Cipher Brief Expert and former CIA Station Chief Dan Hoffman is on the ground in Helsinki filing question and answer dispatches for Cipher Brief members. He has deep expertise in the region and speaks fluent Finnish. Here’s a look at his first dispatch, hours before the summit is set to get underway:
The Cipher Brief – There seems to be a lack of specifics from the White House in terms of what exactly will be discussed between the Presidents in a few hours’ time. Having studied the Russia relationship and having an in-depth knowledge of the national security issues at play, what are the issues that you think would be crucial for the President to raise? And how would be best address each of them?
Hoffman - Let me start with election meddling, because that is at the forefront of everyone’s mind right now after the indictments that were issued on Friday by the Justice Department. The President has in the past, asked Vladimir Putin if he meddled in our election. Vladimir Putin is never going to admit that he meddled in our election to President Trump, or to anyone else. He’ll give you that Cheshire grin, and deny it when we know that he actually did it. There’s a Kremlin return address on virtually everything they did. If it’s discoverable in the media, my goodness, through Facebook and other means, then Vladimir Putin meant for it to be discoverable, that’s my view. But what I believe, if I allow myself to be a little bit presumptuous and advise the President on what to do, I’d say, don’t ask Putin if he meddled, tell him. Tell him, ‘We know you meddled and if you continue to do it, we’re going to hold you accountable, and you’re going to pay a price. And you know me, when I draw a red line, I take action. So I’m not telling you what we’re going to do, but we’re going to make you pay, so that you don’t do it anymore. And I’m warning you right now, because when I do it, you’ll look back on this summit and remember that I said I was serious about this, and you need to take me seriously’.
I think if the President did that, he would own the debate, he would frame the issue, he would lead his Administration and the Republican party and he would counter…. his own arguments against the Democrats who in their own way, were naïve with this “reset” policy after Russia had invaded Georgia. The thing that would make the least sense, would be to reset and give them a do-over. I think it’s all in the President’s interest to take that hard line on election meddling. Get it out of the way quickly, and make that point to Vladimir Putin, and do it on the world stage, so everybody understands. And if he wants to throw a little bravado out there, he can say, ‘Look I drew a red line on Syria, and unlike President Obama, we launched Tomahawk missiles at Syrian chemical weapons sites in April of this year, Vladimir, so I’m serious.’
Ukraine
Hoffman - The second issue and the one that matters most to Russia, in my view at least, is Ukraine. There is nothing, as I wrote in The Cipher Brief, that scares Russia more than a neighboring country, with a sizeable Russian speaking population, that has a commitment to the rule of law, democracy, freedom, liberty, all the things that scare Vladimir Putin, and has tilted it’s economic relationships toward the European Union, and is an aspiring NATO member.
What I hope President Trump does is vociferously take a stand in support of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and independence, just like what was signed in the NATO communique, which President Trump signed. He needs to be forceful about that in my view, to show that we stand for Ukraine’s territorial integrity. We also stand for resolving the crisis in Ukraine with a cease fire that still hasn’t taken effect. But at the end of the day, when you stand for Ukraine, you stand for the rest of those countries which are under Vladimir Putin’s threat. Remember, Vladimir Putin said that the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century, was the collapse of the Soviet Union. He meant it.
Syria
Hoffman - Another issue I think that will be discussed, and one which has proven difficult for us to find common ground, is Syria. I don’t expect any strategic partnership there, the Russians are aiding and abetting President Assad to commit crimes against humanity. But we do need to continue to de-conflict, in our mission against ISIS.
We also need to talk to the Russians about preventing Syria from becoming the spark that starts an all-out war between Iran and Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just visited Vladimir Putin, which was certainly a reflection of the greater influence Russia wields in the Middle East as a result of their aggressive military and diplomatic policies in that region. But I think there is some common ground we might find there, and some discussion that is worthwhile to prevent what would be a very ghastly war between those two countries. And it’s sometimes teetering on the brink, because when Iran enables attacks on Israel from the Golan Heights, that’s an existential threat to Israel, and they must stop it.
North Korea
Hoffman – Obviously, North Korea is a major issue. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, when he met with Kim Jong Un, talked about ratcheting down sanctions before de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The Russians would like, certainly to continue their economic predation of North Korea, and for strategic reasons, would like to remove the U.S. Military presence, or at least reduce it on the Korean Peninsula and eliminate, if possible, our military exercises. But we need to keep up the pressure on the Russians, to maintain those sanctions. I hope the President seeks to do that, that’s also important.
Working Together
Hoffman - There are also a few key additional issues that we really need to continue to work together on. One is arms control. Russia is still the only country that can destroy us, and we’ve got the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) that expires in February, 2021. We should discuss an extension of that treaty. We also need to discuss enhancing collaboration on counter-terrorism and counter-proliferation, not to mention the work we do on organized crime together. That’s the nature of our relationship with Russia. We are enemies in so many respects, but because of Russia’s resurgence, particularly in the last 15-20 years, since Putin seized power, there are a lot of areas where our interests intersect, and we need to talk about it.
What I hope for from the summit is an overarching discussion of the issues that matter, and then an agreement to let the professionals take over. Let Secretary of State Mike Pompeo assign working groups to handle each of these really important issues, like arms control. There’s certainly value in that.
The other thing I would say, because it’s The Cipher Brief, is that the backdrop of all of this that has always gone on between our two nations, is espionage. So, the Russians are here, and they are trying to discern President Trump’s strategy and talking points, and I guarantee that we’re trying to do the same thing against them. That’s just the nature of our bi-lateral relationship with Russia.
The Cipher Brief – Is it safe to assume then, that Helsinki is a town flooded with spies right now and over the next couple of days? Give us a sense too, Dan, of the presence of Russian media and their interest in this, from what you’ve seen. And since you’re on the ground, tell us what the international interest is like for this summit.
The Media Spin
Hoffman - I’ve definitely seen a lot of international interest. And I’ve been reading the Russian press. The Russian Press of course is synonymous with the Russian government because if you want to go to the land of fake news, go to Moscow.
The Cipher Brief - You’re talking about the state-run media in Russia?
Hoffman - Yes. I read it because I like to know what the Kremlin is thinking. So what the Russian media is saying, and it will be interesting tonight to watch Dmitry Kiselyov (Vesti nedeli/ News of the Week) show at 7:00PM local time here, because he’s really the spokesperson for the Kremlin, his show ‘The Week in Review’. But the press I’ve been reading is making this out to be that we, the United States, are coming to Russia because we need their help in solving the big issues of the day. The reason why they are saying that is because they want to portray President Putin as equal in stature to President Trump, similar to the way that the Soviets perceived themselves during the Cold War. That adds a bit of stature to Vladimir Putin’s KGB authoritarianism, as if that’s on equal par with our democracy, when we know that it isn’t. Their economy is the size of Italy’s, their military throw weight is nothing at all compared to ours, but they make up for that with asymmetric, relatively inexpensive, warfare as we’ve seen in the cyber realm. And the irony, or what represents I think, our relationship with Russia more than anything, is that while General Joseph Dunford is talking about de-conflicting Syrian battlespace with Gerasimov, simultaneously the Russian Military, the GRU is mounting massive cyberattacks not just against Georgia, Estonia and the Ukraine, but also against the United States. They are the ones responsible for those advanced persistent threats, Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear, they are responsible for hacking the DNC. The Russians consider that a form of hybrid warfare, for which Gerasimov has written quite a lot.
The Cipher Brief - So there hasn’t really been a cessation of those avenues of attack on behalf of Russia over the past several months?
Hoffman - Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen said today in the press that she’s not seeing as much now as we did in 2016. I guess that’s in contrast to what Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said in the lead up to this summit, using a George Tenet phrase when he said “the system is blinking red”. I guess you could debate the two, but the intel guy is telling us the system is blinking red, and that makes me kind of nervous.
The Cipher Brief - So the message from the Russian media, to the people back home, is that the U.S. is coming to Russia, because they need our help? Are there any other kinds of overarching themes of the messaging that is going out to the Russian people that would give us any kind of indication of what would constitute a win for President Putin out of this summit?
Hoffman - I think that they are going to try very hard to portray President Trump, and they’ve said this in the media, as valuing Russia’s approach to Ukraine, more than we value Ukraine itself. So the message back home would be that we place our relationship with Russia, at a greater level of importance than Ukraine. And remember, what Vladimir Putin does, is he’ll say after having some private discussions with President Trump, he may feed themes into his own media propaganda machine that are wildly untrue, or 95% true, 5% untrue. That is what the Russians do. They are going to seek, at every opportunity, to drive a wedge between the U.S. and our allies, that includes our NATO allies, particularly Germany, as well as our allies in the region like the Baltic states and the Ukraine. Putin would like nothing more than for those countries in the former Soviet space, not to be able to look to the United States as their beacon of inspiration and hope, and their potential savior in the event of a Russian attack.
