Browsing by Subject "intelligence ethics"

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Additions to "Ukraine and the 30 Year's Global War on Terror" for cadets and professors at Mihai's Excellent Intelligence Academy
(2014-10-21) Andregg, Michael M.
Additions on “Ukraine and the 30 Year’s Global War on Terror” for the cadets and professors at Mihai’s Excellent Academy, 21 October, 2014 1. What can I tell Romanians about the Ukraine? You should know 1000x more than I do about this country on your border. What can I tell you about the mind of Vladimir Putin, who is more dangerous to the greater Black Sea area than to the western hemisphere? 2. Well, I can say your political psychologists should be studying Mr. Putin very carefully! I do that to forecast wars, but be assured, it is not really possible to get into the mind of a leader thousands of kilometers away, with almost all sources of information about them mediated by groups with interests of their own. Propaganda is everywhere, but in war zones it is pervasive and professional. To take another hard intelligence target for example, we don’t even know if Kim Jong Un of North Korea is ALIVE right now, or confined to a hospital, or tied up in a tank somewhere to protect his security services from flagrant craziness with WMDs, and Kim’s affection for killing relatives on short notice, like his uncle. So political psychologists in Romania should study the mind of Mr. Putin carefully, and I will say more about that in a moment. 3. I can also tell you that the “Global War on Terror” declared by my President George W. Bush on 20 September, 2001, while renamed for public relations purposes, is going on briskly and some intend to keep this up for many decades. That has a significant bearing on security calculations by Mr. Putin in Russia, just as it does on calculations by the Saudi’s, the Israelis, the Pakistanis, the Indians, the Germans, and many other countries with global interests, like the Turks, who have many boiling issues of their own to worry about. So I will talk about Ukraine and the War on “Terror” simultaneously. 4. It is important to recognize that both Russia and the USA are empires in decline today. There are many technical differences, of course, and some will quibble about the word empire, but the decline is what matters most. Both Putin and Obama want to restore their countries to global dominance of the past, but rivals will block them and combine in unexpected ways, which is why declining empires are more dangerous than stable ones. 5. The “Developing Global Crisis” I mentioned in my first and second lectures here remains extremely relevant. But that is hard to review because it looks at everything all at once, which is difficult for even the best of our tiny little brains, much less for students who are burdened with other tasks like trying to find a long-term job, long-term relationships, etc. But do not forget that all these conflicts occur in the context of tremendous population pressure, significant resource depletion and environmental changes, and phenomenal corruption of governments around the world that limit solutions to these problems. 6. Ukraine and the 30 years Global War on “Terror” are different, but deeply related topics. Romania is a member of NATO now, and what causes the big gorilla of NATO to itch can affect smaller members more. So professional officers of Romanian security should pay close attention to the psychology of both US and Russian Presidents. ISIS (or ISIL, the Islamic State, or whatever the name of the day is for scary terrorists) causes our President many sleepless nights, probably more sleepless nights than Ukraine is today.
The Birth of Professional Ethics: Some Comparisons among Medicine, Law and Intelligence Communities
(2008-02-22) Andregg, Michael M.
Doctors in antiquity used leeches, herbs and shamanistic rituals to try to help their patients heal from the wounds and illnesses of life. Yet even in this long pre-scientific period, some felt a need to develop an ethos and codes of ethics specific to their craft. One goal was prestige, a social good of intangible but real value (especially when practitioners are ridiculed by many, common when medicine was young). Close behind was another goal, a privileged and eventually exclusive right to practice their craft commercially. As science and technology advanced, a third goal emerged. This was continuing professional education to meet a growing need for both technical competence and some systematic way to evaluate novel dilemmas that emerged as medicine became truly effective. The best examples of those dilemmas come from “test-tube babies,” but there are many other dilemmas like end of life issues when machines can sustain a brain-dead body, or access to intrinsically scarce resources like transplantable organs. The concept of a professional medical ethos was built upon more general ethics of the Greeks (and independently within the Chinese and Indian civilizations at least). Its earliest generally recognized form was the oath of Hippocrates. This served to identify special responsibilities to be assumed by those who would call themselves ‘professionals’ of the healing arts. Sometimes rights were included, but the responsibilities were primary to Hippocrates, like his famous injunction to first, “do no harm.” In addition to that he urged doctors to take care of mentors who trained them and to not dishonor the emerging profession by sexual acts with patients or their families, or by inducing abortion. American Law developed a variety of professional ethos over about 100 years, which is another long story. Intelligence professionals (a.k.a. 'spies') who desired to improve the reputation of 'the world's second oldest profession' began thinking about ethics for spies in the early 2000's, and created an International Intelligence Ethics Association in 2005 as part of a broader effort to "professionalize" what was, in practice, a craft. This paper attempts to integrate these three paths to thinking about codified "professional ethics" and records some of the early efforts in that direction among intelligence professionals and those who study them.
The Challenge of Achieving Wisdom in Intelligence Products and Processes
(2016-03-16) Andregg, Michael M.
This is a PowerPoint presentation sized for typical, ISA intelligence section panels. Its ~ 20 frames deal with institutional constraints much discussed elsewhere like the perennial desire of policy makers to keep their intel staffs out of policy (e.g. they often discourage anything close to wisdom, preferring "just the facts" so they can make the big decisions. Other common themes are very short time constraints and overreliance on "secret" sources of information that are often tainted in many ways. It brushes on some uncommon themes like the prevalence of psychopaths in secret power systems, but does not go into any depth on those difficult topics.
The Challenge of Achieving Wisdom in Intelligence Products and Processes, outline
(2015-02-19) Andregg, Michael M.
The word "wisdom" almost never appears in intelligence literature. Here are eleven reasons why, which were offered as hypotheses for a roundtable of extremely experienced practitioners from many three letter agencies to discuss.
Creating a Reader on Intelligence Ethics, 2008 for INS
(Intelligence and National Security (a journal), 2008) Andregg, Michael M.
The information age is burying everyone in noise. Globalization increases stress. Then the poorly named Global War on Terror drove some leaders to suspend, or at least radically rethink, ethical constraints that had been settled two generations past, like the unequivocal ban on torture in the Geneva Conventions and many subsequent laws and treaties. This was the context in which we set out to create a reader on intelligence ethics that would, a) actually be read by busy professionals buried in urgent texts, and b) make a real difference in a profession better known for breaking rules. All involved recognized the “oxymoron problem.” All know that while most of our colleagues are moral people trying to do legitimate work to protect their peoples and governments, there are some who certainly think that ethics for spies is the dumbest idea ever. To them we say that intelligence ethics is actually a force multiplier, and dramatic deviations like officially sanctioned torture are force degraders. So 26 intelligence professionals from seven countries collaborated to create a reader designed to be 50 pages maximum, an hour’s read for busy people who recognize why ethics matter, even for spies and the many other intelligence professionals of the modern age. They gathered knowing only half would make the quality cut, and struggled to compress lifetimes of experience into extremely short forms. Each had specific reasons, but the overarching recognition was that national power declines when “all gloves off” immorality prevails. We are engaged in a very “Long War” that is basically between barbarism and civilized ways of life and conflict. There are always tactical voices who seek a quick victory by any means necessary. And real terrorism frightens all thoughtful people, so the danger of becoming that which you oppose has never been greater. This is a story about how that reader was created, with summaries of the 13 essays selected for publication. First, a professor at the National Military Intelligence College (then JMIC) Dr. Jan Goldman, collaborated with a philosopher of ethics with national security background Dr. Jean Maria Arrigo and about six others to create a new “International Intelligence Ethics Association” branching off of the long-running JSCOPE conferences (Joint Services Conference on Professional Ethics). They held their first meetings on January 27 and 28 of 2006, which made the front page of the New York Times precisely because the novelty of ethics for spies was, well, news. Their association can be found at: http://www.intelligence-ethics.org/ and their fourth conference will be at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, February 20-21 of 2009. Inspired by them, I went to the intelligence studies section of the International Studies Association seeking permission to do this project. They concurred, and let me fill one-fourth of their next year’s panels with papers on intelligence ethics of various kinds. Those engaged 18 participants, but some solicited could not come and others were advisors to international leaders who could not participate publicly. From those, 8 other papers were procured. A panel of judges was created. Two were editors of major intelligence publications, one was a former Chancellor of America’s National Intelligence University system, and one was an operator near the end of his career. Their task was to review all submissions and to pick the best half. The authors’ task was to compress what they thought essential into 4 double-spaced manuscript pages. All judges were invited to submit forwards to the final piece, recognizing that most could not. The one who did was INS senior editor Loch Johnson, whose forward will be reprinted here next.
The Developing Global Crisis: Executive Summary
(2017-03) Andregg, Michael M.
The Developing Global Crisis: A Strategic Paradigm for Understanding Global Conflicts Today by Michael Andregg, University of St. Thomas, mmandregg@stthomas.edu Prepared for the ISA/ISS meetings in Baltimore, MD, USA, Feb. 22-25, 2017 -- Executive Summary – draft 9 The US Air Force has been at war continuously for over 25 years now, and large areas of its operations like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya are still convulsed by wars. Since then, those zones of conflict have grown, adding Syria, Yemen, Somalia and tribal areas of Pakistan to the regular Air Force target lists. Many Americans, including some troops who have deployed into war zones that their parents fought in, are starting to wonder why these wars do not end. The “Developing Global Crisis” is a strategic paradigm that tries to answer that question with a focus on why the wars are starting in the first place, and how to better address their ultimate causes, instead of just symptoms. That is the strategic “solution” to this problem: Focus on ultimate causes instead of just symptoms! Those ultimate causes of organized, armed conflict present a disturbing picture because militaries cannot easily influence many of them. Yet they have very serious consequences. This is a major reason why such wars are so hard to stop once started. Those forces, or ultimate causes, include population pressure, corruptions of governance, rising authoritarian law and militant religions that interact synergistically, severe and growing income inequalities, and derivative factors like climate change (a consequence of the ever-growing population pressures and corruptions of governance in addition to the obvious burning of fossil fuels and forests). That is six, very tough problems facing human civilization today. Basically, there are too many people trying to live on too little land in most conflict zones today, so genocide or at least ethnic “cleansing” is an option contemplated by far too many people and politicians. Fear of genocides, so amply illustrated by the ancient histories of such areas, also fuels violent resistance to elites. Syria provides an exceptionally vivid case with relatively hard numbers that can illustrate this “Developing Global Crisis,” and why that resists solution by both ancient and modern military methods. The confluence of WMDs and hundreds of millions of teen-aged males maturing into such desperate circumstances provides real urgency to the task of rethinking the old ways of conceptualizing global conflicts and how to solve them.
Do Intelligence Bureaucracies Fear Ethics, and if so, Why?
(International Journal of Intelligence Ethics, 2012-10) Andregg, Michael M.
Do Intelligence Bureaucracies Fear Ethics, and if so Why? By Michael Andregg, University of St. Thomas in St. Paul MN USA mmandregg@stthomas.edu For the International Journal of Intelligence Ethics, Fall of 2012 Yes. Why will take longer since the bureaucracies are very defensive about this topic. Introduction: Special Challenges Every intelligence professional knows that the domain they enter presents unusual challenges. Stakes can be extremely high (like life or death for nations, or for your personal infantry squad). Information is always incomplete and all too often incorrect. Moral ambiguities abound, and tradeoffs between alternative outcomes can be excruciatingly painful. Least evil options are sometimes the only options available better than watching catastrophe unfold. To be considered a professional by polite society one must belong to a group mature enough to have developed codes of ethics, among many other issues of standards, training, expected skills, duties and such. It took doctors and attorneys centuries to develop their codes, and issues still remain or emerge anew with new technologies. So this is not an easy process even for normal organizations (1, 2) which intelligence bureaucracies are not. We do not have centuries to linger on nuances now, because nuclear, biological and other ‘special’ weapons could destroy our civilization. So a sense of urgency is appropriate. Intelligence failures sometimes precede catastrophic wars. Politicians and their policy people often blame intelligence staff for their own policy failures (see “Elephants in the Room” to follow). But after the carnage is done, finding who to blame is a sad exercise among tragic people most of whom were sworn to protect the innocents of their countries. Bureaucracies are not people. They are composed of people, like a human body is made of cells. But bureaucracies have emergent properties, system dynamics, capabilities and behaviors that go far beyond what any individual human or cell could accomplish. Bureaucracies have no souls or conscience in the human sense, but they fear ethics and oversight. This is why they often crucify whistleblowers. Fear is seldom the stated reason, but it is often the real reason. Some secrets should be exposed, lest they lead to waste, fraud, abuse or the murder of thousands of innocents. But the mantra of protecting sources and methods generally prevails, even when the real reason for secrecy is bureaucratic incompetence, sloth or mortal sin. Finally, be assured that you can put good people into a dysfunctional system, and that bad system can then put the good people to work on very evil ends. Totalitarian governments provide numerous examples from history. Most of them are gone now; a warning to those who think the status quo is stable. So bringing ethics to intelligence bureaucracies is not easy, but is important. I am not a moralist, rather a practical person trying to preserve civilizations faced with profound challenges in the third millennium of the Common Era. So I beg you to attend, and to do better than I have as you move forward. The order of presentation will be: 1) a brief history of the quest for ethics for spies, 2) a quick survey of a dozen U.S. intelligence agencies, 3) discussion of ‘Elephants in the Room’ that are seldom mentioned where everyone has been scrubbed by security clearances, and 4) conclusions about why systemic, bureaucratic fear of ethics is a primary cause of other problems that bedevil those guardians who would like to be called professionals of intelligence.
Ethical Dilemmas in War and Peace
(Busan National University in South Korea, 2002-04-22) Andregg, Michael M.
War confronts us with some of the most difficult ethical dilemmas in human experience. Peace is less stressful, but even maintaining the peace can be more difficult than it appears. Restoring peace once lost can be daunting, and can present the responsible citizen with moral dilemmas every bit as challenging as those faced by soldiers at war. In both circumstances, the leaders of nation states must face stark tradeoffs as they decide whom to provide with resources and who not. In the worst cases, they must decide who lives, and who dies. And of course, soldiers at war do this also, and occasionally the ordinary citizen. Then there are issues like torture, and treatment of prisoners of war, and treatment of civilian refugees, and whether to intervene in conflicts among neighbors or not, and if so, how. Each of these may seem easy in the abstract, but they are very, very difficult when the people are real and the facts of the case unclear, which is common. It takes days to discuss the nuances of such dilemmas, but the decisions of real people faced with morally difficult choices must sometimes be made in the blink of an eye. Then, they may be judged by others far away and years later. We do not have days today, so I will begin with a simple outline of the types of hard questions faced by four actors in the dramas of war and peace. They are: the soldier, the citizen, peacemakers and leaders of governments. I will consider their dilemmas in a slightly different order below. For the Soldier: 1. When is it appropriate to kill? 2. When is killing required? 3. How should I treat civilians? 4. Should I distinguish between “able bodied men” and women or children? 5. Can I distinguish between the “innocent” and the “guilty?” And whether or not I can, can landmines or a 1000-kilogram bomb? 6. How should I treat my enemies, even while killing them? 7. How should I treat POWs? [Prisoner’s of War] What if they know secrets that could save millions? 8. When is torture justified, if ever, and why? 9. When can orders be disobeyed? 10. When MUST orders be disobeyed? 11. If the laws of war contradict the orders of my leader (or my God) what should I do?
Ethical Implications of the Snowden Revelations
(International Journal of Intelligence, Security and Public Affairs, 2016-03-19) Andregg, Michael M.
abstract This paper addresses a number of ethical dilemmas and practical consequences of the revelations of Edward Snowden about massive electronic surveillance of telephone calls, emails, social media posts and other “Signals Intelligence” (or SIGINT) across the entire world, but especially including domestic American communications formerly thought immune to such surveillance unless authorized by judicial warrant. Practical consequences matter for all “utilitarian” ethical judgments. The author concludes that by far the largest issue is whether US intelligence professionals regard the US Constitution as supreme law in America, or non-disclosure contracts with individual agencies or the US government. Reactions to Snowden follow this pattern, with security cleared insiders generally considering him a traitor, and ordinary people generally considering him a hero for telling the public about illegal activity within the National Security agency directed against fundamental, and constitutionally protected civil liberties like freedom of speech.
Ethics and Intelligence in Old and New Democracies
(U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, 2017-07) Andregg, Michael M.
“Ethics and Intelligence in Old and New Democracies” 1. Functions of Security Intelligence in “Democracies” versus “Totalitarian States.” a. Common missions: i. Protecting the people from external and internal threats. ii. Protecting the state from external & internal threats, and corruptions. iii. Gathering intelligence for early warning of both current and potential threats. Sometimes this includes warning of opportunities also. iv. Informing law enforcement or military units for action against threats. v. Managing Information Operations, both offensive and defensive. vi. Protecting the legitimacy of the state from corruptions and organized attacks by external forces. b. Contrasting missions: i. Democracies value their citizens over their governments, in theory. ii. Totalitarian States value the regime of the day over rights of citizens. iii. This fundamental distinction has profound consequences at every level of human existance, for professional conduct among police and soldiers of any kind, and even affects the probability of survival of human civilization entire. Therefore it deserves significant attention.* iv. It also has profound effects on the welfare of military, police and all “guardian” professionals tasked with protecting people, state or both. 2. Why “Ethics” matters at all for Spies and other “Intelligence Professionals.” a. Personal Survival b. Family Survival c. Mission Success d. Minimizing Blowback, and other “Unintended Consequences.” e. Do you think that people have Souls? If so, ethics might matter even more. 3. Does “Old” versus “New” Democracies matter as a distinction? a. The eternal problem of Corruptions of Governance. Old democracies are often more corrupt than brand new ones, as can be very old politicians. b. Why Guardian Professionals must take this problem more seriously than many do. (This has profound importance for your soul, if you have one). c. How to Balance tensions between loyalty to team versus loyalty to ideals. Supplimental References: Intelligence Ethics: the Definitive Work of 2007* Breaking Laws of God and Man: When is this OK for Intelligence Professionals? * Das Leben Der Anderen, (The Lives of Others) is a great movie on this topic, about how the East German “Stasi” surveilled everyone, ruining their country until it fell.
Ethics for Intelligence Analysts
(Foreknowledge [published in South Africa], 2012-10) Andregg, Michael M.
Ethics for Spies in an Age of Assassinations, Rationalized Torture, Black, High-tech Propaganda, and Civilizational Breakdown
(International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations, 2018-06) Andregg, Michael M.
Ethics for Spies in an Age of Assassinations, Rationalized Torture, Black, High-tech Propaganda, and Civilizational Breakdown Michael Andregg, University of St. Thomas, and Vice President of the ISCSC for Young Scholar Development Op-Ed for the 2018 ISCSC Newsletter In my academic life, I do war forecasting and study spies (you cannot be very accurate on causes of wars if you do not pay attention to what the spies are up to). This makes ISCSC conferences a welcome relief to me, because they gather mainly nice, safe, elderly professors and students who are concerned about the great, classical issues. Spy conferences have quite a different ambiance. Anyone who has read Sun Tzu or Thucydides knows that spies have been with us for as long as civilizations, perhaps longer. But spies usually keep a low profile, and you do not have to worry about the assassins unless you are involved in high politics or commerce. Once in a great while, big issues for civilizations and for secret intelligence entities overlap. This is one. So my task today is to convey why creating an ethos for spies is important to civilizational survival. You all have read something about the attempted assassination on March 4 of the Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Great Britain by exotic nerve agent. This is part of a larger “Warm War” between current Russia and “the West,” which could become much hotter. Since nuclear weapons hover in the background, most of this is done “asymmetrically” through “hybrid warfare” and “active measures” which include extensive “information operations” and cyberattacks. Oops, the Brits chose Brexit (partly therefore) and we got Putin’s Poodle for a president. NATO, the EU, the United States and the world will never be the same. Propaganda always was more powerful than many know, but the techniques available in World War II were trivial compared with the techniques and technologies of information warfare and psychological operations today. Disinformation and black propaganda always were Russian specialties (well, the Brits and Israelis are pretty adept at these also). The problem is that spies learn from each other like any other professionals do, and sophisticated technique is spreading. Kim Jong-un also used an exotic nerve agent to kill his half-brother Kim Jong-nam in Malaysia, to prevent China from cultivating an alternative for the throne. North Korea got their VX from Russia. Meanwhile China has shown the world new heights of industrial espionage, and learned excellent brainwashing techniques from the North Koreans. These contribute to trade tensions with the US and the West, while China also develops the world’s best facial recognition software and social control technologies, like continuous video surveillance guided by novel AI software of people suspected of impure thoughts. Since China and North Korea have near total control of their media, this can have large consequences for concepts like freedom and human dignity. The West is far from pure in this domain. We invented Facebook, in the news a lot recently, the NSA and CIA, while the Brits built GCHQ and Cambridge Analytica. We also invented the term “psychological operations” during our war with North Korea (and China) in the early 1950’s. So when we of the ISCSC visit China for the 48th annual meeting of our gentle, professorial society, I will be pushing for a “Great Harmony” between the “Middle Kingdom” (China) and the “Beautiful Country” (USA). I will be remembering wise words from ancient Chinese masters, especially from Sun Tzu whose incomparable work will be cited extensively. This “clash” of civilizations must be managed as constructively as possible, lest everything under heaven be threatened with general thermonuclear war (among other bad options). Therefore, the dark arts and dark artists must be tended to, at least watched very carefully, so they do not throw monkey wrenches into everyone else’s peace plans. North and South Korea must be encouraged to pursue the sunshine policies of constructive reunification instead of war hawk dreams of containable wars with merely millions dead. And China must rise without feeling a need to wage war against western values, which will not surrender as easily as national armies may. Therefore, I have been agitating spies around the world to create a professional “ethos” for spies, complete with codes of conduct and such. You may laugh – its oxymoronic aspects are obvious. But consider, do you really want everyone’s spies to be as bad as the worst among us? That is a short path to global war, so I say step aside Sisyphus, we have work to do!
Ethics of Nuclear Weapons and National Security Intelligence
(2013-04-06) Andregg, Michael M.
Ethics of Nuclear Weapons and National Security Intelligence Michael Andregg, University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN, USA, mmandregg@stthomas.edu for Presentation to the International Ethics Section of the ISA, San Francisco, April 6, 2013 Introduction From the beginning of the nuclear age there have been fears that we may have invented a weapon that will destroy us all. J. Robert Oppenheimer, who helped build the first fission bombs, commented often on this (1). Albert Einstein, whose letter to then President Franklin Roosevelt helped convince him to fund them, talked about the imperative to seek peace and new ways of thinking about everything as he neared death (2). Bertrand Russell coauthored a Manifesto with Einstein (and nine others) to warn the world that everything had changed (3). Yet thousands of thoughtful people still felt compelled by the urgencies of World War II to make nuclear weapons and to use two of them against other human beings. To end the war, they said to each other, and perhaps to show the Soviets who would be the big dog following. But then what? Another arms race had begun, and bigger, badder WMDs would be developed soon. As soon as more than one nation had nuclear weapons, some strategy had to be conceived for their use. Mutual Assured Destruction was the main result, and millions learned the irony of a “MAD” strategy, where safety was to be assured by capabilities and declared will to destroy human civilization if we were frightened enough by any enemy. Those we terrified produced similar weapons and strategies. Herman Kahn and colleagues wrote books like “Thinking the Unthinkable” (4) to explain this theory to lay publics unanointed by the priesthood of nuclear physicists. Many nominally good people were hired to build thousands of nuclear warheads and delivery systems. Thousands more were trained to use them to blow up half of the world if so ordered. Their reliability was tested relentlessly, to pull the trigger or push the button if so ordered, and our bureaucracies learned how to exclude anyone who might hesitate if their duty called. Our adversaries did the same. We shared the lethal technologies with some allies, as did they. And retired nuclear physicists started a magazine, called the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, to warn people basically not to do what they had done. Later we invented modern biological weapons, ever so secretly, and a new community of biologists and doctors learned to sin like physicists . And chemical weapons were ‘improved’ by development of modern, binary nerve agents, much more effective than old mustard gas, Zyklon B and such, despite strict prohibitions that were rationalized around. Scientists and intelligentsia pondered how we had wandered into this thicket of moral conundrums. Meanwhile we stumbled on, driven by something. One purpose of this paper is explaining that.
How "Wisdom" Differs from Intelligence and Knowledge in the Context of National Intelligence Agencies
(2003-02-28) Andregg, Michael M.
It is customary at this point to spend considerable time defining key terms like wisdom, intelligence and knowledge. I will come back to that after cutting to the bone of the topic at hand. Wisdom has a longer time horizon than either intelligence or knowledge. It spans a greater scope of concern, and reflects a set of values infused into knowledge that include compassion as a core component. It requires a deep understanding of human nature, because it is only called upon during crises of human affairs. All the rest is details, which can distract from these cardinal truths. With respect to issues of international security, this difference is exemplified by cases like Afghanistan (1979-89), Guatemala (1954) and Iran (1953-79). In each case focus on short-term, narrowly defined and mainly American national interests resulted in significant tactical victories. The long-term cost has been generating intense hatred of America among hundreds of millions of people worldwide. That hatred has diffuse military and economic consequences that are difficult to measure, but by any measure are profound. Of course there are excuses for this sacrifice of long-term, general welfare for short-term, narrow goals. But such excuses should not obscure the great price to thoughtful intelligence professionals, who undoubtedly do care about the future of their countries and their children.
Intelligence Ethics, a Key to Much Bigger Issues
(Army Command and General Staff College, Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, 2014-04) Andregg, Michael M.
Intelligence Ethics: A Key to Much Bigger Issues Michael Andregg, University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA, April, 2014, mmandregg@stthomas.edu For delivery at a conference of the US Army Command and General Staff College, Ft. Leavenworth, KS, USA. d4 Abstract To many people ethics for spies is the ultimate oxymoron. Wiser eyes see that the Revolution in Intelligence Affairs (RIA) highlights dilemmas common to the profession of arms in general. Without some self-restraint (a.k.a. discipline) the most powerful militaries on earth have been able to destroy civilization for about 50 years. Recent developments in information technologies may destroy liberty, because they empower police-states in particular to detect and repress dissent. So restraint of power in electronic intelligence is also prudent, but rare. To guard against police-states armed with WMDs, and the amorphous threats of non-state terrorists, military and internal security services naturally wish to know everything possible about everyone who might become a spy or a terrorist. That would be every person on earth. Thus overzealous security services risk destroying the very freedoms they were empowered to protect, even in democracies. This dilemma has challenged traditions like just war theory that strive to restrain some decisions to start wars and some conduct during wars. What happens to discrimination and proportionality when it becomes more efficient (and far more powerful) to collect data on everyone continuously rather than waiting for “probable cause” to suspect criminal behavior by particular individuals? What happens to liberty? How should commanders react if political leaders prove indifferent to restraints like rule of law in their zest to detect every ‘criminal’ which so often includes rival politicians or critics of the state? How should officers at any level act when oaths to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution” conflict with non-disclosure agreements to agencies? Edward Snowden became well known when he revealed how the RIA was transforming signals intelligence. Critics call him a traitor for violating non-disclosure contracts, while supporters call him a patriot for defending the U.S. Constitution from damage by overzealous bureaucracies with no effective oversight. Whatever one thinks about Mr. Snowden, he was preceded by a long line of similar, if less successful “whistleblowers.” Such people develop slowly over time, so there must be other whistleblowers (and/or traitors) incubating. So now there is an extensive “Insider Threat” program that erodes the few freedoms left to those who volunteer to work hard and sometimes risk their lives for American intelligence services and national security. This is more significant at the level of strategic versus tactical intelligence, where the logic of operational security is obvious to all. Keeping secrets saves friendly lives in operations. But we should not forget that Snowden was preceded by, and will be followed by, others who take their oaths to the U.S. Constitution very seriously. These themes will be expanded with reference to the historic development of professional ethics in law and medicine. Intelligence professionals are trying to develop an ethos up to the challenges of their roles in world affairs. The fate of nations and of core American values like freedom, democracy and rule of law hangs on whether they succeed in time, while guarding the perimeter against dangers known to all.
Intelligence Ethics: An Uncompleted Project
(2018-04-05) Andregg, Michael M.
Intelligence Ethics: An Uncompleted Project Michael Andregg, University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN, USA, mmandregg@stthomas.edu for the 2018 ISA Conference in San Francisco, TB-57, April 5, 2018, 10:30 am – 12:15 pm [submitted to INASIS in Brazil but no news back] abstract d-7 The International Studies Association (ISA) helped to develop a very slowly emerging sub-field called intelligence ethics. ISA’s Intelligence Studies Section has been a venue for many efforts to develop literature on ethics for spies. For one example, we hosted three panels with 18 papers on that topic in 2007, contributing to a reader on intelligence ethics that was used by the CIA and DIA for a while. Dr. Jan Goldman of the NIU, FBI and other positions, also presented papers at ISA, and edited the “Scarecrow Professional Intelligence Education Series” that published 13 books, three focused on ethics for intelligence professionals. He started an international ethics association, and a peer-reviewed journal. However, this worthy effort to professionalize intelligence education with an ethical dimension was and remains greatly slowed by something Dr. Goldman labeled “ethics phobia” among the bureaucracies. The association is now dormant and the journal’s last print edition was in 2013. Senior executive Brian Snow also tried at NSA, where a team of colleagues created a model code of ethics for collectors that did not gain traction for similar reasons. Individual and institutional concerns result in a “fear” of ethics among many three-letter US-IC agencies. What agencies fear, practitioners avoid because children need feeding and pensions have meaning. Many definitions of a “profession” require a professional code of ethics to guide their craft, as doctors developed their “Hippocratic Oath,” and attorneys developed their “Model Code of Professional Conduct” for lawyers. It is time ‘professional’ spies did so also. Some comparisons with non-Western countries will conclude that this is a problem only for societies that already embrace concepts like ‘rule of law’ and ‘individual liberties.’ No one expects the spies of brutal, police state dictators to eschew deception, betrayal, propaganda, torture or even killing of critics in service to the power of their immoral leaders.
Intelligence Ethics: Oxymoron or Hope for the Future?
(2007-02-15) Andregg, Michael M.
Intelligence Ethics: Oxymoron or Hope for the Future? There is much to-do about intelligence failures prior to the war, prior to 9/11, or in other disasters related to ethical failures among intelligence professionals. A cottage industry has arisen searching for whom to blame how. This is why people gathered at the second “International Intelligence Ethics” conference in Springfield Virginia in January 2007. It attracted a couple of hundred analysts, internationals, professors, military inteI vets, active duty and even a few operators, who stayed murky on the fringes like they do. Almost every one of the participants has heard a hundred “oxymoron” jokes, because that’s just the natural reaction to putting those two words together. If you speak or write about intelligence ethics, you will become well versed in oxymoron jokes. But, the moral zealots protest, “Ethics is good for you!” Right. Like lots of fiber, heavy exercise and prostate exams. But I pester colleagues; the case for ethics even in this strange domain is stronger than it may appear at first. The cases that ethics in intelligence serve the national interest, and that attention to intelligence ethics can be healthy even for operators in the field, are very strong when carefully reviewed. First, alliances are critical to power on our vast planet, whether that power is democratically guided or imperial in style. Alliances fray when the center becomes untrustworthy or corrupt. Second, cohesion within the state is essential to maximum power at war. And nothing corrodes internal cohesion faster than a rotten core or visibly incompetent and immoral leadership.
Intelligence Tradecraft for the Third Millennium
(National Intelligence Academy of Romania (Mihai Viteazul), 2016) Andregg, Michael M.
INTELLIGENCE TRADECRAFT FOR THE THIRD MILLENNIUM Argument The fifteen years that have already elapsed of the third millennium have posed new challenges to intelligence organizations. Old methods, concepts and approaches have gradually become obsolete as the nature of the threats faced by modern states evolved from the classical to the asymmetric. Further, technological developments, new actors, social movements and the growing need for accountability have changed intelligence organizations beyond anything known at the end of the previous century. Yet, while the outside world has evolved, intelligence theory remains anchored in approaches developed over the second half of the twentieth century. The classical confrontation of state actors, the overriding need for secrecy, the absence of private organizations in the intelligence field, all of these coupled with national perspectives still dominate conceptualization within intelligence theory. When confronting the practitioner of today, intelligence theory fails to represent a meaningful depiction of the reality that he or she interacts with on a daily basis. Within this context, the publication of a volume containing reflections on the interaction between third millennium realities and the intelligence organization becomes imperative. Issues of management and resilience, intelligence collection and analysis, counterintelligence and cyber-warfare, cooperation among states and with the business sector will be addressed in separate chapters of this book. Moreover, given the revival of debates on oversight and legality, the volume will offer meaningful responses to these challenges. This publication aims to construct a trans-Atlantic bridge, bringing together a Romanian and an American editor, engaged in a dialogue on topics central to the existence and role of intelligence organizations in the twenty-first century.
Introduction to a special edition of the International Journal of Intelligence Ethics
(International Journal of Intelligence Ethics, 2012-09) Andregg, Michael M.
IIEA Journal fall 2012, Draft 1, Entry 2: Published as: Vol. 3, No. 2 / Fall/Winter, 2012. Introduction This journal edition began with an essay that Jan Goldman wrote in 2007 titled: “Ethicsphobia and the U.S. National Intelligence Community: Just say ‘No’” (1). In this he claimed there was an actual fear of ethics among some parts of the bureaucracy that he knew well as a professor at what is now called the National Intelligence University (NIU) and as a former practitioner for the Defense Intelligence Agency. So I arranged a panel to look at this question specifically in 2012, “Do Intelligence Bureaucracies Fear Ethics, and if so, Why?” All but one of the papers to follow are products of that panel, and the outlier was created by teams working on ethics issues under guidance from Dr. Goldman’s successor at NIU, JD and retired Army Col. Christopher Bailey. It begins with a view from Britain by Mark Phythian of Lancaster who has been a real pioneer of intelligence studies in the UK, followed by a focus on Africa and “Authoritarian State Security Apparatus” by a former Ambassador to the African Union, Cindy Lou Courville, now another professor at America’s NIU. Then comes Bailey’s exposition on U.S. intelligence community ethos, and defense of oversight in what he claims is “a closely regulated profession.” We will debate that a bit here, but this is certainly the common view among people inside the security clearance cocoon. No doubt they see all the inefficiencies, like we dwell on the victims of error. That is followed by what was the most interesting paper to me, a brief look at “Codes of Ethics” across America’s IC including 6 quite different and interesting proposals generated by teams of students at NIU. Those are typically mid-career intelligence professionals from the uniformed services, Majors and Captains mostly, with a few civilian employees of our Pentagon related intelligence agencies. They took their task seriously and the range of ideas they came up with is especially instructive and engaging. Then comes my paper, the dullest no doubt, but also the most pointed critique of assumptions and blind spots that come with the classified Kool-Aid. Book reviews round out this edition of the International Journal of Intelligence Ethics, by Stephen Kershnar of Alhoff’s “Terrorism, Time Bombs and Torture: a Philosophical Analysis,” by Professor Bailey of Christopher Perry’s edited “In the Balance: The Administration of Justice and National Security in Democracies,” and by Ian Fishback of Fried and Fried’s “Because it is Wrong: Torture, Privacy and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror.” Now, a bit more detail on the substantive papers.
Neither Madmen nor Messiahs: What NSA Leaks Reveal about Ethics in America's Intelligence Community
(e-IR, 2014-01-11) Andregg, Michael M.
Neither Madmen Nor Messiahs: What NSA Leaks Reveal About Ethics in America’s Intelligence Community The NSA (National Security Agency) has been savaging the US Constitution lately by secretly collecting data on almost every US citizen. But most of that evil work has been done by citizens obeying orders from true believers in the security state. In their hearts, they are heroes. It (the security state), however, has no heart. The key to understanding this dilemma is to recognize that the Intelligence Community (‘IC’) bureaucracies have mastered the art of getting “good people” to do “bad things” in the name of “national security.” There are just enough real maniacs on earth to frighten the hyper-vigilant at all times, even though actual deaths to real terrorists in North America are objectively far less each year today than deaths to bee stings, lightning strikes or televisions. So while I mention serious damage to American civil liberties and even to national security due to the recent growth of NSA activities, I need to be clear that this damage was done mainly by people with good intentions. In their minds, they are protecting the innocent from dangers posed by murky and sometimes stateless actors called “terrorists.” The IC clan is largely sincere, partly because they are told constantly that they are patriots by the bureaucracies that hire them, and which enforce the secrecy rules that enable such dysfunction. 9/11 provided an excuse. But bureaucracies run on money, not consciences, ‘free will,’ ethics or love, so counting on them to enforce any restraint is a fool’s conclusion. Bureaucracies are in it for the money, period.

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