OPINION:
Years ago, on a headquarters tour of duty in the office of the CIA‘s deputy director for operations, I was responsible for delivering the morning briefings to the agency’s director and deputy on the latest developments in the clandestine world of human intelligence.
The legendary Deputy Director John McLaughlin, one of the finest CIA analysts of his generation, would let me know he was ready for my briefing by uttering the words: “Please remove the scales from my eyes.”
Mr. McLaughlin’s biblical reference — it’s from Psalm 119 — reflected his commitment to hearing hard truths even when it meant challenging his own assumptions.
Demonstrating the most enlightened leadership, Mr. McLaughlin made it clear he welcomed being told what he needed to know, especially when it might not have been what he wanted to hear.
He was and is the living embodiment of the CIA’s devotion to intellectual honesty, an honesty the president and his policymakers rely on when they must make the most consequential decisions on how to keep our nation safe.
Modern Russia, of course, has no such history of speaking truth to power. Vladimir Semichastny, whom Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev chose as KGB chairman for his loyalty rather than competence, badly hobbled the Kremlin’s decision-making during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who served in the KGB and as director of Russia’s ruthless Federal Security Service, has only reinforced the subservient and obsequious culture of Russia’s military, security and intelligence services when it comes to interpreting the world around them.
Mr. Putin’s world has been a Potemkin village of lies and disinformation, all designed to influence his own population and whitewash Russia’s reputation abroad. That’s why his public admission last week that Russia had suffered “significant losses” during its barbaric war on Ukraine might appear at first glance to be a noteworthy anomaly. Mr. Putin conceded that Russian forces were struggling with shortages of artillery, but expressed hope that “the military industry will soon be able to satisfy growing demand.”
Having reportedly suffered more than 200,000 casualties and reeling from poor logistics and morale, Russia’s beleaguered army has been digging in along a 600-mile front line as Ukraine began mounting a counteroffensive designed to cut Russia’s land bridge to Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed by force in 2014.
Last year, Russia mobilized 300,000 troops and an estimated 1 million Russians fled the country in a costly “brain drain.”
The ruble’s drop in value has increased the cost of imported goods.
Echoing Mr. Putin’s flirtation with reality on the economic front, Russia’s Central Bank admitted last week that “accelerating fiscal spending, deteriorating terms of foreign trade and the situation in the labor market remain pro-inflationary risk drivers.”
Mr. Putin’s public admissions in an interview on his state TV and his Central Bank’s pessimistic economic forecast reflect a head-on collision between Kremlin propaganda and the inescapable truth about the consequences for Russia of its bloody, disastrous invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, a campaign that Mr. Putin once claimed would produce a quick victory for his “special military operation.”
The Biden administration has provided Ukraine with billions of dollars’ worth of military assistance, including new funding announced last week for Patriot air defense systems and artillery rounds.
But Ukraine will not have any U.S. Abrams tanks or the Army’s ATACMS tactical missile systems, which have a range of 190 miles, or roughly four times the HIMARS mobile systems the U.S. began deploying to Ukraine last year.
Ukraine for now will also not be getting any U.S. F-16 fighter aircraft, which would provide Kyiv with the close air support necessary to knock out Russia’s artillery.
With his war machine crumbling, Mr. Putin resorted to more nuclear brinkmanship for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union, by announcing Russia would deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus next month.
If I were briefing Mr. McLaughlin today, he would probably ask whether we had done enough to end Mr. Putin’s war of aggression and restore Ukrainian sovereignty over all its rightful territory.
To paraphrase former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the Ukrainians had no choice but to go to war with the army they have, not the army they might want or wish to have at a later time.
Mr. Putin’s only success — amid his colossal failure to prepare his own military force for war or to accurately assess his opponent’s capacity and will to fight — has been to induce a measure of “escalation paralysis” from the Biden administration.
The coming days and months will demonstrate whether Mr. Putin’s strategy of delaying and denying Ukraine access to U.S. and Western tanks, long-range artillery and fighter aircraft will be enough to blunt Ukraine’s counteroffensive.
⦁ Daniel N. Hoffman is a retired clandestine services officer and former chief of station with the Central Intelligence Agency. His combined 30 years of government service included high-level overseas and domestic positions at the CIA. He has been a Fox News contributor since May 2018. Follow him on Twitter @DanielHoffmanDC.
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