Secrecy, evidence, and fear: exploring the construction of intelligence power with Actor-Network Theory (ANT)

ABSTRACT

This article develops a critical notion of intelligence power, building on a developing rhetorical understanding of intelligence power within Critical Intelligence Studies (CIS) and intelligence’s impact already identified in the important case of Collin Powell’s 2003 United Nations (UN) speech. Using concepts from Actor-Network Theory (ANT), which perceives power as relationally constructed, the article argues the value of exploring how intelligence’s political impact can be conceptually tied to its institutional form and process. This approach steers Intelligence Studies (IS) away from an inward-looking understanding of intelligence, fundamentally involving intelligence’s impact with the political and social world in understanding what it is.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical Intelligence Studies
• Intelligence Theory
• Actor-Network Theory
• Iraq War

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Knightley, The Second Oldest Profession, 3.

2. Kent, Strategic Intelligence, xxiii; Herman, Intelligence Power, 1; Lowenthal, Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, 1; and George and Bruce, “Introduction. Intelligence Analysis,” 1.

3. Gill and Phythian, Intelligence in an Insecure world, 1.

4. Wheaton and Beerbower, “Towards a New Definition of Intelligence,” 319.

5. Warner, “Wanted: A Definition of “Intelligence””.

6. Pillar, Intelligence and US Foreign Policy; Cordesman, Intelligence Failures; Riste, “The Intelligence-Policy Maker Relationship,” 180–180-182; and Jervis, Why Intelligence Fails, 1–6.

7. Omand, Securing the State, 22–3.

8. Gill and Phythian, Intelligence in an Insecure World, 7.

9. Tang, “How Do We Know?” 663.

10. Sims, “Decision Advantage”.

11. Bean, “Intelligence Theory”.

12. Olcott, “The Legacy: Sherman Kent,” 22–3. See for example: de Werd, “Critical Intelligence”.

13. See for example; Stout and Warner, “Intelligence is as Intelligence Does”.

14. These include James Der Derian, Nate Kreuter, Nathan Woodard, Gunilla Eriksson, Minna Räsänen and James Nyce, Martin Thomas, Kevin Walby, Seantel Anaïs, Gail Harris, Alex Finley, Susan Hasler, Colin Atkinson, Myriam Cavelty and Victor Mauer as described in Bean, “Intelligence Theory from the Margins”.

15. Ibid., 498–9.

16. Ibid., 499.

17. Tang, “How Do We know?” 668.

18. Braun et al., “Rethinking Agency,” 796;Loughlan et al., “Mapping,” 37.

19. For discussion of the Iraq case within IS, see Jervis, Why Intelligence Fails; Lucas, “Recognising Politicization”.

20. Tang, “How Do We know?” 663, 668.

21. Wolff, “Assembling Legitimacy,” 27, 31, 34–5, 41, 43–4, 47–8 (Black Box). 25, 34, 42, 52 (Obligatory Passage Point). 24, 36 (Immutable Mobile). 26 (Inscription). 2, 6–7, 9, 14, 25, 26, 27, 52 (Prescription, denoting the embedding of a ‘socially expected rationality’ within policy instruments).

22. Ibid., 8–26.

23. Ibid., 3,25.

24. Herman, Intelligence Power, 2.

25. Ibid., 152, 154–155.

26. Bean, “Rhetorical and Critical/Cultural Intelligence Studies,” 499.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid.

29. Ibid., 501.

30. Bean, “Foucault’s Rhetorical Theory and U.S. Intelligence,” 29.

31. Ibid., 28.

32. Ibid.

33. Ibid.

34. Ibid., 29.

35. Latour, “The Powers of Association,” 264.

36. Ibid.

37. Ibid.

38. Ibid.

39. Bigo, “Shared Secrecy,” 382.

40. Aradau et al., “Introducing Critical Security Methods,” 1.

41. Salter, “Security Actor-Network Theory,” 353.

42. Loughlan et al, “Mapping,” 35.

43. Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, “Agency”.

44. Ibid.

45. Braun et al., “Rethinking Agency,” 796.

46. Ibid., 358.

47. Balzacq, “A theory of Securitization,” 17.

48. Ibid., 18.

49. See for example: Donnelly, Securitization and the Iraq War, 46, 85, 131, 135. Hughes, “Securitizing Iraq,” 84, 92–93. Note that the Powell case and the role of intelligence-procured information have been discussed from within a securitization approach (see for example Van der Heide) as has the materiality of Powell’s argument from within ANT.

50. See for example: Woodard, “Tasting the Forbidden Fruit,” 91–108.

51. Callon, “Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation,”196, 206.

52. Ibid.

53. Ibid., 228.

54. Ibid.

55. Ibid., 203.

56. Willmetts, “Cultural Turn in Intelligence Studies,” 9.

57. Horn, “Knowing the Enemy,” 71.

58. For a study of governmental intervention in intelligence with the aim of obtaining the intelligence sobriquet see Mitchell, “Team B Intelligence Coups”.

59. Wolff, “Assembling Legitimacy,” 32.

60. Hansen, “Reflexivity in Intelligence Work”.

61. Crum Ewing, “Abuse of Intelligence?”106; Freedman, “War in Iraq,” 27.

62. Crum Ewing, “Abuse of Intelligence?” 106.

63. Freedman, “War in Iraq,” 39.

64. Ibid.

65. Ibid., 10.

66. Ibid., 19.

67. Ibid., 20.

68. Van der Heide, “Cherry-Picked Intelligence,” 293.

69. Freedman, “War in Iraq,” 23.

70. Powell, “Remarks to the United Nations”.

71. Ibid.

72. Latour, “Visualisation and Cognition,” 29.

73. Callon and Latour, “Unscrewing the Big Leviathan,” 284.

74. Ibid., 12.

75. Ibid.

76. For a more thorough discussion of security preemption and temporality, see: De Goede, “Proscription’s Futures”.

77. Van der Heide, “Cherry-Picked Intelligence,” 297.

78. Salter, “Security Actor-Network Theory,” 354.

79. Ibid., 355.

80. See note 70 above.

81. Ibid.

82. Ibid.

83. Ibid.

84. Ibid.

85. Blok and Jensen, Latour: Hybrid thoughts, 35.

86. Ibid.

87. Ibid., 121.

88. Callon and Latour, “Unscrewing the Big Leviathan,” 284–285.

89. Wolff, “Assembling Legitimacy,” 34.

90. Ibid., 30–31.

91. Ibid., 31.

92. Horn, “Logics of Political Secrecy,” 120.

93. Ibid, 109. See also: Black, “Secrecy and Disclosure”; Newman, “Communication Pathologies of intelligence”.

94. Van der Heide, “Cherry-Picked Intelligence,” 298.

95. Rovner, Politics of Intelligence, 44, 46.

96. Ibid.

97. Ibid., 48.

98. Ibid.

99. Ibid.

100. Bigo, “Shared Secrecy,” 381.

101. Latour, “Visualisation and Cognition,” 13.

102. Ibid., 16.

103. Ibid.

104. Wolff, “Assembling Legitimacy,” 43.

105. Ibid.

106. Shelton, “Analytic Failures,” 638.

107. Ibid., 639.

108. See note 70 above.

109. The impact within Powell’s speech of the ability for ‘heterogeneous materials to be seamlessly represented in a single format’ has been previously noted, see for example Stark and Paravel, “Powerpoint Demonstrations,” 16–17.

110. Horn, “Knowing the Enemy,” 70.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

T. W. van de Kerke

Titus van de Kerke holds master’s degrees in History and Intelligence Studies from Aberystwyth University and Groningen University. His main research interest concerns the interaction between intelligence/security services and society.

C. W. Hijzen

Dr. Constant Hijzen is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs and the Institute for History at Leiden University (the Netherlands). In his dissertation, he focussed on the political, bureaucratic, and societal context of the Dutch security services. His current research focuses on the way Western security services lived through a paradigm shift from communism to terrorism as the most important target (1968-present).