Interview with Fulton Armstrong

Major media outlets have been reporting about “China spy bases” in Cuba. Their only source has been anonymous U.S. officials.

Belly of the Beast journalist Liz Oliva Fernández interviewed a former CIA analyst, Fulton Armstrong, to get his perspective on the claims that China is using Cuba to spy on the United States.

TRANSCRIPT

Liz Oliva Fernández:

Hi everyone, welcome. My name is Liz Oliva Fernández. And today we are going to be speaking with Fulton Armstrong. Professor Fulton is a pleasure having you here. Welcome to Belly of the Beast.

Could you please introduce yourself and share a little bit about your background?

Fulton Armstrong:

Right now an Adjunct professor at a couple of universities based here in Washington D.C. Former U.S. government official primarily in U.S. intelligence, but also with a number of years of experience in senior policy positions both in the executive and legislative branches.

Liz Oliva Fernández:

A few days ago the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington Think Tank published a report suggesting that there are Chinese spy bases in Cuba. What is your opinion of this report? 

Fulton Armstrong:

The report is an interesting compilation of rumors or old speculation, and things that represent an interesting series of campaigns here in Washington, including a really very serious escalation of efforts to try to target China by doing a variety of different things threatening to the United States.

The fact is the paper didn't present new information, and some of the information that it had presented was really incongruous with reality, such as the creation of certain facilities that have long existed.

So it seems to me to have been something where the authors were told, write a paper that demonstrates X, Y, or Z condemning China and Cuba for doing a form of collaboration or cooperation, and just throwing whatever evidence they could. Mostly speculation and rumor, and making it look good.

I think a more serious analytical paper would have said, there are these facilities. There's no evidence that the Chinese are present there. But let's take a look at what's going on.

Liz Oliva Fernández:

When you say that the story is not new. When did you first hear about these supposed  spy bases in Cuba?

Fulton Armstrong:

The Soviets had a rather large signals intelligence capability in Cuba during the Cold War.In fact, it was very much part of the Soviet presence. It was such a part of the Soviet presence that it was implicitly part of salt and start verification, such that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States had even said to the Russians, you know, you can keep this facility in Cuba if you want to, because it would help them with verification of the salt and start facilities.

So the presence of Sigint collection bases or facilities in Cuba is nothing new in this hemisphere. In the Chinese part, the rumors started back, maybe almost ten years ago. They started on Capitol Hill with political motivations. One particular Senate office pushed very hard in 2016 and 2017. There was no evidence, only purely circumstantial and politicized.

Last year there were some new leaks from supposed intelligence officials in Washington, none of whom identified, none of whom has been corroborated, by the United States government or anybody else, saying that there were these facilities. Some of which don't make much sense, such as that an old facility that the Soviets had is now being run by the Chinese, people who have gone and looked at the facility say: No, there's nothing there. And all of that. So these allegations and rumors and speculation have been out there for quite a while. But what we really need is a serious analytical look at what's there. Does it make sense for the Chinese to be doing that? Is there evidence that the Chinese are doing it, but also why would the Chinese be doing this when they could be doing similar collection more effectively, more economically from other places?

Liz Oliva Fernández:

Does China need Cuba to spy on the US?

Fulton Armstrong:

I'm not sure that I would accept the assertion that China needs Cuba to spy on the United States. China has many other means to do electronic intelligence collection. They, of course, have satellites. They, of course, have vessels.

They have a ground presence in the United States. They have an embassy. They have many people here. The technology of SIGINT collection today, based on the internet and based on satellite communications, does not require a base or as some of these reports, the Wall Street Journal report and the CSIS report have said they call them SIGINT or military bases.

Actually, the footprint that you need to collect SIGINT signals intelligence, in this day and age is not so extensive. If you've seen even what reporters are doing traveling all around the world with this extremely lightweight mobile collection capabilities, communications capabilities. The same things can be used for collection as well.

Liz Oliva Fernández:

Why these specific sites?

Fulton Armstrong:

One could speculate. Well, there are buildings there. There are facilities, there are antennas, there are parabolic equipment. And it would make sense that if they wanted to, that they would approach the Cuban government and say, hey, we would like to have a parabolic antenna instead of putting one on our embassy. Can we use one over there?

There are legitimate reasons, non espionage, if you will, reasons for countries to want to have antennas. They want to do satellite communications. They want to track satellites. They want to do space launches. You know, China just did a very big historic launch of sorts where they went to the dark side of the moon. And that requires very sophisticated technology and tracking gear. And things like that. 

Maybe there is some collaboration going on here, but the sort of sinister collaboration that the CSIs report has drawn out in, in its few pages, with its little overhead photographs and things like that, simply isn't borne out by the facts that they have presented.

Liz Oliva Fernández:

The CSIS report emphasizes a site near Santiago de Cuba called El Salao where there is supposedly a Circularly disposed antenna array, or CDAA. What is a CDAA and how important is it for modern signals intelligence?

Fulton Armstrong:

The silliness of the one facility out in, in Santiago is it's a Cold War era facility that would with these a circular array to pick up radio waves that are no longer used for communications and, frankly, more modern antenna, which the Chinese can afford and the Chinese can easily produce.

Liz Oliva Fernández:

I want to share with you the images, the b-roll that we get in Calabazar. 

Fulton Armstrong:

Yep. Very simple. Not very well maintained. No high-technology. And old and dirty parabolic. If you see Ivy growing on the polls those are old antennas.

That 's not. That's laughably old technology. I'm not an expert. Okay?

Liz Oliva Fernández:

Yeah 

Fulton Armstrong:

But that looks more like to send a signal rather than to receive a signal.

Liz Oliva Fernández:

This is Wajay.

Fulton Armstrong:

Those are old-fashioned long wave, medium wave, antennas. That looks like really old technology and it's sort of an insult to the Chinese. If you're going to say that you're going to say that this is the future of their Intel collection against the United States, and poorly maintained and very low security. 

Liz Oliva Fernández:

Yeah, that's something that calls my attention because they say that at Wajay the presence of the security fencing, two guard posts strongly suggest that this is a site for the military and all their sensitive activities and I just knocked the door and I will welcome a lady that is 80 years old.

Fulton Armstrong:

Wajay  there was security fencing and two guard posts. And they said that strongly suggests. I'm reading from it that the site was intended for military or other sensitive activities.

I'm sorry, military and sensitive activities you have more than security fencing and to guard posts.

Liz Oliva Fernández:

In Wajay, for example, another thing that caught my attention is that people are living  just nearby, next to the Campo de Antenas, just a wall between them and for me,  how is it possible that you're living so close. Is this normal? 

Fulton Armstrong:

Right. It would make no sense that you would have people living right next to these sensitive facilities. But that said I can't prove the negative. And I can't explain what those things are.

Liz Oliva Fernández:

Is it certain that these are SIGINT facilities?

Fulton Armstrong:

I believe that all of them have had some security function in the past. But security functions can signal intelligence. They can be communications broadcasts. Okay. For communicating with elements both military and security elements overseas. But they could also be radar facilities. But what their function is right now, I'm not qualified to say.

The beauty and of the cynicism of the CSIS report is that they have put analysts here in the United States or in Cuba in the untenable position of having to try to prove a negative. 

They've made a series of allegations based on very old and flimsy. And they admit, by the way, that a lot of it is rumor. They admit that. But they base their allegations and they make the allegations look very detailed and comprehensive. based on these flimsy old rumors and things like that. But then we can't then disprove them.

We can't say no, that doesn't exist. Because to prove a negative is almost impossible when you get into these gray areas of what's going on, especially in the intelligence world, especially when you get into a country's national security issues, it's very difficult for us to say, oh, no, it's not that.

Liz Oliva Fernández:

After looking at CSIs satellite imagery of these facilities. Did anything stand up to you?

Fulton Armstrong:

The overhead imagery that they're showing, is labeled already in a way that prejudices the interpretation of that imagery. And so that's a little bit unfair. In the Intel world where I grew up, that would be considered prejudice in your conclusions. That you're basically saying, here's a picture, this is a picture of a terrorist house. Tell me what's going on in this house. 

But the first question that the intelligence analysts should be saying is, is this a terrorist house? What is this house? And so they prejudice the whole thing. And if you're then like, you and me and like others that are looking at this issue, how do we then prove that negative. So we're in a very difficult situation analytically. 

But we can say looking at the inputs, looking at the manipulation of the inputs, looking at the presentation of the conclusions and the, frankly, the utter sloppiness of the conclusions, where you do could, could, could, and then you start saying, will, will, will. That's sloppy. And so that sort of sloppiness shows then what you're doing is you're writing to a preordained conclusion. You're not really doing analysis.

Liz Oliva Fernández:

In fact, the report emphasizes, there has been change and movement to the antennas over the time. But what does this have to do with China?

Fulton Armstrong:

That 's the problem. I bought a new computer and I installed the new computer in my home, and somebody wanted to, they could say, oh, well, you installed your computer because you're working for the Chinese, and the Chinese want you to have a better computer.

That's completely two different realities. Unless you can prove to me that there's a linkage. But what they're doing is they are assuming this is the analytical integrity problem with this report. They are assuming the linkages and therefore they say point A, point B, they assume the linkage. And then they say, you see there is point A and B shows that the Chinese are doing something.

When the Chinese build something, even if it's building like a stadium, a soccer stadium in Central America or schools, they always provide all of the materials and all of the labor themselves.

And so you would always see a place for their workers to be sleeping at night, to be eating. You'd see a little cafeteria, and you would be seeing the supplies neatly piled up nearby for them to do the construction. And when you look at the overhead imagery, even at the Salau facility and the Y and the Calabasas facility, you don't see any infrastructure rupture. That's typical of Chinese construction

Liz Oliva Fernández:

Are there any other possible explanations about what could be happening in these facilities?

Fulton Armstrong:

I would imagine that Cuba has an ongoing capital investment program for its facilities. What country does not? It probably also makes sense that when it wants to buy technology, that it cannot produce itself, that it would buy technology from China. Right? China produces a lot of affordable electronic technology. But that's far different from saying that China is running second bases out of China.

But I would also ask you, even if this CSIs report and the Wall Street Journal report and stuff in these anonymous sources that they claim or in the US intelligence community are correct, what are the real true implications?

What are they getting? What are these second sites getting from their Chinese, from their Cuban bases that they couldn't be getting inside the United States itself, or from satellites in space above the United States.

What's the real threat here? Or is it really? And opportunity for us to build another case against Cuba, another case against China, and to build up these very, aggressive policies that we have in place against these two countries.

Liz Oliva Fernández:

Was Cuba collecting signals intelligence before rumors of China's spy bases?

Fulton Armstrong:

I'm not sure how extensively Cuba was collecting against the continental United States. We know that they were collecting a lot of human intelligence because of cases that have become public.

But one of the problems with the CSIs paper is that they don't seem to understand that Cuba has a national security need, or certainly will argue that they have a national security right to collect second against the United States, because we have posed a threat to Cuban national security for many, many years.

You can't really fault Cuba for running radars, for running, you know, whatever electronic surveillance, they're running against the United States because we have represented a threat.

Liz Oliva Fernández:

Does Cuba represent a threat to the United States?

Fulton Armstrong:

I think it was established many, many years ago that Cuba does not represent a direct threat to the United States. There are some issues that we have to deal with bilaterally. The migration issue poses challenges. But a national security threat, something that would in some way affect the U.S. system. No.

At some point it is fair to look at the motivation behind the people. That is doing all of the hype for ventilation about what they're seeing or what they're claiming to be seeing in this situation. We have an industrial strength group of political operatives that find every opportunity they possibly can to keep the bilateral relationship off balance with allegations about things that Cuba has been doing  in their view.

When we look at the so-called sonic attacks or which later they changed into microwave attacks, it's now abundantly, massively, unchallengeable it's you just can't challenge it that Cuba had no role whatsoever in any, any health issues that any American diplomats had been suffering back in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 on Cuba, so-called support for terrorism and stuff. This has been on the books for 20 years. We've been looking for evidence of this, and it was abundantly clear that Cuba has not been supporting terrorism, but these allegations are kept alive by people who have a political interest.

Some of them have a pecuniary interest in keeping their relationship off balance because it's very profitable.

Millions of dollars are being devoted to finding dirt, creating dirt and assembling reports like this CSIs report, compiling allegations and making sensational scenarios about threats to the United States.