Inside the Ring: Military hit for correctness

Political watchers in Washington say one weak spot for the Romney team is China. A key China adviser to the governor is Evan Feigenbaum, a former State Department East Asian policymaker during the last Bush administration who helped formulate the failed “responsible stakeholder” approach to China that sought to convince Beijing it should play a more responsible international role.

On the plus side of the Romney China team is Princeton professor Aaron Friedberg, who was an aide to then-Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Friedburg, author of the recent book, “A Contest for Supremacy,” has said the U.S. government has failed to deal adequately with China’s military buildup.

COUNTERSPIES TARGET LEAKS

Once limited mainly to tracking and stopping foreign spies, U.S. counterintelligence agents this month were tasked with an additional mission: stop leaks of information, a staple of the Washington scene for decades.

Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper on June 7 issued Intelligence Community Directive 700 on the protection of national intelligence. It gives new authority to counterspies to go after “insiders” who disclose intelligence information.

The order calls for greater integration of security and counterintelligence in battling “foreign intelligence activities, including espionage, sabotage and assassinations.”

It adds to the mission the deterrence, detection and mitigation of “insider threats” that are defined as those who use “authorized access to do harm to the security of the U.S. through espionage, terrorism, unauthorized disclosure of information.”

The additional task of stopping leaks is new and reflects the post-WikiLeaks environment following the loss of some 250,000 classified documents that ended up on the anti-secrecy website.

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