How intelligence is helping to win the unthinkable war with Russia

Exploiting the conditions wrought by Vladimir Putin’s indiscriminate violence in Ukraine and repression at home, the U.S. is leveraging intelligence to preemptively shape the battlefield, covertly enable partners, pressure cooperation from allies, and mitigate against the cornered Russian leader’s inclination toward further escalation.

Metaphors for influence campaigns abound in this struggle, which rightfully casts Putin and his kleptocratic minions as the villains in this epic David versus Goliath tale. Putin’s scorched-earth tactics provide ample fodder to amplify the good v. evil plot line as his reckless dispatch of poorly supported and badly led troops undermines his image of omnipotent master strategist. And American support to Ukraine’s heroic battlefield defense, overt and covert alike, is being celebrated and encouraged rather than disparaged and condemned.

Just as the war in Ukraine has evolved into a profound conflict between autocracies and liberal democracies, it concurrently has produced a stunning reevaluation in how the Americans view espionage and their intelligence agencies. Intelligence was a field arguably seen by many through jaundiced eyes given past abuses, failures and the perception of its problematic moral compass. At best, espionage was considered a necessary and hardly reliable evil whose workings were a mystery and credibility suspect. Moreover, unable to publicly defend itself, intelligence agencies provided a convenient scapegoat for what were often policy failures, as America’s haphazard withdrawal from Afghanistan demonstrated.

{mosads}Today, however, intelligence increasingly is seen as an instrument of national power — and possibly even an enterprise for good. The West has seized the narrative in no small part due to its ongoing release of raw intelligence. Declassified, stolen secrets have helped shift worldwide public opinion concerning Russia, NATO and the price of freedom that democratic nations hold dear, but for which many long underinvested. If you doubt it, just ask whether Ukraine would have found such international support had Putin invaded in November 2021, before the American influence campaign had time to develop and earn credibility.

As much as Putin tries to block his public from international media and crush expression dissent, news is getting through. Russians are receiving ground truth concerning the disastrous Ukrainian campaign, as well as warnings sourced to U.S. intelligence of Putin’s nefarious designs, much of which were borne out by events. According to press and social media, fissures are emerging across Russia, offering U.S. intelligence yet more means to covertly pressure the isolated Russian leader.

Up until the onset of Putin’s Ukrainian escapade, Germany long had been Russia’s apologist and advocate for economic co-dependency, likewise lagging behind its NATO partners in defense spending. But Berlin is suddenly prominent among Europe’s champions for sanctions and military preparedness. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz suspended the Nord Stream 2 pipeline even before Putin’s renewed launch of hostilities and aims to double his country’s military budget over the next two years.

The brandishing of intelligence has been used to warn rivals such as China of the prospective costs in supporting Russia or pursuing its own military solution for Taiwan. Declassified intelligence is facilitating unity among allies by galvanizing worldwide opinion, pressuring once problematic partners such as Poland’s Jaroslaw Kaczynski into cooperation.

While our stand against Russia’s brutal Ukrainian campaign is appropriately about drawing the line to prevent a World War III from which the planet might not survive, the truth is we’re already at war. For the moment, the Ukrainians are shouldering the battle, human suffering, and devastation, while the U.S. and its allies fight by all means short of armed conflict. Critical in that support has been U.S. intelligence and American special operations forces’ work with Ukrainian counterparts that has paid significant dividends on the battlefield. And the well-considered declassification of intelligence continues to undermine Putin’s plans, exposing disinformation and cautioning would-be enablers, while likewise contributing to cohesion among allies.

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It’s intelligence and messaging on which we’re relying to preempt Russia from escalating to chemical, biological or nuclear weapons in the near term. The economic consequences Russia faces from sanctions, hard as they will be, are a long-term challenge for Putin — but not as immediately persuasive as might be the real threat of a popular uprising or insider threat that intelligence and covert operations might bring about if he persists.

While many seemed shocked when Putin’s chief spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused during an interview to rule out Russia’s using nuclear weapons against an “existential threat,” it was hardly a revelation and unfortunately credible. In June 2020, Putin signed a decree that permits Russia to use nuclear weapons not only in response to an attack in kind but also if an aggression using conventional weapons were judged as existential.

Read on, and Putin’s doctrine also endorsed nuclear first use, were Russia to receive “reliable information” about a planned launch of ballistic missiles targeting it or the Kremlin’s allies and in the case of  “enemy impact on critically important government or military facilities.” That’s a far lower and more subjective threshold should Putin conclude that he, rather than the Russian state, faced an existential threat.

U.S. intelligence forecasting the very real potential for Putin’s use of weapons of mass destruction aims to telegraph the risks to the Russian leader, dissuade those who would execute his plan, and encourage others with the access and power to act against his doing so. In parallel, it fosters allied consensus, coordination and preparation should the unthinkable come to fruition.

Pleased as I am after a more than 34-year career with the CIA’s Clandestine Service to witness a veritable intelligence renaissance, circumstances beg the question as to whether U.S. intelligence is up to the challenge. The long war on terrorism arguably fixated the intelligence community on a “find, fix, finish” and paramilitary culture at the expense of traditional foreign intelligence capabilities. But while the community might have underinvested in the classic tradecraft of recruiting and clandestinely handling human sources over that span, it gained an extraordinary education in declassifying and sharing sensitive intelligence while preserving sources and methods.

Clandestine reporters operating against terrorist organizations required a different mentality regarding the use and preservation of their secrets. Their information was intended not just to inform policymakers; rather, it was actionable. It was shared not merely with foreign partners who could take action on America’s behalf, but also private industry and, increasingly, the public given the duty to warn obligation.

{mossecondads}Intelligence had to be “sanitized” for those facing threat and others in a position to counter them. That meant not only transparency with the likes of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security at home, but variously the Transportation Security Administration, state and local law enforcement, businesses, the airlines, railways, ports and airport authorities around the world, just to name some. The intelligence community had to become proficient in quickly sterilizing time-sensitive raw reporting into “tearlines” that retained the critical details but removed the operational details in its acquisition.

The well from which the U.S. is drawing intelligence is not infinite and any exposure comes with consequences. While I am optimistic that Putin’s actions have created an exploitable atmosphere within Russia and its satellite states for U.S. and Allied intelligence services, espionage is complex, time consuming and risky. Though preserving sources and methods for the long game is critical, the trajectory of threats that might escalate into chemical, biological or nuclear warfare justifies going all in now to secure a tomorrow.

Containment and hardening defenses is not enough to dissuade Putin from escalation, and diplomacy is only as effective as the leverage on which it is based. Moreover, no-fly zones and “red lines” from which belligerents are unable to walk back are inherently destabilizing. But complementing military deployments, diplomacy and economic measures by depressing the accelerator on covert capabilities has given the shadowy world of intelligence a new role, look and appreciation in modern-day conflicts.

Douglas London teaches intelligence studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and is a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute. A Russian-speaking operations officer, he served in the CIA’s Clandestine Service for over 34 years, including three assignments as a chief of station, one in a former Soviet state. He is the author of “The Recruiter: Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence.” Follow him on Twitter @DouglasLondon5.