| Cloak and Dagger |
BY ERIK WEISS |
| The fall of the Soviet Union has created new challenges for the Western intelligence community. Border disputes, missing weapons, political instability, and Kremlin power struggles all require clandestine observation. |
With the Cold War over, Western intelligence interests in the former Soviet Union have changed. Intelligence agencies need reevaluation to adapt to an area in flux. There is a need to determine the purpose, mission, and scope of an intelligence apparatus originally designed for the Cold War. There are great advances in communications and intelligence-gathering technology. In spite of the increase in readily available information, however, the need for clandestine intelligence operations remain.
As the former Soviet Bloc states pose less of a military threat than in the past, funding for intelligence operations needs reassessment as well. Although the budget for intelligence is classified, the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on the future of US intelligence estimates that during the Cold War, 90 percent of the intelligence budget (perhaps $29 billion in Fiscal Year 1996) was devoted to military-related activities. There is need for budget cuts and an extension of links between the intelligence community and other information sources, such as the media. It is essential that well-trained, efficient, and centralized staff analyze data from all sources. As the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force recently reported, "organizing and correctly understanding that information has become at least as important as collecting it." In a world that receives the results of Russian political elections via satellite, much less is hidden. It is the task of the intelligence services, therefore, to streamline clandestine operations, improve analysis, and establish more open and candid intercourse between the intelligence community and the policymakers who use this information.
In spite of the increase in readily available information, however, the need for clandestine intelligence operations remains.
|
The fall of the Soviet Union means that the US faces a plethora of smaller but extremely dangerous threats and uncertainties. The recent elections in Russia demonstrate the potential pitfalls of Russian democracy. Now, nationalist or communist forces only have to be elected to take power. Furthermore, the danger inherent in a regime that is not united within a single administration has become frighteningly obvious. The leader of he reformist Yabloko party, Grogory Yavlinsky, said during the October 1996 elections that he saw Russia as having three governments, one led by Prime Minster Viktor Chernomyrdin, one led by Chief o Staff Anatolli Chubais, and one led by Security Council Secretary Alexander Lebed. He added that the struggle between them was not just a personal "political battle," but rather a "battle among clans for influence and access to budget funds." Such volatile fractures also became evident in Georgia, where the September parliamentary elections were reportedly marred when the government revoked the private TV company Rustavi-2's license after confiscating and erasing footage of voting procedures. |
The Communist regime is gone. Recent strife throughout the former Soviet Union has, however, regenerated many Communist factions which must be watched closely. Examples of these factions are evident in Russia, where efforts at market reforms have fueled a resurgence of support for hard-line communists. Several radical leftist groups joined in October to form the Union of Communists and Socialists of Russia in opposition to Gennady Zyuganov's more moderate Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF). In Poland, the Communists were only recently rejected by the Union of Labor Party in anticipation of the 1997 Parliamentary elections.
While this intense factionalism is no surprise to Western observers, it highlights the vulnerability of government structure and the need to monitor them closely in order to anticipate any unforeseen event. Overt information-gathering, such as from the media, had assumed a greater role in following such events. But only clandestine operatives on location have the means to access closed means of communication to which media or Western business contacts are not privy. The ratio of overt information sources and secret agent work has changed. Although the need for the spies has fallen with the opening of borders, there is a definite role for insider informants.
| The maintenance of peaceful and stable relations
between the states of the former Soviet Union is of
fundamental interest to the West. Tensions such as those
between Pakistan and Turkmenistan, Russia and Georgia,
and Russia and the Ukraine should be monitored because
hey could escalate into conflicts that involve outside
powers. Arms left over from the Cold War have exacerbated Russia's current conflicts and the dangers they pose. The Russian Duma is reluctant to ratify the START II treaty, and Russia and Cyprus recently closed an arms deal for the sale of an undisclosed number of S-300 air defense missile systems. These prove the need for close observation of potentially threatening developments overtly, and by clandestine technical and human intelligence means. |
The maintenance of peaceful and stable relations between the states of the former Soviet Union is of fundamental interest to the West.
|
The need for evaluating internal security arrangements is important for the West in assessing the prospects for NATO expansion. This possibility has stimulated hostile feelings in the former Soviet states. Many in Russia agree with former Security Secretary Aleksandr Lebed that "there is no guarantee that no on will decide to deal with Russia the way Iraq was recently dealt with." Though exaggerated, the sentiment shows Russia's sensitivity to security issues.
Valuable intelligence can be gathered regarding the external affairs of the former Soviet states. However, information must also be gathered regarding impediments to economic change and democratization. Obstacle can hamper efforts toward bringing these countries into a peaceful state of economic and political cooperation with the rest of the world. A troubling result of economic reforms has been the significant military wage shortages that could lead disgruntled personnel to become reactionary and hostile. In the Ukrainian and Russian armies, the average serviceman can wait up to two months for pay. There is no money in the state budget to cover the wage arrears in the near future. Corruption at every level of the military and government and an outbreak of organized crime with international ramifications has caused many of these shortages.
The proliferation of weapons is a fundamental security threat to the West. Russian Deputy Military Procurator Lt. Gen. Stanislav Gaveto candidly admitted that "soldiers, officers, and traders are stealing weapons ... The country is awash with arms, nobody knows how many." Officially recorded cases of arms theft from military bases rose from 151 in 1988 to 5,614 in 1992, a development that endangers internal security and raises fears of proliferation of both conventional and nuclear armaments to dangerous rogue states. This proliferation is probably such a widespread occurrence that even the most thorough technical intelligence tools cannot provide as full a picture as desired by national security analysts. The possibility that weapons are headed for Third World destinations necessitates awareness and surveillance.
| In an effort to observe the dynamics shaping the present and future of the former Soviet Union, the West has engaged in both technical and human espionage. this is evident in the Russian intelligence community's recent announcement that it exposed and detained 39 foreign intelligence agents. These agents included the British agent Platon Obukhov and a Russian scientist named Finkel who worked for American intelligence and passed on secrets concerning the Russian nuclear submarine program. but intelligence gathering by clandestine means is not a one-way street in the post-Cold War era. On September 4, 1996, a Tselina-2 series SIGINT satellite, Kosmos-2333, was launched from the Baykonur spaceport for the Russian Defense Ministry. A September 29, 1996 article which ran in the Nezavisimaia Gazeta (Independent Newspaper) seems to betray knowledge of sensitive diplomatic communications from the US Embassy in Moscow, indicating possible technical or human penetration by Russian intelligence, On September 21, Belarussian President Lukashenko disclosed the contents of a confidential meeting of some of the ambassadors from the NATO countries held at the British Embassy in Minsk. In a world of uncertainty, suspicions on both sides lead to espionage, and both sides are similarly forced to respond with counterintelligence measures. |
The possibility that weapons are headed for Third World destinations necessitates awareness and surveillance.
|
And so the game goes on. The fall of the Soviet menace is a great step forward out of an era of superpower hostility and a nuclear arms race that threatened the very existence of humanity. But the transition from war to peace, especially from Cold War to peace, is still a perilous one. The multiple conflicts left in the wake of the fall of the behemoth should concern both the former Soviet states and the outside world. the object of a tightly run clandestine operation is to organize and prepare for threatening changes, and one can say optimistically that the task facing the post-Cold War intelligence community may no longer be a contest against an enemy, but an attempt to watch and guide the progress of a future friend. As former CIA Director Allen Dulles wrote at the end of World War I, "We have the greatest obligation and opportunity that a nation ever had ... We are called to put the world in order again."
| Sources In From the Cold: The Report of the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on the Future of US Intelligence. New York: Twentieth Century Fund Press, 1996. Adams, James. Th New Spies: Exploring the Frontiers of Espionage. London: Hutchinson, 1994. Knight, Amy. Spies Without Cloaks: The KGBUs Successors. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996. Reports form the OMRI Daily Digest. |
|
Mr. Weiss, TD'99, is a history major at Yale College.