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Conflict Studies Research Centre

Disclaimer 

The views expressed are those of the
Author and not necessarily those of the
UK Ministry of Defence

Modern Intelligence Services: Have they a place in ethical foreign policies? 

Michael Herman 
  

The author is a former UK Intelligence practitioner and since retirement has
been a Gwilym Gibbon Fellow of Nuffield College Oxford and an Honorary
Research Fellow of King's College London and Keele University.  His
Intelligence Power in Peace and War was co-published by Cambridge University
Press and the Royal Institute of International Affairs in 1996.

A version of this paper is being published in Irish Studies in International
Affairs 1999.

Intelligence services are integral parts of the modern state; as Sir
Reginald Hibbert put it in the late 1980s, 'over the past half-century
secret intelligence, from being a somewhat bohemian servant or associate of
the great departments of state, gradually acquired a sort of parity with
them.'[1]They have not withered away with the end of the Cold War.There has
been some reduction in this decade, but not to the same extent as in the
armed forces, and intelligence budgets have recently levelled
off.[2]American expenditure has been declared as $26 billion annually,
around ten per cent of the cost of defence, perhaps with some recent
increases in human source collection.[3]The equivalent British budget is
probably more than ?1 billion, rather more than the cost of diplomacy.[4]

Does this investment pose questions of international morality?Most Western
governments recognize issues of democratic accountability and restrictions
on domestic targeting, but like the rest of the world accept the need for
'foreign intelligence.'[5]On coming to office the present Labour Secretary
of State, Mr Cook, emphasized the ethical dimension of his foreign policy,
but at the end of his first year spoke with unexpected warmth of the
intelligence support he had received.[6]The Clinton Administration sponsored
a study of CIA's ethics, but what emerged focused on intellectual integrity,
not morality.[7]The media makes great play with intelligence leaks,
whistle-blowing and failures, but remains thrilled by secrecy.Its ethical
concerns over intelligence tend to be inward-looking, on its part in what is
criticized as the domestically repressive 'national security state', rather
than on its foreign coverage.The Times pronounced in 1999 that 'Cold War or
no Cold War, nations routinely spy on each other.'[8]

Nevertheless an underlying liberal distaste is evident for 'stealing others'
secrets.'[9]Peter Wright's autobiographical account of his 'bugging and
burglary' of foreign embassies in London is frequently quoted.[10]John le
Carr?'s novels denigratingly portrayed Soviet and Western intelligence as
two halves of the same apple.[11]CIA-bashing remains a world industry, an
element in the bien pensant view that the US is 'becoming the rogue
superpower.'[12]At a more thoughtful level, two British academics have
dismissed all espionage as 'positively immoral' apart 'from certain extreme
cases' (undefined).[13]

This points to a genuine if muted question about intelligence and ethical
foreign policy.An Oxford student recently asked his college chaplain whether
a Christian could apply in good conscience to work in intelligence; what was
the right reply?Intelligence as an institution is an accepted part of the
fabric of international society, but does it make for a better world or a
worse one?Does it make any ethical difference at all?These are questions for
intelligence practitioners as well as governments and publics.This paper
seeks to explore them.

Starting Points

Intelligence has to be judged in the first instance by its obviously
observable consequences.One test is whether it increases or decreases
international tension and the risks of inter-state war.[14]Another, more
topical test is whether it promotes or retards international cooperation in
a world that now has elements of 'a true world community, with global
responsibility for the preservation of a just order.'[15]

Yet judging it solely in this pragmatic way seems incomplete.The code of
conduct that deters individuals from reading each other?s mail does not rest
only on the risks and consequences of being found out, and states are
arguably also bound by more than reciprocal self-interest.The American
authority on the history of codebreaking concluded (even during the Cold
War) that it was 'surreptitious, snooping, sneaking.... the very opposite of
all that is best in mankind.'[16]Kant condemned wartime espionage not only
for its consequences (that it 'would be carried over into peacetime'), but
also since it was 'intrinsically despicable' and 'exploits only the
dishonesty of others.'[17]Ethics is right conduct.The moral absolutist or
intelligence pacifist cannot be kept entirely out of the discussion.

The 'foreign intelligence' to be judged in these ways is basically the
Western model:an institution with some commitment to telling truth unto
power, and some separation from the power itself.Contrary to Bacon's
over-quoted dictum that knowledge is itself power, Western intelligence has
on the whole not sought power or exercised it.Intelligence under communism
and in other authoritarian states has a quite different tradition and would
require a separate critique.But the Western ideal of objectivity is not a
purely regional one, and has some wider currency.Military intelligence
everywhere seeks to know its enemy, and Western intelligence applies the
same aspiration more widely, as part of government by reason rather than
ideology or caprice.It now has a place, albeit inconspicuously, in liberal
democracy's worldwide baggage.However much it is criticized for its
failures, democratic rulers are in trouble with their electorates if they
are known to have disregarded it.

Intelligence on this Western model needs to be considered in its two
different aspects; the knowledge it produces, and the activities through
which it produces it.Their effects differ.Thus the knowledge gained from
Western overflights of the Soviet Union in the 1950s benefited international
security through scaling down some exaggerated Western estimates of the
Soviet threat; yet the flights themselves were threatening and provocative,
culminating in the Soviet shoot-down of the U-2 on 1 May 1960 which wrecked
the East-West Paris Summit a few days later.[18]Knowledge and activities can
be examined separately but then have to be integrated into an ethical
balance sheet. 

Intelligence Knowledge

General Effects
Intelligence knowledge is itself of two overlapping kinds: first, the
product of special, largely secret collection and, second, assessments on
those foreign subjects - mainly bearing on national security - on which
intelligence is the national expert.[19]The common factor to both is some
separation between intelligence and policy-making.

Some of this knowledge has no obvious ethical connotations.Intelligence on
the other side's negotiating positions may have figured in the 1999
US-European Union dispute over banana imports, but if so it is difficult to
see a moral dimension for the intelligence or the diplomatic bargaining it
served.Yet where intelligence knowledge bears on more obviously ethical
issues of international security, justice and humanity it can have some
moral influence on its own account.If truth-seeking by the intelligence
producers is linked with governments disposed to listen, the result is an
improvement in international perception which - arguably - reduces what have
been termed national leaders' 'war-conducive' acts of insensitivity,
thoughtlessness and recklessness.[20]

Of course these conditions do not necessarily apply.Evil regimes are served
by self-seeking intelligence, and even in better states leaders use
intelligence as selectively as domestic statistics.Intelligence cannot stop
governments being wicked or misguided, and it provides no magic key to the
future.But (like statistics) it can do something in favourable conditions
about governmental ignorance and misperception.John Gaddis argues that the
Soviet documents from the Cold War show 'the dangers of making emotionally
based decisions in isolation' when authoritarians do not consult
experts.[21]Recent writing about the Indo-Pakistan crisis in 1999 has
brought out leaders' mutual sense of siege, and the importance of 'methods
of deployment, intelligence capabilities and command-and-control systems' in
reducing the risks of the antagonists' 'nuclear momentum; one hopes that
intelligence in both countries is up to the job.'[22]

Even if this has some credence as a general proposition, good intelligence
can still be accused of applying its own institutional 'spin,' a d?formation
professionelle towards hawkish, 'worst case' assessments.Intelligence is
partly a warning system; and as a former British Joint Intelligence
Committee (JIC) Chairman has put it, it specializes in 'the hard world of
shocks and accidents, threats and crises....the dark side of the moon,
history pre-eminently as the record of the crimes and follies of
mankind.'[23]So it is not surprising if intelligence exaggerates threats and
demonizes enemies.It is bound to be sometimes misleading (again like
statistics)[24], but the charge is that it tends to be misleading always in
the same direction, giving policy and decisions a systemic bias.

Yet historically this is a caricature, not a measured judgement.There is
indeed a danger of military intelligence reflecting the interest of the
military-industrial lobby in increased defence expenditure, as was an
element in the Cold War.Soldiers in any circumstances have to dwell on
'worst cases' since they pay the price of complacency.Intelligence's secrecy
- 'if you knew what we know' - does not make criticism of hawkish
assessments easy.But the overall intelligence record is far more varied than
this image suggests.There are more instances of failing to detect surprise
attacks than of ringing alarm bells for imaginary ones, and as many examples
of underestimating opponents as exaggerating them.Moreover institutional
checks and balances can be devised to provide some safeguards against bias,
as in the way the British JIC system allegedly produces an interdepartmental
synthesis of military pessimism with diplomatic optimism - itself another
caricature, but with a grain of truth in it.International discussion of
intelligence estimates is even more effective in improving
standards.Intelligence can err by striving too hard to be 'useful' to its
customers, but this is balanced by the ethic of professional objectivity,
the practitioner's self-image of exposing 'all those who won't listen to all
the things they don't want to know,'[25] and the importance of international
reputation.The effect over time is that governments that take note of
Western-style intelligence behave as better international citizens than
those that operate without it.[26]

Specific Applications
This conclusion is supported by more specific connections with international
morality, many of them springing from America's world role and its unmatched
superpower intelligence.Intelligence is part of the American security
umbrella over China's and North Korea's intentions towards their Pacific
neighbours.It figures in America's role as international mediator, providing
stabilization and reassurance.As part of the settlement after the 1973 Yom
Kippur war Henry Kissinger undertook to provide Egypt and Israel with
intelligence from regular airborne sorties.[27]The power of satellite
surveillance has subsequently given a new dimension to this part of the
American security tool-kit.The effect of intelligence briefings given to
India and Pakistan in 1990 to prevent their drifting towards war illustrates
intelligence satellites' place in the mana of American power.[28]Similar
intelligence support will presumably be offered to Israel in compensation
for eventual withdrawal from the Golan Heights.

Nevertheless intelligence contributions of this kind to international
security are by no means limited to the American ones, and they extend
beyond specific situations to a group of worldwide and long-term security
issues.Terrorism is one such; the limitation of weapons of mass destruction
and other arms proliferation is another, through the Missile Technology
Control Regime, the Nuclear Suppliers Group and others of this kind; and
international sanctions are a third category of wide-ranging,
intelligence-driven cooperation.International arrangements between
intelligence professionals underpin these political agreements.National
intelligence tips off collaborating nations, or is used to keep them from
backsliding. 

It also supports the many agreements that now exist for arms control and
other confidence-building measures.Historically it bore the main weight of
arms control verification in the Cold War; the US-Soviet strategic arms
control agreements of the 1970s depended entirely on intelligence for
verification, since on-site inspection was still unacceptable to the Soviet
Union.These agreements even had provisions for cooperative displays to each
party's imagery satellites, and limitations on the encipherment of
radio-telemetry from missiles.Astonishingly, the superpower antagonists
undertook in this way to facilitate each other's secret intelligence
collection.[29] 

Arms control and confidence-building agreements now have large symbolic
elements, but where there are real tensions, as between India and Pakistan,
intelligence still operates in synergy with any agreements reached for
transparency.Intelligence triggers treaty-based inspections; inspections
plus declared confidence-building data provide leads for intelligence; each
checks and steers the other.National Technical Means of collection (the Cold
War euphemism for intelligence) were recognized in 1996 in the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty as legitimate triggers for international on-site
inspection.[30]The power of modern intelligence is a prop, perhaps not
sufficiently recognized, for the advocates of nuclear reduction or
elimination. 

Intelligence's most dramatic impact in recent years has however been in
support for international intervention.Iraq since the Gulf War has been a
classic intelligence target of almost Cold War difficulty, and UNSCOM-IAEA
inspections of Iraqi compliance with the Gulf War peace terms leaned heavily
on national intelligence inputs, with as many as twenty nations contributing
data.[31]Action over the no-fly zones and the Kurdish sanctuary has been
similarly intelligence-steered.

Iraq may be sui generis, but Bosnia and Kosovo have represented what seems
the new pattern of intelligence support for international intervention of
all kinds.All those responsible for such operations, from the UN
Secretary-General downwards, have emphasized the need for good
intelligence.[32]A deluge of information is available from the many
non-intelligence sources - the media, diplomatic reporting, deployed
military units, NGOs, international officials - but all concerned echo T S
Eliot's cry in The Rock.

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

National intelligence is relied upon to fill gaps, validate other sources,
and above all assess.The concept of graduated force, surgical strikes, low
casualties and minimum collateral damage is intelligence-dependent.Military
forces deployed in peace enforcement and peace building need virtually the
full range of wartime intelligence support, and providing evidence on crimes
against humanity now adds a whole new set of intelligence
requirements.[33]International intervention is snowballing and - as put in
one of the British agencies' recruitment literature - 'government cannot
make the right decisions unless it has the full picture.'[34]Kosovo has
dramatically demonstrated the paradox of highly public international
operations depending crucially on secret intelligence.

Meeting the need poses many problems.America's leading role cannot be
guaranteed,[35] and in any case other participating nations have to be
accommodated in the intelligence structure.Its intelligence dependence on
America is a current issue for the European Union; coalitions of the willing
need shared information, with some confidence that it is not being rigged by
the US with British connivance.Small powers have the dilemmas posed by
supporting international action while taking others' intelligence
assessments on trust.

Yet the problems should not obscure modern intelligence's ability to deliver
the goods.Satellites' scope is ever-increasing, as is the capability of
high-flying aircraft and drones.So too are the opportunities provided by the
electronic world in which every detachment commander, insurgent leader,
terrorist director, hostage-taker or international drug-dealer has his
mobile phone or communicates via the internet.The cases of collateral damage
in the bombing of Serbia should not divert attention from what the campaign
showed of the power of sophisticated technical collection combined with
precise weaponry.'There are now no places on Earth that cannot be subjected
to the same relentless harrowing...The World Order looks better protected
than it did the day before the bombing began.'[36]

This support for international order may at last be making intelligence
respectable; or at least some intelligence.In her aid programme for
developing countries Ms Clare Short as Britain's Secretary of State for
International Development has endorsed strengthening 'the capacity of
[local] intelligence services to assess genuine outside
threats'.[37]Considering her radical background, this could be taken as
game, set and match for intelligence's ethical justification.

Intelligence Activities 

The Ethical Spectrum
But if this applies to intelligence's knowledge, there is still the problem
of its activities.About 90 per cent of intelligence expenditure is on secret
collection; is this a form of anti-social international
behaviour?Absolutists hanker after a Woodrow Wilson-like world of open
information openly acquired.Pragmatists may have no objection to covert
methods per se but may worry about the effects.International law suggests
some constraints; though actually not many.From any of these viewpoints it
might be held that intelligence's activities undo the good done by the
knowledge they produce.

Here a first approach is to consider the collection methods intelligence
uses, to recognize their variety and broad ethical spectrum.At one extreme
no questions of propriety are posed by intelligence's use of public
information and the results of military and diplomatic observations and
contacts.Something of the same applies to some of its own peacetime
collection, despite the secret intelligence label.Ships and aircraft collect
intelligence in international waters and airspace without accusations of
illegality, as do armies when deployed overseas (though the media always
tags similar civilian observations as 'spying').[38]Satellite photography
violates no international law and is now more or less accepted as a
commercial as well as an intelligence activity.[39]Pace Kant, wartime
intelligence-gathering is free from any legal or moral restraint, except on
the torture of prisoners under interrogation.(There is also a legal concept
of 'treachery,'[40] but it has not yet been applied to intelligence). Yet a
wartime effort has to be operational in peacetime and cannot sit twiddling
its thumbs.  

Other types of intelligence collection and exploitation have less
legitimacy, but are tolerated provided that they remain undeclared.Most
electronic interception is at relatively long ranges and provides no
indication of its precise targets; despite national privacy legislation,
transmission via the ether is intrinsically a public means of
communication.Routine anti-Americanism does not usually extend to condemning
US technical collection.[41]Russia now has a separate and probably effective
code-breaking organization but no-one loses much sleep over it.Armed forces
assume intelligence coverage of them, and diplomats are not fussed by having
their telegrams intercepted.Intelligence collection in these categories does
not seem particularly intrusive.Governments' attitudes to it have echoes of
current American policy over homosexuality in the armed forces:'don't ask,
don't tell.' 

Some other collection has bigger ethical question-marks against it.The
Western overflights of the USSR in the 1940s and 1950s, by balloons as well
as aircraft, were clear breaches of territorial integrity, as was the West's
intelligence collection in Soviet territorial waters, incompatible with
maritime law on innocent passage.[42]There is also the doubtful status of
embassies, as both intelligence targets and intelligence bases.Suborning
foreign embassy staff to provide documents or ciphers has a long history,
but the Cold War added the new dimension of bugging and electronic attacks
against their premises.The new US embassy in Moscow has had to be abandoned,
unused, hopelessly penetrated with microphones and bugs.[43]Gordievsky's
autobiography recounts the claustrophobic precautions taken in the Soviet
Embassy in London.[44]An American diplomat has written with honesty of the
effects on his diplomatic judgement of being under intelligence siege in
Moscow:'it was hard not to let that situation impact on your own view of the
former USSR.'[45] 

The converse of this targeting of embassies has been the development in this
century of 'diplomatic cover' for agent-runners and recruiters, after
diplomats became too respectable to do this work themselves.Some embassies
subsequently became bases for electronic interception; 62 Soviet listening
posts of this kind were reported to be in action late in the Cold War.[46]On
most counts these various features of twentieth-century diplomatic life sit
awkwardly with the 1961 Vienna Convention which governs it.On the one hand
this provides for the inviolability of diplomatic missions and their
premises.On the other it describes diplomacy's function as ascertaining
conditions in the host country by all lawful means, with the stipulation
that diplomatic premises are not to be used 'in any manner incompatible with
the function of the mission as laid down in the present Convention or by
other rules of general international law or by any special agreements in
force between the receiving and sending state.'[47]

Most questioned of all is peacetime espionage, irrespective of any
diplomatic involvement.In reality some human agents are just extensions of
diplomatic sources; governments need some inconspicuous and unavowed
contacts, as with the IRA before the 'peace process.'Others are like
confidential press sources.But the dominant image is of the spy engaged in
deeply concealed espionage.Some even of this espionage is defensive, part of
the conflict between intelligence attack and defence; despite the American
shock-horror over Ames as a Moscow agent in the CIA, his effect was to
reveal US espionage in Russia.[48]Some spies have patriotic or ideological
motives, though avarice and other human weaknesses loom equally large; in
1995 the CIA was restricted over recruiting 'unsavoury' agents.[49]Whatever
the motives, espionage is feared for the damage it can do, and evokes the
reaction associated with the betrayer, the Judas, the traitor, akin perhaps
to the 'moral panic' over some domestic crime.[50]In England the betrayal of
secrets to the Crown's enemies was identified with treason even before the
1351 Treason Act.The same feeling attaches itself to foreign covert action,
for which intelligence is usually the executive agent.The intensity of
Soviet espionage and covert action left a deep imprint on Western attitudes,
reinforcing atavistic fears of the enemy within, and ambivalence about using
such methods oneself.[51]Authoritarian regimes share the fears, though not
the scruples.[52] 

This survey suggests some inverse correlation between ethical acceptability
and the degree of intrusion in intelligence's methods, but the picture is
not clear, and international law does little to clarify it.The laws of war
permit the execution of spies, but wartime espionage is not itself illegal;
'the spy remains in his curious legal limbo; whether his work is honourable
or dishonourable, none can tell.'[53]No one knows what the Vienna
Convention's 'lawful means' and 'rules of general international law'
actually signify for diplomatic collection methods.Violations of national
territory are illegal, but there is no code of conduct for
information-gathering per se.The liberal repugnance for covert means cannot
be discounted, but there is no international law of states' privacy.Moreover
the state cannot defend its own secrets properly without being up-to-date on
offensive techniques; the effective gamekeeper has to be a competent
poacher.  

Thus considering methods in vacuo does not get us very far.In reality the
scale of intelligence operations may be as important as the precise methods
used, particularly since all intelligence tends to be tarred with the brush
of espionage (as in the way the media always refers to the British Sigint
agency, quite inaccurately, as 'the Cheltenham spy centre').Most Western
airborne and shipborne collection around the Soviet periphery did not
infringe national airspace; yet the sheer weight of it probably reinforced
Cold War tensions and threat perceptions.Some 40 American aircraft were shot
down in the first decade and a half of the Cold War, as well as the two
innocent South Korean passenger aircraft much later, with grievous
losses.[54]The political circumstances are equally important; the Indian
shoot-down of a Pakistani electronic aircraft in August 1999 reflected the
state of tension as well as exacerbating it.Ethical judgements probably need
to link methods with scale and cumulative effects, but the nature of the
targets and reasons for targeting are also a factor.

Targeting of Non-States and International 'Baddies' 
Here a shift over the last decade is important.Foreign intelligence is now
directed more than previously towards two relatively new targets.One is the
'non-state' category, ranging from fragmented and dissolving states, through
independence movements, terrorists, international criminals and illegal
dealers in nuclear material, to others at the security-threatening end of
the trading spectrum.The other, linked with the first group, is the small
group of rogue states, exemplified by the Milosevic regime or states
supporting terrorism.Many of these new targets, whether state or non-state,
are either international 'baddies', or actors in scenes of actual or
incipient mayhem.In targeting them most governments have altruistic motives
overlaying narrow national interests, with intelligence's tasking
manifesting ethical foreign policy in a direct way.

Arguably this combination of targets and policy objectives moves
intelligence's ethical goalposts virtually to a wartime position; in a
sufficiently good cause, against such targets, almost anything
goes.Intelligence may be needed on potential victims of violence to effect
their protection.Foreign non-state entities and failed states have no
international rights of privacy, and rogue states have forfeited them by bad
conduct, especially if they are gross violators of human rights.The baddies
are at war with international society, deliberately or implicitly by
rejecting civilized standards, unlike armed force, intelligence does not
kill or cause suffering.Though he was speaking of military intelligence
rather than covert collection, a thoughtful Victorian officer pointed out
that 'the pursuit of intelligence has not, like swollen armaments, any
tendency to bring about war.'[55]

Yet it can still be argued that some intelligence methods are ethically
unacceptable in any circumstances.Using robust methods in special cases may
be seductive; 'the exception would become part of the norm.'[56]Intelligence
may be harmless in itself, but there is a danger of slipping into the
defence that 'guns do not kill people; people kill people.'Whatever the
morality of the bombardment of Serbia, intelligence power was a prime
element, not just an incidental supporter.

Ideally such problems of conscience might be solved by UN mandates.Thus at
the end of the Gulf War the Security Council's request to all states to give
UNSCOM 'maximum assistance, in cash and in kind,' was interpreted to include
intelligence.[57]Yet it is difficult to see the UN leading with ethical
criteria over intelligence methods.Its image is one of rectitude and
transparency, and indeed has suffered from the allegations that UNSCOM cover
was used for covert CIA operations.[58]It can be expected to favour the
'don't ask, don't tell' approach to the sources of the national intelligence
it receives.In the long run the UN will need to sponsor some intelligence
collection and assessment on its own account, in the way UNSCOM had its own
analysis unit plus American U-2 collection at its disposal; but that is a
separate issue.For the time being the absolutist probably has to deal with
intelligence's ethical problems without much UN guidance.

For the pragmatist, of course, the problems on these targets - the
limitation must be repeated - these absolutist concerns do not carry great
weight.The greater the ethical emphasis in foreign policy, the less concern
is needed over intelligence's methods and scale, always assuming that this
collection is necessary.The scale of international suffering and crimes
against humanity is a powerful warrant for intrusive collection, as is rogue
states' sponsorship of terrorism and assassination of their political
opponents overseas.

Targeting of Legitimate States
But most intelligence is still directed against normal states whose
behaviour does not put them beyond the pale, and here other considerations
apply.International society is a society of states bound by cooperation, or
at least toleration; they do not behave as if in a complete state of
nature.The avoidance of inter-state aggression and war remains one of the
world's highest priorities.Governments' reticence about intelligence
collection is not related only to source protection, and implies a conflict
with a tacit code of international behaviour over information-gathering,
albeit a shadowy one.Some states with particularly close relationships
refrain from regular covert collection against each other; much as they
would like it, the US and Canada probably do not tap each other's telephones
to get access to the other's bottom line in their many economic and other
negotiations.Even where special relationships do not exist, responsible
states think twice about using the more intrusive and risky intelligence
methods against others; not all states are fair game for anything.Even
against antagonists, issues of prudence arise over covert operations which
(if discovered) will be taken as insults or confirmations of hostility.Cold
War documents show British Ministers balancing the intelligence benefits
from airborne collection, including U-2 flights based on Britain, against
the effects on Anglo-Soviet relations.[59]

Of course states' behaviour depends on the facts of particular cases: the
targets, the methods and the risks of being found out.But generally speaking
it has not been assumed in the West that peacetime intelligence had
complete carte blanche, whether the targets were friendly states or
unfriendly ones.Vestiges persist of British Victorian rectitude over covert
methods and the pre-Second World War American maxim that 'gentlemen don't
read each other?s mail', even though neither has been observed with any
consistency (and the American quotation was a post-1945
rationalization).[60]

These inhibitions exist; yet over the last decade they do not seem to have
significantly limited intelligence's scale and methods.Press reports suggest
the opposite; more espionage cases hit the media now than in the Cold
War.Most of the permanent members of the Security Council have been accused
of spying on each other, and membership of the European Union does not seem
to convey immunity from being targeted by fellow-members.Russia seems to
have sought an intelligence d?tente in the early 1990s - the last head of
the KGB handed over the bugging plans for the new US Moscow embassy; there
was some release of Soviet intelligence records; public statements claimed
that its successor Foreign Intelligence Service was contracting its overseas
collection and sought international cooperation[61] - but this period has
now passed.The KGB's foreign intelligence successors are now flourishing,
active and influential, and China's coup in acquiring American nuclear
secrets is said to rival the Soviet successes of the 1940s.The Russian
Federal Security Service claimed to have caught 11 foreign agents and
thwarted 39 attempts to send secret information abroad in the first half of
1997.[62]Other countries are following these leads.Early in the 1990s a
respected historian foresaw that claimants to regional dominance would seek
superiority in intelligence collection, producing 'upward spirals and a new
intelligence war.'[63]Reports that intelligence expenditure in the Far East
had doubled from the end of the Cold War to 1997 may support his prognosis,
as has the Chinese and North Korean concern reported over Japanese proposals
to launch intelligence satellites within four or five years.[64] The media
may exaggerate, but it seems that the global Information Age has in no way
reduced states' interest in acquiring others' secrets. 

Does It Matter? 
Does this affect inter-state relationships?Much of it is accepted as part of
the international system.Except in special relationships, intelligence
collaboration between states has never been seen to rule out some discreet
targeting of each other.It cannot be demonstrated that collection on either
friends or enemies has affected the climate of the 1990s.Its economic
espionage has not caused France to be blackballed in the European
Union.Intelligence threats have not consistently increased military
confrontation in Korea, South Asia or South Lebanon, and did not provoke the
war between Eritrea and Ethiopia.Conventional wisdom tolerates espionage
on The Times' grounds that everybody does it.

Yet it seems unrealistic to exclude intelligence from the unquantifiable
grit of international friction.Collection is necessarily against someone;
attack necessitates defence.Even if collection has been somewhat reduced
from the Cold War scale, it is difficult to believe that its more intrusive
aspects do not have cumulative effects in reinforcing conflicts and
impairing international cooperation.The targeting of diplomacy, and the
facilities which diplomacy itself provides for intelligence, hardly promote
the diplomatic function described by Alan James as 'the communications
system of the international society.'[65]Ernest Bevin as Foreign Secretary
said that a better world would involve being able to cross the Channel
without a passport; his modern successors might say that it would involve
discussing secrets abroad without worrying about foreign bugging.Being able
to operate without reckoning with covert intelligence attacks may be a
factor - if only a minor one - in the special quality of the
English-speaking transatlantic and Old Commonwealth relationships, and
perhaps of those of the Scandinavian countries.Intelligence-gathering within
the EU hardly makes it easier for it to stagger towards its Common Foreign
and Security Policy.Espionage is said to be a factor in the low state of
US-Chinese relations.[66]Most important of all, the continuation of the Cold
War pattern of intelligence attack and defence surely has some influence on
relationships between Russia on the one hand and the US plus NATO on the
other.[67] 

Perhaps the more open modern world helps to make covert intelligence more
disturbing.In the age of worldwide investigative journalism intelligence is
now far more exposed than formerly; few secrets remain secrets.Foreign
policies are now more influenced by domestic politics, and it is difficult
for politicians and opinion-formers to accept foreign intelligence attacks
as natural parts of the international game.The modern humanitarian morality
that 'something must be done' takes effective intelligence for granted, yet
at the same time prizes international legality and clean hands.Even before
the present British government's ethical foreign policy, its predecessor
endorsed a 'moral base' for its defence doctrine; the 'concept of propriety,
which seeks to ensure that the activities of the armed forces are viewed
universally as being justifiable, fair, and apolitical.'[68]It can be argued
that intelligence everywhere - an aspect of national power, like armed
forces - needs a similar ethical foundation.

Balance Sheet and Desiderata 

Despite intelligence's modern status, what states do is worth more ethical
scrutiny than the intelligence they use and the activities that produce
it.Some intelligence knowledge does not affect the ethical standards of the
foreign policies it influences, and many intelligence activities have no
ethical significance in themselves.Nevertheless part of intelligence's
knowledge and a smaller proportion of its activities probably have some
general (and contradictory) effects on the morality of international
society. 

The ethical case for this knowledge is fairly clear.Despite intelligence's
failures and distortions, its rationales of information-seeking and
objectivity tend to make those leaders who draw on it behave 'better'
internationally than those less concerned with an intelligence view of
reality, or less exposed to it.(Governments that encourage objective
intelligence may well be inclined anyway to 'better' international behaviour
than those that do not, but intelligence probably has some institutional
influence).The international community working qua community depends upon
national intelligence inputs, particularly from American technical
collection.It needs intelligence as much as the population, health and
environmental data that are other foundations for international action.

Yet a minority of intelligence collection poses ethical problems.On some
targets the ends justify the intelligence means, though perhaps not
completely.(Should one torture terrorists to forestall imminent
operations?[69]Perhaps one should.)On the other hand, the more intrusive
methods of peacetime collection - espionage, some bugging, and perhaps
diplomatic targeting and the exploitation of diplomatic immunities -
probably are disturbing factors when used against legitimate states.The
situation is not static.'Since the end of the Cold War a universal
international system has come into existence marked by the unprecedented
situation in which almost all states are in diplomatic relations with other
states.'[70]This aspect of globalization sits uncomfortably with the
prospect that 185 states and statelets may all invest in covert intelligence
collection to keep up with the international Joneses.If international arms
limitation is a desirable objective, why not limit intrusive intelligence?

This balance sheet suggests three desiderata for strengthening the
international attitudes and norms that already exist.The first is to
recognize that the Western idea of objective, all-source intelligence
assessment on foreign affairs, with some separation from policy-making, is a
necessary part of the modern, global standard of government.All states
should be encouraged to develop the machinery, in the spirit of Ms Short's
commendation of intelligence to the developing world.[71]The CIA's
Directorate of Intelligence with its remit for analysis and assessment
should be an international role-model, and it is tragic that historical
accident has caused it to be identified with the covert collection and
covert action of the Agency's Directorate of Operations.

The second is to emphasize the place of international exchanges between
states at this 'finished intelligence' level.International action is no more
cohesive than the intelligence exchanges that underlie it.The UN, EU, NATO
and other regional institutions will eventually develop machinery for
supranational intelligence assessment, but it will be a long haul, and will
have to build on inter-state exchanges.Two former American DCIs argued some
years ago that American intelligence should become an international
good,[72] and the US subsequently committed itself to intelligence support
for international organizations.[73]To some extent this is already a de
facto underpinning of international society, yet for its credibility the
American input needs to be complemented by national intelligence
institutions capable of critically assessing it for their own
governments.States cooperating internationally need some kind of peer review
of their own intelligence estimates.One wonders how far the impasses between
NATO and Russian over Kosovo reflected different national intelligence
inputs.  

The third is to borrow the criteria of restraint, necessity and
proportionality from Just War doctrine to discourage gung-ho approaches to
intrusive covert collection.Morality reinforces the considerations of
cost-effectiveness that covert methods should only be used where overt
material is inadequate.The more intrusive the methods the greater the
justification needed; recruiting additional human sources to fill the gaps
in technical collection runs its own ethical risks.Ethics should be
recognized as a factor in intelligence decisions, just as in anything else,
and the Western notion of elected leaders' accountability for sensitive
intelligence operations provides one way of reinforcing the ethical
dimension.Similar considerations should be applied to covert action, though
the essential difference should be recognized between the morality of
information-gathering and action.Perhaps more should be done to separate the
two. 

This restraint implies some re-ordering of collection priorities.National
security matters should remain central and legitimate requirements.But to
these can now be added those bearing on international security, justice and
humanitarian concerns.John Keegan has argued that democracy's professional
soldiers are now international society's check upon violence; 'those
honourable warriors who administer force in the cause of peace.'[74]Mutatis
mutandis, national intelligence should now be seen in this light.

The counterpoint to this approach is some limitation over collection for
purely national purposes, especially those unrelated to security.Throughout
the 1990s it has been fashionable outside the English-speaking countries to
target covert collection on other countries' non-military secrets of
economic, financial and technological kinds.Russia has seen this as a means
of solving its economic problems vis-?-vis the West.French publicists have
been rather proud of collection of this kind, though is by no means a purely
Gallic activity.[75]The issues over government activity of this kind are
complex, but as a generalization it is both provocative and overblown.The
Soviet aircraft industry is said to have copied stolen plans of Concorde;
much good it did them.Immediately after the Cold War some argued that US
intelligence should be redeployed to the 'trade war' with Japan and Western
Europe, and Washington deserves credit for substantially rejecting the
case.[76]Even for governments that want to get into this field, using open
and 'grey' sources and commercial information brokers is a better bet than
tasking their intelligence agencies.

This restraint also implies extending the existing limitations on targeting
other states for 'bargaining intelligence' on matters of purely national
interest.Covert intelligence increases diplomatic effectiveness, but
sometimes with the long-term costs already suggested.Firms in the private
sector depend on reading their competitors' hands, but those that care about
their reputations are careful about how they do so.Perhaps governments
should exercise similar care over the intelligence methods used against
friendly powers, and rely instead on journalists as the experts on
intrusion. 

These are desiderata for multilateral action, not for unilateral
intelligence disarmament.They reflect Western views and Western cultural
power - though a doctrinal restraint on intrusive methods would not come
easily to the major Cold War powers, East or West.The US, Russia and Britain
all have strong (and differing) reasons for keeping intelligence power
unfettered.Yet the case remains for developing the present loose code of
conduct through reciprocal or multinational understandings, probably
inconspicuously.The problem is to de-mystify intelligence's role and make it
a fit subject for international discourse.

Two features of international norms may be helpful.First, some evolve
gradually through informal international contacts and the influence of
'world opinion.'The international patchwork of multilateral and bilateral
intelligence relationships already provides scope for confidential
discussion of intelligence purposes and priorities.In particular Western
intelligence already has well-publicized links with Russia on international
terrorism, drugs and other criminality, and evidence of war crimes, plus the
military opportunities presented by the Partnership for Peace programme and
other contacts.The publicity now given to intelligence objectives by Britain
and America provides a basis for further discussion, with Russia and more
widely.[77] 

International understandings of any kind may seem an unlikely outcome, but
are not impossible.Before the SALT I and II and ABM agreements of the 1970s
it would have seemed quite inconceivable that the superpowers would in
effect legitimize aspects of each other's secret collection, yet they
did.[78]Recently the OECD nations plus some others signed a 'bribery
convention' in which 'the United States has got all the rich countries to
play by roughly the same rules.'[79]This is still far removed from
intelligence; but it is a reminder that unexpected things can happen when
states are persuaded of common interests.Russia is reported to have pressed
the UN Secretary-General in 1998 for an international treaty banning
information warfare.[80]The possibility of mutual US and Russian reductions
in espionage was raised, apparently from the American side, in July 1999 in
Washington discussions between the US Vice-President and Russian Prime
Minister, and remitted for further examination.The Prime Minister was
removed from office shortly afterwards, but the idea has at least got to the
conference table.[81]

Second, international law has a momentum of its own.An American naval
officer writing on intelligence argued that there are limits of behaviour
which 'create definable customary international norms....To those who must
work with these subjects, the norms are real, the boundaries tangible, and
the consequences of exceeding them unacceptable - personally and
professionally, nationally and internationally.'[82]Geoffrey Best takes us
further by reminding us that 'much international law of the contemporary age
... is "normative".Normative means standard-setting; adding to established
State practice, the aspirational concept of State practice as it is
expected, intended, or hoped to become at some future
date.'[83]International law need not remain as silent on intelligence as it
is now. 

To sum up; intelligence is now a permanent part of the nation state.Even
lesser states need it and will soon have it.There is plenty for it to do.But
the new millennium should seek to emphasize internationally:

(a) the value of accurate knowledge and policy-free intelligence assessment
of foreign affairs, based on all sources of information and not necessarily
the product of covert collection; 

(b) the increased relevance of this national covert collection to the
working of international institutions, and other international action in the
interests of security, justice and humanitarianism; and

(c) the arguments for restraint in the use of intrusive methods of
collection for purposes not geared to national security or support for the
international community.

In short, The Times' dictum that 'Cold War or no Cold War, nations routinely
spy on each other' provides a realistic starting-point for considering
intelligence ethics, but is not the last word.

Endnotes

The Conflict Studies Research Centre

Directorate General Development and Doctrine
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst

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GU15 4PQFax : (44) 1276 686880

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[1]R.Hibbert, 'Intelligence and Policy', Intelligence and National Security,
Vol.5 No.1 (January 1990), p.115.

[2]Contrary to the 'peace dividend' elsewhere, France planned a considerable
expansion after the humiliation of depending on American intelligence in the
Gulf War.(P.Kemp, 'The Rise and Fall of France's Spymasters', Intelligence
and National Security, Vol.9 No.1 (January 1994)).

[3]'Reborn CIA dusts off Cloak and Dagger', The Observer, 14 March
1999.Expenditure for FY97 was $26.6 billion, and for FY98 $26.7
billion.Figures for FY 99 have not been released; Congress is said to have
approved an 'emergency' increase of $1.5-2.0 billion in the fall of
1998.(Press references summarized in Canadina Association for Security and
Intelligence Studies Newsletter 34 (winter 1999), p.20).

[4]The three intelligence agencies have a published budget of about
three-quarters of a million pounds, but the cost of MoD and other strategic
intelligence needs to be added.For costs of 'the national intelligence
capability' see the author's British Intelligence towards the Millennium:
Issues and Opportunities(London Defence Studies No 38)(London: Centre for
Defence Studies, 1997), pp.7-9).

[5]Within the European Union the Republic of Ireland may be an interesting
exception.

[6]Speech 23 March 1998.

[7]Kent Pekel, 'Integrity, Ethics and the CIA', CIA Studies in Intelligence
spring 1998 pp.85-94.

[8]Leader, 26 May 1999.

[9]The phrase 'stealing others' secrets' comes from a radio interview with
one of the British secret agencies' recent whistle-blowers.

[10]P.Wright, Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence
Officer (New York: Viking, 1987), p.54.

[11]For a criticism of le Carr?'s moral stance see J.Burridge, 'Sigint in
the Novels of John le Carr?', CIA's Studies in Intelligence, Vol.37 No.5
(1994).

[12]Attributed to Professor Huntingdon (as a comment on international
opinion) by N.Chomsky, The Guardian, 17 May 1999.

[13]L.Lustgarten and I.Leigh, In from the Cold: National Security and
Parliamentary Democracy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), p.225.This work
concentrates on intelligence's domestic aspects, but incidentally provides
some ethical criticism of foreign intelligence. 

[14]Discussed in chapter 20 of the author's Intelligence Power in Peace and
War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), written from the
perspective of the early 1990s. 

[15]M.Howard, 'Introduction', in R.Williamson (ed), Some Corner in a Foreign
Field:Intervention and World Order (London:Macmillan, 1998), p.9.

[16]D.Kahn, The Codebreakers (London: Sphere edition, 1973), p.456.

[17]H.Reiss (tr. H.B.Nisbet), Kant: Political Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991), pp.96-97.

[18]A US policy-maker of the time has claimed that the timing of the flight,
on May Day before the conference, was taken by Khrushchev as a deliberately
offensive US signal (Robert Bowie, BBC2 Baiting the Bear, 8 October 1996). 

[19]In Russian usage the first is 'Razvedka' or 'Shpionazh', the second
'Svedeniye.'

[20]See H.Suganami, 'Stories of War Origins: a Narrativist Theory of the
Causes of War', Review of International Studies, vol.1 no.4 (October 1997)
for a typology of 'war-conducive' acts comprising contributory negligence
and insensitive, thoughtless and reckless acts.

[21]J.L.Gaddis,'History, Grand Strategy and NATO Enlargement', Survival,
vol.40 no.1 (spring 1998). 

[22]The Economist, 22 May 1999, p.5.

[23]Percy Cradock, In Pursuit of British Interests: Reflections on Foreign
Policy under Margaret Thatcher and John Major (London: Murray, 1997), p.37.

[24]Compare intelligence with the many statistical failures such as over
British earnings in 1997-8, set out for example in The Economist, 5 March
1999, p.38.

[25]Vice Admiral Sir Louis Le Bailly, letter to The Times, 3 August 1984.

[26]For a discussion of American intelligence and policy in the Cold War see
C.Andrew, For the President's Eyes Only (London: Harper Collins, 1995).For
CIA's record in estimating the Soviet Union see D.J.MacEachin, 'CIA
Assessments of the Soviet Union', CIA's Studies in Intelligence,
(semi-annual unclassified edition, no.1, 1997), and K.Lundberg, CIA and the
Fall of the Soviet Empire: the Politics of 'Getting It Right' (Harvard
Intelligence and Policy Project), 1994. 

[27]H.Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, Joseph,
1982), p.828.Similar proposals were also made as part of the Israeli-Syrian
settlement, p.1254.

[28]Statement by Robert Gates, BBC radio programme Open Secrets, 21 March
1995.

[29]For discussion see Intelligence Power in Peace and War, chapter 9.

[30]Article 23 (Verification) permits NTMs to be used to back up a call for
on-site inspection if the data has been collected 'in a manner consistent
with generally recognized principles of international law.' 

[31]An early team leader from the UN Special Commission in Iraq wrote that
'In the face of the highly efficient Iraqi deception, the inspection could
not have gone forward without accurate intelligence.' (D.Kay, 'Arms
Inspections in Iraq: Lessons for Arms Control', Bulletin of Arms Control
(London: Council for Arms Control/Centre for Defence Studies) no.7 (August
1992), pp.6-7).For a more complete account see Tim Trevan, Saddam's
Secrets:the Hunt for Iraq's Hidden Weapons (London:HarperCollins, 1999).

[32]As early as 1971 the Secretary-General complained of the 'lack of
authoritative information, without which the Secretary-General cannot speak
(U Thant letter of 30 March 1971, quoted by A.W.Dorn, 'Keeping Tabs on a
Troubled World: UN Information-Gathering to Preserve Peace', Security
Dialogue Vol.27 No.3 (1996)).The theme was taken up again in the early days
of intervention in the former Yugoslavia in statements such as 'intelligence
is a vital element of any operation and the UN needs to develop a system for
obtaining information without compromising its neutrality' (a British
Admiral: RUSI Journal, vol.139, no.1, p.35 (February 1994)), and 'I have
asked for numerous reforms in the structure of the UN in Yugoslavia,
especially in the use of information, the capacity to analyze and reflect'
(A French general; quoted in The Independent, 31 January 1994).

[33]'Aerial photographs and phone intercepts are giving instant evidence of
atrocities' (A.Lloyd, The Times, 14 May 1999).

[34]GCHQ graduate careers brochure 1996.

[35]As in its (reported) refusal to provide satellite results during the
period of disunity before mounting IFOR.

[36]J.Keegan, Daily Telegraph, 4 June 1999.

[37]DFID Policy StatementPoverty and the Security Sector, the basis of an
address at the Centre for Defence Studies, 9 March 1999, p.6.

[38]As in the TV programmes about British Cold War observations from
trawlers in northern waters.

[39]For this legal position see B.Jasani, 'Civil Radar Observation
Satellites for IAEA Safeguards',Journal of the Institute of Nuclear Weapons
Management, Vol.27 No.2 (winter 1999).UN resolutions such as A/RES53/76 have
however stessed the need for transparency on the use of outer space and the
avoidance of a space arms race.

[40]For a brief description see British Defence Doctrine JWP 0-01 1996,
Annex B.6.

[41]Though for many years a British protest group has alleged that the
American Sigint station at Menwith Hill in northern England is intercepting
British communications.

[42]The well attested American U-2 observations of Anglo-French preparations
in Cyprus for the Suez operation perhaps entailed overflights of what was
then British territory but might have been possible by oblique photography
from outside territorial limits.On maritime collection, the relevant law
is United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982, articles 19 and
29.'Innocent passage' excludes 'collecting information to the prejudice of
the defence or security of the coastal state.' (19.2.(c)).

[43]For a summary see Dick Nelson and J.Koenen-Grant, 'A Case of Bureaucracy
in Action', International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence,
Vol.6 No.3 (fall 1993).

[44]O.Gordievsky, Next Stop Execution, (London: Macmillan, 1995), p.257-8.

[45]D.R.Herspring, 'The Cold War: Perceptions from the American Embassy,
Moscow', Diplomacy and Statecraft, Vol.9 No.2 (July 1998), p.200. 

[46]For Soviet activities see D.Ball, Soviet Signals Intelligence (Sigint)
(Papers on Strategy and Defence No 47.Canberra:Australian National
University, 1989), pp.38-70.

[47]Vienna Convention 1961, Articles 3.1 and 41.3.

[48]A Soviet defector, himself betrayed by Ames, claimed that up to 45 CIA
agents had been identified(The Times, 18 February 1997).Other press reports
quoted lower figures. 

[49] B.L.Gerber, A Discussion of Intelligence Ethics, (paper at
International Studies Association Convention, Toronto, March 1997), p.6.

[50]Compare with S.Cohen,Folk Devils and Moral Panics: the Creation of the
Mods and Rockers (Oxford:Blackwell, 1987 ed.)

[51]The liberal view also includes the belief that the agent can be induced
to 'betray obligations of loyalty which may be legitimately demanded of
him.' (Lustgarten and Leigh, In from the Cold, p.225).(This assumes, of
course, the regime spied upon deserves loyalty).Other elements are the risks
to the agents, and the corrupting effects on the officers running them;
according to a former CIA General Counsel, 'the constant pressure of the
clandestine life can try the moral ballast of the most honest man or woman'
(quoted by Gerber, Intelligence Ethics, p.30). 

[52]Thus China and Iran, in signing the Comprenhensive Test Ban Treaty, made
separate declarations that verification should not be interpreted as
including the results of 'espionage or human intelligence' (see also note
27).

[53]G.Best, War and Law Since 1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).

[54]The second of these incidents, of KAL-007 in September 1983, also
exacerbated a period of high East-West tension. 

[55]Major C.B.Brackenbury, 'The Intelligence Duties of the Staff Abroad and
at Home' (RUSI Journal, Vol.19 No.80 (1875), p.265.

[56]Lustgarten and Leigh,In from the Cold, p.496.

[57]Security Council resolution 699 (1991).

[58]Accusations by Scott Ritter, reported for example in The Guardian, 30
March 1999.

[59]See R.J.Aldrich, Espionage, Security and Intelligence in Britain 1945-70
(Manchester; Manchester University Press, 1998), pp.33-34, 100-101,
103-104.For intelligence cases and diplomatic expulsions as an irritant in
Anglo-Soviet relations see Anne Deighton, 'Ostpolitik or Westpolitik?British
Foreign Policy, 1968-75', International Affairs, Vol.74 No.4 (October 1998),
p.896.

[60]The official history of the Crimean War is said to have concluded that
'the gathering of knowledge by clandestine means were [sic] repulsive to the
feelings of an English Gentleman' (quoted by B.Parritt, The Intelligencers
(1983: Intelligence Corps Association, Ashford Kent, 2nd edition 1983),
p.80).On the other hand Lord Salisbury wrote in 1875 that 'we receive pretty
constantly copies of the most important reports and references that reach
the Foreign Office and War Office at St. Petersburg' (from J.Ferris, quoted
by the author in Intelligence Power in Peace and War, p.22).For 'reading
each other's mail' see correspondence in Intelligence and National Security,
Vol.2 No.4 (October 1987).

[61]For Vadim Bakatin's handover of bugging details see J.M.Waller,
'Russia's Security Services:a Checklist for Reform,' Perspective, Vol.8 No.1
(September-October 1997).Earlier reports of the handover were confirmed,
with disapproval, by the Director of the Russian code-breaking organization
in a Russian televison interview of 25 October 1997.For statements by
V.A.Kirpichenko, SVR Director, see Krasnaya Zvezda, 30 October 1993, p.6.

[62]Reuters, quoted by Jane's Intelligence Watch Report, 1 July 1997.

[63]J.Ferris, 'Intelligence After the Cold War: a Global Perspective' in
A.Bergin and R.Hall (eds), Intelligence and Australian National Security
(Canberra: Australian Defence Studies Centre, 1994), p.8.

[64]Quoted from Professor D.Ball in Far East Economic Review, 9 June
1997.Chinese and North Korean reactions are referred to in VERTIC Trust and
Verify No 83 (November 1993), p.6.

[65]A.James, 'Diplomacy',Review of International Studies, Vol.19 No.1 (Jan
1993), p.95.

[66]Not limited to the alleged Chinese nuclear espionage.A Chinese academic
had previously been arrested on his return from Stanford University and
accused of betraying Chinese secrets (Newsweek, 29 March 1999).

[67]The Russian National Security Blueprint published 26 December 1997
(Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Moscow) laid surprising emphasis on defence against
'leaks of important political, economic, scientific-technical and military
information', 'the threat of foreign intelligence services' agent and
operational-technical penetration of Russia,' and the need for 'information
security;' far more than in any comparable Western statement of national
security policy.

[68]British Defence Doctrine (JWP 0-01) (London: HMSO, 1997), p.3.10.

[69]The Israeli Supreme Court approved the use of physical force in these
circumstances (Gerber, Discussion of Intelligence Ethics, p.7. 

[70]R.Cohen, Diplomacy 2000 B.C.-2000 A.D.(Paper delivered to the British
International Studies Association annual conference, 1995), p.1. 

[71]The Russian national blueprint cited in note 67 also highlights 'the
objective and comprehensive analysis and forecasting of threats to national
security.'

[72]S.Turner, Secrecy and Democracy (New York: Harper and Row, 1986),
pp.280-285; W.E.Colby 'Reorganizing Western Intelligence', in C.P.Runde and
G.Voss, Intelligence and the New World Order (Bustehude: International
Freedom Foundation, 1992), pp.126-127.

[73]'To the extent prudent, US intelligence today is ... being used in
dramatically new ways, such as assisting the international organizations
like the United Nations...We will share information and assets that
strengthen peaceful relationships and aid in building confidence.' (National
Security Strategy of the The United States (Washington: White House, January
1993), p.18.

[74]Concluding words in J.Keegan, War and Our World (London: Hutchinson,
1998) (Reith Lectures 1998), p.74. 

[75]For accusations and counter-accusations see N.Farrell, 'Hark Who's
Talking (and Listening)', The Spectator, 21 November 1998.

[76]For a survey of the issues and of US thinking see L.Johnson, Secret
Agencies: US Intelligence in a Hostile World (New Haven: Yale Univesity
Press, 1996), chapter 6; also D.Clarke and R.Johnston, 'Economic Espionage
and Interallied Strategic Cooperation,' Thunderbird International Business
Review, Vol.40 No.4, July/August 1998.

[77]US objectives are regularly aired by holders of the DCI office and
through Congressional reports and special investigations.The annual reports
of the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee now provide a
British viewpoint.

[78]The US-USSR Incidents at Sea agreement of I972 also had some
implications for intelligence collection at close quarters.

[79]The Economist, 16 January 1999, p.28.

[80]Sunday Times, World News 25 July 1999, p.21.

[81]Russian accounts of the press conference refer to 'total mutual
understanding' having been reached on 'one sensitive topic,' and existing
agreements 'to work in a fairly correct sort of way.' (FBIS and BBC
translations of 28 and 29 July items). 

[82]M.E.Brown, ?Intelligenceand International Law?, International Journal of
Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Vol.8 No.3 (fall 1995), p.330.

[83]G.Best, War and Law Since 1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), p.7.

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