Daily Times

Winston Churchill believed that Russia was a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. This meant that from the October Revolution in 1917, which had brought Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks to power, to the final days of Mikhail Gorbachev, understanding the Soviet Union was virtually impossible. Of course, that was not true.

George Kennan’s famous long telegram that became the famous “Mr X” article in Foreign Affairs provided an ample understanding of the Politburo and the actions of the Soviet leadership. Of course, much of the other analysis of the Soviet Union was based on “mirror-imaging,” which is the misdirected logic of assuming if we were in charge in Moscow, what we would do? And there were some genuine experts in the West who understood Russian culture and Soviet ideology. Unfortunately, much of that was ignored.

During the Cold War, a surfeit of Sovietologists made good livings “analysing” what was and was not happening in the Kremlin. So-called content analysis-matching statements by competing Soviet political leaders to determine power and policy shifts–was not quite the equivalent of examining chicken and other animal entrails to decipher the future. However, it was more of a guesswork than a scientific analysis.

The most outrageous example of failing to understand the Soviet Union belonged to the US President, John F. Kennedy, and his administration. Once the Soviet leader, General Secretary Nikita S. Khrushchev, had finally realised that the US President Dwight Eisenhower really wanted to reduce tensions, he significantly reduced defence spending; cutting about a million reserves in 1960. Kennedy, however, had run for office to the right of Vice President Richard Nixon, promising to rebuild American defences, which were weakened by the Eisenhower regime.

Tragically, as the Soviets were building down, JFK greatly increased defence spending; virtually doubling the size of America’s nuclear arsenal, reversing Ike’s “massive retaliation”, and replacing it with “flexible response.” Flexible response was designed to counter and defeat the Soviet military power conventionally, unconventionally, and at the nuclear level.

Trapped, Khrushchev decided he could have his cake. The decision was to avoid a major strategic nuclear build-up by stationing shorter-range missiles in Cuba as the U.S. had done with Jupiter missiles in Turkey. The failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, the Berlin crisis in which Khrushchev had threatened to sign a separate peace and, thus, challenge the status of West Berlin, and the Vienna conference in which Kennedy was cowed and virtually humiliated convinced the Soviet leader that Kennedy would accept missiles in Cuba as a fait accompli.

Of course, that did not happen. The Cuban Missile Crisis forced Khrushchev to back down and withdraw his missiles. Two years later, Khrushchev was ousted and the Soviets ramped up their defence spending. Had Kennedy understood more, perhaps the Cold War might have ended much earlier.

A quarter of a century after the Cold War ended, Sovietology has now gone the way of many extinct species. The study of Russia and Russian politics under President Vladimir Putin has largely been left to the media reports and Moscow “spin doctors.” Indeed, after a decade and a half of war against Islamic jihadists, analytical attention still mostly resides in attempting to understand better the underpinnings of this very flawed and dangerous perversion of religion for political purposes in order to defeat it. Sadly, the major tools in this confrontation have been “kinetic,” which mean using whatever force was available from F-16’s and Special Forces to drones to decapitate the leadership of this hideous movement.

As a consequence, it is only relatively recent that a greater analysis of Russian intentions has reawakened following the intervention in Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea in 2014, last year’s sortie into Syria in addition to Moscow’s increasingly harsh rhetoric of intimidation. At the NATO summits in Wales in 2014 and in Warsaw this year, the alliance took military steps to respond to Russian aggressive actions by enhancing deterrence and reassuring allies, particularly on both flanks and the eastern borders. The reality, however, is that these decisions were based less on a thorough analysis of Russian strengths, weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and more on the Cold War concepts of responding in kind with military solutions.

We understand these basics and little more. The Russian economy has been battered by the decline in energy prices and hindered by post-Ukraine sanctions. The GDP and standards of living have shrunk dramatically. While population growth may have stabilised, President Putin had also promised to right the economy two years ago; something he has failed so far.

Likewise, analysis of the Russian military, intelligence services and the propaganda machine has been often limited to superficial discussions of so-called “hybrid warfare” that blends all elements of power to achieve policy aims. Putin’s brilliant use of very limited forces in Syria to save Bashar al Assad’s regime, and relatively ancient warships of limited capability such as the mini-aircraft carrier, Kuznetsov, have achieved public relations results that even President-elect Donald Trump would envy.

Intimidation tactics that have combined the deployment of nuclear-capable cruise and ballistic missiles to the Baltics, nuclear civil defence exercises in Moscow, and threats to turn western countries to “ashes” are a part of this propagandistic effort. And Russian defence industries are turning out very interesting weaponry systems, including the Armata tank with an unmanned gun turret, and the ubiquitous Kalibr cruise missile, which, by the way, is far inferior to the American Tomahawk that has been in service for decades.

What is needed now is a serious analytical examination of Russia from top to bottom to identify strengths, weaknesses, vulnerabilities and, most importantly, the knowledge and understanding upon which the Western policies should be based. Interestingly, much of this effort can be done through what is called “open source” and unclassified material, much of which is emanating from Russia. And by using “social media,” the analytical techniques of the Cold War can be upgraded using the technologies of the 21st century.

During World War II, Bletchley Park became famous for code breaking. Today, its 21st-century version is needed to do the same for Russia in a far broader context. Because President Putin has almost been promiscuous in granting access to the media through his lengthy end-of-year press conference and many appearances in fora such as Valdai, a careful study of his views is considerably easier. Furthermore, during the Cold War, certain Soviet journals published previously classified information as a means of informing key audiences of the policy directions of the Soviet Union. Similar reporting is being done today.

The results of these analyses should be made available in a Wikipedia-type online service in order to inform and expand public debate on Russia. What singularly plagued the US in the past was its failure to understand and gain the knowledge necessary to prevail over an adversary. Both Vietnam and the Second Iraq War underscore the tragic consequences of–as the great Chinese General Sun Tzu warned–“not knowing the enemy.”

We cannot repeat these sins of the past.

The writer is UPI’s Arnaud de Borchgrave Distinguished Columnist. He serves as Senior Advisor for Supreme Allied Commander Europe, the Atlantic Council and Business Executives for National Security and chairs two private companies. His last book is A Handful of Bullets: How the Murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand Still Menaces the Peace. His next book due out next year is Anatomy of Failure: Why America Loses Wars It Starts