You know that I have difficulty responding to posts spread out over two pages of a thread, especially on a mobile…
You know perfectly well that from 1992 on, NATO’s military and intelligence machine was hollowed out in order to save money and reallocate resources to more pressing issues. Steele arrived in Moscow at the very end of the Cold War. He was late to the party. During the chaos of Russia in the 1990s where everything and everyone was for sale, what good was an SIS officer posing as a FCO diplomat?
He was certainly useful in the UK handling walk-ins such as Litvinenko, but he was one of a surge of intelligence officers who went into the private sector following the end of the Cold War. Perhaps if he had learned Arabic and Urdu and clung on for a few more years, he would still be with SIS and would be a true spy. According to a Bloomberg article, Steele’s colleagues have a mixed opinion of him and don’t regard Orbis as a “Merc” by any measure.
I suggest you reread my remarks on Steele from earlier in the thread, which you have not responded to:
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...&postcount=386
:rolleyes:
The UK was home to many dissidents and defectors from Putin’s Russia who never failed to remind the world how Putin was subverting Russia’s nascent democracy and becoming a tyrant. Yet few cared to listen because Russia was no longer regarded as a major threat as it was during the Cold War.
Then how did he make it this far? A “vast right-wing conspiracy”? Collusion between the FBI and the Kremlin?
Given the policies followed by Andropov, Chernenko and especially Gorbachev, Putin’s role would have been more to report on the StaSi using deadly force against the demonstrators than on helping suppress the opposition. East Berlin was Stalinist as far as Moscow was concerned, and Gorby was worried that the regime wouldn't go quietly into the night...
A Hungarian “model” claims this? From Europe’s former prostitution capital where women are part-time pornographic actresses for extra cash? Even if it was true, so?
Then you are contradicting the content of the Dossier itself. Supposedly this intelligence operation that began 5-8 years ago and which is so sensitive to be directed personally by Putin and his key aides rather than the usual organizational channels, was revealed to various Russian businessmen, perhaps over 100 as you suggest. Why would Putin confide in them and why would they confide in Steele?
Unfortunately, this Dossier reads like a salacious story fabricated by someone with knowledge of post-Soviet Russia but who needs to write in order to put steaks in the freezer. Oddly enough, Steele reminds me of Manafort, except with a bit more dignity...