HOOVER INSTITUTION WANTS COVER OPERATIONS, NOW MORE THAN EVER!
Covert Operations, Now More Than Ever
Date: Sunday, 7 January 2001, 5:22 p.m.
http://www.worldtribune.com/tout-6.html
HOOVER INSTITUTION, HOOVER DIGEST, 2000 No. 2 Thomas H. Henriksen © 2000
With its increased reliance on high-tech "smart" bombs, Washington seems to
have forgotten a much less costly, more humane, and often more effective form
of warfare—the covert operation.
Lord Acton's famous maxim about the corruptive influence of power is just as
true with regard to "absolute" military force as it is with regard to power
in the domestic political realm. He might even have added that command of
un-matched technological prowess can blind policymakers to lower-profile,
lower-cost ways to achieve their nation's goals. Some security problems can
be solved with a sledgehammer or only with a sledgehammer. But far more
common are those foreign policy challenges that can be solved—or prevented
altogether—by measures short of violent conflict, even where routine
diplomatic instruments prove ineffective.
As the reigning superpower, the United States must not eschew forceful
diplomacy or violence in extremis when its strategic interests are at stake.
But Washington's current over reliance on aerial bombardment as the weapon of
second (if not first) resort diminishes America's prestige, sullies its
espousal of a liberal-democratic new world order, and endangers its strategic
relations with other major powers.
Less-confrontational options can achieve U.S. goals without the harmful side
effects that include a strained Western alliance and strained relations with
China and Russia, not to mention civilian deaths and material destruction.
That less-confrontational option is covert or indirect action abroad, and it
offers today, no less than during the Cold War, an effective alternative to
the unacceptable risks and costs of military operations.
The Yugoslavian bombing campaign and the long series of air strikes against
Iraq raise afresh the issue of how and why America should pursue its foreign
policy agenda. Kosovo made clear, to some observers at least, that the United
States should not wade into middle-sized conflicts in places with
unpronounceable names and little strategic value, no matter what the extent
of human suffering. Americans cannot, after all, make the lions lie down with
the lambs, everywhere and for all time. Other critics concluded that
Washington should have done more sooner in Kosovo, deploying ground troops
and risking casualties in order to win a battle for international moral
conduct.
But the first opinion gives short shrift to the consequences that an
unchecked slaughter in Europe could hold for that continent, whereas the
second appears impractical because the stakes—even in President Clinton's
view—were not worth the political problems that could result from the
shedding of American blood in a distant country for obscure goals. The
ambiguous rationale for involvement resulted in an air campaign and not a
war, a characterization that the Clinton administration scrupulously avoided.
But as it turned out, the relentless air strikes, often against civilian
targets, sapped the moral high ground that Clinton coveted. They failed to
halt Belgrade's atrocities in Kosovo, damaged relations with China and Russia
over a nonstrategic issue, risked NATO's unity, and left Slobodan Milosevic
in power. One is left to wonder whether the necessity of "doing something" to
address a genuine humanitarian and political crisis could have inspired an
earlier, more effective, and less violent response lying between the extremes
of disengagement and war.
To be sure, a reliance on air power reflects our technologically oriented
civilization. High-altitude bombing promises to override historical
complexities. But it ignores the fact that intractable ethnic and political
conflicts are often resistant to technological quick fixes. It is not enough
just to make low-tech regimes in places like Serbia and Iraq "hunker down";
it means ridding them of their predatory leaders. And that requires a
dramatic paradigm shift back to covert action as the policy option of choice.
Such operations have often leveraged the preponderance of U.S. power to
secure outcomes favorable to American aims, and their effectiveness stemmed
in part from the perception in a target country that the United States had
thrown its weight behind one side in a crisis. Direct military intervention
proved unnecessary. Indeed, one might even conclude that direct military
intervention, far from being the way to ensure policy success, is a proof of
policy failure.
Indirect methods rely less on cutting-edge technologies and employment of
force and more on American operatives' mastering local politics,
understanding different cultures, and learning foreign languages. Above all,
they call for political judgment and continuous, anticipatory attention to
the world beyond American shores. Briefly, they seek to strengthen local
opposition forces against an adversarial regime so as to bring about positive
changes in governments.
Despite NATO's ever-intensified bombings of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic
not only pursued his ethnic-cleansing policies during the bombardment but
also clung to power after signing the Balkan military agreement. Other
dictators such as Libya's Muammar Qaddafi and Iraq's Saddam Hussein have also
endured American barrages without capitulating to American demands. Perhaps
it is time to look to other means to deal with "rogues" and criminals who
build weapons of mass destruction or destabilize their neighborhoods.
Measures Short of War
Needless to say, the U.S. government should always take the conventional
diplomatic steps available in order to advance American interests and promote
regional peace and the cause of democracy and human rights when they seem
challenged. But traditional instruments of statecraft—sanctions, presidential
appeals or threats, and American largesse (read bribes)—will not influence
iron-fisted adversaries. The really tough nuts, such as Iraq, Iran, North
Korea, Serbia, and Cuba, will not be cracked by sanctions or modify their
policies because a miffed U.S. State Department has withdrawn its embassy
staff. Economic embargoes are even more problematic since they hurt innocent
victims in the sanctioned states. Even the resort to international tribunals
to try wrongdoers for murderous acts, for instance in Rwanda or the former
Yugoslavia, does not suffice to forestall determined criminals.
That is why the United States since World War II has relied on two indirect
and nonmilitary remedies to undo actual or potential adversaries: robust
public support for reformers in target countries and muscular covert
operations. Aboveboard approaches have entailed financial and technical
assistance to bolster independent media, grassroots political movements,
radio broadcasts beamed into a target country, and exchange programs for
students, academics, journalists, and other professionals. The rationale was
to pry open closed societies such as those of the Soviet bloc.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, U.S. overt assistance was instrumental in
turning out
former communist leaders through elections in Bulgaria, Lithuania, Romania,
and Slovakia. Although these measures are not viewed as covert operations,
they constituted a form of intervention in another state's affairs, at least
from the perspective of the electoral losers. As such, they blur the line
between subversive and reformist ventures. The National Endowment for
Democracy (NED), established in 1983, has promoted democracy in scores of
countries and fills overtly some of the same functions that the Central
Intelligence Agency undertook covertly in earlier decades. But the NED's
reformist strategies will simply invite the early death of democratic
elements in a North Korea, Libya, Iraq, or Syria.
When it becomes necessary to oust a ruthless regime, it means moving along
the operational spectrum from overt to covert methods. Obviously, not all
detestable regimes warrant subversion, and not all the likely alternative
rulers are a clear improvement. President Eisenhower, an enthusiastic
employer of secret interventions, backed away from coup plans against
Egyptian leader Gamal Nasser when he realized that the political conditions
in that country differed greatly from those in Iran, where the CIA had helped
remove Mohammad Mossadegh from power. When President Bush, to take another
example, realized that no attractive prospects existed to stage a coup
against Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega, he opted for a military
invasion. But when a viable alternative to an odious regime does exist, then
covert action combined with good political judgment and professional
execution can yield magnificent results. They are also far cheaper in blood,
treasure, and political capital.
During World War II, the Office of Strategic Services conducted numerous
operations against the Axis, from counterintelligence activity to airdrops of
weapons and explosives for guerrilla bands operating behind enemy lines. Of
course, war gives a wide latitude to covert actions against a belligerent
state, but is a given action less moral when its purpose is to prevent a war
rather than to win one? The question answered itself during the four decades
of the Cold War.
The post-world war era ushered in a unique ideological, military, and
diplomatic rivalry between the two surviving global powers. Except for the
conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, much of the struggle between Moscow and
Washington was conducted beneath the threshold of open combat lest they
provoke a nuclear showdown. Covert "black" operations, then and now, are much
less confrontational than direct military interventions, so the United States
embarked on operations—in places as varied as Iran, the Philippines, and
Chile—to support friends and overthrow leaders that appeared to further
Soviet designs.
None of these American-aided ousters escaped criticism here or abroad as
illustrations of American "imperialism"—but no one can deny their
effectiveness and efficiency. Under the shah, Iran modernized and moved into
the ranks of major players in Middle East politics, while Chile after Allende
gradually became Latin America's beacon of economic growth, political
stability, and (eventually) democratization. Neither Iran nor Chile is cause
for U.S. embarrassment. Indeed, both did much better than a precoup prognosis
would have predicted from their histories.
The Bay of Pigs fiasco began a twenty-year-long reaction against covert
operations. Reagan's successful support of the Afghan mujahideen reignited
the debate. Critics argue that U.S. support of those rebels ultimately
enabled the Muslim fundamentalist Taliban to occupy much of Afghanistan and
play host to Osama bin Laden, the Saudi businessman turned terrorist. But
such a monocausal explanation distorts history to serve political motives.
For centuries, Afghanistan has been a badly fragmented country. The Soviets
relied on local puppets to maintain control in a classic divide-and-rule
scheme, which deepened societal divisions. Reagan's intervention did not
cause the cleavages among Afghanistan's mountainous tribes. It helped them to
unite temporarily against the Soviet occupation, just as they had resisted
British penetration in the previous century.
It is not enough simply to make low-tech regimes in places like Serbia and
Iraq "hunker down." We need to rid them of their predatory leaders.
Still, the blow-back phenomenon is cited as evidence against covert
enterprises: that is, to manipulate foreign countries is to invite
retribution down the road. Perhaps that is so—no one can read the future-but
no covert action could possibly compare with such direct actions as emergency
airlifts to Israel, the Persian Gulf War, and the ongoing U.S. military
presence in Saudi Arabia and the gulf when it comes to provoking
anti-American sentiments in the Middle East. And when compared with the
results of Soviet interventions or Marxist-inspired movements in such places
as Afghanistan,
Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Peru, and Vietnam, the aftereffects
of American covert enterprises look much more praiseworthy. Today, Chile,
Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, for example, have more promising
prospects for progress than ex-Soviet proxies such as North Korea, Vietnam,
Yemen, Somalia, and Cuba.
Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. administrations have relied on
conventional projection of power, sometimes in anemic fashion, sometimes in
heavy-handed fashion, as if aircraft carriers, ground forces, and bomber
squadrons were omnicompetent and irresistible. Never, in peacetime, has the
United States been so bellicose. Meanwhile, the covert option has lain nearly
dormant, and what post-Cold War record it has is mixed, thanks again to poor
judgment and poor execution.
Covert Operations: A Realistic Alternative
Admittedly, the record of achievement of indirect measures is not perfect.
But then, clear-cut U.S. military victories since the Second World War have
been much more scarce. Even the apparent victory in the Persian Gulf is
marred by the enduring presence of Saddam Hussein. Korea, Iraq, Bosnia, and
Kosovo were limited conflicts with limited results, and the war in Vietnam
was an outright American defeat. A number of covert actions, on the other
hand, have had decisive and favorable results and certainly worked far better
than the bombing of Saddam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic or the cruise
missile launches against Sudan or Afghanistan. Covert actions can succeed in
cases where direct intervention might exact great costs in American lives,
funds, and damaged international relations; they can also promote democratic
ideals and economic development without putting American force and prestige
on the line. Critics retort that the record of covert operations has included
bloody tactics, right-wing death squads, and human rights violations. But
their opponents were equally ruthless. It is just that we have romanticized
any revolutionary guerrilla with a gun and a redistributive doctrine. All war
is hell. But is subversive warfare worse than the collateral damage done to
hospitals, schools, and houses by aerial bombardments? America's newfound
reliance on the "immaculate coercion" of dropping bombs from jets flying
three miles over Iraq or Yugoslavia to attain our policy objectives has led
us not only to eschew the deployment of land forces but also to
downplay indirect antiregime ventures.
In the case of Iraq, the Clinton team initially dismissed every anti-Saddam
group as ineffective or antagonistic, rather than working to coordinate their
movements. Likewise, when consideration of assistance to the Kosovo
Liberation Army was publicly aired, opponents called attention to the
divisions within the KLA and contended that helping it would set a precedent
for other ethnic groups bent on separation. B
