Taliban bounties to kill Americans would be a new low even for Putin

If the bounty reports are accurate, the US should consider revising sanctions on individuals at senior levels of Russian government, including Putin himself.

File image of Russian President Vladimir Putin | Andrey Rudakov | Bloomberg

As Americans consider news reports that Russia offered Taliban fighters bounties to kill U.S. service members, it’s worth recalling the tortured history the two nations have in Afghanistan.

Going back to the days of the Afghan mujahideen and “Charlie Wilson’s War,” Washington provided weapons — notably, surface-to-air missiles — and training to Soviet adversaries in the 1980s. When I visited Moscow as the NATO commander of the Afghan mission almost 30 years later, I met with the man who had been the last Soviet general in Afghanistan (he had retired and gone into politics). He said to me that we Americans had “Russian blood on your hands.”

But that was very different from allegedly providing cash payments to Taliban fighters for killing individual American soldiers, especially as peace talks are unfolding. Providing arms and training to allies and occasionally to surrogates is common international behavior — the U.S. does so for North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies and many other entities. But offering “bounties” for killing individual soldiers is shocking. It is especially dangerous when directed from the intelligence service of a nuclear-armed nation to the armed forces of a strategic opponent.

Whether or not President Donald Trump was formally “briefed” on these allegations is an open question (he denies it). But the charges are so explosive that the real question is simple: If he wasn’t briefed, why not?

If I had caught a whiff of Russian bounties being placed on the 150,000 troops that were under my strategic command in Afghanistan, I would have instantly called my direct senior, the secretary of defense. And I’m reasonably sure he would have immediately called the White House and set up a meeting of the National Security Council.

Certainly Congress will dive into this, and it should. If the bulk of the intelligence is accurate — and it certainly sounds plausible given what we know about the GRU, Russia’s shadowy intelligence service — there needs to a forceful response. We’ll know more in a few days and weeks, but should already be considering what the response might be.

First, the U.S. should fully and thoroughly assess all the extant intelligence and — at an appropriate level of classification that protects sources and methods — reveal publicly what Russia has done. Washington has already shared much of this with the U.K., according to press reports. Other allies who are still alongside Americans in Afghanistan, mostly NATO nations, need to see this as well, to ensure they can maintain suitable force protection.

 

The U.S. also must redouble intelligence collection in Afghanistan to fully understand the double game the Russians are playing, and what other ways they are seeking to undermine the nascent peace process. There needs to be a serious assessment of the degree to which the GRU has penetrated the Taliban broadly. If bounties were offered, was this low-level activity by overactive intelligence officers, or part of a broad strategic effort by Russia to undermine the peace talks?

If the latter, what can our Afghan partners in the government of President Ashraf Ghani tell us about what is happening? What are the Russians’ objectives beyond killing American soldiers and embarrassing the U.S. in the country they dominated for a decade before being ignominiously driven out.

If the bounty reports are proved accurate, the Trump administration should strongly consider expelling the Russian ambassador to the U.S. and his entire intelligence team, along with consul generals. This would likely set off diplomatic retaliation by Russia, but that is a price we should be willing to pay. Similarly, no senior U.S. diplomats or military officers should meet with their Russian counterparts, including Trump meeting or talking with President Vladimir Putin or Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov.

In terms of military actions, the U.S. should reverse the recently announced removal of 10,000 troops from Germany. This is not the time to be showing a lack of resolve in our forward presence. It is also a good time to increase U.S. support to front-line allies dealing with Russia such as the Baltic states and Poland.

Finally, the U.S. should look at additional economic sanctions on Moscow, and certainly stop discussions of lifting current sanctions for its illegal invasion and occupation of Ukraine. It may be time to look at sanctions on individuals at the very senior levels of the Russian government, including Putin himself. It seems highly unlikely he would have been unaware of these bounties, particularly given his background as a KGB spymaster.

In a season of outrageous and unpredictable events, this stands out. If true, it shows such a blatant and reckless disregard for the norms of international behavior, even in a combat zone, that it puts the U.S. and Russia squarely on a geopolitical collision course. – Bloomberg