Counterintelligence state
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Counterintelligence state (sometimes also called intelligence state, securocracy or spookocracy) is a
state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...
where the state security service penetrates and permeates all societal institutions, including the military.Michael Waller ''Secret Empire: The KGB in Russia Today.'', Westview Press. Boulder, CO., 1994., , pages 13–15. The term has been applied by historians and political commentators to the former
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, the former
German Democratic Republic German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...
,
Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
after the 1959 revolution,
Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
under
Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...
,
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
under the
Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...
, and post-Soviet
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
under
Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
, especially since 2012. According to one definition, "The counterintelligence state is characterized by the presence of a large, elite force acting as a watchdog of a security defined as broadly that the state must maintain an enormous vigilance and enforcement apparatus... This apparatus is not accountable to the public and enjoys immense police powers... Whether the civilian government is able to control the security bodies is an open question; indeed ''the civilian government is so penetrated by the apparatus that there is no clear distinction between the two.''" In some cases, securocracies feature literal, direct rule of the state by officials originating from the
secret police Secret police (or political police) are intelligence, security or police agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, religious, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic of a ...
- as it was in the USSR under
Lavrentiy Beria Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (; rus, Лавре́нтий Па́влович Бе́рия, Lavréntiy Pávlovich Bériya, p=ˈbʲerʲiə; ka, ლავრენტი ბერია, tr, ;  – 23 December 1953) was a Georgian Bolshevik ...
and
Yuri Andropov Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (– 9 February 1984) was the sixth paramount leader of the Soviet Union and the fourth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After Leonid Brezhnev's 18-year rule, Andropov served in the po ...
, for instance, and as it is in Russia under Vladimir Putin.


Soviet Union

There was a massive security apparatus in the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
to prevent any opposition, and "every facet of daily life fell into the
KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
's domain." Undercover staff of the KGB included three major categories: :(a) the active reserve, :(b) the "trusted contacts" (or "reliable people"), and :(c) "civilian informers" (or "secret helpers"). The "active reserve" included KGB
officers An officer is a person who has a position of authority in a hierarchical organization. The term derives from Old French ''oficier'' "officer, official" (early 14c., Modern French ''officier''), from Medieval Latin ''officiarius'' "an officer," fro ...
with a military rank who worked undercover. "Trusted contacts" were high placed
civilian Civilians under international humanitarian law are "persons who are not members of the armed forces" and they are not "combatants if they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war". It is slightly different from a non-combatant, b ...
s who collaborated with the KGB without signing any official working agreements, such as directors of personnel departments at various institutions, academics, deans, or writers and actors.
Yevgenia Albats Yevgenia Markovna Albats (russian: Евге́ния Ма́рковна Альба́ц, born 5 September 1958blackmail Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false information about a person or people unless certain demands are met. It is often damaging information, and it may be revealed to fa ...
. The precise number of people from various categories remains unknown, but one of the estimates was 11 million "informers" in the Soviet Union, or one out of every eighteen adult citizens.


Russian Federation

A "Law on Foreign Intelligence" adopted in August 1992 provided conditions for penetration by former KGB officers to all levels of the government and economy, since it stipulated that "career personnel may occupy positions in ministries, departments, establishments, enterprises and organizations in accordance with the requirements of this law without compromising their association with foreign intelligence agencies."The HUMINT Offensive from Putin's Chekist State
Anderson, Julie (2007), International Journal of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence, 20:2, 258–316
According to a Russian banker, "All big companies have to put people from the security services on the board of directors... and we know that when Lubyanka calls, they have to answer them." A current FSB colonel explained that "We must make sure that companies don't make decisions that are not in the interest of the state".
Olga Kryshtanovskaya Olga Viktorovna Kryshtanovskaya (russian: О́льга Ви́кторовна Крыштано́вская; born 1954) is a Russian sociologist, activist and State Duma deputy from the United Russia party. Education and career Kryshtanovskaya wo ...
, director of the Moscow-based "Center for the Study of Elites", has found in the beginning of the 2000s that up to 78% of 1,016 leading political figures in
post-Soviet Russia The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...
have served previously in organizations affiliated with the KGB or FSB. She said: "If in the Soviet period and the first post-Soviet period, the KGB and FSB people were mainly involved in security issues, now half are still involved in security but the other half are involved in
business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...
,
political parties A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or pol ...
,
NGO A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...
s, regional governments, even culture... They started to use all political institutions."''In Russia, A Secretive Force Widens''
by P. Finn, Washington Post, 2006
Political scholar Julie Anderson describes how under the presidency of Vladimir Putin, himself a former KGB operative, "an ' FSB State' composed of chekists has been established and is consolidating its hold on the country. Its closest partners are
organized criminals Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally th ...
. In a world marked by a globalized economy and information infrastructure, and with transnational terrorism groups utilizing all available means to achieve their goals and further their interests,
Russian intelligence The Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation ( rus, Служба внешней разведки Российской Федерации, r=Sluzhba vneshney razvedki Rossiyskoy Federatsii , p=ˈsluʐbə ˈvnʲɛʂnʲɪj rɐˈzvʲɛ ...
collaboration with these elements is potentially disastrous."The HUMINT Offensive from Putin's Chekist State
Anderson, Julie (2007), International Journal of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence, 20:2, 258 – 316
The Chekist Takeover of the Russian State
Anderson, Julie (2006), International Journal of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence, 19:2, 237 – 288.
Historian
Yuri Felshtinsky Yuri Georgievich Felshtinsky (russian: Юрий Георгиевич Фельштинский, born 7 September 1956 in Moscow) is a Russian American historian. Felshtinsky has authored a number of books on Russian history, including ''The Bol ...
compared the takeover of Russian state by
silovik In the Russian political lexicon, a ''silovik'' ( rus, силови́к, p=sʲɪlɐˈvʲik; plural: ''siloviki'', rus, силовики́, p=sʲɪləvʲɪˈkʲi) is a person who works in the Russian Armed Forces, the Russian national police, ...
s with an imaginary scenario of the
Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
coming to power in Germany after
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. He noted a fundamental difference between the
secret police Secret police (or political police) are intelligence, security or police agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, religious, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic of a ...
and ordinary
political parties A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or pol ...
, even totalitarian ones, such as the
Soviet Communist Party "Hymn of the Bolshevik Party" , headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow , general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first)Mikhail Gorbachev (last) , founded = , banned = , founder = Vladimir Lenin , newspaper ...
. The Russian secret police organizations use various violent
active measures Active measures (russian: активные мероприятия, translit=aktivnye meropriyatiya) is political warfare conducted by the Soviet or Russian government since the 1920s. It includes offensive programs such as espionage, propaganda ...
. Hence, according to Felshtinsky, they killed
Alexander Litvinenko Alexander Valterovich "Sasha" Litvinenko (30 August 1962 ( at WebCite) or 4 December 1962 – 23 November 2006) was a British-naturalised Russian defector and former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) who specialised i ...
and directed
Russian apartment bombings The Russian apartment bombings were a series of explosions that hit four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999, killing more than 300, injuring more than 1,000, and spreading a wave of fear ac ...
and other terrorism acts in Russia to frighten the civilian population and achieve their political objectives. Former KGB officer
Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy Konstantin Georgiyevich Preobrazhenskiy ( rus, Константин Георгиевич Преображенский; born 1953 in Moscow) is a former KGB lieutenant colonel, an intelligence expert and the author of several books and numerous arti ...
shares similar ideas. When asked "How many people in Russia work in FSB?", he replied: "Whole country. FSB owns everything, including
Russian Army The Russian Ground Forces (russian: Сухопутные войска В Sukhoputnyye voyska V, also known as the Russian Army (, ), are the Army, land forces of the Russian Armed Forces. The primary responsibilities of the Russian Gro ...
and even own Church, the
Russian Orthodox Church , native_name_lang = ru , image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg , imagewidth = , alt = , caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia , abbreviation = ROC , type ...
... Putin managed to create a new
social system In sociology, a social system is the patterned network of relationships constituting a coherent whole that exist between individuals, groups, and institutions. It is the formal structure of role and status that can form in a small, stable group. ...
in Russia". Intelligence expert Marc Gerecht describes Vladimir Putin's Russia as "a new phenomenon in Europe: a state defined and dominated by former and active-duty security and intelligence officers. Not even Fascist Italy,
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
, or the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
– all undoubtedly much worse creations than Putin's government – were as top-heavy with intelligence talent."


China

China contains all the hallmarks of a counterintelligence state, with an intelligence security apparatus unprecedented in both scale and sophistication. Traditionally considered a "hard target" nation by the
US intelligence community The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, the use of
mass surveillance Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens. The surveillance is often carried out by local and federal governments or governmental organizati ...
against its domestic population and intrusive collection of personal information from telecommunications to travel, flight, hotel check-in and internet browsing data has made it challenging for US intelligence agencies to collect information on developments within the country. The
human intelligence Human intelligence is the intellectual capability of humans, which is marked by complex cognitive feats and high levels of motivation and self-awareness. High intelligence is associated with better outcomes in life. Through intelligence, humans ...
(HUMINT) model of intelligence collection has been remarked as obsolete as a result of development of technology such as facial recognition,
biometrics Biometrics are body measurements and calculations related to human characteristics. Biometric authentication (or realistic authentication) is used in computer science as a form of identification and access control. It is also used to identify in ...
, wifi sniffers and pervasive use of
CCTV cameras A closed-circuit television camera can produce images or recordings for surveillance or other private purposes. Cameras can be either video cameras, or digital stills cameras. Walter Bruch was the inventor of the CCTV camera. The main purpose o ...
making it: "all but impossible" to disguise human operatives from official scrutiny. Political commentary has also focused on the extremely closed nature of the
Xi Jinping Administration The Xi Jinping Administration of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially called the "CCP Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as General Secretary" () between 2012 and 2016, and "CCP Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its ...
, with Richard McGregor of the
Lowy Institute The Lowy Institute is an independent think tank founded in April 2003 by Frank Lowy to conduct original, policy-relevant research about international political, strategic and economic issues from an Australian perspective. It is based in Sydney, ...
describing the
Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
's culture as one of "radical secrecy". In an address on April 14, 2022 to the
Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...
, CIA Director William Burns expanded on the issue of "ubiquitous technical surveillance" in countries such as China and the challenge such issues posed to US intelligence collection on the
PRC China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
, stating: An article published in ''
Foreign Policy A State (polity), state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterall ...
'' on April 27, 2019 by British security specialist Edward Lucas, also made significant reference to China and its use of technology for counter-intelligence purposes stating:"The cloak of anonymity or Western intelligence agenciesis steadily shrinking" and additionally that:"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".


See also

*
Silovik In the Russian political lexicon, a ''silovik'' ( rus, силови́к, p=sʲɪlɐˈvʲik; plural: ''siloviki'', rus, силовики́, p=sʲɪləvʲɪˈkʲi) is a person who works in the Russian Armed Forces, the Russian national police, ...
*
Police state A police state describes a state where its government institutions exercise an extreme level of control over civil society and liberties. There is typically little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the exe ...
* Deep state


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Counterintelligence State 20th century Authoritarianism Militarism Political philosophy Political science terminology Political systems Political theories