OPINION:
I’ll never forget the unexpected CIA flashback I had one day in a hospital eight years ago when the doctor told my then-37-year-old wife, Kim, that she had a cancerous tumor in her pancreas requiring immediate, highly invasive surgery. I’ve never been more shocked about anything in my entire life.
Our doctor, who was telling us what we needed to know but definitely did not want to hear, was doing the very same thing I had done as a CIA officer, except our audience was the White House, Cabinet officials and congressional oversight committees rather than a wife and mother of two young boys. I know firsthand, from briefing the CIA director, Congress and the White House countless times over the last decade of my CIA career, that it can be not just uncomfortable but also downright unpleasant to deliver unwelcome news to your boss and elected officials.
Some of the best leaders under whom I served, however, welcomed new information, even when it challenged their assumptions and encouraged them to swivel to new and more informed policy recommendations.
David H. Petraeus once told a group of us in the CIA seventh-floor conference room that he would sit, figuratively speaking, under a tree to let a not-so-good idea pass after hearing the latest intelligence on a particularly complicated challenge we faced in the Middle East.
It is a fact that the Trump administration has been unable to stop the Kremlin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. A peace settlement negotiated without rewarding Russian ruler Vladimir Putin’s imperial land grab would not only guarantee Ukraine’s independence but also ensure we protect Europe, with which we enjoy $1 trillion worth of trade each year, from further Russian military aggression.
The director of the CIA is akin to a nonpartisan umpire, calling balls and strikes without any preconceived policy bias. Reassessing U.S. policy options begins with CIA Director John Ratcliffe and his sensitive sources on the Kremlin’s plans, intentions and pain points, which should inform the Trump administration’s efforts to influence Mr. Putin’s behavior and achieve the president’s strategic objectives.
The CIA’s Russia analysts might begin with three policy options.
First, since entering office, President Trump has tried a combination of moral suasion and economic incentives designed to entice Mr. Putin to end the war; however, Mr. Putin has a high tolerance for the pain he inflicts on his fellow countrymen. He prefers to send his troops to slaughter while raining down hell on Ukraine rather than make peace and reengage commercially with Europe and the United States.
Second, U.S. and EU sanctions have severely impacted Russia’s economy. Still, Mr. Putin has doubled down on economic relationships with China, India and Iran to pay for the war. Last month, Russian Energy Minister Sergey Tsivilyov met with his Iranian counterpart in Tehran to negotiate additional Russian natural gas exports to Iran. The U.S. intelligence community needs to examine how additional secondary sanctions on Russia could be enforced effectively and, if so, how long it would take for them to affect Mr. Putin’s calculus about the war.
Third, the U.S. and Europe are in serious talks about increasing their military assistance to Ukraine, including with Tomahawk missiles. Last month, special presidential envoy Keith Kellogg and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine reported to Mr. Trump that Russia is losing the war.
Moscow has sustained more than 1 million casualties while capturing only a small patch of Ukrainian territory.
The Russians, Mr. Kellogg emphasized, “are pulling tanks out of mothballs, out of museums to put on the battle line. They can’t operate in large movements because the Ukrainians will kill them. And Ukrainians are fighting valiantly.”
The Trump administration approved its first European-financed foreign military aid package, including Patriot interceptor missiles and HIMARS rockets, for Ukraine through the Prioritized Ukrainian Requirements List, which could serve as a road map for engaging the U.S. defense industrial base as Europe’s arsenal for democracy.
These policy options could be executed alone or in concert, but only after agreeing on the facts, not what some might think or hope is true, but rather what can be verified through reliable sources. Europe would, of course, need to participate in any coercive economic measures and increase its own military assistance to Ukraine, with Germany, for example, finally agreeing to provide Ukraine with long-range Taurus missiles.
That hard conversation between Mr. Ratcliffe and Mr. Trump about inducing Mr. Putin’s corrupt dictatorship to change course has to happen first.
• Daniel N. Hoffman is a retired clandestine services officer and former chief of station with the Central Intelligence Agency. His combined 30 years of government service included high-level overseas and domestic positions at the CIA. He has been a Fox News contributor since May 2018.
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