When Your Shield Becomes Your Enemy’s Sword

You can’t look at social media today without being hit in the face with an article concerning foreign interference. Well, get ready for another!?

As a former Intelligence Officer, I have a good sense of what tactics are used by foreign state actors and non-state actors to influence the general population of a country. This includes scare tactics by terrorist groups who promote, participate in or take claim for terrorist acts. But foreign governments have their tactics as well—using political, economic, or human rights issues to bend or sway the opinions and actions of other governments for their benefit.

Like many Canadians, I appreciate that political parties within Canada will vie for power and use almost any tactic to demonstrate the current party in power is either incompetent or ignorant. And what better topic than foreign influence to demonstrate this point??

In this article, I will demonstrate the underlying issues relating to how foreign influence can have a larger—and, unfortunately, rarely referenced—impact on our society, and the decisions made by politicians, government departments, and the democratic institution of the country.?

Defining “Foreign Influence”

The idea of foreign influence is in the name—to influence the foreign government in some way. To have influence, a foreign state needs to understand how the targeted country can be manipulated.?

Take the 2016 US elections as an example. It has been established that various online social media campaigns were conducted by a foreign state (cough, Russia, cough), to influence the results of the presidential election. Identifying that social media could be used as a tool to manipulate opinions and impressions of presidential candidates by the populace, the foreign state successfully manipulated or at least had “influence” over the election. This action had many people questioning whether the United States’ democratic political system could be tampered with simply by having enough social media disinformation spread to as many individuals as possible.?

Role of the Domestic Intelligence Service—The Shield

Meanwhile, the mandate of a domestic intelligence service is to keep its citizens safe from national security threats and to provide up-to-date, accurate information to the government. In doing so, the service allows decision-makers the opportunity to do what is in the best interest of their country’s national security.??

In essence, the domestic intelligence service is the “shield” used to defend against actions or attacks of enemy states and non-state actors who threaten their citizens, property, institutions, and way of life.?

How the Shield becomes the Sword?

Currently, a continually hot debate in Canadian Parliament revolves around:

·??????When Canada’s Intelligence Service provided information to the current party in power, and

·??????How that information was used to either identify potential threats to national security or to Members of Parliament.?

Opposition parties are using this debate to their advantage by inserting a seed of doubt into the minds of many Canadians—that our government institutions either aren’t doing enough, or that they are being ignored by the party in power.?

Unfortunately, as opposed to interpreting foreign influence a whole of Canada issue, or a national security issue threatening all Canadians, various political parties are instead using the concerns surrounding foreign influence as leverage to gain political one upmanship.?

Whether it was the intention of the Chinese government to sow dissent into the fabric of Canada’s political system by attempting to make financial donations to one party—or making threats to a member of another—remains to be seen. But the results are undeniable. The debate has morphed into “Which political party is to blame?” as opposed to “What can be done, and what must be done to ensure our nation remains undivided against foreign enemy threats and influence?”?

The Sword vs. the Shield

The work performed by the Intelligence Community in Canada to shield against such forms of political intervention is being forged into a sword, used to stab and hack at the very heart of the political system. Canadians may now be asking if any political party can be trusted to deal with foreign influence, or if the Intelligence Community is effective in combating this threat. These doubts eat away at foundation of systems.?

Foreign influence is similar to any operational activity. It is discussed and planned, and the results are anticipated to produce a beneficial gain for—and by—the foreign state. Regardless of whether the results are exactly as foreseen, there is benefit in knowing how the target country reacted. This will help prepare for the next attempt to:

·??????Influence action

·??????Change political will, or?

·??????Possibly place the next political party or candidate in power.

A Disturbing Trend?

The focus of the Canadian Government regarding concerns over foreign influence, in Canada by China, shows a disturbing trend. The political parties that comprise our legislature are more focussed on fighting amongst themselves than they are on combating this threat—and they’re using the Intelligence Community and their findings as weapons in this battle.?

It is time to take a second look at the impact of foreign influence within our own political system—because I can assure you that any enemy state that wishes to conduct a successful foreign influence campaign against Canada is.?

Don’t let our shield become their sword.?