Monday, February 16, 2009

Threats Warrant Western Hemisphere Intelligence Sharing

By Jerry Brewer

The world intelligence community as a whole is in serious disarray.  Although perfunctory mandates may dominate intelligence collection tasks at the routine inquiry protocol levels, this is not necessarily true with all.  A foreign intelligence/security service that relies heavily on military support, and whose services are highly politicized agents of state control, is the radical exception.

One stark example within the western hemisphere has been Cuba.  Cuba's intelligence apparatus has been complicated and undergone considerable change in national security since the collapse of the Soviet Union.  However, embattled Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has seen fit to adopt the previous Soviet-styled Cuban intelligence service (DGI) as his model.  This service is known as the DISIP (Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services), and it utilizes Cuban intelligence, counterparts and advisors.

For the most part, western hemispheric nations share common ground on the inherent nature of intelligence, that is to collect, analyze, and disseminate information towards their conduct in foreign relations, as well as national security.  Although there is much diversity in the kinds of intelligence sought, much of this is primarily political, military, and economic.  The haunting and stark reality of world terrorism that has metamorphosed from threats to operational acts by terrorists resulting in world carnage, directs the intelligence mission and cycle to national security collection efforts to protect homelands.

What has been previously considered to be domestic security and law enforcement (criminal) intelligence related was known as non-traditional intelligence.  However, the stark reality manifested in massive death and destruction clearly demonstrates the nexus and necessary merging of the intelligence machine to a more holistic approach.  This direction is critical to ensure that international terrorist activities are interdicted and their murderous operational plans disrupted.  Although essentially analogous, proactive and strategic intelligence collection tasks must include those rogue foreign powers and hostile intelligence services that support or give safe haven to terrorists.

Organized crime and terrorist activity by definition in Mexico represents a graphic example and demonstration of a specter that has plagued the country, manifested in violence, death, and superior weaponry at the border and even into U.S. states.  Some observers have reported and forewarned of this evolvement that reached a new peak in Nuevo Laredo in 2005, and more recently in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua.  Much of this just now being more fully covered in the media – to the shock and chagrin of those in the U.S. who have mainly been in a frenzy over illegal immigrants.

Mexico, due to its contiguous location with the U.S, is suspected of being a strategic haven for a myriad of ethnically diverse transnational terrorists and criminals, narcoterrorists, and other paramilitary-styled insurgents.  There may be organized Russian criminal cells operating in Mexico, as well as Asian criminals involved in a myriad of criminal enterprises that include alien smuggling and human trafficking, and drug trafficking partnerships with Mexican cartels.

Russia's influence throughout Latin America is being felt also with planning and helping Venezuela build a nuclear reactor.  Russia's strengthening of military ties with Venezuela and, again, Cuba is reason for concern by their Latin American neighbors, and this generates intelligence related information tasking.  This in order to ascertain clear Russian intentions within the region, and to assess the combined agendas.  As well, Russians have reportedly been training Nicaraguan military personnel.

Anti-gang initiatives throughout Central America have fueled fluid movement into Mexico and the U.S.  Transnational gangs, so well-armed and organized, require extreme vigilance by intelligence officials.  This activity must go far beyond police interdiction.  This imminent threat requires counterinsurgency strategies that must include military, economic, and diplomatic remedies for technical assistance and overall success.

Assessing threat by intelligence officials in the affected areas requires coordination, information sharing, and technical expertise.  Threat must be triaged to assess the variables involved, such as any form of religious or ideological focus, a geographic focus, possible state sponsorship, the organizational structure, and any political goals.  Any of those variables could conceal motives and agendas that are easily disguised by leftists and rogue regimes, and thus dismissed as insignificant to terrorist or other forms of "organized" threat.

Assessing national threats and threat trends, as well as the modus operandi of such, requires a united foreign intelligence mission.  The threat, as we now know it and understand it, comes from a diverse cadre of ethnicity and motivation – domestic and international.  The sources of sponsorship are also far from being transparent.  Spy versus spy remains a topic of motive and pursuit of mostly hidden agendas.

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Jerry Brewer is C.E.O. of Criminal Justice International Associates, a global risk mitigation firm headquartered in Miami, Florida.  His website is located at www.cjiausa.org.