Foreign Policy 2019 02 Spring

SPRING 2019 THE FUTURE OF ESPIONAGE



Solutions for Mission Success: New Approaches to Weapon Systems Cybersecurity A FOREIGN POLICY DEFENSE & NATIONAL SECURITY ROUNDTABLE SSPPEECCIAILARLERPOERPTORT TECHNICAL PARTNER March 21, 2019 True cybersecurity in weapon systems requires THE IMPORTANCE OF A MISSION FOCUS new ways of thinking, ranging from looking at 6HYHUDOURXQGWDEOHSDUWLFLSDQWVVXJJHVWHGWKDWWKH cybersecurity through a mission lens, to using a key to cybersecurity is treating it as a function of common language, to building a pipeline of cyber operational and mission readiness. The true test, talent and expertise. Those were just a few of the they said, is not whether particular weapon systems important insights that emerged at the recent or platforms are cyber secure, but rather whether roundtable on cybersecurity for weapon systems, WKHPLVVLRQLWVHOIñERWKGHIHQVLYHO\\DQGRƪHQVLYHO\\ convened by Foreign Policy in partnership with Booz ñFDQEHFDUULHGRXWLQWKHIDFHRIDGHELOLWDWLQJ Allen Hamilton. cyberattack. Getting such a clear mission focus isn’t DOZD\\VHDV\\ñEXWLWôVFULWLFDOWRPDNLQJWKHULJKW Participants in the roundtable included senior decisions about cybersecurity funding and priorities, OHDGHUVLQWKH2ƭFHRIWKH6HFUHWDU\\RI'HIHQVH several participants said. 26'UHSUHVHQWDWLYHVRIWKH-RLQW6WDƪWKH 6HUYLFHVWKH86&\\EHU&RPPDQGDQGDIHGHUDOO\\ “I think the challenge is recognizing that networks IXQGHGUHVHDUFKDQGGHYHORSPHQWFHQWHU))5'& DUHZDUƫJKWLQJSODWIRUPV÷VDLGRQHSDUWLFLSDQW as well as senior leaders from Booz Allen. “And until we more broadly take ownership of WKHIDFWWKDWWKLVLVKRZZHƫJKWñE\\VKDULQJ As roundtable participants noted, what makes GDWDñZHôUHJRLQJWREHFKDOOHQJHG÷6DLGDQRWKHU PRGHUQ86PLOLWDU\\ZHDSRQVVROHWKDOñ SDUWLFLSDQWö7KLVLVDZDUƫJKWLQJLVVXHDQGZHôUH DXWRPDWLRQDQGFRQQHFWLYLW\\ñLVSUHFLVHO\\ZKDW QRWWUHDWLQJLWOLNHDZDUƫJKWLQJLVVXH÷ makes them more vulnerable to cyberattacks. Balancing that potency and vulnerability, they said, Another key aspect of mission focus is the issue of FDQEHGLƭFXOW0DQ\\ZHDSRQV\\VWHPVIXQFWLRQV legacy systems. As several participants noted, the are carried out by complex systems comprised of vast majority of the current weapon systems are control systems and embedded IT. And because OHJDF\\UDWKHUWKDQLQGHYHORSPHQWñDQG\\HWWKHUHôV WKRVHV\\VWHPVUHO\\RQGLƪHUHQWDUFKLWHFWXUHV not nearly enough funding to address all of their interfaces and protocols than do traditional IT, it vulnerabilities. Thinking about those vulnerabilities can be particularly challenging to protect them, from a mission standpoint, several participants and achieve cyber resilience, with conventional suggested, can help organizations determine which cybersecurity tools and approaches. are most critical. That approach, they said, can guide Page 1

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contents 034 EIKO OJALA/SAUL LOEB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES features 040 The Trump Doctrine THE FUTURE OF ESPIONAGE An insider explains the president’s foreign policy. by Michael Anton 020 The Spycraft Revolution 048 How to Win Changes in technology, politics, and business are all transforming espionage. Intelligence agencies must adapt— America’s Next War or risk irrelevance. by Edward Lucas The United States faces great-power enemies. 028 The Manufacturer’s Dilemma It needs a military focused on fighting them. by Elbridge Colby To secure itself, the West needs to figure out where all its gadgets are coming from. Here’s why that’s so difficult. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 3 by Elisabeth Braw 032 The Oldest Game The very long past of industrial espionage. by Mara Hvistendahl 034 The Spies Who Came in From the Continent How Brexit could spell the end of Britain’s famed advantage in intelligence. by Calder Walton Cover illustration by DELCAN COMPANY

contents insights reviews 009 How to Win the Rat Race 062 What if Israel Threw a One Canadian province has virtually eliminated its vermin— Eurovision Party and Nobody Came? and shows how others can too. by James Palmer A glitz and glam song competition turns political. 012 The Case Against Frugal Innovation by Joshua Mitnick Jugaad once symbolized India’s potential—but the endless 065 Arms and the Woman shortcuts are now holding the country back. by Ravi Agrawal A group of new books explores women’s experience arguments in war. by Teresa Fazio 014 Catching China by the Belt (and Road) 068 Books in Brief How Washington can beat Beijing’s global influence campaign. Recent releases on Richard Holbrooke, America’s by Ethan B. Kapstein and Jacob N. Shapiro hidden empire, and the Chernobyl disaster. 017 Spooks in the Kremlin 084 Unbreakable The dangers of Putin’s unhealthy reliance on Russian The hidden history of the Soviets’ impenetrable intelligence. by Mark Galeotti espionage machine. By Anna Borshchevskaya “Fletcher’s GMAP is the program for mid-careers on the cusp of leadership roles and who cannot leave their jobs. It helps connect the dots between global affairs and public policy.” – Mohamad Al-Arief, GMAP 2018 Special Advisor Ministry of Finance, Indonesia fletcher.tufts.edu/GMAP Global Master of Arts Program (GMAP) fl[email protected] +1.617.627.2429 • A one-year master’s degree in international relations without career interruption CLASSES START • A diverse cohort of mid- and senior-level professionals working around the globe in the public, JULY 29, 2019 AND private, and non-profit sectors JANUARY 6, 2020 • A hybrid program structure of 3 two-week residencies + 33 weeks of internet-mediated learning • A professional network of 9000+ Fletcher alumni (of which 1000+ are GMAPers) in the fields of diplomacy, law, journalism, development, security, technology, energy, and finance 4 SPRING 2019

Michael Anton served from February 2017 to contributors April 2018 as U.S. President Donald Trump’s deputy national security advisor for strategic Teresa Fazio writes for the New York Times communications. He worked previously in and Rolling Stone, among other outlets. the George W. Bush administration and for She is a Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. grantee and a former officer in the U.S. Marine He is the pseudonymous author of The Suit: Corps. She holds a bachelor’s in physics from A Machiavellian Approach to Men’s Style. the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a doctorate in materials science from Columbia Elisabeth Braw directs the Royal United University, and a master’s in nonfiction from Services Institute’s modern deterrence the Bennington Writing Seminars. program, which focuses on defense against emerging forms of warfare. She contributes Mara Hvistendahl is writing a book on regularly to the Wall Street Journal, the industrial espionage, China, and the FBI, Financial Times, and the Frankfurter which will be published in 2020. Her most Allgemeine Zeitung. She was previously a recent book, Unnatural Selection: Choosing visiting fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of Study of Journalism at Oxford University. a World Full of Men, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Elbridge Colby is the director of the defense Prize. Her writing has been published in the program at the Center for a New American Atlantic, Popular Science, Scientific American, Security. From May 2017 to July 2018, he the New York Times, and Wired. served as the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development— Edward Lucas is an author and consultant former Defense Secretary James Mattis’s specializing in trans-Atlantic security. Formerly lead official working on the National Defense a senior editor at the Economist, he is now a Strategy. columnist for the London Times. He is also a senior vice president at the Center for European Policy Analysis. He is the author, most recently, of Spycraft Rebooted: How Technology Is Changing Espionage. 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from the editor in chief WHILE IT’S NOT QUITE TRUE that espionage has always difficult. To protect ourselves, she argues, countries CASSIDY DUHON been dominated by the professionals—the dozen spies and companies need to localize their industries as Moses sent into Canaan (as told in Numbers 13) were much as possible while doing military-style contin- definitely amateurs, as were Nathan Hale and Mata gency planning to prepare for the worst. Hari—it’s certainly been the case since World War II. But that’s now changing. In the last decade or two, Calder Walton and Mark Galeotti of the Harvard the expert nature of spycraft, like so many other parts Kennedy School and University College London, of the field, has started to shift. Thanks to a bewil- respectively, both discuss the geopolitical issues that dering mix of economic, social, political, and, most are transforming espionage or will be transformed by of all, technological changes, we have all become it. In “The Spies Who Came in From the Continent” potential spooks—and targets. Just consider what (Page 34), Walton describes what Brexit may do to a key those immensely powerful and heavily encrypted advantage that has long helped Britain punch above little computers we all carry around in our pockets its strategic weight: the competence of its famed intel- are up to. Together with the advent of superfast 5G ligence services. Once cut off from Europe, Walton communications and the internet of things, smart- warns, these agencies could find themselves greatly phones make it increasingly difficult to know what’s diminished—and could lose their closest and most happening to our and others’ data. Now take that indi- powerful partner, the United States. In “Spooks in vidual problem and imagine it on a national scale. the Kremlin” (Page 17), meanwhile, Galeotti describes What will all those challenges mean for the future of President Vladimir Putin’s unhealthy but increasing espionage and the security of countries, companies, reliance on his country’s top spies and explains how and people? These are some of the questions we’ve dangerous that trend is for Russia and the world. sought to explore in FOREIGN POLICY’s spring issue. Outside our espionage package, two other essays In “The Spycraft Revolution” (Page 20), Edward focus on geopolitics and so are worth mentioning Lucas, a scholar at the Center for European Policy here. In “How to Win America’s Next War” (Page 48), Analysis, charts these and other winds now buffet- Elbridge Colby, a former U.S. deputy assistant secre- ing the world’s second-oldest profession and argues tary of defense, describes how the U.S. military must that, to stay relevant, the West’s intelligence agen- be reshaped to fight Russia and today’s other great cies need to rapidly adapt, in part by embracing the power, China, instead of the counterterrorist campaigns commercialization of their field. that have preoccupied it for almost two decades. And finally, in “The Trump Doctrine” (Page 40), Michael Elisabeth Braw of the Royal United Services Insti- Anton—a former deputy assistant to the U.S. president tute also focuses on commerce—specifically how and for strategic communications—explains the origins where the technology that governments, companies, and implications of the administration’s foreign policy. and individuals rely on so heavily is made. As Braw shows in “The Manufacturer’s Dilemma” (Page 28), Jonathan Tepperman global supply chains have become so complicated, and now depend on so many different subcontractors scattered around the world—any of which could insert spy- or malware into critical devices—that securing civilian and government tech has become dauntingly 6 SPRING 2019

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2019 EU-FP Defense Forum The Future of the Transatlantic Security Partnership SAVE THE DATE: JUNE 6, 2019 The 2019 EU-FP Defense Forum is presented in partnership between Foreign Policy and the European Union. On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of D-Day and against the backdrop of evolving dynamics shaping EU-U.S. relations, this event KEY THEMES: will convene a OFundamentals of timely and critical Transatlantic relations conversation about OU.S., EU and NATO the future of the cooperation transatlantic security OEuropean defense initiatives alliance. and capacity-building OAI, algorithmic warfare, Through a mix of cybersecurity dynamic sessions, LEARN MORE fireside chats and engaging discussions, Contact Susan Sadigova at (202) 390-5859 the Forum will bring together some of the or [email protected]. foremost leaders across the American and European defense and security community exploring ways to foster continued cooperation around common objectives and priorities.

PROVINCIAL ARCHIVES OF ALBERTA, A17202B insights How to Win the Rat Race One Canadian province has virtually eliminated its vermin—and shows how others can too. By James Palmer FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 9

insights ALONG AN 18 MILE STRIP OF LAND between the Canadian province THE FIX to do, in order to fight the battle suc- of Alberta and its neighbor Saskatchewan, the rat patrol cessfully,” a 1954 booklet sternly warns. keeps guard. An eight-person team, armed with poison and PROVEN Mass chemical warfare cleansed the shotguns, hunts daily for any sign of the rodent invaders. SOLUTIONS borderlands, with some 63,000 kilo- grams of arsenic powder blown across The Alberta rat patrol checks more than 3,000 farms a year, TO THE thousands of buildings. but it rarely sees an actual rat. Alberta has 4.3 million peo- WORLD’S ple, 255,000 square miles, and no rats—bar the stray hand- BIGGEST After 1959, the volume of annual infes- ful that make it into the killing zone each year. Ever since PROBLEMS tations was dramatically reduced, down 1950, a sternly enforced program of exclusion and extermi- from 500-600 a year to fewer than 200 nation has kept the province rat-free. Nowhere else in the by 1980; today, it’s a handful annually. CALGARY HERALD world comes close; the only other rat-free areas are isolated (A 2012 infestation in the Medicine Hat islands such as the remote British territory of South Georgia. landfill was a record-setter, with nearly 150 rats eventually rooted out.) The pro- Public support and education have been key to Alber- paganda didn’t let up: “The only good ta’s success. Locals use hotlines (310-RATS or 310-FARM) rat is a dead rat,” reads a 1975 poster. to report any sign of rodents, though false alarms are com- Today, the provincial government mon. School programs educate kids about the telltale signs focuses mostly on stories placed reg- of the invaders. Keeping pet rats is banned and can earn you ularly in the Canadian media covering a fine of almost $4,000. the success of the program, instead of the sneakiness of the rodent. Rat control Across the world every year, mice and rats are estimated to has become institutionalized, not only cause nearly $20 billion in damage and wipe out as much as a through regular inspections but through fifth of the world’s food supply. They’re not just enthusiastic a public proud of Alberta’s rat-free status gnawers. They’re also prolific urinators, and rat pee frequently and keen on maintaining it. The whole contaminates goods. Rats are thought to have spread the Black program currently costs just about Death in the Middle Ages, as they do other viruses today. $380,000 a year—most of the money is Rats arrived in Canada in the 18th century, but geographical isolation kept the invaders from reaching Alberta for a solid two centuries, until the first signs of the rodents started to appear along the border with Saskatchewan after the end of World War II. That’s when Alberta’s anti-rat agenda was born. It wasn’t the first program of its kind: Public involvement in pest control boomed in the 20th century with the spread of disease theory and the motivational push of wartime. In Vietnam, for example, the creation of the Hanoi sewer sys- tem at the turn of the 20th century saw a boom in rat numbers; in response, in 1902 the French colonial government began paying a bounty for their carcasses—that is, until it realized locals were breeding them to cash in on the reward. In Wash- ington, D.C., meanwhile, a 1917 program attempted to wipe out feral cats, with the enthusiastic backing of the local Cat Fanciers’ Association. “They saw alley cats as a threat to their precious kittens,” said Hayden Wetzel, a local historian. “It was wartime, so the slogan was ‘Kill a Cat for Your Country.’” Canadians may not have been as enterprising as the Viet- namese or as bloodily patriotic as the Americans, but they have been far more successful. The brown rat (Rattus nor- vegicus) thrives only among human settlements, so farms and towns became the battlefields for the fight against inva- sion in Alberta. World War II propaganda set the tone for the province’s early campaign, during which 2,000 posters were distributed across the border region. “Rats are coming!” cau- tions one grayscale poster. “You can’t ignore the rat!” reads another. “We need to be properly organized and know what 10 SPRING 2019

LEFT: One of the rat control officers genetic modification to permanently who patrolled Alberta’s border with Saskatchewan in 1986. alter breeding habits. FIRST PAGE AND BELOW: Alberta government rat posters from 1948 and 1996. Part of the work, said the conservation much of the country rat-free as possi- biologist James Russell, a key mover in ble, especially its isolated islands that preserve taonga (“treasures” in Maori), the program, must focus on public edu- unique flora and fauna such as the kiwi and the kakapo parrot. But rats are mas- cation and support. Drawing on models ter swimmers and hiders; one test sub- ject, Razza the rat, evaded capture for such as the Alberta strategy has helped more than four months, becoming the unlikely hero of a children’s book. All create an informed and engaged pub- it takes to defeat a mass extermination campaign is a single pregnant survivor. lic, with more than 1,000 volunteer That’s why the government has given groups involved in wildlife protection. up on half-measures; instead, a hugely ambitious program launched in 2016, In Canada, the program built on wartime Predator Free New Zealand, envisages wiping out not only rats but stoats and language, engaging a public that was possums by 2050. It’s an expensive effort. The pilot scheme—conducted on already eager to come together to fight two inhabited islands, covering almost 15 square miles—cost about $3 million. an alien menace and focusing on the The plan is to assault the rats (and other invasive predators) on all fronts, using danger to human civilization and indus- drones to blitz them from above and map their locations, customized poi- try. In New Zealand, it instead draws on sons and traps on the ground, and per- haps (although it’s highly controversial) the love of local wildlife and the natu- ral world. “New Zealanders are in touch with nature,” Russell said, “and they play a huge role in protection efforts— they’re often the first to report new rat sightings to the hotlines.” Climate change is giving a new urgency to the project. A record-hot summer created the breeding condi- tions for a rat explosion. Hotter tem- spent on exterminators’ salaries—but peratures let rats survive the winter saves Alberta’s farmers millions. better, Russell said, and to reach Across the Pacific, another former colonial outpost is struggling with Euro- higher densities in the summer, push- pean invaders, at far greater cost. Alber- ta’s success might be imitable, but other ing greater numbers into areas such as countries lack the geographical advan- tages that confine the rat to a narrow southern New Zealand, where the threat access corridor. New Zealand has had a rodent problem ever since the Maori was once relatively low. brought the kiore, or Polynesian rat, with them in canoes in the 13th century. But Beyond rats, a hotter world is making the first R. norvegicus—far larger and meaner than its Polynesian cousin— the threat of invaders greater across the crawled off a ship in the 1770s and dis- covered a land of plenty. To the rat, the board. As climate shifts, threatening flora eggs of New Zealand’s bird life, which had never adapted to murine pred- and fauna are moving with it, even into ators, offered an all-you-can-eat buf- fet. Rats and other nonnative species, once inaccessible areas. In the United such as possums and stoats, slaughter approximately 25 million birds a year. Kingdom, a degree or two of warming The slaughter, plus rats’ usual damage to crops, cost the economy $2.3 billion could create a welcome home for the annually, according to the government. ecology-wrecking Argentine ant. Aus- New Zealand has battled to keep as tralia’s already stressed native species, including pygmy possums and wombats, are especially vulnerable to invaders such as foxes. Other governments are already experimenting with apps and hotlines to report invasive species. But as the planet warms, the need for far more extensive programs of education and eradication like Alberta’s will only grow. Q JAMES PALMER (@BeijingPalmer) is a senior editor at FOREIGN POLICY. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 11

insights The Case Against Frugal Innovation what I had just seen: jugaad. It’s a Hindi Jugaad once symbolized India’s potential, word—pronounced jew-GAAR—that but the endless shortcuts are now holding means to procure, but its usage had the country back. By Ravi Agrawal evolved by then to connote a “hack” or quick fix. One source for the evolving WHEN I WAS A CHILD GROWING UP IN KOLKATA, I could count on DECODER usage of this term was northern India, one hand the different types of cars chugging around the where farmers had taken to building city’s streets. Each of the brands was made in India. In those INTERPRETING makeshift trucks that were powered by years, which preceded the country’s 1991 economic reforms, THE ESSENTIAL agricultural water pump engines. These global companies were still cut off from India’s then-nascent, bits-and-pieces contraptions came to be protectionist economy. It was with some wonder, then, that WORDS known as jugaads. Other examples pro- I noticed what looked like a Mercedes-Benz sedan pull up by THAT HELP liferated across the country. There was my school one day. But this was no luxury German car. On EXPLAIN THE the television antenna created out of closer inspection, the strange vehicle was in fact the most metal clothes hangers; the electric iron common Indian sedan of the time but with an unusually sleek WORLD that flipped over to become a stove; the and elongated hood welded on and painted over to match discarded plastic bottle, cross-sectioned the rest of the car’s body. As a finishing touch, atop the hood and transformed into a pair of sandals; sat the famous three-point Mercedes star. the bucket with tiny holes that, when hung up high, turned into a shower. The I didn’t know it then, but there was a word to describe concept of jugaad represented a way for low-income Indians to access mod- ern conveniences on the cheap. And while there’s no better term to explain 12 SPRING 2019 Illustration by SHAIVALINI KUMAR and MEROO SETH

the inventiveness of the Indian psy- In February 2016, for example, the Frequent policy changes are another che, it also represents a mentality that Indian government held its much-publi- now threatens to hold back the world’s cized Make in India summit in Mumbai, cause for wavering confidence in India. fastest-growing large economy. the country’s financial capital. As often happens in India, construction for the In 2016, after decades of protectionism As the decades passed and India’s venues was delayed. But workers and markets gradually opened up, the idea officials were adamant that they would in the retail industry, New Delhi began of jugaad began to evolve still further: get the work done: They had jugaad, It became a point of pride for Indians after all. Sure enough, just in the nick to allow foreign e-commerce platforms of all income levels. As cellular phones of time, the construction was indeed became common in the 2000s but usage completed. But one venue, the site of a to operate online marketplaces—and rates remained expensive, Indians cultural event at the city’s Chowpatty adopted a phenomenon known as the Beach, caught fire in the middle of a sell products through local affiliates— “missed call”: You would call a friend, dance performance, and 25,000 attend- and then before that person picked up ees had to run for their lives. Fire hazard so long as these platforms didn’t sell and incurred a cost, you would hang protocols had been abandoned in the up. That person would see that you rush to deliver a Make in India venue. directly to consumers. (It would have had called and would call you back on “Shame in India,” declared the next a landline—all for free. This was clas- morning’s cover of the Mumbai Mirror. been unpopular to completely open sic jugaad, an inexpensive way to com- municate, a clever little tech hack. (The Later that year, in November, there up the online retail sector, so the move missed call went on to become a staple was another public example of the of business communications as well: jugaad psyche gone awry. Prime Min- was seen as a jugaad-style hack for big Calling and hanging up on your bank, ister Narendra Modi, in an emer- for example, would prompt it to text you gency prime-time television address, U.S. companies to operate in India.) As your latest billing statement for free.) announced what came to be known as demonetization: a sudden nationwide a result, Amazon made investments in Observers in the West watched these recall of all 500 and 1,000 rupee bills, developments closely. McKinsey con- representing 86 percent of the total cash wholesale distributors and structured sultants began to cite India’s frugal in the financial system. The aim, Modi innovation as a new model for mul- said at the time, was to crack down on its supply chains around connecting tinational conglomerates. The U.S. corrupt businesspeople who had evaded chain Best Buy began holding inter- taxes and stashed away vast amounts them to customers. And in 2018, eager nal jugaad workshops in a bid to gen- of paper money. The move—widely erate more sales per store. Books on the denounced by economists—was pre- to compete in a new frontier, Walmart subject flooded Western markets: One sented as a clever monetary hack: Tax popular example, published in 2012, evaders would either be forced to aban- invested $16 billion in Flipkart—a local was titled Jugaad Innovation: Think don their cash or get caught trying to Frugal, Be Flexible, Generate Break- turn it in for new currency notes. But rival to Amazon—to gain a foothold through Growth. Management gurus, this jugaad was too good to be true. Not media pundits, and foreign correspon- only did a sudden shortage of cash bring in one of the world’s fastest-growing dents began to proclaim that the power immense pain and uncertainty to daily of jugaad thinking would enable India wage laborers across the country, but it online retail markets. But the party to become a world-class economy. also slowed down India’s GDP growth by as much as 2 percentage points, came to a halt last December, when If only. As India has gotten richer— according to a recent paper by the U.S. per capita income has grown nearly National Bureau of Economic Research. New Delhi suddenly announced new 400 percent since 1990, according to And tax evaders mostly thrived: The the World Bank—the appeal of cheap government got a taste of its own jugaad e-commerce rules closing the 2016 hacks is diminishing. And while there medicine as India’s rich found creative will always be examples of good and bad ways to launder their money, includ- loophole: Foreign companies such as jugaad, one can argue that putting frugal ing by paying employees’ salaries in innovation and workarounds on a ped- advance cash payments. Amazon and Walmart could no lon- estal will hold modern India back more than it advances the national interest. ger sell products through their local affiliates and would instead have to become pure online marketplaces like eBay. Supply chain analysts estimate the changes could wipe out nearly a third of Amazon’s projected $6 billion in Indian sales this year. The Western hackers had gotten hacked. Jugaad seemed charming in the 1990s and 2000s. But it’s now time to move on, and one reason why is that half of India’s population was born after 1991; most Indians have grown up under more favorable circumstances than their par- ents and don’t want to make do with quick fixes. For India to become a devel- oped economy, it now needs to avoid homegrown hacks and focus on doing what has worked for other rich nations: making proper long-term investments in research, development, infrastruc- ture, regulations, and training. Q RAVI AGRAWAL (@RaviReports) is the managing editor at FOREIGN POLICY. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 13

Catching China by the Belt (and Road) How Washington can beat Beijing’s global influence campaign. By Ethan B. Kapstein and Jacob N. Shapiro WILL THE DEVELOPING WORLD FALL UNDER CHINA’S SWAY? Many The new institution should allow the policymakers in Washington certainly fear so, which is one United States to better align its commer- of the reasons they have created the new International Devel- cial and development goals with its for- opment Finance Corp. (IDFC), which is slated to begin oper- eign policy in the developing world. But ating at the end of this year. Like the Marshall Plan, which in the IDFC will start at a significant disad- the post-World War II years used generous economic aid to vantage: relative poverty. Whereas the fight the appeal of Soviet communism in Western Europe, new IDFC will have about $60 billion the IDFC aims to help Washington push back against Bei- in capital, the Belt and Road Initiative jing’s sweeping Belt and Road Initiative. is a $1 trillion effort. By some estimates, 14 SPRING 2019

Chinese workers construct a shopping mall at a retail and office complex, part of a Chinese-backed building boom in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in November 2018. PAULA BRONSTEIN/GETTY IMAGES Pakistan alone has already received Beijing cannot rely on homegrown sup- not formally constitute foreign aid, Bei- more cash commitments from China ply and demand to solve its current and jing often violates the spirit of that prin- than the value of the entire IDFC budget. future economic problems. The Belt and ciple by mandating that infrastructure Road Initiative represents an attempt to projects use Chinese contractors. This shortfall raises the question of use China’s enormous financial reserves what else the United States should do to create new markets for Chinese Washington should leverage these if it’s serious about countering Chinese goods, services, and unskilled labor. and other established norms of inter- influence. The answer is to use a ver- That’s why the use of Chinese labor national development to isolate Beijing. sion of what some economists call the to build Belt and Road infrastructure China and the OECD’s Development “judo strategy”—a method small firms is so often part of the deal. Recipients Assistance Committee, for example, deploy to compete against larger com- of Chinese investments are effectively have formed a study group that gives panies. Judo strategies tend to involve financing Beijing’s efforts to manage China the ability to claim it is adopting turning what is supposedly a compet- its internal economic problems. Under- best practices in foreign assistance. If itor’s key asset—in this case, its size— stood this way, the Belt and Road Ini- China continues to neglect such prac- against it. For example, smaller retail tiative reveals Chinese weakness rather tices, then the United States, which is firms can outcompete bigger chains than strength. And that’s why a judo the largest contributor to the OECD, bogged down by costly bricks-and-mor- strategy could be so effective. should urge it to disband that group— tar infrastructure by selling things more in a very public fashion. Washington cheaply online. Or they can offer a per- The United States should start by should also pressure the heads of the sonalized consumer experience that using existing international norms— World Bank and IMF—two organiza- eludes firms operating at a larger scale. set by multilateral institutions such tions that depend on its support—to as the World Bank, the International highlight Beijing’s lending activities When it comes to U.S.-China com- Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Organi- much more vigorously than they have petition, a successful U.S. judo strategy zation for Economic Cooperation and done to date. should consist of three building blocks. Development (OECD)—to constrain Chi- First, Washington should leverage the na’s predatory lending practices and A second part of Washington’s judo fact that China is violating well-estab- the political leverage they bring. For strategy should be to highlight corrupt lished international norms with its lend- example, the OECD has long-established Belt and Road payments. Beijing has ing policies. Second, the United States norms against the use of tied aid—funds shown no scruples about using corrupt should draw attention to the corrup- that require recipients to use that for- practices abroad to further its economic tion underlying the Belt and Road Ini- eign aid to purchase goods and services and foreign-policy agendas. A January tiative. And third, U.S. officials should from the donor. Tied aid is frowned on 2019 investigation by the Wall Street creatively use IDFC resources to liber- because it forces recipient countries to Journal, for example, revealed how the ate countries that find themselves in spend their money inefficiently. And Chinese offered to bail out a troubled Beijing’s financial clutches. even if Belt and Road funding—which Malaysian investment fund in return for primarily takes the form of loans—does infrastructure projects that would give Before attempting to compete with their firms “above market profitability.” China, however, the United States Recipients of Chinese More generally, many Belt and Road should study Beijing’s objectives— investments are partners, including Kazakhstan and which are often misunderstood. The effectively financing Laos, suffer from endemic corruption. Belt and Road Initiative is as much a Beijing’s efforts to domestic initiative meant to address manage its internal So how should the United States structural weaknesses in the Chinese economic problems. respond? The IDFC could try to target economy as it is a grand foreign-policy local elites with financial inducements, strategy. Given a combination of poor but that’s a risky gambit; the United demographics, growing international States should never be in the position of hostility to its trade policies, and the trying to out-bribe an adversary. Doing specter of weakening domestic demand, so is ethically reprehensible, and in a FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 15

arguments society as transparent as America’s, the against China on its own. This is where THE media would undoubtedly expose the the United States can step in by using FUTURE story, causing potentially irreparable the IDFC to help renegotiate agree- harm to the IDFC’s reputation. Even ments, either on behalf of the debtor OF if this weren’t a danger, Beijing is also country or by buying up and then refi- ESPIONAGE probably much better than Washing- nancing the debt with longer repayment ton at using corruption effectively; it terms—something made possible by the has the recent experience. depth and breadth of the West’s finan- cial markets. A model here is provided Fortunately, there is another option. by what the international community Corruption is rarely popular among did with Latin American debt during citizens whose long-term economic the 1980s. Led by the United States, it health is being sacrificed to enrich cor- created new financial instruments such rupt officials. By relentlessly publiciz- as “Brady bonds” (named after former ing corrupt practices when they come U.S. Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady) to light, Washington can make such to restructure the massive debt, reduc- practices difficult for both Beijing and ing the payment burdens that countries the recipient government to get away such as Brazil faced. with. If China’s generosity is seen to come with the risk of political ruin, The IDFC should also take advantage beneficiaries will start thinking twice of the fact that no other economy can before accepting its largesse. match the scale and inventiveness of U.S. financial markets. It should begin Shining a harsh spotlight on those working with the U.S. financial industry who profit from Beijing’s bribery is to figure out what would be needed to cheap, especially compared with com- create a refinancing facility that would promising U.S. principles. It also draws be attractive to both Western lenders on a long tradition in U.S. foreign policy. and debtor countries. It should also use One of the keys to Washington’s success its capital to support early repayment after World War II was its investment of loans for sustainable projects already in elaborating international norms and funded under the Belt and Road Initia- standards that advanced its interests tive. In these ways, the IDFC can help along with everyone else’s. And while loosen Beijing’s grip on its partners. the Trump administration has largely eschewed multilateral norms as the In confronting China’s Belt and Road basis for its America First foreign pol- project, the United States begins with icy, it’s time for Washington to recog- several disadvantages: Washington nize that these norms—which were lacks Beijing’s appetite to spend money, largely created by the United States— as well as its ruthlessness in transac- serve the national interest. tions. To add to that, the U.S. private sector does not have a compelling inter- The final aspect of a judo strategy est in deploying large sums of capital in relies on U.S. financial markets, which the developing world given investment can be exploited to release target coun- opportunities elsewhere. Taking these tries from the onerous lending terms factors into account, the United States that China imposes on loan recipients. needs to deploy a judo strategy—and in Already, several countries, including so doing, it can upend China’s effort to Pakistan and the Maldives, are balking throw its economic weight around. Q at the loan repayment schedules China has set, and no one has overlooked the ETHAN B. KAPSTEIN AND JACOB N. SHAPIRO fact that in December 2017 Sri Lanka had to surrender a major port to Beijing are the directors of the Empirical Stud- as compensation for its nonpayment ies of Conflict Project at Princeton Uni- on outstanding loans. Yet no single versity. Kapstein is also a professor at debtor country can realistically face off Arizona State University. 16 SPRING 2019

Spooks in the Kremlin President’s Daily Brief keeps criti- The dangers of Putin’s unhealthy reliance cal intelligence flowing into the Oval on Russian intelligence. By Mark Galeotti Office. There are, however, several distinctive aspects to the Russian pro- DMITRY KOSTYUKOV/AFP/GETTY IMAGES cess. Together, they suggest that Putin’s government is transforming from an autocracy into a form of government one might call a spookocracy, a govern- ment ruled by spies. The implications are worrying for Russia—and the world. Much is made of Putin’s early career in the KGB—the Soviet-era security agency—and his later 13-month stint, in 1998 and 1999, as director of the FSB. By all accounts, however, Putin was a mediocre field officer and an unmem- orable director. In his 16 years in the KGB, his main posting was to East Ger- many, where he largely whiled away the hours compiling reports and collect- ing press cuttings for others to study; he undertook no missions in the West, received no awards, and had no com- mand responsibility. Putin spent the immediate years fol- lowing the collapse of the Soviet Union largely working in the St. Petersburg city government, where he rose to become deputy mayor. After a seven-year hiatus from the intelligence world—a world through which he had failed to work his way up—he was appointed to run the FSB for essentially political reasons: President Boris Yeltsin wanted someone who he thought would be loyal, reliable, and willing to cover up his bosses’ mis- deeds and peccadilloes. Those motiva- tions were apparent to the FSB’s career staff; according to a former senior figure within the service, Putin “didn’t know the people around him or how the ser- vice worked at that level.” Putin remains an intelligence ama- teur. Less a seasoned veteran of what the Russians call the special services, he is rather their greatest fanboy. The veteran spooks Putin has recruited into his inner circle include his former chief of staff Sergei Ivanov (ex-KGB) and Dep- uty Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak (for- merly of the military intelligence service, GRU), as well as oligarchs such as Rosneft FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 17

arguments chairman Igor Sechin (widely believed British Cabinet Office’s Joint Intelli- an unprecedented global reaction: 29 to be a former GRU officer) and Nikolai gence Organisation to synthesize alter- countries threw out 153 Russian diplo- Patrushev, the current secretary of Putin’s native perspectives from the different mats and spies. Even Russia’s botched Security Council, which is the closest agencies and to try to resolve contra- pension reforms last year, which led thing to a national security advisor in dictions before they reach policymak- to nationwide protests and an embar- the Russian system. (A former director of ers. The result is an escalating spiral rassing government climbdown, were the FSB himself, Patrushev makes Putin of politicized intelligence, as agencies ultimately pushed through because, look dovish by comparison; he has indi- compete to present the most ideolog- according to parliamentary sources, cated that he believes the United States ically appealing perspectives—and to the FSB was confident the public would wants to dismember Russia.) stab each other in the back. meekly accept them. Putin cozies up to high-ranking spies The Russian spy community’s syco- One despondent former Ministry of because they teach him about a world phancy has worsened in recent years. Foreign Affairs staffer was quite open that he was unable to master himself; he Putin, like so many authoritarian lead- about the influence of Russia’s spooks, masks his deficiencies by surrounding ers, has over time become less tolerant saying that by the time Putin reads the himself with these experts. In response, of alternative perspectives, and he has ministry’s briefings, “he’s already made they compete for his favor. They have limited his circle to yes men and fellow up his mind based on what he’s been learned that nothing wins Putin’s respect hawks. This context may explain why told by Patrushev and the special ser- so much as telling him what he wants to Putin has not seen through the spooks vices. When our briefing runs up against hear, rather than what he needs to know. who play a disproportionate role in set- some paranoid lunacy they’re pushing, As one former Russian intelligence offi- ting his agenda. It is not that they are he doesn’t ask why they’re misinform- cer told me, they have learned that “you in any way dominant; Putin is still the ing him—he tells us we’re being naive.” don’t bring bad news to the tsar’s table.” unquestioned tsar and is not above play- ing the services against one another. When does autocracy become Russia’s special services have an Rather, it is that he indulges them and spookocracy? Formal power does not outsized influence in shaping Putin’s is willing to take their word above that of need to be usurped; the chief executive worldview. According to sources in the the other institutions meant to inform may simply become dependent on a presidential administration, for exam- and advise him. Putin used to person- single policy community for informa- ple, when Ukraine was in the grip of ally speak to a wide range of Russian tion, advice, and options. The results the Euromaidan revolution in 2013 and officials and traveled the country to are on display in today’s Russia, in the 2014, the SVR warned that incumbent experience public problems firsthand. form of intelligence briefings that are President Viktor Yanukovych’s position Now, he scarcely even leaves his palace systematically and deliberately framed was at serious risk. The FSB, by contrast, for his offices at the Kremlin. It usually to flatter the president’s prejudices and reassured Putin that everything was takes a disaster, military exercise, or paranoid assumptions. under control. But when Yanukovych sporting event to get him out of Moscow. was forced to flee to Russia, the SVR Russia is in a dangerous situation. wasn’t praised for its foresight. Instead, Putin’s determination to trust his Its spookocracy means that the strug- it was punished, with several SVR offi- spooks has led to a string of miscal- gle for Putin’s ear and thus his agenda cials getting fired, even as the more culations. After the Russian seizure of becomes more important than giving politically savvy FSB dodged account- Crimea in 2014, the FSB and GRU advo- good advice. It locks sources of alter- ability. Putin seems to have accepted the cated a subsequent proxy war in south- native—and often better—guidance FSB’s explanation that Western intelli- eastern Ukraine. They assured Putin that out of the room. Most seriously of all, gence was behind the Ukrainian revo- Kiev would quickly capitulate and accept it drives even rational policy actors to lution—and that it was the SVR’s fault Moscow’s hegemony. Five years on, the make bad decisions. Although the risk for not having warned as much. Russians are still mired in an undeclared of open conflict with the West remains war that has united Ukraine and brought small, it is worth bearing in mind that It is no surprise that the competition painful economic sanctions. most wars are triggered not by a lack of among Russian intelligence agencies intelligence but by bad intelligence. Q to please the boss often becomes can- In 2018, when the GRU tried to poi- nibalistic. Unlike the President’s Daily son Sergei Skripal—a former officer who MARK GALEOTTI (@MarkGaleotti) is a Brief, which is a single document com- had become a British spy—the military senior associate fellow at the Royal piled by the director of national intelli- intelligence service and the SVR pre- United Services Institute in London gence, each Russian service briefs the dicted the assassination would lead only and an honorary professor at the Uni- president individually—in person and to temporary tensions with the United versity College London School of Sla- on paper. Nor is there a body like the Kingdom. In fact, the attempt triggered vonic and East European Studies. 18 SPRING 2019

A CELEB RATIO N O F ALLIES HONORING TUESDAY, APRIL 3 0, 2019 WASHINGTON, DC T H E AT L A N T I C CO U N C I L S H A P E S P O LI C Y C H O I C E S A N D S T R AT EG I E S TO C R E AT E A M O R E S EC U R E A N D P R O S P E R O U S WO R L D. FO R M O R E I N FO R M AT I O N P L E A S E E M A I L AC AWA R D S @AT L A N T I CCO U N C I L .O R G .

THE SPYCRAFT

THE FUTURE OF ESPIONAGE Changes in technology, politics, and business are all transforming espionage. Intelligence agencies must adapt—or risk irrelevance. REVOLUTION BY EDWARD LUCAS ILLUSTRATION BY DELCAN COMPANY T HE WORLD OF ESPIONAGE is facing tre- mendous technological, political, legal, social, and commercial changes. The winners will be those who break the old rules of the spy game and work out new ones. They will need to be nimble and collaborative and—paradoxically—to shed much of the secrecy that has cloaked their trade since its inception. The balance of power in the spy world is shift- ing; closed societies now have the edge over open ones. It has become harder for Western countries to spy on places such as China, Iran, and Russia and easier for those countries’ intelligence services to spy on the rest of the world. Technical prowess is also shifting. Much like manned spaceflight, human-based intelligence is starting to look costly and anachronistic. Meanwhile, a gulf is growing between the cryptographic superpowers—the United States, United Kingdom, France, Israel, China, and Russia—and everyone else. Technical expertise, rather than human sleuthing, will hold the key to future success. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 21

In another major change, the boundaries between public Not anymore. A cover identity that and private sector intelligence work are becoming increas- would have been almost bulletproof ingly blurred. Private contractors have become an essential only 20 years ago can now be unrav- part of the spy world. Today, intelligence officers regularly eled in a few minutes. For a start, facial move into the private sector once they leave government. recognition software—mostly devel- The old rule that you are “either in or out” has become passé. oped by Israeli companies and widely That shift has allowed some ex-spies to get extremely rich, deployed in China and elsewhere— but it is also eroding the mystique—and the integrity—of allows governments and law enforce- the dark arts practiced in the service of the state. ment agencies to store and search vast numbers of faces. They can then Finally, intelligence agencies in democratic countries cross-check such data with the slew of no longer enjoy the legitimacy bequeathed on them in the personal information that most peo- ple voluntarily and habitually upload A COVER IDENTITY THAT WOULD HAVE online. BEEN ALMOST BULLETPROOF Counterintelligence officers start ONLY 20 YEARS AGO CAN NOW BE with the internet. Has their target UNRAVELED IN A FEW MINUTES. appeared in any photo anywhere? If so, was the context of that photo com- past or the glamor that rubbed off from Hollywood and spy patible with the target’s cover story? fiction. Public skepticism about the means and aims of a Then they use CCTV, gathered at home potentially money-grubbing, thuggish, and self-interested and from systems run by allies. If the caste of spooks has grown. Spymasters increasingly have to Canadian architecture student does justify what they do and accept unprecedented levels of leg- not appear in any social media linked islative and judicial scrutiny. to the Canadian university where she claims to have studied, her story starts T HE BIGGEST DISRUPTIVE FORCE IS TECHNOLOGICAL. Tradi- to look shaky. It looks even worse if she tional spycraft has always relied on deception based can be seen on holiday in Hong Kong on identity. Spotting, developing, recruiting, run- three years ago, socializing with U.S. officials based at the consulate there. ning, and servicing intelligence sources involves The most crucial element of the tech- concealing what you are doing. If you fail, your adversary nological storm engulfing intelligence agencies is the mobile phone. This may find out what you’re up to, endangering your source device not only records your commu- nications once hacked—phone calls and totally undermining your efforts. Once an adversary and messages received and sent—it also acts as a tracking beacon. It can easily learns that an intelligence operation is underway, he or be attacked to become even more intru- sive. Given a minute of hands-on access, she can use it to discover more clues or feed you false or an adversary can make sure that the microphone is turned permanently on tainted information. and that the phone continues transmit- ting even when the owner believes it to Traditionally, spies depended on cover identities. Until a be switched off. The same malware can be installed by sending a text message. few years ago, a visiting Canadian in Moscow who claimed to One obvious solution would be to be a graduate student in architecture could present a cover not carry a mobile phone or to use a “burner” device—a phone bought with that would be difficult for Russian counterintelligence offi- cash and replaced frequently. But doing so creates an even bigger danger. In the cers to crack. They could check her documents, grill her case of the Canadian graduate student, having searched for her likeness online, about her background, search her possessions, or follow her. a Russian counterintelligence inves- They could even use a gifted individual with a photographic memory for faces to scour books full of pictures of known or suspected intelligence officers. But if none of those avenues produced any clues, all they could do was watch, wait, and see if the suspect made a mistake. 22 SPRING 2019

tigator would then look at her phone THE FUTURE OF ESPIONAGE data. If the investigator finds that she doesn’t have one, that’s highly sus- plausible but with too little distinctive material to make picious. Only the very poor, the very a serious check possible. young, and the very old don’t carry some kind of mobile device these days. A second strategy is to use “cleanskins”—freshly recruited intelligence officers whose history reveals only their previ- Of course, if the student does have ous civilian lives. A third option is to treat identities as dis- a phone, but the number is new, that’s posable—sending intelligence officers on one-off missions, also suspicious. Most people seek to knowing that afterward they will be burned forever. A fourth keep whatever phone number they first is to conduct espionage only in neutral or friendly environ- acquired even as they change devices. ments: You still spy on the Russians or the Chinese but from If the Russians then obtain her phone London or Paris rather than Moscow or Beijing. None of these records (by hacking into her home pro- approaches is ideal. Either the risks and costs are high or the vider’s database or bribing someone benefits are low—or both. there to look them up), they can discover where she has been, who has called her, Meanwhile old staples of spycraft no longer work due to and whom she has called. Tracking her technological advances. Until recently, the dead-letter box movements may reveal only a fleet- was regarded as all but foolproof, an ideal location that both a ing interest in Moscow’s architectural source and a collection officer could plausibly visit—a bench marvels—as well as other, more sinis- in a cemetery for example. One party would leave behind ter interests. These might include stops some intelligence material, perhaps stored on a tiny mem- on park benches, trips to obscure sub- ory card enclosed in chewing gum. The other party would urbs, or disappearances into the Moscow then collect it. Even a team of experienced observers would Metro during which the subject switched struggle to see what was really going on. off her phone for hours. Today such tactics rarely work. It is easy for Russian coun- Investigators can also combine these terintelligence to track the movements of every mobile phone two tactics with a third: financial infor- in Moscow, so if the Canadian is carrying her device, observ- mation. What is the student’s credit rat- ers can match her movements with any location that looks ing? What plastic cards does she carry? like a potential site for a dead drop. They could then look at Does her purchasing history and behav- any other phone signal that pings in the same location in the ior match her cover story? Every one of same time window. If the visitor turns out to be a Russian gov- these questions is revealing if answered ernment official, he or she will have some explaining to do. and devastating if not. There are, after all, very few people who travel abroad THE MOST CRUCIAL ELEMENT OF THE without a bank account or credit rating, TECHNOLOGICAL STORM ENGULFING with no social media history, and a pre- INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES IS THE paid burner phone—and those who do MOBILE PHONE. tend to have something to hide. Electronic communications have grown equally vulner- Intelligence agencies have sev- able. The more that intelligence agencies know about what eral ways of addressing these tech- normal behavior looks like, the more that anomalies and nological problems. One is to throw coincidences stand out: Why is the suspect using an inter- money at them, spending time and net cafe or a virtual private network? What websites is she effort creating a bank of impeccable visiting from her home computer and from her phone? Does “legends” (cover identities) for their she use encrypted messaging services? Has she developed intelligence officers. This technique a sudden interest in computer games (an easy way of send- starts with false names, documents, ing messages to a source masquerading as another player)? and addresses—the traditional stock What about her online shopping habits? in trade of the spy world—but with a digital twist. Today, spies can rely The same algorithmic techniques that digital security on a LinkedIn entry, a plain vanilla experts use to spot malware on networks and computers can credit rating, or a dormant Facebook account, all with enough detail to be FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 23

easily be tweaked to highlight other unusual behavior—some- iar political and legal territory. Human times much more effectively than human analysts could. intelligence agencies have developed Together, these techniques have severely constrained the abil- norms, which to some extent substi- ity of intelligence officers and their sources to operate safely tute for the lack of legal regulation and secretly. The cloak of anonymity is steadily shrinking. in what can never be a law-governed space. For example, toward the end A S WESTERN SPYMASTERS SEEK to manage the chal- of the Cold War, both sides refrained lenges presented by new technology, they are fac- from physical attacks on each other’s ing far greater political and legal constraints than intelligence officers or their families. There are, to date, no similar arrange- their adversaries. Indeed, authoritarian states have ments in cyberspace. an advantage over liberal democracies. As political scrutiny intensifies, West- ern intelligence agencies are operating Many Western societies are fiercely debating the issue of in an unfamiliar and increasingly hos- tile environment. Public concerns about intelligence oversight—and that debate is healthy. But for privacy have mushroomed because of the intrusive and careless behavior of all their flaws, there is a categorical difference between the tech giants. Trust in governments has fallen. Spies—in most democratic coun- way big Western agencies operate—under judicial, legisla- tries—cannot take public acceptance of their activities for granted. They must tive, executive, and other constraints—and the means and also assume that public opinion will continue to shift against them. methods of their counterparts in places such Russia or China. Spies today increasingly need to work Getting access to mobile phone records in the West takes more with lawyers, both to counter adversar- ies’ reliance on lawfare—the use of the than a mouse click. It typically requires a warrant, which legal system to delegitimize an enemy or win a public relations victory—and to must be sought through a bureaucratic process. In Moscow test the legality of their own operations. Even if national security exemptions and Beijing, it’s easy. Indeed, China’s national security law apply to the details of sources, methods, and intelligence material provided to expressly requires every individual and corporation, state- decision-makers, the legal environment is intrusive and constraining. A Western run or not, to aid the intelligence services. intelligence officer can no longer go on so-called fishing expeditions, trawling The shift toward electronic intelligence collection also cre- through emails and other private mate- rial in the hope of finding clues that will ates new risks and political difficulties for all parties because help steal secrets or catch spies. Instead, the breach of privacy has to be justified it blurs the distinction between espionage work and warfare. in advance and is also subject to retro- spective review. In the world of human intelligence, the difference between Privacy and human rights laws are AS POLITICAL SCRUTINY INTENSIFIES, placing more and more constraints on WESTERN INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES ARE intelligence agencies’ activities, espe- cially as they seek to gain new powers, OPERATING IN AN UNFAMILIAR AND such as compelling tech companies to INCREASINGLY HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT. help break into encrypted devices and communications. A 2016 ruling by the the intelligence services and armed forces was in theory European Court of Justice, for example, clear-cut. An intelligence officer’s job was always to find risked making illegal all the bulk data things out, not to make things happen. Military personnel collection conducted by Britain’s signals wear uniforms, and the laws of armed conflict govern their activities; when captured, they are meant to be taken pris- oner. Spies and plainclothes saboteurs get shot. In the online world, attributing motive is far harder. An intrusion into another country’s sensitive computers and networks for the so-called innocent purpose of reconnais- sance can easily be mistaken as an act of sabotage or at least preparation for it. The potential for misunderstanding intent pushes cyberespionage practitioners into unfamil- 24 SPRING 2019

intelligence agency, GCHQ, on behalf of THE FUTURE OF ESPIONAGE the U.S. National Security Agency. Intel- ligence agencies in the United States, trawled birth and death records to find details of children Britain, and other Western countries who had died in infancy, secured their birth certificates, now employ lawyers and public affairs and then obtained driving licenses and other documents so specialists to monitor data protection that they could masquerade as protesters and sympathiz- and other laws. ers, gaining the trust of the groups—sometimes by having intimate relationships with members for years. But such Intelligence officials must also reckon tactics were only useful when dealing with targets with no with the fact that sanctioned illegal- serious counterintelligence capabilities. The danger of find- ity today may get them into trouble ing a death certificate matching the supposedly “live” indi- tomorrow. Extraordinary rendition of vidual has increased as a result of digitized public records. suspected terrorists, for example, has Instead, intelligence agencies today do something even more been the subject of intense legislative offensive to modern social mores: They look for people who scrutiny in the United States. In 2012, Abdelhakim Belhaj, a Libyan émigré INTELLIGENCE OFFICIALS MUST opposition figure, sued the British gov- ALSO RECKON WITH THE FACT THAT ernment for his kidnapping in Thailand SANCTIONED ILLEGALITY TODAY MAY in 2004 and forcible return to Libya, GET THEM INTO TROUBLE TOMORROW. where he and his pregnant wife were tortured. In 2018, the British authori- are never going to apply for passports or create any digital ties paid the family compensation and traces of their own. apologized. A favorite category is people born with profound disabil- Such legal worries would have been ities, who spend their lives in the care of others. A disabled unheard of during the Cold War, when man who has no bank account or mobile phone and requires no explicit legal framework governed round-the-clock care for his most basic and intimate physi- spy activities. Now, due to freedom of cal needs is going to be invisible to the outside world. But he information legislation in many coun- has a birth certificate, which can be used to build an iden- tries, intelligence officers must reckon tity for someone else’s undercover life. This practice raises with the possibility that in 30 years’ profound ethical questions in an era when most people feel time—when documents are declassi- that those with disabilities have inalienable human rights. fied—they may be held accountable for What may have been acceptable 20 years ago may seem out- decisions that seem entirely justifiable rageous and career-killing in 20 years’ time. today but will be highly questionable by the standards of the future. T HE BOOMING WORLD of private intelligence companies is watching these techniques and their practitioners Indeed, what may seem trivial today with a greedy eye. Indeed, the intelligence profession will be shocking tomorrow because it clashes with accepted social norms. is increasingly overlapping with the corporate world. Take, for example, the use of dead babies’ birth certificates—a common The world of spies used to be cloistered. People who joined way of creating a cover identity, first made public by Frederick Forsyth in it never spoke about it and often served until retirement. his thriller The Day of the Jackal. When, between 2011 and 2013, it emerged that Penalties for disclosure could include the loss of a pension British undercover police officers were using this technique in order to infil- or even prosecution. trate radical political groups, the public erupted in outrage, leading to a series of That has changed. A stint at the CIA or MI6 has become a high-profile government inquiries and expensive legal settlements. paragraph on a resume, not a career. Britain and the United The technique in question had States have caught up with Israel, where the private sec- involved a secretive unit called the Special Demonstration Squad, which tor has long prized a spell in a senior position in intelli- gence or defense. In London and Washington, such Work is increasingly a launchpad for an interesting career in FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 25

corporate intelligence or other advisory work. less esoteric. These days it is an inte- Government intelligence agencies have stopped battling gral part of business, finance, sports, and family litigation over divorce and the commercialization of espionage; instead, they embrace child custody. Indeed, modern life it—a practice exemplified by the Israeli company NSO encourages people and institutions Group, which, according to a New York Times investiga- of all kinds to adopt the thinking and tion in March, is one of several firms that broker the sale of practices of the spy world. Are you wor- former government hackers’ expertise to countries such as ried about your date? Then you will Saudi Arabia. Security clearances in the United States and find open-source information estab- United Kingdom used to lapse on retirement. Now, retired lishing whether he or she has a crim- intelligence officers are, in many countries, encouraged to inal record, bad credit, unfortunate maintain them. Retirees may be hired as contractors, or habits involving drug use, or unusual they can make job offers to people still inside the service. sexual preferences. The same goes for prospective hires. ANYONE RESPONSIBLE FOR A COMPANY’S CYBERSECURITY Anyone responsible for a company’s cybersecurity now has to think like a NOW HAS TO THINK LIKE counterintelligence officer. To protect A COUNTERINTELLIGENCE OFFICER. a firm’s sensitive information, he or she must identify the most gullible And when the tricks of the trade—bugging, imperson- and careless members of the organi- ation, hacking—are illegal, they can simply be outsourced zation and fire them or give them better to a suitably unscrupulous subcontractor. The food chain in training. The long-standing practice of the private spy world is highly respectable at the top, with opposition research became an every- former spymasters offering exquisitely priced and presented day phrase during the U.S. presidential inside information about the way the world works. election in 2016. Republicans deter- mined to undermine Donald Trump Further down the ladder, things are different; if you hired a firm founded by Christopher want to find out where your rival’s corporate jet has been Steele, a former top MI6 Russia hand, flying, someone with access to the air traffic control data- to dig for dirt. When Trump won the base will provide the answer in exchange for a fat enve- Republican nomination, the research lope. The theft of electronic data is effectively untraceable: project continued—but with the firm There is no need to download the data; you can just pho- allegedly being paid by Democratic tograph the computer screen with a mobile phone. Or the candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign. data can be obtained by impersonation—infiltrating the Steele’s research involved contacts target organization undercover as a temporary secretary, with the FBI, which some critics say security guard, or cleaner. crossed the public-private and serv- ing-retirement boundaries. Meanwhile, public tolerance is waning as knowledge, trade- craft, and contacts gained at taxpayer expense are used for The rise of commercially available self-enrichment in retirement. The conflicts of interest and spying technology has led to some sav- other pitfalls are obvious. Many of the techniques used by ings for governments in money, risk, government spy agencies are intrinsically illegal (including and time. Investigative outfits such as bribery, burglary, bullying, and blackmail). Such lawbreaking Bellingcat, using open-source infor- raises the question of what happens if a client hires a private mation, commercial databases, and company that is also the target of a government investiga- material hacked or leaked by sympa- tion. Must the private company sacrifice its profits? Who thetic allies, have produced startling makes it do so? scoops and exposes, including iden- tifying the three would-be assassins As the cost of conducting espionage operations—in of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian money, time, and effort—has shrunk, spying has become military intelligence officer who had retired to the quiet English town of 26 SPRING 2019 Salisbury. Competition raises standards, in

THE FUTURE OF ESPIONAGE spycraft as in other fields. Intelligence ing the same amount on statisticians and lawyers would be agencies need to work with other actors outside the spy world, both in order to deemed unacceptable, however. Intelligence budgets are for find out what is going on and in order to influence it. Spies and intelligence spying, not finding things out through legitimate means. chiefs need to be media-savvy, counter- ing and mounting information opera- That’s because spy agencies will not be able to maintain the tions. In the old days, spymasters told spies that any contact whatsoever with levels of operational secrecy that they have come to regard as a journalist was a sackable offense. routine if they enlist the help of lawyers, journalists, accoun- That dividing line is now thin and full of holes. Intelligence officers find plenty tants, business executives, and academics. If you hire a law to talk about with journalists. They can discuss the credibility of open sources firm, what happens if its computers are hacked or its staff and the difficulties of operating in hos- tile environments. Intelligence officers suborned? The wider you spread the zone of secrecy, the involved in “active measures”—making things happen rather than just finding more fragile it becomes. out about them—can find it useful to brief journalists, either highlighting Yet the biggest impediment to successful spying today is solid facts and logic that help their case or on occasion inventing or twisting not leaks but excessive classification. The security clearance source material in order to produce new coverage with the requisite slant or spin. industry, particularly in the United States, operates with agonizing slowness, hampering the recruitment of useful people (such as the multilingual children of immigrants) and letting through liabilities (such as Edward Snowden). Information in most countries is also ludicrously over- classified, at too high a level and for too long a period of time. Overclassification and excessive secrecy do not pro- tect countries from their adversaries. Such methods only protect bureaucrats from scrutiny. Intelligence agencies use the supposed need to protect sensitive sources and meth- ods to justify their concealment of blunders or activities that deserve public scrutiny. This excessive secrecy makes spy services timid, introverted, risk-averse, and calcified by pro- cedure. Taxpayers end up paying ever greater bills for ever G IVEN THIS CHANGING LANDSCAPE, less impressive results. Meanwhile, the enemies of Western spies also need to be at home democracies, untroubled by such procedures, steal secrets in the worlds of business and and meddle in U.S. and European politics with abandon. finance. Unraveling the webs In the coming years, the bigger danger could be the oppo- of offshore companies that lie behind site one: The intelligence services of democratic countries Iran’s evasion of sanctions, Russian oli- may become too flexible and too deeply involved in the garchs’ influence operations, or China’s institutions and procedures of a free society. The tempta- exploitation of its ethnic diaspora has tion to do so will be particularly strong in countries facing become a formidable task. the full blast of hostile influence operations, such as Aus- A few years ago, I coordinated the tralia (which faces a Chinese threat) or Ukraine (which faces defense in a libel suit brought by a Rus- a Russian one). Intelligence-led criminal justice sanctions sian tycoon against the Economist, for and regulatory sanctions—arrests, asset freezes, deporta- which I had worked as the Moscow tions, banning media outlets, and so forth—that should be bureau chief. An article by a colleague the exception could become the rule. had implied that this man’s riches were Most of us don’t want to live in a country where the lead- due to his personal and political con- ership spends all its time reading intelligence briefs, where nections with Vladimir Putin. We were the intelligence and security agencies are at the heart of able to spend hundreds of thousands of public life and political decision-making. I once lived in a dollars on a detailed, forensic investiga- country like that: Putin’s Russia. Western democracies need tion of a segment of the energy market the intelligence services to defend open societies against that we believed our target was manip- Putinism—but not at the price of self-Putinization. Q ulating. After the case was over, a spy chief from another Western country told EDWARD LUCAS (@edwardlucas) is a senior vice president at the Center for European Policy Analysis and the author, most me that finding a few hundred thou- recently, of Spycraft Rebooted: How Technology Is Chang- ing Espionage. sand dollars in cash to bribe a North Korean would be no problem. Spend- FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 27

To secure itself, the West needs to figure out where all its gadgets are coming from. Here’s why that’s so difficult. BY ELISABETH BRAW ILLUSTRATION BY EIKO OJALA 28 SPRING 2019



On the outside, the iPhone looks like the pinnacle ligence agencies that might insert back- of cool Californian tech. Open it up, however, doors into components have no vested and the device seems a lot less American. Its interest in global economics. components might have been designed in the United States, but they’re assembled in China, as Tinkering with economic supply are a dizzying range of other popular products: chains for intelligence- and other televisions, sneakers, even drones and defense national security-related reasons is not equipment. That fact creates a glaring security a new idea; indeed, Western countries threat—one that Western firms and governments have long done just that. In the 1980s, are only now beginning to tackle. the CIA, according to former Air Force Secretary Thomas Reed, inserted sabo- Using Chinese suppliers seems to target social and political weak points. taged software into a Soviet oil pipeline, make good economic sense for Western In an age of these asymmetric threats, causing it to explode. Five years ago, firms. After all, Chinese labor remains firms like Maersk are now on the front Edward Snowden revealed that the U.S. very cheap: Such work accounts for line. “[T]his problem was of a magnitude National Security Agency had inserted just $10 of the total cost of an iPhone never seen before in global transport,” backdoor espionage tools into U.S.- today (top models of which go for more a Maersk customer told Wired. made internet routers being exported than $1,000). That’s why, according to to Syria. And in February, the New York a recent tally by the Economist, “of According to a high-level source, Times reported that the United States the production facilities operated by speaking confidentially, major con- was accelerating a George W. Bush- Apple’s top 200 suppliers, 357 are in sumer brands are trying, with some era practice of inserting faulty parts China,” while just 63 are in the United success, to curb their exposure to Chi- into Iran’s aerospace supply chains, States. (One of the reasons Steve Jobs nese companies. Makers of lower-end which appears to have caused some of originally hired Apple’s now CEO, Tim products, however, remain dangerously the country’s test rocket launches to Cook, was because he was expert in exposed. If their suppliers or subcon- fail. Such disruption and sabotage are managing such supply chains.) tractors tinkered with a product at any unlikely to affect large parts of any prod- point along the supply chain, in most uct’s supply chain, but the psycholog- But clever financial arrangements cases the customer would never find ical and consumer damage caused by don’t always make for smart politics— out. Defense contractors, which make even a minor mishap can be immense. or secure systems. Globalizing the sup- products infinitely more complex than Just as parents are scared away from ply chain may make business sense, but sneakers or even smartphones, face baby food by the report of a single piece it has turned Western companies into even trickier problems with their Chi- of glass, so the damage done by sabo- vulnerable geopolitical targets. In 2017, nese supply chains. tage could cause permanent distrust in Maersk, the world’s largest shipping a given product or manufacturer. company, was hit by the NotPetya virus. The culprit doesn’t need to be a Chi- The ransomware, developed by hack- nese company or national, of course: Hundreds of years ago, attacking a ers working for Russian military intel- It can be anyone wishing to harm the supply chain meant cutting off supplies ligence and originally directed against main manufacturer or its home country, to a besieged castle or sinking merchant Ukraine, rendered Maersk essentially or it can be a proxy operating on behalf ships. Today, governments can conduct nonoperational for two weeks. In ports of a rival company or country. Defend- these attacks covertly through prox- around the world, including Eliza- ers of the current order argue that fear of ies. Chinese companies have cornered beth, New Jersey, trailers soon piled the economic losses that would result if the market for inexpensive high-tech up, unable to deliver or receive cargo. such subterfuge were revealed provides parts and products. If these suppliers Theorists call attacks like this “hybrid sufficient deterrence. But political pres- abruptly decided to stop servicing their warfare,” where irregular methods are sures and national conflicts have over- Western clients, there would be little mixed into conventional war-making to ridden economic reasoning plenty of U.S. and European companies could times in the past, and the hostile intel- do to respond. Sure, manufacturers would revert to alternative suppliers— yet in countries where empty shelves are unknown, the social shock alone would be highly destabilizing. Thus far, Western fears—and attempts 30 SPRING 2019

THE FUTURE OF ESPIONAGE by countries and companies to protect has no way of identifying which sec- ing expertise has been lost in the West, themselves—have largely focused on tions were compiled where. Jerker Hell- especially in high-tech manufactur- China, with claims of hardware back- ström, the head of the Asia and Middle ing. That’s even more reason to start doors and worries about the 5G giant East program at the Swedish Defence looking for such companies before the Huawei. Yet every country involved in a Research Agency, warned that “com- problem hits. Western conglomerates— company’s supply chain poses a poten- panies can just stop sending software and even ministries of defense—may tial risk. While a government may have updates.” want to consider supporting the cre- no malign intent, local terrorists or crim- ation of critical businesses on their inals often do. According to the British Identifying every risk may be impos- shores. Using local suppliers is always Standards Institution, the country’s cer- sible. After all, most foreign companies more expensive than relying on labor tification body, terrorists target supply in the supply chain are benign actors from lower-wage countries, but sup- chains at least once every seven days; that don’t deserve to be held collectively ply chain disruptions can prove even the most frequent victims are Egypt, responsible. And diversifying away from more expensive. India, Thailand, and Colombia. every possible risk would result in crip- pling costs. So firms and governments Governments should also provide Today’s supply chains are so com- should focus on improving resilience, incentives for firms to act. If a major plex that it’s virtually impossible for not just mitigating risk. Disruptions, tech, logistics, or defense company’s Western companies to know exactly backdoors, and sabotage might be inev- operations are disrupted, it’s far from where everything they make comes itable; how companies cope with them the only victim. NotPetya, the virus that from or is assembled. The World Intel- will make a critical difference. hit Maersk, also infected Mondelez, the lectual Property Organization noted snack food giant that, among other in its 2017 annual report that smart- For businesses, that means taking things, makes Oreo cookies. Maersk’s phones’ different components all “have a lesson from militaries, which regu- misfortune, meanwhile, left its custom- their own global supply chains. For larly prepare for different threats—and ers without daily supplies including example, a chip may be designed by a for unpredictable scenarios. Armies grains and steel. specialized U.S. company for a smart- don’t sit on their hands after war-gam- phone supplier; it is then manufac- ing one possibility; they reimagine and Given the thoroughly globalized tured in China and packaged retrain constantly. In a similar fashion, nature of today’s economy, companies in Malaysia.” Although firms actively try to manage risk, DISRUPTIONS, BACKDOORS, AND “most companies simply SABOTAGE MIGHT BE INEVITABLE; have no way of knowing HOW COMPANIES COPE WITH THEM WILL all the participants in their MAKE A CRITICAL DIFFERENCE. supply chain,” said Michael Essig, a professor of supply today’s global companies should regu- can’t protect themselves from every dis- management at Bundeswehr larly practice reconfiguring their sup- ruption. Trying to create an iron dome University in Munich. ply chains in case of emergency. They around any Western country’s econ- can also identify which components omy in the name of national security “Let’s assume that a global are most critical and ensure they have would be foolish. But assuming that sup- company like Volkswagen a second, safer supplier—ideally one ply chains will survive hybrid warfare has around 5,000 direct suppliers and close to home—lined up in case their unscathed is an even greater folly. Q that each has around 250 subcontrac- first is compromised. tors. That means that the company has ELISABETH BRAW (@elisabethbraw) is 1.25 million second-tier suppliers. With The trouble is that after years of out- the director of the modern deterrence each additional step, the supply chain sourcing, there aren’t many Western program at the Royal United Services grows exponentially,” Essig calculated. companies with the ability to act as a Institute. So does the risk of attack. And that’s just second source. Crucial manufactur- the hardware. Software supply chains can be just as murky. “Perhaps a soft- ware supplier has a subcontractor in China who delivers important lines of code,” Essig said, and the end consumer FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 31

The 500 B.C. A.D. 550 Oldest Game In the ancient Mediterranean city of According to the Byzantine historian Sybaris, chefs presiding over Procopius, Emperor Justinian sends The very long past of luxurious feasts complain of rivals Nestorian Christian monks to China stealing their recipes. City leaders to bring back the secret of silk. They industrial espionage. grant cooks exclusive ownership of return to Byzantium with silkworm their recipes for one year, creating eggs concealed in their staffs, which the oldest known recognition of later hatch, breaking the Chinese intellectual property rights. monopoly. BY MARA HVISTENDAHL 1848 1810 GRAPHIC BY VALERIO PELLEGRINI The Scottish botanist Robert Fortune The New Englander Francis Cabot INDUSTRIAL ESPIONAGE is as ancient as journeys to the tea-processing Lowell sets sail for Britain, where he mountain towns of China’s Fujian tours textile factories in Glasgow and industry itself—and a frequent accom- province, his hair styled to pass as Manchester, examining the a local. His observations allow the revolutionary power loom. Taking plice to the rise of empires. From British East India Company to machine plans out of the country is found vast tea plantations illegal, but Lowell uses his powerful classical Greek cities to modern U.S. throughout South Asia. memory to recreate the designs he saw on returning home. corporations, the theft of trade secrets has marked a transfer of power almost as routinely as bloodshed. The methods have switched from old-fashioned spy- ing to online hacks, but the motivation remains the same: winning. In the 18th century, a rising United 1926 1989 States was the main culprit. Alexan- Representatives of the Soviet The West German agent Karl Heinrich Amtorg Trading Corp. secure visits to Stohlze travels to Boston to seduce a der Hamilton stressed the need to steal Ford Motor Co. plants in the United mid-level manager at a biotechnology States as part of a trade deal. firm. She pilfers proprietary European technical knowledge, while While there, they swipe blueprints documents about biotech research and parts for the revolutionary for him to photocopy and reportedly 0101 Benjamin Franklin openly encouraged Fordson tractor. pass on to the German electronics company Siemens, before being British artisans to immigrate to Amer- caught and attempting suicide. Stohlze escapes back to Germany. ica—and, implicitly, to bring British machinery with them. “[M]ost of the political and intellectual elite of the rev- olutionary and early national genera- tion were directly or indirectly involved in technology piracy,” writes the Ford- ham University historian Doron Ben- Atar in his book Trade Secrets. Today, 2019 2015 however, the United States is the one Concerns about the role of firms such as After the United States levels numerous Huawei in building 5G networks leads to accusations against China for stealing defending its position against other per- a U.S. boycott but also pushback from secrets from U.S. companies including the European Union. Control of the new Boeing and Coca-Cola, the two countries petrators—most notably China. telecom infrastructure would give China agree on a cease-fire on cyberattacks surveillance capabilities and the directed at commercial businesses. Here’s a look at some key cases of potential to directly manipulate It does not hold. internet-connected devices. industrial espionage throughout his- tory. Q MARA HVISTENDAHL (@MaraHvistendahl) is currently writing a book on industrial espionage, China, and the FBI. 32 SPRING 2019

1712 THE FUTURE OF ESPIONAGE The French Jesuit priest François 1790 Xavier d’Entrecolles travels to China’s imperial kilns in Jingdezhen, The English immigrant Samuel Slater Jiangxi province, to steal the secret of establishes America’s first water- hard-paste porcelain. He sends back powered textile mill by replicating lengthy letters detailing his findings, techniques from his home country. influencing the work of some of Such copying was illegal under British Europe’s most renowned potters. law, which included the death penalty for passing on trade secrets. The English dub him “Slater the Traitor.” 2004 1995 1990 A cybersecurity analyst at the Canadian As U.S. President Bill Clinton’s The FBI confirms that French intelligence telecommunications company Nortel administration considers sanctions on targeted U.S. electronics companies discovers that hackers in Shanghai, Japanese luxury car imports, National including IBM and Texas Instruments whom he suspects of working for the Security Agency and CIA officers between 1987 and 1989 in an attempt Chinese firm Huawei, have penetrated eavesdrop on conversations involving to bolster the failing Compagnie des Nortel’s computer network. The Toyota and Nissan executives using Machines Bull, a state-owned French company goes bankrupt in 2009. cutting-edge surveillance technology. computer firm. The efforts mixed They pass on the intelligence to U.S. electronic surveillance with attempted trade negotiators. recruitment of disgruntled personnel. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 33

THE SPIES WHO CAME IN FROM THE CONTINENT How Brexit could spell the end of Britain’s famed advantage in intelligence. BY CALDER WALTON ILLUSTRATION BY EIKO OJALA



From John le Carré’s novels to the insatiable turn many of them into double agents. popular interest in James Bond, Britain has long As Sir J.C. Masterman, the head of the enjoyed, and cultivated, an image of producing double-cross system, succinctly put it: superior spies. This reputation is based on more British intelligence “actively ran and than myth. For decades during and following controlled the German espionage sys- World War II, the painstaking real-world work of tem in this country.” British intelligence officers was one of the United Kingdom’s primary sources of power. During the Cold War, British spooks managed to further burnish their rep- That power, and its underlying foun- intelligence service, the Abwehr. utation. GCHQ’s technical capabilities dations, is now in jeopardy thanks to Of course, British intelligence went were first-rate, and Britain’s overseas Brexit, which will have a cascading series territories proved useful for collect- of repercussions for British intelligence: on to notch up unprecedented successes ing SIGINT for the U.K. and the United It will shut Britain out of European against the Axis. These victories largely States. Britain also pulled off some spec- Union institutions that have benefited owed to achievements at Bletchley Park, tacular espionage and counterintelli- British national security, and it may also where British and Allied code-breakers gence coups. During the Cuban missile jeopardize the special intelligence rela- cracked Germany’s notorious Enigma crisis in October 1962, when the world tionship with the United States, which cipher machine, giving them greater came closer to nuclear Armageddon may look to deepen relations with Brus- intelligence about the Third Reich than than at any other point in history, infor- sels instead. But while Brexit may now almost any state has enjoyed mation provided by Oleg Penkovsky— be inevitable, there are still ways for the about another government who was positioned deep inside Russian U.K. to avoid this outcome. in history. (Some historians military intelligence and worked for have suggested that British both MI6 and the CIA—gave Washing- Britain’s intelligence services—MI5, SIGINT collected at Bletch- ton crucial insights into the status of which handles domestic security intel- ley Park may have shortened ligence; MI6, which does foreign intel- World War II by two years.) From left: Code-breakers at Bletchley Park ligence; and GCHQ, which focuses on in 1942, the MI6 agent Oleg Penkovsky and signals intelligence (SIGINT)—have That success carried over his tools of the trade in 1963, and Oleg been touted at home and abroad as the into the postwar period, Gordievsky, KGB officer-turned-British spy, Rolls-Royces of intelligence services. when Britain’s intelli- seen in disguise in 1990. But they weren’t always. Declassified gence services helped Lon- records show that, prior to World War II, don punch far above its British spy agencies were often more like weight—even as its hard rickety cars than luxury vehicles. MI5 power declined. In part, this and MI6 were established in 1909, and was due to the British gov- at the outbreak of World War I in 1914, ernment’s successful man- both services had scant resources: MI5’s agement of international staff totaled 17, which included its office perceptions of its abilities. caretaker. The situation had scarcely Whitehall cultivated an improved by the start of World War II image of preeminent intel- in 1939. A declassified in-house MI5 his- ligence acumen by selec- tory shows that on the eve of the war, the tively releasing secrets about agency’s counterespionage section had Bletchley Park and other just two officers—with responsibilities astonishing wartime suc- for the entire British Empire and Com- cesses, such as MI5’s “dou- monwealth. MI5 and MI6 did not even ble-cross system,” through know the name of the German military which it managed to capture German spies in Britain and 36 SPRING 2019

THE FUTURE OF ESPIONAGE SSPL/GETTY IMAGES/SOVFOTO/UIG VIA GETTY IMAGES/ /AFP/GETTY IMAGES/ Soviet missiles in Cuba. Penkovsky’s SIGINT collection machine. This inter- ing to records at the John F. Kennedy BETTMANN ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES/DAVID LEVENSON/GETTY IMAGES intelligence, codenamed “IRONBARK,” agency relationship gave London polit- Presidential Library, the United States revealed, among other matters, how ical leverage in Washington. Records at saw London as a like-minded, trusted far Soviet missiles were from being the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, ally, one that literally spoke the same operational and thus how much time for example, show instances of British language and that could exert influ- Washington could spend diplomatically intelligence officials being given access ence over Europe’s more troublesome fencing with Moscow. Some years later, to Washington’s most senior policymak- members. After joining in 1973, Britain MI6 managed to recruit a senior KGB ers, including Henry Kissinger, and even also gained a say in major European officer, Oleg Gordievsky, who became attending and briefing National Security decisions—which proved useful for the rezident (head of station) in London Council meetings, in ways unimaginable United States in matters including mil- and secretly provided Britain and the for officials of any other countries. itary strategy and trade. United States with unique insights into the Soviet Union’s intentions and Files declassified nearly 20 years ago If the U.K. now leaves the EU, there capabilities. show that in the 1960s, Britain’s high- are good reasons to suppose that Wash- est intelligence assessment body, the ington will come to view London as less Such feats turned intelligence into a Joint Intelligence Committee, advised strategically important. U.S. officials force multiplier for Britain during the successive prime ministers that join- are likely to start asking whether the Cold War, helping it retain a seat at the ing Europe was essential to Britain’s United States really needs Britain any- high table of international affairs despite strategic future: Doing so was the only more or whether it would be better off its declining economic and military way the country could escape its eco- strengthening its intelligence relations power. GCHQ worked so closely with nomic doldrums and safeguard its with the EU. the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) special relationship with Washington, that they essentially functioned as two which viewed the U.K. as more valuable Supporters of Brexit correctly point sides of the same massive, trans-Atlantic, within Europe than without. Accord- out that after joining Europe, Britain’s intelligence agencies have continued working with EU members on a bilateral basis, not with the EU as a whole—so leav- ing the union shouldn’t make any difference. But that opti- mistic view discounts the real impact Brexit will have on British national security. The U.K. has benefited from mem- bership in EU bodies such as Europol and the Schengen Information System, which provide it with information on terrorism, human traffick- ing, and other serious crimes. The British police and MI5 used such data to track down the Russian officers who tried to assassinate a former Rus- sian spy, Sergei Skripal, in Salisbury in 2018. If the U.K. leaves the EU, however, Brit- ain would lose access to such information—one reason that prior to the 2016 Brexit referendum, former Brit- ish intelligence heads pub- licly warned that quitting FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 37

THE FUTURE OF ESPIONAGE the union would damage the country’s that Britain’s spies are extraordinarily In recent decades, the extraordinary security. Since then, the messy exit pro- good at turning dismal disadvantages, and wide-reaching political coopera- cess has only heightened their concerns as they had at the start of World War II, tion that EU membership necessarily because it’s increasingly doubtful that into staggering successes. Cyberwarfare entailed probably made British spying Britain, amid the present diplomatic ran- offers that opportunity again—espe- on Europe too risky—and vice versa. cor, will be able to salvage comparative cially since it doesn’t require conven- Once it departs the EU, however, Brit- alternative arrangements with the EU. tional military power, which has been ain would be free of such constraints. difficult for Britain to pay for in its pro- Indeed, since Brexit talks began, rumors Following Brexit, the intelligence longed era of austerity. have suggested that British intelli- services will have to adapt. One area gence has been targeting EU negotia- offers the most promise: the cyber- Another area of future growth for tors. Whether or not that’s true, it seems realm. GCHQ is already a world British intelligence will likely be covert unlikely that following Brexit, both leader in digital intelligence. Edward action with a focus on defending against sides will descend into mutual feeding Snowden’s unauthorized disclosures in disinformation. A major challenge fac- frenzies of espionage. Common exter- 2013 showed how closely GCHQ works ing Western societies is the insidious nal threats, especially Russia and China, with the NSA, exploiting internet plat- growth of fake news promulgated online and the chill of a new cold war, mean forms to collect intelligence. Although by authoritarian regimes such as China, that British and EU agencies will have its role was largely overlooked, GCHQ Iran, North Korea, and Russia. Most incentive to keep cooperating. was apparently the first to identify and countries still lack a strategy for deal- warn U.S. intelligence about a Russian ing with such disinformation; Britain, Brexit will force Britain’s intelligence hacking group, Fancy Bear, which however, has a useful model in its recent services to answer uncomfortable ques- broke into U.S. Democratic National past. During the Cold War, the coun- tions they have not had to confront Committee emails in 2016. try’s shadowy anti-Soviet propaganda since World War II: What can they offer department, the Information Research that others cannot? That Brexit is taking Britain would be wise to double Department, provided fact-based, rapid, place at the same time as the cyber-rev- down on its comparative advantage and lucid responses to KGB forgeries. olution, however, offers opportunities in digital technologies; indeed, it It provides a template for dealing with for Britain to maintain some semblance seems to already be doing so. GCHQ disinformation today; Britain would of its current global power. Investing and Britain’s new National Cyber Secu- rity Centre have been under- AN AREA OF FUTURE GROWTH FOR BRITISH taking recruitment and INTELLIGENCE WILL LIKELY BE COVERT training drives for cyber- ACTION WITH A FOCUS ON DEFENDING expertise, as has MI6. AGAINST DISINFORMATION. The latter indicates that old-fashioned human espi- be wise to update the approach for the in digital intelligence offers London onage—MI6’s territory—will social media era. be important even in the the best—and perhaps only—way out new digital realm: Recruit- Britain’s intelligence services could ing well-placed agents also start spying on the EU. No one on of the strategic intelligence quagmire inside foreign cybergroups the outside knows how much of this, will be a key way to unlock if any, the U.K. already does; so far, Brexit has placed it in. Q their secrets. the records, if they exist, have yet to be declassified. But Britain has a long CALDER WALTON (@calder_walton) is an Britain’s National Cyber Security Strat- history of spying on its allies: British Ernest May fellow in history and policy egy for 2016-2021 publicly acknowledged code-breakers intercepted and read at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer for the first time that the country has U.S. communications before Amer- Center for Science and International offensive hacking capabilities. A likely ica entered both World War I and II. Affairs and general editor of the forth- future area of growth for British intel- coming Cambridge History of Espionage ligence will be to enhance these capa- and Intelligence. bilities and carry out cyberattacks on state and nonstate threats, like Israel and America’s alleged Stuxnet virus attack, uncovered in 2010, targeting Iran’s nuclear program. History shows 38 SPRING 2019

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THE TRUMP DOCTRINE An insider explains the president’s foreign policy. BY MICHAEL ANTON FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 41

TWO YEARS INTO U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’S TENURE, there is still endemic For instance, it’s rarely in a country’s confusion about what, exactly, his foreign policy is. Many critics blame direct interest, narrowly construed, to this confusion on the president’s purported inarticulateness. Whatever accept refugees. Yet many countries do one thinks of his tweets, however, the fact is that he has also delivered so because their leaders have concluded a number of speeches that lay bare the roots, contours, and details of that welcoming the dispossessed serves his approach to the world. some higher good. A simpler—and more accurate—explanation for the confusion is That said, one never sees nations sac- that Trump’s foreign policy does not yet have a widely accepted name. rificing themselves for other nations, Names can be useful in sorting and cataloguing ideas and in avoiding the way individuals sometimes do—by the unnecessary elaboration of things everyone already knows. But fighting for their country, for example. to dredge up an old philosophic argument: The name is not the thing. In this sense, Thomas Hobbes is The underlying phenomenon is what matters; the name is just short- instructive: All countries live in the hand. Yet too often the U.S. foreign-policy establishment—current and state of nature vis-à-vis one another. former officials, international relations professors, think tankers, and Not only is there no superseding columnists—uses names as a crutch. People treat names as sacrosanct authority, no world government, above categories and can’t process things not yet named. the nation-state to enforce transna- tional morality; there is also no higher So the fact that Trump is not a neoconservative or a paleoconserva- law for nations than the law of nature tive, neither a traditional realist nor a liberal internationalist, has caused and no higher object than self-preser- endless confusion. The same goes for the fact that he has no inborn vation and perpetuation. inclination to isolationism or interventionism, and he is not simply a dove or a hawk. His foreign policy doesn’t easily fit into any of these cat- For all its bluntness and simplicity, egories, though it draws from all of them. America First is, at its root, just a restate- ment of this truth. Countries putting Yet Trump does have a consistent foreign policy: a Trump Doctrine. their own interests first is the way of the The administration calls it “principled realism,” which isn’t bad— world, an inexpugnable part of human although the term hasn’t caught on. The problem is that the Trump nature. Like other aspects of human Doctrine, like most presidential doctrines, cannot be summed up in two nature, it can be sublimated or driven words. (To see for yourself, try describing the Monroe, Truman, or Rea- underground for a time—but only for a gan Doctrine with just a couple of words.) Yet Trump himself has time. You may drive out nature with a explained it, on multiple occasions. In perhaps his most overlooked, pitchfork, Horace said, but it keeps on understudied speech—delivered at the APEC CEO Summit in Da Nang, coming back. Vietnam, in November 2017—he encapsulated his approach to foreign policy with a quote from The Wizard of Oz: “There’s no place like home.” The practical effect of suppressing Two months earlier, speaking to the U.N. General Assembly, he made nature, moreover, is likely to have dam- the same point by referring to a “great reawakening of nations.” aging long-term effects. At a minimum, it will produce a backlash, as we’re In both cases, the president was not simply noting what was going already seeing in the United States, the on: a resurgence of patriotic or nationalist sentiment in nearly every United Kingdom, and elsewhere in corner of the world but especially in parts of Europe and the United Europe. Another, underappreciated dan- States. He was also forthrightly saying that this trend was positive. He ger is that, in declining to act in their was encouraging countries already on this path to continue down it and interests, Western and democratic coun- exhorting others not yet there to pursue it. tries create opportunities for unfriendly powers, unashamed to act in their inter- The other, more familiar phrase for the president’s foreign poli- ests, to exploit what they see as Western cy—“America First”—is much maligned, mostly for historical reasons. naiveté. This observation forms the core But the phrase itself is almost tautologically unobjectionable. After all, of what one might call the negative for- what else is the purpose of any country’s foreign policy except to put its mulation of Trump’s foreign policy. The own interests, the interests of its citizens, first? president himself has an inelegant, but not inaccurate, way of putting it: “Don’t FEW COUNTRIES EVER ACT EXCLUSIVELY OUT OF SELF INTEREST. Indeed, states be a chump.” sometimes do things that run counter to their immediate interests. There is also a more positive formu- 42 SPRING 2019 lation of the president’s approach, which begins with an observation about human

nature and attempts to make a virtue of When many Western thinkers look at the international order these necessity. It can be stated like this: Let’s days, they boil things down to a dichotomy between democracy (good) all put our own countries first, and be and authoritarianism (bad). Hazony agrees that the basis for world order candid about it, and recognize that it’s does rest on a dichotomy, but he offers two very different root princi- nothing to be ashamed of. Putting our ples: empire versus something like nationalism. interests first will make us all safer and Hazony’s is far more useful and persuasive than the other approach. more prosperous. To see why, consider, first, that the dichotomy between democracies and If there is a Trump Doctrine, that’s it. authoritarian regimes focuses on regime types—that is, domestic or inter- Perhaps the key point—at a time when nal arrangements. Hazony’s alternatives, on the other hand, look directly at international concerns. This is not to say that regime type is unimportant in international THE FACT THAT TRUMP IS NOT affairs. But it is not definitive. A N EOCONSERVAT I V E OR Countries as well as empires can be democratic or despotic. A PA LEOCONSERVAT I V E , N EITHER A Before taking this point any TRADITIONAL REALIST NOR A LIBERAL further, it’s necessary to make INTERNATIONALIST, HAS CAUSED an even more elementary point. ENDLESS CONFUSION. As thinkers since the ancient Greeks have recognized, all polit- ical entities—from the smallest village to the largest empire—are based on a distinction between many view self-interest (at least when insiders and outsiders, between those who belong and those who do practiced by democracies) as evil and not, between citizens or subjects and foreigners. The important distinc- see international self-abnegation as the tion, then, is not between universalism and particularity—the state will height of justice—is Trump’s recogni- always be particular. The key question is how far the latter can safely or tion that there’s nothing wrong with wisely be taken in the direction of the former. looking out for No. 1. In Politics, Aristotle makes a point similar to Hazony when he writes This notion is very hard for some to that the three fundamental political units are the tribe, the polis (or “city- accept. And to be clear, by “some” I mean state”), and the empire. “Tribe” here is a loose rendering of the Greek the foreign-policy establishment, the ethne, the root of the English word “ethnic,” which is often also trans- academic and intellectual elite, and the lated as “nation” in the sense of “distinct people.” opinion-making classes—in short, the The ethne and the polis are not merely (more or less) homogenous; traditional readers of FOREIGN the whole point of their existence, their key organizing principle— POLICY. whether they are democratic or autocratic—is precisely this homoge- neity. Empires, on the other hand, are by definition multiethnic. Now, the ancient Greeks knew that it was hard to find in nature any precise boundary where one ethne ended and another began. What dis- tinguished a Spartan from an Athenian, apart from their very different PREVIOUS SPREAD: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES regimes? What made them ethnically different? After all, they both IN HIS WONDERFUL 2018 BOOK, The Virtue looked similar, both spoke Greek, both followed similar customs, and of Nationalism, the Israeli political phi- both worshiped the same gods (in particular Athena, whom both looked losopher Yoram Hazony sums up elite to as their patron). On occasion, the two city-states could even unite conventional wisdom on the subject against a common threat. Yet they could also just as easily charge at one with the assertion that “nationalism another’s throats. caused two world wars and the Holo- Clearly, they were both Greek, but that didn’t necessarily make them caust.” That belief is the deepest root the same people. Indeed, despite the blurriness of these lines, it was of opposition to Trump’s foreign policy important to the Athenians and the Spartans—as it has been to all and to European populism: When cer- human beings in all times and places—to sort themselves into distinct tain people hear Trump talk, they think tribes and nations. Doing so is an integral part of human nature. Some- they’re hearing jackboots marching. times natural or naturalistic factors help drive this process: Peoples FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 43

living on opposite sides of some formidable geographic barrier, for ples always remain potential threats, so instance, tend to think of themselves as distinct from one another. Cyrus had to maintain a massive inter- Other dividing factors, such as language and customs, are conventional nal spying and security apparatus, which or man-made (if not self-consciously so). But all these different fac- further curtailed liberty. And if all that tors, whether physical, geographic, or conventional in origin, are nat- weren’t bad enough, on Cyrus’s death ural in the sense that they direct and inform a tendency that is inherent the whole system collapsed—illustrat- in human nature. ing imperialism’s inherent instability. Another way to explain this tendency is by referring to the classical As for Machiavelli, his Discourses— concept of “love of one’s own.” As we all know, our own may—or may generally considered one of the most not—be intrinsically loveable. Yet how many of us would want to look around our Thanksgiving table and see none of our rela- AMERICA FIRST IS JUST A tives? Maybe a few of us. But even RESTATEMENT OF THE TRUTH if we could replace them all— THAT COUNTRIES PUTTING THEIR especially that loudmouthed, OW N IN TER E STS FIR ST IS THE WAY “Make America Great Again”-hat- wearing uncle—with people who OF THE WORLD, AN INEXPUGNABLE were better educated, better PART OF HUM AN NATURE . dressed, better looking, and bet- ter conversationalists, the vast majority of us would still say no. We’d miss that uncle after all. explicitly pro-imperialist books ever Love of one’s own extends beyond the family to the clan, to the tribe, written—shows how, like Persia, the rise and to the nation. Human beings have always organized themselves of the Roman Empire resulted in the loss around some concept of civic friendship that takes the bonds of family of liberty and republicanism, this time and extends them outward—but not indefinitely. On a fundamental for 1,500 years. It also led to the subor- level, politics is about banding together to do together what can’t be dination of free thought to stultifying done (or done well) alone. authority and the degradation of So there will always be nations, and trying to suppress nationalist humans into a kind of slave. sentiment is like trying to suppress nature: It’s very hard, and danger- Montesquieu’s Considerations on the ous, to do. Causes of the Grandeur of the Romans and Their Decadence also deals with Rome, in this case by tracing its birth, rise, maturity, decline, and death. Mon- tesquieu’s conclusions are more or less the same as Machiavelli’s, but he also THAT’S THE PROBLEM WITH IMPERIALISM: It requires the crushing of natural has a contemporary point to make: that, nationalist feelings through violence. Which is why the wisest thinkers having been accomplished once, the of the past, from Plato and Aristotle to Niccolò Machiavelli and Mon- dismal project of empire building should tesquieu, were all anti-imperialist (even if the latter two aren’t always never be repeated. His message was tar- recognized as such). geted, quietly but directly, against the Let’s start with the Greeks, with Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, his highly European monarchs of his time, espe- didactic and not very accurate biography of Cyrus the Great. Xenophon cially France’s House of Bourbon, only depicts in great detail how, in transforming the small homogenous city- recently thwarted in its attempt to erase state of Persia into a vast multiethnic empire, Cyrus created a polity that the Pyrenees and expand French domin- was far larger, mightier, richer, and more technologically advanced than ion into Germany, northern Italy, and its forerunner. But Xenophon also takes pain to emphasize the costs of the Low Countries. this project, which included a decline in good government, the loss of What does any of this have to do with liberty for Persia’s citizens, and an erasure of the individual characters our current situation? The answer is, of the empire’s formerly independent but now subservient nations. everything: for while traditional empires Since the free spirit of captured nations never entirely dies, their peo- may have gone out of fashion, global- 44 SPRING 2019

ization has taken its place as the impe- that way to the people all over the world who have seen their culture, rialism of our time. Globalization traditions, communities, and economies disappear before their eyes. represents an attempt to do through And this transformation has been voluntary only in the sense that it has peaceful means—the creation of trans- been undertaken with the full approval of the elite. As for the common national institutions, the erosion of bor- folk, not so much. ders, and the homogenization of intellectual, cultural, and economic The European Union provides the most illustrative example. Every products—what the Romans (and Cyrus member state consented to join through some formal mechanism—typ- and others) achieved through arms. ically, a legislative vote or a referendum. But further consolidation was often highly contested, with parliamentary votes or referendums fre- No surprise, then, that globalization quently coming very close—as in France’s “petit oui” to the Maastricht and imperialism suffer from the same Treaty creating the EU in 1992—or else rejected—as in the case of Den- flaws. Like the latter, the former is also mark that same year, when the government then resubmitted the ques- hubristic and prone to overreach. It also tion to the electorate after making cosmetic changes to ensure its wanted erodes and even subverts and attacks result. This doesn’t end up sounding like consent in the meaningful liberty. It requires centralization. sense of the word. Globalization also has the same sti- The EU, moreover, was a fraud from the beginning, even before a sin- fling impact on ideas, and for the same gle referendum was held. It was sold to the European public on false reasons, that Machiavelli diagnosed as pretenses: It was supposed to make travel easier and lower trade barri- a problem with imperialism 500 years ers and the other costs of doing business across borders while allowing ago. Globalization reduces differences states to maintain their sovereignty and citizens their individuality. But in thought in any number of ways: if anyone had forthrightly told European voters that “Brussels is going through media consolidation, for exam- to henceforth regulate the size and shape of your vegetables and dictate ple, or through the homogenization of your immigration and border policies,” most would have instantly the elite—who these days all seem to replied, “No, thanks.” come from the same background, attend the same schools, and go to the As we’ve already established, nationalism and national sovereignty same conferences. The champions of are intrinsic to human nature. So it should come as no surprise that globalization also aren’t above stoop- the EU’s attempt to tamp it down provoked a populist revolt, embod- ing to outright censorship and coercion ied by the rise of the yellow vest movement in France, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, Poland’s Law and Justice party, the Brexit process, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. THER E W ILL A LWAYS BE NATIONS, AND TRYING TO SUPPRESS NATIONALIST SENTIMENT IS LIKE TRYING TO SUPPRESS NATURE: THIS BRINGS US BACK to Trump, IT’S VERY HARD, AND since the first pillar of his foreign DANGEROUS, TO DO. policy is a simple recognition of this overlooked reality: that populism is a result of all this enforced leveling and homoge- when threatened. Indeed, this impulse nization. The backlash was brewing long before Trump became a pres- is perhaps the most important root of idential candidate and would have found a champion with or without political correctness. him. But he saw it first and seized on it by telling the discontented that Defenders of globalization will he heard them, that their grievances were valid, and that he would respond that whereas imperialism— speak on their behalf. globalization by conquest—amounts Since taking office, the president has recoupled U.S. foreign policy to theft and enslavement and is inher- to domestic politics, a bond that had become increasingly frayed in ently violent, today’s globalization is recent decades. Since the end of the Cold War, most U.S. foreign poli- voluntary. cies—apart from the patriotic surge in support for an aggressive response But is it really? It certainly doesn’t feel to the 9/11 attacks—have rarely commanded anything like majority FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 45

support but instead have been tailored to meet only elite concerns. Try can’t even end, much less win; the loss explaining to average Americans the need for NATO expansion, democ- of prestige and influence; and closed racy promotion in the Middle East, or endless trade concessions to factories and declining wages. modern-day mercantilists in Asia and Europe. On some level, U.S. lead- Trump is trying to correct course, ers must know that the task is futile, because they hardly try. You’re just not tear everything down, as his critics supposed to know that it’s in America’s interests to remain in NATO— allege. He sees that the current path even if its member states shirk their responsibilities and the organiza- no longer works for the American peo- tion doesn’t do very much, least of all in its own back yard. ple and hasn’t for a while. So he insists This is not to disparage the phenomenon of elite leadership. Some- that NATO pay its fair share and be times a country’s leaders really are right about some far-reach- ing aspect of policy that’s none- theless hard to explain to the GLOBALIZATION REPRESENTS public. This is one reason why AN ATTEMPT TO DO THROUGH so many philosophers argue for PEACEFUL MEANS WHAT an aristocratic or at least mixed THE ROMANS ACHIEVED regime, which allows the elite to pursue a foreign policy that the THROUGH ARMS. people lack the foresight and expertise to understand, let alone execute. In the U.S. exam- ple, the country’s elites saw the need to wage the Cold War much earlier relevant and that allies actually behave and more clearly than the public. But those elites never took public sup- like allies or risk losing that status. He’s port for granted; on the contrary, they carefully cultivated it throughout determined to end free rides, on secu- the struggle. rity guarantees and trade deals alike, Today’s establishment, by contrast, takes the eternal benefits of con- and to challenge the blatant hypocrisy tinued globalization for granted. Unable to convince the public of these of those, such as China, that join the benefits, however, many U.S. leaders and pundits have resorted instead liberal international order only to to clichés—for instance, appeals to “collective security” to describe an undermine it from within. alliance that rarely acts collectively and that can’t or won’t secure its southern and eastern borders—that are more catechism than argument. From this follows a subtler point that is no less integral to the Trump Doctrine: Times change, and policy must change with it. U.S. pundits and policymakers remain besotted with the post-World War II “Present at the THE THIRD PILLAR OF THE TRUMP DOCTRINE is Creation” era—perhaps because setting the table for victory in the Cold consistency—not for its own sake but War was the last time they got something really big right across the board. for the sake of the U.S. national inter- It’s true that during the postwar era, Washington achieved many things est. Unlike several of the world’s other of great benefit to the United States and other countries. But that was leading powers—China, for example, decades ago, and it doesn’t offer a realistic way forward today. We can’t but also Germany, which treats the EU just copy what Harry Truman, Dean Acheson, and George Kennan did. as a front organization and the euro as Nor can we go on trying to extend their efforts, as if they offer the solu- a super-mark—Trump does not seek to tion to every contemporary problem. practice “globalism for thee but not for Hence the second pillar of the Trump Doctrine is that liberal inter- me.” On the contrary, his foreign policy nationalism—despite its very real achievements in the postwar era— can be characterized as nationalism for is now well past the point of diminishing returns. Globalism and all. Standing up for one’s own, Trump transnationalism impose their highest costs on established powers insists, is the surest way to secure it. (namely the United States) and award the greatest benefits to rising For too long, U.S. foreign policy has powers seeking to contest U.S. influence and leadership. Washington’s aimed to do the opposite. Washington failure to understand this truth has incurred immense costs: dumb has encouraged its friends and allies to wars to spread the liberal internationalist gospel to soil where it won’t cede their sovereign decision-making grow or at least hasn’t yet; military campaigns that the United States authority, often to anti-American trans- 46 SPRING 2019

national bodies such as the EU and, THIS IDEA POINTS TO THE FINAL PILLAR OF THE TRUMP DOCTRINE: that it is not increasingly, the World Trade Organi- in U.S. interests to homogenize the world. Doing so weakens states zation. This is another carryover from whose strength is needed to defend our common interests. the Present at the Creation era. Back in the late 1940s, it made sense to push As the quote from Hazony above makes clear, we’ve all been Europe—especially Germany and indoctrinated in the alleged dangers of nationalism. But few peo- France—to reconcile, especially in the ple today dare ask about the dangers of a lack of nationalism. Yet face of a common Soviet threat. But that those dangers are manifold: Nationalism saved France in 1914, and push stopped paying dividends a long the lack of it doomed the country in 1940. It’s unclear, moreover, time ago. Yet Washington keeps how standing and fighting for one’s own in a just cause is anything pushing. but noble. Look at how the U.S. foreign-policy Beyond all this, globalism makes the world less rich, less interest- establishment lambasts Poland and ing, and more boring. In the lecture he wrote after receiving the 1970 Hungary for standing up for themselves Nobel Prize in literature, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn argued: at the same time that it warns that Rus- sia today has become as great a threat In recent times, it has been fashionable to talk of the leveling as it was during the Cold War. Supposing of countries, of the disappearance of different races in the that claim is true (a dubious proposi- melting pot of contemporary civilization. I do not agree with tion), wouldn’t it then make sense for this opinion. … Nations are the wealth of mankind, its col- the United States to encourage a strong lective personalities; the very least of them wears its own Eastern Europe, with strong countries— special colors and bears within itself a special facet of divine including Poland and Hungary—to act intention. as a bulwark against Russian revision- ism? It’s not clear how browbeating these These words, written almost 50 years ago, are more relevant countries to submit to Brussels accom- plishes that aim. today than ever. Solzhenitsyn was talking about another empire, Some Trump critics insist that which had subsumed many nations and was trying to brainwash “nationalism for all” is a bad principle because it encourages or excuses self- them out of existence. These captive nations are now free, thanks ishness by U.S. adversaries. But those countries are going to act that way in part to him, and many of them stand on the front lines, ready regardless. By declining to stand up for the United States, all Washington does and eager to defend not just themselves but all nations and the is weaken itself and its friends at the expense of its adversaries, when it very principle of the nation itself. should be seeking to strengthen the power and independence of America As the Solzhenitsyn quote makes clear, Trump’s foreign policy and its allies instead. is fundamentally a return to normalcy. What we had before couldn’t Fortunately, Asia as yet has no supra- national superbureaucracies on the go on. It is too generous to say it was going to end in disaster: It had scale of the EU. In Asia, therefore, the Trump administration has a freer rein already produced disaster. Getting back to some semblance of nor- to pursue its nationalist interests, pre- cisely by working in concert with other mal is necessary, good, and inevitable. Anything that can’t go on countries pursuing theirs. To return briefly to Trump’s Vietnam speech, his forever won’t. The only question is how it ends: with a hard crash invocation of that nation’s heroic past was not simple pandering. It served as or soft landing? For the establishment, Brexit and Trump and all a reminder that a strong Vietnam is the surest protection, for the Vietnamese the rest may feel like the former, but they’re really the latter—a and for the United States, against a revanchist China. normal response by beleaguered peoples who have been pushed too far. Trump is simply putting U.S. foreign policy back on a path that accords with nature. Nature long ago snatched the pitchfork from our hands and has been using it to stab us in the behind ever since. Wouldn’t you like to be able to sit down comfortably once again? Q MICHAEL ANTON is a lecturer and research fellow at Hillsdale College. From February 2017 to April 2018, he served on the U.S. National Security Council as deputy assistant to the president for strategic communications. This article is derived from a lecture he delivered to the Program in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. FOREIGNPOLICY.COM 47

How to Win America’s Next War The United States faces great-power enemies. It needs a military focused on fighting them. Story by ELBRIDGE COLBY Illustration by BRIAN STAUFFER Graphics by VALERIO PELLEGRINI 48 SPRING 2019