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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   35190 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

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[You] I also do not believe that inter-service rivalry in Russia has a noteworthy epistemic dimension and doesn't amount to mutual distrust and libel, to prevent them from ganging up on the Czar.

The following excerpts are from the "Russian Military Intelligence: Background and Issues for Congress (Updated November 15, 2021)" [pdf]:

The FSB, however, has sought to gain a greater foreign intelligence role and has significant international operations, especially in Russia’s neighboring post-Soviet states.30 This reportedly has caused significant friction within Russia’s intelligence community, especially with the GRU and SVR, which consider foreign intelligence collection their primary responsibility. The FSO operates as an overseer of the various security services, helping to monitor infighting and the accuracy of intelligence reporting.

However, as analyst Mark Galeotti has opined, “Russian collection operations are not just highly active but also extremely professional. Tasking, though, appears less impressive. While the Foreign Intelligence Service and GRU have a strong sense of the military and technical secrets they are meant to uncover, their political objectives are sometimes naive.”

Here's from Joss I. Meakins (2018) "Squabbling Siloviki: Factionalism Within Russia’s

Security Services":

In fact, the question of “who watches the watchmen” has long been a concern of the Kremlin. Since the 1990s, the FSO has traditionally fulfilled this role and acts as the last line of defense against rival factions. According to Mark Galeotti, the FSO controls the elite Presidential Regiment of 5500 soldiers which guards the Kremlin and has its own intelligence unit to verify intelligence analysis.

I am not sure much more details on this subject could be obtained.

There is no doubt about inter-service strife, but the question remains as to whether it leads to competitive race down the ground truth -- as I proposed -- or to mere gang-style clashes. The same sources also note that:

Analysts and reporting therefore suggest the GRU’s influence is often relative to the ability of its chief to develop personal relationships with Russia’s political leadership.

and, as you said,

Russia’s President also helps foment conflict within the security services, seeing it as the best way to retain control by playing them off against each other. [...] to ensure that no single agency becomes powerful enough to threaten the regime.

Meakins also writes:

An in-depth analysis of recent episodes illustrates that crime and corruption drive much of the conflict. The desire to control illicit revenue schemes, from money laundering to smuggling, is a common cause of siloviki power struggles.

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