Counterintelligence Activities of Non-State Actors

A diverse range of organisations carry out intelligence-related activities to gain a competitive advantage, including non-state actors (NSAs), a prevalent threat in the contemporary conflict environment and intelligence landscape. Counterintelligence (CI) is an imperative ancillary discipline to intelligence and vital to disrupting the danger of hostile intelligence, surveillance and penetration. Comprehensive Counterintelligence employs investigation and analysis to detect, deter and neutralise hostile intelligence. Emphasis on analysis ensures analysts use the information to its maximum potential value to promote knowledge and understanding of threats. Theorists and practitioners consider counterintelligence an offensive discipline built on a solid defensive foundation. Offensive CI should seek to engage, control and manipulate hostile intelligence threats. CI should promote operational security and prevent and protect against hostile penetration. 

NSAs pose an unfamiliar but exciting Counterintelligence challenge.  NSAs with unconventional organisational structures are generally smaller and more adaptable than their state-level counterparts. As the intelligence capacity of NSAs grows, dedicated CI units develop to build a thorough understanding of adversary intelligence threats. This understanding creates confidence and operational certainty, conferring a competitive advantage.  Access to resources, technological expertise and overarching motivations differ across organisations with a CI capacity. This affects how analysts use CI to aid decision-making and achieve operational priorities. 

The general public perceives NSAs to have an inferior offensive CI capacity compared to state-level CI organisations. This happens because they often suffer from a resource deficit and a threat of disproportional power. Traditionally, state-level CI practitioners have superior SIGINT, IMINT, MASINT, and GEOINT capabilities and access to military, economic, and diplomatic instruments. This range and wealth of resources promote offensive CI tactics. It also supports strategic CI in directing operations and providing the best understanding of the enemy. 

However, we shouldn’t underestimate the offensive CI capabilities of NSAs.  Access to human and financial resources gives NSAs OSINT capacities that often match, if not exceed, those of state-level organisations.  OSINT provides cheap and technologically dilute offensive CI.  Although it is not always as accurate, reliable or relevant as more resource-intensive and specialist intelligence sources, it can still make a critical contribution to the analysis.  The OSINT capacities of NSAs will improve with the technology’s increased availability and complexity. We should not underestimate the HUMINT capacity of NSAs either. Large financial bribes and solid ideological and political motivations provide potent incentives to infiltrate adversary intelligence organisations. 

Significant gains in IMINT, SIGINT, MASINT and GEOINT offer a further offensive advantage to NSA CI. For example, phone taps, malware and hacking are relatively cheap and basic methods of intercepting communications. The recent increase in recreational drones offers a surveillance and reconnaissance method no longer reserved for state-level military-grade CI.  Furthermore, NSAs operate outside the legal, bureaucratic and political restrictions that can hinder state-level CI.  NSAs possess an offensive CI capacity that exceeds expectations and demonstrates a capacity to adopt a CI approach that confers a strategic competitive advantage.

In addition to their growing offensive CI capacity, NSAs use defensive measures to counteract the conflict’s resource deficit and asymmetric nature.  Investing in security-related measures ensures operations have a robust defensive foundation, lowering risk and uncertainty and providing confidence and control in the mandate and missions.  

Vigilance, compartmentalisation and secrecy are fundamental to NSA defensive CI.  A compartmentalised and small cell-based organisational structure limits knowledge of the identification of members and reduces the need for intra-organisational communication.  This fosters resilience to an aggressive adversary intelligence and CI practices.  Equally, a more compact organisational structure helps NSA CI practitioners benefit from proximity to the local community and gain an in-depth understanding of the local CI environment.  These defensive CI advantages are particularly significant given the resource deficit and disproportionate power of the intelligence threat NSAs typically face. 

The asymmetric nature of state versus non-state conflict offers a further defensive benefit to NSA CI.  Suspicion, conspiracy, and common ideological and political motivations define group cohesion. They make a commitment to defensive measures that are particularly strong. NSAs distance themselves from their fanatical motivations and employ rational and objective defensive Counterintelligence strategies.  This provides an operational foundation of certainty and control to counteract their resource deficit.   

The unfamiliar, diverse and adaptable structure of NSAs makes them a challenging target for penetration.  CI strategies must be flexible and responsive to the dynamic nature of the threat from NSAs.  Focusing on analysis allows CI practitioners to recognise trends and anticipate threats, offering a strategic advantage.  This is significant given the often unfamiliar and unprecedented nature of conflict involving NSAs.  New and innovative approaches can disrupt and neutralise the growing offensive threat from NSA intelligence and CI. It may also ensure that defensive measures provide sufficient protection.  This will ensure CI can be used effectively to obtain and retain a competitive advantage. It may also contribute to frustrating the growing threat from NSA intelligence and CI.