Iran. The CIA and universities. 8,500 federal facilities. Bases in Africa

National security news this week

Welcome to the first in a regular series of Friday news roundups. I noticed that a lot of news we come across I don’t have the bandwidth to write up as full-length stories, so I’ll be rounding up the most interesting, absurd or insightful ones each week. I’ll be particularly focused on stories you wouldn’t get anywhere else, including short segments on a government codename as well as an overlooked government organization each issue. Enjoy! And please, become a paid subscriber if you haven’t already. It’s my dream to keep doing this work long-term but can I only afford to do so if more people subscribe. If just 5% of readers subscribed, we’d be set.

Pentagon says it’s living in Iran’s head rent-free. Asked what ever happened to that whole Iran attack on Israel (the one the U.S. military scrambled assets to the region to protect against), the Defense Department gave a remarkably smug response during its press briefing on Thursday. “In terms of your question on timing of a potential response from Iran, we've moved capabilities into the region that I think it's fair to say have gotten into the headspace of Iran and will influence their calculation on how and if they choose to respond,” said Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh.

Over three weeks have passed since the assassination of Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh in Tehran, prompting a frenzy of speculation that Iran would soon retaliate. The attack hasn’t happened but since Washington can never be wrong, it is now crediting Iran’s inaction to an American military buildup in the Middle East. This is a game of “heads I win, tails you lose,” because if an attack happens, the Pentagon can also say that the U.S. was prepared for it all along. And if nothing happens, the Pentagon can say they deterred it. It’s unfalsifiable. 

We’ve reported all week at KlipNews the dirty secret: The “buildup” never really happened. The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln only arrived in the region yesterday and the cruise missile submarine USS Georgia was already in the Eastern Mediterranean before the assassination and never moved. (The USS Theodore Roosevelt, also in the region, is now going home in its routine schedule.) No Marines were ever moved. Fighters and aircraft have been busier operating in the Pacific region. Only one B-2 bomber arrived in Diego Garcia, also this week. 

Oh, and the Pentagon saying they’ve “gotten into the headspace” is pickup artist level pop-psych analysis. Deeply embarrassing.

Codename of the week: CHAOTICGOOD. The CIA program to encourage universities to cooperate with it is codenamed CHAOTICGOOD, I have learned. Anyone familiar with the Dungeons & Dragons role playing game will recognize this as a reference to the alignment categories it uses to characterize the moral and ethical nature of different characters. Here’s how Wizards of the Coast, the company that owns D&D, defines the “CHAOTIC GOOD” alignment:

“To the chaotic good individual, freedom and independence are as important to life and happiness. The ethos views this freedom as the only means by which each creature can achieve true satisfaction and happiness. Law, order, social forms, and anything else which tends to restrict or abridge individual freedom is wrong, and each individual is capable of achieving self-realization and prosperity through himself, herself, or itself.”

In other words, a chaotic good individual doesn’t have much regard for laws. You can imagine why the CIA might like this term. What isn’t clear is why it’s the codename for the Agency’s Academic Engagement Program. Under the program, the CIA works with universities to get them to address the technical needs of Langley. Nothing to see here, I’m sure.

Whatever they’re up to, CHAOTICGOOD illustrates an important point about the CIA: it employs a lot of nerds. Hollywood depicts CIA employees as James Bond spies and action people but the vast majority of its employees are admin, technical, security, and logistics specialists, more even than actual “analysts.”

I revisit this theme of the ordinariness of the intelligence community frequently on this newsletter because I think the mystique they enjoy in the popular imagination is unhealthy.  The misconception that the rank-and-file of the national security state are hyper savvy spies who can speak five languages and have diabolical plans results in a widespread cultural deference to the competence of these agencies. I’m not saying they’re dumber than any other group of people, but they also aren’t necessarily smarter. In a lot of ways they’re ordinary people just like anyone else, and for that reason they warrant the same kind of skepticism you would show toward the management of any other government agency (or corporation).

Organization of the week: Federal Protective Service. The Federal Protective Service, part of the Department of Homeland Security, is one of those federal agencies you’ve probably never heard of, even though it’s all over the country and has a quiet and secret job of monitoring and assessing any person who enters or is around a federal facility. FPS is tasked with providing security to all federal buildings, large and small. FPS’ mission grants it the authority to operate not just within the federal agencies scattered across all 50 states, but even in areas around them, so long as their activities are in furtherance of their protective mission. It was under this broad authority that FPS agents were snatching demonstrators off the streets of Portland in unmarked vehicles during the George Floyd protests in 2020. FPS says its mission covers over 8,500 federal facilities across the U.S., and it turns out that covers a lot of the country when you account for the areas around those facilities. I can see a federal facility from my living room window, so I guess FPS has got me covered.

Pentagon bummed it got kicked out of Niger. It’s virtually unheard of for top U.S. military brass to admit when they’ve gotten something wrong. But sometimes they come close, as Christopher Maeir, assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict did on Friday. Here’s what he said: 

“Obviously being asked to leave from Niger, which was a key hub of our counterterrorism and really crisis response footprint in West Africa, is not helpful, and it’s quite disappointing after years of working with the Nigerian military, but we understand they’ve made a decision.”

The passive aggressive tone from a top Pentagon official who oversees commandos should remind you of what I said earlier: far from Jason Bourne, the people who staff the national national security are more ordinary than you think. He’s disappointed? How about the American taxpayer, who had to shell out over $1 billion in spending on U.S. facilities in Niger over the past decade, including two bases?

Fortunately for Maier, there’s a silver lining. As he put it, the U.S. forces previously in Niger will now “spread into a number of different places” nearby, including Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Togo, and Benin. Two American (and French) partners in the region, Niger and Mali, have now thrown out their new colonial protectors, a legacy of 9/11. Maier says ISIS and al Qaeda are on the rise again, which of course raises the question as to whether the American approach to counterterrorism (and Africa) was correct in the first place. 

— Edited by William M. Arkin