concluding remarks in my
testimony is that, regrettably, Russia sees security in Europe
as a zero-sum game. And it thinks the best way to enhance its
security is by diminishing the security of its neighbors. And
that, of course, is completely inconsistent with the OSCE
principles and the principles that underlie all of these arms
control and transparency agreements. Because the principle that
underlies them is quite the opposite, that security in Europe
is a positive-sum game, that all countries will be more secure
to the extent their neighbors are more
secure.
I think the evidence we have, of course, is that Russia
just takes a different view of that, and thinks its security is
enhanced if a country like Ukraine's security has been
diminished. And I think until we can change that fundamental
mindset--and I don't know that we can change that fundamental
mindset. It may just be a matter of time and experience that
gets us to a different place with Russia. But until Russia
stops thinking of the European Union as a threat, and NATO as a
threat, and strong and stable neighbors as a threat, and rather
sees that as a net positive for their own security, I think we
will continue to see these problems in compliance with arms
control treaties and similar problems that we have in other
areas.
Thank you.
Mr. Wicker. Thank you, Mr. Rademaker.
Ambassador Pifer.
AMB. STEVEN PIFER, SENIOR FELLOW AND DIRECTOR OF THE ARMS
CONTROL AND NON-PROLIFERATION INITIATIVE, THE BROOKINGS
INSTITUTION
Amb. Pifer. Mr. Chairman, Co-Chairman Smith, members of the
Commission, thank you for the opportunity to appear today to
testify on the Russian military threat in Europe and how that
threat has manifested itself in Ukraine. I will summarize my
statement for the record.
Russian actions towards Ukraine have grossly violated
fundamental principles of the Helsinki Final Act, including the
commitment of the participating states to respect each other's
sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence, and to
refrain from the threat or use of force. It is useful to
understand Russian end goals as regards Europe and Ukraine.
Moscow seeks a sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space. It
wants to weaken NATO and the European Union.
President Putin and the Kremlin, moreover, appear to fear
the prospect of a modern, successful democratic Ukrainian
state. The fear is that that kind of Ukraine could prompt
Russians to question why they cannot have a more democratic
system of governance.
In February 2014, after then-President Yanukovych fled
Kiev, Ukraine's Parliament appointed an acting president and an
acting prime minister who made it clear that Ukraine's number
one foreign policy goal was to draw closer to the European
Union. The Kremlin apparently concluded that it lacked the soft
power tools to prevent that. Shortly thereafter, the Russian
military seized Crimea. Within days, following a sham
referendum, Russia annexed Crimea. In April 2014, Russia began
assisting armed separatism in the eastern Ukraine region of the
Donbas, providing leadership, financing, ammunition, heavy
weapons, other supplies, and, when necessary, regular units of
the Russian army.
Three years of fighting, despite the Minsk II Agreement
worked out in February of 2015, have resulted in nearly 10,000
dead. Unfortunately, the ceasefire and withdrawal of heavy
weapons from the line of contact that were called for under the
Minsk II Agreement have not been implemented. While Moscow
implausibly denies involvement in the Donbas, NATO and
Ukrainian officials believe that Russian military officers
continue to provide command and control, training and advising
for forces there. The Kremlin is not pursuing a settlement of
the conflict, but instead seeks to use a simmering conflict as
a means to pressure and destabilize the government in Kiev.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has
played an important role in trying to find a solution to the
conflict, chairing a trilateral contact group that brings
together Ukrainian and Russian officials, as well as
representatives of the occupied part of the Donbas. OSCE also
has a special monitoring mission on the ground in Ukraine, with
some 700 monitors, many of them who are observing the
implementation or non-implementation of the Minsk II ceasefire
and withdrawal provisions. And it was that mission that Mr.
Joseph Stone was a part of.
What is needed to bring peace, however, is a change in the
Kremlin's policy. The United States and the West should support
Kiev politically and, provided that the Ukrainian Government
more effectively implements economic reforms and anticorruption
measures, give Ukraine additional economic assistance. The
United States should continue to provide military support, and
that should include certain types of lethal assistance such as
man-portable anti-armor weapons. The United States and the
European Union should continue to put political and economic
pressure on the Kremlin. That means keeping in place the
economic and other sanctions on Russia. And the West should
consider applying additional sanctions.
In addition, it is important that the administration and
NATO continue the steps agreed at least year's NATO summit in
Warsaw, to enhance the alliance's conventional deterrence and
defense capabilities in the Baltic region and Central Europe.
Such steps will lead to more secure European allies who will be
more confident in supporting Ukraine. The United States should
also continue to support the German and French efforts to
promote a solution to the Ukraine-Russia conflict. It is very
difficult to see Minsk II succeeding, but it is the only
process on the table.
At the end of the day, Ukraine needs a settlement which has
Russian buy-in. Otherwise, Moscow has too many levers that it
can use to make life difficult for Kiev, and thereby deny
Ukraine a return to normalcy.
Finally, it is all but impossible to imagine Russia
agreeing to return Crimea. At present, Kiev lacks the leverage
to change that. The United States and the West, however, should
not accept this. They should continue a policy of non-
recognition of Crimea's illegal annexation, and continue to
apply sanctions related to the peninsula.
Mr. Chairman, Co-Chairman Smith, members of the Commission,
over the past three years Russia has employed military force to
seize Crimea, and sustain a bloody armed conflict in the Donbas
in pursuit of the Kremlin's goal of asserting a sphere of
influence and frustrating the ability of Ukraine to succeed.
These Russian actions are in stark violation of Moscow's
commitments under the Helsinki Final Act and other agreements.
These actions endanger peace and stability in Europe. They
raise concern that the Kremlin might be tempted to use military
force elsewhere.
The United States should work with its European partners to
respond in a serious way. That will require a sustained and
patient effort, but it is essential if we wish to see the kind
of Europe that was envisaged when the Final Act was signed in
1975. Thank you for your attention.
Mr. Wicker. Ambassador, you say that the Minsk II Agreement
is not likely to be abided by, but it's all we've got. Dr.
Carpenter suggests that any type of an agreement--new agreement
or negotiation with Russia is pointless. Help us understand, is
there daylight between the two of you there? I'll start with
Dr. Carpenter first.
Dr. Carpenter. I'm not sure, Senator, that there's all that
much disagreement between Steve and myself. I agree that Minsk
provides right now the only road map that is bought into by all
the parties that are concerned, including France and Germany,
with this conflict. My point simply is that Minsk--and this is
where I agree with Steve--will never be implemented until we
apply greater leverage on Russia.
So until Russia feels there are consequences, and until we
identify concrete timelines under which the various steps that
are laid out in the Minsk II Agreement, the February 15
agreement--unless there are timelines and consequences for
failing to meet those timelines, Russia will continue to engage
in these Kabuki negotiations with the French and Germans, which
are, frankly, going nowhere.
Mr. Wicker. Mr. Ambassador?
Amb. Pifer. I would agree. The first problem in
implementing Minsk is that the Russians do not want it to be
implemented. There is no doubt in my mind that with Russian
control of their forces, but also over separatist forces in the
occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk, if Russia wanted to
deliver a ceasefire and withdraw the forces from the line of
contact and allow the OSCE monitors full access, those are the
first three provisions of Minsk II. The Russians could make
that happen. It hasn't happened now in two years and two months
because the Russians do not want it to happen.
There's an additional problem, though, and this is why I
think we need to have a sense of urgency about Minsk. The
longer that we go since the year 2015, it becomes harder, I
believe, for the Ukrainian Government to implement some of the
political provisions, such as passing a constitutional
amendment on decentralization, or passing a special status law,
because you have public attitudes and attitudes within the
Rada, Ukraine's Parliament, which are hardening, because over
two years they see more and more Ukrainian dead. But Minsk II,
right now it's the only process. We need to do what we can to
push it. But it's going to require pressure on Russia to change
the Kremlin's calculation.
Mr. Wicker. Mr. Ambassador, you mentioned success in
Ukraine. Would you and Dr. Carpenter help us by defining
success? And isn't that success one of the most important
foreign policy achievements we could assist with?
Amb. Pifer. I believe a successful Ukraine is important for
the kind of Europe that we want to see--that's a Europe that's
stable, secure and at peace. It is going to be a problem that
the United States Government cannot ignore if you have a
failing Ukrainian state on the border of institutional Europe.
That's going to be a problem that is going to be something that
we will have to deal with. On the other hand, if you could see
a successful Ukraine--and by success, I mean, a normal
democracy, a growing market economy, a country that
increasingly looks like, say, Poland, its neighbor to the West,
that would be success.
The problem that the Ukrainians have is the Russians, I
believe, fear that kind of success, because they worry that the
Russian population will say, well, wait, the Ukrainians, who
the Russians see as probably the closest of the post-Soviet
peoples--the Russians start asking, how come the Ukrainians can
have a democracy or they can vote, or they have a political
voice and we can't? That disturbs the Kremlin.
Mr. Wicker. But, Dr. Carpenter, in spite of all of the
problems, if we saw that success, it would be a major
achievement for the West, would it not?
Dr. Carpenter. I agree, Senator, that Ukraine is pivotal to
the future of European security. And if the Kremlin looks 10
years from now on its military intervention--violating borders
and annexing territory, occupying another chunk of territory--
as a success on its part, then that will just fan the flames of
Russian ambition, revanchism across the whole region, and we
will continue to deal with these sorts of crises in the future.
So I think strengthening Ukraine's sovereignty through
empowering its reformers, but also hardening its defenses, is
absolutely vital.
And just one other point on this. I think Russia would be
happy to settle the conflict peacefully. But what Russia's
vision of the Minsk II settlement looks like is where you
create an analogous situation to Republika Srpska in Bosnia for
the Donbas. In other words, they have a veto over foreign
policy. They can, in fact, veto a lot of other policies that
pertain to the national state. And that would give Moscow
leverage to prevent Ukraine from moving towards NATO or the EU
for the indefinite future. But that is not success for us. For
us, success has to be a sovereign, independent Ukraine that
develops on its own trajectory, and hopefully one that is
increasingly democratic.
Mr. Wicker. The Republika Srpska example is certain one
that we would want to avoid.
We'll continue with six-minute rounds. Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let me just say, thank you very much, all three of our
distinguished witnesses, for their very incisive comments. It
really does help this Commission, and I think by extension both
the House and the Senate, to have the benefit of your insights.
So thank you so very, very much.
Let me just ask, Mr. Ambassador, you pointed out in your
testimony that it's important that the United States continue
to provide military assistance. You make the point that in
particular man-portable anti-armor weapons, to increase
Ukrainians' ability to deal with the influx of Russian armor in
the Donbas, is one of the points that you underscore. And my
question would be from the beginning--because, you know, many
of us have been frustrated almost to tears in our inability for
years to provide the kind of deterrence capability to the
Ukrainians to end the fighting. Without a credible threat of
deterrence--as Poroshenko told us in a joint session of
Congress, you can't fight a war with blankets. Blankets are
important. Medicine is important. But you've got to have
deterrence. Have we done enough in the years to date? And is
there any sense that you have that we are now looking at a
pivot where we will now give them the capabilities to deter so
that negotiations can be successfully concluded?
Amb. Pifer. Well, yes, sir. I think that's an excellent
question. I do not believe the United States has provided what
it could to Ukraine. I was in Kiev and also at the Ukrainian
field headquarters in Kramatorsk in Donetsk about two years
ago, along with one of my successors, Ambassador John Herbst,
and also retired General Chuck Wald, who'd been the deputy
commander of the U.S. forces in Europe. And what we heard from
the Ukrainians at Kramatorsk was that some of the non-lethal
assistance was very useful in terms of, for example, counter-
battery radars. But they pointed out that their stocks of
Soviet-era man-portable anti-tank weapons just didn't work. So
that was a huge need. And they cited that in view of increasing
armor that they saw the Russians bringing in to equip
separatist forces in the Donbas. So I think that would be a
very important need.
I would also make the point that I believe that all three
of us came away from our conversations both in Kiev and
Kramatorsk believing the Ukrainian army understands they cannot
beat the Russian army. They're not talking about give us
weapons to drive the Russians out of Donbas. What they want is,
they want weapons that allow them to raise the cost to the
Russians of further aggression, to take away easy military
options--which I believe is in our interest in terms of
steering the Kremlin away from military solutions towards a
genuine political settlement.
Mr. Smith. Let me ask Mr. Rademaker, with regards to arms
control, is there any penalty for Russia's violations of its
commitments, solemnly entered into and at the time we thought
faithfully entered into? And have the Iranians, close friends
and allies of Russia, gleaned any lessons? Because I'm one of
those who believes--and I'm not alone; there's Democrats and
Republicans who believe the Iranian deal was egregiously
flawed, and we believe it's already, with regards to ballistic
missiles, when they kept that out of the treaty--or it's not
even a treaty, the executive agreement--will violate with
impunity at the time and place of their of their choosing. I'm
talking about Tehran now. But did they learn something from the
Russians? And, again, is there any penalty for violating any of
these arms control treaties?
Mr. Rademaker. Thank you, Co-Chairman Smith. Your question
really goes to the issue of the limits of arms control. Arms
control is a consensual process. Countries sign arms control
agreements because they decide it's in their interest to do so.
But treaties, agreements, they're governed by international
law. And under international law, treaties can be terminated.
And that's important, actually, for getting countries to sign
treaties in the first place, because if it were seen as an
irrevocable step, lots of countries would hold off signing
treaties. So we have to take the good with the bad. The fact
that countries who sign arms control agreements know that they
can get out of them is part of what contributes to their
willingness to enter into the process.
But it also means that countries who over time conclude
that a treaty is no longer serving their interest have the
legal option of getting out from under it. I think President
Putin would consider that that's what he did in the case of the
CFE Treaty, with this suspension of Russian implementation.
They didn't formally terminate Russian participation, but
they've suspended it. The effect is essentially the same. You
know, Russia's no longer complying. If we really push the
issue--the legal issue, I guess what we end up with is a notice
of termination and a notice of withdrawal from the treaty by
Russia. I think there's still some hope that maybe Russia will
have a change of heart. They've never been really pushed on the
question of, well, why don't you just terminate the treaty,
rather than suspend your implementation.
In the case of INF, I think the Russian position is that
they're complying with the treaty, and that these allegations
that they have tested and now deployed a non-compliant cruise
missile are fantasy--fake news, I think is what they would say
about that. The U.S., I believe, is pretty confident in its
intelligence information about these tests. There's a mechanism
for dialogue under the treaty, where the parties of the treaty
can come together and talk about compliance issues.
But it's not like we can take them to court--there's no
panel out there to adjudicate disagreements. We have the option
of terminating the treaty. I think some are wondering whether
we should do that. I personally do not favor termination of the
INF Treaty, because I think that would actually be a gift to
Russia. I think Russia would like us to terminate the treaty.
And I think we ought to be looking at ways to punish them for
cheating, not doing things that they would consider a reward
for cheating on the
treaty.
Dr. Carpenter laid out some ideas about what we should be
doing in a case like the INF Treaty. I think taking steps to
show that we are prepared to respond, that we will potentially
develop and, if necessary, deploy our own missiles that
correspond to the ones that they're deploying, looking at
enhancements in our missile defense capabilities to counter the
illegal missiles that are being deployed on the Russian side.
Those kinds of steps are perfectly appropriate and those are
the things that we should be doing. But at the end of the day,
we can take reciprocal steps in response to what they do, but
if we really push the issue then they can withdraw from these
treaties.
As far as the lessons that Iran could take from that--in
other venues I've testified in opposition to the Iran nuclear
deal for some of the reasons you alluded to in your question. I
think it's too good a deal for Iran over the long term. It
enables them to achieve nuclear weapons threshold capability
and then, at a time and place of their choosing, they can
deploy nuclear weapons. Now, that's prohibited under the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. But, you know, North Korea was
part of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty until they decided
they didn't want to be anymore. And now they have nuclear
weapons. So I think there's a takeaway for the Iranians from
that experience.
Mr. Wicker. Thank you, Congressman Smith.
Senator Whitehouse.
HON. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON SECURITY
AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Mr. Whitehouse. Thank you, Chairman.
Dr. Carpenter mentioned the array of non-kinetic tools that
Russia uses--cyberattacks, covert political subversion and
information warfare, and described Russia's intensity on them
as all domains, all the time. The CSIS Kremlin playbook looks
at this same pattern of activity and draws what I think is a
very reasonable conclusion, which is that corruption is at the
heart of all of those techniques and is ultimately the enabler
of a great many of those techniques, which causes me to wonder
whether we have done enough as the United States of America to
take on the vast international infrastructure of corruption
enablement that the Panama Papers gave us one little window
into.
But it's a much broader world of people who are paid a lot
of money--lawyers, accountants, and others--to take care of
kleptocrats, hide their money, allow super-wealthy people to
dodge taxes, and, of course, enable corruption. It seems to me
that with the EU cleaning up its incorporation transparency,
America now looks to be the last bastion of shell corporations
and that that is a significant vulnerability against this
larger context. And to the extent that our political money is
not transparent at all, that's a vector for foreign influence
as well as whatever special interests now take advantage of the
dark money operations.
I guess my question is, from zero to 100--with zero being
we're doing nothing and 100 being we've really got this--how
far along the spectrum do you all feel we are in terms of
knocking down the infrastructure of corruption enablement and
closing up the vectors of corruption that the United States
presents?
Dr. Carpenter. Thank you for that question, Senator. I
completely agree that the name of the game right now for Moscow
is the weaponization of corruption to be able to subvert
Western societies and Western liberal democracies. In terms of
where we are on the spectrum----
Mr. Whitehouse. And just to jump in one point on that--but
please continue--but these non-rule-of-law corrupt countries
actually need rule of law when it comes to hiding their assets,
because if they leave them in Russia they'll get scooped by
Putin or the next bigger thug that comes down the road. So
they're in an interesting balance where they actually depend on
rule-of-law countries to enable their corruption even though
they are operating outside of rule of law, I believe.
Dr. Carpenter. I think that's absolutely right. I think
that in terms of where we are on the spectrum, I think we're in
the single digits. We're just beginning to come to terms with
the threat and how it's manifested. Russia's using a variety of
different tools. It's using our media freedom to sow
disinformation through various Russian outlets, but also
through social media bots and trolls. It's using political
pluralism to be able to covertly fund parties, candidates,
think tanks, NGOs. We see this across Europe. And then it's
using also oligarchs and business ties to be able to subvert
and corrupt economic interests in foreign countries that can
then be used to lobby for political outcomes. So it's across
the board.
I think, for us, Citizens United allows for a vast amount
of money to flow into our party financing system with very
little transparency and accountability. And clearly, Russia--
perhaps other states as well--have taken advantage of that. I
would recommend the creation, actually, of an interagency
taskforce between law enforcement, between the intelligence
community, the State Department and the Pentagon to look at how
to root out Russian organized crime networks, and also these
organized crime networks are also usually coterminous with some
of these corrupt influence operations.
Mr. Whitehouse. My time has pretty well run out, but if I
could get the other two witnesses to give me a number on that
zero to 100. Michael thinks we're in single digits on those
fronts.
Amb. Pifer. Way below where we should be. I can't quantify
it. But when I was in Ukraine----
Mr. Whitehouse. Way below. And--I don't want to go into my
colleagues' time. Mr. Rademaker.
Mr. Rademaker. I'll agree with Ambassador Pifer. Way below
where we should be.
Mr. Whitehouse. OK.
Thanks, Chairman.
Mr. Wicker. Thank you, Senator Whitehouse.
Senator Shaheen, and then Congressman Aderholt.
HON. JEANNE SHAHEEN, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND
COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Mrs. Shaheen. Well, thank you all very much for being here.
And I want to follow up on the measures that we can take to put
more pressure on Russia in Ukraine. You talked about lethal
weapons as being one of those. I know that shortly--as the
Minsk Agreement was being negotiated there was reluctance from
the Germans and the French to provide lethal weapons. Has that
changed? Anyone, do you know?
Dr. Carpenter. I can start. There was reluctance from a lot
of our West European allies to provide lethal weapons to
Ukraine. Now, when Chancellor Merkel first raised this in
February of 2015, when essentially the media had gotten wind of
the fact that there was some debate here about the possibility
of providing lethal weapons, her statement was not unequivocal.
She said that it would not be beneficial at that moment in
time, but it was not unequivocal.
I personally believe there are a lot of our NATO allies,
especially on the eastern flank of the alliance, that would
welcome U.S. leadership in this regard and that, in fact, would
follow suit rather quickly after we were able to provide lethal
weapons in providing weapons of their own. And for Ukraine,
this is actually very important because a lot of these former
Warsaw-backed allies have non-NATO standard equipment, that is
the type of equipment that the Ukrainian military is most used
to using and currently employs and would benefit from, because
their stocks have been radically depleted over the course of
the last two and a half years of war.
Mrs. Shaheen. Does anybody disagree with that?
Amb. Pifer. I would just briefly second Mike's point. And
note that when we were at NATO two years ago, we heard from
certain allies that, yes, if the United States did that, that
would give them political cover to also begin providing lethal
assistance.
Mrs. Shaheen. I would just point out that I know the Armed
Services Committee in the Senate has taken a position--general
the majority of us--in support of that. I'm not sure about the
Foreign Relations Committee. But this is one area where the
United States could exercise some leadership and add to the
pressure on Russia.
Sanctions is another area. Do we have any sense of whether
the Europeans are going to support rolling over those sanctions
again, to continue to put pressure on Russia?
Dr. Carpenter. Senator, I would say right now there is a
good chance that the Europeans will roll over sanctions. I
think it would be very difficult for them to apply any
additional sanctions above and beyond what's been applied right
now. My suggestion for the United States to be able to apply
greater leverage is to focus on financial sanctions because the
defense sector and the energy sector sanctions can easily be
backfilled by both European countries, but also by Asian--
Korea, Japan, Singapore and other countries that have expertise
in this area. On the other hand, financial sanctions are
primarily dependent on the U.S. dollar and the U.S. financial
system. So we could easily crank up the financial sanctions on
a calibrated ladder, and have great effect in terms of the
impact on Russia's economy in the near term.
Mrs. Shaheen. And I assume you all are probably familiar
with the more comprehensive sanctions bill that has been
introduced. Is that the kind of sanctions effort that you think
would be helpful? Or are you not familiar enough with the bill
to be able to----
Dr. Carpenter. No, I am familiar with Senator Cardin and
Senator Corker's collaboration on this bill.
Mrs. Shaheen. I'm actually talking about Senator McCain and
Senator Cardin.
Dr. Carpenter. Oh, the McCain bill. I think it's a step in
the right direction. It is not tied to specific benchmarks for
implementing Minsk. I would suggest that that would be a way to
incentivize better behavior by the Russians. But generally
speaking, I support that bill.
Mrs. Shaheen. Mmm hmm.
Amb. Pifer. And I would just add, I would hope that the
bill would also, though, would make it clear that if the
Russians met those benchmarks that the sanctions would come
off. I mean, that's been, I think, a problem in the past
sometimes with Congressional sanctions, is that they go on. But
if the Russians can't see a possibility that those sanctions
will then come off when the Russians deliver the desired
behavior, the sanctions lose their value as inducements to
better behavior by the Kremlin.
Mrs. Shaheen. And one other question; I know the Magnitsky
legislation actually put sanctions on individuals--so prevented
certain individuals from coming to this country. How effective
are those kinds of efforts in addressing some of the corruption
issues that Senator Whitehouse and you all were talking about,
and also in trying to ratchet up pressure on Putin and his
allies in Russia?
Dr. Carpenter. I believe, Senator, that those sanctions are
highly effective, and precisely for the reasons that Senator
Whitehouse indicated, that a lot of these oligarchs have money
stashed in Western countries. The thing about the Magnitsky
legislation is that it has been vastly underutilized by both
the previous administration and this administration. There are
only a couple dozen, as far as I know, individuals that have
been sanctioned under that legislation. And largely, it is
targeted at a narrow group of people around Putin. If it were
more widely applied to target those who are corrupt and who
violate human rights within the Russian system, it would have a
significant impact.
Mrs. Shaheen. And don't you agree that we should also
include the families of some of those individuals, that we
should not allow some oligarch to corrupt countries and send
his kids to our universities to get the best education they
can, to go back and be part of these networks?
Amb. Pifer. I think that would be a fantastic way to
increase the pressure on the oligarchs. If the kids cannot go
to the United States or Britain to go to college, and spouses
can't travel to do their London or Paris shopping trips, that
increases the pressure. And I think we should be looking at
ways to put pressure on the Russians to stop what's going on in
Eastern Ukraine.
Mrs. Shaheen. Absolutely. Do I still have any time?
Mr. Wicker. You'll have time later. [Laughter.] But very
helpful suggestions. Thank you, Senator Shaheen.
Congressman Aderholt, and then Senator Gardner.
HON. ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON SECURITY
AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you. I apologize for coming in a little
late. There were a lot of meetings, as you can imagine, here in
the middle of the week here on Capitol Hill. But I did want to
just talk a little bit about Russia's political leadership, how
they are appearing to build a modernization of their military,
and of course we're getting reports of that, that they are now
ranked right there, overtaking Saudi Arabia and now ranked
behind U.S. and China. And I'd open this up to anybody--any of
you on the panel here. What are the main elements of Russia's
military modernization program that you're aware of and that
you're seeing right now?
Dr. Carpenter. Well, I can start. Russia's military
modernization was launched when Putin came to power in 2000--
really, in earnest around 2005. They've had over a decade in
which they've been at this. They have both reorganized their
military to be more agile in terms of the structure--it's
focused on brigades now as opposed to divisions.
But they've invested heavily and are investing in
modernizing their nuclear triad. They have superb, world-class
nuclear-powered submarines that have very quiet acoustic
signatures that are very difficult to detect by U.S. submarine
watchers--either undersea or also in the air. They have
developed world-class cruise missiles, as we saw, the ones that
were fired from the Caspian Sea and the eastern Med in the
Syrian theater. And they have exceptional cyber and electronic
warfare capabilities, which we have seen as well in Ukraine and
in Syria. And their air defense systems are not as good as
ours, but they're pretty good and they're pretty powerful. So,
across the board, they've invested significantly in military
modernization.
Just one caveat here. A lot has been made of their A2/AD,
anti-access, area-denial capabilities. These are very
sophisticated capabilities, but sometimes these are little bit
overblown. I think the U.S. has the capability, both through
standoff munitions--either air launched or sea launched--to
penetrate some of the A2/AD bubbles. So, while they do have a
significant capability there, it's perhaps been hyped up a
little bit too much in recent months.
Mr. Rademaker. In the case of their modernization in the
strategic nuclear area, I think it's largely driven by Russia's
perception that there's a conventional military imbalance in
Europe really across their periphery, to their disadvantage.
And so in some ways it's the mirror image of the Cold War
situation, where we and NATO were satisfied that there was a
conventional imbalance in favor of the Warsaw Pact and in favor
of the Soviet Union. And we had to rely on nuclear weapons, a
nuclear deterrent to ensure the security of Europe.
I think since the end of the Cold War, the Russians have
been convinced that the opposite's true, that they're at a
conventional military disadvantage. And so their doctrine
relies increasingly on both strategic nuclear weapons and also
tactical nuclear weapons. And you see investments by them in
this area that I think underscore that they believe that
nuclear weapons really are the last guarantor of their
security.
Amb. Pifer. Congressman, I tend to worry less about what
the Russians are doing in terms of strategic nuclear
modernization because a lot of it is replacing old stuff with
new stuff, as we'll be doing in about 10 years' time. And their
modernization program seems to be sized to fit within the
limits of the New START treaty. I tend to worry much more,
though, about what they're doing in terms of tactical nuclear
modernization, and things like this ``escalate to deescalate''
doctrine which suggests that they may have a threshold for
nuclear use that is much lower than would be wise.
Mr. Aderholt. It's the same for you all as far as your
major concerns. Thanks for mentioning your concerns. That was
my next question, what would be your--Dr. Carpenter--what
stands out as the most concerning to you about particular
aspects of these buildups?
Dr. Carpenter. Well, I think the conventional military
buildups are a concern. As we've seen in Ukraine, the multiple
rocket launch systems and the artillery that is slightly older
in terms of the technology have been highly lethal. It has
decimated the armored personnel carriers that have been used by
the Ukrainians on the battlefield. And we see similar in Syria.
And so for our partners and our allies, this is a huge
concern--less so in the event of a conflict with the United
States. But then we're talking about a strategic confrontation,
which is an entirely different ball game.
I am concerned as well about the ``escalate to deescalate''
doctrine for settling a conventional conflict. This is a
doctrine that allows for Russia to use a nuclear weapon first
in the conflict to try to terminate it on Moscow's terms. And
you can envisage the use of a tactical nuclear weapon,
potentially a very low-yield tactical nuclear weapon, which
would be potentially highly escalatory. And so this may be an
aspect of their doctrine where the Russians are miscalculating,
and in fact could be very dangerous and highly escalatory,
despite their belief in the opposite.
Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Rademaker?
Mr. Rademaker. I would say that my concern is not just the
fact that they're modernizing, because I think they have
reasons that they can point to for wanting to do that. And they
would argue it's essentially defensive in nature. But I think
the reality is that they're not only modernizing, but they're
now using their modernized military forces very actively. We
see that in Ukraine. We see it in Syria. And I think it's that
combination of not just modernization, but the willingness to
deploy their forces and use force to try and effect outcomes on
their periphery, but, as in the case of Syria, beyond their
periphery.
Mr. Aderholt. Thank you.
Mr. Wicker. Thank you, Congressman Aderholt.
Senator Gardner.
HON. CORY GARDNER, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND
COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Mr. Gardner. Thank you, Senator Wicker.
And thank you to the witnesses for your time and testimony
today.
I had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to visit some
of our soldiers out at Fort Carson and Colorado Springs,
Colorado. It's the home of the 4th Infantry Division, the 10th
Special Forces Group, and, of course, a lot of involvement in
Atlantic Resolve and throughout Europe, various deployments
over the past several years. In conversations I had with them,
and obviously with our personnel at NATO, talked a lot about
our muscle memory in Europe, and the fact that the United
States over the past several decades, after the end of the Cold
War, that we lost a lot of muscle memory when it comes to our
activities, our presence, and our execution in Europe.
So, as it relates to Russia, what do you think is the most
alarming loss of muscle memory in Europe? Is it on the
intelligence side? Is it how to move quickly through Europe, if
necessary? Does it go back to some of the RAND research that
talks about the amount of time Russia, if they decided to go
into Eastern Europe, could move and the speed with which they
could accomplish that movement? Could you talk a little bit
about muscle memory, those concerns?
Dr. Carpenter. Senator, I would say that probably the
number one concern is the inability of moving troops quickly
through the European theater to the locus of a conflict. And so
U.S. Army Europe has been focused on trying to build a
``Schengen Zone for the military'' to be able to get troops and
supplies quickly to either the Baltic theater or the Black Sea
theater in the event of a crisis there. But we're way behind
the curve. And it takes a long time for the U.S. to be able to
reinforce troops that are positioned on the front lines.
That, and I would say the other thing is simply the absence
of force posture. So I think we're rectifying that problem
right now with the deployment of an additional brigade combat
team on a rotational basis. I would support deploying on a
permanent basis an additional brigade combat team, armored
above and beyond that. I think having armor, especially on the
eastern flank of the alliance in the Baltic states, would be
significant. It would be a large deterrent for Russia. And
especially if it is manned by Americans, as opposed to the
multinational brigades, which are a step in the right direction
because they provide allied skin in the game. But there is
nothing that substitutes for American presence on the eastern
flank.
Mr. Gardner. Anyone else care to comment?
Mr. Rademaker. I would volunteer the observation that, yes,
there are important issues of American--what did you call it--
muscle memory loss. But I think far more important than that
has been muscle memory loss on the part of our allies. And I'm
not talking about in the last year or two. I'm talking over the
span of the last two decades, where I think a lot of our allies
sort of got beyond the whole notion of NATO as an important
defensive alliance, because they didn't really perceive a
realistic Russian threat. They didn't understand why they
continued to need this alliance. And you saw reflected in their
defense spending and their force structures that, you know,
there really wasn't any expectation on their part that they
were preparing or needed to be prepared for a situation where
their security was actually threatened by Russia or some other
external force.
The Russian actions in Ukraine, one collateral consequence
of that has been that it has reminded some of our allies of the
fact that contrary to their hope at the end of the Cold War,
they do continue to live in an environment where there are
security threats. And the NATO alliance and their own military
investments continue to serve an important function for them.
President Trump does seem to have elevated the importance of
the issue of defense spending on the part of our allies. And I
think we see some of them are now trying to get to the 2
percent threshold--the self-imposed threshold of NATO. So that
would be a positive development, to see our allies start to
regain some of the muscle memory.
Mr. Gardner. Ambassador, did you want to add to that?
Amb. Pifer. I would agree that I think President Trump has
brought allies to think more seriously about their defense
contributions. It's also, I think, important for our European
allies, though, to think about how they spend their money
wisely, because if you do do a dollar-to-dollar comparison
between American military spending and European military
spending, we get much more in terms of deployable force than
the Europeans do. And they have to be smarter about how they
spend their money.
Mr. Gardner. Part of that--the muscle memory was a
conversation about the shift of our intelligence assets that
went to the Middle East after the Cold War. And that that
intelligence has never been necessarily rebuilt in Europe.
Could you talk a little bit about our intelligence efforts with
our allies in Europe, and how that stands today? What needs to
be done?
Dr. Carpenter. Senator, I think our intelligence in terms
of--I don't want to go too far into this subject--but I think
in terms of liaison relationships and human intelligence is
pretty solid in Europe. Where I think we are less solid is in
terms of ISR, for example, which is a high-demand, low-density
platform that is being--all of those platforms are being sucked
into the Middle East, where they're being used on a 24/7 basis.
And so we have less coverage from an ISR, SIGINT-type
perspective in Europe. But that is simply a product of not
having enough of these systems to be able to satisfy the demand
that is there, both in the European theater, in the Middle
Eastern theater, and now, as well, in East Asia.
Mr. Gardner. And I understand--we may be under a time
limit--so I want to just have one quick question. Should we be
entering into some kind of an intelligence agreement with
Ukraine? Would that be a useful tool, more than we have today?
Amb. Pifer. Actually, we do have an agreement going to the
1990s. There is already----
Mr. Gardner. On some of the cyber sharing issues, a little
bit further.
Amb. Pifer. ----an exchange of classified military
information. That is in place. And I think we now have an
American unit in Yavoriv, in western Ukraine, training the
Ukrainian military and the national guard. And my guess is
we're actually learning quite a bit too, because some of the
guys that we're training have actually been in Donbas. They've
experienced the new Russian tactics. So this is actually a two-
way exchange.
Mr. Wicker. Thank you, Senator Gardner.
Senator Rubio.
HON. MARCO RUBIO, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND
COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Mr. Rubio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you all for being in this meeting. I know I came in
late. I may have missed some of your conversation about
escalate in order to deescalate, the use of tactical nuclear
weapons on the battlefield to kind of raise the specter of
that.
Just to put it in perspective, the Russian economy is the
size of the state of California, maybe even smaller. It's
equivalent to Spain or Italy. So their ability to sustain the
sort of broad defense posture the way the United States does
across multiple potential theaters, it is limited. Nonetheless,
they have shown the capability of spending more on that than
wise policymakers would, because it's what gives them
influence. Certainly, the nuclear stockpile's a different
situation. It raises their influence above what their GDP would
justify.
All that said, the one area that I don't know if it's been
discussed, and falls with what I think is an emerging threat if
not an already existent one, is the use of asymmetrical means
on behalf of the Russians in any conflict. And we saw evidence
of that both in Crimea and in Ukraine, also in Georgia in 2008,
and the sort of electronic warfare that targets critical
infrastructure, command and control--obviously there's an
element of disinformation and propaganda that becomes
associated with that as well. But this is an asymmetrical means
of either escalating to de-escalate and/or denying your
potential adversary some of their more advanced capabilities.
And it is one that is quite cost effective, dollar for dollar.
So I don't know if that's been talked about enough, but
perhaps--and then if you are prepared to talk a little bit more
in depth about some of the means and measures used on behalf of
the Russians in their intervention in Crimea and Ukraine and
before that in Georgia in terms of the use of electronic
warfare to target critical infrastructure--both civilian and
military--and, of course, command and control and the like,
because I think that ultimately will pose a threat first from
Russia, but from other adversaries around the world as well as
the years go on.
Dr. Carpenter. Thank you, Senator. I would completely agree
with you. I think you see an evolution in terms of Russian
doctrine from a largely conventional war in Georgia to an
unconventional war, where they used special forces, little
green men, in Ukraine, to a military intelligence organized
coup d'etat in Montenegro, that was luckily foiled, to
political subversion campaigns across the United States and
Western Europe.
They are both expanding the geographic scope of their gray
zone operations, but they are also increasingly moving from
conventional military force to more covert, subversion
measures. And I think it's because it's cheaper, it's easier,
and it's likely more effective. But, in both Ukraine and
Georgia, while they were able to stall Euro-Atlantic
integration, the populations have become rather pro-Western--
have stayed pro-Western or become even more so, and have
developed some hostility towards Moscow.
Mr. Rubio. And obviously, I know it's been extensively
discussed and I think it's very relevant and a big threat. I'm
going beyond just that. I'm talking about the ability to shut
down power grids, the ability to shut down command and control.
The ability to shut down or attack the banking sector. The
sorts of critical infrastructure attack that we saw some
evidence of that in the Ukraine-Crimea situation. Saw some of
that even before that in the Georgia 2007-2008 timeframe.
That's one that's not getting a lot of attention, but I think
poses a real threat. And I have no doubt we would see deployed
in any sort of Eastern European conflict or potential conflict,
especially nations that perhaps have not invested in hardening
against that sort of intrusion.
Dr. Carpenter. Well, that is primarily, Senator, a cyber
threat more so than an electronic warfare threat. But it has
been deployed, as you say, in Georgia and Ukraine. And we know
the Russians have penetrated a lot of U.S. Government networks,
the networks of our allies as well. So their ability
potentially to be able to shut down critical infrastructure is
enormous. I mean, they have shut down electric power plants in
Ukraine. They have penetrated networks in other allied
countries, including Ministry of Defense networks in a lot of
our allies. And so this is something that we need to work on,
both here domestically but also in terms of building up the
cyber defenses of our allies. It's critically important. This
is potentially one of the most lethal threats that we face,
even if it is non-kinetic.
Mr. Rubio. And just in closing I would say that the proper
terminology is probably cyber. The reason why I always kind of
describe it a little differently is because when people think
of cyber in the public they're thinking, oh, they're going to
hack my emails. This is way more than hacking emails. We're
talking about shutting down potentially a power grid and the
like. And in a conflict, everyone could imagine how
debilitating that would be to any nation-state, particularly
some of these Eastern European NATO allies that would probably
be on the front lines of any such effort.
Mr. Wicker. A health care system, for example, Senator
Rubio.
Mr. Rubio. [the lights in the room dimmed briefly] They
just did it right now. [Laughter.] There you go. There you go.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Wicker. You spoke it and it happened. [Laughter.]
Senator Cardin.
HON. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, RANKING MEMBER, COMMISSION ON SECURITY
AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
Mr. Cardin. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for
being late. I had a couple other committees that I had to
participate in.
But I just really want to underscore the importance of this
hearing and thank our witnesses. It's very interesting. I've
been dealing with Russian policy for a long time--from the
former Soviet Union. Russia has violated every one of the
Helsinki Final Act's 10 guiding principles--every single one.
And I've sat across from Russian parliamentarians where they
complained that we tried to interfere with their internal
operations, even though the Helsinki Final Act gives us the
responsibility to raise violations. And we're not interfering
with their country.
But then Russia directly attacks other member states, as
they did with Ukraine, the most recent. It wasn't the first
country that they violated. They were involved in Moldova. They
were involved in Georgia. Ten thousand people lost their lives
as a result of the military incursions in Ukraine. So it has
deadly consequences. And many, many thousands have been
displaced. I mention that because Russia's dangerous. And the
United States policies need to recognize that danger.
So I guess my question is that Russia seems to go in
wherever there are voids. They see an opportunity where we
don't have a NATO member in Europe, where there's some chaos.
They come in and try to stir it up, and then bring their
military presence in to cause instability, trying to weaken the
European Union, trying to weaken the transatlantic partnership.
So where's their next move in Europe? Where do you see the
vulnerabilities that could lead to Russia's military operations
in an effort to stir up problems?
There's a lot of countries in Europe that have large
Russian-speaking populations. Where would you want us to focus
on concerns where other countries could become prey to Russian
aggression? We know they don't always use their direct
soldiers. They send in resources. They use a local population
that they have influence over. Where do we think the next
attack is likely to occur?
Amb. Pifer. Senator, I would continue to worry about the
Baltic states. I don't think Russian military action against
the Baltics is likely. But it's not a zero probability. And I
think if we were having this hearing five or six years ago, we
would have said it was a zero probability. So I'd worry about
that. But it does get to your point that we need to make clear
to the Kremlin that there are red lines. I hope that when the
President is in Brussels at the NATO summit next week that
there's a very clear American commitment to Article 5, because
we don't want the Russians to miscalculate and believe falsely
that the United States would not respond to military action
against an ally.
Likewise, I think on questions like the Russians' loose
talk about nuclear weapons and escalate to de-escalate, we
should begin to devalue that notion in the mind of the Russians
right now by basically saying: Look, a nuclear weapon is a
nuclear weapon. If you use one, even if it's a small one, you
still have crossed a threshold that has not been crossed in 70
years, and you should anticipate that the consequences would be
unpredictable and potentially catastrophic. And in the case of
Ukraine, we should make very clear that a major Russian
offensive will lead to major consequences. Not sending the
American military, but new economic sanctions and a certain
American military support.
We need to begin to shape Russian thinking, that they have
to understand that there are certain places that the West will
not tolerate Russian overreach and will push back on. And
hopefully, as we shape that thinking, maybe Moscow comes around
to a more accommodating view on some of these questions.
Because red lines are going to be important if we want to make
our dialogue ultimately be more successful.
Mr. Cardin. Well, NATO has red lines. I would think that
that is pretty clear. If we don't enforce the red lines in
NATO, I think we have serious challenges. But you raise a very
valid point. We've been, in the first months of this Congress,
playing defense to try to maintain our sanctions against
Russia, both internally as well as in Europe. And we have been
able to maintain our sanctions. But Russia's activities have
gotten worse. They're much more aggressive. The cyber
activities that we talked about--much more aggressive. So
without U.S. leadership on saying there's a consequence to
that, it's very, very unlikely that you'll see Europe do much
without the United States taking the lead.
So we don't see any leadership from the Trump
Administration in using stronger sanctions against Russia. The
congressional branch of government needs to show leadership
here. And we have a bipartisan bill that has strong support.
Senator McCain is my co-sponsor, and Senator Shaheen is one of
the great leaders on that bill. And we've had the support of
Senator Graham and Senator Rubio, and Senator Wicker has been
an outspoken supporter of taking a strong stance against
Russia. We need to take some action here in Congress. Do you
agree with that?
Amb. Pifer. Yes, sir. One of the things I worry about is
that if the West response in the case of Ukraine is not
sufficiently strong, does the Kremlin conclude that the tactics
that they've employed against Ukraine over the last few years
can be managed at acceptable cost? In which case, they might be
tempted to use them elsewhere. Likewise, I think that there
should be a stronger American reaction to the Russian
interference in our election. Right now, my guess is at the
Kremlin they're thinking, you know, this doesn't have many
costs and it's pretty tempting to try it again, as we've seen
in France and as I believe we're going to see in the next three
or four months in Germany.
Mr. Cardin. Thank you.
Mr. Wicker. Glad to hear that there's bipartisan support
for stronger action on sanctions. And I think, Senator Cardin,
before you came in there was testimony to the effect that the
Magnitsky list should be expanded by the State Department. And
I know you and I support that also.
We're going to take a second round. Congressman Smith will
go next and then I'll follow him.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you for your testimonies.
Both my older brothers were military pilots. One of my
brothers, Tom, flew A-7s off the USS Enterprise. As in control
as fighter pilots are, and we had a conversation about this
last week, my brother expressed to me his deep concern that the
probability of an incident, a collision, increases
exponentially with the number and proximity of these very
provocative acts, these near-misses that are occurring with
increasing frequency. I wonder if any of you might want to
speak to what's behind this reckless behavior. Again, a pilot
might think that he can, you know, break off. But it's going to
happen, I think. There are just too many of them, that
something is going to happen. What's behind this reckless
behavior? And are the two-way communications between ourselves
and the Russians--NATO and the Russians sufficiently adequate
to mitigate any kind of escalation, both immediate in proximity
to what's happening, and maybe even a further escalation into
war by miscalculation?
Dr. Carpenter. Congressman, I believe that a lot of these
aggressive intercepts are part of a deliberate strategy. You
just have to contrast how Russia behaves in the Baltic or the
Black Sea with how they behave in Syria, where we have a
deconfliction channel and where our pilots are in very close
proximity in a very congested air space, and manage to avoid
these sorts of incidents. I personally don't believe that any
sort of new communication channels or agreements on
transponders, as has been proposed, will have any effect on
Russian behavior, because the desire on the part of the Kremlin
is to intimidate, to send a message, to keep the United States,
but also our NATO allies, out of their backyard.
And so if they see any diminution of our ops tempo, of our
operations, in these regions, they will conclude that this is a
successful strategy and will continue with it. And so my view
is that we need to continue with our ops tempo exactly as it
is. But this is certainly dangerous behavior, endangering the
lives of both American and Russian air crews.
Amb. Pifer. I agree with Mike that I think this is actually
a part of deliberate Russian policy to raise this risk of
accident and miscalculation. But I don't think there's anything
that the United States or NATO lose by trying to set up
channels. So, for example, in 1989 we had the Dangerous
Military Activities Agreement that regulated U.S. and Soviet
forces along the inter-German border. I wonder if a
resurrection of something like that might make sense now in the
Baltic and the Polish region, where you do have NATO forces on
a border directly facing Russian forces.
And that Dangerous Military Activities Agreement had things
like, for example, agreed radio channels where, if you saw the
guy on the other side of the border doing something that you
didn't understand, you had a channel. Call and say: What are
you doing? Things like that. I'm not sure the Russians would
accept that, but I see no harm and potential value to NATO in
trying to engage Russia on those sorts of channels, because the
sides presumably should not have an interest in war breaking
out, just because somebody makes a mistake or misunderstands
what a young Russian pilot is doing.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Wicker. Thank you.
Gentlemen, let's talk about Russia's destabilizing
transfers to neighboring and regional countries of threatening
weapons systems. Just this past year, Russia delivered the S-
300 missile system to OSCE member state Belarus, with a range
of upwards of 250 kilometers. Russia has also positioned the
Iskander-M missile system to its base in Kaliningrad, which has
the capability of carrying a nuclear payload within 500-
kilometer radius. As a matter of fact, the Lithuanian foreign
minister said in October of last year that with some
modifications this could go to 700 kilometers, which would then
include Berlin. Also, Russia has transferred the Iskander-E
missile system to OSCE member state Armenia. How troubling is
this? And would you three gentlemen have comments on these
destabilizing arms transfers and how they are stoking tensions
throughout Europe and Eurasia?
Mr. Rademaker.
Mr. Rademaker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There's a long
history to destabilizing Russian transfers to countries of
concern. I recall during the 1990s, there was great concern
about missile technology transfers by Russia to Iran. And, in
fact, Congress enacted legislation--the Iran Nonproliferation
Act--directed at precisely that issue--seeking to impose
sanctions on Russian entities that were involved in making such
transfers. That law, aimed at what were violations by Russia of
its obligations under various supplier regimes for limiting
exports of sensitive technology and systems. And, you know,
these regimes exist under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
That one's called the nuclear suppliers group. They exist under
the chemical weapons and biological convention. That's called
the Australia Group. The missile technology control regime
exists to limit missile technology transfers.
Some of the transfers you alluded to violate these regimes.
The S-300, that's not a ballistic missile so the transfer of
that is not limited by the missile technology control regime,
but it's nonetheless a destabilizing transfer. And you didn't
mention the transfer of S-300s to Iran, but that's another step
that the Russians have taken, over strong U.S. objections. The
Iskander missile, which you referred to, that is a ballistic
missile.
My understanding is there are two versions of the Iskander.
There's the Iskander-M, which is a roughly 500-kilometer range.
Transfers of that are limited by the missile technology control
regime. Russia is presumptively not to transfer that technology
to anybody. Then there's the Iskander-E, which is--E I think
stands for export. It's supposed to be the export-controlled
version, which has a range less than 300 kilometers. So it
could be transferred consistent with the missile technology
control regime.
Obviously when they deploy it in their own territory, in
Kaliningrad, that's not a transfer to anybody. But if they
transfer it to a country like Armenia, then the key question is
which version did they transfer? Was it the E or the M? If it
was the E, then it was consistent with the missile technology
control regime. If it was the M, it would be inconsistent. I've
actually seen conflicting press accounts of which version was
transferred to Armenia.
Mr. Wicker. Ambassador.
Amb. Pifer. Mr. Chairman, I actually tend to be pessimistic
about our ability to stop some of these things. I mean, the
Russians will argue, for example, on the S-300 sale to Belarus,
they're saying Belarus is one of the few countries in the world
that would say is an ally of Russia. And they would say that
providing that air defense system to Belarus is the same as,
for example, the United States selling the Patriot Air Defense
system to Poland.
On Iskander to Kaliningrad, from what I've seen, the
Iskander, they're in the 4- to 500-kilometer range, which is
not covered by the INF Treaty, the ballistic missile. It seems
to be that the Russians are now, basically as they phase out
the SS-21, which was their previous short range surface-to-
surface missile, those units are now receiving the Iskander.
From what I've seen, the Iskander has been deployed temporarily
with exercises in Kaliningrad, but the Russians previously had
SS-21 permanently based there. And it's my expectation that at
some point you'll see the Iskander in Kaliningrad. So we'll
have to think about, on the NATO side, what are the sorts of
defenses that you would want to be able to deal with that
system. But I don't think we're going to be able to persuade
the Russians not to go forward with it.
Mr. Wicker. Thank you.
Senator Shaheen.
Mrs. Shaheen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to follow up on Senator Cardin's question about
where do we expect the Russians may agitate next in Europe,
because I'm very concerned about reports that are coming out of
the Balkans, particularly in Bosnia and Serbia and Kosovo,
where it seems they're agitating to try and prevent further
calming of the conflict between Serbia and Kosovo, and also
where they're ginning up the Republika Srpska, since we
mentioned that, to continue to try to agitate to leave Bosnia
and really play on some of the tensions that exist in the
region. So I wonder if you all can comment on that, and what
you're hearing, and also what should we be doing as we think
about the challenges that the Balkans are facing to try and
support their continued move towards democracy and integration
in the EU and the West.
Dr. Carpenter. Well, thank you for that question, Senator.
I was going to reply to Senator Cardin's question with
precisely this answer: That the Western Balkans is in the
crosshairs of Russian influence operations right now,
particularly Republika Srpska, where they have been encouraging
President Dodik to pursue his secessionist agenda. And we could
see, in fact, within the course of a year, that a referendum
will be declared on the succession of Republika Srpska from
Bosnia and Herzegovina. They have also been intervening in
Macedonia, supporting Mr. Gruevski and accusing the United
States of trying to subvert the previous government and of
meddling. But this is now being superimposed--this political
tension between the former ruling party, VMRO, and the
opposition, SDSM, with an ethic overlay between ethnic
Albanians who are members of the coalition and ethnic
Macedonians.
And so the potential for this spinning out of control and
creating a full-fledged ethnic conflict in the Western Balkans
is, in my view, very high. And I mentioned the plot for a coup
d'etat in Montenegro in October--across the whole region Russia
is meddling and trying to subvert some of the governments and
sow chaos and instability. And so I think for us, we just
simply need to get more engaged in the Balkans. We need to
support the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue. We need to support
those in Bosnia and Herzegovina that want to activate MAP and
move forward with their NATO integration process. I'm not
saying membership, just MAP, which is has been held up for very
artificial reasons over the issue of registration of defense
properties.
But when I was at the A5 Defense Ministerial in December of
last year, I heard from absolutely everybody across the board--
including quietly from the Serbian delegation--that Russia was
playing an outsized role in every country in the region.
Mr. Wicker. Tell us about what the Serbian leadership's
position would be with regard to this proposed possible
referendum in Republika Srpska.
Dr. Carpenter. Very much opposed. But of course, the
previous Serbian prime minister, Aleksander Vucic, is now the
president of Serbia. And so when we have a new prime minister,
which is where most of the executive authority in Serbia is
vested, we will see whether they will pursue that policy of
trying to push back Dodik's more aggressive moves in Republika
Srpska and Banja Luka, or whether they will, in fact, stand by
or potentially support them more. In fact, the decision on who
will become the next prime minister will be a bit of litmus
test as far as whether Serbia is hedging more towards Moscow or
more towards Brussels.
Mrs. Shaheen. Any other comments anybody wants to make on
that issue?
Mr. Rademaker. Senator, I noted in the conclusion of my
testimony that Russia's approach to the region really is based
on a zero-sum view of security, that they think keeping their
neighbors weak and vulnerable keeps them stronger. And I think
you see that in looking over the last 10 or 15 years in their
policies towards some of their neighbors. What is very
interesting is, though, that they do--hopefully for the right
reasons--they do seem to be respecting the lines that NATO
draws. They have focused their efforts on countries that are
not NATO members. And of course, as members of NATO, we have no
obligation to defend non-NATO members. I think the Georgians
discovered that, to their chagrin, in 2008. But it was true.
Ukraine has discovered it more recently.
The Western Balkans is an area that, by and large, lies
outside of NATO. And therefore, I think for Russia, it presents
an opportunity. And it is something that I think we need to be
deeply concerned about. I also worry--as Ambassador Pifer noted
in responding to Senator Cardin's question--if the Russians
ever decide to press or look beyond the NATO borders, I think
the area most at risk would be the Baltic states, which, of
course, were a part of the Soviet Union and therefore arguably
part of the Russian near-abroad, where they've asserted
publicly they think they're entitled to have a special security
role.
So we need to be alert to use by Russia of some of these
new tools that Senator Rubio referred to, if they're brought to
bear in the Baltic states. Whether we're prepared as an
alliance to respond to that, I'm concerned that we're not. So
the ultimate solution is a change in the Russian mindset, where
they stop approaching the world with this zero-sum mentality to
security issues. But until we get to that point, I think we
need to worry especially about the countries in Europe that are
not in NATO. But also some of the countries in NATO which
border Russia; I think we need to be concerned about them as
well.
Mrs. Shaheen. And that speaks to Ambassador Pifer's comment
about being very clear that we are committed to maintaining
Article 5 for all of our NATO allies.
Amb. Pifer. And if I could just briefly add on the Balkans,
I am mindful of that when you look at the U.S. global focus, I
worry that the Balkans may not get sufficient U.S. attention.
Mrs. Shaheen. Me too.
Amb. Pifer. The Balkans, to my mind----
Mr. Wicker. Me too.
Mrs. Shaheen. Yes.
Amb. Pifer. The Balkans, to my mind, actually would be a
place where I'd like to see Europe lead, where the European
Union has traction. This ought to be a focus. And so if we
could somehow encourage Europe to take that role, that would be
a good thing.
I'm also mindful--I served at the American embassy in
London in the early 1990s, and we watched Europe take the lead
the first time when Yugoslavia came apart, and it didn't work
out well, and ultimately the United States did have to get
involved. But at some point we need to figure out, is there a
way where Europe can begin to take on some of these
responsibilities, because we're going to have to be thinking
about other issues that are outside of Europe.
Mr. Wicker. You know, we've drawn such bright lines and
made such explicit statements with regard to the Baltic
countries. I do sort of fear that we haven't been as explicit
with regard to the former Yugoslavia, and so I share some of
your concerns there. Help us understand this attempted coup in
October and whether we should be worried about similar efforts.
Dr. Carpenter. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. I think this could
be the wave of the future in terms of how Russia tries to
destabilize countries in the region.
Mr. Wicker. So tell our audience in a nutshell what
happened there.
Dr. Carpenter. In a nutshell, a small number of Russian
military intelligence agents organized and planned a coup
d'etat on Election Day in October in Montenegro. They hired
approximately 20 local mercenaries from Serbia and from
Montenegro, members of organized crime groups and radical
nationalist circles. They were to dress in Montenegrin police
uniforms and fire on protesters outside of parliament on the
day of the election in order to incite chaos and assassinate
the prime minister. Now, in order to ensure that there would be
protesters who turned out on Election Day, Russia also used
covert means to fund opposition political parties and NGOs
through cutouts in Montenegro. And they also perpetrated
cyberattacks on Election Day. They both shut down government
networks so that the authorities in Podgorica would not be able
to communicate the election results to their citizenry, but
they also hijacked social media platforms like Viber and
WhatsApp to spread fake news and disinformation claiming that
the vote count had been rigged and tampered with. This was an
attempt to get protesters to come out.
Now, the coup plot was foiled in advance thanks to good
intelligence and a tipoff.
Mr. Wicker. How early?
Dr. Carpenter. But the cyberattacks took place.
Mr. Wicker. How early was it foiled?
Dr. Carpenter. I would have to address that in a closed
session.
Mr. Wicker. Oh my gosh. OK. But this could certainly occur
again, particularly in a relatively small and vulnerable
republic.
Dr. Carpenter. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And I
think the Western Balkans, as I said, are in the crosshairs for
this type of action.
Mr. Wicker. Yes, please. Mr. Rademaker.
Mr. Rademaker. I just wanted to add the detail that all of
this took place in a context where Montenegro was in the
process of acceding to NATO. And so success of the coup there
might have--depending on whatever government came to power,
might have ended their NATO accession process.
Mr. Wicker. Is there any question that Mr. Putin was
involved in this?
Dr. Carpenter. No question in my mind.
Mr. Wicker. Mr. Rubio mentioned the economy of Russia being
about the size of Spain. We are trying to insist on 2 percent
of GDP for our NATO allies. What percent of GDP does Russia
spend? And are they going to have a problem sustaining this
military modernization and buildup?
Amb. Pifer. The Russian economy, I think, is projected to
grow at about 1.2 percent this year. And I don't know--I think
it was about--what, 5 percent that they hit at one point, but
the number's actually coming down now, and I think it's
reflecting the fact that the Russians understand that there are
budgetary limitations. In 2015, they began reducing the budgets
for things like health and education, but this year and next
year they're projecting significant decreases in military
spending. Now, part of that may also reflect the fact that a
lot of their modernization has already been funded, but they
are beginning to run up against some budget realities.
Dr. Carpenter. Although, if I could, I would just say I
don't think we can be too sanguine that they will not be able
to continue the tempo that they have in Syria or Ukraine
because their reserves remain just under $400 billion. So they
have a significant amount of reserves that they've built up
through the 2000s, when oil prices were very high, that they
can still draw on to be able to perpetuate these sorts of
actions in Ukraine and elsewhere.
Mr. Wicker. And, finally, in the area of public diplomacy,
Russia eats our lunch. Does anyone agree with that or disagree
with that and want to comment about it? And how can we do a
better job without becoming a propaganda organ of getting
public information to people in that region of the world? Do
they eat our lunch? Am I wrong?
Dr. Carpenter. No, Chairman, I think they do. Not in the
United States, but I think their ability to perpetrate
information warfare in places like Moldova or Georgia
especially, where a lot of attitudes have shifted over the last
couple years in both of those countries, but also in the Baltic
states, is very robust.
And so I think one of the means of pushing back has to be
to inoculate the populations to what Russia is doing. Actually,
you find that the Baltic states are quite good at this. There
has been an education campaign by the governments in the Baltic
states. The population knows that false stories come out of
Russian media, and the mainstream media are also very quick to
debunk Russian stories.
So, for example, when the multinational battalions were
deployed to the Baltic states and Russian media started to
propagate fake stories about alleged rapes that had taken place
by some of the soldiers who are on these territories,
immediately the Baltic media were able to clarify that this was
false, disinformation, and correct the record. And so they have
a lot of experience with this. And I think, you know, some of
the Western European countries and here in the United States--
--
Mr. Wicker. And yet, the Baltic media is independent of the
government.
Dr. Carpenter. It is. The governments of some of the Baltic
states, particularly Estonia, also fund Russian-language media,
television--broadcast television which is able to get the
message out to the Estonian ethnic Russian, Russian-speaking
population.
Amb. Pifer. I would add that the Russians devote a lot of
resources to this. I recall about two years ago, when I was in
Prague, and I turned on the television. I could not find CNN,
but I could find RT in English, RT high-def in English, and RT
in Spanish.
Mr. Wicker. Shouldn't we be investing more resources?
Amb. Pifer. I think we should be investing resources, but I
would focus on what I believe is the vulnerability of both RT
and Sputnik, is that there's a lot of bad information they put
out, and the focus should be on discrediting those channels.
And then, basically, we want a situation where a target
audience in Europe, when they hear something, they say, that's
just RT, we know they lie. And that's an area where perhaps we
could do better in terms of fast reaction to discredit the
stories immediately when they come out. If we discredit a story
five days later, it doesn't really help. But if we can come out
immediately and say this is false, here's the evidence, I think
we can take down those channels, and reduce their credibility
and their potential impact.
Mr. Wicker. Mr. Rademaker.
Mr. Rademaker. Mr. Chairman, I would just add the
observation that in the area of information warfare there's
sort of the overt and then there's the covert. And I think in
the overt area, which is what we've been talking about here,
you know, Russia does a reasonably good job. Although I have to
say I occasionally watch RT, and to me it's kind of laughable.
I mean, it is sort of thinly-veiled propaganda and I don't take
it seriously. I don't know whether average citizens find it
more persuasive, but you know, I----
Mrs. Shaheen. They do.
Mr. Wicker. I'm afraid they do.
Mr. Rademaker. Yes. But I worry actually less about that
than I do the covert side because during the Cold War I believe
both sides were engaged in covert efforts to generate
information in support of their political objectives. I think
Russia remains in that business, especially in Europe. I don't
think the United States is very much in that business anymore.
And so, it turns out, there's a very active environmental
movement against fracking in Europe and against the
construction of the southern energy corridor, and it's pretty
clear the money for this environmental movement, a lot of it's
coming from Moscow. And what's Russia's concern? Well, you
know, it would be nice for Europe to remain dependent on
Gazprom and not have alternate sources of energy, either
domestic through fracking in countries like Poland or gas that
comes from the Caucasus. So that's just one example.
And I think support to political parties that have agendas
that are amenable to Russia is another area. Senator Whitehouse
referred to that in his question. I think this is an area where
Russia has pretty much a free hand and no one is pushing back
on them. And I don't think there's even really much effort to
call them out on it and expose what the Russians are doing in
that area.
Mr. Wicker. Do we need to revamp the Broadcasting Board of
Governors in this country, Dr. Carpenter?
Dr. Carpenter. I would say--well, the BBG has got some good
programs. It's recently launched a program called ``Current
Time,'' which is a digital Russian-language platform that
reaches Russian-speaking audiences on Russia's periphery and
inside--and it's digital, so it can be picked up on the
internet in Russia as well. Unfortunately, it doesn't compete
with the more glossy Russian broadcast TV channels that offer
attractive entertainment programming as well.
I would support putting more resources into this sort of
effort, but I don't think it's going to be the be-all and end-
all of countering Russian disinformation. I think we've got to
be more active on the offense as well. I think we need to be
talking more about corrupt patterns within Russia. Some of the
information, for example, that has been brought to light by
Alexei Navalny's organization, that has wide currency in
Russia. And if we were able to not just play Whac-a-Mole with
Russian disinformation and lies, but also spread some of this
information, I think that would be highly effective in terms of
pushing back.
Mr. Rademaker. Mr. Chairman, if I could just add,
particularly if there is additional information available to
the U.S. intelligence community that could be declassified on
Russian corruption, I think that would actually be a proper
response to what the Russians did to our election, and
basically signal the Kremlin: If you want to play this game, we
may not be able to play it in the same way, but I'm sure that
the Kremlin would not like to see more information about the
corruption and the billions of dollars held by people that are
close to Vladimir Putin.
Mr. Wicker. Thank you, gentlemen, and thank you to our
panel and the members of the Commission who participated. And
also, thank you to our audience today. This hearing is now
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:21 a.m., the hearing ended.]
A P P E N D I C E S
=======================================================================
Prepared Statements
----------
Prepared Statement of Hon. Roger F. Wicker, Co-Chairman, Commission on
Security and Cooperation in Europe
The Commission will come to order, and good morning to everybody.
Welcome to today's hearing on the ``Growing Russian Military Threat in
Europe.''
This is the Commission's second hearing of this Congress. Our first
hearing, on April 26, rightly focused on human rights abuses within
Russia. Today's hearing will examine Russian actions beyond its
borders--specifically Moscow's use of military force to further its
ambitions.
The mandate of the Helsinki Commission requires us to ``monitor the
acts of the signatories which reflect compliance with or violation of
the articles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and
Cooperation in Europe,'' also known as the Helsinki Final Act.
Even a casual observer of international affairs would recognize
that Russian military aggression has posed a tremendous threat to the
European security order in recent years. The Russian leadership has
chosen an antagonistic stance, both regionally and globally, as it
seeks to reassert its influence from a bygone era.
The actions taken by the Russian leadership under this aggressive
posture have without any doubt violated commitments enshrined in the
Helsinki Final Act and other agreements. To name three key examples:
1. Russia has breached its commitment to refrain from the
threat or use of force against other states;
2. Russia has breached its commitment to refrain from violating
their sovereignty, territorial integrity or political
independence; and
3. Russia has breached its commitment to respect other states'
right to choose their own security alliances.
Many of Russia's neighbors have faced Russian military aggression
in recent years. Ukraine and Georgia have both seen important parts of
their territories forcibly occupied, including the illegal attempted
annexation of Crimea in 2014. Russian forces continue to be present in
Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova, against the wishes of the governments of
those countries.
In addition to its direct aggression toward its neighbors, Moscow
has also made it a priority to undermine the effective functioning of
several conventional arms control agreements and measures for
confidence and security building. These measures, to which Russia is a
party, include:
1. The Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, which
limits heavy ground and air weapons in Europe and provides
information on current arms holdings, including their location;
2. The Open Skies Treaty, which provides for mutual unarmed
aerial reconnaissance of member states; and
3. The Vienna Document on Confidence- and Security-Building
Measures, which provides for information exchanges, on-site
inspections, and notifications of the military activities,
arms, and force levels of OSCE participating States.
These agreements--along with others, such as the INF Treaty, which
Russia is also violating--together form an interlocking web of
commitments that have proved fundamental to the stability of the post-
Cold War European security architecture. They were designed to enhance
military transparency and predictability, thereby increasing confidence
among the OSCE participating States.
Unfortunately, the actions of the Russian leadership in recent
years have demonstrated that Russia sees little value in the
transparency and predictability that have kept the peace in Europe.
I would like to make one more point. I want to reiterate my dismay
regarding the tragic death of American paramedic Joseph Stone on April
23. Mr. Stone was killed while serving his country as a member of the
OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine when his vehicle struck an
explosive--likely a landmine--in separatist-controlled territory, an
event that also injured two other monitors.
This is the first time in the history of the OSCE that a mission
member has been killed in the line of duty, and make no mistake, Mr.
Stone's death was directly related to Russia's aggression towards its
neighbors. Had Russia not invaded Ukraine in the first place--and had
it lived up to the Minsk agreements, and ceased supporting, directing,
funding, and fueling separatists in this region--there would have been
no need for the monitoring mission to continue. Once again, I extend my
condolences to Mr. Stone's family and friends.
I also want to take this opportunity to call for an end to the
harassment faced by these brave monitors on a daily basis, and I urge
all sides to provide the observers with unfettered access.
We have put a photograph of OSCE monitors in the room as a reminder
of the continuing challenges faced by these brave monitors as they
carry out their extremely important mission.
Our hearing today has three objectives. We will:
1. Examine Russia's undermining of European security, the OSCE,
and its arms control agreements and commitments;
2. Assess whether it will be possible to move Russia back
toward compliance with its commitments under the Helsinki Final
Act and the associated OSCE agreements, and if so, how to get
there; and
3. Finally, explore how we can maximize the value of these
agreements and the OSCE as a whole going forward.
I am grateful to the members of our distinguished panel for their
willingness to provide expert views on these topics, and I look forward
to our discussion today.
Prepared Statement of Hon. Chris Smith, Co-Chairman, Commission on
Security and Cooperation in Europe
Good morning and thank you to Chairman Wicker for convening this
important hearing to examine Russian military aggression in the OSCE
region.
Russia today stands in violation of the central commitments of the
Helsinki Final Act. These commitments include respect for the
territorial integrity of States, fundamental freedoms, and the
fulfillment in good faith of obligations under international law. In
violating these commitments, Russia is threatening the foundations of
European security and recklessly endangering the lives of millions.
One such victim of Russian aggression is Joseph Stone, the 36-year-
old American medic who was killed by a landmine while on patrol in
separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine with the OSCE's Special
Monitoring Mission on April 23rd. If it weren't for Russia's
unjustifiable aggression toward Ukraine's sovereignty there would be no
need for such a monitoring mission. And yet, day after day, OSCE
monitors put themselves in harm's way to try to reduce the tensions
created by the reckless conduct of Russia and its proxies in eastern
Ukraine. It is a conflict that has already claimed over ten thousand
lives, and sadly is guaranteed to claim more.
Russian aggression is not a localized phenomenon--it threatens the
entire region. Moscow has seized sovereign territory by force,
threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons against other countries,
harassed U.S. and Allied military assets, and abandoned key
transparency measures and commitments. These actions are unacceptable.
In the face of such provocations, the United States must leave no
doubt that we stand behind our Eastern European and Baltic Allies.
There is no time to waste: we must ensure the confidence of our friends
at this critical juncture.
One way to do this is to continue building a credible conventional
deterrent to Russian aggression alongside our allies, in particular
Poland and the Baltic States. I have consistently supported robust
funding for the European Reassurance Initiative. With the support of
this initiative, since 2014, NATO members have held over 1,000 military
exercises in Europe. ERI has allowed the U.S. to participate more
extensively in such exercises and increase its deployment of soldiers
and military assets in allied countries. Furthermore, it has helped us
to build the capacity of our partners and generally make our commitment
to European security felt. These kinds of activities must be sustained
and expanded to ensure that we are ready to counter any threat at any
time.
This hearing will give us an opportunity to learn what more the
U.S. can do on this front, both bilaterally and within NATO. In
particular, I look forward to Dr. Carpenter's testimony about the
extent of the challenge posed by Russian aggression in the OSCE region;
Mr. Rademaker's thoughts about the implications of Russia's flouting of
its arms control and transparency commitments; and Ambassador Pifer's
perspective on developments in Ukraine and what they mean for the
region. I will also be interested to hear from our witnesses about the
role of the OSCE in all of this.
To all our witnesses, I thank you for your time today.
Prepared Statement of Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin, Ranking Member,
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Chairman Wicker, thank you for convening this hearing and for your
leadership of the Helsinki Commission. This hearing could not be more
timely.
I have said before that Russia is violating every single one of the
Helsinki Final Act's ten Guiding Principles between states. Many of us
have drawn attention to Russia's violation of principles on sovereign
equality, on territorial integrity and on the inviolability of borders.
If I may, Mr. Chairman, today I'd like to put a little bit of a
spotlight on Principle VI--``non-intervention in internal affairs.''
Russia has long sought to counter discussion of human rights by
claiming that raising human rights concerns is ``interference'' or
``intervention'' in internal affairs. This, of course, is not true. In
fact, the OSCE participating States explicitly agreed in 1991 that
raising human rights issues is not interference in the internal affairs
of other states.
What does ``non-intervention in the internal affairs'' of other
countries mean then? Well, when the participating States adopted
Principle VI in the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, they were rejecting the
Brezhnev Doctrine and the Soviet invasions of Hungary and
Czechoslovakia. Principle VI expressly prohibits ``armed intervention
or threat of such intervention against another participating State.''
That agreement was an important basis for building many of the
subsequent agreements we were able to achieve in the OSCE, including
many in the area of military security.
But under President Putin, Russia has systematically undermined all
of the security arrangements that peacefully ended the Cold War. When
Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, they not only
violated this principle of the Helsinki Accords, they turned back the
clock to the days of the Brezhnev era. In the Helsinki Final Act, the
participating States pledged to refrain from making each other's
territory the object of military occupation in contravention of
international law. Today, Russia is manifestly violating that
commitment.
And the costs of Russia's aggression continue to mount. Some 10,000
people have been killed in Ukraine and hundreds of thousands displaced.
298 people were killed when Russian-backed separatists shot down the
civilian flight MH17. A week ago, Joseph Stone, an American member of
the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine was killed and two
others, a Czech and a German national, were injured by a land mine in
Russian-backed separatist controlled territory. I join you, Mr.
Chairman, in expressing grief at this senseless loss of life and anger
at those who are responsible.
Russia is the greatest threat to the security of Europe and the
United States. Accordingly, I welcome this hearing's examination of the
Russian military threat, particularly in the context of the OSCE
framework for confidence- and security-building, and I look forward to
working with you and other members of the Commission to protect the
security of the United States and our allies. I regret that there
continue to be so many positions that the administration has yet to
fill at a time when our country faces such acute threats and hope that
the administration will move quickly to fill key senior positions in
the State Department and Department of Defense.
Prepared Statement of Hon. Michael Burgess, Commissioner, Commission on
Security and Cooperation in Europe
In 2014, Russia used military force to breach the borders of
Ukraine and annex Crimea. Despite an official ceasefire, known as Minsk
II, Russia's actions and non-implementation of the ceasefire have
produced a frozen conflict that has killed at least 10,000 people. This
aggression directly violates the guiding principles of the Helsinki
Final Act, including sovereign equality for member states, refraining
from the threat or use of force, ensuring the territorial integrity of
states, and non-intervention in internal affairs. In addition, Russia
has been engaging in overt and covert subversive action in the media
and in cyberspace domestically and across international borders in
order to further an aggressive agenda.
Russia has either violated or completely ignored provisions of the
Treaty on Conventional Armed Forced in Europe, the Open Skies Treaty,
the Vienna Document, and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
This posturing clearly indicates Russia's unwillingness to cooperate
with its European neighbors to improve security. In fact, Russia views
its security as directly proportional to the insecurity of its European
neighbors.
Vladimir Putin wants NATO to fracture and international
organizations, such as the Helsinki Commission, to weaken in order to
create the necessity of a new order that is not predicated primarily on
Western influence. Putin is rebuilding Russia's national identity
through military action. This activity is hurting the basic freedoms
and human rights of Russian citizens, as well as threatening Russia's
contiguous neighbors and NATO members.
Recently, an American paramedic serving on the OSCE's Special
Monitoring Mission in Ukraine was killed when his vehicle struck an
explosive in separatist-held territory. This death was entirely
preventable. Continued Russian military aggression in this region only
increases the likelihood that more innocent lives will be taken. We
must find a way to limit Russia's military aggression and bring balance
back to the region.
Prepared Statement of Dr. Michael Carpenter, Senior Director, Penn
Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement
Note: The statements, views, and policy recommendations
expressed in this testimony reflect the opinions of the author
alone, and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the
Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement or the
University of Pennsylvania.
Chairman Wicker, Co-Chairman Smith, and members of the Commission,
thank you for this opportunity to speak with you today about the
growing Russian military threat to European security.
There is no question that the Putin regime today poses the greatest
threat to the security of Europe, and to the United States as well.
Over the last decade, the Kremlin has repeatedly demonstrated a
willingness to use military force to violate international norms and
commitments. Russia's invasions of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014
broke with the foundational principles of the postwar international
order: sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the inviolability of
borders. These principles were not only enshrined in the UN Charter and
the Helsinki Final Act, which Moscow signed during the Soviet period,
but they were also reaffirmed by Russia in the post-Cold War period in
the Charter of Paris for a New Europe and the NATO-Russia Founding Act.
In addition to its brazen violations of international norms, the
Kremlin is today in breach of several important arms control treaties
that affect European security. In 2007, Russia unilaterally
``suspended'' its participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe
Treaty, allowing Moscow to indirectly receive data provided by NATO
countries (via its allies in the Collective Security Treaty
Organization) without being required to reciprocate. Moreover, Moscow
is covertly violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF)
Treaty by developing and likely soon deploying a prohibited ground-
launched cruise missile. Finally, Russia is violating the Open Skies
Treaty by restricting other states' ability to fly over Kaliningrad, a
strategically important and heavily militarized outpost that borders on
two NATO Allies.
When it comes to the Vienna Document and other transparency and
confidence-building measures, Russia regularly undermines the spirit,
if not the letter, of these arrangements. For example, the Russian
General Staff often splits an exercise into several parts and/or
creates artificial time-gaps between different parts of the exercise to
bypass Vienna Document thresholds for notification and observation.
Russia has also significantly increased the number of snap exercises--
four in 2013, 8 in 2014, 20 in 2015, and 11 in 2016--that fall outside
the scope of the Vienna Document's notification procedures. Finally,
Russia continues to unilaterally block proposed updates to the Vienna
Document that would lower the thresholds for inspections and
evaluations, a step all other OSCE participating States strongly
support.
Beyond the field of arms control, Russia has undermined a number of
important political agreements affecting European security. These
include the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, under which Ukraine gave up its
nuclear weapons in return for a guarantee of its territorial integrity;
the 2008 Medvedev-Sarkozy ceasefire agreement, under which Russia
pledged to pull back its troops in Georgia to pre-conflict positions;
and the September 2014 and February 2015 Minsk agreements, whose
ceasefire provisions are regularly violated, as demonstrated by the
more than 80 Ukrainians killed and over 450 wounded this year alone (in
total, almost 10,000 people have been killed in this conflict).
From its rampant abuse of Interpol ``red warrants'' to its
disrespect for the fair competition standards of the International
Olympic Committee, the Russian government has repeatedly demonstrated
that its international commitments have almost no bearing on its
behavior. Now is not the time to seek new commitments, but it is past
time to take action so that Russia changes its behavior.
Russia's Collision Course with the West
To best understand how to address Russia's failure to honor its
international commitments, we first need to understand what is
motivating the Kremlin's behavior.
Put simply, the Putin regime believes the West poses the greatest
threat to its survival and therefore seeks to push back against Western
influence, including the spread of Western norms of transparency,
accountability, and rule of law, which the Kremlin fears will undermine
its kleptocratic and authoritarian system of rule. For much of the
post-Cold War period this pushback was confined to the post-Soviet
region, which Russian leaders referred to as their ``sphere of
privileged interests.'' In the last few years, however, the Kremlin has
taken the fight directly to the West. On an increasing number of
levels, the Kremlin is actively seeking to subvert the foundations of
Western liberal democracies and to undermine NATO on its own turf, as
we clearly saw through Russia's cyber-attack and subversive operation
during our presidential election campaign. Indeed, Russia's foreign
policy has undergone a significant paradigm shift in the last five
years: from the previous model of cooperating where possible and
competing where necessary, to the current model of competing short of
conflict across all domains, all the time.
Recognizing that NATO possesses superior conventional military
capabilities, Russia's ``grey zone'' conflict with the West relies
primarily on unconventional tactics, unlike its conventional military
interventions in Georgia and Ukraine. That is because Russia's
leadership likely learned an important lesson from its wars in Georgia
and Ukraine: namely, that while these conflicts set back both
countries' Euro-Atlantic integration processes, neither of these
interventions reversed the pro-Western orientations of their
populations. As a result, the Kremlin now appears to be placing more
emphasis on political subversion and covert influence operations, from
Moldova to Montenegro and from Ukraine to the United States.
Investing in Full-Spectrum Capabilities
While Moscow has recognized that its competition with the West
requires a greater emphasis on unconventional tactics, Russian military
strategists continue to invest in the full range of conventional and
nuclear capabilities to deter adversaries and prevail in active
conflicts. The Russian General Staff has spent the last decade and a
half implementing serious military reforms that have produced a far
more ready and capable fighting force.
At the top end of the spectrum, Moscow is modernizing its nuclear
triad: developing new ICBMs, advanced nuclear-powered submarines, and
fifth-generation combat aircraft and new long-range bombers. In terms
of conventional capabilities, Russia has fielded highly capable air and
coastal defense systems for anti-access, area-denial (A2/AD) effects in
Kaliningrad, Crimea, Japan's Northern Territories, and around large
population centers like Moscow and St. Petersburg. It has developed and
used sophisticated sea-launched cruise missiles. As we have seen in
Ukraine, Russia has employed cutting-edge electronic warfare (EW)
capabilities to suppress enemy Intelligence, Surveillance, and
Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms while using its own EW-hardened ISR to
target opposing forces with precision fire. Though using slightly older
technology, Russia's conventional doctrine also calls for extensive and
highly effective use of multiple rocket launch systems and artillery,
which have together accounted for more than 90 percent of the
casualties in Ukraine. Finally, on the covert end of the spectrum,
Russia has honed a variety of unconventional capabilities that include
cutting-edge cyber, proxy, and information warfare, as well as the
weaponization of corruption for purposes of political subversion.
Cultivating Belligerence, Unpredictability, and Non-Transparency
Russia relies on its status as a nuclear power to deter and instill
fear of escalation among its adversaries. Russia's ``escalate to de-
escalate'' doctrine allows for first use of a nuclear weapon to compel
adversaries to settle a conflict on Moscow's terms rather than to fight
on or escalate the conflict. Under this doctrine Russia could, for
example, use a tactical nuclear weapon for a first-use ``demonstration
effect.'' If used in a conflict with a NATO Ally, however, this could
have the exact opposite of its intended effect and prove dangerously
escalatory, with devastating consequences for all parties. The Trump
administration would therefore do well to consider a new round of
strategic stability talks with Russia to bring to Russia's attention
such doctrinal miscalculations.
Another goal of Russia's evolving military doctrine is to use
denial, deception, unpredictability, and lack of transparency to
maximize Russia's asymmetric tactical advantages. The Kremlin's
numerous violations of arms control and confidence- and security-
building measures (CSBMs) are therefore part of a very deliberate
strategy, and one that takes full advantage of the clear asymmetry in
the desire for transparency between Russia and Europe.
This deliberate erosion of transparency and trust on Russia's part
is coupled with nuclear threats against NATO Allies and dangerous
military behavior whose purpose is to intimidate. The threats to target
Denmark or Romania with nuclear weapons and the highly unprofessional
and unsafe intercepts of NATO aircraft and vessels over/on the Black
and Baltic seas fall into this category. Earlier this month, for
example, a Russian fighter intercepted a U.S. P-8A aircraft flying over
the Black Sea at a distance of only 20 feet, endangering the lives of
both American and Russian aircrews. While these dangerous activities
have led some European countries to recommend new crisis management
measures such as an agreement to keep transponders on at all times,
such proposals completely miss the point. Transponders or new
navigational rules will do nothing to solve the problem because these
incidents are not accidents resulting from the excessive bravado of
individual pilots. They are deliberate policy choices and will continue
so long as Moscow thinks it can intimidate NATO countries into scaling
back their operations in certain theaters, such as the Black and Baltic
seas.
Policies to Respond to an Aggressive Russia
The range of aggressive and subversive actions that Russia is
pursuing across Europe demands a firm but proportionate response. Given
Russia's ongoing violations of the fundamental principles of the NATO-
Russia Founding Act, the United States should finally consider
unilaterally declaring a ``suspension'' of its pledge not to deploy
``substantial combat forces'' to NATO Allies in Eastern and Central
Europe. The current situation in which Russia violates almost every one
of its Founding Act pledges while NATO meekly declares its continued
compliance with the Act--and thereby creates a ``second-class'' status
for our eastern Allies--creates an incentive for the additional buildup
of Russian troops on its western border. To compensate for this
imbalance, the United States should deploy an additional Brigade Combat
Team to Eastern Europe as a deterrent force, while clearly messaging
that this deployment could be reversed if and when Russia's aggressive
posture in the region changes. At the same time, the United States
should declare that for now it is reaffirming its commitment to the
Founding Act's three ``nuclear no's,'' namely the commitment that NATO
has ``no intention, no plan, and no reason'' to deploy nuclear weapons
to the eastern flank of the Alliance.
Second, the United States must signal that it will employ the legal
principle of countermeasures to respond to Russia's violations of the
Open Skies and INF treaties. Just as Russia denies access under the
Open Skies Treaty to the exclave of Kaliningrad, the United States
should immediately choose an analogous region (e.g. Hawaii or Alaska)
where it can mirror Russian restrictions until Moscow returns to
compliance with the treaty. The Departments of State and Defense should
also more forthrightly communicate to our Allies our concern with
Russia's ability to use the Open Skies Treaty to collect information on
NATO's critical infrastructure. Although many of our Allies greatly
value the transparency the treaty provides, in many respects this
transparency is of marginal benefit to the United States. Our Allies
must therefore understand that the risks to U.S. national security
inherent in the intrusive treaty procedures are beginning to outweigh
its benefits.
Similarly, the United States has spent considerable time seeking
unsuccessfully to convince Moscow to return to compliance with the INF
treaty. It is now time for the United States to apply the doctrine of
countermeasures to immediately begin research (which is not prohibited
by the treaty) into the development of an intermediate-range missile
that would match Russia's new capability. The Pentagon should also be
tasked with implementing other defensive measures to deny Russia any
advantage from its violation of the treaty. Finally, we must also
accelerate our diplomatic efforts with Allies to underscore that the
United States cannot continue to stand by indefinitely as Russia
develops a new and extremely dangerous military capability.
Third, strengthening Ukraine's sovereignty must be a central
element of the U.S. response to Russian aggression in Europe. The
current de facto arms embargo on Ukraine should be lifted immediately
and defensive armaments should be provided to allow Ukraine to harden
its defenses against further Russian aggression. U.S. security
assistance should focus on air defense, anti-armor, and counter-
artillery/mortar capabilities as well as more robust intelligence
sharing. If the United States took the lead, a number of our NATO
Allies would almost certainly follow suit and send excess stocks of
non-NATO standard weapons to Ukraine to make up for the losses that
Ukraine has sustained during the war.
The United States must also insist on joining France and Germany in
the ``Normandy format'' negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in
order to participate in the development of a detailed roadmap with
concrete timelines for implementing the Minsk agreements. The United
States must be prepared to back up such a roadmap with concrete
consequences for Russia's failure to implement the necessary steps, for
example by unilaterally applying blocking sanctions on select Russian
financial institutions. U.S. and EU sanctions have so far been too
blunt of an instrument to affect incremental policy decisions because
they have not been tied to any specific benchmarks other than the full
implementation of the Minsk agreement, for which they are too weak to
shift the Kremlin's calculus. Full blocking sanctions on select Russian
financial institutions would have an immediate and significant effect
even if the U.S. were to apply them unilaterally, and could help
incentivize Moscow's withdrawal of troops from the Donbas if calibrated
to match appropriate benchmarks for the implementation of the Minsk
agreements.
In the near term, the United States should also seek to upgrade the
OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine or even consider the
creation of an armed UN mission. Following the April 23 killing of an
American OSCE monitor with a roadside mine, the OSCE has significantly
cut back its patrols in the separatist-controlled areas. These unarmed
patrols were never properly outfitted for the mandate they were given
and from the very start monitors have only been able to patrol during
daylight hours. The personnel of the Special Monitoring Mission have
performed heroically under these circumstances and have repeatedly
taken on enormous personal risks to monitor compliance with the Minsk
agreements. However, the current situation is no longer tenable. The
OSCE Structured Dialogue on European security should take up the issue
of a larger and more robust monitoring mission as a matter of
precedence and urgency.
Responding to Russia's Cyber-Attacks on the West
In response to the cyber-attacks and information warfare that the
Kremlin has perpetrated against the United States and other Western
democracies, the United States must rally its Allies to impose serious
consequences for Russia's aggressive behavior. The response thus far
has been weak and ineffectual. The declaration of 35 Russian officials
as persona non grata and the prohibition on Russian use of intelligence
gathering facilities in the United States is a mere slap on the wrist
and does not serve as a deterrent against future cyber-attacks.
Given reports of Russia's extensive penetration of U.S. and Allied
government networks, the United States must invest significantly more
resources in cyber defense. Most importantly, Congress should legislate
regulations to force the private sector companies that control our
critical infrastructure to adopt a common set of cyber defense
standards. As last week's ransomware attack demonstrates, the private
sector networks that run our critical infrastructure are extremely
vulnerable. The Pentagon should also increase its support for cyber
defense of our most vulnerable
Allies.
Finally, the United States must immediately appoint an independent
Special Prosecutor to determine whether or not there was collusion or
cooperation between the Russian government and campaign representatives
in the last U.S. presidential election cycle. It must also establish a
Select Committee to look at the broader question of Russian
interference in the U.S. electoral process and Russia's ability to
penetrate our critical infrastructure networks. The failure to take
these steps damages not just U.S. national security but also
transatlantic security. If the Kremlin's successful execution of one of
the most audacious subversive operations in history is not immediately
countered, it will only embolden Russia to take similar actions in the
future.
Conclusion
Chairman Wicker, Co-Chairman Smith, and members of the Commission,
the United States has not only a role to play, but an obligation to
enhance deterrence and build resilience against Russian aggression and
malign influence across the entire OSCE region from Vancouver to
Vladivostok. It starts here at home, by taking Russia's subversive
actions against the United States seriously and deploying the necessary
tools to expose them and respond with the imposition of proportionate
costs. We must also push back on Russia's violations of arms control
and confidence-building agreements by implementing necessary
countermeasures and denying Russia any advantage. Finally, we must get
more actively involved in finding a solution to the Ukraine conflict by
applying greater leverage against Moscow and strengthening Ukraine's
defenses. The best disincentive for any future aggression against our
partners and Allies is for the aggressor to finally understand that in
the end the costs will outweigh the benefits.
Prepared Statement of Stephen G. Rademaker, Principal, The Podesta
Group
Chairman Wicker, Co-Chairman Smith, other members of the
Commission, thank you for inviting me to testify at this hearing on the
Russian military threat in Europe.
I understand that my co-panelists will speak to Russian military
actions in recent years that have seriously degraded the security
environment in Europe--the Ukraine conflict in particular--and the role
the OSCE can play in restoring security and trust in the region. I have
been asked to assess Russia's record of compliance with the arms
control and confidence-building agreements that are particularly
relevant to security in Europe, including the Conventional Armed Forces
in Europe (CFE) Treaty of 1990, the Open Skies Treaty of 1992, the
Vienna Document on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures,
originally adopted in 1990 and updated most recently in 2011, and the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty of 1987.
I will briefly review the obligations arising under each of these
agreements and discuss the degree to which Russia is currently living
up to its obligations. I will then draw some overall conclusions about
Russia's approach to these agreements, and the implications for the
United States and our allies.
CFE Treaty
The CFE Treaty was concluded in 1990 and entered into force in
November 1992. It included as states party all members of NATO and the
Warsaw Pact. For all of these states party, it imposed strict limits on
the amounts of specified military hardware (called ``Treaty-Limited
Equipment'' or ``TLE'') that they could deploy in specified areas in
the treaty's area of application, which stretches from the Atlantic
Ocean to the Ural Mountains. Following the treaty's entry into force,
over 52,000 pieces of TLE were destroyed or converted by the United
States, Russia, and other states party to the treaty.
Underlying the treaty was the belief that the imbalance in
conventional armed forces in Europe (which favored the Soviet Union and
the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War) had created instability and fear
on the Continent, and led NATO to rely increasingly on its nuclear
deterrent. The concept of the treaty was that if this conventional
imbalance could be eliminated, stability could be restored, and
reliance on nuclear weapons diminished. In this sense, the CFE Treaty
sought to ameliorate one of the principal causes of the nuclear arms
race that emerged during the Cold War, and it provided a foundation for
the dramatic reductions in strategic nuclear arms levels that have been
negotiated between the United States and Russia following the end of
the Cold War.
Regrettably, in July 2007, President Putin ordered a ``suspension''
of Russian implementation of the treaty. The other states party have
not recognized this suspension as a legally permissible step, and
therefore all the other parties have continued to observe the treaty as
between them. In 2011, however, the United States and its NATO allies
(plus Georgia and Moldova) bowed to reality and accepted that Russia
was not going to permit verification inspections under the treaty to
take place on Russian territory. Accordingly, they ceased requesting
inspections on Russian territory, and declared that they would cease
implementation of their obligations to Russia.
From the moment the treaty entered into force in November 1992, the
Russian military deployments in Georgia and Moldova violated Article
IV, paragraph 5 of the treaty, which prohibits a state party from
stationing its ``conventional armed forces on the territory of another
State Party without the agreement of that State Party.'' Russia's 2014
military intervention in Ukraine compounded its non-compliance with
this basic provision of the CFE Treaty. Russia is today stationing its
conventional armed forces on the territory of not just two, but now
three states party, without the consent of those states party, in
violation of Article IV, paragraph 5 of the treaty.
The United States has tried hard since 2007 to persuade Russia to
return to compliance with the treaty, but to no avail. The fundamental
problem is that Russia concluded more than a decade ago that the CFE
Treaty was no longer serving its interests. Among other things, Moscow
chafed at the treaty's so-called Flank Limits, which it believed
constrained its ability to carry out military operations on Russia's
periphery, for example, in Chechnya. Moscow was also unhappy that
Georgia and Moldova were using the treaty to pressure Russia to
withdraw unwelcome Russian forces from their territory. Following the
Russian military intervention in Ukraine in 2014, Russia is now
violating Article IV, paragraph 5 of the treaty in three states party,
further diminishing the likelihood that it will return to compliance
with the treaty.
Open Skies Treaty
The Open Skies Treaty was signed in 1992, and created a regime for
the conduct of observation flights over the territory of other states
party. These flights use photography and other sensors to collect
information about activities on the ground in the countries being
observed. The collection of this information is intended as a
confidence-building measure among the parties. There are today 34
states party to the treaty, including the United States and Russia.
Russia has continued to implement the Open Skies Treaty, but has
unilaterally imposed restrictions on the conduct of observation flights
over its territory that are legally inconsistent with the treaty and
clearly intended to diminish the benefits of the treaty to the other
states party.
Perhaps most significantly for the United States, Russia has
arbitrarily imposed a sublimit of 500 kilometers on the distance of
observation flights out of one of its Open Skies airfields with respect
to observation flights over the Kaliningrad Oblast. There is no legal
basis in the treaty for imposing such a sublimit, and all other
observation flights out of that airfield are subject to the treaty's
standard distance limitation of 5500 kilometers. The practical
consequence of this restriction is not to prevent observation of the
Kaliningrad Oblast, but to require multiple flights to be able to
observe the entire territory of that Oblast. This is, therefore, a
legally ill-founded nuisance restriction aimed at discouraging
observation of a piece of Russian territory that is of great interest
to NATO, sandwiched as it is between NATO members Poland and Lithuania.
Other examples of ill-founded Russian restrictions include:
Minimum altitude restrictions--Russia imposes a minimum
altitude restriction on observation flights over Moscow that limit the
amount of data that can be collected. It previously imposed a similar
restriction on flights over Chechnya, but lifted this restriction in
early 2016.
Restrictions on flights adjacent to Abkhazia and South
Ossetia--Russia prohibits observation flights within 10 kilometers of
its border with the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Improper invocation of force majeure--Russia has on
occasion improperly invoked the concept of force majeure to make
changes to observation flight routes, ostensibly due to ``VIP
movements.''
In addition, Russia has arbitrarily imposed a restriction on
exercise by Ukraine of its rights under the treaty. The treaty entitles
countries hosting observation flights to charge observing countries for
such things as fuel, de-icing fluid, and ground and technical services
for their aircraft, and the treaty provides a mechanism for submitting
invoices for such costs and settling accounts at the end of each
calendar year. In the case of Ukraine, however, Russia has insisted on
payment in advance before any observation flight by Ukrainian aircraft
from a Russian airfield. As a consequence, Ukraine's last solo
observation flight over Russia was in 2014. Meanwhile Ukraine has
conducted 20 observation flights over other states party since 2014
with no issues in payment.
Despite these problems, it should be noted that observation flights
have continued over Russia, including the first-ever ``Extraordinary
Observation Flight,'' requested by Ukraine pursuant to the treaty
shortly after Russia's intervention in the Crimea, and carried out
using a U.S. aircraft.
Overall, therefore, while Russia continues to observe the Open
Skies Treaty, it often does not do so in the full spirit of
transparency that the treaty was intended to promote.
Vienna Document
The Vienna Document on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures
was first adopted under the auspices of the OSCE in 1990, and updated
in 1992, 1994, 1999, and most recently in 2011. As with all previous
versions of the Vienna Document, the latest version, Vienna Document
2011 (VD11), is not a treaty, but rather an agreed set of transparency
measures that all members of the OSCE have agreed to implement in order
to increase confidence within the OSCE region. Among these measures are
data exchanges, inspections, and notifications of certain military
activities.
The State Department's annual arms control compliance report for
2016, released just last month, stated the following about Russia's
compliance with VD11:
The United States assesses that the Russian Federation's . . .
selective implementation of certain provisions of VD11 and the
resultant loss of transparency about Russian military
activities has limited the effectiveness of the CSBMs regime.
Russia's selective implementation also raises concerns as to
Russia's adherence to VD11.
The report goes on to detail a number of ways in which Russia's
behavior falls short of its obligations under VD11. These include:
Russia's continued occupation and claimed annexation of
Crimea, and support to and fighting with separatists in Eastern
Ukraine, violates paragraph 3 of VD11, which reaffirmed Russia's
commitment to refrain from the threat or use of force.
Russia has failed to provide information on its military
forces located in the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia,
as well as on two Russian units located in Crimea.
Russia has established a pattern of conducting military
exercises without properly notifying them as required under VD11,
ostensibly because they are ``snap exercises,'' or because it claims
they are multiple activities under separate command, when to all
appearances they are large-scale activities under unitary command. In a
recent case in August 2016, Russia conducted an exercise involving over
100,000 personnel, but only provided advance notice of an exercise
involving 12,600 personnel.
Russia has failed to provide data of several types of
military equipment that is obligated to report under VD11, including
the BRM-1K armored combat vehicle, the Su-30SM multirole fighter, and
the Ka-52 attack helicopter.
Further, Russia has in the past defied efforts by other parties to
the Vienna Document to invoke the agreement's mechanism for
consultations in the event of unusual military activities. When this
mechanism was invoked with respect to Russia's activities involving
Ukraine, Russia either failed to provide responsive replies to requests
for an explanation of the activities, or, in some cases, boycotted
meetings called to discuss the activities.
Russia continues to permit other VD11 inspections and evaluations
to take place on its territory, and continues to participate in data
exchanges. But Russia's reporting practices--particularly with regard
to the notification of military exercises--have given rise to
suspicions that, at best, Russia is structuring its activities to evade
VD11 reporting requirements, or, at worst, misrepresenting those
activities in order to justify not reporting them. Its selective
implementation of VD11 is contrary to the spirit of the agreement, and
has diminished rather enhanced confidence among members of the OSCE.
INF Treaty
The INF Treaty was concluded in 1987, and committed the United
States and the Soviet Union to neither possess, produce, nor flight-
test ground-launched missiles with maximum ranges between 500 and 5500
kilometers. Pursuant to the treaty, by May of 1991, the United States
eliminated approximately 800 INF-range missiles and the Soviet Union
eliminated approximately 1800 such missiles.
Negotiated at the height of the Cold War, the INF Treaty
contributed to security in the European theater, and was profoundly
reassuring to the populations of some of our key NATO allies. It was in
many ways a vindication of President Reagan's policy of promoting
``peace through strength.''
The Obama Administration announced in July of 2014 that it had
``determined that the Russian Federation is in violation of its
obligations under the INF Treaty not to possess, produce, or flight-
test a ground-launched cruise missile (GLCM) with a range capability of
500 km to 5,500 km, or to possess or produce launchers of such
missiles.'' The State Department's annual arms control compliance
report for 2016, released just last month, reaffirmed that ``the
Russian Federation continued to be in violation of its obligations
under the INF Treaty.'' Substantially similar language was included in
the State Department's arms control compliance reports published in
2014, 2015 and 2016.
The Obama and Trump Administrations have been somewhat cryptic in
describing the precise nature of the Russian violation, due apparently
to the need to protect intelligence sources and methods. According to
reports that have appeared in the New York Times and Washington Post,
the violation involves a new type of ground-launched cruise missile
called the SSC-8, with a range between 500 and 5500 kilometers. When
the Obama Administration first announced the violation in 2014, the
missile reportedly had been flight-tested, but not yet deployed. Press
reporting in February of this year claimed that the missile has now
been operationally deployed and is in the possession of two Russian
battalions. And while the Obama Administration only formally determined
in 2014 that Russia was violating the treaty, it appears that the Obama
Administration first came to suspect that Russia was violating the
treaty in 2011, and the first test of this missile may have taken place
several years earlier.
The Obama and Trump Administrations have attempted to have a
dialogue with Russia about correcting the violation of the treaty. This
has been a sterile dialogue, however, with Russia professing not to
even know what missile the United States is complaining about. This
despite the fact that the United States has provided detailed
information to Russia about the missile, including Russia's internal
designator for the mobile launcher chassis, the names of the companies
involved in developing and producing the missile and launcher, and the
missile's test history, including the coordinates of the tests. So long
as Russia persists in denying the existence of the missile in question,
there appears to be little hope of resolving the violation.
As with the CFE Treaty, Russia has long been unhappy living under
the restrictions of the INF Treaty. The basic Russian complaint is that
the treaty applies only to the United States and four successor states
to the Soviet Union (including Russia), and therefore leaves every
other country in the world free to produce and deploy INF-range
missiles. Increasingly other countries are doing precisely that,
including many countries located within striking distance of Russia,
such as China, Iran, North Korea and Pakistan.
It is a sad irony, of course, that missile technology proliferation
from Russia contributed significantly to the missile programs of Iran
and North Korea, and that North Korea in turn contributed to Pakistan's
missile program. So in fact, Russia's complaint is in significant part
of its own making.
As early as 2005, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov raised
with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld the possibility of Russian
withdrawal from the treaty. President Putin lamented in 2013 that
``nearly all of our neighbors are developing these kinds of weapons
systems,'' and asserted that the decision to sign the treaty was
``debatable to say the least.'' I know from my own conversations with
Russian officials during my time in government that they would like to
get out from under the INF Treaty.
Certainly this underlying unhappiness with the INF treaty helps
explain why Russia has been willing to violate it. In discussing how to
respond to this violation, we need to recognize that Moscow would
welcome a decision by the United States to terminate the treaty,
because that would relieve them of the need at some point to do so. The
Obama Administration's decision to leave the INF treaty in place
despite Russia's testing of a missile prohibited under the treaty was
no doubt motivated, at least in part, by a desire not to reward Russia
for its violation. However, as the nature of the violation has shifted
from testing a prohibited missile to operationally deploying that
missile, the United States will find it increasingly hard to overlook
the violation.
Concluding Observations
A clear pattern emerges when one looks at Russia's implementation
of its arms control obligations overall. Moscow will comply with such
agreements so long as it judges them to be in Russia's interest. But to
the degree Moscow concludes such agreements have ceased to serve its
interest, it will seek to terminate them (CFE Treaty), violate them
while continuing to pay them lip service (INF Treaty), or selectively
implement them (Open Skies Treaty and Vienna Document).
Such actions are, of course, destructive to the sense of confidence
and security that CSBMs are intended to promote. But Russia believes
that this is how great powers are entitled to act, and today Moscow
insists on acting and being respected as a great power.
The underlying problem appears to be the Russian leadership's
belief that security in Europe is a zero-sum game; that gains in the
security of Russia's neighbors can only come at the expense of Russian
security, and that Russia can improve its security by diminishing the
security of its neighbors. This mindset is, of course, completely
contrary to the premise of the existing arms control and CSBM
architecture of Europe, which holds that security in Europe is a
positive-sum game, and that all countries will be more secure to the
degree their neighbors are also more secure.
We have a new President who came to office determined to work out a
new and more positive relationship with Russia. He appears to believe--
correctly in my view--that there are no fundamental conflicts between
America's vital national interests and Russia's. The greatest
challenges to both of us are the same, including the threats of
jihadism and a rising China that increasingly sees itself as a hegemon
in Asia, if not beyond. Indeed, one could argue that, comparing
Russia's geography to our own, these are even greater threats to Russia
than to the United States.
Viewed through the prism of core national interests, it is indeed a
great tragedy that the United States has been unable to establish a
stronger security partnership with Russia since the end of the Cold
War. We can content ourselves that the fault for this lies much more on
the Russian side than on our side, but pointing fingers does not move
us closer to building the kind of partnership our shared core interests
suggest we should have. So it is my hope that President Trump succeeds
in persuading the Russian leadership that security in Europe is in fact
a positive sum game, and that Russia will be safer and more secure to
the degree its immediate neighbors in Europe are also more secure.
Whether it happens during the Trump Administration, or at some
point further in the future, I am confident that Russia eventually will
discover that its true national interests lie in cooperating with the
other members of the OSCE rather than seeking to intimidate them. Until
that time comes, however, we must be clear-eyed about the challenges we
face. We have to deal with Russia as it is, rather than how we wish it
to be.
I thank you for holding this hearing, and look forward to
responding to your questions.
Prepared Statement of Ambassador Stephen Pifer, Senior Fellow and
Director of the Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative, The
Brookings Institution
The Growing Russian Military Threat in Europe-Assessing and Addressing
the Challenge: The Case of Ukraine
Introduction
Mr. Chairman, Co-Chairman Smith, members of the Commission, thank
you for the opportunity to appear today to testify on the growing
Russian military threat to Europe and how that threat has manifested
itself in Ukraine.
From the perspective of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, Russia's
military aggression against Ukraine has been the most shocking
development in Europe since the end of the Cold War and collapse of the
Soviet Union. The Russian seizure of Crimea in March 2014, followed by
its illegal annexation, violated fundamental principles of the Final
Act. Those principles include the commitment of participating states to
respect each other's sovereignty, territorial integrity and
independence, and to refrain from the threat or use of force against
the territorial integrity or independence of any state. The principles
also include the principle that borders can be changed only by peaceful
means and agreement. Russia's actions in Crimea have violated all of
those commitments.
The Kremlin did not stop with Crimea. Russia military and security
service personnel have been deeply engaged in the Donbas region of
eastern Ukraine since April 2014, where fighting has claimed some
10,000 lives. Russian involvement in the Donbas has included the
provision of leadership, financing, ammunition, heavy weapons, supplies
and, in some cases, regular units of the Russian army to support armed
separatism against the Ukrainian government, also in violation of
Russia's Final Act commitments.
Unfortunately, and despite the efforts of the leaders of Germany
and France, the conflict in Donbas shows no sign of settlement. There
is little evidence to suggest that Russia and the separatist forces
under its control want to end the conflict. The Kremlin appears to see
value in maintaining a simmering conflict as a means to put pressure on
and destabilize the government in Kyiv, in order to make it harder for
Ukraine to get on with needed domestic reforms and implement its
association agreement with the European Union.
It is important for European security that the United States and
the West support Ukraine and stand up to Russia. It would be a mistake
to let the Kremlin conclude that the kind of tactics it has employed
against Ukraine could be applied elsewhere against another member of
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Russia's Goals in Europe and Ukraine
In the 1990s and early 2000s, many analysts assumed that Russia
wanted to work in a cooperative manner with the United States and
Europe and, if not integrate into, develop cooperative relationships
with key European and trans-Atlantic institutions such as the European
Union and NATO. In recent years, however, it has become clear that
Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin leadership have chosen
a different course. They appear to have concluded that the European
security order that developed in the aftermath of the Cold War
disadvantages Russian interests. They have sought to undermine that
order and define Russia in opposition to the United States and the
West.
Russia is pursuing several goals in Europe. First, the Kremlin
seeks a Russian sphere of influence--or a ``sphere of privileged
interests,'' as then-President Dmitry Medvedev called it in 2008--in
the post-Soviet space, with the possible exception of the Baltic
States. Mr. Putin does not seek to recreate the Soviet Union, as the
Russian economy is not prepared to subsidize the economies of the other
former Soviet states. What the Russian leadership wants from its
neighbors is that they defer to Moscow on issues that the Kremlin
defines as key to Russian interests. This includes relationships
between those states and institutions such as the European Union and
NATO, despite Russia's commitment under the Final Act to respect the
right of other states to choose to belong to international
organizations and to be party to treaties of alliance.
Second, Moscow seeks to weaken the European Union and NATO, which
it believes act as checks on Russian power. Russian security doctrine
openly regards NATO as a threat. Mr. Putin appears to hold a particular
grievance against NATO. He asserts that the Alliance began enlarging in
the early 1990s in order to take advantage of Russian weakness and
bring military force to Russia's borders. His narrative ignores NATO's
efforts to engage Russia in a cooperative manner as well as the
commitments undertaken by the Alliance with regard to the non-
stationing of nuclear and conventional forces on the territory of new
member states, commitments made to ease Russian concern about NATO
enlargement.
The Kremlin also regards the European Union and its enlargement as
a threat. Indeed, the Russian pressure that began on Ukraine in 2013
was not due to that country's relationship with NATO. Then-President
Victor Yanukovych had renounced the goal of securing a NATO membership
action plan, and key Alliance members such as Germany and France had
made clear that they did not support putting Ukraine on a membership
track. What spurred Russia to increase its pressure was the prospect
that Ukraine--even under Mr. Yanukovych--might conclude an association
agreement with the European Union.
Third, the Kremlin seeks a seat at the table when major questions
regarding Europe are decided. This explains in part Russia's opposition
to the European Union and NATO; Russia does not belong to those
institutions. While Russia is a member of OSCE, it has devalued the
status of the organization over the past two decades, regularly calling
into question its mission and, at times, even its legitimacy.
Russia's more assertive and belligerent stance in Europe over the
past five years has been abetted by the modernization of Russian
military forces, both nuclear and conventional. Much of the
modernization of Russian strategic nuclear forces appears to be
replacing old weapons systems with new versions--in some cases, systems
Moscow might have replaced years ago had it then had the finances. The
overall strategic modernization program appears sized to fit within the
limits of the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
More worrisome, particularly for European security, are Russia's
deployment of a new ground-launched intermediate-range cruise missile
in violation of the 1987
Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, its modernization of an array
of other non-strategic nuclear weapons, and its apparent ``escalate to
de-escalate'' doctrine. Formal Russian doctrine suggests that Russia
would resort to use of nuclear weapons in the event that nuclear or
other weapons of mass destruction were used against Russia or an ally,
or in the event of a conventional attack on Russia in which the
existence of the Russian state is at stake. There have, however, been
suggestions that Moscow might entertain the notion that it could use
nuclear weapons to ``de-escalate'' a conventional conflict that did not
involve an attack on Russian territory, for example, after a Russian
conventional attack on another country.
Russia is also modernizing its conventional military forces. While
much of this appears to be replacing old with new, the Russian military
clearly aims to enhance its ability to conduct offensive operations
outside of Russian territory, spurred in part by a desire to improve on
the mediocre performance of Russian forces in the 2008 Georgia-Russia
conflict. Over the past three years, it appears that Russia has
deployed and operated a number of its new conventional weapons systems
in Ukraine.
Domestic Drivers of Russian Policy toward Ukraine
Domestic political factors constitute major drivers of Russian
policy toward Ukraine. For the Kremlin, regime preservation is job
number one. During his first two terms as president in 2000-2008, Mr.
Putin based regime legitimacy on economics--at a time when the Russian
economy was growing at a rate of about seven percent per year. However,
when he prepared to return to the presidency in 2011, Russia faced a
grim economic situation. Accordingly, Mr. Putin included heavy elements
of nationalism, Russia's return as a great power, and anti-Americanism
in his campaign. Those themes now appear the basis for regime
legitimacy, and it is likely that they will feature in Mr. Putin's
campaign for reelection in March 2018.
Those themes in turn drive aspects of Moscow's foreign policy, and
they play in particular with regard to Ukraine. From 1654 until 1991,
Ukraine was a part of the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union,
with the exception of a few years after World War I. Of all the
republics that Moscow lost when the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine's
loss pains Russians the most. Many Russians consider Ukraine ``little
Russia.'' Indeed, when he made his last visit to Kyiv in summer 2013,
Mr. Putin referred to Russians and Ukrainians as one people--to the
unhappiness of many Ukrainians, who felt that he thereby denied their
history, language and culture.
Mr. Putin, moreover, appears to fear that a successful Ukraine
could affect the attitudes of the Russian people. If Ukraine succeeds
in building a stable, modern, democratic state with a robust market
economy, Russians may begin to wonder why they cannot have a more
democratic form of governance in place of the increasingly
authoritarian power structure that has developed in Russia over the
past seventeen years. While Mr. Putin enjoys high approval ratings--
typically in the 70-80 percent range--the Kremlin seems constantly
nervous about its hold on the Russian public. The Kremlin thus does not
want a successful Ukrainian neighbor and is prepared to go to great
lengths to hinder that success, including the use of military force.
The Maydan and Russia's Illegal Seizure of Crimea
In February 2014, the violent end of the Maydan Revolution, Mr.
Yanukovych's decision to flee Kyiv, and the Rada (Ukraine's parliament)
vote to appoint an acting president and acting prime minister who made
drawing closer to the European Union Ukraine's top foreign policy
priority caught Moscow by surprise. The Kremlin reacted quickly.
Mr. Putin told a Russian documentary a year later that he decided
early on the morning of February 23 to activate a plan to seize the
Crimean peninsula. Shortly thereafter, soldiers in Russian-style combat
fatigues--but lacking identifying insignia--began to occupy key
installations and crossroads on the peninsula. The soldiers were
clearly professional military, as evidenced by how they handled their
weapons and themselves.
Ukrainians dubbed these soldiers ``little green men.'' Asked on
March 4 whether the soldiers were Russian, Mr. Putin denied they were,
describing them as ``local self-defense forces.'' Asked about their
Russian combat fatigues, he replied that one could find those in
military surplus stores across the former Soviet Union. On March 28,
however, Mr. Putin congratulated Russian military officers on their
conduct of the Crimean operation. In a May 18 telethon, he admitted
that the ``little green men'' had been Russian soldiers. The Ministry
of Defense issued a medallion commemorating the Russian military's role
in the ``return of Crimea,'' an operation which the medallion dated as
running from February 20 (three days before Mr. Putin said he ordered
Crimea's seizure) through March 18.
Russia's swift seizure of Crimea was aided particularly by two
factors. First, there were already substantial Russian military forces
and infrastructure on the peninsula, deployed there per agreement with
Ukraine at bases and facilities for the Russian Black Sea Fleet and
supporting units. Second, Ukrainian military forces stayed in garrison
and did not challenge the Russians, reportedly in part due to urgings
from Washington that Ukraine do nothing to provoke Russian escalation.
As many soldiers in the Ukrainian units were from Crimea, commanders
likely had questions about their unit's reliability.
By March 6, Russian forces had control of all major locations in
Crimea, had blocked Ukrainian forces in their bases, and had laid a
minefield to cordon off the peninsula from the Ukrainian mainland.
Under the leadership of a newly appointed prime minister who reportedly
was once known as the ``Goblin'' in local organized crime circles, the
Crimean parliament voted to join Russia and to schedule a referendum.
That referendum, conducted on March 16, offered two choices: to join
Russia, or to reinstate Crimea's 1992 constitution, which would have
granted the peninsula substantially greater autonomy from Kyiv. Those
who wanted Crimea to remain a part of Ukraine under the existing
constitutional arrangement found no box to check.
Crimean authorities reported that 83 percent of eligible voters
took part in the referendum, with nearly 97 percent voting to join
Russia. Few found the result credible. There were numerous reports of
irregularities, armed personnel near voting stations, and journalists
with Russian passports allowed to vote. Other estimates indicated a
much smaller voter turnout than that reported by Crimean and Russian
officials. According to a report that appeared later on the website of
the Russian president's human rights ombudsman, only 30-50 percent of
the Crimean electorate actually took part in the referendum, with only
50-60 percent of those choosing to join Russia.
In any event, Crimean representatives and Russian officials two
days later concluded a treaty on Crimea joining Russia. The Russian
Federal Assembly ratified the treaty on March 21. The annexation of
Crimea proved very popular with the Russian public, and it gave a boost
to Mr. Putin's approval rating. He apparently remembers that; the 2018
presidential election in Russia has been scheduled for March 18, the
fourth anniversary of the treaty on Crimea joining Russia.
The United States and European Union responded to Crimea's illegal
annexation by applying visa and financial sanctions on individuals
connected to the seizure. The leaders of the United States, Canada,
France, Germany, Italy, Japan and United Kingdom agreed to exclude
Russia from the G8 and revert to the G7. President Barack Obama signed
an executive order to enable broader sanctions against the energy,
financial and defense sectors of the Russian economy.
Russia's Involvement in the Donbas
Russia did not stop with Crimea. In early April 2014, ``little
green men'' appeared along with armed local separatists in several
major cities in eastern Ukraine, particularly in the Donbas region of
Donetsk and Luhansk. In contrast to Crimea, this time Ukrainian
security forces resisted, and fighting broke out in several locations.
The U.S., Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers, joined by the
European Union's high representative for common foreign and security
policy, met in Geneva on April 17 and agreed on a settlement that
called for an end to the violence, the disarming of illegal armed
groups, and the evacuation of occupied public buildings. The settlement
also called on OSCE to monitor the agreed measures. Separatist leaders
in Donbas, however, immediately indicated that they would not observe
the Geneva terms.
The fighting continued and spread, with the separatist forces
gaining control of more of the Donbas. Russia provided leadership,
financing, ammunition, heavy weapons and other supplies. In addition,
``political tourists'' began arriving from Russia to swell the ranks of
the separatist fighters. While the separatists at first claimed they
got their heavy weapons by seizing them from Ukrainian forces,
equipment showed up in their ranks that had never been in the Ukrainian
military's inventory but was in the Russian military's inventory.
The United States began to impose additional sanctions on Russia,
as fighting in the Donbas continued and spread further. On the
battlefield, however, Ukrainian forces began to gain the upper hand
during the early summer. Russia responded by accelerating the flow of
tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery, advanced anti-aircraft
systems and ``volunteers'' to assist the separatists.
The anti-aircraft systems provided by Russia included the Buk (SA-
11) surface-to-air missile that shot down a Malaysia Airlines Boeing
777 on July 17 over the occupied part of the Donbas. All of the nearly
300 passengers and crew perished. A separatist leader almost
immediately claimed credit for downing a Ukrainian military transport
plane at the same time and location of the Malaysia Airlines shootdown.
It appears that the separatist forces fired on the civilian airliner by
mistake. Reports and photos that were issued later tracked the Buk
missile launcher through territory occupied by the separatists,
including the transport of the
launcher--minus one missile--back in the direction of Russia.
In the aftermath of the shootdown, the United States and European
Union adopted substantial new sanctions against Russia. These included
sanctions aimed at the financial, energy, high tech and defense
sectors.
Ukrainian forces continued to make progress. By mid-August, they
had greatly reduced the amount of territory under Russian/separatist
control, had split that territory into two pockets, and appeared on the
verge of regaining control of all of the Donbas. On or about August 23,
however, regular units of the Russian army, supported by heavy
artillery and rocket strikes, entered Ukrainian territory and dealt a
severe blow to Ukrainian forces. They inflicted heavy casualties on the
Ukrainians and, by some estimates, destroyed 50-70 percent of the armor
deployed in the area by the Ukrainian army. The Russian/separatist
attack recovered much of the territory that had been lost in the two
previous months.
Ukrainian representatives met with officials of the so-called
Donetsk and Luhansk ``people's republics'' in Minsk on September 5 and
worked out a ceasefire in the presence of Russian and OSCE officials.
However, the ceasefire never took full hold, with particularly sharp
fighting continuing around the Donetsk airport and in areas east of
Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov. By the beginning of 2015, Russian/
separatist forces had seized roughly 500 square kilometers of territory
beyond the September 5 ceasefire line.
After a December lull, fighting accelerated again in January and
early February 2015. At that time, NATO military officials estimated
that 250-1,000 Russian military and military intelligence officers were
in the occupied part of the Donbas, providing command and control and
serving as advisors and trainers to the separatists as well as to
``volunteers'' from Russia. NATO officials believed that Russian
personnel also operated the more sophisticated Russian military
equipment. At that point, NATO did not believe that Russia had regular
military units in Ukraine but noted that some 50,000 Russian troops had
been deployed on the Russian side of the Ukraine-Russia border.
Ukrainian sources had a different estimate. They believed that
Ukrainian forces faced a total of 36,000 Russian troops and separatist
fighters in the Donbas. Of that total, the Ukrainians believed that
5,000-10,000 were Russian soldiers, though the bulk of the separatist
fighters were Ukrainian citizens.
In February 2015, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French
President Francois Hollande brokered a settlement agreement between
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Mr. Putin. That agreement--
often referred to as the Minsk II accord--provided for a ceasefire,
withdrawal of heavy weapons from the line of contact, and access for
OSCE monitors to confirm the ceasefire and withdrawal. Minsk II also
contained a number of additional measures designed to resolve the
conflict and restore Ukrainian sovereignty over the Donbas, including
withdrawal of all foreign forces, passage of a constitutional amendment
on decentralization of political authority, an election law for the
occupied region, a status law for the Donbas, and restoration of
Ukrainian control of the full Ukraine-Russia border. The terms of Minsk
II are clearly less favorable to Ukraine than the terms worked out in
Minsk I in September 2014--in effect, a reward to the Kremlin for not
observing the Minsk I agreement.
Minsk II got off to an inauspicious start. Russian and separatist
forces launched a major assault on Ukrainian units in the Debaltsevo
salient between the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk. They ratcheted down
the fighting after capturing the territory but, as with the September
2014 ceasefire, the Minsk II ceasefire never really took hold--despite
numerous subsequent attempts to negotiate a sustainable ceasefire.
A familiar pattern emerged over the next two years: shelling and
fighting along the line of contact would flare up, followed by lulls
and newly negotiated ceasefires, which never held and sometimes never
even took effect. While both sides committed ceasefire violations,
observers have attributed primary responsibility for violations to
Russian/separatist forces.
As in the early days after the Crimean operation, Mr. Putin and the
Kremlin deny there are any Russian military personnel in the Donbas--
despite pictures of heavy weapons known only to be in the Russian
inventory, the capture of Russian military personnel by Ukrainian
forces, and the spotting by OSCE observers and Russian television of
soldiers in Russian uniforms with Russian insignia. The Kremlin instead
implausibly claims that all the separatist fighters are locals or
``volunteers'' from Russia.
NATO believes that the command structure for Russian/separatist
forces in the occupied Donbas continues to consist of Russian military
officers, while irregulars form the bulk of the armed personnel, though
they have been and can be augmented by regular Russian army units if
needed. The Ukrainian security service says that it has identified
specific Russian military officers who occupy command positions in the
forces of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk ``people's republics.'' The
Ukrainian military and security service continue to believe that a
larger portion of the fighters in the Donbas are active-duty Russian
military personnel and that some are in organized Russian units.
Shelling and fighting continue along the line of contact in the
Donbas. On most days, the Ukrainian military reports suffering killed
and/or wounded in action.
The line of contact between Ukraine and the occupied part of the
Donbas appears to be hardening. Leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk
``people's republics'' have said that they will not permit a
restoration of Ukrainian sovereignty--even though that is a central
objective of Minsk II. The two statelets use the Russian ruble as their
currency and have begun issuing passports, which the Russian government
recognizes. On the other side, Ukraine has imposed a trade embargo on
occupied Donbas and cut off the supply of electricity to the occupied
part of Luhansk. This hardening of the line of contact will make it
more difficult to achieve an eventual settlement.
The United States and European Union have regularly renewed
sanctions on Russia and maintained a common line. Chancellor Merkel has
repeatedly stated that full implementation of Minsk II is the
prerequisite for easing sanctions, a position echoed by the Obama
administration and, in its first months, by Trump administration
officials.
What is Russia Seeking in Ukraine
By all appearances, the Kremlin is not implementing the Minsk II
agreement and, at this point in time, apparently calculates that a
simmering conflict in the Donbas better serves its interests. Such a
conflict makes it more difficult for the government in Kyiv to pursue
needed political and economic reforms or to implement the association
agreement with the European Union. That is, it makes it harder for
Ukraine to become a successful state and deepen links that will keep it
out of a Russian sphere of influence.
Moscow is clearly unhappy about Western economic sanctions, yet it
has eschewed steps that would lead to their easing. For example, it
would not be difficult for the Kremlin to enforce a real ceasefire,
given its control over Russian/separatist forces in the Donbas. It
could also implement a withdrawal of heavy weapons away from the line
of contact. If the Russians feared that the Ukrainian military might
try to take advantage of the situation, they could visibly position
additional Russian military units along the Russia-Ukraine border as a
deterrent. Having implemented the ceasefire and withdrawal steps, OSCE
monitors could then be invited to travel freely around the occupied
part of the Donbas to confirm that the measures had been implemented.
Were the Kremlin to take these steps, the focus for implementation
of Minsk II would shift to Kyiv. Political and public attitudes have
understandably hardened over the past two years due to the continued
fighting and casualties. The Ukrainian government could well find that
it would have a difficult time implementing certain Minsk II
provisions, such as the passage of a constitutional amendment on
decentralization or an election law for the Donbas. If Ukraine could
not deliver on those provisions, the stage would be set for Moscow to
make a bid for the easing of sanctions on Russia.
Why has the Kremlin not taken such a step? The most plausible
reason would appear to be that the Russians fear that Ukraine might be
able to do its part to implement Minsk II. A settlement of the Donbas
conflict at this point, however, does not appear to be a Kremlin
objective. The Russian leadership instead sees advantages to
maintaining a simmering conflict that it can use to put pressure on and
destabilize the government in Kyiv.
The Russian leadership may have other reasons for holding to its
present course. While Moscow was disappointed by election outcomes
earlier this year in the Netherlands and France, Germany holds its
elections in September. Polls indicate that Ms. Merkel remains the most
popular politician, and her victory appears increasingly likely, but
she is running for reelection for a fourth term at a time when many
Western voters seek change. Ms. Merkel has provided the linchpin for
European Union policy toward Russia and Ukraine, and the Russians no
doubt would welcome her departure from office. That election gives
Moscow an incentive to wait, in hopes that a change in Berlin might
lead to a different German and European Union policy toward Russia--
without Moscow doing anything to implement Minsk II.
The Role of OSCE
OSCE has played an important role in trying to resolve the conflict
in the Donbas. The Trilateral Contact Group is headed by a special
representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office. In addition to OSCE,
representatives of Ukraine and Russia are the other formal
participants, and representatives of the Russian/separatist-
occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk often take part. The Trilateral
Contact Group has four working groups, which address political,
security, humanitarian and economic questions. It has several times
attempted to work out a true ceasefire, but with little success.
OSCE also provides a special monitoring mission, which is a
civilian, unarmed mission that operates throughout Ukraine. The special
monitoring mission currently has about 700 monitors. Many of them are
deployed in eastern Ukraine, where the mission has been tasked with
observing and reporting on the implementation of the Minsk II
provisions on a ceasefire and withdrawal of heavy weapons from the line
of contact. Unfortunately, the reports all too often document where
Minsk II provisions are not observed. Still, the OSCE mission is
important for the credibility of its observations, when there are often
conflicting reports as to developments on the ground.
OSCE also maintains an observer mission at two checkpoints on the
Russian border with occupied parts of the Donbas: Gukovo and Donetsk.
While that presence allows reporting of what crosses from Russia into
Ukraine (and vice-versa) at those two locations, there are many other
border crossing points where Russian and separatist forces can cross
freely without being observed by OSCE or other monitors on the ground.
Were Minsk II to be implemented, the special monitoring mission
could expand its work and observe how additional Minsk II provisions
were being implemented. OSCE also maintains a project coordinator in
Kyiv to synchronize various OSCE activities aimed at promoting a
variety of programs, including in the areas of constitutional, legal,
human rights, media freedom, election and governance reforms.
The OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna provides a venue for the
member states to exchange views on the Ukraine-Russia conflict and the
situations in the Donbas and Crimea. Western delegations frequently use
that forum to highlight where Russia or the separatists have violated
Minsk II or OSCE commitments, such as to respect human rights. Such
naming and shaming may not suffice to overcome Moscow's reluctance to
implement Minsk II, but it serves to spotlight where the problem lies.
OSCE has not, however, been able to play a larger role in forcing a
settlement to the ongoing conflict in the Donbas or the unsettled
status of Crimea. That reflects the limitations of an organization that
operates by consensus, in which Russia can block any OSCE effort with
which it disagrees. For example, the Ukrainian government has in the
past suggested that an armed OSCE police force might help to stabilize
the situation in the Donbas, a proposal that has little chance of being
developed given Russian opposition.
More broadly, Russia's aggression against Ukraine has weakened
OSCE. One of the fundamental purposes of the organization is to promote
a more peaceful, stable and secure Europe. Moscow's seizure of Crimea
and actions in the Donbas undercut that goal and, unfortunately, make
OSCE appear less effective as an organization.
U.S. and Western Policy
The United States and the West should continue to provide political
support to Kyiv and, provided the Ukrainian government more effectively
implements economic reforms and anti-corruption measures, additional
economic assistance. It is also important that the United States
continue to provide military assistance. This should include certain
types of lethal assistance for the Ukrainian military, in particular
man-portable anti-armor weapons, to increase the Ukrainians' capability
to deal with the influx of Russian armor into the Donbas. The purpose
of such assistance is not to give the Ukrainian military the ability to
retake the Donbas. The military leadership in Kyiv understands that
they cannot defeat the Russian army. The purpose of such assistance is
to give the Ukrainians the ability to deny the Russian/separatist
forces the ability to make easy gains, to deter further offensive
actions, and to encourage the Kremlin to pursue a political settlement.
In parallel, U.S. and Western policy should aim to press Moscow to
change its course in Ukraine and, as a matter of priority, work for a
reasonable settlement in the Donbas. That is necessary to stop the
fighting that has claimed some 10,000 lives.
The United States, European Union and other Western countries
should continue to put political and economic pressure on the Kremlin.
That means avoiding business as usual. When Mr. Putin observed the
military parade in Red Square at Russia's VE Day commemoration on May
9, the only foreign leader to join him was the president of Moldova.
That conveys to the Russian people a sense of the political isolation
brought about by the Kremlin's policies. Mr. Putin clearly would like
some normalization of the relationship with Washington. The Trump
administration should make clear that Russia's aggression against
Ukraine poses a major obstacle to such normalization.
Continuing to put pressure on the Kremlin also means maintaining
the current economic and other sanctions that have been applied against
Russia. To encourage Moscow to alter its course of maintaining a
simmering conflict in the Donbas, the West should consider increased
economic sanctions as well as an expansion of the number of Russian
individuals targeted for visa bans and asset freezes; broadening visa
bans to apply to family members could dramatically increase their
impact. However, finding agreement on such steps could be difficult
with the European Union, when some member states wish to return to
business as usual with Moscow. It is also unclear if the Trump
administration would favor additional sanctions. Congress should
encourage the administration to do so.
In addition, it is important that the administration and NATO
continue the steps agreed at last year's NATO summit in Warsaw to
enhance the Alliance's conventional deterrence and defense capabilities
in the Baltic region and Central Europe. Such steps will lead to more
secure European allies who will be more confident in supporting
Ukraine.The United States should also continue to support the German
and French efforts to promote a solution to the Ukraine-Russia
conflict. It is very difficult to see Minsk II being implemented, in
large part due to Moscow's demonstrated disinterest. But Minsk II
remains the only settlement process on the table, and Washington should
encourage Kyiv to continue to engage. If Minsk II collapses--some might
say when it collapses--it should be clear that Russia and the
separatists bear full responsibility.
It is important to continue to engage Moscow. At the end of the
day, Ukraine needs a settlement that has Russian buy-in. Otherwise,
Moscow has too many levers that it can use to make life difficult for
Kyiv and deny Ukraine a return to normalcy.
Finally, on Crimea. While one might envisage a settlement regarding
the Donbas at some future point, it is all but impossible to imagine
Mr. Putin or any future Russian leader agreeing to Crimea's return to
Ukraine. At present, Kyiv lacks the political, economic and military
leverage to change that. The Donbas fighting has been far more deadly,
but the seizure of Crimea has been more destructive of the cardinal
tenet of the Final Act: that states should not use military force to
change borders or take territory from other countries. The United
States and the West should not accept this. They should continue a
policy of non-recognition of Crimea's illegal annexation and continue
sanctions related to the peninsula until such time as Ukrainian
sovereignty is restored or the Ukrainian government reaches some other
settlement with Russia.
Conclusion
Mr. Chairman, Co-Chairman Smith, members of the Commission,
Over the past three years, Russia has employed military force to
seize Crimea, and instigate and sustain a bloody armed conflict in the
Donbas in pursuit of the Kremlin's goal of asserting a sphere of
influence in the post-Soviet space and frustrating the ability of
Ukrainians to realize their ambition of becoming a normal democratic
European state.
These Russian actions are in stark violation of Russia's
commitments under the Helsinki Final Act and other agreements,
including the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances to
Ukraine. These actions endanger peace and stability in Europe.
Moreover, they raise concern that the Kremlin might be tempted to use
force elsewhere in Europe.
The United States should work with its European partners to respond
in a serious way. They should continue to provide Ukraine with
political, economic and military support; maintain and intensify
economic and other sanctions on Russia to induce a change in Kremlin
policy; and keep open channels of communication for a settlement if
Moscow alters its policy. This will require a sustained, patient
effort. That is essential if we wish to realize the kind of Europe that
was envisaged when the Final Act was signed in 1975.
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