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Foreign
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Spies
By Loch K. Johnson
Virtually every nation resorts to the dark arts of espionage to protect
its government, economy, and citizens. But with the end of superpower
conflict, the spread of democracy, the advent of new information
technologies,
and the emergence of a more transparent world, the central question
about
spying today is whether it is still necessary.
Spying Is a Cold War Anachronism
Wishful thinking. True, global spying probably reached its zenith during
the standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union. Spies,
though,
have been around in one form or another since the Lord told Moses
to send
men to spy out the land of Canaan. For all the talk of a global trend
toward democracy and greater transparency, spies seem likely to
thrive,
even in the absence of a superpower struggle.
In the United States, the intelligence budgetapproximately $30 billion
in 2000is gradually inching back to its Cold War heights. (As a
general
rule, nations spend on spying an amount equivalent to about 5 to
10 percent
of their defense budgets.) The difference is that whereas the
United States
used to allocate 65 to 75 percent of its intelligence resources to
spy
on the U.S.S.R., it now devotes only about 15 percent to Russia.
The rest
goes toward dealing with what the former U.S. Director of Central
Intelligence
R. James Woolsey characterized in his 1993 confirmation hearings as a
bewildering variety of poisonous snakes, whether terrorism, drugs,
the
spread of weapons of mass destruction, ethnic conflict, or good
old-fashioned
bad behavior between, among, or within nations.
Although just about every major intelligence service shrank in size after
the Cold War, most have eagerly embraced the new threats mantra as
a strategic
imperative. By 1994, the British Secret Intelligence Servicethe
United
Kingdoms equivalent of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)devoted
only
15 percent of its resources to the former U.S.S.R. (compared with
37 percent
during the Cold War) and roughly 40 percent to fighting drugs,
terrorism,
weapons proliferation, and money laundering, with the balance divided
among individual countries. As Ernst Uhrlau, Germanys intelligence
chief,
recently noted, he sees an ever stronger connection between
transnational
issues and internal and bilateral conflicts. The transnational game
is
one that even lesser nations feel compelled to play: In 1997, seven
years
after achieving independence, Namibia cited terrorism, ethnic
conflict,
and the trafficking in drugs, arms, and diamonds as the rationale for
creating its central intelligence service.
Bureaucracies inevitably strive to advance their own interests, especially
when they are less accountable to the public. Yet even though they
may
inflate threats in order to pad budgets, it is hard to argue that
spying
is no longer necessary. During the last decade, wars and civil
conflicts
that threatened the interests of greater and lesser powers erupted
from
the Persian Gulf and the Balkans to East Timor and the Democratic
Republic
of the Congo. North Korea tested long-range missiles. Terrorists
bombed
U.S. barracks and embassies in Saudi Arabia, Kenya, and Tanzania,
as well
as buildings in New York City and Moscow. The Aum Shinrikyo cult in
Japan
released sarin nerve gas into Tokyos subways. India and Pakistan
conducted
surprise nuclear tests. And, lest we forget, Russia and the United
States
remained (and remain) armed with enough nuclear warheads to
annihilate
one another in a half-hour.
In a strategic landscape plagued by still greater uncertainties, the
need to know not only endures but grows. Moreover, although
globalization
has brought about a new set of favorable circumstances for nations in
terms of trade, travel, and communications, it has also brought
greater
exposure to foreign intrigue, against which intelligence can
provide a
shield. New information asymmetries add to the seductive power of
spying:
Whether on the battlefield or in trade negotiation sessions, the
disproportion
of the benefits that accrue to those with superior intelligence and
information
has grown. Given these circumstances, it should come as no surprise
that
spying in some cases is actually increasing in intensity. In the
United
States, wiretaps related to espionage and counterespionage (chiefly
against
suspected terrorists and international drug dealers) shot up from 595
in 1990 to 880 in 1999. In a 1994 white paper, the South African
government
noted that its country was experiencing a dramatic increase in
foreign
intelligence activities. And from Central Asia to the Baltic
States, the
new nations clustered along the periphery of the former Soviet
Union have
experienced a surge of spying by Russia, the United States, China,
and
assorted other powers.
In Spying as in War, the Enemy of My Enemy
Is My Friend
Not anymore. When the Cold War ended, the sense of threat on both sides
diminished, and with it, the cohesion that had drawn allied secret
agencies
into a web of cooperation. The Russian secret service currently has
minimal
ties with the state security apparatus in most of the former Soviet
satellites.
In fact, it significantly increased its own spy network in Poland,
Hungary,
and the Czech Republic following their accession to NATO in March
1999.
Although the foreign-policy objectives of nations within the Western
alliance were reasonably compatible during the Cold War, they were
never
fully congruent and are less so today. In 1998, German
counterintelligence
uncovered a CIA attempt to recruit a Bonn official for espionage, and
the next year the Federal Republic expelled three CIA officers for
spying.
In early 1999, Tokyo and Washington had a tiff over Japans plans to
develop
its own spy satellite and enhance its intelligence capabilities.
Earlier
this year, a French member of the European Parliament denounced an
eavesdropping
operation run by the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada,
Australia,
and New Zealand, known as echelon, as an Anglo-Saxon Protestant
conspiracy.
As shadowy figures operating outside the law or conventions of war, spies
are in some ways the ultimate agents of national interest.
Intelligence
cooperation between nations has therefore always been marked by a
sense
of ambivalence. Consider the case of the European Union: Many
European analysts have touted the benefits of greater intelligence
cooperation
in an era of falling budgets, exploding information, and growing
integration;
indeed there has been an improvement in cooperation among Europeans
(and
with the United States) in some areas, such as counterterrorism and
counternarcotics.
Yet intelligence services are reluctant to support the idea of a
truly
united European approach to intelligence sharing. Cooperation has
been
even more halting among the member states of the United Nations,
which
faces vexing disputes over secrecy and sovereignty issues. Barring
the dissolution of the current system of nation-states and the establishment
of full-fledged global governance, intelligence-sharing relationships
will remain significantly constrained by divergent policy
interests, the
fear of turncoats inside an allys government, and the general need
for
secrecy.
Spying on Economic Competitors Is Now Preeminent
Not really. When the European Parliament published its report on the
echelon eavesdropping system last February, Frances justice
minister huffed
that what had begun as a military system has been diverted to the
purposes
of economic espionage and for keeping a watch on competitors. As
one of
the most aggressive practitioners of economic spying, the French
could
perhaps be forgiven their paranoia. But when it comes to the security
agenda of most intelligence services, commerce continues to take a
back
seat to direct threats to national survival. Governments rightly
remain
more concerned about threats such as terrorism, drug smuggling, and
the
spread of weapons of mass destruction.
Of course, the resources that some intelligence services devote to economic
matters have been growing. In the United States, the proportion of
collection
and analysis resources allocated to economic intelligence rose from
less
than 10 to 40 percent in the immediate postCold War period. Of
special
interest has been the monitoring of unfair trade practices. In
1994, U.S.
intelligence learned that the French had tried to bribe Brazilian
officials
in an attempt to win a $1.4 billion contract for Thomson, their
communications
company; when the United States objected, Brazil awarded the contract
to the American company, Raytheon. U.S. intelligence agencies have
also
backed up diplomats in trade talks: During recent negotiations with
the
Japanese government over automobile imports, the U.S. delegation
reportedly
received agent reports and telephone taps that helped close the deal.
The United States has so far refused to spy on private foreign
companies,
but the roll call of countries so engaged is long. A 1996 survey by
the
American Society for Industrial Security named China as the most
aggressive
perpetrator of industrial espionage against U.S. companies,
followed by Canada, France, India, Japan, Germany, South Korea, Russia,
Taiwan, the
United Kingdom, Israel, and Mexico. The United States, however,
overlooks
its own self-imposed prohibition against commercial espionage if a
foreign
business is state owned, as is sometimes the case in the
telecommunication
and aerospace industries.
But the value of economic espionage is disputed. Open government agencies
often have better information on global economic activities than
their
clandestine cousins; so do any number of open sources, whether
multilateral
institutions, think tanks, or leading newspapers and magazines. One
of the best economic intelligence networks is that of Japan, which relies
overwhelmingly on bureaucrats at ministries, trade associations,
trading
firms, and companies overseas. Virtually all of the economic data
obtained
by Japan about the U.S. market supposedly comes from open sources.
Moreover, economic spying raises serious practical and ethical issues.
Intelligence cannot be provided in fairness to one U.S. company
over another;
yet widely distributing secrets risks the disclosure of sensitive
sources
and methods. Since most major U.S. firms are multinational,
intelligence
distributed to them cannot be expected to remain tidily within the
United
States. And if the CIA were caught with its hands in a Toyota safe at
midnight, would that risk be worth the likely setback in
U.S.-Japanese relations?
Technology Has Made Spying Easier
Yes, and harder, too. Intelligence has come a long way since the days
when pigeon droppings served as a source of invisible ink. Even
during
the Cold War, major powers resorted to surveillance technology that
now
seems like something out of a Laurel and Hardy movie. Frantic to
learn
more about Moscows military capabilities, the United States lofted
unmanned,
camera-carrying balloons across Soviet airspace; most crashed
somewhere
in the vast Russian expanse. In contrast, todays satellite cameras
can
canvass the globe and penetrate the cover of clouds and darkness.
Moreover, the time required for the retrieval, development, and
dissemination of
the photography has diminished from weeks to minutes.
Espionage agencies have invented a wide range of sensitive listening
devices, some as small as a pinhead, others as large as a football
field.
For the individual agent, secret codes have become more elaborate and
almost impossible to break; methods of communication between spies
and
their case officers have shifted from radio transmissions to
quick-burst
electronic messages bounced off satellites; lock picking and letter
opening
are now a science; and agent disguises rival those of Hollywood.
Technology,
though, cuts both ways. As countries have grown more sophisticated
in crafting spy machines for use against adversaries, so have adversaries
become more clever in evading these prying eyes and ears. During
the Indian
nuclear tests in 1999 that took much of the world by surprise, the
Indians
knew exactly when the spy cameras would be passing over the testing
facility near Pokharan in the Rajasthan Desert and, in synchrony with the
satellite
orbits (every three days), scientists camouflaged their preparations.
Advances in the commercial surveillance industry have further reduced
the information edge once enjoyed by some governments. In 1999, the
U.S.
company Space Imaging launched a surveillance satellite (named Ikonos
II) that yields photographs almost as detailed as the intelligence
communitys imagery for sale to anyone with cash or a credit card. Within a
few years,
Iraq or any other nation can have their own satellites or
commercially
available substitutes (the rent-a-satellite option). Accessing
communications
signals has also become more difficult. Existing
signals-intelligence
satellites are designed to snatch analog microwave communications
from
out of the air. The world, though, is rapidly switching to digital
cellphones
and underground (and undersea) fiber-optic modes of transmission that
are much harder to intercept, leaving nations with a sky full of
increasingly
irrelevant listening posts.
Furthermore, even poor nations and terrorist groups can encrypt messages
with complicated mathematical, computer-based technologies that
stymie
even the most experienced cryptologists. Under pressure from the U.S.
software industry, the Clinton administration recently decided to
allow
the export of advanced encryption software, making life more
difficult
for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National
Security
Agency (NSA, the United States code-breaking organization).
Similarly bowing to sales opportunities for their private firms, the
European Union
is expected to lift its barriers to the export of strong encryption
software.
Rest assured, however, that government spy masters will not respond
by
closing up shop, but by pouring more resources into the development
of
advanced intelligence collection, code-breaking, and counterdeception
methods.
Open Sources Provide Better Information Than
Spies
Increasingly, but not always. During the Cold War, about 85 percent of
the information contained in espionage reports came from the public
domain.
Today, in light of the greater openness of governments around the
world,
that figure is more like 90 to 95 percent. Within this figure,
though,
are not just well-known newspapers and magazines but gray sources
that
are not secret but are nonetheless hard to find (for example, remarks
by Libyan leader Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi at a political rally in
Tripoli).
The acquisition of such open information may require a covert agent
in
just the right place.
Sometimes information that is openly available proves insufficient to
answer an intelligence question. During its investigation into U.S.
intelligence
activities in 1995, the Aspin-Brown Commission (with members
appointed
by the president and Congress) explored the relative value of open
and clandestine reporting by looking at both sources for a few days (August
3-7) with respect to events unfolding in Burundi. The commission
asked
the firm Open Source Solutions to explore the open side, drawing on
the
resources of such private information companies as Janes
Information Group, Lexis-Nexis, and Oxford Analytica. The open sources
performed well, providing
a brief, accurate history of the tribal conflict between the Hutu and
Tutsi factions, and detailed order-of-battle statistics and
descriptions
of weapons in the Burundian inventory. However, contrary to some
reports,
the U.S. intelligence community shined as well. The CIA generated
up-to-date
information on the growing political polarization in the country
and the
high likelihood that violence would soon erupt. The CIA also
presented
comprehensive data on regional ethnic population patterns,
illustrated
with impressive four-color maps, along with facts on Burundis
acquisition
of arms in the international marketplace (which led to U.S.
diplomatic
pressure to halt the shipments). The information provided by Janes
Information
Group on the characteristics of weapons in Burundi proved richer than
the CIAs profiles, but the CIA offered better insights into the
evolving
humanitarian crisis in Burundi, the attitudes of leaders in
surrounding
nations, and the need for the United States to begin preparing for
the evacuation of U.S. and European nationals. The open and clandestine
sources
each revealed pieces of the Burundian jigsaw puzzle; when joined
together,
the picture became much clearer.
Intelligence agencies perform especially well on topics that open reporting
sources have trouble tracking, notably the precise whereabouts of
foreign
military forces, the activities of terrorist groups, the machinations
of international criminals, and events and personalities in closed
societies.
Open reporting is often better for the long-term interpretation of
political
events. A leading newspaper, for example, may have a seasoned
reporter
assigned to a foreign capital for years, perhaps even decades,
while intelligence
officers typically undergo rapid turnover as they move from capital
to
capital during their careers.
China and Japan are especially proficient at cultivating open sources
of information; so are Israel, the Netherlands, Singapore, and
Taiwan.
And according to Robert D. Steele, the chief executive officer of
Open
Source Solutions, the Nordics are sensational at open source
exploitation.
Sweden, for example, has pioneered new methods of coordinating
open-source
collection among all its government agencies and tapping the
resources
of the Internet. Many Western nations, though, underestimate the
value
of such sources. After all, an ordinary city map purchased at a
Belgrade
kiosk in 1999 could have saved the CIA from the embarrassing
blunder of
mistakenly targeting the Chinese embassy in Serbia. The U.S. National
Foreign Intelligence Board found that U.S. intelligence agencies
devote
only 1 percent of their total budget to the acquisition of open
source
material, despite the importance of information from the public
domain
in the preparation of intelligence reports.
Open sources, though, are no panacea. A 1996 CIA study of the Internet
estimated, for example, that only 1 percent of the millions of
Internet
pages contained content useful for intelligence purposes. As Ray
Cline,
a former CIA deputy director of intelligence, once observed,
Espionage
is now the guided search for the missing links of information that
other
sources do not reveal. The effective intelligence analyst starts
trying
to answer questions with an exhaustive examination of open sourcesa
much
less expensive method of detection. Too often, however, analysts
set aside
open sources in favor of the more beguiling and abundant (if
frequently
less reliable) secret information that pours in from agents and spy
machinesincluding,
in the United States, some 400 photographs a day from surveillance
satellites.
Machines Provide Better Intelligence Than Humans
Dont say goodbye to James Bond just yet. Technology is important, but
agents have had their moments of glory, too. The United States best
agent
during the Cold War, the Soviet military intelligence officer Col.
Oleg
Penkovsky, provided the CIA with information on the Kremlins
military policies and weapons, including drawings of missile sites inside
Russia.
In October 1962, this information allowed CIA imagery analysts to
interpret
telltale signs in U-2 photographs that revealed comparable sites
being
constructed in Cuba. Further, the CIA only initiated U-2 flights over
Cuba in the first place because its agents reported unusual
activity on
the island, including the sighting of what appeared to be missile
parts
unloaded from Soviet ships. Of the 3,500 CIA-agent reports
preceding the missile crisis, only eight yielded accurate information about
the presence
of missiles; nevertheless, those eight reports proved invaluable as
triggers
for the U-2 reconnaissance flights.
But that was almost 40 years ago, before the age of advanced surveillance
satellites and other major innovations in technical espionage. How
useful
are agents today? In those nations that can afford costly spy
machines,
funding for technical intelligence dwarfs that expended on agents
(the
spending ratio in the United States is roughly 7 to 1). But spy
satellites
are unable to see through roofs and into the inner councils of
foreign
governments where decisions are made. It takes a human agent for
that.
The need for reliable agents is continual. Although the attempted rescue
of American hostages held in Tehran during the Carter
administration failed,
its planners had good reason to think it might succeed, in part
because
agents in Tehran had been able to provide information on exactly
where
each hostage was being held inside the U.S. embassy. During the
United
States disastrous intervention in Somalia in 1993, the Pentagon
learned
that its powerful Black Hawk attack helicopters were worthless
without spies on the ground who could point them toward the right targets
in Mogadishus
twisting maze of dirt streets and alleyways. This year, U.N. blue
helmet
troops captured Sierra Leonean rebel leader Foday Sankoh, thanks to a
tip from an indigenous agent reporting to U.S. forces among the
peacekeepers.
As transparent as machines have made some parts of the globe, much
still
remains opaque. In fact, nations like North Korea that pose the
greatest
threat to world peace are generally the least transparent.
Spying and Democracy Are Fundamentally Incompatible
On the contrary. Human rights activists and other champions of democracy
have understandably balked at the excesses that have occasionally
characterized
intelligence activities, whether assassination plots, coups, bribery,
the spreading of propaganda, or the lack of accountability. Yet
during
the Cold War, the Western intelligence services, working together,
provided
an indispensable early-warning system against threats to
democracies from
the Communist world. Intelligence services continue to provide this
first
line of defense, including efforts to uncover the use of chemical
and biological warfare before the sarin gas, anthrax particles, or other
horrendous
substances are released among mass civilian populations.
Spying has advanced other laudable goals, from battling international
drug dealers to uncovering renegades who attempt to violate U.N.
sanctions.
During the recent Balkan wars, spy satellites spotted mass graves
freshly
dug near the villages of Pusto Selo and Izbica in Kosovo, allowing
U.N. investigators to search for additional evidence of atrocities. U.S.
secret
agencies have been involved in environmental activities, including
the
use of satellite cameras to inspect crop blight as well as track
the spillage
of radioactive materials from submarine accidents and leaky nuclear
storage
sites. Intelligence agencies have been drawn into the task of
global disease
surveillance, too, both by doing long-range analyses and ferreting
out
facts beyond the ken of the Centers for Disease Control and the World
Health Organizationas when the Chinese attempted in 1996 to cover
up an
aids-contaminated blood product (serum albumin) produced by a
military-run
factory.
Spying, then, can be a vital support to democracy; but it can also have
just the opposite effect if a regime fails to maintain a system of
accountability
over its secret agencies. Until recently, the intelligence services
of
every nation enjoyed immunity from close review by outside overseers:
The philosophy was that, by necessity, secret agencies had to be
divorced
from society. While most intelligence services throughout the world
continue
to operate free from parliamentary supervision, in 1976 the United
States
adopted a system of legislative oversight for its intelligence
activitiesan approach stemming from revelations that U.S. intelligence
agencies were
spying on their own citizens and subsequent discoveries that the
CIA had
engaged in assassination plots overseas. A few other countries,
most notably
Canada and Australia, have also established serious parliamentary
checks
on intelligence activities. Ultimately, in a democracy, the viability
of an effective secret service relies on public respect. Oversight by
elected representatives provides an important link between the people
and the hidden side of government and helps to guard against the
misuse
of secret power.
Perhaps some day spying will be as outdated as dueling. But democracies
will continue to tolerate espionage as an instrument to keep
themselves
informed about the intentions and capabilities of unpredictable
nations
with a penchant for international misbehavior: the North Koreas and
Iraqs
of the world. And even against fellow democracies, most citizens will
accept spying as a necessary evil, for the simple reason that
democracies
still compete against one another for political and economic
opportunities.
A worthy goal for the future is to seek a reduction in harmful
competition
and spying between democracies, so they can direct their intelligence
capabilities toward providing a common defense against the worlds
more
troublesome regimes, along with the transnational threats of weapons,
drugs, terrorism, crime, environmental pollution, and infectious
diseases
that continue to spread and endanger everyone.
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
A flood tide of books and articles on intelligence has appeared
over the past few years. A good place to begin is Intelligence:
From Secrets to Policy (Washington: CQ Press, 2000), written by
Mark Lowenthal, a former State Department intelligence official
who also served as staff director of the Intelligence Committee
in the U.S. House of Representatives. New and insightful,
too, are
more specialized studies by authors who have also worked inside
the intelligence community: Bruce D. Berkowitz and Allen E.
Goodmans
Best Truth: Intelligence in the Information Age (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2000); Robert David Steeles On Intelligence (Oakton:
OSS Academy, 2000); Arthur S. Hulnicks Fixing the Spy Machine
(Westport:
Praeger, 1999); and Gregory F. Trevertons Reshaping National
Intelligence
for an Age of Information (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press,
2000). For historical perspectives, see Rhodri
Jeffreys-Joness The
CIA & American Democracy, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1996) and Loch K. Johnsons Secret Agencies (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1996).
Michael Herman, a former British intelligence officer, has written
a thorough study, Intelligence Power in Peace and War
(Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996), that looks at the state of
espionage
in a number of nations, with a special focus on Great
Britain. A
good general account of how various intelligence agencies
have adapted
to the postCold War world can be found in British journalist
James
Adamss The New Spies (London: Hutchison, 1994). For information
on the KGB, see the memoir of its former chief of
counterintelligence,
Oleg Kalugin: The First Directorate (New York: St. Martins,
1994).
Those interested in technical intelligence should turn to William
E. Burrowss Deep Black: Space Espionage and National Security
(New
York: Random House, 1986); and to two books by Jeffrey T.
Richelson:
Americas Secret Eyes in Space: The U.S. KEYHOLE Spy Satellite
Program
(New York: Harper & Row, 1990) and Americas Space Sentinels
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999).
The premier scholarly quarterlies that cover intelligence are Intelligence
and National Security and International Intelligence and
Counterintelligence.
The American Intelligence Journal, sponsored by the National
Military
Intelligence Association, presents up-to-date views by
leading intelligence officials; and Studies in Intelligence, published in
both classified
and unclassified forms by the CIAs Center for the Study of
Intelligence,
offers mainly in-house studies. For useful reporting on
international
intelligence issues, readers can consult the monthly Janes
Intelligence
Review.
For links to relevant Web sites, as well as a comprehensive index
of related Foreign Policy articles, access
www.foreignpolicy.com.
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