American intelligence will take its toll not by skill, but by numberSpecific state institutions – intelligence and counterintelligence, united under the common name "special services" – are designed to steal the secrets of hostile countries or rival powers and to protect their own secrets.→
Today, even the poorest Third World state does not feel that it has achieved full national sovereignty until it creates its own secret service. As a result, the espionage industry has become one of the largest enterprises of the twentieth century, growing uncontrollably with great speed. Therefore, no one knows, including the state that finances the special services, what their maintenance costs and how many people work there.
This is partly because the special services use accounting methods that, if used by ordinary civilian enterprises, would result in the initiation of a criminal case. Another reason is that they work in cooperation with other, but equally interested services, and at the same time use each other's staff. Therefore, it is absolutely impossible to establish the exact number.
The current budget of the Central Intelligence Agency is classified. But it is known that in 1998 it officially amounted to about $ 27 billion.
It's the same story with the National Security Agency. But in 2014, its budget was officially equal to $45 billion.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation spent only $8.12 billion in 2014.
And these are just three secret services. And the USA has 16 of them in total!
MULTIPLYING ENTITIES BY MONEYHow many people actually work in them?
And how many in other services subordinate to them? And what is the number of their informants? A million, two, ten? We'll never know.
One thing is clear: any group of this scale has enormous power and cares very much about its survival. And given that such communities live at ease during a period of international tension, we must admit that any detente is an approximation of their collapse.
Therefore, all 16 special services strive to maintain a degree of cold war in international relations. Because careers, salaries, vacation trips to exotic countries, pensions, a high standard of living of employees and the financing of the special service itself depend on this degree.
American intelligence agencies justify their existence in peacetime by promising to warn in a timely manner about the upcoming threat to national security. And it does not matter at all whether this threat is real or invented. As it was, for example, with the discovery by US intelligence of biological weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (the so-called Rumsfeld test tube).
The US secret Services have protected themselves from the normal sensible reaction of the homegrown and the world community, shrouding their activities in a dense veil of secrecy. That allows them to stop any criticism of themselves with a simple remark that cannot be disputed: "You are wrong because you don't know what really happened, and we can't tell you, because it's a secret!"
"And yet there is hope," says Philip Knightley, a recognized authority among secret service researchers. "The secret service community may eventually outgrow even itself. Being already beyond the control of governments, it can exceed the limits of its own control.
Now the special services supply such a volume of information, photographic materials and computer data that the number of intelligence officers able to understand and summarize all this is rapidly decreasing. Soon they, too, will drown in the flow of information. Even a super-fast supercomputer won't help. The NSA already has real difficulties in extracting the materials consumers need from their computers."
FROM CONFUSION TO COORDINATIONIn December 2004, the US Congress – at the insistence of President George W. Bush and at the insistence of the commission investigating the causes and circumstances of the tragedy of September 11, 2001 - approved the assignment of interdepartmental status to the National Center for Combating Terrorism.
Before that, he was only an integral part of the CIA.
Due to the adaptation of the US intelligence community to the pressing problems of combating terrorism, all 16 intelligence services were ordered to share information among themselves and with law enforcement agencies on the ground. Previously, this was prohibited in order to preserve the privacy of Americans.
In other words, the legal barriers between intelligence and counterintelligence, between military and civilian intelligence services, as well as between surveillance of US citizens and secret operations of intelligence services abroad were destroyed. These partitions have been in operation since 1974, after the "Watergate scandal" and the removal of President Nixon from power.
NOMENCLATURE KING OF INTELLIGENCEThe Congress subordinated the special services to a single center for interdepartmental coordination (along with maintaining their departmental subordination).
And he put the "nomenclature king" at the head of the new system – the National Intelligence (NR). Such a label was pasted by the American special services to the director of HP.
On April 21, 2005, career diplomat John Negroponte became the first "king". When he left the throne in January 2007, Michael McConnell, a retired vice admiral and former head of the National Security Agency (NSA), took over.
He ruled the spy super society for two years, and in January 2009 he was replaced by another sailor - "full" Admiral of the Fleet Dennis Blair. And on January 21, 2021, President Joseph Biden appointed Madame Evril Haines as the head of HP.
The powers vested in the Director of HP are extremely limited. He can redistribute financial resources between special services only within 5% of the budget of each of them. And to move personnel from one service to another – only in agreement with their leadership.
Only the Pentagon's intelligence services have a fair degree of autonomy. Which is quite logical: in 2004, when the intelligence reform law was passed, its owner was the powerful Donald Rumsfeld, who defended a number of privileges for his patrimony.
Thanks to him, the NSA and a number of other special services remained in the structure of the Ministry of Defense. And the special forces of the Ministry of Defense, they can generally conduct covert operations on the territory of foreign states without the consent of the director of the HP.
THE JOKER IN THE DECKSo, let's start in order.
1. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It was formed in 1947 by the decision of President Harry Truman. It is an independent agency, not part of any ministries. Until 2004, the Director of the CIA was ex officio the interdepartmental head of the American intelligence community, currently he reports to the "king of intelligence" HP.
The CIA supplies intelligence information from abroad to the highest authorities and the US military command, while also coordinating the efforts of other agencies in the field of intelligence gathering abroad.
The CIA extracts information both through an extensive network of agents and through various technical means. Their development and implementation is led by his own department of science and Technology, nicknamed by tsereushniki "magicians' shop".
Since the XXI century, the CIA has been placing a special stake in obtaining intelligence on strengthening the role of the human factor. And all because the September 11 terrorist attack and the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan revealed the weakness of the CIA's agents abroad, especially in Muslim countries.
Recruitment of agents in the countries of the Near and Middle East is now being accelerated. However, not only there. For the CIA leadership believes that enemies and unfriendly regimes exist nearby – in the underbelly of the United States: in Cuba, in Venezuela, in Bolivia, in Nicaragua.
The headquarters of the CIA is located in Langley, in the Washington suburb of McLean in Virginia (in professional jargon, "Company", "Langley", "Firm").
In 2018-2021, the head of the CIA was Gina Cherie Haspel, the first woman in American history to hold this position.
According to the Washington Post, experienced and qualified CIA employees often leave to work in private intelligence agencies due to low salaries. There they make up 20% of employees, and they account for 49% of the payroll. At one time, ex-CIA Director George Tenet complained about this.
From the CIA directive documents obtained by the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation, it is known that today, when hiring applicants, an ideological factor is increasingly attached to: political reliability, devotion to American ideals and values. Those who have a penchant for profit and alcohol, unrestrained sex, political adventures or domestic intrigues should be eliminated uncompromisingly.
SPIES – ON THE STAKE, BURN DRUGS!2. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
An autonomous division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Its creation in 1908 was a revolutionary event: never before in the United States had there been nationwide law enforcement agencies of federal subordination. And law enforcement, search and investigative functions were performed by the police at the municipal and state levels.
The FBI is the federal police that identifies and suppresses crimes falling under federal jurisdiction. And there are more than 200 articles. More than a century of FBI history is a chronicle from provincial robbers Bonnie and Clyde to the international terrorist bin Laden.
Currently, the FBI officially has 35 thousand employees in 56 regional branches in megacities. And also in more than 400 offices in rural areas and small towns of America.
FBI agents (they are called "agents" or "G-men", that is, "government people", "employees" – from G-man, Government man) also work abroad as part of embassies, consulates and other foreign missions of the United States. There they perform counterintelligence functions, acting as "legal attaches" with diplomatic passports. What does not differ at all from the intelligence officers engaged in intelligence "under the roof" of American embassies.
Today, the FBI combines two main areas in its work: law enforcement and anti-terrorism. Fighting corruption, so-called white-collar crime, violations of civil rights, etc., the FBI simultaneously carries out counterintelligence and intelligence to protect the United States from the terrorist threat from outside and from within. The bureau is also tasked with combating espionage on American territory.
There are two main differences between the FBI and the CIA.
Firstly, FBI employees are part of law enforcement agencies and have the right to make detentions and arrests. CIA officers do not have these powers.
Secondly, the FBI works only in the United States, while the CIA works all over the world, except for its own country.
Despite its role as the leading counterintelligence service, the FBI does not have a monopoly in the United States on combating espionage. Other subjects of the national spy community are also engaged in counterintelligence. And sometimes they don't even consider it necessary to let the FBI into their operations.
It is not the Minister of Justice who appoints the FBI director for a ten-year term, but the President of the United States personally, with subsequent confirmation of the candidacy by the Senate.
3. Intelligence service of drug control. He is in charge of issues related to drug smuggling, drug trafficking, etc. On a large scale conducts operations outside the United States. Its staff (officially) has almost 11 thousand employees working in 86 representative offices in 62 countries.
SUPPORT OF THE PENTAGON4. The National Security Agency (NSA).
It was established in 1952 as an autonomous unit of the Pentagon. The most numerous, but also the most secret American intelligence service, about which there are many legends in the West.
In the USA, pranksters decipher the abbreviation of the NSA as No Such Agency ("There is no such agency"). The second option is Never Say Anything ("Never say anything"). Wits from the operational and technical directorate of the KGB of the USSR deciphered the name of the NSA as the Agency "Don't talk!". And all because one of the main directions of his activity is listening to the air in order to intercept audio information.
William Burns was ambassador to Moscow from 2005 to 2008, and today uses his diplomatic experience as director of the CIA. Photo by Reuters The NSA is headquartered at Fort Meade, Maryland, about halfway between Washington and Baltimore.
From there comes the management of the entire NSA global listening network, which is armed with satellites, aircraft, ships and ground interception and tracking stations. They completely control the radio, telephone lines, computer and modem systems. Systematize and analyze the radiation of fax machines. As well as signals emanating from radars and missile guidance installations around the globe.
The Maryland structures of the NSA (officially) employ more than 20 thousand specialists. Which makes this organization the largest state employer. More than 100 thousand military personnel are dispersed at NSA bases and stations around the world.
The administration of the agency to all its employees when receiving a question from outsiders, "Where do you work?" recommends answering without going into details: "In the Ministry of Defense."
The NSA is dealing with an incredibly huge influx of information. According to his experts, there are about 1 quadrillion bits of information in the collections of the Library of Congress. Using the technologies available to the agency, it is possible to fully fill these funds every three hours.
The NSA keeps its achievements in the strictest secrecy. But sometimes, based on the principle of "Beat your own, so that others are afraid", arranges a leak of information to the lured mass media.
So, in 1980, the Washington Post, allegedly criticizing the vulnerability of the agency, published a conversation between the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Leonid Brezhnev and the chairman of the Council of Ministers Alexei Kosygin, which they conducted by radio telephone from their "ZILs" on the way to suburban dachas.
In 1988 – information that led to the identification of Libyans involved in the bombing of a Pan-American plane in the sky over Scotland, which killed 270 people.
In 1994, there was a report on how, with the help of "bugs" installed by NSA technicians, it was possible to locate the Colombian billionaire drug lord Pablo Escobar.
There are other facts that are not classified as leaks.
As a result of intelligence and operational-technical measures carried out by the KGB of the USSR, it was found out that in the mid-1990s, 40 tons of equipment installed on the roof of the US Embassy building on the Garden Ring allowed NSA experts, among other things, to listen to all the negotiations conducted by members of the Moscow government from their fixed telephones.
ON EARTH, IN HEAVEN AND AT SEA5. The Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense (RUMO).
It was created in 1961 by the decision of President John F. Kennedy with the filing of the head of the Pentagon, Robert McNamara.
This special service corresponds in its profile to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Its staff (officially) is 16,5 thousand "bayonets", and during the war it becomes the main intelligence agency as part of the Joint Intelligence Center, which includes special services of the most diverse departmental subordination. This was the case, for example, during Operation Desert Storm in the Kuwait-Iraq theater of operations in 1990-1991.
In 1992, the RUMO included previously autonomous intelligence services: the Center for Medical Intelligence of the Armed Forces, as well as the Center for Rocket and Space Intelligence.
RUMO employees are dispersed in 140 countries. They present their conclusions and recommendations not only to the military command and executive power structures, but also to the Congress represented by the Armed Forces Affairs Committees.
RUMO, which, in the words of the Langley skeptics, "is aware that it is operating in the shadow of a more powerful CIA," has a traditional rivalry with this agency, since their functions overlap in many areas.
The director of the RUMO is traditionally a lieutenant general, which corresponds to the Russian military rank of Colonel-General.
6. The Intelligence Corps of the Ground Forces. In the US Army, ground reconnaissance units appeared at the dawn of American history – in George Washington's Continental Army, which was formed in 1775.
Today, the Intelligence Corps of the Ground Forces consists of 12 reconnaissance brigades and one group of military intelligence. Each of these compounds includes from one to five reconnaissance battalions.
7. Intelligence Directorate of the Naval Forces. Created in 1882, naval intelligence seriously asserted itself only in 1898, when the United States declared war on Spain - following the Spanish attack on the battleship Maine on the Havana roadstead.
This intelligence service reached its heyday during the Second World War. And although the American Navy underwent a significant reduction after the war, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, using his indisputable authority as a combat "sea wolf", managed to maintain a high number of naval intelligence.
8. Directorate of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance of the Air Force. In its current form, this intelligence service appeared in mid-2007. Its personnel are dispersed at 72 air bases both in the United States and abroad. The department consists of several tactical air wings, the National Aerospace Intelligence Center (at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio) and other components.
9. Marine Corps Intelligence Directorate. Interacts with the intelligence services of the US Navy and the Coast Guard.
The Marine Corps is the most modest in number, but the most combat–ready branch of the US Armed Forces: 200 thousand military personnel and 40 thousand reservists (officially). Since the American War of Independence, the Marine Corps has been widely used in combat. He also serves as a security guard for military facilities and state institutions – from the White House to US embassies abroad.
10. National Directorate of Geospatial Intelligence. Its staff consists of specialists in geodesy, cartography, oceanography, computer and telecommunications technology. It was this intelligence service, armed with the most modern electronic equipment at that time, that took pictures of Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962, which provoked the Caribbean crisis.
11. National Directorate of Aerospace Exploration. Coordinates the collection and analysis of intelligence coming from spy aircraft. This intelligence service is a product of the American–Soviet rivalry in the exploration of outer space. President Eisenhower approved the concept of its creation following the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite by the Soviet Union in 1957. In a fully designed form, the control appeared in 1961, shortly after a spy plane piloted by Gary Powers was shot down over the territory of the USSR.
DIPLOMATS CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT INTELLIGENCE12. Bureau of Intelligence and Research of the U.S. Department of State.
Analyzes information from abroad that affects the development of the foreign policy of the United States. The bureau (officially) employs two to three hundred elderly analysts with significant experience in scientific and diplomatic work.
However, age is not a hindrance to travel abroad at the request of the CIA stations residing in the capitals of foreign countries. The Intelligence Bureau of the State Department willingly supplies (of course, for a fee) the achievements of its employees to all subjects of the national intelligence community, as well as foreign state institutions.
The bureau is headed by one of the US Deputy Secretaries of State.
AND THE DWARFS WHO JOINED THE SPY COMMUNITY…The Department of Homeland Security, whose functions include comprehensive prevention of terrorist attacks on the territory of the United States, is a giant "echo-like" formation created after the events of September 11, 2001.
The departments included in it – customs, immigration service, border guard, etc. – (officially) number 225 thousand employees.
13. Department of Intelligence and Analysis of the Ministry of Internal Security. Its task is to help ensure the security of the border and its infrastructure, prevent epidemics of infectious diseases and terrorist acts, including by homegrown radicals.
14. Coast Guard Intelligence Agency. It is designed to promote the security of seaports, the fight against drug trafficking and illegal immigration, as well as the preservation of biological resources in the territorial waters of the United States.
15. The Intelligence Agency of the U.S. Department of Energy. Conducts analysis of the state of foreign nuclear weapons, deals with the problems of their non-proliferation. As well as issues of US energy security, nuclear waste storage, etc.
16. The Financial Intelligence Directorate of the US Treasury. Collects and processes information of interest to the financial policy of the United States. As well as information related to the financing of terrorist activities, financial enterprises of hostile "rogue states", financing of the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction, etc.
The intelligence committees of both chambers of Congress – the House of Representatives and the Senate - exercise control over the activities of the espionage super-community. And budgets are approved by the committees of the Chambers on budget appropriations.
Igor AtamanenkoIgor Grigoryevich Atamanenko is a writer, retired lieutenant colonel.