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A View to the Threat Environment: Perspective from General David H. Petraeus

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Former CIA Director General David H. Petraeus, PhD, US Army (Ret) discussing the intelligence business as a guest speaker for a graduate course on open source intelligence taught by the interviewer at Johns Hopkins University, 2019. Photo Credit: Michael S. Smith II

Smith:  Thank you for agreeing to conduct this interview and thank you for your many other contributions to projects managed by Department of War Studies’ faculty and students, including your recent participation in the War Studies at 60 speakers series cohosted by RUSI.

General Petraeus:  Great to be with you, Mike, thanks.

Smith:  Before we proceed further, I should acknowledge that General Petraeus will be serving as an additional reader on my committee as I conduct PhD research supervised by faculty in the Department of War Studies here at King’s College London. And I probably would not have applied to conduct PhD research at King’s without his encouragement.

That said, here we go:

A careful reading of Usama bin Laden’s statements, al Qaeda’s propaganda, as well as the statements produced by ISIS leaders, who have claimed to be stewarding the global jihad charted by bin Laden, suggest a key objective among leadership figures in the wider Salafi-Jihadist movement has been to drain political will within the United States and its close allies to sustain “long and bitter wars,” as bin Laden put it, that might deny Salafi-Jihadists capabilities to bring their chief goal of reestablishing a caliphate to fruition. The growth in membership in Salafi-Jihadist groups during and after the Arab Spring, and the expansions of their operational footprints across many regions spanning from West Africa to the Philippines, suggest al Qaeda and ISIS have realized growing capabilities to convince people their objective of exhausting that political will is being met—thus their strategies for pursuing their apparently inspirational goal are indeed viable.

Since 9/11, what policies pursued by the United States and its allies might have inadvertently  intensified the perceptibility of these groups as being credible, durable and capable stewards of international campaigns aiming to reestablish a caliphate?

General Petraeus:  As you note, Osama bin Laden did, indeed, want to sap our political will and impose costs of various types on us. In fact, the 9/11 attacks did result in various costs, as we are reminded each time we go through airport security or have bags screened before entering a large public venue. Clearly, we had to improve our security and take innumerable measures to do that in various ways, not just physically but also in other domains, including cyberspace. 

 That said, in responding to your question, no actions come to mind that we took that inadvertently gave credibility to IS or AQ or their affiliates as they sought to achieve their goals of creating a caliphate or establish control of various areas. There were certainly deliberate actions in the past decade that heightened the “status” that IS, in particular, had attained as a serious threat to our allies and our homeland, and I believe those actions were needed, including the creation of the Counter-ISIS Coalition; however, again, no inadvertent ones come to mind. 

 Rather, it was the achievements of ISIS on the ground in Iraq and Syria that inspired alienated youth in Europe and elsewhere to seek to join ISIS in those two countries or to carry out attacks in their home countries. It was ISIS’s success on the ground in Iraq and Syria, as well as in cyberspace (where ISIS established what might be termed its virtual caliphate), that most powerfully conveyed that ISIS was a winner, was succeeding. ISIS’s accomplishments, in fact, demonstrated that nothing succeeds like success when it comes to recruiting, inspiring others to carry out extremist activities, prompting still others to contribute in various ways, and so forth.

 In sum, it was not inadvertent activities by the US and countries of the Counter-ISIS Coalition that established ISIS as a successful movement that others wanted to join; it was success on the ground until the US and other countries returned to Iraq and deployed to Syria, providing the military assets that enabled Iraqi Security Forces and Syrian Democratic Forces to defeat ISIS, eliminate the IS Caliphate, and dramatically reduce the virtual caliphate—though clearly there are remnants of ISIS that continue to be very threatening in Iraq and Syria, with affiliates in other countries, as well, most significantly Afghanistan, as well as some continued, but much reduced, activities in cyberspace, as well.

Smith:  A prominent feature of United States national security policies during the 20th and 21st centuries has been the use of America’s economic influence to constrain the capabilities of hostile state and nonstate actors to accrue financial and other resources. One way that the US Government has sought to diminish the capabilities of hostile foreign nonstate actors responsible for terrorist attacks targeting US interests to secure important resources—ranging from new members to cash and weapons, to sanctuaries in countries whose governments might not otherwise be inclined to interfere with their activities—has involved the US State Department designating them as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). Early in 2017, I tried to persuade Senator Lindsey Graham to push the Trump administration to insist that the State Department designate the Taliban an FTO. As he was receptive to the idea, I also shared contact details with Senator Graham for a holdover staffer on the National Security Council (NSC) from the Obama administration’s NSC who was happy to discuss evidence that demonstrated the Taliban met the criteria for such a designation. Yet it quickly became evident that this was not something the Trump administration was inclined to do. This year, following the withdrawal of US military personnel from Afghanistan pursuant to the terms of a deal struck with the Taliban by the Trump administration, Senator Graham called on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to designate the Taliban an FTO. Several other prominent Republican senators have also introduced a bill to try to effectively force the State Department to designate the Taliban a terrorist group.

If the Clinton, Bush or Obama administrations had insisted that the United States Department of State should have designated the Taliban as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in response to the various forms of support it offered al Qaeda—as well as other entities designated as FTOs—before and after 9/11, would the situation in Afghanistan be much different than it is today, and, if the State Department designates the Taliban an FTO in the near future, how might that affect things?

General Petraeus:  This is a difficult issue, of course, as the current US administration and its two predecessor administrations at various points sought to negotiate with the Taliban. And that was seen as difficult in various respects if the organization was designated as an FTO (though, in practice, I think workarounds were possible). In any event, I certainly recognize the challenges inherent in that situation. 

Beyond that, I’m not sure whether designating the Taliban as an FTO or identifying it as a declared hostile force on the battlefield (as it was treated for a number of years until the previous two US administrations, at various junctures, sought to distinguish between the Taliban and al Qaeda and other extremist groups, including the Islamic State) would have been best. But clearly not targeting Taliban elements that were attacking our Afghan Security Force partners, while not putting our forces in harm’s way, was very challenging—and maddening—for those advising and assisting Afghan forces during those periods. In essence, our forces could always hit any AQ and, over time, IS elements we identified, but at a certain point in each of the previous two administrations could not target the Taliban unless they threatened our forces. And that created, again, a very difficult situation for those trying to help our Afghan partners seeking to secure their country and fellow citizens. 

Smith:  A lot can be learned about the interests and plans of jihadist groups from what their leaders say. Much can also be learned from what they don’t say. The Taliban’s leaders have not publicly disavowed al Qaeda. This suggests that they may once again serve as willing hosts of al Qaeda. Meanwhile, given that (a) al Qaeda’s leaders have for decades referred to the Taliban’s founding leader and his successors as Emir al-Mu’minin (Commander of the Faithful; a title historically reserved for caliphs), and (b) its current leaders have given baya (an oath of allegiance) to the Taliban’s current leader, it seems that the Taliban’s leader actually could persuade al Qaeda not to use Afghanistan as a base from which to train and deploy terrorists to perpetrate attacks in the West. Indeed, that al Qaeda did not seize on the opportunities to target US military personnel during the NEO staged at Hamid Karzai International Airport suggests the Taliban conveyed to al Qaeda’s leaders that it was not advisable to exploit that situation, and al Qaeda deferred to such guidance. Yet, even if al Qaeda were to honor a request not to use Afghanistan as a base to train and deploy its members to perpetrate attacks in the West, al Qaeda could still use Afghanistan to help it orchestrate attacks in the West. Because providing al Qaeda a sanctuary contributes to its capabilities to convince prospective aspirant terrorists the world over that the group is a durable enterprise that remains worthy of support—including support furnished in the form of terrorist attacks perpetrated in the US.

Do you see the situation in Afghanistan as something that contributes to al Qaeda’s capabilities to build and reinforce support, including among individuals in the West who may be willing to serve as de facto agents in its external operations? 

General Petraeus:  I do fear that either the al Qaeda or the Islamic State affiliates in Afghanistan—or both—could present challenges over time to the United States and, more likely, to the homelands of our allies, especially those in Europe—as IS elements and affiliates did at the height of ISIS’ power in northern Iraq and northeastern Syria. In fact, Colin Kahl, the US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy recently warned that IS’s element in the Af/Pak region and, to a lesser degree, AQ could present a threat beyond Afghanistan in relative near-term. “ISIS-K and al Qaeda have the intent to conduct external operations, including against the U.S.” he noted. “But neither currently has the capability to do so. We could see ISIS-K generate that capability somewhere between 6 to 12 months. I think the current assessments by the intelligence community [are] that al Qaeda would take a year or two.”

In fact, as you noted, there is a long history of varying levels of collaboration between the Taliban and al Qaeda elements in Afghanistan and Pakistan, not the least of which was when the Taliban permitted the sanctuary in the late 1990s and early 2000s that al Qaeda used to plan the 9/11 attacks. And one would expect the Taliban to continue to be permissive when it comes to al Qaeda, though there may be an attempt to discourage attacks on the US that might force the US to get more active once again in that region.

The Taliban-IS relationship, on the other hand, is one of conflict, as we have seen in the months since the Taliban took control of Kabul and Afghanistan, with IS elements carrying out horrific attacks against our forces and Afghans outside Kabul International Airport during the final days of our withdrawal operations and many subsequent attacks, often targeting Hazara Shia but also against Taliban forces and Afghan citizens. The Taliban leadership has deployed forces to track down IS elements, but one would expect conflict between IS and the Taliban to continue.

Smith:  After United States President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. decided to withdraw US military and other governmental personnel from Afghanistan, as well as intelligence assets who assisted the US with counterterrorism operations there, President Biden claimed his administration would “maintain a laser-focus on our counterterrorism missions there and in other parts of the world.” He also advised the US is conducting counterterrorism missions “in multiple countries where we don’t have a permanent military presence,” adding:  “If necessary, we will do the same in Afghanistan. We’ve developed counterterrorism over-the-horizon capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed on any direct threats to the United States in the region and to act quickly and decisively if needed.” Yet the optics of the US departure—in particular, the ease with which the Taliban returned to power and then placed individuals designated as Specially Designated Global Terrorists by the US in key positions within its new regime—could adversely affect perceptions of the US as being a reliable counterterrorism partner among local civilian populations in many countries where al Qaeda and ISIS are expanding their operations. Particularly Afghanistan. Indeed, it seems reasonable to assume that the optics of what unfolded in Afghanistan could negatively impact America’s and several partner nations’ capabilities to cultivate the assets who play important roles in helping intelligence and military organizations identify where to orient “over-the-horizon” tools.

Do you assess that President Biden’s decisions to extricate the US military from Afghanistan and do very little to prevent the Taliban from reclaiming power over much of the country will adversely affect the capabilities of the United States Intelligence Community and intelligence agencies in governments of America’s closest allies to maintain existing and cultivate new relationships with individuals and organizations that can help gather information about the activities, plans and locations of al Qaeda and ISIS members?

General Petraeus:  US intelligence and military leaders have very forthrightly noted that the loss of our bases in Afghanistan, which constituted the final bases we had in Central and South Asia, will make it much tougher to carry out operations to gain the kind of intelligence we will need to keep a close eye on AQ and IS elements in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region. There is no disputing that. Drones, for example, have always played an important role, together with all other sources of intel to be sure, in providing various forms of intelligence; however, they will now have to fly out of bases in the Gulf States—and depending on the specific location, they likely will use 50-65% of their flight time just getting to and from the location in Afghanistan where they may be needed to establish an “unblinking eye.” That obviously dramatically reduces dwell time and increases the number of such assets required. But all other typical actions will also be vastly more difficult given the loss of bases, partners, various intel assets, etc., etc. That is beyond dispute. And the intelligence community and US military elements are undoubtedly aggressively pursuing initiatives that will help mitigate the risks that have increased substantially with the loss of our Afghan government, military, and intelligence partners in Afghanistan.

Smith:  The proliferation online of incitement-focused propaganda produced by al Qaeda and ISIS, the ease with which their members can identify and cultivate prospective aspirant terrorists on popular and “dark” social media platforms, and the ever-increasing speed with which inspirational information about “successes” achieved in their global terrorism campaigns spreads across the cyber domain has not only enhanced their capabilities to radicalize, recruit and incite violence; this has simultaneously increased the availability of open source information that can be harnessed by the United States Intelligence Community (USIC) to identify and manage threats linked to the Salafi-Jihadist movement. Yet, 20 years after 9/11, persistent threats posed by this movement—and the largely unmitigated growth in threats within the United States posed by rightwing extremists who have harnessed the Internet in similar ways—suggests the USIC has not made a maximal effort to utilize OSINT to prevent and counter violent extremism. Indeed, the renewed efforts underway in policymaking spheres in the US to elevate OSINT’s profile among other intelligence disciplines suggests members of Congress are concerned that biases favoring more discreet intelligence disciplines like human intelligence and signals intelligence may have remained a persistent issue within senior echelons of the US national security enterprise since 9/11.

Does the threat environment make OSINT an increasingly valuable tool for the US Government, and, if so, what are some of the things that could be done to help ensure it is not an underutilized resource?

 General Petraeus:  It is publicly known that the [Open Source Enterprise] (previously named the Director of National Intelligence Open Source Center), for which the CIA is the executive agent, has been a very productive and exceedingly important source of information from traditional media and also from social media and other activities that use the internet. Indeed, the richness of what can be gleaned from sources of information available via the internet has exploded. It is not uncommon, in fact, for such sources to rival those obtained by more traditional tradecraft and tools. During the fight against ISIS in Mosul, the location of the Caliphate’s capital in northern Iraq, e.g., one of the best real-time sources of information was available via a blog titled “Mosul Eye.” I can only imagine that my former colleagues at the CIA had that high on their list of all sources of intelligence for insights on the situation inside Mosul during the fight with ISIS and during the eventual liberation of Mosul. The same has been—and is—true for many other situations around the world. And ensuring that all such sources are well known and used is imperative.

Order of Battle Analysis and Military Intelligence in the 1973 Yom Kippur War

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By Leonardo Palma

Israeli Tanks advancing during the Yom Kippur War in October 1973 https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/yom-kippur-war

The 1973 Yom Kippur War has been regarded by traditional historiography as an intelligence failure. Western intelligence services, as well as Israeli military intelligence, failed in anticipating President Anwar Sadat’s intentions, to the point that the war provoked the intervention of both the US and the USSR and the risk of a nuclear confrontation. However, declassified archive materials, interviews, and memoirs allow us to tell a different story: though it is true that the Israelis underestimated the Egyptians, the former had all the information they needed to anticipate the invasion. Western intelligence services correctly sensed Sadat’s intentions in waging war but failed to grasp Egypt’s military capabilities and misread the expulsion of Soviet advisors. The Italian foreign Intelligence Service (SID), however, communicated to its Israeli military counterpart (Aman) in 1971 how Egypt would attack. Thanks to intelligence gathered in Eastern Germany and a brilliant order of battle analysis of the Egyptian Army, the SID inferred that Sadat’s generals would intend to use a new concept of tactical movement tested by the Soviets to cope with Israel’s air superiority: the static coverage of the battlefield. After having examined British and American intelligence evaluations, misconceptions, and cognitive dissonance, this post will assess the Italian order of battle analysis, Egypt’s tactical concept, and the delicate balance between failure and success in military intelligence.

Foreseeing the War. Western Military Intelligence before October 1973

Between 1970 and 1973, military intelligence failure was not due to an inability to understand motivations and intentions, as previous historiography has argued, but rather capabilities. Sadat, facing domestic turmoil, low-popularity, and the risk of being overthrown, needed a limited military action to bolster his role as president. Moreover, he knew that it would not be possible to ensure the Israelis’ withdrawal from the Sinai without Soviet-US mediation. Therefore, in the second-half of 1973, Sadat sought a war that could allow him to reinvigorate Egyptian prestige by demonstrating its military prowess on the battlefield and the ability to negotiate from a renewed position of strength. In effect, it was necessary to prove that the Israeli invincibility was a false myth. While British and American intelligence analysts broadly understood that fact, they still failed when it came to judging Egypt’s ability to carry out such goals, and the result was the same as not having understood Sadat’s intentions in the first place – an erroneously reduced perception of threat. 

It happened because they could not distinguish the ʺsignalsʺ correctly (that is, Egypt’s true intentions and capabilities) from the ʺnoiseʺ (that is, the boisterous and frequently pompous political rhetoric emanating from the region). The British and the Americans rightly applied a cultural approach to their analysis, but the latter had a double-edged effect. At the same time, the ʺspecificity of Arab political culture were a major contributing factor to analytical strengths in reading Sadat’s intentions in 1973, yet similar cultural beliefs culminated in a fundamental misreading of Egypt’s military capabilitiesʺ. Western intelligence services, as well as their Israeli counterparts, believed that the Arabs were not good fighters and that even if rhetoric and intentions overlapped, capabilities were largely scarce. Further, they also misread the Soviet role in the crisis after Egypt expelled them in early 1972. As long as Soviet advisors were in Cairo, analysts consciously resisted the temptation to look at the USSR-Egypt relationship only through the prism of the Cold War; instead, they focused on regional dynamics. Ironically, as soon as the Soviets left, these analysts reversed to a more simplistic assessment of Egypt’s capabilities within a Cold War-framework, in which they lacked Soviet backing, In such an assessment, Egypt stood no chance of military success.

Whatever the reasons for failure, Richard Aldrich, a leading intelligence historian, concludes that the war “was not foreseen by any of the world’s major intelligence services”. We know now that that is not the case, since the Italian SID correctly predicted not only the war but even the tactical concept beneath the Egyptian army doctrine of operation.

The Italian Job. SID Order of Battle Analysis and Predictions

At the beginning of the 1970s, thanks to NATO intelligence-gathering network, the Italian SID acquired details about some Soviet military exercises in Eastern Germany. The 8th Guards Combined Arms Army was a Soviet elite unit comprised of mechanized and armoured divisions and deployed nearby the Fulda Gap. The latter had tested a new kind of anti-aircraft defence that Italian analysts had labelled as ʺstatic coverage of the battlefieldʺ. The Army moved at a slow pace, a few miles per day, which was nothing compared to the speed of the Nazi armoured divisions during the 1940 French Campaign. However, slowness was compensated by a five-layered anti-aircraft coverage: four SAM (Surface-to-Air) systems at various heights and one of mobile anti-aircraft artillery. This new approach to manoeuvre was a Soviet answer to the Western air-superiority in the European theatre.

Nonetheless, the Soviets had thousands of military advisors in Egypt and Syria, and Italian intelligence tracked the shipment to Cairo of several SAM-1, SAM-2, SAM-3, SAM-6, SAM-7, and self-propelled anti-aircraft guns. Admiral Fulvio Martini, Chief of the Service, recalled in his memoir that his analysts foresaw the connection between Sadat’s strategic goals and the ʺstatic coverage of the battlefieldʺ. The latter could indeed serve the purposes of the former. 

Italian SID adopted a more pragmatic mindset than their British and American counterparts, leaving aside cultural aspects while focusing on the material ones. They assumed that Sadat would behave as any leader would do once he had assessed that, to survive politically, he needed to wash the shame of the 1967 naksah (setback) and recover the Sinai Peninsula. If he could have managed to keep even one soldier beyond the Canal before a ceasefire, he would not only have avenged the 1967 defeat but altered bargaining positions to his favour too. Accepting this assumption, it was only a matter of understanding how the Egyptian President intended to do so tactically. Egypt had to cope with three problems: ensuring surprise, combating Israeli air-superiority, and creating a strategic cushion of time before the superpowers would inevitably get involved. Yom Kippur celebrations and the operations’ secrecy (platoon commanders knew that they were going to war only five hours before the beginning of the invasion) guaranteed surprise. The ʺstatic coverageʺ offset Israeli air-superiority, allowing ground troops to cross the Bar-Lev Line, consolidate strategic positions and earn time waiting for international diplomacy to work things out. 

Between 1971 and 1973, Israel was aware that both Egypt and Syria needed only 6-hours to shift from defensive to offensive posture along the borders. Conversely, Tel Aviv required at least 30-hours for a full-scale mobilization, and its operational doctrine was built on the assumption that air-superiority was enough to halt enemies’ advance and gain time. This ʺstrategic conceptʺ revolved around the assumption that Egypt would not attack Israel without acquiring Soviets fighter bombers to provide air-superiority. However, the use of static coverage rendered Israeli air-superiority less efficient. 

Admiral Martini, then Chief of the ʺUfficio Situazioneʺ (Situation Section, i.e., the Directorate for Analysis), presented his analysts’ conclusions in 1971 to General Shalev. The latter, his counterpart within the Aman and a close friend of prime minister Golda Meir, rebutted the warning, claiming that Egypt could not put in place such a complex tactical manoeuvre and that war was simply not possible.

The ambiguous utility of military intelligence

The case of Israel in the 1973 war is altogether singular and shows the flaws beneath the idea that knowledge superiority, or a lack of it, is essential to military success. Tel Aviv possessed objective superiority over its enemies and, thanks to Western intelligence services and a presumed mole, knowledge superiority as well. What it lacked was flexibility in political and military thinking, which, matched with a misplaced sense of hubris, pushed the military evaluators to underestimate Egypt. Nonetheless, after the US airlift and the start of the counter-offensive, Israel’s military strength remained unmatched throughout the remainder of the war. Therefore, we should remember that knowledge of the enemy’s intentions ʺcannot destroy or deflect or damage or even defy an offensive initiative by an enemy unless the possession of knowledge is also allied to objective forceʺ.

 

Leonardo Palma attended the Military Academy of Modena (196th Commissioning Course) and holds a MA in International Relations and a BA in Political Science from University of Roma Tre. He has been visiting student at King’s College London (War Studies).

Pakistan Paradox: Will New Intelligence Committee Erase Deficiencies or Increase Military Influence?

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By Mariam Qureshi

Image Caption: Prime Minister Imran Khan and Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa at ISI Headquarters. Source: https://www.dawn.com/news/1593085

Pakistan has predominantly been a praetorian state with military overreach extending to politics and also to intelligence agencies. The intelligence community is marred with deficiencies in structural organisation and its politicization has further dampened its efficacy. In an attempt to reform the intelligence community, Prime Minister Imran Khan recently approved of a National Intelligence Coordination Committee. Would this be sufficient and effective in streamlining the two-dozen civil and military intelligence organisations existing in Pakistan? An effective reform in the intelligence community would ultimately help strengthen the civilian policy making process rather than solidifying military control. 

Pakistan’s troubled birth also accounts for the weakness of its institutions and strong military presence within them. India received the lion’s share of the division of assets of intelligence, bureaucracy, administration and army which meant that Pakistan had to start from scratch with minimal infrastructure. The initial military intelligence organisation collectively known as Defence Intelligence Services (DIS) consisted of tactical intelligence wings of the navy, air force and the Military Intelligence (MI) wing of the armed forces inherited at Partition. They specialised in carrying out offensive counterintelligence and military espionage. The only civilian-led intelligence organisation was the Intelligence Bureau (IB) which emerged from the partitioning of the British Raj’s Intelligence Bureau in 1947. It was responsible for collection, analysis and dissemination of domestic intelligence but no effective mechanism of coordination with other agencies existed. 

As the two neighbours started off with a highly volatile relationship that could boil over a plethora of disputes, Pakistan prioritised the development of its army and failed to take into account the equally essential need for a strong intelligence community to counter any Indian threat of war. With army as the only developed institute, Pakistan slipped into military dictatorship. The military dictatorships obstructed the development of a constitution and democratic political institutions, and it was not until 2008 that Pakistan witnessed the beginning of smooth democratic transitions. 

The Radcliffe Award arbitrarily divided the subcontinent along religious communal lines in 1947, creating border clashes and forcing a bloody, cross-border migration. The border dispute culminated into the 1947 war of Kashmir with India which presented an intelligence failure that highlighted the pressing need for a foreign intelligence agency. Thus, Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) was established in 1948 as a military organisation to carry out collection and analysis of external threats, liaise with foreign counterparts and conduct operations. It also aimed to enhance coordination among military intelligence organisations. The ISI was tasked with collection and analysis of domestic intelligence during the unrest in East Pakistan in 1971. Following that, the unrest in the province of Balochistan during the 1970s presented another opportunity leading to expansion of ISI’s ambit to cover internal intelligence permanently. This brought the military-led ISI in direct clash with the dwarfed civilian-led Intelligence Bureau. The better resourced military intelligence organisation monopolised the intelligence community of Pakistan as it flourished under military dictatorships in the initial decades. Unfortunately, rather than a structured development, Pakistan’s agencies were created as independently functioning units on a need-by-need basis with often overlapping responsibilities. 

Though Pakistan created civilian-led intelligence agencies for specialised tasks to fulfil domestic intelligence requirements, it failed to provide a conducive environment for them to operate in. The Pakistan Special Police Establishment, inherited from British India, proved inadequate for overseeing control of organised crimes, smuggling, human trafficking and other offences. Therefore, a cumulative counterintelligence agency also responsible for countering money laundering, border control and domestic security known as the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) was formed in 1975 under civilian control of the Ministry of Interior. The National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) was formed in 2013 under Ministry of Interior to counter terrorism although this clashed with ISI’s remit in overseeing external and internal terrorism. Similarly, other agencies were set up for specialised offenses such as drugs and narcotics control. The creation of independent agencies for specialised tasks meant their spheres of control overlapped, exacerbating the turf war between military-led and civilian-led intelligence organisations. The absence of a coordination committee to cohesively join the independent agencies meant that instead of pooling in intelligence collected for analysis, all agencies would carry out their own collection, analysis and dissemination. Further, they also faced a dearth of resources to carry out their tasks. The opportunity for these civilian-led intelligence organisations to realise and execute their responsibilities was diluted by the monopoly of military intelligence organisations. 

Perhaps the most problematic of all challenges is the deep politicisation of the intelligence agencies due to absence of oversight and accountability. The international and domestic threat of terrorism after the Soviet-Afghan War and the United States’ invasion of neighbouring Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks allowed the ISI to receive aid and work closely with the America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The pre-Partition, British imposed Pak-Afghan border, Durand Line, was on the radar of the intelligence agency since 1947. The border is rejected by Afghanistan as it claims that the Pashtun and Baloch tribes divided along the Durand line should be united as a single nation. The poorly managed border became the gateway for drugs smuggling, human trafficking and refugee migration after Soviet-Afghan War and cross-border terrorism after 9/11. The crossover between foreign and domestic security threat along the Durand Line became a priority issue for ISI, increasing its might and power. The premier intelligence agency became the de facto central authority in the intelligence community. Consequently, it has been accused of conducting proxy warfare in Kashmir and surveillance on leading political figures. The subtle manifestation of military control through ISI’s increased role in politics caused it to be dubbed as ‘a state within a state’. ISI’s authority remains unchallenged in the post-2008 democratic set up. 

Proposals have been made in the past three decades for an oversight and coordination committee under the Cabinet of the Prime Minister to enhance coordination between agencies and streamline civilian-military relationship within the intelligence community. Unfortunately, the civil-military tussle in Pakistan’s politics resisted any staunch attempt at reforming the intelligence community which could effectively undermine the military monopoly. The National Intelligence Coordination Committee is expected to improve coordination between existing intelligence agencies but is to be led by the Director General of the military-led ISI, an agency that does not want to see its influence reduced. The committee is at risk of being another ineffective bureaucratic layer if it is not divorced from military control. It is imperative to strengthen the democratic institutes of Pakistan which have been unable to develop due to decades of military rule. Therefore, the reform is likely to address underlying problems if the committee is placed under the Prime Minister’s Cabinet.     Additionally, the committee needs to carry out an efficient analysis of the collected intelligence and disseminate these assessments to the executive branch. This would boost efficiency of the intelligence community within Pakistan. A revival of the existing National Security Council under the Prime Minister’s Office can provide an effective platform for the civil-military leadership to formulate policies on matters of national security. These steps will significantly empower the democratic government in policy making and execution.

 

Mariam Qureshi is an MA International Affairs student concentrating in Espionage and Surveillance at the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London. She received her BA (Honors) in Political Science from Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore, Pakistan.

Realigning the Five Eyes (FVEY) Intelligence Alliance against China’s Threat 

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By: Owen Saunders

The Five Eyes Alliance, also known as FVEY: Protectors of Terror or Invaders of Privacy?

Originally created as a bilateral US-UK agreement in 1946, the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance (FVEY) allows for mutual access to classified signals intelligence (SIGINT). Canada entered into the agreement in 1948, followed by Australia and New Zealand in 1956. The initial intention of the alliance was to gather information on foreign states that presented threats to its members through various intelligence collection and sharing methods. The formal expansion of the FVEY alliance last occurred in 1956 but there are other, less formal, extensions of the FVEY alliance, such as the Nine Eyes and  Fourteen Eyes. 

In recent years, due to China’s significant expansion of their telecommunications sector, driven by the “Made in China 2025” initiative, the FVEY alliance has placed greater attention on understanding and addressing the rising state’s ambitions and international strategy. The two focal issues for the alliance currently are China’s implementation of the controversial National Security law in Hong Kong, and their drive towards global superiority within the information and telecommunications technology (ICT) sector as exemplified by, though not limited to, Huawei, a global ICT company based in China. Allegations of close connections and cooperation between the company and the ruling Chinese Communist Party have been made, though these are denied by both parties. 

The alliance’s perception of China as a threat is rooted in its pursuit of dominance over international telecommunications. Tensions have heightened recently over the measures undertaken by its members to prevent Huawei technology from being part of important new domestic 5G networks, and this past year over the FVEY alliance’s overt criticism of China’s authoritarian interventions in Hong Kong. The alliance’s actions can been seen as efforts not only to thwart Chinese global cyber ambitions but also to counter any spread of illiberalism. Although the National Security law itself does not affect the global telecommunications market directly, concern around it reflects fears of the potential dissemination of antidemocratic values through Chinese technological dominance.

The primary concern of the FVEY Alliance is Huawei’s potential to relay information and data that the company collects, through its global operations, to the Chinese government. Some members within the alliance have taken firm stances to prevent this by either banning Huawei technology altogether and, most recently, adopting more stringent security laws aiming to protect networks on a broader level. Such protections have expanded to include government, industry and civil society, as opposed to the original strategies of blocking the technology from only core government networks which transfer sensitive information. To date, Canada is the only member that has not made an affirmative decision to ban or restrict the Huawei technology, despite significant pressure from the United States. 

China’s new National Security Law targets the autonomy of Hong Kong by giving the Chinese government greater control over the region’s internal affairs. The law aims to exert greater influence by establishing criminal sanctions for any activities dealing with “secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign or external forces.” Many have claimed that this new law demonstrates a complete disregard for the “one country, two systems” arrangement established in 1997 when the UK returned Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty. Since the implementation of the new law, the FVEY alliance has taken a strong stance in condemning the law, with the five foreign ministers releasing a joint statement “[urging] the Chinese central authorities to re-consider their actions against Hong Kong’s elected legislature and immediately reinstate the Legislative Council members.” The statement was heavily criticized by the Chinese government which argued that the alliance has no right to interfere in its internal affairs. 

These two examples highlight what appears to be the changing nature of the FVEY alliance and its willingness to expand its reach and functions beyond its original purpose of intelligence sharing. There is also the possibility of expanding the current membership to seven by including Germany and Japan, both of whom have expressed a desire to join. Geographical and historical significance is important in assessing a FVEY expansion given the current Sino-Japanese relationship focused on bilateral trade. The formal inclusion of Japan would likely sow greater distrust and escalate tensions with China. Expanding the FVEY alliance would also, however, help counter the support of seventy nations in the 44th session of the UN Human Rights Council for China’s National Security Law. Importantly, in line with its original mission, a formal expansion to include more states would strengthen the alliance by bringing new and vital information to the table from different governments on new security and intelligence matters, both generally and specifically regarding Chinese activities and Huawei. 

In light of these collective moves directed at China, coupled with the possible expansion of the alliance, the question is raised whether the alliance is at risk of diverting from and even subverting its original, practice-focused mandate of information collection and sharing? Specifically, in attempting to use its communal influence to pressure China through collective diplomatic and policy measures, does it risk diverging from the initial technical intentions of the organization?

By making collective statements such as those condemning China’s national security law, the alliance appears to be moving toward a more proactive and overtly political mode of operating on the global stage in contrast to its initial intentions and decades-old practices. Furthermore, adding another two (or more) formal members to the coalition could be seen as establishing a new, more powerful and politicized threat, potentially resulting in escalating tensions with an ever more economically and politically powerful China. After years of operating in the shadows, this new role for the alliance could threaten the old by its very visibility and assertiveness, increasing the likelihood of retaliatory responses. While it is not possible to accurately predict whether the data sharing ambitions of the alliance will be detrimentally impacted by the changes, the imperatives behind such changes can be understood.

The dynamics of the world have changed with the increasing and more varied use of digital technology, both in intelligence gathering and in the importance of technology in economic growth. It can be argued that this new role on the part of the alliance, whether it be through expansion, coordinated domestic policies, or greater diplomatic pressure, is a recognition of the growing importance of digital intelligence and power. The FVEY alliance has, in this author’s view, shifted accordingly to address the novel challenges of today.

Owen is currently pursuing his MA in International Peace and Security at King’s College London, Department of War Studies. He found interest in this topic in writing his undergraduate thesis and through the completion of an Undergraduate Student Summer Research Fellowship (USSRF) at Queen’s University, supervised by Dr. Christian Leuprecht. 

Owen is a Staff Writer at Strife.

Feature – From Debates to Processes: Trajectories of Intelligence Oversight in the UK

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by Joseph Jarnecki

The British Parliament, seen from across the Thames (Image credit: Britannica)

On 17 October 2019, the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) handed their report on Russian interference into British democracy to Prime Minister Boris Johnson. A bipartisan committee, the ISC is mandated by the British Parliament to oversee the British intelligence services – replacing open debates with formal parliamentary procedures.

Following significant delays to its release, the report saw light of day only nine months later. As a result, questions regarding the ISC’s ability to fulfil its brief have begun to be asked more loudly. This has only been exacerbated by the failed installation of Chris Grayling MP to Committee Chairmanship. With members of the ISC being nominated and not elected, and with recent events exposing the limits of the committee’s independence, how effective are current procedures of democratic oversight on holding intelligence services and their ministers to account? And is a nominated committee truly more efficient than open parliamentary discussions?

The 1984 controversy surrounding union membership for Government Communication Head Quarters (GCHQ) employees generated the first substantial debates on intelligence services and democratic oversight in Parliament. To illustrate this point, that year there were over three hundred mentions of GCHQ in Parliament; in all its previous history there had been just fourteen. The rest of the decade continued this trend with increased attention for the intelligence services by parliamentarians. Here, debates frequently turned to questions of the politicisation of security as well as principles of parliamentary and collective democracy.

Of those debates, the 1985 Interception of Communications Bill is notable for opposing parliamentary sovereignty and royal prerogative – that is, those powers held under sovereign authority but exercised by the executive. The legislation, as asserted in the chamber by former Labour MP Tony Benn, expanded the executive’s ability to deploy surveillance such that it undermined ‘parliamentary democracy.’ He argued that those executive justifications for wiretapping on the grounds of ‘national security’ stripped parliament of its central purpose of discussing and deciding national interests, especially its capacity to determine British security interests.  Benn’s assertion, that ‘security in Britain is controlled by the Prime Minister,’ seems to therefore echo the thought of later academic work regarding the instrumentalization of security which, despite recent controversies over increasing surveillance through the use of prerogative powers in line with Coronavirus measures, receives little mention in contemporary Parliaments.

Two years later, the 1987 House of Commons (Services) debate, regarding the Speaker of the House’s decision to suspend Ronan Bennett’s parliamentary pass also centralises themes of security versus parliamentary democracy. Employed as a researcher for then backbencher Jeremy Corbyn, Bennett had been previously linked to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and had been convicted for the murder of a police officer – though this was overturned a year later. The decision to rescind his access was justified by advice received from the security services that Bennett was a ‘security risk,’ an accusation that quickly found its way into the media.

The foremost issue that MPs took with this incident, other than asserting that it subverted their right to hire as they please, was that the Speaker had not questioned the reasoning for this advice and that the recommendation was not a matter of public record. As such, neither the accused, his employer, the House services committee, nor the issuer of the ban knew the justification for the advice to exclude Bennett. This led backbench MPs to articulate a broader critique of undefined ‘security risks’ as instruments used to claim authority and to construct boundaries to debate, all whilst avoiding transparency. Tony Benn in this debate raised such limits on open debate in order to critique what he saw as executive overreach, saying that ‘Members of Parliament are in danger of being licensed only to discuss what Ministers want them to discuss.’ Whilst Benn’s words again stand out for what Conservative MP John Biffen called his ‘characteristic zeal,’ upon looking at the debate in full its apparent that references to themes of democratic oversight and its tensions with security were habitual touchstones for this cohort of parliamentarians.

These two accounts highlight that amongst initial debates on the intelligence services, the problematisation of security and liberty, as well as contestations over principles of parliamentary sovereignty, were apparent. This stands in contrast to the belief that these themes are unique to our current moment or else only emerged following 9/11, the so-called “migrant crisis”, or the Snowden revelations. Indeed, these subjects which were evident in the 1980s persisted in parliament into the early 1990s, accumulating momentum such that the government was pressured to establish the ISC. With the creation of the committee, however, direct debates on the intelligence services have become limited to the yearly presentation of the ISC’s report or else to issues with a high public profile. Accompanying this drop in frequency has been a shift away from discussing the politicisation of security and principles of democracy. In their place, there has been a movement towards reflexively supporting intelligence activities and an increasing emphasis on vesting authority in procedures and professionalised bodies.

Whilst this shift has been gradual since 1994 a key case that illustrates a change is the 2013 debate regarding the operations of GCHQ. Held in the wake of revelations by whistle-blower Edward Snowden that the US National Security Agency (NSA) was operating illegal mass surveillance, the debate saw then Foreign Secretary William Hague address questions regarding active GCHQ-NSA cooperation and whether comparative GCHQ initiatives existed. Hague opened the debate by outlining what he saw as the three main issues raised by the controversy, these therefore can inform our reflections on how government positioning has adapted to the existence of the ISC.

First, in describing ‘the action that the Government are taking in response to recent events’ the Foreign Secretary solely refers to the ISC. Saying that they have ‘already received some information from GCHQ and will receive a full report tomorrow,’ and adding that they ‘will be free to decide what, if any further action’ to take. His response here, barely longer than the included extracts is telling for two reasons. Centrally, Hague seems to equate action by the government with action by the committee, or else he seeks to derive legitimacy from the committee’s presumed authority as a parliamentary body exerting oversight. Secondly, by sidestepping a commitment to substantive action by deferring to potential ISC scrutiny the foreign minister is pushing the discussion far into the future. Any ‘further action’ the committee could take would necessitate a long report process with the possibility of executive delay in publication.

The second issue raised by Hague, regards how intelligence services work ‘in accordance with UK law’ and democracy. His justification here being that agencies operate under 1994 and 2000 legislation and are therefore legitimate in their actions. Regardless of the flawed assumption that law is necessarily good, which tellingly was not challenged by other debate participants, his point is undermined by his own government’s 2013 Justice and Security Act, which imposed greater restrictions, later that year.

Lastly, the Secretary’s third issue relates to how the law is upheld in international intelligence cooperation, which he acknowledges is regular between the NSA and GCHQ. He quickly outlines again that legislation alongside oversight by ministers and the ISC ensures adherence to the law, however in contrast to speakers in the 1980s, who might have interrogated the underlying rationalities for these agencies, Hague instead advocates for them through the prism of threat. In doing so he invokes physical and economic security, without a single mention of the preservation of life or democracy. As such, he displays an instrumentalisation of the authority the ISC is supposedly vested with as a scrutinising body, alongside an unreflexive prioritisation of the actions of the intelligence services.

Besides Hague’s statements what is also telling about this debate is what is excluded from the responses and questions to him. Of the forty-one MPs who spoke not one mentioned the word “democracy” nor “rights,” and of the three mentions of “liberty” two came as part of an exchange citing the paradox of Snowden’s invocation of the ideal from within the People’s Republic of China.

The final mention of ‘liberties’ came from former Conservative MP Rory Stewart wherein he urged Hague to focus not on the ‘legal problem’ of secret operations but instead on their repercussions for ‘balancing security and liberty.’ In what constitutes the only Benn-like elevation of the debate, Stewart went on to emphasise that the continuation of these operations relies on an informed public, who ‘through understanding, consent.’ Hague’s response to this assertion was to offer agreement that the public should be engaged, though he hedged this commitment with a call-back to the greater importance of secrecy as a guarantor of our security and the cooperation of our intelligence partners.

What is shown through these three debates is that there is no linear development of accountability for the intelligence services. Whilst the ISC provides a mechanism through which a select number of parliamentarians can access information the state has made secret; it has guaranteed neither substantive change in the powers afforded to Parliament nor multifaceted and nuanced debate. Moreover, the committee’s procedures provide ample excuses for governments to deflect or delay, as we have observed with the Russia report, and its annual sessions in parliament often do not receive great consideration. Whilst the executive retains the power of appointment and the ISC’s ability to launch formal investigations is limited, its capacity to achieve significant accountability is narrow.

The original full-length article can be found at the King’s Research Centre in International Relations (RCIR) Forum. The piece was written as part of the King’s Undergraduate Research fellowship held in the context of the GUARDINT project, which is supported by the Economic and Social Research Council.

Joseph Jarnecki is a MA International Conflict Studies student at King’s College London and the Coordinating Editor for Strife blog. His research interests include the politics of knowledge production, the proceduralisation of democratic accountability, as well as violence and (in)security. He completed his BA in International Relations at King’s. You can follow him @Jarnecki.