The CIA vs MI6: Allies or Rivals? With David McCloskey

Margarita Volpado (0:00)

Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm Senior Producer, Margarita Valpado. In today's episode, Carl Miller is joined by Sunday Times bestselling author and co-host of The Rest is Classified podcast, David McCloskey.

The question at the heart of today's conversation is, what if the CIA and MI6 began spying on each other? What would this mean for the special relationship between the agency and its British counterpart? From a potential technological revolution upending intelligence tradecraft to navigating a new environment where old friends become adversaries, McCloskey and Miller discussed the scenarios that inspired the former's latest thriller, London Station. Let's join our host, Carl Miller, now with more.

Carl Miller (0:45)

So London Station, let's start with the what if that lurks throughout the whole book, David. What if the CIA and MI6, the agency in the service fall out and start spying on each other?

As a former intelligence analyst yourself, how heretical is that idea?

David McCloskey (1:09)

I mean, I think, you know, number one, I mean, heresy aside, it was really fun to explore. So that was kind of the genesis was, could I do this? Could I come up with a unlikely but plausible scenario?

And I found, you know, with some aid from current events, that it was not entirely implausible, thankfully. And I would say on the heresy point, you know, it was funny speaking with a lot of CIA formers in particular, that when I put this question to them of would they and under what circumstances might they spy on the Brits, a decent number of them thought it could be good fun. Like they couldn't come up, yeah, oh yeah, for sure, they couldn't come up with, you sort of had to, and we could probably talk about this, you sort of had, you had to reimagine the leadership of one of those agencies pretty significantly to get there. Like you couldn't, you know, none of these formers could really envision a fallout over a particular geopolitical conflict that would lead to the services spying on each other. But, you know, if you could get there with new leadership, many of them thought it could be quite, could be quite fun. I mean, these are, you know, these are professionals who are paid to, paid to spy. And, you know, not everybody inside the agency, shockingly, is a major Anglophile. So there were plenty of, there were plenty of people who I think would have gladly signed up for the task if given it, which was great fun for the novel. And, you know, I guess slightly scary when you consider the geopolitical consequences. Paid for good conversations.

Carl Miller (2:49)

We've got a headline right there, haven't we, David? Plenty of former CIA agents chomping at the bit to spy on their British counterpart.

David McCloskey (2:56)

Not chomping at the bit, but just, you know, were they given the task would be more than, more than happy to give it a go.

Carl Miller (3:03)

Well, let's, let's set the stage a bit more then about what those plausible conditions are that might cause the two agencies, you know, to fall out. So, so, you know, tell us a bit about what has to happen there. You know, it's a kind of growing skepticism with transatlanticism, unconventional leadership, sweeping across the United States. Like what falls into place in your mind to, to kind of begin to make this a, as something which can be contemplated?

David McCloskey (3:32)

Yeah.

Well, I did, you know, initially I tried to walk into this through a fallout over a geopolitical arena, let's say. And, you know, you could, you could imagine given the last couple of years, that is that Iran and the broader Middle East, is that Israel-Gaza, is it the war in Ukraine? You know, there's, is it the way that we're prosecuting our conflict with drug cartels and traffickers, you know, in South America, in Central America. There's a lot of different kind of arenas where the US and the UK could have a different set of geopolitical interests or perspectives.

Carl Miller (4:12)

Falkland Islands, Greenland Islands.

David McCloskey (4:15)

A war, a war, you know, a war with Denmark, you know, a lots of, you know, you're sort of, we have a lot of different.

Carl Miller (4:21)

A single island. I mean, yeah, there's a few things that seem to be emerging recently, yeah.

David McCloskey (4:26)

There's, there's a lot, right? But I think what did strike me about the, you know, we still call it the special relationship. I would actually, we could put a pin in this and come back to it. I would argue that we probably, it's an outdated term at this point in time. But nevertheless, you know, the special relationship is both deep and flexible. And it means that you can have real differences over a particular sphere of foreign policy and the thing keeps going, right? And so, and I just didn't think that was going to be as entertaining from the standpoint of character-driven fiction as if I could sort of architect the following, which is an agency, a CIA that is taken over by a group of people who do not think about national security, the special relationship, intelligence, partnerships, in any kind of conventional terms, right? And so, and are much more likely to view the thing in a kind of stark, like through a stark commercial lens, right? We give you X, you give us 20% of X. How is that fair, right? Also not impossible to imagine, given the conversations we're having about, you know, the proper share of defense spending, et cetera, inside NATO.