Asset Management
But not in the financial sense ...
One of the things lurking in the Hacker Cultural Attache Training folder on Dropbox is An Alternative Framework for Agent Recruitment: From MICE to RASCLS. While I downloaded the source from this really sketchy site, I do think it’s worth a look. The author, Randy Burkett, has some direct knowledge of what it takes to recruit and handle an agent.
There are many things the spy movie genre gets wrong to varying a varying degree, depending on the given franchise, but there is a fundamental fault. Both “agent” and “spy” in the intelligence field are terms no one would use to describe themselves or their coworkers - those words both mean someone who has been recruited and who is being handled by a case officer.
There are a variety of agents on America’s national stage at this time, individuals who are, either knowingly or unknowingly, being led to do things that benefit foreign powers. We should continue down the path I started with Change Partners, coming from the theater level down to things you might actually see happening.
Recruiting:
I fell into this field, almost by accident, back in 2009. I went from Project VIGILANT to Progressive Congress News to Occupy Wall Street. I have the temperament to conceive and implement group projects, so that’s where I got my start with volunteer management.
There is some overlap with agent recruiting and handling. One looks for positive motives with volunteers, while exploitable flaws are three quarters of the original “controls” employed on agents. This is MICE:
Money
Ideology
Compromise
Ego
People who can be bought, or who’ve put themselves in a compromising situation that permits blackmail, or who are acting from a place of self importance are the flaws. Ideology is a curse word in 2023, but those acting on a clear ideological foundation during WWII and the Cold War were heroes, many of whom paid the ultimate price for their sense of duty. I would describe that is a positive character trait out of step with the other three.
Formalized training of intelligence personnel has its roots in World War II. Back then it was even more “art than skill” than the situation we have now, and the lines were much clearer. As our understanding of psychology has evolved, so has the world, the tense and yet comfortable Cold War bipolarity with its denied areas is gone, and what matters now are denied minds.
RASCLS:
So what changes does Burkett propose? Dr. Robert Cialdini’s six influence factors, which are:
Reciprocation
Authority
Scarcity
Commitment
Liking
Social Proof
Cialdini’s Influence: The Science of Persuasion, has been on my reading list periodically over the last several years, but I’ve never made the jump to acquiring a copy. Much of what I see in terms of recommendations are just common sense to me, or lessons that I’ve learned by trial and grim error. Given the direction we’re headed I’m going to have to round up a copy and read it.
Conclusion:
A quote from Change Partners is appropriate here.
What’s happening looks for all the world like picking sides for a game of dodge ball in a school gymnasium on a snow day. Only the principal is David Lynch, the coach is Quentin Tarantino, and the ball looks like a Soviet anti-tank mine.
There are a LOT of recruiting efforts on, it’s been like that since the late 2020 U.S. election, and it went completely berserk after the invasion of Ukraine. After more than a decade of sticking my nose into every mess that came along, three months ago I saw some patterns I recognized, and just cold cancelled my participation in all the things. A couple months later the flow of events has evolved enough that I could see what had happened. I was surprised it was neither of the things I suspected, but I was still glad to have heeded my Spidey-sense.
If you are following this Substack because you intend to learn enough to get active, you will no doubt spend some time observing things without getting entangled. Once I would have just recommended a cui bono analysis on activity, then maybe join in the fun. That has become essentially IMPOSSIBLE. There has been a rising tide of corporate and law enforcement false fronts ever since Occupy Wall Street and now there are plenty of foreign things, some operated by people for whom English is a second language, but the real issue are the actual Americans that have become involved.
I first encountered this in 2013, when the former digital team for Herman Cain’s campaign had a noisy Democratic networking operation using a convicted pedophile as the front man. Accusations of pedophilia are usually baseless smears, but in this case the guy had bought a video of a preschooler being sexually assaulted, paid with a credit card in his name, and he kept a printed copy of receipts in his “trophy” folder. He had enough income that he remained out on appeal so long the sentencing rules changed, but he did finally get a year behind bars. Search William G. “Political Bill” Talley if you want to see the back story.
So there you have it … the world is in conflict, like things were ninety years ago, only quaint notions like borders and national sovereignty have given way to corporate emancipation and transnational tribes. If you’re picking some activity to engage in, maybe see it like a too good to be true apartment ad on Craigslist, until you can prove it’s not. If there isn’t a clear relationship to a legitimate organization, the overt motive may be something you support, but the foundation may well be incomprehensibly corrupt.