{"id":85622,"date":"2024-02-29T16:17:21","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T05:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=85622"},"modified":"2024-02-29T16:24:59","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T05:24:59","slug":"asio-we-love-it-when-the-a-teams-plan-doesnt-come-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/asio-we-love-it-when-the-a-teams-plan-doesnt-come-together\/","title":{"rendered":"ASIO: We love it when the A-Team\u2019s plan doesn\u2019t come together"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Director General Mike Burgess\u2019 Annual Threat Assessment<\/a> highlighted the principal threats to Australia\u2019s security\u2014in ASIO\u2019s 75th<\/sup> anniversary year.<\/p>\n

One of the positives from these public announcements, and this was Burgess\u2019 fifth as DG ASIO, is the documented evolution of national security priorities year to year.<\/p>\n

Burgess spoke of the enduring but morphing terrorism threat, as violent extremist ideologies (religiously inspired or racist \u2018accelerationists\u2019) switch and merge in the face of current events to create \u2018new, hybrid beliefs; a perverse \u2018choose your own adventure\u2019 approach to radicalisation\u2019. In ASIO\u2019s assessment \u2018there is the realistic possibility of a terrorist attack or attack planning in the next 12 months. POSSIBLE does not mean negligible\u2019. \u00a0(The national terrorism threat level remains unchanged at POSSIBLE).<\/p>\n

Contrary to subsequent newspaper headlines, that doesn\u2019t mean terrorism has re-eclipsed espionage as a threat. In fact, Burgess was categorical: \u2018if we had a threat level for espionage and foreign interference it would be at CERTAIN\u2014the highest level possible\u2019. Furthermore, \u2018the threat is now, and the threat is deeper and broader than you might think.\u2019<\/p>\n

Burgess illustrated this reality by speaking of the \u2018A-team\u2019. Not loveable rogues of 80s television nostalgia<\/a> but rather the Australia Team from an unnamed country\u2019s foreign intelligence service, tasked with recruiting Australians with access to privileged information and the opportunities to covertly influence Australian policy.<\/p>\n

On Burgess\u2019 account those efforts, starting in the on-line space, have been persistent, wide-ranging and, unfortunately, sometimes promising. Some Australians have responded positively, either naively or venally, to apparent consultants, researchers and others, promising handsome pay for \u2018inside information\u2019 on Australian trade, politics, economics, foreign policy, defence and security matters. The \u2018A-team\u2019 then tries to take these new relationships clandestine, shifting to encrypted communications platforms and seeking to meet in foreign locations.<\/p>\n

Burgess even recounted the \u2018A-team\u2019s successful recruitment of an unnamed Australian politician (and their subsequent proposal to introduce a prime minister\u2019s family member to these spies). As well as an elaborate fake overseas conference orchestrated by the \u2018A-team\u2019 specifically to cultivate politicians and academics.<\/p>\n

In late 2023, ASIO took counter-intelligence action to disrupt the \u2018A-team\u2019, dangling a promising lead to get in front of and then confront their leader, warning them off from targeting Australians. Burgess acknowledged that his publicisation of this hitherto secret information was itself a form of disruption. Turns out the \u2018A-team\u2019 leader had neglected to tell his masters of these events and would now need to explain this compromise!<\/p>\n

Importantly Burgess, including in response to later Q&A, reflected on this anecdote, refuting \u2018suggestions that convictions are the only weapon in our collective arsenal or the only measure of our success\u2019. In doing so he captured the fundamental strategic dynamic at play in the 21st<\/sup> Century intelligence contest<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just Australians with privileged access who are the targets of foreign intelligence services. The inter-agency Counter Foreign Interference Taskforce<\/a> is also required to thwart efforts from foreign governments to surveil and interfere with diaspora communities in Australia, including through violence, blackmail and coercion.<\/p>\n

International events, such as Xi Jinping\u2019s authoritarian moves and Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, have caused division in diaspora communities, divisions which can be exploited by foreign intelligence services. It has already happened overseas amongst the Uighur community in Sweden and the Cuban community in the US, to take just two examples.<\/p>\n

Australia has not been immune. As Burgess revealed, in 2023 ASIO identified and disrupted a foreign government trying to harm an Australia-based critic of its regime. That government had gone so far as to surveil the target\u2019s home in anticipation of such action. Another foreign government tried to find an Australian willing to \u2018disappear\u2019 a separate dissident.<\/p>\n

\u2018Foreign interference\u2019 brings to mind vintage Cold War imagery and, if put on the spot, most people would rattle off the names of the same two or three culprits. But not always. As Burgess observed, threats can come from unhelpful friends as well as Australia\u2019s adversaries. This observation has been borne out in past Australian<\/a> experiences<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In this regard there was a clear message from Burgess: there is room for open communications and debate with friends, neighbours and even adversaries. However, the looming and growing threat of foreign interference calls for these conversations to be brought out of the shadows, and into the light.<\/p>\n

We would also note that Australia must ensure that diaspora communities are protected, and additional support<\/a> is given to Australians with ethnic, family or business ties to these countries.<\/p>\n

Wednesday night\u2019s assessment was overwhelming, especially given Burgess\u2019s identification of sabotage (an original ASIO preoccupation) as re-emergent threat, downstream from both terrorism and espionage & interference via the cyber vector.<\/p>\n

However, Burgess was also clear that the last thing Australians should do is throw our hands up. What\u2019s more, as much as ASIO and its partners across government and internationally, can act to identify and disrupt threats (as in the case of the \u2018A-team\u2019), the key to national security is the nation itself\u2014through security awareness and actions by individuals, companies and institutions. That means building effective security cultures and practices throughout and across organisations and beyond a single point in time. ASIO, building on its existing protective security advice<\/a>, \u00a0will later this year publish a framework \u2018to help organisations build and maintain a robust security culture\u2019.<\/p>\n

It should also mean Australians, particularly those in business, government, research or otherwise with a security clearance, being wary of sudden interest from supposed \u2018headhunters\u2019 bearing gifts.<\/p>\n

What we can\u2019t do is do nothing. This was Burgess\u2019s mantra for the night: for the sake of Australia\u2019s future security, \u2018BAU* \u00a0just won\u2019t do\u2019.<\/p>\n

*BAU (business as usual).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Director General Mike Burgess\u2019 Annual Threat Assessment highlighted the principal threats to Australia\u2019s security\u2014in ASIO\u2019s 75th anniversary year. One of the positives from these public announcements, and this was Burgess\u2019 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1920,"featured_media":85630,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1031,624,636],"class_list":["post-85622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-asio","tag-espionage","tag-spying"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nASIO: We love it when the A-Team\u2019s plan doesn\u2019t come together | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/asio-we-love-it-when-the-a-teams-plan-doesnt-come-together\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ASIO: We love it when the A-Team\u2019s plan doesn\u2019t come together | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Director General Mike Burgess\u2019 Annual Threat Assessment highlighted the principal threats to Australia\u2019s security\u2014in ASIO\u2019s 75th anniversary year. 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