IS RUSSIA UP
TO THE TASK?
RUSSIA VOWS TIGHTEST
SECURITY MEASURES
FOR THE SOCHI OLYMPIC GAMES
TAGS:
SOCHI RUSSIA OLYMICS, OLYMPIC SECURITY, RUSSIAN CAUCUSES,
TERRORIST
IN CAUCUSES, VLADIMIR PUTIN, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
CIA,
FBI PRESENCE IN RUSSIA, COOPERATION ON SECURITY MEASURES,
OLYMPIC
HISTORY, MUNICH MASSACRE 1972
(Thursday January 16, 2014
Moscow, RS) From the heavily fortified
United States Embassy complex here the city of Sochi Russia is 850 miles
south. Sochi, a resort town on the Black
Sea will soon begin greeting athletic contingents and spectators for the 2014
Winter Olympic Games. While the location
for the Games may be impressive there remain many serious questions regarding
the security of the thousands expected to be in Sochi when the Games begin on
February 7, 2014. While Russia has put
on a good show of force across their sprawling once divided nation many
security, intelligence and counter terrorism professionals in the United States
and some Allied countries are still expressing serious reservations regarding
the Russian’s ability and resources to provide the level of security required. The Olympic Games come at a time when many
observers in the West see some of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s domestic
and foreign policy initiatives as less than progressive. Some fear that Putin is slowly creeping back
towards a more “Soviet Era” brand of totalitarianism and assuming a more
belligerent posture towards the United States and other countries. The US
Department of State has already issued a “travelers advisory” for any Americans
planning to attend the Games and extraordinary security precautions will
accompany American athletes to the Olympic Village as well as each specific
sporting venue.
One need not look too far into
the past to see other Olympic Games that have been more about geopolitics then
amateur sport. In 1980 both the Summer
and Winter Games were boycotted by President Jimmy Carter as a protest against
the USSR invasion of Afghanistan. There
were other countries that stood with the United States in the boycott. Jumping
farther back in Olympic history to the 1930’s and, in particular, the 1936
Berlin Games were touted by the new Fuhrer of Germany, Adolf Hitler. Hitler was
determined to show the world the best that his country had to offer while simultaneously
demonstrating the athletic and genetic superiority of his “Aryan Nation”. Much to Hitler’s chagrin American track and
field athlete, Jesse Owens, an African American, won four gold medals.
Between the nationalistic
saber rattling of the Berlin Games played in the emerging shadow of a world war
and the boycotts and protestations of the 1980 Games the 1972 Munich Games have
gone down in history as an episode of terrorism and violence that the Olympic
Games and the world were dramatically altered in their aftermath. During the second week of the Munich Games
pro-Palestinian terrorists infiltrated the Olympic Village and held 11 Israeli
athletes hostage. The siege ended in the
death of all the Israelis held captive and a West German police officer. What had quickly acquired the sinister
designation of “The Munich Massacre” represented a paradigm shift in the world
of terrorism and forever elevated security as the top priority of host cities,
Olympic athlete’s housing and all sporting venues.
It is quite an undertaking to
play host to the Olympics. Many host
cities have learned this the hard way.
In recent years whatever economic windfall a host city was previously poised
to reap, ever increasing costs associated with security on a grand scale and
often widely scattered venues have offset, if not devoured, Olympic-generated
revenues.
The Olympic Games pose a
particularly appealing target for terrorists of every stripe. Most of the countries of the world send at
least a few athletes to compete in an event or they send large contingents
composed of athletes that will partake in virtually every single event. This is not just a grand stage for those
competing or the host; it is equally as grand a stage as any terrorist could
ever hope for. Yes, there have been
Olympic Games held in the post – 9-11-01 years and security was especially
tightened. What adds a layer of danger
and complexity to the Sochi Games is time and place; Russia today is becoming
increasingly volatile. Once the unifying
mortar of the old USSR eroded away and the Berlin Wall came crashing down
burying the Cold War beneath the rubble, nation/states that had been
independent sovereignties prior to the Communist Revolution wanted their
independence back; they no longer would be repressed, oppressed, abused and
ruled by an iron fist thousands of miles away.
Some of the most hazardous regions are in Central Asia known as the
“Caucuses”.
The Caucuses become better
known to Americans after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda extremists
were allowed to live, train, ploy and plan in the Taliban controlled
perpetually ungovernable country of Afghanistan. The countries immediately bordering
Afghanistan are known as the “Other Stans”: Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan,
and Waziristan. The Stans exist in some
of the most rugged unforgivingly harsh environments on the planet. The terrain itself is challenging; weather
conditions can swing wildly from season to season. This is no place for the uninitiated or
uninvited. The Soviet Union learned this
lesson the hard way when the then CIA-backed mujahedeen warriors lead by bin Laden sent them devastated in
defeat and retreat. The Stans are
predominately Islamic countries comprised of Muslims from the more moderate end
of the spectrum to the ultra-zealous extremists. Russia has also had their
former Soviet States of Chechnya and Georgia to contend with in recent
years. This very brief, crude synopsis
of the geopolitical gears and levers of the region are presented only to
emphasize the daunting task of keeping these Olympic Games safe and secure
while terrorist activity has been on the upswing all across Russia, the Stans
and Chechnya recently.
HOME FIELD, HOME RULES
Within minutes of the July 4th,
2007 announcement by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that Sochi
Russia would be the host of the 2014 Winter Games, the pistons and valves of
our vast but still cumbersome Intelligence and Security apparatus went into
motion. From the very start in corridors
from the stately CIA campus in Langley Virginia to the Pentagon’s Department of
State Security Service, it was realized that having the Winter Games in Russia
was going to be a challenge of immense proportions when it came to securing the
athletes and spectators. Some of the
most vocal harbingers were in the CIA, seated at the Central Asia (The Stans)
Desk, and they immediately began banging the warning drums that when the
Olympics descended on Sochi they, along with a wide range of allied and
cooperative security services were going to be in uncharted waters as the 2014
Games edged ever closer.
For some in our Foreign
Service Security Detail, FBI, CIA and other Law Enforcement Agencies Russia is
still an inherently dark almost evil land; some of the long time veterans see the
Russia of today in the vein as the Soviet Union of yesterday. Certainly current
events indicate that Putin’s Russia is determined to be a player on a larger
scale internationally. Russian leaders
of Putin’s generation sometimes seem to long for the days when the USSR was a “Super
Power” to the outside world. We all
learned after the collapse of the Iron Curtain that it was in reality a paper
lion.
Putin has driven Russia incrementally
down a retrograde path regarding personal freedoms, liberty and has enacted
more repressive laws. Now, with the eyes
of the world prepared to focus on Sochi his domestic policies are under greater
scrutiny. Russia is a sovereign nation
and as such has the absolute prerogative to enact whatever laws they see
fit. In some ways these tougher laws may
have set the stage for the heavy military and security presence he has ordered
for the duration of the Games.
JURISDICTION AND COOPERATION
Providing the necessary
security for the athletes and spectators in Sochi and off-site venues is of
course the responsibility of the Russian authorities. As the host they play the lead role in all
matters of safety and security. That
said, some matters of jurisdiction are a bit hazy; they are not as cleanly
defined as one might think.
As has been reported elsewhere
in the media the United States has dispatched a substantial contingent of
security, intelligence and counter terrorism experts to Moscow and Sochi to liaise
with their Russian counterparts. It is
the right of each participating nation to send security and protective
personnel along with their coaches and athletes but the United States and some
of our closest allies already have such personnel in place. Over the course of the last six months American
and allied experts have been in Russia coordinating the security efforts so
that they will be firmly established by the time the Games begin. Some reports have indicated that Russian
authorities have been “less than cordial” regarding the presence of American
personnel. Whenever there is an event of
this size with all its complex logistical elements and variables to consider,
some degree of clashing is bound to occur.
Even here local Police Departments such as NYPD find themselves at odds
with the FBI and Secret Service.
Inter-agency efforts are easy to map out on paper but the reality is
often more clumsy. Given the fact that
the United States’ relations with Russia have been increasingly less
cooperative, even hostile in some matters, it is vital that national interests
do not interfere or impede in the implementation of security measures. It is when some points of contention consume
unreasonable amounts of time and effort that important details “slip through
the cracks”, as one State Department Security Service official commented days
ago.
CIA AS ADVANCED GUARD
By charter the Central
Intelligence Agency is prohibited from conducting any operations on American
soil; it has no jurisdiction in any way domestically. But, since the Games are not being hosted
here they have been very engaged in the planning of the Games. Speaking not for attribution a CIA analyst
who has worked the Central Asia Desk in Langley for many years recently said, “The
Caucuses have been and will continue to be a nasty thorn in Moscow’s side until
some of their concerns are rightfully addressed by Putin and the Duma (the
Russian Parliament). Now various groups
have been conducting small isolated campaigns of terror. A bus blown up here, a market attacked there
and it does not seem like much. However,
if any one of these groups were to organize on a larger scale, they could really
do some serious damage. This is why we
(the CIA) have been so active on the ground in the Caucuses”.
LET THE GAMES BEGIN
With the opening ceremonies in
Sochi just 20 days away there are some positive items to report but they must
be taken in context of the larger issues as have been discussed here. For their part Russia is sparing nothing
regarding security for the Sochi Games; they have assigned a host of their
domestic law enforcement and security apparatus towards that end. They realize that if anything of a terrorist
nature was to occur during the Games it would transpire in front of a
world-wide audience and that is a huge motivating factor for Putin. He realizes just how much he has at stake
here and appears determined to leave no stone unturned to assure the Games
progress peacefully and smoothly. Yes,
he has been rattling his homophobic saber of late insisting that homosexuality
is a byproduct of libertarian capitalism and contrary to Russian laws and society. This is largely a cosmetic charade intended
to poke a finer in the eye of the United States.
Reports from American
personnel already on the ground in Russia have been more cautiously optimistic
than nervously pessimistic. Hopefully
there will be no unplanned events to interfere with the planned events and all
will compete in the spirit of national pride and athletic sportsmanship. That remains to be seen and , as one NYPD
Detective stationed at Scotland Yard in a counter terrorism post commented, “We
will all breath a huge sigh of relief when it’s all over.”
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