Managing national security and law enforcement intelligence in a globalized world

This article argues that there are five major challenges currently facing Western intelligence communities. First – ensuring skills retention for intelligence officers and analysts, while developing knowledgeable managers and customers, all in an increasingly-complex security environment. Second – instituting and inculcating knowledge and expertise in these staff – while addressing an opponent in al-Qaeda which demonstrates increasingly sophisticated use of IT, new media, etc. Third – drawing-in outside expertise from the research and business communities, as is done currently in the US and Canada but in only a very limited manner in the UK. Fourth – overcoming institutional rigidity in dividing the foreign and domestic – alongside rigid sharing and co-operation relationships. Fifth – creating truly collaborative environments that offer genuine socio-cultural incentives to collaboration rather than mere ‘IT solutions’.