"First, disruption. Remove or distract a key planner and you degrade tempo. Senior intelligence officers are not just cogs. They are hubs of sources, access, plans, and authority. When that person goes down, subordinates scramble, files freeze, phones go quiet, and internal security overreacts. The machine slows."
Key, because it brings to mind the firing of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other Service Chiefs and Combatant Commanders, or the DIA and NSA Directors, and slashing the National Intelligence Council's senior leadership, and dismantling State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. You don't always have to chuck them out of windows to pour sand in the gears of our national security structures.
I am reminded of a few wonderful lines from the 1990 Coen Brothers movie, MILLER’S CROSSING, which I consider their masterpiece, about just this sort of botched killing. A mob boss, played by the late Jon Polito, is instructing a temporary underlying, played by Gabriel Byrne, about how to properly execute a man: “Something I try to teach all my boys: always put one in the brain.” Another underlying — Tic Tac, played by the late, great Al Mancini — reiterates this concept to Byrne before he walks into the woods of Miller’s Crossing with orders to kill Bernie Birnbaum, played by John Turturo: “the boss tell you how to do this? Your first shot puts him down, then you put one in the brain. Then he’s dead and then we go home.”
Apparently, the Coen Brothers films are not must-see cinema in Russia. Or Ukraine.
Great in depth article. Thought provoking, but in the end, all assassinations are political, in both conception and result, no matter who does them. This is the realm where the military, intelligence, and politics merge.
In a serious and helpful article, do we really need "unprovoked" after the 2014 -2022 history?
This is a key paragraph:
"First, disruption. Remove or distract a key planner and you degrade tempo. Senior intelligence officers are not just cogs. They are hubs of sources, access, plans, and authority. When that person goes down, subordinates scramble, files freeze, phones go quiet, and internal security overreacts. The machine slows."
Key, because it brings to mind the firing of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other Service Chiefs and Combatant Commanders, or the DIA and NSA Directors, and slashing the National Intelligence Council's senior leadership, and dismantling State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. You don't always have to chuck them out of windows to pour sand in the gears of our national security structures.
Pay me no mind, but the title made me laugh. Thank you for the article.
Thanks for this
I am reminded of a few wonderful lines from the 1990 Coen Brothers movie, MILLER’S CROSSING, which I consider their masterpiece, about just this sort of botched killing. A mob boss, played by the late Jon Polito, is instructing a temporary underlying, played by Gabriel Byrne, about how to properly execute a man: “Something I try to teach all my boys: always put one in the brain.” Another underlying — Tic Tac, played by the late, great Al Mancini — reiterates this concept to Byrne before he walks into the woods of Miller’s Crossing with orders to kill Bernie Birnbaum, played by John Turturo: “the boss tell you how to do this? Your first shot puts him down, then you put one in the brain. Then he’s dead and then we go home.”
Apparently, the Coen Brothers films are not must-see cinema in Russia. Or Ukraine.
Interesting explanation of how this works. Thank you.
Great in depth article. Thought provoking, but in the end, all assassinations are political, in both conception and result, no matter who does them. This is the realm where the military, intelligence, and politics merge.
Keep up the good work.