*In Ukraine The Covert War Has Begun---not an American concern.*
On Thursday, April 17, 2014 12:29:03 PM UTC-5, Travis wrote:
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> http://www.forbes.com/sites/melikkaylan/2014/04/16/why-cia-director-brennan-visited-kiev-in-ukraine-the-covert-war-has-begun/
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> *4/16/2014 @ 4:30PM **|**2,002 views *
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> *Why CIA Director Brennan Visited Kiev: In Ukraine The Covert War Has
> Begun*
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> Ukraine is on the brink of civil war, Vladimir
> Putin<http://www.forbes.com/profile/vladimir-putin/>has said, and he should
> know because the country is already in the midst of
> a covert intelligence war. Over the weekend, CIA director John Brennan
> travelled to Kiev, nobody knows exactly why, but some speculate that he
> intends to open US intelligence resources to Ukrainian leaders about
> real-time Russian military maneuvers. The US has, thus far, refrained from
> sharing such knowledge because Moscow is believed to have penetrated much
> of Ukraine’s communications systems – and
> Washington<http://www.forbes.com/washington/>isn’t about to hand over its
> surveillance secrets to the Russians.
>
> If you have any doubts that the battle is raging on the ‘covert ops’ front
> just consider today’s events in Pcholkino where Ukrainian soldiers from the
> 25th Airborn Division handed over their weapons and APC’s to pro-Russian
> militiamen and pretty much surrendered. The Ukrainian commander was quoted
> as saying “they’ve captured us and are using dirty tricks”. This is the
> kind of morale-busting incident that can spread quickly. It doesn’t happen
> spontaneously and it often begins with mixed messages, literally – messages
> purporting to come from the chain of command but actually originate from
> the enemy’s dirty tricks department.
>
> So what kind of conversations did Brennan have during his visit? There’s
> no way of knowing for sure of course. But, according to my sources, and
> based on my experience of reporting on the Russian invasion of Georgia, the
> US-Ukraine information exchange would go a lot further than simply tracking
> numbers and motions of Russian tanks and soldiers. The operative term here
> is ‘non-lethal’ help – that remains Washington’s official position. But in
> today’s digital and virtual battlefield, the game can be over before the
> first shot gets fired. And if Moscow’s mastery over the digital domain can
> be countered, Putin might think twice about risking the expensive hardware
> that he has invested billions in upgrading since the Georgian war.
>
> In that conflict, the US refused to sell air-cover missiles (Manpads) to
> Tbilisi while the Israelis deactivated the ones they’d sold after Putin
> threatened them with retaliation by selling Hezbollah comparable weapons.
> So Georgia was left with the Ukraine-made missiles it had purchased, which
> proved effective but not numerous enough. The Russians have undoubtedly
> rectified that vulnerability, especially as they and Ukraine share the same
> weapons systems. In effect, Russian warplanes have likely found ways to jam
> targeting vectors or to create illusory electronic clusters to decoy the
> manpads.
>
> So Brennan might have shared data on how to get past the jamming. The same
> kind of forensic struggle applies to aerial combat, a rare thing these days
> but one that may become decisive if ground-based missiles prove
> ineffectual. Since the Russians can hack into any kind of long-distance
> chatter about such details between the US and Kiev, Brennan probably had to
> physically hand them over to his Ukrainian interlocutors. That is, to fully
> vetted individuals, because as we’ve seen repeatedly during the current
> crisis, not least in the Maidan, Russian spies masquerading as Ukrainian
> patriots are not uncommon. Ukraine’s politicians and military personnel
> (though not nearly as much) have a long history of divided loyalties.
>
> Digital conflict, by its very nature, is a shadow conflict and therefore
> fundamentally psychological. If you lose touch with central command or you
> suspect the enemy is messing with your communications, you become isolated.
> You fire at your own side, shoot down your warplanes. In fact, you’re
> likely to stop shooting altogether, out of confusion and paralysis, as
> happened in some military bases in Georgia. And now is happening in
> Ukraine. You don’t know if the coded messages telling you to refrain from
> firing are a feint or genuine. In a modern war between two sides with
> hardware i.e. not a guerilla war, line-of-sight engagements occur less
> often than you’d think. Tanks and planes and artillery get knocked out from
> afar. Digital certainty is everything. The absence of it spells disaster.
>
> So Brennan needed to reassure his hosts above all on that matter. Or
> perhaps vice-versa. They might need to reassure the US that Ukraine’s
> military position is not hopeless. If the US assessed the Ukrainian armed
> forces as too electronically compromised to use heavy weapons systems, then
> Washington might discourage a confrontation, might refuse to help in
> crucial ways, as happened in Georgia. Or Washington might suggest alternate
> methodologies, low-tech or asymmetrical alternatives, to create enough
> confusion or humiliation as to tarnish Putin’s popularity. The Russian side
> has clearly initiated such tactics already. Brennan will try to shore up
> the security of Ukraine’s military signals systems. He will suggest ways to
> retaliate in kind by hacking into the pro-Moscow militia’s comms.
>
> To get an idea of how crucial is this stage of the confrontation, just
> witness how images of Ukrainian armored vehicles now driven by militias
> have gone global. Moscow will trumpet the news, claiming that even
> Ukrainian soldiers don’t want to fight, that the US is stoking artificial
> hatred. The government in Kiev will find itself snookered – either to admit
> that its signals channels are hopelessly compromised and therefore cannot
> mount a convincing military operation or that such incidents are
> spontaneous but limited. A tough position either way. One thing is certain,
> the war has begun.
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