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British Intelligence Agencies
MILNET presents a brief on the British Intelligence Community.
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MILNET presents a brief on the British Intelligence Community.
The United Kingdom, a long time partner in intelligence gathering with the U.S. is an expert at signals intelligence. Their SIGINT main SIGINT gathering site (G.C.H.Q) in Cheltham, England, is a major source of intelligence for western SIGINT gathering and while we are sure not all intelligence is shared throughout the western intelligence community, it's position North of the continent of Europe enables the British to eavesdrop on just about everyone in Europe as well as their Scandanavian neighbors to the Northeast, and former eastern bloc countries to their Southeast.
In recent years it appears (at least in public view) that the British intelligence apparatus is suffering from increasing budget cuts and thus a paring down of capabilities. However, just as in the U.S., much may be going on that is not apparent in the public view, and the British are not as "keen" as the Americans in terms of talking about their capabilities even in a general sense.
Much like the U.S., the United Kingdom has a centralist view of their intelligence agencies within the government, and this is made abundantly clear by the brief on the UK's intelligence community, taken from their web page on the Central Intelligence Machinery.
Essentially there are several well known agencies that comprise the British Intelligence community:
Much fiction has been written about the Security Service and SIS, however the most active service has probably been GCHQ, who, like their U.S. equivalant the National Security Agency, hide under the cover of secrecy while monitoring telephone, radio, and computer network traffic. De-encryption of intercepted signals is a major thrust of GCHQ and they are thought to be world class in this task, second only to the former Soviet KGB and today probably only second to the U.S. NSA, however, many would contest that distinction.
As part of internal security, the British S.A.S (Special Air Services) are the group most recognized as world class anti-terrorists. The SAS is organized as a regiment which pulls from the regular British Army forces, based upon applicants and an exceedingly tough qualification course much like most elite forces in world military organizations. The SAS has trained specifically or trained with every anti-terror organization in the world, as well as has been reference model for part of the recruiting, training, and operations of elite military and anti- terror orgainizations throughout the world. In fact, many if not most elite military organizations owe some part of their doctrine to SAS knowledge and experience.
The politics involved in British Intelligence are thought to be quite severe and several interesting fictional presentations were produced by BBC dramatizing the work and difficulties of such an organization. For instance, the BBC television series The Sandbaggers dramatized the changing face of external intelligence in post-World War II history. Topics such as the occasional pursuit of foreign nationals from external activity as they move in-country, assassination, as well as dwindling funding and political acceptance of covert actions all are well illustrated in this fictional setting.
Failures in British Intelligence are as spectacular as fiction. As in the United States, the failures publicized feed the press and fiction writers for years. For instance, George Smiley, a John LeCarre novelized character is faced with treason nearly as dramatic as the real life Kim Philby, a Soviet spy who infiltrated into the highest levels of British Intelligence.
Below is a list of the U.K. web sites that are of interest to the intelligence fan.
Other British Sites of Interest
The following are the individual service pages: recruiting page):