CIA manager William Burns believes that Ukraine will last at least until the end of 2024 – if it gets weapons and ammunition. According to Burns, the rate of war is highly high, due to the fact that in the background it is about US interests in Indo-Pacific.
Former US Ambassador to Russia, advanced authoritative of the State Department for Condoleezza Rice and current head of Central Intelligence Agency William Burns sees the war in Ukraine not only through the European safety prism, but above all through the prism of implications for American politics in the Indo-Pacific area and rivalry with China.
On 18 April, at George Bush's Presidential Center, he stated that it was the ambitions of Chinese leader Xi Jinping and the ambitions of the US and allies in the Indo-Pacific region. – It is truly a question of whether our opponents realize our reliability and determination and whether our allies and partners realize it. So the consequences of what the home of Representatives is considering are now tremendous – he commented 2 days before the congressmen decided to accept the aid package for Ukraine and Israel.
Burns expressed pride in the CIA's work, which was to "provide accurate and early informing of the upcoming invasion". – The president sent me to talk to Putin in early November 2021, so a fewer months before Putin's invasion began, and I must admit, he did not apologize for what he was planning to do. I came back and told the president that I am convinced that they will decision to Ukraine He commented.
The reliability of intelligence data was to aid president Joe Biden in the early support of Kiev and the preparation of the defence and build a strong coalition of countries supporting president [Volodymyr] Zelenski and Ukraine.
Burns admitted that the Americans had decided to declassified any secrets to deprive Putin of the anticipation of creating false narratives. These were “exceptional” actions, but “sometimes you can usage the truth, the secrets we collect if you are careful and do not uncover your sources and methods, in a way that puts autocratic leaders in an uncomfortable and different situation”, he explained.
Burns reiterated on April 18 that Ukrainians are not short of courage and perseverance, but are moving out of ammo and the West is moving out of time to aid them. The CIA chief has been in Ukraine 10 times since the outbreak of the war. He was besides there during the period erstwhile the Russians occupied Awdievka. The Ukrainian officer lamented that the full brigade fighting the Russians had to surrender due to the fact that it had only 15 artillery missiles left. Another brigade, for example, had a full of 42 mortar shells. The soldiers did not deficiency determination, but ammunition and therefore, if there is no more ammunition in the future, there will be more "Awdijewek".
The head of the U.S. intelligence agency believes that by providing supplies of ammunition, Ukrainians will not only be able to stay on the battlefield until the end of this year, but will besides do crucial harm to the Russians, especially in Crimea. For example, in the last six months they have succeeded in sinking 16 warships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. While on the battlefield, Ukrainians would be able to "break Putin's arrogant view that time works in his favor".
Without assistance, Ukrainians would not be able to stay on the battlefield and Putin could dictate the conditions of political agreement.
Burns besides talked about China's role. In his view, the aid given by the West to Ukrainians gave the Chinese leader a thought; he was “refreshed” by what he saw in Ukraine. Xi Jinping thought, like Putin, that “the Russian army would simply pass through the Ukrainians like a waltz. He did not anticipate the United States and our European allies to stand up for the Ukrainians. He did not anticipate us to be able to impose economical costs on Russia and to cover any of the economical costs themselves," Burns stated. CIA chief added that Xi Jinping changed his calculations against Taiwan.
Burns believes Russia will not halt in Ukraine. It will apply a "hybrid war", that is, a combination of conventional military threats and efforts to weaken NATO countries or its borders. He gave an example of Moldova and the Baltic countries.
He besides spoke of the mediate East. Burns has been spending quite a few time there lately. He was erstwhile the US Ambassador to Jordan and Deputy Secretary of State for mediate East Affairs.
Burns pointed to "a terrible crisis in Gaza caused by Hamas' violent attack on Israel on 7 October [2023], which now besides causes a desperate humanitarian situation for innocent civilians in Gaza".
He referred to Iran's retaliatory "spectural failure" due to "integrated air defence, good intelligence and Israelis themselves" supported by the United States, any regional partners and any global partners. Hence, with 330 rockets fired, only 4 or 5 were actually to hit Israel, and no of them caused crucial damage.
The erstwhile diplomat pointed out that for six months he had been "very busy trying to negociate a ceasefire and another release of hostages Hamas has been holding since 7 October". – It may seem a small unusual that the manager of the CIA is so involved. Nevertheless, my counterparts in these efforts are the manager of Mossad, Israeli intelligence, the head of Egyptian intelligence and the Prime Minister of Qatar. individual I've been working with for years and who's a very capable negotiator. So, as you know, at the end of 2023 we achieved a shorter ceasefire and the release of 100 hostages, women and children. We'll keep working hard on it. It turned out to be very difficult. It's a large stone that needs to be pushed into a very steep hill. I'm gathering with the hostage families and it breaks my heart, due to the fact that you besides see in a very human way what the game is about. So I can't warrant that we will win in this effort. He commented.
A fewer weeks ago, Burns and the Qatari and Egyptians presented a reasonably far-reaching truce proposal in Cairo that Hamas was to reject. Thus, in Burns' opinion, humanitarian aid, desperately needed by Palestinians, innocent civilians in Gaza, cannot be provided.
Referring to China, he pointed out that this was a much wider competition than in russian Russia. Competition extends to cyberspace and space. The US competes with China in the technological field.
However, given Beijing's interior problems, the CIA chief optimistically assumes that America is now in a better starting position to compete with China. 1 of Washington's advantages is the network of allies and partners.
One of the biggest challenges for intelligence services is to master emerging technologies. Hence the recruitment of top specialists. Operational officers must be equipped with appropriate technologies "in the age of smart cities and the ability of competing governments to extract data in order to track and track those officers who cooperate with them". Services request to be more flexible erstwhile it comes to the usage of technology, artificial intelligence, device learning and another ways of working with quite a few data.
– The usage of artificial intelligence and device learning, on which we are very focused, may enable the best analysts to process immense amounts of information, whether it is open origin code information, unclassified or secretly acquired “Burns explained that the CIA is making large advancement in this area.
He added that “out of all CIA personnel, about a 3rd of the officers work full-time regular to address cyber, digital, technological and technological issues.” – Two of the 5 Directorates that aid organise the agency's work focus exclusively on these issues. We have besides created the alleged mission centre, which is 1 of the organisational components of the CIA, and its aim is solely to technology and build better partnerships with the private sector. Despite having immense talent in the agency and the full U.S. government, we cannot compete effectively, especially with the Chinese, unless we build better, stronger and healthier partnerships with the private sector, given the pace of innovation in areas specified as quantum computing or artificial intelligence. That was another crucial goal in the last fewer years. – he said.
Burns praised the work of colleagues and the method of revealing any intelligence messages to take over enemy narrative.
Source: bushcenter.org
AS
