Spin Wars and Spy Games: Global Media and Intelligence Gathering

247 Pages·2018·6.676 MB·English

by  Markos Kounalakis

Spin Wars
and
Spy Games

Spin Wars

and
Spy Games
Global Media
and Intelligence
Gathering
MARKOS KOUNALAKIS
HOOVER INSTITUTION PRESS
Stanford University
Stanford, California
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Hoover Institution Press Publication No. 693
Hoover Institution at Leland Stanford Junior University,
Stanford, California 94305- 6003
Copyright © 2018 Markos Kounalakis
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First printing 2018
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ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 8179- 2195- 8 (paperback)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 8179- 2196- 5 (EPUB)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 8179- 2197- 2 (Mobipocket)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 8179- 2198- 9 (PDF)
CONTENTS
Foreword by Peter Laufer ix
Preface xv
Acknowledgments xix
Introduction 1
CHAPTER 1 | Global News Networks and State Power 21
CHAPTER 2 | Western Global News Networks and State Power 1 39
Diplomacy
CHAPTER 3 | Western Global News Networks and State Power 2 81
Intelligence
CHAPTER 4 | Non- Western Global News Networks 125
Diplomacy and Intelligence Gathering
CHAPTER 5 | Conclusion 153
APPENDIX 1 | Interview with Terry Phillips 165
APPENDIX 2 | Methodology 173
References 179
About the Author 213
Index 215

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Table 1 Typology of global news networks 3
Table 2 Typology of GNN- state relationships 9
Table 3 GNN ideal types engaged in diplomacy 48
Table 4 Types of GNN intelligence gathering 84
Table 5 Intelligence- gathering ideal types 110
Figure 1 GNNs and intelligence flow 37
Figure 2 Semtex testing on the fuselage of an aircraft 119
Figure 3 Red Mercury formula 121
Figure 4 Chinese GNN organization structure 131

FOREWORD
Peter Laufer
Soon after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, I was dispatched in my
role as an NBC News correspondent to Peshawar. The frontier Pakistan
city—still today packed with spies, soldiers, refugees, and journalists—
is just down a jammed highway from the Khyber Pass, a strategic cross-
roads along that fraught and porous border. I was there meeting with
people the US government (and NBC) called freedom fighters, negoti-
ating to join them on an attack foray back across the line into Afghanistan
that would pit their Springfield rifles against Soviet tanks and helicopter
gunships.
These CIA- financed ragtag soldiers were Al Qaeda forerunners, but
in those confused days they were America’s foot soldiers in the Hindu
Kush. Or so the Reagan administration thought. Rumors were circulating
at the Dean’s Hotel (where the waiters asked us to keep our beer bottles
hidden under the table) that the Soviets were seeding the trails through
the mountains with mines camouflaged in vibrant colors and shame-
lessly shaped like toys. Proving the stories true would be a propaganda
coup for the anti- Soviet West. How cruel: they would risk blowing off
the hands of intrigued innocent children only to further what already
appeared to many of us observers on the scene as a doomed military
mission.
One Somerset Maugham–soaked evening I found myself at the US
consulate in Peshawar dining with the consul and a fellow reporter from
one of the news wire services. As the US taxpayer–provided drinks
flowed, the consul mused about the mine rumors and the dastardly dam-
age they could do to limb and life. He knew we were planning a trip up
to the pass and beyond.