THE END OF THE SPY?

Human intelligence is a dying art, but it is still crucial for security agencies worldwide

- WORDS LOUIS HARDIMAN

We all know that human intelligence (HUMINT) collection isn't where it needs to be," Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Ratcliffe told the US Senate in his January 2025 confirmation hearing. Signals intelligence (SIGINT), information from intercepted digital communications, currently contributes to 60 percent of the US president's daily briefings and has overtaken human intelligence. At the centre of efforts to improve Western HUMINT capabilities is the need to understand China's threats against Taiwan, Russia's operations in Ukraine and Iran's efforts to develop nuclear weaponry.

"HUMINT is romantic. That's what spy movies are about," says Mark Lowenthal, a former assistant director in the CIA and author of Vigilance is Not Enough. HUMINT can penetrate areas inaccessible to SIGINT, confirm fragmentary information and aid in understanding leaders' intentions. Even after Nazi communications began to be cracked at scale at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, human Special Operations Executive networks remained essential to gather context and directly disrupt German operations. In the 21st century, HUMINT can also advance SIGINT when agents and informants gain access to computer systems.