The Biden administration fired a pebble-like diplomatic warning shot across German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s bow on Tuesday when it included three German companies in new sanctions targeting Russia. A larger number of Russian companies and individuals were included in the sanctions portfolio.
These sanctions are better than nothing, but they aren’t going to alter Vladimir Putin’s strategic calculus nor significantly strengthen transatlantic security. The sanctions were imposed in response to the Russian FSB intelligence service’s August 2020 poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Navalny was poisoned with a Novichok-class nerve agent, the same class as was used in the Kremlin’s 2018 assassination attempt against a former British intelligence agent and his daughter (Navalny has just begun a two-year prison sentence on false charges dreamed up by Putin’s lackeys.)
Reflecting Putin’s twice-in-three-years use of Novichok, the new U.S. sanctions are designed to enforce the Chemical Weapons Convention, a treaty to which Russia is a signatory. In October 2020, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which supervises adherence to the Convention, independently identified the Novichok variant that was used against Navalny. That matters because Novichok falls under the Convention’s proscribed class of weapons.
That said, the listing of these German companies is a clear diplomatic warning shot across Berlin’s bow. Reflecting its concerns over the diplomatic sensitivity of the German listings (Germany being one of America’s nominally closest allies), the Commerce Department announced the number and nationality of the new additions but did not clearly list their actual names. This stands in contrast with other listings by the Treasury and State Departments, which listed the new identities.
Regardless, the top line is clear. The United States is telling Merkel that it is dissatisfied with her policy toward Russia.
This dissatisfaction is eminently justified. It’s not just Merkel’s deficient defense spending, far below the NATO 2%-of-GDP target. The chancellor, who will leave office later this year, is also the European Union powerhouse behind Putin’s legacy energy project, the Nord Stream II natural gas pipeline.
The exclusion of that pipeline from Biden administration sanctions is why I refer to them as “pebbles.” They will attract Merkel’s attention, to be sure. Just nowhere near as much as sanctions against Nord Stream II would accomplish.
Still, the Biden administration’s problem is that if it truly cares about strengthening NATO and transatlantic security, Nord Stream II must go. The pipeline’s completion would afford Putin heavy multi-generational influence over western European energy supplies. It would also undercut Ukrainian energy supplies to western Europe, weakening that fragile democracy while it remains under Russian attack. Putin could leverage Nord Stream II to win the EU’s acquiescence to his foreign policy priorities. Considering that the EU is already highly deferential toward Moscow, reluctant even to wave the flag against Putin’s intimidation, the pipeline’s completion is a looming disaster. It will weaken NATO and empower Putin. Killing off Nord Stream II should be, and was for the Trump administration, a no-brainer.
These sanctions are better than nothing. But if Biden wants to strengthen NATO and undermine Putin’s security interests, he’ll have to go under the Baltic Sea.
