Think Tank Using Data from Spy Agency, Predictive Analytics Firm

Many think tanks are getting more sophisticated in the tools they use in data collection, research, and analysis.  Some are even partnering with US spy agencies for various reports and projects.

Here is one example from a prominent Washington think tank:

We’ve [Predata] helped global organizations anticipate the risk of violence by militant groups, multinational corporations anticipate the risk posed by government regulatory actions and global macro hedge funds gain evidence for asset positions, and to anticipate the risk of large market moves.

Recently, Predata used its platform to predict a major appreciation in the Japanese yen one week before it happened. Using Predata anticipatory signals, the think tank CSIS correctly predicted the last seven ballistic missile test launches by North Korea. We also helped a global energy company’s public affairs team anticipate a major reputational risk to their brand.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recently announced a renewed partnership with Predata providing its global geopolitical risk signals to help Beyond Parallel's experts (at CSIS) assess Korean unification prospects and related geopolitical issues.

CSIS notes that Beyond Parallel's funding comes from the think tank's Korea Chair, as well as the Brzezinski Institute of of Geostrategy, The Korea Foundation, and the UniKorea Foundation.

CSIS also says that it has partnered with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) to use unclassified geospatial imagery and data to produce "new, timely, and accurate reporting on the North Korean economy and society, infrastructure, and border activities."

In related news, it was recently reported that South Korea is the country spending the most to influence Washington.

Spies and Arms Dealers Abound at IISS Annual Event

Here are some juicy tidbits from Reuters, in a piece entitled "The Singapore Hotel Where Top Brass, Dealers and Spies Rub Shoulders":

For the region’s military officers, diplomats, weapons manufacturers and spies, there are few livelier places than the lobby of Singapore’s Shangri-La hotel around mid-year.

Here, beneath pillared ceilings and chandeliers, they gather for an annual informal bash - called the Shangri-La Dialogue - organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. 

Retired Western and Asian intelligence figures spend the best part of three days loitering here; a civilian-suited Vietnamese military officer introduces himself to a U.S. naval counterpart while a cadre of Chinese PLA staff walk briskly past. A Laotian military representative practices his golf swing as a gaggle of barefoot teenagers pad past from the swimming pool, towelling themselves down and apparently oblivious to the swirl of strategic tension. 

While the IISS scholars organized a variety of panels covering regional flashpoints and trends and diplomats arranged formal bilateral meetings for their defense ministers, the siderooms, bars and cafes are even busier as more discreet business is done and information traded. 

Regional military attaches say the event is a legendary recruitment spot, as officers and diplomats are tapped by business or academia - and sometimes more shadowy enterprises. One delegate said Singapore’s status as a leading financial hub helps. 

According to rumor, operatives from various friendly Western and Asian intelligence agencies hold a parallel gathering in another hotel, to exchange information. That has never been verified.

As well as the IISS, the sponsors of the Shangri-La Dialogue include major Western defense firms, including Boeing, Airbus, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon - in part a reflection of gradually rising regional defense budgets.

Here is a link to IISS's Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD), which took place June 1-3 in Singapore.  Here is a link to the agenda.  Besides the ones mentioned above, other sponsors included Singapore Technologies Engineering, Booz Allen Hamilton, and the Asahi Shimbun.

Here is a bit more background of the Shangri-La Dialogue.  Why is it so important?  Here is a bit about how the event, which draws a huge security presence, impacts traffic.

Last year, there was quite a bit of tension after India pulled out of the SLD over an apparent snub from the organizers, precipitating the need for a team from IISS to visit India and smooth things over.

Here is a piece from The Telegraph entitled "Cambridge Spy Seminars Hit by Whispers of Russian Links as Three Intelligence Experts Resign," about the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar (CIS), an academic forum on the Western spy world.

Mission of Russian Spy: Target Think Tanks

Jack Barsky (also known as Albrecht Dittrich), a former Russian spy, has recently gone on record about details of the spying operations he was expected to partake in during his time in the United States.  Here is an excerpt from The Guardian:

Dittrich was given his mission: to establish contacts with foreign policy think tanks, and in particular President Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski.  He was given little guidance as to how he should do this, or even how best to blend into US society. The people who trained him had little feeling for the real fabric of America, its visceral, unquantifiable essence. “It’s as if they had spent time looking at fish swimming in an aquarium, and now they are training you to be a fish,” Barsky says. “But they don’t actually know what it’s like to be a fish.”

The book Deep Undercover by Mr. Barsky says that he was expected to establish contacts with people connected to "influential think tanks such as the Hudson Institute, the Columbia University Institute of Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission."

Think tanks have been a hotbed a spy recruitment for decades.  Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post on which think tanks spies like.  It is no secret that think tanks are filled with former spies.

While human intelligence still goes on at think tanks, these days much of the spying is done through signals intelligence, with nearly every single large think tank facing serious breaches in recent years.

Here is a recent story by Molly Ball on Washington spy paranoia, with several mentions of think tanks.