CIA Director William Burns’ January 30, 2024 article in International Affairs — Spycraft and Statecraft:
Remodeling the CIA for an Age of Competitors – is a surprising show of ignorance and misinformation about Russia, the state of the conflict in Ukraine and NATO’s navy capabilities. Though Burn’s is an informed man and skilled diplomat, this text shows a profound vanity seasoned with provably false claims. The so-called imaginative and prescient he presents for “reworking the CIA” is a infantile fantasy and indicators that the CIA is drifting in the direction of being irrelevant in addition to incompetent.
Allow us to start with an examination of Burn’s characterization of the February 2022 “Particular Navy Operation.” In response to Burn’s”
The submit–Chilly Struggle period got here to a definitive finish the second Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. I’ve spent a lot of the previous 20 years attempting to know the flamable mixture of grievance, ambition, and insecurity that Russian President Vladimir Putin embodies. . . .
That tragic and brutish fixation has already introduced disgrace to Russia and uncovered its weaknesses, from its one-dimensional financial system to its inflated navy prowess to its corrupt political system.
Putin’s conflict has already been a failure for Russia on many ranges. His authentic purpose of seizing Kyiv and subjugating Ukraine proved silly and illusory. His navy has suffered immense harm.
At the very least 315,000 Russian troopers have been killed or wounded, two-thirds of Russia’s prewar tank stock has been destroyed, and Putin’s vaunted decades-long navy modernization program has been hollowed out.
An intelligence chief like Burns is meant to convey a non-partisan, goal perspective to a problem like Russia’s choice to invade Ukraine. Burns fails spectacularly on that rely.
He refuses to acknowledge the position the CIA and Britain’s MI-6 performed in sparking the 2014 coup that ousted democratically elected Ukrainian President Yanukovych, which culminated within the Ukrainian navy attacking the Russian talking residents within the Donbass. That in flip sparked the now ten 12 months civil conflict and the vote in Crimea to re-join the Russian Federation.
Burns is completely disingenuous. He pretends that the West performed no position within the subsequent civil conflict that wracked the Donbass. He ignores the West’s repeated entreaties for Ukraine to hitch NATO – a agency redline for Vladimir Putin and the Russian Authorities. And he fails to acknowledge the West’s saber rattling because the U.S. European Command and NATO performed annual joint navy workout routines with Ukraine the place Russia was the featured foe.
Burns’ claims about Russia’s “one-dimensional” financial system and weak navy functionality is past surprising. That is the sort of specious declare one usually would count on of a middling college pupil or a partisan hack. Russia’s financial system is something however one dimensional – it has a sturdy protection manufacturing functionality, is a frontrunner within the manufacturing of grain and oil and gasoline, and is among the world leaders in supplying crucial Uncommon Earth Parts (aka REE). In response to the International Coverage Analysis Institute:
Burns’ demonstrated failure to acknowledge the fact of Russia’s navy functionality maybe explains why the West has been caught without warning as Russia continues to assault the Ukrainian Military whereas quickly increasing its personal navy pressure. Russia not solely enjoys a decisive benefit in manpower, however its protection business can also be outpacing on a dramatic scale the power of the USA and Europe to provide artillery items, artillery shells and fight automobiles.
Russia, in sharp distinction to the USA, has deployed operational, profitable hypersonic missiles. U.S. efforts to copy Russia’s success on this entrance have failed and there’s no proof that the USA can match even a fraction of Russia’s current functionality. Ditto for air protection programs. Russia is the world chief in producing combat-proven air protection programs, which embody the S-400, S-500, and S-550.
After two years of fight in Ukraine, Russia has demonstrated that it will possibly defeat and deter each superior NATO system supplied to Ukraine. Though touted as “sport changers” when first provided to Ukraine – I’m referring to the HIMARS, the Javelin anti-tank guided missile, and the Patriot missile battery – these programs have confirmed to be costly failures.
Burns then makes these outlandish claims:
Putin’s overblown ambitions have backfired in one other method, too: they’ve prompted NATO to develop bigger and stronger.
Though Putin’s repressive grip doesn’t appear prone to weaken anytime quickly, his war in Ukraine is quietly corroding his energy at residence.
Burns merely has not been listening to what has transpired in Ukraine over the course of the final 24 months. Ukraine was educated and outfitted by the USA and NATO to be a proxy pressure that will shred the Russian navy and erode Putin’s base of assist. Though Ukraine was not a de jure member of NATO, it was, for all sensible functions, a de facto member.
As a substitute of devastating the Russian navy, it’s the Ukrainian Military that has suffered catastrophic losses. The truth that the common age of a front-line Ukrainian soldier is 43 years is obvious proof that it’s Russia who’s decimating Ukraine’s military, not the opposite method round.
Burns’ remark about Putin’s eroding political place is predicated on hope, not reality. If something, Putin’s political assist in Russia is stronger at this time than in the beginning of the Particular Navy Operation. Polling reveals that public assist for Putin hovers round 80%. What a distinction with the lagging political assist for Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak, Emmanuel Macron, or Olaf Scholz of Germany.
Russia’s current breakthrough in Avdeevka will not be a one-off occasion. It’s a harbinger of Ukraine’s impending collapse. Russia is urgent its benefit in manpower, sound navy management, logistics, artillery, drones, and fixed-wing plane throughout all the 1000 km entrance.
The Biden Administration continues its determined makes an attempt to influence the Republican managed Home of Representatives to approve a $61 billion greenback help bundle for Ukraine. Even when that cash is authorised, it is not going to change the trajectory of the conflict in Ukraine.
Ukraine is defeated and has no viable path ahead to defeat Russia. The principal shortcoming is the dearth of educated manpower. Even when Ukraine may magically produce 500,000 conscripts, these new troopers wouldn’t be sufficiently educated to have interaction in easy fight operations for no less than one 12 months.
Ukraine doesn’t have a 12 months until Russia decides to halt its advance and name an finish to missile and rocket assaults on Ukraine’s logistic and navy hubs. And that isn’t going to occur.
It’s pure for politicians and authorities officers outdoors the USA to imagine that an article written by somebody of the stature of William Burns is credible and based mostly on sound intelligence.
However that isn’t the case right here. Burns is ignoring the realities on the bottom in each Ukraine and Russia. You do not want to have entry to Prime Secret U.S. intelligence to appreciate that Ukraine is in bother and that Russia – removed from being weakened and remoted – is resilient, robust and busy forming a brand new world order with China and different nations of the International South.
Simply as the tip of World Struggle II led to a brand new world order with the USA in a dominant place, each economically and militarily, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has set off a sequence of occasions that’s eroding U.S. supremacy and making a vacuum that Russia, China, Brazil, India and South Africa are working to fill.
The period of the USA calling the photographs and coercing different nations to accede to its insurance policies is coming to an finish. When the historical past of this era is written, the conflict in Ukraine, coupled with the West’s effort to destroy Russia, might be seen because the spark that ignited the hearth that burned down the ability of the Colonial West.
