Managing national security and law enforcement intelligence in a globalised world

This article argues that there are five major challenges currently facing Western intelligence Communities. First - ensuring skills retention for intelligence officers and analysts, while developing knowledgeable managers and customers, all in an increasingly-complex security environment. Second - instituting and inculcating knowledge and expertise in these staff - while addressing an opponent in al-Qaeda which demonstrates increasingly sophisticated use of IT, new media, etc. Third - drawing-in Outside expertise from the research and business communities, as is done currently in the US and Canada but ill only a very limited manner in the UK. Fourth - overcoming institutional rigidity in dividing the foreign and domestic - alongside rigid sharing and co-operation relationships. Fifth creating truly collaborative environments that offer genuine socio-cultural incentives to collaboration rather than mere 'IT solutions'.