Former Director of the CIA (2013- January 2017), appointed by Barack Obama after having been his advisor to the White House, John Brennan, publishes "Leading the CIA, my fight against terrorism" (Talent Editions).
He gives us his look at Biden's standoff against Putin and Xi Jinping.
Is Joe Biden right to call Putin a "killer" and show his harshness against China?
JOHN BRENNAN.
I was frankly surprised by the violence of the language used.
I think President Biden's intention was to send a signal to Moscow and Beijing as soon as possible that the United States is not going to let them be troublemakers.
In general, I prefer President Teddy Roosevelt's
phrase
:
Speak quietly and carry a big stick
.
We speak very firmly in private, but we avoid publicly embarrassing foreign heads of state like Putin or Xi Jinping.
This "first salvo" was to be fired, but I hope that the more muscular discussion will now return to closed meetings.
It's something Donald Trump loved to do, cover up people in public.
VIDEO. For Joe Biden, Vladimir Poutine is a "killer" and "will pay the price"
Can Biden Become a War President?
He is not the man to look for opportunities to wage war.
At the same time, he believes that great nations cannot bluff: if we say something, we must be prepared to assume.
He will show that he is ready to use military force if necessary.
So, he ordered strikes against pro-Iranian militias based in Syria, who had carried out attacks against US forces in Iraq.
Is the situation with China a cold war?
It's a strained relationship, but Joe Biden won't try to provoke armed conflict with China, it wouldn't be in anyone's best interests.
Unlike Trump, Biden understands that this is a very complex relationship.
He will try to find ways to reduce the tension, but will not back down.
We can find ways to cooperate on a subject like North Korea, for example, and on the trade and economic front, we will seek to achieve at least mutual understanding.
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Russia and China are particularly aggressive on cyber attacks, why?
First of all, when we carry out a military aggression, by sending a plane or a missile, the target country knows for sure where that missile or that plane came from.
There is what is called a "return address".
With cyber, there is always a degree of uncertainty about the provenance, it is more difficult to attribute the attack to a particular party.
Furthermore, whether it is stealing intellectual property or identities, or hacking, hacking government networks, attackers feel they can get away with it.
Because the international community has not established an effective framework to punish these actors.
We see not only China and Russia, but also North Korea, Iran and other countries, engaging in cyber attacks.
Should France fear such attacks during the next presidential election?
Absolutely!
States must worry about two main aspects: ensuring that their technical infrastructure is not attacked, and France has excellent cyber experts who must do everything to avoid any penetration of the electoral system.
The second aspect is more difficult to prevent, it is the influence on votes via social networks.
These are used to relay propaganda and spread false information about candidates.
The Russians have been doing this for a long time, in Soviet times they were masters of propaganda.
In the United States, the intelligence director has just demonstrated that Russia tried to influence the 2020 election, by denigrating Joe Biden and promoting Donald Trump.
Anything goes in the fight against terrorism?
You say that you were blamed with the Obama administration for the use of “killer” drones in the Middle East ...
The drone program under Obama was created to carry out lethal attacks on terrorists only when we had no alternative to stop them.
Drones are a very efficient aerial platform: piloted remotely, they can target their objective to the nearest centimeter.
This helps reduce collateral damage among civilians as much as possible.
So yes, during the Obama administration we carried out a number of these strikes in the Middle East, but only when we had no other option to save innocent lives.
Cooperation in intelligence matters with France remains important?
As director of the CIA, I dealt with the bosses of the French internal and external services - at the time Bernard Bajolet and Patrick Calvar - and we shared a lot of information.
I found the American-French relationship to be one of the strongest in the world.
It has something special, was forged during the world wars, the Cold War, terrorist threats, because we are two nuclear powers, partners in NATO.
There are so many things that bind us together that, even under the Trump administration, this cooperation has remained very strong.
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Joe Biden at the head of the United States: what may or may not change for France
What are the biggest threats?
The United States and France will continue to face serious threats from terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda or ISIS (Islamic State or Daesh).
Inside, many individuals decide to act on their own initiative.
Outside, the Arab-Muslim world will continue to have extremists within, driven by ideology and opposed to Western societies.
In addition, in the United States and in Europe, there is a growing far right, the security services must be vigilant every day to prevent them from acting.
Despite Obama's promise, the Guantanamo prison is still open ...
Obama wanted to close it, he transferred many detainees to their countries of origin.
But Congress passed legislation to prevent him from bringing the other prisoners back to the United States for trial.
Joe Biden and his team will try to take a new look at all this, but unless they can lead these detainees before military commissions or civilian courts in the United States, they risk remaining a while in Guantanamo.
Should Donald Trump be withdrawn from his defense-secret credentials, as he did against you to “punish” you for your criticisms against him?
I see no reason to keep them for him.
If there was any threat against him, I'm sure the Secret Service will make sure to let him know.
But he no longer has to receive all the security briefs.
Former presidents and ex-directors of the CIA kept these certificates, because their successors sometimes wanted to consult them and have their opinion on files classified "secret-defense".
But Trump shouldn't benefit from it, he's never been interested in intelligence work.
