Policy makers, especially policy makers who have never seen action, are often seduced by covert operations. They see them as the perfect policy instrument: cheap, deniable, effective. Yes, there can be tremendously effective covert or at least non-conventional operations and campaigns, but just as all intelligence operations must come to terms with the fundamental truth that nothing is guaranteed to stay secret for ever, so too these sneaky campaigns can very easily either fail or, even more likely, have unexpected consequences that may overshadow the intended outcome. After all, while Al-Qaeda and the rise of Osama Bin Laden cannot entirely be charted back to the US campaign to support Islamist rebels fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan–had the social, political and intellectual climate not been ready for the message of jihad then they would have remained on the fringes–nonetheless there is a strong connection.
All posts in category Russian Politics
Blowback’s a bitch: MH17 and the east Ukraine campaign’s long-term costs for Russia
Posted by Mark Galeotti on July 20, 2014
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2014/07/20/blowbacks-a-bitch-mh17-and-the-east-ukraine-campaigns-long-term-costs-for-russia/
Retirement of FSO’s Murov may exacerbate Russia’s underground silovik conflicts
General Evgeny Murov – the stabilising silovik
It’s not been confirmed, but there are reports that Evgeny Murov, head of the FSO (Federal Guard Service) is stepping down from his position, probably this autumn. Not a great surprise–he’s turning 69 this year and there have been reports that he’s wanted to step down for a few years now. Nonetheless, I view this with some concern because this is a time in which there are considerable pressures bubbling beneath the surface of the Russian intelligence and security community and Murov–the longest-serving of all the security agency chiefs currently in place–performed a quietly useful role as a stabilising force. Yes, his men are the besuited bullet-catchers with earpieces of the Presidential Security Service, the black-clad marksmen up on the roofs around the Red Square on parade days, the goose-stepping Kremlin Guard at the eternal flame and the guys guarding the State Duma and the like. But the FSO also plays an unofficial role as the watchers’ watcher, the agency that keeps tabs on the other security services to keep them in line, and gets to call bullshit if one or the other is briefing too directly for their institutional advantage–I discuss the FSO’s role in more detail here.
Murov’s reported successor is Alexei Mironov, his deputy and the head of Spetssvyaz, the FSO’s Special Communications Service. Fair enough: this should ensure a smooth handover at a time of tension. But it remains to be seen if Mironov has the stature, thick skin and independence of mind both to stay largely out of the silovik-on-silovik turf wars and also to help the Kremlin keep the agencies in check. If not, and this is a theme I’ll be touching on in a talk at Chatham House on Friday, there may be troubling times ahead both for Russia (as the spooks may end up in another internal war) and the outside world (as they may seek to gain traction with the Kremlin by aggressive moves abroad). I’ll be developing these issues more later.
Posted by Mark Galeotti on June 18, 2014
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2014/06/18/retirement-of-fsos-murov-may-exacerbate-russias-underground-silovik-conflicts/
A Roundup of Ukraine-related Writings
A new chill in the Moscow air?
Just a quick round-up of some recent, largely Ukraine-centred writings. What can one read into the latest Victory Day celebrations? In Deconstructing Victory Day for Russia! magazine, I suggest the answer is a country increasingly able to fight modern hybrid wars, but with a people disinclined to do so, despite the increasingly ideological tone of Putin’s Empire of the Mind, explored in Foreign Policy. This helps explain why Moscow’s War in Ukraine Relies on Local Assets, as I wrote in the Moscow Times, even if this means, as I discuss in Foreign Policy, that Ukraine’s Mob War even means that organised crime has become part of Russia’s resources, just a particularly extreme example of The New Great Gamers: covert, clueless and civilian soldiers of the new battlespace. Of course, this all contributes to the toxic mess that will be left when the conflict is over, such that one can almost Pity the Winner in Eastern Ukraine. Nonetheless, this poses a serious challenge to the security institutions of the West, as I explore in NATO and the new war: dealing with asymmetric threats before they become kinetic, and even its security and intelligence community, in that if we are to understand How MI5 and CIA Can Fight the Russian Threat, this will have to start with understanding the nature of that threat. After all, one of the key lessons of Putin, Ukraine and asymmetric politics, as I discuss in Business New Europe, is that this is Not a New Cold War: Great Game II, closer to 19thC geopolitics but fought with 21stC means and memes.
Posted by Mark Galeotti on May 11, 2014
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2014/05/11/a-roundup-of-ukraine-related-writings/
Ukraine: a perversely “good” war for the GRU
It would seem on the surface that the GRU, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff–in other words, Russian military intelligence–is coming in for some flak for its operations in Ukraine. Kyiv has just outed and expelled a naval attache from the Russian embassy, Kirill Koliuchkin, as a lt. colonel in the GRU, while the GRU’s chief, Lt. General Igor Sergun, was on the latest EU sanctions list.
Personally, I’d assume the ‘Aquarium’–the GRU’s headquarters at Khodinka–must be delighted.
Posted by Mark Galeotti on May 1, 2014
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2014/05/01/ukraine-a-perversely-good-war-for-the-gru/
Maybe not the smoking gun: that video of a Russian lt. colonel in Ukraine
The Russian (possibly) lt. colonel (maybe)
Feelings are running high about Russia’s campaign of pressure and destabilisation in Ukraine and perhaps not surprisingly foreign journalists and pundits sympathetic to Kyiv are eager to pounce on anything which appears to offer proof about the much-discussed but surprisingly elusive direct Russian role. As a result, sometimes pictorial or video evidence is being taken at face value when it needed a little more cautious scrutiny: witness the video purportedly of Russian soldiers in Ukraine being blocked by plucky Ukrainians, which turned out to be Ukrainian troops being harangued by ethnic Russian militants. (The uniforms were a give-away then.) The latest “smoking gun” is a video in which a man in Russian camouflage introduces himself to the defecting Horlivka police as a lt. colonel in the Russian army and introduces them to their new chief. So far, so straightforwardly damning. However, while this may appear to the holy grail of proof, I’m afraid that I think it ought to be taken with some caution.
The soldier does indeed wear appropriate Russian camo, but–and I know here I sound like I am channelling Putin’s disingenuous comments when challenged about the “little green men” in the Crimea–that’s no great feat. I could pop to my local voentorg store and pick up the same. He has none of the other accoutrements of soldierly kit than one might expect, but this is not in itself vastly significant as it is not a combat situation. On the other hand, his cap is definitely not military issue; why is such a senior officer not at least wearing his issue camouflage baseball cap instead of something looking pretty civilian to me? (more…)
Posted by Mark Galeotti on April 14, 2014
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2014/04/14/maybe-not-the-smoking-gun-that-video-of-a-russian-lt-colonel-in-ukraine/
My first comment piece for Business New Europe: on Putin’s guerrilla geopolitics
In what will be the first I hope of a regular series of comments for Business New Europe, today I explore to greater depth the way that Putin’s political techniques in Ukraine in many ways are a counterpart to the military tactics of the successful guerrilla. Here are the first and last paragraphs as a taster:
Successful guerrillas master the art of asymmetric warfare, making sure that the other side has to play the game by their rules and doesn’t get the opportunity to take advantage of its probably superiority in raw firepower. Appreciating the massive military, political and economic preponderance of the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin is demonstrating that he is a master of asymmetric politics.
…
In this new Great Game, spies and political operators will be every bit as crucial as tanks and helicopters. More to the point, it demands flexibility, ruthlessness and clarity of aim. This is, let’s be honest, the ideal kind of contest for Vladimir Putin and his Russia.
(I’ve also explored this theme from different angles elsewhere, including a blog post here on “Great Game II” to a consideration of the tools and techniques used not just by Russia but in what is, I think, a wider global trend, in Russia! magazine: “The New Great Gamers“.
Posted by Mark Galeotti on April 14, 2014
https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/2014/04/14/my-first-comment-piece-for-business-new-europe-on-putins-guerrilla-geopolitics/
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