Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 51

WHAT U.S. FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICERS SHOULD KNOW

sanctions because they could not muster the
will to undo Saddam totally. Hence Saddam
and much of the rest of the world cooperated
in turning the "oil for food" sanctions into
a means for strengthening his regime and
of weakening U.S. influence in the Middle
East. Similarly, the "smart sanctions" that
U.S. government has imposed on Iran to
prevent its development of nuclear weapons
convinced the rest of the world, as well as
Iran, that the United States was not serious
about its purpose. Why? Because the eco-
nomic pain involved was small in proportion
to the value that Iran placed on having the
weapons. Such sanctions, like Johnson's offer
to Ho, signaled misunderstanding of the tar-
get as well as weakness rather than strength.
Beginning with President Jimmy Carter
in 1978, all U.S. presidents have subsidized
the government of Egypt (and, not inciden-
tally, the Palestine Liberation Organization),
expecting thereby to addict their leaders to
U.S. money, thereby inducing them to be
more favorable to American foreign policy
than they would have been otherwise. But,
while the recipients have been happy to
get the money, no one should have been
surprised that they have behaved in such a
manner as to maintain and enhance their
political standing with the people around
them and on whom they depend for their
power and for their very lives. Moreover, they
quickly lost any fear they might have had
that the Americans would cut off the money
and ensured that the flow would continue by
threatening that they would become more
anti-American if it did not.
Here is the point: economic incentives and
disincentives make sense as part of otherwise
well-conceived, success-oriented plans that
involve other means of statecraft. When
used in isolation or as substitutes for other
means, they are counterproductive.
Persuading parts of foreign bodies politic

to join in altering their governments' policies,
and perhaps the governments themselves,
is an art both ancient and pervasive that
naturally makes use of any available means.
The U.S. government's post-1945 practice
of confining that art to the more or less
secret activities of an intelligence agency is
unprecedented, unique, and has not worked
out well. Relegating subversion to "covert
action" tends to reduce it to a set of tricks
performed by tricksters, not necessarily well
connected to policy but rather to activities
used as alternatives to policy-"something
between a diplomatic protest and sending in
the Marines" is the standard U.S. descrip-
tion. But making secret acts bear the weight
of policy guarantees failure. Elaborating
them at CIA decreases the chances that
the government will understand their con-
sequences. Nor is secrecy the point. While
some of the means of subversion may be
secret, the effects cannot be.
The point of subversion is to energize influ-
ential people to exercise influence in the direc-
tion you desire. But influencing the influential
almost always takes a lot more than having a
secret agent whisper in his ear or offer him
money. Agents of influence are not spies. They
are allies. Good ones cannot be bought. Nor
can the exercise of influence be secret.
Subversion, like seduction, is all about
finding a willing partner. While it involves
the imposition of one's will upon another,
no one has ever been subverted without his
cooperation any more than anyone has ever
been seduced against his will.
The Soviet Union, for example, regarded
Harry Hopkins-Franklin Roosevelt's alter
ego during WWII-as its agent of influence,
and for the best of reasons. Hopkins worked
intimately with Stalin's envoys to remove U.S.
officials to whom the Soviets objected and to
move U.S. policy in directions the Soviets
desired. Classic. But Hopkins would have
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Modern Age - Fall 2014

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