Unquestionably, the September 2001 attacks caused a shock but did they really mark a turning-point? History will provide the answer, but one can say probably less than the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, decolonisation, or even the first oil shock, in spite of the considerable media impact they had throughout the world. The fact remains that the armed forces are increasingly involved in security missions. These lead to special requirements for intelligence which pose a challenge that must be met by intelligence of military interest, whose domain tends to extend to the point of overlapping with that of defence and security intelligence.

How the Context has Developed

It is undeniable that the attacks of 11 September 2001 constituted a quantum leap in the annals of terrorism. Nevertheless, the threats which are sometimes termed ‘new’ are not, in fact, as new as all that. Without going back to Ravaillac, the assassin sect or the Russian nihilists, terrorism did not start in 2001. Sadly, we are all too well aware of this in France. We have known national terrorism—Action Directe, ETA, separatism as in Corsica—and the international variety—Armenian, Kurdish, the UTA DC-8, the rue de Rennes, the Port-Royal RER station, etc. Abroad, we have seen the attack on the Olympic Games in Munich, the hijacking of the Achille Lauro, the Lockerbie and Tokyo Metro attacks—probably the first example of the use of chemical agents for terrorist purposes. Nor are other phenomena such as organised crime, including maritime piracy and arms, drugs and human trafficking, which are sometimes connected to terrorist movements, new developments.

Without wishing to make too much of the relationship between chicken and egg, it does seem that it is sensitivity to public opinion and political considerations which have, in most countries, led governments to attribute a higher priority to the threats posed by terrorism, and also that clandestine immigration can be its vector, like the trafficking which supports it. The pressure exerted by the United States in this area and sometimes domestic political considerations are also involved: that is the case with Russia’s actions in the Caucasus, described as anti-terrorist operations. In fact, the armed forces are obliged to get more involved in these phenomena; defence and security are now closely linked, as the White Paper on defence and national security currently being drawn up acknowledges.