Memo605: Why the Intelligence Community Will Not Be Able to Stop Another 9/11

For those who have read the "Memo" pieces written in the magazine "Foreign Policy", the following "memo" attempts to answer why the disciplines of counterintelligence and protective security remain so resistant to reform. It goes to the heart of the inefficacies of a system which, unless it is systematically overhauled and placed beyond the reach of politicization, will not only be unable to prevent another 9/11 style attack but also guard the US against its next rival superpower. I originally wrote it for an "Intelligence & Policy" class I took at the Institute of World Politics, given by former Deputy National Counterintelligence Executive and Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Support, Kenneth deGraffenreid.
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The Honorable John M. McConnell
Director of National Intelligence
Office of the DNI
Washington, DC 20511

Dear Sir:

In the course of answering your question of why the disciplines of counterintelligence and protective security remain so resistant to reform, our research consistently crossed paths with answering the separate question relating to the “Kent-Kendall debate” on the nature of intelligence and policymaking. Indeed, such expansive questions can lead one pointing to many aspects which appear either underutilized or missing altogether: this, however, can easily also lead to getting lost in the minutiae, and, in turn, micromanaging the largess that is the Intelligence Community. As you will find in this submitted report, there is good reason for using each to support the other. The 4 answers are hierarchical: though, not in terms of importance; rather, in terms of systematic breakdown. They are as follows:

1) The evolution of United States foreign policy being placed more and more under the exclusive purview of the Executive Branch, particularly the Office of the President of the United States, has created an “Imperial Presidency” that is by default Realist in its policy outlook.

2) The National Security Act of 1947, by placing the daily administrative tasking of the Intelligence Community under the Executive Branch, severely affected the spatial relationship between analyst and policymaker. The “too close for comfort” Sherman Kent warned about.

3) This “too close for comfort” relationship is further engrained in the intelligence produced by the over emphasis on current intelligence production: thus, intelligence goals are increasingly linked to administration policy goals, thereby creating an intelligence horizon that changes as an administration changes. In other words, there is little strategic analysis because there is no cohesion from one administration to the next.

4) Weakness of leadership in key government positions has allowed this as well as other temporal concerns—such as, parochialism and bureaucratic digging-in-of-heels—to continue resisting change in intelligence/counterintelligence.

1) Firstly, as is often said, “what is past is prologue”. In other words, we must look at how we got here in order to know where we are going. In the field of International Relations the philosophy of Realism has long been the prism through which state actions have been seen. The placing of states centrally in international affairs was only natural, as the history of state composition was centralized in the figure of the King/Emperor/Emir. They were as many nation-states still are: authoritarian. This is not meant as an aspersion; rather, an authoritarian system is described as a:

…political system with limited, not responsible, political
pluralism, without elaborate and guiding ideology, but with
distinctive mentalities, without extensive nor intensive
political mobilization, except at some points in their
development, and in which a leader or occasionally small
group exercises power within formerly ill-defined limits
but actually quite predictable ones. (1)

In other words, only if Caesar agreed to terms did Rome agree to terms; and, only if Kim Jong-Il agrees to terms does North Korea agree to terms.

The United States, by virtue of the US Constitution, resisted such centralization by placing international concerns under the guise—to one extent or another—of all 3 branches of government. Under “Article I: Section 8”, “Article II: Sections 2 & 3”, and “Article III: Section 2” (2), the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches, respectively, were given vested interests in US actions towards other states as well as other states actions towards the US. Yet, as early as George Washington and his impressive administration of Revolutionary figures, the political weight of the presidency shrank the relative political size of the other 2 branches, who were themselves not short on having Revolutionary figures of their own.

It is not our argument that the executive branch has superseded its Constitutional definitions deliberately from the beginning (though, clearly, there are instances in its history). Rather, the effect of such political power in the hands of the presidency would have looked quite familiar to other “traditional” nation-states previously described. In other words, Realism was not only the default philosophy in US foreign policy because of presidential power beginning with Washington, but also because other nation-states mirrored their internal views of power onto the role of the US presidency. Rightly or wrongly, these 2 factors have created what has been called the “Imperial Presidency”. This is not the same “Imperial Presidency” discussed in Arthur Schlesinger’s famous book, per se. Though, as “a country’s intelligence community is a reflection of the political system it serves” (3), it does echo Schlesinger’s view of the increasingly centralizing power of the president on US foreign policy.

2) Here, we turn your attention to the National Security Act of 1947. If any doubt existed as to the political influence the presidency had on US foreign policy, it was all but extinguished by this massive overhaul of how the US saw the field of Intelligence: as active rather than reactive. Up until this Act, Intelligence had been seen as a wartime function. A reason for this: “Progress, to the United States, seemed built into the natural order of things; peace was perceived to be the normal state of international affairs, expressing the harmony of nature, while war was perceived to be an abnormality, an aberration caused by evil men pursuing evil designs;” “Totally alien to the American experience was the truth, understood instinctively by Europeans…given its most forceful expression by Clausewitz: war and politics are a seamless web,” (4). Intelligence, as such, was the realm of armies needing to know the size, the distance, and the composition of armies, not peaceful democratic societies. Such a view pervaded US political culture even after World War I, when, in 1929, then Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson was quoted as saying, “Gentlemen don’t read other gentlemen’s mail.”

Taken for granted, it is, the Secretaries and Directors, including their departments, agencies, and offices who currently oversee all intelligence can look to one paragraph for all their requisite functions: SEC. 2. [50 U.S.C. 401] of the NSA-47 (5). Occasional attempts by Congress to check the influence of the President on foreign policy—most notably the War Powers Act—not withstanding, NSA-47 created a web of influence unparalleled by either of the other 2 branches.

Again, we are not making ethical determinations herein. Whether or not current presidential power exceeds the framers’ intent is a political question. Our determinations are systemic: the nature of any government’s structure allows for unforeseen consequences to develop as a given government evolves—particularly a democratic one, where differing allegiances are constructed to counter each other.

3) The CIA’s DI has been the intelligence community’s chief producer for almost 50 years (until the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s creation in 2005). Without going too much into its history, along with the CIA, it was given an overhaul in the mid-1990’s which was suppose flatten out the intelligence process and make it more responsive to the needs of policymakers. Yet, these changes, which Kendall would have praised for giving the analyst more say in the policy side, have done little to prevent further intelligence failures. It has made the analyst the quarterback—to echo the spirit of Kent’s analogy—rather than the above the field coordinator by over emphasizing one kind of intelligence evaluation over the others: that of “Current Intelligence”. This problem is documented to a great degree by Richard Russell, a retired CIA political-military analyst of 17 years:

1) The DI’s concentration on current intelligence places a premium on analysts who are generalists and can write well and quickly meet tight deadlines. In evaluating analysts for promotion, managers tend to reward those analysts who work on issues that command daily current intelligence headlines. (6)

2) The excessive DI concentration on current intelligence has…over time had a corrosive and deleterious impact on the building of knowledge and expertise that is the intellectual fruit of longer-term and scholarly research. It also denies analysts practice and expertise in critical analysis, weighing of evidence, and evaluation of evidence (7)

3) The demand for current intelligence saps research needed to develop expertise, which is of practical importance because Agency’s longstanding failings in this area have come back to roost with devastating consequences to U.S. security. The Joint House-Senate Inquiry faulted the lack of analytic expertise in large measure for the intelligence failure of September 11. (8)

The same Inquiry also found that the intelligence community’s understanding of al-Qaeda was severely lacking in terms of strategic and counterterrorism analyses. These “…analytic deficiencies seriously undercut the ability of U.S. policymakers to understand the full nature of the threat, and to make fully informed decisions,” (9).

Russell’s criticism is not just confined to the CIA. It could just as well be applied to the DIA (10). This close proximity of analyst to policymaker also damages the credibility of intelligence by giving at least the appearance of impropriety. It is why accusations of politicizing intelligence have increasingly attained legitimacy. Whether or not the Bush administration had invading Iraq in its collective mind a priori to 9/11, thus leading to a cognitive bias in favor of evidence supporting invasion, or that any administration chooses a policy a priori to any event thus in effect politicizing any intelligence which supports its future actions is a legitimate concern. But, what we are speaking to is that it is only natural for evidence to be shaped by the one shaping it—thus, a member of congress or anyone else, for that matter, could make their own—sometimes opposing—argument: in other words, if the atmosphere is already conducive for intelligence analysis being a handmaiden to policy then it is only natural for that intelligence to reflect policy goals.

For instance, throughout much of its history, Israel’s intelligence services had been organizationally as well as cognitively separated from its politics. Part of it was due to the defensive nature of their foreign policy, stemming from its perceived military weakness amongst the surrounding Arab states. After its victories in their 3 wars, Israeli policy became relatively more offensive (it should be noted that Golda Maier’s use of Mossad as, in essence, a hit squad after the ’72 Munich Olympics also inspired the country to further link its intelligence goals to foreign policy goals). Starting in the 1990’s, this barrier began crumbling more rapidly as Prime Ministers and their coalition governments began using intelligence more and more for administrative goals. A case in point is Netanyahu’s use of Mossad to assassinate a Hamas leader—Khaled Mishal—in Amman, Jordan. Not only was the assassination unsuccessful but it cost Netanyahu’s government dearly because of its lack of political necessity (11). Jordan’s new era of peace with Israel almost became too short-lived to be enjoyed.

More recently this continued breakdown between intelligence and administration goals was made apparent in Israel’s war with Hezbollah in ’06. At first, the military was given the reigns in the invasion of southern Lebanon and was winning. But, as it continued its push into Lebanon, the operation became a de facto foreign policy matter because many saw that political decisions then had to be made (thus echoing Clausewitz yet again). Intelligence—all intelligence, be it military or otherwise—became a servant to political concerns. Thus, the political success or failure (in this case, failure) could be placed on the shoulders of the intelligence instead of what it was—a politically micromanaged war of the likes of Vietnam. Instead of letting the military make the calls, the politicians made them.

The current reality is Israeli intelligence has become more and more subservient to each successive administration and its requisite policy horizon. A question must then be asked: how much coherency is there in intelligence goals, given the short policy horizons of many Israeli administrations? In short, not much.

This lack of a “Goldilocks spatiality” and its effects are not exclusive to Israel: because it allowed military analysis tasking to be directed by the Pentagon during and after the 1991 Gulf War, “By the end of the 1990’s, most CIA military analysts judged that their collective manpower was so limited by answering the daily deluge of questions…they were unable to look over the horizon to examine longer-range warning challenges for civilian policy makers,” (12).

For this and other previously given reason, the US’s intelligence community is suffering the same fate. It is not academic theorizing to state we live in an increasingly immediate world: the Internet brings information to our fingertips in a matter of seconds; 24-Hour news has made the competition for up-to-the-minute reporting in reality up-to-the-second reporting; and cell-phones and personal organizers have made possible corresponding with scores of people in any given day a matter of battery life not distance. This need for immediacy has obviously affected the intelligence community, and is detrimental for any intelligence community seeking to separate itself from the day-to-day demands of an administration reacting to a new and evolving situation. It is indeed a vicious cycle, only in having enough long-range analysis can an intelligence community see future crises as they arise but present crises always exist thus pulling in those long-range functions. But, again, it is only in having enough independence that the intelligence community can begin to have a coherency that is longer than a given administration’s policy goals.

4) Which brings us to our 4th point: As an organizational concern, the Agency’s spirit of independence—which it is not lax in touting when it gets things right—should have limited the Pentagon’s sway on its own analysts. But, when one notes Russell’s words—“…because analysts are closer to policymakers than they had been in the formative days of the Agency, they naturally gravitate toward current intelligence analysis that brings laurels and attention from policymakers,” and, “Time and time again, polls taken among decisionmakers over the years have yielded similar results: policymakers invariably value current intelligence reports the most, Estimates less so,” (13)—it becomes all too obvious the Agency’s “spirit of independence” is now more myth than reality. The monetary incentive (particularly the senior analytic service—or, SAS) is indeed a factor which must be looked at, but, as stated before, this report is focused on broader structural concepts. Understanding their deficiencies will lead to understanding what needs to be fixed within.

While measures like the Patriot Act tore down organizational walls which limited sharing, this lack of independence has created a intelligence culture which is all too typically bureaucratic in its parochialism and accepting other realities than its own. Arguably, nowhere do these aspects affect the intelligence community than in the area of Counterintelligence/Counterterrorism and their intrinsic idea of “otherness”. Before continuing, it must be stated that we put these together for the reason that having a good counterterrorism plan is partly reliant on having sound counterintelligence.

Understanding how the “other” side thinks, gathers its intelligence, and even conducts its counterintelligence—whether they be friend or foe—is a necessity for any country desiring successful counterintelligence operations. We do not do this well. There has long been a stigma about the “Ugly American”; a word which is to reflect the America-centric ignorance of US citizens towards other cultures. Borrowing words of Tim Weiner, New York Times journalist and writer of “Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA”, “Americans want foreigners to think like us, to speak like us, to be like us,” (14). Make what you will of his biases, but these words are to be found in the September/October 2007 issue of “Foreign Policy”, a preeminent publication in the field which is published in many languages. Point is, if the argument becomes myopically focused on the relative biases of the author—as so many arguments in Washington are—it will miss the point: that is, how others perceive our intelligence capabilities matters as much if not more as how we perceive our intelligence capabilities. Its effects are felt in all areas of counterintelligence.

Take security, for instance. As detailed by Russell and Weiner, the CIA’s security precautions have been based on an internal mindset that has little to do with reality. Russell relates the fact that—paraphrasing—many of his graduate students try to fulfill their job requirements with the Boren fellowship program by applying with the CIA and other intelligence services but are turned down because they are deemed risks. Why? Because many get their language training in the countries they learn the language of and come into contact with their respective peoples (15). It is a telling consequence of the ad hoc nature of the intelligence community’s security priorities. Instead of making the system of intelligence more secure, these checks have often worked to keep talent away. The kind of talent the CIA—and others—have said is needed for making a stronger and more robust community. Similarly, Weiner relates a story about Robert Gates trying to get an Agency job for an American citizen raised in Azerbaijan. “The recruit was rejected because he failed to score high on the English test. Gates was furious. ‘I’ve got thousands of people here who can write English,’ he fumed, ‘but I don’t have anyone here who can speak Azeri,’” (16).

We acknowledge the argument that, as in the Katrina Leung and Peter Lee cases, the intelligence community has good reason for being averse to American citizens of foreign backgrounds. Yet, it is the case that much of what is called “security” is “compliant-based”—“just going through the motions”; rather than “performance-based”—“was espionage prevented” (17). The Leung case is just one of many examples where intelligence agents did not adhere to security policy and were not called to account by those who oversee security functions (in fact, the fact agent James Smith did take sensitive materials home overnight yet was not reprimanded for doing so became crucial later on as an example of missed warning signs of his duplicity). Also, if we are to start denying clearances for any and all those with foreign lineage and/or foreign experience then we risk the absurdity of hiring men/women who have little foreign ancestry, no language mastery, and have never been further than 5 miles from home.

It would be one thing if these were anomalous cases, but they are not. They are symptoms of a much larger ignorance. Turning again to Russell, there is a culture in the CIA which is—quite simply—fatally averse to intellectual curiosity. Devil’s advocacy is all but shunned inside the Agency. Indeed, this affects the testability of the intelligence which is produced. It also affects the ability of counterintelligence to do its job because it is the prerogative of the CI to be the Internal Affairs police when things go wrong.

The dual issues of an ad hoc security apparatus and lack of intellectual curiosity loomed large in the Leung case, for they revealed the intel community’s weaknesses in both the piece meal nature of their security apparatus and its understanding the nature of the threat faced. An intelligence community with a strong sense of CI would know how Chinese intelligence operates—that every Chinese citizen and/or person still having an allegiance to the PRC is a potential operative. Often times having good CI is the best security. That said, again, if our security apparatus was proactively performance-based such measures would act as trip-wires, alerting us to intel being compromised.

Another area of CI which is affected by a lack of “otherness” is knowing how another country chooses to gather intel. While US intelligence has been admonished in many committee reports for our lack of human intelligence (HUMINT), other countries—particularly ones with a history of bartering and/or lack of economic resources for technical intelligence (TECHINT)—have long invested heavily in HUMINT either because their social norms are conducive to human exchanges of info and/or it is cheap. Also, knowing another country’s collection priorities are is just plain good budgeting. By putting more resources into our relative strengths we can fully exploit their weaknesses, and, in turn, compromise their ability to get good intel.

Lost, all this is in the myopia that is bureaucracy. In focusing on their small corners (or, as is more often the case in government, cubicles) and corner offices, so to speak, instead of how they fit in the larger scheme, those in key management and decision making positions in the intelligence community have allowed the status quo to continue; and allowed their analysts to be dictated to by everyone from White House to Pentagon officials, rather than showing them their errors in judgment and/or policy decisions. It has been said it takes a Pearl Harbor before government finally gets things done. Time and time again, though, we are stunned to find that past prescribed measures were either done half-heartedly, lost in the mire of bureaucratic squabbling, or ignored altogether. This is the most glaring evidence that it is still business as usual.

One thing can be said about intelligence strictly being a wartime function prior to ‘47: war gave it urgency. Part of the problem of this most recent war is that it is at various points abstractly defined by the nature of the enemy we fight. Conceptually it is somewhat ill-defined: “War On Terror”. Terror is a tactic, not limited to just Islamic fundamentalists. These conceptual ambiguities notwithstanding, it must be said 9/11, Afghanistan, and now Iraq have given many in the intel community an existential understanding of the full implications of failure. But, as is human nature, when an event goes on long enough keeping that level of intensity is difficult to foresee (here again the military—and its emphasis on drilling—shows why intelligence was often a wartime function). Clear, one thing is: it is no longer acceptable to say we will do better next time. This is next time.


Sincerely,
Kevin M Bache
Chairman



1) Totalitarian & Authoritarian Regimes; Paul J Linz

2) http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html

3) IWP605: Intelligence & Policy. Guest lecturer, John Dziak. 9/19/2007

4) Pgs. 272, 273. “United States National Security Policy: Retrospect & Prospect”, James E Dornan, Jr.

5) http://www.iwar.org.uk/sigint/resources/national-security-act/1947-act.htm

6), 7), 8) 9) 12) 13) 15) pgs.124, 125, 137, 137, 128, 137, 131. Sharpening Strategic Intelligence: Why the CIA Gets It Wrong & What Needs to Be Done to Get It Right. Richard l Russell

10), 11) IWP605: Intelligence & Policy. Guest lecturer, John Dziak. 9/19/2007

14), 16) “How to Make a Spy”, pgs. 44, 47. Foreign Policy. Tim Weiner

17) IWP: Intelligence & Policy. Kenneth deGraffenreid. 10/24/2007

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Sendero Luminoso: A Legacy of Terrorism

In September 1992, Peruvian security forces captured several heads of Sendero Luminoso (PCP-SL), a Maoist revolutionary group with designs on overthrowing the government. Shining Path, as the group is known by its English translation, had been resurrected twelve years earlier in the May 17, 1980 Cuschi attack. The ideological leader of the attack and the group, Abimael Guzman Reynoso, was among those captured in the September raid. With Guzman’s proclamation days later that the remaining members achieve their goals through peaceful political means, Sendero lost the psychological edge it had achieved through bombings, assassinations, and mass executions...The question is not whether...Shining Path thus retains the position it achieved more than a decade ago—it clearly does not; but, whether conditions are apt that it may again shine—so to speak.

Now, more than a decade hence, Peru’s highest court has ruled the country’s anti-terrorist legislation unconstitutional. As a result, many who were tried and jailed under the country’s anti-terrorist legislation are either being released or retried: Guzman, among them. Meanwhile, attacks bearing Sendero’s MO have signaled that the group may again be on the rise (particularly, the bombing of the US embassy in Lima early 2002; the 20 March 2002 bombing of Lima’s El Polo shopping mall; and the 10 June 2003 kidnapping of 71 workers of the Argentine company Technit SAC).

The question is not whether by these acts Shining Path thus retains the position it achieved more than a decade ago—it clearly does not; but, whether conditions are apt that it may again shine—so to speak. Several aspects are significant: 1) There is currently no official strategy to defeat those who wish to carry on Sendero’s legacy; 2) The government’s coming to terms with Fujimori’s dictatorship has ironically magnified the inequities still remaining in society; and 3) the Latin American political cycle.

Cyclical
Before giving the former two aspects their due, we must first deal with the latter: doing so will put the former—which are specific to Peru—in the broader context of political life in Latin America for the last half century. Why the third aspect is not first is purely due to rhetorical reasons; not because of where it falls in its significance to the discussion at hand.

In just over three decades, Peru has lived through two military coups and a dictatorship. All totaled, the country has known more years of non-democratic rule—20—than democratic—13. Such glacial upheavals are not exclusive to Peru; they are the norm in Latin America. For this reason, politics are a zero-sum game.

“Managing Oil Wealth”, Benn Eifert, Alan Gelb, and Nils Borje Tallroth’s article based on a paper presented at the International Monetary Fund Conference “Fiscal Policy Formulation and Implementation in Oil-Producing Countries,” (June 5-6, 2002) groups countries into five categories: Mature democracies, Factional democracies, Paternalistic autocracies, Reformist autocracies, and Predatory autocracy. Granted, as the author’s admit, these classifications “…are not exhaustive, and some countries have a blend of features from different categories,” (3). Putting this side, for it is not pertinent to this argument, unlike in “Mature democracies”, where there is a “Stable party system”, a “Range of social consensus”, and a “Long policy horizon” (2), Peru has these qualities of “Factional Democracies”: military intervention in politics is not uncommon; wide social disparities, lack of confidence; and a short policy horizon.

The absence of the “Mature democracies” qualities, and the presence of the “Factional Democracies”, makes for a society in which change is not limited to the administration, it is also structural. In other words, though inequalities exist in all societies, unlike in “Mature democracies”, where such inequalities are largely seen as being a result of poor administrative policy, for Peru, having the qualities of “Factional democracies”, inequalities are disproportionate to the extent they become a foundational argument for the inherent efficacy of the system as a whole. Simply put, it is again Democracy’s turn for blame.

This brings to light the aforementioned irony of the government’s position as it comes to terms with the Fujimori dictatorship. Though, theoretically, politically advantageous; in reality, attempts to right the wrongs of former government officials often calls to the fore the imperfections still remaining in society. In addition, in societies such as Peru it may evoke sympathy for the opposition by those citizens and/or their families tortured and/or killed by government officials.

Under these auspices, one can see why the release and retrials of Shining Path members looms so large. As The Economist writes in the 30 October, 2004 article, “Still Shining After All These Years”:

Others…fear that it [the Guzman trial] could be a catalyst for a rebirth
of the Shining Path. The civilian trial proceedings, unlike military trials
held behind closed doors, could give Mr. Guzman and his co-defendants
a chance to preach to the public. Benedicto Jimenez, a retired police
colonel who was part of the team that arrested Mr. Guzman, says the
Shining Path sees the retrials as a chance to jump-start itself. (44)

According to the same article, a month before, eight teachers were arrested for being members of Guzman’s group. This appears to follow what W. Alejandro Sanchez writes in his article, “The Rebirth of Insurgency in Peru”, appearing in the periodical Small Wars and Insurgencies (Autumn 2003); “Shining Path members have begun to infiltrate major unions, including reportedly the teachers’ national union, the SUTEP, and universities, particularly the State University of San Marcos in Lima, which was a center for leftist ideologies in the 1980s,” (194).

The political cycle is not now—nor was it in the past—limited to Peru. Such is why Latin America’s socio-political change has swept from the dependency theory and socialism of the 1960s and 70s, to the shock-therapy and globalization of the 1980s and 90s, and now the quasi-welfare-state and moderate socialism of the 2000s. From Brazil’s Lula de Silva, to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Latin America appears to again be at least politically advantageous for socialists. Chavez is particularly interesting. Not just because he has buddied-up to the Fidel Castro, helped pass an act limiting free speech, and begun social programs which are largely dependent on oil-revenues, but also due to his attempts to destabilize surrounding South American countries.

According to The Economist, Rodrigo Granda, the implicit foreign envoy of FARC, a Marxist-revolutionary group in Columbia, who was captured in January ’05, appears to have been living with his family….

…openly in Venezuela. He had been given nationality and even voted
in the referendum. Awkwardly for Mr Chávez, the FARC put him on
the spot by stating that Venezuela's government had invited Mr.
Granda to two conferences, something officials had previously denied.
The president must now choose either to quarrel with Colombia, or to
repudiate the FARC and dent his ‘revolutionary’ credentials.
(01/22/2005; 36)

Because this is not a singular incident of Chavez and FARC being in the same place at the same time it is possible, given his Marxist leanings and that many Marxist intellectuals support him (“Marxist intellectuals support arrested FARC leader”; http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Marxist_intellectuals_support_arrested_FARC_leader), that he is at least giving moral support. Some have speculated that the support has gone
much further. Even if this latter fact remains purely speculation, the former resembles what the authors of Trends in Outside Support for Insurgent Movements find in “State Support for Insurgencies”: which is, “Through the provision of sanctuary, arms, training, and money, governments have often played a critical role in augmenting an emergent group’s resilience,” (10). Support need not be as explicit as funding or arming; it can be seemingly innocuous, as in providing “sanctuary”.

Sendero’s Legacy
Digressing. Another form of support in Trends in Outside Support for Insurgent Movements can come from diasporas: that is, “…immigrant communities established in other countries,” (41). The definition should not be limited to a physical community, however; it can be broadened to include what could be termed the “abstract immigrant community”, where like-minded individuals can lend support—even if it just moral. The internet makes for an example of this “virtual” community. Case in point, the Sri Lankan insurgency, LTTE…

…has established a prominent presence on the Internet, with many of its
web sites fully documented and indexed in popular search engines. A
number of them contain links and other jump-off points that are net-
worked—under the banner of “peace”—to internationally renowned
hu-manitarian and development agencies such as the World Council of
Churches, the International Educational Development Inc., and the
Robert Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights. These web sites
have enabled the LTTE to establish a truly global presence, permitting
the group to “virtually” and instantaneously transmit propaganda,
mobilize active supporters, and sway potential backers. (45-46)

Perhaps more than ever before, the internet allows like-mindedness to morph into “virtual diasporas”.

This issue of like-mindedness brings us to the relationship between FARC and Sendero. In the late 1990’s, FARC’s “…incursion into Peru was promoted by Fujimori’s deal with the Columbia rebels over the 10,000 AK-47 rifles,” (193). FARC has also been noted as slowly expanding its sphere of influence into Peru, Brazil, and Ecuador. When combining this with the following—“The remaining members of the PCP-SL appear to have learned that they need foreign aid if they want to re-arm and re-organize themselves to continue their struggle,” (193)—one need not have an active imagination to see the potential consequences. Such cross-border meddling—be it government sanctioned or rebel-inspired—has led to instability in other parts of the world (Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, and Chenya, to name a few).

One potential consequence is—as Sanchez, the author of “Rebirth”, states— Sendero is becoming “Columbianized”, “…meaning that it is learning from the ongoing war in neighboring Columbia and mutating into a group that operates like the Columbian guerilla movement….” (190). What this means for Peruvian security forces will be discussed later. Presently, this mutation is worth noting, for, when placed in context, it appears less of an anomaly than it would otherwise.

From its genesis, Sendero Luminoso was split between those who wanted to gradually faze in Maoist reforms by encircling the government—literally and figuratively—thus creating leverage in which to enact reform, and those who saw violence as Sun Tzu saw it “‘kill one, frighten ten thousand,’” (93). How these two strands were able to co-exist was largely due to the group’s leader. In reference to this, Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh, in his article, “From Revolutionary Dreams to Organizational Fragmentation: Disputes Over Violence Within ETA and Sendero Luminoso”, states the following: “Part of the explanation involves Sendero Luminoso’s highest-ranking official, Abimael Guzman Reynoso, whose political energy and adroitness helped contain centrifugal forces. A master tactician and a Leninist in his vision of political discipline, Guzman skillfully played factions against one another,” (79).

With Guzman in jail the axis has been mostly demolished from a strategic and organizational standpoint. Still left is the ideology. Also, as is the case with most insurgencies, the board has splintered. For PCP-SL, these splinters have taken the names Sendero Rojo (Red Path) and “Proseguir”, from the Spanish verb prosegar—to proceed (it also goes by the name Comite Regional Principal, or Principal Regional Committee). Under its leader, Victor Quispe Palomino (a.k.a., Comrade “Jose” or “Martin” Palomino), the latter “…has broken away from the main PCP-SL group, and it no longer sees Abimael Guzman as its ideological and political leader,” (190).

Poetic it is to state that, as a board may be dangerous when wielded, the splinters are as dangerous—if not more so should they infect the body politic. It is also true. For, as other splinter groups (al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade for one) have shown, they are not as inclined to be subtle. They are also less inclined to be choosey about where their finances come from, and who they associate with. For example, in addition to drug smuggling and making-nice with the cocaleros, Alberto Bolivar, author of the “Peru” chapter of the compendium, “Combating Terrorism: Strategies of Ten Countries”, points out the following—paraphrasing: in late November 2001 the joint Mossad and Peruvian counterterrorist unit, DINCOTE, captured a group of alleged Pakistani terrorists in southern Peru (114). Granted, this same unit captured a cell of Abu Nidal back in June 1988, thus it is not just a product of this splintering.

That being said, Bolivar also points out a post 9/11 world lives with the existential knowledge of networked terrorism: stating, “With these groups, Osama bin Laden has something in common: the drug business…Why wouldn’t bin Laden try to expand his worldwide terrorist web in this region?”

Indeed, this may be unnecessarily heightening the situation; but, if the U.S. can legitimately claim the foolhardiness of taking the nuclear option off the table in the time of war, then it should be at least considered that al Qaeda—a master of strategic and political thinking—may eye/is eyeing this region. True, there is an argument to be made that it would be a clash of ideological thinking—al Qaeda’s religious fundamentalism and Sendero’s scientific Atheism—but it is for another discussion. That being said, pragmatism may be outweighing ideological differences.

Taking a page from Sebastian Junger’s Vanity Fair article of December 2002 (pgs.194-206) entitled “Terrorism’s New Geography”, the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress—under an Interagency Agreement with the Director of the CIA Crime and Narcotics Center—wrote a report entitled “Terrorist and Organized Crime Groups in the Tri-Border Area (TBA) Of South America”, in which the following is stated:

This review of the available open-source information on Islamic terrorist
group activities in Tri-Border Area (TBA) during the 1999 to 2003 period
provides substantial evidence for concluding that various Islamic terrorist
groups have used the TBA—where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay meet
—as a haven for fund-raising, recruiting, plotting terrorist attacks else-
where in the TBA countries or the Americas in general, and other such
activities. (1)

The report cites one of the reasons for this rise is the area is less closely watched than the countries from which many of these individuals come. In the past, spatiality was a key
consideration in decision-making. The further a terrorist group was from a country the less likely it seemed that it would be susceptible to attack. A terrorist group a half a world away was mostly seen as that. September 11 dashed such ideas. In addition to the TBA being on the same continent as Peru, it “…provides a haven that is geographically, socially, economically, and politically highly conducive for allowing organized crime and the corrupt officials who accept their bribes or payoffs to operate in symbiotic relationship that thrives on drugs and arms trafficking, money laundering, and other lucrative criminal activities,” (3). Thus, the TBA would be a prime marketplace for a group that has “…learned that they need foreign aid if they want to re-arm and re-organize themselves to continue their struggle,” (193) such as Shining Path.

Gameplan
This brings us to the first part of the first stated aspect at the beginning this paper: that is, the government of Peru has no official strategy for defeating those carrying on Sendero’s legacy. The effect: a security apparatus which is even more ill-equipped to deal with the nuances of counterinsurgency/counterterrorism than it was in the 1980s and 90s. Essentially, the problem then was two-fold—governmental and militaristic. Or, to put it concisely, “Instead of coping with it politically and psychologically, the Peruvian government took a purely militaristic approach to the problem, forgetting that if political and psychological warfare plays an important role in revolutionary insurgency the same can be said for counterinsurgency strategy,” (100).

Belaunde, Garcia, and Fujimori all failed to see what Sir Henry Gurney, the high commissioner in Malaya, saw in the British campaign: “…that on no account must the
armed forces have control over the conduct of the war. This…was a war of political ideologies…what was needed was armed support for a political war, not political support for an army war,” (101).

Especially in the case of Fujimori, who was all too eager to generalize any political dissent as giving aid and comfort to or being inspired by the insurgency, Peruvian society was repressed to the point that although Sendero did not necessarily gain supporters there were fewer individuals willing to help flush them out. And, from what Bolivar states, this is exactly what Sendero wanted, for “…insurgents try to provoke arbitrary and indiscriminate government reprisals, calculating that this will increase local resentment against the government, which they hope to convert into support for their insurrectionist cause,” (102).

For the most part the apparent defeat of SL in the 90s was less due to the organizational sophistication of Peruvian security forces than it was due to, ironically, the proletariat. Aside from the ronderos, or Self-Defense Committees comprised of peasant rural patrols, popular support for Sendero never materialized. Some reasons for this: inherent prejudice within SL—such as, the Ashaninka concentration camps where the natives were forced to work for the party; the massacres of 12 or more people between December ’87 and February ’92; and the use of terrorism as an end in itself has no message other than death for most of the populace.
Several reasons exist as to why the Peruvian government is presently ill-equipped to handle SL.

The first reason is a matter of personnel; both politically and militarily. In regards to former, Fujimori is in exile, and his intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, is in jail on list of charges. If success were measured by the amount of energy, money, and arms used these men would be near the top of the list. Though abused, Peru also once had a state-of-the-art intelligence apparatus. Most of it was literally and figuratively dismantled by fleeing government officials in 2000.

Then there is the military. For one, it is under funded—with little to no resources for extra-military operations, such as special forces; 2) there is little to no experience in the kind of nuanced thinking that is required by counterinsurgency/counterterrorism; and 3) it has not been fully purged of those officers and soldiers who had participated in earlier campaigns when atrocities were the rule rather than the exception. At least politically, the last aspect is a liability for the current Toledo administration, as it gives the impression that inherent qualities remain which may lead to another Fujimori-like dictatorship.

When looking at the aforementioned errors of the government throughout the 1980s and 90s the mistakes were mostly top-down. Government leaders failed to set a coherent policy, thus the security forces where left with holes in the rules of engagement (ROE). Perhaps nowhere was this more apparent than in the case of Ayacucho. After Belaunde declared a state of emergency, security forces were sent into Ayacucho and several other areas. What followed was a tally of thousands killed in the subsequently named “The Dirty War”. Bolivar writes:

Lacking political objectives and a counterinsurgency strategy, the armed
forces occupied Ayacucho as if it were enemy territory. Military leaders
did not have in mind that in such cases the objective of the security forces
is to regain control of the population and not just to occupy terrain. The
purpose of territorial consolidation must be to establish contact with
the people…in order to protect them, not to treat them like presumed
terrorists and thus alienate support. (101)

Another strand ran through each successive administration since Sendero’s reemergence in 1980: the lack of legality. This is not stated so as to wander into a discussion of the
legitimacy of the law being the prerogative of the ruler—that the ruler makes the law—rather, from the outset, there was little indoctrination of the security forces by government officials in the law and the pragmatic use of it in waging the counterinsurgency. One effect was the blurring of the line between the two sides. Here, again, we look to Bolivar: “The Peruvian security establishment also forgot that since the prime purpose of destabilization is to break the rule of law, the first essential element in countering terrorism is to ensure that soldiers, police, intelligence officers, and others claiming to support the government themselves act within the law,” (102).

Apparently, Peruvian authorities have not learned the lesson. Due to the occurrence of strikes from March to June 2003, the Toledo administration ordered several regions to be declared states of emergency without asking regional presidents for their input, and placed the military in control. True, the use of the military for domestic security is commonplace in Latin American politics. This is, however, a little too dismissive of an essential historical point: even as far back as ancient Rome many understood the symbolism of the army coming within the walls of the capital city. Particularly for ancient Rome, from Julius Caesar on, no longer would the republic that was Rome’s origin be free from the precedence of having its army used against itself.

Also as before, a Peruvian administration looks to be generalizing their response: “Toledo has pushed for a violent eradication of coca fields which simply even more alienates to poor coca farmers,” (194). Coca’s importance to Peruvian society is such that, in itself, it can hold sway over whether the government succeeds or fails in their counterinsurgency efforts. Coming back to the mentioned “Columbianization”. As opposed to their methods of the 1980s and 90s, where they alienated most of the peasantry both by attacking and looking down upon them, Sendero appears to be doing the opposite. Though many peasants are still wary of the group, inroads are being made. Not only is the group offering the cocaleros protection and money but, as Toledo makes such threats to extinguish them, Sendero’s image can only be enhanced.

Geography is of concern, also. Most of the coca is grown in hard-to-reach, vegetative regions. Any attempts on behalf of authorities to administer order in these areas can easily fall victim to a scorched-earth campaign: thus why Toledo’s sentiment about their eradication is so troubling. It reflects an almost willful ignorance of what even Fujimori learned from the use of the ronderos.

Conclusion: Shadows
It is not this paper’s contention that Toledo is indistinguishable from Fujimori. Whereas the latter is of Japanese ancestry, the former has indigenous roots; whereas Fujimori could never escape the accusation that his motivations were racist, much of Toledo’s popular support in the 2000 and 2001 presidential elections came as he used his race to shore up the indios vote; whereas the latter was viewed as an elitist partially because of his academic background, the former organized the popularly led March of the Tawantinsuyo (from the Incan language, Quechua) which protested against the Fujimori dictatorship. Aside from these, however, the two men appear quite similar.

Disturbingly, Toledo proclaimed the very type of March he organized in 2000 to be illegal and unconstitutional. Add to this the aforementioned threats against the cocaleros, each fact only further alienates the people he claimed to be simpatico with. For Sanchez, the “…effect of this current anti-Toledo/anti-government syndrome is obviously not encouraging for Peru’s future. The relation between this anti-government feeling and the rise of terrorist movements is quite clear,” (194).

At approximately the same time Peru’s highest court ruled the anti-terrorism legislation unconstitutional the Peruvian and Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR) was established by the post-Fujimori interim government. Their task was to investigate the atrocities committed in the 1980s and 90s by each side. When the report findings were published two years later, in a comprehensive nine-volume study, it left no party spared of blame: writes Jo-Marie Burt, in her article entitled “Plotting Fear: The Uses of Terror in Peru”, “It clearly states that the armed forces engaged in systematic violations of human rights…and it documents the massive abuses by Shining Path against state officials and civilians alike, which amounted to more than half of the cases heard by the CVR,” (35).

Politically, the symbolism should have been fodder for Toledo. It offered him a chance to be the figurehead of both facing the sins of the past and reconciliation. Instead, not only was the report attacked in political circles, and “The political elite seems as myopic as it was in the 1980s, when politicians would debate arcane points even as the country was drowning in economic chaos and political violence,” (36) but it also was virtually ignored by Toledo for “…a full three months after….” (36). When he finally responded to the report, Toledo “…lamented that it was unfair that he had to ‘pay the bills’ for the sins of previous governments,” (36).

As with previous administrations, Toledo’s political astuteness appears lacking. If Toledo were a candidate running for a seat on the local council this deficiency would be rather harmless; as the chief law enforcement official for the country it is all but an actual gathering storm cloud. Then, as it is now, the insurgency problem is looked at as lacking the right military strategy, thus denying what Bard O’Neil writes as a fundamental fact in dealing with an insurgency: that is, an insurgency is essentially a result of a crisis of “political-legitimacy” (19). We need not again go over the missteps and outright ignorance displayed by Toledo except to say, in reference to the previous statement, it is another example of a regime not learning from the past. Unfortunately, it is an all too familiar theme for a country, a continent used to cycles.

Bolivar, Alberto. “Peru.” Combating Terrorism: Strategies of Ten Countries. Ed.
Yonah Alexander. University of Michigan Press. 2002. pp.84-115.

Burt, Jo-Marie. “Plotting Fear: The Uses of Terror in Peru.” NACLA Report on
the Americas. May/Jun2005 (Vol.38, No.6). pp.32-41

Eifert, Benn, Alan Gelb, and Nils Borje Tallroth. “Managing Oil Wealth.” Finance and
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(http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2003/03/eife.htm)

Hudson, Rex. “Terrorist and Organized Crime Groups in the Tri-Border Area (TBA)
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“Marxist intellectuals support arrested FARC leader.” Wikinews.
(http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Marxist_intellectuals_support_arrested_FARC_leader)

O’Neill, Bard. “Insurgency & Terrorism: From Revolution to Apocalypse.” 2nd ed.
Washington, D.C: Potomac Books, Inc. 2005.

Sanchez, W. Alejandro. “The Rebirth of Insurgency in Peru.” Small Wars and
Insurgencies. Autumn 2003 (Vol.14, No.3), pp. 185-198.

“Still Shining After All These Years.” The Economist 30 Oct. 2004: 44.

Zirakzadeh, Cyrus Ernesto. “From Revolutionary Dreams to Organizational
Fragmentation: Disputes over Violence within ETA and Sendero Luminoso.”
Terrorism and Political Violence. Winter 2002 (Vol.14, No.4), pp.66-92. Read more!