November 29, 2022
To Designate or Not? Russia and SST Status
As Ukraine implores the world to condemn Russia to pariah status, a live question is whether the United States should designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism (SST). Proponents of the SST designation are compelled in part by the mounting accounts and images of mass atrocities and graves in Ukraine, while skeptics question if the designation could produce more secondary consequences than positive leverage. Policymakers supporting Ukraine face a sense of increased urgency to impair Russia’s ability to wage war in Ukraine or threaten its neighbors in the future as Russia employs increasingly aggressive tactics, including targeting civilians and energy infrastructure and issuing veiled threats of nuclear war.
The United States is unlikely to expend its political and financial resources to impose additional secondary sanctions as part of its Russia sanctions regime
However, an SST designation is not the appropriate economic or diplomatic tool to use in this context. The United States should not designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism because the designation is a largely symbolic tool that provides minimum additional economic leverage beyond the sanctions and export controls already imposed and entails harmful consequences, such as prioritizing U.S. plaintiff access to frozen Russian assets and narrowing the diplomatic space globally. Instead, U.S. policymakers should create a new designation, such as “aggressor state,” to condemn Russia for its actions against Ukraine while circumventing harmful measures under an SST designation. Under a new aggressor state designation, the United States could leverage maximum diplomatic and economic tools, create a blueprint for coordination with partners, and have a mechanism to discuss a phased delisting.
Read the full article from Lawfare.
More from CNAS
-
Tariffs and Tech: An Uncertain Recipe
Commentary
Higher tariffs could prompt American cloud companies to shift more of their capital investments abroad....
By Pablo Chavez
-
How Do You Tariff a Movie and Liza Tobin on the Trade War with China
Podcast
China expert Liza Tobin, managing director at Garnaut Global and new CNAS adjunct senior fellow, joins Emily Kilcrease and Geoffrey Gertz to discuss the ins and outs of the US...
By Emily Kilcrease, Geoffrey Gertz & Liza Tobin
-
Friendshore First, Trade War Second
Podcast
Edward Fishman is the author of Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare. Fishman is an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS...
By Edward Fishman
-
Trump's First 100 Days in Trade Policy
Podcast
Emily and Geoff look back on the first 100 days of Trump’s trade policy, with a focus on how different parts of the U.S. political and economic system are reacting. They get i...
By Emily Kilcrease & Geoffrey Gertz
