I think back on that book quite often these days. The thing I keep coming back to is Haseltine's assertion that since Russia never faces any consequences for their hijinks, they never stop. He describes KGB guys stabbing knives through the grates as they pulled out an antenna that violated the shit out of treaties and nothing happened. But then, Legacy of Ashes has a whole section on the thousands of ex-pats we dropped behind the Iron Curtain with a vague mission of 'spy on stuff' who all got rolled up and shot within hours or days. We blew up their pipeline backintheday. We probably blew up their death star. They pwn3d our embassy and, most recently, pwn3d our entire computer ecosystem. From that perspective, kissing up to a New York loudmouth isn't even espionage. It's barely soft power. Fuckin' remember when we thought a pee pee tape would ruin Donald Trump's career?