Veteran journalist and author
Joseph C. Goulden offers his take on the spy expulsions from Washington and
Moscow in the Washington Times.
Washington and Moscow
recently exchanged tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats, stemming from a
suspected poisoning of a defected KGB officer and his daughter in London.
It is not a state secret that
embassies of both powers contain numerous intelligence officers who are working
undercover.
Hence a question is being
debated in the U.S. intelligence community: Regardless of the brazen nature of
the motivating attack, one of several carried out by the Russians in recent
years, were the mass expulsions the best way to retaliate?
To be sure, the Russians must
be taught that such brutal behavior violates the norms by which decent nation
perform. President Trump and leaders of other Western allies must be applauded
for demonstrating to Vladimir Putin that such actions will not be tolerated.
But an obvious downside is
that replacements must be found for the expelled spies. For the Central
Intelligence Agency, being assigned to Moscow Station — either in declared
status or “black” (i.e., undercover) — reserved for the best-of-the-best
officers in the Operations Directorate. Several years of extensive training in
“Moscow rules” — highly specialized tradecraft — is required.
Unsurprisingly, a half-dozen
retired officers with whom I spoke on a no-names basis had varying opinions of
Mr. Trump’s action — although all agreed that some form of retaliation was
necessary, and all agreed that countering expulsions by Moscow were sure to follow.
You can read the rest of the
piece via the below link:
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