The United States, NATO and Europe should take Russia’s threat to the alliance seriously, argues former senior CIA operations executive Sean Wiswesser.
“We’re not prepared for a potential attack on the Baltics, okay? We’re just not,” Wiswesser says in a wide-ranging interview with Independence Avenue Media.
Wiswesser spent 30 years in U.S. national security and intelligence, much of it working against Russian threats. Earlier this year, he published a book, “Tradecraft, Tactics, and Dirty Tricks: Russian Intelligence and Putin’s Secret War.”
He says the West is already under attack from Russia as Moscow ramps up its hybrid operations, including a recent episode when Germany blamed Russia for a failed drone attack at the Leipzig airport.
“How could it be more escalatory? Not just one, but now upwards to three drones found with explosives at one of NATO’s huge logistics hubs. It only failed because of probably Russian incompetence,” says Wiswesser. “Germany is de facto at a state of war with the Russian Federation.”
He says that until now the U.S. and NATO have embarked on a failed strategy that he calls “empty deterrence.” He urges the West to take the “measures that count” to send a clear signal to Vladimir Putin.
“We say to Russia: this is the cost of your escalation. Russian troops will die because of what you’re doing now to our alliance. It’s not causing World War III, it’s preventing World War III and further escalation,” Wiswesser argues.
He believes a Russian move against the Baltics becomes a realistic possibility if a ceasefire takes hold in Ukraine, and he says NATO is not prepared.
“We need to punish Russia and show them the cost of aggression, the cost of escalation, both in Ukraine and against Europe, are such that they cannot weather our response. And so far we haven’t anything close to that,” Wiswesser says in the interview.
“A point I make is ‘Putin won’t dare’ is not a strategic policy that the alliance should be taking up,” he says.
This interview was recorded on Sept. 24, 2026, and has been edited for length and clarity.
Kiryl Sukhotski, Independence Avenue Media: So let’s dive into what is at the forefront of attention of many people in the region now. European countries, more and more of them, are warning about the rise of Russia’s threat and more and more acts of sabotage observed around Europe. Where do you think this is heading?
Sean Wiswesser, former senior CIA operations executive: Well, unfortunately, Kiryl, NATO hasn’t presented a strong enough deterrent to Russia’s escalation in the hybrid or gray zone space. You know, the Russians call it “voina novogo pokoleniya,” new generation warfare. And it’s not new to them. It’s very new to us.
In Europe, our media, even our intelligence services like to talk about what’s new and why it’s new. Well it’s not new to the Russians. They’ve been at it for 20-plus years and there’s a legacy in the Cold War of them — the Russian intelligence services in particular, sponsoring sabotage and assassinations — what they call “mokroye delo,” wet work — active measures, cyberattacks.
We’re just now unfortunately awakening to the threat — and the Russians, of course, are escalating because of the support to Ukraine. They want to intimidate the West and intimidate members of the alliance from helping Ukraine at all. So I believe we need a stronger deterrent. The end of this type of escalation starts with a more credible deterrent and a hit back from NATO.
IAM: So let’s talk about the deterrent in a couple of moments, but before that — why do you think Russia is escalating: to drive attention away from Ukraine, to convince the West to sit down and divide Europe? What’s their aim? What’s their endgame?
Wiswesser: I think there are two things at play here. First, from a strategic standpoint, the Russians are trying to show that the alliance is hollow. They’re trying to show that there’s really nothing to NATO. Anything that makes us look weak in their zero-sum game is a win for Russia. As I discuss in my book, the Russians have always considered the United States and our close allies, NATO especially, as their “glavny protivnik,” the main enemy.
Even while they’ve been engaged in a war with Ukraine for the past almost five years now, for Putin and his security services, that was always their understanding during the Cold War and after the Cold War. As a Russian intelligence service officer once told me: “You, the United States, are the main enemy. You were the main enemy during the Cold War. You always will be the main enemy.”
So for them it’s about weakening NATO more substantially, even beyond the Ukraine war.
There’s another thing at play here too. It’s the Russian intelligence services running that government. Under Putin, they answer to no one. So you have the FSB and GRU in particular out to impress the boss. I’ve written about this quite a bit in my column pieces. I covered it in my book extensively. These are like corrupt mafia clans, and they’re trying to impress their boss, the “nachalnik,” as they call Putin. They’re trying to show him: “Hey, we can do better! The FSB can do better than the GRU, boss. Hey, we’ve got this new creative operation we did over here, this assassination we carried out over here.”
So it’s a game of one-upsmanship among the Russian intelligence services in that strategic context. Again, absent any pushback or hit back from the West, NATO and the United States, in particular, it’s going to continue. It’s going to get worse. I’ve been talking about this since last year.
IAM: Sean, what could be the main targets that Russia has in its sights?
Wiswesser: So I think, first — the one that we don’t talk about enough is of course active measures, information warfare. This is always going on. This is the constant division playing one side against another, trying to play all of us in the NATO alliance for suckers.
Remember that NATO is the envy of the Russian Federation — they have nothing like it, they don’t have any alliances. They have strategic friendships at times with China or Iran — always temporary, always dependent on what they’re trying to accomplish in the short term. Look at what Russia does for its allies. Venezuela — they did nothing. With the Iran war, of course, the Russians are trying to help the Iranians kill Americans. But you don’t see any type of strategic commitment.
So they want to undermine the alliance. They want to attack members. They want to get some members to side with them if they can. It was a big loss for Russia, of course — the election in Hungary. So their information warfare, you’re going to see it amping up in the United States. They target the issues most emotional to populations in Europe and the United States.
And one of them is to play on the constant bickering across the Atlantic: play rhetoric against Trump — against rhetoric against the Germans, or the French, or the Brits. Any division that they can sow in the alliance.
IAM: But apart from information warfare, we’ve also seen pretty drastic measures taken by the Russian intelligence services. We’ve seen drone attacks, but also we’ve seen assassinations, we’ve seen poisonings. Just this morning Poland accused Russia of attacking a Starlink station. Will we see more of that?
Wiswesser: Yes, I think so, unfortunately. Again, Russia and their intelligence services are trying to test what they can get away with. I wrote a column in December of last year for The Cipher Brief — so nine, almost 10 months ago — called “The Kremlin’s Kill List.” The Russian intelligence services have a 100-year history of this, Kiryl — targeting not just dissidents, but targeting even politicians, at times, abroad. Anyone that they can get away with, they will take out as enemies of the Russian Federation.
And the only thing they respect, in turn, is strength. So we show weakness when this is happening. The targeting of the CEO of Rheinmetall in Germany almost two years ago by the GRU. The Germans conclusively proved it — but what was the hitback from Germany, NATO, or the United States?
GRU parcel bomb plots, putting explosives on planes. The other part of that plot, Kiryl, was putting packages without explosives, testing them on runs to the United States. We know that happened. And yet, we did nothing.
Now let’s fast forward. The Leipzig drone incident. How could it be more escalatory? Not just one, but now upwards to three drones found with explosives at one of NATO’s huge logistics hubs. It only failed because of probably Russian incompetence — which I also talk a lot about: they are incompetent at times, but they’re dangerous because they can get away with it.
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And we’re not challenging them. So what’s the response from NATO to the latest from Germany? We’re going to close some consulates. Wow, I’m sure the Russians are really upset about that one. Jeez, what are we going to do with one less consulate to deploy our intelligence officers? I guess it’s good they have a whole lot of non-official “nelegaly,” as the Russians call them, illegals that they can deploy all over the world.
My point though, Kiryl, is that the entire alliance has been hollow and weak in our response to Russia. We need to hit back where it matters.
In the Ukraine war, as it happens, we have an ally already fighting the Russian Federation. The Germans should give Taurus missiles to the Ukrainians. The Americans should give ERAMs [Extended Range Attack Munitions], long-distance armaments that they can put on their F-16 fighters. And we say to Russia: this is the cost of your escalation. Russian troops will die because of what you’re doing now to our alliance. That’s what they’ll understand, ultimately, Kiryl.
It’s not causing World War III, it’s preventing World War III and further escalation.
IAM: And some of the people who were arguing against a more forceful response — this was their exact point: that this would bring us to a hot war with Russia, which we don’t want. So how should NATO, the West, the United States deter Russia without open warfare with Moscow?
Wiswesser: We can’t have empty deterrence, Kiryl. We should look to history. What are the examples of deterring war?
In 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy was accused at the time: you’re going to cause World War III. Look at what you’re doing with Cuba, it’s not worth it, Cuba is not important. President Kennedy said: we can’t allow Soviet missiles in Cuba that close to the United States, it’s too much of an escalation.
So he told the Soviets to back down. And what did he do? He instituted a naval blockade — and he said any missile launched by Cuba against the United States requires a full retaliatory response on the entirety of the Soviet Union. And Khrushchev was shocked: jeez, Kennedy can’t do that.
In a similar way, Putin will make a lot of noise, Kiryl, but he’ll back down in the end because he knows we have nuclear-armed missiles too. That’s Putin’s favorite fallback plan, right? Always call talking: jeez, I’ll use nuclear weapons! If you help Ukraine too much — with my incompetent military and my incompetent troops, then I’m going to hit back with nuclear weapons!
What did China have to say about that? Even their ally, Big Brother China, back in 2023, remember the statement by Xi Jinping, Kiryl? Xi Jinping said: nah, we’re not really into anybody using nuclear weapons. And Putin shut up about it.
So the point is: we need to hit back with measures that count. Show the Russians we’re serious about their escalation. And they will back down. Common sense will prevail. But right now there’s nothing to stop their escalation, unfortunately. Empty deterrence.
IAM: So what is interesting, you’ve just mentioned the Cuban Missile Crisis. This buildup in Russian threats to Europe, to NATO, to the United States, can it be compared with the Cuban Missile Crisis? Are we going in the same direction as Kennedy did 65 years ago?
Wiswesser: I believe so, Kiryl. I’ve been saying it. Let me give you an example. I was in Helsinki, Finland around this time last year — almost a full year ago. Got a lot of attention for a talk I gave on hybrid war on new NATO member Finland. And to my great shock, an analyst from Supo, their intelligence services, came out in the media after I got a lot of attention in all their newspapers and media talking about this issue, that escalation is going to continue — an analyst from Supo, must have been with official sanctions, said: Finland is not at war with the Russian Federation. They’re our neighbor. We have good relations with them. It’s irresponsible for a former CIA officer to comment on this.
Where are we now, Kiryl, a year later? Are we any better off? How is Finland doing with that approach — trying to be friendly with their neighbor? You’re either in the alliance or you’re not. And the alliance right now is being attacked. The German defense minister said earlier this year, and I agree with him, even before the Leipzig incident, he said Germany is de facto at a state of war with the Russian Federation. I agree with that.
We’re being attacked. Incursions, cable cuts in the Baltic Sea on our allies. Russians tried to cut a cable up in the Arctic last week — GUGI [Russia’s undersea warfare directorate]. A sub was operating in the Arctic trying to look at and possibly cut a NATO cable there. This is going to continue.
Again, where is our credible deterrent to stop the Russians? When we start to hit back, when we show them we won’t allow acts of war against us, we won’t allow planes to be blown up, we won’t allow a NATO logistics hub to be targeted, we won’t allow assassinations against corporate leaders — then it will stop. But until then, I consider these to be acts of war. I think the Russians are getting away with it because we haven’t punched back.
IAM: You spoke about Finland — Denmark’s intelligence service just this morning has upped the intelligence assessment saying that actually Russia’s hybrid threat will be escalating rapidly over the next several months. That’s based probably on their intelligence data. So what can be done in the next few months by Europe, by NATO and by the United States to show Russia that they see what they’re doing? Obviously we’ve seen [CIA] Director Ratcliffe visiting Moscow probably with the same message. But what steps, apart from rhetoric, apart from waving your finger and saying, don’t do that anymore, can be taken?
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Wiswesser: Well, that’s the key question, isn’t it, Kiryl? A lot of these intelligence estimates — I should mention my views are my own and don’t represent the CIA or the U.S. government when we’re getting into talking about intelligence and other governments — I think the French have commented recently, the Poles also have hinted at intelligence they have about further escalation coming.
My career — 30 years in the intelligence community — Kiryl, tells me that this is not a new pattern. 2008, Georgia. 2014, Ukraine. 2015, Syria. The Russians have been continually escalating. Chapter 10 of my book, I talk about the evolution of hybrid warfare extensively. Over the 20 years — I hope some of your viewers might consider my book with the Naval Institute Press out this year, Tradecraft, Tactics and Dirty Tricks — it is a pattern, it is a history.
So how do we stop it ultimately? We need to hit back with measures that matter. In the end of 2021, early 2022, the previous CIA director, our former boss, Director Burns, also traveled to Moscow. And what came of it?
IAM: It didn’t work.
Wiswesser: Well, Kiryl, famously, yeah, nothing. Famously, he met with Patrushev. Putin also wouldn’t meet with him, just like Putin wouldn’t meet Ratcliffe. He’d view that as too low level for him. But what happened? Reportedly, even in Burns’ own writings about it, in discussions, he did his best. He tried to warn — but there was no teeth to it. Patrushev laughed when Burns said: don’t you do it, we are serious about the consequences.
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The consequences have to be something that the Russians are aghast [about] and they say: My God, do you believe what the Americans are threatening us with? Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin], this is serious stuff. Now we’re dealing with a serious alliance.
But we don’t have that. We have threats and we have rhetoric and we have empty deterrence. So we need to say to them, for instance: you know what, Russia, we’re going to take $50 billion of that $250 billion of assets you have in the EU right now, and we’re going to seize those, and we’re giving them to Ukraine. No more talk about it. No more of the Europeans saying, well, it’s up to the United States to be tougher, and President Trump, after all, to be tougher.
Yes, the United States needs to show more leadership. But the Europeans have hundreds of billions of dollars that they could use as a consequence to the Russians and say: this is the cost of your escalation. We’re taking $50 billion of that. We’re giving it to Ukraine. Escalate further. Do another attack on a logistics hub like you did and we’ll take another $50 billion. That matters, Kiryl. That matters to the “siloviki,” [Russian security-service elite] their corrupt wallets, their pockets.
IAM: However, now the current administration instead invited Vladimir Putin to the G20 summit in Miami this December, and the Kremlin this morning actually said that they’re very pleased with this invitation. So, do you think if Putin does not get this pushback from the United States, from NATO, he may actually think: okay, this is hybrid war, this is below the threshold of Article 5 — what if I actually go above that threshold and actually test Article 5 and blow up NATO from within and try, I don’t know, to do something with the Baltics?
Wiswesser: Well, that’s the key next question. Because if you try to talk about the Baltics — and I served in the Baltics, I know that region, my wife is Lithuanian — you’re accused of scaremongering: don’t talk about a potential Russian attack. In the Baltics, they’re as prepared or more prepared than anyone in the alliance. The Balts and the Poles, they’ve invested in their militaries. What’s happened in the U.K.? The U.K. downsized its military. Most NATO members outside of the Eastern Flank have downsized their militaries. And the United States can’t do it all.
So unfortunately, Kiryl, I do think that’s a possibility — that the Russians might decide to test it. Listen, they are much better prepared for the next war than we are. And that’s a reality. The United States and all of the alliance are not prepared for the level of drone and electronic warfare, the new battlespace that’s happening in Ukraine right now.
So absent U.S. air power in particular — if the U.S. for some reason would sit out a limited conflict, and I am concerned about my own country’s leadership in that regard, we need to signal strongly that we’re with the alliance — but if the Russians could sow discord through information warfare, set up something that looks like some type of a border dispute or a problem in the Baltics, yes, I am concerned about them using kinetic action and acting.
Many say they need until 2028 or 2030 to reconstitute. Well, if it’s one thing that’s shown us over the past five years, the Russians have adapted remarkably well in this war. The Ukrainians are ahead of the Russians, thankfully, in innovation and adaptations, but the Russians are way ahead of NATO.
One final statistic about that. The goal for the United States in the next year, Kiryl, with all the might and power and industry of my great country — and I believe the United States is still the greatest military power in the world — our goal is to make 200,000 drones. That’s the Pentagon’s initiative. 200,000.
Russia will build somewhere between 5 million and 10 million drones of various sizes in the next year. 5 to 10 million. We don’t know ultimately, because we’re not in their economy and looking at it, but they’re certainly going to be around 5 million. The Ukrainians are building upwards of 10 million or more. And the United States is shooting for 200,000. That’s just a small hint of how unprepared we are for a next possible war with Russia, or China for that matter.
IAM: Based on your informed opinion, which of the three Baltic countries are probably more at threat over kinetic action from Russia?
Wiswesser: Well there’s the scenarios everyone’s talking about, of course. But the key piece of geography, as anyone in the Baltics knows — I lived there, worked there, served there, the Baltic people know it better than anyone — is of course the vulnerability of the Suwalki Gap. That small 65 or so miles of land that separate Kaliningrad and Belarus. And it’s difficult, the terrain there is difficult. I traveled there a lot, used to visit friends in that particular region. It’s a difficult piece of land to defend.
And for many years, too many years, decades even, what was NATO’s position? Unfortunately, our position used to be: well, we can’t really defend the Baltics, so we’re just going to hit back after. Thankfully, years and decades of advocacy in the Baltics convinced the alliance. No, we have to defend every inch — as we say, every mile of NATO’s land.
So now we have enhanced forward presence. We have NATO troops up there. How large is the German troops presence? It’s supposed to be a brigade in Lithuania, for instance, Kiryl. It’s never been a full brigade. It still isn’t a full brigade. That’s roughly 5,000 troops, but they don’t have 5,000 troops. They have less than that.
How many Russian troops right now are deployed in Ukraine? Hundreds of thousands on that war that are fighting, okay? Either in reserve capacities or at the front. And we have 5,000 NATO troops along with about 20,000 Lithuanians, not all frontline troops.
Yeah, we’re not prepared for a potential attack on the Baltics, okay? We’re just not. We’re not prepared for drone warfare. We’re not prepared for an encumbered battlespace, as military experts call it, of electronic warfare that’s happening right now in Ukraine. So I think we should be in a desperate race to get ready. To get ready.
IAM: How likely is such an attack, do you think, in the next six to 12 months?
Wiswesser: I don’t think that’s likely in the next six to 12 months. I do think that if a ceasefire happens in Ukraine, then unfortunately I think it becomes a realistic possibility of some type of a move by the Russians in the Baltics.
And when I hear experts, some very smart intelligent people, saying: we can’t have scaremongering — and they’ll say: well, you know, the Russians know better, Putin would never dare.
Well, a point I make is “Putin won’t dare” is not a strategic policy that the alliance should be taking up, Kiryl. Deterrence is showing the Russians: if you dare, we will react so swiftly and so strongly that you won’t recover.
One final quote I want to give you. [then-Secretary of Defense] Lloyd Austin, when the Russians attacked Ukraine in 2022, made a statement I’ll never forget on the air, until he was apparently chided and the White House corrected the record. Lloyd Austin famously said [early in the] war: our goal should be to teach the Russian Federation that this type of aggression won’t be tolerated, to beat down their armies so hard they’ll never attempt to do this again.
And that was the last type of a really hard statement like that that the Biden administration made. Why? Because there was all this nonsense talk in both the United States and Europe and around the world by a lot of maybe too smart academics to say: hey, we don’t want to hurt Russia too bad, we don’t want them to feel like they’re completely excluded from the world community, otherwise that will encourage more escalation.
Well, where has that gotten us in the past four-plus years, Kiryl? Again: the only thing that stops Russians, and Russian projections of strength and escalation and aggression, is hitting them back when it matters. So Secretary of Defense Austin was right, years ago. We need to punish Russia and show them the cost of aggression, the cost of escalation, both in Ukraine and against Europe, are such that they cannot weather our response. And so far we haven’t anything close to that. So that’s the problem.
IAM: And Sean, one last question that I want to ask, because you’ve known Russia and you’ve worked against Russia and with intelligence targets in Russia for more than two decades, and you know those intelligence services. And early in this interview, you said that Putin is the face of intelligence services and intelligence services run Russia now. What if Putin is gone? Where does it leave intelligence services in Russia? Will that threat continue and what will happen in the Kremlin after that moment?
Wiswesser: Yes, I’ve been writing about this too. There was a whole slew of the European intelligence services this spring saying, Putin is weak, he might fall, maybe there’ll be a coup. What happens next? I had a piece in Foreign Policy magazine called “Don’t Fall for Rumors of Putin’s Weakness” back in May — and here we are in September. Again, nothing happened, Kiryl. He has not collapsed, there hasn’t been a coup. I don’t think that Putin is weak. I think unfortunately that the FSB in particular and the other intelligence security services have grown stronger in war, they have more of a chokehold than ever on the Russian people.
Remember, roughly a million young Russians, any potential opposition, left the country. Less than half of them have ever gone back to Russia. So you lost a huge group of opposition that left. Others were killed, annihilated, executed like [Alexey] Navalny, like heroic journalists like [Anna] Politkovskaya, we should never forget. So those were carried out by the security services.
So I don’t believe there’s any real opposition to Putin, and if he steps down, it’s going to be his next appointed successor, probably somebody from the “siloviki” and the larger family of the “siloviki” — like Dmitry Patrushev, Nikolai’s son, who’s a deputy prime minister, he’s part of that inner circle.
But I also think it’s not going to change, Kiryl, to your question. These are all the “siloviki,” it’s their main decision who’s going to replace Putin if he doesn’t decide himself. Say, he has a heart attack tomorrow — I know there’s many praying and hoping for that, myself among them, I’m not advocating for anything to be done to Putin himself, to be clear — but something happens: he has a heart attack tomorrow. He’s out playing with one of his tigers with his shirt off like he likes to do, show machoism, and something happens to him.
What’s going to happen is the “siloviki” are going to meet and they’re going to decide what’s next, and they’re going to choose whoever’s going to preserve their power and their corruption and the system that’s sustained them, Kiryl. And so that’s why nothing’s likely to change, including policy with regards to Ukraine and the West.
So we shouldn’t be hoping for an easy solution. It’s the tough solution. The Ukrainians know that better than anyone. The Ukrainians are fighting, struggling, and dying heroically to defend their country, and they know there’s no easy way out. They know that they got to keep fighting. And we should be doing more to support them.
When we hit back strongly on Russia, if we give more long-range weapons to the Ukrainians, that’s the clearest path to end this war. For the Ukrainians to be able to hit back at that energy sector, the oil and gas that sustains the “siloviki.” Putin’s inner circle and himself, with their wealth — all of their power is sustained by the energy sector. That’s how we end this war and that’s how we get beyond their current escalation, Kiryl.
No easy ways out, unfortunately. Real deterrence that matters — that’s the only thing that’s going to end this war and this escalation.
