The Russian intelligence ship spotted off Hawaii’s coast last month raised in many of us island-dwellers questions about the nature of maritime spy operations. “What, in the name of Kanaloa, is that boat doing?”
Let’s put this event into context and, along the way, learn a thing or two about the world of intel collection and covert action involving seagoing vessels.
First, this sighting is not unusual. The U.S. Coast Guard tracked this same Vishnya class vessel, named the Kareliya, through the waters off of Hawaii in May 2021. Russia has also previously dispatched intelligence-gathering ships along the coastline of other states (an infamous “unsafe” cruise along Florida’s and South Carolina’s coasts reported in the news in 2019 comes to mind), and it is far from alone in this behavior. The U.S. Navy in 2018 tracked a Chinese spy ship in Hawaiian waters as it tried to monitor RIMPAC, the world’s largest international maritime exercise.
Second, it’s all pono under international law. Coming as close as 25 miles from our beaches, the Kareliya remained in international waters — albeit in a U.S. economic exclusive zone. Uncle Sam has been known to float a spy boat near countries of interest every now and then, too.
“So, what’s dis bugga snooping on?,” you ask. Well, exact capabilities and current intentions are shrouded — at least to us mortals currently outside of the intelligence community — but we can look at known capabilities and historical operations that have come to light to form an educated guess, and it’s probably safe to rule out an effort to count humpbacks.
Collection. We have talked a good deal in this column about human intelligence, the classic cloak-and-dagger world of spy networks and individual informants and double agents. When we talk about spy ships (or planes), we’ve entered the world of electronic intelligence, and it’s a whole other kettle of fish, with varieties. Think of a ship as a mobile platform on which can be stored an assortment of any technological device known to man that can passively collect information.
“Like what?” That’s only limited by imagination and technology, but here are a few things to get you thinking: encrypted wireless communications (signals intelligence); missile launch data or the presence of substances in the air, like nuclear test residues or drug lab byproducts (measures and signatures intelligence); radar signatures and radar capabilities of other ships, etc.
Surface-based covert distant photography of sensitive sites (think military ports) or new naval vessels is another possibility. And all that is just above the surface of the water. Did you know that undersea communications cables can be tapped? (Five such cables stretch 2,500 miles from Hawaii to the mainland and carry phone, internet, cable and cellphone communications for civilians and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.)
Covert action. Spy ships can also have more active intelligence roles. The CIA’s early 1970s operation, Project Azorian, featuring the now famous ship Glomar Explorer and Howard Hughes, is a classic example in which a sea vessel was custom-designed to steal another nation’s sensitive technology — a nuclear-weapons armed Soviet submarine that sank some 1,500 miles northwest of Hawaii.
“Moon pools” — underwater portals into the deep located in the belly of intelligence boats — allow for the secret deployment of underwater drones, human divers, even minisubs that can be used for sabotage, inserting or extracting an operative, underwater photography (of other sensitive ships’ undercarriage and propeller systems, harbors, and more), or a technical operation — like surreptitiously installing a monitoring device on an adversary’s ship.
So, there’s the scoop on spy ships, in a cowrie shell. If you want a deeper dive on the matter, consider reading the forthcoming book, “Spy Ships: One Hundred Years of Intelligence Collection by Ships and Submarines,” by Polmar, Mathers, et al. (Potomac Books, July 2023). A hui ho!
J.P. Atwell is a former senior CIA operations officer. His two-decade career began as an intelligence analyst and took him to every continent, save Antarctica. He now calls Hawaii Island home. He welcomes your comments at island.intelligencer@gmail.com.