Asia & the Pacific

Brigadier General Kevin Ryan (US Army retired), director of the Defense and Intelligence Projects at the Belfer Center, participated in the opening of a memorial dedicated to the meeting of American and Soviet Armies at the river Elbe in 1945. The dedication took place in Moscow on Monday, April 25, 2016. In this article, General Ryan describes the background to the memorial.

On November 24^th, 2015, fighter aircraft from Turkey, a NATO state, shot down a Russian Su24 fighter along the Turkish-Syrian border.  A local Syrian rebel group claimed to have found one of the pilots dead.  Not since a Soviet sentry shot US Army Major Arthur Nicholson in 1985, has there been a shooting death between the forces of Russia and members of NATO.....

Even if it is not possible to reconcile the two sides politically and diplomatically, it is vital that a military dialogue reopen now to provide national leaders with a means to deconflict and resolve security issues without resorting to force.  NATO and Russia should reopen military-to-military contacts to provide transparency over capabilities and intentions – the two components of a threat.  This kind of dialogue was able to keep the Cold War “cold” and is needed again.

This paper was written by Stephen R. Covington, with a Foreword written by Kevin Ryan.

In Putin’s view, any solution short of changing the European security system—including full integration, separation by erecting new walls, freezing the status quo around Russia, or partnering with other countries to counter-balance the powers in the European system—only means Russia’s inevitable loss of great power status and the loss of his personal power at home.

On June 5, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter met with U.S. diplomatic and military leaders in Stuttgart, Germany to review America's response to Russian aggression in Crimea and Ukraine. His review of strategy follows a May 12 meeting by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry with President Vladimir Putin in Sochi. After this visit, Kevin Ryan asks, "is the U.S.-Russian relationship set to improve or get worse?"

In celebration of the 70th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany and on the eve of the anniversary of the meeting of Soviet and American troops on the Elbe, the Carnegie Moscow Center organized a conference held April 23, 2015 in Moscow to discuss the experience of Russian-American alliance during the Second World War, as well as the experience of cooperation and rivalry after the end of the Cold War. The Elbe meeting took place on April 25, 1945.

Brigadier General (ret.) Kevin Ryan, director of the Belfer Center's Defense and Intelligence Projects and founder of The Elbe Group, spoke at the conference in Russian about the significance of the Elbe anniversary to U.S.-Russian relations today. His Russian remarks and English translation are available.

What is President Vladimir Putin's next move? The answer is thus far undecided, perhaps even for Putin.

To put ourselves in Putin's shoes, writes Kevin Ryan, "Western observers and analysts have searched history for analogous moments in time. Historians tell us that if we can find similar historical circumstances, we might be better able to predict what will happen next. Some experts look to 1914 and the run-up to World War I for clues and insights. But for Putin and his inner circle, the most analogous moment in history is December 2001. Russia is playing the role of the U.S. as it basked in the initial 'success' of Afghanistan and contemplated Iraq. The parallels are uncanny."

As U.S. and Soviet forces converged in Germany in the final days of WWII, both armies met at the River Elbe near Torgau. That meeting of comrades, united in the face of common threats, is the inspiration for the Belfer Center’s “Elbe Group,” whose purpose is to maintain an open and continuous channel of communication on sensitive issues of U.S.-Russian relations. In late March, the Elbe Group met in Jerusalem for its eighth meeting since its founding in 2010.