The Big Picture Behind the Discord Leaks

News organizations are still digging into what have come to be called the “Discord Leaks,” even as Airman Jack Teixeira remains in custody for having put classified material on the internet. 

The biggest findings include news about Egypt’s prospective role in supplying either Kyiv or Moscow with ammunition, Canada’s unwillingness to increase its defense budget, and American conclusions about Ukrainian military weakness.

One of the more consequential documents involved details of Russia’s efforts to disrupt the Starlink communications system that Ukraine has used to good effect since the beginning of the war. A week on, it’s time to start assessing how the discord leaks might affect policy, as well as how the US government can prevent similar leaks in the future.

Leaks of the Past

Of course, this isn’t the first big leak suffered by the US national security state. While leaks of this nature always make for big news, it’s more difficult to sort out their actual policy impact. Daniel Ellsberg’s leaks indicated direct government malfeasance, but arguably the Pentagon Papers leak was more of a consequence of elite discontent with the Vietnam War than a cause of a shift in attitudes towards the conflict.

The most notable enduring story of the Pentagon Papers leak is the failed effort of the Nixon administration to maintain their secrecy, part of a pattern of lawless overreach that eventually resulted in the Watergate break ins and cover-up. The impact of the Manning and Snowden leaks is similarly unclear. Chelsea Manning’s leaks of extensive diplomatic materials embarrassed the United States (although not fatally) but also opened up a world of diplomatic-speak which was illuminating for scholars, at least. Snowden’s revelations caused enormous political controversy in US political circles

Similarly, this leak seems unlikely to significantly change US policy. The leak confirmed that the United States is skeptical of the prospects of the Ukrainian spring offensive, that it is worrying about the enthusiasm of some of its allies, and that it has concerns about some specific military capabilities. None of these revelations are shocking, although they do confirm the suspicions of many observers. The leaks also seem unlikely to spark much political controversy in the United States, notwithstanding the efforts of Tucker Carlson and his ilk.

The Frustrations of Fighting Leakers

It’s hard to learn how to fight a war with new technology. It’s also hard to learn how to fight leaks with new technology. Jack Teixeira is a 21-year-old Air Force National Guard IT operator who had access to the classified documents by virtue of his technical responsibilities. While Teixeira was part of a group with mild right-wing tendencies, the leaks were not apparently motivated by high ideological concerns. That Teixeira had access to the files isn’t different in nature from a telephone switchboard operator learning secrets by listening to the phone calls of powerful men.

Thus, this leak didn’t happen because the war was unpopular, or because senior officials were hiding difficult truths from the public, or because a vast system of surveillance required darkness in order to operate properly. Like the Manning leak, it happened because the technical demands of computer systems required someone unsuited to a top clearance to have access to highly classified materials. This is a difficult problem to solve technically and theoretically; tightening up the points of leakage by restricting the extent of information diffusion can only go so far, because eventually the health of the information economy suffers.

Are Leaks a Disadvantage?

This gets us to the question of how catastrophic “leaking” can really be. One thing that the Teixeira Leaks demonstrated decisively is that both Russia and Ukraine are shot through with all manner of intelligence collection operations. The United States apparently has multiple means of monitoring the Russian intelligence community, and also keeps close tabs on Ukraine, Egypt, and presumably dozens of other friends and competitors.

The US is special, of course, in terms of its extensive collection capabilities, but it’s hardly the only government that collects intel. Indeed, given the expansive nature of modern technologies of surveillance, it doesn’t seem terribly likely that many governments will be able to keep ANYTHING of any importance secret from their friends or enemies.

Indeed, the biggest danger the Discord Leak might pose is to the US information economy.  Classified information is only valuable insofar as it arrives in the right hands at the right time in order to make good policy. If the US (or Russia, or Ukraine) seal up the leaks by tightening control of information, the damage is already done. Unfortunately, there’s every reason to believe that the respective intelligence communities will react in exactly this way, turning turtle and undermining their own effectiveness.

Discord: What Happens Next?

Intelligence leaks are a fact of life for the national security state. Despite the catastrophic language used to describe leaks and the leakers who leak them, national security is generally robust enough to survive public disclosure of its mildly embarrassing moments. Even the leak of the Pentagon Papers was more significant for uncovering the efforts that the Nixon administration was willing to take to defend itself than for the impact on the end of the Vietnam War. Chelsea Manning’s leaks did not end the Iraq War, and the Snowden Leaks did not lead to any particularly substantial policy changes.

Overall, the national security state may need to reconcile itself in the long term with the need to manage leaks, rather than to prevent them. The complexity of modern information technology is such that it is becoming nearly impossible to prevent the spread of information while at the same time maintaining a healthy information economy. Many of the secrets disclosed in the Discord Leak aren’t secrets in the sense of being “secret;” rather, they are truths that were uncomfortable to acknowledge publicly but that were nevertheless widely known.

The intelligence community necessarily sees any leak as a massive failure and a catastrophic event, but it’s probably better to think of leaks as a “ten year flood,” which can never be anticipated with specificity, but which we can nevertheless prepare for with wisdom and foresight.

Author Expertise 

A 19FortyFive Contributing Editor, Dr. Robert Farley has taught security and diplomacy courses at the Patterson School since 2005. He received his BS from the University of Oregon in 1997, and his Ph. D. from the University of Washington in 2004. Dr. Farley is the author of Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force (University Press of Kentucky, 2014), the Battleship Book (Wildside, 2016), Patents for Power: Intellectual Property Law and the Diffusion of Military Technology (University of Chicago, 2020), and most recently Waging War with Gold: National Security and the Finance Domain Across the Ages (Lynne Rienner, 2023). He has contributed extensively to a number of journals and magazines, including the National Interest, the Diplomat: APAC, World Politics Review, and the American Prospect. Dr. Farley is also a founder and senior editor of Lawyers, Guns and Money.