JRL NEWSWATCH: “Overextending and Unbalancing Russia; Assessing the Impact of Cost-Imposing Options” – RAND/ James Dobbins, Raphael S. Cohen, Nathan Chandler, Bryan Frederick, Edward Geist, Paul DeLuca, Forrest E. Morgan, Howard J. Shatz, Brent Williams
“This brief summarizes a report that comprehensively examines nonviolent, cost-imposing options that the United States and its allies could pursue across economic, political, and military areas to stress – overextend and unbalance – Russia’s economy and armed forces and the regime’s political standing at home and abroad. Some of the options … are clearly more promising … any would need to be evaluated in terms of … overall U.S. strategy for dealing with Russia, which neither the report nor this brief has attempted to do. … Russia suffers … many vulnerabilities – oil and gas prices well below peak … caus[ing] a drop in living standards, economic sanctions that have furthered that decline, an aging and soon-to-be-declining population … increasing authoritarianism under … Putin’s now-continued rule. … coupled with deep-seated (if exaggerated) anxieties about the possibility of Western-inspired regime change, loss of great power status, and even military attack. … Russia [nevertheless] remains a powerful country that … manages to be a U.S. peer competitor in a few key domains. * * *
Conclusions[:] The most-promising options to ‘extend Russia’ … directly address its vulnerabilities, anxieties, and strengths, exploiting areas of weakness while undermining Russia’s current advantages. … Russia’s greatest vulnerability, in … competition with the United States, is its economy … comparatively small … highly dependent on energy exports. Russian leadership’s greatest anxiety stems from the stability and durability of the regime … Russia’s greatest strengths are … military and info-war[-related] …. Most of the options … are in some sense escalatory … likely prompt[ing] some Russian counterescalation. … [with] additional risk attached to a generally intensified competition with a nuclear-armed adversary to consider. … [E]very option [therefore] must be deliberately planned and carefully calibrated … [B]oth sides [also would] have to divert national resources from other purposes. … [O]ptions must be considered in the broader context of national policy based on defense, deterrence, and – where U.S. and Russian interests align – cooperation.”