The Changing Face of the KGB
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The Brezhnev Era (1964–1982)
Name _______________________________________________ Date _____________ The Brezhnev Era (1964–1982) Next to Stalin, Leonid Brezhnev ruled the Soviet Union longer than any other leader. Brezhnev and his supporters stressed the ties with the Stalinist era by focusing on his good points and ignoring his crimes. 1. What is the KGB? Brezhnev strengthened the Soviet bureaucracy as well What was its as the KGB (Committee of State Security)—formed in purpose? (list 2) 1954; its mission was to defend the Soviet government from its enemies at home and abroad. The KGB suppressed dissidents who spoke out against the government at home and in the satellite countries. The Soviets also invested in a large military buildup and were determined to never again suffer a humiliating defeat, as happened in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yet Brezhnev proceeded cautiously in the mid-1960s and sought to avoid confrontation with the West. He was determined, however, to protect Soviet interests. Brezhnev Doctrine (1968) 2. What was the Prague In 1968, Alexander Dubček (1921–1992) became head of the Czechoslovakia Spring? Communist Party and began a series of reforms known as the Prague Spring reforms, which sought to make communism more humanistic. He lifted censorship, permitted non-communists to form political groups, and wanted to trade with the West, but still remain true to communist ideals. Brezhnev viewed these reforms as a capitalistic threat to the socialist ideologies of communism and, in August of 1968, sent over 500,000 Soviet and Eastern European troops 3. How did Brezhnev to occupy Czechoslovakia. In the Brezhnev Doctrine, he defended the Soviet react to the Prague military invasion of Czechoslovakia, saying in effect, that antisocialist elements Spring? in a single socialist country can compromise the entire socialist system, and thus other socialist countries have the right to intervene militarily if they see the need to do so. -
Dialectical Versus Empirical Thinking: Ten Key Elements of the Russian Understanding of Information Operations
WARNING! The views expressed in FMSO publications and reports are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. Dialectical Versus Empirical Thinking: Ten Key Elements of the Russian Understanding of Information Operations CALL Publication #98-21 by Mr. Thimothy L. Thomas Foreign Military Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth, KS. This article was previously published in The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 11, No 1 (March 1998), pp. 40-62. and Conflict Studies Research Centre, RMA Sandhurst, England, July 1997, Report AA29 Introduction Finding similarities in the Russian and U.S. approaches to information operations (IO) is not a difficult task. Both countries' specialists closely study electronic warfare and command and control systems of other countries, and both stress the importance of the use of computers and information management in the preparation and conduct of modern combat operations. This includes the use of information to conduct psychological operations (PSYOP). Upon closer examination, however, the Russian approach to the information warfare (IW) aspect of IO has several elements that makes it unique and different. There are three principal reasons for the distinct Russian method. First, there is the issue of overall context. The Russian state, economy, and society are in a transition period resulting in institutional and philosophical instability. Russian mass consciousness, according to many prominent scientists and government officials, is vulnerable to manipulation by slick marketing campaigns and to exploitation by promises of economic and social prosperity during this transition period. -
1 Georgia – Researched and Compiled by the Refugee
Georgia – Researched and compiled by the Refugee Documentation Centre of Ireland on 28 May 2015 Any research of an incident in Telavi on 6 September 2006 when members of Samartlianoba were arrested en masse by government forces, how many were arrested in Telavi and how many were arrested nationwide, and particularly any evidence of those members who evaded arrest. Whether there is any evidence that Givi or Gia Natsarashvili was a member of Samartlianoba and/or the subject of an attempted arrest in September, any evidence that his wife Irma or wives of suspected members in general, were interrogated as to whereabouts of any members who escaped. An Associated Press International report states: “Georgian police raided the offices of opposition groups and a political party early Wednesday and detained dozens of activists, whom authorities accused of plotting to overthrow the government. Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said 29 activists from the Justice Party and several affiliated groups had been detained during the pre-dawn sweep, which involved 450 police officers. The detained activists would be charged with high treason and plotting a coup to replace President Mikhail Saakashvili with former Security Minister Igor Giorgadze, who is believed to be in Russia, Merabishvili said.” (Associated Press International (6 September 2006) Georgian police raid offices of opposition organizations; arrest activists) A BBC News report states: “Thirteen opposition activists in Georgia have been charged with conspiring to overthrow the government. They are among 29 people arrested across Georgia on Wednesday. Among them are prominent members of two small pro-Russian opposition parties - the Justice Party and the Conservative Monarchists.” (BBC News (7 September 2006) Georgia charges 13 with coup plot) A Civil Georgia report states: “Criminal charges have been officially brought against 13 people suspected of plotting a coup, Chief Prosecutor of the capital Tbilisi Giorgi Gviniashvili said on September 7. -
The Russia You Never Met
The Russia You Never Met MATT BIVENS AND JONAS BERNSTEIN fter staggering to reelection in summer 1996, President Boris Yeltsin A announced what had long been obvious: that he had a bad heart and needed surgery. Then he disappeared from view, leaving his prime minister, Viktor Cher- nomyrdin, and his chief of staff, Anatoly Chubais, to mind the Kremlin. For the next few months, Russians would tune in the morning news to learn if the presi- dent was still alive. Evenings they would tune in Chubais and Chernomyrdin to hear about a national emergency—no one was paying their taxes. Summer turned to autumn, but as Yeltsin’s by-pass operation approached, strange things began to happen. Chubais and Chernomyrdin suddenly announced the creation of a new body, the Cheka, to help the government collect taxes. In Lenin’s day, the Cheka was the secret police force—the forerunner of the KGB— that, among other things, forcibly wrested food and money from the peasantry and drove some of them into collective farms or concentration camps. Chubais made no apologies, saying that he had chosen such a historically weighted name to communicate the seriousness of the tax emergency.1 Western governments nod- ded their collective heads in solemn agreement. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank both confirmed that Russia was experiencing a tax collec- tion emergency and insisted that serious steps be taken.2 Never mind that the Russian government had been granting enormous tax breaks to the politically connected, including billions to Chernomyrdin’s favorite, Gazprom, the natural gas monopoly,3 and around $1 billion to Chubais’s favorite, Uneximbank,4 never mind the horrendous corruption that had been bleeding the treasury dry for years, or the nihilistic and pointless (and expensive) destruction of Chechnya. -
Russia: CHRONOLOGY DECEMBER 1993 to FEBRUARY 1995
Issue Papers, Extended Responses and Country Fact Sheets file:///C:/Documents and Settings/brendelt/Desktop/temp rir/CHRONO... Français Home Contact Us Help Search canada.gc.ca Issue Papers, Extended Responses and Country Fact Sheets Home Issue Paper RUSSIA CHRONOLOGY DECEMBER 1993 TO FEBRUARY 1995 July 1995 Disclaimer This document was prepared by the Research Directorate of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada on the basis of publicly available information, analysis and comment. All sources are cited. This document is not, and does not purport to be, either exhaustive with regard to conditions in the country surveyed or conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. For further information on current developments, please contact the Research Directorate. Table of Contents GLOSSARY Political Organizations and Government Structures Political Leaders 1. INTRODUCTION 2. CHRONOLOGY 1993 1994 1995 3. APPENDICES TABLE 1: SEAT DISTRIBUTION IN THE STATE DUMA TABLE 2: REPUBLICS AND REGIONS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION MAP 1: RUSSIA 1 of 58 9/17/2013 9:13 AM Issue Papers, Extended Responses and Country Fact Sheets file:///C:/Documents and Settings/brendelt/Desktop/temp rir/CHRONO... MAP 2: THE NORTH CAUCASUS NOTES ON SELECTED SOURCES REFERENCES GLOSSARY Political Organizations and Government Structures [This glossary is included for easy reference to organizations which either appear more than once in the text of the chronology or which are known to have been formed in the period covered by the chronology. The list is not exhaustive.] All-Russia Democratic Alternative Party. Established in February 1995 by Grigorii Yavlinsky.( OMRI 15 Feb. -
Inside Russia's Intelligence Agencies
EUROPEAN COUNCIL ON FOREIGN BRIEF POLICY RELATIONS ecfr.eu PUTIN’S HYDRA: INSIDE RUSSIA’S INTELLIGENCE SERVICES Mark Galeotti For his birthday in 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin was treated to an exhibition of faux Greek friezes showing SUMMARY him in the guise of Hercules. In one, he was slaying the • Russia’s intelligence agencies are engaged in an “hydra of sanctions”.1 active and aggressive campaign in support of the Kremlin’s wider geopolitical agenda. The image of the hydra – a voracious and vicious multi- headed beast, guided by a single mind, and which grows • As well as espionage, Moscow’s “special services” new heads as soon as one is lopped off – crops up frequently conduct active measures aimed at subverting in discussions of Russia’s intelligence and security services. and destabilising European governments, Murdered dissident Alexander Litvinenko and his co-author operations in support of Russian economic Yuri Felshtinsky wrote of the way “the old KGB, like some interests, and attacks on political enemies. multi-headed hydra, split into four new structures” after 1991.2 More recently, a British counterintelligence officer • Moscow has developed an array of overlapping described Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) as and competitive security and spy services. The a hydra because of the way that, for every plot foiled or aim is to encourage risk-taking and multiple operative expelled, more quickly appear. sources, but it also leads to turf wars and a tendency to play to Kremlin prejudices. The West finds itself in a new “hot peace” in which many consider Russia not just as an irritant or challenge, but • While much useful intelligence is collected, as an outright threat. -
THE CASES of RUSSIA and TURKEY a Master's Thesis By
STATE’S RESPONSE TO TRANSNATIONAL HUMAN TRAFFICKING: THE CASES OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY A Master’s Thesis by TATIANA ZHIDKOVA Department of International Relations İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent University Ankara July 2011 STATE’S RESPONSE TO TRANSNATIONAL HUMAN TRAFFICKING: THE CASES OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY Graduate School of Economics and Social Sciences of İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent University by TATIANA ZHIDKOVA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in THE DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS İHSAN DOĞRAMACI BİLKENT UNIVERSITY ANKARA July 2011 I certify that I have read this thesis and have found that it is fully adequate, in scope and in quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts in International Relations. Assoc. Prof. Ersel AYDINLI Supervisor I certify that I have read this thesis and have found that it is fully adequate, in scope and in quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts in International Relations. Assistant Prof. Özgür ÖZDAMAR Examining Committee Member I certify that I have read this thesis and have found that it is fully adequate, in scope and in quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts in International Relations. Assistant Prof. Zeki SARIGİL Examining Committee Member Approval of the Graduate School of Economics and Social Sciences Prof. Dr. Erdal EREL Director ABSTRACT STATE’S RESPONSE TO TRANSNATIONAL HUMAN TRAFFICKING: THE CASES OF RUSSIA AND TURKEY Zhidkova, Tatiana M.A., Department of International Relations Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Ersel Aydınlı July 2011 In the aftermath of globalization, it has become increasingly easier for non-state actors to develop in transnational networks, thus jeopardizing domestic security and political stability of states. -
Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications: How One Interagency Group Made a Major Difference by Fletcher Schoen and Christopher J
STRATEGIC PERSPECTIVES 11 Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications: How One Interagency Group Made a Major Difference by Fletcher Schoen and Christopher J. Lamb Center for Strategic Research Institute for National Strategic Studies National Defense University Institute for National Strategic Studies National Defense University The Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) is National Defense University’s (NDU’s) dedicated research arm. INSS includes the Center for Strategic Research, Center for Complex Operations, Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs, Center for Technology and National Security Policy, Center for Transatlantic Security Studies, and Conflict Records Research Center. The military and civilian analysts and staff who comprise INSS and its subcomponents execute their mission by conducting research and analysis, publishing, and participating in conferences, policy support, and outreach. The mission of INSS is to conduct strategic studies for the Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Unified Combatant Commands in support of the academic programs at NDU and to perform outreach to other U.S. Government agencies and the broader national security community. Cover: Kathleen Bailey presents evidence of forgeries to the press corps. Credit: The Washington Times Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications: How One Interagency Group Made a Major Difference Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications: How One Interagency Group Made a Major Difference By Fletcher Schoen and Christopher J. Lamb Institute for National Strategic Studies Strategic Perspectives, No. 11 Series Editor: Nicholas Rostow National Defense University Press Washington, D.C. June 2012 Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Defense Department or any other agency of the Federal Government. -
Supreme Soviet Investigation of the 1991 Coup the Suppressed Transcripts
Supreme Soviet Investigation of the 1991 Coup The Suppressed Transcripts: Part 3 Hearings "About the Illegal Financia) Activity of the CPSU" Editor 's Introduction At the birth of the independent Russian Federation, the country's most pro-Western reformers looked to the West to help fund economic reforms and social safety nets for those most vulnerable to the change. However, unlike the nomenklatura and party bureaucrats who remained positioned to administer huge aid infusions, these reformers were skeptical about multibillion-dollar Western loans and credits. Instead, they wanted the West to help them with a different source of money: the gold, platinum, diamonds, and billions of dollars in hard currency the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and KGB intelligence service laundered abroad in the last years of perestroika. Paradoxically, Western governments generously supplied the loans and credits, but did next to nothing to support the small band of reformers who sought the return of fortunes-estimated in the tens of billions of dollars- stolen by the Soviet leadership. Meanwhile, as some in the West have chronicled, the nomenklatura and other functionaries who remained in positions of power used the massive infusion of Western aid to enrich themselves-and impoverish the nation-further. In late 1995, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development concluded that Russian officials had stolen $45 billion in Western aid and deposited the money abroad. Radical reformers in the Russian Federation Supreme Soviet, the parliament that served until its building was destroyed on President Boris Yeltsin's orders in October 1993, were aware of this mass theft from the beginning and conducted their own investigation as part of the only public probe into the causes and circumstances of the 1991 coup attempt against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. -
Javakheti After the Rose Revolution: Progress and Regress in the Pursuit of National Unity in Georgia
Javakheti after the Rose Revolution: Progress and Regress in the Pursuit of National Unity in Georgia Hedvig Lohm ECMI Working Paper #38 April 2007 EUROPEAN CENTRE FOR MINORITY ISSUES (ECMI) ECMI Headquarters: Schiffbruecke 12 (Kompagnietor) D-24939 Flensburg Germany +49-(0)461-14 14 9-0 fax +49-(0)461-14 14 9-19 Internet: http://www.ecmi.de ECMI Working Paper #38 European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) Director: Dr. Marc Weller Copyright 2007 European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) Published in April 2007 by the European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) ISSN: 1435-9812 2 Table of Contents I. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................4 II. JAVAKHETI IN SOCIO-ECONOMIC TERMS ...........................................................5 1. The Current Socio-Economic Situation .............................................................................6 2. Transformation of Agriculture ...........................................................................................8 3. Socio-Economic Dependency on Russia .......................................................................... 10 III. DIFFERENT ACTORS IN JAVAKHETI ................................................................... 12 1. Tbilisi influence on Javakheti .......................................................................................... 12 2. Role of Armenia and Russia ............................................................................................. 13 3. International -
Global Expansion of Russian Multinationals After the Crisis: Results of 2011
Global Expansion of Russian Multinationals after the Crisis: Results of 2011 Report dated April 16, 2013 Moscow and New York, April 16, 2013 The Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, and the Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment (VCC), a joint center of Columbia Law School and the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York, are releasing the results of their third survey of Russian multinationals today.1 The survey, conducted from November 2012 to February 2013, is part of a long-term study of the global expansion of emerging market non-financial multinational enterprises (MNEs).2 The present report covers the period 2009-2011. Highlights Russia is one of the leading emerging markets in terms of outward foreign direct investments (FDI). Such a position is supported not by several multinational giants but by dozens of Russian MNEs in various industries. Foreign assets of the top 20 Russian non-financial MNEs grew every year covered by this report and reached US$ 111 billion at the end of 2011 (Table 1). Large Russian exporters usually use FDI in support of their foreign activities. As a result, oil and gas and steel companies with considerable exports are among the leading Russian MNEs. However, representatives of other industries also have significant foreign assets. Many companies remained “regional” MNEs. As a result, more than 66% of the ranked companies’ foreign assets were in Europe and Central Asia, with 28% in former republics of the Soviet Union (Annex table 2). Due to the popularity of off-shore jurisdictions to Russian MNEs, some Caribbean islands and Cyprus attracted many Russian subsidiaries with low levels of foreign assets. -
The Blind Leading the Blind
WORKING PAPER #60 The Blind Leading the Blind: Soviet Advisors, Counter-Insurgency and Nation-Building in Afghanistan By Artemy Kalinovsky, January 2010 COLD War INTernaTionaL HISTorY ProjecT Working Paper No. 60 The Blind Leading the Blind: Soviet Advisors, Counter-Insurgency and Nation-Building in Afghanistan By Artemy Kalinovsky THE COLD WAR INTERNATIONAL HISTORY PROJECT WORKING PAPER SERIES Christian F. Ostermann and Mircea Munteanu Series Editors This paper is one of a series of Working Papers published by the Cold War International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Established in 1991 by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Cold War International History Project (CWIHP) disseminates new information and perspectives on the history of the Cold War as it emerges from previously inaccessible sources on “the other side” of the post-World War II superpower rivalry. The project supports the full and prompt release of historical materials by governments on all sides of the Cold War, and seeks to accelerate the process of integrating new sources, materials and perspectives from the former “Communist bloc” with the historiography of the Cold War which has been written over the past few decades largely by Western scholars reliant on Western archival sources. It also seeks to transcend barriers of language, geography, and regional specialization to create new links among scholars interested in Cold War history. Among the activities undertaken by the project to promote this aim are a periodic BULLETIN to disseminate new findings, views, and activities pertaining to Cold War history; a fellowship program for young historians from the former Communist bloc to conduct archival research and study Cold War history in the United States; international scholarly meetings, conferences, and seminars; and publications.