US spy chiefs defend Russia-Ukraine intelligence, say China is even tougher to assess
- Speaking to US lawmakers, intelligence leaders also express concern about Beijing’s rapid nuclear weapons build-up
- The officials say they did not think Beijing will take advantage of the global distraction over the Ukraine war to invade Taiwan, or is in a rush
US spy masters drew criticism at a Senate hearing on Tuesday for failing to predict the poor showing of the Russian military in Ukraine and vastly underestimating the willingness of the Afghan military to fight after the US withdrew in August.
While members of the Senate Armed Services Committee acknowledged that the Central Intelligence Agency, Defence Intelligence Agency and other spy agencies did well predicting Russia’s invasion, they fell short on other counts. These included overrating Russian morale, training, doctrine and the quality of its non-commissioned officers – and underestimating the resolve of Ukrainian forces to fight back on home territory.
“Certainly the Russian overestimation of Russian capability was an issue,” said Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. “Those are the intangibles that we’ve got to be able to get our arms around as an intelligence community to really understand.”
At one point, the exchange grew heated when Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine, pushed the witnesses on why they predicted that Kyiv would fall quickly, the Russia-Ukraine war would be over in 14 days and the Afghan army would hold out for up to a year. Kabul fell within days, while the war in Ukraine has lasted for nearly 12 weeks with analysts predicting a long, violent slog ahead.
“I hope that the intelligence community is doing some soul-searching about how to better get a handle on that,” King said. “The intelligence community needs to do a better job on this issue.”