Home - Peter B Zwack

GLOBAL SPEAKER

ADVISOR/CONSULTANT

SPEAKER AVAILABILITY & FEES

Leadership
Russia Affairs
Eurasia Affairs
Joint Presentation
Keynote Address

Defense Attaché to Moscow 2012 – 2014

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

The Russian Military Buildup on Ukraine’s Border | An Expert Analysis

04/21/2021

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.

Urgent: Extend New START treaty with Russia now

01/24/2021

I was heartened to see the new Biden administration publicly announce its strong interest to immediately extend the strategic New START nuclear treaty with Russia that is set to expire next week, on Feb. 5. This came after Biden announced his commitment to philosophically and substantively reenter the multi-national world by rejoining The Paris Climate Accord and the World Health Organization. Undoubtedly the White House is consulting closely with our close NATO allies, who are almost certainly greatly relieved by President Joe Biden’s accession to office. Russian President Vladimir Putin has also stated several times Russia’s openness to extend the treaty.

Other than the ongoing battle with the implacable Coronavirus and grappling with our own serious internal division and economic hardship, there is nothing more immediately existential to us — and by extension, the greater world — than the prospect of our nuclear-tipped nations falling back into a terrifying and unconstrained modern new arms race, where ultimately there can be no “winners.”

If New START indeed dies without extension and/or modification, compensating views such as outspending opponents into oblivion with modern new weapons suggest a risky weapons-centric approach that appears dangerously obsolete in this increasingly asymmetric world.

A reminder: New START regulates and verifies the thousands of U.S. and Russian strategic long-range civilization-ending nuclear weapons and delivery systems in our arsenals. Without it, there will be fewer checks and balances and reduced contact points, which would make our societies desperately vulnerable to a cyber-fast nuclear accident or incident.

New START is undoubtedly aging and has issues, foremost the rise of an increasingly restless China reluctant to be part of any weapons limitations, and dangerous new weapons systems and technologies enabled by cyber and AI not included in the original 2010 treaty. It has, however, a time-tested and still functioning regulatory and verification mechanism that — with a solid extension — could buy time for experienced U.S. and Russian negotiators to build an updated treaty that could involve other nations such as France, UK and at least collectively address China. Without New START’s existing framework, it will be devilishly difficult and time consuming in the current environment to create an entire new arms control and overall strategic stability framework from scratch.

Finally, for Washington and Moscow, a New START extension heralds a fleeting chance to begin the new Biden-Putin relationship with a positive anchor from which to build. Bilateral relations are currently awful, but some senior-level dialogue exists. While clearly there is no appetite for a “reset,” successfully extending New START could open a slender gateway toward opening other initiatives, and readdressing important treaties involving the U.S. and Russia such as the foundering 34-nation (including numerous NATO allies) Open Skies Treaty, from which both Washington and Moscow recently declared they will pull out.

This is a truly pivotal time for U.S.-Russia relations. An ephemeral opportunity beckons. The extension of New START would be an immediately tangible step toward improving confidence and contact between our dangerously distrustful and heavily armed nations. It could provide a potential bridge to more initiatives between the United States and The Russian Federation and thereby provide the prospect of a safer world for our citizens, and overall global commons.

Biden Administration to Seek Five-year Extension on START

01/22/2021

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 …

Closing the remaining US consulates in Russia is shortsighted

01/12/2021

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.

Donald Trump is No Jack Kennedy. Or Khrushchev.

10/30/2020

Is President Donald Trump a Flight Risk? Yes, this sounds like a B-grade spy novel. But consider the evidence.

10/28/2020

He said it.

Earlier this month, at a campaign rally in Macon, Georgia, President Donald Trump mused aloud to the crowd about what he might do if he loses the election on November 3. “Maybe I’ll have to leave the country, I don’t know,” Trump said.

Was the statement merely a sour-grapes throwaway line by a cantankerous candidate facing potential defeat? Or was it a signal that Trump might actually abandon—some would say flee—our shores and seek refuge elsewhere if he is routed by a Joe Biden victory?

During my long military intelligence career I spent countless hours with my peers working on diverse “What if … ?” contingency scenarios in complex locales such as the Balkans and Afghanistan. In these intensely personal environments, where clan or tribal loyalty is paramount, local and regional leaders, often with links to organized criminal activities and enabling transnational networks, could be dangerously unpredictable. Judging from the array of personality traits gleaned from these and numerous other experiences, and correlating them to his current circumstances, to me Trump appears to be a classic flight risk.

Setting aside for the moment his conduct as president, Trump faces a financial and legal reckoning of immense proportions as soon as he leaves office. If he loses, he will no longer have protection from an avalanche of charges and lawsuits against him, his family and the Trump Organization. His years of alleged tax evasion will be officially scrutinized—and far more publicly than before he held office. He will no longer be able to claim (falsely) that his taxes are still “under audit” and unavailable. Trump properties and investments could be frozen, seized or plummet in value. The true nature of his extraordinary personal financial debt—recently reported as $421 million—will be exposed, and his likely foreign creditors revealed. Surely adding to his worries was the announcement on October 15 by the Internal Revenue Service that it is indicting Robert Brockman, a wealthy Houston software magnate, in its largest tax-fraud case ever. The action against Brockman shows that the IRS is not afraid to go after big fish who attempt to circumvent their tax obligations.

Personality and longstanding habits are key factors in assessing a subject’s likely future behavior and choices. Even the most casual observer knows that Donald Trump is heavily invested in his self-image as a successful businessman and wheeler-dealer. He takes pride in flouting norms, finding loopholes and playing fast and loose with laws and the truth. If his private financial house of cards is put on harsh public display in high-stakes government and state-level litigation, the aura of celebrity and success that Trump has cultivated for decades is not likely to survive intact. There is nothing in this president’s demeanor, past or present, to suggest that he has the fortitude or integrity to face auditors, prosecutors, or anyone else who challenges him, particularly if the outcome is likely to involve public humiliation and loss of assets, prestige and power. The option of salvaging what he can by relocating to a jurisdiction beyond the reach of U.S. laws would not be a stretch for someone who has long been openly disdainful of our tax and legal systems.

While it is rare among leaders of developed democracies, during the past 50 years we’ve seen a number of high-profile flights by national leaders facing major legal, political or societal problems at home, These include Bolivian president Evo Morales, who fled to Mexico just last year; Ukraine’s Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia in 2014; and Ferdinand Marcos from the Philippines in 1986. All three fled in the wake of contentious elections, either after being ousted by voters or toppled by sustained protests. At the moment nothing suggests that Trump faces the unlikely prospect of being chased out of the country. But it’s no stretch to point out the parallel, either: They were all unorthodox strongman leaders who abused their offices, and simply didn’t see a way to stay comfortably in their countries once they’d lost power.

In the U.S., Trump might be familiar with some of the high-rolling financial fraudsters who decamped from the U.S. as the law was closing in. Among the most notorious was Robert Vesco, who successfully evaded justice by fleeing in a corporate jet in 1973 and remained out of reach until his death decades later. Less fortunate were Richard Allen Stanford, 2009, and Martin Frankel, 1999. Both tried to escape the U.S. by leasing private jets. Stanford was captured before he could finalize arrangements; Frankel made it as far as Germany but was later extradited to the U.S. for a long jail term.

If Trump were to lose the election and opt to slip away, where, when, and how might such a scenario play out? The “where” is straightforward: His most logical move would be to negotiate asylum somewhere from which extradition would be difficult. Doing so would allow him to temporarily escape U.S. jurisdiction and law, although he would also become in essence a hostage, a gilded trophy of sorts. After first fleeing to Costa Rica in 1973, Vesco made his home in Antigua, Nicaragua and Cuba, whose governments were not inclined to cooperate with U.S. authorities. And Edward Snowden, the disgruntled Booz Allen contractor turned whistleblower, has been living in Russia, under the protection (and eye) of the Putin regime, after fleeing the U.S. in 2013 with a treasure trove of classified information.

When and how Trump might exit the country are slightly more complex questions. If Trump is decisively trounced next week, one subset of possibilities emerges; if his defeat is a narrow one, another subset arises.

If Trump loses badly, it is conceivable he could plan a stealth departure sometime during the 11-week period before Inauguration Day, while he still has the protection of legal immunity as a sitting president. Leaving U.S. airspace before he resumes the status of private citizen at noon on January 20 would allow him to escape—or at least delay—dealing face-to-face with many creditors and lawsuits. Classic indicators of preparation for such a move would include fast sales of domestic properties and investments, and a quiet amassing of wealth offshore, out of reach of U.S. authorities. Trump’s family members and trusted corporate staff would likely be heavily involved in orchestrating the relocation.

A chilling alternative, however fanciful, could arise if Trump flees abroad after losing a close, viciously contested election. Hunkered down in a foreign country willing to provide sanctuary, he could conceivably style himself a “president in exile” and incite his die-hard American followers to resist the election results. A degree of domestic upheaval and dangerous division would linger for an extended period until the new administration is able to foster calm and unity.

How might this happen? What methods might a sitting U.S. president use to leave the country on a one-way journey? The choice could be as brazen as not reboarding Air Force One while out of the country at a conference or summit. Cases abound of athletes and artists escaping repressive regimes by refusing to reboard official aircraft and instead negotiating asylum. While on U.S. shores, Trump could find a creative way to slip his Secret Service detail and fly away in a friend’s private jet or foreign aircraft. Sailing away into international waters would also be a plausible option. In 2019, fugitive U.S. computer-security software magnate John McAfee used his yacht to elude the IRS and Securities and Exchange Commission for months until he was arrested in Spain on October 6, 2020. Steve Bannon made news last August when the Coast Guard arrested him while on a foreign yacht off Connecticut.

If all this sounds like a B-grade spy novel, it should. The flight of a U.S. president would be unprecedented, unsettling and profoundly disappointing. As a minimum, a presidential defection would temporarily absorb the resources and attention of a wide range of U.S. defense, intelligence and law enforcement agencies. In more than two centuries of peaceful transfers of presidential power, nothing remotely conceivable like it has ever happened.

I fervently hope we won’t face such a disturbing turn of events. But if there is anything to learn with this president, it is to expect the unexpected. As his unabashed admiration of authoritarian world leaders has shown us these past four chaotic years, Donald Trump values autocrats over democratic government, and places his self-interest well above the sacred trust he was elected to protect and uphold four years ago.

All rights reserved © Peter B Zwack

RECENT POSTS