A GROWING CONVERGENCE BETWEEN the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the United States military has been one of the most notable changes in American intelligence after 9/11.
Some argue
that the resulting overlap between the CIA and the military, in both
capabilities and operations, has altered their character —perhaps
permanently. The CIA has become more involved than ever before in lethal
operations, while the military has embraced intelligence work with
unprecedented intensity.
Today, more than two decades after 9/11,
joint activities between the CIA and the Joint Special Operations
Command (JSOC) have become customary. JSOC was founded in the aftermath
of operation EAGLE CLAW —the failed attempt to free US diplomatic
personnel held in Tehran during the Iran hostage crisis. Its mission is
to bring together the Special Operations Forces (SOF) elements across
the US military. In addition to ensuring inter-operability and
standardization between these elements, JSOC oversees the operations of
elite joint SOF units that perform highly classified activities around
the world.
Increasingly since 9/11, the CIA and JSOC
have been launching combined counter-terrorism operations and have
learned to compete less and collaborate more —though turf wars between
them are not uncommon. Today it is not unusual for CIA civilians to
gather intelligence on a particular target before hand it over to JSOC,
which in turn tasks its military personnel to use lethal force against
the target. This type of collaboration may bear fruits in the
counter-terrorism domain, but also makes it difficult for the US
political leadership, primarily Congress, to exercise appropriate
oversight over covert action.
Partial Oversight
In an article published on Sunday, Dr.
Jennifer Kibbe, Professor of Government at Franklin and Marshall
College, and a specialist on the oversight of intelligence operations,
explores the effects of the CIA-JSOC convergence on democratic
accountability. The article, “CIA/SOF Convergence and Congressional
Oversight”, appears in the peer-reviewed journal Intelligence and National Security.
If features statements from interviews by current and former
Congressional staffers with experience in working for the intelligence
committees of the US Congress.
Kibbe finds that the system of
compartmentalization, which has traditionally secluded the activities of
Congressional committees, coupled with the CIA-JSOC convergence,
presents significant challenges for oversight. Presently, the
Congressional intelligence committees oversee the activities of the CIA,
while JSOC reports to the armed services committees. This poses
problems in cases when, for instance, the CIA leads the front end of an
operation and then hands it over to JSOC. This means that the
intelligence committees in the House or Senate get access to only half
of the operation and are unable to share their findings with the armed
services committees. Conversely, the armed services committees are not
privy to the CIA-led segment of the operation. This happens because of
built-in compartmentalization procedures, but also because committee
staffers tend have different clearance levels.
The Future
It is clear that the convergence between
the CIA and JSOC is a product of the peculiar counter-terrorism
environment that developed in response to the attacks of 9/11. Arguably,
therefore, as Washington continues to shift its focus away from
non-state actors, and concentrate instead on great-power competition,
the CIA will return to its traditional intelligence role. In turn, its
special operations wings, which have been involved in lethal operations
since 9/11, will atrophy. It follows that the CIA-JSOC convergence,
which makes it difficult for Congress to keep an eye on intelligence
operations, is likely to subside and may even disappear altogether.
Kibbe strongly rejects this scenario,
calling it “naïve”. She argues that, although it does not currently pose
existential threats to the US, international terrorism will continue to
be on the radar of American policy makers for the foreseeable future.
Additionally, the ‘gray zone’ activities of the Kremlin, which have
become a standard feature of great power competition in our time, invite
covert action as an instrument of policy. Finally, she argues that the
rapidly growing field of cyber operations is likely to feature
prominently in “that area between diplomacy and war”, in which the CIA
and SOF elements of the military are most useful to American policy
makers.
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