"Uncle Yang Insight"
At the beginning of the article, let's tell you a real story. In June 1982, the Trans-Siberian gas pipeline suddenly exploded: the flames soared into the sky as high as 100 meters, so high that they could be seen from space. The power of this explosion is equivalent to 3,000 tons of TNT explosives and 1/4 of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. The explosion caused tens of billions of dollars in damage, adding to the Soviet economy, which was mired in the Afghan war at this time. The top brass was outraged, the KGB quickly intervened in the investigation, and soon a plot orchestrated by the CIA to attack the lifeblood of the Soviet economy was uncovered.
Vitrov, a Soviet technical spy, graduated in 1964 as a brilliant engineer and was quickly recruited by the KGB into a mysterious department. During the Cold War, the West imposed a tight technological blockade on the Soviet Union. In order to keep abreast of the latest developments in Western science and technology, the KGB set up a special T bureau, which had a special X-ray group, composed of technical elites who graduated from the Higher Polytechnic Academy of the Soviet Union.
Vitrov
Their mission was to mingle with various Soviet delegations to the United States, act as scientific and technological spies, and use all kinds of bizarre methods to obtain Western technical intelligence. For example, visiting the Boeing aircraft factory in the name of cooperative factory construction, wearing sticky leather shoes to stick to the scraps of the fuselage material. After laboratory tests, the technical problems of large aircraft materials were overcome for the Soviet Union.
And Vitrov's job is to assess the value of intelligence obtained by agents. Because of his excellent work, he came to Paris as a diplomat in 1965 to lead the X-ray team, where he stayed for five years. During this period, he was deeply touched by the prosperity of the West, and gradually developed deep doubts about the Soviet system and ideology. Shaken by his thinking, he was quickly rebelled by French intelligence and quickly hooked up with the CIA to become a double agent, codenamed "Mole".
Vitrov leaked more than 4,000 classified documents, exposing more than 250 Soviet spies deployed around the world. But instead of arresting the men right away, the CIA was ready to use them as Trojans implanted in the Soviet economic system. The CIA and Pentagon's plan: Deliberately leak to Soviet spies the neck technology they were trying to steal and plant misinformation in it. This was equivalent to planting a time bomb in the Soviet defense and industrial system, which would paralyze important Soviet industrial sectors in the event of an attack.
At this time, the Siberian gas pipeline, which was being built in the Soviet Union, encountered a technical problem that was difficult to overcome. This energy artery that stretched across Siberia and as far as Europe brought the Soviet Union $30 billion a year. However, the temperature, flow and pressure need to be measured at any time on the long pipeline, and the complex valve system must often be opened and closed to adjust the direction and volume of gas transmission, and it is impossible to seamlessly monitor thousands of kilometers of pipelines completely manually.
At this time, the West had developed operating software that remotely collected data from each measurement point in real time through the data bus to achieve automatic control, and the Soviet Union was very eager to obtain this technology.
Soon, the CIA, through the intelligence provided by Vitrov, successfully allowed KGB agents to steal the defective product. The software was redesigned to reset pump speeds and valves to create ultra-high pressures at the pipe connections, ultimately leading to the largest non-nuclear explosion in Soviet history.
And the reason why Vitrov was finally discovered was because he was a little nervous after becoming a traitor. During a cheating affair with a female subordinate in the car, a colleague suddenly came to say hello. As a thief, he thought that his colleague was going to arrest him and shot his colleague. The KGB caught the inner ghost and eventually Vitrov was executed in 1985 for treason.
The above incident comes from the book, "How the Reagan Administration Collapsed the Soviet Union", and also because of the recent Nord Stream 2 incident, a friend recommended it to me. The author of the book is Peter Schwartz, a former CIA employee, in fact, the correct translation of the title should be called "Victory! The U.S. government's secret strategy for the former Soviet Union", now the title of the book is a bit of a title party, probably to sell well.
In the book, the author discloses in detail the hidden strategy adopted by the US government against the Soviet Union's science and technology and economy, which gradually shakes the confidence of the Soviet leadership and induces it to disintegrate. Peter Schwartz even blatantly and arrogantly said that talking about the collapse of the former Soviet Union without knowing the role of secret American strategy is like investigating a mysterious death case without considering murder.
The above is just the tip of the iceberg of this book, which is difficult to read due to the level of translation that is really not flattering. It took 5 days to read it all, so let's talk about it in detail this time.
William Wessef Casey, the 13th CIA director of the United States from 1981 to 1987, and the main planner and implementer of the US economic war against the Soviet Union during the Reagan administration.
It is necessary to explain the international background of Reagan's rise to power in the 80s. The outbreak of the Fourth Middle East War in 1973 and the subsequent oil crisis caused international oil prices to skyrocket, and the Soviet Union made a fortune selling oil. Ample funding gave the Soviet Union the capital of the arms race with the United States: at its peak, the Soviet Union produced an average of 3,000 tanks, 5,000 armored vehicles, and 2,000 aircraft a year. The strategic nuclear forces are basically on par with the United States, and the Kraken-class warships such as the Kirov-class nuclear-powered cruisers and the Typhoon-class strategic nuclear submarines are also under construction.
The 70s were also a period of global expansion in which the Soviet Union exported revolution and competed with the United States for world paternal rights. In the Middle East, the Soviet Union gave Egypt and Syria a large amount of military aid, supported South Yemen, and encroached on the oil-producing areas of the Middle East. In Central America, the Soviet Union provided assistance through Cuba to the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, the New Gem Movement in Grenada, and guerrillas in El Salvador and Guatemala. Beginning in 1975, Cuba sent large numbers of troops to the Angolan Civil War, becoming a proxy for Soviet expansion.
At the same time, it has fully implemented the "Asian Group Security System" in Asia, supported Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia, and established a so-called "Indochinese Federation" as the world's third military power. And signed a mutual assistance treaty with the nature of a military alliance with Vietnam, and the USSR and Vietnam did not border, and it is self-evident who the military alliance is aimed at. Chen Bing on the Sino-Soviet border wielded a nuclear stick at any time, forcing us to tighten our belts and carry out arduous third-line construction. At the same time, 100,000 troops invaded Afghanistan; And gave India a large military loan to dismember Pakistan. It forms a C-shaped encirclement of China from west to east. Just look at the political cartoons we published at the time to see how much threat this polar bear was.
At this time, the United States, which had just emerged from the quagmire of the Vietnam War, was facing severe economic stagflation, and soaring oil prices caused the United States to fall by 6% in GDP from 1973 to 1975, and unemployment increased to 9%, temporarily unable to support the huge arms race with the Soviet Union. However, the economic crisis has also allowed the United States to break first and then stand, setting off a new technological revolution represented by semiconductors and new energy, replacing the original energy-intensive industrial model. The process was of course painful, the economic reforms in the West began in the early 70s and gradually improved until the mid-80s, but the effect was also surprising: Western countries greatly increased their productivity, completed industrial upgrading and economic transformation, and began to brew a new round of prosperity.
Therefore, it was in this context that Reagan, who came to power in the early 80s, shouldered the important task of revitalizing the US economy and reversing the decline of the Cold War. But when Reagan first entered the Oval Office in January 1981, he first met not with economic associates, but with the new CIA director, William Casey.
Why did Reagan choose Casey to take over the CIA? The close personal relationship is of course an important reason: Casey had previously chaired the Reagan campaign committee, and Reagan was elected and Casey was credited.
He always wears a pair of delicate gold wire glasses, and on the surface he is just a kind retired old man, but under his kind exterior hides a cunning and sharp mind. Casey spoke inarticulately and incoherently, making it difficult to communicate with him. Reagan was a bit of a back-of-the-ear, so Casey often talked close to Reagan, which made people suspect: the two had an ulterior relationship. In fact, Casey wanted to be secretary of state the most, but given his eloquence, it was clear that the CIA bureau who was planning behind the scenes was more suitable for him.
And the most important reason why Reagan handed over such a critical department to Casey was to let him return to his old job: to launch a secret stranglehold war against Soviet economic technology. Then it is necessary to tell Casey's resume: the former captain of the Navy, the most brilliant job of World War II was to find out Hitler's economic throat and study how to destroy it as the head of intelligence in the European theater of operations.
For example, by buying Swedish businessmen, he learned about Germany's secret channel for obtaining precision bearings and iron ore, and cut it off. Casey was an unscrupulous person: for example, because it was difficult for American agents to impersonate Germans directly, he recruited intelligence officers from German prisoners of war, and although he violated the relevant provisions of the Geneva Conventions, Casey did not care, and even recruited prostitutes as spies. Now Reagan wanted Casey to apply the same thing he did against Germany to the Soviet Union.
When Casey took over the CIA, the first thing he did was to reorganize the personnel structure of the Operations Division. Previously, this department was completely the turf of Harvard, Yale, Princeton graduates, these so-called elites, rigid in thinking and slow in action, their performance almost made the CIA a laughing stock in the public, I only need to name one person and you will understand - Castro.
They misreported the time to the Air Force bombers who went to support during Operation Bay of Pigs, and four B-26s became meat buns and dogs, and were eventually forced to pay tens of millions of dollars in compensation to Cuba, becoming the only war reparations in U.S. history.
In Operation Eagle Claw, which resolved Iran's hostage crisis, intelligence errors caused the receiving helicopter to arrive an hour late, the engine sucked in dust in the desert and caused a series of collisions, and the rescue operation turned into an escape from Tehran. You said that the CIA, the Intelligence Service, how many bureaus have been changed from session to session, change soup without changing medicine, assassinate Castro and lose 0:600, face is not wanted. Now, Casey wants to change that. Most of the CIA's previous economic intelligence on the Soviet Union was compiled based on statistics published by the other side, but the results were very different from the facts. And a lot of the information that Casey got was that the factory was stopped due to lack of spare parts, and people lined up to buy them because of the lack of supplies.
The 10-billion-dollar subsidy program led to Afghanistan, Cuba, Angola, and Vietnam becoming increasingly heavy burdens on the empire. In fact, when the West was busy with economic reforms in the 70s, the Soviet Union had only a lot more problems. Most of the Soviet industry's industry was built in the 30s and remained in use until the 70s, and the extensive industrial structure has long been aging, inefficient, and extremely energy-intensive. Taking advantage of the golden period of oil exports, it should be the best time for industrial transformation and upgrading, but the rigid political and economic system in China has led to all hidden dangers being covered up by the false prosperity brought by oil exports.
In order to better implement the covert strategy of attacking the Soviet economy, Casey assembled a team of professionals: Henry Ron, former manager of the RAND Corporation, Heb Meyer, editor of Fortune magazine, and David Wigg, an economist. With these professionals, Casey formed a department at the CIA to track the circulation of Soviet hard currency and foreign income, the Soviet Division. At the same time, Reagan was asked to give him the power to independently formulate and implement "covert operations" and other departments were not allowed to intervene, so that Casey could finally let go.
In fact, Casey's strategy was summarized very simply: do everything possible to reduce Soviet foreign exchange earnings, while increasing consumption, and destroying the Soviet economy with scientific and technological blockades. Where was the main source of income for the USSR? Oil exports. Between 1973 and 1982 alone, the Soviet Union's energy export earnings increased 14-fold without doubling production.
Every $1 increase in oil prices earned the Soviet Union an extra $1 billion a year. So how can this number be lowered? It was simple: increase oil production, so Casey's first stop in office was to the Middle East. OPEC with Saudi Arabia as the core controls two-thirds of the world's oil reserves and provides more than 40% of the world's oil consumption, which can be said to be the master valve of the global oil pipeline.
It is necessary to explain the geographical environment that Saudi Arabia faced at that time: 2.25 million square kilometers of land, full of desert and barren land, the only source of wealth is underground oil, the country has only 9 million people, surrounded by strong enemies. Iran and Iraq in the north are engaged in a bloody war, and the flames of war will burn at any time; Syria to the west, with the help of the Soviet Union, has been eager to support hostile religious organizations in Saudi Arabia. And Afghanistan in the northeast is being invaded by the Soviet Union, and if it continues to expand into the Persian Gulf, sooner or later it will become a target. Like a three-year-old walking down the street holding gold, Saudi Arabia became a natural ally of the United States in the Middle East against the Soviet Union.
The first meeting between Casey and Prince Turk of Saudi Arabia did not directly make his own demands, but first sent a gift: intelligence about the training of separatists in the desert in Soviet-backed South Yemen in a secret base in the desert in an attempt to subvert the Saudi royal family.
Casey was well aware that the geopolitical threat Saudi Arabia faced at this time was rooted in the Soviet Union. The two sides stated their common anti-Soviet position, and the atmosphere of the talks was harmonious. It's a wonderful scene, Casey, a devout Catholic, can now sit with a Muslim and discuss how to deal with another pagan, it seems that as long as the interests are huge enough, many things can be negotiated and traded.
The secret to negotiation is to know what the other side needs, and then bargain to get what you need. Saudi Arabia is rich and oily, short of money but weapons, and Iranian and Iraqi warplanes violate its airspace every week. Prince Turk asked the United States to provide advanced fighters and early warning systems, and he was well aware of the power of the CIA in the White House, to which Casey said bitterly: No problem, I will do it, and expand the scope of intelligence sharing with Saudi Arabia.
Afghanistan is another focus of cooperation, and Casey pledged to continue expanding aid to Pakistan and Afghan guerrillas, after the CIA used Saudi money to buy weapons in Egypt and hand them over to the guerrillas through Pakistan, but Egypt received only some old-fashioned bolt-action rifles.
After Casey's bitter persuasion, Sadat promised to improve the quality of weapons and intended to buy light weapons and rocket launchers from an eastern power, but needed Saudi financial support. For Saudi Arabia, of course, this is trivial, and Prince Turk said: "We will continue to spread religious and anti-communist consciousness to Afghanistan and Soviet Central Asia, helping our brothers living in Moscow."
After satisfying most of the Saudi's demands, Casey came up with what he wanted, and he gave the prince several top-secret pieces of information about Soviet oil production: When oil prices soared in the 70s, Soviet hard currency revenues grew by 272%, but oil exports increased by only 22%. Moscow exports oil to finance its world empire, and we can't let that happen again.
Casey's message is clear: no oil producer in the world has the same decisive influence on oil prices as Saudi Arabia. He demanded that Saudi Arabia increase production, cut oil prices and establish a secure relationship with the United States about oil pricing.
Casey went on to reveal that despite Soviet oil reserves of 6 to 12 billion tons, production from easily exploitable fields in the Urals, Caucasus and Central Asia continued to decline, while Siberian oil fields were mostly under hard rock layers. The annual cost of maintaining oil production in the USSR rose sharply, from 4.6 billion in the early 70s to 9 billion.
To this end, the Soviet Union intended to buy technology and equipment from the West, such as rotary drilling rigs, exploration technology and offshore drilling technology. The United States will impose targeted technical sanctions on the USSR and pressure European countries to prevent them from buying Soviet crude. "If we continue like this, they won't even be able to pump out a quark of oil," and the scene was suddenly filled with cheerful air.
The Soviet Union was Saudi Arabia's main competitor in oil exports, and it certainly welcomed U.S. technical sanctions. The prince readily said that he would use his oil reserves to lower oil prices and withstand any pressure from OPEC. In this way, the first cornerstone of Casey's secret strategy for Su was settled.
For most of the time, energy exports accounted for 60%-80% of the Soviet Union's foreign exchange earnings and were the backbone of the Soviet economy. The Soviet Union earned foreign exchange from oil exports, used that money to buy food and technology from the West, and continued to expand the oil industry, making money from exports, and then putting it into the next cycle to sustain huge military spending. However, with Saudi Arabia's increase in production and price cuts and the technological blockade of the West, the economic situation of the Soviet Union deteriorated sharply. Beginning in August 1985, Saudi oil production soared from less than 2 million barrels per day to 6 million barrels, to 9 million barrels in late autumn and to 10 million barrels the following year.
As Saudi Arabia twisted the oil valve, the international oil price fell from $30 to $12 in less than 5 months, and the Soviet Union evaporated 10 billion in half a year. Statistics show that for every $1 drop in oil prices, the Soviet Union lost $5 to $1 billion a year in revenue. In order to compensate for the loss of Saudi Arabia's price cut, the United States announced a 25% devaluation of the dollar, and Saudi Arabia got the news in advance to sell all of it, making a wild profit of 20 billion, and the Soviet Union lost a quarter of its foreign exchange. Reduced incomes led to a sharp increase in the cost of purchasing equipment, agricultural products and industrial supplies from the West in the USSR. In 1986, the Soviet Union imported the same equipment from West Germany, requiring five times more oil exports than a year earlier.
Due to lack of funds, dozens of large-scale industrial projects in the Soviet Union were canceled, and the project of a car tuning plant built by Renault Automobile with an investment of 1.2 billion US dollars was forced to stop; In the Neryugory coal field in Siberia, two chemical plants built by British companies investing $1 billion were abandoned because they could not pay for equipment imports from Japan and the United States. In the first quarter of 1984, the Soviet Union's trade surplus with the West was $700 million; by 1985, that figure had turned into a deficit of $1.4 billion.
Oil prices plummeted, and the Soviet Union could only borrow from Western banks, but Casey privately released statistics on the deterioration of the Soviet economy to American bankers, persuading them to stop lending to the Soviet Union; and leaked intelligence to American companies to pressure them to believe that doing business with Moscow was a bad idea.
Another collateral damage of the drop in oil prices was that Soviet arms export earnings also plummeted, with most of the Soviet Union's second-largest export going to Middle Eastern oil-producing countries such as Iran, Iraq and Libya in exchange for dollars. But now those customers are also stretched thin because of falling oil prices, and in the first half of 1986 alone, the three countries' oil revenues fell by 46%, resulting in a 20% drop in Soviet arms sales and the loss of a full $2 billion.
You think Casey did that much? Not enough, far from enough. In addition to its own oil, the Soviet Union had an important income abroad. Northern Afghanistan has huge oil and gas resources, and the Sibalgan region in northern Afghanistan has a huge natural gas field of 500 billion cubic meters, of which 80% of the output was taken by the Soviet Union for free; In addition, there were a large number of copper, iron, gold, gemstones and other high-value resources in Kunduz Province, which the Soviet Union bought at almost zero cost and re-exported for huge profits.
In order to combat Soviet piracy in Afghanistan, Kathy and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency secretly planned to provide heavy weapons to guerrillas in Afghanistan's northern provinces, including howitzers and rocket launchers; Of course, it was not Hymas, and there was no Hymas at that time, but Chinese-made 122mm and 107mm rocket launchers, these weapons are simple to operate, and they can be fired directly when placed on the ground, which is suitable for the per capita illiterate Afghan guerrillas. In order to improve the accuracy of strikes, the CIA used spy satellites to take high-definition photos of Soviet bases and mining areas, which were transmitted to the guerrillas through Pakistan. Soon the partisans destroyed the gas pipeline from Afghanistan to Soviet Central Asia with precision, with each attack causing a 10-and-a-half-month stoppage. The Soviets, of course, were very angry and wanted to retaliate, but retaliation inevitably hurt civilians, and then more partisans were produced.
Under repeated pressure on oil exports, the Soviet Union had to start selling gold in exchange for dollars, but at this time the Soviets found that the international gold price was also falling sharply. Yes, this is still Casey's handwriting. Saudi Arabia controls global oil prices and South Africa controls gold prices. As early as 1981, Casey observed that the Soviet Union sold four times as much gold as before, accurately predicting the Soviet Union's prediction. After chatting with Saudi Arabia about oil prices in the Middle East, Casey went to South Africa non-stop. South Africa also disliked the Soviet Union, and in Angola, the Soviet-backed Cuban army and pro-Soviet forces had been fighting with the South African-backed Sabivan.
Although lowering the price of gold would harm the country's economic interests, Casey warned sternly: The United States did not want the Soviet Union to gain any benefits in alleviating the cash shortage, and the Angolan anti-Soviet armed forces around you, I can also bring a band, and finally South Africa weighed it and complied.
At this point, do you think Casey's trick is over? It's not even close! Casey's next goal was to go to Europe, cut off the Siberian gas pipeline, which was vital to the Soviet Union, and persuade Europe to join in the technological stranglehold of the Soviet Union. Like the current Nord Stream 2, of course, Europe will not easily give in, and what kind of big move will Casey release? This is what we will talk about in the next issue, which has been updated at station B, and search for "Uncle Yang Insight" on station B, and you can see it soon by clicking on it.