More important than providing the chief executive with better information was the ability to produce “actionable” intelligence on a day-to-day basis. A huge intelligence center just inside the Washington, D.C. beltway not only gathered information, it then analyzed it and passed the finished products to those who needed it to protect U.S. citizens and territory.
“We don’t know what they’re calling it, but there’s definitely something planned around the last week in August,” Harry Mathias announced confidently from the podium.
“You make it sound like a state fair or a vacation.” Ray Peakes was the director of national intelligence and Harry’s immediate boss.
Mathias raised his eyebrows, a little surprised. “You could call it a road trip,” he admitted, “and the late summer date is part of it. Still, there is a lot of—”
“Sorry for interrupting,” Peakes apologized, “but this is still a discussion, not a formal brief.” He tried to make eye contact with each of the dozen-plus people in the room. They were seated at a half circle of tables, all facing the obligatory flat-screen display on one wall. Smaller screens hung on the walls to either side. All three displayed the seal of the agency, an eagle with outstretched wings in a blue circle. One claw held an olive branch, the other a bundle of arrows. Not by accident, it was almost identical to the presidential seal. Brightly colored security warnings announced that the room was cleared for sensitive compartmented information.
“This is high-priority, but Harry is only going to summarize what we’ve learned so far. We need each of you to go back to your respective agencies with what you’ll learn here”—he shrugged—“which is scary enough.” Looking at his senior analyst, he said, “All right, Harry. What have you found so far?”
“I’ll start with their overt moves. We all know about the Russian Army’s movements in Belarus and on the borders of the Baltic States, but now we have units heading toward Ukraine and Georgia.” Nodding toward the Defense Intelligence Agency team, he reported, “DIA has seen increased activity at all the European army garrisons. Traditionally, late summer is the end of their training cycle, but their judgment is the level of activity is higher than in previous years. The Russian units are staying in the field longer, and exercising in larger formations, battalion and brigade, not just company and battalion. Leo, just before this brief you said Ms. Miller has more to share.”
Leo Odom, the DIA’s chief rep, introduced, “Donna Miller, our senior naval analyst.” She didn’t stand but did fiddle with her tablet for a moment, and a graph appeared. It looked like something generated by an application, and had not been polished. The title was “Planned Northern Fleet Maintenance Schedule.” Colored lines wandered across the chart’s face, labeled “submarine, cruiser, destroyer,” and so on; they represented the collective activity of Russian shipyards. A fair number of the lines took a sudden nosedive in late August.
She spoke quickly, as if she’d rushed to finish and hadn’t slowed down yet. “This shows the ships being refitted. About three months ago, the Russian Navy began refitting and modernizing many of its first-line units. Also, instead of giving the shipyards a steady stream of contracts, they brought in a bunch of ships all at once, and we’re not seeing any new contracts being let.
“Surprisingly, many Russian shipyard contracts can be found online, and normally they’re awarded several months ahead of time. As of this morning, the amount of refit work scheduled for this coming fall drops by a factor of six.” That got a reaction from the others, and she added, “And it’s not for lack of work that needs to be done.”
“It may be money,” a CIA rep replied from three seats to her right. Young for his job, he sported a fashionable haircut, but still looked like an accountant. “Using National Security Advisor Hyland’s hypothesis as a starting point, we looked for atypical spending patterns, and there is one. Russian defense spending is up almost everywhere, to support operations and maintenance, as well as procurement. It’s at least twenty percent higher than last year. We’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out where the money is coming from. We hadn’t found it yet, but assumed we just weren’t looking in the right places.” The analyst turned from Miller to look at Peakes. “What if their income hasn’t increased, but instead they’re just spending what they have?”
The DNI answered, “I’ll ask the obvious question: When would they run out?”
The accounting analyst shrugged. “Governments rarely just ‘run out,’ but at the estimated spending levels, they’ll be hard-pressed to pay their people or buy fuel for their tanks in three, maybe four months.”
Ray Peaks agreed. “And you figured that having suffered an economic collapse once from overspending on defense, the Russian government, not being stupid, wasn’t planning to do it again.”
Odom cut in, “Our logistics people have been making the same predictions. Their conclusions didn’t seem to make much sense and they’ve been pushed to triple check their work to see if the math is right. So far, the analysis has been hanging together. The Russians can only run at this increased level for another four months. After that — pffft.”
“Or less than four months if they increase their operational tempo,” Peakes continued. “This is good, but I think Harry’s still feeding grist into our mill.”
“I am indeed, sir,” Mathias answered. “Let me just roll it into one lump. Cyber attacks are up, nothing that’s done serious damage, but there have been intrusions at financial institutions, infrastructure nodes like power stations and airports, Fortune 500 businesses, and in spite of their higher security, at military bases and command centers. The Russians deny it, of course.”
Nodding toward the senior CIA rep, he reported, “I can confirm that the death of the Estonian defense minister last week was not a home robbery. Their interior minister had labeled it ‘suspicious’ from the start, and they’ve now told us that his office at home was searched very professionally. There were sensitive documents in a safe, which was opened.
“It’s possible that other incidents, especially in the Baltics, Georgia, and Ukraine, may be due to increased Russian espionage activity. Even if they’re not directly related to the military, they can be disruptive and distracting.”
“Or they may be reconnaissance runs,” the CIA rep interrupted. “I’ve got the counterintelligence section looking at things we don’t usually track — industrial accidents and local crime rates.”
Mathias put up a map of Europe and Russia. The border was dotted with red stars. “There are a large number of exercise-related scenarios planned for that same late-August timeframe. Again, that isn’t unusual, but the folks with the experience in our shop say the level of activity is way up. This sudden exercise is considerably larger than the Center-2015 exercise, which was planned well in advance. They’re also exercising right along the border with the Baltic States, Georgia, and Ukraine, which we’ve interpreted as Fedorin sending a message to his neighbors. And we’ve just discussed the Russians’ cash situation. Running a lot of troops around in the field isn’t cheap.”
He summarized, “We’re all familiar with the idea of using a military exercise to cover preparations for a real operation. It’s been done before. But military operations across the border into NATO countries would trigger a general war, and if you think exercises are hard on a country’s treasury, the cost and waste of a major conventional conflict in Europe would shatter the Russians’ piggy bank. And Leo, why don’t you tell them about the mobilization status?”