America owes Russia a big apology for the embarrassing case of bumbling CIA spy Ryan Fogel caught red-handed in Moscow trying to recruit a Russian agent.

Shame on the US. What ever happened to professional respect? Russia has always been the grand master of espionage. In Russia, spying is a high art form, like ballet.

Having been given an exclusive visit to the KGB’s museum of espionage, I can heartily attest to Russia’s mastery of spying. Too bad most people don’t known how masterful and patient the Russian were – and continue to be.

Sending an amateur American spy on a ham-handed attempt to recruit a Russian agent was an insult to the profession. Russia deserves the top US agents, not bumblers from the backwoods.

Agent Fogel, under thin diplomatic cover as third secretary at the US Moscow Embassy, was certainly no James Bond. More like agent 000. According to the Ruskis, he even had a nifty little spy kit with a Swiss Army knife, map of Moscow, two wigs, and compass. And a letter offering a bribe of “up to” $1 million to work for CIA.

Why didn’t CIA just run a spy-wanted ad in Moscow’s “Pravda” newspaper?

A counter-story was immediately spread that the bumbling Fogel was somehow trying to glean information related to the recent Boston bombing.

Coming just before crucially important US-Soviet talks over Syria, the Fogel affair was either incredibly inept or a crude attempt to sabotage the peace talks.

Agent 000’s case underlines concerns of veteran US intelligence professionals that CIA has become too absorbed running its own paramilitary operations around the globe and hunting so-called terrorists to pay proper attention to its basic business of gathering information.

The Cold War is long over, but intelligence operations continue at a higher intensity than during the long US-Soviet confrontation. China’s spies are increasingly active across the globe, particularly so in the US and Canada, but also in Russia.

Even allies spy on one another, most often to acquire advanced technology. The venerable “honey trap” where an attractive female agent seduce a target remains a favorite of the Russians, French, Israel’s Mossad, and, yes, the prudish CIA.

I recall nights in my awful Moscow hotel waiting for lovely Soviet female agents called “swallows” to tempt my devotion to the Free World. Alas, none ever came.

This writer has closely followed Soviet, then Russian intelligence operations . In 1989, I was the first journalist ever allowed into KGB headquarters at Moscow’s dreaded Lubyanka Prison. I interviewed two senior KGB generals who told me the Soviet Union was about to collapse due to the ineptitude of the Communist Party.

“What we need,” said one, “is a leader who will make Russians work at bayonet point, like Chile’s Pinochet or South Korea’s Park Chung-hee.” A decade later, they got their wish in the form of a former tough KGB/FSB agent, Vladimir Putin.

In spite of America’s self-congratulation over its victory in the Cold War, there is little doubt in my mind that though Moscow’s empire collapse into ruins, the Soviet KGB bested America’s CIA and other western spy agencies.

KGB and GRU(military intelligence) put agents into President Roosevelt’s White House. At the infamous Yalta Conference that divided up Europe, I saw the palace where Roosevelt and the US delegation stayed that was bugged from basement to roof by the KGB. The naïve Americans didn’t even think to look for bugs. In the early 1990’s, I saw the new US Embassy in Moscow that was so filled with bugs it was a giant microphone. The US had given the construction contract to a Russian company!

Soviet moles Aldrich Ames and John Walker handed America’s most precious secrets to Moscow. KGB spies like Philby, Burgess, Lonsdale and Blake came very close to destroying Britain’s intelligence agency MI6, and wrecking France’s spy outfit, SDECE.

In the end, the Soviet KGB managed to survive the Soviet collapse, re-emerging as FSB and SVR foreign intelligence from the KGB’s elite First Directorate. While CIA and the 15 other US intelligence agencies enjoy leadership in electronic, air and space-based intelligence(ELINT), their human intelligence (HUMINT) has lagged way behind the Soviets/Russians. US HUMINT about the Mideast, Iran and especially North Korea is poor.

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copyright Eric S. Margolis 2013

While the United States beats the war drums over North Korea and Iran’s long-ranged nuclear armed missiles –which they don’t even possess – Washington remains curiously silent about the arrival of the world’s newest member of the big nuke club – India.

In January, Delhi revealed a new, 800km-ranged submarine launched missile (SLBM) designated K-15. Twelve of these strategic, nuclear-armed missiles will be carried by India’s first of a class of domestically built nuclear-powered submarine, “Arihant.” India is also working on another SLBM, K-5, with a range of some 2, 800km.

These new nuclear subs and their SLBM’s will give India the capability to strike many high-value targets around the globe. Equally important, they complete India’s nuclear triad of nuclear weapons delivered by aircraft, missiles, and now sea that will be invulnerable to a decapitating first strike from either Pakistan or China.

Last February, it was revealed that India is fast developing a new, long-ranged, three-stage ballistic missile, Agni-VI. This powerful missile is said to be able to carry up to ten independently targetable nuclear warheads, known as MIRV’s.

Agni-VI’s range is believed to be at least 10,000km,

putting all of China, Japan, Australia, and Russia in its range. A new 15,000km missile capable of hitting North America is also in the works under cover of India’s civilian space program. India is also developing accurate cruise missiles and miniaturized nuclear warheads to fit into their small diameter.

These important strategic developments will put India ahead of other nuclear powers France, Britain, North Korea, and Pakistan, about equal in striking power to Israel and China, and not too far behind the United States and Russia.

Delhi says it needs a nuclear triad because of the growing threat of China, whose conventional and nuclear forces are being rapidly modernized.

This writer has been reporting on the nuclear arms race between India and China since the late 1990’s. China has replaced Pakistan as India’s primary nuclear threat. Even so, Indian and Pakistani nuclear forces remain on a frightening hair-trigger alert within only a 3-5 minute warning time of enemy attack, making the Kashmir cease-fire line (or Line of Control) the world’s most dangerous border.

The Bush administration began quietly aiding India’s nuclear program with nuclear fuel when India had a shortage of fissile material. Some advanced technology from the US and India’s second largest arms supplier, Israel, has also aided Delhi’s nuclear and missile delivery programs.

India, as I wrote years ago after one of its big nuclear tests, is feeling its “nuclear Viagra.” Most Indians take great pride in their strategic nuclear programs as their way into the great power’s exclusive nuclear club.

But not all Indians are so delighted, particularly those on the left who ask how their nation, with one third of all the world’s poorest people, can afford to spend tens of billions on advanced weapons, including nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, and ICBM’s.

According to the World Bank, 32.7% of Indians subsist below the international poverty level of $1.25 daily, and 68.7% on less than $2 daily. Aid agencies say 33% of Indian children are malnourished.

Delhi is making steady progress in reducing poverty and disease, and in trying to break down the pernicious caste system that dooms a quarter of Indians to lives of misery.

This, critics claim, is no time to be posturing as a world power when Mother India still has feet of clay.

The Bush administration was totally unaware that India’s advent as a major nuclear power whose weapons might one day challenge the United States. Bush & Co. wanted India to bulk up as a competitor to China, a permanent enemy of the Republican hard right. Today’s Republicans think similarly.

India is a great democracy where politicians, not generals, make policy. She is a staunch friend of the United States, where over one million Indians now live. True enough, but we have seen there are no permanent friends in world politics, only permanent interests.

One day mighty India may vie for influence with the US for Mideast and Central Asian oil, and control of the Indian Ocean’s vital sea lanes. But not today, as all eyes are on pipsqueak North Korea and dilapidated Iran.

copyright Eric S. Margolis 2013