On 5 August, an op-ed titled “Defence alone will not protect us from Russia and China” by Douglas London, a retired senior CIA operations officer and adjunct associate professor at Georgetown University's Centre for Security Studies, was published in The Hill.
He argued that “bolstering defences alone and adding military firepower” will not deter Russia and China “who pay little price for malign behaviour.” The US intelligence community is “good at sabotage,” possesses “robust covert and overt cyber capabilities,” and knows how “to steal secrets [and] change the course of history with covert deeds,” according to him. All that's needed to rein in Moscow and Beijing are Washington's political will, “a more agile and balanced strategy of offence and defence,” and “a dash of clandestine mischief,” London argues.
Timing of London's Op-Ed
The timing of the article coincides with two major developments, according to Philip Giraldi, a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer: first, “the already disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan with disengagement in other theatres of operations”; second, the September legislative elections in Russia.
The US military-industrial complex is increasingly concerned about the pullout from Afghanistan and Iraq, according to the CIA counter-terrorism veteran. He notes Israel also fears that the US military disengagement would embolden Tehran and “already warned, repeatedly, that it is prepared to strike Iran alone,…
