We who defend our nation’s secrets face new and imaginative threats. We can do so if we carefully examine recent experiences. Vladimir Putin has stepped up his hybrid spying and sabotage actions in Europe outside the Ukrainian warzone. He’s sent his agents across Europe using deniable weapons and people to cause chaos. He denies any such acts, while claiming he responds only in ‘retaliation’ to Ukrainian use of American weapons to fire into Russia. Putin’s comments only resonate with those in his country who are true believers or are hamstrung by laws making it a crime to question his war.
U.S. air bases in the United Kingdom and Germany cannot account for drones spotted flying over their fields. From no less than the head of Britain’s MI6, their equivalent of our CIA, Director Richard Moore called out the ‘staggeringly reckless’ sabotage being carried out across Europe by the Russians. He needed to look no further than a trial being conducted in London. There, he cited a case to determine the guilt or innocence of three Bulgarians allegedly employed as proxies by Russia.
For three years, they allegedly actively stole information for the Russians from bases, which included Patch Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany. Did they work on the base? Are such cases essential for us to be aware of? Are these events unprecedented? One incident during the Cold War involved a German terrorist who received a Host Nation employment position on an American military base. She stole military blueprints and maps later used by terrorists.
Building Resilience: Security Through Liaison and Vigilance
We who are tasked with protecting classified information are now also burdened with countering such dangers. When overseas, we need to ensure we are closely linked with our home-country intelligence and police counterparts. We need to be informed by our own and foreign intelligence services about the threats we face. We need to learn the spying employed by those who wish us harm. Who would have thought a terrorist was responsible for drafting blueprints and maps of American facilities? When these maps were discovered to be stolen, the chase began. But it was too late. The terrorist attack occurred, and a gigantic police search ensued. The employee was discovered to have provided the Red Army Faction (A German political extremist group) with maps of all its targets.
Today, we know our allied German counter-spies have warned repeatedly in the past months that the Russian enclave in Kaliningrad jammed GPS for the heavily-traveled Baltic Sea and its airspace. The recent explosion from a package in a DHL shipping cargo bay at Germany’s Leipzig Airport is believed to have been sent from Russia. Russians are also suspected to have caused another DHL commercial aircraft from Leipzig, which crash landed in Vilnius, Lithuania. Again, detonation of a package in the plane’s cargo hold was the cause. The Germans are not ruling out Russia.
Strengthening the Perimeter: Partnering Beyond the Compound
Liaison with local officials is mandatory, regardless of where your company is located. Every investigative agency in our areas of responsibility should have our contact numbers, and we theirs. Consider your base or company’s compound as a chessboard on several levels. You have your physical security for the ground level, or ‘inside the gate’ of your compound. If overseas, you rely on your host nation for defense outside your compound. For air cover, again, you must meet those whose job it is to protect the airspace. Be aware of the laws governing drones, especially.
Recent events revealed that communication cables between NATO countries have been severed in the Baltic Sea. Can the many new military bases around that vast sea identify and counter such threats in the future?
Even our bases in the United States must consider liaison with police river patrols or lake authorities if necessary. We must evaluate our physical locations. Who do we allow on the post or our company compound? Who are we working with? What laws govern our activities in these areas? Are we sufficiently connected with those authorized to protect us? Additionally, we must ask if we are adequately protected against the loss of our primary means of energy and communication through duplication. Nothing could be worse than being on the line to protect others, yet unable to defend ourselves.
