Secret Intelligence and Public Diplomacy in the Ukraine War

Dylan, Huw; Maguire, Thomas

doi:10.1080/00396338.2022.2103257

Cited by 8 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Second, the sustained campaign mounted by the United States and the United Kingdom to publicise intelligence about Russian troop movements, its likely intentions, and its intent to generate a pretext for war via false-flag operations. Both states have deployed intelligence in public before in support of policy objectives; neither had engaged in such a sustained and detailed programme to ‘pre-bunk’ Kremlin disinformation (Dylan and Maguire, 2022). Intelligence officials, Cabinet Secretaries, and elected politicians all offered what amounted to a public campaign of commentary on Russian movements, repudiation of Russian denials, and encouragement to the open source community to bolster official sources.…”

Section: Intelligence Failures In the Ukraine Warmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This article contributes to three developing and interconnected fields of literature: intelligence and the Ukraine War, which has received a significant amount of media coverage but, despite some exceptions, (Dylan and Maguire, 2022; Gioe and Styles, 2022), remains in its infancy as an academic topic; Putin as an intelligence manager and consumer, which has received far more scholarly attention (for instance, Belton, 2020; Hill and Gaddy, 2015; Lewis, 2022); and authoritarian leaders and their intelligence systems, which, despite notable exceptions (such as Andrew, 2004; Hatfield, 2022), is a sparsely populated academic field. It is in connecting and working across these disciplinary silos that we make our contribution by analysing the events in Ukraine in reference to scholarship about Russia and Putin generally, and about intelligence and security in particular.…”

Section: Introduction: the Chekist In The Kremlinmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The autocrat’s intelligence paradox: Vladimir Putin’s (mis)management of Russian strategic assessment in the Ukraine War

Dylan

Gioe

Grossfeld

2022

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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Autocratic leaders rely on intelligence machineries for regime and personal security. They often manage large, powerful, unaccountable organisations, which they hold close. But, despite their close relationship with - and reliance upon - intelligence, autocrats also frequently struggle to use it to enhance decision-making and foreign policy, and consequently suffer avoidable intelligence failures. This article argues that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 is illustrative of this broader, though understudied, pattern of autocratic mismanagement of strategic intelligence. The invasion was both spurred and accompanied by a catastrophic intelligence failure, the responsibility for which rests with Vladimir Putin, the arbiter of a system with limited capacity to offer dispassionate strategic assessments. His failure is characteristic of autocratic regimes assessing foreign developments, including Putin’s Soviet predecessors. This article contributes to the emerging scholarship on intelligence in autocratic regimes by examining Putin’s use of intelligence in the Ukraine War in the context of the broader literature on intelligence and decision.

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Section: Intelligence Failures In the Ukraine Warmentioning

confidence: 99%