The AIVD – via its forerunners the BNV (1945-46), CV (1946-49), BVD (1949-2002) and IDB/BID (1946-94) – celebrates its 65th birthday this year. The AIVD was formed to provide intelligence and security functions both domestically and internationally: investigating threats to the state, checking those who enter positions of responsibility, protecting business and state from espionage, gathering intelligence abroad, and producing risk analyses. Yesterday it issued its report for 2009. How does it see the world?

The director, Gerard Bouman, is largely optimistic. The service has expanded rapidly since 2002 in response to the perceived terrorist threat. Bouman emphasised in his presentation that radicalism within the Netherlands has declined, but the threat from abroad remains active. This is either from Dutch citizens going abroad to training camps, or other nationalities using the Netherlands as transit point or ‘sleeper’ location. Examples in 2009 were the four from The Hague who turned up on the Kenya-Somalia border as ‘tourists’, and the Christmas ‘underpants’ bomber on the Amsterdam-Detroit flight. Other notable incidents included the prevention of five American men, suspected of following a jihadi training course, from travelling from Somalia via the Netherlands to the US. Nevertheless, the report notes that “in 2009 the AIVD had no indication of a concrete threat to the Netherlands from outside” (p. 13). This opinion led to the National Coordinator for Counter-terrorism to lower its terrorist threat level from ‘substantial’ to ‘limited’ at the end of last year.

With the terrorist threat declining and local jihadi radicals at least ‘disengaging’ (if not de-radicalising), the AIVD has started to look elsewhere - right- and left-extremists, and animal rights activists – but it is difficult to produce a picture of these incoherent groups that poses a threat to the state beyond what the police can deal with. More important are developing threats from foreign organisations: the report refers explicitly to Chinese interest in the defence and technical industries, a Russian focus on ”Dutch individuals who (will) play a role in policy and decision-making processes that realte to Russian interests,” and Iranian intelligence operations against dissident groups. ‘Cyber security’ is a growing concern.

What does this add up to? The focus of the AIVD is shifting from domestic to international activities. There’s not much to do at home any more. There is now talk of ‘forward defence’ – the gathering of information and intelligence beyond outside Dutch borders to ensure awareness of developing threats before they reach north-western Europe. This also involved the service being called in to provide ‘quick-response’ analyses on foreign situations at the request of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Since 2008 much of this activity has been focused on nuclear proliferation, with special attention on Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and Syria.

The one development that has fuelled this more than anything is the Davids report on Iraq, mentioned briefly on page 53 but present in spirit throughout this report. The AIVD states boldly that both they and the MIVD were more cautious in their reporting on Iraqi WMD than “the then political leaders in the information they provided to the parliament.” Neither service possessed sufficient sources abroad themselves and this left them unable to counter the more alarming information being provided by the US and the UK. The message from Davids, taken up by the cabinet in February, was – get your own house in order and don’t be dependent on others for such vital information. Even if they are supposed to be your closest allies. This 2009 report emphasises cooperation – the AIVD has ‘relations’ with no less than 180 other services (p. 61) – but it also expresses a determination to answer that call. The added element to this, of course, is the wish to be more of a major player in the intelligence field, a nation to be taken seriously.

The AIVD cannot call on new funds for this global expansion – its current budget of 175 million Euro will more or less remain the same. But the service is looking – not surprisingly, given the ‘go global’ message – to expand its staff, and this will be interesting in a time of government cut-backs. Where are these extra foreign agents going to come from? Let us expect a “we can’t fulfil our mandate without extra funds” call in the not so distant future.