In the week leading up to this briefing, each servant of the President’s administration relevant institutions had been tasked to prepare a situation analysis and formulate recommendations for POTUS’s consideration and action.
As this was the “pre-briefing,” the Secretary, as the most senior member of the Administration, was chairing the meeting until the President’s arrival.
A distinguished former member of the Senate and Presidential Candidate, John Kerry had possessed a unique understanding of U.S. Foreign Policy due in part from his education in Europe, at the sharp end with his decorated service in Vietnam, then once he was elected, by his stints on the committees for International Trade and Foreign Relations.
To kick-start the meeting he asked the Director of the CIA to begin his overview.
After a rather long-winded introduction during which the Director paused to drink a glass of water and irritating the Secretary in the process, the man finally reached a crucial point of the briefing.
“It’s the Agency’s opinion that this ‘action’ by the placing of this proposed base virtually next door to ours in Djibouti is purely about sending a message to African States and the rest of the world that Russia is ready to do business and as such represents a continuation of their confrontation policy with the United States, as recently demonstrated in Georgia Syria, Crimea and Ukraine.”
He continued, turning a page of his notes. “As the African Continent is going to provide a quarter of the world’s oil in the next ten years, coupled with the fact that Russia is now facing competition from the U.S, EU, Chinese, and Indian companies as well as with corporations from the Arabian Peninsula in the region, it is the Agency’s belief that ARCTIC TIGER intends to rebuild what they perceive as their natural position in the world. It is also our belief Russia intends to achieve this ambition through its use of their competitive advantages in quality-price ratios they currently enjoy in the knowledge of prospecting, production, and transportation of natural resources in tandem with their military ‘wrapper’!”
The Director paused again, ignoring the Secretary’s gesture of throwing his pencil down to show his displeasure at him. He took another sip of water before continuing.
“With no traditional colonial influence in Africa; our analysts believe that Russia, by concluding this deal with the continent’s newest state, are sending a message that they intend to compete against our U.S. trading links that we have under the AGOA (American Growth and Opportunities Act) within the region. This is furthermore supported by HUMINT intelligence sources that advise that ARCTIC TIGER privately sees the ‘Arab Spring’ policy of this Administration as re-branded product of the privatization policy U.S. Administrations have used in Russia in the nineties as a tool to degrade competition to U.S. interests.”
The Secretary of State sighed inwardly. He wasn’t a fan of Director Young seeing him as the epitome of elegant evil with his affectations, even if he was a fellow “Bonesman” from Yale.
He decided to push on, as the Director wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know having dealt with ARCTIC TIGER in frosty meetings in the past, none more so at the G8 summit last year where he had clearly stated his desire that it was Russia’s right to be equal partners with the United States of America in the world and demonstrated it by out-foxing the administration with regard to the Ukraine’s mineral rich Eastern Provinces return to the Russian fold, despite the sanctions.
“So, what you are saying is, this is the beginning of the second Cold War that the various ‘Hawks’ in our departments have been touting since Putin came to power and not just a sample of more of his grandstanding in manner of the Ukraine to score points of the President?” He ignored the use of Putin’s ARCTIC TIGER “call sign,” as he had enough of that when he had left the Navy in the sixties.
A former analyst, then the Station Chief of Moscow who had overseen operations to disable Russia in the early nineties, the Director had a total distrust of everything ‘Putin’ and saw him as many in the American Civil Service did as a modern day Stalin, just without the death camps.
So although he had only been in the top job for two months the man immediately seized this opportunity to promote his crusade to “not to drop the guard” against the “old enemy.”
“Yes, Mr. Secretary. We now believe that is the case,” David Patrick Young answered without a flicker of emotion on his face just as the President of United States of America walked into the room.
9
Moscow
Sitting at his desk so he could read the latest analysis reports around the world, Alexei Nikolai Anynkov, the Director of the SVR, the organization that is responsible for intelligence and espionage gathering outside the Russian Federation and within, providing the dissemination of intelligence to the Russian President, picked up a cup of black tea. He pulled the report from the resident asset manager in the US towards him, opened it and started to read.
Littered with “codenames” to reflect companies and senior individuals in the U.S. Government it provided him initially with an analysis of Krivet’s conversation with Joseph McGiven. This wasn’t an unusual event, as the SVR routinely monitored all the world’s major media company C-Suite individual telephone communications just like their counterparts in the U.S. did from time to time. In the case of the famous U.S. media mogul, the monitoring of all his calls had only just been stepped up since the President, at a meeting he attended in Moscow two months ago, informed “Fama” the English Oligarch asset of the President that he would like him to lead the delegation of Russian businesses to invest in Africa.
The Russian President had chosen the “Anglichanin”, as Alexei Nikolai Anynkov thought of Thomas, notwithstanding his Russian passport and his unique basket of business assets, but more importantly because he had seen how well he had built his company’s position within the new African State. The President was convinced that in order for this plan to succeed they would need to engage in a program to win the “hearts and minds” of public opinion around the world, unlike they had in the past with Georgia and Syria. He had taken his time to find a possible opportunity that would enable Russia to do that.
The Federal Republic of Adwalland with its location at the entrance to Red Sea was rich in natural resources and he had determined that it represented the perfect situation to start the re-establishment of Russia as a military power, much to the surprise of Alexei, until he had explained why.
The day the Englishman had brought Krivets into the circle of trust meant that the cat was truly out of the bag and the game could begin on the political stage. This view, held by Alexei, was further supported by what he read next in his summary.
The local resident had reported that sources within National Security Organizations were now advising that, in the last week, their companies had been asked to elevate counterintelligence operations against Russia in all theatres.
Again, Alexis mused there was nothing new in this intelligence as the “Hawks” in the State Department and National Security Organizations of the United States had always held a deep suspicion of the Russian President and his objectives—so much so they were always making such recommendations. He had also come to the conclusion with the appointment of David Young to the head up the CIA a few months ago, the very man who had led his country into chaos with his assets through their advice and management of Yeltsin program of privatization in the 1990s, that this type of intelligence chatter would be now become more common.
It was the next line of the report that really caught his eye, with the phrase, “President’s Authorization has been granted.”