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Pentagon Plans Deep-Cover Spy Program With US Operatives Undercover as Businesspeople Against China
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Pentagon plans a deeper deep-cover spying program to wage economic warfare against China. Operatives would covertly work under unofficial cover, posing as businesspeople or private-sector employees.
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“The program is overseen by Tom Rakusan, a 39-year CIA veteran who rose to deputy director of operations”
Washingtonpost“The Pentagon is looking to build a more robust deep-cover spying program to conduct economic warfare against China and other U.S. competitors”
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Pentagon NOCs for China
The Pentagon is building a deep-cover spy program in which US operatives would go undercover as businesspeople and private-sector personnel without any overt US government affiliation, as a covert component of the Defense Department's larger economic warfare campaign against China and other competitors. Tom Rakusan, a 39-year CIA veteran who retired in 2021 after rising to deputy director of operations, is overseeing the initiative and followed Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg from Cerberus Capital Management to the Pentagon in 2025.
The Washington Post said the program is overseen by Rakusan and is being planned as a next-generation spying program of "nonofficial cover officers" or NOCs. Pentagon deputy press secretary Jacob Bliss said, "This query appears to be built on information that is simply not true," as the Pentagon denied the program exists.
Denials, CIA silence
The U.S. Department of Defense denied that the initiative is underway, and Pentagon deputy spokesman Jacob Pleis said the inquiry "appears to be based on inaccurate information."
The CIA declined to comment, while Rakusan did not respond to a request for comment.
The Washington Post reported that congressional committees do not appear to have been briefed on the initiative, according to the account cited by Kurdistan24.
The Washington Post also described the program as relying on American operatives covertly working in the guise of businesspeople or private-sector employees, with no publicly disclosed ties to the U.S. government.
Economic warfare stakes
The initiative reflects the Trump administration's embrace of economic warfare as a core tool of statecraft, combining tariffs, export controls, investment in critical resources, and covert economic intelligence operations. CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis said in a September speech that the United States is broadening its espionage against China, specifically targeting Chinese companies in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and advanced semiconductors.
Feinberg announced the formation of the 'Economic Defense Unit' with the aim of 'deterring adversaries, depriving them of resources, disrupting their activities, and helping defeat them by economic means,' according to a memo he sent to senior Pentagon officials. The Washington Post described the CIA's deep-cover capability as waning, with an internal COVID-era report finding that about 75% of its officers working under deep cover would be eligible for retirement by the mid-2020s.