Former CIA Officials Assess Russia

By Dave Majumdar,The National Interest

Winston Churchill stated in 1939 that Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Today, as then, Russian actions and intentions remain the subject of intense scrutiny in the West. To examine the state of American analysis of Russia, the Center for the National Interest convened a high-level panel of former veteran CIA officials on May 22. The speakers included George Beebe (Director for Intelligence and National Security at the Center for the National Interest, former director of the CIA’s Russia analysis and a former Special Advisor to Vice President Cheney), Milton Bearden (a former CIA officer who was a station chief in Pakistan where he played a central role in training and arming the Afghan mujahideen to battle the Soviet military) and Peter Clement (the former Deputy Director for Analytic Programs at the CIA and a professor at Columbia University). The meeting was moderated by Paul J. Saunders, the executive director of the Center for the National Interest and a former Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs in the George W. Bush administration.

Looming over any discussion of Russia is the omnipresent issue of political interference in the 2016 election. There was a broad consensus among the panelists that Russia did interfere in the elections but that it was a fairly low-grade operation and that Moscow is capable of far more, especially if provoked. The interference was based primarily not on the fact that America is a democracy, but because of Washington’s actions. In Bearden’s view, relations between Russia and the United States today are worse—and more dangerous—than they were during the Cold War.

According to Beebe, many in the Washington’s political circles and national security apparatus assume that they understand Russian intentions without fully analyzing the problem. There is a consensus in Washington that Russia seeks to fundamentally undermine democratic government in the United States, but that conclusion is not based on any sort of sound analysis.

“We seem to know that, but that is something that could get us into trouble because we haven’t looked very deeply into the question,” Beebe said. “This is something that is an important function of intelligence analysis—understanding the intentions of foreign adversaries is critical to understanding the nature of the threat, how real it is, how damaging it might be and also formulating an effective response to dealing with the threat. If you get the intentions wrong, you often get the prescriptions wrong.”

Analytic Empathy

In Beebe’s view, sound analysis requires “analytic empathy”—which is not to be confused with sympathy—to understand the problem set facing the adversary from their perspective. That means, in layman’s terms, the analyst must walk a mile in an adversary’s shoes. “Nobody does this well,” Beebe said. “It’s particularly difficult when dealing with a foreign adversary—a group of people with a different histories, culture, beliefs and perceptions.”

In fact, a more rigorous analysis of the current impasse with Moscow would suggest that Russia is not trying to destroy American democracy, but has more specific goals in mind. Those include corralling American power to ward off what the Kremlin sees as its threats to its interests—particularly in the post-Soviet space. “They want us to knock off the democracy crusade,” Beebe said. “Democracy by itself does not threaten them. It’s not who we are they’re concerned about, it is what we do—attempting to spread democracy abroad in key parts of the world that affect Russian interests and inside Russia itself.”