With Soviet domination in Eastern Europe coming to an end, the KGB was facing yet another defeat, this time in the developing world, where the KGB had also been running liaison missions and transforming a number of nations into Soviet satellites. General Nikolai Leonov, a former KGB chief analyst, summarized the views of his colleagues on this issue in the following words: “In the Cold War confrontation, we accepted as a matter of principle that geopolitical victory will be won by those with whom the Third World will go.” Leonov further described the involvement of third parties in Cold War strategy, explaining that “some countries linked to us by political and military ties received our ideological encouragement and arms, but their real economic ties were with the West. For instance, Syria was very close, very friendly to our country, was our ally. Our Navy operated from their bases, but 98 percent of their economy was tied to the West.”

The inability of the Soviet Union to effectively help developing nations in building their economies could not be compensated by KGB manipulations. From Angola, Mozambique, and Ethiopia, to Somalia, Syria, and South Yemen, KGB missions were failing. The last Soviet stronghold was Afghanistan, where many leaders had been under the influence of the KGB ever since the local communists had taken power in 1978. Between 1980 and 1989, the KGB trained nearly 30,000 Afghan officers—one-half of the Afghan Security Service—but to no avail. The communists fell under pressure from the Afghan resistance movement in 1989.

Times Change

After Gorbachev’s rise to power in 1985, the KGB was encouraged to widen its contacts with foreign intelligence and security agencies outside the Soviet bloc. In 1988, KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov traveled to India for confidential talks with Indian Prime Minister Radjiv Gandhi. During the visit, Kryuchkov raised the question of cooperation with Indian Special Services and exchange of intelligence information on Pakistan and China. Kryuchkov’s initiative was essentially a political gesture because the KGB had thoroughly infiltrated the Indian security and intelligence establishment over the years.

The first high-level informal KGB contact with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) occurred in 1987 when Kryuchkov accompanied Gorbachev during his official visit to Washington. He met with CIA Deputy Director Robert Gates, but according to published reports, the meeting produced no practical results. In 1989, Kryuchkov made an unprecedented gesture by receiving the US ambassador to the USSR in his office. Subsequently, the KGB chairman, later the mastermind of the anti-Gorbachev plot, touted his desire to strengthen ties with his counterparts in the West. Kryuchkov declared that the KGB “should have an image not only in our country but worldwide, which is consistent with the noble goals I believe we are pursuing in our work.”

Before the demise of the USSR, as part of the KGB’s “new image” campaign, Moscow established informal ties with the special services of Italy, France, Spain, Austria, and South Korea. The overall effect of these contacts was practically nonexistent. With a new Russia emerging from the ruins of the Soviet empire, the KGB’s successors renewed their efforts to develop working relations with Western special services. Areas of common interest included exchange of information and occasional joint efforts in combating organized crime, money laundering, drug trafficking, illegal arms sales, nuclear proliferation, ecological and computer security, and international terrorism.

The intelligence support provided by Moscow to the United States after September 11 represents one of the most important events in post-Cold War history. Putin’s desire to internationalize the Chechen War and legitimize the indiscriminate use of Russian force against the civilian population of the breakaway republic, as well as expectations of some rewards (forgiveness of Russia’s foreign debts, for instance) undoubtedly played a significant role in his decision to join the anti-terrorist coalition.

At the International Forum of Secret Services held in March 2001 in St. Petersburg, Federal Security Service Director Nikolai Patrushev, addressing 100 heads of intelligence services from 39 nations, called for the “unification” of espionage agencies, and a “new level of cooperation” with the West. Undoubtedly, Patrushev was toeing the party line. Ironically, at about the same time British counterintelligence arrested an employee of one of the country’s largest defense contractors for stealing confidential materials and sending them to Moscow, and Japan charged a Russian trade representative with attempting to obtain US military secrets from a former Japanese Air Force officer.

Andrei Piontrovsky, director of the Center for Strategic Research in Moscow and one of Russia’s top political analysts, said, “It’s highly unlikely that, in the places he did his studies, Putin was taught to love the West. But those places probably did teach him to base his actions on real circumstances and the real distribution of forces on the world political stage, rather than let himself be guided by emotions, complexes, and fantasies.” In Stalin’s words, “At all times adjust to the world situation.” At no time has the window of opportunity been open wider than it is today.