Spycraft

Female Spies and Their Secrets

Are women useful as spies? If so, in what capacity? Maxwell Knight, an officer in MI5, Britain’s domestic-counterintelligence agency, sat pondering these questions. Outside his office, World War II had begun, and Europe’s baptism by blitzkrieg was under way. In England—as in the world—the intelligence community was still an all-male domain, and a clubby, upper-crust one at that. But a lady spy could come in handy, as Knight was about to opine.

In a memo “on the subject of Sex, in connection with using women as agents,” Knight ventured that one thing women spies could do was seduce men to extract information. Not just any woman could manage this, he cautioned—only one who was not “markedly oversexed or undersexed.” Like the proverbial porridge, a female agent must be neither too hot nor too cold. If the lady is “undersexed,” she will lack the charisma needed to woo her target. But if she “suffers from an overdose of Sex,” as he put it, her boss will find her “terrifying.”

“What is required,” Knight wrote, “is a clever woman who can use her personal attractions wisely.” And there you have it—the conventional wisdom about women and spycraft. Intelligence officers had long presumed that women’s special assets for spying were limited to strategically deployed female abilities: batting eyelashes, soliciting pillow talk, and of course maintaining files and typing reports. Overseeing operations? Not so much.

Spycraft

U.S. intelligence on Venezuela 'very good,' acting defense chief says

President Donald Trump’s strategy on Venezuela has come under growing scrutiny as President Nicolas Maduro remains in power, raising questions about the way ahead for opposition leader Juan Guaido, who the United States and some 50 countries recognize as the legitimate head of state.

U.S. officials, including National Security Adviser John Bolton, had expected broader defections from the Venezuelan military in support of Guaido after he called on the armed forces to help oust Maduro on Tuesday.

“I don’t feel like we have an intelligence gap. I think we have very good reporting,” Shanahan told reporters, when asked about comparisons to gaps in intelligence that preceded the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. His remarks followed a meeting at the Pentagon that included Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Navy Admiral Craig Faller, who oversees U.S. forces in Latin America.

Spycraft

THE SPIES WHO CAME IN FROM THE CONTINENT

From John le Carré’s novels to the insatiable popular interest in James Bond, Britain has long enjoyed, and cultivated, an image of producing superior spies. This reputation is based on more than myth. For decades during and following World War II, the painstaking real-world work of British intelligence officers was one of the United Kingdom’s primary sources of power.

That power, and its underlying foundations, is now in jeopardy thanks to Brexit, which will have a cascading series of repercussions for British intelligence: It will shut Britain out of European Union institutions that have benefited British national security, and it may also jeopardize the special intelligence relationship with the United States, which may look to deepen relations with Brussels instead. But while Brexit may now be inevitable, there are still ways for the U.K. to avoid this outcome.

Britain’s intelligence services—MI5, which handles domestic security intelligence; MI6, which does foreign intelligence; and GCHQ, which focuses on signals intelligence (SIGINT)—have been touted at home and abroad as the Rolls-Royces of intelligence services. But they weren’t always. Declassified records show that, prior to World War II, British spy agencies were often more like rickety cars than luxury vehicles. MI5 and MI6 were established in 1909, and at the outbreak of World War I in 1914, both services had scant resources: MI5’s staff totaled 17, which included its office caretaker. The situation had scarcely improved by the start of World War II in 1939. A declassified in-house MI5 history shows that on the eve of the war, the agency’s counterespionage section had just two officers—with responsibilities for the entire British Empire and Commonwealth. MI5 and MI6 did not even know the name of the German military intelligence service, the Abwehr.

Spycraft

The Rehabilitation of Gina Haspel by the New York Times

Last week, the New York Times did its best to rehabilitate CIA director Gina Haspel, who was one of the agency’s leading proponents and players in the unconscionable policy of torture and abuse in CIA’s secret prisons.  Today, the New York Times doubled down on its bet, and ran a letter to the editor from a former operations officer, Douglas Wise, who predictably extolled the virtues of “Bloody Gina.”  Whereas the Times’ reporters credited Haspel with the “skills of a spy,” the CIA operative explained that it was “not spycraft (sic); it’s professionalism.”  The one thing that the Times and the letter writer have in common is the purveying of bullshit.

The obvious issue concerns their belief that Haspel has genuinely ingratiated herself with the commander-in-chief.  Their view is “yes;” my answer is “you must be kidding.”  Let’s review the bidding.  The CIA believes that Russian hacking took place during the 2015-2016 presidential campaign.  The president believes Russian President Vladimir Putin’s denials.  The CIA believes that North Korea continues to expand its nuclear weapons program.

Spycraft

The Spycraft Revolution

The world of espionage is facing tremendous technological, political, legal, social, and commercial changes. The winners will be those who break the old rules of the spy game and work out new ones. They will need to be nimble and collaborative and—paradoxically—to shed much of the secrecy that has cloaked their trade since its inception.

The balance of power in the spy world is shifting; closed societies now have the edge over open ones. It has become harder for Western countries to spy on places such as China, Iran, and Russia and easier for those countries’ intelligence services to spy on the rest of the world. Technical prowess is also shifting. Much like manned spaceflight, human-based intelligence is starting to look costly and anachronistic. Meanwhile, a gulf is growing between the cryptographic superpowers—the United States, United Kingdom, France, Israel, China, and Russia—and everyone else. Technical expertise, rather than human sleuthing, will hold the key to future success.