CLOAK AND DAGGER DIPLOMACY. HOW POMPEO WILL FIGHT AGAINST THE “RUSSIAN THREAT”

On March 13, Donald Trump unexpectedly fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, appointing Acting CIA Director Mike Pompeo in his place. Gina Haspel, who has been first deputy director of the CIA since February 2017, will take over as CIA director. From day one of his tenure as secretary of state, Tillerson was unable to develop a close or even working relationship with the current White House tenant. Differences between Tillerson and Trump on key matters of US foreign policy became public as early as June 2017, just four months after Tillerson became head of the US Department of State.

On June 9, during the crisis surrounding Qatar, Tillerson openly urged Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries to end the blockade of Qatar, citing the need to ensure the safety of the 10,000-strong US naval base in this small country. The White House, for its part, urged the Gulf countries to continue the blockade in order to “punish Qatar for its extremist ideology.” Barely four days later, Tillerson bluntly stated during the Senate hearings on Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement that he did not support this decision and believed that the United States should adhere to its provisions.

In early July, during a meeting between Trump and Putin in Hamburg, where only Tillerson represented the US delegation, he was “shocked” by the soft tone and the conciliatory position taken by Trump towards his Russian partner. Since then, disagreements between Tillerson and Trump on the issue of Russia-US relations have continued to intensify.

In late August, the differences between Tillerson and Trump extended to domestic matters. Speaking on Fox News, Tillerson publicly dissociated himself from Trump, who tried to blame the riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, on both sides, and said that the president “speaks for himself.”

In early October, Trump publicly dissociated himself from Tillerson for the latter’s efforts to pursue dialogue with North Korea, posting a tweet that the Secretary of State was “wasting his time” trying to negotiate with North Korea. This pot shot coming from Trump dealt a heavy blow to Tillerson’s reputation in the eyes of international diplomatic community. Tillerson returned the favor when several days later, the US media reported that Tillerson had called Trump a “moron” during a Pentagon meeting in July. Back then, Tillerson already told Trump that he was ready to resign, but Vice President Pence intervened, and the conflict was settled for some time.

However, in mid-October, the conflict between the president and the state secretary broke out with renewed intensity, this time around the Iranian nuclear deal. In his speech on October 13, Trump said that the United States would not certify Iran’s compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, without withdrawing from the agreement, whereas Tillerson stated that Iran was “technically” in compliance with the agreement. This was tantamount to mutiny, but since Trump postponed the final decision on withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal until mid-May 2018, Tillerson remained in his position.

The final straw for Trump was Tillerson’s statement on March 12 that the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in the UK “clearly came from Russia” and “certainly will trigger a response.” The very next day Tillerson was fired by Trump without explanation.

Unprecedented decisions 

[dropcap]F[/dropcap]rom the early 1990s, i.е. following the end of the Cold War, until the end of Obama’s second term in January 2017, there was an established tradition in the United States of secretaries of state staying in office for four years – from the moment the new administration moves into the White House or from the moment the incumbent president is re-elected for a second term. This 25-year period was relatively calm for the US foreign policy, which included Warren Christopher (1993-1997) and Madeleine Albright (1997-2001) under President Clinton, Colin Powell (2001-2005) and Condoleezza Rice (2005-2009) under President George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton (2009-2013) and John Kerry (2013-2017) under President Obama. These predecessors of Tillerson all had successful tenures – by American standards – without entering into major conflicts with the White House.

Tillerson served as secretary of state for a little over 12 months and, in historical perspective, this “staff turbulence” is a sure sign of the onset of turmoil and uncertainty in foreign policy that was last seen in the United States in the early 1980s.

In addition, never since the creation of the CIA in 1947 has the director of this agency been appointed secretary of state. Finally, for most of the CIA’s history, presidents sought to name political appointees as CIA directors who worked in intelligence at some point in their careers. Gina Haspel is a career CIA officer; she joined the agency in 1985 and is almost unknown outside its walls.

After becoming CIA director in January 2017, Pompeo nominated Haspel first deputy director of the agency, and she was sworn in on February 7, 2017. It is believed that a distinctive division of labor arose between Pompeo and Haspel, where Pompeo represented the interests of the agency “outside of the agency,” regularly showing up at the White House with reports, whereas Haspel, who was in charge of the daily management at the agency, was the de facto CIA director.

It appears the “feminization” of this agency over the past several decades is the main reason behind nominating Haspel the CIA director. In 2013, the US media reported that women accounted for almost half of the CIA’s employees, and not just employees but senior officials. Long gone are the days when the CIA was a boys’ club, and women only worked as secretaries. As of 2013, five of the top eight senior positions in the agency were held by women; 40 percent of undercover operatives are also women.

From commercial diplomacy to cloak and dagger diplomacy, or the American answer to Vladimir Putin’s “missile message” 

Tillerson’s appointment to the State Department was seen as the beginning of a new era in US diplomacy – commercial diplomacy – where the US foreign policy department was primarily concerned with the US trade balance, or rather, the need to reduce its deficit, which, by early 2017, amounted to just over $500 billion. By early 2018, it had grown to almost $600 billion amid the growing number of threats to US national security.

Commercial diplomacy was based on the assumption that diplomats would gradually become merchants and salespeople, i.e. businessmen, just like Tillerson. The arrival of Pompeo as secretary of state, perhaps, means a different kind of milestone for the State Department. The classic knights of the cloak and dagger dating back to the times of Allen Dulles, CIA director in 1953-1961, will come to replace the business people. Speaking in Texas in mid-October 2017, Pompeo outlined his general philosophy of conducting intelligence [1] in the modern global world. He clearly and unequivocally stated that “when espionage is done right…it’s inherently aggressive, relentless, and risky.” CIA agents must be aggressive, boldly take risks, take on seemingly “impossible missions” without fear of failure. In addition, they must always be “close to the center of the fight,” and practice a “field-forward” approach, where actual battles and fights with the enemy are taking place. Finally, the agency’s senior officials, led by Pompeo, will do everything possible to push “decision-making down to the lowest practical level” in order to get the job done, even if it’s at odds with US law.

Speaking about the anti-Russia hysteria that is sweeping through the United States, Pompeo noted that he understood well the origins of this phenomenon, since Russia had always been an opponent of the United States, regardless of how it was called in the past. According to Pompeo, the Russian threat is a “constant” factor. In fact, Pompeo admitted that the current political elite in the United States does not see any difference between the socialist Soviet Union and the modern democratic and market-based Russia, and so the main task of the CIA, as during the Cold War, is to counter, contain, and ultimately defeat Russia.

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[1] “Intelligence” can be readily replaced with “diplomatic service” and “spy” with “diplomat.”