The Production of Culprits: From Deportability to Detainability in the Aftermath of “Homeland Security”

In the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001, the virtually instantaneous hegemony of a metaphysics of antiterrorism has radically reconfigured the politics of race, immigration, and citizenship in the United States. In the extended historical moment beginning with the United States' proclamation of a planetary “War on Terrorism” and encompassing our (global) political present, the US sociopolitical order has been racked by several interlocking crises—convulsively careening between heightened demands on citizenship and the erosion of civil liberties, imperial ambition and nativist parochialism, extravagant domestic law enforcement and global lawlessness. In relation to the parallel but contradictory hegemonic projects of “American” national identity and attachment, on the one hand, and the expansion or refortification of US empire, on the other, the cumulative crisis-as-opportunity for US nationalism that has ensued is replete with unpredictable dilemmas and unresolved possibilities for both citizens and denizens alike. This essay examines significant new deployments of migrant “illegality” as this sociopolitical condition has been significantly reconfigured in the United States in the aftermath of the proclamation of a purported War on Terrorism, and the concomitant implementation of draconian police powers domestically that the author calls the Homeland Security State.     

The Past Is a…Native Land?

Did the events of September 11, 2001 “change the world,” signifying the birth of an incommensurable brave new world of heightened uncertainty and insecurity? No. That headline-grabbing claim lacks historical perspective. Rather, the Cold War has exerted a profound impact on how America wages the War on Terror simply because the intelligence, bureaucratic, and military-industrial institutions that have shaped U.S. strategy since 9/11 took their present shape during the Cold War. Indeed, dramatic differences between the circumstances of the Cold War era and the dangers confronting the twenty-first century prevail, among them the shift from “conventional” to digital warfare, and from ominous nation-states to “rogue” states and sects. But the respective challenges and constraints shared by the two periods also possess notable similarities. Both the obvious discontinuities and the more subtle continuities with the recent past require judicious assessment from us today. Just as American leaders before World War II needed to “unlearn” the lessons of isolationalism in the 1930s in order to fight World War II, so too do American policymakers today need to unlearn the lessons of conventional warfare—including “intelligence” warfare–in order to combat rogue states and terrorist cells in the twenty-first century.     

Cold War counter-terrorism: the evolution of international counter-terrorism in the RCMP Security Service, 1972–1984

This piece provides a detailed case study of the evolution of counter-terrorism within a specific domestic security agency of a liberal-democratic state in the context of the Cold War. It does so by examining the creation of a counter-terrorism unit within Canada’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Service and how it responded to international terrorism. This occurred in between major terrorist attacks in Canada in 1970 and 1985 and included a growing focus on counter-terrorism even as counter-subversion remained a top priority within a still dominant Cold War domestic security framework. Ultimately, the article, based on thousands of pages of previously secret documents, argues that the Security Service could conceive of in a broader strategic sense the threat of terrorism but found it more challenging, for a variety of reasons, including the dominance of the Cold War and the difficulties around infiltrating ethnic communities, to collect intelligence.     

Intelligence collection versus investigation: how the ethos of law enforcement impedes development of a US informational advantage

There is an inherent tension between a law enforcement–driven approach and a requirementsdriven approach to intelligence collection. The US experience, with the development of the Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI), as the primary intelligence service within the domestic environment, suggests that the tension is nearly insurmountable if an organization starts from a reactive, threat-focused posture. As a law-enforcement agency, which US government decision-makers expect to fulfill an intelligence function, the FBI is triply handicapped by the external strictures of the Department of Justice (DoJ); the Bureau’s own policies – which respond to the DoJ parameters; and the FBI’s organizational culture.     

The American Right and the Framing of 9/11

On September 11th, 2001, 2 hijacked airliners were crashed into the World Trade Center and a third into the Pentagon. The Bush administration's response, both in regard to civil liberties at home and the launching of military action abroad, has been the subject of considerable controversy. As we might expect, the Bush administration's framing of events met with acclaim among many on the American right But here, as elsewhere on the political spectrum, how to understand and react to 9/11 was also the subject of bitter dispute, a dispute that sheds new light on the ongoing arguments among American conservatives in the aftermath of the Cold War.     

Beyond freedom,beyond control,beyond the Cold War: approaches to American culture and the state-private network

Cold War historiography has been through several recognizable stages over the last five decades, and the increasing interest over the last few years in cultural themes has added an important extra dimension to this. Yet the focus on ‘culture’ has rarely gone beyond studies of government support for particular cultural events and programs. Rarely have historical studies attempted to address the issue that such political uses of culture were part of an overall ideological offensive in both the East and the West. Recognition that the foreign policy of the Soviet Union was ideologically-driven is one thing, but historians have generally avoided a similar posture regarding the United States. Yet without sufficient attention as to how the US government attempted to mobilize and utilize all areas of social activity for the greater good of confronting the Soviet Union, there can be no satisfactory understanding of what the Cold War really involved In addition, this ‘ideological impulse’ has not disappeared with the end of the Cold War, as the reaction of the United States to the events of 11 September 2001 has demonstrated.     

Post-9/11 wartime intelligence analysis

A few years into the Iraq War, those engaged in that fight realized that the methods of intelligence analysis, refined in Cold War, were not sufficient for wartime. To manage the massive increase in intelligence data new analytic tools were adopted for unearthing and connecting key developments and individuals hidden from view within it. Only then could the secret networks of Iraqi insurgents be uncovered. Several of these changes were put into practice by the US counterterrorism force that deployed to Iraq as Task Force 714. The study describes what these changes encompassed, and how they were employed to support those given the mission of attacking and dismantling Al-Qaeda in Iraq’s networked underground.     

A conversation with former DCI William E. Colby: Spymaster during the ‘Year of the Intelligence Wars’

In this previously unpublished interview, William Colby, former US Director of Central Intelligence, discusses the Intelligence Community's relationships with Congress and the White House, the value and conditions for effective human intelligence, the challenges of managing the Central Intelligence Agency, and his experience leading the Agency during the domestic spying scandals of the 1970s. Colby argues that the attentiveness of congressional intelligence committees waxes and wanes, just as it does for any other oversight committee. He states that Congress and the press, along with the integrity and initiative of individual citizens working in the intelligence community, provide the strongest guards against abuse. The interview was conducted in 1991, the last year of the Cold War.     

Comparing US and UK Intelligence Assessment in the Early Cold War: NSC-68, April 1950

US and British intelligence assessments regarding the Soviet Union during the early years of the Cold War contained substantial differences despite the remarkable level of cooperation and information sharing that existed between the respective services in the period. Using NSC-68 as a "pivot", this article examines these discrepancies as well as those similarities that did exist, considering their significance and evolution in an effort to understand what factors drove and shaped intelligence analysis on both sides of the Atlantic.     

9/11 and the FBI: The organizational roots of failure

Public discussion about the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks has focused on the human causes of tragedy – on individual mistakes, failures of leadership, and the power plays between intelligence officers in the field and policymakers in Washington. But closer examination of the FBI suggests that organizational weaknesses are the root cause of poor agency performance. Longstanding deficiencies in the FBI's organizational structure, culture, and incentive systems proved crippling in the 1990s, when the Cold War ended and the terrorist threat emerged. These lingering weaknesses ultimately prevented the bureau from capitalizing on 12 separate opportunities that might have disrupted the 9/11 plot.     

The Hart-Rudman Commission: Starting Point for Rethinking American National Security

Overtaken by a post-crisis atmosphere generated by the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, The Hart-Rudman Commission (formally the US Commission on National Security/21^st Century) offered a thoughtful, systematic approach to aligning American national security instruments to a modern environment unlike that of the Cold War. More than a decade later, such a review – and such an approach – remains sorely needed.     

A Critical Theory of the "Rationality" of US Foreign Policy: The Case of the American War in Vietnam

The attacks of September 11th, 2001, have increased the urgency of understanding the relationship between war-making and political culture. This essay uses Frankfurt School critical theory to analyze the development of the increasing "rationalization" of US foreign policy during the Cold War, focusing heuristically on the case of the US war in Vietnam. Particularly developing a Habermasian reading of these phenomena, the essay argues that, despite elite management and "steering" strategies, "subsystemic imperatives" are never completely "uncoupled" from the "cultural lifeworld." In the case of the US war in Vietnam, contradictions between elite political and economic instrumental rationalities and interests, and the broader American political culture and values, led to legitimation problems and loss of trust which have continued into the present period.     

Intelligence,International Relations and 'Under-theorisation'

This article submits that the conceptual framework within which intelligence is studied must continue to evolve and adapt to the new conditions of the early twenty-first century. As more intelligence and intelligence related material than ever before enters the public domain, scholars of international relations must take greater account study of the role of intelligence. Despite its obvious importance to the course of the Cold War, for example, most accounts of the Cold War tend to ignore or downplay the importance of signals intelligence in particular. Intelligence, moreover, is all but absent in most contemporary international relations theory. The essay argues that intelligence should be placed closer to the centre of new interpretations of both the course of the Cold War and of the political dynamics of authoritarian states.     

Congressional Supervision of America's Secret Agencies: The Experience and Legacy of the Church Committee

In 1947, the United States created a modern intelligence community to guard against another surprise attack like the one at Pearl Harbor. This community consists of 13 major agencies, among them the CIA and the FBI. Concealed from public view, they pose a significant challenge to the concept of government accountability in a democratic society. This article examines the failure of congressional lawmakers to hold the secret agencies accountable during the Cold War. Contrary to recent theoretical research on legislative oversight, which suggests reasons that accountability has been strong in the United States, this study finds that a weak system of legislative review has permitted a dangerous erosion of civil liberties. The study also explores the efforts of the Church Committee in 1975 to fashion new safeguards that would reduce the probability of further abuse of power by the intelligence community.     

‘How good are we?’ culture and the Cold War

This analysis addresses the question of how different levels of culture were used in the Cold War by political and civil institutions to influence public opinion in Western Europe, and, more specifically, in Germany. It illuminates how what are commonly defined as ‘cultural exports’ or ‘cultural propaganda’ refer to a highly heterogeneous and complex group of governmental and non-governmental agents, actions and motivations. While governmental exports focused increasingly on highbrow products such as book and art exhibits, manifestations of popular culture were only admitted if they revealed a specific educational purpose. It can be argued that high culture provided the basis for much Cold War propaganda as much as the Cold War manipulated representations of high culture. Competing against communist claims that America had no high culture, US Cold War programs invoked previous instances of high cultural exchange, particularly with Germany. In doing so, they sealed and politicized a cultural partnership that had been in existence for almost 100 years.     

The use of intelligence by insurgent groups: the North Vietnamese in the Second Indochina War as a case study

The need to define intelligence is understandable because the secrecy surrounding it can almost make it appear too amorphous to study. In most definitions, the authors not only attempt to define what intelligence is but also who does it. Until recently the focus has been on the state with occasional focus on sub-state actors such as law enforcement agencies. After 9/11 there was a shift from the study of inter-state intelligence to the use of intelligence against non-state actors such as Al Qaeda. The literature still treated these non-state actors as something to be acted upon rather than intelligence actors in their own right. By examining the North Vietnamese use of intelligence during the Second Indochina War this article takes a step to redress that oversight. This article will discuss the North Vietnamese use of intelligence in the context of definitions of intelligence and intelligence actors and will use John Gentry’s proposed model of violent non-state actor intelligence as its analytical framework.     

Securing the Globe: Intelligence and the Post-9/11 Shift from 'Liddism' to 'Drainism'

Significant shifts have been underway in security intelligence agencies and processes since the 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States. Whereas the previous quarter of a century had seen a considerable democratization of intelligence, the article examines whether UK and US government responses risk the re-creation of 'security states'. Changes since 9/11 in law, doctrine, the intelligence process - targeting, collection, analysis, dissemination and action - and oversight are considered and it is concluded that there is a danger of the rebirth of independent security states.     

The Threat Review and Prioritization trap: how the FBI’s new Threat Review and Prioritization process compounds the Bureau’s oldest problems

Abstract

In the nearly 15 years since the events of 11 September 2001, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has undertaken a succession of efforts to become an agency capable of fulfilling the intelligence functions with which it has been entrusted. However, historically, the FBI’s experience with intelligence has been reactive due to a law enforcement culture that closed cases rather than identified ways to keep opportunities for collection open, as well as bureaucratic wariness due to the differing expectations from one Presidential administration to the next. The Threat Review and Prioritization (TRP) process is the most recent iteration of the Bureau’s attempt to organize as an intelligence service. However, TRP is informed not by a mission of developing intelligence that will help to disrupt emerging threats or exploit opportunities at both the strategic (policymaking) and tactical (arrests), but instead reactively focuses on the threats which have become fully manifest within the FBI’s own domain. TRP leaves the US at a disadvantage vis-à-vis state and non-state adversaries and competitors. Organizationally, it institutionalizes the shortcomings of reactivity and insularity that were the unfortunate characteristics of the pre-9/11 FBI.     

The Clash between Security and Liberty in the U.S. Response to Terror

This study examines U.S. public opinion on civil liberties and security in response to the politically pivotal events of September 11, 2001—what shape it is in, what shapes it, and what it shapes. Public opinion is a critical restraint on political and administrative action today because so many regulators, rule makers, and law enforcers are making decisions or advocating policies that directly affect the balance between liberty and security. The general importance that is popularly attributed to terrorism is gauged by its ranking among the most important problems. The ostensibly contradictory public attitudes toward civil liberties are analyzed, as is the supposed inconsistency between perceived personal impact and the general significance attributed to the attacks. The data rebut the allegation that the public is readily disposed to restrict civil liberties as the price of security. Findings show the public does not perceive a personal or immediate threat to civil liberties. The implications for further research and good governance are laid out.     

Cold War Reconnaissance Flights along the Berlin Corridors and in the Berlin Control Zone 1960–90: Risk,Coordination and Sharing

During the Cold War, Soviet and East German military units, equipment and activities around Berlin were high priority targets for Western military intelligence agencies. This article examines the imagery gathering undertaken by British, French and US reconnaissance flights along the Berlin Air Corridors and inside the Berlin Control Zone. The quantity of information was effectively multiplied because of the close cooperation between the Western allies and coordination with Allied Military Liaison Mission ‘ground tours’. This cooperation generally went further than has been publicly acknowledged by individual governments. This paper contends that the collaboration provided the most comprehensive and regular collection of imagery on Soviet and East German military units for the duration of the Cold War. It contributed to a multi-dimensional picture of Soviet and German Democratic Republic capabilities and intentions. Soviet motives for generally not interfering with those missions on a regular basis are considered.