Intelligence_ From Secrets to Policy - Mark M. Lowenthal [215]
One could argue that the treaty status of the UN is no different than the sovereignty of any nation. After all, no nation permits hostile intelligence collection in its territory. This is another instance in which the raison d’etat takes precedence over treaty obligations.
COVERT ACTION. Covert actions are interventions by one state in the affairs of another. The basic ethical issue is the legitimacy of such operations. Concepts of national interest, national security, and national defense are most commonly used to support covert operations. But, taken to the extreme, every nation could be both a perpetrator and a target, creating Hobbesian anarchy. In reality, many states do not have the capability, the need, or the will to carry out covert actions against other states. But those states that do have the need and the ability believe their covert actions to be legitimate.
Covert actions also may conflict with personal goals or beliefs. Across the range of covert actions, from purely political (electoral aid, propaganda) to economic subversion and coups, innocent citizens in the targeted state can be affected and perhaps put in jeopardy. Military attacks on civilians in wartime have long been accepted as a legitimate activity, such as the large-scale bombings of cities. Are peacetime covert actions different?
Propaganda operations raise concern in the United States over blowback—the danger that a false story planted in the foreign press by U.S. intelligence might be picked up by U.S. media outlets (see chap. 8). If U.S. intelligence informs these outlets of the true nature of the story, it runs the risk of a leak, thus undoing the entire operation. How serious a concern should blowback be? Is it a major threat to the independence of the press?
What are the moral limits of operations? During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, some Soviet troops, dispirited by the interminable war, succumbed to the ready availability of narcotics, as had U.S. troops in Vietnam. The United States supplied arms to the anti-Soviet Mujaheddin, including sophisticated Stinger missiles. Would it have been legitimate and acceptable to take steps to increase drug use by the Soviet troops as a means of undermining their military efforts?
Paramilitary operations—the waging of war via surrogate forces, placing them somewhat beyond the norms of accepted international law—raise a number of ethical and moral issues. Are they legitimate? They raise the prospect of innocent civilians being put in jeopardy. Are there limits to paramilitary operations? For example, does the nature of the regime that is being fought matter? Are such operations legitimate against oppressive, undemocratic regimes but illegitimate against those with more acceptable forms of government? If there are differences, who determines which governments are legitimate targets and which are not?
As with HUMINT, paramilitary operations raise questions about the sponsoring power’s obligations to the combatants. This is a problem particularly for operations that are unsuccessful or appear to be inconclusive. In the case of a failed operation, does the supporting power have an obligation to help extricate its surrogate combatants and move them to a safe haven? In the case of an inconclusive operation, the choices are even more difficult. The supporting state may be able to continue the paramilitary operations indefinitely, perhaps knowing that there is little chance of success, but also little prospect of defeat. Should the supporting power continue the operation despite its near pointlessness? Or does it have a responsibility to terminate the operation? If it decides to terminate, does it have an obligation to extricate the fighters it has supported?
Even a successful operation can raise ethical and moral issues. In the aftermath