America in the Claws of the Russian Bear: Clarity After Helsinki from Internationally Renowned Authority on Russian Foreign Policy, Dr. Stephen J. Blank



Photo Credit: Slate.com 



Last week in our pre-summit interview, the venerable Dr. Stephen J. Blank set realistic expectations for the issues to be raised by U.S. President Donald Trump and the responses and rhetoric likely to come from Russian President Vladimir Putin at their July 16, 2018 summit in Finland.  The themes explored in our interview presaged the hazards and disconnects that contributed to the catastrophe in Helsinki - and that is no surprise to those who follow Dr. Blank.  (https://securiitybriefs.blogspot.com/2018/07/calibrating-expectations-for-trump.html)  He is a University of Pennsylvania and University of Chicago-educated historian of the Russian tsarist, Soviet and post-communist eras and has a breadth and depth of insight that is second to none among the world's analysts of Russian foreign policy and the implications for U.S.-Russia relations and international security more broadly.  He served for twenty-plus years as a Professor of National Security Studies at the U.S. Army War College and today is Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, D.C.  Having studied and travelled extensively across the former USSR and with a professional command of the Russian language, Stephen Blank is a meticulous analyst of Russian events, players and policies and his encyclopedic knowledge of things Russian and stellar assessments have him speaking to civilian and military audiences across the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

I am honored to represent Steve Blank for speaking engagements and welcome him to my interview chair at historic moments like this - the debacle that was President Trump's performance in Helsinki and the conquest that was Vladimir Putin's.  I met with Steve again on Wednesday in his Washington, D.C. office under the weight of unprecedented disappointment in Monday's events.  As ever, he synthesized that which was brought to bear from the history, personalities and dynamics that got us to this somber point in U.S.- Russia relations.  One by one, or taken as a whole, the clips below escort us from the surreal that was Helsinki to the most practical security realities facing America today - and for the foreseeable future - in dealing with the bear that is Russia ruled by Vladimir Putin.

 



American Presidents come and go every four or eight years and Vladimir Putin seems to take advantage of this cycle and each President's palpable eagerness to improve U.S.-Russia relations.  What are likely to be Putin's next moves to project or expand Russian influence given his strategic objectives and his read and play of POTUS 45?

  





 

Last Friday the U.S. Department of Justice issued its indictment charging twelve Russians with a "sustained effort" to hack Democrats' emails and the Democratic National Committee's computers.  (https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download)  All twelve Russian nationals charged were members of the GRU - the Russian military intelligence service.  Why was the GRU deployed for this mission?

 

 

How likely is Vladimir Putin to take President Trump's whitewashing of Russian interference in the 2016 election as license to begin cyber-interference and even disruption of other U.S. systems and activities - say banking and financial services, media and/or communications? 



 

It's well documented that many who trespass against Vladimir Putin find themselves or their reputations assassinated.  As we Americans and our allies strain to understand President Trump's embrace of President Putin, is it out of the question that he [President Trump] and/or his beloved Czech-American and Slovenian-American children are under threat from the Kremlin?  

 

  



At Monday's press conference in Helsinki, Vladimir Putin reported that he spoke with President Trump about U.S. and Russian cooperation to combat the threat of "transnational crime."  With Russia so deeply involved in sex-trafficking across Eastern Europe, illegal drug and arms running in South America, identity theft and disinformation campaigns in North America and Europe, what is his motive for suggesting this?  It's as brazen and bizarre as his offer to co-investigate the hacking of the DNC - or is it? 

 

 

You've served for decades as a consultant to companies and governments on Russian and Eurasian energy matters.  Put Nord Stream 2 in perspective as a matter of international security. 

 





How is it that German Chancellor Angela Merkel is so comfortable with her country's reliance on Russian-supplied energy given her history with Vladimir Putin in particular and Russia and the former Soviet Union general?



What do individual and institutional investors need to keep in mind regarding Gazprom and other Russian energy companies? 

 



At the press conference following the private meeting on Monday between Presidents Trump and Putin there was mention of their discussions about banning weapons in space.  Beyond the Outer Space Treaty to which the United States, the Chinese and Russia (former USSR) are all signatories, what is Putin gaming for here besides the appearance of "great power status?" 

 



Realistically, where can U.S. - Russia relations go from here and how do we get there?



 

Notes: 

"Kompromat" is Russian for "compromising material"- that is information that could be used to damage the reputation of a public figure, create negative publicity for a politician or for blackmail of an individual.  Kopromat is held by Russian agents to ensure loyalty. 

 

Angela Merkel was born and lived in East Germany throughout and until the end of the Cold War and the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990.  Vladimir Putin served as an agent of the KGB in East Germany from 1985 until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. 

 

 

Lisa Bernard is the President of SecuritySpeak, LLC, a consulting firm devoted to matters of international security.  Experts like Dr. Stephen J. Blank offer briefings, talks and distinguished lectures to audiences of all types working to bring analyses and understanding of security matters to people in all walks of life.  To secure Dr. Blank for your next program reach out to  (203) 293-4741 or LisaBernard@SecuritySpeak.net.   Learn more at  www.SecuritySpeak.net and follow us www.Facebook.com/PodiumTime.

 

 

 

 



Calibrating Expectations for the Trump-Putin Summit: An Interview with Dr. Stephen J. Blank, Internationally Renowned Authority on Russian Foreign Policy and U.S.- Russia Relations

 

Photo Credit: Reuters

 

There is much "President Trump must" and "President Trump should" and "this summit could" being volleyed about in advance of the Trump-Putin meeting in Helsinki, Finland this coming Monday, July 16, 2018.  Yet, beyond reports of the schedule - a one-on-one meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, followed by an extended bilateral meeting and then a working lunch attended by senior U.S. and Russian officials - little about the substantive agenda has been revealed.  The menu of possible items is obvious and lengthy: civil war in Syria, conflict in Ukraine, Crimea, Iran - economic sanctions, the nuclear deal and its presence and proxies in Syria, accusations of Russian interference in U.S. elections, cyber-warfare, Russian disinformation campaigns, NATO expansion, nuclear arms control and terrorism.  Historically, the outcomes of U.S.-Russia (and Soviet) summits - agreements, engagements and points of contention - have had consequences as serious and far-reaching as the list of topics is long.  And so the world anticipates and speculates, worries and wonders about this meeting of two men, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. 

 

Awaiting the agenda, I reached out to Dr. Stephen J. Blank, a foremost American authority on Russian foreign policy and Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, D.C.  Dr. Blank is a distinguished and prolific speaker at my firm, Lisa Bernard's SecuritySpeak, LLC.  The breadth of his knowledge on Russia is second-to-none and his analyses incisive and forthright.  I began my exchange with Steve yesterday, just as President Trump made an off-the-cuff remark as he left for the NATO summit in Brussels.  The President said that of all the meetings ahead, the one with Putin "may be the easiest of them all."  And so I began my two-part interview probing the dynamics of the U.S.-Russia and Trump-Putin relationships. 

 

 

BERNARD:  There is quite a call in the U.S. for President Trump to take Russia to task at this summit for interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election.  Vladimir Putin, a 16-year veteran of the Soviet KGB, is a spy by training and unlikely to ever reveal his sources, capabilities or methods.  If President Trump does bring this up in Helsinki, what can he realistically and practically expect to get from Putin beyond denials? 

BLANK:  If Trump brings up the interference issue Putin will stonewall him and play back Trump's own denials.  And if that does not suffice, he will then bring up the perennial Russian refrain, "You're no better than we are and you have no standing to bring up this question." 

  



BERNARD: By all accounts, Russia's cyber-capacity is tremendous and includes both state resources and private operators who can be accessed by the Kremlin.  In earlier interviews and in your speeches, you explain how Russian foreign policy operates on a "DIME" -  diplomacy, information warfare, military maneuvers and economic exploitations.  Focusing on the "information war," including Russian trolls, RT and the like, what can President Trump realistically propose to President Putin to curtail this growing dimension of Russia's non-kinetic war on the U.S.?

BLANK:  I doubt Trump can (assuming he will) offer Putin anything to stop because that [information] war is the natural or default mode of Russian and KGB action and has been for over a century.  Any diplomatic agreement we make will be violated in short order.  What President Trump ought to do is devise and implement a U.S. - if not NATO - strategy to repay Putin in kind.  Only then might Russia seriously look for a compromise.

 



BERNARD:  In your lectures and briefings you've suggested that we understand Vladimir Putin as the head of a massive and international crime syndicate given Russia's many illegal activities and networks abroad.  Might it then make sense that President Trump "kisses the hand" and "bows to the don" of Russia?  Putin reacts well to "public displays of respect."  It's his "price of admission" if you will. 

BLANK:  Whatever Trump may think or desire, unlike Russia, we are not a mafia state. 



BERNARD:  In an earlier interview we explored the curiously close and counter-intuitive relationship between Russian President Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.   (https://securiitybriefs.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-curiously-close-relationship.html)    Is there any chance Presidents Trump and Putin could sculpt their relationship into one that more closely resembles the functional Netanyahu-Putin partnership you've described in earlier interviews and articles?  

 

BLANK:  The Netanyahu-Putin relationship is a very unemotional, unsentimental one based on strict observance of each other's red lines and disinterest in the costs of the policies for others.  I seriously doubt that it would be in our American interest to have such a way with Putin or that it could be sustained domestically - let alone in the world at large. 

BERNARD:  Thank you, Dr. Blank.  I look forward to talking with you in D.C. next week to assess the summit's outcomes. 

 

A foremost analyst of Russian affairs and U.S. national and international security matters, Dr. Stephen J. Blank  lectures widely across North America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East to civilian and military audiences, at colleges and universities and briefs executives, elected officials, policymakers and other decision-makers in media, government and NGOs.  He is the author of over one thousand articles and fifteen books.  I am grateful for his generous nature and the time, expertise, candor and energy he brings to bear on security matters.  I look forward to part-two of this interview.

 



 



Lisa Bernard is the President of SecuritySpeak, LLC, a consulting firm devoted to matters of international security.  Experts like Dr. Stephen J. Blank offer briefings, talks and distinguished lectures to audiences of all types working to bring analyses and understanding of security matters to people in all walks of life.  To secure a speaker for your program reach out to  (203) 293-4741 or LisaBernard@SecuritySpeak.net.   Learn more at  www.SecuritySpeak.net and follow us www.Facebook.com/PodiumTime.

DEMOCRACY: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom by Condoleezza Rice, Earns its Place on the Permanent Bookshelf



DEMOCRACY: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom by Condoleezza Rice, 482 pp. published by Twelve, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing, May 2017. Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4555-4018-1. Ebook ISBN: 978-1-4555-4019-8. Signed edition ISBN: 987-1-5387-5997-4. $35.00 U.S. Available on Amazon. 

Hands down, this is my choice for the 2017 contribution to our understanding and pursuit of security. Citizen, scholar, CEO or policymaker, this long lens survey of emergent, maturing and failed democracy in nine countries and regions across the world provides both food for thought and frames of reference for the numerous news alerts, political hiccups and trickles of information that come at us constantly.  If you want a handle on the conundrum of Russian democracy, it is yours in a chapter that is as compelling a read about personalities and proclivities as it is analytical and instructive.  If you are baffled by the paucity of official support for the ninety two percent of Kurds who voted for independence from Iraq in September 2017, Dr. Rice's chapter on the Middle East will provide you an appreciation for their catch-22 of competence, resources and geography.  And if you feel swept up in, or swept aside by, the divisiveness in American politics, the very first chapter makes the case that the perfection of democracy in the U.S. has consistently been inconsistent, imperfect, sometimes violent, rarely smooth and yet, remarkably stable for the institutions the Founders built.  In a word, there's something here for everyone and the organization of this comprehensive work makes for easy access to one's interests.



Within these 450+ pages is an appraisal of a concept articulated in four of Condoleezza Rice's compelling voices - as an authoritative analyst, advocate, raconteur and enthusiast.  Through her  scholarship at Stanford University and her empirical observations as U.S. National Security Advisor and U.S. Secretary of State, we see that there are elastic expressions of democracy beyond the American experience.  Democracy has taken hold across cultures and countries whose histories contain no hint of democratic philosophy or behavior.  We see the areas of the world where varying degrees, experiments, emulations and aspects of democracy as we know it are in progress; witness the 2010 elections in Iraq and the 2010 promulgation of a constitution in Kenya.  And we see how regional stability and security are enhanced for the presence of democratic nations.  On page 432, Dr. Rice declares

There is both a moral and practical case for democracy promotion.  In the long arc of history, we know that democracies don't fight each other.  The "democratic peace" is observable.  No one today is sorry that the United States helped build a democratic Germany and Japan after World War II.  Both had been aggressors against their neighbors and there was no guarantee that they would not be again.  Neither country had sustained experience with democracy and it took time  for institutions to take root.  But we stood alongside them, and now they help to form the foundation for international peace and prosperity.

There is a vitality about this work that grips us spiritually and emotionally as well as intellectually.  Portions read like a memoir as Condoleezza Rice's own journey is, in and of itself, a testament to the dynamics of American democracy - from her childhood in segregated Alabama, to her studies in the former Soviet Union, to her professorship at Stanford, to her service as the first black woman in the posts of U.S. National Security Advisor and U.S. Secretary of State.  And her personal passages inform her investigation.  Her keen assessments and the reality checks they suggest are present from the start.  On page ten she debunks what she refers to as "the myth of democratic culture" and asserts

No nationality or ethnic group lacks the DNA to come to terms with this paradox. Over the years, many people have tried to invoke "cultural explanations" to assert that some societies lack what it takes to establish or sustain democracy. But this a myth that has fallen to the reality of democracy's universal appeal ... It was once thought that Latin Americans were more suited for caudillos than presidents; that Africans were just too tribal; that Confucian values conflicted with the tenets of self-rule. Years before that Germans were thought to be too martial or too subservient, and - of course - the descendants of slaves were too "childlike" to care about the right to vote ... Those racist views are refuted by stable democracies in places as diverse as Chile, Ghana, South Korea and across Europe ....



Flowing through the brain food in this keeper are personal anecdotes that burrow deep into our hearts.  They remind us that there are real people behind the democratic institutions and the procedural outcomes that make news - human beings and their stories that tell the big picture of the progress for humanity that democracy alone nurtures and protects.  These anecdotes offer us reasons for patience and perspective on the timetable of democracy's progress.  From the Epilogue:

Years later, sitting in our first meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair, I was heartened by something he said: "I look at the two of you and I ask whether this could happen in Great Britain. And I say, not just yet." He was referring to the African American secretary of state, Colin Powell, and the African American national security advisor, Condi Rice, sitting on either side of the president of the United States ... Blair was not the only one to notice. President Lula daSilva of Brazil talked to me about America's journey. "I wanted to be sure to have Afro-Brazilians in my cabinet," he said. Upon taking office, he named four to his cabinet, as well as the first to the Supreme Court ... These were times when America's own democratic journey sent a positive message ... And then there was Ben Franklin looking down on us from the magnificent portrait painted by David Martin in 1767. What would old Ben think of this? I thought silently as President Bush made remarks. Then, Ruth Bader Ginsburg - a Jewish woman and Supreme Court Justice - asked me to raise my hand. "I do solemnly swear to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States ....

In the United States, the 2016 elections were catalytic to fierce debates, demonstrations and revelations concerning the endurance, integrity and dependability of our American institutions of democracy.  In a post scriptum entitled "2016," Dr. Rice succinctly separates out the issues, concerns and trends in not only the U.S. but in other mature democracies.  In her characteristic humility and clarity she offers a compass for moving forward smartly and sensitively.  Whether you read this book in your professional stead or for your personal enrichment, "2016" is a solid place to start.

Lisa Bernard is the President of SecuritySpeak, LLC, a consulting firm devoted to matters of national, cyber and global security and crisis management. Experts in these areas offer briefings, talks and distinguished lectures to audiences of all types working to bring unbiased analyses and understanding of security matters to people in all walks of life. (203) 293-4741. www.SecuritySpeak.net. 

Russian Foreign Policy Turns on a DIME (Diplomacy, Information, Military, Economics): An Interview with Dr. Stephen J. Blank

 

The weather was just the first treat on July 19^th when I arrived in Washington, D.C., at the Capitol Hill Club on that cool, dry and sunny morning to hear Dr. Stephen J. Blank deliver an address, Russia’s Global Probes. Like a luxury cruise ship, Dr. Blank navigated his remarks with expert engineering, using sophisticated instruments that work below deck to produce a smooth sail and memorable journey. His talk docked in three parts of the globe – Latin America, the Middle East and Europe. In each port of Russian activity, he delivered his audience reality-checks on Russian history in the region, Vladimir Putin’s objectives, Russia’s intrinsic nature, and the problems for U.S. national security with projecting American values into the interpretation of Russia’s undertakings. With the temporal breadth of a skilled historian of Russian, Soviet and post-Soviet affairs, Dr. Blank portrayed a crisp yet comprehensive snapshot of the world today through the Russian lens. He deftly decoded Russian behavior and Vladimir Putin’s positions, leaving his listeners sobered and empowered with a ready frame of reference for understanding and interpreting Russian diplomatic, information, military and economic operations. 

 

Dr. Blank and I then returned to his office at the American Foreign Policy Council for an interview. His generosity continued. A former professor of Russian National Security Studies and U.S. National Security Affairs at the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College, he rolled up his sleeves and got to work informally as if my viewers were students there with him in his private office hours. Here are excerpts.

 

BERNARD:  I heard U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry assert that "nowhere is there a greater hotbed or incubator for these terrorists than in Syria," as he wrapped up meetings in Moscow with Russian President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov exploring U.S.-Russian cooperation to end the five-year civil war there. Reports are conflicting about the outcome of their talks and the possibility at all for military cooperation and intelligence-sharing. As an old Cold Warrior, it's not my first instinct to imagine us "sharing" intelligence with the Russians or "cooperating" militarily. Yet, the Syrian situation is compelling.  What's your take on all this? 

 

 

BERNARD: My clients at SecuritySpeak include global investors, businesspeople and entrepreneurs.  Some are exploring markets and opportunities in the energy and other resource-rich regions of the former USSR.   How stable is Central Asia today?



 

BERNARD: My clients at SecuritySpeak are concerned about threats like North Korean missile strikes and cyber-attacks.  What do you see as the Russian role in these scenarios?

BERNARD: In four months, we Americans will elect ourselves a new President and Commander-in-Chief.  What frame of reference can you offer him or her for advancing American and global security interests?



 

BERNARD:  Thank you, Steve, for your insights, time and energy.  I know you have an interview with Romanian TV journalists at noon and you're only just back from delivering a master class in Brussels last week.  It was a pleasure attending your address this morning at the Capitol Hill Club and speaking with you here now.

 

To arrange a presentation by Dr. Blank for your firm, association or university, contact Lisa Bernard's SecuritySpeak, LLC at 203.293.4741 or LisaBernard@SecuritySpeak.net.