Intelligence_ From Secrets to Policy - Mark M. Lowenthal [246]
The KGB’s counterintelligence function reemerged as the Federal’naya Sluzba Besnopasnoti (FSB)—Federal Security Service—which is responsible for internal counterintelligence. civil counterespionage, and internal security. Vladimir Putin was a former KGB officer and headed the FSB from July 1998 until his elevation to the position of acting prime minister in August 1999. In 2003, Putin gave the FSB control over the border guards and Federalnoe Agenstvo Pravitelstvennoi Sviazi 1 Informatsii (FAPSI)—Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information—which was the successor to the KGB’s Eighth Chief Directorate, responsible for cryptography, SIGINT, and the Communications Troops. These functions are parallel to those of NSA, but FAPSI also controls internal electronic communications, again making comparisons imprecise. This consolidation under the FSB had led some to be concerned that the old powers of the KGB were being reconstituted.
It would have been unreasonable and impossible for Russia to scrap the old Soviet intelligence apparatus entirely and start anew. Inevitably some of the same officers would have had to be hired. The key question for Russian intelligence is part of the larger question of how far along a democracy in which laws and rights are respected by the government and its agencies has the country become. Russian historical experience offers little upon which to create such practices either in the intelligence services or the wider society. Also, Russia faces some internal problems—typified by the ongoing Chechen problem of revolt against Russian rule, which has led to terrorist attacks in Moscow and elsewhere—that create pressure against more restrained intelligence functions.
Russian intelligence services clearly prospered both economically and in terms of power under Putin. Russian intelligence officers sometimes refer to themselves as Chekists, harking back to the Cheka, the first intelligence service under the Bolsheviks. Putin is fond of using the quote: “There is no such thing as a former Chekist.” Putin relied very heavily on KGB veterans to staff key regional positions across Russia and, perhaps more significantly, to take over the various economic enterprises that have been wrested from the oligarchs who took control of them after the Soviet collapse. These include banks, media, and the immensely important energy sector, which has been the basis of Russia’s rebounding economic and political power. A Russian author, Yevgenia Albats, said: “The FSB is no longer just a police organization, it is a business.” According to The Economist, three out of four senior Russian officials have ties to former or current intelligence organizations. They are referred to as siloviki, roughly meaning “strongmen.” Thus, there has been a definite resurgence in the power of the intelligence services, whose future thus became closely tied to that ot Putin as he managed the political transition at the end of his second presidential term in 2008. This mutual dependence decreased the likelihood of there being significant political challenges to Putin within the political system.
Russia’s TECHINT capabilities come closest to those of the United States, although reports of deterioration in these capabilities had been persistent since the demise of the Soviet Union. Numerous press reports noted financial constraints affecting these collection assets, in terms of both the number of satellites in orbit and problems affecting ground facilities. It is reasonable to assume that, just as Putin put resources into reviving Russia’s long-range strategic forces (such as resumed strategic bomber patrols far into the North Atlantic), he probably did the same for Russia’s technical