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1:56

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another

1:58

episode of Eyes On. We have

2:00

a special treat aside from our usual

2:03

lineup star host cast with

2:05

both Dee and Jason today.

2:07

We have Mark Polymeropoulos

2:10

and I am smiling

2:12

a little bit because we were laying

2:14

bets on who would mess up his

2:17

name the most but because it has

2:19

only been ingrained into my memory, it

2:21

trips off my tongue. I'm

2:23

delighted to have him. You

2:25

will be pleased to hear

2:27

that we are going

2:29

to give him stream of consciousness today. Quick

2:33

bit about Mark in case you've been hiding under a

2:35

rock and just don't know who he

2:37

is. Mark

2:39

spent 26 years in the agency, has

2:42

had a number of – when you

2:44

look at his resume, it's

2:46

a lot of hard billets in bad

2:49

places. Yes,

2:52

Jason will tell you of course that's the norm for

2:54

the agency but it looks like Mark has actually chosen

2:57

these places out. Mark

3:01

also was the target

3:03

of – I think was

3:05

suspecting – is

3:07

suspecting was an EW attack

3:10

or a directed energy attack

3:12

that resulted

3:14

in traumatic brain injury

3:17

and he's been going for treatment for that. If

3:20

you have questions about please do

3:23

ping him. Since

3:26

leaving the agency – and by the way, Mark's

3:30

name carries a lot of waster in

3:32

the agency. When

3:34

we even thought we were getting

3:36

him on the show, Jason – I don't

3:38

know how to say it other than – he was giddy.

3:41

And girl with the name. But

3:44

anyway, since – my point is since

3:46

Mark's gone out, he has continued to do

3:48

great work for the course. Some of you

3:50

may have been following his writing and his

3:52

commentary. He is one of those rare people

3:54

who they wrote in as an expert to

3:58

Fox News. MNS

4:00

BC and in

4:03

Bc anyway, so I'm gonna be yeah.

4:05

Hey, thank you D Spanning

4:07

the name. Okay, that's long enough intro mark.

4:09

We are delighted to to have you on

4:12

and I'm gonna turn over to

4:14

you to to talk about

4:16

your your favorite topic, which I

4:18

think is soft by agency integration

4:22

So so hey, thanks guys so much, you know,

4:24

it's an honor to be on here. Congratulations on the

4:26

show I actually I'm I have I have listened to

4:28

it. I watched it Love

4:31

it. And of course, I've been a friend of

4:33

the team house for some time I think

4:35

do how many times I've been on five times. I Think

4:39

there might be four. Okay,

4:41

but it's been it's been a blast Yeah, and so, you

4:43

know because again, I love coming on because I'm talking to

4:45

my old peeps And there's a

4:48

sense for me of comfort frankly in doing that is

4:50

you know When we lose when we leave the agency,

4:52

you know, there's a lot of things I don't

4:54

miss about it But there's certainly the camaraderie and kind of

4:56

the brotherhood and sisterhood. That's what I really really

4:58

do miss And so thanks for having me on great honor. I

5:00

know it's early in the morning. Well, come on

5:03

I'm almost 55 years old. I get up at like

5:05

five. So you guys gotta suck it up. It's

5:07

not early. It's 730 There you

5:09

go. This generation. We got generation Z

5:12

and and very early for

5:14

me I'm young enough to be generation

5:16

X that he's not I have I

5:18

have grandkids. This is Oh

5:22

No, but you you you mentioned something I

5:24

just did a talk to a DOD

5:26

seminar the Department of Defense seminar I think there was

5:29

1,400 people on a zoom call and it was something

5:31

that I actually believe in passionately and

5:33

that's when you know We're the future of

5:35

the CIA special operations, you know

5:37

forces soft relationship

5:40

But really how we do this kind of in the

5:43

era of great power competition Which is kind of Russia

5:45

China in some case, you know Maybe Iran but you

5:47

know almost kind of the crappy states Or

5:50

or where the Department of Defense sees kind of

5:52

our greatest threats coming from But how do we

5:54

take those 20 years of the GWOT in which

5:56

the US we can see I and soft? We're

5:59

kind of you know know, align side by side, how

6:01

do you translate that? And in particular, and I know

6:03

I'm jumping into the weeds too much, you guys will

6:05

shut me up, they start waving your hands if I'm

6:07

talking too much. But but

6:10

how do you do this in the era of

6:12

what we call and Jason's going to notice really

6:14

well, ubiquitous technical surveillance, which means

6:16

a way different operational environment that I grew

6:18

up in that Jason operated in. And that,

6:21

you know, how does the agency and soft

6:23

run, you know, in

6:26

essence, clandestine slash covert operations,

6:29

when you have sensors everywhere, really interesting

6:31

stuff. And so, you know, that's

6:33

my that's my stream of consciousness this morning, along

6:36

with it, you know, I picked up I was reading the papers

6:39

when I've been thinking about our colleagues,

6:41

the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince in Haiti, I mean,

6:43

holy shit, talk about environments in

6:45

which we all used to operate. That is

6:47

crazy, crazy stuff going on now. So that's

6:50

where I am this morning, jacked up on coffee, and

6:52

I've been up a while so Hey,

6:55

Mark, on the on this, your

6:57

discussions of soft agency, can you can

6:59

you just talk about I mean, I'm,

7:02

I'm all on when we look at

7:05

our past experiences when I was

7:07

hosting the irregular warfare podcast, we

7:09

had some really good episodes on

7:11

this particular topic. And

7:14

when we look back, yes, we eventually

7:16

figured it out, right, actually, in Afghanistan,

7:19

right off the bat, but then, but

7:22

then we had some rocky times in

7:24

that relationship. And sometimes when it was

7:26

too compound, compound mentalized, it always worked

7:29

really well at the team level, you

7:31

know, always, always never. And so if

7:33

we can capture that, if

7:35

you could maybe talk about some,

7:38

I mean, areas,

7:40

the times before what

7:43

Columbia, I'm thinking of like, things like

7:46

Plan Colombia, where or El

7:48

Salvador where small, you

7:50

know, soft and the agency work together

7:52

very well, and then formal, the level.

7:54

And the second thing, you could just

7:56

talk about in a in you

7:58

can do this in a way that that makes

8:00

the otherwise dry subject sound really

8:02

exciting, but the title 10, title

8:05

50, obstacles,

8:09

perception thereof, etc. Sure.

8:12

So, I mean, let's go back to World War II, you

8:14

know, so the creation of the office,

8:16

the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services.

8:18

So, kind of, you know, the intelligence

8:20

gathering and special operations, you know, in

8:22

some sense, always

8:25

kind of had an entity and that was the

8:27

OSS in fact, the CIA and SOP were

8:29

born out of the same kind of, you

8:32

know, thing. And so, you

8:34

know, but they are two different

8:36

entities. As you mentioned, Andy, they operate under

8:39

different titles, whether, you know, title 10 or

8:41

title 50, which is intelligence operations versus military

8:44

operations. But ultimately, I think

8:46

that if I look back

8:48

on my career, I mean, I started the agency in

8:51

93. So really, the Balkan conflict in Bosnia,

8:53

you know, is where this stuff kind of

8:55

started. And where, you know,

8:57

members of my generation first got an inkling

8:59

that we have to kind of integrate and

9:02

work closely with SOP. And then,

9:04

of course, 9-11 occurred, but what

9:08

kind of banged us together was necessity. And

9:11

so, and that, of course, is the challenge now,

9:13

you know, so what do we have? We have

9:15

war zone operations. We had

9:17

embassies and baghdad and cobble with a

9:20

thousand personnel. That means there's a thousand

9:22

CIA personnel who every day are side by side

9:24

with their SOP brothers and sisters. And so we

9:27

kind of squished together, forced to kind of learn about

9:29

each other. Everyone has their own habits. Everyone has their

9:31

own preconceived notions. I mean, you know, what does it

9:33

happen? So, you know, someone from fifth group walks in

9:35

and we say, Hey, here come the knuckle draggers. Some

9:38

of the agency comes in, they say, watch your wallet,

9:40

they're going to steal our shit. And that was

9:42

the first, you know, that was the first kind

9:44

of reaction. But then over time, because you had

9:46

this, certainly a

9:48

common enemy, but but we're actually in proximity next

9:50

to each other, we were forced to adapt and

9:53

learn. And I think that is absolutely key.

9:55

But what does what does that really mean? It means personal relationships.

9:57

And that's what you know, in the kind of the talk that

9:59

I get. gave. I called it

10:01

the three R's it was relationships, resources, and

10:03

then Russia, meaning, meaning

10:06

kind of, you know, the, our

10:08

conflicts for the future, and being really

10:10

Russia, China, but, but when I say

10:12

relationships so you know I think about

10:15

Chris Miller. I don't know if

10:17

he's been on your show or not Chris Miller was

10:19

the, you know, acting Secretary of Defense and the Trump

10:21

administration I've heard smack Chris on the border with with,

10:23

you know, I can wait on the board with Iraq

10:25

in 2002. When he was

10:27

with fifth group and so you know you have

10:29

these personal relationships same thing with, you know, the,

10:31

the, he was he was nothing he's now commander

10:34

Jason was supposed to say his name he was

10:36

the head of the SEAL team six of that

10:38

group. I first met him when he was just

10:40

a you know a regular SEAL officer. And

10:43

so, because just side by side, year after

10:45

year and where in

10:47

Afghanistan, in

10:49

Iraq, in Syria, I'm gonna think of, you know,

10:51

good buddy of mine Rob Blythely he retired as

10:53

the CSM the command sergeant major of the

10:56

United States. He'll get mad if I say this a delta. He

10:58

doesn't say it but I'll say it, him and I

11:00

spent six months together kind of in Syria, years ago,

11:02

and got to be great friends and so when they

11:04

kind of went and when everyone grows up together in

11:07

their organizations those relationships are

11:09

key. So, and Andy, say goodbye

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12:41

you, you know, I think about things that went

12:43

wrong sometimes. There's a, there's a, there's a

12:45

strike in Yemen. The famous wedding strike was

12:48

a bad, bad strike on AQAP.

12:50

Killed a lot of innocent people. Huge mess

12:52

between the agency and, and, and SAAF and

12:54

JSOC really. And it

12:56

was worked out in the end because the personal

12:58

relationships that I and a whole bunch of other

13:01

people had. And so think about that in relationships,

13:03

you know, born in the OSS kind

13:05

of, I think Bosnia was a, was a

13:07

big deal. But then Afghanistan, Iraq really kind

13:09

of made that and kind of nurtured it.

13:12

And so that, you know, as you, you guys know this, everyone knows this.

13:15

I mean, I can, you know, if you and I

13:17

know each other and something bad happens, but,

13:19

you know, we have this personal relationship, we're going to figure

13:22

it out. As

13:24

bad as it might be. And, and you

13:26

can kind of overcome all those biases. One

13:29

key point just to make on this stuff, and I think

13:31

it started in Bosnia as well. You

13:33

know, Columbia, I imagine same thing. I'm not

13:35

just not as familiar. But as

13:38

a case officer, and Jason, you'll understand this as

13:40

a case officer. So if I'm sitting in Baghdad,

13:42

if I'm sitting in Kabul, I have an

13:45

agent meeting. You know, we

13:47

have a penetration of ISIS or Al Qaeda or something

13:49

like that. And

13:51

so, but our, our kind of our kind

13:53

of piece in this pie and the

13:55

fine fixed finish mission is the fine and fixed mission.

13:57

And I got my soft colleagues to the right. or

13:59

left to me and not, you know, they're doing the

14:01

finish. Why would I not, and I

14:04

did, and it was not the norm, but why would

14:06

I not in the beginning of some of these conflicts

14:08

take a soft operator with me to an agent meeting?

14:10

I mean, do I not fucking trust them? Of course I do.

14:13

They're, they're in America and they have their clearances. Now

14:15

that was not the norm, but I would take someone,

14:17

for example, from dev group with me to an agent

14:20

meeting when we're trying to go after a high

14:22

value target. And, you know,

14:24

and, you know, perhaps CI headquarters would go bananas about

14:26

this, but then slowly this gets kind of institutionalized and

14:28

we're like, you know what, you know,

14:30

these guys get it. We can trust them. And in

14:33

fact, they're the consumer as we're doing these

14:35

fine fixed finish. My consumer is my soft colleagues right

14:38

next to me. Not the president of the United States.

14:40

It's not the secretary of state. I'm not getting the

14:42

talking points with the foreign minister. I'm getting a location

14:45

of a bad guy. And so with, you

14:47

know, that kind of understanding

14:50

and that change in mindset, I think was

14:52

really important. And, you know,

14:54

what does it do? It builds trust and

14:57

ultimately successful. And so, you know, some of my finest memories,

14:59

I mean, you know, a great buddy of mine is Mick

15:01

Mulroy. You guys found him on the show. I mean, Mick

15:03

and I have been in Iraq and Afghanistan together. And

15:06

when we're up on the Nile teams in Northern Iraq,

15:09

living with the Kurds, I mean, this is where, you know,

15:11

and he think, I think he wrote a piece too that

15:14

he got cleared by the agency about this too, the

15:16

kind of the integration with 10th group and

15:18

how, you know, the our agency kind

15:20

of element there along with special operations

15:22

forces really were critical in kind of

15:26

in the battle against not only

15:28

Saddam's Iraq, but also terrorist groups.

15:30

And so it's just a way to

15:32

do it. And so the key thing on the relationships is

15:34

I guess the question is how do we continue that now

15:38

when we have Russia China, when

15:40

you don't have embassy Baghdad or embassy Kabul,

15:42

how do those relationships we

15:45

need to we need to nurture them, we need to sustain them.

15:47

I mean, I'm retired. You know, Jason, you're

15:49

out. And so, you know, so at

15:51

the end of the day, we

15:53

got we got to make sure that these relationships can

15:56

flourish, or we're going to go back to those

15:58

old biases. Absolutely. I mean, I I came

16:00

in during a time when EO

16:03

12333, which

16:05

basically told us you will cooperate, but

16:08

that was interagency, was really

16:10

hot and heavy. So I didn't,

16:13

you know, obviously, can you explain quickly

16:15

what that was the executive order 12333?

16:19

It's the, I

16:21

don't know the legalese of it.

16:23

But basically, it was after 911,

16:25

when we saw the mistakes that

16:27

had been made because of compartmentalization

16:29

between us and mainly FBI. Literally

16:34

we sat or FBI sat

16:36

in our spaces and

16:38

but didn't share the information, they would

16:40

get information from their people, but literally

16:42

within the same office wouldn't tell us

16:44

not I say us as in CIA,

16:46

this is before me. So 911 happens,

16:49

and we figure, hey, you know, we

16:51

can't have this. So EO 12333 was

16:54

signed and disseminated saying you will

16:56

cooperate with one another. And

16:58

so I came in at a time

17:00

when it was already being implemented.

17:02

So I didn't have an issue of

17:04

hey, I can't tell you that, you know, yes,

17:07

there were certain things that I needed to be

17:09

read into, or someone had to get permission from

17:11

their ASAP, or,

17:13

you know, or their special agent in charge to

17:15

be able to tell me, but it was pretty

17:17

smooth. I had some, you know, speaking of what

17:20

Mark was talking about, some great relationships with FBI

17:22

agents that I still have, who are in some

17:24

pretty senior positions today. But again, they

17:26

were a special agent, junior

17:28

special agent, I'm a junior intelligence officer.

17:31

And, you know, we just, we just

17:33

clicked on a personal level. And

17:35

because of that, I did a lot of work

17:37

domestically. So when I

17:40

would go out to these meetings, if that

17:42

person, you know, FBI, we would take FBI

17:44

along with us, and they would

17:47

be able to ask questions from

17:49

a legal standpoint, you know, trying to make a case

17:51

or whatever they're trying to do, that I might have

17:54

been able to ask, but it might cross a line.

17:57

Or it was something that I just didn't even think

17:59

to ask because I'm not looking, I'm looking at gathering

18:01

the intel, you know, they're looking at it from a

18:04

prosecution standpoint or

18:06

a counter intelligence standpoint. So those relationships

18:08

were pretty awesome. And sometimes in the

18:10

beginning, it was, hey, let's sit down

18:13

and, and game

18:15

this, let's figure out you ask this, I'll ask that

18:17

blah, blah, blah, blah, after a while just became sympathetic.

18:21

It was just, you know, they knew to ask

18:23

questions that I missed, or, you know, things like

18:25

that, or they would be able to even say

18:28

something that would calm the person down, because I'm

18:30

getting them revved up, trying to get the intel,

18:32

they would be able to say something, or I

18:34

would be able to say something to calm that

18:36

person down, reset, and then they would be more

18:39

comfortable telling us what we need to know. So

18:41

I think that's a smaller scale of what Mark

18:43

is talking about. No, 100%. But

18:47

it's also based on necessity, you know. And

18:50

so that's, that's huge. By the way, I think I flipped

18:52

title 10 title 50 when I was describing that. Sorry about

18:54

that. Because if

18:56

you think back, title, the

18:59

live operation was the title 50 operation.

19:01

Sorry. So all of those

19:04

were good things. But we have, and when

19:06

I say we, I mean, we collectively, US

19:09

security establishment have a dreadful

19:12

record about, about

19:15

holding on to lessons learned and reapplying them

19:17

right off the bat the next time we

19:19

need to. And as you point out, Mark,

19:21

now is the time to do this. And,

19:25

you know, while there are obstacles in the way, I mean, I, can

19:28

I just give you an example that I think, you know, I

19:30

think you're right on target. Okay, so we are, you know, we've

19:33

been talking about the Red Sea problem

19:35

recently. Bottom line is this, there's really

19:37

only two ways to solve that one

19:39

is to really, really put pressure on

19:41

Iran, but that might not even solve

19:43

the problem. Who knows if the Houthis

19:46

are now the teenagers ready to leave the house

19:48

number two. And Evan cringes when I say this,

19:50

but you do need to have someone on the

19:53

ground, because that terrain there,

19:55

you can you can launch all the

19:57

airstrikes you want based on targeting data

19:59

that looks It's really good and

20:01

still not hit a damn thing that you know of

20:03

worth and worth doing. You know how it is. It's

20:06

very easy for them to move stuff. It's

20:08

very easy to do it undercover, etc, etc.

20:10

So the only way you can get in

20:13

and obviously you don't want to put conventional

20:15

forces there who are basically helmeted targets just

20:17

walking around. You want to put guys who

20:20

are working with the Indidge on the ground.

20:22

Who does that best? You know, agency,

20:25

but you have to have DOD

20:28

reps there too because of the support that you're

20:30

going to need. You

20:33

guys know yes of course and

20:35

principle DOD will always support, but

20:37

it really helps if

20:40

you have soft guys on the ground too.

20:44

Yeah, you should. I mean, it's so... But

20:46

how do we do that going ahead? Yeah.

20:51

So I think there's... Okay, so there's a

20:53

couple things on that. And if

20:55

you take a look, for example, Ukraine

20:57

is not great just

20:59

because of the kind of the prohibition set

21:02

by the White House on no

21:04

US boots on the ground. So ostensibly,

21:06

DOD will smile now. There's

21:09

a rather large intelligence community footprint in Ukraine.

21:13

And what there should be is a soft footprint

21:15

as well. It's not because of

21:17

prohibition from the White House, but really that would

21:19

be an ideal. And

21:22

that's just something that you kind of have to ultimately

21:24

live with. But when you think about kind of

21:26

the... I call it... It's not... So

21:29

it's the manhunting triad of human, SIGINT and

21:32

ISR, but it would apply to something like

21:34

the Houthis as well. So you do need

21:36

humans. And so that means you need people on

21:38

the ground. And so let

21:40

me go back to what

21:42

I was talking about before. And one of

21:44

the evolutionary things that happened with

21:47

S.O.F. is they also

21:49

had the ability and were trained and they went

21:51

down to our schoolhouse, down to the farm as

21:53

well. So they had some... The

21:55

special mission units of

21:57

S.O.F. have... in

22:00

some ways, some of the same training as the

22:02

agency does in terms of, you

22:04

know, surveillance detection, shootings,

22:07

humans. There's, I got to

22:09

be careful in saying that there's troops that are

22:11

there's units in these special mission units who are

22:13

trained up to kind of the gold standard.

22:16

So there's a way to kind of work together with

22:18

the agency on this. I kind of I agree

22:20

completely, 100% completely. But

22:24

let me kind of flip all of

22:26

this to what's important is how to

22:28

sustain these relationships, how to sustain this

22:30

ability to work together. And it

22:32

has to do, I think, with with training.

22:35

And so one of the things I what I

22:38

still don't understand doesn't happen is why, for

22:40

example, for special forces,

22:42

the Q course, why for the agency that

22:44

you know, tradecraft training down at the farm,

22:46

why are we not cross training? And

22:49

so what you do is you take everyone, this is

22:51

gonna be a silly analogy, like, you know, out of

22:53

the womb at birth, when you're training someone to

22:56

be in our kind of old weird world, let's

22:59

start from that. Let's start with the idea of

23:01

we're going to have to work together from the

23:03

beginning. So in the final problem set, on

23:05

the farm or in the Q course, integrate what

23:07

a station would be like, integrate what

23:10

an agency environment is like integrate with a

23:12

war zone environments like do it from the

23:14

beginning, because what happens people learn, but then

23:16

all of a sudden, I'm sitting there,

23:18

26 years old, just graduated the farm next

23:20

to my, you know, maybe some of

23:23

the similar age from Army

23:25

Navy Marine Corps, you know, special operations, I'm going

23:27

to know that person for the next 20 years,

23:29

because we train together. We

23:32

don't do that, I don't get

23:34

that. You know, but it's going to take you

23:36

know, and of course, Jason will remember this, there's there'll

23:38

be 1000 reasons we can't do this. Okay,

23:40

because they're not clear, or we're too busy, or

23:43

this or that, you should do it. You

23:46

know, talk about what we do even domestically with the bureau,

23:48

same thing. Why down a

23:50

Quantico is there, you know, are when they're training to

23:52

be a special agent, why are there not agency folks

23:54

down there, this is what it was like to be,

23:57

I gotta be careful again, but in a, perhaps

23:59

a domestic environment, what

24:01

a domestic station would look like. Here's how you

24:05

work with your intelligence community partners, just

24:07

for a business special agent. So it's,

24:09

it's that, you know, that kind of

24:11

that training piece that I think we were

24:13

not getting right, and we're going to fall back on our

24:15

bad habits again. And all of a

24:17

sudden, when China moves on Taiwan, and we

24:20

have an embassy country team, that's

24:22

kind of in a panic on this, in Taiwan,

24:24

you know, and agency and soft

24:26

and, you know, the bureau there all together,

24:28

well, if you know, if they didn't experience

24:30

Iraq and Afghanistan or Syria, and they might

24:32

not, how are they going to work together?

24:34

Well, they would be able to if they

24:37

trained. So yeah, Mark,

24:39

that's saying that's a really interesting point. And

24:41

you brought up kind of a couple of

24:44

things that I want to go back, sure,

24:46

and touch on. So first of all, your

24:49

point about integration with training, yeah,

24:51

it is, it is amazing

24:53

that we haven't done that yet at

24:55

the institutions, you know, we all know

24:57

that it's happening. For instance, in Mars,

25:00

we would bring agency guys into our

25:02

former agency guys into our exercise, but

25:04

it's still not quite

25:06

the same as, you know, having a

25:08

met one gray beard that is different

25:11

than than setting it up. So you're

25:13

actually integrating training. And I

25:15

and I think, you know, the the

25:17

obstacle to that is just the fact

25:20

that although there is a great

25:23

kind of peacetime, I'll use that term

25:25

peacetime, I hate it, but peacetime relationship,

25:27

or in between the wars relationship between

25:30

the agency and tier one, that

25:32

relationship tends to atrophy between the

25:35

agency and I, you

25:37

know, I hate using these

25:39

terms, but soft, right,

25:42

tier two, or, you know, whatever we're calling them

25:45

today, white soft, which is,

25:47

you know, which is which is all important, which

25:49

I think you're right larger, way larger. Yeah,

25:51

yeah. And the tentacles are farther and it

25:54

is good. And it's really

25:56

where you want to have that connection,

25:58

because it is where you're doing stuff

26:01

day in day out in an area

26:03

with people who are regionally affiliated with

26:05

that area. Last

26:08

thing I'm going to say though, so on

26:10

on that I think you're on the right track because

26:14

putting people when

26:16

we're talking about forcing this or not

26:18

forcing it but you know

26:20

forming a task organized teams, it's

26:23

going to take forever. You know that

26:25

you're not even within DoD but now

26:28

you're talking about between DoD and an

26:30

outside agency and you're talking about doctrine

26:32

and you're talking about you

26:35

know so many other things that it will

26:37

take. We will talk about this forever before

26:39

we do it but if you

26:41

set up within the school houses and

26:43

the institutions then you're building that relationship

26:45

informal and you've got type A personalities

26:47

in on both sides who are going

26:49

to make this happen in a and

26:51

come up with really good ideas in

26:54

each region. Let me throw in here's

26:56

a great hypothetical scenario that I use

26:58

all the time because I

27:01

have to say it's hypothetical just to get it

27:03

by the agency publication review board but it's

27:05

not hypothetical because it's true. Is

27:08

this going to be like Jason's hypothetical honeypot?

27:13

Never happened. So let's say so again

27:16

a hypothetical so you're at a

27:18

US embassy in Eastern Europe and

27:21

your role is you know

27:23

obviously it's not the same as a war zone

27:25

but your role is to to

27:28

kind of uncover find out what Russian intelligence officers

27:30

are doing. It's a

27:32

small CI station and

27:34

so and you know we're working with the

27:36

local liaison too but in essence we're

27:39

doing and just think about this compared to the

27:41

GWOT we need to find POL, pattern of life

27:43

on the Russian IO presence right. So

27:45

what does that mean? A lot of time on

27:47

the street, some kind of surveillance training, maybe you

27:50

know recruiting folks who can assist on this. It's

27:53

a fine fixed mission but the

27:55

Finnish mission obviously is not you know a

27:57

hellfire missile from an MQ-9. mission

28:00

is going to be a recruitment attempt. A

28:02

FISH mission might be a disruption operation with local

28:04

liaison, but that's the job. So all of a

28:06

sudden you have a SOP element that kind of

28:09

rolls in and

28:11

they're doing primarily, again

28:15

it's in Eastern Europe, so they're probably primarily training

28:17

local security services. So a station chief, a smart

28:19

one, and this is where this is the resources

28:21

piece of my whole argument, this the smart one's

28:23

going to be like, you know, hey

28:25

you guys like or gals or whoever it

28:28

is, like you know, you know, I have

28:30

a manpower shortage because CIA always does overseas.

28:32

People forget how small. There's less, there's more

28:34

FBI special agents in New York City than

28:37

there are CIA case officers globally, so that's

28:39

how small CIA is. But the local, the

28:41

station chief would say to the the the

28:43

SOP commander who's probably not an officer, probably

28:46

you know an E8 or 9 or whatever,

28:48

and so he would say, you know,

28:50

what training do you guys have or gals have? And they're

28:52

like, well you know what, you know, we did the equivalent

28:54

of kind of what we call a HETSI,

28:56

Hostile Environment Trade Course, the tradecraft course. In

28:59

fact, there's, you know, and there's

29:01

lots of units that have HETSI training and the COS

29:03

is going to be like, all

29:06

right, hey so when you're done with your training evolution

29:08

with the local security services, can I have some of your

29:10

guys and gals go out in the street? Because I got

29:12

to find these Russian intel officers. We got to find their

29:14

pattern of life, give me two weeks. And

29:17

so the local soft team

29:20

will be like, well, goes back to,

29:22

you know, goes to his teammates, hey you want to help the

29:24

agency out kind of chasing Russian assholes? And

29:26

they're like, fuck yeah. And so

29:28

it's all right, so now what do we

29:30

have now? So there's some people trained correctly,

29:32

we have resource issues. Now what happens of

29:34

course is this is wildly successful in

29:38

the field and back in the

29:40

rear and soft the commanders, the officers

29:42

hate it. Well, what are you doing? You're not supposed

29:44

to be doing that, you're supposed to be doing your training mission. But,

29:47

and by the way, guess what's

29:50

not, there's no zero dark 30 at the moment, you

29:52

know, so because what the agency will do

29:55

is thank you for this targeting study on

29:57

the Russian I.O. presence. And guess

29:59

what's up, you're never to hear what happened. If

30:02

it's successful, and we recruit a Russian, you know,

30:04

99% of CI

30:06

headquarters is not going to hear it's going to get into

30:08

a compartmented channel. And so all

30:10

of a sudden, this kind of, you know,

30:12

what we got addicted to, including me, very

30:14

selfishly, the fine fix and finish portion, taking

30:16

bad guys off the battlefield, you don't have

30:18

that anymore. And so

30:21

that has to be a change in mindset of

30:23

SaaS as well. But that scenario works and can

30:25

work really well. And I remember I retired in

30:27

2016, I had these discussions

30:29

with soccer, Special Operations Command Europe, you know,

30:31

senior leadership, and they were game at the

30:34

time, I don't know what happened. But I

30:36

was like, we need to help. And

30:38

I can tell you, I

30:40

can tell you that happens. I can give

30:43

you an example of a really, really savvy

30:45

station chief in a country that well, in

30:47

the Middle East, who

30:49

did exactly that integrated actually, there

30:51

were mass art guys to

30:54

generate it

30:57

was to help the case officer help

30:59

collection efforts. And

31:01

I'm trying to remember, but I don't think we had to

31:03

get a lot of clearance to do that he was, you

31:06

know, what, because what he was

31:08

having them do was already within the parameters

31:10

that they're allowed to do, but he had

31:12

enough, rather than that usual kind of, there's

31:16

always, there's always courtesy. But,

31:20

but here there was, there was

31:22

real collaboration, and it was based on

31:24

his, his initiative, I mean, and

31:27

then all of a sudden, like, there's no, you know, credit

31:29

is shared. Or, yeah, exactly. The

31:32

result is unknown, like, we're gonna leave.

31:35

Yeah, collectively, and maybe the CI station, we're never

31:37

going to know the fruits of our labor. If

31:39

you're if you're sitting in a station there as

31:41

well, and you leave that targeting study sitting there,

31:43

if it's successful down line, no one's gonna from

31:45

Russia house, or operational unit, super compartment, and no

31:47

one's calling you and saying, Hey, what you did

31:49

a year ago, and

31:51

so you have to have that mentality that there's, you

31:53

know, there's a greater game, greater, greater purpose here. And

31:56

so and by the way, in these guys,

31:58

the Marines involved. their careers as

32:01

ASOTs and you know or just regular

32:03

that is the that's the only time

32:05

they got to do in

32:07

a you know kind of a

32:10

totally non-combat not even near combat

32:12

environment third country doing

32:15

that kind type of operation. And

32:17

Andy let me tell you something I've never met a

32:19

S.O.F. operator who didn't want to do it. That's what

32:21

I was going to say who wouldn't want to do

32:23

it. Yeah who wouldn't. They loved it they said this

32:25

is great and you can you know and this could

32:27

be you know I've like

32:29

you know hitting the bars or watching

32:31

armed forces network on T.G. you know

32:33

those stupid commercials that they go out

32:35

or you can go out and help you know you know help

32:37

team America. And I never met anyone

32:40

who didn't want to do it but but again

32:42

is this institutional no. And

32:44

so you know it's and and I you know in

32:47

this in this paradigm I'm talking about I actually you

32:49

know I call I don't ever reach back into the

32:51

I retired in 2019 I'm very careful

32:53

I don't know what they're doing now I don't reach back

32:55

in the agency. But I did talk to my buddies like

32:58

Mick and others who have some experience with this

33:00

and kind of all of us kind of collectively you know Doug

33:02

Wyles as well another guy you should get on your show a

33:05

great friend of mine former deputy director D.I.A.

33:07

and chief of station in Baghdad I think

33:09

another team house matter too. But

33:12

but you know so as we're talking about this kind of

33:14

premise of C.I.A. S.O.F. you know into the future

33:16

I think a lot of us do think these

33:19

problems still exist maybe I'm wrong maybe

33:21

they figured everything out in the last three or four years but

33:24

I don't think so. I I

33:26

think culturally it's hard to imagine

33:28

that they have figured it out you know

33:30

I mean we've talked here about

33:33

again it's just when I was in

33:35

Israel a couple of weeks ago and and yes

33:38

despite all the dreadful failures

33:40

that they have have done they have

33:42

one thing very strongly on their side

33:44

now that is unity of purpose and

33:46

and all the barriers any barriers that

33:48

were there before to include between the

33:51

services seem to have disappeared I

33:53

mean it's but

33:55

we you know and that happened with us

33:57

in the in the immediate aftermath of 90

34:01

11. But when we don't need to, we tend to

34:04

lose that touchpoint and we revert to our own areas.

34:07

But what you described, integration with

34:09

case officers, because we use sophists

34:11

used to working with agency, paramilitary,

34:14

not working with them, but that's

34:16

kind of their natural shaded

34:19

area in the Venn diagram. But actually, they

34:21

can do arguably,

34:24

in these places, a lot more constructive

34:27

or strategically relevant

34:29

stuff for case

34:31

officers or station chief. Free

34:34

labor. Sorry. I'm looking for it. Adriatic Americans,

34:36

free labor, excited to go kind of take

34:38

the fight to the, you know, where we

34:41

are in 2024 and beyond. That's kind of

34:44

Russia, China, Iran. And

34:46

so I don't know. I mean, I hope

34:49

this is done. One thing to note on

34:51

this, though, and this will be my next

34:53

kind of soapbox. You gave me some okay

34:56

to do stream of consciousness. So sorry,

34:58

you know me. And that's

35:00

what's called the ubiquitous technical surveillance environment. And

35:03

so, you know, where we all kind of

35:05

grew up in terms

35:07

of counterintelligence threats has changed dramatically.

35:10

And so

35:12

what does that mean? And so

35:14

just kind of for the regular

35:16

person, it's your cell phone. Well, that's

35:18

an incredible kind of collection device for any

35:21

hospital service. It's biometrics. When you go into

35:23

an airport, you get your picture taken. In

35:25

some place, I would always laugh biometrics, how

35:27

much how hard it is for us. Some

35:30

of these systems are actually systems the agency

35:32

gave to the host country. Here

35:35

you go. Just don't use this. I don't

35:37

know if that was well thought out. You

35:40

already program programming oil or oil

35:42

bio data. The

35:48

world now is a collection of sensors. And

35:51

so that has a

35:53

huge effect on

35:56

both the CIA and the soft community because

35:58

you can't hide anymore. And

36:00

so, you know, the perfect example is, you know,

36:02

in the past, you know, I would say I

36:05

was I was in, I don't know, throughout a

36:07

place Damascus Syria. So I go off, you know,

36:09

I have my cell phone I turn it off,

36:12

leave it my house, do

36:14

my surveillance detection route, meet an agent successfully

36:18

and I'm black. There's no 100% sure I'm

36:20

black do reverse surveillance detection route come back.

36:24

Got some great gouge, you know, in terms of,

36:26

you know, something that the President and national security

36:28

advisors going to love series that was a hot

36:30

button issue for myself a little

36:32

Jameson and you know that was that was a

36:34

great day that world doesn't exist anymore.

36:37

Not at all. And so let me if you dissect that

36:39

and this is all, you know, this all this, everything I'm

36:41

telling you know it's been clear it's okay for me to

36:43

talk about by the agency. So

36:46

what does that mean well first of all your cell phone if it's

36:48

if you turn it off. A hostile

36:50

services monitoring your cell phone all the time that's a,

36:52

you know, so that's it that's a flag. When

36:55

you drive and you do your surveillance detection route if

36:57

you're running through things like such as smart cities, any

37:00

kind of sensors. You

37:03

know that can be that's that's data that can be

37:05

not only seen real time it can be recorded for

37:07

the future. And

37:10

also when you go back and you're sitting in

37:12

your house saying I was, I was surveillance free

37:14

I did a successful agency that doesn't exist anymore.

37:18

Because we don't know, because this data is

37:20

collected it can be stored. And then that

37:22

store data which means these sensors again, everything

37:26

from your cell phone usage to the

37:28

camera system of a city to your

37:30

vehicle which is just a rolling GPS

37:33

to any casuals on the street with us with a

37:35

smartphone, all of that, you

37:37

know, is stored forever but then with

37:39

AI can be accessed immediately. So

37:42

hostile services can kind of go back years

37:44

and take a look at data on a

37:46

certain individual. And so you know my

37:48

argument and all this and I think that you

37:50

know the in the HCI did put together what's

37:52

called the ubiquitous technical surveillance center that Bill Burns

37:54

announces publicly there's a UTS center. So

37:57

it's how do we do things how did we

37:59

kind of tackle this really

38:02

enormous problem of sensors, which kind of control

38:04

our lives. I mean, I sound like some

38:06

crazy futurist, but I'm not. And

38:08

the answer is probably to kind of go

38:10

to do something called in pattern operations and,

38:12

you know, Jason's nodding, but it's the notion

38:14

of hiding and playing salt. So

38:17

instead of doing a surveillance detection route, I'm going

38:19

to go to, you know, I'm going to Liverpool

38:21

in England and go to a Liverpool game with 50,

38:24

60, 70,000 fans, my agent

38:26

meeting is going to be

38:28

in that stadium. Somehow. Because

38:30

I've established a pattern of going all the time

38:32

to Liverpool games. And so is my penetration, the

38:35

Chinese embassy. They're doing the same thing. Everyone,

38:37

you know, and so it's, you know,

38:40

so ultimately you kind of build things in pattern

38:42

and the challenge is, first of all, how does the agency do

38:44

this? But then here's the other thing. There's 70,000 members of soft.

38:48

How do you do that with 70,000 members? And

38:51

by the way, everyone's addicted to what, you know, my

38:53

fancy, you know, my fancy watch or

38:56

your phone. I'm a market. Mark,

38:59

but I just jumped in very quickly. Yes. 70,000

39:02

for the day, you know, there's seven here, no, it's 70,000 people in

39:04

so calm, but

39:06

when you're talking about to the kind of the pointy

39:08

end of the sphere, actually us office

39:11

pretty. I've

39:13

just, but that's the scale. That's the challenge we

39:15

have. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So how

39:17

do we run in pattern operations for

39:20

CI, but also CIA and soft together? Again, an

39:24

enormous challenge. And, and, you know, and,

39:26

and so that's because the whole kind

39:28

of our trade has changed so

39:31

dramatically. Um, uh, and

39:33

you know, it's, it's, it's the kind of thing where, you

39:35

know, so I, if I, if you have my, if I

39:37

have my phone, I can't, I can't turn

39:39

it off because the hospital services

39:41

is going to see it. Well, I can't leave

39:43

it on and leave it in my apartment or

39:45

residence because the hospital services is also monitoring what

39:48

Twitter sites I go to. So then this

39:51

is just conceptually, then I'd have to have my

39:53

spouse or my kid be, you know, surfing,

39:56

you know, Twitter and ESPN and all this

39:58

stuff that, you know, that. with the same

40:00

pattern I do every single night, because you've got

40:02

to be invisible and that just gets super hard.

40:05

So it's the idea of kind of, you know,

40:07

in pattern operations. I think that's where there's a

40:09

lot of thought going into. But

40:12

just, these are just huge, huge challenges. And,

40:14

you know, at the end of the day-

40:17

Is that a, you probably can't say that.

40:19

We hope that that is being taught at

40:21

the farm now, right? As part of that.

40:24

Sure, sure. And again, there's a UTS

40:26

center. So in

40:28

this talk I gave the other day to DOD,

40:30

what I challenged the DOD community is, does

40:33

SOF have kind of a center doing this?

40:35

And if they do, and I would imagine

40:37

some of the special mission units are focused

40:39

on this. I think they are. But I

40:41

guess, are they integrated with CIA's UTS center?

40:43

Because you have to have this gold standard

40:45

of trade craft. And so

40:47

that's the question, you know,

40:50

in the respective schoolhouses, is this being

40:52

taught? I don't know.

40:54

I would hope so. It

40:57

is very interesting. And just an

40:59

example of how we in

41:01

the U.S. SOF don't yet think this way.

41:03

And I think, you know, I've got a

41:05

theory on it that's not that interesting. But

41:08

as an example, for

41:10

instance, just talking to Israeli

41:14

soldiers going into Gaza,

41:17

at least once with the two main divisions

41:19

there. And this guy

41:21

was with the 98th, who's with the reconnaissance unit.

41:23

But he said this was standard across. When

41:25

they go into Gaza, even the conventional infantrymen,

41:28

they put everything in a box, everything,

41:30

you know, and it's familiar to you,

41:33

but it's not to the, you know,

41:35

average Marine or soldier to include their

41:37

cell phone. They won't see that cell

41:40

phone until the end of the operation.

41:42

There's no, hey, can I call my mom?

41:44

They're writing letters like World War II. And

41:48

the logistics officers picking them up, taking them

41:50

back, scanning them into WhatsApp and sending them

41:52

out. And, you know,

41:54

it's, so they are

41:57

reverting, you know, I

41:59

mean, that kind of, kind of approach is

42:02

yet culturally not there

42:04

within the US

42:06

military, within certain

42:08

soft units, yes, but mainstream

42:10

soft, yeah, kind of

42:13

the awareness, but not that you

42:15

conventional units. No, forget it. Can you imagine?

42:17

Okay. Hey, give me all your shit to

42:19

include your cell phone two months. Send

42:22

you send your wife one last text. And

42:25

you remember Ukraine, you know, and this was

42:27

like, I mean, this was some,

42:29

some commercial firms were doing this because, you

42:31

know, the Russian military had their cell phones

42:33

on everywhere. You know, there's

42:35

there's 100,000 Russian forces with with basically

42:38

pinging their location. I mean,

42:40

this is like, this is a godsend.

42:42

And so yeah, you're right. It's very

42:44

hard to stop what is kind of,

42:46

you know, normal behavior. And

42:48

when the and when the Russians, by the way, collected

42:51

up all that cell phones, you know, and the

42:53

soldiers didn't get them back. There

42:56

were two units that were exempt. One

42:58

was the Wagner group, Pragozhin never imposed

43:00

that on his own guys. And the

43:02

other group with a Chechnya, you

43:04

know, two of them, who

43:07

were doing a lot of the serious fighting within

43:09

the campaign, they all had their cell phones

43:11

and the Chechnya were, were

43:14

incredibly undisciplined, unbelievable,

43:17

experienced fighters, taking

43:20

selfies. I mean, it was it was

43:22

a godsend to the Ukrainians, as you

43:24

know, that's why you don't hear about

43:28

them so much now. No, but again, you

43:30

know, there's so many examples of these of

43:32

tradecraft errors, and the need to be really

43:34

disciplined. And so I guess the question is,

43:36

can CIA and soft as we talk about

43:38

this, you know, move to great

43:40

power competition as a target, can they

43:42

actually both adapt together to that ubiquitous

43:45

technical surveillance environment? I mean, this is

43:47

an awesome conversation. Like,

43:49

I've never had this before with anyone. So

43:51

this is like, we're doing kind of like a

43:53

graduate level seminar right now. You know, you

43:55

know, one reason why I think the US, not

43:59

just the military, but and within our culture

44:01

we find it harder to understand this. In

44:03

places of Europe, I mean CCTV has been

44:06

ubiquitous in Europe for a long, long time.

44:08

London has been for the last 40, 50

44:10

years, right? Yeah, and so

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46:00

if you grow up kind of being used to

46:02

certain aspects of the surveillance state already being and

46:05

please. It doesn't make a big difference

46:07

if someone says oh now they can listen

46:09

to your phone or this format about for us

46:11

we hold on to this feeling of bob

46:13

as part of me that's always exempt gun nests.

46:16

One hundred percent hundred percent true and and then

46:18

you know there's there was also in other places

46:20

and so certainly it and Europe. You're right, London

46:22

is one of the when when the for smart

46:25

cities but remember that are putting was backing it

46:27

was a two thousand. Cannot care of

46:29

in Dubai when messiah got caught. Practical.

46:31

It's a mosque. Do it in as a

46:33

Big Mac is that area is a great

46:36

guy for his he beat footage of a

46:38

Israeli intelligence offered it was it was a

46:40

female, a tennis racket yes, a black. Or

46:43

any good. What I didn't know that have

46:45

been a should have been a way of

46:47

golf yeah I said have been a wake

46:49

up call like holy shit in the U

46:51

A E technology minutes a that was on

46:53

a hotel cctv dinners be about hit him

46:55

with his woman with the tennis rackets now

46:57

lot of and she gonna like pellets light

46:59

so them to ask don't. Tell when I

47:02

think I think there's a lot of us. Was

47:04

actually surprised to find at recognize that officer. Ah,

47:06

I think retired knew her. But but anyhow. so with

47:08

all of the wake of carbon of two thousand. So.

47:12

If you know down armed I'm not

47:14

sure we have come of all in

47:17

a in a rapid fashion but but

47:19

our enemies have and it's very interesting.

47:21

Even the Hamas who is not regarded

47:23

you know previously not regarded. his buddies

47:26

release has been politically sophisticated showed a

47:28

very sophisticated approach to taking out the

47:30

surveillance. Are all the surveillance

47:32

assets along the fence line but also

47:35

at the military bases. Said they then

47:37

made a beeline for to kill the

47:39

soldiers said they couldn't respond to the

47:42

Cupboards massacres arm but that be with

47:44

surveillance. It. Was those camera? is

47:46

that that was their primary target right off

47:48

the bat? So. you're right and that

47:50

you know that's something that you know when and they

47:52

knew where they want they knew where all the time

47:54

asthma mean a nice off the first target was intelligence

47:56

based in essence of mask servers were located that that

47:58

is that you know that it's control the kind

48:00

of the camera system. So you're a thousand

48:02

percent. Also, don't forget that Hamas,

48:05

and again, this is hubris. It's what we

48:07

did with, you know, in terms of Al

48:09

Qaeda as well, pre-9-11,

48:11

to some sense. But

48:14

there is this, it turns out that

48:17

Hamas was very, you know, cognizant of

48:19

Israeli SIGINT capabilities. And

48:21

so what did they do in the tunnel system?

48:23

They ran this incredible network of, in essence, landlines.

48:26

So they communicated in ways in which Israeli

48:28

SIGINT could not pick it up. Pretty

48:31

extraordinary. And so that's

48:33

the idea, underestimating your adversary. Really

48:36

interesting point on that, Mark.

48:38

So during operations

48:41

in Gaza subsequently, so jump forward

48:43

from 7 October, at least

48:45

five weeks, and 9-8th Brigade has done

48:47

a relief in place with the

48:50

36th, or whatever it was, division,

48:52

I'm sorry. At

48:54

that point, at the

48:57

unit level, they're

48:59

still not getting intelligence. There

49:02

is some exquisite, there's a lot

49:05

of exquisite signals intelligence allowing higher-level

49:07

targeting. But for the troops on

49:09

the ground, they're gathering intelligence through

49:12

drones. It's all tactical intelligence. And

49:16

they're using drones, you know, obviously to great

49:18

effect. But it's kind of interesting. So even

49:20

now, with all of those assets, tech

49:23

assets focused on Hamas, the amount

49:25

of information that they're getting is

49:27

very limited. Because Hamas

49:29

is adapted. Right. And

49:32

no one gave them credit for adapting. Just

49:34

like no one gave the Russians credit for

49:36

adapting in Ukraine. We had

49:38

this feeling of, you know, organization X

49:40

is effing incompetent. We just can't take

49:42

our eye off the ball. And as

49:45

you know, the US intelligence community trusted

49:47

the Israelis to keep their eye on

49:49

Hamas, which was a big mistake. And

49:51

now I'm guessing that the

49:53

agency is doing a very quick catch-up.

49:56

We have a- That's exactly- Okay, sorry. No,

49:58

I'm sorry. We just- Speaking of what

50:00

you were just saying, Andy, we,

50:02

and I say we collectively

50:04

as agencies and

50:07

as nations, we have a mindset

50:09

of they can't, quote, unquote, they

50:12

can't. We completely underestimate

50:14

and just dismiss right off the

50:16

bat the capabilities of certain organizations,

50:20

you know, like Hamas. And

50:23

again, that's going right back to the

50:25

beginning of our conversation where human comes

50:27

into play. All this technology is great

50:29

when it's, you know, when it's, it

50:32

confirms our bias of they can't, but until

50:34

you have that person standing across from that

50:36

other human being saying, yeah, well, actually we

50:38

can and we're going to, you know, and

50:40

this is how, until we get back to

50:43

that, it's just going to keep happening

50:45

over and over. Yeah. Amen. No, a

50:47

hundred percent, you know, Tom Sylvester, who has

50:49

now come out in public, or

50:51

has been reported in public as the new

50:53

deputy director of operations for CIA. He did

50:55

the CIA actually has their podcast, not

50:57

as good as this one, of course, that we're talking on today,

51:00

but it's called the Langley files. And so, what do they

51:02

really talk about? Like, let's be honest, it's interesting, but, but

51:04

he actually came on and, you know, this was this kind

51:06

of coming out. And he's a

51:08

great friend of mine, great American. And he, but

51:10

he basically said exactly that, like, we still need

51:12

a human source. So what is a human source?

51:15

You know, it's not a snippet in time. It's

51:17

someone you can talk to. It's someone you can

51:19

debrief. It's someone you can task. And

51:22

so, so actually having that kind of that

51:24

granularity is absolutely critical. And, and one of

51:26

the questions after October 7 that I had

51:29

was, you know, what happened? How did Israeli

51:31

military intelligence, how did Shin Bet not

51:33

recruit a single individual out

51:36

of that of in essence, a 3000

51:39

person terrorist army? I mean, that's incredible.

51:41

You know, you know, there's I

51:43

think there's a couple of reasons, Mark. One was

51:45

the withdrawal from Gaza made it more difficult for

51:47

human. And then when

51:49

they built the wall, that gave them an

51:51

excuse, you know, with all that not excuse,

51:53

but with that huge surveillance paraphernalia of, you

51:55

know, 2 billion shekels. It,

51:58

you know, there is a. The back and twenty

52:01

twenty one that you can't replicate where the

52:03

head of Sinbad had a Mossad on the

52:05

Halevi we who said she's a self the

52:08

army meet at the small and and do

52:10

an interview with Tourette's newspapers saying hey you

52:12

know this is this means the communities can

52:14

sleep and ya me They were addressing that

52:17

interview now but to me that was just.

52:20

He you know he was a was. Underestimating.

52:23

Hamas thinking that they would just caring about

52:25

that ministering Gaza and now total reliance on

52:27

a wall? How many lessons to we have

52:29

to learn before the ice in? know it

52:32

up? An eye on one of these that

52:34

Intel geeks that I actually I'm I'm looking

52:36

forward to the after action that Israel is

52:38

gonna. They're going to have one is the

52:41

military during our own which. Is. A

52:43

little sketchy and effects of global

52:45

netanuyahu directed the military might. But.

52:47

The try and get the this. But.

52:50

But when they are to be careful. Hilarious Medicine in

52:53

August and is for the for all of us on

52:55

his show right now and it's gonna be super interesting.

52:58

I do think it's an end to the

53:00

credit of offers that were running bar. The

53:02

had of Sinbad me said you know this

53:04

is business me. Ah, I think

53:06

you're going to see every you know that Israeli

53:08

military and intelligence or keeps all resign after this.

53:10

I'm as they showed, there has to be some

53:12

kind of accountability. But ultimately it

53:14

can be fascinating to see. you know what

53:16

Sagan was produced. There's all these kind of

53:18

reports that that Com Os battle plan has

53:20

been floating around for several years and I'm

53:23

so know how did that knock at the

53:25

right policymakers? But also and of the my

53:27

thousand and since two thousand and Eight Price

53:29

paid the plan they showed me up in.

53:32

The idea they had a plan kept it

53:35

from Hamas I is around to it he

53:37

was after the war is after the o

53:39

six more and less. Than.

53:41

a h closer five part encirclement hitting

53:43

cupboards there were taking out the military

53:45

bases for so you could superimposed that

53:47

plants down and gaza any disagreement they

53:49

didn't have was a human sourcing a

53:52

plan to go now exactly else or

53:54

to believe that is that is going

53:56

to be kind of the cannot just

53:58

as i can a good on this

54:00

stuff. That's going to be the critical intel failure. But

54:02

it's a 3000 person army. With

54:07

all the counter intelligence practices, I still think it's

54:10

a spectacular failure in our old kind

54:12

of a human world. One

54:15

thing of pet peeve of mine, it just came

54:17

across because it was bugging me the other day.

54:19

So the DNI put out their annual threat assessment.

54:22

And they still assessed that Iran had no kind

54:24

of knowledge of this operation, which I just think

54:26

is a load of crap. I think it

54:29

is political because we don't want to deal with the

54:31

Iran problem. But let me tell you why. The idea

54:33

is saying that here Farsi or at least the Israelis

54:35

say, I mean, who

54:40

trains Hamas at the IRGC?

54:42

So those of us in

54:44

the intel world, when

54:46

we do training missions, guess what we also do?

54:48

We also recruit our host partners. That's 50% of

54:50

my job. Sorry, it

54:53

just is. So if

54:55

you're telling me the IRGC, goods

54:58

force with their training mission for Hamas, whether

55:00

it's inside Gaza, whether it's Iran, whether it's

55:02

in Lebanon, you're telling me they didn't recruit

55:05

anybody. You know, and so

55:07

that's a load of crap. And so that kind of stuff drives

55:09

me nuts to now, you

55:11

know, maybe, maybe the Iranian intelligence services are

55:13

having the same conversation we're having right now.

55:16

Oh, my God, we were surprised. But I doubt it.

55:18

Yeah. So

55:20

agree. It's interesting, though.

55:23

So a couple of things I I

55:25

would I didn't realize this, the the

55:27

fact that Iran is the puppet master

55:30

behind all of this is not commonly

55:32

understood by the general public in the

55:34

United States. And I that was brought

55:36

to my attention. When someone

55:38

sent me a note about one of our

55:40

previous episodes, very kind. I

55:43

forget what it was. I think it was

55:45

a message on Facebook, very kind message saying,

55:47

Hey, that episode was total trash. All you

55:49

guys did was trot out conspiracy theories about

55:52

Iran. But

55:54

but but it is truly

55:56

concerning. Yes, indeed. Will will

55:59

it's for or I'll be obliterated

56:01

by Iran, no, very unlikely in

56:03

the next decade or so,

56:05

or two decades, but that's not comforting.

56:08

I'm not taking sides on this. I'm

56:10

just saying from US perspective, very concerning.

56:12

And how it was set up, the

56:15

Israelis so focused on Hezbollah, the

56:19

indications and there's

56:21

a lot of discussion, even the

56:25

Shambet doesn't know the level of coordination,

56:27

but what they think happened was that

56:32

Hamas definitely expected Hezbollah

56:34

to step in. All

56:37

the signal traffic was that Hezbollah was about

56:39

to step in, right after it kicked off.

56:42

They were ready. They'd been preparing, but for some

56:44

reason they didn't. Where did that come from? No

56:48

one really knows. We can speculate. But the point

56:50

is this whole thing was balanced and

56:52

set up. Huge focus on

56:54

Hezbollah. IDF

56:56

contingency plans are all about response to

56:59

the northern border, not the south. They

57:01

had no off-the-shelf plans to pull

57:04

off. And

57:06

so all of this was, it

57:10

wasn't accidental, right? It

57:12

wasn't a perfect storm. It was very carefully

57:14

orchestrated. Yeah,

57:17

I think we take

57:19

our eyes off the ball or the balls

57:21

that are in play. We

57:23

did it with GWOT. I think we, and I

57:25

saw it when I was at CIA. It

57:31

was like, when I first got there,

57:33

I mean, it was well into GWOT.

57:36

It was 2008. So I

57:39

noticed an uptick based on

57:41

surges, things like that, of

57:43

guys walking around with beards as opposed

57:46

to clean cut suits, you know, a

57:48

headquarters, things like that. If

57:52

you have a beard, you look exactly like

57:54

an Afghan. Exactly. Yeah. No

57:56

one can tell the difference. Yeah. So I think

57:59

everybody wanted to get it. In on a game.

58:01

That was the big game at the

58:03

time and so we kind of took

58:05

our eyes. And I'm I'm saying this

58:07

from my you know, ten foot level,

58:09

you know inexperience air. I seem like

58:11

we took our eyes off of the

58:14

traditional spying that I was trained in.

58:17

But. The. Point is, and going back

58:19

to what you're just saying about, you know, How

58:23

the is I'd hezbollah was the

58:25

focused. We. Can do

58:27

it all the Israelis to do and

58:29

all you can. You can focus on

58:31

Hezbollah or because you have people trained

58:33

to do that. Let them do that

58:35

and say keep your eyes Norse while

58:37

we have those who are trained to

58:40

you know to counter Hamas, Let them

58:42

focus if we need you up north

58:44

or if you get indication that Hezbollah

58:46

is going to step in. That's.

58:48

When you you know if you let

58:50

us know but I think everybody wants

58:52

to get him on the big game

58:54

or whatever. The. Issue

58:56

is it's going on in the case

58:59

of which is a pre nine eleven

59:01

the whole Cold War quote, unquote spying

59:03

ways. We're. Starting to slow with

59:05

had slowed down with what you know we

59:07

believe was the fall of the that it

59:09

was a false of units but not the

59:12

fall of Russia. So now we're like okay

59:14

now we can turn our attention to. Terrorism

59:16

everybody to earn him with this way. but

59:19

we didn't leave anybody in place to do

59:21

that the traditional human and I think we

59:23

need to get back to that. I think

59:25

we're getting back to this. but what's the

59:27

next thing that's gonna happen that's going to

59:30

take our eyes right back on that again.

59:32

And I think that people like marks you

59:34

know, who are you know screaming with what

59:36

some people would say, their hair on fire

59:38

with the the whole sauce Tikrit had lain

59:40

of ration. As the

59:43

Ss at Pacific and you know

59:45

I think that. People

59:47

like that need to keep. Keep

59:50

screaming with their hair on fire

59:52

because if not when that near

59:54

piercing Tix asked. You. Know let's

59:56

go back to the the on the

59:58

ground level. it's. It's gonna

1:00:00

suck to be that Cia officer that

1:00:02

that paramilitary else or whoever to standing

1:00:04

next to that devereux guys or you

1:00:07

know those those whiteside a Sauce operators

1:00:09

have in the huddle up and say

1:00:11

okay listen this is what in as

1:00:13

the Are is This is what this

1:00:15

is avenue explain the note nomenclature and

1:00:17

you know ready break in, get him

1:00:20

out on the streets to help Like

1:00:22

those examples you guys days were awesome

1:00:24

but they were one offs but if

1:00:26

we if we formally trained each other

1:00:28

side by side. You don't have

1:00:31

the everybody knows the the I've

1:00:33

been nomenclature. Everybody will know hey

1:00:36

in this situation you know. This

1:00:39

is what we need to do because I went

1:00:41

to the form or I went to queue course.

1:00:43

You know, even though I'm Cia or soft. You.

1:00:45

Can just huddle up and say okay this is

1:00:48

the I'd this is the up with get it

1:00:50

and everybody's is goes and other things. It doesn't

1:00:52

have to be on the fly so I think

1:00:54

people like you Mark in this is not me.

1:00:56

blown smoked I'm. I. Think that your

1:00:58

what we need, people like that or what

1:01:01

we need succeed. Screaming Yo Great! This is

1:01:03

great that this is what's happening over here,

1:01:05

but can we focus? overhears? Well, You.

1:01:07

Know so sorry I was my rant. There

1:01:11

there are people. Think about this in

1:01:13

I am confident. Ah is just

1:01:15

it's gonna take kind of the that

1:01:17

you're breaking. Bad. Habits they're kind of

1:01:19

armed again. To get that notion

1:01:21

of okay in open. Can't wait for him for

1:01:24

the next conflict with you. And the did cross

1:01:26

training. I mean to me this it shouldn't be

1:01:28

that your that excuse the agency always gives his

1:01:30

are so few case officers and and there's a

1:01:32

know and so it's as if that the the

1:01:34

my other kind of ransom we can do it.

1:01:36

Another episode is about leadership training which be soccer.

1:01:38

We want the leaders of training them to get

1:01:40

to the senior intelligence service level. you have to

1:01:42

take basically three one we classes June. On

1:01:45

like in the military and he that you know

1:01:47

where you going to go for a year to

1:01:49

our staff knowledge in our to make colonel don't

1:01:51

have to do to one your evolutions. Of

1:01:53

training on the lead of we never get

1:01:55

out because it's of with we can't take

1:01:57

people offline and as them So I've been.

1:02:00

I think it's also, and the agency

1:02:02

may have changed, but sort of within the

1:02:04

State Department, what it is, is

1:02:06

just not an understanding of how

1:02:09

leadership is really a hard skill.

1:02:12

I mean, it is the fundamental

1:02:15

building block without which you

1:02:18

really can't do anything else effectively.

1:02:20

This is me spouting leadership propaganda

1:02:22

because my

1:02:24

preferred brand is always toxic. But

1:02:29

you see this

1:02:31

a lot, especially in non-DOD government

1:02:33

agencies, how you see it within

1:02:35

DOD, that it's

1:02:37

all too easy to slip into a

1:02:39

management style and justify it on the

1:02:41

basis of the new generation and forget

1:02:43

about the tenets of what we've learned

1:02:45

about which are ultimately how

1:02:47

you get people to do things regardless of

1:02:50

the move on technology. That's one

1:02:52

thing I've always was taught at the agency

1:02:54

by a great mentor, and I use it

1:02:56

still today. There's this huge difference between a

1:02:58

manager and a leader, and

1:03:00

we have too many managers and

1:03:02

way not enough leaders, and it

1:03:04

shows. Mark,

1:03:07

where can we find you? Tell us everything you're doing.

1:03:10

Sure. So you can see my

1:03:12

TV. I work for MSNBC now, so I'm

1:03:14

kind of one of their national security analysts,

1:03:17

so I'll pop on and try to give

1:03:19

my apolitical perspective, which is very

1:03:22

hard in these times, particularly

1:03:24

on stuff like Gaza and

1:03:26

Ukraine. I am prolific,

1:03:30

and I'm sad if anyone has to actually

1:03:32

follow all my silliness, but on Twitter, it's

1:03:34

at mpolymer, and I will tweet about my

1:03:36

favorite dive bar in

1:03:39

Northern Virginia, the Red Sox, my love of heavy

1:03:41

metal, and of course, kind

1:03:43

of serious topics like national security and intelligence. One

1:03:45

cool thing I'm doing next fall is I'm going

1:03:51

to be an adjunct professor at the Citadel for

1:03:54

intelligence. Excellent. That's awesome. Before

1:03:57

they go on to get the

1:04:00

GEDs. Oh, that's right. So, I mean, I have people

1:04:02

have asked me why they said it all and I

1:04:04

said, have you ever been to Charleston? Yeah.

1:04:07

So, I'm doing some stuff, you know, here and

1:04:09

there, it's

1:04:12

been fun. I'm trying to stay

1:04:15

busy in retirement, but not too busy because I still, we have

1:04:17

a house down the outer bank. So, I spent a lot of

1:04:19

time at the beach, which is, that's my happy place. It

1:04:23

is everyone's. Hey, Mark, before

1:04:25

we sign off, first of all, we've

1:04:27

got a secure and on-air agreement to

1:04:29

come back on again. Oh, sure. Okay.

1:04:31

All right. We've captured that. And secondly,

1:04:33

I want to point out that this

1:04:35

is, it's kind of

1:04:38

a riddle, but we've accomplished something here. There's

1:04:41

only four of us. We have two

1:04:43

Marines, two agency guys,

1:04:46

and two Greeks. That's

1:04:48

right. Yeah. Somebody bingo

1:04:50

card got punched. Yeah. Hey,

1:04:54

I wrote that, you know, the Russians just

1:04:57

tried to essentially kill the Greek prime minister

1:04:59

the other day. I wanted to talk about

1:05:01

that. Like imagine what if the Greeks off

1:05:03

the Greeks now put together a nice aid

1:05:06

package. I think they're, they're sending all their

1:05:08

entire inventory of answers to Ukrainian. So don't

1:05:10

piss me. The lesson is don't piss off

1:05:12

the Greeks. Yeah. We're not just sending Sublak

1:05:15

over the fucking Ukraine. Yeah. It's

1:05:17

not all about goats. Oh, wow.

1:05:20

Hey, all right. All

1:05:22

right. Hey, on that note, why do you

1:05:24

sign us out? All right. Check out Andy

1:05:27

on Substack on Twitter, buys book. Everything will

1:05:29

be links will be in the description and

1:05:31

the show notes for Andy and Mark. Don't

1:05:33

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