Articles

On 25-26 October 2023 the Netherlands Intelligence Studies Association (NISA) held its bi-annual international conference in Amsterdam. Founded in 1991 the NISA aims to further academic research and education regarding (counter)intelligence and security developments. It brings together academics, media representatives, (former) practitioners, and others within the (semi-)government, NGOs and private sector, taking an interest in intelligence and security.

by Jelle Hooiveld

Secrecy and informal organisation produce, sustain, and reinforce feelings of loyalty within intelligence and security services. This article demonstrates that loyalty is needed for cooperation between intelligence partners as well as within and between services. Under many circumstances, loyalty plays a larger role in the level of internal and external collaboration than formal work processes along hierarchical lines. These findings are empirically based on the case study of Anglo‒Dutch intelligence cooperation during World War II.

The West currently faces a number of actors who employ a wide range of measures to influence, coerce, intimidate, or undermine its interests. Many of these measures are often collectively referred to as “political warfare”, a term originally coined by former U.S. State Department diplomat George F. Kennan in 1948. This report defines political warfare as the intentional use of one or more of the traditional implements of national power (diplomatic, informational, military, and economic) to affect the political composition or decision-making within another state.

Kees Jan Dellebeke

In 1975 four Syrians intended to hijack an international train with Russian Jews in Amersfoort, the Netherlands, but following a tip-off by the Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst (BVD Dutch Security Service) they were arrested by the Amsterdam police on 5 September of that year.

Over the past twenty years or so, intelligence and security services in several Western countries and in Russia as well have allowed official histories to be published. Authors, in some cases in-house historians, were given access to archives of the service and allowed their use for the publication, albeit in all cases with limitations as we shall see. This article discusses official histories which have been published in several Western countries and in Russia since the 1990s.