The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy. [0]

The US approach is fascistic. Fascism demands that enemies of the state be simultaneously incompetent dolts who could never compete with Real Americans who would be a drain on our resources, and hypercompetent idealogues who would steal our precious resources and send them back to a group that wants to harm us.

I assume the reasoning is if they're so capable, why would they need to steal secrets and technology?

I use "reasoning" in the broadest possible sense.

Exactly, why were these guys wandering around on nights and weekends?