The Cipher Brief spoke with expert Dan Hoffman, former Chief of Station with the Central Intelligence Agency, about Russia’s 2021 agenda. Hoffman’s assignments before retiring included tours of duty in the former Soviet Union, Europe, and war zones in the Middle East and South Asia.
Read the brief and then engage with Hoffman during a private briefing for Cipher Brief members, Tuesday, December 1 at 3p ET. Members receive registration links via email. Become a member.
The Cipher Brief: From an intelligence perspective, how significant are US presidential transitions for Russia and how might they be thinking about intelligence collection during this time?
Hoffman: First, democracy is what scares Vladimir Putin the most. Remember that Putin came to power in the most undemocratic way, in a handover from former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, so it makes sense that the Kremlin would want to disparage our democratic political process and our peaceful transfer of power. That’s exactly what they're doing. I listen to their news broadcasts, the propaganda arm of the Kremlin including Vesti, RT, and Sputnik Radio and they're all disparaging our democratic process. So, that's the first thing that they're focused on, trying to portray our process as inherently unstable and in conflict with our supposed democratic values. It doesn’t matter that they're an autocracy. They don't want their people to see us as an inspiration to those Russians striving for democracy.
The second thing Putin understands really well, is that nations have interests, and we have a great many government civil servants who are the core of the subject matter expertise on whom both Democrats and Republicans rely. Back in the 19th century, the U.S. Congress made the decision that we would have a civil service so we wouldn't be asking government employees to turnover every four years or eight years, and that they wouldn't be beholden as political appointees to the president or the executive branch, but rather they would serve as subject matter experts. In the intelligence community there's an incredible level of continuity that we see where a lot of our interests carry on in spite of whichever party is in the White House.
Dan Hoffman, Former CIA Chief of Station
The Russians still consider us a threat as they always have and always will, and they'll mount counterintelligence operations against us. They still see opportunities - albeit limited - to work together, in areas like counterterrorism and this is where our dedicated public servants who embody our continuity of government can play such an important role.
The third thing is that the Russians are working to assess the new political direction in the U.S. The Kremlin is mounting a full court press right now to determine where the Biden administration will stand on issues of great interest to them like New START and Open Skies treaties. Those are things that the Russians will be focused on. They also want to ascertain the Biden administration’s policies in the Middle East, especially towards Iran and in South Asia, especially Afghanistan, all with an eye toward highlighting the multi-polarity of the world. That's always been the key phrase for the Russians going back over a decade.
The Cipher Brief: Is Vladimir Putin expecting the Biden administration to be more or less advantageous than the last four years of the Trump administration, strategically? How concerned would Putin be about the US returning to a more traditional approach of really leveraging allies and international alliances?
Hoffman: It's a question of where Putin will put his emphasis. Going back to the days of the Soviet Union, Russia has always tried to drive a wedge between the United States and NATO, and particularly between the United States and Germany, so to the extent to which President Trump has had I would say - open disagreements with Germany - and a not very friendly relationship with Chancellor Angela Merkel in particular, I think Putin would see no reason to pour gasoline on those fires that are already burning. But if he sees the United States to be reaching out and trying to be more in lock step with our allies, you might see Russia press a little bit more. So, it's a point of emphasis, and that's not just in Europe, but it's in Asia as well. Both Russia and China would see great value in tearing apart any U.S. efforts to build alliances in Asia.
The Cipher Brief: So, a potential shift under a Biden administration back toward deeper ties with Germany and more of a traditional NATO approach wouldn’t be welcomed by Russia?
Hoffman: Not well received at all. Putin does not want a strong NATO, which would attract countries in his own sphere of influence including Ukraine. President Trump was very open about criticizing NATO members for not spending enough money and he has rem announced plans to transfer troops from Germany. Putin would just let that happen and would be happy to watch that state of play. If president elect Biden implements a policy of greater collaboration with NATO partners, then look for Russia to try to do what they can in a more forceful way, whether it's through their asymmetric information operations, espionage or power politics to try to drive a wedge between the U.S. and its NATO allies. Certainly, Ukraine is going to be a major question mark for the Biden administration. Are they going to throw real support behind Ukraine? The Obama administration did not. The Trump administration actually increased support to Ukraine with military assistance, but there's a lot more to be done to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty from Russia’s multifarious aggression. That's going to be a real question mark for the Biden administration.
The Cipher Brief: Shifting to cyber, do you believe that the NSA and Cyber Command have been effective in establishing real deterrents against Russian cyber activities directed against the U.S.? I’m referring here specifically to the policy of defending forward and some of the recent specific examples leading up to our election where it was reported that Cyber Command taunted the Russians with bear cartoons and carried out preemptive cyber operations with forward deployed teams. Are these things having an effect?
Hoffman: After the 2016 election, the U.S. has put a great deal of focus on three things; defending, deterring, and countering Russia. We certainly defend against Russian hacking and their efforts to exploit our wide-open social media far more effectively in the 2018 mid-terms and the 2020 election. We did a lot better at that in this past election than we did in 2016. The Russians didn't hack into the Republican or the Democratic national committees and release emails via WikiLeaks for example. We saw some of their efforts at disinformation, like in trying to use Mayor Giuliani as a conduit for disinformation from Andrii Derkach. But we didn't see the massive onslaught that we saw in 2016 as far as social media's concerned, because we were more prepared to defend ourselves.
On the topic of countering Russia, NSA Director and Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, General Paul Nakasone has brought a new ethos to Cyber Command, with a strategy of persistent engagement and being out front, targeting U.S. adversaries in cyber space before they target us. Cyber Command is implementing a gradual- to use a Kennedy administration term “flexible response”, just to let them know that we've seen them and give them a chance to back off, and if they don't back off, we'll take the next step. Some of this is likely happening, behind the scenes advising the Russians that the U.S. is serious about deterring Russian cyberattacks with preemptive attacks of our own when necessary. You can't just do it without letting them know you did it, otherwise there's no deterrent.
Now, I still don't think we've fully deterred them. It's an ongoing challenge.
The Cipher Brief: What are the blind spots in your opinion, in the U.S.'s understanding of Russia's foreign influence operations directed against the U.S and our allies? Whether it be Russia's use of their budget, of their allied relationships or other tactics that are emerging as technology evolves?
Hoffman: I think the thing about 2016, was that Putin was running a lot of discoverable influence operations. For example, who goes to Trump Tower to have a secure meeting? Buying ads on Facebook or Google was meant to be discovered. Maria Butina was a discoverable influence operation designed to make it appear like the Kremlin was engaging with the traditional Republican base including evangelicals and the NRA.
Those types of things are distinguished on the big spectrum from overt propaganda that you get from Sputnik and RT, and then at the other end of the spectrum from their really deep cover, clandestine espionage. That's what I was focused on for many years in the CIA. It’s very rare that those types of operations come to light. A good example is operation ‘Ghost Stories’ where the FBI tracked and arrested Russian illegals in 2010. That Russian espionage was of course not meant to be discovered.
Dan Hoffman, Former CIA Chief of Station
The question and the concern that I think we would have, and it's over to the intelligence community to pursue, is running the spies inside Russia who can tell us how the Russians are running influence operations in a way that is not meant to be discovered. That is not something that we're going to hear a lot about publicly. That's the part that I think we need to try to stay a step ahead of them on, because they still want to influence us, and they don't always want it to be known that they're doing it. Strategic intelligence is really important to understand where Putin is headed, and the tactical intelligence is important to know how they're doing it.
The Cipher Brief: We've seen reports of new Russian legislation that would provide immunity for former Russian presidents. Is that a sign we could potentially see Putin announce his successor or his transition plan in the next four years?
Hoffman: I don't think so, because one thing Vladimir Putin doesn't trust, is the law, especially his own. So, it's true, they could give him immunity, but what does that really mean? Nothing. Vladimir Putin is going to remain the figurehead leader of Russia until he either passes away or is removed. I just don't think he trusts the idea that someone would give him immunity. A new government could decide to take it back. He knew he could be trusted to give immunity to Yeltsin, but I just don't know that he trusts anybody else, because he doesn't trust people. That's why he's still in power.
The Cipher Brief: Well, even the experience of transitioning from Yeltsin had to make quite an impact on him throughout the course of his rule and historically at how quickly things shifted for Yeltsin and his family and his inner circle after he was out of power.
Hoffman: That's for sure what scares him the most. He's not afraid of a populous uprising overthrowing his autocracy, but what scares him is someone in his own inner circle. That is why I think, why he's repeatedly launched attacks against his enemies just to show everyone that if they dare cross him, consider Alexander Litvinenko, Sergei Skripal or Alexei Navalny, he's going to kill you or try to do so.
Read the brief and then engage with Cipher Brief Expert and former CIA chief of Station Dan Hoffman during a private briefing for Cipher Brief members, Tuesday, December 1 at 3p ET. Members receive registration links via email. Not a member? Join for a limited time for just $10/month.
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