Biden's economic assault against Russia is missing a vital player.

 

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has hastened a historic expansion of export controls, far beyond their usual focus on preventing nuclear and conventional weapons proliferation.

However, in the United States, the shift toward new goals, such as inflicting economic pain on adversary countries and preventing the abusive use of new technologies to monitor populations, is occurring without a key official in place — the undersecretary of Commerce for industry and security, who oversees the implementation of US export controls.

The full Senate has yet to vote on President Joe Biden's nomination of former Defense Department official Alan Estevez for the position, owing to a policy disagreement between the Biden administration and Senate Foreign Relations Chair Bob Menendez over regulating firearms exports. This has left the Bureau of Industry and Security at the Commerce Department without a leader at a time when the department is attempting to enforce an unprecedented number of new regulations.

The Commerce Department published a list of Russian-owned aircraft that have flown into Russia in recent days on Friday, warning that supplying any services to those planes would violate new US export regulations, effectively preventing them from traveling internationally.

"Export restrictions have never been more complicated than they are today," said Kevin Wolf, a former assistant secretary of Commerce for export administration during the Obama administration who has spent three decades working in the field. "By definition, leadership is required to lead this cognitively challenging endeavor."

While BIS career officers and the agency's two new assistant secretaries did a "outstanding job" in implementing additional export controls on Russia following the country's invasion on Ukraine, Wolf said the agency's enormous needs needed it to be fully staffed.