The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) recently released a daring new ad campaign to recruit spies. They are especially in pursuit of people from our enemy states, such as China and Russia. This campaign is just one piece of a larger intelligence-gathering enterprise that has expanded hugely under the Biden administration. Over the past three years, the CIA has adapted its strategies to respond to changing geopolitical landscapes and emerging threats.
In March 2020, amid the broader crisis of the Trump administration, the agency made a radical about-face. This unfortunate turn of events resulted in a reconsideration of its intelligence-sharing agreements. The CIA ended its relationship with Ukraine abruptly following a last-ditch confrontation between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. This decision greatly impeded the agency’s capacity to collect essential intelligence. In light of these developments, the CIA has prioritized its focus on China, now deemed the top military and cyber threat to the United States.
New Videos Targeting Adversaries
So the CIA took to social media, posting two short videos to try to solicit intelligence. Their targets are Chinese would-be informants that they want to lure to their side. The films dramatize imagined experiences between a high-ranking Chinese Communist Party member and a lowly civil servant. In doing so, they illustrate just how fragile their positions actually are.
As tensions within the Chinese government rise amid recent purges of top officials and military leaders, the CIA seeks to exploit possible discontent among members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The videos serve to embolden those who may be otherwise susceptible in their positions. They both do an excellent job of branding collaboration with the United States as a point of national pride.
“As I rise within the party, I watch those above me being discarded like worn-out shoes, but now I realise that my fate was just as precarious as theirs.” – Narrator in the Chinese-language video.
The CIA’s goal here is to provide a safe and secure avenue for would-be recruits to reach out to the agency. The videos demonstrate how people can safely interact with each other using a dark web website. They highlight their passion for getting their loved ones and families home safely.
“This video explains to them how they can contact the CIA through our dark web site and have the ability to improve their safety and wellbeing and that of their family.” – CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
Responding to Global Threats
The agency’s also ramping up its focus on China. This shift is a larger strategy to address Beijing’s offensive efforts to become the world’s dominant power. As CIA Director John Ratcliffe recently described, China’s ambitions are all-encompassing, seeking hegemony in the economic, military and technological spheres.
“It is intent on dominating the world economically, militarily, and technologically.” – CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
Fictional recruiting CIA officers on a mission to find new assets. They need people who can provide the essential context and perspective on Chinese ways of business. The organization’s leaders believe these efforts are critical to keeping the United States a step ahead of our adversarial nations.
“One of the primary roles of the CIA is to collect intelligence for the president and for our policymakers. One of the ways we do that is by recruiting assets that can help us steal secrets.” – CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
The agency is supremely confident these innovative approaches will work. Third, they will lure the most promising potential informants who can offer crucial warnings of adversaries’ plans and deceptions.
The Impact of Recent Developments
The CIA’s recent actions come amid a backdrop of significant upheaval in Russia, particularly following Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s challenge to the Russian state. The agency flagged this situation as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to recruit individuals willing to leak sensitive information against President Vladimir Putin.
Over 2020-2021, the agency took advantage of this social unrest to expand its intelligence-gathering objectives even further. The CIA’s larger strategic pivots serve to highlight the agency’s intent to change its approach in line with the most important global threats facing the U.S.
“Our agency must continue responding to this threat with urgency, creativity, and grit, and these videos are just one of the ways we are doing this.” – A CIA official.
This shift towards making more Russian-language content seems to be specifically focused on those living in Russia who are becoming more frustrated by their country’s actions in Ukraine. By addressing cooperation with the United States as advantageous, the CIA’s goal is to create a culture more favorable to recruitment.
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