In a program about Russia’s latest anti-terrorist strategy, Radio Liberty aired an interview with IWP Annenberg Professor J. Michael Waller, who commented on the lessons Moscow might learn from the U.S. “9/11 Commission” and its recently-released report.
Waller explained to the radio’s Russian audience how the congressionally-mandated panel, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, was formed to take a completely independent and bipartisan look at US intelligence, counterintelligence, counterterrorism and security structures and practices, to identify problems, and to propose solutions.
The professor, who authored a pioneering study of Russia’s post-Soviet security services a decade ago, discussed President Vladimir Putin’s ever-increasing concentration of power and the cult of secrecy that he has revived in his government. He predicted that Putin’s strategy would conceal – not resolve – inefficiency, incompetence and corruption within the Russian security and intelligence services, and that Russia’s severely flawed counterterrorism capabilities would continue to erode.