How the CIA Forgot the Art of Spying
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I'm not saying that to be a US-triumphalist; most Russians are great people. And the country has some great things going for it (STEM education, athletics, etc).
My point is, during the Cold War, the US and its allies were engaged in a tooth-and-nail fight against the USSR and its allies to win a very public argument about whose system was better. This is no longer the case. People in some countries might wish their leader was a macho man like Putin, but nobody in their right mind wants their country to become more Russia-like.
So, who cares if the Russian security services are best-in-class? Who cares if their cloak-and-dagger game is head and shoulders above that of our spies? They're the tip of a spear with a rotting shaft.
The problem is that these systems work a lot better than Communism ever did, especially if you look only at economic indicators, and only at the part of the population that doesn't complain.
You appear to be describing any set of policies you don't like as "authoritarianism". There's nothing anti-authoritarian about the French politicians who are publicly committed to handing ever more power to the EU, for example.
Not sure how exactly how exactly the CIA can help there.
The United States has been authoritarian for at least a half-century.
The west also doesn't have immense societal problems?
Probably not a great idea to disregard the strength of a countries military/intelligence services because it has social issues. Unless the social issues are serious enough they are going to collapse the underlying support for the entire military/intelligence infrastructure. Which I don't see being the case in Russia any more than in the west.
My "uninformed" opinion is that the CIA is largely succumbing to bureaucratic rot. Which eventually happens to most large organizations. Particularly those who have managed to remove themselves from effective oversight because "top secret".
I do actually think that the diminishing quality of life there constitutes a threat to support for their government, including its intel services.
Just my opinion, but one based on lived experience.
I don't doubt much of Russia is an awful place. I've never been there and have zero desire to go. But from what I conceive, I just don't see the unpleasantness collapsing the system any faster than it is going to in the west.
I appreciate your experience and thoughts. I just find middle kingdom VS unwashed barbarians who don't know enough to offer sacrifices to the right gods so how can they be smart enough to beat us? type thinking a bit dangerous.
It's like a meeting with Microsoft executives laughing about a start up calling them potheads and basement dwellers, saying there are only 6 of them, and besides, we have a well funded task force working on that exact project who should have a preliminary report out in 9-12 months so no need for concern.
Russian military/intelligence capabilities are obviously fairly formidable. I believe we should recognize this regardless of how much their citizens drink.
True. But we should keep the overall geopolitical context in mind as we formulate policy.
Russia/USSR having a formidable military/intel apparatus is not remotely the same threat when they no longer have the ability to be competitive in the "life is better under our system" debate.
I think it would be a mistake to further dial up tensions with them based solely on a notional "black ops gap".
100% agreement on that point.
Hell, you don't have to go far. Downtown-LA has plenty of human misery and poverty. Pretty much every major US city has a dystopian reality underneath its covers.
The argument "their economy is based on natural resources so it's weak" often gets made, but how is this type of economy intrinsically weaker or more susceptible to collapse than economies based on financial shell games? Never understood.
Friends in provincial cities report it has been a really, really bad winter.
"Kick the door in..."
Russia seems to have learned their lesson from multiple failures in the past. Their mission in Syria was short and successful (e.g. more like Iraq 1991 than Iraq 2003).
The only time the USSR could have had a chance to conquer the west was in the immediate aftermath of WWII, and Stalin was not interested in starting WWIII.
Scared people will do what they are told. That's why we have nonsense like the TSA now.
The collapse of the Soviet Union was in some ways an opportunity as it allowed rotting bureaucratic systems to be replaced with more effective ones. It's not like all the expertise and technology went away either.
Population of Russia has been growing for the last 8 years, where are you getting your numbers from? Are you sure you have a correct image of the country if you operate with such grossly inaccurate numbers?
Forget the scenario, it's worse than that. The biggest failure of the CIA, replacing seasoned field-officers with desk jockey Analysts and ^zero fieldcraft^. [0] Fieldcraft was a casualty post-911. [1]
[0] Bob Baer, "Dagger to the CIA" ~ http://www.gq.com/story/dagger-to-the-cia
[1] Bob Baer, “The place is broken” ~ http://www.salon.com/2004/05/12/baer_2/
Sure you can find fringe members, set them up, then pat yourself on the back when you arrest them for attempting to detonate the fake explosives in Time Square that you gave them like the FBI does.
But broadly, the techniques developed through the hyper educated European IC lineage to persuade other hyper-educated IC members that their particular 19th Century theory of economics and government is wrong aren't going to work against an illiterate opium farmer who's principles come from a 10th Century manuscript.
Hell, this is the meta-theme of Daniel Craig's James Bond.
Edit: Turns out HTTPS Everywhere was rewriting it to use https://secure.politico.com rather than http://www.politico.com and that broke the link.