The international order is ‘under threat in a way we haven’t seen since the Cold War’ ,the heads of the CIA and SIS (or MI6) warned at the weekend. In a joint letter, published in the Financial Times, Bill Burns, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Richard Moore, Chief of the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service, stressed the importance of collaboration on mutual threats at a time when the dangers of the past are now exacerbated by technology. Both men made an unprecedented, and widely reported, appearance together on stage at the FT Weekend Festival.

There was a lot to take from it. Moore suggested that Russia’s agencies had gone ‘a bit feral’. Both Burns and Moore warned of Russia’s ‘reckless campaign of sabotage’ in Europe. Although Ukraine had achieved tactical victories in their Kursk offensive, the Putin regime remained stable, even if there were now ‘questions’ raised in Russia about the Kremlin’s conduct of the war. Both men talked of the importance of intelligence in attempting to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East, while talking of the renewed threats of ISIS and of China.

Just how significant is all this? Commentators are right to point to the significance of the event, yet the US and UK foreign agencies are following a path already taken by their domestic counterparts. In July 2022 the heads of MI5 and the FBI gave a joint press briefing on the threat of China, followed, in October 2023, by an appearance alongside members of the ‘Five Eyes’ counterintelligence community at Stanford University. Individual heads of agencies are increasingly going public. GCHQ Director, Anne Keast-Butler, spoke to CYBERUK in May 2024, following a pattern established by her predecessors. The UK’s agencies have long been behind their US counterparts, where public engagement has been happening for some time.

The latest media engagement is certainly a break with the past. ‘British security and intelligence services, MI5 and MI6, do not exist’, Michael Howard, an official historian of wartime deception, wrote in 1985. ‘Enemy agents are found under gooseberry bushes and’, he said, ‘intelligence is brought by the storks.’ Media engagement after the avowal, and subsequent legal framework of the Security Service Act of 1989 and the 1994 Intelligence Services Act, was mixed. The UK’s domestic agency, MI5, led the way, starting with Stella Rimington. In 1994 she became the first MI5 Director General (and agency head) to give a public talk, delivering the BBC Dimbleby Lecture on ‘Security and Democracy’. Her successors led the way.

Open media engagement for SIS was different. While the agencies have always maintained a relationship with journalists, it was often hidden. In contrast to Rimmington, SIS’s then chief, Colin McColl, entertained journalists in his office. Briefings were off the record, maintaining an air of mystique. Overt engagement did not come naturally. SIS, like the other agencies, maintained contact with a small number of accredited journalists. It was only in 2010 that John Sawers became the first ‘C’ to go public. His successor, Alex Younger, gave talks, though it has been Moore who has taken engagement to a new level. ‘We must become more open to stay secret,’ Moore told the International Institute for Strategic Studies think-tank, in November 2021.

If these tentative steps into the spotlight were sporadic, the latest iteration is part of a broader community-wide approach. GCHQ broke new ground by becoming the first of the UK’s agencies to join social media in May 2016, with MI5 joining Instagram in 2021. Though SIS currently has no official channels, its history and recruitment activity has been actively pushed by Moore on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter). Beyond agency heads, the agencies have supported individual initiatives. SIS invited in the FT’s Helen Warrell to write on women and intelligence, and the BBC has done interviews with black intelligence officers.

Some might be sceptical of all this. Even the UK’s intelligence watchdog, the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, has previously warned of the agencies going ‘too far’ in their media work. Others have suggested media work presents something of a ‘lobby’, promoting narratives to shape policy – a view that’s misguided. GCHQ Director Jeremy Fleming’s guest editorship of the BBC Radio 4 Today programme drew criticism from some quarters. ‘GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 should not be marketing themselves or their directors to us, the public’, wrote one columnist, ‘We do not want spy chiefs milking their current roles in the hope of boosting post-retirement job prospects.’

Intelligence remains one of those subjects that automatically attracts glamour and conspiracy. Intelligence agencies, much like other parts of government, must engage more widely, if they are to challenge this. Former chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Rodric Braithwaite, even drew parallels between intelligence and the Inland Revenue. Both were, he said, ‘essentially humdrum’ functions of government. Glamorising or mystifying intelligence did no favours, he believed. I agree. Intelligence remains one of those areas, polling suggests, where popular depictions have real world impact. Equally, public knowledge of what the agencies do, and their powers, is behind other functions of government, research suggests.

Agency heads are better positioned to deliver key messages. Trust in non-political institutions, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), is far higher than the political parties. Unpublished polling, part of co-authored research by the author, suggests the agencies broadly compare to the police and civil service on trust questions. Gone are the days when a foreign secretary would stand up and say ‘Trust me, all is well’. Intelligence agency heads, if used infrequently, can capture the headlines in a way others cannot. Too many appearances, on the other hand, result in diminishing returns. But public appearances can, as the international reporting on the latest appearance reveal, draw greater attention to national security.

In February 2023, the Director of Australian’s Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), Mike Burgess, said media engagement was driven by ‘Threat, Trust and Team’. Agencies amplify the threats that Western societies face. They also help build trust in explaining what they do, while also seeking to recruit the best and brightest to work for them. Media engagement is at the heart of all this.

There are those who suggest that secret intelligence agencies need to operate in secret. That’s true, but they do not work in a vacuum. Now the genie is out of the bottle, it is hard to go back. Those who argue that the UK’s agencies should be ‘neither seen nor heard’ forget that the US agencies have gone much further in their public engagement yet remain the pre-eminent community with a global reach. More engagement does not undermine capability, nor should the agencies remain silent in warning of threats. As the use of intelligence before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine makes clear, the agencies are in an ideal position to impart their assessments. In any modern democracy, it is important that the agencies have their voice.