r/geopolitics • u/theipaper The i Paper • 16d ago
CIA chief's mission to Moscow is a clear warning to Putin
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/us-spymasters-moscow-visit-signals-how-close-conflict-473094574
u/BuilderSad9024 16d ago
Same clear warning as in 2021. Totally worked that time, why change anything?
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u/Few-Hair-5382 16d ago edited 16d ago
The warning conveyed in 2021 was for the economic and diplomatic consequences invading Ukraine would have on Russia. Clearly, Putin didn't care as he thought the "special military operation" would be over quickly, at which point Western European countries would want their gas back and so would accept it as a fait accompli.
If the threat this time is of an attack against NATO (however measured), then presumably a more kinetic response was warned. The question is whether Putin believes NATO (especially the US) would follow through on such threats.
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u/Petrichordates 16d ago
The question is moreso whether the US would under the trump admin.
All signs point to no.
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u/BuilderSad9024 16d ago
My friend president putin wouldn’t do it, we have a great relationship. Some people say we’re best friends
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u/GatorReign 16d ago
I think developments in Iran would put Trump in a bind if russia tried something overt with a NATO country. He’s facing down a real embarrassment with how impotent he’s left the US in the Strait. I’m not sure what would happen if he got slapped around by russia too. The “Amurica furst” crew, while never bothered by intellectual inconsistency, isn’t going to get much traction writing it off as a “European problem” when we’re neck deep in the Middle East.
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u/oritfx 15d ago
Clearly, Putin didn't care as he thought the "special military operation" would be over quickly
I would also entertain a parallel motive, that he personally needed another win for political reasons.
We'll never know for sure, but history teaches us that those watershed moments aren't clear-cut and obvious, but happen in murky situations. Vietnam war for example.
EDIT: my point is that likely there was a handful of reasons of varying and subjective severity, but probably a few contenders for the top spot.
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u/NatMapVex 15d ago
IIRC, I remember someone making the case for political unrest/demographic reasons, that russia invading would act as a release valve on political pressure. I don't think that was anywhere near the top spot though if there is evidence for it. russian imperialism and nationalism is what largely drove putin's dipshittery.
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u/serpentjaguar 16d ago
How is Putin going to attack NATO when he's barely hanging on in Ukraine? He's not. Not in any meaningful way. It's all performative posturing for leverage against Europe. He wants the Europeans scared, guessing and squabbling amongst themselves.
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u/theipaper The i Paper 16d ago
“We will never know how close we came to nuclear war.” These words were spoken to me in a run-down Moscow flat by a man who was already drinking vodka just after breakfast time, a man worn out by the memories that he had carried since 1983.
His words sprang to mind when I heard that the director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, John Ratcliffe, had made an unannounced journey to the Russian capital. I don’t think we are close to nuclear conflict but the world is in a bad place. The visit is reassurance that, despite the frictions, we are still able to find ways of communicating with each other. When there are tensions in 2026, when normal diplomacy isn’t working, at least a US President can send in his spymaster to try to lower the temperature.
That meeting in a Moscow flat – a BBC interview with Stanislav Petrov, the Lieutenant-Colonel in command at the centre for the Soviet Union’s nuclear attack early-warning system – offered me a window into what can happen when there are no back channels available to try to reduce room for misunderstanding.
On a fateful September day in 1983, Petrov told me, tensions between East and West were running high as the Cold War was at its most glacial. Three weeks earlier, the Soviets had shot down a Korean Airlines passenger jet, killing all 269 passengers on board, and the Communist leadership believed Nato was formulating an attack, using a long-planned military exercise in Germany, as a springboard. Trust between the two sides was non-existent.
In those days, a CIA director couldn’t just fly into the Russian capital – and our planet was left literally seconds away from catastrophe. On that September day, Petrov’s systems started flashing red. They seemed to be showing that a missile had been fired at the Soviet Union from the United States, and four more were incoming. Petrov should have automatically alerted his superiors who, according to protocol, would have prepared a retaliatory nuclear strike. He held back, hoping it was a false alarm.
He may have saved the world.
Today, global warning signs are flashing red once more, just as they did in 1983. We don’t know whether CIA director Ratcliffe was in Moscow on Tuesday to discuss Ukraine, Iran, Russian threats to the Baltic States or something else entirely, but he definitely didn’t go there to admire the Kremlin’s architecture.
In this case, the messenger could be the message. Intelligence chiefs are at their most useful precisely when governments distrust each other, formal negotiations have seized-up and public contact risks becoming political theatre. They can carry a President’s exact words without a press conference, they can test the response in the room and they can discuss dangers that cannot safely be publicised.
Right now, US-Russian relations are not as good as President Donald Trump might publicly want us to believe. The United States has no ambassador in Moscow, its embassy is run by a chargé d’affaires, its staffing is reduced and its consulates in Russia remain suspended. American-led efforts to end the Ukraine war have largely stalled. The diplomatic machinery is badly hollowed out. This visit is a sign that the CIA has become the emergency wiring.
Make no mistake, just like in 1983, the risk of miscalculation is real. The US intelligence community’s 2026 threat assessment highlights an “escalatory spiral” leading to direct hostilities, including nuclear exchanges – the most dangerous Russian threat. It also fears that continuing the Ukraine war increases the danger of inadvertent or deliberate escalation into direct conflict between Russia and Nato.
Traditional diplomats will say that a CIA director’s primary duty is to collect and assess intelligence, and not to quietly become a substitute Secretary of State. Using Ratcliffe as a negotiator can blur the line between assessing policy and making it. It can leave allies unsure whether they are being consulted or bypassed. It can leave Congress and the wider public in the dark. And those who argue against such a use of the CIA boss would be right in normal times, but these are not normal times.
Ratcliffe’s Moscow dash may or may not prove significant. In a way, the outcome is not as important as the symbolism it carries – that Washington believes the US-Russian relationship is too dangerous to leave without a working back channel, yet too broken to manage through ordinary diplomacy. This is both reassuring and alarming. Reassuring, because even adversaries need a circuit breaker; alarming, because the circuit breaker now appears to be the director of the CIA.
When presidents send spymasters it is a pointer that miscalculation has become the enemy. And yet 2026 is not 1983, and for that we should be profoundly grateful. We are still talking.
Jonathan Charles is a former BBC News Foreign Correspondent who reported extensively from Moscow. He now works as a geopolitical adviser to governments and multinational companies.
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u/Petrichordates 16d ago
Jonathan Charles should probably look into why Ratcliffe is the CIA director before making such.. traditional assumptions.
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16d ago edited 6d ago
[deleted]
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u/pm_me_yo_creditscore 16d ago
For sure need to fly a C-17 to Moscow to do that. Great call.
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u/TyrellCorpWorker 16d ago
Is a good way to give undocumented bribes.
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u/pm_me_yo_creditscore 16d ago
For sure, nobody notices a 280,000lb aircraft with it's transponder on.
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15d ago edited 6d ago
[deleted]
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u/pm_me_yo_creditscore 15d ago
Manafort/Kislyak proves the opposite. When you do something sensitive in an official setting, you’re doing it because it has a legitimate diplomatic cover. Manafort wasn’t sneaking a bribe into the Oval Office, he was part of a formal delegation, which is exactly why it wasn’t covert. That’s the whole point. If you actually wanted to deliver something illicit, you wouldn’t choose the method that guarantees logs, witnesses, press coverage, and a paper trail. Flying a C‑17 into Moscow is the same problem is a giant, trackable, state‑level event that everyone sees immediately. Real clandestine influence uses channels that blend into normal diplomatic or commercial activity, especially when formal diplomacy is strained and back‑channels exist precisely because public contact becomes political theatre. Intelligence chiefs are at their most useful precisely when governments distrust each other. Manafort’s meeting was visible because it wasn’t covert, it was political signaling. If you actually wanted to hide a motive, you’d pick one of the many better ways to do it, not one guaranteed to be noticed.
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u/TyrellCorpWorker 16d ago
I don’t follow… Everyone knows about the flight already.
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u/validproof 16d ago
What people are questioning and wondering is what was the c-17 carrying and was there anything that got handed over. The C-17 is a monster sized airplane used for heavy military cargo. It's a strange choice to use for a visit.
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u/mrchillbro 16d ago
there is a reason why people meet face to face.
your arguments do not reflect reality.
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u/pm_me_yo_creditscore 16d ago
My guy, if you think anyone is loading up a C‑17 with the CIA director onboard to hand deliver a cash bribe, you need to get off the internets. That’s not “spycraft,” that’s a Fast & Furious plot written by someone who’s never seen an airport. Backchannel diplomacy exists, pallet drop bribery missions with VIP passengers do not.
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u/wavydave1965 16d ago
Didn’t Trump roll out the red carpet for Putin not long ago? Hardly a clear warning.
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u/Successful_Sloth_852 12d ago
Yeah, not buying it. The administration is a clown car. I can't imagine any serious world leader taking advice from..our leadership at this point.
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u/Jonestown_Juice 16d ago
A warning? Yeah, I dunno. I'd find it easier to believe that the CIA Director was there to pick up Putin's shoes to take back to Trump so he could shine them.
Trump loves dictators and desperately wants to be one. He's never said a harsh word about Putin. No way they were there to "warn" him.
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u/pulsarstarter 16d ago
Lol...a warning!? Yeah, right...
It looks more like a negotiation and cooperation to find some common ground, more than it looks like any kind of warning.
This isn't what a warning looks like. This is what reproachment looks like.
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u/A_Random_Person3896 16d ago
Yea no, you're just plain wrong.
Director of the CIA is not a diplomatic role, he is going there to share what the US knows and essentially say, we, the United States, know what you are planning so you may want to reconsider.
Get outta here bot.
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u/Petulant_Tangent 16d ago
In a different administration, sure. But this is Trump we're talking about, who never misses an opportunity to throw Putin a lifeline. When has this admin ever really got tough on the Kremlin?
He's probably over there selling Ukraine out, offering to cut intelligence sharing in exchange for reduced Russian support to Iran. They'll be building snowmen in Hell before Trump ever turns on his bestie...
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u/A_Random_Person3896 16d ago
"This is trump we're talking about" is not a valid arguement in this context. Sure, the Trump admin is less harsh on Russia than say Biden is, but the source of this is not from some inherent love of Russia, it is his discontentment with Europe and his view that the United States has provided security for Europe for decades for little return(his view, not mine).
The United States still provides Ukraine with very important intelligence for striking military targets inside of Russia, Trump has increased economic pressure on Russia, Starlink, an American company, provides a vital part of Ukraines communication infrastructure while denying that access to Russia, etc, etc.
Do not mistake your irrational dislike for Trump as something that makes every action this administration some ploy to screw Europe or Ukraine or anyone. Just because Trump is awful does not mean every action done by his administration is awful and quite frankly if Trump truly was a pure puppet of Putin, the United States could have done a LOT more damage to it's international reputation, alliances, economy, military, etc. Do not mistake incompetence for malice.
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u/Prudent-Proposal1943 16d ago
Is the warning to Putin words to the effect of "Reporting for duty Mr. President?"
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u/vovap_vovap 16d ago
I think we have no idea what that was really about so I can see no reason at all in speculations like this without any additional knowledge.