How US intelligence got it right about Ukraine invasion

President Joe Biden and US intelligence officials got it right: they said Russia would invade Ukraine, despite Russian assurances that it would not. After a huge miscalculation about what the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan would look like, misinformation in the run-up to the war in Iraq and many other errors, now is an important moment for the US intelligence community.

I asked Tim Weiner, the author of the engaging and exhaustive 2007 book on CIA history, “Legacy of Ashes,” for his thoughts on what has changed.

Our slightly edited email conversation is below.

How did the US intelligence community get it right this time?

NEWS REPORTER: A notable element of the build-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is that US intelligence appears to have gotten it right. The US warned that Russia would invade, despite Russian denials. And then Russia invaded. How did US intelligence get it right this time?

WEINER: CIA director and career diplomat Bill Burns and his boss, director of national intelligence Avril Haines, also a former deputy director of the CIA, took over a year ago. The American intelligence community, including the National Security Agency, which intercepts communications, was hyper-focused on counterterrorism 20 years ago. Burns and Haines refocused on Russia and China, focusing on collecting and analyzing information about the authoritarian regimes of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. For the first time in a long time, US intelligence agencies were thinking strategically, looking ahead, rather than reporting what already happened five minutes ago.

The result was a clear and farsighted picture of Putin’s intentions towards Ukraine.

How has spy art changed in 2 years?

NEWS REPORTER: You wrote a book on CIA history that documents countless intelligence failures, repeated cover-ups, and botched operations that claimed the lives of thousands of people working for or abetted by US intelligence during the Cold War. How has American intelligence gathering changed in relation to Russia since the early 1990s?

WEINER: The question is how that has changed since Donald Trump left office. In general, American intelligence does what the White House says. Trump’s high regard for Putin – which hasn’t changed – and his curious affinity for the Kremlin’s views meant that whatever the CIA was telling him about Russia had little bearing on American foreign policy. That has obviously changed. When President Joe Biden calls Putin a despot, he relies on reports from the CIA, the State Department and their sister agencies.

The battle for the truth

NEWS REPORTER: In addition to intelligence gathering, the US effectively used near real-time intelligence. The Biden administration has strategically declassified and released information in an effort to pre-empt Russian fake news-spreading operations. What are your thoughts on this new tactic?

WEINER: It’s not a new tactic. It is old. What the US is doing is a political war – something it hasn’t done effectively since the end of the Cold War. (This is the subject of my latest book, “The Folly and The Glory”). Political warfare is the way in which nations project their power and work their will against an enemy, other than launching missiles or sending in marines. Its conduct requires the full spectrum of intelligence and diplomacy, from covert operations and espionage to coercive diplomacy and economic sanctions, and the deft orchestration of these instruments by the president. The use of political warfare – including the rapid declassification and publication of classified information – exposed and effectively watered down Putin’s plans to use disinformation and lies as instruments of war. Ultimately, this is a battle for the truth, and shaping people’s views of authoritarian regimes is part of the way political warfare is fought.

How can US spies get involved in this conflict?

NEWS REPORTER: Biden has repeatedly promised not to put US military troops on the front lines of a war between Ukraine and Russia, so as not to start World War III. Given that promise, how could the US intelligence community be used inside Ukraine?

WEINER: The CIA and the National Security Agency could support the Ukrainian resistance with battlefield intelligence. The CIA could also supply lethal weapons like Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. The CIA sent billions of dollars worth of weapons to Afghan rebels fighting the Soviet armed forces occupying Afghanistan in the 1980s. The CIA has been training small groups of Ukrainians in irregular warfare – that is, paramilitary operations – for eight years. It is conceivable – if this conflict turns into a long and bloody occupation – that CIA officers themselves could join the battle, which would be a risky proposition, to say the least. There is certainly a group of CIA paramilitaries who would be only too happy to send Russian soldiers home in coffins.

A new focus for US intelligence

NEWS REPORTER: From a broader perspective, how is the US intelligence community repositioning itself, now that they have withdrawn from Afghanistan, from a focus on the early 21st century war on terror to the war between democracy and autocracy that Biden warned about?

WEINER: This war will shape the world throughout the 21st century. Burns and Haines have made China and Russia their top priorities. Xi and Putin want to project their power far beyond their borders – and political warfare is the main way they will seek to gain greater influence over nations near and far. But the United States will be hard-pressed to win this fight unless and until it repairs its own democracy. The biggest defeat the United States has ever suffered in the realm of political warfare came on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, when an aspiring autocrat came perilously close to overthrowing the rule of law.