Intelligence and Security Committee Russia report/Strategy, Co-ordination and Tasking
78. In 2016, the National Security Council approved a cross-Whitehall Russia Strategy. The latest iteration of the Strategy – in March 2019 – has an overarching long-term 'vision' of "A Russia that chooses to co-operate, rather than challenge or confront",[1] ***.
79. The Strategy is ordered under five pillars – Protect, Constrain, Engage, Keep Open and Build.[2] Responsibility for this implementation falls to the National Security Strategy Implementation Group for Russia, which comprises 14 departments and agencies. This Implementation Group is co-ordinated by the HMG Russia Unit in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), and chaired by the Senior Responsible Owner for implementing the Strategy (currently the FCO's Director-General Consular and Security). All seven organisations that we oversee are represented in the Implementation Group.
80. It is apparent that the cross-Whitehall Russia Strategy has certain similarities – both in format and more fundamentally – to the CONTEST counter-terrorism strategy. However, we understand that no direct lessons have been drawn from CONTEST in drawing up and implementing the Strategy.
81. There also appear to be certain similarities between the struggle against terrorism and Hostile State Activity – particularly in terms of public awareness – and more could be done to leverage the Government's experience on the former in relation to the latter. In particular, it is our view that, whilst MI5 already works with the police regional Counter-Terrorism Units (which have responsibility for Hostile State Activity), there is scope for them to work more closely together in this area.
82. The Home Secretary holds ministerial responsibility for MI5, the Foreign Secretary for SIS and GCHQ, and the Defence Secretary for Defence Intelligence. All three Secretaries of State have wide portfolios and busy diaries, and there will be natural limits to the extent to which they can devote time to Russia. However, it is clear that Russia is a high ministerial priority: the Home Secretary has informed us that he meets the Director-General of MI5 "at least once a week, sometimes more, and … in … *** … there has been some discussion around Russia",[3] and, when asked about how much he speaks to the Chief of SIS and the Director of GCHQ about Russia, the Foreign Secretary replied "***",[4] explaining his concern that Russia-related problems – whilst serious – risk crowding out broader global issues.
83. Policy responsibility for Hostile State Activity sits in the National Security Secretariat in the Cabinet Office. This appears unusual: the Home Office might seem a more natural home for it, as it would allow the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism's (OSCT) experience on counter-terrorism matters to be brought to bear against the hostile state threat. We understand that Government's view is that Hostile State Activity is a cross-cutting threat and therefore it makes sense for the Cabinet Office to hold responsibility; we nonetheless suggest that it is kept under review.
84. The Committee has heard a great deal over the past year about the Fusion Doctrine, which aims "to deploy security, economic and influence capabilities to protect, promote and project our national security, economic and influence goals".[5] In principle, this makes sense in response to a threat as broad as that posed by Russia. We note, however, that Russia's own version of this 'joined-up working' approach is far more developed: given the amount of power centralised in the Kremlin, the lack of strong public institutions, the close connections between big business and the state, and – crucially – its operation outside the Rules Based International Order, Russia is easily able to combine its political, economic, military and intelligence power to achieve its objectives.
85. In relation to the Agencies and Defence Intelligence, given the difficulties in working against Russia (explored in the next section), it is particularly important that all sources – HUMINT, SIGINT, MASINT, GEOINT,[6] open source and others – are used to complement each other as much as possible, and that they are used across all aspects of the co-ordinated Russian threat (***). Given the combined nature of the Russian threat, it is essential that the Agencies' and Defence Intelligence's work on *** is not viewed separately from wider Russian foreign policy and influence efforts. In some cases, we have noted that it has not been clear ***: this must be addressed. It is essential that HMG takes a broader view of the full extent of the Russian threat as the cross-Whitehall Russia Strategy develops and the use of the Fusion Doctrine increases.
86. The Intelligence Coverage and Effects (ICE) process is the method by which SIS and GCHQ are tasked by the Government.[7] The ICE Plan for Russia requires *** coverage outcomes and *** effects outcomes, which are prioritised at five levels: 'non-negotiable', high, medium, low and 'opportunity only'. The intention is to ensure that the Agencies' outputs accord with the intelligence coverage and effects the National Security Council and its 'customer' departments across Government need. On Russia, the ICE requirements represent SIS and GCHQ's tasking in relation to the cross-Whitehall Russia Strategy.
87. In contrast to SIS and GCHQ, MI5 is self-tasking: it prioritises its work against threats to the UK based on its assessment of their severity. This is appropriate given the defensive focus of MI5's role. We have been informed that MI5 does, however, align its work on Russia with that of SIS and GCHQ in an agreed tri-Agency approach.[8]
88. Defence Intelligence is tasked by a separate Ministry of Defence process. Given the differences between Defence Intelligence's work and that of the Agencies – including the fact that, in its assessment function, it is a customer for SIS and GCHQ intelligence products – this may make sense. The Chief of Defence Intelligence recognised that "there is an absolute need for Defence Intelligence to be closely co-ordinated and potentially synchronised with the activity that is going on in ICE" but caveated that "whether we go fully into the ICE process I think is a much harder question to deal with".[9] We recognise that it may not be appropriate for Defence Intelligence to be covered by ICE, but we were surprised to discover that Defence Intelligence is not included in the tri-Agency approach: ***.
89. There appears to be a plethora of plans and strategies with direct relevance to the work on Russia by the organisations we oversee: the cross-Whitehall Russia Strategy, the ICE Plan requirements for Russia, the tri-Agency joint approach for Russia, a separate tasking and prioritisation process for Defence Intelligence, and the Fusion Doctrine overlaying them all. Whilst we appreciate that there may be good reasons for the existence of each of these documents, it has nonetheless taken some time to understand the purposes behind each one and how they interlink: this suggests that the overall strategy framework is not as simple as it might be. Whilst we do not advocate any immediate overhaul of this framework in relation to Russia (which could serve to worsen the situation by diverting resources away from the Intelligence Community's core work in this area), we nonetheless recommend that, in future, the Government ensures that the plans and priorities are as streamlined as possible. Time spent strategising is only useful if done efficiently, and without getting in the way of the work itself.
90. We asked the Agencies and Defence Intelligence to assess their current performance against the strategic objectives and plans in place in relation to the Russian threat. Defence Intelligence clearly explained that "we survey our customers of our product, on a scale that we set out from zero to nine, at the moment … the score that we have aggregated across all of our Russia work is *** ".[10] However, the Agencies could not provide an equally clear assessment. It does not appear that they measure their performance in quite such a developed way: GCHQ and SIS informed us that their assessment of their performance against the ICE Plan was in a comparatively less granular format (which broadly assesses whether or not they had exceeded, met or not met each requirement) and SIS told us that "the question of performance management and metrication … this is a process which is in evolution".[11] The Agencies should measure their performance in greater detail – we accept that this is not an exact science, but they must seek a full picture of how successful their work on Russia is.
91. We have sought to establish for ourselves a picture of the quality of the Agencies' current coverage of Russia. However, this has, to a certain extent, been hampered by the organisations we oversee referring frequently in oral evidence to the exemption (in the Justice and Security Act 2013) for information that relates to ongoing operations. We remind the Government that the Justice and Security Act 2013 does not oblige it to withhold information relevant to ongoing operations but merely provides the option of doing so. The Agencies and departments are able to provide any information relating to an ongoing intelligence or security operation voluntarily. Whilst we would not expect to receive highly sensitive current operational material in most cases, it is disappointing that in relation to a subject of such public interest this option has been exercised quite so broadly.
- ↑ We note that the long-term vision of the previous iteration of the Russia Strategy was "a constrained Russia co-operating with the West, rather than challenging and confronting us" (the word 'constrained' has now been removed).
- ↑ Beneath each pillar sits a number of cross-Government 'campaigns' which aim to implement the Strategy.
- ↑ Oral evidence – Home Secretary, 31 January 2019.
- ↑ Oral evidence – Foreign Secretary, 7 February 2019.
- ↑ HMG, National Security Capability Review, March 2018.
- ↑ Human intelligence (HUMINT), signals intelligence (SIGINT), measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT), geospatial intelligence (GEOINT).
- ↑ Intelligence coverage is the collection of information (or acquisition of information from allied intelligence services) by the Agencies and Defence Intelligence. Intelligence effects describe the Agencies' and Defence Intelligence's engagement in activities that have real-life outcomes.
- ↑ ***
- ↑ Oral evidence – Defence Intelligence, *** December 2018.
- ↑ Oral evidence – Defence Intelligence, *** January 2019.
- ↑ Oral evidence – SIS, *** December 2018.