Not Just Joining the Dots But Crossing the Borders and Bridging the Voids: Constructing Security Networks after 11 September 2001

Abstract

Widespread concerns and controversies have erupted in the wake of 9/11 in relation to the structures and processes by which states acquire intelligence with respect to security threats. More specifically, the controversies have centred on the issue of “failure”: first, to what extent did the 9/11 attacks reflect an intelligence failure on the part of US and other intelligence services and, second, how did most western intelligence services fail to identify the destruction or disposal of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction after 1991? Strenuous efforts have been underway since 2001 to develop more effective security governance both within and between nations. This article discusses these efforts to construct security intelligence networks with particular reference to developments in the US and UK, the main carriers of the so-called “global war on terror”.