An Analytical Research of Two Articles

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An Analytical Research of Two Articles

The two articles discuses different ways in which the US interior security works and the challenges they are facing while dealing with Russia. The articles explain about the American vaunted global surveillance and the way it works. The US government is fighting the Russian government to prevent them from invading Ukraine. The Russia government sends its security troops to its border with Ukraine, stating that it is another legitimate military exercise. However, the US security is not convinced and they desire to know the real intentions of Vladimir Putin the president of Russia. One reason why the US government raised their eyebrows is because of satellite communication disconnection caused by the Russian government to ensure no coverage in Crimea. Russian had a strong and effective communication system, for example, they used imagery of flag heading to Crimea to ensure their plots never leaked. They went there unknown without any Americans on ground to spy on their movements. The success of the Russian plan was successful due to their silence with information. One of Obama senior intelligence officer explained that Russia is a hard target due to the difficult in collecting intelligence data from Russian. The American spy satellites could not take shots from the troops as they used camouflage and concealing tactics leading to misinformation. This concealment obscured the size and location of the troop to the Ukraine officials. The defense minister Seigei Shoigu told the US defense secretary that Russia had no intentions to attack Ukraine leaving Mr. Putin as the direct director of the strategy.

A US official explained his view towards Russia as a country with good operational security skills. They achieved this by less or no voice to ensure no one overheard them. This comment reveals that the US security is not good; it raised its voice and was overheard by their counterparts. The two articles portray a lot of incompetence of the US intelligence security in comparison to Russia. The Russian government plays its cards well without their plans leaking to the outside. Either, Russia has faithful and resourceful spies in US or the US spies in Russia are incompetent and non-resourceful. One major drawback of the US security is poor planning and coordination. Russia leading way surpasses the US plans, intelligence and technology due to their good planning and coordinating techniques. The American vaunted global surveillance is a tool that has always been used by the government as an early warning system but its effectiveness is questionable. This is because even after detecting the warning, they lack information of knowing what is happening. 

These two articles have revealed so many loop holes in the intelligence security of the US. The US intelligence assets including spy satellites has not been focusing Russia after cold war especially on counterterrorism. The Russians have camouflaged their efforts as a legitimate military exercise to deceive their rivals. The Russians used Crimea as their flashpoint the only place to fully cover from the satellite or where the visibility was disconnected.  The US security services were outdone by Russia where they concentrated on satellites without adhering to the warning signs. This was well illustrated during the time the Russian troops were in Crimea without any American security officer. The reason for all this as explained by one official was the attitude of the US security forces where they underestimated the Russian force in Crimea. It is very hard to believe that the US intelligence force with all their technology were unaware of the number of troops in Crimea giving different figures. The US figure was 50,000 officers which is half the figure of Ukraine which was 100,000. This disparity speaks a lot about the amount of information that may be hidden or unknown by the citizens.