At no time in the history of mankind has intelligence played such a crucial role as it does today.  It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that the destinies of the world more than ever depend on the efficacy and exactitude of our intelligence services.

The most painful shock experienced by this nation on that tragic September 11, left us with little if any choice.

The immediate response was to introduce and enforce tough security measures – from intense scrutiny of all foreign visitors, physical searches of airports and approaches to official building to erection of fences and ugly concrete roadblocks around historic monuments, government offices and military installations.  Subsequent administrative shakeups were accompanied by military actions in Afghanistan and, finally, invasion of Iraq.  Few would doubt (perhaps, with the exception of Iraq) that the US initial reaction to the terrorist attack was an absolutely indispensable and justifiable act of self-defense. But do these measures reduce the danger of terrorism, guarantee against even more brutal assaults on this country?  Do they strike at the causes and roots, not consequences?  Can the demonstrations of superior military might fix the nagging pains of poverty and hopelessness, win the hearts and minds of millions of Islam faithfuls, particularly young, who live in misery and ignorance, to the cause of democratic change, promote institutional and economic reforms to integrate the poor nations into the modern world, make the rule of law accessible to all?  A myriad of problems have to be addressed, grappled with and solved before we feel confident that the horrors of violent death at the hands of political or religious fanatics will never recur.

But the most pressuring problem today is to readdress the effectiveness of our intelligence service, their capabilities, and readiness to protect the free world from mortal surprises in the age of nuclear proliferation and international terrorism. Foreknowledge of what’s to come must be first and foremost.

“One spy in the right place is worth 20,000 men in the field” – the message attributed to Napoleon, is far more important today than it was two hundred years ago.  With all the technological prowess, signal and imagery collection capabilities of the US, there is no substitute for human penetration, and admittedly the latter was woefully neglected over the past decade.

But spies inside the adversaries’ backyard do not spring up by wave of the hand.  They need to be carefully selected, meticulously vetted, trained, patiently nurtured, and prepared for risky assignments.  And again this may not be the end game.

We need far more forceful tactics to be employed with special operations featured as the preferred way of handling the relevant problems.  Intelligence collection, analyses, interpretation, dissemination should serve as a prelude to vigorous intervention into international events fraught with dangers of new terrorist attacks.

The time-tested covert actions to influence political, economic or military conditions abroad, including subversion, sabotage, operational deception, disinformation, massive sophisticated propaganda efforts to confuse and manipulate the targeted contingents should become the core of intelligence community response to Moslem extremists wherever they may be.  No country nurturing or harboring terrorists should be exempted from special operations going beyond diplomatic demarches and economic sanctions.  Toward this end human penetration, the recruitment of agents within or the infiltration of agents into the vital structures of institutions, groupings and cells of potential adversaries must be the key to all intelligence efforts.

A brief retrospective view of some past practices by the Russian and Soviet intelligence organizations may serve as an illustration to the above.

In the final years of the 19th century the Russian imperial Police (Okhrana) faced growing terrorist threats from Russian revolutionaries, particularly those who lived in exile in Europe. Some of Okhrana special penetration agents went to Switzerland and France and successfully infiltrated into the conspiratorial émigré groups, located their clandestine print shops and weapons stores. In several instances the agents operated as provocateurs. In France one agent proposed to his conspirators a plan of assassination of Tsar Alexander III.

The scheme envisaged the construction of bombs in Paris.  Subsequently, a workshop was rented, various types of bombs manufactured and several plotters trained to go to Russia as an advance team, each receiving written instructions on his personal role in the assassination.

When everything was ready, the Okhrana informed the French authorities and some 20 people were arrested. The court trail and the inevitable publicity routed Russian terrorist organizations in France, seriously undermined the reputation of Russian political formations abroad, led to closer cooperation between France and Russia in security and military areas. (1)

In 1923, to create chaos and facilitate revolutionary change in Poland, the Soviet intelligence carried out a number of terrorist acts against Polish political organizations and their publications, both left and right.  The high point was the bombing of the Warsaw Citadel in which hundreds of people were killed and injured.

With similar aims in view the Soviet intelligence agents attempted to assassinate Bulgarian ruler A. Tsankov in 1925.  During the service at the Sophia Cathedral attended by Tsankov and his cabinet, an explosive device was detonated killing 150 people. (2)

None of those brutal crimes achieved the desired goals but they inspired the next generations of Soviet security and intelligence servicemen to plot and carry out more sophisticated special operations on a grander scale.

In the end of World War II and during a few years afterwards the Soviet security organs conducted a major campaign in Ukraine, Byelorussia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to wipe out the so-called “bourgeois-nationalist underground”, that is national liberation movement.  The range of operations was wide indeed:  penetration with the help of undercover agents into the centers of the movement, capture and killing of its activists, surveillance and subsequent bombing of their secret hideouts and supply points, interception of channels of communication and supplies, sending abroad under the guise of fleeing Soviet citizens state security agents, captured or recruited members of the nationalist movement, their emissaries couriers.   These operations were supported by propaganda appeals from the Soviet government urging the nationalists to voluntarily turn themselves in to the authorities with guarantees for their freedom.

The Soviet state security service went even further.  It created false undercover agent terrorist groups from their own trusted agents, captured or re-recruited nationalists.  These units started to operate alongside the real combatants, and would soon receive weapons, ammunition from abroad, and even more important, recognition among the local populace.

The bogus terrorist groups established contacts with active terrorist bands, joined them when necessary, and later, when the conditions were right, captured band member alive, or if they offered resistance, killed them on the spot.

With skillful application of measures compromising the leaders of nationalist formations the false groups succeeded in turning the band members against each other, separating the leaders from the rank and file members.  In the course of these operations the Soviet chekists killed on the territory of Ukraine alone 25000 members of the nationalist movement, 15000 were arrested.  In the period of most active antiterrorist warfare state security organs of Soviet Ukraine alone captured 31000 weapons of different types, more than 100 printing presses, 300 radio transmitters. (3)

However unpalatable and even repulsive the Soviet experience may be it must not be forgotten or ignored.  Nor should we fail to plan and implement, when necessary, comprehensive scenarios which can win a war without major battles. 

As a possible scenario for Iraq (alas, too late!) where the allied intelligence services would play a decisive role, the following program could be implemented to achieve two objectives:

• To prepare grounds for the downfall of the regime without resorting to all-out war
• To facilitate the early victory in case the war becomes inevitable

The main thrust of the program would be on destabilization of the internal situation in the country. The active measures would include:

• Bringing together all patriotic, anti-regime Iraqis living abroad by setting up The Coalition of Free Iraq
• The announcement at the Free Iraq World Congress of the formation of a Provisional government in exile which publicly and loudly declares its intention to take over Iraq in the near future and boasts of its clandestine cells already operating inside the country
• Organization of powerful Radio and TV broadcasts beamed at Iraq from friendly to the US neighboring countries.  Radio stations should be described as operating inside the Iraqi territory and representing the Provisional government
• Massive Radio and TV anti-Saddam propaganda is accompanied by frequent and regular leaflet drops throughout the country
• Jamming and bombing of all centrally controlled government or pro-Saddam TV and radio stations, blocking pro-Saddam internet websites.  If necessary, bombing power supplies connected with government installations
• Acts of sabotage in major provincial cities as a part of the opposition offensive against the regime with emphasis on government offices, the media, power and communication lines
• Organization of guerilla warfare spreading across the country and demoralizing the central government and its supporters
• Offers of 1 million dollars to each senior official of the Iraqi government plus asylum in the USA if they defect or join the Provisional government
• Effective economic and humanitarian aid to liberated areas of Iraq
• Overtures to Iran (through back channel communication) to work together to create peace and stability in the region

The aforesaid may be disputed and branded as another sickening attempt of wrongdoing, an invitation to lawlessness.  And yet democracies perish when they refuse to resist and adjust to cruel realities of life.

Only a short while ago most Europeans believed that the US blew out of proportion the international implications of 9/11 events.  The deadly attack by Islamic terrorists in Spain and threats of more to come elsewhere are bound to change the attitudes of European governments and the public at large.

But the direction of that change appears to be uncertain.  Suggestions to create some sort of European antiterrorist intelligence program may in fact hurt the prospects of even closer cooperation of all intelligence program and security agencies in their efforts to stamp out terrorism.  If Europe distances itself from the US efforts by unilateral moves or by appeasing the evildoers it will be a folly of historic dimensions.  Europe always gained when it stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States.

Somewhat close and yet apart from Europe stands Russia.  Her present leadership has inherited a heavy load of old habits and suspicions in regard to the USA, and her current leader, even if relatively young, still bears the scars of the Cold War mentality.  After his fantastically smooth reelection he may well try to reassert Russia’s claims to world leadership.  His previous pledge to join forces with the US in combating international terrorism was obviously motivated by his desire to legitimize the war in Chechnya which generically has the same roots as the war the former Yugoslav President Miloshevich conducted in Kosovo, 

As of late the Russian intelligence seems to have received new instructions.  The assassination of former Chechen President Yandarbiev in Katar by Russian agents indicates a revival of the old Soviet practices when “enemies of the people and traitors” were executed irrespective of location, legal norms or international obligations.

Unlike the Cold War constrained by fear of mutual annihilation and marked by intense involvement of the opposing intelligence services in all sorts of covert and subversive operations – today the civilized world is at real war, with no country immune to terrorist hate and violence, dealing with creatures who vie for the dubious honor of killing others and themselves.

These grim realities must unite all nations, mobilize their resources to meet the challenge and defeat the forces of destruction and death.

2)  The Empire of GRU (in Russian) Moscow, Olma Press, 2000.  Part 1, pp. 131-133, 125-126