Chapter Twelve: Analysis

Before the boys from the MIVD invaded my life, I assumed covert intelligence operations were necessary for national (and international) security.  Throughout my interactions with Sjors and during my correspondence with Mac and his group, I presumed their work was necessary. I even considered the MIVD’s invasion of my privacy as justified if they truly thought I was a security threat. In fact, I often felt irritated because I thought the group wasn’t doing their job competently. If these men were part of the team designated to protect us from the next terrorist attack, I sure as hell didn’t want them to be amateurs. In the words of Dr. Anneke Sibyl: “If I can see you doing it, you aren’t doing it right.”

As I review the narrative in these pages, I’ve begun to question this assumption. So I ask now: does the United States and its allies have the right intelligence organizations and practices necessary to identify and counter existing and emergent threats to national and international security?

I address this analysis at the United States and its allies.

There’s no question the nature of the threat has changed.  In the past two decades, the Cold War dynamic has given way to asymmetric threats arising from non-state actors. Small groups with limited resources, united in ideology or criminal enterprise, have wielded devastating disproportionate effect on civilian populations and superior militaries.  Al Qaeda, AQIM, Al Shabaab, Boko Haram, and ISIS/ISIL (or DAESH) are a few organizations whose names we know from their barbaric attacks on civilian “soft” targets, their fanatical dedication to impose extremist ideology on the rest of the world, and their frighteningly effective terror campaigns.

The success of these organizations reflects their use of what is known in military circles as fourth generation warfare. That is, the battleground is broad and dispersed, with no distinction between “civilian” and “military” targets. Such groups use existing technology to recruit, directly attack Western culture, and conduct highly sophisticated psychological warfare campaigns and terror operations.  To counter this fourth generation threat, intelligence agencies must gain timely and actionable information about the plans and personnel within these groups, while countering the ideological campaigns which promote and support their activities. This requires a high level of dynamism and reach, and a singular urgency because failure of intelligence means loss of life.

Unfortunately, practices of intelligence organizations often have unintended negative consequences, or “blowback” which expose the U.S. and its allies to increased instability, international hostility, and terrorism. Revelations about large scale meta-data collection by the NSA have resulted in loss of public trust and support. Drone strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, terror, and psychological harm, spawning a new generation of people who distrust us and are, therefore, less sympathetic to our efforts and more likely to harbor our enemies; imprisonment has radicalized and networked people who would not otherwise be a threat; the morally repugnant CIA torture program has damaged lives and cost the U.S. the moral high ground; spy programs in “friendly” countries have cost the U.S. the trust and support of our allies.  These second- and third- order effects of covert operations are particularly dangerous because they undermine our ability to succeed against terror groups. We require the support and collaborative efforts of global partners and we require the trust and self-reporting of societies and groups that would otherwise harbor or breed terrorists. 

I argue that the existing intelligence programs are ineffective in identifying and countering the threat, not because they receive insufficient support and advocacy from lawmakers but because, even in their best and most optimum functioning, they cannot be expected to adequately address the threat. Indeed, they aren’t designed to do so.

Our current intelligence organizations and methods were forged in the paradigms of the Cold War. In the state-versus-state model, each group has a disincentive to escalate (since escalation would result in deadly consequences for both), and there is a central power who can choose to disregard or take offense from covert actions, control blowback from covert operations, and with whom we can negotiate. An unsteady, “cold” equilibrium may be reached with our opponent. The current paradigm has no such controls. Our enemies have no national interest and no disincentive to escalate; there is no “truce” that can be reached because the ideology of our enemies requires our complete destruction. Terrorists are embedded parasitically in local populations which they use for sustenance and human shields, and they leverage fear, hostility, and superstition to radicalize indigenous populations. A traditional war of attrition isn’t possible in this paradigm since collateral damage from our covert action and attacks are used by terrorists as political motivation to foment hostility towards the West and perpetually replenish their ranks. 

In spite of this altered human terrain and the severity of the unintended consequences of our actions, we seem reluctant to reexamine our assumptions about using methods that were developed in a different era for a different enemy.  Instead, we feel an increased urgency and a corresponding willingness to bend the rules or trammel individual liberties. We “double down” on our intelligence investment. After all, what’s the alternative?  How can we fight an expanding and dynamic enemy without a proportional investment in intelligence personnel and technology?

Consider that the investments in intelligence operations should be qualitatively different than those required during the Cold War. In the Cold War, intelligence value was proportional to technological improvements. Spy planes and satellites and signals interception could give valuable information.  But our enemies now are more subtle and defeat our technology using simplistic, even primitive methods.  They operate in complex human, sociological, cultural landscapes: environments that don’t loan themselves well to technological solutions.  Even the largest and best-funded and technologically enabled intelligence service will never be able to be in all places, understanding local context and countering all threats. We can certainly manipulate or buy information or supporters to obtain greater coverage. But instrumentalist relationships as fostered by intelligence operators are not long-lived and will inevitably turn with shifting political winds or when a higher bidder comes along.

What we need for long-term protection, access, and information are genuine relationships and collaborations. We want partners we can trust to look out for our interests, understand local human terrain well-enough to identify and subvert threats, and proactively protect us, even when we don’t know to ask for it. Unfortunately, practitioners of intelligence operations are trained to lie and deceive as a matter of course. If we want true trust partnerships with allies, these are not the men to create them.

In reconstructing the events in this book, I was struck by the bizarre contrast between the philosophy and practices of the MIVD and those of the U.S. military capacity building mission, APS.

From its inception, APS was designed as a “Transparent” mission.  Ship deployment schedules were unclassified, and military “partners” from dozens of countries were encouraged to collaborate on an internet-based communications portal. Staffs were comprised of mixed European, African, South-American, and U.S. personnel. At its largest, the APS mission included multiple international naval ships and training efforts. The objective of the mission was to “improve the capacity” of local maritime institutions. There’s some evidence that this occurred. But, more important than this, APS provided an excuse for like-minded personnel in worldwide militaries to meet, work together, and build personal relationships, collaborations, and lines of communication.

Unlike covert operations which are founded in deception and which promote instrumentalist relationships, the transparency of missions like APS foster trusting and lasting relationships. Naomi and I understood this in Dakar in 2013 as we realized our best chance for security in the event of an attack against our hotel rested with our trusted Senegalese military partners. I haven’t been involved in the APS mission since I left Naples in the summer of 2013, but the relationships and collaborations continue and I’ve watched as our African and European partners identify enemies and fight battles that would otherwise come to our doorstep. I receive calls and messages from African Partners who share the “ground truth” of their situations with me, including Cameroonian Special forces operators fighting Boko Haram in Northern Cameroon. I suspect that the quality of actionable intelligence would be improved if operators didn’t feel compelled to somehow trick it out of the unsuspecting rubes; if relationships with our partners were frank and open and collaborative, rather than coercive or secret.

Relationship building has traditionally been seen as the role of the Department of State. But the Department of State is a diplomatic, not operational, entity. Real, actionable, relationships are created when the relationship is mutually beneficial to all operators. Therefore I suggest that there needs to be a new breed of intelligence operators – men and women who are trained in transparency, rather than deception, who work openly and frankly to build long-term relationships and collaborations with their counterparts in foreign militaries and law enforcement organizations.

There is still a role for “traditional” covert action as practiced by civilian organizations such as the CIA, and military organizations such as the MIVD. In the asymmetric battlefield, there is a need to infiltrate terrorist organizations and target bad actors. This requires deception and ethically ambiguous action. But widespread use or misuse of intelligence capabilities should be sharply reined in – not only because such practices are unethical but because they are often ineffective in the current threat environment, or even counter-productive to our security.

The MIVD’s illegal intrusive actions in my life were frightening because of the insouciance of the practitioners. These men were accustomed to deception and invasion and felt no hesitation in deploying their methods and techniques against someone who obviously posed no real threat. This was specifically in violation of Article 13 of the Dutch constitution which protects the right of privacy (specifically, the privacy of correspondence and the privacy of telephone). I was appalled by the casual manner of the manipulation and coercive tactics used against Sjors, and the damage and invasion of my personal life and career. 

According to ethicist Dr. David Perry, proponents of Intelligence operations suggest that the role of intelligence officers in countering grave external threats is thought to excuse them from certain ordinary moral constraints. It offends my sensibilities to know that the actions of the MIVD which had such devastating personal and professional impact cannot be justified under any claim of necessity. In fact, my role in assisting the Dutch military in their capacity building mission, African Winds, a mission that served Dutch interests, was cut short because of the illegal and pointless interference by the MIVD.

In this analysis, I’ve avoided talking about Sjors because our experiences represent a greater truth that needs to be told. I will talk about him now. There are no words to describe what it meant to lose him. I don’t know what became of Sjors, but not a day passes that he is not on my mind. Time hasn’t diminished the peculiar way he lives in my heart. The pain I feel is not only because I miss him, but because I hate what his organization did to him.

The Sjors I came to know was an intelligent, driven, patriotic, and remarkable man. Intellectually curious and ethically evolved, he came from a heritage of men and women who sabotaged Nazi endeavors, and smuggled and supported the displaced and the threatened. His intention in joining the MIVD was a noble one.  So, how was it that he was twisted and manipulated and used? Why did his organization deploy coercive methods against him, driving him to fear for his children? The practices of intelligence organizations generally include an element of coercion when it comes to agents or targets. It’s bizarre, tragic, and ironic that they deployed these tactics on one of their own.

My concern about the disproportionate emphasis we place on clandestine and covert intelligence operations, and the massive latitude we give these groups, is that they are not as effective as we expect them to be in securing our objective. Surely, these groups and their practices deserve another dispassionate look before we accept the traditional assumptions. At the very least, our criticism should be roused when the procedures of national covert intelligence organizations harm its practitioners or endanger or undermine the purpose they claim to serve.