When even Intelligence Services are crying for Help...

Hello everybody!

The following is something like ‘a number of thoughts’ that came to my mind in reaction to certain developments of the last weekend. I’m not yet entirely sure I can summarise and then ‘connect the dots’, and explain them properly. But, I’ll try. Perhaps some of your reactions are going to help - like this is quite often the case? We’ll see.

***

The way I’m studying wars is to focus on ‘what matters’: while this might appear either ‘superficial’ or ‘easy’, at times we’re all literally overloaded with shiploads of distracting-, wrong-, or fake information - it is not. At least not for me.

What I think does matter at war are such issues like the situation on the battlefield; technology available and how is this working (or not); terrain; supplies; troops; training…. In military vocabulary, this is summarised with ‘capabilities and intentions’.

Researching the enemy capabilities and intentions is the primary business of every professional intelligence service (regardless if civilian or military by nature): for this purpose, these are nowadays distilling what matters and what not out of what they get to hear from ‘zillions’ of sources. Don’t worry: they’re not ‘omni-present’. Far from that. Ideally, they have their ‘two-three moles in the right places’, and no time for much more (except for the never-ending search for the ‘thrid or fourth mole’). Point is: from the social media, and at best, one can only get a glimpse of somebody’s ‘capabilities and intentions’.

Indeed, contrary to the public - including politicians - not only intelligence services but also their primary ‘customers’ - military services - are usually indoctrinated to completely ignore the mainstream- and the social media. They can’t waste their time with ‘monitoring masses of people’ the activities and interests of whom are best summarised with, ‘traffic accidents in the morning, sports and cooking in the afternoon, and Ukraine in the evening’.

That’s also something like a good ‘executive summary’ of why am I rarely discussing specific articles in the media. However, time and again there are exceptions: an article (and/or a public appearance) I find is not only ‘worth attention’, but ‘must read/see’. Not only because of the messages, but because of authors.

One such case appeared the last weekend, when the directors of the Central Intelligence Agency (USA), William Burns, and the chief of the MI6 (a.k.a. Secret Intelligence Service, SIS of the UK), Richard Moore, have first penned an ‘op-ed’ for the Financial Times, and then appeared together in that newspaper’s online discussion:

There you have it: for the first time ever (they didn’t do this even at the times of the Cold War), the chiefs of two major Western intelligence services are appearing in the public to jointly air a set of very specific messages (mind: I write ‘major’ intelligence services, not ‘most powerful’, because that with ‘most powerful’ is nowadays foremost related to ‘politically influential’: as the following is going to show, I doubt this is valid for either the CIA or the SIS).

Between others, Burns and Moore warned that,

-          the ‘World Order’ (the system that has created relative peace, stability, and relative prosperity since 1945) is facing the biggest threat since the Cold War;

-          that the war in Ukraine (and other conflicts) is threatening the very existence of ‘Western liberal democracies’;

-          that Pudding’s threats with nuclear weapons should not deter support for Ukraine (i.e. that the West should take these seriously, but not let itself be intimidated by Pudding’s threats);

-          they are warning about covert activities of Russian intelligence services in the West, like sabotage, arson, and spread of lies and disinformation with the aim of influencing elections;

-          and damn China as the main intelligence and geopolitical challenge of the century.  

Finally, they are warning that it’s crucial for the ‘West to stay the course’: stick to its core values…. which is of particular interest because just two days earlier, the same pair (Burns & Moore) also publicly demanded a cease-fire in Gaza, which, (pay attention), came in the aftermath of hundreds of US-, UK-, and EU civil servants (plus a total of at least 12 members of the Biden Administration) first protesting, and then quitting their jobs over US, UK, and EU’s continuous support for the Israeli genocide on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, since January this year.

***

Now, some are already jumping to conclusions like that Burns and Moore are ‘announcers’, ‘they’ve been ordered to do so’, ‘when they say things of this kind, then that’s the deep state at work’ and other conspiracy theories.

That itch in my small toe is telling me that the situation is diametrically opposite.

Up front, let me remind you that like any other officials (at least ‘here in the West’), so also Burns and Moore are private persons, too, and thus have all the same rights and privileges (and duties and responsibilities) like every other private person. Between others, they have the right to express their own conclusions and opinions in the public (of course: the difference between them and ‘everyday Joe’ is that many more people are certain to listen to them, even if for a very wide range of reasons).

If at all, in the course of such appearances, they’re ‘merely’ prohibited from revealing any kind of ‘secrets’ (where one should keep in mind that it’s such people like Burns and Moore who are usually the ones deciding what is ‘secret’ and what not).

As next, mind that Burns and Moore are no ‘decision makers’: they’re not deciding about the politics of their governments. They are informing and advising: the final say is always on presidents and prime ministers (and the oligarchy bribing these).

Precisely this is why, once people like Burns and Moore do start making public appearances of that kind – well, then one better listens damn carefully.

….because they do not do such things for nothing: if, then they are making such appearances because they are feeling ignored by their political masters, are frustrated, and have concluded that nothing else works.

Indeed, the way I see their motivations for this kind of public appearances is that they did this precisely because of frustration with zombie idiots: characters in the White House, Downing Street, Capitol, the Houses of Parliament and lots of other, similar places (including headquarters of numerous corporations) who are either intentionally ignoring, or can't even dream about comprehending what are they (Burns and Moore) reporting and advising them, every single morning.

In plain English: this was not just a set of warnings, but a cry for help, too.

***

Obviously, my ‘interpretation’ is certain to appear ‘biased’ and ‘amateurish’. And, hand on heart: everybody is free to interpret such affairs in his/her own fashion; everybody is doing that, regularly, and - usually - on basis of own experiences; our experiences are ‘colourising’ our conclusions and thus every single one of us can say we have good reasons to dos.

However, this is where I would like to remind: intelligence is one of essences of modern warfare. One of, actually, very few things that really ‘matters’.

Mind that no matter what is happening or where, one can always be 1000% sure: while the mass of their political masters might be meanwhile experts in intentionally ignoring intelligence (Trump was not the first US president to intentionally ignore the CIA’s morning briefings [nor was Netanyahu the first Israeli prime minister to intentionally ignore Mossad’s]), the intelligence is the sole source of information for all military officers – for ‘generals’ – commanding troops in the wars like the one in Ukraine. In this regards, there’s no difference between Washington, London, Moscow, or Kyiv. On the contrary: for generals commanding this war, intelligence is the only information worth attention, and everything else is completely ignored.

This is the case because regardless of the public reputation of the CIA and/or MI6, regardless of frequent incompetence of different of their officers, and even if the best intelligence services are anything else than ‘always right’, and a growing number of them is meanwhile heavily politicised (i.e. the results, or products of work by a growing number of intelligence services are misused for all the possible purposes): professional intelligence services still do excel in distilling what matters.

***

Why do I find this ‘important’?

Well because… call it ‘the gut feeling’ this time (not that notorious itch in my small toe), but: my impression is that this ‘War in Ukraine’ - which is meanwhile actually the ‘Third World War’ - is approaching a point where it’s becoming something of ‘unpleasant routine’ for all too much of the ‘Western’ public. Something not really interesting for ‘pages 1-3’ of daily newspapers; at most worth just another 30-seconds-to-2-minutes, entirely pointless TV-news-report, offering no backgrounds or context whatsoever. Correspondingly, the ‘decision-makers’ in the West care ever less about it, too: it’s not troubling them and therefore they need not worry about it. Indeed, several appeared ‘obviously nerved by that topic coming up again’ whenever asked about it during one of their recent public appearances.

The results are more than obvious: I have already ridiculed NATO’s ‘means of helping improve Ukrainian air defences’ by ‘pledging’ another 200 M113s and similar idiocies announced during the latest NATO-Ukraine meeting in Rammstein. Point is, even when all the PAC-2/3s, IRIS-Ts, and SAMP-Ts lately announced as ‘going to be delivered’ (i.e. sometimes in early 2025), the PSU’s air defences are not going to be bolstered sufficiently. If for no other reason then because

a) ‘more air defence-equipment’ is not equal to ‘more surface-to-air missiles’, and

b) the West simply can’t deliver more of surface-to-air missiles because it did not ramp up their production enough to do so. Additionally because

c) not one of the systems in question has the range to counter UMPK-releasing Su-24s and Su-34s, and then because

d) very few of them have both serious anti-ballistic missile- and UAV-capabilities (to counter both the stuff like Iskander-Ms and BM-30 rockets, but also Zalas and similar).

….but, and foremost for the reasons Burns and Moore are warning about: because ‘the West’ simply does not give a damn. It’s got so many more important things to do but care about the war Pudding is conducting (also) against it.

With other words: my impression is that, just like ‘the West’ screwed up Ukraine the last year in October, now it’s screwing up Ukraine in September…with, usually, tragic consequences.