people of interest; intercepting material transmitted over military communications systems; and hacking into computer systems in order to obtain the information they contain.
70. At the height of the Cold War, 70% of GCHQ's effort was focused on the Soviet bloc.[1] By 2000, this had fallen to 16% and by 2006 effort was at a low point of just 4%. In 2012, this had recovered to 10%, which stayed fairly constant until 2016 when a significant further increase began.[2] Approximately ***% of GCHQ's current operational effort is on Russia.[3]
71. Defence Intelligence has wide-ranging responsibilities for intelligence collection and analysis, and a key role within Government in the preparation of All Source intelligence on Russia. It leads the UK's work on geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) and measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT).[4] It also holds a SIGINT role ***, and has a HUMINT unit which is primarily used to support military operations. Alongside GCHQ, it also has a major role in the UK's Offensive Cyber capability. Defence Intelligence effort on Russia also underwent significant reduction in the early 2000s. Although Defence Intelligence has been unable to provide figures for its allocation of effort over the past 20 years, we have been told that in 2013 there were relatively few All Source analysts in the Russia/Eurasia team (in addition to Russia-focused analysts in other teams). Defence Intelligence has advised that currently *** of its All Source analysts spend more than 50% of their time on Russia and a further *** spend less than 50% of their time on Russia.[5]
72. Following the end of the Cold War, the West aspired to partner with Russia. The threat posed by Russia was considered to be diminished and the proportion of effort allocated to countering the threat decreased accordingly. As can be seen from the figures above, there was a marked drop in allocation of effort. The murder of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 was perhaps the clearest indication that not only had reconciliation failed, but Russia was once again just as hostile towards the West, and towards the UK. However, by 2006, operational effort was being directed to the fight against international terrorism: in 2006/07, MI5 devoted 92% of its effort to counter-terrorism work,[6] with SIS and GCHQ at 33%.[7] The remaining resource was thinly spread across a number of areas – Hostile State Activity being just one, and Russia being just one of the hostile states. This is understandable: the
- ↑ Oral evidence – GCHQ, *** December 2018.
- ↑ Written evidence – GCHQ, 8 March 2019.
- ↑ Written evidence – GCHQ, 14 December 2018.
- ↑ Geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) consists of collecting and analysing intelligence on geographical features and the human activities that occur in a geographical context. Measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) uses technical means to detect and analyse the 'signatures' of targets, in order to locate, analyse and track them.
- ↑ This represents ***% of Defence Intelligence's current analytical resource being focused on Russia (written evidence – Defence Intelligence, 6 March 2019).
- ↑ Written evidence – MI5, 31 October 2018.
- ↑ Written evidence – SIS, 17 December 2018; Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament Annual Report 2007–2008 Cm 7542. Defence Intelligence told us that it seconded its analytical effort on counter-terrorism to the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) when it was established in 2003. This was estimated to be 20 posts by 2006/07 – just 1% of its then workforce (written evidence – Defence Intelligence, 21 March 2019).
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