Here’s a BBC article in which the Anglo-American intelligence services take a victory lap for predicting, first in secret, then in public, that Putin was serious about invading.
I give them credit. In contrast, I didn’t expect that to happen, because it would be stupid, so kudos to them.
The first signs of Russia’s intentions arrived a year ago. Intelligence from satellite imagery pointed to a Russian troop build-up near Ukraine. But analysts had little understanding of Moscow’s true intentions.
That changed in mid-2021. “From summer we saw a small group of senior people planning for a full military invasion of the whole country,” explains one Western intelligence official. …
This sure sounds like they are implying they have a mole in Putin’s inner circle. But then they would say that if they didn’t, just to sow distrust, so they probably don’t. But then maybe they are saying it because they expect the Russians to not believe them, and so forth and so one, around and around.
One advantage was being able to use commercially available satellite imagery to support the case.
By early December, details of Russia’s plans for a 175,000-strong invasion had appeared in the Washington Post.
In London, the intelligence – coming in from GCHQ and MI6 – was met with near-disbelief in some quarters. A common problem inside and outside government was that people simply could not believe a major land war could break out in Europe in the 21st Century.
… Other allies were also briefed. But many remained sceptical. Because the source of the intelligence could not be shared it was sometimes hard to overcome this incredulity, one official says.
Some European partners did not buy the analysis that Russia’s build-up was anything more than bluff. A scepticism about Anglo-American intelligence was also another legacy of Iraq’s missing weapons of mass destruction. France has recently sacked its head of military intelligence for failing to appreciate what was being planned.
The German spy chief was in Kiev when the war broke out and then fled for his life.
… There is also a recognition of a new world in which so-called open-source intelligence – things like commercial satellite imagery and data – has made it more possible to verify or support assertions and that fighting an information war – including through intelligence – is now vital, partly to counter Russian assertions.
On one level, much of the intelligence was spot-on. There was, as forecast, a full invasion from multiple directions with the purpose of toppling and replacing the Zelensky government.
Western spies also correctly predicted that Moscow had misplaced confidence about the reception it would encounter. “They genuinely believed there would be flags out to welcome them,” says a Western intelligence officer.
But one assumption did prove wrong – that Moscow’s military would prevail in a matter of weeks. Instead, the war would not turn out as many expected, with Ukraine outperforming militarily while Russia underperformed.
So, the Brits and Yanks are bragging about getting 2 out of 3 predictions right.
This helps explain why I’m skeptical about most of the “psy-op” theories of how the CIA is covertly executing various triple bank-shot interventions to alter events. It’s hard enough to get 2 out of 3 forecasts right, so that when the spy agencies do, they race to the media to boast about it, much less actually carry out secret operations to change the future.
