Day: October 29, 2023

This feeling of Russia having a historical destiny, and an imperative to expand its territory is not new. It goes back as far as the 15th century, after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks when the ruler of Moscow considered himself the successor of the Byzantine and Roman Empires, and the only defender of the true Christian faith, untainted by what they believed to be Latinism and sterile rationalism. Even the title of tsar adopted by Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century was a reference to the Roman title of Caesar.

Pavel Miliukov, the 20th-century historian and political activist, wrote 100 years ago about the tsars’ ambitions. According to him, if you asked about their program of action, “They would probably not be able to develop a program other than the old, traditional one, which has become an instinct: to seek and collect even more.”

Almost 200 years later, Peter I solemnly assumed the title of Emperor of All Russia. Russia was officially becoming an empire, and, thus, the main function of the empire was constant territorial expansion.

Jan Kucharzewski, the historian and former Prime Minister of Poland, likewise acknowledged Russian imperialism. “Russia, in its wars of conquest, has used (the same) traditional methods for centuries,” he wrote. “When seizing lands, it claimed that it was regaining them, even when it came to the Amur Land, and that it was liberating the people of these lands either from the yoke of a foreign nation or from the yoke of political and social oppression,” he added, arguably predicting the Russian narrative of “liberating” or “de-nazifying” Ukraine.

For Kucharzewski, these imperial conquests were always justified “on the basis of some alleged old titles and demagogy, national and social, applied to the country against which the fight is being waged in order to weaken it internally,” which he also referred to as “political means used to justify and support military action.”

The accuracy of this assessment is backed up by Russia’s past, as well as by the government’s current choices. When Soviet commander Semyon Budyonny’s horse army approached Lviv and Zamość during the Soviet-Polish war in 1920, it was supposedly fighting, as Russian writer Isaac Babel wrote, not against Polish workers or peasants, but was “attacking the nobility.”

According to the Russian narrative, Putin’s shameful attack on Ukraine is aimed not at subjugating Ukrainians, but at “denazification” , that is, freeing them from the oppressive and anti-national regime of President Zelensky.

The expanding borders of the Russian Empire were drawn in the mid-19th century by the Russian poet and diplomat Fyodor Tyutchev:

Seven inner seas, seven rivers

From the Nile to the Neva, from the Elbe to Cathay

From the Volga to the edges of the Euphrates, Ganges, and the Danube

It is said that when Vladimir Putin asked a young boy where Russia ends, and was told “at the Bering Strait near Alaska”, that he smiled and said: “No, Russia doesn’t end.” This is very similar to a common joke in Poland, which reads, “With whom does Russia share a border?” “With whoever it wants to.”

Russians have almost always been aware of comparisons made between them and the West, especially when it comes to the standard of living and the degree of economic development. In their own view, the lack of freedom was to be compensated by the sense of the country’s greatness and strength and the importance of the historical mission it supposedly had to fulfill.

As Mikhail Lermontov wrote: “Let me be a slave, but a slave of the tsar of the world,” and the 19th-century historian Sergei Soloviev claimed that for an autocratic state the goal is not prosperity, but “the glory of the citizens, the state and the ruler,” and that “national pride arouses in the nation governed by authority, the sense of freedom that drives them to great deeds no less than freedom itself.”

“You will get rich quickly, but don’t interfere with my rule.”

We find all of these ideas lingering today, in the narrative and policy of Putin’s Russia. When the 2008 financial crisis exposed the country’s economic weakness, citizens lost the belief that Russia would soon become one of the largest economic powers, that the ruble would be the world’s reserve currency next to the dollar, and Moscow would be one of the financial centers on a par with New York, Frankfurt and London.

Putin’s informal deal with Russians had been “You will get rich quickly, but don’t interfere with my rule.” But the crash showed that this could soon stop working, and had to be replaced with something else — something well embedded in the Russian tradition: to replace bread with imperial games, and a sense of imperial grandeur. Russia under Putin’s rule was to become great again and, just as the country had defended the world from Nazism, now it was to face American hegemony and the nihilism of the West, threatening the true Christian civilization represented and protected, as always, by Russia.

Since then, Putin himself has crafted a new role. As Dmitry Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Center wrote: “At the end of his four-year term, Putin seemed imbued with a sense of history and God’s mandate. Perceived as a pragmatist and outspoken public official, the country manager turned into a missionary. Putin not only appealed to God in his public speeches, but also behaved as someone who was carrying out a work entrusted to him by the Almighty. Later, during the 2014 Ukraine crisis, it allowed Putin to remain calm and confident that God was on his — and Russia’s — side in a new, fierce competition with the United States.”

There are many indications that this new legitimization of Putin’s power has been accepted by many in the country. Putin describes himself as “a leading Russian nationalist.” And a Russian nationalist, as sociologist Irina Glebova wrote, “refers to memories of the power of the Soviet state and the Russian Orthodox superpower greatness and satisfies the spontaneous social demand for it,” which results in an increased support for the government.

The return of the imperial idea and the complete rejection of the West does not have to be permanent.

This makes a permanent treaty ending the war with Ukraine, which in Putin’s propaganda is compared to the Great Patriotic War with Hitler’s Germany, virtually impossible. At least as long as imperial and nationalist intoxication persists in Russia.

In spite of its long tradition, this imperialism does not have to last forever. First, it is not entirely clear to what extent the public actually support President Putin and his policies. It is important to remember the political conditions in which surveys are conducted and the degree of refusal to respond.

Secondly, one cannot underestimate the courage and determination of those, many of them, who demonstrated against the war. Today, such demonstrations are not visible, but these people did not disappear, even if many of them fled abroad. The return of the imperial idea and the complete rejection of the West does not have to be permanent.

It is worth recalling what Vladimir Putin himself said relatively recently. He made a clear proposal that only in cooperation with Russia can Europe become a powerful and independent factor in world politics. The well-known Russian political scientist Alexei Arbatov envisioned Russia’s entry into the EU as late as 2007, which he believed would prompt the creation of “the most powerful global center of military, economic and cultural power.”

As for today’s emphasizing of the fundamental and supposedly insurmountable differences between European and Russian civilization, it is worth remembering what Putin himself or Sergey Lavrov said about Russia’s Europeanness: the latter claimed that there is no conflict of values between Russia and the West.

In turn, another significant Russian political scientist and politician, Vladimir Lukin, wrote that “Russia has always been part of the Old World … and will be able to resist the pressure of Asia, America and other civilizational centers of gravity only if it is with Europe.”

The awareness of the failure of Putin’s policy, which led to the loss of chances to win over Ukraine, to the collapse of the myth about the strength and greatness of the Russian armed forces, to the international isolation of Russia and to its increasing dependence on the increasingly stronger and potentially dangerous China, has the potential bring about a redefinition of Russian nationalism.

One thinks of General Aleksandr Lebed, a Russian nationalist and veteran of many battles, who claimed in the 1990s that “the era of empires is over. You can pity her, she was great and proud, but a new era is beginning — the construction of a full-fledged Russian nation state. In the international arena, pragmatic nationalism means that … Russia does not intend to pay a disproportionate price for a return to the imperial chimera”.

So, Russian nationalism may take a less threatening form. Maybe Russia will follow in the footsteps of other countries that have dealt with their imperial past.

Russia will not disappear from the map. The problem is whether it will continue to build its greatness on constant expansion and domination, or on the strength of its culture, economy and prestige resulting from compliance with the rule of national and international law.

For Russia to change, it must lose the war with Ukraine. As the history of the last few hundred years shows, Russia has changed only in such a situation. This was the case after the Crimean War in the mid-19th century, after the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, after the First World War and after the Cold War.

The military defeat should become an opportunity for those who think about a different Russia, but are unable to do anything today. These people must be remembered. And remember that whatever Putin says today: Russia, although it will probably remain outside the European Union, will remain part of Europe.

 (Image source: iStock)

In light of the devastating and deadly terrorist attack executed by Hamas against Israel on October 7, many are correctly calling the failure to intercept and prevent the assault an “intelligence failure.” Many are especially surprised given the vaunted, basically legendary, status almost universally accorded Israel’s national security apparatus.

This, however, is not the only recent intelligence failure, or failure by political leaders to anticipate emerging threats. According to a Brookings report examining the U.S. intelligence failure and reorganization following the 9/11 terrorist attacks against America:

“In the aftermath of 9/11 everyone, from elected officials and national security experts to ordinary citizens had one question: how could this happen to a nation with such an enormous and expensive military and intelligence architecture?”

Despite warnings from the U.S. Intelligence Community, the Biden administration failed to anticipate or plan for the dramatic and quick collapse of Afghanistan’s government when U.S. troops were withdrawn. And while the Intelligence Community correctly and publicly warned of Russia’s impending invasion of Ukraine, it failed to predict the tenacity of Ukrainian fighters defending their homeland and instead forecast an almost Afghanistan-style collapse in a matter of days. General Mark Milley, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, even warned lawmakers that “a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine could result in the fall of Kyiv within 72-hours and could come at a cost of 15,000 Ukrainian troop deaths and 4,000 Russian troop deaths,” according to lawmakers he briefed behind closed-doors.

These misses once again have citizens asking if our intelligence agencies and political leaders are capable of keeping them safe. The short answer, unfortunately, is no. Terrorists and our enemies only have to be right once, while our intelligence services need to be correct 100% of the time. Just look at Pearl Harbor.

It is not unreasonable to expect that Israeli or US intelligence should have been able to detect the 10/7 attacks on Israel ahead of time, especially so close to the 50^th anniversary of the surprise Yom Kippur War in 1973. What, then, led to the failure? While Israel will certainly review its intelligence posture to determine its shortcomings, we already know some of the challenges the Intelligence Community faces on the U.S. side.

The Middle East, Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah are all high on the Intelligence Community’s radar, given the volatility of the restive region. All the same, Washington’s leadership also was not expecting the 10/7 attacks. A little more than a week prior, Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, was talking-up successes in the Middle East, allowing the U.S. to focus on other areas regions of the world. The bold conclusion made by Sullivan at the time was that “the Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.”

He could not have been more wrong. Boiling just under the surface was a terrorist attack that would result in more than 1,400 Israelis killed, at least 31 Americans killed, atrocities against Israeli civilians that include beheaded babies and babies burned alive, as well as scores of Israeli and international hostages whom Hamas terrorists forcibly abducted from Israel to Gaza, presumably being held in tunnels.

The failure of the U.S. intelligence community has three components:

1. It has become politically charged and lost focus on its mission protecting Americans, instead engaging in partisan politics.
2. It continues to focus on technological intelligence collection rather than the difficult and risky world of human intelligence collection.
3. It continues to suffer from a lack of creativity in anticipating and understanding the new threats being developed by our enemies.

There is little doubt that the Intelligence Community has become seriously politicized. In 2016-2017, its leaders and the FBI undermined the incoming President Donald Trump by raising the specter of Russian influence over Trump. The disproven Russia hoax would go on to shadow and undermine Trump’s entire time in office.

When Hunter Biden’s now infamous laptop was revealed, it was the FBI and former Intelligence Community leaders who actively tried to cover it up and pass it off as a Russian disinformation campaign.

The Intelligence Community also shifted some of its focus from international threats to domestic threats — often spurious — while ignoring the real ticking time bomb of 5.6 million migrants flooding onto the United States through the southern border, in addition to at least 1.5 million known “gotaways” and an unknown number of unknown “gotaways.”

We have also witnessed information that was accurate but which the FBI worked with social media companies to suppress, and even outright fabrications about what they claimed was disinformation, such as the Russia hoax or the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop; that Catholics who attend mass in Latin are “extremists,” and that parents questioning what their children learn in public schools are “domestic terrorists.” What really happened on January 6, 2021 is still unknown.

These efforts by the Intelligence Community all seem to target Republicans or to benefit Democrats politically — a situation that has left many conservatives rightly worried about the political weaponization of the government.

Unfortunately, this political corruption shows no signs of abating, with the entire deep state apparently still determined to turn the Constitution on its head to “get Trump,” and with former officials such as Michael Hayden, who was head of the National Security Agency and the CIA, suggesting that Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville should be removed from the human race.

A second major shortcoming, that was identified after 9/11 was, as mentioned, a U.S. over-reliance on the technological collection of information, such as satellites, cyber, and wiretapping. The Intelligence Community knew how to do these things and knew how to do them well. It was difficult and sophisticated work but carried far fewer risks than human espionage or developing spy networks.

While the intelligence may have been there, our ability to fully understand it, and our analyses, missed having insights into the humans, and their way of thinking, who were behind those “zeros and ones.”

Hamas may have exploited the reliance Western security services have on technological collection. We already know that Osama bin Laden refused to use electronic communications and relied on human couriers to convey messages. They used our confidence in technological collection to their benefit. The after-action intelligence review to determine how Hamas hid its operation will undoubtedly look into this, but it appears that electronic communication on the plot was limited and coded, with the few people actually knowing the full details kept to a handful to further limit communications.

Just as the U.S. Intelligence Community did not imagine terrorists hijacking airplanes to use as missiles, it is likely the Israelis never contemplated Hamas pulling off a multipronged attack by sea, land, and air — including the use of paragliders. But that is exactly what they did. They used low-tech bulldozers and explosives to breach Israel’s border fence and then drive through the openings with trucks, motorcycles, and other equipment loaded with terrorists and weapons. Hamas fired thousands of rockets, in barrages of hundreds at a time, to overwhelm Israel’s highly touted Iron Dome counter-rocket system and, having learned lessons about the effective use of drones from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, used drone-dropped munitions to take out guard towers and surveillance cameras.

While many of these tactics are not new — Hamas had fired tens of thousands of missiles into Israel before, attacked civilians and soldiers on the streets, and crossed the border in multiple ways — the novelty of this approach was to do all of these things at once and on a massive scale.

The biggest U.S. intelligence failure of all so far, unfortunately, has been strenuously pretending not to know that Iran, Qatar and Turkey are the kingpins behind the current attacks by Hamas on Israel. If Iran, Qatar and Turkey are to be discouraged from continuing their malign actions destabilizing the region, the price they pay needs to be steep. Hamas. Iran, Qatar and Turkey must not be let off the hook. In addition, the US must move its military assets from Al Udeid Airbase in Qatar to the United Arab Emirates as soon as it can.

The Qataris, instead of being grateful that a state-of-the-art airbase is on its soil protecting it, instead might think that they are doing the US a favor letting the airbase be there.

To go just after Hamas is like targeting crime syndicate, but ignoring Al Capone. Hamas needs to be dealt with first – along with the realization that any humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza supplies Hamas, not the people for whom it was well-meaningly intended. As the journalist Caroline Glick points out, the trucks are not inspected. They might be bringing in food and water – or weapons. Sadly, even if the contents are food and water, Hamas keeps them, then sparingly doles them out to whomever they want.

Moving forward, we once again need to examine how we do intelligence across the West. Perhaps Congress or a special commission can be established to identify the exact strengths and weaknesses of our intelligence community. It will have the old rallying cry of “never again,” just as after Pearl Harbor, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, 9/11, and now the attacks of 10/7. The Intelligence Community needs to keep its eye on actual foreign threats, develop and use all forms of intelligence collection to build a robust intelligence capability, respect the ability and creativity of our adversaries, and to discard the biased and flawed analytical tradecraft standards that have led us to where we are today. Unless these changes take place, we will remain vulnerable, uncertain of our safety and security, and stuck with the knowledge the world is a much more dangerous place than we had thought.

Peter Hoekstra is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute. He was US Ambassador to the Netherlands during the Trump administration. He also served 18 years in the U.S. House of Representatives representing the Second District of Michigan and served as Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee.