Want The Real Scoop On Putin?

Rebekah Koffler's Book "Putin's Playbook" Is Mind Blowing

Throughout the world, the war in Ukraine has elicited a flurry of emotions — anger, sadness, despair, disbelief. Much of that disdain has been directed toward Russian leader Vladimir Putin whose reckless efforts to topple its easternmost neighbor has received prime-time media attention. 

Many so-called experts have emerged, intent on delivering an accurate account of Putin’s mindset and Russia’s hidden intentions. None are in my view more imminently qualified than Rebekah Koffler, author of the book Putin’s Playbook: Russia’s Secret Plan to Defeat America. 

I’ve long had a willingness to read books that, while creating a degree of discomfort, open my eyes to the present realities of the world we live in. It’s here where Koffler’s book certainly doesn’t disappoint. 

Her raw account of Putin’s inner mosaic and roadmap for Russia could only be delivered by someone of her deep qualifications. A former U.S. intelligence specialist from 2008 through 2016, Koffler was with the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s military intelligence counterpart to the Central Intelligence Agency. 

Koffler arrived in America when she was a young woman. But after 9/11 and now witnessing what she says is the slow infiltration of socialist ideology in the U.S., Koffler has devoted her life and career to protecting her new country. 

Her inner knowledge of Vladimir Putin's mindset and autocratic rule can largely be attributed to the fact that she was born and raised in the Soviet Union. In the book, she offers a mind-blowing account of what Putin really wants when it comes to America and how he plans to get it. 

As she explains in the early part of her book:

“As a Russian-born American citizen, I grew up behind the Iron Curtain and, in an unusual twist of fate, became a U.S. intelligence officer.”

“Having grown up in the USSR, I have firsthand experience of Russian-style totalitarian oppression. Unlike analysts who learned about Russia from textbooks without ever setting foot into the Bear’s lair or even speaking the language, I am familiar with the mindset, behavior, and motivations of Russian leaders. I am fully bilingual, and I am a graduate of Moscow State Pedagogical University, where I completed a study of English that began in the third grade.”

While with the Defense Intelligence Agency, she recounts how she and her colleagues were tasked with helping devise a plan for defending America from a Russian nuclear strike. Now in offering an uncommon native insight through her book, she reveals in sobering detail how Putin has masterminded a long-range plan to weaken and topple the United States.

Utilizing a well-constructed historical context, Koffler shows how the thinking of Russia’s leaders and many of its citizens is undergirded by centuries of war-torn strife and humiliation. Much of this, she says, is attached to the collapse of the once-powerful Soviet empire, which Putin experienced as a KGB agent in East Germany. As she shares in the book: 

“Seeing himself as the modern "Czar Vladimir" of a unique Slavic nation at war with the West, he is determined to restore Russia to its place as a great power.” 

When I first purchased the book on my Kindle and began scanning through it, what immediately captured my attention were redactions like this throughout many parts of the text. Here is just one example: 

For me, the fact that our U.S. intelligence leadership was concerned about what Koffler was sharing provided a great deal of legitimacy to her message. In one of the early pages, she writes:

AUTHOR’S NOTE “The Defense Intelligence Agency and Central Intelligence Agency conducted an extensive prepublication review of Putin’s Playbook and redacted significant portions of the typescript. The author strongly disagrees with these redactions as unnecessary and unjustified but has complied with them. The blacked-out portions of what follows are the result of these redactions.”

Reading the book has also provided me with a fresh insight into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 U.S. election. What she reveals is eye-opening and downright sobering. In the book, Koffler notes: 

“As Putin’s playbook shows, Russia was trying not only to hurt both candidates Clinton and Trump, but to harm ordinary Americans by destabilizing our society through deceit, disinformation, and agitation. The Russians also knew, through their in-depth “study” of our society—i.e., by spying on our country and its citizens—that they could count on certain internal American help, witting or unwitting” 

She continues: 

“Moscow’s desired strategic outcome is a weakened United States immersed in political dysfunction, torn by racial, religious, ethnic, and other social tensions, struggling economically, bogged down in external conflicts, and alienated from its allies. A distracted America, forced to deal with domestic and international problems, is far less likely to interfere with Putin’s strategic ambitions.”

Particularly in light of the Ukrainian crisis, Koffler believes that Americans should not ignore the Russian threat, asserting in the book that “Putin and his playbook are not going away any time soon.”

Personally, I’ve wanted to ignore it as evidenced by my recent Tweet to Koffler on the heels of Joe Biden’s recent address to the world in Poland

Concludes Koffler — “Misunderstanding Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, is dangerous. Russia is not merely intent on interfering with our elections. Russia is determined to weaken the United States and defeat us—if necessary, by using military force. This is Putin’s playbook.”