American Colonialism through Covert Operations and Counterinsurgency

1
“Intelligence is inevitably one of these professions in which certain American
principles are going to be suspended to obtain the desired result.”

- Former CIA operations officer Reuel Marc Gerecht, quoted in Charles Lathrop, The
Literary Spy

Thank God We Have Got

-Lt. Colonel Price T. Bingham, USAF (ret.), expanding on Hilaire Belloc’s famous quip
about the Maxim gun. From “On Machine Guns and Precision Engagement,” a June
1997 article in Joint Forces Quarterly

It was daytime in Afghanistan when a small unmanned drone called a Predator

crossed the border from its launching site in Uzbekistan. The use of the unmanned

2
drone itself was not new; they had been utilized previously in Bosnia. This time, in

September 2000, they were being operated from halfway around the world. Rather

than placing a unit on the ground to operate the drone, an Air Force pilot controlled

it from inside a makeshift control room in the Central Intelligence Agency’s

Counterterrorism Center.1 The CIA had paid for the development of the drone and

had authorization to approve a submarine-launched cruise missile strike should the

drone spot its target.2 The mission never could offer confirmation that it found Bin

Laden, but it was a critical step in an increasingly involved history of complex

connections among the military and intelligence communities that has been

gradually increasing since 1945.

The Intelligence Community, including the CIA, the National Security Agency,

and military intelligence, has at times operated to do more than gather information

or effect precise acts of sabotage for security interests. Instead, American

intelligence activities have frequently become the means of suppressing resistance

to American interests through force. In 1959 historian William Appleman Williams

observed that since the beginning the Cold War, the process of American expansion

had left the nation “impaled on the traditional dilemma of empire. It could resort to

war or it could disengage, safeguarding its strategic position by formulating a new

outlook which accepted the reality of a world in revolution and devising new

policies calculated to assist those revolutions to move immediately and visibly to

1
Steven Coll. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan (New York:
Penguin Books, 2004) 531,532
2
Coll 530

3
toward their goal of a better human life.” 3 While Williams perhaps overstated the

humanitarian nature of revolutionary movements, he accurately assessed the choice

between war and the abandonment of imperial interests. But Williams could not

have foreseen that national policy makers would answer this choice by using the

intelligence community (and occasionally the military) to wage a permanent low

intensity, counterinsurgency war that is becoming increasing specialized.

Obviously, the United States has fought small wars of colonial aggression for

its interests for most of its history. These wars have had a tendency to be unpopular

and divisive. The war with Tripoli between 1802 and 1806 cost the U.S three million

dollars and prompted Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin, among others, to suggest

that the Barbary pirates could have simply been paid off. 4 The opposition of many in

the Whig party to the Mexican-American War complicated the pursuit of that

conflict.5 Actions in the Philippines and Russia were both complete military

disasters.6 George Kennan suggested in his Walgreen Lectures that in regards to

foreign policy, “a good deal of our trouble seems to have stemmed from the extent to

which the executive has felt itself beholden to short-term trends of public opinion in

the country and from what we might call the erratic and subjective nature of public

3
William Appleman Williams. The Tragedy of American Diplomacy: Second Edition
(New York: Dell Publishing, 1959, 2nd 1972) 293
4
Max Boot. The Savage Wars of Peace (New York: Basic Books, 2002) 28
5
“A Conversation With David M. Pletcher of Indiana University.” PBS Online
http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/prelude/md_an_ideal_or_a_justification.h
tml (Accessed April 7, 2009)
6
David J. Silbey. A War of Frontier and Empire: The Philippine-American War, 1899-
1902 (New York: Macmillan, 2008) 218;
Boot, 229, 230

4
reaction to foreign policy questions.”7 What Kennan didn’t realize was that policy-

makers from Franklin Roosevelt onward had a solution, through actions based on

the use of force through intelligence agencies or secret military programs. Such

operations avoided public criticism.

The United States created a specialized intelligence force during World War

II to secure American interests at the expense of its wartime Allies. In July 1944, a

unit called the Intelligence Priorities Committee began to work covertly with Allied

code breakers in England’s Bletchley Park, the group who, among other

achievements, cracked the German’s ULTRA code. The Committee’s official work

focused on securing information on German war programs, such as the V-2 missile

research, as the war was ending. To facilitate this work, Intelligence Assault Units

collaborated with Allied military forces and the joint U.S. and U.K. Target

Intelligence Committee (TICOM) teams to hunt down code materials, scientific

information, and German personnel.8 While getting German and Japanese codes was

an objective for the teams, however, their unofficial primary duty was to seize

German material and the personnel that had been trying to crack Soviet codes. 9 One

TICOM team managed to get slightly in front of Soviet lines and locate a German

machine that could break the highest levels of Soviet ciphers. 10 As a result, not only

did the United States possess a lead in nuclear technology and arms at the war’s end,

7
George Kennan. American Diplomacy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984)
93
8
Matthew M. Aid, Cees Wiebes. Secrets of signals intelligence during the Cold War
and Beyond (Oxford, England: Taylor and Francis, 2001) 71
9
James Bamford. Body of Secrets (New York: Anchor Books, 2002) 13,17,18
10
Banford. Body of Secrets. 14

5
but it also possessed the ability to read all of the U.S.S.R.’s most important

communications. This proved to be more effective than weapons development; the

TIACOM teams had made it possible for the United States to fight a war against the

Soviet Union before the Cold War even began. It seems likely that this may have

been one of the reasons that Harry Truman was so unwilling to negotiate with the

Soviets between 1945 and 1947.11 In effect, before World War II had even ended the

United States was preparing ways to secure its interests against its allies.

After the war the Truman and Eisenhower administrations would be

responsible for the construction of a massive national security structure. Some of

this would be public, such as the 1947 establishment of the CIA, a centralized

intelligence service to replace the ad-hoc system of wartime. 12 Other developments

would include shifts in the nature of the agencies, such as the increased use of the

FBI in counter-intelligence.13 Most important, however, both presidential

administrations would pioneer the use of U.S intelligence to do the dirty work of U.S.

foreign policy instead of resorting to nineteenth century-style wars.

The Truman administration used covert tactics to undermine their perceived

opposition in nations that they feared might come under the control of either

nationalist or communist forces hostile to the United States. Often this took the form

11
John Lewis Gaddis, Philip H. Gordon. American Statesman Confront the Bomb (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 263
12
Federation of American Scientists “CIA History”
http://www.fas.org/irp/cia/ciahist.htm (accessed April 10, 2009)
13
Brian Hook, Margret Peterlin, Peter Walsh. “The U. Patriot Act and Informaton
Sharing Between Intelligence and Law Enforcement Communities.”Homeland
Security Readings and Interpretations ed. Russell D. Howard, James J. F. Forest,
Joanne C. Moore. (New York: Macgraw Hill, 2005) 387

6
of bribing key officials to support American interests and creating dummy

organizations to distribute pro-American propaganda around the world. Massive

expansion of covert action was brainchild of George Kennan, Allen Dulles, and Frank

Wiesner.14

In particular, operations existed in Greece, Italy and France to support anti-

communist and anti-revolutionary groups, including the Catholic Church and

Christian Democratic Parties.15 In effect the CIA and other lesser American

intelligence agencies such as Kennan’s Office of Policy Coordination (OPC)

attempted to buy elections and subvert democracy rather then risk nations' good

relations with the United States.16 Further, these operations may have been about

suppressing Communism in principle, but they also had the side effect of

suppressing a much more immediate foe of America’s economic interest, European

labor unions and social democrats.

The creation of propaganda outlets was also important because it

represented the use of American culture as a weapon of empire. U.S. sponsorship of

some organizations was overt. Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberation (later Radio

Liberty) and Voice of America, for example, were all openly acknowledged as

propaganda broadcasters.17 Other programs were covert, such as the Congress of

14
Tim Weiner. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (New York: Anchor Books,
2007) 23, 40
15
Weiner, 28, 33
16
Weiner, 33, 40
17
Monroe Edwin Price. Media and Sovereignty: The Global Information Revolution
and Its Challenge to State Power (MA: MIT Press, 2004) 201,202

7
Cultural Freedom, a group that hosted conferences for writers and artists and

published a journal called Encounter.18

By the end of the Truman administration the United States had a covert force

that could wage a campaign to influence governments and peoples with soft power.

This system tried to ensure American supremacy, but it offered little room for the

democratic process in nations not in the U.S favor. It would also make it

increasingly difficult for Americans to claim a moral high ground against Soviet

attempts to influence European politics. When it came to conventional war, the

Truman administration would have much less luck, coming to a rather unresolved

stalemate in Korea. This lack of victory would also serve as an example that it was

safer and more politically expedient to do things covertly rather than to confront

problems with overt military force.19

Although the Eisenhower administration ended the Korean War, they also

demonstrated an increasing tendency to use covert military action to solve

problems and secure American interests. Part of the reason for this was that

Eisenhower endorsed a strategy of “Massive Retaliation” to keep defense spending

low, emphasizing the use of nuclear weapons rather then the build up of

conventional forces.20 This meant that the military was often not equipped to deal

18
Center for the Study of Intelligence. Cultural cold war: Origins of the Congress for
Cultural Freedom, 1949-50(1). CIA Webpage. https://www.cia.gov/library/center-
for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/docs/v38i5a10p.htm (accessed March 18,
2009)
19
Curtis Peebles. Twilight Warriors (Naval Institute Press, 2005), 84
20
Norman A. Graebner. The National Security : Its Theory and Practice, 1945-1960
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1986) 51

8
with revolutionary figures by conventional means.21 The growing reliance on covert

activity during the Eisenhower presidency stemmed from the appointment of Allen

Dulles to head the CIA. Dulles remained a powerful advocate of large-scale covert

action.22

Many of these new secret programs could be characterized as more overt

attempts to secure economic goals. In Iran, for instance, the United States attempted

to remove Mohammed Mossadegh, a nationalist leader who had in 1951 challenged

British control of Iranian Oil.23 Mossadegh nationalized the oil industry and opened

trade relations with the Soviet Union.24 In 1953, the CIA created Operation TPAJAX.

The goal of TPAJAX, according to a 1954 classified CIA history of the operation, was

to “cause the fall of the Mossadeq government; reestablish the prestige and power of

the Shah.” 25 Working with the British, American CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt and five

agents started a coup. To do this they convinced Mossadegh opponents to rise up

against him, and spent a million dollars to pay bribes for military leaders and to

21
Walter LaFeber. America, Russia and the Cold War, 1945-2002 (New York: McGraw
Hill, 2006) 158
22
Daniele Ganser. NATO's secret armies: operation Gladio and terrorism in Western
Europe (New York: Routledge, 2005) 59
23
Stephen Kinzer. All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East
Terror. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2008) 58, 61
24
Athan G. Theoharis, Richard H. Immerman. Central Intelligence Agency: Security
Under Scrutiny (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006) 160
25
Donald Wilber. “Clandestine Service History: Overthrow of Premier Mossadeq of
Iran” CIA Internal Document. March 1954
Obtained on National Security Archive
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/ciacase/index.html (accessed April 17,
2009).

9
create a force of protesters.26 To justify the uprising they suggested that Mossadegh

might fall under communist influence.27

The goal of the project, according to the covert history, was to “replace the

Mossadeq government with one that would govern Iran according to constructive

policies.” These constructive policies mainly consisted of U.S access to oil. After the

coup, a consortium was established for control of Iran’s oil giving the British forty

percent, American business forty percent, and the Dutch and French twenty percent

of Iranian oil production.28 The new American policy was quite simple; if it was

convenient or profitable, the United States had no moral issue with toppling

governments of democratically elected leaders. The U.S.-backed Shah of Iran Reza

Pahlavi would take power in Iran and use his secret police to keep order until he

was overthrown by the Iranian revolution of the late 1970s. A government that was

hostile to the United States would take power in 1979. 29

In Guatemala, a situation similar to one that precipitated the coup in Iran

arose in 1953 when the President, Jacobo Arbenz, sought to compel the U.S.-based

United Fruit Company to sell its fallowed land. He offered twice the price of the land

but the company rejected the offer.30 The CIA and the State Department, with the
26
David F. Farber. Taken Hostage: The Iran Hostage Crisis and America's First
Encounter with Radical Islam (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005) 56,57
27
Edward R. Drachman, Alan Shank, Richard M. Pious. Presidents and foreign policy:
countdown to ten controversial decisions (New York: SUNY University Press, 1997)
56
28
LaFeber 162
29
Piers Beirne, James W. Messerschmidt. Criminology (New York: Westview Press,
2000) 416, 417
30
Robert L. Scheina. Latin America's Wars: The Age of the Professional Soldier
(Brassey's, 2003)
By Robert L. Scheina 201

10
backing of the Organization of American States and the United Nations, launched a

coup against the government and put former military officers in power. 31 The fact

that Americans had tried to intervene on behalf of United Fruit was not lost on the

world or on the populace of Guatemala. The CIA did not try to be covert in this

action, erroneously assuming that a public relations blitz would convince the world

that communism was the real issue at stake.32 The military dictatorship that the U.S.

backed would take power, but even though the U.S spent more on aid to Guatemala

than other Latin American nations, it would also develop more radical revolutionary

groups then had existed prior to 1953. 33

The Eisenhower administration also increased support for the French in

Vietnam. Although Eisenhower did not resort to using conventional or nuclear

forces against the Vietnamese, America did provide both military and economic aid

to those opposed to Vietnamese nationalists and communists. 34 While the threat of

communism was used to justify U.S intervention, the aid to the French was also

given so that the U.S could maintain existing colonial relationships. This included, as

President Eisenhower suggested, economic relationships, so that “the tin and

tungsten that we value so greatly [doesn’t] cease coming”. 35 By 1959, at the end of

the Eisenhower administration, combat advisors were aiding South Vietnamese

31
Leslie Bethell. The Cambridge History of Latin America (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1990) 227,228
32
CIA FOIA Reading Room. CABLE TO DIRECTOR FROM GUATEMALA RE
GUATEMALA 1954 COUP. Telegram sent May 27, 1954
33
LaFeber 163
34
George N. Katsiaficas. Vietnam documents: American and Vietnamese views of the
war (New York: M.E Sharpe, 1992) 39
35
Dwight D. Eisenhower quoted. Katsiaficas, 39, 40

11
troops against North Vietnam. 36 By 1963, when the Johnson administration

assumed responsibility for the region, covert means were proving to be inadequate

in toppling the North Vietnamese government. Much like Korea, Vietnam would

erupt into a full scale war. However, because Vietnam did not become a full scale

conflict until the Johnson administration, many in the Eisenhower administration

and the intelligence community of the 1960s saw it merely as part of a successful

program to ensure America’s friendly regimes around the world. 37

The U.S treated the Belgian colony of Congo’s desire for independence much

the same way that they dealt with Vietnam. When the Congo gained independence,

the CIA reacted with alarm. They feared that the Prime Minister of the Congo Patrice

Lumumba was anti-western.38 After the Belgians manipulated the mineral rich

region of Katanga into rebelling to maintain control over it, the United States saw no

choice but to intervene to protect its own interests in maintaining access to the

Congo’s mineral wealth.39

To this end, they blocked the U.N from sending support to end the Katangan

succession and tried to bribe the legislature to remove Lumumba from power. After

Lumumba asked the Soviet Union for planes to end the Katangan crisis, the

Eisenhower administration decided to support a coup, and just to be sure that

Lumumba was gone, to kill him.40 This was a major development in United States
36
James E. Westheider. The Vietnam War (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2007) 9
37
Yuen Foong Khong.. Analogies at war: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the
Vietnam decisions of 1965 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992) 72
38
CIA FOIA Reading Room. UNTITLED (BELIEVE CONGO EXPERIENCING CLASSIC
COMMUNIST EFFORT TAKE OVER GOVER. Telegram Sent August 18, 1960
39

40
Larry Devlin. Chief of Station Congo (New York: Public Affairs, 2007) 80,95,96,96

12
policy, because it meant that the United States had no moral qualms about the

assassination of international leaders. In effect, not only could the CIA now be used

for coups, but it was also given the power to murder at the behest of the President

or other high officials. The actual attempt to kill Lumumba failed because the

Belgians were able to kill him before the Americans could do so, but that did not

diminish the Americans’ covert acceptance of assassination as a policy tool. 41

By the end of the Eisenhower administration in 1960, the United States had

made it so that the national security apparatus had the power to topple states and

kill their leaders. The Kennedy administration would merely reinforce this new

ability by tasking the CIA with toppling Castro in the Bay of Pigs and by supporting

several assassination attempts.42 It was not until the Vietnam War became a major

conflict during the Johnson administration that national security would undergo a

significant shift in practice.

What changed in Vietnam was that covert actions became increasingly tied to

the military. The CIA, NSA, and other covert organs of the United States did not cease

Devlin was the CIA Station Chief in the Congo at the time. While this may seem to
make his memoires questionable the fact that he viewed himself as dong his duty
seems to make it likely his admissions are true. Further his account matches closely
with other more modern accounts of the Congo Crisis like Ludo De Witt’s
Assassination of Patrice Lumumba.
41
Ludo De Witt. Translated by Ann Wright, Renee Fen. The Assassination of Patrice
Lumumba (New York: Verso Press, 2002): 101;
Church Committee Report. “Interim Report: Alleged Assassination Plots Involving
Foreign Leaders.” U.S Senate. 1976.
http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/contents/church/contents_church_reports.htm
(accessed March 28, 2009)
42
Lafaber. 215,216

13
to function by any means, but increasingly they worked in coordination with the

Department of Defense to suppress populations.43

One of the key examples of this move to a hybrid military/intelligence

organization is the Phoenix program in Vietnam. Created by the CIA and run by

Army Special Force with the intent to eliminate North Vietnamese command

“infostructure,” it was widely rumored that the tactics of the program included

assassination.44 Other instances of increased military cooperation with national

security apparatuses were seen in joint work on intelligence analysis between the

NSA and military branches.45 Sometimes there was a duplication of effort, but

overall the Johnson administration provided a watershed moment for cooperation

between these two major forces in American politics.

Later programs to arm U.S.- friendly factions would strengthen ties between

the U.S. and the military. In particular, the Reagan administration’s arming of the

Contras in Nicaragua and Mujahedeen in Afghanistan with military weapons to fight

against the Soviets reinforced this development. The Mujahedeen even received the

most high-tech anti-air weapon at the time, the Stinger Missiles. These programs

were also directed and staffed by military officers such as Colonel Oliver North who

would eventually be put on trial in the Iran Contra affair.

43
Mark Bradley, Jayne Susan Werner, Luu Doan Huynh. Vietnam War: Vietnamese
and American Perspectives (New York: M.E Sharpe, 1994) 212
44
David Tucker. Skirmishes at the edge of empire: The United States and international
terrorism (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1997) 28
45
Banford. 283,295

14
 Despite the veneer of being more clearly directed against the Soviets then

past programs, these newer programs of supporting insurgent groups were as much

about political suppression as those of the Truman and Eisenhower era programs.

For instance, the CIA was very much aware that the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan that

it was arming were fighting against enemies with whom they had ethnic rivalries or

religious differences. Yet the CIA had no problem supporting the more extreme

factions against the moderates because they believed that more moderate leaders

might challenge American policies. In the Clinton administration, when Bin Laden

began to be perceived as a threat, the intelligence community merely switched the

side they supported, from the Pakistan-based Mujahedeen to the Northern

Alliance.46 In effect, the campaign that the American intelligence community was

waging was not directed at communism so much as it was a military operation

against leftism and anti-capitalism itself.

The most massive expansion to this intelligence military apparatus would

occur in 2001 after the September 11th attacks under the guise of national security.47

Part of the reason for this expansion was that the attack had caught the intelligence

community by surprise; enlarging its operations was seen as the only way to avoid

being attacked again. They had missed clues, and on a number of occasions allowed

known Al-Qaeda operatives to enter the country. The only response that seemed

46
Steven Coll. Ghost Wars ( New York: Penguin Books, 2004), 231,232,233
The CIA originally backed the Pakistani supported Hekmatyar and later switched to
Ahmed Shah Massoud. Many of the warlords that had worked for Hakmatyar and
were supported by the CIA and Pakistan later joined the Taliban.
47
John Lewis Gaddis. Surprise, Security and the American Experince (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2005) 37,38

15
reasonable within the intelligence community was a massive increase in

surveillance and a “War on Terror” to suppress any possible enemy of the U.S

government. Shortly after the attack, James Pavitt, the CIA Deputy Director of

Operations (DDO), sent a message to all CIA stations saying that the CIA had to

“redouble efforts on collecting intelligence on this tragedy.”48 The intelligence

community would not stop there, however. It would again attempt to become all

pervasive as one of the most powerful organizations in this new “war on terror”,

even while carrying out a campaign of reinforcing American interests by

undermining other governments.

Although the full details of intelligence operations in the “War on Terror” are

still classified, reports by journalists, government officials, and military personnel

suggest constant covert operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The intelligence

community even provided a way to justify the invasion of Iraq, playing up

questionable intelligence after it was politically pressured to do so by the Bush

administration.49

Additionally Other Government Agencies (OGAs), a rather broad term for all

covert agencies, have been active combatants in war zones. In Afghanistan OGAs and

the mercenaries who work for them have been deployed to combat Al Qaeda on the

border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Because of the covert nature of these

forces, they often illegally cross over into Pakistan. In effect these forces are carrying

48
Bob Woodward. Bush at War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002) 29,30
49
“Bush acknowledges faulty Iraq intelligence.” MSNBC, December 14, 2005.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10461235/ (Accessed April 20, 2009)

16
on an undeclared war.50 Intelligence agency in Afghanistan have also partnered with

the Army and civilian anthropologists to create a unit called Human Terrain Teams,

groups of anthropologists with the express purpose of providing ethnographic and

cultural data for military commanders to put to use in either reconstructing

occupied territory or in combating insurgents.51

In Iraq OGA paramilitaries are apparently so common that Blackwater

contractors are often mistaken for them.52 However, the most documented use of

intelligence agencies has been in conducting interrogations, many of which seem to

violate the Geneva Convention. This heavy use of OGA interrogators has been a large

factor in the scandal at Abu Ghraib over the abuse of detainees, and likely was the

rational for the creation of covert CIA prisons created to avoid oversight. 53

By the end of the Bush administration, the intelligence community and the

military had both tailored themselves to fight the perfect colonialist war. While the

military brought raw force, the intelligence agencies have served as a way to use

that force where it would be politically problematic, providing the means to

intimidate and harass individuals who resist American foreign policy. Bush’s

strategy may not have worked entirely according to plan but it less of a detriment

then Vietnam to American political ambitions. Iraq was also certainly a victory for

50
Robert Young Pelton. Hired Guns and the War on Terror (New York: Crown, 2006)
Loc 875-84
51
“Human Terrain Systems.” U.S Army. http://humanterrainsystem.army.mil/
(accessed April 19, 2009)
52
Pelton. Loc 2228
53
Mark Benjamin. “Inside the CIA's notorious ‘Black Sites’". Salon. December 14,
2007 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/12/14/bashmilah/ (accessed
April 10, 2009)

17
the expanding power of the intelligence community and certain aspects of the

military that proved helpful to this new type of counterinsurgent, colonial war.

In 2009, the Obama administration began to restructure the military. Instead of

working to fight a conventional foe, the U.S military, under Secretary of Defense

Robert Gates, plans to engage in low intensity conflicts with the goal of colonial

suppression and pacification. Budgetary limitations shape part of the reason for this

change, but it also reflects the fact that policy makers see having a light force as

useful in suppressing insurgencies.54 Although this new focus has only been

allocated ten percent of DOD spending on counter insurgency, it makes it so that

over half the budget is dual use, in both conventional and counter insurgency

warfare.55

The kind of military envisioned for the future by the planners in Defense

Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and private think tanks will be one of

increased automation. Manned largely by robots and computers, the new military

requires almost no human input to conquer, only Intelligence operatives to say

where to use the new technologies.56 Ironically, much of these new technologies will
54
Viola Gienger. “Gates Urges Flexibility in Era of Iraq, Afghanistan.” Bloomberg News
, April 16, 2009 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?
pid=20601103&sid=agTlOwdBoJhc&refer=us (Accessed April 16, 2009)
55
Thomas P.M. Barnett. “Inside the War Against Robert Gates.” Esquire, April 14,
2009. http://www.esquire.com/the-side/richardson-report/robert-gates-new-
defense-budget-041409 (April 15,2009)
56
P.W Singer. Wired For War ( ) Loc 1210-50,1417,1716-66,1827,2203,2072-
78,6960-97
In fact in several cases such as the use human pilots in air craft human beings
already are vastly less efficient that remote operated drones or computer controlled
drones. Current DARPA programs to make the military more efficient include AI
intelligence anylists, Direct Brain to CPU uplinks, Humanoid Robot soldiers, AI
piloted vehicles and true AI. Many scientists including Ray Kurzweil believe that if a

18
be useless against a conventional foe, as most industrial nations can already jam U.S.

signals to remote units, or use EMP to disable it in the case of a war. The only real

way this new type of warfare can be used is in low intensity colonial

counterinsurgent operations , or covertly against specific targets to be eliminated

(such as how Predator became a tool of assassination against Bin Laden). 57 This idea

of conquering a small country with an automated force and covert activity caused

international security strategist and Pentagon consultant Thomas Barnett to outline

a new idea for the military. Barnett suggested that the U.S. break itself into a

Battlespace force (an invasion force) designed to annihilate a small nation and a

“Peace Force” (an occupation force) designed to stabilize and pacify populations.

These forces would linked by the Intelligence community and State Department. 58

Barnett’s proposal may never be adopted, but it still seems on the road to become

the defacto reality.

With an Army made to kill insurgents, a Navy being redesigned to take on

pirates, an unmanned air-force to avoid American casualties so that war is less

politically costly and an Intelligence apparatus designed to suppress foes of the U.S

covertly, war has fundamentally changed.59 No longer encumbered by the need for

public support and largely beneath the notice of international law, this new force

technological “Singularity” occurs before 2050 it will be due to DARPA research.

19
avoids the need to choose between war and the toleration for divergent ideas that

William Appleman Williams suggested. In 1994, historian John Ranelagh observed

that “World War II was had seen the United States encounter totalitarianism

without mastery of intelligence. It was followed by a new world of permanent

struggle with no real limits.”60 Even after the Cold War ended this statement remains

true. The American intelligence and covert operations components of the military

have advanced American interests at the expense of much weaker nations. In the

twenty-first century it is vital to understand that covert operations are not typically

used as a way of protecting the country; they are a way to dominate the world. The

intelligence community and military are busy conquering and most Americans have

yet to notice.

60
John Ranelagh quoted in Charles E. Lathrop. The Literary Spy (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 2004) 180

20