Russia to cut the budget of CIA?

The Russian defense industry has developed a new system to neutralize the U.S. global missile defense system, General Valery Gerasimov, The chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces said at an international conference on European security. The statement has puzzled Western intelligence agencies. Have they missed the bus again?

The fact is that when Russian (formerly Soviet) high-ranking officials say something about successful military developments, such statements (agreed at highest levels) are preceded by "trial" messages on the subject in Western media. 

At times, though, Western publications comment on the statements from Russia after they take place. This may mean that Western intelligence services may have missed a new Russian development.

We have thoroughly dug through English-language online media about Russia's developments to counter the U.S. missile defense system and found nothing that could relate to the subject announced by the head of the Russian General Staff. This may mean that Russian intelligence agencies adequately organized secrecy and prevented the leakage of information.

Boris Grigoriev, a veteran of foreign intelligence, a resident of Sweden during the 1980s and the 1990s, currently a well-known writer and historian, shared his knowledge of such practices with Pravda.Ru. According to him, high-ranking Russian officials announce latest developments in the defense industry only if they are certain that foreign intelligence services are not aware of the news - to produce the effect of surprise, so to speak. If it is Western media that announce the news first, then it means that NATO does not find the piece of news new.

"At the XXVI Congress of the Communist Party, General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev announced that in return to the U.S. strategic missile submarine Ohio, the Soviet Union successfully launched a similar submarine called Typhoon. At the peak of the Cold War, the news came as a shock to Western intelligence and governments. Rumor has it that after that incident, the U.S. Congress cut the budget of the CIA by 15 percent. After that, Soviet submarines of Project 941 were called Typhoon under NATO's classification. Brezhnev prompted the name to them, although in the Soviet Union and then in Russia, such submarines were known as "Shark" ("Akula"). In general, nothing is accidental in politics and intelligence."

This story is a reason to be proud of Russian scientists of the defense industry and Russian intelligence services, who managed to prevent any leakage of information on activities in the field of anti-missile defense.

"Military and technical measures to neutralize a possible negative influence of the global U.S. missile defense system on the potential of Russian nuclear forces have been developed, and we do not conceal it," said Valery Gerasimov. The implementation of these measures, according to the head of the General Staff, will depend on assessments of the potential of the missile defense system to weaken the potential of Russian nuclear forces.

In addition, the general said that it was never possible to implement the Russian initiative to make the agreement between Russia and the United States on middle- and short-range missiles a universal agreement. Apparently, except for the United States, other countries with such missiles are either not ready to get rid of them, or something (or someone?) holds them back.

At the end of April, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described the situation with the missile defense system dead-locked. "The relations between such major powers as Russia and the United States can not be rosy as long as there is something that separates the countries - the problem of missile defense, for example," said the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

It was a response to the March statement from U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel about a large program to strengthen U.S. missile defense before 2017 in connection with threats from North Korea. This country is very close to the borders of the Russian Far East. The Americans have never given Russia any guarantees not to use their "anti-Korean missile system" against Russia. 

There is some progress in the talks on missile defense between Russia and the U.S., though. Not that long ago, the United States announced an intention to renounce the deployment of additional types of interceptor missiles in Poland.

"The Russian position on the U.S. missile defense remains unchanged. We proceed from the need to obtain legal guarantees to exclude the use of the European missile defense against Russian strategic nuclear forces," said General Gerasimov.

Will the U.S. Congress cut the annual budget of the CIA this time?

Andrei Mikhailov

Pravda.Ru

Read the original in Russian