This will be a bit controversial as famed NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden himself is a controversial figure.  Some say he’s a hero, others say he’s a villain and others say the truth is somewhere in between.  Given the nature of what Snowden acquired and disclosed, we must be careful not to assume that every intelligence failure that comes along has something to do with Snowden.  However, world events in recent weeks have piled together some circumstances that bear review.  Russia has invaded Crimea, yet according to a report in the Daily Beast prior to the invasion, US intelligence concluded that Russia would not openly invade the Crimean Peninsula or the Ukraine itself.   Calling it a bluff, the article stated:

“A senior U.S. intelligence official told The Daily Beast that the timing of the military exercise, coming only days after the Ukrainian parliament voted to oust the pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, was suspicious. But nonetheless, U.S. intelligence agencies have collected no information suggesting the training exercises were preparation for an invasion.”

“The mere fact of the timing when you consider what is going on in Ukraine and you see the sudden nature of the exercise would cause concern,” this official said. “From an intelligence perspective we don’t have any reason to think it’s more than military exercises.”

Missed intelligence

That assessment was clearly wrong, there’s no getting around that.  Intelligence operations have missed some things before, but it seems that in this case, the open assessment was based on a lack of positive indicators and that seems to have turned out to be a major problem.  Julian Barnes of the Wall St. Journal last week went into how Russians had been able to evade eavesdropping by the US.  This is a recent development that surprised people, because obviously the plans to invade should have been intercepted by US surveillance, US SIGINT was potentially circumvented.

“U.S. military satellites spied Russian troops amassing within striking distance of Crimea last month. But intelligence analysts were surprised because they hadn’t intercepted any telltale communications where Russian leaders, military commanders or soldiers discussed plans to invade.

America’s vaunted global surveillance is a vital tool for U.S. intelligence services, especially as an early-warning system and as a way to corroborate other evidence. In Crimea, though, U.S. intelligence officials are concluding that Russian planners might have gotten a jump on the West by evading U.S. eavesdropping.” – WSJ

One has to consider whether it is a coincidence that the Russians figured out how to throw NSA surveillance off their tracks, or whether they have gained another edge somehow in their capabilities.  It is quite tantalizing to think that a famed NSA contractor in possession of highly classified, highly sensitive information about the very parties that conduct this surveillance may have something to do with it.  Snowden was granted asylum in Russia, and according to the latest Russian statements on the affair, there is ‘no pressure’ to end his asylum.   That’s as interesting a coincidence as any other, and it is quite possible that select documents may have ended up in Russian hands given this sudden ability to evade the NSA’s ability to pick up communications.

When intelligence misses, assess everything

You can’t exactly throw this at Snowden’s feet so readily however, as it is still just a possibility.  The intelligence community is capable of missing things and has done so before, and I suppose there are many possibilities as to why Russia has been able to evade surveillance.  Note that as outside observers we may never get to the truth of the matter, but we must remain vigilant to all the potential factors and that includes that Snowden may have leaked direct info to his grantors of asylum. The Wall Street Journal writes:

“It isn’t clear if Russian leaders deliberately avoided communicating about the invasion or simply found a way to do so without detection by the U.S. Another possibility: Mr. Putin made a last-minute decision to seize Crimea—and told almost no one other than those responsible for carrying out the invasion. Some U.S. and U.K. officials believe that Russia’s takeover plan was drawn up in advance and ready to go, reducing the need to discuss it.”

Right there you have a couple of situations that may have led to this intelligence miss, and there are others in the article including a lack of drones and on the ground presence, all of which should enter discussion, be scrutinized and evaluated, but it’s hard to get away from the Snowden possibility.  The timing, the info, his role, the files he has – all of that fits in with this evasion rather well.  Snowden detractors are all over this and have their minds made up about this chain of events, for good reason.

At the same time, the intelligence agencies must maintain under the likelihood that all their operations have been compromised at some level, yet still maintain scrutiny of their existing processes and analysis of information until all possibilities are exhausted.  This could be one potential problem of relying heavily on one level of intelligence gathering manifested in a global event that has grand repercussions.

photo: Steve Rhodes & photopin via photopin cc