{"id":63781,"date":"2024-11-01T16:58:22","date_gmt":"2024-11-01T20:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sidebarforplaintiffs.naomifein.net\/?p=63781"},"modified":"2024-11-01T16:58:22","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T20:58:22","slug":"they-ruined-a-great-spy-game-with-this-stupid-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sidebarforplaintiffs.naomifein.net\/?p=63781","title":{"rendered":"“They ruined a great spy game with this stupid war.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the September 16 New Yorker, Ben Taub’<\/a>s “The Dark Time: On the Arctic border of Russia and Norway, an espionage war is emerging,” has enthralled me completely. It’s a must-read and for me, a must re-read.<\/p>\n

The story centers around a very small Norwegian town way the hell up north. For many months of the year dark and snow-covered, Kirchenes<\/a> is immediately across the border from Russia. Immediately.<\/p>\n

Taub spent time up there and his narrative is remarkable. A tiny area of the world with two opponents watching each other over that border, it is a place where the large-scale deadly antagonisms of our world have been compacted into a narrow, literally in-your-face battle, sort of a seriously dangerous version of Local Hero<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n

The person Taub spends most time with is a personable guy, Johan Roaldsnes, the regional counterintelligence chief for Norway in an icy landscape that is crisscrossed with potentially dangerous objects, vehicles and characters.<\/p>\n

A couple of excerpts to give you the quirky power of this story:<\/p>\n

He <\/em>[Roaldsnes] walked out of his office, into the cold, and past the church from which the town had taken its name: Kirkenes, “church on the promontory.” There were two clocks on the spire. They showed different times, neither of which was correct.<\/em><\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

After a decade in the P.S.T. <\/em>[Norway’s domestic intelligence agency], Roaldsnes considered it professionally important to never fully make up his mind. Counterintelligence, he later told me, “is like playing tennis without seeing your opponent or whether it’s actually a ball being served to you. It might behave as a ball. But, when you get close, it’s an orange.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Most Western governments do not appear to think of themselves as being at war with Russia. Russia, however, is at war with the West. “That’s for sure–we are saying that openly,” the Russian representative to the United Nations recently declared.”<\/em><\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

In the context of nuclear escalation, Kirkenes is in one of the strategically sensitive regions on earth.<\/em><\/p>\n

And Kirkenes is where this war of taunts, threats, hacks, nuclear subs and assorted peculiarities is being waged. It was not a war immediately after the Berlin wall and the USSR fell, when starving Russians stumbled over the border into Norway. But since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, it has become war.<\/p>\n

My favorite quote from this article refers to the reality and history summarized in that previous paragraph:<\/p>\n

Recently, the Russian security services have shifted their tactics from professional espionage to sabotage and destruction, often undertaken by disposable agents–random criminals who are recruited over Telegram and paid in cryptocurrency or cash. “The Russians no longer have any downsides to an operation being exposed,” Roaldsnes said. He sighed. “They ruined a great spy game with this stupid war.”<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the September 16 New Yorker, Ben Taub’s “The Dark Time: On the Arctic border of Russia and Norway, an espionage war is emerging,” has enthralled me completely. It’s a must-read and for me, a must re-read. The story centers … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9743,1095,7934,10995,1175,7798,8476],"tags":[11018,9750,11017,11016,2599,11014,11019,11013,1097,11015,57,11012],"class_list":["post-63781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","category-politics","category-propaganda","category-technology","category-the-facts-of-life","category-war","category-war-on-ukraine","tag-local-hero","tag-ben-taub","tag-berlin-war","tag-counterintelligence","tag-cryptocurrency","tag-kirchenes","tag-kirchenes-norway","tag-norway-counterintelligence","tag-putin","tag-telegram","tag-the-new-yorker","tag-ukraine-invasion"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t