31 da Armada

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol51no2/strategic-counterintelligence.html

Strategic Counterintelligence
What Is It and What Should We Do About It?

Michelle Van Cleave

Ever since Sherman Kent’s signature work was published, strategic intelligence has been the subject of literature, study, and practice, and, although an author in the pages of this issue of Studies will disagree, the subject has come to occupy a well-established place as a core intelligence product line and mission. 1

CIA historian Don Steury has written:

In thinking about intelligence, Sherman Kent began with an understanding of national power that was well within the mainstream of contemporary American strategic thought. Kent’s contribution was to apply thinking about strategy and national power to an ordered conception of intelligence analysis as an intellectual discipline. 2

By contrast, “strategic counterintelligence” remains a relatively undeveloped concept, in theory or implementation. Isn’t this curious? For if strategic intelligence takes as its touchstone the whole of state interests and the sources of state power, then understanding the purpose and manner in which other states use their intelligence resources to gain advantage and mastering the capability to counter them would seem to be the other side of the strategic intelligence coin.

Yet to the extent strategic counterintelligence (CI) is addressed within CI or intelligence circles, it is controversial, poorly understood, and even more poorly executed because it does not fit comfortably within the existing architecture and approach to counterintelligence as it has developed within the United States.

Even though it has been six years since the office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (NCIX) was created to lead and integrate the US counterintelligence enterprise, at present we have neither the ability to perform the mission of strategic counterintelligence nor a common understanding of what it means, much less an appreciation of its value to national security.[a] Indeed, it is one thing to have a national-level office to bring strategic coherence to wide-ranging CI activities, as the law provides; it is quite another matter (to paraphrase Henry Kissinger) to answer the question, “What is strategic counterintelligence and what do you do with it?”

I would like to offer some thoughts on the subject, not to quiet controversy but in the hope of provoking more debate. In my view, the US CI community is at a crossroads. Either strategic counterintelligence is a theoretical construct with little to no place in the real world of US intelligence, in which case we really do not need a national level effort to direct it; or it is a compelling national security mission. If it is the latter, we are losing precious time and advantage and should get on with the job.

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The meaning of “strategic counterintelligence”
Counterintelligence has its own distinct logic as an intellectual discipline. As defined at law, counterintelligence embraces both “information gathered” and “activities conducted” to counter foreign intelligence threats.[b]More specifically, it is the job of US counterintelligence to identify, assess, neutralize and exploit the intelligence activities of foreign powers, terrorist groups, and other entities that seek to harm us. Sound security measures are unquestionably vital, but they can only carry protection so far. One can pile on so much security that no one can move, and still there will be a purposeful adversary looking for ways to get what he wants. 3 The signature purpose of counterintelligence is to confront and engage the adversary.

The tradecraft of counterintelligence and its several tactical functions, which are properly within the separate cognizance and competence of units within the FBI, CIA, and the Department of Defense, have well established objectives and processes that are not at issue here. What is at issue, what the very concept of “strategic counterintelligence” implies, is the potential for engaging CI collection and operations as tools to advance national security policy objectives, and, at the strategic level, to go on the offense to degrade hostile external

Provavelmente o Aníbal António pensava que a senhora tinha mérito, é que para ele Portugal deve ser uma Meritocracia.

mérito de ser boa sem nunca ter trabalhado a sério e vivido sempre encostada ao associativismo, politiquices, manobras, conluios à esquerda e à direita. Há que reconhecer o mérito de ter estômago e carácter invertebrado para viver assim. De facto faz parte daquela Elite que vive do encosto.

La republique c'est ça, cher ami. C'est ça!