International Intelligence Sharing for Global Security

Sunday

23Dec

Sunday, December 23, 2007 at 23:19

Fatih Beren

Turkey hosted an important conference between 6th and 8th of December 2007. “International Security Cooperation: Intelligence Practice” was organized by Bilkent University (Department of International Relations) and Kent State University at the Bilkent Hotel with the foundation of NATO. The fact that the lecturers who are consist of academicians and the practitioners came from many different countries such as, USA, UK, Spain, Israel, Egypt, India, Pakistan,and Bangladesh and shared their opinions completely has enhanced the concept of the conference. As stressed in the opening speech which was given by Assoc. Prof. Ersel Aydınlı, The Head of department international relations in Bilkent University, who runs the organization of the conference, the arguments about supporting the share of international intelligence has lasted until the end of the conference. There were several solutions about the obstacles about the issue of sharing international intelligence and how to share international intelligence in the presentations performed in the conference. In this article, the aim is to give a short evaluation about the prominent presentations.

Before arguing in terms of the share of the international intelligence, it should be comprehended exactly what the concept of intelligence is. Does the intelligence mean the storage of data which pass through whole communication means throughout the worldor analyzing the necessary knowledge correctly by obtaining it on time? When today’s knowledge pollution is paid attention, it is necessary to specifically define the concept of intelligence. As it is agreed by many of the lecturers who has performed presentations in the conference, intelligence is collaborating the points related to events and actions, in other words, it is made up of correctly processing and analyzing of the necessary knowledge in time. Consequently, the lack of one of those components of intelligence weakens the success of it.

The prominent points of the conference are the need of international intelligence sharing and the question of how to create the ideal structure of it. According to the presentation of Dr. Peter Gill from The Salford University, it is stated that the intelligence cooperation was established by the informal networks which was also stressed and argued in the presentation of Dr. Otwin Marenin.

Gustavo Diaz-Matey, from the Complutense University, underlined the fact that “the threat” should be understood in the same way by all countries. Since, according to his point of view, traditional threats are changing their formats. International fighting against these new threats can be achieved only by developing a common concept.

According to Dr. James Walsh from the North Carolina University, one of the obstacles regarding to the share of international intelligence is gathering intelligence in an aggressive way. Therefore, to ensure international cooperation and intelligence sharing, there should not be an aggressive attitude in intelligence activities as well as there should be specific ethic norms and a value system. In addition to this, according to Walsh, it is useful to use a hierarchy mechanism to establish international intelligence sharing system. For instance, any country may send her intelligence or police officer to another country to work in there. Liaison Officer can be seen as a model in this point. Another one of the factors achieving the international intelligence sharing is to organize international trainings. Thus, not only a common terminology but also a common value system and the conception of common strategies are formed in conjunction with the trust atmosphere which is consisted of informal personal networks. The necessity of protecting states which cannot play an important role in international intelligence collaboration is also emphasized.