Unredacted Russia, Trump, and the battle for democracy

A defense of a sensational intelligence report linking the Republican nominee and Russia. The author, a longtime British spy thrust into a political tempest when his so-called Steele Dossier burst into public view, credits himself for helping secure "a significant win" against totalitarianism. Steele chides the congressional staffer who leaked the dossier, which was funded by Democrats and described Moscow's attempts to gain leverage over Trump. But he's pleased that afterBuzzFeed published his report in January 2017, "suspicion and scrutiny" prevented Trump from getting too chummy with Russia. Though Steele unearthed claims about Trump's purported illicit and sleazy doings in that country, he reminds us that intelligence gathering involves people with sometimes hazy motives. "Much of the sourcing used in this book," he writes, is "inherently uncertain." Further, intelligence reports like the Steele dossier are considered useful if they're "70 percent accurate." This is an enlightening glimpse of the profession, but it stymies a reader trying to assess the relative credibility of the dossier's claims. Steele is undeniably effective when recalling life in Moscow as a young British government intelligence officer, learning Russian and cultivating sources. He's "convinced" that Russian counterintelligence thugs--not, as Putin claimed, Chechen rebels--killed more than 300 people in four 1999 apartment-building bombings. Steele and others subsequently warned British officials that Putin was "a generational threat," he writes, but for too long Western leaders naively thought the Russian president could "be reasoned with." Citing Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the murder, in England, of Russians Putin perceives as traitors, Steele forcefully argues that the country, under Putin, is extraordinarily dangerous to global stability. But "the main threat to Western democracy" resides "within our own societies," he adds, righteously upbraiding voters and leaders who've enabled populist demagogues. An ex-spy who probed Donald Trump's overseas entanglements meticulously explains his work, frankly conceding its limitations. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.