‘America First’ must not put national security last

 As the White House attempts to drastically reshape the U.S. government, alarm bells are ringing for those of us whose careers have focused on America’s national security.

In the Trump administration’s zeal both to radically curtail the size of government and to pay back his perceived enemies, we fear that many of these efforts are undermining the very safety of the country.

This is not the government reform that is required — we would applaud such measures, as there is significant waste and redundancy in government that should be eliminated. Instead, this is taking a sledgehammer to government without any consideration for short or long-term effects to critical national security institutions that keep Americans safe. 

It was recently reported that the government demanded a list of probationary CIA officers sent over an unclassified server to the Office of Management and Budget. This is ostensibly part of the administration’s goal of reducing the size of government agencies, but many of us who saw the news thought the order must have come from a Chinese operative who had hacked the system.

While the names were reportedly sanitized to show only a first name and last initial, any decent intelligence program can connect the dots through social media, data leaks and other avenues to figure out who these individuals are. Many of these officers are conceivably a part of the CIA’s invigorated efforts against China, which intelligence experts agree is America’s most formidable geopolitical adversary.

If the reporting is correct, this email potentially compromised the safety of these junior officers, made them counterintelligence targets and wasted untold amounts of money the U.S. has invested in keeping their identities and activities secret. Congress should seek answers about how this could happen. 

Nearly as unsettling is the potential purge underway at the FBI, where thousands of special agents may be targeted for political firings, despite assurances from FBI Director Kash Patel that he would not permit political retribution at the bureau.

It is essential to point out the dangers that go beyond the obvious fact that losing a large number of federal law enforcement officers — many of whom with decades of experience and contacts — makes America less safe. But what becomes of these individuals is also deeply concerning from a counterintelligence perspective.

While FBI special agents are some of the most patriotic public servants, many will face economic pressures from losing their jobs leaving them as prime targets for foreign spies. Intelligence agencies like the Chinese are adept at commercial approaches — for example on LinkedIn — and use subtle methods of tradecraft that don’t turn someone fully into an agent but collect just enough information to make them useful.

Counterintelligence officials in the U.S. government are surely concerned about the potential for thousands of national security personnel to be summarily dismissed.

While the damage that a purge could do to the FBI is concerning, if one does commence, the confirmation of Tulsi Gabbard as the Director of National Intelligence has been discomforting, even if this damage will likely be harder to gauge. The position is extraordinarily important in its central role in coordinating sensitive intelligence, and our allies are almost certainly troubled that a partisan without the requisite experience is now in this job.

Gabbard’s views on Russia in particular are alarming and our allies are less likely to share their most sensitive intelligence regarding Russia with us as a result. Her previous visit to Syria to call on Bashar Assad also surely causes concern — let us not forget that the U.S. government reportedly ran a years-long security assistance program to help the Syrian opposition. And finally, her inability to condemn Edward Snowden as a traitor causes discomfort throughout the intelligence community.

Gabbard will be hard-pressed to win the respect of those she leads, given these multiple instances of behavior entirely inconsistent with U.S. national security.             

In the world of intelligence, human sources are the linchpin to understanding the plans and intentions of one’s adversaries. And our allies share a great deal of their own human intelligence collection with us, which has helped the U.S. to thwart terrorist attacks, catch spies in our midst and interdict nuclear proliferation networks. 

Responsible foreign intelligence services may now carefully scrutinize what they will share and how they share it and a track record of both reciprocity and protection of sources is essential.

How are our allies to trust that a DNI who has a track record of sympathy for some of the world’s worst dictators is someone they can trust with information when lives are on the line? It is a difficult but fair question to ask. Again, Gabbard must reassure our foreign allies that she is a trustworthy partner.

The U.S. suddenly becoming an unreliable ally doesn’t end in a flawed DNI pick or a mercurial and unpredictable president.

The world’s richest person, Elon Musk, is leading a cabal of young techies as they seemingly pillage some of the country’s most sensitive financial information in the Treasury system. These inexperienced youngsters are a foreign spy’s dream — no matter how tech-savvy they are — and a U.S. counterintelligence officer’s nightmare. Our allies surely watch this all with great alarm.

Finally, while the excesses of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives might have needed curbing, the blaming of seemingly all of society’s ills on this movement is counterproductive.

At the CIA, diversity isn’t about hitting metrics to show how multicultural and inclusive the agency is. It’s about taking a “best athlete” approach to using the right officer to obtain the intelligence that the agency needs. Sometimes that means theoretically utilizing a female case officer working in the Middle East wearing an abaya — to take advantage of cultural norms — to move about while drawing less attention.

An entire generation of young people is potentially being turned off by the government loudly saying that diversity doesn’t matter at all. Diversity is our greatest strength, even if Secretary of Defense Hegseth doesn’t think so.

For many of us, it’s the previously unthinkable behavior toward our allies that is most upsetting.

One hundred fifty-eight Canadians died in Afghanistan in a war that was started when America was attacked on 9/11, and which featured our northern neighbors immediately rallying to our side. As our president needlessly and seemingly gratuitously insults Canada by saying he will turn it into the 51st state, how many Canadians will rally to our side, should we need them again?

The same is true in Europe, where our allies of many decades shake their heads and marvel at the rhetoric coming from Trump about clearing Gaza for a U.S. takeover, which would make the U.S. an even bigger terrorist target than it already is.

The list of how we may be becoming less safe even after only four weeks of this administration continues. The gutting of USAID and the soft power benefits it brings, the defunding of the science and health institutions that help us understand the threats of climate change and potential pandemics — the list seemingly grows daily.

All administrations should be given a chance to carry out their goals. And reform and new approaches must be welcome; the government always moves too slowly in instituting change. 

But those of us who have devoted our lives to American national security need to speak up loudly about the approach that the administration has taken — as we fear that we are becoming less safe by the day.

  Marc Polymeropoulos worked at the CIA for 26 years and retired in 2019. Jeremy Hurewitz is the author of “Sell Like a Spy” and the head of “Interfor Academy.”

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