Terrorism focus left spy agency short on Mandarin, Russian speakers

For some, it began with a tap on the shoulder at Oxford, or Cambridge. Now recruitment for British intelligence occurs via newspaper and online advertisements and aptitude tests through websites. Despite the newfangled — and arguably more egalitarian — means of generating job applicants, there is a distinctive Cold War edge to the Security Service's push for more Mandarin and Russian speakers. More significantly, it may indicate a shifting of priorities away from the decade-long dominant counter-terrorism field.

Although it came into existence prior to the Cold War, the Security Service, better known as MI5, found its raison d’etre (reason for existence) in the half-century struggle against Soviet communism. The end of the Cold War, apparently, removed the threat from former Communist countries and left MI5 struggling, beyond its role in Northern Ireland, for new priorities. The point we are missing, of course, is that the end of the Cold War did not end the activities of foreign intelligence agencies against the United Kingdom — those have continued over the past two decades as have MI5's efforts at countering espionage. Read more...

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