This week, Australia made international headlines when it revealed Iran had directed at least two antisemitic attacks in Australia using local criminals as proxies. In response, the Australian Government expelled Iran’s Ambassador, the first time we have done so since World War Two.
While this sort of activity is new for Australia, it fits a growing pattern in Europe where Russia and to some extent Iran have been using this tactic of hiring what are in effect gig workers to carry out such sabotage operations against other countries.
To discuss hybrid threat activities and explain this tactic of using disposable agents, David Wroe speaks to Elisabeth Braw, senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Elisabeth details the methods of sabotage, the purposes of sabotage to interfere in other countries and their politics and the enabling role of technology in these activities.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Stop the world. Welcome to STOP THE WORLD.
I'm David Rowe. And I'm Olivia Nelson.
This week Australia made international headlines live as
you saw when it revealed Iran had directed at least two anti
Semitic attacks in Australia using local criminals as
proxies. And while this is new for
Australia, if it's a growing pattern that we've seen in
(00:22):
Europe where Russia and to some extent Iran as well have been
using the tactic of hiring what are in effect gig workers to
carry out such operations as sabotage against other
countries. He has been a significant week
Dave, and this is actually the first time since the end of the
Second World War that Australia has expelled an ambassador.
The additional concern about Iran's interference was the
(00:42):
assessment that it was seeking to stoke division within
Australian society. Both the use of proxies and the
attempt to undermine social cohesion are well known hybrid
threat activities. And today's guest Elizabeth
Brawl is an expert on hybrid threats.
She's written extensively on this kind of malign activity and
it's coined the the term disposable agents to describe
these gig workers. They're cheap, readily
(01:04):
available, and can be used once and then discarded with at least
some degree of deniability for the for the state directing the
operations. Yeah, and it's all enabled by
modern connectivity. So encrypted messaging apps,
social media, cryptocurrency. Tick, tick, tick.
Elizabeth is a senior Fellow with the with the Sorry Atlantic
(01:24):
Council's Transatlantic SecurityInitiative.
In this it is in the Scowcroft Centre for Strategy and
Security. She writes widely, including in
Politico, The Times and Foreign Policy.
She's the author of several books, including Goodbye
Globalisation, The Defender's Dilemma and God's Spies.
And she's got a new one coming out soon on subsea cables called
The Undersea War. And that phrase, the Defenders
(01:46):
dilemma, is very relevant here because Elizabeth goes into the
way that hybrid warfare is deliberately asymmetric and puts
the burden of finding a responsevery much on the victim.
She calls it geopolitical gaslighting, which is another
great phrase. Elizabeth also explains the
benefits and tactics of using disposable agents, the purposes
of sabotage to interfere in other countries and their
politics, and on wider issues ofglobal connectivity, and
(02:10):
particularly the subject of her new book on subsea cables.
Yep, she's got a a knack for coining great phrases.
It was great chat. Let's hear from Elizabeth Braw.
Hope you enjoy it. Welcome to STOP the WORLD.
I'm here with Elizabeth Braw. Elizabeth, thanks for coming on.
Thank you. So we want to talk today about
(02:32):
connectivity and the the range of threats and vulnerabilities
that it introduces. Obviously the way we're ever
more connected, we have expanding connectivity across a
whole range, range of, of forms.This lifts our standard of
living. It provides us all sorts of
opportunities. But at the same time it means
that there are new vulnerabilities and threats
emerging all the time. And we'll, we'll talk about how
(02:54):
that manifests. But the first example that I
really want to spend some time on is this idea of the, of a gig
economy for troublemakers in theway that malign states are
drawing on this well pool of talent in inverted commas.
You wrote a, a great piece aboutthis in Politico a few months
ago in which you, you used the term disposable agents.
(03:15):
It was a really, really useful term and, and, and very
suitable. And as I say, it's timely for
this conversation because as youknow, the Australian government
expelled the Iranian ambassador this week after discovering that
Iranian Revolutionary Guards hadbeen behind A at least two arson
(03:36):
attacks with anti Semitic purposes to to sow division and
and undermine social cohesion. And they used these sorts of
proxies or disposable agents to carry out these attacks.
You know, it's not even clear completely whether the, whether
the perpetrators knew that they were ultimately working on on
behalf of the, the Iranian regime.
(03:57):
But I think that's, that's unclear at the moment.
But anyway, it's a fascinating case.
So I want to sort of talk a little bit about this issue
because you're, you're clearly the right person to, to discuss
it with. Perhaps we can, we can start
with a question of, of why. I mean, why do Iran, Russia in,
in the case of Europe, probably others as well, use these
disposable gig workers and what are the what are the main
(04:19):
upsides compared with using say more traditional methods of
interfering in another country? There are so many upsides and I
have to say it's now that now that it's beginning to happen or
that now that it's happening widely, I'm asking myself why,
why it hasn't been happening before?
Because it's, it's, it makes so much sense if you are a country
(04:41):
or a regime trying to destabilise another country to
do it this way in addition to other ways, obviously.
But by doing it this way, you, you cause physical harm.
So to whatever the installation is, whether it's a company, a
piece of infrastructure, you 'cause that, that damage.
(05:05):
And we have seen a range of, of companies targeted from a
massive shopping mall, a mall inPoland to, to parcel bombs being
deposited at DHL facilities or DHL locations in, in, in
(05:26):
different places in Europe. So you can cause physical damage
and obviously fear among the people working there, even if if
the damage, the physical damage is limited.
But then you also cause fear across society because people
feel that that anybody can strike any.
(05:46):
And clearly they will tell themselves the government is not
capable of preventing this from happening.
But why is it not capable of preventing this from happening?
Because the people perpetrating it can be anyone.
And that's what another reason makes so much sense.
So in the past, hostile states have used essentially people
(06:10):
affiliated with them for a long time to do whatever they needed
to get done. And that was essentially
intelligence gathering. So you would have sleeper
agents, you would have people who were ideologically
affiliated with that country would would essentially spy for
them over years. But this is different.
This is a way of causing harm. And the people who 'cause that
(06:34):
harm are not affiliated with that regime, whether it's
Russia, Iran or any other country for a long time, they
come in, they do 1 gig as it were, and then they fade back
into society. So it can be anyone, anyone
needing a bit of money, which iswhy we have seen a lot of young
people conducting the OR perpetrating these attacks.
(06:56):
Here in the UK, for example, three young men were just
convicted of such an attack on behalf of Russia.
And the way they are recruited is a result of the way we Live
Today, which is that there are social media platforms, apps
(07:16):
where Russian officials or any other officials can essentially
connect with with these people. They can offer a gig and then
the person carries out that gig,takes a photo just like any
other. Any other worker in in our
modern economist takes a photo of, of whatever it is that has
been accomplished. Just like the delivery guy takes
(07:38):
a photo when he has delivered a parcel to your door and they,
they take a photo, send it back to, to whoever commissioned
them, they get paid and that's it.
How are our government supposed to be able to, to identify these
people before it happens? It's almost impossible.
That that's it's fascinating andlook, let's stick with the
process for a moment because that's a really interesting part
(08:02):
of it. And a couple of things come to
mind for me. I mean, encrypted messaging apps
are obviously a a key tool. It's a, it's a way for them to
communicate, but how might they typically find these gig workers
in the 1st place? I mean, are there, are there,
are there sites, are there dark websites, something like this
where people advertise their, you know, their, their quote
unquote talents? And, and in terms of the
(08:23):
payment, I mean, is it is that, is that, is that a way for, for
authorities to at least potentially track it after it
happens? I mean, is, is cryptocurrency
typically involved or is it, arethey, are they just, are they
just ways of paying without, without it being easy to trace?
Just talk a bit more about the process.
Yes. So it's essentially like the the
(08:47):
legally functioning gig economy,but but a parallel gig economy
where everything is a bit more opaque, obscure and obviously
illegal. So we are not exactly sure of of
every detail. Obviously the, the people
involved in it on, on, on the Russian side and other hostile
(09:08):
states do it precisely so that it can remain hidden.
But but what we do know is that,as you said, they initiate the
contact on, on messaging apps, social media, but then it moves
to, it usually moves them to encrypted apps where they can
(09:31):
carry out the, the, you know, the actual, the actual
organisation or commissioning of, of the deed.
And then As for the payment, this is another the reason that
that cryptocurrencies are so often subversive to our society
is because in the past, as as weall know, it was relatively easy
(09:55):
for the police, for law enforcement authorities to track
payments. But with, with crypto, it's just
so much harder. But it's it's not completely
impossible to to trace these, totrace the hostile state
connections of, of the perpetrators.
For example, in the case of of the UK arson attack, the the
(10:17):
three men who were just convicted, they were convicted
of the attack and the investigators also managed to
establish that they had been commissioned by Russia.
The same thing was true with thearson attack against the the
massive shopping mall mall in Poland several months ago.
(10:39):
Last year, 2024, the investigators also managed to
establish that they had been commissioned by Russia.
The perpetrators had been commissioned by Russia.
So it is possible. It's just so much harder.
And, and again, because the connection between the
perpetrators and the commissioning state is so
fleeting, it's just a very momentary interaction and
(11:01):
obviously not even a personal interaction.
It's so much harder than than itused to be back in the day,
finding people spying for, for ahostile country.
We are talking, we were talking about years long associations
and now it's it's a a minute long association or a few days,
but very, very limited. OK, All right.
(11:25):
Tell us a bit about the sort of range of jobs that are carried
out using this particular vector.
I mean, the the the examples we've talked about so far, I
mean, arson is a, is a typical 1.
So I mean it's sabotage basically it's state on state
sabotage there. How far does it go?
I mean, are diasporas targeted? Are political opponents targeted
(11:46):
or and, and has it gone up to asfar as cases of murder or
assassination? I mean, I think back to, you
know, the, the last case that wemight think of in the UK that
was very, very high profile where where trained agents where
where trained officers were used.
And that was the, of course, thethe Skripal poisoning using
Novichok, a clear assassination attempt and it and it with
(12:10):
deadly consequences ultimately. But I mean, are those sorts of
tasks being given to these freelancers?
So what's the, the cases that have been proven so far have
been cases of, of sabotage. So arson, parcel bombs and a
(12:34):
really cunning case. In Germany just before the
election, there was a combination of sabotage and,
and, and election interference, which was that all of a sudden
cars were car owners found that that cars, the exhaust pipes had
been blocked. And so obviously that that
rendered their cars unusable. And we're talking about dozens
(12:58):
and dozens and dozens of cars. And and not only had the exhaust
pipes been blocked, there were stickers on those cars with a
photo of Robert Habeck, who was then the leader of the Greens
vice chancellor. This was just the head of the
election. And the sticker said vote Green.
So it seemed seemed like fanatical supporters of the
(13:23):
Green Party had been targeting German drivers, car owners with
this message to vote for the Greens.
Now the Greens were very supportive, very vocal in their
support of Ukraine in, in since have been since the invasion of
(13:44):
Ukraine, Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
So that happened. Then German police discovered
almost accidentally that the perpetrators were not were not
green activists. It was just some ordinary 3 or 4
ordinary guys and they had been doing it.
(14:05):
They had been commissioned by Russia.
And what's the the German investigators discovered was
there had been a down payment bythe agent who commissioned them.
So you know, to do it and then pro pro pro peace payment.
So a payment for each car that they sabotaged.
Quite clever. But that's that's the range who
(14:26):
I've seen so far. But you can continue to innovate
in this space. There is nothing limiting the,
the, the, the, the, the commissioning party, as it were,
from just commissioning whateverthey'd like to to get done.
Because if, if you are somebody who, who is, well, if, if you
are one of these potential agents, you're not going to say,
(14:48):
well, I'm only going to do arson.
I'm only going to sabotage cars.You you look at what's available
and and if you fancy doing it, you might do it.
Yeah, yeah. And presumably if the price is
right, then there are, there arecertainly, I mean there are
certain people in any country that you can find who are, who
are prepared to carry out any kind of attack.
So it's it's quite easy to see these sorts of things in
(15:09):
escalating and yeah. Indeed, and that's why, for
example, that the head of MI 5 in the UK and other senior
security officials have have highlighted or pointed out that
Russia and other states seem increasingly interested in
working with organised crime in our countries.
(15:30):
And, and I think that's that's because members of of organised
crime groups are, let's say, more experienced in the more
advanced forms of, of crime thatmay be your average teenager may
not be able to perpetrate. No, sure, but there's.
So Mike Burgess, the head of ASIO in this country, described
it as, I think, a layer cake, anexpanding layer cake.
(15:50):
So clearly there were several steps of disassociation between
the, the Rev guards in Iran and the people who actually carried
out the, the arson attacks here in Australia.
And I think I, I, I'm, I'm making inferences here, but it,
it, you know, it seems that organised crime was one of the
(16:11):
links is that, is that typical that they, you know, the, the,
the foreign intelligence officers looking to create
trouble in another country will go to something like organised
crime as a starting point. And then they will find the
lower level people, you know, foot soldiers there on the
(16:33):
ground. And, and so you get sort of
these several layers of of separation between the ultimate
puppeteers and the people who actually carry out the stuff on
the ground. That doesn't seem to to always
be the case. And I think the reason for that
is that if you associate yourself as a hostile state, if
(16:53):
you associate yourself with a with a with with a criminal
gang, then it it that gang is known to the authorities.
It it makes it easier for the authorities to to to spot and
trace. Whereas if if you just
Commission any old citizen obscure or unknown to the
(17:14):
authorities, then it's just muchharder for for the authorities
to have that person on their radar before the before they
they act. Yeah, interesting.
I mean, this is, this might be aleap on my part, but I mean, it
actually reminds me in terms of the, from the perspective of the
authorities here, it almost reminds me of lone wolf
radicalised, you know, ideological perpetrators that,
(17:35):
you know, the, the difficulty for the, for the authorities is
precisely the sort of randomness, the, the, the lack
of previous association with anykind of, you know, criminal or
extremist enterprise. These people who are sort of
self radicalised, they, you know, a bit like the, the, the
perpetrators that you're talkingabout here.
They they from the authority's point of view, they essentially
(17:57):
sort of pop out of nowhere. They do and they pop out of an
even bigger nowhere than than lone wolf radicals because they,
they don't even, they don't evenneed that sort of learning curve
of, of understanding the, the ideology, whatever it is that
that has radicalised them. It's just a A1 off thing without
any emotional ideological attachment.
(18:21):
It's just, it's just a commercial transaction.
OK, what about the downsides of this?
I mean, obviously they are amateurs.
I presume there have been cases where it's been almost sort of
clown like in its, in its ineptitude.
I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm just guessing, I haven't followed all
of the, the examples. And obviously Europe seems to be
the, the sort of testing ground for a lot of this.
(18:43):
I mean, there are a lot of casescarried out by Russia in Europe.
I'm aware that Iran as well. I think has, has, has been
involved in Europe, including inyour native Sweden, I believe,
and to some extent in the, the UK as well.
Anyway, I'm sorry, I'm, I'm, I'mgoing off on tangents a bit
there, but what, what are the downsides of using these sorts
of amateurs over, say, trained professionals?
(19:05):
And are, are there specific tasks that are that, that, that,
say the Gru are happy to give toamateurs that they wouldn't give
to professions? Like if it's a serious job do
you do they still tend to to usetheir own trained people?
Well, the, the, the first obvious downside is that you
don't know what you're going to get.
(19:26):
So you don't know how, how skilled you're the, the, the,
the gig worker you've commissioned is at the, the task
that you've commissioned. Which is why I think for, for
these, for the, for the easier, the easier, the, the gig workers
are used for easier tasks. If you want to assassinate
Sergei Skripal, you're not goingto just sign up any, any, any,
(19:48):
any young teenager, any, any teenager.
It's, it's, that has to be a real professional and somebody
with the, with the proper association with your service or
your organisation. But so the downside is it may
not be carried out to perfection.
But then if it's arson, if it's handing off a parcel bomb.
(20:12):
It's it's not that complicated and actually it doesn't really
matter whether it's carried out to perfection.
In the case of the parcel bombs,it was obviously an extreme,
extremely fortunate that that the, the, the bombs were
detected before they could go off.
They could have caused loss of human life.
(20:34):
It would have been a disaster ifif that had been successful.
But the the act of dropping off these bombs is not particularly
difficult. So the downside is that you may
not get the perfectly executed deed, but it doesn't really
matter whether it's perfectly executed.
What matters is that it causes fear in the targeted in the
(20:57):
country are trying to target andit causes people to feel that
the authorities are not able to keep them safe.
And we should remember that is the social contract in our
Western countries, in our liberal democracies, the
government, we we hand over power to the government through
elections and the government in exchange looks after certain
(21:21):
aspects of society for us, including external and internal
security. So that we don't have to arm
ourselves in in some sort of prepper style or malicious
style, that that is a social contract.
If people get the idea that our authorities are not able to look
after us, that that is a massivewin for the other side.
(21:43):
And the other upside, Well, I should say the first downside is
it may not be perfectly executed, but actually it
doesn't matter much. The other downside is that you
look like a rogue state. If you, if you target or seek to
harm other countries by using essentially crime and even
(22:04):
organised crime, then you look like a pretty unattractive,
unappealing country. You look like a rogue state.
But Russia, for example, is a country that has already crossed
the Rubicon. And so it, it, it doesn't, it
doesn't care whether it's seen as as a rogue state, whether
(22:24):
it's seen as a, a disreputable country or regime.
It it has already made that choice.
And that paradoxically makes it or gives Russia and any other
country of, of of the same nature gives them an
extraordinary freedom to carry out precisely these kinds of
(22:48):
attacks because they, they can'tbe shamed into improving their
behaviour. They don't they it's it's not
embarrassing for them to be found out as having commissioned
deeds like these. It's it's, it's frightening.
I mean, 11 might almost dare to suggest that stricter sanctions
(23:11):
and and stronger punishment against Moscow for its wide
range of malign behaviour might be in order.
But anyway, that's unfortunatelyI'm not in charge of that, that
that situation. But presumably though, I mean,
the deniability is part of the part of the appeal.
I mean, like you say, I mean, Russia doesn't seem to care at
this point. They've got nothing left to lose
in terms of their global reputation.
(23:31):
But but four other states, I don't know.
I mean, Iran, Iran, how much Iran cares at the moment is also
AI. Suppose a is a bit is dubious,
but but deniability is. Is that part of the actual
appeal of using these? You know, especially when
there's there's several layers of of of disassociation.
(23:54):
It is. And so the, the, the targeted
state may say we discovered thatRussia was behind it or it may
say we suspect that Russia is behind or another country.
But if, if Russia or Russian agents didn't actually
perpetrate the deed or whatever the country is, you have in mind
(24:16):
whatever that country is. If you can't established that
their agents, that country's agents perpetrated the, it
almost doesn't matter that you say, oh, we think there, there
is a link. We think they commissioned it.
So what are you going to do about it?
You are not going to be able to arrest any agents for having
done it. They are not in your country.
(24:37):
That's why they use, that's another reason they they use
these disposable agents. And so you almost look a little
bit, a little bit crazy as the target of the country.
If you say, oh, Russia was behind me, yeah, you can say
that all you want, but there areno Russian agents or, or, or
(24:57):
whatever the country is that that's that perpetrate that
thing. So you, you, you end up really
looking crazy. You and I often think of of, of
grey zone aggression, of which this is part as as gaslighting,
geopolitical gaslighting. So the, the, the targeted
country knows that something is happening and it tries to
(25:20):
articulate that it's happening, but the other country can say,
oh, it's just in your mind. And we're seeing that in so many
different iterations, including the use of of of disposable
agents. Yeah, yeah.
And so I mean, obviously cyber attacks are the classic example
of the ones that are very, very difficult to have that
attribution to a level that a country feels comfortable at
(25:43):
naming the perpetrator. But I mean, this, the the same
is true here. And the same is true of all
sorts of sort of hybrid and greyzone type activity, which comes
back to to to one of the motivations for for doing it.
It's an interesting one in, I mean, obviously, I mean Tehran
has has responded with House of outrage about, about Australia's
overreaction and blah, blah, blah.
(26:04):
But but in the case of, I mean, it's, it's, it's ASIO
intelligence that has actually established this.
And obviously the government andASIO are not going to go into
any kind of detail about what proof they actually have.
And so we're in my view, perfectly, perfectly reasonably
trusting our government and our intelligence agency on this.
(26:26):
But in the case of Iran, it's pretty easy for the government
to, to attribute and impose the,you know, the strong diplomatic
response that they have, which was to, to, to turf out the
ambassador. But if it were another country,
I mean, notably one like China, for instance, which and I, and
(26:48):
I, I don't know whether China issome is known to have been using
these, these sorts of activitiesin any significant way.
But, you know, the government would have a much longer
conversation with itself, I think if if it were the case
with China, because that's obviously a diplomatic
relationship that we're looking to preserve as much as possible,
less the case with Iran. But it puts that, I mean it, it
(27:08):
means that it's the, it's the defender that's having to
actually go through that agonising conversation with
itself, which again sort of works in the favour of the
perpetrator. It really does.
It really does. And we have seen this across so
many different iterations of of greys and aggression.
(27:29):
So disposable agents are just the latest innovation to arrive
with within wider greys and aggression, but within every
category of of this really quiteunpalatable form of of
aggression below the threshold of our military violence, the
the targeted country has faces the same dilemma each time.
(27:54):
How do we respond other than than pointing out that something
has happened and can we retaliate?
But in order to retaliate, we would need to to ascertain
beyond reasonable doubt that a particular country is behind it.
And even if we manage to do that, how do we retaliate?
We are not going to to use the same means against that country.
(28:19):
But well, in that case, what means are available to us?
We are not going to use the sameshady means that they use, use
of forms of aggression that theyuse against us.
We're not going to to recruit agents to to deliver parcel
bombs to airliners in their countries because they do that
to us. That's not who we are.
But what other means do we have available in the cases that
(28:43):
where we do manage to establish beyond reasonable doubt that
hostile state was involved? So it really is the defender's
dilemma every single time. And and we try to name and shame
that doesn't work. If that country has crossed the
Rubicon of, of, of from respectable to this reputable
(29:03):
country, what what other tools are available?
And that's, that's the dilemma that in which our governments
find themselves each time and, and one of these acts happen and
and that's increasingly often. Yeah, Yeah.
It's so unfair, isn't it? It's, it's so unfair.
We it is, God damn it. We we can't win.
(29:23):
All we can do is not lose as much as possible.
You've talked in terms of the strategic purposes of this.
I mean, you've, you've talked a bit about sabotage, you know,
creating fear, creating mistrustin the ability of the
authorities under that social contract that you talked about
(29:44):
to, to keep us safe, to protect us.
In the case with this Australiansituation, I mean, the, the, the
way the government described it was to sow division and
undermine social cohesion. I mean, obviously it came after
October 7, not, I mean not immediately, but but in that
(30:04):
period in which, you know, you know, sensitivities around all
related issues were extremely heightened.
It was, it was sort of shocking in Australia to see something as
as significant as the fire bombings of of a synagogue and A
and a kosher cafeteria. The, the level of sort of
(30:26):
sophistication, I suppose, in the range of strategic
objectives that the malign perpetrators tend to have.
I mean, how, how complex, how sophisticated have you seen them
as, as being and, and is this AImean, I guess, playing into a
(30:48):
specific, very acute, sensitive political situation, as was the
case here? I mean, it was pretty, it was
pretty well targeted and pretty well delivered.
I mean, I'm, you know, not, I say that with obviously no
admiration, but to, to poke a particular zone and create a
particular form of, of public emotive response.
(31:12):
Is that normal or is it tend to be a bit more kind of
scattergun? OK, let's just freak the
Europeans out with a whole bunchof, of, of parcel bombings and
and arson attacks and these sorts of things.
So you, you get activities across the board.
Some seem really random and maybe not that well thought out.
(31:34):
Some are, are really quite sophisticated and, and who or
what, whom or what they target and how they are executed.
But, but the point is that you can, you can afford to, to, to
to experiment a bit and, and different countries work in
(31:54):
different ways. So Iran may be more focused on
on particularly sophisticated operations, whereas Russia may
may use the watering can principle and, and sort of just
try different things and and seewhat works.
And if it doesn't, if it's not particularly successful, then no
harm done because we are not going to retaliate.
(32:17):
We as to target the country. So but what we have seen in
recent years is phenomenal innovation.
I remember when, when grey zone aggression was just a few years
ago when it was mostly about cyber disinformation and then
the occasional assassination attempt and targeting of
(32:38):
diaspora groups, that was basically it.
And in recent years, the past three years or so, we have just
seen phenomenal innovation wherea new iteration of grey zone
aggression appears almost on a, on a monthly or even weekly
basis. And if I knew who the
(33:01):
individuals were in the Kremlin,for example, who are in charge
of doing this, I would love to know how, how they how they plot
this. Do they sit down and say, well,
let's look at this particular country, this particular sector,
or do they just work independently in the different
agencies? I would love to know how that
works. Maybe when this, this, whatever
(33:22):
it is, Cold War, new Cold War isover.
I would love to go back to, to the Kremlin plotters and the
planners, I should say, and and find out how they worked because
the the level of innovation is extraordinary and not just in
Russia, by the way. No, I mean no.
And, and well, that's something I'd like to to get your thoughts
(33:43):
on. I mean, one thing is it's, it's
not the, the sort of innovation that our industry minister is is
usually encouraging us all to pursue, but.
But it is if, if I can interruptyou, David, it's, it's almost
reflective of, of the way the, the, the, the shadow economy
works or the criminal side of the economy.
(34:06):
So the, the official economy works according to certain
processes and, and there is innovation, but the shadow
economy, the, the, the, the, theeconomy that exists illegally,
you see phenomenal innovation there by, by the shady
characters who are involved withit.
And one almost has to in a perverse way respected for her
(34:29):
innovative they are. Obviously they should be, they
should, they should be put in gaol and all the rest of it.
But there is enormous innovationthere.
And similarly, there is enormousinnovation in in grey zone
aggression, which is the sort ofthe geopolitical version of of
the shadow economy, if you will.Yeah, no, I, I, I know the
feeling. And, and, and I, I get your
(34:50):
point about about the perverse admiration.
I sometimes think what kind of sick SOB actually came up with
this. But it's, it's, but the, the
ingenuity can be, can be really quite astounding.
And again, it goes back to that,that point you made at the start
about just how difficult it is for, for, for legitimate
authorities following the rule of law to actually keep up with
(35:13):
it. You did mention, you know, the
innovation, not just Russia. Just tell me a little bit about
the, the, I guess the country's involved.
I mean, we, we, you know, we know Russia, we know Iran most
obviously. Are there, are there others?
And is it a case, I mean, is Russia kind of led the way on
this? Have they written the textbook
as as they often have in the past and and say Iran and
(35:33):
potentially others are learning from it?
So when it when it comes to gig workers or disposable agents,
Russia seems to be leading the pack.
Iran seems to be part of it as well.
They are the two leaders there. But it within graze and
(35:54):
aggression, the field is much wider.
So a country like Belarus, for example, instrumentalized
weaponization of migration against against Europe.
And it did it for its own particular reasons in, in
coordination with Russia, but itwas done by Belarus.
(36:14):
And that was the first time we had seen weaponisation of
migration to the that level within Europe.
And it's, it continues to this day.
And it's not just the, the, the,the first step of, of bringing
the migrants to the border. So issuing visas so people come
come to Belarus, then helping them get to the border, border
(36:37):
of borders of Poland, Latvia andLithuania, but then also
allowing them to get to get right to the fences.
And now that these countries have now built along their
borders that that didn't used tobe an offences, now their
offences. And recently we saw for example,
one of these migrants stabbing aPolish border guard to death.
(37:00):
So he stuck a knife through thatfence and stabbed the border
guard to death. Now that is a new, a new spin or
twist on the weaponization of migration.
It's not just that the fact thatthese people arrive and, and,
and, and the the countries on the other side of the board that
then have to figure out what to do.
(37:20):
It's also the fact that somebody, a worker, an employee
of the Polish state has lost hislife as a result of his now
nature always says we defend every inch, every square inch of
NATO territory. Well, it was a NATO territory
that the man, the the bodyguard died defending Polish territory.
So it raises the question, is this something an an incident to
(37:44):
which NATO should respond, giventhat it was definitely within
Polish territory? Yeah, OK.
And again, putting, putting the difficult questions in the mind
of the defendant there is a, is a very, very powerful tactic.
I mean your that that idea of the weaponization of of
immigration and and just the extreme case that it reached
(38:06):
there I suppose goes to the goesto the broader question That is
I guess at the heart of what we're talking about here.
And I, I, I did have in my mind that I might go into different
examples, but I'm just consciousof the time.
And perhaps we could, we can sort of start to wrap it up by,
by, I'd like to get your reflections on this idea that,
(38:26):
that, that global connectivity is introducing new
vulnerabilities. Whilst, you know, obviously, you
know, we, we, we want all of theupsides of it.
And you know, migration, I guessthe movement of people around
the world is, is 1 instance thatmigration has all sorts of
wonderful upsides to it. It enriches our societies, it
(38:48):
strengthens our economies and, and, and all these sorts of
things. But it also gives rise in some
cases when abused to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to risks and,
and vulnerabilities in, in countries.
And, and when it's deliberately used as a tool in the way that
(39:10):
you're talking about with Belarus.
That's, that's an instance wherethe, the where, where growing
global connectivity actually becomes a vulnerability.
I mean, a couple of other examples that I think of are,
you know, threats to the connectivity itself.
(39:31):
So for instance, our, the globalnetwork of communications and,
and, and information that we have means there are an ever
expanding range of, of cables lying across the sea floor.
And, and cutting those and actually cutting off a country's
access to information is, is potentially a, a, a, a really
(39:51):
powerful way to, to hurt it. You know, trade has grown in, in
recent decades to the point now where we have sort of certain
dependencies either as, as importers of, of critical goods
or, you know, exporters in the case of Australia with China,
you know, some of our key commodities, you know, we were,
(40:12):
we, we still rely very, very heavily on one destination for
those. And that gives us, that gives
China some power over us as it as it very much demonstrated a
few years ago. The risk of my waffling on for
another minute or two, perhaps you could just give me some sort
of overarching thoughts on, on that sort of thesis that that
(40:33):
there are, you know, all these different ways that connectivity
are connectivity is, is creatingnew risks.
And, and I suppose what what I mean, how do you see that moving
forward as we become ever more connected into the into the 21st
century? Yeah, well, so it's, it's, it's
funny you should ask because I'mjust now finishing my book
(40:56):
about, about cables coming up next year, undersea war.
And, and it is extraordinary, really.
So cables have existed since the1850s.
So it's, it's not, they are not an expression of, of, of, of
modern economies. But what they have done is
(41:18):
explode, as it were in the past 3 1/2 decades, because the
Internet was invented, which meant that we, we could, we then
needed connectivity much, much, much, much more.
Meaning we needed lots more cables.
Before that it was, it was, it was telephone, Telegraph cables
(41:38):
where we don't talk on phone that much, not even not even
then. But now we need these cables
every second of every day, everywhere, and if you are cut
off, as happened to the residents of the Matzo Islands,
Taiwanese Islands, in February 2023, it is utter misery.
(42:00):
And I have conducted a mental exercise for myself of trying to
spend one hour without any sort of Internet connectivity.
It is misery. And imagine so that's just a
personal, one person experiment.Well, imagine the effect on a
(42:23):
country if it were to be cut offfrom, it's from the rest of the
world. And it's not just, you know, the
fun of surfing the Internet, talking to people like I'm
talking to you now. It is the entire economy.
Virtually nothing is possible without these cables.
(42:45):
And by the way, it's not just data cables, it's also power
cables. And, and we need those to keep
electricity supply going to either between the mainland and
islands, within particular nations or between neighbouring
countries. It works so well.
(43:06):
But there too, the the taboo seems to have been broken, that
if you want to harm another country, you can target that
country's cables and it can be done with complete deniability.
Because with where the incidentshave taken place in in the past
(43:31):
three years or so, you can reasonably argue it was just an
accident. The targeted country can say, we
think it looks terribly suspicious, but the, the, the
crew on the vessel that hits thecable at any in, in any given
incident can say, oh, we didn't notice a thing.
(43:53):
And so as to target the country or affect the country, you look
once again, you look neurotic saying that you think there was
something that, that, that, thatit wasn't just a mere accident.
And the, the only thing that is that is for sure is that the
people in that country will be affected.
Fortunately, they haven't been affected as badly as as the
(44:16):
matter Islanders who lost all connectivity.
But that risk exists and the theeffect for the operators, the
owners of those cables is very real and and enormous.
They have to get the cables repaired, often an enormous
expense and and yet nobody acknowledges responsibility for
(44:42):
it. In some cases, captains of ships
have been put on trial and I think that will be an extremely
fascinating trend to follow if they, if they created.
One has been convicted in Taiwan.
Another, as we speak, is on trial in in Finland.
Right, right. It's really fascinating.
I mean, the, the, I mean, the need for resilience in that area
(45:05):
is just is, is clearly overwhelming.
It sounds like a great book and I think I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll
certainly keep an eye out for itand for the, for the audience's
benefit. I promise.
I didn't set that up. I honestly didn't know that
Elizabeth was writing that book,but that, that, that that worked
perfectly. I, I, so I suppose just a, a, a
final observation and, and, and you can, you can respond to it
(45:28):
as as much or as little as, as you want.
But the, I mean, the, the, the real dilemma for, for modern
states then. And I, I mean, you know, we're,
we're, we're, we're at the southern hinge of Asia,
obviously here in Australia. And you know, we, we, we follow
closely what, what goes on in Southeast Asia, in the Pacific
and these sorts of, you know, these neighbouring areas.
(45:51):
You know, one of the big, I suppose determinations of, of,
of a lot of states in our part of the world are, is, is
digitisation. And that, you know, the, the
absolute need for digitisation both to, to deliver as
governments to, to the citizens and also to, to, to, to empower
and turbocharge their economies.But you know, the buggers
(46:11):
dilemma for them now is, is, is that that that vulnerability
grows as you digitise your nation.
You can't not do it because thenyou're going to fall behind and
you become a potentially, you know, just a, a, a, a backwater
of a, of a state or an economy. But but the more you do it, the,
the, the greater vulnerability you you bring on yourself,
unless we find, you know, sort of resilience based solutions
(46:33):
to, to to these sorts of dilemmas.
Exactly, exactly. And, and which country would
say, well, let's let's just not be so dependent on the digital
economy. No policy maker would say that.
And no policy maker, by the way,would tell people to use the
Internet less because the only, the only way we can reduce our
(46:54):
dependence on these cables is tofor us all to use the Internet
less. Well, which policy maker would,
would, would make that case and,and to, to any voters they, they
want to be able to watch cat videos, make digital payments.
Digital payments and, and, and other sort of necessary
functions of, of the modern economy are, I think completely,
(47:15):
completely defensible. But we also use the Internet for
a lot of of just silly reasons along the lines of, of cat
videos. But no policy maker would tell
the countries, well his or her voters or the the general public
that please use the Internet less so that we are not as
dependent on these cables. It's you are not going to win
(47:38):
any election. No, no, absolutely, absolutely.
And that's before AI by the way.I mean it's you know, this is
going to compound by by orders of magnitude, I think over the
next 1020, thirty years as as AIbecomes integrated more heavily
into into all countries. And again, you know, if you
don't do it, then you're going to you're going to lose out and
fall behind. All right, Elizabeth, look,
(48:00):
thank you. Yeah, thanks.
Thanks so much for your time. We've really, we covered the gig
economy for bad guys really, really thoroughly there.
And I'm so pleased that we got to, we got to touch on your your
new topic. I mean, you write and speak on
so many different areas. You're a real, you're a real
multi talent. So thanks for coming on and and
(48:21):
it was a great chat. I appreciate it.
Thank you, it was my pleasure. Hope you enjoyed that, folks.
We'll be back next week with another episode of Stop the
World.
Stop the world. Welcome to STOP THE WORLD.
I'm David Rowe. And I'm Olivia Nelson.
This week Australia made international headlines live as
you saw when it revealed Iran had directed at least two anti
Semitic attacks in Australia using local criminals as
proxies. And while this is new for
Australia, if it's a growing pattern that we've seen in
(00:22):
Europe where Russia and to some extent Iran as well have been
using the tactic of hiring what are in effect gig workers to
carry out such operations as sabotage against other
countries. He has been a significant week
Dave, and this is actually the first time since the end of the
Second World War that Australia has expelled an ambassador.
The additional concern about Iran's interference was the
(00:42):
assessment that it was seeking to stoke division within
Australian society. Both the use of proxies and the
attempt to undermine social cohesion are well known hybrid
threat activities. And today's guest Elizabeth
Brawl is an expert on hybrid threats.
She's written extensively on this kind of malign activity and
it's coined the the term disposable agents to describe
these gig workers. They're cheap, readily
(01:04):
available, and can be used once and then discarded with at least
some degree of deniability for the for the state directing the
operations. Yeah, and it's all enabled by
modern connectivity. So encrypted messaging apps,
social media, cryptocurrency. Tick, tick, tick.
Elizabeth is a senior Fellow with the with the Sorry Atlantic
(01:24):
Council's Transatlantic SecurityInitiative.
In this it is in the Scowcroft Centre for Strategy and
Security. She writes widely, including in
Politico, The Times and Foreign Policy.
She's the author of several books, including Goodbye
Globalisation, The Defender's Dilemma and God's Spies.
And she's got a new one coming out soon on subsea cables called
The Undersea War. And that phrase, the Defenders
(01:46):
dilemma, is very relevant here because Elizabeth goes into the
way that hybrid warfare is deliberately asymmetric and puts
the burden of finding a responsevery much on the victim.
She calls it geopolitical gaslighting, which is another
great phrase. Elizabeth also explains the
benefits and tactics of using disposable agents, the purposes
of sabotage to interfere in other countries and their
politics, and on wider issues ofglobal connectivity, and
(02:10):
particularly the subject of her new book on subsea cables.
Yep, she's got a a knack for coining great phrases.
It was great chat. Let's hear from Elizabeth Braw.
Hope you enjoy it. Welcome to STOP the WORLD.
I'm here with Elizabeth Braw. Elizabeth, thanks for coming on.
Thank you. So we want to talk today about
(02:32):
connectivity and the the range of threats and vulnerabilities
that it introduces. Obviously the way we're ever
more connected, we have expanding connectivity across a
whole range, range of, of forms.This lifts our standard of
living. It provides us all sorts of
opportunities. But at the same time it means
that there are new vulnerabilities and threats
emerging all the time. And we'll, we'll talk about how
(02:54):
that manifests. But the first example that I
really want to spend some time on is this idea of the, of a gig
economy for troublemakers in theway that malign states are
drawing on this well pool of talent in inverted commas.
You wrote a, a great piece aboutthis in Politico a few months
ago in which you, you used the term disposable agents.
(03:15):
It was a really, really useful term and, and, and very
suitable. And as I say, it's timely for
this conversation because as youknow, the Australian government
expelled the Iranian ambassador this week after discovering that
Iranian Revolutionary Guards hadbeen behind A at least two arson
(03:36):
attacks with anti Semitic purposes to to sow division and
and undermine social cohesion. And they used these sorts of
proxies or disposable agents to carry out these attacks.
You know, it's not even clear completely whether the, whether
the perpetrators knew that they were ultimately working on on
behalf of the, the Iranian regime.
(03:57):
But I think that's, that's unclear at the moment.
But anyway, it's a fascinating case.
So I want to sort of talk a little bit about this issue
because you're, you're clearly the right person to, to discuss
it with. Perhaps we can, we can start
with a question of, of why. I mean, why do Iran, Russia in,
in the case of Europe, probably others as well, use these
disposable gig workers and what are the what are the main
(04:19):
upsides compared with using say more traditional methods of
interfering in another country? There are so many upsides and I
have to say it's now that now that it's beginning to happen or
that now that it's happening widely, I'm asking myself why,
why it hasn't been happening before?
Because it's, it's, it makes so much sense if you are a country
(04:41):
or a regime trying to destabilise another country to
do it this way in addition to other ways, obviously.
But by doing it this way, you, you cause physical harm.
So to whatever the installation is, whether it's a company, a
piece of infrastructure, you 'cause that, that damage.
(05:05):
And we have seen a range of, of companies targeted from a
massive shopping mall, a mall inPoland to, to parcel bombs being
deposited at DHL facilities or DHL locations in, in, in
(05:26):
different places in Europe. So you can cause physical damage
and obviously fear among the people working there, even if if
the damage, the physical damage is limited.
But then you also cause fear across society because people
feel that that anybody can strike any.
(05:46):
And clearly they will tell themselves the government is not
capable of preventing this from happening.
But why is it not capable of preventing this from happening?
Because the people perpetrating it can be anyone.
And that's what another reason makes so much sense.
So in the past, hostile states have used essentially people
(06:10):
affiliated with them for a long time to do whatever they needed
to get done. And that was essentially
intelligence gathering. So you would have sleeper
agents, you would have people who were ideologically
affiliated with that country would would essentially spy for
them over years. But this is different.
This is a way of causing harm. And the people who 'cause that
(06:34):
harm are not affiliated with that regime, whether it's
Russia, Iran or any other country for a long time, they
come in, they do 1 gig as it were, and then they fade back
into society. So it can be anyone, anyone
needing a bit of money, which iswhy we have seen a lot of young
people conducting the OR perpetrating these attacks.
(06:56):
Here in the UK, for example, three young men were just
convicted of such an attack on behalf of Russia.
And the way they are recruited is a result of the way we Live
Today, which is that there are social media platforms, apps
(07:16):
where Russian officials or any other officials can essentially
connect with with these people. They can offer a gig and then
the person carries out that gig,takes a photo just like any
other. Any other worker in in our
modern economist takes a photo of, of whatever it is that has
been accomplished. Just like the delivery guy takes
(07:38):
a photo when he has delivered a parcel to your door and they,
they take a photo, send it back to, to whoever commissioned
them, they get paid and that's it.
How are our government supposed to be able to, to identify these
people before it happens? It's almost impossible.
That that's it's fascinating andlook, let's stick with the
process for a moment because that's a really interesting part
(08:02):
of it. And a couple of things come to
mind for me. I mean, encrypted messaging apps
are obviously a a key tool. It's a, it's a way for them to
communicate, but how might they typically find these gig workers
in the 1st place? I mean, are there, are there,
are there sites, are there dark websites, something like this
where people advertise their, you know, their, their quote
unquote talents? And, and in terms of the
(08:23):
payment, I mean, is it is that, is that, is that a way for, for
authorities to at least potentially track it after it
happens? I mean, is, is cryptocurrency
typically involved or is it, arethey, are they just, are they
just ways of paying without, without it being easy to trace?
Just talk a bit more about the process.
Yes. So it's essentially like the the
(08:47):
legally functioning gig economy,but but a parallel gig economy
where everything is a bit more opaque, obscure and obviously
illegal. So we are not exactly sure of of
every detail. Obviously the, the people
involved in it on, on, on the Russian side and other hostile
(09:08):
states do it precisely so that it can remain hidden.
But but what we do know is that,as you said, they initiate the
contact on, on messaging apps, social media, but then it moves
to, it usually moves them to encrypted apps where they can
(09:31):
carry out the, the, you know, the actual, the actual
organisation or commissioning of, of the deed.
And then As for the payment, this is another the reason that
that cryptocurrencies are so often subversive to our society
is because in the past, as as weall know, it was relatively easy
(09:55):
for the police, for law enforcement authorities to track
payments. But with, with crypto, it's just
so much harder. But it's it's not completely
impossible to to trace these, totrace the hostile state
connections of, of the perpetrators.
For example, in the case of of the UK arson attack, the the
(10:17):
three men who were just convicted, they were convicted
of the attack and the investigators also managed to
establish that they had been commissioned by Russia.
The same thing was true with thearson attack against the the
massive shopping mall mall in Poland several months ago.
(10:39):
Last year, 2024, the investigators also managed to
establish that they had been commissioned by Russia.
The perpetrators had been commissioned by Russia.
So it is possible. It's just so much harder.
And, and again, because the connection between the
perpetrators and the commissioning state is so
fleeting, it's just a very momentary interaction and
(11:01):
obviously not even a personal interaction.
It's so much harder than than itused to be back in the day,
finding people spying for, for ahostile country.
We are talking, we were talking about years long associations
and now it's it's a a minute long association or a few days,
but very, very limited. OK, All right.
(11:25):
Tell us a bit about the sort of range of jobs that are carried
out using this particular vector.
I mean, the the the examples we've talked about so far, I
mean, arson is a, is a typical 1.
So I mean it's sabotage basically it's state on state
sabotage there. How far does it go?
I mean, are diasporas targeted? Are political opponents targeted
(11:46):
or and, and has it gone up to asfar as cases of murder or
assassination? I mean, I think back to, you
know, the, the last case that wemight think of in the UK that
was very, very high profile where where trained agents where
where trained officers were used.
And that was the, of course, thethe Skripal poisoning using
Novichok, a clear assassination attempt and it and it with
(12:10):
deadly consequences ultimately. But I mean, are those sorts of
tasks being given to these freelancers?
So what's the, the cases that have been proven so far have
been cases of, of sabotage. So arson, parcel bombs and a
(12:34):
really cunning case. In Germany just before the
election, there was a combination of sabotage and,
and, and election interference, which was that all of a sudden
cars were car owners found that that cars, the exhaust pipes had
been blocked. And so obviously that that
rendered their cars unusable. And we're talking about dozens
(12:58):
and dozens and dozens of cars. And and not only had the exhaust
pipes been blocked, there were stickers on those cars with a
photo of Robert Habeck, who was then the leader of the Greens
vice chancellor. This was just the head of the
election. And the sticker said vote Green.
So it seemed seemed like fanatical supporters of the
(13:23):
Green Party had been targeting German drivers, car owners with
this message to vote for the Greens.
Now the Greens were very supportive, very vocal in their
support of Ukraine in, in since have been since the invasion of
(13:44):
Ukraine, Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
So that happened. Then German police discovered
almost accidentally that the perpetrators were not were not
green activists. It was just some ordinary 3 or 4
ordinary guys and they had been doing it.
(14:05):
They had been commissioned by Russia.
And what's the the German investigators discovered was
there had been a down payment bythe agent who commissioned them.
So you know, to do it and then pro pro pro peace payment.
So a payment for each car that they sabotaged.
Quite clever. But that's that's the range who
(14:26):
I've seen so far. But you can continue to innovate
in this space. There is nothing limiting the,
the, the, the, the, the commissioning party, as it were,
from just commissioning whateverthey'd like to to get done.
Because if, if you are somebody who, who is, well, if, if you
are one of these potential agents, you're not going to say,
(14:48):
well, I'm only going to do arson.
I'm only going to sabotage cars.You you look at what's available
and and if you fancy doing it, you might do it.
Yeah, yeah. And presumably if the price is
right, then there are, there arecertainly, I mean there are
certain people in any country that you can find who are, who
are prepared to carry out any kind of attack.
So it's it's quite easy to see these sorts of things in
(15:09):
escalating and yeah. Indeed, and that's why, for
example, that the head of MI 5 in the UK and other senior
security officials have have highlighted or pointed out that
Russia and other states seem increasingly interested in
working with organised crime in our countries.
(15:30):
And, and I think that's that's because members of of organised
crime groups are, let's say, more experienced in the more
advanced forms of, of crime thatmay be your average teenager may
not be able to perpetrate. No, sure, but there's.
So Mike Burgess, the head of ASIO in this country, described
it as, I think, a layer cake, anexpanding layer cake.
(15:50):
So clearly there were several steps of disassociation between
the, the Rev guards in Iran and the people who actually carried
out the, the arson attacks here in Australia.
And I think I, I, I'm, I'm making inferences here, but it,
it, you know, it seems that organised crime was one of the
(16:11):
links is that, is that typical that they, you know, the, the,
the foreign intelligence officers looking to create
trouble in another country will go to something like organised
crime as a starting point. And then they will find the
lower level people, you know, foot soldiers there on the
(16:33):
ground. And, and so you get sort of
these several layers of of separation between the ultimate
puppeteers and the people who actually carry out the stuff on
the ground. That doesn't seem to to always
be the case. And I think the reason for that
is that if you associate yourself as a hostile state, if
(16:53):
you associate yourself with a with a with with a criminal
gang, then it it that gang is known to the authorities.
It it makes it easier for the authorities to to to spot and
trace. Whereas if if you just
Commission any old citizen obscure or unknown to the
(17:14):
authorities, then it's just muchharder for for the authorities
to have that person on their radar before the before they
they act. Yeah, interesting.
I mean, this is, this might be aleap on my part, but I mean, it
actually reminds me in terms of the, from the perspective of the
authorities here, it almost reminds me of lone wolf
radicalised, you know, ideological perpetrators that,
(17:35):
you know, the, the difficulty for the, for the authorities is
precisely the sort of randomness, the, the, the lack
of previous association with anykind of, you know, criminal or
extremist enterprise. These people who are sort of
self radicalised, they, you know, a bit like the, the, the
perpetrators that you're talkingabout here.
They they from the authority's point of view, they essentially
(17:57):
sort of pop out of nowhere. They do and they pop out of an
even bigger nowhere than than lone wolf radicals because they,
they don't even, they don't evenneed that sort of learning curve
of, of understanding the, the ideology, whatever it is that
that has radicalised them. It's just a A1 off thing without
any emotional ideological attachment.
(18:21):
It's just, it's just a commercial transaction.
OK, what about the downsides of this?
I mean, obviously they are amateurs.
I presume there have been cases where it's been almost sort of
clown like in its, in its ineptitude.
I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm just guessing, I haven't followed all
of the, the examples. And obviously Europe seems to be
the, the sort of testing ground for a lot of this.
(18:43):
I mean, there are a lot of casescarried out by Russia in Europe.
I'm aware that Iran as well. I think has, has, has been
involved in Europe, including inyour native Sweden, I believe,
and to some extent in the, the UK as well.
Anyway, I'm sorry, I'm, I'm, I'mgoing off on tangents a bit
there, but what, what are the downsides of using these sorts
of amateurs over, say, trained professionals?
(19:05):
And are, are there specific tasks that are that, that, that,
say the Gru are happy to give toamateurs that they wouldn't give
to professions? Like if it's a serious job do
you do they still tend to to usetheir own trained people?
Well, the, the, the first obvious downside is that you
don't know what you're going to get.
(19:26):
So you don't know how, how skilled you're the, the, the,
the gig worker you've commissioned is at the, the task
that you've commissioned. Which is why I think for, for
these, for the, for the easier, the easier, the, the gig workers
are used for easier tasks. If you want to assassinate
Sergei Skripal, you're not goingto just sign up any, any, any,
(19:48):
any young teenager, any, any teenager.
It's, it's, that has to be a real professional and somebody
with the, with the proper association with your service or
your organisation. But so the downside is it may
not be carried out to perfection.
But then if it's arson, if it's handing off a parcel bomb.
(20:12):
It's it's not that complicated and actually it doesn't really
matter whether it's carried out to perfection.
In the case of the parcel bombs,it was obviously an extreme,
extremely fortunate that that the, the, the bombs were
detected before they could go off.
They could have caused loss of human life.
(20:34):
It would have been a disaster ifif that had been successful.
But the the act of dropping off these bombs is not particularly
difficult. So the downside is that you may
not get the perfectly executed deed, but it doesn't really
matter whether it's perfectly executed.
What matters is that it causes fear in the targeted in the
(20:57):
country are trying to target andit causes people to feel that
the authorities are not able to keep them safe.
And we should remember that is the social contract in our
Western countries, in our liberal democracies, the
government, we we hand over power to the government through
elections and the government in exchange looks after certain
(21:21):
aspects of society for us, including external and internal
security. So that we don't have to arm
ourselves in in some sort of prepper style or malicious
style, that that is a social contract.
If people get the idea that our authorities are not able to look
after us, that that is a massivewin for the other side.
(21:43):
And the other upside, Well, I should say the first downside is
it may not be perfectly executed, but actually it
doesn't matter much. The other downside is that you
look like a rogue state. If you, if you target or seek to
harm other countries by using essentially crime and even
(22:04):
organised crime, then you look like a pretty unattractive,
unappealing country. You look like a rogue state.
But Russia, for example, is a country that has already crossed
the Rubicon. And so it, it, it doesn't, it
doesn't care whether it's seen as as a rogue state, whether
(22:24):
it's seen as a, a disreputable country or regime.
It it has already made that choice.
And that paradoxically makes it or gives Russia and any other
country of, of of the same nature gives them an
extraordinary freedom to carry out precisely these kinds of
(22:48):
attacks because they, they can'tbe shamed into improving their
behaviour. They don't they it's it's not
embarrassing for them to be found out as having commissioned
deeds like these. It's it's, it's frightening.
I mean, 11 might almost dare to suggest that stricter sanctions
(23:11):
and and stronger punishment against Moscow for its wide
range of malign behaviour might be in order.
But anyway, that's unfortunatelyI'm not in charge of that, that
that situation. But presumably though, I mean,
the deniability is part of the part of the appeal.
I mean, like you say, I mean, Russia doesn't seem to care at
this point. They've got nothing left to lose
in terms of their global reputation.
(23:31):
But but four other states, I don't know.
I mean, Iran, Iran, how much Iran cares at the moment is also
AI. Suppose a is a bit is dubious,
but but deniability is. Is that part of the actual
appeal of using these? You know, especially when
there's there's several layers of of of disassociation.
(23:54):
It is. And so the, the, the targeted
state may say we discovered thatRussia was behind it or it may
say we suspect that Russia is behind or another country.
But if, if Russia or Russian agents didn't actually
perpetrate the deed or whatever the country is, you have in mind
(24:16):
whatever that country is. If you can't established that
their agents, that country's agents perpetrated the, it
almost doesn't matter that you say, oh, we think there, there
is a link. We think they commissioned it.
So what are you going to do about it?
You are not going to be able to arrest any agents for having
done it. They are not in your country.
(24:37):
That's why they use, that's another reason they they use
these disposable agents. And so you almost look a little
bit, a little bit crazy as the target of the country.
If you say, oh, Russia was behind me, yeah, you can say
that all you want, but there areno Russian agents or, or, or
(24:57):
whatever the country is that that's that perpetrate that
thing. So you, you, you end up really
looking crazy. You and I often think of of, of
grey zone aggression, of which this is part as as gaslighting,
geopolitical gaslighting. So the, the, the targeted
country knows that something is happening and it tries to
(25:20):
articulate that it's happening, but the other country can say,
oh, it's just in your mind. And we're seeing that in so many
different iterations, including the use of of of disposable
agents. Yeah, yeah.
And so I mean, obviously cyber attacks are the classic example
of the ones that are very, very difficult to have that
attribution to a level that a country feels comfortable at
(25:43):
naming the perpetrator. But I mean, this, the the same
is true here. And the same is true of all
sorts of sort of hybrid and greyzone type activity, which comes
back to to to one of the motivations for for doing it.
It's an interesting one in, I mean, obviously, I mean Tehran
has has responded with House of outrage about, about Australia's
overreaction and blah, blah, blah.
(26:04):
But but in the case of, I mean, it's, it's, it's ASIO
intelligence that has actually established this.
And obviously the government andASIO are not going to go into
any kind of detail about what proof they actually have.
And so we're in my view, perfectly, perfectly reasonably
trusting our government and our intelligence agency on this.
(26:26):
But in the case of Iran, it's pretty easy for the government
to, to attribute and impose the,you know, the strong diplomatic
response that they have, which was to, to, to turf out the
ambassador. But if it were another country,
I mean, notably one like China, for instance, which and I, and
(26:48):
I, I don't know whether China issome is known to have been using
these, these sorts of activitiesin any significant way.
But, you know, the government would have a much longer
conversation with itself, I think if if it were the case
with China, because that's obviously a diplomatic
relationship that we're looking to preserve as much as possible,
less the case with Iran. But it puts that, I mean it, it
(27:08):
means that it's the, it's the defender that's having to
actually go through that agonising conversation with
itself, which again sort of works in the favour of the
perpetrator. It really does.
It really does. And we have seen this across so
many different iterations of of greys and aggression.
(27:29):
So disposable agents are just the latest innovation to arrive
with within wider greys and aggression, but within every
category of of this really quiteunpalatable form of of
aggression below the threshold of our military violence, the
the targeted country has faces the same dilemma each time.
(27:54):
How do we respond other than than pointing out that something
has happened and can we retaliate?
But in order to retaliate, we would need to to ascertain
beyond reasonable doubt that a particular country is behind it.
And even if we manage to do that, how do we retaliate?
We are not going to to use the same means against that country.
(28:19):
But well, in that case, what means are available to us?
We are not going to use the sameshady means that they use, use
of forms of aggression that theyuse against us.
We're not going to to recruit agents to to deliver parcel
bombs to airliners in their countries because they do that
to us. That's not who we are.
But what other means do we have available in the cases that
(28:43):
where we do manage to establish beyond reasonable doubt that
hostile state was involved? So it really is the defender's
dilemma every single time. And and we try to name and shame
that doesn't work. If that country has crossed the
Rubicon of, of, of from respectable to this reputable
(29:03):
country, what what other tools are available?
And that's, that's the dilemma that in which our governments
find themselves each time and, and one of these acts happen and
and that's increasingly often. Yeah, Yeah.
It's so unfair, isn't it? It's, it's so unfair.
We it is, God damn it. We we can't win.
(29:23):
All we can do is not lose as much as possible.
You've talked in terms of the strategic purposes of this.
I mean, you've, you've talked a bit about sabotage, you know,
creating fear, creating mistrustin the ability of the
authorities under that social contract that you talked about
(29:44):
to, to keep us safe, to protect us.
In the case with this Australiansituation, I mean, the, the, the
way the government described it was to sow division and
undermine social cohesion. I mean, obviously it came after
October 7, not, I mean not immediately, but but in that
(30:04):
period in which, you know, you know, sensitivities around all
related issues were extremely heightened.
It was, it was sort of shocking in Australia to see something as
as significant as the fire bombings of of a synagogue and A
and a kosher cafeteria. The, the level of sort of
(30:26):
sophistication, I suppose, in the range of strategic
objectives that the malign perpetrators tend to have.
I mean, how, how complex, how sophisticated have you seen them
as, as being and, and is this AImean, I guess, playing into a
(30:48):
specific, very acute, sensitive political situation, as was the
case here? I mean, it was pretty, it was
pretty well targeted and pretty well delivered.
I mean, I'm, you know, not, I say that with obviously no
admiration, but to, to poke a particular zone and create a
particular form of, of public emotive response.
(31:12):
Is that normal or is it tend to be a bit more kind of
scattergun? OK, let's just freak the
Europeans out with a whole bunchof, of, of parcel bombings and
and arson attacks and these sorts of things.
So you, you get activities across the board.
Some seem really random and maybe not that well thought out.
(31:34):
Some are, are really quite sophisticated and, and who or
what, whom or what they target and how they are executed.
But, but the point is that you can, you can afford to, to, to
to experiment a bit and, and different countries work in
(31:54):
different ways. So Iran may be more focused on
on particularly sophisticated operations, whereas Russia may
may use the watering can principle and, and sort of just
try different things and and seewhat works.
And if it doesn't, if it's not particularly successful, then no
harm done because we are not going to retaliate.
(32:17):
We as to target the country. So but what we have seen in
recent years is phenomenal innovation.
I remember when, when grey zone aggression was just a few years
ago when it was mostly about cyber disinformation and then
the occasional assassination attempt and targeting of
(32:38):
diaspora groups, that was basically it.
And in recent years, the past three years or so, we have just
seen phenomenal innovation wherea new iteration of grey zone
aggression appears almost on a, on a monthly or even weekly
basis. And if I knew who the
(33:01):
individuals were in the Kremlin,for example, who are in charge
of doing this, I would love to know how, how they how they plot
this. Do they sit down and say, well,
let's look at this particular country, this particular sector,
or do they just work independently in the different
agencies? I would love to know how that
works. Maybe when this, this, whatever
(33:22):
it is, Cold War, new Cold War isover.
I would love to go back to, to the Kremlin plotters and the
planners, I should say, and and find out how they worked because
the the level of innovation is extraordinary and not just in
Russia, by the way. No, I mean no.
And, and well, that's something I'd like to to get your thoughts
(33:43):
on. I mean, one thing is it's, it's
not the, the sort of innovation that our industry minister is is
usually encouraging us all to pursue, but.
But it is if, if I can interruptyou, David, it's, it's almost
reflective of, of the way the, the, the, the shadow economy
works or the criminal side of the economy.
(34:06):
So the, the official economy works according to certain
processes and, and there is innovation, but the shadow
economy, the, the, the, the, theeconomy that exists illegally,
you see phenomenal innovation there by, by the shady
characters who are involved withit.
And one almost has to in a perverse way respected for her
(34:29):
innovative they are. Obviously they should be, they
should, they should be put in gaol and all the rest of it.
But there is enormous innovationthere.
And similarly, there is enormousinnovation in in grey zone
aggression, which is the sort ofthe geopolitical version of of
the shadow economy, if you will.Yeah, no, I, I, I know the
feeling. And, and, and I, I get your
(34:50):
point about about the perverse admiration.
I sometimes think what kind of sick SOB actually came up with
this. But it's, it's, but the, the
ingenuity can be, can be really quite astounding.
And again, it goes back to that,that point you made at the start
about just how difficult it is for, for, for legitimate
authorities following the rule of law to actually keep up with
(35:13):
it. You did mention, you know, the
innovation, not just Russia. Just tell me a little bit about
the, the, I guess the country's involved.
I mean, we, we, you know, we know Russia, we know Iran most
obviously. Are there, are there others?
And is it a case, I mean, is Russia kind of led the way on
this? Have they written the textbook
as as they often have in the past and and say Iran and
(35:33):
potentially others are learning from it?
So when it when it comes to gig workers or disposable agents,
Russia seems to be leading the pack.
Iran seems to be part of it as well.
They are the two leaders there. But it within graze and
(35:54):
aggression, the field is much wider.
So a country like Belarus, for example, instrumentalized
weaponization of migration against against Europe.
And it did it for its own particular reasons in, in
coordination with Russia, but itwas done by Belarus.
(36:14):
And that was the first time we had seen weaponisation of
migration to the that level within Europe.
And it's, it continues to this day.
And it's not just the, the, the,the first step of, of bringing
the migrants to the border. So issuing visas so people come
come to Belarus, then helping them get to the border, border
(36:37):
of borders of Poland, Latvia andLithuania, but then also
allowing them to get to get right to the fences.
And now that these countries have now built along their
borders that that didn't used tobe an offences, now their
offences. And recently we saw for example,
one of these migrants stabbing aPolish border guard to death.
(37:00):
So he stuck a knife through thatfence and stabbed the border
guard to death. Now that is a new, a new spin or
twist on the weaponization of migration.
It's not just that the fact thatthese people arrive and, and,
and, and the the countries on the other side of the board that
then have to figure out what to do.
(37:20):
It's also the fact that somebody, a worker, an employee
of the Polish state has lost hislife as a result of his now
nature always says we defend every inch, every square inch of
NATO territory. Well, it was a NATO territory
that the man, the the bodyguard died defending Polish territory.
So it raises the question, is this something an an incident to
(37:44):
which NATO should respond, giventhat it was definitely within
Polish territory? Yeah, OK.
And again, putting, putting the difficult questions in the mind
of the defendant there is a, is a very, very powerful tactic.
I mean your that that idea of the weaponization of of
immigration and and just the extreme case that it reached
(38:06):
there I suppose goes to the goesto the broader question That is
I guess at the heart of what we're talking about here.
And I, I, I did have in my mind that I might go into different
examples, but I'm just consciousof the time.
And perhaps we could, we can sort of start to wrap it up by,
by, I'd like to get your reflections on this idea that,
(38:26):
that, that global connectivity is introducing new
vulnerabilities. Whilst, you know, obviously, you
know, we, we, we want all of theupsides of it.
And you know, migration, I guessthe movement of people around
the world is, is 1 instance thatmigration has all sorts of
wonderful upsides to it. It enriches our societies, it
(38:48):
strengthens our economies and, and, and all these sorts of
things. But it also gives rise in some
cases when abused to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to risks and,
and vulnerabilities in, in countries.
And, and when it's deliberately used as a tool in the way that
(39:10):
you're talking about with Belarus.
That's, that's an instance wherethe, the where, where growing
global connectivity actually becomes a vulnerability.
I mean, a couple of other examples that I think of are,
you know, threats to the connectivity itself.
(39:31):
So for instance, our, the globalnetwork of communications and,
and, and information that we have means there are an ever
expanding range of, of cables lying across the sea floor.
And, and cutting those and actually cutting off a country's
access to information is, is potentially a, a, a, a really
(39:51):
powerful way to, to hurt it. You know, trade has grown in, in
recent decades to the point now where we have sort of certain
dependencies either as, as importers of, of critical goods
or, you know, exporters in the case of Australia with China,
you know, some of our key commodities, you know, we were,
(40:12):
we, we still rely very, very heavily on one destination for
those. And that gives us, that gives
China some power over us as it as it very much demonstrated a
few years ago. The risk of my waffling on for
another minute or two, perhaps you could just give me some sort
of overarching thoughts on, on that sort of thesis that that
(40:33):
there are, you know, all these different ways that connectivity
are connectivity is, is creatingnew risks.
And, and I suppose what what I mean, how do you see that moving
forward as we become ever more connected into the into the 21st
century? Yeah, well, so it's, it's, it's
funny you should ask because I'mjust now finishing my book
(40:56):
about, about cables coming up next year, undersea war.
And, and it is extraordinary, really.
So cables have existed since the1850s.
So it's, it's not, they are not an expression of, of, of, of
modern economies. But what they have done is
(41:18):
explode, as it were in the past 3 1/2 decades, because the
Internet was invented, which meant that we, we could, we then
needed connectivity much, much, much, much more.
Meaning we needed lots more cables.
Before that it was, it was, it was telephone, Telegraph cables
(41:38):
where we don't talk on phone that much, not even not even
then. But now we need these cables
every second of every day, everywhere, and if you are cut
off, as happened to the residents of the Matzo Islands,
Taiwanese Islands, in February 2023, it is utter misery.
(42:00):
And I have conducted a mental exercise for myself of trying to
spend one hour without any sort of Internet connectivity.
It is misery. And imagine so that's just a
personal, one person experiment.Well, imagine the effect on a
(42:23):
country if it were to be cut offfrom, it's from the rest of the
world. And it's not just, you know, the
fun of surfing the Internet, talking to people like I'm
talking to you now. It is the entire economy.
Virtually nothing is possible without these cables.
(42:45):
And by the way, it's not just data cables, it's also power
cables. And, and we need those to keep
electricity supply going to either between the mainland and
islands, within particular nations or between neighbouring
countries. It works so well.
(43:06):
But there too, the the taboo seems to have been broken, that
if you want to harm another country, you can target that
country's cables and it can be done with complete deniability.
Because with where the incidentshave taken place in in the past
(43:31):
three years or so, you can reasonably argue it was just an
accident. The targeted country can say, we
think it looks terribly suspicious, but the, the, the
crew on the vessel that hits thecable at any in, in any given
incident can say, oh, we didn't notice a thing.
(43:53):
And so as to target the country or affect the country, you look
once again, you look neurotic saying that you think there was
something that, that, that, thatit wasn't just a mere accident.
And the, the only thing that is that is for sure is that the
people in that country will be affected.
Fortunately, they haven't been affected as badly as as the
(44:16):
matter Islanders who lost all connectivity.
But that risk exists and the theeffect for the operators, the
owners of those cables is very real and and enormous.
They have to get the cables repaired, often an enormous
expense and and yet nobody acknowledges responsibility for
(44:42):
it. In some cases, captains of ships
have been put on trial and I think that will be an extremely
fascinating trend to follow if they, if they created.
One has been convicted in Taiwan.
Another, as we speak, is on trial in in Finland.
Right, right. It's really fascinating.
I mean, the, the, I mean, the need for resilience in that area
(45:05):
is just is, is clearly overwhelming.
It sounds like a great book and I think I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll
certainly keep an eye out for itand for the, for the audience's
benefit. I promise.
I didn't set that up. I honestly didn't know that
Elizabeth was writing that book,but that, that, that that worked
perfectly. I, I, so I suppose just a, a, a
final observation and, and, and you can, you can respond to it
(45:28):
as as much or as little as, as you want.
But the, I mean, the, the, the real dilemma for, for modern
states then. And I, I mean, you know, we're,
we're, we're, we're at the southern hinge of Asia,
obviously here in Australia. And you know, we, we, we follow
closely what, what goes on in Southeast Asia, in the Pacific
and these sorts of, you know, these neighbouring areas.
(45:51):
You know, one of the big, I suppose determinations of, of,
of a lot of states in our part of the world are, is, is
digitisation. And that, you know, the, the
absolute need for digitisation both to, to deliver as
governments to, to the citizens and also to, to, to, to empower
and turbocharge their economies.But you know, the buggers
(46:11):
dilemma for them now is, is, is that that that vulnerability
grows as you digitise your nation.
You can't not do it because thenyou're going to fall behind and
you become a potentially, you know, just a, a, a, a backwater
of a, of a state or an economy. But but the more you do it, the,
the, the greater vulnerability you you bring on yourself,
unless we find, you know, sort of resilience based solutions
(46:33):
to, to to these sorts of dilemmas.
Exactly, exactly. And, and which country would
say, well, let's let's just not be so dependent on the digital
economy. No policy maker would say that.
And no policy maker, by the way,would tell people to use the
Internet less because the only, the only way we can reduce our
(46:54):
dependence on these cables is tofor us all to use the Internet
less. Well, which policy maker would,
would, would make that case and,and to, to any voters they, they
want to be able to watch cat videos, make digital payments.
Digital payments and, and, and other sort of necessary
functions of, of the modern economy are, I think completely,
(47:15):
completely defensible. But we also use the Internet for
a lot of of just silly reasons along the lines of, of cat
videos. But no policy maker would tell
the countries, well his or her voters or the the general public
that please use the Internet less so that we are not as
dependent on these cables. It's you are not going to win
(47:38):
any election. No, no, absolutely, absolutely.
And that's before AI by the way.I mean it's you know, this is
going to compound by by orders of magnitude, I think over the
next 1020, thirty years as as AIbecomes integrated more heavily
into into all countries. And again, you know, if you
don't do it, then you're going to you're going to lose out and
fall behind. All right, Elizabeth, look,
(48:00):
thank you. Yeah, thanks.
Thanks so much for your time. We've really, we covered the gig
economy for bad guys really, really thoroughly there.
And I'm so pleased that we got to, we got to touch on your your
new topic. I mean, you write and speak on
so many different areas. You're a real, you're a real
multi talent. So thanks for coming on and and
(48:21):
it was a great chat. I appreciate it.
Thank you, it was my pleasure. Hope you enjoyed that, folks.
We'll be back next week with another episode of Stop the
World.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.