C. Wiebes - Intelligence en de oorlog in Bosnië 1992-1995. De rol van de inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten - Engels

52infrastructures, including the Dutch, could neither afford, maintain, effectively field, nor politicallysupport these systems. It is also interesting to note that the Western intelligence climate in the yearssurrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall was somewhat subdued, because Western intelligence servicesincreasingly started to spy on each other. The conflict in Bosnia aggravated the animosity betweenEurope and the United States even further. 212Intelligence liaison covers a wide variety of forms and intensity of collaboration between mostlynational intelligence and security services. These services can trade information on operations, provideintelligence support in the form of training, advice and equipment or access to installations. Liaison is notonly important for the large services but also for the small ones. International liaison is always cloaked inthe greatest secrecy. An ex CIA official once said: ‘Liaison secrecy has the sanctity of the Bible.’ 213 Evenmore hesitance exists regarding the sharing of intelligence gathered by NATO member states with nonmemberstates. The official NATO guidelines on this point are extremely stringent: the intelligence isonly destined for the member states and must therefore not be disclosed to ‘a non-member nation orany international organization containing non-member nations. Whatever different requirementsemerge for peacekeeping operations this fundamental principle must be upheld.’ 214Despite all the problems, states do cooperate in the area of intelligence, however. 215 One of themain reasons for this is that more information is always available than any separate intelligence service(even the largest) can gather independently. The disappearance of the former Eastern Europeanservices meant, for example, that the Humint input to Moscow declined by thirty per cent, partlybecause some services were abandoned and partly because they stopped their input. Another reason isthat some states have unique resources at their disposal for gathering unprecedented intelligence; thisinvolves resources and information to which other states have never had and never will have access.The geographical position of a state can likewise be an important reason to resort to liaison. Forinstance, Norway played a crucial role in following developments in the Russian Kola Peninsula, themost important port of which is Murmansk. Financial aspects also play a role: more can be achievedjointly through the distribution of tasks 216Intelligence liaison also has disadvantages, such as the reliability of the information from thepartner. It is a fact that there is often an institutional conviction that a service’s own analysis orintelligence is better and more reliable than that of another service. There is always a risk associatedwith sources. Material obtained via liaison can enable one service to discover the other service’ssources. Other restraints and dangers are that too close a liaison between two countries can sometimeslead to manipulation of the intelligence that is passed on. Furthermore, a service loses control over theintelligence that is passed on via liaison. For example, it happened within NATO that Dutch intelligencethat had been passed on exclusively to a foreign ally suddenly emerged in the NATO circuit a number ofweeks later as intelligence from a completely different ally. The greatest danger for a service lurks in theintrinsic possibility of being penetrated by a foreign service. Too close contacts can lead to attempts torecruit the liaison officer. 217The special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom is, with respect tointelligence, unique: there is much collaboration in the area of Humint between the CIA and the SecretIntelligence Service (formerly MI-6). In the military area there is a close relationship between theAmerican DIA and the UK Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS). London and Washington also collaboratein the area of Imint. Satellite photos, espionage aircraft and unmanned aircraft are shared by the212 Loch K. Johnson, ‘spies’, Foreign Policy (September 2000), p. 35.213 Bradford Westerfield, ‘America and the World of Intelligence Liaison’, Intelligence and National Security 11 (1996) 3, pp.523-60.214 John M. Nomikos, ‘Intelligence Requirements for Peacekeeping Operations’, RIEAS Papers and Reports, 03/10/00.215 See for an effect of the ‘liaison’ topic also: Cees Wiebes, ‘The Netherlands Intelligence Community: Past, Present andFuture’, in: Jennsen & Riste (eds.), Intelligence in the Cold War, pp. 149-165.216 Herman, Intelligence, pp. 204-208.217 De Graaff & Wiebes, Villa Maarheeze, pp. 343-354.