134 THE BiG DROP
forces. It was this conundrum — sanctions were economically
effective but politically impotent — that preoccupied my col-
leagues. Time and again they asked: What does Putin want? The
implication was that Putin was an enigma but, if we could dis-
cern his hidden preferences a sanctions regime could be devised
to frustrate those preferences and, in turn, alter his behavior.
When my turn came to address the group, I cut to the heart
of our failed sanctions policy. The entire program was an ex-
ample of a well-known intelligence failure called “mirror imag-
ing.” This arises when an analyst assumes the adversary thinks
the way he does. Policies that might change the analyst’s be-
havior are assumed to affect the adversary’s behavior the same
way. The mirror image assumption often proves false, and can
result in failed policy.
For example, America has its own oligarchs including
Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Larry Page. It is reasonable to
assume that if harsh sanctions by others were to seriously im-
pact the economic interests of Buffett, Gates and Page, they
would find a way to pressure the White House for sanctions
relief, including changes in U.S. policy if needed.
But the process does not work in reverse. Pressure on Russian
oligarchs is easy to apply, but their ability to influence Putin’s
behavior is nil. In fact, Putin would not hesitate to imprison
or kill them if they were too outspoken. One cannot imagine
the White House throwing Warren Buffett in prison for being
a policy critic, but that outcome is easy to imagine in Russia.
Unfortunately, U.S. policy makers had fallen prey to mirror im-
aging and did not realize that pressuring Russian oligarchs, ver-
sus U.S. oligarchs, would produce different outcomes.
The other area where U.S. policymakers were guilty of
mirror imaging is assessing the impact of economic costs.
Declining GDP and a crashing currency would send most U.S.
politicians running for cover and looking for ways to undo the
damage. But Russians were accustomed to adversity and used