The British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee has published its annual report on the nation’s intelligence services.
Published this week alongside an anticipated report on Russian intelligence operations in the United Kingdom, the annual report received little attention. Still, it offers some interesting takeaways on the intelligence activity of America’s closest partner. Here are a few things that stand out with regard to the three major intelligence services: the Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service, and Government Communications Headquarters.
The Security Service, also known as MI5, is responsible for domestic counterterrorism and counterintelligence. MI5 takes the lead on investigations that fall under the FBI’s remit in the United States. The difference between MI5 and the FBI, however, is that where MI5 is an intelligence service without powers of arrest (which falls to specialist British police units), the FBI is a law enforcement organization. The distinction informs important differences in professional culture. MI5, for example, is far more comfortable than the FBI monitoring terrorists for longer periods before intercepting them.
Parliament tells us that in the 2018-2019 period, MI5 “disrupted two major Islamist terrorist plots,” bringing the total number of Islamist terrorist plots “disrupted since the March 2017 Westminster Bridge attack to 15.”
Yet this success hasn’t come without costs. To counter the significant terrorist threat, MI5 has had to resource heavily its counterterrorism operations at the expense of other national security priorities. We’re told that MI5’s 2018-2019 division of effort stood at 67% resourcing on Islamist terrorism, 20% resourcing on Northern Irish-related terrorism, and only 13% on “hostile state activity.”
Hostile state activity refers to adversarial foreign government intelligence activity. As with the FBI, MI5’s two primary counterintelligence concerns here are China and Russia. But where only a 13% resourcing allocation is devoted to hostile state activity, the U.K. lacks adequate protection against these threats. And while the Parliament’s Russia report pushes MI5 to provide greater operational resourcing against Russian hostile activity, doing so will carry significant risks. Such a reallocation will mean MI5 can intensively monitor fewer terrorist threats. Adding MI5 officers and boosting the service’s budget can help, but only over time.
Next up, the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6. The home of James Bond, MI6 retains a very close partnership with its American equivalent, the CIA. Indeed, CIA Director Gina Haspel and MI6 Chief Alex Younger talk weekly and meet in person at least every six months. Parliament credits MI6 for providing “upstream intelligence” to MI5 in relation to the latter’s counterterrorism taskings. It also says MI6 has engaged extensively with GCHQ’s cyber efforts. This refers to “access generation” physical infiltration efforts by MI6 officers in getting GCHQ technical capabilities inside foreign computer and telecommunication networks.
Another interesting point of note is MI6’s significantly higher budget devotion than MI5 and GCHQ to “corporate services.” I am led to believe this is due to MI6’s operation of foreign safe houses and facilities, often rented under fake corporate or individual entities, and its responsibility for housing MI5-GCHQ fusion teams.
Finally, GCHQ. Often operating in a near-symbiotic relationship with its American equivalent, the NSA, GCHQ is lauded for launching “a new Engineering Accelerator which will allow GCHQ engineers to work with — and learn from — startups working on areas such as artificial intelligence and machine learning.” There is also a salute to GCHQ’s efforts to counter credit card fraud. Though details are not provided, this very likely centers around offensive actions to dismantle dark web sites selling stolen credit card details.
Beyond these activities, GCHQ is focused primarily on counterterrorism and countering Russian aggression. As a side note, I am led to believe that GCHQ shares NSA’s concerns over the confidence level that should be ascribed to reports that Vladimir Putin directed his GRU intelligence service to pay bounties to kill allied soldiers in Afghanistan.
Where does this leave us?
Well, for an intelligence community which, at just shy of $4 billion a year, has about one-fifteenth of the budget of its U.S. equivalent, Britain is seeing a pretty good return on investment.
