All you need to know: Defence Counter Intelligence Unit and Military Intelligence Services
The Ministry of Defence has unveiled the new Military Intelligence Services (MIS) and Defence Counter Intelligence Unit (DCIU) in a major overhaul of Defence Intelligence organisations to combat increasing threats to the UK from hostile states and terrorists.
These reforms follow on from the recommendations in the Strategic Defence Review, bringing every intelligence unit and organisation within the UK's defence realm under one organisation for the first time, including units from the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force.
It is hoped that these changes will speed up how information is gathered, analysed and shared across the Armed Forces after it was revealed that hostile intelligence activity against the MOD has increased by more than 50% in the last year.
BFBS Forces News has conducted its own intelligence gathering to learn more about these new organisations.
What are the two new intelligence units?
The two new organisations created in these reforms are Military Intelligence Services (MIS) and the Defence Counter Intelligence Unit (DCIU).
What will both organisations do?
Under the command of Cyber and Specialist Operations Command, led by General Sir Jim Hockenhull, MIS will give faster and clearer warnings of threats to the UK Armed Forces and the public, through allowing the UK to use data from land, sea, air, space and cyberspace in real time, improving the nation's ability to stop adversaries before they act.
DCIU will defend the UK's most sensitive capabilities, including the nuclear deterrent, high-tech industrial projects, and critical infrastructure, while simultaneously strengthening cooperation with the UK intelligence agencies and Nato allies.
Where will the units be based?
Both units will be based at the intelligence hub at RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire.
What agencies will they bring together?
MIS will combine intelligence units from the three services, UK Space Command, and Permanent Joint Headquarters, meaning that they will operate as one system.
This unit will be aided by the new Defence Intelligence Academy, which will offer world-class training in key intelligence disciplines such as cyber, space and geospatial analysis.
Meanwhile, DCIU will merge counter-intelligence professionals from across defence, giving them the tools and structure required to disrupt and deter hostile activity more effectively.
What's the national and geopolitical context for their establishment?
These bodies are being created amid growing threats to the UK, as hostile states and terrorists intensify cyber-attacks, disrupt satellites, threaten shipping lanes, and disseminate disinformation.
These actions increasingly impact everyday life, raising food prices, growing economic uncertainty, and threatening energy security and national infrastructure.
In terms of the geopolitical context, the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry, which said that Russian president Vladimir Putin was "morally responsible" for Dawn Sturgess' death after she was poisoned with Novichok in 2018, revealed that foreign intelligence services are now operating far beyond traditional espionage norms, targeting defence personnel, technology programmes, supply chains, and the wider defence industry both at home and overseas.
Ms Sturgess unwittingly used the nerve agent on her wrists after her partner, Charlie Rowley, discovered the lethal concoction, concealed as a perfume bottle, in a bin.
Her death followed the botched assassination attempt on ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Julia, in Salisbury.
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