It appears that U.S. intelligence had no idea that Russia’s military was going to invade Ukraine. If only they had spied on the other 2/3 of Americans’ calls, they certainly would have gotten this one!
-
Follow
Following
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
36 Chambers - The Legendary Journeys: Execution to the max! 
I think the criticism in the article you quoted (not so much you personally) is unfair, but I’ll start with this: unless Putin was ultra-Machiavellian, setting up Yanukovich in a position where he would fail so Russia could grab Crimea (which I don’t discount as a possibility), this is exactly the kind of invasion the intelligence community would NOT predict: pure opportunism. I would be willing to go so far as to say that even Putin didn’t know he was going to invade Ukraine until a few days before he did so. The NSA criticism is fair.
The article you quoted is an absolutely putrid example of ideological garbage. Trumpeting Sarah Palin as your prophet of Russian foreign policy aims (the same woman who claimed to be an expert because Russia is 90 miles away — yes, we all know how critical Kamchatka is in a game of Risk) is a bad start. What I particularly hate, however, is this constant slam on the IC for “not predicting the collapse of the Soviet Union.” You know who got that right? Pretty much nobody.
The NSA gets millions, possibly billions, of intercepts every single day. Finding useful information out of that is not finding a needle in a haystack; it’s finding a needle in a needlestack. The intelligence community needs reform, but hogwash (yes, hogwash, I say!) like the Powerline post will not achieve it.