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 Conflict years when intelligence heads ceaselessly succeeded in sustaining stability or securing breakthroughs after conventional diplomacy carried out by formal political and bureaucratic management broke down.
One doesn’t know what Ratcliffe talked about. Neither the ruling institution in Washington nor in Moscow has formally revealed any consequence 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 Conflict and their hyperlinks to European safety. Some additionally guess that it might 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 glossy 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 might land safely.
If something, his go to underscores that amid tectonic adjustments within the strategies of intelligence gathering and thrusts, struggle and peace nonetheless rely on human companies who can do what no machine can: carry intent, take up danger, and make offers deniable. And, with their conventional position in gathering and processing info on overseas nations, spies assist facilitate, formulate, and implement a rustic’s overseas coverage.
Consideration to this dependence on spies might have declined or been underhighlighted after the top of the Chilly Conflict. Specialists attribute this to many elements, three of that are significantly noteworthy.
First, for the reason that 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 turned secondary to CT job 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 cyber extortion facilitated by cryptocurrencies.
Secondly, the traces separating overseas, home, and navy intelligence have turn into more and more blurred. Even large 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 international safety. At the moment, non-public companies wield capabilities that rival state actors, basically altering how info is gathered and used.
Third, and as a corollary to the above level, this has been made attainable by technological developments. 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 information and utility of analytic methodologies for the aim of connecting individuals to issues, occasions, or places”.
Right here, info gathered from social media performs each constructive and damaging roles, relying on whether or not it gives info or disinformation.
Nevertheless, the geopolitics in recent times – the struggle 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 mentioned to have underscored the necessity to reshape intelligence tradecraft in a method that balances secrecy with transparency.
It’s more and more being acknowledged that spies can do what diplomats can’t. As an example, when a overseas minister, Prime Minister, or President flies, the media is current. A communiqué is drafted upfront, and flags are organized upfront. Any failure is then projected as humiliating. In distinction, when a spy chief flies, failure will be buried. He can maintain frank, off-the-record talks which are simpler to stay away from public consideration if they don’t produce an settlement.
Seen thus, Ratcliffe’s journey to Moscow got here when official US-Russia diplomacy on Ukraine stalled, when public positions had been frozen. In such moments, intelligence channels turn into the one channels. Historical past is stuffed with precedents, three of which will be illustrative:
In the course of the extremely aggressive 1962 Cuban Missile Disaster, a essential backchannel fashioned 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 change for the US eradicating missiles from Turkey.
Within the instant aftermath of the September 11 assaults, the US wanted speedy entry to Afghanistan. Formal diplomacy would have taken too lengthy and carried immense home political danger for Pakistan. The CIA–ISI (Pakistan’s Inter-Companies Intelligence ) intelligence channel shortly negotiated Pakistan’s logistical and intelligence cooperation for the invasion.
Equally, in the course of the intense navy battle between India and Pakistan in Kargil in 1999, common diplomatic talks had been fully stalled. However a essential back-channel 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 IS. This hidden dialogue is extensively considered one of the crucial 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 purpose 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 standard—and probably nuclear—struggle. That, within the course of, it uncovered the large disconnect inside the Pakistani institution is a distinct story.
Intelligence companies supply three distinctive utilities in crises. First, they supply “ believable deniability”. If talks fail, either side can deny they occurred. So there isn’t any lack of face.
Secondly, there may be the “velocity issue”. A spy chief can say sure or no on the spot, with out inter-ministerial consultations, parliamentary questions, or press leaks.
It might 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 velocity was mentioned to be decisive. In change 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 position in danger administration. As an example, 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. However, a CIA chief can take a look at his SVR counterpart and say: “We see what you’re planning. For those who do it, we’ll harden.” That’s deterrence on the human degree, not the satellite tv for pc degree.
Know-how can gather the proof, however solely a human can ship the warning in a method that’s believed. Within the course of, a struggle will be prevented or prevented.
Seen 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 couple of days, it symbolizes a bigger fact. And that’s the proven fact that even in an age of hyper-technology, intelligence companies are extra related than ever, as a result of struggle and peace are nonetheless human choices.
Satellites can see mobilization. AI can predict logistics. Business clouds can retailer the info. 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 is determined by human judgment – the person standing “within the shadows” who makes important choices based mostly on instinct and expertise and who can decide whether or not a supply is credible or not.
- Creator and veteran journalist Prakash Nanda is Chairman of the Editorial Board of the EurAsian Instances and has been commenting on politics, overseas 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
