Tips from Foggy Albion

The history of the 20th century taught intelligence agencies that over 80% of the necessary information can be obtained from open sources - various media reports, interviews, etc. Despite the fact that the remaining 20% ​​still necessitate the use of “traditional” methods of intelligence services, in general the secret services had to adapt to new conditions of existence, develop new ways and forms of achieving their goals and objectives.

One of them was the use of agents of influence, that is, individuals who are capable of carrying out activities beneficial to other states, motivated not so much by some personal interest, but by a combination of various ideological and other similar conceptual prerequisites. These people do not need to be recruited; the background of their actions is not the direct execution of orders from the West, but a system of thinking that forces them to make various decisions and actions that are not beneficial to the interests of their country.

It is not difficult to imagine what joyful hysteria reigned, for example, in Langley, when an enthusiastic crowd, led by the apostles of “freedom and human rights,” shouted that the “open society” of the “new free Russia” did not need any special services or law enforcement agencies. The funniest and, perhaps, the most terrible thing was precisely that these freedom-loving individuals successfully ruined the country and shouted virtually pro-American slogans not by “order from overseas,” but by “the dictates of their hearts.”

Make no mistake - the stratification of Soviet society and many pressing problems played well into the hands of foreign intelligence services - preparing favorable soil for cultivating pro-American people. Actually, this is where the cornerstone is buried - the strength of the “agents of influence” also conceals their main weakness. Such people cannot be bought, they can only be created, raised according to certain patterns, a certain ideology imposed on them, a structure of thinking and value patterns for assessing reality built. And they are never able to bring their “dividends” right away - they need time to get a good education, career growth and solve a host of other problems and “little things in life”, without which it is impossible to provide them with the worthy social position necessary to accept important and responsible, influencing on the fate of the country decisions.

The main problem that all kinds of lovers of “indirect influence” faced by the end of the 90s - the beginning of the 2000s looked like this: those personnel that were constructed in Soviet times began to lose their potential, exhaust their resources, and became unable to perform the role for which they were intended. But this would not be so bad if it were not for the social sterility of the entire company of “lovers of freedom and human rights.” They fulfilled their minimum plan, but turned out to be incapable of training new personnel who would replace them at the “combat post.” Fortunately for Russia, among the young there were practically no figures capable of taking up the banner of the pioneers. The most they could “provide” was a flock of average lousy journalists who were capable of stirring up minor scandals in the media sphere around various state decisions that supposedly did not correspond to how a free and open state should behave. History has played a cruel joke - in place of the previous human rights defenders, people who were capable of not only organizing crowds near the court and a sensation in the press, but also who knew how to defend the interests of their clients in court in detail, relying on the legal framework, came mediocrities who have neither that scientific degrees in the field of jurisprudence, but even banal higher education. The limit of their abilities and capabilities turned out to be cheap PR support through easily accessible means with low efficiency.

All of the above raised the question of providing new personnel, forces and agent reserves to foreign states. The formation of such an “apparatus” is never and cannot be given easily and quickly - as has already been said, it is necessary to prepare people, formulate a certain ideology in them, and help them choose value guidelines.

Student exchange services and foreign language teaching by native speakers of the latter played a key role in providing and training new “agents of influence.” This system has many advantages - first of all, language education often provides a positive and priority attitude towards the country of the language being studied. Secondly, huge flows of students passed through this system. This was a condition for selecting the best and potentially most useful; one should not fall into paranoid conspiracy theories that such structures are designed to “process and fool” all participants without exception, - on the contrary, the selection here is especially strict, taking into account not only the innate, acquired abilities of the individual, but also his social background, opportunities for further career growth, the path he decided to choose in life. Only a few come into the field of direct attention, but thousands pass by completely calmly and with a clear conscience, not even suspecting who read their biographies and why and what possible plans were made for their fate.

Of course, it is very difficult for the state to fight such organizations. We must also take into account the fact that in relation to the majority of participants in such programs, this activity does not pose any threat, which means that the closure of such organizations without a really serious reason is just unnecessary hype, incapable, in fact, of influencing the situation. What is the point of closing each such “fund” when tomorrow, like the Lernaean hydra, two new ones will appear in its place? The legal aspect is also an important problem. From a legal point of view, such training of Western-oriented individuals does not constitute an offense in itself, although it may implicitly contain various elements of illegal activities that the organization is forced to undertake in order to ensure its immediate goal. These obstacles force us to apply methods to combat them in more detail and carefully.

Without a doubt, it can be assumed that the recent scandal around the British Council is related to the above only theoretically. Perhaps the British simply decided not to care about compliance with Russian legislation, for which absolutely legal sanctions were applied to them. Then let the entire text described above serve as a warning to those who look at the world through rose-colored glasses and believe that foreign states wish only the best for Russia.

The guys working in the “Cowboy Company”, as the CIA is called with contempt and distrust by Americans who do not cooperate with it, as well as the prim gentlemen from MI-5 and MI-6, have nothing to do with our friends or our allies. However, this is far from a complete list. But this is a topic for another conversation.