US–European Intelligence Co-Operation on Counter-Terrorism: Low Politics and Compulsion
| Author | Richard J. Aldrich |
| Date | 01 February 2009 |
| Published date | 01 February 2009 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-856x.2008.00353.x |
| Subject Matter | Article |
US–European Intelligence Co-operation
on Counter-Terrorism: Low Politics
and Compulsion
Richard J. Aldrich
Since 9/11, intelligence has been viewed as an integral part of a controversial ‘war on terror’. The
acrimonious public arguments over subjects such as Iraqi WMD assessments, secret prisons and the
interrogation of detainees suggest intense transatlantic discord. Yet improbably, some of those
countries that have expressed strident disagreement in public are privately the closest intelligence
partners. It is argued here that we can explain this seeming paradox by viewing intelligence
co-operation as a rather specialist kind of ‘low politics’ that is focused on practical arrangements.
Intelligence is also a fissiparous activity, allowing countries to work together in one area even while
they disagree about something else. Meanwhile, the pressing need to deal with a range of increas-
ingly elusive transnational opponents—including organised crime—compels intelligence agencies
to work more closely together, despite their instinctive dislike of multilateral sharing. Therefore,
transatlantic intelligence co-operation will continue to deepen, despite the complex problems that
it entails.
Keywords: CIA; globalisation; rendition; terrorism
Paradoxical Relations?
Intelligence as a subject has moved out of the shadows and under the spotlight. The
growing centrality of intelligence to foreign and defence policy has ensured that
both politicians and senior policy-makers are commenting publicly on hitherto
secret matters in some detail, breaking with the precedents of previous decades. In
part this reflects the importance of intelligence to counter-terrorism, since the main
problem in dealing with this scourge is finding the opponent. Counter-terrorism has
been a vexed issue in transatlantic relations and many scholars have illuminated
the high-profile arguments between North America and Europe over post-9/11
security strategies.
Commentators have frequently noted the strategic mismatch between American
and European approaches to counter-terrorism. For the Americans, counter-
terrorism is primarily an external activity designed to keep the threat away from
‘Fortress America’. Even the Department of Homeland Security is focused on
America’s borders and boundaries. This is logical enough since they have fewer
internal sources of threat. Europe is the obverse since, there, counter-terrorism is
more a domestic question. This is not only because many European states do not
wish to join a kinetic ‘war on terror’, but also because the European Union (EU)
lacks a coherent foreign policy dimension (Monar 2007; Keohane 2008). However,
The British Journal of
Politics and International Relations
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-856x.2008.00353.x BJPIR: 2009 VOL 11, 122–139
© 2008 The Author.Journal compilation © 2008 Political Studies Association
generalising about or comparing strategic cultures in this area is not straightfor-
ward, since the majority of counter-terrorism activity within the EU remains in the
hands of its 27 member states with very different histories, while attitudes around
Washington’s beltway can also be remarkably diverse (Rees and Aldrich 2005).
There is no clear consensus on the overall texture of Europe’s response to terrorism,
or indeed whether it is converging with American thinking. After 9/11, the Euro-
pean Council developed a Plan of Action and secured agreement on significant
measures, notably: a European Arrest Warrant; expanding Europol and Eurojust; a
common EU definition of terrorism; the freezing of terrorist finances; and the
sharing of data with allies. However, some argue that these measures fall short of
what is required, suffer from an implementation deficit and so represent little more
than a ‘paper tiger’ (Bures 2006). Others have argued that activities such as asset
freezing and proposals for data retention contain an element of pre-emption and
suggest that the EU is actually closer to American thinking than it would care to
admit (De Goede 2008).
What is clear, however, is that transatlantic intelligence activities have constituted
some of the most controversial aspects of the ‘war on terror’. The separate but
related issues of CIA ‘secret prisons’ and the rendition of suspects from Europe to
countries like Egypt, Jordan and Morocco have constituted notorious hot-spots.
This is hardly surprising given the centrality of the European Convention on
Human Rights (ECHR) to the complexion of the EU and the fundamentally legal
nature of many European institutions. Accordingly, in late 2005, the EU’s justice
minister, Franco Frattini, warned of ‘serious consequences’, including the suspen-
sion of voting rights in the Council, for any EU member state found to have hosted
secret CIA detention facilities (Harding 2005). At the national level, some political
leaders have also been openly critical of American intelligence activities. In Novem-
ber 2005, the Dutch foreign minister, Ben Bot, stated that the Netherlands’ contri-
bution of over 1,000 troops to Afghanistan could be in jeopardy if the United States
failed to give adequate reassurances on the matter of CIA secret prisons (Kessler
2005).
The heads of the various intelligence and security services have also been mired in
this transatlantic controversy in a way that would have been unheard of a decade
ago. Yet despite the public mud-slinging, transatlantic intelligence relations are now
closer than ever. A great deal more data are being exchanged, both bilaterally and
multilaterally and more joint operations are being conducted. Over the last five
years, this joint activity has included the most sensitive activities and a close reading
of recent testimony before inquiries and select committees suggests that they were
approved by some European leaders. Across Europe, ministers of state—indeed
anyone close to the core executive—have been remarkably silent on renditions.
How do we explain the paradox of public criticism and private partnership? Super-
ficially, we might conclude that European political elites have simply wished to
‘have their cake and eat it’. European politicians, faced with the classic dilemmas of
conducting counter-terrorism in a liberal society, have dealt with this by playing to
public opinion with their criticisms of American covert activity; meanwhile they
have approved discreet co-operation with the very same programmes. The best
example is France. In 2002, the CIA and the French Direction Générale de la
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