Friendship crucial in intelligence service cooperation
Interview with PhD candidate Pepijn
Secrecy can be detrimental to a relationship, but in the intelligence world, it is actually a basis for trust. What do relationships and trust really mean in this 'hard and seemingly shadowy' world? PhD candidate Pepijn Tuinier investigated it. The finding: social relations play a much more important role in international intelligence cooperation than previously assumed.
Smoky rooms, spies, caution, distrust: that is the image of intelligence cooperation according to international publications on the subject. However, intelligence services seem to resemble many other organisations in the public domain in many respects, and the professionals are 'just' people - albeit under special circumstances. Social relations actually help the services progress further. That is the conclusion of Pepijn Tuinier's doctoral research.
'That seems an obvious conclusion. But because it is so often viewed from a state interest perspective, namely that social relations and trust would really play a lesser role, you are misled. What I discovered is that these aspects even play a key role in the European Union. I personally had not expected that.'
'You are not James Bond
on a special mission'
Pepijn Tuinier saw the importance of good international cooperation up close. As an ex-military, former officer with deployments to Bosnia & Herzegovina and Afghanistan, and through his years afterwards as a policy officer at Defence, he saw the role of social relations and trust in security cooperation. 'It surprised me that in the field of intelligence cooperation, that role was underexposed. Cooperation is becoming increasingly important, also in multilateral organisations like the EU. The view on this in academic literature explains that very poorly.'
Interviews with intelligence professionals
'I went in search of a concept that explained it better. Trust is mentioned very often, even in the hard academic literature, but what is meant by trust?' Pepijn wrote his doctoral research based on in-depth interviews with senior intelligence professionals from national services and EU intelligence organisations.
Pepijn shares an example of one of the quotes, also mentioned in his thesis:
‘You are not James Bond on a special mission. [In here] It is about cooperation. You have to be discrete, for sure. But your job is to get into conversation. Hiding would not help much in this. Closing up is very safe, but very ineffective in cooperation.’
According to Pepijn, this anonymous quote accurately shows the contrast with the prevailing image of a 'hard and shadowy world'. As former director of the MIVD (General Jan Swillens) once said at a guest lecture in Leiden (15 December 2022): 'Intelligence cooperation is not just about Quid pro Quo' - this quote is also in the thesis.
Intelligence cooperation in the European Union
What struck Pepijn about the establishment of trust was the enormous role of goodwill in EU intelligence cooperation. When he started his research, the EU was a small player in intelligence cooperation. That is slowly changing in a positive direction, he indicates. In the context of the EU, this is more due to interaction than transaction. It is not so much states and organisations that make cooperation possible, but people. In addition to the prevailing thought that there are no friends in intelligence, Pepijn's research suggests that - from a sociological perspective - if intelligence services have any friends at all, it is other intelligence services. 'They know, recognise and appreciate each other. This is a basis for trust and helps cooperation progress further.'
Initially, the intelligence professionals were sceptical, just like Pepijn. 'As they saw the social dynamics and the result of it, they increasingly believed in EU cooperation. Those who have experience working within EU intelligence are sometimes very positive about its added value. I too started from the academic sceptical perspective, but as my research progressed, I too saw more and more the potential of those social relations in the context of the EU. Interests become intertwined and a number of people indicated that there is a collective identity, which creates trust. For example, they attach importance to the international legal order, a very abstract concept. The external threat at the borders reinforces this sense of connectedness.'
Granting each other something
'The cooperation between the organisations is already further than you would say based on hard structures. There is a willingness to grant each other something. Friendship is common in a place where people interact so intensively with each other. You see the soft component of appreciating each other: 'We're in the same boat and value the same things'. That came out very strongly and that really surprised me. In the end, it turned out that those abstract values play a big role and that granting - and the perception that another also grants you something - comes back very strongly.'
Text: Magali van Wieren
The Social Ties That Bind
The role of social relations and trust in EU-intelligence cooperation
Wednesday 22 January 2025.