The more recent disclosures were also designed as a deterrent, to get inside Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision-making process and perhaps cause him to think twice before hitting the “go” button. That deterrent interest did not succeed, but it was worth the effort. Regardless, the disclosures had an enormously positive secondary effect. They helped rally America’s NATO allies by exposing Russian malfeasance. The disclosures also helped to deter and dilute the prospective impact of Russian “false flag” attacks designed to provide a pretext for Putin’s invasion.
Of course, the biggest win here is also the saddest. Russia actually invaded, as the intelligence community predicted.
Predicting the time and nature of an invasion isn’t normally the intelligence community’s job. That’s normally near impossible. Instead, when done right, intelligence collection and analysis are mostly designed to avoid strategic surprise. In this case, the intelligence community fulfilled that objective by very early providing policymakers with an assessment that Putin may invade Ukraine and was readying the means to do so. That, in turn, gave senior officials the time and information to enable their proper planning and preparatory diplomacy.
Where does the intelligence community go from here?
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