Monday, February 21, 2022

The Real Power of Intelligence ‘Auxiliaries’

The democratization of intelligence is changing how espionage is done – and by whom. How can states best achieve their aims in an age of silo-spotting, open source sleuths and other “intelligence auxiliaries”?

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — Late in the summer of 2021, researchers affiliated with the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) discovered evidence that China was upgrading its ballistic missile silo count in what they described as “the most significant expansion of the Chinese nuclear arsenal ever.” To reach this conclusion, the analysts relied on open source intelligence (OSINT) techniques, including commercial satellite imagery and unclassified knowledge about Chinese missile technology, that has become commonplace in recent years.

FAS’ research did not go unnoticed by the US government. In response to the findings, Admiral Charles Richard of USSTRATCOM used a press conference to rhetorically ask the researchers, “If you enjoy looking at commercial satellite imagery or stuff in China, can I suggest you keep looking?”

Admiral Richard’s deadpan aside, his comment raises interesting questions about the future of public-private partnerships in intelligence. What happens when sophisticated intelligence capabilities exist outside of government? What intelligence functions should only be performed by states – and which should be done by non-state actors? And most pressingly, what tools can we give leaders like Admiral Richard so that they can stop “suggesting” and start working effectively with outside groups to achieve common policy objectives?

Since Admiral Richard’s comment, we have seen yet more examples of how the “democratization of intelligence” is creating new opportunities for private sector and NGO groups to provide insight on important geopolitical questions. Today, as Russia marshals its forces to widen its existing invasion of Ukraine, OSINT practitioners are continually scanning for new troop movements, giving policymakers ways to discuss publicly what once would have been secret intelligence. More broadly, across government and the think tank world, there has been widespread recognition of the increasing sophistication of open source intelligence capabilities. Most recently, we have also seen intelligence leaders, including most prominently MI6 Chief Richard Moore, comment on the exciting possibilities of public-private partnerships founded in part on open source techniques.

But so far, we have seen few new ways of working designed to actually capture this potential. Typically, the conversation about open source centers on how government can do more – rather than on how the public sector can forge innovative partnerships. As a result, national security professionals who wish to work with a burgeoning non-state intelligence sector are often left with unclear guidance. There has been plenty of work on integrating OSINT tools into state arsenals; but less toward creating the new policies, procedures, and ways of working needed to actually leverage non-state OSINT capability.

This is a missed opportunity. The IC should articulate new ways of working that effectively leverage the activities of non-state “intelligence auxiliaries” to help achieve national priorities. Such auxiliaries, whether they are directly tasked, paid, or integrated into the IC’s structure or not, have proven that they can make vital contributions to important tasks in mission awareness and information operations.

Leveraging intelligence auxiliaries is not without risk, and should be engaged in with care and according to a transparent and understandable framework. But intelligence auxiliaries are not going away – the state’s option is not whether to engage with them, but instead how.

Intelligence Auxiliaries in History

Intelligence Auxiliaries are not new – non-state intelligence activity has been a part of the world’s “second oldest profession” since the beginning.

Historically, the idea that non-state actors should work on the frontlines of intelligence would hardly have seemed out of place. Private individuals in ancient Rome were prolific practitioners of intelligence. European religious orders were famous collectors of intelligence – a long-standing tradition that continues today. Journalists have long been adjuncts, wittingly and unwittingly, to intelligence work – Napoleon was a famous consumer of British newspapers for information on troop movements, relying on them more than secret intelligence.

Moreover, states often collaborated with non-state intelligence gathering networks to supplement their own awareness. In the ancient Aztec empire, intelligence networks organized by merchants were often leveraged by the state. In the age of European expansion, commercial actors regularly engaged in espionage for private as well as state gain – with European commercial actors famously stealing the techniques for processing tea leaves and for making porcelain from China. The East India Company, itself a commercial actor, routinely made use of pre-existing espionage networks to inform its policy before the handover to the Crown in 1858.

For most of human history, states didn’t necessarily hold better espionage technology than did non-states – but they were still able to out-perform and effectively leverage non-state intelligence actors because, by virtue of being states, they possessed certain abilities that non-states could not hope to equal. These “enduring state characteristics” helped ensure that, even when non-states had superior information, states were still able to remain the most important players in the espionage market.

States had control over the information environment. The state’s historical ability to publish, censor, or encourage the production of information shaped the intelligence-gathering environment. Historical censorship of the press during times of conflict, such as during Britain’s Boer War, shows how states have used control over the information environment to achieve objectives related to their own or foreign actors’ espionage. Today, China’s ability to control information leaving its borders is a continuation of the exercise of this power.

States had agenda-setting ability. In times of peace or conflict, the state’s ability to guide non-state practitioners toward common outcomes was a major lever through which it exercised indirect control over non-state auxiliaries. Historically, mission-definition was an important way for states to guide the activities of private groups such as privateers, explorers, missionaries, and private trading corporations.

States had fiat power. States could simply declare activities or types of information legal or illegal, and could engage in activities that they made illegal for others without fear of punishment. This historical ability to “live above the law”, whether through law courts or secret police, gave states powerful levers to compel the production of information.

States had superior historical memory. One of the single most important advantages of historical intelligence bureaucracies was their ability to develop and sustain large archives. Archeological evidence of intelligence archives has attested to the importance that this state advantage had even in ancient times. Though less relevant today with the development of large-scale information storage in the private sector, state advantages in collecting and classifying information still persist today.

States had market-making ability. States could incentivize or de-incentivize the production of information through their market-making power. Not only were states the largest players in information markets – they have had the ability to set the rules by which other players engage in market activity. This gave states the ability to offer bounties or create attractive commercial partnerships for information.

Direct Contracting Ability. Finally, states could and did directly commission private groups to conduct intelligence work on their behalf. While not unique to states, this ability nonetheless is a major way that states have been able to leverage capabilities possessed by non-state actors throughout history.

The Rise and Fall of Information Overmatch

During the Cold War, states could rely on qualitatively better information than non-states. As this advantage recedes, “intelligence auxiliaries” are coming back on the scene.

The Cold War saw the technological gap between states and non-state “intelligence auxiliaries” widen. During this period of rapid advances in technology, states added a new intelligence advantage vis a vis non-states – the simple ability to reliably access and exploit information that far outclassed in quantity and type that available to non-states. As this advantage erodes in the modern day, the difference between the classified and non-classified worlds is diminishing – and with it a way of working based on information overmatch.

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Today’s premier intelligence bureaucracies were largely formed during the “long” 20^th century. This was an era when states increasingly came to enjoy privileged access to intelligence based on capabilities that non-states could not match, at least not reliably. During the long 20^th century, as war and intelligence-gathering became more mechanized and technological, militaries and intelligence agencies became increasingly invested in industrial development and production as a way of securing the necessary materials to win wars. With the private sector unlikely to support the cost of expensive investments in military and intelligence technology on its own, “the role of the state [became] vital because it was the state that provided the critical financial resources required to take embryonic technologies and develop them at a speed unlikely to be matched by the civilian market.”

This sponsorship gave rise to sophisticated intelligence technologies such as computers, satellites, maritime domain awareness tools, unmanned aerial vehicles, and more. With sponsorship came control, and for most of the long 20^th century states were the only entities with access to sophisticated espionage technology. Groups outside of government were largely restricted to low-grade versions of the same technology, or to classic “first generation” OSINT sources such as media and grey literature collection. While some non-state groups had significant impact on events throughout the Cold War, top-tier intelligence activities were largely restricted to states.

This state monopoly on access to top-tier information began to break down at the beginning of the 21^st century. As the price of computing continued to fall, the state’s role as the principal investor in military and intelligence technology became less important. As a result, private companies increasingly took the lead in creating, and funding, technologies that transformed the practice of intelligence, such as the internet, social media, and artificial intelligence.

In place of the government monopoly on espionage technology, today there is a boisterous bazaar of information and data vendors. These companies sell a wide variety of social media intelligence tools, earth observation capabilities, large-scale information storage and processing, mobile phone location data, global HUMINT platforms, and sophisticated telemetry intelligence capabilities. This private market has changed the game. Today, with enough money and focus, a small group of dedicated individuals can leverage private sector capability to rival a well-funded intelligence agency. For example, the following capabilities are all within easy, legal reach for any government or non-governmental organization (so long as the budget is right):

An on-call satellite imagery service from providers such as Planet, Maxar, IceEye, or others. Today, non-government researchers can access reams of satellite imagery on any area in the world, often at time increments of less than 24 hours for refresh. This means that together with sophisticated, openly available image recognition algorithms, a small team can scour the desert for Chinese siloes – or monitor North Korea’s nuclear program, and study deforestation trends globally.

A flexible HUMINT capability that can source insights from anywhere on the globe. While journalism could always have been considered “OSINT-enabled HUMINT,” today a range of social media intelligence tools or distributed online survey platforms that allow a user to query “sources” all over the globe. Finally, natural language processing platforms allow anyone to conduct a sophisticated, global information-gathering operation completely out of the box.

A mature SIGINT capability, from private firms whose satellites allow for the measurement of RF and microwave signals from emitters on earth.

Finally, all of this is supported by a diverse, evolving, and multi-participant marketplace for both data and AI/ML capabilities, many of which are hungry for non-governmental researchers to show, in unclassified spaces, the power of their tools.

This only scratches the surface of the tools available. New low and no-cost OSINT platforms are consistently replicating capabilities once held only by top-tier spy agencies – for anyone to use. From NGOs to private companies to non-state terrorist groups and hacker collectives, the increasing sophistication and scope of OSINT capabilities has meant that states no longer have reliable information overmatch vis a vis non-states.

How to Work with Intelligence Auxiliaries

During the Cold War, it simply wasn’t possible for, say, the Bacardi corporation to charter U2 overflights of Cuba to provide snapshots of ongoing missile deployments, or for a group of disaffected Soviet emigres to conduct large-scale online surveys on food availability in supermarkets. Today, similar groups routinely use capabilities such as the tools highlighted above to produce impactful reporting on global issues of crime, corruption, and conflict around the world.

While profit is part of the equation, for many of these organizations, a dedication to mission is a key motivation. This new generation of intelligence auxiliaries combines the mission-motivation of a non-profit with the nimble structure of a startup and the technological reach of an intelligence agency. These groups rapidly collect, analyze, and disseminate research products to audiences both inside and outside of government. Because they often work almost entirely with publicly available information (PAI), such groups frequently have more flexibility than government bodies in whom they hire, how they work, what tools they use, and how they leverage their research, giving them the ability to move faster than any state actor.

States can leverage this energy by recognizing the existence of intelligence auxiliaries aligned with their goals, and looking at how they can enable these groups. Loosely speaking, state responses to the capability of intelligence auxiliaries can be arrayed on a spectrum control, borrowed from principles of agency law. On the “loosest” end of the spectrum, states can engage in Admiral Richard’s “opportunistic enlistment” of an intelligence auxiliary. He (presumably) was not aware of FAS’ research before it was published, learned about it in the news, and was pleased that it happened to align well with his mission priorities. He chose to amplify the research through independent, uncoordinated strategic communications. The defining feature of this model is a total absence of control and coordination.

On the “tightest” side of the spectrum, states can exercise a “direct control” style tasking of auxiliaries, as one might do with a traditional defense contractor. Under this model, a state actor directly contracts with an outside organization to conduct an activity on the state’s behalf, subject to conditions which the state imposes. Different degrees of control over working methods, personnel, timelines, and requirements may be imposed by the state under this model, but its defining feature is a high degree of control over methods and tools of work.

Between these two ends of the spectrum, however, are a variety of ways of interacting with intelligence auxiliaries. These ways of working aren’t based on information overmatch, but instead on long-term, enduring capabilities that states have had throughout history. A hypothetical spectrum of options based on these “enduring state functions” might look something like this:

Opportunistic Enlistment of Intelligence Auxiliaries. Relying on the fact that intelligence auxiliaries pursue their activities independently from the State, states can simply observe their production and choose to amplify it when convenient, with little to no coordination between the two. This looks much like the case of Admiral Richard, or of other policymakers who seek to leverage emerging news stories.

Using the Information Environment as Intelligence Terrain. States have the ability to define what information is open and what isn’t – and can do so with an eye to granting intelligence auxiliaries more access to mission-important information. For instance, the US has recently enacted new beneficial ownership laws, changing what information companies must provide when incorporating themselves. Information in public registers is a gold mine for intelligence auxiliaries working on anti-corruption issues; if states act to change laws with the idea that information disclosed will be used by intelligence auxiliaries for citizen OSINT policing, then they’re shaping the environment for good in a way that frees up state resources.

Using Mission-Definition Power to Signal What is Important. Intelligence auxiliaries depend for funding and credibility on their ability to achieve important missions. There are many ways that policymakers can help guide intelligence auxiliaries toward important goals without revealing classified information or exercising direct control. This might take the form of an expanded campaign of academic outreach or of embedding select personnel within non-governmental intelligence auxiliary groups. In one example, the government could expand ongoing efforts to bring commercial expertise into mixed unclassified and classified spaces. Alternatively, states might create common information spaces virtually: instant messaging spaces could be created for trusted intelligence auxiliaries to join and share ongoing research and leads. Such groups could also serve as impromptu coordinating spaces for quick reaction OSINT monitors, as they are currently doing for Ukraine contingencies.

Using Fiat Power to Empower Auxiliaries. States could simply declare activities or types of information legal or illegal depending on the identity of the actor. A simple example of this in action is how Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) Section 314(b) gives financial institutions the ability to share sensitive information with one another “in order to identify and report activities that may involve terrorist activity or money laundering.” An expanded version of this law could expand 314(b)’s safe harbor to chosen intelligence auxiliaries, giving banks a way to collaborate with trusted outside experts to better combat money laundering.

Using Historical Memory to Feed Private Efforts. States have significant troves of information, both classified and unclassified, that they often find difficult to truly leverage. If more of these resources are given to non-states, the burden on states to create value from data can be more widely shared. This can (but doesn’t have to) mean selective declassification. Government departments such as Commerce and CBP have significant amounts of unclassified trade and corporate data that could help identify human traffickers, proliferators, and other bad actors.

Using Market-Making Ability to Create Information Marketplaces. States have significant ability to create markets for information, both as participants and as rule-setters. They can use this power to incentivize groups to work together toward state goals. States can both signal priorities and make market connections among non-state actors by hosting short term surges or “hackathons” designed to temporarily gather expertise and tooling to answer an important question. Governments could incentivize private sector tech providers to make “in kind” donations of capability for set periods of time to boost intelligence auxiliaries, with the results of a short-term surge going to support policymaker awareness or strategic communications campaigns. Hackathons often offer more direct control than do similar “open data” initiatives, making them more attractive for sensitive missions.

Using Commissioning Power to Task Directly. Finally, states can pursue familiar, tried and true models of direct tasking. This model can be effective in certain circumstances, but often is slow and laborious to implement.

The above are not new ways of working – in nearly every case, there are examples of government leveraging similar models to achieve important goals. But thinking of intelligence auxiliaries and the ways of working with them together as part of a single toolkit can help clarify the operational and legal issues at play. Rather than try to be overly prescriptive with how states can engage with non-state intelligence auxiliaries, policymakers should focus on creating a playbook of workable collaboration frameworks that can be relied on by intelligence professionals at different levels in government to engage with outside organizations. Without such models, commanders are likely to improvise – which may lead to good outcomes in some cases and bad ones in others.

These are far from the only models possible – and which model is appropriate will depend on the specifics of a given situation. Just as there is no one-size fits all approach to a given intelligence question, so there will not be an appropriate universal model for collaboration between state actors and non-state intelligence auxiliaries.

Read also Open Source Intelligence and Uncovering Secrets Hidden in Plain Sight in The Cipher Brief

Not whether, but how

Ultimately, the method of interacting with an intelligence auxiliary will be situation-dependent. Should it be covert or overt? Paid or unpaid? Public or private? Short-term or long-term? Policymakers will have to negotiate these questions with reference to specific facts.

But they should not have to negotiate them without functioning models. Admiral Richard is far from the only policymaker who has identified an outside capability that he has no tools to use. We must give intelligence officials, policymakers, and commanders flexible, clear, and transparent ways of working with intelligence auxiliaries. A failure to define the rules of engagement will not deter interaction, but instead leave it less clear and more likely to lead to uncontrollable outcomes. Without clear rules, a government actor could collaborate with an intelligence auxiliary in ways that endanger civil liberties or even lives.

But doing nothing is also a strategy. Policymakers do not get to negotiate the existence of intelligence auxiliaries. Intelligence technology is likely to continue to develop outside the walls of government, and private groups will continue to leverage this technology either in pursuit of a self-defined charitable mission, or for private gain. For non-authoritarian countries with strong civil societies and robust data governance regimes, the rise of intelligence auxiliaries is likely to be a significant force-multiplier vis a vis authoritarian rivals. The question for states is not whether they engage with outside intelligence capability, but how.

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Wednesday, February 16, 2022

The US is Engaging in a Strategy to Share Intelligence on Russia More Broadly. Is it Worth the Risk?

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Wednesday, February 9, 2022

The Intelligence Game is Changing. Are We Ready?

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — As retirees of the Clandestine Service at the CIA, we worked for decades in the shadows around the world, at ease in that space where we quietly served. Recently, we found ourselves in an uncomfortable public space, compelled to be vocal on social media regarding data and the need for the U.S. government to embrace commercially sourced intelligence, CSINT, as a foundational and critical component of national security.

Data is ubiquitous, dynamic, and has the potential to inform analysis and decision-making on issues ranging from climate change to terrorism to critical national infrastructure, and everything in between. CSINT is a complement to HUMINT (human intelligence) and other national technical means of collection, not a substitute. CSINT plus these other collection tools is the equation for success in gaining strategic advantage.

CSINT is not OSINT (open source intelligence). Whereas OSINT is a reference to any information that can be legally gathered from free, public sources, CSINT is data that is produced by people throughout the world and is collected and sold by a variety of firms to others to make informed decisions. Examples of CSINT include; pharmaceutical sales in the era of Covid, vehicle telematics data, geospatial insights, weather trends, and website cookies that inform retailer strategies for targeting consumers for advertisements based on their internet browsing history.

And yes, we see the irony of HUMINT-ers extolling the virtues of CSINT – a new INT.

We are in the midst of the fourth industrial revolution. And data – that data that we, as citizens, generate on a daily basis – is the commodity of value. We would liken it to the value of oil and oil’s role in the third industrial revolution, but oil is a finite resource and data is not. In fact, commercial data is growing at an exponential rate through our daily personal and professional interactions. Many businesses leverage this data to improve their bottom lines and grow their businesses. Likewise, some governments are exploiting commercially sourced data to achieve their objectives as well.

Take the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for example. Open source articles document the investments the PRC continues to make to build data centers and develop their artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) models to allow them to more quickly derive value from data. The PRC government put into place laws that require Chinese companies, even when operating outside of China, to funnel data they collect by virtue of doing business, back to Chinese data centers. A new law in the PRC also requires foreign firms doing business in China to turn over their data to the PRC government. The PRC is concurrently locking down data from its citizens as a defensive measure.

The PRC has a data strategy to attempt to win supremacy in the fourth industrial revolution. The key components to their strategy are a wide variety of commercially sourced data, AI/ML models and computing power that speed the time from data to value/insights. The quality of the AI/ML models and the speed of compute power are critical components of this daisy chain, but the data is arguably the most critical.

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This paradigm does not cease to exist at the gates of intelligence agencies. We believe that commercially sourced data is a cornerstone to the future of intelligence. CSINT is the radical innovation that will launch intelligence services and businesses alike ahead of their adversaries, leapfrogging in essence, the status quo to establish a new order. Classified data sets and information that is clandestinely acquired, remain extremely valuable and cannot be replaced. CSINT does not seek to replace classified data; it seeks to enhance and complement it.

The paradigm of valuing classified data above all else is archaic and must be modernized in order to adapt to the data-driven world. If the US government continues to value classified data at the expense of embracing commercially sourced data, we run the risk of the United States losing ground to its adversaries.

And that begs the question, what is the USG’s Data Strategy? While that is not readily clear, what is clear is that there is a big role for CSINT to play.

There is no rules-based order on the playing field of the fourth industrial revolution when it comes to data. In our techno-democracy, there is a lot of concern around privacy – and appropriately so. This complicates the development of a national data strategy akin to the PRC model. While many grapple with how to optimize commercially sourced data and balance privacy concerns, we would propose that the United States and likeminded techno-democracies impose our values in defining how data will be utilized in the future.

If we cede the playing field to our adversaries to define the rules, rest assured they will not meet our democratic values. We must lean into this difficult conversation, find common cause with our likeminded techno-democratic partners, and create a framework that balances creating value from commercially sourced data on one hand and privacy concerns on the other.

It is time for the U.S. to embrace commercially sourced data, modernize our laws to allow for the effective storing and computing of data, and invest in AI and ML tools and models to derive value at scale and at speed of mission. It is time for the U.S. to embrace CSINT.

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Friday, February 4, 2022

The Outlier: What if Putin’s Real Target isn’t Ukraine?

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — We have a long history of misreading Russian intentions. The classic example was the judgement by the British Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) that Russia would not invade Czechoslovakia in 1968; based on a westernised view that it would not be in Moscow’s interests. Similar misjudgements were made in the prelude to Putin’s annexation of the Crimea in 2014.

Vladimir Putin calculated this winter as the ideal time to confront the West over those parts of the former Soviet Union which he believes should still be in Moscow’s sphere of influence. Winter inevitably puts Europe’s energy market under stress. Meanwhile NATO has just made a humiliating and chaotic exit from Afghanistan led by a United States president who is struggling in the polls.

Having identified the best moment Putin followed up by mobilising an army of some 130,000 troops in midwinter, distributed in pockets along Ukraine’s borders with Russia and Belarus. Putin never places great belief in diplomacy but he is willing to go through the motions because he does set store by assembling retrospective justification for any future action. In the unlikely event of a major Western concession, he would be willing to stand down the army but the strong probability is that he will use it to facilitate a tangible political and military result.

The assumption of everyone in the West is that Ukraine is the target for either an invasion or an incursion. However, none of the options looks particularly good. Yes, Russian troops could probably dash the 240 miles from Belarus to Kiev and seize the capital. But they would be unable to subjugate the whole of Ukraine, especially west of Kiev, and the invasion could lead to a long and costly insurgency. Alternatively, Putin could try and capture Ukraine’s coast and the port of Odessa but it would leave a long strip of land to defend against future Ukrainian counter-attacks.

The other problem with attacking Ukraine is that it lets NATO and the West off too lightly. President Biden made it very clear at an early stage of this crisis that NATO would not fight to defend Ukraine. Instead, all the talk has been of economic and financial sanctions. This approach has made it easier for Western countries to show a reasonably united front against Putin, although differences exist over supplying weapons to Ukraine and the exact nature of the sanctions.

So, the focus on Ukraine has not worked for Putin. Although some of the responses have been divisive the overall tendency has been to unite Western leaders. It has also enabled them to undertake some showboating with Macron engaging directly with Putin in diplomatic talks and others making high-profile trips to Kiev.

But Ukraine may not be Putin’s main target. Putin’s beef is with NATO which, he believes, has made more inroads into central and eastern Europe than was ever agreed following the collapse of the Soviet Union. In fact the two draft treaties which Russia published on 17^th December last year demanded that NATO withdraw its forces and weapons from any country which joined NATO since 1997. That would include Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Montenegro and North Macedonia. It also embraces the three Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) whose secession from the old Soviet Union particularly rankles with Putin.

There are two operations which Russia could launch against the Baltic States which would send NATO into a tailspin. Article V of the NATO treaty stipulates that “an armed attack against one [member] shall be considered an attack against them all” In other words NATO would be obliged to employ armed force. If any Russian incursion were deft, limited in scope and did not kill too many NATO soldiers or local inhabitants this would undoubtedly lead to severe divisions in the Western alliance. Any subsequent failure by NATO to deploy armed force would undermine faith in the alliance and would send a powerful message to aspirant members like Ukraine and Georgia.

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The easier of the two options for Putin would be to annex Narva on Russia’s border with Estonia. It is a majority Russian-speaking town and there has, in the past, been some cultural tension with the government in Tallinn. Putin would ask his intelligence agencies to manufacture a plea for Russian intervention. The annexation could be undertaken by Russian Special Forces. Post facto the Russian line would be that Narva was an exceptional case which should never have been located in Estonia and certainly not worth an armed conflict with NATO. Several European capitals would doubtless agree. But Britain would be in a particularly difficult position as the “lead nation” of NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) with some 1,100 troops based at Tapa 100 miles to the west.

The second option would be riskier but potentially more valuable to Moscow. An attempt to link Belarus with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad through the so-called Suwalki Corridor would sever any land border between NATO and EU countries and the three Baltic States. The EFP in Lithuania is led by the Germans who would be reluctant to contest a Russian incursion for reasons which Chancellor Scholz has already outlined. Troops from Kaliningrad could complete the task supported from Belarus. Again, the post facto justification would be about the unfairness of Kaliningrad’s separation from the motherland. This too might be enough for some European nations to argue for negotiations rather than combat, especially if Russia’s incursion were only in the Lithuanian portion of the Corridor and not in Poland.

Many Western commentators will argue that Putin would not be so foolish as to attack a NATO member. Actually, it makes far more sense than invading Ukraine. It would divide NATO and would serve as yet another of Putin’s unresolved conflicts which become valuable bargaining chips for the future. His key calculation seems correct; that Europe (and the US) has no appetite for war with Russia.

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Wednesday, January 26, 2022

How Iran is Winning, One Attack at a Time

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — This week, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) issued a statement confirming that “U.S. forces at Al Dhafra Air Base, near Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), engaged two inbound missile threats with multiple Patriot interceptors coincident to efforts by the armed forces of the UAE in the early morning hours of Jan. 24, 2022. The combined efforts successfully prevented both missiles from impacting the base. There were no U.S. casualties.”

A few weeks before that, military bases in Iraq and Syria that house U.S. troops also were attacked. In December of last year, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad was hit when two rockets landed in the Green Zone. Luckily, like the Jan. 24 Houthi attack on the UAE, there were no U.S. casualties (though the Houthi strike of Jan. 17 did kill two Indian nationals and one Pakistani).

What these attacks and many others in the region have in common is Iran’s irrefutable involvement. They may have different local contexts and their perpetrators, all loyal to Iran, may have different motivations, but every single one of those attacks was possible only because Iran provided either the weapons or the know-how to assemble and use them.

This network of Iranian proxies in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Bahrain, and possibly elsewhere is what makes Tehran so deadly in the region. It’s a clever method of power projection, honed over decades, because it allows the Iranians to weaken their adversaries and achieve their strategic aims with the fewest costs possible. Iran will fight to the last Iraqi, Syrian, Yemeni, Lebanese, and Bahraini.

The Iranians have every intention of continuing to rely on their indirect approach because it has paid strategic dividends. Their hope is that we will continue to play their game and go after only their proxies whenever we are attacked. In the case of the Houthis, for example, Tehran expects us and our regional partners to hit the Houthis — and only the Houthis — every time they lob missiles at Al Dhafra. And in many ways, that’s exactly what we’ve been doing. In January 2020, we did eliminate Iran’s top military commander and architect of this proxy network, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, but we were careful to do it in the region, not on Iranian soil.

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U.S. kinetic strikes on Iranian proxies, while necessary, clearly are insufficient. Simply put, there are more militias under Iran’s command in the region than there are American bombs. To reestablish deterrence against Iran, we have to place our tactical/operational activities, at which we’re incredibly effective, at the service of a broader strategy. We need to make it clear to the Iranians that their asymmetric playbook, especially when it targets U.S. personnel and interests, has a steep price.

We’ve communicated those red lines before, and successfully so. In Iraq, we held Iran accountable for the attacks its Iraqi proxies often perpetrated against our troops using improvised rocket-assisted munitions (IRAMs) and explosively formed penetrators (EFPs). Those tools killed at least 196 American soldiers and wounded nearly 900 between 2005 and 2011.

But now, it’s not IRAMs and EFPs that Iran is providing, it’s ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and weaponized unmanned aerial systems (UASs). Those are much more powerful weapons of war that could cause considerable physical damage to cities and critical infrastructure and kill a lot of people.

We have to nip this Iranian tactic in the bud before things really escalate — or next time we might not be so lucky and those missiles could lead to significant casualties. This is not just about defending our partners, as crucial as that responsibility is. This is about protecting our own military and diplomatic personnel in the region, as well as our core interests in that still vital part of the world to global commerce and international security.

It’s never an easy conversation when we discuss any potential use of force. But we’re under attack, quite literally and regularly, and nuclear diplomacy alone, no matter what happens in the talks in Vienna, will not fix or effectively manage this growing problem. We have every right to defend ourselves and our collective security interests.

From an operational standpoint, this requires consulting our carefully crafted Iran target list. We don’t need to specify to the Iranians what we would hit inside Iran, or how, if they attack us again, but it’s vital that we communicate that threat credibly. The worst thing we could possibly do is issue that threat but fail to follow through. Our credibility in the region has already been jeopardized over the years because of the lack of U.S. response to various acts of aggression and intimidation by Iran. Let’s at least not further weaken it and ideally bolster it partly through the measures described above.

In addition to sending a crystal-clear message to Tehran about the consequences of another potential attack (this is the deterrence-by-punishment element), we need to upgrade our defenses (this is the deterrence-by-denial element). We can do that by establishing a fusion cell based on the Houthi missile and UAS threat to provide Gulf Arab partners intelligence of activities that are a precursor to future attacks along with a real-time warning of the launch of those attacks.

We currently have a fusion cell with the Emiratis, but it is focused on al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, not the Houthis. Creating this cell will require U.S. resources, but nothing we cannot afford or that would distract from security priorities in other key theaters. Such resources could include two or three Predator tails and other national intelligence assets that would provide persistent, high-quality intelligence and warning of planned or impending attacks on U.S. personnel and bases or on those of our Saudi and Emirati partners.

More broadly speaking, while immediate tactical solutions to help our regional partners deal with Houthi attacks are required, only the United States can create the kind of sophisticated regional enterprise, both military and non-military, necessary to confront the rapidly growing power of Iranian proxies across the region, including the Houthis. The question is whether Washington has the political appetite to do any of this.

There are American voices who might call such potential U.S. responses escalatory, even reckless. While there’s always risk in any U.S. response that could include the use of force, the risk of inaction is far greater because it will invite further Iranian aggression, at which point it would be virtually impossible for the United States not to strike the Iranians hard and deep.

It is precisely such a scenario we should try to prevent, and it all starts with reestablishing deterrence. Most important of all in this equation — something more risk-averse advocates should never forget — is that Iran is the aggressor and it still has a say over what we choose to do. It can decide to stop its strategic weapons shipments to its proxies and deescalate, or it can continue with its vastly irresponsible approach but suffer the consequences.

This piece was first published by the Washington-based think tank MEI

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Sunday, January 23, 2022

Putin’s Risky Options in Ukraine

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — It is still more probable than not that Russian President Vladimir Putin will employ military force in the coming weeks. He is not going to obtain sufficient diplomatic concessions from the United States and NATO. He cannot keep his large army mobilised in mid-winter indefinitely and he may wish to seize the moment when the West looks weak and divided after the Afghan fiasco. And with an energy crisis in Europe, Putin may calculate that the European appetite for harsh sanctions against Moscow will diminish when the implications for gas supplies becomes obvious.

The Russian President’s primary objective seems to be to return Ukraine to the Russian sphere of influence or, failing that, to reduce its viability as a threat to Russia.

Putin’s dream option would be a variation on recent Kazakh events. Local disturbances in Kiev would lead to a request from “patriotic forces” for Russia’s assistance. In the absence of a Tokayev figure, the Russians would have to persuade someone senior in Kiev to issue the request; a union leader, oligarch or even a cabinet minister. That should not be beyond the capabilities of the local GRU and SVR Residents to arrange. In his dreams, Putin’s troops would then enter peacefully badged as CSTO “peacekeepers”. In reality, he must know they would have to fight their way in.

The Northern Option

Thanks to “joint exercises” with Belarus, Russia now has forces just 240 miles due north of Kiev. This provides the option of a quick dash to the Ukrainian capital to remove the Zelensky government and install a pro-Kremlin candidate. Such an operation would be reminiscent of the successful invasion of Afghanistan at Christmas 1979, when Soviet troops took Kabul within 3 days and installed Babrak Kamal as president. The operation involved 25,000 troops and 280 transport aircraft and went like clockwork.

Such a dash to Kiev might be possible. Most of Ukraine’s hardened troops are deployed in the east of the country. The Russians would soon establish complete air dominance. However, Kiev is not Kabul. It is a large modern city and the Ukrainians might well fight for it street by street. The Zelensky government is less popular than it once was but it is unlikely to crumble. Even if a puppet regime could be installed, what then?

Russia might be able to pacify much of the area east of the Dnieper but in Kiev itself and to the west, there is a good chance of popular resistance. Ukraine could be split in two and any Russian short-term success might develop into a longer-term nightmare.

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Putin’s Lesser Options

There is a plethora of lesser options along Ukraine’s eastern border. Russia could easily make incursions to carve out additional pieces of territory. One possibility would be the industrial city of Kharkiv. The problem is that the gains would be too insubstantial for all the political risk that Putin has taken in recent weeks. It would not fundamentally change Ukraine’s economic or political viability as a country and could actually increase its determination to join the European Union and NATO.

However, the seizure of Odessa could be a game-changer. It is Ukraine’s third largest city with a population of over one million and includes a vital seaport. The port handles the vast majority of Ukraine’s maritime cargo and serves as headquarters for Ukraine’s navy. Much of its population is Russian speaking. However, it would be a demanding overland operation using the forces massed at Rostov-on-Don and in the Crimea, whilst also using air-power and naval and amphibious forces.

Rostov-on-Don to Odessa is 500 miles. It could take several days of fighting and is not without risk but once Russia had established aerial superiority, it should be manageable. Only a hundred more miles beyond Odessa would provide Russia with a land route to Moldova which Putin also sees as part of his sphere of influence.

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The loss of its ports on the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea would be a crushing blow for Ukraine and would hugely affect the viability of a country that is already struggling economically. It would have the additional benefit of providing Russia with a second land-route to Crimea and a much more substantial one than the bridge over the Kerch Strait which was completed in 2019, five years after the annexation of Crimea. But the long strip of occupied territory from Rostov to Moldova would not be easy to defend from future Ukrainian counterattacks.

Putin’s Politically Risky Options

Finally, Putin has two options which are politically much riskier because they would directly challenge NATO members’ territory and, in the former case, might result in killing NATO troops. One would be to seize the Suwalki Gap between Belarus and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. This would mean annexing a small piece of either Poland or Lithuania. The other would be to carve out a town from one of the three Baltic States. The obvious contender would be Narva in Estonia which has a Russian-speaking majority. To the Western way of thinking, this would be needlessly provocative but Putin could be attracted for that very reason. It would also test whether the West is truly willing to fight for a small slice of territory belonging to one of its members. And Putin will not want to stand down his troops without some tangible gain.

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Monday, January 17, 2022

Anticipating Russia’s Next Move in Ukraine