Alleged NSA Failure to Detect 2014 Russian Invasion Signals and Comparative Russian Surveillance Capabilities

170 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE The Russians Are Coming "The breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century."—Vladimir Putin In the first invasion of a European country since the end of the Cold War, Russian military forces moved into the Crimea and other parts of Eastern Ukraine in February and March of 2014. Unlike with previous Russian troop movements, such as those into Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Eastern Germany during the Cold War, the week-long massing of Russian elite troops and sophisticated equipment for the move into Ukraine almost totally evaded detection by the NSA’s surveillance. It failed to pick up tell-tale signs of the impending invasion. Never before had the NSA’s multibillion dollar armada of sensors and other apparatus for intercepting signals missed such a massive military operation. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal that cited Pentagon sources, Russian units had managed to hide all electronic traces of its elaborate preparations. If so, after more than a half-century of attempted penetrations, Russia apparently had found a means of stymieing the interception capabilities of the NSA. While American political scientists wrote optimistically about the end of history, Putin had his own ideas about restoring Russia’s power in the post-Cold War. A formidable KGB officer before he became President of the Russian Federation in 2000, he made no secret that his goal was to prevent the United States from obtaining what he termed “global hegemony.” His logic was clear. He judged the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991 to be as, as he put it, “a geopolitical tragedy.” He argued that the break-up had provided the United States with the means to become the singular dominant power in the world. He sought to prevent that feared outcome by moving aggressively to redress this loss of Russian power. He upgraded Russia’s nuclear force, modernized Russia’s elite military units and greatly strengthened Russia’s relations with China. The last measure was essential since China was Russia’s principle ally in opposing the extension of American dominance. Yet, there was still an immense gap between it and the United States in communications intelligence. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, the NSA had continued to build up its technologically capabilities while those of Russia, which teetered on the edge of collapse in the early 1990s. But the NSA also had its problems. As previously mentioned, the NSA’s legal mandate had been limited by Congress to foreign interceptions (at least prior to 9/11 in 2001.) As a result, it was required to separate out domestic from foreign surveillance, a massive process which was not only time- consuming but could generate dissidence within the ranks of American intelligence. It also could not legally use its surveillance machinery to monitor the telephones and Internet activities of the tens of thousands of civilian contractors who ran its computer networks—at least not unless the FBI began an investigation into them. Here the Russian intelligence services had a clear advantage. They had a lawful mandate to intercept any and all domestic communications, In fact, a compulsory surveillance system called by its Russian acronym SORM had been incorporated into Russian law in 1995. It requires the FSB and seven other Russian security agencies to monitor all forms of domestic communications including HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020322