The metro bombing in St. Petersburg Monday and White House comments that the U.S. will do what it can to help Russia get to the bottom of the incident raise the question of future Russia-U.S. counterterrorism cooperation. The Cipher Brief’s Kaitlin Lavinder spoke with Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center and the former Director of Intelligence and Counterintelligence at the U.S. Department of Energy, about Monday’s attack and why coordination on counterterrorism is so important.
The Cipher Brief: What are your thoughts on the situation in Russia with the St. Petersburg metro bombing on Monday?
Rolf Mowatt-Larssen: It’s a tragic event. I give my condolences to the Russian people, and I support the Russian government’s efforts to find and punish the perpetrators.
TCB: And what’s your take on the situation? Do you think it is connected to an Islamic extremist group, and if so, from where?
RM: I’m just reading what everyone’s reading in the media right now and, of course, assuming it’s probably Islamic extremism, but I’ll have to defer any judgement until the Russian government presents the evidence, which I haven’t seen yet.
TCB: How do you think that Russian President Vladimir Putin is going to react? He has already expressed his condolences and said the authorities are launching a full investigation, but do you think he could potentially use this incident to crack down on terror in the future and bolster support at home, as he has done in the past?
RM: It’s clear that President Putin has been taking terrorism and extremism very seriously now for years. The Russian government intervened in Syria in part because of their concern that terrorism in the Middle East will eventually come back and cause problems in Russia. The Russians have also been very clear in discussions with the U.S. government how seriously they take terrorism and have, in fact, proposed more forms of cooperation between the U.S. and Russia on counterterrorism because we consider that our true common interest, in which we should be doing more together.
TCB: How could the U.S. and Russia work more closely together on counterterrorism?
RM: Recently, we – some members from the U.S. side, both from defense and intelligence – met with some senior Russians, non-government officials, in Malta, and we discussed possible ways that we could make recommendations to our respective governments on increasing cooperation. The Russians, in fact, came to Malta with a serious proposal to increase our cooperation and move it onto a global stage, starting with closer cooperation in the Middle East and then expanding it to tackling global jihad in every country that it’s present.
TCB: Do you think this is a good idea? I ask because I spoke with Steve Hall – a former CIA agent, Russia expert, and The Cipher Brief contributor – yesterday about the situation in Russia and cooperation between the U.S. and Russia on counterterrorism, and he said it’s going to be very difficult to do that because the Russians have a different value base. So in certain counterterrorism operations, they may be willing to go further than the U.S. and be OK with some civilian casualties. At the same time, former CIA Acting Director Michael Morell told The Cipher Brief today he doesn’t think the Russians are going to want to cooperate that closely with the U.S. on counterterrorism. Do you agree with these assessments?
RM: I agree that it’s difficult, that the track record between the U.S. and Russia on counterterrorism cooperation has not been as good as it should be. That said, we can’t stop trying to increase cooperation on counterterrorism. It’s too important to both countries. We can make excuses as to why it’s difficult, but we have to try to narrow the areas of disagreement and the ways we operate and try to find a common basis to fight a common problem.
TCB: Do you think that is a possibility with the new U.S. Administration?
RM: I don’t think it’s a question of administration. I think it’s a question of having the will to put an end to this common threat. It’s something that we can do. As I said, I’m not disagreeing with people who say it’s difficult or who say we’ve had problems in the past cooperating together. But the challenge is finding ways around the obstacles to do this because we can’t win this war against violent extremism fighting independently. So we have to try.
My argument is that not doing it is not an option because we’re going to have more bombings, such as the one that just occurred in St. Petersburg. We’re going to have more failed states in the Middle East. We’re going to have problems at home with attacks on our homeland. We’ve got to find a way to cooperate with every country in the world that has the capacity to fight this problem, and the Russians are one of our key potential partners.
TCB: Can you talk more about the terrorism landscape in Russia right now?
RM: Russia has a homegrown extremism problem. They have the problem of lone wolves. They have the problem of Russian nationals who are fighting now in Syria and Iraq coming back. They have all those potential sources of future terrorist attacks.
I believe one of the reasons why the Russians are as strongly interventionist, as they’ve been in Syria – although I’m not justifying their intervention there, is because of the terrorism issue. To understand it from the Russian perspective, they are taking a very aggressive stance in battling this problem because they know it is a source of potential instability at home, and that’s what they’re trying to prevent: these jihadists coming back to Russia and causing a terrorism problem, like we’ve just seen probably in St. Petersburg.
