This is all quite fascinating.
Time to indulge in a "vanity" anecdote - if you all do not mind...
We would be well served to bear in mind the old axiom of power - keep your friends close and your enemies closer. This has long been observed by both the old Soviet regime, and the newer Russian recycling attempt at democracy.
A close personal friend of mine, Sergei Aleksandrovich was a Commandant in the Soviet Navy over their submarine and frigate fleets in the Indian Ocean and a bit beyond. Now retired, he sat with me one evening in a small snack bar/cafe in the Russian town he now calls home, sharing humorous tales from the recent past.
He was also an intelligence operative for the government. Immediately prior to our engaging Iraq in the Gulf war, he and his top assistant secretly met the U.S. CIA station chief for the Indian Ocean/Pan Arabian region on an island off the coast of Bahrain.
When they met, they shook hands as old friends - because in essence that's what they were. Our intrepid station chief laid his leather attache case on the table top, worked the combination deftly, and retrieved from within, one bottle of Johnnie Walker Red, one bottle of Johnnie Walker Black, a pack of playing cards, and a carton of premium American cigarettes. The confidential intel dossiers stayed in the briefcase - for the moment. "For now, Sergei Aleksandrovich - we will drink, smoke, and play cards like men; for we are men and that is how we do what must be done."
Six - or maybe seven hours later, the two drunk agents and their equally drunk aides exchanged intelligence files. The even-then flagging Soviet Union had just given us their latest and most confidential information on Iraqi spy operatives and militant Islamic operatives who were a part of Saddam's repressive Ba'ath regime, as well as all they knew (and they knew a considerable amount) about the command structure of the Iraqi Army, "Elite" republican guard, Fedayeen Saddam, and the locations of their underground supply-line tunnels which were feeding the front lines of the invasion force cutting through Kuwait.
There was a quid pro quo, of course. What we gave them had equal value - to them - and was well received. That information enabled the expert positioning of our naval forces and subsequent dispatch of our deadly accurate sea to land cruise missiles, and jet bombing sorties which decimated those subterranean supply lines - preemptively eliminating a large portion of the Iraqi ground threat.
Fast forward to late September, 2001. Another pair of briefcases situated on another tabletop, this time there is no Soviet Union. This time, the former aides, the assistants are now masters of the table their eyes meet across. In the aftermath of an political and then an economic implosion, the Russians have but one major bargaining chip - a sorely needed one.
After a protracted and costly campaign in Afghanistan, they have the names of warlords and small hamlets that are out of orbiting path of currently circling satellites - small enclaves of ten or twelve mud huts tucked in tiny ravines in high mountain passes. Places not noted on any known maps. They have maps. They have charts showing extended family trees, opium transport routes, pathways and landing zones not frequented by Taliban minions.
The U.S. again has something to offer (this I still cannot disclose entirely, but there was economic stimulus by way of private industry investment in Russian oil/gas production). The Russian FSB agent went home - after some obligatory "I & I", the American proceeded on to London England, where he met with MI6 and MI5 colleagues in a small pub off one end of Trafalgar square - two stone's throws away from their modest cubicles at the British Ministry Of Defence, Main Building, Horseguards Avenue, Whitehall, London, SW1A 2HB.
Some information is confirmed (that which can be - trust, but verify) other information is assessed as to immediate importance and the next morning finds its way into the DCSA - Defence Logistics Organisation.
A plan takes shape quickly for presentation to the CINC, US Joint Chiefs of Staff, and select CIA operatives - while in London it will be met with review by the Director and Deputy Director/Operations Manager of "DCSA Messaging London", Prime Minister Blair, and ranking members of the British special services, etc...
Envoys are dispatched to Italy, Australia, and Poland; responses fly back and forth across oceans and borders, agreements are struck, timetables are set.
There is much more to the groundwork to what many will recognise as the background for the most astonishingly rapid and successful strike force deployment in modern military history - with an equally amazing result of taking out a regime and controlling a country which stubbornly resisted two previous global military powers.
The point is our success rests in part on the former ashes of their failure and the subsequent accurate diagnosis of wrong strategies and discerning of new and better applications of modern, light attack force warfare.
Yes, the Russians and the Soviet Communists before then kept the Arab/Muslim world close. They had to - ever since Ghengis Khan, Russian territory has had a significant Muslim populations within its borders - one strongly resistant and militantly against Marxism.
Today most of these practitioners inside of Russia are either in Tatarstan - the most independent republic (capital Kazan, a city 1,000 years old this year), but there are also many in the caucasus just north of Georgia - the incendiary region around Kislovodsk, P'yatigorsk, Vladikavkaz, Grozny.
With so many of the R.O.P. folk intermingled so thoroughly, Putin, et al have little choice but to tread somewhat lightly to avoid sparking a civil war among factions within Russia. Until the Russian government, society, and economy are on more stable footing, they can ill-afford not keeping themselves amongst the Islamofascists - for the Muslims have their own walking amongst the Infidel, biding their time, waiting for Jihad.
As one walks the streets of major Russian cities - Kazan, Moskva, Sankt Peterburg, Volgograd, Ekaterinburg, Nizhnii Novgorod, Rostov na Donu, you cannot long escape the gaze of pitiful, raggedy dark-skinned beggars, some no more than 3 years old...
They wander the major thoroughfares, hands out begging for kopecks, or better, rubles. They do it because they must. Their mothers sit nearby on the sidewalks, or in the gutters - equally dirtily dressed, eyeing their young charges.
The fathers/husbands have paying jobs, but still turn them out the door every morning to beg to earn their keep. This is a practice known among the Soviet/Russian military officers and soldiers- for it is the Uzbeki or Turkmeni mafia. An actual Muslim mafia organised crime syndicate. They pick pockets (and worse) in the alleys and backstreets of a multitude of Russian cities. In any city with an underground metro system, they know the tunnels better than most of the militsia, and are feared for it.
Many closed tunnels and service passageways were secret in Soviet times - known just among KGB etc...now this mafia of interlopers has the knowledge, the skill and abilities, and the insiders to plant underground bombs stealthily - to devastating effect.
Hopefully this background might explain or expand on a few things.
A.A.C.
The Great Game continues..we of course, being on the field subbing for the British Empire. Russian line-up, Afghans, various types of jihadists, Turks, Kurds, etc. still in play.
Well said and nicely backgrounded. Alas, it seems that ‘Tap The Source’ has been tapped out as it were.
And unfortunately all too common occurrence on Free Republic.