2014-04-29 by Stephen Blank

Even a year ago Russia seemingly played a limited role in the Middle East.

Today Russia is vigorously advancing throughout the entire region. 

America’s widely, and sadly justifiably, perceived strategic retreat, confusion, and ineptitude only account for part of this transformation. While even Russian analysts admit that US failures opened the door for Moscow, Russian policy has been tenacious, purposeful, and aligned to a genuine strategic vision if not strategy.

Moreover, Moscow expects further advances in the Middle East. 

Graham Allison wrote from Sochi that a high-ranking Russian official confidently told him that Moscow believes that “when Obama sees the whites in the Iranian eyes, it will again be Russia to whom he must turn in order to stop Iran’s nuclear program without war.”[i]

Shaping a Strategic Role in the Region

Unfortunately few understand that Russia’s gains stem not merely from opportunism, though surely that is present, but are also is the result of the pursuit of core strategic objectives.

Russia has leveraged or managed the Syria crisis to its advantage. Though fully committed to the Assad regime and flooding Syria with weapons, economic assistance, and presumably intelligence support, Russia and the United States co-chaired the abortive Geneva-2 conference to fashion a political settlement to Syria’s civil war.  Indeed, Moscow’s unwavering support for Assad and insistence that Assad’s opponents essentially surrender as a precondition of progress helped torpedo the conference.[ii]

Russia has played both sides of the Iranian coin. Russia has substantial economic relationships with Iran, Turkey, Cyprus, and Israel and is negotiating a huge energy deal with Iran that would effectively break the sanctions regime.[iii]  Again it does so despite being a major participant in the 5+ 1 talks on Iran’s nuclearization.  Here too Moscow simultaneously functions as both Iran’s prosecutor and defense council, highlighting the sheer opportunism that typifies its policies.

Weapons sales are an important tool to the pursuit of Russian influence in the region. Moscow sells weapons not only to Syria but also to Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and is negotiating resumed arms sales to Algeria and Libya.  Moscow also fully grasps that many weapons it sells to Syria or Iran then go to Hezbollah and Hamas.

Russia is expanding its naval presence in the region as well.

It has permanently reconstituted its Mediterranean Naval Squadron and repeatedly employed gunboat diplomacy to deter Western intervention in Syria and Turkish intervention in Cyprus.[iv]

Moscow has also acquired naval bases in Syria and Cyprus as well as an air base in Cyprus and evidently wants a renewed presence in Alexandria and even Montenegro to have permanent bases on the Mediterranean.  Indeed, the new Egyptian government has said they were ready to franchise Russia to build a military base either in the Red Sea or the Mediterranean.[v]

Since “power projection activities are an input into the world order,” Russian force deployments into the greater Middle East and economic-political actions to gain access, influence and power there represent competitive and profound, attempts at engendering a long-term restructuring of the regional strategic order.[vi]

The energy tool is a crucial one as well in regular presence and expanded influence.

Russia has concurrently concluded major energy deals with Turkey, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Northern Iraq, and is negotiating the aforementioned deal with Iran.  Finally Turkey has had to set aside its policy in the Middle East and the Caucasus for the sake of expediency due to Russia’s adroit diplomacy and energy leverage.[vii]

These policies too demonstrate Russia’s tactical flexibility and opportunism in Iraq where it buys and develops energy holdings for the Iraqi government and the KRG, thus playing both sides against the middle.[viii]

Clearly, these achievements’ impressive scope and range belie explanations emphasizing merely Russia’s tactical flexibility and opportunism. 

Those elements represent only one dimension of the principles animating Russian strategy and policy. The utter absence of a thorough and comprehensive analysis of Russia’s objectives, tactics, the policy instruments it possesses, the goals it has reached, and its activities’ implications from the public discussion contributes to the indecisive, groping, and vacillating U.S. foreign and defense policy in the Middle East and towards Russia.

Due to Russia’s achievements US allies like Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia (who is underwriting Egypt’s purchase of Russian weapons) are making deals with Russia or looking for other partners (e.g. Pakistan in Saudi Arabia’s case[ix]), signifying their growing skepticism if not worse about US policy.

These energy and arms deals give Russia legitimate entree into the complex energy rivalries around Cyprus, Israel, and Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran.  

Since Moscow has already intervened in Cyprus’ quarrels with Turkey over gas finds in the Eastern Mediterranean by sending its navy to support Cyprus, and clearly seeks an air base at Paphos in Cyprus, those moves plus its gunboat diplomacy in Syria and strong support for Assad underscore the inextricability of Russia’s energy policy, diplomacy, and displays of force in this region.[x]

Therefore we cannot abstract Russia’s accomplishments from its overall objectives in the region.

Russia’s deals and achievements confirm that for Russia, if not other major actors, “Geopolitical power is less about the projection of military prowess and more about access and control of resources and infrastructure.” [xi]   Russia’s energy deals in the Middle East, if not elsewhere, also demonstrate the fundamentally strategic and political motives behind its overall energy policy.

Russian Strategic Objectives in the Region

In short, Russia pursues a number of key strategic objectives in the Middle East and the Mediterranean and opportunism is seen as providing the opportunities to both pursue these objectives and enhance influence.

The first objective is to restore the perception that Russia is a true great power that is able and willing to block American initiatives, power and values, prevent the US from unilaterally consolidating any regional geopolitical order, and force Washington to engage Moscow’s interests and even its veto power through the UN on US policies.

The second objective is to gain the status in Arab eyes of such a great power and thus demonstrating to all foreign and domestic audiences its inherent and unconstrained ability to conduct a truly “independent” great power policy.[xii]

The third objective is to create a bloc of states aligned to it that opposes US positions on the Middle East. Moscow aims. In particular it is attempting to create such a bloc with Iran, the Iraqi government, and Assad’s Syria.

This amounts to a pro-Shiite bloc against Sunni fundamentalism embodied by Saudi Arabia. Arguably it is no accident that this grouping exactly resembles the Rejectionist Front of the late 1970s and 1980s that opposed the Camp David treaty and US policy in the Middle East under Brezhnev.

The fourth objective is to demonstrate at home and abroad its reliability as an ally and its staunch resolve to fight terrorism while simultaneously pretending to be an exemplar of inter-civilizational understanding and the only true exemplar of universal religious values.

The fifth objective it to obtain, through energy and arms deals, as well as the judicious display of force enduring leverage within if not over these states that gives it a permanent base of influence upon their policies. By enhancing thereby the regime’s domestic standing as a successful exponent of Russia’s great power interests and resolution in fighting terrorism while not letting itself be perceived as an enemy of Islam-a major consideration given its growing and large Muslim minority

Russia pursues these goals through the medium of the utmost tactical flexibility. 

Russia is not permanently wedded to any regime or state and seeks influence and leverage where the possibilities emerge.

Russia deems it an advantage that it not burdened by support for human rights imperatives but that also it has no principled commitment either to the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity of other states or to their stability, which might operate as barriers to strategic maneuver.

Editor’s Note: Dr. Blank’s more extensive look at these issues appears next month in the Israeli Journal of Foreign Affairs.

An example of the dynamics which Blank discusses is the Iranian-Russian relationship.  In a piece from the Iranian source Press TV, the centrality of the alliance was recently highlighted as follows:

Both Russia and Iran made it clear that they would support Syria in the case of a US aggression and this was certainly the main reason that pushed the Obama Administration to have second thoughts about an attack on Syria.

Although Syria and Iran have been the targets of the latest Western threats, Moscow knows that Russia and China are the ultimate objectives of the US military and diplomatic strategy. In recent years, Russia has set up a military alliance, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which has become a pariah for the West and NATO.

The war on Serbia, the independence of Kosovo, US support for pro-Western forces in Georgia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan and the deployment of parts of a US defence missile system in Europe are clear evidences of Western contempt for Russia and its interests. The US has also pledged to undermine Moscow’s Eurasia Union project, which it is seen as a recreation of the former Soviet Union.

Against the background of US warmongering policies, Russia and Iran have expanded their relations significantly in recent months. The offensive led by the US and its allies, especially France, in the Middle East has destabilized the entire region and it is a fact that is driving both nations into an alliance. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dimitry Rogozin warned last January, “If anything happens to Iran and this country is drawn into any sort of political or military difficulties, it would be a direct threat to Russia’s national security.”

Andrei Arashev, the deputy director of the influential Russian think tank Strategic Culture Foundation, said in June that the intervention of the United States in Central Asia and the Middle East would endanger the territorial integrity of Russia, China and Iran.

Due to this fact, Arashev called for a “strategic alliance” between Iran and Russia: “The destruction of Arab states in the immediate vicinity of Iran and on the distant periphery of Russia and China, the perspective of a military intervention in Syria or the fall of Syria into chaos would have a direct impact on the national security of our countries.

To put it another way, in order to prevent combat on the streets of Iran and then on Russian streets, we must stand on the side of our ally Syria”, wsws.org quoted him as saying.  Russia and Iran are already cooperating on security issues in different regions. Both countries share important interests. They want to strengthen security in these nearby regions and prevent extremist groups from taking over power in Afghanistan, Syria and other nations.

 

2014-04-28 by Harald Malmgren

The hesitant, cautious, incremental responses of US policy towards Russia with regard to developments in Syria, Iran, and now Ukraine, and further Russian threats to Transniestria and other Russian “neighbors” is generating rethinking in Asian capitals.

Notably, China’s PLA is ramping up its aggressive rhetoric about the Senkakus and other islands in the “chain of pearls.”

From the China perspective, Putin has repeatedly been successful in pressing Obama back from his initial positions, testing US tolerance to more geographically aggressive Russian policies.

The PLA is said to be urging that China take this opportunity to “test” US responses to Chinese probes in the China Sea, for example a lightning seizure of the Senkakus.

It was therefore logical for Japan to ask for a public reassurance that the US-Japan security arrangements encompassed territory such as the Senkakus.

President Obama did confirm that the contested islands were protected by US-Japan accords, but there remains much concern about whether the US would respond fast enough and forcefully enough if China were to act suddenly and without warning, and announce afterwards that this did not mean opening a longer conflict but was only a one-time event.

The PLA’s interest in the islands is related to its weakness in electronic surveillance in the China Seas area. China does not have adequate satellite or AWACS equivalent capability so it continues to rely on straight-line radar, which cannot provide sufficient detection beyond the horizon.

The PLA would very much like to acquire surveillance sites on the other side of the China Sea to allow coverage of its newly announced ADIZ.

This would also assert pressure on US naval forces to redeploy further out from Chinese territory and in a less effective position relative to defense of Taiwan.

In this context, it can be expected that the PLA will probe for any opportunity for an arguably justifiable clash with Japan’s SDF.

The new Chinese leadership has completed reconfiguration of party, Politburo, and Standing Committee composition. Reconfiguration of the power structure of state security has begun with detention of state security chief Zhou Yangkong and his family and network of subordinates.

Reconfiguration of the PLA power structure may have begun, but has not yet resulted in major changes in the PLA leadership.

The PLA has much autonomy, particularly in areas it determines to be “tactical.”

There seems to be considerable risk that a violent, short, sharp conflict with the Japanese SDF could happen if an “opportunity” presents itself, and if the PLA would define action as a “test” of possible US response.

In an earlier piece, Malmgren discussed the cross-cutting linkages from Ukraine to the Pacific.

Having watched US hesitation and indecisive, tentative responses to Putin, there should be little doubt that China’s PLA apparent itchiness to have armed conflict with one or more of its neighbors may soon be scratched.

Limited, but violent engagement with Philippines, Vietnam, or even Japan is increasingly likely.

Moreover, as the Chinese economy slides into a period of financial market turbulence and slowdown, it may become necessary to offset domestic economic discomfort with a surge of nationalist sentiment against perceived foreign “threats”.  In such a context, it would not be surprising to have a limited conflict take place between PLA and Japanese SDF ships or aircraft.  It should also not be surprising if China simply forcefully were to establish control over the Spratlys, Senkakus, and other disputed islands in the China Sea.

In this bigger perspective, the Crimean independence event likely signals an inflection point in Russia’s relations with the West, and may signal an opening for an inflection point in China’s relations not only with its neighbors but with Taiwan and ultimately with the US.  

Washington thinking has primarily been focused on the immediate tactics of responding to Putin.  The idea that terminating Russia’s role in the G8 and reestablishing the G7 would hurt Putin’s feelings seems farfetched in this context.  Washington’s declared intention to “isolate” Russia and hurt its standing in global power circles also seems flawed, especially since Putin probably thinks he has finally found means for altering Russia’s position from a center of centrifugal forces to a core of centripetal forces.

From the perspective of Russia’s place in the world economy, Putin’s ambitions will likely be blunted by forces of globalization of markets, including resumed turbulence as the US, Europe and China all pass through an historic period of financial restructuring and economic stabilization.

Russia’s economy is highly vulnerable to external demand for its resources and the fundamental, inherited weakness of its economy.  The concept of the new BRIC powers was always a flawed idea. Russia is no more a great economic power than Brazil or India.

As for China, it may be entering a period of being humbled by domestic economic failures as its export engine inevitably falters.  An internal power struggle may be the consequence of unanticipated financial or economic management failures.

Command economies are inevitably vulnerable to highly concentrated negative economic and political surprises.

2014-04-28 by Robbin Laird

With the breakup of the Soviet Union, a key challenge was the nuclear weapons on the territories of the former Soviet territories, which were now sovereign states.

For Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, determining what do with Soviet weapons and how to address their role in the future of their nascent national security policies was a central issue affecting their futures.

The United States was keenly concerned with the impact on global nuclear proliferation from either deliberate or accidental dispersal of nuclear materials and weapons from these three states.

In a forthcoming piece by Richard Weitz on Kazakhstan and its policies towards nuclear energy and non-proliferation, the key role, which an agreement signed in 1994, played in Kazakh decision-making was highlighted.

Instead of keeping the weapons as a security guarantee or offering them for sale to would-be nuclear weapons states or terrorists, Kazakhstan eliminated its nuclear and other WMD-related items or removed them to the Russian Federation and the United States.

In December 1994, Kazakhstan signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT) as a non-nuclear state. In return for renouncing Astana’s nuclear arsenal, Britain, Russia, and the United States offered Kazakhstan formal security guarantees—similar to those offered Ukraine at the time, which also eliminated the nuclear weapons left on its soil following the USSR’s demise.[1]

But with Russian actions in Crimea, the agreement seems to be going the way of Kellogg-Briand Pact signed in 1928 to abolish war. 

In fact, the collapse of the agreement in the face of Russian seizure of Crimea is a key lesson learned for states regarding nuclear weapons: if you have go them keep them; if you don’t have them you might want to get them to prevent “aggression” against your interests.

In a clear example of reverse historical logic whereby the “banning” of war by states in in the Kellogg-Briand created the preconditions for a clear marker for the return of war, the Russian seizure of Crimea has ripped apart a key agreement which was designed to reduce the risks of nuclear proliferation.

And being denigrated, such an agreement not only appears worthless but makes clear that proliferation will be viewed in a desirable manner by aspiring nuclear states. 

According to the State Department history of the Kellogg-Briand pact:

The Kellogg-Briand Pact was an agreement to outlaw war signed on August 27, 1928.

Sometimes called the Pact of Paris for the city in which it was signed, the pact was one of many international efforts to prevent another World War, but it had little effect in stopping the rising militarism of the 1930s or preventing World War II…..

The first major test of the pact came just a few years later in 1931, when the Mukden Incident led to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.

Though Japan had signed the pact, the combination of the worldwide depression and a limited desire to go to war to preserve China prevented the League of Nations or the United States from taking any action to enforce it.

Further threats to the Peace Agreement also came from fellow signatories Germany, Austria and Italy.

It soon became clear that there was no way to enforce the pact or sanction those who broke it; it also never fully defined what constituted “self-defense,” so there were many ways around its terms.

In the end, the Kellogg-Briand Pact did little to prevent World War II or any of the conflicts that followed. Its legacy remains as a statement of the idealism expressed by advocates for peace in the interwar period. Frank Kellogg earned the Nobel Peace Prize in 1929 for his work on the Peace Pact.

Similarly, the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances signed by Britain, the United States, Russia and was designed specifically to provide security assurances to Ukraine at the time when they would enter the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

The agreements are not a treaty, but an agreement, which accompanied directly the Ukrainian decision to comply with NPT.  The linkage was very clear at the time.  And the lessons are even clearer.

Portions of the text follow:

The Presidents of Ukraine, Russian Federation and United States of America, and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom signed three memorandums (UN Document A/49/765) on December 5, 1994, with the accession of Ukraine to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Through this agreement, these countries (later to include China and France in individual statements) gave national security assurances to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. The Joint Declaration by the Russian Federation and the United States of America of December 4, 2009 confirmed their commitment.

Excerpt:

“Welcoming the accession of Ukraine to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons as a non-nuclear-weapon State,

Taking into account the commitment of Ukraine to eliminate all nuclear weapons from its territory within a specified period of time,

Noting the changes in the world-wide security situation, including the end of the cold war, which have brought about conditions for deep reductions in nuclear forces,

Confirm the following:

1. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine;

2. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations;

3. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind;

4. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine, as a non-nuclear-weapon State party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used;

5. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm, in the case of Ukraine, their commitment not to use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclearweapon State party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, except in the case of an attack on themselves, their territories or dependent territories, their armed forces, or their allies, by such a State in association or alliance with a nuclear-weapon State;

6. Ukraine, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America will consult in the event a situation arises that raises a question concerning these commitments.

This Memorandum will become applicable upon signature.

Signed in four copies having equal validity in the Ukrainian, English and Russian languages.

For Ukraine:

(Signed) Leonid D. KUCHMA

For the Russian Federation:

(Signed) Boris N. YELTSIN

For the United Kingdom of Great

Britain and Northern Ireland:

(Signed) John MAJOR

For the United States of America:

(Signed) William J. CLINTON

By running tanks over the agreement, Putin has in turn called the credibility of the UK and US leadership, which signed this agreement directly into account.

Although we have not heard a lot from President Clinton, a former US Ambassador to the Ukraine has called a spade a spade.

According to Steven Pifer,

The United States must live up to its Budapest commitments, if for no other reason than this is part of the price that Washington agreed to pay in 1994 to eliminate 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads and some 220 ICBMs and bombers that were designed to attack America.

In the first instance, that means providing political support to Kiev and working with the International Monetary Fund and European Union on financial credits for Ukraine.

Second, it means consulting with Kiev and the European Union to find a negotiating path to resolve the crisis.

And third, it means coordinating with European and other countries to penalize Russia until it alters its behavior.

This is not just a question of living up to past U.S. commitments; it is a question of protecting the value of security assurances as leverage for resolving future proliferation challenges.

It is possible, for example, that U.S. security assurances of some kind to Iran might play a role in finding a permanent settlement to the Iranian nuclear issue. But security assurances in the future will have little credibility unless the United States fulfills those that it undertook in Budapest.

http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2014/03/07-honoring-neither-letter-nor-law-ukraine-russia-pifer

And certainly a number of Ukrainians had been worried that the words of the agreement WITHOUT inclusion in real economic and security alliances with Europe and the United States would leave them dangerous exposed to the Bear.

For example, in this piece by Volodymyr Vasylenko published in December 2009, the specter of the gap between agreements and capabilities was highlighted as a key threat for Ukraine. Volodymyr Vasylenko was Ukraine’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Benelux and representative of Ukraine at NATO and took part in drawing up the conceptual principles and specific provisions of the Budapest Memorandum.

As it follows from the Memorandum and the above-mentioned unilateral acts, the five nuclear states, permanent members of the UN Security Council, did not make any special commitments with respect to Ukraine – they only reaffirmed their commitment, in accordance with the principles of the UN Charter and the CSCE Final Act, to respect the independence, sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine, to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, as well as from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.

Besides, they reaffirmed their commitment to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine should it become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used, and their commitment not to use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear-weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Putin had a definite answer with regard to the 1994 agreement – redraw the map.

Notably, Secretary of State Kellogg won a Nobel Prize for his efforts in forging the Pact that carries his name.

We have another Nobel Prize leader, and wonder what he is going to do to deal with the fracturing of the latest historical variant of Kelloggism.

Editor’s Note: For readers who wish to comment on the issue discussed in this article you can do so on the Second Line of Defense Forum which is currently addressing the challenges of the second nuclear age.

http://www.sldforum.com/2014/04/breaking-apart-budapest-agreement-ukraine-impact-second-nuclear-age/

2014-04-26  For those of us who remember Russian history, kto kvo was Lenin’s famous quote about political struggle.

The question of who benefits is a foundation for any political maneuvering, not short term “tough” policy stances.

We published a piece earlier on the challenge of imposing sanctions on the Russians as an effective policy tool.  In that piece the focus was upon the Russians leveraging their partners to go around the impact of sanctions.

Another problem is industrial interdependence in space and aerospace. 

The Russians have built a solid basis in the Western space business, and this means that Western companies are dependent upon Russian launch capabilities as a normal part of the functioning of the space business.  In turn this means, that the Russians have natural allies in the West to lobby against sanctions as well.

In an interesting piece written by European-based reporter Peter B. de Sedling and published in this week’s Space News, the problem of the impact of sanctions on the satellite business is the focus of attention.

U.S.-built satellites and satellites with U.S. components scheduled for launch this year from Russian territory, including the Russian-run Baikonur Cosmodrome — and vehicles outside Russian territory managed by Russian interests — are now faced with being denied the normally routine shipment approvals as U.S. sanctions against Russia, put into place in March, bite further into the space industry, industry officials said.

The most immediately affected companies included satellite fleet operator SES of Luxembourg, whose Astra 2G telecommunications satellite was scheduled for a June launch aboard a Proton rocket from Baikonur; London-based Inmarsat, which was counting on two Proton launches this year to start its global Ka-band mobile broadband project; and Turksat of Turkey, whose Turksat 4B was scheduled for a midsummer launch on a Proton.

The first problem for the industry is simply how taut the launch market currently is and the important role, which Proton launches play for today’s satellite industry.

According to “one official planning a launch on Russian territory this year. “If the Russian Proton rocket is not going to be available, then it’s an industry problem, not just a problem for a couple of companies. Ariane’s manifest is full,and so is SpaceX’s. Sea Launch is not a full option at this stage.”

The second problem is whether or not the sanctions apply to the “Europeanized” Soyuz as well. 

France is the “launching state” in terms of legal responsibility for the European spaceport. But the Arianespace consortium contracts with the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, for the purchase of Soyuz rockets.

The Europeanized Soyuz’s position relative to the current U.S. sanctions will not be tested until late this year at the earliest. The next launch of the rocket, scheduled for June, is of four broadband communications satellites owned by O3b of Britain’s Channel Islands. The four satellites, which have U.S. components, arrived in French Guiana on April 25.

Following that, a Soyuz launch of two European Galileo positioning, navigation and timing satellites is scheduled for August. These two have U.S. parts, but one official said their license to ship has already been granted and that they will arrive in French Guiana in mid-May.

How best to deal with the impact of sanctions?

Lobby Washington to change the policy seems to be the answer.

“Several industry officials said they are counting on companies that are practiced in the arts of Washington lobbying to have the policy modified so that, for example, exceptions for some satellite programs — those that already have their basic export licenses — could be granted.”

The policy problem can be simply put: having a sanctions policy without a change in space launch policy simply will not work. 

If one is contemplating and longer term competition with the Russians, then addressing the future of space and shaping a Russian-free US policy which is commercially competitive makes sense.

What does not make sense is short term sanctions to make a point, and have that policy overturned by Western interests to protect the Russians.

But this is the most likely outcome.