Philip H. J. Davies

Spies as Informants: Triangulation and the Interpretation of Elite Interview Data in the Study of the Intelligence and Security Services

This article examines the application of ‘triangulation’ to the use of elite interviewing in political science, with specific reference to the study of the intelligence and security services. It is argued that the problems involved in using elite interviews in security and intelligence studies are no different than in other areas of political science, but simply more pronounced. It is further argued that these problems can be most effectively addressed in terms of the sociological ‘triangulation’ strategy of multi-methodological research. The article concludes that this approach is, moreover, generally applicable to political studies at large.

Intelligence culture and intelligence failure in Britain and the United States

This article argues for the value of a theory of ‘intelligence culture’ in understanding not only how national intelligence systems work but also how intelligence failures occur in those systems. A model of national intelligence cultures in the governments of the United Kingdom and United States of America is developed combining existing work on organisational culture in the two countries with the authors comparative analysis of different conceptions of intelligence culture in the two systems. This model is used to develop a failure mode analysis of the two systems, which is then tentatively assessed against representative examples from the two countries, culminating in application of the model to the failure of both intelligence systems to correctly estimate Iraqi weapons of mass destruction capabilities prior to March 2003.This article argues for the value of a theory of ‘intelligence culture’ in understanding not only how national intelligence systems work but also how intelligence failures occur in those systems. A model of national intelligence cultures in the governments of the United Kingdom and United States of America is developed combining existing work on organisational culture in the two countries with the authors comparative analysis of different conceptions of intelligence culture in the two systems. This model is used to develop a failure mode analysis of the two systems, which is then tentatively assessed against representative examples from the two countries, culminating in application of the model to the failure of both intelligence systems to correctly estimate Iraqi weapons of mass destruction capabilities prior to March 2003.

Intelligence and the machinery of government: conceptualizing the intelligence community

This article argues that the failure to address intelligence agencies as public organizations part and parcel with the overt machinery of government constitutes a significant lacuna both in the specialist study of intelligence and the broader discipline of public administration studies. The role and status of intelligence institutions as aspects of the machinery of central government is examined, along with the prospects of certain key paradigms in the field for understanding those institutions are considered. Finally, the implications for the wider study of decision-making, policy and public management will be examined.

Assessment BASE: Simulating National Intelligence Assessment in a Graduate Course

In late 2003, what was then called Brunel University in west London undertook to establish a new Master’s degree in Intelligence and Security Studies (MA=ISS) as part of a wider program of initiatives tied to the establishment of the Brunel University Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies (BCISS). The BCISS, established jointly by Professor Anthony Glees and me, as its Director and Deputy Director, respectively, has a four-fold purpose:

MI 6’s Requirements Directorate: Integrating Intelligence into the Machinery of British Central Government

The following article examines the relationship between the British Secret Intelli-gence Service (SIS, a.k.a. MI 6) and the machinery of central government, particularly departments of state and other agencies which employ information generated by the SIS. It is argued the main link between the SIS and its consumers in British government is the SIS’s requirements ‘side’, embodied throughout most of the post-war era in the form of a Requirements Directorate. The article argues that the Requirements mechanism operates as a line of communication between the SIS and its consumers separate from the Cabinet Office Joint Intelligence Organisation (JIO), although there is overlap and interdependency between the two architectures. This discussion traces the development of the ‘requirements side’ from the interwar period up to the post-Cold War era using information from archival sources and a programme of interviews with former UK intelligence officials. It is further argued that the structure and process of the SIS ‘requirements side’ has developed and changed as a consequence of changes in the structure of demand in the machinery of British government, including adapting to the increasingly central role of the JIO. However, despite that increasingly central role of the JIO, the ‘requirements side’ has continued to serve as the first point of contact between the SIS and its customers in Whitehall.

Twilight of Britain's Joint Intelligence Committee?

In the last few years, a number of significant, and often troubling, changes to the top-level management structure of the United Kingdom’s (UK) national intelligence machinery have taken place. The conventional understanding of the British system is that, since the dark days of the Blitz, the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) has provided a continuously operating, tried and true apparatus for coordinating and managing Britain’s national intelligence effort. The JIC is composed of the heads of the three national security and intelligence agencies, the Chief of Defence Intelligence, and representatives of a number of policy departments, with strong leading figures in the form of the JIC Chairman and an Intelligence Coordinator (whose formal title has varied somewhat over time). According to this orthodoxy, the JIC, in conjunction with the machinery under it known collectively as the Joint Intelligence Organisation (JIO), coordinates the

Imagery in the UK: Britain's troubled imagery intelligence architecture

This article examines the status, role and development of imagery intelligence in the UK government. It is argued that imagery intelligence occupies a subordinate and marginalised position compared to other forms of intelligence, chiefly from human sources and the interception of communications. The origins of that position are recounted, and the problems arising from internal struggles over control of imagery examined. It is concluded that the existing approach to imagery represents a serious problem and that a substantial restructuring and upgrading of imagery intelligence is essential if UK foreign policy decision-making is to be properly informed in the 21st Century.

National Assessment by the National Security Council Staff 1968–80: An American Experiment in a British Style of Analysis?

Abstract At a time of intense debate over the specific organizational arrangements of American national security agencies with new or refocused intelligence responsibilities, the relative proximity between intelligence producers and consumers is a key issue. Intelligence capabilities may have to be kept separate from decision-making because of organizational economies of scale and scope, but separation alone does not mean intelligence must be distant from decision-making. For example, the British style of analysis involves a much closer relationship between intelligence producers and consumers than exists in the American context. Efforts to improve the integration of intelligence into decision-making by closing the distance between them would do well to study the history and efficacy of this process as they look to create new ways of structuring the relationship between intelligence analysis and decision-making. Specifically, history demonstrates that the US National Security Council staff implemented a process in 1968 through 1980 that approximated the British style of analysis, and this may provide US policymakers with a model for bridging the gap between intelligence analysis and decision-making.

Intelligence, Iraq and the limits of legislative accountability during political crisis

This article argues that there is an inherent tension in legislative intelligence oversight bodies between their responsibility to the voters who elect them and their political parties who select them to run for office. At a time of acute political crisis, the partisan interests of the legislators who sit on oversight bodies may override their other responsibilities. This can result in distorted and misleading investigations and reports. This hypothesis is examined against the evidence of precisely such a mode of failure in both the British and American legislative inquiries into intelligence on Iraqi ‘weapons of mass destruction’. The authors conclude that any effective oversight must include a range of parallel legislative, judicial, executive and independent mechanisms to try and minimize the inherent weaknesses in each oversight model.

From special operations to special political action: The ‘rump SOE’ and SIS post‐war covert action capability 1945–1977

This article examines the post‐war dismantling of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and amalgamation with the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). It is argued that the existing literature has been unclear on this matter, confusing two very different SIS departments, the Special Operations Branch and the Special Political Action Section. The article then examines how the assets and personnel of SOE were dispersed to three different divisions of the SIS; the Directorates of Production, Training and Development and War Planning, and then examines the separate origins and function of the Special Political Action Section.