The Spy Next Door

When the cops come around and take a local resident into custody, it’s pretty standard to hear the neighbors chatting with members of the media, voicing surprise and offering words of support for the party under arrest. Yesterday, in towns and villages just like yours, this very scene played out in multiple instances as the FBI closed out a long investigation of a Russian-sponsored infiltration into the heart of middle class America.

The FBI placed ten people under arrest Sunday, with one other (at this writing) still at large. Trained by the Russian intelligence service, the SVR, and mostly placed in pairs as couples beginning in the mid-Nineties, their mission appears to be both vague and ambitious — to develop relationships with the influential and the knowledgeable, to obtain information regarding the CIA, US nuclear policy, relations with foreign powers, etc., and to recruit high-level government employees. Funny, I get most of that from the internet without all the fuss and muss of trying to corral a bunch of Russians set loose in our giant Disneyland.

The big question in all of this isn’t why the Russians did this. Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister at the time and a former KGB chief, has a natural affinity for undercover operations. Our why is his why not? Nor is it why the Justice Department, through two full administrations, allowed these people to operate (albeit under strict surveillance) in our country. It’s likely, over time, that the Russians became aware of our counter-intelligence activity, in a case of, we know that you know that we know…. The question is, why do it now? The official line given is that a prompt shutdown of the whole operation was due to one of the group scheduling a permanent return to Russia. Hmm … That sounds just a bit fishy. I have a better explanation.

Recently, the Obama administration has used the State Department to reestablish a dialog with Moscow, culminating with a recent visit by Russian President Medvedev to meet with the President. The timing of the arrests, along with the blaring publicity accompanying them, appears orchestrated to chill relations between the two countries. Consider that the charges are money laundering (for bringing in the payroll and expense money from South America), living under a false identity, and “belonging” to a spy ring. There appears to be no evidence suggesting that any of these spies were effective at doing their jobs. There appears to be no benefit to the US, strategically, to drop the hammer now.

So, who does benefit? For that, we need to flip the question around and decide who might feel threatened by closer ties between Russia and the United States. There’s always China, Inc. The economic expansion on the mainland is subject to many variables, some within the power of China’s leadership to control, such as relations with Taiwan (which have never been better) or the exchange rate of the Renminbi. What they can’t control is the availability of those natural resources necessary to sustain the expansion. Russia, along with Australia, is a key supplier of iron ore. Russia remains the primary source for nickel. While South Africa supplies the bulk of the world’s chromium, Russia is also a major producer. Access to these elements is a key to China’s continued growth. Any threat, in the form of state-sponsored boycott or slowdown of delivery, could be catastrophic. A Russian-US alliance represents a formidable wall in the path to China’s economic domination.

If you don’t like China, there’s always the European Union to consider. EU members, especially Germany and the former Soviet satellites, view any Russian partnership as a threat. For such an alliance to include Uncle Sam, the degree of hysteria mounts. There is no more powerful grouping, in terms of weaponry, than that of those Cold War adversaries. Together, they could easily hold the entire world hostage. For a Europe that’s known the devastation of total war, the mere possibility of facing such power is cause for nightmares. It would be in the European interest to short circuit any broad understanding in a Russo-American pact.

So, that spy next door, trimming the rhododendrons and driving the kids to school, is nothing compared to the operatives working within our own government, on behalf of China or the EU, to affect policy change through fiat. Hell, it’s just as likely that those spies grew to love America and might deign to lift a finger in anger against us; our bigger worry should be those real Americans lurking in the shadows of our most solid upright pillars. As the nosy neighbor tells the inquiring reporter – “I never, in my wildest imaginings, thought they could be against us.” The truth is, anyone can be against us. Keep your eyes open.





Abstract Invention by Charlie Accetta is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.