Analysis
“Duty to warn”: why the United States warned Russia before the Moscow attack
Fifteen days before the attack on Crocus City Hall by Tajik terrorists from the Islamic State group in Khorasan, Washington had warned Moscow of an imminent attack. A sharing of information to which American intelligence is required even if the threat targets a country considered a rival, within the framework of the “Duty to warn” doctrine.
A view of Crocus City Hall after the Islamist attack which claimed the lives of 143 people on March 22, 2024. © Evgenia Novozhenina / Reuters
By: Pierre Fesnien Follow
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This is a short sentence from the spokesperson for the United States Department of Defense which may have gone unnoticed after the terrorist attack which claimed the lives of
143 people at Crocus City Hall in Moscow
, but which says a lot about American intelligence doctrine regarding the sharing of information on potential terrorist threats. “
We had a duty to warn them of the information that we had and that they clearly did not have
,” declared John Kirby on March 25 to the press.
Because American intelligence knew that a threat weighed on Moscow and they made it known almost two weeks before the attack, on March 7, by very clearly warning Russia that “
extremists were planning to target large gatherings in Moscow, including concerts
. If the intelligence services chose to share this information with a rival country like Russia and despite their antagonisms, it is because of a doctrine, which John Kirby cites almost unintentionally in his declaration, applied by the Americans since the end of the 1990s: “the Duty to warn”.
A doctrine formally established in 2015
The practice became widespread after the attacks committed by al-Qaeda against
the American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya on August 7, 1998.
It was from this period that American intelligence decided to share with other countries, whether friend or foe, any information indicating threats to innocent human lives. In 2015, this doctrine was formally established by an official directive from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, stating that the U.S. intelligence community had a "
responsibility to warn U.S. and non-U.S. persons of imminent threats of intentional killing, serious bodily injury or kidnapping
.” The order also details specific instances where intelligence officials can waive their duty to warn and remain silent despite imminent danger.
On
the social network X, Laura Thomas
, a former CIA officer, details how the protocol works to warn other countries of an imminent threat. She explains that for information sharing to take place, “
the threat must be credible
” and associated with details as to the “
timing, location and/or identity of the perpetrators of the attack
”. Once the warning has been transmitted and all necessary precautions taken to avoid compromising any source, the use of the “Duty to warn” protocol is then recorded in a diplomatic cable in order to keep an official record.
Curious about @CIA's "Duty to Warn" protocols?
I've delivered the "duty to warn" when I served @CIA in the past. There is a lot of wrong info out there on it. Here's how it really works:
🧵 1/16
— Laura Thomas (@laurae_thomas) March 27, 2024
“
Intelligence diplomacy
”
This is exactly what happened two weeks before the Moscow attack. And if Washington decided to warn a country considered today as an adversary, it is obviously not out of simple philanthropism. Warning one's adversaries of an imminent threat is certainly an ethical question "
aimed at preventing the death of innocent victims
", concedes Laura Thomas, but it is above all a way "
of sending a message to our adversaries about what we know about them and our values
”.
“Duty to warn” is thus a means for American intelligence to gain a form of psychological ascendancy over foreign intelligence services and to assert their superiority by showing them that they are capable of knowing more than them. about what is happening in their own country. In an international context under high tension, the sharing of information thus becomes a real international policy strategy that the head of the CIA, William Burns, does not hesitate to qualify as “
intelligence diplomacy
” in an article
in the magazine
Foreign Affairs
from January 2024.
Warning does not guarantee being listened to
Warning an adversary of imminent danger, however, does not guarantee that they will take the threat seriously. The attack on Crocus City Hall in Moscow is the perfect example. Vladimir Putin brushed aside the information provided by Washington, calling it “
pure and simple blackmail
” with the aim of “
intimidating and destabilizing our society
”.
Examples of this type are not rare, because agreeing to take information transmitted by an enemy country seriously can be seen as an admission of weakness. American intelligence also warned Iranian authorities last January of a terrorist threat in Kerman where a double suicide bomb attack, claimed by the Islamic State group in Khorasan, left
94 dead during the ceremony honoring the general. Qassem Soleimani
, killed by a US strike in 2020.
On the
social
network
a terrorist threat that targeted President Hugo Chavez as part of a “Duty to Warn” protocol in 2004.
In Venezuela in 2004 we followed the “duty to warn” when the US received info about a terrorist threat against President Chavez. Fair to say that the Venezuelan government was suspicious and incredulous when we informed them. https://t.co/1DzN1zdaOM
— Stephen McFarland (@AmbMcFarland) March 25, 2024
But the United States itself has sometimes failed to take seriously information transmitted to it. In 2011, Russian intelligence services warned Washington of the presence on its soil of an Islamist extremist of Kyrgyz origin. After investigations, the American services concluded that Tamerlan Tsarnaev did not constitute a threat. However, two years later, with the complicity of his brother Djokhar, he was the author of the
Boston Marathon bombing
which cost the lives of three people and injured hundreds of others.
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