B. DIAGNOSTICO DE LA SITUACIÓN INICIAL Y ACTUAL DE LA EMPRESA LÁCTEA PROLAD’S
1. Lista de chequeo de la situación inicial de la empresa láctea PROLAD'S
Research practice, methodology & orientation
‘Anyone who sets out to write seriously about Intelligence has to accept in advance certain limitations. Because it has been surrounded with secrecy, which has generated myth, the
subject is ill defined. The very word provokes in different people completely different expectations. Because it has to do with methods and tricks which may be needed again, some think it wise to remind enemies as little as possible of past triumphs and failures. Because so
much of the work goes unrecorded on paper, lost forever in scrambled talk and burnt teleprinter flimsies, any account must be incomplete. One runs, therefore, the risk of arousing
the historian’s interest without fully satisfying his curiosity. I accept that shortcoming because the British… are good at Intelligence and the advantage that this gives them in a world of hostile nation-states should not be discarded. It is one of the qualities which makes us
“alliance-worthy”.’
- Donald McLachlan, UK journalist and former intelligence officer1
[1.0]: Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a comprehensive insight into how this study has been constructed. This chapter consists of three main sections: Firstly, the research practice and approach adopted are evaluated; followed, secondly, by an analysis of the methodology utilised; and then, finally, there is an assessment of the macro-orientation of this study, including which school of Anglo-American relations literature the study fits most appropriately.
[2.0]: Research practice & approach
[2.1]: Limitations when researching ‘intelligence’:
Several challenging limitations confront any scholar researching ‘intelligence’. Starting with (i) the problems encountered when researching intelligence generally, this section will then go on to examine (ii) the specific problems encountered when researching intelligence liaison, and (iii) the problems associated with researching intelligence liaison in a contemporary historical context.
[2.1.i]: Problems encountered when researching ‘intelligence’ generally:
The problems encountered when researching intelligence generally are mainly due to its highly secretive nature.2 As will be seen in Chapter 3, these have arguably contributed towards deterring researchers.3 This in turn has partly helped contribute towards ‘intelligence studies’ being less ‘mainstream’ and more of a ‘niche’ subject. Simultaneously, it is a ‘spin-off’ from fields such as international history to strategic and security studies. This explains why intelligence studies is attractive to academics and to (usually former) practitioners alike, who are keen to adopt an interdisciplinary approach; and who are not simply confinable to the traditional or conventional categories of scholarship – that is, being solely a historian or a political scientist/theorist, or coming from one particular fixed theoretical position.4 Because of the nature of intelligence studies, several areas, such as the focus of interest in this study - intelligence liaison – are, at the least, under-researched and under-theorised, or, at most, they are haphazardly so.5 Increasingly, today, this condition is now at least beginning to be seriously addressed - although there is much scholarship still to be undertaken. The problems encountered, however, should not be discouraging to researchers. Researching intelligence is indeed a difficult and challenging task, but it is by no means impossible - as this study helps to demonstrate.6
Intelligence is not impossible to research for a number of reasons. Firstly, there is a plethora of open sources, which can be utilised by the intelligence scholar similarly to how open source intelligence (OSINT) is drawn upon by the intelligence practitioner. Often the same (or at least similar) sources are drawn upon – such as drawing on media reporting and commentary, or on BBC Monitoring output. Moreover, the number of open sources available for exploitation is proliferating exponentially as time progresses.
Secondly, potential sources have become more accessible, and increasingly instantly. In recent years there has been the continuing trend towards greater ‘openness’ and ‘transparency’ in government affairs and elsewhere.7 The intelligence agencies themselves have not been immune – even partaking in so-called ‘PR’ (public relations) activities themselves to communicate their message in the public domain. These trends have been aided by the rapid technological developments of recent years, such as the Internet revolution. Today, anyone can be an online publisher and communicate their ‘Googleable’ message, such as through a ‘blog’. This vexes governments, who are increasingly anxious about the ability of their personnel to undertake these activities.8
Intelligence is still challenging to research because the ‘openness’ remains governed by differing rules and guidelines. These are always subject to one of the greatest of all fallibilities, human interpretation. The rules and guidelines stipulate
when archives are released, ‘weeded’, or whether they are destroyed.9An episode in 2000, involving The Guardian newspaper’s security and intelligence affairs journalist Richard Norton-Taylor, effectively illustrates the impact of differing states’ ‘openness’ rules and guidelines. This episode also provided some interesting insights into the interpretation, as well as the determination, of what is made available. Norton-Taylor revealed that:
[The Guardian] asked the [UK Ministry of Defence (MoD)] if it would release at least some of the information it insisted must remain officially secret (including information since released by Washington and Nato about the number of tanks it did, or did not, destroy in Kosovo). In an episode which would have delighted Kafka, MoD officials decided to claim they could not release the information since the [Commons defence committee] had agreed to suppress it. Once evidence is provided to a Commons committee it becomes subject to “parliamentary privilege”, we were told. It was therefore up to the committee and not the MoD to decide whether and how it was published. … The committee eventually recorded (dryly): “After a somewhat drawn-out exchange of correspondence between this committee, the MoD and Mr Norton-Taylor, the MoD did review its classification and derestricted some further information.”10
Significantly, this episode involved the UK-US intelligence relationship, hence the appropriateness to cite it here. Norton-Taylor continued, by noting that more recently:
The MoD has agreed to disclose part of an answer given by Group Captain Stephen Lloyd, who was asked how dependent the ministry was on military intelligence provided by the US. We are now allowed to know that Lloyd told the committee that Britain's military intelligence relationship with the US “dates back to the period of 1943. So it is a very strong and very long relationship.” He adds: “***.” We are still not allowed to know officially what kind of intelligence we provide to the US. A question to Lloyd about that remains ***. Yet it is widely known that we give the US a broad range of intelligence, not least through the electronic eavesdropping agency GCHQ, and US intelligence bases in Britain…11
This episode also neatly ties in with the general observation that the US is more ‘open’, if not transparent, than the UK. See the case studies presented below in
Chapter 5, for differing UK and US publicising activities and (albeit arguably slightly more converging over time) philosophies concerning the issue.
[2.1.ii]: Further problems encountered when researching ‘intelligence liaison’:
Intelligence liaison is the ‘most secret’ area of intelligence and is conducted in an ‘invisible world’.12 These observations form the bedrock of the closely interrelated further problems encountered when researching intelligence liaison. There are at least five problems that feature prominently:
Firstly, there is the active official discouragement of the investigation of intelligence liaison. For instance, the entry for ‘liaison’ on the ‘glossary’ page of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) website reveals this official discouragement where it states: ‘It is SIS policy not to comment on its relationships with liaison services.’13 While in the US, according to Steven Aftergood, the author of the Federation of American Scientists’ (FAS) Secrecy News, ‘Liaison relationships between US intelligence agencies and their counterparts in other countries are typically among the most important and the most secretive of intelligence activities. Questioned about them in public, the CIA can hardly be bothered to respond even with a “no comment”.’14 Therefore, an unsanctioned independent analysis, such as this study, might not be entirely welcomed. There are dilemmas, including those of an ethical nature.15 For instance, this study may in itself contribute towards revealing something that complicates the liaison relationship. Whenever complex and intricate trade-offs are involved, such as when conducting intelligence liaison relations, ideally further impediments to the smooth management of the liaison relationship want to be contained, rather than highlighted.
Secondly, when actually undertaking the task of analysing intelligence liaison, the analyst is confronted by a ‘practical’ research problem that needs mitigation. Frequently there is a lack of sources showing intelligence liaison underway in its fastest ‘real-time’ action form. Informal ‘cocktail party’, ‘café’ or ‘sofa’ interactions (such as in the form of fleeting conversations) go unrecorded.16 Occasionally, a publicly available recorded glimpse of intelligence liaison in action - but in more of a ‘slow-motion’ form (such as preserved in the form of a document or e-mail communication) - can be captured. These, however, are usually only ‘released’ into the public domain through the outlet of the media, and due to ‘leaking’ and/or ‘whistleblower’ activities. Therefore, they are a rarity.17
Thirdly, there is obfuscation during the intelligence process. This includes the intentional manipulating or unintentional (accidental) obscuring of the background history and origin of the intelligence liaised over. These processes or procedures (including misinformation and/or disinformation activities18) can significantly complicate the process of source verification - both for intelligence ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. This is especially apparent when the source is ‘incomplete, both shorn of time or place or origin…’19 Any research leads can be muddied. There is also the
abdication of individual responsibility and accountability, as old boundaries are blurred and new ones are constructed.
Fourthly, information management issues exist. There is the determination and selection carried out by the intelligence service participants themselves - or by those closely guided by them - of what content is released and disseminated in the final resulting intelligence product outputted to ‘users’ and/or to the public and archives.20 This forms part of the management of ‘openness’, as already briefly discussed above in relation to the episode experienced by Norton-Taylor.
Fifthly, again closely related to the management of ‘openness’, there is a persisting lack of declassification of official documents in and/or related to intelligence liaison.21 This is especially acutely the case if the specific liaison under- scrutiny is still ongoing, and long-term, enduring, conditional promises have been made to the actor (or any related parties) being liaised with that either the very fact of the liaison and/or any of its details would not be revealed.22 This situation often continues long after the conclusion of the liaison, in case any ‘spin-offs’ or ‘descendants’ from that liaison also may potentially become compromised by disclosure.23
[2.1.iii]: Researching ‘intelligence liaison’ in a contemporary historical context:
The contemporary context makes several of the above restrictions even more acute. In a contemporary historical context, scholars do not have access even to a few selectively declassified primary source ‘official’ documents and papers available in the UK and US National Archives.24 This helps to explain why most literature on the intelligence liaison subject is longer-term historically-orientated (see Chapter 3). The contemporary historian becomes increasingly dependent upon sources such as official strategy documents released for public consumption, the media output and their own semi-structured (elite) interviews they have conducted. A quick foray into the endnotes in the case studies of this study (Chapter 5) reflects those trends. Interestingly, but unsurprisingly given the reconstructions attempted here, the challenges experienced by the contemporary historical researcher closely reflect those encountered on a daily basis by intelligence officers in the real intelligence world. This is along with undertaking the functions of source assessment/analysis and protection, as well as carrying out some of the more mundane tasks, such as data processing vast quantities of material.25
Additionally, compared to other fields of study, the veracity gap encountered is arguably somewhat wider. When studying intelligence, epistemological problems are enhanced and tend to be more persistent. Therefore, naturally some of the conclusions drawn have to be tentative. This is understandable, particularly when trying to study a subject where several of the key documents have not yet been
released - such as those composing the UKUSA agreements. In such circumstances, informed insights are somewhat emasculated. While the conclusions might be arguably less definitive in ‘ground-breaking’ terms, they can certainly compensate by being explorative and more discussion or debate provoking. Thus, useful ‘spring- boards’ for further research are provided. Arguably more contemporary historical studies are less rigidly tied to specific sources. This allows them to be more flexible and for the thinking within them to be ‘softer’ and ‘broader’ in terms of the nature of interpretation. Being less firmly rooted in particular sources may have an added benefit. It may prevent a particular interpretive slant or framing from having an overwhelming effect on the study. For instance, one that is trying to be officially disseminated through what is (eventually) released. As there is less to already conform to, perhaps this situation allows a greater scope for independent originality by the analyst.
[2.2]: Approaches this study adopts:
This study adopts a conventional interdisciplinary hybrid approach. The approaches of a modern to contemporary international historian and an international relations- orientated political scientist/theorist are combined. As Mark Trachtenberg argues: ‘…the key thing is to do the sort of work that can draw theory and history together.’26 All four approaches towards the study of intelligence, as identified by Stafford Thomas, are employed throughout: ‘(1) historical/biographical; (2) functional; (3) structural; and (4) political’.27 A relatively ‘broad’ approach has also been adopted. This is justifiable and defensible for several reasons:
Firstly, a major objective of this study is to bridge and ‘join-up’ in an ambitious manner several issues and concepts. The main intention is to attempt to connect intelligence studies with international relations (IR) theory. Along with intelligence studies as a whole, intelligence liaison is remarkably disconnected from IR theory. This appears most puzzling - not least because of the presence of international intelligence liaison relationships in international affairs. Moreover, palpable is the fact that they perform an important, indeed essential, role in that context, within international relationships, as well as in relation to states’ wider foreign and security policies. Intelligence liaison relationships constitute the international relationships of national intelligence agencies. The subject of international intelligence liaison is therefore the best domain in which to connect IR theory with the wider discipline of intelligence studies. Furthermore, international intelligence liaison involves and includes intelligence alliances, clandestine diplomacy, transnational relationships, and other characteristics, which fit (to varying degrees) into the domain of international relations. This study also seeks to: (i) connect IR theory with contemporary international history; (ii) connect an
analysis of UK-US intelligence liaison with the wider, well-established literature on generic Anglo-American relations – for example that ‘schoolified’ by Alex Danchev and used by John Baylis (see below [4.1]); and (iii) connect (at a minimum as beginning efforts) theories of alliance, bureaucracy and ‘securitisation’ with international intelligence liaison, showing where they fit into the intelligence liaison ‘system’; and (iv) equally demonstrating, more significantly, why individually they are inadequate to explain the amalgamated intelligence liaison concept.28 This necessitates attempts at the theorisation of intelligence liaison itself. Adopting an arguably ‘broad’ approach helps attain this overall objective.
Secondly, another key ‘added value’ purpose of this study is to serve as a useful, long-term enduring and connective reference text, accessible to as wide a readership as possible. It aims to provide an in-depth and a sustained scholarly analysis of UK intelligence in the contemporary context in the form of a full and well-researched academic study. It also intends to demonstrate that this approach is a feasible one to adopt. Such attempts to evaluate UK intelligence in the contemporary context have barely been attempted before, and then frequently do not go substantially beyond figuring in the form of shorter journal or newspaper articles. These only offer occasional and more fragmented insights into contemporary UK intelligence.29 Wherever possible, well-stocked endnotes have been provided throughout this study to further support its aim of being a work with reference utility. Again, the adoption of a relatively broad approach allows the effective conveying of some general observations and lessons. How this study constructs these will now be explored.
[3.0]: Methodology
[3.1]: Methodology deployed:
This study attempts to advance an understanding of (international) intelligence liaison generally and UK-US intelligence liaison specifically in a contemporary context. This is accomplished through attempting a qualitative analysis of UK-US intelligence liaison focussed on a number of key issue-areas from 2000 to the end of 2005. The issue-areas are represented in the study as two case studies, focussing on UK-US intelligence liaison concerning: (i) counter-terrorism and (ii) WMD non- and counter-proliferation efforts. Drawing on the results of the full panoply of methodologies employed throughout, this study also advances some empirically underpinned theoretical observations. These are both deductive and inductive in nature. They also concern the possible theorisation of intelligence liaison, as well as how this might be connected to the more developed literature on the nature of UK- US relations.30
Canadian intelligence scholar Wesley Wark has identified eight methodologies, which are deployed throughout intelligence studies. This study also uses some of those methodologies, notably adopting: ‘(1) the research project – utilizing primary source archival evidence; (2)… the historical project – essentially the production of case-study based accounts; (3) the definitional project… concerned with the foundation of intelligence studies… it attempts to define the subject [in the case of this study, unpacking the phenomenon of intelligence liaison]; (4)… building on [(3)] … the fourth perspective – that is using the case studies to test the theoretical deliberations… [extending to using the methods of] (7) investigative journalism – typically these are on topics for which there are no historical archives available [for example, due to research being undertaken on and in the contemporary context]; … [and] (8) [the] popular culture project… [which] considers … topics such as the politics of James Bond [and the insights the wider spy fiction genre can offer].’31
[3.2]: Methodological components:
The methodological components of this study can be summarised as follows: A qualitative analysis based on case studies, with some small-N (small sample) comparison elements figuring. The case studies are intensive and critical, and are composed of the results from semi-structured (elite) interviews and the outcome from text/documentary analysis.32 The semi-structured interviews are particularly useful for accessing the micro/lower levels of intelligence liaison, notably the operational/tactical and individual (as professional)/personal levels. Furthermore, the interviews can have some added importance. They bring some heuristic value by helping to fill in ‘gaps’ or ‘missing dimensions’ present in the files or documentary record alone.33 Meanwhile, the text/documentary analysis is particularly useful for introspection into the macro/higher levels, such as the ideological/theoretical and strategy/policy levels. Combining both of these methodologies therefore allows the