CIA chief shows US is truculently set in its ways

Foreign Affairs published an article by Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns on Tuesday titled "Spycraft and Statecraft", in which the head of the US spy agency writes that today's challenges, and geopolitical and technological shifts have brought unprecedented tests for the CIA and the US intelligence community as a whole.

To meet these challenges, the CIA is adjusting the way it uses intelligence, he says. One of its initiatives is "strategic declassification", the intentional public disclosure of "certain secrets" to undercut rivals and rally allies, which has become a powerful tool in the hands of policymakers. This of course is more spook-speak, as it is presenting disinformation campaigns as hard-won intelligence.

A recent example of the "strategic declassification" approach being used against China was Burns and other top officials of the Joe Biden administration claiming that intelligence reports suggested that China was considering supplying weapons to Russia in its conflict with Ukraine, despite China repeatedly having made clear that was not the case, and the US providing no evidence of any description to the contrary.

The intent was clear: to inextricably link China and Russia in the public's mind, as Russia has long been viewed as public enemy number one in the West and China is to be tarred with the same brush by association.

Burns' article, which carries on from the boastful admission of one of his predecessors that the agency lies, cheats and steals, is part of this strategic declassification approach.

In his article, Burns claims that China and Russia present serious geopolitical challenges to the United States, which no longer enjoys "uncontested primacy". As a result, he writes, the CIA is having to devote more resources to gathering, executing, and analyzing China-related intelligence around the world, and the percentage of the overall US budget devoted to China has more than doubled in the past two years alone.

The defining test for intelligence has always been to anticipate and help policymakers navigate profound shifts in the international landscape — "the plastic moments that come along only a few times each century", Burns writes.

But instead of helping the country's policymakers navigate the changes, the CIA, holding a hammer called "intelligence" in hand, is hitting the same old nails on the head.

Rather than seeking to help US policymakers chart a less adversarial course, the CIA is reinforcing the anxieties that have convulsed policymakers in Washington, in large part because of the US' own hubris and attendant follies.