WASHINGTON — The US warning to Russia was very clear: Two weeks before the deadliest attack in Russia in years, Americans had publicly and privately informed President Vladimir Putin's government that 'extremists' had 'imminent plans' for such slaughter.
The United States shared these advance intelligence indications under a principle of the US intelligence community called the 'duty to warn,' which requires US intelligence officials to lean toward sharing knowledge of a serious threat if conditions allow. This applies whether the targets are allies, adversaries, or something in between.
There's little indication Russia tried to prevent Friday's attack at a concert hall on Moscow's edge, which killed over 130 people. The Islamic State's affiliate in Afghanistan claimed responsibility, and the US said it has information supporting the extremist group's claim.
John Kirby, the Biden administration's national security spokesman, made it clear that the warning should not be seen as a breakthrough in US-Russian relations or intelligence-sharing.
'Yeah, look, there's not going to be security assistance with Russia and the United States,' Kirby told reporters Monday.
'We had a duty to warn them of information that we had, clearly that they didn't have. We did that,' Kirby said.
Such warnings aren't always listened to — the United States has missed at least one Russian warning of extremist threats in the United States in the past.
Here's a look at the duty to warn, how it came about, and how it can play out when American intelligence officers learn militants are about to strike.
A clear US warning
On March 7, the US government publicly issued a very precise warning: The US Embassy in Moscow was monitoring reports that 'extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, including concerts.' It advised US citizens in Moscow to avoid big events over the next 48 hours.
US officials said after the attack that they had shared the warning with Russian officials as well under the duty to warn, but provided no details on how.
Putin's public reaction was dismissive. Three days before the attack, he criticized what he called 'provocative statements' from the West about potential attacks within Russia. He said such warnings were aimed at intimidating Russians and destabilizing the country.
Duty to warn
The US focus on sharing threat warnings increased after al-Qaeda's August 7, 1998, attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. While many US citizens and government employees of different nationalities were killed, Kenyans made up the majority of the victims.
In 2015, then National Intelligence Director James Clapper formalized the duty to warn in an official directive: The US intelligence community bore 'a responsibility to warn US and non-US persons of impending threats of intentional killing, serious bodily injury, or kidnapping.'
The directive also outlined situations when intelligence officials could waive the duty to warn and remain silent despite looming danger. This includes when the target is an assassin or other extremely dangerous person, or when disclosing the warning could 'unduly endanger' US personnel or their sources, those of intelligence partners among foreign governments, or their intelligence or defense operations.
Shared alerts and the Biden team
The intelligence community under former President Donald Trump was accused of failing to notify U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi of a complicated scheme by Saudi officials that resulted in his 2018 killing inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Media organizations say U.S. intelligence agencies did not respond to requests for any documents indicating whether they were aware of the plan beforehand.
During the Biden administration, the sharing of threats to other governments has increased, though there's no way to know if the U.S. intelligence community may have chosen to allow any threats to unfold without warning the targets.
The strategic dissemination of U.S. intelligence reached a peak in the months leading up to Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. During that time, the U.S. decided to declassify crucial intelligence on Russia’s invasion plans in order to rally allies and Ukraine, and — unsuccessfully — to pressure Russia to withdraw its troops.
CIA Director William Burns discussed the growing recognition of the importance of “intelligence diplomacy” — the strategic use of intelligence findings to support allies and confuse adversaries — in a Foreign Affairs article this spring.
Sharing isn’t always caring
The duty to warn doesn’t guarantee that the other side will heed the warning, especially when the other side is an adversary.
In January, a U.S. official said that Americans had issued a similar warning to Iranian officials prior to bombings in the Iranian city of Kerman. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for that attack, twin suicide bombings that claimed 95 lives.
It’s uncertain whether the warning resulted in any additional security measures at the event, which was a commemoration of the 2020 killing of an Iranian general by a U.S. drone strike.
In 2004, U.S. officials conveyed a warning of an extremist plot to kill Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, an anti-U.S. populist, but the government of Venezuela was “suspicious and incredulous,” as stated by Stephen McFarland, a former U.S. diplomat in Central and South America, on X on Monday.
Such deep distrust has often prevented threat warnings from having the intended impact when it comes to Russia and the United States, even with common threats that both face, such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida.
Historically, Russians may view any U.S. efforts for counterintelligence cooperation against such mutual threats as naive and seek opportunities to exploit it for political gain or to undermine U.S. intelligence-gathering, according to Steven Hall, a longtime U.S. intelligence official in the former Soviet Union, who wrote this after retiring in 2015.
In 2013, tragically, U.S. officials failed to adequately follow up on a Russian warning, as concluded in a U.S. government review later.
In 2011, Russia’s Federal Security Service warned U.S. officials that a U.S. resident, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was associated with extremist groups and posed a threat to Russia as well. After U.S. officials determined Tsarnaev was not a threat in the U.S., he and his younger brother carried out the Boston Marathon bombings, killing three people and injuring hundreds.
