When, on August 25, a US Air Drive C-17 Globemaster III, carrying CIA Director John Ratcliffe, landed in Moscow for secret conferences with Russian officers, it reminded one of many tales of the Chilly Battle years when intelligence heads steadily succeeded in sustaining stability or securing breakthroughs after conventional diplomacy carried out by means of formal political and bureaucratic management broke down.
Nobody is aware of what Ratcliffe mentioned. Neither the ruling institution in Washington nor in Moscow has formally revealed any end result of the CIA Chief’s go to.
The press has solely speculated that Ratcliffe met with Russian intelligence counterpart Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s International Intelligence Service (SVR), and that they mentioned the stalled US-brokered talks on the Ukraine Battle and their hyperlinks to European safety. Some additionally guess that it may have been Washington’s launching of “Operation Financial Outcast” to chop off Iran, for which President Trump wanted his Russian counterpart Putin’s cooperation.
Nevertheless, one factor was apparent. Ratcliffe was the primary sitting CIA chief in Russia since 2021, and the highest-level Trump administration go to since January this yr. And it occurred not on a modern diplomatic jet, however on a navy transport that hauls tanks, switching plane in Riga, with a quiet request to Kyiv to pause drone strikes on Moscow for 3 days so the aircraft may land safely.
If something, his go to underscores that amid tectonic modifications within the strategies of intelligence gathering and thrusts, conflict and peace nonetheless rely upon human companies who can do what no machine can: carry intent, soak up threat, and make offers deniable. And, with their conventional function in accumulating and processing info on international international locations, spies assist facilitate, formulate, and implement a rustic’s international coverage.
Consideration to this dependence on spies could have declined or been underhighlighted after the top of the Chilly Battle. Consultants attribute this to many elements, three of that are notably noteworthy.
First, because the terrorist assaults of 11 September 2001 in New York, intelligence companies everywhere in the world reoriented their capabilities towards counterterrorism (CT) and uneven adversaries.
State-on-State espionage grew to become secondary to CT activity forces, who focused on monetary monitoring, journey surveillance, and multi-agency fusion hubs. The main focus shifted to dispersed non-state networks, terrorism, state-backed sabotage, hybrid and cognitive warfare, and cryptocurrency-facilitated cyber extortion.
Secondly, the traces separating international, home, and navy intelligence have grow to be more and more blurred. Even massive organizations make use of non-public intelligence actors who problem authorities intelligence companies on their very own turf. This represents a large shift in trendy world safety. As we speak, non-public companies wield capabilities that rival state actors, essentially altering how info is gathered and used.
Third, and as a corollary to the above level, technological developments have made this attainable. Human intelligence (HUMINT) is adapting to the ascendancy of open-source intelligence (OSINT) and ubiquitous technical surveillance (UTS), which is outlined as “the widespread assortment of knowledge and utility of analytic methodologies for the aim of connecting individuals to issues, occasions, or areas”.
Right here, info gathered from social media performs each constructive and damaging roles, relying on whether or not it offers info or disinformation.
Nevertheless, the geopolitics lately – the conflict in Ukraine, the disaster within the Center East, war-like conditions in Taiwan and the Korean Peninsula, fears of Chinese language hegemony within the broader Indo-Pacific- appears to have impelled the intelligence companies to recalibrate once more towards nice energy competitors.
Whereas embracing accessible and rising applied sciences is totally essential, spies are as soon as once more proving essential, with their particular person regional and linguistic experience in analyzing myriad knowledge, predicting geopolitical troubles, and serving to mitigate them.
In different phrases, technological acceleration, geopolitical uncertainties, and systemic rivalries (a plurality of intelligence companies inside a rustic, coupled with new challenges from company intelligence) are stated to have underscored the necessity to reshape intelligence tradecraft to stability secrecy with transparency.
It’s more and more being acknowledged that spies can do what diplomats can’t. As an illustration, when a international minister, Prime Minister, or President flies, the media is current. A communiqué is drafted prematurely, and flags are organized prematurely. Any failure is then projected as humiliating. In distinction, when a spy chief flies, failure might be buried. He can maintain frank, off-the-record talks which can be simpler to maintain out of public view if they don’t produce an settlement.
Considered thus, Ratcliffe’s journey to Moscow got here when official US-Russia diplomacy on Ukraine stalled, when public positions have been frozen. In such moments, intelligence channels grow to be the one channels. Historical past is filled with precedents, three of which might be illustrative:
In the course of the 1962 Cuban Missile Disaster, a essential backchannel shaped between KGB operative Aleksandr Feklisov and ABC Information correspondent John Scali (appearing for the Kennedy administration). This hidden channel bypassed the state departments to put the groundwork for eradicating Soviet missiles from Cuba in alternate for the US eradicating missiles from Turkey.
Within the speedy aftermath of the September 11 assaults, the US wanted fast entry to Afghanistan. Formal diplomacy would have taken too lengthy and carried immense home political threat for Pakistan. The CIA–ISI (Pakistan’s Inter-Companies Intelligence) rapidly negotiated Pakistan’s logistical and intelligence cooperation for the invasion.
Equally, through the intense navy battle between India and Pakistan in Kargil in 1999, common diplomatic talks have been fully stalled. However a essential backchannel communication was maintained between Arvind Dave, the then chief of India’s Analysis and Evaluation Wing (R&AW), and Lt. Gen. Ziauddin Butt, the Director-Normal of Pakistan’s ISI.
This hidden dialogue is broadly considered probably the most fascinating espionage and diplomatic chapters of the battle.
The channel opened on the highest political ranges, licensed primarily by then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Its main objective was to seek out an honorable exit technique for each nations and forestall the restricted border battle in Kargil from escalating right into a full-scale, catastrophic typical—and doubtlessly nuclear—conflict.
That, within the course of, uncovered the large disconnect inside the Pakistani institution, is a unique story.
Intelligence companies provide three distinctive utilities in crises. First, they supply “ believable deniability”. If talks fail, each side can deny they occurred. So there is no such thing as a lack of face.
Secondly, there may be the “pace issue”. A spy chief can say sure or no on the spot, with out inter-ministerial consultations, parliamentary questions, or press leaks.
It could be famous on this context that Ratcliffe was a central determine in finalizing the April 10, 2025 prisoner swap that secured the discharge of US-Russian twin nationwide Ksenia Karelina. Right here, the pace was stated to be decisive. In alternate for the previous ballerina—who had been sentenced to 12 years in a Russian jail for making a $51.80 donation to a Ukrainian humanitarian charity—the US freed Arthur Petrov, a twin German-Russian citizen accused of smuggling delicate military-grade microelectronics to Russia.
Thirdly, spies can play a giant function in threat administration. As an illustration, the Wall Avenue Journal reported that Ratcliffe’s shock Moscow journey was to warn Russia to not assault NATO. Such warnings can’t be delivered publicly by an envoy. Alternatively, a CIA chief can have a look at his SVR counterpart and say: “We see what you’re planning. In the event you do it, we’ll harden.” That’s deterrence on the human stage, not the satellite tv for pc stage.
Know-how can accumulate the proof, however solely a human can ship the warning in a manner that’s believed. Within the course of, a conflict might be averted or prevented.
Considered thus in totality, it could possibly be argued that although the C-17 that landed in Moscow carrying Ratcliffe’s could also be forgotten in a number of days, it symbolizes a bigger fact. And that’s the indisputable fact that even in an age of hyper-technology, intelligence companies are extra related than ever, as a result of conflict and peace are nonetheless human choices.
Satellites can see mobilization. AI can predict logistics. Business clouds can retailer the information. However solely a human intelligence officer can say whether or not the adversary’s chief is bluffing and, accordingly, warning the house nation.
Because the chief of the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Blaise Metreweli, pointed out in her inaugural speech in December 2025, whereas the instruments of warfare and espionage frequently change, nationwide safety nonetheless relies on human judgment – the person standing “within the shadows” who makes very important choices primarily based on instinct and expertise and who can choose whether or not a supply is credible or not.
- Creator and veteran journalist Prakash Nanda is Chairman of the Editorial Board of the EurAsian Occasions and has been commenting on politics, international coverage, and strategic affairs for practically three many years. He’s a former Nationwide Fellow of the Indian Council for Historic Analysis and a recipient of the Seoul Peace Prize Scholarship.
- CONTACT: prakash.nanda (at) hotmail.com
