Critical Intelligence Studies: a new framework for analysis

ABSTRACT

As the purpose of the study of intelligence is, in part, to aid the practice of intelligence, scholarship must reflect that practice. This article sets out a theoretical framework for Critical Intelligence Studies that will increase the real-world applicability of the study of intelligence as currently represented by Intelligence Studies. Critical Security Studies’ recognition of the broadening and widening of the concept of security, and the ensuing recognition that intelligence work is not only done by state intelligence agencies or for the security of states, provides an opportunity to push forward the study of intelligence into a position where a well-developed, and theoretically sound, Critical Intelligence Studies can be meaningfully said to exist.

Introduction

The central premise of this article is that the move from Intelligence Studies to Critical Intelligence Studies, can – and should – take inspiration from the critical turn taken by Security Studies. Intelligence Studies scholars remain overwhelmingly focused on the activities of state intelligence agencies working in support of national security. As will be demonstrated herein, there are two limitations to this. The first is that state intelligence agencies already pay attention to non-traditional, non-military threats, leaving Intelligence Studies scholars behind the curve in reflecting this practice. Second is that intelligence work is not restricted to state employees but is also undertaken in and for the private sector. Again, although some progress has been made here, scholars have so far been slow to recognise this and to reflect it in their research. By accepting that security can – and is – defined not only in terms of individual states or in terms of traditional, military threats to states, we can develop a sub-field that reflects practice. The study of intelligence has long been driven by practice: this article argues that there is some work to do to catch up with practice and that a critical turn in Intelligence Studies can provide a much-needed theoretical framework with which to achieve this.

This article proceeds by first assessing how Intelligence Studies scholarship defines intelligence, and how it describes the purpose of this academic discipline. It makes clear the discipline’s focus heretofore on intelligence as a function of state actors and as an activity that is conducted in pursuit of state security. After articulating these limits to the current study of intelligence, the article’s second section examines the critical turn taken in Security Studies. This turn, it will be shown, has seen a broadening and widening of the conceptualisation of security. As the purpose of intelligence practice is to improve and support security, the re-conceptualisation of security seen in Critical Security Studies provides an established and well-theorized approach that can form the basis of Critical Intelligence Studies.

While there are already scholarly publications that describe themselves as adopting a critical approach to Intelligence Studies,¹ as it stands the sub-field is theoretically under-developed. Two of those publications suggest that Critical Security Studies can be used, though they do so briefly. Those articles appear in the 2021 ”Critical Intelligence Studies” special issue of Intelligence and National Security, and are Berma Klein Goldewijk’s examination of Critical Security Studies and Critical War Studies, and Cristina Ivan, Irena Chiru and Rubén Arcos’s study of digital communication.² A valuable 2018 study by Hamilton Bean – ”Intelligence theory from the margins” – identifies that a range of theoretical approaches beyond the traditional have already begun to be applied to the study of intelligence.³ Further valuable theorising was produced by Hager Ben Jaffel, Alvina Hoffman, Oliver Kearns and Sebastian Larsson in a 2020 article that proposes intelligence be understood as a social phenomenon.⁴ These, and the introduction to the 2021 special issue, tend to focus if not on state intelligence actors, then on the benefits of intelligence for the state rather than for private actors.⁵ These works differ from the current article chiefly in that they focus predominantly on intelligence activities conducted by state actors and in the extent to which they consider the benefits of applying a Critical Security Studies framework to the study of intelligence. In the latter sense, the current article builds on and significantly expands on these previous works, providing a framework for future scholarship about and within Critical Intelligence Studies.

The final section of this article uses key features of the critical turn in Security Studies to argue for a new approach to pushing forward the Critical Intelligence Studies agenda. It does so by demonstrating that the broadening and widening of the concept of security, as seen in the critical turn in Security Studies, is already reflected in state intelligence practices, and that although intelligence scholars have begun to acknowledge this, much greater scholarly attention is warranted. Additionally, this section of the article uses the critical turn’s attention to who provides security to prompt and encourage greater scholarly attention to the under-studied elements of the state’s intelligence apparatus: namely the police forces and armed forces. Finally, it uses the critical turn’s focus on ”whose security?” to push for the acknowledgement that intelligence work is conducted not only by and for states, but also by and for the private sector. Although some inroads have already been made into research in these areas, this article calls for this to gather pace so the study of intelligence does not get too far behind the realities of intelligence work, and to do so with a theoretical underpinning. By adopting these features of the critical turn in Security Studies, scholars can develop a sub-field of Critical Intelligence Studies that much better reflects intelligence practice. In turn, this sub-field can then better support the practice of intelligence – even if it does so by critiquing and highlighting poor practice – and do so not only for the state intelligence agencies, but for other state agencies that also carry out intelligence work, and for the private sector that carries out intelligence work for its own benefit.

The purpose of intelligence and of Intelligence Studies

Academics are yet to agree on the best way to describe or define intelligence. Some approach the task through the lens of intelligence as a process, while others focus on intelligence’s purpose. Underpinning both of these approaches though is the link between intelligence and security, even though this link is not often asserted directly despite it being relatively uncontentious, or perhaps even because of that. The UK’s Security Service Act 1989, which put the Security Service (MI5) onto a statutory footing for the first time, acknowledges this link when it describes MI5’s function as ”the protection of national security”.⁶ Safety, rather than security, is the term of choice used by the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) when it describes its purpose as to ”make the UK safer and more prosperous”,⁷ and by the US’s Central Intelligence Agency whose mission is to ”leverage the power of information to keep our Nation [sic] safe”.⁸ Similarly, the US’s intelligence agencies describe their collective mission as ”to collect, analyse, and deliver foreign intelligence and counterintelligence information to America’s leaders so they can make sound decisions to protect our country”.⁹ Safety and protection are the result of security, and it is therefore uncontroversial to assert that security is the overarching purpose of state intelligence agencies. Also evident here is a focus on the security of the state to which they belong, and therefore on national security rather than other forms of security. Critical Security Studies” input on defining intelligence will be discussed later in the article.

One of many to comment on the purpose of intelligence was the late Brian Stewart CMG, a Deputy Chief of SIS and Secretary of the Joint Intelligence Committee. He described its purpose as to find the truth, specifying further that it is ”to discover the truth behind the lies and obfuscations of our rivals and our enemies”.¹⁰ Others are more specific, thereby limiting the types of activities they are talking about. Sir David Omand, a former Director of GCHQ, specifies in Securing the State that this book is concerned with secret intelligence. By ”secret intelligence” he means an intelligence product that is not based solely on open source intelligence.¹¹ Omand describes secret intelligence as something that supports the government by seeking to provide public security.¹² It does so, he writes, by reducing ignorance and uncertainty amongst decision-makers.¹³ Jennifer Sims and Michael Warner have made similar points. Sims wrote that ”Good intelligence involves reducing uncertainty relative to adversaries and in the context of conflict at hand”,¹⁴ while Warner notes ”Intelligence has been widely viewed as a tool for managing risk – indeed, any number of authors have remarked that intelligence is a means of reducing uncertainty for decision-makers”.¹⁵ Sims and Warner do not specify what types of decision-makers are being addressed here. This is perhaps surprising: if intelligence is defined as having a particular purpose, it might follow that the types of beneficiary ought to be specified.

When intelligence is described not by its purpose but as a process it is easier to see it as something that is not confined to state intelligence agencies. When Stewart defined intelligence as a process involving collection, analysis, assessment and presentation, he himself acknowledged, ”This activity is not, of course, the exclusive domain of governments; any organisation needs a good information base”.¹⁶ The 2017 Palgrave Handbook of Security, Risk and Intelligence provides readers with an insightful chapter on ”corporate intelligence” by Arthur Weiss.¹⁷ Part of that chapter addresses the process followed in corporate intelligence, as originally outlined by Michael Porter in 1980.¹⁸ By articulating that this involves collecting, compiling, cataloguing, assessing, analysing and communicating data, it can be seen that this is strikingly similar to the intelligence cycle as outlined in the Intelligence Studies literature.¹⁹

When intelligence is described as existing in order to support government or state decision-makers the state is necessarily central. This type of intelligence exists to help protect the state against threats. Intelligence practice therefore focuses on threats that can be considered dangerous to states. Intelligence Studies scholars have acknowledged that the type of threats considered should be broadened either in intelligence practice, in (Critical) Intelligence Studies scholarship, or in both. Intelligence and National Security’s 2020 special issue on health intelligence demonstrates that this broadening of scholarship has begun.²⁰ In a survey conducted eight years earlier Intelligence and National Security’s editorial board noted ”non-traditional threat assessments, such as forecasting the occurrence of natural disasters” as under-researched areas.²¹ These remain under-researched today.

If intelligence is defined as being for the benefit of a state, then Intelligence Studies can justifiably address only this. But the term ”intelligence” is used in many other contexts, such as corporate intelligence. It is an appropriate label to use in those other contexts because its purpose – supporting decision-makers by reducing uncertainty, and thereby increasing security – is the same whether the beneficiaries are state or non-state actors. A difference is what types of organisations carry out this work: because of its focus on national security and secret intelligence, Intelligence Studies focuses on state intelligence agencies. When intelligence is understood to be something broader, other organisations become ”intelligence actors”, ranging from terrorist groups to private companies. Specifying that the intelligence being discussed in the literature is ”national” or ”secret” intelligence is useful because it serves as an acknowledgement and a reminder that other types of intelligence work exists.

Parallel to discussions about the purpose of intelligence practice is the matter of the purpose of Intelligence Studies. A theme within this literature is its relationship with practitioners. Although aiding the practice of intelligence ought not to be described as its sole aim, it is a prominent aim of Intelligence Studies scholarship. The discipline is aided in achieving this by maintaining working relationships between academics and former practitioners, especially in the US where academic departments include a larger number of individuals with practical experience in the field.²² Former practitioners turned academics are some of the leading figures in Intelligence Studies. These figures include Jan Goldman (FBI), the late Michael Herman (GCHQ) and Omand (GCHQ).²³

Naturally, there is variety in the extent to which intelligence practitioners take heed of scholarship.²⁴ Stephen Marrin argues persuasively that Intelligence Studies is useful for the intelligence professional, and that efforts should be made to improve Intelligence Studies (partly) for this reason.²⁵ He also makes practical recommendations about how to close the gap between intelligence analysts and Intelligence Studies scholars in particular.²⁶ A growing number of Masters programmes tailored to the intelligence practitioner will help improve this relationship. Higher Education, Marrin writes, contributes to the practice of national security intelligence by ”interpreting its past, understanding its present, and forecasting its future”.²⁷

The benefits of Intelligence Studies scholarship can be felt beyond national security intelligence practitioners though. Its analyses of where failures can creep in to the intelligence cycle, for instance,²⁸ can apply to open source intelligence work carried out by or for multinational corporations, whether that be to protect their CEOs from threats when travelling to countries experiencing high levels of political violence or deciding whether a particular country is going to remain politically stable enough to expand its business into. Intelligence Studies literature addressing how to improve intelligence analysis will also apply. Indeed, Marrin argues persuasively that the Intelligence Studies knowledge that analysts need to do their jobs well includes ”how intelligence is collected, analysed, processed, and distributed, all within group, organisational, cultural, and national contexts”.²⁹

If Intelligence Studies exists, at least in part, to support practice, then widening the types of practices included means widening Intelligence Studies. This article argues this should be referred to as Critical Intelligence Studies. What is already present in Intelligence Studies is useful for practices other than national security intelligence. Research into those other practices will reveal whether different questions are raised by these practices that are not yet covered by existing scholarship in Intelligence Studies or beyond.

What is evident from this analysis of the Intelligence Studies scholarship’s understanding of the purpose of intelligence and the purpose of studying it, is firstly its interest in intelligence as an activity that aims to increase security, and secondly its focus on the security of states. That focus on states sees attention paid primarily to individual states though there is acknowledgement of the value international intelligence cooperation can have in support of security as well.³⁰ As intelligence is intrinsically linked to security – whether national or international – in order to conceptualize intelligence, the conceptualization of security must first be investigated.

Critical security studies: the broadening and widening of security

The concept of security is surrounded by imprecisions and controversies. The imprecisions arise from what exactly the concept is and the controversies are because of the uncertainty as to what are the issues or referent objects to accord security. Contrary to Alan Collins’ ”good news that a consensus has emerged on what security studies entails – it is to do with threats to survival”,³¹ the unsettling truth is that there is now a wider schism as to what security issues are. How can there be a consensus when there is intense debate among scholars as to who secures, and what is to be secured; who threatens whose security and what are the issues at stake? Above all, how can we say that there is consensus when methodologically there is serious divergence? To think of security therefore in terms of mere survival is narrow and weak. The imprecisions and controversies could also be argued to arise from the evolution of security studies. The power politics of the Cold War period narrowed the concept of security around the state and national security as the major referent objects needing security. However international politics witnessed a tectonic shift with the receding of the Cold War, bringing about a redefinition of the concept of security and widening of referent objects.

Arnold Wolfers thought that ”security, in an objective sense, measures the absence of threats to acquired values in a subjective sense, the absence of fear that such values will be attacked”.³² The vital question will be what those values are and to whom they belong. It could be the state, individual, particular identities or societies. For Ole Waever, ”the concept of security refers to the state”, ”security in other words has to be read through the lens of national security”.³³ But the evolution of global politics has also meant that ”redefining security” is consequently abundant with ”not only”, ”also” and ”more than” arguments.³⁴ The result is that in subsequent works from Waever’s colleagues (for example Barry Buzan, Weaver and Jaap de Wilde³⁵) the idea of widening and deepening the discourse on security was introduced with the incorporation of wider referent objects of security. The ”not only” argument has also brought about almost a disregard for the state but more focus on the individual as major security object. Ken Booth had therefore postulated thus;

Security means the absence of threats. Emancipation is the freeing of people (as individuals and groups) from those physical and human constraints which stop them carrying out what they would freely choose to do. War and threat of war is one of those constraints, together with poverty, poor education, and political oppression and so on. Security and emancipation are two sides of the same coin. Emancipation not power or order produces true security. Emancipation theoretically is security.³⁶

A while after Booth’s paradigm,³⁷ the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) was worried by the horrendous developments of conflicts, wars, hunger, famine and abuses going on around the world and came up with yet a wider take on referent objects and issues of security. The UNDP therefore noted that:

With dark shadows of the Cold War receding, one can now see that many conflicts are within nations rather that between nations. For most people, a feeling of insecurity arises more from worries about daily life than from the dread of cataclysmic world events. Will they and their families have enough to eat? Will they lose their jobs? Will their streets and neighbourhood be safe from crime? Will their religion or ethnic origin target them for persecution? In the final analysis human security is a child who did not die, a disease that did not spread, a job that was not cut, an ethnic tension that did not explode in violence; a dissident who was not silenced. Human security is not a concern with weapons – it is a concern with human life and dignity.³⁸

The foregoing has briefly demonstrated the imprecisions and controversies surrounding the concept and definition of security. The plan is not to privilege any particular definition or offer an alternative. It prepares the ground for the argument over objectivity and subjectivity in the application of the concept of security. For instance Buzan, Waever and de Wilde argued that there is no objective security; instead it is socially and inter-subjectively constructed according to the predilection of political leaders, actors or institutions and their audiences.³⁹ Thierry Balzacq argued however on the side of objectivity that ”some security problems are the attributes of the development itself”.⁴⁰ In short, threats are not only institutional; some of them can actually wreck entire political communities regardless of the use of language. In other words there are threats according to this line of thought, which are out there, external and independent of the actors labelling them so and this article disagrees with that opinion. It argues instead that security is a constructivist agenda. There may be many threats but they only become framed as security issues by someone whose ”values” are threatened.

Wolfers argues that ”Security, in an objective sense, measures the absence of threats to acquired values, in a subjective sense, the absence of fear that such values will be attacked”.⁴¹ Traditionally, the term security was sought through military might. Therefore, the referent object, which is the thing that needs to be secured, was the state.⁴² Similarly, Waever states that ”Security is, in historical terms, the field where states threaten each other, challenge each other’s sovereignty, try to impose their will on each other, defend their independence, and so on”.⁴³ However, after the end of the Cold War, the term security and the core assumptions about the referent object had begun to occupy scholars’ thoughts. As a result, alternative approaches to security, which offer different referent objects, started to evolve.⁴⁴ In that sense, there are other issues that are perceived as existential threats, which are not related to the military realm. For instance, migration,⁴⁵ lack of water sources,⁴⁶ and diseases.⁴⁷ Thus, as Weaver mentioned, in order to have a comprehensive understanding of the term security, it was vital to “broaden the security agenda to include threats other than the military ones”.⁴⁸

Securitization theory was developed in a broader attempt to redefine the concept of security, as it introduces a wider security perception, which comprises not only military security but also political, societal, economic, and environmental security. In adopting a constructivist approach to the study of security, securitization theory, which was developed by Buzan, Waever and de Wilde from the “Copenhagen School” (CS), explores the process in which social entities transform issues into security threats. In short, there are three key main components in securitization theory: (1) referent object: thing that is seen to be existentially threatened and has a legitimate claim to survive; (2) securitizing actor: actor who securitizes issues by declaring something (a referent object) existentially threatened; and (3) audience: the target that needs to be persuaded that the referent object is existentially threatened.⁴⁹ Although it seems that the move from normal to emergency mode is immediate, in most cases, securitization is in fact a very gradual process and it is very rarely that an issue moves directly from normalcy to emergency.⁵⁰ In that context, Sarah Leonard and Christian Kaunert suggest ”not to follow too closely the traditional and narrow definition of security as advocated by the Copenhagen School as it may hamper the understanding of ‘real life’ security dynamics”.⁵¹ Alternatively, they assert that securitization occurs even when the security issue is located at the lower level of the normalcy/existential threat spectrum.⁵² Thus, securitization does not necessarily incorporate aspects of emergency, exceptionalism or illegality. In that sense, this article supports Leonard and Kaunert’s view, which reflects how security issues are being perceived and dealt with in reality.⁵³

In Buzan’s People, States and Fear the attention is on the state as the referent object of security.⁵⁴ For Waever, ”the concept of security refers to the state”.⁵⁵ But in Buzan, Waever and de Wilde, while arguing for deepening and widening the ground of Security Studies to accommodate diverse referent objects of security they still gave primacy to state.⁵⁶ Consider also that in Regions and Power, Buzan and Waever articulated theories about the structure of contemporary international security.⁵⁷ They postulated that there are neorealist, globalist and regionalist perspectives. According to them they are convinced thus; ”that in the post-Cold War world, the regional level stands more on its own as the locus of conflict cooperation for states and as the level of analysis for scholars seeking to explore contemporary security affairs”. Here, the Copenhagen School scholars through Regional Security Complex Theory privileged the state as the focus of security analysis even while advocating for expanding the ground for security discourse. And Waever, Buzan, Morten Kelstrup and Pierre Lemaitre left no one in doubt as to what should be secured.⁵⁸ Society and identity are seen as objective realities out there needing security. If this is accepted as the focus of their argument, one will begin to question the place of other values of that same society. Are they now treated as irrelevant?⁵⁹ This ”wonderful” innovation on security studies (starting with People, States and Fear⁶⁰) to which according to Booth many authors ”have been writing footnotes”,⁶¹ has also in more recent publications attracted negative comments. Leonard and Kaunert have revealed its lack of clarity on who constitutes the audience in the speech-act process.⁶² According to Buzan, Waever and de Wilde, an ”issue is securitized only if and when the audience accepts it as such”.⁶³ In other words a securitizing actor will have to make an argument about an issue in such a way that it will find resonance with an audience. But the character and composition of this audience were not clarified.

One of the substantial contributions of securitization theory is the way in which the concept of security is perceived. In contrast to the realist concept that perceives threats objectively (there is a ”real” threat), securitization theory adopts a constructivist approach to security. Thus, securitization theory perceives threats as a social construction on the basis of a speech act⁶⁴ or practices.⁶⁵ Hence, arguing that threats are not ”real” but ”perceived”, securitization theory focuses on the process of how issues intersubjectively transform into security threats. In other words, an issue becomes a security threat not because it constitutes an objective threat to the referent object, but rather when an audience accepts the securitizing actor’s position that the issue constitutes an existential threat to the referent object. In that sense, it is impossible to fully verify whether a threat is “real” or not, as securitization theory focuses on the process of how issues transform into security threats and how those issues are being perceived. To illustrate this argument, let us consider the following scenario: Two people, Person A and Person B, armed with pistols, arrive at a remote island inhabited by a native population, who have never seen or heard of firearms. When the two armed people reach the shores of the island, a group of locals arrive and threaten the two uninvited guests with their bayonets. In response, Person A pulls out his gun and threatens to fire at the native group. The islanders, who have never seen or heard of firearms, and especially not about their ability to kill people, do not actually understand what the tool is that Person A is holding. It is very possible that those locals do not feel threatened by the gun at all. Moreover, it is not inconceivable to assert that some of them would think that Person A greets them and tries to bestow them the gun as a token of friendship. Without a doubt, had Person A shot the gun and killed one of the natives, or if Person B had convinced them that the gun is lethal, they would have changed their perception of the gun and would have recognized it as a security threat. Yet, until that happens, the islanders do not realize that the pistol poses a security menace to them.

This scenario clearly demonstrates one of the key factors of security threats. On the one hand, from an objective point of view, there is no doubt that the gun poses a security threat to the lives of the islanders. On the other hand, however, it is also a fact that from a subjective perspective, the pistol is not perceived by islanders as a security menace. Thus, a paradox is created, in which the gun is simultaneously both a security threat and non-security menace. To overcome this situation, we need to decide what the purpose of our examination is. Thus, while we pursue understanding of how people and states confront security threats, we must first focus on how they perceive them as such. In other words, it is their subjective and more precisely their inter-subjective character that counts for our understanding, not the objective one. In fact, this is the essence of Securitization Theory, which examines how social entities decide what an existential threat is and how to deal with it.

Despite the originality of the theory, there are scholars who criticize the CS’s ignorance of the objectivity of security threats. Booth argues that the CS’s conception misses chunks of reality, as it is “based on the fallacy that threats do not exist outside discourse”.⁶⁶ For instance, Booth asserts that “the danger posed by global warming to low-lying island states was a physical process long before the discourse of environmental security was invented by its proponents and listened to by their audiences”.⁶⁷ This article holds that Booth is partly right. On the one hand, it is true that the CS’s framework ignores the objectivity of threats. According to the CS, an issue becomes a security threat not because it constitutes an objective threat to the referent object, but rather when an audience accepts the securitizing actor’s position that the issue poses an existential threat to the referent object. On the other, the main aim of securitization theory is not to suggest whether a threat is ”real” or not, but to explore how an issue becomes a security threat in the eyes of social entities. Therefore, the theory must focus on the threat’s subjectivity and not on its objectivity. In other words, for exploring securitization, it does not matter whether a threat is ”real” or not, rather whether social entities perceive this threat as ”real”. In that context, it is important to clarify that ”threat” is a relative term, as it is perceived differently in diverse places.⁶⁸

As can be seen, intelligence activities may cover many different security areas, whether it be political, economic, social, environmental, health or cultural. Further, its ability to cover this wide range of areas is considered to be an indicator of intelligence professionalism and institutionalisation.⁶⁹ In other words, just as in the case of securitisation, ”widening” lies at the centre of intelligence activities that attempt to handle various security issues and threats at a professional level. Security is the main point of intersection for both securitisation and intelligence. In fact, the overriding raison d’etre or the object of intelligence is security (again military, political, societal, environmental and economic).⁷⁰ A further point of intersection can be interactions (intersubjective processes)⁷¹ and threat perceptions.⁷² As Phythian put it, ”the absence of any general agreement on a definition of the subject has implications for the development of theoretical work”.⁷³

The case for Critical Intelligence Studies

This final section of this article begins by examining the broadening and widening of security that can already be seen in state intelligence practices, and in the study of intelligence. It establishes that intelligence practices conducted by states have already adapted to the broadening of the concept of security, and that scholars have already made some moves to reflect this. It then argues that state agencies other than their intelligence agencies conduct intelligence work and that therefore scholarship should pay more attention to this intelligence function held by police forces and armed forces. When the focus is on the security of states, intelligence scholarship should pay due attention to the full range of intelligence activities that are carried out for that purpose. Finally this section uses the critical turn in Security Studies’ incorporation of the question ”whose security” to acknowledge that it is not only for states’ security that intelligence work is carried out. Indeed, intelligence work is conducted by the private sector, in ways that have considerable parallels with intelligence practices carried out by state intelligence and security agencies for the state’s own security, and this too should feature in Critical Intelligence Studies. Currently, the latter two are addressed in Intelligence Studies to a much lesser extent than is state intelligence agencies’ work to protect states against state-based threats. Adopting this article’s approach to Critical Intelligence Studies therefore encourages other areas of intelligence practice to be studied, and to be studied to a greater degree.

As Intelligence Studies is a discipline driven by practice, it is sensible to evaluate it in these terms. Practitioners have adapted to changes in the way security is conceptualized; academics ought to be doing the same. One of the advantages of the alignment between practice and academia – as argued above – is that it allows Intelligence Studies to help practitioners. As practice evolves, therefore, so too should scholarship. States have long acknowledged that threats to their security should no longer be described exclusively or predominantly in military terms. The UNDP Report on human security issued in 1994, referred to above, best illustrates this. Helping to obtain, improve or stabilize security is the purpose of intelligence practice. It aims to support the pursuit and maintenance of security by reducing uncertainty for decision-makers. That states have acknowledged changes to the conceptualisation of security leads us to ask whether, or to what extent, state intelligence agencies have also adopted that change. When intelligence practice is the subject of Intelligence Studies, we should ask what intelligence practice concerns before moving on to acknowledge that steps have already been taken towards producing scholarship that reflects those practices.

To do this we can demonstrate that western states’ intelligence agencies are already concerned with the strands of human security articulated by the UNDP report. Political security, one of the UNDP’s strands of human security, concerns people being “able to live in a society that honours their basic human rights” and being protected from state repression.⁷⁴ Recent threats to political security include Russian interference in the 2016 US Presidential elections and in the UK’s 2016 referendum on EU membership. Regarding the latter, it has been convincingly noted that the impact of any such attempts to influence the referendum “would be difficult – if not impossible – to assess”, but that establishing “whether a hostile state took deliberate action with the aim of influencing a UK democratic process” is important.⁷⁵ There is evidence in the public domain that the UK intelligence community was aware of ”the Russian threat to the UK’s democratic processes and political discourse”,⁷⁶ therefore confirming that intelligence agencies recognize the political strand of threats to security.

Moving on to the topic of health security, the US intelligence community have sought to establish the origins of the COVID-19 virus. Agreeing that the virus was not developed as a biological weapon, they also agreed there were two plausible explanations: ”natural exposure to an infected animal and a laboratory-associated incident”.⁷⁷ Although this was a backward-looking investigation, its purpose was to ”trace the roots of this outbreak … so that we can take every precaution to prevent it happening again”.⁷⁸ It therefore is in line with intelligence’s purpose of helping decision-makers by reducing uncertainty. In President Joe Biden’s words, “Pandemics do not respect international borders, and we all must better understand how COVID-19 came to be in order to prevent further pandemics”.⁷⁹ His press statement called upon China to cooperate by sharing information, echoing the joint US intelligence community report that asserted they could not reach conclusive findings on the origins of COVID-19 without China’s cooperation. ”China’s cooperation”, the Office for the Director of National Intelligence wrote, ”most likely would be needed to reach a conclusive assessment of the origins of COVID-19”.⁸⁰

Organized crime is also known to be a subject of concern for western intelligence agencies. The US intelligence community have acknowledged that organized crime is a threat,⁸¹ and it is part of the tasking given to the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).⁸² Like the other strands of human security, organized crime too is not widely considered to be a threat in a military sense. Economic security for individuals, as outlined in the UNDP Report, ”requires an assured basic income”.⁸³ Organized crime results in unemployment,⁸⁴ rendering it something that falls under the broadened definition of security. Personal security, according to the UNDP Report, is security from physical violence, including when that comes from crime.⁸⁵ Europol’s 2021 four-yearly Serious and Organized Crime Threat Assessment found that the use of violence by organized crime gangs seemed to be increasing in terms of frequency of use and severity.⁸⁶ Around 60 per cent of criminal networks ”use violence as part of their criminal businesses”.⁸⁷

(Critical) Intelligence Studies scholars must be given credit for already pursuing research into some of these developments in state intelligence agencies’ practices. Just some examples are Evan Barnard, Loch K. Johnson and James Porter’s work on environmental security intelligence in the US,⁸⁸ a growing collection of texts on health intelligence concerning the COVID-19 pandemic,⁸⁹ and examinations of Russian efforts to influence the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election.⁹⁰ It is hoped that this very recent growth in reflecting state intelligence practices will continue.

As noted above, an examination of Critical Security Studies also reveals a lack of consensus on “who secures” and “whose security”. This perspective should lead us to question Intelligence Studies’ focus hitherto on intelligence as an activity carried out by state intelligence agencies for the primary benefit of individual states. The first of two broadenings this gives rise to is that intelligence is also a practice conducted in the interests of states not only by state intelligence agencies, but also by police forces and the armed forces. The second is private intelligence, to which this article will turn below.

Human beings seek security from threats.⁹¹ As individuals we desire economic and financial security, amongst other forms of security. For our bank accounts to be secure against fraud requires, for instance, that suspected fraud cases be investigated and, where possible, brought to trial. Significant efforts therefore need to be made to collect evidence that is admissible in court. Preventing fraud also requires intelligence, however. In the UK, at least, this kind of work is primarily conducted by law enforcement agencies in the form of the police and the National Crime Agency, rather than by dedicated intelligence agencies.

If intelligence is defined as something that concerns only threats to national security, then only bodies set up and run by the state will be the subject of Intelligence Studies. Even with this fairly narrow definition the intelligence work conducted by police forces, the National Crime Agency and the armed forces is relevant. The armed forces have certainly already gained some attention from an Intelligence Studies perspective, as research into the weaknesses in intelligence practice that allowed the surprise attack on the US at Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941 to take place demonstrates.⁹²

Criminologist and former police officer Jerry Ratcliffe has led the charge in scholarship on intelligence-led policing. This is a proactive model of policing where actions are informed – or ”led” – by intelligence.⁹³ The study of this policing model addresses matters such as how technology facilitates it.⁹⁴ Valuable work on police intelligence has also been produced by Colin Atkinson, who analyses the impact of police culture on interactions between police officers and intelligence analysts who, although working for the police, have not served on the street.⁹⁵ Traditionally, Intelligence Studies has neglected intelligence when it is conducted by law enforcement agencies, though this is arguably less the case with the FBI than it is with UK police forces and the National Crime Agency (and its predecessor the Serious and Organized Crime Agency). As John Buckley writes, ”Academic research relating to intelligence in a law enforcement context, of practical worth, is extremely limited”.⁹⁶ Peter Gill persuasively attributes this to Intelligence Studies’ focus ”on foreign and military intelligence”, which itself stems from its interests in “international relations and/or history”. He adds that in comparison to foreign and military intelligence,

intelligence matters regarding crime and internal security have been studied by few, with far less archival material available and less mileage to be gained with publishers who have become just as entranced with terrorism as many governments have become obsessed.⁹⁷

Intelligence Studies scholarship that does directly address police forces’ intelligence work tends to focus on case studies. An example is that concerning ”the troubles” in Northern Ireland and its associated threats to security.⁹⁸

While scholars have already begun to acknowledge and incorporate the broadening of state attitudes towards security into their work, the exercise in incorporating private intelligence work into scholarship is much less advanced. This is only now beginning to be addressed by intelligence scholars, though certain other disciplines already include this kind of analysis, as explained below. The examination above of Critical Security Studies revealed a lack of consensus on ”whose security”. This perspective encourages us to extend our understanding of intelligence practice into something that is done by non-state actors with the purpose of helping bring about or improve security for non-state actors.

Non-state actors are concerned with their own security and carry out intelligence work in support of that agenda. This is the case for terrorist and insurgent groups,⁹⁹ but that is not the subject of this article. Instead, the focus here is on companies. Giving due academic attention to these intelligence practices ought to be a key feature of Critical Intelligence Studies, setting it apart from the traditional approach to the study of intelligence.

When it is acknowledged that the purpose of intelligence is to reduce uncertainty for decision-makers, it can be seen that this is a function of non-state actors as well, not only in principle but in practice. The decision-makers here range from the boards of companies taking decisions such as which countries or regions to expand their businesses into, to Chief Security Officers taking decisions about which countries or cities it is safe to allow their CEOs to travel to and what precautions need to be taken to ensure their safety whilst there in order to ensure not just their individual wellbeing but the brand’s reputation.¹⁰⁰ Here the referent object that is seen to be existentially threatened or that perceives it faces a threat and has a legitimate claim to survive is the company.

Work on developing and establishing this research agenda has already begun. Maria Robson Morrow’s 2022 article in Intelligence and National Security is a welcome and rare addition to the field, not only because of the subject matter but because of the scale of the data collected and analysed therein.¹⁰¹ Focusing specifically on the professionalisation of private sector intelligence, the latter term is used to refer “to applying intelligence techniques to external operating environments legally and transparently to facilitate strategic decision-making and mitigate geopolitical and security risks. The focus is on both protecting operations and assets and on supporting business decision-making”.¹⁰² Similarly, Magdalena Duvenage’s original, primary research into the ”professional identity of security risk intelligence analysts in the private sector” found that of 73 survey respondents taken from this population, 78% said ”their responsibility is to provide forewarning and situational awareness of the threats to the business”,¹⁰³ though beyond that there was some variety in the other ways they described their role, function and unique contribution to the private sector and to society.¹⁰⁴ This clearly aligns with the purpose of intelligence as articulated by Intelligence Studies scholars.

A distinction is also made therein between private sector intelligence and Competitive Intelligence, with the latter being “a discipline that enables organizations to reduce strategic risk and increase revenue opportunities by having a deep understanding of what has happened, what is happening, and what may happen in their operating environment”.¹⁰⁵ Competitive Intelligence, Market Intelligence and Business Intelligence are topics that are deserving of analysis. These are indeed topics that already receive scholarly attention, especially with regards to what sources to collect relevant raw intelligence from and on appropriate analytical techniques. Published works in these areas come from scholars in Business Studies¹⁰⁶ and Information Science,¹⁰⁷ from consultants,¹⁰⁸ and from those who bridge the divide between academia and practice.¹⁰⁹ Critical Intelligence Studies scholars might benefit from greater engagement with this literature and its authors, and perhaps from bringing them in to Critical Intelligence Studies itself.

Further broadenings are also warranted: around the world Intelligence Analysts – often individuals who have been trained by the emergency services or armed forces¹¹⁰ – operate Security Operations Centres (SOCs) providing round-the-clock threat monitoring to companies.¹¹¹ SOCs can be in-house or third party,¹¹² and produce their own intelligence assessments whilst also, on occasion, receiving outsourced intelligence assessments. Examples of these outsourced assessments include reports covering a particular region either for the year ahead or for a particular month, addressing trends including climate change, sanctions, upcoming elections and cyber threat developments in order to guide future intelligence collection activities,¹¹³ and more narrowly focused, often bespoke reports, on topics as narrow as the likely effects on Al Qaeda of the 2021 Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.¹¹⁴ This type of intelligence practice is vastly underrepresented in academia compared to the study of similar practices conducted by state intelligence agencies.

Intelligence liaison is a subject of Intelligence Studies, and this too can and should be broadened to incorporate the private sector. Though research into domestic intelligence liaison – involving state intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies – is growing,¹¹⁵ when the Intelligence Studies literature addresses intelligence liaison it primarily focuses on international liaison between state intelligence agencies.¹¹⁶ An exception is a passage in the article that understands intelligence as a social phenomenon, wherein Ben Jaffel usefully addresses the role of law enforcement agencies in intelligence liaison.¹¹⁷ When it is acknowledged that intelligence and security can go beyond the nation state, it can – and is – also located in organisations such as the European Union, the United Nations and others. Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency, for example, has an information sharing function,¹¹⁸ as does Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency.¹¹⁹

In practice, state agencies also liaise with corporate bodies, as illustrated by Operation Agapanthus. In the context of terrorist attacks carried out using vehicles as weapons, Agapanthus encouraged and facilitated vehicle rental companies to report concerns about suspicious transactions to the police, though in practice the Operation’s features are more commonly used to investigate serious crimes that had already taken place rather than to help prevent attacks.¹²⁰ The likelihood that corporate entities share intelligence with each other depends upon the type of organisation being discussed. It may be that private contractors working in a post-conflict state-building environment overseas may share local intelligence so they can better protect their personnel. Where sharing their intelligence would compromise their own security by making them less competitive in the marketplace, the chances of intelligence liaison narrow. By contrast, when states are the point of focus it can be argued that in some respects at least, the security of one depends upon the security of its allies. This is another opportunity for further research.

The implications of secrecy surrounding intelligence practices and its impact on the study of intelligence must also be considered. State actors collecting intelligence domestically are permitted to infringe on the privacy of those people who are within its borders. In western states this is governed by legislation and accompanying codes of practice that provide limits, procedures to follow, and provisions for oversight and accountability. In the UK for example, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 permits the interception of communications by named public authorities when necessary and proportionate.¹²¹ The state has this capability in part because they are able to give themselves this capability. Moreover, they have it because it helps them fulfil their core task of providing ”a basic element of personal and collective security”.¹²² Non-state actors do not have this capability, constraining the methods they can legally and ethically use to collect intelligence.

Although the Intelligence Studies literature pays much more attention to states collecting intelligence from secret sources – involving collecting intelligence without the target knowing such as by wire-tapping or espionage – there is an acknowledgement that secret sources comprise only a small amount of intelligence work conducted on behalf of states. In Johnson’s words, “the overwhelming percentage – sometimes upwards of 95 per cent – of the information mix provided to America’s decision-makers in the form of intelligence reports is based on open sources”.¹²³ A valuable warning about the dangers of focusing on secrecy comes from Sims, who suggests that although ”a capacity for secrecy is usually critical to success”, there are examples where ”exclusive focus on keeping or stealing secrets may lead to intelligence failure”.¹²⁴ Differences between sources of intelligence for state intelligence practices and private intelligence are therefore present, but not absolute: Critical Intelligence Studies ought to acknowledge this and build on it.

Consideration also ought to be given to whether, and in what ways, there are methodological implications of broadening Intelligence Studies from something that is state-centric to something that also gives due consideration to non-state actors. Intelligence scholars have noted that when studying state intelligence practices, secrecy and classification of material sometimes leads to gaps in knowledge.¹²⁵ This challenge will be present no matter the type of actor being researched: all actors will aim to protect information about themselves. They will wittingly reveal only some of the details of their practices, though leakers can intentionally put information into the public domain that their employees would rather have kept confidential. Robson Morrow and Duvenage’s work demonstrates that surveys and interviews can be conducted effectively in the private sector. Serving employees might be influenced by their employers with regards to whether they provide interviews to researchers, but there is less control over former employees. There is an exception, to some degree, where the interviewee is a former state employee and a signatory of the Official Secrets Act or equivalent legislation in their country of origin.

It may be argued that for private businesses even less information is in the public domain than for states. Precisely because of their public role, western states release information into their national archives to create a public record, with exceptions in place for sensitive information. The same does not appear to be true of private companies. Similarly, there may be more in the way of media news reporting on state intelligence activities that puts information into the public domain or at least draws our attention to information that is already public, than for the private sector. Public Inquiries’ reports, and the evidence that they collect and make available online, do not seem to have an equivalent in the corporate domain.¹²⁶ Those researching state intelligence activities may, therefore, have more information to work with, though interviews can be pursued regardless of the subject of study.

Conclusion

This article argues that the academic study of intelligence should be substantially and significantly expanded. As the purpose of the study of intelligence is, in part, to reflect and aid the practice of intelligence, scholarship must reflect those practices. Analysis contained in this article shows that the academic discipline of Intelligence Studies is lacking in certain respects. Firstly, while it focuses on intelligence work conducted by state intelligence agencies, it is argued that the new discipline of Critical Intelligence Studies needs to acknowledge that intelligence practice is also carried out on behalf of states by police forces and armed forces. Secondly, while Intelligence Studies focuses on practice that benefits states, intelligence is also practiced widely by, and for, the private sector. Critical Intelligence Studies should, therefore, also focus on these practices. This argument is informed, and underpinned, by a theoretical framework from Critical Security Studies, a discipline that is already comparatively well-developed. Developing Critical Intelligence Studies along the lines set out in this article will significantly increase the real-world applicability and relevance of the study of intelligence to all the different organisations that conduct and benefit from intelligence work.

If we are to accept, as seems reasonable, that part of the purpose of the study of intelligence is to support and aid practice, that study must keep up with the realities of intelligence practice. There are challenges in obtaining data on intelligence practice: that is the case regardless of whether that practice is conducted by a state or a non-state actor. These limitations to the availability of data are not as severe as those who are unfamiliar with research into intelligence might assume. Each type of organisation poses slightly different challenges for researchers, but overcoming or mitigating these is perhaps something that appeals to, or even motivates, intelligence scholars. Bringing in the theoretical underpinning to the study of intelligence proposed in this article is practicable. As argued above, the critical turn taken by Security Studies bears a close relationship to developments in the study of intelligence that are already underway, as well as to practice in intelligence (in both the state and private sectors), and therefore provides a relevant and productive approach to pushing the Critical Intelligence Studies agenda forwards. Any further developments in the field of Critical Security Studies should be monitored for possible incorporation into Critical Intelligence Studies. Similarly, while there are commonalities at a basic level, at least, between Critical Security Studies and Critical Military Studies, this deserves further analysis.¹²⁷

There are many opportunities to broaden research into intelligence practice. These include analyses of intelligence work carried out for the private sector by the private sector, intelligence work carried out in support of national or international security when conducted by state agencies other than their intelligence agencies, and state intelligence agencies devoting attention to factors such as environmental security in support of national or international security. Some of these openings for research are already being addressed: as noted above, there is scholarly work that addresses health intelligence, for example, though it does not label itself Critical Intelligence Studies work. Academics have also begun to consider and publish work on what Critical Intelligence Studies could usefully become. These opportunities for broadening research into intelligence practice are not only in line with the critical turn in Security Studies, but, as demonstrated here, that turn can be used to prompt, provoke and encourage that further research.

Intelligence practices have changed: the ”security” for which they are carried out has changed, who they are carried out for has changed, and who carries them out has changed. While Intelligence Studies emerged as an academic discipline long after the practices to which it refers began, scholarship on these changes to intelligence practices is in a much better place. Yet there is considerable work to be done before Critical Intelligence Studies provides the understanding of the realities of intelligence that it has the potential to: there are considerable bodies of practice that are not yet fully represented in scholarship. Critical Security Studies’ recognition of the broadening and widening of the concept of security, and the ensuing recognition that intelligence work is not only done by state intelligence agencies or for states’ security, provides an opportunity to push forward the study of intelligence into a position where a well-developed, and theoretically sound, Critical Intelligence Studies can be meaningfully said to exist.

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Samantha Newbery

Samantha Newbery is Reader in International Security in the Politics and Contemporary History Department at the University of Salford, Manchester, where she teaches intelligence, security, counter-terrorism, and counter-insurgency. Her next book, Terrorist Informers in Northern Ireland, will be published by Oxford University Press in 2024. This is the first book-length analysis of the use of individuals involved in terrorism, and therefore in crime, as sources of intelligence. Although there are times when collecting intelligence to prevent terrorist attacks should be given priority over prosecuting these terrorist informers for their offences, the book will argue that the long-term damage caused by failing to prosecute them can be equally as damaging. Her previous publications include Interrogation, Intelligence and Security (Manchester University Press, 2015), and – co-authored with former Deputy Chief of SIS and Secretary of the Joint Intelligence Committee Brian T.W. Stewart CMG – Why Spy? The Art of Intelligence (Hurst, 2015).

Christian Kaunert

Christian Kaunert is Professor of International Security at Dublin City University, Ireland. He is also Professor of Policing and Security, as well as Director of the International Centre for Policing and Security at the University of South Wales. In addition, he is Jean Monnet Chair, Director of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence and Director of the Jean Monnet Network on EU Counter-Terrorism (www.eucter.net).

Notes

1. For example: Bean, de Werd and Ivan, “Critical Intelligence Studies”.

2. Klein Goldewijk, “Why Still Critical?”; Ivan, Chiru and Arcos. “A Whole of Society Intelligence Approach”.

3. Bean, ”Intelligence theory from the margins”.

4. Ben Jaffel, Hoffmann, Kearns and Larsson, ”Collective Discussion”. We are grateful to one of the anonymous reviewers for recommending this source.

5. For example, Bean, de Werd and Ivan, ”Critical Intelligence Studies”.

6. Security Service Act 1989.

7. SIS, https://www.sis.gov.uk/index.html, accessed 23 Nov. 2021.

8. CIA, ”About CIA”, https://www.cia.gov/about/, accessed 23 Nov. 2021.

9. US Intelligence Community, ”Mission”, https://www.intelligence.gov/mission, accessed 23 Nov. 2021.

10. Stewart and Newbery, Why Spy?, xx, 2.

11. Omand, Securing the State, 21–55.

12. Ibid., 21.

13. Ibid., 22, 24–8.

14. Sims, ”Theory and Philosophy of Intelligence”, 46.

15. Warner, ”Theories of Intelligence”, 29.

16. Stewart and Newbery, Why Spy?, 3.

17. Weiss, ”Corporate Intelligence”.

18. Ibid., 378.

19. For just one example see Lomas and Murphy, Intelligence and Espionage, 4–5.

20. See Lentzos, Goodman and Wilson, ”Health Security Intelligence”.

21. Johnson and Shelton, ”Thoughts on the State of Intelligence Studies”.

22. Marrin, ”Intelligence Studies Centers”.

23. Goldman, ”The Ethics of Research in Intelligence Studies”; Herman and Schaefer, Intelligence Power in Practice; Omand, Securing the State.

24. Johnson and Shelton, ”Thoughts on the State of Intelligence Studies”, 114–15.

25. Marrin, ”Improving Intelligence Studies as an Academic Discipline”.

26. Marrin, ”Intelligence Studies Centers”.

27. Marrin, ”Improving Intelligence Studies as an Academic Discipline”.

28. For example: Betts, ”Analysis, War, and Decision”; Bar-Joseph and Levy, ”Conscious Action and Intelligence Failure”.

29. Marrin, ”Intelligence Studies Centers”, 399.

30. Sims, ”Foreign Intelligence Liaison”; Lefebvre, ”The Difficulties and Dilemmas of International Intelligence Cooperation”; Lander, ”International Intelligence Cooperation”.

31. Collins, Contemporary Security Studies, 2.

32. Wolfers, ”“National Security” as an Ambiguous Symbol”, 495.

33. Waever, ”Securitization and De-Securitization”, 49.

34. Ibid.

35. Buzan, Waever and De-Wilde, Security.

36. Booth, ”Security and Emancipation”, 319.

37. Booth, ”Security and Emancipation”.

38. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report, 22.

39. Buzan, Waever and De-Wilde, Security, 31.

40. Balzacq, ”A Theory of Securitization”, 12–13.

41. Wolfers, ”“National Security” as an Ambiguous Symbol”, 485.

42. Collins, Contemporary Security Studies, 2.

43. Waever, ”Securitization and De-Securitization”, 50.

44. Collins, Contemporary Security Studies, 2.

45. Leonard and Kaunert, ”Refugees, Security and the European Union”; and Baker-Beall, ”The Threat of the “Returning Foreign Fighters””.

46. Stetter et al., ”Conflict about Water”.

47. Elbe, ”Should HIV/AIDS be Securitized?”; Sjostedt, ”Health Issues and Securitization”; McInnes and Rushton ”HIV/AIDS and Securitization Theory”; Kamradt-Scott and McInnes, ”The Securitization of Pandemic Influenza”; Hanrieder and Kreuder-Sonnen, ”WHO Decides on the Exception?”.

48. Waever, ”Securitization and De-Securitization”, 51.

49. Buzan, Waever and De-Wilde, Security.

50. Abrahamsen, Democracy and Global Governance.

51. Leonard and Kaunert, Refugees, Security and the European Union, 23.

52. Ibid., 24–29.

53. Leonard and Kaunert, Refugees, Security and the European Union.

54. Buzan, People, States and Fear.

55. Waever, O. (1995) ”Securitization and De-securitization” in Ronnie D. Lipschutz, (eds) On Security, Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 46–86, 49.

56. Buzan, Waever, and De-Wilde, Security.

57. Buzan, and Waever, Regions and Powers, 6–75.

58. Waever et al., Identity, Migration and the New Security Agenda in Europe.

59. McSweeny, ”Durkheim and the Copenhagen School”.

60. Buzan, People, States and Fear.

61. Booth, ”Security and Emancipation”, 317.

62. Leonard and Kaunert, ”Reconceptualising the Audience in Securitization Theory”.

63. Buzan, Waever, and De-Wilde, Security, 25.

64. Waever, ”Securitization and De-Securitization”.

65. Bigo, ”Security and Immigration”; and Leonard, ”EU Border Security and Migration into the European Union”.

66. Booth, Theory of World Security, 165.

67. Ibid.

68. Buzan, Waever and De-Wilde, Security, 30.

69. For an overview see Lowenthal, Intelligence, particularly pages 7, 374, 382, 384, 388 and 389.

70. Ibid.

71. See: Buzan, Waever and De-Wilde also have argued that ”Securitization, like politicization, has to be understood as an essentially intersubjective process”. Buzan, Waever and De-Wilde, Security, 30.

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

73. Phythian, ”Intelligence Theory and Theories of International Relations”, 66.

74. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report, 32.

75. Intelligence and Security Committee. Russia, 12.

76. Ibid., 13.

77. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Updated Assessment on COVID-19 Origins, 1.

78. Statement by President Joe Biden on the Investigation into the Origins of COVID-⁠19.

79. Ibid.

80. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Updated Assessment on COVID-19 Origins.

81. Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence.

82. For example, Intelligence and Security Committee. Annual Report 2017/18, 20.

83. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report, 25.

84. Europol, European Union Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment, 8.

85. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report, 30.

86. Europol, European Union Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment, 10.

87. Ibid., 19.

88. Barnard, Johnson, and Porter, ”Environmental Security Intelligence”.

89. For example: Gradon and Moy, ”COVID-19 Response”; Gressang and Wirtz, ”Rethinking Warning”; Smith, and Walsh, ”Improving Health Security and Intelligence Capabilities to Mitigate Biological Threats”; and Lentzos, Goodman, and Wilson (eds), ”Health Security Intelligence” special issue of Intelligence and National Security.

90. Gioe, ”Cyber Operations and Useful Fools”; and McCombie, Uhlmann, and Morrison, ”The US 2016 Presidential Election & Russia’s Troll Farms”.

91. Johnson, ”The Development of Intelligence Studies”, 3.

92. See, for example, Kahn, ”The Intelligence Failure of Pearl Harbour”.

93. Ratcliffe, Intelligence-Led Policing, 6.

94. Ratcliffe, Intelligence-Led Policing.

95. Atkinson, ”Patriarchy, Gender, Infantilisation”. We are grateful to the anonymous reviewer for recommending this source.

96. Buckley, ”Intelligence and Organised Crime”.

97. Gill, ”Organised crime”.

98. Newbery, ”Inter- and Intra-Agency Intelligence Liaison During “The Troubles””.

99. Mobley, Terrorism and Counter-Intelligence; Mobley and Ray, ”The Cali Cartel and Counterintelligence”.

100. For just one example of a company that provides intelligence assessments in order to support Close Protection work (known as Executive Protection in the US), see Intelligent Protection International Limited, accessed 29 March 2022, https://www.intelligent-holdings.co.uk/intelligent-protection.html.

101. Robson Morrow, ”Private Sector Intelligence”.

102. Ibid.

103. Duvenage, ”The Professional Identity of Security Risk Intelligence Analysts in the Private Sector”, 67.

104. Ibid., 67–71.

105. Strategic & Competitive Intelligence Professionals, ”What is Competitive Intelligence?”, https://www.scip.org/page/CI-MI-Basics-Topic-Hub, accessed 14 Oct. 2022.

106. Fleisher and Blenkhorn, Managing Frontiers in Competitive Intelligence.

107. Nelke and Håkansson, Competitive Intelligence for Information Professionals, xi-xii.

108. Murphy, Competitive Intelligence.

109. Hedin, Hirvensalo and Vaarnas, The Handbook of Market Intelligence.

110. Speaker (name withheld), Second Annual SOC of the Future Europe Forum, 10 March 2022.

111. For example, ”SOC Security Analyst” job vacancy, TalkTalk, posted 18 April 2022; ”SOC IRT Security Analyst” job vacancy, Amazon Web Services, posted 1 April 2022; ”Crisis Response Intelligence Analyst” job vacancy, Pinkerton, posted 2 April 2022.

112. Newbery, ”The SOC Endgame?”.

113. For example, Crisis24, ”2022 Global Risk Forecast: Executive Summary”; and Intelligence Fusion, ”Monthly Intelligence Summary: Central Asia”.

114. Dragonfly’s Security Intelligence & Analysis Service, ”Al Qaeda Revived by Taliban Takeover”, 19 Aug. 2021, https://www.dragonflyintelligence.com/news/global-al-qaeda-revived-by-taliban-takeover/.

115. Newbery, ”Inter- and Intra-Agency Intelligence Liaison During “The Troubles””.

116. Examples include: Sims, ”Foreign Intelligence Liaison”; Lefebvre, ”The Difficulties and Dilemmas of International Intelligence Cooperation”; Lander, ”International Intelligence Cooperation”.

117. Ben Jaffel, in Ben Jaffel, Hoffmann, Kearns and Larsson, ”Collective Discussion”.

118. Europol, ”About Europol”, 4 Feb. 2022, https://www.europol.europa.eu/about-europol.

119. Frontex, ”Who We Are”, accessed 20 Sept. 2022, https://frontex.europa.eu/about-frontex/who-we-are/origin-tasks/.

120. Intelligence and Security Committee, The 2017 Attacks, 40.

121. Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.

122. Gill and Phythian, Intelligence in an Insecure World, 170.

123. Johnson, ”Introduction”, 2.

124. Sims, ”Theory and Philosophy of Intelligence”, 42–3.

125. Jervis, ”Thoughts on the State of Intelligence Studies”, 114.

126. Newbery, ”Official Inquiries and Their Sources of Evidence”.

127. See Basham, Belkin and Gifkins. ”What is Critical Military Studies?” and the Critical Military Studies journal. We are grateful to the anonymous reviewer for suggesting this avenue of exploration.