Following up on the post below about competence and accountability fostering trust, Marcy Wheeler this morning observes that having a career diplomat running the CIA is paying off. Our selective declassification of intelligence to disrupt Russian disinformation on Ukraine has proved effective even if the “triumphalism” of commentary surrounding it may prove premature:
But for now, such declassification has been tremendously successful. It allowed the US and its European partners to repeatedly undercut Russian efforts to gain surprise or legitimize their invasion with disinformation. It has exposed specifics about China’s support for the invasion, raising the costs of such support and, potentially, providing leverage to convince China to distance themselves both publicly and privately from Russia’s efforts. And it seems to have provided a basis for Western countries to unify quickly.
CIA Director William Burns told Sen. Susan Collins last week:
In all the years I spent as a career diplomat, I saw too many instances in which we lost information wars with the Russians. In this case, I think we have had a great deal of effect in disrupting their tactics and their calculations and demonstrating to the entire world that this is a premeditated and unprovoked aggression, built on a body of lies and false narratives. So this is one information war that I think Putin is losing.
Wheeler adds:
Among other posts Burns served in, he was Ambassador to Russia in the final years of the Bush Administration (months before Russia’s invasion of Georgia) and he served as Deputy Secretary of State during Russia’s response to Viktor Yanukovych’s ouster, including its annexation of Crimea.
“[A]fter the two decades of paranoid secrecy that followed the Iraq intelligence debacle, the United States is actually using the intelligence it makes such efforts to collect,” Wheeler writes. And gaining tactical advantage. “After years of Russian intelligence operations designed to split American alliances, that has had the effect of raising US credibility with allies.”
This is exactly what the last administration sought to undercut by appointing yes-men, cronies and loyalists to posts that require long experience and commitment to government service.
The 2019 impeachment hearings testimony of former Director for European Affairs for the United States National Security Council (NSC), Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, former Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, and former NSC Russia adviser Fiona Hill modeled what public service looks like when practiced by people more committed to their country than to their personal interests.
Trumpism is so perverse, it sees heroes as traitors.
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