MIT professor emeritus Ted Postol talks with ACURA’s David Speedie and James W. Carden on arms control, the war in Ukraine and the dangers of escalation. (Video ends abruptly due to time constraints).

YouTube link here.

Russia Matters, 10/4/24

4 Things to Know

1. Ukrainian armed forces have abandoned the strategically important town of Vuhledar in the Donetsk region this week. Control of this eastern town is considered important by both sides due to its position on elevated ground and its place at the intersection of the eastern and southern battlefield fronts, giving it added significance for supplying both sides’ forces, according to Reuters. Vuhledar’s strategic importance is further heightened by its proximity to a rail line connecting Donbas in the east to Crimea in the south, according to Al Jazeera. 
2. When asked by FT what he would propose to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Jens Stoltenberg demurred, then suggested a historical comparison. “Finland fought a brave war against the Soviet Union in ’39. They imposed much bigger costs on the Red Army than expected… The war ended with them giving up 10% of the territory. But they got a secure border,” said Stoltenberg, who served as NATO’s general secretary until Oct. 1.
3. Russia’s Defense Ministry will soon have the authority to determine whether the conditions for using nuclear weapons are met, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sept. 29, according to MT. The Russian presidential spokesman said that the amendments to Russia’s nuclear doctrine, which were announced by Putin last week and which would liberalize Russia’s conditions for nuclear use as the U.S. deliberates whether to allow Ukraine to use Western-supplied longer-range missiles against targets in Russia, will be legally formalized soon. When asked to comment on Putin’s announcement, his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters at the U.N. in New York, “We expect that those who are interested in our approaches will listen… When it finally becomes clear whether they allow Ukraine to use long-range weapons or not, we will see how they understood what they heard.”
4. Russia plans to increase state spending on national defense by a quarter in 2025 to 6.3% of GDP, marking a new post-Soviet high, according to draft budget documents published this week and seen by Reuters. Defense spending will rise to 13.5 trillion rubles ($145 billion) next year, according to these documents. Russia lags behind the U.S. and China in terms of defense spending last year, as measured by SIPRI in current dollars and exchange rates. If measured in purchasing power parity terms, however, the gap between the U.S. and Russia in defense spending would be substantially narrower.*

By Anatol Lieven, Responsible Statecraft, 9/24/24

Barely noticed in the U.S. — but very much noticed in Germany — was an agreement between Washington and Berlin at the NATO anniversary summit in July.

For the first time since the 1980s, Germany agreed to the stationing of three types of U.S. missiles (under U.S. command) on its territory, starting in 2026: The Tomahawk Block 4 cruise missile, with a range of just over 1,000 miles; the Standard Missile-6 (SM-6), with a range of 230 miles, and intended chiefly for an air-defense role; and a Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHP) which is still under development, and will have a range of more than 1,800 miles.

Two of these missiles will be able to strike deep into Russia, and both will be able to hit Moscow. They are conventionally armed, but nuclear-capable, though to convert them to this role would require a new agreement. This agreement however said nothing about whether Germany will have any control over the missiles on its soil.

The stationing of the Tomahawks and LRHPs is in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear (INF) Treaty of 1987, which bans the stationing of ground-based missiles with a range of between 500 and 5,000 kilometers (310-3,400 miles). However, the Trump administration withdrew from the INF in 2019, and Russia then suspended its own compliance. The Biden administration has made no attempt to negotiate a return to the treaty.

Both the Trump and Obama administrations alleged that the Russian SRBM Iskander ballistic missile (nuclear-capable but not nuclear-armed), with a declared range of under 500 km (within the INF treaty limit) and stationed in Kaliningrad (the isolated territory on the Baltic Sea, adjacent to Poland and Lithuania and 327 miles from Berlin) in fact had a longer range and thus violated the treaty. But this allegation was never independently confirmed, and, after the Russian seizure of Crimea in 2014, the deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations made it impossible to resolve this question through negotiations.

Rather strangely (in a democracy), the latest German government agreement to station the new missiles was made without any prior discussion in the German parliament, the Bundestag, or any prior national debate. This has contributed to the resulting controversy in Germany. The foreign and security establishment, and most of the political establishment, are firmly in favor. The right-wing Alternative fuer Deutchland (AfD) and left-wing Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) are strongly opposed.

Meanwhile, the Social Democratic Party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the largest party in the ruling coalition, is split on the issue, though the general assumption is that the dissidents will eventually fall in line behind the government.

The German public is divided. According to the latest poll, 49 percent are opposed to the missiles and 45 percent in favor. However, in eastern Germany the percentage opposed to the treaty rises to 74 percent, with only 23 percent in favor. In three state elections in eastern Germany this month, the AfD and BSW, who are both advocates of a compromise peace in Ukraine, saw a tremendous surge in support. This issue is therefore contributing to regional tensions in Germany, and it can be expected that it will play a major role in next year’s national elections.

This controversy recalls in certain respects that in the 1980s over the stationing of U.S. Pershing II medium-range nuclear ballistic missile. Its deployment was made in response to the Soviet development of the RSD-10 Pioneer missile and led to an intense political crisis in Germany. Rather comically, as it now appears, opposition (sometimes violent) to the stationing of the Pershings contributed greatly to the rise of the anti-nuclear German Green Party, which, 40 years later, is now among the strongest advocates for the stationing of the Tomahawks.

It is notable that the Greens suffered crushing defeats in the latest eastern German elections. The Social Democratic Party, which now leads the German government, also opposed the stationing of the Pershings.

Hindustan Times, 9/27/24

The US embassy in Moscow was lit up with the Russia Today (RT) logo days after Washington slapped sanctions on the Russia-owned state media. The facade of the US embassy was lit up with a green colour RT News logo along with a message reading “We are not going away.”

YouTube link here to video of the display.

By Sam Bull, Responsible Statecraft, 9/25

A new poll finds that 66% of Americans want a NATO-U.S. push for a negotiated settlement in the Ukraine War and less than 24% believe that weapons and aid should be given to Israel unconditionally in its war on Gaza.

But interestingly, not Ukraine, Gaza, or even China, are the biggest foreign policy issues on the minds of Americans this election season, at least according to a new survey by the Institute of Global Affairs (IGA). In fact, ahead of those hot button conflicts and global pressure points, immigration (39%), climate change (34%), and terrorism (32%) are ranked among respondents’ top three concerns. Israel’s war in Gaza (18%), the rise of China (16%), and the Ukraine war (13%) were far down in the list.

But that doesn’t mean Americans don’t have strong opinions — many along partisan lines — about the U.S. role in the world, its military footprint, and who they trust to do a better job as the next president.

IGA and YouGov polled a national sample of 1,835 voting-age Americans between August 15 and 22 with over-samples in swing states in the Rust Belt (Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin) and the Sun Belt (Georgia, Arizona and Nevada) regions. Questions covered an array of foreign policy topics from ongoing wars and conflicts to more general issues of militarism, immigration and soft power.

The poll found that a slight majority of voters on a national level (53%) trust Harris more to represent America’s interest on the global stage. However, voters in swing states trust Trump more not only in this category (53%), but also in his ability to reform immigration (56%), end the Ukraine and Gaza Wars (58%), and respond effectively to a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan (58%).

Also according to other results, 58% of Harris supporters stated that the U.S. should maintain or increase its number of overseas troops, while 58% of Trump supporters think that number should decrease. Some 75% of Americans agreed that the president should be required to obtain congressional approval before ordering any military action overseas, a check required by the Constitution but increasingly ignored in the post-9/11 era.

Another point of agreement among most Americans across party lines centers on the U.S. and NATO pushing for a negotiated settlement as a means to end the war in Ukraine. 70% of Republicans, 71% of Independents and 60% of Democrats marked support for this approach.

Stark ideological divides made themselves clear, however, regarding the situation in the Middle East. A strong majority of Democrats said the U.S. should either stop supporting Israel’s war efforts entirely or make that support conditional on a ceasefire (67%) — compared to just 41% of Republicans. While only 23% support unconditional aid to Israel, this too split along partisan lines, with only 8% of Democrats and 42% of Republicans agreeing with the idea.

Age also came in as a factor, with twice as many voters under 30 as those above 65 (23% vs. 11%) thinking the U.S. must stop supporting Israel’s war in Gaza altogether.

Opinions on President Joe Biden’s foreign policy record as he exits office are mixed. Americans cited NATO expansion and the release of American prisoners from Russia as key successes, with addressing climate change being the top choice among Democrats specifically. Republicans and Democrats saw immigration as Biden’s top foreign policy failure, and Democrats pointed most often to his administration’s handling of the war in Gaza as a key failure. Republicans widely see Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and bringing the troops home as his biggest failure next to immigration.

On China, a majority of those polled (58%) say the U.S. should prepare for a Cold War, including 52% of Democrats and 68% of Republicans. As far as Taiwan goes, 40% say the U.S. should defend the island if militarily attacked by China, though 39 percent say they have “no opinion.”