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1. The Intelligence Cycle of Targeted Killing in the United States

Author:
Christine Sixta Rinehart
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
The United States has been using Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) to assassinate terrorist targets since its first RPA strike on November 3, 2002, when a U.S. Predator fired a hellfire missile at a car traveling through the Mar’ib province of Yemen. The intelligence cycle of this targeted killing process is murky at best, and the policy has changed throughout the successive administrations of U.S. presidents. Details exist but there is no defined tangible chain of analysis concerning the selection of the target, the monitoring of the target, and finally, the assassination of the target. This paper attempts to elucidate the intelligence chain of analysis concerning American targeted killing and examine how the intelligence cycle of targeted killing varies through successive presidential administrations. ​ This paper will begin with a short analysis of relevant literature, although sources concerning this topic are scarce. The occurrence of targeted killings of U.S. citizens will also be explained in the literature section. The paper will continue with an elaboration of a generic intelligence cycle model, which will be used to illustrate the intelligence cycle of U.S. targeted killings using both the Reaper and the Predator RPA.[1] The paper will then address differences in the intelligence cycles and processes that have occurred between successive presidents since targeted killing first began in 2002 with President George W. Bush. Lastly, the paper will provide policy prescriptions in reference to improving targeted killing in the Middle East and Africa...
Topic:
Security, Intelligence, Drones, and Targeted Killing
Political Geography:
Africa, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

2. The Need for Countries to Establish Robust and Transparent Vulnerabilities Equities Processes

Author:
Sharon Bradford Franklin
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
In 2017, leaders of the U.S. Intelligence Community warned that “more than 30 nations are developing offensive cyberattack capabilities.”1 This means that more than 30 countries may be conducting hacking operations as a method for surveillance, disruption, or destruction. Unregulated cyber surveillance and cyberattacks by government actors can pose risks not only to a government’s foreign adversaries, but also to its own citizens. Thus, as the United States and other nations work to enhance their own offensive cyber capabilities, as well as to develop strategies to defend against potential attacks, it is critical that these countries establish legal regimes to govern such conduct in cyberspace. Although Germany has established a legal framework to regulate government hacking activities,[2] few countries have done so.[3] ​ To bring government hacking operations within the rule of law, a crucial step is to design rules regarding the management of vulnerabilities that governments discover or acquire. As with other cyber actors, when governments conduct hacking operations, this frequently involves exploiting vulnerabilities in computer hardware and software systems. But these same flaws can also be manipulated by a government’s foreign adversaries or other malicious actors. Therefore, when countries consider their abilities to rely on hacking as an investigative tool, as well as their interests in exploiting vulnerabilities for military and intelligence operations, they must also evaluate the capacity of information and communications technology providers to repair bugs and protect the cybersecurity of all users. Determining whether to exploit a vulnerability or disclose it to a vendor for patching involves balancing a variety of different security concerns against each other. ​ Some countries have made progress in formalizing the rules for making these decisions and in publicizing these rules to promote public accountability. In November 2017, the United States released a charter governing its Vulnerabilities Equities Process (VEP), which outlines how the U.S. government weighs the various competing equities.[4] The charter delineates which components of the government will participate in determinations regarding whether to disclose or retain each newly discovered vulnerability, and it sets forth the criteria to be used and the process to be followed in making such assessments. One year later, the United Kingdom (UK) announced its Equities Process, which follows a similar approach.5 Most recently, in March 2019, Australia released its “Responsible Release Principles for Cyber Security Vulnerabilities,”[6] and Germany is currently working to develop a VEP and is expected to make information about its process public in early 2019.[7] However, as described below, the VEP procedures revealed to date need further improvement,[8] and most of the nations with offensive cyber capabilities have not developed—or at least have not announced—any such framework...
Topic:
Security, Intelligence, Science and Technology, and Cybersecurity
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

3. The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age by David Sanger

Author:
David Sanger and Travis Frederick
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
In The Perfect Weapon, David Sanger argues that the nature of global power itself is undergoing dramatic changes, brought about by the proliferation of highly advanced cyber capabilities. Today, internet access is nearly ubiquitous, the cost of entry is low, and, particularly in the domain of cyberwarfare, there is one fundamental fact: offensive capabilities have critically outpaced cyber defenses. A weak and impoverished nation like North Korea can hold large swaths of public and private infrastructure in America at risk, steal military OpPlans, and pilfer millions of dollars from foreign banks. A Kremlin reeling from sanctions, low oil prices, and historically low public trust is able to threaten the very foundations of American democracy through targeted social media campaigns and hacking and leaking the emails of a major political party. But while the offensive advantage has given weaker powers greater capacity to pursue their geopolitical objectives, U.S. leadership has found that their response options have not similarly benefitted. America’s offensive cyber prowess so exceeds its own defensive capabilities that officials often hesitate to strike back for fear of establishing norms of retaliation against vulnerable infrastructure or inciting unintended escalation. Sanger argues that without an open public debate among government policy makers, military planners, and academics to coordinate a grand strategy, the United States will be forced to accept a world of constant cyberattacks, limited response options, and the greater risk of capitulating to foreign coercion...
Topic:
Security, Intelligence, Science and Technology, Cybersecurity, and Book Review
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

4. The Future of Strategic Intelligence

Author:
Robert Hutchings
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
We begin with a puzzle: the need for strategic analysis is more important than ever in this period of great flux and uncertainty, but the disdain for analysis of any kind has never been greater than under the administration of President Donald J. Trump. The very premise that leaders need reasonably objective intelligence analysis to inform their policy decisions – a premise that has guided every U.S. administration since World War II – is under assault. If we are to rebuild our capacity for strategic thinking, we need to go back to the beginning. When President Harry Truman created the strategic intelligence function at the end of World War II, he understood that the United States had been thrust into a global role for which it was not prepared. The world was simply too complex, and American interests too extensive, to operate on the basis of impulse or ad hoc decision making. Moreover, when Truman issued National Intelligence Authority No. 5 on July 8, 1946, instructing the Director of Central Intelligence to “accomplish the evaluation and dissemination of strategic intelligence,” he deliberately set up this function outside of the White House, the Department of State, and the military, so that strategic analysis would be kept at a critical distance from policy making. Yet Truman, like every president since, was ambivalent about the role of strategic intelligence and the degree of autonomy it ought to have. ​ The story actually begins earlier, when President Franklin Roosevelt, in a military order of June 13, 1942, formally established the Office of Strategic Services with William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan at its head, and directed it to “collect and analyze... strategic information” and to “plan and operate special services.” The cloak- and-dagger wartime operations of the OSS are the stuff of legend, as are the notable figures recruited to serve, including the poets Archibald MacLeish and Stephen Vincent Benét, the banker Paul Mellon, the psychologist Carl Jung, the philosopher Herbert Marcuse, the anthropologist Margaret Mead, and the movie director John Ford. Less well known is its role in strategic intelligence analysis through its Research and Analysis (R&A) Branch, led initially by James Phinney Baxter III, president of Williams College, and after 1943 by Harvard historian William Langer, identified in war correspondence as “OSS 117.”
Topic:
Security, Intelligence, History, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

5. The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton by Jefferson Morley

Author:
Jefferson Morley and Brian O'Keefe
Publication Date:
07-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
In his new biography The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton, veteran journalist Jefferson Morley probes an enigma others have chronicled but none satisfactorily explained. Angleton, “a founding father of U.S. mass-surveillance policies,” joined the Agency’s predecessor, the OSS, in its early years and reigned as chief of its Counterintelligence Staff for an extraordinary two decades until his abrupt retirement in 1974.[1] His personal mystique and complicated tenure have given rise to a small but formidable contingent of biographies, novels, and film characters. What Morley adds to the intrigue is a refusal to be seduced by the beguiling charm of his subject, preferring instead to deliberately scrutinize Angleton’s expansive power, ideological intransigence, and lasting influence. ​ Morley’s timeline spans Angleton’s career, though he peppers his narrative with nods to formative experiences at Yale, post-CIA pursuits, and family affairs. The story unfolds chronologically through four tersely titled and equally distributed sections (Poetry, Power, Impunity, Legend), each of which is further demarcated under a dozen or more pithy subheadings (Mole, Oswald, Kim...). Readers might experience the rhythm as too serial for the genre, and while the chronological method is helpful in charting Angleton’s ascent, Morley rarely lingers long enough with a scene to breathe life into its cast. Save a few animated vignettes, the reader is less a participant in the sensory and internal worlds of Morley’s subjects than a recipient of his detective digging, sundry sources, and interpretive reflections... ​
Topic:
Security, Intelligence, History, Book Review, and Surveillance
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

6. Full Issue: Emerging Domains of Security

Author:
Meg Guliford, Thomas McCarthy, Alison Russell, Michael M. Tsai, Po-Chang Huang, Feng-tai Hwang, Ian Easton, Matthew Testerman, Nikolas Ott, Anthony Gilgis, Todd Diamond, Michael Wackenreuter, Sebastian Bruns, Andrew Mark Spencer, Wendy A. Wayman, and Charles Cleveland
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
The theme of this special edition is “Emerging Domains of Security.” Coupled with previously unpublished work developed under a prior “Winning Without War” theme, the articles therein honor Professor Martel’s diverse, yet forward-leaning, research interests. This edition maintains the journal’s four traditional sections of policy, history, interviews, and current affairs. Our authors include established academics and practitioners as well as two Fletcher students, Nikolas Ott and Michael Wackenreuter. Each of the articles analyzes critical issues in the study and practice of international security, and our authors make salient arguments about an array of security-related issues. The articles are borne out of countless hours of work by FSR’s dedicated editorial staff. I deeply appreciate the time and effort they devoted to the publication of this volume. They are full-time graduate students who masterfully balanced a host of responsibilities.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Intelligence, International Cooperation, International Law, History, Military Affairs, Counter-terrorism, Cybersecurity, Navy, Conflict, Space, Interview, Army, Baath Party, and Norms
Political Geography:
China, Iraq, Europe, Middle East, Taiwan, Germany, Asia-Pacific, Global Focus, and United States of America