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The Future of Intelligence

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This volume discusses the challenges the future holds for different aspects of the
intelligence process and for organisations working in the field.
The main focus of Western intelligence services is no longer on the intentions
and capabilities of the Soviet Union and its allies. Instead, at present, there is a
plethora of threats and problems that deserve attention. Some of these problems
are short-term and potentially acute, such as terrorism. Others, such as the
exhaustion of natural resources, are longer-term and by nature often more diffi-
cult to foresee in their implications.
This book analyses the different activities that make up the intelligence
process, or the ‘intelligence cycle’, with a focus on changes brought about by
external developments in the international arena, such as technology and security
threats. Drawing together a range of key thinkers in the field, The Future of
Intelligence examines possible scenarios for future developments, including esti-
mations about their plausibility, and the possible consequences for the function-
ing of intelligence and security services.
This book will be of much interest to students of intelligence studies, strategic
studies, foreign policy, security studies and IR in general.

Isabelle Duyvesteyn is associate professor at the Department of History of Inter-

national Relations, Utrecht University in the Netherlands, and author/editor of
several books, including the Handbook of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency
(Routledge 2012).

Ben de Jong is retired lecturer in the Department of East European History at

the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Joop van Reijn is former Chairman of the Netherlands Intelligence Studies

Association (NISA), and a subject matter expert at The Hague Centre for Stra-
tegic Studies (HCSS) and a consultant for the Geneva Centre for the Democratic
Control of the Armed Forces.
 Studies in Intelligence Series
General Editors: Richard J. Aldrich and Christopher Andrew
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British Military Intelligence in the Intelligence Analysis and

Palestine Campaign, 1914–1918 Assessment
Yigal Sheffy Edited by David A. Charters,
Stuart Farson and Glenn P. Hastedt
British Military Intelligence in the
Crimean War, 1854–1856 TET 1968
Stephen M. Harris Understanding the surprise
Ronnie E. Ford
Allied and Axis Signals Intelligence
in World War II Intelligence and Imperial Defence
Edited by David Alvarez British intelligence and the defence of
the Indian Empire 1904–1924
Knowing Your Friends Richard J. Popplewell
Intelligence inside alliances and
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Cold War Past, present, future?
Edited by Martin S. Alexander Edited by Wesley K. Wark

Eternal Vigilance The Australian Security Intelligence

50 years of the CIA Organization
Edited by Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones and An unofficial history
Christopher Andrew Frank Cain

Nothing Sacred Policing Politics

Nazi espionage against the Vatican, Security intelligence and the liberal
1939–1945 democratic state
David Alvarez and Peter Gill
Revd. Robert A. Graham
From Information to Intrigue
Intelligence Investigations Studies in secret service based on the
How Ultra changed history Swedish experience, 1939–1945
Ralph Bennett C. G. McKay
 Dieppe Revisited Intelligence Services in the
A documentary investigation Information Age
John P. Campbell Michael Herman

More Instructions from the Espionage and the Roots of the Cold
Centre War
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David McKnight
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1900–1945
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Intelligence
Edited by Wesley K. Wark The Norwegian Intelligence Service
1945–1970
Security and Intelligence in a Olav Riste
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New perspectives for the 1990s Secret Intelligence in the Twentieth
Edited by A. Stuart Farson, Century
David Stafford and Wesley K. Wark Edited by Heike Bungert,
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Intelligence and Military Hugh Wilford
Operations
Edited by Michael I. Handel Our Man in Yugoslavia
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Edited by Michael I. Handel
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Strategic and Operational
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War Philip H. J. Davies
Edited by Michael I. Handel
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 The US Government, Citizen Exploring Intelligence Archives
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The state–private network Edited by R. Gerald Hughes,
Edited by Helen Laville and Peter Jackson and Len Scott
Hugh Wilford
US National Security, Intelligence
Peacekeeping Intelligence and Democracy
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Edited by David Carment and on Terror
Martin Rudner Edited by Russell A. Miller
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Special Operations Executive Intelligence Theory

A new instrument of war Key questions and debates
Edited by Mark Seaman Edited by Peter Gill, Stephen Marrin
and Mark Phythian
Mussolini’s Propaganda Abroad
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Edited by Thomas Wegener Friis,
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The Politics and Strategy of
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Special Operations Executive,
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1940–1946
War on Terror
Edited by Neville Wylie
Anglo-American security relations
after 9/11
Britain’s Secret War against Japan, Adam D.M. Svendsen
1937–1945
Douglas Ford A History of the Egyptian
Intelligence Service
US Covert Operations and Cold A history of the mukhabarat,
War Strategy 1910–2009
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1945–53
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Services
Stasi From apartheid to democracy,
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Military Intelligence and the Arab International Intelligence

Revolt Cooperation and Accountability
The first modern intelligence war Edited by Hans Born, Ian Leigh and
Polly A. Mohs Aidan Wills
 Improving Intelligence Analysis Propaganda and Intelligence in the
Bridging the gap between scholarship Cold War
and practice The NATO information service
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Russia and the Cult of State The Future of Intelligence

Security Challenges in the 21st century
The Chekist tradition, from Lenin to Isabelle Duyvesteyn, Ben de Jong and
Putin Joop van Reijn
Julie Fedor
The Ethics of Intelligence
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Understanding the Intelligence A new framework

Cycle Ross W. Bellaby
Edited by Mark Phythian
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 The Future of Intelligence
Challenges in the 21st century
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Edited by Isabelle Duyvesteyn,

Ben de Jong and Joop van Reijn
 First published 2014
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2014 selection and editorial material, Isabelle Duyvesteyn, Ben de Jong
and Joop van Reijn; individual chapters, the contributors.
The right of the editors to be identified as the author of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted
in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
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Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The future of intelligence : challenges in the 21st century / edited by Ben
de Jong, Isabelle Duyvesteyn, Joop van Reijn.
pages cm. – (Studies in intelligence)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Intelligence service. I. Jong, Ben de, 1947– editor of compilation.
II. Duyvesteyn, Isabelle, 1972– editor of compilation. III. Reijn,
Joop van, editor of compilation.
UB250.F87 2014
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ISBN: 978-0-415-66328-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-203-07147-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
 Contents
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About the contributors xi

Foreword xiv
MICHAEL KOWALSKI
Acknowledgements xv

1 By way of introduction: a systemic way of looking at the

future of intelligence 1
BOB DE GRAAFF

2 The future of intelligence: what are the threats, the

challenges and the opportunities? 14
SIR DAVID OMAND

3 The future of intelligence: changing threats, evolving methods 27

GREGORY F. TREVERTON

4 Is the US intelligence community anti-intellectual? 39

MARK M. LOWENTHAL

5 The future of the intelligence process: the end of the

intelligence cycle? 47
ARTHUR S. HULNICK

6 The future of counter-intelligence: the twenty-first-century

challenge 58
JENNIFER SIMS

7 Analysing international intelligence cooperation: institutions

or intelligence assemblages? 80
JELLE VAN BUUREN
 x Contents
8 European intelligence cooperation 94
BJÖRN FÄGERSTEN

9 Intelligence-led policing in Europe: lingering between idea

and implementation 113
MONICA DEN BOER

10 The next hundred years: reflections on the future of

intelligence 133
WILHELM AGRELL
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11 Conclusions: it may be 10 September 2001 today 149

GEORGE DIMITRIU AND ISABELLE DUYVESTEYN

Index 162
 About the contributors
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Wilhelm Agrell became Professor in Intelligence Analysis at Lund University,

Sweden in 2006. His main areas of research are intelligence history and the
study of analytic methods in intelligence assessments, with a broad interest in
the Second World War, Cold War military history and security studies. His
recent publications include National Intelligence Systems: Current Research
and Future Prospects (2009), edited with Greg Treverton.
Bob de Graaff is Professor of Intelligence and Security Studies at both the Uni-
versity of Utrecht and the Netherlands Defense Academy in Breda. His most
recent book is Op weg naar Armageddon: De evolutie van fanatisme, an ana-
lysis of the development of apocalyptic narratives that have played a role in
the use of violence from the Middle Ages up until the present day.
Ben de Jong is a retired lecturer from the University of Amsterdam. He was one
of the founding members of the Netherlands Intelligence Studies Association
(NISA) in 1991. He was co-editor of two previous volumes of NISA confer-
ence proceedings: Peacekeeping Intelligence (2003) and Battleground West-
ern Europe (2007).
Monica den Boer holds a position at the Police Academy of the Netherlands
and is a member of the Advisory Council International Affairs/Committee on
European Integration in The Hague. In 2009, she was a member of the Iraq
Investigation Committee in the Netherlands. She has published widely on
European internal security cooperation.
George Dimitriu is a Research Fellow at the Netherlands Defence Academy in
Breda. He is the author of several scholarly articles on counter-insurgency,
strategic communication, intelligence and special forces in journals such as
Small Wars and Insurgencies, Public Relations Review, Intelligence and
National Security, and other Dutch journals. He currently co-edits a volume
on strategic narratives, public opinion and the war in Afghanistan.
Isabelle Duyvesteyn is a senior lecturer and researcher at the Department of
History of International Relations, University of Utrecht, and Special Chair in
Strategic Studies at the Leiden University in the Netherlands. Her work has
 xii About the contributors
been published in several journals, including Civil Wars, Security Studies and
Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. Her most recent publications include
(together with Paul Rich) The Routledge Handbook of Insurgency and Counter-
insurgency (2012). She was also guest editor of a special issue of the Journal of
Strategic Studies on ‘Escalation and De-escalation of Irregular War’ (2012).
Björn Fägersten is a Research Fellow at the Swedish Institute of International
Affairs where he conducts research on intelligence, European integration,
security policy and international institutions. Since 2008 he has also been an
elected fellow of the European Foreign and Security Policy Studies Program
of the Volkswagen Stiftung, the Compagnia di San Paolo and the Riksbank-
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ens Jubileumsfond.
Arthur S. Hulnick is Associate Professor of International Relations at Boston
University and a veteran of more than thirty-five years in American intelli-
gence. He has written numerous articles on intelligence matters and is the
author of two books, Fixing the Spy Machine (2000) and Keeping Us Safe:
Secret Intelligence and Homeland Security (2004), both published by Praeger.
He is a member of the editorial boards of The International Journal of Intelli-
gence and Counterintelligence and Intelligence and National Security.
Mark M. Lowenthal has served as the Assistant Director of Central Intelligence
for Analysis and Production, and is President and CEO of the Intelligence and
Security Academy. He has written extensively on intelligence and national
security issues, including five books and over ninety articles and studies. His
most recent book, Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy (4th edn, 2009), has
become the standard college and graduate school textbook on the subject.
Sir David Omand was the first UK Security and Intelligence Coordinator,
responsible to the Prime Minister for the professional health of the intelli-
gence community, national counterterrorism strategy and ‘homeland security’.
He has been a visiting professor in the Department of War Studies since
2005/2006. His recent publications include Securing the State (2010).
Jennifer Sims is currently Senior Fellow with the Chicago Council on Global
Affairs. Together with Burton Gerber she co-edited Transforming U.S. Intel-
ligence (2005) and Vaults, Mirrors and Masks: Rediscovering US Counterin-
telligence (2009). Her publications on defence technology and arms control
include Icarus Restrained: An Intellectual History of Nuclear Arms Control
in the United States from 1945 to 1960 (1985), and ‘The American Approach
to Nuclear Arms Control: A Retrospective’, Daedalus (1991).
Gregory F. Treverton is Director of the Center for Global Risk and Security at
the RAND Corporation. His recent work has focused on terrorism, intelli-
gence and law enforcement, with a special emphasis on forms of public–pri-
vate partnership. His latest books are Intelligence for an Era of Terror (2009);
and (with others) Film Piracy, Organized Crime and Terrorism (2009), and
Reorganizing U.S. Domestic Intelligence: Assessing the Options (2008).
 About the contributors xiii
Jelle van Buuren is currently a Ph.D. student at the Centre for Terrorism and
Counterterrorism at Campus The Hague, Leiden University. His research
deals with historical relationships and correlations to explain the rise in the
number of threats directed against state officials in the Netherlands, looking
specifically at the rising number of threats by lone wolves, the general level
of trust in the government, and political legitimacy in the Netherlands.
Joop van Reijn is a former director of the Netherlands Defence Intelligence and
Security Service (NL-DISS). His recent publications include ‘Intelligence and
the International Security Assistance Force’, in Secret Intelligence: A Reader
(2009), ‘Sicherheit und Bürgerfreiheit in den Niederlanden’, in Fehlbare
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Staatsgewalt (2009), and, as co-editor, Inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten

(2010).
 Foreword
Michael Kowalski
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In recent years there has been a steady stream of publications and debate about
new security threats and necessary intelligence reforms. The terrorist threat as it
manifested itself during the infamous attacks of 9/11 caused a major upheaval in
the international intelligence community. Some eight years later, however,
insiders maintain that intelligence services are still burdened by the heritage of
the Cold War in their mode of operation, being ill-prepared for proper forecast-
ing in a changed security environment. This is a rather embarrassing observation
for organizations that claim to possess early warning facilities as a trademark.
There seems to be a pervasive feeling that the twenty-first century may hold
more surprises than a mere revival of terrorism, with other major issues
(increased nuclear proliferation, cyber warfare) looming on the horizon.
This edited volume is based on an international conference on the future of
intelligence organized in 2011 to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Nether-
lands Intelligence Studies Association (NISA). Its contents address several
important questions: What are new security threats and do they also provide new
opportunities? Does the development of technology help or hinder the intelli-
gence services? Is it possible to speak of a new intelligence revolution? To what
extent do new developments require intelligence sharing, not only nationally but
also internationally? And, last but not least: Do these developments pose new
judicial and ethical challenges?
NISA is a non-partisan, voluntary association established in 1991. The Asso-
ciation’s principal purposes are threefold: (1) to provide informed debate in the
Netherlands on intelligence and security issues in the widest possible sense; (2)
to support historical research in the field; and (3) to promote and contribute to
higher education. NISA members cover a broad range of expertise on the work
of intelligence, security and police services: their history, development, organ-
ization and structure, the trajectory of intelligence research, debates on method-
ology, and the significance of new technologies. It comprises an extensive
network of national and international contacts, both academic and professional.
Through its members, NISA is connected with Dutch and foreign research insti-
tutes, study groups and professionals, and works closely with them in a variety
of cooperative ventures.
 Acknowledgements
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NISA is grateful to Routledge Publishers for the opportunity offered to share the
outcome of its 2011 conference with a larger audience. NISA is also grateful to
the Taylor & Francis Group for the permission granted to include Wilhelm
Agrell’s article ‘The Next 100 Years: Reflections on the Future of Intelligence’
in this volume. The manuscript has been completed in the early spring of 2013.
A special word of thanks goes to a number of long-term members of NISA:
Isabelle Duyvesteyn (Leiden University) for her support in shaping the volume
and for very effectively and smoothly communicating with the authors; Giles
Scott-Smith (Roosevelt Study Center and Leiden University) for his editorial
work on the draft manuscript; Bob de Graaff (Utrecht University and Nether-
lands Defence Academy) and George Dimitriu (Ministry of Defence, The
Hague) for their introduction and conclusion to the volume respectively; and the
editors, Ben de Jong (Amsterdam University) and Joop van Reijn (Maj. Gen.,
ret.) for a job well done. Last, but certainly not least, NISA would like to express
its profound thanks to the authors of this volume for their fine contributions to
the project.
Michael Kowalski
Chairman, Netherlands Intelligence Studies Association
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 1 By way of introduction
A systemic way of looking at the
future of intelligence
Bob de Graaff
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Introduction
It is possible to think of an intelligence organization or an intelligence com-
munity as part of an open societal system in transition (De Haan and Rotmans
2011: 90–102; De Graaff 1997: 25–32). In this line of thought the intelligence
organization operates in an environment that may be defined in terms of both
tasks and values. The task environment consists of all the actors that may have
an influence upon the intelligence organization and/or may be influenced by its
acts and products. The value environment is the cultural and ideological climate
in which the organization has to operate. The larger systems (of security, politics
or the military), of which the intelligence organization or community forms a
subsystem, set out the wider environment in which this takes place. The inter-
action between the organization and its environment(s) may be interpreted in
terms of input and output.
Input may be divided into support and demand (from the perspective of an
intelligence organization these may also be interpreted in terms of threats and
opportunities). Support may be defined in terms of money or other material
means, but also recruited or contracted employees, or information that has to be
processed into intelligence. Demand may be defined as the intelligence consum-
ers’ requirements or public expectations. Demands may come from politics or
the public at large regarding the organization’s performance, products, and legal
or ethical restrictions. They may also take the form of information that the organ-
ization is forced to act upon in order to maintain itself in its specific
environment.
The output of an intelligence organization comprises finished intelligence, but
may also include covert actions or active measures. The processes within the
intelligence organization that convert support and demand into output could be
called ‘throughput’ or ‘withinput’. This throughput covers parts of the so-called
intelligence cycle, such as processing the information (decrypting, translation,
photo-interpretation and so on), assessment, evaluation and analysis. These are
the processes that transform raw intelligence into finished intelligence. Through-
puts may also include the decision-making process within the intelligence organ-
ization that leads up to certain actions.
 2 B. de Graaff
It is against this backdrop of a systemic approach that I would like to intro-
duce the various contributions on the future of intelligence which make up this
volume.

Future threats
When one addresses possible futures of intelligence one would ideally hope to
be able to sketch a picture that would address all parts of this open system:
changes in task and value environments, shifts in support and demand functions,
modifications in working processes, and alterations in production and output.
However, much of the thinking on the future of intelligence merely emphasizes
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changes in the threat environment.

It is of course difficult enough to foresee the future. Who could have foretold
in 1928 the coming economic collapse of 1929, Hitler’s rise to power in 1933,
the alliance between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939, the alliance
between the Soviet Union and the Western democracies in 1941, and the divi-
sion of Europe into a democratic, capitalist Western part and a totalitarian com-
munist Eastern part in the aftermath of the Second World War, all in a mere
seventeen years? Some of these occurrences could theoretically have been on the
radar screen of the intelligence and security services of that period. A similar
case could be made for 1988. Which agency could have foreseen the end of
Soviet communism, the reunification of Germany, the Al-Qaeda attacks on New
York and Washington DC, the start of a global war on terror, the possibility of
an electronic Pearl Harbor, the introduction of the euro and the debate over its
possible demise?
Foreseeing the future is of course an intractable problem. Still, intelligence
and security agencies have a more than average need to try to predict future
probabilities. First, one of their core functions is to provide early warning for
both threats and opportunities. If any government organization needs to have
foreknowledge of events it should be intelligence agencies. Second, intelligence-
gathering capacities often require heavy investment of time and money. Satellite
programs, for instance, are very expensive and need to be developed over a long
period of time. Human agents generally tend to cost much less, but they need
time to be trained and cultivated before they can be activated. A military intelli-
gence service should not only be able to gather the necessary information to
protect the armed forces in the present, but should also be considering how
forces may be deployed and what adversaries they may face in the future.
Assessments of future military opponents and the types of conflict that may be
fought have important implications for military investments. Third, as Mark
Lowenthal notes in his contribution to this volume, intelligence analysts should
have the opportunity to build up deep knowledge about a possible future threat
before a crisis develops, instead of rushing from one crisis to the other. Fourth,
intelligence agencies are created and used to reduce (or, for Gregory Treverton,
assess and manage) the uncertainties of decision-makers and politicians. Few
things are as uncertain as the future. The more ominous threats become (the
 Introduction 3
suspicion that a terrorist organization may obtain weapons of mass destruction),
the greater the need for ‘pre-emptive intelligence’ to support ‘pre-emptive
action’ against possible risks and threats, as David Omand phrases it in his
chapter.
This tension between mandate and ability regarding the future makes one
curious about what students and (former) practitioners of intelligence have to say
about the future of their own field. It is understandable that many of the contrib-
utors here devote attention to current trends and their extrapolation, rather than to
possible futures that cannot yet be discerned in the present. When one looks at the
threats that are mentioned, the authors agree on most of them: non-state actors,
terrorists, proliferators, organized crime, cyber threats, food shortages, pandem-
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ics, migration patterns, and (perhaps the worst of all) information overload (see
also Bamford 2004: 111; Shultz 2005; Turner 2006: 57; Treverton 2009: 15;
Agrell 2009: 111; Lahneman 2010: 214; Meeuws 2010; Aid 2012: 213, 215).
However, it may not be the threats which these experts agree upon that are
the most dangerous, but exactly the ones they do not even mention. The fact that
there is so much agreement among them could rather be a cause for concern.
Where is the out-of-the-box thinking, where is the imagination that takes us into
a dark world of unknowns? Or is the future already dark enough as it is? Above
all, is it complex because the threats have become blurred? (Blair 2010: 45–46;
Thomas 2008: 146).
I think everyone will indeed agree that the task environments of intelligence
agencies have become more complex. Not only state actors, but an increasing
number of non-state actors may become opponents. The clustering of possible
opponents along the lines of the Cold War dichotomy has been superseded by an
ever-increasing multitude of state and (especially) non-state actors that may
enter into all kinds of temporary relationships hidden from preying eyes and lis-
tening ears. Furthermore, intelligence has become a phenomenon that seems to
have penetrated every aspect of social life. Not only is intelligence more and
more appreciated in the armed forces and law enforcement circles, as the chap-
ters by Monica den Boer and Jelle van Buuren illustrate, but today almost every
individual who uses the internet behaves like an intelligence officer or agent:
using passwords, encrypting messages, employing cover names, creating net-
works, and using satellite pictures to look, for instance, at one’s neighbour’s
estate (Wheaton 2012; Warner 2012: 148). After the Second World War the
heads of some Western intelligence agencies were championing a government
monopoly on intelligence gathering similar to the government’s monopoly on
violence, a position that is now unthinkable (De Graaff and Wiebes 1992;
Krieger 2009: 100). These days, private intelligence companies and contractors
flourish, and no longer only in the United States (Bean 2011: 9, 14). As Wilhelm
Agrell argues, the more complicated the tasks of intelligence agencies become
and the more technologically advanced the techniques that are required, the more
these same agencies will depend on private initiatives.
It seems to be only a question of time before a group of friends will establish
an intelligence agency not for a living but for a noble cause or even just for fun.
 4 B. de Graaff
Treverton mentions the Grey Balloons initiative where people were asked to vol-
unteer working a few hours a week, unpaid, to assist intelligence agencies to do
their job. But one might imagine that in some cases, if the work is unpaid
anyway, people may decide to do it for themselves instead of working for an
agency that benefits from the results. One does not have to be a Marxist to
understand that many would loathe this kind of alienation from what they
produce. Treverton does see possibilities for amateur intelligence that may
compete with official agencies – why not, in the ‘age of the amateur’? (Keen
2007; Reynolds 2006: 92). Such a private initiative has existed since October
2011: Open Briefing (see www.openbriefing.org). What will be the consequences
for established intelligence agencies if such private endeavors produce better
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results than they do? Treverton recommends seeking help as a key to reshaping
intelligence. That is both a noble and humble approach, but hardly one that
seems to square with the public notion that intelligence agencies are there to
come to the rescue by supplying the right information at the right moment.
Another question regarding the distinctive position of intelligence agencies is
generated by the identification of new types of threat. If, for instance, climate
change and pandemics result in security threats, how great will the distinction
then be between the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
and the World Health Organization on the one hand and that of intelligence
agencies on the other?

Changes in the task and value environments

In the contributions to this volume, much is said about future threats and very
little about future opportunities. This seems to be another illustration of the fact
that intelligence studies continue to have a defensive bias, stressing worst case
scenarios instead of looking for brighter skies such as future economic opportun-
ities, new political alignments or less expensive means of collecting intelligence.
An aspect which some of the authors, such as David Omand, Jennifer Sims
and Greg Treverton, do mention is the growing impediment to develop a cover
or a legend as a result of biometrics, geolocation and the traces one leaves in the
social media. This impediment for offensive intelligence operations is rightly
seen as an opportunity for enhanced counterintelligence. However, it remains
unclear whether an impediment amounts to the same as an impossibility (Lis
2010; Lefebvre and Porteous 2011; Fitsanakis 2012). Another important ques-
tion facing the intelligence community is whether secrecy will survive for ever.
Sir John Sawyers, the current head of MI6, certainly seems to think so. In a
speech for the Society of Editors in London in October 2010 he was adamant
that ‘secret organizations need to stay secret . . . without secrecy, there would be
no intelligence services’ (Hughes and Stoddart 2012: 626–627). On the other
hand, Don Burke, the CIA architect of Intellipedia, predicted already in 2008
that in fifteen years secrecy would be a thing of the past (Spaulding 2010; Amer-
ican Bar Association 2011). Both the vulnerability of secrecy and the increase in
transparency have serious consequences for intelligence, since it has been seen
 Introduction 5
by many as at least partly constituted by secret information (Center for the Study
of Intelligence 2004: 10; Lahneman 2007: 8; De Graaff 2012a: 15–16; De Graaff
2012b: 11–12).

Changes in the definition and functions of intelligence

One of the main difficulties in looking at the future is that intelligence itself is
not a constant. Even though some, such as former DCI Richard Helms, have
described it as the second oldest profession (Hitchcock 1991: 306; also Knight-
ley 1986), intelligence has, as both David Omand and Wilhelm Agrell point out,
reshaped and reinvented itself several times in the past, for instance, around
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1900 and in the 1940s. What is to be expected from intelligence in the future?
How will it reconstitute itself once more? In the past many authors have drawn a
clear dividing line between information and intelligence. The question is whether
the information revolution will pass without leaving any traces on the intelli-
gence process. It is unlikely that many scholars of intelligence would think so.
Many intelligence professionals already have to cope with the so-called ‘CNN
effect’ of traditional journalism or the speediness of ‘new journalism’ via social
media, and the literature on the significance of this is extensive (Ott 1993: 141;
FitzSimmonds 1995: 287; Medina 2002: 26; Bodnar 2003: 14–15, 55–58;
O’Connell and Tomes 2003: 25; Steiner 2004; Center for the Study of Intelli-
gence 2004: 3, 5, 20; Andrus 2005; Davis 2005: 27, 29, 32; Johnston 2005: 107;
Teitelbaum 2005: 10, 205, 208; Treverton 2005: 30–31; Faddis 2008: 3;
Goodman 2008: 355–356; Steele 2009: 133, 137, 142–143; Williams 2011).
Will intelligence agencies maintain early warning as one of their core functions,
only to find out that others are almost always faster at reporting looming dis-
asters or at indicating opportunities? Or will they shift the current balance
between timeliness, accuracy and trustworthiness by putting more emphasis on
the validation of news and knowledge, as Wilhelm Agrell and others predict
(Rathmell 2002: 99; Medina 2002: 26; Barger 2005: 19; Betts 2007: 5–6)?
One of the strong points of this volume is the emphasis it puts on new forms
of international collaboration between intelligence agencies. The descriptions of
intelligence cooperation in EU institutions by Jelle van Buuren en Björn Fäger-
sten show that the age-old adage of ‘quid pro quo’ no longer regulates intelli-
gence cooperation the way it did in the past. Communities of interest and
multilateral working relationships are gaining a foothold as trust is established.
The question arises, however, what the implications are for intelligence and
security agencies if they are no longer the guardians of national sovereignty.
Whereas on the one hand new circumstances ask for closer international cooper-
ation (Herman 2010: 116; Lahneman 2011: 100), the experience with the politi-
cized intelligence process leading up to the invasion of Iraq convinced some
countries that they should have their own intelligence capability independent
from their American and British partners (Report 2010).
New threats, new forms of international cooperation, closer public scrutiny,
greater transparency and an increasing demand from the public for legitimacy
 6 B. de Graaff
may also reintroduce the question of for whose benefit intelligence agencies
actually operate. A distinction can be made on whether they work for the state or
for the incumbent government. In the United States they represent the interests
of ‘we, the people,’ while in Germany they protect the constitution. Do these
ultimate ends add a specific meaning to their daily working processes? Or will
such points of departure exactly become more significant as a result of future
developments? Will the ultimate goal of intelligence and security agencies in the
future ´risk society´ no longer be the protection of the interests of the state but
the protection of the interests of its citizens and society, as Omand seems to
imply here and elsewhere (Omand 2012: 154)? This last competence would
seem to conflict with concerns about the growing powers of intrusion of intelli-
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gence agencies into private spheres, the pervasiveness of alert and alarm
systems, or the undeclared warfare by intelligence agencies using drones for tar-
geted killings in remote parts of the world. Intelligence and security organiza-
tions are then not the great protectors but the originators of an intelligence or
surveillance state, as Omand and others recognize (Schaar 2007; De Koning
2008; Landau 2010; Chesterman 2011). Will the intelligence community then
become one of the big players in the game of social and political risk transfer
from one citizenry to the other? As Jelle van Buren indicates in this volume, that
would then increase the need for forms of accountability that transgress national
boundaries.

Future working processes

Even if none of the above ever materializes, one could wonder what the impact
of technological revolutions will be on the ‘throughput’ of intelligence systems.
What for instance do new tools for translation, data gathering, retrieval and visu-
alization imply for intelligence working processes? Are they worth the effort and
the cost, or do they create ever more haystacks in which it is harder to find the
needles that hurt? Is old-fashioned analytic tradecraft just as good? In his contri-
bution here, Mark Lowenthal appears nostalgic for the Cold War era when the
amount of data was still manageable.
Meanwhile Arthur Hulnick questions whether a better study of alternative ana-
lytic methodologies is necessary, pointing out that previously such exercises
using stricter criteria were more time-consuming and did not bring better results.
Are intuition and imagination then just as good (Medina 2002: 28; Colby 2007;
Russell 2007: 119–148; Bar-Joseph and McDermott 2008; Marrin 2009: 205–206;
Hedley 2009: 220–224; Agrell 2009: 113–114)? Both Hulnick and Omand argue
that the intelligence cycle model does not aptly describe the working processes in
the world of civilian intelligence. Hulnick consequently recommends replacing it
with a more realistic matrix model in which collection, research and analysis,
counterintelligence and covert action operate simultaneously. This is more a rec-
ommendation for the present rather than the future, although he certainly has a
point (shared with Omand) that in the electronic era decision-makers will act
increasingly upon raw intelligence rather than wait for a finished product, and that
 Introduction 7
the conversion from raw into finished intelligence may become increasingly auto-
mated (Warner 2012: 146). Again, as was true for the collection of intelligence, it
is remarkable how little attention the contributors overall devote to future changes
in tradecraft. It may be that they do not want us to know what they know, or
simply that they do not know it themselves. However, obvious questions present
themselves, such as: Will the increasing importance of open sources intelligence
negatively affect the importance of other sources? Or will Humint become more
important as the most promising way to gain intelligence about the intentions of
an increasing number of super-empowered or super-enhanced groups and indi-
viduals with an ever-growing capacity to destroy or disrupt? Will Humint opera-
tions become more dangerous in an arena filled with non-state actors than they
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were during the Cold War? Finally, has the technological advantage enjoyed by
several intelligence agencies over the rest of society during the Cold War now
been undermined by a more democratic distribution of technology? (Berkowitz
and Goodman 2000: 43–45; Berkowitz 2003: 67–74; Barger 2005: 116; Zegart
2007: 11; Rossmiller 2008: 139–141).

The output
Perhaps the greatest challenge of the future pertains to the output and especially
the dissemination of the intelligence product. If Gregory Treverton and others
are right that current and future intelligence organizations are becoming (or at
least should be) less engaged with solving puzzles and more involved with
addressing mysteries or so-called ‘wicked problems’ for which no easy solutions
present themselves (Treverton 1994; Davis 1994: 7–15; Steiner 2004; Treverton
2009: 16–21; Moore 2011: x), this will have major consequences for the place of
intelligence in democratic society. This will have a far greater impact than the
form in which finished intelligence will be presented, another ‘revolution’ that
Treverton addresses. Intelligence analysts and their representatives will no
longer solely present facts on the numbers of long-distance missiles, the newest
gadgets in submarines, or changes in the line of succession within an opaque
gerontocracy in a foreign power. Intelligence agencies of the future are not likely
to be, as Sir David Omand predicts, primarily knowledge management organiza-
tions (Omand 2012: 156), but instead they will become sense-makers. ‘Suddenly
the ability to make sense of information is as valued a skill as collecting it’,
Richard Fadden, Director of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service
(CSIS), stated in a recently publicized speech (Wheaton 2012). Intelligence ana-
lysts will become sense-makers defining opponents for government and the
public at large as terrorists, insurgents, a social movement, religious fanatics,
cunning Machiavellists or irrational radicals. They will produce the metaphors
and the graphs that will make cyber attacks understandable. Instead of present-
ing reality they will be shaping it (Codevilla 1992: 19–23; Berkowitz and
Goodman 2000: 99; O’Connell and Tomes 2003: 27; Fishbein and Treverton
2004; Treverton 2005; George 2007; Agrell 2009: 93; Treverton 2009: 16, 22,
27–28, 33–36; Bean 2011: xii; Moore 2011). Analysts will have to become
 8 B. de Graaff
communicators, in the process engaging with decision-makers who themselves
make more use of open source intelligence. Sherman Kent’s dividing line
between intelligence and policy, established at the beginning of the Cold War,
will become obsolete because making sense is itself a policy act (Bean 2011:
11). Hulnick discusses the relevance of this Kentian tradition in his contribution
to this volume, indicating that some American authors are beginning to question
whether it remains sound practice. Decision-makers and intelligence analysts
will have to sit together to construct reality, not reconstruct it. Monologue will
have to be set aside in favour of dialogue (Turner 2006: 173–174; Davis 2009:
178, 183, 186–187; Treverton 2009: 9–11). The knowledge-based domain of the
intelligence analyst and the value-based domain of politicians and other decision-
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makers will tend to fuse. They will write the narratives that give individual facts
a place and a context, in doing so making them understandable. No longer will
intelligence only have a support function in relation to policy, but analysts will
be involved in actually shaping policies together with others through an iterative
process of sense-making (O’Connell and Tomes 2003: 24). Although such a situ-
ation seems to be developing almost naturally out of the evolving task environ-
ment of the intelligence community, it remains to be seen whether its value
environment is ready for such a step. Will it be acceptable to a democratic
society that its dominating perceptions and decisions are shaped by intelligence
analysts who partly base their insights on information that is not transparent?
How can legitimacy be created for government based on a continuous and
intense interaction between intelligence and policy (the scenario that Treverton
predicts)? It may lead to closer parliamentary and public scrutiny, but one should
recognize that this is not necessarily a guarantee against politicizing intelligence.
On the contrary, one could say.

The choice between adaptation and obsolescence

The so-called contingency approach in organization studies states that once an
environment is known, it is clear what structure an agency needs. A rather static
environment in which there are few actors or in which actors are clustered
requires a more bureaucratic organization compared to a turbulent environment
with (in principle) no limits to the number of actors or the connections they may
create. Environmental complexity has to be mirrored by organizational complex-
ity (De Graaff 1997: 326). The trick is to achieve this without enhancing the
number of bureaucratic levels, which would worsen organizational inertia. If
organizations do not timely adapt they may end up in the maelstrom their
environment creates for them instead of staying in control. Organizational
studies champion more fluid, horizontal organizational structures for present-day
and future intelligence organizations, ‘flat hierarchies’, as David Omand calls
them, and 9/11 created a cry for fusion centres (Kindsvater 2003: 33–34; Taylor
and Goldman 2004: 419–421; Green 2005; Treverton 2005: 27–29; Posner 2006:
xviii, 169; Thompson 2006; Turner 2006: 128; Jones 2007; Cole and Chiego
2009: Treverton 2009: 104–109, 113, 188–192, 200–206; Chapman 2010:
 Introduction 9
385–386; Olcott 2010). Nevertheless, new techniques favour micromanagement
and top-level control, as could, for instance, be observed at the time of the
Abbottabad raid when the US top-level decision-makers were closely watching
the raid from their Situation Room in the White House.
In his contribution to this volume, Mark Lowenthal seems rather pessimistic
about the ability of the intelligence community to function as a learning, adap-
tive institution. Other authors have also been rather sceptical about the ability of
bureaucratic agencies to adapt to a different playing field. Within the CIA the
joke did the rounds that the only way to defeat al-Qaeda would be to convince
its leadership to adopt the bureaucratic structure of the CIA (Faddis 2008: 49).
The question then is: Who will adapt faster in a world where not size but speed
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brings the decisive advantage? (Brand 2000: 14–15). It is a question to be

answered by the future, a future that may be foreseen a little better, as I hope to
have shown, by using a systemic approach.

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 Introduction 13
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 2 The future of intelligence
What are the threats, the challenges
and the opportunities?
Sir David Omand
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The international security environment for Western nations today has changed
from that of the late twentieth century. Threats are perceived as emanating from
so-called non-state actors, terrorists, proliferators, organized criminals and cyber
hackers, as much as from potential state aggression. Globalization of communica-
tions has sensitized social attitudes to issues such as famine and disease, inter-
national human rights, migration and immigration. Technology has continued to
transform our lives and has raised new concerns over personal privacy in a digital
age. Such profound changes are having their impact on our intelligence agencies
as much as on any other sector of society, and they are likely to continue shaping
the future of intelligence communities over the next twenty years (Omand 2010).
A first question intelligence studies should ask therefore is whether we will
still mean the same thing in twenty years’ time when we speak of ‘intelligence’
or ‘secret intelligence’ as we mean today when we use those terms, just as the
situation twenty years ago was very different, with the Cold War just over and
the explosion in open sources of information through the internet still to come.
Those now in charge of our intelligence communities had their formative experi-
ences in a very different world of information scarcity rather than overload.1
There is, however, a simple truth at the heart of intelligence work. The most
basic purpose of intelligence today remains the same as it was in the sixteenth
century when Sir Francis Walsingham set up Europe’s first effective espionage
network: to help improve the quality of decision-making by reducing ignorance.
In his case it was to uncover and exploit the machinations of the Catholic mon-
archies against his Protestant sovereign Queen Elizabeth I. That purposeful defi-
nition applies to all forms of intelligence today. A further important distinction
may then be made: secret intelligence is simply achieving that purpose in respect
of information that other people do not want you to have, from which flow all of
the characteristic moral hazards associated with the world of intelligence so
beloved of fiction and film.
By what alchemy is raw information to be transmuted into intelligence? There
are a number of unique features about this process that deserve to be highlighted
by intelligence studies in examining future challenges.
First, the basic purpose of intelligence is, as stated, to help improve the
quality of decisions, not to guarantee that result. Intelligence very rarely deals in
 Threats, challenges and opportunities 15
certainties, and it will continue to be incomplete, fragmentary and sometimes
wrong. But the argument in favour of intelligence work is that used systemati-
cally and sensibly it will improve the odds on a decision being the best possible
in the circumstances, whether by a National Security Council, foreign policy
official, border policeman or military commander. The overall outcome will
therefore likely be better than if the decisions had been made using hunch or
instinct, valuable as these are, or just by the toss of a coin. This is similar to
investment analysts, who on any one day may see their portfolio fall below the
market due to some unwise purchases, but over time the good analysts will
generate returns for their funds better than a single market index. Like invest-
ment fund managers, intelligence analysts are well advised to be very chary of
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‘too good to be true’ offers or even of deliberate deceptions.

Second, the definition of intelligence purpose refers to ‘decision-making’ and
thus to actions people want to take and outcomes they want to see. Intelligence
in war has always been used to guide action, from rounding up enemy agents to
identifying targets for air attack. Today we see a concentration on intelligence
for action in peacetime too, often for urgent action. The demand for what is often
referred to as ‘actionable’ intelligence is now a notable feature of tactical intelli-
gence in counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation and
counter-narcotics work. Much of the intelligence analysis supporting the current
US drone counter-terrorist programme has to be capable of generating results in
minutes, rather than hours or days. Nevertheless, seminal moments such as the
US special forces assault on the hiding place in Pakistan of Osama Bin Laden in
2012, or the interception of the freighter BBC China carrying nuclear weapons
materials to Colonel Ghaddafi’s Libya in 2005, would not have been possible
without literally years of patient intelligence effort beforehand.
Third, the reference to needing to acquire information that other people are
trying to prevent you from knowing is the source of the moral hazards associated
with the intelligence business. Secret intelligence cannot be obtained without
using techniques that overcome the will of the person with the secrets. Tradition-
ally, agents must be recruited (including those inside terrorist or criminal net-
works, with all the risk of ending up colluding in wrongdoing), private
communications must be intercepted (with all the risks of intrusion into privacy)
and liaisons maintained with countries overseas (sometimes with very different
attitudes to the human rights of the individual and to international law). Facing
moral hazard is inseparable from the process of acquiring secret intelligence.
That inconvenient fact could be ignored by most governments running intelli-
gence operations during the twentieth century. The twenty-first century is,
however, witnessing a profound shift from the old paradigm of the ‘secret state’
(Hennessy 2002) in which intelligence activity was secret and unacknowledged,
to that of the ‘protecting state’ (Omand 2007: 97) in which intelligence agencies
and their activities are bound by legislation and parliamentary oversight. Intelli-
gence is no longer an ethics-free zone.
Fourth, it is now a notable feature of our world that it is next to impossible to
work, travel or communicate without leaving a digital exhaust behind us. The
 16 D. Omand
nature of the information being sought by security and intelligence agencies
more than ever relates to individuals, so-called non-state actors, as opposed to
governments and their agencies. The requirement is not just for access to tradi-
tional records such as immigration landing cards or personal bank accounts, but
to digitized information that may contain data about individuals of potential
interest – their location, movements, communications, finance and associations.
Such information may be drawn from authorized access and exploitation of what
I term PROTINT (by analogy with SIGINT and HUMINT), namely the pro-
tected personal information held in databases by governments and their agencies
and by private companies, both here and overseas, including social media. There
are evident implications for privacy rights and unease over what methods should
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be judged acceptable in the production of such intelligence by ourselves and by

our partners, and there is far from an international consensus on the matter. Such
concerns on the part of the public tend to bleed into wider worries about fears of
the ‘surveillance society’, the exploitation of modern technology by the state to
store, access and mine data on individual citizens. The challenge for intelligence
communities is how to increase public trust to avoid pressure on government to
introduce rules and regulations that genuinely constrain operational activity that
is necessary for public safety.
Finally, the world of national security and intelligence takes a strongly ration-
alist Enlightenment stance based on the assumption of human improvement:
more information will lead to more intelligence and thus less ignorance. Hence
there exists at least the potential for better-informed decisions to be taken that
have a higher chance of leading to success and hence to better outcomes. The
steps connecting these statements are however not always obvious or
straightforward.
As individuals, we use fresh information every moment to alter our assump-
tions about the risks involved in decisions, from crossing the road to proposing
marriage. We do not always do so by extracting all the information content
available to us: faulty peripheral vision and emotions of love (and hate) alike can
temporarily blind us. There are many links in the chain of events that bring intel-
ligence to the policy-maker or decision-taker, and each link has its own
weaknesses.

Critical points in the intelligence chain

First, there have to be ‘data points’ to be accessed in the first place (either as
observations in the real world or as digital information in the virtual world of
data in motion or at rest). Of course, clever intelligence agencies can sometimes
coax reluctant ‘data points’ to the surface through sting operations to draw out
terrorists or narcotics dealers, or make use of the modern equivalents of other
traditional tradecraft such as cutting landlines in war to force the enemy on to
the airwaves.
Second, the relevant intelligence agencies have to be ‘pointing their aerials’
in the direction of the signals to be detected. This is a non-trivial requirement for
 Threats, challenges and opportunities 17
all but the largest nations. Not every potential target can be covered, intelligence
officers cannot be posted in-country in every region of interest, not every data
stream can be intercepted and made comprehensible, and not every square metre
of global interest can be monitored from the air or space. Thus a key link in the
chain is represented by the directing function that sets meaningful priorities for
the intelligence community, while at the same time providing the spare resources
for the intelligence community to undertake its most crucial function of warning
of the unexpected and unwelcome surprise that may have featured on no one’s
priority listing.
Third, intelligence agencies have to have the people, skills and technology to
access the information, process it and validate it through a process akin to his-
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toriography (thus screening out attempts at deception for malice or gain, or

information that simply represents wishful thinking), and all in a timely enough
fashion. Increasingly, success in that endeavour requires the active operational
cooperation of domestic and overseas services as the targets in a globalized
world criss-cross that increasingly blurred boundary between home and over-
seas. Success also requires active cooperation between technical and human
intelligence operations. A feature of recent years is also the fact that individual
nations, even the US, will not be able to access all the sought-after information
by their own means. Crucial information will reside in the hands of overseas
intelligence services (or will be accessible to them, for example, through
PROTINT sources) with which it is then necessary to maintain friendly liaison.
In some cases these overseas services have very different ethical conceptions
from our own, increasingly a moral hazard of working with them.
Fourth, the intelligence analysts have to recognize and interpret the informa-
tion for what it is, and assess the significance of the validated intelligence cor-
rectly, piecing together an incomplete jigsaw puzzle, made more difficult since,
in intelligence work, there is no picture on the lid of the box to guide the analyst.
This is sometimes misleadingly referred to as the ‘joining up the dots’ problem.
But dots can be joined together to make a surprising number of different pat-
terns, some of which may be highly tempting if misleading, especially if they
pander to the paranoia of the policy-maker or appear to bolster their case for
more resources. Professor R.V. Jones, the Second World War founder of scient-
ific intelligence, warned analysts of this tendency with an epistemological
dictum that he called Crabtree’s bludgeon: ‘there is no set of mutually inconsist-
ent observations for which some human intellect cannot conceive a coherent
explanation, however contrived’. The field of intelligence studies is littered with
examples, many tragic, where dots were connected wrongly (Iraq and weapons
of mass destruction) or not at all (9/11), or where the picture was pieced together
by the analysts only to be rejected by the relevant intelligence chief as inconsist-
ent with prevailing wisdom (Yom Kippur, 1973).
Fifth, the customers for intelligence have to receive the reporting in a secure
and timely way. Intelligence studies can show examples of correctly assessed
intelligence warning arriving too late to be of use. A complicating factor for the
modern world of intelligence is the plurality of customers for secret intelligence,
 18 D. Omand
not least when the target set expands to include terrorists, organized criminals
and proliferators. For example, among the actions that may be prompted by
intelligence may be an airline refusing to carry a suspect, a border official refus-
ing admission, a customs officer searching a vessel before it sails, a diplomat
seeking UN agreement for the freezing of a suspect’s assets, a trade official
refusing an export licence, a police service raiding a suspect safe house, or
searching for an arms dump or hidden explosive device. Circles of trust have to
be developed outward from the originating agency to include the other parts of
the intelligence community and their overseas liaisons, government departments
and agencies, law enforcement, and industry (noting what was said above about
the critical national infrastructure). The means of communication between the
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intelligence world and its plurality of trusted customers now needs to be fast,
digital, reliable and ultra secure, and increasingly have the bandwidth to transmit
not just text but also voice and high-resolution moving images.
Sixth, the customers for intelligence have to understand and accept the signif-
icance of what they are being told. A welcome cannot be guaranteed for the
bearer of bad tidings, especially when the intelligence tends to show that some
external situation has arisen affecting national interests that will necessarily
divert the government from being able to devote as much attention to its most
cherished domestic policies, or that a policy or military operation was miscon-
ceived and is failing in its purpose (as in Bosnia in 1992–1993). In such circum-
stances, a natural reaction is to ask for further work to be undertaken to clarify
the reporting, or to commission a second opinion. The well-understood phenom-
enon of cognitive dissonance may be observed when what is being reported is
clearly wholly inconsistent with the model of reality being followed by the
leader or leadership team (witness the fall of Singapore in 1942).
Finally, customers have to make the right judgements on what actually should
be done on the basis of the intelligence – and have the means to do something
about it. Secret knowledge is not always comfortable, especially when the source
is highly sensitive and has to be protected, so that the intelligence cannot there-
fore be used as the public justification for anticipatory action. For military com-
manders today, intelligence can be provided in a way that gives unparalleled
real-time situational awareness using fusion and virtual reality visualization tools
that would have been unimaginable to the field commanders under Generals
Montgomery or Patton. That said, the caveat about needing the means to do
something with the intelligence will remain a constant of warfare. As the military
historian John Keegan has so clearly described in his writings on intelligence, in
the end, the clash of arms is determined by factors that Clausewitz would have
understood (Keegan 2003). The battle for Crete in 1941 is perhaps the classic
and tragic example that even the best intelligence (in that case from Enigma
decrypts of German air force communications) cannot always win battles if there
is insufficient force under the hand of the commander.
At each link in the above chain, well-known cognitive weaknesses may
appear to delay or distort connections that need to be made: intelligence studies
literature is full of discussion of group think, mirror imaging, transferred
 Threats, challenges and opportunities 19
judgements, confirmation bias and similar hiatuses (Heuer 1999). These weak-
nesses can apply to both analysts and their customers alike.

Changing demands for intelligence

Having established some of these salient characteristics of intelligence work, it
is possible to see how the demand for intelligence may be expected to change
over the coming decades. A convenient starting point is to look at the demands
of modern national security strategy, since most NATO nations are already
engaged in rethinking what should be meant today by national security. National
priorities and traditions in making policy for national security naturally differ,
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but three considerations appear to predominate in modern Western national

security thinking. These are the adoption of a citizen focus, applying risk man-
agement methodology, and seeking better-informed decision-taking.
First, the citizen focus. Since the end of the Cold War, the prime objective of
Western national security has shifted from concerns about the external defence
of the national territory and the protection of the democratic institutions of the
state (important as these remain), to a focus on the duty placed on government
by the citizen to provide them with security. That is, a duty to try to protect
society and its citizens, both at home and overseas, by mitigating or managing at
least the worst effects of the most dangerous and disruptive of modern-day risks.
Once again, a number of consequences flow from this first observation. We
find, for example, that both the British National Security Strategy (HM Govern-
ment 2010) and the equivalent French Livre Blanc (Secrétariat Général de la
Défense Nationale 2006) have similar lists of major modern threats, including of
course terrorism and cyber attack, that could disturb the normal life of the
citizen. Many such major risks have overseas roots, blurring the boundary
between what is a domestic threat to be managed by the internal police and
security services, and an external threat to be managed through diplomacy,
defence and foreign intelligence. As already observed, the attention switches
from the behaviours of states to those of non-state actors. Internal and external
services have to develop deeper patterns of cooperation with each other, and
with the armed services. Law enforcement and intelligence, with their very dif-
ferent histories and cultures, have to understand each others’ needs in order to
work harmoniously together.
This change to a citizen focus necessarily sweeps in all risks, including hazards
due to natural causes as well as malicious threats. The UK National Security
Strategy identifies four ‘top-tier’ risks, threats and hazards. Since the strategy was
published in October 2010 all four risks have actually materialized, affecting the
United Kingdom and friendly nations: international terrorism (such as the failed
printer cartridge bomb plot of 2010); cyber attack (a continuing persistent threat
driven by espionage and criminal gain); international military crises (Libya, 2011)
and major accidents or natural hazards (Fukushima, Japan, March 2011).
When the electric light goes out it could be the result of bad weather, accident
or hostile action such as terrorism or cyber attack. What concerns the citizen is
 20 D. Omand
whether the disruption can be predicted and prevented, or at least how resistant
the systems supporting normal life are to any form of disruption. Thus the
concept of national resilience enters the lexicon of the national security planner,
as does the concept of the critical national infrastructure, that set of facilities,
systems, sites and networks necessary for the delivery of the essential services
upon which the daily life of the community depends. Today, most of that infra-
structure in an advanced economy is in the ownership, or at least the operational
control, of the private sector. This means that industry has to work with and take
advice from the intelligence and national security community. In the United
Kingdom the Centre for the Protection of the Critical National Infrastructure2
has been established as part of the security service MI5, precisely in order to
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enable the intelligence community to work closely with the commercial opera-
tors of that infrastructure.
A second feature of the planning of modern national security is a logical con-
sequence of this citizen focus. The driving logic behind it has become that of
risk management. This is especially so now that national security has the wider
responsibility of maintaining public confidence that risks are being satisfactorily
managed (thus maintaining a collective psychological state) as well as creating
the objective reality of freedom from attack and foreign invasion. Of course, the
search for risk avoidance through collective defence and deterrence remains as
an insurance policy against the (re-)emergence of more traditional state threats.
People need to feel sufficiently safe domestically to justify investment, to be pre-
pared to travel, indeed to leave the house in the morning to get on with ordinary
life and to live it to the full even in the face of threats such as terrorism and
hazards such as pandemics. Our adversaries – and the international markets –
must know we have the confidence to defend ourselves against all possible
vectors of attack. A feeling of insecurity is highly corrosive for a healthy society.
In this sense it is justifiable to define modern national security as a state of confi-
dence on the part of the public that the major risks are indeed being managed, in
ways consistent with our values, to a level where normal life can continue. A
glance at those nations not fortunate enough to enjoy this sense of collective
confidence in security will reveal just how damaging a situation they are in,
where even international efforts to provide much-needed humanitarian assistance
is frustrated by lack of security on the ground.
The third step in the argument follows on from this: national security depends
more than ever on effective pre-emptive intelligence to allow the identification,
anticipation and management of risk upstream. This throws increased weight on
better-informed decision-making by government and thus on the work of the
intelligence community.
That said, there is always a residual uncertainty that cannot be insured against
or otherwise managed away. Efforts to eliminate all uncertainty can do more
harm than good, since the law of unintended consequences often applies. In par-
ticular, governments can, in their pursuit of intelligence and security, run the risk
of compromising freedom of movement and of speech, the rule of law, and civic
harmony. Indeed, an important ingredient in public security in a democracy is
 Threats, challenges and opportunities 21
confidence in the government’s ability to manage risk in ways that respect
human rights and the values of society.
Governments ideally need to be prepared to act as dangers begin to become
clear, but preferably before the dangers become present. They must therefore
convince their public that they are justified in investing in security measures in
anticipation, and in order to act upstream of impending danger. The public will
expect to be given a proper justification for sacrifices, whether in terms of lives
brought into hazard and resources spent on security, or the occasional inconven-
ience of security measures or invasion of privacy. That is why British govern-
ments now regularly publish a national risk matrix along with the national
security strategy, setting out the principal threats and hazards facing society that
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are being addressed by government security policy. The matrix shows the two
principal dimensions of risk: likelihood of occurrence and impact should it
happen, with a third dimension, national vulnerability to the risk, folded out of
sight largely for security reasons.
As NATO has recognized in its new strategic concept (North Atlantic Council
2010), increasingly in modern society it will be too late to wait until the adver-
sary is at the gate or even right inside the city – as was seen on the streets of
Mumbai in November 2008 – before taking action to prevent, protect and
prepare. Some potential risks, such as rogue states armed with nuclear weapons
or terrorists armed with a dirty bomb, would be so potentially destructive of con-
fidence in urban life (or indeed in civilization itself ) that they demand pre-
emptive action. In different ways, the consequences of other risks, such as those
likely to flow from resource stress due to global climate change, equally require
that governments anticipate the potential impact on our security and act now to
avoid or mitigate future consequences.
If there is to be acceptance of that fundamental proposition, then clearly
greater media and public understanding is needed of what is really involved
behind the scenes in ‘securing the state’, distinguishing it from what is simply
popular cinematic or television fantasy. There is a valuable role for intelligence
studies in demystification.

Modelling intelligence
With good intelligence there is some hope that major risks can be anticipated,
within the limits of the knowable, allowing government to decide in sufficient
time whether to act to try to reduce the risk, to act to reduce society’s vulner-
ability to it, or in some cases sensibly to decide to leave well alone. This task of
helping to improve decision-making through reducing ignorance is of course the
very purpose of intelligence.
Anticipation also places a great responsibility on the intelligence of those who
are to provide strategic notice of emerging risks. It places even more weight on
the wisdom of those who have to decide whether and how to act upon such
warning. Machiavelli offered an infallible rule: ‘A Prince who is himself not
wise cannot be well advised’ (Machiavelli 1991: 127).
 22 D. Omand
A valuable service that intelligence studies can provide is to help model the
intelligence process in ways that reflect the reality of how twenty-first-century
intelligence may be expected to function in support of such a modern definition of
national security (Omand 2010). The traditional intelligence cycle (Herman 1996)
stands in need of reinterpretation in an age where the users of intelligence often
interact with those involved in collection in ways more reminiscent of the detective
investigating a crime than a Cold War analyst piecing together the adversary’s
order of battle. In addition, rather than the collection of intelligence from traditional
secret sources, it is the real-time access to digitized data that may hold the key.
A traditional way of modelling intelligence knowledge, drawn from its
application to military affairs, is to make a distinction between estimates of cap-
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abilities and of intentions. Capabilities can be quantified: how many strategic

nuclear delivery vehicles, how many armoured divisions, their size, equipment,
training level and state of readiness, how many modern war planes with which
missile systems, and so on. Capabilities take time to build, and good intelligence
about them (although always subject to errors in estimation) is unlikely to
change quickly. On the other hand, intentions concerning the use of those cap-
abilities can change in a twinkling of a dictator’s eye. Stick to capabilities and
leave intentions to the diplomats is a piece of advice often given to many
military intelligence officers.
Another related way of modelling intelligence knowledge is the classic dis-
tinction between secrets and mysteries popularized by Professor R.V. Jones.
Secrets are facts about the world that objectively exist somewhere, if only the
intelligence officers are clever enough to find a way of accessing them. Their
estimates of these secrets (especially if they are well guarded) are likely, as
always, to be incomplete and hedged with uncertainty. Yet in principle they are
knowable, unlike the mysteries concerning what may happen but has not yet.
Whether the rogue state intends actually to test a nuclear weapon or the dictator
aims to invade the neighbouring state may not yet even be known to the dictator
himself, but intelligence analysts still have to make estimates of likelihood.
Clearly, secrets and mysteries are two different epistemological categories, with
the risk that for the latter the intelligence analyst can stray from prediction to
prophesy. We can also add the category of complexities, where the estimate of
likelihood in question depends on the analysts’ assessment of what may be the
impact on the situation of steps being taken by their own or allied governments
to defuse the situation, such as an ultimatum or imposition of counter-
proliferation sanctions. Many modern intelligence estimates therefore have a
similarity to the net assessments of the Cold War.
The secrets/mysteries/complexities model still has utility in reminding ana-
lysts to be extra careful about what they think they really know when making a
stab at what the future may bring, and also to include assumptions about the effi-
cacy of own-side policies. Estimates of modern national security risks may,
however, be better captured by a different four-level model drawn from con-
temporary philosophy of science (Deutsch 2011), using the following categories:
situational awareness, explanation, prediction, and strategic notice.
 Threats, challenges and opportunities 23
The primary use of intelligence, and by far the greatest in terms of volume of
effort involved, will continue to be what I term ‘building situational awareness’
to answer questions of ‘what, where, who?’ without forgetting to be explicit
about the degree of uncertainty that may be attached to the answers. What such
specific intelligence can do is help to build up awareness of a domain of interest
to the policy-maker, military commander, defence technologist or senior police
officer.
A second essential dimension in using intelligence in supporting decision-
making is, however, in building an explanatory theory of past and present beha-
viour, answering the questions ‘why and what for?’ Such explanatory theories
are important for understanding, and more importantly not misunderstanding, the
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behaviour of foreign states, for example, whether military deployments should

be taken as indicators of defensive or offensive intent, and what the motives of
non-state groups such as insurgents or terrorists may be.
Good intelligence assessment has explanatory value in helping deepen real
understanding of how a situation has arisen, the dynamics between the parties
and what the motivations of the actors involved are (as they, not we, see them),
and thus how they themselves may be perceiving our side’s moves. Providing
such satisfactory explanation requires a deep knowledge of the country con-
cerned, the languages, personalities, local cultures, history, commerce and topo-
graphy. Developing expert analysts capable of such deep understanding
represents a major challenge for all intelligence communities.
The third dimension of intelligence judgement is both potentially the most
valuable and the most fraught, and that is prediction, answering the questions
‘what next?’ or ‘where next?’ Prediction is the desired end product of much
intelligence activity. It could be fundamental to grand strategy, such as estimates
of the likelihood of conflict over the South China Sea, or of tactical significance,
such as the identification of an intended target of an insurgent or terrorist attack
that can trigger anticipatory security action to save scores of lives.
Prediction need not be a ‘point estimate’ but could also be the forecasting of a
limited range of outcomes that would still usefully narrow down the options for
the policy-maker. It could be a predictive assessment based not on specific intelli-
gence reporting but on judgements made about a developing situation that extends
the explanatory into the predictive. Much of the intelligence studies debate about
intelligence assessments has tended to focus on the instances of failure to predict
sufficiently (if at all) the discontinuities of war, when active deception or high
levels of secrecy had to be penetrated. In the case of failure to predict revolution-
ary change (such as Iran in 1979 and Berlin in 1989), what is likely to matter
more is the ‘feel’ the analyst has for the interactive dynamics of the developing
situation rather than any specific secret intelligence. It cannot be emphasized too
strongly, however, that having a satisfactory explanation of events is a necessary
precondition to producing well-founded predictive assessments.
A fourth, separate, category is needed in this model of modern intelligence,
and that is the important element of ‘strategic notice’ of possible future
risk-related developments (hazards as well as threats, and threats that might
 24 D. Omand
develop from hazards), especially where these may invalidate the explanations
and predictions being made by the analysts.
Strategic notice will be needed, for example, of potential relevant develop-
ments in the fields of technology (such as the further development of bio- and
nanotechnologies or of quantum computing), in diplomacy (such as the develop-
ment of potential new alliances or groupings of nations), in nature (such as the
effects of global warming on scarce resources) or in other aspects of security
(such as the possible development of new violent ideologies) or prospective
shifts in public and international attitudes to security.
Strategic notice in the form of a simple list of conceivable future possibilities
is however of only limited use, in the same way that corporate risk registers
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which provide a catalogue of all the disasters that may occur are only a building
block for a sensible risk management process. What is required at this level of
thinking about security is a deep understanding of the phenomena in question,
and their roots, causes and possible future development, expressed in ways that
will help the policy staffs to develop options for government. One of the most
important benefits of good strategic notice is in enhancing the ability of govern-
ment to commission full intelligence assessments or longer term scientific and
other research to illuminate the phenomena. This should be done systematically
as a cross-government exercise. Open sources come into their own here, includ-
ing academic intelligence studies.
To provide ‘strategic notice’ is not necessarily to predict that future (or in
particular its timing) but to provide the advance notice that allows intelligence,
diplomatic and scientific effort to be cued to look for signs that those potentiali-
ties are becoming realities. Without strategic notice (for example, of terrorist
interest in new unconventional attack methods), it is less likely that the intelli-
gence system will be geared to bring together data drawn from different agen-
cies, or stovepipes within agencies, for the analyst to assess as a whole.
Without the quartet of situational awareness, explanation, prediction and stra-
tegic notice, intelligence analysts are less likely to generate in their minds the
right set of possible hypotheses, and therefore very much less likely that they
will share the data and join up the correct dots that are appearing into a genuine
new pattern of threat.
Looked at in this light, current and future organizational reforms in response
to the standard criticisms of intelligence performance may not bring as much
improvement as reformers hope, since there is an irreducible level of uncertainty
about intelligence work (Jervis 2006). Post-mortem inquiries such as those into
9/11, 7/7 and Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction will usually reveal mistakes
and poor processes that can be improved, but it does not follow that these were
responsible for the warning and intelligence failures.
One of the implications of such thinking is that the intelligence community
needs to build data management systems so that hypotheses may be run across
different domains and patterns of interest identified for further, more traditional
investigation. Simply complaining that the different intelligence, police and
security authorities ‘failed to join up the dots’ misses the point. We need analysts
 Threats, challenges and opportunities 25
to be actively researching a hypothesis and testing explanations against the evid-
ence, successively improving their models, not passively waiting for a pattern to
emerge. We need hunters, not gatherers.
Historians now write about the twentieth century as ‘the century of intelli-
gence’ in which states developed formal institutions called secret services and
used them to spy ruthlessly on each other. By the end of the century most states
had ended up avowing their existence publicly, establishing widespread overseas
liaisons with each other, and attempting to regulate and oversee their activities
by judges and parliamentarians. This chapter has described two of the forces that
caused this reshaping of the intelligence community. The first was the shift from
the Cold War secret state to the modern protecting state with its different
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demands for intelligence. The second was the way in which societal attitudes
themselves have developed what has been called the end of deference towards
authority, a reduced tolerance of risk (and a propensity to look for someone to
blame, or sue, when things go wrong), and above all the rise of 24/7 mass media
and social networking. These changes are not reversible, but further develop-
ments are to be expected over the coming years, especially stemming from the
third shaping force that is science and technology.
It may well be that there will not be comparable scientific and technological
revolutions around the corner that will have as transformative an effect on intel-
ligence work as the scientific revolutions of the twentieth century that brought
radio, radar, solid state electronics, satellites, computers and the internet,
although new generation search engines and the semantic web will allow greater
exploitation of open sources. Probably the biggest revolution going on now is in
the bio-sciences, so we may expect new man–machine interfaces, the ability to
access virtual reality representations of operating environments, and other ways
of fusing information to transform the work of the intelligence officer.
What is certain is that all the effective intelligence agencies of the future will
be knowledge management organizations par excellence. Such organizations
tend to have flat hierarchies to encourage innovation and creativity, to have the
minimum of regulations, to have the agility to adapt and put together teams at
very short notice, and to use all the experience and talent from within and
outside the organization: in short, the opposite of a late twentieth-century peace-
time government department. I have high confidence that the United Kingdom’s
intelligence agencies have the message and the capacity to reinvent themselves
to meet new circumstances, and I hope that will be true for all our allies and
partners. I also believe that the public is beginning to understand better the
essential role intelligence plays, for all its inherent limitations, in keeping us in
relative security in a troubled world.

Notes
1 James R. Clapper, ‘How 9/11 Transformed the US Intelligence Community’, Wall
Street Journal, 7 September 2011.
2 The CPNI website may be accessed at www.cpni.gov.uk/about/cni/.
 26 D. Omand
Bibliography
Deutsch, David (2011) The Beginning of Infinity, London: Allen Lane.
Hennessy, Peter (2002) The Secret State, London: Allen Lane.
Herman, Michael (1996) Intelligence Power in Peace and War, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Heuer, Richard J. (1999) The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, Washington, DC: CIA
Center for the Study of Intelligence.
HM Government (2010) A Strong Britain in an Age of Austerity: The National Security
Strategy, London: Cabinet Office.
Jervis, Robert (2006) ‘Reports, Politics and Intelligence Failures: The Case of Iraq’,
Journal of Strategic Studies, 29: 3–52.
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Keegan, John (2003) Intelligence in War, London: Hutchison.

Machiavelli, Niccolo (1991) The Prince, London: Penguin.
North Atlantic Council (2010) New Strategic Concept, Brussels: NATO.
Omand, David (2007) ‘Reflections on Secret Intelligence’, in P. Hennessy (ed.), The New
Protective State, London: Continuum.
–––– (2010) Securing the State, London: Hurst.
Secrétariat Général de la Défense Nationale (2006) Livre blanc: Défense et Securité
Nationale, Paris: La Documentation Française.
 3 The future of intelligence
Changing threats, evolving methods
Gregory F. Treverton
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Nature of the threat

It is widely acknowledged that the nature of the threat, hence the intelligence
target, has changed dramatically, from nation-states to non-state actors as the
primary target. Yet the implications of that shift reach much further than is
recognized. Nation-states are geographic, in that they are fixed in space (they
have ‘addresses’). As important, they come with lengthy ‘stories’ attached; and
intelligence is ultimately about helping people adjust the stories in their heads to
guide their actions. Without a story, new information is just another empty fact.
States, even ones as different from the United States as North Korea, are hierar-
chical and bureaucratic. They are a bounded threat. Many matters of interest
about states are material and identifiable: tanks, missiles, massed armies (Trever-
ton 2009a).
Terrorists (as individuals, networks and organizations) are different in every
respect. They are small targets, as was Osama Bin Laden, and a single suicide
bomber can cause large-scale mayhem. They are amorphous, fluid and hidden,
presenting intelligence with major challenges simply to describe their structures
and boundaries. Not only do terrorists not have addresses, they aren’t just ‘over
there’ – they are ‘here’ as well, an unpleasant fact that impels nations to collect
more information on their citizens and residents and to do so with minimal
damage to civil liberties. Terrorists also come with little or no story attached.
More than a decade after 9/11, we still debate whether al-Qaeda is a hierarchy, a
network, a terrorism venture capitalist operation, or an ideologically inspired
cause. No doubt it contains elements of all four, but that hardly amounts to a
story.
Cold War intelligence gave pride of place to secrets – information gathered
by human and technical means that intelligence ‘owned’. In contrast, an ava-
lanche of data is available on terrorists. The addresses of the 9/11 hijackers were
available in Californian motor vehicle records. But the sheer volume of data,
plus the lack of a story, means that gathering information on terrorists neces-
sarily involves ‘mining’ or other processing of large quantities of information.
The hardest terrorists of all to pin down are the near ‘lone wolves’ such as US
Army major Nidal Hassan, the Fort Hood killer of 2009 (Jenkins 2010).
 28 G.F. Treverton
Another difference is that terrorists constantly adapt to their adversaries. As
former US Secretary of Defense Harold Brown quipped about the US–Soviet
nuclear competition, ‘When we build, they build. When we stop, they build’
(Platt 1989: 80). While the United States hoped to influence Moscow, intelli-
gence would suggest that it would not. The Soviet Union would do what it would
do regardless. The terrorist target, however, is utterly different, shaping its
capabilities according to identifiable vulnerabilities. The 9/11 suicide
bombers did not hit on their attack plan because they were airline buffs. They
had done enough tactical reconnaissance to know that fuel-filled jets in flight
were vulnerable assets and that defensive passenger clearance procedures were
weak. Thus, to a great extent, we shape the threat; it reflects our vulnerable assets
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and weak defences. This interaction between ‘us’ and ‘them’ has very awkward
implications for US intelligence, especially those agencies with foreign missions
such as the CIA that have traditionally been prevented from doing domestic
intelligence.
The last major difference between transnational targets (especially terrorists)
and state targets like the Soviet Union may be the most important of all. In prin-
ciple, the fight against terror is an intelligence fight. In the Cold War, strategy
did not depend much on intelligence. Now it does. If the goal is prevention, not
deterrence, then there is enormous pressure on intelligence to reach into poten-
tial adversaries, their organization, proclivities and capabilities. How can intelli-
gence achieve that? Table 3.1 lays out the difference, in slight caricature,
between Cold War state threats and post-Cold War transnational threats.

Puzzles and mysteries

Table 3.2 lays out the spectrum from puzzles to mysteries to complexities (Tre-
verton 1994, 2007; Nye 1994). When the Soviet Union would collapse was a
mystery, not a puzzle. No one could know the answer. It depended, and was
contingent, on innumerable factors. Puzzles are a very different kind of intelli-
gence problem. They have an answer but we may not know it. Many of the intel-
ligence successes of the Cold War involved puzzle-solving about a very secretive
foe: Were there Soviet missiles in Cuba? How many warheads did the Soviet
SS-18 missile carry?
Puzzles are not necessarily easier than mysteries – consider the decade it took
to finally solve the puzzle of Osama Bin Laden’s whereabouts – but they do
come with different expectations attached. Intelligence puzzles are unlike jigsaw
puzzles in that we may not be very sure that we have the right answer – the US
raid on Osama Bin Laden in 2011 was launched, participants in the decision
claimed, with the odds that Bin Laden was actually in the compound no better
than six in ten. But the fact that there is in principle an answer provides some
concreteness to what is expected of intelligence. By contrast, mysteries are those
questions for which there is no certain answer. They are necessarily contingent;
the answer depends not least on the intervention, be it policy or medicinal prac-
tice. Often, the experts (whether intelligence analysts, doctors or policy analysts)
 Changing threats, evolving methods 29
Table 3.1 From Cold War targets to the era of terror targets

Old: Cold War New: era of terror

Target States, primarily the Soviet Transnational actors, also some

Union states
‘Story’ about States are geographic, Non-state actors come in many
target hierarchical, bureaucratic shapes and sizes (limited story)
Location of Mostly ‘over there’ (abroad) Abroad and at home
target
Consumers Limited in number (primarily Enormous numbers in principle
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federal, political, military) (state, local and private)

‘Bounded-ness’ Relatively bounded (and in the Much less bounded: terrorists
case of the Soviet Union, patient but new groups and attack
ponderous) modes appearing
Information Too little: dominated by secret Too much: broader range of
sources sources, though secrets still matter
Interaction with Relatively little: Soviet Union Intense: terrorists as the ultimate
target would do what it would do asymmetric threat
Form of ‘Answer’ for puzzles (best Perhaps ‘sense-making’ for
intelligence estimate with excursions for complexities
product mysteries)
Primacy of Important but not primary: Primary: prevention depends on
Intelligence deterrence not intelligence rich intelligence

Source: adapted from Treverton (2009b).

Table 3.2 Intelligence puzzles, mysteries and complexities

Type of issue Description Intelligence product

Puzzle Answer exists but may not be The solution

known
Mystery Answer contingent, cannot be Best forecast, perhaps with scenarios
known, but key variables (and a or excursions
sense for how they combine) may
be identified
Complexity Many actors responding to ‘Sense-making’? Perhaps done
changing circumstances, not orally, involving intense interaction
repeating any established pattern of intelligence and policy

Source: adapted from Treverton (2009b).

find themselves in the position of trying to frame and convey essentially sub-
jective judgements based on their expertise.
‘Complexities are mysteries-plus’ (Snowden 2002).1 Large numbers of relat-
ively small actors respond to a shifting set of situational factors. Thus, they do
not necessarily repeat behaviour in any established pattern and are not amenable
 30 G.F. Treverton
to predictive analysis in the same way as mysteries. These characteristics
describe many transnational targets – small groups forming and reforming,
seeking to find vulnerabilities, thus adapting constantly and interacting in ways
that may be new. Indeed, a definition of wicked problems suggests the chal-
lenges for intelligence, and in particular the ‘connectedness’ of the threat with
our own actions and vulnerabilities:

Wicked problems are ill-defined, ambiguous and associated with strong

moral, political and professional issues. Since they are strongly stakeholder
dependent, there is often little consensus about what the problem is, let
alone how to resolve it. Furthermore, wicked problems won’t keep still: they
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are sets of complex, interacting issues evolving in a dynamic social context.

Often, new forms of wicked problems emerge as a result of trying to under-
stand and solve one of them.
(Ritchey 2007)

To be sure, puzzles remain important for intelligence: consider Osama Bin

Laden’s whereabouts. With time and experience, some of the complexities asso-
ciated with, for instance, terrorist targets are being reconstructed as mysteries.
Still, the increase in complexity (hence uncertainty) is underscored by analogies
with two other areas of science: medicine and policy analysis. The analogies
between intelligence and medicine are striking. In both cases, experts – doctors
or intelligence analysts – are trying to help decision-makers choose a course of
action. The decision-makers for intelligence are policy officials, and for medi-
cine, patients or policy officials. In both cases, the ‘consumers’ of the intelli-
gence may be experts in policy or politics but they are not experts in the
substance of the advice, still less in how to think about uncertainty. Both sets of
experts are often in the position of trying to frame ‘mysteries’.
Warnings of war aim to turn mysteries into puzzles in a Bayesian way.2
Whether the Warsaw Pact would attack Western Europe was a mystery. What
intelligence as warning did was construct indicators, such as the movements of
troops out of garrisons. These indicators became warning lights: the more of them
that began to turn red, the more likely an attack. The process was explicitly Baye-
sian – that is, the probability of attack was adjusted with additional information.
A similar Bayesian approach might address some aspects of terrorism
warning. If a group of concern is identified – a big if – and if the fear were that it
might seek to build and use a chemical, biological or nuclear weapon, then the
paths to those weapons might be ‘mapped’, looking for steps that were
important, unique – that is, indicative of weapon development – and detectable.
The complicating factors are, first, that there are many possible chemical and
biological weapons, so the paths to follow only proliferate; and second, many
important steps, such as acquiring laboratory equipment, are hardly unique to
building weapons.
These dilemmas mean that looking for steps and thus indicators that rank
higher in ‘uniqueness’ is critical. Carefully inspecting a building can be terrorist
 Changing threats, evolving methods 31
surveillance, but it can also be simply tourism or curiosity. For reasons of
uniqueness, traditional warning was hard to extend to more political and eco-
nomic issues. Many political indicators, for instance, might be relevant for fore-
seeing a coup or other sudden change of government but be at best ambiguously
related to that warning. They were not, in the sense of Bayesian analysis, very
unique. If a step or indicator has few applications other than a terrorist attack it
is highly unique, and likewise many applications indicates reduced uniqueness.
Uniqueness tends to trump simple importance, since a step that is important but
not very unique is of limited use to intelligence. For instance, acquiring labora-
tory equipment is very important in almost any process of producing biological
weapons, yet that action ranks low in uniqueness. Possible purchasers of labora-
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tory equipment range from students, to hobbyists, to an enormous range of legit-

imate businesses.
For indicators, visibility is also critical. Something that cannot be monitored
by intelligence is not very useful as an indicator. The decision by an opponent’s
general staff to launch preparations for an attack would be a wonderful warning
but is not likely to be very visible. For that reason, espionage, which may or may
not be available on any given day, generally cannot be counted on for warning;
it is a business involving ‘targets of opportunity’. Is there some way in which a
particular indicator manifests itself so that it could be recognized or searched
for? The answers will differ across phases and tasks. Much terrorist planning, for
instance, will be invisible to intelligence until long after the fact, left in terrorist
staging areas, or available only with luck (e.g. seizing a computer). By contrast,
acts of recruitment may be more visible, along with some kinds of training. In
the biological weapons example, acquiring laboratory equipment is very
important but not very unique. Moreover, it is also, in general, not very visible.
If, by contrast, a group suspected of being terrorists recruited a biologist, that
may be more unique and more visible.
With a Bayesian approach, the intelligence problem becomes an assessment
of conditional probabilities. Against a prior suspicion that a group may engage
in terror, does each available indicator increase that suspicion or diminish it?
Each additional observation made with respect to an individual or group pro-
vides additional information – like additional flips of the coin – permitting ana-
lysts to sharpen their assessments of whether that person or group is more likely
to engage in terror or not.
Ideally, intelligence would focus on indicators that were both very indicative
of terror as opposed to some other more benign activity, and very visible. Unfor-
tunately the world frustrates such convenience, since it offers few indicators
comparable to large troop movements on the central front during the Cold War.
Most will be like acquiring laboratory equipment in the bio-weapons example,
perhaps important but not useful for intelligence because they are low in unique-
ness and visibility. By contrast, acquiring a microbiologist is more detectable
and more unique, though still not high on either scale.
Both uniqueness and visibility depend on the context, and policies can increase
both, especially visibility. In terms of context, if the framework were applied not
 32 G.F. Treverton
to an industrial society like the United States or Britain, but instead to a poor
region of the world with only a limited industrial base, even the acquisition of lab-
oratory equipment might acquire some uniqueness. Similarly, large purchases of
fertilizer might carry more uniqueness if made in a large city rather than in a rural
agricultural area, although this might not be very visible in either location.
Similar considerations may also apply to visibility. Transactions that are
buried among thousands or millions of others in rich countries – thus obscuring
the signal with enormous noise – might stand out more in poorer countries. That
may be true whether the activity were observed in surveillance or detected by
signals intelligence (SIGINT), and may apply to a wide range of indicators from
simple international travel, which is much rarer to and from poor regions, to pos-
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session of materials that could be used to produce weapons.

Cold War confidence-building measures (CBMs), a policy instrument,
increased uniqueness more than visibility. Large troop movements would have
been visible in any case, but CBM limitations on out-of-garrison activity implied
that any activity over the limit was on its face threatening. Policies can also
make some of the steps along paths to terrorism more visible. For instance, in
2007 the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission moved to tighten procedures for
getting licences to acquire radioactive materials after US Government Account-
ability Office investigators posing as West Virginia businessmen obtained a
licence in twenty-eight days using nothing more sophisticated than a telephone,
a fax machine and a rented post office box. The move sought to make acquiring
radioactive materials more transparent.

Conveying uncertainty
The terrorism warning example drives home the point that uncertainty cannot be
eliminated, only assessed and then perhaps managed. This is more and more
obvious when the analytic task moves away from warning (especially very tacti-
cal warning) towards dealing with more strategic and forward-looking mysteries
for which the analysis begins where the information ends and uncertainty is ines-
capable. In framing this task, it is useful to compare Carl von Clausewitz with
his lesser-known contemporary strategist, Antoine-Henri, Baron de Jomini
(Friedman and Zeckhauser 2012). Jomini, a true child of the Enlightenment, saw
strategy as a series of problems with definite solutions. He believed that math-
ematical logic could derive ‘fundamental principles’ of strategy, which if fol-
lowed should mean for the sovereign that ‘nothing very unexpected can befall
him and cause his ruin’ (Jomini 2007: 250). By contrast, Clausewitz believed
that unpredictable events were inevitable in war, and that combat involved some
irreducible uncertainty (or ‘friction’). He characterized war as involving ‘an
interplay of possibilities, probabilities, good luck and bad’, and argued that ‘in
the whole range of human activities, war most closely resembles a game of
cards’ (von Clausewitz 1976: 85–86).3
Intelligence, perhaps especially in the United States, talks in Clausewitzian
terms, arguing that uncertainty, hence risk, can only be managed, not eliminated.
 Changing threats, evolving methods 33
Yet Jomini casts a long shadow over both war and intelligence. In fact, intelli-
gence is still non-Clausewitzian in implying that uncertainty can be reduced,
perhaps even eliminated. That theme runs back to Roberta Wohlstetter’s classic
book about Pearl Harbor, which paints a picture of ‘systemic malfunctions’
(Wohlstetter 1962). There were plenty of indications of an impending attack, but
a combination of secrecy procedures and divided organizations prevented them
from being put together into a clear warning. If, though, the dots had been con-
nected, to use a recently much-overused phrase, the attack could have been pre-
dicted. So, too, the US report on 9/11 imposes a kind of Wohlstetter template,
searching for signals that were present but not put together (National Commis-
sion on Terrorist Attacks 2004). The perception of linearity is captured by the
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formulation ‘the system is blinking red’. Table 3.3 summarizes the differences
between the Jominian and Clausewitzian approaches.
The Jominian approach pervades how analysis is conducted and taught. Most
assessments, like US National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs), provide a ‘best’
estimate or ‘key judgements’. They may then set out alternatives or excursions,
but the process tends to privilege probability over consequences, when in fact it
is the combination of the two that matters to policy. This emphasis on ‘best bets’
also runs through familiar analytic techniques such as the analysis of competing
hypotheses (ACH). This points to the question ‘competition for what?’ The usual
answer is likelihood. Indeed, the original description of ACH, in the now-classic
book by Richard Heuer, explains its goal as being to determine ‘Which of
several possible explanations is the correct one? Which of several possible out-
comes is the most likely one?’ (Heuer 1999: 95).
A true Clausewitzian approach would rest, instead, on three principles. First,
confidence and probability are different; thus there is no reason not to be explicit
about probabilities, even with low confidence. Second, content of information
matters as much as reliability; so, again, important information should not be
excluded simply because it is deemed unreliable. Third, and perhaps most impor-
tantly, consequence matters in evaluating information and in constructing altern-
atives; thus consequential possibilities should not be relegated to the sidelines
simply because they are judged unlikely.

Table 3.3 Jominian vs. Clausewitzian intelligence

Jominian Clausewitzian

Goal is to eliminate uncertainty Goal is to assess uncertainty

There is a ‘right’ answer ‘Fog of war’ is inescapable
More information and better concepts Single-point high probability predictions
narrow uncertainty both unhelpful and inaccurate
Large uncertainty indicates shortcomings Better analysis may identify more possible
in analysis outcomes

Source: adapted from Treverton (2009b).

 34 G.F. Treverton
The resulting product would, in effect, lay out a probability distribution,
involving not multiple answers but rather a single distribution. If consequence
were deemed as important as likelihood, intelligence would, in effect, produce a
probability distribution in which consequential outcomes would receive attention
not just as excursions, even if their probability was low or could not be assessed
very clearly. In looking at 379 declassified US NIEs, Friedman and Zeckhauser
found but one example of this style of analysis. A 1990 NIE, ‘The Deepening
Crisis in the USSR’, laid out on a single page four different ‘scenarios for the
next year’ in a simple figure (Friedman and Zeckhauser 2012: 832). Each was
explained in several bullet points, and then assessed as a ‘Rough Probability’.
The scenario deemed most likely was presented first but was not given any more
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discussion than the others. The NIE thus neglected neither probability nor con-
sequence. It conveyed no sense that one scenario should be thought of as ‘best’
or ‘correct’; nor did it require readers to parse the meaning of concepts like
‘significant’, ‘serious’ or ‘important’ (even if those were elaborated on in a glos-
sary, as is now the practice for NIEs). In the end, it allowed readers to decide for
themselves which possibilities deserved pride of place.
Yet the question of whether busy senior policy-makers would sit still for a
Clausewitzian approach is a fair one. The easy answer would be to try it as an
experiment for a handful of estimates on issues that are both important and very
uncertain. A hint of an answer was provided by Stephen Hadley, President George
W. Bush’s national security adviser. A November 2007 NIE on Iran’s nuclear
intentions and capabilities provoked a firestorm of controversy when its ‘key judge-
ments’ were declassified and released. The first clause seemed to undercut not only
any argument for military action against Iran but also the international campaign
for sanctions against the country that the Bush administration had targeted. The
President called the opening ‘eye-popping’, all the more so because it came ‘despite
the fact that Iran was testing missiles that could be used as a delivery system and
had announced its resumption of uranium enrichment’ (Bush 2010: 418).
Based on that experience, Hadley made the intriguing (and Clausewitzian in
spirit) suggestion that for the several most important, and uncertain, issues a
president faces, intelligence might present its assessment in ways different from
the ‘we judge with medium confidence’ format. Imagine, for example, a pie
chart representing all the United States would like to know about an issue. Dif-
ferent slices might be different sizes based on judgements about how important
they are. In this case, the ‘is Iran weaponizing?’ slice would have been signi-
ficant but smaller than the ‘is it enriching?’ piece, since the latter paces the coun-
try’s nuclear programme. The slices may show clearly how much US intelligence
knew about that piece. The weaponization slice would have indicated good
information on that score.

The promise of transparency

Information technology is enabling new forms of collaboration within
intelligence but also outside it: witness wikis and crowd sourcing. Those same
 Changing threats, evolving methods 35
developments are opening up the question of what intelligence’s products – or, to
put it more openly, ‘outputs’ – should be. For instance, the content of social net-
working media, like Facebook or Twitter, is more and more a matter of images,
not words. Traditionally, intelligence has thought of pictures as a way to tell a
story. Now those images are the story. Moreover, what is ‘publication’ in an era
when anyone can publish, and a publication is no longer a commodity with a
‘use-by’ date? Social networking media are both a cause and a metaphor for the
transparency that is rolling across both intelligence and policy science. They are
the very antithesis of the way intelligence has been practised previously. Intelli-
gence has been closed and passive; social media are open and active.
It is the combination of new media and new devices, smartphones and their
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kin, that are causing this revolution. Twitter grew by 1,500 per cent in the three
years before 2010, and it now has, by its own statistics, about 175 million users.
Facebook reached 500 million users in mid-2010, a scant six years after being
created in a Harvard dorm room. The iPhone and other ‘smart’ handsets let users
gain access to the internet and download mobile applications, including games,
social networking programs and productivity tools. These same devices also
allow users to upload information to network-based services for the purpose of
communication and sharing.
The dominance of images, not words is plain with Facebook but is increas-
ingly the case for Twitter as well. Making use of a traditional computer required
literacy, but the same is not true of a smartphone. Apparently, these kinds of
images can be powerful in shaping public opinion, and perhaps policy outcomes,
both domestically and internationally, even if most of the posited effects are still
anecdotal. Consider the effects of the pictures from Abu Graibh, or the YouTube
video of a US helicopter strike apparently killing civilians in Baghdad in 2007.4
Compare those with the leak through WikiLeaks of 92,000 US military docu-
ments pertaining to Afghanistan.5 If the latter seemed to have less impact, that
was probably largely because the main story lines – collateral damage and Paki-
stani complicity with the Taliban – were familiar (the former in part because of
previous images). But the documents were just that: words; thus a quintessential
newspaper story and not images that might go viral on the web.
Characterizing the future world in which social media are the leading wave
demonstrates how dramatic the change will be for intelligence. That future world
will be one of ubiquitous sensing and transparency. For the former, think of
those closed-circuit TVs (CCTVs), which number 1.85 million in Britain, or one
for every thirty-two inhabitants. Transparency will be driven by those ubiquitous
sensors and their location awareness, by the increasing computational power of
devices, and by increases in communication and connectivity. ‘Converged
sources’ has been a buzzword for nearly a generation but only became a reality
in recent years with the smartest of smartphones, not to mention the iPad and its
kin. These personal mobile devices indicate who their users are; where and when
they are, have been and will be located; what they are doing, have been doing
and will be doing; with whom or what they are interacting; and the characteris-
tics of their surrounding environment.
 36 G.F. Treverton
At the same time, threat signatures and footprints will continue to shrink –
notice the challenge of attributing cyber attacks. Background noise will continue
to rise. Given current technology, for instance, because of the huge volume and
low reliability, Twitter is useful for intelligence analysis only in two circum-
stances: when information about what is happening is in short supply so that
Twitter can supplement it (as was the case during the Mumbai attack of 2008);
and when there is no other source of ‘public opinion’ (as in the aftermath of the
2009 Iranian presidential elections). Finally, these technological capabilities will
continue to proliferate as cutting-edge research and technology go global. If it is
not always that the bad guys can do everything the good guys can; the gap
between the two cannot safely be counted on to be very large.
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Perhaps because of their newness, it is not clear how important social net-
working media will be in organizing, for instance, anti-government groups. In
Iran and other countries, they have been the latest IT innovation in organizing in
a line that runs from Ayatollah Khomeini’s audio cassette speeches smuggled
in in the 1970s, through to the fax machines that played a role in Eastern
Europe’s transitions in the 1980s. In crisis periods, such as that following the
Iranian elections, social media had the attractions of speed and relative anonym-
ity from government retaliation, but they also carried the challenge of validating
who was real and who was not (and who was a government agent).
On the operational side, ignoring social media can be done only at the peril of
endangering the cover, and perhaps the lives, of intelligence officials. If twenty-
somethings are not on Facebook or Twitter, they only become ‘conspicuous by
their absence’. They may as well advertise ‘I work for intelligence’. Tomorrow,
if not already today, if officials are undercover, they have to live that cover in
virtual worlds as well as physical ones. They have to be prepared to move
quickly from one medium to another. Indeed, ‘official’ cover as it has been prac-
tised by the United States and many other nations is already an artefact of the
past, though intelligence organizations have not yet quite realized it. All the ele-
ments of transparency – from biometrics through geolocation – mean than any
cover will be fleeting, with the possible exceptions of intelligence operatives
who really live their cover, being and not just pretending to be businesspeople or
some other professional, and never coming close to any government establish-
ment. The technologies don’t just apply to the future either. They also capture
the past, for instance, as names, passport numbers, and perhaps biometrics like
fingerprints that were collected at borders are digitized and thus made searchable
in the present and future.
On the analytic side, if the challenges of a huge volume and low reliability
are already plain, so are some of the possibilities. Social media have the poten-
tial to become a repository for collected information, in the process enabling
amateur intelligence analysis. Already, the founder of Greylogic, a noted expert
on cyber warfare and a consultant to the US intelligence community, has
launched a trial balloon on Twitter – called Grey Balloons – seeking volunteers
who might spend a few hours per week, unpaid, to help intelligence agencies do
their jobs, especially in connecting the dots.6 Intelligence has long fretted about
 Changing threats, evolving methods 37
competition from professionals like CNN, but now may find itself competing
with amateurs for the attention of its customers. It may be asked to vet and vali-
date amateur intelligence efforts, and it may be required to allocate its resources
to fill in the gaps not covered by amateur efforts.
Social media are important in and of themselves, but they are also at the
cutting edge of broader changes that are enveloping intelligence. Social media
are active, not passive. They completely blur the distinctions that have been used
to organize intelligence – among collector, analyst and operator, or between pro-
ducer and consumer. They completely upset existing notions about what intelli-
gence’s ‘products’ are. Coupled with smartphones, they will turn any human
being into a geolocated collector and real-time analyst. They offer enormous
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promise, but also carry large risks and obstacles. Small wonder, then, that a
study of social media for the US National Geospatial Intelligence Agency
(NGA) found:

enthusiasm mixed with concern. Clear guidance is sparse. Measurement of

any benefits these technologies may have brought is not well documented;
at the same time there is little quantification of their potential negative
impact – instead, a mixture of hand waving and hand wringing.
(Flores and Markowitz 2009: 3)

In a study of uses of social media by US intelligence agencies by the RAND

Corporation, a conversation with one of the managers of Intellipedia – a highly
classified wiki internal to the US intelligence community – was more positive
about the possibilities even as he demonstrated how far from reality those
possibilities are. He recognized that it is interaction that drives the possibilities –
from asking questions on Twitter to more specific ‘crowd sourcing’; that is,
posing issues for and explicitly seeking help from fellow netizens. A convert, he
would take the logic of social media to its conclusion and have the CIA out
there, openly, as the CIA, asking questions and seeking help. ‘Sure,’ he said in
an interview with this author, ‘we’d get lots of disinformation. But we get plenty
of that already. And we might find people out there who were prepared to help
us.’ Seeing this as help is a key to reshaping intelligence.

Notes
1 The term is from Snowden (2002). His ‘known problems’ are like puzzles and his
‘knowable problems’ are akin to mysteries.
2 The provenance of Bayes theorem is complicated, but an English preacher, Thomas
Bayes, is generally credited with publishing it in 1763. It has come to describe both an
inclination and a process to update subjective probabilities in light of new evidence.
3 For a nice comparison of Clausewitz and Jomini, see Calhoun (2011).
4 The video is available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0 (accessed 4
February 2013).
5 For excerpts and analysis, see the New York Times, 26 July 2010.
6 See Jeffrey Carr’s Twitter site at http://twitter.com/greyballoons (accessed 4 February
2013).
 38 G.F. Treverton
Bibliography
Bush, George W. (2010) Decision Points, New York: Crown Publishers.
Calhoun, Mark T. (2011) ‘Clausewitz and Jomini: Contrasting Intellectual Frameworks in
Military Theory’, Army History, 80: 22–37.
Clausewitz, Carl von (1976) On War, trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret, Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.
Flores, Robert A. and Markowitz, Joe (2009) Social Software – Alternative Publication
@ NGA, Harper’s Ferry, VA: Pherson Associates.
Friedman, Jeffrey A. and Zeckhauser, Richard (2012) ‘Assessing Uncertainty in Intelli-
gence’, Intelligence and National Security, 27: 824–847.
Heuer, Richard (1999) The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, Washington, DC: Center
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for the Study of Intelligence.

Jenkins, Brian Michael (2010) Stray Dogs and Virtual Armies: Radicalization and
Recruitment to Jihadist Terrorism in the United States Since 9/11, OP-343, Santa
Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. Online. Available: www.rand.org/pubs/testimonies/
CT353.html (accessed 4 February 2013).
Jomini, Baron H. de (2007) The Art of War, Charleston, SC: BiblioLife.
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (2004) The 9/11 Com-
mission Report, Washington, DC. Online. Available: www.9–11commission.gov/
(accessed 4 February 2013).
Nye Jr., Joseph S. (1994) ‘Peering into the Future’, Foreign Affairs, 77(July/August):
82–93.
Platt, Suzy (ed.) (1989) Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations Requested from
the Congressional Research Service, Washington, DC: Library of Congress.
Ritchey, Tom (2007) ‘Wicked Problems: Structuring Social Messes with Morphological
Analysis’, Swedish Morphological Society. Online. Available: www.swemorph.com/
pdf/wp.pdf (accessed 4 February 2013).
Snowden, Dave (2002) ‘Complex Acts of Knowing: Paradox and Descriptive Self-
awareness’, Journal of Knowledge Management, 6: 100–111. Online. Available: http://
cognitive-edge.com/uploads/articles/13_Complex_Acts_of_Knowing_paradox_and_
descriptive_self-awareness.pdf (accessed 1 March 2013).
Treverton, Gregory F. (1994) ‘Estimating Beyond the Cold War’, Defense Intelligence
Journal, 3: 5–45.
–––– (2007) ‘Risks and Riddles’, Smithsonian, June. Online. Available: www.smithsoni-
anmag.com/people-places/presence_puzzle.html (accessed 1 March 2013).
–––– (2009a) Intelligence for an Age of Terror, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
–––– (2009b) ‘Approaching Threat Convergence from an Intelligence Perspective’, in
Magnus Ranstorp and Magnus Normark (eds), Unconventional Weapons and Inter-
national Terrorism: Challenges and New Approaches, London: Routledge.
Wohlstetter, Roberta (1962) Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision, Stanford, CA: Stan-
ford University Press.
 4 Is the US intelligence community
anti-intellectual?
Mark M. Lowenthal
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For many years now, both the US intelligence community and its many critics –
both well intentioned and not – have struggled to find ways to improve intelli-
gence analysis. I have constantly tried to remind people that intelligence analysis
is, at its core, an intellectual activity. What I have meant by this is the fact that
most of the important things that go on in intelligence analysis happen in the
minds of the analysts. No amount of tinkering with organizational charts, or
inventing new analytical tools or succumbing to the latest ‘buzzword’ of the
month – picture a crowd of wise black swans blinking at the tipping point – will
change this. Yet having made this plea about the intellectual basis of intelligence
analysis and still believing in it, we must also face the very strong possibility
that the US intelligence community is also somewhat anti-intellectual.

The origins of US (and British) intelligence in the twentieth

century
Although this chapter is primarily about US intelligence, it is worth noting that
our British colleagues share an intellectual basis in their activities. We usually
date modern US intelligence from the creation of the position of Coordinator of
Information in 1941, but it is possible to go back a further in time for intellectual
antecedents. In September 1917 Colonel Edward House, President Woodrow
Wilson’s policy adviser, established a study group to prepare materials for the
coming post-war peace negotiations. The Inquiry, as the group was known, was
headed by Dr Sidney Mezes, a philosopher and president of the City College of
New York (CCNY); Mezes was also related to House by marriage. Other notable
members of the Inquiry were Isaiah Bowman, president of the American Geo-
graphical Society; journalist Walter Lippmann; and historians James Shotwell
and James Truslow Adams. The actual influence of the Inquiry upon Wilson’s
positions and the eventual shaping of the Treaty of Versailles remain somewhat
entertaining (the role of advisers at Versailles is well told in Nicolson (1939)).
However, the concept was an interesting precedent.
Turning to the British intelligence establishment, the histories of Bletchley
Park are replete with stories about absent-minded Oxford dons and ‘boffins’ (sci-
entists and engineers) working away to decrypt the German Enigma codes
 40 M.M. Lowenthal
(McKay 2011; Hinsley and Stripp 2001). Similarly, the US Office of Strategic
Services, created in 1942, had a strong academic component. Harvard historian
William Langer led the Research and Analysis (R&A) branch, which was staffed
with 900 scholars. As the CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence notes, OSS
R&A officers included seven future presidents of the American Historical Asso-
ciation, five future presidents of the American Economic Association and two
future Nobel Laureates.1 In the post-war intelligence community, Langer set up
the CIA’s Office of National Estimates. He was assisted and then succeeded by
Yale historian Sherman Kent, who had been chief of R&A’s Europe-Africa
Division. Kent, viewed by many as the father of CIA intelligence analysis,
would remain at the CIA until 1967.
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The effect of the Soviet target

Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger once noted that ‘it is wrong to
be nostalgic about the Cold War’.2 True enough, although in retrospect it seems
to have been a much simpler time in terms of world affairs and the management
of intelligence, the prospect of nuclear Armageddon notwithstanding. Still, the
nature and longevity of the struggle with the Soviet Union also fostered a strong
intellectual undergirding to intelligence.
Several factors drove this. First, the struggle lasted for over four decades, pro-
viding both the opportunity and the necessity of developing in-depth expertise.
Even at the outset of the Cold War, US policy-makers were prepared for a long
struggle. George Kennan, in his seminal papers espousing containment, thought
the contest would last for fifteen years. Kennan was obviously wrong by a factor
of three but even a fifteen-year intense contest is a long one, especially for a
democracy. Moreover, most of the premises Kennan made about Soviet behavior
had less to do with the fact that they were communists than long-standing factors
of Russian history, clearly an intellectual approach. Second, the Cold War strug-
gle embraced all aspects of national life: political, military, economic, social,
cultural and ideological. This again required a broad and integrated view of rela-
tionships and of what constituted the successful use of power in all of its forms.
Finally, the struggle was, after 1950, global in nature, requiring ongoing know-
ledge about distant places that would otherwise have been easily ignored. Two
new academic fields evolved. One was Soviet Studies, which was in several
respects very different from Chinese Studies or German Studies, or even Russian
Studies. It was more than area or cultural expertise, given the importance of
ideology. In many ways it was like tracking a religious movement, replete with
true believers, schisms and apostates. The other field was Strategic Studies, the
Strangelovian world of nuclear exchanges and throw weights, some of which
would have come into being given the fact of atomic weapons but clearly given
added importance by the bipolar power struggle. Indeed, Strategic Studies pro-
vided a path for academics to take an active role in defence policy on a scale and
at a depth never seen before. Thus, there was a strong intellectual component to
intelligence during the Cold War.
 Is US intelligence anti-intellectual? 41
What happened?
Several factors have led to what I call the budding anti-intellectualism of intelli-
gence. The most obvious was the victorious conclusion of the Cold War. Soviet
studies became antiquarian and strategic studies seemed quaint at best. We were
not at ‘the end of history’, but much that had preoccupied us for almost half a
century had gone away. We had not entered a period of universal peace (parts of
Europe, for example, became increasingly violent following the Soviet demise)
but the issues that mattered most to policy-makers and thus to intelligence were
smaller and more numerous. There was no more central focus or one over-
whelming issue. In this more scattershot world a new premium was put on
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‘agility’ in intelligence, meaning the ability to shift resources (largely meaning

analysts) from hotspot to hotspot as the need arose. In this fire-fighting mentality
there has been much less ability to build up the kind of knowledge or expertise
that characterized Cold War intelligence – although even this in-depth know-
ledge did not give many the foresight to see the coming end of the Cold War
itself. US intelligence leaders talked frequently about ‘velocity and volume’,
suggesting that speed was all and that the volume of data probably precluded
attempts to truly master it. Indeed, in the face of supposedly overwhelming data
we went from mastery to looking for the needle in the haystack.
A second crucial factor was the change in the analytical workforce. US intel-
ligence had grown during the Reagan administration, after which the budget
went flat and thereafter lost ground to inflation. There was a series of demo-
graphic shifts. First, many positions either went unfilled or were lost entirely
during the period between 1989 and 2001. Former Director of Central Intelli-
gence (DCI) George Tenet has stated that 23,000 positions were lost across US
intelligence during that period. Second, as we reached the end of that period,
some of the people hired in as part of the 1980s expansion began to retire, further
hollowing out the force and also taking their expertise with them – with no one
to whom they could pass it on. In truth, the intelligence community has never
been very good at capturing and passing on expertise in a systematic manner, but
the ongoing demographics made the problem worse. Third, as the workforce
surged in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in 2001, we took on thousands of
analysts with no intelligence training, many of whom had other intellectual
shortcomings which I will discuss below. As a result the overall balance of the
workforce between experienced veterans and inexperienced novices was thrown
badly out of kilter.
One final result of these workforce changes was a shift in how US intelli-
gence dealt with pressing issues. We entered a period of ‘analytical triage’, again
moving from pressing issue to pressing issue with fewer analysts who had less
experience and who were given little time to learn about a topic before they were
asked to move on. Now, granted, there were some exceptions to this. We did
have analysts who began studying al-Qaeda, for example, long before anyone on
the outside knew who they were. We did have pockets of more senior analysts
who had been on their briefs for longer periods of time. Nevertheless, these
 42 M.M. Lowenthal
began to stand out like islands in an archipelago and not as a general approach to
intelligence issues.
Two other factors also helped foster the anti-intellectual shift. One has been
the nature of the wars we have been fighting. Iraq and especially Afghanistan, as
well as the efforts against terrorists, have been very tactical in nature. We have
increasingly impressive amounts of data (vice knowledge) about terrorists, but
we really have not had an overarching grand strategic concept to guide us as we
did during the Cold War. Instead, we have fought these subnational groups as
subnational groups: picking them off; interdicting them when we can; intercept-
ing cash flows. No one would argue that these are not useful activities, but they
turn on very tactical, highly operational intelligence. This is very different from
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building a body of expertise upon which these tactical operations can be

informed.
The final factor is what I would call the ‘PDB effect’. The President’s Daily
Brief goes back to the Kennedy administration (1961–1963) but the PDB’s over-
whelming importance in US intelligence stems from the George W. Bush admin-
istration (2001–2009). Bush, as is well known, not only wanted a daily briefing
but insisted that DCI George Tenet be present each day. This not only repres-
ented a change from Bush’s predecessor Bill Clinton, who was less rigorous
about the daily intelligence briefing, but also from all past practice, as no
previous president had required the DCI to be present for each daily briefing.
Access to senior policy-makers is immensely important for intelligence officers,
so Bush’s request represented a gain from the sporadic access under Clinton. In
addition, Tenet simply could not refuse the president’s request. However, one
consequence of this greater access and the greater emphasis on the PDB meeting
was that it elevated the PDB in the minds of many CIA analysts (the PDB was
still a CIA product up until the advent of the Director of National Intelligence in
2005).
As I have written elsewhere, the PDB is a somewhat overrated activity
(Lowenthal 2009: 116). Yes, it is important to have access to the president.
However, the PDB itself consists of intelligence that is non-urgent enough to
wait for the morning briefing. For example, according to press accounts Pres-
ident Barack Obama was briefed at 3.55 a.m. about the North Korean shelling of
Yeonpeong Island in 2010 as there were concerns about a more general war
breaking out on the Korean peninsula (Reuters 2010). Moreover, the PDB tends
to emphasize current intelligence issues which do not necessarily engage as
much in-depth expertise, although this expertise is immensely useful in writing
any intelligence. The format is restrictive, the longest articles tending to be no
more than a page or two. Presidents Bush and Obama have both used the
morning briefing for ‘deep dives’ on given topics, but the daily feeding of the
‘briefing beast’ is very different from the steady building of expertise and
knowledge.
 Is US intelligence anti-intellectual? 43
The anti-intellectualism of the intelligence community
What does it mean to be an intellectual? According to Merriam-Webster, an
intellectual is someone who is given to study, reflection and speculation, and is
engaged in activity requiring the creative use of the intellect.3 I think this sounds
very much like what we want intelligence analysts to be, at least in the ideal.
Here, then, are some of the reasons why I think the intelligence community is
anti-intellectual. Some of these reasons may be unwitting but that does not amel-
iorate their effect. The main reason I would cite is the lack of value that the com-
munity places on education and training. Yes, almost every major agency has a
schoolhouse of some sort, but once employees are past the entry stage ongoing
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training and education remains sporadic and haphazard. This being the case, pro-
fessional education and training is therefore very uneven from agency to agency.
The main emphasis has always been on-the-job training, which is a good thing
but is hardly sufficient. The US Army remains the ideal here, with education and
training an ongoing and continuous experience throughout an officer’s career.
How do we account for the difference? Simply put, culture: the Army values
education and training, and the intelligence community does not. The usual
excuse within intelligence agencies as to why they allow few such opportunities
is that they are too busy. Yes, they are. But busier than the Army? Unlikely.
Instead, in intelligence agencies we have what some of us used to call the Ben-
Hur approach to personnel management: chain them to their desks and tell them
to keep time with the guy with the drum.
Moreover, education and training in the intelligence community is not tied to
career development. Indeed, it would be difficult – if not impossible – to tie
education and training to career development in intelligence as we barely have
that concept in hand, beyond entry, middle and high. Finally, to cite the military
again, one of their goals is ‘to train how we fight’. The intelligence community
talks a great deal about integration and collaboration but it really does not train
that way. There is a still nascent (after more than six years) National Intelligence
University designed to train across the intelligence community but, in truth,
training takes place predominantly within individual agencies.
The second reason I would cite is the rather steady decline of the intelligence
community as a learning institution. What does it mean to be a learning institu-
tion? Turning once again to Merriam-Webster, learning is defined as, first,
knowledge or skill acquired by instruction or study, and second, modification of
behavioural tendency by experience. I would argue that the intelligence com-
munity falls short on the first but is better on the second, although not in an
organized manner. The key issue in learning is to capture that which you have
learned. This should be done systematically and continuously. Again, this tends
not to be the case with intelligence agencies. The usual excuse, once more, is
time pressure and the ongoing rush of issues. This is undoubtedly penny-wise
and pound-foolish. US intelligence would be better off, once again, in following
the lead of the Army, which has the Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL).
CALL’s mission is to collect, analyse, disseminate and archive a variety of
 44 M.M. Lowenthal
operational data rapidly, ‘in order to facilitate rapid adaptation . . . and conduct
focused knowledge sharing and transfer that informs the Army and enables oper-
ationally based decision making and innovation’.4 To be fair, there is a rudimen-
tary lessons-learned capability within the office of the DNI, but this office
remains woefully undermanned and has nowhere near the same central role that
CALL has for the Army.
My final argument is that we do not value knowledge because we no longer
systematically develop knowledge. To some extent this again reflects the greater
number of pressing issues (as opposed to the old single dominant issue) and the
tendency to push analysts from one crisis to another. The intelligence com-
munity was not the sole fount of expertise on the Soviet Union but its capabil-
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ities in this area went quite deep. It is difficult to find similar reservoirs of
knowledge (as opposed to talent) today. Here we must make a cautionary note:
even though knowledge is highly preferable to ignorance, even deep knowledge
will not entirely preclude making analytical mistakes or, on occasion, being
surprised.
Knowledge is like sound: it requires a source, propagation and reception.
Knowledge must not only be created but preserved so that it can be transmitted.
However, if one is engaged in day-to-day tactical episodes, such knowledge-
building becomes much more difficult. There is little time to learn and to absorb
as one moves from one intellectual fire-fight to another. There has been some
progress made in the preservation of knowledge, or at least the amassing of all
disseminated analyses, in the Library of National Intelligence. Whether analysts
use this as a regular resource as they craft new analyses is an open question. The
one area of knowledge that consistently fails to be preserved is the knowledge
held by retirees. It is rare for anyone to think about asking a senior analyst who
is about to retire to sit down with junior analysts and pass along what he has
learned, words of wisdom or career advice. This invaluable resource is allowed
simply to walk away.
One final aspect that leads to anti-intellectualism are the analysts who have
been (and are still) hired since 2001. What follows are some general observa-
tions, not true in each individual case but true often enough to be of concern.
First, they are the first generation to be raised on the internet. They are very good
at finding discrete packets of information but less skilled at the broader vision of
context, flow and especially precedent. If the baby boomers were the ‘Me Gen-
eration’ then this group might be called the ‘Now Generation’. They live almost
entirely in the present and have little reference to the past, even the recent past.
Their research skills beyond the internet are largely non-existent and their ability
to communicate in writing appears to have been severely crippled by the extreme
telegraphy of text messaging and Twitter. Having spent so much time multi-
tasking and jumping from task to task in rapid fashion, they appear to have a
similar view of their careers. They would like to move from issue to issue as
each new issue attracts them, rather than focus on one issue long enough to
develop the expertise that is really needed. I would compare this to viewing their
careers as an endless buffet rather than as a series of eight-course meals in which
 Is US intelligence anti-intellectual? 45
each course must be properly digested. Finally, too few of them exhibit any
historical or cultural knowledge: if it did not happen in their lifetime it is, by def-
inition, uninteresting.

Solutions
Rather than allow this to be a dreary jeremiad, here are some steps the intelli-
gence community could take to restore a necessary degree of intellectualism.
First, even though most of us believe that intelligence is a profession, we need
to treat it as a profession both in and out of government. This means having a
serious discussion about what it means to be an intelligence professional in terms
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of skills, expertise and career expectations. It also means thinking about what a
progression of skills looks like across an analyst’s career. Some of this will be
general and some will have to allow for the fact that as an analyst becomes more
specialized and finds his or her niche, or niches, degrees of specialization will
take place. Having done that, we should develop a curriculum of education and
training that carries across a career and then allow the analyst the necessary
opportunities to take part in this curriculum – not as exceptions but as an essen-
tial part of his or her professional development. Indeed, there should be more
rewards for education and training, and more penalties for those who avoid it.
Second, we should be serious about the need for a coherent and well-
integrated lessons-learned capability, instead of the lip-service one we have now.
Finally, and most importantly, we must create incentives for the building of
knowledge and expertise. The excuse of being too busy not only rings false but
is also a very short-term and self-wounding decision. In part, a decision to invest
more time and energy into building knowledge means making choices about
what is important and what is less important. The more important areas will
receive the greater investment. This has always been a fact of life in intelligence,
along with the recognition that once-unimportant areas can and will suddenly
rise to great importance overnight. Still, it should be possible to make some cal-
culated investments in the areas where true depth of knowledge is most needed,
and to begin incentivizing those areas now by placing sufficient emphasis on
them so as to make them more attractive to analysts. Much is said these days
about the ‘knowledge worker’, a term of which I am not fond. Regrettably, many
of the definitions of the knowledge worker seem little different from how one
would define a computer data specialist. If we in intelligence are serious about
knowledge we should give serious thought to what it is, what it looks like and
what it really takes to create, preserve and transmit knowledge. I would argue
that this requires a shift away from the current emphasis on data and back to
knowledge in its broader sense. This means a deeper understanding and a more
comprehensive approach and commitment to the concept of knowledge within
intelligence agencies and in the various academic programs that focus on train-
ing intelligence analysts.
We spend a great deal of time discussing what we want intelligence to be but
precious little putting those thoughts into action. If we want highly educated,
 46 M.M. Lowenthal
well-trained and deeply knowledgeable analysts, we will have to build them our-
selves. They will not simply show up at our doorsteps. It is time, like the
military, to educate and train the way we intend to fight.

Notes
1 ‘The Office of Strategic Services: Research and Analysis Branch’, available online at
www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2010-featured story-archive/oss-
research-and-analysis.html (accessed on 24 January 2012).
2 Eagleburger gave a speech in September 1989, for which he was later accused of being
nostalgic about the Cold War, which he denied (see Friedman 1989).
3 See www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intellectual (accessed on 8 February 2013).
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4 See CALL’s website at http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/call/about.asp (accessed on 10 July

2012).

Bibliography
Friedman, Thomas (1989) ‘U.S. Voicing Fears That Gorbachev Will Divide West’, New
York Times, 16 September.
Hinsley, Sir F.H. and Stripp, Alan (eds) (2001) Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletch-
ley Park, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lowenthal, Mark M. (2009, 4th edn) Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, Washington,
DC: CQ Press.
McKay, Sinclair (2011) The Secret Life of Bletchley Park: The WWII Codebreaking
Centre and the Men and Women Who Worked There, London: Aurum.
Nicolson, Harold (1939) Peacemaking 1919, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.
Reuters (2010) ‘U.S. Vows Unified Response to N. Korea’, available online at
www.reuters.com/article/2010/11/23/us-korea-north-usa-idUSTRE6AM48720101123
(accessed on 8 February 2013).
 5 The future of the intelligence
process
The end of the intelligence cycle?
Arthur S. Hulnick
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Introduction
As students of intelligence will know, I have long argued that the intelligence
cycle model, taught almost everywhere as an appropriate and accurate depiction
of how intelligence systems function, is, in fact, neither appropriate nor accurate
(Hulnick 2007). The cycle model seems to have its origins in the growth of intel-
ligence systems in the Second World War, and has been taught both in the US
and in other countries ever since.1 This has created some serious problems as
intelligence officers complete their training and start working in the field.
Nothing works in the ways they have been taught to expect. I usually differenti-
ate between military intelligence systems, which seem to be somewhat more
attuned to the intelligence cycle, and civilian governmental systems, which are
not. The intelligence system that comes closest to the cycle model lies in the
private sector, although intelligence literature rarely mentions this.
In the civilian government world, policy-makers rarely give good direction to
intelligence managers, and they certainly do not give specific requirements for
intelligence collection. This means that intelligence managers have to translate
what little direction they receive into more specific requirements, usually based
on gaps in the existing intelligence database. In military systems, requirements
for collection may be driven by specific operations, contingency planning, or
even weapons procurement, and thus may provide more detail for intelligence
units. Military intelligence systems in battlefield conditions may approach the
intelligence cycle model even more closely as commanders deal with tactical
situations that require specific intelligence inputs. In the private sector, because
managers usually hire intelligence professionals to deal with specific issues, the
requirements for intelligence collection are often agreed on a contractual basis.
The intelligence cycle model does not specify how intelligence should be col-
lected, but we know that there are three main categories of collection systems.
Open sources usually make up the bulk of the material to be tapped for intelli-
gence, especially in civilian systems, while technical collection systems, includ-
ing communication or signals intercepts and imagery, are increasingly prevalent
in military intelligence. Both civilian and military intelligence collectors are
users of human intelligence systems, from diplomatic or liaison contacts to
 48 A.S. Hulnick
espionage, and civilian intelligence agencies lay heavy emphasis on the value of
human intelligence (Humint) (Hitz 2007).
In the private sector, espionage is supposed to be off limits, but there is
increasing evidence that the use of such techniques are well known to private
intelligence practitioners, perhaps because many of them have learned their trade
in government intelligence agencies (Javers 2010). Private intelligence relies as
well on technical sensors, which have become more readily available in the elec-
tronic age. The use of electronic search engines, while hardly comparable to
signals intercepts, is a boon to private practitioners, and such programs as
Google Earth give the private sector access to overhead imagery that was once
reserved for specialized government agencies. Open source intelligence, of
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course, makes up the bulk of the material collected in the private sector, just as
in government.
The cycle model suggests that intelligence collection drives the analysis
process, but this is not usually the case in reality. In both civilian and military
intelligence, analysts work from an enormous existing database. They do not
have to wait for new inputs to meet the needs of intelligence consumers. Despite
frequent calls by civilian politicians for more long-range intelligence analysis,
most intelligence analytic output tends to have a short focus. This is caused by
crises that disrupt long-range policy-making, and the increasingly short focus of
government decision-makers as they deal with these crises (George 2011). Polit-
ical leaders rarely have the time to read longer term analysis, and depend on
their staffs to turn detailed products into something that can be absorbed quickly.
Still, intelligence managers push in-depth analysis, especially in regard to
forecasts of the future, called ‘estimates’ in the US. These estimates are con-
sidered by intelligence professionals to be the premier product of intelligence
analysis. Estimates can easily become politicized, especially if the judgements
are revealed to the public. Even before the infamous estimate on Weapons of
Mass Destruction during the George W. Bush administration in the US, estim-
ates on Soviet capabilities and intentions sparked a debate when conservatives
argued that the estimates undervalued Soviet strength. Now that the Cold War is
over and we have learned more about the actual situation in Russia, we know
that the US intelligence community’s judgements were about right.
Intelligence analysts have been pressed to adopt more rigorous methodologies
in their analysis, to avoid overlooking important but hidden items or ideas. The
first push for structured analysis in this direction took place in the 1970s, but
was not imbedded in the analysts’ thinking. It was said at the time that they were
too busy to adopt the more time-consuming use of methodologies that were
pressed on them. Since then many new analysts and managers have apparently
come into intelligence and are eager to try what did not work the first time. In
military circles, longer term analysis is perhaps more readily used than in the
civilian world, since contingency planning and weapons procurement require
more far-reaching threat analyses. Of course, daily briefings and current analyses
remain the main focus of intelligence production in the military, especially in
regard to war fighting. Tactical intelligence during combat is an important part
 The end of the intelligence cycle? 49
of military intelligence, and comes closer to the intelligence cycle model than
the civilian sector. In fact, civilian decision-makers rarely rely on intelligence in
making policy. This stands in sharp contrast to the intelligence cycle model,
which suggests that policy is made only after intelligence products are delivered
or, in intelligence jargon, disseminated. Nothing could be further from reality.
This is the part of the intelligence cycle model that has caused the most
trouble. Analysts have all been trained to believe that the cycle actually works
and that policy officials are waiting for the delivery of intelligence products
before deliberating on policy. In reality, policy officials often have an agenda
that has nothing to do with intelligence, and make decisions based on a variety
of inputs. Their staffs often have access to the same intelligence inputs as intelli-
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gence analysts and are able to advise policy officials well before intelligence
products are delivered.
When the intelligence products are finally delivered, they go most often to the
staffs rather than to the principals. If the products agree with what the staffs have
already concluded, then the intelligence is of little use. If the intelligence dis-
agrees, then the staffs may either suppress the intelligence, or deliver the product
to show how the intelligence stands at odds with what the policy officials
wanted. It is not surprising that civilian policy officials often find intelligence to
be unhelpful, inconvenient, or even insubordinate. A good illustration of this was
the recent testimony of US Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James
Clapper before the Senate. Clapper expressed the view that Colonel Ghaddafi of
Libya would probably outwit the rebel opposition.2 This brought immediate calls
for Clapper’s resignation because he was out of step with the White House on
the issue. Of course, we now know that the DNI was quite wrong.
Interestingly, because the intelligence cycle model works very well in the
private sector, the problems described above are not relevant. Private sector
managers who have contracted for intelligence do want to wait for the deliver-
ables. That is, after all, what they are paying for. This is in contrast to the civil-
ian government sector, where intelligence officers are by tradition supposed to
avoid offering advice about policy and withdrawing when policy discussions
take place. This tradition of intelligence analysts absenting themselves from
civilian policy discussions may be unique to the US. In many countries, the
intelligence analysis units are not in the intelligence agencies at all, but rather in
a separate office close to the chief of government. This is certainly true in both
Canada and the United Kingdom.
This strict separation from policy discussions in the US has even involved the
director of the CIA. Although some directors were close to policy officials and
did not hesitate to give advice, others were criticized for this practice. While
William Casey, both a CIA director and close confidant of President Reagan,
became a member of the president’s cabinet and thus a policy-maker, his succes-
sor, the judge William Webster, made clear that he would withdraw from policy
discussions and would not be a cabinet member (Hulnick 2004).
As stated above, in the military, whether in the US or elsewhere, military
intelligence officers at the command level (the J-2 in US parlance) are part of the
 50 A.S. Hulnick
commander’s staff, as are the officers in charge of operations or other functions.
The J-2 takes part in decision-making on an equal footing with the others. This
is an even older tradition and seems to be common worldwide. In the US, some
writers are beginning to question whether or not the practice of staying out of
policy debates in the civilian sector is still relevant in the modern era (Kerbel
and Olcott 2010).

Alternative to the intelligence cycle: the matrix model

My critique of the intelligence cycle model is not limited to the fact that it is not
a good theory, even though it may meet the demands of the military and private
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sectors. The main failing is that it leaves out two of the key functions of intelli-
gence: counter-intelligence (CI) and covert action (CA). Therefore I have argued
that a better theoretical model is one that covers all the key functions of intelli-
gence, from collection and analysis to CI and CA. Rather than depict these func-
tions in a cyclical fashion, I suggest that they are rather parallel to each other and
function most often in that fashion (Hulnick 2000). In thinking about the future,
then, it would be best to consider each of the functions separately, since they do
operate more or less independently of each other, while also considering how
they connect.
My theory of intelligence, which I have called the ‘matrix model’, has so far
not received much attention in the US. Instead, many intelligence scholars have
continued to use the intelligence cycle model as if no other model existed. For
example, in his most recent book on intelligence, Loch Johnson uses the cycle
model in its traditional form (Johnson 2011). In his book on Dutch intelligence,
however, Giliam De Valk cites the matrix model as one of three models useful
in studying the intelligence process (De Valk 2005). The matrix model, I
contend, is a much more realistic model of the intelligence process.
We begin with the collection function. All intelligence services whose
mandate is foreign intelligence must have some way of gathering intelligence
outside the country they serve. The US has the most complex system for fulfill-
ing this function, but even in much smaller services the collection function is
critical if it is to determine what activities abroad concern or threaten the nation.
There are three key methods for gathering intelligence abroad: the acquisition of
open sources, the use of technical sensors, and obtaining information from
human sources. Although the functions have not changed much over time, the
methods have, and they will probably continue to change even more in the
future.
For example, open source intelligence, once focused largely on print and
broadcast media, has become increasingly web-based (Steele 2007). The advent
of electronic media provides almost universal access to news and developments
to intelligence services that were once dependent on their respective overseas
missions for exploiting local open sources. The downside of this development is
that the proliferation of electronic media often overwhelms the collectors who
gather this material. Various new methodologies for data mining have to be used
 The end of the intelligence cycle? 51
to separate key information from the vast sources available. The rapidity of elec-
tronic collection of open sources gives collectors little time to determine what
may be passed to other parts of the intelligence system, or to policy officials
(Hulnick 2010).
Technical collection systems have also changed over time. During the Cold
War only the most sophisticated and advanced intelligence systems could inter-
cept communications or other electronic signals, mostly using satellites for the
purpose. Now most intelligence systems can engage in cyber espionage –
hacking is the more common term – to penetrate an adversary’s communica-
tions. As increasingly advanced encryption systems are developed to protect
communications, hackers glory in being able to break into those systems to steal
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data. Of course, governments can do this without much restriction, but this is
technically illegal in private sector intelligence, and can lead to lawsuits when
the hacking is revealed.
The world of imagery collection has undergone an even more radical change.
When the US developed the first digital imagery system for overhead reconnais-
sance in the 1970s, it replaced the rather cumbersome film return systems that
both the US and the then Soviet Union were using for spying from space. While
digital space systems are still in use, many intelligence services have begun to
rely on drone aircraft for imagery. Drone systems are much cheaper than space-
based systems and are more flexible in terms of targeting. What is more, publicly
available overhead imagery from such servers as Google Earth has allowed even
the smallest intelligence services to become adept at imagery analysis. This trend
seems likely to continue.
In addition to open sources and technical sensors, intelligence services have
not given up on seeking human sources to obtain the kinds of intelligence elec-
tronic systems sometimes miss. Espionage has always been considered an essen-
tial part of intelligence collection, and most intelligence services should be able
to carry out such operations, even if only focused on their neighbouring states.
Espionage requires a level of training and experience, however, that may be
missing in current systems. Recruiting and handling spies can be dangerous, and
very often the spies are so-called ‘walk-ins’ or volunteers whose reliability is not
so certain.
While military intelligence services have often sought to recruit and maintain
an espionage network, there does not seem to be a great pay-off for such efforts,
although there are some interesting historical examples of military spies. Rather,
espionage seems best suited to the civilian intelligence sector for agencies such
as the CIA or MI6. In the private sector, espionage is supposed to be off-limits,
but we see increasing evidence that private business uses espionage to gather
proprietary data, using techniques that would be familiar to government intelli-
gence systems. People who are caught undertaking espionage on behalf of their
governments may face severe penalties from other authorities, but in the modern
era trading disgraced spies is more the norm. In the private sector, failed espio-
nage operations usually result in lawsuits and embarrassment for the firm or
individuals involved.
 52 A.S. Hulnick
According to the intelligence cycle model, intelligence collection should
trigger intelligence analysis. In reality, the reports that are generated reach policy
officials at about the same time as intelligence analysts receive them in most
systems today. According to my alternative matrix model, the analysis process
works in parallel with the collection process. This reflects what actually happens
in the real world. Intelligence analysis may function quite independently of the
collection process, and analysts are able to evaluate events based on the existing
database. New information that comes from the collection process may trigger or
assist evaluation, but is not completely necessary in most cases.
Policy planners or business managers may begin to act on the so-called ‘raw
reports’ without waiting for the analysis to take place. In the electronic era this
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happens quite rapidly, thus putting intelligence analysts at a disadvantage. Of

course, analysts need not wait for new collection inputs to figure out the import
of events and determine their meaning. There are two main issues in intelligence
analysis that have not changed. The first is the challenge of evaluating the raw
data from the collection system, or from the existing database. The second chal-
lenge is packaging the analysis into useful products for consumers (Betts 2007).
In the US there is a growing fascination with structured analysis, involving
the use of algorithms to analyse data and forecast future outcomes of events. The
idea is to force analysts to consider ideas they may otherwise overlook, or con-
sider outcomes they may have ignored. This has been tried before in the 1970s,
but with limited results. Analysts complained that they did not have time to use
structured analysis because of time pressure. This pressure is now even worse
than before. It is not clear that the use of structured algorithms will produce
better analysis, but intelligence managers seem determined to apply these
techniques.
From time to time, overseers of intelligence, including legislators responsible
for oversight and outside observers, complain that there is too much emphasis on
current or daily intelligence analysis and not enough on in-depth studies, long-
range estimation and forecasting, but time pressure on both analysts and con-
sumers means that daily intelligence in various forms will be more useful.
Current intelligence is more easily produced and more readily absorbed by
policy-makers. Consumers often admit that they have little time to read longer
range studies and estimates. The result is that intelligence managers have to
press analysts to create in-depth studies when the demand is not clear.
One issue which surfaces frequently in the US is the proper relationship
between intelligence analysts and senior policy officials. According to tradition,
intelligence analysts may provide their products to consumers, but without sug-
gesting policy options or courses of action. Likewise, analysts should avoid
becoming too close to the decision-makers they serve. These traditions are not
always found elsewhere, but in the CIA these traditions date back to the earliest
days of the agency. Only now are they being questioned as out of date or
counterproductive.
In many countries, intelligence analysts are not located inside collection
agencies but rather are established within policy-making units, or as stand-alone
 The end of the intelligence cycle? 53
elements within the government. Further, prohibitions on giving policy advice or
taking part in policy discussions do not exist. Perhaps the US will have to make
some changes to the producer–consumer relationship to remain relevant in the
modern era. The downside, of course, is that intelligence analysts will inevitably
become enmeshed in partisan debates, but that may be better than becoming
irrelevant.
This problem does not exist in military intelligence. As stated above it has
long been common practice, perhaps dating back to the development of the
military staff system, that the intelligence component of the staff (the J-2) is
equal with other staff members, and does not shy away from joining in command
decisions, even while delivering intelligence to the commander and staff. This
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practice is almost universal in application, and works at all levels where there is
a staff intelligence officer. This practice may well serve as a model for setting
aside the restrictions in the civilian system.
In the private sector, the issue of policy avoidance does not arise because
executives want and expect advice from their intelligence people, whether they
are part of the organization or from a consultancy unit. In all these cases, in order
to be helpful, intelligence analysts must concern themselves with policy options,
feasible policy solutions and the implementation of policy.
The intelligence cycle model suggests that policy-makers will wait for intelli-
gence to be delivered before making decisions. This is rarely the case. The reli-
ance on the cycle model over many generations has frustrated analysts who have
been taught to expect decision-makers to wait for intelligence before making
policy. Therefore, understanding the true nature of how intelligence is used
would benefit intelligence analysts, and bringing them into the decision process
would not only make intelligence more relevant but also more timely.

Counter-intelligence and covert action

As stated above, the intelligence cycle model ignores two very important func-
tions in intelligence. The first of these is counter-intelligence: preventing adver-
saries (intelligence services or otherwise) from working against the state.
Commonly referred to as CI, counter-intelligence has become much more broad
in modern intelligence, now moving beyond countering espionage to include
countering terrorism, subversion, organized crime, and other threats to the nation
(Taylor 2007). It may include stopping the secret operations of a foreign intelli-
gence service, or, in the private sector, preventing competitors and adversaries
from stealing proprietary data.
In theory, the best ways to thwart hostile intelligence services, or other threat-
ening groups, is to penetrate them by recruiting a spy on the inside. In reality,
this rarely happens. Intelligence services train their people to watch out for
recruitment efforts by adversaries and, looking back over recent history, penetra-
tions of intelligence services have more often resulted from defections or ‘walk-
ins’. During the Cold War both the US and its allies and the Soviet system
suffered from intelligence professionals volunteering to spy for the other side.
 54 A.S. Hulnick
When they were caught, as most were, they were imprisoned, executed, or very
often traded for those held by the other side.
Today, with the fragmentation in world order, spying ‘for the other side’ no
longer seems relevant, although cases do surface from time to time. The focus of
counter-espionage seems to have shifted to the private sector, where intelligence
services have stolen proprietary secrets to benefit their domestic businesses. Yet
the US Economic Espionage Act of 1996 was aimed, at its creation, at hostile
intelligence services rather than at privately sponsored spies. A great deal of this
kind of spying has shifted to cyber space, creating new challenges for counter-
intelligence units and law enforcement.
Although penetration of a hostile intelligence service is the ideal, it is rarely
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successful. Instead, counter-intelligence services have had to resort to surveil-

lance of adversaries in the hope of catching them during their operations. Sur-
veillance may be carried out in the traditional form of physical surveillance,
using teams of trained agents, or more commonly through the use of electronic
methods. The aim is to identify the adversary agents, gather evidence of their
operations, and then turn the information over to law enforcement to prosecute
them. While most countries use a domestic or internal security service to identify
the adversary agents, a separate law enforcement unit gathers evidence for
prosecution.
This system does not apply in the US, where the Federal Bureau of Investiga-
tion (FBI) combines intelligence and law enforcement in one agency. This has
created some bureaucratic problems over the years, even though the FBI has an
excellent track record in regard to identifying and stopping adversary operations
by hostile intelligence services or by private intelligence operatives (Kessler
2002). After 9/11, politicians and others investigating the attack began to call for
the creation of a domestic intelligence service along the lines of the British MI5.
Instead the FBI made efforts, not entirely successful, to ramp up its intelligence
branch. The debate about this issue remains current.
As many countries have learned, stopping terrorism is a serious challenge for
security services. Because terrorist groups operate in small cells, they are almost
impossible to identify, penetrate or place under surveillance. Terrorists may even
be lone actors, an even more difficult target. We do know, however, that terror-
ists almost always need some kind of support network to supply and finance
their operations. Penetrating or placing under surveillance the support network
may be more productive than aiming at the terrorists themselves. One method
for dealing with this problem involves gathering forensic evidence after a ter-
rorist attack to try to identify the support network.
Surveillance may be the best way to identify individual terrorist key actors.
This was certainly the case in regard to finding and killing Osama Bin Laden.
According to press reports, both physical and electronic surveillance were used
to pinpoint his location, although it took several years to find him.3 Once found,
US Special Forces were able to penetrate his compound and kill him.
Because identifying terrorists is so difficult, the US has resorted to rather
extreme and unpleasant defensive measures to try to prevent terrorist attacks.
 The end of the intelligence cycle? 55
Many countries have resorted to profiling to protect themselves against ter-
rorism. Profiling means identifying physical characteristics or identifiable behav-
iours to seek out terrorists. In the US, profiling is considered politically
unacceptable. At airports, security officials have adopted the practice of treating
all passengers as potential terrorists, searching even the smallest children and the
aged and infirm before they are allowed to fly. Protests against these practices
are considered as suspicious and may result in penalties. Surely these practices
must change. They waste resources, inconvenience passengers, and to date have
not resulted in the identification of even one terrorist. Such draconian measures
are only focused on air travel. Other kinds of transportation in the US receive
little scrutiny.
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The US has not suffered any serious problems with subversion in the modern
era, but many countries that have devote intelligence resources to identifying
subversive groups. Even deeply rooted democracies like the United Kingdom,
Canada and France have had to fight off efforts to disrupt the government. In
countries where democratic government is less firmly fixed, the fight against
subversion often becomes the main issue for domestic security services. In
dictatorships, intelligence services may find that protecting the regime in power
by far outweighs any other demands. Penetrating subversive groups and placing
key actors under surveillance are effective methods for countering subversion.
More and more, subversive groups are using social media to rally their fol-
lowers. The overthrow of the Egyptian regime is just the latest case where this
played a role.
Whatever the target, it appears that the hybrid model of a domestic security
service, such as the FBI in the US which combines investigation and law
enforcement, is not as popular or effective as the models that separate the two
functions. While there is little pressure in the US to adopt the British MI5 model,
this issue may well arise again if there is another major terrorist attack. Mean-
while it appears clear that, whatever the organizational model, there will have to
be a closer relationship between intelligence and law enforcement in countering
threats from espionage, terrorism and global organized crime. The connection
between intelligence and special operations forces seems much easier to
manage.
Finally, we come to the second function that is ignored in the intelligence
cycle, that of covert action, or secret operations (Johnson 2007). Traditionally,
covert action has been used to help friends and allies, or to carry out security
policy in such a way that the hand of the sponsoring country is hidden. The US
has a long history of using covert action, dating back to the War of Independ-
ence when irregular military units fought against the British. Covert action
reached a high point in the Cold War when the CIA and the KGB applied it to
help allies and disrupt the enemy. Covert action can also be carried out by
military forces, but civilian intelligence services seem best suited to such opera-
tions because they have the secret agents and clandestine resources at hand.
Covert action has not disappeared with the end of the Cold War. It was a
critical element in the battle against the Taliban in Afghanistan, where covert
 56 A.S. Hulnick
operatives laid the groundwork for the insertion of regular military forces, and it
has figured in other aspects of US security policy in the fight against terrorism.
Yet covert action has come in for considerable criticism, especially the use of
‘extraordinary renditions’ in kidnapping and transferring terrorist suspects to
partner countries for interrogation, often leading to abuse and errors. In order to
prevent problems the US has established a rather rigorous oversight mechanism
with Congress, so that presidents who order the use of covert action have to con-
vince the intelligence oversight committees that their plans are sound.
Covert action may involve a so-called ‘agent of influence’, someone recruited
not to steal intelligence but rather to aid friends and confuse the enemy. This
may mean the circulation of false information. Increasingly, covert action refers
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to secret military operations, such as the kind that took out Osama Bin Laden. In
order to carry out covert action, intelligence services have to develop a special
cadre of professionals well trained for such operations. This may be more than
many smaller intelligence services can manage.

Conclusion
What does the future hold for the intelligence functions I have described? Will
they continue to be relevant in a world in which superpower relationships have
shifted, and the problems of developing countries impact the more developed
world? Some things seem clear. Political leaders will expect their intelligence
services to be able to manage their key functions in support of policy, whether in
a democracy or a dictatorship.
With this in mind, it is time for those who teach intelligence to abandon the
inaccurate and misleading intelligence cycle model for something that more
closely resembles real-world experience. This is especially true for the training
of intelligence professionals who are being misled by the model’s inaccuracies.
Much has been written in the past decade about the various functions of intelli-
gence, and more and more colleges and universities have developed courses on
what was once the rather arcane world of intelligence. Perhaps it is time for the
professionals to catch up with the state of intelligence education in our changing
world, and consider the matrix model as a more accurate basis for understanding
how intelligence processes are supposed to work.

Notes
1 Professor Kristan J. Wheaton has been trying to track down the origins of the intelli-
gence cycle. See his blog post on 4 January 2011. Available at: http://sourcesandmeth-
ods.blogspot.nl/2011/01/rfi-who-invented-intelligence-cycle.html (accessed 8 February
2013).
2 David E. Sanger, ‘U.S. Escalates Pressure on Libya Amid Mixed Signals’, New York
Times, 11 March 2011, p. A10.
3 Mark Mazetti, Helene Cooper and Peter Baker, ‘Behind the Hunt for Bin Laden’, New
York Times, 3 May 2011, p. A1.
 The end of the intelligence cycle? 57
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Betts, Richard K. (2007) Enemies of Intelligence: Knowledge and Power in American
National Security, New York: Columbia University Press.
De Valk, Giliam (2005) Dutch Intelligence: Towards a Qualitative Framework for Ana-
lysis, Rotterdam: Legal Publishers.
George, Roger Z. (2011) ‘Reflections on CIA Analysis: Is It Finished?’, Intelligence and
National Security, 26: 72–81.
Hitz, Frederick P. (2007) ‘The Importance and Future of Espionage’, in Loch K. Johnson
(ed.), Strategic Intelligence Volume 2: The Intelligence Cycle, Westport, CT: Praeger.
Hulnick, Arthur S. (2000) Fixing the Spy Machine: Preparing American Intelligence for
the 21st Century, Westport, CT: Praeger.
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–––– (2004) Keeping Us Safe: Secret Intelligence and Homeland Security, Westport, CT:
Praeger.
–––– (2007) ‘What’s Wrong with the Intelligence Cycle’, in Loch K. Johnson (ed.) Stra-
tegic Intelligence Volume 2: The Intelligence Cycle, Westport CT: Praeger.
–––– (2010) ‘The Dilemma of Open Source Intelligence: Is OSINT Really Intelligence’,
in Loch K. Johnson (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence,
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onage, New York: Harper Collins.
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Veils of Secret Foreign Policy, Westport, CT: Praeger.
–––– (2011) National Security Intelligence, Malden, MA: Polity Press.
Kerbel, Josh and Olcott, Anthony (2010) ‘The Intelligence–Policy Nexus: Synthesizing
with Clients, Not Analyzing for Customers’, Studies in Intelligence, 54: 11–27.
Kessler, Ronald (2002) The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI, New York: St Mar-
tin’s Press.
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tegic Intelligence Volume 2: The Intelligence Cycle, Westport, CT: Praeger.
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ism, Westport, CT: Praeger.
 6 The future of counter-intelligence
The twenty-first-century challenge
Jennifer Sims
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Counter-intelligence (CI) professionals in governments around the world should

be on edge.1 Over the past decade, economic, cultural and technological trends
have been redefining national interests, the bounds of legitimate claims to sover-
eignty, and the role played by firms in interstate conflict. During 2011, for
example, as the Eurozone was threatened by rising national debts, states traded
sovereignty to solve public demand for services they could not afford. Global
technology firms, looking to expand their market, turned away from government
procurement to cultivate the burgeoning demand for connectivity in the civilian
marketplace. Governments, looking for cheap access to innovation, engaged in
industrial espionage to keep up. Arab populations used cell phones, Facebook
and other social media to connect with fellow protestors, communicate with the
international community, and coordinate actions in the popular uprising known
as the Arab Spring. When the competitive environment changes this fast, gov-
ernments have historically feared surprise, throwing intelligence services into
hyper-drive. Modern trends are startling because they threaten the classic tool
once used to address them: secrecy.
Indeed, of all the new twenty-first-century challenges for counter-intelligence,
the new role played by information and communications firms may be the most
interesting. Most of these firms have thrived on an internet culture that is progres-
sive, liberal, and rooted in the notion of free information. They have also claimed to
be apolitical, supplying the communications and organizational infrastructure for
the Arab Spring as well as for counter-revolution. In practical terms, however, com-
panies have taken sides. In Syria, for example, insurgents have begun using Google
Map Maker, a crowd-sourcing program, to wipe names of the ruling regime’s
family members off streets and bridges. In their place, protestors have, with the
approval of Google editors, inserted the names of their revolutionary heroes.2
Protestors are not only changing online maps, they are tearing down street signs
and raising their own. Google uses images of these changes to validate their new
maps, thus legitimizing claims in international disputes based on popular opinion
rather than sovereign will. In the Middle East, the effect has been to empower
insurgents; in South Asia and in Latin America, it has inflamed irredentism.
Although such name-games may seem inconsequential, the implications are
not. Certainly the Assad regime is taking the matter seriously. Syria’s UN envoy,
 Counter-intelligence: the 21st century 59
Bashar al-Jafaari, has complained about Google’s activities before the United
Nations General Assembly, hinting at US government complicity. Google, in
turn, has responded carefully, noting that it makes maps based on the input of
‘many authoritative sources, including public and commercial data providers,
user contributions and imagery references’.3 Michael Hayden, former head of the
US National Security Agency, has likened the role of these corporations to that
played by the East India Tea Company or the Hudson Bay Company during the
era of empires and discovery; such mega-companies enjoyed then, as they do
now, measures of sovereignty and rights of self-defence. Yet these modern
multinational companies are also new in a striking way: they constitute ‘intelli-
gence arms’ for transnational interest groups and social movements challenging
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state authorities, and their self-protection constitutes a counter-intelligence capa-

bility potentially more powerful than that of any state or assembly of states.
These companies could thus become, more than ever before, a special kind of
power broker in international politics.
The example of Google in Syria is important because it highlights the need to
think holistically about the future of counter-intelligence. If intelligence is about
finding and using information to win contests, then counter-intelligence is all
about defeating one’s opponents’ abilities to do so by blocking or manipulating
relevant information (Sims and Gerber 2009). The first step for a national
counter-intelligence analyst, then, is to understand the evolving nature of inter-
national contests, who the competitors are likely to be, and how their interests
may converge, overlap or diverge. Google’s role in politics – that is, in contest-
ing power outside the marketplace – raises important questions. In which con-
tests will multinational firms engage and with what purposes will multinational
companies act? How will technological trends empower allies, enable adver-
saries, or even create new enemies? How are the dynamics of international
politics changing and what will be the implications for the counter-intelligence
community?
This chapter focuses on the implications of technological trends and addresses
these questions in four steps. First, it reviews the conceptual foundations of
counter-intelligence in order to distinguish them from those of positive intelli-
gence and security. Second, it discusses the lessons and legacies of the Cold War
in shaping modern counter-intelligence practices. Third, it discusses the techno-
logical and societal trends that pose particularly stiff challenges for counter-
intelligence professionals. It concludes by summarizing the chief consequences
of the challenges posed, and offers recommendations for practical steps to
improve counter-intelligence in the coming decades.

The theory and historical practice of counter-intelligence

Methods of stealing, intercepting, hiding and revealing information have long
been part of a statesman’s or warrior’s toolkit. For centuries, generals, kings and
presidents have developed intelligence and counter-intelligence systems to gain
advantages over their adversaries. Intelligence systems are not exclusive to
 60 J. Sims
international relations; they may be found in almost every form of modern com-
petition from NFL football and Silicon Valley to political campaigns. Just as
with other kinds of power, however, this tool of political or commercial warfare
can hurt its handler. Done poorly, intelligence operations can undermine
decision-making through delays, misinformation, propagated self-deception and
lost trust. To prevent damage and disruption, an intelligence service needs good
tradecraft, oversight and robust counter-intelligence. Of all these elements,
however, counter-intelligence is perhaps the least well understood.

The theory
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The purpose of counter-intelligence is to gain advantages over competitors by

preventing them from acquiring decisive information. CI officers do more than
secure their own side’s operations; they disrupt or manipulate opposing services’
efforts to collect, warn, advise and protect. Operations can range from simple
surveillance of an opposing service (defence) to influencing a target to act
against its own self-interest by distorting its appreciation of the situation it faces
(offence). To succeed, therefore, counter-intelligence requires strong positive
intelligence and security. It is, in this sense, the only intelligence function that
cannot stand alone. Understanding its connectedness to both security and pos-
itive collection is therefore crucial to an appreciation of the challenges counter-
intelligence officials will face in the future.

Counter-intelligence and security

Although the missions of counter-intelligence and security overlap, they are not
the same. Even practitioners sometimes mistakenly equate counter-intelligence
with information security. The latter mission involves keeping sensitive informa-
tion protected, much as a jeweller might lock gems in a safe. The driving idea
behind security is the need to protect against loss. Security officials regard the
items they protect as having enduring value; their loss would necessarily hurt
their owner and benefit the thief. Anyone asked to secure valuable items might
reasonably build walls, buy guard dogs and set up alarms commensurate with
the value of the treasure they wish to retain. They might recruit sources to learn
how the prospective thieves are planning their next attack or who within the
bank or vault might become complicit in any future burglary. In the security
paradigm, the value of what is secured is assumed and adversaries are akin to
criminals. Counter-intelligence, on the other hand, is a discipline with a very dif-
ferent driving idea. Its purpose is to help one competitor develop and execute a
winning strategy against another – not necessarily to protect a given set of
information. For a counter-intelligence officer, the value of information will vary
as strategies develop and change. For example, formerly sensitive military plans
might be usefully passed to an enemy if they become obsolete and are thus more
disorienting than helpful. Such attempts to twist an opponent’s mind for one’s
own gain are examples of offensive counter-intelligence; for it to be effective,
 Counter-intelligence: the 21st century 61
security must be a subordinate goal and selectively applied. Operational security
may, in fact, be purposefully weakened if the idea is to use vulnerability to dis-
tract an adversary from a more important effort.
Given such difference in the missions of security and counter-intelligence,
officials in each discipline often feel threatened by the other. Security is easier to
explain, understand and use, so it often dominates counter-intelligence in gov-
ernment efforts to secure intelligence advantage. Especially in democracies,
security seems straightforward and honest, while counter-intelligence, with its
emphasis on deception, seems devious and even unethical. Then there are the
problems with measuring success: security seems to be working so long as there
are no losses, but counter-intelligence seems to produce little unless spies are
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caught or sources questioned.4

Thought of in this way, counter-intelligence and security may occasionally be
at odds with one another. Whereas security officials resist disclosures, counter-
intelligence officers sometimes use them for a purpose. For example, in response
to the needs of policy-makers, CI officers might suggest the release of secret
information to establish the bona fides of potential double agents, or to shape the
information environment to the disadvantage of opponents. After the US killed
Osama Bin Laden, US government officials released information about certain
aspects of the operation that had been highly sensitive and compartmentalized
just days before, such as the way in which the compound was breached and the
methods used for identifying and burying Bin Laden. They did so in order to
influence the decisions of the Pakistani government as well as public opinion,
especially in the Muslim world.5
Similar differences exist between security and CI professionals over classifi-
cation policy. Whereas security officials will care little about public information,
counter-intelligence officers may advise that, in certain circumstances, unclassi-
fied or ‘open source’ information be restricted or classified as secret if it could
prove useful for an enemy. After the 9/11 attacks, for example, blueprints of
major bridges, dams and other infrastructure across the United States were taken
off the internet because officials recognized that these formerly public docu-
ments, while containing no government secrets up until that point, had new com-
petitive value for terrorists.
In fact, when competition increases in intensity and perceptions of threats
rise, incentives to withhold information will also be high.6 Such far-reaching
restrictions are not uncommon in wartime. Yet it is precisely during these more
intense contests that good counter-intelligence experts will be on high alert for
the dangers security may pose to the overarching strategic mission. For example,
CI experts may argue against keeping a certain class of secrets because doing so
may reveal their own government’s strategies. During the Second World War
the US government classified the formerly open scientific work of physicists
recruited to the task of developing the atomic bomb. The disappearance of a
whole category of formerly open research made sense from a security stand-
point, but made no sense from a counter-intelligence perspective because it
revealed to Soviet scientists that Washington had classified nuclear research as
 62 J. Sims
secret and presumably related to the war, leading one of those scientists to report
his suspicions to Stalin. What seemed a ‘no-brainer’ for American security pro-
fessionals was, from a counter-intelligence standpoint, a rather large mistake
(Holloway 1994: 78–79).

Counter-intelligence and positive intelligence

Given the discussion above, it seems evident that positive intelligence and
counter-intelligence professionals should share much in common: both collect,
analyse and disseminate information for national security decision-makers. Both
should act in concert with a strategic plan, with positive intelligence officers
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working to inform, while counter-intelligence officers work to degrade the

information available to an opponent. The story of Churchill’s decision not to
act on knowledge, gained through decrypted signals, of the Nazi plan to attack
Coventry during the Second World War, while apocryphal, illustrates the point.
Decisions not to act on intelligence advantages may reflect a desire to preserve a
source for a later day (Hinsley 1993). Security and counter-intelligence should
help each other, in theory, because their work is synergistic. Espionage can
obtain penetrations, revealing moles that CI officers seek to capture, while
counter-intelligence reveals what an adversary is seeking, and thus can fill in
gaps in the estimation of an opponent’s intentions.
Yet proximity of missions can also lead to trouble among security, intelli-
gence and counter-intelligence officials. Security experts empower positive intel-
ligence and counter-intelligence by providing the tools of secrecy, but
disempower both when they insist that secrecy cannot be selectively applied.
Precisely because collection efforts reveal strategic inclinations, CI officers may
also warn of the dangers of ill-considered concealment or revealing too much
through intelligence sharing. If a government’s security apparatus is guided more
by perceived threat than strategic purpose, an opponent can manipulate it.
Indeed, without guidance from strategists, security and counter-intelligence pro-
fessionals cannot know what to hide from enemies or when those secrets might
usefully be revealed. In their confusion, they may hide so much that they waste
valuable resources, hobble their own side, or fail to notice what the enemy is
trying to learn for the sake of achieving surprise. The more fluid the dynamics of
competition, the more essential it will be that counter-intelligence officials, in
close consultation with policy-makers, oversee the security aspects involved. If
they do not, security efforts can actually pose an internal threat to the mission.
To understand how this might be true, consider a homeowner grappling with
thieves (this is a common analogy used by CI officials to make their point). If
the owner is interested only in securing his possessions, he will immediately
repair a broken lock. If, however, he is interested in clearing the thieves out of
the neighbourhood, he may leave a window ajar or a lock broken, allowing
repeated thefts until everyone involved in the criminal effort is identified – pro-
vided, of course, that the price of what is lost does not become too high. In such
instances, security can become a tool of deception, suggesting that security and
 Counter-intelligence: the 21st century 63
CI, while different missions, must work together, with CI in charge. Alterna-
tively, if the homeowner is keeping better televisions, waffle irons and coffee
makers in his garage than he has in his house, he may actually leave weak locks
on the front door to encourage the thieves to steal the old stuff. In this way he
can avoid the expense of hauling services and dumping charges as he works to
fill his house with the latest gadgets. In fact, leaving the old gadgets protected,
but only weakly so, can be a strategy for deceiving the thieves into believing that
the best stuff is in the house, not the garage, even if the thieves know about the
work underway there. Understanding the importance of selectively using lures
and locks during times of rapid scientific or technological change, savvy strate-
gists may decide to develop an advanced technology through maximized
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information flows among scientists rather than aiming for maximized secrecy.
Much depends on how quickly and intensely a competition is crystallizing and
how technologically capable an opponent is judged to be – all assessments in
which intelligence and counter-intelligence officials must collaborate if the
balance between defence and offence is to be wisely struck.
Yet, despite the theoretical logic of seamless intelligence and counterintelli-
gence operations, practice has often diverged from the ideal, for good reasons.
Especially in democracies, those who practise intelligence, counter-intelligence
and security operate separately to some degree because those who spy and those
who use the law to stop spying see their domestic missions so differently. More
important, however, is the threat to democracy entailed in any optimized intelli-
gence system that joins intelligence, legitimate force and the powers of arrest.
Perfected ability to gain information dominance empowers those in power to
keep it, to hide the mechanisms by which they do so, and to deceive those to
whom they must be accountable. For this reason, joining powers to spy with the
powers of arrest threatens the balance between the governed and the governors
in democracies; those holding the powers of arrest and espionage must remain
accountable to the people they serve, even as they fight adversaries infiltrating
their homelands. Dictatorships are not, however, so constrained.

The practice: lessons and legacies from the Cold War: the US case
The natural tension that attends the relationships among security, counter-
intelligence and intelligence has troubled democracies since the beginning of the
Cold War, particularly in the United States, where a political culture of privacy
and federal restraint runs deep and shapes the American way of life the state is
designed to protect. Yet, at the same time, the Cold War represented for the US
as well as its allies an existential threat that demanded a vigorous counter-
intelligence response. This mix brewed aggressive approaches to intelligence
within the NATO alliance that, larded with rules, political truces and bureau-
cratic boundaries, left a legacy of costs and benefits after the Cold War ended.
On the positive side of the ledger, most NATO governments had institutional-
ized strong counter-intelligence functions, enforced espionage laws, and placed
limits on domestic spying. Most legislatures had developed mechanisms for
 64 J. Sims
some measure of oversight. On the negative side, these same democratic govern-
ments suffered from occasional intelligence and counter-intelligence over-reach
and from gaps in counter-intelligence training and practice as agencies developed
institutionally rigid views of their missions.
These trends were perhaps particularly evident in the United States. With the
end of the bipolar strategic threat and the emergence of diverse transnational
ones, US intelligence and counter-intelligence bureaucracies became ever more
tightly wedded to existing counter-intelligence practices as they worked to
defend their budgets in the post-Cold War environment. Although the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) did recognize the upswing in industrial espionage
and the new authorities it would need to counter it, the Bureau missed the
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domestic implications of the threat posed by terrorism – a threat against which

major metropolitan police forces were already gearing up before 9/11. The
efforts of the metropolitan police prior to 9/11, particularly in the Los Angeles
area, readied the US for its network of Joint Terrorism Task Forces, headed by
the FBI, after 9/11.
Of course, limits on collaboration among bureaucracies at the federal level
also reflected political compromises, ethical standards and processes for account-
ability deeply embedded in the national, Cold War consensus. These attitudes
still shape, to a large degree, the rules of the road. To briefly explore these
dynamics, it is useful to consider the US case, which has been perhaps the most
telling in these regards. The history of US counter-intelligence also serves to
highlight the problems democracies will face as they transition into the twenty-
first century.

US counter-intelligence during the Cold War

The story of US counter-intelligence during the Cold War is mixed, but nonethe-
less threaded with successes. Significant Soviet penetrations were eventually
stopped, spies were caught, and, most importantly, the US and its allies won the
strategic contest with the Soviet Union without engaging in a hot war (Warner
and Fox 2009).7 The US government built this CI system on the foundation of a
newly institutionalized, centralized and empowered intelligence community and
an older domestic counter-intelligence system shaped by the first FBI director, J.
Edgar Hoover. Almost from the beginning, Hoover recognized the need for insti-
tutionalizing CI processes, developing a strong body of law, and keeping opera-
tions untainted by presidential political strategies that might corrupt the business
of domestic surveillance. Yet the story of US counter-intelligence also reveals
four troubling themes: the dominance of a defensive CI culture at the federal
level; the subordination of strategic counter-intelligence to all other missions;
mis-steps and mistrustful political discourse regarding domestic intelligence;
and, partly as a result of the foregoing, tangled espionage laws and executive
orders that confuse discussions of national purpose.
 Counter-intelligence: the 21st century 65
Defensive bias and policy disconnects
Although the Second World War demonstrated the utility of offensive counter-
intelligence for winning wars, the end of the war entailed a spike in Soviet espio-
nage that quickly led to defensive efforts to counter it on US soil. As the Soviet
Union demonstrated its ability to infiltrate and steal US government secrets, the
FBI aggressively pursued domestic counter-intelligence operations. Not surpris-
ingly, the FBI interpreted its mission as defensive and security related: catching
Soviet spies and protecting secrets. Enabled by new classification systems and
tougher espionage laws, it pursued its mandate with vigour, prosecuting sus-
pected spies, conducting mail-opening campaigns throughout the 1950s and
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infiltrating domestic groups involved in the Civil Rights Movement or protesting

the Vietnam War. As a law enforcement organization, however, the Bureau did
not regard its mission as political or policy oriented. Its purpose was to stop infil-
tration by communist agitators and operatives. The FBI measured success, quite
reasonably, by the number of spies caught and prosecuted.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), on the other hand, has traditionally
regarded counter-intelligence as a two-fold mission involving operational security
and strategy. James Jesus Angleton, the post-Second World War US counter-
intelligence czar, had studied the Trust, a successful Bolshevik CI operation that
eliminated monarchists after the revolution. He had direct experience with the
Office of Strategic Services’ counter-intelligence branch (X-2) that had worked
with the British-run XX Committee to successfully deceive Hitler during the
Second World War. This experience had convinced him of the power of offensive
counter-intelligence as a tool of statecraft. During Angleton’s tenure, the CIA and
other US intelligence agencies developed sources and defectors to sniff out plants
and provocateurs. Although most information on US and allied penetrations of
the Soviet bloc still remains classified, the Justice Department did allege, follow-
ing the capture of Aldrich Ames, that he had compromised at least ten ‘penetra-
tions’ of the Soviet military and intelligence services. Similarly, the 2005 report
of the post-9/11 WMD Commission hinted that CIA case officers targeted
Warsaw Pact officials, deriving knowledge that led to ‘a considerable number of
successful counterintelligence investigations’ (Warner and Fox 2009: 64).
Yet Angleton’s personal experience with the deceit of Kim Philby, the prin-
cipal British intelligence representative to the US and a Soviet spy who infil-
trated MI6 and thus US intelligence agencies before being exposed, led him to
suspect many of his colleagues. His fantastic conspiracy theories gradually tied
the CIA’s Soviet operations in knots. Although eventually forced out in the
1970s, Angleton left his mark. CIA management gradually came to view
counter-intelligence less as an enabler of advantages, an aid to strategy, or a
means to gain insights on competitors, and more as a separate discipline whose
purpose was to catch spies or to voice scepticism on sources and methods. Steps
to correct the problem were, in turn, stymied by politics. The Watergate crisis,
during which an American president sought to harness intelligence services for
his own political purposes, led to congressional investigations of intelligence
 66 J. Sims
over-reach. Revelations about how presidential prerogatives had been exercised
through aggressive domestic intelligence initiatives, allegedly involving collabo-
ration between FBI, CIA and city police forces in spying on domestic protestors,
led to new restrictions on domestic intelligence activities, including warrantless
wire tapping, mail opening and domestic source recruitment.
The decade of the 1970s thus became, for the US at least, the years of enabled
oversight which bound the development of an ever more aggressive intelligence
capability to rules designed to improve democratic accountability. These rules
affirmed President Truman’s declaration at the end of the Second World War
that police forces would not engage in intelligence operations, affirmed the exec-
utive branch’s constitutional authority to conduct domestic intelligence with
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justice department oversight, and led to procedures to ensure that counter-

intelligence methods did not taint due process for domestic criminal investiga-
tions. A procedural ‘wall’ was thus established that seemingly required the
separation of counter-intelligence activities from those of law enforcement, and
constrained both in domestic cases.
Over time, the US intelligence community’s counter-intelligence capabilities
weakened even as oversight improved performance in other ways. Cuban decep-
tion campaigns disrupted CIA intelligence operations, and insider spies gained
footholds within an intelligence community no longer grooming itself with
aggressive, purposeful, counter-intelligence programmes (Latell 2012). The
political cultures of the CIA, which trained and rewarded professional thieves
and wheelmen, and the FBI, which trained and rewarded lawmen, grew increas-
ingly apart. The CIA came to think of counter-intelligence as securing opera-
tions designed to break overseas laws; the FBI thought of counter-intelligence as
a form of federal law enforcement. Offensive counter-intelligence was largely
forgotten, so policy-makers began to equate CI with security. Analysts rarely
thought of CI collection as useful to their assessments or of CI analysis worth
reading as part of a collaborative process of estimation. The face of counter-
intelligence for policy-makers became the guards, safes and classification stamps
with which they had to cope each day – not the advisers who could inform them
about what foreign intelligence services needed to know and thus how they
might be influenced or their actions interpreted.
This polarization of the US intelligence community was exacerbated with
each revelation of insider spying. The capture of the Walker ring and others in
1985, and later Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, led to tighter restrictions on
intelligence sharing as defensive security measures came to dominate the
counter-intelligence agenda. Taking due note of the criticisms levelled by blue
ribbon commissioners following the Ames fiasco which triggered a loss of
agents overseas, senior counter-intelligence officials bore down harder on the
problem of operational security, not strategic or even tactical advantage. All ele-
ments of the foreign intelligence community were affected by the repeated spy
scares, and few agencies proved exempt from penetration or treachery. The capa-
city of strategic counter-intelligence to play a role in positive intelligence collec-
tion or to flag deceit waned in almost all intelligence agencies.
 Counter-intelligence: the 21st century 67
The most striking manifestation of the problem was in the CIA. According to
one former deputy director of the agency with years of experience, there evolved a
sense by the 1990s that once cases were referred to counter-intelligence officials,
they were ‘out of our hands’.8 In other words, calculating the costs and benefits of
case management was left to security- and defensive-minded counter-intelligence
officials. Thus, the vigour and competence with which officials pursued their sepa-
rate missions of security, intelligence and counter-intelligence worked to under-
mine joint purposes. Counter-intelligence analysis of adversaries’ intelligence
objectives did not flow naturally to those estimating these same adversaries’ inten-
tions. Yet, in one of the world’s most sophisticated intelligence services, few
seemed to notice the problem. Counter-intelligence professionals developed a
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deep, defensive bias that allied them more with security missions than with
national security policy. Repeated failures, particularly against the Cuban target,
fear of foreign dangles, and failed double agent operations rendered the discipline
increasingly subordinate. Over time, disuse of strategic deception led to lapses in
training for it, which in turn led to inabilities to recognize its use by others.
Failures caused by these gaps in collaboration among intelligence and
counter-intelligence officials probably never outweighed counter-intelligence
successes during the Cold War (although the documentary record is not com-
plete, making final judgements impossible). It is nonetheless clear that these
gaps began to bite deeply after the Cold War ended and transnational threats
gathered momentum. The FBI, working with its own atrophied processes for
identifying and prioritizing new threats and the domestic tools needed to meet
them, was slow to develop new collaborative initiatives with the CIA, and slow
to advise political leaders of the policy implications of what they did know.
These gaps in intelligence and counter-intelligence performance caused serious
problems for US policy-making in the 1990s, including slow recognition of the
domestic threat posed by international terrorism and international organized
crime. Despite growing recognition of transnational threats, the intelligence
community only fitfully disseminated information to domestic entities, such as
the Federal Aviation Authority, Amtrak and city police forces (though dissemi-
nation to industry in the face of growing threats from industrial espionage was a
noteworthy exception).
Latent problems, which had long resided in the rigid allocation of responsibil-
ities between federal law enforcement agencies and the national intelligence
community, became salient on 9/11 and during its aftermath. Counter-
intelligence contributed to failures prior to the First Gulf War, when Saddam
Hussein’s deceptions led to underestimation of his nuclear capabilities, and
before the 2003 war, when Saddam Hussein’s apparent attempts to deceive
others caused NATO allies to over-estimate what he had. These ‘failures’ were,
in part, the predictable result of a system designed to be slow to damage personal
privacy, to give rights to those residing on US soil, and to hold espionage agen-
cies accountable. Ironically, they are therefore also a reflection of its success.
The system is, in a sense, designed to succeed both by thwarting adversaries and
resisting the temptation to undermine the very democracy it is sworn to protect.
 68 J. Sims
Indeed, in some ways, weaknesses in US counter-intelligence are necessary
because of the symbiotic relationship between these vulnerabilities and one of
the chief priorities: to avoid a national surveillance state. It is reasonable, then,
to hope for laws that may guide us through the twenty-first century, a time when
transnational threats are becoming more important. Unfortunately, the legacy of
confusing US espionage laws and regulations is not helpful in sorting out how to
strike the right balance between surveillance and privacy. Moving into the
twenty-first century, the US counter-intelligence system, which is described and
contained by a plethora of laws, is also dangerously entangled in them.9 Most
glaring are the differences in definitions of classified information (which cannot
be released to the public), defence information (technically ‘unclassified’ but
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non-releasable), restricted data (separate restrictions relating to nuclear

weapons), and formerly restricted data (historical data relating to nuclear
weapons) that is actually, confusingly enough, still restricted.10
Laws laid down by the United States during a period of existential bilateral
threat did not hamper action until terrorists armed with new technologies dem-
onstrated their flaws. Now, the emergence of the cyber domain, where lawmak-
ing is both risky and contentious, has left governments in a quandary and
counter-intelligence agencies without adequate guidance. With the legal frame-
work so confused, it is hardly surprising that countering threats has become ever
harder, particularly when posed by insiders.11 When the classification system is
riddled with inconsistencies, insiders who seem to ‘leak’ from one agency’s
standpoint may simply be discussing federal policy from the standpoint of
another. As the digital age increases the number of electronic secrets stacking up
behind federal walls, the problem is likely to get worse before it gets better.
The performance of intelligence and counter-intelligence institutions in demo-
cratic polities is directly related to changes in information technology and the
challenges these changes pose for democracies. It makes sense, then, to consider
how technology is changing the ways in which advantages in information may
be obtained and what these trends may portend for the future. Historians of inter-
national relations have observed that with every technological revolution has
come an expansion of force and an adjustment in attitudes towards the state.
What lies in store in the twenty-first century?

Technological trends and their implications

According to classical measures of power such as the distribution of population,
resources and military might, the twenty-first century is arguably seeing a shift
in strength from West to East, particularly China and India. But if information is
power, then traditional measures of power may not capture the whole picture.
For example, states with the most advanced information infrastructures may
have an edge. Large corporations that manage the global information infrastruc-
ture may be becoming new power brokers, capable of allying with bands of
insurgents on the one hand, or repressive governments on the other, depending
on their profit motives. Power shifts may, in fact, be occurring not only among
 Counter-intelligence: the 21st century 69
states but also within them. New technologies for data mining and artificial intel-
ligence are improving the capacity of states to conduct surveillance and counter-
insurgency, but photo- and video-equipped mobile phones, miniaturized
microphones, and supporting internet software are also in the hands of the gov-
erned, empowering protest.
In this regard it is important to note that companies such as Apple see their
profitability turning on private purchases, not governments. During the first
quarter of 2012, iPhone sales by Apple grew by 35.1 million, contributing to
Apple’s $39.2 billion surge in growth during that period – three times what the
company earned during the same period in 2011. Sales in China made up 20 per
cent of that surge, compared to just 4.5 per cent the previous year. Whereas such
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a surge in connectivity might have positive socio-economic effects in a demo-

cracy, it has demonstrably destabilizing effects for repressive political systems.
In fact, growth in internet use may be a more important indicator of societal
change than degree of penetration per se. Table 6.1 shows that, from 2000 to
2010, internet use in Africa and the Middle East grew over 2,000 per cent.
Despite such rapid growth, these two regions are still the least penetrated by
internet access, with only 13.5 per cent and 35.6 per cent of their respective pop-
ulations able to go on line. China’s relatively modest internet penetration
(38.4%) and potential for explosive growth could thus pose challenges for
Beijing,12 especially because the state has forged no national understanding on
the collection, control or use of citizens’ information.
Herein lies the paradox. From a counter-intelligence standpoint, the growth of
the internet has enabled governments to reach deeply into their own polities,
monitoring citizens’ locations and their online use. Yet, while this new capacity
empowers unconstrained totalitarian states relatively more than democratic ones,
making them potentially more dangerous, the pace of individual empowerment
has generally been faster than the growth in governments’ capacities to monitor,
so that governing without the consent of the governed has become more difficult.
As Kevin O’Connell and Randall Forster have observed:

Solutions only governments once held – the ability to communicate globally

with mobility; the power of mapping & geolocation; the instant surveillance
tools of high quality sound, imaging, and video; the ability to plan and
execute while geographically distant – (have) evolved from thousands of
government systems to billions of personal unregulated devices available to
anyone anywhere on the globe. Today, every traditional intelligence discip-
line has a ‘seam’ in the open world.
(O’Connell and Forster 2011)

The message for policy-makers is that they need to connect with these newly
enabled citizens; the message for counter-intelligence services is that govern-
ments will likely seek a deeper grip on their own and foreign populations than
ever before, not through superior data, but through the interpretation of events
for those whom they govern or hope to manipulate. Terrorists and other
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Table 6.1 World internet usage and population statistics, 31 December 2011

World regions Population Internet users Internet users Penetration Growth 2000–2011 Users %
(2011 Est.) 31 December 2000 latest data (% population) (%) of table

Africa 1,037,524,058 4,514,400 139,875,242 13.5 2,988.4 6.2

Asia 3,879,740,877 114,304,000 1,016,799,076 26.2 789.6 44.8
Europe 816,426,346 105,096,093 500,723,686 61.3 376.4 22.1
Middle East 216,258,843 3,284,800 77,020,995 35.6 2,244.8 3.4
North America 347,394,870 108,096,800 273,067,546 78.6 152.6 12.0
Latin America/Carib. 597,283,165 18,068,919 235,819,740 39.5 1,205.1 10.4
Oceania/Australia 35,426,995 7,620,480 23,927,457 67.5 214.0 1.1
World total 6,930,055,154 360,985,492 2,267,233,742 32.7 528.1 100.0

Source: www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm.
Notes
1 Internet Usage and World Population Statistics are for 31 December 2011.
2 CLICK on each world region name for detailed regional usage information.
3 Demographic (population) numbers are based on data from the US Census Bureau and local census agencies.
4 Internet usage information comes from data published by Nielsen Online, by the International Telecommunications Union, by GfK, local Regulators and other reli-
able sources.
5 For definitions, disclaimers and navigation help, please refer to the Site Surfing Guide.
6 Information in this site may be cited, giving the due credit towww.internetworldstats.com. Copyright © 2001–2012, Miniwatts Marketing Group. All rights reserved
worldwide.
 Counter-intelligence: the 21st century 71
adversaries can reach deep inside states to turn the governed against themselves
and their governors. New users are particularly likely to be unsophisticated in
their appreciation for how the internet can be used to manipulate and monitor
them and generate bias, making states undergoing rapid internet penetration par-
ticularly vulnerable to disruption. On the other hand, savvy governments enjoy-
ing the trust of the governed can rely on them for early warning and
self-organization during crises. From this perspective, the shift of state power
from West to East seems less certain and the risks of instability in the latter
seem, in any case, rather grave.
To better understand the implications of the information revolution for
counter-intelligence, it is useful to explore three related technological trends
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shaping the information environment in somewhat greater depth: big data and its
processing; miniaturization and proliferation of sensors and platforms; and the
evolution of the cyber domain. These technologies are shaping not only who
competes in political contests both nationally and internationally, but also how
they do so. Although all relevant technologies cannot be reviewed, a few exam-
ples will give a flavour of the changes underway.

Big data
In 2009, Richard Way of the Guardian newspaper captured the startling growth
of the world’s stockpile of digital information:

At 487bn gigabytes (GB), if the world’s rapidly expanding digital content

were printed and bound into books it would form a stack that would stretch
from Earth to Pluto 10 times. As more people join the digital tribe – increas-
ingly through internet-enabled mobile phones – the world’s digital output is
increasing at such a rate that those stacks of books are rising quicker than
Nasa’s fastest space rocket.13

Way observed that, at this rate, the digital universe would double over the next
eighteen months. Actually, in 2010, the globe produced 1.2 zettabytes and in
2011, 1.8 zettabytes (1.8 trillion gigabytes) of data,14 mostly as a result of the
spread of cell phones and personal computers to individuals using new ‘apps’
and sharing pictures and videos. EMC2, the company that posted the data Way
used for his article, explains why it thinks such trends are important: by 2020
digital data will have grown by 50 per cent, but the number of human beings
managing it will grow by only 1.7 per cent.15 Information managers are facing
digital chaos, and companies such as EMC2 want to help them gain control.
The implications for intelligence practice seem clear: if information is power,
then those who master this digital chaos first, and derive meaning from it, will
likely gain critical advantages. Intelligence professionals, whether in business or
in service to the state, are therefore in a silent race to develop tools for mining
and analysing growing volumes of swiftly moving information and then to use it
to understand the competitive security environment and help policy-makers
 72 J. Sims
shape it in their favour. In the United States, the intelligence community runs an
open source intelligence (OSINT) centre, which has sources in over 160 coun-
tries that report in over eighty languages.16 The centre provides foreign source
material to the public through the Commerce Department’s National Technical
Information Service’s online World News Connection. This data-feed only
becomes good intelligence, however, when the centre adds timeliness and atten-
tiveness to provenance (examining where the foreign newspapers, government
spokesmen, map-makers and best-selling authors acquired their information, and
the motives they had for sharing it). Open information is rarely born pristine;
much of it is offered and replicated with a purpose. It is, even if ‘true’, nonethe-
less biased. Open source counter-intelligence is necessary to reveal the intent
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behind the substance. For example, if a foreign government releases formerly

classified documents, it matters whether the officials were forced to do so or did
so purposely in an attempt to influence international events. For this reason,
processing ‘open source’ information in competitive conditions requires scrub-
bing the data for its provenance, not just mining it for gems.
What makes the modern challenge particularly difficult is that the leaders in
this open source race are in the private sector, where businesses have developed
sophisticated tools for understanding the provenance of data, not just how to sift
its great bulk.17 Tying consumers’ decisions to information is, after all, the
essence of marketing, and it is fully legal. Thus the provenance of data on con-
sumer choice is the essence of what companies want and what they are already
getting to an ever more impressive degree. Large corporations, such as Google,
Yahoo and Twitter, want to gain subscribers and win advertising dollars by an
ever increasing refinement of the search function. They offer search engines to
consumers with questions, and offer sellers increasingly detailed profiles of those
consumers based on those searches. Programs for data mining and analysis allow
companies to know their customers both intimately and collectively for the
purpose of targeting them, and to sell that information to others. These programs
are, in fact, becoming so good that Google customers have agreed to a breathtak-
ing forfeiture of privacy in order to gain the advantages of easy access to the
valuable information and the faster decision-making it provides. If companies
processing this data agree to partner with states, powerful tools will be handed to
intelligence and counter-intelligence institutions.
Among those tools are sensing systems developed for private use but with
significant consequences for intelligence operations. Take, for example, biomet-
ric data. On the one hand, the increasing ability of employers and officials to
track people by their heat signatures, irises or DNA may make counter-
intelligence easier. Establishing false identities or multiple identities is becoming
difficult if not impossible. On the other hand, the boon for CI has its offensive
CI blowback: to the extent that guarding against foreign penetrations of one’s
own side requires penetrating the intelligence systems of adversaries, the dif-
ficulties of cover will likely require re-engineering offensive counter-intelligence
operations as well. In the meantime, the multiplication of identity data, absent
the artificial intelligence to process it, may leave some competitors swamped.
 Counter-intelligence: the 21st century 73
Cheap, miniaturized collection platforms and sensing systems
For many of the reasons discussed above, it is not clear that all states win in the
big data world. The logic that makes business a winner in the evolution of big
data and artificial intelligence is the same as the logic that says democracies will
trump autocracies in the new information environment: people power. Since the
biggest contributors to the surge in digital volume are individuals, these individ-
uals can play sides in ways they were unable to do before. Human beings with
iPhones can take pictures, write on-the-scene reports of battlefield developments,
make videos, and upload all this media from any location covered by their
service providers.
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Such advances in privatized ‘sensing’ are important for intelligence for

reasons beyond open source databanks. The development and miniaturization of
new sensors and forms of communication are accompanied by the development
and miniaturization of the platforms on which they ride. Sensors are thus going
beyond the hostile environments of space and sea, to a rapidly expanding list of
other formerly denied areas, such as inside nuclear reactors, into terrorists’
caves, and across national borders in peacetime. It is thus getting harder to estab-
lish sanctuaries by detaching from the information grid. Terrorists avoiding
traceable cell phones may not be able to avoid drones in Pakistan and Afghan-
istan. Yet drones can also be privately owned and the tables turned against the
more powerful. In Texas, for example, a private citizen flying his own UAV
photographed blood in the Trinity River from the Columbia Meat packing plant
– a report that triggered a formal law enforcement investigation (Hill 2012). In
Libya, insurgents used low-cost drones bought from Canada to watch Qaddafi’s
military movements during the insurrection. National Geographic captured the
implications for privacy when it ran a cover story on the rapidly evolving efforts
to miniaturize flying robots to the size of humming-birds. Aerial drones are
simply flying robots, while land-based drones were sent into the Fukishimi
Daiichi nuclear plant following the 2011 tsunami crisis. Mexican drug cartels
have used sea-based drones to ferry illicit cargoes on to US soil for years.
The significance of ‘big data’ and miniaturized, inexpensive collection plat-
forms for counter-intelligence is obvious: adversaries can learn much more about
each other by spending much less than they once did. Will fighting this kind of
information gathering be a fool’s errand? In the language of classical intelligence
warning: the noise will be increasing exponentially while the signals will be
growing ever weaker. In such an environment, the race will be won by those
who are agile, quick and adept at aligning platforms and sensors against targets.
Nowhere is such alignment more obvious than in the cyber domain.

Cyber
Most discussions of cyber begin with the vulnerabilities of critical information
infrastructure to hacking and other forms of attack. Counter-intelligence discus-
sions usually cover the difficulties of tracking, intercepting and attributing such
 74 J. Sims
attacks. In essence, there are four critical challenges posed by the cyber domain
(Hayden 2011):

Firstly, the nature of the ‘domain’. Although it is manmade, ownership of

content is neither divisible nor attributable. Friendly and hostile data co-
exist.
Secondly, while entry fees to the domain are low, vulnerabilities once
there are high. Defense is necessary but difficult to implement. In fact,
states’ efforts to protect or govern it could lower the value of the domain
itself.
In these conditions, the motives of commercial firms to defend their net-
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works vary greatly, and may not be coincident with governments’ interests
in protecting national security. The conduct of firms could trigger war or
prevent states from bringing it to an end.18
In these circumstances, governments could become embroiled in new
forms of industrial espionage as they seek to understand and map the threats
that corporations pose for the state, both because of their vulnerabilities and
their policies in cyberspace. These policies might prompt retribution against
hardware located within state territory.

Distinguishing between cyber espionage and cyber attack will likely plague
international conflict and its successful resolution for years to come. What con-
stitutes an act of war in cyberspace? How are wars terminated if they can be
prosecuted by private hackers with axes to grind?
Most of these issues and the problems they raise for counter-intelligence have
been addressed at length elsewhere (Brenner 2011). What has been less appreci-
ated is the role the integrity of cyber plays in managing information wars in the
public domain and the role offensive counter-intelligence might play in that
process. Joel Brenner, former director of the US National Counterintelligence
Executive (NCIX), has explained that one of the foremost challenges of cyber
espionage is its potential for peacetime use with wartime ends in mind. He points
to the penetration of US networks by the Chinese for the purpose of robbing US
industries of their intellectual property. To counter such espionage, the US needs
to penetrate the networks of adversaries to see what is coming and to deflect or
destroy the effort. Who, then, is the attacker? Both sides live in the networks of
others to avoid surprise; yet one also exploits that pre-positioning for purposes
of economic espionage, not simply defence. Telling the difference between the
guard at the gate and the thief is impossible. In this silent war, in which objec-
tives (resources, industry) can be achieved without battle, what matters is control
of the cyber domain, not necessarily its destruction. Governments that can sort
thieves and guards and act quickly to ally with private sector interests or release
information at an adversary’s expense will be best able to prevent losses and
shape the way critical audiences react, influencing who wins and loses.
This last idea, which relates to deception, is perhaps the most frequently
forgotten dimension of what is widely understood to be the threat from cyber
 Counter-intelligence: the 21st century 75
operations. It is not just that states and hackers can burrow into information
systems to damage, steal and disrupt; they do it to influence as well, sometimes
for the sake of no one state’s agenda but for the sake of ‘free information’ or
some private cause. Leaked secrets, absent competitive context, offer the oppor-
tunity to gain advantages; open source information, as explained above, is never
born pristine and can be competitively neutral in its significance, until one side
or the other shapes meaning from it. Bradley Manning’s treachery in leaking
volumes of classified cables to Wikileaks was not driven by sympathy for any
particular adversary. Manning probably didn’t even know who would win or
lose from his act. As the cables emerged in the public domain, counter-
intelligence officials brought public criticism on the government with hopeless
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efforts to staunch the flow. Less attention was given to the equally important
effort to manage how others sought to understand and use the information. An
effective counter-intelligence response could have included silence on some
issues, such as the authenticity of certain documents, and emphasis on others,
such as the role US diplomats were playing in pressing dictators for democratic
changes. To effectively manage such an effort, policy-makers needed to lead,
with the willing involvement of counter-intelligence officials. To some extent
this was done, but less by design than by default.
With technological advance, cyber deceptions are likely to grow, infecting
not only how adversaries derive meaning from stolen data, but drive meaning
into shared data. Intelligence wars entail influence operations; modern counter-
intelligence must entail counter-influence informed by solid appreciation of open
sources. Counter-intelligence as it exists now can do well in catching the perpe-
trator but fail utterly in managing spills and cyber poisons unless capacity for
offensive counter-intelligence matches that of spy catching. And to manage nar-
rative in the age of information, one needs not only an active and cooperative
citizenry that trusts officials not to manipulate them, but the attentive participa-
tion of policy-makers who understand their role in managing the information
environment and, most importantly, how to shape the meaning of events without
lying about the facts. A counter-intelligence culture imbued with the missions of
stealing and protecting truths is poorly equipped to work with policy-makers in
such a world of grey. In any case, with people power becoming ever more
important in managing international conflict – whether to induce panic from ter-
rorist acts or to reduce it and hunt down the perpetrators – control of the integrity
of cyber systems is a critical problem.

Twenty-first-century challenges
The modern counter-intelligence problem is complex, turning on computer and
communications technologies, legal statutes governing their use, and the intent
of adversaries to exploit them. Instantaneous communication is simultaneously a
boon to information managers and so ubiquitous that advantages are hard to
capture and retain for competitors. When new communications capabilities
develop, they hit the market immediately, driven by a private sector with
 76 J. Sims
worldwide reach. Steps the US takes to ramp up the internal capabilities of intel-
ligence agencies empower insiders to use expanded access for unauthorized pur-
poses. At the same time, the digital revolution threatens to shackle governments
with petabytes of new media, such as email, video and the like – secrets whose
worth is as uncertain as are the consequences of their release and yet which will
entail enormous effort and expense to store, review and declassify. In demo-
cracies, technology is charging ahead and the law is scrabbling to keep up.
Three consequences of these trends seem particularly important for counter-
intelligence: the rise in insider threats, the importance of private sector collabo-
ration, and the increasing imperative of streamlining laws governing the
relationship between policing, policy and counter-intelligence. It seems sensible
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to conclude with a few brief remarks about each.

Insider spies
The first and perhaps most immediate consequence of the trends outlined above
concerns the likely rise in insider espionage over the coming decade. With
empowerment of the individual comes his mobilization for causes of all kinds:
political, social, environmental, economic, military and criminal. Moreover, the
capability to act decisively now travels with the person in the form of cell
phones, secure, wireless lap tops, digital recording devices, cameras and the like.
From a single location, an individual can connect with friends, participate in a
poll, pay for parking tickets, buy movie tickets, order a book and read it instanta-
neously, ‘go’ to the movies or order dinner. The idea of acting decisively at any
moment travels with people to their workplaces, and the connectivity with others
of like mind encourages spontaneity, not caution. This social dynamic raises the
risk of insider spying not so much because people are more easily recruited by
foreign powers but because they are more easily disgruntled and able to act on
that feeling.

A new era for science: direction finding in cyberspace and other

countermeasures?
A second major challenge flowing from technological trends will be to build col-
laborative efforts between the government and scientific-industrial communities
in the interest of national security. Such an effort would be nothing new. During
the Second World War and the early Cold War, technology was also changing
quickly. The US and its allies recruited patriotic scientists, such as R.V. Jones
and Richard Bissell, to help them tackle the challenges of radar, rocketry and
sophisticated direction finding. Such collaboration blossomed into the CIA’s
Science and Technology Directorate. A similar effort is needed now, with intel-
ligence and counter-intelligence receiving attention in equal measure and the sci-
entific minds coming more from industry than from the government or military
services. Although the US system of federally funded research survives in the
form of the Department of Energy Laboratory system, Defense Advanced
 Counter-intelligence: the 21st century 77
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and its intelligence counterpart IARPA,
these agencies cannot foresee the next new ‘thing’ in a rapidly evolving industry
as well as the innovators can themselves. The key here will be to gain the trust
of an industry that, in wanting to empower all customers, has little interest in
aiding governmental efforts to discriminate among them or to increase their vul-
nerability to surveillance in any measure.

Law enforcement challenges

Finally, the twenty-first century is likely to be one in which transnational threats
are accelerating, and law enforcement will be taking a larger place in the pan-
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theon of national security agencies. This will be a difficult transition for states,
such as the US, that have developed a law enforcement culture comfortable with
catching spies but historically walled off from the larger intelligence enterprise.
Domestic intelligence agencies, which have grown in size and mission since
9/11, have a new need for domestic sources and thus liaison with law enforce-
ment, while the police will also expect better sharing of threats at the state and
local level. As the technological capacities for surveillance increase, largely
spurred by business and national security interests, the police will want to be
‘first adopters’ of those technologies suitable for the public domain. In states
with good systems of law enforcement and intelligence oversight, the legitimacy
of private sector surveillance will be settled early, making law enforcement rel-
atively empowered to act in concert with domestic interest groups chasing law-
breakers of all kinds, be they slaughterhouses or terrorists. Carefully managed,
law enforcement agencies can become ever more trusted interlocutors among
citizens, businesses and state agencies involved in domestic intelligence. If mis-
managed, however, they can evolve into the intelligence arms of excessively
intrusive surveillance agencies, with consequential effects for governments
struggling to maintain legitimacy with the governed. For this reason, perhaps,
the power shift we see occurring from West to East may be too premature
to call.

Notes
1 This chapter was prepared with support from the American Academy of Arts and Sci-
ences and with the assistance of Ryan McKinistry and Alexandra Bellay, my research
assistants at Georgetown University in early 2012.
2 Colum Lynch, ‘Syrian Opposition Seeks to Wipe the Assad Name off the Map – via
Google’, Washington Post, 14 February 2012. Online. Available: www.washingtonpost.
com/world/national-security/syrian-opposition-seeks-to-wipe-the-assad-name-off-the-
map–via-google/2012/02/14/gIQAad5aER_story.html (accessed 28 January 2013).
3 Ibid.
4 To understand the measurement problem, it may be helpful to consider two views of
the somewhat analogous mission of a librarian. In its most limited sense, the job of a
librarian is to maintain track of books in order to keep them safe and available for
users. Libraries might therefore measure their staff ’s success by assessing whether all
the library’s holdings are in proper order on the shelves. In a larger sense, however,
 78 J. Sims
a librarian’s mission is to serve a community of learners. Understood in this way, the
number of books accounted for but not on the shelves would be positively correlated
with success. In fact, overdue books might be less of a worry than books that are safe
but never checked out. Counter-intelligence officers ought to differ from security
officers in a similar way: the former should measure success in terms of the strategic
purpose of those they serve, not the security of information per se. Security most cer-
tainly matters, because secrets or advantages lost cannot usually be regained; but, if
security rules, the strategists may lose opportunities to go on the offensive or the flex-
ibility they need to shape their opponent’s perceptions.
5 Some CI experts noted that, though accidental, the loss of a helicopter during the opera-
tion had a salutary effect, because its easily photographed pieces served as publicly
available proof that the operation had indeed taken place and that the US was involved.
6 A striking example comes from the Second World War, when cable and radio censor-
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ship included, among other things, ‘[t]he civil, military, industrial, financial, or eco-
nomic plans of the United States, or other countries opposing the Axis powers, or the
personal or official plans of any official thereof,’ ‘[w]eather conditions (past, present, or
forecast)’ and ‘criticism of equipment, appearance, physical condition or morale of the
collective or individual armed forces of the United States or other nations’ opposing the
Axis powers (U.S. Cable and Radio Censorship Regulations $$1801–18(d), (g), (k), 7
Fed. Reg. 1499,1500 (1942), cited in Edgar and Schmidt 1973: 934). Press dispatches
were excluded from this particular rule and were covered in another regulation.
7 Major failures have indeed happened, but successes are likely under-appreciated
because of the sparse public record. What matters is which services ‘won’ overall.
The official historians of the DNI and FBI note that more than seventy-two spies were
successfully prosecuted between 1978 and 1985. The Senate’s Select Committee on
Intelligence, in its 1986 report Meeting the Espionage Challenge, revealed the (largely
still classified) contributions of CIA counter-intelligence during the Cold War with
hints of this kind:
A major element in counterintelligence is offensive operations, especially efforts
to recruit agents-in-place within hostile intelligence services and to induce defec-
tions from those services. The strategic payoff of agents and defectors can be
immense as demonstrated by the exposure of Edward Lee Howard and the suc-
cessful prosecution of Ronald Pelton.
(p. 63)
8 Interview with a former DDCI, 11 July 2011.
9 US intelligence laws are riddled with semantic distinctions and conceptual gaps that
make navigating the terrain of national security especially perilous. The underlying
inconsistencies among the various provisions of US espionage laws have never been
resolved. The creation of the US classification system and the US intelligence agen-
cies followed the original Defense Secrets Act of 1911 by several decades. The 1911
Act was incorporated into the Espionage Act of 1917, which in turn has been amended
several times. This law was in turn incorporated into 18 U.S. Code 793, which was
modified in 1950 by the Internal Security Act. The last added 18 U.S. Code 794.
10 See the website of the Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) for more
information on the current confusion concerning classification and declassification:
www.archives.gov/declassification/pidb/index.html (accessed 19 December 2012).
11 In a widely cited article, Edgar and Schmidt (1973) exposed how bad the situation
had already become by that time. As they wrote in the introduction to their now
classic treatise:
When we turned to the United States Code to find out what Congress had done,
we became absorbed in the effort to comprehend what the current espionage stat-
utes mandate with respect to the communication and publication of defense
 Counter-intelligence: the 21st century 79
information. The longer we looked, the less we saw. Either advancing myopia
had taken its toll, or the statutes implacably resist the effort to understand.
For the persistence of this problem, see Herbig (2008: 23).
12 China lags behind both Azerbeijan and Armenia (44.1 per cent and 47.1 per cent
respectively) in internet use. See www.internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm.
13 ‘Internet data heads for 500bn gigabytes: World’s digital content equivalent to stack of
books stretching from Earth to Pluto 10 times’, Guardian, 18 May 2009. Online. Avail-
able: www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/may/18/digital-content-expansion (accessed
23 May 2012).
14 ‘Produced’ here refers to information created and replicated as data ‘in motion’ on the
internet.
15 See their website at www.emc.com/leadership/programs/digital-universe.htm (accessed
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29 January 2013).
16 See their website at www.opensource.gov/ (accessed 29 January 2013).
17 See the website at http://reclaimdemocracy.org/walmart/2007/spying_operation.php
(accessed 29 January 2013).
18 Google Maps is, for example, a new voice regarding the boundaries of states and even
the naming of towns and roads. See John D. Sutter, ‘Google Maps border becomes
part of international dispute’, CNN, 5 November 2010. Online. Available: www.cnn.
com/2010/TECH/web/11/05/nicaragua.raid.google.maps/index.html (accessed 29
January 2013).

Bibliography
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Espionage, Crime and Warfare, New York: Penguin.
Edgar, Harold and Schmidt, Benno (1973) ‘The Espionage Statutes and the Publication of
Defense Information’, Columbia Law Review, 73: 930–1087.
Hayden, Michael (2011) ‘The Future of Things “Cyber” ’, Strategic Studies Quarterly, 5:
3–7.
Herbig, Katherine (2008) ‘Changes in Espionage by Americans, 194’007’, Department of
Defense Technical Report 08–05.
Hill, Kashmir (2012) ‘Potential Drone Use: Finding Rivers of Blood’, Forbes Magazine.
Online. Available: www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/01/25/potential-drone-use-
finding-rivers-of-blood/ (accessed 29 January 2013).
Hinsley, F.H. (1993) British Intelligence in the Second World War, Abridged edn, Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
Holloway, David (1994) Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, New
Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press.
Latell, Brian (2012) Castro’s Secrets: The CIA and Cuba’s Intelligence Machine, Basing-
stoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
O’Connell, Kevin T. and Forster, Randall T. (2011) Intelligence Integration Strategy: Re-
alignment of Sources and Methods for 21st Century National Security, prepared for the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence/Deputy for Intelligence Integration
(ODNI/DII).
Sims, Jennifer E. and Gerber, Burton (eds) (2009) Vaults, Mirrors and Masks: Rediscov-
ering US Counterintelligence, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Warner, Michael and Fox, James (2009) ‘Counterintelligence: The American Experi-
ence’, in Jennifer E. Sims and Burton Gerber (eds), Vaults, Mirrors and Masks, Wash-
ington, DC: Georgetown University Press, pp. 51–68.
 7 Analysing international
intelligence cooperation
Institutions or intelligence
assemblages?
Jelle van Buuren
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Intelligence studies is a multi-disciplinary, specialist field of study, a niche that

has emerged out of, among other things, the fields of strategic studies, inter-
national history, law and sociology.1 Swedish intelligence scholar Wilhelm
Agrell (2006: 635) has observed: ‘there is no generally established theory of
intelligence’, while A.D.M. Svendsen (2009: 705–708) has remarked that ‘the
state of the discipline reflects its origin’. Some dimensions of intelligence studies
are theoretically impoverished, while others have enjoyed substantial theory
development. Svendsen describes the field as ‘haphazardly theorized’, which
captures the ad hoc nature of the theorization efforts. He defends this ‘picking
and mixing’ from different disciplinary and theoretical strands (a ‘complex co-
existence plurality’) on the grounds that at least to some degree, this reflects
what practitioners do in the real world of intelligence. In this chapter we will
also be ‘picking and mixing’ from various theoretical and conceptual strands to
look at the European cross-border cooperation of intelligence and security actors.
Drawing on insights from governance theory, network theory and the ‘practice
turn’ in social science (Schatzki et al. 2001), we will argue that the ‘state-centric
view’ (Fägersten 2010) which dominates the literature on the history, function-
ing and future of European intelligence cooperation does increase our under-
standing of this phenomenon, but that it also obscures developments ‘on the
ground’ which can be of equal relevance.
Although European intelligence cooperation is not a new phenomenon, it has
been changing rapidly since the 9/11 attacks in the United States and the sub-
sequent terrorist attacks in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005. The European
Union responded to the new terrorist threat with an ‘unprecedented wave of
policy interventions’ (den Boer 2006: 83). New counter-terrorist agencies and
structures were created on top of already existing structures, and the latter were
furbished with new and special powers. With this ‘plethora of initiatives’ the EU
reinforced the already ‘crowded policy space’ on counter-terrorism (den Boer
2006: 99). At the same time the cooperation with intelligence and security actors
from outside the European Union also changed markedly; therefore it is perhaps
better to speak of the ‘internationalization’ or ‘globalization’ of intelligence than
to restrict the new developments to the European theatre. According to Aldrich
(2009: 27), this ‘black hole’ of international intelligence cooperation has been
 International intelligence cooperation 81
expanding for more than a decade. The Global War on Terror has accelerated the
scope and scale of international cooperation, ranging from clandestine operations
to information exchange and an expanding network of intelligence liaison offic-
ers (Sims 2006; Svendsen 2008). This has resulted in a ‘complex and blurred
transnational sphere of counterterrorism’ (den Boer et al. 2008: 103–104).
It was not only intelligence and security agencies that were affected by the
changing international situation. Closer connections were forged between
domestic police, security and intelligence services, eroding the distinction
between what constitutes domestic and foreign. At the same time, the expanding
role of private security providers blurred the distinction between what is public
and what is private (Arthur 1996; Hoogenboom 2006; Voelz 2009). This ‘blur-
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ring of borders’ is captured in the notion of an emerging security continuum.

This security continuum of internal and external security has created a novel
situation whereby concepts and institutional arrangements traditionally aimed at
internal security challenges (police, national and local information, and adminis-
trative authorities) become increasingly challenged to address matters previously
reserved for the external security professionals (military and international police
forces, foreign affairs officials, international legal agencies and diplomatic
corps), while the latter are in turn required to deal with matters reserved for the
former (Burgess 2009: 310). With a little variation of what Loader (2000:
326–328) has described for the field of policing, we can now speak of a develop-
ment in which intelligence by government is supplemented with intelligence
through government, intelligence above government and intelligence beyond
government. The military are now also tasked with internal counter-terrorism
measures and assistance in crisis situations; information on home-grown ter-
rorism and radicalization is supplied by youth workers, school directors and
police community officers; private security and intelligence companies are sup-
plying risk and threat assessments for public agencies and companies; and sur-
veillance operations are fed with data from a plethora of local, international,
public and private actors.

Nodal governance
These developments, however, are not a phenomenon related exclusively to the
intelligence community; nor are they the only response to the emerging net-
worked world of terrorism. The governance of security has been radically trans-
formed in recent decades. Established notions are based on the idea of
autonomous, territorially bound nation-states in which state agencies like the
police, border guards and intelligence services are responsible for the delivery of
security. Today, we inhabit a world of multi-level, multi-centre security govern-
ance, in which states are joined, criss-crossed and contested by an array of trans-
national organizations and factors that operate via regional and global
governmental bodies, commercial security outfits and informal networks (Wood
and Shearing 2007: 3). One could think, for instance, of global private players
like Control Risk or Stratfor, which deliver a range of security and intelligence
 82 J. van Buuren
products and services to both private and public parties and who work together
with public intelligence agencies in informal or personal networks.
This has been termed the ‘nodal governance’ of security, consisting of a plu-
rality of decision centres in which no clear hierarchy between centres exists; the
core of the decision structures itself consists of networks; the boundaries of deci-
sion structures are fluid; and the actors include professional experts, and public
and private actors (Goetz 2008: 262). Whether the state in this new fluid security
amalgam is ‘stripped of its commanding heights’ (Neocleous 2007: 346), ‘hol-
lowed out’ and is just one ‘nodal actor’ among many, or whether it continues to
function as a kind of ‘eminence grise’, a ‘shadow entity lurking off-stage’
(Hawkins 1984: 190), is a subject of fierce academic debate (van Buuren 2010).
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Leaving this dispute aside for a moment, there seems to be agreement among
scholars studying and researching changes in governance that nowadays we are
facing the multiplication of auspices and providers of security (Shearing and
Wood 2003: 406), and that security is not provided only by the institutions of the
state, nor shaped solely by thinking and acting originating from the state sphere
(Wood and Shearing 2006).
These insights from governance theory on the nodalization and hybridization
of security (vertical and horizontal models of security governance and practices
are combined together in more or less integrated modes of interaction), however,
seem to be overlooked when it comes to the study of European intelligence and
security cooperation. The story of this cooperation is commonly told from an
institutional perspective, centring on treaties, structures, competences, legal
powers and institutional developments (Bendiek 2006; Bossong 2008; Kaunert
2010; Monar 2007; Müller-Wille 2002; Zimmermann 2006). Typical questions
that arise from this perspective would be as follows: What are the opportunities
offered by the new Lisbon Treaty for intelligence cooperation? What will be the
influence of qualified majority voting in the relevant European institutions? How
relevant are the new powers of the European Parliament? How should we appre-
ciate the new European External Action Service? Is the European Joint Situation
Centre (van Buuren 2009) the embryo of a true European central intelligence
agency?
It is not that these kinds of questions are irrelevant. More traditional theories
and concepts from political science or public administration can be deployed to
analyse and evaluate the development of cross-border intelligence structures,
patterns of cooperation, conflicts of interest, bureaucratic turf wars, or the
problem that agencies sometimes are reluctant to follow political directives.
Fägersten, for instance, showed nicely how bureaucratic interests and conflicting
bureaucratic cultures hindered the European police organization Europol in ful-
filling the intelligence and counter-terrorist mandate which the political leaders
of the European Union wanted it to have (Fägersten 2010). In his article, Fäger-
sten criticizes the ‘state-centric view on intelligence cooperation’ which assumes
that states are unitary and sole actors when it comes to the development of intel-
ligence cooperation, and that state preferences are thus the key to understanding
cooperative outcomes. The basic assumption behind the state-centric view
 International intelligence cooperation 83
‘is that states get what they want: if the strategic calculus is in favour of coopera-
tion, then cooperation will occur.’ However, states will in fact not always get
what they want, due to – among other things – bureaucratic cultural wars (Fäger-
sten 2010: 500–501).
Although Fägersten criticizes the state-centric view, he himself seems unable
to escape what I would like to call the ‘normative state-centric view’. At the end
of his article, Fägersten advises policy-makers to include bureaucratic perspec-
tives at an early stage in the planning process, otherwise governments may find
themselves in ‘the uncomfortable position’ of not getting what they want (Fäger-
sten 2010: 520). Although from a normative point of view this advice is under-
standable – we will return to this discussion at the end of this chapter – there
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seems to be an underlying presumption that it is politics and policies that matter

and that shape the reality on the ground. The question then is: do they really?
One way or another, the presumption in much of the literature on European intel-
ligence remains that the state – by invoking institutions, rules and policies – is, or
at least should be, the leading actor in the styling of intelligence cooperation. This
runs the risk, however, of confusing normative with conceptual matters and
thereby obscuring developments ‘on the ground’ that may be at least as important
for our understanding of the internationalization of intelligence. Studies into inter-
national police cooperation show that most of the EU policy instruments lack a
practical orientation and therefore have a limited effect on police practices. Block
(2010: 195) points at the cumbersome procedures and protocols for international
police liaison officers which reflect more administrative preoccupations with
sovereignty issues and internal organizational problems than the practical needs
of liaison officers engaged in cross-border cooperation. Studying international
police practices therefore seems to be a better way of becoming informed about
international police cooperation than studying in detail all kinds of institutional
and policy matters on the political and administrative level.
For this reason it is worthwhile to look at international intelligence and
security cooperation from a de-institutionalized perspective. Diplomats and
lawyers negotiating international treaties or policy-makers debating options
operate from different interests, insights and bodies of knowledge than special-
ists who have to design practical forms of international cooperation. It is one
thing to design a treaty, institutional arrangement or policy paving the way for
international intelligence and security cooperation; it is however quite another to
put these policies in practice while acknowledging the particularities of the intel-
ligence cultures involved. At a time when scientists, politicians and policy-
makers are discussing the future of European intelligence and security
cooperation, the reality on the ground is that intelligence and security profes-
sionals are working together, they are exchanging information and analyses,
they are running cross-border operations, they are advising policy-makers and
politicians. So the more interesting question is: what is actually happening when
different intelligence and security actors are working together in different forms
and formats? Can we still understand these practices as the result and implemen-
tation of political preferences and policy decisions, as the result of structures and
 84 J. van Buuren
institutions? Or are we witnessing a rise of practices with their own dynamics,
their own language, their own symbols and their own content?

Intelligence assemblages
Acknowledging that institutions and policies cannot be the self-evident concep-
tual point of departure paves the way for the use of other concepts and theories
that could shed light on the practices of internationalization of intelligence. A
challenging way of addressing the reality of international and hybrid intelligence
cooperation is by looking at it as ‘intelligence assemblages’, a concept that has
also been used to study public–private security cooperation at the national (Schu-
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ilenburg 2008) and international level (Abrahamsen and Williams 2009), and
surveillance practices (Haggerty and Ericson 2000). The concept of (intelli-
gence) assemblages introduces a ‘radical notion of multiplicity into phenomena
which we traditionally approach as being discretely bounded, structured and
stable’ (Haggerty and Ericson 2000: 608). ‘Assemblages’ consist of a ‘multiplic-
ity of heterogeneous objects, whose unity comes solely from the fact that these
items function together, that they “work” together as a functional entity’ (Patton
1994: 158). The concept of assemblages refers therefore to self-organizing pro-
cesses from below, from the bottom up. The concept of intelligence assemblages
assumes that when different public, private, national and international actors
work together, they produce a new reality, a new order, and give new meanings
to this order. It also assumes that these new practices can no longer be under-
stood or conceptualized by just looking at the parts from which they were
initially constructed.
The emerging hybrid intelligence and security practices can be looked at in
the same way. We should no longer try to understand and analyse these practices
by referring to the different parts and the logic embedded in them, but under-
stand them as something new: fluid and hybrid intelligence assemblages that
produce order and meaning through self-organizing processes. These can no
longer be understood or appreciated by only looking at the policies, interests,
cultures, powers or motives that set them in place. An assemblage has its own
dynamic, it is a self-organizing activity that cannot be reduced to its elements; its
essence lies instead in the relationships between the elements that make up the
assemblage. The concept of assemblages may therefore be understood as a radi-
calization of the notion of nodal governance. Not only is the state-centric view
contested (as with the concept of nodal governance), but the different nodes – be
it public or private or hybrid, be it national or international – are partly dissolved
into a new reality, the essence of which cannot be analysed by only looking at its
origins.
The notion of assemblages gives conceptual manoeuvrability to focus ana-
lyses of international intelligence and security cooperation on what exactly is
happening inside these assemblages. This can examine the role security entre-
preneurs play inside networks, or the importance of informal rules and cultures.
Of course, it is a little bit tricky to use insights from network theory to analyse
 International intelligence cooperation 85
assemblages. Adherents of these theoretical strands will argue (correctly) that
this comes close to comparing apples and oranges. Yet, as stated at the begin-
ning of this chapter, this is a deliberate ‘picking and mixing’ from different
theoretical and conceptual strands to offer new perspectives on European intelli-
gence cooperation. We do not pretend to offer a hermetically sealed theory as
the be-all and end-all of international intelligence cooperation.
Following Charles Tilly (1998: 456), networks are taken to be a ‘continuing
series of transactions to which participants attach shared understandings, memo-
ries, forecasts, rights, and obligations’. Within networks, a special role is
reserved for what Bardach (1998: 29) has labelled the ‘smart practices of crea-
tive craftsmen’. Creative craftsmen are characterized by two elements: creativity
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combined with public spiritedness. Bardach described the work of creative

craftsmen as ‘a polyglot crew of labourers constructing a house out of mis-
shapen, fragile, and costly lumber on a muddy hillside swept by periodic storms’
(1998: 29). Within formal European intelligence cooperation, William Shapcott,
director of the European Joint Situation Centre (SitCen) from 2001 to 2010, may
be seen as such a craftsman. Acknowledging that formal2 multilateral intelli-
gence cooperation is restrained by national agencies unsure how to transcend
national borders while still serving national interests, Shapcott deliberately chose
to let SitCen develop itself organically; that is, driven from below as a self-
organizing entity aware of its limitations.3 ‘Sharing of intelligence in a multi-
national environment is something which you probably had to let come to you
rather than go out and promote’ was how Shapcott himself described it (House
of Lords 2005: 54). He therefore rejected setting up formal information exchange
mechanisms as was suggested by EU officials, and waited until agencies from
the member states indicated that they wanted to start sharing sensitive informa-
tion. It was only then that the ‘empty shell’ of SitCen was given an intelligence
assessment function (House of Lords 2005: 54). SitCen therefore deliberately
operated for years without any ‘major policy documents or any major fanfare’ in
order to facilitate incremental and modestly pragmatic cooperation (House of
Lords 2005: 56).
The figure of the creative craftsman resembles what others have called ‘polit-
ical entrepreneurs’. Political entrepreneurs, although constrained by structures,
are capable of remaking and transforming structures, contesting norms, shifting
identities and creating space for significant political change (Goddard 2009:
249). It is this process of building, integrating and destroying ties that lies at the
heart of entrepreneurship. Switching processes alters network structures, leaving
actors with a fundamentally different set of network ties and a changed set of
issues, institutions and other actors involved in a political system (Goddard
2009: 250). In doing so, they create a whole new system of meaning that ties the
functioning of disparate institutions together.
Entrepreneurs also alter ideas and identities; they can introduce norms that
not only change behaviour but reconstitute identities and mobilize them across
state boundaries (Adamson 2005). This is of course of special relevance for the
study of international intelligence cooperation. Director Shapcott of SitCen, for
 86 J. van Buuren
instance, chose to combine the position of (national) intelligence specialist with
that of intelligence liaison officer for his personnel. In this way each intelligence
officer’s input was guaranteed while at the same time national agency suspicions
about what exactly was going on inside SitCen were overcome. By further iden-
tifying these specialists as ‘seconded national experts’ instead of appointing
them as EU officials, the risk of these officers ‘going native’ – choosing EU
institutions and interests above national interests – was mitigated. In so doing, a
delicate balance between national and European interests was ensured, giving
space for the important but difficult task of developing a ‘culture’ or ‘identity’ of
formal European intelligence cooperation from the bottom up. Another example
of this balancing act is the way in which SitCen treated the information it
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received from national agencies. This information, once received and assessed
by SitCen, formally qualified as ‘EU information’ and could therefore be subject
to EU policies giving member states equivalent right of access to each other’s
information. By maintaining the principle of originator control, SitCen could
guarantee that no documents would be passed on without the permission of the
member states that had contributed the information (House of Lords 2005: 57).
Network theory also offers opportunities to look into the hybridization of
intelligence and security, as entrepreneurs have the ability to bridge cultural
fragmentation by speaking ‘multivocally’ across networks (Padgett and Ansell
1993: 1263). Entrepreneurs can use language that may be interpreted coherently
from multiple perspectives simultaneously. Because listeners occupy different
structural positions, they interpret a broker’s ideas through divergent cultural
lenses and histories. As a result, any symbol, word or event can be read with
contradictory, even mutually exclusive meanings. Entrepreneurs thrive on multi-
vocal language: the more multivocal the entrepreneur’s ideas, the more likely it
is that they will be accepted and adopted across fragmented networks (Goddard
2009: 266). Within the European Union, for instance, a formal and institutional-
ized distinction between internal security and external security exists. The intel-
ligence and security agencies of the member states put forward the idea that this
distinction was artificial and counterproductive. Members of the Club de Berne,
the informal cooperation mechanism of both intelligence and security services,
therefore established the Counterterrorism Group (CTG) that levelled this ‘artifi-
cial’ distinction. There was however no institutional connection between the
CTG and the EU. SitCen realized the importance of connecting with CTG, but
from the perspective of diplomats and constitutional lawyers this was something
close to an institutional nightmare. By constantly invoking the need for a ‘com-
prehensive approach to terrorism’ and arguing in policy and strategy papers for a
‘global approach’, SitCen slowly developed a reasonable discourse acceptable to
actors responsible for both internal and external security.4 This resulted in the
acceptance of a small presence of CTG within SitCen, enabling the fusion of
inputs from internal and external services (House of Lords 2005: 54–55).
To be sure, the altering of ideas, identities, cultures and even structures or
institutions is not something that can simply be understood as the conscious
result of strategies deployed by entrepreneurs to achieve a set of predefined
 International intelligence cooperation 87
goals. Just as the concept of assemblages prioritizes the inherently open and fluid
multiplicity whose unity comes solely from the fact that these items function
together, so network theorists underline that ideas that are introduced in net-
works often resonate in unpredictable ways. By deploying inventive ideas, entre-
preneurs can produce autonomous and unanticipated structural effects in
networks (Goddard 2009: 268). Helmke and Levitsky (2004: 725), in studying
the role of informal rules, also underline that the ‘rules of the game’ which struc-
ture political life are informal, in that they are created, communicated and
enforced outside of officially sanctioned channels. Informal rules and informal
structures therefore shape the performance of formal institutions in important
and often unexpected ways.
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The logic of practicality

These reflections on the unpredictability of change and the essential non-
functionalist character of assemblages offer a link to a final concept useful for
analysing international intelligence and security cooperation: the ‘logic of practi-
cality’. This emphasizes the importance of common sense and practical know-
ledge in the daily business of actors operating in the international theatre.
Practice theory tries to do justice to the practical nature of action by rooting
human activity in a way that is not being reduced or explained a priori by con-
cepts or theories. It does so by bringing background knowledge to the fore-
ground of analysis (Pouliot 2008: 258). It recognizes that the work of intelligence
and security professionals is an art and not a science. Whereas the scientific
observer is inclined to interpret actions as the result of rational calculus, rules-
driven behaviour or the result of policy preferences articulated at the political-
administrative level, in actuality the same actions can derive from practical
hunches acted upon under time pressure. ‘One cannot reduce practice to the
execution of a theoretical model. . . . Practice is what makes social reality pos-
sible in the first place’ (Pouliot 2008: 261, 264). Using Scott’s conceptualization
of mètis (Scott 1998),5 Pouliot points at the importance of local and contextual
practical knowledge that can only be acquired through practices and cannot be
centralized in a core doctrine or translated into deductive and abstract models. As
practical knowledge it is learnt in and through practice, located within practices
instead of behind them. It is in a way ‘thoughtless’, representing what others call
common sense, experience, intuition, skill or craft (Pouliot 2008: 271).
Although Pouliot uses practicality in the context of international diplomacy,
it seems to fit nicely into the world of international intelligence as well. In the
‘habitus’ of international intelligence, actors are informed by individual and col-
lective historical trajectories (dispositions) that actualize the past in the present
and that are made up of inarticulate, practical knowledge learned by doing (see
Bourdieu 1990; Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992). Habitus is a grammar that pro-
vides a basis for the generation of practices related to a social configuration, or a
field that is structured along relations of power, objects of struggle and taken-
for-granted rules. The logic of practicality seems of importance for researching
 88 J. van Buuren
and analysing the internationalization of intelligence, because it reflects the prac-
tical modus operandi that thrives in security communities. The politics of intelli-
gence is a practical one, with a ‘pay as you go’ culture in which the main
producers will not relinquish their accustomed dominance to new multilateral
organizations set up by the EU or anyone else (Aldrich 2004: 733). Pouliot
points, for instance, at the key role ‘trust’ plays in security communities: ‘a
perfect example of an inarticulate feeling derived from practical sense. . . or
informed by the logic of practicality’ (Pouliot 2008: 279).
This chapter therefore proposes a more grounded approach to the study of
European intelligence cooperation, or the internationalization of intelligence,
informed but not determined by different theoretical and conceptual insights
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from different academic disciplines. The starting point is that the international-
ization and hybridization of intelligence and security have initiated practices that
fruitfully may be conceptualized as intelligence assemblages. These assemblages
and especially their ‘working’ cannot be primarily understood as the conscious
and rational result of political-administrative decision-making, institutional
changes or policies (although institutions and policies of course have their effect
on these practices).
It is also proposed that it is important to look closer at the role which intelli-
gence entrepreneurs play inside these assemblages, and their potential to influ-
ence or change practices, cultures, discourses, operations, policies and even
institutions. SitCen, administratively located in the Secretariat-General of the EU
Council, was from the beginning careful not to become a formal part of the
second pillar of the EU (external security) because the importance of working
cross-pillar was understood. This fragmentation into different pillars, with their
own powers, interests and cultures, in an important way determines the dynamics
of the EU as a whole. SitCen noticed that the Ministers of Justice and Home
Affairs (JHA, the third pillar) regarded it as something from the second pillar,
covering foreign and security policy. As a result, SitCen devoted considerable
time to persuading the JHA ministers that it also wanted to work for them, and
that the JHA ministers should be co-owners of the project. Thanks to these
efforts SitCen was capable of bridging the classical division between the pillars
and was welcomed at JHA meetings. This was quite uncommon within the EU.
In the words of Shapcott himself: ‘I now go to a host of JHA committee
meetings which I would never have dreamt of a long time ago’ (House of Lords
2005: 60–61).
The entrepreneurs and the assemblages they are embedded in are guided and
informed mostly by the logic of practicality, instead of the rules, norms, cultures
and policy preferences from which they were initially constructed. In these
assemblages different ‘practicalities’, informed by their public or private,
national or international, and formal or informal habitus, collide with each other
and merge into new, unforeseen logics of practicality. In particular, the domain
of intelligence, characterized by informality, craftsmanship, creativity, discretion
and unorthodoxy, seems pre-eminently suitable for approaches that make use of
the logic of practicality. To clarify: if we take the logic of practicality seriously,
 International intelligence cooperation 89
we have to give more weight to what is happening in assemblages in order to
understand the internationalization of intelligence rather than continue relying
on approaches that centre around institutions, treaties, policy-makers and pol-
icies. The best way to appreciate possible futures for (European) intelligence and
security cooperation is to look at the practices, order and meaning that are con-
structed from below by different intelligence assemblages. The developmental
trajectory of SitCen illustrates this perfectly.

Obstacles
Various obstacles stand in the way of this approach. First, there is a scientific
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obstacle. As Pouliot (2008: 260–261) states, the ‘godlike posture of modern

science’ has triumphed over practical knowledge, emphasizing formal and
abstract representations of the world. This ‘ethnocentrism of the scientist’
(Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992: 69) replaces the practical relation to the world
with the observer’s theoretical relation to practice. The dominance in modern
science of quantitative research, statistical causality, model building, generaliza-
tion and abstract theorizing ‘from above’ ensures that a turn towards ‘practice’
will not be without controversy.
Second, an obstacle can be situated at the normative level. The centrality of
state institutions, politics and the political-administrative level in most analyses
of the internationalization of intelligence is closely linked to normative assump-
tions about the primacy of politics, the rule of law, and good-governance issues
like transparency and accountability. Researchers may feel that international
intelligence relations should be approached primarily from that perspective.
Without denying the enormous importance of these issues, it is argued here that
it cannot be a sound argument to approach developments from the perspective of
how they should be, rather than how they are in practice. For instance, if we
look at issues of accountability and transparency, there seems to be a general
agreement among scholars that the internationalization of intelligence will irrev-
ocably lead to major problems (Svendsen 2009: 703). Existing mechanisms of
accountability and transparency are insufficient in coping with the international-
ization of intelligence (see e.g. Born 2007). Insisting on accountability and over-
sight mechanisms that are closely tied to formal national or European structures
only means that too much energy is spent on strengthening the door of a stable
from which the horses have long since bolted (Loader 2002: 296). Therefore it
may be more fruitful to divert attention to different kinds of nodal accountability,
no matter how diffuse these nodes currently are. For instance, Richard Aldrich,
while acknowledging that intelligence agencies have been cast in the unwelcome
role of the ‘toilet cleaners of globalization’ which can therefore never be ‘soft
enough to please the human rights lawyers’, also points at an emerging informal
counter-surveillance network of activists and pressure groups and an emerging
culture of ‘regulation by revelation’ (Aldrich 2009: 29, 36, 53–55). He expects
that global civil society, including journalists and human rights watchers, will
play an increasing role in informal oversight and accountability.
 90 J. van Buuren
Second, it is important to look more closely into the forms of accountability,
transparency and ethics that originate from intelligence assemblages. Much of
the literature on accountability and transparency seems to assume that practition-
ers in the field are more prone to cowboy-like behaviour and to going rogue than
those at the political-administrative level. This seems to be a biased view. To
give one example, operatives from the Dutch intelligence and security service
exercised restraint in exchanging information with their counterparts in Portugal
during the 1960s and 1970s when they became aware that Marxists mentioned in
their security reports were being executed by the Portuguese regime by literally
throwing them off cliffs into the sea. Some Dutch security officers therefore
refused to provide information on critics of the Salazar regime who were resident
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in the Netherlands, so long as there was no guarantee that this information would
never be transmitted to the Portuguese service (Hoekstra 2004: 41–42, 53–54).
Apart from restraint exercised by intelligence practitioners themselves, however,
it is noteworthy that recent scandals, notably the practices of rendition, torture
and other violations of basic civil and human rights by the US, were initiated,
directed and approved at the highest political levels (see e.g. Human Rights
Watch 2010). It would give a false impression of events to suggest that the moral
high ground in intelligence is exclusively populated by politicians and policy-
makers. It is the opinion here that all actors engaged in hybrid intelligence and
security practices should be made aware of the ethical issues involved, including
– or especially – those at the highest political levels.
Third, there is of course a huge practical problem in researching intelligence
cooperation from a grounded approach. Research into intelligence and security
is an inherently difficult enterprise given the extreme levels of secrecy that, out
of dire necessity, political expediency, power games, or by default, are the rule
inside the intelligence community. No easy solutions are available to solve this
problem. It calls for courage from both the academic world as well as the intelli-
gence community to make such solutions possible. Historical studies into prac-
tices of international and hybrid intelligence and security cooperation are a
logical point of departure for further research. The approach proposed here is not
without its difficulties, but it nevertheless offers an improvement on more estab-
lished models. At a time when different institutions are wrestling with their role,
function and legitimacy in a new, hybrid, horizontal or ‘flattened’ world, practi-
tioners are dealing with it on a daily basis. They cannot simply wait for the polit-
ical level to come up with some magic formula to reconnect the vertical,
compartmentalized world of politics with the horizontal and hybrid world of
practices. Solutions, innovations, ideas and practices from below produce order
and meaning through self-organizing processes originating from assemblages. If
we really want to understand the internationalization and hybridization of intelli-
gence and want to see a glimpse of the future, assemblages are the locations we
should have a closer look at in the present.
 International intelligence cooperation 91
Notes
1 The author would like to thank Peter Keller for his commentary and assistance in
understanding and illustrating practices of European intelligence cooperation.
2 Informal cooperation between national intelligence and security services is the favoured
model. This is form-free cooperation in which national interests and cultures prevail and
some of the characteristics of intelligence cooperation – third-party rule, confidentiality
– are being guaranteed. For the same reason, bilateral cooperation occurs more often
than multilateral cooperation. An example of informal multilateral intelligence coopera-
tion is the Club de Berne in which most European agencies cooperate.
3 Modesty seems to be an underestimated value in international cooperation. Newly
established EU agencies show a tendency to overstrain their voices in underlining their
importance, thereby only provoking resistance from the national agencies they have to
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work with. This was one of the problems Europol faced, as its officials later admitted
(van Buuren and van der Schans 2003: 81, 109).
4 Between 1993 and 2009 internal security was the ‘third pillar’, Justice and Home
Affairs (later Police and Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters), while external
security was the ‘second pillar’, Common Foreign and Security Policy.
5 By mètis Scott refers to ‘a rudimentary kind of knowledge that can be acquired only by
practice and that all but defies being communicated in written or oral form apart from
actual practice’ (Scott 1998: 315).

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 International intelligence cooperation 93
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 8 European intelligence cooperation
Björn Fägersten
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Introduction
The notion of European intelligence cooperation may sound highly improbable.
The general difficulties with multilateral intelligence cooperation have been
thoroughly covered in the literature (Lefebvre 2003; Clough 2004; Sims 2006;
Walsh 2007). Furthermore, why would European governments that have been
fighting hard for their fiscal sovereignty be willing to cede it in the security area
by coordinating the work of their national security services? On the other hand,
the increasing number of transnational risks resulting from our ever more inter-
connected societies demand effective international collaboration. Only by
sharing information and resources – or producing them collectively – can
complex security threats be successfully forecast, analysed and managed. From
this perspective, European intelligence cooperation becomes a natural extension
of the already high levels of interconnectedness that characterize European states
following decades of regional integration. As the former head of the European
Union’s Center for Intelligence Analysis argues:

It is perhaps no surprise that the EU, with its relatively small membership
and the breadth and depth of its competencies and interrelationships, has
made more progress in building an assessment and warning structure than
NATO and the UN.
(Shapcott 2011: 126)

This chapter maps current European intelligence cooperation in various fields

and analyses its background and challenges. The first section provides an empiri-
cal overview of current European arrangements for intelligence cooperation,
taking into account the changes brought about within the EU by the Lisbon
Treaty.1 Section two analyses the development of cooperation and how it func-
tions. Finally, section three discusses some of the broader implications arising
from European intelligence cooperation, such as what intelligence scholars can
learn from it and how it is likely to develop in the future.
 European intelligence cooperation 95
Intelligence cooperation in Europe: an overview
This section outlines some of the key arrangements for intelligence cooperation
and their role in the European ‘intelligence system’. The overview is organized
according to the main functions these arrangements are intended to fulfil: sup-
porting law enforcement, informing foreign and security policy, and ‘societal
protection’.2

Intelligence cooperation in support of law enforcement

Police and judicial cooperation has a long pedigree in the affairs of the European
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Union. Nonetheless, law enforcement is a prerogative of the member states, so

that increases in competences at the EU level are only meant to assist member
states in their work. Prior to the Maastricht Treaty of 1991, cooperation on these
matters was loosely coordinated within the Trevi network (Terrorisme, Radical-
isme, Extrémisme et Violence Internationale) (Peek 1994; Occhipinti 2003), in
which officials from (mainly) the Ministries of Justice or the Interior of all
member states met on a regular basis to further cooperation and information
sharing. Under the Maastricht Treaty, Justice and Home Affairs became a policy
area of the European Union and the various Trevi working groups where formal-
ized within the EU system.
Without doubt the most prominent arrangement for intelligence cooperation
in the law enforcement area is the European Police Office (Europol), tasked with
fighting all forms of serious international crime and terrorism. Europol is an offi-
cial EU agency with three main tasks: acting as a clearing house where member
states can exchange information; providing member states with operational and
strategic intelligence analysis on criminal activities and trends; and assisting
member states in their operational law enforcement work. Information exchange
takes place within the Secure Information Exchange Network Application
(SIENA), a tool that enables the secure transfer of information between member
states, Europol and third parties. The analytical work that takes place at Europol
is largely based on its working files, where intelligence on a given topic is
assembled from different sources. In order to carry out its tasks, Europol has
over 700 personnel and more than 130 liaison officers seconded to its head-
quarters in The Hague. Liaison officers come from the EU member states as well
as partner countries which participate in some of Europol’s work. Europol has
steadily improved its reputation as a valuable partner for the EU member states.
Success has probably been most obvious in areas that do not critically impinge
upon member states’ authority (cyber crime, money laundering, trafficking in
drugs and humans) while the agency has had more of a struggle to establish itself
in sensitive areas such as counter-terrorism. In the case of the latter, Europol has
also been obstructed by national intelligence services which prefer their own
channels of communication and so have been reluctant to supply the necessary
intelligence, despite strong political pressure for them to do so (Europol 2002;
European Commission 2004a; RAND Europe 2012).
 96 B. Fägersten
Other forums within the law enforcement field with some relevance to intelli-
gence exchange and collection include the European Union’s Judicial Coopera-
tion Unit (Eurojust) and the border management agency Frontex. Eurojust works
closely with Europol, and coordinates and assists the work of national magis-
trates and prosecutors. As such, it is mainly an information end-user, but also to
some extent a facilitator of information exchange in the area of criminal intelli-
gence. Frontex is the common European response to the EU’s almost total aboli-
tion of internal borders, which calls for a more coordinated approach to the
common European border. In its work to coordinate member states’ operational
cooperation along the EU’s external borders, Frontex functions as both a con-
sumer and a producer of intelligence and its analysis. Frontex collates data from
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border authorities inside and outside the EU, other EU agencies and institutions,
international organizations and open sources. Based on the analysis of this
information, the agency produces annual and biannual risk assessments as well
as tailored reports, for example, on joint border operations carried out by
member states (Laitinen 2008).
In addition to the cooperative forums discussed above, the EU has technical
and legal mechanisms in place for the more or less automatic transfer of informa-
tion among different users. Although not forums for intelligence cooperation per
se, these arrangements greatly facilitate the transfer of what David Omand calls
PROTINT (protected personal information held by commercial entities and gov-
ernments) between European agencies and beyond.3 One example is the Schen-
gen Information System (SIS), a common database where national agencies can
file alerts for wanted or missing persons, as well as details of entry bans or stolen
property. This information is then instantly available to law enforcement and
customs personnel in all the participating countries. Although the information
that can be stored on any individual is quite restricted, additional information
may be exchanged using the Supplementary Information Request at the National
Entry (SIRENE) system, which has bureaux in each member state. SIS/SIRENE
is for public authorities only, but other information systems connect commercial
actors with national and EU agencies. Examples include the EU data retention
directive, which requires the providers of public communication systems to store
data on traffic, locations and subscribers for at least six months, and the EU–US
Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Transfers (SWIFT) and Passenger
Name Record (PNR) agreements, which regulate how data on financial transac-
tions and air passengers can be transmitted to authorities in the United States
(European Commission 2010).

Intelligence cooperation in support of foreign and security policy

One of the main ambitions behind the Lisbon Treaty is to streamline and
strengthen the EU’s foreign and security policy. Although territorial defence is
still the responsibility of the member states, the EU has launched more than
twenty civil and military missions under the auspices of the Common Foreign
and Security Policy (CFSP) in the past ten years. These missions range from
 European intelligence cooperation 97
peace enforcement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to police training in
Afghanistan and state-building in the Balkans. Intelligence support for CFSP
missions is provided by the European External Action Service (EEAS), the EU’s
diplomatic corps headed by the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and
Security Policy.
The principal node of intelligence relating to foreign affairs is the EU Intelli-
gence Analysis Centre (IntCen, formerly known as SitCen). A staff of around
seventy analyse open and secret information received from the following:
member states’ security and intelligence services; other EU sources, including
delegations in third countries; a variety of open sources; and the agency’s own
‘information officers’, who may be overtly deployed to potential crisis areas.
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Based on this material, IntCen produces annually around 200 situation assess-
ments of a strategic nature as well as around fifty reports tailored to more spe-
cific ends. IntCen works closely with the intelligence directorate of the European
Union’s military staff (IntDir) through the Single Intelligence Analysis Capacity
(SIAC). In practice, this means that the two entities coordinate the requests for
information (RFI) they send to member state intelligence suppliers and then
produce reports by way of joint task forces, most often with IntCen as the lead
agency. The internal work of IntCen is divided up between the Analysis Divi-
sion, which receives intelligence from member states and produces reports, and
the General and External Relations Division, which runs administration, com-
munications and open source collection. In addition to its mission to supply the
EU foreign policy machinery with early warning and strategic assessments con-
cerning foreign hot spots, IntCen is also charged with analysing the threat of ter-
rorism, both inside and outside Europe (Shapcott 2009; Ashton 2012a, 2012b).
The deployment of EU military missions has also increased the demand for intel-
ligence support of a more operational character, a clear deviation from IntCen’s
main focus on strategic level analysis.
IntDir manages intelligence analysis on military issues. It is run by officers
seconded from the EU member states, and feeds defence intelligence to the
EEAS. As with IntCen, its analytical work has expanded over time from early
warning and situation assessment at the strategic level to include providing more
operational-level support to EU missions. The EU’s ambition to take a ‘compre-
hensive approach’ to managing crises – essentially merging the civilian and
military elements of its missions – means that the work of IntDir is conducted in
close proximity to that of the civilian analysts at IntCen. At the moment they
work closely within the SIAC framework, but discussions are ongoing about
how to further synthesize and streamline intelligence support within the EEAS.
Finally, important intelligence support for foreign and security policy is
delivered by the EU Satellite Centre (SatCen). As the EU’s only agency devoted
to intelligence collection, SatCen produces geospatial and imagery intelligence
products on behalf of the High Representative and the EEAS. The primary
sources of satellite data are commercial providers, but agreements with specific
member states allow SatCen some access to national resources as well. Like the
agencies described above, SatCen is increasingly being requested to provide
 98 B. Fägersten
intelligence support for EU missions. To that end, the Centre now has a standing
operational support function at its headquarters in Torrejon, Spain. In addition to
feeding its intelligence products to the EEAS, SatCen is able to support member
states, the European Commission, third states and other international
organizations.

Intelligence cooperation in support of societal protection

Intelligence cooperation in support of societal protection aims to inform
decision-makers about pending security threats and, if necessary, to thwart these
threats.4 At the operational level, the provision of national security is a treaty-
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based prerogative of the EU member states and societal protection remains

solely in their hands (Treaty of European Union 1992). This has not prevented
the EU from adopting policies and strategies in order to promote common work
in these areas. As a result, national intelligence and security services cooperate
within several multilateral venues, to assist individual member states in their
operational work and the EU at the policy and strategy levels.
The most developed multilateral cooperation forums in this vein are the Club
de Berne and its later offspring, the Counter Terrorist Group (CTG). Established
in the early 1970s during the heyday of terrorist organizations of the extreme
Left, the Club de Berne brings together European security services for discus-
sion and joint analysis. The agenda is broad and a variety of working groups
convene regularly to cover topics such as counter-espionage, the Russian mafia,
domestic terrorism and cyber security. While the Club de Berne has been suc-
cessful in fostering the exchange of information and experience between Euro-
pean security services, it has no official connection to the European Union.
Several EU officials have discussed the idea of bringing ‘Berne into Brussels’,
but the member states – and their security services in particular – have so far
fiercely and successfully resisted. However, following the terrorist attacks on the
United States on 11 September 2001, politicians and practitioners identified a
need for increased security service cooperation on counter-terrorism issues that
should also feed into the EU system. The result was the CTG, a multilateral
arrangement between roughly the same members that make up the Club de
Berne but with an exclusive focus on international radical Islamist-inspired ter-
rorism. Although the CTG is officially independent of the EU, it has a presence
in Brussels in the form of a team working within IntCen. The CTG’s chair is a
rotating position where the country that chairs the EU also chairs the CTG. Rep-
resentatives of the Group regularly brief various EU bodies and agencies. The
CTG has proved a valuable venue not only for multilateral work, but also for
identifying commonalities of interest among certain member states, thereby
boosting bilateral and ‘mini-lateral’ cooperation.
Also external to the EU are the various mini-lateral groupings of relevance to
intelligence cooperation in the internal security sphere. Most notably, the G6
brings together France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Spain and the UK for discus-
sions and information exchange on a variety of internal security topics. The G6
 European intelligence cooperation 99
aims to influence internal security policy in the wider EU but also works to boost
cooperation and information exchange among its members. There are other
regional mini-lateral groups with similar aims, such as the Salzburg group in
Central Europe and groups in the Baltic and Balkan regions.
Cooperation on societal protection also takes place within the EU but, as is
noted above, such work mainly aims to support the development of policies and
strategies rather than operational work. For example, the EU has a Counter-
Terrorism Coordinator (CTC) tasked with overseeing the implementation of a
counter-terrorism strategy and monitoring the use and development of the EU’s
counter-terrorism instruments. Initial high expectations that the CTC would be
able to coordinate and drive intelligence cooperation, however, have not been
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met. In the absence of legislative backing, operational responsibility or strong

political support, the CTC has not been able to carve out a strong role in EU
counter-terrorism activity and the intelligence work that supports it (Argomaniz
and Rees 2012). Finally, the EU has several working groups with some relev-
ance to counter-terrorism policy but less so for intelligence cooperation.5

The elephants in the room? Bilateral and transatlantic intelligence

cooperation
So far, this overview of intelligence cooperation has covered more or less for-
malized multilateral cooperation inside and outside the European Union. Obvi-
ously, such arrangements and the activities they foster cover only part of the
cooperative efforts among Europe’s security and intelligence services. The bulk
of cooperation, at least from an operational perspective, takes place at the bilat-
eral level. In Europe, bilateral intelligence cooperation is most highly developed
between those countries with extensive intelligence capacities. Smaller countries
with niche capacities can also be active participants in the high-level bartering
that characterizes bilateral intelligence exchange, Sweden’s role during the Cold
War as a collector and provider of intelligence on the Soviet Union being a case
in point (Agrell 2006). Intelligence cooperation is also well developed among
states that for historical and geographical reasons enjoy high levels of shared
security interests, such as those in the Nordic region.
Bilateral cooperation between European states and non-European partners is
mainly geared in two directions, neither of which is particularly symmetric.
First, many European countries cooperate extensively with various US intelli-
gence agencies. While the exact nature and depth of such cooperation are diffi-
cult to gauge, headlines from recent years offer some pointers. The abduction of
Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (also known as Abu Omar) from the streets of
Milan in 2003 illustrates the practice of CIA-orchestrated renditions, where ter-
rorist suspects are flown to third countries for interrogation. Twenty-three US
citizens – most either current or former CIA employees – were subsequently
convicted in Italy after being tried in absentia, but the extent of the enabling role
played by Italian military intelligence remains unclear.6 Even more controversial
from the perspective of host countries are the secret detention centres that the
 100 B. Fägersten
CIA supposedly maintained in Europe. Lithuania, Romania and Poland are
named in a recent report by the European Parliament, but as many as twelve
European states are believed to have been involved in secret CIA programmes
(European Parliament 2012). In a more recent example of close bilateral intelli-
gence ties, extensive US surveillance programmes – with varying degrees of host
country participation – have been revealed in the Nordic countries.7 In addition
to the cooperation arrangements that have come to light due to controversy over
their questionable legality, others have been revealed because of the results they
produced. Most attention has been given to the close intelligence cooperation in
the field of counter-terrorism, where intra-European and transatlantic coopera-
tion has led to notable successes in recent years.
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In general, the dense mesh of bilateral relations that was strengthened follow-
ing the 9/11 terrorist attacks illustrates the asymmetry of transatlantic intelli-
gence cooperation. Pressed by the US, individual European countries had little
chance of resisting calls for intensified cooperation in the ‘War on Terror’.
Indeed, the development of the CTG, as discussed above, was partly motivated
by the urge to gain an autonomous European capacity to perform terrorism risk
assessments in the light of tough US pressure to engage in the fight against inter-
national terrorism.8 The decade following the 9/11 attacks also saw many Euro-
pean intelligence and security services establish cooperation with agencies in the
Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Usually, the relationship is
between a Western intelligence agency and a partner agency focused on internal
security in one of the countries in those regions.9 The main objective, at least in
the post-9/11 era, has been to help Western governments keep track of poten-
tially dangerous foreign extremists, and/or of citizens from European countries
travelling to the region to receive training and guidance. Such cooperation obvi-
ously poses great challenges due to different viewpoints on matters such as the
rule of law and human rights. At the same time, it is important not to forget that
the sometimes lax regulations on interrogation methods have in some instances
been the very reason for the cooperation on the part of Western intelligence ser-
vices. It became clear following the Arab Spring that intelligence cooperation
with authoritarian regimes in the MENA region often has its downside, espe-
cially when it becomes public. Not only can it provoke criticism from Western
advocates of human rights, but it can also nurture popular disdain from within
the region should the authoritarian regimes fall. British–Libyan intelligence
cooperation, which was exposed following the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi, is
a case in point.10
Finally, European intelligence cooperation on a variety of issues takes place
within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). NATO promotes and
hosts arrangements for intelligence cooperation in various fields. The Civilian
Intelligence Committee (CIC) – formerly known as the Special Committee –
brings together NATO member states’ heads of security services and civilian
intelligence agencies for discussions on threats to the security of the Organiza-
tion and its member states, such as terrorism and foreign espionage. As NATO
has broadened its scope from territorial defence to global crisis management, the
 European intelligence cooperation 101
CIC has adapted its work accordingly. However, leaked reports suggest that its
member states differ over whether the CIC should or is competent to cover
threats relating to out-of-area operations, such as those in Afghanistan.11 The
Committee has a rotating presidency, a formula which provoked some contro-
versy when in 2008 Hungary appointed a KGB-trained officer to chair the meet-
ings.12 Another important NATO body is the Intelligence Unit (IU), which brings
together mostly civilian staff from the member states to perform strategic intelli-
gence analysis on behalf of the Atlantic Council. The IU, which focuses on a
variety of transnational threats such as proliferation, state instability and ter-
rorism, works in close cooperation with the military intelligence branch of
NATO – the Intelligence Division of the International Military Staff. Other
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arrangements, such as the Intelligence Liaison Unit at NATO headquarters in

Brussels and the Intelligence Liaison Cell at NATO’s military headquarters in
Mons, are geared towards cooperation and liaison with external partners and
organizations. In order to coordinate this diverse intelligence landscape, an Intel-
ligence Steering Board is tasked with overseeing and developing NATO stra-
tegic intelligence requirements.13
In general, NATO, at least at the strategic level, has had similar intelligence
issues to resolve as the EU: how to increase cooperation and information sharing
in a multilateral environment that is considered prone to leaks, how to align
member state preferences on which topics need consideration and analysis, and,
perhaps most importantly, how to integrate the work of different organizational
entities such as the security services, the civilian intelligence agencies and the
defence intelligence organizations. Unlike the EU, however, NATO has a
member state – the US – that in theory can, and to some extent does, supply
most of the intelligence within the organization. There is also a well-established
hierarchy in which NATO members of the ‘Five Eyes’ (UK, US, Canada, New
Zealand and Australia) share intelligence far more readily among themselves
than with other NATO member states (Richelson and Ball 1985; Sloan 2012).

Explaining cooperation
The above section provides an overview of current multilateral intelligence
cooperation in Europe. It also discusses parallel and to some extent competing
arrangements – for example, bilateral and transatlantic cooperation – that are rel-
evant for gaining an overall understanding of the frameworks involved. While
much cooperation evidently takes place on a bilateral basis, the rapid develop-
ment of multilateral arrangements for cooperation has been striking. This section
addresses this puzzle. How can we explain the development of multilateral coop-
eration in an area that is at the heart of national sovereignty?
As a basis for analysing intelligence cooperation, the vast majority of state
interests at play may be summarized as involving a simple trade-off: achieving
intelligence and policy gains while minimizing the costs in terms of loss of auto-
nomy and increased vulnerability (Fägersten 2010a). Intelligence gains are the
intelligence-related benefits of cooperation. They include access to currently
 102 B. Fägersten
unavailable sources, methods, technologies and information. Policy gains relate
to the political motives for cooperation, such as the granting of legitimacy to an
actor or organization, the strengthening of political relationships or – in cases
where cooperation is publicized – the need to display commitment in the eyes of
the public. In their aim to maximize any combination of these gains through
intelligence cooperation, however, states are held back by issues of cost as well
as risk. The main cost arises when states accept any development that curtails
their authority, either in their internal or external affairs. This includes, for
example, being dependent on external sources of information in order to be
able to make decisions, or being drawn into intelligence operations by alli-
ance commitments. The main risk of intelligence cooperation is linked to the
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possible disclosure of a country’s methods and sources, or the defection of a

cooperation partner. This risk, which may be termed a vulnerability, can be the
product of incompetence, legal incompatibility or malign motives on the part of
others.
Cost-benefit analyses can explain the preference for cooperation in a specific
instance or at a specific point in time. If, however, we want to explain a change
in cooperation – as in the case of European cooperation – we must look at how
and why the balance between costs and benefits has shifted over time. The
remainder of this section discusses a set of independent variables that have
shifted the balance between the contending state interests described above, thus
affecting the prospects for intelligence cooperation in Europe.

Drivers of cooperation
What has made European states more willing to pursue intelligence and policy
gains over time? Two factors appear to be determinants in generating demand
for cooperation in the European case. The first is the growing perception of a
common threat in the form of radical Islamist terrorism. This has increased the
demand for both intelligence and policy gains relating to a greater awareness of
terrorist movements (in the case of the former) and new institutional arrange-
ments to show commitment (in the case of the latter). Europe has a long history
of terrorist activity, but the threat posed by Islamist extremism greatly accentu-
ated the need for international cooperation, in particular in support of societal
protection and law enforcement, but also in support of foreign and security
policy. It is important to note that an increase in the level of threat will only
generate a need for cooperation if it challenges the capacity of individual states.
If states can handle a threat unilaterally, they will prefer to do so. In addition,
cooperation will only develop on a multilateral basis in cases where many states
have similar perceptions of the nature of a threat. In the case of preference asym-
metries on the preferred means to counter terrorism, states are more likely to
seek bilateral cooperation with like-minded actors. The increased level of threat
from Islamist extremists qualified on both counts. Compared to earlier forms
of politically motivated terrorism, which had a fairly high degree of local
specificity, this phenomenon was perceived as a threat with clearly international
 European intelligence cooperation 103
dimensions which many states had inadequate resources to counter. One intelli-
gence director, speaking in 2010, summed up the picture:

The main driver was that all of us, from our respective horizons, saw that
the threat [from terrorism] came closer to Europe, and simultaneously
increased in volume. Furthermore, terrorists cross borders, which forced us
to cooperate. This was not something any state could handle on its own.14

The second factor driving cooperation was the internal demand created by the
process of European integration. Scholars of integration talk of spillover when
cooperative measures in one area create the need for cooperation in adjacent
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areas (Haas 1968; Schmitter and Niemann 2009). This was clearly the main
driver of intelligence cooperation in the field of foreign and security policy,
where growing ambitions for a common European foreign and security policy
increased the demand for supporting intelligence analysis. IntCen is a case in
point. The initial decision to set up the agency, the choice to increase coopera-
tion by seconding national intelligence analysts, the development of a close
working relationship with the military intelligence branch of the EU, and the
increasing role in operational support were all developments that were motivated
by endogenous demands. Not only was intelligence demand created by spillover
from other areas of integration, but in line with this concept it was also articu-
lated and championed by actors within the common institutions. IntCen innova-
tively managed to formulate solutions to problems they themselves had
articulated (Shapcott 2005). This highly proactive entrepreneurial approach
gained additional leverage due to external shocks, most notably the terrorist
attacks in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005.

Bureaucratic interests as a barrier to cooperation

The drivers discussed above do not tell the full story of European intelligence
cooperation. After all, cooperation has developed unevenly in different fields.
Part of the explanation for this lies in the obstacles which stand between govern-
mental ambitions and actual outcomes and which obstruct cooperation even in
cases where governments favour it. Examples range from counter-terrorism cells
that are closed down due to a lack of practitioner support for intelligence-sharing
mechanisms that are made ineffective by poor implementation. In the case of
Europe, the most potent barrier has been national intelligence staffers whose
interests were challenged by suggested schemes for increasing international
cooperation. These could include, for example, national-minded analysts who
balk at the idea of cooperation in general, but more important was the fact that
analysts seemed unwilling to cooperate and share information in a way that chal-
lenged pre-existing personal relations and informal networks. The most striking
example is Europol and its role in counter-terrorism. European governments
called repeatedly for increased intelligence support for Europol from national
security services (which in most states are the major holders of such information)
 104 B. Fägersten
but these calls went largely unheeded (Fägersten 2010b). Even legal instruments
to boost information sharing were largely ineffective in this area. Intelligence
officials who preferred to use their own intelligence channels clearly frustrated
government ambitions on this point. Similar ‘bureaucratic resistance’ was
evident in the case of the CTG, but with rather different effects. Here, the
political calls (from Brussels as well as from several EU member states) were
for cooperation to be more closely tied to the EU institutions (European Com-
mission 2004). While these suggestions may not have been followed due to a
lack of support from some of the most powerful member states, it was nonethe-
less striking how effective the national intelligence bureaucrats were in spelling
out the consequences of the formalization and centralization of their already-
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existing well-functioning networks such as the CTG. As one intelligence analyst

framed it, ‘sure, we can open up a Brussels office but that would not be the place
where we would be sharing intelligence’.15 Despite repeated calls for coordin-
ation and formalization, the security services’ counter-terrorism cooperation
remained informal, decentralized and beyond the reach of policy-makers in
Brussels.

Trust and institutional design as enablers of cooperation

Finally, it is relevant to discuss factors that, unlike the drivers, do not increase
the benefits of cooperation per se but rather help governments to manage and
mitigate some of the costs and risks associated with cooperation. First, the
growing trust among actors is an important enabler of cooperation, since it
allows actors to take higher risks on behalf of each other, such as sharing sens-
itive information or developing joint capabilities. Trust therefore makes intelli-
gence actors willing to accept higher levels of vulnerability, which in turn allows
for increased levels of cooperation. The development of IntCen illustrates how
cooperation is enabled by trust. Initially, only seven EU member states were
invited to participate in the work of the (then) SitCen.16 Although this was con-
trary to EU principles, the limited number of participants meant that the new
agency started off with considerable capital in the form of trust, since those
involved were already close intelligence partners. The small and initially
informal agency was expanded, but only by invitation and when trust had been
established beforehand. This was in stark contrast to Europol which as a new,
formal entity – also suffering from some initial problems with security breaches
– faced a long uphill struggle to establish a level of trust that would enable more
effective cooperation (Occhipinti 2003; House of Lords 2009).
The second enabling factor that made a clear difference to European intelli-
gence cooperation was that of institutional design. How arrangements for coop-
eration are organized clearly affects the level of cooperation they will generate.
Two design principles are worth closer scrutiny, partly due to their controversial
nature. Some level of hierarchy among cooperating partners can actually pave
the way for increased cooperation in multilateral forums. Where states with
strong intelligence capabilities are offered some level of informal leadership, or
 European intelligence cooperation 105
at least a position that matches their power, they tend to support cooperation for
the benefit of all. The exclusive starting line-up of IntCen is one example of this.
The informal agenda-setting by the big countries in the CTG and the general
sensitivity towards big countries’ interests in many EU bodies are others.
The remaining relevant design principle is autonomy. If intelligence functions
are delegated to a central body, such as an assessment unit, a clearing house or a
joint Sigint capacity, then cooperation seems to be enhanced by the autonomy of
that body. For example, the discretion given to managers of IntCen (the vague-
ness of their mandate, their semi-official status and the non-interference in their
work by member state politicians) allowed them to maintain a level of coopera-
tion that at times exceeded the level that member states had planned. The same
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may be said about security service cooperation in the CTG and the Club de
Berne. While these bodies did not enjoy any organizational autonomy – their
arrangements were fully decentralized – they were allowed to function in a non-
politicized environment, something which proved beneficial to cooperation. As
one analyst explained, ‘this is a venue for real cooperation, not for politics’.17 At
the other end of the spectrum, the arrangements for intelligence cooperation
among law enforcement agencies were put under strict bureaucratic and political
controls – for very good reasons – and thus cooperation to a large extent fol-
lowed the lowest common denominator. Interestingly, these somewhat contro-
versial design principles – hierarchy and organizational autonomy – seem to be
interrelated. When powerful states sense that their interests are being taken into
account (by formal or informal means) they tend to be more willing to delegate
authority to third parties or supranational institutions to manage cooperation.

European intelligence cooperation: lessons learned and

prospects for the future
Thus far, this chapter has reviewed the current state of European intelligence
cooperation and analysed its development over time: the main drivers of cooper-
ation, the major obstacles on the road and the factors that seem to have enabled a
level of cooperation that otherwise would have stood little chance of success.
While the development of multilateral intelligence cooperation is interesting in
its own right, it also gives rise to some general questions. First, what does the
development of European intelligence cooperation tell us about this field in
general? What lessons may be drawn from it and how might they apply to other
regions and settings? In addition, what are the prospects for European intelli-
gence cooperation in the future?

Lessons for intelligence scholars

A comprehensive European intelligence system has been established in under
two decades. Intelligence officials from various fields today support EU and
NATO member states at the operational as well as the strategic level: assisting in
law enforcement, mapping and countering the threat of terrorism, informing
 106 B. Fägersten
foreign and security policy, and upgrading new member states’ national intelli-
gence systems in relation to accountability and democratic governance. What
can intelligence scholars learn from the development of multilateral intelligence
cooperation in Europe?
First, it has been widely argued that multilateral intelligence cooperation is
fruitless, since these are not the forums in which states exchange their most
secret or ‘A-grade’ intelligence. Stéphane Lefebvre (2003), for example, argues
that ‘What is shared and done multilaterally is usually not of a sensitive nature’,
so that the impact of these arrangements ‘has been minimal’. Sims (2006) also
points out that multilateral liaison tends to become hollow because it does not
allow for high-quality exchange. However, as is illustrated in this chapter, multi-
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lateral venues for cooperation can lead to considerable intelligence gains even in
the absence of ‘A-grade’ intelligence. Pooling analytical resources on a multi-
lateral basis can be one way to manage the ‘information overload’ that could
otherwise overwhelm national services.18 In addition, multilateral pooling has an
edge over decentralized bilateral exchanges in situations where states are unable
to determine the value of a specific piece of information for other actors. A piece
of information that is of little relevance to one actor may actually be ‘A-grade’
intelligence for another.
Second, multilateral cooperation can play an important role in fostering trust
and diffusing norms of democratic governance of intelligence. By way of joint
analysis, it also creates a common perception of threats and challenges. A coord-
inated response to transnational challenges requires a common understanding
that is difficult to reach by way of unilateral or bilateral intelligence analysis. By
producing common information, multilateral intelligence cooperation paves the
way for collective action.
Finally, multilateral cooperation can generate intelligence gains by paving the
way for enhanced bilateral or ‘mini-lateral’ cooperation. A precondition for real-
izing cooperative gains is to identify a common interest. In many cases such
interests are fairly obvious; for example, between neighbouring states with more
or less porous borders. Increasingly, however, forces that are generally con-
sidered consequences of globalization will create common interests between
actors that otherwise might not see themselves as ‘natural’ partners. Although
separated by distance, states may face similar challenges related to cyber security
or, for example, they may find that both have minorities of the same origin
which support separatist movements in a third country. Multilateral cooperation
can be an effective way to identify possible gains from cooperation which may
then be captured in a bilateral arrangement. Even between countries that already
cooperate, multilateral intelligence gatherings, in a setup that resembles an aca-
demic conference, provide a fertile ground for the establishment of broader per-
sonal and inter-agency contacts. Hence, by enabling networking and identifying
interest commonalities, multilateral intelligence arrangements can generate
intelligence gains. Some of these gains may be pursued within the multilateral
forum, while others will be captured in parallel bilateral partnerships. This also
means that bilateral and multilateral cooperation is not as clearly separated as
 European intelligence cooperation 107
established theory suggests. The two formats can be intimately intertwined. For
example, states can assess threats in a multilateral setting, then manage or
counter these threats by way of bilateral cooperation, and finally report back and
share best practices in the multilateral forum.

The future of European intelligence

Analysis of European intelligence cooperation in the early 1990s brought to light
a hitherto unprecedented development. As a former EU official put it: ‘You can’t
get closer to the heart of national sovereignty than national security and intelli-
gence services. Yet in Brussels we have these analysts working together for the
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first time’ (de Vries 2005). This chapter has discussed the factors that explain
how this development has reached its current level. How are these factors likely
to play out in the future? What will be the effects on the development of cooper-
ation? The main conclusion is that the scope and depth of European intelligence
cooperation are likely to increase in the years to come. However, the pace and
character of this increase will be determined by two interrelated variables. First,
how far the European Union will be transformed by the financial crisis. Second,
the extent to which EU member states want to use the EU to pursue their inter-
ests on the international political stage.
What kind of European Union will emerge from the financial crisis? The
crisis has proved the complexities involved in operating a common currency
alongside a national economic policy. Differences in current account balances,
competitiveness and access to financial markets among member states have
resulted in a highly unbalanced currency union. In managing the crisis, politi-
cians and institutions have tried to address mounting debt levels by prescribing
financial austerity while simultaneously taking steps towards a tighter political
union in order to address underlying structural problems. At the same time, both
the austerity measures and the steps towards deeper European integration are
being met with increasing levels of scepticism in many EU member states. All
these aspects – austerity, integration and the legitimacy of both in the eyes of the
public – will affect the future of European intelligence cooperation.
First of all, austerity could lead to either less or more cooperation, depending
on whether European cooperation is seen as a luxury add-on which cannot be
afforded in times of crisis, or as a cost-saving measure that can relieve national
budgets through specialization and economies of scale (in the latter case,
member states would have to accept that the common European level of cooper-
ation would not only complement, but in some instances replace national com-
petences). This is a calculation that will look different to different member states,
so the most likely effect will be one of fragmentation.
Further to this is the point that more integration on a general level is most
likely to result in more intelligence cooperation. The analysis of current coopera-
tion suggests strong spillover effects between measures to cooperate in related
fields and the need to develop increased joint intelligence capacities. For
example, if the Eurozone members move forward with deeper economic and
 108 B. Fägersten
financial integration, it is likely that tighter cooperation on immigration, judicial
matters and defence industrial production will follow (Piris 2012). These are all
areas that benefit from joint intelligence work. However, it is clear that not all
the EU member states will take part in this journey. Britain in particular, but also
other countries outside the Eurozone, are reluctant to move towards increasing
cooperation. Hence, increased integration (like austerity) may lead to increased
fragmentation, where some countries deepen intelligence cooperation while
others choose to opt out.
Another question relates to the EU as an instrument for managing European
states’ security and international interests. Collective action in the foreign,
security and defence fields clearly calls for common information and situational
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awareness, something which the development of IntCen has illustrated. EU

strategy documents on both internal and external security indicate the EU’s will-
ingness to make progress in areas dependent on intelligence support (Council of
the European Union 2008, 2010; European Council 2012). At the same time, EU
member states have had difficulties realizing their ambitions in this area. Partly as
a result of the financial crisis, the European foreign and security policy has shown
signs of ‘re-nationalization’ where member states are more keen to look after
their own short-term interests than to pursue common long-term interests (ECFR
2012). If this trend is accentuated, intelligence support at the European level will
wane and national resources will be directed elsewhere, such as to strengthen
bilateral ties or cooperation within NATO (depending on the issue area).
In sum, several interrelated trends exist which could have possible implica-
tions for European intelligence cooperation. Austerity measures could force
states to cut down on direct support to international bodies (liaison officers, sec-
onded analysts) and on national intelligence resources that could potentially be
used to pursue international aims. Austerity could also force states to seek intel-
ligence gains through international cooperation. Steps towards tighter integration
in other policy fields are likely to imply increased demand for more intelligence
cooperation, but could also lead to fragmentation, as not all states will take part.
It is most likely, therefore, that Europe will see more intelligence cooperation
but probably also more fragmented cooperation where some states choose to
focus more on bilateral or ‘mini-lateral’ arrangements and others choose to
invest more fully in common European capabilities. In the case of the latter,
what would such an increase in cooperation look like?
Law enforcement intelligence is perhaps an area that is less likely to be cut,
since the economic benefits of fighting organized international crime are
obvious. In the case of Europol the most likely development – assuming
increased practitioner support – is that more intelligence will be shared multi-
laterally rather than sent bilaterally through Europol’s network. Statistics
from Europol suggest that up to 80 per cent of the information that passes
through Europol’s information exchange tool is of a bilateral character, hence
bypassing Europol headquarters as well as other member states (House of
Lords 2009). It is also likely that as European policy-makers are harder pressed
to make full use of EU resources and to further integrate civil and military
 European intelligence cooperation 109
capabilities, Europol will become more deeply involved in, and benefit from, intel-
ligence gathered during the EU’s military operations. This could, for example,
imply information on organized crime networks relevant for internal EU security.
When it comes to intelligence support for foreign and security policy,
increased cooperation is likely to be realized in an increase in member states’
supply of national intelligence – assuming that vulnerability can be kept under
control – and eventually some form of autonomous collection capacity. Consid-
ering the strong incentives to economize on resources, it would be surprising if
IntCen did not in time gain the right to ask the global network of EU delegations
for political intelligence. Some form of direct access to technical collection plat-
forms is conceivable as well, considering the decline in the cost of such techno-
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logy and the perceived benefits of ‘autonomous’ EU resources. In the case of

societal protection, a natural development would be to widen the mandate of the
CTG beyond the current focus on Islamist terrorism to include international ter-
rorism in general.
In conclusion, there is reason to believe that the scope and depth of European
intelligence cooperation will increase in the years to come. Given that some of
the possible developments suggested above relate to increased collection capa-
cities at the international level, this calls into question the adequacy of current
control and oversight mechanisms. There is a non-negligible risk that future
arrangements for European intelligence cooperation will give rise to an account-
ability gap between national oversight mechanisms and international governance
structures. This is particularly relevant at a time when the legitimacy of the
broader project of European integration is constantly being called into question.
This, too, is an area where we are likely to see increased activity in the future
European intelligence system.

Notes
1 For the purpose of this text, intelligence cooperation is defined as cooperation between
national agencies with an explicit intelligence mandate and/or the establishment of
international bodies with such mandates.
2 ‘Societal protection’ refers to measures to protect a society, including its institutions
and values.
3 See Chapter 2 by Sir David Omand (this volume).
4 Although this task at times overlaps with law enforcement intelligence, the main
objective is rather different. Law enforcement is focused on bringing criminals to
justice by way of securing evidence, while societal protection aims to avoid harm to a
society, its values and its institutions. The latter is usually carried out by national
security services, and typical work includes countering terrorism, monitoring groups
with subversive agendas, and thwarting the actions of foreign intelligence
organizations.
5 Other actors with a modest impact on European intelligence cooperation include the
Terrorism Working Group (TWG), which brings together staff from interior minis-
tries and security services for discussions on internal aspects of terrorism; the
Working Party on Terrorism – International Aspects (COTER), which deals with
external aspects such as policies towards third countries and international organiza-
tions; and finally, the Standing Committee on Operational Cooperation on Internal
 110 B. Fägersten
Security (COSI) which is supposed to facilitate and coordinate security cooperation at
the operational level. However, during its first years COSI has been occupied with
discussions about its own role and to some extent with the implementation of the
EU’s internal security strategy, and it is not involved in legislation or in any opera-
tional work.
6 ‘Italy’s high court upholds convictions of 23 Americans in Abu Omar rendition’,
Washington Post, 20 September 2012.
7 Following the exposure of a US Surveillance Detection Unit (SDU) in Oslo, and its
close cooperation with former employees of Norwegian police and defence agencies,
investigations concerning similar arrangements were opened in Sweden, Denmark,
Finland and Iceland. In none of these cases could the extent to which surveillance had
been unlawful be confirmed. Investigations did show, however, that local authorities
had been informed to varying degrees about ongoing activities. See, for example,
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‘Scandinavian protests over U.S. embassy security just politics, ex-counterterrorism

official says’, Washington Post, 17 November 2010.
8 Interview with the head of intelligence analysis at an EU member state’s security
service, 18 June 2010. The interviews referred to in this chapter were conducted by
the author as part of a research project funded by Lund University, Sweden between
2006 and 2011. The material contains forty-two personal interviews with staff and
directors representing more than twenty intelligence-related organizations in eleven
different countries. All interviewees were promised anonymity in resulting
publications.
9 Interview with the director of the agency in charge of external intelligence in one of
the larger EU member states, 15 March 2008.
10 ‘MI5 gave Libyan spies details of dissidents in Britain’, Guardian, 22 April 2012.
11 Unconfirmed US diplomatic report published by Norwegian Aftenposten: ‘NATO
special committee issues: work plan, intelligence reform, and the Chinese intelligence
threat’, Aftenposten, 13 February 2011.
12 ‘New NATO intelligence chief was trained by KGB’, New York Times, 3 February 2008.
13 Apart from these strategic-level arrangements, NATO has arrangements for coopera-
tion on a more operational level, one example being the Intelligence Fusion Centre in
Molesworth, UK.
14 Interview with the head of a counterterrorism unit of a medium-sized EU member
state, 22 April 2010.
15 Interview with a Brussels-based intelligence analyst, 13 June 2006.
16 During 2002, intelligence analysts were seconded from the external intelligence agen-
cies of the UK, France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. In January 2003 these
analysts were joined by colleagues from Sweden and Italy.
17 Interview with an intelligence officer responsible for CTG coordination in a medium-
sized EU member state, 18 June 2010.
18 A current example is the use of drones in war zones that generate a wealth of informa-
tion which strains the resources of the agencies in charge. According to the New York
Times, the footage collected by US drones in Afghanistan and Iraq during 2009 would
take twenty-four years to view. See ‘Military is awash in data from drones’, New York
Times, 10 January 2010.

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 9 Intelligence-led policing in Europe
Lingering between idea and
implementation
Monica den Boer
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Introduction
Intelligence-led policing (ILP) has been a recent hype in national and inter-
national discourse on law enforcement.1 Within the international context it is
widely suggested that this model of policing, which intends to embed the rational
and managerial use of information in processes of policing with the intention to
reduce crime in a preventive manner, is more effective than purely responsive
styles of policing. This chapter takes an in-depth look at the concept of ILP as it
is practised in the member states of the European Union (EU). The ambiguity of
the concept may have consequences for the way in which ILP is welcomed and
used in police agencies throughout Europe. These ambiguities are caused by
unresolved strategic choices concerning the level and direction of intelligence
sharing (hierarchical and layered versus horizontal and networked); the organ-
izational context and the actors involved in ILP (general versus specialist); the
extent to which intelligence may be used to manage a police organization or to
‘manage and predict risks in the outside world’ (managerialism versus risk
assessment); and the way in which ILP will develop in the near future.
There is a fundamental normative debate in the domestic security field about
the mandate and professional capacity of police organizations with regard to
intelligence gathering and analysis. Intelligence agencies are of the view that this
is a highly demanding, complex and secretive task which cannot be delegated to
the public police forces (see e.g. Gregory 2008: 47–61). However, with the blur-
ring of the line between ordinary police practices such as surveillance and the
(proactive) high policing practices of gathering information on activists and ter-
rorists, intelligence has definitely gained an undeniable position in the discourse
of mainstream policing. Several European countries have introduced
intelligence-led policing as an important if not the leading model of policing into
their work practices. Hence, this chapter takes the law enforcement discourses
about ILP as a point of departure.
Traditionally, ILP is associated with running informants under proactive
policing methods with the purpose of collecting sensitive information on the
basis of which an analysis can be made. However, as time has passed, ILP has
gradually transformed into an overall practice in which information is brought
 114 M. den Boer
together in the form of analytical products. This knowledge, which is supposed
to be acquired in a systematic, rational and professional fashion, provides input
for decisions by police managers and state prosecutors about priority setting,
employment of capacity, instruments, and longer term strategies such as educa-
tional development within the police forces and cooperation with public and
private agents (Johnston 1999; Stenning 2000). Moreover, the introduction of
ILP has been facilitated by an increased focus on transnational criminal networks
and the apparent need for new police management models (Gill 1998).
According to Ratcliffe (2008), some universal drivers explain the push for the
ILP model. These drivers include trends such as new governance challenges,
technological innovation, proactive information gathering and multi-agency
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policing. The popularity of ILP hinges upon several factors. First, ILP allows
police organizations to keep their former responsive style of policing intact while
at the same time seeking to innovate along proactive lines of performance.
Reactive policing was increasingly regarded as an insufficient response to rising
crime levels, both at the local and global levels (transnational organized crime
and terrorism). In other words, the lack of an effective response culminated in a
demand gap: high volumes of crime persisted despite numerous law enforcement
interventions. Second, ILP is a managerial model which allows for the control of
information-based processes from the top to the bottom of the organization. In
other words, analytical intelligence products like risk assessments can assist
police leadership to make informed strategic choices about the employment
of police personnel and the definition of strategic focus points. Third, ILP allows
police organizations to create interconnections, both internally between police
processes and externally with other (security) actors. For instance, intelligence
plays a crucial role in predicting public order problems, and this can assist in the
preparation of police operations. Fourth, the ILP philosophy encourages police
organizations to take recourse to alternative means, such as early detection, inter-
ference, disturbance and the improvement of criminogenic environments. These
alternative means of intervention may weigh less heavily on the already overbur-
dened criminal justice system, because an interception of illegal goods, for
instance, may not always culminate in legal proceedings against a suspect. The
flipside of proactive intervention is however that it may be a challenge for law
enforcement organizations to demonstrate the effectiveness of their intervention,
for instance, in terms of choking off a profitable market for a criminal organiza-
tion. Statistics on the cost-effectiveness of proactive, intelligence-led operations
are generally hard to get, but those interventions may lead to a greater sense of
safety among citizens. Fifth, because of its rationality-based approach, ILP sup-
ports priority setting, which is seen as important from a managerial and
budgetary perspective, given the scarce capacities. Last but not least,
intelligence-led policing is facilitated by the vast possibilities offered by
information and communications technology. In sum, these arguments fold into
a rather convincing rhetoric which explains the attractiveness of the ILP model.
However, as we will see in more detail below, despite the popularity of ILP
in several European countries, there is also cultural and legal resistance to the
 Intelligence-led policing in Europe 115
introduction of intelligence gathering for ordinary law enforcement purposes.
While ILP was originally introduced for the purposes of counter-terrorism, it has
already been stretched towards the control of organized crime, serious crime,
public order management, immigration and border control. This may imply a
whole series of practical and ethical consequences which often tend to be over-
looked. These consequences may range from privacy issues to the potential pro-
fessional misuse of intelligence, or the exploitation of intelligence for ordinary
criminal justice procedures. On a deeper level, ubiquitous intelligence to which
law enforcement organizations may have unlimited access causes fears related to
Bentham’s Panopticon: a surveillance society where citizens remain under the
constant gaze of law enforcement organizations (see e.g. Hoogenboom 1994;
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Whitaker 1999). In some Western European societies such as Great Britain, this
is already a concern. Although widely used surveillance methods like CCTV and
automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) do not by themselves produce intel-
ligence products, the information may be used to compose intelligence pictures
on the transactions, movements, and numerous other activities of all citizens all
of the time.

Towards an understanding of intelligence-led policing

Intelligence-led policing is one of several policing concepts which have gained
ground in police forces around the world. In recent decades police forces have
implemented models such as community policing (COP), problem-oriented
policing (POP), hot spot policing and, more recently, reassurance policing (Pon-
saers 2001). The implementation of these conceptual models is rarely mono-
disciplinary. In practice there is a strong overlap between POP and ILP, but even
COP is blending with ILP as the need for generating community intelligence has
become more emphasized. Carter and Carter (2009: 311) even regard ILP as a
‘complementary expansion of the community policing concept’. MacVean
(2008: 70) refers to the community as being the ‘ears and eyes’ of the police,
which involves a social contract on the one hand, and an explicit intelligence
relationship on the other. Maguire and John (2006) argue that ILP is not neces-
sarily incompatible with community and neighbourhood policing and that it can
incorporate perspectives of partner agencies and local communities (see also
Innes et al. 2009; Lowe and Innes 2012). The International Association of Chiefs
of Police (IACP) even advocates a model that integrates intelligence-led policing
with community policing (IL3CP).2
In contrast, it may be conceivable that in the ILP model the police (and not
the citizens or their elected representatives) determine crime-fighting priorities,
which contrasts strongly with the spirit of the community policing model (see
e.g. Kleiven 2005; Keane and Kleiven 2009). Despite these inherent conceptual
tensions between different models of policing, in practice these concepts have
blurred significantly as police organizations generally apply a selection of
tactics, logics and instruments deemed appropriate for particular contexts and
threats. Sometimes ILP is regarded as old wine in new bottles, as preventive
 116 M. den Boer
policing was regarded as one of the prime processes of policing since the start of
the nineteenth century. The attraction of ILP seems to be mainly that it is a much
‘smarter’ model of policing than the other models, as it is supposed to be more
effective in view of endemic patterns of crime. Intelligence creates the basis for
knowledge and the codification of best practices, which facilitate knowledge-
based decision-making (instead of arbitrary, ill-founded, ad hoc or reactive
policing). However, the ‘smart’ character of ILP places high demands on the
police profession and its culture, since police officers are supposed to ‘think out
of the box’, to change their culture from ‘need-to-know’ to ‘need-to-share’,
and to reach beyond the traditional information silos. But the problem is that
ILP tends to be defined and implemented in different ways. Hence, as a concep-
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tual model, intelligence-led policing lacks a homogeneous definition and its

implementation tends to be rather differentiated (Van den Hengst and Staffeleu
2012: 188).
The House of Lords European Union Select Committee uses a simple defini-
tion of ILP: ‘using today’s knowledge to shape tomorrow’s policing’ (House of
Lords 2007–2008), referring primarily to its forecasting abilities. In this context,
ILP is generally associated with scenario building, risk assessment and threat
analysis (Maguire 2000). Several national and international law enforcement
agencies have embraced this methodology and have incorporated it into their
information products. By analysing information, law enforcement organizations
seek to be ‘one step ahead’ of crime and the criminal. In recent years ILP has
been built around risk assessments and risk management (De Lint 2006).
Although claimed as a policing framework that builds on previous paradigms,
including community policing, problem-oriented policing and the continuous
improvement or partnership model of policing (McGarrell et al. 2007), it was
essentially a response to the reactive, crime-based focus of community policing
with calls for police to employ informants and surveillance to combat recidivist
offenders. Moreover, it is technologically and financially feasible for govern-
ments to record nearly everything that is said or done within their borders (every
phone conversation, electronic message, social media interaction, the movements
of nearly every person and vehicle). Governments with a history of using all the
tools at their disposal to track and monitor their citizens may make full use of
this capability (Villasenor 2011). Technology trends facilitate ILP-based cap-
abilities. Vast databases of captured information create what amounts to a sur-
veillance time machine, enabling intelligence and security services and police
agencies to intercept communications prior to someone’s designation as a sur-
veillance target. The data needs to be acquired, managed, aggregated, and made
accessible and searchable with appropriate analysis tools. This throws up the
urgent need to clarify and specify the application of data protection principles to
ILP in connection with the application of new technologies (for issues concern-
ing oversight, see Den Boer 2013).
Intelligence-led policing is thus seen as an approach which seeks to reduce
crime and to transfer resources from a retrospective or reactive response to crime
to a proactive or pre-emptive approach on the basis of the strategic analysis of
 Intelligence-led policing in Europe 117
crime data, what is known about offenders and offender groups, and contextual
information. The knowledge that has already been acquired is used in a more
rational way to determine where crimes are likely to occur and to discern pat-
terns of crime: ‘intelligence tells officials everything they need to know before
they knowledgeably choose a course of action. For example, intelligence pro-
vides law enforcement executives with facts and alternatives that can inform
critical decisions’ (Peterson 2005: 15). This can support police organizations in
targeting particular individuals, activities and locations. Intelligence-led policing
is said to have originated in the United Kingdom (Tilley 2003: 311). Tilley
argues that:
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[T]he main impetus for intelligence-led policing comprises the supposed

failure of the police to address the systemic sources of crime and crime pat-
terns. . . . Intelligence-led policing draws on the notion that the police can
and do know a great deal about offending patterns. Intelligence-led policing
involves effectively sourcing, assembling and analyzing ‘intelligence’ about
criminals and their activities to better disrupt their offending, by targeting
enforcement and patrol where it can be expected to yield highest dividends.
(Tilley 2003: 313)

Another reason for the introduction of ILP may well have been a failure of
information processing (Deukmedjian and De Lint 2007). At the international
level, Interpol regards the strategic analysis of information and intelligence as a
means to inform higher level decision-makers, provide early warning of threats,
and support senior decision-makers ‘in setting priorities to prepare their organi-
zations to deal with emerging issues’ which may imply the reallocation of
resources to different areas of crime.3
Within the United Kingdom, it was particularly the Kent County Constabu-
lary that was influential in spreading the concept of ILP. This came after the use
of intelligence-led policing in Northern Ireland, where the Royal Ulster Constab-
ulary (RUC) had been involved in a long-term anti-terrorism campaign against
the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Tilley (2003: 321) claims that there does not
seem to be a real philosophy behind the development of ILP, but one could argue
that it reflects an awareness within law enforcement circles that the policing of
criminal activities on the basis of intelligence seems more apt to modern times
as the world develops into a global society with a high frequency of transnational
transfers and transactions, as well as hyper-mobility, anonymity and fragmented
governance (Bekkers et al. 2006; Den Boer 2012). In addition, the concept of
ILP – even though there is confusion on the definition – has the potential to be
transplanted from one region to the other, as well as from one country or organ-
ization to the other.
For a theoretical grounding of ILP we must consult a variety of authors,
including Brodeur, Ratcliffe, Gill and Harfield. Ratcliffe (2008) advocates a defi-
nition of ILP which emphasizes the business and managerial aspects of data ana-
lysis and criminal intelligence. In this view ILP provides a decisional framework
 118 M. den Boer
which facilitates the reduction of problems and crime, and which is based on
strategic management and effective enforcement strategies. The leading idea
behind this definition is the need to focus on the most prolific and serious offend-
ers and the ways in which information and intelligence can be used more ration-
ally, seeking to reduce human error, arbitrary decision-making, tunnel vision,
prejudice and lack of professionalism. In Ratcliffe’s view, the elementary com-
ponents of ILP are interpretation, influence and impact, which are interrelated
processes in the intelligence cycle, which tends to involve the collection of data
on the basis of certain objectives and specified issues, followed by validation
and assessment, interpretation, dissemination, and an impact assessment, leading
to a potential reformulation of objectives (Phillips 2008: 27).
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Contrary to this instrumental vision of intelligence, Gill and Phythian (2006)

argue that intelligence is ‘ubiquitous’. Confidential and classified information
gathering seems omni-present in post-9/11 global societies that express high
anxiety levels about terrorism. Moreover, intelligence is an ambiguous product
which can be misused. Gill examines the erroneous use of intelligence in cases
like the intelligence failure before the onset of the Iraq war in 2003 (Gill 2005,
2006), thereby proclaiming the need for better oversight and parliamentary
control (Gill 2007). Gill’s argument is closely related to Brodeur’s, who
developed the ‘high policing’ paradigm that focuses on the protection of the state
by means of political surveillance. High policing can be performed by means of
undercover policing methods, an approach that has been expanded since 9/11
(Brodeur 2007). Characteristics of the high policing paradigm are its encompass-
ing character, the conflation of powers, the protection of state interests and the
abundant use of informants which pervades all levels of society. This comes
with wide and highly uncontrollable powers for the agencies that carry the rel-
evant mandate. Currently, political surveillance by the state is facilitated by
technology-enhanced surveillance of transactions, behavioural patterns and
movements of citizens, all feeding into total information awareness (TIA) on the
part of government bodies. High policing is claimed to be totally dependent on
the collation, analysis and dissemination of intelligence, which leads to the
observation that it should be described as ‘intelligence-leading’ instead of
‘intelligence-led policing’ (Brodeur and Leman-Langlois 2003: 15). State sur-
veillance has been transformed into surveillance by a variety of public and
private agents (Lippert and O’Connor 2006), and the incremental growth of
intelligence powers has often not been subjected to legal boundaries. In sum,
high policing has become an accepted and normalized paradigm of policing in
the ‘security control society’ (Sheptycki 2007).
In a networked model, law enforcement actors can interact in a direct capacity
on the basis of professional discretion, while in a bureaucratic model they require
authorization to pass on intelligence between different hierarchical layers. The
attraction of transnational police networks is that they handle intelligence in a
flexible manner, and that they can ‘adapt, adjust, and act quickly to address issues
that require immediate action’ (Bayer 2010: 98). Although transnational law
enforcement networks are often able to ‘connect the dots’ with a capacity to act
 Intelligence-led policing in Europe 119
powerfully and successfully (Bayer 2010: 98), the major challenge for sovereign
states is that networked intelligence is a liquid commodity which cannot neces-
sarily be trusted if it is not made subject to professionalization, standardization and
verification procedures. In any case, the ‘horizontal’ or networked model of
intelligence-led policing advocates intelligence as a collaborative exercise, in
which ordinary police officers also play an essential role as a resource for gather-
ing information: ‘intelligence is everyone’s job’ (Peterson 2005: 11).
The risk of intelligence cocooning is still high because of a lack of trust and
reciprocity among intelligence owners. This may give further rise to a competi-
tion between intelligence channels (such as bilateral vs. multilateral), and
between networks (high trust environments, low institutionalized environments)
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and bureaucracies (trust through the cultivation of intelligence professionalism

and the establishment of sectoral intelligence agencies) (Den Boer 2002a). If the
governance of intelligence is apparently still a challenge, how are we doing on
the practical-operational side of things?

Police intelligence processes and products

The intelligence process may be defined as a logical chain of actions: prepara-
tion, collection, processing, analysis, dissemination and monitoring. Cope (2004:
190) distinguishes the following stages in the intelligence cycle: (1) acquisition
of information; (2) analysis of intelligence; (3) review and prioritizing; (4)
actioning intelligence through tasking meetings; (5) evaluation and analysis of
impact of action. Van den Hengst and Regterschot (2012: 24) distinguish three
elementary processes, namely analysis, dissemination and decision-making. The
analysis often includes a historical reconstruction of a number of criminal cases
and arrives at a descriptive analysis of hotspots, hotshots and ‘hot times’ but
ideally an analysis includes an estimation (what may happen when a reoffender
is released from prison or what effect results from preventive measures) and
advice as to what should be done with the analytical knowledge. Hence, when it
concerns the analysis of intelligence, there seems to be a wide gap between
theory and practice (Cope 2004), in the sense that the theory prescribes a detailed
and phased process of intelligence gathering and validation, while in reality the
practice is more mundane.
A variety of actors may be involved in this process, for instance, ‘analysts’
and ‘decision-makers’. While analysts are theoretically crucial for intelligence-
led policing, Cope provides a rather sobering image of their position in a Cana-
dian context:

Frequently analysts’ work was sidelined, ‘a lot of products are window-

dressing’, an analyst commented. Products were also described as ‘wallpa-
per’ by both analysts and police officers and were ignored when planning
operations. Rather than being used proactively, analytical products were
demanded at the end of an operation to summarize the outcomes or used
to justify an operation that was already planned. Although analysis was
 120 M. den Boer
distributed in reports for tasking meetings and made accessible through
officers’ briefings, on computers and posted on notice boards, feedback or
queries about analytical products were rarely received.
(Cope 2004: 192)

Complex intelligence products are often not acted upon in terms of operational
policing. Meanwhile, police officers tend to rely mostly on their traditional
frames of understanding and thereby ignore the potential value of analytical
products (Cope 2004: 201).
Further down the intelligence-processing chain, decision-makers either reject or
accept intelligence for further use. Van den Hengst and Regterschot (2012: 23) add
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that decision-making on the basis of information and intelligence is not merely

conducted in specialist or managerial venues within the police organization, but
also by operational field officers. The decision-making process is subdivided into
presentation (transfer of the knowledge on the basis of analysis); interaction
(between analyst and ‘decision-maker’); and the exploitation or use of the analyses
in decision-making (Van den Hengst and Regterschot 2012: 23). Applied to intel-
ligence gathering on criminal cooperation structures, this requires several cat-
egories of information being brought together in an analytical file; for instance,
details on whether internal or external violence has been or may be used. Further-
more, this process may generate an analysis of illicit profit by the criminal organ-
ization and of the way this is invested and/or laundered; of the contacts with
facilitators in the ‘legal upper world’ such as lawyers, police officers or estate
agents; of the methods by which the criminal organization seeks to conceal its
practices from the outside world; and of the diversification and fluidity of criminal
flows of goods and money (Den Boer 2010a; Van Mantgem et al. 2012: 25).
Although the prime focus of ILP has always been on crime, there has been a
gradual expansion to adjacent fields, such as public order offences, radicalization
and corruption. Hence, the ILP model may be rather expansionist, not only in
terms of its potential transfer to other (presumed) safety deficits, but also to other
sectors. In this context, one could think of the growing popularity of intelligence-
based risk assessments in sectors like finance, health, energy, food and transport.
The 4 × 4 intelligence model is known as a grading system for the reliability of
intelligence (reliability, validity, restriction and distribution). In the United
Kingdom, the 5 × 5 intelligence model is used in the National Intelligence Model
(Keane and Kleiven 2009: 330), which includes handling/distribution as a third
variable. The EU police agency Europol applies the 5 × 5 intelligence model, which
is not very different from the standards of confidentiality and handling codes that
are used in the member states. Within the domain of foreign and military affairs
(such as within NATO), a 6 × 6 intelligence ranking model is used.4

The 5 × 5 intelligence model

Different concepts may be used for the intelligence process within security
organizations. The concept used most frequently is that of the ‘intelligence
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Table 9.1 Confidential National Intelligence Report (Form A)

ORGANIZATION XYZ Police DATE/TIME OF 0600 hours on 05/01/2007

and OFFICER DC 3271N Joe Bloggs REPORT
INTEL SOURCE or 0017 REPORT U.R.N.
INTEL REF No.
SOURCE A B C D E
EVALUATION Always reliable Mostly reliable Sometimes reliable Unreliable Untested source
INTELLIGENCE 1 2 3 4 5
EVALUATION Known to be true Known personally to Not known personally Cannot be judged Suspected to be false
without reservation the source but not to the to the source but
officer corroborated
PERMISSIONS RESTRICTIONS
HANDLING CODE 1 2 3 4 5
To be completed at time May be disseminated to May be disseminated to May be disseminated to Only disseminate within Disseminate intelligence
of entry into an other law enforcement UK non-prosecuting non-EEA law originating agency/ receiving agency to
intelligence system and and prosecuting parties (Code 3.7 enforcement agencies force Specify internal observe conditions as
reviewed on agencies, including law conditions apply) (Code 4.7 and/or recipients) specified below
dissemination enforcement within the conditions apply,
EEA and EU specify below)
compatible (No Code or
Conditions)
REPORT
SUBJECT CRAIG RAMAGE – COMMUNITY INTELL – FEUD
EVALUATION
S I H
Intelligence dated 05/01/2007 provides that
Approximately 0020 hours on Friday, 5 January 2007, Craig Mitchell RAMAGE, born 05/07/1982 of 24/3 A 4 5
Oxland Avenue, attended at the A&E of the Royal Infirmary and was treated for injuries, which he freely
stated were the result of a fight with a Jimmy DONALDSON. During treatment, RAMAGE was heard to
say to an unknown male who had accompanied him to the hospital, that Jimmy DONALDSON would have
his house ‘torched’ next week in revenge.

Source: image taken from www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Img/169855/0050938.gif (accessed 14 September 2012).

 122 M. den Boer
cycle’. Intelligence products that emerge frequently in the lexicon of police intel-
ligence exchange are ‘threat analysis’ and ‘risk assessment’ (Sheptycki 2004),
which theoretically facilitate the rational management of human and material
resources as they provide longer term pictures of future trends. ‘Scenario build-
ing’ has gained ample ground in national as well as international intelligence
cultures. Risk assessments can hold a series of predictive values on a wide range
of safety issues, such as warning signs on potential reoffenders. Several police
agencies are in the process of establishing so-called real-time intelligence rooms,
where technology is used to support a multi-agency interface to facilitate rapid
emergency response and ambient intelligence (electronic sensors built into envi-
ronments which identify and may respond to the presence of people). The intro-
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duction of the real-time intelligence concept has also occurred at the international
level of policing. Interpol has established a Major Events Support Service to
facilitate the real-time exchange of messages and police data with member states
through its Command and Coordination Centre and Real-Time Analytical Intel-
ligence Database (RAID).5

Implementation of ILP in EU member states

Several member states of the EU already possess a (pre-)existing infrastructure
for intelligence-led policing. Almost all countries have faced the challenge of
transnational organized crime and terrorism in different forms, sizes and degrees.
Italy has been struggling with the mafia and with domestic terrorism for many
years, resulting in the creation of an administrative superstructure against the
mafia, drugs and terrorism above the relevant law enforcement organizations. In
Germany, every province (Land) has its own Landeskriminalamt with its own
intelligence functions, while the Federal Bundeskriminalamt holds primary
responsibility for the investigation of the most serious forms of transnational
organized crime. The Netherlands and the United Kingdom have gradually cen-
tralized the managerial responsibilities and intelligence functions for trans-
national organized crime in the form of national criminal investigation agencies.
Most intelligence units which have a central coordinating role among EU
member states act simultaneously as national contact points (such as Europol
National Units) for matters concerning Europol, Interpol and the Schengen
Agreement. The trend to establish national contact points and intelligence units
has also developed out of EU strategies such as the 1997 Action Plan on Organ-
ized Crime and the 1999 Tampere Action Plan on Justice and Home Affairs
Cooperation. The EU has furthermore given strong impetus to the creation of
national football intelligence units and financial intelligence units (FIUs).
More recently one may observe trends towards the general application of
intelligence collection inside the EU member states. While it was previously
focused on specific forms of transnational organized crime (people smuggling,
human trafficking, drugs trafficking), intelligence is increasingly regarded as a
general police commodity and has become more strongly embedded in police
processes overall, building on the established fact that field officers who are on
 Intelligence-led policing in Europe 123
duty have always been expected to relay information on what they observe in
streets and neighbourhoods. Hence, on the one hand we may witness a process
of centralization and specialization of intelligence, in particular when it concerns
transnational criminal networks, while on the other intelligence is woven into the
main police processes and procedures. The implementation of intelligence-led
policing models can be in the hands of a steering group or specific portfolio
holder among chief constables. Within law enforcement circles the support of
the police leadership is seen as a pivotal condition for the successful implemen-
tation of new police concepts and strategies, including that of intelligence-led
policing.
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United Kingdom
Following the integration of the European Crime Intelligence Model (ECIM),
every EU member state should now have a National Intelligence Model in place.
The UK pioneered this development. The National Intelligence Model (NIM)
was implemented by the forty-three police forces in England and Wales by 1
April 2004. The Code of Practice of the Association of Chief Police Officers
(ACPO) on the NIM, issued in 2005 by the Home Secretary under the Police
Reform Act 2002, provided a statutory basis for the introduction of a set of prin-
ciples. Hence, in the United Kingdom, the NIM became ‘the major vehicle for
conducting intelligence-led policing’ (Tilley 2003: 321), and was then further
developed by the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS). In theory, the
NIM works by interconnecting different levels in the information and intelli-
gence hierarchy, ranging from local to national to international. Some critics
have argued that ‘NIM’ is a misnomer because it ‘does not, in and of itself, facil-
itate the acquisition, collation and management of intelligence’ (Harfield 2008:
2). Moreover, as Carter and Carter (2009: 312) have argued, the implementation
of NIM in the UK was held up because ‘many did not understand the concept’
and it could be interpreted in different ways (Ratcliffe (2010) refers to a similar
misunderstanding in the Australian context). Moreover, it required a reallocation
of resources – which always gives rise to tensions within organizations – as
every police force now needed an analytical capability (Carter and Carter 2009:
313). However, in comparison to the US, it was easier for the British police
service to adopt NIM, ‘having had a solid history of sophisticated law enforce-
ment intelligence’ (Carter and Carter 2009: 213) in relation to the Irish Repub-
lican Army.

The Netherlands
In the Netherlands, national drivers for change were ongoing discussions about
the restructuring of the police organization and its information exchange proc-
esses, the adoption of a new strategy which advocated the interconnection of
the global and local levels, and the arrival of new complex threats such as
cybercrime. In line with the British police forces, the Board of Chief Police
 124 M. den Boer
Commissioners in the Netherlands adopted a Dutch National Intelligence Model
(NIM) in 2008 (Van den Hengst and Staffeleu 2012: 188). The implementation
of the NIM had to be fulfilled by the twenty-five regional police forces and the
national police agency, on the basis of a National Intelligence Agenda (NIA)
containing the priority subjects (Van den Hengst and Regterschot 2012: 24). The
main challenge was therefore to implement a form of standardization which – at
the same time – would correspond to the needs and practices of the individual
police forces. The Board of Chief Police Commissioners established a national
intelligence programme committee (Van den Hengst and Staffeleu 2012: 189) to
guide and support the police forces with the implementation of ILP. The pro-
cedure required that the national committee apply an incremental model, gradu-
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ally including a wider number of elements in the information organization with

the aim to eventually reach the same implementation level nationwide. The
employment by the forces of highly educated analysts was also encouraged by
the committee. Van den Hengst and Staffeleu (2012: 190) found that the relative
number of employees working in the information organization within the police
forces was on average 5.7 per cent, with little regional differentiation. An intelli-
gence planning calendar was also introduced as binding for all forces.
In parallel with the implementation of NIM, there was also an endorsement in
2005 of the concept of nodal policing, which advocates the use of intelligence to
discern flows of criminal activities and the concentration of criminal activities at
certain infrastructural hotspots: international harbours, airports or motorways.
An issue in ILP in the Netherlands is the overly technocratic application of intel-
ligence, such as through digital surveillance and the surveillance of motorways
through ANPR. The concept of nodal intelligence gathering tends to depart from
the vertical layering of intelligence-gathering processes as it presupposes the
exchange of intelligence between police forces and other stakeholders, such as
the border control authority (Koninklijke Marechaussee) and the public and
private sector (Den Boer 2010a).
As ILP is now the leading organizational concept in the Dutch police organiza-
tion, every police process is in principle subject to an intelligence flow, and all
police officers are supposed to make a contribution. The recent law on police
information demands an exchange of information with other national and inter-
national law enforcement organizations.6 This norm applies in all situations, with
only a few exceptions allowing for non-compliance (otherwise regarded as a breach
of professional duty) (Kop et al. 2011: 25). As of 1 January 2013, a single national
police force is directly accountable to the Minister of Security and Justice.7 The
intelligence process will have to be restructured across different levels and various
national expert units (such as the National Criminal Investigation Service), with the
support of a police-based Real Time Intelligence Centre (RTIC).8

General observations on the national implementation of ILP

On a formal level, several member states have special legislation covering
special police investigation methods (the use of informants, infiltrators) which
 Intelligence-led policing in Europe 125
are building blocks in the ILP model. The weaknesses of ILP in the Netherlands
and the United Kingdom have however been defined as follows:

[P]olice officers continue to be involved in response-led policing and no

time remains for proactive work.
(Tilley 2003: 333)

ILP produces an information and intelligence overload; too much informa-

tion of little practical value.
(Van den Hengst and Staffeleu 2012: 188)
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[I]t is difficult to create and maintain a continuous flow of intelligence, ana-

lysis, and preparation of target packages, and difficult to conduct operations
on the basis of intelligence.
(Tilley 2003: 333)

[P]olice officers perceive several obstacles, such as complex data protection

rules and high security demands, particularly with regard to proactive
intelligence-gathering.
(Van den Hengst and Staffeleu 2012: 188)

[T]here is a lack of training and senior officer commitment. Specialist units

have difficulty communicating with one another, despite new legislative
changes which should enhance the free flow of information between the
agencies.
(Tilley 2003: 333; Vis 2012)

ILP has met with unsympathetic attitudes, cultural resistance and low
morale among police officers who perform administrative tasks, because
they feel excluded from this policing task.
(Tilley 2003: 333)

ILP throws up a range of potential ethical and operational problems, such as

concerning the employment of covert means of investigation and a dispro-
portionate use of privacy-invasive intelligence-gathering.
(Tilley 2003: 334)

[I]t is difficult to show evidence that the application of ILP leads to the
reduction of crime and criminal opportunities.9

In sum, a successful implementation of ILP requires that several conditions be

met. Carter and Carter argue that ‘the concept of ILP must be created through an
inclusive development process that ensures that it is integrated with an agency’s
goals and functions, its capabilities, and the characteristics of both the agency
and the jurisdiction it serves’. There are ‘no shortcuts’ in this process and the
 126 M. den Boer
implementation of ILP should not be seen as ‘an add-on responsibility’ of each
agency (Carter and Carter 2009: 317).

The interface between national and international

intelligence-led policing
National police agencies are actively involved in intelligence exchange with rel-
evant agencies in other nation-states. This intelligence exchange is generally
managed in a bilateral and direct fashion, for instance, through liaison officers.
A new approach is gaining ground: multilateral and mediated intelligence
exchange through professional agencies that have an explicit intelligence
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mandate, such as Europol, the EU Border Management Agency (Frontex) and

the EU Intelligence Analysis Centre (INTCEN). Intelligence exchange between
EU member states has been encouraged since the 1970s when the fight against
terrorism became a security priority in Europe, and it has become a common
dimension in the discourse of European police cooperation, particularly around
issues such as transnational organized crime. EU-wide strategies which pro-
moted an intelligence-based approach to transnational organized crime were the
1997 Action Plan on Organized Crime and the 1999 Tampere Programme on
the EU Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. Large-scale terrorist attacks in
the US (2001) and Europe (2004, 2005) provided a further boost to intelligence-
led law enforcement strategies.
This approach was further refined in the Hague Programme of 2004, which
included the objective of establishing and implementing a methodology for
intelligence-led law enforcement at the EU level. It introduced the Organized
Crime Threat Assessment (OCTA) as part of the European Crime Intelligence
Model (ECIM). From then on intelligence-led policing was officially regarded as
an approach to be established throughout Europe in order to raise the quality of
intelligence and threat assessments. In October 2005 the EU Justice and Home
Affairs Council adopted the objective to establish a common methodology for
intelligence-led law enforcement, which was to be further enhanced through
concerted and coordinated long-term action by all EU bodies and agencies
involved in these efforts, together with the member states. The Council noted
and welcomed the intention of the European Commission to bring forward pro-
posals, prepared in cooperation with the relevant bodies and agencies, as well as
from the member states, for further action in this area. This conclusion clearly
endorsed and deepened the establishment of intelligence exchange within a
multi-agency framework.
The 2010 Stockholm Programme reiterates the call for a ‘proactive and
intelligence-led approach’.10 The word ‘intelligence’ was however used only
four times in this document, twice in relation to financial intelligence units with
a view on the fight against money laundering. The ensuing Stockholm Action
Programme also only employs ‘intelligence’ twice in its sixty-nine pages; in
relation to financial intelligence the objective of the European Commission is to
lay down – in 2014 – new regulations on the improvement of customs and police
 Intelligence-led policing in Europe 127
cooperation in the EU. This would include reflections on the use of under-cover
police officers, on Police Cooperation and Customs Centres, as part of an EU
approach to intelligence-led policing, and on common actions to improve opera-
tional police practices. Interestingly, the EU Internal Security Strategy of 2010
does not mention the term ‘intelligence’, although the words ‘information’
and ‘information sharing’ are used several times.11 This indicates that the
concept of intelligence is primarily used in certain quarters within the area of
freedom, security and justice. The question is therefore whether this strategic
ambition of improving information sharing is really alive in the member states
and whether active preparations are being made for its implementation and
operationalization.
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According to the House of Lords Report, Europol is believed to be:

uniquely well placed to establish among the police forces of the Member
States a common understanding of intelligence-led policing. Europol should
work with the Heads of National Units and the European Police College to
organize training which will encourage the adoption and use of Intelligence-
Led Policing as the common working method.
(House of Lords 2007–2008: point 76)

Hence, while Europol is positioned as the intelligence coordinator, a remaining

issue is whether – despite Europol’s right to request cooperation from the
member states – the agency generates sufficient levels of trust and commitment
in the member states to overcome institutional reluctance in domestic intelli-
gence circles.12 Europol is aware of this challenge and has built communication
links and shared databases to facilitate interaction between law enforcement offi-
cials. There is now a Europol Information System (EIS) and a Europol Analysis
System; the latter comprises software which is used by all police forces in the
EU member states and beyond. Yet levels of cooperation with the role of
Europol in the exchange of law enforcement data vary considerably among EU
member states, and expressions of commitment do not mean shared strategic
perspectives on the necessity and added value of Europol’s role in European
intelligence exchange.
So far there is still no European Intelligence Agency in existence, and despite
the push for more multi-agency security cooperation, the bulk of intelligence
cooperation still does not take place at the European level (Müller-Wille 2008).
Frontex also relies on partnerships with national bodies in the member states that
hold responsibility for border control and related intelligence processes.
INTCEN, which was established under the umbrella of the EU Common Foreign
and Security Policy, is supposed to undertake a common assessment of particu-
larly critical issues in relation to the foreign policy of the EU. The House of
Lords Select Committee is of the opinion that INTCEN (formerly ‘SitCen’) is
better adapted than Europol to the exchange of intelligence among security ser-
vices rather than among law enforcement agencies).13
 128 M. den Boer
Conclusions and future outlook
Intelligence-led policing is regarded by some as the miracle recipe for meeting
several law enforcement challenges. In essence, the concept is far from being
new and innovative, as intelligence has always been intricately linked with
security. From a historical perspective it may be argued that ILP was already
introduced by the British police in the 1830s. Hence, ILP may well be defined as
old wine in new bottles. What is relatively new is that ILP is now used for
several different purposes and processes beyond the horizon of criminal investi-
gation. Intelligence as a process and product can be provided by a variety of
private, public, collective and commercial agents. ILP may complement the tra-
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ditional police emphasis on locality, where intelligence makes it possible to

establish information patterns about the flow of illicit goods and criminal sus-
pects (Phillips 2008: 27; MacVean 2008: 66).
Popular as the pro-ILP rhetoric may have become, ILP’s proactive interven-
tion sits uneasily with legitimacy and output monitoring. Moreover, the chronic
lack of trust among law enforcement organizations may lead to the emergence of
archipelagos of intelligence in the transnational policing domain, causing diverse
and ‘fluidly evolving forms of policing and internal security’ that are resistant to
‘adequate individual and democratic accountability’ (as is often the case with
transnational arrangements) (Walker 2003: 132; see also Den Boer 2002b; Shep-
tycki 2004). ILP is built on the assumption that law enforcement organizations
share intelligence in order to maximize their effectiveness. Within international
security environments, ILP is strongly promoted by a number of internal security
agencies in the EU. The House of Lords Select Committee even encouraged its
own government to persevere in its attempts to embed these concepts in the
policing culture of all member states.14
More comparative empirical research is required to analyse information and
intelligence flows in the police forces of different countries (see Van den Hengst
and Staffeleu 2012: 1930). A question which still lingers is to what extent there
is any (proven) added value from ILP when compared to other models of polic-
ing. It is supposed to be more proactive, rational and effective, but what about
sustainable results? Finally, ILP applications challenge the ordinary account-
ability arrangements of public police forces, certainly when they exchange and
act upon intelligence in a multilateral international context (MacVean 2008: 65,
68). This leads to transnational intelligence ‘clouds’ in which ownership of intel-
ligence can no longer easily be identified. Police organizations are not the only
actors that deal with intelligence. In the national context, intelligence about
people, their mobility and transactions is collected by several agencies and insti-
tutions, each for its own purpose. Governmental authorities extend their know-
ledge about citizens by gathering and interconnecting information and
intelligence. Several countries have developed strategies for a digital future,
seeking to achieve more effectiveness in policing by smart data exchange. In a
rapidly internationalizing and borderless environment, intelligence no longer
merely belongs to the realm of government, but also to citizens themselves.
 Intelligence-led policing in Europe 129
A question for the future is whether police organizations will be able to make
sensible use of collective intelligence, for instance, to solve a crime or to prepare
themselves for a riot. Is intelligence to be regarded as a new technique of ‘gov-
ernmentality’ through which the masses are subjected to constant monitoring
and mental disciplining? Intelligence and intelligence policing have surmounted
the already complex debate on data collection and data protection.

Notes
1 The author would like to thank the editors of this volume, and Paul Minnebo
(Europol) and Willy Bruggeman (Federal Police Council Belgium) for their thorough
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and useful comments. Any omissions are the sole responsibility of the author.
2 See www.theiacp.org/PublicationsGuides/Projects/IntelligenceLedCommunityPolic-
ing/tabid/1006/Default.aspx (accessed 14 September 2012).
3 See www.interpol.int/INTERPOL-expertise/Intelligence-analysis (accessed 7 September
2012).
4 Europol Information Management: Products and Services. Online. Available: www.
mvr.gov.mk/Uploads/Europol%20Products%20and%20Services-Booklet.pdf
(accessed 14 September 2012).
5 See www.interpol.int/INTERPOL-expertise/Command-Coordination-Centre (accessed
14 September 2012).
6 ‘Wet van 21 juli 2007, houdende regels inzake de verwerking van politiegegevens
(Wet politiegegevens)’ [Law of 21 July 2007 Pertaining to the Rules on the Process-
ing of Police Data]. Online. Available: http://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0022463/
geldigheidsdatum_28–11–2012 (accessed 17 January 2013).
7 ‘Invoering van de politiewet, en aanpassing van overige wetten aan die wet (Invoer-
ings- en aanpassingswet Politiewet 201X)’ [Introduction of the Police Law and
Adaptation of Additional Laws to this Law (Introduction and Adaptation Legislation
Police Law 201X)], 30 August 2012. Online. Available: http://wetten.overheid.nl/
BWBR0031794/geldigheidsdatum_17–01–2013 (accessed 17 January 2013).
8 Concept Inrichtingsplan Nationale Politie [Draft Plan for the National Police], 25 June
2012. Online. Available: www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten-en-publicaties/rapporten/
2012/06/25/inrichtingsplan-natinale-politie.html (accessed 17 September 2012).
9 However, see e.g. Bureau of Justice Assistance (2008) ‘Reducing Crime Through
Intelligence-led Policing’. Online. Available: www.bja.gov/Publications/Reducing
CrimeThroughILP.pdf (accessed 8 November 2012).
10 European Council (2010) ‘The Stockholm Programme – An Open and Secure Europe
Serving and Protecting Citizens’, 2010/C 115/01Par 4.1.
11 European Commission (2010) ‘The Internal Security Strategy in Action: Five Steps
Towards a More Secure Europe’, Communication from the Commission to the Euro-
pean Parliament and the Council, Brussels, 22.11.2010 COM (2010) 673 final. Online.
Available: http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010–2014/malmstrom/archive/internal_
security_strategy_in_action_en.pdf (accessed 11 July 2012).
12 House of Lords Select Committee on European Union, 29th Report, 2007–2008. Online.
Available: www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldselect/ldeucom/183/18307.
htm (accessed 11 July 2012).
13 Ibid., point 29.
14 Ibid., point 82.
 130 M. den Boer
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 10 The next 100 years?
Reflections on the future of
intelligence
Wilhelm Agrell
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An unlikely prediction and some guesswork

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, there has been a growing interest in
the history of intelligence in general, and the history of intelligence institutions
in particular (Andrew 2009; Aid 2009; Weiner 2007). This interest is not limited
to the Anglo-Saxon world (Rentola 2009; Davidsen-Nielsen 2008). Behind this
is probably the historical fact that the ‘short twentieth century’ was a formative
period for intelligence and security services as we know them today, but there is
also an awareness that things will not remain as they are forever, that societies
and their interrelations are bound to change, and as a consequence so will the
need for and the conduct of intelligence. Intelligence is an evolving social activ-
ity, so looking back may not only be a way to understand and to a considerable
extent discover the past, but also to get some insights, however limited and
uncertain, about the dynamics shaping the future of intelligence. But will future
intelligence represent a new era, completely detached from the past, where
history would be irrelevant or even misleading? Christopher Andrew, in the con-
cluding chapter of his account of MI5, argues forcefully against this notion: ‘For
the first time in recorded history, there has been a widespread assumption that
the experience of all previous generations is irrelevant to present policy. Institu-
tions, like individuals, however, diminish their effectiveness if they fail to reflect
on past successes and failures’ (Andrew 2009: 849).
The future, or rather the perception of the future, always tends to reflect the
present, and our inability to take into account fundamental changes, even though
history is made up of them, is sometimes stunning, as is our limited ability to see
the complex indirect consequences of technological, social and cultural change.
We could call this phenomenon the unavoidable cognitive prison of the present.
It tends to distort and restrict perceptions of the future, especially concerning
activities like intelligence, which are dependent on and shaped by developments
on a number of more or less interrelated fields. Intelligence, by definition, is a
mirror of the complexity of historical change. Therefore, the discussion of the
future of intelligence has in past decades tended to reflect the dominating per-
ceptions of the nature of security and threats, from the late Cold War paradigm
of the 1980s, to the broadened definition of security and intelligence users in the
 134 W. Agrell
1990s to the post-9/11 hegemony of counter-terrorism as the future main domi-
nating task of intelligence (Goodman 1996; Charters et al. 1995). Much of the
recent literature on the future of intelligence is thus rapidly ageing, already trans-
forming into a source for the history of thinking about intelligence, or what some
future writer may define as the history of the philosophy of intelligence.
But in the case of intelligence the cognitive prison of the present has a further
dimension; it is also a part of the subject itself. One of the fundamental recurring
problems experienced in the conduct of intelligence over the past century is the
limited ability of intelligence to discover and comprehend changes incompatible
with expectations, perceptions or simply with what has been stated in dozens or
hundreds of previous assessments. Therefore, the limited ability to assess the
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future of intelligence is also an important limitation in the conduct of intelli-

gence, perhaps even the most important one, as reflected in some of the vast
literature on surprises (Wohlstetter 1962; Betts 1982, 2007; Kam 1988).
However, one thing stands out as reasonably certain. The least likely of all
unlikely predictions about the future of intelligence must be that it will remain as
we know it today, that intelligence will develop along familiar lines and that we
simply have to prolong the trends of the past years and decades or of the past
century.
But why should we worry at all about the future of intelligence if we cannot
foresee it? One simple answer is that we will do it anyway. There is always a
perception of the future, well founded or not, that guides policy, public debate
and the internal development of the field. If we would make no effort to reflect
along these lines, assuming that the future is unknowable – as it is in a strict
logical sense – we will most likely remain stuck in the cognitive prison and unin-
tentionally and perhaps unknowingly make precisely the worst of all guesses, the
mirror image of the present and its more or less distorted perception of the past.
Yet these perceptions of the past, the history of intelligence and the societies
in which intelligence has developed and functioned (or malfunctioned), is basi-
cally all we can rely on to get some kind of structure on thinking about intelli-
gence on a more general level. John Keegan in one of his famous books on
warfare, The Face of Battle, writes about what he calls the usefulness and defi-
ciencies of military history, of history as the only way, aside from personal
experience, to grasp what battle is all about, but at the same time it is producing
myths, distortion and over-simplification (Keegan 1998). In a similar way the
history of intelligence, even when well researched and well written, may be of
limited immediate relevance for thinking about the future. The past is not a
scheme; cases or ‘lessons’ are seldom as unambiguous as they are presented and
taught.1 Thus what is the usefulness of intelligence history from this specific
perspective?
In all social development there are long lines. History never stops, and the
ruptures perceived to end one era and begin another often appear less abrupt and
dramatic in retrospect. Therefore, the long lines, to the extent that they can be
identified, would be of considerable help, not perhaps to predict the future but to
provide some elements likely to prevail into the future. In intelligence these long
 The future of intelligence: reflections 135
lines consist of fundamental and timeless methods and recurring failures, the
‘permanent operating factors’ that the literature of surprises deals with and that
Christopher Andrew encourages institutions and individuals to reflect about. To
take one example, the means to stage deception will inevitably change continu-
ously, since the success of deception depends on adaptation to current con-
ditions, technical possibilities and information flows. But the basic principle of
the deception scheme as an induced cognitive trap is not likely to change, since
it is based on group dynamics and the functions of the human mind (Whaley
1973). These elements of intelligence methodology are essential for reflections
about the future of intelligence in organizational, social and intellectual terms –
of course with the caveat that some factors assumed to be timeless and unchan-
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ging may not be as permanent as we may perceive them at present.

Another central element in macro-historical discussions are the attempts to
identify not the permanent or slowly changing factors but the mechanisms of
change, the prime movers or ‘triggers’ in a historical process, as they were dis-
cussed in Chalmer Johnson’s work on revolutionary change (Johnson 1966).
While these prime movers are not always obvious and often appear in com-
plicated interactions, they can provide some elements of foresight as to the
interplay of factors in future developments. The mechanisms will not make it
possible to predict or model the future, but should help people to think and
reason about it.
To say something about the future of intelligence we have to guess, but to
guess in a structured way. If twentieth-century intelligence had some ‘great
moments’ along with a number of well-known as well as hidden or undiscovered
failures, so will most likely twenty-first-century intelligence have all those as
well, although it would take a novel writer and not a historian or social scientist
to fathom them. And likewise, twenty-first-century intelligence will experience
further ruptures and surprises, apart from those already belonging to the short
history of the century. Perhaps, but only perhaps, these coming failures and their
consequences are rather more predictable than the possible great moments.

The first or last century of intelligence?

Looking back on a century of intelligence, in the words of Jeffrey T. Richelson
(1995), a fundamental question is whether or not this represents a foundational
period, where intelligence rose to become a core element in national and eventu-
ally international security, and in the course of this also transformed from ama-
teurism to a profession, or rather a field of professions. An alternative
interpretation would be that the century of intelligence instead represents a unique
period in first of all European and North American history, in much the same way
as we now perceive the role of armed conflicts in politics and the transformation
of the means of warfare, where the twentieth century stands out as a brief, devast-
ating period in human history, fuelled by the combination of ideology, industrial
technology and a fatal interpretation and employment of the Clausewitzian
concept of war. From such a perspective, intelligence may be seen as the product
 136 W. Agrell
of a period with specific circumstances, as mirrored in the subdivision of the
intelligence field in intelligence/counter-intelligence and subversion/counter-
subversion. The rise of twentieth-century institutional structures cannot be sepa-
rated from these specific circumstances and it would hardly have taken place
without them. Most of the institutions still dominating the intelligence field were
literally born under fire. But then again, intelligence in the way we know and
define it today may be not only the product but rather a reflection of these specific
historical circumstances. Intelligence as a social phenomenon and instrument was
not invented in 1909, or not even in 1587 when Francis Walsingham drafted his
Plot for Intelligence out of Spain (Dedijer 1983; Hutchinson 2007: 216). In one
sense intelligence is constantly restarted throughout history. Late nineteenth-
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century intelligence was in many European countries focused on the national and
international threat from anarchistic terrorism, just as early twenty-first-century
intelligence has focused on the threat from international terrorism.
So, if the perception of twenty-first-century intelligence as simply a continu-
ing gradual process of adaptation and modernization would end up as a rather
poor one, so would probably the corresponding concept of ‘the end of intelli-
gence’, as mirrored in the brief debate in the 1990s over institutions without a
mission and the need for survival strategies in terms of redefinition and reorien-
tation. Intelligence will inevitably transform; the question is which factors will
determine this transformation. But at the same time, the factors of change also
change over time. If we look at technology, this transformation of the dynamics
of change may be observed. In the nineteenth century new technology was the
product of invention, engineering and industrial entrepreneurship. In the course
of the twentieth century, new technology became the output of massive commer-
cial, national and eventually multinational research and development efforts. So
while the dynamics and social impact of new technology continue, the institu-
tions and procedures behind the innovations have changed completely.
A number of fundamental driving factors may be identified behind the estab-
lishment and transformation of intelligence in the twentieth century, which does
not necessary imply that no other factors or circumstances have been relevant.
However, there are at least five factors that run through the whole period and cut
across the various national experiences:

1 The evolution in demand for intelligence on threats, whether actual or per-

ceived. Imaginary threats can affect intelligence just as much as real threats.
2 The double impact of technological change, both affecting the intelligence
targets and the potential to collect, communicate and process intelligence
material.
3 The evolution of the societies in which intelligence operates or of which it is
a part.
4 The remarkable stability and survivability of intelligence institutions and
networks.
5 The prevailing nature of certain methods and problems in the conduct of
intelligence.
 The future of intelligence: reflections 137
The need to know
In the beginning there had to be a customer. Not only did British intelligence in
its modern form start with the beginning of the twentieth century, but so did
military and security intelligence in a number of European countries. The inven-
tion was the establishment of permanent or at least semi-permanent intelligence
organizations, with an assigned task within a military staff structure and a state
bureaucracy, the introduction of the concept of the deuxième bureau, an entity
with the task of monitoring the others. When a few years ago the Swedish
military intelligence organization wanted to celebrate its hundredth anniversary,
a thorough search in the intelligence archives of the old General Staff managed
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to turn up a document from early 1905, where funding was provided for the
establishment of a network for secret intelligence collection led by two junior
officers (Frick and Rossander 2004). The reason for this invention was obvious,
and so was the target: Norway. The unequal union between the two Scandin-
avian countries was coming apart through a process of mutual nationalism, and
the former brothers were transforming into enemies in a destructive and all too
well-known process of polarization.
As it turned out, war on the Scandinavian peninsula was averted at the brink and
secession was accomplished without bloodshed. But Swedish military intelligence
continued to exist, though no longer directed at a secessionist threat. This pattern
seems to be common, and illustrates one of the basic dynamics of intelligence
organizations, whether as independent institutions, as a department or merely as a
function carried out within a bureaucracy or organization. Once intelligence has
been ‘invented’ in fiscal or organizational terms it seems that it is seldom ‘unin-
vented’, as new needs always tend to appear on the horizon. Swedish military intel-
ligence turned from Norway to the rising threat from the Russian Baltic Fleet,
replaced in the 1920s by the perceived threat of Bolshevik subversion, followed by
Stalin’s rearmament and expansion towards Finland and the Baltic States, German
expansion in Scandinavia during the Second World War, the post-war re-
establishment of the Baltic Fleet, the gradual Cold War expansion of the Soviet
capability for amphibious warfare, the post-Cold War Russian transfer of offensive
resources from the Central Front towards the flanks following the withdrawal from
united Germany, the continued strategic instability posed by the Kaliningrad
enclave and the security implications of the underwater pipeline being built by
Russian Gazprom through the Baltic. There is nearly always a need to know,
although the exact focus of that need may change, and then change back again.
The evolution of the means of warfare was perhaps the most powerful
dynamic factor affecting the conduct of intelligence until the end of the Cold
War. Intelligence grew into large structures with thousands or tens of thousands
of employees and innumerable agents, subcontractors or assets, not primarily
due to bureaucratic momentum, which set in later, but originally to meet the
demand for intelligence from new means of warfare that certainly resorted to, or
was preparing to resort to, the employment of destructive force. Intelligence was
in itself not decisive, but in combination with a military potential it was, as
 138 W. Agrell
underlined by Keegan in one of his later works (Keegan 2003).2 But intelligence
itself also became dependent on an ever-increasing flow of raw information, data
banks and continuously updated assessments. We can certainly discuss the actual
impact of intelligence on the subsequent events or non-events, from Magic (US),
Ultra (UK) and G-Schreiber (Sweden), to the massive efforts of Cold War intel-
ligence and counter-intelligence. ‘Did intelligence matter?’ (Herman et al. 2006)
is a highly relevant question, but it is perhaps less relevant for the development
of the structures and patterns, the very idea of intelligence as something vital to
national and international security. Here the perception of intelligence seems to
have been more important than the actual direct or indirect impact.
However, without this massive demand-pull from the process of militariza-
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tion and focus on national security, it is hard to see how the establishment of
twentieth-century intelligence within the realm of national security would have
come about. And just as in the field of research and development of new tech-
nologies and systems, the pattern set by the military applications was transferred
to other fields, and thus created other intelligence needs (Treverton 2009).

Technology and the intelligence revolutions

Technology stands out as a crucial element in this process of transformation in a
number of interlinked ways. Any effort to comprehend the evolution of
twentieth-century intelligence and further developments must take into con-
sideration this multiple impact of technology. First of all, technological change
has been an important aspect of the transforming security environment, creating
the need for intelligence. What made the Russian Baltic Fleet a growing concern
for Swedish intelligence prior to the First World War was not so much political
considerations as the replacement of the losses in the Tsushima battle with a new
generation of capital ships. This interaction is perhaps the most studied aspect of
military intelligence, especially during the Second World War and the Cold War,
when technological intelligence and military R&D became increasingly inter-
linked (Jones 1979). This technological driver is not limited to the traditional
military domain, as illustrated both by irregular warfare and the wider signifi-
cance of intelligence on scientific research and industrial R&D.
The second impact of technological change concerns the intelligence objects.
The development of information technology and patterns of information
exchange has been the single technological and social factor with the most direct
impact on the conduct and potential of intelligence, a process that started well
before the twentieth century but which gathered momentum with the exponential
expansion of telecommunications. If we could foresee the developments in com-
munications technologies, this would most likely give a general idea of the trans-
formation of future intelligence collection, and the potential to monitor a vast
number of human activities – to the extent that this would be considered politi-
cally, legally and ethically acceptable or at least tolerable.
The monitoring of telecommunications also illustrates the third aspect of
technological change: the employment of technology for passive or active
 The future of intelligence: reflections 139
intelligence collection. Some of these systems were simply mirroring or adapt-
ing information technology, such as the first generation decoding machines at
Bletchley Park or at the Swedish Defence Radio Agency, or varieties of anten-
nas and receivers. Other technologies could be employed for active intelligence
collection with sensors outside the sphere of telecommunications. Employment
of technology for intelligence purposes was however not limited to collection,
but also encompassed processing, storage, analysis and dissemination of
information, in short the technological basis for the intelligence cycle.
The development of twentieth-century intelligence was conceptual and organ-
izational to be sure; but first and foremost it was technological. The massive
impact of collection and later processing technologies was what transformed
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intelligence from a slow, incomplete and delayed gathering of information on

specific spots to broad, near real-time coverage of a wide spectrum of objects
and activities. It seems unlikely that the powerful momentum of multiple techno-
logical impacts on the conduct of intelligence would cease or even wind down,
unless we are to speculate over a possible future with decreased efforts in R&D,
growing and widespread scepticism towards new technologies, or social or polit-
ical developments severely hampering international scientific and R&D
cooperation.

Institutional survivability and professional heritage

The 100-year anniversaries are themselves an indication of a considerable insti-
tutional continuity in the intelligence field. There are remarkably few cases from
the twentieth century of intelligence organizations being permanently dissolved,
even when their original mission has disappeared, or after major political contro-
versies, scandals or performance failures. Intelligence directors come and go, but
the organizations generally remain. Major reorganizations are in many cases cos-
metic, as the staff remain intact or simply get recycled in a new organizational
chart. Even after major regime changes, as in the former Warsaw Pact states of
Eastern Europe, the intelligence services are generally not disbanded for good.
In some cases they were thoroughly reorganized, in others the personnel were
dismissed, only to be re-employed after some time as their competence was
needed by the new regimes (Born et al. 2005). Only in a state that itself also
ceased to exist, the German Democratic Republic (GDR), were the intelligence
and security services totally and permanently disbanded, even though their her-
itage continues to cast long shadows.
In Western countries, institutional stability has been remarkable. Behind this
is the closed nature, special role and relative inaccessibility of these organiza-
tions, also for policy-makers. This reflects both a well-established intelligence
culture, and a corresponding reluctance among policy-makers to become too
deeply involved in intelligence matters, sometimes for good reasons. If the way
intelligence services operate remains a black box for most policy-makers, this is
even more the case when it comes to signals intelligence. A potentially important
development, however, is the opening up of this black box, or rather black
 140 W. Agrell
chamber, through the pressure of legislation and systems for approval of access
to electronic communications affecting citizens. These kinds of judicial and
institutional processes tend to be incremental and never-ending. Furthermore, the
changes that they constitute are often more permanent than developments on the
organizational level, and the major consequences are often indirect and – at least
originally – unintentional.3
It is necessary, however, to underline that a substantial part of twentieth-
century intelligence were the structures and techniques developed and employed
by totalitarian systems and authoritarian regimes, especially in the field of
domestic surveillance and political control. These aspects of the development of
intelligence as an institutional, constitutional and legal phenomenon cannot
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simply be regarded as temporary exceptions. The totalitarian and authoritarian

experience had, and continues to have, a profound impact on intelligence, both
in terms of the institutional sustainability discussed above, and in a more indirect
way through the diffusion of methods, organizational principles and perceptions
of professionalism, perhaps best illustrated by the massive recycling of the
German intelligence heritage after the Second World War (Aldrich 2001;
Naimark 1995; Pryser 1999).
Will the major intelligence institutions, as we know them from the twentieth
and early twenty-first century still be around towards the end of the twenty-first
century? And if so, in what form will they still appear? Or will there be new
forms of intelligence organizations and structures? If it is a correct observation
that intelligence organizations, for a number of reasons, have a higher degree of
survivability than other sectors of public administration, it is possible that the
traces of early twenty-first-century organizations may still be visible by the end
of the century. Tasks will certainly change, along with names and internal struc-
tures, a process that is likely to reflect how the performance and roles of the
organizations are perceived by users, financers and voters, and how these cat-
egories in their turn will change over time.

The future of intelligence as activity and social phenomenon

If twentieth-century intelligence was shaped by the demands and diffusion from
the security domain and the perceptions of external and internal threats against
states, the future of intelligence may be expected to reflect the evolving nature of
security and the dynamics of threats and, above all, threat perceptions. A future
stable European peace would certainly, as in previous long interwar periods,
affect the attitudes to and transformation of intelligence as a security instrument
in this part of the world. The ‘soft power’ of diplomacy, negotiations, economic
interdependence and social integration is not necessarily something that will be
conducted with the same forms of intelligence support as traditional twentieth-
century national security, though it is hard to imagine any international order
where intelligence becomes redundant. There are many organizations or net-
works operating without a defined intelligence support, but this is often provided
in an informal and sometimes unconscious way. It may also be argued that a
 The future of intelligence: reflections 141
security system not primarily based on quantifiable and well-defined military
means will be even more dependent on intelligence support, although focused on
other issues and objects and supporting decision-making in a different and more
integral way than traditional security intelligence (Sheptycki 2009).
International organizations have, for a number of obvious reasons, remained
weak in terms of intelligence. It is not likely that the divide between these organ-
izations and the traditional intelligence institutions could be permanently over-
come in the sense that the national institutions would be subordinate to a new
international order. Certainly, these international organizations can build their
own intelligence functions, as some of them are already in the process of doing,
but these new intelligence actors are bound to encompass all the problems and
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limitations of international organizations as such, along with the inherent prob-

lems of every intelligence structure. A possible alternative course of action
would be for international organizations to build different forms of intelligence
structures. However, the main problem with intelligence is often not the conduct
of intelligence itself, but the limited ability of the receiver to use intelligence
output in forwarding the goals of the organization.
Apart from this there is the phenomenon of new or emerging intelligence
actors. While the established intelligence triad – national/transnational security,
law enforcement, business/competitive intelligence – is transforming and adapt-
ing to new threats and opportunities and new demands from users, new intelli-
gence fields with new actors are taking shape in several traditionally
non-intelligence or even anti-intelligence environments. This organic and often
unstructured process could be just as important or even more important than the
eternal issue of intelligence institutions and reforms.
During the twentieth century it was generally taken for granted that new intel-
ligence actors could learn from the old ones. The future may contain an opposite
pattern, at least in some respects. The emerging intelligence fields could provide
examples of alternative modes of intelligence, perhaps even methods that reduce
some of the – seemingly – eternal shortcomings of traditional intelligence like
groupthink, segmentation of information and production for the sake of produc-
tion. New intelligence actors may, for reason of their specific demands and
premises, build intelligence systems along different lines and based on other
principles than those inherited from the last century.
Intelligence has throughout history been a problematic activity when it comes
to a wider social acceptance, often for very good reasons. The spy is an occa-
sional hero, especially in his or her virtual role in popular culture, but he is also
a loathed traitor. And while most citizens might accept that their own country
resorts to spying or other forms of intelligence activities abroad, the acceptance
of domestic surveillance and especially systematic intelligence gathering is far
more conditional and fluctuating. Spying, under whatever euphemism, is never
generally liked or accepted. In this sense intelligence, at least as soon as individ-
uals are directly or indirectly affected, remains in a grey zone of ethically
dubious social activities, always dependent on transparent goals, secure proce-
dures and effective oversight to ensure legitimacy. On this fundamental social
 142 W. Agrell
and cultural level, it is hard to see whether intelligence would ever come in from
the grey zone to become just another social field, another part of business and
government administration, unless of course intelligence transforms and
becomes just that. But then again, who in that brave new world would perform
the intelligence task out there?

The future of intelligence as a field of knowledge production

The most obvious limitation in the twentieth-century concept of intelligence has
been the tendency to focus on the production of masses of information, presented
and perceived as knowledge, but in many cases being quite the opposite, the pro-
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duction or rather creation of institutional and social ignorance,4 defined here not
as the conscious lack of knowledge but the flawed perception of knowing, while
in fact not knowing, or comprehending. If intelligence, in the words of Francis
Bacon, could be regarded as the ‘light of the state’, then the main hazard is
perhaps not darkness but the misconception that the illuminated spot around the
lamppost constitutes the world.5
The conduct of intelligence in terms of the technological basis, collection
ability and focus changed dramatically during the twentieth century. What did
not change in a corresponding way was the underlying theory of cognition, the
idea that in the end intelligence is about facts, about the ‘real’ world, and that
this will be revealed more or less by itself through a linear and to an increasing
extent industrialized knowledge production system (Herman 1996: 305–338).
Perhaps because of this conviction, and the immense expansion of intelligence
collection and use (and misuse) of technology as the universal solution to almost
every upcoming intelligence task or problem, analysis has remained a small and
sometimes insignificant bypass link in the huge intelligence machinery. Analysis
has not only been diminutive in terms of staff and financial resources, it has also,
due to the design of the intelligence cycle and its assumed rationality, been
assigned a reactive role, often far down the intelligence assembly line (George
and Bruce 2008; Marrin 2009; Agrell 2009; Charters et al. 1996).
As a consequence, analysis has not developed in a way similar to collection.
In certain fields it could be argued that analysis has not developed at all or even
moved backwards under the pressure from mass collection and mass dissemina-
tion. There has been only limited and scattered development of the field since
the publication of Sherman Kent’s classical book on strategic intelligence in
1949 (Kent 1949). Kent argued for the introduction of scientific methods in
intelligence, not only to comprehend specific problems and fields but to make
verifiable assessments. The non-development of a scientific approach to an array
of analytic problems is a striking feature of twentieth-century intelligence; there
is not only an ‘under-theorization’ in the study of intelligence and the impact of
intelligence on international relations, as Christopher Andrew observes (Andrew
2004), but also a crucial under-theorization in intelligence itself (Johnston 2005).
Looking ahead, it is hard to see how this unsatisfactory state of the art
can continue for any prolonged period of time. This underdevelopment or
 The future of intelligence: reflections 143
under-theorization thus constitutes an area with the most obvious growing poten-
tial for change. Sooner or later a process is bound to start, similar to the one
familiar in most research fields, with an explicit and visible interest in methodo-
logical development, the establishment of a methodologically relevant literature
and a theoretical discourse.
An intellectual process of this kind may in itself become a factor changing
not only the concepts and intellectual perspective of intelligence analysis, but
also affecting the wider intelligence culture and thus in the end the way intelli-
gence is organized, employed and regarded. It is hard to see how a serious focus
on methodological issues could be accomplished within the framework of the
traditional closed twentieth-century intelligence organizations. Thus, structures
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may change and the walls of secrecy slowly crumble, not necessarily because of
an open source revolution or the growth of public demand for transparency, but
because of the need for future intelligence systems to be able to supply reliable
and above all verifiable assessments.
Like scientific research, intelligence analysis is about uncertainty. The simil-
arities are sometimes striking and it may be argued that there is a process of con-
vergence where intelligence analysis increasingly relies not only on scientific
output and competence but also on borrowed or transformed methods, applied to
specific intelligence problems. This also illustrates the other side of the conver-
gence; with an increasing role for science in early warning, prediction and pre-
scription over a wide range of political issues, science and research organizations
are, with all the well-known problems from the intelligence field, becoming
intelligence oriented, a process constituting a vital element in what may be called
a social intelligence revolution, the emergence of intelligence-based societies or,
if not that, then at least intelligence-demanding ones.

A century of intelligence proliferation and transformation?

Intelligence will not disappear. Not even the current intelligence institutions are
likely to go away, at least not rapidly, and certainly not without preceding major
upheavals. However, most of them will probably be found under different
names, some not even referring to the traditional twentieth-century concept of
the intelligence field. Others may have merged and transformed into a shape
still unknown (and perhaps unthinkable) today. And intelligence as a social
activity and phenomenon may appear in different contexts and be perceived
through other norms, values and expectations than twentieth-century national
intelligence.
Given the main elements in the transformation of intelligence discussed here,
how will the globalized, transformed field of intelligence look in the coming
century? Leaving aside the reservations concerning the cognitive prison of the
present, as well as the impact of the unforeseeable dimensions of historical
change – the ‘secrets’ and ‘mysteries’ of future history – there are at least six
fundamental processes of change that could be identified, and as time passes
either become the object of closer study or be discarded:
 144 W. Agrell
1 A decreasing relevance and subsequent breakup of the prevailing national
intelligence paradigm. Intelligence reform within an existing framework is,
at least in the long run, not a viable strategy. It is hard to imagine any major
new intelligence challenge as a task for primarily national institutions or
systems. From this also follows that the institutionally, professionally and
constitutionally important divide between foreign and domestic intelligence
will inevitably lose relevance and become increasingly diffuse, perhaps not
so much due to political pull but to various push factors caused by the indi-
rect consequences of structural changes.
2 The rise of new fields of knowledge with intelligence relevance. With more
and diversified intelligence demands the principle of in-house expertise is
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becoming infeasible and counterproductive. This is likely to be the most

powerful factor affecting the analytic and assessment function of intelli-
gence. It is however not certain that expertise and knowledge will be
brought into intelligence structures; a reverse process is thinkable where it is
the intelligence expertise and knowledge that are brought into strategic
fields of knowledge production in research, public administration or
business.
3 Diminishing relative importance of exclusive sources and methods. With the
powerful technological and social momentum behind the open source
revolution, the relative share of exclusive intelligence collection is bound to
shrink (Treverton 2001; Steele 2000). Future intelligence demands may fur-
thermore revaluate open sources from being a traditional second-rate asset
to the main source category, for instance, if the open source arena in itself
becomes the intelligence target. It should in this context be observed that the
exclusive sources and methods are by no means constant but similarly trans-
forming, perhaps best illustrated by the adaptation of Comint to new
information technologies.
4 The rise of new actors using, producing and providing intelligence. This is
not a future scenario but a rapid ongoing process, not only driven by intelli-
gence demands – especially not in the traditional sense – but by the eco-
nomic potential of the control and exploitation of the information content on
the Internet. The major change will come once the intelligence potential of
the ongoing digital information revolution is being exploited in a systematic
way.
5 The loss of intellectual monopoly in a competitive knowledge environment.
Traditional intelligence institutions will not only be affected by decreasing
relevance of the national intelligence paradigm and the competition from
open sources and new actors. Like many other providers of expertise, intel-
ligence will be challenged and eventually lose a monopoly hitherto based on
the access to exclusive sources, the use of special methods and the posses-
sion of unique ‘deep’ knowledge.
6 Increasing emphasis on reliability in a fragmented world of information.
With new fields of knowledge becoming relevant, the impact of the open
source revolution and claims from competing providers of expertise, the
 The future of intelligence: reflections 145
crucial element in the intelligence process will tend to shift from informa-
tion collection to knowledge validation. This, and not traditional intelligence
output, may become the primary task of intelligence.

The common denominator for these processes is a transformation not only of

institutions and methods, but in the very concept of intelligence as a separate,
bureaucratized entity. Using a twentieth-century term, this may be described as
intelligence proliferation, a process where intelligence will become more widely
employed and integrated, but at the same time increasingly diverse, diffuse and
hard to define. Thus, those in the future eventually attempting to write the history
of twenty-first-century intelligence may not only be faced with the task of recon-
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structing such a process of proliferation, but also with a profoundly transformed

subject matter. Is it even certain that they will find it relevant to define their
studies as the history of intelligence?
However, I have a feeling that whatever we manage to come up with about
the future of intelligence, it will most likely amuse someone who may rediscover
these long-forgotten efforts at the end of the century and perhaps use them in a
lecture on early twenty-first-century perceptions and mindsets. Most efforts to
look into the future of intelligence have a far shorter time-span, where the
imminent intelligence problems and their possible solution are the focus and pre-
diction or prescription seldom goes beyond the next anticipated intelligence
reform. This is perhaps in one way safer ground, but also an area where the
future can quickly become the past, or rather bypassed by developments.
Facing the future we are all mentally trapped, intelligence systems and those
who study them alike. We are stuck in our mindsets, frames of reference and the
current dominating discourse. But of course the future itself is a powerful trap of
genuine unpredictability and immense complexity, where every theory we could
formulate is bound to fail. The scholar trying to figure out the future of intelli-
gence is sharing some of the fundamental methodological problems of the intel-
ligence analyst, also trapped in a prison of the present facing the interaction of
prime movers and circumstantial factors in the process of historical change. If
intelligence ever comes closer in the future to dealing with this paramount chal-
lenge in analysis and assessment, we will possibly as a byproduct be able to
identify the lines of the future of intelligence rather more accurately than seems
possible today.

Notes
1 One prominent example of the over-simplification of cases is the Israeli intelligence
failure prior to the Yom Kippur or October War 1973, often referred to as the para-
mount example of cognitive traps and groupthink in intelligence analysis. This inter-
pretation rested on the account of the Agranat Commission published in 1974, which
for security reasons withheld the role of possibly the most important Israeli intelligence
asset at the time, the Egyptian official Ashraf Marwan. Yom Kippur remains an
important historical case, but perhaps in a slightly different way than originally per-
ceived. See Bar-Joseph (2005).
 146 W. Agrell
2 Keegan quotes David Kahn’s assessment that all the code-breaking efforts of Poland
prior to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 came to nothing, as intelligence
can only work through strength (Kahn 1991: 91).
3 A recent example of this is the effort of the Swedish government to give the signals
intelligence service access to communications to and from the country through the
fibre-optic cables (they had tapped a considerable amount of cables and satellite links
before with secret approval or silent consent from the government). First presented in
2005, the proposed bill stated that the existing intelligence oversight body could handle
the approval. When the bill was finally put before Parliament in 2008, a new inde-
pendent approval body was suggested and a few months later the government agreed to
this in the face of fierce public and parliamentary pressure as well as pressure from
within the ruling alliance. It proposed a new independent intelligence court to decide if
permission was to be granted for specific Comint operations.
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4 Ignorance as a factor in understanding intelligence has been surprisingly overlooked,

outside the specific field of intentional disinformation of other actors or the public.
Besides a few works in economy dealing with the phenomenon of random choices,
ignorance as a social phenomenon has been sparsely studied, with the important excep-
tion of Proctor and Schiebinger (2008).
5 The ‘light of the state’ analogy originally appeared in a script by Bacon for a festival at
Gray’s Inn in 1594. Essex used it in a letter to a Doctor Hawkins two years later. See
Dedijer (1983).

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 11 Conclusions
It may be 10 September 2001 today
George Dimitriu and Isabelle Duyvesteyn
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Introduction
True intelligence is about the future and what is likely to happen in the time ahead
(Clark 2007: 172). The security situation in Western societies has changed signif-
icantly since the collapse of the Soviet Union. There is no longer a single and
clearly visible enemy threatening Western security. Nowadays intelligence com-
munities are confronted with the combined threat of terrorists, insurgents, organ-
ized criminals, proliferators, hacktivists, as well as state actors or their proxies.
Furthermore, as David Omand has pointed out in Chapter 2, globalization, the
revolution in the communications domain and other technological developments
have impacted upon the work of intelligence agencies as any other sector of
society, and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future.
In 1985 Walter Laqueur, looking ahead at the future of intelligence services,
noted that the public had mixed feelings. During crises and war the public would
call for the strengthening of these agencies, while in relatively peaceful times an
aversion against intelligence grew. During the 1970s and 1980s, public debates
in the US took place on subjects such as intelligence leaks, the ethics of certain
collection methods, the role of intelligence in the Vietnam War and covert action
in foreign policy. In the end, Laqueur concluded, congressional investigations,
adverse publicity, and extracted or volunteered revelations led to a decline in the
level of effectiveness of intelligence activity.
With regard to the future, Laqueur emphasized the need for more training and
education, not only for the intelligence professionals but – more importantly –
also for intelligence consumers (Laqueur 1985). US intelligence historian David
Kahn would echo these words in 2001 in his assessments of the future of intelli-
gence. A fundamental challenge would remain in the future: How to get states-
men and generals to accept information that they do not like (Kahn 2001, 2009).
Kahn therefore reasoned that in order to fully realize their potential, future intel-
ligence agencies needed to improve their assessments and become more con-
vincing for leaders to accept their reports.
The contributors to this volume have followed in Laqueur’s and Kahn’s foot-
steps and attempted a comprehensive overview of the future of intelligence. While
choices in the past have bound intelligence agencies to a certain path dependency,
 150 G. Dimitriu and I. Duyvesteyn
the situation now, as Wilhelm Agrell recognizes in Chapter 10 (this volume),
demands that intelligence agencies can no longer extend and extrapolate from
previous trends and will have to engage in more out-of-the-box reasoning.

Conceptualizing intelligence
To discuss intelligence, we need to have a common understanding of what intel-
ligence is. Many have wondered why a business so old and important in state
affairs as intelligence still lacks an accepted definition or a solid theoretical
basis. Motivated by the need to develop theories about how intelligence works,
attempts have been made to define the term (Warner 2011), but what compli-
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cates this is that it may be understood as an activity, a process and a product

(Lowenthal 2002: 8). Critics may question the need for a common definition, as
in practice we seem to know what intelligence is about. States have been able to
build intelligence organizations, to develop doctrines and procedures, and to
implement intelligence in national decision-making without agreeing upon a
common definition. It would be a mistake, however, to underestimate the value
of commonly agreed-upon definitions, especially in fields in which ambiguous
terms can easily be exploited for political purposes. The many different interpre-
tations of the phenomenon ‘terrorism’ illustrate this problem. While there are
innumerable definitions of terrorism, what someone considers an act of terror
may be explained by others as a legitimate use of force. Different explanations
can lead to different responses, varying from robust counter-terrorism measures
to overt support for a freedom struggle. The same applies to intelligence.
Without a proper definition, activities such as influence operations may be
explained as either intelligence activities or acts of diplomacy. Covert actions
may be explained as either military intervention or counter-intelligence activity.
Without a clear demarcation, future debates will continue on whether the conclu-
sion of the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was actually an intel-
ligence failure or a policy failure.
When seeking a proper definition of intelligence, most scholarly attempts are
narrow and entangled in sub-processes and minor characteristics. For example,
many definitions encapsulate elements of the intelligence cycle, the necessity of
secrecy and the relation to national security (Kent 1949: vii; 76; Kirkpatrick
1997: 365; Joint Chiefs of Staff 2001: 208). While most definitions seem to be
logical, the concepts on which these definitions are based are open to different
interpretations as well, making consensus even more difficult to achieve. Broader
and more abstract definitions are therefore useful. Intelligence may be described
as ‘knowledge’, or ‘processed information’ to serve ‘decision-makers’, to
‘optimize resources’, or to ‘reduce uncertainty and ignorance’ (Central Intelli-
gence Agency 1999: vii; Kahn 2001). One shortcoming, however, is that most
theoretical and definitional enterprises are largely focused on intelligence itself,
ignoring its consumers.
Furthermore, critics have noted that there is an omission in intelligence
literature: it is predominantly conceptualized by intelligence scholars using a
 Conclusions 151
bottom-up approach that largely overlooks the perspective of the policy-makers
(Marrin 2009: 147–148; Sims 1995: 7). As Stephen Marrin (2009) notes,
descriptions of unidirectional information flows have placed conceptual blinders
on scholars and failed to integrate intelligence and decision-making literature.
He therefore argues for a more consumer-centric approach to conceptualizing
intelligence, which makes sense since intelligence services are controlled by
policy-makers, budgeted by policy-makers and receive their directions from
policy-makers. Ultimately, those who hold power will decide what is to be done
by intelligence services and what intelligence needs to be about.
While coming up with valuable suggestions, Marrin’s approach offers an
incomplete framework to conceptualize intelligence and to discuss its future.
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Intelligence needs to be regarded from a policy-making perspective, but intelli-

gence and policy-makers are part of a complex constellation of systems which
consists of (among others) people, organizations, networks, states, institutions,
influence and relationships; thus the necessity to understand the environment in
which an intelligence system operates. Furthermore, we need to ask to what
extent the context has changed. In the early 1980s the security paradigm was
predominantly focused on states and collective security instead of groups and
individuals (Sheptycki 2004). Different technological developments, such as the
transmission and storage of data, have since had a dramatic impact.
Finally, most theories of intelligence regard it as it would be in a perfect world:
services present intelligence to serve decision-makers who in turn can make
informed decisions. In the real world, however, intelligence services are con-
fronted with an increasing number of competitors, budget cuts, ‘blaming and
shaming’, media attention, and a growing interest and scrutiny from society. We
live in a world in which policy-makers rapidly come and go, striving not only for
the good of the state, but also serving their own individual interests such as remain-
ing in power or winning the next political battle. As a consequence, intelligence
services continuously face difficult dilemmas, as those whom they serve and who
control them not only value accuracy, completeness and objectivity but also good
timing and the confirmation of their policy preferences. In sum, intelligence cannot
be regarded without considering the circumstances and the complex environment
in which it is situated. Intelligence is a product of its time and environment.

Technological developments
Technological developments have an impact on society at large, on the state, and
on conceptions of power. As we will show below, technology enhances certain
aspects of intelligence while on the other hand restricting it, and it has a similar
impact on the intelligence services’ opponents, whether they be state or non-state
actors.
As several authors in this volume argue, the communication revolution is one
of the most important factors that shape the future role of intelligence. New
media and the internet have created a new virtual battlefield for insurgents and
terrorists to engage adversaries and reach audiences. With the empowerment of
 152 G. Dimitriu and I. Duyvesteyn
the individual, everyone can now write news reports and instantly disseminate
them worldwide. Whereas in the past states and media corporations controlled the
distribution of reports, citizens now make their own news. Terrorists, insurgents
and ordinary civilians are no longer passive consumers of information; they are
news-makers as well. All have the potential to find supporters, to inform, manipu-
late and mobilize (Kurth Cronin 2006; Weimann 2006: 64–91, 110).
The revolution in the communication domain enables not only active citizen-
ship but also leads to a shifting security threat. The internet offers a means for
terrorists from different parts of the world to gather and plan terrorist attacks
online, in a virtual world which is not easily penetrated by intelligence services.
Moreover, so-called lone wolves can radicalize in the virtual domain without any
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noticeable indicators in the physical world. Technological developments also

extend the reach of intelligence services, opening up new possibilities through
data mining, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones), surveillance systems,
detection devices, forensic and biometric capabilities, automated analysis tools
and geo-mapping. As several authors in this volume (among them David
Omand) have noted, in the near future it will be increasingly difficult to avoid
leaving digital traces. It should be recognized, however, that technological
superiority is not decisive if the opponent decides to play a totally different
game. For example, the primitive use of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs),
avoiding the use of mobile phones and computers and the reliance on very primi-
tive means of communication by terrorists and insurgents, has severely ham-
pered the work of Western intelligence services in Iraq and Afghanistan.
What do the technological developments mean for the intelligence services in
the future? The contributors in this volume have made several suggestions. To
begin with, it means an exponential growth of non-state actors that can ‘provide
and procure’ intelligence, leaving aside whether this is a disadvantage to intelli-
gence services or can be complementary, as is noted by Gregory Treverton
(Chapter 3). As Jennifer Sims (Chapter 6) points out, civilians with mobile
phones, cameras and the internet have become intelligence collectors and dis-
seminators. The first news of the US operation against Osama Bin Laden was a
tweet from a Pakistani who lived in Abbottabad and noticed helicopters above
his house. The technological developments have put enormous pressure on intel-
ligence services as it becomes more difficult to be the first with the news.
According to Wilhelm Agrell (Chapter 10), this may lead to the shift of intelli-
gence agencies from information collection agencies to knowledge validation
organizations and knowledge management organizations. Similarly, according to
Sims, the new communication developments lead increasingly to the mass pro-
duction of information and data overload. While automatic processing of intelli-
gence and analysis is flourishing, eventual intelligence analysis needs a human
component. As both Arthur Hulnick (Chapter 5) and Mark Lowenthal (Chapter
4) note, intelligence analysis still has an intellectual feature that largely takes
place in the minds of analysts. They have a message of caution that intelligence
services should invest more in the training and education of young analysts in
the profession.
 Conclusions 153
Finally, on a warning note, new technical possibilities emerge at such a speed
that governments are hardly able to oversee their consequences or implement
judicial guidelines for their use by law enforcement. Furthermore, ethical discus-
sions about sensitive issues such as data mining and the use of drones do not
take place prior to their introduction but occur simultaneously. Since there is
hardly any time for thorough research into the use of new technologies, it is
questionable whether governments and intelligence services can identify all
second and third order effects before their use. The same applies to the creation
of proper instruments and institutions for accountability and oversight.
Whatever conclusions may be drawn from technological developments and
their implications for intelligence, the state of technology is never fixed or fin-
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ished; we are just in the midst of a communication revolution and the pace of
developments is increasing exponentially. Technological developments not only
influence the intelligence services, they also impact upon the environment in
which intelligence operates.

The social context

Inevitably, the evolution of intelligence is related to the society in which it is
embedded and in which it operates. Technological developments have expanded
access to knowledge and increased ways of expression. The communication
revolution seems to expand the gap between the public and intelligence services.
As Gregory Treverton summarizes in this volume, intelligence is closed and
passive, while society and the current media environment has increasingly
become more open and active. Walter Laqueur already noted in 1985 the
growing aversion of Western society against war, conflicts and the working of
intelligence and security services. In Western democracies, citizens increasingly
challenge the practices of their governments. It is too simplistic to attribute these
challenges only to people’s disaffection with domestic security measures and
worries about their privacy or (in the worst case) fears of an Orwellian state.
There are also other factors at work.
In modern Western societies, war and conflict have become less popular and
less legitimate as a tool for foreign policy (Gaddis 1987: 240). The justifications
for deploying and using force, whether troops or drones, has become the subject
of public scrutiny. According to some scholars, this may be attributed to changes
in demographics and strategic culture. A pioneer in this debate is historian and
military strategist Edward Luttwak, who argued that modern society is shifting
towards a ‘post-heroic culture’ in which there is no longer room for the ‘warrior
tradition’ or noble ideas such as martial sacrifice and fighting for a greater cause
(Luttwak 1995, 1996; Ignatief 2000; Everts 2002). According to others, individ-
uals simply oppose violence against foreign communities based on moral and
expedient calculations (Merom 2003). Based on variations of the democratic
peace theory, they suggest that the decline in public appetite for war and conflict
is a reason why politicians are increasingly reluctant to fall back on sanctioning
violence (Doyle 1983; Maoz 1998; Gowa 1999; Merom 2003: 244; Huth and
 154 G. Dimitriu and I. Duyvesteyn
Allee 2003; Berinsky 2009: 3). While the debates on ‘post-heroic culture’ and
democratic peace theory take place primarily outside the realm of intelligence
studies, the concepts do seem to play a role as the distinctions between intelli-
gence operations and the use of military force become increasingly blurred.
David Omand concludes that citizens increasingly tolerate less risk with
regard to their personal safety, and that security has shifted from guaranteeing
the integrity of national territory to the protection of the citizen (see also Shepty-
cki 2004). He reminds us that risk management is not only about avoiding
objective threats such as foreign invasion but, more importantly, about percep-
tion. Statistically, the chances of dying in a car accident may be 100 times more
likely than in a terrorist attack, but it is terrorism that generates the most fear.
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The paradox is, however, that when people feel safe, they tend to be less con-
cerned about the state of intelligence services. In relatively peaceful times, the
incentive for further investments fades away and governments can easily carry
out budget cuts. When crises occur, citizens will again call for a greater intelli-
gence effort, while at the same time paying less attention to moral values and
feeling fewer scruples about the means used by intelligence services (Ruttenberg
2001; Alter 2001; Dershowitz 2002: 131–164). These often changing demands
do not make it easier for intelligence services to function to the satisfaction of
the general public.
In sum, the Western public expresses a latent aversion for intelligence and
conflict, but demands a delicate balance to cope with the dangers of ‘risk society’
(Beck 1992, 2008). Many of the authors in this volume agree that the influence of
the public on intelligence is most likely to increase. Intelligence services will
have to deal with mounting public pressure for accountability, transparency and
oversight. Intelligence has an increasingly sceptical public, suspicious of develop-
ments in surveillance, data mining and monitoring, especially after revelations
about torture, drone attacks and renditions. Problems related to these develop-
ments cannot be solely ascribed to intelligence services because in the last resort
it is politicians and not intelligence agencies who are to blame for these practices.
However, this does not change popular perceptions. In the end, the perceived
practices of intelligence may bring such negative connotations that policy-makers
may feel the need to change its name, as hinted by Agrell. This is what happened,
for instance, with the term Psychological Operations (PSYOP), which was
changed, due to its negative connotations, to Military Information Support to
Operations (MISO) by the US in 2010 (Csrnko 2010; Exum 2010: 219).
As several authors in this volume argue, developments in technology and
society have resulted in a stronger and more influential public voice and a partly
value-driven, partly interest-driven opinion about intelligence. Furthermore, as
den Boer points out (Chapter 9), borders become less relevant, globalization
continues, and intelligence no longer merely belongs to the realm of the state but
becomes expropriated by its citizens. The services’ primary consumers are those
who hold power. It is also up to these decision-makers to explain the necessity
and importance of intelligence to the public and to stimulate and contribute to
the debate on the balance between collective security and individual liberty.
 Conclusions 155
Policy-makers have an important responsibility for shaping public opinion to
create resilience and influence people’s subjective security perceptions. While
intelligence services need to educate the policy-makers and politicians, it is up to
those in power to educate society.

The role of the state

Governance, including the governance of security, has been radically trans-
formed since the 1980s. Western states have been transformed into enabling
states, resulting in decreased state interference in the economy and a stronger
emphasis on the creation and supply of public goods through market mecha-
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nisms (van der Meer 2009). Western politics, as Jelle van Buuren observes
(Chapter 7), have also developed a system of multi-level, multi-centred security
governance. Multi-level governance is characterized by the sharing of power
across multiple levels. Power is no longer solely concentrated in state actors, but
in different semi-state and non-state actors as well. Furthermore, multi-level
governance means a more equal power distribution between different tiers of
governance, while at the same time relations are increasingly determined through
networks (van den Berg and Toonen 2007). In Manuel Castells’ view (2009), a
network society can be characterized as an open, highly dynamic and innovative
social system without a centre of gravity, but operating as a connection of differ-
ent nodes of power communicating with each other through common codes and
values. Ongoing globalization and the further development of the network
society will lead to an increased blurring of the distinction between intelligence
and domains such as policing, armed forces, private intelligence companies,
international intelligence communities of intergovernmental organizations such
as NATO and the EU, and policy-makers. This may raise concerns about
accountability, responsibility and power distribution, and lead to questions by
intelligence services about their mission, vision and purpose. These issues will
be dealt with in turn.
First, the distinction between domestic and external threats has faded. Terror-
ists, insurgents and cyber activists can wreak havoc on the lives of Western
citizens while based abroad, a reason why Omand, van Buuren and Agrell
foresee an increasingly artificial separation between domestic and foreign intelli-
gence. Law enforcement, police, domestic security and foreign intelligence will
have to work together. As Monica den Boer convincingly argues, intelligence-
led policing (ILP), originally introduced for the purpose of counter-terrorism,
has already been applied in other fields such as the fight against organized crime,
public order management, immigration and border control.
Second, the development of multi-layered governance has led to a further dif-
fusion of power, as well as the growth of horizontal (different disciplines) and
vertical (different tiers and levels) intelligence networks. We can think here of
intelligence networks of intergovernmental organizations such as the UN, NATO
and the EU. Furthermore, van Buuren notes the closer connections between
private security companies and intelligence services, which blur the distinction
 156 G. Dimitriu and I. Duyvesteyn
between what is public and what is private in the world of intelligence. Trever-
ton even discusses the idea of involving citizens voluntarily as amateur analysts
in the intelligence process.
Third, another increasingly fuzzy distinction is that between intelligence and
the use of armed force. Currently, the communication from ‘sensor to shooter’
occurs within seconds. A striking example is the positive identification and
fixing of a target by a UAV with the help of signals and imagery intelligence,
and the subsequent release of a Hellfire missile from the same platform. The
military is now increasingly involved in counter-terrorism tasks. According to
Arthur Hulnick, the cooperation between Special Operations Forces (SOF ) and
intelligence services has become an essential element in the US counter-
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terrorism campaign since 9/11. This also shows clearly in recent reports, which
indicate that the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has forged a tight rela-
tionship with the SOF community. Admiral William McRaven, Commander of
US Special Operations Command, has called for increased cooperation between
SOF and intelligence operatives (Miller 2012).
What are the implications of these developments for the future of intelli-
gence? First of all, and most importantly, multi-level networked states and the
accompanying blurring of distinctions between activities and responsibilities on
different levels will significantly challenge oversight and accountability arrange-
ments. As den Boer argues, this leads to transnational intelligence clouds in
which ownership of intelligence can no longer be easily identified. Moreover, it
may be unclear for which actors intelligence services are actually working. Who
is accountable for unsavoury practices when the collection of intelligence has
been outsourced to different private subcontractors? Proxy services are not
always easily controlled, but their activities often reflect heavily on those whom
they serve (Dimitriu 2013). At the international level similar problems occur.
Björn Fägersten (Chapter 8) argues that international cooperation may lead to
unintentionally embarrassing situations, of which the exposure of British–Libyan
intelligence cooperation following the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi is a typical
example.
Second, as most of the authors note, the shift to a network society will have a
strong impact on how Western societies will view intelligence organizations,
structures and institutions. Intelligence production will no longer be the playing
field solely of intelligence services, but will, as den Boer observes, be increas-
ingly provided by a variety of private, public, collective and commercial agents.
New intelligence cooperation initiatives at supranational levels will alter long-
established institutions such as the ‘quid pro quo’ adage, while at the same time
communities of interest and multilateral working relationships may come and
go. While the hybridization of intelligence networks and multi-disciplinary intel-
ligence sharing may have some positive impact on the future of intelligence,
such as increased output and effectiveness, Fägersten doubts whether the future
will only bring more cooperation. He foresees more fragmented cooperation,
such as ‘coalitions of the willing’. This makes sense, as equal cooperation
requires a balance in investments, a high level of trust, the will to share sensitive
 Conclusions 157
intelligence and a somewhat common idea of future threats. What if the eco-
nomic divide between Northern and Southern Europe widens? As Sims notes,
when competition between states increases in intensity and perceptions of threats
rise, incentives to withhold information will also grow. In sum, as Bob de Graaff
warns in the Introduction, increased international collaboration and the rise of
networks may not be a panacea for the improvement of future intelligence. The
internationalization and blurring of intelligence will undoubtedly challenge the
sovereignty of Western states.

Questions of power
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In the realm of International Relations, traditional realist views have focused

primarily on the material aspects of ‘hard power’, such as technical capabilities,
resources, manpower, capital, strength and strategy (Morgenthau 1973 [1948];
Gilpin 1981). More recently, scholars have paid attention to the softer elements
of power, for example, motivation, persuasion, national cohesion and will
(Merom 2003; Nye 2011). An added element in the current era is the increased
importance of information, concerning the ability to shape perceptions and influ-
ence and persuade designated target audiences. This is the realm of strategic
influence, narratives and communication, public diplomacy, negotiations and
outreach.
As a result of technological developments, power has been shifting increas-
ingly to non-state actors such as NGOs, international companies, terrorists and
insurgents. Consequently, as Sims points out, the traditional focus of intelligence
on nation-states and their capabilities, intentions and activities no longer captures
the whole picture, and as Agrell adds, the shifting of intelligence targets has
obviously profound implications for the practice of intelligence itself. He rightly
concludes that soft power needs a different kind of support from intelligence
agencies. At the same time, states are not paramount actors in the information
domain. It is questionable whether Western states with all their layers of bureau-
cracy and hierarchy are actually capable of successfully competing with flexible
and adaptive non-state actors. Sims concludes that power shifts in the future may
not only occur among states but also within them. Large corporations that
manage the global information infrastructure are becoming the new power
brokers. Furthermore, each citizen with a mobile phone and a connection to the
internet is empowered to swiftly inform others or to release manipulated
information. This results in disorderly clusters that willingly or unwillingly chal-
lenge state power.
The more information becomes associated with power, the more the line
between intelligence services and ruling powers blurs. As de Graaff points out,
intelligence analysts may become increasingly involved with sense-making and
constructing realities. Instead of presenting reality, intelligence professionals
may be shaping it. De Graaff rightly wonders whether society will accept such a
pronounced role for intelligence services and their entanglement with politics.
The increased politicization of intelligence brings additional risks. First of all, it
 158 G. Dimitriu and I. Duyvesteyn
is doubtful whether analysts will get the time, resources and opportunities to
build deep knowledge about possible future threats, as Lowenthal advocates.
With the increased chances of politicization of intelligence, there will be a tend-
ency for intelligence services to be focused on the topical problems of the day.
As politics becomes more and more mediatized (Castells 2009: 507), they will
mostly be driven by the perceived short-term threats to the public. Moreover,
politicians who are preoccupied with these threat perceptions will not allow
much space for intelligence professionals who want to focus on the objective
threats that may appear in the future but are still outside the public gaze.
As Peter Gill points out in his description of the relation between knowledge
and power, in its ideal form, the relationship is one of independent intelligence
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services that present intelligence which governments then act upon (Gill 2005:
12–33). But with the ‘politicization’ of intelligence, the knowledge–power role
is reversed. The will to act by policy-makers precedes the delivery of knowledge
by intelligence services. The information delivered by intelligence services will
be judged according to its ability to support the desired actions. An often quoted
example of this is the ‘cherry picking’ of policy-makers in the US and the UK
relating to intelligence on weapons of mass destruction prior to the invasion of
Iraq in 2003 (Morrison 2011). This subjective use of intelligence can tempor-
arily empower governments but ultimately misleads the public. Of course, there
are various possible relationships between knowledge and power, this being only
a negative example.
Changes in the concepts of power will likely have their impact on the future
development of intelligence services. The further blurring of borders between
power and intelligence may be one of the consequences. It is increasingly
unclear which actors actually possess power and how power is distributed. Ulti-
mately, fragmented and diffused power will impact on the ability of policy-
makers to formulate preferred policy outcomes and, as a consequence, to
optimize strategies, convert resources and direct intelligence.

Conclusions
When Walter Laqueur (1985) wrote about the future of intelligence almost three
decades ago, he advocated a reorientation of its focus. In those days, Laqueur
opined that there was an overemphasis on military-strategic intelligence, instead
of a focus on political-strategic and economic intelligence. In the context of the
Cold War this was probably logical. Laqueur’s vision of the reorientation of
intelligence has not been heeded. Agrell foresees the rise of new fields of know-
ledge in the future, but at this moment policy-makers mainly demand actionable
or military-tactical intelligence. This is, as Omand observes, a preference which
seems to show continuity with what Laqueur noted thirty years ago.
One is reminded again of Laqueur’s statement of three decades ago on the
brittle relationship between society and intelligence. A delicate balance is
required between the growing aversion of the public, at least in Western soci-
eties, against torture and the use of force and violations of the private sphere on
 Conclusions 159
the one hand, and the demand for personal security and protection against ter-
rorism on the other. In the future this popular opinion will probably increase in
strength, while at the same time a steady number of almost real-time images of
the use of armed force and consequences of sometimes unsavoury intelligence
practices will enter everyone’s living-room. Therefore, as the authors in this
volume argue, intelligence services in Western democracies can expect mount-
ing public pressure for accountability, transparency and democratic oversight in
the years to come.
In Western democracies, there is a constant need for those who hold power to
explain the role and necessity of intelligence services to the public. This will
become increasingly important. Official communication on the role of intelli-
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gence services, however, has to compete with media which seek dramatic and
newsworthy stories lacking any responsibility for balance (Stimson 2004). More-
over, changing ideas of power and the blurring of borders between intelligence
and power could lead to a highly ambiguous role for intelligence. The role of
intelligence services to interpret the world for policy-makers could, for instance,
lead to a temptation to shape public perceptions about those services.
To conclude: the distribution of power will become increasingly diffuse, as
Western states are turning increasingly into network societies and becoming
characterized by multi-level governance, which will impact on intelligence.
Once an exclusive tradecraft of civil servants and the military, intelligence will
increasingly become a playing field of different public and private organizations,
international networks as well as ordinary people. This will seriously challenge
proper oversight and accountability. Attention should be paid to what intelli-
gence is in essence about. Intelligence does not exist just for its own sake, but
always serves another purpose. It enables optimal use of resources and serves
policy-makers in their process of deciding which way to go in war and peace.
For these same reasons, intelligence will probably continue to play an important
role in the foreseeable future. In spite of all far-reaching changes in recent
decades, an observation made by Laqueur almost three decades ago still holds
true today:

Intelligence is an essential service, but only a service. It is an important

element in the decision-making process, but only one element: its usefulness
depends entirely on how it is used and guided. . . . It can never be a substitute
for policy or strategy, for political wisdom or military power. In the absence
of an effective foreign policy even the most accurate and reliable intelli-
gence will be of no avail.
(Laqueur 1985: 8, 11)

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 Index
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accountability 9, 10, 15, 16, 22, 48, 80, 90, classical political economy 57
153 coding unit 86–7
accounting 5–17, 26–7, 31, 37, 39, 41, 45, coefficient 129–31, 134–9, 143–4, 148
48–9, 51, 53, 55, 57–9, 61, 66, 74, 76, collinearity 129–30, 143
80–1, 86, 90–1, 94, 96, 101, 107, 126, community 10, 17–18, 22, 28, 36, 44–6,
140, 150 61, 99, 109, 118, 122
agency theory 39–42, 94 conflict 40–1, 47, 57, 70, 76, 79
agenda 28 Confucianism 61
anti-corruption 124 constituent 40, 42, 47, 53–4
Asian 1, 29, 37 constructionism 75
association 19, 23–5, 30, 34, 36, 48, consumer visibility 20, 67–8, 72, 84, 103,
65–72, 109, 119, 123, 130–3, 144–9 132
assurance 4, 153 content analysis 5–6, 11, 20, 23–4, 36–7,
auditor 30, 64, 66–7, 99, 101, 109, 132, 80–90, 93, 95–6, 105, 150, 153
140, 153 context disclosure 96–8, 110
continuous scales 97, 100
belief systems 46 control variables 102, 104, 143, 145–7
benchmark 83, 89, 96–7, 107, 111, 138 corporate characteristics 5, 7, 30, 37, 48,
Big Four 66, 101, 141, 153 59–60, 64, 66–7, 69, 72–3, 100–3, 128,
bivariate 143, 146 132, 140, 142–4, 146–7, 149, 152, 154
board committee 70–3, 104, 142–3, 146 corporate citizen 53, 133
board composition 32–5 corporate governance 5, 7–8, 28, 32–6, 55,
board of directors 70, 143 68–73, 82, 102, 142, 146, 149, 152
board ownership 70–3, 104, 142–3, 146 corporate reputation 6–7, 26–8, 33–7,
board size 34–6, 70–3, 104, 142–3, 146 52–9, 63, 68–72, 82, 102, 104, 142,
bourgeois political economy 57–8 146–9
business ethics 55, 62 corporate websites 18, 24, 85
correlation 22, 129–30, 136, 138, 142–6
capital market 24 cost of equity capital 26
case study 81–2 creditor 19, 21, 33, 54, 64–7, 94, 101, 109,
categories 20, 23, 50–1, 55, 57, 81, 85–7, 129–33, 140, 152
97–9, 109–16, 124, 128–9, 132, 134 CSR report 4–7, 33–41, 59–60, 64, 68–73,
CEO/chairman duality 70, 73, 104, 144, 82–5, 88–9, 93, 96–108, 113–26,
146, 149, 152 141–54
charitable 51, 63 customer 54–5, 95, 99, 108–9, 125–6
China 1–8, 30–3, 36–8, 48, 60–4, 70–1,
82–4, 101, 103, 107–8, 114, 126–7, 132, data collection 82, 91, 154
140, 146, 149–52 decision-making 21, 55–6, 85, 94
Chi-squared 201–12 deductive process 78
 Index 163
dependent variable 83, 101, 104, 128, 130, frequency 6, 92–3, 95–6, 113
132, 136, 138, 140, 142–3
descriptive research 77 GDP 1
determinant 5, 11–12, 15, 19–21, 30, 32, general narrative 83, 93, 96–7, 107,
37–8, 56–7, 63–4, 67, 69, 81, 83, 132, 110–12, 138
140, 142, 150–2 geographic segment 96–7, 107, 138
developing country 1, 28, 31, 112, 126, government 2–4, 19, 21, 33, 35, 40, 54–5,
149–50 60–2, 64–5, 67, 84, 99, 101, 103, 108–9,
dichotomy 50 114, 118, 132, 140, 153
disaggregate 83, 96–7, 107, 111–12, 138 GRI 6, 12, 18–19, 24, 26, 37, 83, 87–8, 90,
disclosure items 6, 82–5, 93–6, 99–100, 92–100, 105–29, 132–8, 147, 154
106–12, 133, 136, 147, 151
disclosure quality 83, 92–5, 151 halo effect 146
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disclosure quantity 83, 92–5, 101, 105, harmonious society 62

115, 150–1 health and safety 2–3, 61, 122, 124
disclosure types 6, 82–5, 93–100, 105–12, heteroscedasticity 130, 132, 144
126, 133, 138, 140, 147, 151 high-profile 20, 68, 72, 84, 102, 104,
distribution 65, 84, 101, 103, 109, 113 113–14, 132, 140
donation 63, 107, 118 Hong Kong 31–3, 63
dummy variables 142–3 human rights 88, 96, 98–9, 109, 114–15,
119, 123, 129
earnings 25–6, 118 hypotheses 7, 39, 64, 68–9, 73, 76–8, 81,
ecological 2, 9, 25, 46 82, 146
economic performance 20, 24, 27, 56, 67,
69, 88, 96, 98, 114–19, 126, 128–9, image 26–7, 49–54, 59, 63–4, 68, 71, 107,
132–4, 151 126, 144, 152
emission 2, 107, 117, 121 impression management 7, 39, 41–2,
empirical model 6, 100–5, 128, 142, 151 49–53, 59–60, 63–4, 68–9, 73, 144, 146,
employee 10, 13, 17–18, 27, 29, 32, 38, 149–50, 152
44, 49, 54–5, 95, 98–9, 107–9, 118, independent variables 101–2, 104
122–3 indicator 24, 36, 66, 72, 88, 101–2, 106,
energy shortages 1–3, 31 115, 117–38
entrepreneurial 9 inductive process 78
environmental accounting 10, 12–14 information asymmetry 40–2
environmental auditing 12, 14 institutional theory 40–2
environmental pollution 1, 3, 31 instrumental 46, 50–1, 55
environmental protection 3, 13, 32, 47, 62, intangible assets 27
107, 117, 121 intensity of competition 20, 67, 72
environmental sensitivity 33 interdisciplinary research 80
epistemology 74–6, 79 interest group 9–10, 21, 40, 54–5, 57, 62,
ethical 16, 27–8, 55, 59 97
exemplification 51, 53 internet-based 56
explanatory research 77 interpretive 76–8
exploratory research 77 interpretivism 76
externalities 10, 13 interviews 28–9, 36, 78, 81–2
investor 9, 22, 25, 47, 65, 70, 94, 108
field research 80
financial leverage 65–6, 101, 129 Krippendorff 85, 88–9
financial performance 25, 27, 30, 55, Kruskal-Wallis 110, 112
59–60, 67, 69, 72–3, 102–4, 108, 130, Kyoto Protocol 3
143, 146–7, 149, 152
firm size 19–20, 24, 30–2, 36, 59–60, 64, labour practices 88, 95–6, 98–9, 107–8,
66–7, 69, 72–3, 104, 132–3, 140, 142–3, 114–15, 119, 122
146, 149, 152 lawsuit 46, 52
 164 Index
legitimacy 7, 12–15, 22–3, 30, 33, 39–49, public scrutiny 19, 64, 66, 72, 140, 152
52–3, 57–68, 72–3, 106–8, 114, 126,
130, 132, 140, 150–1 qualitative methods 5, 77–9
legitimation strategies 45, 48, 107 quality hierarchy 110, 112
Likert-type scales 97 quality scales 91–2
longitudinal 25, 29, 81, 154 quantitative methods 78–9
low-profile 84, 113–14 questionnaire 5–6, 15, 78–9, 82–3, 85,
94–100, 105–6, 108–11, 147, 150–1,
managerial motivation 15–16, 22 153
Mann-Whitney 110, 112
measuring unit 91 ranking 4, 23, 27–8, 72, 83–4, 101–4,
media 2, 4, 15, 18, 21, 23, 33, 37, 45, 47, 114–15, 126, 153–4
53, 55, 62, 85, 99, 109, 113–19, 126, 151 reactive 22, 45–53
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methodological issues 12–13, 17 regression 5, 81, 130–48

mixed methods 5, 78–9, 82, 105, 150 regulatory risk 20, 67–8, 72, 84, 132
model testing 11, 80–3 reliability 23, 87–9
multinational 61 reputation risk management 26, 28
multivariate 130, 132, 144 reputation-seeking 59–60, 69
research contributions 1, 6
naturalistic 78 respondents 97, 99, 103, 108–9, 112
nomological network 41–2 responsibility-driven 59
nonparametric tests 5 rhetoric 94–5
normative 15, 55, 63, 90
norms 40, 42–3, 59, 146 SEDI 5–6, 83, 89–90, 93, 95–6, 101,
105–6, 112–13, 128–33, 136–41, 147,
objectivism 75 151
observations 75, 78, 133 self-presentation 49, 52–3
occupational diseases and injuries 1–3 Shanghai Stock Exchange 4
OHS 2–3, 119 shareholder 10, 19, 21, 25, 28, 33–4, 42,
ontology 74–6 53–5, 64–7, 71, 94, 98–9, 101, 108–9,
ordinal 94, 96 129, 132, 140, 149, 151–2
ordinary least squares (OLS) 130 Shenzhen Stock Exchange 4
overseas listing 19, 21, 64, 67–8, 102 social accounting 9–16
ownership structure 32, 34–5 social actors 53, 75–6
social and environmental accounting 5–16,
paradigm 77, 79 31, 37, 45, 74, 80–1, 91, 126, 140, 150
Pearson correlation 129–30, 136, 138, social contract 44, 63
143–4 social performance 9, 55, 70, 88, 92, 119,
performance indicators 24, 88, 115, 122, 128–9, 132–3, 135
117–24, 138 socially responsible investment (SRI) 28
philosophical assumptions 74, 79, 82 socially responsible reputation 5–6, 37–9,
political economy 14, 40–2, 47, 57–8 60, 64, 68–73, 82–3, 102–5, 141–54
political visibility 20, 67, 72 stakeholder engagement 56–7, 61, 69, 99,
positivism 76 106, 108
positivistic 76–7, 82 stakeholder-driven 5–6, 151
pragmatic assumption 79, 82, 150 stakeholder panel consultation 6, 82–3, 85,
press release 15, 21 95–6, 99–100, 105–6, 112, 151
proactive 22–3, 45–8, 50–3, 133 stakeholders power 5, 7, 37, 64, 67, 100–1,
product responsibility 88, 95, 97–9, 109, 128, 132, 140, 154
114–15, 119, 124, 126, 129 stakeholder theory 7, 14, 33, 39–42,
profitability 19–21, 36, 64, 67, 72, 129–30, 54–64, 67, 73, 94, 126, 140, 150–1
132–3, 140, 142–3, 152 state-owned enterprises (SOEs) 3
proxy 5, 23–4, 51, 71–2, 83, 101, 105, 140, stock market 25–6, 30, 68, 84, 101–3, 132
147, 151 supplier 3, 54–5, 99, 109, 118, 123
 Index 165
SustainAbility 92, 109 value creation 26
sustainability report 4, 18, 88 value relevance 16, 24–5
sustainable development 3–4, 8, 18, 60 variance inflation factors 130, 143
sweatshop 109 verification 153
symbol 45–6, 78 visibility 20, 59, 67–8, 72, 84, 103, 114,
130, 132, 144
tactics 47, 50–3 voluntary disclosure 10, 22–3, 32–4, 132
theme 18, 86–7, 92–3, 96
toxic 2, 22, 24 weighting 80, 95–6, 103, 112, 136, 141
triangulation 79, 82 western-developed 33, 60, 62–3
triple bottom line 8–9 Wilcoxon 114
T-test 5, 81, 114 Wiseman 11–12, 14, 18, 23–4, 84–5, 91–2,
94, 138
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underlying 74, 82, 85, 87, 90

unions 4, 18, 83, 122
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