Ask This General
Brigadier General Peter B. Zwack {Ret.}
GLOBAL SPEAKER
ADVISOR/CONSULTANT
SPEAKER AVAILABILITY & FEES
Leadership
Russia Affairs
Eurasia Affairs
Joint Presentation
Keynote Address
Global Fellow at The Kennan Institute
Woodrow Wilson International Center
University of Pennsylvania – Adjunct Fellow
Senior Russia-Eurasia Research Fellow
National Defense University 2015 – 2019
WOTR STAFF
We, the undersigned, watched with worry the recent flurry of media and social-media speculation about a possible appointment to the National Security Council. This concerned Matthew Rojansky, the Director of the Woodrow Wilson’s Kennan Institute, a leading national center dedicated to the study of Russia and Eurasia. The personal attacks on Mr. Rojansky were intended simultaneously to damage Mr. Rojansky’s reputation and to shut down policy debate. We see all of this as very dangerous.
The media coverage and the social-media activity on this topic failed to meet the criteria of real journalism and of reasoned public debate. Baseless accusations were levied, some outlandish (of Mr. Rojansky as a “Kremlin asset”) and some deceptively moderate, the claim, for example, that Mr. Rojansky is “controversial,” as if his analyses and opinions are commonly considered beyond the pale. This is not the case. Mr. Rojansky is a respected member of the expert community in Washington, D.C. His ideas are well within the scope of serious debate about U.S. Russia policy. Those who should know better have unjustly sullied Mr. Rojansky’s reputation.
The attacks on Mr. Rojansky suggested that his views are unacceptable and therefore that they should bar him from government service, suggestions that are as untrue as they are injurious. Scholars, experts, and policymakers must carefully assimilate new evidence and regularly challenge old assumptions: the only guarantee of doing so is a range of perspectives expressed through vigorous debate. At issue is not just the intellectual health of a given expert community. At issue is nothing less than the process by which U.S. policy is made, and to succeed the process must be open. Many of the greatest disasters in the history of American foreign policy followed from the stovepiping of information or from the silencing or sidelining of one or another school of expert opinion. The histories of the Vietnam and Iraq Wars stand as cautionary examples.
The Biden administration is navigating an exceptionally complicated period of conflict and engagement with Russia. It deserves access to an expert community dedicated to the ideal of free inquiry and discussion and not to social-media insinuation, smear campaigns, and ad hominem invective. The experience of these past weeks shows that this ideal cannot be taken for granted. We the undersigned wish with this letter to defend the ideal of free inquiry and discussion. We encourage others as well to defend and uphold it. The consequences of doing otherwise will be dire for experts and non-experts alike.
Signatories
*All signers are acting in their personal capacity. Institutional affiliations are listed for purposes of identification only and do not imply institutional support for the content of the letter.
Graham Allison, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy and Plans, 1993-1994; Harvard Kennedy School
Dmitri Alperovich, Silverado Policy Accelerator
Steven Andreasen, Director for Defense Policy and Arms Control, National Security Council, 1993-2001; Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota
Deana Arsenian, Carnegie Corporation of New York
Emma Ashford, Atlantic Council
Michele Auga, personal capacity
Kennette Benedict, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
John Beyrle, Ambassador to Russia, 2008-2012
Ireneusz Bil, Aleksander Kwasniewski “Amicus Europae’ Foundation
Douglas W. Blum, Providence College
George Breslauer, University of California at Berkeley
Linton Brooks, U.S. Ambassador (retired)
Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Governor of California, 1975-1983, 2011-2019; Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
Des Browne, Former U.K. Secretary of State for Defense; Nuclear Threat Initiative
Richard Burt, U.S. Ambassador (retired); Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, 1983-1985
Pia Bungarten, personal capacity
David Cadier, Sciences Po
Samuel Charap, Senior Advisor to the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, 2011-2012
Carmen Claudin, Barcelona Centre for International Affairs
James Collins, Ambassador to Russia, 1997-2001
Timothy Colton, Harvard University
Thomas Countryman, Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, 2011-2017
Keith Darden, American University
Dann Davidson, American Councils Research Center; American Councils for International Education
Michael Desch, Notre Dame International Security Center
Robert Donaldson, University of Tulsa
Jill Doughterty, Georgetown University
Susan Eisenhower, Eisenhower Institute
Susan Elliott, U.S. Ambassador (retired); National Committee on American Foreign Policy
Robert David English, University of Southern California
Elisa Catalano Ewers, former official at the National Security Council and the U.S. Department of State
Jeffrey Fields, University of Southern California
Sabine Fischer, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik
Bob Foresman, Former Vice Chairman, UBS Investment Bank
Timothy Frye, Columbia University
Graham Fuller, Vice Chair of the National Intelligence Council, CIA, 1986-1988
Eugene Gholz, University of Notre Dame
Elise Giuliano, Columbia University
Dan Glickman, Secretary of Agriculture, 1995-2001
Krista Goff, University of Miami
Rose Gottemoeller, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, 2014-2016
Loren R. Graham, MIT
Thomas Graham, Senior Director for Russia, National Security Council staff, 2004-2007
Anna Grzymala-Busse, Stanford University
Thane Gustafson, Georgetown University
Henry Hale, George Washington University
Martin E. Hellman, Stanford University
David Holloway, Stanford University
Nina Jankowicz, The Woodrow Wilson Center
James Jeffrey, U.S. Ambassador (retired)
Robert Jervis, Columbia University
Mark Johnson, University of Wisconsin at Madison
Jan H. Kalicki, U.S. Ombudsman for Energy and Commercial Relations with Russia and the New Independent States, The White House, 1994-2001; The Woodrow Wilson Center
Roger Kanet, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; University of Miami
Laura Kennedy, U.S. Ambassador (retired)
Nina Khrushcheva, The New School
Michael Kimmage, Catholic University of America
Markku Kivinen, Aleksanteri Institute, Finnish Centre for Russian and Eastern European Studies
Michael Kofman, CNA
George Krol, U.S. Ambassador (retired)
Reinhard Krumm, personal capacity
Marlene Laruelle, George Washington University
Anthony Lauren, MITRE
Richard Ned Lebow, King’s College London; Cambridge University; Dartmouth College
Robert Legvold, Columbia University
Kadri Liik, European Council on Foreign Relations
William Luers, U.S. Ambassador (retired)
Marisol Maddox, The Woodrow Wilson Center
Steven Mann, U.S. Ambassador (retired)
Jack Matlock, Ambassador to the Soviet Union, 1987-1991
Richard H. Matzke, Former Board Member (Chevron, PetroChina, and Lukoil)
Robert McFarlane, National Security Advisor, 1983-1985
John Mearsheimer, University of Chicago
Rajan Menon, City College of New York/City University of New York
Richard Miles, U.S. Ambassador (retired)
Chris Miller, The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Jackie Miller, World Affairs Council, Seattle
Mykhailo Minakov, Kennan Institute, The Woodrow Wilson Center
Julie Newton, Oxford University; American University of Paris
Robert Nurick, Atlantic Council
John O’Loughlin, University of Colorado at Boulder
Olga Oliker, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
Bruce Parrott, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
David Patton, American Councils for International Education
Peter Pettibone, Pettibone International ADR LLC
Thomas Pickering, Ambassador to Russia, 1993-1996
Dana Ponte, National Council of Eurasian and Eastern European Research
William Pomeranz, personal capacity
William Potter, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey
Alex Pravda, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford
Thomas Rid, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
Cynthia Roberts, Hunter College, City University of New York
Graeme Robertson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Candace Rondeaux, New America
Stapleton Roy, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research, 1999-2000; Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, Wilson Center
Blair Ruble, The Woodrow Wilson Center
Daniel Russell, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of European and Eurasia Affairs, 2009-2013
Gwendolyn Sasse, Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOIS)
Paul Saunders, Center for the National Interest
Colette Shulman, Harriman Institute National Advisory Council
Anne-Marie Slaughter, Director of Policy Planning, 2009-2011, U.S. Department of State; New America
Regina Smyth, Indiana University, Bloomington
Jack Snyder, Columbia University
Paul Stares, Council on Foreign Relations
Jeremi Suri, University of Texas at Austin
Ronald Suny, University of Michigan
Izabella Tabarovsky, Kennan Institute, The Woodrow Wilson Center
Gerard Toal, Virginia Tech
Monica Toft, The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Daniel Treisman, UCLA
Judyth Twigg, Virginia Commonwealth University
Anna Vassilieva, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey
Alexandra Vacroux, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University
Stephen M. Walt, Harvard University
Yuval Weber, Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University
Stephen Wertheim, Quincy Institute
Julie Wilhelmsen, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Frank G. Wisner, U.S. Ambassador (retired)
William Wohlforth, Dartmouth College
Kenneth Yalowitz, U.S. Ambassador (retired)
Charles Ziegler, University of Louisville
Peter Zwack, Brigadier General, U.S. Army (retired); Kennan Institute, The Woodrow Wilson Center
For the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, pressure has been building up at several levels over recent years. At the macro level, Russia’s relations with the United States (and, by extension, NATO) have deteriorated significantly as a result of the continuous flow of Russian disruptive and adversarial actions since its invasion of Ukraine in 2014. These actions include the U.S. presidential election hacks of 2016 that especially polarized the U.S. democratic landscape regarding Russia; Russian actions in Syria; the undermining of European institutions; the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in the United Kingdom; the poisoning, arrest, and incarceration of dissident Alexei Navalny; the SolarWinds hack; and reports of specific meddling in the 2020 election against presidential candidate Joe Biden. In aggregate, it has led to the current round of sanctions against Russia. All of this is only the backdrop to the festering relationship between Kyiv and Moscow that has drawn in the United States/NATO and the European Union (EU), making the region all the more fraught and tense—especially with firmly declared, material U.S./NATO and EU support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Russia’s aggressive behavior regionally and worldwide seemingly masks its deep, embedded fears of threats along its extended 11-timezone periphery and an anxiousness that its population, while patriotic, is also restive. In the past year, numerous demonstrations have sprung up about corruption, questionable electioneering, and Navalny, magnified across borders by major unrest in Belarus, the Azeri victory over Armenia in recent fighting, and other flare-ups within the states of the former Soviet Union. Additionally—and rightfully so, both for deterrence and allied assurance—NATO and the United States have conducted military exercises and maneuvers within the lands of allies and partners. This movement has made terrestrial-oriented Moscow nervous, even though the correlation of forces clearly shows that their relatively small number and array is no offensive threat to Russia. Regardless, the situation plays to both perceived and contrived Russian existential threat concerns.
Russia’s formidable but still limited force array gives it several options. First and foremost, it signals its capability to take substantive offensive action against Ukraine. This does not mean, however, that the Kremlin intends to do so, despite heightened tensions and its overtly visible military deployments and posture. Most likely, this is aggressive, coercive posturing, designed to intimidate Ukraine and to push back on what it sees as an excessive U.S./NATO regional presence along Russia’s extended periphery and NATO’s support to partners such as Ukraine and Georgia. Fueling this seemingly angry posturing was Ukraine’s recent public request to be brought into NATO’s Membership Action Plan (MAP), which was akin to fluttering a red matador’s cape in the face of Moscow’s bull. It was the announced intention to bring Ukraine into the EU Association in 2013 that helped initiate the Maidan and the ugly sequence of events leading to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and illegal annexation of Crimea in early 2014. Although Russia’s movements are likely a military demonstration, the real prospect of a very dangerous accident, incident, or provocation could inadvertently mutate into a “how did we get here?” confrontation between both heavily armed camps that, on the ladder of escalation, could in an extreme worst case involve nuclear weapons. The decision to rescind sending two U.S. warships into the Black Sea at this time was wise; Russia is extremely touchy about Crimea, and there is still plenty of NATO regional presence compared to 2014. When linked with the prospect of direct talks between Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin this summer, along with a senior-level Strategic Stability Dialogue, careful planning and messaging could help deescalate any additional force-on-force buildups. A key event to watch will be the major Russian Zapad-21 military exercise that will occur in late summer or early autumn 2021. It traditionally takes place in western Russia, including Kaliningrad, and also involves recently shaky Belarus.
If Russia does undertake offensive operations in Ukraine, its options depend on its ultimate objectives. Moscow would have the initiative, as any conflict would begin with their offensive action. Presaging overt military operations would likely be an aggressive, non-kinetic cyber and electronic warfare effort to blind and confuse forward Ukrainian and regional NATO assets as well as its command and control. Moscow would have to decide if it wants to go big and seize major tracts of land, set limited territorial objectives, or bloody forward Ukrainian forces with hard-hitting cross-border punitive strikes. Seizing and holding major terrain deep in Ukraine would be especially difficult for a Russian military designed to strike deep but not hold major tracts of land, especially in contested terrain. Any offensive variation would have huge international and domestic implications for Russia, where its patriotic but increasingly discerning population could pressure the regime if they sensed that an assault of their difficult but still kindred Ukrainian neighbor was punitive rather than existential to Russia. This likely discontent would be amplified if Russian forces took major casualties, especially young conscripts, in a difficult-to-justify offensive fight against a much-improved Ukrainian military. A Western response would be significant and substantive, such as rapidly supplying Ukrainian forces with a flood of capable lethal weapons; at the same time, Russia would be diplomatically and economically assailed internationally in ways that would especially hurt Russia’s monied interests. In a worst-case scenario, U.S./NATO forces could be drawn into a dangerous escalatory fight that neither side wants, one that could rapidly spread across Russia’s vast, vulnerable periphery including the Arctic.
With the onset of the Biden Administration we are at an early pivotal moment with Russia. So it was good to hear the Biden team’s interest in extending New START, as well as the Putin regime’s interest.
While relations are terrible and distrust high, the imminent expiration on February 5th of the strategic nuclear New START treaty provides a fleeting opportunity for Moscow and Washington to together seize the high ground on a truly existential issue facing our nations and the world today.
Both Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, no strangers, deeply distrust one another based on jagged prior history. Despite this, they have within their mandate, the opportunity to pragmatically extend New START for up to five years and to possibly calm somewhat our dangerous relations. To remind, New START is the final strategic nuclear weapons treaty existing between the US and Russia. All else is gone. To make more visceral, New START regulates and verifies the strategic nuclear weapons, that on a feasibly horrific day, could in hours take our nations, and global civilization, off the face of this planet. I put it starkly like this because I worry that seemingly mundane and technical arms control and strategic stability have become conceptual background noise for most, especially younger populations that grew up after the Cold War.
New START is aging and has its flaws. Yet it still functions bridging the US and Russia strategic nuclear divide with process and contact. And there is an ongoing verification process. There is nothing left.
New START can be extended for up to five years. If Biden and Putin do so, they will have bought time for negotiators to work on New START’s principal drawbacks, namely the role (or not) of an increasingly uparming China and other nuclear nations, and numerous emergent new weapons and technologies beyond the scope of the 2010 Obama-Medvedev treaty. These five years would provide an already existing mechanism to build-on, while still regulating treaty-linked US and Russian strategic nuclear weapons.
Not to extend will put us into a highly volatile, unconstrained arms race that highly expensive outspending technology solutions will not fully mitigate. With our erosions of military-to-military liason and conduits, our nations would also be dangerously more vulnerable to a cyber-fast accident or incident that worse case could unleash an unintentional world-ending nuclear response.
Both Presidents should sign the extension and use this fleeting moment so early in their new relationship to build some positive confidence-building momentum toward other initiatives. One that comes to mind, would be to immediately address the declared shortfalls of the 34-nation Open Skies treaty that both our nations just pulled out of with an eye of possibly rejoining. Notably, NATO members and partners participating in this Treaty appealed to Washington not to pull out.
I end where I began. We are at a pivotal moment with both our nations struggling with major issues including coronavirus and major domestic and international challenges. The immediate possibility of both Moscow and Washington signing an extension comes at a providential moment so early in the new Biden administration, but only if both sides can trust each other enough to work out any final details before February 5.
Finally, I encourage folks to go back and listen to the end-of-the-world Cold-War songs of that extraordinary Harvard bard, Tom Lehrer in the mid-1960s … we never want our kids to go back to those days again …
Lost in the swirl of American post-election chaos, culminating in the appalling storming of the U.S. Capitol, and the reported major Russian cyber hacks was Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s notification to Congress on Dec. 10 about the State Department’s decision to close its remaining two consulates in Russia.
The U.S. Consulate General Vladivostok, in the Russian Far East (RFE) distantly located from Moscow, would be fully shuttered, while the other in centrally located Ekaterinburg, suspended. The cited staffing issues relate to the 2017 tit-for-tat downsizing of diplomatic personnel and missions in the U.S. and Russia, as well as related cost challenges.
To be clear: This is a unilateral U.S. decision.
It must be emphasized however, that while Moscow did not order our consulates closed, it went great lengths to limit embassy and consular manning and support which led to the State Department decision — gaining what Moscow likely really wants, while the Russian consulates in the U.S. — in Houston and New York — stay open.
Despite abysmal U.S.-Russia relations, this decision’s timing is problematic. Neither consulate should be closed — especially Vladivostok — without a chance for the incoming Biden administration to directly address key staffing, visa, and facility maintenance and safety support issues with the up-to-now obstructive Russians.
This perspective in no way exonerates Moscow from a wide range of malign actions, whether the recently reported major hacking of U.S. government and business entities, the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, or a wide-range of Kremlin-driven adversarial actions worldwide. These actions are inexcusable and must continue to be firmly and proactively countered in coordination with like-minded nations. However, closing our consulates without the new administration’s review and validation is not our best course of action.
This is exactly when — not just during good relations — we should want to maintain U.S. representational “outposts” in key nations during troubled times as long as there are not direct physical threats to personnel. Public diplomacy remains crucial when very little other bilateral activity can take place, and it is best to engage the Russian public throughout Russia — not just in and around Moscow.
I have a long history with Russia dating back over three decades as private U.S. citizen, student, traveler, and during the challenging 2012-2014 timeframe as our senior military diplomat in Moscow. As such, I saw how both Americans and Russians benefitted from the scope of U.S. consular services, ranging from providing visa and emigration services for Russian citizens, aid for travelers, facilitating business travel and contacts, and providing support for official delegations.
These consulates exemplify U.S. cultural bridgeheads with direct access and relationships to local populations and officials. Functioning regardless of whether relations are good or challenged, their presence helps maintain practical contact with host nation populations, thereby helping to keep temperatures down in time of tensions and crisis. This is precisely why we should keep the Vladivostok and Ekaterinburg consulates open.
Vladivostok is of particular importance. Connected by the Trans-Siberian railway and home of Russia’s Pacific Fleet, it is resource-rich Russia’s gateway to the Pacific. Nearby, along the Amur and Ussuri Rivers, is Russia’s vast 2,600-mile border with China, where border clashes broke out near Khabarovsk in 1969. Today relations are significantly better between these distinctly different behemoths with major trade and commerce along their immense boundary. Unprecedented joint Chinese-Russian military maneuvers took place in the greater region in 2018 and 2019.
To the south, just 80 miles away, is Russia’s border with complicated North Korea. Vladivostok also is a maritime terminus for travel through the Bering Strait bordering Alaska and into the widening Northern Sea Route (NSR), in a rapidly melting Arctic. Notably, Vladivostok is much closer to Anchorage and San Francisco than to distant Moscow, seven time zones away. Such distances make it hard to manage American interests in the RFE from U.S. Embassy Moscow.
As a post-military academic and analyst, I took an extensive trip along the wind-swept Amur and Ussuri as recently as November 2018. My itinerary took me to historic Khabarovsk, the unique Jewish Autonomous Region in Birobidzhan, and halfway to Mongolia, to the fascinating frontier town of Blagoveschensk; I was writing about Northeast Asian regional dynamics. Immensely helpful to me was the creative and talented U.S. Consul General in Vladivostok Michael Keays and his dedicated, mostly Russian, staff, who provided me invaluable contacts and advice for my trip. This enabled me to visit several Russian universities and institutes along my route to speak with local academicians and think-tankers who organized several lively sessions with Russian students, most of whom had never met an American in these remote regions. The consul’s well-connected team introduced me to Russian veterans and businessmen, international diplomats also serving in the RFE, and facilitated my travel with links to reliable drivers and train travel.
Throughout I was struck by the international diversity of the region, with numerous Chinese, South Korean, Japanese and Indians among many others working, studying and traveling, especially in Vladivostok and Khabarovsk. It’s an arena in which we need to remain actively in the mix — especially if relations eventually improve.
I mention this because my experience was not the exception. All consulates provide variations of these services depending on political conditions and local safety. The Vladivostok Consulate, founded originally in 1874, and reopened in 1992 after the fall of the USSR, provides a wide range of services for Americans working, studying, and traveling through the region. It also provides vital continuity for U.S. business and markets (Exxon Mobil remains nearby in Russian Sakhalin). Once COVID-19 fades, and if somehow relations eventually improve between Washington and Moscow, enhanced RFE commerce with Alaska and the U.S. West coast could be positive, stabilizing drivers. The consulate’s operating cost is paltry for the access and services provided: about $3.2 million dollars.
While arguing the necessity for keeping consulates open within important regions, in the case of Russia, the new Biden foreign policy team should early-on re-address this Trump administration decision, as it develops its initial policy positions regarding a difficult, challenging Kremlin.
All rights reserved © Peter B Zwack
