Having sized up Biden, Putin invaded Ukraine. Taiwan must pray Xi doesn’t make a similar assessment
Fox News
Putin used spycraft techniques to size up President Biden before invading Ukraine. How will China's Xi Jinping will evaluate Biden at Monday's meeting?
Rebekah Koffler is the president of Doctrine & Strategy Consulting, a former DIA intelligence officer, and the author of "Putin’s Playbook: Russia’s Secret Plan to Defeat America." She also wrote the foreword for "Zelensky: The Unlikely Ukrainian Hero."
A lot can be gleaned from that February meeting and how Russia does its intel gathering. In 2001, during a press conference, the former Russian spymaster explained his approach to striking rapport when communicating with a wide range of individuals, from journalists and scientists to politicians and rank-and-file citizens: "It is important to establish a dialogue and activate the best in your partner. You want to achieve results; you must respect your partner, acknowledge that he is better than you in some way. You must make him your ally ... make him feel that there is something that unites you, that you have a common cause."
This is exactly the approach that human intelligence, or HUMINT, officers use to target, assess and recruit spies who are willing to betray their country in service for a foreign land. And this is the intelligence tradecraft that Putin used when he was sizing up Biden during their summit in Geneva in June 2021, as well as during subsequent phone calls and meetings by video conference. What Putin saw in President Biden emboldened him.