Seldom, if ever, has the chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) given such a frank and wide ranging briefing to journalists on the threats facing Britain as he did on Friday at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.
Alex Younger, a career intelligence officer who served in the Middle East and Afghanistan before taking on the role of ‘C’ in 2014, strikes a calm and deceptively gentle demeanor for a man fighting a terrifying variety of threats – hot and cold – on multiple fronts.
Adversaries include but are not limited to Isil, a resurgent al-Qaeda, Russia and China. Threats range from homegrown jihadists returning from Syria to a new ‘arms race’ in the development of artificial intelligence, quantum computing and other digital technologies.
