It has been a very bad month for advocates of the “indirect” approach to U.S. national security policy. U.S.-trained rebels in Syria handed over their weapons to al-Qaeda; and the United States has been forced to sit back helplessly and watch as Russian bombers target CIA-backed rebel forces. The Department of Defense’s train-and-equip program has…
Category: Russia
Cold War Espionage: How Soviets used IBM Selectric keyloggers to spy on US diplomats
How Highly sophisticated bugs went undetected for 8 years during the Cold War. By Dan Goodin A National Security Agency memo that recently resurfaced a few years after it was first published contains a detailed analysis of what very possibly was the world’s first keylogger—a 1970s bug that Soviet spies implanted in US diplomats’ IBM…
A Sneek Peak at Russias High Tech War Machine at work in Syria
Russia has been sending fighter jets, drones, and bombers to Syria to bolster the regime of Bashar al-Assad, generating concern and outrage among the United States and its allies. Far less attention has been paid to Moscow’s simultaneous deployment of advanced surveillance, signals intelligence, and electronic warfare equipment that could deal a new blow to…
How to Explain the KGB’s amazing success identifying CIA agents in the field?
A great example of using “comparison data” and simple deduction to pull back the veil. Counterintelligence 101.-SF As the Cold War drew to a close with the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, those at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, finally hoped to resolve many long-standing puzzles. The most important of which…
U.S. Naval Commander in Europe: NATO must Adapt to Russia’s New Way of Hybrid Warfare
Russia has found ways to slow NATO military responses while simultaneously quickening its own ability to mobilize, the commander of U.S. naval forces in Europe and Africa said, and NATO needs to find ways to adapt. Adm. Mark Ferguson, who also commands the Allied Joint Force Command in Naples, Italy, said at the Atlantic Council…
7 Times the U.S. almost stumbled into War with Russia
With all of the shenanigans going on in Syria with Russia lately, I thought it prudent to review America’s history with this long time cold (and sometimes hot) enemy.-SF In light of current events in places like the Ukraine and Syria, the risk of America and Russia fighting a proxy war or even a real war…