159. Is NATO Prepared for a Russian Attack?

0:03For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter, and discounted books, join the Declassified Club at therestisclassified.com.

0:24What does the threat from Russia look like if you're on its borders? and our Western spies and governments agreed on how to confront it. Well, welcome to The Rest is Classified. I'm Gordon Carrera. This time there's no David McCloskey. That's because I'm actually in Estonia, one of the Baltic states in its capital, Tallinn. I'm here for a security conference at which officials, spy chiefs, other types, are all meeting to try and look at some of the threats, particularly from Russia, some of the issues around Ukraine, but also the NATO alliance, how it's getting on, what the relationships with the Americans are like.

1:01I've been here actually chairing a panel with some of the spy chiefs from the region. I'd love to tell you more about that, but I'm afraid that really is classified because it was an off-the-record panel. But I've spent a couple of days here also going down to close to the Russian border for a military exercise called Spring Storm, watching Estonian defence forces work with French troops who were there in some camouflage vehicles and some British troops who were camped in the woods in some, I think, less glamorous conditions than the French, strangely enough, using some sensor devices which were hidden in trees and which could detect using video imagery, but also seismic activity, whether, for instance, Russian troops might at one point go over the border.

1:48all part of this exercise. And it's all a sign really that Estonia, the Baltic states are on the front line from the Russian threat. I mean, very, very close. While we were going to this exercise at one point, we went just a couple of miles from the Russian border and were told to put our phones on airplane mode. The reason being that otherwise they might switch to a Russian mobile phone network. I'm not entirely sure whether we were told not to do that because they might spy on us or whether it was because we'd rack up a huge mobile bill. But anyway, way. That's what we were told to do. There are also, I think, some pictures circulating of me clambering out of a French kind of tank armoured reconnaissance vehicle, not very elegantly.

2:28If you see those, they are not AI generated. I'm afraid they really were me. But this, we thought, might be a chance on the podcast to give you a bit of a sense of how the security and intelligence situation feels if you're in the Baltic States, if you're on the border with Russia. How worried are people here about that possible threat of maybe a Russian invasion or of sabotage, the so-called hybrid or grey zone warfare that's going on? So I've been speaking to a few of the people who are here at this conference, trying to give a flavour really of some of the things that are getting discussed.

3:02It's a bit different what we normally do, so you might hear a bit of background noise and a little bit of chaos, but that's the feel of what things alike here. So I hope you don't mind too much. Two people I sat down with first were two journalists, two quite good friends of mine, I have to admit. Shane Harris from the Atlantic magazine in the United States and Sean Walker from the Guardian newspaper in the UK, also written a very good book called The Illegals on Russian Spies, just to talk a bit about what we were learning from the conference. This episode is brought to you by HP. In intelligence work, it's rarely the obvious problem that causes failure.

3:39It's the overlooked detail or the flaw nobody quite solved. The kind of vulnerability intelligence services look for. And running a business is the same, especially when you're building or growing a team. It's the risks you can't see or don't understand. HP designs technology so devices, collaboration tools and security work together as a single system, helping teams keep everything running smoothly at home, in the office and out in the field. The protection is built in. Hardware level security working quietly in the background, helping reduce risk without creating more work. With a team of business advisors, HP helps businesses of all sizes find technology that fits their needs and budget.

4:22To see how HP helps businesses work securely and productively, visit hp.com forward slash classified. The rest Disclassified listeners also benefit from 10 % off HP Business Technology with code T-R-I-C-10. Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the Unreal College Deal. Everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at windows.com slash student offer.

5:05While supplies last, ends June 30th. Terms at aka.ms slash college PC. So good, so good, so good. Everything you want for summer is at Nordstrom Rack stores now. And up to 60 % off. Stock up and save on the brands you love like Vince, Sam Edelman, Frame, and Free People. Join the Nordiclub to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack. Okay, I am sat with two distinguished veteran correspondents who cover not just these conferences, but the world of national security, Russia, intelligence, and also I have to admit, two friends of mine.

5:55Shane Harris, now staff writer at The Atlantic magazine in the US, and Sean Walker, who is from The Guardian, also author of a very good book on illegals, one of my favorite topics, deep cover Russian spies. Both of you, thanks for joining us. Shane, what's your view of the mood of this conference? It's a little bit like from the opening session onwards. There's an edginess between the US and Europe, isn't there? Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's like this conference when I came last year was sort of like this feeling of, you know, the US and Europe, are we breaking up? And this year it's kind of like, hmm, it feels like we're breaking up.

6:30Like you feel there's a frostiness even that was there last year. And this year just feels like it's more settled into like a freeze. you know the Americans only sent one person as far as I'm aware of really to speak on any panels he's undersecretary of state people were mispronouncing his name no one had really ever heard of him he didn't know people who were answering asking his questions who yeah you know in defense you should know yeah he got quite a tough time he did he did because he wanted to beat up on him right because I mean these are sort of questions that people are asking you know you know where are the Americans what's the role but it's interesting it was sort of it felt like to me, people here just have resigned to the fact that the United States, and Tom DeNano is his name, by the way, and in his defense, he did keep saying the United States is not leaving Europe, we're not leaving NATO.

7:13But I think that there's a real understanding that the relationship has fundamentally changed. And I'm not sure that people are counting on that snapping back if a Democrat is elected in 28. Maybe it will, but it does feel like Europe has been planning for life after America for a while, and this conference kind of reflects that. Sean, what do you think? Yeah, I would agree. I mean, I think it's, you know, in this part of Europe, you have the, by the size of the countries and their location, they're naturally very cautious about saying anything publicly that would be sort of critical of the US.

7:45And I think last year there was still this, even though we'd had, you know, Hegseth coming to Brussels and we'd had Zelensky be humiliated in the White House, there was still this sense of like, oh, you know, looking at the positives, like actually Trump is just waking us all up and this is great and it's all going to be fine. And yet this year it feels a little bit different. I was talking a couple of hours ago to a Russian journalist who said it was fascinating to be in that room with Tom De Nano. And for one moment, it seemed like Russia wasn't the main enemy of everyone in the room. And there was this real frustration.

8:19I mean, the man was asked twice a very direct question. Would the US come to the defense of a Baltic state if it was invaded. And his answer did not include the word yes. Yeah, it was a more complicated answer, wasn't it? And there was this constant questioning, will you say explicitly Russia is a threat? And there seemed to be a moment where even that was difficult to say. Yeah. And I think he's like, look, I mean, somebody in his position knows that he's one bad quote away that gets tweeted from losing his job, right? And again, he did say that the United States is with NATO, but it did kind of feel half-hearted, right?

8:57And I think people in the room understood that and were pressing for more of an answer, knowing he probably wouldn't give it. And you're probably right that, yeah, he was worried about the headline tomorrow being Trump's undersecretary says US will fight Russia. And that's the last thing he needs. And then there was also a funny bit where there then was a row between the Europeans about whether, I think, wasn't it, Spain is spending enough on defense. And it turned into who are like the Spanish diplomat stood up and go, no, those figures are wrong. We're spending more on defense. And someone said, this is what NATO is like.

9:28You just don't normally see it, you know, on public display with, you know, everyone trying to work out what the Americans think and the Europeans arguing about defense spending. So it's a bit where, you know, it's out in the open a little bit more than it used to be. The kind of some of the tensions between different sides. And there's a general rule that like high level conference panels are just incredibly boring sets of, you know, policy monologues and nobody has real disagreements. And suddenly you're like, oh, this is, this is quite nice. This is interesting. Yeah. It's good for us journalists.

9:56I was just monitoring the panel where it was, you know, everybody was agreeing, you know, rah, rah, Ukraine, they're the future, et cetera. And there was one person who was like, nope, absolutely not. You're all mistaken. This is an idiotic way to think about it. And we had the prime minister of Albania who was on a panel yesterday. He was very spicy. Yeah. But it is interesting. I mean, like, you know, there's sort of a challenging of assumptions that goes along with some of that. And if you know, there's a little bit of even, I think some people on these panels, kind of use grown up words on this podcast, you look calling their bullshit, right?

10:27A little bit. And I think that was kind of what was going on yesterday with somebody trying to say that Spain wasn't pulling its weight. Now, I think the guy got his facts wrong and didn't quite get the figures right. But I mean, the thrust of it, right, was what was interesting. And you're watching these Europeans kind of like punch at each other right now too, which of course, you know, in the absence of the Americans, they're likely to do. Yeah. What about, I mean, we're interested in intelligence and the classified world on this podcast. What's your sense? We've obviously got to be a bit discreet about our sources, all being good journalists, about what the mood is within that world.

11:01I mean, we're talking about some of the political relationships and diplomatic relationships getting a bit more tetchy. Do you think that's also true at the working intelligence level? I would say at the working level, things still feel like they're largely working to people. But it's not as smooth as it used to be. I do think that there is hesitation and even suspicion on this part of some Europeans about sharing sensitive information with the Americans. Not for fear that their working level colleagues will misuse it, but that something goes up the chain to the White House or lands at the Hoover building.

11:38and somebody gets a hold of it who works there and they don't particularly like what he does with it. There's real concern about that. I mean, look, I think that if you talk to people in European intelligence services about the political leadership of the intelligence community, there's deep, deep anxiety about that. The CIA feels a little bit, I think, on more of a steady ground. I mean, John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, from people I talk to seems like someone they look at and they're like, this is a counterpart that we feel good working with. And they're, to be candid, glad that he's the one who's actually in charge and not the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who is utterly marginalized.

12:16But there's no doubt that there are tensions here. And I think that there's a real desire on the part of some of these foreign services to get the Americans, particularly the CIA, to be very committed on Ukraine and to be aggressive. And I think that there's a feeling that the CIA is with Ukraine right now, even if the White House feels like they're not. Yeah. What's your sense, Sean? Yeah, I think on recent trips to Ukraine and talking to people in Kyiv, definitely there's a sense that with the exception of that very brief week back last spring, not much on the ground has really changed. that people are happy to work.

12:56And I think perhaps because of the obvious levels of discretion in this, because it does happen behind closed doors, there's less of a worry than there is with other policy areas where you don't want to say anything publicly and you don't want to be seen to be helping. So I think those links are quite strong. But I guess there is also just this fear, as there is with the military side of stuff with NATO, that just the imbalance is so strong. Someone said to me recently that if you took all of NATO except the US, you still wouldn't have as good capacities as just the US on its own. So the idea of losing that is really worrying.

13:36And I guess it's a quieter conversation, but the conversation people are having here, starting to have, we noticed here, about we hope the transit lines is going to stay strong, what we need to think about what happens if it doesn't. I suspect that's also kind of just starting to happen as well. Yeah, it's interesting in the intelligence world because you definitely feel like people say, operationally, things are still strong, they're still going. You hear that from the Brits and from the others. But you also think to yourself, at some point, if the political level and the diplomatic level are diverging in how they see the world and what they want to do in the world, that's bound to eventually kind of feed back down into the working level.

14:17Yeah, I think so. And, you know, and it's worth pointing out, too, that you have, you know, in the DNI currently, although she doesn't talk about this, you know, Tulsi Gabbard, somebody who ran for president and ran for Congress, obviously, successfully committed to no foreign wars, no foreign interventions. Well, we're currently attacking Iran, a war with Iran. There's real tension there and disconnect as well. That's kind of like the flip side of it where, I mean, she's not with the program, perhaps. But I do think that, you know, you know, there's a I think that there is a kind of reluctance even at the working level to obviously to speak out.

14:53They don't speak out normally, but there's a real reluctance around saying the wrong thing and challenging people at the policy level right now. And, you know, we've seen, you know, mass firings at the FBI and the counterintelligence field, which are punitive. I mean, these are people who were involved in things like, you know, the Mar-a-Lago investigation, and those people are being fired. And so there is a real reluctance, and you hear people saying this, you know, to do that, speak truth to power, which is sort of the mantra of the intelligence community. And that's something that could be generationally damaging, particularly if you're firing people or they're quitting and getting out.

15:28and then let's say we do snap back to something more traditional with a democratic president or even another republican well all those people are gone and you know and if people i talk to say there's a real worry that even younger people in the intelligence community will start to think this is how it's always been where we are just sort of like subservient to political masters and have to keep in line with the policy rather than just saying what we think the truth is yeah there is that feeling that it's not going to go back is it quite to what it was i guess in the wider relationship, but maybe in that intelligence world.

15:59Sean, I should also say we went out to a military exercise, didn't we? We did. Shane, you missed this. I missed it. Maybe you knew better because it was a long, long way away, a very long coach ride back in which we were eating nuts and crisps most of the way to try and sustain ourselves. But I guess it was quite interesting, wasn't it, to see on the ground, the Brits were there, the French were there, all working together. So it feels like still at that level, the relationships are strong militarily and as we said, intelligence wise, but it does feel like something's changing, isn't it? That's the mood, I think.

16:31Yeah, I mean, I think the most interesting thing there was just the location. So we were what, like three miles away from the Russian border, you know, sort of suddenly you came to a kind of village car park behind the local shop and there's a whole load of kind of French heavy armored vehicles there and a bunch of French soldiers. So it was pretty interesting from that perspective. I guess one of the things I was trying to understand, because I'm not a military person, I've been trying to do some reporting on how these thoughts are changing about what would happen in a kind of Article 5 situation.

17:10And one political person here said to me that the whole point post-2022 was that these things happen automatically. So the forces are there, they're ready to move. If the incursion happens, it will happen without a kind of political phone call. But then the flip side of that, I was also just now talking to Carlo Marsala, who wrote this book about the future scenario of a possible Russian invasion. And he was like, well, yeah, that does happen. They have changed that, but it would just take one phone call to stop that happening. And what happens if Trump calls his commander and says, well, I've just been on the phone to Putin, and he says, this is just a limited thing, and we're not going to risk World War III.

17:57Then what happens? Then how does the… Yeah. Because it's that feeling that the Russians could try and test things. And if they're going to test… They're already testing things with sabotage operations, but they could try and test things in the Baltics. This is possibly where it could happen. What they all say here is that Russia doesn't have much by way of hardware across the border right now, right? Because it's all in Ukraine. It would require some kind of settlement in Ukraine. And until then, probably what's more likely is the kind of escalation of the sabotage. So the sabotage in Europe so far hasn't been aimed at killing people, like as in Ukraine, but maybe they could step that up.

18:32And then where's the line? What's the war? What's Article 4? What's Article 5? It's all quite foggy. And to the point about not starting World War III, this is what Trump literally talks about, when he berated Zelensky months ago in the Oval Office, he's saying, you're going to start World War III. I will say it was a fear that the Biden administration had too. I mean, Mark Milley literally walked around when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs with index cards, on the top of which one of them was written, don't start World War III. What was a good reminder? Objective, don't get into a nuclear war with the Russians.

19:09And it was sort of based on a set of presumptions that the Russians would rush up the escalatory ladder, that they might use a tactical nuclear weapon. It seemed like those anxieties kind of ebbed over time. I think when Trump talks about not wanting to start a war with Russia, he has different calculations and different ideas in mind, right? Which is, you know, I think that he views Russia as almost like a pure power. And I don't think the US intelligence community views it that way. But, you know, he is seemingly like, you know, trying to obviously avoid escalation, but extract from this as well.

19:41And, you know, and wants to be done with Ukraine the way I think he wants to be done with Iran. You feel that in this audience too. Yeah. so uh i hope you enjoy do you enjoy these conferences i mean my i'm not sure my liver always enjoys these conferences or my sleep patterns because i think you were here i could see you quite late last night i was up late yeah you were late to the night was i think you i think you had an early bed because i had to moderate at eight those starts so early you had an 8 30 breakfast panel to moderate whereas i i did last night but you know i come a day i come a day early and you're right i did not go with you on the bus with the chips down to the car park and whatever So I took myself to a very nice dinner.

20:18Well done. Thank you for joining us. Last question. Any current recommendations of favorite spy books, films? I'll give you one that's been off the air for a little bit, but I hope that it's going to get re-upped, is The Agency, which is the American version of The Bureau, which The Bureau is the best TV show about espionage, in my opinion. The Agency is really, really good. And I was told by a reliable source that the CIA offered to help them with technical advice. And the producer said, no, thank you. Interesting. Which is interesting to me. That's the Michael Fassbender one. Yeah, maybe. Say, we don't need your help.

20:53Yeah. Sean, anything from you? Yeah, I'm not quite espionage. It's a criminal record, which is a police drama that I've just been watching, which I quite enjoyed. Okay, very good. Very good. Well, thank you. I'd let you both go back to the conference, to hard work, networking, doing what journalists do. Maybe have a drink, drinking gin and tonics maybe later. Shane and Sean, thanks very much. Thank you. Cheers, thanks. I said there was no David on this podcast. That's kind of not true, though, because we've got a different David. I found another David who was an intelligence analyst. And even more to David McCloskey's annoyance, he was actually in the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency.

21:34His name is David Kapler. He was a US intelligence analyst, but then became Assistant Secretary General of NATO in charge of intelligence and security, including in the run-up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, where he was quite involved in briefing people. So I sat down with him to get a bit of a sense of how intelligence sharing NATO and those relationships look from his perspective.

22:03David Katlow, tell me, how did you end up in charge of intelligence at NATO? Well, no one ends up in charge of intelligence. No, sorry, teasing you a little bit. So the position was created in 2016 as a decision of the Warsaw Summit, largely because leaders agreed that they needed military and civilian intelligence integration, and then they added a further complication of combining intelligence and security into one division. And it is a very interesting idea for NATO because it's the only joint division, the joint military and civilian, and joint intelligence and security. In the first go, I was preceded by a German diplomat, Arndt von Loringhoven, and then I was selected in the summer of 2019 to come in.

22:52And really with the thought that Arndt had been one of the two vice presidents of BND - The German intelligence. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, right. But was also a career diplomat prior to that, sat in the seat as the vice president that usually the Ministry of Foreign Affairs fills. And I think appropriate actually for that period of time because the challenge really was, how do you bring this thing together? How do you negotiate in fact with 20, what they had 27 allies I think, or 26 allies at that time. How do you get that done and how do you get these services to work in concert? I had had the majority of my career in intelligence, and so a bit different background and approach.

23:33And the thought at that time was, you need to make sure then that we actually transition this thing to a full operational function. So your background was as an analyst? Because we like analysts on this show. Well, who doesn't? As I said, the analyst is the apex predator of the intelligence community. Don't the intelligence collectors, the case officers, think they're the apex predators? Well, and you heard Daniel Markic try to say that. Yeah, the head of the European - Right, he was also head of the Croatian external service. I felt unconvincingly said it at the - So you think analysts are the top dog.

24:03Why? Why are they so important? Because, look, and I don't mean to diminish any other role in intelligence, because they're all critically important. Of course, yeah. But I think as a former analyst, I think a few things are true. First, you see across a tremendous amount of the work and of the content, depending on your topic, your seniority, your role at that particular time. And I think that does give you quite an interesting perch because eventually we do learn quite a bit, even as analysts, about the collection and about the management and about the resourcing. Because it's not just important to understand the facts and be able to put them in some coherent structure, but also a bit of, well, how did we get that?