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Counterintelligence

Counterintelligence involves protecting an agency's intelligence program from foreign threats through defensive and offensive measures. Defensive counterintelligence works to identify vulnerabilities that could be exploited, while offensive counterintelligence aims to actively subvert hostile services through techniques like double agents and deception. Understanding history is important to counterintelligence as it allows learning from past successes and failures.

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133 views9 pages

Counterintelligence

Counterintelligence involves protecting an agency's intelligence program from foreign threats through defensive and offensive measures. Defensive counterintelligence works to identify vulnerabilities that could be exploited, while offensive counterintelligence aims to actively subvert hostile services through techniques like double agents and deception. Understanding history is important to counterintelligence as it allows learning from past successes and failures.

Uploaded by

Neon 2020X
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Counterintelligence

• Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an


agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence
service. It includes gathering information and conducting
activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or
other intelligence activities conducted by, for, or on behalf of
foreign powers, organizations or persons.
• Many countries will have multiple organisations focusing on a
different aspect of counterintelligence, such as domestic,
international, and counter-terrorism. Some states will formalise
it as part of the police structure, such as the United
States' Federal Bureau of Investigation. Others will establish
independent bodies, such as the United Kingdom's MI5.
• Categories
• Collective counterintelligence is gaining information about an
opponent's intelligence collection capabilities whose aim is at an
entity.

• Defensive counterintelligence is thwarting efforts by hostile


intelligence services to penetrate the service.

• Offensive counterintelligence is having identified an opponent's


efforts against the system, trying to manipulate these attacks by
either "turning" the opponent's agents into double agents or
feeding them false information to report.
The 10 Commandments of
Counterintelligence
• Through the experiences and lessons learned
from his years of working counterintelligence
for the agency, James M. Olson developed the
“Ten Commandments of
Counterintelligence”—be offensive; honor
your professionals; own the street; know your
history; do not ignore analysis; do not be
parochial; train your people; do not be shoved
aside; do not stay too long; and never give up.
• One of the commandments mentioned is to
understand our history.
• When we understand our history, we can
understand what we have done correctly in
the past and we can also evaluate our
performance and see where we may have not
performed so great and adjust accordingly for
the future.
• Anybody who has chosen intelligence as a
designator or as a career path, has a professional
obligation to know his or her literature,” Olson
said. “There is a wealth of learning possible in the
CI books and articles that are out there. You can
learn from what has worked in the past and you
can avoid what has been unsuccessful in the past.
But you can’t do either one unless you know what
they are. And that means you should be reading.
Defensive counterintelligence

• Defensive counterintelligence starts by looking for places in


one's own organization that could easily be exploited by foreign
intelligence services (FIS). FIS is an established term of art in the
counterintelligence community, and, in today's world, "foreign"
is shorthand for "opposing." Opposition might indeed be a
country, but it could be a transnational group or an internal
insurgent group. Operations against a FIS might be against
one's own nation, or another friendly nation. The range of
actions that might be done to support a friendly government
can include a wide range of functions, certainly including
military or counterintelligence activities, but also humanitarian
aid and aid to development ("nation building").
• Counterintelligence and counterterrorism analyses provide
strategic assessments of foreign intelligence and terrorist
groups and prepare tactical options for ongoing operations and
investigations. Counterespionage may involve proactive acts
against foreign intelligence services, such as double
agents, deception, or recruiting foreign intelligence officers.
While clandestine HUMINT sources can give the greatest insight
into the adversary's thinking, they may also be most vulnerable
to the adversary's attacks on one's own organization. Before
trusting an enemy agent, remember that such people started
out as being trusted by their own countries and may still be
loyal to that country.
Offensive counterintelligence

• The best defense against foreign attacks on, or infiltration of,


intelligence services is active measures against those hostile
services. This is often called counterespionage: measures taken
to detect enemy espionage or physical attacks against friendly
intelligence services, prevent damage and information loss, and,
where possible, to turn the attempt back against its originator.
Counterespionage goes beyond being reactive and actively tries
to subvert hostile intelligence service, by recruiting agents in the
foreign service, by discrediting personnel actually loyal to their
own service, and taking away resources that would be useful to
the hostile service. All of these actions apply to non-national
threats as well as to national organizations.

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