SOCOM and the CIA

[Ken White]

What would be the advantages to doing this and why?

None that I can discern

What would be the disadvantages to doing this and why?

Hard to work for two masters. Army folks working for another agency would essentially become throwaways; there would be no agency loyalty to them. The agency would have different rules and playing by theirs might be a bad lick for those so seconded.

That's just off the top of my head. There's more not openly discussable.

Lastly if you had complete control what would you do to reorganize our current system?[

I'm with John T. and Tom Odom, a civilian Humint intel organ; a new separate civilian DA organ; DNI; USoD Intel; Army, Navy, USMC, USAF, USCG Intelligence; DIA; DoE; DHS; DoS INR; Treasury; DEA; FBI; NGIA; NSA; NRO; A uniformed DA crew and SF (Not involved with any of the foregoing except on an as required, mission basis).

Competition keeps everyone honest. Consolidation is turf protection

[jmm99]

from Ken
... a new separate civilian DA organ ....

Thoughts about what it would look like ? Mission ? Command and control ?

How different from the "... uniformed DA crew ..." ?

[Ken White]

Thoughts about what it would look like ? Mission ? Command and control ?

Well, not like Tom Cruise and the MI crew...

Mission: Direct Action -- and all that implies; obviously as a National Asset, it would be on a strategic (in the finer sense of the word) level.

C2: by the Prez / NSC w/ oversight by Congress pretty much as the current system works for special Intel projects.

How different from the "... uniformed DA crew ..." ?

Deniable (even if not with a straight face; well, legally deniable in any event) -- which the uniformed crew should never be.

Why? Because you can hire better if expensive talent for the SMALL flexible civilian organization and can more easily expand and contract it (pun intended) than you can adapt the various military organizations and operations.

Not to mention that there are rules in the intel game and the DA crowd, if publicly known as a totally separate operation, does not have to abide by those rules. Better for Spooks, better for DA. Better for the country -- not that such a concern seems to drive too many trains nowadays...

Where does it fit? -- as placed. That's why I put it directly behind the national Humint crew (A CIA replacement) and before all the others to include the DNI who, IMO, should be the Chief analyst and little more (since the slot is probably not going away). I did leave out before the DNI and DIA (who should also do Humint as should the services and the various LE folks; competition again...) another national level organization -- a Counterintel / Counter terror organization that is emphatically not a LE agency and thus not the FBI. The FBI is ill suited for that role.

[jmm99]

but I have to think about this a bit - from the viewpoint of the poor SOB who has the legal advisor's role to the civilian DA and CI branches.

I assume that the military DA wants to keep its combatant immunity status, as much as possible - so a mix with civilian DA would flunk that test.

Also, civilian Disinformation and other softer forms of direct political action would have to fit in somewhere - at the national C2 level ?

[John T. Fishel]

A couple of comments.
1. Not just DA but other covert political actions.
2. DA and other covert political actions are NOT intelligence. Intel is the direction, collection, analysis, production, and dissemination of information - intel cycle. I do see DNI overseeing the cycle for all intel agencies but not for my proposed US SOE (by whatever name). The analogous position to DNI is, IMO, the CJCS.

Cheers

JohnT

[Ken White]

A couple of comments.
1. Not just DA but other covert political actions.

True -- actually, more but didn't want to get into that.

2. DA and other covert political actions are NOT intelligence.

Emphatically not!

Intel is the direction, collection, analysis, production, and dissemination of information - intel cycle. I do see DNI overseeing the cycle for all intel agencies but not for my proposed US SOE (by whatever name). The analogous position to DNI is, IMO, the CJCS.

I was not and am not a fan of the creation of the DNI (I didn't agree with DHS either but they keep forgetting my opinion counts... ) but I could buy that. I do believe his ability to influence DoD intel agencies should be limited as should DoD's be limited w/r to the services. I always have some reservations about excessive centralization which IMO always causes bureaucratic expansion and thus impedes flexibility and innovation while producing excessively focused (read: what the boss wants) products.

Competition OTOH produces products that can vary widely in quality -- and accuracy. Not a bad thing...

[Ken White]

I assume that the military DA wants to keep its combatant immunity status, as much as possible - so a mix with civilian DA would flunk that test.

be silly not to try to keep it...

Also, civilian Disinformation and other softer forms of direct political action would have to fit in somewhere - at the national C2 level ?

Agree and some, many, of those forms of action should be done by the crew I tabbed for DA; they should do the other, non-intel things for the national level. Agree an information (or disinformation) mob is necessary but do not think it should be with either intel or the action crew; thus you'd have a triumvirate under the Prez/NSC -- the DNI (and the Humint crowd); the DA crew (DQI? Director of Quasi-legal Initiatives?); and the DFI (Director of Federal Flatly Fraudulent Information -- with the second and third 'Fs' suppressed, of course... ).

All could routinely meet or convene in part for emergencies as does the UK Cobra Team LINK. Not to be copycats, we could call ours Sidewinder (for Selected Intelligence, Domestic Emergencies, Wars, Information, Disinformation, Extractions, Raids).

[John T. Fishel]

you were such a creative acronymer!

[Tom Odom]

you were such a creative acronymer!

Sounds like a Stallone movie...

[George L. Singleton]

doing just that.

That's why Winston noted "You can always trust the Americans to do the right thing -- after they have tried every conceivable alternative."

OTOH, whenever we try to organize things, we generally screw it up -- ad hocery is what we do best.

Not to digress but Churchill is my favor historic figure from my youth, followed by Teddy Roosevelt and Ike.

And of course Churchill himself epitomized trial and error in his repeated moves "across the floor" of Parliament from one party, back to the other, back again, it makes historians dizzy. His failed Dardinelles campaign was another example of his "under belly" attack theories which didn't work.

Churchill was originally opposed to the coast of France landings, wanted to go in from the south, as best I can recall, Vichy France.

Have a good weekend. Correct me if my history recall is flawed.

[Steve Blair]

Not to digress but Churchill is my favor historic figure from my youth, followed by Teddy Roosevelt and Ike.

And of course Churchill himself epitomized trial and error in his repeated moves "across the floor" of Parliament from one party, back to the other, back again, it makes historians dizzy. His failed Dardinelles campaign was another example of his "under belly" attack theories which didn't work.

Churchill was originally opposed to the coast of France landings, wanted to go in from the south, as best I can recall, Vichy France.

Have a good weekend. Correct me if my history recall is flawed.

Churchill was obsessed with Italy and the Balkans, actually. He accepted Vichy as something of a compromise.

[Tom Odom]

Churchill was obsessed with Italy and the Balkans, actually. He accepted Vichy as something of a compromise.

And Sicily and the Anzio operation in Italy...

But he did have character

[JRoberts]

DA and other covert political actions are NOT intelligence. Intel is the direction, collection, analysis, production, and dissemination of information - intel cycle.

I'd generally agree with that assertion. But covert action covers a range of activities--political subversion, economic subversion, propaganda, etc.--and while we might want to spin off paramilitary operations into a separate category, if intelligence agencies aren't going to conduct the 'less-kinetic' covert actions, who will? You don't want military officers doing that kind of thing, at least, not if you care about plausible deniability and the Geneva Conventions. Having a separate civilian agency is an interesting idea, but if you place it outside of the HUMINT production loop...knowing how tightly-controlled information can be within the IC...you're basically shutting off access to knowledge about the political context/local environment/etc. in whichever area you want to conduct a covert action in. I.e., the stuff that HUMINT is best at producing.

And then who will you find to staff this agency? Unless that agency were to be totally blind to political developments, you would probably want to have a number of analysts and CIA collection management officers, probably seconded on an ad-hoc basis, who were already familiar with the proposed operational environment.

It's not at all satisfactory, for reasons that have already been well articulated, but the present system is probably the least bad option. Placing it under CIA at least theoretically ensures that covert actions can be conducted in a political context about which there is already some level of institutional understanding (not necessarily much, but some). You don't have to worry about staffing or secondment problems, and you can conduct covert actions through the networks that are already in place, rather than bringing in outside resources to do the job.

In the long run, I guess I don't see how a separate covert action agency could function without to some degree replicating the analytical and management functions that CIA already has in place.

[John T. Fishel]

covert action from intel is to avoind contaminating the intelligence and policy to the maximum extent possible. The classic case (in the public domain) of such contamination is the Bay of Pigs fiasco (17 Apr 61). CIA's DDP was responsible for intel collection, analysis, operational planning, and execution. No analyst from DDI ever saw the intel collected, the analysis, or the plan. Had they seen any of this they would have waved the red flag of!!!!!
All the evidence was that the operation had no possibility of strategic or political success but because it was so tightly controlled there was no independent check on stupidity.

I am not suggesting that seconding personnel with appropriate expertise to my covert action agency would be wrong - in fact, seconded personnel often develop a loyalty to their new organization. (Example is Army, Navy Air force, and Marines assigned to a joint shop tend to think "purple" while they are there reverting to their service colors when they return to the service environment.)

Bottom line is that I think we can do much better than the current arrangement. Intel consumers should not be their own analysts.

Cheers

JohnT

[jmm99]

I'm seeing three different functions here:

1. Intel is the direction, collection, analysis, production, and dissemination of information - intel cycle. Intel consumers should not be their own analysts.

2. Political subversion, economic subversion, propaganda (I'd use "disinformation" here, since propaganda which is white on white should be totally separate from disinformation operations), and the "etc." of this softer side of covert ops.

3. Paramilitary operations (e.g., Bay of Pigs, which was neither clandestine nor covert in its execution; but very compartmentalized in its preparation); but more so in the present context, DAs which should not be handled by the military (Gary Berntsen's pitch).

In any given situation, two or more of these functions can and probably need to be linked. So, one agency fits all; or separate agencies ?

If the latter, there are at least two problems:

1. Co-ordination of efforts (joint task forces ?);

2. How to hide the appropriations for their efforts (dumping all the $ into one agency makes that easier) ?

Is this roughly where this discussion is at ?

[John T. Fishel]

Obviously, I agree completely with your #1.

#2 - first, we designate propaganda as white = source acknowledged, gray = source not acknowledged, and black = source disguised. For both the US military and DOS, the information in all propaganda messages is truthful (although it need not be the whole truth). Disinformation (deception) is, in the US, not psychological operations but rather an intelligence operation but one that may use PSYOP assets.

#3 - I see no reason why DA should not be carried out by military SOF (SEALS, DELTA, and SF C companies and the like). Even if they are clandestine, the US military has a history of this kind of activity and as far back as Nathan Hale, if caught, being executed as spies. As a practical matter, it may be useful to have a civilian agency that can carry out DA. But, I would note that the Bay of Pigs (and other clandestine and covert ops[intended]) have had uniformed members on the team. (A USMC COL was responsible for training the Brigada.)

Regarding your "problems": Coordination always is - we have discussed unity of effort on many threads. Hiding appropriations has usually been done by scattering the funds around the defense budget - works pretty well. So, I don't see these problems as peculiar to the creation of a US civilian SOE but rather inherent in bureaucracies in general, and especially those that deal in secrets. What my SOE would achieve, I think, is separation of intel from covert ops thereby avoiding certain typse of screw ups, if the system is used as intended. But, as stated in one of my favorite episodes of one of my favorite TV shows, Babylon 5, "Always bet on stupidity/"

Cheers

JohnT

[jmm99]

from JTF
#2 - first, we designate propaganda as white = source acknowledged, gray = source not acknowledged, and black = source disguised. For both the US military and DOS, the information in all propaganda messages is truthful (although it need not be the whole truth). Disinformation (deception) is, in the US, not psychological operations but rather an intelligence operation but one that may use PSYOP assets.

I was limiting #2 to disinformation (not from US military, DoS), which in my twisted mind is a part of a two-level (outlet and message) black to white disinformation and information construct:

1. outlet spectrum - outlet is black when outlet is 180 degrees from originating agency which remains clandestine and covert (e.g., info, regardless of its color, comes from CIA and is published by the KGB). Outlet is white when outlet is in phase with originating agency (e.g., info comes from CIA and is published by VOA). A gray outlet would be the perfect neutral (90 degrees out of phase with the main adversaries). Obviously, a broad spectrum of gray outlets is possible.

2. message spectrum - message is black when it is false in main focus part; message is white when it is true in main focus part. Again, many shades of gray can lie along the spectrum.

Can you have a white on white, covert and clandestine, disinformation operation ? Sure - Czech Intel's planted WWII German docs (which were mostly real) in the lake - discovered by TV documentary types, given to Czech government and eventually released through Czech government agencies, to some consternation in German Intel circles.

------------------------------

from JTF
#3 - I see no reason why DA should not be carried out by military SOF (SEALS, DELTA, and SF C companies and the like).

Neither do I - and this should be the default (IMO).

I am no big proponent of civilian DAs; but there are situations where they are needed - primarily because of legal reasons. In those situations, the actions "should not be" carried out by military SOFs - which is what I meant by "DAs which should not be handled" (not all DAs, but a limited class of them).

--------------------------------
As to the "problems", I don't see them as insurmountable hurdles - just possible hurdles that can be overcome. As to co-ordination, I should have cited Ken's post:

All could routinely meet or convene in part for emergencies as does the UK Cobra Team LINK. Not to be copycats, we could call ours Sidewinder (for Selected Intelligence, Domestic Emergencies, Wars, Information, Disinformation, Extractions, Raids).

Love that Sidewinder

[John T. Fishel]

I feel quite anal about the terminology I learned in the PSYOP course and as a practitioner in both the 13th PSYOP Bn and in Southcom. While I understand where you are coming from, JMM, we in the business simply don't use that terminology and get a bit agitated when the white, gray, balck spectrum is used to refer to message content, ie message spectrum. The reason we don't use it is both that our messages are truthful and it serves no useful purpose. To the best of my knowledge, even CIA covert PSYOP only uses it to refer to sources - at least according to my buddy who served in DDO for 5 years and was involved in a classic Black PSYOP (that I believe I related on another thread).

Regarding DA, we are generally in agreement although I would add that another reason for a civilian sOE type organization is its potential agility in mounting an operation, eg JAWBREAKER 1 in Afghanistan (Gary Schoen).

Cheers

JohnT

[Ken White]

I recall and understand the doctrine -- as well as what you are saying about -- black, gray and white propaganda. However, I also recall from a few classes at Holabird long ago (howzat for dating ones self... ) that the colors can and do also identify purpose; i.e. Black written by Black says White is ba-a-ad (though I'm actually an angel... ); Gray written by Black says White is good but well, he's not really all that angelic and Blue, after all does not trust him. It plants seeds for further tilling...

White written by Black says Black is the good guy.

While I understand we are always truthful (... ), adhering strictly to your and the doctrinal definitions would seem to raise a couple of questions. Why have / do Black and Gray? For what reason would we not want to reveal the source? Or disguise it?

I'd submit, for example that "Bright, Shining Lie" is gray. It purports to tell some of the story of the US Army and Viet Nam but it is, in my opinion, a well written polemic that attempts to justify the less than stellar way the media covered that war by pointing out enough Army and Viet Namese (as well as the John Paul Vann speculatory denigration; 'even the good guys had issues...') warts (and I certainly know and acknowledge there were plenty...) to make the media look like the real good guys -- when in fact, they were no better at doing their job or being truthful, all things considered, than was the Army.

[John T. Fishel]

didn't go there because I didn't transfer to MI or take the Advanced Course until it was at Hoochie Cooch.

I suspect you are right that at one time colors could refer to content but it became obvious that separating PSYOP from deception and disinformation was more useful than maintaining the color scheme for content.

Regarding your specific question: I guess telling the story again is worthwhile. My friend worked sub-Saharan Africa. They were looking for ways to discredit the Soviets in the region. Someone came across Soviet anti-Islam propaganda designed for use in Central Asia. Still, it was real Soviet stuff. The op took this stuff and ran it in the Muslim countries of sub-Saharan Africa claiming it originated from the Soviets (true) and passing it off as targeting the Muslim population of the region by the Soviet govt and embassies in the region. Hence, this was a classic case of a Black Propaganda op with great results. To use the content and source scheme you would have to call this Black source and white content. too confusing for my littel brain.

Cheers

JohnT