U.S. intelligence community warnings, nongovernment think tank analysis and international press reporting since summer have painted a picture of aggressive Russian, Chinese and Iranian spy services’ covert influence operations to manipulate U.S. voter choices and sow discord in the citizenry over hot button issues — immigration, inflation, ballot security, gun laws.
(Meanwhile, our European cousins have fared worse, with Russian and Iranian covert ops moving from influence to action, including assassinations and sabotage.)
“This will end after election day, right?” Probably not. It may even get more “interesting” following Nov. 5.
“These are the times that try men’s souls.” — Thomas Paine, The Crisis (1776)
On Oct. 16, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines declassified a National Intelligence Council memorandum, dated Oct. 8, titled: “Foreign Threats to U.S. Elections After Voting Ends in 2024.” The assessment, available online, highlights the potential for trouble ahead, especially in the period between the final ballot counts and Inauguration Day on Jan.20 — a window shown in the last election cycle to be more fragile than the world ever imagined.
So, what lies ahead within the realm of the possible, if not probable? Using the past as prologue and examining our adversaries’ ongoing covert action programs in other countries, we can identify a few scenarios to look out for.
Covert influence. AI-driven agitprop campaigns, bot farm initiatives and deep fakes — already manifest in the run-up to the election — will likely continue to play a role, if not become more prevalent. Reverse image search engines, like tineye.com, can help us weed out some of this content, but other buffers include critical thinking skills, media literacy tools, and broad exposure to information sources that rank high in reliability, low in bias. (Check out adfontesmedia.com and groundnews.com for good news source evaluation tools.)
Cyber sabotage. The Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency, working with FBI and NSA, this year removed Chinese code implants from the inner workings of key infrastructure facilities from Hawaii to the mainland’s east coast. Russian and Iranian cyber operations against our nation have been equally aggressive. Have we identified and neutralized all extant threats? Imagine the effect on the populace, or on gatherings of agitated voters in the nation’s capital, if a bad actor at strategic moments manipulates municipal water and electricity supplies, internet access, traffic lights, or air-traffic control systems. Possible? Yes. Likely? I lack the data needed to make that call.
Demonstration stoking. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps has already been caught doing this with pro-Palestinian crowds on U.S. campuses, and they could aim the same tactics at election-related gatherings. Organizing and fanning protests is part of the Russian “active measures” toolkit. There is no doubt that intelligence services of adversarial nations watched with glee the unfolding of events at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2020. I’ll wager they took notes and had ideas regarding future operational opportunities.
Encouraging violence. FBI has over the past year kept high on its threat watchlist domestic terrorism, to include the more recently identified “salad bar” variety (look it up). Neo-Nazis, extreme Christian nationalists, militiamen, incels, sovereign citizens, conspiracy-minded and anti-government types … How hard do you think it is for a savvy intelligence service to manipulate and steer such agitated folks into action? (Have you followed the string of Department of Justice indictments over the past few years involving ideologically motivated U.S. citizens who attacked power stations that keep American homes lighted and warm?)
Sabotage and assassination. Less likely scenarios, sure, but look at Russia’s recently exposed coordinated arson attacks in Europe. Something similar could happen here. Iran’s plans for targeted killings inside our borders of former U.S. officials, including a candidate in this presidential race, were widely reported on in the press over the past three months.
So what now? I’ll let Thomas Paine close us out the way he began the ending of his essay: “I thank God, that I fear not. I see no real cause for fear.”
After all, as Ecclesiastes tells us, “There is nothing new under the sun.” (Douglas Adams famously put it this way: “Don’t panic!”)
“May you live in interesting times.” — Chinese blessing (and curse)
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.