Intelligence and the liberal conscience

Abstract

The question of how to reconcile the practice of national security intelligence with the values on which liberal democracies are understood to be based was very much present at the creation of Intelligence Studies. At a time when the conceptual landscape of Intelligence Studies has broadened, this article represents a revisiting of these first principles. In it, I explain the normative tension between the requirements of liberal democratic orders and the practice of national security intelligence as arising from three sources. First, the confusions that arise from liberalism itself as an ideology. Second, the constraining effect of the international. Third, the constraining ‘problem’ of the nature of the liberal democratic state. In light of these and contemporary anxieties about the implications of intelligence practice for liberal values, I discuss how far it is possible or useful to think in terms of ‘liberal intelligence’ and what its core characteristics might be held to be.

Acknowledgements

My thanks to the other participants on the ‘Intelligence Theory: What Is It Good For?’ panel at the 2017 International Studies Association Annual Convention for their comments and to Peter Gill for his helpful suggestions on a subsequent draft.

Notes

1. In doing this, I develop points I make in Omand and Phythian, “Ethics and Intelligence”; Omand and Phythian, Principled Spying.

2. Freeden, Liberalism, 15. See also Bell, “What is Liberalism?”

3. As in the title given to the text of the 2011 Reith Lectures by Manningham-Buller, Securing Freedom.

4. Pew Research Center, “Americans feel the tensions between privacy and security concerns,” February 19, 2016; http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/19/americans-feel-the-tensions-between-privacy-and-security-concerns/.

5. Warner, The Rise and Fall of Intelligence, 9. Warner is talking about foreign intelligence here.

6. Howard, War and the Liberal Conscience, 21.

7. Ibid., 72.

8. Warner, Review of PSI Handbook of Global Security and Intelligence: National Approaches.

9. See, for example, the discussion in Brantly, “Defining the Role of Intelligence in Cyber.”

10. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, 30–1.

11. Mearsheimer, “Structural Realism,” 73.

12. Howard, War and the Liberal Conscience, 18.

13. More, Utopia, 87.

14. Johnson, “Sketches for a Theory of Strategic Intelligence,” 36.

15. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections, ii.

16. For an overview, see Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution, Ch.3.

17. Moyn, The Last Utopia, 13.

18. Ibid., 212.

19. Ibid.

20. Howard, War and the Liberal Conscience, 129.

21. Moyn, The Last Utopia, 219.

22. Wiebes, Intelligence and the War in Bosnia, 52–7.

23. See Dorn, “United Nations Peacekeeping Intelligence.”

24. Discussed further in Omand and Phythian, “Ethics and Intelligence”; Omand and Phythian, Principled Spying.

25. National Security Strategy of the United States, 2002, 31.

26. Human Rights Watch, “US: ‘Hague Invasion Act’ Becomes Law.”

27. National Defense Strategy of the United States of America, March 2005, 5. See also the discussion in Goldsmith, The Terror Presidency, Ch.2.

28. Rosenau, Along the Domestic-Foreign Frontier, 4.

29. Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, III. 28.

30. In the words of Keller, The Liberals and J. Edgar Hoover, 6.

31. Cited in Crick, In Defence of Politics, 27.

32. Hay and Lister, “Introduction,” 7–8.

33. Weber, “The Profession and Vocation of Politics.”

34. Hoffman, Beyond the State, 5.

35. Madison et al., The Federalist Papers, 123–4.

36. Ibid., 125.

37. See the discussion in Barry, An Introduction to Modern Political Theory, Ch.3.

38. As Peter Gill has observed, contracting out in the area of security intelligence may not necessarily imply the hollowing out and weakening of the state. It could strengthen already weak states by enabling those roles to be performed to a higher, more professional, standard. See Gill, Intelligence Governance and Democratisation, Ch.3.

39. Keller, The Liberals and J. Edgar Hoover, 5.

40. Ibid.

41. See, Evans and Lewis, Undercover.

42. Keller, The Liberals and J. Edgar Hoover, 6–7.

43. Herman, “11 September,” 235, 228. The Times editorial to which he refers is from May 26, 1999.

44. See, for example, Priest and Arkin, Top Secret America.

45. Unger, The Emergency State. See also, Robin, Fear.

46. Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History; Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man.

47. See, for example, Runciman, The Confidence Trap.

48. For example, Agamben, State of Exception; Scheuerman, “Survey Article.”

49. See, for example, West, “Fiction, Faction and Intelligence.”

50. Wark, “Introduction,” 10.

51. Le Carré, The Secret Pilgrim, 391.

52. Ibid., 392.

53. Ibid., 208.

54. This also, of course, recalls Weber on bureaucracy. For a similar expression of liberal concerns, see Freedland, “The Spooks Will Keep Spying On Us.” For a contrasting view, see the letter from Lord West on the following page which argues, inter alia, that: “We should be clear that the men and women in the agencies and police work tirelessly to ensure our greatest freedom, that of life itself.”

55. McElvoy, “I Had the Odd Sleepless Night,” 21.

56. Wolf with McElvoy, Man Without A Face.

57. Herman, “11 September,” 228.

58. See, for example, Weaver and Ackerman, “Trump Claims Torture Works but Experts Warn of its ‘Potentially Existential’ Costs.”

59. See the discussion in Omand and Phythian, Principled Spying.

60. Herman, “11 September.”

61. Hennessy, The New Protective State.

62. Omand, Securing the State, 9.

63. Hennessy, The Secret State, xiv.

64. In the following paragraph Hennessy did note that until the end of the Cold War “much of the secret state operated without the benefit of statute, external regulation or oversight.” Ibid. But of course, not all liberals were happy with this state of affairs and were agitating for some form of oversight well before it was finally granted.

65. Independent Surveillance Review, A Democratic Licence to Operate.

66. Tilly, Democracy, Ch.1.