Counterintelligence

Counterintelligence (CI) refers to efforts made by intelligence organizations to prevent hostile or enemy intelligence organizations from successfully gathering and collecting intelligence against them. Many governments organize counterintelligence agencies separate and distinct from their intelligence collection services for specialized purposes.

In most countries, the counterintelligence mission is spread over multiple organizations. There is usually a domestic counterintelligence service, perhaps part of a larger law enforcement organization such as the FBI in the United States. Great Britain has the separate Security Service, also known as MI-5, which does not have direct police powers but works closely with law enforcement called the Special Branch that can carry out arrests, do searches with a warrant, etc. Russia's major domestic security organization is the FSB, which principally came from the Second Chief Directorate of the USSR KGB.

2. Counterintelligence missions

In modern practice, several missions are associated with counterintelligence from the national to the field level.

1. Defensive analysis is the practice of looking for vulnerabilities in one's own organization, and, with due regard for risk versus benefit, closing the discovered holes.

2. Offensive Counterespionage is the set of techniques that, at a minimum, neutralizes discovered FIS personnel and arrests them or, in the case of diplomats, expels them by declaring them persona non grata. Beyond that minimum, it exploits FIS personnel to gain intelligence for one's own side, or actively manipulates the FIS personnel to damage the hostile FIS organization.

3. Counterintelligence Force Protection Source Operations (CFSO) are human source operations, conducted abroad that are intended to fill the existing gap in national level coverage in protecting a field station or force from terrorism and espionage.

2.1. 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 (i.e., "nation building").

2.2. Offensive counterintelligence operations

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 services, 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.

2.3. Counterintelligence protection of intelligence services

Defensive counterintelligence specifically for intelligence services involves risk assessment of their culture, sources, methods and resources. Risk management must constantly reflect those assessments, since effective intelligence operations are often risk-taking. Even while taking calculated risks, the services need to mitigate risk with appropriate countermeasures.

FIS are especially able to explore open societies, and, in that environment, have been able to subvert insiders in the intelligence community. Offensive counterespionage is the most powerful tool for finding penetrators and neutralizing them, but it is not the only tool. Understanding what leads individuals to turn on their own side is the focus of Project Slammer. Without undue violations of personal privacy, systems can be developed to spot anomalous behavior, especially in the use of information systems.

- Van Cleave, Michelle K. (April 2007). "Counterintelligence and National Strategy" (PDF). School for National Security Executive Education, National Defense University (NDU)

- Archick, Kristen (2006-07-24). "European Approaches to Homeland Security and Counterterrorism"

- Dulles, Allen W. (1977). The Craft of Intelligence Greenwood. Dulles-1977.

- Wisner, Frank G. (1993-09-22). "On "The Craft of Intelligence""

- Matschulat, Austin B. (1996-07-02). "Coordination and Cooperation in Counerintelligence"

- "Joint Publication 3-07.1: Joint Tactics, Techniques,and Procedures for Foreign Internal Defense (FID)"

- Suvorov, Victor (1984), "Chapter 4, Agent Recruiting" , Inside Soviet Military Intelligence , MacMillan Publishing Company

- US Department of the Army (1995-10-03). "Field Manual 34-60: Counterintelligence"

- Gleghorn, Todd E. (September 2003). "Exposing the Seams: the Impetus for Reforming US Counterintelligence"

- www.wikipedia.org/