I have been a subscriber for just three or four months, and I anticipate your weekly writings as intellectual balm in a world where there are so few people with whom one can have intelligent conversation. Thank you.
There were real examples that could have been used.
Like the CIA trying to botch the rapprochment between Eisenhwer and Khruschov, with all that spy plane downed in USSR and with all the pilot ID left to be found.
Or long term grooming, like the US did after 2003 in Europe, given the Iraq diplomatic fiasco, untold billions were invested in grooming, buying, and blackmailing to create the leadership Europe has today. from the word of Col Larry Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to the Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Again, what are the ultimate objectives that intelligence serves? National interest, eh?!
From 10,000 meters, for me, it looks like CIA serves the free movement of capital for the benefit of Wall Street (one needs to remember that the godfathers of CIA were former wall Street lawyers). Is that national interest?
So what do you do if you have a captive political system?
I think all this discussion about intelligence and competence, etc, needs also be anchored in how the sociopolitical systems are set-up and what they defend and try to achieve. I feel at times a bit shortchanged because the discussion never goes there, to certain fundamentals, which are taken for granted.
I wonder how would Aurelien would critically analyze the report provided by Craig Murray (since he attended the very expedited legal proceedings) on the UK legal system to go along with having Palestinian Action declared a terrorist organization...
"In Anglo-Saxon countries however, and especially under the influence of US popular culture, there is an entire virtual construct, largely unmoored from reality, derived from popular fiction since John Buchan, from Hollywood thrillers and treatments of real historical events such as Watergate, from sensationalist reporting, and from the mutual interaction of all of these elements Thus, the value of any writing about Intelligence in the West today is primarily judged, not by its authority and persuasiveness, but by how closely it adheres to popular cultural stereotypes."
James Bond movies are much of the source of specifically American stereotypes of British competence.
Completely over-rated, you mean? Not that US versions are any better - they seem to be fixated on technological solutions.
But the main problem for society with regard to such organisations is that as far as I can tell they have no established legal or constitutional way of resisting their information being altered and used as pretexts for whatever action a government may want to take, such as in the case of Iraq, Cuba, possibly Vietnam, (and Syria and Libya?). However, I imagine that it would be difficult to put such input into a public forum in such a way as to be credible, and in any case, resistance to such use might be non-existent within the organisation. Perhaps Aurelian could expand on this? (If it's a realistic question).
Since you asked what we'd be 'interested in' hearing more about, I'd love to get your thoughts on who, generally, have been the 'players' in Latin American 'regime change' operations, which seem to be constantly ongoing no matter what administration is in power in the US. We've all heard about Nuland's heavy involvement in the detailed "fuck the EU" plotting of regime change in Ukraine. Is there a similar pattern and set of players in the many US regime change operations in Latin America? Or is it (probably) much more complex than that?
I think it's not easy for the British to spy in Russia right now. In Moscow, they've gone from being beloved gentlemen who need to be imitated to being some kind of sly-assed rats. An amazing transformation in just 10 years. Sorry for being rude, but I try to write honestly.
I think the British are feeling this transformation. Not too long ago, an English journalist was shown on TV who was literally shouting in Russian with a British accent: My God, what has Russia become! Everyone was laughing online...
Thought provoking, as usual, but I have a nit to pick.
"So the late Mr Epstein is confidently pronounced to be a CIA agent, a CIA 'asset,' whatever that is, a Mossad ditto, a double agent of some kind, an independent blackmailer, murdered by the CIA, murdered by the Mossad, murdered by the Russians, and half a dozen other theories without a scrap of evidence..."
Not a scrap of evidence? It seems to me that there is enough circumstantial evidence to at least render hand-waving dismissals dubious. These are just a few examples.
• Alex Acosta, then US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, agreed to grant immunity from all federal criminal charges to Jeffrey Epstein, and was subsequently quoted as saying “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone.”. That he later changed his story should be treated with skepticism, given how remarkably lenient the sentence was, given the charges.
• "Four separate sources told me — on the record — that Epstein’s dealings in the arms world in the 1980s had led him to work for multiple governments, including the Israelis. Some of these sources are more reliable than others. But the gist of the claims that you will be able to hear, and ultimately watch in a three-hour documentary series, is that Maxwell, who was himself a conduit between the Israelis and other governments during his life time, introduced Epstein to Israeli leaders, who then allegedly used Epstein as the equivalent of an old-fashioned Russian “sleeper,” someone who could be useful in an “influence campaign.”
– Vicky Ward, Vanity Fair 2021
• Epstein reportedly had a close relationship with Robert Maxwell, who was reported to have been connected with Mossad.
• Reportedly, former Mossad agent and Israeli businessman Ari Ben-Menashe asserted in a statement to RT International that Epstein worked for Israeli intelligence.
The point is simply that the identities of actual intelligence agents are kept fanatically secret, and known only to a handful of people. What has been reported about Epstein is basically gossip, and you can't have "circumstantial evidence" against intelligence agents, because they go to great lengths to avoid being noticed in the first place. It's quite possible that Epstein had contacts with people who had contact with people who had intelligence links, and may not even have realised this. But the idea that he was "working" for any intelligence agency goes against all evidence of how these agencies actually work.
Thank you. I would agree that any association would have likely been informal, but the connections, and potential for him to have provided potentially damning information about very powerful people, could certainly have benefitted Israeli intelligence.
Aurelian poses this question rather narrowly about overcoming language barriers with computer-aided translation. A bigger question is how intelligence agencies' work may be aided by increasingly sophisticated AI systems combined with stealthy info-gathering tech (e.g. micro-drones that snoop behind closed doors).
AI in the public domain is "trained" on large internet databases. Surely all intelligence agencies are now supplementing this training with classified databases and analyzed according to algorithms that encode any cultural biases you want to specify. For example, if you want to anticipate Russian intentions relative to Ukraine, you tell your classified AI chatbot you want it to "think" like a Russian and not like a Westerner. The AI will likely tell you what you might prefer to discount with your Western biases: the Russians have compelling military, cultural, and political reasons for keeping NATO out of Ukraine and invading as a last resort to ensure that result. So, let's say your leaders have ignored all of Russia's red lines (and your chatbot), and now they want to deliver Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine (as Trump is proposing)? Your well-designed AI machine, thinking like a Russian, is apt to tell you that the likely Russian response is to use its troops to push those Tomahawk launch sites West of the Dnieper as quickly as possible, maybe as far as Poland. It will likely tell you that, push the Russians too far and they WILL use nukes --i.e. that this red line is a RED LINE.
My hope is that well-designed and controlled AI will be less likely to be gamed by the political class to deliver results that the political class wants. Of course, the danger here is that humans can code and tweak AI systems to give whatever result you want. But this may be less straightforward with adequate internal controls.
A related problem is that more and more of the internet itself, and even classified databases, will be increasingly polluted by AI generated content (misinformation or worse). Much of this pollution may be blowback from various intelligence agencies around the globe, including the CIA itself. Presumably, good AI systems will be even better than humans at filtering out this information, which may give AI a decided edge over humans from now on (at least in the raw info collection stage).
The question needs to be: will technology save us from the humans? I.e. will it save us from the politicians who keep filtering and/or misinterpreting the intelligence to get us into wars? Who keep turning intelligence with "high truth value" into propaganda with high political value, then presented to the public as "truth", and adding to the pollution of AI content?
Today the Pentagon announced $800 million in contracts to four AI developers -- Open AI, Anthropic, Google, and xAI for national security purposed (weaponized?) AI systems development. See:
Concerning "“In our country these things are just not discussed” as a Swedish official said to me some years ago."
I think that depends on whom you meet. There have been scandals which are written freely about in the opposition media, including the Social Democrat Aftonbladet, Sweden's biggest newspaper.
Perhaps because of the super-big scandal 50 years ago, when some journalists discovered an until then unknown state spy organization working as agents provocateurs, I believe Swedes in general will think that all "intelligence" agencies are more or less dirty. And that people who are dependent on the bureaucracy for their job tend not to want them washed in public.
Thank you, very good to remember these things. A long time ago I had to read, in my studies of political history, about the period before Finland got independent, over 100 years ago. The intelligence service of the Tsar of Russia followed both the swedish-speaking political movements and the fledgeling Finnish independence movement. But they were ordered to forget about the independence-dreaming finnish fools, and they had to fabricate stories about scheming to re-join Finland to Sweden. So intelligence will ultimately produce whatever "facts" are needed to support the dominant/ruling narrative. And here I think AI will just be more of the same: telling those who hold the power whatever they want to hear. In psychology that would be called projection.
The Chinese intelligence system is not easy to deal with, and is famously complex and opaque? It is also, famously, very old and, judging by its exploits in WWII very, very good.
Given that Russia has shared its S-400 code and hardware with China, I also suspect that they keep secrets to a minimum and stay in dialog about their disagreements–as very smart people would.
Very interesting. But how can this explain observations such as the Western deliberate deafness on the topic of Russia's aims in the proxy war in the Ukraine? For over a decade, Russia has been hammering the point about the existential threat posed by aggressive NATO expansion towards its border -- and yet it seems that no-one in authority in the West has heard the message. They don't need expensive Intelligence services; they simply need to read the newspapers.
The Russians would never have killed Epstein. Westerners are striking in their ignorance. The Russians could have killed their traitor. But they would definitely use an agent like Epstein if such an opportunity were real.
Well, pretend that Epstein had died in a Russian lockup under similar bullshit circumstances.
Every talking head from Tallinn to Tokyo would be pushing the wildest accusations, conspiracy theories would be abounding, encouraged and carefully cultivated by western governments, every foolio would be quick to proclaim themselves in solidarity with Jeffrey Epstein.
But, since Epstein did not in fact die in Russia, we are duly assured that this is merely a conspiracy theory, nothing to see here, move on.
Hell, in February, Pam Bondi claimed to have The Epstein Files "on her desk". Now she tells us that there in fact are no Epstein Files. A month ago, J.D. Vance was calling for the release of The Epstein Files. Now he is silent.
That means further reducing standards of living which have already been steadily declining in Western Europe since the start of the century. And I don't see how global warming is bad for Britain or Northern Eurasia as a whole - consider how much money and resources can be saved on heating alone.
I have been a subscriber for just three or four months, and I anticipate your weekly writings as intellectual balm in a world where there are so few people with whom one can have intelligent conversation. Thank you.
There were real examples that could have been used.
Like the CIA trying to botch the rapprochment between Eisenhwer and Khruschov, with all that spy plane downed in USSR and with all the pilot ID left to be found.
Or long term grooming, like the US did after 2003 in Europe, given the Iraq diplomatic fiasco, untold billions were invested in grooming, buying, and blackmailing to create the leadership Europe has today. from the word of Col Larry Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to the Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Again, what are the ultimate objectives that intelligence serves? National interest, eh?!
From 10,000 meters, for me, it looks like CIA serves the free movement of capital for the benefit of Wall Street (one needs to remember that the godfathers of CIA were former wall Street lawyers). Is that national interest?
So what do you do if you have a captive political system?
I think all this discussion about intelligence and competence, etc, needs also be anchored in how the sociopolitical systems are set-up and what they defend and try to achieve. I feel at times a bit shortchanged because the discussion never goes there, to certain fundamentals, which are taken for granted.
I wonder how would Aurelien would critically analyze the report provided by Craig Murray (since he attended the very expedited legal proceedings) on the UK legal system to go along with having Palestinian Action declared a terrorist organization...
Good points. Thanks.
"In Anglo-Saxon countries however, and especially under the influence of US popular culture, there is an entire virtual construct, largely unmoored from reality, derived from popular fiction since John Buchan, from Hollywood thrillers and treatments of real historical events such as Watergate, from sensationalist reporting, and from the mutual interaction of all of these elements Thus, the value of any writing about Intelligence in the West today is primarily judged, not by its authority and persuasiveness, but by how closely it adheres to popular cultural stereotypes."
James Bond movies are much of the source of specifically American stereotypes of British competence.
Completely over-rated, you mean? Not that US versions are any better - they seem to be fixated on technological solutions.
But the main problem for society with regard to such organisations is that as far as I can tell they have no established legal or constitutional way of resisting their information being altered and used as pretexts for whatever action a government may want to take, such as in the case of Iraq, Cuba, possibly Vietnam, (and Syria and Libya?). However, I imagine that it would be difficult to put such input into a public forum in such a way as to be credible, and in any case, resistance to such use might be non-existent within the organisation. Perhaps Aurelian could expand on this? (If it's a realistic question).
Since you asked what we'd be 'interested in' hearing more about, I'd love to get your thoughts on who, generally, have been the 'players' in Latin American 'regime change' operations, which seem to be constantly ongoing no matter what administration is in power in the US. We've all heard about Nuland's heavy involvement in the detailed "fuck the EU" plotting of regime change in Ukraine. Is there a similar pattern and set of players in the many US regime change operations in Latin America? Or is it (probably) much more complex than that?
I think it's not easy for the British to spy in Russia right now. In Moscow, they've gone from being beloved gentlemen who need to be imitated to being some kind of sly-assed rats. An amazing transformation in just 10 years. Sorry for being rude, but I try to write honestly.
I think the British are feeling this transformation. Not too long ago, an English journalist was shown on TV who was literally shouting in Russian with a British accent: My God, what has Russia become! Everyone was laughing online...
Yes. Ex-ambassador Ian Proud has become more outspoken on Russian affairs since his retiral, and his blog is definitely worth reading.
Ambassador???
Thought provoking, as usual, but I have a nit to pick.
"So the late Mr Epstein is confidently pronounced to be a CIA agent, a CIA 'asset,' whatever that is, a Mossad ditto, a double agent of some kind, an independent blackmailer, murdered by the CIA, murdered by the Mossad, murdered by the Russians, and half a dozen other theories without a scrap of evidence..."
Not a scrap of evidence? It seems to me that there is enough circumstantial evidence to at least render hand-waving dismissals dubious. These are just a few examples.
• Alex Acosta, then US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, agreed to grant immunity from all federal criminal charges to Jeffrey Epstein, and was subsequently quoted as saying “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone.”. That he later changed his story should be treated with skepticism, given how remarkably lenient the sentence was, given the charges.
• "Four separate sources told me — on the record — that Epstein’s dealings in the arms world in the 1980s had led him to work for multiple governments, including the Israelis. Some of these sources are more reliable than others. But the gist of the claims that you will be able to hear, and ultimately watch in a three-hour documentary series, is that Maxwell, who was himself a conduit between the Israelis and other governments during his life time, introduced Epstein to Israeli leaders, who then allegedly used Epstein as the equivalent of an old-fashioned Russian “sleeper,” someone who could be useful in an “influence campaign.”
– Vicky Ward, Vanity Fair 2021
• Epstein reportedly had a close relationship with Robert Maxwell, who was reported to have been connected with Mossad.
• Reportedly, former Mossad agent and Israeli businessman Ari Ben-Menashe asserted in a statement to RT International that Epstein worked for Israeli intelligence.
The point is simply that the identities of actual intelligence agents are kept fanatically secret, and known only to a handful of people. What has been reported about Epstein is basically gossip, and you can't have "circumstantial evidence" against intelligence agents, because they go to great lengths to avoid being noticed in the first place. It's quite possible that Epstein had contacts with people who had contact with people who had intelligence links, and may not even have realised this. But the idea that he was "working" for any intelligence agency goes against all evidence of how these agencies actually work.
Thank you. I would agree that any association would have likely been informal, but the connections, and potential for him to have provided potentially damning information about very powerful people, could certainly have benefitted Israeli intelligence.
"Won’t technology save us? "
Aurelian poses this question rather narrowly about overcoming language barriers with computer-aided translation. A bigger question is how intelligence agencies' work may be aided by increasingly sophisticated AI systems combined with stealthy info-gathering tech (e.g. micro-drones that snoop behind closed doors).
AI in the public domain is "trained" on large internet databases. Surely all intelligence agencies are now supplementing this training with classified databases and analyzed according to algorithms that encode any cultural biases you want to specify. For example, if you want to anticipate Russian intentions relative to Ukraine, you tell your classified AI chatbot you want it to "think" like a Russian and not like a Westerner. The AI will likely tell you what you might prefer to discount with your Western biases: the Russians have compelling military, cultural, and political reasons for keeping NATO out of Ukraine and invading as a last resort to ensure that result. So, let's say your leaders have ignored all of Russia's red lines (and your chatbot), and now they want to deliver Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine (as Trump is proposing)? Your well-designed AI machine, thinking like a Russian, is apt to tell you that the likely Russian response is to use its troops to push those Tomahawk launch sites West of the Dnieper as quickly as possible, maybe as far as Poland. It will likely tell you that, push the Russians too far and they WILL use nukes --i.e. that this red line is a RED LINE.
My hope is that well-designed and controlled AI will be less likely to be gamed by the political class to deliver results that the political class wants. Of course, the danger here is that humans can code and tweak AI systems to give whatever result you want. But this may be less straightforward with adequate internal controls.
A related problem is that more and more of the internet itself, and even classified databases, will be increasingly polluted by AI generated content (misinformation or worse). Much of this pollution may be blowback from various intelligence agencies around the globe, including the CIA itself. Presumably, good AI systems will be even better than humans at filtering out this information, which may give AI a decided edge over humans from now on (at least in the raw info collection stage).
The question needs to be: will technology save us from the humans? I.e. will it save us from the politicians who keep filtering and/or misinterpreting the intelligence to get us into wars? Who keep turning intelligence with "high truth value" into propaganda with high political value, then presented to the public as "truth", and adding to the pollution of AI content?
Today the Pentagon announced $800 million in contracts to four AI developers -- Open AI, Anthropic, Google, and xAI for national security purposed (weaponized?) AI systems development. See:
https://www.zerohedge.com/ai/pentagon-awards-contracts-4-artificial-intelligence-developers
Despite my comments above, I don't know whether to be hopeful or horrified. This topic might be worth another Aurelian essay!
A highly intelligent Essay !!
Concerning "“In our country these things are just not discussed” as a Swedish official said to me some years ago."
I think that depends on whom you meet. There have been scandals which are written freely about in the opposition media, including the Social Democrat Aftonbladet, Sweden's biggest newspaper.
Perhaps because of the super-big scandal 50 years ago, when some journalists discovered an until then unknown state spy organization working as agents provocateurs, I believe Swedes in general will think that all "intelligence" agencies are more or less dirty. And that people who are dependent on the bureaucracy for their job tend not to want them washed in public.
But that's them.
My usual italian translation, here:
"Un po' di informazioni...
... a proposito di intelligence"
https://trying2understandw.blogspot.com/2025/07/un-po-di-informazioni-proposito-di.html
Thank you as always Marco.
Or a full sack might only be a wind bag.
Thank you, very good to remember these things. A long time ago I had to read, in my studies of political history, about the period before Finland got independent, over 100 years ago. The intelligence service of the Tsar of Russia followed both the swedish-speaking political movements and the fledgeling Finnish independence movement. But they were ordered to forget about the independence-dreaming finnish fools, and they had to fabricate stories about scheming to re-join Finland to Sweden. So intelligence will ultimately produce whatever "facts" are needed to support the dominant/ruling narrative. And here I think AI will just be more of the same: telling those who hold the power whatever they want to hear. In psychology that would be called projection.
The Chinese intelligence system is not easy to deal with, and is famously complex and opaque? It is also, famously, very old and, judging by its exploits in WWII very, very good.
Given that Russia has shared its S-400 code and hardware with China, I also suspect that they keep secrets to a minimum and stay in dialog about their disagreements–as very smart people would.
Very interesting. But how can this explain observations such as the Western deliberate deafness on the topic of Russia's aims in the proxy war in the Ukraine? For over a decade, Russia has been hammering the point about the existential threat posed by aggressive NATO expansion towards its border -- and yet it seems that no-one in authority in the West has heard the message. They don't need expensive Intelligence services; they simply need to read the newspapers.
The Russians would never have killed Epstein. Westerners are striking in their ignorance. The Russians could have killed their traitor. But they would definitely use an agent like Epstein if such an opportunity were real.
Well, pretend that Epstein had died in a Russian lockup under similar bullshit circumstances.
Every talking head from Tallinn to Tokyo would be pushing the wildest accusations, conspiracy theories would be abounding, encouraged and carefully cultivated by western governments, every foolio would be quick to proclaim themselves in solidarity with Jeffrey Epstein.
But, since Epstein did not in fact die in Russia, we are duly assured that this is merely a conspiracy theory, nothing to see here, move on.
Hell, in February, Pam Bondi claimed to have The Epstein Files "on her desk". Now she tells us that there in fact are no Epstein Files. A month ago, J.D. Vance was calling for the release of The Epstein Files. Now he is silent.
Yes. Strange that - or maybe not. DT was a big pal of Epstein, and probably has his own 'little' entry in the non-existent files.
Well, former "First Buddy" Elon Musk said this a month or so ago, and Musk would be in a position to know.
H.M. Government has no real policy other than to keep the Americans happy.
While making a bob or two on the side, and keeping the City of London happy too.
'Action against global heating!'🥴
What on earth is that!?
CY
"Global Warming' is a bit passe now - too mild.
"Global Baking"
"Reduce the use of fossil fuels"
That means further reducing standards of living which have already been steadily declining in Western Europe since the start of the century. And I don't see how global warming is bad for Britain or Northern Eurasia as a whole - consider how much money and resources can be saved on heating alone.