society for educational studies · of gchq); sir david omand (former director, gchq); and richard...

ORIEL COLLOQUIUM ON UNIVERSITIES, SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE STUDIES ORIEL COLLEGE21–22 SEPTEMBER 2017UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

WWW.SOC-FOR-ED-STUDIES.ORG.UK

SOCIETY FOR EDUCATIONAL STUDIES

2 Society for Educational Studies2 English Language and Applied Linguistics

Background Note and Summary

The format of this colloquium is one which encourages an exchange of ideas amongst experts, with, broadly interpreted, a critical focus on the relationship between universities and the security and intelligence agencies. This invitation-only event, hosted at the University of Oxford by the Society for Educational Studies (SES), will adhere to Chatham House rules unless specific permission is given by speakers to waive this condition.

The Oriel Colloquium follows the SES Annual Seminar on security and intelligence studies, convened at the British Academy in November 2015, a special issue of the British Journal of Educational Studies and a multi-disciplinary and multi-institution 2016 seminar series on Education, Security and Intelligence Studies, including events hosted by the Oxford Intelligence Group (Nuffield College, Oxford), the Buckingham University Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, and the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), Whitehall.

Key Note speakers at the Oriel Colloquium include: Professor Christopher Andrew (Emeritus Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge, and official historian of MI5); Professor Loch K. Johnson (Regents Professor of Public and International Affairs, University of Georgia, author or editor of thirty books on security and intelligence studies, including The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence); Professor John Ferris (Professor of History, University of Calgary and newly appointed official historian of GCHQ); Sir David Omand (former director, GCHQ); and Richard J. Aldrich (Professor of Politics and International Relations, University of Warwick, author of GCHQ and, with Rory Cormac, The Black Door: Spies, Secret

Intelligence and British Prime Ministers). As well academic perspectives on security and intelligence studies, there will also be presentations from security and intelligence professionals: the former Senior Defence Economist to NATO and Adviser to the 12th NATO General Secretary; a speaker on national security resilience and counter-terrorism from the RUSI, Whitehall; a speaker from US Military Intelligence at the United States Military Academy West Point; a former senior Cold War diplomat (Berlin Station); former CIA on the International Association for Intelligence Education; and speakers from the British Council, the Cabinet Office (Civil Contingencies Secretariat), Home Office (former Chief Scientific Officer), and Foreign and Commonwealth Office (National Security Directorate).

The Colloquium maintains a special interest in the security and intelligence aspects of the arts, humanities and literature. Presiding over this section is Dr Alastair Niven LVO, OBE, a judge of the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1994 and of the Man Booker Prize in 2014, former Principal of Cumberland Lodge Windsor and President of English PEN, Alastair also uniquely held posts as Director of Literature at the Arts Council of Great Britain and Director of Literature at the British Council. Andrew Lownie, founder-director of the Andrew Lownie Literary Agency and author of Stalin’s Englishman will be presenting in this section; as will Bill Hamilton, director of the A.M. Heath Literary Agents and literary agent for the estate of George Orwell.

Colloquium ConvenorLiam Francis Gearon, Senior Research Fellow, Harris Manchester College

3Society for Educational Studies 3English Language and Applied Linguistics

CONTENTS

Welcome 2Programme

Thursday 21 September 4Programme

Friday 22 September 4Key Note Speakers 5Seminar Session List 7Seminar Paper Abstracts 9Delegate List 21

4 Society for Educational Studies

ProgrammeThursday 21 September 2017

Arrival and Registration 12.00noon–1.30pm Porter's Lodge

Lunch 12.30–1.30pm Hall

WELCOME FROM PROFESSOR JAMES ARTHUR, CHAIR, SOCIETY FOR EDUCATIONAL STUDIES

1.30–1.45pm Harris Lecture Theatre

Key Note 1: Loch K. Johnson1.45–3.00pm Harris Lecture Theatre

Coffee 3.00–3.15pm Harris Seminar Room

Seminar Session 1 3.15–4.15pm

Key Note 2: Christopher Andrew4.15–5.30pm Harris Lecture Theatre

Check into Bedrooms and Free Time

5.30–6.30pm

Book Launch and Drinks 6.30–7.30pm Hall

Colloquium Dinner 7.30pm Hall

Friday 22 September 2017

Breakfast 8.00–9.00am Hall

Seminar Session 2 9.10–10.30am

Coffee 10.30–10.45am Harris Seminar Room

Key Note 3: Sir David Omand and Professor Mark Phythian in Conversation

10.45–11.30am Harris Lecture Theatre

Break 11.30–11.45am Hall

Key Note 4: Professor John Ferris 11.45–1.00pm Harris Lecture Theatre

Lunch1.00–2.00pm Hall

Seminar Session 3 2.00–3.15pm

Coffee 3.15–3.30pm Harris Seminar Room

Key Note 5: Richard J. Aldrich 3.30–4.20pm Harris Lecture Theatre

Education, Security and Intelligence Studies: Programmes Dr Liam Gearon, Honorary Treasurer, Society for Educational Studies

4.20–4.30pm Harris Lecture Theatre

Close 4.30pm

5Society for Educational Studies

Spies and Scholars in the United States: Winds of Ambivalence in the Groves of Academe

Loch K. Johnson University of Georgia, USAChair: Liam Gearon

Ever since its modern intelligence establishment came into existence with the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947, spies and scholars in the United States have had a close – and largely hidden – relationship. The bonds of association between the two professions have been multiple. For instance, both are in the business of information acquisition and claim to be truth-seekers; moreover, the members of both professions live within the same democratic society. Spies, though, work for the government, while the allegiance of scholars is to independent research and teaching (although some, overtly or covertly, may work for the government, too, drawn by research grants, a sense of patriotism, or a combination of the two).

Various differences work to keep the professions apart, as well. For instance, spy organizations view students as potential hires or, if the students are from other countries studying in the United States, as possible agents to recruit for HUMINT purposes; in contrast, scholars are likely to see students as young charges placed in their hands to educate and prepare for lives of consequence.

Further, intelligence officers may be on campus to spot possible terrorists, home-grown or from abroad, while scholars – although they may teach courses related to terrorism – typically have no interest in spying on their students.

One school of thought on this subject argues that, since spies and scholars are both citizens, they should work together in partnership – secretly, if necessary – in these perilous times of ISIS and other brutal anti-democratic adversaries: sharing knowledge to improve the intelligence product, training and recruiting students, warning of radical activities on campus.

A second school counters, however, that the university is meant to be a pure and open place, dedicated to unbiased learning and free of government ties – especially entanglement with secret agencies. Campuses (to the extent they address these matters at all) can find themselves torn between the two schools, caught up in a swirl of practical and moral issues that lead to a sense of ambivalence about the proper relationship between the academy and the Deep State.

These remarks address the merits of arguments on both sides of this important debate.

Recovering the Lost History of Global Intelligence – and Why It Matters Christopher AndrewUniversity of Cambridge, UKChair: Richard J. Aldrich The history of intelligence is not linear. In recent centuries it has proved more difficult to learn the long-term lessons of intelligence than of any other profession mainly because there was little record of most of its past experience. At the outbreak of the First World War, the US President, Woodrow Wilson, and the British Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, had a markedly weaker grasp of intelligence than their 18th-century predecessors, George Washington, Pitt the Elder and Pitt the Younger.

Despite erratic progress since the First World War, 21st-century intelligence continues to suffer from long-term historical amnesia. This problem is currently being addressed by several academic research projects: among them the three-volume Cambridge History of Intelligence, which will cover the period from Moses to Putin.

Key Note SpeakersThursday 21 September 2017 – Friday 22 September 2017


Intelligence Ethics: Sir David Omand and Professor Mark Phythian in Conversation

Sir David Omand and Mark Phythian King’s College London, UK and GCHQ, UK and University of Leicester, UK

Chair: Loch K. Johnson The tensions between security, liberty and human rights including privacy sit at the heart of today’s controversies concerning the relationship between the free citizen and the state. Publics need – and want – protection from the very serious threats posed by domestic and international terrorism, from serious criminality, to be safe in using cyberspace, and to have active foreign and aid policies to help resolve outstanding international problems. Secret intelligence is widely accepted to be essential to these tasks, and to be a legitimate function of the nation state, yet the historical record is that it also can pose significant ethical risks ranging from spying on the domestic population to assassination of foreign leaders.

This book lays out a framework for thinking about public policy in this area by clarifying the relationship between ethics and intelligence, both human and technical. In it the authors debate norms for the proper conduct of secret intelligence and for right conduct in global cyberspace. Each chapter identifies key ethical issues, organised across eight themes, and goes on to discuss them in a series of dialogues. Throughout the book the authors pose questions and engage in debates that are intended to stimulate lively discussion on these important issues.

Towards the Second Century of Sigint

John FerrisUniversity of Calgary, Canada and GCHQ, UK Chair: Michael Goodman

This paper puts the modern cyber commons, and the links between private parties and signals intelligence agencies, surveillance and privacy, into historical perspective. It demonstrates the limits to the ability of actors to intercept or read private messages during the telegraph age, and the radical changes in the abilities to intercept and transmit signals which recently have occurred with the internet. These social and technological developments transformed privacy and surveillance, intelligence and security, and old distinctions between states and individuals, and their competitions. Sovereign competitions between states, and the non-sovereign competitions within all states, became unified.

The greatest change was not the ability of states to attack each other, or their own people, though these capabilities did rise. It was the ability of states to monitor foreign civilians, and above all of private parties to read anyone’s mail or memoranda, private or governmental, home or abroad.

As ever, states lacked the resources to read all of the traffic they could intercept, but they no longer were the only power on these seas. Individuals were more open to attack from pirates, and foreign governments, than on any other commons. Against this, for perhaps the first time in history, anyone could acquire cryptography proof against the best of codebreakers. Few did so.

Most were exposed to attack from millions. Pirates had unprecedented power, precision and range. States attacked the communications of foreign individuals and corporations far more than ever before in peacetime, and faced greater challenges in defending their citizens. This paper examines the circumstances of this second age of Sigint, including the role of states, criminals and individuals as actors and targets, and the links between intelligence, privacy, publicity and surveillance on the social market of the internet.

Education, Security and Intelligence Studies Richard J. Aldrich University of Warwick, UKChair: Christopher Andrew

This paper reflects upon the trajectory of the relationship between universities and security and intelligence studies. It analyses the development of the field over more than 50 years and considers its future. It asks why intelligence studies accelerated more rapidly in some disciplines than others and about the connections between intelligence studies and cognate subjects such as surveillance studies. It also considers the vexed relationship between intelligence practice and a range of disciplines such as anthropology, geography and engineering.

This has become increasingly central to a world of 'knowledge-intensive security' and 'unsecrecy' in which accessing and analysing increasing amounts of data, often quite trivial data, has perhaps overtaken old-fashioned 'spying' as the central concern of intelligence and security communities.


Seminar Session 1 3.15–4.15pmThursday 21 September 2017 Research Policy and Practice Harris Lecture TheatreChair: Gwilym Hughes

nDr Tristram Riley-Smith “Men of the Professor Type” Revisited: Building a Partnership between Academic Research and National Security nMichael Herman 'Peculiar Personal Characteristics’: Intelligence Recruitment in 1945nJohn Preston

‘A brilliant failure’? ‘Protect and Survive’ and British Behavioural Science for National Security

Undertaking Security Sensitive ResearchBeddard RoomChair: Stephen Gale

nJoanna Kidd How to Find a Big Weapon in a Haystack

nRita Floyd Just Securitization

nAislinn O'Donnell The Educational Importance of Making Distinctions: The Pedagogical, the Pastoral and the ‘Judicial’ in Education

Covert Security and Intelligence Walker RoomChair: Stephen Dorrill

nRory Cormac Researching British Covert Action: Navigating the Secret State's Darkest CorridorsnElisabeth Kendall Weaponising Arabic Poetry for Militant JihadnPaddy Hayes

Ruth Chaplin OBE; a life in the shadows ‘Miss Ruth Chaplin, Third Secretary, head of the visa section, (Moscow Embassy)

Seminar Session 2 9.10–10.30amFriday 22 September 2017

University Centres for Security and Intelligence Studies: UK Perspectives Harris Lecture TheatreChair: Joy Carter

nThe Oxford Intelligence Group David King, Gwilym Hughes, Stephen Gale, Christopher Westcott The Narrative of UK Centres for Security and Intelligence Studies: Inter-Agency Remit, Responsibilities, ResearchnAnthony Glees

Buckingham Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies (BUCSIS)

nPhilip Davies From Observation to Contribution: The Changed Role of Intelligence Studies Centres

nSébastien Laurent The French Ministry of Defence Experience in Examining UK War Studies

University Centres for Security and Intelligence Studies: US PerspectivesBeddard RoomChair: Liam Gearon

nFr James Burns and Kevin Powers Academia and Government: Allies in Cybersecurity Effectiveness

nMajor Scott Parsons Security and Intelligence Studies – Obtaining Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in the United States Intelligence Community

Security and Intelligence Perspectives – Diplomacy and Inter-governmental agenciesWalker RoomChair: Rita Floyd

nAdrian Kendry Voices in the Wilderness: Confronting the Challenges and Obstacles to NATO Economic Intelligence 2001–2014; and the Enduring Legacy

nClaire Smith But what do you want it for? Secret intelligence and the foreign policy practitioner

Intelligence Studies, Intelligence Education and Epistemology of CounterterrorismMacGregor RoomChair: Angela Gendron

nQuassim Cassam The Epistemology of Counterterrorism

nStephen Marrin Intelligence Studies and Intelligence Education

Seminar Session List


Seminar Session 3 2.00–3.15pmFriday 22 September 2017

Governmental Security and Intelligence PerspectivesHarris Lecture TheatreChair: Claire Smith

nAngela Gendron Creating Intelligence Connoisseurs

nEmily Clarke and Paul McCloghrie Cabinet Office

nNigel Holmes Foreign Office

Writers, Espionage and the AcademyBeddard RoomChair: Liam Gearon

nAlastair Niven How Long is an Arm? Public funding in the ArtsnBill Hamilton The Literature of IntelligencenRichard Davenport-Hines Misunderstandings still surrounding the Cambridge spies nChris Westcott Open Source Intelligence: Academic Research, Journalism or Spying?

Media and Reporting on Security and IntelligenceWalker RoomChair: James Arthur

nAndrew Lownie Stalin’s EnglishmannJohn Lloyd Journalism in an Age of TerrornStephen Wagner On Propaganda

Culture and Conflict MacGregor RoomChair: Joanna Kidd

nMartin Rose British Council and Cultural Relations nAndrew Glazzard Losing the Plot: Narrative, Counter-Narrative and Violent ExtremismnAnnette Idler The Changing Character of WarnSimon Mundy Where the Writing Starts, Intelligence Needs to Follow


Seminar Paper Abstracts

Seminar Session 1 Thursday 21 September 2017, 3.15–4.15pm

'Men of the Professor Type' Revisited: Building a Partnership between Academic Research and National Security

Dr Tristram Riley-Smith

I offer reflections on the challenges and opportunities for establishing stronger and more productive relationships between the UK’s research-base and its security and intelligence community. My thoughts will be informed by three sources: almost 30 years spent working on National Security issues within Government; my academic work, including a year-long Fellowship at Cambridge’s Centre for Science & Policy, exploring the question of how to improve the relationship between academia and the National Security community; and my experience as the founder of two start-ups turning science into technology, focused on the security sector.

I had the opportunity to put the conclusions of that Fellowship into practice as an RCUK Champion, supporting over 1,200 projects across the country in every possible academic discipline. A key message is a need to implement a multi-layered approach, making interventions that support Access, Knowledge Exchange, Commitment and Delivery, with the 'broker' having an important contribution to make in helping to bridge very different cultures and build trust.

Peculiar Personal Characteristics: Intelligence Recruitment in 1945

Michael Herman

In the last months of 1945 two senior civil servants corresponded about the size, structure and pay of the post-war signals intelligence (Sigint) organization that was to become GCHQ, in succession to the pre-war Government Code and Cypher School (GC and CS) and its greatly expanded wartime version at Bletchley Park. One of the two officials, J I C Crombie, was the Foreign Office’s Principal Establishment and Finance Officer with the grade of Assistant Under-Secretary of State, the antique title of Chief Clerk, and a salary of £1,700.

In considering Bletchley’s post-war resources he was continuing the Foreign Office’s pre-war sponsorship of GC and CS, though unusually for its Chief Clerk he was a home civil servant with a Treasury background and not from the diplomatic service. The other civil servant, A J D Winnifrith, was younger and less senior: an Assistant Secretary in the Treasury, on a scale of £1,150–£1,500, with the Treasury’s responsibility for controlling civil service costs and numbers. Both were from Oxbridge and had joined the civil service through its academic competition, and were fliers who subsequently rose to the top.

Sir James Crombie retired in 1962 after eight years as Chairman of the Board of Customs and Excise: Sir John Winnifrith was Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries from Food from 1959 to 1967 before taking a clutch of post-retirement appointments. This paper uses such cases studies to look at the conditions of intelligence recruitment in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.

‘A brilliant failure’? ‘Protect and Survive’ and British Behavioural Science for National Security Professor John Preston

In the Cold War, the United Kingdom government devised a number of public education campaigns to inform citizens about the precautions that they should take in the event of a nuclear attack. One such campaign, Protect and Survive, was released to the general public and media in May 1980. The negative publicity this publication received is, incorrectly, considered to be the main reason why a successor publication was never released. Evidence from recently released records from the UK National Archives shows that the Home Office were, in fact, determined to revise and re-release an improved version of the public education campaign but they were thwarted in this aim. In both the original version of Protect and Survive, and the plans for an updated version, cutting edge (for the 1980s) behavioural science in terms of psychology, pedagogy and sociology were employed. Protect and Survive represents a ‘brilliant failure’ in terms of the application of behavioural science for security policy. It is argued that rather than being seen as an anomaly it should provide a model for the future development of behavioural science for security.


How to Find a Big Weapon in a Haystack

Dr Joanna Kidd

Although the information revolution has led to an immense increase in the amount of open source information available for use in addressing key security concerns, no consistent methodology for the assessment and continual monitoring and verification of states’ compliance with their nuclear safeguards obligations has yet emerged. This paper builds on more than a decade of ICSA’s contributions to nuclear safeguards-relevant research in order to pursue a holistic approach to the discipline of open-source research, using case studies to highlight the unification of method.

The variety of case studies will demonstrate that a technically literate, multi-lingual, historically informed approach is required if appropriate, accurate analysis is to be produced.

Drawing together these disparate lines of enquiry in a cohesive manner can yield valuable insights in support of safeguards information analysis. Results of this kind can serve several purposes: they represent a contribution to benchmarking for future new nuclear states’ research and development endeavours; they can help direct contemporary safeguards analyses; and they form useful cases for the incorporation of new methods, sources and techniques into a unified methodological whole. The ultimate objective is to shift away from a view of open-source research as simply a selective toolkit, towards a more integrated methodology for addressing specific research tasks.

Just Securitization

Dr Rita Floyd

How can we have government-led security policies that are ethically sound? Drawing on my work on Just Securitization Theory, this talk argues that emergency politics (or else securitization) should be governed by a number of universal moral principles, which can be derived from a thorough engagement with the just war tradition, which focuses on just cause, right intention, proportionally, likelihood of success and so on.

I will show that principles of just securitization have three functions: 1) they enable scholars of security (from whichever field) to assess the morality of any given securitization past and present; 2) they serve as guidelines to practitioners of security regarding when and how to securitize or not securitize. And finally 3) they could generate more ethical government-led security policies. However, this will only happen if these principles become widely known, debated and refined within the scholarly community, in other words, if just securitization research takes off as a field of research. If this were to happen such guidelines could come to inform the rhetoric and policies of those in power, while the general public and individuals could use them to hold security practitioners accountable for unethical security policies – including in the realm of education and security.

The Educational Importance of Making Distinctions: The Pedagogical, the Pastoral and the ‘Judicial’ in Education

Professor Aislinn O’Donnell

How ought the relationship between education and security be understood and conceptualised? Recent initiatives in counter-terrorism in the UK have reconceived the relationship between education, intelligence and security, in particular through the Prevent strategy. This paper reflects on the educational implications of duties and programmes such as Prevent by reflecting on how the relationship between security and education ought to be conceived. I argue that educators need to be both trained to make, and supported in making, more robust conceptual and pragmatic distinctions between pedagogical, pastoral and the ‘judicial’ moments in education (the latter referring to those cases that require reporting and/or intervention), and I will offer some examples to elucidate this argument. I will also make some observations of the difference between Prevent and Channel in this regard, based on the limited understanding of Channel in respect of information in the public domain.


Researching British Covert Action: Navigating the Secret State's

Darkest Corridors

Dr Rory Cormac

Covert action is the deniable interference in the affairs of another state or non-state actor. It is often controversial and among the most sensitive activity a state undertakes. Successive British governments have drawn on covert action since 1945. They have used it as a means to manage decline through smoke and mirrors, veiling the gap between global responsibilities and dwindling capabilities. Nonetheless, covert action is far more associated with the American Central Intelligence Agency, especially during the Cold War, and the literature on British intelligence has traditionally focused on intelligence gathering instead.

This paper argues not only the Britain engaged in covert action, but that it developed its own distinct approach. It then offers critical reflections on the process of researching British covert action. In doing so, this paper considers cultures of secrecy, issues surrounding classification, and the impact of fluidity in British terminology and bureaucracy. It concludes by suggesting that dialogue between historians and practitioners should be a two-way street. History can offer lessons and insight in an area where, owing to secrecy, corporate memory is often too short-term.

Weaponising Arabic Poetry for Militant Jihad

Dr Elisabeth Kendall

Throughout history, poetry has played a central role in Arab culture. The power of poetry to move Arab listeners and readers emotionally, to infiltrate the psyche and to create an aura of authenticity and legitimacy around the ideologies it enshrines, make it a perfect weapon for militant jihadist causes. However, scholars and analysts alike have tended to neglect contemporary Arabic jihadist poetry, skipping over these classical mono-rhymed passages (notoriously tricky to translate) in favour of more direct position statements. Yet poetry can carry messages to a broader audience as it plugs naturally into a long tradition of oral transmission, particularly on the Arabian Peninsula, spreading ideas through repeated recitation and through conversion into anthems (nashid, anashid). This is especially important in remote regions such as Yemen where accessing the Internet, print culture – and even a mobile phone signal – can be difficult. Poetry also reveals clues about jihadist motivation, group dynamics and cultural concerns, which can help to illuminate the contemporary political landscape in which it is deployed.

Ruth Chaplin OBE; a life in the shadows 'Miss Ruth Chaplin, Third Secretary, head of the visa section, (Moscow Embassy 1963-64)' Foreign Office Year Book 1964 'OBE; Miss Ruth Mary Chaplin, lately Third Secretary, Her Majesty's Embassy, Moscow.' New Year Honours List 1965

Paddy Hayes

Those 26 words are all that appear in the public record of the career of the British intelligence officer, Ruth Chaplin OBE. Her story illustrates the difficulties authors and academics face when attempting to piece together the careers of former British intelligence officers, even many years after their operational careers are behind them. Chaplin became engaged with SIS in circa 1936 when career women were alien beings in the diplomatic service, other than as dutiful wives and consorts. SIS, not known for being particularly advanced in its attitudes to its women officers, seemingly chose to ignore this stricture making a number of appointments of female officers to ranking positions within embassies during the war.

However despite her having served throughout the Second World War no trace of Ruth Chaplin appears to exist either in foreign office files released to the public, or in the authorised history of the Secret Intelligence Service other than as shown above.


Using photographs, family testimony and primary research Paddy Hayes traces Ruth Chaplin’s career in British Intelligence, a period spanning almost 40 years.

He tells how she joined SIS in the mid-1930s, working initially undercover in Britain, then in pre-war Berlin, moving to Copenhagen and then Oslo when war was declared. When Norway and Denmark were invaded by Nazi Germany in April 1940 her ambassador told her to ‘make a break for it’ which she did, hitching a lift on a trawler back to Hull. A spell in Bletchley Park was followed by a posting to Washington DC, on a “special mission on behalf of HMG”, braving the U boats in a perilous trans-Atlantic crossing. After the war Ruth Chaplin received a special presentation from the United States government for her wartime contribution to signals intelligence. There followed postings to Paris and Frankfurt, a secret mission to Tehran, agent running in West Berlin, flowed by posts in Prague, Rome and Moscow. Her career finished with a stint in the counter intelligence and security directorate under Maurice Oldfield. She retired in 1973.

Ruth Chaplin remains very much an enigma but the talk will shed some light on an intelligence career lived almost entirely in the shadows and show that despite practically no official information being made available some sense of an intelligence officer’s life and career can still be gleaned.


Seminar Session 2 Friday 22 September 2017, 9.10–10.30am

The Narrative of UK Centres for Security and Intelligence Studies: Inter-Agency Remit, Responsibilities, Research

The Oxford Intelligence Group Professor Anthony Glees, Buckingham Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies (BUCSIS)

From Observation to Contribution: The Changed Role of Intelligence Studies Centres

Professor Philip Davies

In 1985 Walter Laqueur, writing his seminal A World of Secrets: the Uses and Limits of Intelligence, struggled with a widely held view amongst intelligence practitioners that such an account could only be credibly written by an insider. By contract, in 2010, the UK Ministry of Defence hired a team of ‘outsider’ academics from BCISS to help draft the current British Joint Intelligence Doctrine. This was followed shortly thereafter by the EU Intelligence Centre selecting BCISS as their principal training provider for new analysts, with a number of other UK and allied organisations following suite. This paper argues that these developments reflect changes in the organisational culture of intelligence communities as well as the subject matter credibility of independent intelligence scholarship, both arising from profound alterations in official openness and transparency concerning intelligence since the early 1990s.

Professor Sébastien Laurent,The French Ministry of Defence Experience in Examining UK War Studies

This is an open session discussion on the origins, aims and future purposes of centres for security and intelligence studies in the UK.

Academia and Government: Allies in Cybersecurity Effectiveness

Fr James Burns PhDProfessor Kevin Powers JD

Increasingly, threats against national and state interests have taken the shape of technological (cyber) intrusion and interference. These threats are often perpetrated by foreign actors individually, collectively, and, sometimes, nationally. In order to most effectively address these increased challenges to sovereignty and national as well as personal security, governments and nations have turned to the academy to determine the most effective, efficient, and applied means of securing our 'cyber borders.'

In this vein, a significant East Coast school developed a Master’s program to, as the program mission states, 'prepare students to bridge the communication gap between IT security professionals and key business stakeholders, and to develop and implement a proactive cybersecurity strategy to effectively defend, mitigate, and recover from a cyber-attack.'

This presentation will focus on three areas: 1) the process of building the academic integrity and infrastructure of a Master’s Degree in Cybersecurity Policy & Governance; 2) the steps involved in creating and capturing interest and partnerships across industry (eg, law firms, consulting firms, government contractors, tech solution vendors, banks, financial service firms, public and private utilities), governmental entities (eg, DOJ, DHS, DOD, FBI, NSA, Secret Service, State Police), and certifying associations (eg, ISACA, (ISC)2, International Association of Privacy Professionals); and 3) a description of a specific instance of the efforts of the academic program as it collaborated with the FBI to launch a day long symposium addressing the critical efforts of academia working in concert with industry and government.

Highlights from all three areas will be discussed, as well as future directions and initial pilot efforts aimed at assessing the impact and import of this collaboration.

Security and Intelligence Studies – Obtaining Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in the United States Intelligence Community

Major Scott Parsons MAJ MIL USA USMA

It is commonly understood that people in the intelligence community (IC) actively recruit talented individuals from top universities for their agencies. It is also well known that all of the military services in the Department of Defense hold specialized intelligence and security training for their members in the early, middle, and late stages of their intelligence careers. What is not commonly known is that individuals in the IC are obtaining Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in security and intelligence studies from the National Intelligence University (NIU) and have been doing so since the early 1980s. The NIU (formerly known as the National Intelligence School and the National Defense Intelligence College) has been offering intelligence courses and academic programs since the early 1960s.

The NIU, which recently relocated to its own campus in Bethesda Maryland from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Headquarters located at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, is a degree granting institution that has a far-reaching mission to educate intelligence specialists in current and future national security challenges. The NIU is a unique and technologically advanced university that focuses on the profession of intelligence and is the only institution of higher education in the nation that allows its students to study and complete research in the Top Secret/ Sensitive Compartmentalized Information (TS/SCI) arena. This paper discusses some of the issues around in obtaining Bachelors and Masters degrees by the United States Intelligence Community.


Voices in the wilderness: confronting the challenges and obstacles to natoeconomic Intelligence 2001-2014; and the Enduring Legacy

Professor Adrian Kendry

In 1957, the (then) fifteen members of the NATO Alliance formally committed to a programme of economic cooperation with the establishment of the Economic Committee inspired by Article 2 of the North Atlantic Treaty. The Committee was disestablished in 2010 in controversial circumstances. During 53 years, NATO economic intelligence was conducted, created and shared through classified meetings at NATO Headquarters (reinforced by experts from national intelligence and other agencies from the member states). At its dissolution, the 28 members (Montenegro joined in 2017) had met regularly throughout each year to produce written regional and thematic intelligence reports. These were placed under NATO's silence procedure and unanimity decision-rule, prior to becoming agreed intelligence (and contributing to the formation of NATO's Strategic Intelligence Requirements).

This paper offers a distinctive and personal account of the challenges, frustrations, hopes and achievements of the NATO economic intelligence process during the period from 9/11 to the demise of the Economic Committee and then within the framework of the Civilian and Military Intelligence Committees during the NATO intelligence reforms 2010-2014. The creation and functioning of NATO economic intelligence thereafter with the onset of the Ukraine crisis, and since the NATO Wales Summit 2014, will be assessed so as to explain the political, military and organisational constraints that have restricted the production and sharing of economic intelligence in pursuit of NATO's core objectives in an increasingly insecure and unstable environment.

But what do you want it for? Secret intelligence and the foreign policy practitioner

Claire Smith

All intelligence reports should come with caveats. This presentation comes with several caveats. It is intended as a provocation, a catalyst for discussion. It is a purely personal view and does not reflect UK government policy, nor the views of any other organisation for which the author has worked or continues to work.

The presentation’s main thesis is that secret intelligence is highly contingent. For some states and actors, it is never necessary. Users of secret intelligence need to understand what it is not and why it can be more irksome and unhelpful than illuminating and valuable. Without a setting and framework to shape and tame the production and dissemination of intelligence, it loses its value to policy-shapers and decision-makers.

There are sufficient examples of intelligence untamed or loosely applied to act as further caveats. Having examined these, practitioners can move to a consideration of when, where, how and why intelligence can support foreign policy formulation and the practise of diplomacy.

The Epistemology of Counterterrorism

Professor Quassim Cassam

The UK's counterterrorism strategy is predicated on a contagion model of radicalization. According to this model some individuals are 'vulnerable' to radicalization and turn to violence when they come into contact with extremist ideas. The empirical and conceptual limitations of this model have been widely noted in the academic literature on terrorism but plausible alternatives are hard to find. Social structural explanations of terrorism avoid the pitfalls of the contagion model but have other limitations. I'll propose an alternative theory of radicalization, drawing on Marc Sageman's work on terrorist networks and philosophical thinking about identity and 'thick relations'.

Intelligence Studies and Intelligence Education

Professor Stephen Marrin This paper argues that in order to further develop intelligence studies and integrate it more effectively into political science and history in the United States, American universities should follow Britain’s lead by hiring more intelligence studies scholars to teach in security-oriented public policy programs, creating intelligence studies centres and providing more opportunities for PhD students to specialize on intelligence topics. Doing this will enable intelligence studies to be more effectively integrated into the broader research agendas of traditional scholars in areas such as American government, foreign policy and security studies, providing the opportunity to integrate this important governmental function more effectively into our understandings, improve intelligence policy, and general societal understandings more generally.


Seminar Session 3 Friday 22 September 2017, 2.00–3.15pm Governmental Security and Intelligence Perspectives Emily Clarke and Paul McCloghrie, Nigel Holmes, Foreign Office

This open session discusses confidential and ethically and politically sensitive issues in the relationship between Government Departments concerned with security and intelligence and in particular their relationships with universities.

Creating Intelligence Connoisseurs

Angela Gendron

Recent intelligence failures which have been attributed to the personalities and professional skills of analysts, have focused attention on improving analytic proficiency through Structured Analytic Techniques (SATs). This has blurred the distinction between internal intelligence ‘training’ and external intelligence ‘education.’ Workshops in SATs and other specific aspects of intelligence work are now being offered on academic programmes in addition to traditional courses in history and theoretical concepts.

At the same time, Intelligence Agencies are providing more opportunities for practitioners to study aspects of intelligence externally and have reached out to academe in ‘burden-sharing’ partnerships.

Intelligence studies programmes have a major role, apart from teaching and educating, with respect to the light its research can shine on the mechanisms and relationships which characterize intelligence organizations. Creating intelligence literate customers within the IC who have realistic expectations of what intelligence can and cannot do is one aspect. Another is building public knowledge about the work of the IC and creating well-informed intelligence connoisseurs – which is important for building confidence and winning support. In open democratic societies secrecy can be seen as contradictory and perverse. This is a role that cannot be done by the IC working alone, if only because it could be accused of politicization. For too long outreach and strategic communications were neglected, if not disdained by Intelligence Agencies. That is no longer the case in Britain. Scholars have been invited to undertake official or authorized intelligence histories and intelligence agencies have been increasingly willing to engage in discussions with groups of academics.

Nevertheless, the interests of policy-makers lies primarily in the specialized products academe can offer (eg, area studies and IT expertise). Examples drawn from the Canadian experience are used to illustrate new initiatives in a culture that is committed to transparency and accountability.

How Long is an Arm? Public funding in the Arts

Dr Alastair Niven LVO, OBE

I was Director of Literature for the Arts Council for ten years (of Great Britain until it was devolved, and then of England). I was then Director of Literature for the British Council for another four. At one time I chaired a major grant-giving committee at the now defunct Great London Arts Association. In other roles I have also been an applicant to these bodies for funds to sustain worthy initiatives with which I was involved. On both sides of the fence the so-called arm’s length principle is evoked as a sacred mantra. Unlike France, where a Ministry of Culture is said to determine the expenditure of every last sou, or North Korea, where the concept of independent thinking is tantamount to suicide, we in the United Kingdom are supposedly free of government intervention in arts funding. A generous Chancellor makes a certain sum available and the bureaucrats are left to distribute it without politics or prejudice. But is the process so contamination free? And if so, does this betoken philistine indifference to creativity rather than sublime detachment? In a period obsessed with infiltration and radicalisation, is the objective allocation of money really possible?


The Literature of Intelligence

Bill Hamilton

Bill Hamilton, literary agent to Chris Andrew and many other intelligence authors and academics, director of the A.M. Heath Literary Agents, including representation of the literary estate of George Orwell discusses trends in intelligence literature.

Misunderstandings Still Surrounding the Cambridge Spies

Richard Davenport-Hines

The epithet ‘Establishment’ gained its currency after the defection of Burgess and Maclean in 1951. Philby, who defected in 1963, had like Burgess studied the craft of spreading stories intended to arouse divisive suspicion among one’s opponents and to lower their morale. All three men were Marxists who explained their choices in terms of class privileges and social exclusion.

The steady misrepresentation of the background, recruitment, influence and defections of the Cambridge spies empowered attacks on the governing cadre in Whitehall, especially the Foreign Office, on trained expertise and ultimately on metropolitan elites. MI5 became judged less by its achievement than by its failure to achieve the impossible. Spurious accounts of the Cambridge spies continue to damage good government, and need to be corrected.

Open Source Intelligence: Academic Research, Journalism or Spying?

Dr Chris Westcott

Secret intelligence can be invaluable, with its sources, methods and output tightly guarded. Yet open source intelligence (OSINT) is growing in value in part because of a growing profusion of openly available sources and the adoption and sharing of methods by disciplines as diverse as academia and journalism, with its output sometimes also openly available. So is OSINT spying, journalism or academic research?

Stalin’s Englishman

Andrew Lownie

Drawing on his research for Stalin’s Englishman, Andrew Lownie looks at the challenges of researching Intelligence history and, in particular, the problems of access to documentation in researching intelligence history.

Journalism in an Age of Terror

John Lloyd

The threat of terrorism and the increasing power of terrorist groups have prompted a parallel growth in the power and scope of the security services, with changes to the legislation in many democratic countries permitting the collection of communications data. This provides journalism with a dilemma now become acute. The news media claim they hold power to account: but a large and growing power – the intelligence services – are beyond their monitoring, except in retrospect, for reasons of security. How far does this constitute a large problem for journalism – and for the societies they claim to serve? And what might be done, by journalists, governments and the services, to address it?

On Propaganda

Dr Steven Wagner

This paper examines the relationship between intelligence agencies and propaganda, surveying the professionalization of propaganda during the First World War, key texts which emerged on the subject during the inter war years, and their influence of propaganda during the Second World War and beyond.


Mirroring problems of propaganda in democracies today, this paper will focus on the dilemmas Britain faced during the late 1930s, and the lessons learned by Britain’s propagandists during 1938–45. This experience, which affected economic warfare, deception and other major elements of war planning, was applied during the cold war, but has been since forgotten. In the age of digital media and communications, propaganda is as important today as it was in 1938, and democracies are equally as naïve.

This paper concludes with an example, drawn from the classroom, of how this lost expertise can be applied to contemporary analytic problems. Using historic methods, an analysis of the 2016 presidential race reveals that its outcome should not have been as surprising as it seemed to be. It also highlights the strategic significance of Russia’s 'interference'.

British Council and Cultural Relations Martin Rose

This paper examines how cultural relations (whatever that curious commodity may actually be) can have an impact on closed societies and conflicts. I reflect on the role of Cultural Relations in earning trust, and suggest that if it is properly managed (a big if) it can get to places and people that other forms of diplomacy can’t. I illustrate this from the story of the British Council in Iraq, including my own experience in Baghdad (88–90), culminating in 4½ months as a hostage in the run-up to the 1990 Gulf War and the closure of the Council. I will say a little in that context about education as an international, trust-earning, currency – and on how it might be managed as an antidote to the intellectual closing-down that is a pre-requisite of jihadi violence.

Losing the Plot: Narrative, Counter-Narrative and Violent Extremism

Andrew Glazzard

Narrative is now at the forefront of concerns about terrorism, or violent extremism, and ‘counter-narrative’ is frequently advanced as a principal means of preventing terrorism/ violent extremism. However, the theory of counter-narrative is fraught with problems – from lack of evidence to lack of conceptual clarity – which reduces the likelihood that counter-narrative approaches will reduce the terrorist threat or the incidence of radicalisation. With this problem, however, comes an opportunity: thinking about how terrorists actually use narrative may help us to understand how they make their causes appealing – and thus help guide or calibrate the response. This paper examines some of the philosophical and pragmatic issues around the uses of narrative and counter-narrative in security contexts.

The Convergence of Conflict and Organised Crime

Dr Annette Idler

This paper aims to enhance understanding of the convergence of armed conflict and transnational organised crime. Drawing on multi-year and multi-sited fieldwork in Colombia’s border areas where conflict is ripe and organised crime thriving, it offers a novel conceptualisation of illicit supply chain networks. As I argue, tracing illicit supply chain networks reveal security challenges both during and in the aftermath of armed conflict, which are analytical blind spots to conventional frameworks on the “crime-conflict nexus”. These challenges include first, the mismatch of local and global perceptions that undermines the perceived legitimacy of governments; second, the persistence of illicit power structures throughout war and peace time; and third, the interconnectedness of multiple forms of organised crime that perpetuate conflict and fuel wider insecurity.

Where the Writing Starts, Intelligence Needs to Follow

Simon Mundy

Trends in literature and journalism often prefigure moves in politics as well as signaling that a society is in trouble, especially when the core message is nationalism or the literary and academic world's resistance to it. In this presentation I will argue that where freedom of expression is under threat, trouble is brewing.I will also argue that writers, often of poetry, fantasy or myth, play a crucial role in providing inspiration at defining moments of personal and political movement.


Delegate List

Professor Richard J. AldrichUniversity of Warwick, UK

Professor Christopher AndrewEmeritus Professor of Modern History, and official historian of MI5, University of Cambridge, UK

Professor James ArthurDeputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor, University of Birmingham, UK Chair, Society for Educational Studies

John BassettConsultant, former GCHQ

James BruceResearcher, GCHQ Authorised History, University of Oxford, UK

Fr James BurnsDean, Woods College, Boston College, USA

Mathew ButcherCommunications and Web Officer, Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, UK

Elizabeth CargillBrunel University, UK

Professor Joy Carter DLVice-Chancellor, University of Winchester, UK

Professor Quassim Cassam Professor, University of Warwick, UK

Emily ClarkePolicy Advisor, Cabinet Office, UK

Georgina CorkeryBrunel University, UK

Dr Rory CormacAHRC Early Career/ Future Leadership Fellow, University of Nottingham, UK Richard Davenport-HinesHistorian and Biographer

Professor Philip DaviesBrunel Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, Brunel University, UK

Professor Jon Davison Society for Educational Studies

Stephen DorrilSenior Lecturer, University of Huddersfield, UK

HE Alexander Downer ACAustralian High Commissioner to the UK

Dr Tony EaudeTeacher and Researcher

Robert Faure-WalkerTeacher and PhD StudentInstitute of Education, University College London, UK

Professor John FerrisUniversity of Calgary, Canada

Dr Rita FloydUniversity of Birmingham, UK

Alison FoyleSenior Publisher, Routledge Taylor & Francis, UK

Stephen GaleOxford Intelligence Group, UK Retired Director of Intelligence, GCHQ, UK

Revd. Dr John GayHonorary Research Fellow, University of Oxford, UK

Dr Liam Francis GearonAssociate Professor, University of Oxford, UK Honorary Treasurer, Society for Educational Studies

Angela GendronNorman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Canada

Andrew GlazzardSenior Research Fellow, Royal United Services Institute, UK

Professor Anthony GleesUniversity of Buckingham, UK

Professor Michael GoodmanDepartment of War Studies, King’s College London, UK

Dick GreenOxford Intelligence Group, UK

Dr Kristian GustafsonBrunel Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, Brunel University, UK

Bill HamiltonLiterary agent and Director A.M. Heath Literary Agency

Dr Tom Harrison Director of Education, Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, UK

Paddy HayesFounder and CEO, CST International, Ireland

Michael HermanFounder, Oxford Intelligence Group

Nigel HolmesResearch Analyst, UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Gwilym HughesDirector, Oxford Intelligence Group

Deborah Hurley Fellow, Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University, USA

Dr Anette IdlerSenior Research Fellow, Pembroke College, University of Oxford, UK

Professor Rhodri Jeffreys-JonesEmeritus Professor of History, University of Edinburgh, UK

Professor Loch. K. JohnsonRegents Professor, Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor, University of Georgia, USA


Mrs JohnsonWife of Loch K. Johnson Lt. Col. Chris KeebleHarris Manchester College, University of Oxford, UK

Dr Elisabeth KendallPembroke College, University of Oxford, UK

Professor Adrian KendrySenior Defence Economist, NATO

Dr Joanna KiddDirector, International Centre for Security Analysis, Policy Institute, King’s College London, UK

Dr Terri KimReader, University of East of London, UK

David KingOxford Intelligence Group, UK

Professor Kristján KristjánssonDeputy Director, Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, UK

Nina Kruglikova Communications and Development Officer, Jesus College, University of Oxford, UK

Dr Arniika KuusistoHonorary Research Fellow, University of Oxford, UK

Professor Sébastien LaurentUniversité Montesquieu Bordeaux IV, FranceJohn LloydJournalist

Professor Terry LovatEmeritus Professor, University of Newcastle, Australia

Andrew LownieAuthor, Director, Andrew Lownie Literary Agency, UK

Dr Thomas Joseph MaguireResearch Associate, King’s College, London, KCL

Dr Stephen MarrinAssociate Professor, James Maddison University, USA

Paul McCloghrieHead of Energy, Environment and Transport, Cabinet Office, UK

Professor Gary McCullochInstitute of Education, University College London, UK

Dr Christopher MoranAssociate Professor, University of Warwick, UK

Simon MundyChairman, Creative Guild, UK

Dr Vadna Murrell-AberyEducation Consultant and Researcher

Dr Alastair Niven OBE, LVOHonorary Fellow, Harris Manchester College, University of Manchester, UK

Professor Aislinn O'DonnellMaynooth University, Ireland

Professor Sir David OmandVisiting Professor, King’s College London, UK

Major Scott ParsonsAssistant Professor of Philosophy United States Military Academy at West Point, USA

Professor Andrew PetersonCanterbury Christ Church University, UKAssistant Editor, British Journal of Educational Studies

Niko PfundPresident and Academic Publisher, Oxford University Press

Professor Mark PhythianUniversity of Leicester, UK

Chris PocockJournalist and Visiting Fellow, Brunel Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, Brunel University, UK

Professor Kevin PowersAssistant Professor, Woods College, Boston College, USA

Professor John PrestonLeadership Fellow, Conflict, Crime and Security Research, University of East London, UK

Dr Tristram Riley-SmithAssociate Fellow, Centre for Science and Policy, University of Cambridge, UK

Paul RitchieKing's College London, UK

Bruce RobertsPublisher, Routledge Taylor & Francis, UK

Martin RoseConsultant on the Middle East, British Council

Professor Bernard SilvermanFormer Chief Scientific Adviser, Home Office, UK

Claire SmithFormer Diplomat

John StubbingtonOxford Intelligence Group, UK

Kevin SwindonSupervisory Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation, USA

Aidan ThompsonDirector of Strategy and Integration, Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, UKAdministrator, Society for Educational Studies

Sarah TuckwellCommissioning Editor, Routledge Taylor & Francis, UK


Dr Steven WagnerBrunel University, UK

Joseph WardResearch Assistant, Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, UK

Dr Mike WaringSenior Lecturer, Loughborough University, UK

Danielle WartnabyCentre Manager, Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, UK

Dr Christopher WestcottVisiting Senior Research Fellow, Policy Institute, King's College London, UK

Professor Nicholas Wheeler Director, Institute for Conflict, Cooperation and Security, University of Birmingham, UK

Ian WhiteAssociate Editorial Director, Journals (Education), Routledge Taylor & Francis, UK

Dr Emma WilliamsAssistant Professor, University of Warwick, UK

Professor Marion Wynne-DaviesUniversity of Surrey, UK


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