Covert Influence—Russian Operations Changed America

By Kent Clizbe

Originally appeared in BigPeace; July 31, Aug1, and Aug 2, 2010

This June the FBI arrested a group of Russian intelligence officers and agents.  American commentators were puzzled at the spies’ lack of success in stealing “secrets.”  Even though the KGB has enjoyed great success in covert influence operations against the culture of the United States throughout the last hundred years, most Americans are still largely blind to the 20^th century’s “great game,” the war against America that communists won.   

Federal prosecutors brought the Russian spies to court several days after their arrest.  Vicky Pelaez, a Spanish-language writer for an American media service, was a pitiful sight.  She appeared dazed and confused, a Hispanic housewife snatched from her kitchen. 

Vicky Pelaez

Dazzled by Jason Bourne and Jack Bauer, and ignorant of the most effective forms of espionage, Americans didn’t know what to make of the pudgy Peruvian-born journalist.  Seemingly, the main concern the media was the plight of her children.  The Huffington Post speculated that she was betrayed by her handling officer—her husband.  Many Americans were distracted by the slutty daughter of a KGB officer, caught peddling her wares as a swallow (KGB’s term for the bait in sex-traps).  Little did Americans realize that the frumpy journalist, Vicky Pelaez, was the latest warrior in a century-long, vicious attack on America.  The sex-kitten was just a shiny bauble to distract us. 

In the early days of the struggle for world domination between the USA and global communism, American statesmen were clueless about the enemy they faced.  They were clueless about the rules of the struggle.  They were ignorant of the communists’ tactics.  And they arrogantly refused to learn. 

In 1929, more than a decade after the Bolsheviks had imposed communism on Russia, the American Secretary of State, Henry Stimson, politely declined to take part in espionage, averring that, “Gentlemen don’t read each other’s mail.”  

The Bolsheviks, however, were not gentlemen.  In 1929, the Russians were already reading our mail, even as we refused the offer to read others’.  The communists had, so to speak, slipped into our house at night and were living in our basement.  The communists were playing a game that America had never understood.  Even at that early date, they were winning.  Their strategy:  covert influence operations. 

Intel Collection vs. Active Measures

There are two major types of espionage operations:  intelligence collection, and, in the KGB’s terminology, active measures.  Intelligence collection is stealing secrets.  The Rosenbergs were Soviet espionage agents focused on stealing and reporting America’s nuclear secrets. 

Collection operations are fragile and perishable.  The success of the operation, and its life-span, depends on the agent’s access to secrets, his willingness to continue stealing secrets, and his ability to avoid detection.  Loss of access, change in motivation, or detection by authorities bring the operation to an immediate end.  When the Rosenberg op was disrupted, there was no more product, no more secrets—it died with the communist agents in the electric chair. 

Active measures arose from the communists’ long fight against the tsar.  Outlawed as a party, the communists organized covert cells.  Without strong military capabilities, they learned how to use the tools of active measures—propaganda, disinformation, and agents of influence—against the royal government. 

Early American Flirtation with Active Measures

Partly in response to the communist revolution, Woodrow Wilson’s Progressive administration tried its hand at overt propaganda.  In April, 1917, Wilson formed America’s first 20^th century propaganda group—the Committee on Public Information (CPI).  The CPI’s main objective was to bring the US into WWI, and to weaken German power.  The CPI’s targets were both domestic and international.  Among the international targets was Russia.  Conflicting objectives created confusion, however.  The Bolshevik threat to American business interests in Russia was of concern, but a strong communist Russia was also a powerful deterrent to German power.  The CPI was disbanded after operating for two years.  The effort left a bad taste in Washington’s mouth, but created some native expertise. 

Poster for CPI Propaganda Movie

After Wilson’s short-lived stab at the influence game, it was only after World War II that America began to understand the rules of the game.  When we belatedly tried to play, it was too late.  The Russians had the upper hand.  The KGB and its predecessors had infiltrated and begun the process of twisting to their benefit the most intimate domains of our culture.

Lenin Initiates Covert Influence Operations

Flush with success and certain of global communist domination, in 1921 Vladimir Lenin surveyed the situation.  His army was all but imaginary.  Worn down by WWI and the internal wars that followed, the Russian military was no match for any of its neighbors.  Prosecuting a shooting war in Europe, Asia, or America was beyond the possible for the Red Army. 

At the same time, Lenin was having second thoughts about Marxist dogma.  The whole “dictatorship of the proletariat” theory looked ridiculous in the cold light of reality.  He announced variations on communist theory, producing what became know as Marxism-Leninism.  The key rationalization was that dictatorship by the masses was a goal, maybe a long-term goal.  In the meantime, before reaching this paradise, Russia and humanity would go through a transition. 

Lenin’s theory explained that during the early phases after establishing a communist state, an “Elite Vanguard” would control all decision-making, while preparing the masses for full communism.  Russian elites, Lenin’s communist cronies, were the vanguard.  With this justification of his dictatorship, Lenin provided a template for intellectuals to embrace his ideology.  The need for an Elite made them special, and necessary, and gave them great power.  At the same time they could claim to be wielding power “for the little people, the masses.” 

ComIntern for Covert Influence

Faced with his lack of military strength, Lenin conceived a plan for global spread of communism using his party’s proven covert capabilities.  He established the Communist International (ComIntern).  This ostensibly independent group of communist leaders from around the globe was actually a front for Soviet political control.  It also provided cover for international intelligence operations.  After Stalin seized the reins of Soviet power, he strengthened the covert ops begun by Lenin, even as he ruthlessly murdered many of the operators.  Though he did away with the ComIntern, its intelligence operations continued.

Covert Influence Methodology

The most long-lasting, virulent, and dangerous active measure is covert influence.  In a covert influence operation a payload is secretly inserted into some part of the enemy’s communications channels.  The ultimate goal of covert influence is to transform the enemy in a way that is useful to the attacker. 

In a typical covert influence operation an intelligence officer targets an agent of influence.  The target is chosen for access to a desired channel of communications (the ComIntern intel operators targeted American media, academia, and Hollywood).  The intelligence officer uses standard recruiting tradecraft to become friends with the targeted agent of influence.  Appealing to the identified vulnerabilities of the targeted agent, the officer burrows into the target’s life. 

The targeted agent of influence may, or may not, know that she is dealing with a hostile intelligence service, even after she is recruited.  The agent might provide her services because she believes in the message, or she may work for pay, or maybe for some other gratification.  In the actual operation,   the espionage officer provides the recruited agent of influence with the payload.  The agent of influence inserts the payload into his communications channel.  Once the payload is inserted, in the form of a news story, an editorial, a speech, a book, a lecture, a movie, a radio program, a song, a play, or any other form of communication, the payload takes on a life of its own. 

The message can influence consumers for the rest of their lives.  All it takes is one time exposure, and consumers’ beliefs and attitudes can be changed.  Reading a book or an article, hearing a song or a radio show, seeing a movie or a play are potentially life-changing experiences.  The communist covert influence message was intended to change individual and societal morals and values. 

In the Russians’ Pelaez case, the intelligence officer’s development and recruitment of the targeted journalist included marriage.  This is a level of commitment and dedication that very few free world intelligence services can demand or expect.  A steamy combination of true belief in her message, infatuation with her recruiting officer, substantial lifestyle benefits (a free ride to New York City and US citizenship) seemed to motivate Pelaez.  Her influence work at the Hispanic newspaper in New York is typical of covert influence payloads.  She denigrated the US and its policies, at the same time she lauded Latin American dictators, with the payload masked as her “point of view.”  It is likely that her influence work changed the attitudes and beliefs of hundreds or thousands of those exposed to her intel operations. 

Covert Influence Not Propaganda

In covert influence, the payload is subtle.  When done correctly, it is hard to identify the payload as anything but the creator’s point of view.  The payload is disguised as critical thinking, cultural criticism, or intellectual theorizing.  Covert influence is not propaganda.  A propaganda message might be:  “Imperialist America murders babies in Iraq!”  A covert influence payload might be a movie that sensationalizes an incident on the battlefield, with an unspoken theme of American military complicity in war crimes.  This insidious form of espionage is more difficult to identify than propaganda. 

Willi Munzenberg:  Master of Influence Operations

The early USSR’s intelligence services perfected covert influence.  Their desired goal:   destroy the will of the capitalist enemy to resist “inevitable” communist domination. 

 Willi Munzenberg, 1920’s

Working under the Communist International (ComIntern), Willi Munzenberg, directed global covert influence operations, likely at Lenin’s direction.  A ComIntern press agent, publisher, movie maker, and middleman, German communist and long-time friend of Lenin, Willi was the mastermind behind Soviet intelligence’s covert influence operations. 

Munzenberg’s covert influence message was attractive to American intellectuals.  The objective of the operations was to bring America down, sooner rather than later, so that communism could replace America’s free enterprise and individualism with a dictatorship of Elites, and collectivism.  Until his neck was broken by a rope in a French forest as Paris was captured from the Nazis in WWII, Munzenberg honed his message to a fine point.  His operational genius provided a message that seduced the intellectuals, without leaving any trace of Soviet involvement. 

Willing Accomplices

Munzenberg perfected the “Popular Front” operational concept.  He and his agents set up multiple organizations with high-minded names and reasons for existence—for example the International Congress Against Fascism and War, and the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League.  These fronts gave intellectuals and artists a higher calling—while serving as cover to insert covert influence payloads into the targeted cultures.  The perceived moral superiority of the Soviet’s covert influence messages provided members a chance to show “you were a decent human being,” in fact, a better human being.  Munzenberg despised these members, and called them “Innocents.” 

I call these Americans “Willing Accomplices.”  They were witting, and unwitting, agents of influence They were Willing to imbibe the superior attitude conferred by the high-minded ideals of the fronts.  And they were Accomplices to the communists’ goal of destroying their country. 

Targets:  American Media, Academia/Education, and Hollywood

Munzenberg and his men, and later the KGB’s ops officers in the US, targeted the most efficient conduits to influence American culture.  The press, education and academia, and Hollywood were the fertile recruiting grounds of Munzenberg’s influence operations.

The payload was a simple formulation.  Stephen Koch, for his book on Munzenberg, “Double Lives,” interviewed Willi’s wife, Babette Gross, who survived the war to live into her 90s.  Ms. Gross told Koch that Willi had carefully crafted the “payload” for his covert influence operations:      

Reduced to its essence the message was:  “You claim to be an independent-minded idealist.  You don’t really understand politics, but you think the little guy is getting a lousy break.  You believe in open-mindedness.  You are shocked, frightened by what is going on right here in our own country. You’re frightened by the racism, by the oppression of the workingman.  You believe in peace.  You yearn for international understanding.  You hate fascism.  You think the capitalist system is corrupt.” 

This subtly anti-American message created a mindset.  The mindset created a superiority complex among those who adopted it.  They were smarter, better, more feeling, more caring, more humane, more human, overall better people than the unwashed masses.  As Stephen Koch explained, “The purpose … [was] to instill a reflexive loathing of the United States and its people as a prime tropism of left-wing enlightenment.”

The attitude of wise superiority to the American masses, disdain for the racist, sexist, homophobic, foreigner-hating, dead-white-male-worshipping ignoramuses spread quickly throughout the three domains of cultural transmission.  First academia rejected traditional America, her people, her founders, and her foundations.  The press was next, closely followed by Hollywood. 

The most stunning aspect of Munzenberg’s message was its ability to self-propagate.  Like a fertile flower, once planted and growing, it spread its seeds far and wide, with no need for a gardener to nurture it.  The payload, so powerful and seductive, once planted in the American intelligentsia, grew and metastisized, like a political cancer, until it burst forth in full flower as Political Correctness (PC) in the 1980s. 

Munzenberg’s skillful covert influence operations, aiming to destroy American Exceptionalism, are still bearing fruit today.  Willi’s influence operations outlived every one of the ComIntern officers that recruited the Willing Accomplices, the American agents who carried the influence messages into the heart of our culture.  The effects of Willi’s operations outlived even the USSR, and even communism as a practical political platform. 

Political Correctness 2010:  Reflexive Loathing of the United States

It is not likely that any of the ComIntern covert influence operators realized that they were creating a monster that would grow for decades.  They likely believed that after a few years their ops would have sown enough confusion to cause the global communist revolution they knew was coming.  Even though the revolution never came in their lifetimes, the “hate America first” attitude slowly caught on.  The Elites spread their anti-American message.  It had to go underground from the late 1940s to the early 1960s.  But after the late 1960s, the Elite Vanguard emerged in full flower. 

A more concise description of Political Correctness cannot be found than Koch’s formulation of Munzenberg’s covert influence payload.  Look inside any PC ideas, speech codes, or requirements, and you’ll find a “reflexive loathing” of traditional America, our values, history, and morals. 

By the late 1980s, full-blown PC infected academia, education, the media, Hollywood, and American society in general.  Americans were constantly bombarded with reminders of their hatefulness, bigotry, racism, sexism, and imperialism.  Confused by the message of hate and disgust, while their daily lives were filled with positive energy, normal Americans became wracked with guilt.  They were reminded daily that they were guilty of slavery, bigotry, killing babies in Vietnam, oppressing minorities and women around the globe, stealing the continent from the Indians, being arrogant in dealing with foreigners, killing the Earth with their hairspray, and various other sins. 

In 2008, PC blossomed into full flower.  In a spasm of PC-induced guilt, America elected our first anti-American president, who did not hide his disgust for normal Americans.  Obama is the first president to apologize repeatedly for America’s sins against foreign countries, and to speak disparagingly against the country that elected him.  Obama’s cool, detached Elite attitude, loathing the “bitter clingers” of the heartland, is a living testament to the power and success of Munzenberg’s covert influence operations. 

Covert Influence Counter-measures  

So, when American media seem to be puzzled as to the efficiency of Russian espionage operations against the US, and ignore the Russians’ use of Pelaez as a covert influence operative, it is not surprising to a knowledgeable observer.  The KGB’s successors, the Russian Federation’s intelligence service, learned all they know from the KGB.  They have a long and successful history of working against America.  They know the power of influence operations.  The KGB, including Vladimir Putin has seen their influence ops succeed.  The sorry state of PC-America is a direct result of Putin’s predecessors’ operations.  All Americans should understand the power of past influence ops, and the potential for future influence ops. 

Counter-insurgency—Lessons from a Professional in the Philippines, Frontlines of the Global War on Terror

By Kent Clizbe

©Kent Clizbe

Demonstration of martial arts—Marine Basic Trainees

Originally appeared in BigPeace; Aug. 23, 2010

The Marine officer is compact and solid.  He wears his combat fatigues pressed, with a neat crease in the upper sleeve.  His buzz-cut is sharp and clean.  His clear eyes, open expression, and intense gaze evidence intelligence and keen perception, softened by his baby face.  A better specimen of Marine warrior is not likely to be found.  But just a minute, this Marine is not in Jacksonville, or Twenty-nine Palms.  This fighter in the Global War on Terror (GWOT) is a lieutenant in the Philippine Marine Corps (PMC).  1Lt. Romulo Dimayuga is taking part in a demonstration of Marine tactics at the PMC training base in Ternate, Cavite, south of Manila. 

©Kent Clizbe

1Lt. Romulo Dimayuga who led anti-ASG combat patrol that killed Kaddafi Janjalani

Dimayuga led a platoon of Marines on a combat mission against a superior force of Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) combatants.  Weeks after he returned from the jungle with the remnants of his patrol (more than 50% of his men were killed or wounded in the battle, and Dimayuga still carries a bullet in his belly) he learned that his Marines had killed the then-leader of the ASG, Kaddafy Janjalani. 

Kaddafy Janjalani

Overlooking Manila Bay, with a stunning view of the WWII American and Filipino positions defending the Japanese onslaught at Corregidor, with the Bataan peninsula looming in the far distance, the Filipino Marine base is nestled in a series of coves chiseled into the volcanic ridges of Luzon island.  The Marines conduct their Basic training for enlisted, and indoctrination training for officers in this rugged terrain. 

©Kent Clizbe

Phil-Marine Force Recon practice beach assaults in view of Corregidor and Bataan

Commandant of the PMC, Major General Juancho Sabban, chatted with me during a break in the training demonstration.  We talked about the Filipino military’s successes in their hot war against the Al-Qaeda-linked ASG in the southern Philippines.  He also commented on the theory and application of Counter-Insurgency (COIN) strategy, based on his time in command in Sulu Province. 

©Kent Clizbe

Maj. Gen. Juancho Sabban

Sabban, a veteran of numerous combat operations against ASG and Moro Liberation Front (MILF) fighters in the Muslim regions of the Philippines, spent a good portion of his military career stationed in the South.  During much of that time, he was in active combat operations.  His first star was earned battling the ASG in Sulu. 

The anti-terrorist, anti-insurgency military operations in the southern Philippines are similar in many ways to the COIN operations the US military is undertaking in Afghanistan today.  Filipino troops face a violent insurgent threat in a tribal-based society in remote border regions inhabited by Islamic cultures that value highly warfare against outsiders and infidels. 

The battle for hearts and minds, in Sulu, however, has been, arguably, much more effective than the battle in the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier.  General Sabban explained that his COIN operation, including working hand in hand with American units and civilian partners, is heavy on infrastructure development.  Sabban said he was asked by an American Congressional delegation, which had been critical of the military operations, to provide a wish-list for funding.  The Congressman was  surprised to see that Sabban’s list was not military equipment, but instead was requests for pumps, docks, roads, schools, wells, and other infrastructure to improve the lives of the inhabitants. 

Sabban said that his country’s COIN strategy was making good progress, with a few steps forward for every step back, like the recent suicide bombing at the Zamboanga airport.  Upon reflection, he shared his belief that the difference between his COIN operations, and America’s faltering progress in Afghanistan could be due to a difference in the political landscape of the southern Philippines and Afghanistan. 

Sabban and I discussed the difference between complete control of an area, politically, economically, militarily, as the Republic of the Philippines enjoys in Sulu, and the U.S. situation in Afghanistan.  While the U.S. must contend with a morally bankrupt, corrupt, ineffective and inept Afghan government, in order to win support from NATO and other allies, the Philippines owns the territory of its battle in Sulu.  Although the island chain is nominally a part of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, the Philippine government is the ultimate power, officially and in reality. 

With no need to pretend that the locals are in control, and no need to make a show of local buy-in with either military or social operations, the PMC and its Filipino military brethren, are free to operate as necessary.  But the most important ingredient is operating in a way that earns the respect of the populace.  That requires exhibiting strength and manliness, maybe more than America is prepared to display publicly.  The Muslim tribal culture respects adversaries and overlords who are strong and, to some extent, ruthless.  That’s right—sometimes hearts and minds follow where the short-hairs are led.  The approach must be determined by the target culture, not by the aggressor culture. 

 ©Kent Clizbe

Force Recon Marines discuss results of exercise

Only with culturally aware, socio-politico-economic-military total control of an insurgent region can a true COIN battle for hearts and minds be successful.  As the United States proved nearly a hundred years ago, on the same ground that Filipino and American forces stand side by side in the Global War on Terror in Mindanao and Sulu today,  complete colonial-style control of an insurgent territory is necessary for the success of COIN operations. 

Kent Clizbe, a former CIA operations officer, specializes in Southeast Asia and counter-terrorism.  He worked in the Philippines from 1982 to 1985, as a linguist at Clark AB; and from 1987 to 1988, as a supervisor at the American Refugee Processing Center at Bataan.  He participated in the anti-terrorism, hostage rescue operations, joint training task force, Balikatan, in Zamboanga, Mindanao, in early 2002.  For more comments and analysis see his website:  www.kentclizbe.com

BigPeace article

“Good War” Counter-Insurgency Rx—Colonize or Come Home

“Good War” Counter-Insurgency Rx—Colonize or Come Home

By Kent Clizbe

Originally appeared in BigPeace; Sept. 8, 2010

President Obama on Tuesday declared Iraq a done deal.  Okay, he didn’t support the surge, back in the Bush days.  He and his anti-war pals in the Senate declared the war lost years ago.  His liberal upbringing won’t allow him to admit that a Republican president could possibly have been right.  And yet, the architect of the surge, and stability, as it were, in Iraq, is now Obama’s uniform in chief in the “Good War.” 

If one believed in omens, the future of our involvement in Afghanistan would not bode well.  General David Petraeus, before he was demoted to replace General Stanley McChrystal, collapsed during Congressional testimony on the Obama strategy.  Then General McChrystal was surgically removed by a left-wing media strike.  If it was his campaign, Alexander the Great might have reconsidered his course, and visited the Oracle in Siwa again. 

The President and his Progressive handlers declared our military efforts in Afghanistan “the Good War” to differentiate it from that numbskull Bush’s “Bad War” in Iraq.    After playing his anti-Bush card in the first weeks of his administration, Obama then called together all his geniuses to devise his Good War strategy. 

Obama’s geniuses developed a strategy that looks a lot like the Bush/Rumsfeld surge in Iraq.  Except the geniuses revealed their end game before they even sat down to begin playing.  Obama announced the target date for withdrawing US forces from Afghanistan, in the same teleprompted address that he announced the deployment. 

The Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and their allies must have been confused.  They surely must have thought this was some sort of elaborate ruse on the part of the geniuses.  It didn’t take them long to figure out, however, that the geniuses were not very good poker players.  They actually had revealed their final plan.  At least it appears so, up to today.  Maybe the good general collapsed after contemplating the lack of exits in the rat hole in which he is trapped. 

Obama’s genius seminar on Afghanistan strategy was described by a White House aide as an attempt to avoid a “rush to war.”  Maybe the geniuses didn’t notice that we had been at war in Afghanistan for more than half a decade before the thinker-in-chief was inaugurated. 

As the afterglow of the media’s near-orgasmic lovefest with Obama fades, it’s time for an honest consideration of our Afghanistan policy and strategy.  We are past the hunt for Osama.  We are past the point of destroying Al-Qaeda’s strongholds in the Hindu Kush.  The Obama genius cabal has announced its goals as:  “reverse the Taliban’s gains, and promote a more capable and accountable Afghan government.” 

In layman’s terms, what they plan is counter-insurgency and nation-building.  Setting aside the difficulty of building a cohesive nation from the troubled ethnic mix within Afghanistan’s present borders, let’s just look at counter-insurgency. 

There are many examples of previous successful, and unsuccessful attempts at counter-insurgency.  An honest consideration of  our current goal in Afghanistan requires a review of both the successes and failures.  Let’s examine the common features of the successful counter-insurgencies, and the common features of the counter-insurgency failures.  There may well be lessons for our efforts in Afghanistan.  Southeast Asia offers a student of counter-insurgency at least three object lessons. 

The United States’ most striking success in counter-insurgency was the Moro Rebellion in the Philippines.  The US’s only long-term foreign colony was the island nation of the Philippines, seized from Spain after the Spanish-American war.  We occupied and ruled the Philippines as a colony from 1898 until after World War II. 

The Muslim population in the Southern Philippines (the Moros) rebelled against American colonial authority.  The Moro Rebellion was a classic counter-insurgency, with native fighters fading into the local population, and into the jungle, emerging to terrorize civilians and American soldiers alike.  The American army, steeled by the Indian wars in the western US, was familiar with this style of warfare.  They crushed the rebellion.  During the counter-insurgency, the Moro territory was ruled by American military governors and their staff.  Locals elders and chiefs were consulted and brought into the government under the Americans’ direct rule.

Total control of the civil, military, and economic reins of the Philippines set the stage for effective counter-insurgency operations. Total control, with relatively benign colonial rule, combined with harsh and punitive military attacks against insurgents, combined to convince the Moros to capitulate.  After more than 12 years of insurgency, the American military turned over control of Moroland to a civilian US colonial government.  And within a few decades, American colonial government came to a peaceful end, with an orderly transition to Philippine independence.  

A solid counter-insurgency drove communists from Malaya, a British colony now independent Malaysia, in the years after WWII.  Known in Britain and Malaysia as “The Emergency,” a Chinese-led communist insurgency threatened the soon-to-be-independent colony.   

The communists mostly ethnic Chinese were supported by Red China.  They operated from bases within the impenetrable jungles down the spine of the Malay peninsula.  They had scant support from the populace, and waged a terror campaign against the British and innocent civilians.

The British colonial governing infrastructure permeated Malayan society down to the smallest village.  Courts, police, governors, mayors, and all other reins of power were firmly in the hands of experienced British colonial administrators.  Fair and just, but firm and swift, British justice permeated the colony.  Military units, a mixture of British and locals, as well as units from other colonies, like the Ghurkas from Nepal, operated from  colonial garrisons. 

At the height of the insurgency, British and Malayan military units perfected the Special Forces model of operations the US military uses today.  Targeted by aggressive intelligence operations, quick strikes on unsuspecting rebels devastated the communists.  With total control of the country, the British colonials were able to stamp out any hint of localized support for the rebels.  Within twelve years, the communists were routed and soundly defeated.  The British turned over the colony to self-rule near the end of the Emergency. 

Another highly successful counter-insurgency occurred in Hungary in 1956.  Hungary was occupied by the Soviet Union after WWII.  After a typical communist charade of free elections, the Hungarian government became a de facto colony of the Soviet Union.  The USSR controlled the government and its economic and security policies.  After six years of crushing Soviet communist domination, proud Hungarians, prodded by American covert action, began demonstrating against the communists.  The demonstrations quickly spun out of control, and became a full-fledged insurgency, with fierce urban guerilla warfare.  The Soviets responded with an invasion in force.  Their total domination of the entire country, administratively, militarily, and economically, crushed the insurgency in less than two months. 

The American experience with counter-insurgency in Vietnam is an interesting negative example.  The US placed severe restrictions on its military operations against the combined forces of indigenous and foreign communist guerillas.  In the post-colonial era, the US was wary of  charges of neo-colonialism.  America allowed the South Vietnamese to run the government fueled by American dollars.  Much like today in Afghanistan, American advisors looked on in helpless frustration.  Corruption and in-fighting severely weakened social, economic, and military infrastructure throughout the country.  America’s counter-insurgency was doomed from the start.  Without control of the political and economic infrastructure, military operations were unable to gain traction. 

The Kennedys attempted to avoid the sure condemnation by the media  that would come with an overt colonial-style imposition of government on their Vietnamese client-state.  Instead, they tried to use covert action.  They approved a coup against the ruling Diem family, which resulted in the murder of the Vietnamese President and his family.  That bungled attempt at colonial power mongering spoiled the Kennedys’ appetite for further meddling.  A constant turnover of civilian and military rule in the Vietnamese government followed, with some governments lasting only weeks.  With no foundation to support itself, the civilian population was left to its own devices.  Although American military and civilian forces kept working to defeat the communist insurgency, the slow-motion collapse of the South Vietnamese government doomed the counter-insurgency. 

These examples of counter-insurgency operations reveal a broad outline of the requirements for success.  They also reveal the conditions that ensure failure of counter-insurgency operations. 

Full-blown colonial control of a country’s political, economic, and legal infrastructure provides a solid foundation to wage a successful counter-insurgency.  The campaigns against indigenous forces in Malaya, the Moroland, and Hungary demonstrate the requirements for crushing such indigenous enemies.  The template of requirements includes:  complete colonial-style control of the contested country and full control of the political, military, and economic infrastructure of the country. 

On the other hand, America’s war in Vietnam is a template for failure in operations against indigenous insurgents.  First, we did not maintain full control of the contested nation during the hostilities.  The American administration attempted to use covert action to cloak its hand in controlling the client-state’s government.  Finally, civilians placed severe restrictions on military operations against the insurgents and their masters in North Vietnam.  

Comparing these templates with  Petreaus’ dizzying task in Afghanistan reveals a near perfect match with the template for failure.  We do not control the government infrastructure.  President Karzai fired his pro-American Interior Minister, and intel chief.  We do not control the economy or military.  We have placed ourselves in a subordinate role, pretending that this is an Afghan problem, and we are just advisors.  We hide behind a “coalition” of NATO and other allies, which make up a tiny fraction of forces, but complicate the operations exponentially.  We have placed restrictions on our military actions (how about a medal for “courageous restraint”?).  We undertake covertly actions which the President loudly decried during his campaign (targeted killings). 

In Afghanistan, we stand at a crossroads—there are three possible paths ahead.  Annexing Afghanistan as an American colony will lead to success and honor in the long run, with short term international condemnation . Maintaining the current status quo can only lead to inglorious defeat in both the short and long runs.  Draw-down and withdrawal could also be an honorable conclusion, except for blame that will be heaped on us for the certain political and social failures that follow in the wake of our exit. 

With Obama declaring an end to Iraq, maybe his much-vaunted genius will come up with a solution to Afghanistan.  The choices are clear for anyone who examines the realities of COIN:  Full-blown colonial power; half-hearted attempts at politically-correct advise-and-equip; or cut-and-run.  Obama and his geniuses asked for the job.  The new Republican Congress, with hearings and oversight, should keep us out of too much trouble.  It should be an interesting two years.    

War-time Priorities—Tilting at Lavender Windmills

By Kent Clizbe

Originally appeared in BigPeace; Dec. 8, 2010

We are a nation at war. We are engaged in combat in two countries. We have combat and support troops in scores of countries around the globe. Hostile groups plan and operate 24 hours a day against us. They would love to get their hands on an American to take hostage. They would love to pull off a Mumbai attack in downtown San Francisco.

Our enemies plot ways to weaken our economy and our society. Chinese espionage agents actively steal our economic secrets. Russian espionage officers run networks under commercial cover, aer arrested, and then whisked out of the country in a 10 for 2 swap. The Russians muscle us into a new nuclear arms treaty.

A rogue Aussie cyber-punk operating a global intelligence collection network, with funding from who knows where, recruits penetrations of our military and diplomatic services. His recruits provide him with hundreds of thousands of classified government communications. He brazenly flaunts American security, and publishes his espionage haul on the internet, and shares the raw take with a variety of hostile news outlets, including the New York Times.

An insane punk Communist dictatorship in Korea teases and taunts American good will. After taking millions in assistance funds in exchange for quitting its nuclear weapons development programs, North Korea missiles an allied ship. Then, rubbing our nose in its mess, the little commie-state shells an allied island into oblivion.

Tinpot Latin American communist dictatorships flaunt their disdain for American leadership.

And what is the Progressive Obama administration’s national security focus? Ensuring that homosexuals have equal rights to join and serve in America’s all-volunteer military. Obama’s campaign to end “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is pay-back to his rabid homosexual and Progressive base.

We have had more killed in action in Afghanistan in 2010 than during the eight years previously. We are still battling terrorist and insurgent forces in Iraq. We have combat troops across the globe. We are assisting multiple countries around the world in counter-terrorism operations.

Our military resources are thin in many areas. We need many more linguists—Dari, Pashto, Arabic, and Farsi. We need technical skills—computers and communications. We need people who can operate in foreign cultures.

But in all of the far-flung places we are operating, against various enemies, and with various allies, there has not been one public report of our military not having enough homosexuals to get the job done. I have not heard of an unmet demand for open homosexuals in our forward operating bases in Afghanistan.

Our military should be doing exactly what we need to do to win our wars. Our military should be doing exactly what we need to do to support American and allied interests abroad. Our military is not the place for Politically Correct attacks on our culture.

Those who, during our prosecution of a global war, waste one second of one military member’s time on a social issue, come very close to being a friend of our enemies. One general, one private, one sailor, one airman, any single military member who wastes one minute dealing with the Obama administration’s, and their Pelosite friends’ corrosive drive to allow open homosexuals to serve in the military, is wasting American military resources. Those resource could be used to eliminate the Taliban. Instead, our military is forced to waste massive amounts of time and energy tilting at social engineering windmills.

Stop the cultural combat. Leave the military alone. Let them fight. Let them win. Anything less is near treason.

State of the Union 2011--WTF?!

SOTUS 2011—WTF?!

Originally appeared in BigPeace, Jan. 27, 2011

Barack Obama’s handlers and speech writers revealed their re-election strategy last night in his State of the Union speech. The Obama clique thinks they are replicating Slick Willy Clinton’s (and Dick Morris’s) triangulation strategy after the electoral Waterloo in 1994.

Maybe they need Rahm Emanuel back in the White House. They need somebody with a clue.

Instead of Clinton’s sharp tack to the right, the Obama clique has replicated Gerald Ford’s muddled economic/political strategy: Whip Inflation Now! (WIN).

Unfortunately (for Obama and his clueless handlers), they forgot to check out the acronym for their apparent campaign slogan for 2012: Obama 2012—Win the Future! (WTF).

The Failed Puppet-master: Fire John Brennan

The Failed Puppet-master: Fire John Brennan

By Kent Clizbe

 Originally appeared in BigPeace, Feb 11, 2011

Late Thursday morning, President Obama’s CIA Director, Leon Panetta (a former Congressman and White House Chief of Staff with zero intelligence community experience) testified to the House Intelligence Committee that Egyptian President Mubarak “will step down this evening.”

Four hours later, Mubarak publicly announces that he is not stepping down, and that he rejected “any and all dictations from abroad,” in a direct slap-down of Obama and his minions.

At the same hearing with Panetta, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), James Clapper opined that the Egyptian-based Islamic extremist group, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), was “largely secular.”

Five days previously, Obama’s hand-picked envoy to Egypt, Frank Wisner, after visiting the country, said that Mubarak must remain in power to manage the transition. Obama immediately retracted that statement, and Wisner disappeared.

Unfortunately, we would be lucky if it were only Panetta, Clapper, and Wisner mucking around. The big story is the Obama lackey we have not seen since the Maghreb Mutinies began, Obama’s Czar for Terrorism, and de facto intelligence chief, John Brennan.

Brennan has sought out TV cameras at every opportunity since January 2009. He popped up to talk about any issue dealing with intelligence, terrorism, Arabs, or Islam. He took it upon himself to declare the words “war on terrorism, jihad, global war” off limits. He trumpeted his “summer in Indonesia,” (like the President!), his semester abroad in Cairo, and his CIA station chief experience in “the region.”

Burrowing into his lair on Pennsylvania Avenue, Brennan gathered the strings of the national intelligence infrastructure and became the intel bureaucracy puppet master. Hapless generals passed through the DNI position, each undermined by Brennan, perched next to his idol’s throne, whispering in Obama’s ear. Remember DNI Clapper telling Diane Sawyer he didn’t know about “London.” Who quickly chimed in with the proper answer? Why, it was Brennan—showing up the titular head of American intelligence.  

  

To understand the Brennan shadow play going on behind the scenes in Egypt, you first must understand the man—he is a CIA analyst. To understand the man, you must understand the culture of the bureaucracy that he ascended from—the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence (DI), the nation’s intelligence analysis belly button—and the type of person that culture produces.

A CIA analyst’s life is like being in grad school, forever. Just like an academic, the analyst is evaluated on his record of “publications.” Just like an academic, the analyst spends his time researching, writing, defending his work to committees, and trying to get his writing published. The big difference is that a CIA analyst has more resources, classified intelligence reports from operators around the world that an academic does not have. Otherwise, a CIA is a virtual clone of an academic.

Just as in academia, the point of the exercise (creating finished intelligence to guide U.S. policy makers) becomes lost in academic politics, backstabbing, ass kissing, and internecine scheming. Just as in academia, CIA analysts who want to move up yearn for a position closer to the seat of bureaucratic power.

An analyst’s most treasured professional accomplishment is to have a hand in the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB). An article published in the PDB can be the crowning achievement of an analyst’s career. Circling the flame of power, like calculating moths, they try to get closer. The ultimate career position for a CIA analyst is to be the President’s Briefer, the guy who carries the PDB in to the President every morning. If an analyst is allowed to do that only once in his lifetime, he can die happy, fulfilled. He’s been to the mountaintop.

The other point that you must understand about analysts is what they are not. CIA analysts, regardless of what you’ve read or seen in Tom Clancy movies, are not spies. They do not manage spies. They do not recruit spies. They do not handle spies. They are not covert operators. They do not uncover secrets. They do not fast-rope from Blackhawks.

They sit in cubicles and research and write. Then they argue among themselves about what each other has written. Then they brief others on their articles. Then they do that again. And again, and again, and again. Because of the dreary reality of their lives, the analysts are allowed large budgets for travel. They travel to the countries in their portfolio, on boondoggle familiarization trips—which are more like vacations.

Many CIA analysts join the Agency believing the Tom Clancy hype. Once they learn what their job is, they can become bitter. And they can succumb to envy—of the operators who do recruit spies, travel the world under cover, meet and befriend exotic people, and plan and execute clandestine operations. There is a definite culture of envy in the CIA’s DI.

Because of this envy, occasionally, when the CIA goes through one of its bouts of self-destructiveness, the director of the CIA appoints an analyst, to be the chief of an overseas operational station. And when a presidential administration is extremely anti-CIA, like the Clintons, it appoints an analyst to be in charge of the entire Directorate of Operations.

John Brennan is a CIA analyst. In his mind, he is the Tom Clancy hero—the analyst fast-roping into a crisis, sub-machine gun locked and loaded, ready to respond. But in reality, he is an academic with sharply honed in-fighting claws, ready to rip to shreds a rival’s analytical piece so that his will be published.

Brennan clawed his way to the top of the analytical pile—he was President Clinton’s PDB briefer. During the Bush presidency, he burrowed into the CIA bureaucracy, snuggling up to Clinton appointee DCI Tenet. He finished his career by standing up the failure-prone Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) and the National Counter-terrorism Center (NCTC), both of which were supposed to “connect the dots,” which analysts failed to connect before the 9/11 attacks.

Brennan retired from NCTC and joined an intelligence contractor. NCTC then awarded his firm a contract to provide connect-the-dots analytical software. In the Christmas Day “panties-bomber” failed terrorist attack, NCTC, using Brennan’s software, failed to connect the dots. Obama assigned Brennan to investigate the failure. Sweet work, if you can get it.

Now he’s used those nasty analytical academic skills to worm his way into the clueless White House’s foreign policy and intelligence inner sanctum. He hitched his wagon to Obama’s star early, and has ridden it far. Nestled into his office in the White House, an analyst’s nirvana, he has jealously built his intelligence empire. He is the de facto DNI, DCIA, and director of covert operations. Like a corrupt Turkish eunuch, manipulating a callow crown prince, he whispers in his ruler’s ear and rivals disappear.

This background brings us up to today. The morning after Mubarak told Obama to leave Egypt alone, after the DNI said the MB is sort of like Knights of Columbus, after the DCIA said he’s watching CNN and it looks like Mubarak will resign.

Where is John Brennan? Since the uprising began in Tunisia, until today, John Brennan has not appeared on national TV once. Now that you know his background, it should be easy to guess, as I’m doing. I don’t have any inside knowledge, but I’d bet that our hero Brennan is ensconced in a five-star suite in Cairo, running what he believes is a cunning covert influence operation. My guess is that Mubarak’s rejection of “dictations from abroad” should have been “dictations from John Brennan.”

This massive cluster-failure of a foreign policy looks like an amateur operation, run by a wannabe operator. The one personality in the Obama administration that fits that description is John Brennan.

Egypt today is no place for a “semester abroad expert” political analyst to be allowed free rein. Obama, fire John Brennan today. Let the DNI that you and your party craved do his work. You have a huge intelligence collection and analysis infrastructure idling while Brennan plays his egomaniacal games.

Do the right thing. Bring Brennan back out of the shadows and put him to pasture. Let professionals do the job.