Drawing the line on associations in a multipolar world
If you're not careful, you can win a visit from the FBI
This business has always been tricky, particularly around the subject of clearances. I have held, over the years, a Secret, a Top Secret, a Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS-SCI), and the infamous Q (Department of Energy, covering nuclear stuff, like that bureaucratic section in the movie “Oppenheimer”). Had a safe during my years at the Center for Naval Analyses and then at the Naval War College. Wrote a grand total of one secret report very early in my career, and had a few things I wrote retroactively declared sensitive. Never got pinged for any security violation, but generally was nervous about the whole thing because I didn’t really use classified stuff in my work and never found that access particularly useful for anything I did.
To me, a clearance was always a liability, just something that could get you in trouble and for what? The ability to go to the bathroom on your own in certain buildings? Or the “privilege” of sitting through the classified portions (typically highly technical) of a long and boring meeting? Me? I like a nice escort and getting out of class early always appeals.
Did I get visits from the FBI and requests from the CIA after certain activities? Yes. And, in each instance (typically in a Starbucks), I told them everything I knew/did and gladly added my analysis. Standard stuff, and no problem there. They’re on my side and I’m on theirs — hopefully.
Eventually, as the years passed on, I stopped getting those calls and requests for coffee house meetings (the “public setting”) because I timed out. Enough time had gone by since my last clearance (Q) and so I was no longer a person of any interest, which was fine by me.
Honestly, I would have made a terrible spy. I don’t take notes, as a rule. I don’t collect business cards and always forget to give them out. I never remember names and don’t even try. My memory is to remember spaces and faces. It’s just how my brain works.
And yet, it is not hard to get in trouble in this day and age.
I remember seeing Michael Flynn’s story of being at some event with Putin and collecting $40k back in 2015. My immediate response was not, That bastard got what’s coming to him! Frankly, I was impressed by the payday (I have never hit that number but have certainly tried).
Why? Because I was very well paid to spend several days with the senior leadership of Huawei back in 2016, to include some F2F with the famous founder of the company. The event took place at Richard Branson’s luxury castle-like hotel in the desert of Morocco outside Marrakech.
Did I get any cool inside dope? Not really. Was the place crawling with all sorts of respectable players like myself from the US and Europe? Yup. But there was probably a couple or three not-so-respectable types, looking back in retrospect.
Does one bump into these people all the time in this business? Absolutely. I once flew into a thunderhead with Erik Prince at the controls of his personal plane. That doesn’t exactly make me guilty of anything even if he’s done all sorts of wild and sometimes dodgy stuff.
So, where do you draw the line?
I worked for an experimental Chinese defense think tank for three years in the mid 2010s, until they had me write a critical analysis of Xi Jinping’s decision to end presidential term limits. Didn’t pay well at all, but I did some interesting work trying to impart what I thought were important lessons to both the tank and the higher-ups it served in the Party. As a rule, I do not turn down opportunities to influence important players on the rise. That’s kind of my thing.
And yet, would I do that sort of thing today, with either Huawei or the Knowfar Institute? To be honest, I’m not sure, because I think the benefit wouldn’t be worth the hassle. The US is just in a very different place with China now than it was 5-8 years ago, so you measure potential impact against potential hassle.
Have I been called a few names over the years for such associations? Sure. It’s also why I won’t be applying for any clearance ever again — just not worth the effort (which would be vast and probably cost plenty in lawyer money I do not have and would never spend if I did) and I’m fine with that. Again, my work isn’t helped by that and I don’t want to work in that universe, seeing only career danger of the worse sort in this polarized America.
I don’t have any problem with clearances in general, or somebody choosing that career. Hell, I did for a solid two decades and never got a black mark thanks to my OCD tendencies. I just won’t go back to that life and wouldn’t exactly advise others interested in a career similar to mine to prioritize that.
I have written in books about the danger of that inside info mindset and how it can perversely empower you and your worldview in ways that make you a poor analyst unable to see the big picture or view things from the other side’s perspective. There’s just no getting outside of yourself in that world, and that’s the real fear about clearances: their tendency to narrow your strategic reach/comprehension. It’s just like any group setting: you want acceptance and so you go with the flow. Having a clearance is just suffering a very strong flow, and me? I like raising a ruckus intellectually. It’s what I do.
Back in the day (I am going to say pre-2015 with some confidence), when it was still called Russia Today (presently just RT), I went on the Russian network, considering it not all that different from Al Jazeera. It was definitely slanted and I pushed back every time on the nonsense, eventually coming to the conclusion that it wasn’t my job to fix that situation and so I begged off and moved along.
Would I go on RT today? About as likely as going on some of the out-there right-wing networks here in the US. Just too weird and what’s the point? You’re not convincing anybody of anything in those venues. You’re just gaining notoriety.
And yet, it did send a shudder down my spine to read today that the FBI raided the houses of two individuals who clearly are cool with working in Putin’s universe right now — namely, the old UN arms inspector guy Scott Ritter and the longtime Soviet/Russian analyst Dmitri Simes, with whom I interacted years ago in very respectable settings.
Per the NYT:
The Department of Justice has begun a broad criminal investigation into Americans who have worked with Russia’s state television networks, signaling an aggressive effort to combat the Kremlin’s influence operations leading up to the presidential election in November, according to American officials briefed on the inquiry.
This month, F.B.I. agents searched the homes of two prominent figures with connections to Russian state media: Scott Ritter, a former United Nations weapons inspector and critic of American foreign policy, and Dimitri K. Simes, an adviser to former President Donald J. Trump’s first presidential campaign in 2016. Prosecutors have not announced charges against either of the men.
More searches are expected soon, some of the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss investigations. Criminal charges are also possible, they said.
The investigation comes in the wake of the Biden administration’s official intelligence findings that Russia’s state news organizations, including the global news channel RT, are working with its intelligence agencies to sway elections around the world.
I have professionally known and even worked for/with people who later got in trouble with the US Government — quite a few actually, to include advising Rudy Giuliani on his 2008 presidential campaign (just on foreign policy) and having a former boss questioned by the Mueller Investigation.
Is it at times jaw dropping to think back and realize how much our paths crossed and then later diverged? Sure.
But that’s also the nature of this business, which is full of active and maybe-retired spooks (intel types). The weird part is individuals being seemingly solid and fine for years and then … after some time … being accused of all sorts of stuff.
Back in February, I went to India for a global business summit and come this close to shaking hands with Modi on camera. Cool beans, right? Unless you fast-forward some period and he’s now relabeled by the US and what the hell were you doing there? Whom did you meet? What did they say? Were you approached?
That last bit is the trickiest: you go to some event and you’re being approached by all sorts of people, so which question fielded constitutes being “approached”? Frankly, I just don’t pay enough attention to that stuff to answer that question with any sort of confidence.
I once became friendly with the head of the Turkish Navy. Rode on his barge up and down the Bosphorus. I was there speaking on behalf of European Command/NATO. Later this admiral is accused of a coup attempt by Erdogan and is sentenced to life.
What does that have to do with me? Nothing. It’s just one of those things in this business.
You can draw lines all you want, but larger forces and players can later move those lines with impunity and suddenly your past behavior seems on the wrong side.
You can choose to cross those lines and boldly go where no analyst has gone before … and, under the right circumstances, you can find your home being raided by the authorities.
Did Ritter and Simes deserve this? They were definitely out there, alright, so not exactly a shocker, and yet, it shocks me alright.
Am I worried about anything I’ve done? No. I have always been an open book — on purpose. You can’t be accused of lying if you gladly share everything.
But it does grab one’s attention, right?
This is the price of doing this business in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous multipolar world. My work attracts the attention of rising powers, as a rule. Rising powers … are always subject to interpretation and re-interpretation.
So yeah, I try to stay on my toes and out of coffee houses.
