Paul Goble
Staunton, January 7 – Many in Russia
and the West have come to believe, under the influence of Putin and pro-Putin
propaganda that Russia’s intelligence services are all-powerful and invariably
successful agents of the Kremlin, Kseniya Kirillova says. But that image is far
from true and recognizing that is the first requirement for countering what
they are doing.
In a new article, the US-based
Russian journalist says that all too many people in the West believe that “the
Russian special services operate at the very highest professional level and in
principle are invincible.” But besides their “’victories,’” they have suffered “a
number of foreign policy failures” (lb.ua/world/2017/01/06/355155_sila_slabost_rossiyskih.html).
The apparent success
of the Russian special services in “playing on the real and imagined
contradictions of American society” and thereby promoting the victory of Donald
Trump in last year’s US presidential elections -- a success that exceeded the
Kremlin’s expectations -- has created this impression, but a closer examination
shows it is not justified, Kirillova says.
Such an examination, she continues,
shows that “the situation is not as critical as it might appear at first glance”
because “alongside Moscow’s ‘victories’ in recent years one observe s a number
of major foreign policy failures,” including the collapse of Putin’s plans for
creating “Novorossiya” in Ukraine and the scandal around his failed coup
attempt in Montenegro.
“One of the main weaknesses of the
Russian special services,” Kirillova suggests, “is the absence of a long-term
and precise strategy regarding each particular country” where they operate.
Instead, again and again, these services operate according to “one and the same
scenario” even if local conditions would appear to suggest otherwise.
That scenario has both strengths and
weaknesses. Among its chief features are recruitment of Western politicians by
appealing to their interests, buying them off or using compromising information
against them; playing on the divisions that exist in all countries and pushing the
view that these are all critical and cannot be resolved; active measures like
propaganda and hacker attacks based on the use of “’useful idiots’” in these
countries; relying on criminals if its
destabilization efforts enter “’a hot phase;’” and active use of religious
propaganda.
Kirillova notes that the religious
propaganda of the Russian special forces is better descripted as “propaganda of
an ideology under the form of religion,” which carries the message that Russia
is “the main defender” of religious values, something that allows it to
penetrate and then piggy back on other religious groups.
One thing should jump out at those
considering these goals: for the Russian special services, espionage does not
occupy nearly the central position in the thinking of Russia’s special services
that many imagine. As a result, Kirillova says, “Russia has experienced failure”
in this area more than Western intelligence agencies.
In recent years, the Russian
intelligence services have applied this model to the US; but their successes if
successes they be “has depended not so uch on the professionalism of the
Russians as on the coming together of a multitude of fatal factors which
undoubtedly have played into the hands of the Kremlin.
Among these, Kirillova says, are “the
real economic problems” of rural America, “radical” Republican propaganda
demonizing its opponents in ways that resemble what Russian propaganda does,
the Democratic Party’s failure to counter this or to seek to represent the
interests of many Americans, and the critical attitude of most Americans to the
government and mainstream media.
These are all things the Russian
special services exploited, she continues, but “not one of these factors was
created thanks to the ‘KGB.’ The Russian special services only made use of all
of the factors listed on behalf of their own interests.”
Their success in this case should
not lead either to an exaggeration of the strengths of the Russian special
services or to ignoring “their weak spots” which have also been very much on
public view for those who are paying attention.
First of all, for all their skill in
destabilizing things and spreading lies, the Russian special services are “traditionally
weak in their ability to assess the total picture, concerning the mentality of the
people and its role in what is going on. That was clearly on view in the case
of Putin’s intervention in Ukraine, when he expected a totally different
reaction than he got.
Because the Russian leadership doesn’t
view nations as acting except under the direction of leaders, the Kremlin on
many issues has remained “a prisoner of its own illusory reality” and pursues
policies that inevitably fail as in the case of many of its immediate
neighbors, the former Soviet republics and formerly occupied Baltic countries.
Indeed, “often believing its own
propaganda, the Kremlin acts quite crudely and begins to demand from its allies
too much which undermines relations even with countries close to Russia” like
Belarus and Serbia.
Moreover, Kirillova says, “Russia
acts too clumsily and, in contrast to Soviet times, now its interference in the
affairs of other countries is visible even to the unaided eye.” Moscow’s
support for Trump, for example, was so obvious, that “no one of those wanting
to have an objective view of the situation could fail not to notice.”
The situation of Moscow’s failed
effort to promote a coup in Montenegro was even more obvious, but it has
attracted less attention not only because Montenegro is a smaller country than
the US but because Moscow failed and has not trumpeted its failure for all to
hear.
In addition and “unfortunately,”
Kirillova argues, “the unmasking of the aggressive interference by Moscow in
the affairs of other states has not yet brought any practical value because the
West as a result of its weakness and divisions is not capable of responding to
even such obvious aggression.” If the West changes, the failures of the Russian
services will be even more obvious.
And the Russian special services
also suffer from another shortcoming: they can easily recruit marginal figures in
society and promote them through the new media, but they have signally failed
to enlist the very best people in the West, at least in part because Moscow
cannot offer “any attractive model” in which the latter could believe.
“All these factors,” Kirillova
concludes, “allow one to hope that in the future, the ‘KGB’ will lose just as
it lost the First Cold War. The main problem remains only that until the moment
of that defeat, Russian can inflict and is already inflicting irreparable harm”
given that there is no possibility of restoring the lives it has taken or
ruined already.
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