Spy Crisis Raises Questions About U.S. Policy
The recent Russian spy drama has finally come to an end after a prisoner swap in Vienna. Strangely, both sides scrambled to downplay the crisis. When the drama first began, Vladimir Putin strongly criticized the U.S., saying the police were “out of control.” However, he later downplayed the situation, saying, “I really expect that the positive achievements that have been made in our intergovernmental relations lately will not be damaged by the latest events…We really hope that the people who value Russian-American relations understand this.”
Although the FBI successfully penetrated a Russian spy ring and made these arrests after years of investigation, the Obama administration also attempted to downplay the event. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said, “We are going to work as hard as we can to move beyond this.”
This event has shed light on two truths about the state of U.S. policy:
- It is unclear what President Obama believes U.S. interests to be in Eastern Europe and Russia.
- The U.S. government and media seem not to understand the role of espionage in the modern world.
Both sides expressed their desire to focus on other priorities. President Obama wants his New START arms treaty to be ratified by the Senate, but even that document demonstrates that our grand strategy regarding Russia is unclear. Georgia has all but disappeared as an issue and the Ukraine will not be joining NATO anytime soon. Is the democratic progress of Eastern European nations still a U.S. foreign policy goal as it has been for consecutive administrations? The Russians often speak of their goal of living in a multi-polar world, meaning a world with reduced U.S. influence. Does the Obama administration believe such a world is ideal?
The two nations are at odds with one another not because of misunderstanding but because of divergent foreign policy goals. Russia wants to reassert influence over its former Soviet states. It has been made abundantly clear that President Obama wants to “reset” relations with the Russians. Reset to what exactly is still a mystery.
President Obama should explain to the U.S. public why nations continue to spy on the U.S. and why it is essential to the U.S. to maintain its own intelligence capabilities. Unbelievably, senior administration officials seem not to understand themselves. Assistant Secretary of State for Russia, Philip Gordon, absurdly suggested, “We would like to get to the point where there is just so much trust and cooperation between the United States and Russia that nobody would think of turning to intelligence means to find out things that they couldn’t find out in other channels.”
Sound national policy has to be based on sound information. The nature of international relations requires that information must sometimes be obtained by less-than-transparent means. The world has dangers, and even if the U.S. and Russia eventually become close allies, the need for intelligence will never disappear. Spying was not invented merely for the Cold War, nor was either the U.S. or the USSR its creator. American leadership requires knowledge; in a world of secrets, knowledge requires intelligence capacity.
The U.S. government must make clear that it is not naïve to its strategic position in the world. Statements such as those made by Assistant Secretary of State Phillip Gordon make the U.S. appear naive about Great Power politics. President Obama can take this moment to explain to the U.S. public why espionage continues into the 21st century. Successful operations carried out by the FBI and the CIA are essential to American interests, and the public needs a sophisticated understanding of this subject if the U.S. is going to continue to be a dominant power in 21st century world politics.
The National Security section of the Weekly Political Forecast is written by PAI’s Analyst in National Security Affairs.
