REMINDER: Bette's Tuesday Happy Hour with Heidi and Mo’ + Mo’s GWOT Op-Ed
Bette members: please register for our Tuesday Happy Hour with geopolitical analyst Monique Camarra, as we discuss global news events + she breaks down the global war on terror’s impacts in an Op-Ed
***Paid Bette members will find the registration link below the paywall. To join our community events and to help support independent investigative journalism in a time of grave peril, please upgrade to a paid membership. All my investigative content at Bette Dangerous is free, and your paid memberships support that decision.***
Open to all levels of paid membership, Bette members are invited to our Tuesday Happy Hour, August 26, Noon Pacific, 3 pm Eastern, where we will be joined by EuroFile’s Monique Camarra.
In addition to Monique’s updates, I will offer a briefing on my Hot Type column that was published in Byline Supplement on Saturday:
In response to my report above, Monique took the time to write the following Op-Ed for the Bette community on the Global War on Terror.
How ‘Make Friends and Be Nice’ Failed
A GWOT Op-Ed by Monique Camarra
In the case of Soviet espionage, subversion (which includes all forms of information warfare) and sabotage, the US and close allies had developed capabilities to counter Soviet actions and active measures during the two world wars and the Cold War, at times successfully and at others woefully inadequately. Once the ‘end of history’ came, however, the hawks in the US intelligence community (IC) were told that a new era of US-Russia cooperation was on the horizon. For the next decade an increasing number of states across the globe were embracing the liberal democratic order, and the Cold Warriors, their ways, their warnings, and institutional knowledge were set aside as quaint and old-fashioned.
Skipping forward to the GWOT (Global War on Terror), the US intelligence community had been warning against possible Islamist extremist threat actors for years, and when the threat materialised on American soil on a mass scale on September 11, human resources in hunting down terrorists and countering extremist group activities in the US and in various theatres took absolute priority. The IC’s focus did shift to the GWOT on the basis of need, according to the agenda and foreign policy set by successive presidents, and at the behest of US politicians. The same mindset gripped London and other European capitals. Acts of terrorism certainly served to strain intelligence resources, but they were not annulled outright. The IC still kept up its vigilance against foreign threats, which included Russia and China ever more.
At the time, however, the Kremlin paid lip service to Washington and its NATO partners’ willingness to reset relations with Russia until Putin’s 2007 Munich Security Forum speech. The leaders in the hall were absolutely stunned. Putin criticised American global leadership, the role of the OSCE, NATO's eastward expansion, disarmament and the Iranian nuclear program, setting off alarm bells in capitals in North America and Europe, especially in the national security community.
Since that fateful speech in Munich, Russia has waged a kinetic war against Georgia, Ukraine and Syria, and grey zone warfare against the West. From 2012, Russia’s grey zone warfare took the form of well-documented extrajudicial killings, acts of sabotage, information and cognitive warfare, and the subversion of our civilian and government institutions. Concurrently, terrorist acts ripped through many European capitals: in the UK alone in 2017, 122 terrorist attacks took the lives of 301 people.
Did Russia have a hand in them and/or take advantage of the attacks for its own goals? Yes. The full extent of Russia’s direct hand in the terrorist attacks is still to be investigated thoroughly but the terrorist attacks certainly served Russia’s foreign policy objectives. They diverted the attention of national publics away from Russia to Islamist terrorists, who made full use of the new propaganda vectors available through the internet, and acted as a catalyst for the exponential growth of nationalist populist parties in Europe.
Did we collectively drop the ball on Russia? Of course. We thought we could persuade Russia to ‘make friends and be nice’ through Ostpolitik in Germany and resets across Europe and the US. Aided by foreign policy advisors, our leaders thought we could appease the Russians through a strategy of diplomacy and economic levers—soft power. When it looked as if that strategy was bankrupt owing to Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and invasion of Eastern Ukraine in 2014, our leaders still followed the same policy.
What needs to be underscored, however, is the fact that it is the policy and strategy set by governments and leaders that direct the tools of statecraft (including intelligence) to counter Russian aggression in its many forms. It is not the purview of the intelligence community to set policy. The IC follows directives, formulates action plans if requested by the president, and informs the national security community and politicians of foreign threats and activities on a regular basis.
Despite the long list of Russian grey zone actions, the political mindset in the US and in Europe in 2014 would not change until Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Only a handful of national defence policy papers published by western democratic states mentioned ‘Russia’ as a threat actor up to 2022. It doesn’t mean those tasked with surveillance, and intelligence gathering and analysis or counter-intelligence were asleep at the wheel. They weren’t. What this indicates is that our political leaders did not perceive Russia’s strategic aims in their totality, or alternatively, they were hell bent on their own blinkered view of Russia and blinded by mirror-imaging and other benefits that could be derived by a close relationship with Russia.—Monique Camarra for Bette Dangerous
I am always in awe of Monique.
I look so forward to seeing everyone who attends these community meetings.
A note for new members: the Happy Hour began two and a half years ago, when I noticed many Bette members in despair. I thought a weekly wellness checkin for newsies was in order, and it evolved into a session where global guests offer news from around the world. The title was always meant to be ironic, but I know I feel better when our community comes together.
Lastly, a heartfelt thank you to those of you who are renewing your memberships and are new to the Bette community. Your support means everything to me. It’s been a devastating time to be a member of independent media, and I am so grateful for your continued support.
Keep scrolling to find the registration link…
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