Russia & CIS

BakuTbilisiKars railway contributes to the success of the mission Resolute Support mission NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said during a meeting of the foreign ministers of Alliance member countries which was held in Washington on April 34 The meeting was dedicated to the 70th anniversary of NATO

Over the past 24 hours Armenian armed forces have violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops 21 times using heavy machine guns the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said April 5

An exhibition of Azerbaijani artists has opened in the famous Le Village Suisse Antique and Art Gallery in Paris AzerTag reports

President Ilham Aliyev has signed an Order regarding measures to strengthen the materialtechnical base of the Azerbaijan National Paralympic Committee

The number of judges will be increased in Azerbaijan ONA reports

The confidence in the Azerbaijani leadership in the state has grown even more Azerbaijani Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov said in an interview with AzTV channel Trend reports on April 4

A fire broke out in the office of the Armenian Parliament building today at 138 pm according to the press service of the republics Ministry of Emergency Situations

President Ilham Aliyev has signed an Order providing funding for the construction of GanjaDashkasan 27kmGushchuChovdarChaykand highway in Dashkasan district AzerTag reports

As part of a collaborative project on Russian strategic culture and leadership decision-making, organized by the Marshall Center with support from the Russia Strategy Initiative, I have published a policy brief on Russian strategic goals in a Baltic crisis. Here is  the executive summary and some highlights. The full brief is available through the Marshall Center website. Executive Summary

• This policy brief addresses how Russian strategic culture operates in the distinct geographic and geopolitical environment of the Baltic region. This analysis is based on a model of Russian decision–making in crisis situations that describes Russian leaders as prospect theory players who take greater risks to prevent anticipated defeats than they do to pursue potential opportunities. They seek to prevent foreign policy defeats that could translate into a loss of power in the region, a loss of great power status, or, in some cases, translate into political defeats at home.
• Given this strategic calculus, we can expect Russia to act cautiously in the Baltic region because it is not facing a loss situation. Based on Russia’s limited stakes in the region, Russian leaders are likely to be highly reluctant to risk a major military confrontation with NATO through any overuse of Russian military forces. They will be careful to limit both the level of risk and the level of effort they would take on in this scenario.
• Russia’s approach to managing a Baltic crisis scenario is based on the recognition that the balance of stakes and capabilities in such a situation ultimately would favor the West. If Baltic governments and their NATO allies both hesitate in their response, Russian leaders may seek to use the crisis to gain a strategic advantage. However, if Russian leaders see a forceful response in the early stages of a crisis, they would be likely to de-escalate in order to avert major losses.

Introduction

How relevant are the concepts of strategic culture and operational code in explaining Russian foreign policy behavior? This policy brief addresses how Russian strategic culture operates in the distinct geographic and geopolitical environment of the Baltic region (that is, the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). The goal is to use the Baltic case study to generate conclusions about the drivers of Russian strategic behavior, especially the factors that incentivize or constrain risk-taking.

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Applying Strategic Calculus to the Baltic Region

Given the strategic calculus described above, Russia would be expected to act far more cautiously in the Baltics than it did in Ukraine in 2014. Unlike that crisis, Russia is not facing a loss situation in the Baltic region. In Ukraine, Russia was facing the prospect of a potentially catastrophic loss of power and influence if Ukraine joined the Western alliance system against Russian wishes. The Baltic states, on the other hand, are already members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) and are therefore outside of Russia’s sphere of influence. Any effort on Russia’s part to attack or politically destabilize the region would thus be an effort to make gains, not avert losses. In effect, the Baltics have already been lost to Russia, and the geopolitical impact of that loss has been fully absorbed into Russian strategic thinking.

That said, Russia could benefit politically and militarily by achieving greater control over the Baltic region, which would allow Russia to strengthen its position as the dominant regional power while simultaneously enhancing its security. But these gains would be fairly small and hardly worth the enormous risk of attacking a NATO member state. Moreover, these gains can easily be overstated. The Baltics are too small to provide much of a security buffer for Russia, and they cannot host a large Western military force. Furthermore, the NATO-Russia Founding Act already limits the number of Western forces that can be permanently deployed in the region. All of these factors reduce the significance of the threat to Russia from the Baltic states, even though they are firmly allied with the United States and are part of NATO.

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Russian Strategic Objectives in a Baltic Crisis

In a Baltic crisis scenario, Russia would have two primary strategic objectives. First, it would seek to use the crisis to achieve geopolitical gains at the local, regional, and global levels. At the local level, it would first and foremost seek to defend the ethnic Russian populace to vindicate its compatriot policy and increase its influence in Baltic domestic politics. At the regional and global levels, Russia would seek to undermine the credibility and cohesion of the NATO alliance in order to strengthen Russia’s geopolitical position in Eastern Europe and inflict a political defeat on NATO.

The policy brief may be read in its entirety here.

A meeting between Russian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers is expected to be held in Moscow before the meeting of the CIS Council of Foreign Ministers spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said at the briefing Trend reports on April 4

Azerbaijan gave Armenia one more chance for the peaceful settlement of the NagornoKarabakh conflict Azerbaijani MP Hikmet Babaoglu told Trend April 4

The Russian Export Center has a wide range of measures to support companies implementing joint projects on creating new enterprises in the manufacturing and industrial sector as stated by Chief Director of the Russian Export Center Andrey Slepnev at the event organized in connection with the visit of a delegation of Russian companies in Baku Trend reports

The 16th meeting of the EUAzerbaijan Cooperation Council has kicked off in Brussels Belgium

The Armenian side creates new difficulties in the settlement of the NagornoKarabakh conflict Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said at a press conference following the meeting of the AzerbaijanEU Cooperation Council in Brussels

More than 90 percent of the text of the EUAzerbaijan deal is already agreed Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said Trend reports

Negotiations on a new partnership agreement between the EU and Azerbaijan may be completed by midMay Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn said

All will benefit from lasting peace as a result of the ArmeniaAzerbaijan NagornoKarabakh conflict settlement High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security PolicyVicePresident of the European Commission Federica Mogherini said

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov addressed the 16th meeting of the EUAzerbaijan Cooperation Council

Eastern Partnership program has not been implemented for 100 percent Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said

According to the combat training plan for 2019 approved by Azerbaijani Minister of Defense Colonel General Zakir Hasanov the competition for the title of the Best tank company was held the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry reported April 4