If Russia spent as much on intelligence agencies as the United States does — $52.6 billion in 2013, according to the "black budget" published by The Washington Post last August — would it have been able to stop the suicide bombers who killed at least 31 people in two attacks in Volgograd on Dec. 29 and 30?
Can you solve the problem just by throwing money at it? And how big a problem is it anyway?
Russia doesn't really have that kind of money to spend on "intelligence," so let's narrow it down to the $10.6 billion that the U.S. National Security Agency spends each year. Of the 16 intelligence agencies working for the U.S. government, the NSA is the one that places the most emphasis on its alleged ability to stop terrorist attacks through monitoring everybody's communications.