Intelligence Problems

At AEI, Gary J. Schmitt notes that China and other countries have nailed US intelligence agents but that we have a problem returning the favor.

Yet resource constraints complicate any effort to give Russian espionage the attention it might deserve. Keeping track of any intelligence officer requires physical and electronic surveillance—and a considerable number of bodies to do each if the coverage is to be effective. As one counterintelligence officer is quoted as saying, “They’ve just got so many bodies.” Toss in the Bureau’s resource-intensive efforts to stay ahead of the terrorism threat domestically and keep up with the expanding Chinese intelligence efforts in the United States and you have a counterintelligence effort here that is essentially fighting a three-front war with a largely one-war CI force structure.

As former National Counterintelligence Executive Michelle van Cleave explained in recent testimony, “increasingly,” hostile intelligence operations can be run outside:

the former safe havens of their diplomatic establishments.” More than ever, “the number of formal and informal ports of entry to the country, the ease with which people can travel internally and the relatively benign operational environment of the U.S. are tailor made for embedded clandestine collection activities. Thousands of foreign owned commercial establishments within the United States, the routine interactions of trade and transnational business and finance, and the exchange of hundreds of thousands of students and academicians, all potentially extend the reach of Chinese intelligence into the core structures of our Nation’s security.

Study Abroad

Our chapter on national security and foreign policy notes the importance of improving our knowledge of other countries.  One way is through study abroad.  The Institute for International Education reports:


 

Voting from Overseas

Reuters reports:

With the U.S. presidential election too close to call, hundreds of thousands of Americans living in Europe have been posting their absentee ballots with a sense that they could truly make a difference on November 6.

From Berlin to Paris and London to Madrid, they have closely tracked the battle between Democrat President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney, though the emotional temperature is several degrees lower than four years ago, when most expats rallied behind Obama after two terms of George W. Bush, whom many thought had tarnished the U.S. image abroad.

Both the Republicans and Democrats have courted the expat vote since 1988, when absentee ballots reversed the outcome of a Senate race in Florida, allowing Republican Connie Mack to pip Democrat Buddy MacKay, who had led when polling stations closed.

Absentee ballots also made the difference in another Senate race in 2008. Democrat Al Franken came from 215 votes behind to win with the help of absentee votes.

The tightness of the presidential race, with a Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll showing a dead heat , has made the expat vote arguably more important than ever. Both Republicans Abroad and Democrats Abroad organisations have gone all out to get Americans registered and voting in their home states.

Some overseas voters are in uniform. Hope Hodge writes at Human Events:

While a number of battleground states have reported dismal numbers of military absentee ballot requests in early counts, the western swing state of Colorado announced Monday that its ballot request totals for military and overseas absentee voters have already surpassed 2008 totals, with eight days to go until the election.

After low recorded voter turnout in these demographics four years ago, Congress authorized $75 million for the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act, which, among other provisions, established and staffed voting assistance offices at over 220 military bases. But early ballot request totals in a number of states showed an even more depressed military voting turnout than in 2008, and a bombshell report at the end of August from the Department of Defense Inspector General found that half of the new voting offices were unreachable by telephone or email.

Colorado is proving that low military voting does not have to be the status quo.

The office of Secretary of State Scott Gessler announced that 19,055 military and overseas ballot requests had been received, 2,804 more than in 2008. The 8,320 completed ballots the state has already received from these voters amounts to a return rate 80 percent higher than in the 2010 election.

The improvement in numbers is attributed to a statewide project launched in 2010 that allows overseas voters to receive next-day ballots via email and mail them back at their convenience. 

Some of these voters are students on study-abroad programs.  The Capital News Service reports:

In 2009, the federal government passed the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act. The legislation led 47 states, including Virginia, to pass similar laws increasing enfranchisement of overseas voters.

Under the legislation, voters are no longer required to have absentee ballots notarized. States are required to send absentee ballots to registered overseas voters at least 45 days prior to the election. Electronic absentee ballots and registration applications must be made available online by each state in case hard copies don’t arrive, the law states.

Currently, 13 states allow online voter registration, according to a spokesperson for the Pew Center on the States; Virginia is not one of them.

Overseas Vote Foundation (OVF) spearheaded the trend toward electronic registration in 2008. Nearly 5 million people accessed the OVF webpage in 2008, including nearly 2 million in the October before the election, according to a report by the Pew Center on the States.
Overseas Vote Foundation established an offshoot, Youth Vote Overseas (YVO), to target students going abroad. The organization does outreach with more than 450 colleges across the country, including more than 10 schools in Virginia.

The goal is to encourage students to register to vote before going abroad, explained Marina Mecl, Youth Vote Overseas outreach program director. As a result, much of YVO’s web traffic comes from within the U.S.

Contact with partner universities overseas helps YVO’s cause, Mecl said, especially in traditional hubs for exchange students.

Between July and October, the organization tallied its highest number of registrations abroad from the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy and France – four of the top five study abroad destinations from 2008 to 2010. About three out of four voters registering on the site are between 18 and 24.

Study Abroad

By spending time overseas, Americans can better equip themselves to deliberate about foreign policy and national security. Accordingly, the very last box in our textbook discusses the importance of study abroad. A new report from the Institute of International Education provides fresh data:

The Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange, released today, reports that 260,327 students studied abroad for credit during the academic year 2008/09, compared to 262,416 the previous year, a modest decline of 0.8%. The Open Doors report is published annually by the Institute of International Education with funding from the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. For the first time in the 25 years that the data has been tracked, the total number of U.S. students studying abroad for academic credit did not increase. However, the report found that there were notable increases in the number of U.S. students going to study in less traditional destinations. Fifteen of the top 25 destinations were outside of Western Europe and nineteen were countries where English is not a primary language.

To obtain a “snapshot” of whether these study abroad trends are continuing, IIE conducted a fall 2010 online survey of U.S. campuses in cooperation with the Forum on Education Abroad. The survey indicates that study abroad numbers are beginning to rebound, particularly to China. More than half of the campuses responding (55%) said they had seen an increase in the number of their students studying abroad in 2009/10 compared to the previous year, including some of the campuses with the largest numbers of study abroad students. The Open Doors 2010 report and Fall Survey findings will be discussed at a briefing today at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, in conjunction with the worldwide observance of International Education Week.

Campuses have noted that their students continue to show a strong interest in study abroad and campuses and study abroad providers have sought affordable opportunities for these students to gain valuable international experience. They also reported an increase of 37% in the number of students participating in practical work experiences as part of their study abroad, with 18,715 students now receiving academic credit at U.S. colleges and universities for internships or work abroad.