Have you “mentally wargamed” the CIA/MI6 option? Who would replace him? Would they be better or worse? How would Russian citizens respond? Is there anything like an automated event that is suppressed daily by Putin while he is alive but that would be triggered if he dies?
Since you seem to have thought a lot of this through:
Do you have thoughts on the possibility of pre-existing weapons caches in the US or Europe that could be activated remotely by Russia? (Nuclear, chemical, biological, etc)?
Similarly, it seems that every few years we discover Russians spies in the US, so the probability is high there’s some in the US active now. In the event of a war, would they act like a sleeper cell? Would kinds of things might they do?
Another thing that could be interesting with spies is what they can do before a US/NATO-Russian war. If the Russian had one or more top level spies in the US security establishment or in NATO (as they, or their East German satellite, had during the cold war), then it could increase or decrease the risk of Russia using nuclear weapons.
If Russia got signals from inside US/NATO that the West was really willing to retaliate militarily in the case of a Russian nuclear strike on Ukraine, then this information could decrease Russia’s willingness to escalate. If, however, Russia got signals from inside US/NATO that the West was not willing to use military force as an answer to a Russian nuclear strike on Ukraine, then this information could increase Russia’s will to escalate.
He says putin used information from Russian spy in the CIA to blackmail Yeltsin.
If we discovered any of them currently active, I wonder if we could deliberately feed them bits of misinformation to steer Putin one way or another?
Or maybe if the undiscovered spies could become something like ironic double agents on their own if the spies are against escalation? On their own imitative they steer things towards de-escalation? Or maybe defect at the last moment to try and stop escalation?
Have you “mentally wargamed” the CIA/MI6 option? Who would replace him? Would they be better or worse? How would Russian citizens respond? Is there anything like an automated event that is suppressed daily by Putin while he is alive but that would be triggered if he dies?
Since you seem to have thought a lot of this through:
Do you have thoughts on the possibility of pre-existing weapons caches in the US or Europe that could be activated remotely by Russia? (Nuclear, chemical, biological, etc)?
Similarly, it seems that every few years we discover Russians spies in the US, so the probability is high there’s some in the US active now. In the event of a war, would they act like a sleeper cell? Would kinds of things might they do?
Another thing that could be interesting with spies is what they can do before a US/NATO-Russian war. If the Russian had one or more top level spies in the US security establishment or in NATO (as they, or their East German satellite, had during the cold war), then it could increase or decrease the risk of Russia using nuclear weapons.
If Russia got signals from inside US/NATO that the West was really willing to retaliate militarily in the case of a Russian nuclear strike on Ukraine, then this information could decrease Russia’s willingness to escalate. If, however, Russia got signals from inside US/NATO that the West was not willing to use military force as an answer to a Russian nuclear strike on Ukraine, then this information could increase Russia’s will to escalate.
These are interesting thoughts.
I know this is CNN, but the source (Robert Baer) seems solid. https://youtu.be/7ZgBSYZb-gk
He says putin used information from Russian spy in the CIA to blackmail Yeltsin.
If we discovered any of them currently active, I wonder if we could deliberately feed them bits of misinformation to steer Putin one way or another?
Or maybe if the undiscovered spies could become something like ironic double agents on their own if the spies are against escalation? On their own imitative they steer things towards de-escalation? Or maybe defect at the last moment to try and stop escalation?