For some years now, the anti-‘peacetime’-intelligence ode has been sung on domestic and international platforms. The choir includes: pundits, journalists, and conspiracy theorists, politicians, social activists, and one former president i.e. Donald Trump. The diverseness of participants is so naïvely hoped to compensate for the facile nature of the chanted lyrics. Ignorance and Oblivion are the deities to whom these hymns are dedicated.
Ignorance takes delight in the sporadic ferocious barrage on peacetime covert operations, ludicrously undertaken in the name of transparency. Critics maintain that operations of this nature creates a parallel shadowy world wherein intelligence officers and operatives are endowed with unfettered powers that render misconducts inconsequential. Apparently, they are overtaken by the Hollywood effect. The reality considerably deviates from the Hollywood depiction of adrenaline-junky field operatives pulling off slow-motioned far-fetched bravados on city-streets packed with civilians; bend bullets around moving objects; and, blow-up buildings and vehicles till kingdom come; then, call in a ‘cleaning team’ to obliterate all evidence so that they can circumvent accountability.
True, the scope of [foreign] clandestine operations (or, covert operations) sometimes entails sabotage, anti-sabotage, economic warfare and psycho-political warfare, and destabilization of an enemy’s interior. Notwithstanding, these operations are meticulously planned and executed within the parameters of a morally strict modus operandi. Field operatives do not engage in on-the-street fire exchanges at will, act on a personal impulse, or infringe on innocent civilians privacy without possessing credible realtime intelligence, due cause, and substantial assurances of public safety, which factor in the preservation of human life.
Mishaps might had occurred, and may very well recur. But, they remain infinitesimal in percentage terms of overall clandestine operations. That is to say that the margin of error is remarkably thin.
Why aren’t they fully transparent, then, some may complain. To these utopian—‘the world is a lovely place and filled with butterflies’—kind of people I say: would you rather have someone take a homemade cake to an adversary’s home (metaphorically speaking) and ask them whether they are contemplating stratagems for destabilizing their interior, or diminish and contain their global influence and presence, or perhaps acquiring sufficient capabilities for a surprise attack. Even better, they might cordially ask them for their state secrets and newly-developed military technologies, while at it. How about that for ‘transparency’?
The covertness of some intelligence operations doesn’t naturally infuse sinister motives into their ends. Quite the contrary, covert ops are the decisive success factor contributing towards intent clarification between antagonists, which oftentimes, thanks to their clandestine nature, results in: averting any war-producing démarche, fostering and reinforcing communication channels, and paving the road for de-escalation during confrontational crises, as well as delineating the path for rapprochement. In other words, covert ops may be the only means for gathering highly credible critical intelligence that would either validate or discredit the legitimacy of a casus belli.
Meanwhile, the choir pays its token of fealty to Oblivion as its participants pledge that their minds would never recollect nor thenceforth be cognizant of the faintest apparition of the indisputable fact that the peace we enjoy in our daily lives—as well as that preserved on the international stage i.e. the prevention of a Third World War from transpiring: upholding the ‘never again’ motto of the United Nations at large, and the United Nations Security Council specifically—remains intact, to a notably great extent—with compliments of the intelligence community.
[Note: the term ‘intelligence community’ refers here to the foreign intelligence apparatuses of the great powers, yet namely the CIA, SVR RF, and MI6]
For the truth of the matter is this:
The Cold War of the last century wouldn’t have maintained its coldness if it weren’t for intelligence and counter-intelligence clandestine operations conducted by the CIA, MI6, and the KGB. It all hanged upon intelligence: intelligence gathering, analysis, and alternative analysis; signals intelligence (SIGINT); and, perceived prejudices and convictions from the other side as well as their formulation and management.
It was once reported of Ike (President Eisenhower)—one of the leading figures to victory in WWII—stating:
“President Eisenhower once said that intelligence on what the Soviets did not have was often as important to him as information on what they did,” (Fitzgerald and Packwood 99).
Knowing that your rival does not possess the capabilities requisite to make a first-strike with negligible risks of retaliation, may well keep one’s paranoia in-check and discourage their resort to a pre-emptive strike.
Anti-peacetime-intelligence proponents are so consumed into the simulacrum that they have become so insensible to the multitude of veracious accounts on intelligence indispensability for the preservation of ‘peacetime’, as it were; hence, their interminable prattling on how covert operations endured beyond their raison d’être—that is, during peacetime as opposed to wartime.
These heinous insinuations stand in stark paradox with records revealing how the half-century cold antagonism unfolded. Here are some of the facts I had recited earlier in my book, “U.S.-Russian Exceptionalism: Intelligence, MAD, and Détente,” to evince the role of intelligence in managing the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) and détente between the United States and the Soviet Union—those similarly reinforced in Franklin C. Miller’s line of reasoning in an apodeictic manner, “If you did not understand what the other side was doing, you were probably going down the wrong road,” (Fitzgerald and Packwood 104):
- During the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, Colonel Oleg Penkovsky, who rendered his services to the British and Americans, supplied critical intelligence on “Soviet rocket forces that so concerned the West. This material allowed to determine that the Soviets had fewer missiles than had been thought. This intelligence really helped Kennedy face down Khrushchev during the Cuban Crisis,” (Fitzgerald and Packwood 101).
- While the success of the KGB’s East-German arm (Stasi) in infiltrating the government of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) assuaged the East-German and Soviet suspicions that circulated the purposiveness of NATO,
“Through espionage against West Germany, the Stasi gained a formidable capacity to penetrate NATO headquarters during the Cold War. East German officials and diplomats enjoyed ready access through West Germany to Western intelligence and NATO offices…the East Germans learned about the nature of NATO’s military planning and could see that, contrary to Soviet fears an Eastern-bloc propaganda {my italics}, NATO was not planning to launch an attack. On the contrary, NATO was truly a defensive alliance.” (Fitzgerald and Packwood 108)
- Likewise, MI6’s penetrative clandestine intelligence operations contributed to the development of harmonious personal relations between PM Thatcher and Chairman Gorbachev, by means of utilizing an MI6 asset towards that end, Colonel Oleg Gordievsky:
“Gordievsky in his memoirs mentions that he had assistance from some of his “friends” in MI6 in preparing the briefings he delivered to Gorbachev in advance of the Soviet leader’s first visit to London. These friends from MI6 helped Gordievsky craft a fine portrait of Mrs. Thatcher that was appealing to Mr. Gorbachev {my formatting}. At the same time, Gordievsky provided the British with details for Gorbachev’s approach to these preliminary meetings. This greatly facilitated the talks between the two leaders, and that was a good use of intelligence by a policy-maker. Above all, Gordievsky showed Thatcher and others that the Soviet leadership was increasingly nervous about what they saw as a rising threat of aggressive action against them. When this concern was brought to the attention of President Reagan, he came better to understand the Russians. Eventually Reagan embraced a more positive approach to the Soviets and increased his efforts to bring the Cold War to an end {my formatting}.” (Fitzgerald and Packwood 102–103)
One may accordingly deduce that peacetime in an anarchic international system is a fragile condition at best; and, necessarily requires constant active interference to endure. Thereon, it should be made readily apparent to the attentive reader, by authority of the facts provided above, that if it wasn’t for clandestine operations, the survival of peace founded on the grounds of perpetual brinksmanship couldn’t have been possible—much less tenable.
In fine, we owe the peace we so lavishly enjoy and take for granted to the foreign intelligence communities of the world’s great powers (namely, the CIA, SVR RF, and MI6) by virtue of their clandestine intelligence and counter-intelligence operations. The power of reason dictates that we ought to render our reverence, trust, and gratitude unto them, NOT OUR VILIFICATION AND CONTEMPT.
To those taken from their families and loved ones to serve in the shadows in order to preserve the light,
THANK YOU!
Reference
Fitzgerald, Michael R., and Allen Packwood, Out of the Cold: the Cold War and its Legacy. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Inc., 2013.
