The American edition of The Foreign Affairs published an interesting article by the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States (and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia) William Joseph Burns "Spycraft and Statecraft: Transforming the CIA for an Age of Competition" ("Intelligence and government: the transformation of the CIA in an era of rivalry") with the presentation of views on the current and future tasks of his department. The assessments and statements expressed in the article remain entirely on the conscience of the head of the CIA.
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States William Joseph Burns (c) Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
Since the time when states began to keep something secret from each other, they have been trying to reveal this secret since the same time. Intelligence activities have been and remain an integral part of the mechanism of government, even though their methods are constantly undergoing changes. The first American spies during the Revolutionary War used ciphers, secret courier networks and invisible ink to correspond with each other and with their allies abroad. During the Second World War, radio intelligence, which was in the process of being born, helped to uncover Japan's war plans. At the beginning of the Cold War, the intelligence capabilities of the United States literally skyrocketed with the advent of the U-2 and other high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft that could photograph Soviet military installations with impressive image clarity.
The modest stars engraved on the memorial wall at the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Langley, Virginia, are dedicated to 140 officers of the department who gave their lives in the service of the fatherland. The memorial serves as a constant reminder of countless acts of courage. Nevertheless, these examples of heroism and the numerous quiet successes of the CIA remain much less known to the American public than the failures of the department, which sometimes overshadowed its history. The decisive criterion for intelligence effectiveness has always been to anticipate profound changes in the international situation and to help politicians navigate them - in those moments of [foreign policy] fluidity that occur only a few times a century.
As President Joe Biden has repeatedly noted, the United States is experiencing one of those rare moments today, as important as the beginning of the Cold War or the period after September 11, 2001. The rise of China and Russia's revanchism pose formidable geopolitical challenges in a world of intense strategic rivalry in which the United States no longer has an undeniable advantage and in which existential climate threats are growing. The situation is further complicated by the scientific and technological revolution, which is more ambitious than the industrial revolution or the beginning of the nuclear era. From microchips to artificial intelligence and quantum computing, new technologies are transforming the world, including the intelligence profession. In many ways, these developments complicate the CIA's work more than ever before, providing opponents with powerful new tools to mislead us, deceive us and spy on us.
And yet, no matter how much the world changes, intelligence remains a field of activity where human and technical factors interact. There will still be secrets that only humans can extract, and covert operations that only humans can carry out. Scientific and technological progress, especially in the field of electronic intelligence, did not detract from the importance of the human factor, as some predicted, but, on the contrary, revolutionized the practical activities of people. To remain an effective intelligence service in the 21st century, the CIA must combine mastery of the latest technology with the people-to-people communication skills and personal courage that have always been at the core of our profession. This means providing operational staff with the tools and professional skills to conduct intelligence activities in a world of continuous surveillance using technical means, and analysts with sophisticated artificial intelligence models that will help them process huge amounts of information from open sources and information received from intelligence sources, based on common sense.
At the same time, the way the CIA handles the intelligence it obtains is changing. "Strategic declassification", as the deliberate disclosure of certain classified information in order to undermine the positions of rivals and rally allies, is becoming an increasingly effective tool for politicians. Using it does not imply recklessness in compromising intelligence sources or methods of gathering them, but means reasonable resistance to the reflex desire to keep everything secret. The US intelligence community is also aware of the growing value of intelligence diplomacy; a new understanding is being born of how it can assist the country's politicians in supporting allies and countering opponents.
This is a time of historic challenges for the CIA and all professional intelligence officers, because geopolitical and scientific and technical transformations represent the most serious challenge we have ever faced. Our success depends on a creative combination of traditional intelligence with new technologies. In other words, it will require adapting to a world where the only reliable prediction of change is that it is accelerating.
A wild Putin
The era that marked the end of the Cold War came to a decisive end in February 2022 with the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. I have spent most of the last two decades trying to understand the explosive combination of resentments, claims and complexes that Russian President Vladimir Putin embodies. One thing I've learned is that underestimating his obsession with controlling Ukraine and its choices is an immutable mistake. Without this control, in his opinion, Russia cannot be a great power, and he cannot be a great Russian leader. This tragic and gross fixation has already disgraced Russia and exposed its weaknesses - from an undiversified economy to an overblown military power and a corrupt political system. Putin's invasion provoked the amazing determination of the Ukrainian people. I personally became convinced of his courage during my frequent trips to the warring Ukraine, which were accompanied by Russian missile and air strikes and the demonstration of vivid images of the resilience and ingenuity of Ukrainians on the battlefield.
Putin's war has already become a failure for Russia on many levels. His original goal of capturing Kiev and subjugating Ukraine turned out to be absurd and illusory. His armed forces suffered huge losses: at least 315,000 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded, two-thirds of Russia's pre-war tank fleet was destroyed, and Putin's vaunted program of modernization of the armed forces, designed for decades, was nullified. All this is a direct consequence of the valor and military prowess of Ukrainian soldiers supported by the West. Meanwhile, the Russian economy is experiencing a long-term recession and is condemning itself to vassalage from China. Putin's exorbitant ambitions had another negative consequence: they have encouraged NATO to become bigger and stronger.
Although Putin's repressive grip seems unlikely to weaken anytime soon, his war in Ukraine is imperceptibly eroding his power in his own country. The short-lived rebellion launched last June by mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin provided a glimpse into some of the crisis phenomena hiding behind the glossy picture of Putin's rule. For a leader who painstakingly built a reputation as a ruler of order, Putin looked detached and indecisive as Prigozhin's ragtag rebels made their way to Moscow. For many representatives of the Russian elite, the question was not so much whether the king was naked, as why he took so long to get dressed. The first apostle of the "answer", Putin eventually settled accounts with Prigozhin, who died in a suspicious plane crash exactly two months after his attempted rebellion. However, Prigozhin's harsh criticism of the lies and miscalculations of the military that underlie Putin's war, as well as the corruption that underlies the Russian political system, will not disappear soon.
This year will probably be difficult for the warring Ukraine, its test of resilience, but its consequences will go far beyond the heroic struggle of this country to preserve its freedom and independence. By increasing the production of military products in Russia - with the help of critical components from China, as well as weapons and ammunition from Iran and North Korea, - Putin still believes that time is on his side and that he can crush Ukraine and exhaust its supporters in the West. Ukraine's task is to bring down Putin's arrogance and show Russia the high price of continuing the conflict, not only moving forward on the line of contact, but also striking enemy targets in the deep rear and achieving regular successes on the Black Sea. In such circumstances, Putin may start rattling nuclear weapons again, and it would be unwise to completely discount the risks of escalation. But it would be equally unwise to unduly succumb to intimidation.
The key to success lies in maintaining Western aid to Ukraine. With less than five percent of the U.S. defense budget, this is a relatively modest investment with significant geopolitical returns for the American state and substantial revenues for American industry. Maintaining arms supplies will put Ukraine in a better position if there is an opportunity for serious negotiations. This provides a chance to ensure Ukraine's victory in the long term and guarantees Russia's strategic loss; Ukraine would be able to defend its sovereignty and recover, while Russia would have to bear the constant costs due to Putin's madness. For the United States, withdrawing from the conflict at this critical moment and ending support for Ukraine would be an auto-coup of historic proportions.
Demonstrating the power of Xi Jinping
No one is following the support of Ukraine from the United States as closely as the Chinese leadership. China remains the only rival of the United States that has both the intention to change the international order, as well as the economic, diplomatic, military, and scientific and technical power to do so. The economic transformations that have taken place in this country over the past five decades have been outstanding. These are the transformations for which the Chinese people deserve great praise, and which the rest of the world widely supports, believing that a prosperous China is a global good.
The problem is not China's rise as such, but the threatening actions that increasingly accompany it. Chinese leader Xi Jinping began his third term as president with more power than any of his predecessors since Mao Zedong. Instead of using this power to strengthen and revitalize the system of international relations that has allowed China to transform, Xi is seeking to rewrite it. As professional intelligence officers, we carefully study what the heads of state say. But we pay even more attention to what they do. Xi Jinping's growing repressiveness at home and his assertiveness abroad - from his borderless partnership with Putin to threats to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait - cannot be ignored.
However, the same applies to the influence of Western solidarity on Xi Jinping's calculations regarding the risks of using force against Taiwan, which elected a new president Lai Qingde in January. For Xi Jinping, a man who tends to view the United States as a fading power, American leadership in Ukraine has undoubtedly come as a surprise. The willingness of the United States to inflict economic pain and endure it itself by resisting Putin's aggression, as well as its ability to rally its allies to act in a similar way, strongly contradicted Beijing's belief that America is in a state of final decline. And closer to the coast of China, the resilience of the American network of allies and partners throughout the Indo-Pacific region has had a sobering effect on Beijing's thinking. One of the most reliable ways to revive the idea of America's helplessness in China and ignite Chinese aggression would be to abandon support for Ukraine. The continuation of material support to Ukraine is not at the expense of Taiwan; this is an important signal of the determination of the United States, which helps Taiwan.
The rivalry with China is taking place against the background of strong economic interdependence and trade ties between it and the United States. Such ties have served the two countries and the rest of the world admirably in their time, but they have also created critical vulnerabilities and serious risks to American security and prosperity. The COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear to every government about the dangers of dependence on any one country for life-saving medicines, just as Russia's war in Ukraine has clearly shown Europe the risks of dependence on one country in the field of energy. In today's world, no country wants to be dominated by a single supplier of essential minerals and technologies - especially if that supplier intends to turn this dependence into a weapon. According to American politicians, the best answer is a reasonable "risk reduction" and diversification - ensuring the security of cooperative ties between subjects of the American market, protecting their scientific and technical advantages and investing in their production potential.
In this unstable, divided world, the weight of the "hedging middle" is growing. Democracies and autocracies, developed and developing economies, as well as countries of the global South are increasingly seeking to diversify their relations in order to maximize their opportunities. They see little benefit and a lot of risk in sticking to a monogamous geopolitical relationship with either the United States or China. More and more countries are likely to focus on the status of "open" geopolitical relations (or at least on the status of "difficult" ones), following the policy of the United States on a number of issues, but at the same time developing relations with China. And if the past is a precedent, Washington should be attentive to the rivalry between a growing number of middle-level powers, which has historically contributed to the emergence of clashes between great powers.
It's a painfully familiar mess
The crisis provoked by the Hamas massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023, is a painful reminder of the difficult choices that the Middle East continues to put before the United States. Competition with China will remain Washington's top priority, but that doesn't mean it can dodge other challenges. This only means that the United States must act carefully and with restraint, avoiding excesses, and use its influence wisely.
I have spent most of the last four decades working in and around the Middle East, and I have rarely seen the situation in this region more confusing or explosive. Curtailing Israel's high-intensity military operations in the Gaza Strip, meeting the deep humanitarian needs of the suffering Palestinian civilian population, freeing hostages, preventing the conflict from spreading to other fronts in the region and developing an effective approach to the "day after tomorrow" in Gaza are all incredibly difficult problems. The same can be said about the revival of hope for a lasting peace that will ensure Israel's security, as well as Palestinian statehood, and will allow using a historic chance to normalize Israel's relations with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. As difficult as it may be to imagine such an opportunity in the current crisis, it is even more difficult to imagine a way out of the crisis without taking it seriously.
The key to Israel's security - and that of the entire region - is engagement with Iran. The crisis has emboldened the Iranian regime, and the latter seems ready to fight to the last regional proxy, while simultaneously expanding its nuclear program and aiding Russian aggression. A few months after October 7, the Iranian-allied Yemeni Houthi rebel group launched attacks on merchant shipping in the Red Sea, while risks of escalation remain on other fronts.
The United States is not solely responsible for solving any of the acute problems of the Middle East. But none of them can be managed - let alone solved - without the active leadership of the United States.
Spies like us
Geopolitical rivalry and uncertainty - not to mention common challenges such as climate change and unprecedented advances in science and technology like artificial intelligence - are shaping a fiendishly complex international environment. It is extremely important for the CIA to change its approach to intelligence activities in order to keep up with this rapidly changing world. The CIA and the rest of the U.S. intelligence community, led by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, are making every effort to meet this imperative of the times with all the urgency and creativity it requires.
This new environment poses special challenges for an organization focused on intelligence. In a world where the main rivals of the United States - China and Russia - are led by individualistic autocrats relying on a narrow and closed circle of advisers, getting an idea of the intentions of the leaders is both more important and more difficult than ever before.
Just as September 11, 2001 marked a new era for the CIA, Russia's invasion of Ukraine was an equivalent event. I am deeply proud of the work that the CIA and our intelligence partners have done to help the president and senior U.S. politicians - and especially the Ukrainians themselves - thwart Putin's plans. Together, we have provided early and accurate warning of an impending invasion. This knowledge also allowed the US president to decide to send me to Moscow in November 2021 to warn Putin and his advisers about the consequences of the attack, which we knew they were planning. Convinced that their window of opportunity to subjugate Ukraine was closing and that the coming winter provided them with a favorable opportunity, they were steadfast and implacable, greatly overestimating their own position and underestimating the potential of Ukraine's resistance and the determination of the West.
Since then, high-quality intelligence information has contributed to the President's efforts to form and maintain a strong coalition of states in support of Ukraine. It also contributed to Ukraine's self-defense with extraordinary courage and fortitude. The President also creatively used strategic declassification. Before the invasion, his administration, along with the British government, made public Russian plans of action under a "false flag", which were aimed at placing blame on Ukrainians and creating a pretext for a Russian military operation. These and subsequent denunciations refuted Putin's false narratives, which, according to my observations, he has repeatedly used in the past. They put him in the uncomfortable and unusual position of a man pinned to a nail. And they have strengthened both Ukraine and the coalition of states supporting it.
Meanwhile, dissatisfaction with the war, hidden under a thick layer of state propaganda and repression, continues to corrode the Russian leadership and the Russian people. This underlying discontent creates a unique opportunity for the CIA to recruit agents. We will not let this go to waste.
While Russia appears to be the most immediate threat, China is a more serious and long-term threat, and over the past two years the CIA has reorganized to reflect this hierarchy of priorities. We started by acknowledging an organizational fact that I learned a long time ago: priorities are unrealistic if budgets don't reflect them. Accordingly, the CIA has allocated significantly more resources to intelligence gathering, operational and information-analytical work around the world related to China, more than doubling the share of the Chinese direction in the total budget of the organization over the past two years alone. We are recruiting and training more and more native Chinese speakers, while increasing our efforts to compete with China on a global scale - from Latin America to Africa and the Indo-Pacific region.
The structure of the CIA has about a dozen "operational centers", specialized working groups that bring together employees from various departments of the department. In 2021, we created a new operations center focused exclusively on China. This is the only operational center in the CIA structure aimed at working on a single country, it provides a centralized mechanism for coordinating work on China - work that today concerns every department of the CIA. And we are also slowly strengthening the channels of information exchange with our counterparts in Beijing, which is an important tool to help politicians avoid unnecessary ambiguity and unintended clashes in relations between the United States and China.
Despite the fact that China and Russia absorb most of the CIA's attention, our agency cannot afford to neglect other challenges - from the fight against terrorism to regional instability. The successful US strike in Afghanistan in July 2022 against Ayman al-Zawahiri, the co-founder and former leader of Al-Qaeda, demonstrated that the CIA remains focused on terrorist threats and retains significant potential to counter them. The CIA also allocates significant resources to combat the spread of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid from which every year Tens of thousands of Americans are dying. And long-standing regional problems loom not only in places that have long been considered strategically important, such as North Korea and the South China Sea, but also in those parts of the world whose geopolitical importance will only grow in the coming years - in Latin America and Africa.
Intelligent intelligence
Meanwhile, we are changing our approach to the latest technologies. The CIA is working to combine high-tech tools with good old-fashioned methods of obtaining intelligence from individuals - that is, agent intelligence. Of course, scientific and technological progress makes many aspects of intelligence activities much more difficult than ever before. In the era of "smart" cities, when video cameras are installed on every street, and facial recognition technology is becoming more widespread, it has become much more difficult to spy. For a CIA officer working abroad in an unfriendly country and meeting with sources who risk their own safety by passing on valuable information, constant surveillance poses a serious threat. But the same technology that sometimes works against the CIA - whether it's collecting and processing large amounts of data to identify patterns in the activities of the department or extensive networks of video cameras that can track every movement of an operative - can equally be made to work for the agency and against other intelligence agencies. The CIA competes with its rivals in the application of advanced technologies. The Office introduced the position of Technical Director and formed another new operations center focused on establishing closer partnerships with the private sector of the economy, where American innovations provide a significant competitive advantage.
The CIA's internal scientific and technical potential is still at its best. Over the years, the department has developed enough spy devices to fill more than one warehouse; my favorite toy is a Cold War-era camera designed to look and flutter like a dragonfly. The revolution in artificial intelligence and the avalanche of information from open sources - along with intelligence obtained by operational methods - create new hitherto unprecedented opportunities for CIA analysts. We are developing new AI-based tools that will help us digest this entire array of information faster and more efficiently, allowing employees to focus on what they are most called upon to do: make informed judgments and form an idea of what is most important to politicians and what matters most to America's interests. Artificial intelligence will not replace human analysts, but it is already expanding their capabilities.
Another priority in this new era is to strengthen the CIA's unparalleled global network of intelligence partnerships - something that is currently lacking in the rivals of the United States, whose intelligence agencies have to rely more on their own forces. The ability of the CIA to capitalize on partnerships - in terms of the intelligence that partners obtain, their experience and their prospects, as well as their ability to work in many places with greater ease than our agency can do - is crucial to the success of our activities. To the same extent that diplomacy depends on reviving old and new partnerships, intelligence also relies on them. In essence, the intelligence profession deals with interpersonal communication, and there is no substitute for direct contact to strengthen ties with our closest allies, communicate with our fiercest opponents, and educate everyone in between. In almost three years as director of the CIA, I have traveled to more than 50 foreign missions and studied the full range of these relationships.
Sometimes it is more convenient for intelligence officers to deal with historical opponents in an environment where diplomatic contact can mean official recognition. That is why the US President sent me to Kabul at the end of August 2021 to contact the leadership of the Taliban movement immediately before the final withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. Sometimes CIA connections in tense corners of the world can provide practical opportunities, such as during ongoing negotiations with Egypt, Israel, Qatar and Hamas over a humanitarian truce and the release of hostages in the Gaza Strip. Sometimes such connections can become a healthy ballast in a relationship full of political ups and downs. And sometimes intelligence diplomacy can help bring interests closer together and thus gradually contribute to the efforts of American diplomats and politicians.
Outside the public sphere
Every day, when I read reports from our intelligence posts around the world, visit foreign capitals, or chat with colleagues at headquarters, I am reminded of the skill and valor of the CIA staff, as well as the incessant challenges they face. They do hard work in a harsh environment. Especially after September 11, 2001, they acted at an incredibly fast pace. Indeed, the fulfillment of the tasks facing the CIA in this new and frightening era is driven by concern for our people. That is why the CIA has strengthened its medical capacity at headquarters and in the field; better health insurance programs have been formed for family members, remote access employees and married couples in which both spouses are employees of the department; the possibility of more flexible career growth has been considered, especially for technical specialists who can temporarily switch to private sector and then return to management.
We have simplified our recruitment process. Now, the transition from submitting an application to a final job invitation and obtaining access to classified information takes a quarter of the time that was required two years ago. These improvements have contributed to a growing interest in the CIA. In 2023, we had more applicants than in any other year immediately after September 11, 2001. We are also trying to diversify our staff, having reached a historic high in 2023 in terms of the number of employed women and minority employees in general, as well as the number of people in these categories nominated for senior management positions.
Due to official necessity, CIA employees act in a non-public manner, remaining, as a rule, out of sight and out of earshot; the risks they take and the sacrifices they make are rarely fully realized by people outside our profession. At the moment, when the state institutions of the United States are often experiencing a lack of trust, CIA employees remain firmly outside politics, being bound by the oath that I and all my colleagues in the office took in defense of the Constitution, and our obligations under current law.
CIA employees are also united by a sense of belonging to the collective and a deep shared commitment to public service at such a critical moment in American history. They learned the truth in the advice that my father, who had an outstanding military career, gave me many years ago. While I was puzzling over my professional orientation, he sent me a handwritten note: "Nothing can make you feel more proud than honest service to the motherland." This helped me start a long and successful career in public service, first in the diplomatic field, and then in the CIA. I have never regretted the choice I made. I feel extremely proud to serve alongside thousands of other CIA employees who feel the same way about themselves-and embrace the challenge of a new era.
