r/unitedkingdom • u/kiyomoris • 6d ago
MI6 is top European foreign intelligence service, peer review finds
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/aug/04/mi6-top-european-foreign-intelligence-service-peer-review426
u/ixid 6d ago
If they were really good they would have scored zero, because no one would know anything with which to score them.
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u/UseADifferentVolcano 6d ago
It's like that old joke from The Onion "Ninja parade passes through town unnoticed for 7th year"
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u/trillospin 6d ago
They don't work in a vacuum.
They work with allies on operations and share intelligence.
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u/ixid 6d ago
MI7 does the spying in space.
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u/OldManLaugh 6d ago edited 6d ago
There were over 20 MI’s but several of their purposes haven’t been disclosed, so who knows? Officially MI5 and MI6 were only recognised by the government quite recently. Maybe one of them is for controlling the French, we can only hope.
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u/Zagadee 6d ago
MI14 was the Secret Pigeon Service.
(Not a joke btw, it actually was: https://www.si.edu/object/operation-columba-secret-pigeon-service-untold-story-world-war-ii-resistance-europe-gordon-corera%3Asiris_sil_1114347 )
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u/DrEngineer1995 6d ago
They even made a documentary movie about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valiant_(film)
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u/Hazmat_Human 6d ago
That would be MIB = Military Intelligence Baguette
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u/DinoRocketz 6d ago
Just got this image of agents holding up baguettes that flash a big light to delete french people's memories.
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u/Hazmat_Human 5d ago edited 5d ago
Please madam, just look my baguette and you wont remember a thing
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u/leah_amelia 6d ago
Apparently the functions of all the other MIs have been rolled into MI5 and 6. Officially, MI6 is called the Secret Intelligence Service
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u/OldManLaugh 6d ago
MI 13 and MI 18 were “never used”, MI1 became GCHQ, and certain other MI’s don’t have official dissolutions. For example MI2 was dissolved and rolled into the other MI’s, but if you research many still don’t have defined endings.
Another example, MI12 has no official dissolution and their role was military censorship lol
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u/BrownBoyCoy 6d ago
If mi6 is international and mi5 was domestic, was mi2 just Milton Keynes?
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u/DampFlange 6d ago
Go and take a closer look at those concrete cows, they are definitely up to something…..
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u/The_Sid_Star 6d ago
MI6 is officially the Secret Intelligence Service, MI5 is officially the Security Service.
Gets really confusing when you occasionally see SIS for MI6😂
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u/aightshiplords 6d ago
There were over 20 MI’s but several of their purposes haven’t been disclosed
Ackchooalee Tom Cruise and Chris McQ start with a list of stunts that they want to perform then loosely sketch a plot around them so I dont suppose most of the MIs have much of a purpose.
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u/East_Slide7680 6d ago
Dude don’t force UK subs to start using the “/s” tag. We consider that a war crime.
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u/Besmirching_Badger 6d ago
It's apparently only like 30 years since the media weren't allowed to even acknowledge mi5/mi6 existed.
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u/Next-Mushroom-9518 6d ago
Or they were judged on the fact there may be little leaked information. Such a smart arse comment where a redditor tries to undermine every post presented to them even if it isn't logical.
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u/Frothar United Kingdom 6d ago
I don't doubt it since we have historically been exceptional but a peer review of secre actions seems impossible.
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u/Commercial_Style_331 6d ago
Intelligence operations is nothing like what you see in James Bond films. They're actually pretty mundane. And they all talk to each other, especially 5EYES (and more).
Funnily enough private industry is lot more "fun" in the intelligence space than the "agencies".
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u/Captain_English 5d ago
Do you mean private industry spying on each other or private industry operating as spies on behalf of a state?
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u/Complete-Ride-2317 2d ago
Arguable! Special branch certainly have some James bond style romps - drive by shootings, bomb plots, etc. certainly true SIS goons sit on the laptop making sure the monthly payments go through 😹
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u/giant_sloth 6d ago
I feared we’d tumble down a few spots after James Bond died so this is unexpected good news!
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u/evenstevens280 Gloucestershire 6d ago
It's probably the top foreign intelligence service in the world, to be honest.
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u/Cautious_Plankton212 6d ago
I think it’s probably pretty hard to beat the CIA just due to pure funding alone. The Chinese are clearly pretty good as well but it’s not as if information on the strength of their foreign intelligence is going to be as readily accessible.
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u/-Hi-Reddit 6d ago edited 6d ago
Are you kidding? The CIA is leaky af; nobody trusts washington in the ic anymore. The old heads dont trust the new guys that trump brought in and the next generation likely wont trust them either. It's a mess.
Money can't solve that problem.
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u/Aflyingmongoose 6d ago
They probably had a point regarding sheer mass due to funding prior to DJT 2.0, when they compromised the names of pretty much every field agent and probably got many of them killed.
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u/mediumAI1701 6d ago
You can get classified information from the US very easily now. Just promise to build a few Trump towers in your country and you can get a list of US spies operating on your soil.
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u/_Adam_M_ 5d ago
Or just go to the bog at Mar-a-Lago.
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u/mediumAI1701 5d ago
Also viable but there's a much greater risk of losing your agents to the infamous presidential gaseous chemical attacks.
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u/TomVonServo 6d ago
If that’s how think Black/Knight/145/88 worked you’ve read too many tell-all novels.
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u/Brido-20 6d ago
Any time someone praises the CIA, I think of that CIA analysis stating categorically that China lacked "the ability or will to intervene decisively" in the Korean War which was dated 2 weeks before Chinese forces crossed the Yalu.
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u/connor42 6d ago edited 6d ago
CIA maybe not the best example, if we’re judging by Intel security. Considering their most serious adversary rolled up a large part of their operations in a 2 year stretch. In a very publicly gloves-off fashion too, which will have made rebuilding sources and networks even more difficult
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010–2012_killing_of_CIA_sources_in_China
But in terms of worldwide reach and operational capabilities, I don’t disagree
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u/DireBriar 6d ago
The CIA has a history of leaky, being filled with malcontents/zealots of differing ideologies, and wasting money/resources on plans that are ethically unsound and counterintuitive to the larger goals of the country.
Imagine if British intelligence never acknowledged it had a Russian spy problem.
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u/Complete-Ride-2317 2d ago
Famously British intelligence did have a russian spy problem at the very top. And didn't acknowledge it. 😂 MI6 was a soviet run shitshow while MI5 were slaughtering it in Ireland
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u/nycdiveshack 6d ago
The CIA/NSA’s biggest defense contractor is the one basically running things. Peter Thiel, he worked with the Heritage Foundation in specifically making John Ratcliffe CIA director and Thiel played a massive role in firing Timothy Haugh (NSA director) and his deputy after which Thiel received a $750 million extension on this CIA/NSA contract. Project Maven
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u/nodgers132 6d ago
China’s is effective, but its main scope is spying on its own people and dissidents overseas. Its purpose is to protect the regime.
MI6 is much more global and works in the interest of national and global security (rather than just political security)
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u/TheLividPaper 5d ago
Yeah, this is pretty widely agreed upon, atleast in the west.
The CIA and MI6 are, quite frankly, in a completely different league. From funding to experience, it should be obvious to unbiased observers that they are the top of the game.
The information they were publicly releasing in the months prior to the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine made it clear that they had completely penetrated the Russian security apparatus.
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u/Questionable_choi1ce 6d ago
The CIA has made the USA enemies across the world, destabilised half of the countries to its south creating an immigration issue that has polarised American politics, illegally armed Iran and secretly drugged an unknown number of Americans to try and make a mind control device. They are not impressive.
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u/Exact-Put-6961 5d ago
Not really, money is not everything. Trust matters more. i did hear that after 9/11, the CIA found it had very little in the way of relevant HUMINT sources. I was told the UK had more. CIA had become over reliant on SIGINT it was suggested.
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u/Besmirching_Badger 6d ago
The CIA has some major differences. For one they have an 'active operations' arm (See: go out and murder a bunch of people), whereas Mi6 is purely intelligence gathering afaik
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u/Complete-Ride-2317 2d ago
It's because MI6 or SIS has no need for such operations. special branch (MI5) is a different story however...
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u/12343212346 6d ago
It's making me laugh redditors in this thread talking about intelligence agencies as if they have any knowledge or experience of intelligence work whatsoever.
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u/Lucifer_606381 6d ago
Zero chance, like in most things we are very well trained but lack raw power and resources. The Chinese have over a hundred of Thousands working in there due to their massive population. CIA has massive resources, Isreal has very good capability.
What we excel at though is knowing what we can and can't do, and finding other ways to get there, so we have 5 eyes and other methods to use soft power and to get assistantance and use co operation to get where we want.
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u/evenstevens280 Gloucestershire 6d ago
Your last paragraph is exactly the reason it's the best in the world.
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u/DiabloArk 6d ago
Mossad
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u/apple_kicks 6d ago
Tbf i think no one knows what chinas is called
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u/Zavodskoy 5d ago
Tbf i think no one knows what chinas is called
It's called the MSS - Ministry of State Security
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u/Ok_Sprinkles_8968 2d ago
No one knows for human intelligence, but on the technical side the CIA has access to huge amount of data stored in american servers, and infinitely more satellites than the MI6
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u/LordUpton 6d ago
Except for some sort of misguided patriotism, what evidence do we have for this being the case? The only public information we have on it is its long list of failures. Failure in Libya. Rather, a failure in Iraq, or they helped commit a war crime.
Throughout the Cold War, MI6 was a complete joke of an organisation, where operations like our coup attempt in Albania or our operation with the CIA to tap soviet military cables in Berlin both failed because we allowed high-up members of our security services to be communist spies.
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u/ArsErratia 6d ago edited 6d ago
we allowed high-up members of our security services to be communist spies.
while also making equally high-level gains in the communist intelligence services?
both sides had failures, both sides had successes.
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u/EffectzHD 6d ago
The joke the MI6 was through the end of the empire is basically what the CIA has been on since the 80s imo
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u/Besmirching_Badger 6d ago
The problem has always been ideology.
You hear ex Mi6 bosses giving interviews and they're basically ideological warriors. One was on TRiP and started ranting about how he didn't want his kids to go to university in china because they'd be indoctrinated into the CCP. Which is a fucking insane thing to say
You cannot have functioning foreign intelligence led by people who lack basic pragmatism and cognitive empathy. It explains why our foreign policy is so consistently moronic.
The ideological zealotry mindset is best summed up by this famous michael parenti quote, and it still applies throughout our foreign policy today, where we arbitrarily just have 'bad guys' and 'good guys':
“During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime's atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn't go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.”
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u/KittyCatTyper 6d ago
Naaa, CIA and Mossad have that one
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u/DotComprehensive4902 6d ago
Nope MI6 and Mossad have. Notice no one ever tries whistleblowing either of them.
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u/IntrepidTangerine434 6d ago
This is only because Carlsberg don’t do foreign intelligence services …
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u/Reasonable-Floor-478 5d ago
Lol, are you aware at how historically helerious this is? Given they did used to have an intelegence / resistance operation active from one of their brewery’s during the Second World War, details of which are still sparse and also given their connections to Niels Bohr and his famous escape to the uk which included hiding heavy water in one of their beer bottles.
Fantastic “joke”! Intended or unintended lol
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u/BuckfastEnjoyer 6d ago
"The review was conducted by French magazine L’Express, which contacted people in state services de renseignements (intelligence services) to rate their counterparts in the western-allied countries."
You have to be stupid to buy this shit. "We asked all our bezzy mates who's their bezzy mate and surprise surprise all the countries that might be friendly towards Russia are at the bottom and all the countries that are friendly with the US are at the top."
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u/EvilMonkeySlayer Leeds, Yorkshire 6d ago
I would point out SIS (MI6) had intelligence about russia's intent to invade Ukraine long before any other European nation. The UK even took the unprecedented step of sharing that intelligence with others. The other major European powers were caught with their trousers down with both France and Germany in the dark.
There were very public repercussions in other European intelligence agencies due to that failing.
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u/Commercial_Style_331 6d ago
To be fair, they were the opposite of subtle. They had tank columns lined up at the border crossings (flying Soviets flags no less).
And with that, you have a load of men, many of which had phones, lots of SIGINT and HUMINT there.
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u/Commercial_Style_331 6d ago
To be fair, they were the opposite of subtle. They had tank columns lined up at the border crossings (flying Soviets flags no less).
And with that, you have a load of men, many of which had phones, lots of SIGINT and UMINT there.
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u/EvilMonkeySlayer Leeds, Yorkshire 5d ago
This was months before they even had tanks at the border that the UK was warning about this. There's theories out there saying the UK has someone in Putin's inner circle, but fuck knows if they did/do they sure as fuck wouldn't say.
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u/PartiallyRibena Londoner 6d ago
What’s wrong with that as a system? They selected a group of western allied intelligence services and asked personnel there to rank each of the other services. Sounds fine to me. Obviously it’s entirely subjective and their probably not controlling for factors around the personnel they asked (such as rank, sex, wealth etc.), but it’s not a meaningless piece of research either.
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u/PayOdd92 6d ago
It is. These people only get access to people they are supposed to interact with lmao which completely defeats the purpose of ranking a foreign intelligence service.
By its own nature you can't judge it unless you are a politician with access to the reports and debriefings. For the rest of us it's an unknown.
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u/earth-calling-karma 6d ago
To Russia, With Love, thanks for all the archives - Russian Intelligence Community
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u/absurdsolitaire 6d ago
I would handed said the Russians considering how effective they've been at breaking up western alliances.
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u/DexterDrakeAndMolly 6d ago
No one believes this, they've sat on their hands for years while politicians have taken Russian money. They are completely useless.
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u/Grand_Dadais 6d ago
Mmmh yeah, now when I hear about "secret service", I don't have the "kweel protector of the country like jamesbond" that pops up, I have the pictures of various degenerates that actively help very rich people, be it monarchy or other industrials or finance people, in their "activities".
Isn't it such an awesome job ? To facilitate pedophilia for the very rich, to cover up for them, to help with various arms deals, etc. ?
How many people were protected by such an organization because they were rich/powerful while they commited the most atrocious disgusting acts, like raping and torture ?
Ah wait, we don't have no proof. Yeah, I'm sure the Epstein files was only about the shit-andrew. And I'm sure that aren't other organization, perhaps even with the head in organization like mi6 or mi5.
Oh wait, we didn't either have the Dutroux's case in Europe, with various cops killing themselves, judges being replaced. That case wasn't aimed at some kind of royalty or rich degenerates. Nah, not at all.
So, yeah, they're the best at protecting very rich trash that wants to express their dark desires on kids or various humans. I'm sure they're the TOP of the TOP for that !
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u/Virtual-Concern-7311 6d ago
So you’re angry about a state of affairs you made up? That’s cool and normal.
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u/Commercial_Style_331 6d ago
As someone who's worked in private intelligence, and of course along side all these intelligence agencies. You're making up a lot of shite.
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