Russian spies: Boris and Natasha in suburbia

This wasn’t espionage, it was “slapstick,” said The Economist in an editorial. The FBI is charging that 11 Russian spies burrowed into the “sleepy suburbs” of New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C., since the 1990s, seeking to infiltrate political circles and sniff out intelligence. The spies’ covers as ordinary suburbanites with Facebook pages and jobs ranging from accountant to real estate agent were almost too good (“They couldn’t be spies,” said a neighbor of the “Murphy” family in Montclair, N.J. “Look at what she did with the hydrangeas.”). But their spying was lousy. Not one gained any access to government secrets. Clearly, they had other goals, said Fred Kaplan in Slate.com. While enjoying the American dream, they went through the motions of espionage—“flashing encrypted e-mails, exchanging satchels and passwords, and passing on random tidbits disguised as inside dope.” But all these “spies” accomplished was to convince Russia to keep sending paychecks and mortgage payments, so they could continue their comfortable suburban lives.

Don’t be fooled, said David Satter in National Review Online. Russia’s dispatch of “sleeper agents capable of blending into American life is not a trivial matter.” Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the SVR, isn’t as “devilishly clever as the old KGB.” But it’s still dangerous. One female Russian agent was cultivating a relationship with a prominent Democratic fundraiser and friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s. Who knows how far into powerful circles she may have gotten? Spy services make “very expensive, long-term investments” hoping to hit the intelligence jackpot, said Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes in TheWeeklyStandard.com. This one didn’t pay off, because the FBI somehow got wise to the whole thing. “In Moscow, there are no doubt a lot of people trying to figure out what went wrong.”

That’s easy, said Anatol Lieven in the Financial Times. Russia forgot that “the Cold War is over.” Rather than play spy games, Russian leaders should remind themselves that once their “energy exports finally dry up,” their economy will be in dire trouble; Russia will need the West’s investments, skills, and help in overcoming its “culture of corruption and waste.” We, in turn, need Russia’s cooperation in dealing with Iran, Afghanistan, and the Baltic states. Maybe that’s why both Washington and Moscow are making no diplomatic fuss over the spy ring’s demise. Letting these inept Borises and Natashas cause a major rift would be “both tragic and idiotic.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up