Agents And Agencies: The Intelligence Community Thread

With the CIA's (and Western intelligence agencies in general) increased public prominence since 2001, I figure 9 years down the road might be a good time for us to maybe discuss them a little. Historical discussions are okay; my first post, actually, is going to be the close resemblance of the Office Of Strategic Service's Jedburgh Teams in World War II and the CIA's Special Activities Division's initial missions into Afghanistan in late 2001.


Jedburgh Team

Special Activities Division in Afghanistan

Pretty clear resemblance, obviously-the biggest difference is that SAD is predominantly retired military, while the OSS was not.


Some basic information:

-The CIA is structured into four basic components:

-The National Clandestine Service, home to SAD, although it's traditional role has predominantly been collection of 'human intelligence', aka spies in the traditional sense. Previously called the Directorate Of Operations. Think John Clark, James Bond, or Jason Bourne.

National Clandestine Service at CIA.gov

-The Directorate of Intelligence, who analyze the information the National Clandestine Service collects. The Deputy Director is also resonsible for briefing the House Intelligence Committee. Think Jack Ryan.

Directorate Of Intelligence at CIA.gov

-The Directorate Of Science And Technology, which makes and operates intelligence-gathering equipment of various kinds. Think Q.

Directorate of Science And Technology at CIA.gov


The Directorate Of Support, which buys everything the other four directorates need. Think Miss Moneypenny, or maybe that old lady who makes coffee for James Earl Jones in The Hunt For Red October, which is probably more realistic.


Directorate Of Support at CIA.gov


Now of course there are other Western intelligence agencies, but as this post took me nearly an hour to find non-James Bond-inspired sources for everything, we'll talk about those later.

 

By the way, isn't the CIA supposed to know everything? If anyone knew that the Afghans were a hodgepodge of disunited ethnic groups who would reject a centralized government in Kabul, it should have been them. How did we get into this mess?

 

Actually, the CIA had been attempting to kill Bin Laden in Afghanistan for literally years before this happened:

(it's kinda frustrating that a wiki page is the least !action movie! info you can find online about this)

Linkie

Furthermore, blaming the CIA for the Reagan Administration's general lack of strategic forethought regarding Afghanistan is about as fair as blaming the military for Vietnam. Both are governmental agencies whose authority is ultimately derived from the President; they follow his orders, and in the case of Afghanistan, the President's decision was to help the Muhajideen bleed the Soviet Army dry and to attempt to enmesh the USSR in a Vietnam-esque unending struggle. The CIA was ultimately successful in that goal. While that goal might not have been the correct decision for the future (and frankly, radical Islam had been growing since the 1930s at that particular point in history) it was the assigned goal. The CIA does not [i[]decide[/i] policy; it implements it.

 

Ah, but it wasn't even Reagan who started that... it was our dear old friend Cousin Hot:

source

 

That's interesting, Watto; didn't know Afghan assistance started with Carter.


In more recent news, the US is considering an major expansion of CIA operations in Yemen, including the possibility of using Special Forces teams for targeted killings instead of drones.

Targeted Killings in Yemen

The main rationale behind use of Special Forces as opposed to bombs is two- or threefold, I think:

-Firstly, SOF has a very robust Direct Action capability designed to be highly precise.

-This will lead to both a low or nil civilian casualty rate, thereby circumventing both the ability for the enemy to have legitimate propaganda from civilian deaths, and the potential for international condemnation.

-and also allow for capturing of High-Value Individuals, from whom intelligence can be gotten.

 

It's been reported on more than once in the media that we have special forces operating in Yemen, but "unconfirmed", just like all the drone missle strikes in Pakistan are unconfirmed. I need to put my finger on the proper source material, but I know part of what hampered the CIA with dealing with the Taliban was the lack of a Presidential Order to carry out some very key "wet" operations, not the least of which was Osama. I need to go back and find it, but there were SF assets in the area, on the ground on at least one occasion that could have carried it off.

The lack of proper use of SF can also account for part of the issues we later had with Iraq, again lacking a Presidential Directive and Gen. Stormin' Norman being directly quoted as not wanting to rely on or trust in SF operations or tactics.

 

Yeah, Schwarzkopf was definitely not a fan of covert operations, IIRC because of the potential risk involved; he had Delta Force playing bodyguard for him. Which is...kindof a misuse of valuable resources, to put it politely.

The Obama Administration has actually widened the shadow war in AfPak/Yemen quite abit; of the 193 Predator drone strikes in Pakistan that have been conducted since 2004, fully 183 have occurred since 2008:

Long War Journal Article

I would assume that this is being done because special/covert operations are seen as a cost-effective way to keep terrorism well-suppressed without having to resort to long-lived and unpopular occupations of foreign countries. SOF and the CIA have small logistical footprints; a company of Special Forces soldiers numbers just eighty-odd Soldiers, which certainly help keeps costs down. Furthermore, SOF operations are not covered by the news media and Predator strikes are only known to have occurred after the action is well over. Additionally, SOF and Predator strikes have a more lethal influence because they typically target leadership; this is something the entire US military does now, but SOF can find and kill terrorist leadership in countries where US conventional forces do not or cannot operate.

'Invisible, effective, and cheap' is going to be the future mantra for terrorist-focused warfare, and it's already well on the way there.

 

In the latest "Year in Special Operations Review," there's an excellent article about General William Donovan, who was the founder of the OSS. As Boba pointed out in his opening post, while most sources attribute the OSS as being the precursor of the CIA, it's slightly more complicated. The OSS was more like the Special Activities Division specifically, which is to say a blending of military light infantry and intelligence activities. General Donovan's mantra was "He wanted a young LT with enough guts to think for himself and disobey an order, than a colonel too regimented to act for himself." The principle of the OSS was "calculated recklessness." Apparently, Gen. Donovan didn't have too many friends in the traditional military command structure, but he was high enough rank to get things done, and he had the backing where it mattered-the President. The movie The Dirty Dozen is a loose interpretation of Gen. Donovan's style and clash with other officers.

Beyond Donovan, there's a story where fully armed OSS operatives parachuted behind enemy lines in occupied France, met up with some French resistance fighters, and instead of engaging the enemy, siphoned out all the gasoline in German tanks and troop carriers. The OSS operatives were counting even more on the demoralizing effect that such missions had. That sounds like a plot of a movie in itself..

 

Yeah, the OSS was a pretty wild bunch; I haven't read the new Year In Special Operations Review yet, but I suppose I could pick it up if they have any copies left in the PX. I know I've seen it in there.

 

Thanks.

I guess we'll see if this works out this time, given the rapidly changing nature of the war against Al-Qaeda's affiliates, particularly around the Arabian Peninsula and Horn Of Africa.

Firstly, the CIA is becoming increasingly embroiled in Somalia, with an actual base located on Mogadishu's Adden Adde International Airport, including a prison for renditioned suspects:

Intelligence News

We've seen a marked turn in favor of Special Operations Command and the various intelligence agencies since Obama was elected. Part of this is that the CIA-and portions of Special Operations Command-do not operate under the same level of influence as the conventional military does; given the level of partisan harassment the Obama Administration deals with from the lunatics currently controlling the Republican party, this is not terribly surprising. The other part is cost. Special Operations Command is approximately fifty thousand service members strong and had a budget request of 6.3 billion dollars, literally less than 1% of the entire DoD budget. SOCOM is currently about 33% deployed with around thirteen thousand service members overseas at one one time. This is actually not reaching demand and SOCOM has been growing since 2001, but for paltry amounts of money as far as the USG budget goes; furthermore, SOCOM's budget is not actually DOD money. It has it's own pot of money under US title 10 that probably will not be subject to DOD budget-slashing, and such a dirt-cheap portion of the government is likely to not terrifically suffer and probably even grow as the conventional military draws down