Christian Jenny*
Introduction – A Changing World
In the 15 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world has considerably changed: Transnational forces are shaping today’s globalized world more than ever. Today transnational threats are truly global as “9/11” and the actors behind al-Qa’ida demonstrate – as if that was necessary. According to the definition of my service, “transnational threats” comprise the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and organized crime – often considered to be “new”
threats, although these are not really new phenomena. But today, their transna-tional dimensions are much more important than they were previously. Climate change, environmental degradation or the population growth and migration do not, however, figure on our radar as transnational threats – rather as transnation-al chtransnation-allenges.
We all live in the same world although we might perceive it and the opportu-nities, risks and threats “out there” differently. Obviously, where you stand de-pends on where you sit or who you are: Switzerland is a small country with
“soft” national interests and a reserved foreign and security policy. What is true for the country also applies to its foreign intelligence service – the Swiss Strate-gic Intelligence Service: Swiss SIS is a small service. Its personnel numbers and finances thus are comparatively limited. Obviously, no organization disposes of too much of both and every organization faces the constant challenge of making ends meet, but compared to larger intelligence services the difference in size is a matter of scales: The US military supposedly has more musicians than the CIA has analysts – the same is true in the case of Switzerland, although, to start with, the number of musicians in the Swiss Armed Forces is much smaller than that of the US military.
*Mr. Christian Jenny is Head of the Proliferation/Terrorism Analysis Branch, Swiss Strategic Intelligence Service (SIS).
Adapting to the Analytical Challenges Posed by Transnational Threats In adapting to the analytical challenges posed by transnational threats, Swiss SIS has faced the challenges of:
- finding and defining a “new enemy”;
- making ends meet, i.e. simultaneously describing “mysteries” and solving
“puzzles”;
- managing the ever-rising volume of available information;
- organizing ourselves properly;
- increasing cooperation;
- finding and retaining the right people to do the job.
Finding and Defining a “New Enemy”
Whereas my – and for that matter our – predecessors during the Cold War faced a single, albeit large and daunting target: the Soviet Union – today, my col-leagues and I face a multitude of smaller, but more imminent targets. My pred-ecessors had to convince their bosses that proliferation and terrorism were rele-vant and thus “worth” looking at. Starting out with a “strategic” outlook, our ap-proach to these threats has over the past ten years become increasingly “opera-tional.” One thing, though, has remained the same: establishing the intentions of the actors behind the threats.
The actors behind the transnational threats specified above – proliferation and terrorism – vary in their characteristics:
– they can range from single actors (lone crazy) to groups (terrorists or pro-curement networks);
– a group actor will be organized in a loose and constantly changing network (such as al-Qa’ida) or in a more hierarchical manner (“classical” terrorist groups, for example ETA);
– it can be a non-state (terrorist group) or a state actor (a procurement agent);
– the actor may act covertly (terrorist group) or (semi-)openly (a procurement agent), or both at different times, depending on the situation;
– an actor at the radical fringes will probably pursue radical aims (furthering
“Armageddon”) and might be inclined to use radical means in order to cause a commensurate impact (terrorist use of CBRN).
Mysteries vs. Puzzles – Making Ends Meet
Intelligence services have two main analytical tasks: illuminating mysteries and solving puzzles – to paraphrase Joseph Nye and Gregory Treverton. In oth-er words: describing an increasingly complex world to decision-makoth-ers and pro-viding the competent authorities with operational support in the framework of export controls and counter terrorism – to speak of my own responsibilities.
De-scribing mysteries and solving puzzles, however, are two separate tasks, requir-ing the analysts to use different information and answer different questions.
Some services clearly distinguish between the two tasks in assigning them to dif-ferent analysts and/or units. It has been suggested to break-up existing large in-telligence organizations into smaller, leaner and meaner organizations that can
“cater” more specifically to the needs of their respective clients.
As my team is fairly small, we cannot fully concentrate on either strategic or operational analysis. While “smallness” has its advantages, this leaves us constantly juggling between the varying demands posed by informing the deci-sion-maker on the one hand and by supporting law-enforcement on the other hand – a dilemma obviously reinforced by the nature of the transnational threats. Namely in times of crises – as only too recently with “3/11” – this reg-ularly forces us to toe the very thin line between doing the desirable vs. doing the possible and nevertheless remaining pertinent also for the decision-makers, as it is them who frame the framework within which we then can support the relevant authorities with operational intelligence. The decision-makers’ gener-ally limited attention span forces us to generate “sound-bite intelligence” – as we called it in my breakout group – while nevertheless basing this on solid analysis.
Managing the Ever-Rising Volume of Available Information
On the one hand, the information revolution of the last decade has led to an inflation of the amount of information available, both from open and classified sources. On the other hand, combining OSINT and classified information can prove very valuable. The plethora of information requires a careful selection of the information made available to analysts. Knowledge management is thus rap-idly gaining importance for analysts and analytic units of intelligence services.
In the case of Swiss SIS, the ever-rising volume of available information re-mains to be matched by an increase in the number of analysts. Nevertheless, fac-ing today’s severe financial constraints, we consider it an important achievement that we have not been forced to downsize. Knowledge management has thus be-come critical and we are in the process of finding and implementing solutions that should help the analysts with their work within the next three to four years – a fairly long period of time in terms of transnational threats.
Organizational Challenges
In analysing and fighting transnational threats, intelligence services – classi-cal bureaucratic organizations – are increasingly facing loose and ever adapting networks. This fluidity can probably hardly ever be matched by governments on an organizational level. One way to address this gap, though, is by limiting the compartmentalization of information to an absolute minimum and to encourage
the sharing of information both intra-service and beyond, inter alia including tapping outside expertise.
In Swiss SIS we have and we are encouraging the exchange between CP (counterproliferation) and CT (counterterrorism) analysts and their regional and technical counterparts. As this is not enough, we are increasing contacts between analysts and source managers (case officers and source managers); we have, how-ever, not yet gone as far as other services in bringing the respective analysts and case officers together in thematic or regional units – rather, we have chosen to create “virtual” units by integrating the respective processes to a certain degree.
Increasing Cooperation
In facing transnational threats, sharing information goes beyond one’s own organization: Information and analysis ought to be exchanged both within the in-tra-governmental and the inter-governmental frameworks (including internation-al organizations). Intra-governmentinternation-ally, this applies to foreign intelligence and domestic intelligence services, law-enforcement authorities as well as policy-supporting bodies on the more operational level. Inter-governmentally, the same bodies should be found involved in this exchange of information and analysis.
Ultimately, this will have to happen in a reflected and efficient manner and in keeping the justified needs of source protection in mind. Nevertheless, intelli-gence could certainly be inspired to a certain degree by the level of exchange among law enforcement circles – especially when we have in mind that in fight-ing terrorists, law enforcement is a crucial partner.
Within the Swiss government, Swiss SIS is the “new kid on the block” in dealing with transnational threats – previously only the domestic intelligence service dealt with terrorism or the proliferation of WMD. The Swiss system has improved over the last years, but there remains room for even further improve-ment, mainly because the institutional anchorage and roles of the respective services have not yet found their way into everybody’s head or daily actions. As Switzerland finds itself largely outside of multilateral intelligence frameworks, Swiss SIS must rely on bilateral relations with partner services. This has its dis-advantages but also its dis-advantages. Cooperation with far larger partner services can sometimes be a major challenge as the example of the Global War on Ter-rorism demonstrates: receiving significant amounts of information, integrating them into our databases, analyzing this information and responding in due time to requests for information is often challenging – especially when keeping the nature of the threat in mind!
Finding and Retaining the Right People to do the Job
The analysis of transnational threats requires a “new” generation of analysts:
scientists, financial experts and regional or language experts with expertise in
ar-eas previously not required. Moreover, in an incrar-easingly integrated world and work environment, today’s analysts need both deeper and wider thematic skills than was previously the case. This is also reflected in the increasingly diverse experiences and skills needed by their managers.
For Swiss SIS this has proven to be a challenge, as we can only recruit in lim-ited numbers and the process of adapting to these different needs has proven to be time-consuming. Compared to other services, the individual analyst who cov-ers a wide field of analysis gains in relative importance. Only time will show, whether we have been able to recruit the right people, retain them and develop their carriers, allowing them to do their job.
Conclusions
I would like to conclude by drawing the following general observations:
– Analysis alone is not enough to face transnational threats, combating is the key to dealing with them. This entails that our analysis must be “actionable”
both on the strategic and on the operational level.
– Fighting transnational threats leads to a blurring of the distinction between foreign and domestic and between intelligence and law-enforcement – govern-ments will have to find ways to further increase the cooperation between foreign and domestic intelligence services, as well as between these and law-enforce-ment authorities (both nationally and internationally).
– As the actors behind transnational threats are constantly adapting, so will intelligence and law-enforcement services face the challenge of continuously ad-justing themselves to their opponents’ modus operandi – i.e. finding ways to ef-ficiently fight loose and ever-changing networks both nationally, within the clas-sical bureaucratic framework, and internationally.