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It is great to see such a big crowd in july for this event. Guest. To add a special he is the chairman of the Foreign Relations committee, and also the undersecretary for defense policy. As some of you may know, he served previously here at the embassy in washington. It is great to see him back in town. I am going to say a few words andre we let our experts regional representatives loose. I want to say in the very near future, the focus will shift to the black sea region. This is obviously in response to a rush of the continues to be assertive in and around europe and elsewhere. It is clearly bent on altering the european order, especially with military power. There is a special interest to the broader community. He can tell us quite a bit about russian intentions and the capabilities. Previous iterations of this exercise have showed us how russia can, for example, mobilize across distances. Given us a window into russian thinking about the use of key capabilities during a crisis, cleaning these of listed missiles and even nuclear weapons. This is important, not only for us in washington, but also nato and brussels and other allied capitals. A visa, this session is an important opportunity to write a public preview of what could be asected in the coming months the exercise draws closer and what the longterm implications are for the u. S. , nato and all of its members in terms of defense, reinforcements for the european comment moving forward. This Panel Discussion today really forms part of the councils longstanding work on defense and security in northern europe. We are focused on a number of key issues including natos maritime domain, cyber threats, and natoeu cooperation. Iner the rubric of security northern europe, we have conducted a range of activities, including wargames. We have led factfinding delegations to the region and published results Oriented Research and policy recommendations. Ax weeks ago, we hosted highprofile conference in northern europe, which featured all of the baltic defense ministers and leading american voices. This Panel Discussion is really the start of our work. This withturn to outcomes of the exercise and we will also watch it closely using our capabilities and Digital Forensics lab some of which has previously tracked in the you came ukraine in syria and used visual tools to uncover important effects from the ground that are sometimes easy to miss for a policy audience. Toe of the work related today can be picked up outside of this room. None of this work wouldve been possible without our Close Partnership with estonias minister of defense. Thank you very much to you and the ministry for working very closely with us in making the work possible and bringing some of these perspectives to washington for discussion. We have a great panel lined up for today. Therefrom estonia, norway and the United States, and some of the greatest thinkers. Im sure you will find the conversation both fascinating and lively. We also look board to bringing all of you into the conversation during the q a session. We are Live Streaming this event and if you want to engage with us, please use the designated please usee my htag. Esignated hast expert is an expert on russian and regional affairs. He served as the Baltic Center for russian studies and is the editor in chief of the largest newspaper in the baltic region. He served for many years as the newspapers correspondent in moscow at a crucial time. Voicesne of the leading in transatlantic unity. Thank you so much for being with us today. The floor is yours. [applause] thank you and thank you to team here at the Atlantic Council putting together this extremely interesting seminar today, this morning. It is very timely, as we see from interest in the audience it also generates interest and questions. Allow me as a historian to go back a little bit from where we are today. To understand to my understanding, the Current Situation both in relations to western russia and regarding these exercises. We have to see the bigger picture. This is only part of it. To be pretty clear, russia is the only country today in the world who has National Strategy , and has been ready for a long time to confront nato as an enemy and perhaps even destroy nato and the United Security terms of architecture in your atlantic area built by the leadership of the United States. Russia is the only country who constantly exercises and strategically building up muscle memory for its military for total war against the best. Recent exercises at least since of antiwestents warfare. Of course this suits perfectly to their own historical roots. Saidnder the third set the only real allies are the army. Perhaps you could add nukes as thisor cyber warfare good all makes sense in the consolidation of the society. Stillget also that russia is waging modern war against the ukraine. It perhaps gives the best example, and the formation that russia has not changed since the break up of the soviet union. Time forget, the first this soviet union had these exercises already was in 1973. It was the biggest military exercise ever organized by the ussr. It was a show of force against nato and poland, which had an internal crisis of a time. But what is different from times of 81 and 84, the only element i see what has changed since then is the location of front line. Instead, denmark and danish trading, we have the Baltic States and poland as front linked nations. Going back to the 80s, i found an interesting paper written by who is now the rear admiral in the u. S. Navy. In 1983, he was a student at the Monterey School researching security aspects of the baltic sea. That time he stressed that since the end of world war ii had a clear strategic advantage. This created a situation where they are waiting nuclear war. The soviet union could win a strategic victory by attacking danish straits. What is most striking is the gave tot every Nation Security environment in the baltic region 34 years ago feels as if it were written yesterday. He concluded, and i quote him here. There is a case for looking a new at prepositioning, including both men and women. With the current level of technology, modern warfare proceeds very quickly and allows little time for mobilization. Philosophy ofary reinforcement from before no longer has a degree of military agility that it possessed a few years ago. The alliance must rid itself of the idea that any defensive response or preparatory response is perceived as provocation by the kremlin. Allied defenses that are caneived to be weak constitute to aggression. This was written in 1983. Hardly anything has changed. Only really, the geographical proximity we talked about. Withld like to conclude very strong formation from estonia, we have seen a strong response from nato since russian aggression both actually in 2008 against georgia and specifically since 2014 against ukraine, it has been relatively moderated. What is most important is the byty, which is played out the last two or three summits of nato, have given quite a strong signal. For its core goal to defend its allies by article building up what is important, so than we see these exercises happening on our borders. Of course, in our political debates we are firmly , believing in our own necessity believing we do gdpbest we can, and 3 of allocated to defense this year. I tell you there is no Political Force in estonia who argues against these thoughts to work perhaps in terms of increasing even the Defense Budget if its really needed. Another area where estonia has paid a lot of attention recently is the solid Early Warning procedures, including also investing in intelligence. That allows politicians like me to be very well briefed constantly and that makes, of course, the quality of political decisions much higher. These were a few of my remarks. I hope to hear very interesting debate today. Thank you. [applause] thank you. My assignment today is to provide additional context for understanding of what we may be seeing this september. In that sense, im following along very much. The messages that you heard from marco, and what you will be hearing from me is why these things dont exist in a vacuum. To understand them and interpret them, there are a lot of other considerations that we need to Pay Attention to, including history. What i thought i would do then is start with a few words about what we know about the exercise itself and then look at some of the immediate precursors to it, and what those precursors, some of the earlier exercises may suggest about what we will see now. And then say a few words at the end about some of the issues it may raise for the rest of us, what we should be paying attention to. As im sure many in the audience know, this is a joint strategic exercise. It is planned to take place in western russia. It will be a multinational exercise, encompassing both russian and belarusian forces. It will clearly include land forces, aerospace forces, air andnse, Logistic Support probably interior ministry and other troops, as well, at least in some form. It is likely, i think, and for reasons i will explain in more to coincidemoment, or overlap with other exercises or Training Drills which may not be formally identified as part of this, but clearly linked to them. Weve seen this before. Ill come back to this. Its overall size is uncertain on detail, but all indications are it could be very very large and may be the largest one we have seen since the end of the cold war. It has, not surprisingly, evoke a lot of attention in some considerable concern among russias neighbors. Nato in general. Why should we care about this . Why should we Pay Attention . Military, all serious exercise the troops, they do it regularly. Why is this different . It seems to me there are two basic reasons that are interrelated. One has to do with what exercises can tell us about the thinking of political leaders. What is it they worry about . What kinds of conflicts do they think are possible and should be planned for . What kinds of messages they want to can day to convey to potential adversaries and others. And secondly, what exercises can suggest or remind us about broader trends in the security environment. In general, and in Russian Defense planning in particular. As i mentioned before, these exercises dont take place in a vacuum. The context matters. What i am going to do to followup is simply to say a few words about what we have seen in recent exercise history, Say Something about the issues this may raise for the present and is in return to this year and try to suggest what it is we should pay particular attention to, especially in light of the broader trends we see in Russian Defense planning and the broader European Security environment. First a bit of exercise history. As marco said, the soviet union and then russia has been doing this exercise for long time. They are regularly planned and announced at fouryear intervals. The two most recent ones took place in 2009 and 2013. The 2013 exercise has some aspects which are very much worth noting as we look ahead to this september. It was, first of all, there is a question of what its purpose was. This september. It was charactere russian official statements as essentially an antiterrorist exercise. When you look at what happened , it is pretty hard to believe that thats really all that this was about. Clearly it was exercising and testing mobilization and deployment, including newly formed units of command and control arrangements and the like. I think well see a lot more of it this time. A second characteristic has to do with its size. 2013, russia was still following the vienna document conventions of reporting upcoming exercises. They are not doing that anymore. The vienna document. Their declaration was that it was going to be on the order of 20,000 troops. There were several problems with this exercise. It that it looks like appears that the only thing they were announcing was the Ground Forces that were involved. In fact, there were a lot of other troops that were involved. Either directly or in other activities that were closely linked. Air forces, logistic forces, railroad troops, interior ministry and the like. Those numbers were considerable. When you add those forces to the 22,000, you get about 70,000 in total. In addition, there was a very large interior ministry exercise at the same time involving roughly 25,000 troops. If you include that, the total comes close to 100,000. Whatever was going on, what ever it however we characterize and however much we decided was this or something else, there are a lot of closely linked activities of considerable size much larger than russia officially announced. Again, there is sort of an obvious point for 2017. It too, i think, will be very large. Ongoingbe part of an and conference of exercise and , weve seenle elements the summer was more apparently coming soon. How large exactly is not clear. Theres not going to be a notification this time. But the reports is that russia is going to be mobilizing several thousand trains to transport the troops. Several thousand. If this is too, this is several orders of magnitude larger than anything we have seen before. It is much larger, for example, then what we saw in 2013. We could be seeing in september is the largest, most complicated, most ambitious exercise since the cold war. Now, what therefore should we be looking for in the upcoming history, given the history and the water trends broader trends in Russian Defense planning . Marco gotndant into a lot of it. There has been quite a bit of hype about what Russian Military forces look like. There arel still constraints of them in the future, both economic and demographic. That the general trend is that this is a force that is much more mobile, has more confident units that can move faster and quicker than what we have seen before. , under quite plausible scenarios that can produce ratios of a song the region in the region that are unfavorable to nato. This is not a question of what Russian Forces look like against nato in general, but sencenarios that could cause nato trouble in the region. There have been a lot of western concerns both in the region for nato officials and here in washington. We will hear more about those from the panel, so i wont go into great detail, but let me mention a couple. But not dramatic, frequent is that this may be preparation for some kind of direct military action. I understand the reason for this. It has happened before. There was an exercise which followed very quickly by interventions in the borders, in 2007. The same thing happened in the georgia war in 2008. Having said that, i think direct military action personally is very unlikely. I dont think russia is looking to start a war with nato. But i do worry about two other things. Implausible is less is incidents along the border, provocations, poking around the region. As a result, possibility of accidents. You know, we are going to need to be careful about this, and i hope they are to. Too. E i cant rule out the possibility of trouble associated with this. But even if none of that happens , what then should we care about . I would mention a couple of things that we should pay particular attention to. One, as i mentioned before, is simply the size, and what does this tell us about russian planning and defense planning and perspective . Another is the scenario. There will be one thing which we they described as. My guess is it will not be entirely candid about what the exercise is meant to do, but we will need to make some judgments about what it is they seem to be testing. My guess is it will be, as before, mobilization issues, inloyment issues and particular, command and control, because the rep and structural changes in the military districts in russia and in some of the units. What kinds of forces are involved, what rules recent of life what roles they seem to play, to what extent they look like they reflect changes in the force structure, because for a considerable period certainly early 2000,the russia was moving to smaller, more mobile brigades. The rationale is they were more concerned about smaller, local wars around their borders. There started to move back of new, larger forces. We want to see how they are used. In particular, implications for force generation. Also need to talk about how good our own intelligence is. Well need to be thinking hard about this. Well be looking at this. One of things for me to assess afterwards is what actually did we see. Advance . Did we know in this will have implications for warning questions in our own force planning. How much warning can we expect to have is something were to go wrong. Final element to note is the nuclear element. They have seen divorce from the conventions of the conventional forces, in part because be a heard a lot of officialsrom russian about the integration of Nuclear Forces and conventional forces. A lot of talk about the escalations,a of to deescalate. Well have to Pay Attention to that too. Finally, one final point. In addition to the operational purposes of exercises, which are at the core, exercises also send messages. Often by design. In many cases, russia has been quite explicit about the messages. When the question for us to think about afterward is what are the political messages these are intended to convey . Do they simply want to warn us that they are tough and we should leave them alone . In other words, the political message is defensive, as they claim. Do they want to make us nervous and therefore accommodate in ways consistent with some of their other objectives in the region . Do they want to make us numb . That is, keep doing this without following up so that at some point we will start paying less attention and less concern about the exercises we see very close to nato borders. These are not mutually exclusive. Sorting them out will not be a simple matter, but it is something to Pay Attention to. One final point, again, these issues, whether it is we can expect from russia, what they worry about, what the forces may look like, is not going to end in 2017. There will be one other, additional further exercises. There will be one other thing that will happen at the same time, the announcement of the program. Ments there is a lot of discussion about what that to look like, what it should pay. That is supposed to be determined and announced also in september. That to will tell us something about their own priorities and what we can expect in the next 10 years. Let me leave it at that and turn it over to the panel. [applause] good morning. For that both wonderful introduction. I want to say theres no shortage of russia talk in this town. But i think this is going to be an important and interesting conversation to have. Let me quickly introduce our panel. Their full biographies are in the literature. We have the undersecretary for defense policy for estonia. We are lucky to have him in his first public appearance in this role. A majoreft, we have general from norway, serving as the defense at cachet at the embassy here, serving in various positions in the air force across nato and norway. Have a nonresident senior fellow here, formally served as assistant to the secretary of defense for russia, ukraine and eurasia. I will go ahead and give the panelists about five minutes for introductions and then we will dive into questions from me and open it up to the floor. Ok. Thank you. I would like to thank the organizers for the event and for the people in the audience for your interest in this subject. The turnout is a positive surprise for me. I am humbled to be here on my second day on the strap. My first day i spent traveling to be here. [laughter] way toink it is a great start. There were excellent introductions. Question of what i have left to say. I will still try to frame the same issue from my side, as minister of defense. And briefly why this is important, why we should Pay Attention to it. Secondly, what kind of attention is needed. Thirdly, what should be our sort of attitude towards this exercise. Later, of course, i would be happy to answer any questions. All . S this important at most important military,he political, strategic exercise that russia has this year. Noteis very important to is that is the first since the crimea and accession annexation. It ishat point of view, important politically and militarily. Place inise takes extreme proximity to allied territory. In fact, the exercise activities we expect to surrounded parts of allied territory and we strength,to see force join us and interagency ability on behalf of the russians. We expect the size of the exercise to be around 100,000. It may go up from there. What is very important to note here is that just as was alluded in addition to the exercise itself, we see a whole set of exercises directed to the west. The name means the divest. From spring to late fall, he will see a lot of exercises. Thirdly, we have witnessed before that russians train ,xactly as they intend to fight ample will give us information on their military development and on their political thinking right now. During the exercise, their and therewill be high existing advantage in time and furthered by even that. We dont consider this years exercise to be a direct threat to us. We dont expect it to be a cover for an attack or something. We have to keep in mind the russians have the nasty habit of sort of hiding the actual military behind the exercise. And ve done it before done it before. Secondly, what kind of attention is needed . That is important for the military and political experts, the analysts. This is a golden opportunity to get the kind of information that the kind of information that they want to. Thingshey see some new this is for sure. Exercise not keep the just a matter for the expert community. For the think tanks and so on. It definitely has to get the deserved attention from the higher political military assurance. After all, considering the setup the scenariose, that we may see being played out into the overall Russian Strategic thinking some of it is not just about abstract readiness. But the exercise is certainly testing thert of transatlantic community, testing the russian ability to pursue with the community ouralso the ability to keep deterrence posture credible. And thirdly, which is be our sort of reaction . Say three words here. Vigilantot to be calm, and flexible. It we have to do certainly intend this to be the case. In ae also have to do it way as an alliance, and as countries in the region. Particularly considering the bad habit of bad things happening in august and september time frame. As people mentioned. Sour,ularly if things go that is the thing we have to get behind. In a wider sense, we have to continue adjusting the alliances, the structure, the theern flank to reflect existing complexity and join us of the challenges we currently face and what we face in the foreseeable future. These are my first remarks. I will be happy to elaborate. Well pass it down. Ok. Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting norway to this event as well. I will try to put on my norwegian lenses, to try and understand the strategic messaging, i think one has to understand what is happening north of norway on a daily basis, as well, before going into the exercise, as well as use a few minutes to send some brief remarks about what the situation is north of norway. What we have seen the last couple of years is an increased activity when it comes to see power. Sea particularly increasing. Go russian doctrine is to west. Thather with this, we know weve also seen a russian modernization when it comes to submarines that are more silent than before. We have also seen weapons on board these summaries the heavy longerrange than before. This combination makes it so much more important today to have Situational Awareness of what is going on in the north atlantic. That is why were also trying to work with other allies to do this. When it comes to the air forces, we have actually seen a reduced activity from the russian side in the north. A few years ago, we saw different type of formations. It has been reduced lately. We have not seen much of the a few years aggressiveness that has been seen in the baltic sea. There is definitely a difference between the russian behavior in the baltic as compared to north of norway. Because of the sanctions and what have you, the interactions between the norwegian military and Russian Military has been reduced to almost nothing. On a daily basis, were still cooperating slightly on the border guard between russia and norway. We are cooperating on searchandrescue issues and incidents at sea. Be aware we also have still a line ine halt northern norway between the headquarters in the Northern Fleet headquarters. We do tests every week. Lately, it has not been used much. But is there for commanders to speak to commanders just in case we have something coming up and we need to get any misunderstandings out of the way. So when it comes to this exercise itself, we are interested in seeing how the exercises linked to other exercises in the north. We know that late summer, early fall is an active time, where there are a number of other exercises. How these are linked will be interesting. ,e also know that during fall maybe this time already, we see an annual deployment from the going further east and the northeast passage. We understand that most of the exercise activity is going to be on the western border of russia and probably facing toward estonia and let fear and lots atvia. From the norwegian perspective, we would like more transparency, as we all would like. If i could inform nato, or maybe against using the the and a document channel to inform about the exercise, that would be something that would be very welcoming from our point of view. Thank you. Thank you so much. I will move to evelyn. Thank you. Thank you again to the Atlantic Council, the estonian government, all the code participants coparticipants. I think i was asked to speak as someone working in the government in 2013 when the last exercise occurred. Sitting in the pentagon at the time, we watched a new defense minister come into office. He has only increased his power and stature within the russian government and russian society. He was already unknown figure two russians because of his 20 year lead of the internal russians, the equivalent of fema. When he came into office, one of the biggest and most immediate changes we saw was an uptick in the russian exercise regimen. This was not just oriented toward the very predictable cycle, which is one of the peace, because there are other regional exercises occurring. Really put a lot of force behind this subsequently. In addition to those normally scheduled exercises, which as we heard earlier, go back to the soviet days, he also initiated what he called snap exercises. They were basically inspections, exercises to demonstrate civilian and military leadership, the state of readiness of the Russian Forces. Hadatched in 2000 13, they for snap exercises, and they have gone up significantly. They doubled in 2014, there were eight snap exercises, 20 in 2015. They went back down to 11 in 2016, which i suspect is linked to the fact that operationally, especially with their incursion into syria commitment they did not have to do these exercises to test their readiness. They were at a pretty high state of readiness because of ukraine and syria. But the discipline to put that context in place for all of you, all of a sudden we saw this new minister of defense and these new smaller exercises, and then we had the larger exercise. There were about 70,000 committee 100,000 troops involved unofficially. We have the contrast that with the fact that thats in your, the largest nato exercise at the time had about 6000 forces, and was called steadfast jazz. It was not a very strong and determined name. At the time, we do not understand that russia regarded , that thisadversary was a serious matter. Of course, in the department of defense, the military intelligence community, we were looking very closely at all of these exercises and becoming increasingly alarmed. The first thing you learn in the defense business is the threat is the combination of intent and capability. Youre seeing capability changing and increasing in terms of quality an quantity. The intent was a big question mark. Our Political Leadership at the time, not just the United States, but the transatlantic community, the intent was we still regarded it as not necessarily a threat. There was a lot of discussion about that. I think with the crimea invasion ukraine, theof ongoing operations, the situation was clarified. Although of course, there are still those who try to muddy the overall strategic landscape and how we should perceive it. I wanted to set that out there so people understand the reason we are talking about 2013 and not much before that is because there was a change with Vladimir Putin coming back into power, with this new minister of defense. That is an important point to note. Here,back to my notes this idea that they were s. Ercising against terrorist you can expect the russians to all skate again in option bfuscate again in 2017. The other thing i would add is the real degradation of his curtains 2013 that all mentioned and others talked about in terms of transparency. This is where it is most alarming. This is why theres so much train why theres so much tension now is the russians are in violation of the vienna documents, they are really trying to declare what theyre doing. Those documents, theyre basically transparency measures in order to decrease the risk of miscalculation, decreased tensions when militaries in europe are conducting normal exercises for readiness. When a bit untenable russia is in fact the adversary, like it or not. We did not want to be in an adversarial situation, but we are. Ignoringthat they are these transparency measures, which were put into place with the idea we would not really be targeting one another, or would try not to, has created a real problem. , that ii would just say dont talk too long and we can open it up for discussion, there are a couple of things i would like us to watch coming out of this. Obviously some of the things thingslked about ill talked about before, a number of troops, where they go, the disposition of troops eared there is some concern about whether Russian Troops will remain in belarus after the exercises over. I think that concern is probably shared by the belarusian government. I think we should watch carefully what is being said in belarus. 2014, theyy come in have always tried to do what the previous Ukrainian Government debt, have a way to communicate with the west, and hedge against the kremlin being overly dominant. I think they have become increasingly concerned over time , even in the last year or so. We need watch closely what happens in belarus. We also need watch for closely held a exercise, if we see any other wmd,clear, chemical, biological. The Cyber Component is very important. Coming out of exercise, but would like some concrete things. There are many things we could talk about we would like to see, but i would like to see, first of all, obviously continuation of our strong deterrent posture. I would like to see it less rotational and more permanent. That may be unrealistic in the near term, but certainly we need we are sure that exercising, that nato is exercising, that nato is ready, that we shall resolve that we show resolve on the conventional front. On the cyber front, i think its very important for us to think about cyber ops. And whether nato can build not just an Early Warning, and i know it was working on intelligence for Early Warning, and we have the cyber center in estonia, but i think we need an operational capability. Its time for nato to take much more seriously the cyber threat, because the reality is, we already saw the native strategic concept identified Cyber Security as something that requires an article iv consultation. But i would argue that given the potential ramifications, the potential impact of a cyber operation, you could get very quickly to article v. Nato cannot be sitting there wringing its hands within the military community. Then i think we need to think about a couple of things that are less tactical or less operational. I mentioned the transparency. I think the best thing we could do on the transparency front is to broaden the discussion and bring it out of the transatlantic and talk to the chinese, talk to the indians. What the russians are doing has implications for them as well. I think about the inf treaty, excuse my phone. I think that was the twitter feed getting excited. Aop. S it was a cyber the inf treaty, we have been kind of silent now our government and nato itself and the europeans in particular about the russian ongoing violation of the inf treaty. It may be because smarter minds are thinking, this has implications for the chinese because, what the russians have done, it is a mobile capability, it can be directed towards others. Why dont we bring in the chinese, the indians, other countries that have a stake in increased transparency, lowering the risk of actual military kinetic contact and increasing confidence, or Building Confidence . And then i would say, again, that thats probably the most important thing we could do at the higher level. And i would agree completely with the under secretary. We need to be calm, vigilant and flexible. Great. Thank you all for your opening remarks. Think we set off a broad and varied understanding of this. One subject we all touched on was obviously the transparency aspect or the lack thereof. So i think that is one of the things that id like to hear , particularly from you, under secretary, about how the lack of it is impacting preparations and the calculations that the baltics and your country are making, and broaden it out how its impacted the Nato Alliance and the wests preparations for this activity. Starting with you, if you would like. Things. The transparency is something that we seen, there is than some backsliding in transparency for the last 10 years, since putins famous or infamous speech. The transparency has been a constant victim. With regards to this exercise, it is interesting. I would put this into the context of turkey relationship between russia. It is interesting to see how i would put this into the broader context between the tricky relationship of russia and belarusian. For the russians, see more utility in transparency and have been more forthcoming in fulfilling some of the actual arrangement criteria. This may also reflect their own assurance over the possible russian agenda. As far as the future is concerned, i think the estonia n instinct is to see whether the existing regiment can be used before getting to something new , whereas Different Countries may have different interests and different concerns as far as the different concerns as far as the arms control and transparencies concerned. Someout of europe, to overarching, overwhelming agreement with countries as far as india and china, will certainly not be an easy thing. And so as long as we do have the current existing regimes, we should do our utmost to press on fulfilling the criteria that are stated on our behalf, on naders behalf, on natos the have, we are more than willing to follow the different procedures. In the vienna document, for example, to make sure that the exercises are and stay russiansnt so that the and other interested parties can get the sense of whats happening there. I stop with that. Sure. I think that transparency issue on the military side is basically one thing. Thats not to create misunderstanding. Misunderstanding is a prerequisite for increased tension, and increased tension, youll create episodes and youll get incidents and things like that. So thats why this transparency thing is so important. You can talk to that on a tactical side as well as on the strategic side. What do we think the what do we think of the deliberate information and the deliberate obfuscation . What is the intent behind the lack of transparency . From a political perspective, first of all, obviously there is a military exercise, but there is a political component of this. First of all, obviously directed towards nato, a message towards nato. Were ready, you know, dont try anything, a very strong message. The results of a message to the russian to mystic population the russian domestic population that nato is an adversary, the west is the adversary, were ready, were a great nation so that the patriotic element is there as well. We still have a lot of questions about russias significance, whether russia is indeed in an adversarial posture with us, whether russia is a declining power so therefore this doesnt matter. These questions are still out there being discussed , unfortunately in the political arenas. So russia will take advantage. They always like this kind of ambiguity anyway. With a wink. They want us to know theyre capable and powerful and look what they did with their cyber intrusion in the u. S. Elections. But they dont really want to take full accountability because they want those for whom its convenient to align with them or at least not oppose them to be able to do so. Building off that kind of, the level of concern and relations to the russian side, you said you dont view it as a direct threat, but thats kind of always an underlying concern in the back of peoples minds. I was talking about the little when he and minister last month lit the whiny and minister lithuanian Prime Minister mentioned there has been some media and rhetoric surrounding two provinces in the west in lithuania talking on various russian sites about how they were gifted to them by stalin years ago. Weve seen this kind of rhetoric before. If the direct military intervention is not the primary concern, its still in the back of our minds. What are some of the other concerns beyond the accidental intrusions . How likely do we think an intrusion or engagement that doesnt quite rise to the level of an article five violation . Thats for the entire pill. , the example that you note, the lithuanian example, is exactly the reason why we strongly feel that paying attention to the exercise is only military thinkers should do. Because one way or another, we expect to see the exercise in the news as a deliberate attempt by the russians. Considering the examples of there willercises, be full range of tools in their National Position being used from information to cyber to nuclear, etc. Meaning that we should not be passive in this sort of strategic communication. Except the elements i would personally be concerned about the accidental nature with serious consequences as well as and this is where it is fair to say that exercisestempts those should show sort of professional and not particularly in the the close to accidents we have seen on the baltic sea or across the baltic sea in the airspace. We definitely do not want to be in a situation where something goes terribly wrong. Would go much of that when it comes to incidents i think. What we would be concerned about is the congested airspace and region. E in the baltic that is where the most activity is going on and if something is going to happen, that is where it will most likely be. We might see incidents. Hopefully we will not see that. Aside from that, i will say i am kind of looking forward to after to exercise when we are able analyze the whole of government approach to the joint of this and how it is linked together. That will be very interesting to analyze. To come back to the Atlantic Council to talk about. Thank you. I would agree. Seeing how they mobilize. In the last time, they were only in the beginning of thinking of the complete mobilization and i think seeing how much further they may have come since then, plus there are a lot of internal Security Forces that have been created by president putin to protect him but also with new internal reorganization occurring and so i think it will be interesting to see what role they play. Is there going to be some kind of Color Revolution scenario of the little green men . Again, some kind of fomented or ofiterrorist some sort fabricated clash . How will they respond to that within the context of their scenario . So i think there are a lot of Little Things we will learn from this inasmuch as they will increase their readiness, hopefully we will also increase our readiness. Et is a great point that is a great point to raise. Control. Nd what you have raced as issues, evelyn. What do we think it might tell us differently than 2013 s . Estion all of a sudden the world started paying attention one year later. Looking for beyond those tacticallevel things . [laughter] that is going to be interesting. Lets see. I think what we will be looking the level ofsly command in and control. Again, how centralized, decentralization, decentralization and mobilization, and obviously one big part now is going to be the mobility part. How quickly are they able to move around and we adjourn and so what was mentioned in the railroad part. That is going to be really interesting to see how that is utilized because it will tell us something about the mobility again, i will have to come back to the joint notice again. Linking the capabilities together. That will be interesting. And i guess on the overall, if you are going to take it out from the political landscape. Again, we have a new situation in europe. Small differences going three or four years back. The transatlantic situation and relationship is slightly different. Europe is changing slightly. Ukraine have syria and and all of these things together create a different landscape. Whole discussion. That is part of this discussion as well. It will be really interesting. That is what i will be looking at. Notch is the exercise itself both what is happening where the russians are actively fighting in ukraine and syria. And are they making other moves . They use the exercise is not just to mask what they are doing there but elsewhere. New forces, capabilities elsewhere while our attention is diverted. Up, first isap it the sort of, how offensive and openly offensive the essence of the nature will be of the exercise. Agency, the of the exercise will be. There are some ethical aspects meaning ofrategic how this will be played out. How extensively the other elements and the Defense Ministry and Defense Force capability will be used. Nd the offensive nature antiwest, overtly thenato the execution of scenario will be is something that is very important. Will open a moment we up to questions so please start thinking. Get those ideas germinating. Before we do, i want to ask if this fits with any broader russiawest world engagement. How does, going forward, leading up, how does that recalibrate and the posture that nato and the allies have it the region . What are we looking for. Fore what are we looking . What are we helping to build up . What if abilities are we looking to perhaps increase in the region and how are we looking to forces . E the populist as far as in general, i think it is fair to say that we are the summit. R from we can say that the creation of deployment ofd region has achieved andelements of stability these are testament to the tostanding when it comes this. We have to be very clear and strong in our messaging. As far as the current circumstance, it is certainly ness that constitutes the execution thus far. Landcentric. Ery at the same time one of the key terms we are talking about is therussian capability in port region, which is a matter ofkeeping the Lines Communication open and making sure that the capabilities exist in the region. That they get properly addressed, we need to go ahead defense andnto the have with thes we naval capabilities to make sure that we are determined but haveo to take into account the realistic channels we havent me region. Think weld on that, i are on the right track with the efp and what the u. S. Is doing. Also, do not forget that we european nations can do more together as well and one example was what normally jested with the trilateral mru with the u. K. And u. S. Take responsibility for in nato. In region also, there is always an action of mile to go when it comes to intelligencesharing and incorporation within nato. We are supposed to be but that is something we should continue do you have anything . I mean, i agree with everything they said. Ok. We will open up the floor to questions from the advance. A quick reminder to please introduce yourself, say your name and organization and make it a question. To eye. In the back, there. Hello. My name is andrew. I am a reporter with politico. I wonder if you can tell me about the largest exercise and the effect it will have on ukraine . Will it affect them having up to 1000 troop . It was alluded to earlier that troop movements could be masked with others or done concurrently with the exercise. Is there any expectation of anything like that happening in eastern troop movements could ukraine . First. Just by saying that i would not like to speculate on something sensitive. S and we should know that the ukrainians have long paid attention to the looming 2017 summit and have taken this into account in their own planning and assessments but i cannot go,k for them as far as we we just have to take into account that sometimes the exercises have been a convenient way to do something else. But i do not have any insight information to let me speculate on that. I am not ready to talk specifically about ukraine but i think i will refer to that we should Pay Attention to activities and exercises and that goes with the ukrainian ways. I mentioned i would be watching the ukraine. The speaker, the parliament, recently made a comment expressing alarm. The ukrainians are on high alert. Bilaterallyth nato speak with the ukrainians and make sure we are his phone july and as we can be. At least in this arena, my government has been pretty good, i mean actually very good, secretary tillerson sunday was in ukraine and gave a very strong statement of support for ukraine and sovereignty. So as much as we have questions, i am at least and courage that we made that statement and hopefully we can do more over the next coming months and weeks as a lead up. Hello. My name is dmitry. Thank you very much. You talked about transparency of the possibility of accidents. About what it would look like ideally to you. How do you communicate between the two of you. To wife. I think i will take that one. I would like to see more dialogue between russian leaders and european leaders. However, the sanctions we are there right now, i think where we cances increased activity. That would be first of all within the council to get that slowly up the hand running again, that would be increased. That would be first of a first step where we could talk to each other again and get the transparency issue off the table and then of course there would that wereays welcoming as well. And im being military side, i would say a Russian Council would be the preferred way of communicating. I believe there is a russian canceled meeting scheduled for july. I hope i am not misrepresenting, there was some talk of that in the media. I think what is also important is that we open a bilateral u. S. Discussion that will not pay negotiation but just a discussion. A russianu. S. Military discussion to talk about issues. The violation. The concerns russians have about missile defense, etc. So at least we can reduce the temperature a little bit and perhaps open the door to a little but double line control and getting the issues back into my a control box if you will. See aeve you will not likelihood of any sweeping agreements but of course we have to have dialogue and maintain some of the cooperation we have, u. S. , russian in the nuclear realm. The necessaryay therussia that areuld see as arrangements there. Ands just a matter of use russian diplomacy is something and all a Long Duration sorts of interesting tricks. Veryny cases they are how cannd sort of i say ok, lets come up with something new. Some new instruments. Some new form. And by doing that you can have all sorts of new situations into the core problem. So i do not think we should sort of fall into that. Existing instruments within the russiannato discussion. Questions to them to actually come up with more transference and information on this exercise. So far, not too much progress. My name is peter rees. I am on the house of foreign khmers to many. Foreign affairs committee. Countrieselements of that have tried to join nato since 2008, georgia and ukraine, my question is is there a red line that nato would draw of countries trying to join it as it would have to and article five if it truly included them in the regional bloc . I wondered if there is a red line in which the risk outweighs the benefit. Since it is a political question, i will even a stab. Perspective ofe nato it is very clear, if you want to apply for membership you must be a democracy. You must have your military organized unders civilian control. You must apply. You must go through a process and from the perspective of nato, whether they accept it depends on how well they meet the metrics set out and overtime if they are working with the country. Not generally an Automatic Process although there are countries like sweden and inland, if they decided to become members i believe they are ready and nato would be, at least on the military side, ready to accept them and i think on the political side as well. So there is no redline i think about whether you can apply or not. Generally speaking, countries not in europe of course do not apply. Agreed. Ofwe went through that kind redline to draw, i would say questions a personal so i am trying to present it that it is a question of lateral also. In that case, i think we would anday our sort of ideals probably also be hostage of this ont of redline thinking and the other hand, certainly it is members tofor the in theon whether any membership at benefit to the security of the allies. One more thing that underlines all of this and a under monitor personal question. It has to do about the debate about nato expansion. I believe very strongly that when we decided to expand nato in the 1990s we did not regard the United States certainly, did not regard russia as an ally. It was done to increased stability. So you can have increased economic stability. So those countries that had already made a certain amount of progress in that were in essence awarded for that. They received continued support in terms of what they had already done in terms of their modernization. To bed say that continues the case today even if you took by russiahreat because they decided to be an adversary, you would still see an argument when it comes to stability in terms of those who are willing to defend one another collectively against unconventional threats and state actors. Im suzanne miller. Int do you see any gaps intelligence on the size of russias Nuclear Capability in the region and then also directed potentially at the west . Well, i think im not in a position to answer that. So im sorry. Becausemy comments, when i commented on the intelligence sharing mechanisms in nato, my point is that should be broadened and deepened so that more intelligence is being shared between nato nations and in that way moreintelligence is being available for all the nato nations. When it comes to where the gaps are, im sorry, im not able to comment on that. [ inaudible ] id not like to. Id actually just comment on the Nuclear Issue but possibly not from the angle that you are hoping for. But instead of being intelligence, i would stress the part of understanding the way the Nuclear Issue is treated in the russian functions. I think this is where wehave some sort of catching up to do. After its difficult to understand the way the russians see the Nuclear Capability as something that can be used for actually deescalating the conflict and that in their sort of military political thinking, the nukes can at all stages of conflict be used to sort of out deter from the conflict that there is always this red button available that can be usedto deter the other side if this is sort of necessary. And the nuclear is much more integrated into their thinking and the use of military capabilities than is considered necessary or possible in the west. In order to understand that, we need to more study that and also take this into account in our own exercising in our own planning and so forth. And this is another area where i think we need to have dialogue with the russians, because this military doctrine of escalation to ostensibly deescalate but in my mind is deescalation is dangerous. And it rests upon a misconception about how the United States and its allies and nato in particular would respond if the Russian Military escalates certainly including independence but even with cyber or otherconventional means. I think thats an area where theres a definite needfor dialogue and of course theres a heightened interest in gaining intelligence on what the russians are really thinking with this doctrine because its highly dangerous. To tell us about that doctrine and how the russians view it. It remains to be seen. But the recent experience tells us that all of the strategic russian exercises have had the Nuclear Component in it during the last ten years or so. My expectation is were going to see theNuclear Component in the if i was to exercise my military, i would think id like to exercise all the components of it. Thank you. Way in the back, blue tie, white shirt getting up. Thanks. Jonathan ward, university of oxford. I wanted to ask you about zapad in the context of the shanghai cooperation organization. Im wondering if the sco matters these days in your view as you focus on the military theater particularly as it expands to include other nations . I mentioned earlier that i would like the conversation about these military exercises and the need for transparency about military exercises generally to be internationalized and to be brought out of the transatlantic concept. When it comes to sco, im not really sure what we can do because sco itself, the United States is not a member, i dont believe any nato members are members. So we and the agenda is very much controlled by the kremlin, by beijing. So i think we can engagewith those countries. Im not sure whether it makes sense to engage through that organization. One component or interesting bit of information concerning china,that its not in the framework of zapad per se. But as i said before, a whole range of different exercises going on during this season. And first were going to see the russian navy exercising with chinese navy First Time Ever on the baltic sea this summer. The chinese will bring three of their most modern ships to the baltic to train with the russian navy. Hi, im the guy who introduced the event. [laughter] sweden and finland have come up during the conversation. Again obviously not members but nato partners and they also live in the region, so to speak, and are close russia watchers themselves. Can you Say Something about or give us abit of a sense of how youre working with sweden and finland in terms of comparing notes or sharing perspectives and talk about both zapad and also sort of russian activity in the broader region. Sure. Of course, we have a good connection with finland and sweden about all kinds of issues. Theres a tight nordic connection when it comes to looking at things we can do on the military side when it comesto exercises and other spaces where we can Work Together as well as sharing notes. When it comes to sharing notes, thats being done. However, there are a few, you know, limitations on what we can share and what we cannot share. Were talking about allies within nato. But i would say that everything is there to be able to cooperate and talk about whatever is on the table. And that is being done. We have time for one or two more. The woman in the white shirt black shirt sorry, cant see you. The woman right here. [laughter] what chance is there that the kremlin would leave behind , indiscernible] go ahead. Stand up and well do a twofer. Alex riten with the state department. In your Opening Statements you specifically mentioned broadening efforts to return russia to compliance by including china and india outside the osb framework. Im wondering if you can elaborate more on how you see that happening. On belarus i would say its not zero and then ill leave it to the military experts. [laughter] on broadening, i i dont frankly think i have gone through the modalities of a but i think it is clear that we, nato, by laterally we can make an approach to the Chinese Government because we certainly in the united date, have an interest also in maintaining a calm militarytomilitary relationship with china. Reducing the risk of miscalculation in the South China Sea in particular, it to some extent in the East China Sea where i dont think there is a territorial dispute. I think china is the first one week ago to, but certainly india is also increasing its capabilities in the maritime arena. All of these countries have a lot to gain from maintaining stability. China, while it is pushing the envelope as i mentioned in the sea still sees great use for its country and achieving its objective to be gained from the existing International Order and law. So while they might push the envelope a little bit to use a tired cliche, it is the on the envelope. We can have a dialogue with these countries that may be great a new mechanism. It might be worth doing that. Something like we have done before in the noncorporation arena where we have the united we can haveng or another country, maybe estonia or norway. But that is what i had in mind, more or less. When it comes to deep belarus question, that is a great question. Anythinge not seen tore we could expect that happen. We do not expect that to happen but we have seen it happen in other parts. Beit is something we will taking a lot of attention to and kind of looking for so i think that is where we are right now. Out of time so on that slightly ominous note, we will wrap up. I would like to thank our panel for a great discussion. It spins up into the larger context of russian and in aement in the west and much larger geopolitical context as well. Very brief. I will add my thanks to you for getting us through the conversation. I would like to thank our panelists and partners. I think this was fascinating and there is certainly lots more to discuss. I would like to also given thanks to those behind the scenes who sort of kept this running, including the media and press. And those here at the Atlantic Council. I would encourage you to stay tuned. This is our curtain raiser or first shot. We will continue watching the exercises closely and after that return with a bit of written analysis and conclusion and observation. So please stay tuned. Thank you to all of you for coming and stay cool today. It will be a hot one. Thank you. Applause] [indiscernible baraks coming up this morning, a confirmation for christopher wray, president trumps nomination to be the next fbi director. Questionedted to be about russian interference in the 2016 election and his events experience at the justice department. Live coverage begins at 9 30 a. M. On cspan3. You can follow it live on cspan. Org and with the cspan radio app. Later today, a hearing on visa overstays, the need for accountability. Starting at 2 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan3. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. A 1979, cspan was created as Public Service by americas Television Companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Armed Services Committee held a confirmation hearing for richard spencer. He is a former marine helicopter pilot and has received support from both democrats and republicans. This is just under two hours

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