Biden may be outplaying Putin in one critical way (The Washington Post)

 Biden may be outplaying Putin in one critical way

The United States and its allies are releasing an onslaught of information about Russia’s possible moves

A Ukrainian serviceman in eastern Ukraine on Feb. 9. (Vadim Ghirda/AP)

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By Daniel Baer

Daniel Baer is a senior fellow a the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; he served as U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe from 2013 to 2017.

Yesterday at 10:05 p.m. EST

The situation on the Russia-Ukraine border remains dire: Those with access to the best intelligence continue to warn that a new attack on Ukraine by Russia remains likely and could happen at any time.

Yet the tenor of Moscow’s rhetoric has shifted. Instead of ultimatums threatening to take “military-technical” measures, the Russians, including President Vladimir Putin, have accused the United States of being alarmist about the prospect of an invasion. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov — who had been one of the officials issuing thinly veiled threats in January — insisted just weeks later, “There won’t be a war as far as it depends on the Russian Federation — we don’t want a war.”

What’s changed?

In recent weeks, the Biden administration and its allies have engaged in a robust and constant communications effort. The United States and United Kingdom have declassified significant intelligence findings. They have issued new warnings of potential Russian action, new explanations of potential Russian tactics like “false flag” attacks and new statements of allied resolve to impose consequences. The latest has come from Germany’s new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who confirmed on Feb. 6 that the transatlantic response to Russian action would be “unified and decisive.”

The Russians seem a bit shell shocked by the information onslaught and perhaps a bit unsure of how to respond. Their accusations of U.S. fearmongering are those of an extortionist who is surprised to have the focus shift to his threats when he intended to keep attention on his demands.

This represents a marked shift from eight years ago, when Putin combined military action, disinformation and surprise to occupy part of Ukraine.

Five myths about Ukraine

In late February 2014, after disgraced former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych fled Kyiv for Moscow, Putin invaded Crimea with “little green men” — Russian special forces sent in without identifying insignia on their uniforms, in violation of the laws of war. In a matter of days, Putin took advantage of a moment of chaos to effect a fait accompli. At the time, the Obama administration and the U.S. intelligence community received some criticism for supposedly having been caught flat-footed.

But this was only half true. The U.S. diplomatic strategy in the preceding weeks was to encourage Yanukovych to de-escalate the increasingly confrontational and violent situation in Kyiv, where his security forces (with Russian training and support), had massacred protesters on the Maidan. A sitting U.S. official at the time, I had been in Kyiv a couple of months earlier, in the early days of the Maidan protests; I remember being surprised by news that Yanukovych had fled.

But in the days that followed, we closely tracked reports out of Crimea, including the takeover of the regional parliament by unidentified armed men. It was clear that something significant was happening, and though Putin’s final intentions weren’t clear from the outset, it was clear that Russia was behind it.

Still, amid Moscow’s actions — surprise military maneuvers (accompanied by denials of intention to invade); the antics of the newly installed, Kremlin-controlled regional prime minister, Sergei Aksyonov; suspiciously well-organized pro-Russian protesters; spurious claims of human rights violations — it took weeks, even months (and a lot of post-facto intelligence-sharing) for an assessment to emerge among NATO allies of how Russia had accomplished its takeover of Crimea and its shadow occupation of the Donbas. These events elevated the concept of “hybrid warfare,” which marries kinetic action with information operations, in the lexicon of security and foreign policy community.

In 2014, the sheer novelty of Putin’s approach gave him a significant advantage. Accusing another country of an illegal act of war is serious business; such accusations should be made with robust confidence. Putin also took advantage of an asymmetry in the West’s approach to public attribution of aggressive action. The U.S. posture toward intelligence — and particularly toward attributions of military action — was relatively conservative, perhaps in part because of the legacy of Iraq. Conscious that their credibility had been damaged, U.S. officials exercised reasonable caution about making definitive assertions to allies or in public.

Putin counted on these concerns to give him time to create irreversible facts on the ground: information operations both inside Ukraine and in the international media aimed to generate confusion and undermine the credibility of the new government in Kyiv. Even a modest amount of doubt would complicate efforts to build a coalition to respond to Russian action in real time.

The West has gotten savvier about Russian disinformation. Will that help Ukraine?

What the Biden administration seems to have figured out is that it need not make definitive statements about exactly what Putin is planning. Instead, it can release intelligence and analysis of what he could be up to, before he has a chance to execute his plans. And as long as the intelligence’s basic facts are right, and the potential Russian plans are clearly presented as working hypotheses, the United States can remain committed to being factual without allowing Putin to weaponize that commitment.

This approach entails seeing the public sphere differently. Instead of awaiting action and an assessment of that action, Biden and his team are engaging through the media. They are issuing an almost relentless set of updates, beginning with assessments of the massing of Russian forces late last year. The United States has since joined Europeans in sounding alarm, including at the United Nations, over the movement of Russian troops into Belarus. It also issued public updates on the diplomatic work to keep U.S. and European allies on the same page, new sanctions for Ukrainians accused of plotting with Russia, and its efforts to warn and work with allies to prepare for potential Russian cyberattacks. Instead of waiting for Putin and his trolls to pollute the airwaves and social media with misinformation, they are keeping the public conversation focused on the threat of aggressive action.

Along with allies, the United States is releasing new intelligence on a weekly and sometimes daily basis — unfurling a rolling preview of the kinds of things Russia might do. For example, national security adviser Jake Sullivan told Meet the Press last Sunday that “the Russian action could take many forms” and could happen at any time — including purported political annexation of the Donbas, cyberattacks and different versions of a ground invasion. Sullivan’s comments underscore that there’s another advantage to thinking out loud about Putin’s menu of nefariousness before he chooses his dish: It helps European and American publics wrap their heads around what kinds of tactics Putin might employ.

A lot of people know more about how false flag attacks work now than they did a month ago. If Putin were to use that approach, it would no longer come as a shock — and confirmation of, and consequences for, such tactics would come more swiftly. Broadcasting Putin’s possible plans also strengthens the impression that allies could quickly present a unified response to any action, presumably amplifying any deterrent effect.

And so the tables have turned: Instead of the West playing whack-a-mole, refuting various lies propagated by Russia, Russia is now in the position of denying the potential plots it may be hatching with respect to Ukraine. (Putin himself reportedly offered the latest such denial, according to French President Emmanuel Macron, after their five-hour meeting on Tuesday.) Instead of working behind the scenes and taking a wait-and-see approach that allows Putin to keep the world guessing, Biden and his European counterparts have got Putin trying to turn down the volume on their repeated reminders that they are watching him closely.

This is not to say that hybrid warfare can be completely neutralized. But the Biden administration and U.S. partners and allies appear to have learned a valuable lesson from 2014: Instead of reacting to Putin’s hybrid warfare, they are calling it out, thereby sapping some of its power.

Read more:

Volodymyr Zelensky: ‘Everyone will lose’ if Russia invades Ukraine

Threatening to invade Ukraine will help Putin at home. Actually invading won’t.

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By Daniel Baer

Daniel Baer is a senior fellow a the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; he served as U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe from 2013 to 2017.  Twitter