In light of yet another tease of a US-Russia detente, I thought it’d be an opportune time to check in on the infamous goals set forth in the 2019 RAND paper Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground.
We’ve had a lot of noise about US-Russia deals in the past few weeks, including that the US is moving in on Nord Stream, the diesel exports, and now the pressure on Zelensky that might include new restrictions on intelligence sharing.
Whether one believes that it’s simply to buy some time to let Ukraine and its Western backers catch their breath and regroup or if it’s a genuine effort by some factions in the Blob to get a cut of Russian energy flowing to Europe while easing a little of the oil crunch and continue maximum pressure on Iran, it’s highly unlikely that the long-term goal of collapsing Russia will end. The US has vassals for that.
And indeed, recent additions to the literature on US strategy vis a vis Russia go into detail on just that point.
There’s the U.S. Army War College report from June of this year builds on RAND report with an exclusive focus on Europe. It’s there the US is to maintain the nuclear umbrella and command-and-control while Europe is to provide blood, money, and soil solely for the primary interest of the US imperial core. It is preparation for proxy warfare and learning from the mistakes of Project Ukraine. It admits the following:
A deliberate and systematic “steel porcupine” strategy in Ukraine would have strengthened the denial pillar of NATO’s deterrence strategy.”
That role will now fall to Europe as the report calls for a pivot to a positional-defense framework.
What they’re talking about is Europe taking massive Russian strikes while simultaneously bleeding Russia through a long air war of attrition. Sounds insane, right? Yet there are no signs the European elite feel the same way.
There’s also Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent fascist diatribe in Athens which calls for European nationalism—and sacrifice— in service of the empire, which we covered here on Monday.
For anyone not yet familiar with the RAND paper and those who need some refreshing, we’ll do a quick rundown of each main economic strategy and geographical pressure point in the paper and compare with the situation on the ground today. First, an overview. RAND advocated for the following:
…a range of nonviolent measures that could exploit Russia’s actual vulnerabilities and anxieties as a way of stressing Russia’s military and economy and the regime’s political standing at home and abroad. The steps we examine would not have either defense or deterrence as their prime purpose, although they might contribute to both. Rather, these steps are conceived of as elements in a campaign designed to unbalance the adversary, leading Russia to compete in domains or regions where the United States has a competitive advantage, and causing Russia to overextend itself militarily or economically or causing the regime to lose domestic and/or international prestige and influence.
Away we go.
Oil and Gas Revenue
The goal:
…expanding U.S. energy production and imposing trade and financial sanctions on Russia seem most likely to further stress the Russian economy, government budget, and defense spending. Russia needs oil export revenues to maintain its government operations, including military activities abroad and the provision of social services and pensions at home. Limits to oil revenues will lead Russia to make difficult choices beyond those it has had to make already. Global oil prices and production are beyond the full control of a single country, but the United States can adopt policies that expand world supply and thus depress global prices, thereby limiting Russian revenue.
This wasn’t working before the US ill-fated war on Iran that created global shortages of oil and gas and petroleum products; it really hasn’t been working since. Russia was still able to find buyers of its oil, namely the two largest population countries in the world, India and China. Europe continued to buy Russian oil, although via middlemen at marked-up prices, and natural gas, albeit in LNG rather than the cheaper and more reliable pipeline route.
While Ukraine/NATO strikes on Russian refineries and tankers have hurt, Moscow is able to return the favor and then some to Ukraine, and the undoubted loser in the energy war has been the EU.
The US has become a global leader in energy production and exports, although there are questions about how long that can last. At the same time, due to the chokepoints Washington created in the Middle East, a global economic catastrophe is approaching thanks to rising prices driving inflation, shortages and dwindling reserves.
The mess has boomeranged on the Trump administration which is watching GOP prospects sink in the upcoming midterm elections. Trump tried to reach a deal with Russia for it to increase diesel exports, although that idea is facing heavy resistance, likely wouldn’t make much of a difference, and might simply be designed to make progress toward the long-coveted ceasefire in Ukraine in order to stall an inevitable Russian victory.
In other words, it’s all a complete disaster, and the worst is yet to come. The strategy to hit Russian energy exports has only contributed to shortages, price rises, and what’s expected to be a global food shock come spring. It has had no discernible effect on the stability of the government in Moscow.
Overall, Russia is doing just fine even without pipeline gas heading to Europe, and forecasts are steady despite the EU’s plan to stop all purchases of Russian gas come New Year’s Day 2027:
The RAND report also argued that Russia has very few allies, and that it could be easily isolated. Perhaps it doesn’t have allies, but other countries do have interests, chief among them energy, and so Moscow’s economic relationship with other countries has risen while it has fallen with Europe.
Cost-Imposing Measures
The goal:
Strong contenders for a cost-imposing strategy against Russia include investments in long-range cruise missiles, long-range anti-radiation missiles, and—if they are affordable enough to be produced in high numbers—autonomous or remotely piloted aircraft. All of these moves would generate pressure on Moscow to increase the range and capabilities of the ground and air elements of Russia’s integrated air defense systems, which would be costly. Investments in more-sophisticated electronic warfare capabilities would complement these options but might not trigger Russian investments to counter them if Russian leaders did not know that U.S. electronic warfare systems had been upgraded. Touting prospective breakthroughs in critical military technologies might also spur a Russian response even if the breakthrough is never achieved. Russian anxieties regarding the foregoing options could be further heightened by periodic bomber deployments to European and Asian bases, along with the deployment of additional tactical nuclear weapons to Europe and Asia.
By most objective accounts, the Russians now have the most battle-hardened and effective —in cost and function—weaponry in the world, and its military-industrial capacity outpaces the US and Europe. A country that was previously eager to develop economic relationships with the US and Europe has now been awoken and turned into a military juggernaut. Has it strained Russia? Of course. From the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute:
Russia’s federal budget funding of the war and other military spending reached about 16 trillion roubles in 2025, or 7.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). However, the real-terms growth of military spending moderated, from 38 per cent in 2024 to 6.1 per cent in 2025.
In an attempt to restore balance to an economy overheated by increased spending on the war, in 2025 the government implemented a tough monetary policy to reduce the rate of inflation. Yet, budgetary pressures mounted, with an end-of-year deficit of 2.6 per cent GDP.
Yet, that is nothing compared to the cost-imposing measures Europe is dealing with.
EU nations are pushing ahead with rearmament as unrest spreads across the bloc. Recent events in France are clarifying. As frustration boiled over in the streets, where was President Macron?
À bord de la frégate multi-missions Auvergne, j’ai assisté au premier tir du nouveau missile balistique M51.3 depuis le sous-marin nucléaire lanceur d’engins Le Vigilant.
Très peu de nations disposent d’un tel savoir-faire.
Félicitations à tous les acteurs de cette réussite exceptionnelle : DGA, CEA, Ariane Group, Naval Group et Marine nationale. Votre professionnalisme, votre rigueur et votre maîtrise technique sont la fierté de la France.
Ce succès technique est une nouvelle démonstration de la crédibilité de notre dissuasion, dont la pérennité est assurée.
Pour être libre, il faut être craint. Et pour être craint, il faut être puissant.
Pour protéger les Français dans la durée face aux menaces, j’ai engagé dès 2017 le renouvellement de nos moyens pour les décennies à venir. En dix ans, le budget de nos armées aura doublé. Nos futurs sous-marins stratégiques sont actuellement en chantier. Le programme de missiles stratégiques hypersoniques et manœuvrants, qui équiperont notre composante aérienne de dissuasion, a été lancé cette année.
Notre dissuasion nucléaire nous protège et continuera à nous protéger.
Vive la République et vive la France.
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) October 6, 2026
The coming years are likely to be explosive in energy-starved Europe as the political class remains committed to detonating the continent’s societies. Here’s Stop ReArm Europe:
“Thousands of high school students and university students across Europe are rising up to refuse militarisation and the return of conscription. Nearly 20 million children in the EU—one in four—live at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Meanwhile, governments have committed to military spending that the EU’s own Defence Commissioner, Andrius Kubilius, puts at €7 trillion by 2035.”
The US might be in better shape compared to Europe, but that’s not saying much.
It is also dealing with a breakdown in trust, incomprehensible income inequality, an inability to supply its imperial adventures, a sugar high economy overdue for another crash, and domestic oppression. While its GDP might far outpace Russia’s, the latter is playing defense and would appear to have a much more cohesive and supportive society.
All in all, the West appears far more destabilized than Russia does. And that’s not a great sign when even the RAND report declares, “Russia’s greatest vulnerability in any competition with the United States is its economy.”
Geopolitical Measures
The goals:
Perhaps the most literal way to extend Russia would be to increase the costs of its foreign commitments. As early as the 1940s, George Kennan—the father of containment—suggested that the Soviet Union was already overextended and that the military, economic, and political costs of sustaining its empire would ultimately be one of the factors leading to the reform or collapse of the Communist system.
Russia today is far less extended than the old Soviet Union. Its domestic population is much more homogeneous, with ethnic Russians composing more than 77 percent of its population.1 Its external commitments are far more limited, comprising only small bits of Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova and a larger portion of Syria.
The report goes on to mention possible U.S. moves to increase Russia’s foreign commitments:
1. Providing lethal arms to Ukraine.
Millions of casualties and hundreds of billions of dollars later and here we are. I suppose one could argue Russia has been extended. The end game of the conflict remains to be seen. There’s a good chance the area that is now Ukraine will remain a smoldering wreckage of suffering and violence for many decades to come. Ongoing western-Sponsored Ukrainian attacks on occupying Russian forces in Ukraine and within Russia itself are likely.
2. Resuming support to the Syrian rebels.
The Al Qaeda “rebels” got their support, and they got Syria.
Moscow refused to take the bait to get drawn into a conflict there when the Syrian armed forces had been paid off to stand down. It cut its losses and maintains a small presence on the coast of northeastern Syria, although it has to suffer through the humiliation of transferring commercial facilities to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham paramilitary group and transforming its two military bases into joint training centers. That means Russian forces will be training alongside Al Qaeda who they had fought against since their entry into the war in 2015.
3. Promoting regime change in Belarus
The US might be promoting it, but so far it ain’t happening. And doesn’t appear particularly close. The Trump administration recently tried to pry its way in via a fertilizer deal, but Belarus wasn’t having it without the participation of Russia.
4. Exploiting Armenian and Azeri tensions.
Interestingly, the US went the opposite way on this one, swooping in to replace Moscow as peace broker between the two Caucasus countries and taking over a Russia-planned transit corridor between Azerbaijan and Turkey via Armenia. The Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) has been slow to develop but threatens to give the US an outsize role in logistics at the Caucasus crossroads, as well as form a NATO corridor from Turkey to the Caspian—and potentially into Central Asia.
Armenia has become a NATO outpost despite the very real possibility that this path will destroy it economically—or worse. Yerevan is now making more noise about ejecting Russia from its one military base in the country.
Azerbaijan, too, is quickly becoming economically linked to the EU through its gas exports. The country announced at the end of last year that its military was now on NATO standards, and it’s boasted that Caspian naval drones could threaten Russian ships there.
While that would mean suicide for Azerbaijan, it does help highlight the increasing importance of the Caspian for Russia. With planned land routes through the Caucasus hitting a bumpy patch and the Black Sea becoming a battle theater, volume on the Caspian route from Russia to Iran is taking off.
Yet this connection also faces challenges. Iranian Caspian infrastructure was recently struck in its conflict with the US-Israel, and whatever bombs don’t achieve climate change will. The Caspian is drying rapidly.
5. Intensifying attention to Central Asia
TRIPP and the wider Middle Corridor have only become more important as other trade routes—both land and sea—are breaking down to wars and sanctions.
The corridor’s importance to the West was recently highlighted by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announcement in her annual address that the EU will spend 12 billion euros on projects to triple trade flows along the Central Asia-Europe trade route by 2030.
Alam and Blancas (2026), Map O.1, “Main trade corridors connecting Asia and Europe.” World Bank. CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Despite the grand plans, TRIPP has made little progress since the US signed its agreement with Armenia and Azerbaijan. One could reasonably suspect that the delays are due to warnings from Moscow and/or Tehran that aren’t keen on a NATO corridor slicing through their shared backyard. In the case of Iran, TRIPP runs parallel to its northern border with Armenia, and in some spots is only a few hundred meters away.
So while TRIPP and EU gas contracts have successfully reoriented Armenia and Azerbaijan toward the West, there are reality-based limits to how much that relationship can grow. The same holds true, and even moreso, for Central Asia.
The economic—or worse— downside for these countries of supporting the West’s war on Russia is so great that it’s likely large quantities of money are changing hands in order for them wager their nations’ futures on alliances with Washington and friends.
As Europe has shown, however, the ability to go against a nation’s economic self-interest in pursuit of inflicting pain on Russia should not be underestimated.
The above-listed items are not the only avenues for exeerting pressure on Russia. As RAND also notes:
There are several other possible geopolitical moves discussed in other RAND research but not directly evaluated here—including intensifying NATO’s relationship with Sweden and Finland, pressuring Russia’s claims in the Arctic…
Those, too, have come to pass, and regardless of what happens with the latest attempt to pressure Zelensky and achieve a ceasefire, efforts to apply pressure in these other theaters are likely to continue—with one caveat. What other documents like the Army War College report and Rubio’s Athens’ speech make clear, however, is that these plans rest on “allies” doing the dying and suffering the economic fallout.
Still, there are few signs that Russia is anywhere close to a crisis in government. If anything, it has grown stronger due to the efforts to “overextend” it.
There’s still hope though! Foreign Affairs recently ran another installment in a series of pieces arguing that the plan will all come together once Putin either retires or dies.
Julian G. Waller, a research scientist in the Russia Studies Program at the Center for Naval Analyses and a Professorial Lecturer in Political Science at George Washington University, writes that, “A specter is haunting Russia—the specter of succession.”
The whole piece is unserious, but provides insight into the scholarship of American Russian studies programs. Unmentioned, of course, by Waller is that Putin is a dove compared to many in Russian leadership positions who would like to see a much more aggressive posture toward countries that have made clear their intentions to harm Russia’s interests. The Russian president is criticized frequently for his cautious approach. The world might not be so lucky with whoever comes next, and that could result in a much wider and deadlier war.
I suppose that would be a success in the eyes of some, however, as it might “overextend” Russia.
