The Netherworld of the Russian Security State, Where Angels Fear to Tread

Relations between Russia and the West–most particularly the UK, but the US, France, and Germany as well–are being roiled by the poisoning (using a nerve agent) of a former Russian double agent,Sergei Skripal, who had been exchanged for Russian spies in 2010.

So whodunnit?

I have no idea. And anyone who claims they know is full of it.  We have a very limited set of facts that can fit any number of competing–and indeed mutually exclusive–hypotheses.

Occam’s Razor says that an individual or individuals with connections to the Russian security services is responsible: who else would have access to a particularly nasty nerve agent developed under great secrecy and produced in large quantity in the USSR?*

Vladimir Putin certainly qualifies as an individual with connections to the Russian security services, and the reflexive reaction by many in the West has been to blame him personally.  However, although Putin is a member of the set of individuals with connections to the Russian security services, the set is not a singleton: there are thousands, and perhaps tens of thousands, of other members.  Some of these may not even be in the security services (e.g., mafia elements or an oligarch whom Skripal double crossed).

Like many in his profession, Skripal was a fundamentally dishonest man who could play both sides.  Men like that make many enemies.  His attempted murder could be very similar to Murder on the Orient Express, where the problem is not the lack of suspects, but a surfeit thereof.

My suspicion is that Skripal was far too minor a player, and one too far beyond his sell-by date, to warrant Putin’s personal attention.  But this cannot be ruled out.  Given the seismic consequences of such an act, the implications of Putin’s personal involvement would be ominous indeed.  He would be risking a superpower confrontation over a has-been: and for what? To gain a momentary burst of popularity to secure an electoral victory that was inevitable in any event?  A sort of burning of the boats, to bind Russians to him in opposition to the West?  To provoke a confrontation?

These are not inconceivable possibilities, but they seem so extreme–which is why that I am skeptical that Putin was involved directly.

The “Putin did it” claim that is so widely repeated is largely a reflection of the cartoon image of a Russia in which Putin is all knowing, all seeing, and all powerful, and where nothing in Russia, not even the fall of a sparrow, occurs but at his direction.

An alternative explanation is actually more plausible–and more frightening.  That there are elements with connections to the Russian security services who can carry out such an act without Putin’s permission.  The prospect of rogue elements operating in such a reckless way is truly sobering, especially since one predictable consequence is to create a confrontation between superpowers.

I have no doubt there are elements in Russia who want to provoke such a confrontation. Which is a reason to remember that however bad Putin is, his potential successor could be far worse.

The fundamental problem here is that Russia is so opaque, and there are so many scary types operating in the shadows, that it will be impossible to fix responsibility with any precision. We know Putin’s address, and his previous acts–real and imagined–make it emotionally satisfying to many to give him a knock. But we cannot know with any certainty–and we run the risk that even more ominous figures are counting on such a reaction in order to bring on a confrontational crisis.

The most likely outcome is an even greater estrangement between Russia and the West, and the potential return of a Cold War with a temperature approximating that in the 1950s.  Unless the perpetrators were mouth-breathing idiots similar to the criminals in Fargo, they would have known that this would be the result.  Tragically, the list of those who might have such an agenda is long indeed, and for all the hyperventilating, I don’t put Putin on the top of it.  It would actually be better if it was as simple as that.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.  And angels surely fear to tread in the netherworld of the Russian security services.

*It pains me to acknowledge that the credibility of Western security services, including notably MI6 and the CIA, has been so compromised as of late that the credibility of the claim that Skripal and his daughter were poisoned by Новичок is less than absolute.