THE CENTER FOR INTELLIGENCE STUDIES

From the origin of the Cold War through the collapse of Soviet Communism, the Soviet and Bloc intelligence services posed the most direct and immediate threat to the United States. In addition to the traditional intelligence activities of espionage and subversion, the Soviet and Bloc services also waged an aggressive campaign of Active Measures against the United States and its Western allies. Consisting of intermediate actions that extended beyond traditional espionage but stopped short of outright warfare, the Soviet Active Measures campaign included but was not limited to sabotage, assassination, disinformation, acts of terrorism, and support for regional and global terrorist organizations. This may have been a part of the hypothesized but never proven Soviet Long Range Policy, and for that reason remains potentially relevant to current American national security concerns.

Since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, the threat posed by hostile intelligence services has changed but not ended. Traditionally hostile regimes such as Russia and China have actually increased the pace and tempo of their intelligence operations against the United States, as have other allegedly more friendly services, while less traditional threats such as Islamic terrorism have emerged. The need for timely and accurate intelligence, aggressive counterintelligence, and effective security has therefore dramatically increased over the past decade and a half.

It was also during this time frame that an entirely different form of threat became clearly apparent, one that may ultimately prove even more dangerous - specifically, the emergence of a global financial elite that seeks to advance its interests by supplanting the present system of national states with a new, truly global order; and the increasing willingness of the political class to sacrifice national interests in support of their agenda.  For these reasons, we believe any realistic threat assessment must extend beyond traditional military and intelligence challenges to encompass a broad variety of non-traditional, non-state actors that includes not only regional and international terrorists but also a range of other opponents that, while less violent, are nonetheless equally committed to altering or abolishing the present international system of free, independent, and sovereign states.

For this reason the Board of Directors of the Center for Intelligence Studies decided to expand the range of the Center's public educational activities more than a decade ago, to include a range of non-traditional and newly emergent threats. Although we remain acutely conscious of the dangers posed by hostile intelligence services and terrorist organizations, we are equally concerned with other deeply disquieting trends and developments related to the ongoing phenomenon of "Globalization."

How to respond to the threat posed by "Globalization" remains unclear. Given impetus by the unmistakable failure of socialism as a realistic alternative to capitalism and the more or less contemporaneous collapse of the Soviet Bloc, and justified by the oft-cited "Washington Consensus" of 1989, Globalism is in part a natural phenomenon that reflects current communications and transport technologies. But the fact that many of those that seek to benefit from global integration have actively promoted policies that are deliberately and self-consciously designed to eviscerate the nation state raises profound questions as to the meaning of national security in the contemporary world. Certainly, armed efforts to overthrow the established constitutional order are treasonous - but are non-violent efforts to accomplish the same ends by manipulating and corrupting the political process equally so?

Here a statement by David Rockefeller is instructive. Writing in his 2002 Memoirs, Rockefeller states: 

Some even believe that we [the Rockefeller family] are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political structure and economic structure - one world, if you will...

If that is the charge, I stand guilty and am proud of it.

Although Mr. Rockefeller's statement falls just short of the legal definition of sedition, it is unquestionably subversive; and his stated goal of "one world" is potentially treasonous. Nonetheless, that goal is widely shared by members of the emergent global financial elite - an elite that has quietly, but vigorously, advanced a range of transnational integration schemes including the NAFTA Super Highway, the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, and most recently the Council on Foreign Relations' proposed North American Union.   

Indeed, President George W. Bush - to date, the most visible and outspoken advocate of global integration - has publicly stated that he "Looks forward to a time when America is no longer a place, but a global ideal."

Because the beliefs and policies cited above imply or require a willful diminution of American sovereignty and a least a partial abrogation of the U.S. Constitution, the Center for Intelligence Studies believes they raise valid concerns for the national security.

Given the constitutional limitations rightfully placed upon the U.S. intelligence, security, and law enforcement agencies, these concerns can and should be addressed through the political process alone. Although complicated by the fact that candidates for political office have studiously avoided the issue of "Globalism," we nonetheless believe that the American people may yet find redress to the social, cultural, economic and - most recently - financial calamities wreaked upon them by Globalism and its advocates, through the electoral process.

To this end, the Center for Intelligence Studies endeavors to be of help by expanding the range of its public educational activities to include serious, substantive, and timely reports and analyses of non-traditional and thus far non-violent threats such as "Globalism."