Dirty Tricks or Trump Cards
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Dirty Tricks or Trump Cards

U.S. Covert Action and Counterintelligence

Roy Godson

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eBook - ePub

Dirty Tricks or Trump Cards

U.S. Covert Action and Counterintelligence

Roy Godson

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About This Book

Contrary to popular misconceptions and public branding as "dirty tricks, " covert action and counterintelligence can have considerable value. Democracies, while wary of these instruments, have benefited significantly from their use, saving lives, treasure, and gaining strategic advantage. As liberal democracies confront the post-Cold War mix of rogue states and non-state actors, such as criminals and terrorists, and weapons of mass destruction and mass disruption, these clandestine arts may prove to be important tools of statecraft, and perhaps trump cards in the twenty-first century.

Godson defines covert action as influencing events in other parts of the world without attribution, and counterintelligence as identifying, neutralizing, and exploiting the secret activities of others. Together they provide the capability to resist manipulation and control others to advantage. Counterintelligence protects U.S. military, technological, and diplomatic secrets and turns adversary intelligence to U.S. advantage. Covert action enables the United States to weaken adversaries and to assist allies who may be hampered by open acknowledgment of foreign support.

Drawing on contemporary and historical literature, broad-ranging contacts with senior intelligence officials in many countries, as well as his own research and experience as a longtime consultant to the U.S. government, Godson traces the history of U.S. covert action and counterintelligence since 1945, showing that covert action works well when it is part of a well-coordinated policy and when policy makers are committed to succeeding in the long-term. Godson argues that the best counterintelligence is an offensive defense. His exposition of the essential theoretical foundations of both covert action and counterintelligence, supported by historical examples, lays out the ideal conditions for their use, as well as demonstrating why they are so difficult to attain.

This book will be of interest to students and general readers interested in political science, national security, foreign policy, and military policy.

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Publisher
Routledge
Year
2018
ISBN
9781351522182
1
NEGLECTED ELEMENTS IN AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE
WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE? This is a question that has many answers. 1 There is no scholarly or professional consensus regarding the theoretical definition of intelligence. One way of defining the subject is to set aside theory and look at the ways in which states practice intelligence in modern times. This approach also leads to different answers. To avoid confusion, it is useful to lay out the basic characteristics of the subject matter. Intelligence is information that is acquired, exploited, and protected by the activities of organizations specifically established for that purpose. Allowing for differences in government systems, political history, and security interests, there appear to be four distinct elements (functions or disciplines) of intelligence: collection, analysis, counterintelligence, and covert action.
A particular state may choose not to adopt this division of intelligence labor or may choose not to perform all four functions. But the decision to forgo or play down one or more of them does not alter the operational logic that associates each with the other, or the fact that the absence of one or more, or poor implementation, will likely impair a state’s ability to fulfill its national security requirements. Full-service intelligence consists of four elements.
Collection is the gathering of valued information, much of it by clandestine means. Not all information is considered intelligence—only that which is determined to be valuable by policymakers or intelligence managers. Nor are there any rules to distinguish what is valuable from what is not. Governments take an interest in information only when it relates to something they wish to accomplish, deter, or affect, and different governments want different things at different times. Hence there is no predetermined body of information that can be called intelligence, although there are certain types of information that are valued by almost all governments all the time.
Broadly speaking, intelligence is gathered from three sources: open, technical, and human sources. The information derived from each source has its strengths and its weaknesses. 2
Analysis is the processing of information, and its end products. Usually intelligence is acquired in “raw” form, for example, a report from an agent or a photograph of a weapon. During analysis, it is processed for intelligibility and meaning. Analysis entails sifting, screening, comparing information with other data, and, ultimately, including it within a larger intelligence context.
Analyzed data can be broad or specific, ranging anywhere from reports on immediate security concerns to predictions about long-term future trends and events. 3
Counterintelligence, as practiced by most states, is the effort to protect their secrets, to prevent themselves from being manipulated, and (sometimes) to exploit the intelligence activities of others for their own benefit. To protect their secrets, states rely, in part, on security procedures and countermeasures.
Security procedures, which may be more or less passive, involve limiting the number of people with access to secrets, screening those people for signs of unreliability, and instituting accounting systems to trace losses. Countermeasures are security procedures to protect against specific tactics used by foreign intelligence services. Counterintelligence, by contrast, involves active efforts to identify, neutralize, and possibly exploit foreign intelligence services. 4
Covert action, or, to use the British term, special political action, is the attempt by a government or group to influence events in another state or territory without revealing its own involvement. Seeking to influence others is, of course, the stuff of politics and foreign policy. People and governments rarely reveal exactly what they seek to accomplish or how they intend to do it. Their actions are to one degree or another secret (hidden) or covert (disguised).
Covert action is really an American term-of-art that came into use after World War II. Other states do not use the term, even if many at some point seek to exert influence in a covert way. In any case, most states do not make a sharp distinction between overt and covert behavior. While they may create special components within the bureaucracy to deal with some aspects of covert tradecraft, they regard the exertion of influence, with varying degrees of secrecy, as a normal function of statecraft.
Generally, covert action activities fall into one of four areas: propaganda, political action, paramilitary operations, and intelligence assistance.
  • Propaganda uses words, symbols, and other psychological techniques to influence foreign developments. Most propaganda in the latter half of the twentieth century has been directed at influencing the mass media.
  • Political action uses political means (advice, agents of influence, information, material support) to influence foreign events. Such efforts can be directed at foreign governments, nongovernmental entities such as labor, intellectual, and religious movements, and nonstate actors such as ethnic groups and criminal cartels.
  • Paramilitary activity involves the use of force. This includes support for or defense against terrorism, resistance movements, insurgents, other unconventional forces, and the use of force to deny or degrade significant information to adversaries.
  • Intelligence assistance aids the intelligence activities of another group or government beyond normal liaison. It attempts to influence events or decisions in other countries by training personnel, providing material or technical assistance, or passing information and ideas to achieve intended effects.
Integrating the Elements
The four elements of intelligence can be distinguished by function. Intelligence professionals usually specialize in one area, and experience shows that even those who practice several specialties may tend to favor one over the others. 5 In fact, the elements of intelligence are interdependent. If one is weakened or eliminated, the others are likely to be adversely affected. Counterintelligence and covert action rely for their effectiveness on collection and analysis, and vice versa, each in turn dependent on policy for its impetus and direction.
This symbiosis is not always apparent, nor is its effect necessarily immediate or absolute. But if a state is to develop an effective intelligence system, it must recognize this relationship and understand it as highly complex and often tumultuous.
Analysis and collection depends on policy to specify its goals. Policymakers set policy and determine priorities for collection and analysis. Analysts and collectors may not always adhere to policymakers’ priorities or answer the questions policymakers consider most relevant. If they stray too far from policymakers’ concerns, they risk losing access to senior officials and having their resources curtailed.
Many intelligence analysts depend heavily on the clandestine services for their raw materials. Although they can meet some of their enormous need for information from open sources, they also rely on human and technical collection. This is primarily what distinguishes them from nonintelligence analysts. It is what makes them unique.
In less obvious ways, analysts and collectors also benefit from covert action. Covert action channels are often unique sources of highly prized information. Why? Because when a government wants to influence a foreign society, it tries to recruit agents from its top echelons. For a state to exert influence, particularly through subtle political maneuvers, its intelligence service must know a great deal about the values and expectations of the target society. Highly placed agents, sources or “assets,” are more capable of producing such information, which can be of great value to analysts.
Potentially valuable human sources often hesitate to hand over prized information unless they are persuaded that it will be put to good use. While there are those who spy or give away information for base rewards such as money, others do so because they agree with the policy of the foreign power, or would like to change the policy of their own government. Wanting to influence events in their own country or elsewhere, they find themselves positioned to translate their desires into effective action. In their minds, the end is worth the risk. 6 Sources providing information for reasons of principle enhance the flow of intelligence to the foreign power, boosting analysis as well as collection and counterintelligence.
There is, of course, a potential disadvantage to collection and analysis based exclusively or in large part on information derived from covert action assets. Agents can be self-serving. They tend, naturally, to report information that bolsters their own reputations or encourages the foreign intelligence service in a particular direction. Many collectors and analysts have adopted the principle that information from a covert action asset must be verified by an independent source.
All areas of intelligence benefit from counterintelligence. Counterintelligence protects collection and aims to ensure that hostile intelligence services do not mislead or manipulate collection from open, technical, and human sources. Counterintelligence needs guidance from policymakers. Counterintelligence cannot protect everything. Policymakers need to determine what to defend, what to neutralize, and what to manipulate. This is particularly important to the United States, whose collection task is massive and global. The United States has had to develop extensive technical collection systems to overcome these problems. Enforced reliance on a single type of source makes the United States vulnerable to technical manipulation of the sort practiced by the now-defunct Soviet Union or Iraq. Much of the latter’s nuclear weapons program went undetected by American technical sources in the late 1980s. 7
To prevent themselves from being misled by technical manipulation, analysts and collectors need the support of effective counterintelligence. Counterintelligence can protect collectors from double agents or penetration agents passing calculatedly biased information to distort analysis. Similarly, covert action operations need the protection of counterintelligence. Otherwise, they run the risk of penetration, manipulation, or exposure by hostile foreign services. This often happened to many British and U.S. operations against Communist governments during the cold war—a story that will be told in detail later.
Collection is heavily reliant on the other intelligence areas and on policy. Policymakers, influenced by analysis, set the priorities. They can pose the questions the collectors are to answer. (Like analysts, collectors may not always answer policymakers’ questions, and if they fail to produce, or if they stray too far from assigned targets, they may be cut off from budget resources.) Analysts also levy requirements on collectors; like policymakers, analysts ask questions that collectors presumably do their best to answer. And, as already noted above, collection depends heavily on counterintelligence. The deception of collectors by rival intelligence services is a common occurrence that counterintelligence can and should forestall. At the same time, collection is enhanced by covert action programs that, if properly protected by counterintelligence, lead to more and better intelligence. Counterintelligence benefits from good overall collection and analysis, because it too needs information about the objectives, priorities, and concerns of targets.
Covert action programs, of course, require constant counterintelligence for protection. An additional reason for a close association among covert action and the other intelligence areas is command and control. Direction is almost impossible if the areas are not integrated in a single organization under the same leader. If they remain separate and pursue their respective objectives independently, competition for agents abroad is likely to lead to chaos. That fate befell some British covert action and collection operations in World War II and some early postwar U.S. operations. Yet another reason for the close association of covert action with other intelligence areas, specifically collection, is that in many countries those who by virtue of their position and status would make good agents of influence may already be the target of collectors. The latter, in turn, are quite likely to be charged with the development of a covert action infrastructure. Good collection often lies behind successful covert action.
The essence of the symbiotic relationship comes down to this: covert action, counterintelligence, analysis, and collection benefit the entire intelligence system, and at the same time the entire intelligence system benefits each of them.
If one attempts to define, explain, or alter a national intelligence system at a particular time, it is important to consider the relationship among the areas of intelligence as well as the relationship of each area to policy. Are these relationships understood and taken into account by most practitioners, particularly those in positions of authority? If that is not the case, and if, for example, the intelligence community is torn by turf wars or lulled into complacency, then an ideal, effective, full-service intelligence system will be elusive.
Neglected Elements
Of the four elements of intelligence, collection and analysis have historically caused less consternation in the United States than covert action and counterintelligence. The latter activities are far more likely to generate bold headlines and heated public debate. One reason is that collection and analysis are seen as useful components of rational decision-making. In business or at home, a citizen will routinely collect information, assess the information at hand, and then seek a decision based on the best available analysis. Although collection and analysis done by governments are far more complex and involve esoteric methodologies and special tradecraft, the general concept of collection and analysis is not totally foreign to the average person.
In contrast, counterintelligence and covert action are more arcane activities. Most people don’t spend time ferreting out illicit behavior or engaging in elaborate subterfuge. Citizens in liberal democracies generally have the luxury of treating other individuals in a relatively open, honest fashion. In public perceptions, collection and analysis may simply appear less “underhanded” than covert action and counterintelligence. Probably the greatest historical contribution the United States has made to the intelligence business is the innovation and expansion of collection by technical means. A satellite whizzing through space taking photos of a factory below seems infinitely more civilized than suborning a plant manager with money or sex. American reliance on technical means for most of its collection has left the impression that intelligence collection is a relatively “clean” business.
That intelligence analysis is looked upon in the United States as something of an academic endeavor may have heightened this impression. Intentionally insulated from politics and policymakers during much of the post-World War II period, intelligence analysts seek to provide scholarly, objective assessments of the world and world events, their ultimate and higher goal being to keep U.S. government officials “honest” by providing analyses of the security environment as it is, not as administration officials want it to be. With social science as their model, intelligence analysts often feel more at home in the groves of academe, not back alleys and the halls of power. 8
Compared with periodic efforts to improve analysis and collection, pleas for bolstering American covert action or counterintelligence capabilities are generally greeted with skepticism and suspicion. This can be traced, in part, to the breakdown of the foreign policy consensus in the postwar period. The executive and congressional investigations of U.S. intelligence operations and the ensu...

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