Putin's Secret Weapon

Foreign Policy ^ | JULY 7, 2014 | Mark Galeotti

[nickcarraway]

Russia's swashbuckling military intelligence unit is full of assassins, arms dealers, and bandits. And what they pulled off in Ukraine was just the beginning.

re are two ways an espionage agency can prove its worth to the government it serves. Either it can be truly useful (think: locating a most-wanted terrorist), or it can engender fear, dislike, and vilification from its rivals (think: being named a major threat in congressional testimony). But when a spy agency does both, its worth is beyond question.

Since the Ukraine crisis began, the Kremlin has few doubts about the importance of the GRU, Russia's military intelligence apparatus. The agency has not only demonstrated how the Kremlin can employ it as an important foreign-policy tool, by ripping a country apart with just a handful of agents and a lot of guns. The GRU has also shown the rest of the world how Russia expects to fight its future wars: with a mix of stealth, deniability, subversion, and surgical violence. Even as GRU-backed rebel groups in eastern Ukraine lose ground in the face of Kiev's advancing forces, the geopolitical landscape has changed. The GRU is back in the global spook game and with a new playbook that will be a challenge for the West for years to come.

Recent years had not been kind to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff, the Glavnoe razvedyvatelnoe upravlenie (GRU). Once, it had been arguably Russia's largest intelligence agency, with self-contained stations -- known as "residencies" -- in embassies around the world, extensive networks of undercover agents, and nine brigades of special forces known as Spetsnaz.

By the start of 2013, the GRU was on the ropes. Since 1992, the agency had been in charge of operations in the post-Soviet countries, Russia's "near abroad."

[nickcarraway]

The KGB/NKVD was always the higher profile less competent intelligence agency, while the GRU was the low key, highly competent intelligence agency.

[Squantos]

Putins secret weapon .....Obama !

[nickcarraway]

Roger Hollis, the head of MI5 between 1956 and 1965, most probably a GRU agent.

[tcrlaf]

“Putins secret weapon .....Obama!”

How true is that??

Obama creates a situation in Ukraine by backing the most violent and radical elements of the Maidan protests, opening the door for Putin to act when everything falls apart.

One is playing by Alinsky’s rulebook.
The other is playing by Machiavelli’s rulebook.

[cynwoody]

From Viktor Suvorov: Aquarium - The Career and Defection of a Soviet Spy (1985):

THE AQUARIUM is the headquarters of the GRU - Soviet Military Intelligence. There is only one way in, via special selection – and only one exit: through the chimney of the crematorium. As a young officer Viktor Suvorov commanded a tank company.

'We have a very simple rule: it's a rouble to get in, but two to get out. That means that it's difficult to join the organization, but a lot more difficult to get out of it. Theoretically there's only one way out for any member of the organization - through the chimney of the crematorium. For some it is an honourable exit, but for others it is a shameful and terrible way to go, but there's only the one chimney for all of us. That's the only way we can leave this organization. That's the chimney over there . . .' the man with grey hair points towards a huge picture window taking up the whole wall. 'Have a good look at it.'

At the level of the ninth floor I have a panoramic view of the vast, unbounded and deserted airfield stretching to the horizon. And if I look straight down I can see below me a labyrinth of sand-covered pathways running between thick rows of shrubs. The green of the plants in the garden and the burnt-up grass of the airfield are separated by an indestructible concrete wall protected by a thick network of barbed wire.'

That's it over there . . .' Grey-hair points to a fat square chimney, no more than ten metres high, built on top of a flat asphalt roof. The black roof floats among the greenery of the lilac bushes like a raft in the ocean or an old-fashioned battleship, sitting low in the water with its funnel quite out of proportion. A thin transparent smoke is rising from the chimney.'

Is that someone leaving the organization?'
Link

[cynwoody]

One is playing by Alinsky’s rulebook.
The other is playing by Machiavelli’s rulebook.

Obama is an amateur. Putin is a professional.

Obama plays checkers. Putin plays chess.

[gleeaikin]

Read the link, really chilling. What is the US equivalent of the GRU which is, of course, not the KGB?

[cynwoody]

Read the link, really chilling. What is the US equivalent of the GRU which is, of course, not the KGB?

If you sit where Putin sits, one intelligence organization is not enough. You need two, so that they keep each other honest.

http://militera.lib.ru/research/suvorov8/07.html

[wetphoenix]

~The KGB/NKVD was always the higher profile less competent intelligence agency, while the GRU was the low key, highly competent intelligence agency.~

LOL. It is not if one of these agencies is ahead of another. Indeed, they have an absolute different missions and tactics.
Just like CIA and US Naval Intelligence for example.
Not to mention GRU is a hollow shell of it’s former self right now.
Their most successful operation (joint with KGB) was an Afghanistan takeover in 1979. Just two planeloads of agents made the whole Afghan military and government collapse in one night. They brought new Afghan generals, ministers, president, even TV anchors with them to replace a regime they’ve toppled.
Google operation Storm-333 if you are interested.

[Southack]

"The GRU has also shown the rest of the world how Russia expects to fight its future wars: with a mix of stealth, deniability, subversion, and surgical violence."

Oh please. These writers these days...good grief. They see one tactic and immediately extrapolate that one "new" (to them) tactic into "the new game plan".

Life doesn't work that way. Take the Crimea, for example. Russia didn't use *any* of the tactics that the writer listed above to seize the Crimea.

Instead, Russia SpecOps troops landed, seized assets, and pressured Ukrainian forces into backing away. That's not stealthy. It's not subversion. That's direct action.

Yes, Putin hid some badges on some troops for a week or two. Whoo hooo, Putin's new strategy!

Oy vey.

The bigger danger with Putin is that he wins hearts and minds. The "Prize" isn't the Ukraine, either...it's Germany.

Why do you think that Germany is finding all of these U.S. spies there? Why did Germany learn of 0bama's eavesdropping on Merkel's cell phone? Why did Snowden go to Russia?

And the answer is that Putin is trying to flip Germany from West to East. Break up NATO, too.

Merkel is an East German. She knows Putin and where he comes from all too well. If 0bama keeps screwing up U.S. relations with Germany, then making friends with the guy selling Germany the natural gas that keeps Deutschland warm starts to look like a smart play for Merkel.

0bama will write her an angry letter once she flips sides in the Cold War, then hold a press conference insisting that no one told him what was going on in Europe.

Foreign Policy magazine will nod approvingly and agree. After all, their writers had no clue, either...

[wetphoenix]

German N-TV Phone Poll Shows 89% Back Putin’s Ukraine Policy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3155878/posts

[cynwoody]

Not to mention GRU is a hollow shell of it’s former self right now.
Their most successful operation (joint with KGB) was an Afghanistan takeover in 1979. Just two planeloads of agents made the whole Afghan military and government collapse in one night. They brought new Afghan generals, ministers, president, even TV anchors with them to replace a regime they’ve toppled.

Heading north

According to the Wikipedia,

In a symbolic move, Lt. Gen. Boris Gromov was the last to walk from Afghanistan back into Soviet territory [15 February 1989].

Kinda like the US in Iraq. Or the US in Afghanistan (yet to be completed). When wogs are involved, nation-building is pointless!

[Squantos]

Sad when the number 1 terrorist in the world is also our number 1 domestic enemy in the position to continue causing death, pain and sorrow to millions of people around the world and “get away with it” because polidiots, presstitutes and anarchists pandering personally profit .

We are governed by criminal elements that will empower generations of the same ilk to follow the same path if a procrastinating populace of smart but lazy voters stay at home in every election at every level of government.

The voters must get educated and informed, the Internet makes it easy. Look at all parts of every issue, pro, con, left, right, foreign, domestic, who profits, who doesn’t, long and short term effects, valid, invalid, why now ?

The idiots that want handouts versus jobs are our generations plagues, viruses, drain on a system.

Incrementalism of that you mention is lost on a nation of the uneducated voters. Reinforced by the lazy, educated or not, who do NOT even try.....sloth is embedded on our nation like a tick made of unobtanium.

My rant..... Voting with my dollars until I can vote in upcoming elections...woof.

Stay Safe.

[Southack]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/11/opinion/werz-spying-on-germany/index.html?hpt=hp_t3