[Goose]

There’s a difference between signal intelligence and human intelligence. Our services have been very good at tracking the Russians and deducing what they are going to be doing based on what we can see. But when you surround a country on three sides with deployed 150,000 troops it is not too hard to deduce what’s about to happen.

Totally agree.

We can see everything that’s going on in the battlefield, and because the Russians can’t figure out encrypted Comms, we can hear them as well.

To be fair, the Russians are just as good (at times much better) than we are at encrypted comms. What they are not better at is building and distributing this technology to the troops. They are even worse at training the troops to use them. On top of that, communications security is so important to the Russians that adjacent units often don't have the comms keys to talk to each other (even when everything is working). They are expected to go through higher echelons to do that. As a result, they often take necessary "shortcuts".

What we can’t do well is know what Putin is thinking. But we’ve actually done surprisingly well even here, probably helped along by the fact that the upper echelons of Russian military and intelligence have very mixed feelings about the war. It is clear that someone (likely multiple someone’s) were talking.

For sure knowing what Putin is thinking is a problem, and he doesn't "share" much. As far as it being clear that "someone is talking", I am not so sure about that. If you can elaborate, that would be good. I think COMINT often gives third parties lots of information that wasn't intended to be. It is also very surprising what can be deduced by ORBAT details and comparisons to previous actions or training events. There was a time in the 90s when everybody and anything was for sale. That pretty much stopped because there were safer ways to make money and we also stopped buying. There are undoubtedly some "true believers" out there, but I strongly suspect any productive HUMINT sources are Mossad or Ukrainian GUR assets, not ours. Heck, I would even give the BND better odds.

But all of this is more a reflection of Russian failures than US sustained efforts. And he is right that successive presidents have prioritized elsewhere, because of threats from Al Qaida and ISIS, China, or wishcasting a better relationship with Russia (not partisan, three straight Presidents were drawn in by the lure that we could have better relationships with Russia).

Make it four. Bush the first was in that category IMHO. I exclude Trump only because I don't think he had an opinion on Intelligence collection and undoubtedly thought our relations with Russia were "perfect". Intelligence collection is not mutually exclusive of better relations. It often fosters it, as we find out our opponent isn't 10 feet tall and actually has no plan to invade our country.

And yet, even now, Ukraine is sadly less consequential economically and geopolitically than a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. But China has made a career about studiously avoiding the pitfalls that have befallen Russia/Soviet Union, which is why Ukrainian success is so important.



BC

Not sure China casts its actions as avoiding Russia's errors, but they are indeed a different beast that we also don't understand. Ukrainian success is indeed important to our nation, the West, and to a peaceful world IMHO.

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US intelligence has been decisive in the Ukraine invasion, not sure why we are poo-pooing it here. The Hostomel assault for one was completely blown up because of it.

Probably you are not aware of how ironic that statement is. You might want to read Intelligence in War by John Keegan. If you don't want to read it all, just read the chapter on Crete.

More info will likely become clear as time goes on, but would not be surprised if many of Ukraine's statement victories had a big helping hand from US intel.

Maybe, but I am pretty confident the real "facts" will not come out while I am still alive. These things generally have about a 30 year quiet window.

Need to move on from prewar conventional wisdom on things like Russian military capability and US intelligence capabilities re Russia. We have evidence now from the real deal.

I think you are arguing against yourself here a bit. The prewar conventional wisdom was the product of US intelligence re Russia (and Ukraine). The forecast was Ukraine as a country folds up but an insurgency goes on. We were preparing for the insurgency and a government in exile. We offered Zelenskyy a ride. Didn't turn out that way.

One of the most difficult things to predict is how well any given military organization will react and fight. You can get an idea by observing training and by observing similar actions, but it is far from an exact science. You need HUMINT that can actually talk to the troops and judge their "temperature". US Intelligence was in general wrong about Russia's ability to execute it's war plans because we didn't know how bad it's troops actually were. We also couldn't know how badly Russia would fail in motivating the troops so they would embrace the fight and how much that would affect their performance. Similarly, we didn't know how well and determined Ukraine's populace would fight. Probably nobody did. If Zelenskyy was just a good comedian, IMHO we wouldn't be even close to where we are now in Ukraine. And virtually nobody predicted that.

[Goose]

There’s a difference between signal intelligence and human intelligence. Our services have been very good at tracking the Russians and deducing what they are going to be doing based on what we can see. But when you surround a country on three sides with deployed 150,000 troops it is not too hard to deduce what’s about to happen.

Totally agree.

We can see everything that’s going on in the battlefield, and because the Russians can’t figure out encrypted Comms, we can hear them as well.

To be fair, the Russians are just as good (at times much better) than we are at encrypted comms. What they are not better at is building and distributing this technology to the troops. They are even worse at training the troops to use them. On top of that, communications security is so important to the Russians that adjacent units often don't have the comms keys to talk to each other (even when everything is working). They are expected to go through higher echelons to do that. As a result, they often take necessary "shortcuts".

What we can’t do well is know what Putin is thinking. But we’ve actually done surprisingly well even here, probably helped along by the fact that the upper echelons of Russian military and intelligence have very mixed feelings about the war. It is clear that someone (likely multiple someone’s) were talking.

For sure knowing what Putin is thinking is a problem, and he doesn't "share" much. As far as it being clear that "someone is talking", I am not so sure about that. If you can elaborate, that would be good. I think COMINT often gives third parties lots of information that wasn't intended to be. It is also very surprising what can be deduced by ORBAT details and comparisons to previous actions or training events. There was a time in the 90s when everybody and anything was for sale. That pretty much stopped because there were safer ways to make money and we also stopped buying. There are undoubtedly some "true believers" out there, but I strongly suspect any productive HUMINT sources are Mossad or Ukrainian GUR assets, not ours. Heck, I would even give the BND better odds.

But all of this is more a reflection of Russian failures than US sustained efforts. And he is right that successive presidents have prioritized elsewhere, because of threats from Al Qaida and ISIS, China, or wishcasting a better relationship with Russia (not partisan, three straight Presidents were drawn in by the lure that we could have better relationships with Russia).

Make it four. Bush the first was in that category IMHO. I exclude Trump only because I don't think he had an opinion on Intelligence collection and undoubtedly thought our relations with Russia were "perfect". Intelligence collection is not mutually exclusive of better relations. It often fosters it, as we find out our opponent isn't 10 feet tall and actually has no plan to invade our country.

And yet, even now, Ukraine is sadly less consequential economically and geopolitically than a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. But China has made a career about studiously avoiding the pitfalls that have befallen Russia/Soviet Union, which is why Ukrainian success is so important.



BC

Not sure China casts its actions as avoiding Russia's errors, but they are indeed a different beast that we also don't understand. Ukrainian success is indeed important to our nation, the West, and to a peaceful world IMHO.

---

US intelligence has been decisive in the Ukraine invasion, not sure why we are poo-pooing it here. The Hostomel assault for one was completely blown up because of it.

Probably you are not aware of how ironic that statement is. You might want to read Intelligence in War by John Keegan. If you don't want to read it all, just read the chapter on Crete.

More info will likely become clear as time goes on, but would not be surprised if many of Ukraine's statement victories had a big helping hand from US intel.

Maybe, but I am pretty confident the real "facts" will not come out while I am still alive. These things generally have about a 30 year quiet window.

Need to move on from prewar conventional wisdom on things like Russian military capability and US intelligence capabilities re Russia. We have evidence now from the real deal.

I think you are arguing against yourself here a bit. The prewar conventional wisdom was the product of US intelligence re Russia (and Ukraine). The forecast was Ukraine as a country folds up but an insurgency goes on. We were preparing for the insurgency and a government in exile. We offered Zelenskyy a ride. Didn't turn out that way.

One of the most difficult things to predict is how well any given military organization will react and fight. You can get an idea by observing training and by observing similar actions, but it is far from an exact science. You need HUMINT that can actually talk to the troops and judge their "temperature". US Intelligence was in general wrong about Russia's ability to execute it's war plans because we didn't know how bad it's troops actually were. We also couldn't know how badly Russia would fail in motivating the troops so they would embrace the fight and how much that would affect their performance. Similarly, we didn't know how well and determined Ukraine's populace would fight. Probably nobody did. If Zelenskyy was just a good comedian, IMHO we wouldn't be even close to where we are now in Ukraine. And virtually nobody predicted that.