 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to ESPN the magazine. Oh wait a second. This is CSIS, the Center for Strategic and International Studies. My name is Andy Kutchins. I'm the Director of the Russia Eurasia Program and welcome to our version of Friday Morning Live. We're going to be discussing the Sochi Olympics, domestic, regional and security challenges and I apologize for the late start. I am completely responsible for the late start and let me just say for the record it is not cool to be late to your own event, okay. I don't condone this kind of behavior and I think later on in the day I will be tarred and feathered right outside of the building on 1616 Rhode Island Avenue here in the center of Washington DC. All right. Brief introduction. This is the first time that the Center for Strategic and International Studies has actually published a report about an Olympic Games. This is done by our former visiting scholar, Sege Markodonov, a brilliant analyst of Asians, Caucasian affairs and security issues, Islam, extremism, etc., etc. and it's got a really cool cover I think. Terrific report for my money, the best thing you can read about some of the challenges and issues around these games. So that's one unique aspect about these games. Never before has a Winter Olympic Games been held in a subtropical climate. The fact that the subtropical climate happens to be in the country that actually occupies the most territory in the Arctic region is rather anomalous as well. Never before has an Olympic Games been held in a region in such close proximity to a conflict zone. And a little bit more about this conflict zone. Never before has an Olympic Games been held in such close proximity to a conflict zone in which was in fact the site of effectively two civil wars in the country that is holding the Games, one of which effectively Russia lost in the mid-1990s to Chechnya and one of which was won. The zone, the Northern Caucasus that I'm referring to, where my esteemed colleagues will talk at greater length about the challenges there. When Mr. Putin went down to Guatemala City in 2007, it was a period of relative, relative quiescence I would say in the area. The Chechnya had been somewhat stabilized and the frequency of violence in the other republics in the North Caucasus had not begun to escalate perhaps to the degree that it did shortly thereafter. Nevertheless, it was a very, very risky decision, I think, for the International Olympic Committee to do so. Never before, more on the conflict zone, never before has an Olympic Games been held in even closer proximity to a country which the host country fought a war with after the Olympic Committee awarded Russia the Games. I'm referring of course to the Russia-Georgian War. Sochi, depending on where you are in Sochi, is 10, 15 kilometers away from Abhazia, the region of Georgia which the Russian Federation acknowledged as independent after the August 2008 war. Another pretty unique aspect about these Games. Never before in my lifetime, my lifetime, I was born on February 13, 1959, just be clear about this, never before in my lifetime has an Olympic Games been so politically controversial and so identified with the leader of the host country, that of course being Vladimir Putin. So no, we're not going to talk today about the, well, let me just say one more thing, because we are in Washington D.C., and I don't think ever before has a sports icon from Washington D.C. been so closely associated with the foreign host, the leader of the country, Vladimir Putin, of these Games. Obviously, I'm talking about O.V., Alexander Vechkin, who will be captaining the Russian hockey team, and is a FOP friend of Putin, very close friend, I believe. So an interesting aspect from the Washington D.C. angle. So I've already said too much, because we have a really terrific set of panelists in which I will give brief introductions for all of them in the order in which they speak. The first speaker will be Jeffrey Mankoff to my left, who is deputy director and fellow here at CSIS at the Russia and Eurasia Program. Speaking after Jeff will be Gordon Hahn, analyst and advisory board member of the Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation, and Gordon has been a visiting fellow here at CSIS, and I would point to in particular a report that he wrote about getting the caucuses emirate right, he is one of the world's leading authorities on the extremist groups, terrorist groups, individuals who are in fact threatening these games. Gordon has a new book coming out very shortly. Gordon, the title of the book is, yes, the caucuses emirate Mujahideen, global jihadism in Russia's North Caucuses and beyond. It would have been good for your publishers to think a little bit more about marketing and have this book out before the games, but so be it. He'll be speaking next and focusing on that topic. Jeff is going to kind of focus more, I think, on really the Russia angle and what these games mean for Russia, what they mean for Putin, and that angle. And I'm very, very pleased and happy to welcome from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Tom DeWall, who's a senior associate there in one of the world's leading authorities on the caucuses more broadly. And Tom also has a reasonably new book out that, okay, sorry C-span. Tom, why in your bio isn't the name of your newest book a little easier to find? Give us the title. Well, actually I just did a new version of my old book first, yeah, I think that must be what you're thinking of. A new version of your old book. You got to work on the marketing a little bit about that. I don't, you know... No, no, of course it's a, you'll have to read it. It's my book about the Karabakh conflict came out in an updated version last year. Okay. Still, I didn't hear the title there, but... A blackout. Okay. Sorry. All right. So, and then finally, batting clean-up for very, very good reasons is our colleague here at CSIS in the transnational threat program, senior advisor Juan Zarago. Okay. Thank you. And Juan is going to be talking, I think, more about kind of the broader terrorist threat, and it's been particular, you know, what, how the U.S. is looking at this, and he'll be speaking from his direct experience in serving in the Bush administration with responsibilities for monitoring and dealing with these kinds of threats. So, thank you very much for being here this morning, and let me turn the floor over to Jeff. Okay. Thank you. And thanks to all of you for coming out this morning. I'm going to talk a little bit about the decision to hold the Olympics in Sochi, the role of Putin and the significance of the games for Putin and for the Russian political elite more broadly. As Andy alluded to, the decision to hold the Olympics in a city like Sochi was a fairly extraordinary one. This is one of the few cities in Russia that doesn't actually have a serious continental climate. It's incredible that they're actually worried there may not be snow at the ski resorts and are stockpiling it. So, given all that, given the proximity to the conflict zones, given the weather challenges, why on earth would you hold the Olympics in Sochi? And here I think it comes back in a lot of ways to the personality of Vladimir Putin and to the Russian political elite more broadly. Sochi has been a kind of summer capital for the Russian elite going back at least to the Soviet period. This was a resort town where a lot of the elite had daches, where they would take their families in the summer to go to the beaches, where Putin and a number of his close associates also own property. And as far as the proximity to the Caucasus, I think there's an important note here as well. You have to remember that the instability that we see just down the road from Sochi today was very different from how that region looked in 2007 when the games were awarded. At that point, the Second War in Chechnya had largely ground to a close, and the wider insurgency across the North Caucasus hadn't really taken off yet. So it was a moment when it looked like this area was being stabilized when the worst of the excesses of the previous decade had finally come to an end. And so for that reason, I think there was an important element of trying to use the Olympics as a way of showing that stability had returned to this region, and more broadly using it as an avenue for economic development that would then lay a foundation for a more durable version of stability to break out across the wider region. Now, of course, Russia and the Caucasus in 2007 I think looked a lot better than they do today. In a lot of ways, the Sochi games look kind of like a Soviet era, not only prestige project, but also something on this idea of megalomania that we often associate with Soviet infrastructure projects like the railroads or the dams or the reversal of rivers that was being contemplated at one point for Siberia. This was a very top-down operation. It was an opportunity to channel vast sums of money into construction of new venues. It was an opportunity for large amounts of that money then to be siphoned off. At the same time, though, because so much emphasis is being placed on this, because so much of the prestige of Putin and the broader elite is tied up in it, there's been a lot of attention to what's actually going on inside Sochi. And actually, the picture has been not a particularly pretty one. If you look at the results of what's happened so far, I think the idea that Putin wanted to convey when he went to Guatemala City in 2007, that Russia was back, that stability has returned to the North Caucasus, those boasts, I suppose, are increasingly being called into question. I'll leave my colleagues to talk about the security challenges, but I want to focus for a moment on the corruption and on the broader political context, which I think is also undermining the message that Putin is trying to get across about what these games mean for Russia. Now, when Putin went to Guatemala City, he said that Russia would spend $12 billion on preparing for these Olympics. Already, that would make them the most expensive winner games in history. The actual figure, it looks like, is going to be above $50 billion. Somewhere around $51 billion was the figure that was disclosed by the anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny, which has been batted around in the media. Now, in part, that is unsurprising, because of the lack of infrastructure, the need to actually build up new venues to build transportation corridors to actually put the things in place that you're going to need for the Olympics. But at the same time, Navalny estimated that at least a third of that money was just outright stolen. And again, in that sense, it's a very Russian story. One of the more Pekant instances coming out of all of this is the story of the construction of the road between Sochi and Adler. It's a very short road, I don't remember the exact length, I think it's like 30 kilometers. The cost of building it was estimated to be $8.7 billion. As one journalist pointed out, for that, you could pave the entire road in caviar. Now, most of the funding for this and all of the other projects that are connected with the Olympics are coming from public coffers in one way or another. The government keeps emphasizing that no, actually a lot of this is private. Some of the oligarchs are being asked out of their own pockets to pay for different kinds of Olympic venues, different kinds of construction projects. And that's true. But at the same time, this investment is being underwritten by loan guarantees from public banks, such as Vneshe Kananbank, which means that ultimately at the end of the day, it's going to be the tax payers who are on the hook. Very few, if any of these projects actually look like they're going to make money. At the same time, Olympic construction has been a huge boon for organized crime, resulting in kickbacks, bribes, shakedowns, the whole litany of activities that one would expect from the Russian underworld. Now, given all of this, given the heightened attention to the security challenges, and the fact that Russia faces a whole host of broader difficulties that have been spreading over the last couple of years, I think it's unsurprising that there doesn't seem to be a lot of enthusiasm inside Russia or out for holding these Olympics. We had a speaker come here about a week ago who's a leading Russian opposition politician, and we were discussing this, and he said he remembered the contrast, or he was pointing out the contrast between the attitudes in Russia today and the attitudes in Moscow in 1980 when the summer games were being held in the Soviet Union for the first time. He said, in 1980, there was a palpable sense that everybody was in this together, that there was a sense of pride that the Soviet Union was going to be hosting the Olympics, and a sense of almost defiance that the outside world was choosing to boycott it over the invasion of Afghanistan. And he said, today there's much more apathy, there's much less interest. People just don't care. They're aware of the corruption, they're aware that none of this is actually going to benefit them once the Olympics are over, and they question all of the expenditures that are being put into it, and of course they're worried about security. It seems, according to the most recent estimates I've seen, that only about 70 percent of the tickets have been sold for most of the Olympic events, which given that we're a week out from the opening ceremonies is a pretty extraordinary vote of no confidence. At the same time, holding the Olympics in Russia and holding the Olympics in Sochi has really put Russia and Putin in the global media spotlight at a time when the country, I think, is facing a number of challenges, and that global spotlight has really emphasized where Russia seems to be going off track, a lot of the problems that are accumulating in that country. There's obviously a lot of global media attention now on Russia's gay rights challenges, and I don't think it's surprising that the U.S. delegation is going to be headed by Billie Jean King. If you haven't seen them, look at the uniforms for the German team that's going to be participating in the Olympics, their rainbow flags. It's become an opportunity for the outside world, which is increasingly frustrated with Putin's Russia, to make a point about all of the things that they're struggling with. Now, I think the government recognized some of the problems, and in the run-up to the Olympics tried to take some limited steps to address what they expected would be the most salient sources of complaint. So Russia's most prominent political prisoner, Mikhail Khorkovsky, was released shortly before the Olympics. The punk band Pussy Riot was released, and in part, this seems to be an effort on the part of the authorities to put things in a good light before the global media, to change the narrative ahead of these Olympics. But I don't think that they've succeeded. I think if you look at the list of who's not going to the opening ceremonies among international leaders, that probably, I think that does actually say a lot about how the rest of the world views these games and views current political developments in Russia. President Obama's not going, Vice President Biden's not going, Angela Merkel's not going, Francois Hollande is not going. Shinzo Abe and Xi Jinping are, and that is an interesting commentary in and of itself, I suppose. So as far as shaping the narrative for an international audience, I think it's hard to say that so far, at least, the Olympics have been a success. And if there's a problem with one of the venues that fails, if there's a terrorist attack, then I think that narrative is only going to get more negative. But at the end of the day, I think it's important to remember who the main audience is. Yes, it's important, I think, for Putin to emphasize to the international community that Russia is back, that Russia can hold an event on the scale of these games. But the most important audience is domestic. How this plays in Russia, I think, is, in a lot of ways, more important. And so far, you know, I think we haven't seen an upsurge of enthusiasm. Now, if the Russian team does really well, if they win a lot of gold medals, if the Olympics go off without a hitch, then maybe once the games are over, after the closing ceremonies have happened, we'll revise how we evaluate them. But I think right now, it's a very questionable proposition to think that these Olympics are actually going to function in the way that Putin and the Russian elite intended them to function when Putin went to Guatemala City in 2007 and was actually given the right to host the Olympics this year. Thank you very much, Jeff, very comprehensive and trenchant. I might also note that Lindsey Vaughn is not going, although I don't believe that's a political statement. You know, the budget for these games, it kind of reminds me of the question of trying to estimate what the Soviet military budget was. Nobody knows. I don't think anybody knows what it is. And I don't think we're ever going to find out. Thanks. Let me turn to Gordon. Okay, picking up briefly where Jeff left off, I think this is potentially a very important turning point in post-Soviet Russian history, depending on the outcome of the games. We're very likely to see if we see some kind of catastrophic terrorist attack, a complete reversal of what has been left of what I considered to be a liberalization or a thought under President Medvedev and an even more sharp turn to more hardline policies under Putin. So it's a very important moment. A turn to a more hardline would be based on the post-Peslan model when we saw the major attack in Peslan and a hard turn clamping down and rolling back of democracy in Russia. Okay, to the threat. About six, seven months ago, I wrote a paper for the Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation on the Sochi threat, and I outlined six different features that I thought were important. First, and I'm here, I'm talking about potential perpetrators within the Caucasus-Ezembourg-Mujahideen potential tactics and targets. First is suicide bombings run by the Dagestani network of the Caucasus-Ezembourg-Mujahideen, the so-called Dagestan-Vilead, which could be either Dagestani locals or ethnic Russian converts to Islam, which the Dagestan-Vilead has specialized in recruiting and deploying for suicide bombings. Attacks perpetrated by a foreign group, independently or in league with the Caucasus-Ezembourg-Mujahideen, a possible chemical attack involving groups from the Caucasus-Ezembourg who have returned from Syria and may have acquired chemical weapons. There are also two attempts inside Russia this year that appeared to be focused on perhaps targeting chemical weapons. Suicide bombings run by Caucasus-Ezembourg Amir Doku Abu Usman Umarov and the Riyad-e-Salaqeen Martyrs Brigade, which he revived, Umarov revived in 2009. And there have been, since the formation of the Caucasus-Ezembourg, 54 suicide bombings carried out since October 2007 in Russia, so about 9 per year. And finally, or next to last, attacks possibly involving Circassian elements, that is Kabardin, ethnic Kabardin, Adige or ethnic Circass, since given the location of the Olympics and the massacre that occurred in the late 19th century of Circassians on Krasnaya there's an interest in the Circassian Mojaheddin to participate. So there's a wing in the Caucasus-Ezembourg of Circassian Emirate who might want to take part. And then second is attacks on targets other than Sochi. That is, it wouldn't take a major attack in Moscow or the coordinated attacks, say in each of the Viliats under the Emirate, the Caucasus-Ezembourg's base of operations in North Caucasus, attack in St. Petersburg, some kind of major attack or event would be enough, I think, to help spoil the Olympics. So let me look at each of those briefly in turn in more detail. The Dagestan-Viliat threat, using local Dagestani suicide bombers or ethnic Russian suicide bombers. This largely comes from a group led by a guy by the name of Abu Muhammad Rustam Asadarov. It's his real name. He is the emir of the Dagestan-Viliat. And the qadi of the Sharia court of the Dagestan-Viliat man by the name of Sheikh Muhammad Abu Usman Al-Gimravi born Magomed Suleymanov. And also the head of the central sector of the Dagestan-Viliat man by the name of Abu Tahir Qadari. And in the central sector, there are two key sub-sectors. One is the Mahachkala sector and the Buinax Jamat. Now the Buinax Jamat turns out to have been the place where the, at least according to the National Anti-Terrorist Committee report yesterday, that the two suicide bombers who attacked Volgograd on December 29th and December 30th were from the Buinax Jamat. Oskar Samyadov and Suleyman Magomedov. The Buinax Jamat apparently has several Jamats under it. And one of those Jamats is an ethnic Russian Jamat. Previously there were reports about a group called the Muvahadun Al-Russe. And that group may have been involved in some of these attacks that I'm gonna mention. The Dagestan-Viliat has used ethnic Russian converts in suicide bombings on 14 February 2011 in Gubed Dagestan. A colleague of theirs, Viktor Dorkovsky, was apprehended by Russian forces, but not before he detonated a grenade and blew off his hand. He was also a suicide, a would-be suicide bomber. The August 12th assassination of the most popular Sufi Sheikh in Dagestan was carried out by a female ethnic Russian convert. Her handler was ethnic Russian Mujahed, Mujahed by the name of Dmitry Sokolov. He was also the person who organized the October suicide bombing in Volgograd in October. He was killed about a week after that attack. The emir of that group then became a guy by the name of Alexey Pashinsev. And when the December 29th attack occurred in Volgograd, there were reports that a Pavel Pichonkin had been the perpetrator of the suicide bombing. He's also an ethnic Russian convert who was part of the Russian Jamat under the Buenaksh Jamat. And there are several others. On January 19th, there was a videotape on the Dagestan-Villayad website of two Mujahedin claiming to be from the Ansar al-Sunna group. They identified themselves as Suleyman and Abdu-Rakman. So one of those names, Suleyman corresponds with the National Anti-Terrorist Commissions Committee's claim of a Suleyman Magomedov. Having taken the Pichonkin was not involved which means that the ethnic Russians, the ethnic Russian Mujahedin are still out there and may still be heard from. In fact, the Dagestan-Villayad has been publishing all sorts of recent material, encouraging Russians to rise up and talking about the ethnic Russian Mujahedin. One of the key factors of the Ansar al-Sunna announced that there were two announcements that one has gotten a lot of press play and that is the videotape by the two Mujahedin I just mentioned. The day before there was a text announcement by the Amir of this group and he threatened a chemical weapons attack and said that a order was on the table of Amir Omarov ready to be signed and Russian troops hadn't withdrawn by the time of the Olympics, there would be a tax up to and including chemical attacks as a direct quote. The other potential here is the potential of a foreign group joining in league with the Caucasus Emirate. And here, and there's a tie in here with the possibility of a chemical weapons attack and that is that there are hundreds of Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin and there are hundreds of would-be replacements to cover the attrition that occurs amongst the Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin fighting in Syria. Some of those people could have got their hands on Saryn or other, Saryn or other chemical weapons and there have been reports of people trying to come into Turkey with Saryn elements and there was a report published by Seymar Hirsch, a journalist who claimed that CIA had been reporting in spring to the Obama administration that the rebels had chemical weapons. And so there is a possibility that the rebels in fact do have weapons. Now there are two groups of North Caucasus Mujahedin fighting in Syria. One is the Jund al-Halafat, which is fighting under Jabhat al-Nusrah and the other is the Jaish Mujahedin of Ansar. And the emir of that group or former emir of that group is now the military emir of the northern front of the ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. And in fact, he is now attending Shura's. So he's a high-ranking figure. So the possibility that al-Qaeda or ISIS and al-Qaeda and the Caucasus Emirate would team up to somehow get chemical weapons into North Caucasus for an attack on Sochi cannot be excluded. In terms of the Circassian threat, how much time I got? I mean, we got a couple minutes. The network of the Caucasus Emirate sub-network called the United Viliade of Qabadia, Balkaria and Karachi, what I call the OVKBK, covers Qabaria and Balkaria and Karachi or Circassia, those are partially Circassian populated groups. And they have a direct interest in taking part. Now this network is much weaker than the Dagestani network as is the Chechen network and as is the Gushetti network. But it's the second most powerful network and it's possible that they would assign several Mujahedin to take part, but I doubt that they would be able to lead a major operation with the caveat that in February 2011 they carried out what looked like a practice run for an attack on Sochi, they carried out a attack on the Mount Elbrus ski resort district, a multi-pronged attack involving destroying a ski lift, a truck bomb in front of a hotel, killing four tourists from Moscow and several other small-scale attacks on police, virtually simultaneously within a period of 48 hours, mostly within a 24-hour period. An alarm raised there in a connection with the foreign element is that on January 13, the Russian National Enterterrition Committee claimed that they had arrested five terrorists who were part of, quote, an international terrorist organization, unquote, in Kabardino-Balkaria, Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria. So there is a possibility of a Circassian operation, but I wouldn't expect an operation to be led. One detail on the foreign element and the possibility of a chemical attack is that a fatwa was issued about a week before the video of the two Mujahideen from Ansar al-Sunnah, and that fatwa was requested by the OVKBK, Mujahideen from the website, the Sharia committee, of one of the leading jihadi philosophers in the world, that is Abu Muhammad Asim Al-Makhtasi. He's in prison, but his website and his Sharia committee apparently is working and they issued a fatwa in which they justified the Volgograd suicide bombings, called for more, especially against Sochi, and then asked a group inside Russia to make contact with the Caucasus Emirates and make sure that they coordinate with the Caucasus Emirates in carrying out any attacks. This could have been the Ansar al-Sunnah group, and the fact that they put videos on the Dagestan-Viliyat site was a signal that they had contacted the Caucasus Emirates. And then finally, in terms of operations, other than attacking Sochi, I won't talk about the Riyadh, I don't have time to talk about the Riyadh of Salakim, Waters Brigade, maybe we can do that in questions, the Umaral appears to be, he could be running one of those four female suicide bombers, three of them who were from Dagestan, one who appears to be from Ingushetia, and he may be, he's very close to the Ingushetian Mujahideen and often is in Ingushetia, and he may be running that female suicide bomber. In terms of tactics, it's very likely that they would pick a target outside of Sochi. They would attack Moscow, they would attack a major attack in Mahachkala, in Nalchik, they could try to assassinate one of the leaders of the North Caucasus. I expect that there'll be multiple teams, the Riyadh of Salakim and Umaral, the Dagestan-Mujahideen, the ethnic Russian Mujahideen tied to the Dagestan-Viliyat, and perhaps the Circassian group being deployed simultaneously, and of all of them that get through so much the better as far as Umaral was concerned, if one or two of them get through or just one, well, that's just the way the cookie crumbles. But I'm not optimistic about avoiding, at a minimum I think we'll see a major uptick in Jihadi activity during the games, and there's been a relative silence throughout January, which leads me to believe they're holding back resources. Whether we'll see a catastrophic attack, unclear. Finally, the Caucasians are very good at using various tactics, they're very determined, they're very resourceful, they're very innovative, so we have to be ready for really almost anything. Well, that all goes. Thanks, Gordon, that's a very sobering presentation, but it is a reality. I mean, one of the other unique aspects of these games I don't think we've mentioned that Mdoku Umarov, I mean the leader of the Caucasus Emirate, whether he is dead or alive, he did directly threaten the games back in July, effectively calling for those that are in his network or those and or those that support the ideology and goals that he is supporting to effectively kind of take off the handcuffs, civilians are fair game, everybody is fair game. And my own personal view about Umarov, I'm not sure whether at this point it matters very much whether he's actually dead or alive for the Sochi games themselves, because unlike, let's say, Shamil Basayev, probably the most infamous and effective terrorist from the North Caucasus over the course of the last two decades who was killed in 2006, finally, Basayev was very hands on and actually carrying out operations. Umarov, not so much. Now, certainly for the future of the Caucasus Emirate and or the movements after the Sochi games, whether he's dead or alive is going to matter. At any rate, thanks very much, Gordon. That was terrific. Tom, the floor is yours. Thank you, Andy. Thank you for the invitation. It's great to be here. My only regret is that Sergei can't be with us and is in Moscow because he's written a great report. I also wanna pick you up on the two cheerful presentations of my colleagues. Sort of take us back to July, 2007. And a reminder that that was a point in which I think when the games were awarded to Sochi this was a moment in which Vladimir Putin looked on these games with great ambition. That this would be a turning point for the North Caucasus. This would be, I think he probably envisioned that this would be the moment when the world came back to the North Caucasus, discovered that the Caucasus wasn't as bad as the media portrayed it to be. That this would be a kind of Putin managed event of multiculturalism, Putin style. And that it would be a kind of global event in which his vision of Russia and the Caucasus was vindicated. Unfortunately, as we know, that's not as it turned out to be. War broke out a year later in Georgia. I think few would have predicted in July, 2007 when the games were given to Sochi that a year later Russia would be recognizing the independence of Abkhazia. So this wave of enthusiasm has obviously kind of fallen and risen again a bit. I think there was, again, last year there was a bit more enthusiasm with the election of a new government in Georgia. The departure from the scene of Mikhail Sakashvili that this could be also an opportunity. I remember the Georgian foreign minister, Major Panjikidze, saying to me just about a month after or so after they came into office. Maybe I'm being a bit idealistic, but I'd really like to get in my car from Tbilisi and drive through Abkhazia and attend the Sochi games. Wouldn't that be great? Well, that's also proved to be an illusion. The Georgian Olympic team will be going to Sochi, but there's going to be no politicians going. They decided not to boycott, which I think is probably the right decision. I think I saw an opinion poll saying that 66% of Georgians approve of the decision to go to the games, only 17% oppose it. But it's clearly not going to be a kind of event of great kind of coming together and reconciliation. I think the Abkhaz also had ambitions for this game, that this would be a way that they could leverage these games to be put on the map. We had, you know, that suddenly there would be, if not an Abkhaz delegation, that somehow they would be kind of inserted somehow into the games. And again, that hasn't happened. I think Putin's ambitions have really been scaled way down to the point where really the ambition is really to get through this game. These games unscathed and for people to be talking about skiing and skating rather than terrorism, which is, frankly, I think what we all want to see, but put clearly the fact that we're here today still talking about terrorism and security threats a week before the game shows where the reality is. So, and in that regard, I think Putin has shed some ways more ambitious goals for the Caucasus and just concentrated on Caucasus lockdown. So, the Georgians are welcome to come, but there's no, this is not a time for rapprochement with the Georgians other than the things that are already going on in Georgian-Russian relations to do with trade and maybe visa liberalization. The Abkhaz have really been left out of the picture. There's this huge security zone around Sochi and Abkhaz vehicles are no longer able to cross the border. The rest of the North Caucasus vehicles aren't allowed to come into Sochi. And there's now this 11-kilometer security zone south of the Pso River, which divides Abkhazia from Krasnodarsky Krai, which is basically an extra security zone inside Abkhazia. Now, this has been portrayed, was portrayed in the media rather inaccurately as a moving of the border, the Georgian foreign ministry complained, which naturally they would, but this is not any territory that Georgia has controlled for 20 years in Soviet times. And so this is just, again, the Abkhaz are being restricted. I think an Abkhaz friend who I corresponded about this said that we can make it across the border as pedestrians, but we can't drive across. So this is really going to be the lockdown games. And I think, again, the objective clearly is that there is going to be no terrorist incidents within the greater Sochi area and that no spectators or athletes suffer, and maybe they will pull that off. As I've been saying, that possibly increases the risk of being in a different part of Russia during the games. As for the Circassian issue, again, I think we have to be, I think this has been a bit overblown. I think, again, the previous Georgian government tried to kind of instrumentalize the Circassians and passed a resolution in the Georgian parliament as Sergei has written about recognizing a Circassian genocide. But I think that was treated with some skepticism by a lot of Circassians who didn't like the fact that they were being used as part of a Georgian-Russian agenda. Circassians are many different ethnic groups, Kabadins, Adygs, and the ones who really were from the Sochi area, they were the kind of indigenous people there way before the Russians arrived, people like the Shapsugs and the Ubykhs, people who are really no longer there on the ground, maybe a few thousand Shapsugs, I think Sergei had the figure of about three or four thousand. But most of those, if they're anywhere, their descendants are living in Turkey or in Jordan. And I think all they really wanted was just to be acknowledged that they existed, that they are the indigenous people from this area, and that by coincidence, or rather black coincidence, the 150th anniversary of their kind of massacre, defeat and deportation in 1864 happened on this precise spot in Krasnaya Palyana where the gates' gains were being held. So I think a little more sensitivity from the Russian government would have gone a long way. Unfortunately, again, the Russian government and Mr. Putin are not famed for this kind of sensitivity towards ethnic minorities. Sergei reminds us in 2010 they sent the Kuban-Kosak choir to Vancouver Olympics which was again sending out the ROG signal given that the Kosaks associated with the destruction of the native peoples rather than cooperating with them. But I wouldn't anticipate any kind of effort by Circassians to disrupt the game. And if there is a Kabardinian Jamaat and will-yat, these are Islamists. These are not Circassian nationalists who have a nationalist agenda. Indeed, we've seen Islamists targeting people with a national agenda in places like Kabardina, Bulgaria in the North Caucasus. We've seen a couple of assassinations of academics who've been trying to kind of portray a non-Islamist identity for the Circassians. And just to finally a few extra words about the North Caucasus. Well, actually let me just also mention another reason that Abkhazia I think has become problematic which is no one has mentioned. So I should, which is that September the 9th, the Russian Vice Consul in Abkhazia was assassinated. The main suspect is a Chechen who was I think wounded in Georgia. That's a whole different subplot. But again, that's a reason for the Russians to regard Abkhazia as a problem and as a threat to these games rather than as an opportunity. Just a couple of words about North Caucasus. I think Gordon and I would probably agree that we have differences of perspective on the North Caucasus. I'm sure he obviously knows the detail of it extremely well. But I'm a bit with Andy on the Umarov issue that I think Umarov was a kind of left over Chechen warlord who didn't happen to be killed when basically the Chechen insurgency was finally defeated in the early 2000s. He successively rebranded himself as a kind of Islamist leader. But it's not clear to me when and they have a very good website and very good branding and in a sense it's also in the Russian interest to kind of pay attention to the Caucasus emirate. But to me looking at it from a distance who doesn't study it day by day it looks to me more like at best an umbrella organization in which the individual operatives have a very loose if any association to Umarov. And I think if you're a Dagestani Islamist I think Umarov for you is a bit of a left over Chechen nationalist warlord who you don't feel much affinity to. But we don't have a map here but we should also remember that the North Caucasus is very long that the Dagestan which is obviously the most volatile and dangerous part of it is quite a long way from Sochi and that what happens in Dagestan really has no relationship to what happens in Sochi itself. What is happening in Dagestan I think is looks to be very unfortunate it looks to be Putin again having a very tactical short-term response to the games lots of reports of rounding up of kind of marginal young men the kind of young men who could be sitting at home doing nothing or if they're rounded up and harassed and abused by the police could be going over to the militants and they're kind of in that grey zone and I think the new head of Dagestan Ramzan Abdullah Tipov was trying to kind of draw those people back into the fold but because of the tactical response to the Sochi games a lot of those people are now being rounded up and that's making the problem worse. So just to sum up this is not going to be unfortunately a moment of great Caucasus reconciliation between Georgians and Alps and Russians and Cherkess it's going to be at best a games where there's going to be heavy security presence where there's going to be all these races are going to be done under with many Kalashnikovs being trained by Russian security personnel and I think the best we can hope for is that we get through it without any major incident. Thank you. Thank you Tom for very thoughtful and comprehensive perspective bringing up a broader look at the Caucasus and the political and security challenges and threats regarding anniversaries. And I would just add that the closing ceremonies which will be held on February 23rd will be the 70th anniversary of Stalin's deportation of the Chechens in English. So it's another not particularly happy anniversary to take place during the games and the fact that it takes place on the final day of the games. Well I don't know who was planning the timing of that but let me turn now to my great colleague and friend Juan Zarate in many of the things that I was negligent about in my introduction this morning that Juan is also the author of a recently published book entitled Treasuries War The Unleashing of a New Era of Financial Warfare. Juan, the floor is yours. Thank you Andy. It's really an honor to be a part of this panel. The advantage of being last is I can ride the intellectual wake of the big brains to my right and also commend to you the report and congratulate Sergei and CSIS for what is both a digestible compendium of very key analysis but also a great source of just data points. If you look through the document there's great research and great revelations of some interesting points. What I thought I'd do is as opposed to rehash what the real experts have to say on this is to give you a sense of how the U.S. may be perceiving this and is perceiving the threats from the games. I had the advantage of being in the government during several Olympics and having the role at the White House, at least for the Turin games and then the Beijing Olympics to coordinate U.S. security and potential response to threats. And I think it's fair to say not from an alarmist standpoint but simply from an objective standpoint given certainly everything we've heard and everything we know that these are the most dangerous Olympic games since 9-11. Given both the threat environment and given all of the opportunities that the various groups that Gordon laid out have in terms of this game. Let me lay out how the U.S. might view this and why I suggest it's sort of the most dangerous context for the Olympic games since 9-11. In the first instance the U.S. views the terrorist threat as serious and that's defined by the intent of the groups that could threaten the games, the capability of those groups and the opportunity. Let me go through that just simply and quickly because that's often how the intelligence community and the policy community within the U.S. government thinks about and categorizes threats and certainly in this context makes very clear why it is that the U.S. is concerned with the threats. First you have the declared intent of groups to disrupt the Olympics. It's obvious it's clear it's come from the senior-most leadership of the various groups, the Caucasus Emirates in particular, Umarov. Significantly and I think important in the July 2013 statement is not just the call for attacks on the games and massive disruption but also the lifting of the moratorium on attacks on civilian targets which is in essence a call to arms and an opening of the target sets around the Sochi Olympics and not just the venues but also the transportation hubs and other venues that are potentially vulnerable and the site of soft targets. In terms of capabilities we've obviously seen over the last decade plus the ability of a variety of groups to hit not just in the Caucasus but in the Russian heartland with not just efficiency but great devastation. We saw this in Volgograd, the three attacks since the fall. And in particular with past attacks and importantly in the description that Gordon gave and that's certainly in the report is that you have these groups that not only are motivated and have the intent but have practiced the capabilities and have mastered a variety of vectors to attack. That is to say these are groups that don't just specialize in one type of attack. These are groups that can plan a variety of ways to attack both secured sites and unsecured sites. You've seen this with singular suicide bombers. You've seen it with coordinated attacks. You've seen it with truck bombs and bus bombs. You've seen it with the use of multiple militants in targeted assaults. And you've seen their willingness and ability over the course of the last decade to attack all sorts of venues that are vulnerable. Transportation hubs, of course, you've seen the metro attacks and the rail line attacks. You've seen attacks on airlines. You've seen attacks on school security sites, police stations, hospitals. And so these are groups that, again, not only have the intent but have the demonstrated capability to attack from a variety of vectors and are well-practiced in many ways in how to do this. Finally, the opportunity. Obviously, as Jeffrey laid out, the Olympics is a center stage, obviously, for world attention. You have the media there. You've got all of the world watching. And hopefully, as Thomas said, watching for the right reasons, watching success on the slopes and on the ice. But certainly the terrorists understand not just the significance of the games, but the significance of the games to Russia and to Putin. And the personalization of the games itself in some ways presents a sort of a red flag for the bull, an attractiveness for these groups to demonstrate their ability to actually attack and embarrass Putin and the Russians in a very important way. And again, I take you back to the July 2013 statement from Doku Umarov, where he not only called for attacks on the Sochi games, not only lifted the moratorium on attacking civilian targets, but also called for a new phase in the war for liberation of the Caucasus and the establishment of a Islamic Emirate. And what's interesting there, and perhaps most interesting to me from the point of view of an opportunity and the broader threat from a variety of terrorist groups, not just from the Caucasus, but perhaps even from Central Asia groups like IMU and IJU or returning fighters from the Syrian conflict or even foreign fighters that flow in, is the fact that this may be a moment of convergence of not just the rejuvenation of the fight and an accelerated terrorist campaign from some of these groups under the banner of the Caucasus Emirates, but also may be a rejuvenation of the Global Jihadi narrative around attacks against Russia as the new near and far enemy in the Global Jihadi narrative. And by that I mean, not only has Chechnya and Dagestan and Gushetia always formed part of the Global Jihadi narrative, as seen most recently in Ayman al-Zawahiri's statement where he makes reference to the noble and heroic persistence of the fight in Chechnya, but the Russians in their support of Assad and in the backing of what is viewed by the Global Jihadi groups as the backing of the slaughter of Sunni Muslims has really put itself back into the heart of the Global Jihadi narrative as a key potential target and force to hit. And that may not manifest itself in Sochi, but it certainly will manifest itself in the future. And I think that's an important point to note because I think in the minds likely of the groups operating out of the Caucasus, this is a moment of opportunity to embarrass the Russians, but it also may be a moment of opportunity for the Global Jihadi narrative to take advantage of Sochi and take advantage of what may be a moment of rejuvenation. And lastly, the environs itself present opportunities, and so it's not just the potential to attack in Sochi to launch attacks or to provide logistical support out of Akhazia. The report, by the way, lays out recent instances of terrorists, and Caches captured in Akhazia explosive devices, weaponry, supplies. And so the environs itself provide opportunity logistically. And most importantly, the perception of the risk and threat to the games is most significant. That is to say, the terrorists need not necessarily attack successfully a venue in Sochi itself, and the Russians are certainly applying brute force and security around the venues. But if they can create a sense of instability and security by attacking in Volgograd, attacking in Moscow, attacking in the near environs, it begins to change the perception of the games. It begins to start a debate, including in the U.S. government, no doubt, as to how to secure U.S. athletes, participants, family members, sponsors, and citizens who are visiting. Two other key points of concern for the U.S. government that have, I think, accelerated over the last couple of weeks. One is a continued lack of visibility into what the Russians are seeing and doing in terms of the actual terrorist threats or threats that they're following and the disruptions that are underway. No question the Russians are following real threats. We've seen the reports of the Black Widows that may have been overblown a bit, but it demonstrates that there are real concerns about particular terrorist operatives and threats. And it's clear as well that the Russian forces have been engaged in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations, knocking down doors engaged in firefights, in particular in Dagestan, to try to be as disruptive as possible. And the death of Doku Umarov, or reported death, may be a part of it. It's still unclear whether or not that's accurate, as Andy indicated. But the lack of visibility concerns the U.S. government, because that creates a blind spot for the potential threats to U.S. interests at the site. Though I would say there's been nothing, at least publicly, that suggests that there are directed threats at the U.S. or U.S. athletes, but they are certainly part of the environment. And the concern over this is manifested in simple signals. You've seen, for example, the advisory for U.S. athletes not to wear identifying clothing outside of secured venues. That's a demonstration of concern that the U.S. government has that there may be vulnerabilities. Finally, there is a concern about contingency planning. Every country that goes through security planning around the Olympics, wants to demonstrate not only that they can put on a successful gains, but they want to demonstrate that their security services are professional, that they can do it on their own terms, and that this is in many ways a point of nationalist pride. And so often you won't get as much cooperation or visibility as you want, regardless of the ally. Even in London, it wasn't sort of complete and open visibility. Every country sort of manages security at an event like this on their own terms. But I do think there is an important set of concerns about how the U.S. government might plan for worst-case scenarios. And for example, how one thinks about potential evacuation in the event of a catastrophic attack or the worst-case scenario. Again, nothing to suggest that that's going to happen, but in security planning, you have to plan for the worst. And I would say, you know, bringing into this the U.S. political environment, interestingly in a post-Benghazi world, I think there's a question as to whether or not the U.S. government is perceiving the threat appropriately, prepositioning assets the right way, and planning for, again, worst-case scenario, which has been much of the criticism in the post-Benghazi review. And so that's a way of thinking about U.S. concerns. And let me not belabor this, but let me just reference three broader points that I think are important to note. One is a matter of scheduling. And Gordon, this may be helpful to you and your publisher, but keep in mind that we have not just the Olympic Games in February, but we have the Paralympic Games in March. And so we've got a two-month window here of major visibility and potential vulnerability in Sochi, where I would say, you know, the terrorist groups likely don't mind too much if their attack planning moves into March and they're able to effectuate a rather significant attack that still embarrasses Putin. It may not be when NBC has 24-7 coverage, but the coverage of Paralympic Games is quite widespread. You remember how successful that was in the London context, how popular it was. And so you can imagine, again, the terrorists, perhaps if they don't have an opening or opportunity, that's ripe in February, thinking that the opportunities might arise in March. And so keep in mind this is a longer window than one would imagine. Second, this is actually a moment of great opportunity of cooperation between the U.S. and Russia. It's always a moment of potential cooperation around multinational security events where information sharing cooperation can be enhanced. You've seen this from the U.S. government trying to push this with the offering of more FBI agents and security personnel from state diplomatic security on the ground. The offering of new technology from Department of Defense offer of more coordination in terms of planning on the ground. It's not clear to me if the Russians are taking full advantage of this and they aren't, but it is an important note that this is a moment of opportunity in the relationship between the U.S. and Russia because there is a coincidence of interest, which is having a safe, successful game and ensuring the terrorists don't succeed in disrupting them. Finally, just to reiterate the point, and it's an unfortunate reality, that the perception of insecurity in many ways does perhaps not just as much damage materially but psychologically to the game. So the extent that this is the game that's perceived to be locked down because of security or where any time a terrorist group says boo and the Russians run or the U.S. security officials have to respond, that unfortunately is a success for these groups. And again, keeping in mind that Sochi may not be the end of the story for these groups in many ways for the groups in the caucuses and the global jihadi networks. This may be the beginning of a new chapter. And so viewing it that way I think is a way of viewing the threat differently and explains why I said at the start this may be the most dangerous of Olympic games we've seen post-911. Thank you, Andy. Thanks, Juan. That was a terrific, terrifically insightful presentation. I'd like to make a couple of comments, one that sort of builds directly on points you made and particularly the last one. To me, this Sochi games, looking at the protagonists, the terrorist groups, Russia-based, not only Russia-based, though, as Juan intimated, and Vladimir Putin, it brings to mind to me, as I mentioned in a press conference a couple of weeks ago here, the image of, you know, in the American narrative, high noon at the OK Corral, or in the Russian narrative it is sort of the ultimate Kato Kavo. For the terrorists, I would suggest this target, and not necessarily in Sochi itself, but throughout the Russian Federation, the efforts to spoil the game somehow. This is a holy grail. This is the holy grail of juicy targets, certainly for the Russia-based terrorist groups. And just to amplify on the very insightful remarks Jeff made, for Vladimir Putin, his political career, he emerged virtually from nowhere when he was named Prime Minister in 1999. His political career is a national political figure in Russia skyrocketed on the perceived success in the beginning of the Second Chechen War after the Chechens had made the incursion into Dagestan in the fall of 1999. Putin has said on many occasions that he sees himself actually having a special role. I mean, almost there's kind of a messianic role for him to stabilize the North Caucasus and the significance of stabilizing the North Caucasus. So while all the world's attention is on this region, anything that would further tarnish that narrative of his, I think, is very significant. And I think the point that Gordon was making, that this could be a very significant inflection point for Mr. Putin himself, because he has so much riding on the success of these games. One point, and this is really since actually at CSIS, we do believe in appropriately referencing the source of insight. That's a point I want to make that Jeff made a couple of weeks ago in our press conference, that, well, okay, we know that these are the lockdown games. Vladimir Putin has guaranteed the security of these games. Of course, nobody can guarantee the security of anything in reality. But I think the real point is that any security system is only as strong as its weakest link. And in this case, the deep corruption of Russia, including security forces, police, and others, is a real problem. It's been a real problem that's facilitated successful terrorist attacks in the past and possibly successful terrorist acts in the future. Finally, I got an inquiry from Foreign Affairs early in the week. Well, is there something that hasn't really been covered about the Sochi games? It led me to think. Gosh, so with all the trees that have been felled, with all of the commentary about the Sochi games, my question was, okay, this is my title, you can't use it. What if you held an Olympics and nobody came? Jeff mentioned the attendance issue. We referenced that 70 percent of the tickets have been sold, which, of course, may or may not be true. Whatever amount of tickets have actually been sold, are those tickets really going to be used? Obviously, the interest of the international community in attending the games has been dramatically reduced. I think there are very, very serious reservations on the part of many Russian citizens themselves. Now, when I raised this in our session with, well, this mysterious opposition figure that Jeff referenced before was Vladimir Milov who spoke here on Monday, Jeff said, look, Andy, that's not going to be a problem because, you know, look, Russian authorities are very effective in busing people in to attend pro-government rallies or busing people around at elections to vote Chicago-style, i.e. many times, and the like. Nevertheless, though, I think there should be some concern about it would look rather embarrassing if, you know, international cameras are on the stands and it doesn't appear that the attendance is really a problem. And just tied to that, you know, let's not forget the possibility of, well, I know people, of course, talked about, let's say, the LGBT community making some kind of demonstration or a whole set of possible actors who would have reasons for making some kind of using the podium of the games if they could to make some kind of demonstration in some way, shape or form. But the one that struck me was I was recalling, you know, the ultimate fighting competition that was held at Olympic Stadium indoors, large venue in Moscow a few years ago, a couple of years ago, and where Putin, it was actually, you know, where the Russian guy defeated the American, so that was good. And so Mr. Putin decided to kind of use that to make some public remarks to the crowd of thousands and he was booed and hissed, booed and hissed. Very, very embarrassing. So something of that nature could transpire also. Like all my colleagues, of course, we all hope that none of the threats and challenges that we have outlined here in the remarks will come to transpire, but I will be watching these games with a special interest. And let me also, again, I want to acknowledge Sergei Markodona for the work he's done on this report. I'm very, very sorry that he's not able to be here with us today. I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank the Carnegie Corporation of New York which supported the visiting fellowship of Sergei here and also the publication of the report. So let me now open the floor to questions and comments. And if I may, I would like to turn to an old friend here who's arrived in Washington in late summer of last year. That is the esteemed ambassador to Georgia, Archiel Gagashidze. And for those of you others after Ambassador Gagashidze, please identify yourselves briefly for us. Thank you, Andy. Thank you. Distinguished panel. Georgia has its very unique angle of perspective on Russia generally and on the Suche Olympics. As the new government which came to power just months ago decided to review its policy towards Russia in order to slightly improve its relationship with Russia to mitigate the risk of resumption what has happened back in 2008. Among others decided to change the policies of the old government and to join the games, not to boycott them. So Georgian delegation will be going there, very small but still. Well, and more so Georgian government offered Russian government cooperation on security so far we haven't received any response from Russians but nonetheless we indicated, signaled them that we are in favor of peaceful conduct of the games. Because if anything bad happens there, it is in nobody's interest except for those who will be doing that. Especially for Georgia who is the closest foreign country which immediately neighbors the site of the Olympic games and as we all know the Russians, especially the ineffective government who fails to prevent from happening these undesirable things may pinpoint at others and try to find scapegoats elsewhere and sometimes in many times Russia would do by doing so would point at Georgia. So it's in Georgia's interest that these games go peacefully. I would agree with Andrew as I'm of the same age as Andrew is that on my mind too. I don't remember any Olympic games being the summer games or winter games when we would not talk in advance of those games which of the national teams would get how many medals. This time we talk about whether or not these games will be peaceful. So this is the first ever instance when we are very much concerned about the safety of the games. And as I gather from this panel the possibility of terrorist attack is there and quite likely. So my question would be to the panel that in case anything of this kind happens in Russia then what this would mean for putting for the reputation of Russia as a safe place to hold these kind of events because down the road we have also G20 in June and in four years time we have soccer World Cup games in Russia and what kind of implication these kind of undesirable events may have for Russia's reputation in this sense. Thank you. Thank you Ambassador. Let me also express my hope that Georgia brings home some gold. Okay. Let me also note that we are over time already because of my pathetic efforts to moderate and showing up late. The panel is prepared to be here until 10.45 and obviously you are not being held hostage. Let me turn for this to Jeff and to Juan perhaps to make a brief comment to the Ambassador's question. The point that the Ambassador made about the focus of these Olympics being on the security rather than on the metal count I think is right and it is quite striking. There have been of course terrorist attacks at Olympic games in the past in Munich in 1972 most notably in Atlanta in 1996. What was different about those attacks though was that in the aftermath of them nobody used them to call into question the legitimacy of the political system of the country that were holding the Olympics. Because so much of the Russian governments and Putin's personal prestige is tied up in these Olympics I think if there is a successful terrorist attack it sends a very negative signal internationally and also within the country and it can have I think long running political fallout. You mentioned also the G20 and the World Cup and I think regardless of whether there is a successful attack at the Olympics or not the complications that we have already seen in the run-ups to the games I'm sure is creating a lot of heartburn in the headquarters of FIFA when they think about having to do an event that is even larger than the Olympics spread across the entire country if you have security challenges with regard to a single venue imagine that now multiplied by multiple times across the country for all the different places you're going to be holding the World Cup so I think it's going to be a problem that we're going to see come up again and again and again as Russia continues to hold these international events in the years to come. Mr. Massar I can be very quick in responding I think it would in some ways depend on the nature of the event of course and so the scope of it would matter and I think also the reaction and how the Russians responded whether or not that was viewed as competent, effective and helpful because I think it's, as Jeffrey said, Atlanta happened but there wasn't a sense that the games had to collapse or that there was a sense that the US wasn't an appropriate venue for future major international events I think the question is would an attack be of a type of scope and reveal vulnerabilities that really do call into material question Russia's ability to host these kinds of significant events and I think we're all hoping and praying that things go very well but if something were to happen I think that debate would happen immediately. Hi my name is Tara McHalvey I'm with the BBC and I'm wondering if you can tell me what you think is the most serious threat the number one threat and also what the US is doing about it. In terms of likelihood probably suicide bombings but I wouldn't ignore the threat to undertake a chemical attack that could have been psychological terror that may have been the purpose of it on the other hand who knows. With respect to the US what they do US intelligence community law enforcement tried to understand any particular threats other than the broad threat environment which they understand well but any particular threats that's why the question of visibility into what the Russians know and are following becomes so important they're trying to offer any and all cooperation to the Russians and then the US is preparing contingency plans and so that's what you do in an environment like this but at the end of the day you in many ways are beholden on the host government's willingness to cooperate and their effectiveness in preparing for the event and any eventuality. Thanks just a brief comment because I want to highlight the Syria aspect of this and particularly with the chemical weapons issue. Gordon has talked about if you go back to Assad's decision to give up his chemical weapons which undoubtedly in my mind he was basically given an ultimatum by Mr. Putin and the Russians that either you do this or we will no longer be able to support you in any way shape or form. We can talk about that more. I think the real issue there is the question to which actually Assad and Syrian forces actually were and are able to control have effective control over their chemical weapons arsenal which was dispersed in 40 plus places around the country. That has worried me for a long time. Let's go to this side of the, yes. Hi, Alicia Serratini with EIR Magazine. Right after the Volgograd bombings at the end of December the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement that said that these attacks were very much like what's happened in the United States in Libya and Syria and that they even went as far as to say that all these attacks are coming from the same quarters. Effectively saying this is a global issue this didn't just happen in Volgograd. And I think in that light what better way to force the issue of global terrorism than hosting the Olympics in a place close to Chechnya, close to Georgia, close to these different conflicts. So I think it's very interesting that they're being held there. But my question is to further underscore the issue of global terrorism not just the attacks on Sochi if you remember in the summer at the height of the Syrian crisis Prince Bandar from Saudi Arabia had a meeting with Putin and said that if you don't back off your support for Assad we can't guarantee that the Chechen rebels will not attack Sochi. He said very clearly we finance them. So for the United States to have all this discussion about security and the corruption of Putin for the United States to continue to call Saudi Arabia an ally of ours I think it's just a little bit hypocritical. So my question is my direct question is how do we raise the level of collaboration between the United States and Russia and actually have a discussion about the Saudis and other foreign sponsors of terrorism because if something happens in Sochi that's not Russia's problem that's our problem as well. Thanks. Yeah well I'm not sure that the Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister actually said that there's no stenogram of that meeting as far as I know so I have my doubts I think that was put out by an Iranian source. The other the other thing that's important to keep in mind I think is when discussing the North Caucasus is you can pretty much leave out the word Chechnya this is now a North Caucasus-wide operation and the Dagestanis are leading the charge for the last since spring 2010 that doesn't mean that Umarov is irrelevant I somewhat disagree with what Tom said earlier but we don't have time probably to go into that. The third point is the Caucasus is part of a global jihadi revolutionary movement it's an ally so it's not an affiliate of al-Qaeda but that doesn't mean it doesn't share its goals and ideology and that's I'll leave it there. Well it's certainly a strategic opportunity for Russia to reinforce its message with respect to what's happening in Syria so there's no question that that's that's a potential here and I think in some ways as I said earlier I think it is a moment of potential cooperation between the US and Russia whether it's on you know who's fueling this what's behind it etc but there is narrative ideological and to a certain extent connectivity between what happens in the Caucasus and what happens in Syria particularly because that's how the groups view it and that's why I said for me this is an interesting moment of understanding Sochi what's having the Caucasus with what's happening in Syria because as I've argued in other venues Syria in many ways becomes the locus of the potential resurrection of a new al-Qaeda driven movement from the Sunni violent extremist perspective doesn't mean that Assad should stay I've argued that means that we've got two policy goals in Syria not just one just two quick comments on this one let's remember the Boston Marathon bombing the Sarnayev brothers okay obviously this was a intelligence failure on the part of security failure on the part of the United States it took place on the United States United States territory but also highlighted two things one it was also a failure in US-Russian collaboration security cooperation three I think it it emphasized to the United States intelligence community and security community the importance of tracking more closely the northern Caucasus as a as a seed bed for for global terrorism okay next question comment we have running low on time you showed your hand up earlier yes sir yes thank you my name is Jim Felkamp and I'm a professor at George Mason and George Washington on terrorism and the question I have you kind of stole my thunder about Operation Lentil and it's also Patriots Day which was when the marathon bombing was for us too but with all this talk concerning the terrorist attacks and potential terrorist attacks and the email that was sent out to the IOC committees to Germany if you were saying that would be false but by raising the threat of a terrorist attack haven't the terrorists pretty much already won by suppressing the attendance or the popularity of these Olympics and the question I have is at what threshold does Putin really lose all international prestige because of this he put his name on this Olympics and how does that translate internationally to his prestige and his credibility when it comes to some of these other events and his negotiating power vis-a-vis the United States like with Snowden or with the Chinese or whatever in the international realm thank you great question the other point I want to make the previous question was there hasn't been more the United States has wanted to work more with the Russians on the Sochi Olympics but the Russians have not been very enthusiastic about it that's an issue out there okay where is the red line for Putin Jeff you know I don't know I don't think we can say you know if X then Y I'm not sure there's a clearly linear relationship that way obviously we're going to have to wait and see what happens you know the games could surpass all of our expectations they could go off without any terrorist attacks occurring the Russian teams could actually do very well and I want to emphasize this again I think because much of the audience the Putin is focusing on is domestic actually the performance of the Russian athletes is going to matter in terms of how they're perceived and in terms of the narrative the Putin is trying to get across with his own constituency from an international perspective I don't know you know I mean I'd be curious to hear Juan's thoughts on this but it's you know I think we already know that this is a problem for Russia but there hasn't been as much cooperation as I think we would have liked on the counter-terrorism issue but that there are still all of these other areas you know whether it's Syria or Iran or China or anything else where we're kind of condemned to work together and I think that's not going to change regardless of what does or doesn't happen at the Olympics I'm Jeff McCausen thank you I'm Jeff McCausen I'm a professor at Dickinson College this may be a very easy but sad question based on the global showcase which is the Olympics based on the personification of the Olympics under Putin as this panel is so well described does any panelist possibly imagine that some terrorist group would not make an attempt that attempt could be thwarted in its early stages but can anybody possibly imagine they would ignore this opportunity they haven't ignored the opportunity and they'll take advantage I think the one thing to keep in mind with these types of groups is they will take advantage of the opportunities but they will strike when they're ready and so they've been thinking about this for a while and they may be ready and this is why I raised the March window because it may not be that it comes the second week of February it may be down the road consider these concluding remarks please thanks yeah I absolutely concur with that there's going to be they're going to take the opportunity it could be against a very soft target hundreds or thousands of miles from Sochi there's no way they're going to ignore it to the previous question and I think they're already trying to undertake attacks that's ongoing the timing may be different as Juan said on the previous question they're going for something bigger attendance unless the stadiums are completely empty then they could say ok that's a victory but they're going for something bigger I think the Caucasus emirate would very much like Umarov and the Dagestanis especially would very much like to give us a big bang so to speak not to use a sad pun but I think that's what they're going for yeah I would just agree with all of the previous commentators this is a golden opportunity for the incernance to make a point to the global media as well as everybody in Russia is focusing on what happens in Sochi they've already made attempts both successful and unsuccessful and I would be completely I mean they're continuing to make these preparations so yes I think those attempts will continue and my answer is yes of course but let me caveat that or conclude by saying that we have emphasized what Mr. Putin is writing on these games more in a negative sense if something happens but if there is not a successful terrorist attack in some way shape or form even though there's already been significant disturbance around the games because of what's happened and what's been said then this will be looked at I think as some kind of defeat actually for those that have announced that these games are a target having said that that threat is not going to go away anytime soon because unfortunately the sources that are generating those that are inspired to make these kinds of attacks is not going away anytime soon either so with that let me really thank Juan, Tom, Gordon, Jeff for a terrific panel let me thank you for attending their excellent questions and may we all not have a lot of may we not have reason to have a press conference or a meeting at CSIS during or after the games where we're talking about security threats thanks very much