Despite the advent of a UK National Security Strategy in 2008, there has been surprisingly little public discussion of the long-term future of the intelligence and security services, together with cognate subject of special operations. This is remarkable, since over the last decade the UK Intelligence and Security community has grown with unprecedented speed. Several events, most obviously 9/11, thereafter the bombings in Madrid during 2004 and in London during 2005 triggered a rapid expansion of the security agencies. Typically, the UK Security Service (MI5) has doubled in size and over half of its staff has been in post for less than two years. The major military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have also driven headlong intelligence expansion. This special section seeks to explore the wider connections between intelligence and international relations, as well as the traditional questions of organisation and management. Typically, it asks whether the UK agencies should be organised narrowly around terrorism, or more broadly, with an eye to the myriad challenges of 'global uncertainty'. There has been insufficient recognition of the fact that globalisation represents the overarching political and social context in which intelligence activities are now undertaken, or within which analytical and policy judgements made. The so-called 'borderless state', with its global movements of people and capital are perhaps the real underlying drivers of intelligence expansion. These articles consider how to enhance the permeability of the current central intelligence machinery to fresh thinking. 'Reformism' in the realm of intelligence and security is hardly new. However, previous analyses have tended to draw narrowly on a specific sub-set of governance. This special section takes a fresh approach, deploying a range of disciplines, including history, law, business, management and information sciences to explore the possibilities for cultural change. Most importantly, it endeavours to connect the relatively narrow concerns of intelligence studies with broader issues and trends of international relations. The underlying aim is to locate intelligence issues more clearly within the discipline. Intelligence also connects to the domestic polity, raising questions of credibility, legitimacy and accountability. Scholars have become increasingly concerned with the political and social impact of state mechanisms of surveillance at home and