Adrian Levy, journalist and author, was our guest at ThePrint’s latest edition of Off The Cuff. In a conversation with Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta, Levy spoke about the similarities and differences in India and Pakistan’s intelligence systems. Levy discussed his upcoming book, ‘Spy Stories’, based on India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and pointed out how both India and Pakistan have used proxy warfare with remarkable success. He said the reason why ISI is seen as an organisation with more teeth than RAW is because India has always projected itself as benign and that has been the biggest success of the country’s intelligence.
Levy discussed how despite victories such as the 1971 Bangladesh war and the Kargil war of 1998, RAW lagged behind ISI, especially in finances, until 9/11. That gap, however, has reduced since then, he added.