Army War College recommends New Detente

The unexpected May 12 meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at Sochi, Russia, suggested the beginning of a new direction for the Ukraine crisis. Suddenly, it seemed possible that the U.S. would join last winter’s Minsk 2 agreement drawn up to resolve Ukraine’s civil war.

It is therefore disappointing to see that developments since the parley have been uniformly negative. But a surprising source, the U.S. Army War College, sees a possibly promising outcome. It recently issued a report exploring different scenarios of how U.S.-Russian tensions may play out over Ukraine and suggesting that Washington and its NATO allies adopt a more conciliatory and accommodationist approach to Moscow. Let us hope it receives the attention it deserves.

The Kremlin continues to show its displeasure with even the minimal current U.S. support of the Kiev regime. On May 18, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree that abruptly cut the air bridge over Russian territory used by the U.S. for resupplying its combat units in Afghanistan.

Washington, for its part, has continued its hostility toward Moscow since the Sochi meeting. On May 17, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for European affairs, Victoria Nuland, traveled to Moscow to meet with her peer in Russia’s Foreign Ministry to discuss U.S. involvement in Minsk 2. Immediately afterward, she accused the pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine’s Donbass region of violating the cease-fire “on a daily basis.”

Kiev has stepped up its provocative decisions since the Sochi meeting. On May 21, the Ukrainian parliament voted to end several military agreements with Russia, including its permission for Russian troops to transit through Ukraine to the breakaway Moldova region of Transnistria.

NATO chimed in. On May 19, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “to withdraw all its troops and support for the separatists.”

Finally, on May 28, after U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced criminal action against seven senior officials of FIFA — soccer’s international governing body, which picked Russia to host the 2018 World Cup — Putin blasted the U.S., saying, “This is yet another blatant attempt to extend its jurisdiction to other states.”

With this deterioration in relations since mid-May, it is striking to find a promising recommendation at the close of a study (PDF) out this month from the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, titled “From Cooperation to Competition: The Future of U.S.-Russian Relations.”

The document is the product of an interdisciplinary war game conducted by the Army War College, employing faculty members, think tank scholars, Kremlinologists, students and NATO officers, divided into U.S. and Russian teams plus a “white team” as arbiters.

The study’s half-dozen hypotheticals seem at first glance to be rehearsals for an imminent disaster. Collectively, however, they demonstrate that there is no stable solution without accommodation with Russia — what is likely to be disdained by more hawkish members of the U.S. national security establishment as appeasement.

Two of the scenarios imagine continuation of the Ukrainian civil war as a frozen conflict that favors Russia. Three of the scenarios imagine violence — in Ukraine, in the Baltic states and in Russia.

The scenario indicated as most probable is a resumption of the fighting along the Minsk cease-fire line, leading the U.S. to designate Ukraine and the fragmented Georgia as major non-NATO allies as a prelude to large-scale NATO support for Kiev.

The most dangerous scenario imagines a coup d’état in Moscow that removes Putin in favor of an accommodating leader such as  Medvedev. This possibility acknowledges that a strongman from the military or state security is possible.

Only the sixth scenario conceives of a peaceful Ukraine. Washington continues to be frustrated by Russian aggression, however, and accepts Moscow’s demands for a transition to a decentralized country and a Crimea that remains under Russian authority.

The study concludes that the U.S. has fallen into a “reactive posture” that creates a risk of “misunderstanding” and threat of serious violent confrontation. By shaping the present stand-off in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe into scenarios that largely favor Moscow’s options, the study makes a strong case that Washington and its NATO allies would be wise to stand down. 

A promising alternative to the present course is for the U.S. and Russia to move away from a competition of arms and toward a competition of ideas for influence in Europe. There is also the possibility of cooperation in areas of self-interest, such as managing Syria’s civil war, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant’s violence and resulting refugee crisis in Middle East.

The Army War College study, designed to speculate on possible escalations of the crisis, instead provides a bright path away from the New Cold War to what can be called the New Detente.