10 ms·
Reminder: Any CIA or MI6 agent who lasted more than a week in the Soviet Union had diplomatic cover. The NKVD and KGB caught all of our deep cover agents withi
by rudolfwinestock 8y ago
Reminder: Any CIA or MI6 agent who lasted more than a week in the Soviet Union had diplomatic cover. The NKVD and KGB caught all of our deep cover agents within days; in some cases within hours.
The United States excels at sigint and aerial/orbital recon, but the Russians have been top-notch at humint for a long time.
- guildwriter 8y agoThe existence of moles both within the CIA and MI6 had a little bit to do with that.
- remarkEon 8y agoWhich further speaks to his point about the Russians excelling at HUMINT.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> The United States excels at sigint and aerial/orbital recon, but the Russians have been top-notch at humint for a long time. Maybe, but there's also an inherent counterintelligence asymetry between a liberal democracy and a totalitarian police state (which is why in a liberal democracy, the counterintelligence services are often trying to simulate a totalitarian police state.)
- whatshisface 8y ago>Maybe, but there's also an inherent counterintelligence asymetry between a liberal democracy and a totalitarian police state You could just as easily argue it in the opposite direction, it is much easier to co-opt the corrupt Russian government than it is to co-opt the less corrupt American government. An individual corrupt unaccountable person of interest in a totalitarian police state is far more valuable than an individual corrupt person of interest that is being watched like a hawk by the public in a liberal democracy. I think a much more reasonable explanation for why government organizations are always trying to become more totalitarian is simply that the officials would rather have more power than less power. The only difference between here and there are the checks placed on them to limit what they can do.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> You could just as easily argue it in the opposite direction, it is much easier to co-opt the corrupt Russian government than it is to co-opt the less corrupt American government Note that I was referring to the explanation of the relative success of US vs. Soviet placement/detection of agents (from context, intelligence officers, not assets, though “agent” can mean either); Russia’s current government and the Soviet government aren't the same thing. > I think a much more reasonable explanation for why government organizations are always trying to become more totalitarian That's not the effect I was explaining or, even, at that level of generality, one I'd agree exists.
- lsc 8y ago>it is much easier to co-opt the corrupt Russian government than it is to co-opt the less corrupt American government. Can you give a cold war example of America effecting who ran russia that is as dramatic as the Trump story in the other direction?
- pessimizer 8y agoThere's no evidence that Russia had any significant effect on who runs the US, even if you accept all of the claimed attempts as true, whereas it's universally accepted and documented that the US got Yeltsin elected: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/03/spinning-hillary-a-history-of-america-and-russias-mutual-meddling https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/03/spinning-hilla...
- adventured 8y agoI'm fairly certain the thousands of dollars Russia spent on Google and Facebook ads, overwhelmed the $1.2 billion that was spent in total on the Clinton election campaign.
- polkapolka 8y agoThe ads are a red herring (and uncomfortably visible for both parties). The real activity was on Facebook groups, viralizing anti-immigration and far-left news, controling the narritive on 4chan pol and /r/the_donald, and botted up - and downvote brigades. It was so blatant it was visible to a non-expert on information warfare like me. The people doing this probably got paid about as much as a paid advertisement.
- JamesBarney 8y agoI think the U.S. is just an especially easy place to send a deep cover agent. It has a high standard of living so it's easier to recruit someone to be willing to live here for long periods of time. It's not uncommon for someone to have a social circle made up entirely of people they've only known a few years. This seems to be much less the case in other places in the world, especially Russia. It's much more culturally heterogenous so it's easier for someone to blend in.
- travmatt 8y agoThat probably contributes, but that can’t be the entire story. A previous post on HN discussed the means by which the soviets excelled at identifying CIA agents working under diplomatic cover - it turns out that American tradecraft was hardly as great as we believed - their sloppiness meant that CIA agents under diplomatic cover had unique payscales, tour lengths, working hours, socialization habits, and many other attributes that allowed their covers to be blown. If you can uncover the handlers by their sloppy tradecraft, surveilling and rolling up their assets isn’t going to be that hard - the lack of constitutionally guaranteed protections just meant that those networks could be rooted out quickly once uncovered, but it didn’t necessarily have to contribute towards their discovery.
- AndrewKemendo 8y agoPopular saying: Life is short for a NOC
- goseeastarwar 8y agoAny good books on the subject, sounds fascinating.
- judahjr88 8y agoThe Sword and the Shield
- oh_sigh 8y ago> The NKVD and KGB caught all of our deep cover agents within days; in some cases within hours. Uh...how do you know this?
- nappy 8y agoBest comment here. Citation needed on this comment, especially when it can be disproven with a single counter case.
- wmeredith 8y agoThese are extraordinary and remarkable claims. Source?
- AlexCoventry 8y agoLegacy of Ashes is a good source.