Emerging Transnational (In)security Governance: A Statist-Transnationalist Approach (Security and Governance)

Emerging Transnational (In)security Governance

This book presents a selection of edited essays written by leading international scholars, informed by practicing intelligence, military, and police officers working in transgovernmental capacities. The resulting chapters provide original theoretical perspectives on evolving transnational security cooperation practices by states and sub-state actors. Beginning with the premise that intelligence cooperation – domestically between agencies, internationally between states, and transnationally among states, sub-states and non-state actors – is essential in order to successfully counter the evolving transnational nature of security threats, the authors explore the transnationalization in state responses to a transnational security threat like “global” terror. They assess whether early signs of a “Statist-transnationalism” for a new global security cooperation regime can be identified, and look at the use of extraordinary rendition and police liaison as means for the development and growth of transnational security cooperation. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, terrorism, security, policing, and intelligence. Ersel Aydinli is Associate Professor and Chair at the Department of International Relations at Bilkent University, Turkey.

Security and Governance Series Edited by Fiona B. Adamson, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London Roland Paris, University of Ottawa Stefan Wolff, University of Nottingham Editorial Board: Mohammed Ayoob, Michigan State University Richard Caplan, University of Oxford Neta Crawford, Boston University Stuart Croft, University of Birmingham Donatella della Porta, European University Institute Michael Doyle, Columbia University Lynn Eden, Stanford University Takashi Inoguchi, University of Tokyo Elizabeth Kier, University of Washington Keith Krause, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva Bruce Russett, Yale University Timothy Sisk, University of Denver Janice Gross Stein, University of Toronto Stephen Stedman, Stanford University Mark Zacher, University of British Columbia This series reflects the broadening conceptions of security and the growing nexus between the study of governance issues and security issues. The topics covered in the series range from issues relating to the management of terrorism and political violence, non-state actors, transnational security threats, migration, borders, and “homeland security” to questions surrounding weak and failing states, post-conflict reconstruction, the evolution of regional and international security institutions, energy and environmental security, and the proliferation of WMD. Particular emphasis is placed on publishing theoretically informed scholarship that elucidates the governance mechanisms, actors, and processes available for managing issues in the new security environment. Rethinking Japanese Security Peter J. Katzenstein State Building and International Intervention in Bosnia Roberto Belloni The UN Security Council and the Politics of International Authority Edited by Bruce Cronin and Ian Hurd

The Dilemmas of Statebuilding Confronting the contradictions of postwar peace operations Edited by Roland Paris and Timothy D. Sisk Protest, Repression and Political Regimes An empirical analysis of Latin-America and sub-Saharan Africa Sabine C. Carey The International Humanitarian Order Michael N. Barnett The International Politics of Mass Atrocities The case of Darfur Edited by David R. Black and Paul D. Williams Truth Commissions and Transitional Societies The impact on human rights and democracy Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm Emerging Transnational (In)Security Governance A statist-transnationalist approach Edited by Ersel Aydinli

Emerging Transnational (In)security Governance A statist-transnationalist approach Edited by Ersel Aydinli

First published 2010 by Routledge 2 Park Square Milton Park Abingdon Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business. This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2010 Ersel Aydinli election and editorial matter; individual contributors, their contributions All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Emerging transnational (in)security governance : a statist-transnationalist approach / edited by Ersel Aydinli. p. cm. — (Security and governance series) ISBN-13: 978-0-415-56360-4 (hardback) ISBN-10: 0-415-56360-7 (hardback) ISBN-13: 978-0-203-85745-8 (e-book) ISBN-10: 0-203-85745-3 (e-book) 1. Security, International. 2. Intelligence service—International cooperation. 3. Terrorism—Prevention—International cooperation. I. Aydinli, Ersel, 1967JZ5588.E55 2010 355’.033—dc22 2009034222

ISBN 0-203-85745-3 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 10: 0-415-56360-7 (hbk) ISBN 10: 0-203-85745-3 (ebk) ISBN 13: 978-0-415-56360-4 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-203-85745-8 (ebk)

Contents

List of illustrations Notes on contributors

ix x

Introduction

xii

1 Statist-transnationalism for a security cooperation regime

1

ERSEL AYDINLI

2 Beyond the State? The impact of transnational terrorist threats on security cooperation

23

DEREK S. REVERON

3 Intelligence-sharing and United States counter-terrorism policy

44

JAMES IGOE WALSH

4 Rendition in a transnational insecurity environment: can we keep intelligence cooperation honest?

66

PETER GILL

5 Is the UK stepping toward transnationalism? The Serious Organized Crime Agency

84

GLEN M. SEGELL

6 Theorizing transnational cooperation on the police and intelligence fields of security OTWIN MARENIN AND ARIF AKGUL

102

7 Police liaisons as builders of transnational security cooperation

124

HASAN YON

8 Globalizing and localizing counter-terrorism intelligence-sharing

143

BRIAN NUSSBAUM

9 Police and counter-terrorism: a sociological theory of international cooperation

163

MATHIEU DEFLEM

10 Adaptive states and the new transnational security regime

173

ERSEL AYDINLI

Bibliography Index

180 191

Illustrations

Figures 1.1 Violence/Response 7.1 Framework of police cooperation 7.2 Methods of liaison officer deployment

9 125 128

Tables 3.1 Causes and types of intelligence sharing 8.1 Speakers at the TEW-hosted conference

49 154

Contributors

Ersel Aydinli is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of International Relations at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. His research focuses on international relations theory, particularly from a non-Western perspective, theories of security and development, and the role of non-state actors and transnational processes in world politics. Derek S. Reveron is a Professor of National Security Affairs and the EMC Informationist Chair at the US Naval War College. He received an MA in Political Science and a Ph.D. in public policy analysis from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He specializes in security cooperation, democratization, political violence, and intelligence. James Igoe Walsh is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the author of “The International Politics of Intelligence Sharing” (Columbia University Press, 2009). Peter Gill is Honorary Fellow at the University of Liverpool, UK. He is the author of Policing Politics (London: Cass, 1994) and Rounding Up the Usual Suspects? (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), co-author of Intelligence in an Insecure World (Cambridge: Polity, 2006) and co-editor of the PSI Handbook of Global Security and Intelligence: National Approaches, 2 volumes (Westport: Praeger, 2008) and Intelligence Theory: Key Questions and Debates (London: Routledge, 2009). Glen Segell was educated at the University of the Witwatersrand, Hebrew University, King’s College London, Trinity College and Canterbury University. He has authored over 100 items, made programs for Teachers TV and has experience in the commercial and financial sectors, while holding executive positions at the International Political Science Association, the JISCMAIL Military History Discussion Group, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, the International Studies Association, the Political Studies Association, and the British International Studies Association. Otwin Marenin is a Professor in the Department of Political Science/Criminal Justice, Washington State University. His recent research and publications

Contributors

xi

have focused on security sector reform (SSR), transnational police assistance programs, and the forms and nature of democratic policing. Arif Akgul received his MA in Criminal Justice and Ph.D. in Political Science from Washington State University. His research and teaching interests include administration of justice, drug policies and homeland security studies. He is now working for the Turkish Focal Point of European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). Hasan Yon is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of International Relations at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey. Brian Nussbaum is currently working as an Intelligence Analyst, and will begin as Professor of Criminal Justice at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts in 2010. His research for this volume was supported by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). Mathieu Deflem is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of South Carolina. An expert on international police cooperation, counter-terrorism, and the sociology of law, he is the author of Policing World Society (2002) and Sociology of Law (2008). He also edited five books and authored dozens of articles in the areas of sociology of law, criminology, and sociological theory. He maintains an extensive website on his work: www.mathieudeflem.net

Introduction

This edited volume is the product of a NATO-funded workshop that was held in December 2007 in Ankara, Turkey, on the topic of transnational security cooperation and intelligence sharing. Nearly two years in the planning, the Ankara workshop was particularly designed to bring together leading international scholars who prepared papers offering different theoretical perspectives on security cooperation, with practicing intelligence, military, and police officers, who spoke about their practice-based observations and experiences with international cooperation. The workshop provided a unique opportunity for both groups to exchange ideas, reflect on the various perspectives represented, and all join together in roundtables in which particular issues and themes running throughout the theoretical and experiential accounts could be highlighted and discussed. The premise of the workshop was designed in recognition of the increasingly accepted idea that intelligence cooperation – domestically between agencies, internationally between states, and transnationally among states, sub-states and non-state actors – is essential in order to successfully counter the evolving transnational nature of security threats. Assuming that the most effective response to transnational threats should be equally transnational, the workshop focused specifically on the question of whether there is evidence of a transnationalization in states’ responses to a transnational security threat like “global” terror. In other words, are we seeing a progressive materialization of state or sub-state transnational countering mechanisms, processes, and agencies, to a degree that we can identify early signs of a “Statist-transnationalism” for a new global insecurity governance? The papers selected for this volume explore this question from different theoretical perspectives and by highlighting different examples of states’ responses, for example, looking at what the use of extraordinary rendition or police liaisons mean for the development and growth of transnational security cooperation. Also highlighted in the volume is an effort to tease apart the differences between the intelligence and policing communities, in order to see whether, and, if so, how, transnationalizing efforts and developments in the latter – which were widely reported at the workshop – can be duplicated in the former. While the featured chapters focus primarily on perspectives and experiences from North America and Europe, the workshop itself and the discussions held there were highlighted by contributions of practitioners from a variety of backgrounds (e.g. the Middle

Introduction

xiii

East, Russia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and South Asia). Due to the often sensitive nature of the topics under discussion, the identities of these participants can not be given here, but their opinions, as expressed at the workshop, come through in the subsequent chapters. The opening chapter of the volume sets the stage for the subsequent works. Ersel Aydinli’s chapter identifies a growing gap between transnational security threats, and the international response to them, and then argues that the international community has felt the pressure to build up effective security cooperation to close this gap. He shows how this pressure has been most tangible with respect to the global terrorist challenge of the violent Jihadists, and, for comparative purposes, recalls an earlier case of a global terrorist challenge. Crafting effective intelligence cooperation among states would be a key practical move in building up effective governance to face the current terrorist threat, and close this gap, but since the gap is between a transnational threat and an international countering mechanism, such practices seem to demand the development of a “statist-transnationalist” approach. This brings us back to the main focus of the volume, which is to consider both in theory and practice whether such a transnationalization of state security-providing capacity is possible and whether it is taking place. Once again we are reminded to ask: have states devised new ways of transnational intelligence cooperation? In the next section of the book, three authors take very different perspectives on the question of what traditional state actors should be and have been doing with respect to transnational cooperation. Derek Reveron starts things off by underscoring the need for intelligence cooperation. He presents the basic categories of intelligence cooperation that have existed and been practiced over the years, and explores the commonly accepted objectives of, and risks involved in, cooperating. In consideration of what states should be doing to build up better intelligence cooperation, he presents a parallel case of cooperation, that of the Maritime Commons. By looking at this case he is able to reflect on such questions as what information should be shared, whether international regimes can help, and whether advanced technology is the answer or part of the problem. The following chapter by James Igoe Walsh assumes more of a realist perspective on cooperation, and discusses the idea of hierarchical cooperation relationships – in other words, those between a dominant state, which pays the costs and provides certain other benefits, and a subordinate state, which agrees to give up certain powers or autonomy in return for perhaps protection or economic aid. Walsh provides a framework for understanding when hierarchical cooperation can and should occur, specifically, in cases in which there are high gains to the dominant state, high costs of defection by the subordinate state BUT low governance costs to the dominant state, e.g. in cases like cooperation between the US and Morocco, Egypt, or Jordan. Walsh’s position runs counter to long-standing arguments that cooperation can only take place in cases of low defection possibilities, i.e. when there are high degrees of trust. The final chapter in this section features Peter Gill’s investigation into the controversial statist practice of extraordinary rendition, and questions whether it has harmed future possibilities for transnational cooperation – even as it represents a

xiv

Introduction

form of cooperation in itself. Although Gill concludes that in fact extraordinary rendition has not done long-term damage to transnational cooperation prospects, he makes the point that it has ironically represented a reassertion of US hegemonic power, and thus its practice serves as a reminder of the need for fuller – including both state and non-state actors – frameworks for developing future intelligence cooperation. The remainder of the book considers various actual practices by states and sub-state entities. The first chapter in this section explores the case of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) in England, as an indication of how one state has chosen to collapse state agencies into a single entity better able to respond to transnational threats. Author Glen Segell points out that changes within SOCA make the case an interesting one for beginning to explore the differences between the policing and intelligence communities, as the agency gradually comes to see its own mandate extending beyond a more criminal focus to one including terrorism and intelligence-related issues. The following three chapters provide the necessary details on policing in order to be able to make such a comparison between the policing and intelligence communities. Otwin Marenin’s chapter looks at the past and present nature of police cooperation and considers what it can show us about transnational cooperation in general. It explores the main forms of police cooperation and argues that primary conditions allowing for the growth of police cooperation (based on police autonomy, shared professional interests, the nature of shared information vs. shared intelligence, and a common policy discourse) have not traditionally allowed for a similar degree of cooperation among intelligence communities. Hasan Yon, a police liaison officer himself, provides an introductory overview to the police liaison system in particular. He explains its development and growth, particularly in the post-9/11 period, and shows how the needs of the job – in this case, countering transnational terrorism – have led some national police organizations to build up transnational networks for information sharing, and to forge informal cooperation platforms. His account of police liaison officers, their appointment procedures, mandates, and on-site relations, attitudes, manners, and operational code, reveals how some states and sub-state entities can be adaptive and open to transnational security practices necessary to counter the transnational threat. He also shows how the police, operating with transnational capacity, may sometimes clash with their own diplomats, who seem to be less equipped to adapt. At the micro level, therefore, the chapter shows how some parts of the state are proving faster at adapting transnational practices than others. The third chapter to look at police practices in detail is Brian Nussbaum’s multiple-case study. In this chapter Nussbaum draws on a post-internationalist theoretical perspective to explore three significant cases of sub-state transnational cooperation – initiatives taken in recent years by the New York, London, and Los Angeles police departments. By taking a detailed look at these cases he provides empirical evidence of the increasing role of local law enforcement in international intelligence sharing, and thus evidence of sub-state practices in the transnationalization of security governance.

Introduction

xv

The final chapter in this section is by Mathieu Deflem. Deflem presents in his chapter a sociological framework for looking at international police cooperation vis-à-vis counter-terrorism; a framework defining police bureaucracies as driven by efficiency, rationalism, and autonomy. Despite much documented international policing efforts, Deflem suggests that these are still evidence of “national” thinking in that they tend to be either unilateral or bilateral, and even cases of multinational initiatives like INTERPOL do not aim to create a supranational police force but to provide a means for networking and exchanging of individual groups.

1

Statist-transnationalism for a security cooperation regime Ersel Aydinli

The nature of global security threats has changed, from the primacy of state-based challenges during the Cold War era, to the rise of transnational issues and non-state actor challengers of recent years. These transnational threats have been linked to such diverse sources as: environmental degradation, disease and migration, crime and terrorism,1 and their growing significance has spawned various efforts to describe and reconceptualize security in world politics.2 It can be generally agreed upon, though, that we have entered into an era, in which newly empowered forces – from individuals to associations or organizations of various levels of formality – have been released,3 not only in the realms of economic, social or political issues, but also in that of security. The result is an increasing gap between the practices and capacities of the non-state entities creating the transnational challenges and threats, and the practices and capacities of the state-based agents of response. At a broader level, we can say that this gap is also the reflection of a much larger duality between the “international” and the “transnational”. While the former refers in the most general sense to states and practices of international engagement between states, e.g. creating and operating international organizations, conducting wars, and negotiating peace, the latter refers to non-state and sub-national actors, and to both peaceful and conflictive activities of transnational engagement – that is, activities without a direct tie to state entities. Global transformations of every kind, ideational, material, or scientific, should provide an equal opportunity to both international and transnational actors and processes to flourish and evolve further. However it is the transnational, arguably because of its direct ties with individuals, their desires and their ambitions, that seems to have an inherent advantage over the more bureaucratic actors and patterns of the international. For this reason, not only does the international/transnational gap exist, but it seems bound to expand. The main goal in this volume is to try and understand the state response to this gap: have states and the state-centric world begun developing new responses to address the emerging non-state security challenges of a “post-international”4 world? To answer such a question, it is necessary to examine a non-state security threat that has managed to generate a broad range of state response. The clear example of such a threat is transnational terrorism, and the state response to it, in particular, since 9/11. Unlike other non-state transnational security challenges like environmental degradation, refugee crises and human or small arms trafficking,

2

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transnational terrorism, as generally associated with al Qaeda and the radical Jihadists, has provoked a major response by many states around the world. It has managed to garner greater state interest than other non-state security challenges first because its targets have included the world hegemon and other influential Western countries, rather than only less fortunate or powerful countries, and also because of the inevitable cycle of response that terrorist attacks demand – in order to appease public fear and outrage, governments feel obliged to respond without delay and generally without restraint. By looking therefore at states’ countering practices towards transnational terrorism, we may be able to trace developments suggesting the emergence of post-international (in)security governance. This chapter sets out to first explore the underlying reasons for the gap between the transnational threats and the international response by discussing the overall expansion of the political universe and resulting problems of governance. It looks in greater detail at transnational terrorism as the particular threat to be explored in this volume, then at the relatively recent history of responses to terrorism, beginning with a look at the responses of the late nineteenth–early twentieth centuries, when terrorism also had aspects of a transnational nature, and moving on to a critical look at the responses of the twentieth century, when terrorist threats tended to be more national and international. Few would now question the assertion that security threats and terrorism in particular are becoming more transnational. They are perpetrated by increasingly independent non-state actors, who are more likely than ever to operate via transnational processes and to exhibit cross-border capacities. When it comes to these security challenges it can also be argued that, at present, states possess the most apt and efficient response mechanisms for dealing with them. Do they, however, have the ability to go transnational and close the gap?

Governance problems in an expanding political universe To find real dynamism, change, and growth in global political affairs, one generally needs to look beyond the statist realm. The traditional state-centric system and its international practices, from the formation of international organizations to diplomatic interactions, to regulating war and peace conditions, and so on, appears to have reached its physical and psychological boundaries in terms of innovativeness and forward progress, while arguably the most interesting and evolutionary developments in global political affairs – leaps in global mobility, new organizational formats, the construction of new patterns, rules, and forms of engagement between various types of actors – are taking place within the transnational space and with the contribution of sub-national entities. Indeed, a “transnational” nature has been said to be the “defining quality of world politics in the 21st century”.5 Dynamism and growth within one sphere inevitably leads to a gap between the two, in this case, the transnational and the international. Arguably, this is particularly so with respect to security issues. Consider earlier arguments from the field of comparative politics, in which the focus was on national level contexts. Various sources of instability, from abstract tensions between stability and change to the

Statist-transnationalism for a security cooperation regime

3

concrete instability of revolutions, have been attributed to a gap between existing institutions and their limited ability to comprehend and manage rapidly expanding areas of political mobilization among the masses (consider arguments that modernization has “outpaced the progress of institutionalization”6). In other words, unregulated spaces lead to a growth in instability. If we transpose this argument to the global level, we might consider how a rapidly expanding transnational political universe will also quickly outpace the abilities of the existing international institutions to cope with the problems that emerge there – once again, creating a gap, but this time one between the unregulated realm of expanding transnational space and the global potential of governance by states and their international authorities. Evidence of this gap is easy to find. Observers have considered the phenomenon of the expanding unregulated realm and concluded that, within it, non-state actors are improving their ability to “run and hide faster than states and statist international organizations are improving their ability to seek”.7 Or, in the words of one terrorist under interrogation, “you come, we go, you go, we come back. We go wherever you aren’t and you can’t be everywhere.”8 The recent wave of terrorism9 has revealed the gap by showing us how unruly and unregulated spaces are now part of the global insecurity calculus. These unregulated breeding grounds for terrorism include territorial spaces from Khartoum to Afghanistan to Chechnya, but also others, not necessarily geographically distant, as in the example of ghettos in major Western cities, nor always physical, as in the case of cyberspace, and even in the shifting loyalties of individuals residing among us – all of which have become part of the global insecurity calculus. What all this shows us is evidence of an expansion of political space – both vertically and horizontally – both beyond states, and within them. Complicating matters further is that mobility between these various unregulated spaces also serves to increase the gap between a transnational threat and the international capacity to respond. Take, for example, the case of transnational gunrunners. These non-state [in]security actors have taken advantage of unregulated spaces to accumulate an unprecedented level of power, such that they are able to gain prominence in a trade formerly dominated by states. It is now possible for a legal, state-produced weapon to go on a journey that turns it into an illegal commodity circulated by global non-state actors, and to then end up as part of an arms sale back to another state.10 That we are witnessing an expansion of the transnational does not automatically mean that it is something new. In fact, the transnational has always been a part of the political space, but it was suppressed. Advances by states and historical internationalization were themselves once the sign of a major expansion of the political universe, to such a degree that they overshadowed the previously existing transnational actors, patterns, and spaces. As an undercurrent, however, the transnational has not only remained intact but has maintained a tremendous power for change and evolution, since it carries within it the primary energy source of humans and their search for new opportunities and visions, which run beyond artificial frontiers and borders as well as beyond seemingly consolidated political constructs and institutions. The difference now seems to be that with the revolutionizing of that

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human energy source,11 we are now witnessing unprecedented levels of expansion in the transnational space. The problem in such an expansion of the transnational is how to govern it. International expansion of the political universe, with its primary agent of the state and its international practices, governed its own realm with great effectiveness, so well, in fact, that statism came to represent for many the final stage of our political evolution – a stage in which the actors and products of statism, constituted the whole of the political universe. Such a conviction becomes a liability at a time of transnational resurge. By underestimating the transnational and trusting in the superiority of the international, one reduces the likelihood of the international, making efforts to move into the major venues of the expanding transnational space. Such a conviction also leads to a major misperception of the transnational space, actors, and processes as its “other” – and automatically therefore as sources of danger, insecurity, and ungoverned rebellion. Of course, a vision of the transnational as a problem is not necessarily unwarranted, since ungoverned spaces do tend to attract unruly pioneers of all kinds of activities, not only as shelters for existing ones but also as breeding grounds for new ones. For a long time the international world could afford to ignore the transnational as merely a troubling irritation, or to offset it with basic measures such as promoting statebuilding12 (often repressive) or building high walls between itself and the unruly transnationals (via immigration practices, border controls, and so on). With the international having mastered (in)security governance tactics and strategies within its own realm (national/international organizations, alliances, and concepts like national security and survival), such practice was able to continue until the point at which it became clear that the unruly transnational is not only insecure by itself, but it has actors and processes and mastered tactics and visions that allow it to export that insecurity into the very heartland of the international world. The attacks of 9/11 came as the biggest indicator of such mobility of the insecurity from the transnational to the international. Now an increasingly dominant logic is reigning within the international world that if everyone is not relatively safe within the entire political universe, no one is really safe anywhere. In other words, both security and insecurity have become indivisible. The upshot is that the problem of a collective governing of the expanding political universe is an urgent one that must be addressed.13 The main question that then arises – and which is intended to be answered in this volume – is whether the international has begun engaging in insecurity governance within the transnational space. One of the few ways of analyzing such a possible initiation of governance of the transnational by the international, is to look at the most traditional and actionprovoking challenge emanating from within the transnational: terrorism. By looking at this transnational challenge and how international forces have historically and contemporarily been responding to it, we may be able to locate the major parameters and dynamics of emerging transnational insecurity governance.

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The return of transnational (in)security Changes that have been witnessed in the conduct and nature of terrorist acts over the last decade have led to discussions about the emergence of a “new” kind of terrorism. An examination of the characteristics proposed to constitute the “newness” of these acts show that what is really being emphasized is the increasingly transnational nature of terrorism. An important characteristic of “new” terrorism is commonly noted as its organizational structure, which is seen as changing from a hierarchical one to a networked and decentralized one.14 In the “new” terrorist organization, the leader acts like a guru and draws only the general lines of conduct, as opposed to the top-down, strict command chain structure of more traditional terrorist groups. Spatially, the units or cells of the organization are no longer connected organically within a defined geographical area. They can, however, easily establish connections from distant locations via information technology, making it difficult to identify and comprehend the full extent of the terrorist organization’s structure. This organizational network structure is perhaps the clearest and most obvious indicator of the transnational orientation of new terrorism, as such a structure makes it possible for a group to elude national barriers and operate on a worldwide basis. As noted above, the use of information technology is another important characteristic of “new terrorism”.15 Revolutionized communication ability via developments in technology has proven revolutionary to terrorist groups both for their external and their internal communication capacity. Externally, the rapid development of real-time media coverage as well as the use of webpages and email have given terrorist groups the ability to get their message out – both to potential recruits and to the group’s enemies – quickly and efficiently. Internally, the internet in particular has given them the capacity to carry out debates among group members, a means that allows them to evaluate, adjust, and adapt their discourses and strategies. Basically, unlike the past when physical disconnect could be fatal to a group, terrorists can now communicate effectively over vast distances without having to pass through official international borders or rely on relatively easy-to-monitor means of communication, such as telephones. Beyond communication, technological developments have also changed the nature of terrorist attacks. New forms include acts of “hactivism”, such as blockades and e-mail bombs, but also include the specter of possible cyber-terrorism with potentially lethal results, such as causing harm to critical transportation or energy facilities that depend on computers.16 As these types of attack are not territorially based, they have transnational potential – they can be carried out anywhere, from anywhere. The third characteristic of “new” terrorism can be noted in terms of its goals, which may be rhetorically “global”, but more importantly in terms of the concretely global strategies and tactics used to achieve those goals. Even in cases when the actual goals remain local, the strategy for achieving them has become global. In the past, the reverse was more likely to be true, in that even terrorist groups with global goals and supporting ideologies (for example, Communist-based terrorist groups working towards global revolution), were nevertheless likely to employ

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very much local strategies. They tended to adopt a piecemeal approach for achieving their global goals; an approach that involved attempting to first take over local power, and local national governments, and moving on from there. The resulting methods and strategies were restricted – and often determined – by the local and national constructs. “New” terrorists have been able to take advantage of advances in the transnational space to employ more globally executed strategies. Interestingly, one side-effect of this shift towards transnational strategies and tactics has been an increase in the scale and the lethality of attacks. It may be that locally defined methods and tactics – despite the perceived indiscriminateness of terrorism – are still subject to certain restrictions. Terrorist groups that conduct “excessively” violent or completely indiscriminate attacks in a limited, local area still bear the risk of alienating even potential supporters of their cause. When the attack goes global, whatever restraint might have been felt is more easily shed. Perhaps for this reason, “new” terrorism is also distinguished by higher lethality levels17 – with the September 11 attacks causing the highest number of deaths in a single attack. Such a shift towards more global strategies and more lethal attacks, including even the possible use by terrorists of weapons of mass destruction, has bred an equally transnational sense of fear and vulnerability. At least one study has examined how the attacks of September 11 and those in Madrid and London have influenced fear levels among people in North America and Europe.18 Yet another characteristic associated with recent patterns in terrorist activity is its increasingly religious nature. The current “wave” of terrorism has been labeled as a religious one,19 and even before 9/11, the latest trends in terrorism were being characterized by their “amorphous religious and millenarian aims”20 and by their being generally under the leadership of a spiritual leader.21 Religion is also a concept, which overlaps with a transnational understanding. Religions are not usually directly associated with nations, but are rather created for humanity in general, meaning that a terrorist group operating based on religious imperatives has the potential of finding sympathizers and supporters all around the world. Since people that belong to a religion generally read the same texts, worship in similar ways, and share similar motivations, terrorist groups may create a common understanding among various groups or individuals around the world and more easily coordinate their activities. Lastly, and arguably the most important characteristic revealing the transnational nature of new terrorism, is the new terrorists’ evolving relationship with states. In a distinct break from practices of the past, when terrorist organizations simply could not sustain themselves without some kind of state support, there is the understanding that new terrorists are no longer reliant on state sponsorship,22 or, at least, if there is state sponsorship, it is minimal and difficult to expose. Amazingly, this leap in ability to survive without state support has occurred despite the massive degree of state persecution against them. The ability to “go it alone” stems in part from an increasingly easy access to cheap materials to produce weapons – even those of mass destruction – which then decreases the need for state-level financial support, and enables the rise of private financers, such as Osama bin Laden. More importantly though, this argument relates back to the issue of new terrorists’ network

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structures which, reinforced by easy communication capabilities, enable terrorists to establish coordination wherever they are in the world. Their reliance on states for safe havens is reduced, for as long as they can secure their communications they can establish a safe environment. They are able to locate or invent spaces for themselves both within the state-centric system and, more often than not, outside of it (e.g. in failed states), making them truly deterritorialized and more mobile.23 It is this aspect of their transnationality (independence from state support and therefore being able to move beyond the international realm when deemed appropriate or necessary) that makes them most difficult to combat, as they are able to easily move from one area to the other, and particularly into areas in which there is minimal or no governance capacity to counter them. This was of course the case with al Qaeda, in its moves between Afghanistan and Sudan and today in Iraq; without established headquarters, the organization is highly mobile.

Dynamics of the governance of (in)security If the world is witnessing an increase in terrorism both in terms of numbers of attacks and their lethality, and in terms of the transnationalization of its nature and thus its broad risks, what can we say about the international response to terrorism? Discussion at the beginning of this chapter implied that it was natural to see a gap between the expanding transnational realm and the traditional, international forces responsible for governing these new unregulated spaces. How can we assess whether the international response has been successful in its attempts to bridge this gap – in particular with respect to our focus on the growth of terrorism within those unregulated transnational spaces? One way of assessing international response to transnationalized terrorism could be to look at the instituting of international understandings and mechanisms against terrorism, such as the establishment of common definitions of what constitutes terrorism, the creation of conventions and resolutions for combating terrorism, setting up counter-terror international organizations, and engaging in bilateral practices (e.g. extradition and rendition) as well as unilateral ones (e.g. surgical operations and assassinations). Indeed, these have constituted the backbone of the responses to transnational terrorism. However, those initiatives have been arguably limited in their success for a variety of reasons, from differences of state perceptions about terrorism, to the non-binding nature of conventions, or simply because of the inherent mistrust states harbor for each other. An alternative way of assessing international response (governance of insecurity) is to look at the operational activities of military, intelligence, and police organizations. Traditionally, quantitative statistics, such as numbers of: thwarted attacks, killed or captured terrorists, cleared cases, or statistics on the amount of intelligence gathered and overall numbers of investigations or operations, have all been used as measures of success against terrorism. But these measures of success have also been called into question for reflecting a “short-term” approach that mainly tries to assess success in yearly fiscal terms, while terrorists take a longer view. Given subsequent assertions that effective counter-terrorism should

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concentrate on delegitimizing the terrorists’ causes and breaking their morale, measuring the achievement of such practices is not easy. In fact, an overall assessment of counter-terrorism is that it is generally a reactionary practice, and is thus usually at least one step behind the threat. Logic would tell us that the ultimate measure of counter-terror success would be in looking at whether it can jump a step ahead of the threat, moving into a preemptive rather than reactionary position. Perhaps the best way of assessing response therefore, is to consider the adaptability of the responding actors and their practices. If the current innovativeness of terrorism is dependent on a transnational resurgence, then the obvious way to assess international counter-terror success is to ask whether the countering actors are themselves proving able to move into the transnational space, and build up effective and sustainable insecurity governance practices.

History of response to terrorism To organize a comparison of terrorist threats over the last century or so with corresponding responses, it is useful to draw on Rapoport’s historical division of terrorist waves.24 Figure 1.1 (opposite) provides a rough depiction of the history of the response to terrorism over the last 125 years, broadly reducing terrorism into just three waves (Anarchist, twentieth century, new terrorism), and designed to show general patterns between the threat and response – thereby providing a framework for a comparative analysis of the responses of different periods, and giving us a picture of past and present insecurity governance activities at the local, international, and transnational levels. The discussion below begins with an overview of the national, international, and embryonic attempts at transnationallevel responses to the Anarchist wave of terror. It continues with a look at the international responses that dominated much of the twentieth century, and ends with an assessment of those international responses for engaging with a now betterequipped transnational threat. The Anarchist wave The first wave of terrorism shown in Figure 1.1 is that of the Anarchists, spanning the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. From a post-9/11 perspective, two characteristics in particular make the Anarchists an interesting example to consider in terms of the type of threat they posed and, accordingly, in terms of the type of response that was built up by the states they threatened. The first of these is that, like today’s “new” terrorists, the Anarchists presented an unprecedented degree of violence for their era. While state-level violence and wars were not uncommon, the degree of threat posed by the non-state Anarchist movement was new. Secondly, with their anti-statist, global aspirations, and influence from Europe to Asia to North and South America, they represented an early example of a truly transnational phenomenon and threat. As can be seen in Figure 1.1, the range of state responses was from the purely local, to the international, to some attempts at the transnational.

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VIOLENCE / RESPONSE

Violence/Response Threat

Response

Threat

Response

Transnational Level

Threat Response

? Conferences a-1898 Rome b-1904 St Petersburg

Threat

Response

International Level

a-Conventions

b-International Organizations -UN, INTERPOL -Regional initiatives

Diplomacy

Diplomacy

2000

1990

1980

1970

1950

1900

Censorship Arrests / imprisonment State force

1870

National Level

Legislative measures Alternative policing activities Exile

Figure 1.1 Violence/Response.

Censorship, arrests, and imprisonment Responses to the Anarchist threat were wide and varied, and occurred at the domestic, international and, to some extent, transnational levels. Since the most common starting point for Anarchist action was the printing and distributing of texts – journals, books, pamphlets – the first obvious response by states was censorship, via a combination of efforts including fines, persecution, libel suits, or physically destroying the facilities producing the texts. Although these texts could be argued to have constituted a major contribution to the transnationalization of the threat since they could be widely distributed, the response was generally on the local level. The effectiveness of censorship on its own was questionable, since those producing the texts tended to move to new facilities or simply reopen under new names, as was the case with a series of French Anarchist journals (La Tribune Ouvriere, La Fourmi, L’Avenir National, and Le Courrier Francais) that were each subject to censorship and closure by the authorities. Arrests and imprisonment were perhaps the most common responses by state forces, and were used widely by individual governments around the world. Depending on the conditions of the imprisonment, the practice was more or less effective. In some cases it had the unintended result of allowing the imprisoned the opportunity to actually increase their activities (the French Anarchist Proudhon took advantage of his prison time to produce even more Anarchist texts), in other cases, like that of the famous Russian Anarchist, Bakunin, arrest proved a more effective countering measure. Not only were Bakunin’s ideas not easily allowed to pass outside the prison, but the nearly eight years he spent in prison also succeeded in ruining his health and taming him to some degree.

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Legislative measures Legislative measures ranged from mild moves to more drastic ones, and from more local ones to those directly addressing the Anarchists’ transnational – or at least international – nature. At the mild end there are examples such as the levying of a stamp tax on all political literature – thus raising the price of popular Anarchist newspapers and reducing their circulation.25 At the more drastic end were legislative measures such as those to guarantee the state’s ability to imprison suspected Anarchists. In France, the terrorist acts of the 1880s and 1890s led to the infamous lois sclerates, which made it illegal to incite or even apologize for criminal acts, forbade “associations of malefactors” (and did so on the basis of mere intent to cause harm rather than only actual deed), and, finally, forbade any act of Anarchist propaganda of any kind whatsoever. Using these laws, the French government was able to completely bring the Anarchist press to a halt, to bring to trial virtually all the movement’s leaders, and to break up the various groups around the country. The United States was particularly concerned with curbing the mobility of Anarchists, and trying to keep them a “distant” problem. So, despite its tradition of open borders for political refugees, US fears about violent Anarchists in the wake of the Haymarket Square riot and the assassination of President McKinley, led to the passing of a law in 1903 banning Anarchists from entering the country.26 Alternative policing activities Innovative uses of police spies seems to have been quite extensive in various states’ response to the Anarchist threat. One of the most famous cases was that of a French agent provocateur who managed to join in the Anarchist Congress in London in 1881. The police chief who arranged this particular move also devised an elaborate scheme to infiltrate the French Anarchists by setting up an “Anarchist” journal. Claiming to have gained funds as a gift from a British woman, a police agent was able to convince Anarchist leaders to use the money and set up the journal, Le Revolution Sociale. The journal ran for over a year, and allowed the police direct insights into the workings of the Anarchists, as well as an outlet for planting ideas and provoking others in the name of the Anarchists. Human intelligence methods were also successful in Italy, where the Committee for Social Revolution saw the majority of its plans for strategic uprisings foiled by the police, who gained key information about the plans and were thus able to intercept activists, and disrupt activities. Yet another “alternative” countering means was the conducting of look-alike crimes in order to both create excuses for arrests and to sway public opinion against the Anarchists. During the peak decade of terror in France, for example, some bombings have been attributed to the police rather than the actual Anarchists, and even the famous Haymarket riot and shooting in Chicago has been argued to have been sparked by a police bullet rather than an Anarchist one.27 The police also developed a number of initiatives for internationalizing and even transnationalizing the response to the Anarchists. Moves at the international level

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included the official establishing of bilateral agreements to cooperate or to allow for extradition between countries, but also convening multinational conferences, such as the 1898 Conference in Rome at which it was proposed that the police of different countries should communicate and exchange information in a systematic way to counter the Anarchist threat,28 and the subsequent 1904 St. Petersburg conference, in which a protocol for an “international war on Anarchism” was signed.29 Assuming a more transnational nature – in that it occurred at the sub-state level – national police organizations also established themselves a variety of ways in which information traveled beyond national borders, including a kind of liaison system in which countries either placed their own officers abroad or brought in officers from other countries. Police chiefs had agreements to share information (e.g. monthly lists of expellees from their countries), technical strategies and tactics were shared, and informal individual contacts between high-level police officers became common. While these various efforts can not be precisely assessed for effectiveness – how many Anarchists were caught due to these initiatives, how many attacks were averted – their very existence and the fact that the sub-national organizations and individuals saw the need to try and develop them in the face of this new kind of threat, is in itself interesting. They also offer a starting point for comparison to see whether currently, when faced with a threat that shares some of the Anarchists’ transnational characteristics, the response again turns to such sub-national initiatives. Exile Another common state response against Anarchists was to force them into exile. In other cases, Anarchists themselves chose to go into a kind of “self-exile” to escape persecution. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, exile could be considered as a somewhat successful response. Working from even as close by as Belgium complicated Proudhon’s efforts in the mid-1800s to get his journal (La Presse Ouvriere) past customs officials and back into France. Further-off places, like the United States, were even less accessible, and made matters even more difficult for the Anarchists. It is interesting to note for example that in the early 1870s, Karl Marx chose to move the General Council of the International to New York in order to protect it from the influence of the Anarchists, but later regretted it, as in that distant place the Council “languished and quickly died from sheer inaction.”30 The challenges and frustrations of being in exile (and therefore, in a sense, the effectiveness of exile as a response measure) are described in the book Jours d’Exil, by French Anarchist, Ernest Coeurderoy. Exile also proved useful for the state in the Italian case, when, in the late 1870s, the exiling of the Anarchist leaders Cafiero and Malatesta were factors in the failure of the International in Italy. Looking at the case of the United States, the deportations of Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were also successful from a countering perspective. Even if they could have gotten their ideas back into the US, their physical absence stripped the movement of powerful, inspiring personalities, and the movement faded into complacency.

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In fact, however, the movement’s transnational nature made the effectiveness of exile as a countering measure less than clear in many other cases. Some Anarchists in exile became connector figures, who spread and shared their ideas across borders and continents. Certain cities in Switzerland and England in particular became centers for exiles, and, subsequently, very fertile areas for exchanging ideas and plans. Switzerland in the late nineteenth century was a gathering place for radical Russians. Bakunin, for example, was not originally a self-proclaimed Anarchist, but after leaving Russia by choice and meeting with intellectuals, bohemians, and exiles in Switzerland and other countries, he adopted Anarchist principles over his pan-Slavist tendencies.31 He was also subjected to deportation and imposed exile; deported from France in the late 1840s, for example, and exiled to Siberia in the 1850s. Even in the far east of Siberia, though, he was able to meet with people, and, eventually, to escape, via Japan, across the USA, and back to Europe. Proudhon’s case is again interesting in the sense of mixed benefits, for while his exile in Belgium on the one hand restricted his ability to propagandize in France, he was far from being cut off from Anarchist activity. It was during his time in Belgium that he was able to meet with Tolstoy, and messages were delivered to him from Bakunin, who was at the time in exile in Siberia. He was also approached by groups of workers from France who came to him for advice. As suggested above, an interesting aspect to the practice of exile – and its ultimate success as a countering means – is the relationship it holds to the question of whether the movement was transnational or national. Were exiled Anarchists allowed to continue practicing the ideas or acts that had led to their exile in the first place or did some form of international cooperation between states keep them under pressure in the host country? In many cases it appears that for exiled Anarchists whose main message was non-threatening to the host country, either by being a nationalist message (and thus directed at a nation outside of the one in which they were exiled), or a non-violent one, they were allowed to continue speaking out without persecution. Kropotkin, for example, despite his leading position in the Anarchist movement, spent more than 30 unpersecuted years in England. There he represented not only the face of Anarchism as a theory of social change but, more pointedly, restricted himself to activities that did not directly threaten the British state, such as lecture tours, founding periodicals, and theorizing, and increasingly moved away from his earlier support for violent methods. For those in exile whose message was broader and/or more violent, and thus posed a potential threat to the host country as well, there is evidence of greater international cooperation to keep them under pressure. Examples include the French keeping a close eye on the Italian Malatesta when he was within their borders, Russian pressure leading to Bakunin’s exile from France, and the deporting of a younger, less “peaceful” Kropotkin from Switzerland in 1881. Evidence of international state alliances to counter the Anarchists can also be seen at times when the Anarchists seemed to be presenting a significant threat beyond specific national levels, such as when they took power in Spain. At this point there emerged an alliance of nation-states – directly on the part of Germany and Italy, indirectly

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on the part of the Russians and French – who jointly refused to sell arms to the Anarchists, thereby cutting off their ability to compete militarily.32 State force Moving up the scale of response measures, the final countering means to be considered in the case of the Anarchists is the use of brute force by national-level police or military. This was generally used by states facing more significant threats, such as violent insurrections, but not always. Of course, while state force could often succeed in crushing the immediate problem, the after-effects were less predictable. This was particularly so if the state’s reaction was perceived to have been excessive in response to the original crime, in which cases the harsh response only succeeded in more violent acts and in greater popularity for the Anarchist cause. Examples of this were the support gained by the Anarchists after brutal repression of the Paris commune (1871) and after the Sacco and Vanzetti killings in 1927.33

Terrorism in the twentieth century With the winding down of the Anarchist wave, there emerged a series of nationalist movements and left-wing groups that conducted the bulk of terrorist activities throughout much of the rest of the twentieth century, and are shown as the middle section of Figure 1.1 (see p. 9). This era also corresponded with the major expansion of the international, such as the end of colonialism, the emergence of new states, and therefore was exemplified by primary tenets of the international: state-building, nationalism, and inter-state struggles. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, unlike the Anarchists, the motivations and ultimate goals of most terrorist groups of the twentieth century were determined by the participants’ local and national identities and loyalties. Terrorist groups, from Irgun in Palestine, to the IRA in Ireland, to ETA in Spain, were often inspired by goals of national independence. Even ideologically-driven groups, such as the Red Army Faction, the Italian Red Brigades, or Direct Action in France, as mentioned earlier, were still likely to act on a national-level basis, in spite of having broadly global goals. Reflecting this largely national nature of the terrorist threat, we see a shift in responses. As a largely local problem, both the definition of what it constituted and the responses to it, were largely determined at the national level. It is no surprise that it was during this era that the common saying, “one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist” came to represent this local focus of terrorist activities and responses. In the later decades of the twentieth century, the local took on a more international flavor with the increasing use of international strategies and tactics still most often for local purposes (e.g. the airline hijackings and attacks on European soil by the PLO). Again, the response shifted to address this internationalization of the threat, this time with increased emphasis on international initiatives – various efforts at international governance of international insecurity, from diplomacy to the setting up of international organizations. In light of the resurgence of the transnational in the form of “new” terrorism, the following section provides a brief

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overview of these still commonly relied upon international responses, and discussion of their effectiveness for dealing with transnational threats. The question that will be addressed in the rest of the volume is: If these international institutions and efforts are not able to handle the transnational threats, are we seeing the emergence of new, more effective, and more transnational forms of response by states? Diplomacy The most obvious approach to dealing with terrorist threats that spread across national borders has been through various forms of diplomacy, in other words, establishing relations and coordination between states through the channels of the foreign office or state department. Such efforts are not without problems, since states reflect their individual interests and understandings of the world through their diplomatic actions, and, unsurprisingly, existing differences between states may negatively influence international-based responses. Only when states’ interests coincide or overlap in cooperation against terrorism, is diplomacy able to produce benefits. This need to find common ground constitutes a problem for any kind of issue being dealt with via diplomacy. Diplomacy traditionally has required two or more states, with more or less equal commitment to and similar understandings of an issue, to get together and reach an agreement. Terrorism, by definition of any kind, has often proven impervious to consensus. Two things have complicated matters still further: first, terrorism has affected different countries to very different degrees, and, therefore, starting-level understandings are very different; and second, many states – because of existing traditional inter-state tensions – have found it convenient to view a neighbor’s terrorism problem as an advantage or asset in their interstate rivalries. State-support of terrorism in the twentieth century, in which one state supports the terrorists acting against one if its rivals, has been a tool of interstate invisible warfare. With such a background, it is extremely challenging to envision diplomacy and diplomats of different countries to suddenly harmonize their different visions and practices vis-à-vis terrorism in its new transnational form. Conventions Conventions are legal instruments addressing a particular subject. They are signed by states, which are then expected to abide by the rules of those conventions. Efforts to establish conventions addressing terrorism date back to the 1930s, including the 1937 UN Convention for the prevention and punishment of terrorism – though, admittedly, this Convention never came into force. Subsequent UN conventions on terrorism have tended not to cover terrorism as a holistic problem, but to focus on specific issues, such as offences against aircraft and civil aviation safety, crimes against internationally protected persons, taking hostages, or suppression of bombings. As such they often are reactionary in nature, that is, they are created when specific issues became a problem.34 Have these conventions been useful in terms of closing the gap between

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transnational threats and their international responses? What types of problems have states continued to face with respect to transnationalization of the threat despite the presence of these conventions? The clearest acknowledgement of the imperfections of conventions in serving to bridge the gap between transnational threats and their international responses, is seen on the webpage of the UN itself, where it notes the organization’s inability to urge states to conform to terrorism conventions and regulations. Obviously the establishing of a convention or regulation is not enough, what is important is getting them to work in a binding manner. Moreover, efforts to produce meaningful international conventions with binding results are further hampered by time – it may take such a long time to achieve consensus simply on the definition of the focus of the Convention, that, by the time it is complete, the nature of what has been defined may have already changed. In the second half of the twentieth century, for example, while Soviet involvement with terrorist groups helped feed into certain assumptions, most conventions on terrorism were concentrating on getting states’ full commitment to international cooperation. The principle being that without state support, terrorist organizations could not survive. As we now know, as early as the 1980s, some violent non-state groups were already acquiring skills and strategies for surviving without state support. International organizations In terms of international organizations with connections to countering terror, the largest is the United Nations. The United Nations has been working on general crime-related issues since its establishment in 1945, and has also worked at trying to codify the governing of insecurity at the international level. While it has been unable to establish a universally acceptable definition of terrorism, it has succeeded over the last half century in defining certain terrorist acts through the establishment of 12 conventions and several resolutions in the fight against terrorism. These resolutions only criminalize certain acts of terrorism, such as hijacking, though a thirteenth convention on the suppression of nuclear terrorism has been adopted and opened for signature. In the years since 9/11, the UN Security Council has also adopted Resolution 1373, which “obliges all States to criminalize assistance for terrorist activities, deny financial support and safe haven to terrorists and share information about groups planning terrorist attacks.”35 The same resolution established the Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) to monitor the implementation of the resolution, and in 2004, Resolution 1535 created the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) to provide the CTC with expert advice. The second largest international organization dealing with international terrorism is INTERPOL. Created in 1923, it has 184 member countries, five regional bureaus in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle-East/North Africa, and a mandate to “facilitate cross-border police co-operation, and support and assist all organizations, authorities and services whose mission is to prevent or combat international crime”.36 Terrorism is still relatively new to INTERPOL’s agenda but

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has gradually taken a role since 1984, when the Luxembourg General Assembly permitted the organization to become involved with terrorists acting outside of their home territory. In 1985, a specialist Anti-Terrorism Group was established at the Washington General Assembly and in the years since 9/11, the organization’s counter-terrorism-related activities have increased dramatically, making terrorism one of INTERPOL’s priority areas. INTERPOL appears to have transformative capacity and the ability to respond to immediate challenges, as can be seen in the immediate launching of a Fusion Task Force after the 9/11 attacks. However, the individual needs and desires of the member states can still prove a major stumbling block to its effectiveness. States have been criticized as expecting more from INTERPOL than they are willing to contribute to it37 and as generally seeing INTERPOL as a place to appeal to when they are in trouble. When they aren’t in trouble, they do not necessarily go out of their way to provide information and contribute to INTERPOL’s databanks. Moreover, INTERPOL’s original foundation was about apolitical international crimes – with the reasonable rationale that politicized issues make cooperation (the fundamental building of INTERPOL itself) impossible. Now that terrorism is becoming an increasing focus for INTERPOL, the highly politicized nature of the issue and the resulting potential for interference stemming from various states’ diverse definitions of, experiences with, and approaches to terrorism, seem inevitable. It is not yet clear how this institution will be able to handle it. This potential problem may keep the institution’s seeming transformative capacity at the rhetorical level but without concrete developments in terms of actual government response. Turning finally to regional-level international organizations focusing on crime and terrorism, it is clear that Europe is a very active region. Since 1975, countries of the European Community and European Union have had in place a system of anti-terrorism cooperation. Since 9/11, this cooperation has increased, and the European Union (EU) has issued several decisions in the struggle against terrorism, including those focused on aligning terrorism-related legislation, setting out minimum rules on terrorist offences, setting cooperation between member states, combating the financing of terrorist groups, and promoting information sharing between countries. Europe has several police cooperation initiatives such as EUROPOL, the Southeast European Cooperation Initiative (SECI), and the Nordic Police and Customs Cooperation (PTN). The best known European initiative, EUROPOL, was put into operation in 1999, and is established on a liaison system, in which member countries send a representative to the EUROPOL headquarters in the Hague. In addition to attending general meetings, representatives at the central headquarters can be sent to speak directly with other on-site representatives. According to EUROPOL representatives, a critical advantage of EUROPOL is as a mechanism for the rapid spreading of information: “If there is a vital issue to be shared among all member countries, gathering all the representatives together only takes a matter of minutes – a tremendous advantage as it allows for all countries to be immediately informed about an urgent issue.”38 Regional police cooperation initiatives in other parts of the world exist as well.

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In Africa, for example, there are the Eastern, Western, Central and Southern African Police Chief Organizations, which focus on cooperation against terrorism. Throughout Asia, police cooperation is generally focused in South Asia, where the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the ASEAN Chiefs of National Police, or ASEANAPOL, play an important role in police cooperation. Leaders of ASEANAPOL member law enforcement agencies gather annually to discuss police matters, and exchanges of personnel and training are common. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) also facilitates law enforcement cooperation. In the Americas, the relationship between the USA and Canada is quite close. An example of cooperation between the USA and Canada is the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), a police association created in the USA, but with members from both countries. Within South America there are bilateral, regional, and multiregional initiatives. The most important regional initiative is MERCOSUR, which is a trading block similar to the European Union, and formed by Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay. The national heads of police forces of MERCOSUR states have regular meetings. When assessing the general effectiveness of international organizations in bridging the gap between transnational threats and international response, it is impossible to ignore the underlying problems with international organizations that they cannot behave individually; they are by nature reliant on their member states, and are thus restricted by the many different concerns and understandings that those states bring with them. It is particularly complicated therefore to establish a common strategy in multilateral settings for a political issue like terrorism. Large international organizations may serve best as coordinating bodies or as a means of sharing of information, but counter-terrorism also requires operational capacities. In other words – there is the need for strength and legitimacy and consensus to conduct specific operations, to gather, process, and disseminate intelligence, and to organize follow-up operations. On this front, the international organizations are far less effective, which is why this operational capacity today still overwhelmingly belongs to national agencies, which fall under national authorities and national governments. Turning to the regional initiatives, we see a greater capacity to both work together in exchanging information and conducting actual operations. Building up shared understandings also seems to be easier within regional initiatives, which is not surprising since common regional issues are likely to be the impetus behind the setting up of such initiatives. Despite the gains made by regional efforts, they tend to remain just that – regional. They do not necessarily contribute to solving a truly transnational and global level problem. What can be drawn from the lesson of the regional success stories and the problems of the international efforts is a recommendation for a response comprised of a totality of national agency initiatives, rather than a single, globally conceived and executed strategy and framework. How this might work, and whether such a piecemeal approach is already occurring, will also be questions to be considered in the subsequent chapters in this volume.

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(In)Security governance in a transnational world The preceding analyses and the information in Figure 1.1 show us some major characteristics about today’s global politics with respect to (in)security challenges. Three main observations can be made from the above. First, with respect to security, today’s world is one in which security is indivisible. That is, no one in this world is truly safe unless everyone is experiencing a basic sense of security. Gone are the days when the world could be partitioned into zones of conflict and zones of peace. Second, as discussed, there is evidence of a gap between the transnational and the international, and, with respect to security issues, between threats emanating from or using the transnational, and responses that seem necessarily to come from the international. Finally, and related to the above, we can observe that traditional statist approaches, tools, and institutions that were valid for an international (in)security framework, appear increasingly obsolete when applied to transnational (in)security challenges. Based on these observations, it is possible to make certain assumptions about the relationship between international governance and transnational (in)security. We can begin with the assumption that an independent institutionalization of an autonomous transnational governance of security, using indigenous (transnational) security provider actors, does not seem to be realistic. Transnational governance remains in such an embryonic state, that it would be hopelessly optimistic to expect it to be able to take care of its own security issues. We can therefore assume for now that security governance will continue, as it has traditionally done in recent history, to fall into the hands of states and statist institutions. As can be seen in Figure 1.1, at least over the last 125 years or so, no non-state actor has emerged to serve as the primary responder to the major security threat of terrorism. Having said this, a further assumption is that states, as primary security providers, cannot only rely on traditional, statist means of governing transnational security. These means, from diplomacy to preparing conventions to war waging, are not adequate to comprehensively govern the highly dynamic insecurity of the transnational. Which brings us to the following conclusions: at the theoretical level, while liberal institutionalism’s capacity for conceptualizing an independent transnational (in)security governance, appears to demand revisions with respect to transnational (in)security governance, there are also obvious limits of the classical tools and strategies of the realist paradigm and its statist security thinking. Over-emphasis on the state has over the years overshadowed the analysis of states’ transformative and adaptive capacities for non-conventional security challenges. An obvious alternative perspective to consider both conceptually and practically is that of transgovernmental actors and practices. Based on Keohane and Nye’s long-standing distinction of activity occurring between “sub-units of governments on those occasions when they act relatively autonomously from higher authority in international politics”,39 transgovernmentalism highlights the idea of “sub-state” authorities coordinating and building up networks with other sub-state entities. Until now, such activity has been noted primarily in non-security-related realms, from the environment to human rights activism, from finances to legal matters.40 The growth

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of such networks in the security realm has also been pointed out,41 and the need for exploring networks in transnational security issues has been expressed both for methodological purposes42 and as a means for countering terrorism.43 There has been, however, scarce coverage of security-related transgovernmental activities.44 The question remains, therefore, what such a transgovernmental perspective might reveal about the current state of the state with respect to security, and, specifically, to the question of whether states are adapting their response practices to meet new challenges. Moreover, there is the question of to what extent networking activities by substate entities that are not operating “relatively autonomously from higher authority” still fall under the transgovernmental mantle. If transgovernmentalist activities occur between sub-state entities without the disconnection and defiance of state capacity that the label presumes, perhaps a more appropriate term to describe such activities might be “statist-transnationalism”. The practical interpretation is that for today’s most urgent new (in)security challenges, the job to be done is transnational; the tool at hand to deal with them is the state, but the state is unfit if it relies only on traditional international means. If global security has truly become indivisible, and a global response is urgent and necessary to confront the challenges, then states, as the only able bodies of authority must be facing a tremendous pressure to devise mechanisms of transnational (in)security governance. The following chapters will therefore seek to provide input to the following questions: are states, or anyone else with state capacity, going transnational? Can we observe an emerging pattern of transgovernmentalism or what we can label as “statist-transnationalism” in the current (in)security environment and if so, what are its defining characteristics?

Notes 1 For an overview, see P. J. Smith, “Transnational security threats and state survival: A role for the military?”, Parameters 30, 3, 2002, 77–92. For more focused studies on the environment, see, for example; J. Barnett, The Meaning of Environmental Security: Ecological Politics and Policy in the New Security Era, London: Zed Books, 2001; S. Dalby, Environmental Security, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002; C. Jasparro and J. Taylor, “Climate change and regional vulnerability to transnational security threats in Southeast Asia”, Geopolitics, 13, 2, 2008, 232–256; and J. R. McNeill, “Diamond in the rough: Is there a genuine environmental threat to security? A review essay”, International Security, 31, 1, 2005, 178–195; on the spread of disease, see J. Brower and P. Chalk, The Global Threat of New and Reemerging Infectious Diseases: Reconciling US National Security and Public Health Policy, Santa Monica: RAND, 2003; M. Caballero-Anthony, “Non-traditional security and infectious diseases in ASEAN: Going beyond the rhetoric of securitization to deeper institutionalization”, The Pacific Review, 21, 4, 2008, 507–525; L. Heinecken, “HIV/AIDS, the military and the impact on national and international security,” Society in Transition, 32, 1, 2001, 120–127; S. Kittelsen, “Beyond bounded space, Europe, security, and the global circulation of infectious disease”, European Security, 16, 2, 2007, 121–142 and R. L. Ostergard Jr., “Politics in the hot zone: AIDs and national security in Africa”, Third World Quarterly, 23, 2, 2002, 333–350. On migration, see M. Collyer, “Migrants, migration and the security paradigm: Constraints and opportunities”, Mediterranean Politics, 11, 2, 2006, 255–270; T. Faist, “Extension du domaine de la lutte: International migration

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3

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5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

E. Aydinli and security, before and after September 11, 2001”, International Migration Review, 36, 1, 2006, 7–14, and D. Lutterbeck, “Policing migration in the Mediterranean”, Mediterranean Politics, 11, 1, 2006, 59–82; on transnational crime, see N. Swanstrom, “The narcotics trade: A threat to security? National and transnational implications”, Global Crime, 8, 1, 2007, 1–25; P. Williams, “Transnational criminal organizations and international security”, Survival 36, 1, 1994, 96–113; and on the rise of transnational terrorism see W. Enders and T. Sandler, “Is transnational terrorism becoming more threatening?”, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 44, 3, 2000, 307–333; T. M. Sanderson, “Transnational terror and organized crime: Blurring the lines”, SAIS Review, 24, 1, 2004, 49–61; T. Sandler and W. Enders, “September 11 and its aftermath”, International Studies Review, 7, 1, 2005, 165–170; Q. Wiktorowicz, “The new global threat: Transnational Salafis and Jihad,” Middle East Policy, 8, 4, 2001, 18–38. The conceptualization of AIDS/HIV as a transnational security challenge has also been questioned, see T. Barnett and G. Prins, “HIV/AIDS and Security: Fact, Fiction and Evidence – A Report to UNAIDS”, International Affairs, Vol. 82, No. 2 (2006), pp. 359–368; Stefan Elbe, “Should HIV/AIDS be securitized? The ethical dilemmas of linking HIV/AIDS and security”, International Studies Quarterly, 50, 1, 2006, 119–144. Early leading efforts include: D. A. Baldwin, “The concept of security”, Review of International Studies, 25, 1997, 5–26; B. Buzan, O. Waever and J. deWilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis, Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1997; A. Dupont, East Asia Imperilled: Transnational Challenges to Security, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001; R. Mandel, Deadly Transfers and the Global Playground: Transnational Security Threats in a Disorderly World, Westport: Praeger, 1999. While disagreements remain over the ultimate significance of these forces, most would argue that their importance has grown relative to the Cold War era. For pioneering works on these transformations and forces see J. N. Rosenau, Distant Proximities: Dynamics Beyond Globalization, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003; Along the Domestic-Foreign Frontier: Exploring Governance in a Turbulent World, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997; and Turbulence in World Politics, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. Examples of post-internationalist theorizing include Y. Ferguson and R. Mansbach, “Post- internationalism and international relations theory”, Millennium Journal of International Studies, 35, 2007, 529–549; H. Hobbs, (ed.), Pondering postinternationalism. Albany: SUNY Press, 2000. The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 361–362 (emphasis mine). Available at http://www. gpoaccess.gov/911/Index.html S. P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968. Falkenrath et al., pp. 176–177. Personal communication from Turkish police officer, April 2007. Referring to the wave of “religious” terror as described by D. C. Rapoport, “The four waves of modern terrorism” in A. K. Kronin & J. M. Ludes (Eds) Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy, pp. 47–73, Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2004. L. Lumpe, “A new approach to the small arms trade”, Arms Control Today, 31, 1, 2001, available at http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2001_01–02/lumpejanfeb01.asp See Rosenau’s discussion on the potential of micro/macro transformation. F. Fukuyama, Statebuilding: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century, Ithica: Cornell University Press, 2004; A. Etzioni, Security First: For a Muscular, Moral Foreign Policy, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. The practical importance of this problem has been highlighted in T. Sandler, 2004. Global Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. J. Arquilla, D. Ronfeldt and M. Zanini, “Networks, netwar and information age terrorism”, In I. O. Lesser, J. Arquilla, B. Hoffman, D. Ronfeldt and M. Zanini (Eds), Countering the new terrorism (pp. 39–84). Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1999; B.Hoffman,

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17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

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“Terrorism trends and prospects.” In I. O. Lesser et al. (Eds.), Countering the New Terrorism, pp. 7–38, Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1999; B. Hoffman. Inside Terrorism, New York: Columbia University Press, 2006; O. P. Richmond, “Realizing hegemony? Symbolic terrorism and the roots of conflict”, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 26, 4, 2003, 289–309; S. Simon and D. Benjamin, “America and the new terrorism”, Survival, 42, 1, 2000, 59–75. Arquilla, Ronfeldt, Zanini, op. cit.; Richmond, op. cit. J. D. Ballard, J. G. Hornik and D. McKenzie,“Technological facilitation of terrorism: Definitional, legal, and policy issues,” American Behavioral Scientist, 45, 2002, 989–1016; S. Coll and S. B. Glasser, “Terrorists turn to the web as base of operations”, Washington Post. Sunday, 7 August 2005; D. E. Denning, “Activism, hacktivism, and cyberterrorism: The internet as a tool for influencing foreign policy”, in J. Arquilla & D. Ronfeldt (Eds), Networks and Netwars: The future of terror, crime, and militancy (pp. 239–288). Santa Monica: Rand, 2001; S. M. Furnell and M. J.Warren, “Computer hacking and cyber terrorism: The real threats in the new millennium?” Computers & Security, 18, 1999, 28–34; S. Hinde, “Incalculable potential for damage by cyberterrorism”, Computers & Security, 20, 2001, 568–572; T. Homer-Dixon, “The rise of complex terrorism”, Foreign Policy, 128, 2002, 52–62; M. Stohl, “Cyber terrorism: a clear and present danger, the sum of all fears, breaking point or patriot games?” Crime Law and Social Change, 46, 2006, 223–238. W. Enders and T. Sandler, “Is transnational terrorism becoming more threatening?”, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 44, 3, 2000, 307–332. A. Spencer, The Problems of Evaluating Counter-Terrorism. UNISCI Discussion Papers No: 12, 2006, 199–201. Rapoport, 2004, op. cit. Hoffman, 1999, op. cit. P. Wilkinson, “The strategic implications of terrorism”, In M. L. Sondhi, (Ed.) Terrorism and Political Violence: A Sourcebook, India: Indian Council of Social Science Research. Haranand Publications, 2000. Richmond, 2003, op cit.; Simon and Benjamin, 2000, op cit.; D. Tucker, “What is new about the new terrorism and how dangerous is it?”, Terrorism and Political Violence, 13, 3, 1–13. E. Aydinli, “From finances to transnational mobility: Searching for the Jihadists’ Achilles heel”, Terrorism and Political Violence, 18, 2, 301–313. Rapoport, 2004, op. cit. In fact, in the case of Proudhon’s journal, Le Voix du People, the subsequent loss of revenue left the paper unable to pay a large fine that had also been imposed, and ultimately proved a successful blow, closing down the paper once and for all. For an interesting comparison on British reluctance to pass similar laws, see R. B. Jensen, “The International Anti-Anarchist Conference of 1898 and the origins of INTERPOL”, Journal of Contemporary History, 16, 2, 1981, 323–347. G. Woodcock, Anarchism, Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2004, 397. Jensen, op. cit. M. Deflem, “History of international police cooperation” in R. A. Wright and J. M. Miller (Eds), The Encyclopedia of Criminology, pp. 795–798, New York: Routledge, 2005. Woodcock, op. cit, p. 150. T. R. Ravindranathan, Bakunin and the Italians, Montreal: McGill Queens University Press, 1986, 11–56. Levy, op. cit., p. 342. For details on the effects of the Haymarket riots and killings of Sacco and Vanzetti, see books by the leading writer on American Anarchists, P. Avrich, The Haymarket Tragedy, Princeton University Press, 1984, and Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background, Princeton University Press, 1991.

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34 For example, the prevalence of hijacking and offences against aviation in the 1960s led to the Aircraft Convention of 1963, the Unlawful Seizure Convention in 1970 and the Civil Aviation Convention in 1971. 35 Retrieved on 28 November 2007 from http://www.un.org/sc/ctc/ 36 http://www.interpol.org/public/icpo/default.asp 37 Personal communication by INTERPOL officer, October 2007. 38 Interview with EUROPOL liaison, 15 November 2006. 39 R. O. Keohane and J. S. Nye, “Transgovernmental relations and international organizations”, World Politics, 27, 1, 1974, 39–62. 40 Examples of these works include M. Betsill and H. Bulkeley, “Transnational networks and global environmental governance: The cities for climate protection program”, International Studies Quarterly, 48, 2, 2004, 471–493; S. Cardenas, “Transgovernmental activism: Canada’s role in promoting national human rights commissions”, Human Rights Quarterly, 24, 3, 2003, 775–790; A. Baker, The group of seven: Finance ministries, central banks, and global finance governance. Milton Park: Routledge, 2005; A. L. Newmann, “Building transnational civil liberties: Transgovernmental entrepreneurs and the European data privacy directive”, International Organization, 62, 2008, 103–130; and, most significantly, A-M. Slaughter, A new world order: Government networks and the disaggregated state. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. 41 F. B. Adamson, “Globalization, transnational political mobilization, and networks of violence”, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 18, 1, 2005, 31–49. 42 E. Krahmann, “Security governance and networks: New theoretical perspectives in transatlantic security”, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 18, 1, 2005, 15–30. 43 N. Gerspacher and B. Dupont, “The nodal structure of international police cooperation: An exploration of transnational security networks”, Global Governance, 13, 3, 2007, 347–364. 44 Somewhat of an exception to this from outside of the international relations literature are works that indirectly consider transgovernmental cooperation among the police, e.g. D. Bigo, “When two becomes one: Internal and external securitizations in Europe”, in M. Kelstrup and M. C. Williams (Eds) International relations theory and the politics of European integration. London: Routledge, 2000; E.A. Nadelmann, Cops across borders: The internationalization of US criminal law enforcement. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993; J. W. E. Sheptycki, “Transnational policing and the makings of a postmodern state”, The British Journal of Criminology, 35, 1995, 613–635; and chapters in this volume by Marenin, Yon, Nussbaum, and Deflem.

2

Beyond the State? The impact of transnational terrorist threats on security cooperation1 Derek S. Reveron

Introduction Two fundamental responsibilities of every government are to provide security for its people and control its territory. While it is simple to identify these core responsibilities, the ways of achieving them have changed as there has been a shift in focus from traditional state threats to transnational threats posed by terrorists and organized-crime organizations. This shift has called into question national security structures created and honed since the end of World War II, which were designed to counter state threats, and has specifically addressed the ways in which intelligence to counter these threats is gathered and used. When states were primarily concerned about another country invading, launching preventive missile attacks, or enforcing blockades, intelligence problems were calculated in a relatively straightforward manner: characterize an adversary’s intentions and assess its military capabilities. With these intelligence assessments, diplomats could head off crises that could lead to war, militaries could prepare appropriate defenses, and force planners could create a sufficient offensive capability to deter adversary action or successfully achieve national objectives in war. In short, intelligence was consumed and charged with preventing strategic surprise from other states. While some surprises did occur during the Cold War (North Korea’s invasion of the South, various Arab attacks against Israel, or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan), the overall success of intelligence structures around the world during the Cold War gave rise to a heady confidence across national security structures.2 What can we say now about those intelligence structures in an age of transnational threats? Are these structures – and the states they are bound to – adapting to meet the new challenges? Are developments in international cooperation and intelligence-sharing between states and sub-state entities evidence of these states themselves going transnational, in other words, signs of an emerging statist-transnationalism?3 While probably too much has been made of the “strategic surprise” of the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States, it did spur critical examination of how the United States collects, analyzes, and disseminates intelligence. Just two years after al Qaeda successfully attacked the United States, the poor analysis of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program highlighted the need for intelligence reform. In the first instance, US intelligence underestimated al Qaeda’s capabilities to

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execute attacks; in the second case, US intelligence (and many other countries’ intelligence services) overestimated Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs and poorly assessed Iraq’s intentions. Coming within just two years of each other, however, the two intelligence failures produced two very different lessons. First, the 9/11 attack has been characterized as a failure to “connect the dots”. If only intelligence agencies had shared their data, analysts could have predicted al Qaeda’s attack, and neutralized al Qaeda’s operatives.4 Setting aside the fact that it was unlikely the dots were specific enough to connect the overall attack plan with individuals’ names and locations within the United States, “connecting the dots”, or sharing intelligence, is now a national priority. The second lesson, derived from pre-war intelligence on Iraq, offers a contradictory lesson – “collect more dots”. While there was human intelligence informing conclusions about Iraq’s weapons programs, it was too limited and just plain wrong. While very few studies separate these lessons, the effect of these events has been to fundamentally change the US intelligence community – at the agency and community levels. This is not unprecedented. By one count, since Japan surprised the United States at Pearl Harbor there have been about 40 commissions that have proposed changes to how the country gathers and analyzes intelligence.5 Since the 9/11 attacks, many Congressional, Presidential, and independent reports have recommended major changes to the intelligence community, culminating with the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. While it did many things, this Act created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) that is designed to oversee US government intelligence activities and transform the 16 separate agencies and bureaus that compose the US intelligence community. A key ODNI priority is improving intelligence cooperation within the United States, in other words, to develop new systems and procedures to break down cultural and technical walls that inhibit connecting the dots. This cooperation is primarily focused within the formal intelligence community, e.g., from FBI to CIA; and between the intelligence community and the law enforcement community, e.g. from FBI to NYPD.6 In 2007, the United States issued a National Strategy for Information-sharing, which notes “success in preventing future terrorist attacks depends upon our ability to gather, analyze, and share information and intelligence regarding those who want to attack us, the tactics that they use, and the targets that they intend to attack.”7 While domestic information-sharing is an important undertaking and represents a better understanding of how to combat terrorism, this approach overlooks two important points. First, states increasingly rely on other states either for their security or the necessary training and equipment to perform security functions. Second, to combat transnational threats effectively, states must share intelligence at the international level. After all, it was the Hamburg cell of largely Saudis who executed the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Terrorists still come from states, plan operations in states, and operate in states. This paper explores, therefore, the importance of intelligence in combating terrorism, assesses efforts to share intelligence outside national intelligence agencies, and informs discussions on creating an international intelligence community to effectively compete

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with and combat terrorist networks. It highlights changes in intelligence-sharing practices, both with respect to whom we cooperate with (an issue developed still further in the following chapter by James Walsh) and with respect to the nature of the resulting cooperation. By considering these changes it aims to contribute as well to the broader question of this volume about whether states or their sub-state agencies are successfully adapting to meet the needs of combating transnational security threats.

Intelligence is the base The Clausewitzian analysis is breaking down. It is true that war is an extension of policy – but only when waged by stable states. War is escaping from state control, into the hands of bandits and anarchists. The great work of disarming tribes, sects, warlords, and criminals – a principle achievement of monarchs in the seventeenth century and empires in the nineteenth – threatens to need doing all over again. Not many military establishments possess the skills, equipment, and cultural ruthlessness necessary for the task.8 In contrast to the Cold War, where the intelligence-to-force ratio was low, combating transnational terrorism requires high levels of intelligence to identify a threat relative to the amount of force required to neutralize it. Former head of US military forces in the Near East, General John Abizaid, said: “intelligence is the main driver of counter-insurgency and counterterror operations.”9 To prevent terrorism, intelligence is required to identify terrorists, interdict financing, and disrupt plans. Consequently, this change elevates intelligence in importance and fundamentally alters its relationship to operations; intelligence must now drive operations. Intelligence provides the information necessary to guide law-enforcement activities, focus covert action, and define the scope of US military operations, and, most importantly perhaps, to be effective against transnational threats, states must share intelligence internationally. But these activities conflict with traditional statist practices, which place high priorities on protecting intelligence, not sharing it. Security is one of the few areas in which states have been able to exercise ultimate sovereignty, and intelligence is the supreme national product. In terms of traditional challenges posed by adversarial states, security was achieved through secrecy and the intelligence problem was focused on uncovering what states protected the most. When confronting transnational threats, security is now based on transparency. Governments must share information about suspected terrorists, work together to interdict weapons transfers, and disrupt international terrorism financing. This necessitates a culture shift in a country’s national security institutions and it also creates a dilemma for a country’s intelligence community. Namely, how can a country, in its efforts to counter international terrorism, share its most guarded secrets, sources, and methods with an ever-expanding community of countries? To be successful, governments must adapt their policies and create intelligence-sharing networks capable of sharing information obtained, for example, from the streets of Peshawar, with the London police.

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GWOT created an opportunity “Nous sommes tous Americains.” Le Monde, 12 September 2001 When the Bush administration declared a global war on terrorism (GWOT) after the 9/11 attacks, it was criticized by some for labeling a tactic as the enemy.10 But evoking the image of a “global war” highlighted the transnational nature of the enemy, and the necessity of international cooperation to combat it. Fundamental to this effort has been the enhancing of bilateral and multilateral intelligencesharing. The globalization of combating terrorism has the potential to strengthen warning capabilities by uniting a multinational network of intelligence agencies. Through various political, economic, and military means, the United States has sought to assemble a global coalition to confront terrorism.11 The 2005 US National Intelligence Strategy called for the US intelligence community to “establish new and strengthen existing intelligence relationships.”12 Under the auspices of combating terrorism, there are few countries that will not share intelligence with the United States. There are many ways to share intelligence. One country may collect and analyze in a particular area and share the intelligence in exchange for intelligence in another area. In this case, the United States identifies a foreign intelligence service’s comparative advantage. It may also provide training in return for services rendered by the foreign service, such as language translation. Or, a country may grant the United States use of its territory to collect intelligence in exchange for sharing the information. In other cases, the United States may share collection capabilities with a foreign intelligence service that would share the results of the collection. Finally, in the best case of operational collaboration, the United States and a foreign service may undertake combined collection operations. Since 9/11, the United States has cultivated intelligence relationships with traditional allies like the United Kingdom, new allies like Russia, and nontraditional partners like Yemen. Intelligence sharing is not only essential in the war on terrorism, but it also provides a non-public way for governments to cooperate with the United States. And in an era when, at least until recently, being anti-American (or at least anti-Bush Administration/foreign policy) has been popular, this is an important way for governments to cooperate with the United States without incurring criticism from their publics, which are often enflamed by US foreign policies. These programs are arranged through foreign liaison agreements and interagency intelligence relationships, which have been an important tool of US national power since at least the early twentieth century. The United States has long maintained intelligence partnerships based on common security interests, and, today, these are vital in almost every counter-terrorism operation (arrest, interrogation, or kill). In the post-9/11 world, US intelligence agencies have had to leverage old relationships and create new ones. The United States simply does not have the resources or expertise to fight by itself a long, complex war waged by international terrorists; a

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coalition offers the means to manage the “paradox of plenty” created by the information revolution. Likewise, other countries with smaller intelligence services face even more daunting resource challenges. In short, efforts to combat international terrorism have created new opportunities to cooperate. With a robust technical collection system, the United States leverages smaller intelligence services that can specialize in human intelligence (HUMINT). Smaller countries’ HUMINT services often have skills and expertise the United States would otherwise have to develop to penetrate hard targets.13 The HUMINT challenge is daunting; the United States suffers from insufficient numbers of linguists, difficulty accessing certain countries, and the challenges of infiltrating close-knit, tribal organizations. Even within the United States, the FBI has proven how difficult it is to penetrate English-speaking, urban eco-terrorist groups, for example. CIA efforts to penetrate a Pashto-speaking tribal group in Pakistan pose even greater challenges. Consequently, a partnership between the United States and Pakistan has yielded the most important al Qaeda arrests.14 Saudi Arabia has also been an important ally and partner to combat terrorism. What is clear from intelligence activities during the last decade is that the United States now depends more on trusted sources of intelligence information from foreign liaison services, law enforcement agencies, and internal security services to identify terrorist threats than it did in the past.15 As new diplomatic relationships have been forged during the last several years, the definition of “coalition” has changed dramatically. Former military foes like the Warsaw Pact countries are now full partners and allies in NATO. Or, in a more extreme case, a country like Russia not only cooperates at the political level of counter-terrorism efforts, but also forms tactical partnerships with the United States, exemplified by a 2003 operation discussed below. Likewise, US suspicions of China have been quelled as stronger economic bonds yield improved political ties; both countries have forged new agreements to combat terrorism. Finally, US Central Command, which waged the war on terrorism in the Near East, still included more than 70 countries in the coalition of the willing as recently as 2005.16 John McLaughlin, the former acting Director of Central Intelligence, summed up these changes when he said, “Our worldwide coalition has changed – it is broader, deeper, and more committed. Where terrorists found sanctuary before, they find our allies now – and we are seeing the results from Manama [in Bahrain] to Mexico City.”17 For many governments that either lack the domestic political support or military interoperability standards to use their armed forces alongside American forces, intelligence-sharing is perhaps the easiest, and certainly a nonpublic way for governments to show a commitment to US-led efforts to combat terrorism.18

Categories of intelligence-sharing relationships The countries with which the United States shares intelligence fall into three basic categories: (1) traditional allies such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and other NATO members; (2) new allies and nontraditional friends cultivated for

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the war on terror, such as Pakistan, Yemen, and Uzbekistan; and (3) traditional adversaries that have forged new ties with the United States through their intelligence services, such as Libya and Syria.19 Traditional allies The 1947 UK–USA Agreement between the US National Security Agency and the British Government Communications Headquarters – Canada, Australia and New Zealand joined soon afterwards as “second parties,” and Norway, Denmark, West Germany, and Turkey as “third parties” – established “5 Eyes,” a group that permitted the division of effort in sharing signals intelligence (SIGINT). As the Cold War threat gave way to military operations in the Balkans and Southwest Asia in the 1990s, the relationship between the UK and Australia expanded to provide both countries with access to the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNET), the primary secret-level computer network.20 These allied intelligence relationships have expanded in the war on terror. In one notable success, US and British intelligence officers secretly traveled to Libya in December 2003 and convinced the Libyans to disclose several dozen facilities, to abandon the country’s WMD programs, and to reach out to British intelligence. These actions by the intelligence services paved the way for Libya’s reintegration into the international community. In addition to the 5 Eyes relationships, the United States shares intelligence with its European allies through the NATO Special Committee. After 9/11, NATO shifted its traditional focus when it invoked Article V of the Washington Treaty, declaring that the terrorist attacks were an attack on all NATO countries. The next month, it adopted eight new measures to combat terrorism, including an agreement to enhance intelligence-sharing on terrorism threats both bilaterally and within NATO, and created a Terrorism Threat Intelligence Unit at its Brussels headquarters to analyze these threats. It reaffirmed its commitment to intelligence-sharing at its June 2004 summit in Istanbul, where countries planned to review NATO intelligence structures.21 Law enforcement has also been a common means for the United States to share intelligence with EU countries. Through the 2003 Container Security Initiative (CSI), the US Customs Service has bilateral arrangements with eight EU member states to prevent global containerized cargo from being exploited by terrorists.22 In early 2004, then-Coordinator for Counter-terrorism, Ambassador Cofer Black, testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that European intelligence and security forces, known for their effectiveness in monitoring Islamist organizations, have been credited with stopping numerous mass casualty attacks since 9/11.23 In addition to its European allies, the United States has also maintained longstanding bilateral intelligence relationships through historic defense relationships in the Asia-Pacific theater. Successive combatant commanders of all US forces in the US Pacific Command, have praised the support provided for the war on terror in this region, where intelligence-sharing has been unprecedented since 9/11. Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand have thwarted a number of

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attacks and have detained or arrested 200 members of Jemaah Islamiyah. In the Philippines, US and Filipino forces worked together in 2002 on the island of Basilan to eradicate Abu Sayyaf Group havens through a combination of civilmilitary operations and improved counter-terrorism coordination.24 New allies Since the United States is primarily focused on violent Islamist groups, the greater Middle East is naturally the focus of its intelligence-sharing efforts. Even before 9/11, Washington had developed especially helpful relationships with several governments in this region and in Southeast Asia, where the local services have “an enormous advantage in collecting intelligence.”25 In Saudi Arabia, for example, the impetus for increased cooperation was the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing that killed 19 Americans. The FBI sent several hundred personnel to Saudi Arabia to support the investigation of the attack. According to former director Louis Freeh, the FBI “was able to forge an effective working relationship with the Saudi police and Interior Ministry.”26 The relationship resulted in the assignment to Riyadh of a legal attaché, who painstakingly developed the relationship with the Saudi General Intelligence Service (known as the Mabaheth). Since additional attacks there in 2003, the kingdom has been even more cooperative in counter-terrorism operations, and it has embarked on an aggressive campaign against al Qaeda within the kingdom. In late 2005, FBI Director Robert Mueller praised the US relationship with Mabaheth for disrupting terrorist financing. He told a law enforcement audience in Scotland, “Through this partnership, we have access to the bank records, biographical information, travel histories, telephone records, criminal backgrounds, and employment histories of numerous known or suspected terrorists.”27 This relationship yielded significant gains by neutralizing significant portions of al Qaeda fundraising network and freezing hundreds of millions of dollars. The relationship with Saudi Arabia also emphasizes the challenges of sharing intelligence with new allies with different intelligence practices. According to US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Robert Jordan, US intelligence had to “work through a cultural tendency not to share intelligence information, not to share the results of investigations until the investigation was fully completed and wrapped up neatly in a bow. Rather than the interactive, full contact kind of intelligencesharing that American culture is more used to.”28 Once these cultural peculiarities were overcome, a joint US–Saudi terrorism center was established in Riyadh with Americans and Saudis sitting side-by-side reviewing the same raw intelligence on a daily basis.29 In addition to Saudi Arabia, Jordan has been a key ally. In the early months of the war on terror, Jordan shared vital intelligence on al Qaeda gained from its own experience in combating terrorism. According to a senior Jordanian officer, Jordanian intelligence was responsible for foiling bombings of the US, British, and Jordanian embassies in Beirut in fall 2001.30 Further, Jordan’s proximity to Iraq makes it an important ally in stemming the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq, and

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it likely provides intelligence on Jordanian members of al Qaeda. The November 2005 attacks, which were carried out by terrorists from Iraq, further solidified Jordan’s commitment to cooperation. Queen Rania said after the bombings, “in order to defeat this, we have to collaborate and cooperate as an international community.”31 Washington’s relationship with Yemen has also been fruitful. With Yemeni roots, bin Laden had a significant network in Yemen and likely considered it as a post-Afghanistan refuge.32 Working with Yemen resulted in the arrests of more than one hundred al Qaeda members and a November 2002 CIA missile strike that killed al Qaeda’s top operative in Yemen. And other political and military actions help to strengthen the government of Yemen to conduct counter-terrorism operations. Intelligence activities provide a small US footprint that is tolerable in countries like Yemen where anti-Americanism is high. Outside of the Middle East, intelligence-sharing partners have been instrumental in the roundup of key al Qaeda leaders in South Asia. With Pakistan’s proximity to Afghanistan and its historical support for the Taliban, Pakistani support has been critical to the hunt for al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As a fullfledged partner of the United States, Pakistan has provided an air corridor, bases for logistics, and, most importantly, intelligence. Cooperation with Pakistan has netted the most significant members of al Qaeda to date. Pakistani authorities arrested Abu Zubaidah, a Palestinian member of al Qaeda, in March, 2002, and Ramzi Binalshibh, whom then-US Attorney General John Ashcroft named one of the most-wanted suspects for 9/11, in September 2002. And in March, 2003, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the chief operational planner of the 9/11 attacks, was arrested in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. In all three cases, Pakistan cooperated with the United States and handed the al Qaeda members over to the United States. FBI Director Mueller testified in 2003 to the importance of these arrests: “Our view of the capabilities of Al Qaeda becomes more transparent and it gives us more confidence that we have an understanding of plots in the past, plots that were on the table, and future possibilities.”33 Building on previous military operations and new political and economic relationships, the US intelligence community has formed unprecedented relationships with the Russian intelligence services. On matters of organized crime, drug trafficking, and terrorism, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and the domestic Federal Security Service (FSB) share intelligence with their US and Western counterparts. The FBI has maintained a working relationship with the Russian security services since 1994. In one noteworthy example, the FSB provided forensic and technical information on explosives used to attack the USS Cole in Yemen.34 As Prime Minister, Putin has continued to offer broad support to the war on terror, including sharing more intelligence. In the post-9/11 era the relationship matured even to the point of facilitating combined intelligence operations. In August 2003, Hemant Lakhani was arrested in New Jersey and indicted in the United States for attempting to provide material support to terrorists and to sell arms without a license. Lakhani’s arrest and indictment were the product of a

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two-year FBI-FSB sting operation, which targeted him for endeavoring to traffic shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles. Though the operation was controlled, with no threat of a missile leaving Russia or entering the United States, the FBI hailed this cooperation between two former adversaries’ domestic intelligence services as an unprecedented joint operation.35 Non-traditional allies The final category of intelligence-sharing relationships includes non-traditional partners and state sponsors of terrorism. Shortly after 9/11, Yang Youming, ministerial counselor of the Embassy of China in Washington, stated: “Since terrorism now crosses borders, it has become everyone’s problem. All countries need to be willing to work together by sharing intelligence.” Indeed, Washington now praises China’s intelligence-sharing and diplomatic backing for the war on terror, and plans to station an FBI officer in Beijing.36 The two countries’ signing of the CSI in July 2003 established a new antiterrorism relationship between Chinese Customs and the US Department of Homeland Security. Intelligence cooperation will be needed to meet the goal of CSI: identifying and checking high-risk shipping containers before they are delivered to the United States. In addition to China, the United States has opened a dialogue with several countries that are on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism. Libya, Sudan, and Syria have provided terrorist-related intelligence since 9/11. In this context, the United States finds itself in partnership with rogue states that have changed their view on international terrorism. In 2003, Libyan leader Moammar Qadafi pronounced Islamism “a threat to all regimes in the region” and began work with the United States that ultimately led to the shutting down of Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan’s nuclear proliferation network. With Sudan having been the primary home of Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s, that country has been critical to providing intelligence on al Qaeda. Though Iran was included in President Bush’s “axis of evil” in 2002, as early as 1998, Iranian intelligence used well-established channels of communication to warn Western intelligence agencies of a dangerous alliance growing between the Taliban and bin Laden. And despite frosty relations between the two, there have been cases of information-sharing between the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and National Security and US intelligence agencies through Jordanian intelligence. Finally, Syria has become one of the CIA’s most effective and prolific sources of intelligence allies in the fight against al Qaeda, and has provided hundreds of files on al Qaeda cells throughout the Middle East and in Muslim communities in Europe.37 For example, Syria gave the US valuable assistance against al Qaeda, including intelligence information that helped thwart an al Qaeda attack on the US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain and an attack on an American target in Ottawa.38 While these new relationships with non-traditional allies are hopeful, larger political disputes with the governments of Iran and Syria threaten to undermine progress made at the operational level in combating terrorism. Ongoing international concern for Iran’s nuclear program and Syria’s involvement in Lebanon,

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coupled with these countries’ support for their own terrorist groups, make these new relationships tenuous at best. While US operations in Iraq have exacerbated these relationships, an optimistic assessment identifies intelligence-sharing as the basis for normalizing relationships. What is clear from these examples, however, is that the common threat of terrorists can promote cooperation. To be certain, the best intelligence sources do not necessarily come from the biggest and most highly developed US allies. Rather, the most effective, efficient division of effort recognizes the strengths of partners better suited – by culture, geography, and experience – to target terrorists in a particular region. The United States has pledged to bolster the counter-terrorism efforts of those lesser-developed allies, by providing aid, assistance, technology, and training. For example, the Defense Department supports other countries’ counter-terrorism initiatives in places from Morocco to Indonesia. This approach to security will be explored later, but it is essential to note how important a cooperative approach is; and develop a framework to share.

Dissemination, not discrimination The United States National Intelligence Strategy establishes three core objectives for developing these intelligence relationships. First, “engage and invigorate friendly foreign intelligence services’ efforts that could aid in the identification and disruption of terrorist organizations abroad and within U.S. borders.” This requires high levels of trust on the part of all countries involved and increased acceptance of US intelligence operating on another government’s territory. Second, “coordinate closely with foreign intelligence services to inform a common assessment of threats and options in response.” With coalition warfare the norm in US foreign policy, the United States recognizes the importance of allied governments’ operating from a common intelligence picture – global issues require global consensus. Finally, “ensure that insights gained from our foreign intelligence relationships inform intelligence judgments and develop effective options in response.” Just as open-source information has become more important to intelligence assessments, the US intelligence community expects to derive additional value from foreign government information. While the benefits to expanding the network of intelligence agencies are obvious, it is difficult to overcome suspicion and traditional statist practices that eschew sharing. The 9/11 Commission’s conclusions for intelligence-sharing within the US intelligence community are as true for intelligence-sharing with foreign liaison services: “Current security requirements nurture overclassification and excessive compartmentalization of information among agencies. Each agency’s incentive structure opposes sharing, with risks (criminal, civil, and internal administrative sanctions) but few rewards for sharing information.”39 The first (and now former) Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone recognized this problem within the Defense Department and issued a memo to defense intelligence agencies that stated, “Incorrect use of the NOFORN [US-only consumers] caveat on DoD information has impeded the sharing of classified national defense

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information with allies and coalition partners.” Cambone subsequently prescribed new means to ensure the widest dissemination of intelligence information and demanded “intelligence under the purview of the DoD, originators shall use the ‘Releasable to’ (REL TO) marking, and any subsequently approved releasability marking to the maximum extent possible.”40 US military officers serving with nonAmerican forces now insist that the only valuable intelligence is that which can be shared with coalition partners. With so many coalition partners in Afghanistan, and to a lesser extent Iraq, sharing with dozens of US partners, ranging from Mongolia to Georgia, is vital to operations. In 2007, the Bush Administration offered an approach to codify these practices when it released a National Strategy for Information-sharing that outlined five principles to guide sharing.41 They are: • Expanding and facilitating the appropriate and timely sharing of terrorismrelated information between the United States and our foreign partners; • Ensuring that exchanges of information between the United States and foreign governments are accompanied by proper and carefully calibrated security requirements; • Ensuring that information received by federal agencies from a foreign government under a sharing arrangement: (1) is provided to appropriate subject matter experts for interpretation, evaluation, and analysis; and (2) can be disseminated and used to advance our nation’s counter-terrorism objectives; • Refining and drawing upon sets of best practices and common standards in negotiating sharing arrangements with foreign governments; and • Developing standards and practices to verify that sharing arrangements with foreign governments appropriately consider and protect the information privacy and other legal rights of Americans. With some foreign intelligence services, regular meetings may be sufficient to share information. In other cases, common training, classification criteria, standardized security clearance procedures, and compatible intelligence systems can greatly facilitate cooperation. To overcome these challenges and facilitate information exchange across a diverse group of allies, the United States developed a new information-sharing architecture called Combined Enterprise Information Exchange System (CENTRIXS).42 The system not only enables the United States to collaborate with its partners, but also allows the partners to collaborate with one another. The Global Counter-terrorism Task Force uses this capability with approximately 50 countries. Sharing is based on the level of trust, value of intelligence, and the type of diplomatic relationships with other countries that determine the extent to which intelligence is shared. And penetrating another country’s intelligence service remains a threat: it was only in February 2001 that the FBI arrested Special Agent Robert Hanssen for spying on behalf of Russia. And in 2005, there were several counterintelligence cases that involved some of America’s closest allies, including the Philippines and Israel. The 2005 National Counterintelligence Strategy underscored the counterintelligence threat, noting that more than 90 countries

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target the United States for critical technologies.43 The 2007 version of the same strategy cautions, “The ability of foreign powers and hostile groups to threaten the integrity of the U.S. intelligence system relies in part of their knowledge of our security practices.”44 As the United States develops intelligence relationships with foreign intelligence services, counterintelligence concerns will increase. The threat of espionage remains, but cooperation is the imperative guiding counter-terrorism efforts. The challenge is to mitigate counterintelligence threats while enhancing counter-terrorism operations.

Pitfalls of sharing: lessons from Iraq WMD assessments The new emphasis on intelligence-sharing creates new challenges, including how to widely disseminate classified information, overcoming sensitivities regarding intelligence sources and methods, and maintaining counterintelligence vigilance. Even with regards to combating international terrorism, national interests still govern states’ behaviors. And when expanding beyond traditional allies, a variety of practical and counterintelligence concerns arise. The fear of introducing fabricated intelligence is best exemplified by the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs.45 Practically all information about Iraq’s alleged biological weapons programs came from a single human source (an Iraqi chemical engineer) code-named “Curveball”. A foreign liaison service brought Curveball to the attention of the US intelligence community in 2000, which did not gain direct access to the source until May, 2004, a year after the Iraq war began. But between January 2000 and September 2001, the Defense Intelligence Agency disseminated almost 100 foreign intelligence reports from Curveball regarding mobile biological weapons facilities in Iraq, which formed the basis for Secretary of State Colin Powell’s 2003 presentation to the UN Security Council. While subsequent investigations determined that Iraq had no new plans for biological weapons after 1996 and that Curveball had fabricated the information he provided to the foreign service, this episode exposed serious shortcomings in intelligence tradecraft, verification of the source’s bona fides, and the dangers of relying on a foreign service for intelligence.46 A commission that investigated this failure noted, “Our intelligence community has not been agile and innovative enough to provide the information that the nation needs. We should not wait for another commission or another administration to force widespread change in the intelligence community.”47 While the Robb-Silberman Commission’s report made some excellent recommendations, the primary lesson of this failure should be “trust, but verify”. While the intentions of the foreign service were not deemed to have been deceptive, US intelligence and policymakers certainly fell victim to poor vetting of the source and this serves as an example of how not to handle intelligence. Widespread change is not necessarily the answer to improving how foreign intelligence is handled and, fortunately, in spite of the Iraq WMD NIE experience, sharing efforts were not stopped. There are, however, countries that have a wealth of information to share about terrorists, but with whom relations create problems for US foreign policy. Some

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countries, like Uzbekistan, are opposed to the American democratization project; others, such as Syria, more directly sponsor terrorist groups to promote their national interests. Relationships such as these can also create tensions within the US bureaucracy, as evidenced by a disconnect between the departments of State and Defense over Uzbekistan’s human rights record. While the Defense Department was paying the Uzbek government for use of a military base, the State Department was trying to sanction that same government for human rights violations. However, the current counter-terrorism strategy requires the cooperation of all interested states, no matter how distasteful they may be to the United States. The challenge is to extract useful information from these foreign intelligence services without becoming tainted by their tactics or supporting techniques inconsistent with universal human rights practices.48 As combating terrorism increasingly becomes a war of ideas, relationships with unsavory foreign intelligence services create challenges for US strategic communication efforts, which are trying to improve America’s image abroad. But for these relationships to be fruitful, the United States has been promoting the security of its partners and improving those partners’ intelligence services. This approach began in the early 1990s and illustrates the limited capacity of even the best funded military and intelligence community in the world.49 While the United States is well-prepared for going to war with other states, it cannot defeat transnational terrorism alone.

The limits of a superpower Writing soon after the Berlin Wall fell, former Assistant Secretary of Defense Joseph Nye commented, “Although the United States still has leverage over particular countries, it has far less leverage over the [international] system as a whole.”50 Nye observed that not only was the international system changing from bipolar to unipolar, but that the nature of state power itself was changing. He claimed that traditional hard power – principally military and economic – would no longer be the single coin of national strength in a world that is increasingly interconnected and transparent. Instead, states and peoples were more likely to be affected through non-coercive measures or soft power, which Nye defined as “the ability to get what we want through attraction rather than coercion or payments.”51 This understanding was of course born out in the 1990s, when coercive diplomacy (in Yugoslavia) did not produce the desired effects, and in the early 2000s, in reaction to a post-9/11 American foreign policy. When thinking about transnational threats, the appropriate course of action could not be more obvious – global military engagement activities, which can build trust and structures of cooperation among key components of foreign societies. While militaries have historically cooperated against common enemies, the doctrinal evolution of building partners’ capacity has its roots in US military engagement activities in the 1990s.

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Roots of Cooperation President Bill Clinton’s National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement, published in 1996, recognized the need to shift away from a strategy of containing communism to one of advancing market-oriented democracies. The strategy directed the military to engage with international partners and to provide a credible overseas presence: “Such overseas presence demonstrates our commitment to allies and friends, underwrites regional stability, ensures familiarity with overseas operating environments, promotes combined training among the forces of friendly countries, and provides timely initial response capabilities.”52 Being forward deployed during the Cold War had taught that “US engagement is indispensable to the forging of stable political relations and open trade to advance our interests.”53 Included in engagement, then, are supporting democracy, providing economic assistance, and increasing interactions between US and other militaries around the world. Taking its cue from the 1996 strategy, the 1997 strategic defense review sought to codify these activities as key elements in the national military strategic outlook.54 The new strategy recognized the need to shift from a Cold War posture to a global one in which allies and adversaries were less readily identifiable, and hence proactive engagement with foreign nations became more necessary to head off unforeseeable threats and military operations. A major goal is to reduce the drivers of conflicts through presence and strengthening partnerships with governmental, regional, and international organizations. With transnational threats emerging as the key threat to security over the last decade, many countries found it advantageous to cooperate with the United States. Likewise, the 1990s conflicts born of state failure in Central Europe, Africa, and Southeast Asia led the US military to conduct stabilization, security, transition, and reconstruction operations. While postured to defeat the Soviet Union in Central Europe, the military found challenges combating organized crime in Kosovo or finding war criminals in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The resulting experiences in Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia-Herzegovina forced recognition in Washington that it is far more effective to prevent state failure than to become involved in the bloody conflicts resulting from them. Stephen Krasner, former State Department Policy Planning Staff director, captured this point well: “Weak and failed states pose an acute risk to U.S. and global security.”55 It was also recognized that weak states provide safe haven for terrorist groups and organized criminal enterprises. Consequently, the Defense Department stepped up its engagement efforts through a variety of traditional means, including: forces rotationally deployed overseas; forces deployed temporarily for exercises, combined training, or military-tomilitary interactions; and security assistance.56 Underlying security assistance are seven themes: combating terrorism, transforming alliances and building coalitions for the future, influencing the direction of key powers, cooperating with parties to regional disputes, deterring and isolating problem states, combating weapons of mass destruction, and realigning the global defense posture.57 While militaries have historically cooperated against a common

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adversary, the decline of interstate war and the rise of transnational threats have made the project of exporting security more compelling for militarily advanced countries. Countries like the United States and China, or regional organizations like NATO, promote security beyond their borders by exporting weapons, promoting regional security cooperation, and leading peacekeeping operations. In the campaign to combat international terrorism, security cooperation provides training for indigenous forces.58 To do more of this, in 2006 the Marine Corps created the Foreign Military Training Unit to “train, advise, and assist friendly host-nation forces – including naval and maritime military and paramilitary forces – to enable them to support their governments’ internal security and stability, to counter subversion, and to reduce the risk of violence from internal and external threats.”59 Today, US forces can be found training other militaries in dozens of countries ranging from Indonesia and the Philippines to Georgia and Mali. A primary focus of these missions is training forces to conduct counter-terrorism operations.

A case of international cooperation: the maritime commons It is relatively indisputable that sharing intelligence is not a virtue; after all, states want to enhance their own security and combat common threats. What is not clear, however, is how to share. While there are a variety of formal and informal means to promote cooperation, an interesting example of statist entities employing new, transnational practices is evident in developing forms of international maritime cooperation. Given its shrinking fleet and global challenges, the US Navy has embraced security cooperation. Two senior Navy strategists, Vice Admiral John Morgan and Rear Admiral Charles Martoglio, have declared: “Policing the maritime commons will require substantially more capability than the United States or any individual nation can deliver.”60 Accordingly, the United States seeks partnerships with international navies to create what is being called the “thousand-ship navy,” which could respond to piracy, smuggling, other illegal activities, and protect important sea lines of communication. The US Chief of Naval Operations reinforced this message in 2007: “Wherever the opportunity exists, we must develop and sustain relationships that will help improve the capacity of our emerging and enduring partners’ maritime forces.”61 The thousand-ship navy, more formally known as the Global Maritime Partnership initiative, represents an effort to promote international maritime security. Essential to a successful global maritime partnership – and arguably a key aspect to these activities that qualify them as “new” and in some sense “transnational” – is building partners’ capabilities and sharing intelligence. Capabilities empower countries to carry out operations, while intelligence cues the forces to act. Ron Ratcliff critiques the thousand-ship Navy as still too conceptual, but in ways exemplified by Task Force 150 and NATO’s Operation Active Endeavour.62 A common operating picture is necessary for these coalition operations to be successful, which fuses intelligence and operations data. Commander Naval Forces Europe (CNE) has been developing a capability for maritime domain awareness throughout Europe and Africa. CNE has been working with NATO

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allies and African partners to develop a regional capability to protect trade, natural resources, and economic development. This includes establishing maritime domain awareness through the Automated Identification System, an array of coastal radar systems, and improved command and control of a naval reaction force. The current focus on transnational threats instead of nation-state competition has been the impetus for building new partnerships. The goal of capacity building is for partners to take on missions that serve our common interests …. Counter-terrorism has the common frame of reference. With these programs still in their infancy, there are many questions that must be answered that are applicable to intelligence sharing both within and beyond the realm of maritime security. These include: • What information should be shared in pursuit of security? • What are the legal impediments to effective information-sharing? • How do international regimes assist in effecting solutions? Can these regimes be improved? • What are the best practices associated with legal approaches to informationsharing? • What are the policy issues that affect information-sharing? • What is the minimum information exchange capability needed for effective information sharing? • What are the technical challenges to achieving effective information-sharing? • What level of information-sharing is really necessary to effectively counter threats to security? • Are advanced technology solutions the answer or part of the problem? With respect specifically to maritime security, the answers to these questions are being worked out both bilaterally and multilaterally. Italy, for example, sponsors the Virtual Regional Maritime Traffic Center (V-RMTC), in which at least 20 countries participate to share information to safeguard the security of regional maritime activities.63 Similar initiatives are being undertaken in Asia by individual countries like Singapore and by groups like the Western Pacific Naval Symposium. These initiatives have the potential to serve as models for other types of intelligence sharing. Additionally, insights can be gained from the internationally accepted practice of sharing weather observations and international commercial air traffic information. To promote sharing, however, a will to share is required.

Beyond a world of suspicion The maxim, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” has guided countries to share intelligence throughout history. Today, the shared enemy is transnational and it preys often on weak states while provoking developed state responses. Terrorism, human trafficking, and drug smuggling are central concerns of both strong and weak states. Intervention lessons of the last decade underscore the importance of non-traditional intelligence support to post-conflict reconstruction efforts. Political exploitation of ethnicity, organized crime, political corruption,

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and at-large war criminals undermine international efforts of state building. For American and coalition forces to be successful in peacekeeping, peace enforcement, and counter-terrorism, a new approach to intelligence is required. For the international community to be successful, intelligence must not only shift from the strategic-level to the street-level, but also from US ONLY to UN RELEASABLE. To move beyond a world of suspicion is unreasonable (and maybe unhealthy), but mutual trust, compatible systems, and common laws and policies are required. Lessons from military operations on the ground and at sea, provide a strong historical foundation for states to share intelligence. To date, operational considerations have driven this; given the projected longevity of transnational terrorism, there will be many opportunities to broaden and deepen formal and informal ways of sharing. Overly aggressive hierarchical approaches or poorly developed network approaches may satisfy immediate needs, but either approach has the potential to alienate partners or produce sub-standard outcomes. Ultimately, while states remain critical actors in the fight against transnational threats, over-reliance on traditional methods and practices, accompanied by traditional emphases on mistrust and self-interest seeking, will be counter-productive to needed intelligence-sharing and cooperation.

Notes 1 The views expressed in this paper are the author’s and should not be interpreted as representing any official position of the United States. 2 Thomas H. Kean, chairman of the 9/11 Commission said: “There is no longer any doubt of the failure of our intelligence agencies in the years following the Cold War.” Quoted in Stan Paul, “US Intelligence Shortcomings Still Exist, Professor Amy Zegart”, UCLA Magazine, 11 September 2007. 3 While this paper focuses on the United States, its lessons have equal applicability across national boundaries. 4 Amy Zegart, for example, argues that organizational problems, not individuals, inevitably led to 9/11, and that deficiencies remain. “If ever we would expect to find a catalyst to transform the US Intelligence Community, the worst terrorist attacks should be it.” See The CIA, the FBI and the Origins of 9/11, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2007. 5 One of the latest results of this is the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. This Act created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which was spurred by the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the poor analysis of Iraq’s WMD programs. 6 Terrorist attacks are local in nature; so it is much smarter for the FBI to be networked to the communities where terrorists organize and plan their operations, than in a centralized building far from the battlefield. In order to connect the FBI to local law enforcement, it created and funds the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). According to the FBI’s website (FBI.gov), JTTFs “are our nation’s front line on terrorism: small cells of highly trained, locally based, passionately committed investigators, analysts, linguists, SWAT experts, and other specialists from dozens of US law enforcement and intelligence agencies. When it comes to investigating terrorism, they do it all: chase down leads, gather evidence, make arrests, provide security for special events, conduct training, collect and share intelligence, and respond to threats and incidents at a moment’s notice.”

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7 National Strategy for Information Sharing, October 2007, p. 1. 8 J. Keegan. “Back to the Drawing Board”, The National Interest, 64, Summer, 2001, p. 7. 9 General John P. Abizaid, US Army, Commander US Central Command, “Testimony, Committee on House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies”, 3 March 2005. 10 D. S. Reveron and J. S. Murer, Flashpoints in the War on Terrorism, New York: Routledge, 2006. 11 In 2003, the Bush administration claimed that more than 170 nations were participating in the war on terror. While coalition members have withdrawn from Iraq, there still appears to be relatively widespread commitment to solving political conflicts that provide ideological fuel to international terrorism and cooperating to root out terrorist groups within countries’ territories. The White House, “Progress Report on the Global War on Terrorism”, 10 September 2003, at www.state.gov 12 John Negroponte, The National Intelligence Strategy of the United States of America: Transformation through Integration and Innovation, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, October 2005, p. 15. 13 The Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the US Intelligence Community, Preparing for the Twenty-First Century: An Appraisal of the US Intelligence Community, 1 March 1996 (“Brown-Rudman Report”), at www.gpo.gov. 14 For example, the 9/11 chief operational planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was detained in Pakistan. 15 Pillar, op. cit., p. 118. 16 US CENTCOM, “International Contributions to the War on Terrorism”, 29 October 2005, at www.centcom.mil 17 John E. McLaughlin, “Testimony of Acting Director of Central Intelligence before the Senate Armed Services Committee on 9–11 Commission Findings”, 17 August 2004. 18 The public perception is that US-French relations are tense over Iraq, but John McLaughlin, the former acting CIA director, described the relationship between the CIA and its French counterparts as “one of the best in the world. What they are willing to contribute is extraordinarily valuable.” Quoted in D. Priest, “Secret Anti-Terrorism Unit Pairs CIA, Europeans”, Washington Post, 7 April 2005. 19 This section is based on D. Reveron, “Old Allies, New Friends: Intelligence Sharing in the War on Terror”, Orbis, 53, 3, 2006, 453–468. 20 R.N. McDermott, Countering Global Terrorism: Developing the Antiterrorist Capabilities of the Central Asian Militaries, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2004, 8; and A. Butler, “U.S Nearing Agreement to Allow Coalition Partners Access to Classified Data”, C4I News, Potomac, 27 November 2003. 21 “Statement to the Press by NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson, on the North Atlantic Council Decision on Implementation of Article 5 of the Washington Treaty following the 11 September Attacks against the United States”, 4 October 2001, at www.nato.int; “NATO after Istanbul: Expanding Operations, Improving Capabilities, and Enhancing Cooperation”, at www.nato.int 22 The White House, “U.S.-EU Summit: U.S.-EU Counter-terrorism Cooperation”, Fact Sheet, Office of the Press Secretary, 25 June 2003. 23 Ambassador Cofer Black, “Statement” US Congress, Senate, Foreign Relations Committee, subcommittee on European Affairs, 31 March 2004. 24 Adm. Dennis C. Blair, US PACOM Transcript, Journalists Roundtable, Lemhannas, National Resiliency Institute, Jakarta, Indonesia, 27 November 2001; Adm. Thomas Fargo, “Hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2005”, 1 April 2004, and “Statement”,Senate Armed Services Committee, 13 March 2003; and Ambassador Henry Crumpton, “Press Conference: Manila, Philippines, 22 October 2005”. 25 Kevin Scheid, 9/11 Commission Staff Statement #11, 14 April 2004.

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26 Statement of Louis J. Freeh before the Joint Intelligence Committees, 9 October 2002 (“Freeh Statement”), p. 30. 27 Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003, 29 April 2004; Mueller at NAA. 28 Robert Jordan, “Crises and Opportunities in U.S.-Saudi Relations”, Interview with Saudi-US Relations Information Service, 3 September 2004. 29 Ibid. 30 R. Habib, “Jordan Playing Key Roy in Anti-Terrorist Intelligence Gathering”, Jordan Times, 23–24 November 2001. 31 Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah, “Interview with Her Majesty Queen Rania with ABC News – This Week with George Stephanopoulos”, 13 November 2005, http:// www.jordanembassyus.org/speech_hmqr11132005.htm 32 After 9/11, then-Ambassador Edmund Hull commented, “By some accounts, bin Laden had looked at Yemen as a possible refuge if he were driven out of Afghanistan. So I think it’s very important that we head off problems and resolve problems in Yemen as effectively as possible.” Edmund Hull Interview, “In Search of al Qaeda”, PBS Frontline, 6 October 2002, at www.pbs.org; “American Killed in CIA’s Attack in Yemen”, BBC News, 7 November 2002. 33 Robert Mueller, Director of the FBI, “Hearing of the Commerce, Justice, State and Judiciary Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee”, 10 April 2003. 34 Col. John R. Martin, ed., Defeating Terrorism, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, January 2002, p. 86; Freeh Statement. 35 Freedman, op. cit., p. 206. The low-risk August 2003 operation was summarized by Alexander Pikayev of the Carnegie Moscow Center, who said Lakhani would have trouble buying a Russian missile and smuggling it into the United States without assistance from the FBI and FSB. He noted, “It proves that the secret services of Russia, the United States, and Britain have resumed cooperation.” S. Saradzhyan, “Doubts Linger Over the Igla Sting”, Moscow Times, 15 August 2003. See also FBI Press Release, “War on Terrorism: International Undercover Operation Stings Deal for Surface-to-Air Missiles”, 13 August 2003. 36 Panel discussion, “Counter-Terrorism Strategies in the Post 9–11 Era: International Cooperation (What Works and What Doesn’t)”, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, 26 November 2001, comments by Yang Youming; A. Tyson, “U.S., China Cautiously Rekindle Military Ties”, Christian Science Monitor, 20 February 2002. 37 Jane’s Terrorism Watch Report Daily Update, 13 January 2003, at www4.janes.com; Michael Hurley, “Statement”, US Congress, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Against the United States, Washington, DC, Staff Statement #5, 23 March 2004; M. Abedin, “The Iranian Intelligence Services and the War on Terror”, Terrorism Monitor, 20 May 2004; S. Hersh, “Annals of National Security, The Syrian Bet”, New Yorker, 28 July 2003. 38 S. Hersh, “The Syrian Bet”, The New Yorker, 28 July 2003; and W. J. Martin, “Clean Break with the Road Map”, Counterpunch, 14–15 February 2004: 12–14. 39 Pillar, op. cit. p. 186; Cronin and Ludes, op. cit. p. 85; and 9/11 Commission Report, p. 417. 40 S. A. Cambone, “Memorandum: Use of the “Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals” (NOFORN) Caveat on Department of Defense (DoD) Information”, 17 May 2005. (Emphasis mine.) 41 National Strategy for Information Sharing, p. 26. 42 Anteon International Corporation developed CENTRIXS based on the LOCE system used within NATO. See “What We Offer/Functional Solutions/Homeland Security” at www.anteon.com 43 National Counterintelligence Executive, The National Counterintelligence Strategy of the United States, March 2005, p. 5.

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44 National Counterintelligence Executive, The National Counterintelligence Strategy of the United States, 2007, p. 2. 45 In addition to the discussion on Iraq’s biological weapons below, the Iraq case provides many examples of relying on foreign intelligence. For example, Czech intelligence insisted that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague. While the FBI and CIA could not verify this claim and the 9/11 Commission provided evidence that Atta was in the United States during the alleged meeting, the Bush administration used the Czech intelligence report as a key piece of “evidence” linking Iraq to al Qaeda. See the 9/11 Commission Report, p. 228. And in the most infamous case to illustrate the pitfalls of sharing foreign intelligence, one need only consider the statement made by President Bush in the 2003 state of the union address. “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” The statement based on British intelligence was not only wrong, but the claim sparked an investigation leading to the indictment of Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby. For an excellent treatment of the origins of British intelligence on Iraq, see J. Cassidy, “The David Kelly Affair”, New Yorker, 8 December 2003, http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content?031208fa_fact2? 46 The Duelfer Report makes it clear that serious doubts about the source’s credibility existed prior to Secretary Powell’s presentation, but those doubts were not communicated to Powell. See CIA, Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence on Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction, Vol. III: Biological Weapons, 30 September 2004, pp. 83–86. Ultimately, the Iraqi Survey Group “found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW program or was conducting BW-specific work for military purposes.” Ibid., p. 1. 47 Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, 31 March 2005. 48 Cronin and Ludes, op. cit. p. 130; L. Freedman (Ed.) Superterrorism: Policy Responses Cambridge: Blackwell Publishing, 2002, p. 159. 49 Building military partner capabilities is defined as “the ability to improve the military capabilities of our allies and partners to help them transform and optimize their forces to provide regional security, disaster preparedness and niche capabilities in a coalition.” See “Joint Capability Areas Tier 1 and Supporting Tier 2 Lexicon, Post 24 August 2006 JROC” available at http://www.dtic.mil/futurejointwarfare/ (accessed on 20 December 2006). 50 J. Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, New York: Public Affairs, 2004. 51 Ibid. 52 A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement, Washington, DC: White House, February 1996, p. 17. 53 Ibid, p. 14. 54 Positing a new foundation of “shape–respond–prepare”, the QDR not only emphasized the capability to fight and win two major theater wars but also placed “greater emphasis on the continuing need to maintain continuous overseas presence in order to shape the international environment.” 55 S. D. Krasner and C. Pascual, “Addressing State Failure”, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2005, p. 153. 56 “Security assistance refers to a group of programs by which the United States provides defense articles, military training, and other defense-related services to foreign nations by grant, loan, credit, or cash sales in furtherance of national policies and objectives.” Programs include: Foreign Military Sales, Foreign Military Financing, International Military Education and Training Program, and the Economic Support Fund. See US Department of Defense, Joint Operations, Joint Publication 3–0, Washington: DOD, 17 September 2006, p. VII-7.

Beyond the State?

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57 US State Dept, Foreign Military Training: Joint Report to Congress, Fiscal Years 2005–2006, Washington, DC: Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, September 2006, available at: www.state.gov/t/pm/rls/rpt/fmtrpt/2006/74679.htm 58 US Defense Dept., National Defense Strategy of the USA, Washington, DC: March 2005, p. 15 available at www.defenselink.mil/news/Apr2005/d20050408strategy.pdf 59 US Marine Corps, “Foreign Military Training Unit”, US Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, available at www.marsoc.usmc.mil/FMTUHome.htm 60 Proceedings, November 2005, p. 17. See also Admiral Mike Mullen, “What I Believe: Eight Tenets That Guide My Vision for the 21st Century Navy”, Proceedings, January 2006. 61 Admiral Mike Mullen, “Priority Tasking Memo”, 7 March 2007. 62 D. S. Reveron (Ed.), “Building Partners’ Capacity: the Thousand-Ship Navy” in Newport Papers 29: Shaping the Security Environment, Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 2007, pp. 59–72. 63 See: http://www.marina.difesa.it/vrmtc/index.asp

3

Intelligence-sharing and United States counterterrorism policy James Igoe Walsh

Introduction A top foreign policy priority of the United States is countering Islamic terrorism, especially the al Qaeda network and groups that are inspired by or collaborate with it. Accurate intelligence is crucial to this effort. Even the most effective terrorist groups like al Qaeda control far fewer resources than the states against which they direct violence. It is this asymmetry in resources that leads them to adopt the tactic of terrorist attacks, which, by targeting civilians randomly, gives attracts more attention to their grievances. It also leads terrorist groups to devote a great deal of attention to concealing their membership, sources of finance, training locations, and communications from state authorities. Accurate intelligence allows the government to bring to bear its police, military, and other resources to disrupt a terrorist group’s activities. As Derek Reveron puts it, “the war on terror requires high levels of intelligence to identify a threat relative to the amount of force required to neutralize it. This fact elevates intelligence in importance and places it on the frontline against terrorism.”1 Intelligence is most useful for elements of counter-terrorism policy that aim to disrupt such groups’ recruitment, financing, security of operations, bases, movement of personnel, and so on, through actions of military, police, intelligence, and judicial arms of the state. Intelligence is also very useful for internal or homeland security if it can identify likely targets that should be better protected against attack. Operational intelligence is less important for policies aimed at reducing support for terrorist groups by, for example, promoting economic development or democracy. However, analysis that draws on secret intelligence might assist policymakers in better implementing such policies by, for example, accurately specifying the grievances that motivate terrorist groups and their supporters. Al Qaeda’s objectives and organization make it a uniquely dangerous terrorist foe, and one on which it is exceptionally difficult to collect accurate and useful intelligence. It has demonstrated its willingness and ability to launch high-casualty attacks within the United States and against American interests abroad. It sponsors or supports local terrorist movements or insurgencies around the world, including those in Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, India, Indonesia, and Russia. The organization carefully selects members of high intelligence and initiative from

Intelligence-sharing and United States counter-terrorism policy 45 many nationalities, giving it the ability to lead and work with local recruits in many parts of the world, to undertake complex, carefully planned, and long-term missions, and to study and learn from its own experiences as well as those of other terrorist groups. Al Qaeda has the ability to adapt successfully to unforeseen developments. It has changed the means by which it communicates information to operatives frequently, and has maintained its planning and operations despite losing its base in Afghanistan in late 2001. And it devotes a great deal of energy to maintaining operational security.2 The fact that al Qaeda is a transnational group makes countering it even more difficult. Al Qaeda has proven that it is a terrorist organization of truly global reach, having launched attacks in dozens of countries. It has members and supporters in even more countries, giving it numerous sources of funds and recruits and multiple locations for organizing, training, and hiding its members. These include states with weak or failed governments, who are unable to counter the group, as well as those with powerful political elements that share some of al Qaeda’s objectives and thus are unwilling to counter it. Al Qaeda’s transnational scope has led it to adopt an organizational form that is less hierarchical than many other terrorist groups. This means that eliminating one or a few leaders of the organization in one location will not seriously disrupt the ability of branches in other locations to continue operating.3 Transnational organization also means that other countries can contribute intelligence that the United States would find costly or impossible to collect on its own. Countries in which al Qaeda operates are almost always in a better position to collect “human intelligence” from defectors or agents on the group. A common criticism of the United States intelligence community is that it has devoted too many resources to the collection and analysis of highly technical forms of intelligence – gathered, for example, from advanced satellites or communication interception systems. Other governments rely more heavily on the collection of human intelligence, and often have a cadre of trained intelligence personnel that are native to the linguistic and cultural environment in which al Qaeda operates in their country. This allows them to make connections with potential informants more easily, and to place the intelligence provided by such informants in the appropriate context. Countries in western Europe, North Africa, the Persian Gulf, and South and Southeast Asia are able to collect intelligence that the United States is unable to gather, and can engage in mutually beneficial intelligence-sharing with the United States.4 But some of these states also have powerful reasons to defect from promises to share intelligence with the United States. As the next section details, European governments face legal challenges to some of their foreign intelligence activities. Domestic political pressures prompt some states in the Middle East and Europe to curtail collaboration with the United States. Some countries contain religious or nationalist groups or elements of the government apparatus that are less enthusiastic about taking effective action against al Qaeda. Governments may have conflicting interests with the United States on other issues that lead them to minimize counter-terrorism cooperation. Putative counter-terror allies of the

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United States may decline to take effective action against al Qaeda to avoid retaliation by the group. Some may have poorly-developed or corrupt police, judicial, and intelligence bureaucracies that are unable to take such effective action in the first place. Other governments may wish to exaggerate the effectiveness of their action against and the accuracy of their intelligence on al Qaeda in order to win the approval and support of the United States.5 These cross-cutting motives pose an important challenge for the United States because less than full cooperation and intelligence sharing is very difficult for it to detect. All intelligence agencies seek to ensure that their sources of information remain secret. This involves strictly limiting the distribution of such information among government officials and carefully controlling its dissemination to foreign governments. But these security measures also make it very hard for the recipients of shared intelligence to verify its accuracy. The problem for the United States is that some of the states that have the most valuable intelligence on al Qaeda are also those with the strongest incentives to defect from agreements to share such intelligence. Yet the United States has managed to strengthen intelligence sharing arrangements with many of these countries. How, if at all, do such arrangements address concerns about defection? At one extreme, it has been rather straightforward to arrange effective intelligence sharing with countries that have the fewest incentives to defect, such as those in western Europe. In many (but not all) areas, the United States and European countries have developed mechanisms for the regular exchange of intelligence. At the other extreme, the United States has largely eschewed intelligence sharing with countries that have the strongest motives to defect, such as Iran and Syria. More interesting are the arrangements pursued with many of the remaining countries that are formally committed to share intelligence with the United States but also face substantial pressures to renege on this commitment. Here the United States has created hierarchical mechanisms that give it some ability to directly monitor and control the intelligence activities of its partner. These mechanisms provide the United States with a way to secure intelligence from partners of problematic reliability. This chapter explains how hierarchical relationships enhance intelligence sharing, and the conditions under which such hierarchy will emerge. Examining contemporary intelligence sharing through this analytical lens provides novel answers to two questions. First, it helps to explain how the United States has been able to share intelligence effectively with states that it fears would defect from more traditional, arms-length arrangements. Second, it suggests new ways of thinking about intelligence reform in the United States. Many intelligence reform prescriptions advocate the development of a more robust human intelligence collection capacity on the part of American intelligence agencies. A key rationale for this suggestion is that many other states cannot be trusted to share the relevant human intelligence that they collect. But a focus on hierarchy indicates that the United States does not have base its evaluations of other states’ contributions to its intelligence needs solely on their trustworthiness; instead, it can supplant trust with hierarchy. Advocates of intelligence reform thus have over-stated the costs and risks of relying on partner states to share intelligence.

Intelligence-sharing and United States counter-terrorism policy 47

Countering concerns about defection Practically all states have declared that they oppose terrorism and have pledged to counter the actions of al Qaeda and groups connected to it. Many have made specific agreements to share intelligence on al Qaeda with the United States, typically in return for the United States itself sharing intelligence or offering its diplomatic and economic support. But some of these allies face countervailing incentives to defect from such promises to share intelligence. Defection may be either deliberately undertaken with the approval of the relevant authorities, or involuntary in the sense that lower-level state officials engage in without such approval. A state sharing intelligence may engage in deliberate defection by fabricating or withholding intelligence, or exaggerating the accuracy of intelligence it possesses, with the goal of influencing the receiving state’s policy choices. Elements within a sending government’s apparatus might also be operating under the control of another power or group that controls the intelligence they pass to other states. Corruption or other administrative weaknesses might limit the state’s ability to effectively collect intelligence in the first place. And sending states might also not share fully or honestly if some of their personnel who control relevant intelligence disagree on political or policy grounds with the decision to share it. States receiving intelligence can deliberately defect by passing it to a third state, which is usually prohibited by sharing agreements. A receiving state may involuntarily share intelligence in its possession with others. Individuals that have access to its intelligence may be operating under the control of a third state or other outside group and violate their government’s policy by sharing this intelligence with their controllers. Alternatively, officials in a receiving state may hold policy preferences that differ from those articulated by the government, leading them to publicize or to fail to act on operational intelligence shared by another state. States sharing intelligence cannot easily draw on two mechanisms for preventing defection that are available in other issue areas – monitoring and reputation. Governments have legitimate reasons to surround their intelligence gathering and analysis with considerable security. This makes it hard for partners to determine if they are living up to the terms of their arrangement. There is an important difference between the exchange of intelligence and the exchange of a tangible good. Tangible goods can be inspected after purchase to ensure that they conform to the buyer’s expectations. But “buyers” of intelligence cannot easily monitor its partner to determine if the intelligence it provides has been collected diligently and analyzed properly. The reason is that states providing intelligence seek to secure knowledge of how they obtain and interpret intelligence from potential enemies that could disrupt or manipulate these “sources and methods.” Intelligence agencies rarely reveal the full details of their sources even to other agencies of the same government. This understandable concern with security opens the possibility that shared intelligence might be of questionable reliability. States sometimes forgo the benefits they would accrue from defection in the short-run in order to maintain their reputations for honest dealing. But concerns about security also complicate efforts to reassure partners by undertaking publicly observable commitments

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that, if violated, would undermine a government’s reputation. The details of most intelligence sharing arrangements are kept secret from third parties. This makes it difficult for one partner to harm another’s reputation through an accusation of defection, since doing so necessitates revealing details about the intelligence that has or was supposed to have been shared. Sharing between states with weak incentives to defect should be comparatively easy to arrange. But what should the United States do when faced with a partner that possesses useful intelligence and also has strong incentives to defect? This dilemma has attracted considerable attention from those with an interest in improving counter-terrorism policy. Most counsel that the optimal solution is to reduce reliance on shared intelligence and to build the United States’ capacity to independently collect and analyze intelligence on Islamic terrorism. This conventional view takes seriously the problem of monitoring for defection in an anarchic international system. It concludes from this that the safest policy is to limit intelligence sharing to trustworthy states, and to strengthen national intelligence gathering capabilities on issues where such states are in short supply.6 But it is not the only option open to powerful states such as the United States. It is often presented as such because of the assumption that states exist in an anarchic international environment, where each by definition retains its decision-making autonomy. The institutional arrangements states create to underpin their cooperation must be consistent with such autonomy. States may work together, but they do so at arms-length; each state independently determines, for example, if it is going to cooperate with or defect from its partners. I want to argue that under certain conditions governments have self-interested reasons for sacrificing some of their decision-making autonomy by subjecting themselves to a hierarchical relationship with a dominant state. I draw on transaction-cost economics to explain the conditions favoring the creation of such hierarchies. Transaction-cost economics seeks to explain why some economic transactions take place at arms-length in markets, while others are organized through institutions such as firms. Actors must pay costs to engage in mutually beneficial transactions – they must expend time and effort searching for goods, bargaining over the terms of the exchange, monitoring the compliance of the other party, and punishing non-compliance. The basic argument of transaction-cost economics is that actors will create hierarchical institutions to economize on such transaction costs.7 Hierarchical relationships have a dominant state with responsibility for making major decisions, and a subordinate state or state that agrees to comply with these decisions. A hierarchy reassures a dominant partner that others will comply with the letter and spirit of their agreement to cooperate by giving it the right to interpret the agreement, to oversee the activities of the subordinate, and the legitimate right to punish defection. Scholars have begun to apply the insights of transaction-cost economics to international politics to better understand the organization of military alliances and to explain how hierarchy in the form of colonial empires depended in part on the factors identified by transaction-cost economics.8 Hierarchical arrangements are most useful to participants when there exist substantial gains from cooperation, the likelihood of defection is high, and the

Intelligence-sharing and United States counter-terrorism policy 49 Table 3.1 Causes and types of intelligence sharing Joint Gains from IntelligenceSharing

Costs of Defection

(1)

Low

(2)

High

Low

(3)

High

High

(4)

High

High

Governance Costs Outcome

Examples

Little sharing

Telecommunications intercepts

Anarchic sharing

Sharing with European countries

Low

Hierarchical sharing

Sharing with Morocco, Egypt, Jordan

High

Little sharing

Sharing with Syria, Iran

governance costs of creating and maintaining a hierarchy are reasonably low. Table 3.1 outlines the four most pertinent combinations of values of these variables and the intelligence-sharing outcomes that we would expect from each combination. Consider the first row, where the gains from sharing intelligence are low. Little or no sharing should take place for the simple reason that cooperation offers no benefits to the potential participants. A good example is electronic surveillance of international telephone calls and email messages that originate and are destined for recipients outside of the United States. Much of this traffic passes through networks located in the United States, which provides the authorities with the ability to capture communications without the cooperation of the countries where the sender and recipient are located.9 In the second row, the gains that each state secures from sharing are larger than the expected costs of defection by the other state. Sharing should be straightforward to arrange here, and the participating states should focus on developing technical mechanisms – such as shared databases, common security procedures, joint training of personnel, and so on – that allow them to exchange information efficiently. The conventional wisdom holds that relationships resembling this second row are the only ones in which states can share intelligence. Where the incentives to defect are higher, the states should recognize this reality, forego cooperation through intelligence-sharing, and instead seek to develop autonomous national means of gathering intelligence. I want to argue that in the circumstances resembling the third row of Table 3.1, states can successfully cooperate by introducing an element of hierarchy into their intelligence-sharing relationship. Hierarchy allows cooperating states to capture the gains available from sharing intelligence by allowing the dominant state to effectively monitor the subordinate. Such a hierarchy will provide gains to both parties when the costs of creating and maintaining it are smaller than the joint gains available from intelligence-sharing. But a hierarchy will not prove worthwhile when these governance costs are too high for either state. The major costs for subordinate states is accepting limits on their

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autonomy. Subordinate states accept their inferior status because doing so sustains cooperation with the dominant state. Subordinate states can receive important benefits in exchange for accepting their reduced status, such as shared intelligence, economic aid, or protection from external threats. Subordinate states would prefer to avoid the restrictions on their actions that hierarchy imposes. But this is often unrealistic; the dominant state will only agree to cooperate if the subordinate agrees to the limits that a hierarchy imposes. Participation in a hierarchy may be the best available outcome for such states. Dominant states must pay costs to manage a hierarchy as well. They must devote resources to closely monitoring subordinates’ compliance, to providing the benefits outlined in their agreement to share, and to punishing defection. For one state to effectively play the role of the dominant partner, it must control considerable political and economic resources of value to the subordinate state. Such power resources allow the dominant state to offer more valuable benefits and to more credibly threaten effective punishment when it detects defection. While dominant states are more powerful than subordinates, this does not mean that they always insist on creating hierarchical arrangements. Dominant states would prefer to avoid the costs associated with creating and managing a hierarchical relationship. When partnering with a state unlikely to defect, dominant states can and should agree to less hierarchy in their relationship. The dominant state must also take steps to reassure its subordinate that it will not itself defect or abuse its position of leadership. One way that the dominant state can do this is by agreeing to measures that deliberately expose them to possible defection in order to demonstrate their faith in subordinate states. For example, the dominant state can encourage partners to specialize in some aspects of the intelligence collection and analysis effort. Another mechanism is the joint development and management of intelligence assets such as listening posts or networks of agents. Both specialization and joint investments should improve the efficiency of the countries’ combined intelligence effort. But they also give the subordinate state more potential to defect and thus more influence over their dominant partners. Agreeing to such riskier forms of cooperation signals to the subordinate that the dominant state is reasonably secure that their hierarchal arrangement will work effectively. Dominant states can structure their intelligence-sharing with subordinates in three ways to monitor for and punish defection. First, the dominant state can direct and oversee some of the policies and actions of agencies in the subordinate state. The dominant state may assign its personnel to take on policymaking or operational tasks within agencies of the subordinate state. Seconded personnel are usually described as some type of technical advisor, and they certainly are in a position to provide the subordinate state with relevant knowledge. But their primary loyalty is not to the subordinate state but to the dominant state that selected them and assigned them to this role. An important part of their role is to monitor the actions of the subordinate state. Their direct involvement in detailed policymaking and operations gives them street-level knowledge of how policies adopted at the national level in agreement with the subordinate state are actually being implemented by partners that may face incentives to defect. Second, the dominant state

Intelligence-sharing and United States counter-terrorism policy 51 may finance actions of the subordinate. Providing financing gives the subordinate state more resources to carry out policies that will serve its interests. But strings are always attached to such money. The subordinate state must only use the money for purposes specified by the dominant state and may be required to provide evidence that the funds are expended in the manner intended. This monitoring of spending also provides a window on other, related, actions of the subordinate state. For example, the dominant state may be concerned that the subordinate will use its funds to replace rather than supplement its own funding of some activities. The agreement to providing financing should call on the subordinate state to provide a range of budgetary data in order to address this concern. Such data is also useful to the dominant state in constructing a more comprehensive picture of the true actions and priorities of the subordinate state. Financing also provides the dominant state with an important tool with which to punish defection. It can threaten to withdraw this funding or shift it to other purposes if it discovers that the subordinate has cheated on the agreement to share intelligence. Third, dominant states can offer to train officials from and restructure bureaus in subordinate states. One objective of training and restructuring is to provide subordinate states with the technical knowledge and skills needed to implement policy more effectively. Training and restructuring can serve as an indirect form of monitoring as well. Training attempts to socialize students from other states into the goals and routines of the training state. Dominant states can also provide their partners with funds, equipment and technology, and organizational blueprints to alter the format of their agencies. The motive is to replace or supplant existing agencies that are seen as not sharing the objectives of the dominant state with new agencies that are socialized to the goals and methods of the dominant state.

Sharing intelligence on Islamic terrorism Cooperation: Europe Western Europe and Canada are the countries that can share much useful intelligence with the United States and face relatively few incentives to defect. Britain, France, Germany, and a few other countries have foreign intelligence services that can collect information overseas and share it with the United States. British and French intelligence are particularly strong in the Arab world and south Asia. The fact that western Europe serves as a base and target for al Qaeda and related Islamic terrorist groups means that domestic intelligence and law-enforcement agencies can provide the United States with valuable intelligence. It also means that the United States can provide these governments with intelligence it obtains elsewhere, who may then use domestic law enforcement to monitor or to detain suspected terrorists. For the most part, western European countries have few incentives to defect from counter-terrorism intelligence-sharing with the United States. Governments in the region clearly feel vulnerable to attack by Islamic terrorist groups; Britain and Spain have suffered major attacks, and Germany, Italy, Denmark, and other

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states have uncovered groups planning attacks. Countering Islamic terrorism is a top political priority for both the United States and the European Union.10 The opposition of Germany, France, and other countries to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 has not diminished this interest in working with the United States to counter al Qaeda and related groups. This set of interests has led European countries to regularly share analysis and operational intelligence with the United States. There has been little incentive to add hierarchy to those elements of the relationship that do not raise human rights questions. Instead, the United States and Europe have been able to trust each other to share a great deal of intelligence without direct oversight or monitoring of how the intelligence is collected and analyzed. American intelligence agencies also maintain regular contact with their counterparts in Europe. Analysts from European countries often meet with their American counterparts, and the CIA and FBI have active liaison offices in many European countries that devote much of their time to sharing intelligence. A considerable amount of transatlantic intelligence-sharing takes place in multilateral fora. The United States has access to the law-enforcement and intelligence data and analysis on terrorism maintained by the European Union’s European Police Agency (EUROPOL), and EUROPOL and the United States exchange liaison officers to facilitate the exchange of information. They also regularly compare and discuss their assessments of the threats posed by various terrorist groups.11 Member states use the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to exchange threat assessments and analysis as well as operational intelligence that relates to the alliance’s peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan.12 It is unusual for states to share intelligence multilaterally. The reason is that, compared to bilateral sharing, the greater number of partners makes it problematic to evaluate the accuracy of received intelligence, and difficult to control the dissemination of intelligence shared with others.13 The fact that the United States and European states rely on multinational mechanisms to share intelligence on terrorism indicates that concerns about defection are relatively low. At the same time, it is important not to read too much into the practice of multinational intelligence sharing, as there is little public evidence about precisely what intelligence participating countries share. It is possible that multinational sharing is limited largely to intelligence of less operational value and to less-sensitive analyses of trends in terrorism. We know that sharing of intelligence across the Atlantic has also allowed governments to uncover terrorist activities and to interdict plans to launch attacks, although the authorities likely seek to control the release of details of such cooperation. For example, the United States shared intercepted telephone calls and email messages with German and Danish intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, allowing them to arrest Islamic militants planning terrorist attacks.14 Italian officials allowed the American Federal Bureau of Investigation to question a suspected terrorist about links to terrorist activity in the United States.15 France provided the United States with intelligence that helped to convict individuals accused on planning major terrorist attacks.16 In closing down a plot to bomb transatlantic airliners flying from London, the British government shared intelligence on the

Intelligence-sharing and United States counter-terrorism policy 53 plot with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which followed up on leads in the United States.17 Furthermore, after each successful attack, authorities from many countries now meet on short notice to share intelligence with the goal of catching the perpetrators and learning about terrorist groups’ operations and tactics. After large terrorist attacks in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005, the Spanish and British governments both enlisted the help of the United States and other European countries. These countries provided the intelligence they possessed relevant to the investigations, used intelligence provided by the Spanish and British to investigate links to the attacks from their residents, and learned lessons about the attackers’ motivations, international links, and tactics from the local governments’ investigations of the attacks.18 Furthermore, there is some evidence that the United States cooperates with selected European allies to undertake joint operations based on shared intelligence. Since 2002, intelligence officials from the United States, France, and four other countries have jointly operated a counterterrorist center in Paris that not only pools intelligence but also plans and coordinates operations to monitor or disrupt terror cells. The operation is headed by a French official, funded largely by the CIA and relies on close cooperation between intelligence officials seconded from the participating countries, each of whom is assigned to take the lead in planning and implementing operations that draw on the resources of all six countries when needed.19 European governments do face pressure to defect from intelligence-sharing with the United States in cases that involve violations of human rights. Europe has a highly developed set of human rights laws, robust international monitoring and enforcement through domestic legal processes as well the European Court of Human Rights and, on some issues, the European Union, and politically important domestic constituents that place a high priority on compliance with these laws. Human rights concerns have made it more difficult for European governments to cooperate with certain practices concerning the detention and treatment of suspected terrorists and the sharing of personal data. An important objective of United States counter-terrorism policy has been to kill or to capture and interrogate senior al Qaeda members and other Islamic terrorist leaders. In many cases, this goal can only be met with the active cooperation or at least the acquiescence of states in which suspects circulate. Cooperation with these policies has been controversial in Europe. Many have objected to the treatment of detainees in facilities under American control in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, Iraq, and secret prisons elsewhere. Transatlantic tension has been strongest on issues that directly involve European countries’ territory or residents. These include the extra-judicial detention by the United States of suspects in Europe and their transferal or “rendition” elsewhere (one report estimates that this has occurred over a hundred times), the use of landing facilities in Europe on well over 1200 occasions to transport suspects to third countries, and secret, American-run prisons believed to be located in countries in eastern Europe that have recently joined the European Union.20 This opposition has posed fewer problems for the United States than is often imagined. It appears that some governments initially cooperated with American operations to detain individuals on their territory. The widely discussed American

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adduction of Abu Omar in Italy and his rendition to Egypt took place with some cooperation from the Italian intelligence service. Many European governments initially allowed United States intelligence to use their airspace and airports to transport suspects. It is unclear if security agencies in Europe were aware of the full extent of the United States’ rendition operation. But cases such as those in Italy and elsewhere should have alerted them to what might be going on. The ability of citizens and journalists to later unearth and map the flight plans of many rendition flights indicates that it would not have been too difficult for European governments to grasp the scope of the program if they had been interested in pursuing this. In addition, American intelligence was able to run secret prisons in the region only with the tacit support of the host countries’ governments. It was only when this became public, and threatened to expose governments to legal and political sanctions, that the Europeans began complaining loudly and backing away from cooperation. Note as well that European governments do not object to the detention of all potential terrorists, but rather the extra-judicial detention of such suspects. Many European countries have changed laws to provide the authorities with greater power to detain suspected terrorists. In some cases, where an individual is subject to multiple political jurisdictions, the countries involved have arranged that the country with the more stringent limits on the suspect’s rights assume authority.21 Data protection laws have impeded, but in the end not prevented, the sharing of personal data with the United States. European governments or firms regularly collect two types of personal data of interest to the United States – passenger name records for individuals traveling on international airline fights and data on international financial transfers. Passenger name records (PNRs) are collected by airlines to facilitate the exchange of information on passengers using multiple carriers for the same trip. All PNRs include basic details such as the passenger’s name, contact information, and itinerary. Many airlines also include additional personal information such as passport details, date and place of birth, payment details, and emergency contacts. After the September 11 attacks, American intelligence agencies requested that airlines provide archived PNRs as well as current records before the departure of flights destined for the United States. But distribution of information in PNRs is restricted by the European Union’s data protection laws which prohibit the sharing of personal data with countries, such as the United States, that lack comparable data protection standards. Officials of the European Union, which determine other countries’ compliance with this standard on behalf of its member states, worried that the European Court of Justice would overturn a decision to share PNRs with the United States. In 2001 the Union agreed to share such data with the United States for two years during which they undertook negotiations to bring American treatment of PNRs up to European standards. The two sides reached a temporary agreement in 2003 and a permanent arrangement the next year. The European Court of Justice did, as feared, invalidate this agreement in 2006, leading the United States and European Union to renegotiate portions of the agreement in 2007.22 Similar concerns did not prevent Belgium from sharing financial intelligence with the United States. Brussels is the headquarters of the Society for Worldwide

Intelligence-sharing and United States counter-terrorism policy 55 Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), which allows thousands of banks and other financial institutions from around the world to securely exchange messages regarding financial transfers. SWIFT managers secretly granted the United States the ability to access these messages after the September 11 attacks. They soon became uneasy about the legal basis of the cooperation, and persuaded the United States to place limits on its searches, to hire an independent auditing firm that ensured the data was only used for terrorism investigations, and to gain the power to veto intelligence searches they considered inappropriate. After details of this cooperation became public in 2006, Belgian and European Union privacy bodies ruled that it violated the Union’s data protection rules. Few political leaders in Europe, however, were willing to advocate a stop to sharing of data with the United States. Indeed, most European governments very likely were aware of this arrangement before 2006, as SWIFT management had informed the European Central Bank and the national central banks of many western European countries of its cooperation with the United States. It was only after the program became public and attracted the criticism of data protection organizations and human rights groups that they felt the need to place the program on a secure legal foundation. The European Union and United States worked out an arrangement where SWIFT could continue to share financial information with agencies of the United States government that were certified as having procedures in place that provide privacy protections equivalent to the more stringent European Union standards.23 From the American perspective, the human rights concerns of some western European states were a form of defection from the expectations that the two sides would engage in close intelligence sharing for counter-terrorism. Why, then, did the United States not seek to create a hierarchical relationship to prevent such defection? Two reasons seem important. First, the differences concerning data protection were rather small. European governments did not object to sharing this information with the United States in principle. Instead they wanted to ensure that the United States would not abuse the information in ways that would intrude on individual privacy. This gap proved reasonably easy to bridge, which meant that it was more effective for the United States to work out formal agreements with European countries rather than seek hierarchical control over their intelligence activities. The United States eventually negotiated an agreement on PNRs that satisfied the European Union, and the Union allowed airlines to share PNRs with the United States while these negotiations took place. European governments acquiesced to the sharing of SWIFT messages with the United States, and moved quickly to change this program and place it on a proper legal footing only when it became public. Negotiated solutions were more problematic for the treatment of detainees. One reason was that some of the activities that the United States undertook, such as, detentions without court orders, sending suspects to countries whose security services would mistreat them, and torture, violate core norms of the European human rights regime. European governments would have faced powerful complaints from domestic and international courts had they cooperated with these activities. Recognizing this, the United States altered its practices so that they did not need the active cooperation of European intelligence and law enforcement.

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They stopped illegally detaining individuals in Europe, stopped using European airports to transport suspects, and closed down the secret prisons believed to be located in eastern Europe. These changes made it somewhat more difficult, but not impossible, for the United States to continue to treat suspects as it preferred. In other words, once European governments began complaining about the treatment of detainees, the United States could pursue the policy it preferred on its own at a cost that was much lower than what would be involved in exercising hierarchical control. Hierarchy: Morocco, Jordan, Egypt Some countries possess valuable intelligence, but are also likely to defect from promises to share fully with the United States. The United States has sought to mitigate this incentive to defect by creating hierarchical intelligence-sharing relationships. Countries that clearly fall into this category include Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco. Pakistan also has agreed to some elements of hierarchy in its intelligence relationship with the United States. The United States can obtain two types of valuable intelligence from these countries. Many members, sympathizers, and financiers of Islamic terrorist groups live in or are citizens of these countries. Local intelligence services have the staff, cultural, and linguistic knowledge, and legal authority to collect intelligence on these individuals more effectively than the United States. Furthermore, none of these countries are democracies, and all use repression and coercion to maintain the government’s hold on power. Their intelligence services are known to use torture and other harsh techniques to interrogate detainees. This is valuable to the United States’ program of “extraordinary rendition” of suspected terrorists. The United States arranges for the transport of suspected terrorists detained in third countries to Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, and a few other countries, for questioning with the knowledge that interrogators will not hesitate to engage in human-rights abuses, such as torture or threats against detainees’ families in order to obtain intelligence. While the United States values intelligence-sharing with these countries, it also worries that each has reasons why it would not share fully. Government agencies, including those involved in internal security, in all of these countries, are known for corruption.24 This may distract officials from pursuing or interrogating terrorist suspects aggressively; indeed, such suspects may be able to pay bribes in order to avoid capture and interrogation. American intelligence agencies also suspect that individuals involved in intelligence and internal security may sympathize with the objectives and actions of Islamic terrorist groups. The basic ideology and many of the leaders of this movement are originally from Egypt, where they struggled to overthrow secular governments for decades. Al Qaeda and related groups have also drawn considerable support from individuals in North Africa, including Morocco and Moroccans living in western Europe. Jordan is not as well known for generating popular support for Islamic terrorism, although the government worries about the development of stronger indigenous terrorists linked to al Qaeda.25 In addition to these administrative problems, the domestic political climate may

Intelligence-sharing and United States counter-terrorism policy 57 create incentives for governments to avoid strong action against terrorist movements. There is some evidence that, while all of these governments see Islamic terrorism as a direct threat to their continued rule and share the desire of the United States to counter the group, support for the movement’s chief political complaints and some of its objectives is shared by substantial fractions of public opinion. Furthermore, there is strong opposition to the policies that the United States pursues in the Middle East.26 Concerns about these internal political dynamics might lead even autocratic governments to refrain from fully sharing intelligence on terrorist activity within their territory with the United States in order to avoid alienating potential domestic supporters. The political situation in these three countries allows them to create a hierarchical relationship with the United States that provides benefits to both parties. While there are elements in all of these countries that are sympathetic to al Qaeda, or oppose cooperation with the United States, the governments do not share these views. Each government views itself as acutely threatened by the activities of al Qaeda and the broader Jihadist movement. This movement has targeted governments in the region as one of the key obstacles to achieving their political goals and for allying with the United States, and declares as a key goal their overthrow and replacement with Islamist governments. All of these countries have been targets of attacks carried out by or inspired by al Qaeda, and the governments view residents that support or sympathize with al Qaeda as powerful threats to their hold on office. There are thus few political differences between the official policy of governments in the region and the United States on the importance of undermining Islamic terrorist movements. This reassures the subordinate states that they can more safely cede some authority over intelligence matters to the United States, which will have less of an incentive to exploit this authority for its own particularistic objectives. The creation of hierarchical intelligence-sharing relationships is also aided by the fact that most of these governments have close security ties to the United States. This provides convenient paths through which the United States can provide its clients with rewards for intelligence cooperation. At the same time, the form of the intelligence-sharing relationship can be shaped so that the hierarchical relationship with the United States is masked from public view. The management of extraordinary rendition is a good example of this. Governments release very little information about what suspects they have in custody through this program or how they are treated. This secrecy serves the purpose of preventing al Qaeda from learning what intelligence the governments have obtained from suspects. But it also reduces the visibility of the subordination to the United States, which likely minimizes the backlash that might arise if more details were made public. The United States has utilized the three mechanisms discussed earlier – financing, oversight, and training – to exert control over and to monitor these states. The United States provides substantial foreign and military assistance to all three countries. It is also reported to have directly subsidized the intelligence agencies of Jordan and Egypt.27 American officials are closely involved in the treatment and interrogation of individuals transported to these countries for interrogation. Reports suggest that these interrogations are actually conducted by local personnel, many

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of whom have linguistic skills and cultural backgrounds similar to those of the suspects. But American intelligence officials play an important role in selecting which individuals will be subject to interrogation, providing many of the questions to be asked, and closely monitoring and supervising the questioning and treatment of detainees. Some American intelligence personnel appear to serve essentially permanent positions within the intelligence agency of Jordan and play and active role in its daily activities.28 This division of labor – with Americans identifying suspects, guiding the interrogations, and integrating the intelligence obtained with other sources, while local authorities are responsible for the actual detention and interrogation of suspects – serves two purposes. It maximizes the joint gains available from cooperation by drawing on the strengths of each state. The United States contributes suspects, and questions and analysis drawn from its more wide-ranging sources of information on Islamic terrorism, while the host government provides many personnel with the linguistic skills to conduct interrogations and a willingness to violate international human rights norms concerning the treatment of detainees. But the same sharing of responsibility also places the United States at some risk of defection by its partner. One advantage of this risk is that it actually provides the subordinate states some room to defect from intelligence-sharing with the United States. By providing them with some power to harm the United States, this form of collaboration may reassure the subordinate states that they are not entirely at the dominant state’s mercy. At the same time, the United States does not rely on these allies for the interrogation of suspects. The most senior al Qaeda suspects appear to be detained and interrogated by American personnel in sites that are entirely under United States control in Afghanistan, Poland, and Romania. Less important suspects are subject to rendition to countries in the region. This division of responsibility may reflect concerns about the reliability of Jordan, Egypt, and Morocco to secure the more valuable intelligence that these suspects could convey to their captors.29 These three countries are also among the largest recipients of United States military training. Dozens to hundreds of military and intelligence personnel from each state visit the United States for training each year, and more receive instruction from American personnel in their home countries. Such training likely includes substantial components dealing with internal security and counter-terrorism matters. The military of Egypt and Morocco play important an role in counter-terrorism policy. Furthermore, the United States has, since September 11, developed new, similar training programs that focus specifically on intelligence and counter-terrorism and that face fewer legal limitations on including personnel from countries with poor human-rights records.30 The United States has sought to create a hierarchical intelligence-sharing relationship with Pakistan as well, but the Pakistani government has resisted subordination to American leadership because of domestic political concerns. Intelligence-sharing with Pakistan is very important for the United States. The most senior al Qaeda leadership operates from the country, and Pakistani agencies should be in a good position to collect intelligence on its location and activities. Many terrorist cells in other parts of the world have links to al Qaeda that run

Intelligence-sharing and United States counter-terrorism policy 59 through Pakistan, so intelligence collection there can thwart attacks planned overseas.31 While the potential benefits of intelligence cooperation with Pakistan are likely higher than with any other country, the risks are also very high. The military government of Pakistan clearly sees al Qaeda as a serious threat to its security, giving it powerful reasons to cooperate with the United States. At the same time, however, there are important forces that push against such cooperation or make it difficult for the country’s political leadership to translate a desire for cooperation into effective practice. Elements of the country’s Inter-Service Intelligence bureau and armed forces are believed to sympathize with al Qaeda or the Taliban. This political orientation, along with widespread corruption, may reduce their willingness to share intelligence on these groups or to act on intelligence shared by the United States. Furthermore, the military and intelligence services face multiple political issues that distract them from focusing on intelligence collection against al Qaeda; these include the prospect of armed conflict with India, disagreements over their role in internal politics, and seeking to maintain the current military regime in power in the face of multiple opposition movements.32 And domestic political support for close cooperation with the United States or for the vigorous use of military force within Pakistan in counter-terrorist operations further reduces the government’s incentives to collect or to share intelligence. Such pressures play out, for example, in the Pakistani government’s attempts to manage the country’s tribal areas. The Pakistani state has never fully established its control over these areas, which border Afghanistan and are believed to be where surviving leaders of al Qaeda have their bases of operation. The Pakistani government has resisted American pressure to take aggressive action in this area. In recent years it actually reduced its military and intelligence presence in the region, hoping that respect for local tribal governance would lead the population to no longer offer refuge to al Qaeda and the Taliban. American officials identify this policy as a key reason for the continued survival of these movements.33 The outcome of these conflicting pressures within Pakistan has been a struggle with the United States over the nature and extent of intelligence sharing. The United States has offered Pakistan considerable inducements in exchange for more closely directing and monitoring Pakistan’s efforts to collect or to act on intelligence on al Qaeda.34 But the Pakistani government has resisted many of these efforts. For example, Pakistan has become one of the largest recipients of United States aid in the world since 2001. Much of this financial assistance is directly tied to the country’s efforts against al Qaeda. Pakistan has been the largest beneficiary by far of the United States’ “Coalition Support Fund,” which is used to reward or compensate countries for assisting with specific American counter-terrorism operations. This fund, which requires recipients to document their support, provides the United States with an important potential source of detailed information on Pakistan’s counter-terrorism and intelligence actions. But Pakistan does not provide the United States with sufficient information to inform American evaluations of their performance, and the United States has proven reluctant to insist that Pakistan’s reimbursements be clearly linked to its performance, fearing that doing so would alienate the country and reduce its interest in cooperation.35 The United

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States and Pakistan also regularly struggle over how to collect and to use “actionable” intelligence on the activities of al Qaeda or Taliban members. The United States has pressed that its large military operation in Afghanistan be granted some rights to cross into Pakistan to collect or to act on such intelligence. The Pakistani government has resisted, presumably fearing that American military action on its territory might complicate its exercise of authority in border regions or further inflame domestic opposition to cooperation with the United States.36 The unwillingness of Pakistan to either take actions that will make it more trustworthy to the United States or to subordinate itself to American intelligence has led the United States to develop substantial autonomous intelligence capabilities in the region. These include intelligence functions attached to the American military effort in Afghanistan, the introduction of more American personnel under cover in Pakistan to collect human intelligence, and attempts to collect intelligence from satellites and communication intercepts independent of the Pakistani intelligence services. Little sharing: Syria and Iran There also exist countries that possess intelligence of value to the United States in its campaign against Islamic terrorism and that are likely to defect, but for whom the creation of a hierarchical intelligence sharing relationship would be too costly to develop or maintain. Syria and Iran would seem to fit into this category. Both have valuable intelligence. Syria is believed to be an important transit point for foreign fighters and funds going to support al Qaeda’s activities in Iraq. Many individuals that held prominent positions in the administration of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein now live in exile in Syria; some may have connections to insurgents operating against the United States in Iraq. The Syrian and Iranian governments have active programs to collect human intelligence on developments in Iraq. They likely have sources of information that are beyond the reach of American intelligence and which could assist the United States’ military and political missions there. Iran also operates political and intelligence missions in Afghanistan that could provide useful intelligence to the United States. Some important members of al Qaeda are believed to reside in Iran, although it is not clear how much the Iranian government controls their activities and contacts overseas. These individuals may have intelligence on the group’s activities that would interest the United States. Profound policy differences, of course, are the major barrier that prevents these states from sharing such intelligence with the United States, and would keep the United States from trusting the content of any intelligence these countries would share. The United States and Syria differ over the latter’s conflictual relationship with Israel, intervention in Lebanon, and possible support for insurgents in Iraq. American relations with Iran are troubled by accusations that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, supports terrorism, and intervenes in Iraqi and Afghan politics in ways that counteract United States efforts in these countries. The fact that these differences influence each country’s core interests in the region and beyond make hierarchy a too costly solution to the problem of defection. The United States would

Intelligence-sharing and United States counter-terrorism policy 61 have to make major policy sacrifices in order to tempt either Syria or Iran into allowing it to supervise their intelligence activities. Conversely, such supervision would make these countries very vulnerable to American defection in the form of interfering in their internal political affairs or their ability to collect intelligence overseas. It is not surprising, then, that what intelligence sharing that has taken place with Iran or Syria has been episodic, occurring when the countries perceive that they face an immediate threat in common with the United States. Such cooperation has not been sustained beyond such shared threats, nor does it appear to have been institutionalized in formal sharing arrangements that lay out expectations about what intelligence each state would be expected to provide. Syria did share considerable intelligence on al Qaeda shortly after the September 11 attacks, apparently because the government saw al Qaeda as a threat to its position and out a desire to avoid a confrontation with the United States. American intelligence agencies also used their practice of extraordinary rendition to deliver suspected terrorists to Syria for questioning by the authorities, who shared evidence gathered in these interrogations with the United States. But it appears that this cooperation dried up sometime around 2003 due to Syrian opposition to the invasion of Iraq and conflicts over the country’s actions in neighboring Lebanon. Iran also cooperated with the United States by sharing intelligence, especially on individuals connected to al Qaeda that fled to Iran after the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, as well as on developments in that country. But subsequent conflicts with Iran over nuclear energy and Iraq may have reduced Iran’s willingness to share intelligence in more recent years.

Conclusions and implications The United States can benefit substantially from sharing intelligence with other states in its struggle against Islamic terrorism. But it cannot trust all of these states to treat the intelligence it shares securely, or to provide all the relevant intelligence in their possession. The United States can compensate for this lack of trust by negotiating hierarchical relationships to govern intelligence sharing. Hierarchies allow the United States to limit the decision-making autonomy of cooperating states and provide it with tools to directly monitor their compliance with promise to share intelligence. Creating hierarchies is costly to the United States, which must provide material rewards and credible guarantees that it will not exploit its influence over a partner. When the United States trusts another state not to defect, the benefits of hierarchy are too small compared to these costs. This is essentially the situation with transatlantic intelligence sharing. The United States knows that European countries want to counter Islamic terrorism, and thus generally perceive intelligence sharing to be in their interest. There is little need to create a hierarchy to govern this set of relationships. Hierarchy is a worthwhile option when the when the partner state has strong incentives to defect from its promise to share, but its activities can be governed by the dominant state for a modest cost. Examples of such an arrangement include Jordan, Egypt, and Morocco. All three are allies of

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the United States committed to countering Islamic terrorism but who face political and administrative pressures to renege on this commitment. The United States has been able to reduce such reneging by developing means of direct control and monitoring over these subordinate states in exchange for security commitments, financial assistance, and by crafting its control mechanisms so that the subordinates retain some autonomy. Hierarchical relationships are too costly to create for relations with other states that possess intelligence of value to the United States but do not share its political goals, such as Iran and Syria. In addition to shedding new light on the extent and form of contemporary intelligence sharing arrangements, relational contracting provides some insight into the question of intelligence reform in the United States. Many analysts and blue-ribbon panels have suggested that the American intelligence community’s top priority should be to strengthen its ability to collect human intelligence rather than relying on local states to reliably collect and pass along this information. Daniel Byman advises that “[t]o reduce its vulnerability to manipulation, the United States should also try to diversify its intelligence sources to ensure that it does not rely exclusively on the local ally for information.”37 Senator Saxby Chambliss, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, concludes that “the CIA had lost its focus on [human intelligence] missions and needed to put more collectors on the streets, rely less on other foreign intelligence agencies, and find ways to penetrate terrorist cells.”38 This criticism was also emphasized in the independent investigations of the terrorist attack by al Qaeda on 11 September 2001 as well as the United States intelligence community’s incorrect conclusion that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction prior to the American invasion of the country in 2003.39 The United States intelligence community has sought to substantially expand its human intelligence capabilities directed against terrorist organizations. But there are important limits to what this effort can contribute. The intelligence community has found it difficult to recruit sufficient numbers of personnel with the language skills and cultural backgrounds that would be most useful for collecting human intelligence on Islamic terrorism. The fact that the large majority of the members and supporters of Islamic terrorist groups are located outside of the United States places logistical and political limits on how far American intelligence officers can go in obtaining such intelligence, as even friendly countries often object to the collection of human intelligence on their territory. Furthermore, it is not clear that the United States has sought to limit or replace in any significant way intelligencesharing with other states. Indeed, as the case studies make clear, the United States has substantially increased its sharing with the rest of the world, and especially so with countries that face strong incentives to defect from such sharing. The reason for this, I suggest, is that American intelligence agencies understand the practical limits they face in expanding human intelligence collection, and recognize that they can use hierarchy to better ensure that partners overseas will not defect when supplied with such intelligence. Clearly recognizing and understanding the costs and benefits of such hierarchical arrangements compared to the proposals of intelligence reform advocates may lead to a re-evaluation of the importance attached to the development of a stronger American effort to directly collect human intelligence.

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Notes 1 D. S. Reveron, “Old Allies, New Friends: Intelligence-Sharing in the War on Terror”, Orbis 50, 3, 2006, p. 455. See also, Reveron’s chapter in this volume. 2 D. L. Byman, “Al-Qaeda as an Adversary: Do We Understand Our Enemy?” World Politics 56, 1, 2003, p. 154; see also D. Bell, “Desperately Seeking Bin Ladin”, in K. Booth and T. Dunne, (Eds) Worlds in Collision: Terror and the Future of Global Order, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. 3 J. Pressman, “Rethinking Transnational Counter- terrorism: Beyond a National Framework”, Washington Quarterly 30, 4, 2007, 63–73. 4 S. Lefebvre, “The Difficulties and Dilemmas of International Intelligence Cooperation”, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 16, 3, 2003, 527–542, Reveron, op. cit., and M. Rudner, “Hunters and Gatherers: The Intelligence Coalition Against Islamic Terrorism”, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 17, 1, 2004, 193–230. 5 Good discussions of other countries’ willingness and ability to counter al Qaeda are N. Bensahel, “A Coalition of Coalitions: International Cooperation Against Terrorism”, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 29, 1, 2006, 35–49, and D. Byman, “Remaking Alliances for the War on Terrorism”, Journal of Strategic Studies 29, 5, 2006, 767–811. 6 Works that emphasize the importance of trust for effective intelligence-sharing include Lefevre, “The Difficulties and Dilemmas of International Intelligence Cooperation”, R. Aldrich, “Transatlantic Intelligence and Security Cooperation”, International Affairs 80, 4, 2004, 731–753, C. Clough, “Quid Pro Quo: The Challenges of International Strategic Intelligence Cooperation”, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 17, 4, 2004, 601–613, and Bensahel, op. cit. 7 The seminal works are R. H. Coase, “The Nature of the Firm”, Economica 4, 1937, 386–405, R. H. Coase, “The Problem of Social Cost”, Journal of Law and Economics 3, 1960, 1–44, O. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications, New York: Free Press, 1975, and O. Williamson, The Economic Implications of Capitalism: Firms, Markets, and Relational Contracting, New York: Free Press, 1985. 8 Important works that have applied relational contracting to international politics include D. A. Lake, “Anarchy, Hierarchy, and the Variety of International Institutions”, International Organization 50, 1996, 1–33, D. A. Lake, Entangling Relations: American Foreign Policy in its Century, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999; K. Weber, “Hierarchy Amidst Anarchy: A Transaction Costs Approach to International Security Cooperation”, International Studies Quarterly 41, 1997, 321–340; and J. A. Freiden, “International Investment and Colonial Control: A New Interpretation”, International Organization 48, 1994, 559–593. 9 D. Eggen, “NSA Spying Part of Broader Effort”, Washington Post, 1 August 2007. 10 The United States’ National Security Strategy and the European Union’s differ on many other issues, but are remarkably similar in the importance they attach to counterterrorism. Compare “The National Security Strategy of the United States”, September 2002, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf, with “European Security Strategy”, December 2003, available at http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/ cmsUpload/78367.pdf 11 G. M. Segell, “Intelligence Agency Relations Between the European Union and the U.S.”, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 17, 1, 2004, 81–96. 12 R. A. Clarke, B. R. McCaffrey and R. C. Nelson, NATO’s Role in Confronting International Terrorism, Washington: Atlantic Council of the United States, 2004. 13 Lefebvre, op. cit. and J. Sims, “Foreign Intelligence Liaison: Devils, Deals, and Details”, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 19, 2, 2006, 195–217.

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14 E. Schmitt, “New U.S. Law Credited in Arrests Abroad”, New York Times, 11 September 2007, and M. Moss et al., “In Terror Detention, Glimpses of Shadowy world in Pakistan”, New York Times, 17 September 2007. 15 E. Sciolino, “From Tapes, a Chilling Voice of Islamic Radicalism in Europe”, New York Times, 18 November 2005. 16 D. Priest, “Help from France Key on Covert Operations: Paris’s ‘Alliance Base’ Targets Terrorists”, Washington Post, 3 July 2005. 17 A. Cowell and D. Filkins, “Terror Plot Foiled; Airports Quickly Clamp Down”, New York Times, 11 August 2006. 18 E. Sciolino and D. Van Atta, “With No Leads, British Consult Allies on Blasts”, New York Times, 11 July 2005. 19 D. Priest, “Help from France”, “La France abrite une cellule antiterroriste secrète en plein Paris”, Le Monde, 13 September 2006 and “La collaboration antiterroriste confirmée”, Radio France, 8 September 2006, available at http://www.radiofrance.fr/ reportage/laune/?rid=300000187#anc1 20 “Secret detentions and illegal transfers of detainees involving Council of Europe member states: second report”, Council of Europe Parliamentary Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, 7 June 2007. 21 Priest, op. cit., Peter Gill’s chapter in this volume provides a more detailed analysis of the politics surrounding the rendition issue. 22 “EU Court Annuls Data Deal with US”, BBC News, 30 May 2006, http://news.bbc. co.uk/2/hi/europe/5028918.stm and “Airline Passenger Data Transfers from the EU to the United States”, European Commission, Memo/03/53, 12 March 2003, http:// ec.europa.eu/external_relations/us/intro/pnrmem03_53.htm 23 E. Lichtbau and J. Risen, “Bank Data is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror”, New York Times, 23 June 2007, P. Blustein, B. Gellman, and D. Linzer, “Bank Records Secretly Tapped,” Washington Post, 23 June 2006; C. Brand, “Belgian PM: Data Transfer Broke Rules”, Washington Post, 28 September 2006; and “The SWIFT Case and the American Terrorist Finance Tracking Program”, European Commission, MEMO/07/266, 28 June 2007, http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?referen ce=MEMO/07/266&format=HTML&aged=1&language=EN&guiLanguage=en 24 For example, the 2006 Corruption Perceptions Index, which compares perceptions of corruption in 163 countries, ranked Jordan as the 40th least corrupt state, Egypt as the 70th least corrupt state, and Morocco as the 79th least corrupt state. See Transparency International, “Corruption Perceptions Index 2006”, http://www.transparency.org/ policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2006 25 On the Egyptian origins of al Qaeda, see G. Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam, Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2003. 26 On support for terrorism, see Pew Global Attitudes Project, “The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other”, 22 June 2006, http://pewglobal.org/reports/ display.php?ReportID=253. On attitudes towards the United States, see Pew Global Attitudes Project, “Global Unease with Major World Powers”, 27 June 2007, http:// pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=256 27 K. Silverstein, “U.S. Partnership with Jordan was Targeted”, Los Angeles Times, 12 November 2005. 28 Amnesty International, “Jordan: Your Confessions Are Ready for You to Sign: Detention and Torture of Political Suspects”, MDE 16/005/2006, 24 July 2006, J. Mayer, “The Black Sites”, The New Yorker, August 2007, and Silverstein, op. cit. 29 D. Priest, “CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons”, Washington Post, 2 November 2005. 30 N. Heller and T. Stites, “Collateral Damage: The U.S. Hands Out Vast Sums of Money to Combat Terrorism While Ignoring Human Rights Records”, Center for Public Integrity, 22 May 2007, http://www.publicintegrity.org/militaryaid/report.aspx?aid=872 31 G. Miller, “Influx of Al Qaeda, Money Into Pakistan Seen”, Los Angeles Times, 19 May

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32 33

34 35 36 37

38 39

2007, and M. C. Moss and S. Mekhennet, “Glimpses of a Shadowy World in Pakistan”, New York Times, 17 September 2007. D. Rohde, “A Detour from a Battle Against Terror”, New York Times, 6 November 2007. M. Mazzetti and D. E. Sanger, “Bush Aides See Failure in Fight with Al Qaeda in Pakistan”, New York Times, 17 July 2007, J. Perlez, “Militants Draw New Front Line Inside Pakistan”, New York Times, 1 November 2007, G. Witte, “Pakistan Seen Losing Fight Against Taliban and Al Qaeda”, Washington Post, 3 October 2007. C. Cohen and D. Chollet, “When $10 Billion Is Not Enough: Rethinking U.S. Strategy Toward Pakistan”, The Washington Quarterly, 30, 2, 2007, 7–19. D. E. Sanger and D. Rohde, “U.S. Pays Pakistan to Fight Terror, but Patrols Ebb”, New York Times, 20 May 2007, and J. Warrick, “US and Pakistan: A Frayed Alliance”, Washington Post, 31 October 2007. See, for example, I. Khan, “Missile Kills 5 in Northwest Pakistan; U.S. Denies Attack”, New York Times, 3 November 2007. D. L. Byman, “Friends Like These: Counterinsurgency and the War on Terrorism”, International Security, 31, 2, 2006, 82. See also F. J. Cilluffo, R. A. Marks, and G. C. Salmoiraghi, “The Use and Limits of U.S. Intelligence,”, Washington Quarterly, 25, 1, 2002, 61–74. S. Chambliss, “We Have Not Correctly Framed the Debate on Intelligence Reform”, Parameters, Spring 2005, 5–13. See The 9/11 Commission Report, Washington: Government Printing Office, 2004, p. 415, and Report of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, Washington: Government Printing Office, 2005.

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Rendition in a transnational insecurity environment Can we keep intelligence cooperation honest? Peter Gill

Introduction The idea of different police and intelligence agencies collaborating, both within and between nations, is hardly a new one but it has certainly received renewed emphasis since the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States. There are a number of reasons for this but perhaps the most significant is that the US itself, although involved in twentieth century collaborative arrangements,1 had tended to believe that its post Cold War hegemonic intelligence power, as reflected in budgets and global reach, provided it with some kind of immunity from violent attacks, at least within its own borders. Thus the failure of the “intelligence community” either to predict or prevent 9/11 led to a great deal of soul-searching, of which one part was the obvious need to forge more productive intelligence-sharing arrangements with countries whose location and experience of political violence gave them a much superior understanding of the issue than was apparently the case in the US. This chapter examines, first, the general conditions under which intelligence cooperation develops, especially within the context of security networks, and then, perhaps paradoxically, discusses the controversial issue of “extraordinary rendition” which, although requiring transnational cooperation, was, in many ways, a reassertion by the US of its hegemonic power. Finally, the problems of control and oversight of developing arrangements are discussed.

Organizing intelligence Intelligence can be defined as “mainly secret activities – targeting, collection, analysis, dissemination and action – intended to enhance security and/or maintain power relative to competitors by forewarning of threats and opportunities.”2 As such, it is concerned with the key relationship between information and power, and intelligence cooperation is about agencies trying to leverage their influence beyond what they can achieve unilaterally.3 Conventionally, intelligence is seen as pre-eminently an activity of states – indeed, it is one of those activities contributing to the “monopoly of legitimate coercion” that is often taken as the defining characteristic of states. But while

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state agencies remain very important, they are not the only method by which intelligence, even when limited to security matters, is organized currently. First, it is as likely to be performed by people working in the private (or corporate) sector as in the public (or state). This is due to the corporate sector’s own concerns with protecting personnel and profits but also as they have taken on functions – through mechanisms such as privatization and “out-sourcing” – on behalf of states, especially those that have embraced neo-liberalism over the last 30 years. Thus, our traditional concern with state agencies whether as part of police, military, border or as intelligence agencies in their own right must now extend to corporate entities such as private military companies (PMCs), private security companies (PSCs), and others such as banks on whom states increasingly rely for information and enforcement in areas such as money-laundering. But there is a further locus or sector of intelligence – the “community”. Organization here may be less formal or bureaucratic and is not always driven by the imperatives of the market but the significance of intelligence in this sector can be great. It may be very informal indeed, such as in “gated” communities or criminal organizations but it will be more highly organized if conducted on behalf of “sovereignties”4 that are neither state nor corporate, but highly significant, such as separatist or national liberation movements or militias operating in areas where state power itself is marginalized. The state-centred analysis of intelligence is now deficient in another respect, that is, the national is clearly not the only level at which intelligence activity is organized or coordinated. Rather, this takes place at different levels: local, regional, national, transnational, and, of course, in different locations. Now, the only way in which we can conceptualize the myriad connections (or lack thereof) between these different sectors, levels, and locations of intelligence is by using the idea of the “network”. This is the most general form of coordination within sectors, levels and locations but there is now increased networking across sectors and levels, for example, the public-private “data warehouses” that, for some, present the best hope of a technological “fix” to current security problems. Another example is the local security network of police, private security, and residents groups that are found in most English cities. An older example, and one that is constructed on a more conventional view of state intelligence is that of European security intelligence “clubs”.5

Cooperation and conflict in intelligence networks By their very nature, networks are less formal than the bureaucratic hierarchies into which both state and corporations tend to be organized. Indeed, although greater efforts are now being made to establish formal intelligence-sharing agreements, the origin of intelligence networks is almost always informal. For example, the UKUSA agreement for the sharing of signals intelligence (SIGINT) between US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand represents one of the oldest – it started in 1947 – and best known formal sharing agreements but was pre-dated by much informal sharing between agencies in those countries on the basis of common

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“kith and kin” and, more often than not, shared political interests, especially during World War II.6 In tracing the early development of cross-national policing, Mathieu Deflem notes the significance of “professionalization”7 in accounting for cooperation far in advance of formal agreements and organizational subcultures are significant in current developments.8 We do not have similar detailed research into intelligence as we do for policing but it is reasonable to hypothesize a similar place for informal networks here; indeed, because of the yet greater secrecy, we might suggest that informal arrangements would be even more significant in intelligence. Informal intelligence networks, like any other social network, develop on the basis of trust between individuals and agencies nurtured by a shared perception of interests and reciprocity. The balance between these factors will vary with circumstances but, in some combinations, they represent indispensable conditions for intelligence cooperation that cannot be provided by a formal agreement alone. For example, even after the embarrassment caused to the UK agencies by the US unilateral kidnapping of two British residents, one of them, an MI5 source, the then MI5 Director General said: “It is unimaginable that we would cease sharing intelligence with the U.S …”9 Similarly, Dick Marty’s investigation of the extraordinary rendition policy (also discussed in more detail below) reported that: Our sources on both sides of the agreement – in Romania and the United States – emphasized the importance of both trust and national interest as factors underpinning their negotiations.10 Formal networks require additional factors, mainly an enabling legal and institutional framework – these can be provided by various bodies but the main ones are inter-governmental such as NATO. There are discussions of the role of supranational bodies such as the European Union but this is as yet quite limited.11 Cooperation is most likely to occur when different agencies share the same legal mandate and priorities – since 9/11 the dominance of counter-terrorism had doubtless enhanced the number of intelligence networks a great deal but, over time, as different priorities in some countries reassert themselves, then they may operate less. Cooperation will be easier to the extent that agencies deploy compatible technologies, share languages and modus operandi. One contributor to the Workshop in Bilkent for which these chapters were prepared, recalled that inquiries from his Pakistani agency via INTERPOL to francophone African countries would be ignored if sent in English. Compared with bureaucratic hierarchies, in which power is formalized in relations of super- and sub-ordination, power within networks is more fluid and partners are more or less equal to the extent that they each have information with which to trade. But power in networks may actually be highly asymmetrical, for example, a hegemon (or, dominant “node”) may be in a position to exercise disproportionate power through various means. For example, in addition to the multilateral NATO agreement for enhanced cooperation after 9/11, Romania signed a bilateral agreement with the US that, in the view of Marty, gave US forces a free hand to operate

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without any scrutiny or interference in Romania.12 This agreement was undoubtedly facilitated by the prospect of military assistance: The bilateral arrangements were built on two things: personal relationships and material investment. If your men on the ground have a very good personal relationship with the men in the partner service; that means a lot. And it also means a lot if the Romanians are gonna get their runways improved, new barracks built and new military hardware; that means a lot.13 Information is “currency” with which people can trade but the need to avoid compromising information about “sources and methods” means that there is a clear preference for bi- rather than multi-lateral cooperation.14 “Sharing” intelligence means losing control of it – that is okay if it goes to a trusted partner where it is subject to the prohibition on being shared further with any “third party” but agencies will not be willing simply to offer it up to some multilateral “pot”. For example, Eliza Manningham-Buller, then MI5 Director General, speaking after the July 2005 bombings in London, said: … we have a very strong interest in international cooperation, in all similar services having both the full legal powers to collect intelligence and the skill and experience to handle it carefully but if we splash it around carelessly we shall soon have none of it. So I could never agree to a compulsory exchange of intelligence as that would risk compromising valuable sources of intelligence. There would soon be little to exchange.15

Intelligence networks after 9/11: “A walk on the dark side”?16 Intelligence gathered for the purposes of security has the capacity for both good and bad, and cooperation between agencies can have both positive and negative consequences for public safety. On the positive side, clearly, cooperation between agencies that succeeds in the timely sharing of intelligence that prevents a violent attack is evidence that collaboration can boost the effectiveness of any single agency. In other situations, intelligence has the potential to add diplomatic leverage by providing “back channels” for discussions between groups in conflict who cannot be seen to be publicly in discussions. For example, during the period when paramilitary violence was at its height in Northern Ireland in the 1980s, officials from the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6) maintained contacts with representatives of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA)17 in a search for some resolution of the violence that eventually bore fruit in the 1990s. Clearly, “networking” between state, corporate and “community” actors is a delicate process. In Iraq, for example, a significant element in the apparent success of the US military “surge” in reducing levels of violence during 2007 has been as a result of agreements between the US and Sunni tribal groups in order to turn them into US allies against al Qaeda. This has been achieved by the massive

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disbursement of aid and reconstruction funds in the relevant areas resulting in the recruitment of some 65–80,000 members of armed “Awakening” groups. The information that can be provided to the US by such groups is just one part of the equation, their patrols are another but whether the arrangement will survive as the predominantly Shi’ite government replaces the US remains to be seen. In the worst-case scenario, the US will just have re-armed one side of a sectarian divide in order to provide itself with breathing space for a withdrawal.18 In some cases, state agencies might not only use networks with corporate or “community” groups for purposes of information-gathering but also to “subcontract” executive action specifically in order to avoid law and oversight. For example, early examples of US “covert action” include the notorious CIA recruitment of the Mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro after the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. Again, Northern Ireland provides similarly contentious examples of sub-contracting with criminal groups. A series of judicial and police inquiries have established not only that Loyalist paramilitaries were involved in passing information to and from security agencies but also that some of this “intelligence cooperation” was intended to be used for the targeted killing of alleged Republicans.19 Such cooperation has gathered pace post-9/11 as intelligence cooperation has become more about “hunting” than just information “gathering”.20 The US analysis of the 9/11 attacks identified a number of reasons for the apparent failure of national agencies to prevent them, including a lack of imagination. A central concern, however, was the perception that all the pieces of information that would have enabled prevention did exist somewhere in the intelligence system, but that the fragmentation of organizations and processes prevented them from being brought together. Thus, great effort has been put into the effort to reform the system so that it can better “join the dots”.21 Much of this effort has been directed at national intelligence within the US but, inevitably, given the transnational nature of the operation that led up to 9/11, much has also been directed at improving international sharing. There is insufficient space here to examine all these initiatives; instead the chapter concentrates on the issue of “extraordinary rendition” (ER). “Rendition” refers to the extra-judicial transfer of someone from one state to another and may take various forms, “to justice”, “to detention”, “military”, “extraordinary”. It is the last of these that concerns us, involving “extra-judicial transfer … for the purposes of detention and interrogation … where there is a real risk of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”22 Practice in the US pre-dated 9/11; there had been occasional “renditions to justice” for many years, mainly by police agencies close to borders but, from the early 1970s, drugenforcement agents developed Operation Springboard to seek the rendition of traffickers back to the US.23 The policy was extended in the 1980s to terrorists also but, on 17 September 2001, a Presidential Finding gave the CIA virtual carte blanche to take whatever action it deemed necessary regarding individuals either suspected of involvement or of planning future attacks and the policy of “extraordinary rendition” was put into place.24 This reinforced the prospect of illegality since the prevailing law on the subject of was that: “No State Party shall expel … where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of

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being subjected to torture.”25 The US is a signatory to the UN Convention against torture although its domestic statute giving effect to this adopted a relatively narrow view of torture as pain equivalent to causing organ failure and its interpretation of “substantial grounds for believing” was that there was a greater than 50 per cent chance of torture occurring. Thus, the US officially maintained that it did not use torture but may have used “coercive interrogation” techniques short of torture, such as water-boarding. Yet this claim was undermined by the policy of rendering captives to countries such as Syria, Morocco, and Egypt where torture is endemic to interrogation practices. The particular “network” through which ER was implemented was mapped by researchers initially by tracking the flights of aircraft known, or alleged, to be used by the CIA or US military.26 The specific actions that were exposed were indefinite detentions outside due process; capturing and handing people over to the US knowing that they would be unlawfully transferred to a US-administered detention; participating directly in interrogations of persons subjected to rendition, passing on information to the US that would be relied on to carry out rendition or making use of information obtained through human rights abuses; and facilitating unlawful transportation of detainees by making available civilian or military airfields.27 Certainly hundreds if not thousands of people were subjected to rendition after 9/11 but inquiries in just a few of these cases have added considerably to what we know. First, Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, was detained at JFK airport on his way back to Canada and, 12 days later, flown to Syria where he was detained for just over a year, during which time he was interrogated and tortured by the Palestine Branch of Syrian Military Intelligence (SMI). In October 2003 he was released and flown back to Canada where, several weeks later, he spoke publicly of his ordeal. Both before and after Arar’s return to Canada, officials leaked sometimes inaccurate information to the media aimed at damaging his reputation. Public concern increased, however, to the extent that a judicial inquiry was established in February 2004. The mandate was to investigate the actions of Canadian officials in relation to the detention, rendition, and imprisonment of Arar and, second, to consider whether some mechanism for an independent review of the RCMP’s national security activities was advisable.28 Second, Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian, sought political asylum in the UK in 1994 and was given indefinite leave to remain while his application was considered. It was refused in May 2000 and in June 2001 he travelled to Pakistan. In April 2002 he was arrested at Karachi airport, having left Afghanistan, where he was alleged to have been fighting with the Taliban. He was held in Pakistan for a few months during which time he was interviewed by a member of the Security Service and then, in July 2002, he was rendered to Morocco. Here, he alleges, he was tortured over a long period of time before being rendered to Kabul in January 2004.29 In September 2004 he was transferred to Guantánamo where he was held until released back to the UK in February 2009. By then, however, his case had become a very high-profile embarrassment to both US and UK authorities. Once the US announced that Mohamed would be tried before a military commission,

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his lawyer sought disclosure of documents relating to his treatment. This case was brought in the UK High Court where, prior to his release, the UK Government, under US pressure, maintained that the documents could not be disclosed because to do so would threaten US–UK intelligence cooperation. The judges were highly critical of this refusal because of the seriousness of the allegations.30 The strength of the evidence that Mohamed had been tortured led the UK Government to announce that the Attorney General would investigate possible criminal behavior by the Security Service. By the time of Mohamed’s release, the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) had investigated the case further and reported to the Prime Minister on 17 March 2009,31 the day before Gordon Brown announced that new guidance to intelligence officers on detention and “interviewing” would be published.32 It is unlikely that this will quell the demands for an inquiry such as that carried out in the Arar case, but the UK government will certainly resist. Concentrating here on the issues of information and intelligence transfer, it is clear that both 9/11 and then the US reaction to it had a significant impact on what had been cooperation practices worked out over many years. For example, Project A-O was set up within the RCMP after 9/11 to investigate the prospects for any further attacks and to coordinate the investigation of Abdullah Almaki, suspected of being associated with al Qaeda. It was Maher Arar’s meeting with Almaki in Ottawa on 12 October 2001 that led to Arar being identified as a “person of interest” to the investigation, which from October 2001 until the summer of 2002 passed much information to US agencies in contravention of RCMP policies. This included sending information which had not been screened for relevance or reliability and without the usual caveats restricting the use of the information to intelligence purposes. In this manner the RCMP’s entire investigative database on three CDs was passed to the US agencies, including “a good deal of inaccurate information about Mr. Arar, some of which was inflammatory and unfairly prejudicial to him.”33 US agencies did not cooperate with the subsequent judicial inquiry into Arar’s rendition to Syria but there is no evidence that the US agencies had any independent information on Arar and therefore it is concluded that the Canadian information was crucial in the US decision, although Canadian officials were found not to be complicit in his removal.34 But the Canadian agencies were not the only ones caught up in the “very frenetic”35 atmosphere after 9/11. The ISC 2007 report into what UK agencies knew (or admitted to knowing) of rendition paints a picture in which the realization that US was using ER rather than military renditions or “rendition to justice” developed slowly through 2002 and 2003,36 as a result of which practices changed. In 2006, SIS told the ISC: So we find ourselves in a position where we share with *** key [counterterrorism] interests, objectives and many techniques, but where we have some different methods and a quite different framework, specifically but not only on the issue of rendition. Now this does not and cannot be allowed to inhibit the exchange of what we call “building-block intelligence”, by which I mean material which over

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time contributes to a picture of a terrorist or a terrorist group, or much other vital operational collaboration … But it does mean that we have for a long time been aware that sharing what I would call “actionable intelligence”, leading to a possible rendition, would require very careful internal consideration and Ministerial approval.37 The consequences of being labelled a “terrorist” are clearly very serious for any person; as Maher Arar’s fate indicates, in the post-9/11 climate they were disastrous: One aspect of the Canadian and American (border) lookout requests that is highly alarming is the most unfair way in which Project A-O Canada described Mr. Arar and Dr. Mazigh (his wife). The requests indicated they were part of a “group of Islamic Extremist individuals suspected of being linked to the Al Qaeda terrorist movement,” a description that was inaccurate, without any basis, and potentially extremely inflammatory in the United States in the fall of 2001.38 But even if the RCMP had taken greater care to apply the normal caveats to the information they provided regarding Maher Arar, it is far from certain that it would have made any difference. In November 2002 Bisher al-Rawi, an Iraqi who had lived in UK since 1984, and Jamil el-Banna, a Jordanian-Palestinian with refugee status in the UK, were arrested at Gatwick on their way to The Gambia after “suspicious items” were found in their luggage. Both men were known to the Security Service as “close associates” of Abu Qatada, the radical cleric. After interviews, the men were released and eventually resumed their journey to The Gambia where they arrived on 8 November, at which point they were arrested by police. Shortly thereafter, they were handed to US officials and “rendered to detention”, first in Afghanistan and then to Guantánamo Bay in February 2003.39 Now, several times around the departure of al-Rawi and el-Banna from the UK, “US authorities” – presumably the CIA – were sent information relating to the arrest and release of the men including caveats that the information was not to be acted upon. Overall, the report asks us to accept that the UK agencies had cooperated with “renditions to justice” prior to 9/11 and had, as we saw above, only slowly realized the implications of the ER policy, at least when it moved beyond the removal of fighters from Afghanistan. The UK agencies then took care to obtain ministerial approval if they thought transferred intelligence might be used in this way and no substantial criticism was made of their behaviour. Yet the time and resources spent by the ISC on this inquiry were minimal and probably incapable of revealing impropriety on the part of the agencies if they sought to conceal it, as the court case referred to above indicates they did. However, by the traditional standards of British reluctances to criticize the US “cousins” on security matters, the Report’s conclusion as to the impact of the CIA ignoring the caveats is stark: We also accept that the (UK) Agencies could not have foreseen that the US

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P. Gill authorities would disregard the caveats placed on the intelligence, given that they had honoured the caveat system for the past 20 years. This (el-Banna and al-Rawi) case shows a lack of regard, on the part of the US, for UK concerns. Despite the Security Service prohibiting any action being taken as a result of its intelligence, the US nonetheless planned to render the men to Guantánamo Bay. They then ignored the subsequent protests of both the Security Service and the Government. This has serious implications for the working of the relationship between the US and UK intelligence and security agencies.40

If the accuracy of the information on which ER has been based can be a problem, what of the evaluation of the “product”, that is, the information obtained from what the US described as “high value detainees”? In their testimony to the UK ISC during its earlier inquiry into the handling of detainees in Afghanistan and elsewhere, MI5 said: We have however received intelligence of the highest value from detainees, to whom we have not had access and whose location is unknown to us, some of which has led to the frustration of terrorist attacks in the UK or against UK interests.41 The US Director of National Intelligence has provided more details of plots alleged to have been prevented as a result of information obtained from individuals rendered and subjected to “new procedures” developed in 2002, initially for the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah.42 The list includes the identification and capture of Riduan bin Isamuddin (aka Hambali), the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) leader in South Asia and other members of the network in August 2003, and the disruption of plots including the West Coast airliner plot mid-2002, a mid-2004 attack on UK cities, and an attack on Heathrow in 2003. In this last case, the source was apparently Khaled Sheikh Mohammed who, after his detention in March 2003, was held at the CIA “black site” in Poland.43 The problem is, of course, that outsiders such as academics or parliamentary or judicial overseers have no way of testing these assertions without access to documentation and personnel. Such “disruptions” may provide examples of the “warning paradox” but it would be easier to accept these assurances from the agencies if only they were not found to be providing misleading information so regularly, as we discuss below. For the agencies, their assessment of information from any foreign partner should be subject to normal processes of evaluation but, in effect, can only be judged on the reputation of the originating agency and the consistency or otherwise of the information with what is already known. The agencies simply have no way of finding out the details of the source and the whole structure of intelligence cooperation is built on the premise of mutual trust. Therefore, the question of whether the product of torture should ever be used in judicial proceedings can only be determined by reference to judgments of the likelihood that information has been so obtained.44 We might surmise that intelligence officers will be prone not to pry too far at all into the source of foreign intelligence; this was certainly so in the Arar

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case: in November 2002, CSIS officials travelled to Syria to obtain information from Syrian Military Intelligence (SMI). The Commission concluded: … I am not satisfied that CSIS did an adequate reliability assessment of the information received from the SMI, in particular with respect to whether the information could be a product of torture. Indeed, its assessment was that it probably was not the product of torture, which I find was not the case. As a result, any reliance on this information by CSIS or others was misguided or misplaced.45 But if we remain sceptical as to the value of any information that is produced via torture, there can be no doubt of the devastating consequences for the individuals so treated. Dick Marty’s 2006 report describes in detail the techniques used for detention and rendering – stripping, cavity searches, shackling, sensory denial, and wearing incontinence pads – measures far beyond what might be required for security and which appear to be intended to humiliate and result in “utter demoralisation”. The effects continue long after release, with deep psychological scars resulting in an inability to maintain normal relationships and a permanent fear of death. The stigma and suspicion of being a terrorist suspect make it practically impossible to re-establish normal life.46 Maher Arar, for example, was released by Syria just over a year after being detained at JFK: While the physical beatings had ended after the first few weeks, the conditions of his imprisonment in the Palestine branch (of SMI) had been abysmal. He had been confined in a tiny cell with no natural light. He had slept on the floor and endured disgusting sanitary conditions. Mr. Arar had suffered enormously. He continues to experience the after-effects to this day.47 Binyam Mohamed has described how he was subject to regular, intense beatings in Morocco, including having his chest and genitals slashed with a scalpel.48 The fact that the US has been prepared to carry out torture in foreign countries and sub-contract it because it knew that such acts would be illegal in the United States has been described by Marty as “a paradigm of political expediency”49 and one which undoubtedly contributed to the prisoner abuse scandals in Iraq. This not only risks blowback but raises serious questions about the legitimacy of US/UK policy and our very sense of ourselves, as argued powerfully by Alex Danchev.50 Now, given that networks imply relations between more or less equal participants, ER, as developed by the US, looks more like hegemonic power than a “network”. This sense is reinforced by Marty’s analysis: I have chosen to adopt the metaphor of a global “spider’s web” as the leitmotif for my report. It is a web that has been spun out incrementally over several years, using tactics and techniques that have had to be developed in response to new theatres of war, new terms of engagement and an unpredictable threat.51

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As the initiator and sole beneficiary of the web, the spider is certainly hegemonic, mirroring the position of the US with ER. However, arguably, the very “exceptionalism” claimed by the US in describing the 9/11 attacks and in developing its response including ER, justifies us in continuing to deploy the network concept. For example, ER was developed outside existing intelligence networks: The need for unprecedented permissions, according to our sources, arose directly from the CIA’s resolve to lay greater emphasis on the paramilitary activities of its Counter-terrorism Center in the pursuit of high-value targets, or HVTs. The US Government therefore had to seek means of forging intergovernmental partnerships with well-developed military components, rather than simply relying upon the existing liaison networks through which CIA agents had been working for decades.52 The political and legal fall-out, not just from ER but also the security quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq, have led the new US administration to change direction swiftly. Barack Obama has announced the closure of Guantánamo and the ending of ER but Congress is still considering the establishment of a commission of inquiry into the Bush Administration’s counter-terrorism policies.53 Yet this experience with ER alerts us to the need to enhance intelligence oversight to reduce the chances of similar abuses in the future.

Intelligence networks: the challenge for oversight It is the very fact that networks are potentially so useful to investigators and intelligence officials as a means for leveraging their own resources that they represent an enormous challenge to the quest for democratic control and oversight. Intelligence necessarily deploys “mapping” methodologies in order to identify networks of “terrorist” groups but if information exaggerates or misleads others about the nature of relationships then the consequences for individuals wrongly identified can be disastrous, as the case of Maher Arar demonstrates. After many years of benign neglect, states have, in the past 25 years, started to come to grips with the issue of oversight of intelligence agencies but those efforts have, so far, been based on conventional notions of oversight of state hierarchies in which lines of formal authority are clear, thus making the job of external audit and oversight at least comprehensible, if still devilishly difficult in practice. In comparison, it is the informality and enhanced secrecy of networks that attracts practitioners so much, for example, in developing ER: In terms of protections, the US Government insisted on the most stringent levels of physical security for its personnel, as well as secrecy and security of information during the operations the CIA would carry out in other countries.54 We are accustomed to analyzing control and oversight of intelligence at internal,

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ministerial, and parliamentary levels as well as from civil society, including NGOs and media.55 It is conducted in various proactive and reactive ways: the former include ministerial or judicial authorizations for the use of special informationgathering techniques and the latter will typically investigate scandals or other problems that become public. But these procedures have all been adopted within different national intelligence systems and are restricted to oversight of state intelligence agencies. Rapidly developing intelligence networks now include corporate agencies as well, but there is insufficient space to consider here the further challenges they pose for oversight.56 While recently developed national procedures are certainly an improvement, they cannot cope with transnational and other network issues for various reasons. First, in many countries, oversight bodies have an institutional rather than a functional mandate and so do not even oversee all the relevant domestic agencies. For example, in Canada, the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) has oversight over CSIS but not the RCMP and other agencies with intelligence functions. This problem was faced squarely by Justice O’Connor’s inquiry into the Arar case and has led to the recommending of an overall coordinating review committee.57 In the UK, ISC has extended its own mandate to incorporate the Defence Intelligence Staff and Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) (for more on SOCA see Chapter 5, this volume) as well as its “core” mandate of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ but responsibility for military intelligence remains with another parliamentary committee. Indeed, the fact that military intelligence agencies, if they are overseen at all, will be subject to a separate body is a common problem. This lack of oversight was part of the reason why the CIA selected military intelligence agencies, rather than their normal civilian partners, for the ER strategy.58 National overseers lack authority outside their own country, for example, Justice O’Connor had no help from Syria and the US into the treatment of Maher Arar. Indeed, even oversight inquiries within a country can fall foul of the “third party rule” that agencies may not reveal information received from another without the latter’s permission. Marty discovered that transnational sharing was actually organized to avoid oversight: According to our sources, the CIA determined that the bilateral arrangements for operation of its HVD programme had to remain absolutely outside of the mechanisms of civilian oversight.59 What, then, is the possibility for transnational oversight that might match this level of intelligence cooperation? The Venice Commission, which advises the Council of Europe, has recently studied this question in the wake of the controversy about ER and has argued: Engaging in international networking of security agencies is certainly the adequate response to the recent terrorism threats. However, it is necessary to create a legal framework in which cooperation with foreign agencies is only permissible according to principles established by law (including human rights

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P. Gill safeguards) authorised according to strict routines (with proper paper trails) and controlled or supervised by applicable parliamentary or expert bodies.60

But while transnational bodies such as the CoE transcend the national, they lack democratic legitimacy and have no authority over national governments to compel disclosure; again, as was found by Marty: We must condemn the attitude of the many countries that did not deem it necessary to reply to the questionnaire we sent them through their national delegations. Similarly, NATO has never replied to our correspondence.61 Certainly, there are possibilities for standard-setting at this level but there is also a need for national parliamentarians and experts to develop their own oversight networks. Finally, oversight has to wrestle with a central fact of security and intelligence operations, whether domestic or transnational, that is, agencies and governments will fail to provide relevant information or will actually seek to mislead external oversight bodies, whether parliamentary or judicial. This is not an argument for embracing the conspiracy theories of government that disable aspects of intelligence studies but it is an argument for oversight bodies to retain a healthy scepticism as to what governments tell them. Of course, governments will not be anxious to obtain information about what intelligence agencies have been doing, or may just refuse to provide information: It has to be said that most governments did not seem particularly eager to establish the alleged facts. The body of information gathered makes it unlikely that European states were completely unaware of what, in the context of the fight against international terrorism, was happening at some of their airports, in their airspace or at American bases located on their territory. Insofar as they did not know, they did not want to know. It is inconceivable that certain operations conducted by American services could have taken place without the active participation, or at least the collusion, of national intelligence services … The main concern of some governments was clearly to avoid disturbing their relationships with the United States, a crucial partner and ally.62 What we see here is that, while the widespread democratization of intelligence in the last quarter century makes it more difficult for ministers to look the other way while agencies carry out illegal or unethical actions, Marty discovered that “plausible deniability” is alive and well in the field of international intelligence cooperation. One only has to see the difficulty that the UK has had in prising from its closest ally information about ER flights that had stopped in British territory. Allegations that the US had used the base on Diego Garcia were repeatedly denied by ministers.63 That is, until the Foreign Secretary was forced to apologize to Parliament on 21 February 2008 after the US Government told the UK that, in fact, two flights had stopped there in 2002.64

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What is at stake is the maintenance of relations between countries. Maintaining relations is necessary to sustain intelligence cooperation and naturally governments are very reluctant to criticize those with whom they want to maintain reciprocal relations. Even non-governmental overseers will, of course, share these concerns and so we find that published reports go to some lengths not to embarrass foreign partners. For example, ISC reports regularly refer to “US authorities” rather than specifically identify the CIA or some other named agency. When Justice O’Connor published his report on the Arar case, there were a number of redacted sections, at government insistence. After a further court case, these sections were released in August 2007 and it was discovered that most of them were simply references to the CIA or FBI by name.65 Overseers face the reality that “national security” can be used by governments to “trump” any other form of investigation, including criminal investigations. A controversy arose in the UK after Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, forced the Serious Fraud Office to stop their investigation of allegations of bribery and corruption between BAE Systems and Saudi Arabia over deals involving the selling of fighter aircraft. Court action challenging the legality of Blair’s intervention made it clear that he felt the UK Government had no choice given that the Saudis had threatened to halt intelligence collaboration regarding terrorism.66 Governments and agencies can obstruct inquiries simply by refusing to provide relevant information if the legal powers and resources possessed by the inquiries are slim but, if necessary, they will be prepared to use more direct methods. Most frequently, they will use their privileged position in terms of information control to leak disinformation to the media with the intention to de-rail whatever inquiry is in train. For example, before and after Maher Arar returned to Canada, Canadian officials leaked inaccurate information about him – the inquiry noted eight media stories purporting to come from unnamed officials or others involved in his case.67 In other cases the obstruction might be much more dramatic. John Stevens, a former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, carried out three separate inquiries in Northern Ireland into the allegations of “collusion” between security agencies and Loyalist paramilitaries referred to earlier. The only part of his reports that have been published are: a summary version of the third, in which he recounts the attempts to obstruct his enquiries from the outset; the army giving him written statements that documents he requested did not exist but which he later obtained; an army intelligence unit training their informer in counter-interrogation techniques in case he was arrested by the Stevens team; and the destruction of his inquiry’s office by fire that Stevens concluded was arson.68 Not many efforts at resisting oversight will be as dramatic as this, but it makes clear that, apart from legal powers and investigative resources, overseers also need a great deal of “political will” if they are to do their job.

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Conclusion So, has ER harmed the cause of international intelligence collaboration? Given the overwhelming perception among security agencies and governments that cooperation is a “good thing” that leverages their individual intelligence capability in the face of a variety of transnational threats against which they are struggling to cope,69 then the answer is “no”. It has certainly caused some friction between long-term allies such as the US, UK and Canada but there is no evidence that people will be less likely to cooperate than before. What ER has done, however, is wake up some authorities, especially in European institutions such as the EU and Council of Europe to the fact of intelligence collaboration and its potential for harm to human rights. Intelligence cooperation will only intensify through an extension of both formal and informal networks. The lack of hierarchical arrangements for the coordination of transnational efforts may well be frustrating,70 especially for the United States, which will still use its disproportionate symbolic, material and, occasionally, coercive resources to “encourage” collaboration on the part of the unwilling. Nevertheless, the multiplicity of intelligence actors, sectors and levels cannot be organized by any other than network methods, however asymmetrical that network might be.71 Barring either the imposition of cooperative arrangements by the US acting as imperial hegemon or the adoption of some enhanced UN structure imbued with sovereign authority, the future structure of intelligence collaboration is most likely to resemble neo-feudalism. This will incorporate not only state agencies but also private corporations, communities, tribes, militias, and NGOs. The challenge of developing “working rules” for such a ramshackle architecture is great, to put it mildly. Developing legal, rather than discretionary, frameworks for intelligence is a relatively recent project within nations and has hardly begun when it comes to transnational intelligence. As long as this is concerned with a largely traditional view of “security”, then the two main reference points will be police and military cooperation for which there are more developed legal frameworks. But while some security intelligence activity is carried out within police or military contexts, some is not. But even where it is, intelligence work has a not entirely undeserved reputation for going to places where uniformed police and military would fear to tread. And this is the real challenge: the ER saga forcibly reminds us that when intelligence agencies operate in the sphere of counterinsurgency or counter-terrorism, they may do so outside of the law and beyond oversight. Therefore, any contemplation of an international regime has to deal with the idea of legalizing and controlling something not only outside of current legal structures but which many governments would like to keep there.

Notes 1 For example, Loch Johnson discusses US cooperation with West Germany during the Cold War in Bombs, Bugs, Drugs and Thugs: intelligence and America’s quest for security, New York: New York University Press, 2002, 152–64. 2 P. Gill, “Theories of Intelligence: where are we, where should we go and how might

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7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

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we proceed?” in P. Gill, S. Marrin and M. Phythian (Eds), Intelligence Theory: key questions and debates, London: Routledge, 2009, 214. Jennifer Sims provides an excellent analysis of intelligence cooperation in “Foreign Intelligence Liaison: devils, deals, and details”, International Journal of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence, 19, 195–217. cf. M. Warner, “Intelligence as Risk-Shifting”, Gill, Marrin and Phythian, op. cit., 16–32. This argument is developed in more detail in P. Gill & M. Phythian, Intelligence in an Insecure World, Cambridge: Polity, 2006, Chapter 3. J. T. Richelson and D. Ball, The Ties That Bind, Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990; M. Rudner, “Hunters and Gatherers: the intelligence coalition against Islamic terrorism”, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 17, 2004, 193–230 at 196–204. M. Deflem, Policing World Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. cf. J. Sheptycki, “Organizational Pathologies in Police Intelligence Systems”, European Journal of Criminology, 1, 3, 307–32. Intelligence and Security Committee, 2007, Rendition, Cm 7171, July, London: The Stationery Office, para. 25. This case is discussed below. Dick Marty, 2007, Alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers of detainees involving Council of Europe member states: second report, Parliamentary Assembly, Council of Europe, June 11, para. 129. e.g. B. Müller-Wille, For Our Eyes Only? Shaping an Intelligence Community within the EU, Occasional paper 50, Paris: Institute for Security Studies, 2004. Marty op. cit., para. 148. “American source” cited in Ibid, para. 129. Rudner, op. cit., distinguishes “multilateral” (formal alliances such as UKUSA) from “plurilateral” (more loosely structured such as the Club of Berne). ‘The international terrorist threat and the dilemmas in countering it”, speech in the Hague, Netherlands, 1 September 2005, www.mi5.gov.uk (accessed 1 December 2005). R. Harris, The Ghost, 2007, p. 45. The novel deals with a writer commissioned to “ghost” the memoirs of a recently retired British Prime Minister who is sheltering in the United States after his controversial actions in the “war on terror”. L. Scott, “Secret intelligence, covert action and clandestine diplomacy”, Intelligence and National Security, 19, 2, 2004, 322–41 and cf. Sims on “adversarial liaison” 2006, 200–202. A. J. Rubin and D. Cave, “In a Force for Iraqi Calm, Seeds of Conflict”, The New York Times, 23 December 2007. P. Cory, Cory Collusion Inquiry Report; Patrick Finucane, HC470, 2004, para. 1.293; J. Stevens, Stevens Enquiry: overview and recommendations, 2003, para. 44.7. C. Cogan, “Hunters not gatherers: intelligence in the twenty first century”, Intelligence and National Security, 19, 2, 2004, 304–21; Rudner, op. cit. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Report, Chapter 13, sets out the Commission’s proposals. ISC, 2007, para.7. E. Nadelmann, Cops across Borders: The internationalization of US criminal Law enforcement, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993, 436–57. The existence of the Finding has become public, though not its specifics. Marty, 2007, paras 56–60 presents what is known. UNCAT, Article 3. S. Grey, Ghost Plane: The Untold Story of the CIA’s Secret Rendition Programme, London: Hurst, 2006. Parliamentary Assembly, Council of Europe, Draft Resolution, June 2006, para. 10.

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28 Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar, 2006, Report of the Events Relating to Maher Arar www.ararcommission.ca 29 ISC, 2007, paras. 98–101. 30 R. Norton-Taylor, “Court attacks US refusal to disclose torture evidence”, Guardian, 23 October 2008. 31 Intelligence and Security Committee, Alleged complicity of the UK security and intelligence Agencies in torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, 17 March 2009 http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/143156/090317_alledged.pdf (accessed 24 March 2009). 32 House of Commons, Hansard, 18 March 2009, column 55WS. 33 Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar, 2006, Report of the Events Relating to Maher Arar: Analysis and Recommendations; www.ararcommission.ca para. 5.1.5, pp. 22–26; quote at 24. 34 Commission of Inquiry, Analysis, 5. 2. 1, p. 29. 35 Oral evidence from SIS, 19 March 2007. ISC, 2007, para. 50. 36 ISC, 2007, paras 52–88. 37 ISC, 2007, para 169. *** is the way in which ISC indicates the redaction of material. In this case, given the context, this almost certainly refers to the CIA and, possibly, FBI. Similarly, in an initially redacted portion of the Arar report, reference is made to a CSIS liaison officer in Washington reporting to his superiors in October 2002 “… a trend they had noted lately that when the CIA or FBI cannot legally hold a terrorist subject, or wish a target questioned in a firm manner, they have them rendered to countries willing to fulfil that role. He said Mr. Arar was a case in point.” Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar, 2006, Report of the Events Relating to Maher Arar: Factual Background, volume 1, p. 245. 38 Commission of Inquiry, Analysis, 5. 1. 3, 20–21. 39 ISC, 2007, paras. 111–147 on which this account is based. 40 ISC, 2007, 137. P. Gill, “Evaluating Intelligence Oversight Committees: The UK Intelligence and Security Committee and the ‘War on Terror’”, Intelligence and National Security, 22, 1, 2007, 14–37 provides a detailed critique of ISC performance in its first ten years. 41 ISC, Handling of Detainees by UK Intelligence Personnel in Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay and Iraq, Cm 6469, London: The Stationery Office, 2005, paras 77–78. 42 ODNI, Summary of the High Value Terrorist Detainee Program, undated – but Fall 2006 is a likely date. 43 Marty, op. cit. para. 127; ISC, Rendition, para. 71. 44 e.g. I. Leigh, “Reviewing International Cooperation of Security and Intelligence Agencies: accountability in the post-9/11 climate”, Paper delivered to ECPR section on Intelligence Governance, University of Pisa, September 2007, 7–8. 45 Commission of Inquiry, Analysis, 5.3.3.2 p. 35. 46 Marty, op. cit. paras, 79–91. 47 Commission of Inquiry, Analysis, para 5.3.5.4, p. 45. 48 Mail on Sunday, 7 March 2009, www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-1160238 (accessed 8 March 2009). 49 Marty, op. cit., 34. 50 A. Danchev, “Human Rights and Human Intelligence”, in S. Tsang (Ed.), Intelligence and Human Rights in the Era of Global Terrorism, pp. 93–108, Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2006. 51 Marty, op. cit., 25. 52 Marty, op. cit., 75 (emphases in original). 53 C. Savage & N. Lewis, “Release of Memos Fuels Push for Inquiry into Bush’s TerrorFighting Policies”, New York Times, 4 March 2009. 54 Marty, op. cit., 79 (emphases in original). 55 For example, Gill & Phythian, op. cit., ch. 8.

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56 See, Gill & Phythian, op. cit., ch. 3; F. Schreier & M. Caparini, Privatizing Security: implications of private military companies for effective security sector governance, 2005; A. Wright, “Security Intelligence – everybody’s doing it: new challenges for democratic control”, Paper for ECOPR Conference, Pisa, 2007. 57 Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar, 2006, A New Review Mechanism for the RCMP’s National Security Activities; also cf. Wright. 58 Marty, op. cit., 166. 59 Marty, op. cit., 168. Emphasis in original. 60 Venice Commission, Report on the democratic oversight of the security services, para 25. 61 Marty, op. cit., 20. 62 Marty, op. cit., 230. 63 For example, a letter from Prime Minister Blair to the ISC on 26 March 2007. See ISC, 2007, para.197. 64 R. Norton-Taylor & J. Borger, “Embarrassed Miliband admits two US rendition flights refuelled on British soil”, Guardian, 22 February 2008, 4. 65 Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar, 2006, Addendum. 66 D. Leigh & R. Evans, “A cover-up laid bare: court hears how SFO inquiry was halted”, Guardian, 15 February 2008, 6–7; same authors, “Britain powerless in face of Saudi threats, court told”, 16 February 2008, 13. 67 Commission of Inquiry, Analysis, 5.4.2. 68 Stevens, op. cit., para. 3.4. 69 cf. Aldrich, 2007. 70 See chapter in this volume by James Walsh. 71 Gill and Phythian, op. cit., 57–60 discuss issues of “network management”.

5

Is the UK stepping toward transnationalism? The Serious Organized Crime Agency Glen M. Segell

Introduction The geo-politics of the European Union with its internal borders open to the movement of goods, services and people has resulted in the redundancy of many organizations of state that have traditionally handled national economic, defence and security functions. Customs and excise functions between states in the EU are no longer the same as before given the free movement of goods and services. Similarly, Inland Revenue and taxation services have evolved with the free movement of people, transnational mergers, and acquisitions, and EU-wide companies. Furthermore there are no longer territorial borders to defend within Europe on a state-to-state basis but rather communities and individuals to secure. The nature of threats that face sovereign states, societies and individuals requires the gathering and analysis of information that is not constrained by time or space, nor by territorial borders or by organizational fiefdoms. This has resulted in state and sub-state entities, like the police, needing to acquire intelligence capabilities that are increasingly transnational. Intelligence is no longer about one agency gathering information and analyzing it for the defence of the territorial borders and external interests of a sovereign state, and no longer about the gathering of information and analysis by another agency on activities within a sovereign state that might affect its well-being. The well established international community of police cooperation in specific cases is now moving toward establishing a transnational community for the sharing of large volumes of information. Such information includes the travel and migration of individuals, their financial activities and their affiliations to movements, organizations or parties. It is for this reason that there has been a reshaping and rationalization of domestic organizations within states and the emergence of European-wide coordination agencies. The former process has resulted in the United Kingdom, for example, in the creation of Her Majesties Revenue and Customs service, following the merger of Inland Revenue and Her Majesties Customs and Excise service. This was a catalyst to the creation of the Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA), which is an intelligence-led agency with law enforcement powers and harm-reduction responsibilities. SOCA amalgamates the National Crime Squad, the National

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Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS), and investigators from Customs and the Home Office’s Immigration Service. Such a combination permits SOCA to serve as a nation-wide intelligence service with powers of arrest. The Director General of SOCA is able to designate SOCA officers as having the powers of a police constable, a customs officer, or an immigration officer. The initial staff having such jurisdiction are those with expertise mainly in financial and immigration matters. The agency commenced with 4,200 staff – about half of which were criminal investigators, and the other half analysis and intelligence personnel. SOCA is divided into four directorates, though in practice, staff from the different directorates will often come together in multidisciplinary teams to tackle particular threats. The directorates are: 1) Intelligence – the gathering and assessment of information and utilization of analysis to produce the best understanding of organized crime. The directorate ensures that all activity is knowledge-led and directed toward agreed priorities, and that SOCA builds strong working relationships with other agencies, including other law-enforcement partners. 2) Enforcement – provides a flexible operational response to threats, building high quality criminal cases against key targets and organized crime groups. 3) Intervention – aims to make life harder for organized criminals, with a particular focus on attacking criminal assets and working with the private sector. Intervention also houses the international arm of SOCA. 4) Corporate services – which supports, facilitates and develops SOCA’s capabilities. The formation of SOCA is indicative that throughout the European Union both policing and intelligence are undergoing a process of reform and transformation. In considering the roles, function and structure of SOCA it is possible to conceptualize that eventually there might be a transnational EU-wide organization based on similar lines that would go beyond coordinating internationally between national organizations. This may be through the granting of jurisdiction and authority for a security or intelligence agency to operate, for example, in all European Union states and not be subject in any fashion to constraints or restraints imposed by the regularity or judicial nature of any single EU member state. EUROPOL may well be the first step toward such a move, however, the issue of accountability and regulation would need to be considered and this may only happen with the emergence of central EU authorities. Prior to such an event, a transnational police and intelligence community aimed at eliminating serious organized crime may well serve the same purpose as an interim step. To foster such a debate and substantiate such contentions, it is the intent of this chapter to describe the creation, constituent parts and remit of SOCA as an example of the reform and transformation of the policing intelligence organizations within the UK. In addition, the details of this case may provide an indication of actual steps being made toward “statist-transnationalist” activities on the part of a key sub-state entity.

An overview of SOCA The primary remit for SOCA is tackling drug trafficking, human trafficking, money laundering and in recovering related criminal assets with domestic jurisdiction

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but also with pan-European coordination. The secondary, though unofficial, role is counter-terrorism. To facilitate a fully-fledged national organization, Regional Intelligence Cells (RICs) have been created. SOCA is centrally funded with the intention of being more than just the sum of its parts. The aim is to merge the constitute parts of SOCA in a new organization that will achieve more than just a different sign on the door of the same offices of its predecessor constituent organizations. There are two indications that this may be the case. Firstly, and notably in this regard, the formation of this new agency and its daily activities is in addition to the existing local police services, the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), the Security Service (MI5), the General Communications Head Quarters and the various defence intelligence units. SOCA is distinct from these other agencies in various ways, for example, MI5 officers do not have operational powers of arrest, and SOCA officers have the multiple powers of police, immigration and customs officers.1 Nevertheless, the existence of so many organizations will require further reform and organizational restructuring, for example in terms of counter-terrorism. Ultimately, it may result in the disbanding of these older organizations, should it emerge that they are redundant. Such redundancy may be a consequence of old threats that have dissipated, for example, states that once posed a threat but now are being subsumed as members of the European Union. Secondly, SOCA agents, although their main area of operation will be within the United Kingdom, are not confined to working within the UK. Already agents have been deployed to the opium fields of Afghanistan and to Italy to assist in general investigations and to investigate specific cases. SOCA has also taken over certain activities previously handled by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). On a global level and in addition to participation in international crimefighting organizations or projects, the FCO has directly funded anti-crime measures overseas. These are often in support of collaborative work carried out between the UK and overseas law-enforcement agencies in the context of bilateral MultiAgency Memoranda of Understanding (MAMOUs). SOCA controls and staffs the 15 negotiated MAMOU to assist the exchange of information between UK law-enforcement agencies and overseas counterparts. This includes G8 work on crime that began with a remit from the 1995 Summit in Halifax to look at existing arrangements for dealing with transnational organized crime and to recommend improvements. This arrangement, now known as the Lyon Group, has had a remit since the G8 Ministers for Justice and Home Affairs 2004 meeting in Washington, for improved cross border sharing of intelligence information to prevent and disrupt terrorist activity and to prosecute terrorists; for the effective use of advanced investigative techniques such as interception and undercover agents; an enhanced legal framework with states criminalizing and prosecuting a range of terrorist activities that the UK has achieved with the Terrorism Act 2000; tackling passport fraud; faster operational action to tackle attacks on computer networks; and faster cooperation in Internet related crimes, such as child pornography. In addition it should not be forgotten that the war on drugs is still ongoing. To this end SOCA has the responsibility to be actively engaged with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) that also promotes the Global Programme against

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Trafficking in Human Beings and cooperates with the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI). The Centre maintains the Internetbased United Nations Crime and Justice Information Network (UNCJIN). SOCA also works with the four EU “intelligence agencies” that can presently be identified: the fledgling Joint Situation Centre (SITCEN) as part of the (EU) European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), the Intelligence Division of the European Military Staff (INTDIV), the European Union Satellite Centre (EUSC) and EUROPOL as part of the European Union’s (EU) Justice and Home Affairs. Examples of such cooperation relate to the ongoing intelligence-sharing emanating from the 1990 Council of Europe Money Laundering Convention (also known as the Strasbourg Convention), the EU Action Plan against Organized Crime established in April 1997, measures in support of the Action Plan with funds made available under the Falcone Programme, organized crime-fighting studies funded by the EU, EU development programmes e.g. PHARE (originally the Poland and Hungary: Assistance for Restructuring their Economies), and the Council of Europe Convention on Cyber-crime opened for signature in Budapest on 23 November 2001. This Convention is the first binding multilateral agreement specifically to address the problems posed by the international nature of cyber crime. To fill their objectives, SOCA gathers data and analyzes suspicious activity reports (SARs). An integral aim of SOCA is to build up more comprehensive intelligence on organized crime networks operating in the UK. SOCA also uses international agencies such as INTERPOL to identify links between illegal gangs in the UK and abroad with about 120 officers, based in 40 countries around the world, working as liaison officers. The creation of SOCA has generated a previously unknown publicized discourse in the activities and organization of the police intelligence community. In part this has been due to the concerns of civil liberty activists in the holding and sharing of data about individuals by many police organizations globally. Such concern is in part counter-balanced by the discourse that created SOCA. Whereas, previously, secrecy was paramount in the intelligence community, increasingly, as Derek Reveron’s chapter in this volume reminds us, openness, transparency, civic consultation and participation in the political debate is considered essential. For hundreds of years, intelligence-gathering and analysis has been shrouded in secrecy and denial. To reveal or disclose the very existence of intelligence agencies and the identity of their personnel has been bound by the threat of treason and the death penalty. Today, part of the reform and transformation in openness and transparency is aimed at regaining the confidence of citizens following perceived intelligence failures such as Iraq and WMDs, 9/11, and the London Bombings. From the public debate in the creation of SOCA it is apparent that there is a reform and transformation in the mind-set of what is intelligence-gathering and analysis. Indeed the reform and transformation is not just about organizational change but also an evolutionary process of changing mind-set on various levels of policy, doctrine, strategy and tactics. Notably, it has been possible to become informed of the facts pertaining to SOCA due to the two year parliamentary and media debate with consultations, working groups, and papers covering all apparent details pertaining to the legislation for

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the formation of SOCA. The remainder of this chapter will continue to detail these under the headings: 1) The creation of SOCA, 2) The Parliamentary process, 3) The constituent parts of SOCA, and 4) The transition year. The evaluation here builds upon previous writings and analysis of what underlies and actuates the “intelligence ethos”. This accentuates considerations taken, for example, in the United States in military doctrine FM 3–0 (formerly FM 100–5) and those introduced in the Intelligence Transformation Act of 2004 (HR 4104).2 This discussion also further develops the case evaluations by Atkins,3 Davis, Hirst and Mariani,4 Gill,5 Hack,6 Sagramoso,7 Warner8 and Zhong.9

The creation of SOCA The public announcement for the establishment of SOCA came from the Secretary for Home Affairs on 9 February 2004, after numerous governmental committees and working groups had concurred that a new organization was essential.10 There were clearly some pre-conceived notions of what, where, why, when and how this new organization would function, given that its creation was out of necessity. However, the specifics of the legislation for its legitimacy, jurisdiction and authority to gather and hold information and implement law enforcement operations were left open to parliamentary and public debate. The Home Secretary explained that the first step was to establish a taskforce to consider the most appropriate form of governance for the single agency. The taskforce comprised representatives of each constituent organization that would make up the new combined agency, would consult widely with stakeholders and would report to Ministers within a month. He also informed that the earliest legislative opportunity would be sought to seek Parliament’s approval for the necessary legislative changes needed to create the new agency. This announcement and the proposed process was a unique statement of open democracy. Never before, in the United Kingdom or even in most other democracies, had an agency been established that was intensely involved in intelligence-gathering and dissemination, whose role, authority, jurisdiction and legitimacy would be made known publicly prior to its creation. In the past, the formation and even the existence of intelligence agencies have been shrouded in secrecy and denial. The taskforce did indeed report back in a month and the White Paper “One Step Ahead: A 21st Century Strategy to Defeat Organized Crime”, was published on 29 March 2004. The Secretary of State for the Home Department by Command of Her Majesty subsequently presented it to Parliament.11 The 72-page White Paper mentioned the word “intelligence” in 92 instances, focusing on how the new intelligence agency would bring together experts, including hi-tech and financial specialists, and those with criminal intelligence and investigative skills, exploiting twenty-first century technology. The rationale mentioned for the creation of SOCA included: the fuzziness of the dividing line between the current institutional responsibilities in policing; putting a high premium on good relations between agencies; a general consensus of areas of organizational overlap of roles; the unclear lines of accountability on tackling the war on drugs and in gathering intelligence in fraud

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against business; the duplication in some areas of government departments; the fragmented effort against organized crime, making coordination difficult; and the problem of all this leading to a lack of critical mass in some less traditional but important skill areas. As the parliamentary and public debate gathered momentum, it was apparent that SOCA was not just about organizational transformation. This was in part due to the process of the debate and in part due to the debate participants who, in seeking clarification of specific points, created new processes. An example of this emerged when the White Paper working group declared that the agency would need to have a United Kingdom-wide authority. Throughout the UK, specialist prosecutors answerable to the Attorney General would need to cooperate closely with officers of SOCA and work alongside them wherever this made good operational sense. These prosecutors would need to be available whenever required to provide comprehensive, practical and specialist advice to help shape investigations and develop strong and well-presented cases for prosecution. The specialist prosecutors would need to stay with each case from the outset of investigations right through to the point of sentencing. This was deemed to be over-optimistic and would result in closing some organizations that functioned perfectly well. Hence a caveat was added that in practise meant that SOCA would take over certain responsibilities from the 43 local police forces in England and Wales, but would only work closely with counterparts in the eight police forces in Scotland and the Police Service of Northern Ireland. For example, in Scotland, the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency would remain in existence and continue to exercise certain functions. A significant part of the working group process was the constant questioning of whether such an agency would be radically different from its constituent parts, or would it just be a change in name on letterheads and above door entries? To clarify this issue, the working group was requested to determine whether a specific national intelligence requirement was really needed and how this would differ from that which already existed. In doing so the figures were released that there were over 138,000 operational police officers and 7,000 customs officers handling essential intelligence material relating to organized crime. The working group concluded that it therefore made sense to have a national intelligence organization that would ensure that all those with an intelligence collection capability, whether in operational or analysis agencies, would share information. In practical terms, such an organization would require the introduction of risk-analysis techniques and training of personnel to ensure that it would not flounder as being too well described on paper but too hard to implement in reality. These findings of the White Paper were incorporated into the Bill presented before Parliament, justifying the necessity for the creation of SOCA.

The parliamentary process The first step of the Parliamentary debate, unique to the formation of any intelligence agency, came in the form of a public announcement of key SOCA appointments on 13 August 2004 by the then Home Secretary, David Blunkett. Sir Stephen Lander

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was designated Chair of SOCA. He was formerly (1996–2002) Director General of the Security Service (MI5). Mr. Bill Hughes, a former police officer, was designated executive Director-General of SOCA. He was previously Director General of the National Crime Squad, UK, Head of Delegation at European Police Chiefs Task Force, Chairman of the G8 Lyon Group on law enforcement and Chair of High Level Reflex (UK multi-agency response to organized immigration crime). A Board was designated to lead SOCA as an Executive Non-Departmental Public Body with a majority of non-executive members. The Board would be responsible for ensuring that SOCA discharge its statutory responsibilities and meet the priorities set by the Home Secretary. The initial Board of SOCA appointed in April 2006 comprised Non-Executive Directors (Stephen Barrett, Elizabeth France, Ken Jarrold, Janet Paraskeva, Sir Roger Wheeler), with Executive Director for Intelligence (David Bolt), Executive Director for Corporate Services (Malcolm Cornberg), Executive Director for Intervention (Paul Evans) and Executive Director for Enforcement (Trevor Pearce). Responding to his appointment, Sir Stephen said: “Developing the new agency means making the best use of the talents available, exploiting new technologies to good effect and ensuring that effective use of intelligence is made throughout its operations”; and Mr Hughes said: “It is about taking what the UK has now, the professionalism, the successes and intelligence into how the criminal world works, and using all those ingredients to form the basis for a new organization that will be flexible, innovative and, above all, always one step ahead of the criminals.”12 When they took up their positions in September 2005, the division of tasks and work was clear. Sir Stephen, as chair of SOCA, would be responsible for setting the organization’s vision and overall strategy. As Director General, Mr Hughes would be responsible for implementing the strategy through the operations and management of the organization. In terms of accountability, the legislation noted that scrutiny would be conducted through the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, which would have full open access to the new organization’s budget and activities. The staff of SOCA would be subject to the scrutiny and appeal mechanisms of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). In general terms, the IPCC would handle complaints against SOCA Officers in the same manner as complaints against police officers. There would also be a bespoke inspection regime for SOCA, provided through Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabularies (HMIC). The Cabinet Committee on Organized Crime would be responsible for determining overall priorities. SOCA would be required to submit an annual report. However, SOCA would be exempt from Freedom of Information requirements, as it would need to be able to protect information provided to it from various sources (both within the UK and abroad). During the Parliamentary process, Lander took a historically unprecedented step by commenting on the Bill before Parliament. In a public statement he said, “This is one of the biggest changes in the intelligence functions of UK law enforcement since the 1960s. The Serious Organized Crime Agency presents a real opportunity to make a difference and tackle crimes that affect every man, woman and child

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in this country.”13 Clearly he was bringing public attention to the wording of the legislation, as it was not solely inclined toward organizational transformation. The wording of the legislation was aimed at a radical reform in considering the context and content of the threats and vulnerabilities facing society. Home Secretary David Blunkett furthered this emphasis, noting; “We must recognise that, where there are new threats, we need new forms of acceptable input to get acceptable behaviour.”14 The legislation was thus worded to define these and then determine the nature of the means to prevent and counter them. The most important part of the proposed law would be to give all local police forces as well as SOCA staff the right in court to draw on evidence gained from phone taps and e-mail surveillance. To do so required amendments to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, extending powers to search premises to seize evidence. This came in the form of Section 8 of PACE and introduced a new all-premises search warrant in addition to the existing search warrant for specific premises, thus allowing constables to search all premises “occupied or controlled” by the person named on the warrant. In doing this, the legislation, while orchestrating organizational transformation for the creation of SOCA, was also debating the distinction between information and intelligence. Taking up this point and others were the opposition Conservative Party, extrapolated by David Davis, Shadow Home Secretary15 and Mark Oaten, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman. Mr. Oaten agreed with the legislation for the creation of the new organization, “Establishing a serious and organized crime agency makes sense in today’s modern world. Crime is increasingly global and complex. Our response needs to be modern and effective”, but also stabbed at the government: “Hidden in the Bill are a number of measures with wider implications … that are all stepping close to the line of what is reasonable.”16 More often than not, the debate as much as the outcome is the important component of democracy, and notwithstanding the various views and opinions exposed, the Bill passed rapidly through the House of Commons with a first reading on 24 November 2004 and a second reading on 7 December 2004. During the course of these and the eight sittings at Committee stage (two sittings on 11 January 2005, two sittings on 13 January 2005, two sittings on 18 January 2005 and two sittings on 20 January 2005) all Members of Parliament and the public were given access to the nature of the needed reform and transformation in content, context and organizational structure. Parliamentary Committee amended the various contentious issues contained in the Bill with a remaining stage in the Commons on 7 February 2005. During this process substantive issues of intelligence transformation reform were also addressed and referred for additional debates by the Human Rights Joint Select Committee and Standing Committee D relating to the European Convention on Human Rights.17 Journalists, throughout this process, focused numerous articles on issues such as the interception of communication, powers of arrest, potential harassment that might arise due to actions intended to deter lawful activities and racial and religious hatred – all of which were raised during open parliamentary debate.

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Taking these into consideration, the “Serious Organized Crime and Police Bill” was formulated and brought from the House of Commons on 8 February 2005 to the House of Lords for the First Reading.18 The House of Lords provides a different type of debating chamber to the House of Commons. The House of Commons consists of fixed term elected citizens on a constituency basis mainly representing that constituency and its specific interests. The House of Lords consists of individuals with different sets of expertise including hereditary peers, life peers appointed by the Government, the 12 Law Lords including the Lord Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls and the 24 Bishops of the Church of England. This is a broad and wide range of diverse expertise. Indeed the debate commenced on the judicial processes where, during the first House of Lords debate on SOCA, there was a focus on the need to amend the Proceeds of the Crime Act 2002, and to provide for the Private Security Act 2001 to extend to Scotland.19 Controversy again arose in the various House of Lords debates when the Kent Police Federation lobbied the Law Lords. The important issue raised was that police officers transferring to the new agency would no longer hold the Office of Constable. The Kent Police Federation was concerned that various powers would be “dished out” by SOCA, as and when required, in a contractual form. SOCA staff would be directly employed as agents and as such would lose the political independence that is an integral part of the Office of Constable.20 The Office of Constable has a sworn duty to uphold the law without fear or favour as opposed to a contract to do whatever is the Government’s priority. It was noted that the political independence of the Office of Constable is as important as the independence of the Judiciary from the Executive. Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate, a former police officer who had also trained with the FBI, debated the point in the Second Reading in the House of Lords on 14 March 2005. While stressing that it made eminent sense to bring the national bodies dealing in criminal intelligence and national and international crime under one roof, he also highlighted the crucial necessity for accountability, a discipline code and the nature of jurisdiction.21 Suitable Amendments were made and the Bill was thus read and progressed to the House of Lords Committee sitting on 5 April 2005. Subsequently and shortly prior to the General Elections in May 2005, the Bill, containing 179 sections and 17 schedules, was rushed through its final stages to be passed by Parliament and given Royal Assent on 7 April 2005.22 Despite this rush, there was cross-party and bi-partisan agreement, in which the New Labour, which won the elections, the Official Opposition (The Conservative Party) and smaller parties such as the Liberal Democrat Party, all agreed to support the new agency. Such approval received widespread acclaim when elected British Members of the European Parliament (MEP) informed the European Parliament of the UK legislation and called for other EU member states to pass similar legislation and create similar organizations. It is notable to stress that such a practise conforms to the norms of the European Union in aiming to reach harmony and commonality in activities and ultimately singularity in legislation and organization. The European Parliament then scheduled a debate asking the then 25 EU member-state

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governments to each set up unified central agencies. Supporting this debate and subsequent motions was Liz Lynne, Liberal Democrat MEP for the West Midlands region of the United Kingdom who said, “The key to tackling these crimes is to have law-enforcement working together across Europe. Free movement of citizens is the cornerstone of the European Union. But the professional criminal gangs who cross exploit freedom borders with impunity while our national police forces cannot. Crime crosses frontiers, and so must law enforcement.”23 Such legislation and indeed the openness and transparency of the debate are unique in the history of the police and intelligence community. In its own right such openness and transparency provides an example of the reform and transformation that is taking place. Part of the transparency of the transformation process has been intentional, aimed at deterrence and dissuasion through informing potential adversaries of the might and power that they could expect to face. The new agency has a website (http://www.soca.gov.uk) providing the public with reports and details of its activities. However, there is still an element of secrecy involved. The perils involved of being too open and too transparent are considered as potential threats to “Operational Security” (OPSEC). There is little point in having to invest valuable funding and manpower in self-protection. Hence SOCA headquarters and its 40 regional offices are unmarked while the only direct contact details for the public is a PO Box number.

The constituent parts of SOCA To further understand the creation of SOCA as a process of national reform and transformation and as a step toward transnationalism in a sub-state organization of the police and intelligence community, it is necessary to detail the various constitute parts of SOCA. The first of these is the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS). The United Kingdom consists of local and regional police forces responsible to each county or major urban area, such as the London Metropolitan region. There are 43 such forces in England and Wales, eight in Scotland, a separate Police Service in Northern Ireland, as well as other police forces, such as on the Channel Island State of Guernsey, the British Transport Police and the Ministry of Defence Police. The areas of responsibility and the manner of record-keeping of all these forces has increasingly created difficulty in coordinating the sharing of information, especially in organized crime and terrorism, which are activities not defined by territorial borders. To an extent, computerization is resolving such difficulties. However, criminals and indeed terrorists can easily traverse the island of Great Britain, whose geographical size is no bigger than the State of Oregon, before such data can be transferred to neighbouring police forces and action can be taken. Given the open borders of the European Union it is also possible to enter and leave the island of Great Britain with relative ease. It was these issues that led to creation of the National Drugs Intelligence Unit in the Home Office, emerging as a discrete entity in 1992. The Police Act of 1997 was the first legislation to set out the functions for

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centralized criminal intelligence analysis. In doing so, the National Drugs Intelligence Unit evolved into the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS). In accordance with this legislation, the NCIS holds the national intelligence data collection on serious and organized crime. In discharging the functions set out in the Act, NCIS was tasked to provide criminal intelligence where the annual United Kingdom Threat Assessment (UKTA) of serious and organized crime was the NCIS’ principal strategic product. From that intelligence and its own operations, NCIS produced or supported partners in producing profiles of major criminals and criminal organizations. They formed the basis of national and regional investigations. NCIS was also tasked to hold intelligence assets that could be deployed in support of law-enforcement investigations to provide fast time intelligence. NCIS was also responsible for scanning and assessing all incoming intelligence to identify new trends in crime and emerging threats from criminal groups, which has resulted in assessments that aid domestic and international partners in setting their strategic and tactical priorities. The NCIS has been incorporated into SOCA. The NCIS worked closely with the National Crime Squad (NCS), launched in 1998 through the amalgamation of the six former regional crime squads dedicated to dismantling and interrupting criminal enterprises. Typically this has involved over 200 operations, simultaneously tackling serious drugs trafficking, illegal arms dealing, money laundering, contract killings, counterfeit currency as well as kidnapping and extortion. At the time of incorporation in SOCA, it was staffed by 1,333 police officers seconded from the 43 forces of England and Wales, and had 432 additional support staff as well. In April 2001, the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit was launched as part of the NCS, and became the UK’s first national law-enforcement organization tasked to combat serious and organized cyber crime of a national or international nature. To complicate matters, in the same month, the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 was published. This made the National Crime Squad a non-departmental public body, which meant it operated independently of government ministers, despite the Home Office remaining responsible for their work. This constituted an overlap in operations given that the basis of cyber activities is data and information, as well as infrastructure. In addition to local police forces, both MI5 and MI6 have, as part of their operations, the task of ensuring the integrity of cyber data, information and infrastructures. The creation of SOCA has streamlined these cyber operations between the various intelligence agencies and delineates the appropriate accountability. Also incorporated in SOCA is the Immigration Crime Team (ICT) that was created in January 2002. The formation of ICT was spearheaded by Project Reflex, following police advice and the proposal by the Prime Minister for the establishment of a multi-agency programme to tackle immigration-related crime. The ICT, whose role it is to combat illegal immigration into the United Kingdom by organized criminals, was staffed by the National Crime Squad and the Immigration Service, and was primarily located at Heathrow and Gatwick airports. From the incorporation of the NCIS, NCS and ICT, some of the intelligence tasks of SOCA came to include: operating a drugs and organized crime policy

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unit; conducting investigations and arrests of crimes including fraud, internet denial of service attacks, blackmail and extortion, on-line child abuse, hacking and virus attacks, software piracy and Internet Class-A drug trafficking; managing the Financial Operational Command Unit (FOCU) established to manage and direct the work of Financial Investigators based in Money Laundering Investigation Teams (MLITs); and managing the Paedophile On Line Investigation Team (POLIT). The last of these alone, since its creation in January 2003, has had over 2,500 referrals (intelligence packages) which have been developed and then disseminated to forces – nearly 300 of these have been disseminated outside the UK. In order not to overlap jurisdictions with local police forces it was necessary to define an organized crime group or enterprise. The basic satisfying criteria are: 1) contains at least three people; 2) criminal activity is prolonged or indefinite; 3) criminals are motivated by profit or power; and 4) serious criminal offences are committed. As already noted, a major constituant part of SOCA would come from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). HMRC is the new Government department arising from the merger of HM Inland Revenue with HM Customs and Excise, with formal effect after legislation on 18 April 2005. HMRC is responsible for the collection of direct taxes (such as income tax and corporation tax), indirect taxes (such as value-added tax), some import controls, national insurance contributions, the distribution of child benefit and some other forms of state support. HMRC is expected to concentrate on reducing the estimated £30 billion “tax gap” – the gap between the tax that is actually paid and the tax that would be due if all tax avoidance and tax evasion were eliminated. It also has a vital front-line role in protecting society from the illegal importation of of drugs, alcohol and tobacco smuggling, and tax fraud. To fill this role, SOCA has been tasked to handle the investigation and intelligence responsibilities and subsequent arrests in serious drug trafficking and recovering related criminal assets.

The transition year When SOCA was created by legislation on 7 April 2005, constituent organizations, such as the National Criminal Intelligence Service and its Service Authority, and the National Crime Squad and its Service Authority, ceased to exist legally. However it was agreed that there would be a one-year transition period and that SOCA would only formally come into legal existence on 1 April 2006. On that date, Lander and Hughes, already designated respectively as Chair and Director General of SOCA, would formally take up their duties. This one-year transition period highlighted the numerous practical issues relating to reform and transformation. For example, in June 2005, it was apparent that not all aspects of the organizational transformation were going according to plan. The new SOCA organization was forced to launch a massive recruitment drive, including newspaper adverts, seeking to fill over 1,000 vacancies to meet its initial target staff level.24 A Human Resources (HR) manager was appointed. Mr. Indi Seehra, formerly from the Pensions Service, and before that HR director of the Crown Prosecution Service, formed a team to resolve the initial staffing issue while also

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setting up plans to invest in retention and training for individuals to learn new skills. This provided a unique opportunity for all SOCA staff to help set the agency’s targets from the outset, through focus groups and employee surveys.25 Another example of practical difficulties arose regarding the potential overlapping of areas of investigation and analysis with other agencies. During the parliamentary process it was agreed that SOCA would not have an anti-terrorist role. However at a symposium held in Cambridge on 5 September 2005, Philip Robinson, Sector Leader, Financial Crime, of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) brought to attention the link between crime and terrorism stating “Intelligence is vital in the fight against organized crime and terrorism. Financial crime and terrorism have a very significant multiplier effect; the cost of lost business and rebuilding after the Bishopsgate bomb in 1993 was estimated at £1 billion, yet the operation to plant the Bishopsgate bomb cost £3,000.”26 Mr. Robinson’s argument was that modern terrorism does not need large amounts of finance to carry out acts of violence. This point was also apparent in the London Transport bombings of 7 July 2006, where the bombs and other costs incurred by the suicide bombers amounted to less than £1,000. Another point made elsewhere was by the Independent Monitoring Commission established by the UK and Irish governments. It considers organized crime as a major continuing legacy of terrorism, with some 60 per cent of all organized crime gangs in Northern Ireland, and some two thirds of the most serious gangs involved in international activities, having paramilitary links.27 Hence, although SOCA will not be directly involved in anti-terror investigations, it will be tasked with investigating the continuing activities of former members of paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland. To this end the Independent Monitoring Commission noted that “SOCA’s assumption of the investigative responsibilities for customs and excise offences will enable the effort in Northern Ireland to be increased by making the resources of a larger law enforcement agency available.”28 Clearly the FSA in Britain, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and SOCA will have essential joint roles to play in which the FSA and PSNI would mutually support the SOCA effort to identify risks and vulnerabilities to enable a targeting of resources; to inform policy, supervisory and enforcement activity; and to help institutions strengthen their systems and controls in a risk-based way. The overall media publicity generated by such statements and by debates during the transition year created an awareness that there has not been a systematic gathering, sharing and analysis of information about the linkages between organized crime and terrorism in the past, nor about how criminals and terrorists might link in the future. This may result in further reform and transformation and indeed in the ability to deter and apprehend criminals and terrorists. This was anticipated during the Parliamentary process and thus the Serious and Organized Crime Act of (2005) includes the elimination of the distinction between “arrestable” and “non-arrestable” offences. SOCA agents merely have to satisfy themselves of “a person’s involvement or suspected involvement or attempted involvement in the commission of a criminal offence,” and that there are “reasonable grounds for believing that the person’s arrest is necessary.”29

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The one-year open debate transition period in the creation of SOCA was not confined to the roles and tasks of SOCA. There was also an open debate on labour relations. One of the most vocal organizations involved in this debate was the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCSU), the largest civil service trade union, with over 310,000 members working in the civil service and related areas, and representing 1,937 staff working in the investigation and intelligence sections of HM Customs and Excise (HMC&E) and 2,500 members in the United Kingdom Immigration Service (UKIS). The PCSU welcomed the introduction of new sophisticated methods of enhancing the identification, tracking and interception of serious organized criminal organizations and their endeavours, but cautioned against the methods used if they would have disproportionate collateral impact upon law-abiding members of the general public. Notably the PCSU called for assurances that any sharing of intelligence would be carefully controlled to ensure security and proportionality.30 However, the PCSU also made it known that it expected SOCA agents to have the right to membership in a trade union that would be held sacrosanct by the new organization and that would include the right to take industrial action as a last resort. Jan Berry, chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, was also vocal, especially about the transfer of employment of police officers to SOCA, by way of legislation rather than as a matter of employment choice by individuals. Government intransigence on this matter led Berry to bitterly label SOCA as “a British FBI – a Failed Bureaucratic Institution” accusing the government of elitism that would ultimately lead SOCA to being a recipe for disaster since it “would not be properly integrated into the current policing system and practises where intelligence and information would go missing.”31 As a way of a response, the Home Office, as the government department responsible for SOCA, decided to create a Public Relations division of SOCA in February 2006. The top PR role was handed to Kelly Freeman, deputy director of communications at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The PR section adhered to the government’s policy of public-private partnerships and tendered out its design and marketing services to the Limehouse group.32 The public relations section was soon forced to defend SOCA on another matter when Microsoft UK’s chief security advisor, Ed Gibson, attacked the government over what he claimed was a lack of effective reporting channels for internet-related crime. Gibson said the decision to roll the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) into SOCA would actually make it harder for businesses to work out to whom they should report an e-crime. Gibson also attacked the amount of funding the NHTCU had received since its creation in 2001, claiming it has declined annually.33 Following the transition year, The UK Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) commenced operations on 1 April 2006 with national and local radio, TV, newspaper and web announcements. In response, Ken Jones, chairman of the Association of Police Officers, said all local police forces had to restructure to “support SOCA and tackle criminality at that gap between the national and international (levels), and that which happens in localities”.34 For its first year of operations SOCA had an annual budget of £416m resource funding and £41m in

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capital provision. This funding for SOCA came directly from central government, unlike local police forces whose funding comes from a combination of central grants and a local authority precept. SOCA has had an initial staff of at least 4,200 including both detectives and specialist civilian investigators, such as accountants, financial analysts and computer experts, who work alongside the detectives. To put this in perspective, prior to the formation of SOCA, the funding and manpower of its constituent parts was: NCIS with 1,200 staff and an annual budget of £93m; NCS with 1,330 detectives, 420 support staff and an annual budget of £130m; and Customs and Excise boasting a £1bn annual budget with 1,850 officers. Also in perspective, SOCA has a remit to monitor a population of around 50 million in a geographical region the size of the state of Oregon. In comparison, public figures suggest that the FBI has 11,000 special agents and 16,000 professional support personnel, with headquarters in Washington overseeing 56 field offices and about 400 satellite offices known as resident agencies, to monitor a population of around 400 million.35 Only time and events will determine the success of the organizational reform and transformation that has resulted in the creation of SOCA,36 with some indications being given in the annual UK Threat Assessment documents.37 These documents have already noted that SOCA will operate on “Category Three” threats as defined by the National Intelligence Model (NIM) that divides criminality into three categories: level one for local issues; level two for cross-border issues; and level three for serious and organized crime (national and international). On all three levels, policing and intelligence are guided by strategic and tactical tasking and coordinating meetings, all in support of the control strategy (which sets forth the intelligence, prevention and enforcement priorities). Four key intelligence products support strategic and tactical tasking and coordinating: strategic assessments, tactical assessments, target profiles and problem profiles.

Conclusion This chapter commenced with the intention of conceptualizing police and intelligence cooperation transforming from international to transnational. It noted that international cooperation already existed, and that the formation of a transnational community may be a step toward a single transnational organization in the European Union. The chapter detailed a potential first stage – a reform and transformation of domestic organizations within the United Kingdom culminating in the creation of SOCA. The creation of SOCA has highlighted that reform and transformation of the police and intelligence community is an ongoing process, and that it is as much about a change in mind-set as it is about a change in organization. SOCA has been formed out of numerous former police, customs and immigration organizations that handled intelligence-gathering and analysis and implementation. The process of reform and transformation has emphasized the need to be both proactive and reactive in organizational transformation – reactive to accept that when an organization is no longer functioning as it should, that reform and transformation needs to be immediate and effective; proactive in anticipating the need

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to enhance confidence in democracy by being open and transparent in the transformation process. It is also proactive in defining the evolving nature of the content and context of the various threats and vulnerabilities facing the modern pluralistic democratic society that exists in the United Kingdom and the European Union. The openness and transparency of the process of the passing of the legislation through a Parliamentary and public debate was also essential to grant legitimacy to the methods that would be employed by SOCA, for example, addressing concerns about protecting the rights of individuals from data gathered on telephone calls, and internet and email traffic. Clearly the main question now is whether or not SOCA will function as intended and how long it will take before the next step in reform and organizational transformation is needed and takes place. This is not just a question about SOCA but also about the other UK police and intelligence agencies that exist and how, when, where and why they operate. It is also a question of the reform and transformation of other agencies and organizations in other European Union Countries and indeed the centralization process of sharing data and information through the evolving EU infrastructure. Integral to answering these questions is to point out that it is difficult to draw lines on organizational maps defining the bureaucratic, territorial and spatial authority and jurisdiction of various agencies in the police and intelligence community. However, delegation of roles and tasks to different agencies is essential to divide the workload in an appropriate manner and to best utilize the available specialist manpower and technology. In an ideal world there would be an over-riding intelligence management office that could transfer roles and tasks and indeed personnel and services across organizations and agencies and across EU member-state borders, as needed, on a task-by-task, or even a daily, basis. In the real world, to overcome the organizational, training and logistic shortcomings of such a mobile intelligence community, an alternative is to share information and intelligence analysis in a network-centric manner. This is true both within states and between states, and requires fast, efficient and secure tele-communication networks. Inherent to such sharing and cooperation is the ability to effectively convey analytic findings to the decisionmakers in a fashion that they can understand, and subsequently provide detailed information to enable the implementers in preventing and countering posed and potential threats and vulnerabilities. It takes sheer guts to brush aside any data gathered as being irrelevant or as not meeting an individual analyst’s remit. Time will be the judge of whether or not SOCA has been a success. This will probably be in a retroactive evaluation, when it is determined that SOCA has become a redundant intelligence agency to be superseded in the next stage of reform and transformation. Such a stage may well be the establishing of a transnational organization operating throughout the European Union without the constraints or restraints of any national regulatory or judicial authority. In order for this to happen, each state within the EU would have to consider if such a move would achieve a win-win for all or zero-sum gain for the larger states, whether there would be an information overload resulting in a decrease in achievements, and whether or not any gains would be absolute or merely relative.

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Notes 1 BBC Editorial, Agency to Target Brutal Crime, 3 April 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/ hi/uk/4870988.stm 2 USA Government, Intelligence Transformation Act of 2004, Ref HR 4104 http://www. fas.org/irp/congress/2004_cr/hr4104.html 3 C. Atkins, “Intelligence Transformation: Beyond Paradigm Shifts, Changes in Ethos”, Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin October-December, 2000. http://www. findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ibs/is_4_26/ai_78413212 4 I. Davis, C. Hirst and B. Mariani, Organized crime, corruption and illicit arms trafficking in an enlarged EU, London: Saferworld, 2002. 5 P. Gill, Policing politics: Security intelligence and the liberal democratic state, London: Cass, 1993 and P. Gill, Rounding up the usual suspects? Developments in contemporary law enforcement intelligence, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000. 6 K. Hack, “Corpses, Prisoners of War and Captured Documents: British and Communist Narratives of the Malayan Emergency, and the Dynamics of Intelligence Transformation”, Intelligence and National Security, 14, 4, 1999, 211–241. 7 D. Sagramoso, The proliferation of illegal small arms and light weapons in and around the european union: instability, organized crime and terrorist groups, London: Saferworld Centre for Defence Studies, 2001. 8 M. Warner, “Intelligence Transformation and Intelligence Liaison”, SAIS Review, 24, 1, 2004, 77–90. 9 Y. Zhong, “A Study on Information-Knowledge-Intelligence Transformation”, ACTA Electronica Sinica, 32, 4, 2004, 601–605. 10 Home Office Press Release, New UK-wide organized crime agency pooling expertise to track down the crime bosses, Reference: 058/2004 9 February 2004, http://www. homeoffice.gov.uk/n_story.asp?Item_id=814 11 UK Government, One Step Ahead: A 21st Century Strategy to Defeat Organized Crime, (London: The Stationary Office, 2004) http://www.official-documents.co.uk/document/ cm61/6167/6167.pdf 12 Home Office Web Press Release, Leading The Fight Against Organized Crime: Key SOCA Appointments Announced, http://press.homeoffice.gov.uk/press-releases/ Leading_The_Fight_Against_Organi?version=1 13 Home Office Web Press Release, SOCA – New organized crime agency is major development, 24 November 2004, http://www.politics.co.uk/issueoftheday/soca-neworganized-crime-agency-major-development-$7148057.htm 14 House of Commons Hansards, 7 December 2004: Column 1053, http://www.publications. parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmhansrd/cm041207/debtext/41207–09.htm 15 UK Conservatives Party, Organized crime bill welcome but slow in coming, 24 November 2004, http://www.politics.co.uk/issueoftheday/conservatives-organized-crime-billwelcome-but-slow-in-coming-$7148845.htm 16 UK Liberal Democrat Party, Organized crime bill has hidden flaws, 24 November 2004, http://www.politics.co.uk/issueoftheday/liberal-democrats-organized-crime-bill-hashidden-flaws-$7149216.htm 17 UK Government, Report of the proceedings of the sittings and the latest version of the Bill http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmser.htm with adjunct debates http://bills.ais.co.uk/QZ.asp?Title=q 18 UK Government, Serious Organized Crime and Police Bill, 7 April 2005, http://www. publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200405/ldbills/024/05024.1–5.html 19 R. G. Holme, “Serious Organized Crime and Police Bill: 3rd report of session 2004–05”, House of Lords Papers 2004–05, London: The Stationary Office, 8 March 2005. 20 Kent Police Federation, Federation Opposition to Serious Organized Crime Agency and Police Bill, 10 March 2005, http://www.kentpolfed.org.uk/publications/050311.htm

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21 House of Lords Hansard, Serious Organized Crime and Police Bill, 12 March 2005, http://www.durhamlabour.org.uk/dclp/lords050314.htm 22 UK Government, Serious Organized Crime and Police Act 2005, (London: The Stationery Office 2005) http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2005/20050015.htm 23 L. Lynne, EU must step up the fight against organized crime, 27 October 2005, available at http://www.lizlynne.org.uk/news/467.html 24 BBC Editorial, British FBI in Huge Staff Hunt, 10 June 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/ hi/uk/4082754.stm 25 A. Scott, “With conviction”, People Management Magazine, 9 February 2006, p. 16 http://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/pm/articles/withconviction.htm?name =corporate+strategy+-+org+behaviour&type=subject 26 P. Robinson, Organized crime and terror – the risks to the business environment, Speech to FSA, Cambridge Symposium, 5 September 2005, http://www.fsa.gov.uk/ pages/Library/Communication/Speeches/2005/0905_pr.shtml 27 Independent Monitoring Commission, Fifth report of the Independent Monitoring Commission, 24 May 2005, London: HMSO, 2005, p. 30. 28 Independent Monitoring Commission, Fifth report of the Independent Monitoring Commission, 24 May 2005, London: HMSO, 2005, p. 36. 29 C. Marsden, “Police Powers”, UKWATCH, 5 January 2006, http://www.ukwatch.net/ article/1319 30 Public and Commercial Services, One Step Ahead – PCS Response, July 2004, http:// www.pcs.org.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?Nodeid=893253 31 Police Federation, Organized crime agency must cooperate with local police forces, 24 November 2004 http://www.politics.co.uk/issueoftheday/police- federationorganized-crime-agency-must-cooperate-with-local-police-forces-$7148824.htm 32 Limehouse Group corporate web-site at http://www.limehouse.co.uk/index.htm 33 A. Donoghue, Take cyber crime seriously, government told, 2 February 2006 http:// management.silicon.com/government/0,39024677,39156125,00.htm 34 BBC Editorial, New ‘FBI-style’ agency launched, 1 April 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/ hi/uk/4867108.stm 35 Guardian Q&A, The Serious Organized Crime Agency, 9 February 2004, http://www. guardian.co.uk/theissues/article/0,6512,1144352,00.html 36 RUSI Media Note, Current reforms needed to go further than merging police forces, to include some form of national structure, with clear lines, 17 February 2006, http:// www.rusi.org/media/inthenews/ref:N43F5BF4EA8A29/ 37 These documents are available on the SOCA website http://www.soca.gov.uk/ under “Assessments and Publications.” The 2008/2009 report has been posted at the time of this writing.

6

Theorizing transnational cooperation on the police and intelligence fields of security1 Otwin Marenin and Arif Akgul

Introduction Cooperation among police forces has a long history. Depending on how policing is defined, it can be traced back to the imperial days of Greece and Rome. The era of modern policing2 emerged simultaneously with and as a crucial structure of the modern nation state, which became the primary unit of identity, loyalty and sovereignty in Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century (for France) and later (for Germany or Italy). The notion of borders as immutable obstacles to policing seemed quaint, since borders were fluid, imprecise and shifted continuously (Poland being the best example) as empires expanded and collapsed (e.g., the Austro-Hungarian empire which bestrode the center of Europe, or the Ottoman Empire whose political control over the southern Balkans collapsed following defeat in World War I). Sovereignty and the legal monopoly of the legitimate use of force within their borders were not yet entrenched as one of the defining traits of the state.3 At the same time, security agencies working in border regions continued to cooperate, often in disregard of national policies and laws, a practice which still exists. Border regions, which had as much salience as foci of allegiance and identity to local inhabitants as did states (vide the Saarland or Alsace-Lorraine), continued to span the emerging borders. As well, internationally supported interventions in the affairs of other states by foreign police contingents have been a common practice, beginning in the late nineteenth century with international police forces sent to guard the Suez Canal or provide security in Crete.4 These long-existing practices of information-sharing and transnational police cooperation have accelerated in recent decades. Information travels instantaneously in cyberspace; speedy transportation brings the most distant and exotic lands within the reach of the intrepid traveler, including police officials; the world’s economy and financial system are intricately integrated and respond to butterfly disturbances in any part of the globe; crime and insecurity are not limited by borders. Globalization – the systemic interconnections among local and global conditions brought on by technological advances and emergent cultural syntheses – has changed security issues and policing priorities as transnational security threats, mostly various forms of illegal commerce, have expanded in parallel with legal commerce, communication and transportation. Economic and

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political integration, the European Union being the most advanced example, have necessitated a concomitant integration, harmonization and cooperation among laws, policies and agencies. In the EU, this now means working in an increasingly borderless “Schengen space”.5 As well, border regions continue cooperative security efforts, only some legalized by national, state to state, agreements, which basically ignore the borders as a hindrance to effective regional social control, such as joint police stations at the French-German border or IBETs (Integrated Border Enforcement Teams) and IBITs (Integrated Border Intelligence Teams) across the Canadian-USA border. In consideration of such a long history of police cooperation, this chapter addresses two basic questions: 1 What explains the various forms of police cooperation? 2 Are the tentative explanations for police cooperation relevant and useful for understanding and explaining national security-related intelligence-sharing and cooperation among intelligence agencies? Three basic perspectives and assumptions inform my argument. For one, cooperation is a human process, driven and shaped by the interests, values, ideologies and goals of actors. The process of cooperation is not a natural outcome of larger structural or societal forces but reflects the values and activities of the actors, tied to each other in organizational and personal networks, which link national policy elites and police officials into a larger global network of decision makers, constituting the human factor in creating a new global security structure. Secondly, cooperation occurs among organizations and individuals. Within organizations, different discourses and practices shape the specific forms of cooperation. Cooperation can be analyzed from the top down, in the rhetoric, plans, exhortations and transnational programs endorsed by political leaders and organizational managers. But cooperation needs to be analyzed, as well, from the bottom up, through the perspectives and views of the people who will transform those plans into reality – the middle and lower ranks. It is a well known argument in policing literature that what happens in policing is not just the execution of demands and commands passed from the top to the bottom, even in a semi-military organization, but is influenced by the necessary and unavoidable discretionary choices and actions of implementers. What is true for domestic law enforcement is also true for transnational law enforcement cooperation. Part of the focus of research and understanding must be on the people who actually end up doing the work. Thirdly, security can be conceptualized as a field of action populated by multiple sets of actors all contributing to the provision of security. The notion of a field of actors allows for the inclusion of non-state actors into discussions of transnational security and police cooperation. Bigo uses the notion of a security field (inspired by Bourdieu, but without his abstruse language, except habitus) to describe and analyze the work and attitudes of liaison officers in Europe, a new set of actors on the security field. He finds that liaison officers have begun to think of themselves as detached from their national moorings and police cultures and have begun to

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achieve a “crucial” role in the development of policing in Europe, as “it is they who manage the flow of information between their respective agencies.”6 He argues that the police generally, and this holds true for liaison officers anywhere, operate in a “semiautonomous” world with its own “norms which derive from internal processes and institutional stakes” through a “process of perception and definition carried out by parties interested to delineate problems for which they already have the solutions.”7 Bigo’s argument can be applied to the problem of transnational police and security cooperation generally. Interested parties, actors in the transnational security network, produce, consume and evaluate security regimes which reflect their varied personal, organizational and occupational interests. They convert ideas and needs into specific policies, increasingly on a shared understanding of problems faced and their effective and legitimate resolutions. The sub-state members of this cooperation, such as the police, thus represent primary participants in the growing area of “transgovernmental”8 or, as suggested in this volume, “statist-transnationalist” activity. In order to gain a better understanding of who these actors are, what their beliefs and values are, and how they interact to produce the common goal of greater security on a global level, the following sections begin with an overview of the structures and practices of transnational police cooperation, a look at the conditions that have supported the emergence of police cooperation globally, and at the products that have come out of such cooperation. The chapter ends with a consideration of the lessons that transnational police cooperation may hold for the potential of transnational cooperation among intelligence agencies worldwide.

The structures and practices of transnational policing cooperation The forms of police cooperation and information-sharing can be categorized in five basic types: tactical and strategic cooperation in global crime control; building transnational institutional linkages; transnational assistance; “police building”; and developing personal and professional networks. The first of these, tactical and strategic cooperation, refers to case work, longrange planning strategies, and preparing foreign agencies to be able to work together with local agencies. Case work is the major form of cooperation. As transnational crime has exploded, ranging from drug trafficking to the disposal of nuclear waste, cooperation among different national police agencies is essential for dealing with these crimes. These cannot be dealt with only when the crime reaches and passes the borders of a state. Strategic planning brings together representatives of different national police agencies to arrive at a common understanding of a problem and the preferred methods for dealing with it. Many aspects of transnational assistance and training delivered to recipient countries seek to establish the legal and professional pre-conditions which will lead to effective and efficient cooperation. Transnational institutions that build links by collecting, storing and distributing information among police members are the best known, most widely written

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about and most frequent form of cooperation.9 While INTERPOL has traditionally been the best example of such institutional linkage building, with EU expansion, EUROPOL has begun attracting more scholarly attention.10 A specific form of institutionalized interaction and cooperation is that performed by liaison officers (see Yon, this volume) stationed outside their home countries, such as FBI LEGATS or DEA agents semi-permanently stationed in other capitals and hotspots. Other examples of these include the EU liaison officers analyzed by Bigo,11 and officials attached to national and international organizations, such as representatives from national police forces (e.g., Nigeria, Australian Federal Police) or from INTERPOL stationed at the UN, or liaison officers from EUROPOL stationed in Washington, DC. A third type of police cooperation consists of the vast number of transnational assistance programs to police forces, offered bilaterally, by international organizations and by NGOs, seeking to help upgrade or stand up policing systems, through training, material aid, and the dissemination of advice and “recipe knowledge”. A common form is international/transnational training offered by one country to others, on a bilateral basis or through regional and international training institutions.12 The training itself can be in the form of short one- or two-week long sessions on specific topics. More lengthy training occurs at existing national law enforcement academies (such as attendance by foreign police officials at the FBI Academy command course, the federal law-enforcement training center in Glynco, Georgia, or senior police course at Police Staff College at Bramshill in the UK). A more recent development in transnational training has been the setting up of international law enforcement academies funded and staffed through international assistance. The five International Law Enforcement Academies (ILEAS) in Hungary, Thailand, Botswana, El Salvador and New Mexico, USA were organized and are funded by the USA. Regional academies, such as the Middle European Police Academy (MEPA), are supported by eight member countries; while the European Police College (www.cepol.net) and the APEC (2002) consortium for current and aspiring members of the EU are supported through EU funding. Other academies are created and funded as part of UN peacekeeping operations (e.g. in Kosovo or East Timor) or through agreements between a country and a UN agency, such as TADOC (Turkish International Academy Against Drugs and Organized Crime) in Ankara which is funded partially through the UNDCP in Vienna;13 or the recently created academy in the West Bank for training Palestinian police, funded by Saudi Arabia and the EU. Transnational training provided through various venues hopes to contribute, in addition to teaching specific law enforcement and management techniques, to the creation of a common set of values, beliefs and techniques, to a global police culture based on Western models. As the OECD Handbook notes, “all training is of course an opportunity to encourage cultural changes as well as the transfer of specific techniques.”14 A fourth form of police cooperation is the increasing number of international, regional and bilateral peacekeeping operations, which includes a police component to ease the transition from peacekeeping to peacebuilding.15 Practices of including

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the police in peace operations have taken three basic forms: mentoring, advising and informal training of local police by international police; actually doing police work when the local police have collapsed or are incapable of providing minimal levels of security, that is, teaching by doing; and setting up policing systems and institutions (and other criminal justice agencies) which will continue to function after the international contingents leave. Institution and police building, of necessity, is not “limited to the short-term technical aspects of police service delivery, but rather is grounded in the broader set of political relations, informal as well as formal, that constitute the terrain of police building” hence attention must be paid “to the political structures that underpin policing.”16 As of August 2007, about 9,600 police officers from over 80 countries had been deployed in 13 UN missions;17 a large but unknown number of police work in bilateral and regional assistance and reform programs to help establish effective and humane policing systems; and many work for NGOs promoting in police reforms. Finally, we can speak of cooperation based on the building up of personal and professional networks. Informal information-sharing refers to visits by police to police organizations outside their countries – to learn how things are done, exchange the professional folklore of the police, learn and provide advice, or just to gain a sense that police everywhere are not all that much different. The police also participate in semi-academic settings. They work in think tanks, policy institutes, teach in police academies of other countries by invitation, work as police advisors for NGOs interested in human rights and police reform, and establish or work in consultancy firms which are then hired by assistance programs, states or international organizations to provide expert advice, such as ATOS Consulting hired by DFID to advise on and implement reforms of the Jamaican Constabulary.18 At the transnational level, police officers do more than work cases or share information. They participate in the creation of emergent global security regimes, and are among the core actors shaping the global security agenda and police culture. Consequences of cooperation for information sharing Different forms of police cooperation create different pathways by which information is shared across borders. During case work, police will discuss the “recipe knowledge” required to deal with the case but will also discuss and explain how policing is done in their countries. Police officials tend to be curious; they will ask questions and, at the very least, learn the basic commonalities and unique differences in how each police force conducts its work,19 and under what constraints. Training, of course, passes on information which is thought by teachers and students (both police) to have some universal applicability, ranging from generalizations about what is democratic or good policing; how to conduct community policing, the currently preferred model, which is propagated through various transnational channels and adopted, at least in rhetoric, practically in every country; to specific techniques, such as, how to conduct “buy and bust” drug operations, and techniques which often require changes in local law.20 Yet an important part of the official training, besides the technical knowledge that is taught, are the

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connections and personal networks established between individual police officers from other countries. Institution creation and subsequent participation by police is simply another form for passing on crime-relevant information but also provides a forum for police to get together informally, after the plenaries, to exchange war stories, case episodes and politically incorrect jokes. Monitors, and lately officers who have done “executive policing”21 e.g., in Kosovo, East Timor or the Solomon Islands, in peacekeeping operations also teach and talk to each other (monitors come from different countries) and to the local police they are observing and mentoring. Police learn from each other. Informal talks help create and disseminate a common language, symbolic interpretations of crime and security and preferred policies.

Conditions for the growth of police cooperation What conditions have supported the emergence of transitional police cooperation? The first point to keep in mind is that the major examples of transnational/ international policing institutions were set up as information-sharing agencies by the police themselves, motivated by their occupational interests, and not by states. INTERPOL certainly, EUROPOL (a little less so), or specialized agreements in the progressions of European integration such as TREVI and Schengen, were the products of the police and other security agencies and only later became incorporated into larger political, state-centric structures.22 It is quite likely that the factors which support one form of cooperation may not be the same factors which lead to other forms of cooperation. In some cases structural factors are the likely culprits, in others the professional or personal interests of the police dominate; in others still, political pressures are exerted on the police to make particular policy choices and decisions. Thus, transnational training assistance may be part of the political calculations of states, as may be the stationing of liaison officers in embassies around the world. Even operational decisions can reflect political events, such as the issuing by INTERPOL of a red notice for the arrest of three high-level Iranian officials in the bombing of a synagogue in Argentina about ten years ago.23 Existing institutional arrangements for intelligence- and formation-sharing largely reflect the wishes and work of the police (INTERPOL being the best example);24 other institutions are more closely linked to political developments (e.g., EUROPOL); others still reflect agreements on the importance of particular transnational crimes, such as institutions dealing with the international commerce in drugs (FinCen, UNDCP, CICAD, CELAD).25 In all these diverse policies the police are actors on their own behalf, yet within different contexts which constrain their influence. Autonomy Among the factors and conditions that have supported transnational police cooperation is that of police autonomy. Autonomy has multiple meanings. It

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can be conceptualized as freedom (autonomy from) and power (autonomy for). Complicating the issue further is the question of institutional and individual autonomy. Determining whether an institution (police organization) or individual police officer is autonomous from something is not easy, nor are the factors which lead to the development of autonomy in its various forms well understood. An organization may not be autonomous, in the sense that it is controlled by the state or political elites, while police officers in that same organization may have tremendous autonomy (or discretion, which is unchecked by the organization).26 Institutional autonomy, justified and accepted as legitimate within their societal and political contexts by claims of expertise, has been emphasized by Deflem,27 who has explicated one of the few systematic theories of transnational police cooperation. He argues that the level of institutional and operational autonomy of the police from their political centers is the basic factor facilitating transnational cooperation. Examining the history of institutional developments leading to the creation of international policing institutions, he finds two necessary conditions for cooperation: a “sufficient degree of independence [later also defined as relative autonomy] as specialized bureaucracies form their respective governments“; and a shared “system of knowledge on international crime, including information on its empirical state and expertise for its control”.28 Arguments about the possibilities of democratic policing and governance have stressed the relative autonomy of the police from the state and from civic society as a basic precondition. The police cannot be tied directly to the interests of the state or civic society – as a tool for the protection of particularistic interests – but must attain a level of relative autonomy. Relative because the police, on the other end of the continuum, cannot be accountable only to themselves.29 It is a delicate balance, and one that is difficult to attain and sustain. A democratic police force is responsive to state and civic society wishes and responsible for its actions, but it cannot be the willing instrument of coercion for either set of demands. The desire to be respected: professionalism Another important element in the development of transitional policing arises from professional and occupational interests of the police. The police crave recognition from other police. They wish to be seen by other police as professionals, skilled in their work, up to date in the latest technology, ideologies and programs, and respected by their global peers. Police listen to each other across organizational and political boundaries. As noted many times by analysts, the police think of themselves as belonging to a fraternity/sorority of police, doing similar jobs, having similar ideas, and being able to talk to each other no matter where they work. “We are all cops”, “we understand each other” and “we talk the same language” are phrases heard frequently in the conversations of police among themselves (but phrases the police will not use when talking to an outsider, even respected scholars). “The common sentiment that a cop is a cop no matter what badge is worn, and a criminal a criminal regardless of citizenship or where the crime was committed, that serves as a form of transnational value system that can override

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both political differences and formal procedures. It provides the oil and glue of international law enforcement.”30 Political priorities The desire by political and police elites to join regional and global communities is another factor driving security and police cooperation. The best example is the expansion of the European Union. Joining the club requires changes in politics, economics, law and security systems by aspiring candidate countries; changes that are assisted by advice and financial support from the EU. The desire and need to join together may be largely driven by economic considerations but ultimately leads to increased interactions and cooperation among security and policing forces, especially with the expansion of the Schengen space (that most advanced transnational policing field),31 the creation of EUROPOL and integrated information systems, the harmonization of laws and legal procedures, and the institutionalization, on a limited basis so far, of integrated border management systems for the EU. Similar tendencies promoting police cooperation can be found, though to a much lesser degree, in Southern Africa (SARPCCO),32 Asia, and Latin America. Transnational cooperation in the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) area is limited largely to the Canadian-USA border where integrated units (IBETs, IBITS) which include police, military, intelligence and border control and customs agents from both countries, work together to control the flow of goods and persons across the common border. Cooperation at the Mexico-USA border and beyond is much more contested and conflicted. To the degree it exists, it is largely among local policing agencies on both sides of the border or within border regions, a development similar to cooperation in the so-called Euroregions which straddle the borders of member states of the European Union. Police who work in border regions typically do not think of their cooperation with foreign agencies as a question of sovereignty, or as a transnational issue.33 The nature of information Cooperation will be affected and shaped by the nature of the information, and the organizations which find or collect it, convert it to intelligence, disseminate it within the agency and to others, and justify their methods and opacity by their organizational priorities and interests. Police information, generally, is openly shared on the basis of need (case cooperation) and a shared conception of transnational crime – that crime is crime no matter where it happens and therefore falls within the occupational domain of the police anywhere.34 Police solve crimes by arrests and take credit for the subsequent prosecution and conviction of criminals. But in order to achieve success by legal mechanisms (trials or confessions) in democratic countries which abide by the rule of law, evidence has to be legally admissible and that requires knowledge of what means were used to gather it; and credit has to be shared among all participating agencies.

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Transnational policy discourses An important factor which supports transnational policing cooperation is the emergence in recent years of transnational policing discourses which lay out the goals, policies, practices and success criteria for police cooperation and reform. Discourses are produced by a transnational policy community which specializes in security sector reform (SSR) and governance (SSG), and as part of that policy framework supports police reforms and democratic governance. SSR, loosely defined, analyzes the actions and interactions among actors on domestic and global fields of security. Security Sector Reform (SSR) takes a holistic and integrated view of the dynamics and needs for human, civic society and state security within the contexts of societal and global changes. “SSR describes the process for developing professional and effective security structures that will allow citizens to live their lives in safety.”35 The basic goal of SSR is to create a security sector architecture that can sustain the effective protection and promotion of security (in all its dimensions) balanced against dominant normative values, e.g., democratic politics, good governance, and accountability to civic society.36 SSR has become an umbrella term for analyzing the interactions among securityproviding agencies within a state and transnationally. In the face of emerging and growing transnational threats (ranging from terrorism, organized transnational crime – drugs, trafficking in CITES species, illegal hazardous waste disposal, money laundering – to political instability, violence and genocide which spills over into wider regional conflicts) new forms of security responses have had to be devised. The four most widely analyzed state security providers are the military, police, border guards and intelligence agencies, though increasingly private and corporate security providers are included in analyses and prescriptions. The objective of the transnational policy community is nothing less than a rethinking the nature of (in)security in the current global age,37 the creation of a new global security approach and doctrine appropriate for the changing nature of threats, but a regime also constrained by conceptions of democratic values and policies, and, ultimately, a global civic and security culture.38 The Transnational Policing Policy Community (TPPC) The TPPC is a necessary but not sufficient factor in transnational corporation for it provides the motivational and organizational energy to convert desires into practical policies and programs. The TPPC includes state actors, officials from regional and international organizations, scholars, policy makers and advisors working at think tanks and policy centers, NGOs working in the security and human rights fields, and the police themselves.39 The notion of a transnational policy community in a specific field of action is widely shared among analysts of the new global scene. Slaughter40 discusses the growing influence of sub-national policy communities in the new world order,

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comprised of state actors who talk to each other laterally and agree on policies without going through their state governmental structures.41 Sugden42 links “epistemic communities” to the development of SSR and SSG doctrines. Andreas and Nadelmann43 analyze the emergence and contents of global prohibition regimes, now and in the past, largely as the work of the “transnational moral entrepreneurs” working in governments and NGOs who “have used the new security context to promote a much broader criminal law enforcement agenda at the regional and global levels”. The TPPC has emerged as a fairly coherent network of agencies and individuals. Membership is fluid, yet a core group of individuals has consistently been involved in SSR and the advocacy of police cooperation. The TPPC is not an institutionalized agency but is conceived in sociological terms. It is a community of like-minded persons interested in the common enterprise of creating a more secure and just world order, with a focus on police cooperation as a necessary foundation to that end. Networks and memberships Thinking about, planning for, implementing and evaluating forms of cooperation and projects is the purpose of by the TPPC, whose members make a living creating transnational regimes and norms, thinking up goals, strategies and tactics for reform; are engaged in the planning and implementation of cooperation and reforms; and seek to give a surrounding ideological gloss to these efforts (why they are needed, worth it, and what lessons are to be gained for future cooperation). Members of the TPPC work in private and government policy shops and think tanks (e.g. the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, or DCAF); in security and human rights focused NGOs (e.g. African Dialogue and Research in Accra, Ghana, Saferworld, the Open Society Institute, the Altus Network); in academic settings; in transnational policy setting agencies (e.g. the Police Unit of the Council of the EU); and as high-level police administrators in their national forces. They work as consultants for donors, international agencies, NGOs, and recipient states, offering their expertise to those in need. They help devise and run reform cooperation projects for such agencies as the Law Enforcement Department of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe); ICITAP (International Criminal Investigative Training and Assistance Program), the unit in the Department of Justice most directly involved in policing assistance programs conducted by the USA; the Commonwealth Police Development Task Force of DFID (Department for International Development), the foreign aid office of the British government; the Development Assistance Commission of the OECD; the UNDP and DPKO of the UN; or as police liaison officers among state governments, and they can become involved in monitoring local police and in executive policing by their association with peacekeeping missions. Some members of the TPPC are incorporated into the network by virtue of their organizational affiliation, such as national and international police assistance

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providing agencies (of course, members looked for those jobs); others are included because of their academic writing and standing, as experts in the subject; others still participate by training and monitoring in peacekeeping operations; and for the police leaders, of course, transnational cooperation has become part of their working world. Members of the TPPC have worked, at one time or another, in practically all aspects of police cooperation, resulting in the creation of new policies that incorporate both academic knowledge and practical knowledge gained from working on the global security field. The TPPC defines what cooperation means as a practical matter. Its members connect transnational regimes to structural and operational cooperation and policing at the local level, link theory to practice, norms to policy, and the global to the local. Conversely, the TPPC re-circulates lessons from practice into policy thinking. Knowledge derived from implementation knowledge will reflect back on transnational policing regimes which are disciplined and reconfigured by the experience. Knowledge of crime control and institution-building travels worldwide through connections among TPPC members.44

Products of the TPPC Transnational policing regimes As many observers have noted, there exists, by now, a substantial international set of codes of conduct, international resolutions and agreements, and regime norms which define good policing (and, by implication, what is not) in general principles but also in specific practices which implement such norms in the day-to-day activities of the police.45 The nature and practices of democratic policing, in terms of the values espoused and the general policies to be pursued, have become enshrined in conventions and regimes, for example, UN codes of conduct, Council of Europe guidelines; or OSCE program directives. Regime norms and models reflect the slow accretion and coalescence of ideas about good or democratic policing into generally accepted goals, standards and norms, which have gained a measure of domestic and transnational legitimacy, and have become the standards by which the success of reforms will be assessed. Regime norms, as well, have provided ideological support for advocacy and implementation efforts by domestic and international reformers seeking to establish democratic policing systems as part of the institutional underpinning facilitating wider political and cultural changes.46 Ideologies and models of policing Regime norms are statements of goals and values, non-specific in terms of what it would take to bring them to life. They can be implemented in a number of ways. It is only when these valued and legitimate, yet abstract, goals are translated into practice does their full meaning emerge, as does the success of cooperation and reforms.

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The TPPC has been instrumental in promoting and transferring models of good policing from countries which now practice good policing (or so they think) to those which do not, for a variety of reasons: countries receiving aid and advice may have only recently emerged from authoritarian systems, they have collapsed into civil strife and anarchy and need to rebuild their security organizations, or they are simply inefficient and undemocratic in their actions. They all need help and the TPPC, when funded by other organizations (states, NGOs, regional political units), is only too willing to step in with advice and assistance on how to do good policing. Lessons learned and best practices A large number of written works on lessons learned, either as individual evaluations and progress reports or as edited collections, have sought to capture what experience teaches about the cooperation and reform processes. General discussions of lessons learned, or “lessons known but not learned”47 can be found in Bayley, O’Rawe and Moore, and others.48 Finally, the most practical products of the TPPC have been “how to” handbooks on SSR, police reforms, and international cooperation among international donors, local security-providing agencies and civic society groups. Handbooks incorporate the lessons learned as converted into specific actions to be taken or avoided.

The lessons of police cooperation for intelligence cooperation The growth in form and intensity of police cooperation reflects the salience of objective factors converted into subjective interpretations and policy advice by the TPPC. What can the dynamics of cooperation in crime/order intelligence tell us about the possibilities and problem in security intelligence cooperation? I argue that the differences between police and intelligence cooperation are significant enough to limit the utility of lessons learned from police cooperation. Many of the objective and subjective conditions which supported and continue to support the expansion of police cooperation do not exist, or do so only in weak forms, in the intelligence field. The expansion of and diversification of policing cooperation has been supported and shaped by the TPPC. Unless a similar transnational policy community, or Global Intelligence Sharing Community (GISC) emerges in the intelligence field, cooperation in that field will remain fragmented, contested and incomplete.

The nature of autonomy A number of factors present obstacles to the building up of a similar transnational policy community among the intelligence agencies of the world and related intelligence actors. The first of these goes back to the issue of autonomy. National security agencies, by definition, are highly autonomous since they conduct much of their activities, information collection, analysis and dissemination in secrecy,

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frequently not even telling their political leaders what they are doing and by what means they gather information. To make their work transparent would, so they claim, undermine its effectiveness and jeopardize national interests. It is not clear whether this argument would hold up if it could be checked and tested. For one, people being spied on are not likely to be unaware of how information can be gathered, by human or technical means, especially in this age of the internet. Even new technologies are not likely to remain secret. National security justifications seem to be designed to protect the agencies’ autonomy as much as the methods they use. Autonomy is disciplined by transparency, oversight and accountability. Intelligence agencies are notoriously reluctant to agree to all three and, if they do, only in limited ways. It is almost impossible to detect failures on their part or to evaluate their success claims. On the democratic balance sheet, they occupy a space close to non-accountability. The police have to engage with civic society, or at least offer the pretense of engagement, but intelligence agencies do not. What little accountability will be imposed on intelligence agencies will not come from civic society but from the political elite and other state agencies. Compared therefore to police autonomy, which supports and leads to transnational cooperation, the excessive autonomy of intelligence agencies hinders cooperation.

The nature of intelligence National security intelligence has different political and professional characteristics which distinguish it from police information and intelligence, the most crucial being that national security intelligence is inherently competitive, secretive and tightly tied to national interests. No international consensus exists on the nature and causes of threats to be confronted, detected, investigated and eliminated, or the legitimate means to do so. It is difficult to envision a definition of global security which is congruent with the interests of all countries. The priority of national interests will always trump cooperation needs. National security intelligence is wedded to realist assumptions about the nature of power and interests. Interests are permanent but allies become enemies and enemies may become allies as conditions change. Putin may have a pure and good soul detected by a discerning observer, but he still has his missiles. Intelligence finds its ultimate foundation in statist interests from which it cannot liberate itself. A move toward a global notion of interests, which could provide the basis for enhanced cooperation, is stymied by the inability of intelligence agencies and states to conceive of permanent and common transnational interests. Take terrorism, the most important focus of intelligence cooperation in the current age. Despite numerous efforts by many states and their intelligence communities, there remains no global consensus that specific forms of terrorism are the major threat to nations and the world nor consensus over who the terrorists are. Conceptions of terrorism are intricately tied to national concerns, not global ones. Terror, linked to a specific group, is not a global threat to most local communities or to all states. Peasants in Colombia fear the FRAC and AUR but not the ETA or al Qaeda. The PKK is a threat in Turkey and defined there as a terrorist organization,

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but it is not seen as a threat to the US, except as it poses a threat to a NATO ally and hence is tangentially related to US interests. Hamas is clearly a threat to Israel but is also seen as a resistance movement against Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands by local people and many Arab states. Complicating matters further, depiction and claims of terror threats faced by a country, region or the world can be manipulated for political gains in domestic politics, a temptation many political leaders will find hard to resist, to the detriment of relations with other states whose leaders may not appreciate the finer nuances of rhetoric for domestic political consumption. As well, there exists little research and knowledge of the dynamics of decisionmaking and intelligence cooperation within and across borders. Knowledge is kept secret, and revealing knowledge is a serious crime, up to treason. Even when intelligence is revealed or made public, its credibility is weak: it could be disinformation released by the agency to mislead an enemy; it could be selectively released by political leaders to favor and support a course of action or develop a justification for it; or it could be shaped in its public form, by organizational interests.49 In any case, whether the intelligence is accurate, complete, misleading, or an outright fabrication remains opaque and unknowable, and has to be taken on trust. National security and transnational crime threats A further complicating factor for intelligence-sharing and cooperation is the mingling of national security threats with conventional transnational crime. The same methods which, for example, enable the trafficking and smuggling of people across borders for work and sex services – document fraud, route knowledge, corruption and bribery at borders – are equally useful for smuggling terrorists. The problem this poses for security intelligence agencies is that conventional methods for finding terrorists cannot be used legitimately in the investigation of conventional crimes, which are more constrained by legal considerations than the collection of intelligence for national security purposes. Intelligence agents are granted greater levels of flexibility in how they gain information, for they are interested in prevention, since information they gather will not be made public, nor reach the court system. The organizational culture of distrust Security intelligence has distinct traits. Secrecy is a dominant concern. Agencies are highly specialized and engage in domain protection to an unusual degree, even for government bureaucracies, from other intelligence agencies (the “failure to connect the dots” noted by the 911 Commission). As state security agencies, their work has a strong political dimension and non-shared (by scholars, other agencies, the public and political leaders) conception and explanations of threats within and across borders. Intelligence agencies are characterized by an organizational culture of distrust. They operate on the basis that no one can be trusted – one’s own employees, allies,

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ostensible friends, or enemies. Everyone is suspect. Information shared may end up in the hands of moles, defectors, turncoats, double and triple agents. It is a convoluted work environment. Information received cannot be taken at face value since all sources of information may have devious motivations, hence the intelligence received may be disinformation, offered to mislead or lure a country into complacency. The risks of sharing information that could be used against a country, by any rational calculation, far outweigh the potential benefits. No persistent and permanent institution-based information sharing is conceivable. Cooperation becomes sporadic, ad hoc, and intermittent, and information flows along personal connections and trust established over time (perspectives supported by remarks made by Michael Herman and Tariq Parvez during the NATO workshop). Even if information is shared, the source of the information may demand that it not be shared further (again supported during the NATO workshop, by remarks by Hasan Yon). Intelligence agencies frequently depend on the assistance of local police agencies to do their legwork, such as checking on the accuracy of information requested by foreign intelligence agencies, but they have little capacity to know whether the police actually checked. For example, a request to verify the address of a terrorist suspect will be passed on to local police who may report back that there is no such person at the address – but did the police actually go there? Intelligence agencies lack the trust-generating mechanisms that can be found in police cooperation, chief among these being personal visits and the transnational training programs which re-enforce common conceptions of police priorities and working norms, or success in case cooperation. The lessons and networks established in training and working together do not carry over into the next case but have to be re-established anew each time.

Underdevelopment of the Global Intelligence Police Community To the degree that police cooperation provides hints and lessons on how to improve intelligence cooperation, two possible resolutions stand out. The first of these involves the question of whether terrorism as a common global threat could bring about cooperation on a global scale. Marx urged the workers of the world to unite and lose their chains. What cause could lead to the uniting of intelligence agencies into a common effort? What threat could lead to the slogan “earthlings unite because you have everything to lose”? Terrorism is not likely to support that slogan as long as the terrorist threat is tied to a specific state, group or cause, but other threats could possibly serve the purpose. One possibility for achieving the minimal consensus needed for global cooperation is the functionalist argument that certain crimes need to be controlled as they affect the interests of all states, or at least those that matter on the current world stage. Piracy is one such threat, as is the modern incarnation of airplane hijacking. The flow of commerce has to go on. Even at the height of the Cold War, hijacked planes and hijackers were returned to their country of origin. To do less

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could have led to the complete disruption of transportation, if potential hijackers knew that they would find welcoming havens in other countries. Other possible functionalist candidates as a foundation for global consensus could be ecological sustainability or regulatory regimes facilitating global trade (e.g., trademark and copyright infringements). Collecting and sharing intelligence in a “war on terror” is not likely to lead to a global consensus and routine, or to trust-based information-sharing, however, transforming the “war” into law enforcement, and terror into a crime, might. To accomplish this would require de-ideologizing terror, de-statisizing intelligence, and de-occupationalizing the culture of intelligence agencies. Cooperation would become a policing matter, where much of the transnational infrastructure and culture sustaining cooperation is already in place. The second point to consider when looking for lessons from the transnational police policy community, involves the question of whether or not there currently exists a global policy community in the security intelligence fields (GIPC). One might argue that such a community exists, but its structure, dynamics and membership differ dramatically from that of the TPPC. Indeed, it is probably a misnomer to call it a community, as there is simply no indication that the trust needed to form a community exists, even within one country. As a result, members of this “community” would likely find it difficult to engage in informal discussions of what they do, what they have learned, what works and what does not, or the “recipe knowledge” which propels cooperation among the police. A police officer is a police officer anywhere, but an intelligence analyst or spy is a national agent. Another sticking point is the inclusion – or lack – of outsiders in the community. The GIPC, such as it is, has only occasional members from non-intelligence agencies, for example, from academia, NGOs or private contractors. Psychologists have assisted intelligence agencies developing interrogation techniques, based on reverse conditioning lessons (how to withstand forceful interrogations); and private contractors do some of the technical work needed in data collection and analysis (such as the private translators who worked with US agents in questioning inmates at the Abu Gharib prison). However, such members are peripheral to the core network of pure intelligence agencies and agents. The GIPC also lacks the foundational consensual rhetoric which assists in the practices of police cooperation at individual and organizational levels. As far as one can tell, there are no models, ideologies, or success criteria which are widely shared among intelligence services of different countries; no handbooks, only guidelines and training modules, for example, on specific techniques for extracting information from resisting suspects. As well, the notion of helping other intelligence agencies become more effective is much less pronounced than for police cooperation, where various forms of assistance to other police forces is a large part of cooperative efforts. The general dynamics of the transnational policing regime are not likely to be duplicated in transnational intelligence cooperation, with adjustments to the specific nature of threats faced and organizational interests involved. The creation

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of regimes, models and handbooks which support and encourage police cooperation is difficult when occupational distrust and national interests argue against convergence toward a global intelligence regime. At least in an abstract sense, police cooperation suggests a movement toward global governance and a global civic society. Of course, there are practical and political obstacles but these on the face of it, and given global trends in technology, economy and security, are not inconceivable. But it is hard to envision a global intelligence regime, even if only abstractly. In short, security intelligence has distinct traits and problems reducing the likelihood of a workable intelligence regime – strong secrecy components; highly specialized intra- and inter- state agencies, concerns with domain protection; rejection of transparency and accountability except to limited authorities and oversight bodies; a focus on state and national security threats; an organizational culture of distrust of employees and other agencies, whether domestic or transnational; a strong inherent political dimension; and non-shared conceptions and explanations of threats within and across borders. Police intelligence, in contrast, has strong connections and a dependence on civic society for effectiveness; has existing accountability institutions, some transparent; a justifying rhetoric of being apolitical or semi-autonomous from politics and national interests; and is supported by a valued transnational policing regime and a fairly cohesive global policy community. Security intelligence lacks these traits.

Concluding comments Cooperation can take many forms in policing and intelligence. Much cooperation and information-sharing is operational, tied to specific short-term or long-term needs. But much cooperation is more broadly focused. Cooperation is about more than working together to control crime and defuse terror threats. It seeks to establish the preconditions for operational cooperation by assisting other countries in establishing information-sharing systems which are effective but also abide by international regime norms and practices. While operational cooperation has been the focus of attention, institution, linkage and culture, creating forms of cooperation have been neglected or regarded as not directly related to the work of security agents. That is a practical and theoretical mistake. Police officials and agencies are actors on their own behalf. They create themselves and their justifying ideologies, especially at the global level, through their participation in the activities of the TPPC and their transnational work and networks. The knowledge, policies, recommendations and evaluations produced by the TPPC are informed by multiple perspectives, including the legitimate and theoretical knowledge of scholars, the legitimate and policy-based knowledge of practitioners in the security field, and the legitimate and practical knowledge of the police. Analogously, a TPPC, to be a community and effective in promoting cooperation, needs to integrate the three basic sources of information into a valued global intelligence regime. Intelligence cooperation must expand beyond cases into structures. It must

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generate trust-creating mechanisms, include more knowledge creators and assessors into a global policy community, and focus as much on the understanding of how intelligence work is done as on planning against general threats. This is a large, if not impossible, task.

Notes 1 I wish to thank the participants at the NATO workshop for their comments and especially Dr. Ersel Aydinli, the co-organizer of the conference, for his careful reading and extensive comments on the earlier draft of this paper. The final product is, of course, my responsibility. 2 D. H. Bayley, Patterns of Policing: A Comparative International Analysis, Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1985. 3 Borders were exported through colonial rule to all parts of the globe yet, being imposed from without and with little consideration for local conditions, did not gain the loyalty and allegiance as had the nation states in Europe. Multiple subnational identities continue to have greater salience than national ones. For further discussion of these issues see E. Zureik and M. B. Salter, (Eds), Global Surveillance and Policing. Borders, Security, Identity, Cullompton, Devon, UK: Willan Publishing, 2005. 4 A. Hansen, From Congo to Kosovo: Civilian Police in Peace Operations, London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, Adelphi Paper no. 343, 2002; E. A. Schmidl, Police in Peace Operations, Vienna: Landesverteitigungakademie, Militärwissenschaftliches Büro, Informationen zur Sicherheitspolitik, No. 10, 1998. 5 M. Joutsen, The European Union and Cooperation in Criminal Matters; The Search for Balance, Helsinki: HEUNI, Occasional Paper No. 25, 2006. 6 D. Bigo, “Liaison Officers in Europe: New Officers in the European Security Field”, in J. W. E. Sheptycki, p. 67. 7 Ibid, p. 89. 8 Andreas and Nadelmann, op. cit.; A-M. Slaughter, A New World Order, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004; J. Sugden, “Security Sector Reform: The Role of Epistemic Communities in the UK”, Journal of Security Sector Management, 4, 4, 2006, 1–20. 9 Practically all the activities discussed in the various country chapters in D. J. Koenig and D. K. Das (Eds), International Police Cooperation: A World Perspective, Lanham, MD, Lexington Books, 2001, deal with membership in INTERPOL. 10 B. Hebenton and T. Thomas, Policing Europe. Co-operation, Conflict and Control, New York: St Martin’s Press, 1995; J. D. Occnipinti, The Politics of EU Police Cooperation. Towards a European FBI?, Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2003. 11 Bigo, op. cit. 12 Unfortunately, there are no hard data on the number of police trained within or outside their home countries by the police of other counties. Such a database would be extremely useful for analyzing the structures, contents and consequences of international training. 13 A. Akgul and O. Marenin, “Global Developments in Transnational Police Training: TADOC (Turkish International Academy Against Drugs and Organized Crime)”, in H. Durmaz, B. Sevinc, A. S. Yayla, and S. Ekici (Eds), Understanding and Responding to Terrorism, Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2007, 84–98. 14 OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), Development Assistance Committee (DAC), (2007), The OECD DAC Handbook on Security System Reform (SSR), Supporting Security and Justice, Paris: author, p. 14. 15 M.J. Dziedzic, “Peace Operations: Political-Military Coordination”, in R.L. Kugler and E.L. Frost (Eds.), The Global Century: Globalization and National Security,

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O. Marenin and A. Akgul Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 2001, 315–334; C. Ferguson, “Police Reform, Peacekeeping and SSR: The Need for Closer Synthesis”, Journal of Security Sector Management, 3, 2, 2004, 1–13; A. Goldsmith and S. Dinnen, “Transnational Police Building: Critical Lessons from Timor-Leste and Solomon Islands”, Third World Quarterly, 28, 6, 2007, 1091–1109; T.T. Holm and B.E. Espen (Eds.) Peacebuilding and Police Reform, London: Frank Cass, 2000; R. Luckham, “Democratic Strategies for Security in Transition and Conflict”, in G. Cawthra and R. Luckham (Eds.), Governing Insecurity. Democratic Control of Military and Security Establishments in Transitional Democracies. London: Zed Books, 2003, 3–28; R. Neild, Sustaining Reform: Democratic Policing in Central America, Washington, D.C.: WOLA, Citizen Security Monitor, 2002. Goldsmith and Dinnen, op. cit. p. 1107. International Policing Advisory Council (IPAC) (2007), “UN Police Presentation”, given at the Third Meeting of the International Policing Advisory Council (IPAC), Canberra, Australia, August 30. F. Mancini, “The Company We Keep: Private Contractors in Jamaica”, Civil Wars, 8, 2, 2006, 231–250. An FBI agent (interview, 1986) who had been involved in creating the first ILEA in Budapest once told me that an important goal of training and information-sharing was to familiarize other police forces with the legal system in the USA. To paraphrase, if the US and other police forces work a common case which will be prosecuted in the US, and information, evidence or a confession gathered in another country is passed on to US prosecutors, through the police, the first thing the prosecutor will ask is “how did you get the information?”. If the answer indicates that it was gathered in violation of US law and rights, it cannot be used in the court case. The agent would state to other police involved in a joint-case operation, “please don’t bring information that cannot be introduced in court.” Not all observers are impressed that international consultancy and advice does much good, nor that community policing is likely to work in different settings, e.g. M. Brogden and P. Nijhar, Community Policing. National and International Models and Approaches, Cullompton, UK: Willan Publishing, 2005; P. Andreas and E. Nadelmann, Policing the Globe. Criminalization and Crime Control in International Relations, New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. R. Dwan (Ed.), Executive Policing: Enforcing the Law in Peace Operations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. J. W. E. Sheptycki, “Organizational Pathologies in Police Intelligence: Some Contributions to the Lexicon of Intelligence-led Policing,” European Journal of Criminology 1, 3, 2004, 307–332. As the head of INTERPOL noted, this may be the most controversial red notice ever issued by INTERPOL, and it is not hard to guess that American pressure led to the issuing of this notice as part of the overall strategy to confront and sanction Iran. Participation by US law enforcement agencies in INTERPOL was initially strongly resisted by Congress which saw such participation of a limit on US sovereign power leading to external interference in US internal affairs. It took considerable lobbying by the police, political arm twisting and reassurances that sovereignty and national interests would not be compromized to reach an agreement allowing the US to join. FinCen is the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the US Department of the Treasury. UNDCP is the UN agency responsible for coordinating international drug polices; CICAD is the Drug Policies Coordinating Agency for OAS; CELAD for European countries. For example, the national police in Nigeria are tightly tied to and controlled by the political leadership and the President, who appoints the Inspector General. At the same time, the exercise of discretion by lower ranks, leading to abuses of power and extensive corruption, is basically uncontrolled and not even controllable by the police

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leadership. Managers, when asked, will admit that they do not know much about what their officers are actually doing (but do suspect that they are misbehaving) nor do they have much control over their actions (personal interviews, 2007). M. Deflem, Policing World Society. Historical Foundations of International Police Cooperation, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. (Also: this volume, chapter 9.) Ibid, p. 19. These propositions seem limited in many ways, since they assume or argue that police organizations are bureaucracies which follow the Weberian-ideal type description which, at least in the current times, is not supported widely by either the literature on police administration nor by organizational theories in public administration); another limit is that Deflem’s argument looks basically at a subset of international cooperation, crime control policies and the institutional apparatuses for sharing and coordinating transnational crime control, leaving out a large variety of cooperative efforts. Deflem (2002) appears to see his perspective largely as a corrective or addition to currently dominant explanations for cooperation, by observing that the “structures and mechanisms of international policing are not exhausted by reference to the ideological dictates of the political centre of states” (p. 227). Other factors – the organizational dynamics, distinct professional claims to expertise and autonomy, and interactions of police forces toward a common goal – also need to be considered. In a later work (2006), he argues that prior patterns of police cooperation have enabled police forces to depoliticize and de-ideologize even terrorism, turn it into a criminal matter, and conduct cooperative work on the basis of “institutional independence”, instrumental rationality, and “professional expertise and efficiency considerations” (p. 248). Surely this is, as Andreas and Nadelmann note (2006: 234), an “overly optimistic conclusion.” O. Marenin, “Parking Tickets and Class Repression: The Concept of Policing in Critical Theories of Criminal Justice,” Contemporary Crises, 6, 3, 1982, 241–266; O. Marenin, “The Police and the Coercive Nature of the State,” in E. S. Greenberg and T. F. Mayer (Eds), Changes in the State: Causes and Consequences, Newbury Park: Sage, 1990, 115–130; O. Marenin, “The Autonomy of the Police”, in J. R. Greene, G. W. Cordner, E. R. Maguire and P. K. Manning (Eds), Encyclopedia of Police Science, New York: Routledge, 2006. Andreas and Nadelmann, op. cit., p. 232. Schengen began as an agreement among law-enforcement agencies in a “Euroregion”, testament to the continuing vitality and importance of border regions as incubators of change and cooperation. A. Minnaar, “Crossborder Police Co-operation in the Southern African Development Community: SARPCCO and SAPS – post-1994”, in G. Meško and B. Dobovšek (Eds) Policing in Emerging Democracies – Critical Reflections, Ljubljana: University of Maribor, Faculty of Criminal Justice and Security, 2007, 153–181. For example, J. Ramos, “Cooperation on narco-trafficking and public security on the U.S.-Mexico border”, in J. Bailey and J. Chabat (Eds), Transnational crime and public security: Challenges to Mexico and the United States, San Diego: Center for U.S. Mexican Studies, 2002, 335–368. This statement by Ing-Dan Shieh, the former Head of the Taiwanese National Police and now President of the Central Police University of Taiwan captures this distinction well: “The source of power for the police is the righteousness of the society, so the role of the police shall be to keep politically neutral. It is unlike the military or national defense which has to be concerned with competition among other nations. The police have the common good and core values of all human beings as their responsibility which is to maintain justice and safeguard the social order of whatever the nation they may be part of. To attain this common goal we do not have to compete with each other or hide any intelligence that is valuable to crush crime. The police all over the world should have this kind of elegant vision and dignified set of values.” (Unpublished interview, conducted by Mark M. Chen, Professor, Department of Border Police, Central Police University, Taiwan, October 2007.)

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35 DFID (Department for International Development) (2002), Understanding and Supporting Security Sector Reform, London: DFID, p. 2. 36 T. Edmonds, Security Sector Reform: Concepts and Implementation, Geneva: Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, 2002. 37 M. Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars. The Merging of Development and Security. London: Zed Press, 2001; M. Kaldor, New and Old Wars. Organized Violence in a Global Era. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999/2001. 38 D. Bayley and C. Shearing, The New Structure of Policing, Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, 2001; L. D. Johnston and C. Shearing, Governing Security: Explorations in Policing and Justice, London: Routledge, 2003; I. Loader and N. Walker, Civilizing Security, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 39 O. Marenin, “Building a Global Police Studies Community,” Police Quarterly, 8, 1, 2005, 99–136; O. Marenin, “Implementing Police Reforms: The Role of the Transnational Policy Elite,” in A. Goldsmith and J. Scheptycki (Eds), Crafting Global Policing, Portland, OR/Oxford, UK: Hart Publishing, 2007. 40 Slaughter, op. cit. 41 The state is not a unitary actor on the international scene. “The state is not disappearing, but it is disaggregating into its component institutions, which are increasingly interacting with principally their foreign counterparts across borders. These institutions represent distinct national or state interests, even as they also recognize common professional identities and substantive experience” (p. 18). The argument could be expanded in two ways to make it more accurate: networks include more than state actors; and networks operate on more fields of action than the ones she focuses on (law, regulatory regimes, politics). 42 Sugden, op. cit. 43 Andreas and Nadelman, op. cit. pp. 17–58. 44 M. Cottam and O. Marenin, “Predicting the Past: Reagan Administration Assistance to Police Forces in Central America,” Justice Quarterly, 6, 4, 1989, 589–618; B. Dixon, “The Globalisation of Democratic Policing: Sector Policing and Zero Tolerance in the New South Africa”, Cape Town: Institute of Criminology, University of Cape, occasional paper, 2000; G. Ellison and C. O’Reilly, “From Empire to Iraq: The Commodification and the Transplantation of the (Northern) Irish Policing Experience”, British Journal of Criminology, 11, 4, 2008, 395–426; S. Karstedt, “Durkheim, Tarde and Beyond. The Global Travel of Crime Policies”, Criminal Justice, 2, 2, 2002, 111–123; E. Nadelmann, Cops Across Borders. The Internationalization of U.S. Criminal Law Enforcement, University Park, PA, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993; T. Newburn and R. Sparks (Eds.) Criminal Justice and Political Cultures. National and International Dimensions of Crime Control, Portland, OR: Willan Publishing, 2004. 45 E.g., Bayley op. cit.; D. Dilip and O. Marenin (Eds) Challenges of Policing Democracies: A World Perspective, Newark: Gordon and Breach Publishers, 2000; D. Das and M. J. Palmiotto, “International Human Rights Standards: Guidelines for the World’s Police Officers”, Police Quarterly, 5, 2, 2002, 206–221; A. Goldsmith and C. Lewis (Eds) Civilian Oversight of Policing: Governance, Democracy and Human Rights, Oxford and Portland, OR: Hart Publishing, 2000; B. K. Greener-Barcham, “The Ethics of the New International Policing,” in D. B. McDonald, R. G. Patman and B. Mason-Parker (Eds), The Ethics of Foreign Policy, Aldershot, UK, Ashgate Publishing Company, 2007, 69–82; Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland (Patten Commission) (1999), A New Beginning: Policing in Northern Ireland, available at www.belfast.org. uk/report.html; O. Marenin, “The Goal of Democracy in International Police Assistance Programs,” Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management, 21, 1, 1998, 159–177; C. E. Stone and H. Ward, “Democratic Policing: A Framework for Action”, Policing and Society, 10, 2000, 11–45; Vera Institute of Justice, Measuring Progress toward Safety and Justice: A Global Guide to the Design of Performance Indicators Across the Justice Sector, New York: Vera Institute, 2003.

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46 For example, M. Caparini and O. Marenin (Eds), Transforming the Police in Eastern and Central Europe, Lit Verlag/Transaction: Münster, Germany/Somerset, NJ: Transaction, 2004. 47 Robert Perito, 2006, personal communication. 48 D. H. Bayley, Changing the Guard. Developing Democratic Police Abroad, New York: Oxford University Press, 2006; M. O’Rawe and L. Moore, Human rights on duty. Principles for better policing – International Lessons for Northern Ireland. Belfast: Committee for the Administration of Justice, 1997. Also see C. T. Call (Ed.), Constructing Justice and Security After War. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2007; C. T. Griffiths, Y. Dandurand and V. Chin, “Development Assistance and Police Reform: Programming Opportunities and Lessons Learned,” The Canadian Review of Policing Research, 1, 2005; H. Groenewald and G. Peake, Police Reform through Community-Based Policing. Philosophy and Guidelines for Implementation, New York: International Peace Academy, 2004; S. Karstedt and G. LaFree (Eds), Democracy, Crime and Justice, Special Issue of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 605, 2006; O. Marenin, Restoring Policing Systems in Conflict Torn Nations: Process, Problems, Prospects, Geneva: Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, Occasional Paper no. 7, 2005; E. Mobekk, LawEnforcement: Creating and Maintaining a Police Service in a Post-Conflict Society: Problems and Pitfalls, Geneva: Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, Occasional paper, 2003; R. B. Oakley, M. J. Dziedzic and E. M.Goldberg (Eds), Policing the New World Disorder: Peace Operations and Public Security, Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2002; G. Peake, Policing the Peace: Police Reform Experiences in Kosovo, Southern Serbia and Macedonia, London: Saferworld, 2004; R. Perito, Where Is the Lone Ranger When We Need Him? America’s Search for a Post-Conflict Stability Force. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2004; R. Perito, U.S. Police in Peace and Stability Operations, Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, Special Report, 2007; N. Tschirgi, Post-Conflict Peacebuilding Revisited: Achievements, Limitations, Challenges, New York: International Peace Academy, 2004; J. M. Wilson, “Law and Order in an Emerging Democracy: Lessons from the Reconstruction of Kosovo’s Police and Justice Systems”, Annals, AAPSS, 605, 2006, 152–177; WOLA (Washington Office on Latin America), Demilitarizing Public Order. The International Community, Police Reform and Human Rights in Central America and Haiti, Washington, DC: WOLA, 1995. 49 That organizations shape information about their work and its impacts is well known. They have an interest in protecting, expanding and financing their work, and success and failures in their basic jobs and roles, or an increase in threats which the agency protect society against, or the faddishness of current political rhetoric, can be defined by information under the control of the agency. Any organization does that. For example, police departments in the USA have released statistics on terrorist threats detected and prevented which jumped over 100 per cent from one year to the next in many departments. It is not likely that threats increased that much. When the recording and collecting of crime information was analyzed by the media, it turned out that department had begun to classify crimes as terrorist acts which earlier had been defined by their conventional crime label. Having terrorists in your backyard and being good at detecting and arresting terrorists increases image and funding.

7

Police liaisons as builders of transnational security cooperation Hasan Yon

Transnationalization of security services This section of the volume turns to the specific area of police cooperation as a way of understanding the challenges to broader cooperation in intelligence practices as well as the potential for its success. While Chapter 6 looked at the factors underlying successful police cooperation efforts, this chapter focuses on one aspect of police cooperation – police liaisons – and explores their role in building up a cooperative transnational response to security issues, in particular, terrorism. The chapter begins with a discussion of the kinds of initiatives that have been and continue to be made in the area of security cooperation; a discussion broadly structured on the basis of the discussion provided in Chapter 1 of different realms of security relations (state-centric and multi-centric) as well as along a traditional dividing of actors into two broad types: liberal and realist. Exploring the resulting categories and the initiatives that can be grouped accordingly, reveals that the most progressive and arguably effective developments in combating transnational threats have been occurring in the realist state and multi-centric domains.

The transnationalization trend in security cooperation practices The liberal/state-centric domain With respect to security cooperation practices in general, it is possible to cite considerable activity having taken place over the years within the liberal/state-centric domain – that is, formal relations or initiatives formulated among state-based international organizations or entities (see Figure 7.1, below). Beginning with the cooperation efforts of large international organizations (IO), such as the United Nations, to those IOs with agendas more specifically focused on security, such as INTERPOL or EUROPOL, these organizations have traditionally drawn up conventions agreeing on ways of addressing particular security threats, and created regimes of expected norms and behaviors towards those threats. The deployment of police liaison officers to international organizations also falls within the liberal/state-centric domain. This practice involves states appointing

Police liaisons as builders of transnational security cooperation 125 Forms of Cooperative Security Relations

Liberal Forms of Actors and Practices

A C T O R S

State-Centric Interactions (Formal relations formulated by central state organs)

Multi-Centric Interactions (Informal relations formulated by a mix of state, sub-state, or non-state entities)

International Organizations • conventions • regimes Judicial Cooperation • (e.g. Extradition) Administrative Cooperation (Customs)

Non-Govt. International Orgs Independent/Individual initiatives Private Security Regime Police Cooperation Local initiatives (e.g. civilian cooperation with the police)

Police Cooperation • International Police Organizations • United Nations • INTERPOL/EUROPOL Realist Interstate Relations (Diplomacy) Forms of Police Cooperation Actors and • Formally established and Practices formally functioning police liaisonship structures

Police Cooperation • Informal functions of police • liaisonship • Formally established but • informally functioning structures

Figure 7.1 Framework of police cooperation

officers to work at international organizations of which their country is a member, such as French officers appointed to EUROPOL. Variations on this practice also occur, such as the employing of liaison officers from non-member states to member-based international organizations. Examples of this include the employment of American FBI, Secret Service and DEA liaison officers to EUROPOL. Similarly, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Australia and Colombia also have liaison officers in EUROPOL, although they are not EU member countries. We also see examples of the reverse: employing liaison officers from international organizations to non-member states, for example, having officers from EUROPOL posted as liaisons in Washington, DC.1 And finally there is increasing practice of liaison officers being appointed between international police organizations, as is the case with liaison officer exchanges between EUROPOL and INTERPOL.2 All three of these trends in liaison officer exchanges by international organizations and nonmember states have taken place in the post 9/11 era and all with an overt purpose of responding to terrorism. Activity within the liberal/multi-centric domain It is possible to say that security cooperation practices by and among the existing non-governmental groups and organizations of the liberal/multi-centric domain are growing, and many new organizations have even emerged in recent years.

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Some early examples of initiatives in this area can be seen in the establishing of non-governmental international police organizations, e.g. the International Police Association (IPA), the International Association of Women Police (IAWP), the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), and the International Police Executive Symposium. These organizations have contributed to the shared understandings between police officers around the world in different ways. The IPA, for example, is a worldwide police organization, which aims to increase social and professional interactions among its members, while the International Police Executive Symposium is an academic platform, which organizes conferences to discuss specific police problems. All these organizations contribute to the establishment of a discussion ground for members, however, they do not necessarily serve the aim of building up transnational security cooperation, since they tend to lack the jurisdiction and muscle to enforce wide-reaching security cooperation practices. A second area of development in this liberal/multi-centric domain can be seen in the growth of private entities providing various security services not only to private companies but to governments as well. Private security firms have long been cooperative partners for states in countering terrorism, but have certain shortcomings made most obvious in the recent example of Blackwater and its activities in Iraq. Basically, such private security services are ultimately businesses, and as such lack the vision and public service conscience that should be present in a nonprofit governmental organization or entity. In terms of serving to the promotion in particular of cooperation on security matters, these private services have yet to offer anything of significance, and may even prove a hindrance. Another development in this realm is the founding of private organizations that provide information and reports to clients – including government, intelligence and law-enforcement bodies. Examples include organizations such as IntelCenter (www.intelcenter.com) and the Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE, www.siteinstitute.com). The SITE institute’s activities, for example, consist of surfing internet web pages and chat rooms to trace terrorist content.3 According to the information on the institute’s website, their experts translate four kinds of sources: transcripts of terrorist leaders’ speeches, videos and messages; terrorist books, magazines, fatwas and training manuals; terrorist communiqués; and terrorist chatter discussing potential targets, methods of attack and other relevant material.4 These translations are then provided to the institute’s clients. In the security realm, and in particular the fight against terrorism, which has always been accepted as the domain of the state, this involvement of private organizations is an interesting development, and such institutes/entities may be able to provide valuable information, but this information may also be controversial. To give an example from the SITE case, a basic search on the internet reveals numerous websites raising cautionary calls against Rita Katz, the owner of SITE, because of her personal background and the killing of her father by the Saddam regime in Iraq. Such allegations inevitably raise questions about the reliability of the information her organization provides. In general, these and other nongovernmental organizations can be criticized as being more likely to be open to penetration and manipulation than official state organizations or groups, to possess

Police liaisons as builders of transnational security cooperation 127 less organizational capacity, and be prone to less coordination capacity given possibly very different perceptions and definitions of what constitutes a threat. Yet another new development in this realm is the strategy of local state or substate authorities building up transnational capacities on their own, in the sense of coordinating with non-governmental entities or individuals. To illustrate, an example from the New York police may be useful. The NYPD has in its employ an individual of Turkish origin, who serves as a liaison officer between the NYPD and the Muslim community in the city.5 I met with this individual after he finished up his prayers at the Turkish Fatih Mosque in Brooklyn. During our interview I learned how he established links with the New York Police after organizing a support rally in response to the disastrous earthquake in Turkey in 1999. He now serves as community coordinator, but carries a police ID, and works at Police Headquarters directly under the Police Commissioner. During our interview I learned that he has also been involved with establishing NYPD liaison offices around the world, and described his role in working with them in this way: Overseas liaison officers have my name in their phone books. When they need to know anything special about Islam or culture there, they just call me and ask. I inform them about what they would like to learn … I take part during the international visits of police forces from Muslim countries to NYPD and Raymond Kelly. This situation surprises visiting delegations because although I am originally a civilian I have a role in official circles.6 He stressed his close working relationship with the police commissioner: “Raymond Kelly wants me to visit him at least two times a month. Beside community meetings, I join some of the staff meetings with him.” Interestingly, this may hint at one of the problems with this type of local initiative, which is that, though they constitute positive moves, they may be the brainchild of a single individual – in this case New York Police Commissioner Kelly – and thus run the risk of being discontinued or sidelined when a new person takes over. This risk was in fact directly communicated to me by another NYPD liaison officer posted in the Middle East, who expressed the opinion that it was “all Raymond Kelly” behind the liaison program. According to at least that one officer, the program would be in jeopardy of failing after Kelly left. In considering complications or shortcomings of the various modes of cooperation within the liberal state and multi-centric realms, it appears that even one of the most common methods, the appointing of police liaisons to IOs, has limitations. First, it should be noted that there are several ways of appointing liaison officers (see Figure 7.2), but the two main methods of using liaison officers can be categorized as government-to-government (appointing them in a bilateral manner between two states) or government-to-international organization (state appointments of LOs to an international structure). Sending officers to an institutional setting such as EUROPOL is an example of the latter, while the former describes the traditional bilateral system, in which two countries appoint liaison officers to serve in the partner country, thus falling into the realist/state-centric domain.

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State

State

International Organization Local (IO) Authorities

1 Stationing Bilateral in one appointment at country general police headquarters

EUROPOL NYPD LOs LO appointed appointed to USA to other countries

State-to-state employment bid, stationing in other cities Lack of police representation, rep. by other diplomatic personnel, usually military LOs

LO Receiving Entity

2 Accredited to other states in the same region 3 Representing other states in the host country Intl. Org. 1 Membership structure (e.g. (IO) EUROPOL) 2 Appointment of non-member countries’ LOs to an IO Local Authority

LOs appointed between INTERPOL and EUROPOL

NYPD LO appointed at INTERPOL

European examples, esp. between border cities

Figure 7.2 Methods of liaison officer deployment

Traditionally, this bilateral kind of liaisonship has been established between the central police structures of two countries, though in some cases, bilateral liaison officers may be used as accredited liaison officers for other regional countries. As yet another pattern, in Scandinavia, a liaison officer from one Nordic country may represent all Nordic countries in the host country. The relative benefits and disadvantages of these two primary forms of liaisonship (state-to-state, state-to-IO) are frequently discussed by police officers in the field. The general impression based on a series of interviews with active liaison officers and police managers is that appointments to organizations such as EUROPOL may be useful for policy setting, establishing common standards and creating

Police liaisons as builders of transnational security cooperation 129 data warehouses, but when it comes to actually solving crimes or following up on cases, they can face problems. First, they note that the bureaucratic structure of international organizations can be a negative characteristic. A liaison officer with experience both at international organizations and in bilateral appointments argued that: Bureaucracy dominates the relationships at international organizations. Processing a request at an international organization may take months. On the other hand bilateral liaison officers may conclude the same requests in hours and even in minutes.7 Similarly, a deputy National Police Commissioner with whom I spoke, argued that: Through our normal [bilaterally appointed] liaison officers, we can get very important and urgent information in quite a short time when we need it. Otherwise we could have waited for days through other channels. Therefore we give special importance in employing liaison officers directly to areas of our concern.8 These comparisons and the resulting impression of the inefficiency of LOs at international organizations raises an interesting point about speed and effectiveness. Being together at an international organization like EUROPOL means that LOs can be physically gathered together quickly in order to inform them about urgent issues, for example, to share among them intelligence that an attack may take place somewhere in Europe. On the other hand, if we are to look at the efficiency and speed of investigations, there is a general consensus that international organizations are not always productive. In the words of one PLO: International organizations such as EUROPOL and INTERPOL are good for coming together, talking on issues, setting agendas and planning the future but I do not believe that they help in cases when urgent response is needed.9 The shortcomings of international organizations like INTERPOL or EUROPOL are also suggested by the fact that some member states of these international organizations still feel the need to appoint separate, bilateral liaisons in other member countries – a practice that should not theoretically be necessary given that their officers work alongside each other at the organization. One Deputy National Police Commissioner told me that they had been “receiving requests of direct Liaison Officer employment by our partners more and more because quite a lot of police organizations believe that employing liaison officers is an important way of succeeding timely and successful cooperation”.10 Yet another liaison officer blamed the need for reverting to bilateral practices as being the result of the “impotencies of EUROPOL channels”.11 Even information given on INTERPOL’s web page shows that member countries such as Austria, Germany, France, the Czech Republic,

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the Nordic Countries, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and Spain all have LO posts in these and other European countries, even though they are all members of EUROPOL. This situation shows that states still feel the need to establish bilateral relations although they are in the same IO and, in fact, there is an ongoing debate about the use of EUROPOL. One European police manager interviewed, pointed out the organization’s limitations, saying: Using only EUROPOL channels and the liaison offices at the EUROPOL headquarters between member states, and ending the practice of liaison officer appointments bilaterally between member states, has been proposed by a few countries, but accepting such a proposal seems to be impossible right now.12 The realist/state and multi-centric domains When we look at the realist/state-centric domain and its role in cooperation practices, we see that diplomacy has long constituted the main practice of the realist/ state-centric domain for coordinating cooperation on security matters, together with other state-related forms of cooperation such as in the judiciary,13 where various practices, from extradition, to recognizing foreign penal judgements, to cross-border freezing and seizing of assets, all have been and continue to be used to counter threats – including increasingly transnational ones. Diplomacy may be the most traditional form of building up cooperation on security matters, but when it comes in particular to twenty-first century transnational threats, diplomacy and the diplomats who conduct it may face critical challenges. There remain, as always, the traditional complexities of state-to-state relations, such as states looking out for their own national interests, the lack of trust, the drive for survival, and so on, but in addition, there may be slowness on the part of these state diplomats to adapt to new kinds of threats and to adopt the kinds of transnational responses necessary to face them. Diplomats still tend to remain traditionally trained and to hold fundamental beliefs in a state-centric and state-dominant world. They may be more likely to view the post-9/11 period as just that – an interim period within a long history of state-to-state security domination – rather than a sign of a broader shift. Thus, in both vision and in preparedness/training, they are not likely to be quick to adapt to new, transnational practices. Increasingly, however, we see diplomatic efforts being accompanied by other statist actors acting in a more transnational manner – in other words, becoming what we might call transgovernmental, or, as suggested in this volume, “statist transnational” actors. Since these actors establish transnational links beyond the strict control of foreign offices or departments of state, their actions may constitute moves into the realist/multi-centric domain. These government entities nevertheless remain part of the state system. They act on behalf of states, and even when they create entities above the borders of states, they may use diplomatic or state channels to do so. As for police liaison officers working in a traditional bilateral manner, their appointments and official functions remain in the state-centric realm (for example, they are often stationed at their countries’ embassies abroad)

Police liaisons as builders of transnational security cooperation 131 though, as we will see later on, their actual practices often spread into the realist/ multi-centric domain. Europe has often led the way in examples of such transnational relations between sub-state actors. For decades, various sub-state entities have initiated their own transnational cooperative ventures. Such sub-state initiatives have generally been established on a regional basis, with an aim to controlling borders. They include, for example, the regular meetings of the heads of police from Berlin, Bern, Bratislava, Budapest, Munich, Prague and Vienna,14 and the close cooperation that has existed since the 1980s in the trinational Upper Rhine Area between Basel (Switzerland), Freiburg (Germany) and Mulhouse (France).15 The Netherlands have also established Police Partnership Programs (PPP) with Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, for purposes of exchanging professional knowledge and experience, and building up mutual understanding and respect.16 Perhaps the most famous example of sub-state actors setting up cooperation practices is that of the transnational police cooperation that exists between France and England, for the purpose of securing the Channel Tunnel Region.17 Yet another example is the Metropolitan Police of London, which includes a Counter-Terrorism Command responsible for undertaking counter-terrorism investigations not only in London but throughout the UK and abroad. Although the Metropolitan Police is mainly established as an agency for the Metropolitan area of London, in this particular structure they also function as a support agency for investigations outside of the city. Most importantly, the Counter-Terrorism Command of the Metropolitan Police is the “single point of contact for international partners in counter-terrorism matters” with an ability to investigate overseas attacks against British interests.18 Outside of Europe, perhaps the most interesting case is that of the New York Police Department. As mentioned earlier, the NYPD has, on its own initiative, sent police liaison officers to a variety of countries, including England, Jordan, Singapore, Israel, Canada, France and the Dominican Republic. This case bears some rather unique characteristics. The NYPD example shows us that a local entity may initiate an international cooperative strategy in the field of counter-terrorism, which has traditionally been accepted as a state-level issue (see Nussbaum, this volume). Also noteworthy is the fact that this strategy of a city sending its own PLOs has been established for countering terrorism in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, and has a very much local primary aim of protecting the city of New York. The interest raised by New York’s counter-terrorism liaisonship strategy is very much evident, particularly when we consider that other cities have expressed interest in copying this practice, including the police departments of Los Angeles, Miami, Las Vegas and Chicago.19 For cost-efficiency purposes, it has even been proposed that some of these local police departments come together to establish such an overseas liaison system.20

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Liaison officers as masters of informal cooperation practices As was suggested above, although the police liaison system is established within the realist/state-centric domain, in one interesting, overall sense, it is possible to argue that its usage has been extending into the realist/multi-centric realm. That is, while police liaisonship preserves its formally established and thus state-based nature, it is functioning informally in several ways. Formal cooperation, it should first be noted, takes place within the bureaucratic circles of the relationship. Mutual agreements, conventions and all other relevant legal documents shape the formal functioning of the relationship, and the rules for these formal relationships have long been established. Informally, however, a liaison officer spends his time with his colleagues in the host country, often hosted by and given an office in the local police department. Consequently, a liaison officer’s time is devoted to establishing cooperation and interaction with his counterparts in the name of his organization. In the process of working on requests or cases, liaison officers are able to learn more extensive and more detailed information. Consequently, the liaison officer learns the story of the cases. If there is any procedural problem in sharing the knowledge, informal ways of overcoming those difficulties can be discussed. S/he can learn about the local details and intricacies of the cases in questions, on site, and work more easily to find a solution. The informal relationships that develop enable LOs to positively contribute to formal procedures by establishing a degree of cordiality, friendship and trust between parties. Informality also helps smooth over some of the bureaucratic processes that may slow down the investigation process. For example, formal relationships take place within the boundaries of official procedures in a mechanistic manner such as the institutional channels and communication of police cooperation. These official procedures may require notifying higher-level administrators for permission, using official written forms to request information or permission, even using particular formal language when requesting or sending messages. In order to set up and conduct contacts between countries, there may be requirements to copy these messages to other state-related departments, from the Interior Ministry to the Foreign Ministry or even the Prime Minister’s Office. Not only might these formalities slow down the process of information exchange and cooperation, but may also slow down individuals’ willingness to share information, as they might be intimidated by the necessity to write formal requests that anyone can later refer back to. Experiences reported by various LOs also revealed that the frustrations involved with such procedures are exacerbated because of the nature of investigative communications which often require extensive follow-up, back and forth, and exchange of ideas – all of which can take considerable time when going through formal channels. On the other hand, informal cooperation eases up the process of communication about particular cases and developments within them. During informal communication with counterparts, police liaison officers share their experiences. During those information exchanges both parties give each other information about what is going on in cases, what kind of developments they are seeing in criminal strategies and

Police liaisons as builders of transnational security cooperation 133 are able to share ideas about specific problems. Sharing information in this way gives both parties understanding about current and emerging trends. In that way parties build up common understandings about current problems and threats. An important example of how this may work was pointed out by a police officer at the NATO conference that produced this volume: After an explosion took place, we have found that the perpetrator had lived in a European Country before. We asked the LO of this country information about this person and we got all the information. However we could not have gotten the same information via letters of rogatory from the judicial authorities of the same country.21 This example shows how the informal practices enabled by the liaison system may be beneficial in urgent cases. Such information, gathered quickly in informal communication, is also more likely to be able to be used for preventive policing and for establishing preventive strategies, especially in countering terrorism. Learning about threats that others are experiencing may lead the way to taking necessary steps to avoid similar threats in one’s own country. As terrorism is global today, a terrorist method used in one country may spread all over the world in just a few days, thus learning more about a terrorist method both promptly and in detail may be an invaluable asset for preemption of an attack in another country. The importance of informality as a facilitator It is clear from the above that a key underlying factor that runs throughout the developments within police cooperation in general is informality. Simply put, informal interaction implies daily contact between actual police officers. Not only is this perhaps the unspoken rationale behind setting up formal institutions or organizations for cooperation, but in practice, it is informal interaction that makes these institutions work and tends to spur unconventional developments of a more transnational nature. The importance of informal interaction is evident in the fact that a definition is featured on the web page of the police department in Kent, England, a county which is a gateway from England to Europe both via the Channel Tunnel and several ports. It serves therefore as an important police authority to establish cooperation with international partners. Although this definition is established to describe the cooperative structure between the Kent Police and its international partners, it can guide our understanding of what informal cooperation entails: [informal refers to the] natural consequence of day to day contact through meetings, visits, telephone conversations, use of LinguaNet system, e.g. information required/given on a police to police basis by the spoken word or simple documentation. Such information would only be used for police purposes and cannot be used in judicial proceedings. The use of the information can, by

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Informal cooperation gives several advantages to police organizations. First of all, informal cooperation makes communication between parties faster and easier. As the above definition notes, it may also be possible for cooperation to include the use of a shared computer system. Any questions can be directly forwarded to partners to discuss on the issue. Based on those discussions, the parties may decide to take steps to establish formal procedures. Secondly, informal cooperation may help to increase trust and reliability between parties. As informal cooperation relies on day-to-day interaction, it helps parties to learn and trust each other. The higher the level of trust, informal cooperation may be more productive. Informal cooperation allows for sharing of stories about crimes and partners, and thus for learning about trends. An equally critical factor allowing police cooperation to work as an essential tool between police organizations is the presence of a shared identity of “police culture”. Police culture allows police officers to understand problems in the same way. As one liaison officer put it: Although the country that I work in has diplomatic tensions with mine, I never feel those tensions with my police counterparts, because as police officers we look at crime and criminals, including terrorism, in the same way.23 In essence, this officer is describing what Deflem formulates conceptually as, “the objective of counter-terror policing is de-politicization of terrorism and seeing terrorism as a crime”.24 This point reflects the identity of police in evaluating terrorism: when seeing terrorism as just another crime, cooperation becomes easier.

Police liaison officers: masters of the frontier The first half of this chapter has shown that across different domains of state and multi-centric activity, attempts are being made and initiatives introduced to “transnationalize” the response to transnational security threats. Whether it is the spread of sub-state or non-state actors into realms previously limited to state actors, or the increasingly informal use of formal state actors or processes, there is no doubt that a changing nature of security threats has bred changes among those responsible for responding to those threats. At the forefront of the most effective changes we find the police, and, in particular, we can see evidence of innovative uses of police liaisons. Who are these pioneers of informal transnational security cooperation and what trends do we see in their deployment and nature? Actors of the states’ transnationalization: who are the PLOs? The following definition of liaison officers by the European Council reflects the general characteristics of the term “liaison officer”:

Police liaisons as builders of transnational security cooperation 135 “liaison officer” means a representative of one of the Member States, posted abroad by a law enforcement agency to one or more third countries or to international organisations to establish and maintain contacts with the authorities in those countries or organisations with a view to contributing to preventing or investigating criminal offences.25 Research on the police liaison system in Europe has described the characteristics of police liaison officers as being on the margins of the police world, often multilingual, having some form of advanced education, being “urbane” and “cosmopolitan” and recognizing each other as belonging to the same small elitist and political world.26 According to the same study, they see their position as a form of promotion with financial and symbolic benefits, and note their job’s emphasis on strategic analysis requiring analytical skills and the ability to make comparisons between states. Liaison officers have also been described more cynically in the limited literature about them: The second model is that of the liaison, in the dual role of formal representative and informal “fixer”. Like the assorted representatives of the many non-law enforcement agencies that increasingly crowd U.S. embassies, few of whom engage in detective-like activities, U.S. law enforcement agents stationed abroad are expected to act both as official representatives of their agencies and as “fixers” for the assorted requests and problems that come their way. U.S. agents abroad often find their days crowded with fielding inquiries from U.S. based agents, transmitting requests for information and other assistance between local police agencies, serving as hosts for fellow agents flown in on specific investigations, arranging reservations and programs for visiting politicians, and high level officials, dealing with the media, giving speeches, and attending assorted social functions.27 The somewhat unenthusiastic nature of this definition of the LOs’ duties and the image of the LOs as existing on some line between a real police officer and a diplomat, perhaps naturally leads to tensions at times between the LOs and the diplomatic corps. Relations between police liaison officers and diplomats tend to fall into two main categories: one in which there is little or no interaction between the two groups; or a second in which they have frequent contact. The first case is what happens when LOs are serving at international organizations or appointed in border areas where they travel daily between the countries. The second scenario is the general case in a bilateral appointment, when the LOs serve in their embassy abroad, and function there as part of the diplomatic mission. Among the latter cases it is possible to see even greater distinctions between types. In some cases, such as in that of the USA, the country aims to establish police liaisonship as an important part of the diplomatic relationship. US government institutions are increasingly involved in international police matters because the US government views the international crime problem as a “component of

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foreign policy and national security, not just as a law enforcement issue,”28 and police assistance is seen as part of the foreign policy of the US.29 On the other hand, in countries that do not have well established liaisonship programs, there are more likely to be problems and tensions arising between LOs and the diplomats they serve alongside. One liaison officer from a European country described his relationship with the diplomatic mission as follows: “My Ambassador asked me quite a lot of times what I am doing as a liaison officer. And he still wonders why our country needs me.”30 The liaison officer of another country complained about his Ambassador, saying that he “did not want to give me a room at the Embassy. He doesn’t see my work necessary”.31 The complexities and potential contradictions noted in the earlier quote and in the above description of the relations between LOs and diplomats, all seem to reflect the “hybrid” nature of police liaisons – they are between roles, between duties. But this does not have to be a negative quality. This hybrid character might be quite uniquely positive, particularly with respect to their formality/informality. They have formal legitimacy, but informal capacity; they are formal in terms of the passports they carry, but informal in their actions. It is this bridging of the formal/informal gap in particular that makes them successful pioneers of the transition from the international, state-centric realm, into the transnational, multicentric one. What is also interesting about police liaison officers, is that they are not a new phenomenon. The appointing of police liaison officers as a practice goes back to the late nineteenth century when the world witnessed several decades of Anarchist and revolutionary violence. Writing about the mid-1800s, Deflem argues that the Police Union of German States appointed a German police officer at the German embassy in London and other agents were placed in Paris, London, Brussels, and New York.32 It has also been noted that during the same era the Russians established a special bureau in Paris, and other cooperative initiatives in Berlin and several other European cities, with an aim to police revolutionary activity organizing abroad against the Russian Empire.33 Even the US Marshals Service, which was founded in 1789, has had among its aims the establishing of international cooperation, while US customs involved sending or stationing agents abroad.34 In the early decades of the twentieth century, liaison posts emerged in response to the communist threat, for example, Switzerland allowed French, British and American agents to serve in embassies in Bern to “observe the communist presence.”35 But it was really in the 1970s that the use of liaison officers increased dramatically, and this was due to drug-related issues. The United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988 encouraged the usage of liaison officers. In Paragraph 1-e of Article 9 of this Convention, member parties are urged to “Facilitate effective co-ordination between their competent agencies and services and promote the exchange of personnel and other experts, including the posting of liaison officers.”36 In fact, due to the focus on drugs, police liaison officers were for a long time referred to, particularly in Europe, as drug liaison officers. This situation began to change in the 1990s with the spread of cross-border terrorism, and the subsequent gradual

Police liaisons as builders of transnational security cooperation 137 growth in states permitting the involvement of police liaison officers with terrorism cases. It has even been argued that today’s global counter-terrorism campaign is built on previous policing efforts against drugs.37 Looking at things historically, we can say that police liaison officers have been used flexibly by states. Introduced during the Anarchist era to counter cross-border political concerns, liaison officers later became important for their use in international drug enforcement. Now, with terrorism having taken on a transnational nature, we are observing the increasing importance and employment of liaison officers to counter this threat. Growth of bilateral PLOs If police liaisonships of various types are evolving in the fight against terrorism, are they also growing in number? How many actual police cooperation agreements have been signed, and how many police liaison officers have actually been appointed in the more traditional bilateral manner? These are seemingly simple questions, but surprisingly difficult to answer. The data that do exist are difficult to keep up to date because of the flexibility states have in appointing liaison officers. States appoint LOs based on their immediate needs, and as soon as that specific need is gone, the states may quickly decide to draw the liaison officer back. Even more problematic though, is that such data simply are not easily found in public documents. International organizations do not always provide information on the numbers of agreements and liaison officers. INTERPOL provides the names of the member countries on its web page, but country-specific information can be found only on the European Police and Judicial Systems page, and there only 21 of the 186 member countries provide detailed information about their police and judicial system – including numbers of liaison posts.38 A more direct effort to collect such information helps flesh out the picture a bit more. The information provided in the following section was collected both by directly contacting national police organizations via their e-mail addresses, and by conducting internet searches for “police cooperation agreements” and “police liaison officer” and examining the resulting news reports, reports of international organizations, and web pages of police/law enforcement organizations. Also taken into consideration were the web pages of national police organizations of various countries’ interior ministries. These latter web pages provided complete and accurate numbers, but not many countries have them. Numbers from international organizations or news reports are more easily found, but are less likely to be accurate because the facts change quickly. Directly contacting the national police organizations was the best way to get the most accurate and up-to-date information, but as a method it also had some practical complications. The primary problem was that of the 145 countries whose police organizations or relevant ministries’ e-mail addresses were found and to whom e-mails were sent requesting information, 40 bounced back as failed delivery.

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Numbers of PLOs worldwide To understand how extensive the use of PLOs is worldwide, we can look at the numbers of PLOs actually posted. Based on the various searches used for this study, 54 countries were found to deploy police liaison officers to around 650 different sites, with 13 countries found to send liaison officers to more than 10 different sites. The number of those sites does not necessarily reflect the total number of actual officers posted, however, since more than one officer may be appointed to a single liaison office. There is also no clear correlation between the sites for posting and the number of countries covered by those posts, since some liaison offices may cover an area greater than a single country. In other words, an office established in one country may be responsible for other countries in the same region. For example, the FBI legal attaché office in Nigeria is also responsible for Ghana, Togo, Benin, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome’ and Principe, and Cameroon. Yet another example, the FBI has liaison offices in 60 countries around the world, but it covers a far greater number because each liaison post is responsible for more than one country. In general, the numbers noted here are almost certainly underestimates the total number of PLOs stationed around the world currently. Direct contact with national police organizations revealed more liaison agreements and postings than those revealed by the internet search. For example, no information about Lebanese police agreements was available on the internet, but an e-mail from Lebanese authorities showed that they actually have bilateral police cooperation agreements with four other countries, and while the internet search showed only four LOs stationed in Lebanon, the e-mail response attested to a total of 15. Similarly, the internet search found just eight Slovak LOs posted abroad, one foreign LO in Slovakia, and a total of eight police agreements between Slovakia and other countries. Direct reporting by the Slovakian authorities revealed, however, a total of 10 Slovak LOs abroad, six foreign LOs in Slovakia, nine foreign LOs in third countries with agreements to work on behalf of Slovakia, and 26 police agreements with other countries. With respect to future numbers, the e-mail replies also point to intentions to increase the numbers of LOs currently posted. Polish authorities predict increases from current numbers of 7–10 LOs to about 15 in the next few years, and Slovakia also reported intentions to open up two additional LO posts in the coming year. During my research, I have also observed that other countries expressed the desire to create more posts, but pointed to budgetary or political restraints preventing this expansion. Overall, the USA seems to have the lead in appointing liaison officers. This is in part because the USA has more than one agency appointing officers, each with a different focus. These include the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, and the Department of Immigration and Naturalization. Among these, the DEA and the FBI are the most well known ones in terms of using liaison officers. The DEA has offices in 62 countries around the world, while the FBI, responsible for serious crimes and terrorism, has offices in 60 countries. With such numbers, both organizations clearly have

Police liaisons as builders of transnational security cooperation 139 already a global reach, but in fact the numbers of American liaison posts is on the rise. Looking specifically at the FBI, in 1992 there were only 16 offices worldwide, but due to increasing international terrorism39 this had grown to 44 in June 2001, when then FBI Director Louis Freeh left the office, and to 57 after 9/11.40 Former FBI director Louis Freeh testified in post-9/11 hearings that “the FBI needed to significantly increase its international role and liaison with our foreign law enforcement and security counterparts”41 and in reference to the 1996 Khobar bombings, stated that he would have done much better if he had “had an FBI agent in Riyadh on June 25th, 1996, when that tragedy occurred, who had the trust and the relationship that the legate had three years later when he set up the office.”42 Though perhaps not quite with the worldwide reach of the Americans, the liaison system is also an important aspect of policing in Europe, both internally between European countries and also externally in establishing relations with other countries. There is of course EUROPOL, a structure based on liaison understanding, in which member countries appoint liaison officers for the purpose of establishing police cooperation between each other. Bilateral police liaisonships between European countries also continue, with Britain, Germany and France taking the leading roles in appointment of bilateral liaison posts. Another region where the importance of police liaisonships against terrorism is increasingly being recognized is Oceania, particularly after 9/11 and the attacks in Bali. The web page of the New Zealand Police announces that establishing new liaison posts is seen as an important step in increasing capability to pre-empt and respond to terrorist attacks,43 and the Acting Deputy Commissioner of the New Zealand Police has said publicly that “International co-operation is vital in responding to terrorist attacks” and that therefore their liaison officer network has been expanding since 2001.44 The international network of Australian LOs gives them reach into virtually every corner of the globe,45 and has been compared in its vastness to that of the USA, with references to the “new regional policeman”.46 In Asia, the ASEAN countries have several efforts focused on improving cooperation on crimes, particularly terrorism, and the exchange of LOs is becoming an important component of this cooperation. The 5th ASEAN ministerial meeting in 2005 focused on the establishment of police liaison officers in the member countries.47 Korea and Japan also contribute to cooperative efforts in the region, and a Xinhua News Agency report in 2004 notes China’s calls for closer cooperation and for greater exchange of LOs.48 The results of this inquiry into the growth of police liaisons reflects at least two important issues. First, while the numbers are on the rise, still, only about a quarter of all countries are able to send LOs to other countries, and only a quarter of those countries have managed to establish liaison posts widely – i.e. in more than ten countries. The USA, France, Britain, Germany, Spain, Italy, Canada, and Australia can be accepted as the leading countries in appointing LOs, and so we can safely say that this is a method used predominantly by western states and by those that are economically strong. Second, it is important to consider the sensitive nature of establishing police agreements and LOs. While sending out e-mail requests for information on LOs,

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the responses were not always positive. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, for example, replied only that police cooperation agreements are classified and that it was therefore not possible to release these numbers publicly. Similar replies were also received from Italy and the Czech Republic. Some other countries however, went out of their way to provide up-to-date and accurate information. What is interesting about this is the varying degrees of sensitivity with which different countries treat the issue of sharing this information. While some states openly place this information on their web pages, others refuse to make the information public for any reason. This fact in itself indicates the gray area in which this type of cooperation takes place. It is not necessarily seen as part of the traditional, completely secretive national security way of thinking, but it is not completely open either. It thus has clearly the potential to be invaded by a national security mentality. If this happens, police liaisons will become a part of international practices, with their age-old limitations for cooperation, such as mistrust. If it can remain a less nationalized, more transnationalized practice, it will remain a powerful potential for cooperation. Conclusion Reflecting the arguments in Chapter 1, this chapter looked in concrete terms at the widening gap between the nature of terrorist activity and the response to this terrorist threat. The widening of this gap has accelerated since the end of the Cold War, as terrorism has become an increasingly transnational phenomenon while the response has remained largely at the international level. Recent efforts of police organizations show, however, that as one of the key actors in fighting against terrorism, they are trying to find ways of closing this gap. Police forces are establishing transnational networks, the most significant example of which is in the deployment of liaison officers. The increasingly informal behaviors of formally appointed liaison officers can be viewed as an example of statist-transnational relations, which is a significant sign of a move into a more post-international era. It is via the police liaison officers that states are showing they have the capacity to go transnational in response to the transnational threat of terrorism. They represent, therefore, a revolutionary change and a sign of states adapting into the transnational world.

Notes 1 Press Release from EUROPOL, 30 August 2002. 2 Cooperation Agreement between INTERPOL and EUROPOL, Brussels, 5 November 2001. 3 Wells, Benjamin W., “Private Jihad: How Rita Katz got into the spying business”, The New Yorker. 29 May 2006. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/05/29/060529fa_ fact (accessed 27 November 2007). 4 http://www.siteinstitute.org/iss.html (retrieved 14 September 2007). Since then the Site Institute has been closed and a new initiative, the Site Intelligence Group, has been established. This information now can be found at http://www.siteintelgroup.org/iss.html

Police liaisons as builders of transnational security cooperation 141 5 For newspaper coverage of this case see R. Canikligil, “New York polisinin Islam fobisini kirdi” [A New York policeman broke the Islam phobia] in Hurriyet-USA; Shulman, R. “Liaison Strives to Bridge Police, Muslim Cultures”. Washington Post, 24 January 2007. Page A02; and S. Witt, “Islam and the 70th Police Pct. – Liaison helps foster understanding between cops and the community.” Kings Courier, 8 February 2007. 6 Interview with Erhan Yildirim, 3 March 2007. 7 Interview with a liaison officer, 26 October 2005. 8 Interview with a Deputy National Police Commissioner, 27 September 2007. 9 Interview on 17 August 2006. 10 Interview on 25 November 2004. 11 Interview on 17 August 2006. 12 Interview on 3 May 2007. 13 A-M. Slaughter, A New World Order, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2004. 14 M. Edelbacher, “Austrian international police cooperation”, in D. J. Koenig and D. K. Das (Eds), International Police Cooperation: A World Perspective, New York: Lexington Books, 2001, (121–128), p. 126. 15 M.H.F. Mohler, “Swiss Intercantonal and International Police Cooperation” in D.J. Koenig & D. K. Das (Eds.), International Police Cooperation: A World Perspective, New York: Lexington Books, 2001, (271–288), p. 277. 16 P. P. Mlicki, “Police Cooperation with Central Europe: The Dutch Case” in D. J. Koenig and D. K. Das (Eds), International Police Cooperation: A World Perspective, New York: Lexington Books, 2001, (217–228), p. 219. 17 J. W. E. Sheptycki, In Search of Transnational Policing: Towards a Sociology of Global Policing, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2002. 18 (Italics mine). This information was retrieved on 28 November 2007 from the web page of the Metropolitan Police: http://www.met.police.uk/so/counter_terrorism.htm, For more information, see also Chapter 9 of this volume. 19 P. McGreevey, “Overseas Links Urged for LAPD”, Los Angeles Times, 9 September 2006; B. G. Thompson, LEAP: The Law Enforcement Assistance and Partnership. http:// www.epic.org/privacy/fusion/leap.pdf (accessed 16 November 2007). 20 Thompson, op. cit., p. 11. 21 Words of a police officer at the NATO conference, Ankara, Turkey, 6 December 2007. 22 http://www.kent.police.uk/About%20Kent%20Police/Policy/n/n95.html. It should also be noted that the Kent police distinguish between “FORMAL” (regulated by national or international law) and “formal” (required by locally negotiated agreements). 23 Personal communication, 18 October 2007. 24 M. Deflem, Presentation at NATO conference, Ankara, Turkey, 6 December 2007. 25 Council decision 2003/170/JHA of 27 February 2003. 26 D. Bigo, “Liaison officers in Europe: New actors in the European security field”, in J. W. E. Sheptycki (Ed.), Issues in Transnational Policing, London: Routledge, 2000, pp. 67–99. 27 E. A. Nadelmann, Cops Across Borders – The Internationalization of U.S. Criminal Law Enforcement. University Park PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993, 109–110. 28 M. Deflem, “International police cooperation in Northern America: A review of practices, strategies, and goals in the United States, Mexico and Canada”, In D. J. Koenig and D. K. Das (Eds), International Police Cooperation: A World Perspective, New York: Lexington Books, 2001, 71–98. 29 O. Marenin, “The Goal of Democracy in International Police Assistance Programs”, Policing, 21, 1, 1998, 159–177. 30 Interview conducted on 15 December 2007. 31 Interview conducted on 22 March 2007.

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32 M. Deflem, Policing World Society: Historical Foundations of International Police Cooperation, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. 33 C. Fijnaut, “The International Criminal Police Commission and the Fight against Communism, 1923–1945”, in M. Mazower (Ed.) The Policing of Politics in the Twentieth Century, Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, 1997, pp. 107–128. 34 Nadelmann, op. cit., pp. 48–49 and pp. 22–24. 35 Deflem, 2002, op. cit., p. 116. 36 The UN Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substance of 1988. 37 P. Andreas and E. Nadelmann, Policing the Globe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. 38 Information regarding police and judicial systems was accessed 14 July 2007 from http://www.INTERPOL.int/Public/Region/Europe/pjsystems/Default.asp, 39 D.L. Watson, Statement before the Select Committee on Intelligence, United States Senate and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, House of Representatives, 26 September 2002. Retrieved 27 November 2007 from http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2002_hr/092602watson.html 40 This information is retrieved 27 November 2007 from http://www.fbi.gov/aboutus/ transformation/international.htm 41 L. Freeh, Statement before the Joint Intelligence Committees, on the subject of CounterTerrorism Efforts and the Events Surrounding the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, on 8 October 2002. 42 Afternoon session of a joint hearing of the house/senate select intelligence committees, on the subject of Counter-Terrorism Efforts and the Events Surrounding the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, on 8 October 2002. 43 Retrieved 14 July 2007 from http://www.police.govt.nz/service/counterterrorism 44 J. Mckenzie-Mclean, “Concern About Police Postings”, The Press (Christchurch, New Zealand) 1 February 2006. 45 D. Torph, “Cybercop Fights in Infinite Terrain”, The Australian, 19 August 2003. 46 I. McPherdan, “Federal Cops Stretched”, PNG Post-Courier, 6 July 2004. 47 H. H. Bui Minhlong, “Yearender: ASEAN fosters intra, outer cooperation”, Xinhua General News Service. 23 December 2005. 48 “China calls for Closer Law Enforcement Cooperation in East Asia”, Xinhua News Agency, BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific, 10 January 2004.

8

Globalizing and localizing counter-terrorism intelligence-sharing Brian Nussbaum

Introduction Understanding changes in the international system is a key to formulating proper policy responses to the changing atmosphere. While much time and theoretical effort has been expended examining the changing nature of threats in order to formulate more appropriate responses; far fewer resources have been expended documenting these responses and attempting to integrate and coordinate them. Intelligence-sharing is a fundamental part of the response to numerous threats to international security, and proper coordination and integration requires a comprehensive and accurate picture of the various agencies and entities that are, and should be, involved. State-level law enforcement and intelligence agencies are widely examined and studied across much of the world, as are, increasingly, the international bodies and norms that enable these organizations to interact. Both “national security” agencies and the arrangements that allow for “international security” coordination are becoming increasingly well theorized and contextualized within the schools of thought in international politics. Unfortunately, a relatively small, but arguably quite important, element of this security response has remained under-documented and essentially un-theorized: local law enforcement and security integration. In order to correct this oversight, several things are required. The first step toward understanding the dynamics of local law enforcement’s role in international intelligence-sharing is to empirically document the fact that local law enforcement is indeed becoming an invaluable part of the broader international security constellation. This is a practice that is only just beginning to be undertaken in the scholarly realm. Perhaps equally important is the second step: situating this phenomenon within the theoretical context of international politics. If the argument is that the increasing role of local law enforcement in international security is an important and meaningful change, then beyond empirical evidence, there exists a need to fit this new trend into existing understandings of international processes and global security cooperation. The goal of this chapter is to document the phenomenon of internationalization of local law-enforcement intelligence integration, and to contextualize it within a series of theoretical lenses that scholars use to conceptualize international relations: Fragmegration, Glocalization and Global City theory.

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In the discussion that follows, “internationalization” is used to refer to local political actors’ adoption of international perspectives and of important roles in the international functional community – an increasingly important aspect of understanding international security. It is worthwhile to distinguish internationalization, as it is used here, from transnationalization. The distinction includes but also goes beyond an understanding of the former referring to state or sub-state local actors and their international activities and the latter referring to non-state actors’ activities beyond national borders. In addition, internationalization includes here a change in the functioning and perspective of a local sub-state actor; a practical and philosophical shift of incorporating goals and tasks with broader geographical characteristics. In this way, internationalization, like that discussed here, is really just one element of the broader concept of transnational relations, as defined by scholars like Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye,1 closer in some senses to their idea of “transgovernmentalism” or to what is referred to in the introduction to this volume as “Statist-transnationalism”.

Threats and responses – globalization and localization It has become widely accepted that, in the modern world, threats are no longer stationary, limited, provincial or discrete. Be it organized crime, trafficking in contraband, proliferation of weapons technology, or terrorism, many of the current threats facing governments around the world are transnational, networked, diffuse and globalized. Therefore it makes sense that traditional responses, those in the vein of “national security” concerns, may be insufficient in dealing with these new threats. Traditional state-level law enforcement is of course ill-suited to deal with criminal or violent enterprises that act more like multi-national corporations than local small businesses. In response, law-enforcement, intelligence and security services have begun responding by internationalizing their response efforts. From formal organizations like INTERPOL, to bilateral agreements, to much lessentrenched information-sharing accomplished through professional consideration, a wink, and a nod, internationalization is increasingly the accepted paradigm in countering transnational threats. This trend has actually been well documented in the scholarly and policy literatures addressing both law enforcement, and to a somewhat lesser degree in intelligence sharing.2 What has been explored far less, and to the detriment of a comprehensive understanding of these dynamics, is the extent to which the increased need for information-sharing and coordination has not only shifted upward from the state level, but also downward. States not only appear ill-prepared to counter transnational networks, but oftentimes they are ill-prepared with the requisite local knowledge to counter the nodes of those networks which exist within their borders. Numerous structures have arisen to incorporate local law enforcement into these areas that now broadly constitute a newly conceived “national security”. However this trend is also not the entire picture. Beyond the increasing importance of local law enforcement at the “national security” level, local agencies are increasingly playing a key role in the wider constellation of international security

Globalizing and localizing counter-terrorism intelligence-sharing 145 coordination. They are certainly not supplanting the state-level organization or agency; however they, as sub-state entities, are increasingly offering an important and nuanced supplement to the networking of international security. There are numerous reasons that this is occurring, including increased local recognition of international threats, a decreasing reliance on national-level partners for information, and several local advantages in terms of competitive adaptation.3 This phenomenon is not universal, rather it is limited to certain localities with particular characteristics, be they demographic, economic, geographic, or geo-strategic. These seemingly opposite trends, internationalization and localization, are in fact not nearly so different as might first be assumed. Rather, they represent two sides of a single coin; the globalization of threats, and the globalization of responses to those threats. Globalization, a rather diffuse term, is often interpreted to mean merely internationalization; however any analysis of the important theoretical examinations of the process show that it is a far more complicated phenomena. In fact numerous theories and theorists of globalization, and its constituent ideas, fit quite well with the two pronged internationalization and localization perspective. James Rosenau’s conception of “fragmegration,” the simultaneous increase in fragmentation and integration, seems a natural fit for this dynamic. The widely cited idea of “glocalisation” is an explicit attempt to illustrate the dual nature of the globalization process by incorporating the word “local” into it. Finally, the Global City concept, discussed by many scholars, and probably illustrated most completely by Saskia Sassen, also seems to be a useful theoretical lens through which to view these developments. The increasing importance of local law enforcement in intelligence-sharing in particular, and the networked future of tackling global threats more generally, is an important and meaningful key to a fuller understanding of security integration in the current era of global politics.

First responders vs. First preventers: the role of local law enforcement Local law enforcement is a key front in the struggle to both prevent, as well as to minimize the impact of, terrorist attacks. In this case, local law enforcement is used to describe those agencies which are responsible for ensuring law, order and security is maintained at the sub-state level; including but not limited to regional, provincial, municipal, and tribal-level agencies. There are several important reasons that these agencies are a natural and important piece of any comprehensive attempt to deal with the threat of terrorism. These agencies offer direct knowledge of the areas and targets that terrorists would operate in or attack. They also will, in most cases, be the first to react, responding and investigating in the early moments following any sort of terrorist incident. Depending on the set-up within a given state, there are often times many more local law enforcement personnel around the country than there are direct law enforcement agents of the federal authority; this difference in numbers results in a force that can act as a force multiplier in terms of intelligence collection, investigations and response. Finally, local law enforcement is increasingly broadening its mission to include counter-terrorism

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as part of an international consensus amongst law-enforcement practitioners, and their devotion of resources to this goal can potentially be leveraged by the broader counter-terrorism community. The term “First Responder” has a long history of use in the emergency management and response community. It is used in several ways, one very specific and another much more general. The first, specific way, is that it is a designation created by the United States Department of Transportation to describe someone who has completed a medical response course that falls between the low training level of the eight-hour First Aid course and the 120-hour Emergency Medical Technician course.4 This meaning, however, is not the way the term is typically used outside the emergency medical community. In the broader emergency-response community, the term First Responder is used to refer to a much larger group of people who would likely be among those who would respond to any major disaster, attack, outbreak or other catastrophic event. This includes emergency medical personnel, fire response, law enforcement, and is sometimes even expanded to include public works, or even private security personnel. Much of the time, money and energy that are expended in preparation for emergencies are used to train, equip, exercise and otherwise prepare this community to respond. However, in recent years, particularly since 2001 and the September 11 attacks, the law enforcement community has begun to take a more nuanced view of their role. While they often continue to see themselves as first responders, the new term First Preventers has become an equally common term. The change, while it seems minor, is in fact very important. Law enforcement, in this case predominantly local law enforcement, has ceased to see its role in counter-terrorism as a response (read: after the fact) role; rather it is increasingly common that law enforcement is incorporating active, and sometimes pro-active, counter-terrorism as one of its core roles. This changeover, of course, varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction; meaning that it is far more pronounced in a large metropolitan city like New York than in small, rural communities. However, despite variations in the intensity of the First Preventer identification, it is not restricted to the largest and most vibrant cities and is increasingly becoming part of the national dialogue on countering terrorism. This is also not a uniquely American change. While the terminology of “first responder” and “first preventer” may be largely American, evidence suggests that similar changes are happening to various degrees within numerous countries, often in response to their own experiences with international terrorism. A long experience with the Irish Republican Army and other groups has led the London Police to see counter-terrorism as a key part of their mission. In response to attacks by Aum Shinrikyo, and the changing threats around the world, the Tokyo Police have incorporated counter-terrorism as a key responsibility.5

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First preventers, law enforcement and the policing of terrorism This conceptual change from first responders to first preventers is important insofar as it draws a community (local law enforcement) into a realm (counter-terrorism) that had previously been solely the realm of “higher level”, in a federalism sense, agencies. However having local law enforcement regard their roles differently may not be enough, in and of itself, to affect any meaningful change in terms of their ability to actually engage in counter-terrorism. This re-conception of law enforcement’s role in counter-terrorism has coincided with several other factors to result in a more serious change in their role. This new perspective occurred at the same time as, and largely as a result of, the political environment that followed the September 11 attacks. The 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the downed United Flight 93 – because of their scale, casualty levels, cascading economic impact, and international profile – have increased public awareness of terrorism threats, resulting in outcry over the inability of federal agencies to detect and foil terrorist plots, and made counter-terrorism a salient political issue. They have also created a situation in which local law enforcement’s attempts to expand their mission to include counter-terrorism has been unpalatable in some places. This change in political atmosphere has also occurred in the wake of a major change in policing strategy and tactics. Intelligence-led policing has been one of the key law-enforcement models (along with community policing) that have characterized the recent technologically and methodologically savvy police force.6 Respect for the intelligence-led policing approach, stemming largely from New York City’s experience with CompStat and subsequent experiences in other cities around the world, is widely lauded in the criminal justice literature.7

Incorporating local law enforcement into national security The incorporation of local law enforcement in “high policing”, or that policing associated with internal political and security threats, is theoretically very important. The dissolving distinction between international and national security in light of transnational threats means that as national security blends into international and local security, this national-level coordination serves an important bridge in bringing locals toward a more even footing with “higher”-level security agencies. However, the involvement of local law enforcement in national security is not the only way in which locals are insinuating themselves into international security coordination. Subsequent sections of this chapter will elaborate on direct interaction betweens locals and international organizations, foreign agencies and the international scholarly and analytic community. Several models have been adopted, in various countries, to incorporate local law enforcement into policing issues typically considered the realm of “national security”. Many of these reflect the particular institutional constructs of the nations in which they exist. Countries with strong national-level law-enforcement

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and security services have less need to create such mechanisms or organizations. However, countries with relatively weak (or in this case small) centralized law enforcement, like the United States, or essentially no national centralized national law-enforcement investigative body, like the United Kingdom, have to find ways to encourage locals to interact with provincial/state, regional, national, and other security agencies. Two models of incorporation worth considering in this vein are the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) model in the United States, and the Regional Intelligence Cell (RIC) model in the United Kingdom. These are examples of mechanisms that enable local law enforcement to concentrate on what has been termed “high policing” or securing the political arena, rather than securing general order and property rights from criminality.

Internationalizing municipal policing Beyond its increasingly important role in “high policing”, local law enforcement is also becoming more involved in the international counter-terrorism community. This phenomenon should not be overstated, cities are not yet on a trajectory to replace states as the major providers of security and actors in international politics. However, it should also not be downplayed. A number of cities, particularly large globalized cities, are increasingly being treated as peers by state-level intelligence and security bureaucracies. These cities, like New York, London and Los Angeles, have high levels of threat, and an ability (or willingness) to confront them head on. Because of their financial and human resources, amplified threat levels and growing political autonomy, these cities are increasingly taking on counter-terrorism as a key municipal role.8 In doing so, they have increased the importance of access to counter-terrorism intelligence; not just from their national-level counterparts, but also from the broader international community. There have thus been expansions and internationalizations of these police forces that have taken many forms. These changes have been relatively well covered by journalists, and to a lesser extent are beginning to be covered in the scholarly literature. These measures include city police officers sent overseas to work as intelligence liaisons, increased analytical interaction with the broader counter-terrorism community, and direct interaction with Inter-Governmental Organizations (IGOs) and International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs). New York The transformation of New York City’s police force, in response to terrorist threats, is perhaps the most extraordinary; as well as, almost certainly, the most heavily documented. The change in the New York Police Department’s structure and staffing has been profound. More than one per cent of the Department’s 40,000 officers now work full-time on counter-terrorism initiatives. These officers include several hundred detectives and investigators, as well as rotating groups of uniformed officers involved with NYPD’s Operation Atlas counter-terrorism program. The changes have also included the introduction of a major terrorism-

Globalizing and localizing counter-terrorism intelligence-sharing 149 related intelligence analysis program, incorporating linguists, a cyber-intelligence unit, as well as many analysts with prestigious academic pedigrees and federal analytic experience. These changes have been widely cited in the press,9 and have even begun to find their way into the academic literature. There have even been some examinations of the structural changes to NYPD for counter-terrorism, and the internationalization of its policing in scholarly journals.10 The internationalization of policing for counter-terrorism purposes has a few components; namely the use of international fact-finding and intelligence-sharing trips, the permanent stationing of liaison officers abroad, direct interaction with IGOs and expanded-intelligence analytic capability. Each of these contributes to the NYPD’s increasing international profile by establishing contacts and enhancing interaction with international partners. In this way the New York City Police Department has established an international reputation and presence, and become one of the most respected local law enforcement agencies in the world. Detectives and intelligence officers from the NYPD’s counter-terrorism and intelligence divisions have traveled extensively to gather information on recent and past terrorist attacks, threats and trends. These trips have included both formal and informal interaction with police and security agencies at both the local, provincial/regional and national levels. The use of fact-finding and intelligence-sharing trips by the NYPD accomplishes several important ends. First, it enables NYPD to quickly gather information without waiting for the same information to be collected, processed, analyzed and disseminated by federal law-enforcement agencies in the US (this removing of the proverbial “middle-man” is much of the reason for the expansion of the NYPD’s intelligence capability). Second, it more closely approximates access to raw intelligence data, because the information is not filtered by federal authorities. Thus, NYPD officers can “ask the New York Question” as police commissioner Ray Kelly describes it; essentially asking whether there is any indication that international events or activities have a nexus to New York City. Finally, it provides the NYPD with relationships and connections to colleagues in other countries that enable future collaboration. Fact-finding and intelligencesharing trips have included destinations like Madrid, Beslan, Mumbai, London, and Istanbul, amongst many others. The NYPD’s liaison program was established shortly after September 11, with the stationing of an NYPD officer at the Metropolitan Police Service at New Scotland Yard in London. This stationing was relatively impromptu, and happened very quickly without any deep bureaucratic resistance or hurdles.11 It quickly grew into a program with international reach, which fulfills many of the same functions as the intelligence- and information-sharing visits. These officers too are tasked with asking the “New York question”, however they do so on a much more consistent basis. Even more so than the short visits, the liaison officers focus on cultivating relationships with security and police agencies. These liaison officers have been stationed in relatively close locales, like Montreal and Toronto, but also in places much further afield like Singapore, London, Tel Aviv, and Amman, Jordan. These postings, done despite initial objections of some federal authorities

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and largely with private funds, are perhaps the hallmark program of the NYPD’s counter-terrorism push. One of the most interesting postings for an NYPD liaison officer is Lyon, France. This officer is tasked with being the NYPD’s representative at INTERPOL, the international policing organization. This direct interaction of a local lawenforcement officer with an international organization which is made up almost entirely of state-level law enforcement partners is quite unique. It’s likely that much of the NYPD’s interaction with INTERPOL is shaded by, or reflective of, police commissioner Ray Kelly’s historical association with INTERPOL. Kelly, following his first tenure as head of the NYPD and some time working for the Treasury Department, served as President for the Americas at INTERPOL.12 Thus, Kelly may be uniquely positioned to both enable local interaction with INTERPOL, but also to appreciate the resources that such a relationship would be able to offer. In this way, Kelly illustrates an interesting point that appears common to the cases of New York and Los Angeles, the importance that particular leaders play in facilitating internationalization. While there is an extent to which Scotland Yard’s program benefited from individual leadership, its internationalization was more a result of structural and institutional opportunities (a lack of national-level law enforcement). The importance of individual leadership in facilitating this change is recognized at the highest level of the NYPD, in fact the kind of fundamental changes that internationalization entailed required leadership that was both “very aggressive” and featured considerable “vision.”13 Finally, the increase in the focus of the NYPD on intelligence analysis is unique; particularly original intelligence analysis that parallels similar work being conducted by federal authorities. The NYPD cyber intelligence unit is well regarded, and has in fact turned up information that was unfamiliar to federal partners who were eager to see it.14 The language capabilities of the 200+ “master linguists” at NYPD are also a resource that have been the envy of many other agencies,15 and actually in some cases have been borrowed by federal security agencies.16 However beyond the analytic capabilities, the NYPD has also conducted extensive analytic outreach. Their analysts too have been traveling abroad and interacting with counterparts from around the world. Mitchell Silber, an NYPD intelligence analyst, described in detail how NYPD intelligence staff worked with colleagues in places like the Netherlands, Germany, and the United Kingdom17 in the production of the publicly released NYPD intelligence report “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat”.18 This analytical interaction is simply another level at which the NYPD is breaking through traditional boundaries in police work. London Like New York, London has a long history with terrorism, and has been innovative and effective in its international response. There are some differences between New York and London, particularly in the political context surrounding new police initiatives. The main difference relates to the fact that law enforcement in

Globalizing and localizing counter-terrorism intelligence-sharing 151 the United Kingdom is structured differently than law enforcement in the United States; with no national-level law enforcement agency in the UK equivalent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The recently created Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA – see Chapter 5, this volume) is supposed to move into that role, however it is unclear exactly the extent to which it will take over responsibility for terrorism, and that changeover has not yet been completed.19 The gathering of counter-terrorism intelligence is the mandate of the domestic security service MI5, however most operational responses to terrorism (including much surveillance and analysis) falls into the authority of local police agencies’ Special Branch sections. These Special Branch units are modeled after the Special Branch unit in London, which is the political crime and terrorism unit of the Metropolitan Police Service; and now part of the broader Counter-terrorism Command (Special Operations 15, or SO–15). Special Branch (formerly SO12) was combined with the Anti- Terrorist branch (SO13), the National Bomb Data Centre, the National Terrorist Financial Investigation Unit, and several other organizations to create the new Counterterrorism Command in 2006. Outside of London the local Special Branch units are supplemented by the Regional Intelligence Cells for analytic and operational support. The Metropolitan Police, however, do not need such assistance, as their huge numbers and vast resources have made them the natural leader of British law enforcement. In this role they sometimes occupy a rather strange dual-position as both the police force for the London metropolitan area, as well as home to several national (or pseudo-national) elements of law enforcement. These bodies or positions are generally funded by the Home Office or Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The Metropolitan Police Services’ internationalization has also occurred along similar lines as New York City’s. There is an international liaison program, as well as links to international IGOs and NGOs. The liaison program in the Counterterrorism Command differs in one fundamental way from that of the NYPD, however, in that its liaison officers have official national status when abroad. Due to the lack of a national-level law-enforcement agency with as broad a mandate as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the officers from the Metropolitan Police serve as official representatives of the United Kingdom law-enforcement community. The International Liaison Service (ILS) of the MPS was born in the wake of Irish Republican Army attacks in continental Europe, and remained a small enterprise well into the 1990s. As recently as the late 1990s, the ILS’s future was uncertain and there were discussions of disbanding it. At the time there were liaisons assigned to Paris, France, Germany and one assigned to the BeNeLux countries (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg).20 In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the attacks in Madrid and London, and the rise of international terrorism as a high-profile issue in international politics, the ILS has expanded greatly. There are now officers in more than 15 countries. Unlike previous incarnations of the ILS, and like the liaison officers from New York City, they now span the globe. Officers are stationed across Europe, in North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Egypt), the Middle East (Turkey), South Asia (Pakistan) Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia) and elsewhere (Australia).

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The internationalization of the Metropolitan Police Service is not solely accomplished by the national liaison officers stationed to interact with local police and security services. It also occurs in an interesting way through Scotland Yard’s interaction with a number of important international and European entities like EUROPOL and the Police Working Group on Terrorism (PWGT).21 Because of the United Kingdom’s role in Europe, there are a host of connections that are available to the MPS (acting on the UK’s behalf). These organizations and mechanisms vary in their formality, for example EUROPOL is more formal than the PWGT. These organizations also vary in terms of how bureaucratic they are, which some members suggest is directly correlated to how formal they are.22 In this case it is a question of whether the organizations have bureaucracies, strict governing rules, and whether they are information/intelligence-sharing arrangements or whether they are designed to facilitate evidentiary exchange for prosecution. The effectiveness appears to be deeply shaded by whether the officers involved feel confident that they won’t be weighed down by unnecessary red tape. One illustration of this is that information shared within the PWGT is for intelligence purposes only, rather than for admission as evidence, and thus useful for preventive counter-terrorism but not necessarily for prosecutions. This is widely seen, amongst practitioners, as a very effective arrangement for what it is intended to do;23 albeit one with limitations for those interested in prosecuting crimes rather than merely preventing terror attacks. Los Angeles An interesting case study, and perhaps one more indicative of most large city police forces than New York or London, is offered by Los Angeles. Los Angeles is clearly a large globalized city with a serious threat of terrorism. However it is not quite as large or economically central as New York or London, and various political, geographical and resource constraints have made it impossible to undertake the same kind of ambitious expansion that the NYPD has.24 That having been said, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and other local law enforcement (like the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department) have begun to internationalize their perspective. They do not have the same resources to devote, and are not as far along as New York; but it is quite clear that the intentions exist, and the steps in that direction are beginning to bear fruit. There is some evidence to believe that, like the case of New York City, much of Los Angeles’ disposition toward internationalization is personality-based. Whereas the combination of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly seem largely responsible for New York’s trajectory; in Los Angeles, another former New York City police commissioner seems to be leading the way: William Bratton. Bratton, the celebrated police commissioner under New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has done much to shape the current LAPD and its counterterrorism posture. For example, the LAPD’s association with the think tank, the Manhattan Institute’s Center For Policing Terrorism, is a result of relationships that he built there before leaving the NYPD.25 Bratton has also been one of the

Globalizing and localizing counter-terrorism intelligence-sharing 153 driving forces in involving the LAPD with police and security agencies around, and perhaps more importantly, outside the United States.26 Despite the major strides that the Los Angeles Police Department and associated local law enforcement have made, these changes do not yet compare to those made by New York or London. However for this reason, Los Angeles may be an even more instructive model in terms of what the broader effects of internationalization will be. New York and London are valuable examples because their order of magnitude and political autonomy are so high that they illustrate the possibilities for local interaction internationally; but Los Angeles, constrained by resource limitations and political hurdles, may indeed be a better example of how this trend is more likely to manifest itself across a wider swath of large urban areas. The Los Angeles example incorporates many of the same elements as New York and London (direct international interaction with foreign colleagues, potential use of liaison agents, connections to IGOs and NGOs, analytic interaction) but in a smaller capacity as dictated by pragmatic requirements of staffing, funding and political realities. The Los Angeles Police Department does indeed interact with police and security agencies and various NGOs both inside and outside the United States, but often in a somewhat more informal way than the NYPD or Scotland Yard. One example of this is that the LAPD and Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department have both sent officers to the United Kingdom for training.27 Also, the Police Executive Research Forum,28 an NGO that enables information and best-practice sharing amongst police agencies (and currently headed by Mr. Bratton), has held conferences, such as one in London in which William Bratton was able to spend time interacting with numerous members of the Metropolitan Police Service, particularly Commissioner Sir Ian Blair. After that conference, Blair stated that the conference would enable the Metropolitan police to build “… upon the continuing close liaison with law enforcement agencies in the US and countries worldwide.”29 Bratton went further, contextualizing this meeting as the “latest” in a series of meetings between US and European police officials designed to foster improved information-sharing. In the lead up to this conference, Bratton had stated that he was considering posting an officer full time in London to interact with the Metropolitan Police Service, in much the same way New York City did soon after the September 2001 attacks. His interest in doing this seems to have stemmed, in part at least, from the experience of his department following the attempted 21 July 2005 transit bombings in London. One of his officers was in London at the time to attend a briefing on the 7 July 2005 bombing which had occurred several weeks earlier. The LAPD officer was able to provide “real time information”30 ahead of even press coverage of the events. It is this kind of early warning and quick intelligence transfer that liaison officers are often most useful for. Beyond interaction through meetings, briefings, professional organizations, and potentially through liaison officers, the LAPD (and the city of Los Angeles’ Law Enforcement Community, more broadly) has also engaged numerous outside communities to help its analytic and strategic planning components. The Los Angeles Terrorist Early Warning Center is the official intelligence fusion center for the Los

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Table 8.1 Speakers at the TEW-hosted conference Organization

Country

INTERPOL

International

International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism (×3)

Israel

Ministry of Police

Israel

Pompandreau Center

Greece

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

International

University of Innsbruck

Germany

Spanish Red Cross

Spain

University of East London

United Kingdom

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Canada

Metropolitan Police (×2)

United Kingdom

Angeles area. Formed in the mid-1990s, the TEW was one of the earliest models of a local fusion center designed to respond to terrorist threats in the United States.31 Like many fusion centers, the TEW combines local, county, state and federal agencies and is designed to be an “all source, all phase multi-agency, interdisciplinary, intelligence fusion center for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Area.”32 The TEW has gone further than many fusion centers in terms of its analytical outreach, involving the private sector, academia, and leveraging contacts in government and other sectors outside the United States. This change is perhaps best understood simply by examining a conference that the TEW hosted entitled “Terrorism, Global Security and the Law”. This conference featured speakers and presenters from a host of private companies, research centers and federal agencies; but what was equally striking was the international character of the participant list.33 It included speakers from a variety of countries, as shown in Table 8.1. While Los Angeles has not begun to internationalize quite as much as New York and London, at least in terms of the stationing of officers overseas, it is clear that Los Angeles has certainly internationalized its perspective on terrorist threats. This changing approach, seeing transnational threats as requiring transnational responses, is not entirely new to law enforcement;34 it is, however, new in terms of the scale and frequency of interaction. The increasing involvement in international law enforcement and security, and the blending of threats between local, national and international levels, creates a new environment in which local actors are becoming a much more effective security network and information-sharing source. The cases of New York, London and Los Angeles, therefore, provide sufficient empirical evidence to suggest that this shift is meaningful and occurring in various geographical, political and organizational contexts. What remains to be explored,

Globalizing and localizing counter-terrorism intelligence-sharing 155 beyond the evidence of internationalization, are as follows: what are the implications for international politics and security, and how can these changes best be conceptualized and understood in the realm of international relations?

Situating new security roles for local law enforcement Assuming that the phenomena of local law enforcement becoming increasingly important to the network of international security practitioners is real, particularly in the realm of counter-terrorism, what then are the implications of this trend for thinking about and understanding international politics and international security? The answer can be found by taking this phenomenon, and examining it through theoretical lenses that are commonly used to understand the world at large. There has been a proliferation of explanations for how and why governance and political processes have changed in our globalized world. Many are not applicable to this particular case, the globalization of local law enforcement, however some offer very valuable insights into what this trend means. These theories do several useful things in conjunction with the empirical evidence of internationalization: • They provide context: they show that local law enforcement is only one of many types of local governance that is expanding and internationalizing; • They illustrate dynamics of change: they explain how broad changes in international patterns result in the needs for differing models of governance; • They provide possible causal explanations as to why some agencies will take on a global character and others will not: they provide insight into why certain types of local agencies, or agencies from certain types of localities, might be more or less likely to undertake international networking. “Fragmegration” James Rosenau understands globalization in a fundamentally different way than many who have chosen to address the topic, defining it as a process of “boundarybroadening” that “allows people, goods, information, norms, practices, and institutions to move about oblivious to or despite boundaries.”35 He sees this in strong contrast to localization, in which boundaries are “heightened” rather than broadened. The implication of this is that localization is a process which inhibits the same movements across boundaries that globalization enables. Not only are these two phenomena linked, but also, Rosenau claims, they are “causally linked” meaning that increases in globalization result directly in parallel increases in localization impulses.36 Globalization is, in his mind, the more profound of these two forces: “globalization and localization will coexist, but the former will continue to set the context for the latter.”37 Rosenau goes on to define these two trends as broader impulses, encompassing numerous dynamics, which lead toward integration (globalization) and fragmentation (localization). By combining fragmentation and integration, Rosenau creates a word that he sees as more conceptually precise than globalization, “fragmegration”,

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which incorporates the two key aspects that Rosenau sees as underlying the buzzword. By explicitly recognizing these two linked, yet conceptually opposite, processes, fragmegration arguably provides a better analytical framework through which to examine the process. Fragmegration also has implications for governance,38 which is the most important way in which it impacts issues of security. One of the key dynamics that results from fragmegration, is one of the key dynamics that is the focus of intelligencesharing and coordinating international security: networking. This decentralizing impulse of authority is a key factor in the decreasing importance of the traditional “national security” state in light of transnational threats. Governments at various levels, faced with threats that do not conform to traditional analytic perspectives are finding that new, less formal, ad hoc networked approaches to integration are the only way to keep pace with the hyper-adaptive networked threats posed by terrorists, smugglers, and other globalized malefactors. The Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) and Regional Intelligence Cell models, adopted by the United States and United Kingdom, are classic examples of governments attempting to respond to threats that don’t fit existing paradigms of response. These arrangements allow the national security services (FBI and MI5) and others to coordinate with local law enforcement. These adaptable and decentralized approaches are becoming the rule rather than the exception. Fragmegration offers a useful analytical tool for explaining the prominent features of how the security practitioner universe is changing: the devolution of some security tasks to local or regional bodies, the increasing turn to networking and networked information sharing, and the increased importance of multi level governance. In this framework, fragmegration accomplishes one of the most important tasks that can be expected from any theoretical framework, it proves fertile ground for explaining changes we see occurring in the real world. “Glocalization” Glocalization is an idea that has, more so than Rosenau’s work, largely been focused on the economic sphere, and to a slightly lesser extent on how the political sphere reacts to the economic one.39 It is, however, quite applicable to various other policy areas, and noticeably in this case, security. Erik Swyngedouw rightfully describes glocalization as an attempt to “recast”40 globalization in a different light; rather than traditional conceptions which have tended to view globalization as sort of international homogenization. “Internationalization, mundialization, delocalization, international competitiveness, cultural hybridization and other more or less fashionable concepts”41 are not as conceptually useful in his mind. The reason being that he defines glocalization as two separate processes that in tandem form a more accurate picture of the way in which the process usually termed globalization works. The first of these processes he describes as one in which: “economic activities and inter-firm networks are becoming simultaneously more localized/regionalized and transnational …”42 While here this process is based on economic activity and inter-firm networks, this process seems to represent what

Globalizing and localizing counter-terrorism intelligence-sharing 157 is occurring in terms of the increasingly transnational nature of threats. Intelligence and security services which were conceived and designed largely to counter state adversaries are less well prepared to deal with serious threats that move upward (transnationalization) and downward (localization). The second process, on the other hand, is characterized largely by the response to the first: … institutional/regulatory arrangements shift from the national scale both upwards to supra-national or global scales and downwards to the scale of the individual body or to local, urban or regional configurations …43 By this he means that governance, in this case focused on economic issues, has to be increasingly coordinated across international borders, as well as in new ways at the local level. This impulse is exactly the apparent trajectory of the spreading responsibility for counter-terrorism efforts. While glocalization scholarship has tended to believe that the regulation that would devolve would be largely economic, the NYPD, the LAPD and the MPS are clear examples of what Swingedouw describes as “regulatory arrangements …” that “shift downward to … urban or regional configurations”. The element of glocalization that may be most applicable to our understandings of the incorporation of local law enforcement into the intelligence and counterterrorism milieu is its emphasis on glocalization as a result of “rescaling economic networks” and as a result “rescaling territorialities of governance.”44 This interaction between the rescaling of economic networks, and the response of rescaling governance is a direct parallel to the kinds of “rescaling” that have occurred with international terrorism and governmental response. While terrorist networks have indeed become more transnational, that overarching network still works to connect and influence small localized operational cells. This combination of international logistics with localized operators needs to be mirrored in government response (“scaled” in Swyngedouw’s terms). The obvious way to do this is to allow international intelligence sharing organizations and protocols to interact directly with local law enforcement. Connections between organizations like INTERPOL and the NYPD are the natural outgrowth of this theoretical approach. This would be a classic example of Kenney’s competitive adaptation by governments in response to similar innovations by transnational adversaries. “Global city theory” In recent years, a growing literature in geography and urban affairs has emerged focusing on global cities (sometimes termed world cities). This literature explores cities that have disproportionate levels of economic, financial, telecommunication, media, and socio-cultural influence in the world system. These cities are not defined by population per se. For example, despite its size, Mexico City is hardly ever considered a global city.45 Instead, global cities are so designated based on their integration with global capital flows, telecommunications networks, and influential industries. It is a functional distinction rather than one based on some

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inherent quality like population or location. These cities are at once the result of and driver of the amorphous concept of globalization. While the networking of these global cities has been studied extensively in the economic area, less effort has been put into examining how these cities might be integrating functionally in terms of regulation and law enforcement. Specifically, this is true in the realm of counter-terrorism. This topic is not completely unexamined. The criminal justice literature has indeed looked at cross-municipal enforcement.46 However, it has not been systematically approached in terms of the idea of global cities until very recently.47 While this distinction may seem somewhat arbitrary, it is in fact of real import. Global cities arguably have a much different set of calculations to make in terms of both the threat of terrorism (London, New York, Paris and Tokyo have seen significant terrorism and Singapore has seen foiled plots), but also in terms of the resources and freedom they have to respond. New York City and Hong Kong not only have differing threat levels than many other cities (even of comparable size perhaps), but they also have a different level of independence from national and regional governance that may constrain some cities in their response. The utility of the global city theory framework for examining the increased importance of local law enforcement involvement in international security is that it shows a very particular case of fragmegration or glocalization, resulting in a unique variation on multi-level governance. This particular dynamic of cities that play an important role as an engine in globalization provides a much needed example and explanation of the increasing importance of local-level governance in international political phenomena. The idea that cities are, in this increasingly globalized age, becoming less “national” and more globalized fits very well with the conception that local-level regulatory and governing agencies (in this case law enforcement) have a growing need to be viewed as legitimate international actors, and require not just recognition, but integration opportunities. Global city theory also provides a strong explanatory variable that might suggest why certain local law-enforcement actors would be important and viable members of international practitioner communities, while others will not. In fact, it appears anecdotally that such global cities do indeed have higher threat levels,48 as well as more likelihood of undergoing this internationalization process.49 By arguing that cities (local entities) with particular economic and political characteristics are integrating into the global system (internationalization) in different ways, there exists a framework to draw on for translating a similar dynamic to security integration. Concentrations of resources (both traditional capital, as well as human capital), political autonomy and higher threat levels all appear to explain why cities like New York and London have local law enforcement that would need to become important nodes in international intelligence-sharing and security arenas, while other less globalized cities might not.50

Globalizing and localizing counter-terrorism intelligence-sharing 159

Next steps and concluding thoughts Clearly each of these theoretical lenses offers a useful perspective in examining at least some facet of the internationalization and localization processes that are becoming increasingly well documented. The next step is not just documenting the phenomena empirically, nor presenting theoretical perspectives that offer potential insight into understanding and contextualizing them; the next step in this nascent research program will be to systematically utilize the theories of international politics, which seem at first glance helpful in improving our understanding, to see whether the realities of internationalization match the expected outcomes associated with the theories. Is increased involvement of local law enforcement in international intelligence-sharing a result of broad geo-political trends like globalization, glocalization, and the like? It seems likely that it is, if not a direct result of such trends, at least strongly encouraged by such changes. However, there are alternative explanations that also need to be examined. It is clear from the cases of New York and Los Angeles, and in a more nuanced way also true of London, that individual political leadership and will at the executive level play a very important role in fostering internationalization. Networks of personal contacts in foreign intelligence and police agencies are also a major factor in enabling locals to interact across international borders. Interestingly, it may be the case that these alternative explanations are indeed the main aspects that enable internationalization, but that they do so within the context of the broader trends. Regardless of leadership and political will, and regardless of the networks of personal contacts abroad, it can be argued that without the proliferation of globalized threats (and dramatic manifestations of these, like the Khan Network and the September 11 attacks) these resources would be wasted. It appears largely to be the case that globalization, and the constituent theories that create its milieu, create the political opportunity for local law enforcement to use those resources that they have internationally. It is important to realize that the cities discussed here are not necessarily directly indicative of the changes to come in most cities. New York, Los Angeles and London are the exceptions rather than the rule. However as key centers of the international economy, as well as centers of terrorist threats, these cases show the changes likely to occur on a much smaller scale in other places. These are, therefore, models of orientation that others may take, while being somewhat exaggerated by their unique economic and geopolitical situation.

Notes 1 R. O. Keohane and J. S. Nye (Eds) Transnational Relations and World Politics, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971. 2 See for example N. Gerspacher and B. Dupont, “The Nodal Structure of International Police Cooperation: An Exploration of Transnational Security Networks”, Global Governance 13, 347–364, 2007; M. Deflem, Policing World Society: Historical Foundations of International Police Cooperation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002; B. Dupont, “Security in the Age of Networks”, Policing and Society 14, 1, 76–91,

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

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B. Nussbaum 2004; N. Gerspacher, “The Roles of International Police Cooperation Organizations: Beyond Mandates, Toward Unintended Roles”, European Journal of Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice 13, 3, 413–434, 2005; P. Andreas, “Redrawing the Line: Borders and Security in the Twenty-first Century. International Security, 28, 2, 78–111, 2003; J. Sheptycki (Ed.), Issues in Transnational Policing. London: Routledge, 2000. M. Kenney, From Pablo to Osama: Trafficking and Terrorist Networks, Government Bureaucracies and Competitive Adaptation. State College, PA, Penn State University Press, 2007. See First Responder curriculum by US Department of Transportation at http://www. nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/ems/pub/frnsc.pdf See Tokyo Metropolitan Police website: http://www.keishicho.metro.tokyo.jp/foreign/ gaiyo2/kouan1.htm See discussion in E. McGarrell, J. Friedlich and S. Chermak, “Intelligence-Led Policing as a Framework for Responding to Terrorism”, Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice. 23(2), 143–158, 2007. D. Weisburd, S. D. Mastrofski, A. M. McNally, R. Greenspan and J. Willis, “Reforming to pre-serve: COMPSTAT and strategic problem solving in American policing”, Criminology and Public Policy, 2(3), 421–456, 2003. For further explanation of the dynamics that enable these expansions see: B. Nussbaum, “Protecting Global Cities: New York, London and the Internationalization of Municipal Policing for Counter-terrorism”, Global Crime. 8, 3, 213–232, 2007. See W. Finnegan, “The Terrorism Beat”, The New Yorker, 25 July 2005. Available at: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/07/25/050725fa_fact2 as well as J. Miller, “On the Frontline in the War on Terrorism”, City Journal. Summer 2007. Available at: http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_preventing_terrorism.html Nussbaum, 2007, op. cit. Metropolitan Police Official. Interview with author. 2 February 2007 at SOCA Headquarters, London. Treasury Department, “Treasury’s Kelly Elected to Top INTERPOL Post”, Available at: http://www.treasury.gov/press/releases/rr2001.htm R. Falkenrath, Deputy Commissioner of the New York Police Department for Counterterrorism, Interview with Author, 18 July 2007. New York City. W. Finnegan, “The Terrorism Beat”, The New Yorker. Available at: http://www. newyorker.com/archive/2005/07/25/050725fa_fact2 J. Miller, “On the Frontline in the War on Terrorism”, City Journal. Available at: http:// www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_preventing_terrorism.html R. Falkenrath, Prepared Statement of Testimony Before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of the United States Senate, 9 December 2006. See Silber’s comments in a 2007 speech at the conference entitled “Homegrown Radicalism in the United States”, Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Audio available at: http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC07.php?CID=367 M. Silber and B. Arvin, “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat”, NYPD Intelligence Division, 2007. SOCA Official. Interview with author. 2 February 2007 at SOCA Headquarters, London. Information regarding the International Liaison Service of the Metropolitan Police Service comes from a series of interviews with Metropolitan Police officials, and documents accessed by the author in February 2007 at New Scotland Yard, London, United Kingdom. Association of Chief Police Officers – Terrorism and Allied Matters (ACPO TAM). (2004) Memorandum by ACPO TAM. Submitted to the European Union Select Committee. Available at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200405/ldselect/ ldeucom/53/4102703.htm

Globalizing and localizing counter-terrorism intelligence-sharing 161 22 Counter-terrorism Command Official. Interview with author. 31 January 2007. New Scotland Yard, London, United Kingdom. 23 Counter-terrorism Command Official. Interview with author. 31 January 2007. New Scotland Yard, London, United Kingdom. 24 For a discussion of the resource and political limitations facing the Los Angeles law enforcement community see: J. Miller, “On the Frontline in the War on Terrorism”, City Journal. Available at: http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_preventing_terrorism. html 25 See his description in: W. Bratton, “Countering the Radicalization Threat: An Intelligence Led Policing Challenge”, Testimony before the House Subcommittee on the Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment, 5April 2007. 26 BBC, “LA Police Ponder London Link Up”, 11 January 2006. Available at http://news. bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4600812.stm 27 See A. Milionis, “Living With the Bomb”, LA City Beat. 5 May 2006. Available at: http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=3688&IssueNum=152 and “LAPD Sends Detectives to UK for Training”, Press Release, 28 March 2006. Available at: http:// www.lapdonline.org/march_2006/news_view/24683 28 http://www.policeforum.org/ 29 BBC, op. cit. 30 Ibid. 31 W. Forsyth, State and Local Intelligence Fusion Centers: An Evaluative Approach in Modeling a State Fusion Center. Thesis at the Naval Postgraduate School. Available at: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/nps/forsyth_fusion_ctrs.pdf 32 Ibid. 33 Los Angeles Terrorism Emergency Warning Group. Terrorism, Global Security and the Law. Association Conference Proceedings. Available at www.terrorstudies. org/2005PROC.pdf 34 See, for example, the details of the murder of NYPD Officer Joe Petrosino in Italy during a 1909 Mafia investigation in: J. Lardner and T. Reppetto, NYPD: A City and its Police. Owl Books, 2001. 35 J. N. Rosenau, “The Complexities and Contradictions of Globalization”, Current History, 96 613, 360–64, 1997. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 J. N. Rosenau, The Governance of Fragmegration: Neither a World State nor a Global Interstate System. Research Network of International Governance, Globalizations and the Transformations of the State. Available at http://www.univ-paris12.fr/fae/regimen/_fich/_pdf/pub_002.pdf 39 Examples include W. Ruigrok and R van Tulder, “Regionalisation, globalisation or glocalisation: The case of the world car industry”, in M. Humbert (Ed.), The Impact of Globalisation on Europe’s Firms and Industries, London, Pinter Publishers, 22–33, 1993; P. Cabus and M. Hess, “Regional Politics and Economic Patterns: Glocalisation and the Network Enterprise”, BELGEO. Special Issue, 2000, 79–101. 40 See abstract to E. Swyngedouw, “Globalisation or Glocalisation: Networks, Territories and Rescaling”, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 17, 1, 2004, 25–48. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. 45 J. V. Beaverstock, R. G. Smith and P. J. Taylor, “A Roster of World Cities”, Globalizations, 1, 2, 2004, 265–277. 46 E. Nadelmann, Cops Across Borders. University Park, PA, Penn State University Press, 1993. 47 B. Nussbaum, 2007, op. cit.

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48 H. V. Savitch, Cities in a Time of Terror: Space, Territory and Local Resilience. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2007. 49 New York and London are considered very global, Los Angeles is perhaps somewhat less so. However there is evidence that other global cities have undergone similar changes in priorities and orientation. See the Tokyo Metropolitan Police website: http:// www.keishicho.metro.tokyo.jp/foreign/gaiyo2/kouan1.htm 50 For a deeper discussion of the economic and political conditions that enable New York and London to internationalize, see: B. Nussbaum, 2007, op. cit.

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Police and counter-terrorism A sociological theory of international cooperation1 Mathieu Deflem

Introduction Sociological work in the area of terrorism and counter-terrorism cannot count on a long-standing tradition but is instead a very recent development in our discipline, which needed the momentous events of 11 September 2001 to be set in motion. Since the events of September 11, terrorism has moved to the center of public attention and has become an important subject matter in politics, law, policing, and many other social institutions. As a result, terrorism and counter-terrorism have also become central topics of research across a multitude of disciplines, including the social sciences and sociology. These new paths of sociological inquiry are potentially very promising, but, in order to ensure more than fleeting interest for the sociology of terrorism and terrorism-related phenomena, they need to proceed on the basis of proven disciplinary insights in theoretical, methodological, and thematic respects. Focusing on the policing of terrorism, this chapter relies on advances in the sociology of social control to contribute to the burgeoning area of sociological studies on terrorism and counter-terrorism in the form of a sociological model of international police cooperation. Specifically, I outline the bureaucratization theory of policing as the foundation of the sociological analysis of the criminal law-enforcement dimensions of counter-terrorism in a variety of organizational contexts. Because contemporary issues surrounding the perceived threat of terrorism essentially cross the boundaries of national states, special attention goes to the international dimensions of counter-terrorism policing, including the distinct focus on the international dimensions of terrorism by local and national police organizations across the world as well as the dynamics of counter-terrorism at the level of international police organizations.

Terrorism and counter-terrorism Within the broad multidisciplinary field of terrorism studies, the dimensions of counter-terrorism have generally been much less addressed than the behaviors associated with terrorist groups and individuals. Strikingly, however, sociologists have more readily contributed to the study of terrorism by means of inquiries of

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counter-terrorism and focused on a variety of institutional dimensions of counterterrorism. Among the counter-terrorism mechanisms and strategies sociologists have begun to analyze are various political, military, and legal aspects of counterterrorism, such as the passing of new legislation in the wake of 9/11,2 the dynamics of terrorism trials3 the role of the military and the connections between terrorism and warfare,4 the declaration of emergency powers and the use of torture.5 Turning to the cultural dimension, sociological work has explored the role of the media in the creation of a culture of fear and collective sense of insecurity that contributed to manufacture a not-always-metaphorical “war on terror”.6 Relatedly, the role of emotions has been explored in bringing popular sentiments in line with government conduct.7 At least two observations are important about the growing sociological literature on counter-terrorism. One, counter-terrorism is not a monolithic entity but, instead, a field that is composed of various players and institutions, diverse strategies and plans, which may not necessarily be, and often are not, in tune with one another. Each of these dimensions, I therefore argue, has to be researched carefully before more general pronouncements can be made about the broad field of ongoing developments of counter-terrorism. This chapter is situated in the sociology of social control to focus on selected aspects of the police aspects of counter-terrorism. Two, building on theoretical developments in the sociology of social control, the sociological focus on the policing dimensions of counter-terrorism is conducted irrespective of any conceptual ties to terrorism, i.e., the policing of terrorism is treated as an aspect of social control as a dependent variable without conceiving of terrorism as one of its necessary independent variables. Based on recent insights in the sociology of social control, the treatment of the processes and institutions of social control as constituting a reality sui generis is at the heart of the present investigation to focus on selected dimensions in counter-terrorism policing. The specialty area of the sociology of social control focuses on the social institutions and mechanisms that define and respond to deviance and/or crime, including the police.8 From the viewpoint of the sociology of social control, terrorism and counter-terrorism are approached conceptually as crime- or deviance- and socialcontrol, respectively, and have been explored as such, especially since 9/11, by sociologists of crime and social control and by criminologists more generally.9

The bureaucratization of policing Drawing on recent theoretical developments in the sociology of social control, research on the policing of terrorism can theoretically be developed on the basis of the theory of police bureaucratization.10 Conceptually informed by the work of Max Weber,11 the bureaucratization theory of policing holds that counter-terrorist efforts at the level of police institutions rest on a formal-rational conception of the means and objectives of counter-terrorism. This process of bureaucratization of the police function takes place across national institutions, as well as at the international level, even though ideological and political sentiments on terrorism can be very intense and divisive within and across national states.

Police and counter-terrorism 165 Social control and counter-terrorism are complex realities, comprised of a multitude of dimensions not necessarily in tune with one another. High-profile terrorist incidents, such as the events of 9/11, led to attempts by national governments and international governing bodies to re-direct police efforts against terrorism in function of political objectives. Yet, because the bureaucratization of modern police institutions is presently at an unprecedented high level, police agencies can be expected to better resist (re-)politicization attempts to continue counter-terrorism activities on the basis of an efficiency-driven treatment and depoliticized understanding of terrorism. The autonomy of police to specify the means and objectives of counter-terrorism policing is at the heart of the present study. Moreover, in terms of the international orientation of counter-terrorist police work, which has special significance in this context because international terrorism is of central concern in current debates, the theory predicts that national and, more broadly, regional persistence marks counter-terrorism policing efforts, even when those efforts explicitly involve international cooperation with police from multiple nations. In the following pages, the theory will first be clarified in general terms and subsequently applied to counter-terrorism policing. Police as bureaucracy Derived from the French term ‘bureau’, meaning desk or office, and the Greek word ‘kratos,’ meaning power or rule, bureaucracy in general refers to the power of administrative offices. The term was originally introduced in eighteenth-century France with a distinctly negative connotation to refer to the rigid manner in which administrative units could make decisions irrespective of their original objectives. A certain negative quality often remains associated with bureaucratization, but the concept is currently also used in a strict analytical meaning to refer to a particular mode of organization. The work of the German sociologist Max Weber has been most influential to introduce this concept and the theories that are derived from it in the area of state and market institutions, including police organizations. Among the principles that guide bureaucratic activity, Weber specified most centrally that the modern bureaucracy operates on the basis of a formal rationality to use the most efficient means given certain specified objectives. Weber conceived of formal or purposive rationalization as the most fundamental process characterizing modern societies. Analyzing the consequences of bureaucratization, Weber devoted most attention to the trend among bureaucratic organizations to achieve a position of autonomy so that the bureaucracy can operate independently from political oversight and popular control. In modern societies, bureaucratization processes have been observed across a wide range of organizations. The consequences of bureaucratization have extended far beyond the organizations themselves and have also affected the nature of governance and of social life in general. Applied to policing, it can be observed that modern police organizations are, as bureaucracies, hierarchically ordered with a vertical structure of a rigid chain of command. Police agencies handle cases on the basis of general rules of evidence collecting and processing without regard to the person and in sole view of the stated

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objectives of crime control and order maintenance. Police work is also routinized on the basis of standardized methods of investigation, often strongly influenced by scientific principles of police technique, such as technically advanced methods of criminal identification and computerized databases. Special problems are involved with police bureaucratization in terms of the tensions that can exist between the efficiency and the legitimacy of police work. The autonomy of policing As I have outlined elsewhere in more detail,12 the bureaucratization theory differentiates between the structural conditions and operational motives of policing. The structural condition of police bureaucratization refers to a position of relative independence from governmental control that police institutions must achieve in order to define police work in professional rather than political terms. When this structural condition of formal bureaucratic autonomy is met, police institutions must additionally define an area of expertise in order for formal autonomy to become operational as well. Operational bureaucratic autonomy is attained when knowledge systems are created and applied in terms of the function of policing as crime control and order maintenance. Historically, police have achieved bureaucratic autonomy, ironically, due to an expansion of police powers for political purposes. Especially in the context of autocratic states in Europe, police institutions were originally set up to further the political goals of governments. Early efforts to organize international police cooperation in Europe in the nineteenth century, for instance, were politically motivated and oriented at tracking down the opponents of autocratic regimes.13 From these political efforts, police gradually developed more autonomously conceived cooperation efforts on the basis of professional expertise. Following Weber’s rationalization theory, I maintain that police institutions gained such a position of relative independence because and when the execution of their duties became guided by formal criteria of efficiency and an impersonal calculation of means, a trend towards instrumental rationalization which Weber equated with modernity itself. The reliance on technologically sophisticated means of criminal investigation is the most concrete expression of this development among police institutions. Under conditions of formal bureaucratic autonomy, police agencies can develop expert systems of knowledge, which delineate the police function in terms of crime control and order maintenance. Police bureaucratization then leads police institutions to become independent in operational respects as well as by etablishing the means for specifying the objectives of their tasks. Concretely, operational autonomy is achieved when police institutions have garnered knowledge (official information) about the state and development of crime on the basis of its implementation of the proper means for its control (expertise). Historically, it can be observed that such developments have been successfully accomplished in many nations that have subsequently achieved a modicum of peace and that, typically, are industrialized and democratically organized. Because of the cross-cultural spread of police bureaucratization, moreover, the process has special implication

Police and counter-terrorism 167 in matters of cooperation. International cooperation among police, indeed, can be accomplished when police of different nations are formally autonomous, and so recognize one another as professional institutions. Then knowledge systems can be developed concerning international crime, including crimes that in their execution traverse the boundaries of national jurisdictions, as well as criminal developments that affect several countries at once, such as the influence of economic modernization on criminal conditions across the world. The extent of control by governments on their respective police forces is variable under specified societal conditions. This condition does not only cross-culturally differentiate police institutions from autocratic and democratic nations but also applies historically to the autonomy police can attain relative to governmental control. In particular, periods of societal upheaval are seen to affect the institutional autonomy of police institutions in functional and organizational respects.

International police cooperation The theory of police bureaucratization accounts for the development of policing at both the (intra)national and international level, a dual focus that should be particularly valuable in research on the police dimensions of counter-terrorism because of the conception of terrorism as having both domestic and foreign components. Because of an increasing trend towards bureaucratization across the world, also, police organizations of different nations have been able to find a common ground to cooperate with one another. International cooperation among police takes on the form of limited collaboration surrounding specific cases, such as the international rendition of fugitives from justice, but has also been organized on a permanent basis in formally structured international police organizations. Under conditions of increased interconnections across states and otherwise confined localities (globalization), the rationalization of policing has unique implications. For not only are police institutions that have attained a degree of bureaucratization more likely to work internationally and engage in various forms of cooperation, international police activities are characterized by a persistence of nationality, with respect to enforcement goals and police methods, in at least three ways.14 First, police institutions will prefer to engage in unilaterally enacted transnational activities, most typically through a system of international liaisons stationed in foreign countries. Unilaterally planned international operations are not always possible because police agencies may lack necessary personnel and means. The police institutions of more powerful nations are at a considerable advantage in this respect. Second, international cooperation among police will typically take place in a bilateral form, between the police of two nations, especially between agencies close in social distance, and will be maintained only on a temporary basis for a specific inquiry or investigation, rather than permanently structured. Third, and finally, even in the case of the formation of cooperation initiatives with wide multilateral appeal, such as INTERPOL, national persistence in international police work is revealed in the fact that multilateral cooperation among police is of a collaborative nature that does not involve the formation of a supranational police

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force. The idea of a supranational police force clashes with conceptions of state sovereignty and police autonomy, whereas a collaborative network among police of different nations can bring about the advantages of international cooperation. International police organizations therefore establish a system of collaboration to facilitate communication and information exchange among the police of various nations by a variety of means, such as regular meetings, systems of communication, and other institutions of cooperation, such as a central headquarters through which information can be routed. The police agencies of national states are thereby affirmed as the partners of cooperation. In consequence of this national persistence, police institutions ensure that international activities are conceived as extensions of the primary function of police to enforce the “laws of the land”. Regional persistence in extra-jurisdictional police work applies not only to (intra)national versus international police work, but can also be observed with respect to the functions and practices of police at other concentrically expanding levels of jurisdiction (e.g., local, state, federal, and international), thus also affecting inter-agency cooperation in functional and jurisdictional respects.

Case studies: INTERPOL and EUROPOL By means of illustration, the value of the above theoretical model of police cooperation can be demonstrated on the basis of research on the policing of terrorism by the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) and the European Police Office (EUROPOL).15 INTERPOL In existence since 1923, the international police organization now known as INTERPOL passed resolutions to combat – at first implicitly, then explicitly – terrorism and terrorist-related activities. These policies developed in a piecemeal fashion from resolutions focusing on criminal acts against international civil aviation and the holding of hostages in the 1970s to a full-fledged Declaration Against Terrorism that passed in 1998. Following the events of 9/11, INTERPOL undertook major new initiatives. A General Secretariat Command and Co-ordination Center was set up and is operational 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And at the Cameroon meeting of 2002, a new global communications project was announced as INTERPOL’s highest priority. This project involves the launching of a new internet-based Global Communications System, called ‘I-24/7,’ to provide for a rapid and secure exchange of data among INTERPOL’s member agencies. The I-24/7 system allows for the searching and cross-checking of data submitted to INTERPOL by the organization’s members over a virtual private network system that transmits encrypted information over the internet. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 fell under the authority of INTERPOL because, as Secretary General Ronald Noble said, the attacks were global. Noble not only referred to the fact that citizens from over 80 countries were among the casualties,

Police and counter-terrorism 169 but also that while the terrorist attacks took place on US soil, “they constituted attacks against the entire world and its citizens”, against the World Trade Center, which “thus represented the world by name”. INTERPOL operates under an article of its constitution that explicitly prohibits the policing of political crimes. However, terrorist incidents are broken down into their constituent parts, the criminal elements of which can then be subjected to police investigations. Likewise indicating a de-politicized understanding of terrorism, INTERPOL also pays special attention to the financing of terrorist activities since it is assumed that the frequency and seriousness of terrorist attacks are often proportionate to the amount of financing terrorists receive. INTERPOL serves in the “limited capacity of a communication network system to assist local law enforcement in locating terrorists”. Therefore, INTERPOL places emphasis on a smooth coordination of and direct contacts among the participating police agencies – though many countries still criticize INTERPOL as being too slow.16 Terrorism has mostly remained a matter regulated, policed, and prosecuted at the national level or on a more limited multilateral scale. This accounts for the development of international anti-terrorist initiatives independent from INTERPOL. In Europe, for instance, counter-terrorism is organized by the Task Force Terrorism in the European Police Office (EUROPOL). Likewise, police agencies at the national level have expanded their anti-terrorism work. Expanded options have been taken, however, to forge cooperation. In November 2001, for example, INTERPOL signed an agreement with EUROPOL to foster cooperation in the policing of terrorism and other international crimes (see below). The focus on foreign terrorist groups rather than domestic groups has led to an emphasis in anti-terrorist activities on citizens of certain countries. Thus, since recently, sources in Arabic are always listed first on the pages of INTERPOL website and all official documents since September 11. The prominence now accorded to the language clearly shows that international police organizations and cooperative arrangements such as INTERPOL reflect the various characteristics of national police agencies, their relative weight on the international scene, and the focus on terrorist groups from Arab nations. INTERPOL pays special attention to establishing direct international police communications that can be used efficiently. But efficiency does not necessarily equate to effectiveness in results. Until recently, the circulation of Red Notices occurred by regular mail. It could take weeks, even months before the Red Notices would reach their destination. Changes were made after September 11. Now, during the first 10 months of 2002, about half of all (968) Red Notices were transmitted electronically, albeit it to only 42 member agencies. A central advantage is that INTERPOL has managed to attract cooperation from police agencies representing nations that are ideologically very diverse and not always on friendly terms politically. For example, shortly after the war in Iraq, authorities from France and the United States agreed to cooperate towards the development of biometric techniques to prevent the forgery of passports as part of their efforts against terrorism, despite these countries’ profound disagreements over the Iraqi conflict. Thus, although ideological and political sentiments on terrorism

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can be very divided in the world of politics and diplomacy, international efforts at the level of police agencies and organizations can be based on a common ground surrounding terrorism through its treatment as a de-politicized crime. EUROPOL In full operation since 1999, EUROPOL is associated with the European Union as the result of a decision by the political and legislative bodies of the Union. EUROPOL’s activities are legally framed and bound to certain areas of investigation. Yet, EUROPOL is nonetheless characterized by a degree of autonomy to determine the specific means and objectives of its policing and counter-terrorist programs and is oriented at an efficient sharing of information among police on the basis of professional standards of policing. Although EUROPOL is formally mandated by the European Union and overseen by the regulatory bodies of the EU, the organization is also dependent in its activities on the police agencies of EU states and these agencies are highly bureaucratized in respect of the knowledge and know-how of their enforcement duties. EUROPOL relies on the participation of existing police institutions in the EU for the staffing of the headquarters and the EUROPOL National Units in the 25 member states. EUROPOL operates within the context of an existing professional culture of policing that is highly bureaucratized. EUROPOL is guided by a formal set of documents that lays out the organization’s functions, but the political decision-making process in the EU can be relatively ineffective in fostering police cooperation. However, while counter-terrorism cooperation at the political level sometimes remains an expression of goodwill with little consequences, police and security agencies can achieve cooperation in practical matters. Also, EUROPOL maintains relations with countries outside the European Union, such as Switzerland, Turkey, Colombia, and the United States, and with other international police organizations. As such, EUROPOL can effectively broaden its mandate beyond the restraints of formal political decision-making. In November 2001, a specialized counter-terrorism unit, the Counter-Terrorism Task Force was instituted at the EUROPOL headquarters. A year later, the Task Force was incorporated into EUROPOL’s Serious Crime Department, but after the terrorist bombings in Madrid on 11 March 2004, it was re-established as a separate entity. EUROPOL’s policing and counter-terrorism operations are organized in the rationalized terms of an efficient control of crime. Besides the creation of the Counter-Terrorism Task Force as a specialized unit and the development of functional programs to combat terrorism, the relevance of instrumental rationality in EUROPOL can also be observed in the organization’s emphasis on efficiency in operations. An emphasis is placed in EUROPOL’s crime-fighting activities on establishing swift methods of communication and information exchange among the participating agencies. The agencies participating in EUROPOL need not contact one another directly but can route information via The Hague by means of an “Information Exchange System” (INFO-EX) that enables encrypted electronic messages. Similarly, EUROPOL’s liaison agreements with the police and

Police and counter-terrorism 171 intelligence services of non-EU nations functions to ease international cooperation across the boundaries of the European Union.

Conclusion International police cooperation has historically primarily involved the exchange of information directly among police of different nations. The centrality of swift methods of exchange has been confirmed throughout the history of international policing until the present era. Among the important shifts have been a turn away from the policing of political violations towards the enforcement of distinctly criminal activities and a move towards the establishment of large multilateral police organizations through which cooperation can be permanently instituted. The development of international police organizations, such as INTERPOL and EUROPOL, however, has not meant that informal developments have diminished in importance. On the contrary, every formal structure of cooperation relies on personal police contacts to be realized into concrete practices of exchange. Importantly, furthermore, the events of 9/11 have implied an intensification of international policing in the area of counter-terrorism as well as with respect to other enforcement assignments. Not only has international police work expanded in scale, it has also been more clearly recognized as an important police function in the light of the expansion of transnational criminal activities. In the area of terrorism, it is presently important to contemplate whether or not this intensification of international cooperation might also involve an increase in cooperation among agencies in the police, military, and the world of intelligence. Such a cross-functional cooperation would make sense given the specific nature of terrorism, but it is not easily accomplished given that enforcement and intelligence agencies tend to cooperate only with functionally similar agencies. The development of cooperation across functionally differentiated organizations involved with counter-terrorism would signal an important shift in international cooperation greatly impacting the future conditions of cooperation.

Notes 1 Parts of this paper are drawn from my book, Policing Terrorism: Crime Control and the Foundations of Global Security, forthcoming from Stanford University Press. I am grateful to the organizers and participants of the conference on intelligence-sharing at Bilkent University for their helpful feedback and support. 2 K. C. Wong, “The Making of the USA Patriot Act I: The Legislative Process and Dynamics”, International Journal of the Sociology of Law, 34, 3, 2006, 179–219. 3 C. Shields, B. L. Smith and K. Damphousse, “Their Day in Court: Assessing Guilty Plea Rates among Terrorists”, Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 22, 3, 2006, 261–276. 4 J. Griffith, “The Army National Guard Soldier in Post-9.11 Operations: Perceptions of Being Prepared for Mobilization, Deployment, and Combat”, Journal of Political and Military Sociology, 33, 2, 2005, 161–177. 5 G. Hooks and C. Mosher, “Outrages Against Personal Dignity: Rationalizing Abuse and Torture in the War on Terror”, Social Forces, 83, 4, 2005, 1627–1646.

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6 D. L. Altheide, “Consuming Terrorism”, Symbolic Interaction, 27, 3, 2004, 289–308. 7 I. Burkitt, “Powerful Emotions: Power, Government and Opposition in the ‘War on Terror’”, Sociology, 39, 4, 2005, 679–695. 8 M. Deflem, Policing World Society: Historical Foundations of International Police Cooperation, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. 9 M. Deflem (Ed.), Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism: Criminological Perspectives. Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance, Volume 5, Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2004. 10 M. Deflem, “Social Control and the Policing of Terrorism: Foundations for a Sociology of Counter-Terrorism”, The American Sociologist, 35, 2, 2004, 75–92. 11 M. Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundriss der verstehenden Soziologie. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1922, 1980. 12 Deflem, 2002, op. cit. 13 Ibid, 45–65, and Deflem 2005, op. cit. 14 Deflem 2002, op. cit. 215–219; Deflem 2004, op. cit. 87–89. 15 See, for more detail, M. Deflem, “Global Rule of Law or Global Rule of Law Enforcement? International Police Cooperation and Counter-Terrorism”, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 603, 2006, 240–251; M. Deflem, “Europol and the Policing of International Terrorism: Counter-Terrorism in a Global Perspective”, Justice Quarterly, 23, 3, 2006, 336–359. 16 For this and other criticisms as based on the perspectives of active police officers stationed at INTERPOL and EUROPOL, see Yon’s chapter in this volume.

10 Adaptive states and the new transnational security regime Ersel Aydinli

There seems little doubt among not only the scholars who have contributed to this volume but among academicians and practitioners in general, that the nature of security threats in the twenty-first century has undergone – and continues to undergo – a change. We are no longer in the era of a world clearly defined on the basis of polarity; a world in which states could be considered both the primary source of insecurity as well as necessarily the primary means of response to security threats. Instead, we are faced with insecurity threats from a far broader range of actors, and along a much wider range of issues than inter-state conflict. Whether we are talking about the very serious potential global threats from environmental degradation, the spread of lethal viruses, or terrorism beyond national borders, it is quite easy to come to agreement on the idea that security threats in the twenty-first century are complex and, if not entirely new in nature, at least new in their global reach and severity. What remains a far more contentious issue is the question of the appropriate response to these new security threats: who or what is best poised to counter them? Using what means? Are new actors emerging to respond to these threats or are traditional actors in the best position to adapt their means and step up to the plate? These questions were the launching points for this volume and for the workshop that brought it about. Both in the workshop discussions and in the preceding chapters, scholars and practitioners have presented their ideas. In order to keep the discussions and chapters cohesive, they have all focused on one particular “new” threat, that of transnational terrorism, and, more pointedly, a specific dimension of the transnational response to it – intelligence cooperation. They have each made comments and arguments specific to a particular focus or case, but various common themes can also be found running throughout the different pieces.

Areas of consensus Despite numerous areas of disagreement, on certain basic issues, a great deal of consensus could be found. As noted above, one clear point of consensus among all participants to the workshop and contributors to this volume, is the idea that current security threats have shifted from a traditional statist nature to a transnational one. Moreover, national security structures designed to counter statist threats must now

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be questioned as to whether they can counter transnational ones. This understanding and subsequent assumption were expressed by all, regardless of professional experience or paradigmatic positioning, and can therefore be said to justify the starting point for this entire volume. Similarly, all participants were in agreement with the idea expressed in Derek Reveron’s chapter, that a critical key to countering transnational security threats is to build up more in-depth cooperation. This cooperation must be accomplished first internally, between and among domestic security agencies, but more importantly, it must be among states, through the sharing of intelligence at the state and sub-state levels. Also a point for consensus and another starting point to the subsequent discussions was the issue of agency: participants and contributors believe there is an agency problem with respect to transnational (in)security governance. While most transnational security challenges originate and/or flourish in the constantly expanding transnational space, states and state capacity have remained primarily effective within the statist/international realm. As discussed in Chapter 1, the resulting gap begs for an institutionalization of security-providing actors for the transnational realm. The dynamics of the transnational space have proven incapable of producing such an institutionalization from within. Private armies, institutes, or various other non-state actors, who claim that they hold the potential to be part of such a response solution, remain, for now, premature. Most importantly, as it was very clearly revealed in the workshop discussions, these non-state responders have yet to establish credibility and legitimacy for such a public service. All of this leaves us with the conclusion that the state – or some form of statist capacity – is the only realistic agent currently able to expand into the transnational space and, by adapting and reorienting itself, counter new transnational (in)security challenges. Finally, a point that was made and agreed upon by all practitioners attending the workshop was that since 9/11, we are in fact seeing a qualitatively different type of transnational security cooperation already taking place. This belief was supported by police and intelligence agents from countries as diverse as Pakistan, Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Russia, and England, just to name a few. They all made the point that far more frequent visits and personal contacts among the sub-state security organizations – and indeed, individuals within them – are having a distinct impact on creating a global culture of cooperation on insecurity issues. They also expressed the belief that this new wave may not be just a temporary one in the wake of 9/11, since such transnational cooperation practices seem to also be having a spillover effect into other areas of transnational security concerns, such as human trafficking, drug trafficking and related forgery networks, and so on.

Obstacles to transnational (in)security governance When we look at the various chapters in this volume and again, consider the discussions at the workshop, another interesting issue that emerges is that of the obstacles cited to establishing transnational governance of security threats. When looking in particular at intelligence-sharing, which would be the core area of

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progress for transnational security cooperation and therefore governance building, it appears that two classic problems of international intelligence-sharing remain major handicaps at the transnational level as well: defection and common goods. The issue of defection was most often linked with the importance of trust between partners, and the issue of common goods arose regularly with respect to questions about who would coordinate and shoulder the costs of any global institutionalized governance of insecurity. It was noted that such concerns and unanswered “common goods” questions for the time being tend to result in states continuing to opt for bilateral engagements. On the question of trust and defection, James Walsh takes a slightly different perspective from the common one that stresses the utmost importance of insuring trust, when he argues in his chapter that the risks of cooperating with a partner with a high likelihood of defection may be offset or even countered by entering into a carefully considered hierarchical relationship. Conversely, this very issue of hierarchy was also viewed by others in the workshop as a negative point. A participant from Spain noted that a hierarchy in intelligence-sharing leads to relations built up in concentric circles, in which different circles have varying degrees of importance or seniority, and so on, and this imbalance is in complete contradiction to the major assumption that global insecurity is now indivisible – and therefore requires everyone’s equally sincere and equally committed help. Yet another participant, representing a Southeast Asian country, made the argument that already “G5 countries are reluctant to share information with non-G5 countries” – a fact that he felt was very much counter-productive if we are to establish transnantional (in)security governance. A third obstacle that was most clearly pointed out by Peter Gill in his chapter on rendition, is the idea that when it comes to new and different, often ad hoc, practices and patterns of security and intelligence cooperation, we find that they remain as yet uncodified and many times fall into the gray areas of international law and legality. This lack of clearly defined rules and procedures carries the potential of allowing these practices to remain non-transparent and may even make them controversial or provoke backlashes. In the effort to establish security governance at the transnational level, such a chaotic and non-transparent structure is a clear obstacle.

Characteristics of an emerging statist-transnationalism Stemming from the discussions and preceding chapters it is also possible to identify a variety of characteristics and strategies that are emerging as signs of an embryonic statist-transnationalism – in the sense of state or sub-state entities expanding into the transnational realm. In general, these can be said to evolve around three main themes: apoliticization, informality, and demonopolization of international security cooperation.

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Apoliticization The first thing that can be said about apoliticization is that, for a future transnational (in)security governance, apoliticization of security exchanges appears a necessary and a good thing. Starting with the transnational threats themselves, it is clear that the less politically defined the threat, and, subsequently, the less politically formulated the countering frameworks and structure, the better the chances are for security cooperation and governance. Time and time again at the workshop, and in many of the chapters in this volume, such as those by Segell, Marenin and Deflem and, more tangentially, those by Yon and Nussbaum, it was made clear that when the focus is less political and, therefore, less contentious – e.g. crime control – the chances for mobilizing and overcoming obstacles to security cooperation are much greater. One can therefore appreciate the complexities and, indeed, risks involved when an agency such as INTERPOL or SOCA allow terrorism to become a part of their mandate. Perhaps most striking were the anecdotal accounts by active police officers of all ranks and positions who, at the workshop, gave examples of how their professional focus on threats as simply “crimes”, made it easier for them to work with police officers from around the world, regardless of political, ideological, gender, or racial differences. When such an apoliticized mentality can be commonly shared, it remains only the criminal who becomes the “other”, and the common target. The police become a common “us”, without allegiances to any particular state or affiliation, and are able to therefore maintain the trust and committment necessary to cooperate fully and effectively. Related to this general importance of apoliticization is the idea that at least among the police intelligence community, a new discourse is emerging. This discourse is again an apolitical one, described by a high-ranking Pakistani intelligence officer as a “new understanding about the nature of the threat and a new realization about the importance of terrorism.” As he and others described it, this new discourse is focused on the case or problem. The problem may be transnationally defined, but at the end of the day it is being dealt with locally and in an apolitical manner. The emphasis of this discourse is a pragmatic, rational one of finding and solving the problem (in this case, transnational terrorism), but ignoring questions of whether one officer’s country is in good political standing with the cooperating officer’s country. Particularly when the discourse is taking place at the sub-state level and via face-to-face interaction (as it increasingly is), we are likely to see use of discourse that is increasingly apolitical and lacking in collective ideologies. Unlike the discourse of foreign-service officers with their more formal, distant diplomatic overtures, face-to-face interaction among cooperating and intelligence-sharing police officers plays up human-centric commonalities – from salaries and retirement plans to personal relationships, cars, and kids – as well as, most importantly, the “badness” (otherness) of the criminals. We may consider this as a rehumanization of security contacts vs. the dehumanization of traditional political security. Yet another development that can be seen as both a hopeful sign and an “apoliticizing” strategy for future transnational cooperation is the growth in transnational education in the form of training courses and workshops for various intelligence

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practices. Police education and intelligence-gathering training are taking place in a number of countries around the world, and are attended by officers from widely varying national backgrounds. New examples noted at the workshop included the OSCE academy in Bishkek, the very active international police training missions for Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Turkish police intelligence academy, that brings in officers primarily from Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. Other established examples, such as the FBI academy training programs, which have been around for a long time, were also mentioned, though, interestingly, even these were shown to be undergoing transformations. In the past, it was noted, police or intelligence officers, often from periphery countries, would be brought in to the FBI Academy and taught about American techniques and styles of investigation. In recent years, it was reported, these same visiting officers are just as likely to be brought in to present to the FBI people their own styles and strategies for success. What was once a one-way knowledge dissemination has increasingly become a truly reciprocal exchange. As noted particularly in Marenin’s chapter, perhaps the most significant aspect to these various training exchanges is that they emphasize and help construct a common culture among the attending sub-state security bureaucrats. The common understandings, discourses, attitudes, and even personal relationships that develop as a result of these training programs is at least as important as the actual content knowledge transmitted during the training, in terms of building up future transnational security cooperation. Informality The second general characteristic to emerge was that of informality. There were numerous reports during the workshop attesting to how face-to-face contacts and cooperation between people involved in security governance have increased in the post-9/11 environment. Moreover, there was a clear feeling among the practitioners that these personal, informal contacts have been leading to a growing reciprocity between states in terms of contributing to and helping out with each other’s security problems. What we see in these personal contacts is a kind of humanization of security contacts and a reversal of the dehumanized nature of national security conversations that generally occurs between countries. In this way, the realm of security, which was once fully an issue of formal, “high” politics, has started to become a part of informal low politics and a realm of daily, local actors. Interestingly, these informal face-to-face contacts that are generally initiated in response to the most urgent terrorist challenges, also appear to give opportunities to the actors involved to discover other venues of cooperation, identify other reasons for cooperation, and thus we see very real signs of a spillover impact in which cooperation on other transnational issues is also being realized. A final positive note from the rise in face-to-face contacts and sub-state connections, is the apparent contribution they make to the issue of trust-building. As such, the growing institutionalization of informality may hold a key role in addressing earlier noted obstacles to cooperation, such as the defection problem and the hierarchy of sharing concern.

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Demonopolization of international security cooperation The third characteristic and pattern that we can see emerging is the overall increase in unconventional institutions becoming part of international relations by participating in the governance of transnational security issues. With their increased presence we see a demonopolization of international security cooperation, away from the days when such practices were dominated by governments, foreign services, and diplomacy. Sub-state entities that have never been a part of political international or transnational struggles are now taking more assertive and primary roles. As highlighted in the second half of this volume, for example, local police departments are now engaging in cross-national security cooperation, both through different forms of liaisonships as well as other innovative practices such as hiring non-professionals in advisory positions or as translators. The actions of these substate entities can be seen as signs of moving beyond national constraints – both physical and ideological – in the effort to address a common problem. This departure from physical and ideological constraints has the potential of contributing to a departure from discursive constraints which also limit international and transnational security cooperation. In this case, the necessity for new kinds of action and the resulting new acts may be the underlying reasons behind new ideas and new ways of thinking. Sub-state organizations and innovative and powerful figures of these organizations have been much more courageous in discarding international constructs, such as secrecy, national interest, bureaucracy, or diplomacy, and by doing so have shown themselves able to surpass national agencies for quicker, more effective transnational security exchanges. Thus we see examples of the FBI moving faster than the CIA, or the New York City Police surpassing the FBI. Such a push by these new actors for transnational engagement may provide some impetus to traditional international agencies to reenergize and reorient themselves into the new transnational security environment. Basically, competition – and a demonopolization of security governance – has the potential of bringing about better, more innovative practices for transnational security cooperation. Finally, it has been noted above and evidenced in the chapters by Yon and Nussbaum, in particular, that the pioneer builders of transnational (in)security governance are, rather unexpectedly and probably unwittingly, the police. Among the police, the very front line is usually the liaison officers. They are the entrepreneurs of a new kind of governance, as they expand into new territories, assume and adapt new types of functions, and all of this with the strength behind them of statist legitimacy, presitge, and capacity. They are the perfect actors to merge the advantages of statism and state capacity with the much needed adapted and evolving mission of transnational security practices.

Bypassing the international with a statist-transnational approach Statist-transnationalism can be described as an approach that promotes taking advantage of statist legitimacy and capacity. At the same time it bypasses

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traditional statist cultures, bureaucracy and practices, which have blocked sub-state entities from exploring and engaging in and therefore building up transnational ties, customs and institutions designed to facilitate a consolidation of a working transnational insecurity governance. Apoliticization, informality and demonopolization of international security practices are the cornerstone characteristics and building blocks of statist-transnationalism. Statist-transnationalism is based on a philosophy that the state, as a political agency, is a human-constructed tool that can be reshaped and reoriented by skillful new sub-state actors with transnational vision and reach. It holds out in the belief that the seemingly inherent resistance against going transnational can be overcome, and that the state can be transformed from within. Success of such sub-state transnationalism has the potential to transform the resilient, conservative cultures and acts of traditional nation state agencies and statesmen, into more innovative-thinking and progressive-acting bodies with respect to transnational security challenges in the post-international political era.

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Index

Afghanistan 3, 7, 23, 30, 33, 44–5, 52–3, 58–61, 71, 73–4, 76, 86, 177 Algeria 44, 151 al Qaeda 2, 7, 23–4, 27, 29, 30–1, 44–7, 51–3, 56–62, 69, 72–3 Anarchists 8–13, 25, 136–7 anti-Americanism 26, 30 apoliticization 175–6, 179 Argentina 17, 107 ASEAN 17, 139 Australia 27–8, 67, 105, 125, 139, 151 Austria 129 Bahrain 27, 31 Bakunin, Mikhail 9, 12 Balkans 28, 102 Belgium 11–2, 54, 130, 151 Bosnia-Herzegovina 36 Botswana 105 Brown, Gordon 72 Bush, George 26, 31, 33, 76 Canada 17, 27–8, 51, 67, 71, 73, 77, 79–80, 103, 109, 131, 139, 149, 154 China 27, 31, 37, 139 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 27, 30, 52, 70–1, 73–4, 76–7, 79 Cold War 1, 23, 25, 28, 36, 66, 116, 140 Colombia 114, 125, 170 cooperation see international and intelligence cooperation counter-terrorism 8, 24, 26–30, 32–5, 37–9, 44, 72, 76, 137, 145–55, 157, 163–4; see also response to terrorism Czech Republic 129, 131, 140 Defection 46–52, 55, 58, 60–1, 175, 177 Denmark 28, 51 Dominican Republic 131

East Timor 105, 107 Egypt 44, 49, 53, 56–8, 61, 71, 151, 174 El Salvador 105 England 12, 89, 93–4, 97, 131, 133, 174; see also United Kingdom European Union (EU) 16–7, 45–6, 68, 84–7, 92–3, 98–9, 109, 170; intelligence agencies in 87; intelligence reform in 85; intelligence sharing in 103, 131; intelligence relations with US 51–6 European Police Office (EUROPOL) 16, 52, 85, 87, 105, 107, 109, 124–5, 127–30, 139, 152, 168–71 extraordinary rendition see rendition Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 24, 27, 29–31, 33, 52, 79, 92, 97–8, 105, 125, 138–9, 156, 177–8 fragmegration 143, 145, 155–6, 158 France 10–3, 51–3, 90, 102, 129, 131, 139, 150–1, 165, 169 Freeh, Louis 29, 139 Georgia 12, 33, 37, 107 Germany 28, 51–2, 102, 129, 131, 150–151, 154 Global City 143, 145, 157–8 Global War on Terror (GWOT) 26–7 glocalization 143, 156–9 Guantanamo Bay 53, 71, 73–4, 76 Haiti 36 human intelligence (HUMINT) 10, 24, 27, 45–6, 60, 62 Hungary 87, 105, 131 Iceland 125 India 44, 59 Indonesia 28, 32, 37, 44, 151

192

Index

information sharing 16, 24, 31, 33, 38, 102, 104, 106–7, 116–8, 144, 149, 153–4, 156; see also intelligence cooperation insecurity governance 4, 179; dynamics of 7–8, 18–19 instability 2; sources of 3, 4, 110 intelligence 7, 17, 23–5, 66–7; agencies 24, 26, 31–2, 47, 57–8, 62, 66–7, 76–8, 80, 85, 88–9, 103–4, 110, 113–7, 143, 171; European agencies 87; nature of 114–5; networks 67–79; UK agencies 94, 99; US agencies 34, 46, 52, 54, 56, 61–2 intelligence community 25, 66, 85, 87, 93, 98–9; US 24, 26, 30, 32, 34–5, 45, 62 intelligence cooperation 24, 31, 57, 59, 66–8, 70, 72, 74, 77–8, 80, 98, 113–7, 119, 173, 175; categories of 27–32, 49; challenges of 34–5, 47–8; and counterterrorism 24–6, 45, 51–61; financial 43–5; hierarchical 48–51, 56–60, 175; in intelligence networks 67–9; lessons from police cooperation 113–4; military assistance 69 intelligence sharing 23, 25, 27–32, 34, 39, 44–5, 47, 49–53, 53–9, 61, 66–7, 87, 103, 115, 143, 145, 149, 152, 158–9, 174–6 see also intelligence cooperation international cooperation 12, 15, 23, 26, 37, 69, 98, 113, 136, 163, 165, 167–8, 171, 174; changes in 26–7, 178; defection in 45–51, 175; examples of 87; informality in 177; internationalization of 143–5, 148–53, 155–6, 158–9; trust in 46, 116, 175 internationalization 3; of security threats 13 International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) 9, 15–16, 68, 87, 105, 107, 124–5, 128–9, 137, 144, 150, 154, 157, 167–9, 171, 176 Iran 31, 46, 49, 60–2, 107 Iraq 7, 23–4, 29–30, 32–4, 44, 52–3, 60–2, 69, 73, 75–6, 87, 126, 169, 177 Ireland 13; Northern 69–70, 79, 89, 93, 96 Israel 23, 33, 60, 115, 131, 149, 158, 174 Italy 10–2, 38, 51, 53–4, 86, 102, 139–40 Jihadists 2, 57 Jordan 29–31, 49, 56–8, 61, 73, 131, 149 Kelly, Raymond 127, 139–50, 152 Kosovo 36, 105, 107

Lander, Sir Stephen 89–90, 95 Lebanon 31, 60–1, 138 liberal theory in international relations 67, 124–7 Libya 28, 31 localization 144–5, 155–9 Luxembourg 16, 151 Malaysia 28, 151 Mali 37 Maritime Commons 37–8 Marx, Karl 11, 116 Mexico 27, 109, 157 MI5 see UK security service Middle East 15, 29–30, 45, 57, 127, 151, 177 Mongolia 33 Morocco 32, 49, 56–8, 61, 71, 75, 151 Netherlands 131, 150–1 New Zealand 28, 67, 139 9/11 see September 11 attacks non-state actors 1–3, 18, 103, 134, 144, 174 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 27–8, 37–8, 52, 68, 78, 115–6, 133 Norway 28, 125 Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) 111–2, 177 Pakistan 27, 28, 30–1, 56, 58–60, 68, 71, 151, 174, 176 Paraguay 17 Philippines 29, 33, 37 Poland 58, 74, 87, 102, 131 police; autonomy of 166–7; bureaucratization of 164–6; cross-national 68; ideologies and models of 112–3; internationalization of 143– 55, liaisons 52, 124–40, 149–50; London Metropolitan 150–4; Los Angeles (LAPD) 150–4; New York (NYPD) 127, 131, 148–54, 157; organizations 126; regional cooperation among16–7, 131; training and education 176–7 police cooperation 84–5, 102–19, 132–4, 139, 167–71; agreements 137–40; conditions for growth of 107–11; framework 124–5; history of 102–3, 166, 171; informality in 132–4; lessons for intelligence cooperation 113–4;

Index sociological model of 163; structures and practices 104–6 private security companies 67, 126, 146 Putin, Vladimir 30, 114 realist theory in international relations 18, 114, 124–5, 127, 130–2, 167 regime; intelligence 118; international 38, 55, 80, 117, 124–5; policing 112, 118; security 104. 106, 110–1, 173–9 rendition 7, 56–8, 61, 66–80, 167, 175 response to terrorism; history 7–17 Romania 58, 68–9 Rosenau, James N. 145, 155–6 Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) 71–3, 77. 154 Russia 12, 26–7, 30–1, 33, 44, 136, 174 Saudi Arabia 27, 29, 79, 105 security assistance 36–7 security sector reform 110 security threat 1–2, 18, 25, 102, 115, 118, 124, 134, 147, 173–4, 176 September 11; attacks 1, 4, 6, 8, 15–6, 23–4, 26, 28–32, 35, 54–5, 58, 61, 66, 68–73, 76, 87, 125, 130–1, 146–7, 149, 151, 159, 163–5, 168–9, 171, 174, 177; commission 32, 115 Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) 77, 84–99, 151, 176 Singapore 28, 38, 131, 149, 158 Solomon Islands 107 Somalia 36 Spain 12–3, 51, 130, 139, 154, 175 statist-transnationalism 19, 23, 85, 104, 144; characteristics of 175–9 sub-state actors 18–19, 127, 131, 144–5, 174–5, 177, 179 Sudan 7, 31 Switzerland 12, 125, 131, 136, 170 Syria 28, 31, 35, 46, 49, 60–2, 71–2, 75, 77

193

Taliban 30–1, 59–60, 71 Thailand 28, 105 Turkey 28, 115, 127, 151, 170, 174 terrorism 163–4; as promoting cooperation 28–32; ‘new’ 5–7, 13; state response to 2, 4, 7–17 transgovernmentalism 18–9, 144 transnational 1–3; actor 1, 3; insecurity governance 174–7; policing policy community (TPPC) 110–3; policing regimes 112; realm 3–4, 7, 174–5; security 18–9, 103–4; trend in security cooperation 124–31 transnational threat 1–3, 8, 14–5, 17, 23–5, 35–9, 79, 102, 110, 124, 130, 134, 140, 144, 147, 154, 156, 174, 176, 178–9; impact on cooperation 23–37; inadequate state response to 144, 173–4; unregulated spaces as source of 3 transnational insecurity governance 174–7 United Kingdom 26–7, 84, 86, 88–9, 93–4, 98–9, 130–1, 133, 148–54, 156, 174; intelligence cooperation with the United States 10–1, 23–4, 26–37, 51, 67, 71–4, 78, 93–4, 96; intelligence reform in 98–9; security service (MI5) 68–9, 74, 77, 86, 90, 94, 151, 156; see also England United States 44–62, 66–8, 73, 75, 80, 103, 109, 146–8, 151, 153–4, 156, 169–70; department of Homeland Security 31; as hegemon 66; intelligence reform in 23–4, 46, 62; intelligence sharing relations of 27–37, 44–62, 72; National Intelligence Security objectives 32–4 Uzbekistan 28, 35 weak states 36, 28 Yemen 26, 28, 30