Romania’s Security Dilemma During the Cold War:

Covert Action and the Comintern

Lecture #2

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Theoretical Discussion for Lecture #2

Internal & External Challenges Facing the Intelligence Cycle,

Covert Actions and Active Measures

Planning & Direction

Collection

Processing

Analysis & Production

Dissemination

The Intelligence Cycle

Interested Policy-makers quickly learn that intelligence can be used the way a drunk uses a lamp post – for support rather than illumination

T. L. Hughes

Planning & Direction

Collection

Processing

Analysis & Production

Dissemination

Politicization In The Intelligence Cycle

Decision-Makers

Problems & Challenges Internal To The Intelligence Cycle

(Institutional Issues) • Bureaucracy & Mgt

– Mission – Budget – Personnel

(Operations Issues) • HUMINT Reliability • Linguistic Competence • ‘Recruitment Tours’ • ‘Boys vs. Toys’

(Analytical Issues) • Unified Rational Actor • Idiosyncratic Challenges

– ‘Cry Wolf’ – ‘Ultra’ – ‘Historical Intelligence’

• Cognitive Bias – ‘Mirror-Imaging’ – ‘Fundamental Attribution’

• Organizational Pathologies – Turf wars, politicization,

secrecy, etc.

Planning & Direction

Collection

Processing

Analysis & Production

Dissemination

Problems Internal to the Intelligence Cycle

Bureaucracy

Organizational Pathologies Analytical Impediments Inadequate Product Manpower Issues Linguistic Limitations Technology Issues Manpower Issues

Planning & Direction

Collection

Processing

Analysis & Production

Dissemination

Decision-Makers

Problems Internal To The Intelligence Cycle

Bureaucracy Bureaucracy

Organizational Pathologies Analytical Impediments Inadequate Product Manpower Issues Linguistic Limitations Technology Issues Manpower Issues

As long as the other side has a good intelligence service and is capable of reacting to what it sees, it’s possible to fool them again and again.

Barkis’ Contradiction

Planning & Direction

Collection

Processing

Analysis & Production

Dissemination

Influencing The Intelligence Cycle

Deception,

Penetration

Deception, Penetration

Penetration, Deception (Coordinated Propaganda : Open Source Analyses, Media Reports, Etc.)

Penetration

Penetration

Planning & Direction

Collection

Processing

Analysis & Production

Dissemination

Decision-Makers

Bureaucracy Bureaucracy

Organizational Pathologies Analytical Impediments

Inadequate Product Manpower Issues Linguistic Limitations Technology Issues Manpower Issues

The Intelligence Cycle Internal and External Vulnerabilities

Deception, Penetration

Penetration

Deception, Penetration

Penetration, Deception, Coordinated Propaganda (Open Source Analyses, Media Reports, etc.)

Penetration

Covert Action Methods

CIA Covert Action

• Propaganda

• Political

• Economic

• Paramilitary

• Assassination

KGB Active Measures

• Propaganda

• Disinformation

• Agents of Influence

• Paramilitary

• Terrorist, Sabotage

• Assassination

Soviet Active Measures: Combined Methods, Various Objectives

• Propaganda

• Disinformation

• Paramilitary

• Terrorist

• Sabotage

• Assassination

Rumors, Media Reports, ‘Academic’ Studies, Front Organizations, Agents of Influence, Penetration Agents, Forgeries

Non-Coercive Methods

Coercive Methods KGB DRGs, GRU Spetsnaz, Soviet Armed Forces Air Assault Units, Various Warsaw Pact Commando Forces (e.g. the Stasi’s AGM/5), Middle Eastern, European, Asian & Latin American Terrorist Groups

GRU Spetsnaz Missions

• Hunting down & assassinating enemy’s political and military leaders;

• Locating enemy’s nuclear facilities for targeting by Soviet aircraft & missiles or destruction by independent action;

• Neutralizing command systems by acting against command centers, staffs, & lines of communication;

• Destroying airfields, naval bases, and air defense installations in enemy territory;

• Disrupting enemy power system (power stations, oil & gas storage, pipelines, power lines, etc.)

Stasi AGM/S Missions

• Destroy or disrupt communication & transportation lines, fuel, lubrication, energy, gas and water supply;

• Liquidate or kidnap leading personalities with decision-making powers, specialists, & experts;

• Cause insecurity to leading persons in imperialist power structure through anonymous calls, threatening letters, letter- and packet-bombs, other explosive devices, etc.

• Cause insecurity to leading persons in political-ideological diversion centers through disturbances, obstructing performance of duties (targeted liquidation or kidnapping of leading persons such as editors, commentators)

• Damage or shut down facilities in these centers (e.g. bomb or arson attacks against centers)

Stasi AGM/S Missions

• Support forces acting against the imperialist power structure.

• Use existing terror and criminal scene as cover. Study and analyze all available information about the terror scene in the imperialist states and closely follow the methods and tactics employed, in order to use them oneself.

• Provoke panic-creating measures, e.g. large-scale arson, poisoning food and water, or threats to do the same.

Historical Discussion For Lecture #2

Covert Action & Paramilitary Ops Against Romania

1919-1941

1919-1939:

Poland & Romania The Border of Europe

with the USSR

According to Soviet Archives, Romania (and Poland) became the principal target of Soviet Military Strategy & Intelligence Operations from 1919 until at least 1934 – with all of the corresponding deployment, basing & military-paramilitary-intelligence operational preparations such a stance implies.

“The guerrilla warfare and mass terror throughout Russia since December, will undoubtedly help the masses to learn the correct tactics of an uprising. Social Democracy must recognize this mass terror & incorporate it into its tactics.” “[100,000 rubles bounty for every] kulak, priest and land-owner who is hanged. We'll make the hangings look like the work of the [opposition] 'Greens' and then we'll put the blame on them.”

“We must put down all resistance with such brutality that they will not forget it for several decades... The more reactionary clergy and reactionary bourgeoisie we succeed in executing, the better.”

Lenin on Terror and Concealment

1906

1922

1917

“Romania, against whom we have the greatest territorial pretensions, is our no. 1 enemy… Until the time is ripe for an attack, pacific relations must be used to isolate it diplomatically and an active irredentist organization must continue to exist in Transylvania.”

Admiral Horthy, October 1919

“Conditions do not permit the immediate realization of Bessarabia’s liberation from under the foreign bourgeois-landowner yoke, while the struggle of the USSR for resolving the Bessarabian problem, as an element of Soviet peace policies, is transferred onto the field of diplomatic activity.”

Soviet Authorities, April 1925

Common Hungarian & Soviet Strategies Towards Romania in the Interwar Period

“War to the hilt between Communism and capitalism is inevitable. Today, of course, we are not strong enough to attack. … To win, we shall need the element of surprise. The bourgeoisie will have to be put to sleep. So we shall begin by launching the most spectacular peace movement on record. … As soon as their guard is down, we will smash them with our clenched fist.”

Dimitri Manuilsky, Lenin School for Political Warfare 1930s

RUMCHEROD 1918

Romanian Supreme Board

1919

Bessarabian Societies 1925-1940

Litvinov Commission

1944

Soviet Terrorist Attacks

1920-1926

The Congress recognizes the necessity for intensifying Communist work among Magyars in the territory annexed by Romania …and for the Romanian Communist Party’s adoption of slogans for the right of these Magyars to national self-determination up to secession from the state that annexed them. The Congress approves the launching by the Communist Party of Romania of slogans for the separation of Transylvania and Dobrogea from Romania in independent regions.

Elek Köblös Boris Stefanov Istvan Foris

5th COMINTERN Congress 1924

Romanian Communist Party Leaders 1924-1944

Common Tactics of Soviet & Hungarian Authorities

• Disrupt Administration & Block Consolidation of Authority – Provoke & Exacerbate Insecurity • Project Target Territory as Temporarily-Occupied to both Domestic & Foreign Audiences • Provoke Violence and Reprisals in Territory to “Prove” Abusive Nature of Regime • After Re-Occupation, Eliminate Secular & Religious Community Leaders to Facilitate Assimilation

Willi Munzenberg

Henri Barbusse

•Gain recognition of Bessarabian population’s right to detach itself from Romania because “province was incorporated through force into the Romanian Kingdom”;

•Persuade American public opinion that any Soviet military intervention in Romania should be interpreted as a case of “armed assistance accorded by the U.S.S.R. following the expressed request of the Bessarabian population”;

•Maintain a press campaign showing the “unfortunate situation of the province, the starvation of the population and the necessity of an outside assistance in order to rid it of the yoke of Romanian repression”; and

•Gather funds for “liberation” struggle.

US Mission of Bessarabian Societies

1924-1940