Can America's Spies Work With Russia's?
Among the reasons President Donald Trump has cited for seeking a better relationship between the United States and Russia is the number of common evils the two countries face, including terrorism. “Wouldn’t it be great,” he has mused, “if we actually got along with Russia and other countries?”
The furor in the United States over Russia’s role meddling in the country’s 2016 presidential election—and the U.S. intelligence community’s investigations into, and public leaks about, possible contacts between Trump associates and Russian intelligence—may stifle Trump’s hopes for getting along with Russia before he can even try. Indeed, the current spy wars between American and Russian intelligence have a long history, and go a long way toward explaining why meaningful U.S.-Russia cooperation was unlikely to begin with.
It’s not that
