Throughout his reign as president or prime minister Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has been linked to a number of very disturbing events from disinformation programs and cyberattacks to poisoning political opponents and targeted assassinations. But Putin’s behavior after he launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 has reached new heights. From attacks on schools in Byshiv and Zhytomyr to apartments in Serhiivka and Mariupol to shopping malls in Kyiv and Kremenchuk, civilians are not safe from Russian missiles or artillery.  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called these actions calculated strikes of the invaders. In a virtual address to the U.N. Security Council on April 5, 2022, Zelensky called Putin a terrorist leader and we agree.

Under the Russian constitution, presidents can only serve two consecutive terms. Unlike democracies, outgoing presidents are unable to protect their interests. If they stand down, there is no guarantee they won’t face humiliation or worse yet death. As his term comes to an end in 2024, Putin’s runway shortens for the implementation of his legacy list. Heading the list is his well-known desire to reconstruct the former Soviet Union of Belarus, Georgia, and Ukraine. In his annual state of the nation address some time ago, Putin called the collapse of the Soviet empire “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” And last year, Mr. Putin stated that the collapse “was the disintegration of historical Russia under the name of the Soviet Union.”

Out with the Old, In with the New

Throughout my long career dealing with terroristic acts and terrorists, I issued numerous warnings about the Soviet Union and terrorism. From the late 1960s until the 1979 Iranian revolution, I lectured and wrote about The Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (renamed Patrice Lumumba University in 1961 after the Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba, who had been killed in a coup earlier that year) potential so-called soldiers of fortune, or more accurately terrorists, would go to get indoctrinated. The latter consisted of the intense study of Marxist ideology and a dose of the philosophy consistent with guerilla warfare. Excellent students would often be recommended for more advanced training by the Committee for State Security (KGB) in bomb making techniques and the proper use of a Kalashnikov or just AK-47.   Infamous graduates of the Lumumba experience were Rohana Wijeweera, the leader of the Popular Liberation Front who led a revolution in Sri Lanka and Ilich Ramírez Sanchez, the Venezuelan terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal (see, for example, Kushner 1994, Kushner 1995, Kushner 1998).

The Soviets believed terrorism was in keeping with their efforts to support wars of national liberation even though it was not compatible with traditional Marxist-Leninist thinking on class struggle. For example, “[t]he Soviets hoped that Palestinian terrorism against Israel would enhance their position within the Arab world and erode that of Israel’s staunchest supporter, the United States” (Kushner 1998, pp. 13-14). In fact, after the defeat of Soviet-controlled Arab states in the 1967 Six-Day War, the Soviets began to fund, equip, and train terrorist groups that opposed the Jewish state. For example, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) established close ties with the Romanian secret police, the Securitate, and the Soviet KGB. The KGB trained PLO terrorists. The KGB also supervised training camps for guerrillas and terrorists inside Cuba in the late 1960s. By the early 1970’s Cubans as well as Eastern Europeans were teaching terrorism inside Middle East camps. Cubans and Eastern Europeans functioned as valuable auxiliaries of the Soviet Union. It was Ion Mihai Pacepa, the Romanian two-star general in the Securitate upon his defection to the United States in 1978 told us that KGB General Aleksandr Sakharovsky believed that “In today’s world, when nuclear arms have made military force obsolete, terrorism should be our main weapon” (Pacepa 2006).

After the 1979 Iranian revolution, I fully understood why the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. Many of my fellow academicians as well as government officials in Washington did not. Clearly, the Soviets worried about the impact of the rise of militant Islam that would be brought about by the example of the Iranian revolution. They worried about Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan following suit. All shared ethnic identities, religion, and history with Afghanistan. They didn’t need turmoil carrying over into the predominately Muslim territories they controlled. Unlike many of my fellow analysts and others in government, I was not interested in seeing Afghanistan turn into a Soviet Vietnam. An Afghanistan emboldened by their defeat of the Soviet Union along with the existence of the Islamic Republic of Iran would only spell trouble for the United States. Furthermore, I was not sanguine as others were with supplying weaponry such as Stinger missiles to Islamic fighters, mujahideen that is, coming from all over the world including the United States for jihad. I could not bring myself to support a foreign policy, as many in Washington did, based on “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” I feared “blowback” which came in the form of the first bombing of the World Trade Center on February 26, 1993.

Another contributing factor to the rise of religious Islamic zealots and the withering away of the Soviet era terrorism can be attributed to an action taken by Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf al-Qudwa al-Husseini, better known as Yasser Arafat. Arafat, the chairman of the PLO supported Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. In doing so, he alienated the West and cut off the billions of dollars in aid given to his PLO by the rich Arab oil sheikdoms. The latter, no stranger to paying so-called protection money, would now direct their funding to the Islamic Resistance Movement, better known by the acronym Hamas, the enemy of Arafat’s PLO and Fatah. This ushered in a new era within the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict but, more importantly, diminished the influence of a largely secular movement to a radical group inclined to adapt the strategy and tactics of terrorists driven by a radical agenda steeped in jihad.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 into 15 independent countries was the death knell for secular terrorism. The United States and her allies would now face a religiously inspired form of terrorism supported and practiced by the Iranians and other militant Islamic groups. These religiously inspired terrorists employed different tactics in order to achieve their goals such as the use of suicide bombers (see, for example, Kushner 1995, Kushner 1996a, Kushner 1996b). My name and work became associated with the different forms of this new terrorism (see, for example, Morgan, 2004; Zimmermann, 2004). No longer were these terrorists or their supporters, trainers, and handlers interested in pragmatic considerations of not going too far with their attacks and other such political considerations. The philosophy of the old terror tactics that echoed throughout the halls of Lumumba University and were financed and taught by the KGB and Eastern European countries would become relics of the pass.

So worried was I about the breakup of the Soviet Union and the vacuum it would create within the terrorist community and its danger to the United States that I began to lecture to quite frankly anyone who would care to listen. On Long Island in New York, for example, I addressed the Society of Former Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In their newsletter, they wrote, “A new breed of potential terrorists now present in the U.S. poses a difficult challenge for the American intelligence community in the wake of the breakup of the Soviet Union, as described by Long Island Chapter guest speaker Dr. Harvey Kushner, an expert on terrorism” (“Terrorism Specialist” 1994, p. 27).

Now that the Soviet-type terror was quickly becoming a thing of the past, I saw the need to put pen to paper to encourage the law enforcement and the intelligence agencies I worked with to rethink their understanding of terrorists, especially those from the Middle East.  I told them to still pay attention to groups such as the Abu Nidal cells in Detroit and the El Rukin Street Gang in Chicago influenced by Soviet type terror tactics but now turn their attention to the new breed practicing a new form of terrorism (see Kushner 1994).

In with the New, Maybe?

In the past when the Soviets supported, trained and unleashed teams of secular terrorists, they kept their clients on a very short leash. The latter was in keeping with the concept of “brinkmanship” which was practiced by both the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War. The term brinkmanship which is the practice of pushing a confrontation to its limit in order to force an outcome stems from an American politician’s criticism of another politician’s philosophy of “going to the brink.” The Cuban Missile Crisis is a textbook example of brinkmanship owing to both sides of the conflict allowing the situation to go right to the edge of nuclear war before coming to an agreement.

With the benefit of hindsight, the events of the Cold War era (March 12, 1947 – December 26, 1991) tell us that the former Soviet Union never, or we believe would have, orchestrated, participated or sanctioned a terrorist attack such as the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. An attack of such magnitude runs counter to a strategy of brinkmanship. Its very nature would have demanded a dramatic response from the United States that most likely would have resulted in a hot war between the two superpowers.

The goal during the Cold War was to go the brink but no further. A 9/11 type of attack was neither in the Soviet political DNA nor a tactic of the terrorist groups they employed and supported. It would be anathema to how the Soviets conducted business. They would instead support and launch measured operations that would peck away at the United States and her influence in various parts of the world. Soviet support for measured terrorist activities took place in the Middle East, West Germany, Northern Ireland, Africa, and Central and South America. Particular attention was given to countries with significant mineral resources and strategic locations on international trade routes.

The practice of brinkmanship is not contradicted by the terrorism General Aleksandr Sakharovsky’s spoke of and sanctioned by the Soviet Union. Rather, they worked together to erode U.S. influence in various parts of the world. Significant terrorist activity on U.S.soil would push the envelope much too far. This is not to say that there has been talk of such activity. Some have said that there were plans to sabotage, for example, the Hungry Horse Dam in Montana, disrupt the power supply in all of New York State, and destroy the port of New York (see, for example, Andrew and Mitrokhin 2006). Suffice to say, however, that these events did not take place

The world of terrorism has changed dramatically in the third millennium. The mostly secular terrorists trained and supported by the Soviet Union that operated for the most part with impunity throughout the Middle East no longer exist. They have been replaced by a much more dogmatic breed of militant Islamic terrorists and Putin has developed relations with some of their main enablers. Take, for instance, the Islamic Republic of Iran. Hard-liners in Tehran support Putin’s aggression in Ukraine since it overlaps with an Iranian grand strategy of confronting the United States and projecting power in the Middle East and beyond. No Iranian president since 1979 has made as many public calls for strategic ties with Putin’s Russia as Sayyid Ebrahim Raisolsadati, aka Ebrahim Raisi.

Relations between Russia and Iran have often been turbulent and dormant at other times. Today both countries work together in Afghanistan and Syria where they fully support the Bashar al-Assad regime against what they refer to as an anti-terrorist campaign. They also are united by a common interest to boost their economic relations since they are both under sanctions by most of the Western world. In sum, they have more reason to work together against the interests of the United States than ever before.

Putin’s new found relationship with the Taliban is also problematic for the United States and the West. Even though under his presidency in 2003 the Taliban was labelled a terrorist organization, Putin maintained an informal diplomatic relationship with the Taliban. This relationship caused alarm in Kabul and Washington. Up until the embarrassing U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan rumors abounded of Russian smuggled weapons across the Tajik boarder to the Taliban to counter its struggle against Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) and prolong U.S. engagement. On March 31, 2022, Russia accredited a diplomat from the Taliban to engage with the Afghan government. Russia is still concerned about the threat of Islamist groups spilling over into Russia via Central Asia; however, their new found cooperation with Taliban will nevertheless spell trouble for the United States and the West.

No one can accurately predict the future. It is fairly safe to say, however, that a reconstructed Soviet empire under Putin will surely continue covert disinformation programs, cyberattacks, and targeted assassinations. Moreover, Putin’s behavior in Ukraine gives new meaning to KGB General Aleksandr Sakharovsky’s belief that “[i]n today’s world, when nuclear arms have made military force obsolete, terrorism should be our main weapon.”

References

Andrew, A. and Mitrokhin, V. (2006). Mitrokhin archive: The KGB in Europe and the west. UK: Penguin.

Kushner, H. (1994). The new Middle Eastern terrorist. Journal of the International Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysts, 8(2), 41-46.

Kushner, H. (1995). The new terrorism: The shape of things to come. Counterterrorism & Security International. 2(3), 10-11.

Kushner, H. (1996a, October/December). Suicide bombers: Business as usual. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 19(4), 329-337.

Kushner, H. (1996b, Summer). Suicide bombers: What makes them tick? Counterterrorism & Security International, 3(2), 26-29.

Kushner, H. (1998). Terrorism in America: A structured approach to understanding the terrorist threat. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas.

Morgan, M. (2004, Spring). The origins of the new terrorism. The US Army War College Quarterly, 34(1), 29–43.

Pacepa, I. (2006, August 24). Russian footprints. National Review Online. [Online]. Available: https://www.nationalreview.com/2006/08/russian-footprints-ion-mihai-pacepa/

“Terrorism Specialist.” (1994, August). Terrorism specialist Dr. Harvey Kushner is Long Island chapter’s guest speaker. The Grapevine, 1(4), 27.

Zimmerman, D. (2004, March). Terrorism transformed: The “new terrorism,” Impact scalability, and the dynamic of reciprocal perception. The Quarterly Journal, 1(3), 19-40.

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About Dr. Harvey W. Kushner 

Dr. Harvey W. Kushner is EUASU Academician, Chairman of the Criminal Justice Department and a Professor of Criminal Justice at LIU Post, Brookville, New York. Internationally recognized expert on terrorism. Kushner has authored numerous columns, editorials, and six books, five of which focus on the pervasive problems inherent in international and transnational terrorism. His best-seller Encyclopedia of Terrorism has won numerous awards.

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