“At the CNI, we need universities to recruit talent. » This is how he spoke this Monday, during a conference held at the University of Valencia and organized by the University Chair of Studies on Terrorism and Victims’ Rights. The “number two” of the spy services gave the keynote lecture, during which he was not allowed to photograph or record his speech, as the academic director of the event warned , Professor José Luís González Cussac. “We need the University to train university intelligence students who are the future executives of this country and who know their service as they also know the rest of the administrative organizations,” said Arturo Relanzón. “But above all we need the knowledge produced by the academic world,” he added in front of dozens of students and a large institutional representation, from the police, military and judicial world.
The secretary general of the CNI, according to his official curriculum vitae, joined the anti-terrorist division of the Higher Defense Information Center (Cesid) in 1989. In 2004, after having held “different heads” of the intelligence service, he was appointed advisor to the Spanish representation to the United Nations in New York. Five years later, he was appointed sector head of the anti-terrorism division and, in 2011, he headed the transnational risks department. Four years later, he became counselor at the Spanish Embassy in Washington. Since 2020, he has been secretary general of the CNI, the “number two” of Esperanza Casteleiro, director of the Spanish secret services.
“Spain has powerful universities and intellectual capacities that we often ignore and many of which are fundamental to the CNI,” said during the conference Colonel Arturo Relanzón, who stressed that the Spanish intelligence services had need “all knowledge and experience”. the world. » ““We cannot do this work alone,” he said.
A private detective, present among the audience, questioned the speaker on the prospects that the CNI offers to young candidates like the students who populated the meeting room of the Gregori Maians library of the Tarongers Campus. “Without the intention of being here as a flag,” replied the secretary general of Spanish spies, “what it offers is a way of life.” “Coming to the CNI to say ‘hello, I’m here to work, it’s five o’clock, goodbye’, forget it, it’s better that you continue looking for a law firm in the field of law, that you compete for the judicial power, for notaries, for what is necessary, because they are also fundamental for the rest of the Spanish people.
The intelligence services offer “this youth” and “new potential candidates” to be proud of “being part of an organization that fights for the security of the State”. “Films always portray the intelligence services as something dark, base, impersonal, cynical, unscrupulous and courageless. We are completely normal and ordinary citizens, but we are very clear about our mission and, when we have to be there, we do everything that comes to hand,” said Arturo Relanzón. “If you’re looking to get rich, forget it; “You are civil servants,” recalled the secretary general of the CNI. “And besides, there is no teleworking,” he added.
The colonel highlighted the concept of intelligence culture, a project initiated by the CNI in 2003 to “open up to society and make itself known like any other body of a democratic state of law, while respecting the ‘obligation of transparency’. An intelligence culture oriented mainly towards the academic and economic world, he clarified. “For me, collaboration with the academic world is essential and we are increasingly increasing our presence in the academic world,” said Relanzón. “What we need is critical thinking that allows us to better understand intelligence,” the colonel added.
The “number two” of the CNI stressed that in the spy service, “today, 19 percent are military and the rest, 81 percent, are civilians”, percentages inversely proportional to the scenario observed during the entry into the old Cesid. “It is already an example for the students who are here that this center is not intended to enter a place to do military service,” he explained.
Another participant in the congress, the Vox deputy in Congress and professor at the University of Valencia, Carlos Flores, raised during the question period whether it was possible the existence of an intelligence culture with “political forces who directly advocate demolition.” of the constitutional order. » “Of course yes, I don’t have the slightest doubt,” replied Arturo Relanzón. The culture of intelligence, he clarified, remains “outside any political interpretation”. “I have been doing this job for 35 years and I have gone through all kinds of crises, the center remains the same, it is the same 35 years ago and today, with the different governments, corresponding colors”, he declared.
Relanzón detailed the work of the CNI, focused on anticipation and prevention. “The main obligation of an intelligence service is to know with the greatest possible degree of precision the threats it must combat in order to reduce their vulnerability,” declared the “number two” of the CNI. A prevention task “inherent” to espionage and developed in “a world where immediacy, accompanied by new technologies, has ended up taking over”. “Reaction times have been reduced and decision-making processes can barely be delayed,” he warned.
This is “essential preventive work” in a context where “terrorism is undoubtedly one of the most serious threats facing the entire world and Spain is no exception”. “There is no point in doing studies on what is happening, we need to get [información] first-hand: if for this we have to be in a conflict zone, we will be in a conflict zone; If for this we have to carry out infiltration operations, we will do so,” he warned.
“Discreet work” without “secret work”
Esperanza Casteleiro’s right-hand woman at the CNI also spoke of the complex dialectic between the secrecy inherent in the “discreet work” of any intelligence service – to guarantee the protection of its spies, its sources and its procedures – and the democratic transparency. Arturo Relanzón asked not to confuse secrecy with “secret work”. The CNI, declared its secretary general, “is aware that society must trust it so that it can effectively fulfill its missions.”
Relanzón also reviewed the current scenario facing Spanish espionage, with “increasing hostility shown by the intelligence services of some countries.” The debate over secrecy is not easy. “Transparency,” he warns, “can become a double-edged sword: when the effectiveness of intelligence services is a question of discretion, or even secrecy, too much transparency can mean an operational risk for the services and therefore for the security of national interests.
After the end of the Cold War, spies experienced a “paradigm shift” and a “false sense of peace”, in a context where “people started talking about transparency, intelligence became a subject of public debate , the risks have become “. global and attacks become asymmetrical. “Before, the enemy was perfectly identified and, with it, the origin of the threats and security risks,” Relanzón explained. However, “in recent years, information manipulation and foreign interference have become critical threats to national and European security.”
The CNI Secretary General referred to “the dissemination of disinformation, cyberattacks, manipulation of critical infrastructure, often with the aim of influencing public opinion, but fundamentally to destabilize governments”. Arturo Relanzón developed the strategic concept of hybrid threat: “The coordinated use of traditional and non-traditional instruments by an external actor, often unrelated to this actor, with the aim of extending its influence, of internally destabilizing a third State and harm the interests of the country. the international security scene.
“Some countries, it’s no secret, use these types of hybrid threats in their foreign policy to gain the ability to influence large geographic areas,” he said.
“Friends even in hell”
After a rather technical conference, question time encouraged debate in a somewhat coarser tone from whoever, by law, must keep the relevant state secrets. A teacher questioned the colonel about the limits of collaboration with intelligence services that do not have a democratic regulatory framework.
“We collaborate with a diverse intelligence community, but, normally, we base ourselves on the same values, let’s say legal,” replied Arturo Relanzón. “It is also true that an intelligence service cannot be very delicate, obviously it obtains information wherever it exists and we will obtain it according to our parameters of legality and the service which can provide us with information which we all know that “They are true and, moreover, it helps our objectives,” he added.
As an example, the secretary general of the CNI presented a hypothesis: “If we collaborate with the Iranian service, should we say ‘no, no, you are not giving me information on when there will be an attack?’ somewhere because I don’t like your settings? Obviously not. It’s their problem to use their settings, but if they want to help me with information that will prevent an attack in Spain, I don’t care what the Iranian services did. Understanding that I don’t care to say: “you work within your parameters, I am certainly not going to let your parameters enter my zone of action”. That’s the important part.”
In addition, he also insisted on “fundamental work” as an “alternative channel” when diplomatic relations with a country are severed. Although intelligence services in reality do not look like those in the movies, when it comes to “capturing certain targets” or obtaining information, their assets “are generally not charitable souls.” “So you have to have friends even in hell,” he concluded.
