The legislation on Russian sanctions that the U.S. Congress passed and President Donald Trump grudgingly signed this month was shortsighted. The bill reassured Americans, but it angered Europeans -- and in the end, it may have little impact on Russians. This bill imposes additional sanctions on Moscow for its continued actions in Ukraine and for its involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, while restricting the president’s ability to ease any sanctions on Russia without congressional approval.
The sanctions bill was certainly a domestic win for Congress. It passed with bipartisan support shortly after Republicans in the Senate failed to unify over a health care bill. Outside of Capitol Hill, the sanctions are also a comfort to Americans who are concerned about Russian interference in the U.S. democratic process and who worry that Trump will be soft in his response to Russian aggression. The 2017 Chicago Council on Global Affairs survey found that Americans increasingly view Russia as a threat. A meager 18 percent view Russian President Vladimir Putin favorably. Most importantly, a majority of Americans now prefer actively limiting Russia’s power (53 percent) to friendly cooperation and engagement with Russia (43 percent). This reverses the opinions registered in 2016, when 58 percent favored engagement and 43 percent favored containment.
But Congress wasn’t only responding to the wishes of the American public with this bill. The main aim of the sanctions is to coerce Russia to alter its behavior. But it is not clear that the Russian government feels much domestic pressure to meet the conditions set by the sanctions. Moreover, these restrictions should be implemented in a way that shields our allies from any negative consequences. Because this most recent bill was decided unilaterally -- and not jointly with our European allies -- its measures could harm our friends in Europe.
Alienating Russia - and Europe too?
The sanctions bill is intended to compel Russia to return Crimea to Ukraine; cease incitement in Eastern Ukraine; and end interference in Western democratic elections. The bill is unlikely to achieve this. There’s little reason to believe the Russian government will face backlash from its public in response to the new sanctions. A recent Atlantic Council report suggests that sanctions took their greatest toll when the price of oil plunged in 2014, and the Russian public proved willing to weather them. At the same time, public opinion surveys in Russia after the first round of sanctions took effect indicated a rally-around-the-flag effect. Shortly after the first round of sanctions were placed, a Levada poll found that 69 percent of Russians thought Russia should ignore them, and as of this writing, that number remains roughly unchanged at 70 percent. Additionally, 74 percent of Russians believe the sanctions were meant to "weaken" Russia rather than to stop its actions in Ukraine.
Furthermore, annexing Crimea and aiding ethnic Russians fighting in Eastern Ukraine are both popular among Russians. Last spring, a Pew Research Center poll found that 52 percent of Russians think their government should intervene in defense of ethnic Russians living abroad, while 60 percent believe that “parts of neighboring countries belong to Russia.” The belief that parts of neighboring countries really belong to Russia is not new, nor is it a reflection of state media in the aftermath of the Crimean annexation. Sixty-four percent of Russians surveyed felt this way as early as 2002.
Clearly more pressure needs to be put on Russia to effect change, but the United States needs its allies to exert that pressure. The sanctions bill not only fails to shield European allies from collateral damage, but it cuts its teeth by targeting our friends. The bill specifies that any non-U.S. corporations that assist Russia’s energy export development can be penalized if they do not comply with U.S. sanctions. This threatens the Nord Stream 2 project, a new Russia-Germany pipeline from Europe's top oil supplier, Russia, which is being built to transport another 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year. As a result, the European Union, France, and Germany have all expressed their disapproval of the specifics in the sanctions bill; the president of the European Commission even threatened retaliatory measures.
A New York Times op-ed reported that Sen. Ben Cardin intended the sanctions bill to allow for waivers for projects such as Nord Stream 2. Such waivers would be a step in the right direction, but only if they help open up the possibility for the Trump administration and European leaders to negotiate an even tougher deal. Historically, secondary sanctions such as these have not worked. Washington tried to apply similar sanctions to Iran in 1996, targeting firms that invested in Iranian energy. Much like today, Europe questioned the legality of the sanctions and in the end forced the United States to issue a number of waivers to European companies which lessened the impact of the sanctions. It was not until Iran lived under international sanctions for seven years, and with the weight of the U.N. Security Council behind the measures, that Tehran was finally willing to negotiate.
While the congressional bill implementing increased sanctions on Russia was successful in addressing the concerns of the American public, it will probably be nowhere nearly so successful in getting Russia to comply. Even worse, the way the sanctions bill was designed may drain support from our European allies. Recently the Economist reported that Germans are already losing interest in maintaining sanctions against Russia, and public opinion polling has backed up this assertion. A late July Forsa survey found that 83 percent of Germans oppose the new U.S. sanctions. This is unsurprising: Germany will lose the most if Washington goes after corporations working on Nord Stream 2.
Transatlantic unity should not be made a casualty of U.S.-Russia tensions. Instead, the United States should be working to find ways of strengthening sanctions with Europe. The sanctions placed against Russia in 2014 drew their power from transatlantic unity. Now, Europe and the United States should jointly decide how best to target Russia’s energy sector. Europe, too, has been a target of Russian election meddling, and it suffers far more from the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. It makes little sense for the United States to alienate it.
