Intellectual property claims as denial & deception measures in medical intelligence

Following yesterday’s clear demonstration of the official embrace of open source intelligence comes a sharp reminder of that discipline’s limitations. The field of medical intelligence – and in particular, epidemiological intelligence – has been one of the areas in which OSINT has seen great successes. These successes are all the more important as they have involved the integration of specific scientific and technical expertise into collection, analysis, and visualization of extremely hard problems across very large scale geographies and populations. However, much of the underlying open source information and reference materials have only been made available due to the predominate ethic of free information exchange which prevails in scientific sharing and peer review. A recent Washington Post article (via Futurismic and Open the Future) highlights a new concept that may threaten the fundamental availability of those underlying materials.

This concept - viral sovereignty – immediately brings to mind the worst days of the Cold War, in which the Soviets sought to conceal information regarding large scale disease outbreaks to preserve the illusion of a superior socialized medical system, and in some cases such as the 1979 Sverdlovsk outbreak, prevent revelation of their clandestine biological warfare programs. The newest iteration of these ideas couple the same statist impulse towards censorship with a distorted view of the intellectual property market, resulting in a truly poisonous brew. One might consider such paranoia- and profiteering- driven claims a unique type of denial & deception measure aimed directly at the OSINT mechanisms of governments, pharmaceutical firms, and international organizations.

We would not wish to see a future where fundamental medical information regarding new disease outbreaks is simply not available in certain high risk countries. The potential higher order effects of such short-sighted decisions are readily considered – including the “surprise” global emergence of highly virulent new infection strains from unreported lower level outbreaks. Such a state of affairs could simply not be permitted to exist unchallenged, and as a result it is likely that a number of nations (particularly regional neighbors most likely to be impacted by such outbreaks) might then turn to clandestine collection means to acquire what previously was the open domain of science itself. This raises serious proliferation concerns, if new disease variants are obtained by BW aspirant countries (or non state actors) but are not otherwise widely known among nations which have abandoned biowarfare programs. One could also anticipate a surging demand for such clandestine collection measures for industrial espionage purposes, especially in countries where the legalities and ethics of an open competitive intelligence profession simply does not exist.

Such frictions would not only distort legitimate markets for pharmaceutical advances, but also would fundamentally impact the iterative and collaborative nature of modern medical research. And the first victims of these negative effects would likely be the unfortunate citizens of the country seeking to employ spurious intellectual property claims in this manner.

Medical intelligence and the PRC Olympic gymnastic team

The controversy over the allegedly altered official age records for the PRC’s Olympic gymnastic team has provided an excellent teaching example for the benefits of medical intelligence. There are a number of indicators which have been surfaced through open source reporting, including missing baby teeth, biometric anomalies, and altered official records and state agency news stories. These are compelling evidence in their own right to support further inference.

Of course, more sophisticated techniques are available for intelligence professionals. Such techniques have long been a staple of leadership analysis, in which foreign figures are closely examined for potential medical anomalies. The importance of accurate assessments of the health of foreign leaders was driven home after the failure to understand the severity of the Shah of Iran’s illness, which directly led the United States to underestimate the revolutionary climate of the country in 1979.

The discipline has been covered repeatedly in the intelligence literature, first in a (now declassified) Studies in Intelligence article, Remote Medical Diagnosis. The history of the methodology and its use was also revisited in an article published in the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, “CIA’s Medical and Psychological Analysis Center (MPAC) and the Health of Foreign Leaders”. There is a robust and well tested tradecraft available to help address these outstanding questions, even based solely on media recorded to date.

One particular analyst of our acquaintance leveraged practice honed in the far less rarified world of gossip magazines into an uncanny talent at spotting plastic surgery in handheld imagery. Needless to say, it is competency that one does not often find listed in human capital inventories – even in leadership analyst or medical intelligence vacancy postings - but yet one that has numerous uses in the intelligence profession. (Including, one might add, settling informal wagers taken over particular points of dispute that from time to time circulate through the vault.)

The application of these analytic methodologies is certainly not infallible, particularly when assessing the age of young females. A number of high profile mistakes have occurred in cases involving online pornography (albeit mistakes usually made by less well trained criminal investigators carrying with them a host of cognitive biases, rather than objective medical professionals focused on the art and science). However, the International Olympic Committee could certainly avail itself of far more robust diagnostic options than remote analysis alone might otherwise afford in order to reduce the potential error rate.

Regardless of the outcomes of further medical assessment, the controversy itself offers additional insight for political and leadership analysis. The insecurities of an authoritarian leadership - so desperate to prove itself on a world stage that it resorts to unsportsmanlike conduct and faked ceremony - demonstrate the impulses of the Communist government’s decision-making process as clearly as any other operational code yet documented. The reaction – or lack thereof - from a disconnected internationalist body mired in its own Utopian fantasy has also been instructive (and equally, could easily have been predicted by anyone who has spent any amount of time in the cloistered and anti-intellectual environment of Lausanne).

The truth will out. If nothing else, the case also demonstrates the value of intelligence to a wide variety of non-traditional consumers in this new millennium.

Of PSDs and future assassinations

It is no surprise that highly visible political targets under significant threat would seek the very best protection money could buy. Thus the news that Benazir Bhutto sought to obtain the services of a Blackwater protective security detail prior to her assassination is not entirely without precedent.

However, we are reminded of Mountainrunner’s admonition that private military companies play into US foreign policy overseas – and in particular, US public diplomacy – in a manner that few analysts or decision-makers take into account. Blackwater is among the most visibly associated with US engagements in the Long War – even though it plays a protective rather than offensive role. In the minds of many in the Gap, Blackwater is just another instrument of the United States itself.

In this case, there is little doubt that a more professional PSD would have likely never permitted the risk of moving the principle standing in an open sun-roof, given recent attack history and threat intelligence. The likelihood therefore that Bhutto would have survived the attack – whatever one believes about the mechanism which may have actually inflicted the lethal wound (bullet, blast, or blunt trauma impact) – seems to mark the incident down into the “missed opportunities” column, the fodder for counterfactual analysis and alternative history for a long time to come.

It has long been a maxim that any political target can be taken by a sufficiently motivated suicidal attacker. While modern protective intelligence and operational TTPs have thankfully greatly reduced the margin of success for an attack, the PIRA’s warning to Lady Thatcher after the failed 1984 IED attack still haunts every practitioner: “Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always.”

Given this backdrop, one can only imagine the consequences of a successful attack should a Blackwater PSD have been engaged to protect Ms. Bhutto. The conspiracy minded would have a field day – and such suggestions have a way of turning to riots in the global Street. Belmont Club has a few of the headlines that we might have seen run in the past few days in such an alternative history.

Any PMC which might take on such a high visibility, high threat contract in the future must be prepared for this kind of aftermath from the start. The State Department should also be planning for such contingencies, both to counter the inevitable immediate reactions as well as the potential long term impact to an American image which is inextricably tied to PMC actions abroad.

More significantly for the purposes of our profession, those engaged in providing protective intelligence support to such engagements must be exceedingly mindful of the possibility that all intelligence activities and products will no doubt come under the microscope of public examination in the days and weeks following an attack. We can think of little better fodder for the kind of damaging political grandstanding that has been favoured in the Beltway as of late, or for the kind of lawfare that has sapped critical capabilities on so many accounts. Even if such protective intelligence is provided under the auspices of official USG liaison, should contractors have been involved in the analysis and production process, we could well see the same sort of scrum develop. (This creates one of the better arguments for defining publishing and release authority as an inherently governmental responsibility, we should think – as it is done in most shops. However, there will likely always be a number of unresolved questions regarding uncoordinated products and unpublished or internal papers sufficient to keep such arguments alive for some time. The buck may stop at a government officer’s desk, but we are sure the damnable lawyers will have their day with the underlying process in any event.)

This has significant implications even in the domestic homeland security environment. Those of the numerous fusion centers and watch desks around the community that have protective intelligence for state and local officials as a secondary (and often implied) responsibility will no doubt face very similar challenges, to perhaps even a greater degree of political vitriol – including the same dynamics that arise with any degree of privatized support.

Let us be clear, though – such issues need not arise from any impropriety on the part of the private contractor capability, be they intelligence officers or PSD operators. This is an emergent property of the current political and media atmosphere that has not yet reconciled to the business of privatized intelligence or PMCs – largely because of the continued illusion that the state can (or should) somehow magically still provide the range of capabilities demanded in the Long War. In a perfect world, it might be so – but as we fight on an ever more specialized basis across increasingly far flung locations, the impossibility of the drain on high demand / low density assets that attempts to service such illusions would create should be ever more obvious, even to the outsider. That the market organizes to meet the unfilled demand should not be such a surprise – and should be rationally discussed rather than sensationalized. Unfortunately, the Beltway and media does not often function on the logic of reality, but rather according the rules of transient political advantage.

Strategic communications, public affairs, and public diplomacy professionals that will have to deal with the consequences of such an incident in the future had best start preparing contingency planning for this sort of political football. It is only a matter of time – and of adversary kinetic and IO action.

The illusion of negative proof in incomplete operational demonstrations

We have in the past cited John Robb’s earlier works with interest, as it was clear he was attempting to piece together an understanding of the complex dynamics within modern sub-state and non-state networks involved in many of the key conflict areas around the globe. For these contributions to the literature we are indebted to him, even as we may productively argue with specific points.

We have been less enamored of his recent writings, however, but have been willing to leave the task of debating “multi” generation warfare (4GW, 5GW, et al) to those among the many excellent writers specializing in such military theory - who also not coincidentally offer a better turn of phrase on matters which we consider to very nearly border on combat theology, but for whose efforts we remain grateful.

However, Robb’s recent writings on “negative proof” to evaluate the effectiveness of current surge counterinsurgency operations in Baghdad demand a response. The logical fallacy of seeking to establish indicators for the operational and even strategic picture from single tactical incidents is bad enough. Although we believe in the strategic corporal, and have seen repeatedly the effects of major “turning point” incidents in Iraq (such as the bombing of the Askariya Mosque in Samarra), we have also seen far too many events designated by the pundits as the karmic keystone of the entire conflict – and just as quickly forgotten.

We are particularly concerned by Robb’s selection of recent events which form the basis of his “proof”. The enemy gets a vote in operations, and the success or failure of an effort is not judged on the actions the OPFOR takes in casting that vote, but rather are weighed in the net assessment of both sides’ effects. The strategic estimate is not merely a first draft of history, but the Choosing specific symbolic incidents such as the April 2007 complex attack on the Iraqi Parliament, or random protests (many of which consist of paid agitators), as meeting some threshold defined as “significant enough”, is deeply problematic. This is the essence of satisficing, and carries with it both the weight of cognitive bias, and also in no small measure elements of an analyst perhaps over-attached to his personal theory – with attending loss of objectivity.

The enemy understands well the non-kinetic effects of specific tactical actions, and chooses to utilize those that have information operations aspects without regard to the longer term efficacy of the options. One has but to witness the emergence of the red-on-red incidents between AQI and Sunni insurgents in Al Anbar to identify strong evidence of a mixed scorecard in the longer term assessment from what were seen as early “significant” events, such as the temporary seizing of built up areas.

Analysts should always be mindful of the necessity to rely upon rigorous analytic tradecraft, and in particular robust counter-deception practices, in order to prevent their work from being tainted by adversary IO themes – particularly when those themes are pursued through a pattern of kinetic operations rather than mere rhetoric.

The success or failure of current strategies has yet to be weighed. Perhaps the effects will be better measured in another Friedman unit… but it is more likely that the political debate will have moved the goalposts for the assessment by that point in time, and the then current discussion will be dominated instead by another transient issue that fails to reflect the grand strategic picture.

Closely related to this discussion is the troubling lack of awareness of enemy IO and political warfare operations and tactics, and the effects of these behaviors on analysis. These issues are not limited to any one pundit or thinker, but rather broadly impact many of those otherwise bright minds attempting to tackle difficult problems.

Fortunately, the academy has responded with at least one individual’s effort to remedy this otherwise widespread ignorance. Dr. Michael Waller has authored an excellent overview, building upon his earlier work countering Soviet and insurgent aktivny mera operations in previous conflicts. We are fortunate to count the gentleman among our influences, and highly recommend his instruction at the Institute of World Politics.