Israeli influence ops. U.S. troops in 81 countries, with 40,000 in the Middle East.

Weekly news roundup.

Sep 06, 2024

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Friends do foreign influence, too. The Justice Department and the intelligence community went DEFCON 1 on Russian influence operations this week, calling them “psychological warfare” on the American people. We wrote about the perils of overstating the impact of Russia’s operations but it’s not just them — friends target the U.S. as well, perhaps most notably Israel.

Beginning last October, New York Times reported earlier this year, Israel covertly targeted American members of Congress with an influence campaign intended to generate support for its handling of the war in Gaza. Israel, through its Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, oversaw and funded the $2 million operation. At its height, it deployed hundreds of social media AI-powered bot accounts designed to seem like American constituents of U.S. lawmakers. The Congress members were then targeted with posts calling on them to keep military aid flowing to Israel. The operation also generated three fake news websites containing pro-Israel articles written in English that were circulated by the bot accounts.

Curiously, accounts involving America’s allies never seem to find their way into the intelligence community’s solemn public warnings about foreign governments threatening our democracy; or “foreign malign influence,” as they call it. A rare hint of ally meddling appeared in news media references to a background press briefing in June by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the first-ever briefing about its new Foreign Malign Influence Center. One suggestive comment on the briefing appears in NBC News:

“Asked whether some foreign governments deemed to be U.S. partners or allies are also engaging in election influence operations, the ODNI official said: ‘We go where the intelligence takes us.’”

A clearer one appears in Sasha Ingber’s newsletter posting on the briefing:

“Officials say they are tracking a range of actors, which also ‘naturally’ means some allies who see the election as critical to their national interest. They did not identify specific countries.”

And USA Today writes:

“The FMIC [Foreign Malign Influence Center] is following ‘a range of actors,’ including those tied to U.S. allies that also have an interest in who wins election on Nov. 5, one of the officials said.”

Clearly the intelligence community knows more about ally meddling than they let on. It’s not only Israel, but the whole business makes the point that everyone is engaged in information warfare — including, of course, the United States.

Homeland insecurity. In a spectacular display of tone deafness, the Department of Homeland Security’s official Twitter account touted Secret Service’s school-focused threat monitoring program just two days after the deadliest school mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia.

The deadliest school shooting in Georgia’s history left four people dead, the community grieving, and the country once again outraged at the avoidable tragedy. Enter the Department of Homeland Security Twitter account, which this morning tweeted about sub-agency Secret Service’s work “addressing observable concerning behaviors displayed by service” through its National Threat Assessment Center.

NTAC itself is kind of creepy. Established in 1998 and expanded in the wake of the Columbine school shooting, NTAC studies students for behavioral indicators the center believes could be predictive of mass violence. Setting aside the whole pre-crime thing, why is the Secret Service in charge of this instead of the FBI or local law enforcement or god forbid, the Department of Education?

The Secret Service, which infamously failed at its primary mission recently, solicits tips from students about peers exhibiting behavioral indicators, which also strikes me as a weird extension of Homeland’s “see something, say something” obsession. NTAC was so concerned that students might think reporting on their peers was snitching, they provided the following guidance:

“Messaging should demonstrate to students that there is a big difference between ‘snitching,’ ‘ratting,’ or ‘tattling,’ and seeking help.”

But is this government effort really having any impact?

Global military spending spree continues. We wrote earlier this week about the $2 trillion dollar obscenity, focusing on Japan’s recently announced request for a record $58.7 billion military budget Now Poland is entering the bonanza, its military spending set to capture a record 4.7 percent share of the country’s GDP, the highest in the world. Meanwhile, Congress is poised to shell out $833 billion for the next Pentagon budget. The war economy is booming, and with the looming cold war with China, the grinding war in Ukraine and the spiraling conflict in the Middle East, there’s no reason to think it’ll slow down.

Codename of the week: STABLE SHADOW. This intelligence program, first implemented during the Bush administration and managed by the Army, authorizes the Pentagon to pluck civilians from outside of the military and give them false credentials to operate in sensitive assignments both in the U.S. and overseas. Language and technical skills are sought after, but mostly Stable Shadow allows people to serve in more important assignments that their real rank and status might not otherwise afford, say for instance, in dealing with a foreign intelligence service. Stable Shadow people also serve in U.S. embassies.

It’s not just civilians. Enlisted people and officers, even retired military people, are also given opportunities to join the Stable Shadow program in specialty intelligence assignments. Outside contractors too. It’s a part of the overall “signature reduction” enterprise.

In a rare account of how the program works in practice, a former intelligence specialist assigned to STABLE SHADOW in Afghanistan described to us how much their work focused on plugging up gaps in intelligence priorities and dealing with Afghan partners. It was all surprisingly routine. I cannot stress enough how much the intelligence world resembles an ordinary office, with all the attendant focus on priorities and deadlines and bureaucratic obsessions. Jason Bourne it is not.

U.S. troops in 81 countries this past two weeks, including 40,000 in the Middle East. On Thursday, Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said that the U.S. has 40,000 troops in the CENTCOM region, or the Middle East. Large as that number is, it doesn’t even include contractors, clandestine special operations forces or other personnel in the region under intelligence authorities, such as CIA paramilitaries, as well as FBI and DEA agents. It might be nice if this huge military presence even once became an issue in this presidential election! Anyway, here are all the countries we could find that the U.S. military operated in in the past two weeks, either permanently or temporarily deployed or participating in various war games:

Angola
Antigua and Barbuda
Australia
Bahamas
Bahrain
Belgium
Benin
Botswana
Bulgaria
Cameroon
Canada
Chile
Columbia
Côte d’Ivoire
Cuba (Guantanamo Bay)
Cyprus
Denmark (Denmark and Greenland)
Diego Garcia
Djibouti
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Estonia
Federated States of Micronesia
Finland
Germany
Greece
Guinea-Bissau
Haiti
Honduras
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iraq
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan
Kenya
Kosovo
Kuwait
Latvia
Lebanon
Lithuania
Libya
Marshall Islands
Moldova
Morocco
Netherlands
Niger
Northern Marianas
Norway
Oman
Palau (Republic of Palau)
Panama
Papua New Guinea
Paraguay
Philippines
Peru
Poland
Portugal (Lajes)
Romania
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Slovakia
Somalia
South Korea
Spain
Sweden
Syria
Thailand
Tunisia
Turkey
Ukraine
UAE
UK
Uzbekistan
Vietnam

— Edited by William M. Arkin

Ken Klippenstein

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