全球智库信息集成服务系统

Challenges to Providing Timely Warning of Russian Aggression and Ways to Meet Those Challenges

• Russian military forces are in the midst of a major modernization effort, and the demand for intelligence on Russia continues to grow at a pace unparalleled since the end of the Cold War.
• Russia's emergence as a national security priority presents new challenges to meet planning and policy requirements throughout the U.S. government.
• Achieving timely warning has proven extremely difficult, largely because of a lack of insight into Russian leadership intentions.
• Actions necessary for warning frequently do not conform to immediate needs.
• It is unclear whether additional warning time would have allowed policymakers to develop better, more-effective policy options in many Soviet and Russian events.
• It is necessary to ensure that warning indicators, both military and nonmilitary, have diagnostic value and are related to some critical function in the peace-to-war transition.
• Strategies for collecting new indicators of Russian intent will require detailed analysis of activity patterns, technical parameters, and systemic relationships, which in turn will require an understanding of objectives and tasking.
• Nonmilitary exercises could indicate essential wartime functions focused on ensuring internal stability and supporting key mobilization processes and could also provide information on important civil-defense and disaster-preparedness functions.
• Failure to address the fundamental area of denial and deception can lead to additional challenges to the IC's already stressed warning capabilities.
• In areas where there is an already overwhelming Russian advantage, bolstering U.S. and NATO posture will remain the best option for deterring future Russian aggression in the Baltics.