{"id":6045,"date":"2021-12-01T04:05:25","date_gmt":"2021-12-01T04:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/?p=6045"},"modified":"2021-12-01T04:05:27","modified_gmt":"2021-12-01T04:05:27","slug":"mi6-chief-says-british-intelligence-now-considers-china-iran-and-russia-the-top-security-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/mi6-chief-says-british-intelligence-now-considers-china-iran-and-russia-the-top-security-threats\/","title":{"rendered":"MI6 chief says British intelligence now considers China, Iran and Russia the top security threats"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

International terrorism joins the three countries among \u2018big four\u2019 security threats, says U.K. intelligence agency head Richard Moore.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

China, which is increasingly flexing its muscles around the world, is one of the biggest threats to Britain and its allies, and a \u201cmiscalculation\u201d by Beijing could lead to war, the head of the U.K.\u2019s foreign intelligence agency said Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MI6 chief Richard Moore said that China, Russia, Iran and international terrorism make up the \u201cbig four\u201d security issues facing Britain\u2019s spies in an unstable world where both countries and illicit organizations are racing to exploit fast-changing information technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his first public speech since becoming head of the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, in October 2020, Moore said China is the intelligence agency\u2019s \u201csingle greatest priority\u201d as the Beijing leadership increasingly backs \u201cbold and decisive action\u201d to further its interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calling China \u201can authoritarian state with different values than ours,\u201d he said Beijing conducts \u201clarge-scale espionage operations\u201d against the U.K. and its allies, tries to \u201cdistort public discourse and political decision-making\u201d and exports technology that enables a \u201cweb of authoritarian control\u201d around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeijing\u2019s growing military strength and the [Chinese Communist] party\u2019s desire to resolve the Taiwan issue, by force if necessary, also pose a serious challenge to global stability and peace,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The self-ruled island of Taiwan split from mainland China in 1949, and Beijing still claims it as part of its territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeijing believes its own propaganda about Western frailties and under-estimates Washington\u2019s resolve,\u201d Moore added. \u201cThe risk of Chinese miscalculation through overconfidence is real.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe and our allies and partners must stand up to and deter Russian activity which contravenes the international rules-based system,\u201d the MI6 chief said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo country in Europe or beyond should be seduced into thinking that unbalanced concessions to Russia bring better behavior,\u201d he said, noting Russia\u2019s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and its recent buildup of troops near the border with Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His comments are the latest warnings from senior British and NATO officials aimed at deterring Moscow from further incursions in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moore said Iran also poses a major threat, and uses the political and militant group Hezbollah \u2014 \u201ca state within a state\u201d \u2014 to fuel political turmoil in neighboring countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turning to nonstate threats, he said the fall of Afghanistan\u2019s internationally backed government and the return to power of the Taliban were a \u201cmorale boost\u201d to militants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI won\u2019t soft soap it: The threat we face will likely grow now we have left Afghanistan,\u201d Moore said \u2014 though he said it would be \u201coverblown\u201d to call the surprise speed of the Taliban\u2019s takeover a Western intelligence failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He argued that Britain\u2019s spies must give up some of their deep-rooted secrecy and seek help from technology firms to win a cybersecurity arms race that is giving hostile countries and groups ever more capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moore, speaking at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said the disruptive potential of artificial intelligence and other rapidly developing technologies means the spy agency has to \u201cbecome more open to stay secret\u201d in a world of destabilizing technological change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur adversaries are pouring money and ambition into mastering artificial intelligence, quantum computing and synthetic biology, because they know that mastering these technologies will give them leverage,\u201d Moore said. He used China as an example of a country that harvests data on a vast scale to gain information and power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To keep up, he said British spies \u201care now pursuing partnerships with the tech community to help develop world-class technologies to solve our biggest mission problems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnlike Q in the Bond movies, we cannot do it all in-house,\u201d Moore added, referring to the fictional MI6 gadget-maker in the 007 thrillers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moore said working with the private sector is a \u201csea change\u201d for an organization enmeshed in secrecy. Until 1992, Britain\u2019s government refused to confirm the existence of MI6. The organization has gradually become more open in recent years, even allowing publication of an authorized history \u2014 though it only goes up to 1949.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MI6 began publicly naming its chief, who uses the code name C, in the 1990s, and Moore is the first head of the service with a Twitter account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more at Market Watch<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

International terrorism joins the three countries among \u2018big four\u2019 security threats, says U.K. intelligence agency head Richard Moore. China, which is increasingly flexing its muscles around the world, is one of the biggest threats to Britain and its allies, and a \u201cmiscalculation\u201d by Beijing could lead to war, the head of the U.K.\u2019s foreign intelligence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6046,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[14],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6045"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6047,"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6045\/revisions\/6047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}